Character Dialogue Significance

This little bit of information may seem trivial, but it is very important.

Character Dialogue!
Again?? Yes again! But this helps with already existing characters as well as original ones.

Imagine a character you'd want to write lines for. How would they talk? Would they have an accent? Would they trip over their words? Would they speak too fast or too slow? How would they speak a simple sentence in comparison to someone else?

I think a great example of something like this that I've seen a nice chunk of is in the Playstation game Chrono Cross *dodges projectiles* (Hey! I liked that game, all right?!)

In this game, there are a LOT of playable characters and I mean a LOT. About 45.

But the kind of unique thing about this game were many of the characters had different "voices" and speech patterns.

There was a secret ending in the game where you could go through all these character "voices" with them all saying the same few lines in their own way.

I don't remember the exact dialogue, just bits and pieces, but let's say the line is: "Hello there! Yes, it is very good to see you! I'm glad we met!"

Kid, Australian accent: "Oi! It's nice ta gander at ya. Struth! I reckon I'm glad we met!"

Fargo, the pirate: " ARRRGHH! Nice t' see ya, matey! Our meeting will do ya good!"

Leah, the prehistoric girl: "Ug-um! Good to see-um you! Me glad we meet-um!"

Poshul, the dog has an odd way of speech: "Herro there! It ith very good to see you! Me am glad that we met! PO-SHU-SHU!"

Starky, the star child, "Hellooooo thereeeee. Yes, it very good of Starky to see youuuuu. Starky glad Starky met youuuuu."




Okay! Those are only some examples of what I meant. But those are more "accent" oriented.

Let's use another example with a simple greeting. What would these characters choose to say in contrast to the others and how does it fit their personalities?

"Hey! What's up?"
"Yo! How's it goin'?"
"Hi *insert name* ! How ya been?"
"Hey!"

"Hello."
"Yes, what do you want?"
"Need something?"
"..."
*nod*

"Oh! Hello!"
"Hi!"
*nod*
"Hey. How's it going?"

"Hello there!!!"
"Hi, I'm Amy Rose! It's nice to meet you!"
"Helllooooooo!"

"Hiya!"
"Hello!"
"Hiiii!"
"Hi! What's your name?"

"Hey, sugar"
"Hi, sugar"
"Well, hello."
"Hi."
"Long time no see" (I hate that line!)
"Well now, aren't we quite the intriguing one."
"Hi. What's your name?"

"Yo."
"Hey, how ya doin?"
"Who're you?!"
"What are you doing?"
"I'm Knuckles, the guardian of the Master Emerald. What business do you have here?"





lol I'm stopping there.
Why do they speak the way they do? Is it comfortable? Were they around that way of speaking while growing up?

Think of how Sonic talks. It's upbeat, hip and friendly. One may wonder if he even had a serious bone in his body from how casual and carefree his words are.
Then take Shadow's way of talking; it's serious and usually straight to the point ( when he isn't confused anyway, which tends to be rather often). Can you imagine Shadow talking like Sonic would???

That'd be painful to imagine!


Let's switch over to your original character. How would they greet someone?
Would they say hello, hi or introduce themselves right off? Or would they be rude?

It's kind of funny one character could be more acceptable to an audience saying "hi" as opposed to a more formal "hello" and vice versa.

If your character just accomplished something extravagant, would they cheer openly, silently, quietly to themselves, pat themselves on the back without any words or throw a party to celebrate?

What would you do? What would a friend do? What would someone with an opposite personality from you do in response to the same situation?

Variety is a must!

Imagine different ways your characters will speak the same line of dialogue when they interact.
Here are some more examples:
The line- "I couldn't drive to class today because my neighbor's dog bit a hole in the tire."

- "I like, totally, couldn't make into class today, cuz like see, this dog, right, my neighbor's stupid dog? They took like this huge bite outta my tires and put a hole in it and like, so I'm friggin' stuck."

- "Yo, look, this dog, right...my neighbor's. Man, that dog took busted my tires, man. That mutant dog bit a hole in it! I can't make it to class with a giant hole in my tire!"

- "My neighbor's dog actually bit a hole in my car tires! Can you believe it? How am I supposed to get to class now?"

- "Guess what. Some dog from net door put a hole in my tire, so I can't drive to class now. Whatever."

-"Free day off! A dog killed my tire so I can't drive to class! Sweet!"

Whew!
Mel Meiko Mei Ling

Remember!

If you ever get stuck, look at those you know in real life and think of what their strengths and weaknesses are and make sure your character model is believable.
Next week, there will be an existing character central focus!!

Mel Meiko Mei Ling

Depicting a Character's Hopes, Thoughts and Dreams.

This topic, I believe, can be a bit up in the air. There can be several ways to do this.

1. Conceptual. Just make them up off the top of your head.

2. Go by examples that already exist, like in a charcter's bio and just use those and those only.

3. Use all of the above combined. Go by what's already listed for a character, then add your own ideas of what fits their personalities and what may work within them. This is the method that I use.

What you use is entirely upto you.



This particular entry will mainly be towards already existing characters.


So, let's take Rinoa Heartilly for example.

Even though I hate her character with a passion.

Personally, I think her model is incomplete. She was supposed to come off as a different type of girl who was headstrong and knew what she wanted and went for it (In my opinion, an a variant of an Aerith clone lite since the premise of FF8 is love and it "picked up where FF7 left off" at love).

To me, Rinoa seems shallow in the sense that she was merely created as the game's heroine and as the love interest for Squall. Yet, nonetheless, she is still being used as an example here.

How can one tell what Riona is thinking?

I would say she's not thinking of much of anything, but to live a life as full as she can without being easily swayed by the opinions of others. She is a situational character.

What are her hopes?

What were major goals that she wanted to accomplish? Rebelling against her father, being part of a resistance group, wanting to neutralize Edea as a sorceress, to be with Squall are some of them.

What do these have in common? They are driven effects to a specific cause. A hope for Rinoa, it seems, is something she sees as a solution to a problem that she can fix or get others to. She's a go-getter. So anything she can claim that's triggered by a strong cause that she may want. Like when Edea was in her city, she took it upon herself to use the Odine bangle on her.

What did she hope to accomplish?
To use her own plan to get rid of the sorceress.


Why?
The sorceress was a threat.


What were her thoughts?
 She could do it.


Her dream?
To succeed solo to prove she could do it.
Cause and effect. She is easily effected/mainipulated by her situation's cause and reacts to it right then and there.

But when there isn't a situational occurance, what would her dreams be?

What are her dreams?

To live happily with a significant other in a changed world? Besides staying with Squall, not much of anything else. Her character's lacking in that department. But anyone's dream would be linked to something they like.

Let's look at Selphie Tilmitt.

 We know she likes keeping a journal, being cheerful and respects Laguna. She wants to write like him as a journalist someday.

Bam! A dream.

If you're stuck, just look at yourself or someone else. What do you or they desire most? What drives, what motivates? What motivates a stright-forward go-getter that you know in real life? What is the opposite?! Make sure you avoid those, but you have to be aware of them first in order to avoid them!

Mel Meiko Mei Ling