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41. You haven’t separated the character’s voices!
You know George Costanza, right? Seinfeld’s overbearing buddy? Good. I’ll get back to him in a minute.
Some years ago, I was on my way to a meeting in Hollywood. I was on Fountain, at the light at La Brea. I looked out my window and saw a woman walking up the sidewalk. She was tall and thin. She had on nine inch platform shoes and a powder blue double-knit pants suit. Bellbottoms that were starched and rigid. She was deliberately putting one foot straight in front of the other, like she was walking on a wire, almost like a robot. Facing straight ahead, she stared stiffly at the horizon. Her dark hair was pulled straight back, severely. It wound up, off the top of her head, in a narrow cone that went up to a foot-high point, like a unicorn. She was odd.
The light changed and I drove off. I got to my meeting and had this two sentence conversation. When you think about it, an astonishing conversation.
Me: “I just saw the strangest person I’ve ever seen in Los Angeles.”
Karl: “I know who it is.”
Whoa. Then Karl said, “And I know where she lives.” Double whoa. After the meeting, I went south on Detroit, just below Melrose. On a corner, was her house. It couldn’t have belonged to anybody else. It was black. The whole house, roof, chimney, gutters, windows, walls and big rocks in the concrete yard were painted... black. It was as if the entire house had been dipped in a giant bucket of paint.
Her name was Neptunia and I know one more thing about her. My friend Max was fascinated by her and her house. One fine day, bless her little heart, Max knocked on the black front door and asked to use her phone, as she’d lost her dog. Neptunia let her in, and here is what Max saw. “Everything in the house, and I mean everything, was covered in shag carpeting. The floor, the walls, the furniture. The carpet came up to the sofa, ran over the sofa and then back down across the floor.” Max, who does not blow away easily, was properly blown away.
I’ve had students call from spring break screaming joyfully into their cell phones, “I’m in front of her house AND IT’S JUST LIKE YOU SAID!” However, sorry to say, before you pack up and pay a visit to Detroit south of Melrose, Neptunia’s house has been remodeled. The black house is no more.
Okay, all that by way of introduction to separating out character’s voices.
You can imagine how Neptunia would speak, right? You can hear her voice in your head. If she’s calling the neighborhood store to have her groceries delivered, or if she’s on the phone to the dentist, or talking to Max about a lost dog named Chloe, her strange, little high voice and her unusual but brilliant word choice is etched in your mind and flows into the keyboard so her dialogue sounds like Neptunia and no one else.
Remember George Costanza? You know how George talks. EVERYBODY knows how George talks... If you drop George on a desert island and he wanders over to borrow a cup of sugar from a headhunter, you know what George’s use of language will be. Right?
Now, imagine George lives next door to Neptunia and his basketball just landed in her yard, but she won’t give it back... You write dazzling dialogue for those two birds arguing. If you cover up the names, the reader will absolutely know if it’s George or Neptunia speaking.
You separated the characters’ voices. You’re a champ.
This of tantamount importance. Readers pounce when you don’t do it.
Character by character, check their dialogue to make sure...
1.) All the way through, they always sound just like themselves.
Is their “voice” consistent and in keeping with where they're from and their morality and economic stratum and how they were raised, and everything else having to do with their character?
The speed at which they talk. The rhythm of their language. Choice of words. Do they use contractions a lot, seldom, never? Do they cuss a lot? Do they use big words, but don’t know what they mean? Are they from North Dakota and does it show in their dialogue? Were they in the military? Are they shy?
How much can you teach us about each person, just by their personal use of language?
2.) Their dialogue doesn't sound like any other character’s.
3.) They don’t sound like you!
Separating out the voices holds true for minor characters because you’re writing actor bait. Sure, you’re interested in getting Mr. Mega Star to attach to play the male lead, but you also have to cast Pizza Delivery Dude. You write interesting, specific Pizza Delivery Dude dialogue, you're going to get a great actor to play Pizza Delivery Dude.
Here’s some dialogue. Notice how nobody sounds like anybody else. The first one is from my adaptation of The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me by Suzanne Kingsbury.
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MAN ON SODA MACHINE
(auctioneer fast)
I'm doing good. Annie May's on the phone this mornin, her son Walter he run around with that little Peterson boy. The Petersons, they can't hold theyselves together. Big James Earl Peterson, that boy's daddy, he gone shot himself through the mouth last month. Just last Sat'day, that little un done the same thing, .22 on his tongue, and pulled the trigger. Walter gone and have to watch it. He ten years old.
RILEY
Son of a bitch.
MAN ON SODA MACHINE
That boy's fat as a hog, too. Dead fat kid on a back porch in this heat's a Goddamn buttache.
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TRUDY
I'm Trudy Mead. Call me Trudy. And you, my dear, are going to be the first woman to graduate from the Equine program. I don't care if it kills you and me both, we're going to get you through, darling.
BARBARA
Thanks.
TRUDY
I wanted to be an Equine vet. Twenty years ago, there weren't even many girls in the vet program at all, at Auburn, much less in the large animal practice. So I been stuck lancing boils on poodles's asses hoping you'd come along and make my life a little more worth while. So don't let me down, kiddo!
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