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Q&A
Does misspelling words for the sake of bad English improve the immersion or distract the reader?
Dialect writing can be extremely difficult to read. The preferred technique today seem to be to do just a very small hint of it. The best way to portray the background and intelligence of a person ...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2020-01-03T20:41:56Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31080 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T07:14:14Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31080 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
System
·
2019-12-08T07:14:14Z (about 5 years ago)
Dialect writing can be extremely difficult to read. The preferred technique today seem to be to do just a very small hint of it. The best way to portray the background and intelligence of a person is through the words they choose and the ideas they express. People from different areas use different words. If you want to portray US south, you could throw in a "y'all" now and then. But more important is what they say, not how they say it. Stupid people say stupid things. If you want your character seem stupid, have them say and do stupid things. The screen has other techniques. Actor can act the dialect and the halting speech. It is hard for novelists to reproduce this kind of thing effectively. Don't fall into the trap of trying to act our your characters through words. Instead, make them known through their actions and the actions of others towards them.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2017-10-26T16:24:31Z (about 7 years ago)
Original score: 27