@Banzai No, I see this as a perfect excuse to go there. Uhm, research. Yes. That's what it is! I will immerse myself more. In response to an earlier crack, yes. I watch a ton of English movies and shows. Love BBC America. But yes, too much Hugh Grant. We're going to blame him. @Melzaar Thanks. I probably should have just googled that. Sorry.
Hugh Grant is awesome. He assaulted a reporter with baked beans in a tupperware box. You can't get more mad or British.
Better? Worse?: He smiled. Smirked, actually. “Yes. Pleased to meet you.” As he withdrew his hand, he folded his arms over his chest. “Absolutely not kidding about the whole life debt part, by the way. We might be en route to a tragic friendship that involves you nearly dying all the time, but hey. If you’re going to play that game, you will build up quite the debt there, Emily Jones.” “What’s new?” I grumbled in reply with a shrug. “Just keeping the status quo.” “Status quo? Is the ‘status quo’ here a bad pattern of abuses and beautiful women taking men out with a single fall?” He brought a hand up to stroke his chin. “…actually, I think that’s how my parents met. Except it was on a hill overlooking this beautiful lake. She took an awful tumble. Nearly drowned.” He quirked a brow. “…my dear, I believe they’ve got you beat. You'll have to try harder next time."
That is about the most redneck thing an Englishman could ever do. He was one Bud Light short of what my Meemaw does to my Peepaw every day of the week!
Well, now your character isn't making any references to things but just talking formally, he passes an awful lot better.
I said 'awful' twice, though. Will fix that. And I didn't actually change much, either. I think it was the royals part that set everyone off. Passes or good to go, though?!
Just a quick thinky from me Also I just wanted to add that I come from an upper class family and am very much, a complete asshole, lol
And this is the point in which I reveal that Chops here is actually my inspiration. Just kidding! I like the way you redid that. Did you see my revision above? If I did something like what you suggested and plugged it into the revision I've done, I think it would work well. I was thinking "life debt" in line with the old tradition of when you save someone's life, they owe it to you, but if you think joking that they'll start a tab is better, I suppose that would work as well.
The revision was better, but still not right. Coming clean (to no one's surprise, I'm sure) as a hanger-on after my cousins who were in the thick of Lady Di's Sloane Ranger crowd in the late 70s-early 80s, I'd like to add that if there's one thing ex-public schoolboys do correctly, it's employing the present perfect tense. So he would never say: "...I believe they’ve got you beat..." It's beatEN. And he'd more likely say 'Actually, I think you'd better admit defeat' or something like that. He wouldn't talk about "taking out" either. That just means...well, like taking someone out for a meal or something--unless he's putting on a fake American accent and pretending to be a gangster (of the old school, not a 'gangsta'--even these days, the public school crowd is not much into that scene, going by my cousins' kids). He'd over-use stupid quantifiers like actually, rather, a bit etc and have a lot of er...er...ah... And he'd reference old childrens books like Winnie-th-Pooh to be whimsical, and season his speech with thesaurus-style words, with AWESOME ACCURACY. Listen to Nick Clegg talking if you want an example of slightly flash English public school (with a dash of EuroBond thrown in), or watch David Cameron if you want the classic version. But a bit depends on his age. Cleggs and Dave are approaching 40s, I'm *gulp* early 50s, anything younger--hmm, well, there's James Blunt, for example.
I think this is much better but it doesn't feel realistic. However, I think it's the length of the dialogue that's standing out to me now more than what he's saying - also, the idea that he's just giving away information without really being prompted. It doesn't feel like a real conversation. Even if it doesn't apply to the more northern states you can get away with using "reckon" when writing a British character.
I think you're forcing it too much, that's why it doesn't sound realistic...Does his dialogue really have to sound 'British'? If you want him to sound more 'posh', then in his dialogue, don't use words like 'They're' or 'He'd' always write his words in full form..if you see what I'm getting at?
I think the Youniquee makes a good point if you want to emphasise well-"spokeness ". Also, I think another important point is that British English really isn't that different from American English or any other type of English when put into writing, for the most part. Lets go back to Harry Potter. Harry's dialogue is hardly "British". He just speaks normally, like I'm speaking now or like an American character in a book. Hermione's also English but, unlike Harry she's well-spoken. However, as Youniquee said that doesn't come from stereotypical phrases, but more to do with the fact that her words are spoken in full form. Ron, on the other hand is probably supposed to be the most casually English of them all. This comes out of his dialogue through English slang; words like "mate", "git", "ain't" sometimes "init" and saying "like" a lot. However, the main driving force in J.K's text that makes you understand that it's a story about English character's is the character's actions. The food they eat is probably typically English; I know I've seen "Fish and chips" in there somewhere. The descriptions are in British English format, for example saying "ground floor". Something like "stick that in the rubbish would ya'?" is an example of a casual English phrase that might get chucked out by somebody like me Don't "force" the phrases on your characters though, like "We're going out for some Fish N' Chippies now"; it sounds too artificial. Like I said a true "well-spoken" british person would just pronounce most words in full and wouldn't use slang.
Sorry, but contractions are used just as much by toffs as any other social group. More, in some ways. We love to slur our words together. Writing things out in full would simply look like he's Mr Darcy. Concentrate on getting the grammar correct and the vocabulary erudite.
Really? I think not using contradictions changes the tone of the character and makes it seem as if their more, 'serious' (lack of better word) but that's just me. Personally, I think that it's giving the author extra stress for no reason. It can be done, but most of the time it's going to sound forced, unless you've watched English shows for a long time. It's not like the reader is going to say: '*Gasp* The author mentioned that he was British, but their dialogue doesn't sound like it! This really affects the story!' (Even though clearly American speech and English speech sound the same when writing dialogue) I think it should be shown in the character's culture that he's British.
Watch the interview with Charles and Diana before they got married, when Charles infamously said of being in love 'whatever that means', and you'll appreciate just how much upper classes run certain words together when they speak.
Uhm, yes, very much so. Oy vey. My first run though, I was trying to make him sound posh. It failed miserably. Second time through, I was actually trying to make him sound like a well-spoken American. Apparently I managed to do that in bad British, too. So yes, it is very much stressing me out right now when I think I have an entire story to obsess over and am instead obsessing over these three awful paragraphs. The only thing I hang over in what you said is that "American speech and English speech sound the same when writing dialogue." I can't wrap my brain around that in a way that lets me write it any differently in a comfortable way. That's what I tried to do in my revision and again, it apparently still feels forced and fake. I also think it would be odd to have someone be completely devoid of any kind of slang. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong here. Also - @ Yoshiko - he's not giving away something personal, he's making a joke. That isn't actually how they met. He's trying to be clever. I guess that didn't come out as light and sarcastic as it needed to be? The next paragraph, which I didn't include since I didn't think it was needed, states that she appreciated his sarcasm so I address there that he isn't being serious at all.
Have you noticed that NONE of the actual Brits on this forum bothered to dispute their UK stereotype of Americans?
