Comments on: Dialect

By: Emma

Emma — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 00:19:23 +0000

I think Terry Pratchett does rather a good job with dialect and differences in speech among various characters; though it can become confusing at times. In his book “Carpe Jugulum,” there was a character called Igor who had such a lisp that I often had to read his lines several times. Dialect’s very effective sometimes, but unfortunately it’s easy to do it wrong.

By: Ilse

Ilse — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:57:36 +0000

I definitely need to work on creating characters with distinct voices and speech patterns!

Louise – When I started reading the Redwall books as a kid, I couldn’t figure out anything the moles were saying half the time! But I do think it works in those stories, because it becomes so much a part of the way they are written.

By: Allegra

Allegra — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 00:58:04 +0000

I have got to say that the unsung master of this is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ve spent a goodly portion of 2010 working my way through the Complete Sherlock Holmes, reading most of these stories for the first time, and one of the things that surprised me was how varied and rich the backgrounds of the side characters are. Inspector MacDonald from THE VALLEY OF FEAR for example has one of the most elegantly depicted brogues I have ever read. And even the characters who are all Londoners are easily distinguished from one another, not just by what they say, but by how they say it. Incredible.

By: Esther

Esther — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 04:46:45 +0000

@Chicory
Other word choices that indicate a Southern accent are “Sir”, “M’am” and “Thank You”. Especially when “Why thank you” is used as an insult!
“Sir”, “Ma’am”, and “Ya’ll” are usually used as 2nd person subject pronouns. Casual conversations usually ONLY use proper names in the 3rd person. Even introductions like “I’m Mike” and “Hi Anne” are usually skipped.

There is also an age difference – adults will be polite (or sarcastically polite).
- kids and teens will omit the “sir, ma’am, ya’ll” by skipping the subject of the sentence altogether. The kids will use “uh” a lot. Teens (depending on personality) will use various swear words in place of the “uh”.

“Ain’t” has a connotation of “is very not”.
“I’m not mad.”
“That ain’t right.”
“I ain’t fooling.”

Hope that helps!

By: Angel

Angel — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 05:38:45 +0000

@Chicory, “ain’t” and “y’all” are two words that we use which are different from standard English that would indicate a character as Southern without being jarring. They have distinct meanings or attitudes that simply cannot be adequately conveyed with “am not” and “you guys”…

I dislike when someone tries to spell out a Southern accent because that’s not how I spell the words when I’m talking or writing, even if that’s what it “sounds like”. I think word choice is different from misspellings, though – they show a character’s individual culture in a similar way to syntax, but aren’t beating you over the head.

By: David Youngs

David Youngs — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 04:22:38 +0000

If you write a definite dialect, you better know it well. If you want a Southern U.S. dialect, you can’t randomly mix Scarlett O’Hara and Jed Clampett.
We have northern Scots who read poetry for Burns Night and I wonder how they do it, since they sound that way normally.
If all the characters are speaking a different language, they shouldn’t sound like Maurice Chevalier speaking English. (And why is he the only person in Gigi with a French accent?)

By: Chicory

Chicory — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 18:56:18 +0000

I have a character I `hear’ talking with a Southern accent and I tend to show it by having him use the occasional `ain’t’ which doesn’t get said so much by Northerners. I do worry about accidentally insulting my audience, though.

One writer I think does accents really well is Robert Louis Stevenson, especially in `Kidnapped.’

By: Alex Fayle

Alex Fayle — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 19:39:01 +0000

I’m so not there yet. I’m always sure all my characters sound exactly the same.

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 19:27:29 +0000

Arthur Ransome, in his “Swallows and Amazons” boks, is very good at indicating regional accents and mode os speech without using odd spellings. He seems to do it by catching the rhythms of the local speech.

By: Deborah

Deborah — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:50:48 +0000

It may amuse you to know that I was thinking of Renee today when I was writing a conversation between a Frenchwoman and an American man. I was consciously using her as a template, although the dialogue was nothing like hers.

He was easier, for obvious reasons. (Though I may need to have him use smaller words. I swallowed a dictionary when I was small and it shows.)

In other words, thanks for Renee. I needed her.