What are you writing about now?

I'm working my way through book 1 again. I'm implementing the causality chain ideas I came up with.

My wife is marking areas that are unclear, awkwardly phrased, or otherwise questionable.

I am also attempting to reduce wordiness. (Hard! Hard! Hard!)

Early last fall I used ProWritingAid to do a chapter summary of each chapter to get its guidance on things to consider. This week I decided to re-run those chapter analysis reports after I edited the chapters. ProWritingAid has seriously upped its game! Instead of vague guidance about things to consider, it is now giving specific, actionable advice tied to specific places in my writing.

Now, it's still prone to all the weaknesses of an AI - it guides people to the norm of what everyone else has been doing. So it doesn't understand new ideas about how to tell a story. It's still able to misinterpret what's going on because it's committed to trying to shoe-horn my story into a standard genre and standard plot. And it can still hallucinate, i.e., make up stuff from God knows where.

But much of the advice is spot on and excellent. I'm (relatively) enjoying the editing process more this time. I also feel like I'm learning how to do these tasks better. (And that means less editing 'cause it will be right the first time!!!)

You should take a look. There's a free version of the product. Not sure of the specifics about what's included/not included in the free version.

A Book of Two Tales.

Opening lines of Tale #1, Emissary of the Valar:

She agreed to marry me, and the light died out of the world.

I did not expect that.

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Opening lines of Tale #2, The Forest Maiden:

My world now, seven paces by five; not the summer journey I planned.


And here I am.


Imprisoned.

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Hopefully, both intrigue you!

I'm still making the editing pass through book #1, my last before I send it to a professional editor. I'm on chapter 13 of 52. It's a slog but the text is getting better.

david_wendelken said:

A Book of Two Tales.

Opening lines of Tale #1, Emissary of the Valar:

She agreed to marry me, and the light went out of the world.

I did not expect that.

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What a splendid opening line. I'd want to read more.

I do like the other as well, but this one is my favorite.

I'm slogging thru the edit of chapter 14. It's not a long chapter (3500 words), but about half of it covers a major battle. I need to simplify the way I document what happens in the battle as seen through the narrator's eyes. Plus I've realized I need to add a new scene in the front of the chapter. I'm hoping the next 5 chapters will go faster.

Still slogging through chapter 14. I'm not yet in the battle scenes, so I'm really working hard on this one.

I've got a structural problem in the story I'm trying to find a way to solve, and this chapter happened to bring it to a head.

There are several key events in the Silmarillion story. My characters take part in some of them. Aside from the fact that it would be ludicrous for them to be in all of these events, the events are not part of my story. They impact my story. They reveal important information that becomes important in the story long after the event took place.

Problem One: So, what to do about imparting useful info to the reader?

Option 1: Write the books for die-hard Tolkien nerds who know the Silmarillion well. Writing problem solved. Marketing problem to non-Silmarillion readers made insurmountable. So, no.

Option 2: Just have someone "learn the news in a brief synopsis. One or two brief paragraphs, a total of 3-5 sentences. Doesn't seem like a problem to me if it's only done rarely, but I'm not sure.

Option 3: Work up scenes where the characters meet with someone who was there, who imparts the news as a story. Plus side, it dramatises the info. Downsides are it takes way more space - 3 to 5 sentences can become 1 to 6 pages! Also more work.

Option 4: Find bogus reasons for the characters to be there and witness it. Not willing to do this, and if I had good reasons, well, I wouldn't be asking for help!


Problem Two: My stories are translations of existing historical works. Much of the info I need the reader to know is not something one character would tell another because they both already know it. Just as I would not explain what an automobile or a web browser are to you, there are many things the characters "just know". Tolkien got around this by having 4 hobbits, essentially country bumpkins, in the LOTR. People could explain things to them, just as people can explain magic to Harry Potter. My timeline spans centuries and millennia, so I would need a parade of mortal country bumpkins, which is its own sort of problem. I can occasionally have someone "out of the loop" and need to be updated on the news, but I can't do that all the time.

It looks like options 2 and 3 would need to be used interchangeably for this issue.

Personally, there's a possible other option: incomplete explanations. Callbacks and references different characters make to each other when recounting stories and/or sharing news, when making offhand remarks or other things of the like. Downside to this is it's rather subtle and would need the readers to pay attention for them to catch it, but the upside is it sounds more natural.
Hope this helps.

WatcherWraith said:

It looks like options 2 and 3 would need to be used interchangeably for this issue.

Personally, there's a possible other option: incomplete explanations. Callbacks and references different characters make to each other when recounting stories and/or sharing news, when making offhand remarks or other things of the like. Downside to this is it's rather subtle and would need the readers to pay attention for them to catch it, but the upside is it sounds more natural.
Hope this helps.

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Thanks.

I guess I could also just expect readers to "do your homework, or at least google what Beren and Luthien did."

My paper on flooding along the Darling river is finally out - only took 15 years!

just finished the write up of my Antarctic log for friends and family.

Nothing else on the books at present

Ugluk said:

My paper on flooding along the Darling river is finally out - only took 15 years!

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People find a lot of mates along the Darling River.

I started writing a paper (or essay, I can't really decide on a style yet) on the significance of Tolkien as modern day myth. It is meant to be about the ways readers and also viewers engage with the Lord of the Rings and if and how that engagement and the corresponding relevance of the story fills in a spot that in premodern times used to be occupied by 'true' mythology in peoples lives. Hopefully it may complement other books and papers that focus on how the story contains mythological elements or can act as myth. As far as I am aware that would be something unique, and I am quite excited for it, but currently I am working construction and with 10-hour workdays, more often than not including weekends, it's really hard to make progress.

david_wendelken said:

People find a lot of mates along the Darling River.

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There are some very strange people along the Darling. If it were in the US you'd hear banjos.....

Ugluk said:

There are some very strange people along the Darling. If it were in the US you'd hear banjos.....

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So you're saying they don't have to leave the family farm?

Found this advice on FB under an account called LiteraryGems. It's excellent.
I printed out my copy with 4 pages per side of a sheet of paper, on both sides, so it only took up 1 sheet of paper. Very readable at that scale, even with my tired old eyes.

I've changed the name of book 3 as most people have no idea what a "Lay" is in this context.

Also been researching the Sindarin names for the books and the series.

Which of these words do you know?

I'm learnig that a number of my alpha readers don't know the words.

Here is a sample:

buffet (as in buff-fett, not buff-fay, we are not speaking of food)
wyrm
lay (not as in lie down or place on)
sacked (not with your groceries)
weal
shanty
drake
surfeit
sennight
despoiled
aft

I know most of them and recognize the others in the context I've seen them. The only one I have no clue what it is is "sennight" unless it refers to a time of day.

Glorfindel Goldtress said:

I know most of them and recognize the others in the context I've seen them. The only one I have no clue what it is is "sennight" unless it refers to a time of day.

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Seven nights, like fortnight is fourteen nights.

david_wendelken said:

Which of these words do you know?

I'm learnig that a number of my alpha readers don't know the words.

Here is a sample:

buffet (as in buff-fett, not buff-fay, we are not speaking of food)
wyrm
lay (not as in lie down or place on)
sacked (not with your groceries)
weal
shanty
drake
surfeit
sennight
despoiled
aft

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I know almost all of these words, I think.

buffet(a blow, typically received)
wyrm(a type of dragon or serpent)
lay(a type of song, typically an epic)
sacked(a verb, to have been sacked, or to be sacked. Basically, raided. Similar to despoiled)
weal(a type of injury. A raised lump of skin after having been buffeted)
shanty(a sea-song, usually sung by sailors while doing their work, I believe)
drake(another type of dragon. The definition of this word is debatable, as it sometimes refers to a dragon with wings, sometimes without)
surfeit(the only word I'm not certain of, but I believe it refers to a penalty of some sort)
sennight(a short-hand form of seven-night, or a week)
despoiled(depending on the context, this could refer to having had your possessions stolen, or to having been despoiled in some more intimate fashion. Older language could often mean the latter, from what I've read)
aft(aft and fore, if I'm correct. Two parts of a ship. The aft side being the back, the fore part being the front. Additionally, I only recently learned "larboard" and "portside" meant the same thing[left side of the ship], only larboard is an older word than portside, and more out of use)

WatcherWraith said:

I know almost all of these words, I think.

weal(a type of injury. A raised lump of skin after having been buffeted)

surfeit(the only word I'm not certain of, but I believe it refers to a penalty of some sort)

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weal - oddly - can also mean a sound, healthy, or prosperous state of being.

surfeit is a lot, a surplus.

david_wendelken said:

weal - oddly - can also mean a sound, healthy, or prosperous state of being.

surfeit is a lot, a surplus.

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Thank you! I didn't know that about weal :0