Writing Accent into Fictional Writing

You have a character that comes from a particular region of the world. The people from this region tend to speak in a particular fashion. It's distinctive, and the moment anyone hears it, they instantly get a sense of the type of environment that the character came from.

It's only natural to want to put that into our writing. We want to immerse our readers into the world. We want them to experience it. Being able to imagine a character's accent is only part of that experience.

However, building accent into the written form is not a simple matter of slapping a few letters onto the page. Like everything else we do in writing, it takes careful thought and consideration.

Writing accent into your story could add the perfect color to your fictional world, but it could also turn into a reader's nightmare.

When to apply accent: It's a matter of voice.

In a previous blog post, I wrote about how voice is the personality that comes through within writing. You can have a writer's voice, which is often shown in the narrative structure. Bloggers have a writer voice that might be filled with sass or somber tones, depending on who the writer is. However, a character's voice will be directly connected to the character, isolated from the writer's voice.

If a writer actually talks with an accent, it is unlikely they will use that accent in their writer voice, simply because they want to be taken seriously. Accent within character voice is fair game, but it will be restricted to just the character.

Dialogue will often be filled with accent, focusing on the inflictions that a character would use when talking to others. However, narratives can also contain accent, particularly if that narrative is in first person.

Consider the following passage from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you have to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with them. That is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.

I want you to look at that passage closely. From the first words, the accent is clear.

The widow she cried over me...

It's a matter of the words chosen and their order. It's the added she.

Every single word in that passage is spelled correctly, but the order in which Twain wrote those words gives a distinctive accent.  It's a classic Southern twang from the pauper scamp that Huck was.

I dare you to read that passage aloud without putting on the fake Southern accent. If you manage to get to the end without hearing that accent so strongly in your head, then you are definitely cut from a different bit of cloth to me.

However, there will be some writers who don't understand the power of word order and wording choices in creating those distinctive character voices. Instead, they will use tactics that become a distraction.

Taking accent to the extreme: It's phonetically correct though...

There is a school of thought out there that will insist on writing accents within fiction as a phonetic language.

The German wants to take you out to enjoy a good movie. "Ve vill have a goht time." Or the Indian is giving an engineering lecture on "water waper." But by messing around with the way in which words are spelled, you slow a reader down as they try to decipher what it is your characters are trying to say (assuming they can be bothered and don't just skip over the passage).

Consider the following example:

 ‘Aw, honey,’ the girl was anxious. ‘ ’dey ain’t no use tryin’ tuh git mad at me. Ah done nuthen tuh give yuh recasion tuh ack dat way. Ah jist thunk you mebbe preshiate a ringside at da Par’dise ’nstead of settin’ hyah countin’ yo troubles. Why, honey, yuh all knows Ah wudden fall fo’ dat richcrat ack’ of Birdie Johnson. No sir. He don’ mean nuthen tuh me. Him duh wusstes’ man ’n Harlem, dawg bite me effn he ain’t. All da same, he permis me da bestess seats ’nda house ’n Ah sez let’s us go set ’n dem, ’n have us a beer ’n a good time. Cmon, honey. Let’s git out of hyah. Yuh done look so swell ’n Ah jist wan’ mah frens tuh see usn together.’

I'm going to stop for a moment and just blink—multiple times. Where does one even begin?

Would it shock and horrify you to discover that the little snippet above comes from one of the best known thriller novelist of all time? And it WASN'T his first novel either. Let me see if I can give you a few clues about what book this is actually from and who wrote it.

The novel was published in 1954 and was the author's second novel, based on a British spy and his antics. The author went on to publish another twelve novels to use the same iconic spy character, most of which have been turned into the movies. The 1954 novel was turned into a movie of the same name in 1973 starring Roger Moore.

And just to give you an idea of how iconic the main character is from this author's books: 26 different movies have been made between 1962 to 2015. A 27th movie is due to hit cinemas in April 2020, starring Daniel Craig. However, over the years, the part has been played by Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, David Niven, George Lazenby, Roger Moore—and the original, who made the spy figure a classic, would be the one and only Sean Connery.

You got it folks, that diabolical accented mess was written by none other than Ian Fleming. The novel was Live and Let Die. It is a classic piece of thriller history.

That said, if anyone tried to send me something like that to edit, I'm going to reach my hands through the monitor and try to strangle you.

The sample above might be phonetically written, but for anyone reading at speed, they are going to be thrown out of your novel, tumbling onto the road like they dove out of a car to escape from the villain that was after Bond. If they're lucky, they will have survived the near-death experience. And if you're lucky, the reader isn't suing your ass because they threw your book across the room, right through the wallboard on the other side.

Writing accent in the fashion above (i.e., phonetically correct) is the quickest way to lose your reader. It's also a great way to get bad reviews. And if you're heading down traditional publication roads, expect to either rewrite that mess, or be rejected—again and again and again. Yes, Ian Fleming somehow got away with it, but that was in 1954. The only way something like that would find print today is if it was self published, or put into a text on how NOT to write.

(Or, dare I say it, the editor at a traditional publishing house wasn't doing their job and let it slip through the system. To this idea, I shall just hang my head in shame now, as the poor author is made to look like an ass.)

Phonetic passages like the one above are not restricted to just dialogue. I have seen examples of whole narratives written in that phonetically correct accented fashion. It's exhausting to even read the one paragraph. Getting through a whole book like that? No wonder these examples often become the butt of many social media jokes in the editing circles.

Accented voice: How much is too much?

Well, obviously, I feel that the passage from Ian Fleming was way too much. We'll ignore the fact that the spellchecker embedded into my blogging engine and web browser has gone into overdrive. It's a sea of red squiggly lines.

But, as pointed out by the passage by Mark Twain at the beginning of this post, there are ways to create accented voice within dialogue and prose without going to the extremes of changing the spelling of words beyond recognition. It's a matter of crafting the sentences in such a way that the order in which words are presented give you the accent and feel. It's the added little speech tics or the other patterns that become grounded with accent. It's about how you use the contractions, and the occasional section that follows formalized speech rules.

Let's give you another example—this time from one of my own stories currently sitting in that metaphorical drawer.

The tavern bustled with life. Music by the hearth strained to make itself heard above the laughter and noise. The smell of roast meats and mead wafted through the building.

Derek licked his lips and grabbed at his stomach. "Mmm… Food…"

"What we have here?" bellowed a boisterous man from behind the bar.

"Marren!" Drezel bounced with joy. The old man was once a protector apprentice with the Family, but not destined to mate with a magician. His hair might have been jet black in his youth but was now peppered gray. He was rotund, too many years of enjoying his food and wine, but the strength of his arms was still clearly defined. Drezel always felt safe in those arms.

"Someone finally come to take me for me skills. I be ready if ya are."

Drezel chuckled. "I'm sure you are, but we need some supplies."

"Oh?" He draped his arm across her shoulders. "Follow me." He snapped his fingers and one of the youths cleaning tables rushed behind the bar, serving customers. Meanwhile, Marren led Drezel and the brothers through the tavern to an empty table in the back corner. "So, what ya be needin'?"

"Whatever you can get us," Drezel answered, "the more the better. All the food that we collected just before winter was destroyed."

Marren raised his eyebrows. "You not attacked, were ya?"

Drezel shook her head. "The old man is very old. He set it on fire."

Marren leaned back in his chair, his mouth gapping. "It'll be a sad day when he finally moves beyond this world. He an' the old lady do so much over the years. Weren't for him, I hate to think what would happen to me. Ya too for that matter. I can get ya what ya need, but it'll take me a spell—two, perhaps three days. Can ya wait that long?"

Drezel glanced around the room. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you just wanted an excuse to keep me around."

"A pretty li'l thing like ya? Always, child. Always."

Okay, sure this passage plays a little with the spelling, particularly with words like ya, li'l, or needin', but it was still recognizable. You weren't staring at the passage trying to understand what it was saying.

If you decide to take advantage of accent to help build your character's voice, be deliberate with your wording choices and your sentence constructions.

And if anyone insists that you write that passage phonetically, send them my way. I'll gladly knock them around for a bit, until they come to their senses.