As I mentioned in an earlier post, movies often destroy a good book because the movie you played in your head while reading doesn’t match the movie on the screen. In this day and age, whose responsibility is it to create the character? The reader or the author? Podcasts our a booming market now. People like to listen to others tell stories. While statistics show, most people still want to read a print version (I just looked it up), audio books are easy to listen to while doing chores or driving. The way a voice over reads can change the perception of a character.
Take for instance the Harry Potter series. While I read the books to myself, I, like many others, had to decide what to do with the word Hermoine. I also created a particular voice for Dobby. When I listened to an audio book, the words were the same, but the way the reader said Hermoine and spoke for Dobby were very different than I had imagined. While I didn’t fight out the Hermoine, because that was one heck of a weird name to figure out, the Dobby character grated on me. That wasn’t the Dobby I knew and loved. The movie version, on the other hand, wasn’t that far off and I could embrace him as Dobby.
So, what makes a character? Is it the voice the author gives him or the actions the character does? I’ve been struggling with making a character come to life the way I want him to be. I have studied the language I hear in my head when he speaks, and it fits best as Cockney. When I try to write what I hear, it’s illegible.
Ows ye doin’ taday? I allmos whad rye by ye der.
Not only is it hard to translate into what I want it to sound like, but it’s just as hard for the reader to translate it meaningful text. How much accent is needed for the reader to create their own image of the character? If I wrote: How’s ye doing today? what character to do see? A peasant in the middle ages? A chimney sweep in London? A Scottish warrior? Maybe even a bard in Canterbury tales. And a more important question: Is it important?
Do you the reader need to see the character the same as I do? Obviously not. Every one who read Harry Potter had a slightly different version of Dobby in mind. But it wasn’t his looks or voice that we fall in love with. It’s him. The core of who he was, which face it, was a royal pain in the neck. We learned more about him from his action than from his voice. But the voice still sets the stage. I don’t think it can simply be ignored. The way he walks and the way he talks creates the imagine we then assign his actions to. So, how much needs to be created for the reader and how much is left for the reader to fill in? How do authors assign an accent without it becoming too much to struggle through? From my experience in reading, that ratio is widely varied from one author to the next. In a digital age, is it more important to create a seamless character that can transfer between print, audio, and actor?
I love that people are still grabbing the written word. Our own imagination is winning! We still want to creative freedom over the characters we read about. The authors lead us, but our own experience fills in the gaps. Here’s to books and a good old fashioned story!
