Writing Applejack's Accent

[VelvetDivan 96]

I'm in the midst of writing a fanfic starring Applejack, and because I find her accent one of the most endearing things about the character, I've been working phonetically-spelled words (as well as truncating others with an apostrophe) into her dialog to reflect her accent.  I don't want to overdo it, her accent isn't overwhelming, but I want readers to hear AJ in their heads when reading the lines I've written for her.

 

Reading a few topics on FiMFiction however, it seems there's a good bit of push-back against this practice, and some people would prefer you write cleanly, leaving the accent and any drawl totally in the reader's mind.

 

What do you think?  Would you prefer to see AJ's accent spelled out somewhat, or does that distract you?

 

 

Examples of replacements:

 

I = Ah

I've = Ah've

Going = Goin'

What are = What're 

 

Along those lines.

[~StatesTheOblivious~ 1,794]

The problem with writing for Applejack is that the accent is not enough.

Sure, if you "write in her accent", people will aknowledge her as her, but what's even more important is her choice of words. Read some transcripts of a few episodes. You will see that exactly like Pinkie Pie or Rarity there are some things of her vocabulary and structure that also make her easier to distinguish from the other characters. 

 

And for myself? I don't find it that distracting. The vocabulary thing is the pro-tip and written accent is enough in the beginning  to aknowledge her as long as it's not excessive.

[VelvetDivan 96]

Agreed, you really need to work in colloquialisms and the occasional rustic saying.  You don't want her to come across as a total hayseed, because she isn't, but she does move in those circles and she's picked up a lot of lingo that more urban creatures would describe as quaint or 'charming.'    Or even 'colorful' occasionally, if you worked her up to the point of cursing.

Here are a few links that might yield some useful phrases for us...or not.  o,O

 

http://www.examiner.com/article/southern-isms-50-of-the-funniest-southern-expressions-and-colloquialisms  (Some of these are indeed...colorful.)

 

Lot of repeats in here from the link above, but a few gems, like 'I'm feeling as low as a toad in a dry well.'  http://usadeepsouth.ms11.net/southmouth.html

 

More useful: a dictionary of southern slang, http://littlerock.about.com/cs/southernlife/a/aasouthslang.htm

 

Less about accent and more about vocabulary, here's some pruning vocabulary if AJ ever gets technical about the trees she's bucking: http://www.homeorchardsociety.org/article/49/

 

General apple orchard operation information, which isn't terribly useful vocab-wise, but could be useful making AJ sound like she knows what she's talking about.  http://naturescompanion.net/article-archive/winter-articles/7-starting-your-own-orchard  http://fruit.cfans.umn.edu/apples/beforeyoustart/  Just keep in mind her production season is probably longer than we could expect given the pony-controlled weather.

[repsol rave 2,963]

i actually prefer it when people do this when writing about applejack. i think it gives the story more dept and it makes you connect with applejack in the story more. so yeah, looking foreward to reading your fic!