Categoría: How to write fiction

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How to write fiction

Exophony p2

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ARE THERE WRITERS (LITERATURE WRITERS) WHO WRITE IN A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE TO THEIR OWN?

How many? Do they write correctly? Is the switch convenient? What languages do they speak and in which language are they writing?

I’ll stop asking. I can always inquire things I won’t be able to answer later.

LET’S VOOGLE IT


Exo: from outside

Phonos: voice

And it is a subject offered by the Warwick University!

EXOPHONY.

All about authors who don’t write in their mother tongues.

Imagine my face when I discovered that’s what I’m doing when writing poetry in a language I’m not supposed to be any good at or use better than any college kid. Oh, misspelling I always do that in Spanish too. Corrector and the bad use of thumbs are partially responsible. Plus, my laziness to get up and fetch a dictionary… Right, I take it up from the bookshelf ONLY when it is a must. Or there’s enough signal to browse it.

HOW MANY? WHO?

The list is quite looooong in Wiki. I don’t really know from any respectable article[1] but just for a taste:

THOSE WHO TOOK ENGLISH:

  • Vladimir Nabokov, Russian (he spoke French too).
  • Jack Kerouac, joual (Quebec’s French variant); he finally migrated back to French
  • Joseph Conrad, Polish, ( French too). He might have said something like: “l’Anglais m’est toujours une langue étrangère“/ “English is forever a foreign language to me”. You judge.
  • Khalil Gibran, Arabic.
  • Khaleed Hosseini, Arabic.
  • Edwige Danticat, Creole and French[2]. 

THOSE WHO ABANDONED ENGLISH:

  • Samuel Beckett, En attendant Godot[3].
  • Jumpa Lahiri, Bengali and Italian “the first time I really feel the freedom to express myself as I want to.[4]”

THE ONES WHO LANDED IN FRENCH:

  • Milan Kundera, Czech. He said, he should be in the French section in book stores and libraries.    
  • Agota Kristoff, Hungarian.
  • Emil Cioran, Rumanian.

Have you read any of them? Are they good? Do you think to write in a different language creates identity prejudices? Interested in reading the whole list in Wiki[5]?

Have you ever thought you needed to switch languages to attain the writing you’re striving for? Pasto kalo.

[1] Lies, there’s one. https://www.americathebilingual.com/other-tongue-writers-who-write-in-a-language-not-their-own/

[2] Three, three women in a long list of names!

[3] Attendez, attendant…waiting for.

[4] https://www.americathebilingual.com/other-tongue-writers-who-write-in-a-language-not-their-own/

[5] Will I ever make it up there?

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How to write fiction

Exophony p1

close up photography of microphone
Photo by Suvan Chowdhury on Pexels.com

REQUIREMENTS

Have you ever been to the requirements of a scanlation team? Ah, scanation means to scan and translate. Which is theoretically illegal but very much needed when some manga title is not making it up to any of the markets in which one can actually read and understand… Thus.

Nothing important but: NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS.

Something anyone who has opened a dictionary or had to study (hard) to learn grammar and pass a bloody level exam; could really wonder if it helps. In lieu of their spelling mistakes, grammar errors and… word misuse.

THEY MUST WENT TO THE PARK[1]

Kill me. A “diva” [modal verb] followed by a participle[2]… Not even Voogle translator.

Oh, what about the affirmation “Blonde is another country’s spelling” from a Stater[3] kid.

All right, let’s look it up in a Merriam Webster[4] (Stater English), not an Oxford [British English].

blond or blonde \’bländ\ adj [MF blond, masc., blonde, fem.] (15c) 1a: of a flaxen, golden, light auburn, or pale yellowish brown color (~hair)  b: of a pale white or rosy white color (~skin)  c: being a blond <a pretty ~secretary>  2 a: of a light color  b: of the color blond  c: made light colored by bleaching <a table of ~walnut>—blond•ish  \bländ-dish\adj

Aha… Therefore, it was the use of blonde for a female character. Indeed, I couldn’t be right. I’m not a native. Even copyright writers to write in English are required to be native.

And I get it. They need the beautiful masterpieces of language idioms and shortenings btw. Communication…. Who cares about it? I shrug. Specially when the people who might read this blog could not even be native speakers. You natives want the world to learn your language and then complaint we destroy it.

WHICH TAKES US TO A VERY ABSURD QUESTION: ARE THERE WRITERS (LITERATURE WRITERS) WHO WRITE IN A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE TO THEIR OWN?

To be continued.

[1] No, I’m not making it up. I’ve seen worse. Some use <<it’s>> instead of <<its>> or <<you’re>> instead of >

<<yours>>.

[2] For not natives reading this article who don’t remember the rule; modal verbs can’t  never be followed by verbs in other form than the simple infinitive or what I call, dictionary form verb.

[3] Lately I’m not at all in the mood to call people from the States, American. I’m American too. The same way there isn’t any Europe country. Imagine it. Oh, and “gringo” is too derisive when the person in question MIGHT be a nice fellow human and from the country.

[4] Printed one, not electronic. Ah, it is going to change since the word use has changed for sure.

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How to write fiction

What’s poetry?

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What’s poetry? You inquire.

And such a question you dare,

Staring at me with blue hued eyes?

Poetry is you[1]

POETRY

Poetry is… something ineffable (besides the little stealing I just did to open the entry)

It can be so so tiny as two words like the famous Mohammed Ali’s “me-we” in a very emotional speech about unity and friendship.

It can be longer and contain 5,7 and 5 syllables as haikus do. Or be kilometric as the Iliad and something mythical called The Fairy queen[2].

WITHOUT IAMBIC STANZAS

Can it be done without metrics? Is music poetry? Rap? The cuisine? Can AI rhyme up poetry[3]?

A poem sounds nice. It is some kind of hybrid Pokemon where words play their games and gift us with nice sounds. Either by rhythm, translation of sound /rhyme) or sequence patterns (metrics). It can even be horrible but true.

IS THEN MUSIC POETRY?

If you ask the guys giving a Nobel to a singer… yes. And there won’t be a lack of complainers saying the next Nobel to this one could go to a comic drawer (back then it wasn’t time for the next Nobel yet). That won’t make a lot of change in the way storytelling works but it might change this or the other country’s PIB.

SENSORY AND ABSTRACTION

And again, I’m updating this entry. You’ve seen what Scott McCloud says in The invisible art of reading comics about abstraction. The more abstract, the more intimate. The more intimate, the more we identify with.

Such is the power of poetry, It evocates. It summons from nowhere the scalding cold of rain drops. It is the drained tuna or the novel without the blah blah… Niet. Not that last one sentence.

It has flow. It is relentless. It requires a more sophisticated literacy than anything. And it has survived conquests, darkness, religious debates and many other happenings. It can be heretic and still adore a being. It has evolved from chants accompanied by choruses and music to simple drawings ordered with an intention (poemojis). It has taken the shinkansen of rap and staid exactly the same as crocodiles. No changes.

Such is poetry, ineffable but something we know upon sight or hearing. A bundle of words [I know…stanzas]. Something idiotic. Something sublime.   

How much poetry have you done this year? No matter of written or drawn. Pasto kalo.

[1] Gustavo Adolfo Becquer. All his poems are called Rima (rhyme)… and numbered. I don’t remember the number. Not sorry. My memory is not Asimov’s memory. It is mine.

[2] Mythical since I’m not reading it ever. And I won’t pretend I did.

[3] In the video I watched trying to define a poem, it was a no. But I wonder if the money people [I know, invertors] behind the movie Free Guy had a Chinese AI as CEO [AI’s can be nepotist already]. And, a lot of years after I wrote this entry in Spanish; Sunbaenim, my friend’s ChatGPT, can write short stories.

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How to write fiction

Bad idea number 2: how to write using bad ideas

person holding white light bulb
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THE TRUTH

It is more difficult to stare at the blank paper and try to fill it with something, anything; than criticizing. I wonder how many people would just shut up if they tried to write or just draw over. And drawing is not as difficult as we are made to believe. It just takes longer than anything if you don’t do it daily. 

THE HARSH TRUTH

You can never know if your work will be picked up. Alexandria’s library catalogue was made by someone. How many books were lost forever because they didn’t make up the chap doing the catalogue’s taste? Worst, you can never know if it might disappear in a fire.

You do your best. For years. Until there it comes, the one momento when you take the chance. I’ve been a fool and rejected chances. Are you?

Take your time learning how to do and then take your time thinking how to make it better.

WHAT “GOOD” MEANS THEN?

Good is in your terms. Is it good to be famous and sell a lot of books… of the same series whilst being unable to write anything else? Is it good being famous and a big bigot? Is it good to be famous without a family life?

Who is it for and what is it for? You’re the judge. If it fulfills its mission, then it is good. If not, there’s a good chance you need to change. In between “good” and “as good as possible” you can waste your time doing what you shoulnd’t.

PROTECTION

Don’t protect it so much. It never ends. THIS WON’T BE YOUR ONLY IDEA, OR YOUR ONLY CHANCE. The only way to live the steps is to step on the steps. No one is helping you from paying to have a blog. No one is helping you from post a video. DO!

What number of bad idea is this? Have fun with your bad ideas. Pasto kalo.

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How to write fiction

Bad idea number one: how to write using bad ideas

person holding white light bulb
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LINKEDIN AND TED

Once upon a time I used to have a LinkedIn[1] account with my penname until policies said my avatar was not mine and wasn’t me. It obviously wasn’t me. For good reasons I won’t tell here. Amd since that comment was a complete distraction from business, let’s jump out into the important stuff.

The original entry is a translation. Given the fact that in Wednesdays I post translating myself into English, I think the honest thing is leaving you with the reference and the link.

…Aha, the following I found in LinkedIn’s TED posts and it is an extract from the book The Practice: Shipping Creative Work by Seth Godin published by in 2020.

WHY TO READ IT?

There are some dark sides (minus Darth Vader) to some of the ideas in it. Not everything one reads comes to be true to a T. However, used as I’ve been to have only Big Choma and La cocina de Meg[2] as my main and only hooligans; I know that in occasion, the ones cheering from behind the fence run out of gas. That’s when we need to go and get some helium for our ego. Here you can get some in case you have run out.

[1] Quite useless to find a job but (when there’s avalaible internet) quite nice to waste time reading. Even if it is only little me.

[2] Sometimes it is not the lack of people cheering or themrunning out of gas, it is the person themselves who needs to believe….

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How to write fiction

How a cliché telltales where you’re from (or what you have read)

classic red british telephone booth outdoors
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HOW CLICHÉS ARE A NATIONAL ISSUE

I’m pregnant. He is your father. I’m getting married to her. Who can save us now? The Caucasian main characters. The billionaire and the poor girl (universal motif?). To betray family for love. The traditional single mom’s family.

Can you recognize these clichés? You have watched Mexican movies and tevenovelas.

Argentinian clichés verse about immigrants’ arrival by vessel, how things were already fucked up and how the previous worker used to do that job… Ways to give more tasks to the office’s newbie. Peruvians love stories about the oppressed turning tables on the oppressed. In India,the names Anjali-Rahul go hand by hand.

NEW YORK IS AMERICA

The United staters love New York traffic scenes for romantic movies. So much, they forget it is impossible to cross the city in a yellow cab and catch the heroine before she takes her plane to Timbuktu when she left two hours ago. The male character who destroys everything in his ambition. The teenager who only needs some makeup and a haircut to become the fanciest pretty girl on earth without any therapy session to restore her low self steem.

BISEXUAL EXPLAINS IT ALL

Do you want to be inclusive without making your story an homosexual one? Make your main character bisexual and you won’t have to explain why your character is now in a hetero-normative relationship after a long chain of boy-boy lovers or a lesbian break up.

SHARED LONG NAMES EXPERIENCES

You can even go with the long long names shared experience of all America… [Brazil too? I don’t know]; minus those native ones who don’t share the jew-christian heritage. Names such as Clark Joseph Kent or Ernesto José Víctor Pedrollo de todos los Santos.

NOT MY FAVORITE ONES BUT…

Ones you can encounter in manga[1]. Litle pretty girls always wear long dresses and straw hats. The serial killer falls in love and becomes an empathic being…. No one would write that after CSI teaching us serial killers are killers because they lack the empathy screw in first place[2]. However…

Girls wear long dresses plus socks. In 1920 that was common all over the world. Nowadays, you won’t see it very much. Add social pressure about couples and condition equality.The handsome guy must be with the pretty girl. The perfect and smart guy with the perfect and smart girl. Food that comes up wrapped in a big handky or the multi-leveled lacquered boxes filled with food.

The trained police girl who can’t deal with the assaulter in the end and is taken hostage —The black widow changed this cliché a little. The gallant chap who taked the seat belt to strap in on the woman. The perfect man who is handsome, intelligent and kind like a prince…A prince!? Europeans won’t write such a comparison. I mean, their princes can be intelligent and kind or handsome and intelligent but will lack in one sense or the other. Europeans do know since they have princes. The people writing these clichés have but one emperor or none.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE CLICHÉ?

If you tell me, I might know where you are from. Maybe not. I haven’t read french clichés.

Remember, anything you say can and will used to create. Have fun sliding some snitching clichés into your writing. Pasto kalo.

[1] Mangas either make fun or take notice of the fact, creating really inventive names that could very well exist in real life for fantasy princes. Names that sound like Phillip Mathias Benjamin Augustus.

[2] Not mocking, just explaining. Anyways, what doesn’t work for me; works for others and the only thing I’m REALLY AGAINST is cancelation just because one has an unpopular opinion. So long it doesn’t hurt anyone’s integrity, opinions are opinions. Plus, these assassins really appear in manga or webtoonwith names such as Emmeline, John, Elios, Farah.

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How to write fiction

Is it the same the one who writes to the “writing person”?

person holding white ceramci be happy painted mug
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ABOUT PEOPLE WHO WRITE

A just anyone writer can wear turtle necks, listen only to classical music or be inspired by music… Place their tongue in whatever pleasure (metaphorically speaking) in front of the allotted word painting time… A normal kindergarten teacher coming home gets dinner heated in the microwave, takes her phone and gets every single character in her erotic novel nude and in acrobatic positions in bed.    

A PERSONA, A GENRE?

We must reckon we have a “persona” or avatar for every single space in which we need to maintain a mood. If you work in an office, you already know what I’m talking about (“Dead to boss” says the inner one). And if you have ever taught anything in a school, you must have at least three other personalities to cope with life.

Then, if we count that, plus a “persona” for every single genre you try to write in; besides the ones for every character visiting your brain (in case you haven’t rented yet a professional studio for such a purpose) we start to think we’re crazy. But no.

It is just that space and time are required to build up a certain mood… Right?

THE WRITING PERSON

However, it is not mental sanity I want to mention. It is the need to have this “writing persona” Cathy Birch (the creative writer’s workbook 2009 and this is not advertising) says is necessary to have one.

I think it is not. Writing for me is exactly the same as other jobs. You need time and an investment of effort. Even cleaning bathrooms does require time and effort. Mental or not, that doesn’t make it more or less important.

WHY AN AVATAR THEN?

Because saying you’re a writer sounds cool when you’re making money out of it. It is not when you’re selling the TV to survive a few days more. Because it helps to do something embarrassing, as having people (not actual people butcharacters) have intercourse out of nowhere). It can be to make a little not so serious to write when it is only a hobby that would make you blush if the boss at the office came to know.  

THE WORST AND THE BEST

In between this and the other; writing is about what you like and what you hate about yourself.

It is going to be your mask and your nudity. A mask to face the world. The nudity to show your intimacy (in a sort of unpunishable voyeurism). It is a disguise to make yourself go and speak up when you’re not used to.

Sometimes, it is no more than a name. A name that makes people think what you want they think.

Do you wear masks at work? Do you think you need a “persona”? Is it useful to think in avatars to change POV at writing?

Warning: what you read was just nonsense about writing fiction. Have fun thinking in a “persona” to write what you normally would not. Pasto kalo.

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How to write fiction

Wanting Ze (non serious yet short manual on how to write fiction application)

syringe and pills on blue background
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TWO VERSIONS

For demonstration purposes, and let me say this wasn’t the best tale I’ve written; I’m going to do the storytelling as if I were answering questions (or the bullets proposed to solve story creation from the last entry) and a second version; describing what’s happening.

IN CASE YOU DON’T REMEMBER OR DIDN’T READ THE AFOREMENTIONED ENTRY SINCE YOU LANDED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THIS NONSENSE BLOG

To create a story we need

  • A character
  • The character’s wanting or wish
  • The thing helping the character from getting their wish
  • The reaction or what the character does to beat such obstacle
  • The result: they get their wish or they don’t: this can be twisted

WANTED ZE. Sketch idea

ZE is a female mosquito. She flies over a grassy field and her radar detects a very attractive (from her point of view) human. They smell like CO2. She buzzes, excited. She goes closer. Close up to the neck. Ze pushes her siringe but something isn’t working. She flies over, buzzing. General pan of the human body, as if taking things in perspective.

She goes closer to the legs. She can’t eat. She goes away. She comes back and lands on the man’s back. The six syringes in her nose go into the jacket. There’s a close up to miscroscopic level. Her proboscide isn’t long enough. Under the sweater there’s even more fabric. She tries to pull back her proboscide but one of the two saws gets stuck. She feels a breeze behind and then nothing. She is smashed.

I AM BORED NOW

Yes, it is kinda[1] boring but this is very simple model for a comic script in which you enumerate the things as they happen or will happen and won’t work as a tale[2].

SECOND VERSION  (and this is going to be quite different to the one in Spanish since I write a little better than I did back then)

Zzzz buzzes, wings a blur, a zoom here, another there to avoid that higher grass. The blades drip dew and she must fly around, a drop falls too close. Ze is out of danger.

It is warmer there, it smells like CO2. She buzzes close to an ear, surrounds the body, yummy! Babies are in order after the meal… There’s no regret in not meeting them, she won’t know what happens after she lays them inside the pool.

This prey is a two legged one and in very deep in a corner of her mind, she knows they’re all very strange but tasty. No fur, tender skin and colour don’t matter, a warm meal. Time to dig in! The long superior limb, that’s the place to land…. Her palps taste something awful. She buzzes a storm around the head. She looks down over the hair at the top. The downer limbs should be. She lands on fibers. No! The food is there… very close.

She flies over again. Again, she buzzes a different storm. The other side of the side with the holes… Her legs feel soft skin. Yey! Her drinking Straw goes in… what’s this? It is a thin but thick fiver tissue and she can’t reach.

Pull back! Pull back! She is unable to. One of the saws is keeping her there. She moves to right, left, up. A breeze is coming from behind. Her composed eyes peer behind. Her organs are not where they should be. Light fades to black.    

—Ugg! —A second individual that was overlooked by Ze in her reckon makes a disgusted face.

Which is better? Why?

Have fun doing this with your own fiction. Pasto kalo.

[1] If you’re trying to read as a tale….

[2] Big Choma could explain this better in person personally.

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How to write fiction

A nothing serious however really short manual to fiction writing

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This a somehow explained by me, in a really short way, what I read in Take off your pants by Libbie Hawker. Warning: I didn’t read it complete so if you might, please do.

THE TALE’S CORE

  • A character
  • The character’s wanting
  • Whatever in between the character and the thing they wish
  • The actions taken by the character to overcome such obstacle and…
  • Do they get it?

MY CHARACTER

Someone simple. A mosquito. And since mosquitoes go zzzz, she is going to be Ze.

WHAT DOES ZE WANTS?

Blood!

WHAT IS HELPING ZE FROM GETTING BLOOD?

 Mosquito repellents aren’t as effective as one would think. Thick plastic rain proved coats are along thick clothing. Let’s say this a commercial and Buzzing mosquito repellent is really good.

HOW IS ZE OVERCOMING THE PROBLEM?

Before I even answer, a short mosquito research is in order. What’s the name of their needle? What do they really store in their bellies?

My super quick research says the needle is a proboscis with 6 needles! (two of them in saw shape to slice through skin. Only the females suck blood and their systems separate water from the red globules.

DOES ZE GET HER WISH?

Maybe. I don’t know yet.

Can you make a short story out of this?

Have fun with this short manual. Pasto kalo.

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How to write fiction

Poemoji?

Those are poemojis by Dante Tercero.

WHY THIS ENTRY AND WHAT POEMOJIS ARE?

That day, that day was Friday and I had a guest from Zacatecas, A book keeper called Lourdes1 who loves writing and who also has done a bit of poemojing.

Which, as you can see, is a sort of graphic poetry done using emojis. It was started by a young transgender writer called Dante Tercero; who was granted a National Trust for Fine arts and Culture (we in Mexico used to know it as FONCA) scholarship in 2016, given to creative young people.

Such a project, published by the publishing house Tiempo que resta, was warmly received by… the youth. Nonetheless, there is always the hater who claims: “This isn’t art” so it was not accepted by the artsy peacocks high priests with nothing but conservative ways….

Lourdes, my guest, thought the emojis are already too visible and present in daily life to ignore as communicative devices. Since such a reason was enough to try it herself and become a poemojist, she created some. Unfortunately her poemojis are a mix of more Spanish than English and… I found it impossible to translate them since the emojis have to be read in Spanish. Nonetheless, I’ll introduce them here in order for you to become aware poemojis do exist.

LOURDES’ POEMOJI IN POEMOJIS AND LETTERS

My castle has sank down!

Whether he dislikes,

Even if I want not;

No one wins against tide.

How long I’m to wait so

He is waited upon by my hand scratching his arms,

He is longed by my kiss licking his lips,

Fire over his legs waits for him to come.

And baby blue chained to my hands!

POEMOJIS ARE… POEMS MADE WITH EMOJIS

And so, those are the poemojis. A crazy invention? Not art? I only know they’re not viable for the sole reason of adding confusion to the already confusing art of reading things and figuring out what an author meant. However, art is not only about understanding, it is also about creating new ways to generate feelings. Maybe it is me who is already old.

Have you tried new ways to expressing? Pasto kalo.

  1. I asked her to lend me some of hers in order to show off this new type of writing poetry in a non symbiotic collaboration since I’m just show casing this new thing in spite of finding it a very difficult way to communicate. Graphic communication designer in me says it adds trouble to the already difficult trouble of communication. ↩︎