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!
Completely agree with the final verdict that it’s more important to understand the rhythm of the dialogue when a person is speaking English with a different accent. You can get the impression across easily with the way the verbs are placed in the sentences, the lack of contractions,etc., without using any of the sometimes hookey and exaggerated dialects .
Spot on! :0)
Thanks, Indy. Glad you agree.
Authenticity in speech is a natural urge for a writer to weave in. However, to catch dialect or thick accents in a kind of fonetic spelling is not the way to go. The reader needs to decode and this is typical a left-brain activity, thus knocking the reader out of his fictive dream. Mind you, it holds even true for a reader that comes from that particular region (as he is not used to see fonetic spelling of his own dialect).
I.m.o. the reader makes a picture of a character and everytime that character is on stage, he remembers this picture. So, if you must, use a few dialect words or other specifics in the beginning, just to give the reader the right flavor. A reminder now and then is fine, but very sparingly indeed, as you say.
I agree, Leonardo. Very well put.
Exactly! You hit the nail on the head.
Thanks, Nike.
The dropped ´g´ thingy…Kendy, my favorite character, because she´s so warped, is from Texas, and drops her ´g´s´ in dialogue, but she doesn´t in interior monologue…the latter based on feedback from an ordinary reader who felt it was a bit much.
Perhaps a dialect or dialogue mannerism is akin to describing a character´s voice…you don´t have to add to every line of dialogue that the character´s voice sounds gravelly or whatever.
In my WIP, both Kendy and the main character, Happy, have very distinct voices (I love doing voices!). I´m a bit concerned that with two very strong voices, readers may find that too much, too. I´ll see what my beta readers say when I have the first draft of the entire manuscript finished.
Thanks for your comments, Sheryl. Good luck with your beta readers.
Hello,
I am interested in knowing the copyrights or origin of the little picture posted on your page,
(with peope speaking to eachother), I would be grateful for a reply soon,
regards
Did you want to use it?