I love nothing more than a man with an accent. It makes me weak in the knees. A lot of paranormal romance involves old beings like vampires, demons, and gods from hundreds or even thousands of years ago. They have old accents, or even just European ones. Sometimes the characters are from our modern day and from the southern US or from a little island in the ocean. Any way to get that butterflies-in-the-tummy feel from an accent.
Yet it isn't easy to write accents. In fact, if you aren't intimately familiar with the one, don't do it. A badly written accent is a turn off. You don't want your Scottish vampire in the kilt to sound like he's from London. If you're going to give it a go, make sure you research the accent and the dialect. Different regions have several.
A recent article in Romance Writers Report (RWR) listed a number of great sites to help when writing accents and dialects. Here's a few for you:
I do my best to avoid writing characters with accents. I might have a light British one, but that's only because I watch at a lot of the BBC and grew up with neighbors who were from England.
Have you ever written a character with an accent? Was it one you knew or did you have to research it?
