May I ask?

[Thequiet]

When it comes to character speech how does adding accents work?

I've written...

“Ya dun't need knife ya cunt. Ay an' dun't forget we're mates if shit kicks off.” He laughed. “Ya'll like band tonight anyway. That black bird singing's right fit I'll tell ya, massive knockers an' all.” He cupped his hands about eighteen inches away from his chest insinuating she cold put Katie Price to shame

“Cool.” Jake smiled but it was obvious he was not interested in the size of her breasts or anything other than oblivion and cool Jazz. “Do you want a drink?”

“Put it behind bar for us mate if you will." He sneered. "That time 'in't it. Blokes got cocks in hand and birds 'in't pissed enough to tek toe rags hum' wi' 'em yet, still lookin' for they Princes. I dun't mean midget wi' gay face mind.” He laughed.


Without the accent I'm attempting, but still with the slang and terrible wording of the accent I would write...

“You don't need a knife you cunt. Hey and Don't forget we're mates if any shit kicks off.” He laughed. “You'll like the band tonight anyway. That black bird that's singing is right fit I'll tell you, massive knockers and all.” He cupped his hands about eighteen inches away from his chest insinuating she cold put Katie Price to shame

“Cool.” Jake smiled but it was obvious he was not interested in the size of her breasts or anything other than oblivion and cool Jazz. “you want a drink?”

“Put it behind the bar for me mate if you will. It's that time ain't it. Blokes have got their cocks in their hands and the birds ain't pissed enough to take toe rags home with them yet. They're still lookin' for their Princes. I don't mean a midget with a gay face mind.” He laughed.


Alternatively, the character is minor, should I just give him my usual accent despite not wanting to?


May I also ask which is correct here. This is only one example. I don't usually use the latter outside of speech marks but I wondered if it was acceptable at all.

"Maybe." She replied but either Jake did not hear or was ignoring her.

"Maybe." She replied but either Jake didn't hear or was ignoring her.


I realise there may be a lot of grammatical errors at the moment in what I've written as I'm still in the middle of doing my best at editing before asking someone else to go through this hell for me. So here's to hoping you will allow me a little of your knowledge to quite possibly save a lot of editing for someone else.

Thank you.

Q.

 

[cloudy]

Less is definitely more when it comes to an accent in dialogue. If you put too much creative spelling in a character's speech, it becomes unreadable, and you'll lose readers like crazy.

For example (I'm Southern, just in case you haven't read that thread yet), I can make a character become very Southern in a reader's mind simply by using "y'all" sparingly, or "darlin'" or something similar.

The way you've got it written, I honestly wouldn't bother to read it. Sorry.

 

[glynndah]

Less is definitely more when it comes to an accent in dialogue. If you put too much creative spelling in a character's speech, it becomes unreadable, and you'll lose readers like crazy.

For example (I'm Southern, just in case you haven't read that thread yet), I can make a character become very Southern in a reader's mind simply by using "y'all" sparingly, or "darlin'" or something similar.

The way you've got it written, I honestly wouldn't bother to read it. Sorry.

I'm with the bad witch. I hate reading dialect.

 

[Thequiet]

Thank you both very much, I kind of thought that. I shall leave it out.

 

[lance gt]

When it comes to character speech how does adding accents work?

I've written...

“Ya dun't need knife ya cunt. Ay an' dun't forget we're mates if shit kicks off.” He laughed. “Ya'll like band tonight anyway. That black bird singing's right fit I'll tell ya, massive knockers an' all.” He cupped his hands about eighteen inches away from his chest insinuating she cold put Katie Price to shame

“Cool.” Jake smiled but it was obvious he was not interested in the size of her breasts or anything other than oblivion and cool Jazz. “Do you want a drink?”

“Put it behind bar for us mate if you will." He sneered. "That time 'in't it. Blokes got cocks in hand and birds 'in't pissed enough to tek toe rags hum' wi' 'em yet, still lookin' for they Princes. I dun't mean midget wi' gay face mind.” He laughed.

Without the accent I'm attempting, but still with the slang and terrible wording of the accent I would write...

“You don't need a knife you cunt. Hey and Don't forget we're mates if any shit kicks off.” He laughed. “You'll like the band tonight anyway. That black bird that's singing is right fit I'll tell you, massive knockers and all.” He cupped his hands about eighteen inches away from his chest insinuating she cold put Katie Price to shame

“Cool.” Jake smiled but it was obvious he was not interested in the size of her breasts or anything other than oblivion and cool Jazz. “you want a drink?”

“Put it behind the bar for me mate if you will. It's that time ain't it. Blokes have got their cocks in their hands and the birds ain't pissed enough to take toe rags home with them yet. They're still lookin' for their Princes. I don't mean a midget with a gay face mind.” He laughed.


Alternatively, the character is minor, should I just give him my usual accent despite not wanting to?


May I also ask which is correct here. This is only one example. I don't usually use the latter outside of speech marks but I wondered if it was acceptable at all.

"Maybe." She replied but either Jake did not hear or was ignoring her.

"Maybe." She replied but either Jake didn't hear or was ignoring her.


I realise there may be a lot of grammatical errors at the moment in what I've written as I'm still in the middle of doing my best at editing before asking someone else to go through this hell for me. So here's to hoping you will allow me a little of your knowledge to quite possibly save a lot of editing for someone else.

Thank you.

Q.

I could tell you are aiming for a Scot's dialect. As much as a Scot might understand it in context, other readers aren't familiar with the terms and pronounciation. Make it clear with a small usage of terms and state somewhere the nationality of your character. The reader will follow it the way you intend, with that dialect in their mind.

 

[Thequiet]

I do mention his Northern roots in the story Lance, but was simply wondering about the dialect, thanks.

I work with a Scot and a guy from Newcastle (many an argument to steer clear of) and also have the Arctic Monkeys screaming out from the stereo whom, as you probably know are from Rotheram. The accents get mixed up in my head when I use them as ... is research the wrong word?

Thank you all again.

Q

 

[sr71plt]

Another vote for Cloudy's "less is more." Just the flavor.

Nobody writes dialogue as it's really spoken anyway, even accents aside. Record a conversation and play it back, and what you will hear is "ums" and "likes" and "fucks" and every thought repeated twice more but never concluded because someone will step on top of it with the next uncompleted sentence.

 

[ishtat]

I was brought up in the west of England and can remember a lot of elderly people who almost spoke another language the dialect was so distinct.

For example:-

"Thee bissent gwaine, she bean't no good = You're not going, it's no good

An OE scholar would identify it as a remnant of old English but who else would understand it (maybe Og). Few younger people speak like it because they learned their speech after the advent of radio and TV. Best avoided in writing.

Apart from the dialect you are also guilty of one or two unexplained localisms. You refer to Katie Price for example. On Lit about 75% of the readership is American with another 10% from India. She's a non-entity outside the UK. Too much of that can annoy your reader.

An interesting observations is that foreign speakers of English or particular local dialects will speak in modern English but often use the sentence word order of their native language or dialect.

For example an English person would say "I am going to the shops" wheras a Welsh person speaking English might be more inclined to say "It's to the shops I'm going."

Small differences like that are enough to convey "otherness" and I'm sure that if you experiment with Geordie speech it will work for that as well.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Pack your mouth with shit and you'll have the Scotty down cold! To get the Mick flavor fill your nose with Limey shit. To capture the Limey exactly fill your ass with a raghead or jungle bunny.

 

[lance gt]

Pack your mouth with shit and you'll have the Scotty down cold! To get the Mick flavor fill your nose with Limey shit. To capture the Limey exactly fill your ass with a raghead or jungle bunny.

Trust Jimmy, he knows. He's done all of those things to get it right and that's what worked for him.

 

[jomar]

Yes, less is more even with Irish writers, for example. I recently finished a series by Adrian McKinty (Dead I May Well Be was the first of the 3 part series) check him out. And James Joyce.

For Irish conversation you can do things like drop the 'g' and use 'me' for 'my' (I'm goin' to the salon to get me hair done) and sprinkle a little bit of slang in conversation here and there. Just enough to keep the Irishness in readers minds without it getting in the way of the story.

 

[michchick98]

When it comes to character speech how does adding accents work?

I've written...

“Ya dun't need knife ya cunt. Ay an' dun't forget we're mates if shit kicks off.” He laughed. “Ya'll like band tonight anyway. That black bird singing's right fit I'll tell ya, massive knockers an' all.” He cupped his hands about eighteen inches away from his chest insinuating she cold put Katie Price to shame

“Cool.” Jake smiled but it was obvious he was not interested in the size of her breasts or anything other than oblivion and cool Jazz. “Do you want a drink?”

“Put it behind bar for us mate if you will." He sneered. "That time 'in't it. Blokes got cocks in hand and birds 'in't pissed enough to tek toe rags hum' wi' 'em yet, still lookin' for they Princes. I dun't mean midget wi' gay face mind.” He laughed.


Without the accent I'm attempting, but still with the slang and terrible wording of the accent I would write...

“You don't need a knife you cunt. Hey and Don't forget we're mates if any shit kicks off.” He laughed. “You'll like the band tonight anyway. That black bird that's singing is right fit I'll tell you, massive knockers and all.” He cupped his hands about eighteen inches away from his chest insinuating she cold put Katie Price to shame

“Cool.” Jake smiled but it was obvious he was not interested in the size of her breasts or anything other than oblivion and cool Jazz. “you want a drink?”

“Put it behind the bar for me mate if you will. It's that time ain't it. Blokes have got their cocks in their hands and the birds ain't pissed enough to take toe rags home with them yet. They're still lookin' for their Princes. I don't mean a midget with a gay face mind.” He laughed.


Alternatively, the character is minor, should I just give him my usual accent despite not wanting to?


May I also ask which is correct here. This is only one example. I don't usually use the latter outside of speech marks but I wondered if it was acceptable at all.

"Maybe." She replied but either Jake did not hear or was ignoring her.

"Maybe." She replied but either Jake didn't hear or was ignoring her.


I realise there may be a lot of grammatical errors at the moment in what I've written as I'm still in the middle of doing my best at editing before asking someone else to go through this hell for me. So here's to hoping you will allow me a little of your knowledge to quite possibly save a lot of editing for someone else.

Thank you.

Q.

I agree with cloudy and sr. Less is more. If I were to click into a story with your first example of dialogue and tried to read it, I'd click away from the story.

As others have said, if you have enough description of where the character is from, dialect really should be used sparingly in dialogue. I think it just makes it too difficult for the average reader to decipher.

 

[DeeZire]

As I recall, Mark Twain wrote colorful dialect in Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Whether it would be accepted today is another question. In fact, he'd probably be pilloried for being racially insensitive.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Sigh.

You can only live your own time and write your own time. If Twain were here today he'd ridicule Usual Suspects and their NeoCon fellow travelers.

 

[sr71plt]

Sigh.

You can only live your own time and write your own time. If Twain were here today he'd ridicule Usual Suspects and their NeoCon fellow travelers.

And probably suggest that we bomb the greater Tampa area to improve the gene pool.

 

[lance gt]

Sigh.

You can only live your own time and write your own time. If Twain were here today he'd ridicule Usual Suspects and their NeoCon fellow travelers.[/QUOTE]

That would be travellers, Jimmy. Just thought I'd point that out to you, in case of a later dispute on spelling abilities.