: Re: Using colloquialisms the reader may not be familiar with I'm from Ireland, most of my stories take place in Ireland, and many of my characters will speak with Irish accents and/or dialects to

@Holmes449

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I think this depends on your intended audience; if it is almost entirely Irish familiar with the dialect, leave it. It sounds authentic to them, and is not jarring. Even if it is just that story; which it may be if you are trying to get started by publishing locally, a short story in a magazine or something.

If you hope that your story is going to be published more widely, so the majority of readers are NOT familiar with the colloquialisms, then I would adopt an attitude of "spicing" your language with colloquialisms that aren't going to drive editors and grammarians to put the book down, because it is just too difficult to read.

Give readers a taste of the Irish flavor, something you do once per page or so, don't douse them with it on every third line of dialogue.

You will likely not lose any Irish readers by doing that, or at least you will lose fewer of them than you would lose non-Irish English speakers. And you won't lose any of the critics and opinion-setters in other countries that might consider your authenticity overdone to the point of cliché (even if that is the real world in Ireland).

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