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The Cover Test
Cover the character names in your dialogue. Can you still tell who's speaking? If every character sounds like you, they don't sound like themselves. Voice is how readers hear the difference between a cynical ex-cop and an optimistic grad student—even when they're saying similar things.
What This Resource Is
What This Resource Is
5 Voice Dimensions
Adjustable sliders for vocabulary, sentence structure, rhythm, verbal tics, and subtext density—move them differently for each character.
Background & Personality as Voice
How class, education, profession, age, and personality traits (introvert/extrovert, thinker/feeler) shape the way characters speak.
Contrast Techniques & Common Mistakes
The pairing test, dialogue-only exercises, ensemble distribution mapping, emotional state shifts, and 5 voice mistakes to avoid.
Voice Design Worksheet
A copyable character voice profile covering the three questions, dimension settings, background markers, personality markers, and sample lines.
The Three Questions of Voice
The Three Questions of Voice
Every character's voice answers three questions. Get these right, and the voice writes itself.
What Do They Say?
Content, topics, opinions. What subjects does this character gravitate toward? What do they avoid?
The professor turns every conversation into a lecture.
The survivor assesses exits and threats before anything else.
How Do They Say It?
Style, rhythm, vocabulary. Long sentences or short? Formal or casual? Technical jargon or plain speech?
The lawyer qualifies every statement with conditions.
The soldier speaks in clipped commands.
What Don't They Say?
Omissions, avoidances, subtext. What topics make them change the subject? What's implied but never stated?
The grieving father never mentions his daughter by name.
The fraud redirects every question about their past.
The Silence Test
Sometimes what a character refuses to discuss reveals more than what they say. If your character talks freely about everything, they have no secrets—and no subtext.
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