Here’s a few tips concerning characters and words.

–When characters are speaking, give them different voices. We all know that Hagrid from Harry Potter has a very special way of talking. Give your own characters their unique voices, which will separate them from other characters.

–Once your character finishes speaking, you shouldn’t just use “said” to show that they had been talking. Instead, use a variety of words to really express how your characters are speaking: exclaimed, grunted, snarled, huffed, laughed, chortled, moaned, muttered, murmured, growled, snapped, etc. “Said” is quite bland, unless if you have another word after it (joyously, angrily, etc.). Mix it up to give your characters clear emotion and expand your vocabulary.

–If your characters have hard-to-pronounce or otherwise made-up names, provide some pronunciations. You can have another character try to say their name but fail, and then the character with the weird name gives the exact pronunciation. This helps readers to pick up the name exactly as you want it said. Fantasy books tend to use made-up names, which will sometimes make it hard for the audience to keep track of characters.

That’s it for this post! I know it’s quite short, but I just had these few tips lying around with nowhere to go, so I decided to clump them together.