The US and the UK have a lot of things in common, including (more or less) a language. But now and then you trip over something where the culture is so wildly different that people on one side or the other may not even be able to grasp how utterly different the other culture is. That can be a significant issue in writing for an audience on both sides of the Atlantic, because you can end up leaving one half of the audience scratching their heads and thinking your writing is sloppy, when what they see as a plothole is an accurate reflection of the culture the story is set in.
It’s particularly bad for Brits writing for an American audience, because a British audience usually has some familiarity with American culture through exposure to American tv and films, while the reverse situation can’t be assumed. I ran into an example of this a couple of weeks ago, in connection with my ongoing episode-by-episode review of Torchwood. After writing the draft I would have a look round at other people’s comments on an episode to see if there was anything I’d meant to talk about but forgotten — and noticed something. There was a very consistent complaint from Americans about how unbelievable it was that the audience viewpoint character, Gwen, initially didn’t know how to use a gun. She’s a police officer, so they couldn’t understand how she could not be trained in firearms, even if she had never had to actually use one in anger before.
These are Americans who have actively sought out a British show. They’re more likely than the average American to know something about the UK. And it never occurred to any of them that the police in the UK might not be like the police in the US, that what was shown was an accurate depiction of life in the UK. Even though “British police aren’t armed” is one of the things that often shows up on “hey, those Brits, they’re weird!” coverage.
What do you do about this situation? You can’t just slide over it and never comment on Gwen using a gun, because the British audience will wonder why on earth an ordinary bobby is firearms-trained. Ordinary uniformed beat police in mainland Britain do not carry guns. Not only do they not carry guns, they are not normally trained in the use of firearms. Nor are they likely to have gun knowledge from their private life, because private ownership of handguns has been effectively non-existent since 1997, and was unusual before that. Gwen immediately handling a gun with no problems would break suspension of disbelief for the British audience just as effectively as showing her as untrained did for the Americans.
This is just one example, but there are a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle ways something like this can happen. The first problem for the author is of course to be aware of the difference. Since I write for an American publisher, my editor will generally pick up on things that need to be clarified. The second problem is to find a way to make things clear, at least from context, to both audiences. It can sometimes be a tricky balance, putting in enough information to let one side pick up what’s going on without it being a boring and obvious infodump to the other side. Sometimes there simply isn’t any way to reconcile it, and I think that the Torchwood example is probably one of them, although I think they might have been able to do a little more explicit “I’m a beat bobby, remember, not a detective constable” to key people in. But it’s always worth considering what you can do to write around situations like this. It’s a part of the world-building process in contemporary fiction, just as much as details of an unfamiliar setting would be in genres like historical romance or science fiction.
[This post is about handling cultural differences when writing for multiple audiences. It is not about whether there is a right side and wrong side in the specific example used. If you wish to discuss the latter, please do so elsewhere.]
A really interesting article, Jules. I sometimes wonder if Americans are fooled by some of our old ‘cop shows’ on tv, such as The Professionals, which show our police apparently waving guns around with abandon? *We* know they’re not ‘ordinary’ coppers, but others might not realise the difference….
Yes, I think that if you already know Brit culture it’s obvious that the cops in many British cop shows are from the groups like CID and Special Branch within the police force that often are armed (and even then there’s an unrealistic level of violence because they’re action shows), but if you didn’t know that uniformed police are normally unarmed, there’s nothing in those shows that would tell you.
It struck me that it was specifically Americans. Australian uniformed police routinely carry firearms, but Australians also have much more exposure to British culture through tv. In particular, The Bill is extremely popular there, and that’s a show that covers both CID and uniform. So your typical Australian viewer is already keyed in to the fact that your typical uniformed constable in the UK is not going to have any experience of firearms.
Nod nod, it’s something I’ve noticed time and again in my writing and editing process – more particularly so when I do historicals.
The most notable example was when I used the term “bursary” in Standish. Now Standish has quite a lot of antique words in it, and none of them had been queried, but my editor and publisher argued this word back and forth and back and forth and in the final edition, much against my wishes, they changed it to something else. Scholarship I think, which annoyed me because it wasn’t at all the same thing. (I also fought tooth and nail for “Damascene moment” which DID stay in.)
I was surprised when even one of my betas said she didn’t know the word. I pointed out the Bursar from Discworld, but it seems she didn’t know what his job was, either.
I also remember someone being amazed that all our counties have the same governmental laws and don’t follow the state-wide differences that they have in the US. I know we have local laws that differ all over the place but that’s usually less vital. But we don’t have the big differences like for example, gay marriages being legal in Norfolk but illegal in Surrey.
[...] [Note: this is a copy of an article originally posted at Britwriters.] [...]
I know we have local laws that differ all over the place but that’s usually less vital. But we don’t have the big differences like for example, gay marriages being legal in Norfolk but illegal in Surrey.
There are significant differences between the Scottish and English legal systems, though. Possibly the most well-known difference is the fact that Scottish trials can end with a “not proven” verdict. There are also lots of linguistic differences.
That’s a very good post, Jules and, as someone mentioned on the loop, if people’s exposure to UK police is as tourists then they will likely have seen uniformed officers with guns at the airports and some London stations (I don’t know about any of the other, large cities?) which could have given them a skewed view of gun use by UK police.
Up our way it was a bit of a shock when the police made it mandatory for officers to wear stab vests on every patrol.
Acromyns are another thing that cause problems. I have a friend called H L Berry who wrote a series of shorts for Ruthie’s Club in which the central character was an MP. These stories went through The Fishtank (a writers workshop that I’m a member of) and quite a few people asked why a Military Policeman had such access to government. And try writing a story about teenagers without mentioning their GCSEs for fear of confusing people. It’s not easy.
Very thought provoking article. There’s all these things that we take for granted about our way of life, aren’t there?
(more or less) a language LOL! So true!
I had wondered about Gwen, because though I knew that Bobbies didn’t go armed, I thought that this had changed in some areas after 9-11. Obviously the rank and file Cardiff constabulary can cope with aliens, weevils, and rift-drifters without having to resort to firearms. I’d need more than a stiff upper lip and a nightstick to face all that.
This article strikes me as something that could be 1 in a series.
My favorite misunderstood phrase is “fanny pack”! Totally different position in the US vs. the Britain and Ireland!;~D
I do think though, that sometimes our editors give less credit to the intelligence of our readers. Although, not British, I do write historical fiction and, as a reader, love to read them. For me, if the unfamiliar word is easily understood in context, I’ve learned a new word! Also, I’m motivated to learn more about a country when I find something that intrigues me.
Great article, although I agree with Lee that it could be a great series, too. A rather long series, in fact.
The first thing that occurred to me about the firearms discussion is that the confusion goes the other way, too, although it doesn’t impact fiction as much because the same confusion is on both sides. Most US police officers go their entire careers without ever drawing their weapons, although you’d never guess that watching American TV shows and movies.
But I can imagine someone writing a more true-to-life story about American cops and being criticized for how unrealistic it was because there wasn’t a single gun fight. [wry smile] Similar to the Gwen thing (which I had to think about for a few moments when I first watched that episode) but with the difference that a lot of Americans would think it was unrealistic too because of what they’ve seen on the screen.
Angie
There are also some comments over on my LJ copy of this post, which along with the ones here will probably result in a follow-up post sometime next week…
Now I feel completely dim and can’t help thinking this blog may teach those of us writers particularly writing for the US a thing or two. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone might blink twice over the idea of British cops not carrying weapons. I recall a Robin Williams sketch where he was poking fun at our police where he said that if a criminal was getting away what was our force to do? “STOP! Or I’ll shout stop again!”
I have to admit I thought it was widely known that our forces don’t generally carry weapons and remember when I saw armed guards at the airport for the very first time. I blinked in surprise and did a double take, and on some level felt a curious blend of unease and feeling safe.
There was a comment on the LJ version of the post that I thought nailed it — “I think this is one of those instances where people often know intellectually that the British Police don’t carry guns, but haven’t really absorbed the fact at a deeper level and taken on board what that implies.”
I think some of the Americans I’d seen commenting about this may well have known that uniformed police in mainland Britain don’t normally carry guns, but hadn’t understood that this extends to not training with the guns that they don’t carry. It’s one of those areas where the mindset is so different that they literally cannot comprehend without it being explicitly explained to them that someone in that role would neither have the training nor need it.
Of course, British police aren’t completely unarmed. It’s just that the weapons they carry aren’t guns.
Good point – and it goes both ways. I’ve been working closely with American students and staff for over nine years now, as well as socialising with American friends, and I still trip over things and world views that are mutually baffling.