Characters w/ Accents

[sspunisher]

Here's something I'm sure I won't find in any book out there. (Or so I think).

Accents. Suppose I have a black character who speaks with a British or Jamaican accent. Should I alter the spelling of the words in the dialogues to match the speach pattern? Or should I just note in his introduction that he has an accent and spell the words properly.

To me it seems like it'd be an annoying read if all the words were spelled differently. Thoughts?

[Boo_Radley]

Good question. I would think for the sake of easy reading it'd be best to mention it in the character's description and just spell the words the way they should be spelled when writing their dialogue.

Of course, it would help you to research the language; Brit's say a lot of things differently than we 'Mericans do (US "garbage can" = UK "bin", US "elevator" = UK "lift", etc.) and this should be reflected in the dialogue, same as with any other language. This, of course, is just my opinion; I can't ever recall reading any kind of "rule" or anything.

[maestrowork]

No. Unless you're talking about different word choices (garbage vs. rubbish, truck vs. lorry, etc.)

Just say: Jack, 30s, speaks with a British accent.

Spell the words exactly the way they should be spelled (except maybe things like friggin' or sock 'em). You want to make it easy for the readers to read through the script. Let the eventual actors do their job with the accents...

[dpaterso]

I think about this all the time when I'm writing, and I think you're right, it would become annoying to read, tho' a judiciously placed local word or phrase sprinkled here and there could easily add color (NO pun intended) to the dialogue.

"Ey mun wotchoo got dere?" or similar forced inflection would make me laugh out loud. In fact I'd probably avoid using "man" as much as I could when writing Caribbean dialogue, to make myself think harder.

Watch out for things like "Oh, I say!" which are already taken as catchphrases (Brit actor/comedians Terry-Thomas and Leslie Phillips).

It's a minefield, baby.

Edited to add:

Huh, after posting my reply above I got a (rare) request for a script in response to an ad I replied to. As one does, I'm giving the script a sanity check before sending it out. It contains Scottish characters and I've written them with accent and inflection, e.g.

MACNAIR
If ye were a Christian man ye would deny him! Ye know what awaits them there.

ABERCROMBIE
Ach, save yer nonsense for those daft enough to believe it.

...The way I figure it, the level of accent (there are many variants of the Scots tongue, och aye!) might not be intuitive to the reader so they might need some help to "hear" the dialogue.

Hope that's not too contradictory. May the Force guide you.

-Derek
Derek's Web Page - stories, screenplays, novels, insanity. (http://hometown.aol.co.uk/DPaterson57/scripts.htm)

[Mac H.]

One piece of advice that I've that seems to work is to mention the accent and have the first line or so hinting at the accent. ("Och no..")

Then write 'normally' for the rest to avoid giving everyone a headache.

I've no idea if it's good advice, but it seems to work for me. Of the 980 problems with my scripts - no one's mentioned accents yet ...

And for some reason, Boo Radley's response reminded me of what Alexie Sayles said:

“Americans have different ways of saying things. They say elevator, we say lift, they say president, we say ‘stupid psychopathic git’” ...

[Richard]

Can't stand ludicrously over the top accents. If nothing else, they usually wind up making the character sound like a cartoon. Although I do like the odd change here and there - did a short story a while back where most of the cast was American, with one British guy, and thus the only one who spelled 'colour' correctly.

[Joe Calabrese]

I agree that characters should speak normally and mention thier accent in description (and not in Parenthetical)

However, I would speckle thier dialog occasionally with a word or two, once and a while to add flavor.

I have a character with a low class British accent and occasioannly have his say things like:

SERGEANT MAJOR WALLACE
Aye, Lieutenant.
(to himself)
Secure, my arse.

The important thing is it needs to be easy to read and understand.

[Joe Calabrese]

Maybe not now, but how about British soldiers in 1890's Colonial India?

[Joe Calabrese]

Jackal sparked a point.

Time, location and even Genre should play into the equation when choosing what words your character should speak.

Make sure your dialog and accents fits the time period and location in your script, but also certain genres have expectations from a reader/audience and you need to adjust your dialog for the genre.

Such as in the Sergeant Major Wallace dialog above, a fun filled period action adventure film would tend to have more over the top dialog and exagerated accents and characters versus a straight drama set in the present. Each genre has it's own tone, not just in descriptions and action, but in Characters and Dialog as well.

Be careful not to become a cliche though.

[JustinoXXV]

I've met contemporary Brits who do use the words arse. Just as there is no one American dialect per se, there is no one British dialect.

If you're actually using different dialects, word chose will be different. And I think that some different spellings of words are good to actually show it.

A southerners say Y'all for example.

A trashy street hooker wouldn't have the same dialouge as a professor of literature. Word choice would definitely be different.

A homeboy on the street might greet me like this, "Yo, what up son?"

"
MACNAIR
If ye were a Christian man ye would deny him! Ye know what awaits them there.

ABERCROMBIE
Ach, save yer nonsense for those daft enough to believe it.

...The way I figure it, the level of accent (there are many variants of the Scots tongue, och aye!) might not be intuitive to the reader so they might need some help to "hear" the dialogue.

Hope that's not too contradictory. May the Force guide you."

I do definitely think in any and all cases that the reader will need help to hear the dialouge.

How a character talks is a major part of the character. I should not have a black guy from Brooklyn talking exactly the same as a white guy from Minnesota, because they wouldn't use the same words or sound the same.

And if those two are different and stand out enough, I'd say Jamaican or British accents are even more different.

Accents are incorporated into dialouge in novels, plays, short stories. Even songwriter's often write lyrics the way they'd be said, instead of written.

If you make all your characters speak standard textbook English, that's boring.

[maestrowork]

We're not talking of making all your characters speak perfect, textbook English. We're talking about spelling words with phonetics like:

The parson sey de marriage cerfitikit soon cum inna de mail. Smaddy tell mi sey yuh did a chat bout mi.

But instead, use the right wording, but just spell them the right way (and let the actor do the accent):

The person say the marriage certificate soon come inna the mail. Somebody tell me say you did a chat 'bout me.

[JustinoXXV]

Gotcha.:)

[scripter1]

Did you mean pArson (with the a) or pErson (with the e)?
Totally changes the meaning or point of the line.

If the pArson brings the certificate then that is pretty serious.
If it's just the clerk at the local store, well then.......

And for gosh sakes make sure you get your spelling right.
If the fArrier takes care of a horse then that means it got shoed.
If the fUrrier takes care of the horse then somebody is getting a new leather jacket.


Use WORDS not phonetics.

Just try writing a strong southern drawl the way it would sound.

See if you can find the script for Snatch.
I seriously doubt Brad Pitts unintelligable lines were written that way.
He was actually saying something but you would never figure it out by reading it phonetically.

Write in words like ya'll, wassup, yo, mate, arse, heck, ect.
These are clear and define character.
Word choices and sentence structure are one of the powerful tools the writer has to give each character a distinct voice and make them stand apart from each other.

[dpaterso]

And for gosh sakes make sure you get your spelling right.
If the fErrier takes care of a horse then that means it got shoed.
If the fUrrier takes care of the horse then somebody is getting a new leather jacket.I swear I've never met anyone who likes shooting themselves in the foot as often as you do! farrier, not ferrier.

-Derek
Derek's Web Page - stories, screenplays, novels, insanity. (http://hometown.aol.co.uk/DPaterson57/scripts.htm)

[scripter1]

Secretly I'm a masochist.







And I don't know what the heck you are talking about D!

[loquax]

Regarding word choices between British and American, if the British person has been living in America for a while, forget it. There are very few words that we say differently, and most of them we say too (I would say truck as well as lorry). I would make the effort to say garbage instead of rubbish if I was in America. I wouldn't want to confuse anyone.

I always thought it was dealt nicely with Richard Attenborough's character in the Jurassic Park film (movie). I'm sure he says "Shedule -- er -- skedule" at one point. Stuff like that is good.

[IWrite]

And for gosh sakes make sure you get your spelling right.
If the fArrier takes care of a horse then that means it got shoed.
If the fUrrier takes care of the horse then somebody is getting a new leather jacket.

Derek's right.

But not only is the spelling wrong in this passage about the importance of good spelling. But the word that is spelled correctly is clearly used in an incorrect way.

"furriers" do not deal in leather at all. Leather is made out of animal hide, not fur and leather is made by tanners - not furriers.

[scripter1]

a furrier DOES skin animals.
Who's to say some Cruella Deville out there doesn't want a piebald tobiano jacket? Or maybe one from a Basker Curly?
You know in the winter time their hair can grow to three or four inches long?
AND it's hypo-allergenic.
Hair is hair right?
It only becomes leather after you scrape all the hair off.
If you wanted the hair on wouldn't you take it to a furrier?


Do cows get thick winter coats?
Seriously, I don't know.

Guess I should have included backstory on this.

I was talking to my mother the other day.
She says "Your sister is moving into a house that was owned by a furrier. He had a bunch of horse shoes laying on the front porch."
I said "What is a furrier doing with horse shoes?"
(this greatly concerned me because, well, I love horses.
I just got this terriable image of horse carcasses hanging
up in the guys barn, and he's keeping the shoes in a bin like some kind of
serial killer.)
Mom says "He puts them on the horses of course."
"OH, you mean a Farrier, a blacksmith."
"Isn't that what I said?"

The example still works.
If you told someone to take the horse to the furrier and get it taken care of but you misspoke........

Excuse me, gotta run!!!
Just got a great idea for a horse based comedy!

[Mac H.]

Regarding word choices between British and American, if the British person has been living in America for a while, forget it. There are very few words that we say differently, and most of them we say too (I would say truck as well as lorry). I would make the effort to say garbage instead of rubbish if I was in America. I wouldn't want to confuse anyone.

The first time I went to the USA, I assumed that the version of English that the Americans spoke would be close enough to my 'Strine' not to not to cause problems. I was wrong.

Sure, they are 99.9% the same. The problem is that if you speak a couple of thousand words a day, you can guarantee that a couple of them simply won't be understood.

eg: Asking for a flat white at a Café.

The most embarrassing thing, though - I didn't know what a nickel and a dime was. I knew that they were small coins, but it seemed that the US government was too busy putting Masonic symbols on the coins to remember to write the value of the d!mned coin on it.

Would it have been that hard to write '10 cents' somewhere on your 10 cent coin !?

But getting back to screenwriting - there seem to be enough differences for the wording to sound 'odd' if said by the wrong nationality.

And UndercoverJackal - the Scottish may no longer speak like Major Wallace in Joe's example - but people from the South Island of New Zealand certainly do....

Mac

[JustinoXXV]

Scripter, furriers deal with animals that you would make fur coats out of. Like minks, seal pups, beavers etc.

You would not make a fur coat out of a cow (whose tougher hides are used for leather).

Likewise, you would never make leather from a mink, beaver, or seal pup.

[TheRuleofThirds]

Would it have been that hard to write '10 cents' somewhere on your 10 cent coin !?

Would've helped if we made the smallest-sized coin worth the smallest value. A penny's smaller than a nickel. So are the values. Simple enough. Then you get to the dime, worth 2 nickels and 5 pennies and it's SMALLER than both of those! Then you go up to a quarter and, of course, it's the biggest [common] coin. Maybe they just do the sizing by historical significance? George Washington's bigger than Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. Roosevelt's smaller than Lincoln and Jefferson. Lincoln's smaller than Jefferson. Oy. Wonder why Teddy's not on any currency? After all, he was good enough for Mt. Rushmore.

Yes. Back to Screenwriting. I guess, really, one of the things that comes to mind when talking about character accents in dialogue is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I remember hitting some rough spots reading Jim. And I'm from the South! (out of pride, not geography) The one thing that stands out is "King Sollermun." I mean it didn't give me a hard time, but I guess I just sort of like the way it's spelled. Anyhow...I like the general consensus everyone's coming to: use it sparingly. I mean...producers' script readers are probably going to toss it if they can't read it. You know how lazy college kids are these days. (I know cuz I am one!) If you write phonetically, then how's the reader going to really know that you know how to spell 100% of the time. You might feel like a master of the language, but to them, you might be a hack. Especially if your return address is south of the Ohio River.