1811 Slang Book

Well, I got interested in this book since it was mentioned in the Julian Stockwin newsletter (he's a great naval warfare author) and found it on Gutenberg. It looks to be a lively collection of slang terms for any who's interested. Some of these could doubtless be dropped into your world building efforts for a vintagey feel.

SAMPLE IT: 15 ways to greet someone

It's interesting. Take a look at these real world examples of cultural greeting and see what the first ten have in common

1. Shaking hands.
2. Raising a hand as you approach.
3. Kowtow - kneel down and lower your forehead to the ground.
4. Prostrate yourself - lie down on the floor before your superior.
5. Grasping each other's forearms.
6. Bowing to each other - whether low or high, or with a flourish.
7. Saluting your superior.
8. Removing, or simply doffing, your hat.
9. Cursey.
10. Kneeling before your superior on either one knee or both.
11. Cheek kiss.
12. Cheek pinch.
13. Beating one fish against your chest.
14. Punching your fist in the air.
15. A smile, verbal greeting, and maintained eye contact.

Many of these greetings have one or more of these aspects in common.

1) They involve lowering yourself so that your height is beneath that of your superiors.
2) They involve showing that you're unarmed.
3) They involve putting yourself in a vulnerable position - particularly the kowtow and prostrating oneself.

Each one of these different greeting gestures has their own meanings. A society that prostrates itself before the magistrates will be very different to one that simply doffs its cap or even thumps a fist against its chest. Prostrating oneself is about as humbling a greeting gesture as one can comfortably get whereas doffing your cap (simply tipping the cap back and then settling it back down) is fairly casual and friendly as its a quick and easy gesture. Thumping your fist against your chest is an aggressive act but since it's a greeting and not an insulting gesture it may indicate a remembrance of the power of the law or an indicator of a previous oath sworn to defend the law.

So if you're looking at which sort of greeting your protagonists should use, particularly if they come from an invented society, take a look at that list and see which one they would likely use and why.

If you know of any other greetings that don't fit any of those categories, let me know.

WORTHY LINKS: Good World Building Web-Sites

Well, it's that time again when I dive into researching geology and ecosystems and how they might relate to my fantasy land. If anyone has any good research links, please let me know. For now, though, here is my own awesome world building link:

http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/ecosystems.html

Enjoy!

TIPS: Unanticipate

The best advice from Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell is that since readers are more aware of potential plot developments and build up expectations based on the many repetitions of plot 'twists' they've seen before, you should fool them by refusing to do the expected. Basically, conceive of your plot, scene, twist, etc. and then put down the first thing that comes to your mind. The first thing is likely to be something done before. After all, you're also a reader and thus you anticipate of your own plot lines the same hackneyed tales that others do. So make a list of alternatives to your original idea. Brainstorm.

So, let's give this a go:

In the Medieval Era, a young woman who has always been an eccentric dreamer is told that she must marry a man twice her age. How does she react?

She secretly plots her way out of it through a mixture of cunning and wit.
She rails against it and stamps her pretty little feet.
She accepts it with a whimsical smile. Older men are less likely to be demanding of her time.
She has an affair to prove her independence and to cause him to break off the wedding date.
She joins a nunnery.
She pretends to be a boy and joins the army.

True, none of these are necessarily bad. They're all good reactions. However, you've got to admit that you saw 1. and 2. coming. 3. would be a surprise though it does mean there's no conflict in this piece of the plot. 4. is certainly unexpected but it'd be hard to respect such an act unless it was truly born of desperation as it would probably cause more trouble than it was worth. 5. is also unexpected and rarely used, fits the character concept (dreamy and quiet could make for a devoutly religious figure) and flouts societal expectations in what is still a socially acceptable manner. 6. would need a lot of build up and character development for that particular character but could be worked into the concept if her daydreams had a decidedly military bent.

And that's just what I get when I brainstorm 6 ideas. Imagine if I brainstormed 20. What do you guys think? Try the exercise yourself and tell me what you find.

TIPS: Plots ... now with Bees!

First, let me remind you all that one of the best ways to improve your writing is to leave the house (preferably by public transport so you can spend the trip learning through reading). This Sunday I went to the Torrens Island Quarantine Station tour with my fiance (yes, I'm missing the ` but I don't know how to add it so it'll sit right). Basically, the entire island is a secure facility because the ETSA power station sits on the single bridge to the island, and the now closed Quarantine Station facility is both heritage-listed and has problems with asbestos.

My visit really opened my eyes to all kinds of descriptive nuances, not to mention it gave me several new experiences in my memory banks that can be plumbed for later scenes. I saw how buildings left for decades without care could still withstand the test of time. I saw evidence of the youth camps that used to go there after it closed but before the big fears of asbestos. I saw how part of the old quarantine station had been bull dozed for a small sub-section of the power station. I saw how the wildlife was trying to take over.

In particular, I noticed that bees had taken up residence in two of the buildings (one of which was the morgue). It made me think that here was the perfect metaphor for re-using plots. It's pretty much been said that there's no new plots anymore. They all contain a structure from an earlier story - normally, the good ones also contain traces of dozens of stories in a rich cake of complexity. In a way, the novels we write are sort of like that quarantine station. They start off with a rather generic story structure (a semi-interesting tale of an abandoned quarantine station) but we add nuances and layers until they become something fresh and unexpected.

Until the bees move in, basically.

THE BUTTERFLY LADY: Painful Honesty & Maps

Oh dear, I spent ages trying to develop a map for a continent in my fantasy land and I finally think to myself, "You know what, I think you're close. I think you've got it." Then a friend of mine takes one look at it and tells me: "Is that Tasmania?"

Wow. I am not nearly as unique as I thought I was.

Oh well, back to the drawing board!

Titles

Hey all, I've been tossing up between titles and no titles. The trouble is that a lot of them have the same family name and I hate the ungodly issues that crop up when Mr. Rosentia, Mr. Rosentia, Mr. Rosentia and their wives Mr. Rosentia, Mrs. Rosentia, and Mrs. Rosentia are coming to tea. Of course, having no titles and referring to people by their first name is kinda weird too. I mean, there's a sort of egalitarian value going about in the magocracy (yes, you won't see it on Rosentia Island - they're a backwater village literally weeks by sea to anywhere of value), but when you have some people with 'Sir' or 'Lady', you expect to see a title for the others.

Originally I thought of making all of the commoners Mr. and Mrs. under the pretext that they're not considered important enough to be known by their first names - which is an awesome twist on our traditional views of rendering folk child-like by using their first name. But while that's certainly unique (as far as I know), it's also painful to get across in a book. Then I thought of how this is a series and I'd have to get it across every. single. time. and decided not to.

So now I'm thinking of having all the nobility being referred to as Master / Mistress FirstName LastName of House Blah (as not all family names match the House name). I think it's cool, it works for me, and it removes that whole married / unmarried division of women that the Queen would have thrown aside during the revolution. I mean, yes, there is an important married / unmarried division where all the unmarried are considered to be a bit childish but a) who would signpost that and b) do I really want to invent a masculine form of Miss?

I guess I could use Master / Mistress and Mister / Mrs. but would the reader readily understand why people are called Mr. Carrius, instead of Mr. Rosentia?

Also, Master and Mistress have a fairly dominant and somewhat magic vibe to them in my mind anyway so it should work. What do you think?

TIPS: Diversify Your Dialogue

Well, since I'm facing this issue myself, I thought I'd do up a post about it so that we can muse together and I can share my thoughts.

What is manner of speech?

It is their tone of voice, the volume, how quickly they speak, their inflection, emphasis and pitch. Where film can actually let you hear all of these play out, books need to show you through clever use of punctuation and phrasing. Look at the difference between this:

“When I sit here and look at you there is nothing I would like better than to punch you in the throat.”

“When I sit here and look at you ... there is nothing I would like better than to punch you in the throat.”

“When I sit here and look at you, there is nothing I would like better … than to punch you in the throat.”

“Wh-when I s-sit here and look at you, there is n-nothing I would like b-better than to p-punch you in the throat!”

Read them out. How do they sound to you? Do you naturally change your pitch, the speed of the sentence? Emphasis and tone? And that's without going anywhere near the italics and how an italicised word changes the sentence. If you want to see how italics can play havoc with meaning by stressing certain words, just take one of those lines and repeat it over and over but with the stress on a different word each time. Different people would stress different words.

Then you've got sentence structure. This also requires punctuation changes but it's more than that. It's how wordy they are. How many frills, bells, and whistles they use. How many similes, metaphors, and how simple or convoluted they speak. Some might speak in overly long paragraphs that indicate breathlessness (though don't overuse these or you might strain the reader's mind) while others might be terribly succinct.

“I sit here. I look at you. I want to punch you in the throat.”

“I sit here, right, and I'm looking at you, and all I'm thinking about is punching you in the throat.”

“I can't stand sitting here and looking at you. All it does is make me want to punch you in the throat.”

Last but not least, you have the actual spelling changes to indicate accents. This is the last one I'm mentioning because, unfortunately, it's quite easy to just mess with the spelling and keep everything the same. While this tactic will still make the lines of dialogue recognizably different, there is, of course, further you can go.

“I can't stand sittin' 'ere and lookin' at ya. All it does is make me wanna punch ya in the throat.”

“I cannot stand sitting here and looking at you. All it does is make me want to punch you in the throat."

Finally, you've got the actual metaphors, slang, and similes they might use. In South Australia, people disparagingly talk about those with low IQ as being 'Mindas' as there is an organization called Minda that assists people with very low IQ. Even people who don't know about the institution will probably know the word. People in the Northern Territory, probably wouldn't use that term.

In Curse of the Rose / The Butterfly Lady (really must settle on a title), a lot of the slang used are either nautical terms, mystical terms, or terms related to the ghastly salt plains that raise the dead. “Salt it!” becomes a terrible swear word and polite people therefore avoid asking for anyone to pass the salt and instead ask for seasoning. It's not a taboo word like our F word or even the C word but it's still stronger than 'damn it' as it conjures up images of rotting flesh. Other phrases include 'barrel fever', 'loose canon' and 'having a cold soul'.

So, do you have any advice about how to make characters sound different and diversifying your dialogue?

TIPS: The Story Behind a Place

In 2010, I started looking around me. I'd never done it before, not really, not in my entire life. I'd gone to university and kept my mind on daydreams and chores and reading books. I've bussed to many locations and not really seen them. For some reason, perhaps because I catch the bus at the same time twice daily now that I work, or perhaps for some intangible reason of personal development, I actually opened my eyes and started looking.

I noticed so many things. How the cockatoos toss their heads in flight at dusk, screeching and squawking. How a car alarm sounds when surrounded (or perhaps causing) bird song and how in Australia it's sometimes hard to pick out the alarm at all. How beautiful the birds look and how insane they sound. The stages of bark on the trees. First they're all barked up, then it starts sloughing off leaving green beneath, then it starts toughening up again over summer - leaving me lots of crunchy bark pieces to jump on. How some bits of pavement are concrete, others as asphalt (often covered in loose gravel) and others are beaten dirt. How often you can see glass from old smashed windows, perhaps from decades ago, glittering like gems in the dirt by the side of the road.

Then there's the buildings. Chipped paint, gleaming paint, patterns of fresh and older paint. Corrugated iron roof tops - new or freshly painted, faded or rusted. Sagging verandahs. Shiny iron lace. Trees, plants, a dozen types of fencing.

I look around me and I see, hear, and smell all the places around me and I wish, truly wish, I could capture this experience and put it onto paper. The trouble is, of course, a plethora of details won't help me capture that experience so I guess it's all in the telling details. Each description of a place should be an anecdote. A story. A tale. It should imply much even if it says little.

Have you told any anecdotes in your descriptions lately?

WORTHY LINK: Blending world building

TalkToYoUniverse has a really good piece of advice in this article on how you should put your world descriptions and exposition into the background by really emphasizing the viewpoint character's perspective. Filter it all through the lens of the viewpoint character, in other words. In a fantasy novel, I could look over at a clock and let people know that there are clocks. The world description would be in the foreground and readers might notice how obvious it is and how it stands out. Or I could look at the clock and feel rushed, feel bored, note how its hanging from the wall crookedly, running out of batteries, winding down, or even remember my now dead parents. All of that would put the viewpoint character in the foreground where they belong and slip the same piece of exposition into the background.

Very cool article! Not to mention the fact that she is analysing the first scene from reader-submitted novels and revealing the information that a reader might latch onto about the world. Take a read. It's a really excellent idea for a blog and one I'm tempted to poach simply because it'd help me figure out how to slip in the myriad of details that distinguish my fantasy setting from the generic one.

RESEARCH: Carola Wetlands

I have a peculiar fascination with understanding the local environment for my stories. A great number of fantasy novels have the environment as scenery and moody set-pieces. Many of them describe the environment in beautiful and haunting ways but there's very little depth behind it. No sense of an ecology. Now, whether ecology is more important than story-appropriate scenery is a matter for debate. I'm not arguing one way or the other. I just like trying to set up the environment so it makes sense. It helps that since I'm using Australian flora and fauna I get to learn more about my own country.

Of course, the biggest problem with naming the flora in your country is that you can either make up names for all the flowers (which can often end up irritating the reader) or risk giving flowers names that might annoy purists because, after all, why does this fantasy world have eucalypts or elms or pines, anyway? I've noticed over the years that many animals and plants mentioned are generically American / English. I think one of the primary reasons why a lot of readers tend toward the generic with their plants is the risk of naming flowers that the readers can't visualise. If you say, white rose, I know what you're talking about. If I talk about pigweed, will you?

I've found the way around this is to pick plants that have very evocative names. Sure, if I write 'pigweed', odds are you'll imagine a very different plant to the reality but it's a name that does at least conjure up an image. It's better than samphire which, despite being prolific in certain Realms areas, really does require its own description. Or worse, the Latin name for something.

So here's some adapted research (research turned toward world building and has already been fantasised):

The Regency Capital is located within the on a floodplain of the lower River Stafford lying 5km south of a major wetland – Carola Wetlands. The Carola Wetlands segment of the lower River Stafford floodplain consists of the main river channels and a diversity of wetland habitats including a series of creeks, channels, lagoons, billabongs, swamps, and lakes. Between the water-bodies are extensive areas of low-lying floodplain that are flooded during high river levels with receding floodwaters being retained in temporary wetlands. The Carola wetlands supports many aquatic fauna and waterbirds, some of which are migratory and also provides important habitat for many terrestrial fauna species, including refuge for wildlife during the dry season.

The floodplain supports extensive stands of river red gum and black box woodlands (both harder to visualise - would require description). There are fringing reeds and sedges (easy to visualise), Herbland (more a category of flora), Samphire Shrublands, saltbush shrublands, and Lignum Shrublands (all free require description). The fringing reeds are Common reed and Spiny sedge (easy to visualise even if the image evoked is wrong). Submerged vegetation include ribbonweeds and red milfoil (second one would be tricky to visualise but is easier in context with ribbonweeds).

The birds include White Egrets, Glossy Ibis, White-bellied Sea-Eagle, Red-necked stint, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Curlew Sandpiper, Greenshank, Caspian Tern. Regend parrots breed in hollows or Vier red gum, Musk duck, blue-billed duck, freckled duck, glossy ibis, banded stilt, square-tailed kite, peregrine falcon, white-bellied sea-eagle, blue-faced honeyeater, striped honey-eater, and the restless flycatcher. Many of these you can visualise because the first word is generally a description and the second word is a category of bird you've heard before - honeyeater, eagle, duck. The last one sounds like an insect.

Southern bell frog in the large wetlands. Yabbies are best in the warmer months and often caught in backwaters and in deep water. Hoop nets are relatively inexpensive and suit most conditions. Hmm, do you foreignors know what a yabby is?

Animals include common brushtail possum, feathertailed glider, broad-shell turtle, eastern tiger snake, carpet python, lace monitor, mussles. There are also feral goats, pigs, and rabbits making themselves at home after a few hundred years of habitation.

Rare plants: Dainty maiden-hair, swamp daisy, black-fruit daisy, water star-wort, pale flax-lily, small-flower beetle-grass, pale-fruit cherry, purple love-grass, hooked needlewood, nutty club-rush, creeping boobialla, jagged bitter-cress. Tee hee, I like this range of choices. They're all very evocative. I particularly like the creeping boobialla and jagged bitter-cress.

Fish include the Murray cod, silver perch, freshwater catfish, golden perch, bony herring, Australian smelt, Murray rainbowfish, flat-head gudgeon, dwarf flat-headed gudgeon, unspected hardyhead, murray hardyhead, and redfin perch. This is more useful when it comes to describing food. The trouble is I don't eat fish so I can't describe their flavor properly.

The landscape overlays a series of horizontal sedimentary formations ranging from sandstones to limestone over which lies sands ranging from fine to coarse sands. Soil type changes greatly over the landscape with the ancestral floodplain being dominated by both neutral and alkaline grey self-mulching cracking clays, neutral brown siliceous sands and neutral firm grey siliceous sands. The highland buffer zone soils consist of alkaline red calcareous earths, alkaline friable red duplex soils and neutral brownish sands. I have an obsession with geology. I'm not incredibly well-versed in the science but I do love rock samples and the strange patterning.

So, what do you think? Am I over-thinking it?

WRITING EXERCISE: Brewing The Novel

So I'm still editing the Butterfly Lady and I'll doubtless start on its sequel at some point soon but as that's all nutted out, I'm thinking of preparing a stand-alone novel that I can write alongside the sequel in case the series sputters out at Book 1. The stand-alone has suggested itself in bits and pieces. By the way, stand-alone makes me think of some cool titles such as 'I stand alone' and 'Alone I stand' but I don't think either is appropriate for this particular novel as one of the themes will be a community coming together to battle some horror (which is rare in fantasy so this'll probably be more of a horror novel in a fantasy setting).

So, time to mention the basics and then brainstorm on what each 'basic' means.

Setting: A mining community in the Realms outback in my fantasy milieu.

Theme: Community versus a terrible calamity.

This will immediately make it a bit unique in fantasy novels. Most such novels involve one person, often with some form of super power, or a team of specialists, seeking out danger and making a difference. In this instance, several members of the mining community will be responsible for the salvation of the town ... or in the bid to stay alive. It'll depend on how bad the big, bad Thing will be.

Mood: Hope and Horror. Always. This is me we're talking about. Unlike with the Butterfly Lady series, it'll be more about the Enemy Without than the Enemy Within (though of course internal conflict will feature).

This means that the protagonists will be a little more vulnerable than in most fantasy novels. The few with magic will have an edge against the enemy but not the answer. Cuts can, and will, get infected. People will struggle and get tired. There is no Chosen One. No powerful soldier to save the day. No obvious hero. In fact, I have in mind a miner's wife / kitchen hand who is physically abused by her ailing husband as one character.

Technological Setting: Early-to-mid Victorian in certain places though technology has gone in a different direction.

Gunpowder (which is antithetical to life / spirits in my world) isn't used and this will make the mining technologies quite different to Victorian mines. The steam engine and telegraph have also not been invented so the place will be all the more distant and isolated although the mine itself will likely be closer to the cities. There will need to be greater self-sufficiency in this community.

Characters: There will be multiple POVs in this instance. I'm thinking five. One will be the aforementioned battered kitchen hand. Another will be a foreman (not sure if that's the right title, haven't researched it yet) in the mine who will be rather gruff and straightforward and take issue with the university graduate. The university graduate is a member of House Carrington (a noble house full of bankers, so to speak) but he's married into House Rosentia (a noble house renowned for its eccentric and malevolent people). So he'll also have to deal with a lot of social stigma despite his wealth and status. He's here to research his thesis on Improved Mining Technologies. There'll be a rather bored low-level Auditor (sort of a cop / judge / Homeland Security mish-mash) who keeps an eye on the community and deals with the Work Permits and who'll also clash a bit with the graduate and the foreman. I'm not sure who the fifth person will be. Perhaps a child in the community? Or one of the town elders?

So already, just from this small brainstorm, I have a wealth of ideas and I haven't even touched upon what foul contaminant or entity might be affecting this mining town. Originally I was just thinking a Mine Gone Bad but I've now decided to widen the lens and look at both the town and mine combined. It'll be more Horror than Fantasy but the setting will be strictly in a Fantastical World and that means there'll potentially be issues of sidhe (embodied spirits), spirits (ephemereal intelligences), an orc-troll hybrid (another animal race similar to humans), though I'll want to keep the mythology simple to emphasise whatever horror lies within this place.

Thus far, much of the brewing has focused around dialogue snippets that suggested characters. By doing this exercise, I now have a far greater understanding of the depth of the research I'll need to undertake alongside this novel. I also have a better understanding of where I'll need to branch out to or from. So while percolating the novel, I'd strongly suggest sitting down and starting to organise it. Simply through the act of organising your ideas, you'll start generating more.

Magocratic Houses

Well, my main country in the fantasy world I've created functions a little differently. Around 90 years ago, there was a major rebellion against the old aristocracy that was orchestrated by Audorian sorcerers once they were outlawed for their unnatural ways. The Audorians made the whole thing possible but not without help from four other distinct power blocs. After the dust settled, each power bloc formed a mercantile / quasi-hereditary House that would jointly rule the new country. Each House is obviously flavored by the particular backgrounds it came from but each house is branching out into different livery companies and many members are either originally from other Houses or from particularly talented or rich merchants or the spontaneously magical (sorcerers from non-magical lineage) so there's both less differences between the houses and more differences within the houses than one might first suspect.

House Rosentia: They were an old aristocratic family of hidden sorcery who supported the revolution against their noble brethren. Through their skilled betrayals, either by butchery, assassination, or simple espionage, they substantially weakened the old noble families. Due to their treacherous backgrounds, and many scandalous rumors of dark fiends in their lineages, they aren't trusted. However, they're high levels of fertility and the fact that any child born to a Rosentia will be magical has led to them being prize husbands and wives. Many other Houses quite greedily wish to have a Rosentia marry into their ranks (unfortunately, the special fertility stops after the first generation born outside of House Rosentia). House Rosentia has capitalized on the exoticism of their blue blood and their frequently strange appearance, and if they are not artists themselves, they often sponsor some of the best artists - from architects to dancers, painters to writers.

House Ansalon: A naval House who are now renowned for their chemists, alchemists, and sorcerer-researchers. This house is comprised of several prominent naval families who were captains of the old aristocratic fleet before they consolidated their power and helped launch a coup against the old nobles. They are now heavily involved in naval merchantmen and control many water routes as well as shipbuilding and seafaring guilds. They make most of their money in the spice trade. Many of their members are actually descended from pirates, privateers and even the fisherman trades, who were either capable enough or rich enough to be recognised as a member of this noble mercantile class.

House Delevon: Once upon a time these were a secret society of witches and hunters, some of which had the spark of sorcery, who used to creep around behind the nobility's backs and remove curses, slay monsters, and generally protect the general populace. The old nobility had little care for the outback towns and villages ... they were far too focused on their own stilted entertainments. When House Delevon saw an opportunity to seize power for themselves and orchestra change, they have taken it. Unfortunately, they still have to deal with the fiendish House Rosentia whom they would have preferred to see exterminated. Nowadays, they are more often hired for their abilities firsthand and have a huge network of witches and alchemists to call upon rather than be involved in most guild activities (other than, for example, wards). They are also quite skilled at dealing with sidhe, procuring magical artefacts from the Ihlander salt plains, and coaxing Places That Aren't into cooperating with the Realms interests.

House Carrington: The original mercantile class of nouveau rich that were never treated with the respect and dignity they had dreamed of under the old aristocracy. Really, they largely provided the financial and diplomatic backing. They gained a lot of power and prestige in facilitating legal debates, ensuring trade networks went as undisrupted as possible, and keeping the administrative machinery running even during a revolution. There were hitches but House Carrington maintains that it could have been a lot worse. These were the old bankers, lawyers, and budding professionals, such as physicians, alchemists and scientists.

House Audor: These are the remnants of an old sorcerous college that was brutally attacked and massacred by the old aristocracy. They came together and, utilising their most subtle magics, inspired a shock wave of revolutionary sentiment that took the nobility by suprise. They are academics first and foremost and where the old aristocrats awarded careful adherence to noble birthright, etiquette and carefully outlined hierarchy, the Audorians have an appreciation for intellect, rigorous scientific method (what they consider to be rigorous scientific method, of course, is not the same as what modern science would consider it to be), and a meritocratic hierarchy that is dependent on so many factors (intellect, publications, breakthroughs, magical talent, lineage, personal achievements, charisma) that determining one's position in the scale of things is really quite convoluted.

So there you have it, a look at the magocratic houses in brief.

Natural Disasters - Favorites and a link

Since it's the week over Christmas, I'm not going to fulfill my Review / Research cycle. I'll start that again in the New Year. In the meantime, a cool research site is Australian Geoscience. If anyone is curious about Australian natural disasters, their commonality, and historical examples, well, take a look. If not, no biggie. Just comment with what your favorite natural disaster is. Whether by favourite you mean 'most frightening', 'most awe-inspiring', or any other 'most' you care to apply.

My favorite are tornadoes and cyclones. I keep dreaming of those. It's one of the few natural disasters that you can follow and watch.

Comparative Ethnography: Conferences

By the way, an ethnography is an attempt to capture an outsider's perspective of an event and help other people feel like they're there, or at least, help them imagine what it would be like to be there. It's different from a story as there is generally no narrative. In fact, the role is to be evocative while trying to reduce bias - which is the complete opposite of a story which is meant to have quite a strong Point-of-View bias. So please don't judge my writing talents on the basis of my ethnography talents! It's more an exercise in converting modern life to my fantasy world.

*****Australia*****

People filled the cavernous lobby, milling about a table covered in name badges or queueing for the coffee machine and the juice taps. Then, as if by some unspoken agreement, people started trickling into the main room to take their seats. They sat in pairs or small groups, leaving polite gaps between strangers where possible. The loud mumble of four hundred people talking is stilled when the event coordinator steps up onto the black platform at the front of the room, and gives a welcoming speech.

One by one, the speakers come up to the lectern to showcase their wisdom, flanked by projection screens that show powerpoint slides, web-sites and YouTube videos. In the quiet moments between their speeches, chinking glassware can be heard from the kitchens and distant voices are carried through the gaps between the walls and the high ceilings.

The speakers vary in presentation talent. One woman’s head bobs like a nervous bird as she attempts to both read her speech and gaze out into the crowd. One man spends more time reading the speech than looking at the crowd and yet his speech reading is less obvious because his movements are slow and steady and so it feels like a conversation. Another woman manages to do her speech without recourse to any notes that aren't already up on her powerpoint slide. Yet each has some interesting fact or story to share with the audience.

*****The Realms*****

A wide variety of people clutter the narrow cobblestone streets beside one of the smaller amphitheatres in the city. Most wear representations of their Noble House membership, or allegiance, with badges, symbols on their clothing, with even a few guild members wearing full livery uniforms in the colours of the noble house. The sky is clear, with a few shreds of clouds, and the temperature is quite hot and dry. A few people complain about being under the sun on such a day, only to be refuted by an aging gentleman who states drily that the principles of open communication and visibility to the people demand that such congresses occur outside the walls of any building.

Finally, the gates are opened and people begin to shuffle in. First go the nobility, wearing a few proud but subtle tokens of their House Membership, and they assemble in the front rows of the auditorium. They do not all sit with members of their own House, instead, many of them go to sit with members of allied Houses. Then go the invitees who were expressly invited to attend and they are allowed to sit where they will but most go to sit just behind the nobles' row. Finally, the gatesmen, who have counted each who have entered, tally up the numbers and figure out how many seats remain. Then they allow the uninvited who, if they are lucky (or unlucky, depending upon one's view), might even find a vacant seat beside a nobleman if one of the nobles could not attend.

Conversation is loud and boisterous until a gong silences all. The speaker stands in a perfectly designed space, surrounded by stone designed to provide the acoustics necessary, and also with great skill projects his or her voice. A little magical aid goes a long way here and often a minor noble will add volume to the words of the more important speakers so that all can hear it.

Links of Value

Here's a few more blog links that I think are very useful. One of them describes how Culture Isn't Uniform and this is a very important issue to bear in mind when creating fantasy worlds. There are sub-cultures and there are sub-sub-cultures and then there are the smaller groups within. An elf shouldn't be any more of an Elf than I am a Human. I'm a Human, a Female Human, a Human raised in a single parent family, a Gamer Human, a LARPer Human, a Writer Human, a Blogger, an office worker, a local government worker, a White Person, an Australian, etc. Thus you couldn't just label me Australian or even White Australian, though I'll have something in common with them. Heck, my friends and I might even have more in common with a group of Japanese Australian gamers than we do with generic White Australians.

So bear that in mind when writing up your elves. Rich or poor, noble or beggar, rural or urban, or anywhere in between, remember that one's dominant culture or sub-cultural groups are only a part of the equation.

On the other hand, there is a blog post about Raising the Stakes which is a really good one to take a look at while editing. She even grades the stakes which is really helpful to me as I should really go and check out my book to make sure the stakes are getting harder as the novel goes on.

Law Enforcement

In my country, we have the law separated into the Legislative (law and policy makers), Executive (police officers, government officials, and other such people who enforce the law), and the Judiciary (those who judge breaches of the law and decide punishments). In the Realms, the government is split into the Legislative/Executive and the Executive/Judiciary. Basically, the ruling class (consisting of members of the five Noble Houses who have sorceress lineage) are both administrators and law-makers.

The Law Enforcement side of it combines the Executive and the Judiciary. It's split into two levels. You have the Watchmen who wander the streets, keep an eye and ear to the ground, and are basically city guard who promote law and order on the streets. Then, separate to these people, are the Inquirers and Auditors (derogatively referred to as 'Grey Coats'), who investigate crimes ranging from murder to sabotage to conspiracies to treason (depending on their rank / designation). The Inquirers and Auditors are two sides of the Department of Justice. Basically, Inquirers investigate most crimes and Auditors oversee their duties and fulfill the role of judge of crimes brought before them (as well as investigating certain high-profile fraud, treason, and other such cases).

Yeah, there's room for bias there, which the Audorian Queen has attempted to deal with by creating special schools for the Department of Justice. When likely candidates are identified from the school children they are transferred to that school and their parents paid a certain yearly amount called an honorarium. Since the year 23, schooling has been mandatory for children below the age of 14 in any area with a local school - hence why apprenticeships are illegal for anyone below the age of 14 - so there's an increasing pool of candidates. Nobles are barred from entry in the Department of Justice to keep them free of corruption. The schools are basically brainwashing academies that turn children into analytical officers of the Realms. Corrupt officials in the Department of Justice are all charged with treason, by the way, and their names become mud.

Sounds cool, huh? When I'm done editing The Butterfly Lady I'm going to write a novel from the point of view of one such Inquirer in the service of the Realms.

So, have you decided what your country's Law Enforcement Agencies look like?

My Measures of Time

Well, I've been asked to elaborate on my date system so I thought I might as well do it here in case anyone else is interested. Basically, Year 0 is the Year of the Magocratic Revolution when the sorcerors who had been banished 22 years before hand from Audor Towers (the only place sorcerers were allowed - and even then it was a small, dinky island) drew together the merchant class, naval class, monster hunters, and even an aristocratic turn-coat family to overthrow the old ruling class.

On an aside, there were many reasons behind the revolution: the merchants and bankers were often richer than the nobility but there was little upward mobility and debts on the nobility were sometimes forgiven by the King; vital technology like the printing press was repressed despite its use in surrounding countries due to fears of the peasant-folk getting uppity and that made them a backwater nation with increasing fears of invasion; the nobility were keen to spend freely on themselves but public works were neglected; the serf system was horribly out-dated compared to more progressive surrounding societies; charismatic sorcerers can do a lot with a few enchantments; and an idealistic vision whereby those blessed by the Gods to wield magic could protect the common man (what better divine mandate can you get!).

The country considered itself reborn at the Year of the Revolution. To denote time, years since the revolution are dated with a simple number, i.e. 92, while years prior to the revelation are depicted with a '-' sign, i.e. -92 would be 92 years before the revolution. I just wanted something a little different from using initials to denote passage of time or the other habit of simply having time go forward from some unknown start point (though that might be interesting in a fantasy society living in 9203 because that's how long the civilization has existed). So yes, woo! My dating system.

As for other areas of time, my world has clocks in it so that makes judging time by minutes and seconds easier though I need to reduce the usage of that in nautical and very rustic areas (that probably judge time by bells). The clockwork mechanisms are getting highly refined due to technology imported from Chiang Khang and thus you can get grandfather clocks. Still haven't decided on whether they have pocket watches. I'll need to research that one's timeline and then consider whether I want that to be invented during the course of my various books set in that world.

Too Many Bits of Paper

Well, as I world build, culture build, identify and develop characters, possible plot arcs, develop possible plot arcs into sub-plots and plot-points, further refine such sub-plots and plot-points into a series of instances, re-develop characters in line with current thinking, strengthen culture, jot down points of history, consider architectural norms, draw maps, jot down notes for revision of prior chapters in Book 1 I find myself in a sea of paper.

Post-It notes, loose sheets, loose sheets in plastic sleeves, random notes, precisely laid out notes, computer documents, printed documents, notes on pads, lengthy detail on pads, detailed write ups of notes in a booklet with the cover ripped off... I'm sure the answer to what I seek is around here somewhere but where? It's enough to make me want to rip out my own hair!

How do I file it? I try to gather it up, but if I print it too early, then I'll just need to re-print it. I can file it in my physical folder but what about the soft copies on the computer? Where do they go? What about the sub-sections? How do I divide it up to make it easier to access? How do I rememebr what I've written down, i.e. with characters? In short, what do I do?

Anyone else been there?

Architecture: Blends Through The Years

Here's something about world building that I've never really consciously considered until reading this lovely TalkToYoUniverse blog: The architecture of a city changes over time, yes? But it doesn't just change whole-sale. No one takes out an eraser and says: 'Well, we're a bit over Gothic architecture, let's just pull it all down and start again'.

No, they just build new houses in the newer styles. Thus you can get a crumbling old Roman-era fort surrounded by, I dunno, wattle-and-daub houses with a Gothic-era church sat in the middle of the whole town*.

Sometimes they renovate older buildings, perhaps leaving the gargoyles, but replacing the Gothic windows with ultramodern tilted, computerised windows that adjust the darkness gradient depending on how much light should be let in (an extreme example, but I'm hyped up on sugar so there you go). More often they'll renovate the interior, or part of the building (especially if it's been damaged by fire or the elements) than the whole thing. Buildings in the midst of renovations would be interesting to see in Fantasy as would buildings that are very old and aren't up to code and might dump the inhabitants through three floors into the basement if they're not careful.

Sometimes they'll just build on top of / over the older construction. The blog post mentions a Roman construction underneath a small, ancient church, that can be found inside a bigger, more modern church! Sometimes it won't be that obvious. Sometimes it's only when the owners decide to open up that painted shut door, delve into the basement, renovate the property, that they locate old rooms and basements and sub-basements from where the building had been build on other buildings or rooms pasted over.

So yes, have a think about the next time you're designing a place, whether in Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Contemporary fiction, and think about just how likely it is that all the buildings in that village, town, or city look the same!

*This is based on examples to make you think. I haven't researched the architecture here and cannot vouch for the authenticity of these buildings sitting side by side! These are really, really, really not examples of my researcher credibility...