Is it a good idea to use broken sentence in normal dialogues?

Joined
Sep 9, 2018
Messages
131
So, i have a dragon character that just recently able to turn themselves as human. Although, they were knowledgeable in human language, they weren't able to speech perfectly like a human or other human like beings. They can use magic to talk through telephaty, but not the types who have good control over their magic.

For now, they talk like this:
“[Gratitude] [The guide] [A tip] [Give] [You]”
“[The trouble] [Apologize] [Me]”
“[Human] [Provoke] [A mistake]. [Forgive] [I shall]. [But] [The last] [I give]”

What do you think? should i kept them for uniqueness and characters variations or make them talk normally using telepathy for simplicity?
 
Group Leader
Joined
Jan 27, 2019
Messages
831
Personally as a reader, I find it kind of annoying/tedious to read. Like, for example, I read some manga that feature children so they obviously talk in baby talk/incomplete sentences bc theyre kids. It does help with the immersion and giving them character, but it's a pain in the ass to read.
That's just my 2 cents on it though. I think it's fine if it's done right/at a minimal level so that readability isn't being hindered, but go too far and it becomes hard to read.
 
Contributor
Joined
Dec 31, 2019
Messages
17,888
Is the dragon-turned-human going to play a big role in the story? Will they have a lot of telepathic dialogue?
If they're a lesser-seen secondary character, it's probably OK as is.
If they are a core or important secondary character, maybe only during their introductory chapters, then phase it out for the sake of less headaches all around (the writer and the readers).
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Feb 17, 2018
Messages
1,856
You could also do the Yoda route but I think its fine; provided you describe alot of their body language or have other characters explain their intentions
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Sep 10, 2019
Messages
2,371
as long as you don't use them for exposition, i guess that's okay.
in PSO2, there's a race identical to yours. there's this one episode consist of them doing explanation about the world and such, it's unbearable.
 
Joined
Sep 9, 2018
Messages
131
@justforthelulz They are core members of the story nearly as important as the protagonist in my story.

@Teddy Well, although they can only speaking in broken sentence, they still follows the rule of human speech of having the object, subject, and verb aided with their facial expression. Also, they don't speak much only when it's necessary to speak out of their mind

@hazzack yes, i took pso2 dragonkin as reference on their manners of speech.

As why i do their speech in that way and not using the shakespear style speech using telephatic for ancient or long living creature like any others. because usage of magic is dangerous even for trivial things as covered in my previous post about my story world setting. Tl;dr: magic corrupts you and your surrounding regardless the magic used
 
Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2018
Messages
475
I'd say as long as it makes sense and you can get what they say somehow it's good, I think, though you could always slowly have them speak less and less broken as time goes on if it feels annoying, since they prolly would get used to speaking like normal after a while, right? I mean, it takes some time to get good at something but once you get the hang of it it should be GG.

I'd say it'd feel weirder if they started broken and suddenly started speaking like a normal human in a ultra short spam of time... Or if a being who had never before had contact with humans or had human-like speaking abilities(or something similar to human vocal chords?) just had the language mastery from the start.

I mean, even if you understand a certain language or had some experience with it, usually it wouldn't be weird for someone to have trouble pronouncing certain words or understanding certain different words related to specific cultural things that are not present in their own culture... Dragons are a pretty different species and since your dragon character is not used to being able to turn into human-form since they just became able to do it, it makes more sense for them to have a certain level of difficulty while communicating o3o

But yeah if magic is that oh no and corrupts stuff, it's prolly better to avoid using it for writting conveniency of this type, I'd say. Since that kinda creates a "wait, but ain't magic like super dangerous and stuff? Totes doesn't feel like it since dragon char just magics every time they speak yo" situation for the reader... Basically, the true danger of using magic kinda gets a bit downplayed or it just feels a bit plotholey... o3o

But yeah that's just my opinion on the topic... hope to have been of some help..... o3o
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top