Accents

[thecoldembrace]

I know this is something a lot of people do with their characters, to make them either unique or to help them stand out in what can often become monotone dialogue. What I am curious is how others go about doing it, if you do it.
Are there any examples that you have done or seen that shows a good use of accents in the speech of your characters?

-Cold

 

[Svrtnsse]

I've seen this question pop up a few times and my "standard answer" is that rather than changing how words are spelled or pronounce I change what words a character use.

Example:
My horse is amazing.
This here horse of mine is mighty special.
This one's steed possesses extraordinary qualities.

The sentences say pretty much the same thing, but in various ways. I like to think this is a good way of doing accents without messing around with spelling the words in funky ways.

 

[thecoldembrace]

Is there anything you have noticed Svrtnsse that you would advise people stay away from?

 

[Svrtnsse]

I should admit that I haven't done this overly much so I may not have had the opportunity to do (or discover) that many mistakes yet.

Spontaneously I'd say to avoid using accents, or manners of speech, that you're not familiar with. Doing that you're likely to end up with a speech pattern that feels unnatural.
Instead, copy what you know, listen to people around you - old farts at the pub, cab drivers, politicians, locals, immigrants, kids etc.

In the example above, the two first ones are such that I could imagine real people saying those things. The third one is a bit convoluted and feels a bit odd.

I think you can get a pretty good effect by just sprinkling a little bit of oddness into someone's speech pattern here and there. The risk of overdoing it is that you ruin the immersion of the reader. The risk of underdoing(?) it is that your character doesn't have as much local flair.

 

[Jabrosky]

I don't bother with dialects or accents in my dialogue.

More often than not, I'm writing characters from settings based off Africa. Africa doubtless has thousands of accents to go with all the native languages, most of them unfamiliar to Western ears like mine, so it's not like there's a singular African accent that I could use to represent the whole continent. I could go with a Jamaican, Afro-American, or other Diasporan dialect for my African characters, but there is a real and ugly history of caricaturing those dialects for disparaging comedy and I don't want to continue that tradition.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Here's an example from my current wip:

“Enar Ryebloom? Yes, excellent, you're on cart number five with Hasse. Have a pleasant stay and enjoy your vacation Mr Ryebloom.”
[...]
“Mr Hasse? I'm Enar Ryebloom, the lady from Roots said I was to ride with you.”
“Ryebloom? I'll remember that as far as my Rosalove can throw you. Ha! She's a fine horse my Rosalove, she never throws nobody. Hop you on lad and off we go. You can sit on the apples. They're for cider anyway so it don't matter none if they're dented.”

I like to think that these lines fairly well capture the image of the characters that say them.

 

[buyjupiter]

I know this is something a lot of people do with their characters, to make them either unique or to help them stand out in what can often become monotone dialogue. What I am curious is how others go about doing it, if you do it.
Are there any examples that you have done or seen that shows a good use of accents in the speech of your characters?

-Cold

While a lot of people have done it, it's hard.

I grew up surrounded by Southerners (US version). We're an interesting lot and the phrasing is a class thing, a regional thing, and a cultural thing. So, that said how would I represent the Southern(ish) way of saying the following that would clearly represent the full flavor of the word/phrase?

On: I'd have to change it to more like "ahwn".
Oil: I don't even know, it's such a subtle difference. "Oyl", maybe?
Roof/Roofs: Eeegh. "Ruff"?

It'd get annoying, right quick. Don't believe me? Go reread Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and just about anything Twain set in the Mississippi area. Or read a selection of Dickens. And those are two of the best dialect writers around. They fully captured the essence of the dialect/accent.

I'd rather read something like "the devil beatin his wife" to describe a thunderstorm, or "you best check yoself before you wreck yoself" or describing something as "ratchet"--although you'd have to be careful with which kind of character you had saying the last two. Kate Middleton would not say that last two phrases without a very confused look on her face and they would not be everyday phrases for her. (There's that class/culture thing. But I would pay good money to watch someone explain any of those to the Duchess.) As a reader I'm much happier with colorful regional expressions than accurate representations of dialects.

My two cents would be to take a look-see over your dialogue and see why you think it needs to have something spice it up. Are you using the dialogue to "tell" story information without showing it? Are two similar sounding characters talking to one another a lot? Are you delivering dialogue in "chunks" rather than a back and forth style? Are there a lot of "uh huhs" "yeses" "nos" and garbage filler in your dialogue?

 

[Feo Takahari]

I think the best use of accents is for contrasts--these are the quirks of this region's speech, and these are the quirks of this other region's speech. It's a mistake to pick one region as your "normal" and not do anything with its quirks, as any region will have some peculiarities, whether local slang or imports from foreign traders.

I don't personally do the written accents--I think they're too difficult to use. I just rely on word choice, and to some degree sentence structure.

(The grand question: how do your characters change their speech depending on who they're talking to?)

 

[thecoldembrace]

The main reason I use accents in my work is to show difference between regions of my human empire and to give different races an exotic flair.
I try not to go overboard on them, but I feel it gives them their own unique platform to stand on, and allows me to have the reader at least read a sentence and understand who might be talking in a room of people with different regional dialects. I've never found it hard to read or that it takes me out of the story, just another nick knack that makes things more interesting.

 

[Scribble]

You can use description of an accent, from the perspective of another character. This is a rough example...

The guard leaned forward, bushy brows and mustaches poking out of his silver helm. When he spoke, Kira noted the rich rolling 'r's of a Murian, though the thick curly hair was enough of a giveaway. "Where are you from and what is your affair in Rhon Rockeford?"

Being so primed, your reader should hear a bit of an accent in their heads. I hear Scottish from that last, but other people may hear French, or some other familiar accent with rolling r's.

Something to consider - if everyone in the area speaks the same, and you don't go outside the culture... nobody *has* an accent.

 

[Trick]

When I first joined I started this thread and got a lot of good advice on this exact subject.

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/wri...tentional-misspellings.html?highlight=accents

 

[thecoldembrace]

When I first joined I started this thread and got a lot of good advice on this exact subject.

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/wri...tentional-misspellings.html?highlight=accents

Oh awesome, thank you Trick.