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Character Immersion via Accent and Idiom

I've found a really fun way to immerse myself in a character and get to know them is to research the city they come from or the era that shaped them — regionalisms and expressions.

A few quick rules of thumb:

1. Don't write out accents phonetically — you'll annoy the reader
2. Consider listening for subtle things like sentence structure
3. If you overdo it or go for the obvious, your character will become a parody, so use a light touch

Here are a few great places to start your research:

Exhaustive list of American regionalisms-
http://www.evolpub.com/Americandialects/AmDialLnx.html

Eighties slang-
http://www.inthe80s.com/glossary.shtml

Twenties slang-
http://local.aaca.org/bntc/slang/slang.htm

Audio accent database (this is a stunningly good resource)-
http://accent.gmu.edu/

Your Assignment

Write a short passage in first person where a character is telling a story about himself. Then re-tell it as if your character is from a different city (in the same country) or a different time period. I'd recommend if you do the two cities, to make them in the country you're originally from. The purpose of this exercise is to notice subtle differences in speech, manner and delivery.