Inner dialogue - with or without accent?

[Weyl`n]

While writing my second (ohhhhh) in-character post on Tazlure I came to realize that my character had not one, but three "voices":

His dwarven native tongue, which would have its typical flair with the "'ere"s and the "ye"s and the "fer"s often associated with their kind. This he was proficient with. Then there was the human tongue, which at its basic level would share some of the "accents" from his dwarven tongue but be somewhat lacking in vocabulary and grammar. Perhaps as he gets more proficient in the tongue he will develop a different kind of accent for it, who knows - after all, part of learning a spoken language is imitation and who you learn from (or interact with extensively) has an effect on your own output. I've caught myself speaking English with a faint Texan or British accent myself depending on who I've been talking to (and English isn't my native tongue). In any case - the third voice was formed by the thoughts going around in my character's mind. After a bit of deliberation I decided not to apply an accent to his thoughts.

I don't think I think with an "accent" in real life, since I'm not considered to speak an accented version of my native tongue. Or, well... atleast I don't. It's those other people in other parts of this country that have regional accents They probably don't think they think with an accent, either - the way they speak (and think) comes naturally to them.

But from who's perspective should we as writers look at writing inner dialogue? Do you write it as if you were the character and the only one privy to his thoughts, in which case you do not use accent? Or do you write it with the assumption that their thoughts are being observed the same way as their speech would - by an outsider, who might make note of a distinct accent and link it with that particular character? In our case, the reader? Does it "break the spell" to remove an accent typical to a character's speech from his thoughts?

[Kaelara Mentahn]

For myself, and writing, I tend to write my character's dialogue and 'thoughts' in the same accent. Purely for consistency. I've not really had a character with a strong accent, either, (I wouldn't even know where to begin with Adhiel), but I did have a Dortese character at one point, who I imagined with a scot/irish accent. If I didn't write her 'voice' consistently, and was constantly switching between things, it made it more difficult to be consistent with the things I did write as an accent.

That's just me though - I wouldn't presume to know what's best for others! Everyone has their own style.

[Talanwei Fortisse]

I personally don't because Tal is rather proper in his speech. I guess if I had a character who spoke less formal or had specific speech patterns that included slang or words from a different language I would incorporate them. My Tal probably thinks in Adhiel but of course I write out that in English.

When I first started I didn't RP his lack of knowledge for speaking Common because I didn't know any better. Therefore poor Tristam had to fudge over the progression of that skill so my IC would go smoothly because I'm a bonehead

*shrug* Anyway, I guess I just go with how he talks aloud...

[Quinlan Corodin]

While Quinlan doesn't have an accent that could really be shown through creative spelling (no yer, fer, or cockney sort of things) if he did I would reflect it in his thoughts too. It's consistent, and it further highlights the fact that they are his actual thoughts. Of course, I think it also depends on just how you're writing.

When I'm writing, I tend to see two different ways that a character's thoughts are written in my posts. Take, uh...Roy the Cockney Cook for example.

Roy decided he would prepare fish and chips for his friends.

That's for general feelings, summarizing thoughts.

I know, I'll make fish an' chips fer me mates, thought Roy.

That's for specific and/or important thoughts, usually.

Also, think about this. When I think in complete sentences, they're arranged the same way I speak. A spanish speaker thinks in spanish, a french person in french, and so on. I think if we could wire a speaker to someone's head and actually listen to them thinking, if you will, it actually would sound like it does when they talk.

Expanding the subject, when you do write your character's thoughts, how do you make it clear that it's their actual thoughts, rather than speech or something else. Myself, speech goes in "...", thoughts go in italics. Quotes inside of either one - like repeating what some other character said - go inside '...'

[Hastarl Ras'diath]

I don't know if I add any english flavored accent to my characters inner dialogue, and it would be hard to see as I rather reflect Hastarls bad knowledge in common by writing badly. This is an actual quote from a thread (I know it's horrible).

To the young man he said: "That'll doo. If wee can get the transportaisjon naw, we shud do it tonaight. Else we shud do it tommorrow naight."

However, when I write thoughts I write proper english as he think adhiel, as with Talanwei.

[Talanwei Fortisse]

When he's thinking something, I separate it as with a new paragraph and normally bold it to draw attention to it. I don't slap quotes on it, but I always follow a stream of thought with a definite indication that it's that interior dialogue.

[Raevyn D`Altamooriana]

Nope, but I'm lazy. However I can say that when I posting with Rae, I do imagine her speech sounding like, and subsequently thoughts, to Milla Jovovich.

[Turi]

One of my characters 'thinks' in a manner that is very similar to his speech. Since what goes on in his head is fairly similar to what comes out of his mouth I like to keep the two consistent. The other one's a prevaricating little sod with a speech impediment - I wouldn't dream of trying to do the same with her.

[Weyl`n]

The comments are much appreciated - in fact, it has made me realize that accent (separate as it is from actual choice of words and word order) would have to be part of someone's thinking process. Even if they don't "think" they are thinking with an accent (which was the reason why I originally decided not to use accent in inner dialogue), they would still utilize the same understanding of how words are pronounced in their head as they would in their speech. I mean, if all your life you've been taught to say (and heard others say) "fer" instead of "for", you're not all of the sudden going to use the "for" pronunciation in your thinking. How would you even know of it? I think it's still ok not to use accent in thoughts, but this was a sort of revelation to me that I hadn't thought of before (strangely enough). I'll have to give some further thought to wether I'll want to put accent back into my character's thoughts or not.

I did come up with another situation where the accent would be dropped, however: when writing. I don't know about you but when I write something I tend to think through the words I'm going to write in my mind. That's probably pretty common However, regardless of what accent someone might use in their head, what they write down comes out without it. What remains - as I originally thought to happen in my "inner dialogue without accent" assumption - is the choice of words and word order typical to that character. Someone might be thinking "Indeed I thank ye fer yer kind words" but writing "Indeed I thank you for your kind words". The accent would be gone, but the rest of the sentence would carry through in a way typical to that character (unless of course there was a need to sound more polite or educated in the letter than they typically would when talking to someone).

Expanding the subject, when you do write your character's thoughts, how do you make it clear that it's their actual thoughts, rather than speech or something else. Myself, speech goes in "...", thoughts go in italics. Quotes inside of either one - like repeating what some other character said - go inside '...'

In my past games I've grown used to indicating dialogue with "doublequoted, bolded text where extra weight or importance has been indicated with italics" (in some cases color has been used instead of bold text).Thoughts have traditionally been indicated with 'singlequoted, italicized text where extra weight or importance has been indicated with regular text'. I've also used italics in the descriptive portion of a post to put more weight on words. Here in Tazlure color does not seem to be used and bold text is reserved for indicating characters who are referred to in the post (an ingineous idea I might add) so I've had to adapt accordingly.

I'll be using the same " ... ' ... ' ... " structure for speech and quoted speech or text as before (just without bold text or color), but thoughts will no longer use single quotation marks. Instead they'll simply be written in italics. This does mean that when I want to put more weight on certain words I'll be forced to use italics as well, which might be mistaken for thoughts. I'm hoping that if my character ever runs into a mind reader their player will not hesitate to confirm which parts of my posts were thoughts and which not, if they're not obvious.

Oh, and some of you noted that regardless of your characters' native tongue you write all your thoughts in English - same here. I think it's the logical thing to do since the story is being told to an English-reading audience. Using foreign words for effect, such as when cursing or trying to "fish" for a word the character knows in his native tongue but can't remember in human (English), are of course a nice touch.

[Maeve]

I write the character Rosalie Lo Russo and half of her mouthie slang is only used in thoughts (curses mostly while she smiles sweetly) so it would cut out the fun if she didn't think in her lingo

[Amber Kynterle]

While neither Amber or Reise - my two characters - speak with any sort of accent (they both use the simple Human language), I have written many other characters that have accents. While in RPGs, I don't often use thoughts (since I don't always like to tip my characters' hands to other players), I do use thougths quite commonly in other writings. In every case that I can think of, my characters have thought with the same accent they speak with.

Just as I tend to think using the same terms and slang and dialect that I speak with, I would imagine that my characters would function in much the same way. While it *does* sound normal to them, reverting from their spoken accent to "proper English" in their thoughts would be wholly alien to them. At least, that's how I would see it.

So yes, I do write my characters' thoughts using the same accents they speak with.

[Grey Wolf]

You usually speak the way you think. Thus, my chars have the same though pattern as they speak. That did not apply to the gnome though, since he usually spoke in Common and was a gnome and thus his inner monologue was much clearer than his speech. But, it would have been the same as his spoken words had he met a gnome and spoke in their native tongue.

[Raevyn D`Altamooriana]

You usually speak the way you think. Thus, my chars have the same though pattern as they speak. That did not apply to the gnome though, since he usually spoke in Common and was a gnome and thus his inner monologue was much clearer than his speech. But, it would have been the same as his spoken words had he met a gnome and spoke in their native tongue.

I miss that gnome.

[Shaeliana]

As someone illustrated above, it would depend on if you are writing your characters thoughts from a first person perspective or as a narrative. First person- his thoughts would be like his speech, since speaking is a reflection of our thinking. However, in narrative mode it would not be accented. I tend to write my character's thoughts in narrative mode most of the time so accents aren't an issue.

[Sevti]

I'll be using the same " ... ' ... ' ... " structure for speech and quoted speech or text as before (just without bold text or color), but thoughts will no longer use single quotation marks. Instead they'll simply be written in italics. This does mean that when I want to put more weight on certain words I'll be forced to use italics as well, which might be mistaken for thoughts. I'm hoping that if my character ever runs into a mind reader their player will not hesitate to confirm which parts of my posts were thoughts and which not, if they're not obvious.

I don't think you'll need to worry too much about anyone confusing emphasized words for thoughts. As a general rule, you don't find just one word of thinking in the middle of either dialog or description. Of course, I could be wrong and people could have been thinking Sev's cracked with these stray thoughts showing up anywhere. (No comments from the peanut gallery on whether Sev is or is not cracked!!! :p)

In answer to your question, I don't really write with an accent for Sev at all. I think it's because she speaks primarily human, with a fair amount of adhiel thrown in. The people she speaks with speak her own tongue. That's not to say that she doesn't have her own voice and her own way of speaking. It's just not what I would consider an accent, per se. So her thoughts - while much more random than her actual speech and far, far more run on - fall into the same vein.

[Reinhard]

Aye matey, I do be speaking in accents!