Read Online Dynamic Characters by Nancy Kress - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nancy Kress
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Has the dialogue become inconsistent? It doesn't match the previous diction or sentence structure. But it does match the new circumstances. Furthermore, it's still recognizable as something that a basically amiable person would say, in that it doesn't employ racial epithets, or go on for pages of invective, or lapse into Victorian epithets or outdated slang or threats of retaliation—none of which would have been in keeping with what we'd already been shown of the character.
In short, consistency is another one of those partly-true, partly-not statements about writing. Make your dialogue consistent—but not so unvarying that it ignores specific circumstances.
YOU'RE FROM THE SOUTH, AREN'T YOU: THE DANGERS AND DELIGHTS OF DIALECT
This aspect of fiction has both literary and political connotations. Consider the following uses of dialect:
• You 'ave it, guv'nor!
• Sho' will, massa, suh!
• At your service, old chap!
• Faith and begorra, but yer right, me fine lad!
• That's-a the way, paisano!
• Rike you rike it, A-san!
• Sa vah kum sa vah, sir!
None of those dialects are convincing, all of them are hackneyed, a few of them are offensive, and the last one is incomprehensible: a good catalogue of the pitfalls of using dialect.
So does that mean a writer should avoid dialect completely?
No. Just write it carefully. The goal is to capture the feel of nonstan-dard English by judicious variations of diction, word order, spelling and sentence rhythm, and by moderate use of common phrases. This works better than wholesale and probably stereotypical distortion of language. Here's a good example, from Eudora Welty's ''old Mr. Marblehall'':
''I declare I told Mr. Bird to go on to bed, and look at him! I don't understand him! . . . After I get Mr. Bird to bed, what does he do then? He lies there stretched out with his clothes on and don't have one word to say! Know what he does? ... He might just as well not have a family.''
Can you hear the regional flavor, definite but not overdone? The guideline here is that a little dialect goes a long way. It should suggest regional speech, not bludgeon us with it.
Dialect has another use, as well. Simple or very young characters may have only one mode of speech, the one with which they grew up. Older or more sophisticated people, however, frequently retain the ability to speak in their native dialect but also acquire the ''standard'' American network-news-anchor speech. Such a person can choose which speech he wishes to use when—and those choices alone may say something about him.
He may, for instance, deliberately pile on exaggerations of his own dialect to confuse, embarrass or otherwise gain psychological advantage over his listeners. Here, for instance, is Bruce Sterling's Grena-dian character Winston Stubbs, from the novel islands in the Net. Stubbs is perfectly capable of standard business English, and he uses it when he wishes. In the following speech, however, he's making sure that his listeners, Laura and David Webster, know that Stubbs's culture and beliefs are radically different from those of everybody else at an international banking conference:
Laura had become seriously worried. She greeted them in the front lobby. ''So glad to see you. Was there any trouble?'' ''Nuh,'' said Winston Stubbs, exposing his dentures in a sunny smile. ''I-and-I were downtown, seen. Up-the-island. . . . We could use a public relations,'' Stubbs said, grinning crookedly at Laura. ''I-and-I's reputation could use an upgrade. Pressure come down on I-and-I. From Babylon Luddites.''
Even if you know that in island patois i-and-i means we and that seen is the equivalent of you see, this dialect feels foreign and striking. Laura and David are put on notice that Stubbs and his bank operate by different rules—which is just what Stubbs intends. He exploits his own awareness of his own dialect for his own purposes.
Everything that applies to dialect, incidentally,
Has the dialogue become inconsistent? It doesn't match the previous diction or sentence structure. But it does match the new circumstances. Furthermore, it's still recognizable as something that a basically amiable person would say, in that it doesn't employ racial epithets, or go on for pages of invective, or lapse into Victorian epithets or outdated slang or threats of retaliation—none of which would have been in keeping with what we'd already been shown of the character.
In short, consistency is another one of those partly-true, partly-not statements about writing. Make your dialogue consistent—but not so unvarying that it ignores specific circumstances.
YOU'RE FROM THE SOUTH, AREN'T YOU: THE DANGERS AND DELIGHTS OF DIALECT
This aspect of fiction has both literary and political connotations. Consider the following uses of dialect:
• You 'ave it, guv'nor!
• Sho' will, massa, suh!
• At your service, old chap!
• Faith and begorra, but yer right, me fine lad!
• That's-a the way, paisano!
• Rike you rike it, A-san!
• Sa vah kum sa vah, sir!
None of those dialects are convincing, all of them are hackneyed, a few of them are offensive, and the last one is incomprehensible: a good catalogue of the pitfalls of using dialect.
So does that mean a writer should avoid dialect completely?
No. Just write it carefully. The goal is to capture the feel of nonstan-dard English by judicious variations of diction, word order, spelling and sentence rhythm, and by moderate use of common phrases. This works better than wholesale and probably stereotypical distortion of language. Here's a good example, from Eudora Welty's ''old Mr. Marblehall'':
''I declare I told Mr. Bird to go on to bed, and look at him! I don't understand him! . . . After I get Mr. Bird to bed, what does he do then? He lies there stretched out with his clothes on and don't have one word to say! Know what he does? ... He might just as well not have a family.''
Can you hear the regional flavor, definite but not overdone? The guideline here is that a little dialect goes a long way. It should suggest regional speech, not bludgeon us with it.
Dialect has another use, as well. Simple or very young characters may have only one mode of speech, the one with which they grew up. Older or more sophisticated people, however, frequently retain the ability to speak in their native dialect but also acquire the ''standard'' American network-news-anchor speech. Such a person can choose which speech he wishes to use when—and those choices alone may say something about him.
He may, for instance, deliberately pile on exaggerations of his own dialect to confuse, embarrass or otherwise gain psychological advantage over his listeners. Here, for instance, is Bruce Sterling's Grena-dian character Winston Stubbs, from the novel islands in the Net. Stubbs is perfectly capable of standard business English, and he uses it when he wishes. In the following speech, however, he's making sure that his listeners, Laura and David Webster, know that Stubbs's culture and beliefs are radically different from those of everybody else at an international banking conference:
Laura had become seriously worried. She greeted them in the front lobby. ''So glad to see you. Was there any trouble?'' ''Nuh,'' said Winston Stubbs, exposing his dentures in a sunny smile. ''I-and-I were downtown, seen. Up-the-island. . . . We could use a public relations,'' Stubbs said, grinning crookedly at Laura. ''I-and-I's reputation could use an upgrade. Pressure come down on I-and-I. From Babylon Luddites.''
Even if you know that in island patois i-and-i means we and that seen is the equivalent of you see, this dialect feels foreign and striking. Laura and David are put on notice that Stubbs and his bank operate by different rules—which is just what Stubbs intends. He exploits his own awareness of his own dialect for his own purposes.
Everything that applies to dialect, incidentally,
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