How do you go about writing the way a character speaks in your comic?

[moorevision98]

If a character had an accent, I figure that the words would be written out in the way it sounds, but it might be ridiculous to read. How do you guys handle this?

[DualDragons]

I use a different pronounciaton of certain words for certain characters. For example, you could use words like y'all, hell nah and ya instead of you all, hell no and you.

Just keep in mind that people with certain accents will pronounce certain words a little bit different. I'd look them up on Google if you want to be 100% sure. Or just speak to someone you know who might have an accent

[kaetana]

I have a couple characters in my comic that I do this with. When transcribing a character's speech like this, my goal is always to get across the unique flavor of how the character talks without seeming over the top or making the dialogue hard to read.

For Bree's accent specifically I looked at compilations of posts from Scottish Twitter, and took notes on the most common ways they would write their own accent. From that list I picked a selection that I thought would work well and not be too hard to understand, and created a list of "rules" that I follow when writing up Bree's dialogue.

Another character, Rowan, similarly has rules about which letters/sounds he tends to stumble over, although I never drag out the stutter when transcribing it as that can get annoying to read in my opinion.

[K-Rexo_Deactivated]

My main characters mainly speak Australian English with a dash of American (except for Kärumtoo, the robot sheriff, which he's been programmed to speak full American English). This was planned years ago before I launched my comic.

I manage to search up and slip in some Australian terms/slang into the dialogue of the Zaxe Family. If some slang is hard to be interpreted for readers or is [slightly] in bad taste, I make up something a bit easier to understand; this is coming from an American's perspective.

Since the Zaxe family lived in the United States for years after moving from their home country, they don't use too much slang.

[Kiweevil]

My character sounds like a 1920's New Yorker who also happened to be a foul-mouthed sailor that got drunk off their ass while actively floating inside a helium-filled balloon. And then swallowed a stapler.

Jokes aside, I cut off a lot of words and add apostrophes at the end to convey vocal mannerism. For example, the character might say talkin' instead of talking. The character also uses ya instead of you during regular speech, and changes to you during more serious moments. Basically as a halfway-illiterate four-year-old myself, I just have the character talk how I talk when I'm being casual. I just add in more vocabulary that originates from where the character does.

[AilyneGouveia]

Oh, that's a interresting subject !

I'm not a native English speaker, so that question was one i really diged since my protagonist is Irish.
I did a lot of researched about how they talk, i listened to many videos to get an idea how it sounds different to american or British english.
I also read a lot of posts on different forums to see how other people deal with accent they have to write. A answer i often saw was to get used to the slang they use in the said country.
So Instead of "Fuck" My protagosnist will say "Feck" and use some slang from Ireland like "Acting the maggot" "Arsing around" and so on... I feel to unsure to use thing like Ye or Ya instead of "you", but i think slang is a good solution ^^

[burginlewis]

I've come to think of speech and mannerisms as a single subject. People have a way of communicating, not just of speaking, that is unique.

Think of people you know whose communication styles jumped out at you.

There's an accountant who used to work with my husband who, if you asked him how he was, always answered, "FAN-tastic!" (Happiest accountant I ever met. Weird.) I used to work with a woman who ended every sentence with a trailing so. "I made some fresh coffee, so..." "I put more paper in the copier, so..." There's a young woman my son is friends with who has an anxiety disorder and, when not walking, either picks at her fingernails or chews her hair. Her hair and nails are always a mess. Have a character who constantly swears... that's a gimme, we all know that guy IRL. Or maybe everyone in your comic swears and you add the one guy who never does. I know a young woman who stares at the ground when she speaks to you. An old woman who grips your arm whenever she talks to you, and you wonder if you're going to get a bruise. Or you can have a character who's always drunk and slurring his words, or always SHOUTING, or hath a lithp... etc. etc.

Edit: I am hereby guilty of answering your TITLE, and not your post.

To answer your actual question, I wouldn't write the accent. I'd grab the words that were different in the two languages and use those and other things like wardrobe to indicate the difference.

[OttoGruenwald]

Just write how it sounds. Writing out accents goes way back in literature and helps give characterization.

[moorevision98]

It's alright, I still found your initial response very interesting and helpful!

[Kura]

I don't write the accent unless it's a misplacement, substitution, slang or subtraction of words. I usually depend on other things outside of accents, like mannerisms or ticks (is that the right word)

If I tried to 'visually write the accents' I would not be able to read my own story if I did.

I like to think I'm good at English (most days) but one of the things that gets me to drop a book fast is the attempt at written accents, because I don't understand what the hell the author is trying to write and it takes me a REALLY long time to try and figure it out. Then if it's an accent that I'm not familiar with. I'll never get it and never figure out what is being said. My English understanding is just not strong enough to translate the 'implied sounds' and I'm just stuck with this word that I don't know what the hell is it and can't even begin to try and figure out what the hell it is.

So unless you're trying to get your characters to be mostly incomprehensible like Donald Duck it's not going to work out for me. Cause a lot of attempted accents characters end up just being Donald Duck to me. Where I give up trying to understand them and just roll with it like "No idea what the fuk that character said but I guess it was funny so maybe I laugh now? lol???" then skip over their lines and move to the next character.

People who are much better at English probably do not run into this problem (can't confirm myself, I'm just assuming) but for readers who have English as a second language, even being fluent for a VERY long time. Written attempts at accents can really throw you off. So yeah, I don't do it.

Unless I actually AM going for a 'Donald Duck' character.

[joannekwan]

Even as a native English speaker who's been living and speaking it since I was 2, my brain slows way down when it comes to heavily written-out accents.

The brain takes pause to interpret the new configuration of letters and apostrophes that it's not used to seeing every day. And too much really hinders the flow of reading.

At most I'll use simple deletions and contractions like: y'all, ya, talkin', dunno, c'mon, to at most something like summabitch.

Otherwise I'll just mention such and such character has an accent.

[erudenedure]

My orc character has an Appalachian/Hillbilly inspired accent. I strive to find a balance, so readers can understand without it being too distracting.

If there's too many punctuation marks (mostly apostrophes) or altered words, I'll rewrite the sentence or drop some of the dialect.

Looking up specific slang or idioms helps to flavor their speech.

My dad's side of the family are hillbillies, so I'm familiar with the cadence of their speech.

[vfinnigan]

The most important thing is to not go overboard. At a certain point, it can get on the reader's nerves. And if there's any risk of someone misunderstanding the dialogue, provide context so the reader can figure it out.

For instance, I just created a character who speaks with my accent. We speak pretty fast where I live, drop consonants, mash words together in combinations the English language never intended, exaggerate our r's and long o's, and say ya (more like "yeh" actually) instead of "you" unless the next word begins with a vowel. And then it's just a Y. Like asking someone their location with, "Wherr yat?" But for example if I have the character say, "Hey, harr ya doin'?" and the next character says, "Doin' good," hopefully the reader can figure out that the first character meant, "Hello. How are you doing?"