Writing Effective Dialect, Part 4
In Today's Journal
* Writing Effective Dialect, Part 4
* A Note from Dan Baldwin
* Remember the Run With Harvey Challenge?
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Writing Effective Dialect, Part 4
Word Sequence and Misused Words
Sometimes dialect (character voice) is conveyed through a stiff, clunky response (e.g., no contractions).
Other times it's conveyed using words in a different order than a native speaker would use. Juxtaposition matters.
A close friend of mine who was born in Mexico and whose native language was Mexican Spanish had trouble with prepositions when he spoke in English.
For example, if you asked what he was doing as his pen hovered over an application or other form, instead of saying he was going to "fill it out" he would say he was going to "fill it up" or even "fill him up."
Because the I in the Spanish alphabet is pronounced like a long E in English, if I wrote phonetically what he said it would read, "Oh, I'n gonna feel eet op" or "I'n gonna feel heem op."
Notice also the "I'n" instead of "I'm."
At a gas pump, he would also "feel out" the gas tank on his car.
Native speakers of other languages also place an unusual and unexpected stress on some words.
My wife and I stopped at a Dairy Queen in Hatch, New Mexico one afternoon.
We ordered, and as a young Mexican female attendant frantically busied herself at a machine, she glanced over her shoulder, offered a quick half-smile, and said, "Sorry, I jus' barely got here. Bot eet weel be only anohther meeneet or two."
She meant she was a little frenzied because she had only recently come on shift. But her accent endeared me to her. That happened at least fifteen years ago, and I've never forgotten it.
Caution: If you have more than one non-English speaking character in a scene (or in the overall story), listen closely to how each character pronounces particular words.
One might say, "What ti'e ees eet?"
Another might say, "Wha' tine eet ees?"
Another might say, "Wha' time ees eet?" (or they might reverse that and say "eet ees?").
Like I keep saying, it's all about the nuances, which is to say it's all about being true to whichever character is speaking at the time.
I Would Be Remiss
if I didn't mention that you can also indicate dialect passively by simply letting the reader know through narrative that a character speaks a particular dialect. For example,
In broken English he said... or
From the sound of her voice, she was from the deep South (a Caribbean island, Australia, etc.
Or you can do so through a direct statement (dialogue) from the POV character:
"You speak English well. Where are you from?" or
"What's your native language?" etc.
Then you have to trust the reader to fill in the sounds of the dialect himself.
When you indicate dialect in either of those ways, I recommend you let the characters remind the reader now and then of that dialect.
I staunchly Do Not recommend this method
especially if the dialect is important to set the tone or mood of the story.
The more you leave to the imagination of the reader, the less control you exert over the reader and the less grounded the reader will be in the character and the story.
Before I would personally indicate dialect in this way, I would simply not write characters whose native language is something other than my native language.
Back tomorrow with Writing Effective Dialect, Part 5. In that post, I'll wrap up talking about dialect and include an excerpt that illustrates the use of dialect as well as conveying emotion through narrative and dialogue.
A Note from Dan Baldwin
"For anyone interested in psychic development, I am serializing my book on pendulum dowsing free at danbaldwin.com."
Remember the Run With Harvey Challenge?
Just in case anyone would like to give it a shot, and in honor of the first post in Of Interest below, I'm simplifying and reopening the Run With Harvey challenge for the next three months (April through June).
Despite the name of the challenge, you don't have to match my numbers.
You only have to write an AVERAGE of 2025 words per day for the month or the quarter, from April 1 through June 30, 2025.
Hint: I recommend setting your daily goal at 2050 words per day. If you reach for that every day, you will succeed.
Caution: I'll mention required totals below, but don't think you have to eat an elephant all at once. Just focus on writing 2025 (or 2050) words per day.
Monthly and Quarterly Prizes
Monthly: If your word count equals or exceeds 61500 words in any single month (April through June) you may claim any prize from among
ANY OF my omnibus novel collectionshttps://stonethreadpublishing.com/omnibus-fiction-collections/,
ALL OF the Paul Stone, Jack Temple, or John Quick (your choice) Blackwell Ops novels (all are action-adventure/romance),
ANY OF my nonfiction books (including the omnibus)https://stonethreadpublishing.com/writing-books/,
ANY TWO of my audio courses (view the list at Audio Courseshttps://hestanbrough.com/audio-courses/), or
ANY TWO of my video DVDs (view the list at Video DVDshttps://hestanbrough.com/paper-books-and-video-dvds/, while they last).
Quarterly: If your word count equals or exceeds 182,260 words for the quarter, you may claim ALL of the above prizes.
All prizes will be awarded as follows:
All book prizes will be awarded via email as ebooks in your choice of epub, mobi, or PDF files.
All audio course prizes will be awarded via email as MP3 attachments.
All audio DVD prizes will be mailed to your PO box or physical mailing address. (So let me know that.)
The Rules
There is NO COST to enter, but
You must be on the list in order to claim the prizes.
To enter and be placed on the list, simply email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
If you want, you may email me once a week with your weekly totals. If not, that's fine. Simply email me at the end of each month with your totals and/or to claim your prizes.
Questions are welcome.
That's it! Good luck!
Of Interest
Restart Challenge Dean's offering his own Run with Harvey Challenge: 2025 words per day average.
Our writer's block solutions, etc. This is a podcast, about 50 minutes long. If you have time, give it a listen and let me know what you think. Also browse the episodes to the right side of this one.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 780
Writing of Blackwell Ops 40: John Staple
Day 1…… 3397 words. To date…… 3397
Day 2…… 1651 words. To date…… 5048
Day 3…… 1960 words. To date…… 7008
Day 4…… 1777 words. To date…… 8785
Day 5…… 1310 words. To date…… 10095
Day 6…… 3346 words. To date…… 13441
Day 7…… 3322 words. To date…… 16763
Day 8…… 1062 words. To date…… 17824
Fiction for March…………………….. 65597
Fiction for 2025………………………. 251428
Nonfiction for March……………........ 21970
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 75900
2025 consumable words…………….. 320818
Average Fiction WPD (March)……... 2733
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 6
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 11
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 110
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 281
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
If you are able, please support TNDJ with a paid subscription. Thank you!
If you’re new to TNDJ, you might want to check out these links:
Oh, and here’s My Bio. It’s always a good idea to vet the expertise of people who are giving you advice.
Questions are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. But please limit yourself to the topics of writing and publishing.
Tell Dan Thanks. I've used a pendulum for years. Will look at his writings on them.