: Re: Introduce new English dialect I'm willing to introduce a new character who speaks a different English - he uses all the words with -ed in the past and past perfect tenses and he doesn't use

@Samaraweera193

Vote Up Vote Down

It seems like a lot of people are asking if something is 'okay' to do in writing, and there isn't an objective answer. In Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton formats his book in an odd way that breaks convention. Yet, he still got published and Cry, the Beloved Country is still a great book. You're the author, you can do what you want.

That being said, you might want to make sure that what you are doing makes sense in your world. You said it was in the future and that there has been a significant amount of change in dialect. So, that makes sense.

One problem I can see is that it might distract the reader. You want to be clear while still maintaining the dialect. If you want to avoid discussing the dialect in narrative, you could have dialogue where people without the accent discuss the dialect and its origins. You may not have to do that. You dialect might not be major enough of a point that it would distract the reader. If you plan on having any beta readers, that is something I would ask them to look out for. Because if the dialect doesn't need a background (or if the background isn't relevant to the story), you don't want to bore the reader with details from a time long ago. An exception from this would be if you are a writing a technical book in which you spend lots of time discussing history. In that case, it would probably enhance your book to discuss the dialect.

(0)

Login to post a comment!