An important part of character development is dialog. The things your characters say, and the actions they use while speaking can say a lot about their personalities.
Think of someone you know who is say rather bubbly and energetic, and how they word things, how long their sentences typically are, the gestures and other actions they use, etc. Now think of someone else you know, who's rather flat, calm, doesn't get overly excited and maybe even is fairly boring. Those speech mannerisms make those two individuals stand out as unique human beings, and in my less than humble opinion, such qualities are extremely important to portray in your stories.
Personality isn't all that matters however when it comes to the dialog of your characters. Time period, setting, age of the character, the culture from which they come, other languages they may speak and numerous other factors go into the speech mannerisms of a person in your story. All of this contributes to the overall feel and quality of your tale.
Recently, I read a book, whose title and author I shall omit, as I dislike negative reviews and believe in constructive positivity when specifically mentioning other writers' works. This particular book followed a group of World War II rebels fighting the German army in their homeland. Now, the overall quality was quite enjoyable, with a lot of action and suspense, however the dialog used was not at all suited to the characters of the book, nor their time period. That for me seriously decreased the believability of the story.
For example, the rebels would often shout things like, "Don't die man! don't die!" Or, "Hold on, help is Fing coming, just hold on!" Those lines to me sound more like something from a cheesy action flick from the 1990's rather than anything realistic to the 1940's or the region in Europe where this particular tale took place.
Further getting under my crotchety reader's skin was the main British character in the book who used stereotypical English idioms that I don't believe I've ever heard anyone from the UK say. I'm of course referring to phrases such as, "jolly chap," "eh what what," and "tally-ho old boy."
An obvious question here is, "why does this matter, especially in far fetched books like fantasy or horror?" Simple, every book and every story should have a certain amount of realism and believability. One of the ways to achieve this is through the things your characters say and do. For instance, a medieval knight would probably not use modern day curses, like the F-bomb, nor would a gang banger use words like, "thou." By carefully crafting the things your characters would do and say, you are giving the entire tale some consistency, which enhances how believable and authentic it feels.
A great example of this is a little book called, "K-PAX," by Jene Brewer. It covers a psychiatrist, Dr. Brewer, who is treating a patient in a psychiatric hospital. This patient claims to be an extra-terrestrial from a planet called K-PAX.
There are numerous scenes between these two characters, where the doctor talks in a rather dry, professional style of speech and tone. Prot, the alien man speaks with a much brighter, usually cheery manner and punctuates his words with common 1990's American idioms, as though he were indeed from another planet and was experimenting with the stereotypical slang of standard human culture.
The idea of this book sounds a bit out there. However through this careful dialog you gain a lot of insight into these two characters' personalities. The doctor is intellectual and maintaining a professional manner, while Prot is exploring the complexities and intricacies of American English. All that combined enhances the authentic feel of the book and makes it far more believable, even if the base premiss itself is unusual.
How I Construct Dialog:
Crafting fitting dialog can be tricky, but I'll give you a couple examples of ways I like to do it, which very much simplify things.
First, I look at details such as time period, personality etc. What sort of phrases and idioms may have been used in the time and place the story occurs? If I have trouble with this, I can always watch Youtube videos or old television shows relatable to my story, or do some googling to find appropriate expressions, which may not make the speech perfect, but which will definitely enhance the affect for which I am looking.
Secondly, a little exercise I learned is to imagine I'm the characters speaking to one another. It's best to only use two, conversing with each other, so as to keep things simpler. By going into brain storm mode and turning off the analytical part of my mind, I write out a conversation between these two individuals about any random topic. By focusing on the unique personalities of the characters in question I can crank out surprising amounts of natural sounding dialog. Sometimes I might even be able to take snippets of those discussions and insert them into scenes, but at the very least I can use this exorcise to develop a clearer idea of how each of those characters talk. It's actually quite an amusing yet helpful and constructive exorcise.
Your Thoughts:
Do you find dialog makes or breaks a book? I'd love to know.
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