Q and A Friday
Today is Q and A day. You Q and we A....Next week we have:
Monday: Theresa Ragan on Getting in to Your Characters Heads
Tuesday: Delle Jacobs on Working Backwards to Develop Character
Wednesday: Esri Rose on What Makes an Effective Villain
Thursday: Lorelle Marinello on How to Use Minor Characters
So questions on those topics might wait until next week.
But what questions to you have about Character this week?
Anything more on Beta Heroes? On Naming Characters? Any other questions on inspiration for Characters?
What do you want to know about Character that we have not covered?
Ask away!!!
Diane
Labels: Character
posted by Diane Gaston @ 9:12 AM
11 Comments:
Good morning!
Do you have any more advice on historical characters, anything you wished you had known when you started?
And do you have any good websites or movies to listen to so I can get a better feel for the difference in accents and vocal patterns of Great Britain?
I've really enjoyed the advice and information you all have shared this week. Thanks!
(wanders by) Dum-de-dum-de-dum... (looks in) Nope. Not something I can answer. (wanders off)
Gillian, here's a site I found that makes it easy to listen to regional accents
Sounds Familiar?
To read about the regional difference, start here and follow the links to the different regions.
British English
But I should tell you that my English editors at Mills & Boon make me take out most of my attempts at dialect. My Scots have nary a "ken" or a "dinna"
I honed my sense of the cadence of Regency language by listening to Austen's work on audiobooks. And Georgette Heyer. Even Bernard Cornwell and Patrick O'Brien. Anything directly from the period or before or after - Defoe's Moll Flanders; Fieldings Tom Jones, Sir Walter Scott, Henry James...Whatever you can find.
I preferred Chivers audiotapes because the readers were always wonderful. William Gaminara reading the Sharpe series was to die for (but I could not stand another sonorous reader of another brand)
My library (Fairfax County public library) had lots of audiobooks and I used to listen to them driving to work. They are so expensive, I'd see what your library has, or if you can get them from interlibrary loan.
If that won't work, rent all the Austen movies and watch them over and over. The BBC versions can be certain to have authentic British speech. Kate Beckinsale's Emma, The Colin Firth Jane Austen, etc etc.
But I think listening to the books themselves works the best.
The BBC versions can be certain to have authentic British speech. But what's authentic British speech? (Just playing devil's advocate and using up space here.)
An example: transposed Vs and Ws are generally thought to be of mid-nineteenth-century London use, but in fact they were used earlier, during the Regency (don't ask me for a source. Don't!).
But if you used them in a Regency-set everyone would jump on you for being anachronistic.
Consider also that probably the aristocracy, who would be in very close contact with the servants when they were growing up, might well revert to local accents when they were at home in the country. And I wonder whether they spoke any differently in polite society--there were so many other factors, of vocabulary and culture--that would identify them as being aristocratic.
Just a few troubling, unnecessary, and idiosyncratic thoughts.
Janet
Esri, you crack me up. Trust me, I'll have plenty of questions next week; I can't WAIT to talk villains. ;)
Thanks very much, Diane! That gives me plenty to work with.
I had always wondered how editors approached the whole "dialect" thing. Good to know it's ok to use it sparingly. I was a tad worried about a delivery man from Scotland I have; he's only got a little role, so I wasn't sure how much "flavor" to attempt.
Do you have any more advice on historical characters, anything you wished you had known when you started?
The more I write Historical, the more I want to be as true to the period as possible. I know this isn't a choice all Historical writers make, but it is mine. I like to try to be in the mindset of the period.
For example, if a heroine--and hero, too, actually--make love in my books, I figure the possibility of pregnancy will cross their minds. But I know that other authors don't worry abou this.
Oh Hi, Janet! And thanks to you as well--we must have posted at the same time. :)
Diane you did a great job of that with Tanner in VV.
It makes a hero a LOT more likable to see him taking some bit of responsibility, although I do think balancing the thought of pregnancy with the whole 'swept up in the moment' aspect is quite a skill.
Can someone give me an example of a "transposed V and W"? I can't conceive what that entails.
although I do think balancing the thought of pregnancy with the whole 'swept up in the moment' aspect is quite a skill.
I like this scenario too! But sometime afterward someone ought to think about pregnancy.
(thanks for the nice words about VV!)
Here you go, Esri (and anyone else who was wondering), the sort of thing you'd find in Pickwick Papers:
"Bring me some wittles, Mr. Veller."
Bring me some victuals, Mr. Weller.
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