Like many BCTS authors, I work hardest at making my characters' dialogue sound real and unique to each character. Sometimes readers call me on the carpet, the usual complaint being that "real people don't talk that way". I believe they do; I constantly eavesdrop --especially at malls and schools--and listen critically to the word-choice and sentence structure and the general flow of real people speaking.
I've attached a link to an interview with Lizzy Caplan, a rising young indie actress, and Leslye Headland, a playwright and first-time director, about their movie Bachelorette, based on Headland's play, which is "getting good buzz" as they say, at film festivals(it also stars Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, and Rebel Wilson).
Warning: Some of the statements of Lizzy and Leslye may be crude or shocking to some readers--but these are real women speaking, and talking about violating female stereotypes. This is the flow and feel of intelligent female friends speaking.
http://www.vulture.com/2012/09/lizzy-caplan-and-leslye-headl...
Karin
Comments
I'll have to check this out later
when I don't have a two-year-old niece running around the house :P
I've received mixed comments when it comes to my own writing as far as dialogue is concerned. Sometimes I get the "that's not how people that age would speak!" comments, and sometimes I get the ones telling me how well it flows and natural it sounds. Often times both comments will be about the same character's dialogue, even the same part of it.
I've always depended on my own personal experiences to determine how to make my characters speak, and perhaps it's the area of the country I live in, but outside of a few key word choices men and women really don't speak any differently around here, least not I've been able to determine. True, vocal inflections and tones do make a difference, but those are far harder to play across in writing than word choice is. Even as far as choosing words and dialect that make my characters sound "too old" or "too young," again it's not something I see a huge difference in from day to day 'round these parts, so it always confuses me when I get comments along the lines of "seventeen year olds don't think that way or speak that way," since at least in my experience most of my acquaintances are very similar to the characters I write in terms of actions, words, and thoughts.
Well, I do tend to write my characters a little nicer and more empathetic than normal, but that's about it.
Melanie E.
Age appropriatenes (is there such a word? :-) ...
Is very funny thing. I've heard seven year olds having deep philosophycal discussions. I've heard 60+ year olds being childish and silly. There are "religions" that child can't have reasonable thoughts, that self awareness starts at 5 (7, 10, 15, 75) years of age, that children books should be written using silly language and in 35-point font with not more than 5 words per page.
I was aware of myself and surroundings starting from earlier than 6 weeks of age, had first read through of Hobbit by JRRT at 5, was comfortably reading newspapers and "teenager" novels by 6 years, and still can be considered social retard at 40+ :-)
What it's all about... Any kind of dialogue can happen at almost any age of characters. If someone does not believe in possibility of some dialogue - it's just sign of limited life experience of that particular reader.
So, don't worry, write happy! :-)
You might be surprised...
"but outside of a few key word choices men and women really don't speak any differently around here"
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/10/magazine/10WWLN.html?ex=10...
http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php
http://ainwe.iagu.net/gender.cgi
The last is a re-implementation of the second without the word limit - useful for stories.
I use the world list from the last two as a reminder when writing my male characters. Interestingly if you try and skew word use to the list of the character one is writing, males tend to order and females tend to request. Instructions and technical documents do tend to come out more masculine.
Interestingly, when I first came across this I put through a bunch of stories I'd written over the years. It seems I started skewed to the masculine side (possibly a result of being sent to all boys schools and virtually no social interaction with other females) although well below typical for male authors, and over 10 years moved to almost exactly 50-50. I expect I may have progressed further if not for still being "stealth".
Hrrrrm...
I put in a few things of mine, and seemed to come out mostly male, though only within a range of about 50-500 points depending on the length of the piece I put in, with the pieces that came up female winning by a margin of usually well over a thousand.
Not sure what I think about the gender genie thing overall, though, since reading over the word list it kinda looked like it would skew anything written in the first person toward a male perspective anyhow.
Still, it was neat to check out, anyway :P
Melanie E.
Hmmmmm
My own attempts fluctuated between 60% levels either side. What made me laugh was when I tried some dialogue, particularly from sarah in 'Cold Feet'. Over 90% female. Imagine that...
My own gender-writing test results
I ran several tests on both sites, using descriptive paragraphs and those filled with dialogue. I tested something from the first ten pages against something from the last ten pages from several of my books.
Those two sentences above tested as Female-56/Male-14 on the Genie, while the iagu.net box rated them as 80% Female.
And that previous sentence's test results were Female-0/Male-64, and 100% Male!
The results of my tests with my own books: The results changed, quite literally, from paragraph to paragraph. Since one of the "male" indicators is the use of "and", I noticed that the girl who speaks in long, gushing single sentences filled with "and then she-and then I" tested as male. I also used direct quotes from a girl interviewed in Seventeen magazine--despite her name, her photo, and her genetics, she was obviously male, according to the Genie!
Of course, I tried it on paragraphs from the two women interviewed in the link I posted. Not surprisingly, their test results were, overwhelmingly, male--which was kind of my point for posting it in the first place!
Lastly, I tried sections of speeches from Romney to the RNC and Obama to the DNC. Without starting any kind of political madness on BCTS, I used completely random paragraphs--and remember that these speeches are written by others, not necessarily the candidate.
And the results were ... no; I think you ought to try it yourself!
Karin
Oh yeah, some of the stuff I
Oh yeah, some of the stuff I overhear would just about kill people. The language women use when they are sure they are not being overheard is as bad if not worse than what men use. Its impressive, especially because some women lose aspects of body modesty and will talk about heavy flow with all the details and way over share. I think that may be part of the whole deal, that womens bodies are more earthy, more visceral and thus some women just inhabit them more lewdly, with little or no shame. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, its just a thing.
I have seen men freak out by how blunt a woman can talk. It can be very jarring if you expect little miss priss and get something that scares sailors. Language use, especially the level of how graphic or the level of cursing varies between groups. To say of someones writing, people don't talk like that either one of two things must be true. A) The conversation is stilted and weird, using phrasing and cadence that does not exist in that particular language or dialect or age group or B) You may not have overheard the right groups of people who may have had the exact same or similar conversation.
Yeah, dialogue is tricky, for several reasons, but if you eavesdrop enough you will hear some truly disturbing things out of some surprising mouths.
Heather
We are the change that will save the world.
Teabagging, really ?
I am afraid that the idea is like totally repulsive. Being born in '47, I keep having feelings like I do not belong in the world any more.
G
new vrs old
there's a few authors who are sadly in their latter years. Naturally we applaud them for their efforts, and enjoy what they have written, but at times you can really tell while reading the story. All this talk about corsets and waist clinchers, stockings and hose, Facial products and a variety of other things.
Plain and simple, girls just dont really do that stuff anymore. Dont get me wrong, there is the once-in-a-year-or-so occation where they do all that old-fashioned garbage, but really i've yet to meet one who acctually does it on a regular basis.
For instance the myth about Pat-Drying... it's just that, a Myth. In fact it is dermatologist recomended to RUB DRY, the only exception being the face, and that's for the few women who acctually use exfoliating facial creams. Where people get that their skin is to sensitive to dry with a towel is beyond me... never met a woman who did that and i've showered with far more than my fair share.
Waist clinchers went out with the 50's, unless your into BDSM or something...
todays women mostly wear Tops and Jeans just like the guys... naturally their a girly cut, and the top's come in a wild variety. really the fashion anymore is all about what Top and Shoes to wear. Skirts and dresses? sure from time to time, for like church or going to a club or date, ect...
but the attitude that comes into a lot of these stories lately have been... well... Martha Stewart'ish or Barbra Bush'ish. You know, that over the top, Grandmotherly fretting stuff.... anyway i start seeing a 60+ year old woman in the stories when really it's about a teen girl.
Now am i saying that our older authors should stop writting about teen girls? Hell no! and don't mistake me thinking that way. But i do think that perhaps they might wanna ...as the poster said... sit in a mall and simply watch. Or even talk to some of the younger authors about a teen/young adult that they are writting about.
I recently read one story (i forget which and even if i remembered i wouldn't but the author on the spot)
where the character was WAY over the top about worrying. Compleatly spastic over nearly every detail, and honestly it was just too much. It's one thing to worry about being found crossdressing and being beaten up over it... but to think your going to be murdered at every corner is just too much.
perhaps i should end my rant here.... hope this doesnt offend anyone but these have been my feelings lately and i felt that i needed to get it off my chest.
How Girls and Women Really Speak (with link, below)
Me, I wonder just what they say in closed door meetings in big business, government, and the military about sensitive subjects that would cause problems if it were made Public Domain.
May Your Light Forever Shine
Heh... like the joke says, I
Heh... like the joke says, I could tell you but then I would have to kill you.
Heather
We are the change that will save the world.
The Weblinks
Being curious, I tried the web links you gave. and depending which 500 + words I gave. I got a different answer. It seems when I use paragraphs that have a lot of converstion I get female. When I use paragraphs that are descriptive I get male. Now even my writing has GD :) However, this gets a way from the main subject, while working for my previous employer I was the only male in the department I was assigned to. Strangly I would hear conversations, that came across as very masculine, but if I got into their line of sight the tone and topic would change.
Fiona
Funny how things change...
...when I was little, my older brother would tease me. You know if you've been there; taking my 'boy's' name and softening it with a suffix to make it sound girly. Pointing to a less than boyish shirt and joking about me wearing girl's clothing. "You sound just like Joann!" Of course I whined and even cried, further reinforcing his opinion about his sissy brother; the embarrassment that leads to denial for protection. Now, over fifty years later, I'd be so blessed if someone, even in jest, said that I talked like a girl.
Portraying realistic dialogue and self-talk is a task that any writer has in any genre', you know? Would a (geek, waitress, Football Girl, doctor, etc.) talk like this? Even more so, how would they feel and think. The problem with 'us' is that even transwomen and transmen are designer creations in an off-the-rack world. We might have a transwoman from Paterson, NJ that sounds almost like Audrey Hepburn but for the timbre in her voice, while a soprano-blest genetic girl from Portland, Oregon might 'swear like a sailor.' Thank you, Karin, for helping remind me that real people indeed do 'talk that way.'
Love, Andrea Lena