20 million discontented females in the British Isles and every one of them is writing a book

[erastes]

Bonus points for knowing where that quote came from.

I haz a cold.

Added a slew of books to Speak Its Name’s LIST today. There definitely seems to be gay historicals, fiction and non-fiction popping up all over the place. Good thing too.

Good news In Washington state but Bad news in Maine—I was discussing it this morning with Gehayi.  I suppose that it strikes me as rather odd that there are referenda about this kind of thing.  Democracy gorn mad. I have a friend in the US who is constantly saying that I should move over there.  Career wise it would probably be a good thing, there’s no gay writing network here to speak of outside London, and we don’t have those conferences which seem to be so vital to promotion, but wild horses couldn’t convince me to live in America (sorry, American Friends).  England ain’t perfect, by a long shot, but god, at least we have coherent laws which don’t change when you drive over an imaginary line.

Just done a review on SIN that will show up tomorrow but I got quite annoyed with the Americanisms.  Why oh why are Americans so obsessed about writing about England?  I do understand that it’s a popular location, but really-authors-if you don’t know your sidewalks from your pavements, if you don’t know what’s wrong with calling trousers pants, if you really want to have cranberries in Victorian times, then write about your own country will you?  What’s wrong with setting a Victorian era story in an American city?  New York gets more snow, for example!  I have hesitated for years now about writing The Further Adventures of Fleury because the research scares me silly. I can waffle on for ages about 1820’s England, but 1820’s America?  eek.  It was (and still is) different depending on where you go.  If Fleury moves around a lot, and he’s planning to, I’ll need to research New York, Boston, New Orleans, California.. it’s rather scary. AND THAT’S WHY I DON’T WRITE IT. Because I know you guys will be positively GLEEFUL when I make mistakes. I have American friends (and if I didn’t I’d ask for help) to help me avoid glaring errors—and it’s NOT difficult to find a Brit picker.  I do charge a modest fee, but there’s loads of English people out there who will probably do it for nothing, and isn’t that better than me glaring at you?

 

- - -

Comments

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

I have American friends (and if I didn’t I’d ask for help) to help me avoid glaring errors—and it’s NOT difficult to find a Brit picker. I do charge a modest fee, but there’s loads of English people out there who will probably do it for nothing, and isn’t that better than me glaring at you?

I know I still make mistakes despite living in England for four years, and, thankfully, I have a very good friend who points them out to me -- and vice versa on my end when she's writing American characters.

It just seems like basic research etiquette to me. If you're going to write about another place (or another time period, for that matter), you've got to make it believeable. Nothing throws me out of a historical novel faster than characters acting like modern people in costume.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It's bloody irritating. This character is sitting down to a roast dinner straight out of suburban America, I'm only grateful that she missed the biscuits off. Victorian food isn't difficult to research, and I found out that cranberry sauce didn't come into vogue until the 1910's in about two seconds.

It's insulting to me, and all I can think of is how would they feel if I wrote an american character calling things by their english equivalents? There'd be a lot more fuss, I warrant.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

It's insulting to me, and all I can think of is how would they feel if I wrote an american character calling things by their english equivalents?

Of course! It's the sloppiness that gets to me. Especially these days when you can find most basic things through one Google search. This is basic research, and it's not even difficult. I don't blame you one big for being annoyed about it -- I would be too!

[beckyblack]

I'd love to see historicals set in America! It's got loads of potentially fun setting and periods. The War of Independence, the Civil War - put the lovers on opposite sides! The settling of the West - cowboys! Real cowboys, not ones who drive SUVs ;-), the early years of the movie industry. American history might be shorter, but they crammed plenty in so far!

[semioticwarrior.livejournal.com]

How much *do* you charge for something like that (for an MS of about 300pp)?

I'll preface it by saying that I've researched etymologies, technologies, customs, food, and dress to the teeth. But of course there are always those subtle things that we in the translation business refer to as "spy litmus tests."

[baritonejeff.livejournal.com]

Passing quickly by the obvious fact that I am not an author, have no talent nor ambition for it, and am way too lazy to research much of anything -

I would love to write an epic historical British tome filled with horrific bugaboos, just to achieve a genuine Erastes glare.

(oh, wait a minute - I probably just have!);)

((((hugs)))) for your cold

Two countries divided by a common language...

[aunty_marion]

I got twitchy about this first with the Potterverse stuff - people talking about visiting Diagon, walking on the sidewalks, graduating Hogwarts (WTF?) and so on. I tend to spot it more now having done so much beta-reading, and the two proof-reading courses.

Not that I could easily proofread something set in America (though I *have* done bits!). I've picked up a lot of the terminology thanks to the net, but I'm by no means perfect!

Re: Two countries divided by a common language...

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

And, to be honest, some of it is very subtle. I noticed some things, moving back and forth between the two countries, like article choice and verb tense differences that wouldn't have occurred to me unless I'd been hearing them day in and day out and suddenly, in the US, they weren't there. I can understand if authors make those mistakes. It's the really blatant ones that bother me, since I try very hard to avoid them, even in fanfic.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Really? Seems to me that most of what we've got are wars and pioneers. If you want to write an American historical and don't want to write about either wars or various kinds of pioneers (people coming to the New World, people going West, California Gold Rush, Yukon Gold Rush, etc.), you're kind of screwed.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't see why a book has to be set against enormous backdrops. Granted transgressions is, and Frost Fair is using the frozen river as a background, but that's hardly earth shattering. There are a good few American gay historicals, but many many of them are cowboys--and a lot are verging on the pulp side where every roundup is a gay orgy. But I can't see why, rather than write about victorian london and get most of the details wrong because you've never even been to England, you don't just write about Victorian Boston/New York or wherever. This book (or rather short story) I just reviewed could easily have been set in America and it wouldn't have made one iota of difference, and it wouldn't have had me grinding my teeth at the un-Brit-picked-ness of it all.

I'm quite looking forward to setting Fleury loose in America, even if the research does scare me witless. I can just see him on a river boat, gambling. That is, of course, until he's caught cheating and has to flee for his life. I have a feeling he's going to be doing a lot of that.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Consider yourself stared at. I have no penetrating dachshund icons, but I think Bichons do it almost better.

Thanks you. "Hwark!" Just call me Coffin Erastes.

[ctrl-issue.livejournal.com]

As an American, I can say that you aren't missing much by not living here, and if I could find a job over there that would allow me the equivalent of a working visa, I'd totally move to the UK. I think the only thing I would miss would be television. At the same time, it seems that the US is going above and beyond in trying to steal y'all's shows, so maybe I wouldn't even miss that.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

And there's always the internet. I watch everything on line now.

Re: Two countries divided by a common language...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I have to say I don't notice the punc and grammar but that's not surprising, I don't notice it in English!

:)

Re: Two countries divided by a common language...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I was just saying this to Gehayi, yes. The NUMBER of fics i used to read where they graduated, listened to cicadas in the grounds of Hogwarts, had Spring Break, went to the Prom, had gay nightclubs in the 70s... and so on!

[essayel.livejournal.com]

I just scrolled down to the bottom and saw a mention of penetrating daschund icons and was APPALLED until i got my mind out of the gutter.

I used to Brit-pick Harry Potter fan fic - it was soul destroying - "If your country was sensible it WOULD have dollars! Why do you have to be so CRITICAL?"

*hugs and offered rum and lemon and honey*

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

It's an odd irony that on the one hand, there's an American entitlement mentality where we don't speak other languages and regard all other countries as somehow "downslope" of us, and on the other hand, we don't have enough self-respect to find our own history novel-worthy.

[ammonite7.livejournal.com]

Caleb Carr wrote a wonderful accurately detailed historical mystery with Victorian New York City as the backdrop, named "The Alienist." No gay hero though.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Heh yes, it was the wankiest fandom in the universe - probably still is, and I'm pleased to be out!! Even when people said "critique welcome" they really DIDN'T mean it.

You have ruined my special relationship with Jeff. I won't be able to get that image out of my head! BRAIN BLEACH!!!!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I love the Alienist, my review is here.

http://speakitsname.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/review-the-alienist-by-caleb-carr/

but it is amazing how few novels there are set in 19th/18th century america, really. It amuses me that non- Brits would rather get the facts wrong, setting stories in London or England, than write in their own country and probably get it less wrong.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

The general consensus seems to be that there is less of it (because obviously, to be Pratchett-like for a moment, the native Americans history doesn't COUNT) but it's not very interesting. I don't agree, the European history there is concentrated--and scattered. That's what scares me, when I write about England, at least I know that generally things are developing at roughly the same pace, but each area of America would be very different in 1820!

[mysid.livejournal.com]

I may be American, but I'm no American-apologist. I can criticize my country with the best of them, but this niggled at something in the back of my brain.

England ain’t perfect, by a long shot, but god, at least we have coherent laws which don’t change when you drive over an imaginary line.

But what if you cross over the imaginary line between England and France? OK, granted, there is water as well as an imaginary line, but what about the imaginary lines between France and Germany, or between the Netherlands and Belgium, etc. The laws certainly do change.

But wait, you say, those are separate nations, separate countries. Ah, but so are the separate states of the United States--at least they were--and to some limited extent, still are. It's no coincidence that these political divisions are called "states," a word which is generally synonymous with "nations". At our country's founding, each of the original thirteen states were separate nations which agreed to a loose federation for military and economic reasons.

Not unlike the European Union really.

And if you see the similarity, my reference earlier to traveling between the nation-states of the EU being like traveling between the states of the USA makes sense.

Granted, over 200 years of union has led to a situation in which my countrymen have come to think of themselves as "Americans" first and "Vermonters" or "Virginians" second, but that's actually a rather recent development really. (And let's not forget that Texans are still "Texans" first and foremost.)

Most importantly, the US Constitution guarantees some degree of autonomy to each and every one of the 50 states, just as the EU guarantees autonomy to its member states. So, despite the fact that all 50 states of the USA function primarily as one nation, we are in fact a union of 50 separate nations.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes, dear, but I wasn't talking about the European UNION I was talking about England. We don't have different laws for different states.

[chris-smith-atr.livejournal.com]

And here I was hoping my plan to take over the State of Surrey, England would result in me ending up as Queen of Yurrup. Such a pity my megalomania is stumped by the fact that the EU is not a nation and Surrey is not a state.

<3

[mysid.livejournal.com]

But you're implying that a county (Surrey) is equal to a US state (e.g. Vermont), but states have many counties. My state, New Jersey, has 21 counties. Neighboring Pennsylvania has 67. England's number falls right between the two.

US states are much more akin to EU nations in geographical size and population than they are to counties (or provinces) of EU nations. AND, they are called "states" because "state" is a traditional synonym for nation--and for all the reasons I described already. The states in our union are more like the members of your union than you think!