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RobertB
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Anyone who reads fantasy will have come across the cliche'd accents which simply eliminate all abbreviations. That creates a dilemma, as I want most of my characters to have accents to distinguish them from a couple of native English speakers, who need to sound different. My wife and kids are West African, and guess what, they don't (or didn't in the case of the girls) abbreviate words. Basing accents on the way they speak doesn't seem to work as reviewers then label it 'fantasy-speak', which isn't what's intended. Anyone got any idea how to fix this?
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taggie01
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This is hard one . . . I'm a fantasy writer and rarely use an accent of any sort to delineate characters, unless they are children. What I tend to do instead is the build the character of that person in other ways so that one assumes there is a racial/other difference.
I will admit to a very occasional use of a 'rural' or 'shipboard' tone in dialogue, but its usually for minor characters who haven't been built in other ways.
When my major characters speak, they will say: 'I've' for 'I have' or 'don't' for 'do not' etc. Otherwise the dialogue sounds stiff and relentless.
But it's still a difficult thing . . .
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Athene
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If you're writing comedy, there's one very easy way: use different fonts, or write in caps, etc. I'm thinking of Terry Pratchett's character Death, who originally spoke in Gothic script and now always speaks in capital letters, and the Golems who speak in what looks like Hebrew script, etc. But I guess that sort of thing wouldn't work anywhere except comedy. Are you quite sure you want to make the different characters' voices that distinctive? Non-standard, phonetic English can get a bit wearing for the reader after a while (or maybe that's just me) YWO is the perfect place to find out what works and what doesn't - why not try posting several different versions at the same time? One thing not to do, though, is to take each and every reviewer too seriously - you'll never please everyone, and you need to wait until you have a solid consensus before making major changes.
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MLT
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What I did in a children's fantasy story that I wrote was to change the normal word order. It was intended to indicate someone who couldn't speak English well. It still made sense and most people who read it found it acceptable.
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RobertB
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That's a good idea. I may have latched onto the wrong aspect of an accent. After many years, my family have mostly sorted out their word order, but my wife still doesn't abbreviate words!
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Athene
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You could try getting the verb forms wrong - eg using the present continuous instead of the basic present tense - I am thinking instead of I think - and so on. Or omiting the definite and indefinite articles. Or getting the pronouns wrong - no, come to think of it, try getting them very strictly correct, which most native speakers of English tend not to do, particularly in casual speech (so use It is I instead of It's me).
This post was last edited by Athene, 06 Feb 2010, 17:41
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taggie01
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I've just had a fantastic assessment back from London for my ms and the comment was that I had got the dialogue down pat, that it was natural and flowing from one character to another and still managed to maintain character idiosyncracy. That it was, in effect, easy to read.
EASY TO READ . . . I think that's the crucial thing. You have to conclude that readers will all be different and that ease of reading will make a story flow so much better. If one is struggling with tenses, fonts, accents etc, it becomes contrived. My advice, and I am just a simple writer and reader like most of us on YWO, is to keep it relaxed and uncontrived and put as much or more energy into building your character through POV, description and other mechanics. Goodluck.
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RobertB
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That's the sort of thing which is likely to be very correct. Wrong verb forms is a good idea. What I can't do is have people from two very different cultures, and have one speaking the language of the other like natives!
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taggie01
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Take heart Robert, if you've done your work and your characters are solid, it doesn't matter.
Whilst this is not fantasy, have a look at The House Of Niccolo by Dorothy Dunnett. Throughout a couple of the books there is a wonderful African, Loppe or Lopez, who is as erudite in his speech as Niccolo, the man from Bruges. Dunnett and a million other authors' characterisations are so strong that dialogue could be the same and the characters would still be identifiable.
At the moment my WIP involves a male protagonist who is mute, so the strength of characterisation becomes even more necessary.
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RobertB
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It's been many years since I read Dunnett, but I still remember some of her characters. I might be able ot get away with leaving out the accents, but I wouldn't feel comfortable about it. It may be because I don't have very good eyesight, but while I can easily forget to describe something, I worry a lot about making characters sound right.
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Fantasy accents
04 Feb 2010, 18:45
