Character Analysis & Writing Compelling Dialogue

[Sagwort 832]

Character Analysis & Writing Compelling Dialogue

 

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Forward

This guide is being written as a more refined version of a roleplay guide I wrote several years ago which was sheer chaos and entirely too long (I’m not even going to link it).  This distills the concepts in that guide with a few additions.  Ideally, this guide is used to improve upon current characters and understand their psyche so roleplay becomes more deliberate and rich.  That being said, this is best suited for experienced roleplayers who are familiar with their characters and comfortable writing.  Note that not all of these ideas are necessarily mine.  Many of them are altered writing concepts that I found on various writing blogs and guides.  Granted, I’ve always had the belief that roleplay is much like collaborative, real time writing with story that unfold before those involved.  Of course, those involved still need to put in the effort to unfold a decent story.  Since we, as players, can only interact with this story via singular characters, it would seem most appropriate to start there.

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Character Analysis

Mayhaps the most provocative aspect of roleplay is the creation of characters.  Personas upon which we as players can project our fantasies and fears.  However, I find that many character creation guides only explore surface level concepts such as ineffectual physical traits and humdrum quirks.  No one cares what your character has in their left pocket or that they hate the taste of nuts.  The only “traits” you should be concerned about are those which reveal something about your character’s inner psyche.  An excellent motto to develop characters by is:

 

“Everything should communicate something.”

 

That might seem quite Freudian, but for the purposes of developing compelling and unforgettable characters, it is crucial.

 

Now, in my last guide I talked about six pillars of character which were: secrets, fears, desires, quirks, flaws, and strengths.  While useful, they tend to be too situational in their application.  The goal of this new system is understand one’s character so thoroughly that they can react to any situation believably and consistently whilst in character.  Too often people revert to their own reactions when facing roleplay circumstances opposed to how the character they are attempting to cultivate would react.  Lose yourself in your character, don’t lose your character in yourself.  Of course, to even attempt this one must understand their character on a level far deeper than simple personality traits.  Lose the concepts of strengths and weaknesses.  While useful starting points, they will forever leave your character feeling one-dimensional and unbelievable.  People are more than a list of traits, afterall.

 

Below are the five dimensions of character which explain the psyche and persona of one’s character.

 

Presence

Your character’s presence is how they present themselves to the exterior world.  It includes three major concepts: energy, attention, and movement.  Note; however, that none of these should be superficial.  Remember, everything should communicate something.  What does your character’s default posture reveal about them?  What about their walk?  Their eyes?  If your character walked into a job interview, what would one’s first impression be?  The presence should be an outward manifestation of their personality.

 

Below are a few questions to get you started on understanding your character’s presence.  Avoid recreating cliches or character tropes which often arise from questionnaires such as these.  Think about your character as an individual and how their experiences have uniquely shaped them.  Furthermore, these questions should be answered as though you were someone else describing your character’s presence.

 

• What mannerisms does your character have?
• How does your character move?
• Does your character seem present or detached?
• Is your character lively or still?
• Is your character expressive or stoic?
• Is your character forward or reserved?
• Is your character tense or relaxed?
• Is your character confident or reluctant?
• Is your character sensitive or resilient?
• How intense is your character’s stare and how much eye contact do they make?
• What is your character’s habitual posture?
• Do your character’s movements seem cultivated or natural?

 

Interaction

It is said that our relationships define us.  This is quite true in our case.  How your character interacts and communicates with others should reveal something about their psyche.  One should ask themselves how quickly their character opens up to others.  Are they naturally suspicious or perhaps a bit too trusting?

 

Motivation

Motivation is what prompts your character to react.  It explains the catalyst behind reactions and emotions.  So far as we are concerned, the only motivation is fear.  Or, more specifically, insecurity.  For our characters, every motivation is prompted first by a fear.  The desire to travel comes from a fear of mundanity.  A desire to find love comes from a fear of loneliness.  One seeks a profession because they fear a meaningless life.  So, when looking for a motivation start with fear.  What does your character fear on a subconscious level?

 

Motivations can be used to dictate a character’s presence and interactions.  One should ask why their character behaves the way they do.  Mayhaps they have intense eye contact because they crave fulfilling relationships.  Maybe they walk fast because they fear wasting time.

 

Method

A character’s method is the approach they take to solving problems, or more broadly, their motivations.  Indirectly, it should reveal how your character thinks.  When faced with adversity do they prefer a familiar procedure or do they prefer to experiment?  Do they face their dilemmas alone or actively seek help?  Are they methodical or do they rely on intuition?  Are they proactive or do they run from their fears?

 

Method is directly tied to motivation in that it explains how your character intends to achieve their goals or how they react to their fears.

 

Underpinning

When all personas and agendas are stripped away the underpinning of one’s character is left.  It is the seat of their personality, the subconscious core of their existence.  This dimension is difficult to explain due to its inherently abstract connotations.  The most efficient way to find a character’s underpinning is to explore their backstory, early childhood would be most effective.  Based upon these foundational memories one can then determine how they might affect their character’s development.  Remember that one’s underpinning is subconscious.  While the creator should be aware of it, the character should not.  However, their underpinning should still leak through their methods, motivations, interactions and presence.

 

Here I have laid out a rough procedure one can take when analyzing their character:

 

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1. Develop a backstory for your character.
2. Determine how their backstory would affect their development and, thus, their subconscious underpinning.
3. Based upon their underpinning, determine their greatest fear and then their motivation.
4. Based upon their underpinning, determine how they face their fears and accomplish their goals.
5. Develop a presence which reflects their underpinning, motivation and method.
6. Based upon all of these, determine how they interact with others.

 

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Developing Compelling Dialogue

While a proper character analysis is all well and good, poor utilization of the analysis makes the process useless.  We have discussed how physical interactions can reveal a great deal about a character’s psyche.  However, particularly in LotC, dialogue is the most used form of communication.  With dialogue we continue to live by the motto “everything should communicate something.”  Most writing advice pertaining to dialogue typically advises using plot to advance the plot, raise stakes, etc…  Unfortunately, this only works when the author has a direction they are heading.  The intriguing aspect of roleplay is that we do not always have a direction.  However, this often leads to mindless, meandering conversations that quickly become boring.  This becomes such an issue that most people don’t even want to start a conversation unless they have an obvious reason to.  Truly excellent dialogue should not only be interesting to partake in, but also observe.  A bystander should be fascinated by your conversations and draw them in.  This does not mean fabricating elaborate stories or speaking in melodramatic ways.  If we allow every aspect of our dialogue to communicate something beyond the words being uttered, we produce captivating dialogue.  In summary, the secret ingredient is subtext.

 

Reveal Character

This sort of dialogue ties directly to what we discussed in the character analysis section.  Note that dialogue should not just reveal character.  It should be subtle subtext to your dialogue which would otherwise be a mundane conversation or a high stakes argument.  Much like a character’s presence, a character’s dialogue can expose their inner psyche through word choice, pacing, tone, and of course, presence.  Examples of what dialogue can reveal are as follows:

 

• Show what your character is thinking.
• Show how your character thinks.
• Suggest conversational styles and skills.
• Reveal relationship dynamics.
• Hint at backstory.
• Suggest worldview, perspective and morals.
• Imply emotion and attitude.
• Divulge goals, passions and dreams.

 

Again, subtlety is key.  Avoid simply stating any of the above points.  The age old writer’s advice of “show don’t tell” applies here.  Furthermore, don’t use emotive words as a crutch either.  It is often said that a writer should never need to use any other word besides said following speech.  As in, he said, she said, they said, etc…  This is because using such things as, he chided, or he said sarcastically simply tells the reader how the character sounds opposed to showing it through tone and subtext.  If you do use emotes, show tone through body movement and facial expressions (i.e. presence)

 

Here is a bad example:

 

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“I love you.” he said nervously.

 

 

Opposed to:

 

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“I love you.” he said, eyes fixated on his fidgeting hands, unable to meet her gaze.

 

 

Which one is more compelling?  I would say the second one.  We did not change a single thing about the dialogue but communicated a great deal by showing nervousness and insecurity opposed to simply stating he was nervous.  We have also revealed deeper aspects of the character’s presence, interactions, and even motivations. He fidgets when nervous, a form of presence.  He is also clearly uncomfortable sharing his feelings, suggesting he is probably insecure about such things, likely due to a fear of rejection.  That one line of dialogue has revealed a boat load of information without stating a single thing.

 

Here is an example more focused on the speech itself:

 

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“I never liked my mom, even when she was alive, but I try not to think of her much.  My sister loved her, though.”

 

 

Opposed to:

 

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“My mother?  She’s…”  he pauses, looking blankly towards the corner of the room, “Well, I never liked her.”

 

 

The first example is a classic infodump.  Stating information as though it were in a list with no subtext.  The second one proves to be more subtle, however.  For instance, the use of the word mother opposed to mom suggests their relationship was professional, at best.  Furthermore, the fact that he pauses before describing her suggests a certain amount of uneasiness on the topic.  This person does not think about his mother often since he is forced to almost recall her by looking off into distance.  It dusty memory was just shaken out of him.  Furthermore, he says “I never liked her”.  This suggests that others had different opinions.  Now both of these bits of dialogue reveal the same amount of information.  However, one does it through infodumping and one does it through subtext.  If I were listening into this conversation I would find the second example twice and interesting as the first.  How will the other person react?  How will this conversation continue?

 

Pace Control

When writing dialogue we must also consider the entire interaction opposed to a few lines of text.  Real conversations are not he said, and then he said, and then he said, and then he said.  No, there are pauses, awkward silences, moments for information to sink in, etc…  An endless rambling of dialogue becomes boring quickly.  To avoid this we can inject pacing into the conversation.

 

Pacing is momentum.  It should be perpetually fluctuating, speeding up and slowing down like a compelling story.  This momentum can be monitored by injecting emotional cues via emotes or slightly longer strings of speech.  For example:

 

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“Hey, how’s it going?”  She said, putting a hand on his shoulder as she went to sit next to him.

 

“Alright.”

 

“How do you mean?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

She scanned his face for a few moments,  “you know…”  She looked off into the distance, her lips pursed, “you can be a real ass hole.”

 

He started getting up to leave, pushing her hand off his shoulder.

 

“God dammit, sorry.”  She said, pushing him back down to a sitting position.

 

 

This is a bit of an exaggerated example, but you can see a variation in pacing and momentum.  There are a few lines of quick back-and-forth followed by a few longer lines which slows the conversation down considerably.  Even more, these few lines of text tell us about the characters themselves as well as the sort of relationship they have.  The boy is clearly quite reserved and finds it difficult to portray whatever emotion he is experiencing here.  The girl; however, is more forward, if a bit crass.  Yet, she seems endearing and cares for the boy.  The last few lines suggest that this kind of interaction is common between them.  There is also something else here, even more subtle yet adds considerably to the interaction.  That is… microtension.

 

Microtension

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of dialogue is microtension, a subtle dissonance between two characters when they interact.  In a single conversation this tension can increase or decrease depending on the subtext and pacing of the dialogue.  For instance, in the last example the dialogue begins with fairly little tension.  It comes across as a mundane interaction.  However, within three lines the interaction becomes considerably more tense.  There is dissonance there, emotional conflict between what the girl wants and what the boy wants.  The boy is reserved, probably wants to be left alone whereas the girl wants him to open up, she wants to help him.  Conversations don’t need to be weighty and melodramatic to achieve this tension, however.  Something as simple as asking for a glass of water can have tension.  Through tone, emotes and word choice, the asker can reveal what they think about the askee.  Do they look down on them?  Do they consider them an equal?  A superior?  Is there tension between a past interaction which may be strained their relationship?  Have they recently healed their relationship and are still nervous about setting the other person off?  Remember, subtext, subtext, subtext.

 

Do not expect to become a dialogue guru overnight.  This sort of thing takes practice and a deep understanding of your character.  You shouldn’t need to write a book report on every line of dialogue you  write.  You should know your character so thoroughly that these lines of subtext and microtension flow from your character instinctively.

Edited December 20, 2017 by Sagwort

[JuliusAakerlund 1777]

I RP my characters very similar to this but even then a few things off of this post stands out to me as something i'd like to define better than before, definately an improvement from your original post I still remember reading it back in the day.

[excited 10833]

I'm going to be taking some

heavy influence from this. Thanks for writing this, it's excellent!

[Hydra 513]

Love you Sagwort this guide is amazing.