Contractions or not in fantasy dialog?

I have something similar -- two seperate races.

The men use contractions, the others don't ( they are a pretty formal, stiff lot anyway, so the stiff dialogue just reinforces that) However, they don't have huge speaking parts. If the majority of the dialogue was like that, I think it would come across a bit too stiff. May be they could use contractions sometimes, but use more formal speech in other ways?

'I say, you appear to have lopped my head off. I'll help you with that blood streaked sword shall I?'

In centuries past, saying full words was a sign of breeding and education. Also full words were used as emphasis and in pronouncements. Thinking Gandalf stopping the Balrog in LOTR: 'You shall not pass!' sounds more authoritative than 'You shan't pass!' So it depends on how you want to present your characters.

Holy crap! Don't take my advice, I'm an Idiot for Odin's sake!

ps - I've finished reading, last instalment for you on its way any day now....

I have indeed -- the story is good, I liked it, your style just needs a little polsih till it positively glows in the dark.

I shall try and get to write to you tommorow ( writes note to remind herself)

Sorry, thread hijack over.

If you think full words will be too much, how about going halfway there. Make the non-human's speach more formal than the humans but not fully so. Play around with it to set your own rules but make sure the 'types' are distinct.

From a screenwriting perspective, let me give you two examples:

a) period pieces such as stories set in Ancient Rome

b) high fantasy such as LotR


In the first instance, there have been some film and television productions set in an ancient era (when English did NOT exist) and yet the characters are (of course) speaking English dialogue. So the producers chose to have those actors playing rich, educated, noblility characters speak with very eloquent strains of proper English. And then they ahd the lower class characters speak with very bad, low brow accents --such as maybe even a Cockney accent (my apologies to anyone here who is Cockney). Some spoke with American accents and Australian accents (but the general preference is to stick with just British accents).

In the second example, Peter Jackson chose the comic relief of having the Orcs arguing with each other with Cockney accents. (And admittedly, in the book, they Orcs definitely spoke in very bad "English" that seemed very Cockney-ish when you read it. In fact there was a scene in the book when Sam had the Ring on, and so he was invisible, and at the time he assumed Frodo was dead from being bitten by the giant spider Shelob. But while invisible he was evesdropping on the Orcs who took Frodo's body, and that's how Sam learned --from their conversations-- that Frodo was still alive. The Orc dialogue that Tolkien wrote out was VERY Cockney-ish. Unmistakeably so.) I think the two American actors, Elijah Wood and Sean Astin, made excellent choices with the British accents they put on. Sam's accent was NOT Cockney, but it was certainly working class. And Frodo's was a but more upper-crust (but not in a snooty way). (As an aside, I have the 10-disc CD set for the BBC radio play from the late1970's/early 1980's. That radio play starred Sir Ian Holmes as Frodo, and some lesser known British actor as Sam. Sean Astin had a friend get him a copy of those old BBC tapes, and Astin diligently listened to the accent as performed by the actor playing Sam, and he was able to copy it PERFECTLY, and THAT mastery of someone else's performance is how Sean Astin got the part.)


Now, I know you didn't ask about accents, but about contractions. And I also know you're not writing a screenplay, but a novel.

However, I am one of those readers who can "hear" the dialogue in my head as I read a novel, and if a character NEVER uses contractions, I'm apt to assign an upper-crust identity to them.

On other matters, I found the dialogue from many of the Star Wars films very stilted and fake-feeling when certain characters did NOT use contractions (or else used very contrived contractions). Such as when Luke said to Vader: "I'll not fight you, Father." THAT felt stupid and fake. Or when Padme said to Anakin (as they discussed whether they could love each other): "I'll not give in to this!"

My overall advice is: try to "hear" it in your head as you write it, and go with whatever genuinely "feels" like THAT character.

Speaking as an editor and a reader, I'm pretty danged tired of characters all talking like Mr. Data.

It's a cliche. If you can get away with it without annoying me go for it.

I'll be in my bunk.

In my series, The Flame in the Bowl, the main protag, Tarkas, comes from a relatively young society where words are considered very important, and so he has never learned to use contractions because no one does. When he gets taken off into other realms, the characters there use contractions but he does not.
I actually had no problem with the dialog in Star Wars, it was overshadowed by so many other bad things. And there was at least one Star Trek episode where they realize that Data isn't really Data, because the impostor uses contractions.

I'd say it's actually more important to consider the readers than the characters. When writing a slang or an accent to express something about the characters background it's obviously important that your readers view it the same way you do.
For example in german a broad bavarian accent would make a character sound a bit backwoods, much like a redneck accent would do the same in america. If your readers are not familiar with this though it's just a funny accent among many. (though of course there are similarities. Slurred speech for example is pretty much always an indication of low education, etc)
So, to take the example from Plot Device i listened to the english version of the LOTR Orcs and while it does get the impression across somewhat it's not that obvious to me. Of course, because i wouldn't know (or rather didn't know) what a cockney accent sounds like in the first place.

Anyway, this goes far beyond mere contractions, the point really is: if you want them to sound formal, try to make them sound like similarly formal present-day people would. After all they don't need to sound formal to their own ears, and your readers are hopefully living in the present.