Why won't that character shut up!?

As I stated yesterday, I thought I would blog on a couple of complicated voices often found in dialog.

Stutterers / Lisps -Currently, I'm writing a mystery where one of the suspects stutters. In fact, I'm reading a mystery where one of the suspects stutters. So, I guess it's common to add stutterers to novels. However, do not get carried away. A person in real life may stutter over almost every word but your dialog doesn't need to.
What can you do?

Perhaps write one or two words in the speech as stuttered. Or, write correctly and add a tag: he stuttered.


People with accents/dialects - Have you ever read 'The Grapes of Wrath'? (See below) After reading that book in high school, for a month I spoke with a Southern accent.

Often writers tend to get carried away with writing in dialect. Can you imagine reading this for a whole novel? "Ah reckon ah don' haff ta go dowan tuh th' rivuh tuhday, 'cawse we gots awl th' feeush we gwine need." Yikes!
What can writers do? Well, if you're insistent on writing in the dialect, only use select and common words such as 'ya' for 'you' or 'an' for 'and'. Or, write in proper English but add 'she said in a strong Russian accent' somewhere. Most people know what a British or Russian or Southern accent sounds like, they don't need phonetic spelling.

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Thank you, Charmaine from Wagging Tales
for your award. The Silver Lining Award.

Tomorrow, I will give it to three others...

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Hmmm, also, if you're following me and for some reason I am not following your blog, let me know. I will correct that error immediately.

I would like to introduce you to...

How often have you read a novel where, when a new character is introduced, all time and plot freezes and we need to read a paragraph or two into the life of this new character?

It happens so much in novels that I'm sure many writers believe this is the only way to introduce their characters. True? I hope not because that sort of writing drives me mad.

That being said, when introducing your characters to the reader, try to do it like you would in real life.

1) A person you meet for the first time will NOT approach and hand you a list of his or her main characteristics. "Hello, my name is Gary. I'm six-two, smart, witty, handsome, a Christian Scientist, my mother's a truck driver, my father tap dances for exercise, I only graduated high school, and recently I had my wisdom teeth extracted."

2) A person will NOT stand there for five minutes while you inspect and measure them for height, hair color, eye color and style of dress.

So, don't do this to your characters.

What can you do instead? Do what happens in real life, we get to know people gradually and through what they do and say.

Do this:

1) Write down the character's name on a sheet of paper.
2) Write down five things you think are interesting about the character.

a) 2 physical characteristics
b) 2 personality traits
c) 1 thing about his past or social role

3) Now, write five scenes where you SHOW instead of DESCRIBE (TELL) the characteristic through either dialog or narrative. For example, lets say Sarah dresses for looks rather than practically. How can  you show and not tell this?

When Mark left the room, Sarah reached down and slipped off her four-inch heel.

'Agh,' she said as she separated her crushed toes.

What about through dialog?

Mark turned around and placed his hands on his hips. 'Sarah, will you hurry? We're going to miss my brother's float.'
'It's these stupid shoes,' she replied.
'I told you to wear your trainers. Why would you wear four-inch heels to a parade?'

Source: The Writer's Way
Picture source: St. Johns Booksellers

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Here are some great blog posts I've read today:

Emotional Challenge from Fairway Fiction

Charmaine at Wagging Tales talks about Premise.

Karen from Coming Down the Mountain...Interviewed with e-publishing author Simon Kewin and it was interesting...check it out.

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Most Memorable Characters: Marnie Elmer

What makes a memorable character? For me, it's someone so outlandishly out-there and yet, we can still relate.

One of those characters for me is Marnie Elmer from Winston Graham's book Marnie.

In his book, he describes a girl with so many issues:

1) Astraphobia - fear of thunderstorms

2) Erythrophobia- a fear of the color red

3) She's a girl desperate for her mother's approval

4) She's a kleptomaniac

5) And, she has intimacy issues

Why? Because something in her past is preventing her from dealing with life in a productive way. The book, like the Hitchcock film, looks at her life and why she acts the way she does.

We found out what the reason was behind it but her uniqueness makes her loved.

Who is a memorable character for you?

Character Development - What are you afraid of?

How do you make interesting characters? I blogged once about sitting in a coffee shop or on a bus and just watching people. (That was also the day I got arrested for stalking.) You could always design your characters after your friends. (Well, they won't be friends once they find out you think they're irritating and you used their real name. Although, it's a good way to get rid of irritating friends. Anyway, I digress, that's a whole other therapy session...)


What about giving your character a fear? Fears are often debilitating and defining. I found a great website that lists fears, probably all the ones known to mankind.


For instance, if you have a character with ablutophobia, the fear of washing or bathing, it will really define them. First of all, they'll stink like hell. They don't buy soap. They don't have many friends, although flies love them, and they probably rarely leave their house.


If your character has botanophobia, the fear of plants, they probably live in the city, in a highrise and all their friends know, when they're shot, not to bring them flowers in the hospital. Although, they may not mind flowers on the coffin. I wonder, would they even want to be buried? It's kinda plant-like...

Here are a few of my other favorites:

• Alliumphobia- Fear of garlic. (Aren't these people called vampires?)
• Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions. (I know some with this problem...)
• Amnesiphobia- Fear of amnesia. (Well, would you remember anyway?)
• Anablephobia- Fear of looking up.
• Androphobia- Fear of men. (Also known as women.)
• Anglophobia- Fear of England or English culture, etc. (ha, ha, ha... I mean, that's too bad.)
• Aphenphosmphobia- Fear of being touched. (Haphephobia) (My husband says I suffer from this. I think it's because he suffers from ablutophobia. Just joking, dear.)

   So, don't dismay. There are a lot of interesting people out there from which to base your characters on.

Character Traits: Unusual Phobias

Recently, I came across this article...source here

Why is this interesting? Why should writers be on the lookout for articles like this? If you want to make your characters interesting...why not have them suffer from a phobia.

The UK's most unusual phobias

Do you suffer from a fear of kneecaps? Have an aversion to the sight of some frozen peas? Perhaps you shudder at the mere glimpse of a copy of the Yellow Pages.
If so, you may be afflicted by one of the UK's most unusual phobias. Genuphobia, or the fear of kneecaps, has recently been acknowledged as a genuine medical condition. One sufferer, Sarah Lister, from Gosport in Hampshire, has spoken of how the phobia affects her life.
She told the Daily Telegraph: "In the summer it is worse because I don't feel like I can go to the beach or go to the pub. I worry that if I saw someone in a bathing costume or a short skirt I would just freak out. I quiver in fear if anybody tries to touch my knees, or accidentally bumps into them.
"I am fine with my fiancé, my immediate family and a select group of friends, but strangers' knees still hold a lot of fear for me. Even the thought of other people's knees makes me feel very uneasy."
Miss Lister believes her phobia began when she was 11 years old when she witnessed her father dislocate his knee in a fall. 
Genuphobia is just one of a number of unusual aversions people have testified to suffering.

Xanthophobia
If you have an aversion to a glimpse of a daffodil, a copy of the Yellow Pages, a baby chicken or a banana, you may suffer from a fear of the colour yellow.

Frogs
Earleen Taylor, of Sutton in Surrey, told the makers of an ITV documentary on phobia in 2008 she was so frightened of frogs that she has to run from her car to her front door in case one was lurking in the garden. "I have a sixth sense for frogs," she said. "When it has been raining, I'm on red alert. I start to hyperventilate, and am gripped by fear."

Eisoptrophobia
This is a phobia of mirrors, or a fear of seeing your own reflection.

Barns
Kim Crosby, from Cambridge, told ITV of her aversion to seeing barns. "It's very hampering in the summertime because I would like to drive around with the roof of my car down, but then there is nothing to protect me."

Peas
Louise Arnold, from Gloucester, told ITV she had a fear of peas that prevented her walking down the frozen food aisle of a supermarket. "They tend to just look at me - ganging up on me," she explained. "All the hairs on the back of my neck go up. I have to know where they are in the supermarket before I go in. It's just controlling my life now. I would like to be a dinner lady at my daughter's school, but I'm not even able to be in the same room as someone eating them."

Vestiphobia
If you have an irresistible urge to strip off in public, you are either a rampant exhibitionist or are a sufferer of vestiphobia: a fear of clothing.

Nyctophobia
This is something that has inspired everything from books and films to superstitions and nursery rhymes: a fear of the dark.

Coulrophobia
This is a fear of clowns. The term was coined fairly recently, and is based on the Greek word koulon ('limb'). The Greek word kolobathristes means "one who goes on stilts".

Cotton wool
Michelle Andrews, from Cherry Willingham in Lincolnshire, told the BBC in 2002 that she had been afraid of cotton wool since she was just six years old. "Wanting to wrap someone up in cotton wool is supposed to be a way of showing that you care," she said. "In my case, it would be the ultimate form of torture."

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
Rather appropriately, this is the fear of long words. The condition, sometimes shortened to sesquippedaliophobia, can leave sufferers with shortness of breath, rapid breathing, an irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and overall feelings of dread.

Pteronophobia
Not one for the squeamish: a fear of being tickled by feathers.