This is my last comment and then I am going to go away and cry for a bit. So what about the famous JK was she raised by wizards? H.G.Wells. Did he travel in a time machine? Was his father an invisible man? I could go on but tears are welling.
But... it's just, well, research. If you want to write about something you don't already know, you need to do research. That doesn't seem so upsetting. And, sure, for purely fictional situations, you don't have to slavishly follow the research. But I think that some research is still called for. For example, Rowling made up the magic, but I'd bet that she either researched or already knew about British boarding schools. And if she'd been an American but wanted the British setting, she also would have had to research everyday life in modern Britain. H.G. Wells made up the fantastic stuff, but he either knew or researched the way that academics of the social class of his character, talked and acted. And the fantastic stuff was probably inspired and detailed by research. And Tolkein's fictional languages were probably based on academic knowledge of real languages, his settings by real places and legends. And so on. So you either write what you know, or you research so that you know more. That doesn't seem so bad. ChickenFreak
'European film director (generally pretentious)' is enough of an old-guard stereotype for Monty Python to have played upon it, forty years ago. Hence my concern that you're treading close to that line. My first novel ever was about professional hockey players. It was bad; I wrote it in sixth grade, so of course it was bad. However, in order to even make it to that level of badness, I had to study. I had to know the game in order to write about it without major technical errors. I had to know a little bit about the stereotypes in the game, enough to know that if I brought in three brothers wearing glasses and called them the 'Janson Brothers,' people would roll their eyes, since it would be an obvious rip-off of the Hanson Brothers. Now, I knew some about hockey, but in sixth grade, at twelve, I didn't know a whole heck of a lot. But, similarly to what ChickenFreak said, I didn't write that bad piece about football (a sport I still know next to nothing about because it is inferior ). Take half of what you know and half of what you want to find out about, and you will be able to construct a believable character through that method. Writing about someone you know nothing about and not filling in the details isn't doing yourself much of a service. If your character needs to be an Italian film director, why? What service is that characterization doing your story? Once you have the answers to that, you could start by looking up Dario Argento, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Franco Zeffirelli, Pier Paolo Pasolini, tons of others folks could name. See what upbringings they had. See why they became filmmakers. Learn about their characters, their histories, their art and then invent an Italian filmmaker of your own. That will always be a more real character than winging it. (Since this isn't really 'using bad grammar intentionally,' should this be moved to character development forum?)
zaf... when writing what non-americans speaking english would say, instead of trying to write phonetic accents, what works best is to just alter the syntax, which is what they do, since italian, for example doesn't have the same syntax/sentence structure as we use... download some good movie scripts having italian characters speaking english, to see how it's done... you should be able to adapt that to your prose dialog without too much trouble... otherwise, what cog says at the top of this page will be the result... hugs, m
Had a look at the 'Italian Job' script (on line). One of the lines goes something like 'He's off to Italy, hopes he likes spaghetti'. This could be looked at as offensive. Personally, I think, those were the days when countries had identities. Now everybody eats spaghetti. And besides what's so insulting about a fabulous dish such as spaghetti.
See, the difference is that line illustrates the character's cluelessness. But if your street thugs are talking like B-movie goombahs, but ineptly, you're stereotyping, and THAT can be offensive.
I'm a little confused here. You seem to be arguing that the line is offensive, and then demanding to know why it's offensive? But in any case, if the line is a line of dialogue, then, sure, it might be intended to reflect an offensive attitude on the part of the character that's speaking it. There's a difference between a character being deliberately written to have offensive attitudes, and an author being offensive unintentionally. ChickenFreak
Writing like your character thinks makes your story more authentic which is great. A story you can look at is Maggie, girl of the streets, not a story that I would typically recommend but it is online and has that bad grammer examples. Just be careful, if your story is too hard to read then some people will not read it.
Quote: Originally Posted by zaffy 'He's off to Italy, hopes he likes spaghetti'. *********** ChickenFreak I don't think the line is offensive, I said 'it could be looked at as offensive'. I deliberately chose a line that was not particularly offensive. It was a line I came across, as an example, after the offending subject was raised. How does one judge?
This seems to have gotten side-tracked a bit, but to the OP: Catcher in the Rye uses some poor grammar because Holden Caulfield is a self-proclaimed 'unintelligent' person.
Once Were Warriors is written in multiple first-person -- all characters are low-class maori from New Zealand and the writing style(s) reflects this really well. Worth a read as inspiration.
To address the original question, I would limit your use of bad grammar to the dialogue of your "uneducated" characters. Alternate between bad grammar and simple sentences, which are easier on the eyes AND consistent with the language of someone who doesn't understand a language very well. While it should be free of bad grammar, narration should be consistent with the narrator's speaking tendencies, especially in first person. Don't use words or phrases that the narrator isn't familiar with. However, to avoid overly simple narration, you should include more complex language from time to time, language that your character wouldn't use, but would understand. That's the way I see it in general terms. But I'm interested to hear what others think about writing these types of characters, as I'm currently writing a novel about an exchange student who visited America last year ith a limited understanding of English. If I were to write the way she actually spoke, each sentence would be filled with errors that might confuse the reader. (Or, more likely, they'll just get tired of reading the broken English)
