Gabrielle Edits

Several years ago, I had the good fortune to attend a talk given by one of the top editors in the children’s lit field. In it, he discussed the decision that had been made to Americanize a very popular series of books written by a prominent British author. The reason, he had said, was so that the novelty of the unfamiliar-but-real foreign words wouldn’t get in the way of the novelty of the author’s world and the unfamiliar-and-made-up magical words that were an integral part of the story.

When there’s a balance to be reached between preserving the original work of the author and making that work more accessible to its readers, there is a lot of room for compromise. There are many levels of cultural adaptation that a novel can undergo, and the decision is often out of a writer’s hands. It rests with the publisher, ultimately, because they want the book to be as marketable within their market as it can be.

I’ve worked on manuscripts which followed UK rules for spelling and punctuation rules. I had to be well enough versed in the differences so that I didn’t change anything that looked ‘wrong’ to my American eyes. I’ve also worked on manuscripts for which I’ve had to change an American manuscript for the UK, or a UK manuscript to American.

There are more international differences in spelling than the casual reader might realize. If you’re going to be undertaking such a project, it’s important that you do your research and not just go with what you think you know. You’re responsible for all the rules, not just the obvious ones. Do know whether to use toward or towards, and whether you have the right shades of gray and grey. Know whether—and when—to leave an e before an ing, even if it looks horribly wrong to you.

Often, an author will alternate between the correct and incorrect words, out of a simple lack of certainty about which choice is right. (Even when there isn’t an international issue involved, I always make sure to check a manuscript’s greys and grays.)

It’s not just the spelling, either. It’s the vocabulary. This gets trickier, because it can become a more substantive change, but it’s no less important. A reader may get momentarily tripped up by kerbs and tyres instead of curbs and tires, but you might throw him from the car completely if you expect him to know its boot from its bonnet. Words like pavement are especially slippery: does the author mean the sidewalk, or the road?

In a case like this, it’s simplest, of course, to translate the unfamiliar into the familiar. The unfamiliar, as that editor I mentioned said in his talk, will stand out and catch the eye. The thing to watch out for, obviously, is becoming so familiar with the foreign rules that they aren’t novel to you anymore, and your mind accepts them as normal and skips right over them. It’s a natural thing, but honed practice at attention to detail will help you overcome it. In time, a fluency develops and it becomes like flipping a switch between UK/US rules. A color or realize will stand out to you in the wrong context just as boldly as honour or aluminium. In this field, knowing British and American really does make you bilingual.