Here's a hilarious link to a story from BBC news about research (conducted at Stanford University) into how to get your car to talk to you, help you drive better and become your friend. The fun part is how systematic the research is, and how much they've learned about the linguistic details that influence your emotions.
Check it out here.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Reassessing Your Trajectory
I have this cycle I go through. Usually it starts with having a great idea, either for a new story or for an ongoing draft, jumping on the Muse's bandwagon and careening along joyously for a while. At a certain point, though, I find the momentum of any single idea starts to peter out, and I then go about looking for another solution to a story problem, another form of inspiration, to carry me further forward. It's often a good idea if I'm losing momentum on one story to jump to another for a little while - that too can preserve my overall sense of forward motion and drive as a writer.
Then eventually I hit a point where I'm low on momentum for all my stories. This could be because I'm exhausted, or having energy drawn off my writing by other commitments, or simply because I've got one story problem here, one there, etc. across the board. So at that point I ask myself, "What should I do?"
I reassess my trajectory.
This is amusing inasmuch as it closely resembles the process of evaluating story trajectories - in fact, the story in question is my writing career. I go back to the file where I keep a list of all my finished and ongoing projects. I check to see how many pieces are out on submission, and where. I also check how many pieces are in progress, and how far along they are. Then I look at where I should be putting the most effort in the context of the current state of affairs in my writing - to put it another way, where I should be looking for inspiration.
The state of affairs changes, and my priorities change accordingly.
Back when I had no publications at all (which doesn't seem that long ago), I had ongoing novels and short stories and had to make sure to keep some attention on each side because I didn't know which one was going to break first - but in 2006 I took some of my efforts off fiction for a while and put together a nonfiction piece about point of view. This turned out to be a good move, because I had the piece published in the Internet Review of Science Fiction, and got a really good response from readers. One of the other effects of that piece was to make me feel more confident that I was capable of doing something other people would want to see (fiction or not!).
My first short story publication changed things a lot. I knew I had to keep writing novels because that was something I wanted to do in the long run, and short stories wouldn't necessarily help me move toward that goal. However, when "Let the Word Take Me" sold I realized I was going to be doing both shorts and novels for quite a while, and I made it my goal to try to do another linguistic/cultural alien tale for Analog. The result was several months of intense concentration that culminated in "Cold Words." That story's reception in turn reminded me that I have to keep this linguistic/cultural short story thing going. And I'm doing my best - "At Cross Purposes" has landed and will be coming out toward the end of this year.
Based on this you can easily imagine I was pouring most of my efforts into short stories for a good while - not because I prefer them (I like both lengths for different reasons) but because I felt that was where I could make the biggest visible difference in getting my name out as an author. Once I had a story submitted to Analog I used the lull of waiting for response to turn around and put a bunch of effort into getting my novel, "Through This Gate," submission-ready. This resulted in another period of intense effort that eventually led to my signing with the Grayson Agency in October of last year.
At this point, I have abundant reasons to continue pushing both on the novel front and on the short story front - but things look a little different, too, because I can identify another goal, that of getting published in the fantasy short story arena. Needless to say, no matter how much success you have, there's always another opportunity out there to strive for.
The point I'd like to make to other writers is this: it is a very good idea to take the time to look at your writing career from the bird's eye view, even if you only do it occasionally. Each time you reassess, try to determine whether there is a single area, even a single story, where you can concentrate your efforts for a while to achieve the maximum effect. What the maximum effect will be depends on your own current goals as a writer.
In the same way that a story is not simply made up of cool sentences, but has overall structure and drive, so does a writing career. The Muse has her uses, and she's certainly worth following, but she doesn't necessarily have a good sense of overall direction. That resides with you.
Then eventually I hit a point where I'm low on momentum for all my stories. This could be because I'm exhausted, or having energy drawn off my writing by other commitments, or simply because I've got one story problem here, one there, etc. across the board. So at that point I ask myself, "What should I do?"
I reassess my trajectory.
This is amusing inasmuch as it closely resembles the process of evaluating story trajectories - in fact, the story in question is my writing career. I go back to the file where I keep a list of all my finished and ongoing projects. I check to see how many pieces are out on submission, and where. I also check how many pieces are in progress, and how far along they are. Then I look at where I should be putting the most effort in the context of the current state of affairs in my writing - to put it another way, where I should be looking for inspiration.
The state of affairs changes, and my priorities change accordingly.
Back when I had no publications at all (which doesn't seem that long ago), I had ongoing novels and short stories and had to make sure to keep some attention on each side because I didn't know which one was going to break first - but in 2006 I took some of my efforts off fiction for a while and put together a nonfiction piece about point of view. This turned out to be a good move, because I had the piece published in the Internet Review of Science Fiction, and got a really good response from readers. One of the other effects of that piece was to make me feel more confident that I was capable of doing something other people would want to see (fiction or not!).
My first short story publication changed things a lot. I knew I had to keep writing novels because that was something I wanted to do in the long run, and short stories wouldn't necessarily help me move toward that goal. However, when "Let the Word Take Me" sold I realized I was going to be doing both shorts and novels for quite a while, and I made it my goal to try to do another linguistic/cultural alien tale for Analog. The result was several months of intense concentration that culminated in "Cold Words." That story's reception in turn reminded me that I have to keep this linguistic/cultural short story thing going. And I'm doing my best - "At Cross Purposes" has landed and will be coming out toward the end of this year.
Based on this you can easily imagine I was pouring most of my efforts into short stories for a good while - not because I prefer them (I like both lengths for different reasons) but because I felt that was where I could make the biggest visible difference in getting my name out as an author. Once I had a story submitted to Analog I used the lull of waiting for response to turn around and put a bunch of effort into getting my novel, "Through This Gate," submission-ready. This resulted in another period of intense effort that eventually led to my signing with the Grayson Agency in October of last year.
At this point, I have abundant reasons to continue pushing both on the novel front and on the short story front - but things look a little different, too, because I can identify another goal, that of getting published in the fantasy short story arena. Needless to say, no matter how much success you have, there's always another opportunity out there to strive for.
The point I'd like to make to other writers is this: it is a very good idea to take the time to look at your writing career from the bird's eye view, even if you only do it occasionally. Each time you reassess, try to determine whether there is a single area, even a single story, where you can concentrate your efforts for a while to achieve the maximum effect. What the maximum effect will be depends on your own current goals as a writer.
In the same way that a story is not simply made up of cool sentences, but has overall structure and drive, so does a writing career. The Muse has her uses, and she's certainly worth following, but she doesn't necessarily have a good sense of overall direction. That resides with you.
In defense of adverbs...
Nicola Morgan over at "Help! I Need a Publisher!" has a great post up about using adverbs lazily, and why we shouldn't do it - but why adverbs are so often unfairly maligned. You can find it here.
This fits in well with my general philosophy of grammar: know precisely what grammar does for you, so that you can use it to your advantage when you want, and not let it ambush you from behind.
This fits in well with my general philosophy of grammar: know precisely what grammar does for you, so that you can use it to your advantage when you want, and not let it ambush you from behind.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Whether by telephone or text message, communication is learned
I came across this link today thanks to my friend Andrew Sullivan. In it, a college student expresses how she feels awkward speaking on the phone and thus prefers texting. The comments and quotes around it express how this phenomenon is a sign of our times, etc. - and it is, but I have to think that the true sign of our times isn't the phenomenon itself, only the form of its expression.
Communication is learned. Ever since humans started this whole language thing, it has been a learned behavior. It doesn't matter whether you believe in Universal Grammar or not (which I really don't; see my recent post) - the specific form a language takes, and the way it associates sounds (or gestures!) with meaning and action and social forms is learned. Not only that, but not every person learns it to the same degree, even among native speakers. There have always been those people who have more difficulty with language, and with specific forms of its use.
When I was doing my Masters in Linguistics, I did a small study about how children learned to talk on the telephone. This involved doing some recordings of friends' children (at the time I had none of my own) and taking a look at the patterns of their speech. It quickly became clear to me that telephone talk is managed differently from face-to-face talk, and while the ability to speak well face to face will correlate with better telephone talk, the two are not the same. Children will develop their telephone talk at a similar rate to their regular talk, but appear to be delayed in it because of the increased demands of the telephone as a means of communication. Over the telephone, you have to adjust for the fact that even though you can see everything in front of you, the person you're talking to cannot. This is actually quite a tricky basic concept, and because children learn to speak on the phone very early, you can actually watch them trying to learn it.
Letter writing involves a lack of context, and people have studied to learn how to do that for a very long time (at a later age than they would learn speaking on the telephone, because they need to know how to write). If you compare letter writing to texting, the desire to compress the length of a text message operates against any need for eloquence that might be cultivated in the longer, letter form. Yes, in texting there is the assumption of lack of visual context, but this assumption is precisely the same one that exists for letter writing and for other writing contexts such as writing for a homework assignment. Texting may appear to be easier to learn simply because by the time we're doing it, some of its base assumptions have already been learned and are well established.
Both face to face communication and telephone communication involve a very fast real-time response, while texting and letter writing do not. When people don't feel comfortable with these speed demands, and the risks that accompany an instant response to something that might be misunderstood, they'll typically choose the written format of communication. In this context, Twitter would more closely resemble texting, while instant messaging would fall somewhere in between the telephone and the text message.
Overall, I think that we need to realize that we learn all these methods of communication through practice, and we need to cultivate those skills that will be needed for our success, both socially and in our work lives. As the medium of communication changes, we adjust our behavior and learn what's next - but the underlying principles don't change as much as we might think.
Communication is learned. Ever since humans started this whole language thing, it has been a learned behavior. It doesn't matter whether you believe in Universal Grammar or not (which I really don't; see my recent post) - the specific form a language takes, and the way it associates sounds (or gestures!) with meaning and action and social forms is learned. Not only that, but not every person learns it to the same degree, even among native speakers. There have always been those people who have more difficulty with language, and with specific forms of its use.
When I was doing my Masters in Linguistics, I did a small study about how children learned to talk on the telephone. This involved doing some recordings of friends' children (at the time I had none of my own) and taking a look at the patterns of their speech. It quickly became clear to me that telephone talk is managed differently from face-to-face talk, and while the ability to speak well face to face will correlate with better telephone talk, the two are not the same. Children will develop their telephone talk at a similar rate to their regular talk, but appear to be delayed in it because of the increased demands of the telephone as a means of communication. Over the telephone, you have to adjust for the fact that even though you can see everything in front of you, the person you're talking to cannot. This is actually quite a tricky basic concept, and because children learn to speak on the phone very early, you can actually watch them trying to learn it.
Letter writing involves a lack of context, and people have studied to learn how to do that for a very long time (at a later age than they would learn speaking on the telephone, because they need to know how to write). If you compare letter writing to texting, the desire to compress the length of a text message operates against any need for eloquence that might be cultivated in the longer, letter form. Yes, in texting there is the assumption of lack of visual context, but this assumption is precisely the same one that exists for letter writing and for other writing contexts such as writing for a homework assignment. Texting may appear to be easier to learn simply because by the time we're doing it, some of its base assumptions have already been learned and are well established.
Both face to face communication and telephone communication involve a very fast real-time response, while texting and letter writing do not. When people don't feel comfortable with these speed demands, and the risks that accompany an instant response to something that might be misunderstood, they'll typically choose the written format of communication. In this context, Twitter would more closely resemble texting, while instant messaging would fall somewhere in between the telephone and the text message.
Overall, I think that we need to realize that we learn all these methods of communication through practice, and we need to cultivate those skills that will be needed for our success, both socially and in our work lives. As the medium of communication changes, we adjust our behavior and learn what's next - but the underlying principles don't change as much as we might think.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
If you're curious about nominalization...
Nick Daws has a great blog post on nominalization and why you might like to avoid it to keep your prose more vibrant and active. It's an easy pattern to fall into unconsciously, and thus a post worth reading. The post is here.
Is it "said David" or "David said"?
For a long time, I never realized this was an issue that anyone worried about. Then I started hearing about it on forums, and then I started noticing funny patterns in other places, like books.
People worry about whether their dialog tags should read like this:
"Xxxxxx," said David.
Or like this:
"Xxxxxx," David said.
First, a simple declaration: both are correct.
For those of you who may have doubts, I'll refer you to earlier English where "quoth he" was very common. English is a very flexible language, and the two variants are just that - totally acceptable variants.
That said, I have a very strong instinct about when to use one of these and when to use the other. For me, either makes sense, but there are times when one or the other is definitely more appropriate. I just figured out this afternoon - for the first time on a conscious level - why I choose one or the other.
The answer is: meter.
Many authors manage meter subconsciously and it never becomes part of their conscious concern. This is totally okay, but for those who wish to control it a bit more consciously, I have a couple of posts about it:
Some thoughts on meter
Banjo Patterson and meter
Many Voices (often at least partly distinguished by meter)
Today what brought me my epiphany was one example from my current novel. I was writing along and I came to this:
"Petr," Tagret said.
No problem, right? But we were in a situation where Tagret was trying to get Petr's attention so that he wouldn't jump into a fight. So I then changed it to,
"Petr," Tagret said quickly.
I read it over, and suddenly "Tagret said" jumped out at me as wrong. Here I was trying to have him say something quickly, but it didn't feel quick. I could feel a giant pause right where the quote ended, and it was slowing me down.
"Petr,"
Tagret said quickly.
So I switched it to:
"Petr," said Tagret quickly.
The pause disappeared. When I set out to analyze the source of my impression that there had been a pause, I realized that both "Petr" and "Tagret" have the same metrical shape: the trochaic foot, "Xx", where the large X is a stressed syllable and the small x is an unstressed syllable. The version that had "Tagret said" therefore had a break between metric feet that corresponded with the end of the quote, and that gives the impression of a pause. The version with "said Tagret" creates a dactyllic foot with three syllables "Xxx" which falls across the division between the quote and the dialogue tag, thereby pulling readers more quickly toward the end of the sentence.
I suppose that means if you have someone speak in a halting or hesitant way, you might serve yourself better by choosing a metrical pattern that reinforces breaks of this nature.
Anyway, that's my attempt at giving indecisive folks out there (said Joe? Joe said?) a reasoned way to decide which tag to choose in context.
People worry about whether their dialog tags should read like this:
"Xxxxxx," said David.
Or like this:
"Xxxxxx," David said.
First, a simple declaration: both are correct.
For those of you who may have doubts, I'll refer you to earlier English where "quoth he" was very common. English is a very flexible language, and the two variants are just that - totally acceptable variants.
That said, I have a very strong instinct about when to use one of these and when to use the other. For me, either makes sense, but there are times when one or the other is definitely more appropriate. I just figured out this afternoon - for the first time on a conscious level - why I choose one or the other.
The answer is: meter.
Many authors manage meter subconsciously and it never becomes part of their conscious concern. This is totally okay, but for those who wish to control it a bit more consciously, I have a couple of posts about it:
Some thoughts on meter
Banjo Patterson and meter
Many Voices (often at least partly distinguished by meter)
Today what brought me my epiphany was one example from my current novel. I was writing along and I came to this:
"Petr," Tagret said.
No problem, right? But we were in a situation where Tagret was trying to get Petr's attention so that he wouldn't jump into a fight. So I then changed it to,
"Petr," Tagret said quickly.
I read it over, and suddenly "Tagret said" jumped out at me as wrong. Here I was trying to have him say something quickly, but it didn't feel quick. I could feel a giant pause right where the quote ended, and it was slowing me down.
"Petr,"
Tagret said quickly.
So I switched it to:
"Petr," said Tagret quickly.
The pause disappeared. When I set out to analyze the source of my impression that there had been a pause, I realized that both "Petr" and "Tagret" have the same metrical shape: the trochaic foot, "Xx", where the large X is a stressed syllable and the small x is an unstressed syllable. The version that had "Tagret said" therefore had a break between metric feet that corresponded with the end of the quote, and that gives the impression of a pause. The version with "said Tagret" creates a dactyllic foot with three syllables "Xxx" which falls across the division between the quote and the dialogue tag, thereby pulling readers more quickly toward the end of the sentence.
I suppose that means if you have someone speak in a halting or hesitant way, you might serve yourself better by choosing a metrical pattern that reinforces breaks of this nature.
Anyway, that's my attempt at giving indecisive folks out there (said Joe? Joe said?) a reasoned way to decide which tag to choose in context.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
"Let the Word Take Me" is at Starship Sofa!
I just discovered that my 2008 story, "Let the Word Take Me," is now available in audio form at Starship Sofa! This is very exciting, and so I'm passing it on for all of you who may have missed it when it appeared in Analog, but would like to hear it read aloud. They even used a male voice for David Linden and a female one for Allayo! The story starts one hour and fifteen minutes into the podcast.
http://www.starshipsofa.com/20100602/aural-delights-no-139-philip-k-dick-juliette-wade/
Thanks so much to Tony Smith for contacting me and making this possible. I'm thrilled.
http://www.starshipsofa.com/20100602/aural-delights-no-139-philip-k-dick-juliette-wade/
Thanks so much to Tony Smith for contacting me and making this possible. I'm thrilled.
So maybe there is no universal grammar...?
Here's an interesting article I got from Marian at the Analog forum, talking about linguistic diversity and possible explanations for patterns of human language, including the weakness of so-called language universals. As a person who always maintained a degree of skepticism for Chomsky's theories, I find these ideas compelling:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627621.000-language-lessons-you-are-what-you-speak.html?full=true
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627621.000-language-lessons-you-are-what-you-speak.html?full=true
Twists on conversational endings
Have you ever noticed the endings of conversations - particularly telephone conversations? Typically you get to the point where one person decides the conversation should come to an end, and so they say something to advertise that they're getting ready to go. It could be something like, "You know, I have to run," if the people know each other well. If they know each other less well it might be something like "I'm sure you're very busy and I shouldn't keep you." Or maybe one of the people talking will pick up on a piece of topic that the other person had mentioned about something happening in their future: "Well, have fun at the picnic!" or "Good luck with that project, then."
Step two in the process is that the other person has to reply with a piece of talk that will acknowledge that the conversation is about to end. "Oh, sorry, I'll let you go," would be one option. For specific future events the person could say, "Thanks, I think I will/I'll do my best/I'll see you soon/I'll talk to you soon." If this turn does not acknowledge the conversation-ending move, however, the person's attempt to close the conversation will fall flat. The person who has to leave may feel ignored and sucked into a conversation when they'd rather be somewhere else. The less direct the ending move (especially with language learners), however, the more likely the conversation partner won't notice it. By contrast, if at this point the conversation partner simply says "Okay, bye!" their farewell will come across as needlessly abrupt.
Typically after the ending move has been acknowledged, you will find another turn by the person who initiated the conversation-ending moves. This will be something like "Take care!" or "Yeah, see you!" This move is basically without content and serves only to confirm the fact that this person has no further topics to propose and the conversation can end safely. The other person then responds to this with "You too" or something similar, indicating that indeed, he/she has no further content to propose either. This is the spot where if someone has forgotten to say something, it may be introduced.
Following these moves (social/phatic moves) that are simply redundant indicators that it's okay to end the conversation, that's when we get the actual goodbyes. A goodbye is a speech act that functions to end the conversation. The moves of the last turn ("take care") can sometimes be interpreted or used as goodbyes, but for myself, I never quite feel like I've really put a button on the conversation without an official "bye!" This is another possible complication. Proposing a new topic at this point is a bit more unexpected and sometimes people will actually apologize for it (where they are less likely to earlier).
Those of you familiar with Instant Message conversations may notice that you often have to do this goodbye sequence twice. The delay in IM chats introduces the (relatively likely) possibility that you will initiate this sequence of ending turns while someone else is still typing topic related stuff. In this circumstance, you end up with a point of conversational ambiguity. The person trying to initiate an ending sequence has the option of responding directly to the ongoing topic and then adding on a re-initiation of the ending sequence. Another option is for him/her not to respond to the existing topic material at all (but this might be considered abrupt). Sometimes the person who was typing topic information will simply drop the topic and reply with an acknowledgment of the initiating turn. Sometimes another odd option occurs and you end up conducting two entirely separate ending turn sequences, one which follows on to the first initiation of the ending sequence, and another which follows onto the remaining topic material that the second person had been typing!
By this time, this has happened to me so much that I'm starting to think there must be some kind of a story here. Or maybe not a story core element, but something I could add onto another context. I wonder if one could write a story with a split ending and have it be plausible. Hmmm...
Another point where this might be relevant to dialogue is that phatic talk, the empty stuff with which we maintain social relationships, may or may not be important to your story. If the smoothness of the relationship between the two people speaking is less important than the information conveyed, leaving the last few turns of talk out of the dialogue is certainly fine. However, if the relationship is important and you're going to play with some of the twists mentioned above to create tension, it might be to your advantage to pursue the conversation all the way through to the end.
Just sharing my thoughts, as usual!
Step two in the process is that the other person has to reply with a piece of talk that will acknowledge that the conversation is about to end. "Oh, sorry, I'll let you go," would be one option. For specific future events the person could say, "Thanks, I think I will/I'll do my best/I'll see you soon/I'll talk to you soon." If this turn does not acknowledge the conversation-ending move, however, the person's attempt to close the conversation will fall flat. The person who has to leave may feel ignored and sucked into a conversation when they'd rather be somewhere else. The less direct the ending move (especially with language learners), however, the more likely the conversation partner won't notice it. By contrast, if at this point the conversation partner simply says "Okay, bye!" their farewell will come across as needlessly abrupt.
Typically after the ending move has been acknowledged, you will find another turn by the person who initiated the conversation-ending moves. This will be something like "Take care!" or "Yeah, see you!" This move is basically without content and serves only to confirm the fact that this person has no further topics to propose and the conversation can end safely. The other person then responds to this with "You too" or something similar, indicating that indeed, he/she has no further content to propose either. This is the spot where if someone has forgotten to say something, it may be introduced.
Following these moves (social/phatic moves) that are simply redundant indicators that it's okay to end the conversation, that's when we get the actual goodbyes. A goodbye is a speech act that functions to end the conversation. The moves of the last turn ("take care") can sometimes be interpreted or used as goodbyes, but for myself, I never quite feel like I've really put a button on the conversation without an official "bye!" This is another possible complication. Proposing a new topic at this point is a bit more unexpected and sometimes people will actually apologize for it (where they are less likely to earlier).
Those of you familiar with Instant Message conversations may notice that you often have to do this goodbye sequence twice. The delay in IM chats introduces the (relatively likely) possibility that you will initiate this sequence of ending turns while someone else is still typing topic related stuff. In this circumstance, you end up with a point of conversational ambiguity. The person trying to initiate an ending sequence has the option of responding directly to the ongoing topic and then adding on a re-initiation of the ending sequence. Another option is for him/her not to respond to the existing topic material at all (but this might be considered abrupt). Sometimes the person who was typing topic information will simply drop the topic and reply with an acknowledgment of the initiating turn. Sometimes another odd option occurs and you end up conducting two entirely separate ending turn sequences, one which follows on to the first initiation of the ending sequence, and another which follows onto the remaining topic material that the second person had been typing!
By this time, this has happened to me so much that I'm starting to think there must be some kind of a story here. Or maybe not a story core element, but something I could add onto another context. I wonder if one could write a story with a split ending and have it be plausible. Hmmm...
Another point where this might be relevant to dialogue is that phatic talk, the empty stuff with which we maintain social relationships, may or may not be important to your story. If the smoothness of the relationship between the two people speaking is less important than the information conveyed, leaving the last few turns of talk out of the dialogue is certainly fine. However, if the relationship is important and you're going to play with some of the twists mentioned above to create tension, it might be to your advantage to pursue the conversation all the way through to the end.
Just sharing my thoughts, as usual!
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