A warm welcome to authors TAG Gregory and Lily Marie coming to Love Bytes today to promote their new release “Time Cures”, book 4 in their Time Adventures Series.

Writing with an American

By: Lily Marie

 

 

Writing a series of books definitely has its challenges. Making it compelling, rounding out the characters, following a timeline, and all the other fun factors that comes with it. But, add into the mix a pandemic, your sister and nieces moving into your small house during a nationwide lockdown, homeschooling said munchkins, and everything just gets even more complicated.

 

But none of these come close to the complexities of writing with an American! Hear me out here…

 

We speak the same language – English obviously – but do we write the same? No, we really don’t!

 

Those subtle differences in accents and culture, between us, bring different flavours to the mix. Sorry, I mean flavors . . . See what I mean?

 

Did you know we put commas in different places? Literally, grammatical non negotiables that have been drummed into me since school, obliterated.  Don’t even get me started on the Oxford comma and how much I hate it, but I mentioned that once to Tag, my writing partner, and it was as if I had personally offended her and her entire family.

 

Another great example of the struggles we had was when simple everyday sayings were very subtly different. I remember once where Tag had written ‘he couldn’t get a word in edgewise’ whereas we say ‘edgeways’.  We went back and forth editing it when the other ‘corrected’ it, until we realised it was a language difference.

 

Another one which looks totally wrong to my British eyes is ‘then and there’ instead of ‘there and then’. I know It’s such a small difference , but when you’re used to saying it one particular way, it sounds so wrong to your ears to say it any other way.

 

And don’t even get me started on the days and days we spent arguing over what to call the type of pasta used in Beef Stroganoff. Tag INSISTED it had to be served on a bed of noodles, but for us ‘noodles’ are something in an asian stir fry. That type of pasta is called spaghetti. Apparently, though, none of our American readers would have understood what we were talking about so that too had to be changed. You people don’t even eat the same foods we do (mmm beans on toast.)

 

And then there were times I had to Google a word because I hadn’t heard it before, or it wasn’t used in the same context. Slang phrases, especially those from past eras, are difficult to translate from American to British. But when you’re writing a time-travelling story, those slang phrases come up more often than you’d expect and cause ongoing editing discussions.

 

Eventually I realised that I needed to Americanise my writing to make our lives easier. Especially as we couldn’t mix the two writing styles together, it just wouldn’t work. Plus, the main characters in our stories were Americans, albeit living in London, so it made sense to let them speak in a more American way. So we had to push through to write ‘as one’ and that meant me having to learn to speak ‘American’.

 

Even beyond the inherent language difficulties, this story is heavy on dialogue, with a lot of those passages involving British or Irish dialects. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to figure out how ‘dialect-y’ to make a sentence while also negotiating how to Americanise a cockney rhyming slang phrase or an Irish accent. Writing accents is hard enough, especially when you’re writing characters from fifty or so years ago – you have to balance making it ‘sound’ authentic without overloading the readers by including too much odd phrasing, strange grammar, and nonsensical abbreviations – all while still making it comprehensible to American readers. Now THAT was a real challenge.

 

I wasn’t the only one that had to change how they wrote. Tag also had to attempt to write for some of our British characters and I would have to go in and try and decipher what she was trying to say – and, I admit, I would picture her reading out the characters words as she wrote in a delightful Dick Van Dyke style accent.

 

Hopefully, we managed to reach some kind of happy middle ground in our story, though.

 

Another obstacle that got in our way from time to time was that the two of us were living in completely different time zones. A huge eight hour time difference sometimes meant the flow stopped flowing… then flowed again when one of us woke up. Luckily I keep rather unsociable hours, but there’s nothing like pitching a brilliant idea that you can’t wait to share with your partner, and then having to wait hours upon hours to see if they think it’s as exciting as you believe it to be.

 

Overall, this has been an incredible experience. I’ve always been a storyteller and loved everything America, so writing as an American has been an honour… honor?

 

We’ve loved creating these characters and taking this journey with them… As well as with each other. My ‘American’ is coming along nicely, I think. And next time I visit the States, I bet I can navigate the language even better than before. Or not. But it’s still been fun exploring all those differences.

 

Title: Time Cures

Series: Time Adventures Series, #4

Author: Tag Gregory & Lily Marie

Publisher: Self-Published

Release Date: 2/14/21

Length: 238

Genre: Romance, Time Travel, Adventure, LGBTQ

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Synopsis

Cocky American Ad Exec, Bradley Connors, and his courageous ex-RAF fighter pilot husband, Janes Garrett, are back in London and once again separated through the power of time. With James stranded in 1956 during a polio outbreak, a world of homophobia threatens to keep him from the man he loves. How will he talk himself out of the trouble he’s unwittingly creating? Who from his past can he rely on to help him get home to Bradley? Will they be able to save their friends from the deadly pandemic or will they too perish in the attempt? And can they do all this while reaffirming that nothing can tear their love apart, not even time itself? Time Cures is a love story like no other. It’s a romance through time.

“Considering the length of time he was unconscious, I feel it imperative that he remain in hospital for at least the next twenty-four hours for observation. Provided no other symptoms manifest, he can be released to his family at that time,” Dr. Donaldson advised.

James was relieved that the diagnosis wasn’t worse. He knew Bradley was still going to be angry at him for getting hurt. Again. At least he would be angry – once Bradley got over being relieved – when James finally got around to calling him.

“Pardon me, Doctor,” the nurse interrupted before the doctor could make his grand exit. “But, before ya came in, the patient was showing signs of confusion and talkin’ all sorts a nonsense. I’m thinking he mighta banged his ‘ead a bit harder than he’s lettin’ on.”

“Confusion?” That got the good doctor’s attention.

“Yes, Doctor. He was spoutin’ some nonsense ‘bout needin’ to ring his husband, an’ seemed to think he had a telephone in that kit bag of ‘is.” The nurse pointed to James’ messenger bag while giving the doctor a knowing look.

“Is that so . . .” The doctor turned back to his patient, one bushy eyebrow raised inquisitively, much more interested in the young blond man now than he had been initially. “Do you remember your name, son?”

“Yes, of course. It’s James Garrett.”

The doctor nodded and asked another question. “Do you remember the accident that gave you that bump on the head?”

James thought about it, but just came up blank. He started to shake his head to indicate ‘no’, only the gesture made the dizziness and nausea worse. He groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “No,” he moaned.

“Well, that’s not a good sign,” Doctor Obvious surmised, his eyebrows knitting together so closely that they now looked like one long, hairy caterpillar creeping across his forehead. “Now, what’s all this chit chat about a telephone and a husband?”

“I just want to call him and let him know where I’m at,” James offered, feeling and sounding pathetic even to his own ears.

“You say you have a . . . Husband ?” The doctor very clearly emphasized the word ‘husband’ in a disbelieving tone of voice.

“Yes! I want to call MY HUSBAND, okay?” James was losing patience with the proceedings and his voice had risen commensurately with his annoyance level. “His name is Bradley Connors. We’re here visiting from the United States; Bradley has business with a big client here. We’re staying at The Strand Palace. He’s probably waiting for me there and, most likely, has already called the police to help find me. If you’d just let me get my cell phone out of my bag I can call him and he’ll come down here and take me to a different hospital where they’ll stop asking me idiotic questions . . .”

The doctor interrupted him before he could continue his rant. “Do you know where you are right now?”

“You mean the hospital? The nurse said it was St. Bart’s. Or do you mean London?”

“Righteo. And what’s the date?”

“Um . . .” James had to think a little about that, his memory going a little fuzzy on him. “I think it’s still Monday, right? August . . . August 14th?”

“Close. You got the date correct but it’s Tuesday. What about the year?”

“2017 . . . ?” James answered, starting to get a funny feeling about where all these questions were leading.

“Hmmmm,” was Donaldson’s only reply. Then he turned to the nurse with more directions. “Clearly, this is a much more serious case than I previously suspected. We could be looking at Traumatic Encephalopathy or, perhaps, some type of advanced psychosis. I’m going to call in Dr. Abbott for a psychiatric evaluation. Change the charge order to note a seventy-two hour hold.” Returning his attention to the patient he added, “never fear, young man. We’re going to take good care of you. Hopefully, by the time we’re done here, you’ll be in tiptop shape once more, back in full possession of all your mental faculties.”

With that proclamation, Dr. Donaldson spun about and started for the door.

“Wait,” James shouted after the departing man before he could exit. “What year is it, really?”

“1956, of course!”

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TAG has been writing for almost a decade, starting out with a hesitant toe in the realm of fanfiction before venturing into the scarier world of self-publishing original works. With an eclectic background as a lawyer, microbiologist, all-around nerd, and adventurer, TAG brings that off-kilter sense of humor, unbounded curiosity, a love of details, and astonishing powers of research to all their writing. If you are looking for a griping story, with compelling characters that deal with real world issues, then you’re in the right place.

Lily has been writing close to for twenty years, but has only ever (until recently) dipped her toes into writing fan-fiction. Lily is a born and bred Londoner and loves nothing more than getting lost in a book – whether it be writing one of her own, or reading something from one of her favorite authors. In her spare time, Lily likes to think of herself as somewhat of a disability rights activist, helping to create change for those that may not have a voice to speak up or, like Lily herself, those that may have been too quiet to stand up for themselves.

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