in gaddis's recognitions he has one character say, "chraaast" constantly, which give him a pretty distinctive voice. what are some other little tricks that do this?
>having a character repeat a specific word or phrase
>giving a character a crutch word
>short vs. long sentences
>vocab level
Any good one?
>>8274065
I always have my protagonist, Revlaggin, a kind of postmodern-day viking troglodyte, say "tane" and variations of "tane" and puns based on this word and it makes him sound very unique. He also talks like a black man when he's white.
Have you read A Confederacy of Dunces? Jones' "woah!" catchphrase is fairly unique. He has a pretty distinct way of speaking that is one of the book's highlights.
>>8274097
ooo, wigger is a good one.
>catchphrases
Has literature become some retarded anime?
>>8274104
nah, i haven't. he just says, "woah!" alot?
I tend to find that the people I write sound too much the same, as if any character could have said any of the sentences. I think the problem is that I base the manners of speaking off those of myself and my friends. And then you fall into the Aaron Sorkin trap of everyone in the pieve sounding the same and speaking the same way which just doesn't happen.
>>8274113
doesn't need to be a catchphrase - anything that makes a voice distinctive
>>8274114
Yes, but it's the timing of it that makes it funny. He is extremely flippant, so when he says it it's more sarcasm than expressing actual surprise.
>>8274113
"Catchphrases are a main-stay of our art, de geso." -- Samuel Johnson
>>8274065
A more "subtle" one is the repetitive use of thematic metaphors. It works better when narrating from the POV of the character than when you have him speaking, of course.
>>8274065
read augustus by john williams for this. all characters have habits of speech that go beyond crutch words and sentence length
Become aware of how many ways there are to say the same thing.
Go to the right.
Make a right.
Turn right.
You go right.
You should go right.
You want to go right.
You wanna go right.
It says to go right.
Says to go right.
I think you should go right.
Think you should go right.
I would go right.
I'd go right.
Putting a qualifier like maybe or perhaps before any of those.
>>8274467
and
I wouldn't know, old sport.
If you read chekhov or turgenev or many of the russian authors from the 1800s who describe provincial life or funny duddy nobles they always use little quirks.
I would recommend reading them but you probably won't.
>>8275082
turgenev, dostoevsky and tolstoy's characters all sound exactly the fucking same. maybe tolstoy's less. but the others all speak in ridiculous monologue.
>>8275150
right
>>8274065
I was thinking of making my character response in gestures, with only tidbits of him talking in his native language.
