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Title: Would He Fucking Say That? On Characterization and Voice in Fanfic
Length: 2.1k
Details: I touch on characterization, identify the difference between character voice and writer voice, and address the writing of British-accented characters. I do this primarily through the lens of Ted Lasso with a focus on the character Jamie Tartt. Beyond examples for the sake of argument, this is not a fandom specific piece, and applies to plenty of others I've engaged with in my time.
Read on Tumblr
I’m not an expert. Never will I claim to be an expert. I feel as though most, if not all, metas are largely subjective, but like any other kind of opinion piece, it doesn’t matter how well researched it is, if at all. It may just be off the cuff ramblings, rapid fire thoughts and feelings about something. It may also be as well researched and properly cited as a paper you could find in respected, published journals.
That being said. What follows is entirely my opinion, and my opinion is one of a White, early-twenties American university science student who has been engaging with fan content at an exclusively amateur level since my early teens. Take with that what you will.
What I want to talk about here is my feelings on, as you can see from the title, characterization and voice. Characterization is fairly obvious. How these characters are written, both in the source material and by fans, and how these two compare. Voice pulls back a little bit, it refers to the voice of the character, which is part of the characterization, but also the voice of the writer, and the balance between the two. I have opinions about it that I recognize are not shared by everyone. There is plenty of good fic out there that treats voice differently than I would, or than I would prefer to read. This does not make them incorrect, or poorly written, it is just a matter of taste, style, and training.
Given that my current, primary fandom Is Ted Lasso, the examples I use will be drawn from that series and the associated fandom. I will not address specific fanworks by name or by author. I will try to keep things vague, while also trying to stay true to what I am trying to say. I will always be explicit when I am quoting or paraphrasing from a fic. So I would like to say up front that if I refer to a work that you recognize or that belongs to you, I genuinely, truly, do not mean any harm. Though, I recognize that harm is subjective and that intention very often does not equal impact. But, I do appreciate the work people do, genuinely and with my entire heart. Even when it doesn’t speak to me or I don’t like it. I will never claim to know better, simply because I do not have the credentials, experience, or technical skill to back that up. I just know what I like, which may be different from what you like. It is the varying tastes of fans at the core of fandom that has allowed us to engage with each other and with media in the way we do. It’s what makes fandom so great. If we all thought the same thing, that would just be plain boring.
When it comes to characterization and voice, I’m referring to the ways writers choose to present characters and how those characters perceive their world. How a writer chooses to do this depends largely on how they interpret characters themselves. This on its own causes many different versions of what is supposed to be the same character to come to light.
I’m sure we’ve all read a fic before and thought, “What the hell is this writer thinking?” I know I have, I know my mutuals have. That being said, many of us are aware that fic writing these days is predominated by amateurs. Which is fine, there’s nothing wrong with that. Fandom used to be dominated by White, professional, educated, middle-class women. Thanks to the advent of social media and globalization, fandom is more diverse and accessible than ever. This means that many of the people who are creating and engaging with fan content are not necessarily trained in writing, fiction or otherwise. I believe we have to be comfortable making certain allowances for the sake of reading about the blorbos from our shows.
Many of my fandoms, somehow, end up being British. Perhaps it is my genetics, yearning for the rhythmic tones of my western European ancestors… Or it’s more reasonably just coincidence. British media has a habit of attracting large American audiences, which means swathes of American fanwriters trying to approximate British speech patterns, for better or worse. This observation is at the core of this meta. This isn’t a source on how to write British characters better, because I’m not British, and have no point of authority on the matter. This also isn’t a call for “britpicking,” or even insisting that you need to find beta readers or else your work will never be worth reading. Good betas are hard to find, and while finding one is certainly worth it, you can still be a good writer without one. Trust.
This is a call for paying attention. For identifying speech patterns and perspectives of the character you want to write about, and using them effectively in your own writing.
Effective use being the key phrase here. Plenty of authors can identify quirks, buzzy catchphrases, and all the other little idiosyncrasies that make a character unique, but using them properly is where writers tend to stumble. The key is selectivity. For example, Ted Lasso’s Jamie Tartt, born and raised in North Manchester, known for his iconic turns and miss-turns of phrase. He’s got regionally specific, youthful slang as well as a habit of misusing common words and phrases. It’s all part of his charm! But it can be hard to get right.
Two things often happen to our friend Jamie. First, they underwrite him. Homogenize him, making him just vaguely English enough to pass, I guess. Though I see this most often in conjunction with other characters, who have their own distinctive speech patterns. All of them rendered down into a pile of identical and vaguely British-sounding pieces of wood. The second, they overwrite him. They use slang excessively. Which isn’t wrong per se, but the key point is you must know what it means, and the context in which to use it.
Overwriting is, very possibly, the bane of my fan existence. Few things turn me off a fic faster than egregious mishandling of slang and dependence on popular, canonical one-liners, because I know that the author is trying for realism. I recall very clearly a writer using “well mint,” which to this day makes me physically recoil every time I think about it. Sorry. This also includes the overabundance of “sexy little baby;” an iconic Jamie line. Called back by his mother in her first appearance. Now it’s everywhere. What should have been sweet, cutesy even, has been over-handled, the dough of your story is falling apart. There can, in fact, be too much of a good thing. God help us.
In or adjacent to this vein, there is a misattribution of dialectal patterns. While many of these characters are from the UK, they’re from different places, were raised in different cultures, and use different words. Mixing these up, such as our preppy resident Welshman saying “bruv,” a word with multicultural cockney roots in London's East End (and Scotland), draws attention to the writer as someone who is not paying very good attention to the characters they’re writing about.
Another gripe, and this is one just for me, is phonetic dialogue. I get it, okay? You want to make sure that your readers are reading this in the exact way you want it to sound. This happens in all writing. So many novelists, notably those in the fantasy genre, do this. They shun standardized and comfortable spelling and sentence structure to try and give their characters a little more oomph. However, if you’ll allow me to be blunt, I hate this so bad. This may be great for all the lovely voice actors who record audiobooks, the screen and stage actors and the like. Those who’ve been tasked with turning the written word into an audio experience. Personally, I’ve always found reading it very taxing and distracting.
People especially love to do this for Jamie. Hell, my own dad does it about Roy, and I haven’t had the guts to tell him that he’s doing it wrong. Or maybe he’s doing it wrong on purpose to make me suffer, possible. Jamie, with his charming Mancunian way of going about things, gets this treatment excessively. While I appreciate when it dulls the crude edge of “poop-eh,” I find that it can be overdone and hard to read. That dastardly too much of a good thing again.
The fic that inspired this meta did this. Every other word of dialogue spelled phonetically, and worse? Incorrectly. I don’t know how to say, in a normal way, that Roy Kent would not say words like that. He’s just not doing vowels like that, what can I say? My only assumption is that the writer got so caught up in Jamie’s accent that they accidentally went and gave South Londoner Roy the same one. It was just a lot.
When it comes to voice, there are two kinds: There’s the character’s, which we’ve already touched on above, and yours, the writer’s. It’s important to be able to identify and express how a character views and responds to the world they’re in. It makes your characters feel true. It gives them a sense of identity that can help a reader feel invested in their circumstances. Your voice is how you chose to tell the story. The way you like to structure your sentences and stories, describe things, themes and motifs you enjoy.
There is a balance between these things. This balance is different for every person and every work. Some writers are confident in their own voice and express more of that than a particular character’s. Other writers, those who feel really in touch with their characters of choice, may choose to emulate a character’s thought process in favor of their own. It doesn’t really matter which you choose, both are effective, and both can make for a good story. One is not better than the other. Do what feels right for you and your story, and switch it up sometimes! It’s good for you and your craft.
Your voice does not exist in a vacuum. It comes from everything you’ve ever read, watched, conversations you’ve had, things you’ve learned. It is a concentration of self. It can be refined, nurtured into something you can be proud of knowing you not only got your point across, but sounded damn good doing it.
It’s important to be able to determine the difference between your voice and the character’s. Sometimes, as awful as it is to admit, that delightful little phrase you cooked up sometimes isn’t what they would say. Are these characters actually that emotionally (un)intelligent? Would they really get caught up in sexuality labels and drop their hot new therapy buzzwords in casual conversation? Do whatever you want, make them say whatever you want, it’s fiction about fiction. But if you catch yourself projecting a little, or a lot, determine if you want to do it with your whole chest and double down, or if you want to reevaluate and revisit the source.
Like character voice, author voice can also lead to homogeneous characters and stories that all sound the same. Plenty of writers write the way they do because they enjoy it. They consider themselves, as they are, to be good, and they very well may be. The writer, first and foremost, writes for themselves. Why shouldn’t they try to write something that speaks to them? There’s nothing wrong with this either. All of us know those fics that have us wishing there were a hundred more just like it. But watch out for if all your characters just sound like you, unless that’s what you’re going for. A little self insert never hurt anybody.
Can you still write a good fic even if you do these things? I don’t see why not. You can plot well, introduce conflict with a deft hand, and write satisfying endings all while your characters talk like a bunch of dialects bundled into a trenchcoat and thrown in a blender. But it can distract or drive readers away from all the good bits of your story because you’ve accidentally gone and fumbled the voices of the characters that they wanted to read about.
All of that being said, there’s no need to write up extensive linguistic bios or do fandom wiki deep dives before you write a character, not unless you want to. It’s just a matter of engaging critically and consciously with the source material. Listening to the things characters say, how they say them, and why. It will make your characters feel more real, closer to canon, rather than leaving your readers raising their eyebrows and thinking about how much he would not fucking say that.
Length: 2.1k
Details: I touch on characterization, identify the difference between character voice and writer voice, and address the writing of British-accented characters. I do this primarily through the lens of Ted Lasso with a focus on the character Jamie Tartt. Beyond examples for the sake of argument, this is not a fandom specific piece, and applies to plenty of others I've engaged with in my time.
Read on Tumblr
I’m not an expert. Never will I claim to be an expert. I feel as though most, if not all, metas are largely subjective, but like any other kind of opinion piece, it doesn’t matter how well researched it is, if at all. It may just be off the cuff ramblings, rapid fire thoughts and feelings about something. It may also be as well researched and properly cited as a paper you could find in respected, published journals.
That being said. What follows is entirely my opinion, and my opinion is one of a White, early-twenties American university science student who has been engaging with fan content at an exclusively amateur level since my early teens. Take with that what you will.
What I want to talk about here is my feelings on, as you can see from the title, characterization and voice. Characterization is fairly obvious. How these characters are written, both in the source material and by fans, and how these two compare. Voice pulls back a little bit, it refers to the voice of the character, which is part of the characterization, but also the voice of the writer, and the balance between the two. I have opinions about it that I recognize are not shared by everyone. There is plenty of good fic out there that treats voice differently than I would, or than I would prefer to read. This does not make them incorrect, or poorly written, it is just a matter of taste, style, and training.
Given that my current, primary fandom Is Ted Lasso, the examples I use will be drawn from that series and the associated fandom. I will not address specific fanworks by name or by author. I will try to keep things vague, while also trying to stay true to what I am trying to say. I will always be explicit when I am quoting or paraphrasing from a fic. So I would like to say up front that if I refer to a work that you recognize or that belongs to you, I genuinely, truly, do not mean any harm. Though, I recognize that harm is subjective and that intention very often does not equal impact. But, I do appreciate the work people do, genuinely and with my entire heart. Even when it doesn’t speak to me or I don’t like it. I will never claim to know better, simply because I do not have the credentials, experience, or technical skill to back that up. I just know what I like, which may be different from what you like. It is the varying tastes of fans at the core of fandom that has allowed us to engage with each other and with media in the way we do. It’s what makes fandom so great. If we all thought the same thing, that would just be plain boring.
When it comes to characterization and voice, I’m referring to the ways writers choose to present characters and how those characters perceive their world. How a writer chooses to do this depends largely on how they interpret characters themselves. This on its own causes many different versions of what is supposed to be the same character to come to light.
I’m sure we’ve all read a fic before and thought, “What the hell is this writer thinking?” I know I have, I know my mutuals have. That being said, many of us are aware that fic writing these days is predominated by amateurs. Which is fine, there’s nothing wrong with that. Fandom used to be dominated by White, professional, educated, middle-class women. Thanks to the advent of social media and globalization, fandom is more diverse and accessible than ever. This means that many of the people who are creating and engaging with fan content are not necessarily trained in writing, fiction or otherwise. I believe we have to be comfortable making certain allowances for the sake of reading about the blorbos from our shows.
Many of my fandoms, somehow, end up being British. Perhaps it is my genetics, yearning for the rhythmic tones of my western European ancestors… Or it’s more reasonably just coincidence. British media has a habit of attracting large American audiences, which means swathes of American fanwriters trying to approximate British speech patterns, for better or worse. This observation is at the core of this meta. This isn’t a source on how to write British characters better, because I’m not British, and have no point of authority on the matter. This also isn’t a call for “britpicking,” or even insisting that you need to find beta readers or else your work will never be worth reading. Good betas are hard to find, and while finding one is certainly worth it, you can still be a good writer without one. Trust.
This is a call for paying attention. For identifying speech patterns and perspectives of the character you want to write about, and using them effectively in your own writing.
Effective use being the key phrase here. Plenty of authors can identify quirks, buzzy catchphrases, and all the other little idiosyncrasies that make a character unique, but using them properly is where writers tend to stumble. The key is selectivity. For example, Ted Lasso’s Jamie Tartt, born and raised in North Manchester, known for his iconic turns and miss-turns of phrase. He’s got regionally specific, youthful slang as well as a habit of misusing common words and phrases. It’s all part of his charm! But it can be hard to get right.
Two things often happen to our friend Jamie. First, they underwrite him. Homogenize him, making him just vaguely English enough to pass, I guess. Though I see this most often in conjunction with other characters, who have their own distinctive speech patterns. All of them rendered down into a pile of identical and vaguely British-sounding pieces of wood. The second, they overwrite him. They use slang excessively. Which isn’t wrong per se, but the key point is you must know what it means, and the context in which to use it.
Overwriting is, very possibly, the bane of my fan existence. Few things turn me off a fic faster than egregious mishandling of slang and dependence on popular, canonical one-liners, because I know that the author is trying for realism. I recall very clearly a writer using “well mint,” which to this day makes me physically recoil every time I think about it. Sorry. This also includes the overabundance of “sexy little baby;” an iconic Jamie line. Called back by his mother in her first appearance. Now it’s everywhere. What should have been sweet, cutesy even, has been over-handled, the dough of your story is falling apart. There can, in fact, be too much of a good thing. God help us.
In or adjacent to this vein, there is a misattribution of dialectal patterns. While many of these characters are from the UK, they’re from different places, were raised in different cultures, and use different words. Mixing these up, such as our preppy resident Welshman saying “bruv,” a word with multicultural cockney roots in London's East End (and Scotland), draws attention to the writer as someone who is not paying very good attention to the characters they’re writing about.
Another gripe, and this is one just for me, is phonetic dialogue. I get it, okay? You want to make sure that your readers are reading this in the exact way you want it to sound. This happens in all writing. So many novelists, notably those in the fantasy genre, do this. They shun standardized and comfortable spelling and sentence structure to try and give their characters a little more oomph. However, if you’ll allow me to be blunt, I hate this so bad. This may be great for all the lovely voice actors who record audiobooks, the screen and stage actors and the like. Those who’ve been tasked with turning the written word into an audio experience. Personally, I’ve always found reading it very taxing and distracting.
People especially love to do this for Jamie. Hell, my own dad does it about Roy, and I haven’t had the guts to tell him that he’s doing it wrong. Or maybe he’s doing it wrong on purpose to make me suffer, possible. Jamie, with his charming Mancunian way of going about things, gets this treatment excessively. While I appreciate when it dulls the crude edge of “poop-eh,” I find that it can be overdone and hard to read. That dastardly too much of a good thing again.
The fic that inspired this meta did this. Every other word of dialogue spelled phonetically, and worse? Incorrectly. I don’t know how to say, in a normal way, that Roy Kent would not say words like that. He’s just not doing vowels like that, what can I say? My only assumption is that the writer got so caught up in Jamie’s accent that they accidentally went and gave South Londoner Roy the same one. It was just a lot.
When it comes to voice, there are two kinds: There’s the character’s, which we’ve already touched on above, and yours, the writer’s. It’s important to be able to identify and express how a character views and responds to the world they’re in. It makes your characters feel true. It gives them a sense of identity that can help a reader feel invested in their circumstances. Your voice is how you chose to tell the story. The way you like to structure your sentences and stories, describe things, themes and motifs you enjoy.
There is a balance between these things. This balance is different for every person and every work. Some writers are confident in their own voice and express more of that than a particular character’s. Other writers, those who feel really in touch with their characters of choice, may choose to emulate a character’s thought process in favor of their own. It doesn’t really matter which you choose, both are effective, and both can make for a good story. One is not better than the other. Do what feels right for you and your story, and switch it up sometimes! It’s good for you and your craft.
Your voice does not exist in a vacuum. It comes from everything you’ve ever read, watched, conversations you’ve had, things you’ve learned. It is a concentration of self. It can be refined, nurtured into something you can be proud of knowing you not only got your point across, but sounded damn good doing it.
It’s important to be able to determine the difference between your voice and the character’s. Sometimes, as awful as it is to admit, that delightful little phrase you cooked up sometimes isn’t what they would say. Are these characters actually that emotionally (un)intelligent? Would they really get caught up in sexuality labels and drop their hot new therapy buzzwords in casual conversation? Do whatever you want, make them say whatever you want, it’s fiction about fiction. But if you catch yourself projecting a little, or a lot, determine if you want to do it with your whole chest and double down, or if you want to reevaluate and revisit the source.
Like character voice, author voice can also lead to homogeneous characters and stories that all sound the same. Plenty of writers write the way they do because they enjoy it. They consider themselves, as they are, to be good, and they very well may be. The writer, first and foremost, writes for themselves. Why shouldn’t they try to write something that speaks to them? There’s nothing wrong with this either. All of us know those fics that have us wishing there were a hundred more just like it. But watch out for if all your characters just sound like you, unless that’s what you’re going for. A little self insert never hurt anybody.
Can you still write a good fic even if you do these things? I don’t see why not. You can plot well, introduce conflict with a deft hand, and write satisfying endings all while your characters talk like a bunch of dialects bundled into a trenchcoat and thrown in a blender. But it can distract or drive readers away from all the good bits of your story because you’ve accidentally gone and fumbled the voices of the characters that they wanted to read about.
All of that being said, there’s no need to write up extensive linguistic bios or do fandom wiki deep dives before you write a character, not unless you want to. It’s just a matter of engaging critically and consciously with the source material. Listening to the things characters say, how they say them, and why. It will make your characters feel more real, closer to canon, rather than leaving your readers raising their eyebrows and thinking about how much he would not fucking say that.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-20 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-21 07:54 am (UTC)Fascinating reading. I'm in a slightly different bit of Ted Lasso fandom, and slightly peripheral (I've never watched an episode, but I've read a lot of fic), but the bullshit that writers make Trent Crimm say gives me the irrits. Sometimes, it is consistent within a story, and thus I'm willing to accept a variant, but sometimes it is so out of left field (apologies, I can't think of a single example right now). Especially annoys me when some US kid related term sneaks in (and yes, it does cause me to go and look at where certain phrases get used).