That girl who wrote that fic.

I agree that sometimes Brit-picking is necessary, but I don't always do it. I guess I tend to look at the importance of a fic, then decide whether it's worth Brit-picking for me, because honestly, it's a pain in the ass to do. I have to get someone to go over my stories, because I will never be able to pick out all the stuff myself, even with a detailed guide and I can't always find someone immediately. So it tends to go like this: Would people rather I said 'pavement' instead of 'sidewalk,' or would they rather wait an extra month until I can scrounge up someone to give my fic a thorough Brit-picking?

As for the people who say that Americanisms disgust them: Trust me, I'm from the South. I have to deal with stories set in the South and the misuse of words and dialects all the time. If I don't like it, I don't read it. Simple as that.

From:

shezan.livejournal.com

Brit-picking is essential - anyone who disagrees just hasn't got the point of literature (yes, I dare call fanfic, some at least, literary.) If it's to transport somewhere else, then every effort at rendering the characters - and in HP, the quintessential Britishness of the characters, is obligatory.

From:

sciencegeek.livejournal.com

I would prefer it if all fics were Brit-picked, but I know that's not going to happen. I'm not so nit-picky as to say if I notice something hasn't been Brit-picked I won't read it; there are loads of great fics out there that haven't been - or, at least, I'd be willing to bet there are.

I know that I probably don't pick up on all Britishisms in a fic, or notice if some are missing, simply because I'm not British. Being Canadian there are some that I know, simply because of our roots, but we're all confused - we get Americanisms and Britishisms.

I guess, for me, fics being Brit-picked are more authentic sounding.

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cloudsurfing.livejournal.com

Since I am British, and fairly obsessive-compulsive to boot, I think I probably get het up at mistakes in writing Britishisms more than other people, maybe more than is really necessary. But coming across something that just isn't right really does throw me out of a fic. I mean, if it's something little I can ignore it and move on even if it comes up more than once, but then I spend so much time online that I'm quite Americanised as it is so I'm fine putting up with quite a bit of ... mistakes, for want of a better word.

Although, that fic where the Malfoy's had Voldemort over for Thanksgiving dinner nearly gave me a stroke.

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whitsun.livejournal.com

Thanksgiving dinner with Lucius and Tom! That cracks me up. If you think about that holiday even just a second, (which you presumably do when writing it), even a Yank like me can see that it fits with a manor in the English countryside like Nagini in Versace. Although I can see Dumbledore finding some excuse to celebrate it...

Speaking of holidays, how different is Halloween in the UK? Dick Francis tells me there aren't pumpkins, and with any luck the crass commercialism isn't quite so bad, but that's all I know.

From:

cloudsurfing.livejournal.com

They carved the Dark Mark into the turkey.

Hmm. Well, I'm 20 and I've never been trick-or-treating and as far as I know, no one that I know ever has, either, and I've spend Halloweens in the middle of a city and the middle of nowhere and have a grand total of once had kids turn up looking for sweets. Pumpkins don't much feature either (although you do see them around, just not a whole lot). You get costume parties, though (or fancy dress, if you like...), and toffee apples, and some tacky decorations. Could be it's different elsewhere, though.

From:

jamie2109.livejournal.com

I commented on Devon's post and Ive commented here on your previous ~~rants~~ discussions (hehe) about Brit-picking. I agree, stories need to be Brit-picked, because for crying out loud, they're British!!!! Your Left My Heart was different because it wasn't set in England.

I don't get all huffy about it mostly, not anymore (seeing as I got pinged for using 'block' once. heh) But the one thing that bugs me no end, and almost turns me away from reading even especially well written fics, is the use of the word 'ass'. I said it in Devon's post, and I'll say it again. Brits do NOT HAVE ASSES, they have arses, and they're pretty damned cute ones at that!!! I'm an Aussie and even we say arse.

Anyway, so no flaming here from me. I agree with you. I might make mistakes myself from time to time, but I guess that comes from having a similar heritage and assuming things are the same. (Yes, ignorance I know, and I apologise)

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Okay, I finally got around to my essay. Well, not really an essay - I didn't send it to you for a beta. But I just wanted to get it over with.

You can read it here.

Now I'm going to go back to writing my HP fic. Which will have Americanisms in it. Because I'm an American. And I'm kinda tired of feeling like I have to apologize for that.

From:

emmagrant01.livejournal.com

*hugs* You know I love you, right? You're fucking brilliant!

From:

whitsun.livejournal.com

If the fic is well-written and has British themes and overall feel, little things don't bother me that much. Like sidewalks and basements and unlike post/mail which is mentioned so often in the books that it should be obvious in editing. IMO, the whole higher education thing is us (Americans) assuming that everyone else has the same system, which is incredibly provincial. And since education and related issues ("dorms") are usually a major piece of the story, it's lazy, too.

I can see how little things kill it for real live Brits, though, because I cringe whenever I see anything in French. Even if it's technically right, it rarely sounds like an actual sentence. I would avoid that if I were writing, which I don't. Does anyone know Latin? Do all of the made-up spell bits bother you (even JKR's)?

What makes me stop reading are words common to British and American English that are used entirely incorrectly. Look it up! Alas, not synonymous with yo or hey, for instance (mentioned in the rant). Different usages is one thing, but just being wrong makes me disenchanted with the writer. More or less so, depending on my mood.

From: (Anonymous)

I have to admit I find the argument of Brit-picking strange. Is there a similar American-picking for fandoms set in the US?

From:

I love you too! You're brilliant too! It's a mutual love fest! *snogs*

From:

whitsun.livejournal.com

edit: I would avoid that if I wrote, which I don't. (or is it: I would avoid that if I were writing, which I'm not?) *is very stupid tonight*

From:

But you're making an erroneous assumption that all HP fanfic writers want to transport their readers to Great Britain. Some fanfic writers may just want to transport their readers into an entertaining story.

For that matter, the Great Britain in the HP books is not the *real* Great Britain. It is JKR's fantasy conception of Great Britain. The purpose of literature is not to accurately depict reality. The purpose of literature is to create the illusion of reality. All a story must do is follow its own interior logic.

Of course, you might not like the construct that a writer has created or the way she tells her story. That's a matter of taste. But it does not follow that the writer is therefore wrong or has made an error.

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thalia

Yes, to some extent. There are a lot of Brits writing in Stargate, and a lot of Britishisms slip in, and the Americans tend to get pretty annoyed. Well, I do, anyway, and I know I'm not the only one. I know some of the Brit writers make a point of using US betas.

My favorite was a story where an SGC computer displayed "Programme ended," which, I understand from a Brit, isn't even correct usage in Britain.

From: (Anonymous)

Thanks for clearing that up for me. :) Unless it's something major that leaves me wondering what the hell the author meant, I usually don't notice or ignore slip-ups.

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While I agree to some extent that its difficult for Americans to write 'British'isms' I actually even hate that term - I speak English, not British and that maybe it promotes the idea that authors from other countries are unwelcome... I have to say that if I find a story too overly American I will just stop reading it, to me the characters are British, and therefore to tie in with that you need to get the culture and the sayings right, afterall if I was reading a fic about USQAF for example by a British writer, I would expect them to make the effort with American terms, it works both ways and I don't see why that should be a problem , especially with the amount of people out there willing to help with terms and words.

From:

shezan.livejournal.com

You can take the boys out of Britain, but you can't take Britain out of the boys...

Now take

emmagrant01, because her fic is a very good example. She has found a very good way to transport the Harry/Draco dynamic to America. (If I read the words transfer student one more time, I'll have a hissy fit.) And yet they remain what they should be (otherwise you might as well write original fiction), English boys abroad - and Merlin knows that's not only a very recognisable type, it also belongs to a long and hallowed school of literature, from Thackeray to Evelyn Waugh to Martin Amis. So what I like, among many other things, about Left My Heart, is that it's recognisably anchored in both Britain and the US (and I do know San Francisco since one of my brothers lives there.) But writing just about anything and calling it Harry Potter is sheer laziness.

And you can argue all you want that JKR's Britain is not the "real" Great Britain (although I have no idea what such an animal is; and it can't possibly be exclusive of all others.) It is a very recognisable part of the reality of Britain, which is indeed enmeshed in a tradition, an image, memories, an ideal, a composite myth - that makes it even more Britain, in the way that George Orwell writes about that "living creature" continuously stretching "into the future and the past." Sure, you can have "entertaining" stories that have made no effort towards fitting into JKR's characterisation, but you can't call it Harry Potter.

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Sure, you can have "entertaining" stories that have made no effort towards fitting into JKR's characterisation, but you can't call it Harry Potter.

Of course you can.

I come out of the Star Wars fandom, where we play fast and loose with canon all the time. I admire HP fandom for its openness to a variety of pairings. In TPM it's 95% Qui/Obi, which gets rather old IMO. But I cannot comprehend HP's obsession with canon - and the claim that fanfic is properly about exploring canon.

In SW, people have taken the archetypal idea of Qui/Obi and made them into Sith lords, ancient Egyptians, even cats. Some of the stories are almost unrecognizable as being inspired by "The Phantom Menace." But they *are* still fanfic. It might not be the kind of fanfic I want to read, but it's still fanfic.

Authors (and readers) come with a wide range of interests and ideas. But just because someone isn't writing the kind of fanfic I want to read doesn't mean that their writing is not fanfic, or is not good.

I say again, not all HP fanfic writers *want* to write a story that is accurately British. Indeed, I'd suggest that Americans (and other non-Brits) are poorly suited to explore the Britishness of Harry Potter. If someone wants to explore the dynamic of the relationship among the trio, or how the final duel between Voldemort and Harry will play out, or what would have happened if Harry had been sorted into Slytherin, or what if the whole story had been set in ancient China - that is their right as a writer.

And regarding your statement about criticism below, there is a difference between criticism and personal taste. If you don't want to read a story in which Hogwarts is transported to ancient China, that's a matter of personal taste. The story, however, should be judged on its own merit, not on the basis of whether its the kind of fanfic you think it should be.

Likewise, a story that doesn't take the Britishness of HP to heart should still be judged on its own merits as a story. You don't have to like it. But your dislike of it is based on taste, not on criticism. It would be like me saying, "Well, the problem with 'Star Wars' is that it had robots in it, and I hate robots."

When it comes to fanfic, it is the vision of the fanfic author that is paramount, not the vision of the source text author.

From:

shezan.livejournal.com

I, too, come from the SW fanfic, so I can see how you would think like this; but there's a major difference between SW and HP - the StarWarsverse does not exist. (Repeat after me: does-not-exist.) So you can build up a lot of things from it; derive them from available canon as much or as little as you want; have protagonists speak like punk rockers or classical British actors etc. (What constitutes canon in SW is itself open to discussion: the OT? All 5 available movies? The EU?) Whereas HP is firmly part of an entire national and literary tradition (Britain, the school story) which you ignore at the cost of eviscerating the very fabric of the entire construction. (And JKR certainly weaves our consciousness of it throughout her stories.) Sure, you can take Hogwarts to China or to outer space, and it may be very well-written indeed; but HP fanfic it will scarcely be.

Plus, let's take this argument by the other end, and I promise to go and eat crow if you manage to convince me. Can you recommend any non-Bbrit-proofed, decently-written AU HP story that you feel is recognisably Harry Potter, even if it's set in a high school in Peoria, a Maya temple, the Roman empire or the court of ~~Louis B. Mayer~~ Louis XIV?

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the StarWarsverse does not exist.

Neither does the HarryPotterverse.

Can you recommend any non-Bbrit-proofed, decently-written AU HP story that you feel is recognisably Harry Potter, even if it's set in a high school in Peoria, a Maya temple, the Roman empire or the court of Louis B. Mayer Louis XIV?

No, I can't. I haven't read that much HP fanfic.

But the basis for my argument doesn't rest on the existence of a fic that I can point to. And after all, even if I did know of a fic that would qualify, it does not at all follow that you would like it.

Rather, my point is about what fan fiction is. Fan fiction is about a fan being intrigued by someone else's creation and doing her own take on it, no matter how close she sticks to the original or how far she departs from it. Fan fiction is about the fan's imagination, not the source text author's. In fact, a lot of fan fiction is written because the fan doesn't like the author's take on the situation.

Let's look at this from another perspective. What if someone wrote an HP story yet did not employ any magic in it? Would you say that is not real HP fanfic? What if someone wrote a story made up solely of their own original characters, yet it was set in the same Hogwarts environment? What if someone wrote a story about Beauxbatons and made no mention of Hogwarts at all? What if someone wrote a story all about the Dursleys, with no reference to the magical world?

What is the essential ingredient to qualify as an HP fanfic? Magic? Great Britain? Hogwarts? Harry Potter?

The imagination can take us many, many places. What intrigues another writer about the HPverse may not intrigue you. That's fine. But it doesn't mean that what they're writing isn't fanfic, nor does it mean that what they're writing is therefore badly written.

And that brings us back to Brit-picking, because implicit behind the argument I so often see is that the presence of Americanisms BY DEFINITION means a story is badly written and that the writer did not care or was lazy. That a story can only truly be called HP fanfic if it is sufficiently British (though the standards of qualification are *always* left vague.) I do not believe that is a legitimate argument to make.

From:

I have to agree with you. I'm seeing writers all over apologizing for being a "stupid American" and I'm trying hard not to take offense, because being American does not make you lazy or stupid and arguing that HP fanfiction is not fanfiction because the writer uses "sweater" as opposed to "jumper" is possibly the most absurd argument I've ever read. I can stomach the idea that it is not good fanfiction (though I would disagree) but to not even be called fanfiction?

From:

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.

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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 :)

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

emmagrant01.livejournal.com

I have to say that I'm a bit disturbed by the idea of defining fan fiction so narrowly! Fan fiction is by its very nature subversive, and eludes definition. I thought I'd take a look on the nest and see what other folks have said.

Dr. Merlin's guide to fan fiction (http://missy.reimer.com/library/guide.html) says: "Fan fiction, very simply, is the genre of stories, poetry, novels, filk songs, and top ten lists written by fans of a particular series, be it television, literary, or what have you. If you've ever written a story about something you like, involving characters created by someone else with a legal right to them, you've written fan fiction."

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_fiction) says: "Fan fiction (commonly abbreviated to "fanfic") is fiction written by people who enjoy a film, novel, television show or other dramatic or literary work, using the characters and situations developed in it and developing new plots in which to use these characters."

I need to go dig up my copy of Jenkins, but I'm pretty sure he gives a very loose definition as well. The whole point of writing fan fiction, for some of us, is to be subversive, to recastthese characters in ways that we want to see them. Slash, in particular, is about re-imagining the source text. JKR doesn't get to define it, *I* don't get to define it -- we, as a community of creative people, collectively contribute to it and thus define what fan fiction is. It's anything we want it to be, ultimatety!

Okay, I think I'll shut up now... :-P

From:

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?

From:

laeb.livejournal.com

I can see how little things kill it for real live Brits, though, because I cringe whenever I see anything in French. Even if it's technically right, it rarely sounds like an actual sentence. I would avoid that if I were writing, which I don't. Does anyone know Latin? Do all of the made-up spell bits bother you (even JKR's)?

*nods* French, as used in most stories, is horrible. Takes a French, a Belgian, Switzerlander(?) or a Quebecer to know French. Or extensive classes. I did dare write in French in my stories cos, well I'm one of those who were born to speak French in the first place.

I used to know latin, from my old days at secondary school; however I don't mind the spells as they usually are not about making a sentence (order of words doesn't matter in Latin anyway, it's the terminaison of the word that gives it its meaning in a sentence - Rosa Rosam Rosae Rose Rosar Rosare declination or something very close to that - all those words have a different use in the sentence). The words are latin or latin-rooted and thus they have a translation that usually gives away the meaning of the spell. Plus, it gives one the chance to be creative! ;-)

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vichan.livejournal.com

My feelings on Brit-picking, summed up in a couple sentences:

Dialogue - yes, because the characters are supposed to be British, and they should speak in Brit-tongue. :)

Descriptions/Basically everything else - no, because the author (me) is not British.

"I don't need to use British words to describe British people."

I'd elaborate more, but I'm freaking exhausted. X_X

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

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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.

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