I need help with writing a good Dave

This is kinda dogshit advice and doesn't really help with writing his speech patterns necessarily but a problem SO MANY people have when writing dave is thinking too hard about writing him accurately. Doesn't mean you shouldn't think about it, but generally if something flows naturally it's probably pretty in-line with some stupid shit he'd say. If you go too hard on the teh epicz sicknasty ironic oneliners you end up with a cardboard cutout of dave.

I've only recently started writing for Dave, as I am relatively new to Homestuck fanfiction writing. But generally, I tend to make his speech incredibly lax, where he only says "big" words if it's to be funny or silly in some roundabout way. I feel that it helps to be more direct and to the point when writing Dave's speech because he isn't the type of person who is vague in his meaning.

I also don't really curse a lot, and I noticed Dave curses but it's not that often and he'll only say words like 'shit' and 'fuck' when he's talking for a long time. Or when he wants to get his point across.

"his typing quirk or typing pattern is like this all lowercase with no punctuation whatsoever"

I have broken some rules, though, and used exclamation points when he's really angry in some of my fics just because I wanted to get the tone across lol. And that can be kind of hard when he has such a flat tone. As for how to write his personality, you should probably just focus less on trying to make some funny scenes with him, since the comedy will kind of just come naturally anyway, with how absurd his situations tend to be. It just depends on the fic you're writing IMO.

If you're writing a really serious fic about a very serious topic, then I think it's totally fine to have Dave care about the situation since he does care about difficult problems. He has a flat tone, but this does not mean he is unpempathetic in any way to other people.

Really I think if you want the scenes to be funny or whatever, you should remember that Dave is kind of always the opposite of the "straightman" in the two way comedy routines. The Straightman is the character who takes everything happening to them seriously, where as the opposite is the character who is either the source of the tomfoolery or the character who engages with the absurd situation headon and thinks it is also amusing.

So if something silly or just downright stupid happens, he isn't the type of person who would just freak out about it happening or whatever lol, he's the type who would think the silly/absurd thing happening is a little bit funny which gives you a great opportunity to make a lot of really silly jokes.

a friend of mine introduced me to [url=http://readmspa.org/search/search=6.html]this site[/url]! it's great for ctrl+f-ing some dave dialog if you need a refresher.

(i hope the formatting worked, otherwise i'll look like an idiot.)

i think it depends a lot on which "era of dave" you're writing!

for example, act 1 - 5 dave usually approaches conversations a lot more "i actually don't care about this conversation, and if you think i care, you're actually a loser. anyway, pay attention to me."

whereas act 6 + meat dave kinda skips straight to "pay attention to me."

i write dave mostly in his 20s so this may not apply, but also it might so! who knows!

dave, to me, is incredibly adhd and rambly. i think thats pretty easily recognizable in the way he smashes fourteen topics together in one rant or to make one point. to get this down (if you dont have this habit yourself), make sure any random shit hes bringing up isnt actually random- its gotta lead back to whatever his original point was in some way, even if his original point was a joke (imagine the structure of a stand-up comedy bit- hes doing that!).

dave can also be irritable and he def has a temper sometimes, but he shows it in a super weird way. he doesnt yell at people or directly insult, but he will get standoffish, anxious, and veeery subtly passive aggressive. the dave i write is faced with a lot of personal issues bubbling up, so hes less outright funny, but it does come through!

really the best way to go about it is dig through a couple of your favorite logs and take notes like judgetstone said but ill drop some basic pointers

you have to be funny
despite popular belief this part is not optional

and dont just quote weak tweets you saw two years back that made you briefly exhale hot air out of your nostrils

its not like you need to be a professional standup comedian or anything just have a basic grasp on non-referential humor

as long as your log doesnt look like it could pass for an incorrect-hs-quotes post on tumblr four years ago youre probably in the green here

"no caps or punctuation" also isnt an actual rule and everyone who tells you that is setting you up to fail

he uses both every now and then for emphasis or when hes particularly emotive or even just for readability so dont be afraid to pop a couple question marks every now and then

a decent amount of dave rambles boil down to taking a simple metaphor and grotesquely expanding on it
so its a good idea to familiarize yourself with some common idioms both to use normally and to build off of

also theres zero shame in having a thesaurus on hand if you feel like your verbiage isnt colorful enough

gaudygleeman put it a bit differently than i would but seriously just dont think about it too hard

there is an incredibly thin line between making dave look like hes trying way too hard and making yourself look like youre trying way too hard and believe me when i say you do not want to cross it

monologuing or swearing or referencing his interests or using slang too often is just gonna make you look like a complete and utter tool

which i guess is kind of the point but just dont go totally overboard with it

ive hired a hitman to plant a pipe bomb in your computer wired to explode whenever you utter the words "obama" "apple juice" or "karkles"

good luck