Writing with an accent, how do you do it?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Neither of which currently apply, by the way, Steve. More Mary Poppins than truespeak. Neil

I was thinking just the other day about how Americans, for instance, will often throw in phrases like "pip pip, cheerio old chap" when imitating the British, and how incredibly stupid that must sound to the British.

It reminds me of the old TV series The Avengers, which was co-produced by an American TV studio who demanded the show include such British colloquialisms and iconic imagery (bowler hats and quaint backstreet storefronts, etc) to satisfy the image of England to American audiences...

[basilsands]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

... to satisfy the image of England to American audiences...

Funny, they do the same thing with Alaska. And we're part of America. Most tv-shows and movies about Alaska are shot in Washington State or British Columbia and portray a place that only looks like Alaska to people who have never been here.

The whole show Northern Exposure back in the 90's was shot entirely BC, a thousand miles south of Alaska. Lots of folks came up here because of that TV series only to be very dissapointed that to find Alaska a bit more severe than they anticipated.

[basilsands]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

I tried to make the Harvard guy's speech patterns more - refined - than my outlaw's. All quotes from first draft. I know it's got some tweaking still

In addition to writing I am an audiobook narrator. As I read your excerpt I found myself reading with an American southeast (something between Louisiana & Oklahoma) voice. If that's what you intended I think you did it well.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I was thinking just the other day about how Americans, for instance, will often throw in phrases like "pip pip, cheerio old chap" when imitating the British, and how incredibly stupid that must sound to the British.

Pfft. That even sounds stupid to me, and I'm American! That's why I work with people from other countries who are able to act as advisors to me, helping me with the little nuances of their respective local language, dialect or culture to make the dialog as convincing as possible. Sometimes I do take a few liberties in what I do since I'm writing to a mostly American audience, but for the most part I try to keep my dialog as authentic as possible. Or in cases where I'm not totally certain what a truly authentic speaker would say in a given time period, I either Google for clues, or just simply improvise.

Case in point, I've got character in a book series I'm working on who's British SAS, and still uses or displays many of his old British slang and mannerisms he had 40 years earlier when he arrived on the planet. But since he's been away from his nature culture for so long, much of his hard core "British-ness" has faded, and you instead see a man who has become a melting pot of words and mannerisms that he's picked up from the many other travelers he's meet along the way, even using a few "Americanisms" he's run across. Some might think that's wrong, but it's no different than taking someone from one culture and plopping him squarely into another. Over time he'll pick up a lot of cultural elements from the other society as well, making him somewhat of a social hybrid.

[neilmarr]

Actually, Steven and Steve, those Old School Tie terms are still widely used -- but only ironically, and in the True Blue Brit sense of joking against themselves and their image elsewhere. The Scots do it too -- I sometimes use (for similar fun): 'Hoots Toots the Noo' in signing off posts here. Nobody in Scotland would ever use the term other than in jest. It's a play on stereotyping. Toodlepip, Old Beans. Neil