The Brit-picking debate, yet again!

[emmagrant01]

devon_may has posted a little rant about Americanisms in fic. I've posted my thoughts on this issue before, but I generally try very hard to have my British characters sound as British as possible. It's not because I worry that people won't read my fic or will flame me if I don't; it's about making my fic as good as it can be. If my characters are supposed to be British, I'd like that to be believable. Devon has recently Brit-picked something for me, and she did a fabulous job. I have great respect for her as a person and as a writer.

I know there are people out there who disagree that Brit-picking is necessary, though. *looks meaningfully at flist* I think Devon is open to debate, but I'm going to suggest people who disagree with the whole Brit-picking thing post your honest feelings about the issue here. Rant at me! You know you want to! ;-) Do it anonymously, if you want.

ETA: Finally! Someone disagrees, and in an extremely intelligent way.

Comments

[jetis.livejournal.com]

especially with the amount of people out there willing to help with terms and words.

But see, that's the problem. Because I can replace the small things--I've been in the fandom long enough that I am familiar with the general differences between British and American words, but there is so much more to it than that. The Brits have ways of phrasing things, a certain cadence to writing that is different from the American way. Really, a writer has to have a personal Brit-picker or two and often, I have a lot of trouble finding someone willing to do that for me. So there is not necessarily a plethora of help and sometimes I have to muck through it myself.

[dissident-dream.livejournal.com]

Oh I know we have a certain way of saying things, and often one word can have a variety of meanings depending not only on the tone of the voce when we say it, but also in the context its used.. I guess we're just complicated ;)

I do understand the difficulty, I just don't see why asking someone to be more careful on the terms used, can be seen as an insult or vendetta.. its not, I just like the stories to sound British.

I'm not good at Beta because my grammar is abysmal.. but if you ever need help on phrasing I'm quite willing :)

[jetis.livejournal.com]

Would you be willing to Brit-pick an old fic I wrote? It's three parts and about 500 words each, so it's not very long. I was just going to pull it from a particular archive and re-archive it under another name, but all this talk about Brit-picking is making me think twice about my blatant Americanisms.

[dissident-dream.livejournal.com]

Sure no problem at all, just email it to dissident.dream@gmail.com and I'll take a look :)

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I just don't see why asking someone to be more careful on the terms used, can be seen as an insult or vendetta.

I think the problem is that the issue is often expressed as part of "good writing". That is, if an American writer doesn't go out of her way to make her HP characters very British, it means she's a bad writer. I think some writers take issue with that because they think other things are much more important, such as plot, character development, hot sex scenes, and so on. When you work really hard on a fic and you get feedback making fun of you for using the wrong word, with no mention of the things you thought were important, it can be a bit bewildering.

Not all Brits do that of course, but enough do to turn some American writers off to writing HP fanfic at all. I know that a lot of writers resent the implication that their fic has to be "approved" by a Brit before it's "acceptable", despite the fact that there are many more non-British English-speaking HP fanfic writers out there. No one ever seems to be concerned about confusing them.

For example, one little thing that came up in LMH was which would be a better word in a particular situation: "underwear" or "pants"? Devon told me that "pants" would be more appropriate, but I knew that if I had Harry say, "Can I borrow a pair of pants?" it would change the meaning of that line entirely for most of the people who will read that fic. It would have made the situation more confusing, yet more realistic. I decided to go with "underwear", ultimately.

And the fact that I went to all that trouble would strike some people as bizarre -- after all, I could have spent that time doing something much more productive. I do like to try to make my characters sound as British as possible, but that's because I like grounding my fics in reality. Not all people are concerned with that, and I don't think it makes them worse writers than me.

[laeb.livejournal.com]

"Can I borrow a pair of pants?"

*shakes head giggling* ook, i'm a French Canadian chick who's grown up learning the Canadian/American English vocabulary. However a first ff fandom involving loads of pretty Brits had me learning the subtle ways and rules of Britishism and living there for a while did that, too. Nowadays, however, I can't help but shake my head and tut when I see any of the boys taking off their pants (trousers), etc. The very example you just gave Is another one. I'm back to North America for 4 months now and I can't help but have the wrong images in my head when I hear the expressions. I can understand why not everyone bothers to do so, but I also have to say it makes it so much more easy to read and 'steady' the flow of the fic for me when I don't stumble on those 'Americanisms'. And I'd say it hads a bit of a running gag when the boys are in the States and there's this 'duel' between Brits and americans (as in both using their respective ways od speaking and misunderstanding one another).

I myself still have a friend who lives in London I can ask questions to when I have a serious doubt about aan idiom or word. I blame it on living for months with Kiwis, Aussies and Saffas in London while having British, Scottish and English Canadian friends there too. And the fact my mother tongue is French. Could I be more lost than that?

[dissident-dream.livejournal.com]

'duel' between Brits and Americans

Quite amusing that you say that, because whenever I come across an American I always become incredibly English lol

[dissident-dream.livejournal.com]

It seems that people have different ways of looking at it doesn't it, and that there are different extremes, personally I don't think it makes a bad writer just to slip up on words, but on the other hand to me it impedes the flow of the story.
Your example of 'pants' and 'underwear' is a classic example, because its one of the things that most irritates me (along with 'fall' because we use the term autumn) we never say underwear and I just get confused when pants is used for trousers!

I do however appreciate the effort you put into making it sound British, I doubt anyone in the fandom will be satisfied with this issue though which is a shame.