'How do you write accents?'

Expert writing advice from the world’s most talented unpublished author.

Dear Daniel,

Do you have any advice on how to write a character with an accent? I’m trying to avoid resorting to writing clunky, stereotypical dialogue!

Daniel says:

This is a question I am asked often, perhaps because I have skilfully included many accented characters in my works. There are several reasons why a character might speak with an accent; for example, they might come from a certain place, or they may have been involved in a car accident that has left them with Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS). Whatever the reason, it is your job as a writer to portray the accent in a way that is both culturally sensitive and non-distracting for the reader.

While some writers choose to write accented dialogue phonetically (“Ze body was found in ze woods zis morning? ’Ow did zat ’appen? Ze area was checked only yesterday. Sumsing iz wrong ’ere.”), I believe this is not only distracting, but often borderline offensive. Instead, I prefer to subtly signpost a character’s accent and nationality withou…