Posts Tagged C. Michael Fontes

Lately, there has been a lot of discussion in my circle about speech.  Not just word choice, accents, or colloquial, but speech as a whole.

• This is too robotic
• No one talks like this
• He’s over-the-top cheesy
• I don’t like this accent
• I can’t see this word used here
• This phrase takes me out of the setting
• Where are the accents?
• It’s hard to write accents and it’s hard to read them
• A few colloquial words help a story
• Who says this?
• These new/strange words take me out of a story

Without dragging you through all the conversations and arguments I have had, and without pulling you (kicking and screaming) through my thought process (scary – don’t want to go there), I will give you my conclusions about speech use, and I open my comment section for opinions and (civilized) debate. 

Word choices, accents, colloquial words, pacing, contractions, and slang all give characters, and the narrator, a voice (yes, voice – I can’t think of a better term).  A properly chosen voice can put a character into a specific time and place while a poorly chosen voice can ruin a moment or a story.

Everyone writes with a specific voice, even if they don’t think they do:

• contraction usage (“We’re not going in there” is different than “We aren’t going in there”)
• spelling (“dialog” compared to “dialogue”)
• modified words (“I don’t want to go to…” as “I don’t wanna go to…” or “I don’t want ta’ go to…” or “I ain’t goin’ to…”)
• word choice (“One meter” versus “One yard” versus “One and a half cubits” versus “A walking stride”)
• slang (“Wicked” versus “The bomb” versus “Kickin’” versus “Cool” versus “Awesome” versus “Bomb Diggity”)
• expletives (won’t go there)

The list goes on.  To assume you don’t write in a voice, and therefore refuse to understand you are placing your characters in a specific time and place, is to deny your readers the full experience of the story being told.  You must change your characters voice if they are not from the same place or time as you or the realness of the character (and the story) goes away.

Now, if you are on board with me so far, I have to push the other way a little.  If you are intimately familiar with another voice than the one which is natural to you, then, by all means, write it out.  However, if you are not gifted that way, hold yourself back from going too far.  Using a voice you, and maybe your readers, are unfamiliar with is a matter of balance.  If you use too much slang and modify too many words, it may (will) do two things: be hard for the reader to read, and prove how much you don’t know.

When using alternate voices, you need to pick certain clues that can give the feel you want without distracting from the actual story.  For these clues, go to YouTube or Bing’s Video search, and find people who talk the way you want to have your characters talking.  Trying searching for someone explaining accents and slang in certain areas.  If possible, call the Chamber of Commerce or a University in the area of interest and just chat with someone.  Pay attention to what they are saying, how they are saying it, and which differences are important for giving the right feel. 

Once you have what you think you need, practice.  Try saying the lines aloud.  Try writing the lines and having friends and family read it.  Quiz people you are trying it on to see if it is too much or too little.  If you aren’t getting it right, go back to your sources and find different clues.  Experiment!

You don’t need to include everything, but giving a taste of an accent, a localized slang, or anything that puts the character (and the reader) into another time or place is well worth the effort of research and experimentation.  Putting the correct voice on a character is as important as the clothes they wear or the fears they hold – it is a part of who they are.

For more, read Guest Blogger: Ninja Cups and the Path to a Better World on P.D. Wright’s blog (by David Oliver) and Balance on C. Michael Fontes blog.

Other resources are:

“Using Slang and Accent When Writing Fictional Dialogue” by Todd Eastman

“How to Write Dialogue for Fictional Characters With a British Accent” bye Valerie David

“Do You Have an Accent?” on Readable Blog

Interesting week, these last seven days.

• Won a contest I didn’t enter – tangible prize and everything (yay!).  The original contest I entered rolled into another contest, which was pretty cool.  Thank you to Lee Crystal and Outpost 13.
• Played drums at church for the third time in 12 1/2 years.  I had told the worship leader that I don’t like to play music that’s in 3/4 time, just 4/4.  Well, there were three 3/4 songs, one 6/8 song, one 4/4 song (yay!), and one song that had a repeated pattern of five measures of 5/4 time and then one measure of 3/4 time.  The worship pastor hates me.  I know it, deep down he hates me.  It was so stressful.  I was told by many people that I did great, but I still want to crawl under a rock to recover.
• Finished Diamond of Darkhold (which finishes one series I’ve been reading), reading Jumper: Griffin’s Story (which finishes another series for me), and have The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner in the queue (which will finish that series, again).
• Decided I am going back to school next year for a Master’s… unless something unforeseen comes up.  I have off-and-on wanted to go back to school for four years now.  I’m finally at the point where I am willing to dedicate the time and energy.
• Made five commitments on my time this weekend, overlapping commitments.  It will be interesting to see how I survive.  Two weeks ago I didn’t have many weekend plans and it was the busiest weekend I can remember.  Maybe the one will work the other way around.
• Finished one round of edits on a short story for the FSFW anthology.  Some friends, C. Michael Fontes and P. D. Wright gave me a little feedback and, as improved as it was, there is still a lot of work to be done.

Since I joined the Chris’ small group, I have started to hone my craft at a different level, much the same way my writing improved at FSFW.  Between learning new rules, researching writing, spending more time critiquing, and thinking more while writing and editing my own work, I have seen drastic improvements in the work I am producing.  This wouldn’t be possible without the help of Chris, Paula, and Julie, who have been helpful and patient. 

I have started to notice trends in my work, and theirs as well, which are simple fixes.  Sometimes, when I point out a troubling trend in their work, they will turn around and show that same problem in mine – which is both irritating and funny.  These are simple problems with easy fixes.  I hope you can learn from our mistakes and improve your writing.

• Telling is not the most basic of problems because there are various viewpoints on what telling is.  Some people view telling as ‘what you tell’ while others view it as ‘how you tell it’ – there are disagreements within those camps.  I have already posted on this topic, so I won’t address it again.  In the end, both versions need to be addressed to make the piece well rounded.
• Teaching and summarizing – easy traps to fall into when writing science fiction and fantasy.  Some things need to be explained, but in a way that doesn’t feel like a textbook.  Some spans of time need to be consolidated into a few paragraphs without making the reader feel like they were shorted.  These are hard things to balance, too much versus too little, bringing the reader along or leaving them behind.
• “That” is a horrible junk word.  More and more, I find myself hating THAT word.  It has its good points, places where it has to be.  However, many times it is used where it just doesn’t belong.
  • Good: “Look at that guy.”  In context, this points out a specific person.
  • Bad: “I can’t believe I let that scare me.”  That guy, that action, that day?  Even in context, this can be a little confusing.
  • Worse: “Some people think that human cloning will become a reality in the next 20 years.”  ‘That’ is a pointless word which can be removed and the sentence will flow with more ease.  This usage of the word ‘that’ makes up the majority of instances in my group (including myself).
• ‘-ly’ adverbs are another form of junk words.  I don’t think all ‘-ly’ adverbs should be removed, and I don’t have any problems with other forms of adverbs, but the overuse of ‘-ly’ adverbs leads to weak verbs, summarizing, telling, and alliteration issues.  A few ‘-ly’ adverbs are evil in writing because they defeat the purpose they were written for: suddenly, quickly, immediately, instantly, and abruptly.  There are more, but those are the ones I can think of right now.  They are meant to speed up the action, but they slow the flow.  “He immediately shot the villain” takes more time than “He shot the villain.”
• Repeated words and poor sentence structure seem to go hand-in-hand.  Short choppy sentences tend to bring the repetition of “I,” “he,” “she,” or “they.”  Long winded paragraphs often have the same verbs or nouns in various forms.  Trying to address one issue will sometimes help with the other.
• Motivations are not explained well enough, so the characters are unbelievable or an action is out-of-character.  I have a whole line of character posts, so I won’t elaborate here other than this: if you show your characters motivations and allow the reader to connect, anything is possible – short of that, anything is questionable.

These are common problems in my writing, my group’s writing, and possibly the writing community as a whole. They are my group’s current hot, push-button errors.

I would love to know what comes up in your groups, please share.