Help with Dialogue

I tried a new editing tactic this week. I recorded all the speech for my main character on one document. Seeing a list of Jenna’s conversation has made it easy for me to spot a few comments that aren’t true to her personality. I’ve edited her dialogue before, but only in the context of the whole story. When I’m looking at a page of pure Jenna I notice some statements seem to be more about pushing the plot forward, rather than expressing how she feels. Now that I’ve detected these inconsistencies it’s easy to correct them. I’m so pleased with the results I plan to do the same thing for each of my other characters. It shouldn’t take long. The process was much easier than I anticipated. I used the Command “F” function on my computer. The computer highlighted all her lines and all I had to do was copy and paste them to my worksheet.

The exercise made me think about how different people say the same thing in unique ways. Many factors including a person’s, age, sex, attitude, background, geographical setting and historical time period all contribute to their speech pattern. I decided to play around with this concept and write the same basic message communicated by five fictional individuals. It was fun.

Here’s my setting and message to be communicated:

It’s late at night, a person is tired. They realize they need to go on an errand to get an item they require first thing in the morning. They tell a family member they’re leaving for a while.

1.) “Well, it beats me how the vittles disappear ‘round here. Do ya reckon if I went next door the neighbors’ll lend us some?”

2.) “Yo. Go’in to the store. Back in twenty.”

3.) “I will venture into the darkness like an owl and return fully supplied.”

4.) “We’re 86ed on milk. I’m heading to the store. Be back by 2200 hours so I can get some shut eye. Can I get you anything?”

5.) “Oh Fiddlesticks! We forgot to pick up milk at the store when we were there earlier. I hate to badger you, but would you mind running to the market to pick some up?” Sigh. “All right, I suppose I’ll drag my tired bones over there myself.”