: Re: Writing exercises to practice the art of giving unique voice to characters? I've read many blogs which teach you how to give a unique voice to each of your characters. I feel I understand

@Shelley992

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The exercise I use is to listen to a whole lot of other people talk: friends, family, even strangers at Starbucks. The best talk is when they tell stories, like what happened last night at the club. If you are naturally good at mimicry and pastiche, that may be all you need, but there are two additional steps I take.

First, I pretend I'm taking dictation and try to write exactly what was said. Just a sentence or two, I'm not a court reporter. Writing verbatim forces you to ignore your own voice and just be the pen, or more to the point, the ears. I also take notes on overall speech patterns when they are interesting or unusual. I once overheard a conversation between two people where one of them spoke nothing but questions and the other kept digressing to answer: Hanna was so weird last night after the wedding rehearsal ... Jane's wedding ... you know, my neighbor from where I lived before ... no, god, not that dump, the house I shared with Tisha and John ... no, he's still in rehab, ...

Second, I try writing some dialogue, or maybe a monologue, in a style of speech I'd practiced in Step 1, after I have enough material to have some ability to imitate and predict.

Bottom line, the more you listen to real people, the easier it becomes to give your characters different styles of speech.

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