Language and Dialogue issues

[angelisa fontaine-wood]

Hello Time Travellers!

For those of us working in the past how do we deal with dialogue? I want a period feel without being stilted...I'm working at it.

For my WIP, concerning 1790s Parisians of a comfortable, educated class, I am going for a slightly austeny feel to the language but not overly so. I'm trying not to tip the scales entirely into a false diction.

For an earlier 18th C piece I did set in southern Italy amongst nobles and peasants I also went for a different kind of speech pattern, especially for a more marginal, mystical kind of character.

But then a critiquer mentioned that they're not even really speaking English, so why keep the antiquated word choice at all? Although she has a point I just feel like it doesn't sit entirely right but I can't find why. I don't think it's just a matter of not killing my darlings.

For me Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy is the Holy Grail of period speech, but of course they were speaking English already. To Calais in Ordinary Time just struck me as so precious as to be unreadable, although it takes my issues to their logical conclusion (or very nearly). Then another book set in a fantasy Middle Ages did the whole thing in Ren Faiyre patter and it just ruined the book for me although it won awards. The kitschy dialogue is just all I remember of it, to my own dismay.

For those of you working in periods far enough back or places far enough away to worry about these questions, what do you do? What do you try to avoid? Do you have any insight on this? Any thoughts at all?

 

[Thecla]

It's impossible to please everyone - as the books you cite show - thus my advice is to please yourself and be consistent. I agree completely that Mantel's Cromwell trilogy gets the balance right exactly but that, of course, is a personal experience and one not shared by all readers, as reading reviews and discussion with friends has proved many times over the years since Wolf Hall was published. To my mind, what you say you're doing sounds good and sensible but readers' responses will differ according to their own preferences.

I'm also writing in 'translation' as English didn't exist at the time of my WIP's setting. I'm aiming at readable English prose, people speaking with contractions, vocabulary choices reflecting status and education levels. I'm avoiding Latin words completely unless they've come into modern UK English (toga, yes; palla, no) to avoid jerking the reader out of the moment. My view is that putting a non-assimilated word into English prose or dialogue is akin to my Latin (Greek, Syriac) speaker/text slipping into Etruscan for no obvious reason. It destroys the illusion. I am, however, favouring Romance words over Germanic where English offers a choice. Finally, I'm following the word selections for common objects used in recent translations of the Latin and Greek source texts into English (I'm working with Loeb bilingual editions for Latin, as I've enough of that to find my way through the original, and Penguin Classics for Greek as my Greek is minimal).

Others will make other choices and have equally good reasons for doing so. There's no right way to do this but many different approaches will work.

 

[Brigid Barry]

I use the etymology dictionary as much as I could and I found it was most helpful when it came to idioms. Gave it just enough flavor without being overwhelming.

The "it's not English, why bother" is a little narrow minded, seeing that there are thousands of languages that aren't English. lol.

 

[dickson]

I’ve read many warnings on the perils of attempting period dialog. But too much emphasis on those pitfalls risks an equally pernicious hazard, that of making all your characters sound the same, even when of different social classes.

The way I dealt with that in a story, in which a duchess and her coachman converse, was to learn as much as I could about mid-nineteenth century working class speech patterns in Yorkshire (setting of the story), and use them in otherwise standard speech: “Doctor reckons her condition’s grave, ma’am” to give an example. The intent was to mark the difference, without aping it. It surely helped that I found many worked examples.

In your case, it may be hard to find applicable cribs, but it also seems you have more freedom to craft an English represensation of period French dialog, so long as it rings true. Portraying class distinctions, should the story call for it, could be tricky.

 

[Elenitsa]

The ones I am writing do not speak my mother tongue either, but my readers do. So I write for my readers, not for someone in the past. Yes, I use some archaisms here and there, for flavour, but this is it. I write in a normal, readable present language, however without using neologisms they would not know in comparisons or so.

 

[Sonsofthepharaohs]

The ones I am writing do not speak my mother tongue either, but my readers do. So I write for my readers, not for someone in the past. Yes, I use some archaisms here and there, for flavour, but this is it. I write in a normal, readable present language, however without using neologisms they would not know in comparisons or so.

This is more or less how I do it too. My characters would be speaking ancient Egyptian, which no one even truly knows how it sounded or the speech patterns of the ordinary folk, because the illiterate didn't leave any evidence. Hell, even the everyday speech patterns of the educated folk were probably not accurately represented by the written sources available, as you have to take into account the purpose those sources were intended for. So any attempt to render their speech 'accurately' is not only a logical fallacy, it would be unreadable.

I have incorporated the literary style of some original sources into my novel when it comes to letters, legal documents etc, but for the characters' speech I have adopted a contemporary approach. Although I avoid words that would be cultural, conceptual or technical anachronisms, even the really subtle ones ('get off track'? nope, no railways in ancient Egypt*) I happily use modern slang and speech patterns to render the lower class characters. I also enjoy peppering their speech with ancient Egyptian curses for flavour, so 'son of a bitch' might become 'son of Seth' or 'Son of a jackal'. But some insults are timeless, being commonly themed around sex, parentage and bodily functions

So that's how I deal with it. Some people don't like the approach I've taken, preferring their HF to be written in the highly wrought, archaic style you find in more literary works. But I personally hate books written in that style because it gets in the way of immersing myself in the story. I want the barrier between me and the characters to be as invisible as possible, and a natural, contemporary style makes the writing disappear.

* ETA: One a side note, 'stopped in their tracks' is fine, because it's referring to the tracks made by feet, not railway tracks - that's why it came to mind as a subtle example

 

[angelisa fontaine-wood]

It's impossible to please everyone - as the books you cite show - thus my advice is to please yourself and be consistent. I agree completely that Mantel's Cromwell trilogy gets the balance right exactly but that, of course, is a personal experience and one not shared by all readers, as reading reviews and discussion with friends has proved many times over the years since Wolf Hall was published. To my mind, what you say you're doing sounds good and sensible but readers' responses will differ according to their own preferences.

I'm also writing in 'translation' as English didn't exist at the time of my WIP's setting. I'm aiming at readable English prose, people speaking with contractions, vocabulary choices reflecting status and education levels. I'm avoiding Latin words completely unless they've come into modern UK English (toga, yes; palla, no) to avoid jerking the reader out of the moment. My view is that putting a non-assimilated word into English prose or dialogue is akin to my Latin (Greek, Syriac) speaker/text slipping into Etruscan for no obvious reason. It destroys the illusion. I am, however, favouring Romance words over Germanic where English offers a choice. Finally, I'm following the word selections for common objects used in recent translations of the Latin and Greek source texts into English (I'm working with Loeb bilingual editions for Latin, as I've enough of that to find my way through the original, and Penguin Classics for Greek as my Greek is minimal).

Others will make other choices and have equally good reasons for doing so. There's no right way to do this but many different approaches will work.

Very thoughtful insights, thank you. I love "akin to my Latin (Greek, Syriac) speaker/text slipping into Etruscan for no obvious reason" - quite an image! Now I'm dead curious as to your setting, too I think you're probably spot on with your last lines. No one right way, yes. I will be keeping that as my guiding rule and settle my worries down a bit.

 

[angelisa fontaine-wood]

I use the etymology dictionary as much as I could and I found it was most helpful when it came to idioms. Gave it just enough flavor without being overwhelming.

The "it's not English, why bother" is a little narrow minded, seeing that there are thousands of languages that aren't English. lol.

that critiquer was an odd duck and by george it takes one to know one!

 

[angelisa fontaine-wood]

I’ve read many warnings on the perils of attempting period dialog. But too much emphasis on those pitfalls risks an equally pernicious hazard, that of making all your characters sound the same, even when of different social classes.

The way I dealt with that in a story, in which a duchess and her coachman converse, was to learn as much as I could about mid-nineteenth century working class speech patterns in Yorkshire (setting of the story), and use them in otherwise standard speech: “Doctor reckons her condition’s grave, ma’am” to give an example. The intent was to mark the difference, without aping it. It surely helped that I found many worked examples.

In your case, it may be hard to find applicable cribs, but it also seems you have more freedom to craft an English represensation of period French dialog, so long as it rings true. Portraying class distinctions, should the story call for it, could be tricky.

Without aping as you say; I do love M.R. James dearly but he apes lower classes, that is precisely the word. Sounds like you've got a good hold on things by your example. I do hope I'd have the some leeway going from one language to another. A possible crib is looking at period translations of works, but that can get stilted to our ears. I do like to have an "accent" however of the past. It's baby and bathwater, maybe.

 

[angelisa fontaine-wood]

This is more or less how I do it too. My characters would be speaking ancient Egyptian, which no one even truly knows how it sounded or the speech patterns of the ordinary folk, because the illiterate didn't leave any evidence. Hell, even the everyday speech patterns of the educated folk were probably not accurately represented by the written sources available, as you have to take into account the purpose those sources were intended for. So any attempt to render their speech 'accurately' is not only a logical fallacy, it would be unreadable.

I have incorporated the literary style of some original sources into my novel when it comes to letters, legal documents etc, but for the characters' speech I have adopted a contemporary approach. Although I avoid words that would be cultural, conceptual or technical anachronisms, even the really subtle ones ('get off track'? nope, no railways in ancient Egypt*) I happily use modern slang and speech patterns to render the lower class characters. I also enjoy peppering their speech with ancient Egyptian curses for flavour, so 'son of a bitch' might become 'son of Seth' or 'Son of a jackal'. But some insults are timeless, being commonly themed around sex, parentage and bodily functions

So that's how I deal with it. Some people don't like the approach I've taken, preferring their HF to be written in the highly wrought, archaic style you find in more literary works. But I personally hate books written in that style because it gets in the way of immersing myself in the story. I want the barrier between me and the characters to be as invisible as possible, and a natural, contemporary style makes the writing disappear.

* ETA: One a side note, 'stopped in their tracks' is fine, because it's referring to the tracks made by feet, not railway tracks - that's why it came to mind as a subtle example

Ancient Egyptian!! wow, now THAT would be a challenge!

 

[Lil]

Probably the most important thing is to avoid modern slang and colloquialisms. I got thrown out of a perfectly pleasant story one time when a 19th century gentleman said, sarcastically, "Well, that was a fun afternoon!"

 

[dickson]

Probably the most important thing is to avoid modern slang and colloquialisms. I got thrown out of a perfectly pleasant story one time when a 19th century gentleman said, sarcastically, "Well, that was a fun afternoon!"

I particularly liked Kiera Knightly saying “OK” in Pirates of the Caribbean when it was allegedly set in the late 18th century (band playing “Rule Britannia) which is also the wrong period… the line forms on the right.

 

[Sonsofthepharaohs]

I particularly liked Kiera Knightly saying “OK” in Pirates of the Caribbean when it was allegedly set in the late 18th century

Aaargh! I hate it when characters say 'ok' in HF. Although I flagrantly use modern colloquialisms, even I wont commit that sin! It does sometimes pop into my head, but I resist.

That reminds me of something else I have to resist the urge to type... So many times when my MC is frustrated or annoyed, I hear him in my head saying "Jeez..."

It's easily replaced with a more period appropriate expression (Jeebuz aint even born yet), but it's still default, lol

 

[Jazz Club]

I have incorporated the literary style of some original sources into my novel when it comes to letters, legal documents etc, but for the characters' speech I have adopted a contemporary approach. Although I avoid words that would be cultural, conceptual or technical anachronisms, even the really subtle ones ('get off track'? nope, no railways in ancient Egypt*)

It's really hard to keep things like that in mind, isn't it? I don't write HF but I write some fantasy set in pre-industrial settings. The amount of times I start to write something like unzipped or jetted or reboot. It's really annoying trying to think of alternatives

 

[angelisa fontaine-wood]

You know it's funny that ya'll should mention precisely that, bc, just to show you I'm not an absolute purist, I've been adoring Rivka Galchen, when, in Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch she has the 17th accused , speaking in first person, just kind of try to take on board the absurdities that are leveled at her with an "okay". It can work. But this is, despite the dead serious stakes, a funny book. On the other hand when Theodora Goss slipped in an "awesome" in the Alchemist's Daughter it just pretty much burst the whole balloon for me. It goes back to "there's no one right way to do this"

 

[samwrites]

I also feel that historical fiction alone is a massive umbrella, and the tone of the piece really is what dictates how much creative liberty you can take when it comes to language... for instance "A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue", which is a YA HF novel, is such a light and fast-paced read that I reckon a language slip here and there would not take me out of it... what comes to mind as well is HF in TV, for example, I think of Bridgerton, the Netflix series, which certainly blends modern sensibilities with a historical setting and aesthetics. I think the most important thing is CONSISTENCY... if you are going to lean modern in your language, by all means do so from the start, so it is not jarring to the reader.

 

[Woollybear]

Hello Time Travellers!

For those of us working in the past how do we deal with dialogue? I want a period feel without being stilted...I'm working at it.

For my WIP, concerning 1790s Parisians of a comfortable, educated class, I am going for a slightly austeny feel to the language but not overly so. I'm trying not to tip the scales entirely into a false diction.

For an earlier 18th C piece I did set in southern Italy amongst nobles and peasants I also went for a different kind of speech pattern, especially for a more marginal, mystical kind of character.

But then a critiquer mentioned that they're not even really speaking English, so why keep the antiquated word choice at all? Although she has a point I just feel like it doesn't sit entirely right but I can't find why. I don't think it's just a matter of not killing my darlings.

For me Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy is the Holy Grail of period speech, but of course they were speaking English already. To Calais in Ordinary Time just struck me as so precious as to be unreadable, although it takes my issues to their logical conclusion (or very nearly). Then another book set in a fantasy Middle Ages did the whole thing in Ren Faiyre patter and it just ruined the book for me although it won awards. The kitschy dialogue is just all I remember of it, to my own dismay.

For those of you working in periods far enough back or places far enough away to worry about these questions, what do you do? What do you try to avoid? Do you have any insight on this? Any thoughts at all?

The books I read use items and devices more than the nature of language itself, although that is added in small doses.

A horse and cart, a parasol, a lute--these are priceless.

An i-phone, a FAX machine, a requirement to remove shoes at the airport--likewise priceless.

 

[CWatts]

The books I read use items and devices more than the nature of language itself, although that is added in small doses.

A horse and cart, a parasol, a lute--these are priceless.

An i-phone, a FAX machine, a requirement to remove shoes at the airport--likewise priceless.

This.

I'm reading about the 19th century origins of terrorism. Main character of my WIP was a child during an early incident and asks "Why would God save the emperor, but not the carriage driver?"

 

[Tocotin]

This.

I'm reading about the 19th century origins of terrorism. Main character of my WIP was a child during an early incident and asks "Why would God save the emperor, but not the carriage driver?"

"God saved the emperor for later, my child..."

 

[CWatts]

"God saved the emperor for later, my child..."

I mean, he was deposed after a humiliating defeat and died in exile.

(Shame I can't get away with calling Napoleon III "Nepo Trey", and I do need my research to back up any similarities with certain recent US presidents.)

 

[Tocotin]

I mean, he was deposed after a humiliating defeat and died in exile.

Yeah, that one is a tougher nut to crack, but – if you want to go with the spirit of the age, it wouldn't be difficult to explain to the child why the emperor was spared and the commoner was not...