It's a common problem, even among professional authors: all of your characters sound the same, and they often sound exactly like you. If we take a moment to consider it, though, we realize that people - including ourselves - are really just a mash-up of the influential people in our lives. We have mannerisms and characteristics that come from our parents. Maybe your mother talked with her hands, and you do, too. Maybe your father liked to start sentences with, "Welp, we'll see about that," and you find yourself doing that, too. Maybe you had a favorite third-grade teacher and you adopted a few of her saying and thoughts. Decades later, those things are a part of you, so much so that you don't even remember where they came from. All of us are influenced by our environments. The degree to which we are influenced may vary from person to person, but all of us are amalgamations of past people in our lives, integrated and synthesized with our own unique thoughts and personality traits.
Your characters are no different.
Each character has an entire history and backstory, whether it makes its way into the manuscript or not. Each character has influences and teachers along the way. The problem that we face, however, is that we don't write characters from that standpoint; we often write characters from our standpoint. How would we respond in this situation? How would we react to that statement? Or, worse yet, we try so desperately hard to not sound like ourselves when we write dialogue, that it comes across forced and unnatural.
That happens, too. Think back to the "You're so beautiful" scene in Revenge of the Sith:
Or this gem from Attack of the Clones:
No shade on George Lucas here, but these scenes are clunky; people don't talk this way in real life. More than that, both characters have dialogue that is interchangeable, especially in the Revenge of the Sith scene. Padmé and Anakin sound exactly the same here: forced, unnatural dialogue with forced, unnatural personality.
It's an easy trap to fall into because, as a writer, you're trying to create characters that aren't you, but it's also impossible to know how someone else experiences life. If your main character is French but you've never been to France, how can you relate to his or her experiences? You were born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, so how do you write dialogue for a someone from Cairo who speaks English as a second language? There's also the tendency, especially when you're just starting out, to try to write with a "writing voice." You try to sound like an author, instead of an actual person. It's why we can, even if it's only subconsciously, recognize amateur writers. There's a difference between someone who is stuck in a "writing voice" and someone who has figured out how to move beyond it.
The big question then is how we can move beyond it. Well, the answer is short, but complicated. The best way to create character dialogue that sounds real is to create characters who feel real. So that's where we're going to start. Here are four tips and approaches to making characters that are unique and realistic.
What is the motivation of each character?
We are all motivated by numerous goals in life. Maybe we want to achieve a certain level of notoriety and fame. Maybe we want to learn all there is to know about cancer. Maybe we want to be there for our kids and spouse. Maybe we want to invent something that would improve daily life.
Of course, not every motivation is good. Maybe you went through something terrible and now you're motivated by revenge. That's a bad motivation, but it's a motivation nonetheless. We all have motivations.
But here's where it gets tricky: none of us have only one motivation. We have motivations that operate on deeper levels, behind our surface motivations.
If you're reading this, there's a chance you are motivated to write a novel. That's the surface motivation, but why do you want to write this novel? Fame? Fortune? Just to say you did it? These are motivations, too.
But we could dig deeper still.
Why do you want a fortune? Is it because you're greedy? That's a bad motivation. Maybe, instead, you want to build up generational wealth, or maybe you want the financial freedom to help others. Those are good motivations. Our goals in life are many and deep, and your characters should be, too. If you want characters who resonate with readers, characters who feel like real people, find out why they do what they do, but go beyond the surface and find deeper motivations.
Base them on real people in your life
The easiest way to create realistic characters is to base your characters on real people. I was helping an author develop one of her novels and she had written a character who reminded me slightly of the late singer/songwriter Isaac Hayes. Not a whole lot, mind you, just a little. But the character was underdeveloped despite being a significant character in the book. So I suggested some more dialogue and some interactions that drew heavily on Hayes, but retained that particular character's motivations, historical context, and purpose. What came out of it was a character who was extremely fun to read and get to know.
Have a grizzled old neighbor who loves the neighborhood and is always looking out for people, but likes to pretend he doesn't care? Have a character in your novel who acts similarly? Use your neighbor to influence that character.
Notice, I said influence. Don't copy the person. Don't give your character the same name, and definitely don't use your inspiration's real life as part of your work. Instead, when you have your character in a situation, ask yourself what the inspiration for your character would do or say. How would my grizzled old neighbor react if a portal to another dimension opened up in front of him? What would he say?
Using real people to influence and inspire fictional characters can help your dialogue immensely.
Develop their characters
The best piece of advice I was ever given for creating a character was to create a dream sequence for every main character in your story. You don't have to include those sequences - in fact, don't - but write them out anyway, because this will allow you to explore your main characters' motivations, fears, hopes, failures, and successes.
By writing these dreams, you can get as scary, as trippy, as exciting as you want. The purpose here is to be creative so that you can see where characters develop themselves.
That's right, develop themselves.
As any experienced writer will tell you, sometimes you aren't writing the story, you're just setting down what flows on its own. And sometimes a character says something that you don't expect, but it works better than anything you could have imagined.
Read your work out loud
I've said this in a previous post, but I'll say it again: read your work out loud. The best way to see if a conversation flows naturally is to have the conversation. If your family thinks you're crazy, explain to them what you're doing. Remember, if you can't say it, then you shouldn't write it.
It's not a race
The point in all of this is that writing good, believable, and compelling dialogue takes time. And that's okay. This isn't a race. You don't have to finish your novel by tomorrow, or else (and if you do, why on earth did you procrastinate so much with a looming deadline?!). Develop your characters as naturally and organically as you can, because that's how people develop. We go through things in life, some of them great, some of them awful. We find passions, we find things we detest, and we find other people along the way who influence us.
If you want your characters to sound like real people, you need to develop characters who are real people. Whether your character is a supervillain in a comic book, or a mouse operating a small carnival for rodents, develop him or her. Give them dimensions. Give them a reason and motivation for the things they do, even if those things are never explicitly stated. Give them trauma. Pain can be a powerful motivator. Once you have characters who have personalities, you'll find that they will be able to speak with personality.
And, hopefully, none of them will talk about sand.
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