sage: Still of Natasha Romanova from Iron Man 2 (rayk dim)
[personal profile] sage posting in [community profile] ds_workshop
Hi! This is the first post in what I hope will be an ongoing Craft of Writing series. The way it works is I'm going to pick a question off the list, give my thoughts on how it can be resolved, and then in the comments, we'll talk about it. If you have alternate suggestions, great! If you want something elaborated, also great! The thing is, we want to keep this discussion fairly close to the topic in question, so if this inspires OTHER, totally unrelated how-to questions, please go add them to the list!

Following this post, I'll do an Admin post requesting a volunteer to take on another question.


[livejournal.com profile] fspider suggested:
Something about developing voices/dialogue? You hear about writers "hearing" a character's voice, but how do you reach that point lacking a lightening bolt?




I'm starting with this one because I'm one of those people who can hear characters' voices -- in fact, I can't write in a fandom until I do hear their voices clearly in my head and I only really get blocked when I can't hear them anymore. Part of why I haven't been writing much DS fic lately is I'm having a lot of trouble hearing Fraser and RayK talking, so maybe answering this will be useful for me, too.

I'm not a visual person -- when I close my eyes, all I see is blackness, but I hear things in the void. When I start writing something, I close my eyes and listen for the characters to show up and start talking. It's sort of like being in a dimly lit theater and waiting for the characters to come out on stage. Gradually I figure out who wants to be the POV character and what story it is he or she feels compelled to show me.

Then, suddenly, they're in the scene, words are flowing, and all I have to do is transcribe it. (And then clean it up in editing so it makes sense to people who aren't me. :P)

Now, as far as getting the voice clearly, I do a lot of things, some of which are kind of silly. The ones everyone will tell you are:

1. listen to good episodes, where the characterization in the ep is exactly fitting with the story swimming around in your head. (Some Frasers are more Fraserish than others (same with RayK); Stella, Frannie, and Meg are notoriously inconsistent; Vecchio post-Vegas is different than in the Pilot, etc.) When you listen more than you watch, you hear the rhythm, the pauses, the breaths, the muttering, the undertone of life that you miss from reading the transcript or watching with the sound off (which are good for looking for other things). Thing is, just watching normally doesn't work for me because I get caught up in the ep and forget to pay attention to how they sound. So, listening. :)

2. read classic fic. I reread [livejournal.com profile] resonant8 when I need a voice-check, because her work helped define the characters in my head when I was brand-new to fandom. My Fraser isn't her Fraser, but her Fraser helps turn the volume up on my inner Fraser's voice so I can better understand what he's saying and get it onto the page. I'm sure everyone has their favorite touchstone authors/fics that they return to when they feel like they've lost their connection to a character -- Res-fic happens to work best for me. :)

3. get into their heads (and/or their skin). Beating muses into submission has never worked for me -- they just laugh at me and clam up even worse than before. Seduction works better, so sometimes I immerse myself in things the characters value -- kind of taking them on a date doing something they love, so they'll let their walls down and let me see (hear) who they are. Music works for a lot of people. In my head, RayK has a huge thing for Joe Strummer and young Frannie was over the moon for Madonna. Sometimes I buy food they would eat (arctic smoked salmon for Fraser). Sometimes I look through my closet and think about the clothes they wear and what that says about them. Writing about flannel or silk or leather happens differently when you and your POV character are both wearing it.

As far as the dialogue itself, the thing is, they talk to each other. An episode of Due South isn't 45 minutes of silent brooding punctuated by car chases. They're chatty, snarky/courteous, opinionated guys, and it can be fun to start a scene in the middle of a conversation and let it run a little to see where they take it -- and then to see how it continues when an armed robbery (or whatever) interrupts their flirting and they have to do some actual policework before they can go home and make out over hockey and Chinese. *g*

I'm not sure if this covers what you were looking for in your questions -- or if it makes sense to anyone who isn't in my head, so please please ask questions and I'll try to make things clear! :D

And if anyone has other solutions for ways to better hear and convey voice -- or if you have other voice-related questions, please say so in comments!

Thanks!! :D

ETA: I forgot one thing I used to do all the time before my jaw started giving me trouble. Read aloud! Nothing tells you whether you have the flow of their voices down like actually speaking the words on the page (and it also helps you find those annoying elided and's and the's that you miss when skimming). :)

Date: 2007-02-13 10:26 pm (UTC)
eledhwenlin: (Default)
From: [personal profile] eledhwenlin
Hm. See, I'm an all-around version (I love visuals, I have voices in my head, I learn by moving and mnemonics) and I don't really hear the characters in my head. I envy those who can, because especially dialogue always kicks my ass. Either it's coming out all right on the first try or I spend five hours repeatly sending my beta revised versions because it's. just. not. working.

My problem is not really developing a voice, but staying true to it. When I posted Filler, one thing [livejournal.com profile] bluebrocade hit me with a stick for was my Ray voice. That was a problem for me because I wanted him to sound like that, but it wasn't something that I wanted to explain in a story (if I ever end up doing a commentary on any of my stories, you can sure that the commentary will be about twice as long as the story itself).

So, uh. My point is - how would you go and try another facade of a voice without becoming entirely OOC? Would inserting known common phrases (I'm terribly fond of "before I die of waiting" and "pitter-patter") be enough or would that seem like not being tedious enough (yes, I know, I have issues and it's my goal in life to worry too much constantly. If I'd worry less, I probably wouldn't have so many stomachaches, but that's life)? How would you go about that? Without having to put a 500-word disclaimer before the story.

I adore you for #3. That never works for me. I don't really associate people with certain kinds of music (otherwise than who pimped me into what). Hm.

Very cool advice. :)

Date: 2007-02-14 07:07 am (UTC)
eledhwenlin: (Default)
From: [personal profile] eledhwenlin
I get what you mean, but that's not quite what my problem was. I'm all about gradual change. But in this case my take on how RayK is was different and that showed in the narrative (add to that that I don't believe that Ray never uses any long and complex words - I'm not sure where the whole aphasia thing in fandom comes from; I myself am left hanging daily for far more words than Ray throughout the whole series!, but that's another story).

I tried to show why the Ray I was working with seemed different than the one we're used to in the series. It's not as much a journey with the character, but looking at it from another angle. (I'm not explaining this very well, I think.)

Date: 2007-02-13 10:54 pm (UTC)
ext_12460: acquired from fanpop.com (Story by Daughtershade)
From: [identity profile] akite.livejournal.com
I'm a person that's got to hear the voices in my head if I'm going to write. That said, I'm also visual. To me, the best stories run like a movie in my head. I can see it and hear it.

Date: 2007-02-13 11:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aerye.livejournal.com
Oh, my god--I'm such a fan of reading stories out loud, for voice, for flow, for cadence--all of it!

As for voice/dialogue--for me this is very much a two part process. Dialogue is very hard for me and so I tend to chip away at it--first, what is it that these characters want/need to say to each other (dialogue), and then how do they say it (voice). I tend to build dialogue by starting with the bare bones of what needs to be said to make the scene work, and then add the layers that make it interesting or revealing or true to the characters, and then I come back and look at the voices--the rhythm, the flow, the word choice, etc. Sometimes dialogue gets cut at this point because I realize the character is more likely to convey something by a gesture or a look.

But I always start with the skeleton of the dialogue--the conversation that's needed to push the story forward--and come back to voice.

Date: 2007-02-14 12:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fspider.livejournal.com
Oh, that's brilliant. Because I know the *point* of the conversation, but because it hasn't sprung fully-formed onto the page, I'm just staring and not making any progress. And I am a outline junkie. Thanks!

Date: 2007-02-14 01:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aerye.livejournal.com
You are entirely welcome--it's the best way I've found to work through it. I had the same problem you're describing--struggling with trying to put the entire conversation down in the first pass and just pulling out my hair because I couldn't. But when I cut it into more manageable pieces--what's the first step, what absolutely has to be said, and then how can that dialogue be fleshed out, and then again--success! I tell myself it's like painting--you can't paint everything in the first pass--you have to layer the color. I have to layer the dialogue, and the voices.

Date: 2007-02-14 08:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nos4a2no9.livejournal.com
Painting-with-dialogue is a terrific analogy. It gives me hope because I'm going through a bad time right now with a story that is miserably top-heavy with dialogue. So now I'll just imagine small, careful brushstrokes instead of big broad stripes. *nods*

Date: 2007-02-13 11:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chesamus.livejournal.com
I probably write more 'dialog only' stories than most. I generally hear a plot bunny coming long before I see one. The trick that works for me is reading it out loud - it's pretty clear to me when Fraser is off key.

One other thing I found helpful was changing the POV of the story or the line. For example, you could write it as Ray, then write it as Fraser. Or say the line as Ray, then see if you could ever hear Welsh saying it. The generic stuff isn't the problem, but if you're trying to develop a "Rayism" and you can hear Huey saying it with no problem, then it probaby doesn't belong to Ray.

You can't rely too much on "butter my muffin" etc. - if you watch the show and actually count the times Ray says it, it's probably under two. Those common phrases are quotable and in perfect voice, so everyone uses them, but it's similar with the "Judy, Judy, Judy" line mimics use for Cary Grant. He never said it, but it's so much in his voice, that everone in the audience recognizes it.

It isn't easy developing that ear. You may have strengths in other areas and can tap into the willing and wonderful betas out there. Their constructive criticism can help you "hear" your story.

Date: 2007-02-13 11:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chesamus.livejournal.com
I think the problem most people have with Ray is they get bogged down in the "des guys over dere" and "dos idiots" etc. Yes, Ray does have a bit of regional uniqueness to his dialog, but it's more Chicago by way of Brooklyn as spoken by a Canadian. I tried to write in it once, but then started micro-managing the dialog until it sounded like a bad Sopranos episode. I finally decided that if the words were chosen correctly, the reader would hear the accent without needing to read it.

Dropping in the occasion 'cuz' or 'ya think' isn't going to pose a problem, but I find reading an entire story with what I've heard one person call "authentic voice" pretty frustrating.

Date: 2007-02-14 09:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nos4a2no9.livejournal.com
I completely agree about Ray's dialogue being distracting when presented phonetically. It's hard to avoid sometimes, though - I found myself slipping into it (more of the "cuz" or "ya think" variety than "des guys", thankfully) while writing a recent story and it's a tough habit to break once you start.

I guess it comes down to how you're using it and why. Professional authors frequently make use of phonetic dialogue. If you've read David Adams Richards's "For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down", the character CKR plays in the film speaks almost entirely in phonetic New Brunswick dialogue. So it can be done, but only with serious concessions to what becomes possible in the rest of the story. If you're writing phonetic dialogue for RayK it has to be done for a specific purpose - Fraser musing on the differences in their accents might justify it, I suppose, or if you're trying to illustrate some of the class/cultural barriers between RayK and Stella. I'm not sure if I've ever seen it done well in a story that relies heavily on this specific kind of dialgoue, but it must serve a purpose in small doses. I think.

Date: 2007-02-14 05:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] revbiscuit.livejournal.com
Dropping in the occasion 'cuz' or 'ya think' isn't going to pose a problem, but I find reading an entire story with what I've heard one person call "authentic voice" pretty frustrating.

I'm glad it's not just me, then. I have trouble with phonetic spelling in general because I'm not a native speaker. My default phonetic spelling is Italian, and it looks totally different. I have no trouble with ordinary spelling because I associate the sound with the word - when I read something, I tend to hear the words as if the person who plays the character had spoken them - but whenever anyone tries to emulate dialect that way I am immediately at sea.

It's difficult deciding where you should draw the line. I'm with you, I'd keep it simple and just stick to easily recognisable words, that way it doesn't stop you in your tracks.

Date: 2007-02-14 12:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fspider.livejournal.com
Oh, wow, this is super fast. Thanks! And great timing, since I've three days off starting Friday, and hopefully this can jump-start my weekend.

Date: 2007-02-14 01:39 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kill-claudio.livejournal.com
This is so brilliant! I've only just started writing due South fic, and one of the things I'm having the most trouble with is my Ray voice, so this was really helpful.

I'm having a really hard time with the colloquial expressions, because Ray's language is so vivid, and I struggle to replicate that. I've found that it helps, when I'm watching dS, to write down my favourite Ray phrases, especially the ones we don't hear very often in fandom (my new favourite is "Film at 11, or what?"). This has helped me to analyse exactly what my dialogue is lacking.

My biggest problem is that my own dialect keeps slipping in there where it's completely inappropriate. Words like 'rubbish', 'pavement', 'lift', 'courgette', even, god help me, 'candy floss'. And reading aloud doesn't seem to help because my accent has been honed by fourteen years in the British school system and I sound...well, I sound a bit like Fraser.

I know there are loads of dS writers out there who didn't grow up in America or Canada, and many of you don't even have English as a first language. Seriously, I'm in awe.

Date: 2007-02-14 08:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kill-claudio.livejournal.com
Well, if you decide to have a go, and want a British beta, I'm more than happy to help. I've only seen about half of the last two seasons of Dr Who and random assorted episodes before that, so I won't be much help, but I can give you some token British slang to work with.

Maybe someone needs to write a British-American dictionary?

Date: 2007-02-14 05:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chesamus.livejournal.com
When you run into that kind of wall, you cannot be afraid to ask someone to help with the bricks. I've bugged any number of people for translations into French, Latin, Canadian, (even Gaelic for something in RL). Take advantage of the dS noticeboard and other communities - they are extremely friendly and hardly ever bite, and a good beta is worth their weight in cheesecake.

Date: 2007-02-18 10:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] buzzylittleb.livejournal.com
Have you seen [livejournal.com profile] drop_the_u - it's handy dandy, and don't underestimate the power of the f-list (I now have enough euphonisms for being violoently sick than Ray will ever need)

Date: 2007-02-14 02:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] custardpringle.livejournal.com
Got overexcited before, so I'm reposting my comment here:


custardpringle
2007-02-05 11:00 pm (local) (link)
. . . hi, can I jump in and offer advice here without stepping on any toes?

Because if you have at least a bit of free time on a regular basis, there is nothing like online RP for training you to "hear" character voices, because it really forces you to get into a character's headspace and think and react like they would, and to do it more automatically and fluidly.

I played some characters over the summer in [livejournal.com profile] dear_multiverse-- not due South characters, even, because I wasn't even in this fandom yet-- and when I started classes and shifted back into fic writing I really felt like it had helped a lot with my character voices-- and my writing in general, for that matter.

This is probably not exactly what you're looking for, but it helped me, so I figured I'd offer.

Date: 2007-02-14 04:23 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fspider.livejournal.com
Oh, I did see that! And suck for not commenting at the time. The one thing I can count on w/ my job is a lack of regular free time, but I have a friend who RPs HP with a good group of people, and she's been trying to convince me forever anyway, so I have asked for details.

She, ah, was ecstatic when I relayed your comment, btw. She's been trying to recruit a couple of us for ages, and then unexpected help from unexpected quarters!

Date: 2007-02-15 04:42 am (UTC)
ext_3554: dream wolf (Default)
From: [identity profile] keerawa.livejournal.com
Now, for me, dialogue is what comes first and easiest as an author. If I couldn't hear the character talking, I couldn't write it. In fact, I don't even come up with plot lines. The character tells me what's going to happen.

But I DO sometimes have trouble in longer stories, if I take a break and then have to coax the Muse back. Listening to a piece of music that evokes both the character and the mood of the story works best for me, in that case.

Catch-phrases are powerful cues, but they can easily overwhelm the subtler flavors of your character's voice. I personally think they are a bit over-used in DS.

Date: 2007-03-04 12:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bertybertle.livejournal.com
But I DO sometimes have trouble in longer stories, if I take a break and then have to coax the Muse back. Listening to a piece of music that evokes both the character and the mood of the story works best for me, in that case.

I have this problem too - there's nothing worse than being in the zone for the first half of a story, then completely losing your thread when you get back to it. I'll try the music thing, it might help.

And I'm with you - dialogue comes first and everything else goes in after. If I have a story coming at me so fast I can't keep up, I have to do the whole thing in just dialogue, so I can go back and fill in the other details (like a PLOT) once the story's done. Or else it just dries up on me.

Date: 2007-02-18 10:11 am (UTC)
china_shop: Close-up of Zhao Yunlan grinning (Fraser shirtsleeves-reading)
From: [personal profile] china_shop
I hear character voices in my fingers, not my head. I don't hear or see anything much in my head (except for occasional rare glimpses, usually when I reading fic that is very close to canon). In fact, I sometimes wonder whether people are speaking metaphorically when they say they do "hear" the characters speak. But then, I've found that the skill of storytelling for me is largely stepping back and letting my subconscious do the work, and then editing with my conscious mind. My subconscious comes up with the jokes, the dialogue, the story -- and has a much better grasp of the characters than I do. Writing is like letting my subconscious tell me stories, which I love.

Another thing is my old writing profs always used to say "Resist the urge to explain!" (from one of your comments)

That is so cool! I love stories that start in media res, and let you accumulate a sense of what's going on.
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