Writers Unite discussion

Hi, I'm writing a book full of accents, and I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions. It's a fantasy novel, BTW.

Hmm... accents can be especially tricky. I suggest you do a bit of researching.

Let's say that one of your characters is from England and you want them to have a heavy British accent. One of the things that you can do is look up some of the specific terms that the British use in comparison to how other people would say things.

For example if you are American, you would say "Backpack" and the British would say "Rucksack"; an American would say "Mom", The British would say "Mum". Just tiny things like that can really help to establish that your character has an accent.

I am a failure at writing with accents. Sorry I can't help.

Let's not forget the accents within the accents. London Cockney is a British accent, but you can hear the difference very clearly.

It's like Southern or Northern accents. It's all American, but you can hear the how they differ. People down south say "Y'all" quite often. People in the west say "Pop" and people in the east say "Soda".

In short, research helps. A lot. >.<'

RedPath wrote: "Let's not forget the accents within the accents. London Cockney is a British accent, but you can hear the difference very clearly.

It's like Southern or Northern accents. It's all American, but..."

I live in the West. I've never called it "pop". I've always called it "soda".

Meh, not everyone says "Y'all" down here either.

I didn't think so. But I don't know anybody who calls it "pop". I really don't.

Well, I couldn't think of anything! Don't judge me!

Well, I'm obviously fried. G'night!

I'm not judging. Just correcting. *wink*

Goodnight!

from what i know, Ya'll is pretty common with Texans (or at least the ones i've known) and not to mention, i lived there a few years ago and i heard people using it. i don't know if that counts for anything but i hope it helps in some way.

o and as a vegas native i can pretty much say that i've been saying ya'll my whole life. vegas isn't the "south" so...perhaps ya'll is something that people say in more regions than we really know

i started reading a book when they completely wrote it that when anybody talked it was all, "oi! moin thus es sahch a bloody mehss, moin!" or soemthing or other. i couldn't understand anything. :) so if it's a british accent, i would go with a few slang terms or add in little things that they say differnt (such as "yah'll" in the south) and call it good. ;)

(and yeah i live in the west and everyone calls it soda. ha.)

Victoria wrote: "i started reading a book when they completely wrote it that when anybody talked it was all, "oi! moin thus es sahch a bloody mehss, moin!" or soemthing or other. i couldn't understand anything. :) ..."

I've just finished writing a novel about the class divide in Britain. Two of my characters: ladies who work in a kitchen, drop their aitches and talk just like a Londoner would. If I were to re-write it for easier understanding, so much of their characters would be lost. Having said that, I do agree that your particular example of language modification was badly written.

Hmm, well, I've never met anyone with an accent, so I'm fairly useless.

Mitch wrote: "I didn't think so. But I don't know anybody who calls it "pop". I really don't."

Really? Most people I know call it pop.