#how to write a character with an accent

[unboundprompts]

Hello! I’ve never really used this ask thing before— so I’m sorry if I do this wrong. I love your prompts and other works and was wondering if you could help me figure out how to write and describe accents? My characters have very specific accents (Australian accents, British accents, etc.) and I’m having trouble figuring out how to show that. This is a fantasy setting so I couldn’t just describe their accents as an Australian accent and such y’know? I’m so sorry if this doesn’t make sense. Would you be able to help?

How to Write a Character with an Accent

-> How to Write Character Accents

-> How to Convey Accents in Fiction Writing

Make sure your character’s speech isn’t distracting

When writing dialect or a particular accent, it can be tempting to write a character’s dialogue using phonetic spellings. However, this use of dialect can distract your reader. If your character is French and is constantly saying “ze” instead of “the,” the reader will be focusing more on decoding the line of dialogue than they will on plot or character development. When writing fiction, your reader’s attention should always be on the story, and anything that distracts from that probably isn’t worth including.

Slang and Colloquialisms

Incorporate regional slang, colloquialisms, or idioms that reflect the accent. Each accent has its own unique phrases that can suggest the character's background.

Include Snippets of their Native Language

 If you’re writing a character who speaks a foreign language, one way to communicate their accent is to simply include snippets of their native tongue in their lines of dialogue. This will demonstrate the character’s native language and implied accent without resorting to the distracting eyesore of phonetic spelling.

Don't Stereotype

Writing different dialects indelicately can make you appear condescending towards non-native English speakers or people who use the English language differently than you do. One of the most common offenders is the use of “eye dialect,” which refers to using misspellings or nonstandard spellings in order to depict a character’s accent (for instance, writing “fixin’” with an apostrophe instead of “fixing” in order to demonstrate Appalachian or Southern accents). By focusing on the “otherness” of regional dialects and non-native speakers, a writer may give the impression that they are making fun of the way people speak. When writing different accents, keep eye dialect to a minimum.

Rhythm and Intonation

Accents often have distinctive rhythms and intonations. Pay attention to how the accent changes the flow of speech. For instance, British accents might have a more clipped and precise quality, while Australian accents can sound more relaxed and drawn out.

You might describe this in your narrative, saying something like, "Her words rolled out with a casual lilt, the vowels stretching like lazy waves."

Character Reactions and Context

Show how other characters react to the accent. If a character speaks in a heavy accent, others might lean in to listen, nod in confusion, or make a comment. This helps highlight the uniqueness of the speech.

Physical Description

Consider linking the accent to physical traits or background details. Describe the character’s upbringing or location, giving hints about their accent through their surroundings or lifestyle.

Example: “Raised in the bustling markets of Evermere, his accent was a musical blend of the old tongue, softening the hard edges of his words.”

Subtlety in Dialogue Tags

Instead of writing out the accent in every piece of dialogue, you can subtly hint at it through the dialogue tags. For example, “he said, his voice dripping with the easy lilt of the southern coast” can convey the accent without explicit phonetic spelling.

[wardensantoineandevka]

at the end of the day, for me, the most disappointing thing about C3 isn't the poor narrative structure, the bad pacing where everything feels dragged out and rushed at the same time, or never giving the characters the space and focus to breathe and develop their own centric subplots

it is ultimately that Marquet started off very strong as a setting and did feel like it was making strides to properly draw from its Asian and SWANA inspirations, including with good use of work by other authors and consultants, only for that to rapidly fall off as the Ruidus plot became central and for there to be just as little space for Marquet as there was for Bells Hells as characters beyond carriers of The Moon Plot, with no space to develop and explore either to potential and richness. It's disappointing for Marquet especially, given the continued dearth of Asian and SWANA inspirations in Western AP, and I felt C3 started off promising with Marquet as a grounded and rich location in those inspirations.

I think a lot about Ela Lumas, whose sons' murders is the inciting incident, and how her title Ginang is a Tagalog word and how exciting that was for me personally. The fact that we lost this even as smaller notes, and that ultimately Marquet was supplanted in favor of Vasselheim (not even Issylra as a whole) and Ruidus without any real grounding of why Marquet was the setting in the first place or what Marquet's importance was specifically to the narrative other than "it has to be set somewhere", is just so intensely disappointing to me. The biggest disappointment I have with C3.

[azurejacques]

My favorite and also least favorite part about being a linguist is trying to figure out what the linguistic landscape of a fantasy world is. Not only that, but really good authors can use language to tell the reader things and convey themes. Take the Locked Tomb universe; we learn basically nothing until Nona the Ninth, where we learn that the Houses speak seemingly one single language, simply referred to as "House." We learn that House is also spoken as a lingua franca on Houses-occupied planets, that is, as a language of trade and communication so that people of all different backgrounds may communicate (the role that English plays today in real life), and that there are dialects or at least accented versions spoken in local communities. When the broadcast from the Empire occurs, Ianthe Naberius mentions that it will be translated into the, if I recall correctly, ~15 local languages. This really paints a stark contrast between the Nine Houses and the non-aligned/Blood of Eden-controlled planets/human settlements— the houses all seemingly speak the same language, they may have each developed their own cultures to a degree, but John specifically made everyone as uniform as possible after the Resurrection; cf. Wake's claims of cultural and linguistic genocide. Meanwhile, in human settlements outside of the Houses proper, different varieties continue to flourish and cultures remain distinct and alive. One thing that has bugged me as unrealistic about this is that naturally, over 10,000 years, language is going to change, and I mean drastically change. Even if you created the Houses with one, uniform culture and language, they're going to splinter no matter how centralized you make them, especially if one house decides to go all isolationist (cough cough the ninth house cough cough). But, to be fair, Tamsyn's characters never mention accents of their own within the Houses, nor do they mention a lack of them I believe, so it's possible that variation does exist and it's simply not mentioned. A more fun idea, though less realistic perhaps (of course the most realistic thing is just that this isn't something the author considered too deeply as I do not believe she is a linguist lmao), is that the static nature of language in the Houses is a parallel to the static nature of death and necromancy, death has lost much of its meaning, so why not preserve the form of a language too in an unnatural and death-defying way? It would be yet another aspect of the Nine Houses that John could control, and we know he's got a thing about control.

Anyways I started this post to do a little rant on how I always am trying to decide what accent to give characters in my head, and it turned into this, so... there's gonna be a part two where I talk about Red Rising probably! Anyhow Gideon speaks with an American accent in my head 100% I refuse to change that, Not Sorry. Also god it was difficult but I've managed to get fairly good at doing a NZ accent in my head for John. My deepest fear is that House is really just NZ English and that everyone speaks like a Kiwi and I'd die trying to read every single character like that in my head lmfao. Sorry to the great nation of Aotearoa New Zealand, I just have not consumed enough of your media to make it easy to replicate in my head. Another aspect to think on that I am promising myself right now I won't go into it too much, but it'd be really interesting to go into how John's Māori identity interacts with his identity overall; he clearly speaks at least some Te Reo, yet it seems clear that he was willing to forsake his identity and language when creating his new (fascist) utopia after the Resurrection. But that's not something I really feel I can speak on lmao, so I won't!

[0m3n-0f-d3ath]

🪸Ottoawara color test :3

My upcoming dnd character that’s heavily based around Fujimoto from Ponyo :D🪸

[booplesnotts-art]

An earlier ish little page for my girlie I haven’t posted here before🫢

This is Vera! She doesn’t smile much and is very stern and scary but she means well I swear🫶

Her husband also hand-carved her cane for her and is very proud of that

[chocolateisbrainfood]

Okay so this is something I've been debating talking about but I do think it's important. Because it was something I noticed a lot in older TF fanfics and then fell off but I'm starting to see it come up again. Not trying to call anyone out, but I do think it's important to get into the context of this and how it relates to Jazz as a character, and the black community.

See this? This is how G1 Jazz talks. He obviously speaks using interesting metaphors and phrases and is kind of a dork with his language. And yes, obviously he has an accent.

No, he is not using a stereotyped BLACK-CCENT as a lot of people like to put on him. He's using a specific kind of accent from a specific black community (aka the early pre-and-post WWII era Jazz community) and mixing/meshing it to fit with the character's own culture/vibe. This character who was written this way because he was literally written with Scatman Crothers, a well known black voice actor and musician, in mind. You'll see the same style of accent/tone used in a a bunch of Crothers' roles during the 70s/80s.

But do you see the words used here? Jazz says "I." Jazz does not say "Ah." And I'm not saying that to be pedantic. I'm being serious. This isn't an argument about how you should write an accent the way it would be written, not the way it sounds kind of thing, because some words do end up becoming enmeshed that much in the language anyway (like "ya" being used here). This is just about how Jazz himself talks.

Jazz's "I" does not sound like "Ah." He's not Rogue from X-men. That's not how his accent works (that's more in line with many versions of Ironhide tbh). Jazz usually emphasizes vowel sounds when he talks. His pitch goes UP when he uses the Long I vowel sound to emphasize on that "I" sound. Same as he does with long "A"s and "E"s. Jazz's accent emphasizes those sounds, not softens them into being extended versions of short vowels.

Write his accent the way it actually sounds not the way you assume a black person talks. That's edging up real close to the -ism I'm not allowed to bring up without a fight starting, but if you're not thinking critically about why you write Jazz speaking that way, maybe you should think about that for a bit yourself right now. If you don't know how his accent sounds, listen to it more. Do a voice review! Scatman Crothers isn't the only voice of Jazz around now (even if the character was literally written with him and his style in mind so like...if you're doing a G1-esque Jazz that IS the voice you should be taking inspiration from), Jazz has had plenty of voice actors over the decades. He's been WRITTEN by many writers over the decades. Rarely ever do I hear/read him speak in the way so many people write him.

I am not judging people who write Jazz's accent out more obviously. I do it myself! I have to remind myself to tone it down since writing an accent exactly how you hear it isn't always what works best in a story, and can be jarring for the readers. You gotta know when and how to do it and not overuse it. I don't always succeed but I try. This isn't about people who add different flourishes into their own Jazz's speech/dialogue. I do that too! We all do that with our faves, it's just a fanfiction thing. We put a little (or a lot, depending on the story) of our interpretation into the characters when we write.

This is mostly about people who are doing it and just not getting his accent at all. That's not how Jazz speaks. Those are not what those words would sound like coming out of his mouth. That's not his accent. And if you do think that is or should be his accent in your story...why. Why is that extremely stereotyped black-ccent what you think Jazz should sound like? Think about that a bit for yourself.

Please LISTEN to the character's voice before you write all of that. Pick your preferred Jazz and give him a real good listen (except the white guys who voice him by trying to emulate Crothers. It's weird. That they have white guys voicing Jazz is just weird. Having them do it by copying the black guy who first voiced him is weirder and I'm gonna keep saying it's weird).

In the words of Jazz himself: "It's all about the tone."

And...I'm done sorry for the long ramble. You can totally go about your day ignoring this.

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

*guz khan voice* there's been another inside no 9 headcanon revelation

so i just rewatched mother's ruin & now i can't get the idea of edward being trans out of my head lol... like think about it:

his parents' first born child turns out to be a girl (kinda explains why edward wasn't named after his father since i feel like that's usually smth given to first born children?) & maybe his mother was resentful towards him because of it so when their 2nd born is the boy they always wanted so they dote on him. edward then starts chopping off all his hair, wearing boys clothes and refusing to answer to his birth name, his mother never understanding why he never acted like the girl she thought he was (i kinda get the idea that their family was v much built on so-called 'traditional values', so edward deviating from what a girl was supposed to be would hav felt out of place in their household), and he ends up moving out as soon as he could (we can assume he transitioned during this point in his life and started living as a man btw). harry obviously adores edward and never saw him as anything other than his big brother (i can totally see a scene when they're really young where harry is like 'hey [dead name]' and edward is like 'it's edward actually!' and he's just like 'oh ok. hey edward do you wanna play tag with me in the garden?' or smth lol) but was really hurt when edward left (i had actually forgotten how angry harry was in the episode, esp before fran & reggie show up lol)... so idk you can totally see there was SO much baggage between edward and his mum, and especially if she didn't accept him being a man...

idk i think there's smth here maybe lol???

[sesamestreep]

it really is SUCH a shame that there’s no episode of TOS where the enterprise crew time jumps to Regency-era England or goes to a planet that modeled its culture on that era or something, because it would truly slap for every single main character. Like I don’t even have to explain why this would be awesome for Spock— Mr. I’ll-smash-a-computer-with-my-bare-hands-before-I’ll-admit-I’m-horny himself, king of repression, who basically recreated the famous Pride and Prejudice Hand Flex Scene™️ with his beloved Captain that one time, who meets a blind woman with a high tech gown that helps her “see” and LITERALLY tells her to give his compliments to her dressmaker, who mislead a woman once about his affections and tenderly promised to safeguard her reputation forever about it, who has the perfect angular features to be set off by a cravat—I mean, you get it, but then you’ve also got Kirk—handsome, affable, brave Naval captain who loves his crew more than himself, who falls in like deep profound love with every woman the plot throws at him—and then McCoy—cantankerous, sure, (ever heard of a grumpy/sunshine trope??) but with impeccable, downright old school manners towards women and, yeah, a doctor’s not that prestigious in Regency times, but for like a young lady in trouble who needs the protection of a man’s name or who just wants to piss off her stuffy aristocrat family by marrying “beneath” them, who could be better? If you throw Scotty in the mix, well, he’s Scottish, which [points at a whole subgenre of regency romance novels] is all he’d really need. I’m just saying they would have CLEANED UP, okay??

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

Do you ever see a character and think that if people didn't get horny over them, they would realize how lame they actually are as a character?

[butchrust]

I want everyone who reads my fics to know that I have to put so much conscious thought into making the characters swear like americans not aussies

[the-elemental-legacy-blog]

Kairo Jordan once said:

'Shut up you're not the one bleeding out. If anyone should be complaining it's me.'

'Does anyone else hate this guy or is it just me'

'So maybe let's never do this again'

'This is nither the time nor place for an emotional breakdown, Sanders'

'Not really sure how to feel abt that'

'I'm genuinely concerned for you.'

[izzy-b-hands]

horror movie set on the prairie once again immediately ruined by a lack of historical research into A. the sort of houses that would be out there and B. the protections they'd have with those houses that would keep wolves and other creatures out.

Like, first off, where is the sod house that would be accurate to this time period? And two, I know there's meant to be a supernatural aspect at some point (per the redditors who recc'd this) but like. Those are normal wolves; nothing has been established other than a poor initial storyline with acting that is...acting because it occurred on camera and I can tell they did their best. They're clearly trying and that's good of them bc the dialogue and overall plot aren't helping so they've got a Task on their shoulders (carrying this movie as best they can.)

[proxycollective]

Being a plural fanfic writer be like (part 2)

so we write fanfic right? and we got some friends (who do NOT know that we're plural) who are in the same fandom as us and also write fanfic so a lot of times we're writing the same characters at the same time

sometimes those friends or other commenters on our fics look at some of characters we write and go "wow! you captured their canon voice so perfectly! i dont know how you make their characterizations so perfect"

cue me sideglancing at the fictives we have of those characters

i dunno man- must just have a talent for it or something! totally not because we look at the fictives and ask "hey how would you/source you react to this" noooooo...

-dust

[nihonio]

i always draw rex so angry its funny at this point

[transsexualraskolnikov]

writing a cowboy character with a strong cowboy accent in a book that's not western at all and features the wild west only in the very beginning....... how long before that character's way of speaking becomes the most annoying and jarring thing known to man?

[clumsypuppy]

Atla live action 😐