Glossary term

Dialogue voice drift

Dialogue voice drift is an unsupported change in a character's speech pattern, vocabulary, formality, cadence, or verbal habits.

Definition

What dialogue voice drift means

Dialogue voice drift is not ordinary emotional variation. It is a change in how a character speaks that does not seem caused by plot, context, audience, emotion, or point of view.

Why it matters

Voice is one of the main ways readers recognize a character. Accidental drift can make speakers blur together.

Example

A terse character who avoids contractions suddenly speaks in long polished paragraphs without a scene reason.

Wise Wombat

Wise Wombat flags likely dialogue voice drift and points back to passages so authors can decide whether the change is intentional.

Related continuity terms

These terms often appear together during manuscript revision.

Character drift

Character drift is an accidental change in a character's stable facts, knowledge, motivation, emotion, presence, or voice.

Point-of-view continuity

Point-of-view continuity is the consistency of what a viewpoint character can perceive, know, infer, remember, or privately report.

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