Misunderestimating, by Jess Lourey

I was recently reminiscing with a friend about a gentleman we both worked for. He has since risen very high in the world and is now the commanding general of the ROTC for the state he lives in. At the time we worked for him, he was just our boss who had a bad habit of assuming everyone saw the world the same way he did. My favorite illustration of that was relayed to me by colleague, Catherine, who speaks Spanish and went on a church trip to Mexico with him as his translator. On their third day, the two of them presented to 60 teenaged girls who wanted to learn about volunteer opportunities in the U.S. My boss, thinking to set them at ease, told them he was happy to be there. They received this well. He told a couple jokes,which Catherine translated, and the whole audience erupted in laughter and applause. Encouraged and possibly suffering from jet lag, he next told them that they were foxes. My friend Catherine slid him a look, but he was too caught up in the positive energy, so she shrugged and translated, "he thinks you are small furry rodents.” The 17 year-olds are all WTF? as he is leering appreciatively at them, and he moves on from there, having completely lost his audience.

Language barriers (and lack of personal filters) can cause a lot of misunderstandings. For example, there is the “Ladies are requested not to have children in the drinking lounge” in a Norwegian bar, or “Drop your trousers here” at a Bangkok dry cleaner. In writing fiction, though, misunderstandings are more subtle, as I’m reminded every time I get my manuscript back from my fabulous friends and family who edit for me. Sections I thought were funny are…not. I was also advised to remove “BFF” and “WTF” from my manuscript by my mother, who said many people will  not know what they mean. I had a horrible character say a horrible thing, and I was told by several people that the horrible thing was so offensive that it took their breath away, in a bad way.

I listen to everything they say and play it against my internal rubric. I know, most of the time, what good writing looks like and what bad writing looks like. It’s just that when it’s my own, it’s hard to see the difference. Until someone points it out to me, that is. I end up making most of the changes recommended to me by editors, because most of the time they’re right.

My question to you is, how do writers tell the difference between what must stay and what should go?