Young Writers Society

I think accent are fine when someone is speaking, but in the actual narrative I find it annoying, yes. It distracts me form the story.

You have many punctuation erros and typos in this piece. Sometimes I know it's just the computer, but could you somehow fix those?

Also, this is is how you're ending dialogue: "Hello." She said.

When it SHOULD be: "Hello," she said.

Just thought you should know.

As a beginning, this isn't bad. It's not boring, which is good, but, as I said to someone else earlier today, there's nothing to grab the attention. Work on that

Hope this helps some. Good luck with your writing.

KJ

I agree that you should keep the line about praying, but it's the 'without ceasing' part that bothers me. Maybe change it to:

'she would pray without rest', or:

'forever she would pray', or:

'All she had were her prayers for the little girl she was forced to leave behind.'

I like the last one best, but you choose, or think of something yourself, or keep the original! It's your piece, after all hehe!

Also, I pretty much guessed your ending! But it's just the use of a locket, why not have a charm bracelet? Or mention that she has an interesting and unique birth mark that the mother has too? Or something like a Claddagh ring? (A popular Irish ring, one of which i have on my finger right now!) Do some research, here is a site that might help you:

http://www.irishcharm.com/

You could also check out this site to find some more unique Irish sayings/superstitions that will give your story some sparkle:

http://www.the-irish-path.com/irish-superstitions.html

Research is key with historical fiction, so make sure you know what you're talking about! So far though you seem to have done well though, so don't worry! I'd never heard of that 'Daid' thing, but perhaps my Mum or Dad have, as their parents are both Irish (my Dad&Mum were actually both brought up in Birmingham tho, so they don't have Irish accents or anything.)

Sorry i can't be more help with writing the dialect. Perhaps you could research (yep! Story writing is practically homework sometimes!) about phonetics, and the phonetic alphabet? Here's a site that describes a lot about dialect. It's a little simple, but informative:

http://www.buzzin.net/english/dialect.htm

Also, I found this quote:
In Lori Wick’s Sophie’s Heart, English was the heroine’s second language. The author did a beautiful job of conveying Sophie’s accent by selectively inserting extra words and omitting others, leaving the sound of the mispronounced words to the reader’s imagination. There were no weird, distracting spellings, just a masterfully conveyed accent.
~Taken from: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/accent-and-dialect/

So, maybe you could consider loaning this book from your local library as an example?

One more site of interest is this one:
http://www.irishlanguage.net/irish/dialects.asp

It could help you to decide exactly what part of Ireland your character is from. Check the year first tho, because Northern Ireland may not have existed back then, so the names of places may have changed. My family is from somewhere called Kenagh which is the South of Ireland if you would like to use that place as a start?

Let me know how it all goes! xxx

Thank you so very much for all the help! I didn't realize how much more work it needed. Um, the locket I know is from Annie, but for my story to work it must be there. I hate to give out a spoiler, but I have no choice. This story, the prologue is centered on the mother, but when the story starts it will be several years later when the baby is grown and living with a German family that she was adopted by. Never being told she was adopted, both her (adopted) parents die. She is then put on an orphan train. There will be a little more to it, but when she gets to a little town in the west she meets her mother, and the locket is what ties her to her mother.

I got the help for an Irish brogue off "Yahoo Answers", maybe not the best place, but I couldn't' find anything else about it, I would really love some help on it though.

Oh, and "Daid" wasn't a typo, but through research what I found as the Irish name for dad, pronounced dayd. Is it incorrect? And the * was an accident.

The "Pray without ceasing", I will keep though, because this story is a story of faith. The mother will pray for her daughter's safety non stop, without ceasing.

About the letter, thank you very much for the advice, as well as all the other help:)

In Christ,
Grace

In answer to your poll (I answered 'they're OK'), I think that if only one character has an accent then it can be tolerated, or it has to be done in the right way, usually for comic effect or to illustrate class. The two main authors, that I can think of, who demonstrate a good use of accents are Charles Dickens and Brian Jacques. Both use accents comically, and to demonstrate either class, or in Jacques case, species of animal.

An example of a good use of accent on this site is this piece of romantic fiction by ana_is_a_banana: topic32353.html
It needs a little work as a piece, but it is a pleasant story and uses accents well in the character of Albert (Alby). Definitely worth a read!

Anyway, now to your piece.

as she looked into the delicate face of a little baby girl. Tears streamed down her face as she kissed the thin cheek of her baby girl.

a slight Irish brogue still noticeable in her voice.

traveling north on Elm Street, headed for one

keep the bitter winter winds out.

A single light glowed warmly in one of the windows on the lower floor of the orphanage, the light cast long shadows on the walls within.

her heart reached out to her frail baby girl.

“Aye, *mamaí loves ye…“

blankets that were wrapped

Though I hate partin’ with me darlin’ baby necessity compels me to do so. I be leavin’ her with ye, trustin’ thet ye will find her a good home. I’m leavening with her part of a locket, please make sure the locket stays with her always…though I canna stay with me daughter, a part of me will be with her always.

Take care of me dear baby girl, Bonnie Mae Watts.

selfish…besides

babies…weren’t

The young woman fell to the ground, out of sight of the orphanage,

She was starting to doubt his sincerity of just

wanting to go west to start a better life for them

but never once did she receive a letter from her young husband.

The words of her mum came flooding back to her, “Ta love someone means ta make sacrifices, hard as they may be.” They were her mum’s last words to her as she boarded a ship with her new husband two years ago.

where she should be too…she thought now.

her daid and mum