establishes a unique voice for a novel's characters. I thoroughly enjoy listening to novels where certain characters speak in a language peculiar to a specific geographical region.
I feel strongly that the use of accents and dialects adds to the authenticity of dialogue. Employing significant research, I applied this concept to several characters:
- Top Sergeant Douglas MacCallum who occasionally reverts to a Scottish burr: "Stap yer havering . . . geggies . . . lugs . . . heid doon arse up"
- Pfc Dusty Coleman who always speaks cowboy and tells his family's western history in the language of the Old West: “Daddy dobewalled him good and proper . . .”
- Pvt. Red Murphree and his family's Irish brogue makes for a realistic scene set in Ireland in 1916: “I can’t just sit around here pullin’ me plum, Da.”
- Pvt. Anthony Modifica brings his New Yawk accent to bear in a hilarious encounter with Lt. Kenneth Remain: “Dis woim has gotta toyn, Sir. She means everting in da woild ta me, Sir”
- Recruiting officer, CWO Michael T. McClatchey’s Irish brogue spices up a recruiting station interview: “We do the Lord’s work, we do. And to do that work, we need an abundance of killers—an exquisite irony, that.”