Be Your Own Editor

I’m editing a novel right now that is narrated by a German American immigrant woman whose first language is not English. The author has done a quite charming job of representing the way such a person might talk—and she’s done it without using one misspelled English word (e.g., “I like ze English language”). Not an easy task. So how can you effectively convey broken English without breaking it too much?

If you’ve created a character who either is not American or has a regional accent, how do you create a believable voice for that character without veering into caricature? I see this issue most often in characters from the South created by writers from the North. Sure, it’s okay to throw in a “y’all” here and there. But too often, writers go overboard in their attempts to convey dialect through apostrophes and made-up words.

It takes a very good writer (see: Flannery O’Connor or Mark Twain) to be able to use a whole lot of “nothin’.” Peppering speech with broken English isn’t good characterization. While a Texas businessman’s accent might sound a certain way to the ear, if you try to transcribe those sounds, they’ll look to the eye like the speech of a hillbilly. Think about it: President Bush has a Texan accent, but you don’t see The New York Times dropping that final “g” when they transcribe his speech.

Writers also must be extremely familiar with whatever accent or syntax they’re trying to mimic (see: Southerners Flannery O’Connor and Mark Twain). If no one you know well has a Southern accent, think twice before trying to express one in your dialogue. That doesn’t mean every character you create has to originate north of the Mason-Dixon; you have myriad other ways to convey a character’s background or personality or culture. Having a character not speak proper English, unless it’s due to a lack of education, is the wrong way.

What about foreign accents, such as the German one I mention above? In that case, the author created the character’s voice through slightly broken syntax (and I mean slightly) and some not-quite-proper use of commas. It works, but that’s largely because the author was re-creating the voice of a close family member. As with regional American accents, try to stay away from expressing foreign accents in dialogue unless you can hear the voice of someone you know in your head as you write. And that someone isn’t allowed to be a TV character.

But what if your story desperately calls for a character who just arrived from Portugal, and you don’t know any Portuguese people? One word: subtlety. Drop an article or use the wrong part of speech occasionally (that means not in every sentence) to indicate that English isn’t the character’s first language. If you know Portuguese sentence structure, try to alter the syntax of English sentences to mimic it in places. Challenge yourself to find other ways to express his Portuguese-ness.

Less is more. Try too hard to mimic stilted English and you risk looking amateurish and, even worse, offensive. If you’re wantin’ an agent born in Alabama to be representin’ yah, don’t ever write a sentence like thissun.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Writing/Editing Tips: Nuts and Bolts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.