I just finished NaNoWriMo last month, and it was an
exhilarating experience. Of course, just
like any other, there are positive and negatives, but I feel that the positives
greatly outweighed the negative.
And while participating, there’s the chance of hearing
advice on how to increase word count if you’re nearing the end of the month and
you still haven’t gotten quite there.
Advice like giving your character two names as a first name. Or deleting contractions, making them two
words.
Now this advice I find very interesting because that’s
exactly what I did the first time I wrote a novel. It was set in an older time period, so I
assumed to make it sound ‘older,’ I should delete all of the contractions. I also thought it would make my character
sound more sophisticated because she's royalty.
Basically, I made it sound stale and stiff.
Dialogue is something that flows naturally, and yes, there
are some people who may not use contractions as often, but more often than not,
they’re going to escape at some point.
And when writing narrative, it’s incredibly dull to read something that
doesn’t have any contractions at all. I’ve
read some drafts for betas who have left out contractions and I found it
difficult to feel pulled into the story.
It almost felt as though I was being held at arm’s length.
This post is short because I want to know your
opinions. When you read, do you notice contractions
at all? Do you think that not using them
sounds more formal or more ‘writerly?’
Even my stiffest, most formal characters use their share of contractions. It's about what you said -- sounding natural. Sometimes it's natural for them to break the words in two, other times it's not. The best advice I can give on the matter is to try to really listen to your characters speak. Don't write what you think they /ought/ to say, write what you /hear/ them say. Doing that, my casual ones will sound casual, and my formal ones will sound formal, all without any of them sounding stilted and fake. ...unless, you know, they're /supposed/ to sound a little stilted for story reasons, such as perhaps they're not speaking their first language or something.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your input! And I agree, it's important to pay attention to how the character sounds, rather than what we wish they would sound like. :)
DeleteI tried this for one of my characters because it would be more authentic. But it just sounds odd. I like the contractions for YA characters. So much more readable.
ReplyDeleteVery true. In YA especially, it's important for the reader to be able to identify with the character.
DeleteI have never heard someone ask this question-very interesting. What I love most is the believability of the voice. If one writes about Southern America but has no contractions it wouldn't make any sense. I think of books like The Help which marvelously captures the dialect of the South. I have often wondered if our culture is too afraid of offending to write in dialect, be it Southern, international, whatever. If it is done well and with respect to the culture, it pulls me in.
DeleteIn my historical romance the characters are a lot less prone to contractions because I think that is appropriate for the time period. However, in my contemporary writing all the characters speak in contractions to varying degrees based on their social background and standing.
ReplyDeleteA lack of contractions, for me at least, is a very formal (and dare I say archaic) mode of speech.
A lack of contractions makes both dialogue and writing sound stilted and unnatural.
ReplyDeleteI will take out contractions for someone who's very formal, like a knight, but it becomes part of their voice, their accent. And I don't do it very often. (I'm a Fantasy writer, btw)
I notice it immediately. It feels distant and impersonal when an author refuses to use contractions, even in the narrative. I often find it in my older writing, before I started reading my writing out loud. When you read out loud you catch the awkwardness of the missing contractions more easily.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed the lack of contractions in movies, such as the last Sherlock Holmes (never read the books) with Robert Downing Jr. and Jude Law. "I have not seen" and "I cannot imagine" just sound right in that setting, and with those British accents. I guess it has to match the time and place. Today, hardly anyone speaks without contractions.
But...for two of my characters in A Selfish Moment, I excluded the contractions because English was their second language. It was an older couple with thick Spanish accents. They were arguing, and some of the words chosen were awkward, and contractions were out of the question. It made the dialog feel just right for them. I had fun with that scene. :-)