I was reading this entry earlier, about mistakes that can pull you out of the story when the author hasn't researched properly. It made me think about how frustrating I often find research
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I totally remember that in As Time Goes By! Though more I remember the not very good American accent of one of the actors who was playing a producer, and thinking about how many of us are not used to hearing actors struggle with our own native accent.
I find it interesting that the faux!American characters were supposed to parody Americans, but they ended up turning into a parody of how some (most?) non-Americans think that Americans sound. Almost meta, in a way. ^_^
Definitely--and also there was the whole Hollywood aspect too. It was also funny the way that on the one hand you had the British stereotypes from the producers (Lionel must live in a huge house with a nanny) but otoh you had the British stereotypes on the show (Lionel's family housekeeper Mrs. Vale and the Lionel's house actually does seem to be important in the village.)
Of course, you also have Lionel's father and his wife liking to pretend to be Texas cowboys as well.
I remember the exact same thing about the accent. That is weird to hear. It makes you think about how it sounds to someone else, because you're wondering what they think they sound like, if that makes sense.
It'd be good if everyone got a local to check their story, but then again, who is local enough? Someone from that area? Someone from that are with a similar social background? Researching it all would be an endless task.
On the other hand, it's such a pleasure to read something that gets right something that's often wrong. Like, for example, the dialect(s) that people in Lapland speak. It's characterized by the insertion of 'h' into words, and when writers want to portray a character who's from Lapland, they put the 'h' into every place they can think of, getting it horribly wrong. It really annoys me. But then when someone gets it right, it feels all kinds of wonderful. (Of course, that person is probably from Lapland themselves.)
It's funny how dialects get standardized too--like, when people are writing phoenically. And when people don't really get it they'll overdo it--as you say, by sticking 'h's in everything. It's more like they're imitating the imitation.
It's funny because what that makes me think of is Mrs. Ariadne Oliver bitching about Sven Hjerson, and how if she'd known she'd get letters she would never have made him a Finn. And my own experience writing HP vs. AI vs. AI AUs; it's a real relief not to be always writing not only in a world I don't know, but that's build on another world I don't entirely understand. Of course, the anxiety around Brit picking was another of the canon-freakout things about HP fandom in general that other fandoms take in stride, except perhaps for SPN, and there I can't blame them. SPN is really about the middle American landscape, north and south, a part of the country that many Americans don't understand that well, never mind non-Americans. I'm sure that I have many details of AI production wrong, but I don't care all that much
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It is such a relief when you're just writing stuff you feel comfortable in. Although if you get anal you're probably always going to get wrong--like I was writing something in New York, but they were teenagers, and of course most of what I'm doing is based on my own high school experience, which was not in Manhattan. I fear the NYC school system. It's far too confusing
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knowing JKR if she was going to "code" someone Irish she'd name them Seamus Finnigan, have his fear be a banshee and send him on vacation in a Shamrock-covered tent.
HAHAHA (Maybe the person who actually failed to imagine Cho Chang as Chinese shouldn't laugh, but I say that just goes to show that you don't necessarily have to be any more British than me to get JKR's ethnic hints.)
I think what also makes it hard for an outsider setting fics in the U.S. is there are regional differences to consider, depending on where you're setting your story. And Americans can have just as much trouble with too.
This is probably a minor quibble, but someone just posted a question to drop_the_u asking for the proper terminology for a vacation home, "cottage, cabin, beach house," etc, and the very first response was that Americans don't have vacation homes, which she then qualified saying she didn't know anyone who owned one. Now where I grew up in Michigan, even in a staunchly middle class suburb, lake cottages were very common for families to own or rent, and certainly not only for the very rich
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asking for the proper terminology for a vacation home, "cottage, cabin, beach house," etc
And that, of course, varies all over the place too! That's something I ran into when my family moved to Vermont, where they're called "camps." Even if it's one family's little cottage, and nothing like a summer camp.
Gosh--that's exactly what I mean. Of course there are Americans who own vacation homes--and ones that don't. It doesn't even always go by how much money you have. A friend of mine would definitely describe her family as blue collar, but they had a house down the shore.
There's no real right answer to that one, though. Some people have beach houses, some cottages, some lake cottages. My friend's house was obviously in New Jersey, where you would say you "had a house down the shore."
New York movies have a lot of little weird things they'll change. I know in "Night at the Museum" they move the Natural History Museum down the block from the Met rather than across the park. I just saw "Enchanted" and my friend and I were scratching our heads over how the Patrick Dempsey character lives on 116th and Riverside and works at Columbus Circle...so why is he dragging his daughter down to the Bowery or thereabouts for karate class? He must pass a hundred other Karate studios on his way down there!
It's just so satisfying when a story (or show or movie) gets it right. And you can look, and say "Yes, that's it, that's what it's like if you live here." Especially with the tiny obscure details, or with the nebulous feel of a complex system/location/culture.
But of course it's so hard to research. You can look up train schedules and google endless points and get three different betas from the right region, and it's still hard; what if you misinterpret? What if this particular bit is something your beta happens not to know? (I wouldn't know anything about local tv stations, for example, because I hardly ever watch tv.) What if this is something city-specific and your beta only knows the wider state/country default, or vice versa? I'm sure this is the kind of mistake I make all the time, whenever I write stories set somewhere I don't know, no matter how hard I try to avoid it; all I can do is hope I guess right
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I recently saw "Gone Baby Gone" and you definitely knew the director had a feel for the neighborhood there! Most of the extras were from the area, and they filmed there a lot. Sometimes Ben Affleck felt he almost felt like he ought to pull back because it was too cliche, but since it was real he'd just go for it. I remember the co-writer or somebody was like "I just love the way you don't just have everybody standing around talking about chowdah because it's Boston." He said that was his backup was to have them talk about chowdah.
But then some writers have a real flair for doing that sort of thing in general, so if it's where they come from it's extra rich. I think Susan Cooper, when she wrote The Dark is Rising, was already living in America, so when she writes about England there's an element of homesickness to it that gives all the details that much more emotion.
I have a friend who's a lifelong Bostonian who says that the only time she hears movie Boston accents done right is in Ben Affleck and/or Matt Damon films. (I'm not as much of a moviegoer and a more recent Boston transplant, so I don't have as sharp an ear for it, nor as long a list of ones that did it wrong.)
And yes, very much so, to Susan Cooper's depictions of England. On the other hand, Will's American Aunt Fran is one of those British-created Americans that hits a jarring note now and then, for me. There are a few of her turns of phrase in Greenwitch that are just utterly wrong for the American she's supposed to be.
I was totally thinking of Fran when I wrote it! One thing that always sticks out for me is that she hasn't got that many lines, and yet in one of her lines she uses the word "shall." I always think she must have picked that one up from her husband.:-)
I remember hearing a lot of people in Zimbabwe were thrilled by Leonardo DiCaprio in "Blood Diamond." Somebody said he wasn't perfect on all of his vowels, but all in all he was really good and they were just amazed to hear their accent represented in a movie at all.
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Of course, you also have Lionel's father and his wife liking to pretend to be Texas cowboys as well.
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On the other hand, it's such a pleasure to read something that gets right something that's often wrong. Like, for example, the dialect(s) that people in Lapland speak. It's characterized by the insertion of 'h' into words, and when writers want to portray a character who's from Lapland, they put the 'h' into every place they can think of, getting it horribly wrong. It really annoys me. But then when someone gets it right, it feels all kinds of wonderful. (Of course, that person is probably from Lapland themselves.)
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HAHAHA (Maybe the person who actually failed to imagine Cho Chang as Chinese shouldn't laugh, but I say that just goes to show that you don't necessarily have to be any more British than me to get JKR's ethnic hints.)
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This is probably a minor quibble, but someone just posted a question to drop_the_u asking for the proper terminology for a vacation home, "cottage, cabin, beach house," etc, and the very first response was that Americans don't have vacation homes, which she then qualified saying she didn't know anyone who owned one. Now where I grew up in Michigan, even in a staunchly middle class suburb, lake cottages were very common for families to own or rent, and certainly not only for the very rich ( ... )
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And that, of course, varies all over the place too! That's something I ran into when my family moved to Vermont, where they're called "camps." Even if it's one family's little cottage, and nothing like a summer camp.
Augh to that first response, though.
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There's no real right answer to that one, though. Some people have beach houses, some cottages, some lake cottages. My friend's house was obviously in New Jersey, where you would say you "had a house down the shore."
New York movies have a lot of little weird things they'll change. I know in "Night at the Museum" they move the Natural History Museum down the block from the Met rather than across the park. I just saw "Enchanted" and my friend and I were scratching our heads over how the Patrick Dempsey character lives on 116th and Riverside and works at Columbus Circle...so why is he dragging his daughter down to the Bowery or thereabouts for karate class? He must pass a hundred other Karate studios on his way down there!
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But of course it's so hard to research. You can look up train schedules and google endless points and get three different betas from the right region, and it's still hard; what if you misinterpret? What if this particular bit is something your beta happens not to know? (I wouldn't know anything about local tv stations, for example, because I hardly ever watch tv.) What if this is something city-specific and your beta only knows the wider state/country default, or vice versa? I'm sure this is the kind of mistake I make all the time, whenever I write stories set somewhere I don't know, no matter how hard I try to avoid it; all I can do is hope I guess right ( ... )
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But then some writers have a real flair for doing that sort of thing in general, so if it's where they come from it's extra rich. I think Susan Cooper, when she wrote The Dark is Rising, was already living in America, so when she writes about England there's an element of homesickness to it that gives all the details that much more emotion.
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And yes, very much so, to Susan Cooper's depictions of England. On the other hand, Will's American Aunt Fran is one of those British-created Americans that hits a jarring note now and then, for me. There are a few of her turns of phrase in Greenwitch that are just utterly wrong for the American she's supposed to be.
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I remember hearing a lot of people in Zimbabwe were thrilled by Leonardo DiCaprio in "Blood Diamond." Somebody said he wasn't perfect on all of his vowels, but all in all he was really good and they were just amazed to hear their accent represented in a movie at all.
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