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I am writing a story that involves a creature that is specifically not humanoid. Instead of appearing as a human, it is more of ageless energy that exists in the core of a planet, can communicate with the protagonist and other humans of the world, and is able to manifest in various ways, such as a smoky mist or jagged rocks in the landscape. It is closer to a God-like entity if anything, but is still very physical in the world.

I am trying to write interactions with this character and other humans in the story. I think I will ultimately have to use some dialogue, but I want this character to appear completely foreign when it comes to human existence. I am having trouble finding ways to allow this character to exist as a unique being of intelligence and sentience while also limiting the amount of human-like interactions it has with the other characters.

My story uses a fantasy setting, so any sort of magical explanation is at least to be considered. I want to allow this character to feel physical and able to communicate without giving it a voice per se. I've done some research, but I am largely getting information about how to describe voices, which is unhelpful in this scenario.

I appreciate any help on this matter because I am stumped.

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    Hi @owlishe, welcome to Writing SE! Is your question about building a godlike character (i.e. what are its motives and desires, does it care about humans, etc.), or your character is already built, and your only issue is with descriptions (i.e how to best describe a voice speaking from a burning bush)?
    – Alexander
    Commented Dec 19, 2020 at 9:09
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    How does this character contribute to the theme of the story? Is it an antagonist? A casual bystander? It would seem to me that there would be essential actions for this character and that those interactions with the other characters in the story would point the way to expressing those interactions (albeit after some clever thinking). In other words, why does this character exist?
    – JonStonecash
    Commented Dec 19, 2020 at 10:52
  • @Alexander I think the question is the god-like character an communicate with the characters as one of the tags is dialogue and the question states, "...able to communicate without giving it a voice..."
    – user11111111111
    Commented Dec 19, 2020 at 16:26

2 Answers 2

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There's a few things I can think of that can help.

  1. Communication method. You say you think you'll have to use dialogue, which is a good option but not entirely necessary. I would go with a sort of telekinesis/mind reading thing between the MCs and the entity. If for whatever reason this option is unavailable or doesn't work for you, you can use writing. I'd recommend having the MCs have a small vial of water which they pour out whenever they nee to talk to the entity who then shaps the water into words.

  2. Entity's knowledge. Your entity is not human, so it doesn't know much about human things. Like food, distance, or money. This can make for some funny conversations if you want to write them in, and makes the entity seem alien/not human.

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Make him long to be human, like Data from Star Trek, or Vision from The Avengers. Have him want to learn as much as he can about the human race. Then, if he does anything human-like, it can be blamed on his desire to be human.

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