Dialogue Voice Check: Do Characters Sound Alike?

Dialogue voice check answers the note "all your characters sound the same" with numbers. Drop a screenplay and every character with eight or more speeches gets a card: line length, questions, exclamations, contractions, vocabulary range, the words they use more than anyone else, and a list of pairs that talk in a similar shape.

Written and reviewed by ScriptLix EditorialUpdated October 2026

How to use it

1
Drop a PDF, Final Draft, Fountain or Word file anywhere on the page.
2
Read the pairs at the top first. Those are the characters whose numbers sit closest together.
3
Open the two cards side by side and give one of them a habit the other never has: shorter lines, more questions, a word only they use.

What does the tool measure?

Only the dialogue, and only surface habits. For each character it counts the average words per speech and the longest speech, the share of speeches with a question mark, the share that end with an exclamation mark, and contractions per 100 words.

Vocabulary range is the number of different words per 100, measured in 50 word windows and averaged, so a lead with 300 speeches is not marked down for having more to say. Their words are ones they use at least three times and at least twice as often as everyone else, with common words and character names left out. Repeated phrases are two or three word runs they say three or more times.

How does it decide two characters sound alike?

It puts the five numbers for every character on the same scale, then measures how far apart each pair is. A pair is flagged only when its distance is under 40 percent of the typical distance between pairs in your script, so it means these two are much closer than the rest of your cast, not that they are close in some absolute sense.

It needs at least three characters to compare. With two, there is no typical distance to measure against.

Is a flagged pair a problem?

Not always. Two soldiers in the same unit, or a mother and the daughter who copies her, may be meant to sound alike. And two characters can share every number and still differ in what they want, what they hide and how they dodge a question, which this tool cannot see.

Treat a flag as a place to look. Read their scenes aloud and ask whether you could tell who is talking with the names covered.

Questions writers ask

Is my script stored?

No. The file is sent to our server only to read the pages, and nothing is kept. The voice numbers are worked out in your browser.

Why is a character missing?

Only characters with eight or more speeches get a card, and only the eight biggest parts. A character with fewer lines does not give enough dialogue for the numbers to mean much.

Does this judge whether my dialogue is good?

No. It counts habits like line length and contractions. Great dialogue can score anything, and so can weak dialogue. It only shows where two voices look alike on the surface.

How do I make two characters sound different?

Change one habit at a time. Give one shorter lines, or have one answer questions with questions, or let one swear and the other never. A word or phrase only one of them uses goes a long way.