Ramblings on Fic and Characterization

[halfshellvenus]

I went on a J-squared reading binge late last week, and found myself running up against two issues that seem to hit me again and again in fanfic in general.

The first is British bleed into American settings, that just throws me right out of the story. One minute it's all good, and then a snigger or have a go or for f**k's sake or wonky or the like

Comments

[halfshellvenus]

Those are words that I and my Midwest relatives have used all my life.

Ah, but I've never come across them personally until I started reading fics by Brits.

I grew up on the West Coast, and have lived in various parts of it. And the bulk of what we hear on television and in movies is the West Coast vernacular (minus some of our stupider slang). Other regional variances tend to sound 'foreign' in that context, at least to me. They're distracting when they sound wrong.

but if it's within the 'voice' of the character to commonly use such a word then it reads strange to me if they only used proper English.
Oh, I agree with you-- but the language needs to sound like the character. Bobby's kind of gruff, and I'd expect the narrative surrounding him to sound similar. Or it could be a more distant and refined POV narrative, but once the story goes inside Bobby's head or lets him speak, I expect it to sound like Bobby.

"anyways" is a word that a character might say in speaking (especially if they're pretty young and their speech is casual), but it's rarely going to work for me in actual narrative.