by Silverhart » Thu Apr 13, 2017 5:03 am
How often do you notice differences in the writing of authors/writers from different cultures? (be it words or terms you're unused to, unfamiliar scenery that's familiar to the author, etc.)
Very often. I read books from many different time periods and places, and it really is like being in another world at times. It took me forever to figure out what "Z____" meant while reading some 18th century literature. From what I can figure the original author and/or publisher decided to censor it out, but not other words that people nowadays would find offensive. I find it absolutely fascinating. And to be honest, America itself has so many cultures, that I often come across startlingly different cultures written by American authors, and that's always fun.
There have been many a time actually where I believed a book was written by an American or British author, only to read the blurb in the back at the end and discover it was translated from something else, or the author is from a totally different part of the world. Certain genres just seem to transcend any cultural dissonance. There is one author that I love, who has written several historical fiction books set in the Americas and England, and she wrote one story set in modern day England. Even though I knew she was British, for some reason it wasn't until reading that book that it dawned on me - holy cow, this author is British and knows British things, and I am now totally in another world, and that world is Great Britain. It was spot on, down to the slang, the description of the houses and streets, the types of people you would meet - you just knew this author had experienced this and it was vastly different from my own experience. I don't read many books set in modern day, and to see how different it was from reading a historical setting, or from my own experience was really interesting.
How and when do you break the rules of grammar in your writing?
Usually in dialogue I break it, to better fit the flow of the character's speaking voice. Depending on the individual the character's writing or thinking will also break grammar rules. I will also purposefully use sentence fragments or run-on sentences in certain places in the narrative to place emphasis on what's happening.
I also tend to be a lot more casual in my writing and grammar on a first draft, and tidy it up on the second run.
Do you ever write stories set in different places, involving different cultures, other than the ones you yourself live or have lived in?
All of my stories are in different places than from what I've lived in. And the majority involve vastly different cultures. Sometimes fantasy, sometimes historical. I strive for historical accuracy in my stories, but it can often be a hard because the culture and values and day-to-day experiences are so vastly different. Speech, for example is hard to get across correctly, partly because we have no way of knowing for sure how people spoke before recording devices were invented. Different words had different meanings, and different beliefs and concepts mean something that was meant one way in old times can be taken vastly out of context in modern times. So it's always a delicate balance remaining true to the culture while adapting it so a reader in a modern culture can understand and enjoy it.
