Who said that?
Crafting unique, distinctive voices for each and every character.
Writing individual character voices is one of those skills where the best way to learn is by listening, but the problem with advice that amounts to “Just listen!” is knowing precisely what you’re listening for.
Dialogue in fiction, regardless of the medium, can be difficult in itself to craft — in writing a dialogue between characters, you want to write speech that reads as natural to how real people talk to one another, but also does what you need it to within the text, whether that’s to drive the plot forward, to show tension or conflict between characters, to be a vehicle for humour, tragedy, and so on.
But the thing about dialogue in any extended narrative is that it’s exchanged between those who are, hopefully, developed characters in their own right, and therefore will have their own unique, distinctive voices.
Crafting these voices and ensuring that they are strong and individual to the characters they belong to is a complex process that has a lot of moving parts. When we’re listening to dialogue in a radio show or a podcast, or when we’re listening to dialogue from a TV show or movie, many of us can differentiate between the current speakers based on aspects like the depth of the character’s voices, the way they use tone…
