localsofa

The radio drama "Eden's Log" has just opened auditions for its pilot episode!

Roles:

Eden

Folke

Darryl

Patron 1 / Background chatter

Beta writer

Summary:

This script serves as Eden's personal log and confessional.

Within this story, the world undergoes "resets", where time will jump back 5 to 10 minutes before it hit. This causes people to lose memories, and if someone has been forgotten by everyone around them, they become highly unstable and lose their sense of self. They begin to roam the country, desperate for someone to remember them. 

Eden has experience with these creatures, and tries to shield her loved ones from them the best she can. However, this changes as she meets Folke, someone with all the signs of someone fading away. Deperate to keep everyone safe, she hides her past before the consequences catch up and she is forced to flee town with a ragtag group of strangers and one very confused Folke. 

Throughout the story, Eden's log starts to become more of a way to remember what happened before the resets and acts as a failsafe to not forget those close to her. 

This project is highly experimental and serves as a way to develop the characters of the main book and all artistic skills. All input is appreciated and welcomed.

Contact:

For any questions or other enquires, feel free to reach out through this blog or via Discord (where I'm most active)! :)

This project has a connected Discord server.

Discord: couch @/localsofa

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i've been really interested in idiolects in fictional dialogue recently and since it's winter break now (before exams..... hilf mir....) i had some time to type it up!

i will be using austrian german as an example (because who needs sources if you're your own source am i right) but if someone is interested in the studies i used i can link them :)

1. General

2. Nationality

3. Phonetics

characters having a noticable accent in english can lead to some misunderstandings!

one real life example i had some time ago was saying "dey" instead of "they" in passing, and a friend thought i said "day". subtle misunderstandings in character interactions can create a more lifelike feel in your writing.

to add a personal touch, you could use apostrophes at the end of some words to mimic their speech pattern! just make sure to not go overboard, because it can become tiring to read - there's also personal preference.

4. Syntax

another interesting one imo. especially with gendered language, there are so many nuances you could add down to what adjectives they use to describe objects and how that links to their gender (yes it's not syntax but shhh).

the other one if pretty straight forward - some slavic languages also don't have a given order for wh-question words (who, what...). switching up the order in english could be one of their idiolect traits!

5. Lexis

WORDS!! that second one is a personal problem i have from studying in the uk.... they say aldi, the germans say aldi.... we for some reason say hofer. always takes a bit to get used to

6. Further Research

are you also a linguistics enjoyer? do you also want to make your work ridiculously detailed? welcome to the cool kids club!

7. Extra Factors

this one is a bit more complicated, just because it means you have to thoroughly know your character's backstory!

it can definitely help with making their dialogue sound more alive and human - even if they are nonhuman, what in their speech could give that away? do they have any effects in their voice? any patterns?