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Home  Browse All Articles Improve Your Writing Y'all Come Back Now, Y' Hear: A Primer in the Use of Colloquialisms
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Y'all Come Back Now, Y' Hear: A Primer in the Use of Colloquialisms |
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Written by Melody Hazlett Robinson
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Tuesday, 05 September 2006 |
Writing fiction involves engaging a reader's imagination, making the story come alive in their minds. As a writer, you want them to feel a part of the world you've created for their enjoyment. With the proper use of colloquialisms, you can bring a touch of the exotic to your story. And that may be the key to the reader asking for more!
You'ns cm'ere jus' so you'n get poinners, right?
That sentence could have been spoken by an older lady of my childhood in mid-Missouri. She had been raised in the countryside in a less advantaged family. She was as smart as a tack but not well educated. I admit it took me several visits to be able to understand her. Her speech had a musical cadence, a product, perhaps, of her primarily Scottish-Irish ancestry and the relative isolation of her family for several generations. Once I could translate her speech mentally, I enjoyed sitting for hours listening.
Collo- whats?
A colloquialism is a word or phrase which represents a dialect or region. Each group of people has its own way of speaking, a unique dialect which separates it from other regions or ethnic groups. Those who pay especial attention to speech patterns have always been able to tell a person's origins from his choice of words or cadence. It is one thing that makes each individual and his or her group unique from all others.
As a fiction writer, characters will often come from one of these highly recognizable groups. You may know a few: the very broad, nearly absent "r" of the upper East Coast (US), the soft insistent burr of the Scottish brogue, the guttural sound of German, the rapid-fire slightly nasal Oriental languages. You must decide whether to tell the reader or to show them by using colloquialisms.
First you must decide how important staying true to the speech pattern is to the story. If the character only has a 'walk-on' line or two, your task is relatively easy. If, however, the character in question is more important to the story, then the task gains in difficulty. How much is too much? How much detracts from the story, adding to the reader's reading difficulty rather than enhancing the experience? And after all that, the difficult part begins.
How do you decide which colloquialisms to use?
Often, the use of a few recognizable terms is enough to set the tone. For an Italian character, you might use the words ciao (hello/goodbye), capisce ( [you] understand), and perhaps buon giorno (good morning/day), pronto (fast, quickly, also 'hello' greeting on the telephone) or a myriad of globally recognized words or phrases as Italian. If the rest of the story is essentially one set in English, that may be enough to represent a different background for the character.
But what to do if the story calls out for a stronger, more believable tone such as the opening sentence? The answer to this question depends heavily on the writer's determination, research and writing skills. Visit eateries or other places where people typically congregate and gossip. If possible, conduct interviews with people of the lingual, ethnic or cultural group to develop an understanding of the speech patterns and common usage. Tell the individuals of your project; chances are, they will be flattered and pleased that they will be an active part of the process. If your project is a historical piece, all the above applies but also read historical documents and journals for common usages of the day.
Writing fiction involves engaging a reader's imagination, making the story come alive in their minds. As a writer, you want them to feel a part of the world you've created for their enjoyment. With the proper use of colloquialisms, you can bring a touch of the exotic to your story. And that may be the key to the reader asking for more! |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 02 September 2006 )
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