Historical Mystery Lovers discussion

One thing that has always interested me about historical fiction is how do the writers establish the dialect, etc for their characters to suit the period of the book. Does it come from the writer's imagination or are there go to reference sources for writers to access?

It probably depends on where and when the story is set. I work in the early nineteenth century in England, which means I have a rich storehouse of research materials. Amateur philologists were trolling the countryside recording examples of local dialect and slang and publishing dictionaries of their findings (I have two for Surrey and a large one for Sussex). I also read novels written in the period and keep records of characteristic turns of phrase. Travel essays in England often record examples of local dialect as well. Walking tours in the area I'm writing about were hugely popular among gentlemen in the nineteenth century so I have a wealth of books to draw from.

So much for purity and accuracy. I also cheat, using a smattering of vivid words and phrases from other sources. The Regency era is a decade past the time I'm writing about, but a Regency gentleman published a wonderful dictionary of the slang used by educated young men, and I use a few words from that and even place them in the mouths of some lower-class characters (on the theory that the gentlemen picked up some of the slang from servants and tenants). And I use a little generic language signaling class that has been culled from British fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (such as using a plural verb with a singular subject).

All that said, dialect can easily be overdone, especially for present-day readers who have little exposure to it in their everyday lives. (Reading something like Treasure Island shows that readers' tolerance of both dialect and technical terminology used to be a lot higher!) I sample instead of reporting accurately, avoiding for instance endless "ye"s instead of "you"s. And because some readers have more familiarity than others, I provide a comprehensive glossary on my Web site and embed links to unusual words in ebooks. It always helps a writer to read passages aloud to get a sense of whether they convey the desired impression without slowing down readers. Finally, it's important always to contextualize slang so that readers can make a good guess about the meaning if the words themselves are unfamiliar. Fortunately, a lot of dialect and slang terms are vividly suggestive--couldn't one guess that "boffled" means "confused," considering how similar it is to "baffled"?

I recently read a book The Accidental Dictionary: The Remarkable Twists and Turns of English Words which looks at 100 words that evolved over time to have a very different meaning from the original. Gives some decent info on word origins and usages. So, sometimes using a term that might be “period” could totally confuse the modern reader.

Many thanks, Abigail. I rather think your choice of period leaves you a good source of reference material, as you pointed out. For myself, I have chosen 11th-12th century England for my first historical fiction. Mine is a 2-book set, with Book One due for release on 20 June. It is Book Two that is totally set in the medieval period.

I am using the writing of Stephen Lawhead, Bernard Cornwell, Jack Whyte, and James Aitcheson as guides to dialect.

Thanks, Phair. I'll need to track that book down for myself.

You're right, Liam! One reason I chose the period was that I could use period language and still be comprehensible. Your era is a lot tougher because you can't write in Anglo-Saxon or medieval Norman and expect anyone to read you! Probably in your case you can't go much beyond using some technical terms of the period and avoiding modern slang terms. Using "yea, verily" and such to lend a ye-olde feel is no longer fashionable (and reflects the wrong century anyway).

That's pretty much what I'm doing, Abigail, intermixing technical terms and the odd Anglo-Saxon/Norman/Welsh name or word with 'modified' English. Sometimes it involves a little mental gymnastics (especially during late nights at the keyboard.)

Yeah, you have to strike a balance between accuracy and readablity. It's easy to do dialect poorly, too.

Avoid "avast, yon varlet" and the like, at all cost!

I agree, Susanna, but I do have characters in Book One that are Cockney so I have them speaking in their dialect for the most part, part of the "controlled" realism of my writing.

My WIP is set in 1936. The heroine was well born but, because of life circumstances, has been associating with low people in low places for some time. If that's not enough, British English was changing rapidly in that period and would soon (starting 1942) explode with popular terms borrowed from American English. So "authentic" isn't a straightforward concept.

I'm generally familiar with BrE terms and sentence structures from 40+ years of watching British TV and movies and reading British books. However, because of that rapid change I mentioned, I have to check almost everything to see when a word or phrase became common usage. I use Google Ngrams to find when terms entered the British corpus and check various etymology sources to see where they came from. English is constantly swiping words from other languages, and they circulate for a while before being written down. My heroine's traveled widely -- who knows where she got that particularly useful word?