Welcome back to this month’s series on bringing your characters to life! If you haven’t read the previous instalments, you can find Part 1 on Physical Description here, and Part 2 on Personalities here. This week we’re talking about all the fun things you can do with body language and the ways your character speaks.
In the long process of figuring out who your characters are, this is one of my favourite parts. Personally, I find body language fascinating, and I’m constantly amazed at how much information you can glean from someone just based on how they hold their body and move through their world.
Stepping back to a big-picture perspective for a moment, body language generally fits into two categories: Open or Closed. And there are many, many layers and nuances into why someone might have either, but let’s start with what they both can look like.
Someone with open body language may appear to be engaged with their surroundings or who they’re speaking with. They often appear easy to approach and friendly, but can also seem in control of their situation in either a confident or aloof manner.
Conversely, closed body language can be quite literal, with the person’s body appearing closed off or turned away:
Even a rudimentary sense of whether a character is closed off or open to their situation gives you an entry point into beginning to understand them on a deeper level. At this point, you have a clear idea of what your character looks like, as well as the basics of their personality. Now it’s time to play around with how they interact with their world and the other characters.
How does the reader first meet your character? How can that situation lay the groundwork for understanding what kind of person they are, and what kind of life they’re living? Are they at ease in the world, or in conflict with it?
How do they react physically to conflict or danger? Do they freeze? Subtly stabilize their weight and posture? What about fear? What is their body doing that’s visible to other people, and what’s going on internally?
Does their body language differ between being around other people and being alone? Are they tense and expectant when they’re in groups, and relaxed (maybe exhausted) when they’re finally by themselves? Or are they at home and energized when they’re the centre of attention, and once they’re alone they fidget and pace and panic in the silence?
Recalling my sea-story love interest, he’s tall and lean, dark-haired and swashbuckle-y, charming and irreverent, but with huge walls up around his heart and a desperate fear that he won’t find what he’s been hunting for. He’s first introduced in my story when he appears on my Main Character’s ship, after MC has nearly drowned trying to fix a problem with the hull.
Lover Boy leans against the railing, cleaning his fingernails with a long, thin blade, hair falling just into his eyes, and grinning at MC. At first glance, he seems a cocky, self-assured and vaguely threatening character.
But then we look closer and see the tendons straining in his forearms, belying a coiled tension in his body. He grins, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. Instead, he watches MC like he’s part predator, part prey, because he needs something from her, and he’s not sure how to get it.
Their first conversation doesn’t give him what he needs, and when MC locks herself away in the ship’s cabin, Lover Boy finds himself on the deck, utterly alone, with his last hope still achingly out of reach. He makes sure she’s out of earshot, and then he puts his face in his hands and silently cries.
So we first meet him in an environment where he’s trying to appear calm and confident (1), he holds himself quite still, his body coiled with tension in the face of possible conflict (2), and his body language is very different once he’s alone (3).
All of these things also introduce the question “Why?” over and over. Why is he tense? Why is he crying? Why does he need this MC, on this boat, at this time? As it develops, your story will likely start to feel like a relentless four-year-old asking you increasingly frustrating questions, but the more you can answer them, the stronger your story will be.
Dialogue and Manners of Speaking
Earnest or sarcastic? Quiet or overbearing? To the point or excessively talkative?
Figuring out how your character speaks does two things: it further develops your understanding of them as a person, and also gives them a clear voice to differentiate them from the rest of the character cast.
Have you ever read a book and had trouble keeping the characters straight, because all the dialogue and internal thoughts sound like they could have come from the same person? Nailing down a unique voice for a character is tricky, but well worth the effort. (Voice is also tends to be one of the things editors and agents are most attracted to when scouting for stories to publish.)
In my own experience, I’ve found the best way to develop a character’s voice is to write them in a few throwaway scenes. Voice ties in closely with the personality work from last week’s post, and so you can take some of those exercises and tweak them to centre around dialogue.
If you wrote an omniscient scene where your character is afraid of something, add another person and see what conversation comes out between them. Did you sketch out a scene with someone they’re in love with? Have your character reveal something vulnerable to them and watch how they react. Do they speak clearly and quickly, eager to get it over with? Do they use vague language and beat around the bush? Your character has a unique and distinctive voice, and the more time you spend with them on the page, the clearer it will become.
Body Language + Dialogue = Impacting Scenes
Once you have an understanding of your character’s physical ‘tells’ and their speech habits, you can use them to deepen dialogue and scenes with other characters. Maybe they speak calmly and confidently, but their hands are trembling, so they keep them hidden in their pockets. Maybe they’re furious, and instead of using a “he said, angrily” dialogue tag, you use “he said, slamming the book down on the table.” Or, “he said, as his fists slowly clenched and then released out of sight under the table.”
Body language and tone of voice can also either support or subvert the actual dialogue. Saying “Wow, it’s so great to see you here” in a warm tone, with a wide, genuine smile and an enthusiastic clap to a shoulder has vastly different subtext than saying, “Wow, it’s so great to see you here” in a flat tone, with rolled eyes, and posture that tilts toward the door.
There are thousands of ways people express or repress their emotions, wants, fears and hopes through their bodies and voices. Think about where different emotions live in your own body. Go sit at a coffee shop or a park and people watch, and see how they interact with their surroundings. Then spend some time talking to your characters and see what comes out of the conversations, and then stay tuned for next weekend when we talk about how culture can impact a character, and that all-important Shard of Glass.