“Excep’ talk. I’d forgot that. You ain’t asked to talk more’n you’ve a mind to aboard the We’re Here. Keep your eyes open, an’ help Dan to do ez he’s bid, an’ sechlike, an’ I’ll give you—you ain’t wuth it, but I’ll give—ten an’ a ha’af a month; say thirty-five at the end o’ the trip. A little work will ease up your head, and you kin tell us all abaout your dad an’ your ma an’ your money afterwards.”
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling, 1897
A century or so ago dialects and accents featured heavily in fiction. Then the fashion changed. Perhaps people found reading accents hard going, or realized that sometimes the dialogue was flattened by striving for effect or that the attempt was wildly inaccurate.
If you’ve ever heard Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins attempting a Cockney accent you’ll know what I mean.
Nowadays the flavour of an accent is hinted at, and at its best, achieved by the rhythm of the writing. Mary Jane Staples wrote pitch perfect Cockney.
Sammy, practical though he was, could not help being touched by the request. He said, “In consideration of you being a credit to me business, Miss Brown, I am happy to inform you I’ll use me highly regarded influence on your behalf.”
King of Camberwell by Mary Jane Staples (pseudonym for Reginald Thomas Staples)
Dialogue is difficult. When you’re writing it well a reader should be able to tell who’s talking even without tags. However, it’s possible to go too far in that direction and end up with a caricature rather than a character. Also, when a scene is moving swiftly, unobtrustive tags (who-saids and actions) are necessary to avoid confusion. Dialogue can’t do everything.
Basically I think of dialogue as poetry: when you get it right, it sings!
