Language Making

I find made up languages in fiction annoying at best. So why am I now adding one to this WIP?

It seems to me that if a character comes from a family who speak a different language at hime, then words from that language are going to slip into his speech from time to time. Maybe expressions his parents used, or single words like "No" or "Wait" that he doesn't bother to convert, or long words when he's frustrated or upset.

If those single words and short phrases are going to have some consistency, then I understanding of the syllables and words are put together, and the accompanying grammar. Then once these starts to develop, I start to play with more complicated constructions.

It's a slippery, this language constructing. And, of course, I have no idea if it works :)

It grows

Why is that simplifying a section and making less things happen leads to the number of scenes increasing?

Notes on Descriptive Writing

The point of description is not to recreate what the exact image that the writer sees but to invoke a reaction in the reader.

The intent might be to portray an emotion, or to give a sense of setting or character.

Too much detail with overwhelm the reader or clutter the image, and the point gets lost in the details. One or two well thought out details can accomplish more than a long string of visual information.

Use the other senses, beyond visual

• Hearing
  
  
• Touching
  
  
• Tasting
  
  
• Smelling

Always filtered through the character's perceptions: What matters to them? What will they take notice of? What are they feeling?

Use the specific, not the general. Be concrete. Use the particular word.

Pinning down specific details eliminates unnecessary modifiers and makes the ones you choose work harder. Choose just the right word to create an impact, rather than throwing bunches of words at the reader and hoping some of it sticks.

Also remember the flow, because it makes it easier to follow: head to toe, or left to right, or along a road/river

I know this

If I write one day, the next day it's easier.
If I don't write one day, the next day it's harder.

So why don't I go for the easier option?

Story goes out

Just marking the date that I send out a short story for the first time in 2.5 years. This is obviously enough time to forget why I stopped sending them out :)

Or maybe not

Possibly I was wrong about the source of slowness, at least in part.

The last two or three, rather long, scenes have been in Gwyn's point of view. Writing them was like pulling teeth with a pair of toothpicks. The one I've been working on today is from Jenn's point of view, and it's more like "Hey wait for me, I can't write that quick."

Now, Gwyn is a private sort of person. He doesn't like to give out his thoughts on things. With some coaxing, he'll tell me what he's doing, but his emotional state and observations have to be dragged out, word by word. He's happy enough when saying what other people are doing, where he can fade into the backgroudn and become an "invisible narrator" (grumbles) but once the focus of action turns to him, he doesn't want to be part of it.

On the other hand, Jenn wants to be the center of attention and he's also happy to share his observations on things. If he had his way, he'd spend the whole novel sitting on the edge of the river watching the world go by and tell me about it.


It's not the first time I've noticed different in how my POV characters share information. I've had some who only notice what immediately effects them, and others who have to look at everything and anything and comment on it. It's a strange phenomomen. I have to work out how to use it to my advantage.

Slow

Progress has slowed down significantly since the halfway point (I still have to do all this again: nooooooooo). This is not helped by me wanting to redo a large part of this second half -- mainly J's motivation. What's at stake is he fails in the end game? He'll get arrested and, hang on, haven't we just had this? So stakes need to be upped and the attraction of succeeding as well.

Then there's the new idea, which be November's New Novel, but it is so very hard to focus on reworking an old story when there's a fresh new one trying to get attention :\