Three Common Dialogue Challenges and How to Beat Them
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)
What do we do about a character who speaks in a dialect? In historical fiction, how do we manage to keep our dialogue true to the time period without allowing it to sound stilted? Should we use contractions in science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction?
Even if you’re normally confident when it comes to writing dialogue, these questions can give us hives as we struggle to find the answer. I hope to help chase the hives away.
What do we do about a character who speaks in a particular dialect?
If you’ve ever tried to read Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriett Beecher Stowe, you’ll know how frustrating it can be to slog through dialect written out phonetically. You don’t want your reader to have to work that hard. So how do we find the balance between authenticity and readability?
Just name it.
She had a heavy New York accent.
He sounded like he was from the Deep South.
Is this telling rather than showing? Yes, but it’s one of the situations where it’s actually okay to tell. In fact, if you don’t know how to replicate a dialect well enough to do it correctly, this is the wise option.
This technique works most successfully if you’re choosing to name an accent your reader will immediately be able to call to mind.
Filter it through the ears of another character who isn’t familiar with the dialect. I personally love when an author does this well, but it only works if your character isn’t familiar with the dialect.
Jim glared at her. “You spoiled him. And after all, that ain’t no real kindness.” It came out like You spiled ‘im. And arter all, t’aint no real kindness.
You don’t have to do this more than once for the reader to understand what your character sounds like when they’re speaking.
Point out a distinctive word here and there. This option works in the same situations as the one above.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize.” When she said sorry, it sounded like soar-y instead of sari. I couldn’t get past the mental image of her covered in seeping wounds.
Forget copying it exactly, and instead think in terms of rhythm, word choice, syntax, grammatical mistakes, and missing words. Abileen’s chapters in The Help by Kathryn Stockett could be a master’s class in this. Listen to part of The Help’s first paragraph.
Taking care a white babies, that’s what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning.
She uses “a” instead of “of.”
“I done” not “I have.”
“Them” and “they” instead of “those” and “their.”
Small but important grammatical mistakes.
Stockett chooses the word “mamas” over “mothers.” She chooses “toilet bowl” rather than “potty” or “bathroom” or “crapper.”
Syntax is basically about the patterns that form sentences and phrases. Stockett could have written, “I take care of white babies.” But she didn’t. She wrote, “Taking care a white babies, that’s what I do.” She reversed the normal and expected order.
And when you write dialect this way, you’ll not only make the read easy and immersive for your audience. You’ll also avoid stereotypes and condescension.
A great source for preliminary dialect research is http://dialectblog.com
In historical fiction, how do we manage to keep our dialogue true to the time period without allowing it to sound stilted?
I asked this question to award-winning historical romance author Jody Hedlund during my interview with her.
You can read Jody’s full answer by clicking the link above, but in a nutshell, she said, “I don’t try to imitate the time period speech exactly. I usually pick out distinct words and assign them to particular characters to use throughout the book.”
When in doubt about whether a word is too modern, look it up. Jody suggested Phrases.org as her go-to. Dictionary.com will also often tell you when a word originated. You don’t have to stick solely to words from the era you’re writing about, but the closer you can come, the better.
A word might also sound too modern even if it isn’t. Occasionally, you’re going to run into a word that’s ancient but sounds modern. Technically you’re correct in using it, but I’d recommend changing it. Not all readers are historical scholars. They go by what sounds right.
Should we use contractions in science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction?
In every critique group, fiction intensive, or mentorship class I’ve ever attended with other fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction writers, this question has come up. And the class divided down the middle on the answer.
Those who felt contractions were acceptable argued that taking them out made the writing sound stilted and awkward. Those who felt contractions were unacceptable argued using them made the writing sound unauthentic and modern.
In a mentorship class I took from Randy Ingermanson, he pointed out that most languages, even ancient ones, had a way of shortening words or slang that made certain words and phrases easier and quicker to say.
Patricia T. O’Connor and Stewart Kellerman point out in their book Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language that Old English used contractions. For example, ne is (“is not”) contracted to nis (“isn’t”) and ne wolde (“would not”) contracted to nolde (“wouldn’t). Contractions went in and out of fashion over the years, more so in writing than in speech. Even among the upper classes, contractions would have been used and tolerated in speech when they were considered unacceptable in writing.
So where does that leave us? We need to always strive for dialogue that sounds smooth and natural. If an excessive removal of contractions leaves our work feeling stilted and awkward, we should look for other ways to give an authentic feel.
We can instead rearrange the syntax of our sentences. We can remove contractions at key moments for emphasis (and downplay them throughout). We can replace modern-feeling phrases with ones slightly less common.
Do you have any other tips for handling these problems? What authors do you think handle them well?
If you missed out on the earlier installments in this series, click the following links to read 5 Basics About Dialogue You Need to Know, 7 Tricks for Adding Variety to Your Dialogue, How to Write Dialogue Unique to Your Characters, and Does Your Dialogue Deserve to Exist?
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Nov 07, 2012 @ 12:25:54
I’m so glad you are giving advice on the issue of dialect. I really don’t like reading all the misspellings written out. I’d rather know where they are from, like you showed, and then hear how it sounds in my own head as I read.
Nov 07, 2012 @ 13:32:25
That’s my preference too. I like a hint of it, but then I don’t want to have to slog through it every time they speak. It pulls me right out of the story.
Nov 07, 2012 @ 16:34:15
For me less is more, though there needs to be some. This regarding the dialect.
As for contractions in fantasy and science fiction, I’m firmly in the “they belong” camp. Dry, stiff, artificial dialogue is a very quick reason for me to stop reading a book.
Nov 07, 2012 @ 16:51:41
I’m really enjoying this series, Marcy. Great advice, thank you! I am working on Book 2 in my series. While I have a good feel for my main character voices, I am bringing in new players and want to make sure they sound unique, not like retreads. Keep up the good work!
Nov 07, 2012 @ 18:55:37
Thanks, Marcy! This is a great post.
Piling on accented dialect is hard to write and harder to read. Try reading the Harry Potter books out loud–Hagrid’s dialog isn’t easy. Just a touch is all that’s needed to get the point across. Not many people can get away with Yoda-speak, unless they are Yoda. 🙂
I’m also use contractions in my SF/F dialog. If the character doesn’t call for it, then they speak like people speak. The world may not be this planet, but the people should sound real.
Nov 07, 2012 @ 20:43:39
Thanks for the much needed advice! I’ve been struggling with making the dialogue for an American character seem genuine. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve typed: “He had an American accent” and other other variations, only to delete the line because is didn’t look right.
I’ve researched American dialects, pronunciations, sayings and so on to make his speech more authentic, not glaringly so but more a subtle lilt. I never thought to use another character to filter the sound of his words.
I love writing dialogue but if I’m not paying attention some characters start to sound alike.
Great post!
Nov 08, 2012 @ 21:03:07
I a problems with this when I was writing Reluctant Guardian. I spent a long time researching how slaves spoke in the south, reading through old letters, and all sorts of information. And I created a huge list, wrote it all in…and then wound up taking most of it out because I couldn’t stand it. Trying to stay true to what the research showed just made the characters sound ignorant. I still wound up leaving more in than I wanted, but didn’t have benefit of reading something like this at the time. 🙂
Nov 08, 2012 @ 23:18:03
Hi Marcy,
Another fantastic post.
I’m adding dialectblog.com and phrases.org to my sidebar. This will not only help others, but I’ll then be able to click on the links without searching through my files.
It’s also great that you show examples.
And you took a class led by Randy Ingermanson? I’m impressed. I have to be content with his book “Writing for Dummies”. LOL 🙂
Thanks,
Tracy
P.S. I voted.
Nov 08, 2012 @ 23:39:19
I have them bookmarked for that very reason. I used to keep everything I might want again open in tabs, but when I topped 40 open tabs and my web browser started crashing, I had to break down and start bookmarking instead!
Randy is a fantastic teacher and a really nice person. Taking the intensive class with him and getting his feedback on my writing influenced me a lot. If you ever get a chance to take a class from him, I highly recommend it.
Nov 09, 2012 @ 00:42:52
Hi Marcy,
I just added the links to my blog sidebar!
When you have a chance to answer this, where did you take Randy’s seminar?
Feel better soon! 🙂
Tracy
Nov 09, 2012 @ 02:00:47
Lisa and I went to Mt. Hermon Christian Writer’s Conference in California. It was expensive to fly all the way across the continent, but it was the best conference I’ve ever been to. I believe Randy lists the conferences he’ll be teaching at each year on his website.
Nov 09, 2012 @ 02:07:45
Marcy, thanks for supplying the info even though you’re sick. 🙁
I’ll check out the link.
I’ll have to sell a mountain of cards so I can go. 😀
Thanks,
Tracy
Jan 06, 2013 @ 02:02:40
Nice advice. i’ll be sharing this and reading the rest of the series as well.