Language and style

I recently read an article about the Swedish. By Swedish I refer to the unique attributes of Sweden.

Among comments I saw one about the Swedish silence, and this should be read in a social context. Another concerned our language and its ability to give colour to our surrounding nature.

The reason I bring this up is a number of conversations I've participated in, digital as well as over a beer on a pub. People from here, here being Sweden, find it hard to accept that there should exist unique aspects of our language, ad that it therefore lends itself better or worse to certain types of expressions.

Now, with the supreme arrogance only the ignorant can afford, Swedish people feel secure in their absolute knowledge that only they are able to find, and refute, nuances in a language they've grown up with since birth. A foreigner noticing the stark contrast to another reality taken for granted is either blind, deaf or otherwise linguistically deficient. Or, maybe, we just happen to be blind ourselves.

So I once again state my opinion that different languages work best with different styles of stories, and every story has a style, and every translation is, for that reason, either a transformation into an environment where that style is lost or misunderstood, or an interpretation where the translation is no longer entirely linguistically true to the original.

When you can, read in the original language, because language has style. Whether you like that style or not is, of course, entirely a matter of your own personal taste.

Rewriting

So I am back to rewriting.

Having stated earlier that I prefer plot over character, if I have to choose at all, I will remake the novel to reflect this better. Rather than being the story of a person I will write a story of events, ie plot.

Needless to say the working title needs to be changed as well. Instead of being about Arthur it will concern itself with what happens around him, and in his wake. Should paradoxically enough give me more time to flesh out a few other characters.

New workspace

Or rather a renewed one. I've spent the last day migrating my laptop from Win XP to Kubuntu Linux. There were a few mishaps, mostly a result of my not having touched a Unix system these last two years, and one major one resulting from brain dead information.

After spending a couple of hours clicking right and left, watching in fascination how everything went up like a breeze with little or no problems, I was left with convincing my laptop to communicate with our networked printer. That might seem like a minor issue, but I write for pleasure, my dream of authorship and mandatory assignments alike. Being unable to convert digital data to paper is therefore a rather major dilemma.

Enter brain dead. After scouring the web for information and installing all kinds of defunct software as well as redundant, but perfectly working, ones I ended up with the knowledge that I was supposed to point my web browser to my own laptop in order to get to an installation interface. Now, the interface was by no means difficult to use -- if you knew beforehand what you were supposed to do. This was later proven by the five minutes I needed to add printing capacity to another laptop. Of course it helped that I am more than a little bit familiar with computer networks and therefore no stranger to force the necessary information out of a router, after which identifying the printer server became a lot easier. Static IP on said server and I knew I would not have to hunt the printer down like an elusive prey every time the DHCP server decided to assign a new address to it. Opening a socket to a remote unit is also something I have done quite a few times, which ended up, implicitly giving me the correct protocol, and I was set to go.

Now, what in all bleeding hells would have been so difficult about making a small setup software that scanned the local network for potential networked printers? After all, all other magic with the installation, some of which I had never expected to see working, worked like a dream.

Brain dead!

End rant.

Second draft subbed

It took a while longer than expected, but finally the second draft of our little non-fic project has been submitted. Now we have to wait for customer feedback and make changes accordingly.

Stereotyping as a stereotype

I joined an interesting conversation at my usual hangout on-line. As it turned out we were chatting, quite literally so, about character creation, and one of the participants had problems with female characters. The troubleshooting soon turned into a topic of stereotypes.

Even though this particular article is about gender it could be used for any labelling of a common occurrence. We even touched slightly upon the matter of culture possibly being a case of stereotyping. Now, be aware that I'm pushing forward my own thoughts and reasoning here. What makes sense to me could be an utter lie to someone else. Also bear in mind that this is a article about stereotyping, not about the stereotypes mentioned.

Back to the topic in question. Problems with creating female characters. There is a stereotype, or at least an archetype, to begin with. No matter how much we would like to argue that each person is a unique individual there was never much of a problem accepting the concept of a female character. From there goes that it should be equally easy to grasp the concept of a male character. That, in turn, should have us accepting that we do indeed play around with stereotypes far more easily than many of us believe.

The interesting here isn't if there is an implicit femaleness or not. What is worth taking note of is that there is an expectation of an expectation. What I mean with this is that we tend to expect others to be prejudiced, or at least to simplify reality by attaching labels to it. We, you and me, are of course far too tolerant, knowledgeable, understanding or intellectually advanced to fall into that trap. Or maybe not, even if it hurts to apply the negative to ourselves. Anyway, as a writer we cater for a reader. An average reader at that. At least if we aim at commercial writing. We write for a stereotypical reader of the stereotypical kind of writing we produce, and for that very reason we adapt our writing to handle expectations. Those expectations are in itself models of the real expectations. We simplify and use templates, no matter if we are aware of them or not.

I believe that this simplifying can be put to good use for a writer. In order to create the unique we need to be aware of the template. We don't have to agree with it, but we ought to recognize it and respect that the reason for the template is that it makes people comfortable because the familiar is comfortable. At the other hand, if we want a character to make a short appearance then it makes sense to stick to the stereotype unless we want to place ourselves in a situation where we need to explain the deviation from a stereotype. Mind you, the stereotype doesn't have to be true. This is not a matter of truth or right. It is only a matter of accepting a stereotype for what it is -- an oversimplification that has its grounds in an overall truth, a partial truth, a false prejudice or a mix of them all.

Now for the header. Falling back to stereotypes whenever a character has a very minor role in the story is, of course, a stereotype in itself. The less we see of a character the more we expect him or her to lack original individuality. There you have a useful stereotype if any.

New project

Rather unsurprisingly there are news of Peter Jackson adapting Bilbo to the white screen. Two films with the usually absurd budget, but after the success with the ring trilogy maybe the budget isn't as absurd after all. Especially as fantasy as a genre seems to be associated with children's literature, and Bilbo should fit right in there, hefty body count notwithstanding.

First reviews

And now the very first reviews of Arn, the movie, are out. I have found one in Aftonbladet and another in GP.

The first gave the film a pretty average review, main complaint being that it was too compact a representation of the trilogy on which it is based. The latter went more in the line of kill, main and destroy, as in kill the producers, main the actors and destroy the copies of the film.

Arn

And now the most expensive production in Swedish film history hits the white screen. Arn, a historical, albeit with fictive main characters, novel has been adapted for visual consumption.

News can be found at DN and of course SF, Svensk Filmindustri.

Potter mania is over -- almost

I found this little gem in DN.

Apparently Rowling is about to publish another Potter book, if publish is the right word. Seven copies total, all handwritten and all but one gifts to people involved with the other books. The seventh copy is to be auctioned for charity purposes.

Title: The Tales of Beedle The Bard.

Terry Pratchett

Seems to have come down with some bad luck according to Daily Mail and Paul Kidby.

Thanks to a fellow member at Forward Motion for finding the information.

All in all Pratchett seems to take it more like a Twoflower than a Rincewind.

On science fiction and fantasy

I found this article which ties in nicely with my reflections on Swedish fantasy earlier.

Interesting to see how the author makes the claim that while fantasy is well received it is considered children's literature. I see a shadow of Rowling lurking in the corridors.

A classic read

What can you say?

Here it is.

Everything you didn't know that you needed to know to be in the know.

An interesting read

This post is basically just a link to what I found to be an interesting read.

As Abraham states, the definitions are his, and so we are all free to disagree with him. However, as he also points out, in order to have a conversation about a topic it is important to agree upon the content of definitions, even if we don't agree with it, so as to enable us to talk about the same thing.

It is, after all, quite simple. I define the basic short distance as a metre, but you disagree because you feel more comfortable with a foot. As long as we both stick to using one definition, no matter how much we disagree with it, we can have a sensible conversation about distance travelled by horse in a given type of terrain. If we do not, well then at least one of us is three times removed from a viable reality.

Back to square one

I've come to realize that the weave needs to be told from the beginning. At least from the beginning of this particular story, which means I have to revisit The Taleweaver once more. Of course an edit, no matter how major, will be insufficient, and so I find myself facing a total rewrite of a story I abandoned well over two years ago. Do I find this daunting? Yes. Do I find it abhorrent? No.

There was a reason I began a story where I once did, and another that I chose to tell the story I told. That reason carried over into Frays in the Weave, and was explored further there. Still, Frays depends too heavily on Taleweaver to be told independently. Too many causes remain unclear for any reader unfamiliar with the abandoned story, and too many effects make no sense for such a reader. The reason being they aren't seen as effects at all, but rather has events free from the laws of causality, something that was never meant to be.

Now, do I retell the old story in new words? No. That would place me in the very same dead-end which caused me to drop the story in the first place. Do I write an entirely new story? No. That wouldn't solve the problems with Frays.

I believe I need to tell the story around the story. That I need to shrink the original story to the degree where it becomes but one small, albeit important, piece in a larger puzzle. That I by doing so can create a new story which incorporates the old and introduces a new, a more vivid and enchanting one, that will properly pave the grounds for Frays. Frays needing a rewrite as well notwithstanding, but that, as they say, is a later problem.

There are characters and events in Taleweaver that starved for want of attention, and nourishing them should better explain and make believe the characters, the events, and the world shaped from their interaction, both in Taleweaver as well as in Frays.

I believed I wove, but with but one strong strand all I did was to string myself a rope. Rather than making a noose I will untwine it, save the strands that can be reused, spin new ones of my imagination and make another attempt to weave.

Spekulative fiction in Sweden

In an article Johan A points out some aspects of the problematic life speculative fiction has to endure in Sweden.

In as much as new titles in these genres are covered by our media at all they tend to be regarded as children's books, or possibly YA. Considering the enormous popularity of the Harry Potter books this tendency has by now become cemented here. Adult fantasy is like those white spots on old maps where be dragons.

Add that the so called literary elite in Sweden has decided that speculative fiction is not proper literature at all, but rather a sub-standard substitute for proper literature. Pulp fiction of the original meaning. They prefer not to be reminded of sub-standard authors like George Orwell, H G Wells, Aldous Huxley, William Golding and Doris Lessing, which should go a long way towards exemplifying the enormous difference with which the genre is looked upon by English and Swedish eyes. Ironically enough the Nobel Prize is a Swedish prize.

However, one problem with the article is that the author tries to prove that adult fantasy in Sweden is on the verge of dying because Swedish publishers are vary of placing their money in that field. Nothing could be further from the truth. With over 80% of the population labeled as knowing English, speculative fiction lives a healthy life here. Speculative fiction written in Swedish, or even translated into Swedish, well that is another matter.

Another downer

What is it with returning to old acquaintances? Brave New World. Another classic, another downer, and this time in a favorite genre of mine.

The core is still as fantastically dystopian as I recall, but now I see how dated the novel is. The total absence of POV-discipline doesn't help neither. Head-hopping galore.

Diminishing pleasure

I returned to Jane Eyre after a quarter of a century. Sad to say the novel didn't age well in my mind.

Of course I am aware that the work is over a century and a half old, and I know that I need to take the peculiarities of that time in stride. Still, arcane social ideals and ethnocentrism typical of the age apart, the style of the novel was what turned me away. Repeated breaking of the fourth wall and undisciplined use of tense apparently have become something I really dislike, and this is a pity as I recall liking the novel very much when I read it first.

In a sense I guess my personal development as a reader mirrors the development of authors as a group these last 150 years.

A Swedish event

One of the few literary events in Sweden that claims world status has just made the news. This year's Nobel Prize winner is Doris Lessing.

In case anyone managed to miss

The author known as Robert Jordan is dead.

I guess I'm the last of latecomers to flag this event.

On thee and thou

A fun piece of knowledge for an avid reader of fantasy. Thee, thou and thine are popular in stock fantasy. They are, apparently, almost always incorrectly used.

Even though Wikipedia should be used with care, this article conforms with the literature I have available.

Primarily used to denote familiarity, or by a superior to an inferior, the usage of these words in fantasy becomes rather hilarious. Rather than use the formal 'you' our heroes deliberately insult kings, queens and fair ladies all around them.

I can only quote Sir Edward Coke: "I thou thee, thou traitor!"