I have a good amount of dialogue for my current story, and just found out that there are ways to spell the words within it to convey an accent. How important is this? If the reader knows from the beginning that the character is French for example, is that acceptable? Would it be ok to write the dialogue in standard English if you did this? I ask this because it would make for quite a project to go back and edit all the dialogue, I'm only a beginner so I don't even know where to start with it.
Derek was French, 'Give me a steak, medium rare, onions and a pint of beer,' he said in his delightful, most elegant French accent, 'and make it snappy I got a plane to catch to Paris in twenty minutes, garcon,' he said. The waiter wilted, and whisked the bread rolls from the table. He rushed toward the kitchen. 'Treat em mean keep em keen,' said Derek in French, 'I fuggin love a steak, the blood, the juices remind me of slaughter,' he said. 'You are so typically French, my friend,' I replied and glided my long fingernail around my martini glass. 'With you here in my eyes I feel almost transported to the beaches of Scunthorpe, among family and proletarian comrades of the working class.'
All ways work and fail at different points in time. Although some critics do get rather precious-critical about the 'Eau, velkom to ma patty, darlingo,' school of dialogue. Sorry for my scrawl, I was 'testing out'...stuff.
Different spellings will throw some readers off, but other ways may not be noticed by some. I enjoy when accent is subtle or if a character has a regional way of speaking and it is handled well. Think a character from Louisiana, US, in Washington state. That character is going to speak differently- accents, words, word combinations, etc. I enjoy it even more if there is some banter about how they speak. It can be another way to define a character, and those around them, in an easy way.
This is good information. I just have to figure out how to actually do it. I'll probably avoid the change of spelling, because it sounds like that unless it's done superbly, then it could be seen as garbage.
I'll keep going the way I am and just see what happens. Would something like "rolled off his tongue in a (xyz language) accent" work for a line of description?
I'll be honest, too much of dialogue written in an accent is irritating to me. If you tell me which accent the character has, I'll apply it myself. I don't need the words to be spelled phonetically to get that the character is speaking in their accent. I just need to understand the words - and misspelling them to convey an accent is detrimental to comprehension.
This is good to know then. Now I know I'll definitely stick to what I've been doing. Also makes future revisions a lot less cumbersome.
I will share some experiences that worked for me. 1. In "The Eagle and the Dragon," there is a centurion who speaks lower-class Latin, grammatically incorrect, words elided, etc. Of course, I am not writing in Latin, but I used Rudyard Kipling as a model... he used a lot of English regional dialects in his poetry. so Antonius talks like "Beggin' yer pardon, sir but yer could git yersel' kilt doin' that shit." A very senior NCO giving frank guidance to a senior officer whom he knows well. However, when he speaks Greek, he is also very proper. He can also speak very proper Latin, and does on about two occasions, as he is very educated, the son of a freedman tutor, but he keeps that light under his bushel basket. 2. At various times, characters are speaking a language they are not good at, just learning. A Chinese character speaking Latin for example, comes across as kind of a pidgin English, as that is actually grammatically very similar to Chinese (which has no grammar); he would be totally at a loss how to apply Latin endings for case, tense, mood etc. as Chinese just doesn't work like that. As he doesn't say much in Latin (maybe five speaking cases) I don't over do that. 3. Middle Eastern characters speak Aramaic, an ancestor of modern Arabic, which I render in a King James' version of English, important because occasionally the speakers are in the presence of those who can't understand them. 4. My Romans go through a phase of learning first Chinese, then Bactrian (ancestor to Pashto and Urdu), and their conversations in that language are initially halting, with long pauses for words, then as they get better, just simple sentences, often with grammatically incorrect phrases tossed. These all seem to work well for my readers. My wife is about to publish her fantasy "Parham's Mill', within days to weeks, and this is set in rural Appalachia (Western NC or SW Virginia) in 1950. A beta reader noticed that her female character, though just a high-school graduate, spoke like @K McIntyre, which would not be so sophisticated for that area and time. I advised her to make Caroline sound like my cousin Dawn, who lives in Asheville. So there are a lot of elided 'gs and the prefix particle a attached to gerunds "I am going," the way Karen speaks, becomes "I'm a-goin'" Lots of dangling participles, which I normally abhor, but people speak like that, and 'whom' is never used, always 'who'. Her betas like it, we will see how this works for her.
I can't remember where I hear this advice, but it works for me. If you're in first person, your viewpoint won't have an accent because, just like you don't think you have an accent (even though you really do), neither will your characters. If a character does have an accent, spell out the accent only when you want to draw attention to it. Like if your MC notices that's how someone pronounces something. Placing too much accent in dialogue can be tiresome for your reader. A good way to give the feel of someones accent is to use their diction and sentence structure, just not too much as it can come off as ignorant or racist. And if you feel your character needs you to ignore any of this, then go ahead.
I like the idea of drawing attention to a particular piece of dialogue. I just need to decide at what point does doing this fit and is necessary, as I don't want to force it or do it to a piece of worthless dialogue. Writing is 100x harder for me because I overthink everything.
Well, bear in mind that what I wrote is only my opinion. Others will differ, and you should also bear in mind your personal style and what is needed for your story.
I agree. If I am reading a book with too much dialogue written in an accent, I lose the flow of the story. I find myself re-reading some of it to actually let the meaning of it sink in. Dropping subtle hints along the way is enough to keep a reader aware of a character's accent, or at least I hope so!
I just realized that two of my favourite books, Finnegans Wake and Trainspotting, are almost literally written entirely in an accent. So I guess, go big or go home.
Phonetically-spelled accents make me cringe. It nearly always comes off cartoonish, makes the character look stupid (because they can't speak 'properly') and is insulting to their culture. It makes your dialect 'correct' and theirs 'other.' Remember that we ALL have an accent to someone else, so why on earth would you spell yours with correct English and someone else's with deliberate misspellings? You can avoid that by simply telling the reader the character has an accent, like @matwoolf did in his example, and/or with word choice. "Bloody 'ell, what 'appened to yer titfer?" said a poor Cockney character, ill-treated by his incompetent author. "Bloody hell, what happened to your titfer?" said the Cockney character, treated with respect but with his culture intact.
To be fair, this one goes around like 'Prologues.' If you can bust the orthodoxy and succeed, then why not (try)? I think last time round I attempted a little 'och anew, hew ken aye help ye, yun man?' in my Borders sweet shop. This drew the fire of many great heavy-hitters of forum lore, nay legacy, if that's right, "NO," said God, "can you imagine reading an entire book by @matwoolf, you would want to kill yourself." I mean, I disagreed robustly. As for 'Trainspotting,' it's different chapters, confusingly some written in English, some in Scots English, some in Scots...so unravel that...
I always thought the different accenting was supposed to reflect the different social strata represented in the book. Chapters from the view of Renton and kith were in accented language, reflecting the language of his lower class, while the chapters written in Standard English were of people either in, or born in higher, richer social circles.
https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland#History Scots or try Ulster Scots From Alice's Carrànts in Wunnerlan (Anne Morrison-Smyth, 2013) WIKIPEDIA The Caterpillar an Alice lukt at ither fur a quare while wi’oot taakin: finally the Caterpillar tuk the hookah oot o its mooth, an spoke tae hir in a languid, dozy voice. “Wha ir yae?” said the Caterpillar. This wusnae a pooerfu guid openin fur a yarn. Alice answert brev an baakwardly, “A—A harly know, Sir, jest at this minute—at least A know wha A wus this moarnin, but heth, A hae bin changed a wheen o times since thin.” “What dae yae mean bae that?” said the Caterpillar sternly. “Explain yersel!” “A cannae explain maesel, A’m feart, Sir,” said Alice, “baecaas A’m naw maesel, yae see.” “A dinnae see,” said the Caterpillar. “A cannae mak it onie mair clear,” Alice answer, while polite, “fur A cannae unnerstan it maesel tae stairt wi; an baein sae monie different sizes in yin dae haes turnt mae heid.”
I honestly can't read any of this without it being in the voice of the little Scotty dog from Lady and The Tramp. "Aye ye wee bairn."
I'm not too bothered by it. I think for a writer it's natural to experiment with what they can convey with words and spelling - it's an art form too. Just look at this excerpt: You got such big things to do the voild is falling apart if everything isnt dont yesterday. He clucked his tongue, shook his head, and slowly counted the money … twice … three times—Hey, comeon Abe, lets get with it. You dig this dude jim? Hes lickin them fingers and countin that braid ovah and ovah like its gonna change numbers. He dont even trus his ownself. Damn. - Selby Jr., Hubert Requiem for a Dream: A Novel I understand if it's distracting to some people. Readers are different. If you feel like you might be able to make it work, give it a go. Good luck.
Some writers are just really REALLY talented at depicting accents. But if you're not ...best just give a slight taste of flavour. Less is definitely more in this game. My friend Mark Rice who wrote the collection of essays, memoirs and short stories entitled Heathen Howff, is an expert at rendering the local accent where we live (and where he grew up.) He throws in just enough of the dialect to give a very accurate representation of how folks talk around here, without feeling the need to reproduce the accent verbatim. Here's a little excerpt for flavour, from the story "Cuban Roulette." This excerpt comes just after a practical joke goes wrong. As a child, the narrator was addicted to Oor Wullie, a Scottish series of comic books. He got the idea to try the old bucket of water atop a half-opened door trick on his father, as Oor Wullie did. Oor Wullie's prank was a success. The bucket flipped over, emptied the water all over Oor Wullie's dad, and and landed upside down on his head. My child narrator's attempt to snare his dad with the same trick was less successful:
