Characteristic Dialogue

[caliburncy at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 28712

At Cindy's request I am going to make a (probably lame) attempt to 
discuss the following element of Harry Potter:

It is a fairly common piece of creative writing advice that one of 
the proofs of well-written dialogue is for lines to be fairly 
recognizable as being from this character or that character, even 
without speaker attributions.  In other words, characters should have 
a strong and distinctive voice.  Usually this distinctive voice is 
achieved through the following ways, in no particular order (and 
since I'm making this up off the top of my head, I'm sure this is not 
exhaustive):

Penchant for certain idiomatic expressions
Characteristic trains of thought
Accent and dialect
Quirks of speech
Level of diction
Grammatical and cadential tendencies
Content

Some of these are more evident than others (an accent or dialect is 
readily noticeable, but a characteristic train of thought may take a 
bit more analysis to pick up on).  Also, none of them function in a 
void--it's the cumulative effect that counts.  But we can't really 
analyze the cumulative effect, we need specifics, so let's take one 
at a time.

Oh yeah, my standard disclaimer: As always, these are my totally non-
authoritative and non-accredited opinions and I profess no expertise 
in the analysis of writing craft and technique, yadda, yadda, 
yadda . . . 


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Penchant for certain idiomatic expressions
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I am exceedingly grateful to J.K. Rowling for not inventing a lot of 
wizarding world idiomatic expressions, like several fantasy writers 
do for their worlds.  Instead she uses strictly British 
colloquialisms, which makes perfect sense given that the culture of 
the wizarding world is not entirely separate from (muggle) British 
culture at large, as evidenced by other things: food, school 
schedules regarding holidays, perhaps religion (ah, the endless 
debate...), etc.  Perhaps I am the only one, but seeing made-up 
exclamatory expressions such as "Great wizards!" or "Merlin's beard!" 
in some of the very little Harry Potter fanfiction I have read, makes 
me want to cringe.

Anyway, the idiomatic expressions that are present in Harry Potter 
are most often used not to further the sense of world creation (as 
many of these made-up expressions in fantasy misguidedly attempt to 
do), but as contributors to level of diction.

For example, we see arguably less cultured or snooty characters such 
as Hagrid and Ron saying things like "rubbish" and "bollocks", but 
for Snape or Dumbledore or Lupin to say such a thing is out of the 
question.  More on level of diction later, though.

There are no idiomatic expressions however that are out-balanced in 
Harry Potter, in the sense that a particular character uses it *all 
the time*.  This is probably a good thing, because characteristic 
idiomatic expressions tend to work best in moderation.  I have seen 
too many writers use them as a cop-out for distinctive voice.

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Characteristic trains of thought
--------------------------------

What I mean by this is similar to content (discussed later), but not 
identical.  I mean specifically the references that a character tends 
to make because that's where their mind immediately goes.  In other 
words, whatever topic they will instantly make relevant to any 
discussion, not because they love the topic, but because that's how 
their brain works (it is reflective of their values and character).  
Ron, for example, will take discussions that have nothing directly to 
do with his family and immediately bring them into the discussion, 
especially his parents.  He cuts in with the advice of his father, 
the thoughts and habits of his mother, and comparisons to his 
siblings.

My favorite of these is in POA, Chap. 11:

   Hagrid howled still more loudly.  Harry and Hermione looked at Ron 
to help them.
   "Err--shall I make a cup of tea?" said Ron.
   Harry stared at him.
   "It's what my mum does whenever someone's upset," Ron muttered, 
shrugging.

And of course there are ample examples of other instances, especially 
things like "Dad says that..." or "You sound like Percy" or that sort 
of thing.

Contrast that with Hermione, whose train of thought never leads her 
to mention the opinions of her parents unless they themselves are 
specifically brought up.  So where is Hermione's thinking often led 
without assistance?  To books, of course.

Another quick example is how Draco falls back on Lucius's opinions 
("Father says...").

Etc., etc.

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Accent and dialect
------------------

As if you couldn't guess, the person here with the most to comment 
about in terms of accent and dialect is Hagrid.  I do not have much 
to say about this except two things: One, it is often wise to have 
only one major character with a strong accent, so it's good that the 
only other characters in Harry Potter with accents (i.e. Fleur, 
Victor, Madame Maxime, Karkaroff, etc.) all play relatively minor 
roles.  Two, it has become less and less acceptable over time to 
overdo it on the accent-representative misspellings.  The logic 
behind both these guidelines is the same, accents are hard to read, 
so they should be *implied* moreso than *spelled out*.  In other 
words, it used to be that you could write:

(from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)

[talking about how French people do not speak the same language as 
Americans]
   "Well, now, I be ding-busted!  How do dat come?"
   "I don't know; but it's so.  I got some of their jabber out of a 
book.  Spose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy--what 
would you think?"
   "I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head

But nowadays, because this becomes tiresome to read and translate, 
more subtlety is generally expected (i.e. using certain patterns of 
sentence structure rather than constant misspellings to indicate a 
dialect or non-native speaker) and the characters who have the accent 
or dialect sometimes get less screentime.

Rowling tends to overdo her accents and dialect a bit, but with good 
motivation: accents in Harry Potter are used to some degree as a 
source of humor, so the on-page exaggeration is appropriate.

Of course, then there's also the dialect of the house elves that some 
readers would say takes a step (or two, or three...) beyond humor 
into the land of the just plain annoying.

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Quirks of speech
----------------

This is a bit of a catch-all category, I admit, but it's intended to 
include things that really don't count as the result of cultural 
influences (which can affect idiomatic expressions, accents and 
dialects, and level of diction).  The quirks of speech here are just 
things that that particular character tends to say with no particular 
cultural reason, like:

"Dear(s)," and "My dear(s),": Professor Trelawney

"Great man, Dumbledore.": Hagrid  (This is not so much a quirk as 
just something he says quite frequently: if not for the constant 
*verbatim* repetition, I might even include it as a characteristic 
train of thought, but it doesn't really fit there either, so this 
will have to do.)

"Harry, Harry, Harry": Lockhart  (A very specifically applied quirk, 
but a quirk nonetheless)

Etc.

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Level of diction
----------------

This can be a trickily subtle thing to discuss, so I will go for some 
of the bigger distinctions rather than the small ones.  There is a 
definite difference in the general level of diction between much of 
the staff and students--not perhaps as wide as one might expect, but 
it's there.  It's actually not a matter of the staff using bigger 
words or more complex sentence structure as one might initially 
assume.  In fact it's not at all a matter of the staff doing 
something that the students don't do.  It's a matter of the staff 
*not* doing things that the students do, such as using more 
colloquial expressions and patterns of speech.  The mere absence of 
these things, especially in characters like Dumbledore, puts them on 
a higher plane without resorting to the kind of exaggerated 
distinction caused by Professor Trelawney's habits of speech.

Specifically, Trelawney uses some more antiquated structures such as:

(from POA, Chap. 11)

   "I dare not, Headmaster!  If I join the table, we shall be 
thirteen!"

Notice "I dare not" instead something more common like "I don't dare" 
and the use of "shall".

Or (in the same chapter):

"But one does not parade the fact that one is All-Knowing."

The use of "one" as a subject is a locution common to essays because 
of its technical correctness, but nowadays rare in conversational 
speech--people tend to rephrase their sentences in such a way so as 
to avoid it.

Obviously this slightly stilted and outdated mode of speech captures 
the essence of Trelawney's falseness and eccentricity quite well.  
She clearly intends to sound impressive and scholarly, a mildly lofty 
manner of speech, though in truth it just makes her sound a tad 
ridiculous.

Level of diction really deserves a more in-depth look, because it is 
often a very large contributor to distinctive voice and one of the 
less immediately apparent, but this will have to do for now, I 
suppose.

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Grammatical and cadential tendencies
------------------------------------

What I mean by this is not the poor grammar espoused by some 
characters like the house elves or, to a lesser extent, Hagrid.  No, 
I mean the tendency of a character to put pauses (commas) in certain 
places, use short fragments or run-on sentences, etc.  The details of 
this get so exacting that an analysis would take all day, and not 
prove that enlightening, because Rowling herself would not have 
*consciously* considered it in such microscopic terms.  Again, it's 
the cumulative effect.  But a couple of quick examples:

Hagrid has more of a tendency toward brief sentences or fragments 
than some of the other characters.

Professor Trelawney's melodramatic manner of speech is generally 
comprised of short exclamations whenever something evokes a strong 
reaction in her (surprise, concern, etc.) and somewhat longer, 
sweeping sentences when she is explaining things in mysterious 
detail.  Interestingly enough her casual predictions thrown about 
while walking around the classroom (and seemingly said in a "flat 
affect", matter-of-fact voice as opposed to the more misty voice that 
she seems to use in her explanations) are usually middle-length and 
tersely-constructed.

When we are first introduced to Hermione, she has a tendency toward 
breathless and circuitous run-on sentences:

(From PS/SS, Chap. 6)

"Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when 
I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's 
the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard--I've learned 
all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be 
enough--I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

Her character quickly seems to grow out of this, but there are still 
occasional snatches of her verbosity here and there.

-------
Content
-------

This is so broad and obvious that I hesitate to include it, but for 
me to skip it would make this list rather incomplete.  It is clear 
that one way to guess at the speaker of a line without an attribution 
is based on content.  But still for this to be valid evidence it must 
be some kind of *characteristic* content.  For example, comments on 
ethical considerations and rights are often from Hermione.  This can 
be misleading of course, as characteristic content does not make it 
the exclusive domain of that character.  Detailed comments on 
various "interestin' creatures" are likely to come from Hagrid, but 
might as easily come from someone else, since after all it is just a 
topic of discussion, and discussions are not single-person.

But anyway, though content is a helpful possible indicator for 
identifying the speaker of a line and therefore relevant to the test 
I espoused earlier, it ultimately has little if anything to do with a 
strong and distinct character *voice* (though it has everything to do 
with a strong and distinct character) so I will say no more on the 
subject.

***

In fact, that's the last category, so I will say no more on this 
larger subject as well.  

Feel free to hit me back with question, comments, complaints and all 
the usual.  I apologize for the scanty job this does of really 
discussing this topic, rather than getting into the nitty-gritty 
technical specifics, but ultimately it would only make this 
*longer*.  (And we wouldn't want that.)  But maybe this post, despite 
its fairly cursory musings, will serve as the springboard for someone 
else to make some superior observations.  That would probably be the 
ideal result of anything I could write.

-Luke