Language and Communication

If you are at all a Trekkie, like I am, you will be familiar with the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Captain Picard and his crew came in contact with aliens whose language they didn’t understand and couldn’t processes through their translators. But ever diplomatic Picard made valiant efforts to try to communicate with them. They were able to determine the aliens were simply saying the names of people and places the humans wouldn’t know. Eventually they learned these aliens communicated by saying just the key figures of an event or story from their past. It would be like us communicating by saying, “The princess and the pea at Snow White’s cottage,” to say we experienced a lumpy mattress, and a resulting poor night’s sleep, while spending the night at a friend’s house.

Humans can and do develop a sort of shorthand speech. We are familiar enough with the stories and fables of our past that I don’t have to explain what I mean by the Princess and the pea or Snow White. Using the names and places is enough for you to know the story.

I’m sitting here thinking about this type of shorthand and wondering if I’ve ever even used it in my stories.

As human beings we all have it. A shared memory with someone and all either of you have to do is say a word or a phrase and you are either howling in laughter or somber or whatever the mood required.

For that matter do we ever transplant a person into a new place, a new culture, a new society then have some confusion ensue simply because words and phrases don’t translate well.

I’m reminded of one time, while I was in Tennessee, and I mentioned to a gentleman that the young lady I was with and I need to go to the store.

He offered to “carry” us there.

I could not for the life of me figure out why anyone would carry us that far or how he expected to carry two women. Besides we had a car.

It took several minutes to figure it out but the man meant he could “drive” us to the store.

I could also come up with examples of the differences between British English and American English. Anyone remember the Candid Camera episode (old version) were a young British woman was asking everyone she could for help finding a pharmacy, though she used a different word for it, which I don’t remember, so she could get a “plaster”. Of course, none of the American’s knew she was asking for a Band-Aid.

I’m also reminded of a movie about an airplane disaster and two young black men were unable to communicate with the stewardess or any of the other passengers and they needed help for some reason, though I could not decipher what it was.

Then, of all people, the character played by Barbara Billingsly (Leave It to Beaver’s Mom) was able to understand them, carry on a conversation and tell the stewardess they needed some aspirin.

Like Picard and the aliens he couldn’t understand, have we ever put a character into a confusing situation simply because they didn’t understand what those around them were talking about? Or the above mentioned airplane disaster where two men couldn’t communicate with those around them because their language didn’t make sense to anyone else?

Language is words. It plays a major role in our writing. Think about how we use our words differently and how that can affect understanding and clear communication while you’re writing your stories.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Brainstorming and life

Dang! It's Wednesday morning again, and I’m again caught without a post. And I’d like to blame my busy life, but the fact is the last couple of days I have been mulling over a problem I’m having with my WIP, and not getting very far writing wise.

I also totally forgot until this morning that it was my turn to post.

Have you ever had days like that? One where you wake up and realize you’ve completely forgotten something you needed to do?

I thought it was bad the time I woke one morning and realized that my sister-in-law had an appointment the day before, and we’d both spaced it. (Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen again.)

But this time I spaced it because I was staring at the screen trying to figure out how to fix a problem in my manuscript before it came up. Yes, I said before. The other day I realized if my heroine resorts to the tactics I was planning for her to use “to get the hero’s attention,” he was going to blow his top. So far, I’d been thinking of my heroine’s future actions while totally forgetting the hero’s backstory. Not good.

But this wasn’t changing what I already had written to fit the story it was reworking how I moved forward, to fit the story.

And while I did that, everything else went by the wayside, chores, errands, and my blog post. :)

So, how many of you sometimes spend way too much time cogitating on scenarios for your stories and forgetting about all the other things, you need to be doing?

Happy writing everyone!

The Voices We Hear

Recently I was typing along and as I did things popped into my story which I hadn’t anticipated, leaving me looking at my characters and thinking, “you could have told me”. Not once, but twice.

Then another character, which isn’t even one of my main characters (i.e.: she isn’t a POV character) actually got in an argument with me about a scene I had to write for her. I couldn’t fathom why I had to write it nor was I about to make my monster even bigger by adding one more POV.

She is, however, one smart cookie, and made her point. I did need what turned out to be three scenes, which I was able to write from the viewpoint of two of my main characters who she interacted with.

On an even more recent occasion, I asked Bonnie if she was writing and she said in a nutshell, “no, I’m mulling over stuff that doesn’t come up yet in my story”.

I told her to get her characters talking about what she was still writing.

She said it was actually a secondary character who wanted his story told, something that would be part of the next book. After she explained in full what the problem was I offered my solution. Write a scene for the guy and see if it appeased him.

Then just the other day my girls and I were in the kitchen talking, I could not tell you what brought it up, but at some point we were talking about people’s behavior and we decided that my youngest daughter had characteristics like one of the twins in my opus while my oldest son had those of his twin brother.

As I was thinking of all of these real conversations, I often wonder what non-writers think about us writers.  It is somewhat hilarious when my girls and I will get to talking about our stories and the people in them and my poor husband will come into the conversation totally thinking we’re talking about real people and wondering where we met them.

“Who exactly is Harry, and what did he do?”

(Just an example. Any character names could be substituted.)

My point being, writers talk about characters like they are real people, because to us they are. They tell us their stories and ask us to write them. Most of the time they let us know what is coming up in their story before we get it down on paper, or screen. We even have arguments with them.

When those characters won’t talk to us, we stare a blank screen and wonder what to do to get them talking again, or try to find another character who will tell their story. That’s why writer’s, like Bonnie, with ADD, have several books going at one time. If one character won’t talk, then fine, I’ll talk to this one over here.

I personally do have several stories I could work on, however my opus has seven POV characters and more supporting characters than I care to count, making a number of stories in one. So while I may only being working on one book, I’ve got several characters talking to me.

Then there are the other books whose characters are quietly waiting in the background for their turn. I’m also sure as soon as I’m finished with one, another one will come along. There is always going to be another story to tell. Remember that, the next time you stare a blank page or screen, and no characters are talking to you.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

As The World Turns

Living alone it’s easy to form a habit of writing every day, there is little to distract or pull you away from the goal, but the problem with that is if you get caught up in the writing you are doing and put off all the other chores that need done.

Dishes, and laundry, still need washed. Floors need swept, or vacuumed, or mopped, and bills need paid, checkbooks need balanced; the world doesn’t stop moving while we’re concentrating on our fictitious worlds and sometimes that catches up to us, sometimes in heart stopping ways.

The other day I got a call from sister-in-law, her asking or a ride to do some errands was no big deal, I do that all the time, but I about had a heart attack when she said, “Today after my appointment.”

Today! I instantly racked my brain, positive I’d looked on my calendar that morning to be certain when her next doctor’s appointment was, and I was sure it wasn’t until the following day. So I was reaching for my planner as I asked her if she’d read her calendar correctly pointing out what day of the week it was.

She groaned, “It’s tomorrow isn’t it?”

Her calling for a ride was one thing. She doesn’t drive, I chauffeur her around all the time, but her mentioning an appointment I didn’t have on my calendar? That’s a whole other problem, and the fact is, I’ve spaced her appointments before. That’s why I’d specifically checked my calendar, I knew one was coming up, wasn’t sure when.

But such is the life of a writer. She needed a ride to run errands, I thought it would be easier to do them on separate days, so I took that day to run her errands, the next day was her appointment then I woke up this morning and moaned. Today is Wednesday!

Yeah, sometimes life just gets away from us. J

Happy writing everyone!

Collaboration

As you know, Konnie and I are writers, and quite a few of our fellow authors have suggested that we should collaborate on a story. Others have been surprised we haven’t even considered such a thing. Then the other day Konnie, her youngest daughter, and I were all on Skype together. It all started with me asking Konnie for some help with a scene I was writing, which just wasn’t coming out right.

Konnie didn’t have a solution, but, considering the age of the character, suggested I asked her youngest daughter. Long story short, we ended up in a three-way chat to solve my problem, then Konnie came upon a passage she was having trouble with in her WIP, and finally her daughter brought up her own writing conundrum.

We were all working on our own stories while also online helping the other two.

Did it faze us? Did we even find it unusual? Cripes no. Adding in one of Konnie’s daughters is a bit uncommon, but Konnie and I do that constantly. If we’re both writing, we’re both online, and inevitably, we’d end up brainstorming. And both us at some time or another have helped her daughters.

And this isn’t the only way we instigate a brainstorming session. Sometimes, it starts with one of us emailing an excerpt, or even the whole file to date, to the other with a notation of, “Help,” or variations of thereof.

Generally speaking, I send her a scene saying I still don’t like how this is reading, asking for help, then we discuss it and hammer out a much better scene.

In fact, when it comes to writing a story, Konnie doesn’t always get the male characters right. Something I seem to be able to do automatically. I can’t tell you how many times she’s sent me a scene, asking if it works.

It usually doesn’t, not in the least bit. I can always tell why. It’s either that guys in general, or that character particularly, wouldn’t respond or react that way.

As I said, Konnie doesn’t always get it right. But she has enough brains to know when a scene isn’t quite right, and sense enough to ask me for help.

On the converse, I’m not all that good with shy characters, on top of that, I can handle a character with a phobia (unfortunately, I know how that works all too well) but I’m at loss with characters which are a bit jumpy for some reason or another.

As much I correct her male characters, she corrects my characters on the above points. Without her assistance, some of my stories wouldn’t ring true, and the same goes with her stories without my help.

So, in a sense, we do collaborate. I certainly know her stories as well as she knows mine, but the result is our own work, individually.

No matter how many times we concoct scenes suggestions for each other, the wording and phrasing, in the final version is always the author’s language choice. Suggestions are just that, suggestion.

And personally, I think having a brainstorming partner, is the best way to collaborate.

What do you think?

Happy writing, everyone. J

Excuses, Excuses

One of the first thoughts I had this morning was I’d spent most of the previous day actually working on my opus.

And I didn’t actually write anything.

No, this isn’t one more excuse. I did work on my opus.

You see I’d been working on my opus the night before and in writing the scene I realized I couldn’t remember if a certain character had died in a battle or not. (They are at war.)

If he hadn’t died, I was fine, I could use him.

If he had died, I had a problem. Not because I couldn’t use him again, but because I hadn’t addressed his death.

So of course, I had to check.

Finding the correct scene wasn’t too difficult. However, it showed that the character in question had died. So I had to figure out how to address it.

But realizing this wasn’t the only time I’d forgotten a detail in my rather large opus, I thought it would be helpful if I had a complete list of all the characters which included any details about them, like being killed, so that I had an easy reference to refresh my memory when I needed it.

First I required a complete list.

So I started on page one and carefully combed through for all such details.

So far I have three and a half pages of names and I’m less than forty-five percent of the way through it. And I basically worked on it from the time I got up until I went to bed with few interruptions. (I told you it was an opus.)

I ate and even helped Bonnie and my daughter with their stories while still working on mine.

While I had been rather proud of myself for concentrating on my writing for so long, my next thought was that I hadn’t done a whole list of chores like balancing checkbooks, paying bills, dishes, laundry.

You get the idea.

The whole thing actually bummed me out. I had wanted to continue my search so I could address the issue of the characters death and finish the scene that had set the whole thing off. But, of course, I knew it would take a good part of the day to get my to-do list knocked down.

Then as I went over the things I was supposed to have done yesterday one particular item jumped out at me and I couldn’t help but laugh.

Usually I use my to-do list, and the many interruptions from my family, as an excuse for not writing. So I find it rather amusing that working on my opus was my excuse for not doing one very important thing on the top of my to-do list.

Write my blog post.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.