Q: what have you encountered writing accents?

[mariusthered]

all my New York accent I got from watching CSI NY ,a character called Danny messer is very cool.

[elixiadragmire]

theres accents and then theres Englishisms ...
Most people understand english .... but not BRITISH english. My story has tripped NUMEROUS times because of this, for example.

"A fortnight later"
"He met a sticky end"
"Your turning the air blue"

and theres probably more, common phrase i use everyday here and no-one knows what I'm talking about

[Luie]

When in doubt, misspell.
Coz
Woz
Was like
We was like
Dem guys
Are you coming (with)
Peas n' Carrots
T'morrow
Wat
Y'ello
Hella
Wutcha
Oy
Dumpsta
gotcha
gonna'
we's
they's
prolly
basicly
y'know
yea
yaaass

When writing accents, less is more. The more complicated a word is, the less it should be butchered. (Ta'marra vs. T'morrow) And the more complicated words in a sentence, the less they should be butchered. Even omitting to many "g"s at the end of ing can look terrible if overdone And unfortunately, extremely heavy accents should be said rather than written. When I'm writing in characters with accents, I like to concentrate more on word choice. Smarty older people with good educations will have much better vocabularies than someone in junior-high. Old people will use different words than young people. Some people may say soda, other may say pop, and some still may say sod-y pop. Some people may say can I come, while others say can I come with. Word choice is a good alternative to getting a pleasing accent.

[mariusthered]

Are you by chance from up here in the North ? coz I understood that perfectly.

[mariusthered]

thanks for posting this it will come in handy for more than myself i'm sure.

and thanks to everyone who has joined in this thread (not that i'm saying stop)

[elixiadragmire]

Yes I am!!!!! North west (manx and merseyside)

[mariusthered]

ah your above me then , im in Grimsby

[KSlinger]

If you need a hand with that let me know!

[quietsnooze]

This is all really helpful, because I'm going to run into a predicament with my comic soon! A plot point is that English is one of the character's second language and he tries hard to mask that fact. But another major character has a thick Scottish accent and it makes for some miscommunication where he pretends to understand her but really can't. (Hilarity ensues!)

So I'll be looking into all the ones mentioned here a little deeper to see how everyone handles it! Thanks guys!

[mariusthered]

check out a comic named oor wullie. it is based in Scotland and the accent is written great, I use to live near the artist who draw it and have some very rear sketches. but yes this would be perfect reference stuff for you.

[Wishjacked]

But another major character has a thick Scottish accent and it makes for some miscommunication where he pretends to understand her but really can't.

Miscommunication is one of my favorite shenanigans. Love reading it. (And your character designs are beeeeaautiful, by the way.)

I'm from Deep South USA but somehow managed to have a distinctly un-Southern accent (most people think I'm from Oregon). Due to this, I've always set my stories in the South, but have always had significant difficulties writing my characters to sound like they're Southern.

I tend to stick with understated accents. I don't often spell out mispronunciations. If it's important that a character has an accent, I usually just have someone point it out-- in one of my comics, there's an old Scottish guy who gets ribbed for his accent occasionally, which luckily works very naturally with the cast. I figure my readers are probably smart enough to pick it up if that's the sort of thing they find interesting and would like to know.

[quietsnooze]

Thank you, I'll check it out!!

[quietsnooze]

Aww, thank you!! You're too kind!!

I think what I'll end up doing is a mix of this... I've spelled some things out phonetically (One major one is she doesn't say "not", she says "nae" ie. wouldn't = wouldnae) but having more vocal characters point it out would be really useful, too, in the casual sense like you said. The character who has trouble understanding her wouldn't ever bring it up because he himself knows what it feels like to know people can't understand his accent, which is why he tried so hard to craft the perfect accent for himself. Tough predicament I've found myself in, but you guys are really helpful, so thank you!!