I have read that using slang or dialects will irritate the reader.
Replies
I have to say there are many good points in all these posts.
Firstly; I think Simon is right when you consider Jonathan's input alongside it. You don't need to go back to the Regency period; try listening to some 50s slang in a rather poor movie of the period. It can be very hard to understand what the characters are actually talking about.
But then I also agree with Varsha, in that trying to exclude slang completely would make everyone sound like a Radio 4 continuity announcer. In my opinion, slang and other such time/location-sensitive items can place a piece very well. The downside is that some people will not understand what your characters are talking about.
Bringing me to Katie's piece about North London. If you know exactly how the characters would actually speak and what they would be talking about, that's fine. You will probably give great pleasure to those who also understand what you're talking about. But be aware that language changes very rapidly sometimes, and what you write today can really be out of time when your piece is published.
Perhaps the answer is for your main/central character to speak and think in English by and large, so that they can translate anything too deep for Joe/Jane Public.
Amanda's point of giving the vicar a lisp is going to depend on how well it is executed. Need to be very careful not to be seen as just getting laughs at the expense of someone else's disability. But she is correct that something like this can be an ideal pointer to why a character is doing what they are or behaving in a particular way. (I'm sure your incident of usage here was all done in the best possible taste Amanda.)
I'm writing about North London at the moment so I use the characters' use of language to differentiate what part of London they are from and what backgrounds they have. I think it helps to paint a picture of the area through the people. I don't use the accent phonetically but I do use speech patterns and explain their accent (such as a nasal twang for the person from Essex.
I have two MCs from very different social backgrounds, so they speak quite differently. The upper class character never uses contractions, which sometimes makes natural-sounding conversation awkward to write. The lower class guy uses contractions a lot, sometimes misses out conjunctions and speaks slightly differently when talking to his superiors rather than peers, a bit like having a 19th century telephone voice ;)
I deliberately try to avoid slang because in the Regency period it was quite different and might force a reader into looking words up, something I hate having to do. Plus it sometimes seems to be inserted just for effect: a case of the author seeming to say 'look how clever I am to know this'. That might be unfair, but it's just my impression.
I've tried a fairly strong accent only once, as an experiment, for a secondary character in a fairly short passage. That seemed to work okay but I don't think I'd want to do the same thing for someone appearing regularly right through a story. Robert Low was pretty heavily criticised for his Medieval Scots/Gaelic/French accented slang in the first of his 'Bruce' trilogy. It did make the story hard to get into and he toned it down for the second book.
I have to say there are many good points in all these posts.
Firstly; I think Simon is right when you consider Jonathan's input alongside it. You don't need to go back to the Regency period; try listening to some 50s slang in a rather poor movie of the period. It can be very hard to understand what the characters are actually talking about.
But then I also agree with Varsha, in that trying to exclude slang completely would make everyone sound like a Radio 4 continuity announcer. In my opinion, slang and other such time/location-sensitive items can place a piece very well. The downside is that some people will not understand what your characters are talking about.
Bringing me to Katie's piece about North London. If you know exactly how the characters would actually speak and what they would be talking about, that's fine. You will probably give great pleasure to those who also understand what you're talking about. But be aware that language changes very rapidly sometimes, and what you write today can really be out of time when your piece is published.
Perhaps the answer is for your main/central character to speak and think in English by and large, so that they can translate anything too deep for Joe/Jane Public.
Amanda's point of giving the vicar a lisp is going to depend on how well it is executed. Need to be very careful not to be seen as just getting laughs at the expense of someone else's disability. But she is correct that something like this can be an ideal pointer to why a character is doing what they are or behaving in a particular way. (I'm sure your incident of usage here was all done in the best possible taste Amanda.)
Keep writing everyone.
PabloJ
I'm writing about North London at the moment so I use the characters' use of language to differentiate what part of London they are from and what backgrounds they have. I think it helps to paint a picture of the area through the people. I don't use the accent phonetically but I do use speech patterns and explain their accent (such as a nasal twang for the person from Essex.
I have two MCs from very different social backgrounds, so they speak quite differently. The upper class character never uses contractions, which sometimes makes natural-sounding conversation awkward to write. The lower class guy uses contractions a lot, sometimes misses out conjunctions and speaks slightly differently when talking to his superiors rather than peers, a bit like having a 19th century telephone voice ;)
I deliberately try to avoid slang because in the Regency period it was quite different and might force a reader into looking words up, something I hate having to do. Plus it sometimes seems to be inserted just for effect: a case of the author seeming to say 'look how clever I am to know this'. That might be unfair, but it's just my impression.
I've tried a fairly strong accent only once, as an experiment, for a secondary character in a fairly short passage. That seemed to work okay but I don't think I'd want to do the same thing for someone appearing regularly right through a story. Robert Low was pretty heavily criticised for his Medieval Scots/Gaelic/French accented slang in the first of his 'Bruce' trilogy. It did make the story hard to get into and he toned it down for the second book.
Jury's out, then :)