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@noah-cochran

 I guess what I’m trying to say is that I use accents to help develop character voice, and thus I really only want some of the characters to be defined by a cultural accent.

I get what you’re trying to say, but I don’t know how much it would actually help you with character voice because your reader isn’t really hearing it. The only other option would be frequently mentioning it in the dialogue tags as you said:

What I was more referring to was describing their accent with adjectives describing the dialogue tag, not in the dialogue itself.

And yeah, that could work, but if you want to use it to define character voice you’d have to use it really often, and I personally find that more annoying than useful.

That is what I have had a great deal of trouble with thinking of how I would do it. However, just saying a accent is regional instead of describing it is the epitome of telling instead of showing (which isn’t necessarily bad), because the reader doesn’t know what that accent sounds like.

That’s a good point. I think an approach that combines the two might work best. At least, it’s what I do 😉

I mention it when the characters meet for the first time, and after that only when relevant, like when they’re trying to identify a voice without seeing someone, but then I do describe the accent if it’s unfamiliar. I don’t really do this otherwise, I describe it once and count on the reader to remember. If they don’t, it’s not really an issue.

I’ll see if I can pull up some examples.

This is a situation where the POV character doesn’t know who’s speaking and she doesn’t know the characters at all.

Also worth mentioning that she’s lived in a fairly isolated area and isn’t as familiar with the other tribes as Liorah is, so she can’t identify it right away and occasionally mistakes one for another.

The voices spoke in the common language. I wasn’t fluent, but I knew enough of it to understand them. They were deep voices, men’s voices, heavily accented, but the accents weren’t the same. One voice was gravely, the other deeper, a rocky shore of hard and soft sounds. Both were unfamiliar.

That gives the reader enough information to deduce that they’re not from the same tribe, which is the only thing I needed to cover in that paragraph. She doesn’t recognize where they’re from, so she focuses on what it sounds like instead of what it means.

(I’m not sure about that “rocky shore” phrase XD It was a while ago and I wasn’t used to this character voice yet, I might end up clarifying it. What do you think?)

This one is from the same character’s POV, describing Liorah’s accent.

The words were in the common language, and thankfully, I understood them, despite the strong, clipped accent.

Again, it’s the first time she hears her voice so that’s why she’s spending more time on it.

And here’s an example from Liorah’s POV, so she can actually identify the accent.

he said, his formal accent betraying he was of the Gitakan tribe.

She briefly describes it but mostly focuses on where he’s from because it’s already familiar.

I hope that clarified it some!

Yep, works great for me. I’m really looking forward to reading it, you are very well studied in the art of story and writing, and I can’t wait to see that knowledge in action.

Thanks! Knowing how something is supposed to work and actually getting it to work that way are two very different things though XD