One of my characters uses slang the whole way through my novel with the result that I have a lot of 'misspelt' words such as 'runnin' 'shootins' 'killins' - ie he doesn't pronounce the 'g'. Also for example - 'I'd like ta think' and 'yer' for 'your'.
Is it normal to make them stand out from the main body of the text (Eg italicise), or simply leave them as they are? From my reading experience, the likes of Roddy Doyle and others haven't taken any steps to distinguish slang from correct usage.
This really confuses me. Any help appreciated!

I would just treat the words as normal dialogue - ie, without the italics.
If you are missing off the -g there should be an apostrophe: talkin', runnin'.


- NaomiM

Yes, just treat it as normal dialogue. I would say, though, that it usually pays to go gently with variant spellings, as they do slow the reader down, and the more words are non-standard, the slower it reads and therefore, paradoxically, the less lively the dialogue seems, just when you want it to be more lively - see the near-incomprehensible cockney you get in 1930s detective novels, for instance.

As with any dialect (and very colloquial speech is a kind of dialect, after all) if you pick the right vocabulary and order it convincingly, the reader will hear the accent, without you needing to scatter it with dropped aitches and ings or phonetic spellings. It's not as if how we spell RP is exactly phonetic...

Emma

Useful info Naomi and Emma - thank you.

Just a query - the plurals - eg shoootin's - still have an apostrophe?

That's one element I was very careful with - not putting too much of an emphasis on it so that it would slow down the reading.

Dialect/slang is always a sticky field.

Yes, I would say if you're spelling it with an apostrophe as as a singular it should have an apostrophe as a plural, because the g is missing (not, of course, a greengrocer's apostrophe for being a plural).

Emma

Just a query - the plurals - eg shoootin's - still have an apostrophe?

I'm glad Emma's answered that, because I had no idea.


- NaomiM

thanks again