On December 2nd April posted this comment: What’s your opinion on placing an emphasis on dialect? For example, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.<\/p>\n
What about the words accompanying dialogue? Some people are sticklers for only using “said,” even with questions (instead of “asked”). Others use quite a variety of words to give more… shall we say, “expression” to the dialogue. And I know some don’t care either way, so long as the word isn’t an adverb\/ends in “ly.” What say you?<\/p>\n
I love Twain, and I adore The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But Twain, even though his voice is often modern, wrote in a different era. Different conventions applied. I don\u2019t know if anyone today would name a character after a berry, either. Maybe, but the writer would have to have an important reason for doing so.<\/p>\n
A writer would also have to have a powerful reason for using dialect, more powerful than simply establishing a regional feeling. Even if you get the dialect exactly right, which is hard, readers are likely to think you didn\u2019t. Speech rings differently for each of us.<\/p>\n
You can describe a dialect in narration, and then the reader will know it\u2019s there. If I were introducing a certain species of New York accent (I\u2019m a New Yorker), I might talk about the tortured r and the distorted long i and the attachment of a final g to the next word when that word starts with a vowel, as in Long Gisland. I might even give a sample as I just did and then return to standard English.<\/p>\n
Choice of expression also can portray a region. You all is southern and only southern in my experience. Maybe these aren\u2019t New York-isms, but it seems to me I hear Right? and Am I crazy? a lot here. My late friend from Minnesota used to say oofta! frequently. Pay attention to local phrases and use them, but don\u2019t overdo or you\u2019ll shift into parody – unless you have parody in mind.<\/p>\n
There are more tools to situate our characters, because locales often live up to type. My books have taken me all over the country. On the streets of San Francisco and nowhere else I have overheard conversations about spirit channeling and fruit fasting. If I\u2019m traveling for a publisher, I\u2019m assigned local media escorts, who take me to schools and bookstores. In LA my escort one time was a starlet, and a car service driver had written a screenplay. When I sign books in southern states the children seem to have three-syllable and hyphenated first names more often than anywhere else. You can use details like these to establish place.<\/p>\n
But again, be careful and specific, and use a light touch. We don\u2019t want to alienate readers who actually come from these places. It\u2019s fun – and safe – to adapt these techniques to fantasy, to invent regional characteristics for a fictional world. Make up your own, though. Don\u2019t have your Quachappians saying oofta!<\/p>\n
I talk about said and other speech verbs in Writing Magic. I like said because it fades into the background, as does asked. I\u2019m not sure I approve of myself for this, but I use cried a lot. Cried suggests emotional intensity better than yelled, which, to me, is just about volume. I\u2019m fine with speech verbs that convey information, like yelled, shouted, whispered, because I can’t tell a character is doing any of those things unless I\u2019m told. Whispered can be used in a scene where quiet is called for. The word needn’t be repeated, because the reader will assume from then on that everybody is whispering unless told otherwise.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m opposed to questioned, exclaimed, snarled, blubbered – because they draw attention to themselves and away from the actual speech. I use blurted sometimes, so I guess I don\u2019t mind it, although if you can convey blurting without actually writing the word, so much the better. I just looked at my latest manuscript and found continued, burst out, called, even squeaked, which I think is okay because the character\u2019s throat was closing on her.<\/p>\n
My favorite writing teacher insisted that speech verbs have to involve speech, so it\u2019s wrong to write, She laughed, \u201cThat\u2019s funny.\u201d because you can\u2019t laugh words. It should be, She laughed. \u201cThat\u2019s funny.\u201d or some other way of putting it. Notice the period rather than the comma after laughed.<\/p>\n
About adverbs describing speech, like \u201cThat\u2019s awful,\u201d he said emphatically. – I\u2019m sure I\u2019m sometimes guilty of them, and sometimes you need them, but as infrequently as possible.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s great not to need speech verbs at all. One way to eliminate them is to break speech up with action like this: \u201cI\u2019m scared.\u201d Sally twisted the ends of her scarf. \u201cDid we step into a horror movie?\u201d<\/p>\n
We know Sally is the one talking if she has the paragraph to herself, which is a good way to avoid confusion. Action also lets the reader see what\u2019s going on. It can shed light on a character, too, or heighten tension.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a prompt: A deli sandwich maker, a retired dress saleswoman, a stay-at-home dad, a college student, a lawyer, and a physical therapist are on a train that gets delayed. One of these characters (or any others you choose) starts a conversation, and the rest join in. Some may speak on cell phones as well. Write down what they say. You may want to try the conversation\/debate\/argument, whatever it turns into, a few different ways, experimenting with speech verbs, action, and placing the characters regionally. Have fun, and save all the versions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On December 2nd April posted this comment: What’s your opinion on placing an emphasis on dialect? For example, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. What about the words accompanying dialogue? Some people are sticklers for only using “said,” even with questions (instead of “asked”). Others use quite a variety of words to give more… […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[121,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":526,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions\/526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}