Do my characters sound like adults?

[JoshRaed]

I’ve been told they sound like teenagers but I don’t know what makes their speech different from adult speech.

I’ve rewritten their dialogue a lot since then, so I don’t know how they sound now. Here’s some excerpts for context.

Here's a new one:

Orion looks at him with concern.

Orion: Who was that? The tall woman you saw.

Null: Cassandra. Caretaker of the Arcanum soldiers, and the Arcanum prophet.

--

His face is more stern now.

Orion: Why did you surrender?

Null: You don't fight Cassandra. She beats you down. Besides, I have no right to attack her.

Orion: Why not?

--

He looks down wistfully.

Null: She's my superior in every respect, always has been and always will be. I deserve none of the kindness she grants me.

Orion: You were scared of her.

Null: I never said she gave a lot of it. But always more than I deserve.

--

Orion makes an uncomfortable face at that.

Null: What? You worry about me?

Orion: No. Never.

Here's another new one:

Electra is standing there awkwardly in a leather jacket over a sleeveless shirt. Without her helmet you can see her dark skin, her deep brown eyes, and her long cornrows.
Electra: Hello. Is this the house of Penthasilea Valiant?
—
Silea: Electra!
Silea giddily bum rushes her to hug her tight, and Electra reacts to this with awkward confusion and a bit of blushing.
Electra: The answer is yes then?
Silea: Yep!
—
She pulls back and sees the bike has folded into a luggage case, and her eyes go wide and glittery in excitement, and Electra looks away blankly.
Silea: Whoa you really made that?! You're literally the coolest person who ever lived.
Electra: I am almost certain that is hyperbole.
—
She turns to look Electra in the eyes intensely with her hands on Electra’s very surprised shoulders.
Silea: Hyperbole is a made up concept invented by pussies who won't own up to their words.
—
There is a pause and Electra reacts to that phrase in a way she doesn't understand, and Silea tilts her head.
—
Electra looks out into the doorway curiously, a sweat bead on her forehead, and Silea looks out with a focused but unserious look.
Electra: Where do I put my bags?
Silea: I have no idea. We'll have to find space inside.

Here's an older one:

Then she bumped into Orion walking the other way.
Silea: Whoa! Orion. I thought you were still crying.
Orion: I was. I just… After everything that happened… I just thought we should talk about it.
—
Silea: I was actually here to talk to you about that.
Orion: Oh. You go first then...
—
Silea: Okay, so... How are you feeling right now?
Orion: Shitty. How about you?
Silea: (sighs) same, honestly.
—
Silea: Do you want to talk about it?
Orion: I think I would, actually. But... What's there to say?
Silea: A lot of things. How are you holding up after all that?

Here's another old one, which is actually pretty outdated.

He leaps off of it, lands in a roll, and spins around dramatically to face Silea as she punches a wall.
Null: What… are you doing?
Silea: I'm training.
Null: By playing bloody knuckles with drywall?
—
He comes closer.
Silea: That's how a valiant does it.
Null: What's being a blueblood have to do with breaking your fists? Orion does it too for some reason.
Silea: You wouldn't get it.
—
Null: Shouldn't you be training with your staff?
Silea: My staff isn't going to stop an army.

Here's another new one:

—
Orion: We haven’t even tried everything.
Electra: We don’t have time for everything. The world is in danger now.
Orion: Don’t you lecture me! I’ve given everything for everyone for years!
Electra: And now all you have to give is your ego.
Orion: It’s not ego!
—
Electra: Then what is it? What are you losing from doing this?
Orion: It’s my responsibility, not his.
Null: He has a point.
Orion: Shut up.

And here's the last one:

He collapsed onto her table face-down and he didn’t even look at her.
Null: I'm so awful with talking.
Electra: I know.
—
He turns towards her and she continues to focus on him.
Null: I think I ruined everything.
Electra: I am fairly certain that this is just your low self-esteem talking.
—
She turns towards him and he looks up.
Null: So what exactly is this place?
Electra: It's where the rebels against the royal crown collect and conspire.
Null: Whoa... cool. You're with these people?

So based on these interactions, do my character sound teenage? Do they sound more adult in new scenes? Do certain characters sound more like an adult than others?

If they do sound like teenagers, what makes them sound that way? What should I study to get it more right?

For context: Orion is borderline nonverbal with his lack of words like it took an entire chapter for him to have a real conversation.

Null is 19 and has this weak grasp on the english language.

Electra is neurodivergent and has a sort of robotic manner of speech.

[moontokkym]

I wouldn't say they sound like teenagers all the time but it sounds like your dialogue is for teenagers. A lot of it has a YA novel or teen show feel to it, like Riverdale has a ton of it, a lot of the Marvel movies humour is based on that as well.

I feel like you're basing how people talk not on how they talk in real life but how you've seen them talk in the stuff you've watched and read, and a lot of the YA style has rubbed off on you because the YA sarcasm style has kind of gotten everywhere, and when used in more adult media it's usually for camp (the RE4 remake has Leon say a bunch of cheesy one liners but because the game kind of embraces the camp side as well as the zombie side, it works tonally)

And sorry, the tone isn't changed in the newer quotes, in fact in some of them it's even more noticeable that they kind of feel straight out of Supernatural or The Vampire Diaries.

I wouldn't say it's bad per se if you're aiming for a teenage audience, it's just that that kind of dialogue style has kind of been done to death and Marvel's ruined that kind of humour through overuse and use of it on important plot points.

If you want the characters to feel more like adults in adult media, try going to cafes and parks and earwig conversations between adults and older people, and watch and read books and films that are specifically for an adult (over 25) audience. The Line of Duty series has pretty good dialogue and is a crime drama aimed at adults and the tone difference is pretty extreme, then there's stuff like the original Blade Runner, Alien (the first one), Annihilation, The Handmaid's Tale, 1984 (I know a lot more sci fi than other things), etc...

[JoshRaed]

I wouldn't say they sound like teenagers all the time but it sounds like your dialogue is for teenagers. A lot of it has a YA novel or teen show feel to it, like Riverdale has a ton of it, a lot of the Marvel movies humour is based on that as well.

I didn't notice that. I know I've definitely had it before. Like I used to make my characters a lot more sarcastic and snarky which kind of hurt their characterization since one of them was supposed to be uniquely snarky and another one was meant to be the funny one, but the writing style sort of made their behavior blend together.

But my main inspiration here was action cartoons. Avatar the last Airbender, Teen Titans, RWBY, the whole formatting of this comic and the main cast was taken from that sort of thing. I don't know where Supernatural came from here.

Which dialogue invokes the MCU? I want to get as far away from the MCU as possible.

Did you get a sense of distinct character voices from these clips, or at least the newer ones?

[JoshRaed]

Looking at a scene from Alien, I'm struck by the fact that this one bit of dialogue that sounds so natural and normal and okay, but I would feel self-concious about writing it for one of my own characters because said characters humor has been described as making him edgy and emo and like he thinks he's super cool and mature and smart for saying it, and like they're really an immature ass. But out of the mouth of this guy from Alien I can't imagine even vaguely feeling that way.

It's the chestburster scene, where they're talking about how they hate the food and one guy implies he'd rather be eating pussy, then he reacts to the guy coughing by saying "the foods not that bad" before realizing what's going on. Like these are lines I would gladly give to Null, but Null comes off as obnoxious and immature for saying stuff like this. Like how do they manage to have a character behave like this and make it sound mature and normal and not edgy?

[moontokkym]

That kind of explains why your dialogue seems targeted at a younger audience, both ATLA and Teen Titans, though excellent and appreciated by adult audiences, are targeted at teens and tweens, the characters are actually children and teenagers for the most part. RWBY is also mostly targeted at teens and not a great inspo for writing, RWBY's writers aren't experienced and were cribbing from ATLA and multiple other anime. If you take any inspo from RWBY, let it be from the fight choreo which is excellent in almost all cases, but the writing is generally not great and sometimes abysmal.

What reminded me of the MCU and Supernatural was the "bantery" type stuff, like the "he has a point" "shut up" and the other times there's two characters who care about eachother but don't want to admit they care about eachother, it's kind of thor/loki vibes and not something adults, especially older adults do because most people are just comfortable about saying they appreciate their friends and colleagues if it's true for example.

As for distinct voices, I'm not really getting that sorry, I can't tell who's talking just by the lines and I'm not entirely sure what the dynamic between the characters is, but that's also because it seems you've taken clips from many many scenes rather than just put up a short introductory paragraph or something. (I'm not saying you should do that, I'm saying that could bias the result).

But again if you're not specifically aiming for adult media and want to go more action cartoon comic YA, this could be a stylistic choice you can work on and innovate with, just making sure that you're aiming for that teen to early college-age young adult audience.

You've said you'd feel self-conscious writing dialogue like that, and that's sort of the point of writing. Writing involves laying bare a part of yourself, what you find normal, cool, uncool, good, bad, noteworthy, interesting, and trying to have characters that also have totally different perspectives from you and understanding them on a personnal level. Some really raw and emotionnal scenes hurt, because they'll connect to your own hurt. "Being cool" usually comes from having confidence in who you are and knowing what you like and don't and being secure in how people see you, even if sometimes they don't get it right first try. People who are edgy and immature and "trying to be cool" don't have a strong sense of who they are, and that goes for characters too. People can tell if you're trying too hard and it feels fake and like you're trying to get them to see you a certain way instead of just being a certain way and letting them see and decide for themselves how you are.

Levi Ackerman in Attack on titan is a "cool character" archetype, and says a lot of very edgy things. A lot of people make the mistake of only seeing the surface level of what he says and does and tragic backstory and blablabla, so when they get inspired by him to make a "cool character" they make a superstrong badass one liner spouting type who saves the day and then broods because he doesn't care about anything. They don't get that behind that Levi is a very consistent character. He is strong because there was a time he didn't have control and now he craves it, and that includes excessive cleaning of his environment. He cares very deeply about the people around him and that's what contrasts with his detached no-empathy type training he has for someone he sees as a tool to end suffering. He has a moral code and listens to characters he trusts, and sometimes he's right to, sometimes he's wrong to, and ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT the characters around him react naturally: they see he's strong but they don't think he's cool at first, they think he's an arsehole and treat him as such.

[jwabeasley]

I'll second what @moontokkym says here. The characters sound YA and quippy, and it makes sense since your influences are YA and quippy.

That kind of dialog has it's place, just like buffyspeak belongs in early 2000's teen dramas and 1940's style expository dialog works in very short episodic films. It sounds like that isn't what you want, though, in which case I recommend getting out and about, eavesdropping on some real people and copying their speech patterns. If your characters are professionals in a field, like soldiers or police, it's not too hard to find a place where they hang out and chat. These days you can find some longform interviews or podcasts that could help.

Getting rid of the marvel feeling while keeping humorous banter sounds hard but the remedy is actually relatively painless: go watch some classic films, old stuff, movies made before 1960 and especially before 1950. The dialog writing in the good films of that era is phenomenal.

The main element of quippiness in modern writing stems from a compulsion to mask genuine feelings with sarcasm and have characters break down anyone, including themselves, who either shows their genuine emotions or tries to elevate themselves above others. This can lead to frustration in the audience because in belittling the genuine emotions of the characters, you also belittle the audience for caring about those emotions.

If you want to avoid quippiness deliberately, try having a character that is always un-self-consciously genuine. I find more humor in characters that are being as much themselves as possible but put at cross-purposes than I do with sarcastic characters that always have their guard up and are constantly picking at each other. All of your examples are the latter.

I'm not sure whether it's Null or Electra who's supposed to be the sarcastic one, but what if Electra was genuine?

He collapsed onto her table face-down and he didn’t even look at her.
Null: I'm so awful with talking.
Electra: So I've been told. Want to practice?
—
He turns towards her and she continues to focus on him.
Null: I think I ruined everything.
Electra: You exposed yourself, hardly the same thing.
—
She turns towards him and he looks up.
Null: So what exactly is this place?
Electra: It's where traitors like me find allies and like-minded conspirators.
Null: Whoa... cool. You're with these people?
Electra: And now you're 'with these people,' too.

I wouldn't take those lines and slot them in, since I have no context to do so. They're just examples of how you could radically alter the tone of these scenes without losing pacing or exposition density.

[Leyelle]

Null: Cassandra. The caretaker of the Arcane soldiers. She‘s like if your mother was your drill sergeant was your warden. Beautiful, powerful, terrifying.

well, if you have many lines like this in your story, i'll say this, as an adult who is also a teenager, this character is speaking like a Gen Z. Many of us ARE out of our teens, but to people of older generations, they might just generalize and say that your characters sound like teens when really they mean Gen Zs. Depending on the context of your story, you might still not want to do that though, as it could definitely pull people out of the story. Characters from different generations/age ranges are likely going to have very different speech patterns from each other. Speaking in meme format, which is the kind of vibe this line gives, is a very Gen Z thing to do.

Silea: Okay, so... How are you feeling right now?Orion: Shitty. How about you?Silea: (sighs) same, honestly.

along the same Gen Z vein, replying "same" "mood" or anything really abbreviated like that, which takes almost all the context in a sentence is also a very Generation Z thing to do. It probably comes from text speech, but i've never heard anyone old enough to be my parents write or speak like that.

[JoshRaed]

I didn’t know that dialogue had a meme-ish quality. I just felt like that’s a way this specific character would communicate this idea, and it was hardly a joke or a quip. I don’t know how to reword this to also quickly and easily communicate that she was a motherly, wardenly, drill seargant-ish figure.

For context Null is 19, the youngest of them, and the one who hates responsibility. He is only involved in the plot because he was raised in a cult that taught him nothing matters and free will is a lie so the idea that he is going to fight the bad guy is a law of physics in his mind, something he believes cannot be avoided.

Also this character had a weird grasp of english because it’s not his first language, which was why he said “do you worry about me” and not “are you worrying about me”

[Leyelle]

hey, if you like the way the dialog sounds, leave it be. if you don't, take the meat from the suggestions you are offered and leave the bone. it's not the end of the world either way. The same idea can be expressed in a different way, and it won't inherently sound meme-like, but it takes practice and reworking the dialog. there's a similar line in my novel when my female lead talks about her social worker:

"Mr. Alcott says she’s a child psychology genius.

Part nurse, part teacher, part guardian, part psychologist, part mother.

All the people who hold your life and your mind in their hands, wiring and rewiring it.

-Doesn’t make for a good combination. "

It's a very similar sentiment, expressed by a teenage character, but still without the meme-ishness.

[kyupol]

That's ok. The line between teenager and adult is often blurred. I work with grown men with the mental capacity of a 15 year old lol

[IndigoShirtProd]

I wouldn't say they sound like teenagers all the time but it sounds like your dialogue is for teenagers.

Yea, I'm the one that told him that his characters sounded like teenagers, but your overall assessment make far more sense then what I've stated. Though, I have also stated in the past that the dialogue sounds juvenile.

@JoshRaed
I think the main reason I've had issue with the dialogue in the scripts I've read is that you claim, or imply, that the characters are supposed to be down to earth and taken seriously because they all have this extensive trauma, but how they act and speak, in my eyes, doesn't line up with that. And that's all I'm going to say because, as I stated before, I don't really want to deal with you right now.

[JoshRaed]

I think the main reason I've had issue with the dialogue in the scripts I've read is that you claim, or imply, that the characters are supposed to be down to earth and taken seriously because they all have this extensive trauma, but how they act and speak, in my eyes, doesn't line up with that. And that's all I'm going to say because, as I stated before, I don't really want to deal with you right now.

Can you at least say this again in different words? Because I am very confused right now. I implied that trauma makes you more down to earth and serious than if you weren't traumatized? I'm not going to ask for more, I just want to understand this a bit.

[BoomerZ]

I don't think it's juvenile, its just not serious. Most dialogue now (MCU, most movies, almost all TV shows) doesn't have any seriousness to it. If you are going for light hearted, this works. But if you are going for actual dialogue, people don't talk like this.

Orion: Who was that?
Null: Cassandra. The caretaker of the Arcane soldiers. She‘s like if your mother was your drill sergeant was your warden. Beautiful, powerful, terrifying.

This is not how people talk, it's "clever" dialogue. That is not dialogue of the moment. It's people talking that know they are in a book or movie. Most speech comes in small spurts. A real world answer to the question would be "that's Cassandra, caretaker of the Arcane soldiers. A real hard ass." "hard ass how?" "She‘s like if your mother was also your drill sergeant. She's terrifying...." The point is a drill sergeant has power, so saying powerfull is making your point twice. A warden has power too, so not needed in the description. Both drill and wardens in the eyes of most readers means an authority figure. The other descriptives are not really needed, so sounds unnecessary. You would have to sit and think up that response, it wouldn't be of the moment.

[JoshRaed]

This is not how people talk, it's "clever" dialogue.

No part of this was meant to be clever.

Also I don't need advice about what's important to the dialogue. There's a good reason Null calls Cassandra "Beautiful, Powerful, Terrifying" and not "A real hard ass", that was a deliberate choice. I just want to know about the feel of the dialogue right now, not it's contents.

[moontokkym]

I totally get where you were coming from with the "they sound like teenagers" part, because as @Leyelle has pointed out there are snippets where they sound like they're around my age or slightly younger. I'm 25 which makes me eldest genZ but I work with gen alpha, and I wouldn't say I sound like an adult a lot of the time, and I'm just barely the target audience for "adult" rather than YA. I agree that in parts it also sounds juvenile and I did assume all the characters were at most early twenty-somethings.

I pointed out the YA target audience vibes because even the dialog where they don't explicitly say "young words" does have a YA tone to it, which makes me feel that this could be a more widespread problem than just a few line deliveries, especially if as you say these are meant to be down to earth serious focused characters.

[BoomerZ]

"clever" dialogue is dialogue that is written by someone trying to be clever. It usually has too many words and doesn't sound like counter point to counter point, back and forth dialogue. It's written for the audience, not in a voice of a character. It's fine that your choice of words were deliberate, my point is you wanted to know why or if it sounded juvenile. Because of the structure of the sentences it does. The content of dialogue makes the feel. It's literally all dialogue has, specially in a novel. (less in a comics where the visual helps.) I chose "A real hard ass." as a lead into the descriptive following. It's a question on the back and forth to lead to a more in depth answer. Otherwise you are borderline monologuing. If you want more "grown-up" dialogue, it should be a back and forth conversation. .

[JoshRaed]

Part nurse, part teacher, part guardian, part psychologist, part mother.

Doesn't that make it sound even less serious? Like "Part x, Part, y, part some other thing" feels too quirky and silly even compared to the other way. I don't know, that's just how it sounds to my ears. Like if he said it the other way he'd legitimately sound like he doesn't take this that seriously somehow. Like I hear that and imagine some kids movie trailer going "Part dog, part ninja, part robot, all awesome" or something. Or I imagine a version of the phrase being used in gone girls "Cool Girl" monologue somehow.

[moontokkym]

Trauma can do a lot of things, but there are some things that it won't do and doesn't justify, and not only can that ring false to someone with trauma, it can actually be hurtful when done really wrong. People with trauma aren't inherently more down to earth. Trauma can shatter your innocence, sense of security, sense of self, will to live even, but the reaction to it can be stuff like extreme denial or dissociation (the body and mind acts like nothing happened because if it did happen it would be devastating) and will just act outwardly basically as normal until they can't keep up the dissonance anymore. Some people regress back to a time they felt safe and happy, which can be expressed by acting more child-like. Others can become impulsive and violent out of fear it could happen again, or not caring what happens because they might as well be dead in their eyes, which can come of as immature and antisocial. Not all traumatised people get fast-tracked to "cold, stoic and battle-hardened".

A character having a traumatic backstory doesn't inherently make them more grounded if you don't also build them like a complex character that also happens to have been through trauma. There are also kids stories about incredibly traumatic things that vary tonally from quite dark to uplkfting but also child-friendly: almost all of Jacqueline Wilson's books fall into this category, so does Oscar and the Lady in Pink. I highly recommended reading some of these (they're very short as they're targeted to tweens and primary school kids) to have an idea of how you can do "for kids" but also "trauma".

That means that you can't just make a character go through some traumatic stuff and assume that will mean the characters feel more adult. Kids go through trauma all the time, it sucks, but they're still kids at heart.

[JoshRaed]

I'm not sure whether it's Null or Electra who's supposed to be the sarcastic one, but what if Electra was genuine?

They're both being genuine. Electra does not use sarcasm. Like imagine Data saying "I am fairly certain that is just your low self-esteem talking" and you'll get what Electra is supposed to come off as here. I should probably describe the sequence better.

[IndigoShirtProd]

especially if as you say these are meant to be down to earth serious focused characters.

Well, I always assumed they were, based on how he's reacted in the past to me saying that the characters talked like teenagers. I would say lines of dialogue were corny and he'd ask me how to "fix" that.

"clever" dialogue is dialogue that is written by someone trying to be clever. It usually has too many words and doesn't sound like counter point to counter point, back and forth dialogue. It's written for the audience, not in a voice of a character.

Would you be surprised that I've said something similar to him in the past?

the characters are supposed to be down to earth and taken seriously because they all have this extensive trauma

Okay, so what I meant with this statement is that because the characters went though extensive trauma, the overall tone of the story would be more serious, and therefore the characters would have dialogue that's a bit more grounded. Sorry for the poor phrasing and I think I may have come to a faulty conclusion. It's just that the way trauma is handled in his scripts make it can be hard to tell what is worth getting invested in, personally.

People with trauma aren't inherently more down to earth.

Correct. I think my stating that was a misrepresentation of his scripts and a faulty conclusion on my part. I don't think traumatized people are inherently more down to earth.

@JoshRaed Instead of waiting for me to read your latest draft, consider putting it here for others to read. I can only say so much and we've had issues misinterpreting each other in the past.