...I'm finally into the rewrite of the novel fondly known as 'Maureen'. The first draft of this was young adult; but something bugged me about that and it turns out that Maureen was actually grown-up the whole time - well, at least on the outside. How she becomes adult on the inside is kind of the point of the novel, along with a bit of a murder mystery.
It's also going wholeheartedly into dialect, well, not to an incomprehensible level, but I've learned from some of my recent reading, that, yanno, it's OK to write the language that I heard around me throughout my childhood. As a Scot, I have the right, and hopefully the ability, to do that. I have a slight concern that it might be a turn off for some readers, but I'm not going completely Irvine Welsh and I'm doing very little phonetic representation. I loathe people who write dialect as 'Ah canna do verrrry much the day.' We're not idiots in Scotland. We're perfectly capable of realising that although we may pronounce 'I' as 'Ah', that's not how it's written, also the rolled 'r's are completely normal to us and not something to be remarked upon (we're sorry for those of you that can't say the 'r' and the 'ch' sounds, you poor dears). I'm trying to show the dialect via the vocabulary and the rhythm; with a minimum of phonetic representation and no 'och aye the noos'.
Interestingly, writing and thinking in my home tongue is bringing it out of my mouth too, and I think there's been a marked increase in the strength of my accent in the last week or so, not to mention some new words for the kid koalas to learn. Ah, the multicultural life.
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3 comments:
Good for you, I say! Experiment and find out what works :-) I've found in my dialogue I'm dropping the "g" in -ing. Droppin it, baby, no apostrophe. Not all the time, it depends on the character speaking, but I do it a lot. Elmore Leonard does it, and by God, I do it too ;-)
Hey, McKoala, I just wanted to say thanks for your comments on the crapometer. You've made several very encouraging and helpful comments on my postings there, and I always take your suggestions under serious consideration. Thanks for taking the time!
LOL wonderwood, let's hear it for distinctive dialogue! Also glad my comments on the Crapometer are not completely inane!
Hi McKoala! I wanted to tell you that one of your questions about my chapter, "does it have to happen in two places", made me take another look at it. It doesn't, actually. My reason for setting it in two places has been taken care of otherwise, later in the story, so there really is no reason why it needs to happen that way. I'm going to rewrite it with Chuck just going to Richard's office, rather than having them first meet in the bar. It will definitely pick of the pace of the chapter. Thanks!!!
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