#ellisindierps

[theticklishpear]

Do you have any resources to help writers with narrative voice vs character dialogue? I'm seeing more overlap recently where the narrative voice is so strong it bleeds into the character's voice, making all the characters kinds blend instead of finding their own voice.

Hi there! Thanks so much for the question!

Having a strong narrative voice is fantastic–it’s one of the things that’s most often lacking in manuscripts–but it’s vital to make sure you keep the character of the narrator and the other on-screen characters separate and distinct. You don’t say what type of POV you’re using, which can have a big impact on how you try to tackle the issue, but let’s give this a shot.

What’s important to them? And how do those things differ from those around them? Each character has their own goal, and while sometimes characters work together toward the same goal, they often have different reasons for doing it. Consider what each character is willing to fight for, what kinds of things they notice (which is tied up not just in how observant they are but also in how important that detail is to them), and what they don’t really have strong opinions about.

If you can create short lists of these details for each, you’ll be able to refer to it as you’re writing to decide whether a character would speak up at all, what they might bring up, and their overall perspective on the topic of the conversation.

Where are they from and how do they speak? While education level has a little bit to do with this point, it’s not as much as is emphasized by others. I’ve known folks with PhDs whose metaphors in speak are possibly The Most Crass things I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard individuals without the means or circumstances to attend further schooling with the most beautiful way of speaking, who have learned from reading books and watching movies and listening to others.

Where they grew up will tell you what kind of colloquialisms they might use. (All my Minnesota friends call a casserole “hot dish,” which is ridiculous because it’s served in a dish that is hot, true, but the dish itself is a casserole pan, and why would we call it a casserole pan unless the thing you serve in it is a casserole?? Okay, moving on, sorry.) A woman from Massachusetts might say, “Those shoes sure do look comfortable,” to a woman in a fast food restaurant and sincerely mean it, but an older Southern woman in Virginia saying the same thing does not mean it as a compliment.

Write yourself a quick list of some things each character might say that another character wouldn’t. Include their typical tone of voice, the sound quality of their voice, and what they might be sarcastic or crack jokes about.

One helpful practice technique you can do to help you get a feel for your various characters is to take a scene and write it from the direct perspective of each one of your characters. You’ll get a better understanding for the things each one focuses on, the kind of vocabulary they use, and how observant they are. While the practice specifically shows you what their narrative voice would be like, every single one of the personality traits that you discover through that will apply to their dialogue under another character’s narrative voice as well.

Maintaining their individual voices might require you to adopt literal different mind sets. That’s where these quick little lists come in for you to refer to. You need to find a way to separate out the narrator into a character that you can drop. They may be in the same scene, and it may (or may not) be a first person perspective, but you need to figure out a way that you can pull out of that mindset while writing dialogue with other characters.

You are not that narrative character and you have the ability to become an invisible orb in the scene that transcribes and observes without living through the experiences of that narrative character. It’s a mental thing, like throwing up a wall between you and that narrative character so that you can be alone with the character that wants to speak. You’ll have to switch into their perspective and write their dialogue through their eyes.

The lists and the perspective exercise can help you remember what it feels like to be in them, with them, and see through them. For me, each character has a certain mood associated with them, and in order to write them most accurately, I physically have to put myself into a kind of light trance state to feel and capture that mood and then write with them. Whatever works best for you, whether that’s mental visualizations or notes or pretending the POV switched for just that line of dialogue, find it, use it, exploit it, and then?

Practice. Nothing ever comes the first time you try. If one technique doesn’t work, keep trying others until you find the one that does. Make a conscious effort as you’re writing to stay true to your characters, but don’t give up if what you try doesn’t work right away. It’s okay. Everybody has stuff they have to work on. Just don’t give up.

Good luck! -Pear

Some additional resources for you to check out:Aspects of Character Voice from @lets-get-fictionalNarrative Voice from @letswritesomenovelsWhat You Need to Know Most About Character Voice from @septembercfawkesSeparating Characters With Similar Interests and Speech HabitsSeparating Characters From Self from @legit-writing-tipsCharacter Voice Consistency from @thedancingwriterWriting Dialogue: Character Voice from @annguilloryWriting Character Voice from @slitheringink

[angelwithoutleave-moving-blog]

The Hierophant and The Chariot

Tarot Headcanon Meme | Accepting

The Hierophant:What is one rule or law your muse would never break?

Answered here.

The Chariot:If your muse ruled the world, what would they change first?

Well, that didn’t go so well the first time, did it? Considering the time Castiel spent as God (literally) went so horribly, he would be afraid to change anything, to be honest. He would tell himself that he wouldn’t, but if/when faced with tragedy or injustice, he most likely wouldn’t be able to withhold himself from doing something about it. So it’s unlikely he would fix some major wrong in the world -- he doesn’t have a broad enough scope of it to even know what to address -- but he would more likely fix individual wrongs.

[themanwhoran-moving-blog]

The Hermit and The Star

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The Hermit:If your muse were trapped alone on an island, name three things they'd have to have.

His journal, something to write in it with, and his glasses. He’s made a life out of surviving on basically nothing, so he could find things to eat, to use for tools, to make into a shelter, or to occupy himself with. But writing is the only way he knows to cope with his own feelings, and being trapped inside his own head without a way to record his thoughts would drive him mad. And he has to see, too LOL.

The Star: If your muse had one wish, what would it be?

That Peter Pettigrew never betrayed the Order. If he had to think of something on the spot, it would be for Sirius to come back. But if he had a minute to think, it would be better thought out to that one act of Peter Pettigrew. Then Sirius wouldn’t have gone to Azkaban, and his parents would be alive, and everything would be vastly different, but he wouldn’t have the forethought to think about any possible negative ramifications of that (he wouldn’t be the same person he is now, he wouldn’t have the relationships he has, etc.).

If he was smart, he’d wish Voldemort had never been born. But he really doesn’t have that kind of broad scope of the world LOL.

[suddenlyallatonce]

Jackson: Temperance and The Tower

Tarot Headcanon Meme | Accepting

Temperance:Would your muse remain calm despite the worst circumstances?

After he’s a fully-realized werewolf, yes, he can, to a limited extent. He has a high degree of confidence in his own abilities and believes he can basically get himself out of whatever situation he’s placed in.

However, if he has any reason to believe he’s legitimately in danger and doesn’t have someone he can count on to help him, he is prone to freezing up when he’s sincerely scared.

The Tower:What event would trigger your muse's breaking point?

Being reduced to the irresistible control of someone else. Mind control, compulsion, anything like that is very triggering for him because of all the things that he did as a kanima. He had an entirely separate personality that he didn’t know about that was being controlled by someone with murderous intentions, and under that persons influence, he killed a lot of people. He’s reminded of that every time his eyes shine blue.

[halesurvivorsguilt-blog]

The World and Death

Tarot Headcanon Meme | Accepting

The World: What has been your muse's greatest success?

Sadly, mostly just not fuckin’ dying? Despite being highly intelligent and pretty well-read, Derek hasn’t really had the opportunity to develop professional ambition. He’s gotten by on odd jobs whenever he hasn’t had access to his inheritance, which is rare enough on its own. After the death of his family, his biggest ambition was to keep his mother’s legacy alive. That was his goal when he became an alpha and started his own pack, but he has come to accept that he is not leadership material. He’s a good beta, the kind that trusts and respects his alpha, but isn’t afraid to question them or submit his own opinion for consideration.

He only did one thing right as an alpha: Isaac. So his greatest success is either Isaac... or Scott, if mentoring Scott into his own alpha counts xD

Death:If your muse had to change something about themselves, what would they change?

Prior to coming to terms with his own place in the McCall pack, that would be his own capacity for leadership. After Laura’s death, it falls to him to carry on the Hale legacy, and unfortunately, he has been forced to conclude that he’s not alpha material. That leaves him at a loss for what to do to live up to his mother and family’s memory.

[lavendervcined]

ellisindierps

  you know those fics where someone’s high on pain...

OMG YOU ARE PRECIOUS

I FEEL AWFUL AND AWKWARD

[themanwhoran-archive]

♡ = Is there any kind of person that your muse will never date?

Romantic Headcanons Meme | Accepting

♡ = Is there any kind of person that your muse will never date?

His immediate answer to this is “my teachers” LOL! Anyone who has ever been committed to Voldemort. He also wouldn’t date anyone who has a history of cheating on their partners. And while it is possible that he would ship with people canonically paired with his friends in an AU of some kind, he’s a stickler for the “bro code,” and wouldn’t ship with any of his friends’ exes or ex-interests.

[suddenlyallatonce]

Kai: The Fool and The Sun

Tarot Headcanon Meme | Accepting

The Fool:What is the stupidest thing your muse has ever done?

Ooh, he did a loooot of stupid shit in the Prison World just because there were no consequences. He insists that the worst one was making a smoothie out of as many different kinds of chili pepper as he could find. (He has a very bad scope of stupid decisions, though, because he did a lot stupider shit than that.)

However, since there were literally no consequences to anything he did in the Prison World, it’s hard to say those things were out of stupidity rather than boredom. He knew what would happen, he just also knew that he’d wake up repeating the same day and get to try a new stupid thing.

So as for things that he genuinely did out of stupidity -- i.e., he thought this would work, and it was idiotic of him to think so, and it didn’t -- that would be underestimating Damon Salvatore. A scheme that he thought would put the whole Mystic Falls Gang in the palm of his hand, actually just got him quite unceremoniously beheaded.

The Sun:What was the happiest moment of your muse's life?

Those few moments after he merged with Luke. When he thought that it had worked, before a brand new conscience set in to make him feel horrible about it, when he thought he had finally gotten all the power he was born to have.

Closely followed by his first breath of the real world, after being trapped in a pocket dimension for ten years.

[lavendervcined]

ellisindierps replied to your post “ok but when will someone fight my muses”

I will fite your muses! Tell me who to throw Rose at!

V I R A 

[bornhybrid]

revenge

Put a word in my ask and I will write a headcanon about it for my Muse.

Hope isn’t typically one for revenge, actually. She usually tries to be the opposite of her family (specifically Klaus) and be more understanding and forgiving. 

But when Hope is feeling vengeful… She does not do it halfway. If you somehow manage to bring that side of her out, Hope will do everything in her power to tear you apart. She will not show mercy. Whether it’s unleashing the payload of her magic or using every bit of her supernatural strength to rip you limb from limb, you will not live to tell the tale.

[springmothera-blog]

ellisindierps replied to your post: quick question. How do you open rar files tho bc I...

Are you on a mac?

nope, I’m on a windows HP

[themanwhoran-archive]

🌹 = How would your muse react to romantic gestures, expected or not?

Romantic Headcanons Meme | Accepting

🌹 = How would your muse react to romantic gestures, expected or not?

Shock, really, but in a good way. It would be hard to get him to expect to be “treated.” Even if you told him you were preparing a candlelit dinner, he would either forget about it before he got home or he wouldn’t really believe it until he saw it for himself. Being treasured or pampered always kind of surprises him.

[misskathgifs]

HELP! I'm trying to get a handle on the idea of Katherine and humanity. One of her quotes is "Humanity is a vampire's greatest weakness...No matter how easy it is to turn it off- it just keeps trying to fight it's way back in. Sometimes I let it." but then when Elena has her humanity off she says "Unlike you i don't turn it off i deal with it." So...I'm confused. Does she usually have her humanity on or off?

well acting like you are heartless and actually being heartless are two different things, you see. There was no sign in the show that told us that Kat ever turned her humanity off, but what i get from the first quote is that Katherine was talking about humanity as in “caring for other people, vulnerability”.

-Miky

[vd-gifs]

Hello! I was wondering if you could to MBTI for Enzo and Marcel? I love the other characters sets

Hi! I can do the one about Enzo but I’m doing those sets only for regular/major characters of TVD.

I still have to make the sets about Matt, Jer, Tyler. One day I’ll finish the mbti sets 💪🏻

[theoriiginaltribrid-archive-blog]

Tumblr crushes!!

@lovelylittleelena

@servantscfnature

@gcminikaii

@elenaloveablekotsala

@brokcnroyclty

@ellisindierps

@desireshappiness

@lostkingofthequarter

@immortallionheart

shoutout to these amazing blogs! Lovely lovely people, I love you guys so much, thank you for making writing so much fun!

[gcminikaii-blog]

ellisindierps replied to your post: Finally found an FC for the mun

MY MUN FC IS NICK MILLER (when I’m not using Ebba)

Nick miller is literally my most favorite male(Human) character