Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
In order to establish a character's voice and consistently write dialogue
in that voice, the character needs to be very well developed. The writer
must know many things about that character in order to write him well.
Some of the things that can affect the way a character acts and speaks in-
clude:
▪
Childhood/history
▪
Intelligence
▪
Vocabulary
▪
Ethnicity/accent
▪
Economic background
▪
General attitude toward life
This is where a
Character Description Document
(see
Appendix I
,
)
comes into play. Early in the story development process, most writers will
generate such descriptions for all prominent characters in their story in-
cluding all of the above information, along with other potentially relevant
notes. The better a character is defined, the easier it is for the writer to
know what each character would do or say in any given situation. Without
this established background information, character dialogue is more likely
to be written in a foggy and seemingly random way, which will often dam-
age the story's consistency and thus believability.
In addition to core background information on each major character,
the dialogue writer also must take into consideration the speaker's specific
attitudes regarding the person or people he's currently addressing. Within
a single scene a character might express the same thought in very differ-
ent ways to two different listeners. And the character's attitude toward a
listener can vary during the course of the story, depending on factors such
as:
▪
The current situation
▪
The speaker's current emotional state (see following section, Emo-
tional Exposition)
▪
The listener's current emotional state
▪
Current goals
