Not necessarily, but if Harry Potter's wearing a jumper, Clark walks around a hood. It's the setting voice, and the Smallville setting is Americana.

Point-- and, in that case, I did in fact change it (edit: yes, I really did. I've just checked). The harder one was the same word, later in the same fic, only this time the car was Victoria's. I still haven't decided about that one.

Who's speaking? If it's the same narrative voice as the first time, it should be consistent. If Victoria's talking, then it's a bonnet.

Who's speaking? If it's the same narrative voice as the first time, it should be consistent. If Victoria's talking, then it's a bonnet.

Yes. This. One of the things I like about switching viewpoints from scene to scene is that it gives me a chance to write for extended lengths of time in different voices.

It's the narrative voice. Consistency is important-- but I suspect (I'm just re-reading) that the narrative voice slipped to become a little more British the moment Victoria entered the scene, because it started telling things from almost-her-POV. Hum. It may not just be that word I need to change...

Cereal:

Yes. This. One of the things I like about switching viewpoints from scene to scene is that it gives me a chance to write for extended lengths of time in different voices.

That's how I ended up writing diary entries. I was trying to make this fic be more of a piece, with one voice. Although-- as I've just noticed-- the voice is sort of changing through it. Dammit.

I was once ripped out of an otherwise interesting YA fantasy novel (it may have been one of Diane Duane's; I'm not sure) because an American character was trying to make up her mind whether she fancied a particular boy, or only liked him, since Americans never use fancy in that sense.

OTOH, I use American spellings in my English-set novel because that seems to be standard practice when writing for American publication. And I use "gotten," because given that we're still using it here, I'm guessing its disappearance from British English is relatively recent, and therefore that my characters would use it in 1810.

The lack of gotten on your side of the pond does throw me, as using just "got" here seems to only be something I hear in low company.

If that makes sense. (I had a Brit beta miss a gotten once... I think it's still in there... keep meaning to remove the thing.)

I get slightly thrown, actually, by some UK writers when they do Giles, Ethan, or Wes, because while they sound like *real* English people, they don't sound like their show selves.

I get slightly thrown, actually, by some UK writers when they do Giles, Ethan, or Wes, because while they sound like *real* English people, they don't sound like their show selves.

That's a good point--the UK/US/Canadian divide is less important than getting the overall sound of a character's thoughts. Ray K. and Frank Pembleton are both U.S.ian characters, for example, but the way they use language is vastly different.

I get thrown out of a narrative if the setting is the US or the UK and the writer uses terms from somewhere else.

Things like "car park" vs "parking log" or "mobile" vs "cell phone". Other people might not have a problem with it if a writer is trying to create a believeable world then they should recreate the correct terms. Reading the wrong term throws me into the wrong place.

It just takes that extra bit of mental energy to say to oneself, "Oh, I'll read that as 'truck by the elevator'." And god knows, I have little enough mental energy to spare. Everytime I'm forced to translate Brit to Mur'can my kidneys shut down and I can't remember what my mother looks like.