accents in writing
I don’t usually write down accents.
Part of this is from my knee-jerk reaction to written accents from when I was a kid. There were these ‘Redwall’ books, see, and entire paragraphs that needed to be sounded out to figure out what the dang characters were saying. Perhaps not all accents are that annoying, but even so, I don’t tend to use them. That said, I can name a number of very good authors that employ accents to great effect. And an equal amount of great writers that won’t touch them.
In the case of my book– and this is where I’m debating the issue– my main character has trouble speaking clearly. And this is a major part of the book, as it affects how others see and react to her, how she was raised. There are three letters that her mouth can not make at all. It’s important. Up till now, I’ve been trying to get away with keeping her dialog short and to the point, occasionally asking her to repeat herself… but I have to wonder if the written accent would be to better use.
For instance, here’s a clip without the accent:
“Wyrren?” Rylan asked. She would be the one to decide, and he thought that he had made his point.
His lady had moved to lean on a bedpost, where she rested her chin on the head of her staff. “Rylan will go,” she said. “Saffira will accompany him.”
“What?” Dacha asked.
Saffira turned to look at them. She nodded once, then went back to meditating.
Wyrren continued. “It is in the giving that we receive. We will aid, though we need it ourselves. Be safe, Rylan.”
Now, here’s what I’m considering.
Wyrren can’t move her face. Her tongue, throat, and jaw are all perfectly functional. But she can’t say ‘b’, ‘m’, or ‘p’. So instead of a full-blown accent, I’m going to try replacing those letters with ‘ marks. Here’s the same quote, with the new marks. Does this work? How annoying will this be, having all her lines like this? (Keeping in mind that this character knows what she sounds like and likes to let her companions do the talking for her.)
“Wyrren?” Rylan asked. She would be the one to decide, and he thought that he had made his point.
His lady had moved to lean on a bedpost, where she rested her chin on the head of her staff. “Rylan will go,” she said. “Saffira will accom’any him.”
“What?” Dacha asked.
Saffira turned to look at them. She nodded once, then went back to meditating.
Wyrren continued. “It is in the giving that we receive. We will aid, though we need it ourselves. ‘e safe, Rylan.”
Or, another, with more of the ‘bad letters’ in it.
“What has the ‘aster ‘een saying of ‘e?”
Ana shrugged and avoided Wyrren’s eyes.
“Tell ‘e, Ana.” She couldn’t do anything about a vague offense.
Thoughts?
three steps forward…
… Then a shepherd’s crook about the neck from off-stage, Bugs Bunny style. Yoink!
I’ve been working on my revisions (and not posting so much, admittedly… but the deeper I go into the actual writing/editing of the book, I find I have less and less to say here). Chapters one through three have been revised, fixed up, polished (and chapter one and two sent off to my test readers).
Chapter one was unavoidably awkward in spots, a lot of world building and introductions very quickly, and chapter two extended that, but with plot. Chapter three was a dream: varied, interesting, fast paced.
And then I reached chapter four.
I don’t see any way around it. I’m going to have to rewrite most of this from scratch. Fifteen pages or so, 8-9k. Flat characters, dallying plot, and… well, let’s call it ‘plodding’. Trudging through to the interesting parts. This might take a bit longer than I thought.
something entirely different… chickens!
Subtitled, “Who let Eliza have a camera?”
By request, pictures of the other distractions. My chickens. I have two ameraucanas, nine silver spangled hamburgs, five blue andalusians, ten silver phoenixes, and one ‘mystery chick’. The babies just turned four weeks old, while my ameraucanas are far elder at six weeks.
These are all photographed under their heat lamp– colors have been retouched to take away The Glaring Yellow. So, without further ado… chickens!
See the big girl? That’s Rosamund, one of my two ameraucana hens. She’s going to lay me some blue eggs. To the left, the black chick is one of the blue andalusians, and the black and white in front of her is a silver spangled hamburg.
A phoenix! Isn’t she pretty? These birds are impossible to photograph– they delight in turning their heads at the last second. I ended up with far too many pictures of chicken rumps.
Last, but not least, sleeping chickens. See the white one? That’s my mystery chick, Pat. S/he came covered in white down (not yellow– the palest of cream colored), single comb, four toes, no feathers on the legs. Now that s/he’s getting bigger, I’m noticing that there are tiny little spots of black and gray feathers growing in– the gray is at the top of both wings now, very pale, and there are three singular charcoal feathers on the back. I have no idea what the breed is. It looks to be a medium sized chicken, but other than that… I’m at a complete loss.
Alright. I lied. Leave an Eliza around a digital camera for too long, and there will be tragic, moody self portraits.
… Though I may put this in the ‘About the Author’ section. Anyone who wondered what I look like, here you are. Bad hair and all.
editing: wyrren jadis versus distraction
It’s been quiet over here, I realize, though that doesn’t mean it’s been unproductive. I actually like the editing process; I have a very strong internal editor, a good laser printer, and a supply of red pens. Chapter one has been gone over; I’m midway through correcting chapter two. Really, once I get down to work, I can go pretty darn fast.
I had a birthday earlier this week– I’m twenty-five now. Kindof shocking, really; this firmly establishes me as a grown-up. I celebrated by riding horses and playing video games. The Sims 3 doesn’t work so well on my computer, but I’m bullying it into behaving anyway.
To those of you who don’t know, The Sims series is like a game of dolls that fight you for control. You make houses for them, buy them furniture, and set up dramas, careers, hobbies… I love this sort of thing. But last night I’d made a Sim-Eliza, put her in her house, and realized partway through the evening that Sim-Eliza was hunched over her computer with the same bad posture, working on her novel, and making better progress than I was. Her ‘writing skill’ bar was filling up, little by little.
I turned off the game and went back to my word processor.
To the point! I’ll be done polishing up chapter two soon, onto chapter three (there are thirteen chapters in the book) and I’m coming to the point where I’ll need test readers to go over the story chapter by chapter. I’ll send off a chapter, they’ll read it and make comments. … And the editing afterward will be the last before I start agent shopping.
Anyone interested? I have a few test readers already, but I wouldn’t mind more. Anyone who hasn’t been following along with the project should know that this is gritty fantasy, and can get quite violent.
In the meantime, ‘Revision 1′ progress is now on the sidebar.
