If you’re anything like me, you’ve struggled with characters that all sound the same.
Your villain sounds the same as your main character, who sounds the same as the love interest, and on and on.
Lots of people give advice on how to write a character’s voice, and how to make distinct voices for your characters. But so many posts about character voice boil down to, “download this giant list of character questions and figure it out.”
There’s nothing wrong with character questionnaires, but it doesn’t always work for me. So I wanted to share my favorite ways to create and develop your character’s voice, without the standard questionnaire.
What is a Voice Claim?
Most of the time, when people talk about a voice claim, they’re talking about the literal sound of someone’s voice. It’s like a face claim, which I explain in this post.
I tend to use voice claims as a starting point for how a character talks. How do they structure their sentences? When do they speak up, and when do they shut up? Do they swear frequently, or not at all?
While I write a first draft, I picture the real life voice claim saying all the dialogue. In my head, the character’s mouth moves, but the real person’s voice is saying all the lines.
Then as the story moves forward, I edit and rewrite enough so that the character becomes different from the voice claim. By the second or third draft, the character sounds unique.
In the past, I’ve used acquaintances, teachers, family members, other fictional characters, and even YouTubers as voice claims. They act as a jumping off point.
Warning!
There is a huge difference between using someone as a voice claim and plagiarizing/defaming someone.
You can use anything as an inspiration for your character’s unique way of talking. But you must put in the work to make them unique. You can’t just write fanfiction and try to pass it off as your own original characters.
Also, don’t tell people if they inspired any characters in your novel. That can grow awkward very quickly and even lead to lawsuits down the road, if someone doesn’t like how you portrayed them in your writing.
Tips for Choosing a Voice Claim
When you’re looking for a voice claim, here are a few tips and tricks that help me to make the right choice for my story.
Try to memorize the way they talk.
Not just what their physical voice sounds like, but also how they structure their sentences.
Ideally, you could write dialogue that sounds exactly like something they would say, and you can hear their voice in your head when you read it. You know their speech patterns, favorite phrases, and vocal quirks.
If you’re using another fictional character for inspiration, swap their gender, or pull a character from a totally different genre.
That way, it will be easier to make them your own, without plagiarizing or resorting to stereotypes. (For example, if your fantasy villain has a voice claim from a rom com movie.)
- You can use your own characters from old projects, or another author’s characters, but it will be much easier to use characters that you own the rights to, because you don’t have to worry if your readers will recognize the similarities.
Beware of using people that you’re super close to.
I find that it’s way harder to write characters based off of close friends or family.
Part of this is because you talk like the people who you spend the most time with. If you and your friends all talk in a very similar way, what’s the point of using them as voice claims?
The other reason is because you might not want to risk hurting the people you’re closest to. If they happened to figure it out, it could cause hurt feelings.
Even after you edit and rewrite everything, just be careful.
How to Write Character Voice
There are three categories I use for writing a character’s unique voice: insults, questions, and swears.
How does a character insult someone who gets in their way and pushes them to their absolute limit? Do they stick with the same two generic insults for everyone? Or do they lash out and dig into the other person, insulting their deepest insecurities and leaving emotional scars?
Does this character ask questions, and if so, how specific are their questions?
Some characters won’t ask a question unless they have to. They phrase everything as a statement, and wait for other people to stop or correct them. Other characters ask questions constantly, either because they’re childish and curious, or because they’re very anxious and they need to know exactly what to do in every situation.
And how does your character swear?
- Everyone has their own way of swearing or cursing when something goes wrong. Even if your character uses “clean” language like “dang it” or “heck,” they’re still using those words in a place of anger or frustration, so that counts.
- What are their favorite swear words? (Or clean swear words, or fantasy swear words, if you prefer to keep profanity out of your books.)
- Learn the context in which they swear. For example, my own vocabulary is very different at work with my coworkers than it is with my friends, and my vocabulary around my friends is different than how I talk around my parents. These worlds do not overlap. Your character should probably be the same.
If you know how to answer these questions with regards to your voice claim, congrats! You’ve selected a solid voice claim that will sound distinct to your readers.
Have you ever used voice claims in your writing before? If not, would you try this technique in the future?
Hope this post was helpful for you! Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back again soon with a new post. 🙂
