Voices

The natural voice. Natural speech.

You will have to write dialogue within your story. Unless you're that good that you don't need speech. But you will most likely involve some voice or dialogue. Now creating dialogue sounds easy right? Looks easy too?

It isn't.

For one: the conversation or banter has to flow. This means that it sounds like a conversation that could take place in front of you. If you walked into a room and walked in on two or three people exchanging a series of words between each other, would it sound natural or does it sound stilted and framed.

Stilted and framed speech. What I mean by this is that the words don't fit the characters. They've simply been put in to add information or to create a certain scenario or drama between a couple of characters. You could trawl many 'original' work websites where people have created their own original pieces of work. I guarantee you  that you will find many pieces where the speech is 'stilted and framed'. It has been deliberately written like that for a reason other than what the character would likely say.

Two: Making a back and forth series of lines sound well isn't rocket science but it also needs some serious thoughts put to it. Imagine the kind of character you have and how they're likely to respond to a scenario. Would they say something specifically or would they say something that sounds natural to them?

Three: Don't add 'umm' 'err' 'I- I- ... well-' There are many more examples of these and collectively they are known as signifiers of natural speech. These are the little false starts, repetitions and hesitations that you hear in everyday speech. "Well like... well you see...." Imagine seeing those kind of words at the start of every spoken sentence.

Natural speech is good. Too natural speak is bad. There is a middle line and a great way to get an idea for natural speech that draws on the middle line is TV. Listen to the characters. They never start with 'Umm' 'Errr' 'Ugh.' They never hesitate or repeat the first four words of a sentence properly unless it's done deliberately and to an effect. Using very natural speech for an effect is fine as long as it is kept on a brief level.

One way to get yourself used to writing natural speech with voices in mind is to imagine yourself having a conversation with one of your friends. Let's say there's some spat going on between you two. It could be anything. But imagine you were trying to mend the bridges. What would you say? What would they say? How would they say it? What would the reactions be?

Always read the speech in your head before and after you've written it down. If necessary read it aloud to yourself. Does sound natural? Does it sound like the character? Reading the lines again will often help you to see what is wrong with the line.

Happy Writing.