For today's tip, I want to return to the subject of characterisation. Specifically that of the protagonist and the antagonist.
First of all, a quick reminder of which is which.
In its most basic terms, the protagonist is the character that the reader is supposed to be aligned with. That doesn't mean they are a good person, it just means that in that scene, this is the character whose intentions will drive the narrative forward. 
The antagonist is the person that is trying to prevent that. Again, that doesn't mean they are a bad person.

This definition means individuals can switch roles, depending on the stage of the story, the point of view of different characters, and what the writer wants the reader to feel at that time. 
For example, in Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs, at the beginning of the book/film, when we first meet Dr Hannibal Lecter, the young FBI Agent Clarice Starling is the protagonist, as she attempts to catch the serial killer Buffalo Bill. Lecter is arguably just there to help her. 
As the story unfolds, and Lecter escapes, he becomes the antagonist - everyone is desperate to catch the deadly killer. Yet at times during the blood-soaked second half of the film, our view of Lecter switches between him as the protagonist and him as the antagonist. Lecter is NOT a good person, yet we clearly see his goals and desires, which makes him the protagonist in those scenes, with the FBI (the good guys) becoming the antagonists as they seek to stop him.

In another example, Darth Vader in Star Wars Episode IV (ignore his earlier incarnation as Anakin Skywalker for now) is clearly the villain of the film, whilst Luke Skywalker is the good guy.
So for much of the film, Skywalker is the protagonist - we see him trying to rescue the princess etc, whilst Vader seeks to stop him, and is therefore the antagonist. But at times during the film, we see Vader's goal - to get the death star up and running, whilst Skywalker seeks to thwart him. In those scenes, Vader is the protagonist driving the story, whilst Skywalker and friends are the antagonists.

The point I'm making, is that protagonists and antagonists are two sides of the same coin. Therefore, when drawing our characters, it makes sense to treat them the same, and ask the same questions of each. It doesn't matter if they are the villain or the hero, that's just detail. The process of planning them should be the same.

So to write a strong pro/antagonist, you need to answer the following questions. How much of this planning you eventually choose to share with the reader depends on the story you wish to tell.
Who are they?
To write them convincingly, you need to know them. You need to have thought about what sort of person they are, and ideally have an image of them in your mind's eye (note, I don't necessarily mean a physical representation, just that feeling you get towards a person when you've got know them).
What is their goal?
Everything we do leads to some sort of goal. That goal can be grand in scope (rescue the princess or prove to the emperor that you're the right person to get the death star up and running) or tiny and inconsequential (switching TV channels without waking the cat on your lap).
Why are they doing this?
What is their motivation? Again, this varies in scope. It could be large and complex (you want to rescue the galaxy from the clutches of evil or you believe that it is your destiny to rule the galaxy as you see fit) or simple (Hollyoaks has just come on the TV, but the remote is over the far side of the room.)

The answers to these three questions will help you craft your character and determine how they will do what they do, how determined they are, and how well they will deal with adversity. Whether they are the protagonist or antagonist at a particular point in time depends entirely on the situation in which you place them, and how you wish the reader to perceive them. 

One final thought.
This is a very different question, but may overlap with this topic.
Will there be a big event that needs foreshadowing? Even for those of us who indulge in minimal planning, keeping an eye on the bigger picture and potential future events can help make certain that when those significant events occur, our characters have been written such that their behaviour is realistic.
Returning to Star Wars, George Lucas had the benefit of knowing the fate of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, from the original trilogy of films (episodes IV to VI) when, years later, he started writing the character arc for Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogy (episodes I to III). He was able to seed lots of little hints about future events in the prequels.
However, when he first conceived the idea of Star Wars in the mid-seventies, he didn't necessarily believe that it would become a smash hit and that he'd ever get the chance to film the vague ideas he had for sequels. Which is why there is an uncomfortable amount of sexual tension between Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in the first film. The woman it is revealed in later films is his twin sister...  

What are your thoughts on the protagonists and antagonists? Are they two sides of the same coin? Should they be treated in the same way? Feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul

A few weeks ago, I suggested an activity that involved writing the same scene from different points of view. I promised a more detailed #TuesdayTip at a later date discussing the pros and cons of different points of view.
First of all a reminder of the basics.
There are three commonly described points of view (POV). First, Second and Third person.
First Person: The reader is the narrator.
I did this.
I thought this.
I said that.
Second Person: The narrator is describing what the reader is doing.
You did this.
You thought this.
You said that.
Third Person: The narrator is 'omnipotent'. They are describing what the character - or characters - are doing.
Kevin did this.
Claire thought this.
Sam said that.

Based purely on my own personal experience of reading, third person is the most commonly used POV, followed by first person, with second person  a very distant third. I mostly read crime and thriller, so it's possible that first person is the most popular in other genres. I'm willing to be corrected, but I don't think second person is especially popular in any genre.
So what should you consider when choosing your POV?
First of all, you can switch POV within a single story.
An example might be different chapters narrated in the first person by different characters. Another approach might be to tell the bulk of the story in third person, but have a specific character narrate particular sections in first person, or even pull the reader into the story and narrate that chapter in second person.
However, this comes with a big caveat - signpost these changes clearly, otherwise it can be confusing to readers. And subtly remind them periodically who's POV you are writing from.
You could start a chapter, or section, with a title page telling the reader who the narrator is, but you have to remember that readers sometimes have to put a book down mid-way through a chapter and might not recall who the current narrator is when they return.
You can do this by having another character address the narrator by their name or you can have the narrator think or do something that only they would do.
For example, imagine a book told in alternating chapters by a mother and daughter. 

"She's been like this since I was a kid, always smothering me and treating me like I'm about to break."
This shows you that the narrator is the daughter, without ever telling you directly.

"I wish she'd see that I just want to protect her, but she's growing up so fast, I feel I'm losing her."
This is clearly from the mother's POV.

Pros and Cons of each POV.
Third Person:
This is the omnipotent point of view. You are an outsider narrating the actions of one or more of your characters. The reason this is so popular is its flexibility.
You can choose to narrate one character or multiple characters, even in the same scene. You can also tell the reader about things that none of the main characters know. For example two people in a restaurant talking, completely unaware of a third person eavesdropping. 
You are also in control of how much you tell the reader. If there are three people in the room and one of them is guilty of killing someone, you can mask that from the reader by describing the scene as if you are a fourth person watching the other three interacting. You can choose how much or how little the reader 'notices', and easily time any revelations for dramatic effect. 
You can also decide how closely you wish to follow a character. In my DCI Warren Jones novels, Warren is the main protagonist. Most chapters follow him and his thoughts, and I do so in the third person. I sometimes joke that it is as if he has a body-worn camera, and I am describing the footage. Occasionally I will switch to another character, either in the same scene - for example, we might see what another officer is thinking in a conversation with Warren - or I might make that character the star of their own chapter.

There are few cons when using this POV, which is why it is often the 'default' POV. However, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best POV for your story.

First Person:
The advantage of this POV is its intimacy with the reader. By saying "I did this" and "I thought this", you suck the reader right into the story. A lot of psychological thrillers are written, at least in part, in this POV because it can really make the reader feel they are living the story, empathising with the central character (often the victim).
The key thing, is that the reader only ever knows what the character knows. This is both a powerful story writing tool - you can surprise your reader alongside your character - and a hindrance; some stories work better if you are able to 'zoom out' and foreshadow what happens next.

Here is an example of the same scene told in first and third person. I'd say that neither is better than the other, but they tell the story in different ways.

First Person:
I walked around the corner, deep in thought. Which is why I didn't notice the speeding car. A squeal of brakes, a bone-crushing impact, and that's the last thing I remember.

Third Person:
Dan walked around the corner, deep in thought. The driver of the speeding car had just enough time to hit the brakes before he struck the tall man in the trench coat. He caught a brief glimpse of the man's startled face before the windscreen shattered. The body briefly remained perched on the bonnet of the car, before finally being thrown clear as the vehicle ground to a halt. 
It was as if the whole world held its breath, waiting in silence to see what would happen, before someone screamed and the noise and panic came crashing back in. 
"Oh, Christ," he thought. "Have I killed him?"  

One of the strange things about this POV is the extreme reactions that it can provoke in certain readers. Some people really dislike it, to the point they will stop reading. I've never really understood why. When asked to explain their aversion, they rarely give an answer beyond 'it's just a gimmick'.
To be honest, I wouldn't worry about it. The vocal minority that claim they won't read anything in first person are probably about as significant in number as those who claim they never read a prologue. Ignore them. Even if you lose a couple of readers through an inexplicable prejudice, if your story works better in first person, then you will gain more readers through positive word of mouth.

Second Person:
This is really tricky to pull off, I don't think I've ever seen it outside of choose-your-own-adventure novels. At least not for more than a brief section. Theoretically, it has many of the same advantages as first person, but it's more restrictive. With first person, you can still withhold information from the reader in first person, as you are still narrating the story to the reader. With second person, the reader and the narrator are one and the same, so one would assume that in most cases you would know if you were the killer!

POV can be a hotly debated topic. What are your thoughts? Do you have any good examples where a writer has successfully written in second person for extended periods?

As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.

Best wishes,
Paul

If you fancy a good argument on social media, go to a book group on Facebook and
ask what people think about "the annoying trend for psychological thrillers to be written in the first person".
Actually, please don't.
It's the literary equivalent of walking into a strange bar, climbing on the table and raising a glass to toast Margaret Thatcher/Boris Johnson/ Tony Blair/Winston Churchill/Gordon Brown/Pitt the Younger, "the best Prime Minister this country's ever had."
It doesn't take long for the metaphorical bar stools to start being thrown and the poor moderators have to close the comments section and spend the next two days comforting frightened patrons.
I'll save my views on the various merits of different styles for a proper blog post, but choosing whether to tell your story in 1st, 2nd or 3rd person is an important decision. And more importantly, is rather good fun as a writing activity.

The exercise is simple. Write the same scene three times, each time using a different "voice". The exercise can be used as a warm-up to get your creative juices flowing, or can be used to test ideas out for your own project. Some big name authors have chosen to switch voices for a new book to try telling the story in a different way. Some authors also switch perspectives throughout the same book, perhaps telling flashbacks in 1st person and the main narrative in 3rd.

A reminder of the three basic points of view:
First Person: The narrator is a character in the book. The prose is written in the style of "I did this...", "I felt this...", "I thought this...".
It's probably the second most popular style used (depending on the genre).
Third Person: The narrator is not part of the action. It is more akin to reportage - the narrator is a bystander telling you what's happening. This is sometimes described as "omnipotent" - in other words, the narrator can choose to describe what's happening to more than one character (hence the omnipotence) or can follow one character throughout. They have access to the character(s)' inner monologues and feelings if the author wishes, and the writer can choose how dispassionate the narrator is.
Scenes are described using "he did this...", "Jake felt that...", "Karen though that...".
This is probably the most widely used voice by writers, because of its flexibility.
Second Person: I've left this to last, as this is the most rarely used style, in part because it can be tricky to pull off for extended periods of time.
For this voice, you are instructing the reader what to feel, as if they are part of the story. It's usually told in the present tense, "You are doing this...", "You feel this...", "You think...".

Here is a brief example of the same passage told in all three voices.
1st person:
I stood on the platform, waiting for the train. It's arrival was heralded by the humming and clicking of the rails, getting steadily louder as it approached. The woman beside me clapped her hands over her ears as the driver applied the brakes, the metal on metal an unbearable screech.
3rd person:
Warren stood on the platform, waiting for the train. The humming and clicking of the rails heralded its arrival, getting steadily louder until the driver applied the brakes. The woman next to him clapped her hands over her ears, unable to bear the screech of metal on metal.
2nd person:
You stand on the platform, waiting for your train. In the distance, you hear the humming and clicking of the rails as it approaches, the noise getting louder and louder. The driver applies the brakes and the woman beside you claps her hands over ears to block out the unbearable screech of metal on metal.

The exercise, therefore, is to tell the same short story or narrate the same scene three times, using a different point of view each time.
Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don't worry if it doesn't make sense.
• It doesn't matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

Do you have any ideas for busting writer's block? If so, share them below or on social media.
Until next time, happy writing.
Paul

This activity is a staple of creative writing classes, and can be really good fun.
The aim is to rewrite a scene that you know well, or a story that you are familiar with from the point of view of a different character.
If you never intend for anyone else to read this, then choose whatever you want. If you are going to be sharing what you've written with an audience, it works best if you choose a well-known story or scene; that way they can enjoy the subversion of the familiar tale.
The stories that we are most familiar have usually been defined in terms of who the protagonist is and we tend to see it from their perspective. Take the traditional tale of Little Red Riding Hood. Usually, we see the story either through Red Riding Hood's eyes, or if it is told by an omnipotent narrator, from the position that she is the hero of the tale.

• But what about telling the story from the perspective of the big (allegedly) bad wolf?
• What is the shark thinking in Jaws as it relentlessly pursues the three men on the boat that insist on attacking it?
• What does ET actually think of Elliot?
• And how does poor old Darth Vader feel when his beloved son rejects his attempts to reconnect after he was stolen from him at birth, and he's forced to cut off Luke's hand to defend himself? 

The point of this exercise is to practise placing ourselves in unfamiliar shoes. By forcing ourself to see something from the other's side, we can bring all of our characters to life, not just the hero. You might never use anything that you write here in your project, but knowing why your villain is doing what they are doing can help you describe their actions more realistically.
Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don't worry if it doesn't make sense.
• It doesn't matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

Do you have any ideas for busting writer's block? If so, share them below or on social media.
Until next time, happy writing.
Paul

Today's warm-up exercise is another favourite of writing classes; telling the same story from two different perspectives.
As with all of these exercises, you might have an idea for a scene already, but if you are struggling for inspiration, why not use an image as a prompt? Ideally, you want a scene with two different people in it.
This website automatically delivers random images.
https://writingexercises.co.uk/random-image-generator.php
Alternatively, you can just go to Google Images and type "2 people on a park bench".
Look at the two people.

• First of all, ask yourself who they are.
• Do they already know each other - if so, what is their relationship?
• What is the conversation about?
• Perhaps there is no conversation - in which case are they thinking about the other person, or are they both in their own world?

One approach would be to imagine a conversation between them. The dialogue is the same in each version of the scene, but the emotions and feeling may be different. What about their inner monologue?
For example, imagine a man and woman sitting next to each other. Is one attracted to the other? Is the other person flattered by the attention or put off?
The aim of this exercise, in addition to hopefully breaking you out of your writer's block, is to practise  empathising with different characters. To accessing their inner monologue and feelings, and to then try it from a different point of view.
Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don't worry if it doesn't make sense.
• It doesn't matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

Do you have any ideas for busting writer's block? If so, share them below or on social media.


Until next time, happy writing.
Paul

For the past two weeks [#TuesdayTip89 #TuesdayTip90], I have been focusing on the dialogue we place in our character's mouths, and making it realistic and appropriate. I will be concluding the series today with some more concrete suggestions about how to go about doing this.
Keep an eye out for a future post, where I will be looking at dialogue attribution - the stuff outside the speech marks that tells us who is speaking and how they are saying it.

Suggestions for writing authentic dialogue.
Not everything needs to be said: The first rule is to remember that you aren't transcribing what a person says. AI-powered speech recognition software means that automatically generated subtitles are far more accurate than they used to be. But what gives away those that aren't edited by a human before broadcast is their slavish attempts to faithfully render every utterance the actors make.
Natural speech is full of pauses, repetition, mis-pronounced words, stutters and verbal tics like um, and ah. Unless you are using this as a way to signpost that a character is nervous, or drunk etc, cut them out. Otherwise, you'll drive your readers mad!

Rehearse it. I have learned a lot from conversations with my audio narrator. One of his most important tips is not to write sentences that are so long that they leave the reader gasping for breath! Even if you aren't planning on having your book narrated, remember that your character can only speak for so long without pausing for breath. The easiest way to test this is to actually read the dialogue out loud yourself - if you run out of breath, you need to break it up into shorter sentences!   

Break it up anyway. Even an inspiring superhero-style monologue gets dull if it is too long. On screen there will usually be things happening and movement that keep the viewers attention. In books, you need to break the monologue into more manageable chunks.
Supergirl loves a good monologue to inspire the people of Earth. Written down, they would last for several paragraphs, so if they were in a novel, every couple of paragraphs would need some sort of break. This break can be invisible to the reader, but it keeps them focused for example:

"People of Earth! Blah, blah,  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
She looked around the room. "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
Around her, the audience started to stir.
" Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!"
Stepping back from the podium, she acknowledged the applause.

Listen to people from that part of the world: If the character that you are writing is from somewhere different from where you come from, then making their dialogue sound authentic can be a challenge. An easy way to 'tune into' their modes of speech is to find video or audio clips of people speaking on YouTube. Or listen to programs on local radio - this is far easier these days, now that the BBC Sounds app archives programs from regional stations. Shows with phone-ins can be very useful, although you need to be careful to make sure that 'Brian from Sutton Coldfield' was actually born and bred there, and didn't move there from Liverpool ten years ago for work.

Ask advice: Sometimes you just need somebody to tell you if what you've written is authentic. Social media can be a terrific tool for this. Depending on whether or not you want your dialogue snippets to be visible to the world (you probably don't want the denouement where the killer is revealed to be out there), you can ask for feedback from native speakers by either posting the lines of dialogue and asking for native speakers to give their thoughts, or putting out a request for someone to contact you privately. You'd be amazed how helpful people can be - folks hate it when their region is portrayed inaccurately and are usually tickled pink if you put them in the acknowledgements or name a character after them!

Do you have any suggestions about how to write authentic dialogue?
Feel free to comment here, or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul

Welcome to this week's Tuesday Tip. Last week's post (#TuesdayTip89) looked at the importance of making sure that your character speaks authentically for the region that they are supposedly from. This week, I want to focus on accurately portraying their age, background and education level.

Consider their background: A couple of years ago, I read an excellent story that was really gripping with a terrific twist. But one thing really jarred - all the characters sounded as if they had the same background. The cast varied from wealthy, university-educated barristers, to teenagers on a poor housing estate.  Yet they all spoke like the author (who I have heard at literary festivals). It was strange that the editor didn't pick up that a fifteen-year-old kid who bunked off school used grammatically perfect English that was indistinguishable from the forty-something solicitor representing them. I'm not saying the author should have filled the youngster's speech with slang and dropped consonants, but it could have been made to feel far more authentic. It reminded me of 1940s dramas where everyone from the lord of the manor to the scullery maid spoke in "BBC English".

Make it age appropriate: The age of a character is another determinant of their vocabulary. Unless your speaker is consciously trying to sound young and cool, or extremely formal, their vocabulary can often give clues to their approximate age. As we age, our speech changes (listen to the Queen speaking in the fifties, and then listen to her now), but only to a degree. We can get set in our ways, especially if we continue socialising and working with same people for many years. Leaving aside racially-charged language, which I have previously covered (#TuesdayTip62) there are words and ways of speaking that we continue using, and which may elicit an eye-roll from the younger generation.
Something that has always fascinated me is calling someone "love". If I were to use that term in school, or to a woman I don't know in her thirties, I would be regarded as patronising at best and sexist and offensive at worst. It would probably earn me a quiet word from my line manager at the very least. Yet take a wander around a London marketplace and it is normal for sellers to address women (of any age) as "love". It's a term of polite endearment. Unquestionably some women do find it offensive, but from what I've seen most folks regard it as normal. They would object if it was used in the office, but rarely bat an eyelid when a sixty-something grocer hands over a bag of vegetables and says "there you are, love."
Writing younger characters is more tricky. As a teacher, I'm probably exposed to more teenage slang than most, but even I struggle to keep up with the latest phrases and sayings. And I learned a long time ago that trying to emulate their speech is embarrassing for all concerned. The language also evolves at a dizzying rate, with words coming into and going out of fashion very quickly. Even if you get it right, it really ages a story, which may or may not be a good thing. My recommendation is to maintain a light touch.  

​Consider the situation: We all moderate our language, and even pronunciation, for different situations. Leaving aside profanity, which may or not be acceptable in that context, we often speak differently at work than we do at home. I've taught alongside people from all over the UK (and some from outside the UK). When observing them in the classroom or interacting with kids in our little corner of England, they often (me included) speak differently. It isn't a huge change - and is largely subconscious - but it is noticeable. Even in the staffroom, the way we express ourselves is different than with family and friends, We used to joke that we always knew when one of our colleagues had spent the weekend with her parents, because it took until lunchtime on the Monday before we could understand her again!

​Does your character have a "telephone voice"?

I will be concluding this series of posts next week with some suggestions on how to go about writing authentic dialogue.
Until then, do you have any tips?
As always, please feel free to comment here or on social media.
All the best,
Paul

Characters are at the heart of all good stories. I've previously looked at the topic of how to write realistic characters, avoiding cultural appropriation or lazy stereotypes (#TuesdayTips77). Over the next few posts, I want to look a bit deeper at the words we place in our character's mouths.
Writing realistic dialogue is essential. It serves numerous roles within a story. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it is perhaps the most important tool in a writer's toolkit. Radio plays and low-budget stage shows have proven that you can tell a compelling story with almost no need for description. There are countless highly effective dramas told with no props and little or no sound effects, just characters talking to one another. Now try and think of a tale with no speech. They are few and far between.
Dialogue tells us so much. Characters can verbally tell us what took place. It can convey the emotions that they are experiencing. The interactions between multiple people during a conversation can tell us what is happening, with no need for us to use our other senses - imagine eavesdropping on a conversation in the next booth in a café. You can't see who's speaking, yet the tone of the voices, the pitch and the cadence can tell us what they are feeling and allow us to determine the relationship between those involved. Listen to the dialect or the use of language and you can infer their age, their education level, their class (which we in Britain are so obsessed with), their upbringing, or where they are from. Similarly, as speakers, we can modulate our language and accent to influence the impression we wish to portray or to match the situation.
And so dialogue should be something that all writers take great care with. In this series of posts, I am going to focus specifically on the language we use inside the speech marks. I will be posting a separate article about dialogue attribution- the stuff outside the speech marks, about who is speaking and how they are saying it.
Characterisation:
Dialogue tells us about the characters. Who are they? The most obvious thing here is their vocabulary, and the way they structure their sentences.
Get the region right: Different people use different vocabulary. Part of this is dialect - the specific words and the way they are used in different parts of the country/world. At its most basic level it can mean using the correct word for an object. Bread rolls are a terrific example. Travel up and down the UK and what the locals call these varies enormously. Most Brits will understand what you mean by a bread roll, but can be baffled when somebody in Manchester asks for a barm cake or a local in Coventry asks for a batch. The question is whether you, as a writer want to use these local terms for your character and if you do, how much you are willing to explain what you mean to non-locals. If you have an omnipotent narrator, you can do this by using the more common term immediately after the character uses it in dialogue.

Warren looked at the menu above the deep fat fryer. He only had a couple of pound coins in his pocket.
"I'll just have a chip batch," he said.
His stomach rumbled as he watched the server split the soft, white bread roll, slather it with margarine and shovel chips in.

Another example that can catch folks out is the use of shortened terms for mother.
In large swathes of the UK, you call your mother "Mum" or "Mummy". In the United States, the term is more commonly "Mom" or Mommy". Yet this is also how some parts of the UK Midlands (especially Birmingham and the Black Country) refer to their mother, although the accent tends to make it sound a little different. If you want to be accurate, your Brummie characters should use this term. In the North of England and Northern Ireland, "Mam" or "Mammy" is more common.
When I see a character talking about their Mam, I'm already starting to make assumptions about where they are from. If they call her Mother when addressing her, I may assume that they are more formal or perhaps quite posh. If they call her Mummy, I will usually assume that they are either very young, or again, quite posh.
Of course, you can't tell a whole lot about a person from a single word, but if you pepper a few of these throughout a person's speech, you can portray a person's background quite easily. On the flip-side, if you have already told the reader where they are from, then you should try to ensure the dialect is consistent.
Getting this wrong can take a person right out of a story, and is a great way of signposting that the writer is not from that region or country. If you tell me that a character is a proud Scouser from Liverpool, they aren't going to use Cockney rhyming slang!
The same goes for foreign languages. If you have a character speaking in a foreign language, then you have two choices  - render it in the original, then provide a translation - OK for short sentences, but can break the flow and be frustrating for long stretches. Or have your characters speaking in English, but sprinkle in a few words for flavour that readers can interpret from context.
Tom Clancy and his ghost writers are very good at this. His globe-trotting thrillers often have Russian or Chinese or North Korean generals deep in conversation, which is rendered in English but with appropriate curse words or terms of address in the original language. Anyone reading or watching Scandinavian crime dramas will usually be familiar with yes, no and thank you by the end of the story. 
The caveat:
Be wary about overdoing this. If you are writing for a broad, mainstream audience, you need to balance the need for authenticity with readability. A very well-known best-selling author was recently castigated over their use of dialect that some felt was verging on parody. Doubtless it was accurate, but many readers found it baffling. Much of my family is from England's West Country; for fun, they sometimes text each other in Devonshire dialect. I struggle to understand it; my partner who comes from a completely different part of the country hasn't got a clue!


Next week, I am going to focus on age, background and education level.
Until then, what tricks do you use to make dialogue realistic for your characters?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Best wishes, Paul.

For this week's gues blog post, I am very excited to introduce Candy Denman. Candy is not only a novelist, but has also written TV scripts and therefore has a special insight into characterisation.
Candy writes a series of crime novels about forensic physician and part-time GP, Dr Callie Hughes. The first in the series is Dead Pretty​ and can be bought from Amazon. 
It is not unusual for Callie to see a dead body, but this time, the young woman’s corpse rings alarm bells. Her medical knowledge gives her unique insight into the killer, but convincing the police is a challenge. 

Candy's Writing Tip
When writing both scripts and novels, getting the ‘voice’ of a character is critical. Just as the reader/viewer has to believe in the story, it is just as important that they believe in the characters and what they are saying or how they are acting. Once the reader loses that suspension of disbelief, they lose interest in the story.
So how can a writer make sure they get the voice right and that they make the different characters sound sufficiently different? This isn’t about just giving them different accents, it’s more about making them distinct from each other.
When I write the back story and character traits for each character, I find it helpful to do it in the first person, so that each character describes themselves to me and give me their own potted history.
It might sound bonkers, but it works.
I’m a young lad, not bad, but I don’t take any shit, know what I mean? I didn’t mean to do it, it just sort of happened.
I’m not complaining, not really. I haven’t had an easy life, but nothing is as hard as this being on your own.  Sometimes I might not see anyone for weeks in a row and I find myself talking to my cat, what was her name? Tiddles. That’s right.  My long gone, dead cat Tiddles.
I do about half a page on each, depending on how big a character they are in the story and save them for reference. This is particularly important if you are writing a series, to make sure you get them right each time. A character can develop and change in time, depending on what has happened to them, but their overall voice will remain the same.
(c) 2021 Candy Denman

Candy trained as a nurse, and worked in the NHS almost all her life, until managing recently to disengage herself in order to become a full-time crime writer. She has also written a large number of scripts for such highly-acclaimed TV series as The Bill and Heartbeat which gave her the idea to write a crime series that also includes medical stories.
You can learn more about Candy by visiting her website www.candydenman.co.uk​ or Facebook Page and by following her on Twitter @CrimeCandy or Instagram @CandyDenman.

Last week it was the elephant in the room, this week it's opening a can of worms - yes, May is cliché month!
Like it or not, we live in a society where racism still exists, and if we as writers wish to reflect reality then it is something we need to consider. This was something that I was forced to grapple with when writing my 2018 DCI Warren Jones novel, The Common Enemy.
The book centres around the murder of the leader of a far-right extremist party, during a march against the opening of a so-called 'super-mosque' in my fictional town of Middlesbury.
By necessity, the book was populated with extreme racists, as well as members of Middlesbury's Muslim and Sikh communities.
The simple fact is that if I wanted the book to feel authentic, I had to realistically portray the attitudes of these characters and that included the offensive language used by them.
I'm not going to lie; writing this book took me well outside my comfort zone.
I am a white man of English heritage. I was brought up in an ethnically diverse city and was taught from an early age that certain words and phrases are deeply offensive; they simply aren't part of my normal vocabulary.
Writing them was hard for me, and I was extremely conscious that reading them would be deeply uncomfortable for many of my readers. My series is far from cosy, but this was an aspect of society that I had not previously explored.
When does it switch from authentic to gratuitous?     
It was a given that my white supremacists were going to use the N-word, the P-word and other pejorative terms. But I was keen not to have the manuscript dripping with these words and so I had to think about ways of finding a balance between minimising their use and writing an authentic story.
How can you tread this line?
Use the terms occasionally - to give a 'flavour' of the language they would use, but in other instances, simply allude to them.
For example, report dialogue 'second hand' rather than deliver it.
"Joe Blog's account of the incident, delivered in typically offensive fashion, matched that of other witnesses."
If the incident in question involved non-whites, and the character Joe Blogs has been previously established as a foul-mouthed racist, then your reader can fill in the gaps for themselves without you needing to spell the words out explicitly.
Actually use the terms 'N-word' or 'P-word'.
If a person is reporting dialogue second-hand, and is themselves not racist, then they often won't say those terms in full. It can look clunky, but then it feels that way in real-life. The person is already rewording the language to make it more comfortable for them to say, so it probably will feel unnatural.
For example.
"He's a real bully, officer," the man looked uncomfortable, his voice dropping almost to a whisper, "A couple of times I heard him call the old lady next door a 'lazy N-word', if you know what I mean."
or
"He's always wiping graffiti off the wall." He blushed. "'Go Home P-word', that sort of thing."
Interrupt their speech.
Modern police officers simply won't tolerate a foul-mouthed racist rant, they can and will insist that witnesses and those they are interviewing moderate their language. Something that isn't always appreciated, is that the law in England & Wales regarding hate speech doesn't necessitate it being directed at the protected group that it concerns. In other words, a white person over-hearing racist language about Asians can report it as a racist incident, even if there are no Asian people within earshot.
The language needs to be specific to the era, the society and the character.
Language evolves at an incredible pace, and terms that were acceptable just a few years ago are now no longer appropriate today.
The term 'coloured' was once seen as a relatively inoffensive way to refer to black or Asian people (at least by white people). That is no longer the case. In recent years, the term 'People Of Colour' (POC) has become a more favoured term. Similarly, 'half-caste' is now no longer acceptable, with 'mixed race' or sometimes 'bi-racial' more appropriate.
But as a writer, you have to consider if the newest terminology is the most appropriate language for your book. Characters in a novel set thirty years ago wouldn't realistically use the term POC. Similarly, older characters in a modern setting may still be using terms that have gone out of fashion. Is it realistic that an elderly white woman refers to her bi-racial neighbour that way, or is she more likely to describe them in an interview as 'half-caste'? It doesn't necessarily mean she's an overt racist, just somewhat out of touch with the latest trends in language.
An extreme example of this involves a former flatmate of mine from (very) rural Ireland, who in the year 2000 asked me if I wanted anything from the P-shop when he popped round there. He was absolutely mortified when I explained to him how that word was simply not acceptable in England and told him a little about how the word's usage had mutated from a simple abbreviation of Pakistani to something far more offensive and sinister.  
Used correctly, their use of language can inform the reader about a character.
For example.
"Look, DCI Jones. You're not racist and neither am I, but we both know that since they started letting the Asians move in, the area has gone down hill. Of course two white blokes like us could never say it out loud, we'd be crucified."
Think about what we've just learned about this character.
First of all, he clearly is a racist - just putting the word 'the' in front of Asians telegraphs this. However, he has enough self-awareness to realise that he doesn't want to be perceived as such, hence the 'I'm not racist but...' caveat. He is also aware that his views are increasingly unpopular and so he is seeking approval from someone he hopes is a kindred spirit.  
Is it the writer speaking or the character?
One of the inescapable problems that all writers face is that some readers can be so drawn into a novel that they find it hard to separate the views expressed in the book from those held by the author. This is especially true of the narrator. For those writing first person - in other words '"I did this", "I thought that" - it can make the reader feel as if the writer is sitting down and telling them a story about events that happened to them and sharing their innermost emotions and feelings. Obviously that is what a good writer strives for, so it seems a cruel irony that readers who don't know the author personally can subconsciously imbue them with character traits and attitudes that bear no resemblance to them in real life.
I am fortunate enough to write in the third person, and my narration is most closely associated with DCI Warren Jones, who I have openly admitted shares many of my personal views. This means that I can disassociate myself somewhat from the more unpleasant individuals that I write about through Warren's thoughts. To reinforce this in The Common Enemy, I made certain to draw the reader's attention to Warren's personal revulsion at the views expressed by some of the racist characters in the book. 
Avoid the temptation to write a 'pantomime villain'.
When writing about characters that you find personally offensive, it is all too easy to fall into the trap of giving them no redeeming features whatsoever.
In The Common Enemy, my far-right extremists are violent, offensive thugs. Yet they still have loved-ones, they perform acts of kindness and they have a sense of humour: in other words, they are human!
One of the reviewers of the book stated that they expected it to "tar anyone right of centre as an extremist" but were pleasantly surprised that it was more balanced. Although it should be said that they then gave away their true feelings on the subject by objecting to my use of the 'meaningless term' islamophobia (it isn't) and refusing to accept that the police would waste resources on a hate crime unit (these exist in real-life, and the police do monitor online race-hate groups), and criticising my apparent lack of research.
Whilst I'm never going to lie awake at night worrying that I may have offended some thin-skinned racist, I found the review rather satisfying, as I felt it showed that I had done my job as a writer.
Draw your own red lines.
We all have our own views on this subject and there are lines that we don't personally feel comfortable crossing. For example, I don't feel I am able to write dialogue between black people, where they refer to themselves using the N-word.
There is a belief by some in the black community that it is possible to 'reclaim' the word. It, and an alternate spelling, are used in some forms of black music, and dialogue between (usually) young people. However, its use is nuanced and like a lot of language it evolves rapidly. As a white person who is not part of that community, there is a strong risk that any attempts by me to use it will be clumsy and unintentionally offensive. Furthermore, it is likely to age the book - something I might get away with in 2018 may make me cringe with embarrassment five years later.
I am also conscious of that fact that there are many who don't agree that the word can or should be 'reclaimed'. Some years ago, I saw a documentary interviewing some of the people who lived through the American civil rights movement of the 1960s, and experienced horrific racism in the decades before. I was especially struck by an old lady whose first-hand experience of that word meant that she found it deeply upsetting when she heard young black people using it. For her, it will forever evoke memories of violence and fear.
So for those reasons, I will steer well clear of doing it.   
Final thoughts.
Racially-charged language will always be a potential minefield. I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to dip my toes into this particular paddling pool. However, the desire to write The Common Enemy had been nagging me for several years and with racism and extremism always close to the top of the news agenda, it was something that I felt I could no longer ignore.
Ultimately, all that any writer can do is try to write the best story that they can. Crime fiction provides the opportunity to explore the most topical of issues and we should not shy away from them.
My advice would be to do your research (watch documentaries, and read articles from all sides of the issue) and then run it past trusted readers.
Doubtless there are things that I have got wrong, and I'll listen and take on board any valid criticism, but touch wood, in the three years since the book was published, it has been generally well-received, with no serious objections that I am aware of, and I found it a rewarding experience.


What are your thoughts about using racist language in books? Is it a complete taboo, or do writers have a duty to reflect the uglier side of human nature?
As always, please share your thoughts here or on social media.
Until next time,
best wishes,
Paul.