Urg.

[mrv3000]

I'm reading a book where the author's opted to write out accents. I don't mind slang and the occasional apostrophe, but I hate it when I have to re-read a sentence of dialog several times just to decipher it. Also it seems a bit insulting to the reader - as if we can't possibly imagine different accents on our own without help. Anyway, it's completely distracting and never fails to take me out of the story.

In other news, I was planning on going to a fair today, but it's raining. I might still go for a while, but rain makes me want to be lazy. (And go back to the book to slog through accents. :D)

Comments

[shinyopals.livejournal.com]

I have a really limited tolerance for accents, since they're just so damn hard to read. Although a lot of the detective books I read do it in some way, so I'm getting slightly better at it, but I still resent it.

Sibling has a series of books about a girl who dresses up as a boy and becomes a pirate and they look fairly entertaining, but they are written in first person and entirely in some sort of accent. I couldn't get past the first sentence.

[logicisfailing.livejournal.com]

The Bloody Jack books?

[shinyopals.livejournal.com]

Lol yup.

They looked entertaining enough, but I CAN'T DO IT.

[logicisfailing.livejournal.com]

It wasn't so bad, I read three or four of them, but they weren't the best books ever or anything like that. Someone gave me a couple of them ahile back or I probably wouldn't have bothered with the accent and all that. If I can get into the plot I can ignore the accent.

[shinyopals.livejournal.com]

Sibling said it's easy to ignore after a while when you get into the books, but I couldn't get past the first paragraph without recoiling in horror, so I didn't bother to keep trying! XD

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

*nods* Generally I'm able to suss an accent based on slang/speech mannerisms. I really don't need it painstakingly spelled out.

And that kind of book would make me want to stab things.

[shinyopals.livejournal.com]

I am quite happy with "so-and-so had a Liverpudlian accent" in text (or similar), and yeah, mannerisms/slang also works.

Rose-accents in fanfic are probably some of the worst of the worst, it's got to be said.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_thirty2flavors/]

lol I once saw the first chapter of a manuscript that was written like that in some sort of horrific Scottish dialect. It was hilarious but certainly not something I would read all of.

[logicisfailing.livejournal.com]

I know, I find that annoying as well. It especially annoys me in fanfic - we know so&so has a British/southern US/etc accent, please don't hit us over the head with it (we do have an imagination of our own). Rogue/Marie of X-men is a good example of this. I don't to read "Ah'm leavin' now" - I know how she talks, please stop.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

To me it just seems like throwing reading stumbling blocks into your writing. The brain automatically stops when something's not right - at least mine does. Even for something as simple as "Ah'm" vs. "I'm". You have to stop and translate/decipher.

[goldy-dollar.livejournal.com]

UGH I hate that too. I find it comes up in fic sometimes and there especially, we know what they sound like, you really don't have to write it out.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

It has to be hard for the author as well, to have to sit there and spell out accents. Why do that to yourself?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_thirty2flavors/]

LOL I skipped an entire chapter of Wuthering Heights because of Joseph's accent what the fuck.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Oh Wuthering Heights. Why do you insist on causing so much rage? XD

[http://users.livejournal.com/_thirty2flavors/]

There was even a glossary at the back of the book to translate Joseph's dialogue but I was pretty much like "you expect me to flip to the back every time this character talks? NEVERRRR".

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

BAH. If he's talking English (even a heavily accented English), WRITE ENGLISH. I can mentally fill in the rest, thanks.

[tripocket.livejournal.com]

I only have one book like that I've ever finished. It's Uncle Remus. I had it read to me as a child and I've read it again as an adult. It's old. Very old. I can't be bothered with that in anything since. Usually it's not well enough done and I end up being thrown out of the story. I figure if an author throws me out of their own story it's probably not worth my time to fight them on it.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Fortunately there aren't that many characters with different accents in the series I'm reading now (Carola Dunn). But I just started the next book and there's a Scottish character who's probably going to be in it a lot. GRAWR!!

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

Reading Five Red Herrings, by any chance? :P

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Nope. I'm going through Carola Dunn's Daisy Dalrymple series. But *eyes Sayers for putting entire passages in French in Busman's Honeymoon*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_thirty2flavors/]

*eyes Sayers for putting entire passages in French in Busman's Honeymoon*

Omg, I hate that too. I DO NOT SPEAK THIS LANGUAGE. STOP ASSUMING I SPEAK THIS LANGUAGE.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

I think Opal tried to tell me that back in the day UK types were used to reading French. BUT STILL. (Also, I'm thinking that Opal sometimes makes random shit up to fill in my lack of UK knowledge.)

[acciochocolate.livejournal.com]

Alas, I think she was correct. And besides, the Brits, at least the upper class, were better educated back then.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

I guess she gets a pass. This time. ;)

[captaintish]

What book is that (so I can be sure to avoid it?)

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

It's Black Ship by Carola Dunn. I'm enjoying the rest of it, but...

[chloris67.livejournal.com]

I really don't get why anyone would write out an accent! A little here and there to give the sense of how they talk is okay but more than that is a barrier between their book and their readers.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

*nods* I could see authors doing it way back when - when people didn't know what other people sounded like. But nowadays most readers are going to get there without help.

[bubbles234.livejournal.com]

That always puts me off. That and being over liberal with exclamation marks are two things that make me stop reading.

There are others, but they're pretty standard :P

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

BUT!!!!! I LIKE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!! ;D

[acciochocolate.livejournal.com]

Some writing out of accents is helpful at first. But yes at times it can be annoying!

Your mention of a fair reminds me that I want to take the Prof to a corn maze. :)

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I've never been in a corn maze! They look like such fun!

[mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com]

This post makes it clear to me that I don't read enough books, because I thought, "Wait, they do that outside of fanfic?"

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

BWAH! There is a whole other world out there! XD

[alliesings.livejournal.com]

There is a book series that all of my friends were reading, and everyone loved it, but the accents drove me crazy, causing me to give up a few chapters in. Fast forward to this summer, my MIL hands me a book co-written by the same author, and I loved it! The only jarring thing was a character named Linux, and I kept on having to remind myself that he was a Roman soldier, not a computer OS.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Bwah! :D

Yeah, I don't generally force myself to read anything anymore. I'll just give up. The days of having to read for school are gone.