The Accent Post

Tried looking through your tags and found something only slightly close… What’s the general rule about writing out accents? I have two characters with very strong accents in my novel, and I’m not sure where to draw the line. Word choice and dropping the gs from the ings is obvious, but to me, writing them out as they sound (within the limits of making them legible) is fine, but I’m worried about readers finding the practice annoying or even offensive.   -Anonymous 

Ah… yes, Anon. We have been asked about accents (and lisps) very, very often, and, frankly, we haven’t a clue. But I’ve thought about it, and let me give it a shot. 

Here are some options: 

1) Use power of exposition to tell the audience that <character> has an accent, and then write it out normally (with perhaps a few small indicators). 

Ex. “Well, you’re an idiot!” Covert snapped, British accent coming in strong as her temper snapped.

Pro: If you remind them, most readers can do a bit of the accent in their heads. 
Con: It’s a bother to tell the audience ten times that Pen has a British accent.  

2) Use word choice to let readers infer accent. 

Ex. “Well, you’re a bloody wanker!” Covert snapped. 

Pro: It’s show-not-tell. 
Con: You gotta make sure you know the vocabulary, or you’re going to look stupid (did I shame myself? I tried).  

3) Write it phonetically. (A good trick: get a buddy (you got a tame thespian? They’re great) to read your lines with an accent, take notes as they read and then alter your writing). 

Ex. “Dalin’, I tolja I dint want t’see ya do that again.” Covert snapped. (She’s southern now or something, if it’s bad don’t shoot me, I live on the West Coast and my southern father got rid of his accent so I don’t know).  

Pro: Sounds awesome when read aloud.
Con: You almost have to read aloud to understand. 

Different methods are selected based on appropriateness by story. 
Overall, I’m in favor of going easy on written accents (unless the accent is a really big part of your story), because, while we can understand spoken accents, we are really unused to seeing them in print, and it can be jarring/hard to understand. 
Take this: “Didjeat” 
It’s not a word. 
Say it aloud a few times. With a questioning tone. To someone who’s just back from lunch. 
“Did you eat?” We’re lazy and have context, so to fluent english speakers, we only need the rough sound of the words to understand the meaning. On the page? It looks like another language. “Did ya eat?” “Didja eat?” “You eat?” are all casual, but more understandable, if you really need to convey a character’s informality of speech. 

Anyway, that’s the best I got for you all, since I have no actual clue. This is the Accent Post and the Accent Post it shall be, and all queries will be forwarded here from now on. If you have issues with this article, go ahead and write me and I’ll see if I want to edit it. 

-Evvy