From: mbottorff@lshelby.com   
      
   William Vetter  wrote:   
      
   > On Tuesday, April 22, 2014 5:57:07 PM UTC-4, Michelle Bottorff wrote:   
   > >   
   > > My take on making characters not sound the same is to give them   
   > > different personalities, and figure that as long as the personality is   
   > > coming through in the dialog, of course it won't sound the same as the   
   > > dialog of anyone else.   
   > >   
   > >   
   > I think the most severe situation is to make secondary or tertiary   
   > characters' dialog seem distinct, when they have the same rank or place   
   > in society, same gender and age, same ethnic speech pattern, and so on.   
   > Probably, their personality traits need to be chosen specifically to   
   > make their dialog distinct,   
      
   But that in and of itself tends to feel contrived after a bit, doesn't   
   it?   
      
   I would like to put forward the possibility that there may not actually   
   be a reason to make two tertiary characters of similar rank, place in   
   society, gender, age, etc, sound different.   (Emphasizing that we are   
   talking about "tertiary" characters.,so, by definition, they're not   
   important to the story.)   
      
      
   In my epic fantasy (only about halfway written), my prince of a   
   protagonist has a personal guard of ten men who accompany him when he   
   travels.   
      
   It has occured  to me that going out of my way to make each of the ten   
   distinct, might be more of a burden to the reader, than a boon.  It   
   wastes braincells (and story wordage) on something that doesn't really   
   matter.   
      
   As long as I successfully give the impression that they are not   
   identical cardboard clones, does it really matter whether or not anyone   
   can actually tell all ten apart?   
      
      
   --   
   Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby   
   L. Shelby, Writer  http://www.lshelby.com/   
   Livejournal http://lavenderbard.livejournal.com/   
   rec.arts.sf.composition FAQ http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html   
      
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