#8 - Making Characters Sound Real

Have you ever read a book or watched something where the characters all just sort of…sounded the same? Where you’ve been pulled out of the story and thought “Nah, that character wouldn’t say it that way”? If you ever saw Secret Life of the American Teenager, the dialogue and delivery were 1. Terrible, and 2. THE SAME . That’s an extreme example, but a fascinating one in a twisted sort of way. If you really want to know what I mean, watch this. If I used emojis in my blog, I'd use the crying laughing face now.

When I write, characters develop their own voices. I hear them speak in my head, and I preserve their voices as much as possible. I recognize, though, that someone else may not hear the nuances I do unless I show them. Sometimes that means stutters and repetition and contractions and improper grammar. Sometimes, though, it’s just the words.

We all have a go-to thesaurus in our heads from which we’re prone to grab the most readily available words. Some of those thesauruses have just a few options and some have many. Either way, the ability to step back and see those words in your text is an invaluable quality. I’m here to point that out.

To make it simple, if everyone says “What’s happening?” a lot or “What’s going on?”, they may come out oddly similar. Is it the biggest deal in the world? Maybe not, but it does make a difference. While many readers may not consciously notice it, it will make your writing more real.

Here’s an example. We’ll use this dialogue as the control:

“What’s up with that?”

Simple, right? But what if it went like this:

As they walked into the kitchen of the old house, they couldn’t make sense of it. Instead of food and kitchenware, the counter tops were covered with bolts and wires and chunks of warped metal.
“What’s up with that?” said Joe.
“I don’t know,” said Alan.
Just then, Robert walked in, a bewildered look on his face. “What’s up with all this?”

Sure, not a huge deal, but our “Robert” and “Joe” have similar phrasing. A simple change could be this:

As they walked into the kitchen of the old house, they couldn’t make sense of it. Instead of food and kitchenware, the counter tops were covered with bolts and wires and chunks of warped metal.
“What’s up with that?” said Joe.
“I don’t know,” said Alan.
Just then, Robert walked in, a bewildered look on his face. “What happened here?”

And then, they don’t sound so similar. Their thoughts are separate, and their reactions are clearer.

Another example:

“You hate me, don’t you?”
“Of course not. You know that, don’t you?”

Then:

“You hate me, don’t you?”
“Of course not. Why would you think that?”

I know these are incredibly simple examples, so bear with me. In actual writing, this could happen a page apart…or several. You might notice that three characters say the word “obvious” in a chapter or two. Don’t go thesaurus-crazy, though. Some characters should have similar quirks, like siblings or long-time friends. Many people use the same wordings. It can be used to show that two people have grown close. This is simply a writing tool at your disposal.

It applies to more than dialogue. I wrote a book a few years back that was third person, past-tense with two main characters. The narration is a little different for both, but I noticed that both of their sections said “lest”, like “lest that happens.” So, I changed one character’s narration phrasing to something like “in case that happens.” Subtle, but it made a difference. It set the tone, differentiated the two.

If you start paying attention to the way people talk in life, you’ll begin hearing the differences. Especially in a place like Los Angeles, you get all sorts of ticks and habitual phrases. I first became aware of this with phrases used to ensure understanding. Personally, I usually say something like “Does that make sense?” or “You know what I mean?” But I’ve also heard:

“Do you see?”
“Right?”
“You feel me?”

I’ve also noticed a vast collection of acknowledgements:

“Sick.”
“One-hundred-percent.”
“Got it.”

And so, so many more.

Do you see what I’m saying? There are so many ways people communicate the same things. If you wanted, you could sit in a coffee shop or a mall and listen to how people speak, the different ways they communicate that you might never think of. Everyone has a different education, different people influencing them, different media consumed. We’re an amalgamation of those things, and your characters should be too.

Recently, I’ve started making notes in my phone when I noticed someone saying something that I wouldn’t think of. I heard someone say “such and so forth” when they were explaining something instead of saying “and so on” or “etc.” I would never think of that! Another time, someone said “What’s it called?” when they couldn’t think of something, but it was to such a degree that they used it when it didn’t even make sense. “Oh, yeah, I need to leave by, uh, what’s it called, 4:00?” Like that.

I find this phenomenon fascinating. I may never use those exact phrases, but, hey, maybe I will. Either way, they remind me that people are clever, illogical, simple and all things in between. Most importantly, they say things I’d never imagine.

Now, this may be stupidly obvious to some of you, but it can be refreshing to take yourself off autopilot, no matter what level you’re at. Your dialogue might be perfect, but it never hurts to take a look.
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I’d love to know if you’ve found this useful! Let me know in the comments down below.