I’ve written a few words here and there, but I’m behind my goal for the year. I like to get my proofreading jobs behind me first. Sometimes I can write some words during that time, but I don’t want to take away from my client’s time. I should be done in about a week, then I’m going to try to catch up on word count until the next job.
I’ve gotten feedback from my five beta readers and editor on my mystery written under the other pen name. I’ve gotten everything from “I LOVED it!” to “Mystery isn’t my thing, but I liked the romance in it”. The feedback was mostly good with very few changes suggested. I’m waiting mostly on the cover.
About the Southern stuff. I’ve noticed from time to time that my editor makes changes in my manuscript that I don’t quite understand. And, occasionally, so will a beta reader. And I try to figure out WHY it’s wrong. And it finally occurred to me that some of the words and phrases I write are used a lot here in my area but probably aren’t where they’re from. I’ve tried to take some of the southern stuff out of my speech and writing, but some of it I refuse to let go of. I’m Southern, and I’m proud of that heritage. But when it’s REALLY local, I have to decide whether to keep it or ditch it. One such phrase I remember writing is “sick at my stomach”. My editor changed it to “sick to my stomach”. I fixed this one because I assumed the way I say it is probably localized in this area. But I have NEVER said “sick to my stomach”. I’ve always used “at”. So then, hubby and I talked and decided if you were physically ill, “at” is used, but if you were appalled at something, “to” is used. “I’m sick at my stomach.” “That just makes me sick to my stomach.” So what do you think? Which way do you say it? And are there things that are local to your area or your region that editors or betas call you on? I’d love to hear them!
By the way, when I proofread, there are sometimes things that must be local to where those authors are from since I’ve never heard some of the phrases, or they sound wrong to me. So it’s not just the South. 🙂
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I recently read for someone in another country, and found it very challenging because there was a lot of her local in there. I was reading for content, not proofreading, so it wasn’t so much about making corrections as it was letting her know when something came across as odd to me, and when I just plain didn’t know what she was talking about. I made some notes about being clear about market. Because if your book is only available in your home country, those things wouldn’t matter. But if it’s available here as well, it needs to be written in such a way that we can understand it without a glossary while still retaining that regional flavor. Where I think you can run into a problem is if you homogenize your voice to a point where those few bits of regional flavor you decide to leave in stick out as odd, and feel like errors to the reader. And it matters where you choose to set the story and the backgrounds you choose for the characters. A lot of people like to write about NY, even if they’ve never spent time there. If you’re going to write a New Yorker in New York, that character should sound like New York, even if the author is from somewhere else. It doesn’t have to be complete with phonetic spelling, but there are some things where you’re left going, who talks like that?
I proofread for someone from another country a few months ago, and it is a challenge. She had the most trouble with verb tense because English wasn’t her first language. But it wasn’t bad at all.
Funny you should mention NY. The novella in the anthology I did under my other pen name is set in NY. But the shero was actually from Tennessee. I tried to make sure not to do anything “southern” when writing dialogue for the hero.
I try not to use actual slang if it’s a lot different from the norm, but then there are those few times where I’ve thought “everyone talks like this”. That’s why it’s good to have beta readers and an editor who aren’t from the south and one beta who is. (One is actually from Ireland.)
For me it’s always sick to my stomach. If something is appalling, I’ll just stop with “Oh that makes me sick.” I don’t tend to reference the stomach at all unless I’m actually griping about a physical ailment.
And since you’re from the south, too, it makes me think the sick AT my stomach is very localized. That’s why I changed it in my book when it was suggested. I don’t want people to say “What?”
This happens to me, too! You’re right, it isn’t just the south. If I get the feeling that an edit is because of a saying being different in my location than the beta’s, I take it with a grain of salt. If two people mention it, I might change it so that it comes across clearly and doesn’t bother a whole bunch of people who read it. 🙂
When I read, I kind of like to hear words and phrases I’m not used to unless it’s totally off the wall. We all have our different little things we say. But these non-southerners are going to HAVE to stop using y’all when referring to only one person. LOL
That’s funny that you mention this. A few weeks ago I took a short story I wrote into my writer’s group (IRL). I live in Pittsburgh now, but I lived in the South for many years, and both of my parents were Southern.
The protagonist spoke “funny” and a lot of the people in my group were trying to correct his dialogue, because it wasn’t proper grammar. And I can understand that for the actual story bits, but I’ve never thought dialogue had to be “proper grammar” as not everyone speaks correctly, and a lot of how people talk is based on where they live.
Sometimes, if you correct “bad grammar” in a dialogue, you’re changing the character – and his voice – entirely.
On a different note, I often like to point out how they talk up here, which is really different. 🙂 They “outen” the lights. You “leave go” of things. You “let it alone.” So I’ll just say, “Y’all talk funny up here.” 🙂
Outen the lights? Leave go? I’ve never heard those phrases. You know how we say “I took her to the mall”? I’ve heard people in some areas say “I carried her to the mall”.
The dialogue needs to be how that character would speak. I was editing for someone the other day, and they had used the word “whom” properly. However, I knew the character would have never said “whom”, so I pointed that out.
Those must be Pittsburgh-isms. I live in NW PA, and those certainly aren’t phrases we use. 🙂
In Illinois we say ‘sick to my stomach’ for both metaphor and a real sickness. I think that’s a good point about balancing the local with the accepted way of saying things. Local is important for spice and flair from the setting. Without it Gone With the Wind would have been missing something.
I’m seriously beginning to think the “sick at my stomach” thing is very localized to my area since no one else so far has heard it said that way. And we do have to have a balance. Bringing in that local flair can make a story much more interesting.
I’ve had beta readers mention things in my writing that they think are probably regionalisms, and I just figured most people talk like that. Most of mine are set in my home state, and fictionalized towns in the area I live, so they’d fit for the characters, too.
I’ve been trying to set more of my stories close to home so I won’t have to worry too much about how people talk. Really, though, unless it’s something very unusual, I don’t notice a lot of differences in speech in the stories I read. I do find that authors who aren’t from the south usually get southern speech wrong.
In North Dakota, the big thing was “go with”. “I’m going to the store. Want to go with?” It bugged me for my first few months up there because I kept wanting to tag on the rest of the sentence to complete it, but it grew on me. I heard some y’all in Florida but it was from people who were born there, not the military or senior citizens. I was in a major military area because of my dad (and later my husband’s) job. So we didn’t have so much exposure to southern talk. In Ohio (where I grew up), we called supper “dinner” and pop “soda”, and this is how I still think of them today, though I do put in supper for historical westerns since that is what they call it in North Dakota and Montana. In Regencies, though, it is always dinner. I almost put in “breaking the fast” for breakfast in Regencies (since I saw it done in a book, but then I thought, “How many people in the US are going to know what I’m talking about?” And then I thought, “Some people in the UK will read this and will probably know.” So I try to do morning meal to avoid trouble.
I think this is one of those areas where you just can’t win. This is also why I try to write about areas where I’ve lived or visited, except for Regencies.
That’s funny that in Ohio you called it “soda”. My cousins are in northern Ohio, and they call it “pop” Down here, it’s all Coke. LOL.
Sometimes here it’s breakfast, lunch, dinner and sometimes it’s breakfast, dinner, supper. I saw an article one time that said whatever your biggest meal is, that’s the one you call dinner. *shrugs* When Anya and I go out for the last meal on Mondays, we usually call it supper. But then most people say “let’s go out to dinner”.
One thing paranormal romance has over Regencies…you can make up all kinds of stuff and get away with it. Hahahaha
“Sick to my stomach” is how we say it over on this side of the pond.
Yeah, I’m thinking it’s just around my town where we say “at”.