Writing fic in my native language.

[noracharles]

I wouldn't write a fic about an English language canon in Danish. I used to read a lot of books in translation before it was possible to buy books online, and the stilted Danish of the translations never gave me the same intimate feeling as reading a book in its original language can.

I think the biggest advantage for me to writing in Danish would be the registers I have in that language. I speak English in very specific circumstances: At home I speak about family stuff with my family, but we code switch and mix and match a lot, and our private language would be difficult to understand for others as well as completely out of character for any canon character I can think of.

And then I write more or less formal academic English for school, and a weird mixture of more or less formal academic English and fandom dialect on LJ/DW, and again, I don't think that suits any of the canon characters I would like to write about. I do work hard not to write fic in fandom dialect, because it grates on me when I read it, but it's the only English casual dialect I'm fluent in :-|

I once made up a long story in my head about characters from a Danish movie, but I didn't bother writing it down. I couldn't imagine who would read it. The movie was Lille Soldat, a fantastic movie which I highly recommend.

It was not the point of the movie, but one of the things I particularly appreciated was the code switching: the main characters are Kimmie from Nigeria, who only speaks very little Danish and does not like to talk about emotional or important things in Danish, and Lotte who has English as a foreign language/working language. She's used to using English for important subjects that you have to get right, being an Iraq vet, and also has a broad knowledge of colloquial English from popular culture, but her English is stilted and dry compared to the emotional complexity she can express in Danish.

And as I was making up the story about those characters, it felt so good to be able to use that entire range that combining English and Danish gives me, and the control over nuance that code switching gives me, and the power to use dialog for characterization, which I normally suck at.

But then I remembered bringing friends to my parents' house, and the look they get on their face when we suddenly switch to English, and the way they also switch to English and it sounds so weird and kind of grating to me. They don't sound like themselves at all, because they're suddenly using a much more formal register and they have less nuance and humor in what they're saying.

And I thought to myself, no one could read that fic. No one in fandom understands my native language. (Except possibly aquaeri?)

Comments

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Well, you've seen how my English has peculiarities despite being in an English-speaking environment. But I do have a sense of where Ray would balk at Saying even though he Understands. It might not be quite right, since I'm from lower in the state, and the white ethnics of my childhood were different.

But, writers do write dialog, so you read a lot of the ones that Get it Well. And, there is American-pickers. ;) I will admit I read mostly out of time-period. Science-fiction is good that way, so that if characters have self-consistent Voice, whether it's pitch-perfect Jersey-shore is immaterial. (I use this to retcon Scotty's brogue. Since there are more opinions than there are Scotsmen, why shouldn't there be accents changing over time?)

As to writing in Danish, well, until someone writes It, no one can read a better example. Once upon a time, English was much rougher. Then Shakespeare and his contemporaries infused it and History did patently ridiculous things. Though,I really should locate some good examples of World English literature. There are plenty of native speakers of Englishes way different from my own.

[noracharles]

Oh, I do pick up lots of written approximations of spoken language, but the problem is that if my dialog is based on an approximation rather than the real thing, then it's bound to be even more removed from reality.

Of course I don't care very much, because I have absolutely no ear for languages and dialog has to be really shockingly wrong before I even notice. It's one of those things I try to get right for the sake of potential readers, rather than for my own sake.

And as you say, in science fiction it doesn't matter as long as the characters' voices are consistent.

When it comes to writing original fic, be it in Danish or English, I'm definitely going to write it in my own voice. There used to be some really excellent Danish writers, and some day when I have time I'd like to take a good, close look at their stuff to figure out what it is I like about it so much, but I'm not going to try to emulate anyone's style or fit into some pigeonhole for the convenience of the publishers. If I can't get published I might just make my own publishing house and use my contacts in the book industry to sell my stuff.