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Advice on Accents

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Laiceps

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A lot of people have already said what I would say: it's more about word choices and rhythm. I also don't mind the occasional dropped 'g'.

I recently read a book where one of the characters was supposed to have an accent, but I never heard it in my head.

The MC said things like 'He pronounced it 'took'', and 'He had a funny accent', but the character's sentence structure and word choices were exactly the same as everyone else in the book.

Everytime the MC reminded me of his accent I was like 'Oh yeah, I totally forgot.'

At least make the rhythm and word choices a little different so we know this person is different, then you can just tell us he has an accent and that should be fine.
 

Mr Flibble

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Consider:

I am not going to do it!

I ain't going to do it and that's flat!

Why for you asking me to do that? Go bugger your goat.

Jeez, dude, really? No.



The sound different, but they say pretty much the same thing. And without using "accents"

Voice is paramount. Voice is not phonetic spelling (unless you are a damned genius. Are you?) Voice is what words a character uses, and how. What they see, what they do. It is not a dropped aitch (though that is fine in moderation)
 

rohstod

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I put down anything written in any type of heavy accent. It's usually more effort than it's worth to slug it out.

Others have suggested--and I agree--to focus on word choice over accent.
 

Mr.Letterman

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I usually say dialogue out loud, by myself like a crazy person. It's how I gauge it. Maybe this is wrong but it makes it feel authentic to me.
 
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