Common Writer Questions: How to Convey Accents

“How do I write dialogue to show an accent or dialect?”

I’ve often heard this question discussed at writing workshops. It’s a good question. As we writers imagine our characters, some of them will have an accent, or will speak in a particular dialect. Naturally, we want our readers to hear those accents. But how does one accomplish that?

While there is not a single right answer to the question, here are my suggestions, based on listening to many discussions of this topic by various industry pros.

First of all, remember that fictional dialogue is not court stenography. A novel’s dialogue should not be an exact copy of real speech. Writers edit out all the ums, you knows, and random chattiness that crop up in actual conversations to craft dialogue that keeps the plot moving.

In similar fashion, writers should not attempt to copy the exact accent of each speaker. The goal is verisimilitude, not exactitude—creating the flavor and essence of the speaker rather than providing a syllable-for-syllable duplicate.

Factors to consider when conveying accents

• Clarity first! A writer’s primary purpose is to get the story across. The dialogue should help rather than hider that goal. It’s normally better to choose simple, readable English over foreign words, unfamiliar slang, or phonetically rendered accents. Crammink ow-er dee-alokh weeth strenj spellinks… (I think you get the idea).
• Don’t jolt the reader out of the story. Every time a reader stumbles over a word or has to reread a sentence that didn’t make sense, they have been jolted from the flow of the story. We writers don’t want this to happen! For example, consider this bit of dialogue: “Did he axe you for help?” Huh? What does that mean? The writer may have been trying to show a New Jersey accent, but for any reader not familiar with the accent quirk that turns ask to axe, the sentence is either nonsense, or looks like it contains a typo.
• Use a light hand. When you do include dialect, slang, or accents, do so sparingly. Think of it like a sprinkle of black pepper. You want just enough to enhance the flavor without overpowering everything.
• Don’t stereotype. If your character speaks with a dialect that you are only marginally familiar with, do your research. We don’t want to be lazy writers who stoop to using cheesy imitations of a dialect. Actual speakers of a language or dialect will easily spot a fake and call us out.
• Don’t show off. Perhaps you’ve done tons of research into the history of your setting and compiled a whole list of archaic words. Great, but before using all those funny words, remember you are writing fiction, not a scholarly tome. You don’t need to impress anyone with your knowledge. Therefore, consider which terms are essential to your plot and skip the rest. Readers want to enjoy a good story, not stop every other page to look up yet another word they don’t know.    

Better techniques for conveying accents

Experienced writers come up with many creative ways to help readers hear the accents of their characters without forcing the characters to speak in phonetic accents or unfamiliar grammar. Here are four ideas:

• Sometimes playing with word order is enough to suggest an accent. You could be using this technique to show a character is Irish, don’t you know? Or, something as simple as switching adjectives can make a sentence sound slightly foreign. For example, “I met him at the red, small house with the shaggy, big dog in the front lawn.
• You could allow characters whose first language isn’t English to misquote or misunderstand common idioms. This can be used to great comic effect, when appropriate. (Think Agatha Christie’s Poirot.)
• Adding a few recognizable words or phrases—gut, nyet, si, lass and laddie—can show a reader that this character speaks with particular accent. If you clue them in the very first time the character speaks, then you can allow the reader to fill the rest of the accent in themselves.
• Another option is to show the accent through the POV of a different character. If the POV character has trouble understanding something another character says or thinks to himself about how the person’s speech sounds unusual, you have shown the reader the accent. The reader will hear that character’s speech the same way the POV character does.

While writers differ on their specific preferences when it comes to conveying accents, these tips should help you find a balance that pleases editors and readers alike.

An engineer-turned-mystery-writer, Lisa E. Betz infuses her novels with authentic characters who thrive on solving tricky problems. Her debut novel, Death and a Crocodile, won several awards, including the Golden Scroll Novel of the Year (2021). Lisa combines her love of research with her quirky imagination to bring the world of the early church to life. She and her husband reside outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with Scallywag, their rambunctious cat—the inspiration for Nemesis, resident mischief maker in the Livia Aemilia Mysteries. Lisa directs church dramas, eats too much chocolate, and experiments with ancient Roman recipes.

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