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Maxwell Lord posted:If you took out every borrowed word you'd have very little left. Use whatever has been in common usage (so long as it fits your style.) Oh yeah, definitely, it's just something that I've become conscious of lately. Generally, I'll just use it anyway, but if it's a phrase or combination of words, I'll try to figure out some kind of alternative instead.
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Jan 31, 2013 23:15
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| # ? May 9, 2024 22:42 |
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I've seen worse writing advice than this: Will Ludwigsen’s Foul-Mouthed Writer’s Checklist
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Jan 31, 2013 23:44
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I feel like I should get that tattooed somewhere.
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Jan 31, 2013 23:49
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Great Rumbler posted:I even get a little antsy about using commonly used words that were recently derived from other languages in my own writing. Like "hors d'oeuvre." Just about any native English speaker knows what it means, but it just feels...wrong...to use it in some fantasy world with no connection to the real world. I don't understand this. It's just like if you were writing a book in English that was set in France. You just write it in English using whatever words express the concept best, because although the book may be about French people it's not written for French people, so you don't include literal translations of French idioms or whatever, you just express the concept as an English-speaker would.
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Feb 1, 2013 02:32
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Molly Bloom posted:Chillmatic I will never stop recommending Michael Chabon's 'Yiddish Policemen's Union'. Get this book. Get it now. quote:Rabbi Heskel Shpilman is a deformed mountain, a giant ruined dessert, a cartoon house with the windows shut and the sink left running.
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Feb 2, 2013 04:42
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Bragging time: I sold my first short story of 2013 yesterday. This marks my fifth short story sale so far and it's my first pro-rate (five cents a word or more, more in this case) sale. I haven't signed the contract yet so I don't want to mention the market but it is a very well known sci-fi/fantasy market. I'll post more details once the contract is signed.
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Feb 2, 2013 06:28
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Gary the Llama posted:Bragging time: I sold my first short story of 2013 yesterday. This marks my fifth short story sale so far and it's my first pro-rate (five cents a word or more, more in this case) sale. I haven't signed the contract yet so I don't want to mention the market but it is a very well known sci-fi/fantasy market. I'll post more details once the contract is signed. Thanks for wasting our time by wasting your time. You could have submitted twice more while writing that. Order of events: Read. Submit. Write. Or die, plox.
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Feb 2, 2013 06:36
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Look at that. loving look at it. What are you wearing?
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Feb 2, 2013 16:31
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This thread is not Thunderdome II. Please keep the conversation constructive or there will be consequences.
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Feb 3, 2013 20:10
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Yeah, that happened to me as well, so much of English is based on words imported or derived from other languages, so should I really be using words derived from Latin in a world where there was no Latin? I decided "screw it, I'll just use English, borrowed words be damned." I would just end up driving myself and the readers nuts if I tried to work around that. You could go the Gene Wolfe route and use words that are obscure and archaic - it works very well in Book of the New Sun. Edit: quote:•Is there some sign that the writer gave a poo poo about this story, put something personal in it? These are great advice.
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Feb 3, 2013 21:27
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sebmojo posted:You could go the Gene Wolfe route and use words that are obscure and archaic - it works very well in Book of the New Sun. OK, he was probably some ghastly proto-Nazi Nordic supremacist, but it's a great source of words that sound familiar but kind of archaic and unusual. ETA: Lost Beauties of the English Language, by Charles Mackay. Huh, I'd forgotten he was the same guy who wrote Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.... Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Feb 3, 2013 |
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Feb 3, 2013 21:41
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I was talking about doing it in TD, but here would be better I think. Once Stuporstar gets done being a coding nerd, she'll have more time. Maybe she can recreate this thread with a new OP, and we can all collect a few of our favorite articles to be linked in there. Dump the info for writing from her resources thread (which you should all check out if you haven't) along with whatever else we find that's useful.
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Feb 3, 2013 21:41
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The perfect Human at (3:24) succinctly conveys some things to consider when making characters.
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Feb 4, 2013 02:32
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Runcible Cat posted:I've got a wonderfully loony Victorian dictionary somewhere, written by a bloke who wanted to purge the English language of foul Latin, so it's made up of alternatives to Latin words using Anglo-Saxon/Germanic roots instead. Thanks for the name. It's certainly an interesting idea, but after taking a look at that, I'm not sure I can use too many words from there. They're just too obscure, and avoiding Latin words completely is not worth confusing the reader - even with obscure words in a modern dictionary.
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Feb 4, 2013 23:36
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What are people's thoughts on epigraphs, particularly for short stories? I don't plan on using them all the time, of course, but sometimes I'll be reading something and come across a quote that just perfectly summarizes the "heart" of a story. Is it considered pretentious / looked down upon to use them for shorter pieces? And would it cause any trouble if I ever wanted to ship a piece around for publication?
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Feb 5, 2013 03:53
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I personally hate them, but almost a third of the stories I read in workshops use em. In my books, the heart of your story doesn't need some rear end in a top hat's quote to be made apparent (or if it does, then that's a failure on your part as a writer). Can they set the tone? Sure, but I find that 99% of the time they look like the author is trying to inject some authority into their piece. Check out this loving Hemingway quote about man's nature, now read my poo poo which is probably pretty good too. They look like a celebrity endorsement to a lovely product. And often it's a dead celebrity. That's my pessimistic opinion.
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Feb 5, 2013 04:07
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I thought about using epigraphs once, but I probably wouldn't today. As with a lot of things in writing, some people can really pull it off well, but most people won't. So, I'd say that it's only something I would use if I was totally convinced that it wouldn't come across as some kind of cheap "celebrity endorsement" like Mike Works said. I guess it would really come down to what you're trying to accomplish. Do you genuinely feel that it will contribute to your story in a meaningful way, or are you trying to add some weight to your story by connecting it to famous quotes by better writers than yourself?
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Feb 5, 2013 04:20
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My intent with this particular piece (I'll toss it up for crit when I finish, since it would be easier to judge then) is for the quote to suggest a new perspective by which to view the narrative from. In other words, reading it normally will give one impression, while reading it with the epigraph in mind would (hopefully) give another. Then again I suppose leading the reader by the nose like that might be a bad idea, and I definitely don't want it to come off like I'm trying to make some dead guy shill for me.
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Feb 5, 2013 04:25
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Epigraphs are cheap and gratuitous and I love them to loving pieces, who wants to fight me I think they're just a harmless indulgence, so long as they're brief.
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Feb 5, 2013 04:37
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Honey Badger posted:What are people's thoughts on epigraphs, particularly for short stories? I don't plan on using them all the time, of course, but sometimes I'll be reading something and come across a quote that just perfectly summarizes the "heart" of a story. I'm fond of them, myself, though I acknowledge that all the criticism above has its merits. At best, an epigraph can be rather like a book cover or a piece of artwork, it can set the tone for the work ahead, set up what the key theme is. (And sometimes, of course, it can just be funny.) For instance, if you were using the ancient line about friendship being a single soul dwelling in two bodies, you would telegraph to your audience that this is a story about (surprise!) friendship, and should be viewed through that lens—or you can subvert that expectation if your characters do nothing but bicker, or if you were writing a sci-fi story about a divided soul, or something. Regarding publication — be aware that epigraphs are a special case, and often you need to get permission to use a quote as an epigraph when it would ordinarily be fair within the context of the story. If your source is public domain anyway it's not a problem either way. Icon-Cat fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Feb 5, 2013 |
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Feb 5, 2013 05:54
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The epigraph is a coat-hanger that you hang your story on. They are more for your (the writers) benefit than the readers. Start with a epigraph, write your story or chapter down, and if you still think it is looking good after the final draft, leave it in. Icon-Cat posted:if you were writing a sci-fi story about a divided soul, or something. Souls? In science-fiction?  Souls are the domain of Science-Fiction's older hunchbacked brother Fantasy, and their beautiful but mildly retarded inbred offspring Science-Fantasy.
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Feb 5, 2013 10:04
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theworstname posted:Souls? In science-fiction?
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Feb 5, 2013 10:19
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Yeah, the nature of the human soul when confronted with the untold mysteries of the universe is pretty well-trodden sci-fi ground.
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Feb 5, 2013 10:26
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theworstname posted:Souls? In science-fiction?
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Feb 5, 2013 10:30
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STONE OF MADNESS posted:A bold claim. I can think of quite a few SF titans who were obsessed with souls, or at the very least with their absence - if you're talking about latter-day writers who just like to sperg on about tech then maybe you have a point..? If it is a science-fiction setting that treats souls as quantifiable, accountable stuff rather than just the ruminations of the characters I would argue that it is in fact science-fantasy.
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Feb 5, 2013 10:33
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theworstname posted:If it is a science-fiction setting that treats souls as quantifiable, accountable stuff rather than just the ruminations of the characters I would argue that it is in fact science-fantasy. (Yeah, I know there's no Officially Sanctioned Definition of where the line lies, I'm just curious about where people draw it.)
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Feb 5, 2013 10:53
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Runcible Cat posted:I think you may be being a bit strict about your fictional science there; do you also consider anything involving FTL travel to be science fantasy? That is a very good question. Yes, I do consider anything involving FTL as science-fantasy. Mind, this is a strictly personal perspective. theworstname fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Feb 5, 2013 |
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Feb 5, 2013 11:07
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Runcible Cat posted:I think you may be being a bit strict about your fictional science there; do you also consider anything involving FTL travel to be science fantasy? I like Robert Heinlein's definiton: "a handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method." I'm also OK with FTL as long as it's set far enough in the future (or there are sufficiently advanced aliens), because there's no way to know which impossible things might be everyday realities in a thousand years, as long as it works in a plausible and consistent manner. Same goes for souls. Maybe they really exist, but if they do then it must be in a way that's consistent with what we already know about the nature of reality. As long as souls are plausible and consistent, then I'm OK with them being in sci-fi. But if, for example, you swap a soul from one body into another and it takes the personality and memories with it, well, we know that the brain is where those come from, so unless that was also somehow duplicated then you've moved into fantasy. This is pretty much a hypothetical though since I can't think of any sci-fi that included the existence of souls that met my criteria.
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Feb 5, 2013 14:34
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Honey Badger posted:What are people's thoughts on epigraphs, particularly for short stories? I don't plan on using them all the time, of course, but sometimes I'll be reading something and come across a quote that just perfectly summarizes the "heart" of a story. I'm too nervous about the quality of my writing to do something like preface with a quote from someone else. I don't want the reader, even for a moment, thinking about how they'd rather be reading something by, say, Hemingway. I'm wary of even putting the 'hey, I could be reading X instead' thought in someone's head for a short story.
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Feb 5, 2013 15:07
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Oh man, personal definitions of genres! I love this! Personally, I draw the line for Feminist Sci-Fi when any female characters are included in a sci-fi story. I once read a story that would be hard SF but there was a girl dog in it  so it's Feminist Sci-Fi to me.
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Feb 5, 2013 17:30
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I think you can get away with a quote if it's not too obvious or on-the-nose. Something that hints at the theme of the story without necessarily giving away what's going to happen.
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Feb 5, 2013 19:00
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The worst is in-world quotes. And the greatest among ye, rise from the smool and wield the power axe against your enemies, for if your strength is naught surely no manmonkey can withstand them. -- Verse from a sermon given by the High Lord Executioner P'Fluthmoz to the Bhagavad Hot Carl before the great Ceremony of Noogies
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Feb 6, 2013 00:55
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Phil Moscowitz posted:The worst is in-world quotes. I dunno, the chapter headings in Dune are kind of cool.
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Feb 6, 2013 01:05
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Maxwell Lord posted:I dunno, the chapter headings in Dune are kind of cool. I was gonna say this exact thing. Really added to the immersion for me. Too bad Herbet went whacky with his second novel.
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Feb 6, 2013 01:14
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Maxwell Lord posted:I dunno, the chapter headings in Dune are kind of cool. Yeah, I liked those, too. The only other book I can think of off-hand that had epigraphs was Starship Troopers, which used them pretty well, I thought.
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Feb 6, 2013 02:54
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Philip K. Dick uses epigraphs quite effectively in his novel Ubik. Sande Cohen and R. L. Rutsky go into some detail about it in Consumption in an Age of Information around page 33.  SPOILERMartello posted:Oh man, personal definitions of genres! I love this! Personally, I draw the line for Feminist Sci-Fi when any female characters are included in a sci-fi story. I once read a story that would be hard SF but there was a girl dog in it Touché. Tiggum did make some interesting points though.
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Feb 6, 2013 10:35
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Phil Moscowitz posted:The worst is in-world quotes.
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Feb 6, 2013 19:17
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Another (sorta) example of where in-world epigraphs are perfectly utilized is Anathem by Neal Stephenson, where he begins a lot of sections and scenes with definitions of made-up terms straight from the in-world dictionary.
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Feb 6, 2013 19:56
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Fair enough.. I'm thinking of stuff I read and think "that's pretty silly," like a quote by one of the characters or some history that has nothing to do with the story being told. I can't think of anything specific though so ignore me.
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Feb 6, 2013 21:14
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In-world epigraphs can be retarded as poo poo though, cf. Erikson. Sometimes it can try to add to the world but be a craps shoot, like with the Otherland books. But for short fiction, poo poo, I've used them in at least half my work. The thing is, it's not usually some officious loving Falkner quote or something, it's usually just a lyric or line of dialogue or joke that inspired part/some/all of the story to help set the tone (or, for brevity lovers, be the point of the piece).
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Feb 8, 2013 09:06
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