Dialect
I wonder how Goodreads readers and writers feel about regional and ethnic dialect on the page.
I know that Mark Twain is one of the greatest of American writers, but some of his attempts to recreate regional dialect are difficult to read. Worse, some of his material - in "Huckleberry Finn," for example- comes across to me as condescension.
(That's not to mention the "N-word" issue. In "Jean Claude Van Johnson," the characters are making a movie of "Huckleberry Finn," in which Huck's slave sidekick is referred to as "N-word Jim.")
I think that it is impossible to write honestly about the racial dialogue of the - say, 1920s through the 1950s - without your racist characters using the N-word.
IMHO, "Gone With the Wind" is one of the great historical novels and romances in US literature. (If you can set aside its idealization of Southern ante bellum and Civil War culture.)
But, IMHO, Margaret Mitchell hurts the reading experience by trying to incorporate black dialect into her writing.
In my writing so far, I've just written the words that my ethnic characters use, without trying to spell the nonstandard pronunciations.
So, my 1824 characters in "The Cabin" speak in a manner which sounds stilted to us, and they have a unique vocabulary. But I don't change how the words are spelled.
Likewise, the black and Hispanic deputies in "Blood Spirit" and "The Sheriff" speak just like the white Southern cops.
In the book I'm writing, there are many black characters - the Mayor, the police commissioner, the police captain, and the protagonist, who is a black woman detective sergeant. Likewise, there are a couple of black criminals.
I'm trying to catch the rhythm of how they talk. But I'm not going to spell the words differently.
"Ask," for example, is not spelled "axe."
So, folks, what do you think?
What's the best way to handle dialect in your dialogue?
I know that Mark Twain is one of the greatest of American writers, but some of his attempts to recreate regional dialect are difficult to read. Worse, some of his material - in "Huckleberry Finn," for example- comes across to me as condescension.
(That's not to mention the "N-word" issue. In "Jean Claude Van Johnson," the characters are making a movie of "Huckleberry Finn," in which Huck's slave sidekick is referred to as "N-word Jim.")
I think that it is impossible to write honestly about the racial dialogue of the - say, 1920s through the 1950s - without your racist characters using the N-word.
IMHO, "Gone With the Wind" is one of the great historical novels and romances in US literature. (If you can set aside its idealization of Southern ante bellum and Civil War culture.)
But, IMHO, Margaret Mitchell hurts the reading experience by trying to incorporate black dialect into her writing.
In my writing so far, I've just written the words that my ethnic characters use, without trying to spell the nonstandard pronunciations.
So, my 1824 characters in "The Cabin" speak in a manner which sounds stilted to us, and they have a unique vocabulary. But I don't change how the words are spelled.
Likewise, the black and Hispanic deputies in "Blood Spirit" and "The Sheriff" speak just like the white Southern cops.
In the book I'm writing, there are many black characters - the Mayor, the police commissioner, the police captain, and the protagonist, who is a black woman detective sergeant. Likewise, there are a couple of black criminals.
I'm trying to catch the rhythm of how they talk. But I'm not going to spell the words differently.
"Ask," for example, is not spelled "axe."
So, folks, what do you think?
What's the best way to handle dialect in your dialogue?
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Dallas's blog
I'm getting back into the writing world again after a long illness and withdrawal. The books I've already published primarily center around a fictional Florida county, a young woman named Donna Parker
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For my European characters, I try to put in some native dialect and ways of speaking. Sometimes for fun, but mostly because I understand the context of it.
And I will admit, for a book still in progress, I have some characters that are over-the-top American stereotypes (for a plot-furthering reason) and they use a bunch of slang.
If I was a Black man trying to make a point about racism in a certain context and time, that's one thing. And a Southerner, putting in some Southern dialect, I think is also fine. But I'm neither, so I stay the hell away, out of respect.