Does your novel’s cast of characters include a character who speak French, or who is French, or even one who has to don a French accent for a scene?

…Or do you need to craft a character that speaks French for whatever reason? 

Well, why shouldn’t you? It’s one of the easiest ways to add a bit of dimension to your dialogue and your character interactions. It can definitely make a scene feel more romantic, or a setting come over more exotic, or raise the stakes and turn up the peril of a situation — depending on what you need.

Matter of fact, you may even find yourself writing in a time period or scenario where your characters can’t not speak French.

(And I’ve definitely seen readers loving those little interludes.)

But it’s so easy for that to come back to bite you.

When your words or your dialogue need to sound spontaneous and just plain human, French very rarely means what Google Translate says it does. (And I’m not throwing shade; it can still be a pretty useful tool.) 

Maybe it’s just me, but fewer things will make the magic fizz out faster than a character who’s supposed to be suave or sophisticated sounding like he’s mangling middle-school-level French.

Fortunately, that can be helped!

Here’s why I’m making you, lovely writer, a standing offer: get in touch, and I’ll help you nail the French that your characters are speaking. Working together, and based on the setting and the characterisation that you’ve crafted, we’ll figure out:

•  what your character should be saying, 
•  how their accent should sound,
•  which words they’d get wrong,
•  which idioms they’d misuse or just carry over literally…

It’s little details like these that stand to make your scenes more vibrant and your characters leap off the page.

Are you ready for your French-speaking characters to be richer and more believable? Drop me a line and I’ll be happy to help.

(What’s up with the “authors and writers”? Well, my offer stands whether or not you’re published, whether or not you’re writing Proper Fiction™ or fanfiction. If you have a character, and if that character has to speak French, drop me a line and let’s make them sound good!)