ext_14365: If you made this, tell me and I'll credit (TS: British Accent animated)
fluterbev ([identity profile] fluterbev.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] panik 2007-12-21 01:07 pm (UTC)

Hm, it's an issue I see debated a lot. Like you, it doesn't bother me the other way round - I've always read a lot of American writers, so for the most part I don't even notice what spelling is being used. Yet I've heard a substantial number of American readers say they have problems with reading British spelling in a US fandom.

You are a British writer - you are writing in your own language, just as a French writer might write Jim and Blair in French. It seems nonsensical to insist on you changing your entire syntax just because the characters you are portraying are American. As long as the dialogue and idioms are appropriate in the colloquial sense, what should it matter whether there are a few extra Us in there? Yet to some people it does. But other American readers have likewise said they have no difficulty reading British spelling. It's hard to infer from the discussions which pop us here and there which are in the majority.

Myself, I chose from day one to attempt to write in American, rather than British, English. I assumed that since most of the audience for TS fic is American, it would make sense to try to cater to them by adopting their language. Yet lots of great writers in the fandom don't bother to do so, and they are very well thought of. Mab Brown and Jess Riley spring to mind - not British, but their antipodean spelling is much the same as ours.

Having said that, it's an issue that concerns me enough that I am nervous about the British spelling I've chosen to use in my current WIP (in which the characters are in a fantasy setting, which bears no resemblance to America, so I decided to write in my own language for once). And I have no idea at all what to do with my Doctor Who/TS crossover!

All that waffle goes to show that I have no easy answer for you, sorry. But I do have a very appropriate icon ;-)

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