Think about voices of people you know. What is the tone and rhythm? Do they use regional or slang phrases? Did you ever listen to someone narrating a show on the Discovery Channel and without seeing the person, you knew who was speaking? What about their voice or speech made it memorable or distinct? Our aim as writers is to create characters our readers can hear. Kathleen Turner sounds different from Melanie Griffith. Tom Sawyer sounds different from Nick Carraway. A professor sounds different from a street vendor. A southerner sounds different from a Bostonian.
Dialect is a tricky thing to write. Southerners, Pennsylvania Dutchmen, New Yorkers, etc., don�t hear their own dialect. If you choose to write in your own regional dialect, you need to listen to it as an �outsider.� I grew up in a small Pennsylvania Dutch town. At the time, I didn�t think there was anything unusual about the way I spoke. In high school, a Southern boy transferred to our school, and we giggled every time he said something. He said we were the ones who talked funny. It wasn�t until years later when I moved away from home when I started noticing the idiosyncratic speech of where I grew up. People pronounced eggs like �ex� and v�s sounded like w�s. I learned that common phrases like �outen the light� and �it�s all� were not proper English. Instead of �why� the phrase �what for� is used.
So how do you make the reader �hear� your character�s dialect? Create it through rhythm and word choice. If your character is a Southerner, listen to the rhythm of speech. It will vary from speaker to speaker and from region to region. Observe their grammar and word choice and avoid clich�s like �y�all� and �I reckon.� Use regional sayings, but like everything else, use them in moderation. Passages of one regional saying after another will become tiresome and hard to follow.
The same applies to phonetic spellings. Long passages of misspellings or phonetic spellings are hard to read, and they annoy editors. Josip Novakovich in FICTION WRITER�S WORKSHOP says not to �alter your spelling radically. To evoke a drawl, don�t triple vowels. Don�t skip consonants. Here and there you might want to alter a word or two, but don�t overdo it, because most readers resent having to slow down.� It�s fine to occasionally change the spelling of a word, if no other substitution or device will do in creating a realistic sound. It�s not necessary to phonetically spell every word in dialect.
Characters will speak differently in different eras. A character living in the 1800s will use different words and phrases from someone living in 1950 or 2002. Research the time period so you can create authentic speech. Pay attention to taboo words and phrases.
Your characters will speak differently when placed in different situations. A doctor will use professional jargon when speaking to other doctors and nurses. If he�s explaining a medical procedure to a patient, he�ll speak differently. The doctor will speak differently when he�s on the racquetball court or when he�s having dinner with his family. A teenager talking on the phone to her girlfriends will sound different from when she�s in catechism class.
Here are some examples of character voices. Some include dialect.
�Why me?� she rumbled. �It�s no trash around here, black or white, that I haven�t given to. And break my back to the bone every day working. And do for the church.� ~Flannery O�Connor, �Revelation�
�Father says for you to come on and get breakfast,� Caddy said. �Father says it�s over a half an hour now, and you�ve got to come this minute.�
I ain�t studying no breakfast,� Nancy said. �I going to get my sleep out.� ~William Faulkner, �That Evening Sun�
�Muy Buenos,� I said. �Is there an Englishwoman here? I would like to see this English lady.�
�Muy buenos. Yes, there is a female English.� ~ Ernest Hemingway, THE SUN ALSO RISES
My mama dead. She die screaming and cussing.
~Alice Walker, THE COLOR PURPLE
So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot�filled him pretty near up to his chin�and set him on the floor.
~Mark Twain, �The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County�
I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs and how stupid I�d been to buy all those uncomfortable, expensive clothes, hanging limp as fish in my closet, and how all the little successes I�d totted up so happily at college fizzled to nothing outside the slick marble and plate-glass fronts along Madison Avenue. ~Sylvia Plath, THE BELL JAR
I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby�s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited�they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at Gatsby�s door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald, THE GREAT GATSBY
I was getting along fine with Mama, Papa-Daddy, and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and come back home again. Mr. Whitaker! Of course I went with Mr. Whitaker first, when he first appeared here in China Grove taking �Pose Yourself� photos, and Stella-Rondo broke us up.� ~Eudora Welty, �Why I Live at the P.O.�
EXERCISE
If in your character sketches you�ve written vague adjectives, strike them out. Replace them with specific and concrete details. Underline or highlight two significant traits. Now we�re going to put them in different situations. Write a scene using action and dialogue for each of these situations:
� Your character is chatting with someone at work (or if he�s a child, at school)
� Your character is enjoying Sunday dinner at a parent or grandparent�s house.
� Your character is at a party with friends.
� Your character is speaking to someone of authority�a teacher, doctor, officer, etc.
� Your character meets someone for the first time.
When you�re finished, see if you�ve revealed your character�s physical details, age, and mannerisms, education, and status through action. In the dialogue, can you distinguish the difference between your main character and others in the scene? Does your character change in each situation or does he or she remain the same?
As always, have fun with it!
