Ghostwriters have to write in a voice different from their normal one, and sometimes even in a different dialect. When writing for a Canadian, British, or Australian site, you want to look like a native writer. It’s tricky to get it really right.
Each nation’s treatment of English is different. British, Australian, and New Zealand English are fairly close to one another (in spelling, not pronunciation!). Canadians use a version that’s somewhere between American and British English. I’ll focus mostly on the American and British versions here, for the sake of brevity.
Spelling
Spelling is the easiest part. British and Australian English are similar to each other, and their differences from American English are pretty consistent. Words that end in “or” in the American dialect often end in “our” in British (colour, valour, armour). Ones that end in “ize” turn into “ise” (organise, sterilise, civilised). The “ter” ending” may become “tre” (centre, theatre) or not (character, master). An application’s spelling checker that you can set to the appropriate dialect will catch most of the differences, or you can use LanguageTool.
Word usage
Differences of grammar and vocabulary are harder. It’s not even a stationary target; American words often invade other national dialects, and occasionally the reverse happens. The American word isn’t always wrong in British English, but it will sound a bit off. What’s especially bad is using some marketing word which has become trendy in the US but hasn’t degraded the discourse in the UK yet. My own solution is to avoid dumb-sounding neologisms regardless of whom I’m writing for, unless I know the customer likes them (and then only reluctantly).
Many of the differences arise from technologies and products which appeared after the American Revolution but before the Internet. Brits fly in aeroplanes, and their cars have bonnets and boots. Today international communication is so easy that the vocabularies don’t diverge as much. A computer is a computer, and a blog is a blog. I can’t find anything like a comprehensive American-British dictionary, but here are a few lists that could help:
- British vs American Vocabulary (EnglishClub)
- British and American terms (Oxford Dictionaries)
- American English to British English Vocabulary (ThoughtCo)
Grammar
The differences in grammar are subtle. The most important one is that the British tend to treat collective nouns as plural. They’ll say, “The management have decided” rather than “The management has decided.” They’re more likely to use the present perfect rather than the past tense, but you can probably get away with ignoring that.
The article “Differences in American and British English grammar” (One Stop English) lists a lot of differences. I don’t think that missing these differences, other than the one of singulars and plurals, constitutes serious grammatical ignorance.
Some words have different past tenses and participles in the two dialects. The British apparently don’t use “gotten,” and past tenses where we use “ed” may end in “t” on the east side of the ocean (spilt, learnt).
Personal practice (or practise)
Most of my writing is about computer technology, which makes writing for British audiences relatively easy. Computer terms don’t vary much internationally. I usually aim at a formal tone rather than a conversational one, which makes nuances like “Have you” vs. “Did you” less important.
Other issues are often more important. Great Britain uses the metric system, but distances on the roads are still measured in miles. Knowing how to find the pound symbol on the keyboard (on a Mac, it’s Option-3) makes life easier. I need to refer to British or EU laws and regulatory bodies, not American ones.
Whenever possible, I have my computer read my writing aloud before I submit it. If it’s for a British audience, I select a voice with a British accent (“Daniel” on my Mac). I’m not sure how much it helps, but it can’t hurt.
In general, I try to be conservative when writing for a British audience. Slang is a minefield which I avoid. I aim for clarity and established usage. At least the readers will understand me, even if they suspect an American influence. As far as I know, I’ve never had an article rejected for not sounding British enough, so I must be getting it mostly right.