Julia Jones wrote:
It's something that can be very noticeable in fanfic. The Americans, not surprisingly, can get a bit upset at rude remarks from British and Australian fans about B7 characters speaking American - they don't understand why it grates so badly, because the language sounds normal to them.
I'm working on a lot of Vila dialogue and internal monologue right now, and I'm really struggling with this. I know he doesn't speak "American," but any efforts to make him use the right style of language come across as...well...as an American trying to write what she *thinks* British sounds like. He sounds like a bad imitation of a Monty Python skit, full of cliched phrases and forced lines. Especially the indelicate interjections someone like Vila would surely make--I just can't use "bloody," "arse," or "sod" without it sounding desperately stilted. Or like I'm throwing in the little Brit lingo I know to "make it sound real." Either way it jars the scene out of believability for me. Frustrating.
Jen in Japan "I was a late developer." --Blake, "Horizon"