This isn't so much a question as an idea. Last night I was reading a short story from George Saunders collection, The Tenth of December. The story I was reading was The Semplica Girl Diaries, which is written in an abbreviated note form. The guy is an American dad, in a not-too-distant future. For some reason, I hear his voice very clearly. His pitch is on the high end for a man, and there's always a note of anxiety in his voice.
This gave me an idea. I feel I have a problem getting my characters to sound really distinct. I think about their forms of speech and the words they choose, and I do try to read their dialogue out loud, to see if it seems like a plausible thing for anyone to say. I would think about the way they speak - like if it's abrupt, sugary etc, But I'd never really thought about their actual voice - I mean like whether it's high, low, whispery, loud, hoarse, penetrating. I feel this might really help me when I'm imagining my character's talking to each other - not that I'll mention it in the writing necessarily, the high, loud or whatever, I mean; but I'll hear it in my head, and hopefully I'll hear distinctly different ways of speaking.
Do any of you already do this? Does it help?
I might deliberately focus on a particular actor's voice - that's a good tip. I hope it might evolve into a different voice, but at least it starts me off somewhere that isn't my voice. This thing I'm editing at the moment, I swear there are six characters who all sound like me! I looked back at it and it made me laugh, like I was a one-woman show, running round on stage, whipping off one costume and putting on the next. Ah well, you live, you learn...
Why don't you post up an example John? Could be just a short excerpt? You could maybe get some useful advice on where you could pare back on the oddness of the Owl voice and language.
It sounds a bit like the problem of how you suggest to the reader that someone is speaking in a foreign language, without actually writing in that language. The standard approach is to chuck in the odd 'bonjour' and 'per favore', just to give the speech a flavour. Of course, that can end up looking really hammy if you choose the very obvious phrases and if you leave the reader nothing to figure out. You need to get a balance between conveying the individual's voice on one hand and overtaxing the reader on the other. Sensing where that balance is can be difficult for the writer I think - that's where we might help!
The function of the character is a clue as to how he or she speaks. Then the reader can use his/her imagination.
You could mention that Character A had a deep voice, and that Character B was softly spoken. That Character C always spoke enthusiastically and that Character D was pessimistic.
When I read novels I give real-life voices to the characters I relate too, according their age and gender. Other characters have a neutral voice.
How do you give voices to the characters in novels?