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[hazyjayne]

QUESTION: If you are writing fanfic for a US television/book/film show, should you use US spelling in the fic

Comments

[heartsasmagnets]

Yes. Writers should use the spellings and slang of the country the fandom originates from. Otherwise, I spend time thinking about how 'aha! the author is British' and it distracts from the story.

[lnr]

Slang: definitely stick with what would be idiomatic from the characters, yes. But I don't agree on spelling.

[lnr]

I say write for your audience. If you were writing fanfic of a *written* original rather than a film/TV original it might make more difference, but I'd probably still stick with British spellings. And it's not like the Ranma 1/2 fanfics I used to read were written in Japanese!

[abluegirl]

I'm Canadian, and we use British spelling. I use british spelling when I write. When it comes to colloquialisms and slang, ours is more or less the same as the states, so I don't have an issue there. But as for the spelling, yeah, the Queen's English is the proper English, so therefore it is what I use.

[abigailb]

How do you spell the rubber thing that they put round wheels of motor vehicles (rhymes with "higher"?)

[abluegirl]

True, there are some exceptions. Most of us spell that one the American way, tire. :)

[dakeyras]

There is no "should" if you ask me. When I write I tend to be influenced most by what feels most comfortable at the time, with a side order of trying to make sure that as much of my audience as possible can follow it as easily as possible.

And if you're reading this before 19.00 BST then GET BACK TO WORK.

[florahart]

I don't briticize the spellings of my HP stuff, largely because I'm reasonably certain I would be inconsistent at it and I'm not about to set my spellchecker to a non-US standard. I therefore think it would be hypocritical of me to expect Brits to drop their Us and ize their ises in fics set in the US. Words choice is a different issue from standard spellings.

And then there's the problem of words that are not just spelled differently but said differently: alumin(i)um, disorient(ate)/orient(ate), acclimat(is)e.