Dialogue Voice Distinctiveness
Can you tell the speaker from their style without the name? Each character's vocabulary, rhythm, and subtext distinct.
The five levels
Each anchor describes what separates one level from the next — not a general description of quality. This is the text the evaluator itself reads.
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Level 1 Below Standard
All characters speak in one voice (the writer's).
Example Dialogue unchanged if you swapped the speakers' names.
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Level 2 Approaching
Surface difference (accent/filler) not reflecting character.
Example A character repeating a word without it revealing them.
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Level 3 At Standard
Each main character has distinguishing vocabulary and rhythm.
Example A terse character against a verbose one.
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Level 4 Above Standard
The speaker is identifiable by style without a name in most lines.
Example A single line enough to name its speaker.
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Level 5 Excellence
The voice carries the character's history, class, and subtext at once.
Example Dialogue revealing a character's past without stating it.
Where does your own work sit on these levels?
Submit one work to be read against this criterion alone: your position across the five levels, why you are not higher and why not lower, three literal quotes from your own work, and one exercise with its success check. Your first card is free.
Price: 7 SAR · Included in Pro & Artist Plus · First one free — Pricing details
Read my work by this criterionOther criteria in the same art
Building story according to: setup, confrontation, resolution
The five levels →Separating what the character outwardly pursues (want) from what they inwardly need, and the tension between them.
The five levels →Building main character with motivations, problems, and transformation
The five levels →Creating anticipation making reader want to know what happens
The five levels →Building external and internal conflicts that intertwine to enrich the drama
The five levels →Moments that shift the story's course and raise its stakes irreversibly
The five levels →The ending's ability to close the story and leave a lasting impression
The five levels →Does each scene turn a dramatic value (+ to − or vice versa)? A scene that changes nothing is a dead scene.
The five levels →