Monday, April 14, 2008

writing in a southern accent

I'm submitting a story for the Traver Award today and I've been debating whether to write in a southern accent for one of the characters or not. I decided against it. But here is an excert before I changed it back to standard spelling.

Is this obnoxious? Some of my favorite writes do it (Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Denis Johnson) and I love accents. I think they add a lot to a character. But I think for a contest for a mainstream fishing magazine it may hurt.

“Ok. All rot. Fon. I was jus’ excited about gettin’ to fish fo some while trout on a famous reeva. I suppose I’m a little ahead of myself. Thanks for the pointers I gayess.”

He turned and began to walk away. I made two false casts and dropped the fly at the head of the run about five feet in front of a previous rise and mended the line. A small fish rose and the man heard the splashing and turned around.

“I stood here for two hours and didn’t catch a thing. Now you come up and WAYAM! on your first cayist!”

................

“Yeah, pretty crowded up there by the hatchery. That’s why I came down hee err, try an’ get away from ‘um.”

“Then I came wading right into your hole. Sorry about that.”

“That’s all rot. I wasn’t catchin’ anything anyway. You were catchin’ ‘em pretty good though.”

“Yeah, I was doing ok. You really have to use tiny flies and small tippet. These fish are super selective.”

“I gayess so.”

7 comments:

Brian said...

Personally, I'd never write in a southern accent. There are much sexier accents to choose from.

Anonymous said...

who's the character? deputy dawg?

Matthew D Dunn said...

Brian: I know how you hate your secret southern accent. I'm sorry you feel that way. I quite like southern accents.

Anonymous: yes. The character is actually Deputy Dawg. I'm impressed with your keen, analytical eye.

Unknown said...

Deputy Dog? What? I thought it was me!!!

I liked the snippet and would like to read the rest of it sometime.

Brian said...

"I gayess so."

I knew it!

Anonymous said...

brian said: "I gay..."
did brian come out on singthebodyelectric?

Anonymous said...

Worst southern accent I've ever read. Sounds like Gomer Pyle talking in a fake southern accent.