Monday, August 15, 2005
Open Letter to All Writers: Dialect
Dear Fellow Writers,
I realize the impulse to capture the nuiances of every characters speech is great. I, like many of you, believe that it gives each character "voice," both literally and in that wider sense that professors say haughtily.
However, that does not give you the right to render extended speeches in nearly unintelligible dialect.
I realize many of your favorite authors do this. It was acceptable in the first half of the 20th century, and maybe even a little later than that. Consider this passage from Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury
Faulkner was a southern man writing for Yankees. When he wrote, he wrote to show people a place they hadn't seen before. His stories took the dying embers of "local color" and fused humanity into them in the most grotesque of ways. Grotesque was the name o the game, and dialogue was exagerrated just like everything else. The main characters dialogue may be sprinkled with the occasional phrase, but it was the people they met that spoke in such thick accents.
Isaac Asimov sparked this letter. I'm reading his Foundation Trilogy, which is a monumental look at the shape of society. What he does in chapter 4 of the second book of Foundation is most painful.
Observe:
Are your eyes bleeding yet, or are you just laughing to tears?
Lord Dorwin (the first speaker) is, admittedly, as grotesque a character as any Faulkner wrote. He is the pompous, nose-in-the-air beurocrat from the decaying Empire at the heart of the galaxy. But, Mr. Asimov, when you tell me in the opening page that he "spoke in overprecise statements and left out all the r's", I believe you! You do not need to prove his pronounciation to me in the following 5 pages of dialogue!
I like to think that this type of writing is fading. I love Isaac Asimov's writing, but he and Faulkner both belong to a different era of literature. Now, in our media-heavy culture, we know what a southern accent sounds like. We have heard people speak without their r's.
Please, writers, trust the readers with a phrase or two and the occasional hint from another character. Don't let Lord Dorwin into your fiction. ¶ 0 comments
I realize the impulse to capture the nuiances of every characters speech is great. I, like many of you, believe that it gives each character "voice," both literally and in that wider sense that professors say haughtily.
However, that does not give you the right to render extended speeches in nearly unintelligible dialect.
I realize many of your favorite authors do this. It was acceptable in the first half of the 20th century, and maybe even a little later than that. Consider this passage from Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury
"Gret day," he says. "You mean to tell me dey chargin um to let um show here? I'd pay ten dollars to see dat man pick dat saw, ef I had to I figures dat tomorrow mawnin I be still owin um nine dollar and six bits at dat rate."
Faulkner was a southern man writing for Yankees. When he wrote, he wrote to show people a place they hadn't seen before. His stories took the dying embers of "local color" and fused humanity into them in the most grotesque of ways. Grotesque was the name o the game, and dialogue was exagerrated just like everything else. The main characters dialogue may be sprinkled with the occasional phrase, but it was the people they met that spoke in such thick accents.
Isaac Asimov sparked this letter. I'm reading his Foundation Trilogy, which is a monumental look at the shape of society. What he does in chapter 4 of the second book of Foundation is most painful.
Observe:
'Fwom the little of have seen of the efficiency of yoah Foundation, I have no feahs on that scoah.' And he nodded to Pirenne, who responded with a delighted bow.
Quite a love feast, thought Hardin. 'I wasn't complaining about the lack of effiency, milord, as much as of the definite excess of effiency on the part of the Anacreonians - though in another and more destructive direction.'
'Ah, yes, Anacweon.' A negligent wave of the hand. 'I have just come fwom theah. Most bahbawous planet. It is thowoughly inconcievable that most human beings could live heah in the Pewiphewy. The lack of the most elementawy wequiahments of a cultuahed gentleman; the absense of the most fundamental necessities foah comfoht and covenience - the uttah desuetude into which they -'
Are your eyes bleeding yet, or are you just laughing to tears?
Lord Dorwin (the first speaker) is, admittedly, as grotesque a character as any Faulkner wrote. He is the pompous, nose-in-the-air beurocrat from the decaying Empire at the heart of the galaxy. But, Mr. Asimov, when you tell me in the opening page that he "spoke in overprecise statements and left out all the r's", I believe you! You do not need to prove his pronounciation to me in the following 5 pages of dialogue!
I like to think that this type of writing is fading. I love Isaac Asimov's writing, but he and Faulkner both belong to a different era of literature. Now, in our media-heavy culture, we know what a southern accent sounds like. We have heard people speak without their r's.
Please, writers, trust the readers with a phrase or two and the occasional hint from another character. Don't let Lord Dorwin into your fiction. ¶ 0 comments
