Liza Lysko asked Jennifer A. Nielsen:

In “The Traitors Game” series I especially loved how you were able to portray double narration between Kestra and Simon. You gave them each their own voice and made their writing different because they are different characters. I’m currently writing a story that switches between 3 narrations and I’m having trouble developing the voice of my characters and making their personalities reflect in their writing. Any tips?

Jennifer A. Nielsen Hi Liza, It can be tricky to write from different character perspectives, but there are some ways to help:

1) Decide which of your characters speaks in the shortest sentences, and who uses the most words.
2) Which character is the funniest? Least funny?
3) What is each character's signature in speaking (maybe one uses a certain phrase a lot, maybe one asks a lot of rhetorical questions, or one uses bigger words than the others)
4) Imagine each character as if you were to play them on stage? How would you play each character differently? Hear yourself saying their dialogue as if you were portraying them. Do this until you sound different in saying their lines. Now you are starting to get their "voice."
5) When you are in the first draft, you don't know your characters as well as you will know them in the revision phase. So don't worry now if they don't sound very different. As you edit them, they will start to be different.

Good luck!

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