Lucky Girl - Completed

I have a question for my readers!

I would have put this in the Art of Sims Storytelling thread, but I feel like it's so specific to me that it might not be useful to anyone else :blush:

So I kind of think a little bit about the dialogue and language I use in Lucky Girl. Less than 1% of my readers are actually Irish, I think it's mostly people from the US and the UK, which is obviously extremely cool for me, but it does get me thinking about how easy parts of the story are to like, get. I'm stuck sometimes on the line between wanting authenticity and wanting accessibility, does the dialogue make sense? Does the cadence of their speech make sense? Irish people sometimes have a funny turn of phrase, and I didn't want to shy away from it. I write each character the way they sound in my head, and the three most "country" characters especially (Claire, Kelly & Shane) have very specific ways of saying things. For example, Irish people actually say "like" a lot, as a filler word, but it's not the same way that Valley Girls say it. It's our own specific thing. So to all of you: Do you get it? Does it make sense? Is it ever hard to read?

Similarly, I know that there are words for things here that don't mean the same things in other places. Like "Press" instead of "Cupboard", but I usually leave these things without a footnote, a little afraid of insulting the readers intelligence by having to explain what they mean. The only time I ever put a note on a chapter was to explain that Debs is the same thing (more or less) as the Prom, but I wonder would more of these explanations be useful? I'm going into a phase of the story where there might be more of these kinds of things.

It's weird to have to think about this, because I'm very used to consuming British and American media, so actually, I know how to translate the colloquialisms really easily, but I'm aware that Irish Tv shows, films and books aren't as present. Knowledge about our dialect isn't as widely spread or universally known. Equally, I'm very used to hearing a character mention Manhattan or Soho and knowing exactly where they mean, but the same will not apply for places in Ireland.

Would things like maps be useful to include? Or short explanations or what characters mean? Or anything else of the sort? I'd love to hear your comments on this! <3

And of course, thank you all for sticking with me and reading. You're all gems