Schoolhouse Rock: Pronouns

Last week I got the DVD compilation of Schoolhouse Rock from Netflix. This dates me, but I remember really well watching TV as a kid and hoping and hoping that one of those songs would come on, all the while never quite being able to track when they would appear. So having the DVD at home has exposed me to some songs I was familiar with, and also some that I've never heard before. Blast from the past for me, and my kids love it. Niall is constantly coming out with snippets of songs and information now. It's great fun.

My favorite song of the moment is the pronoun song. For those who may remember, it's entitled "Rufus Xavier Sarsparilla" and the most memorable line in it for me is "'cause saying all those nouns over and over can really wear you down."

Needless to say, that got me thinking. In fantasy and science fiction there are a lot of tough names and concepts, and sometimes when I read I feel people are overusing nouns when I would prefer a pronoun. The trick of course is to have the pronoun link back properly to the noun so the reader can track it. ("It"=a pronoun linked back to "the pronoun" :) ) My son is working on tracking pronouns in his reading right now.

I would encourage people to look through their prose and track their hierarchy of reference. This just means how you refer to something when you introduce it the first time, refer back to it the second time, then the third time, etc. The most flexible element in this hierarchy is the straight pronoun, i.e. he/him/her/it etc. but there are also phrases using demonstrative pronouns like "this man" and "that alien" and of course there are definite noun phrases like "the alien" etc. Generally the complexity of the phrase undergoes a successive decline across the number of references, except when there is a possible confusion and you need to reestablish the reference in contrast to that.

This isn't the only thing that pronouns make me think of.

Since I have a language design workshop coming up in February, I'm going to start doing a few language design topics to get people thinking, and pronouns are wonderful things to play with. The English pronoun system says a lot about our concepts of individuality, gender, and relative position, for example. Compare our use of the word "I" with the Japanese pronouns for "I": we've got one pronoun and we use it all the time, while Japanese has more than six different ways of saying "I" but much of the time people don't use any of them at all. They just drop the subject of the verb completely and leave the listener to infer the information. The pronouns themselves vary depending on whether the speaker is a male or a female and how formal the situation is - demonstrating the importance of gender and formality in Japanese society.

So what do you do with pronouns if you've got a language of your own? Well, think about the social structure of the place and try to determine what identity parameters are important. Do your people think of themselves as individuals? Do they divide themselves primarily by gender, by some other criterion, or both? Do they consider the formality of the situation to be relevant in how they refer to themselves or others? Or are there other factors involved? For example, would they refer to themselves in one way in the presence of a member of an oppressor race, but in another when alone with their own kind?

The tiny little pronoun can do an enormous job in showing (not telling!) how the social structure of your world works.

Designing a Story

So Chicago has been great.  And busy.  And I'm still here, but I'll be flying back home on the 28th.  Being so busy having fun that I can't think straight does put a damper on my blogging, unfortunately.

Okay, so I've been designing a new story.  Making a sale tends to inspire me in that way.  I thought I'd share some thoughts.

When I do a linguistic/cultural story I tend to start with five questions (or so)

1.  What is the linguistic problem?

This is the toughest one.  What is the exact phenomenon that our linguist hero (whether it be his POV or not) is trying to pin down?  What is the punch line?  Without this, no story can work.

2.  Who are the aliens?

Here I'm talking about what kind of animal to base the aliens on.  Yes, you can design an alien from scratch, but it puts a huge processing demand on the reader.  If the nature of the alien is part of the central point of the story, then by all means go to the trouble of designing their physiology from the ground up.  A great example of aliens of this type is the story "Doctor Alien" by Rajnar Vajra, which appeared in the January/February issue of Analog.  I loved that story.  But because for me the way the aliens speak is the main issue, I don't want to send a lot of my reader's attention toward understanding the physical and physiological nature of the aliens.  Sometimes I like to select an animal that fits well with the language phenomenon I'm looking at, like wolves for status language.  Other times there isn't a really good parallel between an animal and a language phenomenon, so I can pick something else.  But after I pick an alien, I try to look at their diet and behavioral patterns so I can use that information to expand my understanding of how the aliens might live.

3.  What is the alien technology level?

This is one of those details that has to be pinned down, of course.  I like to try to make their technology real in an atypical way, by considering how the aliens make light, and what kind of objects they would keep in a home, etc.  This one has two sub-steps:  first designing the objects, and second, figuring out what they mean to the aliens.

4.  What is the plot?

Those who know me will laugh at this one, because honestly, the plot comes as number 3 or 4 in the list for me, every time.  Once I've got a sequence of events to work with, I continue tuning it throughout writing and rewriting.

5.  What is the language?

This is not the same as the language problem - it's the structure of the language, mostly the phonology and morphology.  That means the sounds and the way the sounds are put together.  I also have to know aspects of the language that relate to the language problem listed above, but this is where I have to figure out how the alien physiology meshes with the sounds they make, what words they might use in the context of the story, how the names and titles work, etc.

These are of course only the entry points.  But the nature of these stories is so complex that I can't just sit down and start something; I have to figure out this kind of stuff first.  I know I'm getting close to sitting down when I start hearing names and alien phrases in my head, and seeing a scene where two entities are talking to one another.

Not far from the tree...

I went to my Ph.D. advisor's Christmas party last night. They're always potluck, and they're always fun, and they're always full of people who love to talk about what they're studying/researching/working on. Last night there were a lot of people working on language learning and technology. Lots of discussion of foreign countries and languages and cultural differences.

The great thing is, I still fit in with this group. My advisor and the folks there loved hearing about writing science fiction. Thing is, I'm still doing a lot of what I was doing then: working with foreign culture and subtleties of misunderstanding in communication; looking closely at language and analyzing it for how the message is delivered and all that. I told several people that I really have gotten where I am with my writing because I took Claire's (my advisor's) discourse analysis class. Yes, Claire said, but you also have the creativity and imagination.

I see her point, but the fact of the matter is, she really contributed something crucial to where I am today. I gave her a copy of Analog magazine containing my story, "Let the Word Take Me."

For the title and illustration page of that story, Dr. Stan Schmidt wrote an exceedingly astute summation, namely:

Language is more than just words. Sometimes much more.

Whether in academia or science fiction writing, fundamentally, that's what it's always been about.

Exciting News!

I'm over the moon this morning, and I thought I'd share.

I just sold my second story to Analog Magazine!!!

Cold Words is a story that features the point of view of an alien dealing with Humans. I built the world and the language from the ground up, so it would probably interest my visitors, and my workshop participants as well. I don't yet know when it will appear, but I'll certainly make an announcement here when I know more.

I've also been giving some thought to when I might run my Language Design workshop, for those of you who are interested. What with the holidays and my writing schedule, I think the beginning of February might be a good time for it. I'll keep you posted, and in the meantime, I'll be posting more musings and Ridiculously Close Looks as you've come to expect.

Workshop: A Question for Participants

A comment that Catreona submitted today led me to ask this question:

Are you all interested in receiving direct critique on your revised work from

1. me?
2. other participants?

Please comment here and let me know. I had anticipated that other general worldbuilding topics might come up, and those are cool. I also always find for myself that a range of critique is very helpful. However, I didn't originally envision the workshop as a group critique session. So please do let me know your preference, and that will help me organize our wrap-up discussion.

Thanks! More soon...

Workshop: Revised Submissions

K had the great idea that I should put up a new post where people could put their revised drafts. So here it is - please put all the revised drafts under comments here so I can find them most easily.

More soon...

Workshop: Discussion of Revision Questions

Because the comments area on my earlier post got so crowded (yay!), and because I don't want questions or comments to get mixed in with my long question+manuscript posts, I'm starting another post here. Participants, if you have questions or discussion, please attach them as comments onto this post.

More soon...