Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I would (and do) say that  . But you're right; dialogue should of course be an accurate reflection of the sort of person speaking. |
A reflection. But not overdone and quite possibly not even entirely realistic. Too much realism with a dialect or accent can make text tedious to read. A writer has to be clever about it. I just set aside a book (not an indie work...wait...let me think. No, it is indie.) Anyway, to show that the guy was from the south, when he spoke it was constantly, "runnin' walkin' talkin'" Most gerunds suffered from a silent "g" syndrome. Here and there would have been okay and using y'all is standard in southern text...but it began to drive me nuts. It was especially annoying when the main female started doing it (and she wasn't from the south. This is what I mean about making sure all your characters have a unique voice and stick with it.)
You have to slide those personalities in there and yet remain readable. Another author I read (not indie) had so many curse words in there, it was entirely too realistic. And hard to read because you could afford to skip every 3rd word since really an f-bomb isn't all that descriptive of a situation, yet it is used like a "covers everything adjective." And if overused, as many people do, it's in the way. It's like advertising signs that you "see" on the side of highways. But you don't read them. So you don't know what they say, but you know they are there. Too much reality can be just as bad as none.