why oh why oh why...

[option]

write about what you obviously have no knowledge of?

 

 

"It was the summer recess and Jack was his usual self, he played with his friends in the park, either soccer or cricket"

^^^ this is from a story (not on GA) set in London, UK. we dont have recess, nor do we play soccer.

[Cia]

This is why I can sometimes obsessively research topics when I write. I set a story in the jungle in South America and I researched weather patterns, plants and animals, geography... I've also researched an hour before for a plant based poison that had a single mention in a story I wrote. That said, sometimes I could screw things up without realizing it. Simple things like in another story I noticed mentioned a review that different states use different acronyms for their child welfare services, such as DHS or CPS. A lot of people will research exotic information for their stories but assume that basic societal 'norms' are the same elsewhere. I've found quite a bit of that when people write fiction set in the US or England and they are not from there, in particular. if it's on GA I often send the author a pm or mention it in my review so that they can fix the discrepancy. After all, if you don't tell them, how will they know they did it wrong?

[Zolia Lily]

You know, i've started to do the opposite. I've started using American terminology and phrasing in my writing AND my speech. In my writing i can usually correct it or change it to what i want. Speaking? not so much. I tend to speak without thinking. And when you say 'sidewalk' in Australia, people are going to look at you funny. Where a word is from or if it's the right word in the country i'm in has started being something i really have to think about!

Still, i guess you really would hope if you're purposefully setting your story in another country that you would do the research...

[Nephylim]

I think that it's more common for people from the UK to use American words and phrases than the other way round so I guess it's more acceptable for UK writers to use Americanisms than the other way round.

[Graeme]

You know, i've started to do the opposite. I've started using American terminology and phrasing in my writing AND my speech. In my writing i can usually correct it or change it to what i want. Speaking? not so much. I tend to speak without thinking. And when you say 'sidewalk' in Australia, people are going to look at you funny. Where a word is from or if it's the right word in the country i'm in has started being something i really have to think about!

Still, i guess you really would hope if you're purposefully setting your story in another country that you would do the research...

 

As Nephylim said, there are a lot of American phrases that are acceptable in Australia, so from a writing perspective it makes it easier to use those, rather than the more colloquial alternative. There are exceptions to that, though.

 

When I was writing, I had the advantage of using an American editor, so between us we could pick up on the Australian phrasing that would cause an American difficulty. Most of the time, the American version was acceptable usage in Australia and so I'd go with that one, but not always.

 

As the original post said, sometimes the difference is too big and it makes it clear that the author doesn't know what they're talking about. I can almost always spot an American author who is writing a story in Australia, or with Australian characters, because it just doesn't come over as natural to me. It's almost always a stereotyped Australia or Australian character, and not realistic.

 

My favourite real-life example is someone I met many years ago. He was your stereotypical Australian beer drinking surfer - blond hair, lazy smile, charm oozing out of every pore.... and with an intense interest in Salvador Dali art. When he visited a new city, one of his 'must do' activities was to visit the local art museum.

 

An author creating an Australian character would get the stereotyped stuff fine... but wouldn't round it off with the individualistic parts (like an interesting in Salvador Dali art), or would go too far with the stereotyping.

 

Similarly, an author setting a story in Australia (or any other country for that matter) tends to expect that the way things are done in their country is the way things are done in other countries... and that's not true. After living in the UK for 12 months, I'm happy to say that both Australia and the UK have a pub culture... but it's very different in the two countries. As an outsider, my perspective was the UK pub was an extension of a person's home - it was their living room where they did a lot of social activities with their friends. In Australia, however, we tend to have larger houses, so there is more socialising at home, rather than at the pub. Another big cultural difference I noticed when I was in the UK was in the area of sports. Australia has a strong sporting culture with lots of local sporting competitions. I went to the UK expecting to find a basketball team I could join in for fun, but not only did I have trouble finding a team, I had trouble finding a competition! When I did find one, it was at a completely different standard to what I was capable of playing....

 

When I was writing my New Brother novel, there's one chapter where there was a fight at a basketball game. My American editor asked why it didn't make the newspapers. Their expectations of who would be attending a basketball game between high school aged students was very different to what I've experienced here in Australia. That's why there's a reference in that chapter to the fact that the only spectators were friends and family - a local basketball game is a very low-key event from a news-worthy point of view.

 

So I agree with option in the original post. If you're going to set a story in another country, make sure you do your research. Better still, get someone from that country to read it before it gets posted to pick up on all these things! That's what I've done in every one of my short stories that's set in the USA (I've got a handful) and in every single case I had to make changes because those American readers told me I had things wrong. All subtle things (some were as simple as names of characters/towns - they said the ones I used just didn't feel right), but they all add up to give an impression of realism... or destroy that impression as happened in the short part quoted in the original post.

Edited September 21, 2011 by Graeme