Some more, very Serious Business

[Guest Zyx]

Lately I've been thinking about writing a book. I've pretty much made up my mind about the general story line, and the characters. But I really want to write this book in English... I actually live in The Netherlands, but my English is great. It's just that this guy told me my English seemed a bit forced, not natural. So I'm wondering if I should write this in English, or Dutch... Any suggestions? Help?

[Guest Zyx]

I have no patience, so two minutes after my post I asked someone else and she said Dutch. So now I have exactly ONE page in Dutch. It sort of explains the physics in my story and introduces a minor character which I'll be ridiculing in the rest of the story.

[Duchess]

This person told you that your spoken English is a bit forced or your written English is a bit forced?

There's very often a difference between average spoken English (usually includes slang, dialect preferences and colloquialisms) and proper written English (Academic English; used to be called ‘Standard English’ but I guess we’ve left off that).

Looking at just the bit you’ve written, here, your written English seems perfectly natural to me and I see no reason why a book written in similar form wouldn’t be accepted as natural writing style.

[DemonGoddess]

Something else to consider is where this person is from who said your English was a bit forced.

Frequently, someone who is NOT a native speaker of a language will be more mindful of its rules, grammar structure, and other things. They by and large tend to speak more properly, if that makes any sense. Which to some people may give the impression ob being somewhat forced usage, even though it should not because it is not.

[Kanashii]

Zyx:

I justed wanted to second, that your written English is great for a 'non-native' speaker. I have actually found that some non-native speakers WRITE it better than they pronounce or speak it.

Personally, I say go ahead and write it in English! If you are using a programme like MS Word.doc (English version) it WILL catch alot of blatent misspellings and a good beta can clean up anything else

Best of luck to you!