Misspellings in Dialog of Novel Reflect Timbre of Characters

In a newly released adventure story, the long shot: a french canadian saga – book 1 by historical fiction author Joyce Derenas, several characters speak with a distinct voice. Derenas’ characters, like the old-timer describing the silk train, demonstrates this with words like ‘gotta,’ and ‘mebbe.’ An early scene in the novel includes a letter filled with misspellings. The letter was penned by a young boy who can barely write, and whose words include French spellings like ‘indiens’ and ‘firewoods.’ These are a few of the liberties that Derenas took in her 1907 novel set across Canada.