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Q&A How can one not let their voice show through in all the characters?

Your characters do not need to sound different. Reading current fiction, I rarely can tell the characters apart by their voice alone. That is, if you take a page of dailog and remove all reference...

posted 7y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:38:59Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24845
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:38:59Z (over 4 years ago)
# Your characters do not need to sound different.

Reading current fiction, I rarely can tell the characters apart by their voice alone. That is, if you take a page of dailog and remove all references to who speaks, usually all the characters speak pretty much the same.

If it is part of your writing style and artistic vision to give each character an individual voice, then asking a question here is the wrong way to begin. You will need to listen to how people speak and try to emulate that in writing. There are no ready-made recipes that you can blindly follow, you will have to develop your ear and your writing ability by practicing.

If, on the other hand, you just want to tell a gripping story, different voices for different characters are not at all necessary, and most writers don't do it.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2016-10-03T19:19:42Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 2