Finding Your Voice (A Guide to Speaking in Accents)

By: Jobbut

This is a guide to help players, new and old, to get better at articulating with their keyboards. I’ll go over how to come up with your character’s pattern of speaking, and what they say and how they say it. This is by no means the only, or even a great way to come up with your character’s speaking mannerisms, but it’s intended to be a start for those of you who don’t know where, or are looking to improve.

And always remember THE GOLDEN RULE: Punctuation, and Capitalization.

History
A character’s history and race make up the very base for their speaking mannerisms. An elf who was educated and trained from birth would speak very fluently, whereas a dwarven smith’s son may have a much more accented and broken manner of speech. Look into your character’s past and their culture to determine the very basics of their speaking.

Your character’s origin has what is likely the most impact on his speech. For example, ze good doctor speaks in a very heavy German accent, ya? If you’re stuck and need to help determine how your character sounds, take their race, heritage, and where they grew up into account and try to find a real-world analog, whether it’d be comparing the character to someone with a scotirish accent, or an English dialect, this can be a great tool for determining a character’s voice, or at least the very basics of it.

The other major factor in developing the basics of your character’s speech is their experiences during their life previous to coming into play. Their education, work, and those around them would heavily influence their manner of speaking. Someone who spent years at an academy learning to be a scholar and speak in a clear, concise, and indubitably articulate manner, sir, is vastly different than a street-rat who ‘oesn’t pronounce letta’s or says ‘em the wrong way an’ spits out slang, bugger. Think to your character and think about who they were around and what they did, what words and accent could they have picked up from that? Remember, education plays a large factor in speech, know how much grammar your character does. Another important thing to think of is just how FORMAL your character is; Is a stanger referred to as ‘Master Elf’ or ‘Sir’ or does he call them ‘Brother’ or ‘Lass’?

Personality
This is a good deal harder, because it’s based on what YOU did to create the character, and how well you know them, so this will be difficult for some of you. First of all, what kind of TONE does your character speak in? Is she a quiet, reserved scholar who speaks in a low, hushed voice with stutters when stressed? Or is he brash and loud, boasting and laughing constantly? The personality of your character changes not only how they react to different people and situations, but how they speak. Think for a moment about your character and try to match that personality to a tone. Since I don’t know what kind of character whoever is reading this might have, here’s a handy dandy list of a FEW different personality traits to give quick comparisons to.

Open (Speaks his mind) <---> Secretive (Selects his words carefully)

Boastful (Boasts & Enjoys Fame) <---> Humble (Appreciative & Modest)

Quiet (Cautious & Silent) <---> Loud (Curses & Speaks Up)

Reserved (Emotionless & Thoughtful) <---> Emotional (Impressionable & Empathetic)

Cold (Uncaring & Calloused) <---> Kind (Endearing & Helpful)

Keep in mind none of these are actually exclusive to each other, aside from the obvious. Just try to use these to get the juices flowing to help you determine how your character’s personality factors into their speech. The soft priestess’ speech is always very soft and non-judgemental, careful never to degrade or accuse, dear.

Bonus!!
Zantigo brought this up, and I figured here would be the best place to put it: When you're talking with other, and even about certain things, you have to realize you aren't on a blank slate. I'll bring up how you character reacts to things again later in the guide, but it's important to mention it now. When your character is talking to someone, they aren't talking to a robot like in Mass Effect with canned responses, your verbal opponent has his OWN mood, language, method of speech, and the like and you must ICly adapt and respond accordingly. A dwarf drinking buddy may sound angry all the time, but how you act about that, especially when he is legitimately mad, and in situations like this gives depth to your voice and character. When someone speaks, speak back accordingly, this isn't tennis with a wall, it's catch.

Vocabulary
I hope you did your homework on that first section; it’s coming into play again.

This is the more nitty-gritty of accent and voice creation; now that you have the basics and tone down, how DOES your character speak? I’ll break this down into three parts: Words, Verbal Tics, and Formality/Mood.

Words are the first part; now that you have your character’s basics down you can start putting things together. Think of the words themselves your character would have used and heard most COMMONLY during their life. A more learned person would use larger and appropriate words, and a more street-savvy character may use slang and abbreviations in their speech. Remember that your character’s race and culture play into this as well, an Orcish greeting or Dwarven saying may make the difference between you and a dull lifeless ‘hi’ & ‘bye’. If you need help with this, try working out 3 different ways that your character, given his life, culture, and place of origin would say: Hello, Goodbye, Thank you, Woman, Man, Child, Food, Yes, No, You are my friend, You are my enemy, and Help me. A character might have a certain curse-word for the undead, a way of reffering to those in power, or even a name for otherwise mundane locations like certain mountain ranges and the great river, things like this make your character more unique and 'in-tune' with the world around them. (To give an active example of this: Jagabar refers to Salmon as Devilfish due to it's red color and coincidence with it's appearance alongside the demon Paralax.)

Verbal Tics are the most memorable of your character’s mannerisms, aye? Aye, one would say that without ‘em we’d be lost to find each other in that sea of text. Those of you who’ve met Jagabar IC know his verbal tic, as well as how sometimes he blends words together or forget to pronounce certain syllables. Think of some phrases or grammatical errors your character could have had stuck on his tongue, kupo! Now then, I’ve got two things to say to someone like you; One: You don’t have to say it every time you speak, just make it recurring, and Two: It’s OKAY not to have sentences that would normally be legible, just talk to Morticour during his dwarfier conversations.

Finally, Formality/Mood is based heavily on personality; this isn’t quite as big, but it’s still close, and it’s probably a terrible name for it. This is a few different things, but basically boils down to The words your characters knows that he/she uses in what they think is an appropriate situation:

-How do you treat new people? (Do you greet them, or be greeted? Casual names or vague, formal, or praising ones?)

-How do you act around figures of authority? (Yes sir, No sir or Sure, Nah?)

-What is the difference between how you talk around friends compared to newcomers? (Are you more formal with those you know? Or do you relax and let slang and grammatical errors slip around friends in the pub?)

-What do you say when scared compared to confident? (Do you suddenly clam up and speak in short bursts, or are you long winded when scared? Do you refer to that dangerous wizard as ‘sir’ and ‘wizard’ or do you speak with your emotions and talk normally? What about in the opposite situations?)

-What do you say when intoxicated compared to when sober? (Do you go from ‘Hello sire’ to ‘Ello, sir’ or is it merely a slow slurring of speech? How adversely does alcohol affect your speech and how quickly?)

-What would you say when speaking to someone irritable compared to someone you deeply respect? (Do you take on a pompous tone or grow angry? When speaking to someone you respect do you relax and speak casually or speak in short, quick statements saying 'sir' and their title?)

-How do you talk to the weak, and how is that different from how you talk to the strong and imposing? (Do you take on a soft, kind tone or disregard the weak, only saying what you need to? When imposed upon to you speak quietly, or use larger words or louder statements?)

-How do you talk to the angry, or by contrast, the saddened? (Does your character speak in short, intimidate snippits or find himself becoming louder? With those that are sad do you take on a disappointing or uncaring tone, or find your words becoming helpful and kind?)

-How do you speak when angry? When sad? When disappointed? When tired? When excited? When curious?

These may seem like the kind of questions I would ask you when you were making your character in the first place, but that’s because, well, the kind of are. These things reflect your personality, history, and attitude about things.

Conclusion
Time to put this possibly intoxicated 6 AM rant to rest. Your character’s voice is a reflection of who they are as both a character and a part of the lore in their backstory and the world around them. Their past and those around them then and now influence how they speak, just as they do in real life. Put it all together, this isn’t as much a ‘how-to’ as it is a ‘here, go’ type of thing.

If you’re having trouble, go out and listen to people. Talk to people. Listen for the little things, compare how you talk with others, and then look at how you write compared to that. And ALWAYS remember THE GOLDEN RULE: Punctuation and Capitalization!

disclaimer: I am not responsible for any resulting saying of 'aye' or 'kupo'