Readers

“I sincerely believe that books don’t live until they’re read. While I think I’d write even if nobody was reading - it’s who I am - I thrive because I know the stories are being brought to life by all of you. In this, stories are a special kind of art, particularly ones written down. Each of you imagines this book, and its characters, a little differently - each of you puts your own stamp on it, making it yours. I don’t think a story is quite finished until that has happened to it - until the dream in my head has become a reality (even if briefly) in yours.

And so this book is yours, as are all of them once you read them. Thank you so much for bringing life to my work, and to the Cosmere.”

Brandon Sanderson, The Sunlit Man, Postscript

Moving the Action Figures

Davy has reached the storytelling age.

Mix and match scripts from Zelda and Room on the Broom and Daniel Tiger.

John Hodgman reminding fiction writers that we're just playing make believe.

And that's where the magic is. 💫

"Then suddenly, when you're writing, a character will say something that you didn't think of.

Of course you did think of it, unconsciously. It's from your brain.

But only from a part of your brain that would never have been activated until you sat there and moved the action figures around enough."

John Hodgeman, This is a Secret Society

The Christmasaurus

Our bedtime story game has rapidly leveled up from board books to chapter books.

Right now we’re listening to The Christmasaurus audiobook on Davy’s Yoto radio and reading along in the hardcover.

The audiobook is British and the hardcover we have has been Americanized. I’ve texted changes I’ve noticed to a few friends and realized that this is just the sort of pedantic obsession that should live on the chronofile.

What follows is not an exhaustive list of changes, but those that stick in my mind without taking active notes at bedtime. There is a possibility of human error.

I’ll update this post as we read, but I’ve already ordered a UK hardcover (from Blackwells who offer free shipping to the US.) I find these changes really remove so much British charm.

Ok, time for the pedantry.

  • mum → mom

  • millimetres → inches

  • rubbish → terrible

  • tastes like marmite → tastes like chicken

  • tele → TV

  • school dinner → lunch

  • dinner ladies → lunch ladies

  • chips → French Fries

  • car park → parking lot

  • flask → cup

  • cutlery → silverware

  • wardrobe → closet*

  • loo → restroom

  • jumper → sweater

  • loony → strange

  • no mates → (completely cut)

  • hell → horrible

  • nattering → chattering

  • plug hole → drain

  • barmy →

  • red post box → mailbox

  • post → mail

  • ickle → little

  • it wasn’t anything to do with → it had nothing to do with

  • goose pimply → goose bumpy

  • cracker in the works → wrench in the plan

  • handmade → made

  • → horrible

  • upon → on

  • cinema → theater

  • spotty → polka dot

  • whilst → while

  • pound notes → dollar bills

  • holidays → vacations

  • takeaway → takeout

  • snooker → pool

  • dreamt → dreamed

  • fairy lights → Christmas lights

  • stroppy → spoiled

  • opening hours → regular hours

  • GET ON! → HURRY UP!

  • I guess we should start at the beginning. → Let’s give it a try.

  • dressing gown → bathrobe

  • the shudders → the shivers

  • gawping → gaping

  • a maniac with a gun → saving a dinosaur from a hunter

  • barmy → out of his mind

  • absolutely potty → absolutely zany

  • scrummy → scrumptious

  • pool → pond

  • can’t make people die → can’t hurt people

  • take out a teacher → take down a teacher

  • said from somewhere → came from somewhere

  • they → the boys

  • whilst → while

Honestly I was fascinated by this little linguistic differences when I lived in London for a year. Chips to fries and jumper to sweater is almost understandable. And I can’t imagine including hell in a middle grade novel. 🤯 But all together the changes break the story’s sense of place.

The marmite one is particularly worrisome as it completely changes the meaning.

British terms the editor didn’t spot included:

  • fairy liquid (a brand of UK dish soap)

  • pants (meaning underpants)

There were also some sentence structure changes. Words swapped round.

And there seem to be opposing editorial stances on how often to repeat a character’s name. I found most of these changes ruined the rhythm.

It was clear straightaway that this must be the reason this book (and many others) do not have audiobooks for sale in American Audible. They’ve made too many changes to the text they would have to re-record it. And it wouldn’t even work with an American narrator or a British one by this point. It’s all muddled up.

* Imagine if they’d rewritten Narnia as The Lion, The Witch, and The Closet?! 😡

Writing is like gardening.

“You’re raking around in the dirt, pulling up weeds. Flowers you love and find beautiful die on you. But not for nothing; they go back into the soil, and they nourish it. It’s the act of raking that prepares the ground, and it’s the seeds of those dead beautiful flowers that replant themselves in it and eventually come up right. The “right” thing could not exist without the “wrong” ones.”

Source: Working on a Song: The Lyrics of Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell