![]() Going too far with accents can be at best annoying and, at worst, outright offensive to those whose real life accents mirror the ones you’re attempting to convey. Less is more in this case.Īnd finally, be very mindful of the accents you use and how you convey them. It can be really difficult for a reader to immerse themselves into your story if they’re spending too much effort trying to figure out what the heck your character is even saying. If you’re going the route of trying to write an accent through your dialogue, be mindful that you don’t go overboard. We aren’t going to go into it in depth here, but there are resources out there on how to write a southern accent or Scottish brogue, for example.Ī word of caution, though. To convey an accent, you can go the route of simply stating “this person has an upper crust British accent” or you can take it a step further and attempt to write the accent using visual text cues. You can, of course, use an accent to convey where someone is from, their class, or use it to convey the period in history that your story is taking place. The world is obviously made up of so many people from so many places, and that means we all have different accents, whether we’re speaking in our native tongues or not. You can also use slow speech to convey information that is extremely important and your character is taking their time to ensure every detail is accurate. A slow talker might be a character who thinks the person they’re dealing with isn’t very bright and is being a little condescending. A fast talker is sometimes a nervous person who wants to get the words out quickly.Ĭonversely, a slow talker might be a mentor type who has endless wisdom to share but is in no hurry to get there. Maybe they’re not particularly honest and like to speak quickly with the hopes that people won’t hear everything they’re saying. If your character is a fast talker, this might suggest they’re impatient or lack good listening skills. Rate is the speed at which someone talks. If things are tense and your character is at risk of discovery by their enemy, then obviously they’re going to be speaking more quietly than a character trying to get the attention of a giant with the purpose of creating a distraction. You can also use volume to convey the tone of the scene. You can use this to convey character personality-a very confident character might speak loudly while a nervous and shy one speaks quietly. Volume is literally how loudly or quietly someone speaks. Or you can flip those expectations and really mess everyone up. Someone who is stoic and calm can have a low voice versus someone who’s excited and energetic who has a high voice. You can also use pitch to convey personality. You can expect that a small child is going to have a higher pitch than a grown man, for example. This is a great one used to help describe your character. This refers to the highness or lowness of a voice. Even without hearing it, you get a sense of what someone with a voice like spun sugar sounds like. When you put it like that, see how you can make use of timbre to convey how a character sounds. Their voice reminded me of velvet-soft petals. I know that sounds a little out there, but think about descriptions you’ve heard where this might work. Timbre also refers to the specific texture or color of a voice. You can use timbre for your characters as well. This is a word that is often used to refer to musical instruments and the sound a particular instrument makes. You can imagine how making use of tone can be used to convey not only the mood of your character, but the story itself. Or their tone might be somber or sarcastic. Someone might speak in a shocked or enthusiastic tone. This refers to the “quality” of someone’s voice. As in, what is their literal voice? This is an important distinction for the purposes of this discussion. No, what we’re talking about is literally how a character speaks. And you can read more about developing and finding your author voice in this article. Writing voice is about how you as an author express yourself on the page. Just to be clear, we aren’t talking about your writing voice, which is a term you’ve likely heard before. First, let's talk about what the components of voice are.
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