Accents, Dialects, and Historical Voice

   

Have you ever tried to read a book so thick with dialect and accents and archaic language that your brain wanted to explode? 

It can be ridiculously exhausting. Dropping every 'g' ending or 'h' beginning, using "bless your heart" or "Uff da" with liberality, or throwing in so many colloquialisms that the characters become comic representations of themselves.

Stereotyping is a hot-button issue these days. Publishers are hiring 'sensitivity readers' to evaluate manuscripts before they go to print, lest they contain something/anything that might offend a particular people group or demographic. 

So, how can we write authentic, accurate dialogue without either exhausting or offending readers?

This is a secular cozy msytery
series set in Maine, and I
think Sarah Graves handles
the Maine accent perfectly.

(In an aside, there is no way that you will ever put out any work of fiction that doesn't offend someone. Not everyone is going to love every single word you write. But, we should avoid doing it on purpose just for the sake of causing offense, and we certainly don't want to offend out of ignorance if we can help it.)

1. Accents - An accent is the way a word is said across different parts of the country. There is a pretty wide-ranging variety of accents just among the Seekers. Ruthy in Upstate New York sounds different from Mindy in Texas...and they both sound super-different from my Kansan-turned-Minnesotan accent. (Though, I maintain that Kansans don't have accents...the rest of the world does.) 

So, how do you write a heroine from Maine and make her sound authentic? Or a hero from Savannah? 

• Let the reader know early on that a character has a particular accent. It's not playing fair if they read half the book and then find out the heroine grew up in Central Georgia. Or that the hero is British and studied at Eton.
• Don't point out every last instance of accent! Rather than belabor the issue by having a character comment on the accent at every usage, note it early and then trust the reader to get it. 
• Word order helps a lot. The way a Spaniard speaks English is different from the way a Kentuckian speaks English. They will change the order of their words, use simple words if they are not fluent, and will sometimes ask if they are using the correct word.  

Teddy Blue had a unique, authentic
cowboy voice. 

2. Dialect - Dialect is words that are unique to a particular region or area of the country. Keep in mind that a little goes a long way. Too much, and the reader will either grow bored, tired, or wonder if it's worth it to slog through. 

• Find one or two words unique to the speech of that part of the world and use them, sparingly. For example, in Maine, it is common for "Yes" to be said "Ayuh." If you have your Kansan say "Howcome?" when they mean "Why?" it will ring true.
• Avoid making a people group sound stupid. If you're writing a Civil War book, and you have slave-characters, you can portray their dialect without making them sound like simpletons. Socio-economic disadvantages are not the same as mental deficiencies. Dialect does not indicate a lack of intelligence. 
• A little goes a long way. If you hit it right with a few, well-chosen words or phrases, that will have more impact than if you slather on the dialect and creative punctuation to excess.

3. Historical Voice - Writing with an historical voice means you make your characters sound authentic to their era. Weeding out anachronistic language is where this starts, but layering in appropriate syntax, word usage, accents, and dialect are also part of writing with an appropriate historical voice.

O'Brian prefers the total-immersion
method of writing historical
fiction. And I LOVE IT!

• READ! I cannot stress this enough. If you want to know how cowboys on trail drives sounded, read the Diary of Teddy Blue Abbott. If you want to know how a Colonial woman talked, read the letters of Abigail Adams. Find letters, diaries, newspaper articles, and especially novels written/published during the era you're hoping to portray. Study their sentence structure, word usage, phraseology. Then adapt your dialogue to fit.
• Consider the education level of your characters when adapting their historical voice. A well-educated debutante in London Society in 1814 will sound different from the boot boy or char lady. Match the historical voice to the social/educational tone of your character.
• A little goes a long way. I am currently listening to the Aubrey/Matchurin series by Patrick O'Brian, a collection of naval war novels that are pure genius. However, there is a reason that there are companion books to the series. A Lexicon, An Atlas, A Muster Book, A Recipe Book, and more. Patrick O'Brian fully immersed his readers in the language, customs, geography, terminology, and mores of the setting of his story. He could scarcely avoid the 'total immersion' method (forgive the pun) for his naval war stories, because it is such a foreign world to modern readers, and unless he wanted to be pausing to explain every ratline and t'gallant, the characters have to forge ahead using the terminology that would be familiar to them. But for a western romance or a Regency or Revolutionary war story, use moderation for the sake of your readers. 

It can be difficult to strike just the right balance, but writing accents, dialect, and historical voices, we can be authentic without being obnoxious. 

What books have you read that have a great grasp of accent, dialect, and/or historical voice?

Best-selling, award-winning author Erica Vetsch loves Jesus, history, romance, and sports. She’s a transplanted Kansan now living in Minnesota, and she is married to her total opposite and soul mate! When she’s not writing fiction, she’s planning her next trip to a history museum and cheering on her Kansas Jayhawks and New Zealand All Blacks.

You can connect with her at her website, www.ericavetsch.com where you can read about her books and sign up for her newsletter, and you can find her online at https://www.facebook.com/EricaVetschAuthor/ where she spends way too much time!