Major Project: Helping find the characters voice

One thing that i have often struggled with is making sure my characters have a unique voice. The way they talk needs to come to life on the page. As i am writing a lot of male characters, i wanted them to speak differently so it is clear who is talking, whilst also noting that they live, and are from the same area. For example Dean is very confident and has a Cockney Twang to his voice while Nath is more methodical and uses words perhaps unfamiliar to the others as he is a keen academic.

I decided to do some research to help me with this and hopefully provide me with a solution or alternative way of looking at it. I knew one place that had often held answers for me in the past was BBC Writers Room so i went there first.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writers-lab/genre-toolkits/writing-tv-sitcom

I found an interesting article through them (see above link). I wanted to look at methods other sitcom writers use to help with character development and also figuring out their voice. So far i have only created in depth character profiles and therefore i know a lot about my characters and their background and what they want.
After reading the article one piece of advice stayed with me.

"write monologues for each character in that character's tone of voice"

I liked this idea and felt it could help me to figure out the way the way they talk and help to clarify their individual voices a bit more. This also reminded me of things Simon taught in the first year about putting your character in situations they may not be familiar too and see how they react. However for this scenario i decided to use situations the characters would be involved in, off screen moments the characters might have. 

From this advice i wrote monologues for the 4 main characters. Whilst doing so i found it gave me an opportunity to focus solely on that character and therefore not worry about what others would say back to them. It proved to be a very helpful piece of research as i when i gave the monologues to group to read it was clear to them which character was talking without me having to tell them. It was clearly in their own voice.  

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writers-lab/scriptwriting-essentials/4-character

I also found a piece of information on a different article on the same site, which i'd found helpful. 

"They need some kind of vulnerability – a chink in their emotional armour or Achilles heel or blind-spot that makes them universally human. "

When i was reading over the script, one thing that wasnt sitting right with me was that Dean was all over every girl he meets - there was barely anything likable about his character to the female audience. When we see him meet lucy - a future love interest - nothing about him changes. I felt this wasnt how that situation should play out. Dean should treat lucy differently to the other girls without loosing his voice. He can still check her out but also so a softer side to him that lets the audience know of that 'chink in his armour'. I decided to rewrite the meeting scene to reflect my new thoughts and feelings. 

Overall i think applying this research to my work has undoubtedly improved it. It has opened me up to a different way of thinking and helped me to apply my research rather than just read multiple relevant articles. My research here has affected my project by allowing me to explore characters in a new way, outside of script writing. We will also now use these monologues for the actors during auditions. It has also let me explore scenario's that i wasnt planning on having in the series so has given me further creative freedom that when i have looked back on the monologues i have found them to be so useful i may work them into future episodes in some way.