How realistic should dialogue and character voices be?

"It's about time we got going, don't you think?"

"It's 'bout time we got goin', don'tcha think?"

Both these guys sound the same to me. They both have my voice, they both have my accent, and I suspect that accent is a few thousand miles off where it's supposed to be. The problem is, one took much longer to scan than the other.

When reading a page we do not read one letter at a time. We recognise entire words and even phrases in one glance using just the familiar shapes of words, and a quick estimate on the letters contained within--especially the first and last letter--and an educated guess at what words are likely to come up next.

By breaking up your words into unfamiliar shapes, and omitting key letters you thwart your reader's natural abilities and force a letter-by-letter reading. And at the end of it, we, the readers, don't get much benefit for our invested effort.

The same applies to whole sentences.

I'm thinking, uh, of, maybe, not going to college, like, uh, this year. So...

Is realistic, and seems right when writing it, but is just plain horrible to read when compared to...

I'm thinking of not going to college this year, so...

And if you think it lacks the performance you had pictured in your head, come up with a different performance which both writes and reads easily.

She said nothing for an hour, just twisting her hair around a finger, watching clouds, watching kids over by the lake. Somehow, the exact moment I had a flutter about where I left the car keys, she said her first words, 'I'm thinking of not going to college this year, so...' and when I turned back, she was distant again as if nobody had said a word.

Okay, that's not art either, but you get the idea.

posted over 8 years ago

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mwo‭

70 reputation 0 6 14 0

I enjoyed James Whitcomb Riley and Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle Remus) when I was a kid. But as an adult, I find it tiring to read. I think writing in the vernacular should be reserved for characters with VERY strong accents or dialects. And still, it would be better to find a way to write the sentences in plain English, but use grammar and word order instead of changing the way words are spelled.

I had a character that was foreign, but spoke fairly understandable English. I chose to write his voice using proper English, but he worded things awkwardly so you could tell he understood the basics of grammar, but didn't quite understand why native speakers use one word over another.

"I am thinking of this question now. What is this word..you are saying. I think it is...hamster?"

I wanted to show that the guy was fishing for words. When he asks what the other character is saying,in used a period instead of a question mark. I'm not sure why, but whenever I hear a non-fluent speaker ask for a definition of a word, it sounds like a statement instead of a question.

The only times I used an accent on him was when he mangled up a word, and the other characters had trouble understanding him. My MC hated how the guy always mispronounced his name. It grated on his nerves so I made a point to always spell it out exactly as he pronounced it. Because it set the MC completely on edge.

Anyway, I'd use it sparingly. Just my opinion though. Edited to add: if you want to read an excellent example of someone writing to show how someone speaks by simply changing the words instead of writing out an accent, try "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris. He's writing about his experience living in France and not learning the language before he moved there. Actually, David Sedaris is a master of giving characters regional accents without slipping into the vernacular. Read anything of his.

posted over 8 years ago

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Keobooks‭

70 reputation 3 5 12 0

Perhaps one way to see it is that you are representing reality, not copying it. In the same way that a painting (even those of the photographic realism school) represents or shows reality rather than tries to provide an exact copy of it, so too with writing. I want my characters to sound like real people without actually copying how real people speak -- incomplete sentences, fillers, ect.

Even though I read it nearly thirty years ago, I remember some of the voices from Ernest Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' because they were so authentic, yet so different. However, he didn't just 'photocopy' real speech.

posted over 8 years ago

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S. Mitchell‭

280 reputation 1 25 55 0

Strike a balance. Your character who speaks in dialect uses different vocabulary, word order, grammar than the person who speaks in the Received Standard version of the language.

• Non-Dialect American English: "Can I come see you tomorrow?"
• British English: "Shall I knock you up?"
• Brooklynese: "I'll come call f'you."

Only in the third one would I change the spelling, and that's to indicate the contraction of for you to the reader's ear. Focus more on the content than every slurred syllable or swallowed dipthong. Using "Oi!" instead of "Hey!" immediately indicates British, which primes your reader at least to assume that the character has some kind of British accent.

You can drop a few Gs (callin', sayin') because that's not too tiresome to read. A broad Southern accent can be represented with Boy, Ah say, boy, you're about as subtle as a hand grenade in a barrel'a oatmeal.

I would only use the ums and uhs when it's important to indicate stammering and stuttering, like your anxious character.

posted over 8 years ago

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Lauren Ipsum‭

2098 reputation 13 1143 397 1