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Blog 2-6-12

Writing a story about Ireland means that the novel must contain some dialect to make it authentic.  Irish dialect is well known and is lyrical.  As a writer I wanted to use dialect to reveal something about the characters.  Irish dialect varies throughout Ireland and the setting for much of the novel, Cork, has a reputation for ending sentences with a question.  For that reason, characters living in Cork will end sentences with a question while those in Dublin won’t.

I struggled with how much dialect to use.  Obviously, every bit of dialect couldn’t be in dialogue otherwise readers would be distracted and may lose interest quickly.  For years, I wrote with too much dialect.  Finally, one of my writing teachers, Laurel Yourke, explained that there should be a “smattering of dialect” rather than whole paragraphs of dialect.  For example, in a page scene with dialogue maybe 25% would contain dialect.

The other problem is to make the dialect authentic.  When visiting Ireland in 2008 I was surprised at how fast they spoke.  In particular I talking with a cabbie giving us a driving tour of Limerick I asked repeatedly for him to repeat what he said.  I don’t know if there is a way to capture on the page how fast a person talks.  I decided in the end not to attempt it.

So I depended on critique groups and beta readers to suggest when to either add or delete dialect.  Their advice consistently was for less rather than more.  There is not standard rule but if you’re going to use dialect it’s critical to have readers and listen to their suggestions.