Writing Dialogue In Accents and Dialect

Writing Dialogue In Accents and Dialect Writing Dialogue In Accents and Dialect Writing Dialogue In Accents and Dialect By Kate Evans Wen old man Rabbit say scoot, dey scooted, en wen ole Miss Rabbit say scat, dey scatted. Dey did dat. En dey kep der cloze clean, and day aint had no smut on der nose nudder. Uncle Remus A  Story About Little Rabbits, Joel Chandler Harris. We have a long literary tradition of writing dialogue in accents and dialect. Mark Twain comes to mind, as a master of the written idiom. Dialect instantly gives characters authenticity and offers insight into their attitudes, background, and education. An accent allows the reader to use their sense of hearing and gives text depth and flavor. On the other hand, using dialects and accents is often a distraction. When accented words are spelled phonetically, they can frustrate and slow the reader down. If accents are inaccurate or inauthentic, they can stereotype or even insult. With all of these risks, writing dialects has largely gone out of fashion. So what is a writer to do instead? The first step would be to describe patterns of speech in prose. For example, her honeyed accent melted off of her tongue, slowly, sweetly, and with the same elongated syllables that her mama used. Already, the character has an established geographical place and a hint of her history. From then on, the reader can hear and even visualize the honeyed accent. Another tactic is to reflect dialect with commonly spoken words in commonly spelled ways. A writer could insert gonna for going to. The reader registers these words easily but the speech pattern can also convey information about the characters. Finally, a writer can pay close attention to phrases and idioms that pertain to a characters geographic location or time in history. Phrases, such as shes dumber than a bucket of hair, bless her heart, places someone in the American South. The craic is mighty, puts someone in modern day Ireland. When carefully researched and used advantageously, simple colloquial phrases can carry as much weight as paragraphs of complicated written dialect. While we dont want to lose the art of conveying speech patterns through the written word, in todays world, there are more subtle ways to illustrate character traits. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Fiction Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:45 Synonyms for â€Å"Food†Homogeneous vs. HeterogeneousDouble Possessive