Character Voice

May 15, 2009

 

Mary Rosenblum:  Welcome to our Friday Forum.  I wanted to talk about Character Voice tonight.  This is what most novice writers struggle with, in terms of characterization. And it is critical to characterization.  When we meet a new person, we first evaluate them visually.  What is that person's age, physical shape, clothing? Then we pay attention to how they talk. We pick up lots of clues --region from the accent, education from the manner of speech, prejudices, world view, and so on from what they say.  So when a novice writer has three characters who all talk exactly alike, it is very difficult for readers to tell one from the other.
  Voice is one of the main identifiers of character on the page. We don't have a movie screen in front of us after all. And it's not just dialogue.  Voice...the manner in which your character speaks and that character's world view...should permeate the narrative in third person, and of course, should be utterly consistent in first person. When that fails, and the author peeks through it ruins the credibility of the character.
So for example if writing a fiction story like seasons closing, do you base the character voice on actual people you know or is the voice "invented"?
Mary Rosenblum:  You can do either, David, good question. But the voice should belong to that character. When I was first starting to write, I often thought of a friend or relative whose voice, whose manner of speaking and world view suited the character and then I used that person's voice for my character. As I gained more expertise, I simply created voices for each character.

So it is important to distinguish their physical attributes as well as their mannerisms?
Mary Rosenblum:  Kt, yes, it is important to make your characters visually real...you let the readers see the characters as soon as that person 'walks onto the stage'. However, it is the voice of the character that will provide the presence of that character more than visual details, although action will remind us of the character's visual self. The character's voice is the interface between the character and the reader. It is the main means for the readers to 'know' that character. So if the voice is bland and featureless, that character will seem bland and featureless, not real at all.

 I don't start writing a story until I have the POV character's voice solid in my mind, until I can hold a conversation with that person and he/she sounds very different than I do. Ideally, you should be able to remove all identifying tag lines and readers will still know who is talking. Now realistically, that doesn't work, and there's no point in confusing readers. But that's the ideal goal.  And voice reveals character more than any other method. WHAT your character says reveals a LOT about what he/she thinks and believes. And if you don't keep that solidly in mind, all your characters will reveal what??? YOUR world view. Which is fine if all of your characters are like you. But I bet they aren't ALL like you.  Here's an example. Two examples actually.
Carny hoofed it across the park, because Babe was being a witch again and wasn't driving him anywhere this week. It was full of brats. And their moms with cell phones glued to their ears. And their dogs, crapping all over the grass. Same dogs that got in his roses and if he caught one, he'd kick it right out into the middle of the street, right in front of some big truck. He detoured around the playground, cut between the bushes and the rec hall. Trash all over the ground. He kicked a paper cup aside. Damn kids.
Okay, so we know a lot about what our Carny thinks of kids, their moms, and dogs. We get a clear sense of this guy's personality and his mood at the moment, yes?
Darla cut through the park. Afternoons were okay, Mom wouldn't mind, even if one of her nosy friends spotted her and tattled. Kids were all over the play stuff. She hunched her shoulders, looking for Maria, Sylvia, any of Mom's friends. A blue and red ball rolled up to her feet  and she picked it up, grinned at the red headed kid who looked totally shocked and tossed it to him. He grinned back, missed the throw and ran off after it. He looked like Danny. She glanced at her watch, broke into a trot. Get home late and Mom would ground her butt for a year.
So here we have the same park, same kids, and a different 'take'.
We have a bit of a sense of Darla's mood, a clue or two of backstory. Mom has a lot of rules and the park is clearly off limits, probably once it starts to get dark. Darla's worried about someone telling Mom, so Mom has power. She likes kids enough to toss the ball back, notice that he has red hair and looks like Danny.  In both these brief paragraphs, I loaded 'em with clues about the character's personality, circumstance, and feelings about things -- world view.
The 'voice' permeates even the narrative - the description of action. Carny 'hoofs' it through the park. That's his word, from his era. Darla cuts through the park. They're kids to her, brats to Carny.  Darla didn't even notice the dogs. She probably gives dogs a big shrug unless one comes up to greet her. Clearly she's not scared of them or she WOULD notice them.
Say you have this same character and a dog approaches and suddenly she's panicking... Your characterization fails. If she is that scared of dogs, she's looking for them, trying to avoid them.
Interesting...by voice you mean the way the character interacts throughout the book determines their personality and distinguishes them from other characters within the book.
Mary Rosenblum:  Exactly, kt.  It's not JUST dialogue.  It's how you handle all the narrative.  Of course when you use first person, your character's voice permeates every sentence because the POV is telling us the story. But you can create nearly the same effect with third person.  This is why so much novice third person is weak in characterization. We might get a sense of the character as he/she speaks, but the rest of the time, the narrative is utterly objective, and maybe the author breaks in to tell us stuff from time to time.
Mary, how do you keep your characters voice from being disrupted by other voices? I mean we can only write so many hours a day, how do you maintain the voice consistently day after day?
Mary Rosenblum:  Ingrid, good question! Once I have the voice in my head and start writing the story, that voice is on the page. When I got back to that story, I'll usually revise the last couple of paragraphs or even a whole page...mainly to 'pick up' the voice again.  That way, I get to the end of the section I’m revising and go on to the new text I'm writing smoothly, without any break in the voice.
Good, that's what I have to do. I'm glad I'm in good company. thanks
Mary Rosenblum:  It's hard to keep that voice utterly consistent if you start with a blank page, not having lived with that voice on the page for a day or so. When you're writing narrative in third person, use your POV's vocabulary. That's why Carny 'hoofs it' across the park.

It sounds to me like this Character voice is going to take a while for me to master. Doesn't sound very easy.
Mary Rosenblum:  David, it's not easy, but it's worth mastering. Every slush pile is FULL of stories with nice plots, good ideas, and very weak characters.  Once you master characterization-- which is HARD -- you WILL sell.

What if you have multiple characters?
Mary Rosenblum:  DLB, I would use the voice of your POV character for your narrative. That is the character you want to create as real, with the greatest depth.  Other characters will speak with different voices, but use the vocabulary, speaking style of your POV for the narrative. Now in a novel, you may have more than one POV, but it's a good idea to stick to one POV character per chapter. The more minor the character, the less a unique voice is necessary, but the more distinct you can make it the better.
So this voice characterization is key to getting stories published?
Mary Rosenblum:  Well, David, it is a major component of characterization and that is the key to getting published.  Once I mastered character, I started selling nearly all my stuff to the major magazines. When you write in first person it’s even more important to create a unique voice.  Especially if you're writing at novel length!  Readers get bored with a 'vanilla pudding' first person voice. You don't want to create the effect of a monotone.  It's a good idea to try for a voice that is a little 'larger than life'.
What do you mean by a larger than life voice?
Mary Rosenblum:  One that's stronger and more vivid than your average person carrying on a conversation.
That's what makes those scabby detective novels fun to read.
So you mean.. ditch the subtly, like an actor on stage?
Mary Rosenblum:  I was watching goldfish when the call came down. Okay, can the comments. I don't watch goldfish every day, but these were pretty special goldfish. Million dollar goldfish, okay? But hey, the phone might be a job so I picked it up.
This voice could be realllly boring.

I was watching the goldfish I was hired to watch when the phone rang. It might be a job, so I picked it up.  I get the second example ALL the time from novice writers.
 Look at the difference here.
What do you guess about Voice Number One? What do you guess about Voice Number Two?
Voice number one sounds a bit scrappier and more animated
Does the way you are feeling when you are writing ever affect the way a character acts in stories? For instance, happy, excited, sad, depressed.
Mary Rosenblum:  Well, it can, Steffy. It really shouldn't. We're sort of like actors. You put on a character's skin and you enter his or her world and you can stop being you for awhile and be that person.   In fact you SHOULD be that person for awhile. That's how you do character well.
I know sometimes it goes the other way. If the character is very happy, excited, sad, whatever, it tends to rub off on me.
Mary Rosenblum:  Yeah, sparks, it sure can!  I really don't like to write dark and depressed characters. It always has an effect on me.
So what if you are having a really down day and you feel lousy but your character is a positive and cheery lad?

Mary Rosenblum:  I just write the character as positive and cheery. And it does make me feel a bit better, even if it's a struggle to get him on the page.
My favorites are strong female leads, so I write strong female leads. I always feel stronger on my dark days because of my MCs
Mary Rosenblum:  Good for you, Ingrid.
Here's an example of an actual story start. It's in third person, but the MC's voice permeates the narrative.
Aman’s eyelids twitched as the tiny skull and crossbones icon flashed across his retinal screen. Uh oh. He blinked away the image and scowled at the office door. The feds. “Sit tight and pay attention,” he said to the new kid sitting in the chair beside the desk. 
“What’s up?” New Kid leaned forward. But the door was already opening, the soft whisper as it slid aside a reassurance that this was a high end operation, that your money was being spent wisely.  The real-life, physical office, the expensive woolen carpet and real wood furniture echoed that reassurance. No sleazy, virtual private eye here…you were at the top of the ladder in a hard office.
So this start is loaded with clues about Aman.  He's not happy to see the feds. The new employee is 'New Kid', not someone he thinks a lot of , clearly. He doesn't even remember his name.  He's cynical about the decor. And  that suggests he's cynical about his job, too. I could have done the same description in a 'neutral' tone, and readers would have had visuals only, no clues as to Aman's character.
But by using Aman's voice and world view to 'tint' the description, I reveal his character and make that description do two things -- show the readers the scene and deepen characterization. That's what voice can do for you.
I was thinking you're weren't adding a lot of background. Should we be adding more background to our stories?  You're examples seem a little blunt.
Mary Rosenblum:  Well, they're short examples, and less is really more in the background department. Nothing kicks readers out of the here and now of your scene faster than intruding to tell the readers all about your character.  Readers need to know less than you think and you really want to let readers figure out that backstory for themselves.  If you want them to know about your character's fear of dogs, let that person spot a dog across the street, get dry mouthed and force himself to walk forward, telling himself that if he doesn't act afraid the dog won't bother him.
So part of the craft of writing is constructing scenes that allow readers to figure out backstory for themselves.
Sort of creating a puzzle for them to solve?
Mary Rosenblum:  That's it exactly, phillips.  You are handing readers puzzle pieces and letting the READERS put 'em together.

Mary this has been very helpful. I hope I can apply all this real soon to my assignments!
this goes with the show don’t tell philosophy
Mary Rosenblum:  It does, David! All these concepts are intertwined.

Remember that voice is more than just dialogue!

See you all!