In an article for Writer’s Digest, Tracy Clark shares five tips for creating character voice that will keep readers engaged. “The goal of voice and every other craft element in fiction is to pull your reader in, make them want to stick around until the end of your story,” Clark writes.
While there’s no single way to develop your character’s voice, Clark offers five tips that worked for her.
- Character. “Consider what your characters will have to accomplish, how they must move your plot forward, what roles they must play,” she says. A voice might emerge at this stage as you’re building. If so, grab it, flesh it out. If not, keep layering. Voice is in there somewhere.”
- Distinctiveness. Your characters should not speak or think the same. “Your reader should be able to read a passage of dialogue from any page and know immediately which characters are speaking just by the way you’ve presented them,” Clark writes. “We’re distinguished by where we were raised, how we were raised, and by who raised us. We are distinguished by socioeconomic status, race, neighborhood, religion, cultural identity, along with a host of other things.”
- Sound/Style. “Where is your character from? Townie or country guy? Twang or drawl?” Clark asks. Use the answers to find the distinct elements of their speech.
- Dialogue. “Character can be revealed through dialogue and should,” Clark says. “Dialogue is concentrated talk, purposeful talk. Dialogue has to move but make your characters’ voices so distinguishable that readers instantly know them when they open their mouths.”
- Backstory. Past experiences will also flavor what your characters say and how. “A character who has suffered some kind of tragedy or loss will behave quite differently than someone who’s led a relatively happy life unfazed by misfortune,” Clark notes. “The perspective, worldview, mood, attitude, and outlook of a wounded soul is going to be different.”
