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IWW
Practice-W Exercise Archives
Exercise: I
hear voices (v. 2)
These exercises were written
by IWW members
and administrators to provide structured practice opportunities for its
members.
You are welcome to use them for practice as well. Please mention that
you found
them at the Internet Writers Workshop
(http://www.internetwritingworkshop.org/).
Prepared by: Rhéal Nadeau
Posted on: Sun, 5 Aug 2001
Reposted, revised: Sun, 23 March 2008
Reposted on: Sun, 27 September 2009
Reposted on: Sun, 24 July 2016
Reposted on: Sun, 1 September 2019
Reposted on: Sun, 18 June 2023
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Exercise: In 400 words or less, write a dialogue involving two or three
characters,each with a separate voice. Use a minimum of dialogue tags.
The voices should tell us something about each character and help us
tell the characters apart. Use narrative, but keep it to a minimum.
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Character voice is one of the tools the writer can use to define
character and set the mood. Voice consists of many things: diction, pronunciation, rhythm,sentence structure, word choice, idioms used, level of grammar, recurrent topics or speaking habits, and so on.
Think of the voices in Tom Sawyer--they help us know the characters and
the setting. The voices change to reflect the characters' moods. In a more recent example, Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible is a great example of the use of voice. The narration in this novel alternates between five characters: the mother, and her four daughters. Each of those characters has her own voice, so that if I open the book at random, I can quickly tell which character is narrating.
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When critiquing a submission, point out your impression of each
character, based on the dialogue clues.
Web site created by
Rhéal Nadeau and
the administrators of the Internet Writing Workshop.
Modified by Gayle Surrette.
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