how i do dialogue
Jan. 17th, 2019 12:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
isozymei get a lot of really sweet comments on my fic about characterization and dialogue, and i was talking with elanid about generating character voice, so i thought a lot about my strategy for writing steve and tony's dialogue.
fair warning: even in 616 fic, i'm heavily influenced by MCU and ultimates character voices. the writing in 616 is a lot more variable, and i think has less texture to the dialogue -- it's harder for me to pull the character cadence and tone out of them.
steve wants to land all of his sentences. he's a proud, confident person, so he makes a lot of direct statements and expects them to be treated like they came from authority. when he's dealing with someone he doesn't like he gets really stiff, formalizes his words, doesn't give any information that isn't dragged out of him. when he's more comfortable he gets looser, volunteers more, speeds up. his humor is dry and terse; he likes to tease people if they give him an opening. steve is smart in conversation; if he wants to drop a truth bomb or a devastating put-down he will. steve's not afraid of dead air (tony is). he would make an awful radio host! i assume he's also hell to interview (tony is a different kind of hell).
the whole straight-shooter says-it-and-means-it thing breaks down, though, when Steve has to say something he does not want to say, which happens kind of a lot. the bastard doesn't like admitting he's wrong. he doesn't like being vulnerable. he's stubborn as hell. i take the liberty of having steve start sentences where he'll have to say something he hates, like "sorry," and then having him stop and be like, nope, fuck that, too hard, gonna stick my chin out and glare instead. it doesn't happen a lot in canon but it works with his character.
so that's most of steve. he's great to write because he's very straightforward about his thoughts and emotions until the second they're uncomfortable and then he hasn't had any emotions, not ever, everybody's getting the silent treatment. or maybe yelling.
tony is obviously also great. i think tony sees most conversations as sort of a competition or a game he can win, which means he's constantly flipping between offense and defense, covering up his own weak spots and probing for openings in the other person. you get this overly-familiar, fast-paced patter that does a lot of misdirection and dismissiveness (defense), and then he'll turn on a dime and get direct and in your face (offense). tony interrupts people, all the time, both as an offensive and defensive tactic. he especially interrupts rhodey or pepper because he knows what they're going to say next and wants to head it off. when tony interrupts someone he hates it's to say some absolutely mean thing, because he's an asshole and tact isn't exactly his thing.
he uses metaphors, and hands out extra, unnecessary information all the time, and adds asides that are mostly to himself. he wheedles, he repeats himself, and he doesn't stop for air. where steve deals with being uncomfortable by going silent, tony deals with it by haring off in a different direction. his sense of humor is a little absurd, a little irreverent, a little shock value, and a lot of making surprising, clever leaps. he uses nicknames and endearments pretty liberally, although i try not to use that too much in his dialogue because it can turn into a crutch. it's really nice to let tony consciously manipulate with his own cadence; play up words, odd vocabulary, stopping to make hand gestures and expecting the other person to fill in the rest of the meaning.
it's fic, so he gets to swear a lot. i will always headcanon that tony has a foul mouth. what's the point of working on engines and circuit boards if you can't cuss at them? (steve swears too, in my fic, because he's not a fucking angel, he gets mad and says bad words)
this is a lot of words and makes it sound like i think a huge amount about dialogue, which is sort of true but also sort of -- there's a shape to a tony sentence, and a shape to a steve one, little rises and falls and peaks and traffic jams. steve is square and heavy, tony is sharp and bubbly, and following along by feel gets me most of the way.
i build a little model of the speaking pattern for most of the characters i write, which sometimes means going back to the source material and re-playing it a bunch until the melody of them gets into my head and i can kind of hum their voice without words. then you know, i can just stick my own words into that melody, and i get the dialogue i want!
elanid about generating character voice, so i thought a lot about my strategy for writing steve and tony's dialogue.fair warning: even in 616 fic, i'm heavily influenced by MCU and ultimates character voices. the writing in 616 is a lot more variable, and i think has less texture to the dialogue -- it's harder for me to pull the character cadence and tone out of them.
steve wants to land all of his sentences. he's a proud, confident person, so he makes a lot of direct statements and expects them to be treated like they came from authority. when he's dealing with someone he doesn't like he gets really stiff, formalizes his words, doesn't give any information that isn't dragged out of him. when he's more comfortable he gets looser, volunteers more, speeds up. his humor is dry and terse; he likes to tease people if they give him an opening. steve is smart in conversation; if he wants to drop a truth bomb or a devastating put-down he will. steve's not afraid of dead air (tony is). he would make an awful radio host! i assume he's also hell to interview (tony is a different kind of hell).
the whole straight-shooter says-it-and-means-it thing breaks down, though, when Steve has to say something he does not want to say, which happens kind of a lot. the bastard doesn't like admitting he's wrong. he doesn't like being vulnerable. he's stubborn as hell. i take the liberty of having steve start sentences where he'll have to say something he hates, like "sorry," and then having him stop and be like, nope, fuck that, too hard, gonna stick my chin out and glare instead. it doesn't happen a lot in canon but it works with his character.
so that's most of steve. he's great to write because he's very straightforward about his thoughts and emotions until the second they're uncomfortable and then he hasn't had any emotions, not ever, everybody's getting the silent treatment. or maybe yelling.
tony is obviously also great. i think tony sees most conversations as sort of a competition or a game he can win, which means he's constantly flipping between offense and defense, covering up his own weak spots and probing for openings in the other person. you get this overly-familiar, fast-paced patter that does a lot of misdirection and dismissiveness (defense), and then he'll turn on a dime and get direct and in your face (offense). tony interrupts people, all the time, both as an offensive and defensive tactic. he especially interrupts rhodey or pepper because he knows what they're going to say next and wants to head it off. when tony interrupts someone he hates it's to say some absolutely mean thing, because he's an asshole and tact isn't exactly his thing.
he uses metaphors, and hands out extra, unnecessary information all the time, and adds asides that are mostly to himself. he wheedles, he repeats himself, and he doesn't stop for air. where steve deals with being uncomfortable by going silent, tony deals with it by haring off in a different direction. his sense of humor is a little absurd, a little irreverent, a little shock value, and a lot of making surprising, clever leaps. he uses nicknames and endearments pretty liberally, although i try not to use that too much in his dialogue because it can turn into a crutch. it's really nice to let tony consciously manipulate with his own cadence; play up words, odd vocabulary, stopping to make hand gestures and expecting the other person to fill in the rest of the meaning.
it's fic, so he gets to swear a lot. i will always headcanon that tony has a foul mouth. what's the point of working on engines and circuit boards if you can't cuss at them? (steve swears too, in my fic, because he's not a fucking angel, he gets mad and says bad words)
this is a lot of words and makes it sound like i think a huge amount about dialogue, which is sort of true but also sort of -- there's a shape to a tony sentence, and a shape to a steve one, little rises and falls and peaks and traffic jams. steve is square and heavy, tony is sharp and bubbly, and following along by feel gets me most of the way.
i build a little model of the speaking pattern for most of the characters i write, which sometimes means going back to the source material and re-playing it a bunch until the melody of them gets into my head and i can kind of hum their voice without words. then you know, i can just stick my own words into that melody, and i get the dialogue i want!
no subject
Date: 2019-01-18 04:16 pm (UTC)