Advice On Character Accents

[Kels66]

I made a character who speaks english but i want her to have a unique accent that is kind of from Greek but i cant figure out how to do that. Any advice?

 

[Culhwch]

'Hello,' she said, her Greek accent heavy.

There's quite a few threads around the place on this very topic, if you want to search Aspiring Writers. But I think the general consensus is usually, unless you are particularly good at it, to stick with some form of the above - maybe a little more subtle, though. Accents are hard to pull off well, and if they aren't, they are usually quite excruciatingly bad.

I'm sure others more knowledgeable than me will be along to expand rather soon, so I'll just leave you with a friendly welcome aboard!

 

[Kels66]

Well see i just had this random thought cause i always wanted to make a Alternite dimension and so i decided to use the Diety Zeus from Greek Mythology and pretend he was real and angry that every one was worshiping "god" the catholic version. So he turned the whole world into a living hell... N since it is based off of greek i wanted it to sound a bit greek. I even translated a prohpecy for the begining of the story into Greek but obviously cant do that to the rest of the story without it being unreadable

 

[Culhwch]

Well, for a start I think he'd be talking ancient Greek, unless he kept up with the times.

I'd suggest not worrying about it and just writing it in plain old English. I'm struggling to even imagine a Greek accent, as I think most people would. If you want to emphasise that they are speaking a different language, just drop it into the attribution early on. And you might read a few books written in English but set elsewhere, and see how those authors tackled the job.

 

[The Ace]

Accents are a minefield, If you don't know it, just steer clear. Look at Scotty from 'Star Trek,' his accent has been making us real scots cringe since 1966.

 

[ice.monkey]

Maybe (and this is a long shot) you could use a greek-stye font. Otherwise I'd stick with Culhwch's advice.

 

[The Ace]

Out of the mouths of babes and monkeys, it's certainly an idea, PTerry has often used the technique for foreign languages, why not accents ?

 

[roddglenn]

It sounds very similar to Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips...

Being immortal isn't all it's cracked up to be. Life's hard for a Greek god in 21st century London, as Apollo is about to discover...

 

[Wiglaf]

Change the font or use italics.
See now I, how do you say? Have a accent.


Or would Italics, be a Roman accent?
I forget; ask Ace he's a Scottish Roman.