Writing Dialogue and Class
Write Better Now
We’ve started a series about writing dialogue. If you want to see past posts about this, just go the site and search “dialogue,” OK?
Let’s go!
LANGUAGE IS A ROAD MAP OF CULTURE AND CHARACTER
A way that authors don’t always think of how dialogue plays into character is that, as Rita Mae Brown says, “LANGUAGE is the road map of a culture.”
How your characters talk, the words they choose or don’t, the way they verbally respond can tell a lot of things about where they come from, who they want to be, as well as just the regular old information that dialogue often imparts.
Language is a road map of culture but it’s also a road map of character.
As Brown says, “It tells you where its people come from and where they are going. A study of the English language reveals a dramatic history and astonishing versatility. It is the language of survivors, of conquerors, of laughter.
“A word is more like a pendulum than a fixed entity. It can sweep by your ear and through its very sound suggest hidden meanings, preconscious associations. Listen to these words: 'blood,' 'tranquil,' 'democracy.' Besides their literal meanings, they carry associations that are cultural as well as personal.”
Are there words that when you think of, you get shivers? Get angry? Become braver? Cower? That will happen to your characters, too. Words have impact.
LANGUAGE USE IS A BIG DEAL AND SO ARE WORDS
Being able to use language is a big deal, right? You use it to think, to express, to communicate. It also can leaves hints about you that it doesn’t take a Sherlock to figure out.
“Just imagine, on average, humans can only pronounce a single word clearly and correctly by the time they reach eighteen months of age. Two years later, their vocabulary expands to about 50 words. Within three years, it grows to 1,000 words. At that point, they can already string these words into short sentences with proper grammatical structures. Afterward, the influx of words into their vocabulary continues until it reaches approximately 13,000 words by the age of six. When they turn eighteen, they already know about 60,000 words,” writes Hendy Wijaya, MD on Medium.
So many words and they have all come from somewhere.
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE DIVISION (IN SIMPLIFIED FORM)
Brown, a mystery writer from a few decades ago, spent a lot of time explaining the connotations of culture in dialogue and word usage to other writers. She often talked about how socio-economic divisions are reflected in the words that are chosen. I see this all the time in my own life on a regional level. I’m from New England. Shaun, my spouse, is from Florida. We use a lot of different words and phrasing.
There is a lovely man on social platforms who has quick videos about Southern words and what they mean. He also discusses Southern culture.
It’s easy to get sucked into the rabbit hole that is Landon’s gentle voice, but the split of the English language isn’t a Southern/Northern/United States split, but something much older.
According to Brown when the Battle of Hastings occurred in 1066, English had a major division into High English and Low English.
“These divisions are with us to this very day and provide the subtle shadings of meaning available to a writer through careful word choice alone,” she writes.
“High English is Latin - really Latin that came through French, which the Normans spoke. When the Normans took over, everything that was Anglo-Saxon was ruthlessly shoved aside. Culture was Latin. . . . So if you were a lord and sat down to a feast you ate beef. The poor peasant tending what was your meat called it an ox. Cow when it hits the table becomes veal. Sheep becomes mutton and swine becomes pork. Deer when eaten is venison and boar is brawn. The division was clear and will be with us as long as English is spoken. One reason the Anglo-Saxon words survived at all is because the native population was not killed but utilized as workers. Another reason Anglo-Saxon survived is that the people themselves proved more resilient, flexible and intelligent than William the Conqueror and his progeny could have imagined.
“A writer can create and develop a character through her or his use of dialogue. An upper-class person will draw from a more Latinate word pool and use more subordinate clauses and longer, less volatile speech rhythms. A character from the lower classes will use more Anglo-Saxon words, much more colorful speech patterns and shorter, staccato rhythms unless this character is from the American South. In that case, rich and poor alike are more prone to use the rhythm of the King James Version of the Bible. Here again, the poor character will employ more Anglo-Saxon words and will probably be more emotionally direct.”
“The entrance of Latin gave us a reservoir of synonyms unlike anything else in the world. We abound in choices. Synonyms allow us shadings of class and meaning that can be textured. They can be felt, not just heard. At left is a short list of parallel words. Once they had equivalent meanings, but the centuries have pulled apart some of the synonyms, and let others remain. Brief though the list is, it gives an idea of our language's potential for nuance and deep emotion. If you've fallen through the ice you scream ''Help!'' not ''Aid!'' In times of greatest danger or heartbreak even the most aristocratic of people will revert to Anglo-Saxon.”
LET’S QUICK BREAK THAT DOWN
Someone saying, “oh no. I’ll die,” feels a lot different than “alas, I shall perish,” or even “I perish.'“
Similarly, “Let’s give them some help” feels different than “Let us give them some aid.” One word and a contraction can make a lot of difference.
These quotes are from a NYT article back in 1987 and it lists some Anglo-Saxon and Latin synonyms to help people get a handle on things.
ANGLO-SAXON AND LATIN
woman . . . female
happiness . . . felicity
bill . . . beak
friendship . . amity
help . . . aid
folk . . . people
hearty . . . cordial
holy . . . saint
deep . . . profound
lonely . . . solitary
darling . . . favorite
love . . . charity
begin . . . commence
hide . . . conceal
feed . . . nourish
hinder . . . prevent
leave . . . abandon
die . . . perish
house . . . domicile
moon . . . lunar
watery . . . aquatic
timely . . . temporal
So, use this information. Listen to how people speak, the words they choose. Journal it down, keep a record. The more you pay attention to this, the more you see. And the more you see? The more you can use it to build bigger, cooler characters.
Oops, I mean . . .
Then you can commence using that tool to structure those more immense, more satisfying characters.
PLACES TO LEARN MORE
That TIMES article was adapted from ''Starting From Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual'' by Rita Mae Brown, to be published by Bantam Books in February. NOT QUITE SYNONYMOUS