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20. EDITING DIALOGUE: PART 2 DIALOGUE IN HISTORICAL FICTION

© Sherry-Anne Jacobs

In my last article, I discussed ways of editing dialogue. You’ll still need to bear in mind what I said there, but each genre also presents its own specific problems to the writer. In this and the articles which follow, I’ll focus on the three genres I’ve been published in for long fiction: historical, science fiction/fantasy and romance. For other genres, I’m afraid I can offer less expertise, but the articles will give you some clue about the sort of things to watch out for.

In this article we’ll concentrate on some aspects of dialogue in historical fiction.

BALANCING ACT There is no utterly correct way to use dialogue in historical fiction. It depends on your period, sub-genre (eg romance or historical detective) and your author’s voice. The main thing to realise is that when writing any type of historical novel, you have to do a balancing act between getting a flavour of the period, making the speech instantly clear to modern readers (otherwise it slows down the tension and spoils the story-telling) and yet avoiding modern slang and catchphrases.

Again, if in doubt, read the dialogue aloud. If still in doubt, leave out the phrase you’re not sure of. English is such a rich language, you can always find another way to say something. Don’t risk your words jarring on the reader. You want to keep your readers on side.

AVOID STAGEY TALK You should be very wary indeed of dropping ‘antique-sounding’ words into the dialogue. Forsooth, Prithee, Egad all sound ‘stagey’ and artificial. Avoid them like the plague. Similarly you should avoid trendy modern phrases like “Get a life!”

REFERENCE BOOKS How do you know what was in vogue in each period? I use the Penguin ‘Dictionary of Historical Slang’ very regularly indeed. And I take my own advice: if I can’t find the date of usage of a slang word or phrase I don’t use it, but say something else instead.

Since I’m writing for the UK market primarily, I also use the Shorter Oxford Dictionary (two huge volumes which cost me an arm and a leg) which gives the date a word came into use. For US markets you may prefer a Webster’s Dictionary – I have one of those as well, in three volumes. I spend rather a lot of money on reference books, I will admit. If you can’t afford a dictionary that gives you this sort of information, then save up your word queries and go to the nearest library whenever necessary.

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