A Character's Voice and Attitude
Developing a Tone and Personality for Fictional Characters
Oct 25, 2009
A character’s voice is the means to recognize certain qualities that are portrayed in a literary work. The reader must be able to distinguish the character’s dialogue from another by solely recognizing the subject’s unique tone; this creates a familiarization with the character and allows the reader to maintain a formal attachment — an attachment that is vital to understanding the character’s distinctive behaviors, preferences, alignment and overall purpose.
Developing Tone
Developing a particular tone can only be done if the author has a collective and vivid understanding of the character being portrayed — simply connoting that a character must be observed as someone the writer is familiar with; not merely a subject that proceeds along with a plot. By formulating such a relationship with the character, the author soon would discover that the plot literally writes itself. The overall storyline would be solely based upon the natural or typical tendencies of the character; dramatically increasing the efficiency and understanding of the story since the characters are the subjects that advance the story.
Importance of Stereotypes
Creating a stereotypical view of your character is actually a great approach to accustom the reader with the character’s personal behaviors and attitudes. Think of the classical comic-book hero Superman; a bold and heroic figure that devotes his life to justice. In any given scenario, the reader is able to predict Superman’s thoughts, motives, reasoning or affections by simply perceiving him as the “heroic and gallant” stereotype. As a side note, you can also use the stereotypical view of your character as an advantage to dismay your readers with an unexpected act (such as the fall of Superman).
Why Appearance is Not Relevant
Most may think constructing a descriptive view of your character is what defines their particular individuality; however, experienced authors prefer to allow the readers to imagine the physical features of a character under their own terms. An audience views a play for its art — not the definitive details of how it was constructed. A novelist writes a story for the reader to imagine; describing every brick on a wall will not move the story forward. It is the reader’s job to envision the imagery of the character as they will; describing bits of information ruins the entire focus of the story set in motion.
Examples:
A Bit Too Much:
- The strangely tall and awkward looking pirate moved along the shores of the open sea. As he stood in the dry sands wearing his long leather coat and torn boots, the only thought that resided in his mind was that he needed his sword sharpened. His sword was placed firmly alongside his waist with his dark-leather strapped belt holding it onto place. His torn white shirt was fluttering as the wind paced through the dawn’s early rise. He held his arms firmly in place of his waist and squinted his eyes as he looked towards the horizon.
Just Right:
- The tall and strangely appeared middle-aged pirate carried along the shores of the open sea. As he stood within the coarse sands, his only thoughts were of sharpening his old and rusted sword. He looked upon the horizon with pain-bearing eyes and held a determined face any man would come to fear.
The first example gave a well applied imagery of how the character appeared; however, despite the incredible length it still could not describe the character’s attitudes or nature. Therefore, the efforts remains extraneous to the overall story-line. The much shorter secondary sentence gave the reader sufficient detail to both contemplate their own sense of the pirate as well as understand his personality traits to be of an undaunted character.
Developing a character’s tone, and attitude is the only way to entirely engage the reader with your characters. Without those vital qualities that make a character; they will be seen as tedious or dull figures without much of a “character” at all.
 |
