Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and I write both fiction and nonfiction, but for today’s episode, we’re going to focus on fiction writing. How can you make your characters’ voices unique—that is, how can they all sound different when they talk on the page?
There are a few factors you can play with here. We’ll start with sentence length. Some characters might talk in whole, complete sentences, while others might speak in choppy phrases. Closely related is the character’s level of formality, whether they’re using big words and proper grammar.
I’m not a fan of catchphrases, personally. They sound contrived and repetitive. It’s better to use subtler cues in pacing than to have a character simply say the same thing all the time. I’m also not a fan of writing out dialects, which can be hard to read and just look like an error. It’s better to simply describe how the character talks and then write it out at least mostly correctly.
That’s your Grammar Minute! Visit thegrammarminute.com for more tips and tricks.