: Re: Pitfalls for writing a talkative character? I wouldn't say he's bland by any means, but this character is definitely talkative, and he's supposed to be. He's not the main character but does

@Angie602

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Your character can be boring, but your story shouldn't be.

Here's the golden ideal: every line of prose and every line of dialogue should serve a purpose. If somebody is saying a lot of boring stuff, most of that stuff doesn't serve any purpose - and should be avoided in your final draft.

But, there's a difference between being bored by a character, vs. being entertained by a character being boring. It's just a question of who is getting bored - boring other characters in the story is fine; boring the reader is not.

Here's some typical purposes of demonstrating a character being boring:

To establish character. Being boring, talkative, or chatty is part of who the character is; giving him a few characteristic lines helps you bring that character to life.
For humor. A talkative character can often offer comic relief, by going off on tangents, by hyperfocusing on some minor detail, or another dozen ways.
To ridicule the character. Sometimes you're deliberately mocking the character's talkative nature. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit / And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes / I will be brief, says Hamlet's Polonius, and his inability to say things simply and straightforwardly is uproarious.
For others to be affected by it. Sometimes, the point is that other characters are bored, or exhausted, or amused, or engrossed. In these cases, it's much less important to report everything the talkative character says; instead you can gloss over the content, and focus on other characters' reactions.

So, in brief, whenever you're thinking, "OK, this character's going to go on forever now" -- consider how you want to portray that, and what purpose you want that to serve. Sometimes, you want the text. Sometimes you just want to write And then Malcolm went on for an hour about rutabagas, and we all nodded along politely.

In general, don't worry about it too much in the first draft; recognizing "boring areas" and places where readers might drift off is better suited for later edits - it's much easier to take a meandering bit of text and chop it down to something quick and snappy, than it is to write everything quick and snappy on the first go.

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