I've always felt that one of the characteristics of better writing is that each character is given his own voice. This can be done in a lot of ways. If you understand what the characters desire and dreams about, that can help you with their speech to some extent. If you really understand regional accents and can write that character with them, that helps a lot more.
Although I could usually identify regional accents instinctively, I didn't really know how to write them. One of my characters is a native of Texas, and he is a relic of the past. So I decided to learn about the Texan accent so I could use that in his voice. I've read up on it, and I've also listened to a lot of Texans. It's actually been one of the more interesting bits of research I've done.
The Texas drawl is very evident in Mathew McConaghay's voice in every part that he plays. Tommy Lee Jones has it as well. He talks Texan for you at about 3:10 seconds in this trailer for No Country for Old Men, a movie from the Coen Brothers which is set in Texas. I thought the setting worked very well for the violent tale.
I didn't usually think of Texans as being polite, but one of the references I looked at referred to Texan accents as being the most polite of accents. Although its less in style now, you can still hear them occasionally use conditional syntax as a way of suggesting you do something without being to insistent about it. “I guess you might could go get a carton of cigarettes, if you had a mind to.”
Of course most people are familiar with “y'all,” which is a contraction of you all. It appears in a number of southern accents but appears to have originated in Texas.
I have also observed that Texans rarely plan to do something. They are more likely “fixin” themselves upon it. I myself am fixing to get a haircut.
I've also been collecting specific expressions and sayings. One of my favorites is that, “you can always tell a Texan, but you can't tell him much.” The theme of stubbornness comes up frequently about people from that state, and it should work well for the character I am developing in this book.
I am lacking in resources since despite my best efforts, I am permanently unemployed. I do however, have a great deal of one particular resource, which is time. Since I have so much of it, I find that research is a great thing to do when I can't edit or write any more. Most writers seem either to hate research or are barely aware that the possibility of doing research exists. I think that the best way to build a story is by knowing every character, place, and object within it.
The only way I know of doing that is by putting people like those you've known in the story, and then researching all about those people. How they spoke, what they want, and why they wanted it. If you know the history of people like them then you will come to know the character well enough that you can capture their voice. It seems to me that research is always a circular thing. When I follow it to the end, I learn of some other thing which I never knew was related to what I was studying in the first place. That usually leads to my next area of research.
In the end, everything is related to everything else. Researching one southern accent leads me to another, which eventually leads to Britain. Maybe I'll put a British character in there somewhere too. We will see.