The Pat test
I’d like you to meet Pat. That isn’t Pat’s real name, which is a closely guarded secret. She might be real, or she could be just in my head. I’m not letting on. Pat is my personal reader.
Pat’s in late middle age, not far off retirement. She’s a bookkeeper at a modest-sized company, and is meticulous. She has always taken a pride in her work, is highly professional, educated but not university, quick on the uptake, very bright, with an active, enquiring mind, and regards social media as a waste of time. She’s travelled, but speaks only English. Pat’s a big reader. She’s very widely read, will give anything a try, but loves crime fiction in particular. She prefers a real book but will read an ebook if there’s no other option.
Pat’s far from shy, doesn’t hold back if she thinks something could be done better. If a book doesn’t work for her in the first fifty pages, it’s on its way back to the library or to a charity shop. On the other hand, if she likes something, she’ll say so. Praise will be forthcoming, but muted. She doesn’t want me to get too big for my boots.
As I said, she’s at the upper edge of middle age – representative of the majority of translated crime fiction readers who are ladies of her age and background. Let’s not forget that in Britain translated fiction is niche. Unlike our neighbours across the Channel, Brits don’t generally read foreign stuff and bookshops don’t sell a great deal of it. So crime fiction in translation is a niche of a niche. In the US it’s even more niche. All this makes the translated crime fiction readership a subset of a subset.
Pat is the reader I have in mind when I’m writing my own stuff, and even more so when I’m busy with a translation.
If I’m in doubt about a word or a phrase, then it gets the Pat test. If Pat would know what ‘inveigled’ or ‘against the grain’ mean without having to think about it, then that’s good to go.
If there’s some aspect of a story that requires a little extra, then the same test applies. Do I need to explain that Garðabær is an affluent suburb? Should I add a line to highlight that Séð og Heyrt is a magazine not renowned for investigative journalism? Has she heard of Georg Bjarnfreðarson? Does Pat need to know that places selling overpriced tat to tourists are known as Puffin shops? Does Smáralind mean anything to Pat? Does she recognise the name of Iceland’s last president but one?
On the other hand, it’s also important to not underestimate your reader, to never talk down to them. People who read translated crime fiction (apart from being the finest kind of people) are no fools, not by a long chalk. The hardcore ones are discerning types who can figure out more than you’d imagine from context, and they know how to look things up. So it’s vital to avoid over-simplification. If a word, a turn of phrase or a scene bring to mind an imagined snort of contempt from Pat, then it has to go or be replaced.
It’s a fine line to draw. It goes without saying that you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Any quick look at one star ‘reviews’ online will leave you in no doubt about that… But it’s still important to make the effort to tread that line and for me that means Pat’s approval.
I can tell you that the only thing I can be sure of is that whatever I give her to read, the body count won’t be high enough. I know she’ll say ‘more blood, please,’ possibly with a sad shake of the head at what could have been more bloody, and therefore so much more to her taste.
But a ‘not bad’ verdict from Pat tells me I’ve done a decent job.