In this week’s episode, we’ll take a look at five tips for creating distinctive character voices and viewpoints within your novel.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Update
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 209 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July the 12th, 2024 and today we are discussing five tips for creating vivid characterizations. Before we get into that, we’ll have some writing progress updates, a couple of questions from readers, Question of the Week, and then we’ll get on to our main topic.
So for my current writing projects, I’m pleased to report that Shield of Darkness is out and selling briskly, and you can get it at all the usual places: Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. It’s had a very strong response so far and thank you for that. I’m glad you guys are enjoying the book.
Now that Shield of Darkness is out, my next project is Half-Orc Paladin. I am pleased to report I’m currently on Chapter 10 of 16, which puts me at 60,000 words. Yesterday I had a 10,000 word day while I was working on it, my sixth one of 2024. Good progress has been made. I’m hoping to have that book out preferably in early August.
In audiobook news, the audiobook of Wizard-Thief as narrated by Leanne Woodward is almost finished. We’ve just got to finish proofing it and that should take place next week and hopefully the audiobook will be out towards the end of July or early August. Once Half-Orc Paladin is done, I have not 100% decided what I’m going to write next. I’m 20,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, so that could be next or I might write Shield of Conquest or Cloak of Illusion. We will see what I do when I get to the end of Half-Orc Paladin. But right now, I am focusing on Half-Orc Paladin and bringing that to completion.
We have a reader question from BV, who asks: I saw an app called Scrivener, and I thought of what Jonathan uses. I’m an old mainframe COBOL/RPG developer and I know that the tech environment can really help. I tried Scrivener way back in 2014 and it was too complicated for me, too much. Granted, the app might have changed since then because 2014 feels to me at least like it was really recent, but it was in fact ten years ago. So for writing, I primarily use Microsoft Word for writing and editing and then I use Vellum on the Mac for the final ebook formatting. That’s the way I do it right now. Nothing to say that it can’t change. Maybe I might switch to LibreOffice again for writing as Microsoft continues to sort of circle the AI drain and adds more and more useless AI features to its products.
00:02:38 Question of the Week
Now it’s time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics. This week’s question: what is your favorite kind of sandwich? This got a lot of responses, as you might expect.
Grimlar says: buttered oven bottom muffin, slice of lamb, medium mature slice of cheese, and a coating of salad cream.
Justin says: the current sandwich at my house is turkey with provolone, lettuce, and tomato with mayonnaise on homemade sourdough.
That actually sounds pretty good right now.
Kevin says: bit boring here. Grilled cheese and bacon or BLT with mayo. Easily pleased,
Michael says: can’t beat a toasted cheese sandwich, which seems to be called a grilled cheese in the US, which has always baffled me. Ham is a good addition as well.
I agree with Michael. That is a very good sandwich.
Brandy says: old school. Tie between cold Jif creamy peanut butter and Concord grape jam or warm grilled Gruyere and Colby Jack on a good homemade bread (pumpernickel, oatmeal, wheat, or sourdough).
Barbara says: Kind of a plain girl: toasted cheese and tomato.
Annie says: toasted sandwich: ham, cheese, red onions, and tomato with butter and mayo.
Jesse says: Italian sub with hot peppers.
Steve says: I’d add some cheese because I’m a cheesy kind of guy and my spicy mustard has a bit of horseradish, too.
Bonnie says: Maine Amatoes roast beef Italian (RB, cheese, onion, green pepper, pickled tomato, black olives, mayo, not oil.
Jenny says: rare roast beef slices, sharp cheddar, and sourdough bread. I don’t lubricate my sandwiches and prefer simple. Otherwise grilled cheese (extra sharp cheddar and gouda) or really anything with ham in there.
Nick says: this is just perfect. Just make the beef pastrami.
Jonah says: Panini. Genoa salami, roasted red peppers, onions, Jack and mozzarella cheese, good olive oil, and maybe a pesto.
Gary says: there are lots of good ones, but if I can only have one, it has to be PB&J (crunchy peanut butter and raspberry jam).
Andrew says: An MLT, a nice mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich where the mutton is so lean.
I have to admit I did not know that was an actual sandwich.
Randy says: hot and juicy pastrami with melted pepperjack cheese, diced red onion, mayo, and horseradish mustard on a lightly toasted sourdough hoagie.
Dang it. Now I’m hungry.
Craig says: club.
Stacy says: grilled cheese.
David says PB and J.
Judy says peanut butter and grape jelly or a Philly cheesesteak.
John says: tie between a really good Reuben or really authentic Philly cheesesteak. Croque Monsieur is a close second.
Venus says: funniest sandwich story I ever heard was when my brother ordered a BLT and the waitress asked if he wanted any condiments on it. He said no and received bacon between two slices of bread.
When I was younger, I used to eat BLTs that way. Just bacon and bread, though now that I’m older and recognize the benefits of vegetables in many areas of life, I do have BLTS with the lettuce and tomato.
Juana says: BLT.
For myself, the answer would be I think a sub with roast beef, ham, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, and a significant quantity of spicy mustard. The inspiration for this question was that I typed it up, it was almost lunch time and I’m hungry. It may have been a mistake to record this podcast before lunch because I am now quite hungry after reading all that, but onwards to our Main Topic of the Week.
00:06:02 Main Topic: How to Create Distinctive Characterizations and Character Voices in a Novel
Now on to our Main Topic of the Week: how to create distinctive characterizations and character voices in a novel. We’re going to go through five tips for that. I got to think about this because I just finished Shield of Darkness, which was quite a long book, and it had multiple point of views. My previous long series, the Dragonskull series, was mostly a single point of view throughout all nine books. Gareth Arban was the main character and though we started to have more point of view characters come in starting with the fifth book and especially in the final third of the series, Gareth was still the main character and had the most scenes.
By contrast, Shield of Storms and the rest of the Shield War series is going to be multi point of view. As of right now, Ridmark Arban, Niara, Lika, and Nikomedes are going to be the main characters and we will have new point of view characters that start introducing in with the rest of the series. The point of view of the different chapters will rotate between them. I’m writing in in what’s called limited third person, where you shift entirely to one person’s perspective for a scene or chapter. For example, if I’m writing from Ridmark’s perspective, we will see things from Ridmark’s perspective and know what he’s thinking.
Omniscient third person, by contrast, is when the author jumps from person to person. For example, in a scene with both Ridmark and the Nikomedes, the author will let us know what they’re both thinking and will see things through both their eyes. There is nothing wrong with this, as a skillful writer can do it quite well. I think Agatha Christie especially did it quite well, but it’s generally easier and simpler to write in third person limited instead of third person omniscient. Of course, third person limited is only easier if you can make each point of view distinctive. You have to write a distinctive voice for each character and it can become a problem if all the characters all sound and think the same way. So how can you create a distinctive voice for each point of view character? There are a couple of different ways that you can do this.
#1: Descriptions. When writing from a particular character’s viewpoint in limited third person, obviously that character will see things through his or her own personal lens. This is a handy way to differentiate characters. For example, take the laptop I used to write this podcast script. I got it in the summer of 2023 where my previous laptop went to the big recycling bin in the sky and it’s an HP Envy with a 17 inch screen, since I’m at a phase of life where I prefer to write with the Microsoft Word window maximized and the screen size zoomed way up. But someone who knows less about computers than I do wouldn’t see an HP Envy, they’ll just see a silver laptop with a big screen. Someone who only uses Mac laptops would just see it as a big chunky PC laptop and would think of it that way.
Firearms are another good example of this. For example, according to the FBI website, the official side arm of an FBI agent is a Glock 19 M semi-automatic pistol, which holds 15 rounds of 9mm ammunition, but many people would not know this. They would see the weapon and think of it as just a black handgun or a black pistol, or may even describe it inaccurately, calling it a revolver or a machine gun. This variation in description would also extend to characters.
Consider a woman who works as a school administrator. The school board chairman might think of her as the most reliable employee in the district and describe her that way. The students might describe her as the mean lady who works in the office. One of the teachers might think of her as my best friend. Another teacher might think of her as my cousin’s nasty ex-wife. Which one of these characterizations of the woman are correct? Well, it depends on the particular point of view at the moment, and you can use that description to help differentiate your characters from one another.
#2: Dialogue is another great way to differentiate characters from one another. No two people ever really have similar speech patterns. The school administrator in the previous example might always find a way to bring the conversation back around to her cats. A socially awkward computer programmer might start over sharing facts about topics that interest him. A taciturn electrician might only speak when necessary and prefer silence the rest of the time. A lawyer might talk in very precise sentences with every word exactly measured, especially a lawyer who is used to arguing in front of a judge. A common joke is that rather than asking why, the lawyer will always say on what basis?
People will also talk about different things. They have favorite topics or are better or worse at handling emotionally sensitive discussions. People also have things they absolutely refuse to discuss under any circumstances and become angry if someone tries to force them to talk about these topics. Dialogue is also a place where it’s best not to get too hung up on grammar, since you’ll find that most people do not talk in grammatically perfect sentences. People often repeat themselves, respond to a question with another question or an irrelevant answer, and go off on tangents. The trick for writing dialogue is to try and catch a feeling of verisimilitude with the somewhat rambling nature of human conversation in general without getting too bogged down and trying to make it too realistic. You want to keep the story moving forward, after all.
#3: Attitudes. Another good way to differentiate between point of view characters is attitude. How do they respond to things emotionally? This ties into both description and dialogue because the character’s attitude will obviously influence how they describe things and how they talk. To return to the example of the school administrator above, a student with a cranky attitude might think of her as the mean lady in the office, while a teacher who is in a good mood and enjoys his or her work might think of her as Miss Jones from the school district. The character’s mood will color how they describe their surroundings and how they relate to the characters around them. A character who is in a good mood would simply note a car braking in front of them in traffic and slow down. A character in a bad mood will likely rant about how the jerk in front brake checked them. This leads into the next aspect of character attitudes.
How does a character react emotionally to events and other characters? One character might view having to stand in line for a while as a minor inconvenience and turn his or her thoughts elsewhere during the wait. Another character might fly into a rage with impatience and demand to speak to the manager over.
The first character might dislike going to restaurants because he or she finds it embarrassing to be waited upon and will get through the experience with stiff politeness. The second character might love going to restaurants and makes all sorts of unreasonable demands upon the waiter. Character attitudes and how they emotionally react to situations and each other is an excellent way to differentiate characters and therefore create unique voice.
#4: Knowledge. Another good way to distinguish between characters is their individual knowledge and can also help inform the descriptions. For example, during a recent road trip I was listening to the audiobook of Dark Angel by John Sanford and narrated by Robert Petkoff. In the book, two federal agents Letty Davenport and Rod Baxter are assigned to infiltrate a group of dangerous hackers. Letty is an expert on firearms and violence and very physically fit while Baxter is 60 pounds overweight but an expert in all aspects of hacking and computer crime. He doesn’t know anything about guns, but he knows everything about breaking into a computer system whereas Letty has only a surface level grasp of computer crime. She knows what a ransomware attack is but nothing about how to actually execute one or repair one.
This is a helpful way to distinguish between the character’s point of view scenes like we talked about with description. As we said, one character might see a firearm and think it’s a black rifle but a character with greater knowledge of guns would immediately identify it as an M16A2. Another character might see a van and just think of it as an old red van, but a character who works as a mechanic would identify it as a 1993 Ford Aerostar.
#5: Subtext. Now we come to the great bane and hindrance of human communication, subtext. How characters react to subtext, whether they notice it, imagine it, or fail to detect it at all can help distinguish between character point of views and help create character voice. In this context, subtext refers to an additional implied meaning beyond the actual literal meaning of the spoken words.
For example, a woman tells her boyfriend that she hears the Grand Canyon is nice in May. The subtext is that she wants him to plan a trip for them to the Grand Canyon, and the boyfriend may or may not pick up on this subtext. Communication failure of this sort is a common staple of sitcom plots, where many conflicts could be resolved if the participants were capable of communicating clearly. This is something of a cliched example, but we’ve all had examples in real life where we said something only to have our words totally misinterpreted.
For example, say you say, “I don’t like fish” and the person to whom you are speaking interprets that as “I hate your cooking.” That might not have been your meaning at all, but the comment was interpreted that way. Or an office manager observes that there are budget cuts. His employees immediately interpret that as impending layoffs when in fact, the manager simply meant that the budget for office supplies and computers has been cut. Subtext provides an excellent tool for distinguishing between characters. One character might completely miss subtext in conversation, while another might imagine subtexts that aren’t there at all, like with the fish comment or another character who constantly speaks in subtext and gets annoyed when people don’t pick up on their subtle meanings. Hopefully these five tips will help you craft characters with distinctive voices and viewpoints.
So that’s it for this week. After all that talk about sandwiches, I think I might go look for lunch myself. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com, often with transcripts. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.
