: Re: Writing 19th century upperclass English dialog I was recently rereading bits of Pride and Prejudice and the dialog is absolutely brilliant. How can I learn to write dialog that sounds like it

@Alves689

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I wouldn't try to imitate exactly the style of dialogue in the era of Austen unless you are planning on imitating everything about the historical era very well. As Ralph Gallagher said, Austen and others have an advantage over you - they were just writing how they spoke or heard others around them speak. If you manage to only get part of the whole historical ethos - some of the words and a bit of the dress with anachronisms from our own time thrown in - your readers will be continuously jilted out of the story.

It is possible to write historical fiction using the languages of our own day. No one would write a work of historical fiction set in Chaucer's time and attempt to use his language because readers would largely not understand it. Instead the language would be modernized. If you can't do the Romantic era perfectly, you might be best off doing the same.

It is possible for dialogue written in modern English or any language to be brilliant. What matters is an ear for cadences, for apt words, for truths about life as they really are. Whether you write in Middle, Romantic, Victorian, or modern English, it's what you say that matters.

TL;DR version:

Do historical dialogue extremely well or not at all.

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