Fiction Craft Blog

The standard advice for handling dialect in commercial fiction is to stick to fairly standard forms. Popular advice says that: 1) You can include more dialect in dialogue as it's not expected to be standard or "correct" 2) You can use a basic pattern to infer a strong dialect, but don't try and reproduce the dialect yourself unless you are very comfortable with it and use it. ( More on that here. ) 3) You can go "all in" and write a novel completely in nonstandard forms, but

“Write what you know” is popular advice often given to writers. That’s because it’s easier to imagine a setting you know well and write about it in a way that reflects what it really is like there. You’re less likely to make big errors that will make the story sound unbelievable or unconvincing to readers. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to do any research, and memory is fallible too, but it’s an easier option than writing beyond your experience. Setting and perspective offe