Altered speech patterns for different characters?

[stickygirl]

ok

affection for "the character entertaining us" versus affection for "the heinous person who the character is," I guess

Sounds good

 

[dirk2024]

It's not something I've really been able to wrap my head around, so most all of my characters sound the same. One exception at this point is a WIP where part of it occurs in Switzerland. So I have a taxi driver who speaks in a broken German/English dialect. I hope it comes across to the readers when its published.

 

[Cagivagurl]

In my opinion, if you are going to use phrases from dialects, slang, unusual terms. Then you must use them consistently. Not just sprinkled through the story. If you are going to use them as @THBGato said. Research deeply. Try to understand the real meaning of some terms and phrases... THBGato is particularly good at it. Read some of their stories for inspiration.

British accents are so localised it is difficult to get them right. Brummies, Cockney's, Scouser's or Geordies, all speak completely differently. Phrases used by Geordies may not be used by others. Research is important....

Just my thoughts.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think a good rule of thumb on this issue is to tread cautiously. It's much better to under-do it than to over-do it. Try to reveal and portray your character's background through what they say and their word choices rather than by trying overly hard to render their dialect. It can work if you are really good at it, but there's a big risk that it will come across as gimmicky and phony. Also, I don't think readers will notice most of the time if you dispense with attempts to render dialect.

 

[YmaOHyd]

lso, I don't think readers will notice most of the time if you dispense with attempts to render dialect.

Two examples when you'd want to draw attention to it though: first, it shows progression in the speaker. Read a series once where the main character has a strong hillbilly accent due to being raised among, you know, hillbillies. As the series went along and the character got My Fair Lady'd, that accent disappeared and was no longer rendered. Progress! And thank god because reading their dialogue initially was horrible. But if you're gonna tell a My Fair Lady story where someone learns to talk good, it helps to show them speaking badly.

Second, it can be used to show increased understanding in the listener, as long as you keep the structure and words consistent. To use a joke from Scottish Twitter about being a Scottish student at Hogwarts who has to take the train all the way down to London just to get on the fucking magic train back:

a kin see my hoose fae the fuckin train ya entitled english cunts

That's not easy for my American eyes to read, and if 20 year old me were dropped into Glasgow I'm sure Scottish accents wouldn't be easy to decipher (Glaswegian TV has subtitles for a reason). But I'd like to hope after six months I'd hear it as:

I can see my house from the fucking train, you entitled English cunts

So if I start the story with that impenetrably-rendered accent and wind it back slowly, I can use that as an element of understanding and immersion. (Not the only element, obviously.)

 

[Voboy]

That's not easy for my American eyes to read, and if 20 year old me were dropped into Glasgow I'm sure Scottish accents wouldn't be easy to decipher (Glaswegian TV has subtitles for a reason). But I'd like to hope after six months I'd hear it as:

Irvine Welsh often writes in just this dialect, and you'd be surprised how quickly you can get used to it.

I find Scots a lot easier to get into than the (arguably) more accurate dialect Twain puts into Huck Finn. But generally I avoid writing in accents. I think there are easier and less intrusive ways to convince the reader that they're difficult for the other characters to understand, and those ways also open the door to comedic passages.

 

[SimonDoom]

Irvine Welsh often writes in just this dialect, and you'd be surprised how quickly you can get used to it.

I find Scots a lot easier to get into than the (arguably) more accurate dialect Twain puts into Huck Finn. But generally I avoid writing in accents. I think there are easier and less intrusive ways to convince the reader that they're difficult for the other characters to understand, and those ways also open the door to comedic passages.

I'm always mindful of Twain's explanatory preface to Huckleberry Finn. He wrote this:

In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.

Twain was a genius writer, and had great familiarity with the dialects he was trying to render, and put great effort into it, and I know that none of these things applies to what I do, so I'm instinctively reluctant to try and am inclined to take the "less is more" route.

 

[TheLobster]

The Romanian language is a derivative of Latin/Italian, but Polish is more "foreign" in its construction, with formal and informal pronouns: almost impossible to learn.

At the risk of sounding overly pedantic, I gotta point out that all four languages you mention possess the T-V distinction. It's not the defining characteristic of Polish; rather, it is English that's weird among European languages for having just one set of pronouns.

Relatedly, if you're looking for ways in which your Slavic-speaking characters may mess up their English, then probably the easiest way is to have them completely botch the articles -- i.e., a/an vs. the vs. nothing. The whole concept is largely alien in those languages, partially because inflection made it redundant to have articles at all.

 

[Cagivagurl]

I like stories that reflect truthfully. Nobody speaks pure English, regardless of the Country you live in.
To give stories flavour, a sense of realism, the use of accents, dialects can be very helpful.
By using different accents for each chatracter you can reduce the number of dialogue tags, because it's easily identifiable who is speaking... That in itself is a bonus, it gives dialogue a continuity, and that feeling of listening into a real conversation...
Forget about the rules of grammar, try to make your dialogue sections honest. Contractions, are one method... Especially if trying to hint at modern language...Under thirty five's speak an entirely different language to under eighteen year olds... So try to reflect the intergenerational changes...

My thoughts...

 

[Britva415]

inflection made it redundant to have articles at all

I wonder: These same speakers don't wind up inflecting in English, because you can't. Do native English speakers using those Slavic ones as a second language fail to inflect in those languages, even while not using articles? Since you can't.

I imagine probably so. Some Romanian might be saying

articles make it redundant to have inflection at all

 

[anthrodisiac]

If I'm writing a character from a place I'm unfamiliar, I'll try to use words and pharses from that region where they spent the most time/grew up. Formative years tend to have the biggest lasting impact on a person's language. I had a polar bear from the Yukon use the word "ginch" for the MC's underwear, to his bafflement.

It also depends on how much effort and research you're wlling to put in. I'm a research obsessive, so I will devote half an hour to making sure the use of "ginch" is the correct word for that part of Canada vs. other parts of Canada, which used "gitch" and "gaunch," primarily for character flavoring and not an actual plot point.

I think the bigger thing is cadence and idioms. People have different speaking styles, some are more clipped, others can be kind of meandering (me!), some use small words, some use big words.

I use a lot of "wanna," "coulda," "gotta," "I'd've," because most people don't speak in perfect sentences. They smush words together and sometimes mispronounce words (which can be tricky, you have to make sure you establish the person using a word that way several times so people know it's intentional and not a typo, so it ought to be used sparingly).

For characters with English not as their first language, I try to mimic speaking patterns and grammar rules from their native language, but this can also be tricky if you aren't familiar with those.

I think, more than anything, the important thing is making sure your characters don't all speak the same. That's far more important than fidelity, because you can always fall back on, "Everyone's different, so it's not like someone from X would always speak like Y." Distinct voices are what's going to get you where you want to be.

 

[ronde]

Everyone has different dialects, verbal tics, and go-to phrases they tend to fall back on. Some people will naturally use higher-register language. Others will speak far less formally. Some use a lot of idioms and colloquialisms, others very few. Some people are very direct and literal, others speak largely in implication and reference. None of that, other than my own general method of speaking, comes naturally to me.

I'm not talking about quirky, gimmicky, over-the-top catchphrases or other character idiosyncrasies that feel forced, but I do wish I had the skill to write characters whose speech patterns differed a bit more from mine. I find it extremely difficult to put myself into a different speech pattern enough to write a character that doesn't sound like a different version of me. For instance, if I wanted to write a dudebro, I'd probably try to write something like "hit me up if you wanna do the whole helping me talk like another person thing, ya feel me, dawg?" but... that feels neither natural nor maintainable over multiple lines of dialogue.

Does anyone have any techniques they use to get into a different character's verbal style? One idea I could imagine would be to base characters' speech patterns on those of people I know, but I have many reasons to feel uncomfortable doing so. So, what other advice might exist? Thanks.

The best way I've found to write in the "slang" of a particular character is to listen to the people I interact with every day. That said, depending upon where you live, your catalogue of voices might be limited. Another source of regional dialects is movies. Yes, some characters will be stereotypes, but most actors do try to get the language right.

Two things to not do:

Don't try to write a regional dialect unless you've heard it used in real life. If you haven't heard it in context, you won't understand the real meaning. A prime example is a southern woman smiling and telling another person, "Well bless your heart." That statement means exactly the opposite of the compliment it seems.

Don't try to exactly duplicate the sound of every word. Just a few examples will convey the type of person your character is. All the apostrophes will just become confusing to the reader.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Don't try to exactly duplicate the sound of every word. Just a few examples will convey the type of person your character is. All the apostrophes will just become confusing to the reader.

This, and honestly you can sometimes get away with not using the apostrophes even though it's not technically correct, mostly in the case of dropped g's. You can write that a character is takin' a break, or you can write that they're takin a break, and as long as you're consistent it'll be okay. I wouldn't leave the apostrophe out in any other case -- you can do y' for you occasionally, but don't turn you into y.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I have done this a little. I had a woman with a Czech accent and what I did was call attention to it in the story, and how a few of her words sounded and purposely not used contractions for the character. Seemed to work pretty well without being stereotypical.

 

[THBGato]

You can write that a character is takin' a break, or you can write that they're takin a break, and as long as you're consistent it'll be okay. I wouldn't leave the apostrophe out in any other case -- you can do y' for you occasionally, but don't turn you into y.

You can. But with the apostrophe, the reader knows it's intentional. Without, it may just look like a typo...

 

[THBGato]

purposely not used contractions for the character.

That's an odd one. In the vast, vast majority of English teaching text books contractions are taught very early on. Even a student who knows barely more than "my name is x" will know "I'm" "don't" and "can't". I'm surrounded by non-native English speakers at work - from around 35 different countries - they all use contractions.

 

[Paul_Chance]

This falls more in the “craft” category. When it comes to character dialogue here’s a method for crafting it.

Take your draft.

Save a copy for you to work on.

Go into your working copy and delete everything that’s not character dialogue. What remains is all the dialogue.

Now read just the dialogue for just one character. Does it have a “voice”? Is it distinct enough that a reader can tell which character it is just by the (word choice, complexity, pattern and rhythm)?

Make any changes and adjustments to give the dialogue a consistent voice for the character.

Then go back into your original draft and make the adjustments there.

It’s the “unseen” elements of a written characters voice that readers respond to - what’s happening just below the level of consciousness.

Nothing glamorous about it. Just a bit of time consuming crafting.

 

[YmaOHyd]

You can. But with the apostrophe, the reader knows it's intentional. Without, it may just look like a typo...

Yep. Sometimes that's a chance I'm willing to take -- but only ever on a character/dialect basis. If I decide that's how Gwen speaks, that's always how Gwen will speak: she won't have rememberin' and rememberin both. And if she's speaking that way because she's from rural east Texas and we meet her family who are also from rural east Texas, they're also going to have dropped-g-no-apostrophes. It can't be case-by-case or, yeah, it gets confusing.

 

[TheLobster]

Do native English speakers using those Slavic ones as a second language fail to inflect in those languages, even while not using articles? Since you can't.

Seems like it. A cursory search over Youtube yielded me this video of a guy trying to learn Polish:

and his chat is correcting his inflection suffixes constantly.

Some Romanian might be saying "articles make it redundant to have inflection at all"

Amusingly, the fact you changed the tense here is quite on point. The way various languages use tenses is quite unique, even between dialects. Consider, for example, how American English has largely lost present perfect outside of specific verbs.

To wit, a few years ago I attended a German course (tutored in English) with a few Americans, and I remember how they would always try to use the simple past, which is uncommon in modern German, instead of compound past. The sole Brit didn't seem to have that problem

 

[Bramblethorn]

That's an odd one. In the vast, vast majority of English teaching text books contractions are taught very early on. Even a student who knows barely more than "my name is x" will know "I'm" "don't" and "can't". I'm surrounded by non-native English speakers at work - from around 35 different countries - they all use contractions.

Textbooks teach the grammar of contractions; that's not the issue.

Contractions can affect the formality of speech. Something like Churchill's famous "on the beaches" speech, for instance, is pretty much devoid of contractions; it's always "we shall", not "we'll". "Wouldn't it be nice" and "Would it not be nice" are semantically equivalent questions but very different in formality.

Where I've used this device, it's not because the character is unsure about the grammar of how to contract a phrase, but because they're not sure what level of formality is appropriate, as I might wrestle with "du"/"sie" in German.

 

[stickygirl]

That's an odd one. In the vast, vast majority of English teaching text books contractions are taught very early on. Even a student who knows barely more than "my name is x" will know "I'm" "don't" and "can't". I'm surrounded by non-native English speakers at work - from around 35 different countries - they all use contractions.

Textbooks teach the grammar of contractions; that's not the issue.

Contractions can affect the formality of speech. Something like Churchill's famous "on the beaches" speech, for instance, is pretty much devoid of contractions; it's always "we shall", not "we'll". "Wouldn't it be nice" and "Would it not be nice" are semantically equivalent questions but very different in formality.

Where I've used this device, it's not because the character is unsure about the grammar of how to contract a phrase, but because they're not sure what level of formality is appropriate, as I might wrestle with "du"/"sie" in German.

We're surely running up against the way a language is spoken vs written vs spoken then recorded. Contractions work in spoken English because they're linguistic short cuts 'they're' is just a faster way to say 'they are' with no breath stop between words. The rule of thumb handed to me at school was that it's acceptable to record spoken words with the contractions, but outside of the apostrophes they're to be avoided .

"y'all" as a contradiction of 'you all' is often poor grammar: "Y'all know what I'm saying" = 'You all know what I am saying' is almost unrecognisable as English, but we're writing down what was heard. The poor grammar and enunciation are linguistic brush-strokes that describe a stereotypical deep south culture.

Churchill probably spoke his major speeches in a formal way for two reasons - clarity over crappy valve radios; and emphasis to add weight to what he was saying. ( He also had a speech impediment ).

One US contraction that curdles my milk is 'gotten' and another piece of linguistic decoration 'oftentimes'. UK English is riddled with regional weirdness, so for example a west-country person might say "I was just sat down..." or "No I never" but up north "We had a right good day" or "Take y'self down't shops". All good fun

 

[TheLobster]

One US contraction that curdles my milk is 'gotten'

Heaven forbid we have some consistency with ‘forgotten’