Meta: The English Language (or, "How People Really Talk")

[catwalksalone]

MJ Panel Mod: RoaringMice

Discussion space - the floor is yours...

Potential points to consider:

What gets your goat when you read dialogue? Is it different for different fandoms, different characters? Why is that?

What, to you, is authentic dialogue? Where can you find it?

How do you feel about ellipses? Do people really talk in full sentences the whole time?

How do you feel about people representing accent or dialect in dialogue? What works for you and what doesn't?

Does the wrong turn of phrase or choice of word for a character throw you out of the story?

Do people have more trouble writing characters from other cultures? Is this just a matter of idiom or is there more to it?

Comments

[secondalto.livejournal.com]

My two big fandoms both have characterss that speak in certain ways and have certain rhythms to their speech that I guess dialogue does matter, a lot.

My first fandom is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So the first big thing is the way Joss wrote the dialogue for the Scoobs, the constant slipping in of cultural references, the rearranging of wording, the changing of actual words.

Then you come to characters. Two of the main characters I write are Giles and Wesley, who are British. That in and of itself presents unique challenges. They have a different cadence to their speech, especially Giles in early Watcher mode. It's so...carefull, so selective. Add in the colorfullness of British swear words and you have a hell of a lot of fun ahead of you.

If we toss Spike into the mix you have another set of problems. He has an all together different way of speaking, forever dropping the 'g' at the end of words or clipping of the beginning of words, which my spellchecker just loves.

Then we have my second fandom, Stargate. I write mostly Jack/Daniel, but there lies the problem. Jack and Daniel both have such unique voices that for the longest time I hesitated to write them. Jack is Jack for lack of a better description. He can be utterly comical or extremely insightful depending on the circumstance. And it's so hard to capture his sarcasm.

Daniel, well with Daniel you have the added bonus that he knows 23 languages (which 23 is a source of some debate. There is canon proof for about 10 of these, the rest are debatable.) He can be both eloquent and short. He gets over excited and spouts streams of information and at the same time can express a world of emotion in a single exclamation of "Jack."

So I would say it takes a lot for me to write dialogue, so I'm willing to give an author a little leeway when it comes to that. I think if you immerse yourself in the show, anyone can do the characters dialogue justice. It's a matter of listening. Or at least it is for me.