Thread by @thebencheah

Whoever said that you should write the way you talk has never been to Singapore.

Over here, the word 'straight' means 'upright', 'lying down', 'horizontal', 'vertical', 'diagonal', 'taut', 'flush', 'direct', and even, on the rarest and most exalted of occasions, 'straight'.

'Arrow' means to get someone else to do something, and also 'arrow'.

'Bite' means 'chew', until it means 'bite'.

'Bottle' means 'jar', except when it means 'bottle'.

'Offer' means a promotional price, or it could mean 'offer'.

'Shag' means 'exhausted'—nothing else.

And let's not go into the loanwords from Hokkien, Malay, Tamil, Chinese, and other languages that have made their way here...

Suffice to say, if you aren't familiar with those terms, you won't be able to guess what they mean.

As if that's not confusing enough, Singlish uses English as its base vocabulary—but Chinese grammatical rules.

I've encountered spoken Singlish that is utter gibberish until translated into Chinese, and then to English.

Especially among Chinese speakers, you're expected to guess the meaning of the word based on the context.

That's a holdover from Chinese, a high-context language where words refer to concepts.

English is a low-context language where words have definitive meanings.

In the writing world, that is Not Good.

If your readers have to guess what you mean, you're doing it wrong.

It's frustrating enough to have to ask someone to clarify what they mean after they spout off something barely comprehensible.

What more when the person isn't available?

And if you're writing a fictitious character who isn't from your culture?

If you write his dialogue the way you would talk, the result is jarring.

Ever read fictious American FBI special agents who think and talk like Singaporeans?

I have. Unfortunately.

I shut the book and condemned the title of the story in memory.

You don't want that happening to your story, would you?

As we enter #NaNoWriMo, here's some #writing advice that isn't seen over here:

Know who you're writing for.

Know the culture of your characters.

Write your characters in a way that is true to their cultural background, AND is understandable to your audience.

That means that when you're writing for an English-speaking audience, you write in English, according to English spelling, punctuation and grammatical rules.

Local dialects and creole are like spice:

Powerful in tiny amounts, overpowering in large doses.

You want your reader to be immersed in the story from start to finish.

You don't want them thinking, 'What does this mean?' or 'Who speaks like this?!'

Don't write the way you talk.

Write in the way that clearly communicates intention and meaning to the audience.

One of the keys to that is to use the right word for the job.

Don't use 'straight' unless you mean 'straight'.

Use 'upright', 'lying down', 'horizontal', 'vertical', 'diagonal', 'taut', 'flush', 'direct'—or whatever is the most appropriate word.

Be clear about what you mean.

Don't leave your readers guessing.

This is the lesson I had to learn the hard way while growing up in Singapore.

And it's a lesson many Singaporean writers I've read haven't grasped.

#PulpRev #SingLit