TTYU Retro - Revisions: your story isn't you

I've heard many authors talk about how the characters in their stories seem to do things of their own volition, or about how the story seems to be outside of them rather than something they have created. It's easy to get this sensation when you're in the midst of creating - somewhat harder, I think, to retain it when you go back and start revisions.

In some ways, that sense of the story existing on its own can make us balk at revising. It's outside of us now, it has its own internal form and structure; the characters are who they are, and do what they do. In other ways, it's the sense that the story represents us as authors - that in a way, it is us - that causes us to hesitate.

I think considering the story as existing outside of us is perfectly fine. It may resist revision in some ways, but as long as we can consider the characters, the form and the structure from the outside, revision is possible. It's when we feel that we are the story that the revisions process can really defeat us. Then critique and requests for edits can feel like insults, and restructuring like an assault.

It's not that what we create isn't great. It isn't even that it's not publishable. I've seen whole books and famous movies that made me think, "needed one more rewrite." But though those books have been published and those movies produced, I always think it's a shame that that final revision never happened.

I've tried to train myself to take a particular view of my own work. To me, the story isn't me, and it isn't even what I've written. The story exists somewhere else - a plane of ideas, or some kind of Platonic dimension - where it exists in an ideal state. What I'm trying to do by writing it is capture that perfect spirit, that resonance, and convey it to my readers. Thus, revisions are the means by which I bring the story closer to the ideal. Maybe this is why I enjoy it so much!

Critique shows me how my readers understand what I'm doing; it gives me a sense of the pictures they see, and the resonance and intensity they feel. They aren't seeing the ideal form of the story any more than I am, but we're all trying, looking at it from different angles, and in that process we jointly get insight into what the story could be. Then once I feel I've glimpsed the way to get closer to what I want, I set about making it happen. Sometimes when I realize what the story really requires, and I feel a resonance come into place, it gives me goose bumps.

I'm not saying everyone has to think this way. What I'm trying to do is explain why I find revisions exciting instead of daunting. If what I'm sharing here helps any writer out there to take on the process of revisions with more relish and less sense of personal injury, then I'll be happy.

Link: 19 Regional American words

Here's a little something to spice up your morning! This article will give you unique sample words from different regions of the US, just in case you felt your expressions were lacking in flavor. Great stuff from Joan Houston Hall's five-volume Dictionary of American Regional English. Have fun with it!

Link: The Creation of Dothraki (Game of Thrones)

Here's a great link to CNN where David Peterson gives us a glimpse of how Dothraki works, and where they also have a short clip where you can hear Dothraki spoken (if, like me, you don't get HBO). Really fun stuff, and it looks like there will be more to come on Sunday!

Swearing: A worldbuilding hangout report

For our discussion of swearing, I hosted Brian Dolton, Dale Emery, David Peterson, Erin Peterson, Janet Harriett, Leigh Dragoon, Jaleh Dragich, and Glenda Pfeiffer. This one was really fun, and funny. How could any discussion of swearing in worldbuilding not be? Be aware that swear words will appear below!

We started by introducing some of the general bases of swearing, which include religion and oath-taking, and taboo topics like sex and excrement. Different cultures can take various of these as underpinnings for swearing. Because religion is something that we typically build for our worlds to distinguish them from the real world, they can take on a much more world-grounded feel than swearing expressions based on sex and excrement, because the latter will resemble our own swear words more closely.

Jaleh mentioned that she read a story where people use "carp" in place of "crap." This led us into a discussion of how real-world swears will be altered. David observed that when you're not allowed to use the real swears of our own world, people will tend to vary them a lot. This leads to usages like "pr0n" and "f**k", snap as a substitute for shit, or Oh Mylanta as a substitute for Oh my God. Dale mentioned "Gorram" and "Frak" and Janet mentioned "piece of gosse." Brian said he's heard "Godfrey Daniel" as a substitution for God - and of course there's always "goodness gracious me" which has served a similar purpose.

Some lovely examples:
Gosh darn, heck, jeepers, son of a biscuit eater, son of a mutated sea monkey, misbegotten son of a camel-seller, colder than a witch's uncle...

There is a certain extent to which you can take an existing swearing phrase and play fill-in-the-blank. "Son of a ____" is one good example of this, and Jaleh suggested "In ____'s name". However, one should be careful with "Holy ____," because it is so common that it can appear to be overly simplistic, especially if it is overused or used to the exclusion of other swearing forms. One of my guests said it had a Batman feel (watch out)!

When you're coming up with a swearing system, use your creativity! Do a bit of thinking about the grounding that exists in your world and its culture. If you're going to use "by my honor," then one would imagine that the construct of honor would be culturally important.

We also had a link recommended as a source for Victorian lower-class slang, here.

David told us about an interesting phenomenon in Austronesia, "taboo replacement." In the society he mentioned, people were often named after natural objects. This led to some interesting results for example when a chief died, because it was taboo to mention the name of the dead person at all, which meant they had to replace the name of the natural object itself to keep anyone from having to pronounce it.

David also mentioned that when you're creating a language, one thing that can make it look more real is to follow the natural-language pattern of having pejorative meaning associated with female terms. He compared Mr. vs. Madam (which also means a brothel-keeper). Apparently the rather vile Spanish word "puta" originally meant a scullery-maid or cleaning lady rather than what it has come to mean since. Obviously this is something to watch out for, because it's not a choice that you'll necessarily want to make, for reasons of principle. In fact, Glenda said it would be fun to turn this on its head and see what one could do to make male terms turn pejorative. That would be another option - it's good to think about whether there are any major categories like this (gender categories or racial categories spring to mind) that cause words to gain bad extra meanings and thus be euphemized as time goes on.

Swearing itself doesn't have to have the same cultural meaning. I gave the example of swearing in American and Australian culture (as exemplified by my own view vs. my husband's view). In the American view it's a way of posturing so that other people will be shocked, and feel what I'd call "ugly power" coming from the person swearing. In my husband's view, it's more like pepper on a pizza - it just gives the language more flavor. In most cases, the literal meaning of the words bears little connection to their function in swearing - it's all about the emotional impact.

In Varin, my people are expected to swear, and it's more indicative of sincere feeling and emotional involvement than it is of ugliness or shock. I've mentioned this in past hangouts, but each of the Varin gods is patron of a set of activities, and when you're swearing about one of those activities, you're expected to swear by the activity's patron god in some manner.

Historical settings can pose challenges in the swearing department. Sometimes, using the actual swear words of the era can appear comical to a modern listener's ears. It's a delicate balance, therefore, between accuracy and the desire to evoke the appropriate listener response.

Some more examples we discussed: kek replacing "crap," used in the Northern UK, but Jaleh has also heard the word in gypsy contexts (Jaleh, can you be more specific here?). Brian Dolton says he's heard keks as a word for trousers, and he thinks it's related to "kack" as a word for excrement. David mentioned that he's seen "kek" in World of Warcraft, where it becomes a translation of another faction's swear words. Then there was "chuff" in England. Brian's example was "chuffing chuff the chuffing chuffer," which had us all eminently amused! "Chuffed" also means "proud" in England and Australia. There was also "smurf" as a substitute for everything in the smurfs animated world, and "smeg" from Red Dwarf.

If you're designing a swearing system for your world, it's good to decide whether you're going to use a substitution strategy, where you take all the basic swears we have and substitute new things in for them, or whether you are going to design your swearing from the bottom up with a new religion and a new linguistic approach. Who swears how can also depend on class and vocation. Jaleh suggested that biologists might prefer excrement-related swearing. David mentioned that there are certain phrases in academic language that are considered terrible insults, such as "your reasoning is reductive" or "that won't lead to a formalized theory." Politeness is intertwined with swearing, and it's fully possible to say things that sound polite, and have their meaning be insulting.

A few final examples: "Mother"/"mamma" is constantly used in swearing and insults, while "padre" in Spanish means "cool." Opposites can be used, as when "bad" means "good." The more recent developments in this area have seen the word "sick" or "wicked" used to mean "good." In Australia I've heard the same meaning carried by the word "feral."

In Shakespeare, "get thee to a nunnery" implied "go to a whorehouse." Erin Peterson suggested the link came from the fact that brothels and convents were the only place you could find a society of all women. Dale observed that "nobody has topped Shakespeare for subtlety of swearing." "Country matters" were sexual matters.

Jaleh said that swearing can reveal world setting. In a science fictional setting you might have people swear by "black holes and supernovas" to evoke images of destruction. Brian mentioned "vack" as a swear word, short for "vacuum" (the vacuum of space).

In short, it's worth giving some time to the idea of how people swear in your world, because it will both reflect and reveal the world you are using, and its history. Thanks to everyone for coming and making this such a serious - and seriously amusing - discussion!

Link: The relationship between Monsters and their worlds

I really enjoyed this article from Adam Roberts at Arcfinity. Bigger isn't always better; it's the world grounding of a monster, or of an edifice, that gives it real meaning. The two feed into and support one another.

Check it out!

TTYU Retro: Leading into a Scene vs. Including Backstory

We hear a lot about how it's important to get to the core conflict as quickly as possible, and not get bogged down in backstory, to keep pacing up in our stories. Indeed, quick pacing is one of the characteristics of YA literature that has made it so successful, and I certainly have seen a trend toward faster pacing in adult literature as well. On the other hand, if you leap into the core conflict of a book, or even of a scene, too quickly, you'll be doing yourself a disservice.

The impact of any one sentence, paragraph or scene does not stand on its own. Think about horror. There is far less shock value in coming upon an appalling scene if your character has not had a chance to build up fearful anticipation, and your reader has not had a chance to feel the increasingly spooky ambiance of a place. For fantasy and science fiction - and indeed for mainstream work - the principle is the same. Each piece of a story stands upon the piece that came before it. It's therefore critical to give some thought to what kind of foundation each piece of your story needs in order to be maximally successful.

In my current novel, I have an instinctive sense of the pattern that needs to be followed for each chapter. The chapter needs to begin with tension, a goal for my protagonist and something that makes that goal risky or difficult to accomplish. Because of the society in my book is very tightly wound and people's success depends greatly upon reputation, very often setting up the initial stakes means setting my protagonist's goal up against a background of public watchers who may take his actions amiss, and pass that on to others of influence. Then as I go further in, the main conflict develops and is influenced by that background, much in the same way that the flow of water is influenced by the presence of rocks or islands. At a certain point in the scene comes what I have been fondly calling "the left turn" - a change in the situation that abruptly raises the stakes and gives an entirely new meaning to everything that happened before.

Here's an example. My protagonist, Tagret, gets invited to a tea party - not just any tea party, but a party given by his father's worst political enemy. The risk here is higher because previously, I have set up the fact that the woman who invites him has seen him with a young lady his father wouldn't approve of. Thus, Tagret goes to the event feeling that he has been blackmailed into attending (raising tension). He decides to bring along his best friend so it's less clear to any people at the party whether he or his friend initiated the decision to attend. This decision is logical given the social stakes, and Tagret feels that having his friend along will make it easier for him to get through the event with his reputation intact. At the tea, his father's enemy makes a compelling case for why Tagret should be on her side rather than on his father's (which he is only reluctantly anyway). The strategy of bringing his friend seems to be a good one even though his father's enemy manages to speak to him alone. But then an external emergency crops up, and suddenly all the people in the room - but most particularly Tagret and his friend - are in danger because they are not at home where they can be safe. Tagret's mother's servant appears to take both of them home to safety, but now Tagret's leaving the house appears irresponsible for an entirely different set of reasons, and bringing his friend along has become an even more irresponsible act because his friend was also exposed to danger. Even the servant who takes them home must suffer because she is seen as having been complicit in Tagret's disobedience and risky behavior.

All of the pieces of this sequence link together. The enemy seeing him with the girl, the invitation, the decision to take his friend along, etc. I almost began this scene at the point when Tagret was just arriving at the tea party, but when I did that, the tension and stakes didn't seem high enough. I hadn't thought through the lead-in thoroughly enough to realize that Tagret would take his friend with him to try to protect himself. If I had in fact left Tagret's friend out of the scene, I would have lost much of the larger impact that was brought about by the change in stakes. The change in stakes, i.e. the larger emergency, has huge consequences and puts Tagret's life in danger - but it hits home much more effectively if his friend is with him, because Tagret endangering his friend has a far more personally damaging set of consequences. What seems like a cautious and safe decision in response to one set of circumstances is in fact what lets the later set of circumstances be far more dramatic.

While somewhat different, I think this question of foundation and setup is related to the question of how and when to include character backstory. Very often I hear people talk about backstory in terms of "information readers need to know to understand what is going on." I'm not sure that's the best way of thinking about it, however. I like to think of it in terms of the character I'm working with. The backstory this character has is the foundation for his/her understanding and emotional reactions to events. Similarly to what I spoke about above, where scene setup helps give a foundation for the emotional impact of the core conflict and the raising of stakes, the inclusion of backstory detail gives us a foundation for the emotional impact of events on our character. This then translates into the impact of those events on the reader. Think through backstory just as you would think through scene setup, identifying those critical elements which are needed to support a given character reaction. Then, include those elements. Usually what this means for me is a clearer way to identify which elements are necessary and which are not. The smaller elements that support a character reaction are much easier to build into the narrative subtly, without having to resort to paragraphs (or pages!) of backstory explanation.

It's something to think about.

Aliens, Readings, and more Aliens! (#FogCon Report)

So I went to FogCon this weekend for the first time. It's a new convention, and this was its second year. I had a really good time, despite the fact that it involved much driving in pouring rain!

Saturday I went up for the morning panel called "Best Alien Ever." This was a really fun one, as it turned out. Not only did we get to talk about our favorite aliens from books we'd read, but we also discussed what aliens are for. My fellow panelists were terrific - Theresa Mecklenborg was a great moderator with cool things to say. Anne Wilkes has obviously thought a lot about aliens and what makes them great. Chaz Brenchley came with a lot of great examples from he literature, and well-articulated opinions. Essentially we agreed that aliens are great for metaphor and allegory, allowing writers to take on social issues that might be too close to home and uncomfortable in a realistic setting. They don't have to be intelligent, necessarily... Chaz mentioned the sandworms of Dune, and we all agreed they were brilliant and universe-changing. They can resemble actual Earth species. I mentioned Alan Dean Foster's grasshopperlike aliens in Nor Crystal Tears as well as the aliens that I typically create for my stories. They can also be very very alien - even a whole planetwide consciousness, as one finds in Alan Dean Foster's Midworld or in James Cameron's Avatar. Essentially the rule of thumb we came up with was that the more you are trying to identify with the alien point of view, the more it's important to have them resemble familiar species and to have humanlike motivations. Otherwise, no one will want to follow their story. If you're working with extremely alien aliens, then those work best in a story where a human is trying to "figure them out" - whether to figure out whether they are intelligent or not, or try to communicate, or something of that sort. In any case, it was a terrific group and the discussion was great.

Saturday afternoon I watched my son get his gold belt in Kung Fu, but then I was back at the convention in the evening. I had a great dinner out with a very large group of people, including Rachel and Mike Swirsky, Na'amen Tilahun, Steve Boyett, Lisa Eckstein, and others (whose faces are clear in my head but whose names are defeating me for the moment - argh!) After that I did my reading of the first chapter of For Love, For Power. I was reading alongside Steve Boyett, who is an awesome reader and gave us a sampling of his latest work that was moving and also rather gory and horrible (in an effective way!). We had an audience of four, but they seemed to enjoy what they heard! That got me energized so I had no trouble with the long drive home.

On Sunday I came out and had a lovely morning panel with Madeleine Robins, Anne Wilkes, Greer Woodward and Mickey Phoenix about how to make your reading a performance. There were a lot of great tips that I took as inspiration (and quite a few I took as comfort, given that I'd just had my reading the previous evening!). It was really cool to see how Madeleine and Greer integrated their drama experience with their reading experience. Some of the points mentioned were making eye contact with your audience, projecting your voice, modulating your volume and attack, and not reading too quickly. We also talked about the value of "doing voices" versus just giving more subtle cues to differentiate characters and character points of view (like voice pitch and tension but not full accents). A fabulous group and a great discussion! As I had suspected going in, Mickey was a friend of mine from college whom I hadn't seen in 20 years, so that was an unexpected kick!

My last panel was "Let's Create Some Aliens" and we did exactly that. We started by picking out climate and environmental details and then came up with some aliens who would live in that environment. It was audience-participation, and my fellow panelists were Vylar Kaftan, Erin Hoffman, and Phyllis Holliday. Phyllis actually did some sketches of the aliens as we created them, Vylar moderated, and Erin had her iPad at the ready to do online image research to give Phyllis additional inspiration. I had fun taking the environmental and physiological aspects of the aliens and brainstorming about their lives and culture, etc. We had one low-intelligence salamanderlike creature, one shrimplike creature that lived near underwater volcanic vents, and one tundra tortoise sort of creature (that I think was nevertheless warm-blooded!) which kept records of its history by carving them into its shell. A good time was had by all, and I think I'll be going back in the future!