I have a very peculiar sub-character with a distinct Jamaican patois accent who has very little dialog but is key to the plot.
Is it right or wrong to deliberately misspell certain words to put this across?
I have a very peculiar sub-character with a distinct Jamaican patois accent who has very little dialog but is key to the plot.
Is it right or wrong to deliberately misspell certain words to put this across?
note just an idea: (I agree with advise given). If you do have a decent amount of dialogue for this character perhaps using correct spelling but miss out connecting words out to imply the accent.
Absolutely put misspellings in, but make sure it is a small amount of dialogue. Because it's hard work to read people do get fed up with it quite quickly.
Personally I'd mis-spell. Little dialogue means little chance of a reader becoming bored with it. I did t with a Cornish gravedigger late on in one of my stories and no-one's criticised it yet, so I hope it worked okay.
It's one more reason to avoid rubbish spell-checkers, too :)