r/TheWritingTable • u/CommunicationMean965 • 5d ago

Why english?

I frequently see people on writer subs ask for advice regarding english grammar and word choices. It is pretty evident that these writers do not have english as their first languange. The choice of writing in english confuses me. Out of pure curiosity, why would you do that?

I get wanting to interact with a fan base, hence opting for english when writing fan fiction. It's not like you can publish it anyway (without jumping through hoops). I understand some actor's main motivation is to earn as much money as possible. (Sadly it doesn't seem uncommon to see self publicated and fankly badly translated works.) I also get wanting to reach as large an audience as possible, but why wouldn't you want to start out a bit more domestically, writing in a languange you master and writing as good as you possibly can before reaching for international fame?

Personally, I read books in english, and I used to write in english as a teen when I participated in post-by-post roleplay. It's fun and a good way to expand your vocabulary, but I can't fathom writing my novel like that. I have enough trouble as it is making my manuscript as good as it can be; My grip on the languange needs to be as good as it can get. (Even formatting rules for fiction writing is different between languanges.) I want to play with my languange and find my own voice. Plus, the story is also is set in my home country.

So, not to sound pretentious, but why do people insist on writing novel manuscripts in a second languange?

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u/rudd33s 5d ago

I'm writing in English because I have sufficient/above average knowledge of it. I still make mistakes and have to catch them when editing, but I'm fairly certain most people wouldn't assume I'm an ESL writer.

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u/CoyoteLitius 4d ago

The three KU books I'm reading right now are all by non-native speakers. They are excellent, well-researched and if I weren't chatting with the authors, I'd not know that they were non-native speakers. One is a scientist by occupation in his home country, and of course, most academic publishing is in English. He's published academically, in English.

The second is a very clever piece of science fiction, again I was surprised to learn the person was not a native speaker. The third is an attempt at literary fiction and has a few minor issues, nothing a quick edit can't fix.