Category Archives: writing

March 14, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: son and sir: to capitalize or not?

Tom Hiddleston MemeTerms of endearment are often used in casual conversation. Each has their own implications which are highly dependent on tone of voice, body language, and social context.

They can be fairly impersonal, denoting a friendship. Conversely, they can be intimate, indicating a close relationship.

Used by perfect strangers they can also be patronizing and rude.

These words vary in creativity from the sublime to the ridiculous:

  • dear
  • mate
  • chum
  • darling
  • honey
  • baby-cakes
  • sweetheart
  • sugar
  • wuvvy-dovey

From Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge: Saying “Hey baby, you’re looking good” varies greatly from the use “Baby, don’t swim at the deep end of the pool!” Certain terms can be perceived as offensive or patronizing, depending on the context and speaker. (end quoted text.)

This brings us to the word “son.” Again, as in so many other aspects of the writing craft, context is everything.

  • “I love you, Son,” said the doting father.

The_Chicago_Manual_of_Style_16th_editionFrom the Chicago Manual of Style, Section 8.35: Kinship names are lower-cased unless they immediately precede a personal name or are used alone:

  • my father and mother
  • Aunt Jane
  • the Bronte sisters
  • I believe Grandmother’s name was Marie
  • Please, Dad, let’s go.
  • She adores her aunt, Maud

But, in the past, instead of a boy’s name, men commonly called boys boy, kid or son, not as a name but as a neutral term of endearment. My interpretation of the word “son” in casual conversation is like this: I feel it should not be capitalized if it is being used to indicate friendship, or in a patronizing fashion.

Wikipedia claims that in an informal setting, such as a pub or gym, the use of terms of endearment is a positive politeness strategy among men. A term like “mate” or “son” shifts the focus toward the friendship existing between the speakers, yet maintains a slight emotional distance.

The problem here is the term “son.” In some cases, it is used when speaking to a man not related, but indicates friendship on the part of an older speaker in regard to a younger companion. I feel that, when used as a neutral form of endearment, the word “son” falls into the same class as:

  • Hand me the scissors, darling.
  • Have a beer, mate.
  • Gloria, dear—how’s your mother?
  • Grab that remote for me, love.
  • How’ve you been, old son?

The above endearments are not between speakers with a deep emotional attachment. They indicate camaraderie and nothing more–they are neutral. Therefore, “son” should not be capitalized if it is being used as a neutral term of endearment when speaking to a person you are not related to.

  • “Okay, son. Tell your ma I stopped by,” said his neighbor.
  • “Get off your high-horse, son,” said man next to him.

As stated above, The Chicago Manual of Style’s preference has always been to lowercase pet names, (which are terms of endearment) but in reality, you can’t go wrong unless you’re inconsistent, since the issue is guided by preference rather than rule.

The word preference means:

  1. a greater liking for one alternative over another or others.

synonyms: liking, partiality, predilection, proclivity, fondness, taste, inclination, leaning, bias, bent, penchant, predisposition

So, if you do choose to capitalize the word “son” when used as a term of endearment, be consistent. But also be aware that it’s not necessary.

Then there is the question of the word “sir.” It is an honorific. From the Chicago Manual of Style section 8.32

Portrait of Henry VIII (1491-1547) by Hans HolbeinHonorific titles and respectful forms of address are capitalized in any context with several exceptions:

  • sir
  • ma’am
  • my lord
  • my lady

Always capped:

  • Madam Speaker
  • Your Honor
  • Your Excellency
  • Her (His, Your) Majesty; His (Her, Your) Royal Highness
  • The Most Reverend William Ronstadt (Roman Catholic Bishop)
  • Lord John Davies; Lady Mary Shelton
  • The First Gentleman; the First Lady
  • The Right Honourable John Carter

Where king/queen is used as part of someone’s name, it is always capitalized:

  • King Bob, and Evelyn, the Queen of Darkness

Where king/queen is used as part of a general reference it is lower-cased:

  • “Hello,” said the king.

Should one capitalize the word sir when it’s used in dialogue? Which of the following would be correct? “Yes, sir.” OR “Yes, Sir.”

Paul-McCartney-on-playing-Rock-BandIf the reply is to a respected person in general, it is written with no capital, as it’s not a formal name. But you do need a comma just as you would with a formal name:

  1. “Yes, sir.” (General politeness.)
  2. “Yes, Sir Paul.” (Formally agreeing with a knight.)
  3. “Yes, Larry.” (Proper use of comma.)

When writing dialogue: if your speaking character is in the military and the person he/she is addressing has a military rank above them, THEN you must capitalize it.

If you are writing about Sir Paul McCartney’s favorite brand of socks, capitalize it.

You must also capitalize the words “sir” and/or “madam” when beginning a letter or an email. My favorite internet example of this is:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to inform you that you a related to a Nigerian prince. (Grammar Party Blog)

Just refer to me as “my lady” from here on out. Email doesn’t get better than that!

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March 11, 2016 · 6:45 am

#flashfictionfriday: A Little Love Story

In the long ago days, before every home had a word-processor, and even before I had my beloved secondhand typewriter, I wrote stories. My writing was for myself, or for my children, as it never occurred to me that I could ever really “be a writer,” although that was what I always answered when asked.

My handwriting was better in those days, perhaps because I wrote daily. Some of my short tales were good, some were bad, and most have vanished over time.

This little tale survived the many moves and purges, and dates back to 1984.

Duet, by David Teniers de Jonge - (1640s) via Wikimedia Commons

Duet, by David Teniers de Jonge – (1640s) via Wikimedia Commons

A LITTLE LOVE STORY

An old man and his wife of many years sit on a rough bench outside the door to their home.  It’s a rough cabin, just one large room with a large attic. The furniture is rough but sturdy and clean from daily scrubbing as is the rest of the home.  Everything in their home they built or made for themselves, right down to the small flute the old man plays as the old woman mends his rough, homespun shirt.

It’s just the two of them now; their son has long since married and moved away. Occasionally they walk the two day’s journey to see him and his family, but it’s unlikely they will ever do so again.

To look at them it would be hard – nay – impossible to believe they ever were young and beautiful or strong and handsome but once upon a time they were just that.

Once upon a time, the old woman had abundant dark hair, thick and curling to her knees when it was unbound.  Her dark eyes were full of fun and her red lips smiled often.  When she thought of what her life would be like, she knew without a doubt she would be as rich as a queen, and as happy as any woman could ever be.  To her, the future was as bright as new-minted gold; all things were possible.

Her laughter made the grumpiest person smile.  The entire village loved her, and though many a handsome, well-to-do young man wanted her for his wife, her eyes saw only the poor but hardworking son of the carpenter’s widow. Whenever she was asked, she vowed she would only marry the young man with the easy smile that charmed all who saw him.

Once upon a time, the old man was handsome, tall and strong, with a smile to melt the hardest heart. But no matter how many beautiful girls danced with him, or tried to kiss him, he only saw her – the merchant’s daughter. She filled his dreams and he vowed to all that he would wed only her.

Everyone said theirs was a story of true and eternal love.

He worked hard, and built the small house for her with his own hands, swearing it was only the beginning of the fine mansion he would build for her and vowing she would live a life of ease and luxury.  Her father was pleased and gave him her hand in marriage.

She didn’t care. She would have lived in a mud hut if it meant she would be with him.

One beautiful spring day and they were married and the entire village celebrated. They lived blissfully for the first year, and the following spring they were blessed with a child.

It is sad but true: to know what happiness is, a person must understand sorrow and pain. Their infant son didn’t live for more than a day. Heartbroken, they buried their child and tried to go on with their life.  Over the next five years, they buried three more children. Only the love she had for her husband kept her going. In his arms, she found solace and peace.  His steadfast love and support carried her through those dark days, and though she was not the merry girl she once had been, she was still a good-natured, loving wife.

The good old king died, and his son took the throne. The young king’s rule was not as kind or as benevolent as his father’s rule had been.  He taxed the people cruelly and life became hard, but still their home was their haven.

Each night they fell asleep in each other’s arms and in the morning they woke happy.

One spring the brash young king’s men came to the village and took her husband to fight the war in a land far away. Bereft and alone, she struggled to keep the home they had built, taking in sewing and laundry, working hard and praying morning and night for her husband’s safe return.

After two seasons had passed, the goddess heard her prayers. Though she feared he would be lost to her, her husband came home, wounded and with a limp which he never lost, but alive and still strong in his love for her. His smile had grown melancholy while he was away, but still melted her heart whenever he smiled at her, which he did at every opportunity.

At long last they were blessed with a healthy boy, and not only did he survive, he thrived in the sunshine of his parent’s love.

And their days passed, turning into years. The king’s taxman saw to it they never grew rich, but he could never steal their true wealth. The boy grew to be a strong, handsome lad and one day he married, leaving his parents somewhat lonely but happy for their son.  And still time passed.

In middle age the woman was still striking; strong and nice to look at, though she had grown somewhat stout. Her laugh was jolly, and her smile still as free as it had always been and she was known by all to be a good and generous woman. When good advice was needed the village sought her out, and her wisdom never failed them; she was as a mother to them all.

The man was still strong but needed a straw hat when working, as his hair was growing thinner with the years. The younger men admired his strength and heeded his wisdom.

Each night the man and woman kept each other warm and every morning they woke happy, knowing they would spend it working together in the little kingdom which was their home.

The old woman’s hair became thin and white, and her smile lacked all the teeth she once had, but the old man still saw the most beautiful girl in the world.

The old man’s pate became as bald as an egg, and his scraggly beard white as snow. He too lacked some teeth, but when she looked at him she saw the one boy in the world who made her heart skip a beat; the boy for whom she would have done anything to have for her own.

An old man and his wife of many years sit on a rough bench outside the door to their home.  When they sit there, they are rich.  Their home is finer than any castle ever known and their lives more blessed. Every promise the man ever made to his wife was kept, if not in the manner he once had planned, although he has only just recently come to understand that.

Every dream she’d ever had came true, though she too only realized it as she became an old woman.

The Goddess of Hearth and Home looks on them and smiles.  One day soon, they will be young and strong, and merry and free again. One day soon they will rise from the bench hand in hand and walk into the sunlight, together forever and always, leaving old shells behind, no longer needed.

One day, soon.

A Little Love Story, © 2016 Connie J. Jasperson

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March 9, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: using repetition as a literary device

fitzgerald-great gatsby memeUnconsciously using the same words too often in our descriptions is one of the pitfalls of writing. It happens to all of us, and for me it occurs most often when I am laying down the first draft. I’m hurrying and trying to get the ideas out of my head and onto the paper and my vocabulary can’t keep up.

Many common words (the, and, etc.) don’t really stand out when used more than a few times in a paragraph, and you couldn’t write well if not for those words. However, some words will always stand out more than others, and if you use them more than once in a paragraph it looks like you’re unimaginative or a lazy writer. This is especially true if the word in question has a lot of synonyms you could have used instead of repeating the same word. Having a good thesaurus at hand is a great help to the brain-stranded author.

Scottish claymore replica Albion Chieftain, Søren Niedziella, CC BY 2.0

Some words don’t have a lot of obvious synonyms so you get hung up on the few you can find.  In my own work, the word sword is one of the main culprits. The type of blade my characters wield in the World of Neveyah books is a claymore, and four ensorcelled blades figure prominently in the Tower of Bones series.

Therefore, some obvious synonyms will not work as these are distinct blade types that are in no way like a broadsword.

  • Rapier
  • Epee
  • Foil

Because of this constraint, I am limited to:

  • Sword
  • Blade
  • Weapon
  • Steel (if I’m desperate, but I despise using that to reference a weapon that isn’t an epee or a rapier)

ozford american writers thesaurusHowever, sometimes we use intentional repetition:

Sometimes we want to emphasize a concept and repetition is the way to do it. Some of the best authors use the repetition of certain key words and phrases to highlight an idea or to show the scene. This technique is an accepted rhetorical device and is commonly found in mainstream fiction. It is used to evoke an emotional response in the reader, and can be exceedingly effective when done right.

Literarydevices.net says, “The beauty of using figurative language is that the pattern it arranges the words into is nothing like our ordinary speech. It is not only stylistically appealing but it also helps convey the message in much more engaging and notable way. The aura that is created by the usage of repetition cannot be achieved through any other device.”  (End quoted text)

Also according to literarydevices.net, repetition as a literary device can take these forms:

  • Repetition of the last word in a line or clause.
  • Repetition of words at the start of clauses or verses.
  • Repetition of words or phrases in opposite sense.
  • Repetition of words broken by some other words.
  • Repetition of same words at the end and start of a sentence.
  • Repetition of a phrase or question to stress a point.
  • Repetition of the same word at the end of each clause.
  • Repetition of an idea, first in negative terms and then in positive terms.
  • Repetition of words of the same root with different endings.
  • Repetition both at the end and at the beginning of a sentence, paragraph, or scene.
  • A construction in poetry where the last word of one clause becomes the first word of the next clause. (End quoted text)

Some famous examples of repetition as a literary device:

“Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Prose and Poetry

f scott fitzgerald The Great Gatsby“About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

When an author writes it intentionally to drive home a point, repetition is an effective tool. It is when words are inadvertently used with a lack of creativity that repetition ruins a narrative.

Consider buying a thesaurus or make use of the many online thesauruses that are available.

I have a well-worn copy of the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus. This book has become just as important to me as my copy of the Chicago Manual of Style. This large book of synonyms can be purchased used from Amazon, for as little as $9.99 in the hardcover form. I do recommend purchasing this as a paper book rather than an ebook. Once you see the amazing variety of words at your disposal, it’s one you will refer back to regularly.

 

 

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March 7, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: poetry in prose

MSClipArt MP900390083.JPG RF PD Both poetry and prose have evolved over the last two-hundred years. In 1816 words were art, and they were frequently crafted into a piece  as if you were decorating a house–the author placed them in such a way as to be artistic as well as impactful.

Think Dickens, and Byron, and Mary Shelley.

A random comment in another forum led me to think about poetry and prose, which of course, led to a blog post.

Much of the time, modern poetry doesn’t rhyme. And even without rhyme, some authors write poetic narratives. But if it doesn’t rhyme, what makes poetry “poetic?” And where does it fit into modern prose?

As always, I turned to the “college of the internet” and did some research. Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge says, “Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language—such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre—to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning.” (End quoted text.)

In his April 19, 2012 blog post for Harriet, (the Poetry Foundation’s blog for poetry and related news) titled The Difference Between Poetry and Prose,  Martin Earl says a number of things.

Quote: “Prose is all about accumulation (a morality of work), while poetry as it is practiced today is about the isolation of feelings (an aesthetics of omission).” 

Well, that didn’t help. Taken individually, I understood each of the words that make up that sentence. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand what Mr. Earl intended to say by combining them so incomprehensibly.

I realized I would need an interpreter. So I prevailed upon Stephen Swartz, author, and professor of English at a well-known university, who is also a good friend of mine.

Stephen explained what Martin Earl may have meant: “I can only take that to mean that the writing of prose is, e.g. like a description, a compiling of details. a productive activity. I agree with the definition of poetry being a limitation of words/details in the service of presenting something esoteric such as thoughts and feelings, abstractions rather than the concrete. For prose, we accumulate words; for poetry we try to do more with less.”

Now THAT made sense to me.

However, I did find a portion of Martin Earl’s post to be understandable without the aid of my friendly neighborhood professor. Toward the middle, he explains the evolution of how poetry became prose, places it in a historical context and then explains that continued progression away from poetic prose in modern literature.

Earl writes, “In both classical and modern languages it is poetry that evolves first and is only much later followed by prose, as though in a language’s childhood, as in our own, poetry were the more efficient communicator of ideas.”

He goes on to say, “With the spread of the printing press after 1440, texts no longer had to be memorized. Poetry’s inbuilt mnemonics (rhyme, meter, refrain, line breaks) were no longer essential for processing and holding on to knowledge. Little hard drives were suddenly everywhere available.” (End quoted text.)

That makes complete sense to me on a personal level. I can remember anything I can set to a rhyme, or make into a song.

I believe using rhymes as mnemonics (which is defined as a memory device) is fundamental to human nature. We developed complex languages within our tribal communities while we were still in Africa, before the great diaspora. It was there in the earliest stages of our humanity that we gained the ability to describe the wider world to our children. With that, we had the capacity to understand and describe the motives of another person.  We could explain the how and why of an incident. We saw the divine in every aspect of life and developed mythologies combining all of these concepts to explain the world around us and our place in it.

Printer_in_1568-ceWe learned ways to memorize  and pass on ideas as abstract as legends or sagas. Through those stories, we could learn larger lessons from the mistakes and heroism of our ancestors.  My theory is that we developed poetry at the same time as we developed language.

Every tribe, every culture that ever arose in our world had this same tradition of passing down stories and legends using rhyme and meter.  Rhyme combined with repetition and rhythmic simplicity enabled us to remember and pass on wisdom to our children.

Wikipedia describes poetry as: “a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning.”

It also describes prose as: “the most typical form of language. The English word ‘prose’ is derived from the Latin prōsa, which literally translates as ‘straight-forward.’”

In poetry, saying more with fewer words forces us to think on an abstract level. We have to choose our words based on the emotions they evoke, and the way they portray the environment around us. This is why I seem to gravitate to narratives written by authors who are also poets—the creative use of words elevates what could be mundane to a higher level of expression, and when it’s done well, the reader doesn’t consciously notice the prose, but they are moved by it.

We have no need to memorize our cultural knowledge anymore, just as we no longer need the ability to accurately tally long strings of numbers in our head.  We’ve begun to like our books with straightforward prose. Flowery language is no longer acceptable in the books we read.

This is also true of modern poetry.

The love of poetry continues, and new generations seek out the poems of the past while creating powerful poetry of their own.

Authors craft incredible narratives, often without knowing they are poets.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss 2nd coverPatrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind:

“It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

“The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the inn’s sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the dark hours of night. If there had been music…but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.” (End quoted text)

That is some powerful prose. It is both straightforward, and poetic.

That is where craft comes in. Choosing words for the emotions they evoke and the way they portray the environment the author has imagined is what lends great narrative prose its power. We can still appreciate beauty combined with impact when it comes to our prose.

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March 2, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amblogging: wanted: flatiron for curly quotes and other blogging twists

300px-Barnum_&_Bailey_clowns_and_geese2Blogging regularly is one of the best ways to improve your writing chops but it can be like working for the circus.  Even when you really know the vagaries of your platform, a lot of strange things can happen in your work. They go unnoticed, doing their thing in the background, keeping it interesting.

WordPress, the mighty bastion upon which my empire rests, uses ‘fancy quotes’ as the default format. While they do look better in a document, blogging can often be an off-the-cuff thing. Straight quotes are less apt to go awry.  I am not sure why this is the default, nor am I able to find a way to ‘unfancy’ them.

WordPress chooses to make things  fancy, but I don’t need fancy. Judging from the number of posts in their forums on the subject, I am not the only one.

In some places, these curvy morsels of madness are called ‘smart quotes.’ In others, they are ‘curly.’ I don’t like them because sometimes they end up facing the wrong way, and being a bit unobservant, I don’t catch that until after I’ve posted it.

I’ve discovered some out of date plug-ins that are no longer available for uncurling my curly quotes, but alas– ‘no longer available’ is not really helpful. I have a flatiron for my curly hair–I need one for WordPress’s curly quotes.

straight and curly quotesAnother seemingly random thing I’ve discovered the hard way: occasionally I will decide to cut a section and paste it elsewhere, only to find (after having published the post) that the cut section has magically reappeared, and I am now repeating myself, verbatim.

This happens so often that I neurotically look at the menu every time I right-click-cut anything, to make sure I am actually cutting and not merely copying.

I double-check the text. Yes, the cut piece is definitely cut and successfully pasted elsewhere. But when I click ‘save draft’ it magically reappears back in the place from which it was cut, and I am once again repeating myself.

gibberish-american businesses onlineThen there is the hinky formatting. Sometimes the formatting goes crazy  and no matter what I do, the spaces between the paragraphs vanish. My post becomes a wall of words. Highlighting the post and clicking on ‘clear formatting’ does not help.

The spaces will show up on the editing side of the piece, but they will have vanished when the post is saved and published. (Edit: removed repeated line. Cursed fluently.)

My hubby, the programmer, says this is most likely caused by some hidden formatting issue that happens when I am copying from a Word doc and pasting it into the post. I usually write my posts in a Word doc because I catch more mistakes that way. Then I paste it here and, using the ‘preview’ option, check, double-check, and check again for bloopers.

Randomly, the posts are rife with strange formatting that will not be removed no matter what remedy I try. If I was a programmer, I would know exactly what bit of code was causing it and fix it. Alas! I’m only an old lady with just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

Hinky formatting also occurs in my Blogger sites, but not as often. I love the way WordPress looks when it’s all going right, but I love the options Blogger offers and the compatibility with Google products such as YouTube videos. (Blogger is a Google product.)

Dealing with these little issues are why I try to write my posts several days in advance and schedule them for the time I want them to post. Once I have it scheduled, I will let it sit overnight and then come back and read it with fresh eyes. I catch a lot that way, but it’s amazing how many slip by me.

This is why I always say self-editing is not as effective as we’d like. No one sees my blog posts before they are published but me and invariably I miss some whopping eye stopper.

1024px-Trapeze_Artists_in_CircusThe most mysterious problem is the inadvertent posting of a piece that is

  • in the draft stage
  • full of bloopers
  • looks illiterate

Technically, that happens because I get side-tracked and instead of scheduling it as I normally do, for some crazy reason I click ‘publish’ instead of ‘save draft.’

I blame ghosts.

And curly quotes.

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February 29, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: tips for writing clear dialogue

gibberish quoteDialogue can be tricky. Often, in our rush to get the ideas on paper, we have left off quotes, misplaced punctuation, and written interrupted dialogue with inconsistency.

While a certain amount of literary license in dialogue can enrich our work, our dialogue may be too rich with run-on sentences, and not in a good way.

Also, while everyone has read books that inspire them to become writers, some authors never learned how to write the kind of dialogue they envision. They don’t understand the fundamentals and don’t realize how their lack of understanding ruins their work.

Always begin what is actually spoken (dialogue) with a capitalized word, no matter where in the sentence it begins.

  • Mary glanced over her shoulder and said, “I’m sorry. I can’t go with you.” 

However, interrupted dialogue, when it resumes, is not capped, although the rules of punctuation and quotation marks still apply.

  • “I’m sorry to tell you,” said Mary, “but I can’t go with you.”

Direct dialogue is someone speaking to you or someone else and requires quotation marks.

  • “I’m sorry. I can’t go with you,” said Mary.

I’m a US author, so I used double quotes, also called closed quotes. The UK usage is different and often uses apostrophes, or what they call inverted commas. Either way, be consistent and make sure ALL punctuation goes inside the quote marks.

Yes, I did say All punctuation. How does one set off a quote from someone else within dialogue? Set it apart with single quotes (apostrophes, inverted commas) and keep it inside the closed quotes.

George said, “When I asked her, Mary replied ‘I can’t go.’ But I’m sure she was lying.”

George said, “When I asked, Mary replied ‘I can’t go.'” Note there are 3 apostrophes there: 1 apostrophe and 1 double (closed) quote mark. This is in keeping with the rule that all punctuation in dialogue goes inside the quotation marks.

Indirect dialogue is a recapping of dialogue that someone previously spoke.

  • When asked, George said Mary couldn’t go.

Note there are no quotes used in indirect dialogue. Also in this sentence, the word that is implied between said and Mary.

Dialogue tags, or attributions, can come before the dialogue, especially if you want the dialogue tag to be noticed. To make them less noticeable put them in the middle or at the end of sentences. In my own work, I want the dialogue and not the attribution to stand out. However, when more than two people are involved in a conversation, I move the dialogue tags further to the front so the reader isn’t left wondering who is speaking.

DialogueI’ve mentioned before that I prefer simple attributions such as said, replied, and answered because they are not as likely to stop the reader’s eye. People don’t snort, smirk, smile, or frown dialogue as it is physically impossible. They can say it with a smile, but the smile is a facial expression and does not speak.

Avoid verbal tics like “hmmm…” and “ahhh…” as they just take up space and add fluff to your narrative. When people in real life preface all of their sentences with drawn-out ahs and hmms it can be aggravating to listen to them. Consider how irritating it would be to read it.

Sometimes we have two ideas in a sentence that we think are one, and we connect them with commas.  But closer examination shows they are not.

  • “Hello, sir, we bathed your dog,” she said.

The above dialogue contains a run-on sentence, despite its shortness. We may actually speak it in this fashion, words run together, but for a reader, punctuation clarifies ideas.

The dialogue contains two separate ideas. “Hello, sir,” is an acknowledgment and a greeting. “We bathed your dog,” indicates an action was taken in regard to his dog. It should be:

  • “Hello, sir. We bathed your dog,” she said.
  • When we write our conversation using proper punctuation, it looks natural, and the reader will hear it the way it was intended.

When it’s done right, dialogue is, in my opinion, the best part of the story. It’s where we discover who the characters are, and how the larger events affect them. Conversations show the world as the protagonist sees it. We can take some style and voice liberties with dialogue, and indeed, we should, but adhering to industry standard rules of punctuation ensures your reader can remain immersed in the story, and forget they are reading.

And THAT is what we all hope for.

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February 28, 2016 · 10:55 am

#amwriting: Our shifting language

English is the third most widely spoken native language in the world (behind Mandarin Chinese and Spanish). It is the first language of four countries and is spoken by more than 400 million people, with five major dialects and distinct accents:

  • Countries where English is spoken natively by the majority of the populationBritish English
  • North American English
  • Australian English
  • New Zealand English
  • South African English

An American girl from a rural corner of the US can understand a girl from New Zealand fairly well, and after they adjust to the differences in their accents, they can chat freely.

Many other countries use English as their official language. According to Google, fifteen more countries have their own native language, but use English as an “Official Language and the Language of Instruction in Higher Education”:

Anguilla Ireland, Northern Singapore
Antigua and Barbuda Ireland, Republic of Solomon Islands
Australia Jamaica South Africa
Bahamas Kenya Swaziland
Barbados Lesotho Tanzania

 

According to Wikipedia, the Fount of All Knowledge: “Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly, from 470 million to more than 1 billion. David Crystal calculates that non-native speakers as of 2003 outnumbered native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. When combining native and non-native speakers, English is the most widely spoken language worldwide.”

All English speaking people can communicate through writing, and while they might not be able to understand each other well in person, they can easily communicate via the written word.

In medieval times, the lingua franca was Latin. Lingua Franca means a language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different. An historical example of how people can communicate using a lingua franca in writing and still be unable to understand each other when speaking it: Richard the Lionhearted spoke langue d’oïl, a French dialect, and lenga d’òc, a Romance language, and his wife, Berengaria of Navarre, spoke Navarro-Aragonese, a Spanish dialect.

During the political negotiations arranging their marriage, Richard and Berengaria communicated via letters composed and written in Latin, as neither one spoke the other’s native language. However, when they met, even though they were both speaking Latin, their accents made it nearly impossible for them to understand each other until they became used to the other’s pronunciations.

That bit of historical trivia brings us back to the modern day lingua franca: English. With so many people speaking it, new usages come into play and spread through the speaking community, and the language shifts. Sometimes it shifts more rapidly than I can keep up with.

This blending and shifting of the common usage demonstrate what happened to Latin. Latin is frequently referred to as a dead language, but it is not. Latin is actively spoken in the modern Romance languages. (Romance referring to Roman, not love.)

The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are:

  • Spanish (410 million)
  • Portuguese (216 million)
  • French (75 million)
  • Italian (60 million)
  • Romanian (25 million)

Latin also appears in and strongly influences our Germanic, Frisian-based English, through our Norman ancestry—after all, our great Norman kings and queens spoke Medieval French: langues d’oïl, which itself was a mingling of Gallic and Roman based languages.

The Normans came to Britain speaking French, and their children remained, speaking a blend of Anglo-Saxon-French: Old English.

270px-Rosetta_StoneAll spoken language evolves. Only languages whose sole known records are actually engraved in stone, such as Egyptian Hieroglyphics and Ancient Sumerian, are unchanging.

English is continually evolving in more than just the obvious way of snappy catch-phrases and new technology. It is evolving in its formal usage

Consider the word whilst. As conjunctions go, the words whilst and while are technically interchangeable in meaning, but whilst has become less common in standard American English. If whilst appears in an American genre fiction book, it’s an eye-stopper, awkward and old-fashioned, more suited to classical poems and literary prose. Therefore, an American author may not use whilst, but a British author might.

Yet, despite its having fallen out of fashion in the US, we all understand the word whilst when we see it written and when we hear it.

At some point, everything we write in our modern language will be as unintelligible to those who speak the future modern English as Geoffrey Chaucer’s work is to the contemporary eye and ear today:

chaucer modern translate wife of bath meme

It is clear that the eye of the translator and his perception can greatly influence the modern translation of the work. I disagree with the use of the word “Ruled” in the second line, as the intent of “Were” in this case is clearly “was.” In the common usage of the day, “were” was interchangeable with “was.” Had I been in the same program as the above translator, we would have argued over this point.

I’d have translated it as:

Experience, though no authority,

Was in this world  enough for me

To speak of the woe that is marriage.

For, Lordings, since I was twelve years of age,

Thanks be to God eternally alive!

Husbands at the church door, I have had five.

We can only see the works of our great literary giants through the lens of time, filtered through our own wishes and interpretations. And this is how our greatest works, those which do survive into the next millennium, will be seen and interpreted.

Title page of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the hand of his personal scribe Adam Pinkhurst, c. 1400Perhaps our published work will remain a part of the public record as it is today, and be available for students of “classic” literature to interpret. Or perhaps our works will be forgotten, lodged in the dusty vaults of Bowkers, only rarely resurfacing, having been ironically relegated to the dark corners of scholastic research on obscure texts in forgotten languages.

Soon-to-be forgotten or not, I am writing for today, and writing for a contemporary reader. My usages will evolve over the life of my writing career–I ‘ve already seen this evolution at work. That is the process of growth, and it’s clear how my early works differ from my more recent work.

Growth and change drives and forms the new canon of 21st century world literature. We are all a part of its birth, whether we are readers or authors. Readers choose the works they buy and those works are written by people who chose to record the thoughts, values, and misdeeds of their contemporary society in story form.

I am so blessed to be both a reader and an author.

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February 24, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: wrangling that, which, and semicolons

em dash memeSemicolons are misused morsels of punctuation. Some authors believe they are extra-long pauses: half-way between a comma and a (full stop)period. These bits of typographical madness litter their work.

Semicolons  are NOT extra-firm pauses. Em dashes or (if you are British) hyphens serve that function. Semicolons have a different place in the universe. For this post, we are going to look at semicolons as joiners.

The proper use of a semicolon is to join two short sentences that are directly related to each other, turning them into a compound sentence.

No one enjoys reading a choppy narrative. Too many short sentences can be distracting and hard to get into. The way we smooth the narrative is to join short sentences into longer, compound sentences. But frequently, that creates run-on sentences. (I am the queen of those.)

  1. Short and choppy: I’d love some ice-cream. We should go to the Dairy Queen.
  2. Compound sentence: I’d love some ice-cream; we should go to the Dairy Queen.

Comma Splice MemeYou do not join independent clauses with commas as that creates a rift in the space/time continuum: the Dreaded Comma Splice.

  1. WRONG: It’s nearly half past five, we can’t reach town before dark.
  2. BETTER: It’s nearly half past five; we can’t reach town before dark.

The two clauses that are joined together with a semicolon should relate to each other. The above sentences work because the lateness of the day means they might have to travel after dark.

  1. WRONG: We should go to the Dairy Queen; it’s nearly half past five.
  2. BETTER: We should go to the Dairy Queen. It’s nearly half past five.

If time is actually the issue in the above sentence, and you absolutely MUST use a semicolon or you will explode, say, “The Dairy Queen is about to close; it’s nearly half past five.”

I generally try to find alternatives to semicolons, but I don’t dislike them, as some editors do. I think they are too easily abused and misused, so I encourage myself and my authors to think outside the semicolon.

Another sticky area for the some authors are the words ‘that’ and ‘which.’ They are often difficult for new authors to get the hang of. They are not interchangeable, and overuse of the word ‘that’ cannot be cured by using ‘which’ instead.

‘That’ is a pronoun:

  1. Used to identify a specific person or thing observed by the speaker.

“That’s his dog on the curb.”

  1. Referring to a specific thing previously mentioned, known, or understood.

“That’s a good idea.”

‘That’ is also a determiner:

  1. Used to identify a specific person or thing observed or heard by the speaker.

“Look at that house fire.”

  1. Referring to a specific thing previously mentioned, known, or understood.

“He lived in Tacoma at that time.”

‘That’ is also an adverb

  1. Indicating to such a degree; so.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

And ‘that’ is a conjunction:

  1. Introducing a subordinate clause expressing a statement or hypothesis.

“She claimed that she was married.”

‘That’ can also be a literary conjunction expressing a wish or regret:

“Oh, that I had known this before.”

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‘Which’ is a pronoun:

  1. asking for information specifying one or more people or things from a definite set.

“Which are the best diapers for newborns?”

‘Which’ is a determiner:

  1. used referring to something previously mentioned when introducing a clause giving further information.

“A house on Black Lake, which is for sale.”

Some people will rather forcefully say you must never use the word ‘that,’ but those people are clearly unaware of the larger grammatical picture—do not listen to them.

Sigh.

So, when do we use the word ‘that’ in an appropriate and defensible fashion?  After all, too many ‘that’s’ make the prose boring and forgettable.

So does Grammar Girl, (Mignon Fogarty) on her awesome website for writers with questions. This website is an invaluable resource for folks like me, with some education, but no memory of what we were actually taught.

that which does not kill meThere are instances where only ‘that’ will suffice. When do we use the word that?

We use it when we have something called a ‘Restrictive Clause’:

Quote from Grammar Girl, “A restrictive clause is just part of a sentence that you can’t get rid of because it specifically restricts some other part of the sentence.”  She goes on to give a specific example of a restrictive clause: “Gems that sparkle often elicit forgiveness.”  See?  Not just any gems elicit forgiveness in this sentence. Only gems that sparkle bring about clemency. In this sentences, forgiveness is restricted to one kind of gem.

So, now we know about restrictive clauses, but what about nonrestrictive clauses? Again we turn to the Grammar Girl and she says, “A nonrestrictive clause is something that can be left off without changing the meaning of the sentence. You can think of a nonrestrictive clause as simply additional information.”

Again the Grammar Girl gives the example, “Diamonds, which are expensive, often elicit forgiveness.”  The word ‘which’ isn’t really necessary, as the meaning of the sentence would not be changed if you left it out. “Diamonds are expensive, but often elicit forgiveness.”

stop don't click replace allOften the sentence is better without the words ‘that’ or ‘which,’ but each instance must be examined individually, to ensure you are making the best choice.

This is yet another time when making a global search for these words is a good idea. (And never choose ‘replace all’.) On an individual basis, decide which word is the correct word, ‘that’ or ‘which’ and then decide whether to delete it or keep it. If the sentence makes good sense without it, lose it.

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February 22, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: Couriers, Pigeons, and Excalibur

Medieval_forest wikimedia commons PD 100 yrs

Russian Forest in medieval France (1405-1410) Gaston Phoebus

I have a great deal of interest in Medieval history because I have ancestors who lived then. I’m not bragging–everyone who is alive today is here because one or two ancestors survived the Dark Ages long enough to leave behind a child who did the same.

Life was perilous, even if you grew up in a fairly sheltered environment. No one was exempt from disease–even kings regularly died young from plagues and injuries. Regardless of their personal safety, medieval kings were forced to go to war in person. They did this for several reasons.

  1. The only way for the monarch to know what was actually happening on the battlefront was to be there
  2. It was expected that a monarch should understand the art of warfare and be proficient as a warrior. He was responsible for winning or losing the battle.

Portrait of Henry VIII (1491-1547) by Hans HolbeinDuring the Dark Ages, official news was delivered by a royal messenger and read aloud in church or in the market.

Messengers were a permanent fixture on the royal payroll. They were dedicated and well-paid to travel the kingdom continuously, carrying the king’s word. In medieval England, kings did not stay in London. Instead, they traveled all over their lands and the noble families were required to feed and house them at great expense. Their gypsy-like existence kept the messengers busy.

Wars were expensive. Henry VIII’s habit of medieval couch-surfing at the country homes of his noble courtiers was a great way for an impoverished king and his entourage to live well and cheaply, conserving the cash to pay for the troops. But it also meant that an organized and efficient messenger service was required to ensure that correspondence to and from the king: royal letters, grants, patents, and such, arrived at their intended destinations.

Tancred, Count of Lecce, King of Sicily via Wikimedia

Tancred, Count of Lecce, King of Sicily via Wikimedia

In the year 1190, when my direct maternal ancestor, Tancred, King of Sicily, faced Richard I of England, he was limited to what information a messenger could convey. Thus, their battles were fought in person and so were their negotiations.

These were not native Italians–the original Tancred of Hauteville (980 – 1041) was an 11th-century Norman and a minor baron of Normandy about whom little is known, other than eight of his twelve sons joined the crusades and became kings of southern Italy in the process.

So his illegitimate great-grandson, King Tancred, and King Richard the Lionhearted were Norman kings, squabbling over what was left of the Holy Land and the Mediterranean at the end of the crusades. However, Tancred was born and raised there so he was a third generation Sicilian, being the out-of-wedlock son of Roger III, the Norman duke of Apulia and Emma of Lecce, who was married to Ruggero III de Hauteville.

Quote from Wikipedia: “In 1190 Richard I of England arrived in Sicily at the head of a large crusading army on its way to the Holy Land. Richard immediately demanded the release of his sister, William II’s wife Joan, imprisoned by Tancred in 1189, along with every penny of her dowry and dower. He also insisted that Tancred fulfill the financial commitments made by William II to the crusade. When Tancred balked at these demands, Richard seized a monastery and the castle of La Bagnara.” (end quoted text)

Richard I Google Art Project via Wikimedia

Richard I Google Art Project via Wikimedia

Richard was joined in Sicily by the French crusading army, led by his soon-to-be-former friend,  King Philip II of France. The presence of two foreign armies highly aggravated the local citizens who, rightfully, demanded the foreigners leave their island.

Ever the good guest, King Richard responded by attacking Messina, which he captured on 4 October 1190. Once the city had been looted and burned, Richard established his base there and decided to stay the winter—after all, winters in Sicily are a bit more pleasant than those in Normandy.

But what’s a little looting and pillaging among friends? According to Wikipedia:

“Richard remained at Messina until March 1191, when Tancred finally agreed to a treaty. According to the treaty’s main terms:

  • Joan was to be released, receiving her dower along with the dowry.
  • Richard and Philip recognized Tancred as King of Sicily and vowed to keep the peace between all three of their kingdoms.
  • Richard officially proclaimed his nephew Arthur of Brittany as his heir presumptive, and Tancred promised to marry one of his daughters to Arthur when he came of age (Arthur was four years old at the time).
Excalibur London_Film_Museum_ via Wikipedia

Excalibur London Film Museum via Wikipedia

After signing the treaty, Richard and Philip finally left Sicily for the Holy Land. It is rumored that before he left, Richard gave Tancred a sword he claimed was Excalibur in order to secure their friendship.”

Yes, you read this correctly. King Richard the Lionhearted gave my many-times great grandfather Excalibur, the legendary sword of mythical King Arthur.

I doubt Richard the Lionhearted would really give away a sword that was supposed to prove his lineage back to the Pendragon if he actually believed it was truly Arthur’s. However, it is a documented fact that he did indeed give this sword of historical significance to Tancred.

I suspect that Tancred believed it was the true sword of King Arthur as much as I do, but in the interest of peace, he most likely smiled and thanked his departing guest. Whatever he did with it, it was never seen again. When he came to reclaim his island after Tancred’s death, Henry IV, king of the Holy Roman Empire, pillaged Tancred’s treasury and the sword was not there.

But what, you ask, does my illegitimate many-times-great grandfather’s possession of the possibly faux Excalibur have to do with communication?

Tancred and Richard both had to be there in Sicily in person and had to communicate through messengers to arrange all this swapping of women and dowries and swords of dubious origin.

Good long-distance communication has always been seen as critical to good governing. Wars were won and lost based on the information those kings and generals received. During the Middle Ages, postal systems were invented, became corrupt, and fell into disuse all over Europe. This recurred at different times up through the eighteenth century.

In 1505, Emperor Maximilian I established one of the more stable postal systems, but it was not a thing the peasant class could avail themselves of. An illiterate peasant could hire a scribe, but then they would also have to scrape up more coins to get the note sent to its destination. It was better to pay a neighbor to carry the news to wherever it had to go.

420px-Pigeon_Messengers_(Harper's_Engraving)There was a faster method of getting a letter home. Long before the Middle Ages and during them, homing pigeons were used to carry messages. Rock pigeons have the ability that taken far from their nest, they’re able to find their way home. This due to a particularly developed sense of orientation. Messages were then tied around the legs of the pigeon, which was freed and could reach its original nest.

This is of limited usefulness because pigeons will only go back to the one place that they have identified as their home. Pigeon mail can only work when the sender has a specific recipient in mind and has possession of that receiver’s pigeons.

So how did they  do this? The sender had to hand-carry the pigeons with them. Once released, the pigeons would fly back home with the note. Correspondents could not send a pigeon anywhere but the one place the birds considered their home.

If you are an author writing in an era other than the modern times, be diligent and do the research before you write about things that are outside your personal experience. Readers may have knowledge that you don’t and they will definitely not be shy about letting you know where you’ve gone wrong.

Much of my work is set in medieval environments, and so I can’t have my characters getting instantaneous information from afar without divine intervention. If my characters need to communicate over long distances, I have to consider the length of time it would take even a fast messenger to travel over roads we would consider impassable, but which were the medieval equivalent of I-5.

This kind of information is available via the internet.  Researching my subject online is how I discovered that regular mail delivery is a relatively modern invention. Perusing Ancestry.com is how I discovered the medieval Norman/Sicilian roots of my mother’s family, the (Fitz)Rogers family.

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February 17, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting and #amrevising: weeding the garden of words

Free-range pansies by cjjaspersonWhen I write a novel, I always end up with a lot of back story. These are details that are important for me to know, but not meant for the actual novel. It’s more a way for me to mentally talk my way through the first draft.

I think of my manuscript as a garden of words, and by the time the novel is complete, it will have been weeded, dug up, and replanted many times.

Every author has their own style, their own way of getting the story down on paper. My style is not the usual way, but it works for me.

The way I do a first draft is this: First, I put together an outline listing all the characters and plot points.  Second, I write the ending and then write the scenes for the large events and turning points. Once those are in place, I start at the beginning and write the story in a linear form, connecting the large events and finally meeting up with the end.

Along the way, my story evolves. A lot of fluff gets added in because I need to sort the story out in my head and writing it down is the way I do that. This fluff is all written in a passive, telling voice, and is part of my road map for creating the first draft–it was put down in that fashion so I would remember it later when I came back to rewrite the scene and turn it into an action sequence or cut it entirely.

I’ll give you an example of a telling sequence from Julian Lackland’s story, which is set in Waldeyn, Huw the Bard’s world. It was written down in this way so I would have a mental picture:

“In Port Lanque, the harbor itself was accessible only by one broad cobbled street, Quay Street, snaking down the steep cliffs to the piers. This wide boulevard ran through the center of town, twisting and turning in a sharp descent down to the piers, and had been kept in good repair by the pirates as it was the only way to move carts and drays down to the ships for off-loading loot. At the very top of Quay Street, in the worst part of town, an immense, rundown palace loomed. Now less than a filthy slum, it was once the home of generations of kings.”

Little or none of that passage will make it into the final manuscript because it doesn’t advance the plot. It was originally written to set the scene in MY mind. But I didn’t throw it away–I kept it in my file of outtakes along with some useful conversations further down the page that may come in handy in a different story:

“You’re wearing a dress, madam, not a crown. How can I be sure you’re the real king?” King Harry eyed the pirate. “You could be any old thief claiming to know how to sail a ship. I happen to like this ship, and I’m not disposed to give her away to some random old man in a dress.”  

That above passage is why I say you shouldn’t be married to your prose. I love the scene and the conversation, and the action that follows, but the plot thread it is part of does not advance Julian Lackland’s story. However, I intend to turn it into a short story set in Waldeyn.

By the time I finish a manuscript, I will have written the beginning three different ways, some names will have changed, and relationships will have evolved. But the major plot points and the ending will usually be the same as I had originally envisioned.  I say ‘usually’ because that was not the case for Valley of Sorrows. I ended up completely rewriting the end of that manuscript.

prnt screen 1 never delete cut passagesI can’t say it often enough: never delete any passage that you have cut from your manuscript. Save it in a separate file labeled ‘outtakes,’ because you may need that information later, or you may be able to turn that work into a short story.

A lot of authors use Scrivener for this, and it seems to work for them. I find it simpler to just copy and paste the work into a new file and save it in my outtakes for that particular novel. That way it’s out there in my dropbox or google drive and available no matter where I go or what happens to my computer.

Short stories are the bread-and-butter of many authors. You get paid a small sum for them, and your author name is published in one more place. The small story you toss out there could attract new fans to your other work.

Our work starts out full of passion and promise. Like a garden, it can grow wildly out of control. When you can’t see the flowers for the weeds, the garden must be cut back and pruned. The wild weed-words must be pulled in order for the reader to enjoy the real story.

Sometimes those weeds produce beautiful flowers when you get them into a different garden.

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