A thing I've got *extremely* problems with is the speech pattern. You know, every single person has his or her on way of speaking, expressing and therefore writing. So, if I want to let an NPC in a story speak, I must invent a whole new speech pattern for that one.
The difficulty for me lies with that I personally believe that I must run an Artificial Intelligence (AI) in my head while writing the speech of the NPC. Tht includes his or her thought-pattern, the way of logical resoning and so on, everything that influences the speech, and behaviour.
Somehow I have the feeling that I cannot do this. Maybe it's even the wrong approch ?
So, in short, writing in first-person-view is a kind of role-playing for me.
You're not the only writer who has trouble with a character's dialect, Alrik. It's quite common and I take a different approach in developing characters. I actually interview them (in my head). I have a generic list of questions I ask each one, and as they answer (or not answer), I note their body language, expressions, attitude, etc. Then I redesign the questions to get a more personal glimpse of their personalities. This may sound a lot like a person who has a multiple personality disorder - LOL - but in some ways, I think it may be how an actor prepares for their roles.
Faralas <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mage.gif" alt="" />