Writing accents without intentional misspellings

[Trick]

Hello all,

I am new here and I literally signed up hoping for advice on this question since it's sparse from what I've seen.

This one is particularly difficult for me when writing within our own real world. I've been told that writing an accent can be done without using the amateur "dis ting ent gud enuff" style but I've rarely seen it done and I would appreciate more insight on this. I agree that most made up spellings used to imply accent are pure manure but many accents are just plain difficult to get across on paper. I think the UK accents are easiest as they speak English but with an incredibly varying vocabulary, i.e. wanker, jobber, rubbish, copper, lift etc. But how does one get an Asian accent across without being, at best, unintelligible or, at worst, downright insulting?

Any advice is appreciated,

Thanks!

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

My reply might not be what you're looking for but I'll give it a whirl anyway.

First, I agree with you that writing in dialects with intentionally misspelled words should be done sparingly, if at all. So, let's breeze right by that option.

I don't know if you can effectively write accents. Considering that accents are auditory, unless you can make the reader sound dialogue out mentally, it won't work....at least in my view. I think you'd be better off focusing on the manner of a character's speech. Your characters should sound different anyway, if you wish to create a rich world with a varied cast. Having their manner of speech be varied is but one aspect of differentiation.

Let's use your example of a British person. How would you make their accent come across? Without describing it through another character's perceptions (which is an option) it's tough to even conceive......Now think about manner of speech. Are there ways of saying words, or phrases, that are particularly British? Of course there are! I would focus on those types of details to get character differences across to the reader.

As long as you're being true to your character, I don't think you have to worry about being offensive either. Let's take another example.... Say you have an Asian character. That character, won't sound and act like every other Asian in your tale will they? I'd hope not. Rather, that character should speak according to other factors like their station in life, or education level. If they speak very properly that says something about them. If they speak with coarse or guttural language, it says something quite different. Combine that dialogue with some minor physical description and you've started to give the reader the tools they need to construct their own, full image of that character.

Honestly, I don't think readers truly read dialogue in accents anyway. In my opinion, you'll get much more impact by ensuring your characters sound unique, their speech is consistent, & the way they speak says something about who they are or where they're from.

 

[Ankari]

One of Steven Erikson's characters had this wacky, nearly unintelligible dialect that the other characters couldn't understand. What Steven Erikson did was go extreme. He would convey how hard it was for the characters to follow the guy's dialogue by writing near random letters and grouping them together in a rough simulation of the syllable makeup of the word it was supposed to represent. Occasionally, he threw in an understandable world so that you actually tried to read the dialogue.

To me, it worked brilliantly.

 

[Penpilot]

One time, I tried writing a Russian accent phonetically and.... yeah I failed big time. So I went back and just simply stated that my character had a Russian accent and wrote everything normally, and like the British accent took extra care on word choices. I would also drop in a Russian curse here and there to flavor it.

So, I think, like the British accent, it comes down to word choices.

I'm Chinese, Cantonese specifically, so here are a few things I know about Chinese accents. In Chinese there are no plura words so when they speak English some tend to drop the "s". For example they might say "I have to carry four box upstairs." Also Chinese have trouble pronouncing the "R" sound in English. I have a friend named Rick, but my Mom could not pronounce his name. She pronounced it Nick. Also Chinese who come from Hong Kong may have British accents, because Honk Kong used to be a British colony, thus English accented instructors there.

With that said you might try going to youtube and checking out a comedian named Russel Peters. He's East Indian and his comedy is based on cultural idiosyncrasies. You might be able to pick up a thing or two from his observations. Yes, he plays off stereotypes, but he nails it, so that even though he's making jokes about your culture, you can't help but agree.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Pick a word common to the region your character is from and then throw that in as much as you can. A character could say "lad" instead of "boy", or "grand" instead of "good" if they're Irish.

A character I'm writing at the moment keeps saying "my friend" when they're talking to someone instead of using "you" or the name of the character.

These are some different ways of saying something is good.

"That's good."
"That's great."
"That's awesome."
"That's pretty neat."
"That's grand like."
"That's mighty fine."

These all say roughly the same thing, but the different words carry with them different associations. A person who says "awesome" is different to one who says "mighty fine".

This is pretty much what the other posts already said, but with some more examples.

 

[Trick]

I really like the idea of word choice making an impression of national origin. I am also trying to keep in mind that my work, if I'm lucky, could be in audio form someday and I want the narrator's chosen accents to fit the dialogue. I think I can make this work.

Thanks to all for the advice and information!

 

[Rinzei]

Like most others here, I think the choice of words, the dialect, will be most hopefully and less confusing in getting the difference of accent across, because dialect and accent usually go part-and-parcel.

I've noticed this largely in my own life, being an American ex-pat in the UK. Where I once would have said "That is AWESOME!" comes out as "That's bloody brilliant!" now - to the point that on returning to the States for a visit, strangers thought I was British! My accent hasn't changed so much, but my dialect definitely has.

Other examples would be:

"I'm really pleased/happy with that." vs. "I'm dead chuffed with that." (I said this to my mom and really confused her.)
"That was amazing!" vs. "That was quite splendid!"
"Huh? (or What?)" vs. "Pardon?"