Giving Your Characters Their Voices

For some writers, writing dialogue is pure torture. Action is easy: You're just describing what is happening. With dialogue, you not only need to move the plot forward, develop character, and not make it boring. Adding to the fun is that you need to be able to switch between two possibly very different personalities with almost no problem. While this sounds pretty complicated, it's actually pretty easy when you get into the rhythm of it. 

The problem is getting into the rhythm of it. 

Take Classes That Could Help

When it comes to learning how to write dialogue, there are plenty of options; YouTube alone has a lot of information. However, there are also some other areas of study that you may want to look into as well. Acting classes are obvious as they teach you to get into the emotional sphere of the character as well as explore why the character does what they do. Boning up on psychology may not be a bad idea either as it gives you insight into how and why people do what they do. You may also want to find books that look at etiquette and cultural aspects; it allows you to draw upon cultures different than your own, giving you a wider range of possible cultures. 

Also, it may be a weird suggestion, but a poetry or singing class may not be a bad idea. Speech has certain rhythms, and everyone has their own speech patterns and singers and poets are more in tune with those patterns. Debate or public speaking may also be good; they would work for better monologues, but they could help keep your speech more direct. A semester at the school paper may not be a bad idea: Interviewing people helps you with writing dialogue as well/ Sure, it may be somewhat artificial, but it's an artificiality you can use.

You may also want to spend some time in a bar or restaurant during a busy time as it gives you access to a lot of different conversations. It does mean paying a table tax (buying a meal and some drinks), but it's money well spent. 

The Universal Translator Is Always On

When it comes to representing characters who speak a different language, you have three options: note it, minor taste, and full on. "Noting it" is when you note that two characters are speaking a specific language and then drop it; this is the easiest and is generally the default. "Full on" is when you write the dialogue in the language of the characters in question; this requires a lot more work and limits your readers to those who can read the language (while you can provide a translation, it gets clunky). "Minor taste" is when you season the dialogue with the occasional foreign word; this works well in fantasy/SF stories and allows you to use bits of a language without going full Tolkien. 

Pidgin and broken languages are worth noting, as well as "Spanglish" situations (where two speakers mix two languages without thinking about it). Spanglish situations are great for showing that a house is truly biracial as two languages have been mixed as thoroughly as the cultures in the house to create an interesting melange. Broken languages (where the person tries to speak in a language they aren't familiar with so get a lot of the grammar wrong while tossing in words from their native language) are great for showing characters new to the culture. Pidgin languages are great for sowing marginalized sections of society as well as cultures forced to deal with a more powerful society to the point that the pidgin tongue is spoken even generations after that influence has been removed. 

Different Characters, Different Patterns

Interestingly, people forget that not everyone, even those from the same area, speaks the same This is because how someone speaks is an expression of how that person thinks, their background, and a myriad of other issues. However, for our purposes, you can boil it down to a small group of different spectra: precision, contractions, and vocabulary. Vocabulary will get to in its own section, but let's start with the other two. Contractions look at how often the person uses abbreviations and contractions; robots are infamous for using none of either as well as autistic people while military types and more socially "hip" people tend to use them to the point of making conversations almost impossible with those who don't use the same abbreviated language. 

For the "precision" spectrum, it runs from "grenade" to "sniper." Generally, more informal individuals use "grenade"; as long as you get the idea they're happy. This means using "white" instead of the range of off-white, ecru, and eggshell. If they set an appointment at 9 AM, expect them sometime in the morning. Precise people can be more exacting; show up at 9:05 AM and there could be a problem or at least disapproving looks and don't try to sneak cerulean past them when they asked for robin's egg. 

[Neither of these implies a certain intelligence level. It just means that it's the type of language they use. It's like someone using broken English: The person could be brilliant but is using it because they aren't familiar with the language. It could also just be the language they are used to; a simpleton could use rather precise language because of a strict aunt. These spectra are also subject to change: Just consider how maddeningly non-specific a teenage boy is when asked how his day went versus how suddenly precise he is when asked about his favorite car.]

Accents Are Hard 

Obvious Caveat: Don't use accents unless you can do more than a stereotype (unless that's all you can do). You just don't want to come off as unauthentic. This also means that if you're trying to learn the accent, either go with movies produced in the area you're looking for or podcasts produced by those from the area (movies produced by those not native to the area, especially Hollywood movies, are straight out). Past that, they are not only good for establishing the region a particular character is from but can also provide a gauge of the character's mental state (accents tend to become stronger if the person is scared or angry.

[Some people tend to pick up the accent of those they're around, even for a few moments. While they'll never get a truly strong accent, especially if the accent is due to anatomical or cultural features. Others can pick up an accent if they spend too much time in an area. Accents are also not genetic; a clone of a person without a full transplant would not have the same accent as the original. Whether or not robots have an accent or can change them at will is up to you.]

Code Switching is Your Friend

A concept you're going to have fun with but will probably hate: Code-switching (the switching of behaviors depending on who you're around). This means that the same woman who speaks with all of the swears to her mother is the same demure and jargonistic junior accountant who speaks in a cooing mix of Italian and English to her lover. While we have no problem believing this is the same woman, note how her use of language shifts between situations. The real fun part is when you shift between different behaviors because you're having two different conversations at the same time; just consider "maternal Tourette's", where a mother is gossiping with one of her friends while her children are getting into things. 

This can add an interesting dimension to military and corporate types as this is part of their lives (you have four different personalities (at least) just for your superiors, your inferiors, your peers, and civilians/customers). However, there is also some inherent social commentary: Black teens have learned to treat police officers differently than white teens, for example. On the other extreme, autistic people and rebels tend to have little to no code-switching. In effect, how much or how little your character switches codes, so to speak can tell a lot about the character. 

Conversely, this can also show how socially inept a character is. They can also hide their true colors (just like anyone else): Shy girls are well known for hiding a vengeful side. 

Lastly, horror writers and social commentators love code-switching. For commentators, it can be interesting to see what happens when someone's switches get all messed up. Horror writers do a lot of twins and possessions, so we use a variant of this to keep track of personalities: Dr. Jekyll has a very different personality than Mr. Hyde, Reagan reacts to things very differently than Pazusu. This applies pretty well to vampires and werewolves considering their strict hierarchies. This also makes faeries the odd ones out as they pretty much only have two or three personalities (how they treat someone they are scared of, their "loyal follower" psyche and their normal personality. 

Confusion and the Drunken Sailor

For too many writers conversations are pretty much linear: They have a beginning, a middle, and an end; specifically, someone asks a question, someone else answers it, there is some back and forth over negotiations, and it ends. The three basic versions of this are: 

1. The Expository Dialog ("What does the audience need to know?", "Let's tell them!", "Let's return to what we were doing.")
2. The Relationship Drama ("What did I do wrong?", "Can we fix it?", "What do I need to do?")
3. The Questor's Trial ("What is X?", "What is the cost for the information?", "Where can I find it?")

For most writers, these are fine. However, these conversations are rarely realistic: In real life, most conversations wander like a drunken sailor and the only way to capture that is by providing a montage of the conversation. Letting the conversation allows you to do three things: build characters, build reader/character relationships, and drop some foreshadowing. The wandering conversation allows you to explore things that are important to the characters, thus helping to develop their strengths, weaknesses, and other traits. The more readers know about the characters the more intimate the relationships they have with the characters. 

These also allow you to build up the world but in a more intimate way. That is, rather than presenting the mere facts of the world, you can present how the world works and what its inhabitants think about it: Rather than just saying where a mountain is you can show its importance and how it fits into things. For those who like a little foreshadowing, you can let fly with some local rumors about things, introducing it as "the mountain where all things go to die," "the man who rules with an iron fist," or even "where Paradise begins." Then when your readers meet the thing, they are looking to see how true the rumors are. This also allows you to build things up before you more properly introduce them. 

There are two other types of conversations worth noting: the comedic misunderstanding and the dysfunctional one. Both of these share one feature in common: Both sides are having a far different conversation than the other. If my teenager describes killing seven with one blow and then goes into brutal detail about their deaths, it's entirely possible that the kid who killed seven flies stuck to a spot of honey can find himself on the way to killing a giant. By the same token, a couple can be having a heart-to-heart but because one or both are not being completely honest and/or being so vague as to not hurt the other some real damage can be done. 

This "having two separate conversations" thing can also be used to purposely mislead one character into doing something they may not have done under normal circumstances. This is how you get naked teenagers running from well-armed fathers and women trying to figure out why they're helping rob a bank. Just remember that not all of your conversations need to be exposition heavy; there is a lot of room for character-building or just having fun. 

[Expert Tip: Clip sentences. You don't need to write in complete sentences: Just like in real conversations, your characters don't need to speak in full sentences if the rest is known or reasonably implied. Too many dialogues get dragged down because the writer felt it necessary to write dialogue in complete sentences. It's not necessary, so don't do it.] 

Every Conversation Is A Path

At some point, you need to decide where the conversation is leading. This was discussed at some length in the previous section, but those conversations are what they appear to be; they may lead somewhere, but where they're leading is pretty obvious. In some cases, you're going to want to want to add some subtext to the conversation. Sex comedies do this all the time; sometimes the conversations are so full of double entendres that the dialogue itself gets a movie an R-rating without using a single swear word.

Conversely, one or both sides can hide their intent for having the conversation. A mage trying to determine if a knight is worthy of knowing where the Mighty Nugget is going to do more than just give out directions, while a wife warning her husband about a guest coming to dinner is going to add something to the shopping list to give him a head's up. You can even add a certain amount of dramatic irony by throwing crumbs to the audience that one of the two people is a vampire luring their dinner in. Genies love having discussions where the person actually helps the genie screw them over. 

Once you know where your conversation is going, it's going to be a lot easier to write. 

Don't Be Afraid of "Said"

It's fine to be afraid of "said" over and over; get over it. While it can be irritating to use the same thing over and over, it's an acceptable convention. This is not to say you shouldn't use other dialogue tags (growled, whispered, shouted) every so often, but if you use too many alternatives they become distracting. Trust me: No one will care if you use "said" with reckless abandon. 

However, there are options. Since the two basic purposes of the tag is to identify the speaker and organize the conversation, you can omit it if the speaker is obvious; this is especially the case if there are only two speakers and they're using a lot of short phrases. However, if you introduce a new speaker then definitely use it. If the two characters sound the same, however, make sure to use it every so often, or throw in other dialogue tags or action tags. In essence, if it's not working, just omit it but remember that it does serve a very useful purpose. 

[Keep commenting to a minimum. While it can be useful to show what a character thinks of a guard or a challenge, telling the audience what the character is doing is intrusive and the best way to kill the flow. It also risks taking the reader out of the story. No one likes Captain Obvious, so retire him.]

You Can Always Be Active

You can always use action tags instead if you want to try something different (He sidled up to her. "Hello.") Besides being a great substitute for dialogue tags, they also keep scenes dynamic and help break up dialogue. They can also add a little more subtext to whatever is being said. However, they can get tiresome if overused, especially if you're obviously using them to avoid using dialogue tags, and can disrupt more intimate scenes, They should also not be used to break up monologues or other scenes where dialogue needs to do the heavy lifting. 

Formatting Can Only Help

Standard dialogue formatting is pretty simple: In general, keep the punctuation inside the quotes (He asked, "Where are you going?" and "It's in the fridge," he said.) Remember to start a new paragraph with a new speaker, no matter how short that makes the paragraph. If the entire quote is a thought, in a foreign language, or being sung or chanted, italicize that entire quote. Capitals show shouting while italics show emphasis. Ellipses can be used to show when someone is trailing off. 

Em-dashes are your friends. If someone is interrupted, end their quote with one and start the interrupter's as normal. If you want to show people talking over each other, then each quote should begin and end with an em-dash. 

Telepathic communication is traditionally shown via italics, but you're on your own for radio communications (Hashtags and pluses have been used). 

Yeah, I know it's weird that punctuation can add a lot to dialogue, but there you be.

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Yes, conversations have a lot of moving parts However, it only looks intimidating; once you understand how all of the parts work together they actually start making a lot of sense. Consider the inside of a car: There are a lot of moving parts, so to someone who has never seen an internal combustion engine it can look like magic to someone who has no idea how it works. However, once you understand how the parts work you can go in and repair and modify it as needed, at least to some degree. 

The same applies to writing dialogue. It's just a matter of figuring out what the parts are and how they work together. Do that, and you'll find that your characters are going to be understood that much easier. 

Conversations are just like poetry. Honest!