On Writing: Character Voice

Stories are about people. Maybe you have a fantastic world, maybe you have a really cool SF what-if (colonizing the rings of Jupiter!), maybe your characters are an alien and a sentient AI probe from Earth. Still. Stories are about people. And one of the ways to make characters come across as real, breathing individuals on the page, is to give them their own voices.

(This works for fanfics, too; though in that case you’re trying to catch the voice the creator has already established. The same elements apply.)

There are three major components I consider absolutely necessary to catch a character’s voice. Word choice, worldview, and scope of knowledge. Or in other words, would your character pick these words to say X is a problem? Would they actually consider X a problem? And do they know how big a problem X is in the first place?

Word choice is critical; it’s even been known to get people killed. There’s a story, possibly apocryphal, of a British commander calling his U.S. counterpart for help, describing his situation as being in “a bit of a tight spot.”

What the American GI heard: Eh, we have a problem, mind fitting us in when you have a chance?

What the British commander meant: We’re out of ammo and holding them off with knives and our teeth, get over here!

You see the problem.

Word choice helped make the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer memorable. The contrast of California Valley teen voices with a stuffy British Watcher and other far-less-slangy adults and teachers let you immediately identify who was going to be on which side when it came to dealing with the Monster of the Week, and who was likely to 1) make a bad situation worse or 2) get eaten. This was always particularly interesting when one of the Scoobies was mistaking a supernatural problem for something mundane, as this bit from Giles when Buffy asks if Xander’s possessed. “It’s devastating. He’s turned into a sixteen-year-old boy. Of course you’ll have to kill him….”

Which leads into worldview. For the past few years in Buffy’s life, every Major Problem has had a supernatural cause, and she can’t talk about it with anyone who doesn’t already know, or they’ll think she’s crazy. (Including, sadly, her parents.) So with most people she acts the ditzy if observant Valley Girl whose most serious problem is not having the right new outfit to hit the Bronze. Around those who know she still speaks Valley, but with a far more practical edge.

Giles, on the other hand, though trained as a Watcher, has lived many more years where serious problems were just other humans being humans. If it looks like a normal human problem, he treats it as such; the crossbow comes out later.

And here’s where scope of knowledge comes in. Buffy was on that zoo trip, she saw the change in Xander’s behavior. On top of that she takes classes with Willow and Xander every day; she knows how they interact. She saw a sudden shift with a possible identifiable trigger. Giles sees them all less hours of the day, he’s more likely not to have noticed anything except lamentable Teenage Guyness. Until his poking in the stacks finds the Primals. Once he knows, he goes from mentor dealing with unfortunate teenage realities to Watcher with an evil zookeeper to stomp.

…As it turns out at the end, he’s not entirely wrong even before that. Xander is a teenage guy – who normally does not behave in such a cruel fashion because he knows better.

Xander (facing Giles after having proclaimed amnesia to his friends): …Shoot me, stuff me, mount me.

Giles (dryly): Your secret… dies with me.

Consider what your characters would say. Consider what they think, and what they know. The hero who’s never met zombies at the start of the story will have much different things to say once he’s survived a few chain-swarms!