Talking funny

[RedMolly]

Do you have any characters who speak in a manner different from the general vernacular of your WIP? In other words, anyone who talks funny?

How do you handle it without lapsing into lame (or, worse, racist-sounding) dialect (or, worse, Yoda-speak)?

[Simon Woodhouse]

In an attempt to cut down on the amount of dialogue tags, I gave the three main characters in one of the things I've written distinct, individual dialects. As they're from very different backgrounds, I think it works. One has a slightly oldy-worldy way of speaking, another talks as you and I would and the third uses more slang words. Though they're not in all that many scenes together, when they are, I'm hoping readers will be able to tell who's saying what by the language they're using. The different dialects do fit in with who the characters are, matching where they came from and (I hope) reinforcing the fact they're very different people.

[PeeDee]

Oof. I do every now and then, yeah. Mostly, I just break the dialogue. Don't use proper punctuation (if there's no pause, don't use no commas) allow double negatives to enter into your life, break your grammar a little.

The best way to do it properly is to have an idea of what they should sound like, and then listen attentively to people in real life and see who sounds most like that. Then steal shamelessly.

For example, one of my next novels that I'm working on is set in the Virgin Islands, because I lived there for years and wanted to write something about 'em. The problem was, I haven't been there in such a long time, I flat out don't remember how to properly write the dialogue of the locals (those you could understand anyway, most people just said "mubmbmbmbmblggmgoswff" and called it a language). As a result, I'm having to completely shift the story simply because if I do it there, it'll sound stilted and uncomfortable.

[Carmy]

I think it's essential for some characters to "speak funny", unless all of your characters have an English Public School education, like Eton. Even they have their own way of speaking 'funny'.

It's a matter of staying inside your character and speaking as s/he would speak, if you are to convince readers.

[MattW]

I try to limit the vocabulary of certain characters, but eye down't dew funnee ax scents en dye a log.

[jpserra]

In an attempt to cut down on the amount of dialogue tags, I gave the three main characters in one of the things I've written distinct, individual dialects. ...The different dialects do fit in with who the characters are, matching where they came from and (I hope) reinforcing the fact they're very different people.

I've read some of your work, and you have no trouble providing a distinctive voice to your characters. Application of dialectic style can help, but the emotive power of the author's voice almost naturally handles the distinction between characters. The real challenge might be writing dialogue between a group of siblings. Raised in the same place, encountering the same things and sharing a common perspective on life (for the most part).

JPS

[Ardellis]

I try to distinguish my characters from one another in dialogue largely by diction and rhythm. The farmer's son uses plain, concrete language. The highly educated foreignor speaks carefully and seldom uses contractions. The merchant-smuggler uses a certain flavor of slang mixed with terms he's picked up in his travels.

Dialect can be a tricky thing. If you find yourself writing out what your characters are saying phonetically, you might be overdoing it. An occasional "whadda ya want?" can go a really long way.

[Jaycinth]

I don't usually, because it can get hard to read but my MC runs into some 'back-water' spacers while in a bar on a marginal planet. I've given those spacers thick accents by way of hyphens, apostrophes and phonic mis-spellings. That dialogue is limited to a page and a half. Yet, when people from that section of space are mentioned later, my beta's say they can 'hear' that dialect in their heads.

Other characters I refer to as having 'that twangy New Earth accent' or 'that gutteral Edith brogue', and let people imagine what they may.

[Vomaxx]

In my fantasy world, one group of people speak the same language as the larger group, but with an identifiable accent. At present I represent this by having them pronounce "th" and "s" as "z", e.g., "Zeze are ze reazonz why it happened." However, I'm not sure if this (or ziz) will be endurable for readers, and I may just remind readers periodically that so-and-so is identifiable as a foreigner.

[Soccer Mom]

word choice and diction speak volumes. Too much dialect makes me feel crazy.

[greglondon]

I had a hillbilly character that I really liked.
First draft, I overdid his speech.
You don't want your reader to have to stop reading
and start parsing the words to figure out what is beign said.
I found that dropping an occaisional odd word into the dialog
is enough that the reader fills in the rest.
The other thing is that I have them use one common word
just slightly off, so that it is easy to read without thinking about,
and reminds the reader that they're reading hillbilly dialogue.

The word I used was "for" which always showed up as "fer".

The rest of it was just getting the right diction.
Using words of the right complexity for the character.
I think that's more important if the character's speech
is non-standard.

[Evaine]

Kipling was the first author who did this properly, with his Soldiers Three stories. One of the soldiers was Irish, one Cockney (I think) and the third Scottish, and Kipling put real effort into writing the dialogue as the soldiers he had met in India really talked, rather than the "stage Oirish" type of dialogue that other authors had used up to then (lots of "begorrahs" and "to be sures").

Kipling's stories are still worth reading anyway - he was a master craftsman - but this is just one example of things he got right which we can emulate.

[NeuroFizz]

There is nothing more infuriating than unrealistic dialogue. Spoken words have to be true to the individual and his/her background. Quirks of word usage and grammar are going to be different with different characters, and actually they serve as tools to help the reader tell who's talking. Also, some characterization can come from speech mechanics and word selection. That said, notice I said "spoken words." When you write dialogue, write words, not sounds. There may be exceptions, but not many, in my mind.

[Tallymark]

I think doing a strong dialect can be really hard to pull off right, and when it goes wrong, it can be very bad. I've read stories before where the dialect had so many apostrophes and slurs that I stumbled over it; or it was a strong dialect I was unfamilar with so I really couldn't get what they were saying. However, I think that when pulled off right, it can be a great thing. Hagrid from Harry Potter is the best example I've seen--the way she writes his dialouge makes it sound exactly the way it should in your head, so you know what he's saying even if there's hardly an unaltered word in there. But I've seen similar attempts go very wrong.

Different speaking tendencies or habits are important to always have though, I think. Some characters have an old-fashioned or formal way of speaking, some are laid back, some are crude, some are reserved, etc. People also tend to have little particular ways of saying things, which can sometimes be a generation-thing. My mom is a lot more likely to say 'groovey' than I am (and less likely to insert 'hell' every other word XD ).

[blacbird]

Kipling was the first author who did this properly, with his Soldiers Three stories. One of the soldiers was Irish, one Cockney (I think) and the third Scottish, and Kipling put real effort into writing the dialogue as the soldiers he had met in India really talked, rather than the "stage Oirish" type of dialogue that other authors had used up to then (lots of "begorrahs" and "to be sures").

Kipling's stories are still worth reading anyway - he was a master craftsman - but this is just one example of things he got right which we can emulate.

Actually, Mark Twain pretty much invented the idea of vernacular dialogue, in Huck Finn, along with maybe Joel Chandler Harris, a contemporary and friend who wrote the Uncle Remus stories. There may have been predecessors, but Twain and Harris seem to me to be the first to bring the idea into literature with big popularity.

caw

[BardSkye]

One example I can think of for realistically "foreign" dialogue is Mercedes Lackey's character Albericht. Rather than using misspellings or phonetic spellings she uses different grammar for his speech. It works very well.

[Saundra Julian]

Do you have any characters who speak in a manner different from the general vernacular of your WIP? In other words, anyone who talks funny?

How do you handle it without lapsing into lame (or, worse, racist-sounding) dialect (or, worse, Yoda-speak)?

Racist-sounding? If that's the way they talk...that's the way they sound!

[blacbird]

Racist-sounding? If that's the way they talk...that's the way they sound!

Check in the Current Events sub-forum, under Take It Outside, for today's note that Huck Finn has yet again been banned from a school curriculum for the use of 'racist' language (the N-word, no doubt).

caw.

[Saundra Julian]

Oh brother! How sad is that...they would probably ban my book too.

Can you imagine a member of the KKK calling a black person by any other name?
It's called realism, people!

And if it’s such a big no-no, why do they call each other that?

[civilian chic]

I think the important thing with dialect, which several of the respondents are getting at, is not so much focusing on accents and phonetics as word choice, vocabulary, speech patterns, etc.

For example, "Totally" on the west coast is "Damn straight" in Kansas and "Does a bear sh*t in the woods?" in Montana.

It's word choice, not phonetics, that makes an impact in writing. Accents are really, really hard to write well, and once someone accents a particular vowel sound, you have to be consistent with that vowel sound, every time it pops up, through your whooole book ... which gets annoying.

You could give them characteristic phrases, "Good lord" or "wicked" or "you know" which create distinction, but a few of those go a long way, too.