Dialect and accents have always presented a particular problem to writers. In the 19th century it was common to lay it on thick, complete with phonetic spellings. Not so today. If you drop heavy dialect into the middle of a narrative that has been relatively easy to read, the reader will likely get frustrated. Tread lightly here. When making a dialect decision between verisimilitude and artful indication, many new writers choose the former, rationalizing that this makes the dialogue all the more "real." This is almost always the wrong way to go. Here are some better ways to approach the challenge of dialect:

1. Give a straight, narrative indication of the character's accent and let the reader�s imagination take it from there. Thriller writer David Morrell does this in The League of Night and Fog:

"Have you got any luggage?"

"Just what I'm carrying."

"Then let's get out of here." The man's Canadian accent made "out" sound like "oot."

Most readers are familiar enough with a Canadian accent to mentally "fill in" the dialect through the rest of the dialogue.

2. Instead of trying to recreate the actual sound of a dialect, play with the word order and syntax. Here's a "normal" version:

"Excuse me. Can you tell me, please, how far it is to the ocean?"

Compare:

"Excuse. Please to tell, how far to ocean?"

Only a few words have been dropped or rearranged, but it is quite enough to give the impression of a non-native speaker.

3. Use key words and phrases to imply the dialect. See, for example, Bret Lott's Jewel. Lott, a man, writes in the first person voice of a Southern woman from the 1940s. Here is the opening line:

I was born in 1904, so that when I was pregnant in 1943 I was near enough to be past the rightful age to bear children.

The words "rightful age" are dialect, and dropped in without fanfare. It creates a cadence and sense of place and character. Jewel tells her husband she won�t have another child, and he asks what makes her think so:

I said, "Doesn't take divining, not after five," and I paused.

"Divining" is another indicator of place and time. And so on throughout the book�no strain, but enough indication to keep the reader in tune with the character/narrator.