Talk the Talk: Making Your Characters Interact Like People
Recently, I chatted with a friend I’ve been out of touch with. We didn’t talk about anything in particular. A favorite actor of ours had recently passed away (R.I.P, Paul Darrow) and we caught up on life. It was a perfectly normal chat between friends.
But midway through the conversation, something struck me: I converse with this person differently from how I talk with literally everyone else. We’ve known each other for so long that we’ve developed a shorthand: certain words and phrases have shared meanings, there are mutually understood cues for segueing into jokes or stories, and to an outsider, easily three-quarters of any conversation would sound incomprehensible.
I’m not unique in this: all long-standing relationships, be they friendly or romantic or business, or hell, even adversarial, have a specific interpersonal dialect.
In writing advice books and blog posts, something I frequently see is: ‘Make sure your characters all have unique voices.’ Basically, make each character’s dialogue different enough so that the reader can keep them all separate. And that’s good advice! People don’t speak alike. We use a variety of words and sentence structures and speech patterns, depending on a wide range of factors (first language, upbringing, past trauma, subject matter, etc.).
What I have not seen as frequently in those same advice books and blogs is how to show characters’ personal and interpersonal dynamics.
The difference between the way one talks with, for example, a spouse, and the way one talks with family members or coworkers, can be used to great effect to deepen the reader’s understanding of the various characters involved. The same holds true for how communication flows between friends, and between potential romantic interests, and between the hero and the villain of the piece (if those terms happen to apply).
What words does your main character use when they’re speaking to someone they trust, versus someone they’re not sure of, versus someone they hate? How do their speech patterns change? Do they become quiet when they’re with someone who scares them, or do they become annoyingly chatty?
This shorthand doesn’t have to be limited to the dialogue. Body language is part of this as well; physical tics and body movement, comfort levels regarding clothing and accessories, nicknames, inside jokes – all of these concepts can be part of a character’s personal language.
For example, in the novel Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, the demon Crowley frequently refers to his friend, the angel Aziraphale, as “angel.” It could be derogatory, but it reads more as a fond nickname or a pet name. In the miniseries adaptation of the same novel, Crowley – who prefers to wear sunglasses when he’s in company – willingly removes his glasses when he is drinking with Aziraphale. This is never stated explicitly, but it is notable, and significant, that it only happens once, communicating not only to the audience but to Aziraphale that Crowley feels safe enough in Aziraphale’s presence to remove a symbolic barrier.
The different styles and methods of communication can be put to good use in indicating the breadth and scope of characters’ levels of interpersonal familiarity and intimacy.
Making new characters and learning how they behave can be one of the most exciting facets of storytelling. To me, when trying to show the scope not only of a world but of a cast of people, discovering how they react when they come into contact with other characters and exploring the different styles and methods of communication between them is the most fascinating part of all.
A. F. Linley
A. F. Linley was born in Connecticut and raised in New York's Capital District. She is a long-time government copy editor and a casual writer of various types of fiction (including government copy). She wrote her first story when she was nine and decided to pursue writing as a career when some well-meaning but foolish elementary school teacher assured her that she could make a living at this. She lives with her partner near Saratoga and is frequently mistaken for a competent adult. You can find more of her writing at aflinley.com or or patreon.com/aflinley.