City has six POV characters, and I want each of them to sound distinctive in his speech and feel distinctive in his POV. What are some of my tools?
- Vocabulary (some think; others reckon).
- Elision and contractions (for some it's not; for others it ain't).
- Oaths (Jumpin' Jehoshaphat! Rostam's mace! Jebus! Egad!).
- Wordiness. Correctness and precision of grammar.
- Slang (one character is a carny).
- Use of foreign words or phrases.
- Long versus short words.
- Subject matter obsession.
- Lyricism vs. prosaicness.
- Gnomic speech, folk wisdom.
- Interjections and contentless words, er, that is to say, et cetera.
- Speech impediments (at one point, one of my characters gets his dose broked).
- Specific memories / references unique to the character.
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