Dear Author

[neadods]

(wow, it's been a while since I wrote one of these!)

Dear Author:

I know that you're British. I know that you're trying to set a scene very quickly. I know that America is surprising in how much territory our regional accents cover.

But just for the record, not everyone from New York sounds like they come from Brooklyn. And for that matter, Guys and Dolls is not an accurate record of Brooklynese.

Also - and again, I get it that you're British and this may be something that you either don't think about or don't want to think about, BUT! 1976 was kind of an important year in America. Especially July. Something about an anniversary of something, now what was it, it involved guys in red coats and a Declaration and some fighting, and yes we've made up and all, but you may have heard the odd mention of the event in your history classes?

SERIOUSLY. We as a nation didn't look up on July 4, 1976 and go "wow, it's the Bicentennial!" and then forget about it 24 hours later. Yes, it was particularly intense in early July, but it was kind of a year-long thing, especially for any state that counts as one of the original 13 colonies.

So, no, setting a story in New York on July 16, 1976 and not mentioning a certain little detail even in passing kind of stands out, no matter what the story is really about.

It especially stands out to old coots who *remember* 1976. Not all of your audience is knee high, I'm just sayin'.

Comments

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

you may have heard the odd mention of the event in your history classes?

Highly unlikely. The history syllabus in English secondary schools, at least up until GCSE (previously O-levels) - when everyone will study history - tends to cover British history (kings and queens, Civil War, social change etc), the World Wars and European history leading up to them, and modern European history. Very little American history at all. And I wouldn't even think it's a 'don't want to think about it', either - I do occasionally see comments from Americans to the effect that British people must be pissed off at the Fourth of July celebrations, but... to be quite honest, I think Brits generally see it as irrelevant to them *g*

By all means, complain about the author's lack of research on US culture - national and regional - but that specific point isn't really valid. I don't expect the British abdication crisis of 1935 is on many American school boards' history syllabi either! :)

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I don't expect the British abdication crisis of 1935 is on many American school boards' history syllabi either!

Given that The King's Speech won Best Picture, maybe US schools will start teaching about it!

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

This transplanted Brit can confirm. And even though I knew vaguely about the Fourth of July and 1776 and all that, I wouldn't've twigged that the Americans had made such a fuss about the Bicentennial until relatively recently (and that through trawling Wikipedia, nothing to do with the fact I'd studied post-1815 American history at Oxford wtf.)

Fair point about the excruciating accent, though I suppose someone whose only contact with US accents is either telly or musicals may well revert to stereotypes simply because they've never heard an actualfax American as opposed to someone playing one.

I concur with the fundamental conclusion though: MOAR YANKPICK PLZ.

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

I, for one, did learn about the British abdication crisis of 1935 in high school. Except it was in English class. = p

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I do occasionally see comments from Americans to the effect that British people must be pissed off at the Fourth of July celebrations, but... to be quite honest, I think Brits generally see it as irrelevant to them *g*

It's like being part of an ex-couple after a bad breakup, I think. "He still wants me. He's sorry I left." :D

Thing is... I know about the abdication crisis. I didn't learn about it in school, but I picked it up quickly in British media/lit, and I'd expect any American author setting a story in London about a fortnight later to at least mention something like "they ran past a newsstand with headlines about..."

Heck, most of the news articles here about The King's Speech are naturally focused on the movie, acting, Oscar hopes, etc., but they generally have one half sentence about why the King's speech patterns suddenly matter. It's as if there was an article all about the movie and what it depicts without even that half-sentence. Wouldn't that stand out as a glaring omission?

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

maybe, maybe not. there is one thing of note: almost every British person, especially any older than 30, has seen Alistair Cooke's America series which was specifically made by an ex-pat Brit to send back home.

In this, they often have a slightly more honest view of Americans than we ourselves do. In particular, the series talks about the Hoovervilles that built up, something I've NEVER heard about in any of my 4 American History classes (including AP history), but which was such (relative) common knowledge in Britain that it became a setting in a Doctor Who episode almost without afterthought.

But yes, the author picked a setting and a year that was of serious significance, and screwed up by not incorporating it. There was not a single town, from a city like NY to the smallest small town in Nebraska, that hadn't already started putting up Red White and Blue ribbons everywhere.

Side note: I actually knew about the Abdication because of a restaurant, the "Prince of Wales Grill" in Coronado (San Diego), which is themed after that Prince's lifestyle and era, and is filled with pictures of the Duke and his once-divorced bride.

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

Back to add - I couldn't edit the post:

Checked with spouse, who went to school in the south of England in the late 1970s. No American history on the syllabus at all. No particular mention of the Bicentennial in lessons, even in 1976.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm somehow slightly surprised that the revolution doesn't get a mention. But again - I wouldn't be too shocked if schoolchildren here can't tell you the number of original colonies, but I'd expect an author writing about a time and place to at least do a minimum of research!

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

For the record, I am Australian and this is the first thing I've ever heard about the American Bicentennial.

And yeah, we don't really cover any US history at all in schools. It's basically "America had it's revolution, so they had to send convicts to Australia" and that's it until the World Wars.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

*amused snort* We cover Australia in much the same manner.

But if you wanted to write about a certain year in a certain place, wouldn't you at least hit one of those "top headlines, top of the pops, xyz first used" websites for a touch of color? One of those "In your birth year..." things that gives an overview?

[minerva-fan.livejournal.com]

Fail.

[lagilman]

Everyone's comments about American history not being taught are missing one very important, nay essential fact.

WRITERS DO RESEARCH.

Writers who write about something they know nothing about and don't do research deserve to be called out. And yes, if you're setting something in a very specific place/year, you make damn sure you know if anything major happened in that place/year.

Accents... well, that's sloppy but it happens. Overlooking something that consumed the entire city for the entire year? Bad writing.



[for the record: I learned about the British abdication crisis in high school. It was in the section called "WWI-WWII" and it was standard textbook stuff 20 years ago...]

(EtA: we also learned about the French Revolution, the Spanish Civil War (ok, that was English class, not history) and "World History" as it dealt with things like the colonization of Australia and smatterings of Indian, Japanese and Chinese history. Standard stuff in American education ca 1970's/80's, from 6th grade on. So much for the "ignorant American" meme.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

WRITERS DO RESEARCH.

This, this, this! And this one didn't. Just becuse it wasn't an American author and not writing primarily for an American audience is not a free pass out of research - note the British disgust elsewhere in comments about Connie Willis not getting it right.

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

Everyone's comments about American history not being taught are missing one very important, nay essential fact.

WRITERS DO RESEARCH.

I wasn't missing that - I actually agreed with the point. I was only replying to one very specific part of the original post in order to say that American history is not part of the curriculum in English, and most likely British, schools. I am completely in agreement with the overall argument of the post! Having read far too many books - frequently American writers setting their stories in the early 19th century in England - in which clearly little or no research has been done into period culture, language usage and even distances, how could I not?

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

While I agree with commenters who say the Bicentennial wasn't taught in British schools (I wasn't taught any American history at school - I think the attitude was 'There's more than enough British history to get through on the syllabus without adding international history except where WW2 is involved.' I didn't study WW1 history at school - but this was in the days before national curricula and red tape long enough to reach the Moon!), I would also observe that the writer failed by not doing their research. If you're writing an historical, you damn well better research every last jot and tittle of the era, even if you won't use more than half of what you learn.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit surprised that the original revolution is listed as "international history" though. Although in school we do our Revolution and then skate right over France's, because that didn't particularly have anything directly to do with us.

(Here's a bit of AmericanHistoryFail - One of my teachers was slow going through the syllabus in middle school, so we learned right up to our Civil War one year and picked up after it the next. Rather a big gap to have in one's education, although the end result - knowing how it ended - doesn't change!)

[paratti.livejournal.com]

We didn't do the American War of Independence at shcool.
We had far too much of our own history to cover especially with a chunk of European and World history to touch on too.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'd rather expect "we had a bunch of colonies and then we didn't" to count as your own history, though. Not lots and lots of detail, but at least a mention!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

THIS!

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

Your average Brit would have no idea of the significance of 1976 -- American history isn't widely taught in UK schools (British and European is the main focus).

Which makes it vital to do research. I stopped reading Connie Willis when she clearly couldn't be bothered to research anything about wartime London for her new series. The slack I'd cut her for the Doomsday Book ran out!

And there was the American writer (fortunately for her I'm blanking on her name) who had hummingbirds in the Lake District -- and didn't take at all kindly to it being pointed out to her that there aren't any in the UK!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm SO sorry to hear about Willis - I'd really been looking forward to reading those books.

No hummingbirds? Huh. That surprises me because I'm pretty sure I saw one in Germany; if they could survive there, I'd expect a breeding couple to have hitched a ride on some form of transport.

(Now, see, that's the kind of mistake I might have made, because I don't think hummingbirds would come up on a Google search of headlines and cultural touchstones)

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

First, agreed 100% on the need to research the specific time and place, and an especially big "Ugh!" to phonetically rendered accents of all kinds.

Secondly, though; I was at a British school during the American Bicentennial and while I remember it vaguely being mentioned (I think we had to paint Stars and Stripes in Girl Guides) what was a much bigger deal that summer were, in order a)The Heatwave (people still talk about the summer of '76); b) the West Indies were touring, to devastating effect; c)the birth of punk rock and d) the leader of one of the three main political parties was enmired in s scandal involving a homesexual lover, an incompetent hitman, an Alsatian dog being shot and the sinister threat, "Bunnies can and will go to France". As you can imagine, the coverage the newspapers had to spare for the commemoration of events of 200 years ago almost three thousand miles away was pretty minimal.

So, I think for British writers the Bicentennial comes under the heading of "an unknown unknown" thus illustrating the danger of writing in an unfamiliar milieu in the first place.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

*gets entirely distracted by the assassination of the dog* Really?

It's an audio, so the accents aren't rendered phonetically. One of them would even almost pass as real here. One of them... *clears throat, rolls eyes*

[shaggydogstail.livejournal.com]

Oh, come now. Half the world's gained independence from Britain at some point - you can't expect us to remember all the dates. The only dates we know are VE Day and the Battle of Hastings anyway

[neadods.livejournal.com]

*giggle*snort*

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Of course the writer should have done more research, or got an American in to check... but the problem with the Bicentennial is that you can't research it if you have no idea it existed.

Actually, I remember quite a lot of coverage of the Bicentennial in the UK media in 1976, and I did learn a little about the War of Independence and even (shock!horror) the War of 1812 and the American Civil War in school, but that was long, long ago (the 1960s) and when UK schools concentrated much more on political and military history. The writer may not have even been born in 1976 - and probably wouldn't have remembered the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977 either! (It certainly didn't occur to the aforementioned Connie Willis when she mentioned the Jubilee Line in Blackout.)

I suppose that some people (even in the UK) also believe that everyone in London speaks cod-Cockney and that all Australians talk like Crocodile Dundee....

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Ah, the War of 1812: American Revolution II: The Empire Strikes Back.

As for the writer not being born in '76 - I wouldn't be surprised to hear it. I'm sorry to hear about Connie Willis though; I'd been looking forward to reading the new set of books and I'm hearing more and more about the bad history.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Indeed. The writer should have done the research.

Although while I have a few souvenirs of the American Bicentennial in my (London) house (my parents happened to be visiting in 1976), I don't have similar reminders of the French Bicentenial (14 July 1989) - and would probably forget to include a mention in any fic I was writing set in France in that year.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Point, I have no clue about the French bicentennial. That said, if I forgot it in a fic, I'd expect my butt to be kicked and edits to happen.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

[Just erased previous post because I don't think I can edit with a sponsored account.]

I marched in so many bicentennial parades that spring/summer, in various approximations of late 1700s dress, that I had my own child-sized mob cap.

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

Hee! I just commented above about many parades in the outfit my grandmother made me. No wonder I became a costumer...