This a blast from the past when I was in the midst of writing "The Liars," which is out this month!
I was in the middle of writing the story, and it was missing something. (If you have written for any length of time, this may sound like a familiar scenario.)
I figured it out eventually: it was being too well-behaved. Following to the outline, characters doing what they were supposed to do - for perfectly good reasons, mind you, but they were awfully obedient. Too obedient.
They needed personality.
Of course, this will surprise no one. Certainly characters need personality! But what I needed from my characters - what was missing - was not so much backstory and general motives but a sense of each one as a force in the story.
This is what I mean. A character who is a force in the story will be a force for good, or evil, or for chaos, or a force for goofiness, or something like that. When that character walks into a room, you immediately say, "Okay, now things are going to get _____" (Fill in the blank with good, evil, chaotic, goofy.)
I picked the following quote up from Jamie Todd Rubin's website where he recently reviewed a book by George R. R. Martin:
"Another remarkable aspect of A Clash of Kings–for me at least–is that the characters are by now so well developed that as a reader, I felt like I knew them and could guess their reactions to various events."
This is something like what I mean. Because you know what kind of person they are, and what they'll do in a certain situation, they have more dimension. This can be big stuff, like mental illness (for my character Nekantor who is a force for order, and not in a good way) or heavy backstory. It can also be little stuff, like some detail of their self-image that affects their interactions.
I'll give you the example of the characters I was working with: Adrian Preston and his wife, Qing Preston. Both are linguists. Both are accustomed to working with aliens and taking them seriously. So far so good. But they weren't different enough, and they weren't forces. So I decided to go further with Qing's Chinese background and give her a Chinese nickname for her husband. I looked around on the internet and came up with Big Bear (this is of course the translation). Then I suddenly realized that Adrian should be a genuinely big guy - and self-conscious about it. But then I decided he couldn't be so self-conscious that he was timid. More playful. And from there I got to the fact that each one of them loves being a linguist, but for different reasons. For him, language and culture are all fun, never work, and he just can't get enough. For her, language and culture are such serious business that she devotes herself entirely. Suddenly I saw both how they would be able to work toward the same goal and how they would encounter conflict along the way. They would be able to do what I needed, but they would have personality, and each one would have a different form of influence on the story.
All of a sudden I really wanted to go write this thing.
It's something to think about if you ever feel your characters aren't quite coming to life.
Look for "The Liars," now in the October issue of Analog!
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Link: Unusual Words Rendered in Bold Graphics
I thought you all would really enjoy this link - a list of uncommon words in English, with fabulous art representing their meanings. Highly recommended for word lovers!
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
TTYU Retro: Can you begin with dialogue?
Some time ago on the Absolute Write forum, I ran across a discussion asking whether it's okay to open a story with dialogue.
Let me say this first: most things in writing can be done. Some will say the real question is whether they can be done well, but I'm going to disagree with that. The question for me is what exactly one accomplishes by starting with a line of dialogue. Not whether you can do it, but what you are accomplishing by doing it.
When I'm opening a story or a chapter or a scene, I'll often think of a line of dialogue first. By the time I'm finished, though, it seldom ends up at the front. Most of the time I'm trying to make sure that my opening is doing a few things: establishing the voice and psychology of the point of view character, anchoring readers in the conflict that's going on, and making them curious. I like to provide grounding information which allows readers to put their feet down (so to speak) so they can then follow me through the rest of the piece. It's possible to put some grounding information in a line of dialogue, but too much will make the dialogue itself seem stilted and odd.
When your story opens with a line of dialogue, what you're really doing is letting your reader listen to someone speaking. You may or may not, at the same time, be indicating who that person is. It's enticing as an opener because it does usually make people curious (depending, of course, on what is being said). If the dialogue continues without other elements of narrative, however, a sense of disorientation will persist.
This is not necessarily a problem. However, you will have to ask yourself: do I want readers to be disoriented?
You might. If you're having a character waking up from a state of unconsciousness, or someone in a state of confusion without a clear sense of physical orientation, it might work. Alternately, if you're letting the reader eavesdrop on nefarious yet unidentifiable bad guys, it might be a good idea. Clearly, there are workable scenarios.
The book Ender's Game opens with a lengthy conversation between two people, and it works very well. It's effective in part because the dialogue is not delivered by the protagonist, but is speaking about the protagonist. If the author had chosen to ground the two speakers in a physical location, the immediate assumption would be that they were the protagonists; clearly they are not. The way the opening dialogue is handled opens both curiosity and the main conflict (the secret controllers of Ender's life) while keeping the focus of the story where it needs to be - on Ender. It's like those movies where they give you a sense that someone is being watched by picking particular camera angles.
It's also possible to begin with a single line of dialogue (maybe two?) and then follow it with orientation information. If the curiosity established by the opening sentence is sufficient, grounding can be provided in the second or third sentence.
As always, you have to assess these things as you go, on the basis of what you're trying to accomplish. I hope these thoughts help clarify some of the variables involved in making the decision whether to open a story, scene, or chapter with dialogue.
Let me say this first: most things in writing can be done. Some will say the real question is whether they can be done well, but I'm going to disagree with that. The question for me is what exactly one accomplishes by starting with a line of dialogue. Not whether you can do it, but what you are accomplishing by doing it.
When I'm opening a story or a chapter or a scene, I'll often think of a line of dialogue first. By the time I'm finished, though, it seldom ends up at the front. Most of the time I'm trying to make sure that my opening is doing a few things: establishing the voice and psychology of the point of view character, anchoring readers in the conflict that's going on, and making them curious. I like to provide grounding information which allows readers to put their feet down (so to speak) so they can then follow me through the rest of the piece. It's possible to put some grounding information in a line of dialogue, but too much will make the dialogue itself seem stilted and odd.
When your story opens with a line of dialogue, what you're really doing is letting your reader listen to someone speaking. You may or may not, at the same time, be indicating who that person is. It's enticing as an opener because it does usually make people curious (depending, of course, on what is being said). If the dialogue continues without other elements of narrative, however, a sense of disorientation will persist.
This is not necessarily a problem. However, you will have to ask yourself: do I want readers to be disoriented?
You might. If you're having a character waking up from a state of unconsciousness, or someone in a state of confusion without a clear sense of physical orientation, it might work. Alternately, if you're letting the reader eavesdrop on nefarious yet unidentifiable bad guys, it might be a good idea. Clearly, there are workable scenarios.
The book Ender's Game opens with a lengthy conversation between two people, and it works very well. It's effective in part because the dialogue is not delivered by the protagonist, but is speaking about the protagonist. If the author had chosen to ground the two speakers in a physical location, the immediate assumption would be that they were the protagonists; clearly they are not. The way the opening dialogue is handled opens both curiosity and the main conflict (the secret controllers of Ender's life) while keeping the focus of the story where it needs to be - on Ender. It's like those movies where they give you a sense that someone is being watched by picking particular camera angles.
It's also possible to begin with a single line of dialogue (maybe two?) and then follow it with orientation information. If the curiosity established by the opening sentence is sufficient, grounding can be provided in the second or third sentence.
As always, you have to assess these things as you go, on the basis of what you're trying to accomplish. I hope these thoughts help clarify some of the variables involved in making the decision whether to open a story, scene, or chapter with dialogue.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
TTYU Retro: Considering Chapter Titles?
I know plenty of people who never read chapter titles. They don't want to bother with them, or maybe don't even notice them, and so they skip right by and they'll tell you those chapter titles might as well not be there at all.
So why use chapter titles?
I admit I don't always use them - my last novel didn't seem to lend itself to them at all. But my Varin novels have always had them, even when I first started writing them.
Chapter titles can do two really interesting and useful things: they identify the core of your chapter, and they allow a writer to have an independent conversation with readers. I'll take a look at each of these.
First, a chapter title can help you to identify the core of your chapter. You might remember in yesterday's post when I talked about struggling with a chapter where every event seemed to have the same importance, and it was just "stuff happening" instead of building to a climax... One of the first symptoms of a chapter that has this problem is that I can't find a title for it. Not all of my chapter titles do the same thing, but often enough they'll address some theme that the events of the chapter contribute to. Other times they'll be directly linked to the climactic event or significance of the chapter - and therefore, if I know lots of stuff that has to happen in the chapter but I don't know what to call it, I've already got a hint that something might be missing. This is a little bit like writing your query before you write a novel, to make sure you're on track with the core idea (what the book is about). The only difference is that it's on the chapter level, not the book level.
Second, the chapter titles can be a really useful communication tool between writer and reader. Why? Because no matter how close the point of view you use in your narrative, the chapter titles fall outside that. Chapter titles can be in any point of view you want - any of your characters, or even your own. You should be careful not to put spoilers in them, but you can put in teasers (like my chapter named "Ambush"). You can also keep a bit of distance from the overall plot, or help focus reader attention on tiny thematic clues by labeling what to look for up front.
Now of course, you may note what I said earlier, that some people don't read chapter titles (their loss, really). Yeah, sure. You don't need them. But they can be useful for your writing process (because of #1 above), and they can also be fun and informative, and give you a chance to feel that nudge-nudge-wink confidentiality with your reader.
It's something to think about.
So why use chapter titles?
I admit I don't always use them - my last novel didn't seem to lend itself to them at all. But my Varin novels have always had them, even when I first started writing them.
Chapter titles can do two really interesting and useful things: they identify the core of your chapter, and they allow a writer to have an independent conversation with readers. I'll take a look at each of these.
First, a chapter title can help you to identify the core of your chapter. You might remember in yesterday's post when I talked about struggling with a chapter where every event seemed to have the same importance, and it was just "stuff happening" instead of building to a climax... One of the first symptoms of a chapter that has this problem is that I can't find a title for it. Not all of my chapter titles do the same thing, but often enough they'll address some theme that the events of the chapter contribute to. Other times they'll be directly linked to the climactic event or significance of the chapter - and therefore, if I know lots of stuff that has to happen in the chapter but I don't know what to call it, I've already got a hint that something might be missing. This is a little bit like writing your query before you write a novel, to make sure you're on track with the core idea (what the book is about). The only difference is that it's on the chapter level, not the book level.
Second, the chapter titles can be a really useful communication tool between writer and reader. Why? Because no matter how close the point of view you use in your narrative, the chapter titles fall outside that. Chapter titles can be in any point of view you want - any of your characters, or even your own. You should be careful not to put spoilers in them, but you can put in teasers (like my chapter named "Ambush"). You can also keep a bit of distance from the overall plot, or help focus reader attention on tiny thematic clues by labeling what to look for up front.
Now of course, you may note what I said earlier, that some people don't read chapter titles (their loss, really). Yeah, sure. You don't need them. But they can be useful for your writing process (because of #1 above), and they can also be fun and informative, and give you a chance to feel that nudge-nudge-wink confidentiality with your reader.
It's something to think about.
Monday, August 6, 2012
TTYU Retro: The Trouble with Translating ASL by Rebecca Inch-Partridge
The Trouble with Translating ASL
By Rebecca Inch-Partridge
As an aspiring Science Fiction writer, I often wonder if a visual or gestural language would be the best choice for a first-contact situation. After all, there’s no guarantee humans and aliens could even make the same sounds or be able to hear each other. As an avid reader, I’ve noticed that the whole issue of communication is often glossed over in order to keep the plot moving unless the author is a linguist like Juliette. But the truth is translating an idea from one language to another is always going to be fraught with the potential for misunderstanding. Though I am not an interpreter, I have been around the field of American Sign Language for over twenty years, and when translating from spoken English to a visual lingual like ASL, there are some unique challenges to consider.
Finger spelling. Spelling is often people’s least favorite subject. Now imagine having to spell out a large percentage of the words when having a conversation. You have to remember how to spell all those words. You have to slow down the conversation in order to spell out each letter of words that have no equivalent sign as well as the names of whomever or wherever you’re talking about. This is time consuming and after a while can become quite painful on the joints of your hands.
In order to make sign language more practical people are often given unique name signs and long words and phrases are abbreviated. However, the interpreter and the deaf person very likely won’t be familiar with all the same shortcuts. This can lead to misinterpretations or a lot of extra time spent clarifying what’s meant. On a larger scale, the names of major land marks in an area are often abbreviated because it would be too cumbersome to constantly fingerspell them. Thus, in the San Francisco bay are, the letters S and F in a downward motion means San Francisco. However, those same initials could stand for a completely different city in other parts of the state. So if the interpreter is from a different area than the deaf person, there are even more terms that will have to be clarified.
Line of Sight. Sign Language is made up of four components: hand shape, hand location, hand movement and facial expression. People who are deaf rely on facial expression nearly as much as the other three components combined. One of the problems with utilizing an interpreter with a visual language is logistics. It is not always possible to have the hearing person and interpreter in the same line of sight, so the deaf person can watch both at the same time. This means they are constantly shifting their gaze between speaker and interpreter. They miss some of what is being done by those speaking, such as expression, body language and gestures. They also miss some of what is being signed by the interpreter.
This becomes an even bigger issue when a single interpreter is translating for more than one speaker or several people having a conversation. The deaf person can easily become confused as to who said what. Interpreters try to solve this by shifting position back and forth to represent the two people in a dialog. But since they are often signing the previous sentence, they will often be out of sink with the speakers. So in essence the deaf person is watching one person while the interpreter might still be translating the other person’s comment or question. This can make following a conversation difficult. It’s even harder if the deaf person is has to swing their head back and forth like someone watching a tennis match.
Need to Tag Team. As mentioned about, signing can become painful. Long durations of signing can put quite a strain on the tendons, muscles and joints of your hands and wrists. Interpreters translating spoken word into ASL face the additional issue of trying to keep up with the speaker when talking is a bit faster than signing. To protect interpreters for repetitive stress injuring, whenever an event or meeting is expected to last more than two hours there must be two interpreters. This means that it’s not enough to find one competent interpreter that you and the deaf person are comfortable with, you have to find and schedule two. Not only does this make it twice as expensive, it creates a few other issues with consistency. The two interpreters might not use the same signs for some terms or they may do some of the signs slightly different.
So those are a few of the challenges when communicating with human in the same country who just happen to be deaf. I can imagine just like with any language, there would be additional complication when using Sign Language for first contact with an alien race. They might have hands shaped anything like ours. After all, we are talking about aliens. Also, sign language is a visual language so naturally many of the signs look like the concepts they represent. This makes basic ASL vocabulary easy to learn. The words tree looks like a tree. Cat is done by drawing whiskers in the air. Bird is making a beak with your pointing finger and thumb. But what if aliens don’t have trees, cats, or birds? What if the gesture for tree resembles a monster on their world? What if they have whiskers? What if the motion for bird seems to indicate shutting a mouth or telling someone to shut up? Then you have the heavy reliance on facial expressions, which might not be universal at all. In ASL the sign “Fine” can mean “good or great”, “okay whatever you say” or it can mean “whatever, you jerk. I’m done.” It all depends on the facial expression and body language, just as verbally it depends on the tone of voice. How confusing would it be to the aliens that while usually more emphatic means more of whatever the sign means but in some cases being too emphatic actually means the opposite of the root sign.
A reader might infer from this list of challenges that a visual or gestural language just wouldn’t be worth attempting. But I’d argue that the second you gesture to a chair as an offer to sit down or point to yourself and say your name, you are using gestures for communications. Until spoken translations are worked out, a gestural language might be the only option. As a first contact language, Sign Language would have several advantages, such as not relying on any equipment and being very graphic. However, that’s an article for a different time.
By day Rebecca Partridge is a mild mannered social worker. By night, she is the ruler of the Paraxous Star Cluster. Her first Paraxous Cluster novel, Captured, is available through her chapter of the week club at www.ripartridge.com.
By Rebecca Inch-Partridge
As an aspiring Science Fiction writer, I often wonder if a visual or gestural language would be the best choice for a first-contact situation. After all, there’s no guarantee humans and aliens could even make the same sounds or be able to hear each other. As an avid reader, I’ve noticed that the whole issue of communication is often glossed over in order to keep the plot moving unless the author is a linguist like Juliette. But the truth is translating an idea from one language to another is always going to be fraught with the potential for misunderstanding. Though I am not an interpreter, I have been around the field of American Sign Language for over twenty years, and when translating from spoken English to a visual lingual like ASL, there are some unique challenges to consider.
Finger spelling. Spelling is often people’s least favorite subject. Now imagine having to spell out a large percentage of the words when having a conversation. You have to remember how to spell all those words. You have to slow down the conversation in order to spell out each letter of words that have no equivalent sign as well as the names of whomever or wherever you’re talking about. This is time consuming and after a while can become quite painful on the joints of your hands.
In order to make sign language more practical people are often given unique name signs and long words and phrases are abbreviated. However, the interpreter and the deaf person very likely won’t be familiar with all the same shortcuts. This can lead to misinterpretations or a lot of extra time spent clarifying what’s meant. On a larger scale, the names of major land marks in an area are often abbreviated because it would be too cumbersome to constantly fingerspell them. Thus, in the San Francisco bay are, the letters S and F in a downward motion means San Francisco. However, those same initials could stand for a completely different city in other parts of the state. So if the interpreter is from a different area than the deaf person, there are even more terms that will have to be clarified.
Line of Sight. Sign Language is made up of four components: hand shape, hand location, hand movement and facial expression. People who are deaf rely on facial expression nearly as much as the other three components combined. One of the problems with utilizing an interpreter with a visual language is logistics. It is not always possible to have the hearing person and interpreter in the same line of sight, so the deaf person can watch both at the same time. This means they are constantly shifting their gaze between speaker and interpreter. They miss some of what is being done by those speaking, such as expression, body language and gestures. They also miss some of what is being signed by the interpreter.
This becomes an even bigger issue when a single interpreter is translating for more than one speaker or several people having a conversation. The deaf person can easily become confused as to who said what. Interpreters try to solve this by shifting position back and forth to represent the two people in a dialog. But since they are often signing the previous sentence, they will often be out of sink with the speakers. So in essence the deaf person is watching one person while the interpreter might still be translating the other person’s comment or question. This can make following a conversation difficult. It’s even harder if the deaf person is has to swing their head back and forth like someone watching a tennis match.
Need to Tag Team. As mentioned about, signing can become painful. Long durations of signing can put quite a strain on the tendons, muscles and joints of your hands and wrists. Interpreters translating spoken word into ASL face the additional issue of trying to keep up with the speaker when talking is a bit faster than signing. To protect interpreters for repetitive stress injuring, whenever an event or meeting is expected to last more than two hours there must be two interpreters. This means that it’s not enough to find one competent interpreter that you and the deaf person are comfortable with, you have to find and schedule two. Not only does this make it twice as expensive, it creates a few other issues with consistency. The two interpreters might not use the same signs for some terms or they may do some of the signs slightly different.
So those are a few of the challenges when communicating with human in the same country who just happen to be deaf. I can imagine just like with any language, there would be additional complication when using Sign Language for first contact with an alien race. They might have hands shaped anything like ours. After all, we are talking about aliens. Also, sign language is a visual language so naturally many of the signs look like the concepts they represent. This makes basic ASL vocabulary easy to learn. The words tree looks like a tree. Cat is done by drawing whiskers in the air. Bird is making a beak with your pointing finger and thumb. But what if aliens don’t have trees, cats, or birds? What if the gesture for tree resembles a monster on their world? What if they have whiskers? What if the motion for bird seems to indicate shutting a mouth or telling someone to shut up? Then you have the heavy reliance on facial expressions, which might not be universal at all. In ASL the sign “Fine” can mean “good or great”, “okay whatever you say” or it can mean “whatever, you jerk. I’m done.” It all depends on the facial expression and body language, just as verbally it depends on the tone of voice. How confusing would it be to the aliens that while usually more emphatic means more of whatever the sign means but in some cases being too emphatic actually means the opposite of the root sign.
A reader might infer from this list of challenges that a visual or gestural language just wouldn’t be worth attempting. But I’d argue that the second you gesture to a chair as an offer to sit down or point to yourself and say your name, you are using gestures for communications. Until spoken translations are worked out, a gestural language might be the only option. As a first contact language, Sign Language would have several advantages, such as not relying on any equipment and being very graphic. However, that’s an article for a different time.
By day Rebecca Partridge is a mild mannered social worker. By night, she is the ruler of the Paraxous Star Cluster. Her first Paraxous Cluster novel, Captured, is available through her chapter of the week club at www.ripartridge.com.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Posts from France...
I just thought I should let you know that I'll be in France for the next two weeks. I have posts scheduled, and I'll post from France when I can! Thanks for reading my blog!
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Link: Culture in Dolphins!
This was a fascinating article. Certain practices, like the use of sponges as nose-protecting tools, are passed down between small cliques among dolphins. Fascinating!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)