Stel- La!

[SimonBrooke]

Don't fucking 'show don't tell' me!

I get in trouble for using qualifiers; "she said quietly" that sort of thing.

Show, don't tell.

Dampy, I apologise in advance for ranting at you. It's just that the next idiot cretin to spout that particular bit of stupid unthinking arrant nonsense was going to get it in the neck, and it just happened to be you. The issue of adverbs is completely orthogonal to the issue of showing not telling. Adverbs, like everything else in writing, can certainly be overused. Dammit, anything can be overused. But very often adverbs are the most economical and expressive way of conveying information.

And all showing is telling. You cannot tell a story except by telling it. What the lazy, mindless mantra 'show don't tell' really means is, don't tell what's going on in someone's head; tell, instead, how they behave outwardly. And how they modulate their voice is part of how they behave, outwardly. If someone is unsure of themselves or is expressing sympathy or is in one of half a dozen other states, then part of the way they express that is by talking quietly. Telling the reader that the voice is quiet is showing the reader that the character is in a state which causes them to speak quietly.

Talking quietly is an observable fact. It is 'showing'. It's not 'telling' - if that distinction even means anything at all.

But what the fuck do you want the author to do?

"I don't know," she said.

The VU metres on the nearby tape recorder, which just happened to be switched on and rigged up with microphones, scarcely flickered.

That's better? Or would you prefer

"I don't know," she said.

"EH?" he said. "SPEAK UP A BIT, I CAN'T HEAR YOU."

Of course you wouldn't. No competent author would do that. This is a place where an adverb is the best, the clearest, the most elegant, the most economical solution. The right solution.

"And you know it is," he said, quietly.

I'll add one final thing. You can easily write an average story by obeying all these moronic 'rules'. You can easily write a very bad story by breaking them. But you can only write a truly great story by ripping the whole fucking conventional rule-book into tiny fragments, pouring petrol on those fragments, setting light to them and finally taking the resulting ash to the top of a big hill and scattering it to the winds. Only when you have done that can you begin to be a writer.

 

[Stella_Omega]

.....

I'll add one final thing. You can easily write an average story by obeying all these moronic 'rules'. You can easily write a very bad story by breaking them. But you can only write a truly great story by ripping the whole fucking conventional rule-book into tiny fragments, pouring petrol on those fragments, setting light to them and finally taking the resulting ash to the top of a big hill and scattering it to the winds. Only when you have done that can you begin to be a writer.

You're just adorable when you're mad!

(And I agree with you in every word you've said in your post)

 

[floweringquince]

And Quincie, *ducks slap* those are great examples.

Aw, thanks

(And you can can me "Quincie" if I can call you "Star"

(Aw, c'mon... it beats "Omie," anyway.)

I think that the hard thing about writing dialect is that it will never be exactly right- your n--as will have changed their slang phrases and your story will be outdated thereby.

Yeah, to write anything as "contemporary" is to make it instantly out of date.
And yet, I - well, I wouldn't write at all if I didn't write as well as I can, and (for me, personally, not anyone else) that means I should do everything within reason to get it as close to "right" as possible (which is why I've been reading the boards at www.streetgangs.com: talk about an education for this white girl from the right side of the tracks!


The Scots story is easier in that at least no one will be saying "That is so 1496! Nobody but a stone dork* would still be using that in 1498!" OTOH, I'm having trouble getting access to the Hebrides Board at www.FinDe15thSiecle.com

(I think I'm going to abandon most of the "e'er's" and " 'awa's" (they've already been done to death anyway, not least by some guy named Burns (who was much better at it than I could ever think of being)), leaving just a few in for flavor; and see instead if I can make it sound as if the dialogue has been translated from the Gaelic.)
(At least then if I fail, it'll be more weird than just straight-up awful


And (IMHO), to have an interracial story that does not address The Great N-Word Divide would be to ignore the elephant in the living room. (The characters can leave it unaddressed, if the writer so chooses; but the writer really shouldn't.) (Unless it happens that the n-word never appears in the story at all.)

- quince


(*Now the Scots story is going to have to have a fictional locality called "stohndorch"

 

[SimonBrooke]

The Scots story is easier in that at least no one will be saying "That is so 1496! Nobody but a stone dork* would still be using that in 1498!" OTOH, I'm having trouble getting access to the Hebrides Board at www.FinDe15thSiecle.com

(I think I'm going to abandon most of the "e'er's" and " 'awa's" (they've already been done to death anyway, not least by some guy named Burns (who was much better at it than I could ever think of being)), leaving just a few in for flavor; and see instead if I can make it sound as if the dialogue has been translated from the Gaelic.)

Speaking as someone who is Scots and occasionally writes in Scots, if you try to write 16th Century Scots as if it were a dialect of English you will fail, and fail embarrassingly. The two languages were, at that point in history, only loosely related. Furthermore, a modern English speaking audience would struggle to understand. If you really want to try, immerse yourself in Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis.

I have to warn you its hard work. I've been trying to write a novel in Scots for more than ten years, and I'm failing. Even little things like this are hard.

You'd me much better assume your characters speak Gaelic, and render their speech in English just as you would if they really spoke Mandarin.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Aw, thanks

(And you can can me "Quincie" if I can call you "Star"

(Aw, c'mon... it beats "Omie," anyway.)

mostly, I get called "Godammit, I told you to leave me alone!"

I have to warn you its hard work. I've been trying to write a novel in Scots for more than ten years, and I'm failing. Even little things like this are hard.

That's a bit frustrating to read, for a California Girl who hasn't had her coffee yet...

But even so, Simon, the rhythm of your prose is worth a bit of struggle, I have to say! very well told
What is "haining"?

 

[SimonBrooke]

mostly, I get called "Godammit, I told you to leave me alone!"
That's a bit frustrating to read, for a California Girl who hasn't had her coffee yet...

But even so, Simon, the rhythm of your prose is worth a bit of struggle, I have to say! very well told
What is "haining"?

It's easy to write prose that reads well in Scots. It's a very expressive language. The problem is that apart from a few very old folk there really are no native speakers left. I can't fluently speak Scots, and I don't know anyone else of my generation who can. Which makes it very hard to write something which is not just accented English - which is pretty much what we speak these days.

The verb to hain is to defend or protect.

 

[Stella_Omega]

It's easy to write prose that reads well in Scots. It's a very expressive language. The problem is that apart from a few very old folk there really are no native speakers left. I can't fluently speak Scots, and I don't know anyone else of my generation who can. Which makes it very hard to write something which is not just accented English - which is pretty much what we speak these days.

The verb to hain is to defend or protect.

There have been a few authors who write in an "antique" speech- English, not Scots- that have impressed me with their fluidity. One is William Morris, "The Roots of the Mountains" and "The Glittering Plain" which I found enthralling. Another is R.E. Eddison. His books can be tedious, but "The Worm Orouboros" is gripping, after a bland beginning. And the ability to crack wise in Middle English... This passage is writ upon my heart;

By then was water brought in, and Brandoch Daha would have given him to drink. But Corinius* would have none of it, but jerked his head aside and o'erset the cup, and looking fiercely on Lord Brandoch Daha, "Vile fellow," he said, "so thou too art come to insult on Witchland's grave? Thou'dst strike me now into the centre, and thou wert not more a dancing madam than a soldier."

"How?" said Brandoch Daha. "Say a dog bite me in the ham: must I bite him again i' the same part?"

*(Corinius is utterly evil, and fierce, and has been poisoned by one of his court. He's killed Brandoch Daha's wife and children, and burned his castle and the town around it. Which is why Daha's return is so poignant to me)

IF anyone is interested, the whole thing can be read online here

www.sacred-texts.com is an amazing free e-library of all sorts of stuff, by the way. Folk and fairy tales, lots of Celtic lore, who knows what. Wonderful reference site!

 

[floweringquince]

I have to warn you its hard work....

You'd me much better assume your characters speak Gaelic, and render their speech in English just as you would if they really spoke Mandarin.

You're quite right, Simon. I am slowly figuring out that I could work very hard and eventually produce something in mediocre pseudo-Scots; or work very, very, very hard and possibly produce something in readable modern English with some subtle flavoring of Gaelic. (Or I could pack it all in and devote myself to something comparatively easy, like lighting fires in a rainstorm using flint-&-steel and damp tinder

But I'll disagree that I should just pretend they're all speaking Mandarin. If you take the Modern English line:

"I've never been beautiful."

my very poorly educated guess is that a direct translation of the closest sentiment in Mandarin might be something like:

"This person beauty has not had."

while a direct translation of the closest sentiment in Gaelic might be:

"Never has beauty been on me."


Now, I don't speak Mandarin any more than I speak Gaelic, but I have been fascinated for a long time by the accents and inflection brought to English those who are learing it as as second language. Since transfomations, borrowings, and bastardizations from others languages are the stuff of what English *is*, I like to think that (Warning: More Arrogance Ahead) I can see in "broken" or accented English bits of how the langage was made, and is still being made.

And the construction "Never has beauty been on me" is probably not how that line will read in the book, but more the rough basis on which I will eventually find the way I want to express that idea. (I'm afraid I'm showing you the sausage being made here; it's no wonder you're losing your appetite

Now the idea that I can learn, gather, surmise, beg, borrow, and steal enough of an understanding of Gaelic to actually pull this off is either preposterous, arrogant, or means that I'm in for a lot of hard work. (Or else all three.)

- quince, off to damp down all the tinder and pray for rain


PS. Simon, that piece you posted the link to is just lovely. Thank you

 

[Stella_Omega]

while a direct translation of the closest sentiment in Gaelic might be:

"Never has beauty been on me."

That works. That works absolutely for me.

 

[floweringquince]

That works. That works absolutely for me.

Thanks, Star.

 

[joeys-game]

STELLA!!!!!!!

I like that Simon dude, he makes sense.

 

[SimonBrooke]

while a direct translation of the closest sentiment in Gaelic might be:

"Never has beauty been on me."

That works. That works absolutely for me.

It works for me, too, and I think that's the way to go. The thing is, firstly, if you've got a Highland setting then your characters almost certainly would have spoken Gaelic; and secondly, even modern Scots is probably pretty tough on an English speaking audience.

In a story I'm writing just now I have one of my characters drop into a modern Glasgow street argot when attacked:

Silence in the van, both of us panting a bit; and then she laughed, more angry than frightened.

"Fit are ye goin' tae do noo, ye stupit bastard? Ye'll need ma breeks aff tae rape me, an' ye's'll no get them aff wi' ma laigs caa'd doon."

I pulled the knife out of my pocket, opened the blade, pulled the waistband of her jeans away from her skin, and cut through it, slicing the fabric down her leg. She went very still.

"No sae glaikit then, mister. An I speir gin I skelloch ye's'll cut me?"

There are things you can do to imply a Scots speaker when writing English (e.g., where an English speaker would say 'you won't', a Scots speaker is likely to say 'you'll not'; where a Scots speaker will use 'I doubt' to mean 'I think', an English speaker saying 'I doubt' means 'I don't think'). But I think implying Gaelic will be a lot less hard work.

 

[Stella_Omega]

double posted!

 

[Stella_Omega]

The American says;

Silence in the van, both of us panting a bit; and then she laughed, more angry than frightened.

"Fit are ye goin' tae do noo, ye stupit bastard? Ye'll need ma breeks aff tae rape me, an' ye's'll no get them aff wi' ma laigs caa'd doon."

I pulled the knife out of my pocket, opened the blade, pulled the waistband of her jeans away from her skin, and cut through it, slicing the fabric down her leg. She went very still.

"No sae glaikit then, mister. An I speir gin I skelloch ye's'll cut me?"

I can easily get the gist of her first sentence, but the not the second. In the first, the only word that is really unusual to me is "caa'd" and by the context I can tell that it probably means "tied" or something along those lines. In the second, I can tell that "sae" might mean "so" and I've heard "Skelloch" but I don't know "glaikit" or "speir" and the context isn't quite strong enough for me to interpret them

 

[SimonBrooke]

The American says;

I can easily get the gist of her first sentence, but the not the second. In the first, the only word that is really unusual to me is "caa'd" and by the context I can tell that it probably means "tied" or something along those lines. In the second, I can tell that "sae" might mean "so" and I've heard "Skelloch" but I don't know "glaikit" or "speir" and the context isn't quite strong enough for me to interpret them

Yes, this is the problem.

I really don't want to get boring and into politics and stuff; but a language really is a dialect with an army. There really isn't that much difference linguistically between English and Dutch, but we treat them as different languages. As little as a hundred years ago, there was at least as much difference between English and Scots as between English and Dutch. They're all languages descended from the same Old Low German roots...

We've all heard the stories about Welsh or Cornish or Gaelic speaking children punished for using their own mother tongue (and I'm sure Cloudy could fill us in with more examples from your side of the pond); and we've all thought 'oh, how terrible'. Well, in Scotland today, children are still being taught not to speak Scots.

But to go back to floweringquince's problem - if she were writing a story set in 16th century Holland, she would have her characters speak modern English (perhaps with a little Dutch flavouring).

 

[floweringquince]

But to go back to floweringquince's problem - if she were writing a story set in 16th century Holland, she would have her characters speak modern English (perhaps with a little Dutch flavouring).

Of course.

It's how to add the Dutch, or Mandarin, or Scots or Gaelic flavoring that's the tricky part - and the fun part (step one: if you want to sound like a Brit, you need to spell "flavour" with a 'u'

So, now all I have to do know is learn enough Gaelic to give all my dialogue Gaelic-flavored word orders and sentence structures, and to toss in an occasional Gaelic expression to be made clear by the context (A chial!

I doubt that this is going to be any *easier* than trying to learn, and write in, Scots English: I just think I have a better chance of success

- quince the intrepid


PS to Simon:
Aw, c'mon - Glaswegian doesn't count! No one from anywhere but Glasgow can understand it: even Scotfilm puts English subtitles on their slice-of-Glaswegian-life films.
(I have been able to make out a few words - apparently a great many things can be expressed by the phrase "for the sake of fuck, innit?"

 

[Stella_Omega]

There's a lovely novel called "Bridge Of Birds" by Barry Hughart that is high on my recommended reading list. it is a "novel of Ancient China that never was" and it's written by a Sinologist, and it gives, I'm told, an excellent flavor of Mandarin speech, without using one single word of the language.

I'm not capable of judging that myself, but I'd like to be able to, not least because I'd like to know who he did it...

 

[Stella_Omega]

I wanna see how you guys think my language exercise came out.


(Note; these are more or less actual words, but they do NOT mean what Charlie claims they do ; they are still placeholders until I get something more actual, but at least they give the flavor of the language)

"Christ almighty, Charlie," Jamie says when he can speak again. Charlie responds in his incomprehensible lingo, catches the quizzical look, and grins, shakily.

"I said tis ye, Jamie, ye're so..." He goes pink; "I c'd do it over and over w'ye, I rec'n..."

"Fuckable," Jamie supplies, and giggles. Charlie's blush becomes rosier.

"Ye talk mighty profane."

"It's from living on the ship, mate, you get used to it— 'sides, what else c'n you call it? Fucking's fucking." And Jamie squirms against the big body that holds him, remembering just what kind of fucking he'd given, and taken, moments ago.

"Ishichigey," Charlie says.

"An' what's that mean?" Jamie is hypnotised by the Adam's apple adorning the strong neck. He puts his mouth over it, and feels Charlie's voice vibrating on his lips: "What we done."

"Ishichigey means fucking?"

"Reckon so," Charlie admits, and Jamie is thoroughly entertained by the flush that races over his chest.

"You said a lot of that zargon,” he says mischievously. "What else is there?" He winds his fingers into the springing curls, when Charlie tries to turn his head away. How can so randy a creature be this shy? "C'mon, teach me."

"Nagamo ne besho han ninoondey minikwey nini awey,” Charlie says through the sweetest grin that Jamie's ever seen.

"Now, tell me what you said," he demands in great glee.

"Nagamo well, that means my prick. An' nini awey that's what I call you, like— "

"What do you call me?" Jamie asks, and Charlie looks a little perplexed.

"Dunno, rightly, 's just th' one you... want to see, more'n anyone..."

"Sweetheart, mate, lover," says Jamie, and he's looking straight at Charlie.

"Yehh...” Charlie says on one of his sighing notes. "An' besho... that's thissere." His hand slides down Jamie's back to the cleft of his buttocks, and strokes the pucker there, making Jamie hiss and tighten his hands momentarily. "Ninoondey minikwey means I'm happy, but more like... " he takes Jamie's hand and places it on his breast, over his strong, steady, thumping heart. "An' that's all what I said then."

"Oh, Charlie." Jamie, still ringing from their recent lovemaking, is overcome with the romanticism of the halting declarations. His thumb strokes over Charlie's face, making Charlie turn into the caress, lashes fluttering, while he mulls these words over. Then the import comes to him, and he chuffs with laughter. "Y' know what you said, mate, you said that you love t' put your cock up my arse and bugger me blind."

Charlie stiffens in prudish shock, and then his grin widens impossibly more. "Naw, that'd be— " and another little spate of words tumbles from his lips. Then he owns Jamie once more, with his arms and hands and his kiss.

and then later;

"Nay, Jamie, don't, for if they saw ye— an' saw me— " Charlie's head emerges from his shirt; "I fear they'd surely know."

"Aye,” Jamie agrees. "They'd know, nini awey." Charlie grins. "Did I say it aright?" Jamie asks, and Charlie mutters; "Close enow."

 

[Belegon]

I love this thread.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I love this thread.

I wish more people would contribute- hint, hint, guys?

 

[Belegon]

Dialouge tags as a subject then.

My pendulum has swung on this. I went from using too many to not using enough. It is so easy for me to get into the flow of a conversation between characters and just completely forget them. Of course, that's not too bad when you have only two people in the conversation. It's when you get three or more that it gets dangerous.

In my most recent piece I went too far with the naming thing. Averaging about a 1000 words per writing session, I ended up using the characters names in dialouge every thousand words or so. Because, to me there was a need to reestablish who was who. Of course, when you sit down and read it the name was only a few paragraphs ago, not the 24 elapsed hours that the writer had experienced. My editor caught it.

My first real dispute with an editor was over adverbial dialouge tags. I've worked hard to eliminate 'em. They have their place, but they can also be a crutch. So I try and keep them at an absolute minimum.

First submission to Venus Press, the first edit comes back and the woman they assigned to edit us has sprinkled them throughout my text. I was furious. I calmed down before doing anything about it, but still...I resisted the temptation to just hit "reject all changes". I left a couple in...threw out the rest. I was worried I was committing career suicide (it was only my second piece accepted for publication.) But I couldn't let them stay. They ruined my flow.