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Writing with accents
- Thread starter Tesslc13
- Start date
I wouldn't use accent for anything but conversation. Depending on how heavy you make it, it may be annoying to read if it's a lot.
Also keep in mind that one way of doing accent is by altering word flow, rather than words and spelling.
Example:
My opinion is that this makes for an easier read than if I'd tried to alter the words to spell in a way that's closer to what they might sound like if spoken with an accent. You're of course free to go with whichever way you choose, but I would still recommend to stick with only using the accent when the character speaks and not in the in-between narratiuve.
Also keep in mind that one way of doing accent is by altering word flow, rather than words and spelling.
Example:
My opinion is that this makes for an easier read than if I'd tried to alter the words to spell in a way that's closer to what they might sound like if spoken with an accent. You're of course free to go with whichever way you choose, but I would still recommend to stick with only using the accent when the character speaks and not in the in-between narratiuve.
wordwalker
Auror
I'm with you, Svrtnsse. This is an idea that most pros would agree with: that words look odd written with an accent, and that word choice is at least as eloquent and a lot smoother for capturing style.
The rule of thumb seems to be to write accents in small amounts only. An occasional pronunciation quirk might spice things up, but it's way too easy to overdo and to turn the line into a joke, in ways that unique phrases don't. You could use more of it for a walk-in character who's supposed to be odd (or incomprehensible), but it gets old fast.
The rule of thumb seems to be to write accents in small amounts only. An occasional pronunciation quirk might spice things up, but it's way too easy to overdo and to turn the line into a joke, in ways that unique phrases don't. You could use more of it for a walk-in character who's supposed to be odd (or incomprehensible), but it gets old fast.
Jabrosky
Banned
I've said it before, but I'm usually wary of writing accents. Especially if they're accents associated with cultures outside the "mainstream" Anglo-American upbringing I had, and most of all if they're associated with historically marginalized groups.
Most of my fantasy settings draw on cultures that predate modern American English by centuries or even millennia, and given how much accents within the English language have diverged since 1492, we only have the foggiest guesses what anyone's accent before then would have sounded like. Would Boudicca have spoken with a proper British accent*, or Julius Caesar like one of those Italian dudes from Lady and the Tramp? It'd be even harder for countries which have changed languages following conquest. Ramses II could just have easily sounded like Rafiki from The Lion King, or even Chris Rock, as he could have an Arabic-speaker from modern Cairo, whereas the Aztec Montezuma could have talked more like Pocahontas's dad than today's Chicanos.
Regardless, if you're not intimately familiar with how a particular dialect sounds, I would caution against importing it into your high fantasy setting.
* I have heard people claim the modern British accent is a recent, post-Columbian development, thereby implying that Brits used to sound more like we Americans today. Not sure how they came to that conclusion, but my ignorant layman's gut reaction is equivocal. White Australians and New Zealanders, whose ancestors left Britain later, do sound more "British" to my ears than we do, which would lend support to that hypothesis. On the other hand, Scottish and Irish accents also sound a bit "British" to me, which might falsify it and show British accents have been around for a much longer time.
Most of my fantasy settings draw on cultures that predate modern American English by centuries or even millennia, and given how much accents within the English language have diverged since 1492, we only have the foggiest guesses what anyone's accent before then would have sounded like. Would Boudicca have spoken with a proper British accent*, or Julius Caesar like one of those Italian dudes from Lady and the Tramp? It'd be even harder for countries which have changed languages following conquest. Ramses II could just have easily sounded like Rafiki from The Lion King, or even Chris Rock, as he could have an Arabic-speaker from modern Cairo, whereas the Aztec Montezuma could have talked more like Pocahontas's dad than today's Chicanos.
Regardless, if you're not intimately familiar with how a particular dialect sounds, I would caution against importing it into your high fantasy setting.
* I have heard people claim the modern British accent is a recent, post-Columbian development, thereby implying that Brits used to sound more like we Americans today. Not sure how they came to that conclusion, but my ignorant layman's gut reaction is equivocal. White Australians and New Zealanders, whose ancestors left Britain later, do sound more "British" to my ears than we do, which would lend support to that hypothesis. On the other hand, Scottish and Irish accents also sound a bit "British" to me, which might falsify it and show British accents have been around for a much longer time.
Velka
Sage
I agree with the others, writing in an accent is usually hard to read and makes the reader notice the words (and therefore author). Using word choice and sentence structure to convey different voices is what I'd suggest. For example, I have two characters that come from different regions, one of them uses contractions in their speech, one never does. It's a subtle difference, but from feedback I've received, they both have unique voices. (No one has been able to pinpoint why they are different until I've pointed it out, which to me is a success).
Did you ever read the Redwall books as a child/young teen? Remember the moles, the way they spoke, with a highly exaggerated West Country English accent? Did you find that a chore to read? I certainly did. You could really read their accent in it, but damn if it ain't hard to understand what it was they were actually saying the first time they appeared in a book, or if you'd not had a chapter with them in for a while.
Use word choice. Chances are if you've got characters from the same area but different social classes, you're already considering word choice because different levels of education and types of upbringing mean characters will have learned different vocabularies and have greater or lesser knowledge around certain aspects of life. A stablehand will have a hundred words for things you can find in a stable, but her mistress will only know the parts she interacts with while riding the horse - and not necessarily under the same terminology, because one thing might have a correct term which is its official name when written about by educated classes and a shortened name or nickname that's more descriptive - or derived from a name that was more descriptive - which the stablehand can use to quickly communicate what she needs to her colleagues in a single syllable rather than using a three or four syllable word that her mistress would use.
So if you've got to do it for classes anyway, why not do it for regions too? And you can distinguish regions from one another by using different terminology for the same thing in the same way, no jargon needed, because after all, the same thing happens in English already. What's the name of the recepticle in which waste items are deposited - a rubbish bin, waste bin, trash can, or garbage can? If you think up, say, six or seven words like that, and decide which word each region uses in advance - eg, regions A, B and C all use trash bin, regions D and E use trash can, and regions F and G use rubbish bin - then you've got a slightly easier time of it when writing dialogue when you get to the bits you need, provided those word you pick are in fact going to be used. This doesn't just apply to nouns, either, but also to phrases. For example, what do you say when instructing someone else to dispose of something? Can it, chuck it, throw it away, bin it, trash it, throw it out, etc.
So pick a few words and prases that are likely to be said by people from different regions, and work out how thos words and phrases can be said differently, and assign different versions to different regions, with some overlap between neighbouring regions or to reflect past colonial activity - so if Region A sends out a colony to Region G, then some of the people of region G will use the same terminology as region A, while others - those not decended from the colonists or at least not brought up in the culture developed by the colonists, but rather from those who had lived there before the colonists - will use the same terminology as their neighbours Region F, if they descend from the same linguistic grouping.
Use word choice. Chances are if you've got characters from the same area but different social classes, you're already considering word choice because different levels of education and types of upbringing mean characters will have learned different vocabularies and have greater or lesser knowledge around certain aspects of life. A stablehand will have a hundred words for things you can find in a stable, but her mistress will only know the parts she interacts with while riding the horse - and not necessarily under the same terminology, because one thing might have a correct term which is its official name when written about by educated classes and a shortened name or nickname that's more descriptive - or derived from a name that was more descriptive - which the stablehand can use to quickly communicate what she needs to her colleagues in a single syllable rather than using a three or four syllable word that her mistress would use.
So if you've got to do it for classes anyway, why not do it for regions too? And you can distinguish regions from one another by using different terminology for the same thing in the same way, no jargon needed, because after all, the same thing happens in English already. What's the name of the recepticle in which waste items are deposited - a rubbish bin, waste bin, trash can, or garbage can? If you think up, say, six or seven words like that, and decide which word each region uses in advance - eg, regions A, B and C all use trash bin, regions D and E use trash can, and regions F and G use rubbish bin - then you've got a slightly easier time of it when writing dialogue when you get to the bits you need, provided those word you pick are in fact going to be used. This doesn't just apply to nouns, either, but also to phrases. For example, what do you say when instructing someone else to dispose of something? Can it, chuck it, throw it away, bin it, trash it, throw it out, etc.
So pick a few words and prases that are likely to be said by people from different regions, and work out how thos words and phrases can be said differently, and assign different versions to different regions, with some overlap between neighbouring regions or to reflect past colonial activity - so if Region A sends out a colony to Region G, then some of the people of region G will use the same terminology as region A, while others - those not decended from the colonists or at least not brought up in the culture developed by the colonists, but rather from those who had lived there before the colonists - will use the same terminology as their neighbours Region F, if they descend from the same linguistic grouping.
stephenspower
Inkling
If you want to cure yourself of your desire to write with accents, read anything by RA Salvatore. Unless you can do them extremely well, they just sound stupid.
Mythopoet
Auror
I'm reading Dracula right now and starting to get sick and tired of the way Van Helsing speaks. It's not really an accent, but the grammar and syntax are written to reflect his foreign way of speaking. At first it was not so bad. But this guy has so many long speeches. This is one of those instances where I at least would rather you just tell me he speaks differently and don't bother showing me.
Trick
Auror
And may I say, you're quite good at it.
I used to do the spelled accents gag but MS cured me of it... almost. I don't say cured to imply that it is terrible, just that I was terrible at it and that seems to be the case for most people.
The only time I use the misspelling technique now is when I intend for the reader not to understand it.
In my WIP, the FPPOV meets a secondary character who says, "en-mees gits brabry." while shaking his hand with a smile.
The next sentence, from the MC, is: Yeah, I didn't understand him either. (He tends to push against the 4th wall a bit, since it's a memoir style that he knows will be read by certain people.)
The best part is, I know what the character said. Later, someone translates it for the MC and it turns out to be a foreshadowing of a future event. Fun stuff.
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K.S. Crooks
Maester
You want to keep the narration the same throughout the story. Having the dialogue with accent will be enough, any more than that and it may become annoying for the reader. Every region has a local way of speaking. Perhaps try not thinking of accents, instead the choices of words and phrases used.
Scribe
