Writing Characters, Dialogue, and Humor Q & A

Today I’m answering more questions from the gift-certificate-giveaway post (The winner has been picked and awarded, but you’re always welcome to send in questions!). This time the topic is writing, specifically related to characters and dialogue. I’m always reluctant to offer writing advice (after all, I’m a self-published author, not Stephen King), so please consider everything “in my opinion,” as it were. If something helps, great!

Claire asks:

Any specific tricks you use to define your characters voices so well? E.g. mindmaps, character surveys, profiling.

I can’t say that I have any tools that I use or suggest (I looked up a character profile questionnaire, and my eyes were crossing before I’d scrolled halfway down the page, heh). For me, I need to know characters’ backgrounds, what they want (goals that will play into the story), what their quirks or foibles are, and the voice tends to come out of that. I don’t really need to know what their favorite color is, how many cousins they have, or if they like pumpkin (yeah, that was on the character profile page I found!).

In a group, it’s going to be natural for some people to have stronger personalities than others (and, of course, that’s how it works in real life too), but if you have characters who feel flat or drab, it may be that they’re just kind of there because the plot tells them to be. If you remember that everybody is angling for something all of the time, and you have them fighting for what they want, then they’re going to be more likely to speak their minds and have something interesting to say, rather than just being yes-men (or women).

Doing a series is nice because the characters start to become as real to you as actual people after you’ve spent a lot of time with them. I can do the gang from the Emperor’s Edge novels without any conscious thought about voice, but with the characters from Encrypted, for example, I’d need to go back and re-read the book before writing a new story with them.

Alyse asks:

I love the banter between the characters; especially how the reader can easily distinguish between individual characters just by their type of response in dialogue. I think that’s a sign of very strong characterization. 🙂 So my question is: do you make up the dialogue as you write the scene, or do you have an idea of what they will say before you start writing?

I’m glad you’re enjoying my garrulous guys, Alyse. I make it up as I go, though sometimes, when I’m planning a scene, a snippet of dialogue will come to me while I’m out walking the dog or driving somewhere, and I’ll rush to jot it down.

For humor, a lot of it just comes out of the different personalities of the characters, but I’ll set things up too so that there can be a punchline. Sometimes that setup will come in the previous line of dialogue, but sometimes it might be chapters earlier (the eyepatch bit in Dark Currents, for example), and that means not everybody will remember it, but for those who do it’s like a little Easter egg find.

For an important scene, I might have to go over the dialogue a few times to get it right (or close enough — I’m one of those people who is rarely 100% satisfied with how something comes out, but you have to learn when to stop editing and let it go). I rewrote the big-reveal chat between Sicarius and Amaranthe at the end of EE a number of times before getting it “close enough.”

Raymond asks:

You do a wonderful job of adding humor into your books (mainly through Maldynado and his antics!). Is it hard to balance the humor with the serious situations that the characters always find themselves in? How do you know as the author how much is too much when it comes to humor/jokes in serious situations?

Thanks, Raymond! (Maldynado will be so pleased that you are noticing and appreciating him.)

My characters do love to chitchat, and, yes, I often have to rein them in when it’s supposed to be a serious situation with more tension. Sometimes it’ll be my crit buddies who will say the heroes probably shouldn’t be bantering right then.

At the same time, I’m much more a fan of campy SF/F than the dramatic stuff (I enjoyed Battlestar Galactica, but it’s Stargate SG-1 that I have on DVD and have watched numerous times), so I’m not likely to keep things too serious for too long.

Lisa asks:

Are any of your characters based on real people?

Nope, though I’ve been known to snag someone’s habit or tic and use it. 😉

I will say that I knew a couple of Bocrest (the sergeant leading the expedition in Encrypted) types when I was in the army, and his voice was particularly easy to channel, curses and all.

Monica asks:

How did you come up with your characters names? Do they have special meaning to you?

Back in the day, I was more likely to do a name that meant something. Sicarius came from a browsing of the Latin-English dictionary (I looked up assassin for kicks, and there it was. Despite being rather literal, I liked the way it sounded and decided to keep it). Amaranthe was Tasha (as a placeholder) all through the first EE novel, and I finally decided to go with a name that meant something instead. I kind of knew the etymology for some reason (I think I’d looked up amaranth grain at one point), and I liked that its root meant “unfading.” I thought that was good for a determined character.

These days, I’m more likely to just make something up, though I have been known to browse through the ranks of pro tennis players for ideas. They’re from all over the world, so you get an eclectic mix of names.