Should I use American or British spelling?

1) how would you feel reading a story that is clearly British but Americanly spelled? 2) How would you feel reading, say, a story collection in which only one story uses British spelling?

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1) I'm American, and I probably wouldn't notice the US spellings.

2) Unless I bought the book to read aloud (to a child) or the switch in spelling occurs without any obvious connection to the new narrator, I wouldn't be bothered by one story out of a collection using different spellings. I would likely notice the switch; however, I can imagine the variation adding a layer of depth to the story.

Or a book by a writer who usually uses American spelling and all of a suddenly switches for her newbook? Or would you not even notice?

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Your background is mixed. I expect you to share that with your followers. They should understand that you change up the voice and style to lean one way for a book and another way for another book.

If you're self-publishing, it's up to you. As a reader I'd hope for consistency throughout, but which standard you choose wouldn't affect my enjoyment of the book.

If you're trade publishing, don't worry about it. Your editor will choose.

The real question here is who is your target audience? I sometimes have scenes set in the UK and Australia, but I am an American author catering primarily to a US based audience, so it's a no-brainer to me. The only time I would use British spellings is if I am quoting signage or written material.

I second the suggestion that you pick one and be consistent, but, unless you are native with British spellings and jargon, it is going to be difficult to pull off an entire novel with credibility if you go that route. I certainly wouldn't try it.

Yep, as Al said, if your intended readers are in the US, use US spelling and punctuation. If they're UK, use Brit spelling and punctuation.

An exception would be something like One Monsoon in Mumbay by Anitha Perinchery. It's a Bollywood spoof set in India with Indian characters, though largely for a US audience, so Brit spelling for flavour with US punctuation.

However, Hong Kong Dangerous by Tom Fowler is the norm with its US hacker in trouble in China. Intended for US readers, it's all US punctuation and spelling, even though it's set in Hong Kong where Briticisms rule.

fistnik said:

Thing is, everything I’ve written so far I've written with American spelling. There’s no particular reason. I’m of mixed background and I was mostly raised in a non-English speaking country. My dad used American spelling, in school we used British spelling, and when I started writing I used American spelling because that was how dad’s spell checker was configured. I’ve never given it much thought as none of my fiction has been particularly Anglo-Saxon.

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Except the Welsh are Celtic, not Anglo-Saxon. (Granted that genetically we're all a mix and you don't have to be genetically from the British Isles to be English, Welsh, etc (e.g. if someone's black and English), but Welsh, Scottish and Irish people usually identify as Celtic. It's a culture and language family, not just genetics.)

Also, what part of Wales? They speak Welsh in a lot of places. And they have their own dialects of English. Like if it's set in Cardiff they don't want to be speaking like Londoners.

I suppose my questions are, 1) how would you feel reading a story that is clearly British but Americanly spelled?

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If it's written in a British voice and dialect then I'd expect the spellings to match. I'd find it bizarre if it was in American English.

I'd hate it if it's clearly written in an American voice and dialect but with British spelling. There's a hell of a lot more to the differences between British and American English than substituting "sidewalk" with "pavement" and changing spellings. And also the writer has to get the specific British culture right. For example I'm English and wouldn't feel confident setting a story anywhere in the UK besides southern England (and not too deep into the South West either) without doing a fair bit of research and getting someone from that region to beta read it and point out stuff I'd got wrong. Not just the dialect but the local culture too, as this can be highly variable by region. It's not that it can't be done, only that you've either got to have spent years living there to know how things are and how the local dialect sounds, or you have to do research to get it right.

[And it's not just dialect. English isn't the only language that's native to the British and Irish Isles, there's also Welsh, Irish, Scots Gaelic, Manx and Cornish (and probably others that I forgot about). People from outside the UK or who haven't lived here much frequently underestimate how much diversity of language and culture there is in the UK. Even English people regularly forget. I just googled, according to Wikipedia there are 14 indigenous languages of the UK, including 3 sign languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_Kingdom sorry this is a bit of a tangent now but I learned something new! English people probably know the least about the other languages here... and the page also has a list of the major dialects. Hope other people find this as interesting as I do ] this bit isn't that relevant to your question unless your story's set in a Welsh-speaking part of Wales. I just got a bit nerdy because it's so interesting...

2) How would you feel reading, say, a story collection in which only one story uses British spelling? Or a book by a writer who usually uses American spelling and all of a suddenly switches for her newbook? Or would you not even notice?

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If it's a story collection by different authors and the British ones use British spelling and the American ones use American spelling and international writers use whichever they want, I'd be fine with it. I'd find it weird if one writer switched between the two, although if they've had a version of their book published in another dialect (e.g. how JK Rowling has American English versions of the Harry Potter books) then that's fine, because the publisher would've ensured the changes were made in consultation with people who speak the dialect it's being changed into. I would say that when it comes to someone who's not lived for a long time in the UK writing a story set in the UK there are more important issues than just what spellings you use (all the stuff listed above and probably a few more things that I didn't think of).

fistnik said:

I’m writing a story set in Wales. Characters are Welsh. POV is third person close-ish, and whenever it gets into the head of my main character, the voice naturally has a bit of a British flavo(u)r (eg. there’s no sidewalks in the story and a few pavements.)

Thing is, everything I’ve written so far I've written with American spelling. There’s no particular reason. I’m of mixed background and I was mostly raised in a non-English speaking country. My dad used American spelling, in school we used British spelling, and when I started writing I used American spelling because that was how dad’s spell checker was configured. I’ve never given it much thought as none of my fiction has been particularly Anglo-Saxon.

I could just use British spelling for thisone I guess, but I feel a bit funny doing it, as the bulk of the story hasnothing to do with Wales (just to give you an example, there’s a section of thestory in which the POV character is the square root of two. Normally I wouldn’twrite about these things with a British spelling.)

I suppose my questions are, 1) how would you feel reading a story that is clearly British but Americanly spelled? 2) How would you feel reading, say, a story collection in which only one story uses British spelling? Or a book by a writer who usually uses American spelling and all of a suddenly switches for her newbook? Or would you not even notice?

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Speaking as a Welsh resident (though a non Welsh language speaker) if the characters are Welsh and the action is set in Wales, as per your first paragraph, I would expect Brit spellings.

How are you going to handle Welsh place names e.g. Llwchwr? And no, I am not kidding about that.

Okay, so I presume you are going with the anglicised place name versions, (so "Loughor" then) but IMHO spelling may be less of an issue than word choices. Of course, I do not know whether you have spent any time in Wales, and you flagged the sidewalk/pavement example, but there are other word uses, which flag that an author is not a native and that would certainly pull me right out of the tale, more than Brit or American spellings.

fistnik said:

I know, I guess I was using Anglo-Saxon as a blanket term for the English-speaking nations



They're anglicised, but it's not that much of a deal, there's only a couple of place names in the story (mostly Ammanford instead of Rhydaman).

Also, I understand word choice is more of an issue than spelling, but in that field I know what I'm shooting for.

I should note this is a short story, and that the Wales part of it is only around 3000 words or less.

Thank you!

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Actually, I was sort of half-kidding about the Welsh place names.

No end of fun watching some poor soul asking for directions and trying to gargle consonants to render up a word.

Good luck.

I'm with Chase on this: Brit spelling for flavor.