When I saw my galley proofs come through the other day - those are the magazine-formatted pages with my story on them that I need to check for typos and problematic punctuation - I knew that meant that my new story would be coming out from Analog in about two months, but not precisely which issue it would appear in.
However, I now have the official news! "The Liars" will be appearing as the lead novelette in the October issue of Analog (appearing on stands and online in August)... and the cover art is being done by Michael Whelan!
I've been an admirer of Michael Whelan's work since I was a child, so I was amazed and honored when I heard this news. I promise I'll share the art with you as soon as I can. And here's a little blurb for the story:
The Liars
Allied Systems linguists Adrian and his wife Qing meet a friend on the eco-vacation planet of Poik-Paradise, where they are dismayed to find the Paradise Company exploiting the native people as cute tour guides. Adrian's skill with the local language attracts a guide named Op who doesn't seem quite like the others, and the longer they spend with her, the more it seems that something sinister is happening in Paradise. Is the Paradise Company up to something? Are the Poik? How can they find out how deep this goes when they're not sure if Op can be trusted?
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Privacy: A Google+ Worldbuilding Hangout Report
This was a topic that really took off. I was joined at the hangout by Jaleh Dragich, Glenda Pfeiffer, Liz Arroyo, Erin Peterson, and David Peterson.
We started out talking about the privacy of the body, specifically, the issue of modesty in dress. Modesty is an interesting topic because the definition of what is "modest" depends a lot on the social and cultural context. I told a story about how I was barred from my university cafeteria because I'd been dared to wear a bathing suit (one-piece) and they insisted I go back and put on a bathrobe. Bathing suits that cover almost nothing are appropriate at the beach (even nakedness is appropriate in some places) whereas they are not acceptable in other contexts. Age also has a huge influence on standards of dress, as when parents think nothing of taking naked pictures of their babies in their first bath, but those pictures become the source of merriment and embarrassment at a 21st birthday party. Then of course there are also cultural norms. I was shocked when I first discovered the "monokini" (i.e. a bikini without the top) being worn for sunbathing in Europe, but everyone thought it was normal. Then there were the prostitutes displaying themselves in the windows in the red light district of Amsterdam as we drove through... And that's only scratching the surface. There are also striking norms on the more conservative side such as those we can see with Amish or Orthodox Jewish dress, conservative Islam, etc.
Erin told us an interesting story about a Dutch actress on HBO's Game of Thrones. The actress wasn't at all shocked at the idea of appearing on the show naked, because her view of it was that the privacy of the circumstances portrayed in the scene was the deciding factor; American viewers felt that the public nature of the eventual showing of the TV show was the deciding factor, and so felt a shock at her nudity that she did not.
We also discussed the issue of whether one keeps the door shut when dressing. In the US in general, kids tend to be accustomed to being dressed by their parents, but eventually learn a modesty that causes them to want to dress alone with the door shut - but this can be influenced by gender and family relationships as well as age. In Japan I encountered an unusual form of modesty in the context public bathing. In the baths I visited, the bathers were segregated by gender, but people felt little modesty in the baths themselves and were generally unconcerned about being in the bath with people they didn't know. At most they would bring a small washcloth to keep over the lower regions. By contrast, the same people were very sensitive about getting undressed. They would come in clothed, shut themselves into a private cubicle to get undressed, then come out with (or without) the aforementioned washcloth and get in the baths with no further need to maintain privacy.
Privacy also applies to information. Jaleh brought up the issue of how much information one is expected to share about one's "private life." Do you talk about everything? What about old or suppressed secrets? As Erin asked, do you talk about your drinking habits (alcohol)? She told us about a situation where a child in the family commented to a relative stranger that the adults in the family were "drinking beer all the time." Even apart from the question of what "all the time" means, it's clear that there is such thing as "too much information." TMI is one of our modern expressions - but how is it defined? It differs culturally across groups, across ages, etc.
David mentioned that in Deaf culture, people tend to share a lot more personal information than they do in hearing culture, concerning things like weight, appearance, etc. This can cause cultural strife between members of the hearing and Deaf communities.
Jaleh said she takes a lot of inspiration from the kids she has seen in her experiences in retail, and the kinds of things they reveal (unintentionally). David picked that up and turned us to the question of speaking in front of people as though they were not present. We often reveal things in front of "staff" or other invisible people - sleeping/unconscious people, crazy people, or children, for example - that we would not reveal if we were watched by others within our own group.
I explained a complex situation of information privacy and management in my novel. Aloran the servant is given a piece of information, namely that another servant has stolen the key to his mistress' diary. He wants to return it to her, but the servant who has stolen it is of higher rank, so Aloran can't force him to give it back... and if he steals it back, his mistress will see the key in his hand and assume that Aloran has opened the diary and trespassed on her private thoughts. Neither does Aloran feel comfortable telling his mistress for fear she'll think he has obtained private information about her inappropriately (they have a difficult relationship). Therefore he chooses to approach her son anonymously so that the son can act on his behalf, and the private information of the family won't be compromised by anyone other than the servant who originally stole the key. Essentially, the whole roundabout method is determined by what kind of information is deemed private and what kind of privacy borderlines may or may not be invaded by different members of the family and Household. Also in that Household, there are examples of what we discussed above, namely servants hearing information while no one realizes they are listening.
Another example of people talking in front of others and assuming they "don't count" as listeners (an unwarranted assumption of privacy) is talking in front of others as if they don't understand your language. Many of us had had experiences of this nature. Liz and Erin had both been spoken in front of in Spanish. My husband and I have been spoken in front of in Japanese many times, and when we lived there we came close to making a sport of pointing out that these people didn't have as much privacy as they had assumed (yes, we seriously embarrassed some people). Jaleh mentioned something similar occurring in a minivan ad (possibly Volvo). David talked about a German conlanger (language creator) he knows who can speak Mandarin and runs into similar situations. Jaleh also mentioned an instance of this occurring in the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey - it is certainly easy and piquant to add instances in any multilingual situation in your story!
As I had just watched the Doctor Who episode, "The End of the Earth," this put me in mind of the question of the TARDIS, which was revealed to be "partly psychic" and to be translating all the strange languages around Rose into English. Most relevant to this discussion was her immediate reaction, which was to feel that her privacy had been invaded by this psychic influence (an interesting choice, and it showed some subtlety, as I'd expected her just to accept simultaneous translation without comment). This brought us to the question of telepathy, and Jaleh mentioned that in Babylon 5 there are strict controls on telepaths: they must either suppress their telepathy, or join the Psycorps telepathic group (subjecting themselves to its guidance), or go to prison.
Erin brought up some very interesting questions at this point. Are the emotions we broadcast on our faces to be considered private or not? Are our public behaviors to be considered private? Certainly tracking or following someone is considered stalking, and clearly a privacy violation. There are plenty of cases where a private citizen taking pictures of something that is publicly visible (like government installations) is considered off-limits as an invasion of privacy. Glenda mentioned an instance where a man was caught taking pictures of teenage girls at a high school game, and punished for it - but what were the specific elements of context that made this inappropriate? The age of the girls being photographed is probably one; the telephoto lens that allowed inappropriate closeness was probably another. Some people consider Google maps to be an invasion of privacy. What kinds of behaviors might be considered privacy violations in your world?
There is also some wonderful stuff to be explored in a context where people are stuck together in a confined space where privacy becomes very difficult, like a spaceship or a prison, etc. What do you do when you have no privacy? How do you keep things to yourself? What happens if you get overstimulated by contact with others?
In Japan, personal space is generally at bowing distance when in friendly yet private situations. After all, you don't want to conk heads with someone accidentally in mid-conversation (this distance is slightly further out than handshake distance). When commuting, however, I have found that the typical sense of personal space totally changes, as though the boundary line has moved to the surface of the body. People will not speak to you, will avoid eye contact, and will even walk right through you as if you weren't there. To me, this feels like an invasion of privacy, but it appears to be the norm in the huge Tokyo crowds. I once took a group of US high school students to Kyoto and had to encourage them to get on a crowded bus. The bus arrived, the door opened, the students decided there was no room on the bus and would not get on. The bus left. I then had to give them a talking-to, explaining that there *was* room on the bus, that the next five buses would be just as crowded, and if they ever hoped to arrive at their destination, they must disregard the wall of people and get in anyway.
In the US we can run into other kinds of difficulties with the sense of personal space. I'm sure many of you have run into situations where a friend was far too huggy for comfort, or even had conversations where you were being chased backwards in slow motion. Here are some questions you might ask. How do you get close to a person in your world? How does one move from one set of privacy rules (acquaintance rules) to another (friend rules, lover rules)? Is it difficult? How risky is it?
Crossing privacy borders is always a risky business. Typically, we agreed, a particular type of overture or "ticket" is required to make the transition successfully. When one approaches a science fiction author, one kind of ticket is a knowledge and informed opinion about that person's work. Children can often serve as a kind of ticket, as they are a point of commonality between individuals and can be turned into a "safe" shared topic. Jaleh called this being a part of the "Parents' Club." Liz mentioned that having a shared place of origin can be an effective ticket. These tickets are not unconditional, either - often it will be okay to talk about kids but not to talk about oneself. Erin mentioned that it's often okay to ask for advice or be self-critical, where it would not be okay to brag or talk about oneself positively. I also thought about how very often pregnant women will encounter random people who think that the shared experience of pregnancy and parenthood licenses them to comment, to touch the pregnant woman's belly, and to give her advice.
Obviously this is a topic with lots of possible applications. I really enjoyed the discussion and I hope this report gives you some interesting places to go in your thinking. Thanks again to everyone who attended.
Today's hangout will be at 11am and will be discussing gender roles.
We started out talking about the privacy of the body, specifically, the issue of modesty in dress. Modesty is an interesting topic because the definition of what is "modest" depends a lot on the social and cultural context. I told a story about how I was barred from my university cafeteria because I'd been dared to wear a bathing suit (one-piece) and they insisted I go back and put on a bathrobe. Bathing suits that cover almost nothing are appropriate at the beach (even nakedness is appropriate in some places) whereas they are not acceptable in other contexts. Age also has a huge influence on standards of dress, as when parents think nothing of taking naked pictures of their babies in their first bath, but those pictures become the source of merriment and embarrassment at a 21st birthday party. Then of course there are also cultural norms. I was shocked when I first discovered the "monokini" (i.e. a bikini without the top) being worn for sunbathing in Europe, but everyone thought it was normal. Then there were the prostitutes displaying themselves in the windows in the red light district of Amsterdam as we drove through... And that's only scratching the surface. There are also striking norms on the more conservative side such as those we can see with Amish or Orthodox Jewish dress, conservative Islam, etc.
Erin told us an interesting story about a Dutch actress on HBO's Game of Thrones. The actress wasn't at all shocked at the idea of appearing on the show naked, because her view of it was that the privacy of the circumstances portrayed in the scene was the deciding factor; American viewers felt that the public nature of the eventual showing of the TV show was the deciding factor, and so felt a shock at her nudity that she did not.
We also discussed the issue of whether one keeps the door shut when dressing. In the US in general, kids tend to be accustomed to being dressed by their parents, but eventually learn a modesty that causes them to want to dress alone with the door shut - but this can be influenced by gender and family relationships as well as age. In Japan I encountered an unusual form of modesty in the context public bathing. In the baths I visited, the bathers were segregated by gender, but people felt little modesty in the baths themselves and were generally unconcerned about being in the bath with people they didn't know. At most they would bring a small washcloth to keep over the lower regions. By contrast, the same people were very sensitive about getting undressed. They would come in clothed, shut themselves into a private cubicle to get undressed, then come out with (or without) the aforementioned washcloth and get in the baths with no further need to maintain privacy.
Privacy also applies to information. Jaleh brought up the issue of how much information one is expected to share about one's "private life." Do you talk about everything? What about old or suppressed secrets? As Erin asked, do you talk about your drinking habits (alcohol)? She told us about a situation where a child in the family commented to a relative stranger that the adults in the family were "drinking beer all the time." Even apart from the question of what "all the time" means, it's clear that there is such thing as "too much information." TMI is one of our modern expressions - but how is it defined? It differs culturally across groups, across ages, etc.
David mentioned that in Deaf culture, people tend to share a lot more personal information than they do in hearing culture, concerning things like weight, appearance, etc. This can cause cultural strife between members of the hearing and Deaf communities.
Jaleh said she takes a lot of inspiration from the kids she has seen in her experiences in retail, and the kinds of things they reveal (unintentionally). David picked that up and turned us to the question of speaking in front of people as though they were not present. We often reveal things in front of "staff" or other invisible people - sleeping/unconscious people, crazy people, or children, for example - that we would not reveal if we were watched by others within our own group.
I explained a complex situation of information privacy and management in my novel. Aloran the servant is given a piece of information, namely that another servant has stolen the key to his mistress' diary. He wants to return it to her, but the servant who has stolen it is of higher rank, so Aloran can't force him to give it back... and if he steals it back, his mistress will see the key in his hand and assume that Aloran has opened the diary and trespassed on her private thoughts. Neither does Aloran feel comfortable telling his mistress for fear she'll think he has obtained private information about her inappropriately (they have a difficult relationship). Therefore he chooses to approach her son anonymously so that the son can act on his behalf, and the private information of the family won't be compromised by anyone other than the servant who originally stole the key. Essentially, the whole roundabout method is determined by what kind of information is deemed private and what kind of privacy borderlines may or may not be invaded by different members of the family and Household. Also in that Household, there are examples of what we discussed above, namely servants hearing information while no one realizes they are listening.
Another example of people talking in front of others and assuming they "don't count" as listeners (an unwarranted assumption of privacy) is talking in front of others as if they don't understand your language. Many of us had had experiences of this nature. Liz and Erin had both been spoken in front of in Spanish. My husband and I have been spoken in front of in Japanese many times, and when we lived there we came close to making a sport of pointing out that these people didn't have as much privacy as they had assumed (yes, we seriously embarrassed some people). Jaleh mentioned something similar occurring in a minivan ad (possibly Volvo). David talked about a German conlanger (language creator) he knows who can speak Mandarin and runs into similar situations. Jaleh also mentioned an instance of this occurring in the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey - it is certainly easy and piquant to add instances in any multilingual situation in your story!
As I had just watched the Doctor Who episode, "The End of the Earth," this put me in mind of the question of the TARDIS, which was revealed to be "partly psychic" and to be translating all the strange languages around Rose into English. Most relevant to this discussion was her immediate reaction, which was to feel that her privacy had been invaded by this psychic influence (an interesting choice, and it showed some subtlety, as I'd expected her just to accept simultaneous translation without comment). This brought us to the question of telepathy, and Jaleh mentioned that in Babylon 5 there are strict controls on telepaths: they must either suppress their telepathy, or join the Psycorps telepathic group (subjecting themselves to its guidance), or go to prison.
Erin brought up some very interesting questions at this point. Are the emotions we broadcast on our faces to be considered private or not? Are our public behaviors to be considered private? Certainly tracking or following someone is considered stalking, and clearly a privacy violation. There are plenty of cases where a private citizen taking pictures of something that is publicly visible (like government installations) is considered off-limits as an invasion of privacy. Glenda mentioned an instance where a man was caught taking pictures of teenage girls at a high school game, and punished for it - but what were the specific elements of context that made this inappropriate? The age of the girls being photographed is probably one; the telephoto lens that allowed inappropriate closeness was probably another. Some people consider Google maps to be an invasion of privacy. What kinds of behaviors might be considered privacy violations in your world?
There is also some wonderful stuff to be explored in a context where people are stuck together in a confined space where privacy becomes very difficult, like a spaceship or a prison, etc. What do you do when you have no privacy? How do you keep things to yourself? What happens if you get overstimulated by contact with others?
In Japan, personal space is generally at bowing distance when in friendly yet private situations. After all, you don't want to conk heads with someone accidentally in mid-conversation (this distance is slightly further out than handshake distance). When commuting, however, I have found that the typical sense of personal space totally changes, as though the boundary line has moved to the surface of the body. People will not speak to you, will avoid eye contact, and will even walk right through you as if you weren't there. To me, this feels like an invasion of privacy, but it appears to be the norm in the huge Tokyo crowds. I once took a group of US high school students to Kyoto and had to encourage them to get on a crowded bus. The bus arrived, the door opened, the students decided there was no room on the bus and would not get on. The bus left. I then had to give them a talking-to, explaining that there *was* room on the bus, that the next five buses would be just as crowded, and if they ever hoped to arrive at their destination, they must disregard the wall of people and get in anyway.
In the US we can run into other kinds of difficulties with the sense of personal space. I'm sure many of you have run into situations where a friend was far too huggy for comfort, or even had conversations where you were being chased backwards in slow motion. Here are some questions you might ask. How do you get close to a person in your world? How does one move from one set of privacy rules (acquaintance rules) to another (friend rules, lover rules)? Is it difficult? How risky is it?
Crossing privacy borders is always a risky business. Typically, we agreed, a particular type of overture or "ticket" is required to make the transition successfully. When one approaches a science fiction author, one kind of ticket is a knowledge and informed opinion about that person's work. Children can often serve as a kind of ticket, as they are a point of commonality between individuals and can be turned into a "safe" shared topic. Jaleh called this being a part of the "Parents' Club." Liz mentioned that having a shared place of origin can be an effective ticket. These tickets are not unconditional, either - often it will be okay to talk about kids but not to talk about oneself. Erin mentioned that it's often okay to ask for advice or be self-critical, where it would not be okay to brag or talk about oneself positively. I also thought about how very often pregnant women will encounter random people who think that the shared experience of pregnancy and parenthood licenses them to comment, to touch the pregnant woman's belly, and to give her advice.
Obviously this is a topic with lots of possible applications. I really enjoyed the discussion and I hope this report gives you some interesting places to go in your thinking. Thanks again to everyone who attended.
Today's hangout will be at 11am and will be discussing gender roles.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Culture Share: Philippines - Engagement and Wedding feasts in Ifugao
This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Rochita Loenen-Ruiz discusses engagement and wedding feasts in the Ifugao province of the Philippines.
Engagement and Wedding feasts in Ifugao by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
In Ifugao, courtship begins with a show of informal interest between a man and a woman. If a man is interested in pursuing a formal relationship with the woman, his first step is to approach the elders of the woman’s family. Not just her parents but also her elders.
While there may be some unspoken agreement (as tends to be the case in this modern age) the woman’s family will still ask the woman for her reply to the man after the man has presented his case and asked for the permission to court her formally.
If the woman says “no” before the elders, this means the man has been turned down. If she says “yes” to the man’s declaration, then it means that they will have to arrange for a formal engagement ceremony. This ceremony is negotiated by the mediator and usually takes place some months after the woman has given her “yes” to the man’s declaration.
To the Ifugao, this formal courtship is the man’s statement of his seriousness and his intent to marry.
If the woman says yes then the following things take place:
1. The man has to bring a mediator who will speak on his behalf. In my brother’s case, we had a family friend who was a former Mumbaki (native priest). This man agreed to negotiate and act as go-between for elders of the woman’s clan and my brother.
2. The mediator is very important because it is he who negotiates the date for the engagement ceremony which must take place before the entire clan. This engagement ceremony is called the moma.
3. The mediator also negotiates the number of pigs the prospective groom must bring to the moma. In my brother’s case, he was asked to bring two pigs of a good size.
4. During the engagement ceremony itself, only the groom, the mediator and members of the woman’s clan are present. Sometimes a member of the groom’s family will be allowed to attend, but basically the ceremony is held for the woman’s clan.
These are symbolic elements used during the engagement ceremony:
Rice
Betelnut
Salt
Dried Meat
In some cases, the engagement ceremony is as far as it goes. Marriage is a very costly endeavour and unlike marriages in cities like Manila that are westernized, there is no such thing as rsvp when you get married in Ifugao.
In Ifugao, the wedding feast is a community endeavour with the entire community pitching in and everyone working together to prepare the food and to provide for the wedding feast.
Tradition dictates that marriage should take place a year after the engagement ceremony. Terms are set before the engagement. In the case of my youngest brother, his wife-to-be expressed her desire to continue on with her intention to obtain her degree in medicine. In this, her family as well as my brother agreed to support her.
Terms were also set with regards to what the family desires the man to provide for the marriage ceremony. The normal demand is for the groom to provide ten to twelve good-sized pigs for the wedding feast.
Some couples chose to elope or to get married in the Western way to evade the high costs. Some get married in the city as getting married in the mountains costs a lot. One of our friends who got married spent half a million pesos for her wedding. This included the cost of a wedding performed in the Christianized way as well as the cost of a marriage feast conducted in the Ifugao way.
There is a reason why ten to twelve pigs are asked for. A marriage is meant to be celebrated with the entire village and it is meant to symbolize a sharing of joy as well as a sharing of abundance. It is not simply an endeavour of the groom. The bride’s family and her community contribute towards the feast as well. Some will bring rice for the marriage feast, others will bring salt and herbs needed for cooking, and others will bring vegetables as well as other delicious treats.
During the wedding feast itself, there is no telling the exact number of guests who will come as the feast is open for guests who are considered family, friends, and members of community as well as the extended community.
Rochita was the first Filipina writer to be accepted into the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop. She attended the workshop in 2009 as the recipient of the Octavia Butler Scholarship. At present, Rochita resides in the Netherlands, but this could change in the future. Her short fiction has been published in The Philippines as well as outside of The Philippines. She has a livejournal at http://rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com
Engagement and Wedding feasts in Ifugao by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
In Ifugao, courtship begins with a show of informal interest between a man and a woman. If a man is interested in pursuing a formal relationship with the woman, his first step is to approach the elders of the woman’s family. Not just her parents but also her elders.
While there may be some unspoken agreement (as tends to be the case in this modern age) the woman’s family will still ask the woman for her reply to the man after the man has presented his case and asked for the permission to court her formally.
If the woman says “no” before the elders, this means the man has been turned down. If she says “yes” to the man’s declaration, then it means that they will have to arrange for a formal engagement ceremony. This ceremony is negotiated by the mediator and usually takes place some months after the woman has given her “yes” to the man’s declaration.
To the Ifugao, this formal courtship is the man’s statement of his seriousness and his intent to marry.
If the woman says yes then the following things take place:
1. The man has to bring a mediator who will speak on his behalf. In my brother’s case, we had a family friend who was a former Mumbaki (native priest). This man agreed to negotiate and act as go-between for elders of the woman’s clan and my brother.
2. The mediator is very important because it is he who negotiates the date for the engagement ceremony which must take place before the entire clan. This engagement ceremony is called the moma.
3. The mediator also negotiates the number of pigs the prospective groom must bring to the moma. In my brother’s case, he was asked to bring two pigs of a good size.
4. During the engagement ceremony itself, only the groom, the mediator and members of the woman’s clan are present. Sometimes a member of the groom’s family will be allowed to attend, but basically the ceremony is held for the woman’s clan.
These are symbolic elements used during the engagement ceremony:
Rice
Betelnut
Salt
Dried Meat
In some cases, the engagement ceremony is as far as it goes. Marriage is a very costly endeavour and unlike marriages in cities like Manila that are westernized, there is no such thing as rsvp when you get married in Ifugao.
In Ifugao, the wedding feast is a community endeavour with the entire community pitching in and everyone working together to prepare the food and to provide for the wedding feast.
Tradition dictates that marriage should take place a year after the engagement ceremony. Terms are set before the engagement. In the case of my youngest brother, his wife-to-be expressed her desire to continue on with her intention to obtain her degree in medicine. In this, her family as well as my brother agreed to support her.
Terms were also set with regards to what the family desires the man to provide for the marriage ceremony. The normal demand is for the groom to provide ten to twelve good-sized pigs for the wedding feast.
Some couples chose to elope or to get married in the Western way to evade the high costs. Some get married in the city as getting married in the mountains costs a lot. One of our friends who got married spent half a million pesos for her wedding. This included the cost of a wedding performed in the Christianized way as well as the cost of a marriage feast conducted in the Ifugao way.
There is a reason why ten to twelve pigs are asked for. A marriage is meant to be celebrated with the entire village and it is meant to symbolize a sharing of joy as well as a sharing of abundance. It is not simply an endeavour of the groom. The bride’s family and her community contribute towards the feast as well. Some will bring rice for the marriage feast, others will bring salt and herbs needed for cooking, and others will bring vegetables as well as other delicious treats.
During the wedding feast itself, there is no telling the exact number of guests who will come as the feast is open for guests who are considered family, friends, and members of community as well as the extended community.
Rochita was the first Filipina writer to be accepted into the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop. She attended the workshop in 2009 as the recipient of the Octavia Butler Scholarship. At present, Rochita resides in the Netherlands, but this could change in the future. Her short fiction has been published in The Philippines as well as outside of The Philippines. She has a livejournal at http://rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
TTYU Retro: Cut words? Or add words?
Does your work-in-progress have too many words? Or too few?
It's a hard question to answer. Over the last decade of my writing I've run into a lot of "too long"/"too short" situations, and after I saw this interesting little piece for copywriters about how cutting more words might not be such a good idea, I thought I should write a bit about it. I'm going to try to put this in terms of different examples I've seen and/or experienced myself.
The Mega-Work
What you might find yourself saying: "I have this novel, and yeah, it's 350 thousand words long..."
This one is hard to diagnose. Chances are there's more than one thing going on (see "Long Experiment" below). When I wrote my mega-work, I was astonished to find that my first thorough revision cut out thousands of words, and put thousands more back. The total word count barely changed, because I was figuring out where the words really needed to go. An agent gave me great advice: "This is probably three books." It had other problems that needed editing, but guess what? It's three books.
The Short Experiment
What you might hear critiquers saying: "I have a hard time accepting your premise"/"You're doing too much telling"/"You're gesturing at the story"
This one is probably too short. I'm not saying that pieces like this don't sell (I've seen at least one in Analog!). However, if the premise isn't sticking, you may not have used enough words to flesh it out and give it a strong foundation. If you're being accused of "telling" or "gesturing" you may want to get closer to the story and dramatize more of it. Make sure you're not just talking out the message of your story, but enacting it by placing readers in scenes that demonstrate the truths you want to capture.
The Voice Piece
What you might hear critiquers saying: "I love the voice in this one"/"The thing that really worked for me was the texture..."
Be very careful about cutting words out of this one. Yes, there may be words you can cut (I just took a piece like this down from 8300 to 8000 words), but make sure that you're keeping a close eye on which words are contributing to voice and texture at the same time they contribute to plot and character. Those are going to be the ones you'll want to keep. Of course, there are more stripped-down voices out there - in the case of a stripped-down voice, the process of going through and identifying which words contribute to the voice might be a really good way of figuring out which words can be cut.
The Long ExperimentWhat you might hear critiquers saying: "I'm hearing refrains (repetitions) in your work"/"You're always saying the same thing more than once"
Sometimes I'll use words to feel my way into a piece. I used to do this a lot more when I was first writing and exercising my storytelling muscles, seeing how beautifully, dramatically, etc. I could describe something. One indicator of refrains is when you find yourself using comma-delimited phrases like "Her hair was soft as summer, as all-encompassing as the sea." There's nothing wrong with that, necessarily, but you've just described her hair twice. Which one works better for the story context? You should probably keep that one and leave the other one out. The same thing can also happen across sentences or even paragraphs - you might find that you're both telling and showing, like saying, "He was shocked. His face went white, and his hands shook." In this case, if his face is white and his hands are shaking, it's evident that he's shocked and you don't need to state it explicitly.
What about publishers/agents and their word count guidelines?
This is a tricky one. What I've found is that ideas typically come in different sizes. There's the idea that's naturally flash (<1000), or short (<7500), because if you look at it for too long things will start poking out that detract from the effectiveness of the idea. There's the idea that wants to be a novelette (<10K), because just talking about events isn't enough. There's the idea that wants to be a fast-paced novel (60-75K, common for YA); there's the idea that wants to be epic (100-120K). Within that, however, there is a lot of room for wordcount-wiggling. A lot of words can be cut if you just go through saying "I need to take out 30 words per page" (you'd be surprised)! Those are word cuts on the sentence level. If you're 30 thousand words over your target count, though, then it's best to consider the story structure as a whole, and see if you're putting a lot of words on tangents or subplots instead of sticking to the backbone conflict of the tale.
In the end, it's all very dependent on the individual story. Listen to your audience to get clues about where and how you're hitting them. And it may turn out that you need to cut words and add words, because you needed those words; they were just the wrong ones.
You just have to try it and see.
It's a hard question to answer. Over the last decade of my writing I've run into a lot of "too long"/"too short" situations, and after I saw this interesting little piece for copywriters about how cutting more words might not be such a good idea, I thought I should write a bit about it. I'm going to try to put this in terms of different examples I've seen and/or experienced myself.
The Mega-Work
What you might find yourself saying: "I have this novel, and yeah, it's 350 thousand words long..."
This one is hard to diagnose. Chances are there's more than one thing going on (see "Long Experiment" below). When I wrote my mega-work, I was astonished to find that my first thorough revision cut out thousands of words, and put thousands more back. The total word count barely changed, because I was figuring out where the words really needed to go. An agent gave me great advice: "This is probably three books." It had other problems that needed editing, but guess what? It's three books.
The Short Experiment
What you might hear critiquers saying: "I have a hard time accepting your premise"/"You're doing too much telling"/"You're gesturing at the story"
This one is probably too short. I'm not saying that pieces like this don't sell (I've seen at least one in Analog!). However, if the premise isn't sticking, you may not have used enough words to flesh it out and give it a strong foundation. If you're being accused of "telling" or "gesturing" you may want to get closer to the story and dramatize more of it. Make sure you're not just talking out the message of your story, but enacting it by placing readers in scenes that demonstrate the truths you want to capture.
The Voice Piece
What you might hear critiquers saying: "I love the voice in this one"/"The thing that really worked for me was the texture..."
Be very careful about cutting words out of this one. Yes, there may be words you can cut (I just took a piece like this down from 8300 to 8000 words), but make sure that you're keeping a close eye on which words are contributing to voice and texture at the same time they contribute to plot and character. Those are going to be the ones you'll want to keep. Of course, there are more stripped-down voices out there - in the case of a stripped-down voice, the process of going through and identifying which words contribute to the voice might be a really good way of figuring out which words can be cut.
The Long ExperimentWhat you might hear critiquers saying: "I'm hearing refrains (repetitions) in your work"/"You're always saying the same thing more than once"
Sometimes I'll use words to feel my way into a piece. I used to do this a lot more when I was first writing and exercising my storytelling muscles, seeing how beautifully, dramatically, etc. I could describe something. One indicator of refrains is when you find yourself using comma-delimited phrases like "Her hair was soft as summer, as all-encompassing as the sea." There's nothing wrong with that, necessarily, but you've just described her hair twice. Which one works better for the story context? You should probably keep that one and leave the other one out. The same thing can also happen across sentences or even paragraphs - you might find that you're both telling and showing, like saying, "He was shocked. His face went white, and his hands shook." In this case, if his face is white and his hands are shaking, it's evident that he's shocked and you don't need to state it explicitly.
What about publishers/agents and their word count guidelines?
This is a tricky one. What I've found is that ideas typically come in different sizes. There's the idea that's naturally flash (<1000), or short (<7500), because if you look at it for too long things will start poking out that detract from the effectiveness of the idea. There's the idea that wants to be a novelette (<10K), because just talking about events isn't enough. There's the idea that wants to be a fast-paced novel (60-75K, common for YA); there's the idea that wants to be epic (100-120K). Within that, however, there is a lot of room for wordcount-wiggling. A lot of words can be cut if you just go through saying "I need to take out 30 words per page" (you'd be surprised)! Those are word cuts on the sentence level. If you're 30 thousand words over your target count, though, then it's best to consider the story structure as a whole, and see if you're putting a lot of words on tangents or subplots instead of sticking to the backbone conflict of the tale.
In the end, it's all very dependent on the individual story. Listen to your audience to get clues about where and how you're hitting them. And it may turn out that you need to cut words and add words, because you needed those words; they were just the wrong ones.
You just have to try it and see.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
TTYU Retro: What the heck are queries good for, anyway?
...never mind synopses!
This is a question I see all the time on the writers' forums I visit.* I'll even admit, I used to ask such questions myself. "Isn't it possible to be a great story writer and a bad query writer?" "How is that fair?"
It's true - queries require a totally different kind of skill from novels. When you dive into a novel, you're putting yourself in the story, seeing where it goes, pushing deeper and deeper. When you write a query, you're trying to find the four things that are the most important for catching an agent or editor's attention. These are four things I got from a query workshop with Donald Maass at the Surrey International Writers' Conference, and they are:
1. protagonist
2. conflict
3. setting
4. something unique
Once you have them, you've got basically two or three paragraphs to capture an entire 300 or so pages of wonder and detail.
Here's what I've learned, though, over the years I've spent writing, querying, and trying to get published. The query says some very important things about the story.
Funny enough, if you read a query, you can see really clearly how an author understands the overarching structure and content of their story. In my experience, I've found that the skill involved in creating a query is extremely similar to the skill involved in creating story macro-structure. Here's the way I'd summarize it:
If you know how to write an effective query, then you know what your story is about.
This may sound odd, since of course we all know what our stories are about. But if we are able to step back and capture the essential compelling conflict of the story in one paragraph, very likely this means that that component, the story's backbone, is strong and pulls people through the novel as well.
Similarly, synopses are hard, but if we can get people to enjoy them by putting elements of voice and motive and consequence in them, then we can show an agent or an editor that we recognize those elements of our own work and we know how to put proper emphasis on them.
Learning how to write queries and synopses hasn't been exactly fun, and it's been hard. But I feel like I've learned a lot about writing a better novel at the same time. In fact, some time ago I wrote a query for a book I haven't even written yet - just to test whether I'd correctly identified the right person to be main protagonist, the correct primary conflict, the proper setting, and something that would make this book unique. It's already helped me to envision how the story outline will look - which is a great help, since this book is going to be really complex - and at the same time it's helped me to feel more confident that the novel will one day be ready for submission.
So I encourage all of you to think through your queries, and your novels, at the same time. Consider the query a necessary part of the process of testing your story's readiness.
Then, go for it.
*Analog SF, Asimov's SF, Absolute Write, Backspace Writers
This is a question I see all the time on the writers' forums I visit.* I'll even admit, I used to ask such questions myself. "Isn't it possible to be a great story writer and a bad query writer?" "How is that fair?"
It's true - queries require a totally different kind of skill from novels. When you dive into a novel, you're putting yourself in the story, seeing where it goes, pushing deeper and deeper. When you write a query, you're trying to find the four things that are the most important for catching an agent or editor's attention. These are four things I got from a query workshop with Donald Maass at the Surrey International Writers' Conference, and they are:
1. protagonist
2. conflict
3. setting
4. something unique
Once you have them, you've got basically two or three paragraphs to capture an entire 300 or so pages of wonder and detail.
Here's what I've learned, though, over the years I've spent writing, querying, and trying to get published. The query says some very important things about the story.
Funny enough, if you read a query, you can see really clearly how an author understands the overarching structure and content of their story. In my experience, I've found that the skill involved in creating a query is extremely similar to the skill involved in creating story macro-structure. Here's the way I'd summarize it:
If you know how to write an effective query, then you know what your story is about.
This may sound odd, since of course we all know what our stories are about. But if we are able to step back and capture the essential compelling conflict of the story in one paragraph, very likely this means that that component, the story's backbone, is strong and pulls people through the novel as well.
Similarly, synopses are hard, but if we can get people to enjoy them by putting elements of voice and motive and consequence in them, then we can show an agent or an editor that we recognize those elements of our own work and we know how to put proper emphasis on them.
Learning how to write queries and synopses hasn't been exactly fun, and it's been hard. But I feel like I've learned a lot about writing a better novel at the same time. In fact, some time ago I wrote a query for a book I haven't even written yet - just to test whether I'd correctly identified the right person to be main protagonist, the correct primary conflict, the proper setting, and something that would make this book unique. It's already helped me to envision how the story outline will look - which is a great help, since this book is going to be really complex - and at the same time it's helped me to feel more confident that the novel will one day be ready for submission.
So I encourage all of you to think through your queries, and your novels, at the same time. Consider the query a necessary part of the process of testing your story's readiness.
Then, go for it.
*Analog SF, Asimov's SF, Absolute Write, Backspace Writers
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Dialogue, and specificity: How talk depends on the talkers
I just got through with a great discussion of pregnancy and parenting in worldbuilding with some great folks, and while I will be reporting on it next week, I was immediately struck by something that I think has a lot of bearing on how we write dialogue: how what people talk about depends on who is doing the talking.
In our discussion, the population of the discussion changed significantly over the course of an hour. At first there were three of us present, all mothers; then two more people joined us, not mothers; then another mother joined us, one in a non-traditional family; then a father joined us. Each time someone new joined the conversation the tenor of the talk and the topics we discussed changed significantly.
If I were to characterize the way that the talk changed, it would be something like this.
When it was just the three mothers talking, our focus was mostly on the particular differences between our various experiences (and question of how often people ignore such variation in fiction). Lots of stuff was sort of assumed as common ground and therefore not mentioned.
When the non-mothers joined us, all of a sudden all that common ground became open to conversation because there were people present who did not share that experience with us. So variation was still a focus, but the range of topics discussed actually broadened - and I would remark that the mothers among us also varied on some of the variables upon which we'd previously assumed commonality. We progressed in our topic from pregnancy to babies and childcare, but a lot of it still focused on the question of realism - how to portray pregnancy and babies in a realistic way by expanding our knowledge of people's real experiences.
When the mother in a non-traditional family joined us, a lot more topics opened up - not just the basics of pregnancy and parenting, but further economic variables became important, and we started talking about how the experience of parenting had changed our lives (something that hadn't come up before). Each of us had had a very different experience.
When the father joined us, the discussion changed again because he had a particular fiction project he wanted to get inspiration on, and that changed our talk entirely. Instead of talking about a general range of experience, we started talking about a particular person's situation in a particular world where the social and economic conditions - and the person's story conflict - were very different and could be expected to interact with the problems of parenting in a very specific way. For a mother on the run with an infant, what would be the tricky issues? Suddenly we got very specific about diapering and breastfeeding and bonding between mother and child, changes in expectations about what would be taken care of by the mother and what would be handled by her support system, and how the disappearance of that support system had changed things.
I take two things out of this that may be of use for writers. First, for worldbuilding in general: the worldbuilding phase itself is useful, but you'll be doing a lot more worldbuilding and you can learn a lot better stuff when you're working with specific situations and conflicts of the characters in a story. Second, be aware that the dialogue and conversations you write will be drastically different depending on who is involved. The arrival of a new character will most likely completely change the tenor of the talk.
The following factors (at least) will be important to what kind of changes occur:
In our discussion, the population of the discussion changed significantly over the course of an hour. At first there were three of us present, all mothers; then two more people joined us, not mothers; then another mother joined us, one in a non-traditional family; then a father joined us. Each time someone new joined the conversation the tenor of the talk and the topics we discussed changed significantly.
If I were to characterize the way that the talk changed, it would be something like this.
When it was just the three mothers talking, our focus was mostly on the particular differences between our various experiences (and question of how often people ignore such variation in fiction). Lots of stuff was sort of assumed as common ground and therefore not mentioned.
When the non-mothers joined us, all of a sudden all that common ground became open to conversation because there were people present who did not share that experience with us. So variation was still a focus, but the range of topics discussed actually broadened - and I would remark that the mothers among us also varied on some of the variables upon which we'd previously assumed commonality. We progressed in our topic from pregnancy to babies and childcare, but a lot of it still focused on the question of realism - how to portray pregnancy and babies in a realistic way by expanding our knowledge of people's real experiences.
When the mother in a non-traditional family joined us, a lot more topics opened up - not just the basics of pregnancy and parenting, but further economic variables became important, and we started talking about how the experience of parenting had changed our lives (something that hadn't come up before). Each of us had had a very different experience.
When the father joined us, the discussion changed again because he had a particular fiction project he wanted to get inspiration on, and that changed our talk entirely. Instead of talking about a general range of experience, we started talking about a particular person's situation in a particular world where the social and economic conditions - and the person's story conflict - were very different and could be expected to interact with the problems of parenting in a very specific way. For a mother on the run with an infant, what would be the tricky issues? Suddenly we got very specific about diapering and breastfeeding and bonding between mother and child, changes in expectations about what would be taken care of by the mother and what would be handled by her support system, and how the disappearance of that support system had changed things.
I take two things out of this that may be of use for writers. First, for worldbuilding in general: the worldbuilding phase itself is useful, but you'll be doing a lot more worldbuilding and you can learn a lot better stuff when you're working with specific situations and conflicts of the characters in a story. Second, be aware that the dialogue and conversations you write will be drastically different depending on who is involved. The arrival of a new character will most likely completely change the tenor of the talk.
The following factors (at least) will be important to what kind of changes occur:
- each person's amount of personal knowledge and experience on the topic
- each person's understanding of how much knowledge and experience he/she shares with other people in the discussion
- each person's personal motivation, i.e. what specific information he/she hopes to get from the talk
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
TTYU Retro: Bringing characters together (slightly updated)
Personal alliances can be critical to the success of a story. To me these include acquaintances, friendships, close friendships and romances. I find that it's really important, if I'm going to have two characters who have a friendship, to understand why it is that they are friends. One of the potential pitfalls of writing stories is that we can set up our cast of characters and place them on stage, announcing, "these people are friends" without deeply considering what they have in common and what brought them together. When we have two people fall in love, this can (I suppose) happen instantly and simply through pure physical attraction, but I like to consider a little more than just the "hhhot" factor when trying to get two people together. Indeed, I find it even more fun when the people are coming together in a more complicated way, as through adversity, overcoming dislike, becoming attracted without realizing it, etc.
I'm going to consider some basic alignment ingredients first, and then talk about engaging in the process of bringing two people together for an unlikely romance.
My current protagonist, Tagret, has three friends he always hangs around with. They have ended up together partly because they're all well-bred boys with a lot of money, a good deal of kindness, and an interest in school. However, each of them has an additional reason to hang around Tagret, and that affects how they deal with him. Gowan is very politically oriented, and not only does he like Tagret, but he recognizes the strength of Tagret's political position (through his father) and thinks it's advantageous to hang out with him because of that. This means the other boys are inclined to ask him for advice on political matters. Fernar is strong and everyone wants him on his side in a fight, but he feels less confident politically and values Tagret and Gowan for what they can teach him. Tagret's best friend is Reyn. Why? Because both of them share the experience of living alone with a sibling and a house full of servants while their parents have been sent to other cities for jobs. Because of this, they stick together and help each other through trouble more than the others. Details like these not only make it plausible that these boys would be friends, but allow each person to interact differently with the others.
We can think of these as things that the characters have in common. We can also bring characters closer in a story through letting them face adversity together. Events that bring characters closer are generally increasing the ways in which the two people align with one another.
Okay, so let's look at romance for a minute. The #1-A thing that everyone is going to think of to bring two people together is physical attraction. Yep, no surprise there. But particularly if a romance is going to be building over the course of an entire story, and ending in a lasting relationship rather than just a one-night stand, there has to be more to it than just hotness. I will tend to think of it in terms of two lists: 1. the list of things that separate the two people and 2. the list of things that they have in common. If I cause events to negate the effects of anything in list 2, the people will fall apart. If they are going instead to form a lasting relationship, any extremely serious objections or separation elements from list one have to be directly and deliberately countered by adding elements to list two.
In my Varin world, caste level distinctions are huge - cultural as well as legal - and not easily countered. One of the cross-caste relationships in my books results because a servant sees someone else disguised as another servant, and becomes both physically attracted to her and intellectually engaged with her before he realizes his mistake. Importantly, thought, he is also at the same time learning things about the historical origins of the caste distinctions that cause him to doubt what he'd always believed about them. Another relationship begins more subtly, because one of the characters feels so intimidated by the physicality of the other that his physicality impresses her more than his caste. Here the intimidation itself is an influence that keeps them apart - however, because it causes her to disregard his caste, I can then work on removing the sense of intimidation, and thereafter the caste factors will have less power to separate them.
I keep the alignment/separation lists in my mind when I'm writing conversations, and when I'm writing descriptions. If one character expresses unadulterated admiration for another, then that is going to suggest bringing them together - but it may not be realistic or appropriate for that person to express such admiration. I therefore play with ambivalence by putting expressions of admiration and separation in the same sentence or internalized description. "Alien but beautiful" might express one kind of ambivalence. "Possessing refined warmth" also suggests a contrast that might be meaningful to a different person.
Whenever we work with close relationships, we end up playing right along the edge of discomfort. Getting closer with someone else involves considerable risk. This should be reflected in the writing. Often events that tighten alignment also cause discomfort or a sense of invasion. Then the question becomes what to make of that discomfort - whether to soothe it, or to intensify it, etc. Discomfort is an opportunity for a writer who is trying to align two people, because situations that are uncomfortable are often perfect for initiating change in a person's mind.
When you're working with relationships in your stories, do take the time to ask yourself some questions like those below:
1. Why are these people friends? What specific things do they find most compelling about one another, and why?
2. Does this relationship require a backstory of specific aligning events, such as hardship? Or does it simply require basic common conditions?
3. How big a role does physical attraction play in the relationship between these characters?
4. What keeps or pulls these two people apart?
5. What ingredients might be able to counter the factors listed in question 4, and bring them together?
6. Can I use common experiences to erase the effects of prejudgment?
7. Can I align these two people in a similar way relative to a third party, event or task?
8. Are these people aware that they are coming together? If they are, how do they react to the knowledge? If they aren't, why aren't they? Is there something about the nature of the separation factors that keeps them from considering the possibility of their attraction?
Please be aware (though it should be no surprise to most of you) that I'm coming at these questions from a human-relations and anthropology viewpoint rather than a romance-writing viewpoint, so I can't speak to the particular requirements of the romance genre. However, I hope that these considerations can help you in thinking about relationships in your own work.
I'm going to consider some basic alignment ingredients first, and then talk about engaging in the process of bringing two people together for an unlikely romance.
My current protagonist, Tagret, has three friends he always hangs around with. They have ended up together partly because they're all well-bred boys with a lot of money, a good deal of kindness, and an interest in school. However, each of them has an additional reason to hang around Tagret, and that affects how they deal with him. Gowan is very politically oriented, and not only does he like Tagret, but he recognizes the strength of Tagret's political position (through his father) and thinks it's advantageous to hang out with him because of that. This means the other boys are inclined to ask him for advice on political matters. Fernar is strong and everyone wants him on his side in a fight, but he feels less confident politically and values Tagret and Gowan for what they can teach him. Tagret's best friend is Reyn. Why? Because both of them share the experience of living alone with a sibling and a house full of servants while their parents have been sent to other cities for jobs. Because of this, they stick together and help each other through trouble more than the others. Details like these not only make it plausible that these boys would be friends, but allow each person to interact differently with the others.
We can think of these as things that the characters have in common. We can also bring characters closer in a story through letting them face adversity together. Events that bring characters closer are generally increasing the ways in which the two people align with one another.
Okay, so let's look at romance for a minute. The #1-A thing that everyone is going to think of to bring two people together is physical attraction. Yep, no surprise there. But particularly if a romance is going to be building over the course of an entire story, and ending in a lasting relationship rather than just a one-night stand, there has to be more to it than just hotness. I will tend to think of it in terms of two lists: 1. the list of things that separate the two people and 2. the list of things that they have in common. If I cause events to negate the effects of anything in list 2, the people will fall apart. If they are going instead to form a lasting relationship, any extremely serious objections or separation elements from list one have to be directly and deliberately countered by adding elements to list two.
In my Varin world, caste level distinctions are huge - cultural as well as legal - and not easily countered. One of the cross-caste relationships in my books results because a servant sees someone else disguised as another servant, and becomes both physically attracted to her and intellectually engaged with her before he realizes his mistake. Importantly, thought, he is also at the same time learning things about the historical origins of the caste distinctions that cause him to doubt what he'd always believed about them. Another relationship begins more subtly, because one of the characters feels so intimidated by the physicality of the other that his physicality impresses her more than his caste. Here the intimidation itself is an influence that keeps them apart - however, because it causes her to disregard his caste, I can then work on removing the sense of intimidation, and thereafter the caste factors will have less power to separate them.
I keep the alignment/separation lists in my mind when I'm writing conversations, and when I'm writing descriptions. If one character expresses unadulterated admiration for another, then that is going to suggest bringing them together - but it may not be realistic or appropriate for that person to express such admiration. I therefore play with ambivalence by putting expressions of admiration and separation in the same sentence or internalized description. "Alien but beautiful" might express one kind of ambivalence. "Possessing refined warmth" also suggests a contrast that might be meaningful to a different person.
Whenever we work with close relationships, we end up playing right along the edge of discomfort. Getting closer with someone else involves considerable risk. This should be reflected in the writing. Often events that tighten alignment also cause discomfort or a sense of invasion. Then the question becomes what to make of that discomfort - whether to soothe it, or to intensify it, etc. Discomfort is an opportunity for a writer who is trying to align two people, because situations that are uncomfortable are often perfect for initiating change in a person's mind.
When you're working with relationships in your stories, do take the time to ask yourself some questions like those below:
1. Why are these people friends? What specific things do they find most compelling about one another, and why?
2. Does this relationship require a backstory of specific aligning events, such as hardship? Or does it simply require basic common conditions?
3. How big a role does physical attraction play in the relationship between these characters?
4. What keeps or pulls these two people apart?
5. What ingredients might be able to counter the factors listed in question 4, and bring them together?
6. Can I use common experiences to erase the effects of prejudgment?
7. Can I align these two people in a similar way relative to a third party, event or task?
8. Are these people aware that they are coming together? If they are, how do they react to the knowledge? If they aren't, why aren't they? Is there something about the nature of the separation factors that keeps them from considering the possibility of their attraction?
Please be aware (though it should be no surprise to most of you) that I'm coming at these questions from a human-relations and anthropology viewpoint rather than a romance-writing viewpoint, so I can't speak to the particular requirements of the romance genre. However, I hope that these considerations can help you in thinking about relationships in your own work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)