Peter and the Wolf and Character Voices
A storytelling lesson on making your characters sound unique
The classic orchestral piece “Peter and the Wolf” is known for assigning specific instruments to all of its characters. Peter and each animal have a different sound that indicates their presence in the story, and it is interesting to hear how all of these different sounds interact and play off of each other during the course of the story. Nonmusical stories achieve something similar in the usage of the voices of their characters. Each character in every story has a voice, whether you can hear it or not. These voices intermingle, interact and respond to each other, which creates a rich tapestry to aid the reader in immersion into the story. This is something you can tap into as a storyteller. There are aspects of the character voice that you need to be cognizant of as you implement this, and if used in tandem, they can all work together to give your characters unique voices that enrich the narrative.
The sound of a voice
Whether it’s the deep baritone of a James Earl Jones or the high-pitched squeak of a Mike Tyson, the sound of a character’s voice can be a distinctive signature of a character and can mold the way a reader perceives them. If you can articulate how your characters’ voices sound when they talk to you, then that becomes an important tool to help convey your character to the reader the exact way you envisioned them. Study words that describe sound and pitch and find the right words that fit how that character sounds when they speak to you. In a story I wrote long ago, I wanted a character to have the bold voice of Tupac Shakur, so I described his voice as brassy.
You also want to truly think about how that character sounds when they talk to you. Maybe your character speaks in a way typical for that type of character in movies or television shows you've seen, like your hero being an even tenor or your mysterious, sexy character speaking in a breathless whisper. Once you think about these voices, you can lean into the conventions, or you can buck trends and change conventions by altering how their voice sounds. What if your grandiose, machiavellian criminal mastermind had a throaty, high-pitched voice that cracked like a ten-year old that just hit puberty? How would their henchmen take them seriously?
Finally, you don’t want to overdo stating how the character’s voice sounds. Just a mention or two when you introduce the character should be enough for the reader to be able to hear the character’s voice in their mind’s ear.
Dialect & Accent
Everybody has an accent when they talk that reflects where they come from. Even you. You might not think you have one because everyone around you talks the way you do, but when you go somewhere where everyone is not like you, they will say you have an accent. Your characters all have accents that come from their backgrounds and back stories, and making those accents distinct can make your characters' voices more memorable. A convenient way to convey a character's accent is with a short description of how they talk when the character is introduced. Once you establish that accent early, that character will from that point on be identified with that way of talking in the reader's mind. If you want to drive home the point or make that connection more visceral, you can even alter spellings of certain words so that they phonetically sound more like the character's accent. You want to be very careful when going that route, though. Overdoing it can make your character a caricature of themselves, and the reader will be less likely to take them seriously. Too much intentional misspelling can also make it harder to read the story, which can make the reader's immersion in the story harder to achieve. In general, you don't want to overstate your character's accent, lest the way they talk stands out to the reader more than what they are actually saying. You also want to be cognizant of how you describe an accent. British and Southern accents are commonly used, but there are multiple distinct variations of both accents that can say a lot about a character’s background. A Yorkshire British accent sounds very different from a Welsh British accent, and a southerner from rural Alabama will sound vastly different than a southerner from Bankhead in Atlanta, Georgia. Understand the differences and use that to properly contextualize your character’s accent.
Cadence
Another thing that differentiates characters’ voices is the cadence in which they speak. You can tell the difference between a fast-talking New Yorker and the slow drawl of a southerner. There is an inherent rhythm to how people talk that can be tapped into to make their voices distinct. You can control this with various writing techniques, such as how you vary the length and amount of words your characters use when they speak. Lots of shorter words and shorter sentences can indicate fast talking or it's opposite; maybe a laconic character that uses few words. Longer sentences with extra descriptive words may indicate a long-winded talker of great intelligence, or an exaggerator that likes to embellish. If you know of rhythm techniques used in poetry like iambic pentameter, you can also utilize those to give your character a unique speaking cadence that will set them apart from your other characters.
Slang
A character’s culture and background are huge elements in determining a character’s voice. In prose, this is reflected in the slang and jargon they use when they talk. You can convey a lot about a character with the jargon they use; specifically the where and when of their background. If a character uses terms like "sun" and "god" to address people they think highly of, you could infer that they are accustomed to New York City's inner city youth culture during the mid to late 1990s. If, like, your character, like, uses the word ‘like’ a lot, like, they could, like, be associated with California valley girls in the 1980s. Slang and colloquialisms change constantly over time and distance, and that is something you can use to your advantage to establish your character's distinct voice. Your character could have a pet phrase or slang word they say every now and then like X-Men superhero Gambit and his trademark Creole "chere", or the women in the classic Coffee Talk skits from Saturday Night Live and their frequent use of Yiddish, or a Mexican luchadore slipping in and out of his native tongue when talking to American audiences about his upcoming opponent. Slang can be a powerful tool for establishing a character's identity, but like with these other techniques, you don't want to overdo it. Too much slang can flatten your character into a stereotype and rob them of depth and nuance you will need to make that character memorable.
Vocal tics
Some people also have hitches in the way they talk that can also affect their voice. Does your character have a lishp? Maybe they breath heavily when they talk, or they constantly have to clear their throat? Even these little details can help flesh out a character and make their voice more definitive to the reader. Of course, like with the other elements, just an occasional reminder of the tic is enough to get your point across. You don’t need to overdo it.
Conclusion
A distinct voice can go a long way towards making a character memorable to the reader. You can mix and match a variety of elements to give your characters fully realized voices, and I recommend giving this some consideration as you build your characters and intermingle them with each other. Give it a try.
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