accents

[trenchcoatedson.livejournal.com]

Is any one else writing a story with an accented character and has decided to actually write the accents in? And having trouble with it? Or has any one had this problem in the past- whether for NaNoWriMo or just any story?

I mean, not the accent itself, but the fact it's nothing like how you normally write or talk.

Currently I'm writing a story about a man from the Ozarks, and I wanted the story to seem as if he was writing it himself... like an autobiography or something. So I decided to implement his accents. Now, I'm actually from down South (Arkansas, the same place he is) so I can write a Southern accent perfectly fine.

But... what's driving me crazy is it's NOTHING like how I talk at all. It's driving me insane, and it's making me have trouble writing. It just seems awkward and WEIRD. I keep wanting to go through and beta this man's writing and edit the hell out of it. I've only written 1,107 words so far. Sad.

I could start over and write it normally, but... I just am not seeing the novel that way, nor am I seeing the character speaking properly. He has Asperger's Syndrome (undiagnosed), and he wants to write just how he talks, or else he feels like it's not actually him writing it.

So I don't know if I should just keep writing until I finally get used to it or start working on a new novel... Someone give me a pep talk or something, or personal advice. D:

Comments

[kagetenshi.livejournal.com]

If you actually hear someone speak with an accent, a lot of times they say words just like people lacking ones do, save for some shortcuts in words they take like "y'know" and stuff like that.

What I would do, to save your sanity, is just establish that this person has an accent. Truly, anyone that would be reading the story will think to themselves "Oh, this book tells me this man has an accent. I can imagine how he sounds like as I am reading the words he says".

The only exception might be people whose mother tongue is not English, and some (but not everybody) don't speak with all the necessary words in a sentence. Even fewer speak in third person. I don't see this often in books except for a couple fantasy novels where the other side spoke very little "human" tongue.

[technicolornina.livejournal.com]

Be careful to stay consistent if you're using "shortcut" words, though. It irritates me no end when I go back to reread what I'm writing (during non-NaNo times) and find that half the time I used "pick up y'damn shoes" (which is how I actually talk) and the other half it's "pick up your damned shoes" (which is what my brain thinks I should say). It's different if it's a difference between characters (I do have some characters who would say "your damned" instead of "y'damn"), but it's usually not.

[kagetenshi.livejournal.com]

This is also something to consider. Above all things, consistency is a major key point!