...and a comment on writing dialogue.
March break is over, hubby is off to work and the kids at school. I can sit for a length of time with out my ribs throbbing in pain, and today is my day off. Armed with my cuppa of organic earl gray, I flip on the computer with the mindset of getting a smidgen of research done. Since my Hero is Welsh I needed to listen some speech in hopes of absorbing the patterns.
It was not that easy. I just got more and more particular about what I was looking for. Originally I thought to find a Welsh radio station and have that play in the background as I wrote.
But then what about dialects, shit didn't think of that so it has to be a station in Southern Wales.
Oh hell can't be Welsh speaking because I won't know what they are saying and I'll be too distracted....
Then there was the searched for common slang, but how common? and to what age groups would these be appropriate? Oh swearing! Must look up swearing....but again this is in Welsh I need English translations..... Oh what a vicious circle I wove for myself.
The more I thought about it, the more concerned I became at making his speech authentic....not that I have a clue what he was saying because so far I haven't written a bloody word!
I don't want the dialogue to come across like Kevin Costner's English accent in that Robin Hood movie. Fading in and out depending on the daily mood and generally being awful. What would be worse would be odd phrases/slang stuck in there to make it sound authentic but all it does is pull the reader out of the story.
To make matters worse my secondary character is Irish. I suspect I'll put myself through all this again when I start surfing the Gaelic sites looking to tweak his dialogue.
Mae hi wedi cachi arna i
(lit. it's shit on me = I'm buggered/I'm for the chop)
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