Novel Watch 5: +2.5 pages [18 total]
Today didn’t look like it would be productive, but I added almost 2.5 whole pages! Wow! I’m pretty happy with how this working out so far. Today I introduced Finkerner Weedman to Adrianna. Fink’s a combination of fun and excrutiating to write — on the one hand, he’s a coarse peasant type with no education and he tells it like he sees it. On the other hand, I’m even more hardpressed to antiquate his dialogue. It gives me the opportunity to use words that really aren’t comprehensible to the modern reader, as I don’t really intend for him to be completely understandable.
Current goal for August: finish rough draft of part 1.
Progress: good. I’m shooting to average 2 pages per day for August (single-spaced pages, mind you), and I’m still on target there. That gives me about 60 pages for part 1, which I think is reasonable. If it ends up shorter, that’s okay, as it’ll expand in revision.
And here’s a quote from Fink. He’s so… rough around the edges. Bonus points if you understand it well enough to be offended.
“These swynes wouldst swyve ye up yer tuwel! They thinketh not swich poraille as me be digne of reverence, n’matter how muchel I’ve swonken.”
August 10th, 2007 at 4:31 am
Suggestion: provide a glossary in the back, ala Clockwork Orange. When I’m reading a text in German, I expect that I won’t catch everything and will need a dictionary. When I’m reading a good English fiction book, I expect the opposite. At least make it easy on your poor readers if you want them to understand what’s going on.
August 10th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Well, while I’ve been doing some stuff to the language of these characters to make it seem more medieval, for the most part I’ve been trying to do it in a way that it’s still clear what they’re talking about. A few choice words that have slightly different modern meanings, or the like, and using thou, thee and ye in appropriate places, seems to work overall. In the case of Fink I’m not really planning on people having to understand him to begin with. Adrianna sure doesn’t. That’s why I kept the Y’s instead of changing them to I’s, which is something I’ve done elsewhere.
But I’ll keep your suggestion in mind. A glossary might be useful… or footnotes. It might be the kind of thing I have to consider once I’ve got the dialogue all done and can see if there will be an issue with any of it.