Craft series #1 - voice

[sage]

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.


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 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). :)

Comments

[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 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. :)

[sage]

Hmm, I'm not really a fan of catchphrases -- mostly because they suffer from major overuse and don't often feel like an organic part of the story. It's like "buddies". Billy Tallent actually says "buddies" a LOT more often (and with more loaded meaning) than RayK does, but it's become pervasive in DS fic anyway. That doesn't mean RayK shouldn't ever say it, but that it should be used sparingly -- since "buddies" practically flashes in neon every time it's used. "Kick him in the head", too, is cute, but so overused now that I'm looking for fresh ways for RayK to be adorably menacing. *g*

I think a lot of it could be handled by how you frame it. If you think about a story having a beginning, a middle, and an end, then the beginning could show the character using his voice as we're used to -- and then something happening to make him get very quiet and rethink the way he communicates. Then the middle would show him figuring out a new language, sort of test-driving it as he works out where he is in this new situation. Then the end would show him having fully integrated the new language into his new self, maybe without even realizing it.

I think if you leave off the beginning, you run the risk of confusing the reader -- especially in a case where we have such specific expectations about what a character sounds like because if it's a huge change from what we're used to as readers, we need to understand why it's different before we can accept it.

Another thing is my old writing profs always used to say "Resist the urge to explain!" Just show it and let the reader experience it along WITH the character. That way the change feels organic and we can appreciate the whole journey.

[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.)