Writing existing character voices for fanfic
Hey, so, I started doing a writeup a week ago about how to get character voices in your fanfic to sound “in character,” in response to a comment from a new writer I was beta-ing for.
I’ve been told this is a thing I do well.
As someone who studied dialogue extensively for a theatre degree, I tend to do this reflexively now, and I don’t write out each individual step. But I put some thought into how I might break down the process if I was new at it and looking to get better.
I don’t think it’s actually that different than an actor studying character accents, except as a writer you’re breaking down meaning rather than sound.
Let’s take a look at what makes dialogue unique to a character. I’m gonna list these as bullet points first, and then I’ll suggest some exercises to explore these aspects of speech.
Most important aspects - focus on these first
Vocabulary - the words they use. As subset of this:
Complexity of words, which can include:
Syllable length
Likelihood to be used in casual conversation - a character can be very smart and still use very informal language.
Cultural touchpoints
Culture can include pop culture references - think Tony Stark’s nicknames for everyone, i.e. “Point Break” and “Underoos”
How in or out of sync the character is with the story’s setting with regard to both time and place - are they from a different country or era of time than their peers?
Important - Check these out if you have time
How likely the character is to speak their mind vs. change the subject - this could be for any number of reasons, from fear to duplicity
Amount they say / Introvertedness / how reticent they are - This is somewhat related to the above point, but not necessarily, and should be researched from different angles. Subverting a topic is not the same thing as being afraid to talk about it.
Different ways of speaking with different characters - this could be a function of story (i.e. how a character who is captured speaks to their captors as opposed to friends) as well as pure Code Switching
Deep cuts - Advanced aspects of speech
Fluency in the language they are speaking
Accents - You do not have to write a character in an accent, i.e. spell the words differently to show the accent, if you don’t want to. It really depends on the piece (usually how light hearted or humorous you want it to be) whether you do or not.
Okay, this is all well and good, you say. But HOW do I incorporate this into my writing?
Dialogue analysis exercise
Find five (or more, but at least five) representative lines from your character’s canon dialogue.
If they don’t speak, don’t have five lines, do the best you can. (I imagine other forms of communications can probably also be analyzed in this way, but I’m gonna focus on dialogue for now.)
These are going to be your key phrases. They need to be from canon and they need to be words that really show off who your character is.
Say the words out loud. Read them again and again. What do they sound / feel like?
What is the average syllable length? How many long words do they use?
Do any words jump out at you as archaic? What about modern pop culture references?
What is a different way they could have said this? Write some alternate versions of this phrase and figure out WHY the character didn’t say it this way instead. What is the difference between the canon dialogue and the alternative? Try to be as specific as possible. It’s as important to know what they wouldn’t say as what they would.
Look up any of the more complex words and find some similar ones, with a similar level of complexity. Use a thesaurus you trust and possibly also Wordnik. If your character doesn’t use ANY complex words, reflect on that. Why? What’s their reason? How does that fit with the rest of their personality?
Think of some other characters from other pop culture pieces who speak in a similar way. It doesn’t have to be 100% the same, but if it can help your ear get used to some new-but-different phrases, it’s enough. You’re training your brain to speak like the character. Start to sort phrases they would say from ones they wouldn’t. How do these two characters differ?
Now that you have worked thoroughly through your key phrases, start to imagine these lines said in something other than the original context. What if they were said to a different character? WOULD they even be said? What would change? What would happen if your character was scared / hurt / overjoyed / sick?
Finally, after all that, write some NEW dialogue for your character, either as practice, or right into your fic draft. Keep using your key phrases as a guide and go back to canon as much as you need to! You can do this!
After all of this, you should feel significantly more confident in writing that existing character into your story. Huzzah!
If you found this at all helpful, reblog and / or leave me a note. I’m curious to hear what you think.
