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What did you Say?

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Whether you’re writing a book, a play, a screenplay or the libretto of a musical, it’s always essential that your characters speak like real people. While it’s true that different genres may place more importance on different elements of the combined product (plot/characters/theme/setting/dialogue), each character must maintain his/her own unique voice.

Before creating the dialogue, the writer must develop believable, three-dimensional, “real” people. They may speak with an accent, have a peculiar physical mannerism or remind us of someone we know but the bottom line is that the audience must develop a relationship to the characters as one develops relationships to people throughout one’s life.

So how does a writer approach writing the words each character will speak?

GET TO KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS INTIMATELY.

Many good writing books and courses deal with character development. There are worksheets available for addressing everything from physical descriptions to current situations to the character’s back story. The more you know about your characters, the better equipped you’ll be to write their dialogue.

For some writers, as they journey through their stories, the characters begin to take shape and develop their own voices and the dialogue practically writes itself. For others writers, however, their dialogue too closely resembles their own way of speaking and all characters come off sounding the same as an extension of the writer.

The very best way to write great dialogue is to observe the conversations of “real” people. Writers are often found spending hours at coffee shops or malls listening to strangers talking. Being discreet is necessary if the writer wishes to employ this technique. Many do not take kindly to a stranger’s eavesdropping.

With notebook in hand, jot down snippets of conversations, make physical character sketches, listen for colloquialisms, speech patterns and anything that identifies this person as an individual on whom a wonderful character could be built. If a writer finds himself/herself immersed by the same type of people on a regular basis, it’s a wonderfully enlightening experience to venture into unfamiliar territory and become exposed to types of people not found in his/her daily environment. (Don’t attempt to write colorful characters into your works unless you’ve been around such people. The audience will not be fooled for a second.)

Now, you’re probably thinking that this “observation” method is going to be very time consuming. That’s true to a degree, but it doesn’t have to be. Each day we encounter a great many different individuals who are family, friends and neighbors. We also exchange greetings with everyone from store clerks to mail carriers to the strangers in line at the bank. People are all around us. If we become more observant we may just find our next character standing right beside us.