Newsletter 07/26/04

Watch Your Language Please

This editorial is appropriate for all genres, but seems to be particularly suited to fantasy. Despite the title, this only has a limited amount to do with profanity, although that can be a part of the problem. What concerns me is the speaking styles of characters, particularly when the speaking style does not match the story.

For example, you are reading a medical thriller, and the two doctors start their first conversation with, "Yo dude!"
"Yo, bro. How goes it?"
"Radical man. How's by you?"
"Rocking. I just did the most wicked triple bypass..."

Does this help your suspension of disbelief, or does it bring the suspension along with the entire chassis and probably a small Kansas farm house crashing down on your reading enjoyment? Granted it's made worse by the fact that my slang is about ten years out of date, but even ten years ago this wouldn't have sounded right coming from a professional. I know when I read things like that I cringe. Dialogue should be appropriate to the characters.

In Fantasy stories, this can be particularly bad. I have read a number of stories supposedly set in a high fantasy, Middle Ages Europe sort of setting, with the sort of dialogue I quoted above. I just didn't fit. I know Hollywood is particularly bad for this sort of thing, but it's creeping into literature (well writing anyway) too. I think it's a very nasty trend, and I for one would like to see it stopped.

So, please, I beg of you, when you are writing dialogue, think carefully about how the characters should speak. You don't have to spread thees and thous throughout a story, but do avoid modern slang terms, culturally specific colloquialisms, and other parts of a language that really don't fit the genre, the setting or the characters.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reading.