Writing Like You Speak...or Not?

"All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland." - Jimi Hendrix

One of the challenges in writing fiction, whether or not you decide to make your setting a MAJOR THING in the story, is making your readers feel at home. I've already gone over your personal writing style and making your readers feel at home. Today, I'll get into something that can be more of a technical aspect. I use that term very loosely, because this part of writing fiction (or even non-fiction) is not much dependent on mechanics. You can't memorize a method for it or figure out how to do it from a textbook. It must simply be mastered. Want to know what this all-important thing is?

Writing like you speak.

Not so hard, right? I mean, it seems pretty easy. Just write stuff like you and everyone you know says stuff. Easy stuff. Slang, here you come. Colloquialisms abound. Awesome.

Or not.

Here's why. Ever read a transcript?

Yeah. Writing a sentence exactly how someone says it, every time, is as bad as trying to make your random hilarious true story into a scene in a novel. No one is going to believe it. Case in point: any time anyone tries to give characters a "Southern accent." I have read the word "gwine" too many times in my life. I still don't know how you're supposed to pronounce it. (Like swine, maybe? I'm really not sure.) I know it means "going" and is supposed to be Southern (or just Old Person Southern), but it gets on my nerves. A lot. It's a really bad way to have a character (old or young) talk because it's a good indicator that a) you don't know what you're doing and b) you've never been out the house or flipped on the TV. Same goes if you insert some New York or Boston or California slang stereotypes and try to phonetically indicate how people in a certain place speak. Unless you are making a movie and are the Coen brothers, it will not work.

So your real challenge is to make your writing, prose or dialogue, seem as though it is actually someone speaking. Nicholas Sparks is pretty good at this. Honestly, though I am from North Carolina, I wouldn't speak like he writes, but somehow the guy manages to convey a conversational tone without it actually being anything from a conversation.

So how can you do the same? Well...practice. Read books that feature that local flavor feel. And practice some more. Bounce your ideas off willing friends. The method and time are different for everyone, and it may take some work before you find that conversational groove for your fiction. But once you do, it will be all worth it.

Cultural Studies: The Beverage Debate (or stuff yall were wrong about...)*

So here's some insight into me. I went to college at Bob Jones University. Despite being located in Greenville, South Carolina, it is a) far from being a Southern college, b) a fascinating cultural study, and c) a help in affirming that I seriously love Eastern North Carolina.

So this topic came up a lot in college, and it comes up a lot elsewhere. I recently watched an episode of How the States Got Their Shapes, and I happened to watch an episode that focused on accents and regional vocabulary. We're all different. No surprise there, as the United States was settled by a very wide range of cultures. Obviously, we're all going to have a different name for carbonated beverages. However, they missed an important detail.

I'll back up. Starting in my teenage years, I first heard of the Great Debate, i.e. soda vs. pop. My youth pastor (who was from Indiana, went to college in Wisconsin, and had an accent straight out of Fargo), insisted that Coca-cola, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and the like were to be called "pop." For the purposes of fun debate, I (and probably others) insisted that the correct name was "soda," and I proceeded to call it this for quite some time. Naturally, when I got to college, I encountered this friendly conflict among peers. Then a third contender entered the ring. Apparently, across much of the southern United States, all carbonated beverages are referred to as "Coke." Apparently a conversation will go as follows:

"What do you want to drink?"
"I want a Coke."
"Okay, what kinda Coke do you want?"

Or something like that.

Now, an explanation, as I found from the earlier mentioned show, could be that Coca-cola was birthed in Atlanta. Fair enough, but this is just too complex, at least to me. However, it continued to be spread around as a "Southern thing" all the time, and I'm sure that it is true for many people.

I'll throw in some accuracy for you, just to set all of yall straight.

The correct term is "drink."

If you are my cousin's two-and-a-half year old son, it is "dink."

I believe that this term originated with the term "soft drink." Naturally, it was shortened. For my entire life, until high school, I referred to carbonated beverages as merely drink. I have returned home to my original dialect. Life is good.

So, naw, I'm not gonna have any drink, I already brushed my teeth tonight. But cheers everybody.



*This post is meant in humor. If you take it personally, then I am truly sorry for you.