This one's funny, because it sounds like grammar, or maybe computer programming...
Syntax is the study of how sentences are put together. Part of this is word order. This is the one everyone fears because it often involves diagramming sentences. Actually, one of my most intense and wonderful classes was Syntax 1 at UC Santa Cruz. We put together a set of rules for how to create the sentences of English, based entirely on example sentences given to us by our teacher, Professor Sandy Chung (who totally rocks, by the way). Each time we thought we had it, she'd throw us another sentence that didn't fit, and the rule set evolved.
So how is this useful for science fiction and fantasy writers?
First, consider Yoda. He doesn't use typical English syntax. We know this. Yet we can still understand him. I always figured he was a native speaker of some other language and that affected how he could speak the common tongue - but my husband says he never thought of that, and he thought Yoda was just quirky.
Be that as it may, one of the things you can do by altering syntax is give a feeling of dialect, or of a foreign accent. The key here is to keep it all consistent. If it's inconsistent it will feel quirky, and could be construed as an error.
So how do you keep it consistent? Track your subject/verb/object order, and track your phrase types.
In English we use SVO (subject-verb-object) word order: I hit him: I=S, hit=V, him=O.
In Japanese they use SOV (subject-object-verb) word order. boku ga kare o utta : boku=I (for boys)=S, kare=he=O, utta=hit=V
I don't personally know any VSO languages (write in a comment if you do!) but I do know that Earth languages don't actually have all the possible orderings of these elements. For alien languages, who knows? They might not even conceptualize subject and object and verb the way we do - in which case it might be tough to write out their language in the story!
Some languages have freer word order than English. Take for example Latin or Japanese. This is a place where phrase syntax (in the Japanese case) or morphology (in the Latin case) can allow you greater freedom.
In Japanese, the subject and object are marked by particles, special words that come directly after the nouns they apply to and tell you their role in the sentence. With your words marked like that, you can scramble the phrases up a bit and still get meaning out of it.
In Latin, morphology provides case suffixes. Case suffixes essentially play the same role as the Japanese particles, and by labeling the word's role directly, allow more freedom for altering word order.
Play around with it. Yoda shows us that we can understand a lot of different ways of putting a sentence together, provided that we know enough to track each noun's role in the action at hand. You might also want to run it by your friends to make sure it's comprehensible!
At this point you may notice that I've been talking about altering English syntax within a story to imply the structure of another language. This is true. The same principles apply if you want to write sentences in a created language - but I'm guessing this is going to happen less often in the story than the use of English for implication. I have written a song in one of my created languages, but I don't imagine it will do more than sit in an appendix, since putting the entire thing in the story as Tolkien did isn't quite my style.
Now, go forth and have fun with syntax!
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Screaming about the internet
I just wanted to share (or vent, as the case may be). Our internet has been up and down for days and I keep getting into endless service calls that make me want to scream with steam coming out of my head. I got put through the regular checklist with another guy this morning and now he tells me my internet should be fine. But it seems like maybe it's going to be the same old story. My local cable provider has been the most helpful of all in this process - I wish we could have gotten people to jump on our case like this before we switched off them. They're keen to get us back, and to be honest, with the great service we've gotten from their people, I'm keen to be back. Provided of course that we get continuous service.
How ironic how dependent I am on this stuff, but I suppose it's the nature of electrical/virtual connectivity. I love blogging and I love emailing. Since I'm home basically all the time, it's my only connection beyond the neighborhood that isn't my phone.
I really appreciate all of you for continuing to read my posts and be patient with me.
How ironic how dependent I am on this stuff, but I suppose it's the nature of electrical/virtual connectivity. I love blogging and I love emailing. Since I'm home basically all the time, it's my only connection beyond the neighborhood that isn't my phone.
I really appreciate all of you for continuing to read my posts and be patient with me.
Monday, January 12, 2009
How morphology can help you!
Morphology is a fantasy and science fiction writer's best friend.
Seriously. Why? Because everyone uses it, and I mean everyone, whether they know it or not. Every story that makes up a name for a group of people and then pluralizes it is using morphology. Every story that takes a nice-sounding made-up word and then adds on a suffix to make the name of a country or city is using it too.
Morphology is prefixes and suffixes (and infixes). It is the study of the tiny pieces of meaning that make up words. Each of these pieces is called a morpheme. Some morphemes are free, which means they can occur by themselves and still have meaning. Examples:
cat
do
blend
Yes, these are words. But not all words contain only a single morpheme. Most contain one or more bound morphemes, which are meaning units that can't occur all on their own. Examples:
-s
re-
-er
-ness
anti-
-ville
-ia
So if we use these in combination we get words with one or morpheme, as follows:
cat+s=cats (2 morphemes)
good+ness=goodness (2 morphemes)
paint+er+s=painters (3 morphemes)
etc.
If you have a fantasy or science fiction language, I urge you to think through the morphemes you use. There are a ton of people out there who make plurals by adding -i, or who make names of countries by adding -ia. But you shouldn't necessarily fall into the default pattern.
Think first about the feel you want your language to have. A choice like -i for plural is different from -s, which gives the word a slight foreign feel (because of its Latin roots), but it's still very under the radar for readers. This can be a good thing. On the other hand, your language could potentially use any sound or combination of sounds in its repertoire to pluralize (or it might not pluralize at all!). Using an unusual pluralizing suffix might stand out at first, but if it's supported by the surrounding text so that its meaning is unequivocal, it can make your language seem far more interesting. The same goes for -ia, which is if anything more standard than the pluralizing -i.
Remember also that your morphemes don't have to have the same meanings as English words. In my work I don't use plural morphemes, and I don't use a morpheme that means "country," but I do have one that means "place" and another that means "person." Examples:
The capital city is named after a man named Pelisma, and the suffix -ra means "place."
Pelisma + ra=Pelismara, the place of Pelisma.
The title of a city ruler is Alixi, which actually breaks down like this:
Alhi=one
-iks=most
-i=person
Alhi+iks+i=Alhiiksi, pronounced Alixi, or the firstmost person.
Morphology is a lot of fun, and when you create a system that makes sense, it shows in the story.
Seriously. Why? Because everyone uses it, and I mean everyone, whether they know it or not. Every story that makes up a name for a group of people and then pluralizes it is using morphology. Every story that takes a nice-sounding made-up word and then adds on a suffix to make the name of a country or city is using it too.
Morphology is prefixes and suffixes (and infixes). It is the study of the tiny pieces of meaning that make up words. Each of these pieces is called a morpheme. Some morphemes are free, which means they can occur by themselves and still have meaning. Examples:
cat
do
blend
Yes, these are words. But not all words contain only a single morpheme. Most contain one or more bound morphemes, which are meaning units that can't occur all on their own. Examples:
-s
re-
-er
-ness
anti-
-ville
-ia
So if we use these in combination we get words with one or morpheme, as follows:
cat+s=cats (2 morphemes)
good+ness=goodness (2 morphemes)
paint+er+s=painters (3 morphemes)
etc.
If you have a fantasy or science fiction language, I urge you to think through the morphemes you use. There are a ton of people out there who make plurals by adding -i, or who make names of countries by adding -ia. But you shouldn't necessarily fall into the default pattern.
Think first about the feel you want your language to have. A choice like -i for plural is different from -s, which gives the word a slight foreign feel (because of its Latin roots), but it's still very under the radar for readers. This can be a good thing. On the other hand, your language could potentially use any sound or combination of sounds in its repertoire to pluralize (or it might not pluralize at all!). Using an unusual pluralizing suffix might stand out at first, but if it's supported by the surrounding text so that its meaning is unequivocal, it can make your language seem far more interesting. The same goes for -ia, which is if anything more standard than the pluralizing -i.
Remember also that your morphemes don't have to have the same meanings as English words. In my work I don't use plural morphemes, and I don't use a morpheme that means "country," but I do have one that means "place" and another that means "person." Examples:
The capital city is named after a man named Pelisma, and the suffix -ra means "place."
Pelisma + ra=Pelismara, the place of Pelisma.
The title of a city ruler is Alixi, which actually breaks down like this:
Alhi=one
-iks=most
-i=person
Alhi+iks+i=Alhiiksi, pronounced Alixi, or the firstmost person.
Morphology is a lot of fun, and when you create a system that makes sense, it shows in the story.
Friday, January 9, 2009
How articulatory phonetics can help you!
Articulatory phonetics deals with how the human vocal tract creates sounds.
Knowing the principles of how the vocal tract works can help science fiction and fantasy writers to create languages that follow naturalistic patterns of pronunciation, thus making created languages that seem more natural.
One of the key assumptions in the following discussion is that we're working with a species which, like humans, can perceive vibrations in the air (whether through ears and hearing or by other means like antennae). While this does restrict us somewhat, it still allows for a lot of possibilities.
Let me begin with a caveat before we begin our tour of the vocal tract. If you've never studied linguistics, this may appear complex - but it's not as bad as it seems. Just because there are a lot of variables you can change about a language doesn't mean you should go about trying to change them all.
Okay, so here we go:
1. Powered by the diaphragm, the lungs emit an airstream that can be shaped by other parts of the vocal tract. This is the power source for the sounds. Change this element, and you'll have a drastically different language, but one that will be a bear to transcribe into English!
2. The vocal cords can vibrate when the airstream passes by them. All vowels are "voiced" sounds, i.e. sounds with where the vocal cords vibrate. So are consonants like b, d, z, v, y, l, r, n, and m. In the case of an alien, it's important to know that this creature possesses something like vocal cords, or at least something able to create a consistent humming vibration, if you're going to use any voiced consonants in transcribing its language. Language sounds without this vibration are called "unvoiced." Whispering is entirely unvoiced.
3. The mouth is a resonating space for vibrating air. In human languages, the quality of vowels is altered when the tongue is used to alter the shape of the mouth space. The position of the tongue is described in two dimensions: height (high, mid, low) and front/back. Here are some examples of the position of English vowels.
[i] as in "feet"=high front [u] as in "hoot"= high back
[E] as in "bet"= mid front [o] as in "boat"= mid back
[ae] as in "hat"=low front
If you go into any beginning linguistics textbook, it's easy to find a graph of the mouth space and the vowels involved; you can also Google "vocal tract." Here, I'd prefer to talk about what to do with them. If you have an alien, try to think about the kind of resonating space it uses to create speech sounds - the length of its muzzle or other factors might change things significantly. You can also think about how it might change the shape of that resonating space (with tongue or other muscles), because this would affect its ability to pronounce human languages.
If you have a human or fantasy human, the problem is easier, but you can still think about how the language pattern might use vowels with different characteristics. Do your people generally avoid mid vowels? Avoid back vowels? Do they tend to pronounce vowels across a word with the same kind of mouth and tongue position (say, making all vowels in a single word high)? Do they generally keep their lips rounded or unrounded? There are lots of options here.
4. The air flow can be stopped or blocked in different ways by the tongue, teeth, and lips. When the air flow is blocked completely, that's called a stop (for example, p/t/k/b/d/g). When it's still flowing but partially obstructed, that can be called a liquid (l/r), an affricate (ch/ts) or a fricative (s/th/f/z/v). W and y are called glides. Consider the "tools" your creature or person has for altering air flow. Where will most of the obstructions occur? Far back in the mouth near the uvula, as with French R? In the front with the lips? At the alveolar ridge behind the teeth where we create sounds like t/d/s/z?
There's more I could talk about, but I don't want to go overboard...
In fact, you'd be surprised how few things you need to change to give an entirely different flavor to the alien words you use. Here is an example of a language that I recently created.
I had an alien with a long muzzle and tongue, so I decided that there were a lot of different kinds of "l" and "r" sounds in this language. In English I decided to use single "l" versus double "ll" and single "r" versus double "rr" to indicate these sounds, even though I didn't know exactly what they sounded like. I also decided to avoid all unvoiced consonants - mostly for the sake of argument, and for giving the language a distinctive "feel." That means plenty of m/n/d/g/b/v, etc., but no p/t/k/s/f.
To my mind, the biggest advantage of using principles of articulatory phonetics is this: if you use natural language patterns to guide your choices, the resulting created languages will seem less arbitrary and more convincing.
Knowing the principles of how the vocal tract works can help science fiction and fantasy writers to create languages that follow naturalistic patterns of pronunciation, thus making created languages that seem more natural.
One of the key assumptions in the following discussion is that we're working with a species which, like humans, can perceive vibrations in the air (whether through ears and hearing or by other means like antennae). While this does restrict us somewhat, it still allows for a lot of possibilities.
Let me begin with a caveat before we begin our tour of the vocal tract. If you've never studied linguistics, this may appear complex - but it's not as bad as it seems. Just because there are a lot of variables you can change about a language doesn't mean you should go about trying to change them all.
Okay, so here we go:
1. Powered by the diaphragm, the lungs emit an airstream that can be shaped by other parts of the vocal tract. This is the power source for the sounds. Change this element, and you'll have a drastically different language, but one that will be a bear to transcribe into English!
2. The vocal cords can vibrate when the airstream passes by them. All vowels are "voiced" sounds, i.e. sounds with where the vocal cords vibrate. So are consonants like b, d, z, v, y, l, r, n, and m. In the case of an alien, it's important to know that this creature possesses something like vocal cords, or at least something able to create a consistent humming vibration, if you're going to use any voiced consonants in transcribing its language. Language sounds without this vibration are called "unvoiced." Whispering is entirely unvoiced.
3. The mouth is a resonating space for vibrating air. In human languages, the quality of vowels is altered when the tongue is used to alter the shape of the mouth space. The position of the tongue is described in two dimensions: height (high, mid, low) and front/back. Here are some examples of the position of English vowels.
[i] as in "feet"=high front [u] as in "hoot"= high back
[E] as in "bet"= mid front [o] as in "boat"= mid back
[ae] as in "hat"=low front
If you go into any beginning linguistics textbook, it's easy to find a graph of the mouth space and the vowels involved; you can also Google "vocal tract." Here, I'd prefer to talk about what to do with them. If you have an alien, try to think about the kind of resonating space it uses to create speech sounds - the length of its muzzle or other factors might change things significantly. You can also think about how it might change the shape of that resonating space (with tongue or other muscles), because this would affect its ability to pronounce human languages.
If you have a human or fantasy human, the problem is easier, but you can still think about how the language pattern might use vowels with different characteristics. Do your people generally avoid mid vowels? Avoid back vowels? Do they tend to pronounce vowels across a word with the same kind of mouth and tongue position (say, making all vowels in a single word high)? Do they generally keep their lips rounded or unrounded? There are lots of options here.
4. The air flow can be stopped or blocked in different ways by the tongue, teeth, and lips. When the air flow is blocked completely, that's called a stop (for example, p/t/k/b/d/g). When it's still flowing but partially obstructed, that can be called a liquid (l/r), an affricate (ch/ts) or a fricative (s/th/f/z/v). W and y are called glides. Consider the "tools" your creature or person has for altering air flow. Where will most of the obstructions occur? Far back in the mouth near the uvula, as with French R? In the front with the lips? At the alveolar ridge behind the teeth where we create sounds like t/d/s/z?
There's more I could talk about, but I don't want to go overboard...
In fact, you'd be surprised how few things you need to change to give an entirely different flavor to the alien words you use. Here is an example of a language that I recently created.
I had an alien with a long muzzle and tongue, so I decided that there were a lot of different kinds of "l" and "r" sounds in this language. In English I decided to use single "l" versus double "ll" and single "r" versus double "rr" to indicate these sounds, even though I didn't know exactly what they sounded like. I also decided to avoid all unvoiced consonants - mostly for the sake of argument, and for giving the language a distinctive "feel." That means plenty of m/n/d/g/b/v, etc., but no p/t/k/s/f.
To my mind, the biggest advantage of using principles of articulatory phonetics is this: if you use natural language patterns to guide your choices, the resulting created languages will seem less arbitrary and more convincing.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
How linguistics can help you!
As a lead-in to my language design workshop, I'm going to do a little sequence of "How ____ can help you!" pieces concerning various areas of linguistics. These aren't intended to be technical, or even introductory discussions of linguistics itself. I'm going to try to make them short, practical pieces which relate linguistics topics to the use of created languages in science fiction and fantasy. Certainly they will be useful for people who are digging into creating an entire language that penetrates an SF/F world. I hope they can also be helpful for those who are using minimal-penetration languages in SF/F - languages that consist mostly of names for people and places.
Here are some of the upcoming topics:
Articulatory phonetics, a.k.a. how to match sounds to an alien physiology
(I've discussed this a bit before, but I'll try to take it a bit further)
Morphology, a.k.a. how words are broken into smaller pieces of meaning
Syntax, a.k.a. how sentences are put together
Semantics, a.k.a. how meanings are structured
Pragmatics, a.k.a. how language implies more than it "means"; how people define insincerity vs. politeness
Sociolinguistics, a.k.a. how people use language for social purposes including drawing distinctions between social groups
FYI I seem to be having internet problems again, this time intermittent ones that make me go argh! but don't keep me off for entire days. I think this neighborhood must be cursed by the internet gods or something. Anyway, I'll try to address the problem and hope it doesn't get any worse.
Here are some of the upcoming topics:
Articulatory phonetics, a.k.a. how to match sounds to an alien physiology
(I've discussed this a bit before, but I'll try to take it a bit further)
Morphology, a.k.a. how words are broken into smaller pieces of meaning
Syntax, a.k.a. how sentences are put together
Semantics, a.k.a. how meanings are structured
Pragmatics, a.k.a. how language implies more than it "means"; how people define insincerity vs. politeness
Sociolinguistics, a.k.a. how people use language for social purposes including drawing distinctions between social groups
FYI I seem to be having internet problems again, this time intermittent ones that make me go argh! but don't keep me off for entire days. I think this neighborhood must be cursed by the internet gods or something. Anyway, I'll try to address the problem and hope it doesn't get any worse.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Ideas for Languages: animal sounds
It can be hard to get ideas for alien or fantasy languages. Even with the four languages I know (and the sound systems of a few more) for ideas, I find myself running dry sometimes. And of course, the last thing you want is for your languages all to sound the same.
Here are a couple of ways to get around this:
One: use a sound system extremely close to an existing world language. The only pitfall here is that your designed language can get a little too close to the language model and people can tell what you're up to. This may not be a problem (many people don't care).
Two: design your sound inventory based on the physiology of your aliens (caterpillar aliens, octopus aliens, cat aliens, etc.) If you've got aliens with a really unusual physiology, this can be fun (if at times difficult to write out using the English writing system).
Sound system itself isn't everything, though. Two languages can have very similar sound systems, but the way the sounds pattern may be entirely different. Japanese and Spanish, for example, are very similar in their sound inventory, but I hardly have to explain that they sound like they come from opposite sides of the planet. They do.
So here's another idea. Listen to animal sounds.
Use the obvious ones, sure, like barking for dogs or meowing for cats. But then take it further. What are the little sounds these animals make? Whining, gurgling, howling, purring, half-meowing, etc. Do they make them repetitively? Try to take these additional sounds and turn them into speech patterns.
Here's an example:
A cat who says "meow" may also say "mrrk" or "meeg", or "mrk-mrk" depending on context. I could imagine that someone who says meow a lot would be fond of diphthongs, so I could say maybe this language doesn't have the lax/short vowels, but only long vowels and diphthongs of all kinds. ow, ai, oi, and push it further. Maybe the length of the vowels would be significant, like a distinction between "meow" and "meeow" or "meoow." Maybe this would be a language where repeating a word indicates a mood of excitement or eagerness.
If I can do this with cat sounds, which are incredibly familiar, imagine what can be done with other animal sounds. There's a ton of stuff out there on the web. Look for monkey sounds, bird sounds, whale sounds, elephant sounds, ground squirrel sounds, anything you like. If you can actually find a recording of it, instead of just imagining it, the task will become even easier and more fun.
Because I'm planning a language design workshop to open on February 1, I thought I'd do a few language-related posts during the month of January. As with the worldbuilding workshop, this one will begin with me asking for submissions, so if you're interested it can't hurt to start thinking now. And listening...
Here are a couple of ways to get around this:
One: use a sound system extremely close to an existing world language. The only pitfall here is that your designed language can get a little too close to the language model and people can tell what you're up to. This may not be a problem (many people don't care).
Two: design your sound inventory based on the physiology of your aliens (caterpillar aliens, octopus aliens, cat aliens, etc.) If you've got aliens with a really unusual physiology, this can be fun (if at times difficult to write out using the English writing system).
Sound system itself isn't everything, though. Two languages can have very similar sound systems, but the way the sounds pattern may be entirely different. Japanese and Spanish, for example, are very similar in their sound inventory, but I hardly have to explain that they sound like they come from opposite sides of the planet. They do.
So here's another idea. Listen to animal sounds.
Use the obvious ones, sure, like barking for dogs or meowing for cats. But then take it further. What are the little sounds these animals make? Whining, gurgling, howling, purring, half-meowing, etc. Do they make them repetitively? Try to take these additional sounds and turn them into speech patterns.
Here's an example:
A cat who says "meow" may also say "mrrk" or "meeg", or "mrk-mrk" depending on context. I could imagine that someone who says meow a lot would be fond of diphthongs, so I could say maybe this language doesn't have the lax/short vowels, but only long vowels and diphthongs of all kinds. ow, ai, oi, and push it further. Maybe the length of the vowels would be significant, like a distinction between "meow" and "meeow" or "meoow." Maybe this would be a language where repeating a word indicates a mood of excitement or eagerness.
If I can do this with cat sounds, which are incredibly familiar, imagine what can be done with other animal sounds. There's a ton of stuff out there on the web. Look for monkey sounds, bird sounds, whale sounds, elephant sounds, ground squirrel sounds, anything you like. If you can actually find a recording of it, instead of just imagining it, the task will become even easier and more fun.
Because I'm planning a language design workshop to open on February 1, I thought I'd do a few language-related posts during the month of January. As with the worldbuilding workshop, this one will begin with me asking for submissions, so if you're interested it can't hurt to start thinking now. And listening...
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Dinosaurs Before Dark: A Ridiculously Close Look
Today I thought I'd look at story drive and point of view in a bit of an unusual context.
Both story drive and point of view can be tricky to achieve. A story without a consistent point of view will often feel all over the place, and one without drive makes us sigh and put it down, wondering why we couldn't get caught up in a story whose premise seemed so interesting.
My point today, though, is that though we may be tempted to make our stories more complex in order to create drive or to create point of view, complexity is not at all necessary to create interest or forward momentum. Similarly, point of view does not require a mature and sophisticated text.
My excerpt today is the opening of Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne, one of the Magic Tree House books that I just got for my son for Christmas. This book has drive on page one. It has third person limited point of view, also on page one. And my five-year-old can read it. I have immense respect for an author who can achieve that.
Let's take a look at how she does it.
Line 1:
"Help! A monster!" said Annie.
And we're off. Five words, and already I'm curious whether this is a real monster or not, where Annie is and why she'd be saying that. The style is simple. The content is compelling.
Line 2:
"Yeah, sure," said Jack. "A real monster in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania."
Instantly we have conflict, with the boy and girl disagreeing. I become curious about the relationship between Jack and Annie, and while I wonder which of them to trust, I still can entertain the possibility that a real monster is coming. Notice also that the context of conflict allows Jack to bring up Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. Without any conflict, you'd get one of those cringe-worthy "as you know, Bob" sentences - but here it sounds totally natural because the location itself is not in question, only the plausibility of finding a monster there.
Line 3:
"Run, Jack!" said Annie. She ran up the road.
Annie could have argued with Jack, saying "No, really" - but then the reader would become certain this was just an argument. Annie's willingness to take action in spite of her brother's attitude keeps us guessing about monsters, and also develops Annie's character and her relationship to Jack.
Line 4:
Oh, brother.
One line, and suddenly we sense point of view. With no quotes, this can't be spoken, but it's such an idiosyncratic expression of frustration that we have to conclude it's someone's thought. Mary Pope Osborne accomplishes this without ever using the word "thought," or italics, or any other stylistic indicator. She just gives us something that can't be construed as anything but thought. The question then becomes, "Whose?"
Which is the curiosity leading us to the next line.
Line 5:
This is what he got for spending time with his seven-year-old sister.
Suddenly we realize we're in Jack's head. Although the pronouns are third person, the sentence clearly centers on him. "This" refers to the situation he's in, describing it as close and immediate to him much as I do when I think to myself. Also, this conflict situation again allows Osborne to give us critical information - "seven-year-old sister" - without resorting to an unrealistic line of dialogue or thought.
Something else, too: this sentence radiates attitude, through the expression "this is what he got." It's clear now that Jack doesn't believe what his sister is saying. The question then becomes whether he's reliable in his judgment. Osborne gives us that information in the very next line.
Line 6:
Annie loved pretend stuff. But Jack was eight and a half. He liked real things.
Coming on the heels of Jack's other thoughts, even a sentence beginning with Annie doesn't pull us into her point of view. The juxtaposition of Annie and Jack (see the word "but") gives us Jack's justification for his opinion. It also places him as only slightly older than his sister. I couldn't tell you what my son thinks, precisely, but from an adult's point of view, this is fascinating because I see that he's reliable in his judgment of the monster situation, but not necessarily reliable in his attitude toward his sister. It also places him at the age where kids stop believing in magical stuff – and given that this is a Magic Tree House book, we can sense already that he's got a surprise coming. This leaves us asking when, and what that surprise will be.
Line 7:
"Watch out, Jack! The monster's coming! Race you!"
Here we see Annie's persistence in wanting to play with her brother (after all, he hasn't answered her last invitation). But interestingly, the words "race you" suggest that Annie also knows she's making things up. "Race you" reflects her desire to engage and compete with her brother, but she'd never say it if there were a real monster coming.
Line 8:
"No thanks," said Jack.
Jack is staying out of the competition, and the conflict ends here – but we're still waiting for the final turn of the interaction, because the conflict is only over if both parties agree to let it go. Annie's response in the next line changes the momentum of the story completely:
Line 9:
Annie raced alone into the woods.
Suddenly we've ramped up the conflict. Not only has Annie refused to accept Jack's lack of involvement, she immediately runs off into a location which is a classic for adventures. I'd have to guess that by the age of five my son has already seen enough instances of kids alone in woods and trouble ensuing (through fairy tales, children's books, etc.) to think that Jack was wrong to let Annie leave by herself, and to wonder whether she's going to be okay, and what she's going to find.
And that's how Osborne keeps us driving ahead into the rest of the story.
The tools she uses here are content and juxtaposition – tools of the utmost simplicity, yes, but they are highly effective. This story drives forward with every line. It lets us share Jack's thoughts and feelings – and evaluate them – without the need for lots of extra words. The expressions she chooses are evocative of highly familiar knowledge (even for five-year-olds), and the conflict situation she sets up allows her to dispense critical information smoothly.
Now there's a good story.
Both story drive and point of view can be tricky to achieve. A story without a consistent point of view will often feel all over the place, and one without drive makes us sigh and put it down, wondering why we couldn't get caught up in a story whose premise seemed so interesting.
My point today, though, is that though we may be tempted to make our stories more complex in order to create drive or to create point of view, complexity is not at all necessary to create interest or forward momentum. Similarly, point of view does not require a mature and sophisticated text.
My excerpt today is the opening of Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne, one of the Magic Tree House books that I just got for my son for Christmas. This book has drive on page one. It has third person limited point of view, also on page one. And my five-year-old can read it. I have immense respect for an author who can achieve that.
Let's take a look at how she does it.
Line 1:
"Help! A monster!" said Annie.
And we're off. Five words, and already I'm curious whether this is a real monster or not, where Annie is and why she'd be saying that. The style is simple. The content is compelling.
Line 2:
"Yeah, sure," said Jack. "A real monster in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania."
Instantly we have conflict, with the boy and girl disagreeing. I become curious about the relationship between Jack and Annie, and while I wonder which of them to trust, I still can entertain the possibility that a real monster is coming. Notice also that the context of conflict allows Jack to bring up Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. Without any conflict, you'd get one of those cringe-worthy "as you know, Bob" sentences - but here it sounds totally natural because the location itself is not in question, only the plausibility of finding a monster there.
Line 3:
"Run, Jack!" said Annie. She ran up the road.
Annie could have argued with Jack, saying "No, really" - but then the reader would become certain this was just an argument. Annie's willingness to take action in spite of her brother's attitude keeps us guessing about monsters, and also develops Annie's character and her relationship to Jack.
Line 4:
Oh, brother.
One line, and suddenly we sense point of view. With no quotes, this can't be spoken, but it's such an idiosyncratic expression of frustration that we have to conclude it's someone's thought. Mary Pope Osborne accomplishes this without ever using the word "thought," or italics, or any other stylistic indicator. She just gives us something that can't be construed as anything but thought. The question then becomes, "Whose?"
Which is the curiosity leading us to the next line.
Line 5:
This is what he got for spending time with his seven-year-old sister.
Suddenly we realize we're in Jack's head. Although the pronouns are third person, the sentence clearly centers on him. "This" refers to the situation he's in, describing it as close and immediate to him much as I do when I think to myself. Also, this conflict situation again allows Osborne to give us critical information - "seven-year-old sister" - without resorting to an unrealistic line of dialogue or thought.
Something else, too: this sentence radiates attitude, through the expression "this is what he got." It's clear now that Jack doesn't believe what his sister is saying. The question then becomes whether he's reliable in his judgment. Osborne gives us that information in the very next line.
Line 6:
Annie loved pretend stuff. But Jack was eight and a half. He liked real things.
Coming on the heels of Jack's other thoughts, even a sentence beginning with Annie doesn't pull us into her point of view. The juxtaposition of Annie and Jack (see the word "but") gives us Jack's justification for his opinion. It also places him as only slightly older than his sister. I couldn't tell you what my son thinks, precisely, but from an adult's point of view, this is fascinating because I see that he's reliable in his judgment of the monster situation, but not necessarily reliable in his attitude toward his sister. It also places him at the age where kids stop believing in magical stuff – and given that this is a Magic Tree House book, we can sense already that he's got a surprise coming. This leaves us asking when, and what that surprise will be.
Line 7:
"Watch out, Jack! The monster's coming! Race you!"
Here we see Annie's persistence in wanting to play with her brother (after all, he hasn't answered her last invitation). But interestingly, the words "race you" suggest that Annie also knows she's making things up. "Race you" reflects her desire to engage and compete with her brother, but she'd never say it if there were a real monster coming.
Line 8:
"No thanks," said Jack.
Jack is staying out of the competition, and the conflict ends here – but we're still waiting for the final turn of the interaction, because the conflict is only over if both parties agree to let it go. Annie's response in the next line changes the momentum of the story completely:
Line 9:
Annie raced alone into the woods.
Suddenly we've ramped up the conflict. Not only has Annie refused to accept Jack's lack of involvement, she immediately runs off into a location which is a classic for adventures. I'd have to guess that by the age of five my son has already seen enough instances of kids alone in woods and trouble ensuing (through fairy tales, children's books, etc.) to think that Jack was wrong to let Annie leave by herself, and to wonder whether she's going to be okay, and what she's going to find.
And that's how Osborne keeps us driving ahead into the rest of the story.
The tools she uses here are content and juxtaposition – tools of the utmost simplicity, yes, but they are highly effective. This story drives forward with every line. It lets us share Jack's thoughts and feelings – and evaluate them – without the need for lots of extra words. The expressions she chooses are evocative of highly familiar knowledge (even for five-year-olds), and the conflict situation she sets up allows her to dispense critical information smoothly.
Now there's a good story.
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