I am reading a novel from the library that is a light tale set in 1839 in Pennsylvania. The author is not a skillful writer. The book is "Home to Trinity, and the way the author builds the setting, the names she gives to her characters, and the expressions she uses in dialogue, are not convincing. She has a fairly interesting story line about a midwife with a 16 year-old-daughter who has run away to New York and secured employment in the home of a rich woman who helps her husband publish a newspaper. I probably will not finish the book even though I am usually very forgiving about shortcomings in novels.
What I want to know is if there are books about writing dialogue from various historical periods in various parts of the country. I think it might be fairly easy to research food, furnishings, customs, religion and transportation possibilities for any particular period or place, but how would you pin down how they talked? Would this come under linguistics?
If I wrote fiction, it probably would be about the period when the west was won, between 1820 to 1910, and I would probably try a western genre. I think I could get some idea about colloquialisms in this area, (the mountains on the border between California and Mexico,) from reading letters in the local museum archives. Does anyone know if there are books written on the subject of how people talked at certain periods in history, and in various parts of country? If so, what would you call that specialty? I want to look for such a book, but I don't even know what to request.
I know from experience of being a Navy wife and moving every two years, that people in different parts of the country used to speak very differently, and many still do. You can hear good examples from the people who call in on Washington Journal every morning. Southerners speak so differently from Northerners, both in accent and folksy phrases, that sometimes I have trouble understanding them. And people in North Dakota have their own differences. If you saw the movie "Fargo", you know what I mean. My first husband was from Grand Forks ND, but lost his colloquialisms during his 23 years in the Navy. The military has its own jargon, not all of it profane.
After WWII many people moved away from their places of origin, and accents became more alike, gentler, and homogenized because of reasons I'm not equipped to say - maybe from doing business across country, or viewing common programs on radio and TV.
My favorite novels are about pioneers, both in America and other continents. How do good authors get it right so that the reader doesn't question the descriptions and dialogue of the era being written about? Maybe somebody who has taken courses in writing, or even taught such courses has the answer and will tell me.
Flit, are you, or some other qualified authority on this subject, out there?
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Comments: 16
I'll give it some thought though ... maybe ask my sister
if you carry it through consistently - whatever IT is... it tends to work without people questioning it... but if you have lapses, they start paying attention
I have a book on the history of "bad words" so I can keep it the correct time. Also the M-W Collegiate dictionary (at least mine) has the date a word came into usage. That can be helpful if you have a questionable word.
Part of my trouble is that I am so old, I see and hear a lot of inconsistancies from the 1920's to 1960's. Everything changed in the '60s when the young people threw all the rules away.
It isn't just the words used in certain periods that can make a novel seem authentic, it is also culture. I have read novels that have wives and daughters being sassy. That would have been very improbable in the world that I knew as a child up until WWII. Some modern writers have historical women talking like mall-walkers.
If there really aren't any books giving guidelines on the subject, someone should write one.
Here's a book on amazon that has pages 39-41 on historical novels. The entire book is on dialogue. I read a bit of it on search inside feature and it seems to have good information.
There was also a fascinating book by Sol Stein that comes under the heading textbook and I saw a tickler about page 120 I wished I could have seen more of because he said "I'd like to say something about dialogue in historical novels..." and there the quote ended. ARRGGGGGGG. I hate it when that happens. Book title on this one is "Stein on Writing." Reviews are mainly 5 star.
My own opinion about historical dialogue is that you need to remember that they didn't use as many contractions as we do, and also many were illiterate. The HBO series called Tombstone was touted as being very authentic in both costumes and speech. It's pretty rough to watch, lots of violence and cursing. I found it interesting that the better educated people seemed to almost be speaking proper English of the English boarding school type. Almost flowery speech. Just an observation.
I'll keep my eyes open for a historical dialogue book for writers, too.
But, admittedly, I don't have a clue how to find resources re: historical slang but it doesn't seem to phase other authors.
I agree with Stephanie, period literature is a good resource on contemporary speech.
Even better are letters and diaries of the period.
Many historical socieities have extensive collections of letters and diaries, and I would read a few of these.
Pennsylvania, an old and once the wealthiest state, posesses enormous archives of period literature in the Cpmmonwealth Archives in Harrisburg and in hundreds of regional and municipal historical societies.
A lot of this material is available on line.
Surely, other people who are interested in this subject, have done the same in other parts of the country.
Everyone - Thank you for all your thoughtful input. I have noted it in my journal for future reference..