Good, well written science-fiction and fantasy stories are difficult
to craft, after all if writing were easy there would be a slew of writers, and
yes I am aware that with the advent of e-pub people publish their stories all
the time. However I did state at the beginning that good and well written are
qualifiers.
There are a lot of places in our stories, that as writers if
we are not cognizant of “our” world and “our” races, will insert details that
are not well developed or confusing in the context we are placing them.
As I said a fellow writer was asking me questions about
plotting regarding his fantasy novel, but after reading his missives I found
myself asking the same question over and over. What world was this story taking
place in? Described as an original world where magic exists abet not a great
deal of magic. Ok, I thought as I read his synopsis, it’s a low-fantasy world
with what appears to be unique races. I started to get jazzed.
Then he killed it in the first two paragraphs by using modern
American idioms and slang. Yes I am well aware of how difficult it is to invent
a language whole-cloth, but if we are creating worlds that are different than
our own earth, we really shouldn’t be using language that is contextually
wrong.
My suggestion was to not write out a whole language but come
up with phrases that give the meaning that the idioms do, but make it fit the
scene. Getting a thesaurus helps, and changing word order. It gives the familiar
feeling we have here in our world when someone is speaking a second language,
the words may be correct but the order is not always so. It adds a familiarity
that the readers can identify with, while not jarring them from the story.
I would rather my elves sound like Yoda, than a Southern California
surfer dude, scoping out some Betty’s chillaxing and grabbing some rays with
his buds, brah.
Which brings me to the next point I mentioned to him in my
email, it's improper to write out the accent because it is nearly impossible to
correctly write an accent/dialect and more importantly it is very hard for
readers unfamiliar with the accent/dialect to read it. On a side note I notice
a slew of fantasy writers make elves speak with the Queen’s English for some reason;
I find that the Welsh, Scots and Irish accents more to my liking.
I told him on a note pad to spell out small but significant
pronunciation patterns and stick to distinct grammatical features and
vocabulary consistently, this way he will create an illusion of a dialect
that's less obtrusive and easier to read. Readers who know the original dialect
can fill in what's missing, and readers who don't know the dialect won’t be
floundering trying to figure out what the accent sounds like, and those readers
who have trouble reading phonetic representation won't find the text overly
difficult to read.
If nothing else, if you’re having a hard time crafting
pronunciation patterns, simply write it out as the character hearing it would
understand it. If the character hearing
the accent or language thinks the accent is normal then present it as plain English.
Only if you're making a point that the character doesn’t understand something
should it be included in the dialect or speech pattern to make the point.
That’s what I do, I write as if the character hearing what’s
spoken understands what’s being said, however if I introduce a new character or
race that is distinctly different I allow them to speak in a halting,
disjointed, but understandable way. In my worlds I have a common trade language
that allows my various characters to speak to one another with little issues,
and makes sense in the context of the story.
Oh yes, Lisa was delighted the Eagles won....FLY EAGLES FLY...
