Welcome to TTYU!

Talk To YoUniverse begins, unofficially, in a fancy department store in Tokyo Japan, where my husband and I had gone to look at shoes with some Australian friends. We approached one of the employees to ask - in Japanese - for help, but the young woman looked at us blankly and said,

"No English!"

We replied, still in Japanese, that we were speaking Japanese and it was all right, that we just wanted to look at a pair of shoes that our friend liked. Again, she replied,

"No English!"

We were never in fact able to open communication with this particular person. Eventually one of her colleagues recognized that we were indeed speaking Japanese and offered to help us.

This was a moment of discovery for me. I had to conclude that it didn't matter how well we spoke, that some people would never be able to accept that we were speaking their language. I'd met this attitude in other forms, but never so dramatically.

Later, of course, I incorporated this idea into a story, "Let the Word Take Me" (Analog, July/August 2008), folding it together with the idea of a canon-based language that I picked up from the "Darmok" episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation. If you haven't read it yet, please do! Basically it follows a young man, David Linden, as he and his famous linguist father try to save their colony from planetary eviction by figuring out how to communicate with the local gecko-like aliens - after the language "code" has been cracked but they still can't get the aliens to recognize that they're speaking it.

Since that story was published I've found myself talking about language, linguistics, and culture in many places online, including the Analog and Asimov's forums. I decided I'd like a central location to discuss these issues in speculative fiction.

So I invite all of you to come and talk with me! Let's talk about designing or deepening your universe, the accents and cultures in different regions of your fantasy world, or even places in the real world that you'd like to know more about. I love this stuff, and I'd love to share what I know and learn from you!

Contact

I am interested in hearing from you. If you wish to contact me privately (outside the comments area), please send me an e-mail.

Varin

When reading through my various entries here, you may find multiple (if oblique) references to the world of Varin and its characters. This is a world in which I continue to develop short stories and novels. The first short story set there will soon see publication: "The Eminence's Match," forthcoming in the anthology Eight Against Reality from Panverse Publishing.

Varin was my first really thorough mega-world. Its initial, most basic form came from a core story idea in the classic fantasy style, in which two members of an underclass discover their people were once kings and, with the help of the usurper king's abused servant, attempt to return their people to their lost status.

The Varin concept evolved beyond that first core idea because of my convictions about fantasy and magic, some of which I've discussed here at TTYU. For those who haven't read those posts, suffice it to say that I get frustrated with the unruliness of magic and the tendency of populations in speculative fiction to run true to type ("he's an elf/ a native of the planet Gaga/ etc. so that's why he acts the way he does"). Around the time that I became interested in anthropology and linguistics, I decided to depart from Varin's fantasy core and strive for a world of complete sociological realism, emulating the nuanced work of Ursula K. LeGuin. This led to the creation of the high-technology nation of Varin with its eight underground cities, and the wysps, as well as Varin's caste system (see below).

With Varin as a "real" world, I found many more stories began to grow out of it than ever before. I became able to delve into the national history and the background of each character. The original concept is now the middle portion of a more complete, fleshed-out timeline.

The Varin Caste System

Level 1: Grobal Nobility Level 2: Arissen Officer Caste Level 3: Imbati Servant Caste Level 4: Kartunnen Artisan Caste Level 5: Venorai Laborer Caste Level 6: Melumalai Merchant Caste Level 7: Akrabitti Undercaste

The caste system of Varin defines the identity and experiences of its people, and has done so for over 300 years. Castes are distinguished on the basis of employment, but caste membership is determined by birth, and those who marry outside of caste must fall to the status of the Lower partner. Dressing without a caste mark is dangerous, and "cross-marking," or the impersonation of a Higher, is punishable by imprisonment or death.

The strength of the system lies in the special pride that each caste level takes in the value of its societal role. Each caste has its own set of ideals and cultural ideologies, valuing different manners and behavior, and receives a different respectful greeting when greeted by those of Lower status. Internally, each caste is governed on a meritocratic basis, allowing the caste's most successful members to rise to positions of prominence.

The caste system has a single area of overlap with the distinction between Varin's two religions. The undercaste alone follow a religion based on wysps and shinca trees, the two forces that make life above ground unsustainable on the Varin continent. All others revere the Holy Celestial Family, deities based on the planets of their solar system, whose exploits are recounted in the Ancient Stories.

Copyright © 2008 Juliette Wade

Links

Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading

Strange Horizons
Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Realms of Fantasy
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Asimov's Science Fiction
Internet Review of Science Fiction

Agent Blogs
Kristin Nelson, The Nelson Agency
Jenny Rappaport, Lori Perkins Agency
Colleen Lindsay, Fineprint Literary Management
Miss Snark Archives Only

Forums for Discussion
Analog Forum
Asimov's Forum

Some Fantastic Writers
Sheila Finch
Deborah Ross
Dario CirielloAnn Wilkes

Places for Aspiring Writers
Duotrope's Digest - Markets for Story Submissions
Agent Query - Agent Information
Surrey International Writers' ConferenceAnn Wilkes' Source for SF/F Reviews

How I write...

Story ideas don't generally come to me whole, but in pieces. Particularly with short stories, I feel like I collect parts of stories from the world around me, and then the ideas settle through my head until parts that match well suddenly stick together. These parts generally include premise, setting, and characters.

A premise might be something like "humans try to make first contact with aliens but have difficulty for cultural reasons," or "two boys can fly but don't know it because that ability is being taken from them, and they want to run away." With some premises, a lot of work goes into designing setting, including environment, technology level, language, religion and other factors from scratch. With others, I can use existing settings and time periods, but it takes about the same amount of time as working from scratch because of the extensive research required.

Characters are the center of everything for my stories. If I have a premise or setting that excites me, I always try to create a character who is maximally entangled in the properties of his or her surroundings, so that the character's point of view does a lot of work for me in establishing setting details (thus I attempt to minimize the dreaded infodumps). Once I have a character right, that person comes alive to me and may act independently of my authorly plans.

As I see it, I work on several levels when I write a story. On the editorial and analytical side are "grand plan," "events," "mental state," and "word" levels as follows:

• "Grand plan" means the structural outlining, including determining where the story must start and end to maximize its effectiveness.
• "Events" means the basic sense of how one thing follows another in the story, including the logistics of traveling from one setting to another.
• "Mental state" tracks the knowledge content and psychology of the various characters from one stage of the story to the next, so that their motivations and judgments keep the story driving forward. This is why I generally write stories in chronological order.
• "Word level" is about keeping point of view solid and making sure to maintain consistency for a character's use of metaphor and simile in a way that matches his or her age and experiential background.

On the gut, subconscious writing side? Those, because of their nature, are harder to tease apart. I know that when I write I feel like I am the character, and when I do that I let go of all my editorial desires. I can tell if my setup isn't working right, because characters will start to misbehave. The other thing I do without thinking is write in distinct rhythmic patterns for different character voices. I generally do not (at least to this point) design stories with narrators that are independent of character voice.

Favorite authors: Ursula Le Guin, Patricia McKillip

Linguistic/Anthropological Terms and Researchers

Articulatory Phonetics: here / Wikipedia
Phonology: Wikipedia
Morphology: here / Wikipedia
Syntax: here / Wikipedia
Semantics: 1, 2, 3 / Wikipedia
Pragmatics: here / Wikipedia
Sociolinguistics: here / Wikipedia
Discourse Analysis: Wikipedia
Note: some of the Wikipedia entries above lack proper citations, but on my quick scan appear to be accurate.

Franz Boas: Wikipedia
H. P. Grice: Wikipedia

Interviews

If you're interested in hearing more of what I have to say, here are some links to interviews I've given about myself and my work.

Found in Translation: Juliette Wade, an interview by David Steffen published at Fantasy Magazine

Meet SF Author Juliette Wade, an interview by Ann Wilkes published at Science Fiction and other ODDysseys