TuesdayTips90

Say What?
Writing Realistic Dialogue
(2/3)

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