Braindead Dairy #5: A Character’s ‘Voice’
There’s been less descriptions and more dialogue as I continue to edit book one. I’m trying to make conversations sound natural yet engaging. It’s a balancing act between everyday language and sharp statements/reactions. If you’ve got two people walking and talking, and you’re not sure if it’s good, perhaps have one of the characters tell the other to “WATCH OUT FOR THE DOG SHIT!” Sometimes I think the reader needs a nudge.
Dialogue is just half the battle though. There’s also that BASTARD of a phenomenon known as giving characters a voice. It became apparent that many of my ‘distinct’ characters spoke like the lead. In fact, even his grandad (who is supposed to have Alzheimer’s!) was speaking the same, destroying the picture I was trying to build of frailty and dependence.
I think it’s one of the coolest things when writers are able to make characters jump off the pages, (it was probably Charles Dicken’s greatest strength), and it’s something I need to become better at. They may only appear once, and briefly, but if you’ve really got a character down they will not be easily forgotten.
I don’t want there to be any excess in this trilogy so I may make a list of all the characters with a brief synopsis of what they’re about. If they’re going to be in the story then THEY have to be in the story – their opinions, their actions, their own unique flavour. And for those who are a lost cause it will bring me great pleasure in killing them. 
