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Elephant Parade posted:i think there are better things to worry about than whether a random made-up word in your novel with a clear linguistic origin happens to sound like an obscure slur in Swahili. who's going to go after you if it does, homophone interpol? Ignum ligma
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Jun 23, 2022 23:26
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Pththya-lyi posted:I would add the corollary that if your fantasy beings are clearly recognizable as well-established fantasy critters like elves and dragons, you should call them by their common name. If they're graceful, forest-dwelling, long-lived humanoids with pointy ears, you're not fooling anybody if you call them by another name. We know they're elves. Like, don't call a rabbit a smerp, we all know what a rabbit is and all you're doing is sounding silly, but there's this tendency to assume Western-Euro fantasy is a sort of default and everything that deviates from it is ripping it off? Like, we have our own forest people myths (Patupaiarehe) that aren't even remotely elves, but "forest-dwelling long-lived humanoids with pointy ears" actually works? If you need a Western equiv they're more like dryads I guess, but it's not "ripping off" dryads, it's a mythology that developed independently on the other side of the world. Elephant Parade posted:oh, I'm not advocating conlangs— I'm saying to base your fantasy words on real-world words. like, if everyone is carrying around sticks that shoot fire, call them pyrods, or flamberges, or maybe something derived from latin (two minutes in google translate gave me "ignum lignia"). personally speaking, I find real-language-derived words way cooler than syllable jam like "saproth" and "klofrep" because I can actually tell wtf they mean 1) Baxolazh 2) Lalethwe One of these is a scary orc/berzerker/barbarian type and one is graceful/lithe/mysterious and you get which, right? Because phonology is capable of carrying vibes. That's what I meant by "sounds snaky", you don't need Serpentor, it's often better to lean in on fricatives, you flick your tongue a bit with rolls and taps, you use your sound system to create mood.
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Jun 24, 2022 00:03
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I have beef with this – I included a bunch of names that are real words from my second language and got Americans critics yelling at me JUST CALL IT A DRAGON YOU WEIRD HIPSTER and like ... it's not? A taniwha is not a Western dragon at all. Water-dwelling, wingless, more shark than lizard, with a human face, but a non-zero number of readers got on my case for being pretentious about it because Big Mythology Scale Monster. That's a good point, and I have to admit I wasn't thinking about fantasy derived from sources other than the Western fantasy/folkloric tradition. I still think my corollary applies, but only if a writer is drawing exclusively from the Western tradition, or is drawing from other cultures in a superficial way (e.g. I call them taniwha and patupaiarehe, but they're otherwise indistinguishable from Tolkien dragons and elves).
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Jun 24, 2022 01:43
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Elephant Parade posted:i think there are better things to worry about than whether a random made-up word in your novel with a clear linguistic origin happens to sound like an obscure slur in Swahili. who's going to go after you if it does, homophone interpol? If QCS this morning was any indication, the biking thread in TGO
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Jun 24, 2022 03:47
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Okay but hear me out here, just totally making up two names not based on existing language:
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Jun 24, 2022 04:04
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Leal posted:If QCS this morning was any indication, the biking thread in TGO Goons that go outside are not to be trusted.
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Jun 24, 2022 04:12
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I called my Elves "Sh'atha'shlenangrien" and I'm getting too many compliments for it.
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Jun 24, 2022 04:38
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I have an approach to conlangs that's working pretty well for me and allows for a bit of relative laziness. One of the languages of my setting is called Puniag, and it's essentially like Latin or Sanskrit--a root language spoken by very few people, though most people could list a few words off the top of their head. This gives me a plausible pool of words to play with, but my characters aren't necessarily going to be speaking in full Puniag sentences. The lingua franca of the setting is called common Ag; when my characters are speaking, they're speaking in common Ag, even though obviously I'm writing their dialog in english. Different factions within the setting have their own cants and pidgins that deviate from common Ag, sometimes incorporating words from other, "offscreen" conlangs (similar to how an American English speaker might say c'est la vie even if they can't understand a word of proper French). When I want to emphasize the otherness of someone's speech, I use words derived from old Puniag words, or I use english words modified into setting-specific slang, with the implication being that these are actually Ag words, and the english modification is basically like...a translator's best guess. I don't think I'm explaining myself very well. The result is that I can imply a bunch of language stuff without actually creating whole conlangs, but I can drop into a credible conlang for a phrase or sentence if I need to. I guess it's more of a semilang. All that said, i google every single word I make up because the one time I don't is ALWAYS when I inadvertently steal a word from a language I didn't mean to borrow from!
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Jun 24, 2022 05:03
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All of my fae creatures are -oinkers Dwarves? Coinkers Elves? Boinkers Orcs? Doinkers Kobolds? Toinkers
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Jun 24, 2022 05:13
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Need to be 100% accurate and have everyone pronounce other cultures' words wrong because they have the fantasy version of Wade-Giles.
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Jun 24, 2022 05:17
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Boba Pearl posted:All of my fae creatures are -oinkers Who are the yoinkers?
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Jun 24, 2022 05:45
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Goblins.
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Jun 24, 2022 05:56
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Creature naming is something I’ve seen another consideration for, too, which is the current popular understanding of the term. If it’s a type of elf with characteristics that are already highly popularized, then calling it an elf is the most economical way to convey information to the reader. But if it’s an elf that doesn’t agree with the popular concept of an elf, then you might want to use a different name to avoid reader preconceptions (regardless of what you’re drawing on). Even exclusively within western tradition it’s something you run into. Dracula didn’t include all of the ideas about vampires that were swirling around at the time, and it introduced new ones. And it was so defining of a work that you kind of can’t ignore it and just roll with a specific pre-Dracula folklore version of vampires without addressing the fact that readers will have preconceptions you need to counter.
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Jun 24, 2022 06:22
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Caveat: all the poo poo you make up to sound cool should feel consistent if it's meant to be from the same language/culture. Like if you write like, I dunno, pulling it outta my rear end, Draxathar, you've already kinda developed a soundsystem, a feel. -athar is now a viable ending for names, kinda knightly, almost like "Arthur" but also Drax is a morpheme that people in this culture don't find weird, a punchy plosive rolling into a fricative, strike and roll and hiss, it sounds snakey. You can apply those principles to other names. Snake + knight. There is no deeper logic to "snake" beyond it sounds kinda snakey, bolt it onto a knight of the round table. Kazulad. Rasault. Zilien. Make poo poo up, just make it up consistently. Conlangs are for suckers, and trust me: I spent a lot of time as a sucker. Not sure English follows that guidance. Particularly when it comes to giving people names. We steal our names from all over the place. I think in general this advice applies for insular societies that haven't intermingled with and copied off their neighbours, but otherwise there's probs gonna be a bit of a mix of stuff imo?
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Jun 24, 2022 06:34
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I finished the first draft of my fantasy novel at the end of last year. As this is something I've been writing on and off for a few years (started taking it more seriously last year) I've been working through a second draft to clean everything up. I'm generally happy with how it's going, I feel like it's become a much stronger book, but there is something that's worrying me. The first draft was 280,000 words which was obviously much too long, especially considering the book is less epic fantasy and supposed to be funny. As I've been working through my second draft I've managed to cut a lot but I'll still be coming in around 170,000. Is this still just too long? I've already cut and combined some characters to get this far but if pressed I could probably lose some more. I don't really want to though and the way it's structured would probably be committing me to months more of rewrites to do it. I could cut a bit more without drastic rewrites but as that would maybe reduce it by about 10k I don't know if it'd make much of a difference. So basically, is 170,000 just way too long and if so is there some number I should be aiming for?
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Jun 24, 2022 15:14
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What is your goal for your novel?
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Jun 24, 2022 15:47
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For a fantasy novel ~200,000 is fine, IMO. If the book was action ACTION ACTION then you'd want to get it down to ~100k, probably, but I think a comedy book should be fine at 170K. Beware of Chicken is ~130K and tbh I wish it was bigger.
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Jun 24, 2022 15:52
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170k is long to sell as a first novel. My first sold at 110 and crept up to around 140 in edits. That said, 160k-170k might pan out if the agent is REALLY excited about it. They'll have to be, though, since that wordcount is a tougher sell. That or I'm completely out of date and talking out of my rear end, I don't know.
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Jun 24, 2022 16:21
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General Battuta posted:My first sold at 110 and crept up to around 140 in edits. if you could/would, I'd appreciate some elaboration on this - your book got significantly longer in edit - did the publisher give feedback that certain characters/plot needed more fleshing out?
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Jun 24, 2022 17:20
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a friendly penguin posted:What is your goal for your novel? I think I want to go the traditional publishing route but I've been concentrating more on finishing the book than what comes after. It's only now I'm coming near the end I'm like "Wait, what do I do with this thing". If nothing pans out I'd consider self publishing but ideally I'd like it to be in bookshops so I can leave open on the terrible author photo page. General Battuta posted:170k is long to sell as a first novel. My first sold at 110 and crept up to around 140 in edits. Thanks, this is pretty useful. I mean honestly I never thought I'd even get it under 200,000 so maybe I'll still be able to knock off a bit more on the third draft. I'm kind of devoting a lot of time to this now and I might as well do what I can to make it more appealing to publishers.
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Jun 24, 2022 17:25
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Fate Accomplice posted:if you could/would, I'd appreciate some elaboration on this - your book got significantly longer in edit - did the publisher give feedback that certain characters/plot needed more fleshing out? A bit, yeah, and I just added a bunch of scenes I liked too. More time to reflect on the book, more time to imagine what else could be going on.
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Jun 24, 2022 17:35
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:Need to be 100% accurate and have everyone pronounce other cultures' words wrong because they have the fantasy version of Wade-Giles. I loving hate conlangs, but I sure as hell love lingustic collisions.
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Jun 24, 2022 17:52
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Messing with grammar and idioms is one of the best ways to convey a non-native speaker when you want to stick with conveying it in English. Another thing non-native speakers do is mix up idioms with metaphors, the difference being metaphors can be paraphrased while idioms are pretty strict about their phrasing and sometimes their metaphorical origin is no longer clear. An example I read in a book about adult language acquisition is sayings like “let the cat out of the bag” would sound weird as “release the feline from the receptacle.” But that weirdness might be exactly what you’re after. Also stuff like the dude who coined “cobra chicken” because he couldn’t remember what a goose was called is wonderful I went the conlang route because I’m dealing with a whole constructed world and actually want to alienate the reader a bit. Like I actually renamed the planets in the solar system after ancient Egyptian gods because it’s a deliberate (internally and meta) political gently caress-you to Eurocentric hegemony and characters in the story mix them up all the time depending on whether they’re from the inner or outer solar system. But also, conlang, made up slang, and foreign words seems to be most useful for poo poo like: - word for thing that doesn’t exist in our language or would be a sloppy analogue, like some alien organ or new tech I made up and have to explain at some point anyway - word is an untranslatable or carries different shades of meaning that would require a lot more English words to get across like Spacer having different casual words for different types of gravity - slang that can easily be gleaned from context - names and titles with cultural meaning I have my protagonist slip into conlang when they get flustered or otherwise stop regulating their speech, are trying to obfuscate a non-conlang speaker (including the reader), or deliberately loving with them by punning and poo poo. It’s so much fun, I go a bit overboard and have to kill a lot of these darlings in future edits lol
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Jun 24, 2022 20:02
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 Blue, Lime Green and Red.
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Jun 24, 2022 20:27
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I'd trade them all for the ability to just look at a chapter and say "that's fine" and move on.
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Jun 24, 2022 21:38
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if 2000 words daily guaranteed implies I can finish my WIP, I'll take 2000 words, banish impostor syndrome, and marketable ideas.
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Jun 24, 2022 22:31
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:There is nothing more realistic than words in one language accidentally being dirty in another. Such as English, where shops are covered with huge signs proudly declaring "DIRTY" in French.
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Jun 24, 2022 22:48
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Doom Mathematic posted:Such as English, where shops are covered with huge signs proudly declaring "DIRTY" in French. In French the phrase for 'pets' is 'our friends, the animals'  Not really relevant, just thought it was cute
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Jun 24, 2022 23:05
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General Battuta posted:170k is long to sell as a first novel. My first sold at 110 and crept up to around 140 in edits. If I had an MS at 170 I'd start thinking about ways to split it into two books tbh. If the cuts from 280k hurt too much, add it back in then trilogy that poo poo. That does happen, pretty sure Rothfuss wrote a massive complete MS then when he sold it they asked him to split it into three. (no fuckin idea what happened to that last third, but that's the scuttlebutt, the "trilogy" was complete in like '08) Gives you space to bulk, and bulk is sorta inevitable in revision. I'm a massive gardener who cuts like crazy and I still added around 30k working with a trad editor. Trilogies are a hard sell but having the whole thing done obviates a lot of publisher concern around completion and would help your chances a lot. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Jun 25, 2022 |
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Jun 24, 2022 23:43
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Junpei posted:
Blue, Lime Green, Purple. All my other problems could be worked on if I just sat down and actually wrote or revised
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Jun 25, 2022 00:56
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Junpei posted:
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Jun 25, 2022 04:20
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I do not see "good words" or "quality book" anywhere in this chart?  Popeston posted:Is this still just too long? I've already cut and combined some characters to get this far but if pressed I could probably lose some more. I don't really want to though and the way it's structured would probably be committing me to months more of rewrites to do it. I could cut a bit more without drastic rewrites but as that would maybe reduce it by about 10k I don't know if it'd make much of a difference. Popeston posted:I think I want to go the traditional publishing route but I've been concentrating more on finishing the book than what comes after. It's only now I'm coming near the end I'm like "Wait, what do I do with this thing". If nothing pans out I'd consider self publishing but ideally I'd like it to be in bookshops so I can leave open on the terrible author photo page. I'd split, if you can. Even in self-pub, going over 150k can be problematic, because it's hard to keep up momentum with subsequent releases. You kind of need to be able to put out a book every year at least (ideally 2). Will Wight's books are somewhere between 80-145k words long usually and he puts out 2 books a year. But if you can't split it, you could try marketing it as a standalone. It's harder but you can do it. The Priory of the Orange Tree was about 260k words and it found an audience. EDIT: how tight is your prose? Because if you're structurally solid, you may be able to cut a good chunk during line edits. I cut about 10% of filler/weak prose during line edits.
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Jun 25, 2022 05:02
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Leng posted:I'd split, if you can. Even in self-pub, going over 150k can be problematic, because it's hard to keep up momentum with subsequent releases. You kind of need to be able to put out a book every year at least (ideally 2). Will Wight's books are somewhere between 80-145k words long usually and he puts out 2 books a year. I’m pretty adamant about not splitting it. It was always supposed to be one book and there’s just no satisfying point to break it. Honestly, a lot of my motivation behind writing the book is I’ve read so many that just end with a shrug and “Guess we’ll find out in book 2!”. I want the book to be pretty standalone, I intend to return to the characters again but I’d like this book to be a satisfying experience on its own. My prose is not lean, my first draft had 350+ 'however's because I have a serious problem. The 100k I lost was mostly jokes that didn’t work anymore, unnecessary world building, or me forgetting that I’d already established something a year earlier. It’s definitely helped the book, there’s very little I’d want to add back in. Dropping another 50,000 is a daunting prospect but I think it's what I need to do. There’s a podcast I listen to called Secrets of Story. I kind of dip in and out of it but there was one episode that really resonated with me. The idea was that there’s three drafts of a book, the author, the artifact and the audience. In the author draft you just write what you want to write. In the artifact draft you work on the book itself, the pacing and the overall structure. In audience draft you identify the barriers to entry and try to remove them. I have no idea if this is a good system but it does feel like what ended up happening to me. When I finished my first draft there were things I wouldn’t even consider cutting but once I got to the second draft I felt they slowed the book down and I cut them. When I finished my first draft losing 100k seemed impossible, I thought 50k max or otherwise I’d butcher the thing, but reading back over it I don’t miss anything I removed. I’m hoping something similar will happen by the time I roll around to the third draft. There's definetely things worse than having too much words but at this stage it's not the hurdle I want to fall at.
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Jun 25, 2022 11:19
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Popeston posted:I’m pretty adamant about not splitting it. It was always supposed to be one book and there’s just no satisfying point to break it. Honestly, a lot of my motivation behind writing the book is I’ve read so many that just end with a shrug and “Guess we’ll find out in book 2!”. I want the book to be pretty standalone, I intend to return to the characters again but I’d like this book to be a satisfying experience on its own. 170k is not the worst for a standalone. Assuming you've got some fat in there (which you will if you haven't done line edits) and that beta readers don't identify glaring any issues, you're probably not too far off 150k after polishing. Which is fine, for fantasy. On that note, have you had any readers go through it yet? If not, maybe now is the time to get some other eyes on it.
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Jun 25, 2022 12:33
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Leng posted:170k is not the worst for a standalone. Assuming you've got some fat in there (which you will if you haven't done line edits) and that beta readers don't identify glaring any issues, you're probably not too far off 150k after polishing. Which is fine, for fantasy. This honestly. Get other eyes on it.
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Jun 25, 2022 15:56
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Leng posted:170k is not the worst for a standalone. Assuming you've got some fat in there (which you will if you haven't done line edits) and that beta readers don't identify glaring any issues, you're probably not too far off 150k after polishing. Which is fine, for fantasy. I hope to get some feedback on it once draft 2 is done, felt wrong to subject anyone to draft 1 when even I got annoyed reading it. My partner has read everything and she’s 100% the reason I’ve gotten this far. However, I suspect she likes me as a human being, which might be colouring her feedback. I have one, maybe two, people I don’t live with lined up to give it a read through and I’d be hoping to have something to send them soon. Assuming I actually finish the revisions for this final chapter on schedule and things don’t drag till the end of July because man, I have too much going on the end of July. Admittedly, it’s all good stuff but being sixth months into a two month second draft I really need to knock this into shape.
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Jun 25, 2022 16:32
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I'll give that podcast a look. I've tried writing-focused podcasts/Youtube channels in the past, and haven't really like any of them. They tend to be hosted by people who don't really write or aren't particularly great writers, which feels mean to say, but those aren't the type of people I'd take advice from.
Coquito Ergo Sum fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Jun 26, 2022 |
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Jun 26, 2022 01:18
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My sf/f manuscript is 180,000~ words and the length of it has been a bit of a sticking point from some of the more detailed rejections I've received.
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Jun 26, 2022 06:17
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Yeah it's gonna be a hard sell, I don't think it's impossible (see: The Priory of the Orange Tree) but it stacks the odds against you in an arena that was already plenty hostile. Generally speaking, the more traditional an SF/F subgenre is, the more it's gonna be okay with longer wordcounts, your epic fantasy/space opera is probably still in with a chance, but I think 180–270k are still too big for a lot of readers and are gonna cause you problems. Not insurmountable problems, but it's definitely gonna make the climb steeper. That said, trad obviously isn't the only way to get a book out there. Self-pub is a viable avenue in-and-of-itself and also a useful springboard for trad hopefuls; I had trouble getting trad-pubbed more for thematic/tonal/genre reasons, so I self-pubbed, the self-pub won awards, then a traditional publisher swept in to pick it up. I proved an "unsellable" book could move copies, and if you believe in a project enough then that's maybe one way to go about it. It's not common but it certainly happens – the obvious big example is 50 Shades, [let's side aside aesthetic judgements for the mo and just think querying] it probably would've hit a brick wall if she'd gone straight to publishers but it used less traditional spaces in order to prove it had a solid base of readers who could be marketed to. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Jun 26, 2022 |
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Jun 26, 2022 08:27
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Or find a really good place to split it in half; worked for Ada Palmer with Too Like the Lightning and Seven Surrenders
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Jun 26, 2022 08:39
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