"Hello, I'm Ren Hunter."

I was editing Eyemind again yesterday, and one of the things I had to change was the dialogue.  That got me thinking about how I use different modes of speech to show character.

Let's use some examples of how I've done that in Panthera : Death Spiral.

Ren Hunter is friendly, not over-formal, but comes across as well-educated.

Nic Hunter is rather more hip, worldy-wise, and sometimes world-weary too.

Bryn Hunter is a geek, spending his days designing Ais.

Panthera is a sentient AI.

These four characters are very different, so how did I use dialogue to help show that?

Ren would say             "I've got to get you out of here."

Nic would say               "Gotta get you outta here."

Bryn would say             "We've got to get out of here, Pan."

Panthera would say      "We must go now, Bryn."

Their choice of words, and the way they say them, can help to define your characters.  Their dialogue can reveal their social class, ethnic background, and how they see themselves.

It's worth taking time at the start of a novel to think through how each of your major characters speaks, and to create contrasts between them.