This will be a short post, because it's late.
The Nebulas have been amazing. I've met people who write for Analog magazine, and writers I've admired for years. I discovered that Sheila Williams from Asimov's knows my name (imagine my thrill of shock!). I got to chat with a movie writer/producer. I spoke to an agent about my book. I sat five feet away from Robert Silverberg at the banquet, and got to shake hands with Wil Wheaton.
It's been an exciting and emotional weekend.
I miss my beloved husband, and my two lovely children, very much.
I'll be going home tomorrow.
More soon...
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
A reminder to my readers...
...that I am leaving for the Nebula weekend tomorrow. I hope to be able to post from there, but if I seem a little distracted, that's why :-) .
I'm very excited, as this will be my first big SF/F function outside my immediate area.
I'm very excited, as this will be my first big SF/F function outside my immediate area.
Workshop: Making a first impression
In my first workshop, I began by summarizing what people had sent to me, in part because I hadn't established the posting standards I would use for the workshop. Then I went into knowledge sets, otherwise known as technology sets. (This will sound familiar for David and Catreona). Today I'm going to approach this from the angle of making a first impression.
For those who have never heard me use the expression before, a knowledge, or technology, set is a group of concepts that seem to go naturally together. Spaceships and talking computers, for example. Or cell phones and computer viruses and iPods and television. Or stone châteaux, torches, and swords. There are tons and tons of these, sets of concepts linked together by the associations of the words that evoke them. If you want to check out my knowledge sets post from the first workshop, it's here. You might also find interesting my discussion of semantics and word meaning associations, here.
The trick with these sets is that they are very strong, and sometimes it only takes a word or two to evoke them. So when introducing your world for the first time, you want to focus on words that evoke the technology set you want, and you want to avoid any that send readers' expectations astray. If you need a particular concept, but don't want its associations, then you have to defeat those expectations as soon as possible.
Here's an example from my Varin world. Whenever I start talking about the caste of the nobility, I have to watch out. Why? Because nobility evokes medieval knowledge sets in fantasy readers. Caste is less directly indicative, but the simple word nobility has incredible power. I have to make sure that I insert an obvious reference to high technology (electric lights, etc.) as soon as possible to defeat the unwanted medieval set.
How fast do knowledge sets take hold? Here's another example, the first sentence of my forthcoming Analog story, "Cold Words":
I scent human outside the door: our linguist, Parker.
1. By the time you get to the word "human," you already have aliens in mind, and that brings you spaceships, and that brings you everything that goes along with them.
2. "Scent" is a word associated with hunting, so I've also accessed a knowledge set that suggests the human might get eaten - and I don't want that. So I add "outside the door" in order to defeat that knowledge set, and place the protagonist in a building.
3. The phrase "our linguist, Parker" has the word "our," which suggests that there is a relationship between the protagonist's group and the human in question. "Linguist" specifies the nature of that relationship. "Parker" is a modern-day typical last name, which finalizes the placement of the world in a place directly related to present-day Earth.
This is just to give you a sense of what can happen in the space of nine words, and to give a bit of background for how I'll approach your work today. I encourage you to go back and take a look at my post on knowledge sets, particularly. What I'll do now is try to find the most world-evocative words or phrases in each of your pieces, let you know what they're telling me, and what you might want to work with.
From Khajidu's excerpt:
"Gods" suggests a place where multiple gods are worshipped, or at least revered in some way. This is not a phrase I've ever heard used in an Earth context, so my first thought is "fantasy world." The name "Xodull" confirms the fantasy world setting. The word "shitting" throws me off a little. Not that I haven't seen the word "shit" used in fantasy before, but it always comes across to me as very local to Earth, and the way you have used it here seems almost British. After that comes "concert." There are lots of different kinds of concerts, but the type is unspecified, so I can't choose medieval or renaissance orchestra, or rock concert. I'm still looking for hints. "Canal bank" gives me a setting that isn't obviously high-technology, but can't rule it out. After that I notice "evolution" treated as an unknown concept - but based on what comes before, I'm actually surprised to hear them mention something scientific like that at all. The word "evolution" is very much Earth-associated for me. "Sailor's necklace" is an unfamiliar term, and a great opportunity to give readers more about the technology of this world. I wish I didn't have to wait until "relationships with their ships" to get a hint. "Sky-Hierarch-Elect's husband" is incredibly specific, and very interesting. I want to see it earlier if it's relevant, and to understand better who such a person might be and how he might relate to our two protagonists. "Orlêzh" seems to be a type of location, but since it's not English, we get no associations, so please give us some hints in the surrounding text to let us know where you're going.
From Colin F.'s excerpt:
"Barkeep" and "beer" for me evoked a technology image from Earth's past, and thus the name "Lanuz" brought me to the conclusion that this is a fantasy world. "Mechanic" surprised and interested me, bringing me to the conclusion that this might be an industrial-revolution setting. If any of this is wrong, I would suggest adding more specific details to place each element. "To Order," was fascinating, but not followed up. Maybe you could give an internalized reason why Lanuz would be giving such honor to the concept? "Strange equipment" is the first hint I get that Lanuz is not at home in this setting - I'd like to see this more up front. "Nerve endings" surprised me, because I don't ordinarily expect a "mechanic" to have sophisticated medical knowledge. The "torch" fits with industrial age, but the view outside the window gives us "armored helm" which sounds medieval-ish, "metal horse," which sounds rather Steampunk. Then there's "sword," which again sounds medieval-ish. I come out at the end rather confused. Given what you've described, which is that there are two time periods involved, and that both are declines from past human colonization of a planet, I'm looking for more specifics. I'll go into this in more depth as the workshop progresses, but you should try to use Lanuz as your vehicle for the reader's understanding. What he knows should be what the reader knows, and even if he doesn't know about the Earth connection, he should have an awareness from the very beginning that he's in a foreign place, hurting and needs help, but everything around him is unfamiliar, and he doesn't know what kind of help he'll get.
3. Jeanne Tomlin
The name "Wrai" tells us this isn't a real world. I immediately notice "window-cracking" as a metaphor for breaking and entering - and I like it. It definitely takes us away from the more generic associations of, say, "thief." "Sharista" fits with Wrai. "Dice" are emotionally evocative but very flexible in their time/place association. "Executioner" immediately gives me the black-hooded guy with the axe, and makes me think of medieval technology. It also makes me think of death, so I'm not sure it's quite the right word for someone who cuts of your hands only. "Flogging" gives me a similar old-English feel. "Leather and homespun" works with this as well, and so does "inn," and the "muddy street." As we discussed, you might look for another name for Shelton so that we don't tip over into thinking this is a fantasy England. You say that these people fled from another place in order to settle here. For what reason? Ethnic, religious? Their origin might give you a direction for how they'd name their towns. The word "workers" stood out as too generic. This is a great opportunity to show critical elements of your world. What kind of workers are they? Can you add one or two words to tell me? "Manse" was interesting in that it is non-standard, but I wasn't sure of the shape of these places. Are they the same as the brick houses? "Carriage" moves the time period up considerably, maybe to the 1700's. "Summer wine" feels very English/faery to me. "Hickory-wood" seems very English also; I'd avoid "hickory" because it is not a generic-sounding wood, and will evoke Earth or a fantasy equivalent. I'll stop listing words because they're all rather well-aligned with one another. You're definitely getting a fantasy-Earth-England-1700's tech thing going here. If that's not what you want, then you might look for places to defeat it. Add in something early on that is unique to your world, so that people's expectations are deflected slightly. You might want to check out this post for ideas for your naming/language issue.
4. David Marshall
The first word I notice here is "ancient beyond imagining." That evokes Egypt, or ancient magic, etc. - the word "ancient" has a very specific meaning in our world. "Telepath" is something I associate with modern stories. "Tequila" puts us somewhere in relation to Earth, and "Veil" tells us we're not on Earth - but note that we have nothing so far that unequivocally places the current time period. "Beer"/"liquor"/"tequila" are all Earth things, but still could be stuff she gets from across the Veil, and we know nothing about the circumstances under which she crosses it, except for "smuggles." So far she could be a goddess who lives outside of the Earth universe an happens to like alcohol. "SoundPod" is a very science-fiction-y coined word, and "Lingerie Valkyries" is very Earth, too (so is "Valhalla"). Evidence is mounting that she is on Earth right now, probably in some Earth future. But can she be on Earth and not on Earth at the same time? Evidently so, but we get no information as to the relation between the two places. The Veil could be a dimensional border, or it could be a time-travel barrier - we don't know. "Voidwatch" is interesting, but not terribly informative; I have to assume because of "watch" that it is related to some kind of police function. "Cybergirl" gives me another hint that we're on future Earth, making the idea of the Veil as a time-travel barrier more persuasive. This may be why I have little idea what our protagonist means when she talks about the "Thin Red Line between Reality and Chaos." She could mean that the Voidwatch wear red uniforms (ref. The Thin Blue Line) - she could mean that the appearance of the Veil is red. We don't know. I want her character, and her knowledge of the world, to be more present in this excerpt. I'll discuss that a bit more later as we move forward.
5. Catreona
The first word I see here is "well shaft," but wells can exist in all sorts of places, so I don't know where I am yet. I notice "thanked the Lord" and it suggests Earth religion - a hint about our protagonist, but it doesn't say much about the location. Not until the word "humans" do I have an idea that there might be aliens involved. This is confirmed by "Strlinkmr" later in the same sentence. "Colonists" tells me this is an Earth colony on an alien planet, which gives me spaceships, and all the technology thereunto appertaining. But we don't see any of it in the environment, which seems very distant. Then she withdraws from it, giving us even less. "Black hole's event horizon" fits with the alien planet idea. She remembers (vaguely) the "Black hole of Calcutta," so she has studied Earth history. Her description of it seems to repeat the description of her current situation, and doesn't add a lot. "Keith" and "Tuesday" tell me that the universe still has standard Earth names; totally fine. "Prosperous little farm" makes me think of an American or English homestead, and I need details to show me how farming on Strlinkmrlad differs from that on Earth, because surely it does. "Concourse" is a curious word, but I don't know what it means. "Spaceport" fits with the alien colony image. My biggest concern here is that I have no sense of the environment at all. It seems completely generic to the "alien colony" idea, and I know nothing about the Strlinkmr except that they're impassive and similar to one another. I need visuals; I need details. Cindy's experience needs to be unique and personal to her, and grounded in her understanding of her world.
I welcome your comments. Please ask for clarification if you need to; if you think that I've missed something, explain it to me and we'll try to see how it can be fitted in. For those who want a peek into the future, I'm going to be laying my eleven world questions on you very soon. They are here: look specifically at second set, the close character-based versions of the questions, and feel free to start getting thoughts.
More soon...
For those who have never heard me use the expression before, a knowledge, or technology, set is a group of concepts that seem to go naturally together. Spaceships and talking computers, for example. Or cell phones and computer viruses and iPods and television. Or stone châteaux, torches, and swords. There are tons and tons of these, sets of concepts linked together by the associations of the words that evoke them. If you want to check out my knowledge sets post from the first workshop, it's here. You might also find interesting my discussion of semantics and word meaning associations, here.
The trick with these sets is that they are very strong, and sometimes it only takes a word or two to evoke them. So when introducing your world for the first time, you want to focus on words that evoke the technology set you want, and you want to avoid any that send readers' expectations astray. If you need a particular concept, but don't want its associations, then you have to defeat those expectations as soon as possible.
Here's an example from my Varin world. Whenever I start talking about the caste of the nobility, I have to watch out. Why? Because nobility evokes medieval knowledge sets in fantasy readers. Caste is less directly indicative, but the simple word nobility has incredible power. I have to make sure that I insert an obvious reference to high technology (electric lights, etc.) as soon as possible to defeat the unwanted medieval set.
How fast do knowledge sets take hold? Here's another example, the first sentence of my forthcoming Analog story, "Cold Words":
I scent human outside the door: our linguist, Parker.
1. By the time you get to the word "human," you already have aliens in mind, and that brings you spaceships, and that brings you everything that goes along with them.
2. "Scent" is a word associated with hunting, so I've also accessed a knowledge set that suggests the human might get eaten - and I don't want that. So I add "outside the door" in order to defeat that knowledge set, and place the protagonist in a building.
3. The phrase "our linguist, Parker" has the word "our," which suggests that there is a relationship between the protagonist's group and the human in question. "Linguist" specifies the nature of that relationship. "Parker" is a modern-day typical last name, which finalizes the placement of the world in a place directly related to present-day Earth.
This is just to give you a sense of what can happen in the space of nine words, and to give a bit of background for how I'll approach your work today. I encourage you to go back and take a look at my post on knowledge sets, particularly. What I'll do now is try to find the most world-evocative words or phrases in each of your pieces, let you know what they're telling me, and what you might want to work with.
From Khajidu's excerpt:
"Gods" suggests a place where multiple gods are worshipped, or at least revered in some way. This is not a phrase I've ever heard used in an Earth context, so my first thought is "fantasy world." The name "Xodull" confirms the fantasy world setting. The word "shitting" throws me off a little. Not that I haven't seen the word "shit" used in fantasy before, but it always comes across to me as very local to Earth, and the way you have used it here seems almost British. After that comes "concert." There are lots of different kinds of concerts, but the type is unspecified, so I can't choose medieval or renaissance orchestra, or rock concert. I'm still looking for hints. "Canal bank" gives me a setting that isn't obviously high-technology, but can't rule it out. After that I notice "evolution" treated as an unknown concept - but based on what comes before, I'm actually surprised to hear them mention something scientific like that at all. The word "evolution" is very much Earth-associated for me. "Sailor's necklace" is an unfamiliar term, and a great opportunity to give readers more about the technology of this world. I wish I didn't have to wait until "relationships with their ships" to get a hint. "Sky-Hierarch-Elect's husband" is incredibly specific, and very interesting. I want to see it earlier if it's relevant, and to understand better who such a person might be and how he might relate to our two protagonists. "Orlêzh" seems to be a type of location, but since it's not English, we get no associations, so please give us some hints in the surrounding text to let us know where you're going.
From Colin F.'s excerpt:
"Barkeep" and "beer" for me evoked a technology image from Earth's past, and thus the name "Lanuz" brought me to the conclusion that this is a fantasy world. "Mechanic" surprised and interested me, bringing me to the conclusion that this might be an industrial-revolution setting. If any of this is wrong, I would suggest adding more specific details to place each element. "To Order," was fascinating, but not followed up. Maybe you could give an internalized reason why Lanuz would be giving such honor to the concept? "Strange equipment" is the first hint I get that Lanuz is not at home in this setting - I'd like to see this more up front. "Nerve endings" surprised me, because I don't ordinarily expect a "mechanic" to have sophisticated medical knowledge. The "torch" fits with industrial age, but the view outside the window gives us "armored helm" which sounds medieval-ish, "metal horse," which sounds rather Steampunk. Then there's "sword," which again sounds medieval-ish. I come out at the end rather confused. Given what you've described, which is that there are two time periods involved, and that both are declines from past human colonization of a planet, I'm looking for more specifics. I'll go into this in more depth as the workshop progresses, but you should try to use Lanuz as your vehicle for the reader's understanding. What he knows should be what the reader knows, and even if he doesn't know about the Earth connection, he should have an awareness from the very beginning that he's in a foreign place, hurting and needs help, but everything around him is unfamiliar, and he doesn't know what kind of help he'll get.
3. Jeanne Tomlin
The name "Wrai" tells us this isn't a real world. I immediately notice "window-cracking" as a metaphor for breaking and entering - and I like it. It definitely takes us away from the more generic associations of, say, "thief." "Sharista" fits with Wrai. "Dice" are emotionally evocative but very flexible in their time/place association. "Executioner" immediately gives me the black-hooded guy with the axe, and makes me think of medieval technology. It also makes me think of death, so I'm not sure it's quite the right word for someone who cuts of your hands only. "Flogging" gives me a similar old-English feel. "Leather and homespun" works with this as well, and so does "inn," and the "muddy street." As we discussed, you might look for another name for Shelton so that we don't tip over into thinking this is a fantasy England. You say that these people fled from another place in order to settle here. For what reason? Ethnic, religious? Their origin might give you a direction for how they'd name their towns. The word "workers" stood out as too generic. This is a great opportunity to show critical elements of your world. What kind of workers are they? Can you add one or two words to tell me? "Manse" was interesting in that it is non-standard, but I wasn't sure of the shape of these places. Are they the same as the brick houses? "Carriage" moves the time period up considerably, maybe to the 1700's. "Summer wine" feels very English/faery to me. "Hickory-wood" seems very English also; I'd avoid "hickory" because it is not a generic-sounding wood, and will evoke Earth or a fantasy equivalent. I'll stop listing words because they're all rather well-aligned with one another. You're definitely getting a fantasy-Earth-England-1700's tech thing going here. If that's not what you want, then you might look for places to defeat it. Add in something early on that is unique to your world, so that people's expectations are deflected slightly. You might want to check out this post for ideas for your naming/language issue.
4. David Marshall
The first word I notice here is "ancient beyond imagining." That evokes Egypt, or ancient magic, etc. - the word "ancient" has a very specific meaning in our world. "Telepath" is something I associate with modern stories. "Tequila" puts us somewhere in relation to Earth, and "Veil" tells us we're not on Earth - but note that we have nothing so far that unequivocally places the current time period. "Beer"/"liquor"/"tequila" are all Earth things, but still could be stuff she gets from across the Veil, and we know nothing about the circumstances under which she crosses it, except for "smuggles." So far she could be a goddess who lives outside of the Earth universe an happens to like alcohol. "SoundPod" is a very science-fiction-y coined word, and "Lingerie Valkyries" is very Earth, too (so is "Valhalla"). Evidence is mounting that she is on Earth right now, probably in some Earth future. But can she be on Earth and not on Earth at the same time? Evidently so, but we get no information as to the relation between the two places. The Veil could be a dimensional border, or it could be a time-travel barrier - we don't know. "Voidwatch" is interesting, but not terribly informative; I have to assume because of "watch" that it is related to some kind of police function. "Cybergirl" gives me another hint that we're on future Earth, making the idea of the Veil as a time-travel barrier more persuasive. This may be why I have little idea what our protagonist means when she talks about the "Thin Red Line between Reality and Chaos." She could mean that the Voidwatch wear red uniforms (ref. The Thin Blue Line) - she could mean that the appearance of the Veil is red. We don't know. I want her character, and her knowledge of the world, to be more present in this excerpt. I'll discuss that a bit more later as we move forward.
5. Catreona
The first word I see here is "well shaft," but wells can exist in all sorts of places, so I don't know where I am yet. I notice "thanked the Lord" and it suggests Earth religion - a hint about our protagonist, but it doesn't say much about the location. Not until the word "humans" do I have an idea that there might be aliens involved. This is confirmed by "Strlinkmr" later in the same sentence. "Colonists" tells me this is an Earth colony on an alien planet, which gives me spaceships, and all the technology thereunto appertaining. But we don't see any of it in the environment, which seems very distant. Then she withdraws from it, giving us even less. "Black hole's event horizon" fits with the alien planet idea. She remembers (vaguely) the "Black hole of Calcutta," so she has studied Earth history. Her description of it seems to repeat the description of her current situation, and doesn't add a lot. "Keith" and "Tuesday" tell me that the universe still has standard Earth names; totally fine. "Prosperous little farm" makes me think of an American or English homestead, and I need details to show me how farming on Strlinkmrlad differs from that on Earth, because surely it does. "Concourse" is a curious word, but I don't know what it means. "Spaceport" fits with the alien colony image. My biggest concern here is that I have no sense of the environment at all. It seems completely generic to the "alien colony" idea, and I know nothing about the Strlinkmr except that they're impassive and similar to one another. I need visuals; I need details. Cindy's experience needs to be unique and personal to her, and grounded in her understanding of her world.
I welcome your comments. Please ask for clarification if you need to; if you think that I've missed something, explain it to me and we'll try to see how it can be fitted in. For those who want a peek into the future, I'm going to be laying my eleven world questions on you very soon. They are here: look specifically at second set, the close character-based versions of the questions, and feel free to start getting thoughts.
More soon...
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Workshop: Names
Thanks for your patience, everyone. I'm enjoying looking through your work and getting ideas to talk about. I thought I'd start tonight by discussing names, since it's important, but somewhat independent from a lot of other worldbuilding issues. I'm going to try to be in gear on the workshop at this point and say something every day. We'll see how I go - I am traveling to L.A. this weekend for the Nebulas, and I'll try to post about that as well. Let's just say I'll be busy.
So onto names. Some of you have lots of names for people and things, and some have only a few. What I'm looking for is consistency in the sound and feel of the names - if there are to be exceptions, they must have a reason behind them. Here are my thoughts on each piece.
Jeanne: Wrai, Sharista (people), Shelton (place)
Wrai and Sharista feel a bit different from one another, but both are non-English enough that they work just fine. Shelton feels like quite a contrast to this, though - almost too English. The created names establish me as being in a non-Earth setting, but I find myself working hard to counteract a feeling of English-village that I get from the name Shelton. I'll go more into the setting and technology in a forthcoming post.
David: Jasmine Knight, Little Black Riding Hood, Captain Obvious the Masked Wrestler, Cannon Cop, Alaric, Cybergirl (individuals), SoundPod(object), Lingerie Valkyries (band), VoidWatch (group), the Veil
The names Jasmine Knight, Little Black Riding Hood, and Lingerie Valkyries set us in a world that must bear relation to current Earth. Cybergirl makes me think we're probably in some kind of future setting. I get little idea of what the Veil might be (do you the concept of Veils, David? :) ), but I'll ask more about that later. They all fit fine together provided that my assumptions are correct.
Catreona: Cindy, Keith (people), Strlinkmr (aliens), Strlinkmrlad (place)
You've got two types of names, one for humans, and one for aliens (though we don't see any alien individuals). That makes it totally fine for the two to be distinct in their sound systems. Cindy and Keith sound a little too modern-day-Earth to me. Isn't this a far future scenario on a distant planet? I remember you mentioning the Strlinkmr during one of the past workshops, and saying something about how their language was hard to pronounce. Based on these two examples, I'd say they have strange spelling but the language doesn't seem unpronounceable. There are earth languages which use spellings like this where liquids (r, l) take on a syllable value.
Colin: Lanuz, Allen (people)
I found the name Allen normal enough to surprise me when I read your piece. Now, it's possible that Lanuz's home world has different types of names from the world in which he finds himself after the warlock's intervention. I don't think Allen is too totally Earth-normal for a fantasy setting, necessarily, but I don't have much to go on since I have only two examples.
Khajidu: Xodull, Maltur, Tsumw, Tipsy, Zhebvu (individuals), tsu (animal), Orlêzh (place)
There are a lot of names in your piece - maybe more than you need. The ones that work best together sound-wise in my view are Xodull, Maltur, and Orlêzh. Zhebvu could fit into this system, though the "bv" is a surprise. Zhebvu and tsu might work together because of the consonant combinations. Tsumw was hardest for me to pronounce and reconcile with the others. There's also one last issue here: the name Tipsy is what I'd call a translated name - i.e. a name that is a word describing someone/something in English rather than a name that fits into any local language system. You might just want to leave the animal nameless, unless it becomes a critical character later in the story.
I welcome any thoughts you might have. I'll try to take on general setting and technology issues tomorrow.
So onto names. Some of you have lots of names for people and things, and some have only a few. What I'm looking for is consistency in the sound and feel of the names - if there are to be exceptions, they must have a reason behind them. Here are my thoughts on each piece.
Jeanne: Wrai, Sharista (people), Shelton (place)
Wrai and Sharista feel a bit different from one another, but both are non-English enough that they work just fine. Shelton feels like quite a contrast to this, though - almost too English. The created names establish me as being in a non-Earth setting, but I find myself working hard to counteract a feeling of English-village that I get from the name Shelton. I'll go more into the setting and technology in a forthcoming post.
David: Jasmine Knight, Little Black Riding Hood, Captain Obvious the Masked Wrestler, Cannon Cop, Alaric, Cybergirl (individuals), SoundPod(object), Lingerie Valkyries (band), VoidWatch (group), the Veil
The names Jasmine Knight, Little Black Riding Hood, and Lingerie Valkyries set us in a world that must bear relation to current Earth. Cybergirl makes me think we're probably in some kind of future setting. I get little idea of what the Veil might be (do you the concept of Veils, David? :) ), but I'll ask more about that later. They all fit fine together provided that my assumptions are correct.
Catreona: Cindy, Keith (people), Strlinkmr (aliens), Strlinkmrlad (place)
You've got two types of names, one for humans, and one for aliens (though we don't see any alien individuals). That makes it totally fine for the two to be distinct in their sound systems. Cindy and Keith sound a little too modern-day-Earth to me. Isn't this a far future scenario on a distant planet? I remember you mentioning the Strlinkmr during one of the past workshops, and saying something about how their language was hard to pronounce. Based on these two examples, I'd say they have strange spelling but the language doesn't seem unpronounceable. There are earth languages which use spellings like this where liquids (r, l) take on a syllable value.
Colin: Lanuz, Allen (people)
I found the name Allen normal enough to surprise me when I read your piece. Now, it's possible that Lanuz's home world has different types of names from the world in which he finds himself after the warlock's intervention. I don't think Allen is too totally Earth-normal for a fantasy setting, necessarily, but I don't have much to go on since I have only two examples.
Khajidu: Xodull, Maltur, Tsumw, Tipsy, Zhebvu (individuals), tsu (animal), Orlêzh (place)
There are a lot of names in your piece - maybe more than you need. The ones that work best together sound-wise in my view are Xodull, Maltur, and Orlêzh. Zhebvu could fit into this system, though the "bv" is a surprise. Zhebvu and tsu might work together because of the consonant combinations. Tsumw was hardest for me to pronounce and reconcile with the others. There's also one last issue here: the name Tipsy is what I'd call a translated name - i.e. a name that is a word describing someone/something in English rather than a name that fits into any local language system. You might just want to leave the animal nameless, unless it becomes a critical character later in the story.
I welcome any thoughts you might have. I'll try to take on general setting and technology issues tomorrow.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
26 Monkeys: Also the Abyss - A Ridiculously Close Look - with Comments from Kij Johnson!
Today I thought I'd look at a wonderful story - the Nebula-nominated "26 Monkeys: Also the Abyss" by Kij Johnson. This is a story that got me interested from the first, then just got better and better until by the end I was going "wow."
For those curious about point of view, I'll focus on the fact that Kij Johnson uses third person omniscient in this story (I've analyzed this POV once before in my Ridiculously Close Look at The Sparrow). Omniscient point of view is less easy than it looks, because you have to choose which heads to dip into - and when - and why - and then you have to consider who you are when you're not dipping into various character perspectives. It might be easy to think that an omniscient point of view automatically means a storyteller narrator, but trust me, it doesn't. Tolkien makes his omniscient third person a grandfatherly guy at whose knee you want to sit, but Mary Doria Russell does not - and neither does Kij Johnson.
By the time we get to the end of this, I hope to show you why the third person omniscient voice she chose is perfectly and brilliantly suited to the purpose of her story.
Let's get to the text, starting with the title:
26 Monkeys: Also the Abyss
This title surprised me. Monkeys are always evocative - and setting them opposite "The Abyss" made me immediately curious. In fact, this title sets my expectations perfectly for the story to follow: the story considers precisely this relationship between the absurd and the dire.
I immediately notice the numbering, and since this scenelet is only a single line long, I notice that the entire story is set up as a numbered list. There are several lists in the story, in fact - a fact I'll return to below. This line gives us an instant snapshot of the main content of the story, and firmly establishes the monkeys as benign in their intent. It also makes me curious in two ways: first, I'm not sure I expect a woman with a name like Aimee to be running a carnival show; and second, now that I know what Aimee's "big trick" is, I'm anxious to find out how she does it. Notice that the phrasing is not internal to any character. Any stranger might tell me this in exactly these words. Aimee is the only person who couldn't say this naturally.
In the second scenelet, Kij Johnson gives us more, zooming us in further toward our subject. We watch the act progress:
For those curious about point of view, I'll focus on the fact that Kij Johnson uses third person omniscient in this story (I've analyzed this POV once before in my Ridiculously Close Look at The Sparrow). Omniscient point of view is less easy than it looks, because you have to choose which heads to dip into - and when - and why - and then you have to consider who you are when you're not dipping into various character perspectives. It might be easy to think that an omniscient point of view automatically means a storyteller narrator, but trust me, it doesn't. Tolkien makes his omniscient third person a grandfatherly guy at whose knee you want to sit, but Mary Doria Russell does not - and neither does Kij Johnson.
By the time we get to the end of this, I hope to show you why the third person omniscient voice she chose is perfectly and brilliantly suited to the purpose of her story.
Let's get to the text, starting with the title:
26 Monkeys: Also the Abyss
This title surprised me. Monkeys are always evocative - and setting them opposite "The Abyss" made me immediately curious. In fact, this title sets my expectations perfectly for the story to follow: the story considers precisely this relationship between the absurd and the dire.
1.
Aimee's big trick is that she makes twenty-six monkeys vanish onstage.
I immediately notice the numbering, and since this scenelet is only a single line long, I notice that the entire story is set up as a numbered list. There are several lists in the story, in fact - a fact I'll return to below. This line gives us an instant snapshot of the main content of the story, and firmly establishes the monkeys as benign in their intent. It also makes me curious in two ways: first, I'm not sure I expect a woman with a name like Aimee to be running a carnival show; and second, now that I know what Aimee's "big trick" is, I'm anxious to find out how she does it. Notice that the phrasing is not internal to any character. Any stranger might tell me this in exactly these words. Aimee is the only person who couldn't say this naturally.
In the second scenelet, Kij Johnson gives us more, zooming us in further toward our subject. We watch the act progress:
2.
This passage fascinates me because it is still quite distant - and it is omniscient, since we are told what the audience can see - yet it is not entirely impersonal. First, Aimee is the only human identified as a named individual in this passage, which naturally puts our focus on her even though we don't experience her thoughts directly. The audience members remain a faceless mass, and the author deliberately uses passive voice to keep the stagehands out of it ("the bathtub is hoisted"). Look also at these details from the passage:
a claw-foot bathtub
people climb in and look underneath
touch the white enamel
run their hands along the little lions' feet
The quirkiness of the claw-foot bathtub definitely draws my attention, as do the people climbing into it, but I'm struck by the quiet sensitivity of "touch the white enamel" and "run their hands along the little lions' feet." I also notice the monkey, Zeb, who is the first entity besides Aimee to get a name - which makes him personal, and prepares him for a key role later in the story.
These details begin to reveal the narrator as a sensitive observer, a person who can notice small intimacies in the midst of a crowded carnival setting. I don't have many options within the story for who these characteristics might belong to, and I can't help but think they come from Aimee. I find this opinion backed up by the opening of the next scene:
3.
She pushes out a claw-foot bathtub and asks audience members to come up and inspect it. The people climb in and look underneath, touch the white enamel, run their hands along the little lions' feet. When they're done, four chains are lowered from the stage's fly space. Aimee secures them to holes drilled along the tub's lip and gives a signal, and the bathtub is hoisted ten feet into the air.
She sets a stepladder next to it. She claps her hands and the twenty-six monkeys onstage run up the ladder one after the other and jump into the bathtub. The bathtub shakes as each monkey thuds in among the others. The audience can see heads, legs, tails; but eventually every monkey settles and the bathtub is still again. Zeb is always the last monkey up the ladder. As he climbs into the bathtub, he makes a humming boom deep in his chest. It fills the stage.
And then there's a flash of light, two of the chains fall off, and the bathtub swings down to expose its interior.
Empty.
She sets a stepladder next to it. She claps her hands and the twenty-six monkeys onstage run up the ladder one after the other and jump into the bathtub. The bathtub shakes as each monkey thuds in among the others. The audience can see heads, legs, tails; but eventually every monkey settles and the bathtub is still again. Zeb is always the last monkey up the ladder. As he climbs into the bathtub, he makes a humming boom deep in his chest. It fills the stage.
And then there's a flash of light, two of the chains fall off, and the bathtub swings down to expose its interior.
Empty.
This passage fascinates me because it is still quite distant - and it is omniscient, since we are told what the audience can see - yet it is not entirely impersonal. First, Aimee is the only human identified as a named individual in this passage, which naturally puts our focus on her even though we don't experience her thoughts directly. The audience members remain a faceless mass, and the author deliberately uses passive voice to keep the stagehands out of it ("the bathtub is hoisted"). Look also at these details from the passage:
a claw-foot bathtub
people climb in and look underneath
touch the white enamel
run their hands along the little lions' feet
The quirkiness of the claw-foot bathtub definitely draws my attention, as do the people climbing into it, but I'm struck by the quiet sensitivity of "touch the white enamel" and "run their hands along the little lions' feet." I also notice the monkey, Zeb, who is the first entity besides Aimee to get a name - which makes him personal, and prepares him for a key role later in the story.
These details begin to reveal the narrator as a sensitive observer, a person who can notice small intimacies in the midst of a crowded carnival setting. I don't have many options within the story for who these characteristics might belong to, and I can't help but think they come from Aimee. I find this opinion backed up by the opening of the next scene:
They turn up later, back at the tour bus[...]
The choice of "the" tour bus (not "a" tour bus, or "her" tour bus) indicates the tour bus is known information. Who could it be known to besides Aimee? So the narrator is giving us glimpses of Aimee in spite of a generally distant tone. This continues through the scene, with her perceptions of the monkeys coming home, leading us to our first glimpses of her state of mind:
Aimee doesn't really sleep until she hears them all come in. Aimee has no idea what happens to them in the bathtub, or where they go, or what they do before the soft click of the dog door opening. This bothers her a lot.
The interesting thing, at least in my view, is that this is about as close as we get to Aimee. We see her in action at various points in the story, but we never hear her internalized thoughts. Much of the story has this kind of detachment - reinforced by the lists and by the use of colons, and simultaneously mitigated by the use of sensitive details. Here are two more passages to demonstrate:
Aimee has: a nineteen-year-old tour bus packed with cages that range in size from parrot-sized (for the vervets) to something about the size of a pickup bed (for all the macaques); a stack of books on monkeys ranging from All About Monkeys to Evolution and Ecology of Baboon Societies; some sequined show costumes, a sewing machine, and a bunch of Carhartts and tees[...]
Aimee's monkeys:
- 2 siamangs, a mated couple
- 2 squirrel monkeys, though they're so active they might as well be twice as many
- 2 vervets
- a guenon, who is probably pregnant, though it's still too early to tell for sure. Aimee has no idea how this happened
- 3 rhesus monkeys. They juggle a little [...]
The one that really made me think, though, was the list that begins as follows:
These are some ways that Aimee's life might have come apart:
a. She might have broken her ankle a few years ago, and gotten a bone infection that left her on crutches for ten months, and in pain for longer.
Look at the details of the ankle incident and you can't doubt that this is a list of actual events of Aimee's life - yet they're all couched in modal sentences using "might."
When I was first reading the story, I hadn't had a firm handle on the narrator until this point, but this one sealed it for me. The narrator handles the events of Aimee's life, not dispassionately, and not broken-heartedly, but stand-offishly. This voice is not Aimee, precisely. It is not a vehicle for her feelings. Yet it reflects her emotional sensibilities, approaching the most painful areas of her past with a diffidence that suggests she is afraid to approach them too closely. This feels real to me.
I don't really want to provide spoilers here - I want you to go and read the story yourself - so I'll resist my inclination to push my textual analysis any further. However, I do want to share some thoughts on how this narrative voice fits into the story as a whole.
Kij Johnson has chosen to juxtapose Aimee's carnival act - absurd, quirky and inexplicable as it is - with Aimee's terrible grief as a result of terrible events in her life. As the story progresses, Johnson manages to bring the two sides together in a marvelous way, so that they are less contrasting and more congruent.
If she had gone another route, and taken us closer to Aimee's point of view, it would have been easy for us to get mired in the grief itself - and this would have made it far more difficult to grasp the thematic content of the story. By keeping narrative distance, Johnson avoids the trap of protesting too much. She allows us to share Aimee's sensitive observations of the details of her life, and by showing us Aimee's fear of touching her own grief, Johnson allows readers to add their own depth to her story by accessing personal experiences of grief, and of the grieving.
This is more than just a wonderful story. It kept me guessing, and it made me think. And now it has also given me an opportunity to think about third person omniscient in a whole new way.
-----
After I posted this last night, I was lucky enough to exchange messages with Kij Johnson herself, and she gave me her own personal comments on my analysis and the story as a whole, which follow below.
-----
"26 Monkeys" is a very technical story, and as you figured out, almost everything in the story is done with conscious intent. Your thoughts about the distanced narrative voice are solid: we seem never to get far into Aimee's head, except in a clinical way. Except that we do, actually: the narrative voice is entirely into her thoughts and feeling, and the outbursts -- "Because there's always a reason for everything, isn't there?" "Nothing is certain" -- are Aimee's core existential crisis, speaking to the reader without the intervention of Aimee.
People in pain tend to distance themselves from immediate engagement with the pain. Here's an example of displacing: I might be describing a deeply embarrassing moment from my childhood, telling you, "I was telling Eric how terrible the trumpet playing in that song was and he said that was him playing and you just don't know what to say after that. You feel like an idiot." I am uncomfortable enough with what I am saying/feeling that I am trying to push it off onto You.
The narrator is DEEPLY engaged, enmeshed, in Aimee’s feelings; and every time Aimee comes to a really painful realization or memory, the voice pulls back, either into the outbursts, which are clearly You statements -- or, most interestingly (I think) the list of the ways her life might have changed.
The truth of what did happen to take her to this state is the most powerful thing in Aimee's life, so painful and powerful that she (and/or the narrator) not only distances herself by list-making and by switching into the "might have" statements, but even conceals the true reason among a handful of possibilities.
Aimee is most present, and the narrative is at its most conventional, when she's with Geof and Zeb -- who are not part of the core pain.
***
You say the narrator is "standoffish," and that's very insightful. The narrator is intentionally pushing you away from the painful parts, which sets me as writer a really interesting set of challenges. How am I going to keep you, the reader, interested, when Aimee is apparently distanced from the narrative, and my narrator is saying, "Nothing to see here! Move along!" Three things in play here: The intensity of Aimee's experience compensates for the clinical voice. Also, the narrator isn't doing a very good job of directing you away from the pain: her crafted perspective slips frequently into the angry, anguished outbursts. The third tool is the very concrete, specific detail the story is built upon, as you pointed out. The story doesn’t work without the lion’s feet and the rest of it.
There’s another reason for the highly specific, concrete details that are given, especially the lists and the careful descriptions. Aimee – and the narrator, and I – are fixated on these little immediate details, for all the reasons people in deeply-felt pain get caught up in immediate sensation or observation. The numbers heading each section distance us as readers -- the story rejects immersion by coming to you in small segregated chunks – even as it offers itself as a series of “highly specific, concrete details.”
***
There’s all sorts of stuff happening with the language and the sentence structures, as well. But I’ll tell you a way that craft sometimes goes right by the board. The story was called “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” because I had to pick an arbitrary number of monkeys, and there were 26 letters in the alphabet. Zeb’s name ends with a Z because it was the last letter of the alphabet. The theory at first was that there would be 26 sections, as well. I cut some of the sections as I wrote, but I never renumbered the monkeys. And that’s cool. The story includes the notion that not everything in life is going to wrap up perfectly. Even if you read the story carefully, you don’t know exactly how many monkeys there are in it.
***
Thanks for letting me talk about this! :(|)
----
Thank you, Kij Johnson!
The choice of "the" tour bus (not "a" tour bus, or "her" tour bus) indicates the tour bus is known information. Who could it be known to besides Aimee? So the narrator is giving us glimpses of Aimee in spite of a generally distant tone. This continues through the scene, with her perceptions of the monkeys coming home, leading us to our first glimpses of her state of mind:
Aimee doesn't really sleep until she hears them all come in. Aimee has no idea what happens to them in the bathtub, or where they go, or what they do before the soft click of the dog door opening. This bothers her a lot.
The interesting thing, at least in my view, is that this is about as close as we get to Aimee. We see her in action at various points in the story, but we never hear her internalized thoughts. Much of the story has this kind of detachment - reinforced by the lists and by the use of colons, and simultaneously mitigated by the use of sensitive details. Here are two more passages to demonstrate:
Aimee has: a nineteen-year-old tour bus packed with cages that range in size from parrot-sized (for the vervets) to something about the size of a pickup bed (for all the macaques); a stack of books on monkeys ranging from All About Monkeys to Evolution and Ecology of Baboon Societies; some sequined show costumes, a sewing machine, and a bunch of Carhartts and tees[...]
Aimee's monkeys:
- 2 siamangs, a mated couple
- 2 squirrel monkeys, though they're so active they might as well be twice as many
- 2 vervets
- a guenon, who is probably pregnant, though it's still too early to tell for sure. Aimee has no idea how this happened
- 3 rhesus monkeys. They juggle a little [...]
The one that really made me think, though, was the list that begins as follows:
These are some ways that Aimee's life might have come apart:
a. She might have broken her ankle a few years ago, and gotten a bone infection that left her on crutches for ten months, and in pain for longer.
Look at the details of the ankle incident and you can't doubt that this is a list of actual events of Aimee's life - yet they're all couched in modal sentences using "might."
When I was first reading the story, I hadn't had a firm handle on the narrator until this point, but this one sealed it for me. The narrator handles the events of Aimee's life, not dispassionately, and not broken-heartedly, but stand-offishly. This voice is not Aimee, precisely. It is not a vehicle for her feelings. Yet it reflects her emotional sensibilities, approaching the most painful areas of her past with a diffidence that suggests she is afraid to approach them too closely. This feels real to me.
I don't really want to provide spoilers here - I want you to go and read the story yourself - so I'll resist my inclination to push my textual analysis any further. However, I do want to share some thoughts on how this narrative voice fits into the story as a whole.
Kij Johnson has chosen to juxtapose Aimee's carnival act - absurd, quirky and inexplicable as it is - with Aimee's terrible grief as a result of terrible events in her life. As the story progresses, Johnson manages to bring the two sides together in a marvelous way, so that they are less contrasting and more congruent.
If she had gone another route, and taken us closer to Aimee's point of view, it would have been easy for us to get mired in the grief itself - and this would have made it far more difficult to grasp the thematic content of the story. By keeping narrative distance, Johnson avoids the trap of protesting too much. She allows us to share Aimee's sensitive observations of the details of her life, and by showing us Aimee's fear of touching her own grief, Johnson allows readers to add their own depth to her story by accessing personal experiences of grief, and of the grieving.
This is more than just a wonderful story. It kept me guessing, and it made me think. And now it has also given me an opportunity to think about third person omniscient in a whole new way.
-----
After I posted this last night, I was lucky enough to exchange messages with Kij Johnson herself, and she gave me her own personal comments on my analysis and the story as a whole, which follow below.
-----
"26 Monkeys" is a very technical story, and as you figured out, almost everything in the story is done with conscious intent. Your thoughts about the distanced narrative voice are solid: we seem never to get far into Aimee's head, except in a clinical way. Except that we do, actually: the narrative voice is entirely into her thoughts and feeling, and the outbursts -- "Because there's always a reason for everything, isn't there?" "Nothing is certain" -- are Aimee's core existential crisis, speaking to the reader without the intervention of Aimee.
People in pain tend to distance themselves from immediate engagement with the pain. Here's an example of displacing: I might be describing a deeply embarrassing moment from my childhood, telling you, "I was telling Eric how terrible the trumpet playing in that song was and he said that was him playing and you just don't know what to say after that. You feel like an idiot." I am uncomfortable enough with what I am saying/feeling that I am trying to push it off onto You.
The narrator is DEEPLY engaged, enmeshed, in Aimee’s feelings; and every time Aimee comes to a really painful realization or memory, the voice pulls back, either into the outbursts, which are clearly You statements -- or, most interestingly (I think) the list of the ways her life might have changed.
The truth of what did happen to take her to this state is the most powerful thing in Aimee's life, so painful and powerful that she (and/or the narrator) not only distances herself by list-making and by switching into the "might have" statements, but even conceals the true reason among a handful of possibilities.
Aimee is most present, and the narrative is at its most conventional, when she's with Geof and Zeb -- who are not part of the core pain.
***
You say the narrator is "standoffish," and that's very insightful. The narrator is intentionally pushing you away from the painful parts, which sets me as writer a really interesting set of challenges. How am I going to keep you, the reader, interested, when Aimee is apparently distanced from the narrative, and my narrator is saying, "Nothing to see here! Move along!" Three things in play here: The intensity of Aimee's experience compensates for the clinical voice. Also, the narrator isn't doing a very good job of directing you away from the pain: her crafted perspective slips frequently into the angry, anguished outbursts. The third tool is the very concrete, specific detail the story is built upon, as you pointed out. The story doesn’t work without the lion’s feet and the rest of it.
There’s another reason for the highly specific, concrete details that are given, especially the lists and the careful descriptions. Aimee – and the narrator, and I – are fixated on these little immediate details, for all the reasons people in deeply-felt pain get caught up in immediate sensation or observation. The numbers heading each section distance us as readers -- the story rejects immersion by coming to you in small segregated chunks – even as it offers itself as a series of “highly specific, concrete details.”
***
There’s all sorts of stuff happening with the language and the sentence structures, as well. But I’ll tell you a way that craft sometimes goes right by the board. The story was called “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” because I had to pick an arbitrary number of monkeys, and there were 26 letters in the alphabet. Zeb’s name ends with a Z because it was the last letter of the alphabet. The theory at first was that there would be 26 sections, as well. I cut some of the sections as I wrote, but I never renumbered the monkeys. And that’s cool. The story includes the notion that not everything in life is going to wrap up perfectly. Even if you read the story carefully, you don’t know exactly how many monkeys there are in it.
***
Thanks for letting me talk about this! :(|)
----
Thank you, Kij Johnson!
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