farwing Had a Question...

[gnomi]

...so I figured I'd ask it here.

Given an epistolary novel in which one of the characters writing letters is from the US and the other is from the UK, how does one handle the copyediting if your house style is default US spelling? Is it possible to keep the US correspondent's letters in US spelling/vocabulary and the UK correspondent's letters in UK spelling and vocabulary?

I'd love to hear folks' opinions on this.

(I'd say it is, but I've worked exclusively with small presses.)

Comments

[eal.livejournal.com]

Heh, you and me both with the small presses, but I would think yes, based on all of my reading.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

i'd say yes too. i think a correspondent from the uk writing letters using us spelling would look weird.

[eroticjames.livejournal.com]

I've never edited... but as a reader, I would be confused if the UK "writer" was using US vocab/dialect/punctutation. We are a very broad world now, I have UK friends. My Auusie friends write informally very diff. from thier Kiewi counteparts and again far diff from those in the "trad" UK and those in say So. Africa. You should keep the stylistic diff.

That's me as a reader speaking.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

(seen via friendsfriends)

I'd say any decent copyeditor ought to be able to follow that direction, provided the characters' letters and identities are clearly indicated.

[arib.livejournal.com]

IMO, given the nature of epistolary novels it would make sense to retain the British spelling and grammar for the British parts of the novel.

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

agreed. any narration inside the "british parts" but outside the british letters should stick to US english, though. unless of course the book is getting sold in england first. ;)

[docorion.livejournal.com]

What they all said. Seeing a supposedly British writer writing American English would altogether break the mood for me. Bye bye suspension of disbelief.

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

It would depend on the formatting, I think. If the only difference between the texts was the chapter heading, for instance, I would want to standardize spelling. If there's a font change, color change (like in neverending story), or the letters were inset in running text or something, I would be ok with a UK style for the british letters and US style for everything else. I would not standardize vocabulary.

"What color is the bonnet?"
"The car's hood is a bright red color."

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I'd do this because I'd find it much more distracting to swap my brain around between -ize/-ise, -or/-our, etc, than to see a british character spell "color".

OTOH, if the style of the letterwriters is distinct and imperfect or dialectic, I would probably be good with leaving things nonstandard.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

I'd think this is a case with a very very *very* strong argument for using British spelling / vocab / punctuation in the British letters, and equally for keeping the US s/v/p in the US letters. (and as a reader, not doing so would probably kick me right out of the book)

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

The book "Magic or Madness" isn't epistolary, but it alternates chapters told from an American perspective and ones told from an Australian perspective, and each uses their own spelling and vocab. Apparently the editors insisted on standardizing punctuation, though.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I mentioned CtO to farwing when we were discussing this over dinner last night. With Tom and Oliver, they each write with their native s/v/p, yes?

[ghilledhu.livejournal.com]

A British person writing a letter would not be using American spelling or vocabulary. I'd say keep it British.

I do agree with the commenter upthread who said that for anything outside the epistolary text, you should use American spelling, but retain any British vocab used in the character's dialogue.