I was deep into another mystery novel by an author I’ve grown to admire—set in sun-drenched California, brimming with suspense and razor-sharp dialogue. Then, out of nowhere, a character mentioned relaxing in the “lounge” of his home. I paused. Lounge? In California, that’s where you sip overpriced cocktails or wait for your flight—not where you kick off your shoes and binge Netflix. We call that a living room. It was a tiny detail, but it made me laugh. And then it made me curious. That one word cracked open a whole new layer of the story I hadn’t considered.
It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed something off. In earlier books by the same author, characters said things like “in hospital” instead of “in the hospital,” or referred to the “windscreen” instead of the “windshield.” These weren’t just quirky word choices—they were linguistic fingerprints. I started to wonder: who was this author, really? Their voice was so confident, so American in tone, yet these subtle slips kept surfacing. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something didn’t quite match the setting.
So I did what any curious reader would do—I looked up the author’s bio. Turns out, they’re from Glasgow, Scotland. Suddenly, everything clicked. The dialogue quirks, the occasional odd phrasing, the cultural mismatches—they weren’t mistakes, they were echoes of origin. I wasn’t annoyed. I was intrigued. These were the kinds of things an editor might catch, sure, but they also revealed something deeper: the challenge of writing authentically in a place you’ve never lived.
That realization sent me down a rabbit hole. How many books have I read where the author wasn’t native to the setting? How many subtle dialogue quirks have I missed? Did a Parisian character once say something no Parisian would ever say? Did a New Yorker use a phrase that only makes sense in Sydney? I started to question the authenticity of every fictional world I’d ever visited. Not the plot or the pacing—but the language. The rhythm. The soul of the dialogue.
It’s fascinating how language betrays origin, even when the story tries to mask it. These tiny errors don’t ruin the experience, but they do remind me that authenticity in dialogue is just as vital as a clever twist or a gripping pace. When a character speaks, they carry the weight of their world—and if that world isn’t built with care, the illusion cracks. I’ve come to appreciate those cracks. They’re not flaws. They’re fingerprints. They tell me something real about the person behind the page.
Now, every time I read a book set in a place I know well, I listen more closely. Not just to what the characters say—but how they say it. I catch the accents in the syntax, the geography in the grammar. It’s made me a better reader, maybe even a better writer. Because stories aren’t just about what happens—they’re about how it’s told. And sometimes, the most revealing part of a story isn’t the mystery—it’s the voice trying to tell it.
