Since I arrived in Saskatchewan, I have had the chance to hear stories about World War I from the children or grandchildren of French soldiers. They are very inspiring stories and I want to write something based on them.
That made me think about historical romances. The only scary thing with doing something set in a specific period is the possible anachronisms. I know that the solution is research. It is not very hard to avoid the wrong facts. What I find harder is the language. What should be done? Should we try to make our characters speak and write how people spoke and wrote at the time? It sounds possible for about up to two centuries ago but earlier than that becomes a bit tricky. I read many historical romances and they avoid modern slangs but they don't speak in middle english or early modern english. They simply give them a correct modern english.
But what if they are supposed to be from a specific region. If my character is from 1900s Marseille, how should he write his letters? Thinking about this issue reminded me of the play Zone from Quebec. It is about two teenagers in the city of Montreal in the 50s. It was written in a nice academic french. When we studied it in high school, my teacher had a lot of contempt for it because of the language. She thought that Michel Tremblay was so great because he wrote the way people really speak in Quebec. However, I read many books that don't respect the local dialect and I still think that they are good books.
Furthermore, there are disadvantages to writing in a local dialect. What about the comprehension? And when it is not your own dialect or something you have really been exposed to, you will very likely make mistakes in the portrayal of that dialect. That seems worse to me than writing in a standard english.
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