I wonder how others tackle this: in a recent story I wanted my lower class turn of the century (i.e.19th - 20th) characters to speak with 'south London' and - what's called these days - 'estuary' accents. The trouble is - after translating those phonemes into graphemes it looks kind of false, especially as the narrative is written in a literary style. I'm now wondering if it would be better to use standard written English and not try to ape the actual spoken language?
As Sue says, less is more in this instance. It's off-putting to have to pick your way through a spelled-out dialect, especially one with which you're unfamiliar. It may look exactly as the author hears it in his head, but you may not hear it the same way.
Get the rhythm and the words right, and the sound will be implied, innit? See - by just adding one word, I've changed your opinion of how that last sentence should be spoken.
If you put in the right oaths or slang, you don't need to go overboard on the rest; and by speaking the relevant parts aloud, you'll know if it sounds right for the time and place.
That's a very good idea - just 'indicating' the accent (I suppose you mean in one or two words but not all).
I think you're right about it being tiring to read and irritating - even though I've kept direct speech to a minimum.
Thanks Susan.
I'm sure somebody more knowledgeable will come up with a better reply, but I would tackle it by just having a few choice words in the accent scattered through the dialogue. I think it's quite a skill to get it right, but I found it worked quite well for me in a story I've written, where I needed to indicate a west country accent. My feeling is that a whole dialogue written with full use of any accent is very tiring to read and can get downright irritating. Good luck with it.