I'd love to read your story, but the first line of dialogue made me want to kill myself.

[rusty_halo]

Dear clueless fanfic writers,

Please do not write out characters' accents. I already know they're from various regions of Britain. There's no need to replace every "h" with an apostrophe. Just capture the rhythm and cadence of their speech, use words that they'd be likely to use, and it'll sound like them.

Plus, I'll be able to read it without wanting to bang my head into my desk repeatedly.

Sincerely,

Me

[Cross-posted to InsaneJournal]

Comments

[elinora.livejournal.com]

'eer now. Ow'ur yoo tu know whure A'm from, then?

[chloris67.livejournal.com]

Oh Yes - I lost track how many Spike fics that I just closed immediately because they wrote out his accent, usually the wrong one too! And it's not just limited to fanfiction, I've visited a fair number of mommy blogs where I can't figure out just what the kid is supposed to be saying.

[bloodypoetry.livejournal.com]

It makes me cringe with mortification, but I was guilty of that when I first starting ficcing. I really need to go edit those and save myself some face eh?

*shudder*

And yes, now I can't read stories that do it either, cause god it's annoying.

[mrmonkeybottoms.livejournal.com]

Word.

[dalmeny]

Amen.