I’m well aware by this point (due to the invaluable efforts of my critique group and first readers) that I have a tendency to put my British phrasing in the mouths of my American characters without realizing it. I got roundly smacked for having Andrew say that “some breakfast wouldn’t go amiss”. My mother was born in Yorkshire, and though she didn’t grow up there, her parents passed the phrasing on to her and she passed it on to me in a diluted form.<\/p>\n
The part that continues to amuse and often frustrate me is the “without realizing” part. That’s just how I talk! The other day, I discovered another one for the first time. I was listening to an audiobook with a Yorkshireman who used “love” as an endearment on a level with “dear” or “honey”. So it’s something that can be used just as easily for small children as romantic partners. That’s how I, and by extension my first draft characters, use it. But hearing it in the accent made me realize that must be why my critique group always seemed so confused by it. “He wouldn’t call her love! He’s not that mushy!” they protested on a couple of occasions. But when you’re using it synonymously with dear, it’s not mushy. It’s just an endearment.<\/p>\n
Now I’m wondering what bit of Yorkshire idiom I’m going to discover next in my own. It’s all my family’s fault! *shakes fist*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m well aware by this point (due to the invaluable efforts of my critique group and first readers) that I have a tendency to put my British phrasing in the mouths of my American characters without realizing it. I got roundly smacked for having Andrew say that “some breakfast wouldn’t go amiss”. My mother was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\n