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can you give tips on how to change up character dialogue? all of my characters end up sounding the same and i'm not sure how to fix it

How to Write Unique Voices for Characters in Fiction

When it comes to writing fiction, creating unique and believable characters is absolutely essential. One important aspect of character development is crafting unique voices that reflect each character’s personality and background.

Understand your characters

Before you can write distinct voices for your characters, it’s important to understand who they are. Building out a solid foundation and developing compelling backstories is one of the best ways to ensure they always have unique voices. Here are some tips for getting to know your characters:

Write character sketches that detail their backgrounds, personalities, goals, and motivations.

Conduct interviews with your characters as if they were real people, asking them about their likes and dislikes, fears, goals, and more (the Proust questionnaire is a popular way to do this).

Imagine how your characters’ past experiences will change how they speak in different situations and when experiencing varied emotions.

Use description to enhance your characters’ voices

Descriptions can be just as important as dialogue when it comes to creating character voices. Here are some tips for using descriptions to enhance your characters’ personalities:

Use specific details to create vivid descriptions of each character’s body language, mannerisms, and behaviour.

Consider how each character’s mannerisms might influence their speech patterns. For example, a character who is shy might be hesitant to speak or repeat themselves frequently.

Pay attention to how your characters interact with their environment. Do they use their hands a lot when they speak? Do they pace around the room or sit still?

Use sensory details to create immersion. For example, a character who is nervous might sweat profusely or fidget with their jewellery.

Avoid stereotypes and clichés

When writing unique voices for characters, it’s important to avoid falling back on stereotypes or clichés. Here are some tips for creating characters that feel fresh and authentic:

Avoid using dialects or accents. Not only do these often rely on stereotypes, but they also break reader immersion unless authenticity is absolutely essential to the type of book you are writing.

Consider how each character’s background and experiences might influence their beliefs and values. One-dimensional characters built on clichés won’t have unique voices.

Think outside of the box when it comes to creating distinct voices. Instead of relying on traditional archetypes, consider combining traits from multiple sources to create something new.

How to craft unique dialogue

With the basics in place, how do we convert unique character voices into dialogue? Here are some tips for writing dialogue that feels authentic and unique to each character:

Read your dialogue out loud to hear how it sounds, and make sure it’s true to how you imagine your character to be.

Give your characters a unique conversational quirk that feels natural. An example could be that they call everyone “love.”

Vary the length and complexity of sentences to reflect each character’s personality and background.

Consider how each character’s education and experiences might influence their vocabulary and sentence structure.

Use dialogue tags sparingly to avoid detracting from the actual words being spoken.

Avoid using too much exposition or explaining too much in dialogue. Instead, let the characters speak when it serves your story.

By understanding your characters, crafting unique dialogue, using descriptions to enhance character voices, and avoiding stereotypes and clichés, you can create vibrant, engaging characters that will keep readers hooked from start to finish.

How to Find Your Own Writing Style

Tropes and cliches can be hard to avoid, especially when you’re working within specialized genres or categories. Tom Siddell, creator of the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court, reminds us why it’s so important to write for yourself:

Sci-fi stories don’t always need spaceships, just like fantasy stories don’t always need swords and sorcery. In fact, relying on popular tropes might be off-putting to readers who already are not fans of a particular genre.

Keeping that in mind, I took elements of sci-fi and fantasy that I enjoyed and tried to present them in original and interesting ways when I started working on the story for my comic. I wanted to explore some of the fun, more obscure European myths, and I introduced those creatures irreverently. In contrast, the robots that inhabit the world of my comic have very spiritual personalities, and live strange, searching, solemn lives. I thought this was an interesting play on typical fantasy and sci-fi conventions.

Don’t go for style in your work, go for substance.

Keep reading

A Lolli Pop; A Story of Love

Marco A. Romero

When I told her that I loved her she did not believe me. She threw the Lolli Pop outburst in my face that had happened when we were kids, and we played hide and seek, the cat and the mouse, and freeze tag (you're it).

I do not know what happened, at that time.

I guess I wanted to eat a sweet and she did not want to share her Lolli Pop with me, so I took it away from her, and I ran to eat it under a tree, and I enjoyed it quietly with pleasure.

The Lolli Pop tasted sweet.

What was not sweet was her heartbroken, and from there she did not want to talk to me. That anger lasted years, maybe decades...

She said I was a bad boy!

Then I remembered, a few years later, when I asked her to be my girlfriend because she no longer had these crazy girl traits, or I did not know if the love I felt for her made me not seeing her as she was because love is blind. ...  By the way, she rejected me...

I argued (trying to be a little philosophical) that love was not related to things, nor was there a correlation between my love for her and the Tootsie Pop that I had taken away from her years ago as children, but she argued yes!!! - In this strange and irrational feminine logic inference and again I repeated to her that I liked the lolli pop, and had nothing to do with love and period (I had to be a man, truthful and make things clear once and for all, right?)

Bad result!

She never talked to me anymore! ... I think she did not like my tone of not regretting what she thought was wrong. The years past by, and as she grew older she was getting more beautiful. I did not know how to make her forget the Tootsie Pop outburst.

I loved her. Really.

A lot.

I imagined in my hypothesis that she would have read the novel of Pedro Páramo , and some of it would have stayed in her heart , because she was too intellectual, with those words "make him pay dearly  the neglect of duty that we had“, or rather, I should say the Tootsie Pop one day he took away from me ...

A decade later we found each other at the law school. I must admit she was a beauty, and I liked her even more. My first impulse was to talk to her, but she again harangued me the Tootsie Pop incident with sweet chocolate that I had taken away from her, decades ago....

Truly I was desperate....

I figured out the reason she wanted to be a lawyer or prosecutor in court. She had this very great talent to explain with detail, with delightful charm, I would say, the

evils and omissions that the accused had committed to reach the tribunal.

But I still loved her and liked her like that.... She was beautiful, indeed.  I was in love with her and I could not do anything else but to be close to my dear love. My crazy heart loved whoever did not deserve to be loved and endured all the insults, rants, and bad moods.  As the time passed intruding questions came into my mind from Descartes, Plato and Thomas Aquinas. She was intellectual and I did not want to stay behind her knowledge, of course….

I told her that "if we think” about that candy, then “it would exist " and it would interfere in our relationship that I wanted to have with her.  I wanted to offer the best of me (my heart, and it sounds corny but sometimes so it is) and that the love that I felt for her would give me the thrust to build those palaces that she deserved and I could not temporarily give, unless we both work hard for it. I would accomplish her dream, of course ... being Descartes.

 I told her what St. Thomas Aquinas said "seeing is believing" and she would see my immense passion trying to meet her each day and at least say " Good morning " when passing between classes. After looking at her, my mind was filled with her smile that I tried to draw later in my notebook when the teacher was lecturing.  Obviously my teacher wondered what the drawing had to do with the notes and explanations of civil law that he had taught...

“None” teacher, I said. It is that I'm in love and love makes me fly like a butterfly.

I apologized and asked him that love should be declared as a pleasant cause of exception to the rigidity of academic schools. This feeling is uncontrollable, -I argued, and suddenly it came into my mind her image, the wind, and the leaves of the shaking trees like a movie, where we both walked together holding hands and being happy to enjoy what life gave us....

(Do not think wrong, I said, I mean the love that I feel for her)

And again, I said, it has nothing to do with you teacher, but with the fact that I am just in love....

Try other methods! My psychologist told me. One day I brought two Tootsie Pops with chocolate inside to make amends to my beloved, but she said that those lolli pops were not the same as the one I had mistakenly eaten...

Afterwards, when she looked at the other lolli pop with an engagement ring, she looked at me, smiled, hugged me and screamed I do!! I do!

That was the biggest hug that I have ever had in my life.

And we both lived happily ever after.... getting married

What is your story of love?

#Frasescelebres

Ten facts about gender inequality in business

Gender is a central concept in modern societies. However, gender gaps are still a wide-spread phenomenon. While gender gaps in education and health have been decreasing remarkably over time and their differences across countries have been narrowing, gender gaps in the labour market and in politics are more persistent and still vary largely across countries.

The following ten facts, written by Paola Profeta (Associate Professor in Public Economics at Università Bocconi), help shed light on the gender-gap problem:

Gender gaps have historical roots: These roots can be traced back to the organization of the family and to traditional agricultural practices.

Culture matters in determining gender gaps: Gender stereotypes are well-established, both among men and among women.

Men and women have different attitudes and behaviours: On average women are significantly less likely than men to make risky choices and to engage competition.

Maternity does not explain it all: There is no trade-off between fertility and female employment – but maternity is a penalty in the labour market.

Education is the first engine of gender equality: Women and men are currently equally educated, and women often surpass male educational attainments in developed countries.

Gender gaps in employment and the glass ceiling are different phenomena - although they often go hand-in-hand. 

Labour demand is as important as individuals’ choices: Firms’ decisions, employers’ attitudes and beliefs, are as important as individuals’ incentives and choices.

Institutions play a crucial role in supporting female employment: Family policies, parental leave, and formal child care provisions may help supporting female labour supply.

Institutions play a crucial role in determining the glass ceiling: How to promote female leadership and the presence of women in top positions is a highly debated issue.

Women’s empowerment and economic development are interrelated: Economic development improves women’s conditions and reduces inequality – and the involvement of women in the economy is a key engine for growth.

For more information about gender inequality, check out Paola Profeta’s article on the OUPblog.

Image Credit: ‘Office, Tax, Business’, Image by FirmBee, CC0 Public Domain, via Pixabay.

Positivity Here

Jueves 04 de Noviembre de 2021 𝓑𝓾𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 𝓭𝓲́𝓪𝓼 𝓫𝓮𝓵𝓵𝓪𝓼 𝓶𝓾𝓳𝓮𝓻𝓮𝓼! 🌞 Devocional: “La buena semilla”

🔸Si confesares con tu boca que Jesús es el Señor, y creyeres en tu corazón que Dios le levantó de los muertos, serás salvo. Romanos 10:9

📌No tenían conocimiento de Dios Lectura propuesta: 1 Samuel 2: 12-17

💖 La historia de los dos hijos del sacerdote Elí nos llama la atención. Ofni y Finees fueron criados en una familia que servía a Dios, pero no heredaron la piedad de su padre. Al contrario, se atrevieron a usar su posición de sacerdotes para su propio beneficio. La razón principal de su mala conducta era que no conocían a Dios: “Los hijos de Elí eran hombres impíos, y no tenían conocimiento del Señor” (1 Samuel 2:12).

💖 Por supuesto, sabían que Dios existía, conocían el ritual del servicio religioso, las fechas y las estaciones de las ofrendas especiales y de las fiestas anuales. Incluso conocían las leyes concernientes a cada tipo de ofrenda; no obstante, hacían las cosas para su propio beneficio. ¡Pero conocer los rituales no significa conocer a Dios! Podían repetir oraciones aprendidas de memoria, pero no habían tenido un encuentro personal con Dios.

💖 El verdadero conocimiento de Dios es el resultado de la fe en él. Dios se da a conocer al que lo busca. Todas las personas que lo deseen pueden encontrarlo hoy y ser liberados de sus pecados, si creen en su Hijo Jesús y en el valor de su obra. Este encuentro, que nos establece en una relación viva con Dios, es fundamental.

💖 Los hijos de Elí nunca tuvieron este encuentro inicial con Dios. ¡Su ejemplo es una advertencia muy seria! ¡Los ritos religiosos no nos salvan! Al contrario, pueden volvernos insensibles al estado de nuestro propio corazón y hacernos menospreciar a Dios. Lo que importa no son solo nuestros actos, sino nuestro corazón, pues Dios desea “la verdad en lo íntimo” (Salmo 51:6).

Labuenasemilla.net ¡Bendiciones para todas!

Con amor 𝓣𝓪𝓷𝓲𝓪 𝓜 𝓞𝓵𝓼𝓼𝓸𝓷 🙏📖🕯💐🙋🏻‍♀‍ . #Dios #mujeres #cristianos #dmujercristiana #dmujercristianadevocional #devocional #labuenasemilla #flores🌸#flores🌺#mujerdefe #mujervirtuosa #mujerpiadosa #mujercristiana #mujerdedios (en Paraguay, Paraguay) https://www.instagram.com/p/CV13A29rliM/?utm_medium=tumblr