Sam

[sophinisba]

I'm concerned that Sam is being neglected in my hobbit fics and suspect it's because I don't know how to write him or am scared to write him, and I need practice. Please to be commenting with prompts involving Sam, which I may or may not answer in comments or in new posts or, um, something. Also please share any thoughts or helpful hints about how he can be written well.

Comments

[sophinisba]

It's funny because I think of myself as a language geek too, but I can't get excited about dialects in English. I think what all of you are saying makes sense. I do find this fandom to be a pretty supportive place for the most part, and I'm all for experimenting and trying new things, but it's true that Sam's speech is one of the things I've found a little daunting. I'm not really tempted to make his accent part of the way I write. When I read things with the spelling changed to reflect an accent it tends to look exaggerated to me and distracts from what the story's really about. I have run into other people who seem to say "Don't try to write in dialect because YOU WILL FAIL OMG" and that's a little discouraging, but I think what you're saying is more "Don't feel that you need to write Sam's dialect because there are other things that are more important," and that is very helpful.

I also thank you very much for the other things you said about him in your first comment.

And I scribbled about taters in my notebook this morning, will see if it comes to any more than that. :D Thanks a lot.