Dialect Can Be Deadly
One of the major characters in my book, “Time Exposure” is Alexander Gardner, a famous, and real, Civil War photographer. Gardner hailed from Paisley, Scotland and arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1856 with a thick Scottish accent. How was I to handle dialogue? I wanted to make sure that the reader knew Gardner was from Scotland. So, I added a bit of dialect. Check this out:
“I must speak to ye, Joseph.” Gardener took a deep breath. “I’ve had a special offer I must consider. Mind ye now, it doesna preclude my maintaining an association with Brady. But, I want ye to be part of me decision.”
I also sprinkled in lots of dinnas, shouldnas, couldnas, ayes, me for my, etc. Ugh. The reader couldn’t possibly forget that Gardner was from Scotland. Or care. He’d already given up on the book.
Thanks to my critique group my eyes were open to this dialect dilemma. I began to notice it in other novels. Too much of an accent: “How vould you vant me to wote?”
Or overuse of slang: “He needs to mellow out, he’s bonkers and that’s too dicey for this girl.”
Or clichéd idiomatic expressions : “Once in a blue moon, we see eye to eye, but you’re usually on the fence, which only adds insult to injury.”
Eeek. The use of “casual” spelling such as lemme, or gimme, can be used . . . sparingly. Dropping “g” for a word ending in “ing” gets tiresome too if used every other sentence. We have to give the reader credit and assume that by dropping a slang word, accent or expression in, they’ll get the point and as they continue to read that character’s dialogue, they’ll naturally hear the dialect.
Some of the worst examples of overusing dialect can be seen when characters have southern or New York accents. Like the use of “Ah” for “I” or “y’all for, well, you know. Then there’s the exaggerated Brooklynese – “toidy-toid and toid street” or “poils for the goils.” (These may actually need translation!) I grew up in Brooklyn and, frankly, you do hear this. It’s one thing, however, to add it to a movie, where you can hear the character say it. It’s another to read it in a book ad nauseum.
So how do you get the character’s geographical location, or educational background across? The best way is through the rhythm of the dialogue and the words you choose. One “aye” from my Scotsman and the reader hears his accent through the rest of the dialogue. To portray a well-educated German you might avoid contractions and use the full words to make the speech more formal sounding: “I should not bother with that if I were you. Do you not think so?”
In the end, you need to do your homework. Learn the true dialect, accent, slang expressions of the region your characters come from, both geographically and historically. Depending upon the time period, speech was often more formal than we’re used to today.
Practice yourself. Once you know how the dialect really sounds have your character try it out in dialogue in a scene. Read it aloud. Very important, to really hear the effect, you must read it out loud. You’ll find you will most likely want to eliminate all but a smidgen of the dialect. What will be left is the essence of your character.
Then fuhgeddaboutit!
Great post, Lynne. I handle the issue similarly. Usually, I pick one or two typical words for the character, consistent with accent, dialect or just a word that is uncommon but fitting. That’s enough, because everytime the reader “hears” the character speaking his/her mental picture kicks in. And that’s all there is to it, imho.
Thanks, Leonardo. You always have good comments! Lynne
A very important subject – and to some extent, I agree – best not to exaggerate, and certainly not confuse the reader with expressions they have to hunt the internet for to understand – however, experts in British dialect and pre-WWII Australian idiom create extraordinarily colourful books, full of genuinely local expressions which are a delight to read e.g. Winston Graham (British), Arthur Upfield (Australian). You are certainly right in saying research is needed if someone doesn’t already have a good grasp of dialect, but it’s an exercise fraught with the danger of sounding fake. In modern-day Australia, there is very little difference from region to region or from person to person in the general use of English, and differences are based largely upon level of education, ethnicity and age. My books, being set primarily in Australia, therefore took a huge amount of pondering to try to introduce individuality in the way characters speak, and how to deal with non-Australians – basically, I came to the same conclusion as you, so I am *delighted* to read what you have said. When I first received some thorough and useful feedback from a highly experienced British editor, he emphasised that each character should have their unique voice, which caused me great angst, due to the lack of ‘easy’ options here in Australia based on local dialect – in contrast to Britain where speech varies enormously from place to place and amongst different social groupings. One little trick I did use to good effect at the suggestion of a professional American writer was to use a few ‘foreign’ terms when a ‘foreigner’ was speaking e.g. addressing a woman as Senora if they’re Spanish-speaking, and as Madame if French-speaking etc – again, with care and not overdone.
Good article! I wrote a similar blog a few months ago (see my website for blog). Nothing turns me off quicker than excessive dialect that causes me to slow down to wade through it. Very good advice.
Thanks, Joe. Great minds. . . Lynne
Thanks, Inge, for your insightful comments. Your last suggestion is invaluable and I hope writers read that! Lynne
This is a persistent challenge for me, since my stories are set in Boston, where the accent is only marginally less severe than Brooklyn.
I did use (once!) the following exchange of greetings:
“Howayah.”
“Howyadoin.”
I think perhaps (I may be wrong, I frequently am) one can get away with some of them because they perpetuate the humor of the narrator.
Thanks, Pete. So you think a Brooklyn accent is more severe than Boston? Ha. That only makes it more difficult in writing. How do you “hear” paaark the caaar? Just kidding! Lynne
It’s PAHK, pahk ya cah in Hahvud Yahd.
In the subject of Brooklyn, there is this joke:
What does a Brooklyn guy do when he wants to ask a girl out?
He cools huh.
Got me there!
I agree that too much dialect can become tedious. What about something like early eighteenth century Quaker speech where you would use thy for my, thee for me, thine for mine, etc.? I think these speech patterns are necessary to preserve. Any ideas on this?
Hi Marianne,
That’s a good question. I would use it once or twice when you first meet a character, then sprinkle in occasionally as a reminder later in the book. Too many thees and thines would be too much for the reader to take. This is my opinion, of course. Thanks. Lynne