Differences in storytelling in the USA vs. UK

[Caedus]

It seems that Americans reading stories and novels want as much details as possible, while it seems that the British are content with fewer details, making their own conclusions. I maybe off on this, but what are your own experiences? Has anyone noticed this difference in readers and authors from both countries? If your a member from either country can you attest to this?

[John Doe]

I'm not sure one could make a generalization like that. Maybe in your cirumstance and from the people you know it may seem that way to you, but I think people are just different. They have different tastes and what not. I read a lot of young adult novels and the details and stuff like that compared to British author and American author are different only because of author style and not country origins. I've read examples from both sides of details from both countries and I enjoyed all. And the sucess of each novel I believe was due to craft and overall quality of writing and not attention to detail. This is similar to this forum topic recently posted as well....

[hh5]

It seems that Americans reading stories and novels want as much details as possible, while it seems that the British are content with fewer details, making their own conclusions. I maybe off on this, but what are your own experiences? Has anyone noticed this difference in readers and authors from both countries? If your a member from either country can you attest to this?

 

Well don't you think JKR has gone into serious details in her story?

 

Dan Brown certainly goes into detail in his writing.

 

But as you read the style of story - you tend to bypass the fluff - to find the true path of the story and where all the juicy stuff lies to your liking.

 

I guess everyone has their taste to reading stories.

 

Some are so busy that they can't read a very detailed story because of a time issue and if too much time goes by - they lose interest.

 

Some people love detailed stories because they can put the time in - its like its there is a whole life to discover - while the parent is trying to get the child to go play ball or go swimming ... etc etc

[MikeL]

It seems that Americans reading stories and novels want as much details as possible, while it seems that the British are content with fewer details, making their own conclusions. I maybe off on this, but what are your own experiences? Has anyone noticed this difference in readers and authors from both countries? If your a member from either country can you attest to this?

I really had not noticed the difference in level of detail between American and British writers. I do notice other differences, but I've become accustomed to the different spellings or usage. The grammar rules differ between the two standards, but you get used to that as you read. The only thing that trips me up is unfamiliar British slang. For that, there's always http://www.wiktionary.org/. I can usually figure it out there.

 

As for differing levels of detail, I'll watch for that now that you have raised the issue. I doubt I'll have a preference generally. I'll probably find some stories boring because of too much detail and others uninteresting due to sparse wording. I'm not sure there will be a nationality divide.

[Tristan]

I really had not noticed the difference in level of detail between American and British writers. I do notice other differences, but I've become accustomed to the different spellings or usage. The grammar rules differ between the two standards, but you get used to that as you read. The only thing that trips me up is unfamiliar British slang. For that, there's always http://www.wiktionary.org/. I can usually figure it out there.

 

Same here. Although I have trouble with the American spelling (don't be scare of the u!) and slang. Coming from a neutral country I would like to put it out there that both countries produce some excellent writing and some great books/stories.

 

By the way what are bangs??? I know they have something to do with hair but cannot for the life of me work out what would be called a bang... I might even have one or some

[Forty-Two]

I don't think I'd generalize in either direction, it probably has more to do with the personal preference of the author. It also has to do with the genre and expectations - genres like mystery, sci-fi, or fantasy tend to have more description because there the details are really important or strange from what is the standard norm. Also authors tend to fluff up their books with details if their marketing scheme is epic novel and cut them down if they have a contract to release a new book every year. So circumstances have a lot to do with it too.

 

I also find it interesting that I'm Canadian and have more in common with US culture but I often feel more at home reading a British novel.

 

By the way what are bangs??? I know they have something to do with hair but cannot for the life of me work out what would be called a bang... I might even have one or some

 

Bangs are when you have the hair over your forehead cut short. On a girl bangs usually stay out of a ponytail or headband. When they are longer than about your eyebrow and are cut at an angle they are called layers. On an anime character the bangs are the hair that's always falling in their eyes

Edited June 18, 2010 by Forty-Two

[John Doe]

Same here. Although I have trouble with the American spelling (don't be scare of the u!) and slang. Coming from a neutral country I would like to put it out there that both countries produce some excellent writing and some great books/stories.

 

By the way what are bangs??? I know they have something to do with hair but cannot for the life of me work out what would be called a bang... I might even have one or some

 

 

Bangs is the area of hair that comes down and covers the forehead.

[hh5]

By the way what are bangs??? I know they have something to do with hair but cannot for the life of me work out what would be called a bang... I might even have one or some

 

Cowlicks are worst to have for those with hard hair.

[Tristan]

Okay thanks for clearing that up, here we call that a fringe

[Mark Arbour]

It seems that Americans reading stories and novels want as much details as possible, while it seems that the British are content with fewer details, making their own conclusions. I maybe off on this, but what are your own experiences? Has anyone noticed this difference in readers and authors from both countries? If your a member from either country can you attest to this?

 

Part of that may be in the overall cultural communication context from the two countries. England is considered to be a high context culture, while the United States is a low context culture

[Aeroplane]

It seems that Americans reading stories and novels want as much details as possible

 

I was going to make a quip about a less active imagination .

 

Part of that may be in the overall cultural communication context from the two countries. England is considered to be a high context culture, while the United States is a low context culture

 

Implication does factor a lot in verbal communication here. Tone of voice and expression are critical cues as to which particular implication is intended. I've never particularly thought of it as abnormal though. The degree to which this is true does depend on where specifically in the country you are from, and what your background (country of origin, wealth, education, upbringing) is.

It is sometimes difficult to communicate precisely on the internet, because without the intonation and expression there is no opportunity to expand on the context of a word so a word which the writer may be habitually using as meaning one thing because it is so strongly context laden.. might not actually make sense in the sentence.

Interesting links. I'd never thought of society in those terms before. Perhaps it can be best described by saying that communication is a tapestry of euphemisms and metaphors.

[SteveH]

Can I throw another mix in? Aussie writters? A mix of totaly wild sex scenes, passion and romance off the charts and a little of the "use your imagination" Tanned muscular surfer types (American) Well built Tradesman (Tradies we call them over here) English and American. I guess the best I can come up with is use the best of everything and then add a fainly believable plot (like the American and English writters).

 

 

[StormyParis]

Is it une banalité to say that English writer are usually more understated, and US ones more brash ? It may indeed be a consequence of a more homogenous society, the strong English one allowing slight discrepancies to mean a lot, whereas in the US 2 guys are not really enemies until they fight ?

 

Also, I find US writers (and US people in general) grant more importance, are more upfront, and more first-degree about feelings. I remember that from my couple of years over there: it seemed it's not really important if you're right or wrong, but how you feel about it is very important. To us cartesian French, the question of who's right and wrong is, I think, more important (and if you're wrong, you should feel bad about it, dammit :-p). To the English... the question is more... who's the Duke ? 'coz His Highnesss right by definitio,and if not, nobody'll tell him.

Edited June 18, 2010 by StormyParis

[Riley Jericho]

Riley.Jericho chewed his lip thoughtfully and gently smiled. It was enough ... more than enough...

[MikeL]

I should add to my earlier comments that I like many of the stories I read here whether written by American, British, or Australian authors as well as those written by authors for whom English is not their native tongue.

 

I do notice some differences, but, as we say in Tennessee, vive le difference.

[Tipdin]

American reader here.

 

Don't like too much detail.

 

I once read a half page description of the pink petals of a flower. GADZ! WTF? Who cares? Get to the story!

[Caedus]

Thanks for all your responses so far!

 

To answer earlier post: No, it wasn't my intention to generalize the writing between the two different countries, I may have misspoke though so that was my mistake, not discerning between different genres and even different writers.

 

Mark's explanation of High Context vs. Low context Culture offers a better explanation for why I noticed such a difference. Though because America has immigrants from some many other countries, it's likely that these immigrants and their offspring raised with similar viewpoints, would favor writing High Context culture as much as Low Culture.

[corvus]

Part of that may be in the overall cultural communication context from the two countries. England is considered to be a high context culture, while the United States is a low context culture

 

Fascinating, I'd not heard of this before. It's tempting to try to explain it by culture/history, but my half-a..ed attempt doesn't work out. I would've expected "melting pots" to be low context cultures, like the US, but curiously Germany is on the list.* Linguistically, however, German is a language that accrues -- it words can get monstrously long -- so it's possible to be very specific. A language like Chinese, however, in which the words are discrete and almost paratactic, seems almost to necessitate low context.

 

To to original topic (but keeping Mark's post in mind), there are exceptions and trends. Dickens can't be said to be concise. On the other hand, he was a product of a particular time in British history. Hemingway can't be said to be verbose. (He's even quite high context, I think.) My gut feeling is that British prose is characterized by a kind of "wry aside" -- a sort of understated humor or jaunt that runs through Austen, Forster, Rowling... most British authors I've read, I think. I haven't really run into American authors using that sort of humor -- but whether that's reactive or innate, it's hard to tell. I'm reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, which is pretty verbose.

 

* On the other hand Germany is a bit of a melting pot, having gotten unified really quite late, unlike France.

 

Edited June 23, 2010 by corvus