Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30266
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30266
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

> Talking like real life ...

Generally, the vocabulary of characters should match their character. My warrior girl Alex doesn't say "ubiquitous", she says "everywhere." But if she is talking about a weapon, she knows the correct name of every part of it, and the correct name of every move with it. Her life is fighting and killing, in five wars, it would be stupid if she called the fuller a groove or the grip a handle, or didn't know the difference between a good quench and a bad one, or didn't know the name of the rain guard.

You should also understand, for characters, a realistic vocabulary: Read the [Wikipedia Vocabulary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocabulary) link. Basically, we have in order of increasing size: Speaking, Writing, Listening and Reading vocabularies. (e.g. You may write a word you never use in conversation; you may read words you would not recognize when heard).

On average people acquire words as they age; young characters (even teens) have a more limited vocabulary than older ones. Less educated or poor a more limited vocabulary than well educated or wealthy (again, on average).

**_Do not_** include people's "uh", "um", or weird pauses, or fillers while they think like, "like", "you know", "I mean" or memory lapses like "whatever" or "kinda like". There are exceptions for dramatic effect when the pause or filler indicates an important hesitation and/or state of mind.

But in _general_ this is not a way to build character or indicate any trait. In books and in film all characters do not struggle with putting things into words and do not need pauses to think. Such "real life" doesn't add a thing to the story, and just makes it a pain to read.

If they DO need pauses to think, put that in prose and make it explicit:

> "I want ..." Alex struggled to find the word. "I want peace."
> 
> It felt odd, and she briefly wondered if she had ever said those words before.

Because an ellipsis indicates a pause or hesitation, but not WHY. It could be embarrassment, or a distraction, or looking for a word, or distrust, or any number of things. (dashes indicate an interruption or hard break; "I want --" is NOT the same as "I want ...")

The halting, pausing, searching, confused language real people use in recordings has no place in writing. What you hear is the people thinking and changing their mind as they speak; what you hear is the failure of people to remember words or names or even what they were saying. But again, those quirks are **symptoms** of something going on in their mind, they don't tell us **what** is going on in their mind. If it makes no difference to the story, leave it out. If it makes a difference, explain it to the reader. Do not use these kinds of things to indicate character. Speech patterns can be used (an extreme example being the inverted grammar of Yoda in Star Wars) to give a character a unique voice.

Like real people characters should have habits of speech. Certain words they like, phrases they use repeatedly (but not in every sentence or exchange), patterns of grammar (or lack of it). These are useful for avoiding attribution. If Josh is the only character that likes to agree by saying "Truth."; then he can speak without attribution.

Characters with their own speaking style (and don't try to write accented speech!) can have long exchanges without attribution: That is her fight trainer speaking, this other is her lover, that is her father, that is her mother. But you don't have to club readers over the head with such differences; they can be subtle, readers have a natural ability to pick up on such differences. If you DO club them over the head (like Yoda) then don't do it for every character; do it for an important singular character, or it could be for characters from an important culture, race or species.

Original score: 5