Each
character in your story needs to have their own unique voice within your voice
as an author. The reader will become easily bored if each character uses the
exact same words or phrases. How do you make them sound different, and how do
you decide what they should sound like without irritating and overwhelming?
Two
of the most famous examples of authors who created unique character dialog are
Mark Twain in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and Harriet Beecher Stowe
in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Reader’s either
love it or hate it, but their characters have made an impression on millions
over many years.
Your
character’s background should include where they came from, their education,
and distinct personality traits. This will give you a clue for what kind of
speech patterns to look for. Each of us speaks a little different, so you can use
nicknames unique to a particular character. My female protagonist’s long-time
friends call her “Bon,” short for Bonny, and even “Carrot-top,” because of her
red hair. Her friends in Scotland never use these terms, so it also adds a
feeling of long-term familiarity between the characters.
Not
all characters in a story come from the same background, even if they currently
reside in the same local, so research needs to be thorough. It’s hard to do if
you’ve never been there before, so reading books set in the same place and time
as your book can help. Watching movies set in the time period and location help
you get a feel for it, but you still have to write the dialogue so the reader
understands.
When
I set my book in Scotland I had to do some research because although they speak
English, it’s not the same as in my native New Mexico or even the same as
England. So where can you find information about how English is spoken in a
unique fashion in different places?
Here
are some helpful hints on how I gave my characters from Scotland and New Mexico
a distinctive sound. The same can be done for most dialects and languages.
·
Visit
the location. I would never have known that when ordering water in a Scottish
restaurant the waiter will ask if you prefer “still” or “sparkling.” I would
have no way to know that when it comes to entering and leaving a place the
signs would say “way out” and “way in,” rather than “entrance” and “exit.” My
Scottish characters call their phone a “mobile,” while my American characters
use “cell phone.”
·
Have
someone proof-read or edit that lived in the place your story is set
·
The
male protagonist is very educated, but in moments of deep emotion the female
protagonist, depending on the POV (point of view) will think to herself that
his Scottish burr is becoming stronger. To emphasize it further, he often drops
the end of words ending in “-ing,” so “feeling” becomes “feelin’.”
·
Google
it. You would be surprised how many articles you’ll find about language and
linguistics.
§ Wikipedia
§ Omniglot.com has
a variety of pages about pronunciation and even lists of words and common
phrases, some by region
§ YouTube has many
videos of people speaking and also illustrating pronunciation
§ Watch movies set
in the place, or better yet, made in the place you are researching
§ Articles about
dialect like http://www.whoohoo.co.uk/scottish-translator.asp; lexilogos.com;
and freelang.com
§ Internet lists
of common slang terms for the region
Don’t
go overboard with foreign words that no one understands. Make certain to
italicize the phrase and offer a glossary of terms. This does not work well in
Kindle or Nook format, so choose a few common terms that your characters will
use and reuse. For example, Land of My
Dreams is a romance so a frequently repeated phrase is “I love you.” In
Scots-Gaelic (which does differ from Irish or Manx Gaelic) the phrase is Tha gaol agam ort. Give the phonetic
pronunciation in your glossary, in this case, Ha gool akum orsht. I would certainly never have pronounced it like
that!
Have
a few phrases that will become easily recognizable to your readers, and
whenever possible, try to include a translation in the text. For example, in my
current WIP, the sequel to Land of My
Dreams, the Scottish male protagonist uses the Scots-Gaelic for “my
darling” when speaking to the American female protagonist:
“Mo gràdh…”
My darling, the Gaelic endearment coupled with his tender smile was enough
to make
her head spin…”
The
reader immediately learns what the character has said, and it becomes even more
romantic to discover how the female protagonist feels about it.
The
female protagonist is from New Mexico, a very distinctive region of the United
States, and her speech reveals that. She uses words such as adobe, luminaria, chile and chili (the
first being the uncooked variety, and the second being the cooked variety), and sopapillas, when talking about her home.
She also manages to get her Scottish love hooked on New Mexican food and
courageously eats haggis and Forfair Bridies.
Once
you’ve written a scene where you try out some of these ideas, bounce it off a
Facebook friend or someone who lives in the area you’re writing about. You can give
your story the flavor of another country or a region of the United States in a
way that enhances the story and makes the characters unique, without
overwhelming the reader.
© Norma Gail
Thurston Holtman, March 30, 2015
About the author:
Norma
Gail’s debut contemporary Christian romance, Land of My Dreams, set in Scotland and New Mexico released in April
2014. She has led weekly women’s Bible studies for 19 years. Her devotionals,
poetry have appeared at ChristianDevotions.us, the Stitches Thru Time blog, and
in “The Secret Place.” She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers,
FaithWriters, Romance Writers of America, and the New Mexico Christian
Novelists. She is a former RN who lives in the mountains of New Mexico with her
husband of 39 years. They have two adult children.
Connect with
Norma:
Book Links:
Barnes
& Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/land-of-my-dreams-norma-gail/1119606864?ean=9781941103173
Lighthouse
Publishing of the Carolinas Bookstore: http://store.lpcbooks.com/product/land-of-my-dreams/
