[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by Lexi Revellian

Of course we're all quite resigned to the baddies having clipped English accents in American films. Proud of it, even...

Well, actually, I'm not. The only reason that they're British is because it was the only believable character type I could come up with. Well, at least one I felt most readers would understand. If that little part of the story could have believably been done in another country, I would have adjusted the character types and speech accordingly to fit the area. I actually have an Australian as one of my characters (Commander Sydney, tactical officer of the Sergenious, and yes, his name is an intentional pun.) and I dug around for people who knew the little verbal word plays, words, etc that would be common among Australians to use. I also watched a few shows, some news, etc, and picked up on some myself, as well as local and cultural references to ensure that the character was accurate and believable. Yes, I am one who believes in doing as much homework as possible to ensure accuracy. I don't always get it right, but at least I try.

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's sometimes the little things that "jar". Eg, at the moment I'm watching the live press conference between Mr Obama and Mr Cameron. Mr Obama refers to Mr Cameron as "Prime Minister Cameron". That's just "wrong" to a British ear; we don't use the job title in that way.

Well, yes, it may be wrong in the British ear, but not in America. That's because in America, addressing someone by their formal rank and/or title is an expression of respect. So in our eyes it would have actually been rude and disrespectful of his position as Prime Minister to address him simply as "Mr. Cameron." And believe me, if he'd done that, people would have eaten him alive in the press. That's one of those imaginary lines of etiquette we've dictate as a culture that people do not cross, save in certain situations of familiarity. (IE, knowing someone well enough to be on a first name basis in private.)

Originally Posted by gwynevans

The "with prejudice" phrase, though, is a US 'flavoured' one and not something that would be used over here - I'm not sure it would even be used in the US other than by Intelligence Service 'wannabees'! :-)

Well, that's something I didn't know, so I'll take note of that. However, I may ultimately leave it in. I say that because of what one of the other posters pointed out about how elements of American English are finding their way into British English, and vice versa. For example, ten years ago I never would have expected to hear someone from America use the word "bloody" in the same way the British do, unless they were originally from the UK. Lately though, it's actually become quite common to here someone doing that. In fact, I catch myself unconsciously using it at times as well. ^_^;;

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

What we're looking at here is a professional attitude. Steve is going to considerable effort to make sure something -- in this case, the speech patterns of even minor characters -- are correct.

That stands in direct contrast to the attitude that seems to have migrated from fanfic to self-published, would-be pros who say "that doesn't matter, it's just fiction." I think we've all seen the results, and they're not pretty. Nor, despite the authors' best efforts, are those results marketable.

So I guess I'm going to have to find some space for Steve's books on my TBR list, because someone who cares about the details of his minor characters' speech cares enough to write a good book.

Thank you for the compliment. ^_^ Yes, I try to be as detail oriented as possible. I've suffered through many a book that was poorly researched, and thus I do not ever want to do that to my readers if I can help it. On top of that, the better you research your writing, the better and more believable the story is. Which brings up another example. From book 5, I actually had to go through and do a ton of research on the 1795-1815 period to ensure that I had all my facts straight about the time period. I had even wanted to put a few ships by name into the story, but soon found that their dates in port, or time of operation, didn't match the timeframe of the book, and therefore couldn't be used. It's also spawned quite a few new and interesting ideas that have found their way into the stories as well. So that research benefits the reader (and the writer) much farther than simply ensuring accuracy in a given segment of the story.