Writing for a North American audience

By Narelle Atkins

In April ICFW member LeAnne Hardy wrote an excellent post on Writing about Culture. LeAnne is an American who writes stories set in other countries, including Africa.

In the blog post comments, we chatted about how cultural differences can be very stark or more subtle. I'm an Aussie and I write contemporary romance for a primarily North American audience with the Love Inspired Heartsong Presents line. My books are set in Australia and my characters are Australian. I've just finished the copy edits on my fourth book, and I've learned there are many subtle cultural differences between Australia and the USA.

Snowy Mountains in Australia

The obvious difference is grammar and spelling. I have a bad habit of mixing Australian and American grammar and spelling now I'm using both all the time. The placement of commas, in particular, can trip me up. Spell checkers are useful, but they don't pick up everything. Google is my friend when I need to double check spelling and word usage. 

In Australia we have a lot of exposure to American language through television, movies, and online sources. The other day my son asked me if I had my cell phone with me. My daughter and I did a double take, because we call cell phones 'mobiles' in Australia. I'm now convinced he watches too much American content on You Tube, but I digress... 

I refer to 'jumpers' as sweaters in my books, a 'footpath' is a sidewalk, '4WDs' are SUVs, 'insurance excess' is a deductible, 'morning tea' is refreshments, and 'mum' is spelled mom. I was able to keep a reference to 'brumbies' in The Doctor's Return by adding an extra sentence that defined the brumbies as wild horses.

It's perfectly reasonable for an Aussie to say "I'm wearing my thongs to the beach and I'll take them off when I walk on the sand" because thongs are flip flops. But that sentence won't translate the right way in North America where thongs are intimate apparel.

North Curl Curl Beach in Sydney, Australia

One of my Aussie friends is currently living in the US. She mentioned that the American spelling in my books means she can hear the dialogue in an American accent. It's interesting how we can translate the dialogue into our own dialect. When I read American books, I usually hear the Aussie pronounciation in my mind.  

Our seasons are different in Australia, being in the southern hemisphere. I try to avoid references to specific months. We have Christmas in summer, and we drive on the opposite side of the road. I'm careful to be non-specific regarding left and right when it comes to driving and talking about cars. 

I also think, in general, that Australians are less concerned with political correctness than our American friends. My editors have picked up a couple of things in my books that have surprised my group of Aussie beta readers. Our church culture is slightly different, too, and that needs to be taken into account.  

There are subtle nuances to consider when writing dialogue. I've discovered during my trips to the US that 'you're welcome' is the usual response when someone says thank you. In Australia we have a variety of responses, including no problem, no worries and okay. I learned to ask for two percent milk in hot black tea, after ordering tea with milk from a well known cafe franchise and ending up with what we call thickened cream in my tea.

My conclusion is that I would need to do a lot of research if I wanted to write a contemporary romance set in North America. The authenticity of the characters and setting doesn't always translate easily in a different society and cultural setting. It's the little things that can distract a reader and pull them out of the story.

What challenges have you faced when writing for an American or international audience? As a reader, do you notice the small cultural differences? Have you read a book set in your part of the world that didn't translate fully to your cultural setting? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences. 

NARELLE ATKINS writes contemporary inspirational romance and lives in Canberra, Australia. She sold her debut novel, set in Australia, to Harlequin's Love Inspired Heartsong Presents line in a 6-book contract. Her debut book, Falling for the Farmer, was a February 2014 release, followed by The Nurse's Perfect Match in May 2014, The Doctor's Return in August 2014, and Her Tycoon Hero in November 2014.

Narelle blogs regularly with Australasian Christian Writers and Inspy Romance. http://australasianchristianwriters.blogspot.com/ 
http://www.inspyromance.com/ 

She is also a co-founder of the Australian Christian Readers Blog Alliance (ACRBA).
http://acrba.blogspot.com/ 

Website: http://www.narelleatkins.com
Blog: http://narelleatkins.wordpress.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NarelleAtkinsAuthor
Twitter: @NarelleAtkins https://twitter.com/NarelleAtkins

A West African Wedding

I'd like to share with you an excerpt of a story I'm working on that highlights some aspects of wedding preparations and customs from a Nigerian perspective. What's fascinating is that there are just as many wedding customs as there are tribes in Nigeria. I'm looking forward to see what the amalgamation of Urhobo (the tribe to which my family belongs in Nigeria) and Ngemba (my fiance's tribe in Cameroon) wedding customs would look like.


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It was getting harder and harder to ignore her ringing mobile phone. From the ringtone Osaro knew it was her fiancé’s sister, Yinka. She lifted the right corner of her silk eye-mask, squinting as a bit of sunlight hit her eye. Just as she reached across the bed to pick up the phone, it stopped ringing. She put her hand on her forehead, biting her lip.
Why can't Yinka leave me alone? I have so much to do getting this wedding organized. She groaned. No use trying to get back to sleep now.
She got up and knelt by the side of her bed. There was so much on her heart to share with the Lord. As she opened her month, she heard a soft voice cross her heart. Though you walk through the midst of trouble, I will revive you. She recognized the words from Psalm 138. She furrowed her brow.
Twelve minutes into her prayer hour, her phone rang again. The ring tone told her it was Kola. She wished she’d turned the ringer off.
“Hi Babe.”
“Yinka says she’s been trying to reach you. Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
Osaro was taking aback. She moved the phone from her ear and gave it her ‘dirty’ look. Kola was becoming increasingly annoying as their wedding day neared.
“Osaro are you even listening to me? Yinka is quite upset. I don’t have time to be refereeing between my fiancée and my sister!”
“Kola, I-”
“Listen, just call her back and apologize. I’ll speak to you later.”
The call was disconnected. Osaro shook her head. How come I never noticed how whinny Kola can be? She stared into space for a full minute.
“Lord, please help me.”
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Osaro clicked the Save button after entering her notes from her last patient visit. She closed the application and opened Internet Explorer. She typed in ‘breast augmentation + breast cancer’ in her search engine’s Web Search field. As she waited for the search to run she heard a knock on her door.
“Come in!”
“Hey girl! Ready for lunch?” Osaro’s best friend and business partner, Kay, entered the room, the fragrance of her signature perfume coming in with her. Kay seemed to glow.
Well, why wouldn’t she? Osaro mused. She has a husband who is totally devoted to her and she doesn’t have to deal with the stress of in-laws.
“Sorry Kay. I can't make it. I'm psyching myself up to call Yinka.”
Kay rolled her eyes. “She’s not causing trouble between you and Kola again, is she?”
“No, of course not.” Osaro replied a little too quickly. She picked up her phone, poised to dial. Kay shook head.
“Listen, you better get Kola to tell them to back off, or else for the rest of your life his family will be running you ragged.
“You’re being melodramatic as usual. Kola’s family loves me.” She shrugged. “I’m sure stress is a normal part of planning any wedding.”
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It seemed Kola and Osaro were arguing more than talking these days. Coupled with their increasingly busy work schedules, they hadn’t spent as much time together. For the first time in almost a month they were spending a quiet Friday evening together.
“I finally got my boss to approve my time off. I confess I was afraid I’d have to resume work immediately after we get back from Nigeria.”
Osaro widened her eyes. “But everything is okay now, right? After all this wedding prep stuff I really need that trip to Bali.”
Kola edged closer to Osaro on the settee and took her hands in his. Osaro pulled her hands away, recognizing Kola’s tactic of tactile attention to deflect from something she was sure she didn’t want to hear.
“Please tell me you’ve booked the tickets and the hotel room.”
Kola’s eyes roamed the breadth of his living room, missing Osaro’s gaze by miles.
“Kola? Please tell me something. Anything!” Osaro’s nostrils flared.
“I'm sorry Babe.”
“You’re sorry?!” She leapt from her seat. “What do you mean you’re sorry? Sorry for what?”
Kola leaned back in his seat. “I don’t see why we have to spend all that money for first class tickets and a fancy hotel when we can just as easily go somewhere nearer.”
Osaro put her hands up. “You agreed! You agreed months ago! If money is the problem you know I can afford it.”
“There you go again! Throwing your money in my face! I didn’t say I couldn’t afford it. I just don’t see the need for such a grandiose display!”
Osaro took a step back as if she’d been slapped. Her eyes filled with tears. Kola quickly bridged the space between them.
“I'm sorry Osaro. I didn’t mean… It’s just that you can't relate to being responsible for a very large family. You know I have to send money home every month. Yinka’s husband is not pulling his weight and I have to help with her children’s school fees-”
“I didn’t choose to be an only child Kola. I won’t apologize for my family’s wealth. Anyway, you more than anyone knows how hard I worked to achieve all I have!”
Kola clenched his fists and asked quietly, “Are you saying I didn’t work just as hard to achieve what I have? Or do you think you’re better than me just because you got a good head start?”
Osaro couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How did things get out of hand so fast?
The ringing phone interrupted her thoughts. Kola turned towards the sound. Osaro, eager to resolve this issue between them, reached for his arm.
“Let the machine pick up.”
Kola moved out of her reach. “It could be my mum, or someone from the family.”
Immediately Osaro felt her heart rate climb. I've got to do something! At this point I don’t know if Kola’s family is the problem or if his perception of himself and his family is.
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“Hello.”
“Ekasun oh!” Kola recognized his aunty from her voice and the traditional Yoruba greeting. Because he knew that Osaro felt excluded when he spoke to his family members in Yoruba, he answered his aunty’s greeting in English.
“Aunty! Good evening Ma?”
“Ah you want to speak Oyinbo. Okay oh. How is your wife?” Her voice dripped with saccharine sweetness, belying how she really felt about Osaro.
“She’s fine aunty. How are you?”
“I thank God oh. I can't complain. Not that anyone would notice.” Kola rolled his eyes. His father’s older sister was the matriarch of the family and was not above causing a little ‘innocent’ trouble to get her way.
“Aunty is there anything I can do to help?”
“Well my son, now that you ask, I'm really more concerned about you and your wife. I don’t want to cause any trouble, but does she understand that by marrying you she is marrying your entire family? She may have all the money in the world, but in our custom she has to show the family some respect. And my son, from what I'm hearing and seeing, she is not respecting you oh! At all, at all!”
Kola brought a shaky hand to his forehead. He needed to get away from Osaro’s presence because he knew an Osaro-bashing session was imminent, and Osaro being the astute lady she was, would guess what was being said just by his half of the conversation.
“Aunty, can I call you back?”
“Ah! What is the problem? Is your wife there with you? You mean you can't talk in front of her? My son oh! Who is the man in this relationship? This is not the way to start oh!”
Kola felt his head would explode. He looked at Osaro for inspiration. She just had a bemused expression on her face. Without saying a word he left the living room and walked into his bedroom. He shut the door behind him and sat on his bed.
“Sorry aunty. Please continue.” Even as he apologized he glared at his reflection in the mirror on the wall opposite his bed in disgust.
“Do you know that your wife’s mother had the audacity to send her driver all the way from Benin with one hundred yards of lace, yam and kola nut? What type of tradition is that? We are the husband! Doesn’t she think we know what to bring to Benin when we are coming for our wife? Maybe she controls her husband but that is not the way we do things oh! No!”
“Aunty I think she just sent those things as a gift. I'm sure she didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Eh! You are defending them! Is that how it’s going to be in your house? I feel sorry for you. In case all that Oyinbo living has confused you let me remind you how things are done.
“Our family will take twenty-one tubers of yam, a sack of salt, a bag of kola nuts, a drum of palm oil, forty-five dry fish, twenty-one bitter kola, a carton of sugar, five pineapples, honey, a bunch of bananas, a basket of oranges, a goat or ram dressed up with shades, coral beads and asho oke material, palm wine, cartons of beer, schnapps, whisky.”
Kola’s head was reeling. This wedding was going to cost much more than he could afford. How could he do all this, plus take Osaro to Bali? They should have just eloped instead of involving family.
“Aunty I will do my best.”
“Ah that’s not all oh. Your best had better be very good. We have to show those people that we are a family to be reckoned with otherwise your wife will think she can just walk all over you.”
“Aunty, Osaro is not like that. I'm sure that you will love her when you meet her.”
“Ah, ah! I already love her! I'm a Christian, ke! But things have to be done properly and in order.”
A soft knock on his bedroom door reminded Kola that an argument with Osaro was waiting for him. He took a deep breath. He hated having any form of conflict with her. He loved her and was convinced beyond any doubt that marrying her was God’s will.
“I'm coming honey.” He called out, even as his aunty was adding to his list of To Do’s.
“Don’t forget oh. We also have to bring plenty money. We must be able to bring more money than her parents’ request.”
“Aunty I really have to go. My bride is waiting for me. Oh, and please tell the family that Benin wedding traditions are not the same as the Yoruba ones.” He gently pressed the phone's End button.
Aunty was speechless.

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Ufuoma Daniella Ojo is a Technical Author and Software Trainer. She lives in London and is currently editing her first manuscript titled The Sower, working on some new stories on relationships and is trusting God for connections leading to publication.

Is Your Soup Staring at You?

A young Brazilian friend, filling up on
rice and beans at lunch.

There was a chicken head in my soup.   Between the grains of rice and bits of tomato and parsley floating in the yellow broth, his unblinking eye looked up at me. While a chicken staring from the soup was no doubt perfectly normal to the Brazilian family at the next table, it was somewhat disconcerting to me, an American missionary. (My husband across the table pushed aside the clawed foot that reached for the sky from his own bowl.)

What do your characters eat? People in different places enjoy different foods. A hard boiled egg, aged to a mottled purple, brought back delightful childhood memories to my Chinese friend while I made it a point to breathe through my mouth. My friend assured me that what gets called “century eggs” these days weren’t really that old.  “Probably no more than forty.”

Century eggs

Foods are always an important part of culture.  If you are writing about another country, researching local foods is important. Within a country as large as the US, regional differences may give your writing authenticity or make it obvious to the reader that this writer doesn’t really know and thus invalidate your whole story.

For those of you living outside the US, making us smell and taste your foods in your writing (and creating the same emotional response you would have to it), is a good way to draw an American audience into your character’s world.  There is nothing like a Christmas cookout/braai/barbie at the beach to let your readers know they are not in Kansas.

Food preparation plays an important role in women’s socialization in many cultures. I once watched a Mozambican woman glide gracefully across our churchyard with a five-gallon kerosene can of water balanced on her head. Her arms swung easily at her sides, and she never spilled a drop. A little girl of about eight followed with a restaurant-size butter tin of water on her head, held with one hand. Behind the little girl came a toddler, clutching a soup can to her head with both hands. Water sloshed out at every step.

Me, trying my hand stamping grain in tandem
with the ladies at a church conference

Mozambican women spend hours stamping, winnowing and grinding grain to prepare the staple mealie porridge (hard corn meal mush to my Southern US friends). It is a daily activity for traditional Africans. Clusters of women gather in back yards to chat while they work. And if it is a conference, there will be a dozen women or more sharing tasks around several wood fires that give the food that smoky flavor I can’t replicate on the kitchen stove. An urban African woman with a fulltime job outside the home may well grab a bag of dry mealie flour at the supermarket, but she will undoubtedly lament that although it is quick, it doesn’t taste as good. And she will miss the socializing around the huge log mortars that she remembers from her childhood.

Food preparation can provide a background activity while your characters carry on a conversation that reveals character or moves your plot forward.  The preparation itself will give readers insights into the setting. The way a character wields a knife, pounds a chicken breast, or responds to a spilled glass of milk can demonstrate aspects of your characterization. (I once heard a lecture that defined spiritual gifts based on response to spilled milk. The giver says, “Don’t worry; there’s plenty more,” and jumps up to refill the glass. The helper grabs a cloth and mops up the spill. The encourager says, “That’s all right; I know you didn’t mean to spill it.” A teacher like me irritates her kids by saying, “Next time set your glass further back from the edge so you don’t bump it with your elbow.”)

Brazilian "salgadinhos" ready for a party

My teen novel Between Two Worlds includes a scene of food preparation for Brazilian-born Cristina’s longed-for fifteenth birthday party. In that scene I show the different reactions of characters to such a non-American event.  I was also able to bring out differences and similarities (pizza!) to a typical American teen party in a natural way.

So how have you used food in your writing?

If I were to write about your region, what are some foods or food-related activities I should mention to make my story sound authentic?

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LeAnne Hardy has lived in six countries on four continents. Her books for young people come out of her cross-cultural experiences and her passion to use story to convey spiritual truths in a form that will impact lives. You can find out more about her books and travel adventures on her website and blog.