Hey, there, everybody! ^_^
So, in my novel, the main character has a really thick French accent during the prologue...how would one go about writing that? So far, I've just been writing it like normal, and having the narrator and people around him act/react to his accent.
Also, does anybody know any links or somewhere where I could find information on slang in 17th century France? I found some really useful sites on 17th century British slang using my awesome Googlefu, but I haven't found anything decent for French slang.
----------
My slash goggles are permanently affixed to my face, and I've set my phasers to "lulz". Hallelujah, LOCK AND LOAD! XD
0 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 04 25
How about sticking to the conventional; drop all H and replace th with z so 'How about this?' becomes ''ow about zees?' then stick in some well known french words and phraes like sacre Bleu and Madame and the like. Might be a good idea to avoid too much slang old French slang , not many people are going to understand it.
Try sticking 'argot' or 'langue quotodien' into google and see what comes out.
Cheers
1,337 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 08 04
Yeah, I might just do that. I'm not going to actually worry about it until NaNoWriMo is over, but I plan to change it to sound like an actual accent eventually.
As for the old French slang...my novel is satirical (that's actually the main genre), and I was going to use slang as...well, I'm not sure, but most of the characters are British, so I figured the extreme cultural clash could allow for possible hilarity to ensue...or something like that. ^_^;
I will definitely be googlin' that, then! Thank you! ^_^
----------My slash goggles are permanently affixed to my face, and I've set my phasers to "lulz". Hallelujah, LOCK AND LOAD! XD
46,709 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 22 15
Never do this unless you are a highly experienced dialect writer and you do the same for everyone! It's incredibly hard to read, annoying and sometimes racist by assuming that the author's accent is "normal". Make other people comment, indicate it through word choice, but writing out accents is a horrible choice.
30,004 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 13 31
Generally I would tend to agree with the poster who said it's a bad choice; I have read relatively few 'accent' writers that I would call credible.
Word choice is generally the best - in French, for example, one generally reverses the order of nouns and adjectives describing them. The occasional 'slip' of "The dress blue over there" instead of "The blue dress..." might work better. Mind you that particular example sounds horridly awkward, but it's the best I could do off the top of my head.
On the other hand - Napoleon's army used to call British soldiers 'les goddams,' evidently for the Brits' favourite cussword, and the Scots were 'les sans-culottes' - the 'no pants' (implying undershorts, I think). Some of the other slang on the list I found had me in absolute stitches.
Have fun!
Brannie