Question for our American members.

A question aimed mainly at our American members:

Do you find it easy to relate to spanking stories set in the UK?

Does a story set in the UK put you off reading it?

I think most Brits can relate to American stories because of the massive amount of American films and TV programmes that we have watched over the years. Though I expect we might miss some of the cultural subtleties.

That being said, I find understanding John Le Carré's complicated MI5 and Whitehall machination easier than Robert Ludlum's CIA/WH plots, because I am more familiar with the political culture in the UK.

I am in the US and I love UK spanking stories just as much as those set in the US. There are some cultural differences that are easy enough to figure out. First I was scratching my head thinking, "What the heck is a 'gymslip' " or "what is 'rounders'?" But thanks to Google and Wikipedia it's easy enough to find answers to these questions.

Spankedjenny

Please, please, please tell us that you were inspired to purchase and wear a gymslip Jenny?

Some of the slang and references take a bit of puzzling out, but I do enjoy stories set in the UK. Having said that, I'm not a fan of canes.

Often123

That's pretty much my case too. That being said, they're inherently part of a given writer's intended "flavor" for their story, much as a story set in the U.S. in the country, especially in the South, might refer to a "whoopin'".

I enjoy these stories but must admit I would not try to write a story set in the UK, especially a school story. Nothing wrong with those I enjoy reading many of them, though still not clear as to how "forms" correspond to American school grades. And probably confuse the Brits by also using the word"grades" for marks in different subjects studied.
The cane and slipper instead of the paddle, knickers not panties, just a different culture-but one worth making the effort to appreciate.

Those confuse me as well.

It is also about locations.
If a British author sets their story in either Leeds, Norfolk, Glasgow, Leicestershire, Stoke or Devon, the British reader will already know in their mind the culture of that region and the people who live there, which adds another layer to the story.

I assume that when an American author also chooses their location for a story it is done for a specific cultural reason, that a Brit probably won't understand.

However I suppose if a story starts with a teenage girl from California moving to a school in Texas, most Brits would guess she is in for "an interesting time".

Location may be the hallmark of real estate but it has little impact on a story of any kind for me. It's all about substance, not location. Though I suppose location can lend a flavor.

However I do suppose the fact that the LSF is UK-based has resulted in so many more "boarding school student gets caned by the prefect for smoking" stories than "public school pupil gets paddled by the vice principal for smoking" stories, that it inspired my own evil take on that more British genre. So I guess location indirectly prompted me to write something I normally would not have done.

KDP - I think the location is critical to all fiction writing, it sets the tone of the work and the players operate within it and it gives them a sense of realism.