To fully consider how culture impacts your character’s voice, you must first understand how they identify within that culture. From societal norms and common practices to pop culture, technology, and politics, every last ounce of a culture’s makeup impacts how a person chooses to engage within that culture-or rebel from it. The impact of culture on defining a person’s voice cannot be understated. Here’s a link to my favorite way to craft characters’ personalities. Whether your character is an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert arguably has the biggest impact on how they engage in conversation and the types of dialogue they choose to build, but the buck doesn’t stop there.Įach of your character’s personality traits plays a role in defining their voice, so take the time to hash out their personality as a whole before moving on. What matters not is from where such traits come, but rather how they impact a person’s voice. The characteristics and qualities that define a person’s personality are more often than not innate, though it could certainly be argued that particular characteristics are also learned. Three cheers for character arcs, right? With that established, let’s dig into the four most prominent building blocks that shape our characters’ voices! This means a character’s voice is a dynamic thing and can be very much different at the end of their story as compared to the beginning. As such, the natural tendencies that define a person’s innate voice are ever shaped and refined by their experiences. Nature versus nurture with a dash of personal development, if you will. First, we’ll look at how your character’s identity and experiences define their voice, then we’ll examine how that voice will impact both your character’s internal narrative and external interactions throughout your story. Sound like a plan? Let’s dive in!Īs we mentioned earlier, voice is both learned and innate. Today, we’re going to break this process down into two steps. How Can You Develop Your Character's Voice?Ĭonstructing your character’s unique voice is very much a complex and time-consuming endeavor, but when voice is so integral to understanding a character’s identity and defining how they engage with the world around them, I believe it’s worth taking the time to develop. Naturally, our character’s voices should do the same. Our voices define who we are as human beings, and so how we choose to use our voices each and every day shapes the ways in which we engage with our world and the people in it. It’s a series of calculated choices that are pushed and pulled by some of our most natural instincts. It’s found as much in what we don’t say as we do, in our body language as the words we speak. It’s the narrative running through our minds at all times, what we think before we filter the words that come out of our mouths. Why? Because a person’s voice isn’t solely comprised of how they verbally present themselves to the world. Sound like a plan? Let’s get started with today's breakdown, writer!Įxamining the full importance of voice.ĭefining your character’s voice bears importance far beyond ensuring their dialogue is unique. Doing so not only helps to distinguish them from the other characters in our stories, but to add depth and realism to their characterization.īut how do you go about defining your characters’ unique voices? The process is admittedly a bit lengthy, but I promise it will prove well worth your time when your characters’ voices leap off the page truly and fully defined. With individual personalities, cultural influences, experiences, and world views, its no wonder people verbally interact with the world in different ways, and so our characters should as well. To create characters as real as the people around us, we must remember to forge for them their own unique voices.
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