Dialects: How to Write in a New Voice

If you’re a fiction writer, you’ve probably run into the age-old problem of characters’ voices blending together until their conversations resemble nothing more than an echo chamber of yours. 

Crafting character voices is a struggle, and many writers also face the added challenge of writing a character with a dialect different from their own. Messing up one character’s accent has the potential to not only derail the entire narrative but also reflects poorly on the writer, so finding the right voice is vital. The last thing a writer wants to do is offend their audience with an offensive portrayal of their dialect.

Luckily, there are a few basic dos and don’ts that can be followed by any writer to ensure their phonologically diverse characters read like real human beings.