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Riprose123 -> RE: The Hallows Inn - Accepting (1/11/2015 1:52:31)
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I'll be honest, I rarely read bios. I don't think they're the best representation of a character. I wait until the actual RP before I start trying to sort out voices. There's no better way to learn about a character than to give them a weapon, throw them into a setting, and force them to make moral desicions.
I think a big part of establishing a voice for me is how the writer, well, writes. If you are like me, you tend to notice a distinct style of how people write. Like, me, I use commas a lot. Like, too much. See, did it there. And there. Look at me go, with my crazy commas. I think the type of language, and grammer mechanics the author utilizes really change how characters sound to me, especially if it's an older book. I just recently started reading A Wrinkle in Time (Recommend it) and I read every voice with a high class english accent. Except the twins. They both got adorable cockney accents. Don't ask me why, it's just how my brain works.
(while I'm off on tangents, I found Maria's theme song: Linky Do any of you pick music that seems to suit your characters?)
I generally am terrible at describing voices, but Maria's is so prominent and perhaps the strongest I've heard from one of my characters in so long, I think it bears my horrendous attempts at putting it to words. Let me just start by saying that I am in no way any good at describing things at all and if you don't want to be horibly confused, because, trust me, it'll probably happen, stop reading here. If you kept on, great, come with me.
Maria's voice, to me, is something always changing. Quite recently, I've been exploring my own freedoms (Which I'm surprised I have a lot of) and have gone through, what I think, is prominant individualistic growth. (I don't think that's the right word. Basically, I'm trying to find myself) I'm changing a lot, and I've been showing this a lot more in my characters. Marya is probably the pinnacle, the epitome of this odd phase I'm going through; she's ever changing, mood is unpredictable. I've tried to convey this as best I can through my writing, and have even used it as quite a large part of her character i.e how her eyes seem to change at random. On one hand, she is a danger to anyone she gets close to, to such an extreme as shown in Heinrich's recent accident (I loved how you slid that in, Legendium, if that's what you were going for) but at the same time, Maria craves, even needs social interaction, and this leads her to be torn mentally and emotionally, many times acting in chaotic and unpredictable ways, even if her actions make perfect sense to her. This surfaces in her martial art style, which may seem unpredictable and somewhat insane, but is brutally efficient. I thing this applies to her voice as well; to me, her voice is inconsistant, and yet consistant in one aspect. It is always sure of itself, filled with mustered conviction. I don't think I properly convinced myself of Maria's voice until I wrote her intro post. I stated many times something along the lines of "All she did was perfect, every step where it was meant to be, only enough energy spent as was needed." To me, this conveyed that even when she was most confused by her direction, and why she was going there, she knew she was to, that not only was it the right thing to do, it was what she must do. In no way am I claiming to have a perfect character. I avoid Mary Sues like the plaque. To me, Marya is an ever changing voice. Her tone, pitch, and mood are different each time I write her. But I feel, that on some instinctual, spiritual level, she knows all that she must do, and is sure of it. She has something inside her telling her what each word should be, where each step should be placed, to the point that each action she takes is simply perfect, ordained or choosen, though I highly doubt that Maria will develop any type of religion.
This is quite the lengthy post by my standards, and I don't expect many to read it, if I'm being completely honest. But you asked. :P Sorry I didn't touch upon other's characters, but to be honest, I don't put much weight on how I imagine other people's voices, or character's voices. I'm a reader, I'm here to enjoy and spectate. I don't have the sort of intimate knowledge the creator of aforementioned characters does, so I just assume what I'm imagining they sound like is wrong, and get past it.
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