Every good novel has characters with goals, obstacles and conflict, we all love conflict. Readers connect with your story when your characters are relatable. Character development and the character voice are integral to telling a good story and that’s why you are here reading this blog.

A lot of writers take the shortcut when developing their characters personalities (which is ok, we forgive you, we've all done it). They base their character off someone they know, someone they have read about or watched, some even base their characters on celebrities and what they would imagine they’d be like. You could even get creative and combine a few of these together, but if you don’t have a character based on any of these things and then you will want to create your own character voice.

Think of all the different voices you use in daily life. You have a voice you use when talking to the boss, one that you use for your best friend, another when answering phone calls in the office. How you speak in all of these scenarios is a result of your background, level of education, where you live, your personality traits & who you are speaking to. Now multiply that by the number of characters in your book and now you can see how much work is ahead of you. To make the whole process easier, we have a process that will assist you in being able to write a multitude of different voices.

Each character must have a unique distinct & completely separate voice.

1. Establish your character’s motivations & goals. You’ve probably heard this one a million times since starting your writing journey but so necessary. You cannot begin writing a story without a set of motivations & goals for each character. What do they want out of life? The best characters have the deep-seated motivation and a goal they are trying to reach.

2. Dialogue, Dialogue, Dialogue. Dialogue defines your character’s voice, this is where you will establish their speech patterns, learn what they are comfortable talking about. Your dialogue should sound like it’s coming from a real person, we have all read books and thought, no one would ever say that, like ever. If you are in need of a little inspiration for dialogue, sit in a coffee shop or a bar and just listen to people, it’s a great way to fill your creative well. You might find you are inspired. I often write down little notes on things that people say or words that people use, the same goes for when I am watching tv.

3. When describing your character's voice, be specific. Also, be careful in the way you describe your character's voice. If you describe your character as having a plummy voice, this may indicate your character is a typical English person or of a high social class. If you describe someone’s voice as being smoky, it can imply that your character is sexually attractive in a mysterious way. All of these descriptive words can add to your character's voice.

4. Body Language is important too! A character's body language says much more about their character than their dialogue, after all, actions speak louder than words. When writing think, how is this character's body language conveying their dialogue? Think about the way they walk, how they are sitting & what their facial expressions are telling the reader and the person they are talking to.

5. Make sure that your author’s voice is different to that of your characters. Try to develop your character to have a different way of speaking to yourself.

Download your own copy of our latest worksheet ‘Your Character Voice’ to take the next step in developing your character.