Writing different classes to your own?

Affable

I feel like I wan to write some stories about working class and under class people. I feel a bit of a twat doing it being middle class and don't know if it will have authenticity. When I analyse it. Am I being too judgemental, too self-conscious, or do you have to be from that background, does it have to be 'what you know' to authentically write it?

raah!

You don't have to be something to know about it. Dostoyevsky wrote very good stories about working class people just from being observant.

EileenG

Just take into account the different circumstances. If you didn't have to worry about the price of whatever you were buying, what would make you choose one thing over another?

The person is still the same, only the circumstances will change. Just stick to fairly neutral speech, rather than trying to go for an "Upper Class" accent. The odd word will be enough to flavour it, you don't have to try to render everything in Dublin 4.

seahorse

I think true authenticity comes from the in-depth knowledge of personal experience. Yes some masters of their craft can shift outside the zone of their own social class but I wouldn’t recommend it for a beginner.

I wouldn’t recommend it for most writers, to be honest. I have read people trying to replicate the experience of working-class life and it only takes the slightest mistake, the mispronunciation of a slang term by a single letter, for instance, to ruin the entire effect; and when that happens you feel like you've just uncovered a ruse, so no, to be honest, I wouldn’t recommend it.

EileenG

The thing is, most of us know people from different classes. You might not know everything about a particular class, but you can definitely put words in Anto's mouth, or in Jessica's.

pog it

Maybe you could get a job in a factory or something like that if that suits your circumstances- ya know just a few months and do some research.

davyjose

EileenG wrote: »

but you can definitely put words in Anto's mouth, or in Jessica's.

Not to pick on you, Eileen, but even that in itself is an assumption; the class divide is blurrier than that. I know one guy who would not be in the slightest bit working class, but who's known to everyone as Anto. The only dead-cert here, and I'm sure you've guessed, is that he's from Dublin. There's probably not as much seperating the "classes" as we think.

OP, I think the biggest mistake here is to try and label characters, to pigeonhole them as Anto from Finglas who says "howya" a lot. Every person alive is unique, and to successfully develop a character, I think a writer really needs to realise that. Especially if your character is to be interesting enough to care about.

And what Eileen said about accents is spot on. Read Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy for tips on this. He uses phrasing, with only occasional phonetics to present a Dublin Working Class accent.

EileenG

It was a quick example, you can get people from all classes with all sorts of names. Up North, for instance, you have Catholic names and Protestant names. The same name can be different depending on how you shorten it. They might both be called Patricia, but Tishy and Pats probably didn't go to school together.

Icebladeaskante

Authenticity come from knowing your world. or the world you write of. If you want to write one, do it. See what you learn, see what mistakes are made and then write another. You cannot learn if you do not make mistakes.

DublinWriter

Affable wrote: »

I feel like I wan to write some stories about working class and under class people. I feel a bit of a twat doing it being middle class and don't know if it will have authenticity.

It worked for Roddy Doyle - his father was a civil servant, his mother was a teacher and he went to UCD.

Well, when I say 'worked', he captured a lot of the knockabout humour and wit of WC Dublin, but there's a lot of the darker stuff he completely failed to write about.

afaphoenix

Affable wrote: »

I feel like I wan to write some stories about working class and under class people. I feel a bit of a twat doing it being middle class and don't know if it will have authenticity. When I analyse it. Am I being too judgemental, too self-conscious, or do you have to be from that background, does it have to be 'what you know' to authentically write it?

I think you will do a great job, No you do not have to be from that background. Just a great imagination and loads of research.
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