Support for Indie Authors discussion

I am writing a secondary world fantasy and need to give my village dwellers slang and my city dwellers a different slang. I am struggling! Does anyone know of any online resources or books that cover this topic? Just to give me a helping hand?

My first thought is, be very careful. Do you really need it? Try to think of a style that suits their speech, and see what happens. The problem with made-up words is unless they are clearly understood hey will merely confuse the reader. As an example, unless you are Cockney, or partially familiar, their rhyming slang verges on the incomprehensible. I would think you are better off to portray differences through different actions and ambitions, etc.

My editor believes the people that live in the city would speak differently to those from an isolated village. I am only going to have a couple of phrases or words that will either be obvious or explained (in context so as not to be obviously for the reader!).

Google slang words from different years going back to old English and use those. choose ones that make sense and are easy to use.

B.A. wrote: "Google slang words from different years going back to old English and use those. choose ones that make sense and are easy to use."

That’s an idea. Even if I just use those for a base to begin from. Thanks.

My editor believes the people that live in the city would speak differently to those from an isolated village.

Have you read a few pages of the work that person edited? Is it doing well in the market? Does a page or two make you want to read more?

Speech patterns might differ, to an extent, depending on the society, and the amount of interaction and cultures. But language? Who cares? The reader can't hear their words. And unless it matters to the plot, it's a waste of time. Look at it this way: If you placed a Russian, a Frenchman, and an American in conversation, and did more than a single, "He said, in heavily accented French," or, "He said with a trace of his French heritage," once, to establish the character, the reader would toss the book, because it would get in the way of the action. The last thing you want to do is making the reading harder. Remember, if the country/city words work, and are used inconstantly, after a time they become invisible to the reader. So have the protagonist smile...or frown...or ask the person to repeat, because of their "hayseed" language. But once established, using it often would be like placing a Scottish burr on every line a character speaks. That works in film, but not on the page.

Focus more in the characterization and action. One character may favor certain expressions. They may nod, interrupt, rephrase, and all the kind of things people do. But having people use made-up words simply to say, "This is a country bumpkin? Naa. It would get in the way. You make the world real by taking the reader into the protagonist's mind, and making them know the scene in real-time; by making them think like the protagonist, and in general calibrating the reader's perspective to that of your protagonist.

In short: you make your characters real by placing the reader into the story, as the protagonist not by gluing on glitter.

Remember, they're all speaking a language other than English.

Jay wrote: "My editor believes the people that live in the city would speak differently to those from an isolated village.

Have you read a few pages of the work that person edited? Is it doing well in the mar..."

You make good points here. My worldbuilding and characterisation are pretty good and the characters all have distinct voices. But there is nothing wrong with a bit of glitter on the top! I would only use a word here or there, and to be honest I have read a few books on writing dialogue that say much the same as my editor, who I trust.

I received similar feedback on an early draft of one of my books. I had a female character who I described as having a thick Bronx accent, although I wrote the dialogue normally. In my second draft, I introduced a lot of Bronx slang into her dialogue but the feedback I received was that she now sounded more like a dock-worker than a young, attractive (although aggressive) woman.

I couldn't find the middle ground so I consulted an award-winning author who was the writer-in-residence at our local university. His advice was to use a lot of slang when the character is first introduced, but then gradually back it off as the story progresses. Once you establish in the reader's mind that the character speaks with a thick accent, the reader will "hear" that accent every time the character speaks, even though you've stopped putting it into the dialogue.

You can try grabbing words from another language.

Example: you want a slang for "fisherman".

In French, fish is poisson. Like poison, but with 2 s's.

So, you make the slangeristas call the fishermen "pois", and to give a more phonetic vibe, "puas".

To twist it more, you can tweak that into something a tad more unique. Make it "puaks."

Just throwing that out there in case it sparks anything. It all kinda depends on what the story needs and what it will benefit from.

try fantasy name generator it has lots of good stuff.

All things worth keeping in mind, thanks everyone.

I love slang/made up every day words in fiction and feel it is a vital part of worldbuilding. That being said, I don't have a resource. I often think about the every day life of the people and how we shorten things and how they might shorten things. Like if everyone in town works on the line for the city meat packing plant, maybe they are "linies" or something. Or the well at the center of the city was the place of a fight between two families and how everyone calls it the Feud Well. Just a few can help deepen your world.