The Transplanted Writer by Guest Fran Walker

“Write what you know” is a common writer’s mantra. Authors do research in order to create believable characters and settings. The writer of a medical drama can go online to learn the typical layout of a surgical suite or emergency room. An historical writer might check out library books to study the difference between a castle and a palace. But to create a believable story in any setting, the author seems to need a “sense of place” in order to convey a credible world. And sense of place, I’ve learned, has less to do with the obvious differences and more to do with the tiniest details. Often writers depict settings poorly simply because we aren’t aware of the gaps in our knowledge.

There are things we take for granted that, because they are our truths, they must be the only truths, and so we never bother researching them. There were many things I as an American assumed were universal in English-speaking countries – until I went to South Africa and New Zealand. It wasn’t just upside-down light switches or the funny spelling or driving on the wrong side of the road. It was the vocabulary – what did “sweet as” or “prang” or “zebra crossing” mean? It was going into a grocery store and all the package shapes, label colours, and brand names being unfamiliar. All the new things that shocked me, stalled me, or derailed me made me aware of all the parallel things back home I’d taken for granted and never even bothered to notice.

Each city has its own unique smell. Each culture has its own cuisine, customs, fashions, and limitations on personal space. Its own vocabulary. Words are defined through a different frame of reference and carry a different set of baggage. For the American reader, apple pie is intrinsically tied to Mom, home, comfort, and security. For a Samoan, apple pie is an exotic dessert. These are details that we often don’t even think to look up in reference books. Having a new country smack you over the head with all its differences makes you as a writer more aware, more observant, and more descriptive. It enhances your sense of place of your own home town as well as the places you visit.

Moving to New Zealand was definitely a culture shock. After getting off the plane, I went to my motel. The lady behind the desk checked my reservation. Her husband came in the office and spoke to her. “MOH-ree” he called her. Such a pretty, exotic name! Then I read her name tag. “MARIE.” [i]D’oh[/i], I thought.

“Here’s your room key. Whole or trim?” Marie asked.

“Huh?”

“Yellow top or blue top?” her husband asked by way of clarification.

“Huh?”

They were obviously a long-married couple, because they could have an entire conversation with a single exchanged glance. Theirs went something like:

“She’s retarded.”

“Be nice. Maybe she’s just jet-lagged.”

“Or she’s retarded.”

“Autistic? That Asperger’s syndrome seems to be quite common nowadays.”

“I’m sticking with retarded.”

Finally, Marie said to me, slowly and loudly, “Milk. What kind of milk do you want?”

“Uh, I don’t drink milk,” I said.

“For your tea,” Marie said.

I opened my mouth to say, “Uh, I don’t drink tea,” but then shut it.

Marie and her husband exchanged another one of those looks, but the silent conversation was shorter, more like:

“Told you she’s retarded.”

“Okay. You were right. She’s a retard.”

“We’ll just give you one of each.” Marie produced from under the desk two small half-pint cartons of milk, the kind you used to get in grade school. One was white with yellow lettering, and the other white with blue lettering. Trim milk and whole milk. To an American, skim milk and regular milk. To be placed in the little fridge in my motel room. To put in my coffee. Standard New Zealand motel procedure.

D’oh.

The next morning, I found a bag of pre-ground coffee in the room, but no Mr Coffee coffee maker. I had to get introduced to the electric jug (aka kettle, aka thing you fill with water and plug in and it heats the water up, like a self contained tea kettle). And the plunger (aka French press? a weird glass and metal contraption) to mix the hot water and coffee grounds in.

Sheesh. Who’d have thought people who spoke English could make a cup of coffee so incomprehensible?

After living in New Zealand for six years, I feel more Kiwi than American. I have to maintain an American mindset as a writer because the main fiction market is the USA, particularly for lesbian fiction. Living overseas limits my ability to market my work. Snail mail submissions are out because the postage is so expensive. All the publishers who don’t accept email submissions have to get crossed off my list. Since I’m primarily a short story writer this isn’t so bad, but if I were trying to break into the mainstream novel market it’d severely hamper my efforts. I’d have a hard time submitting manuscripts to agents, attending conventions, signing books for fans, or networking with editors and writers. But being a transplant has provided me with the opportunity to use the New Zealand setting, society, history, and culture in my fiction, while being able to recognise which aspects will require an English-to-English translation in order to be comprehensible to an American reader. It’s doubled my fictional possibilities.

 

Fran Walker has held the usual odd assortment of jobs: office receptionist, fast food restaurant worker, horse-drawn carriage driver, show groom, and lab technician. She lives in New Zealand with her wife, cats, and various farm animals who are, respectively, wonderful, spoilt, and entertaining. When she’s not writing fiction she can be found pottering around the garden, baking and cooking (well), or quilting (badly). Her recent short fiction can be found in Read These Lips (volume II), Chilling Tales (P. D. Publishing), and Khimairal Ink (forthcoming). Her non-fiction book, “Lavender Ink: Writing and Selling Lesbian Fiction” is forthcoming from Bedazzled Ink Books. She can be contacted atfranwalker@ihug.co.nz