Language Choice, Verisimilitude, and Readability, or Forward into the Past

(Originally posted over on Genre Benders on November 19)

On this 145th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address I think we should discuss the use of language. Most school children in the US are (or were) required to memorize Lincoln’s memorial words to dedicate the Union Cemetery at Gettysburg. “History will little note or remember” my arse. But when was the last time you’ve ever heard anybody speak or write like that. The supportive clauses, the language, all of it. Nobody does that. And at the time the Address was criticized for its baseness, its commonality (not to mention its brevity). This is close to how people actually spoke then. If someone were to give such a speech now, with all those comma spliced clauses, they’d be laughed at or at the very least thought to be way too pretentious to pay attention to.

When King James I sat his clerks and scribes down in 1604 Hampton Court Conference to make a new English translation of the Bible, he instructed them, among other things, to use archaic language structures. The KJV was meant not so much to supplant the Bishop’s Bible as it was to correct some misbegotten Puritanical values that crept into that version, so it needed to impart by the language used an established weight and authority of history and precedent. That is, it was meant to zoom the parishioners of the Church of England into believing its translation over others because it sounded older. Nifty trick if you can pull it off, which he did.

Obviously some of the translation had to be “modern” (to the 17th Century) or most of the people being preached to would be lost in those archaic structures and words. In modern times we tend to perceive a wall behind which exist the Shakespeares, Chaucers, Venerable Bede’s and whomever originally wrote down the epic of Beowulf, and that they’re all alike. But each shows how much English as a written language has changed.

Strangely enough, H.P. Lovecraft did the same thing. Writing in the early 20th Century he specifically and with intent wrote using structures not common since the late 19th Century. When I first started reading him I classified his writing as late Victorian Romance, which was Lovecraft’s intent. Through his choice of language structure and words, we meant to evoke that weight and feel of a past time, even though what he was writing about (a Godless world ruled by fear and science) wouldn’t have been acceptable to the general populace of that earlier time. He also encourage those writing works in his world to also write using those constructs. All in an attempt to transport the reader to a poorly remembered past and invoke nostalgia and importance in his stories. And again, he couldn’t do it completely (even though it had only been 50-20 years) because of how far the English language had evolved. He had to include contemporary words and concepts so his readers wouldn’t be completely lost.

Susanna Clarke revised this in Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and some of her other stories. She intentionally chose victorian romance (read as contemporary fiction of the Victorian Era) structures to evoke a mood and nostalgia in her readers. Her story actually takes place in an earlier era (an alternative England under George III and a Napolian Europe ). So not only did she have to update some of the word choices and structures, she is using a language construct that was contemporary at least 50 years after her story’s time period. But it works, doesn’t it? At least to our ears and eyes.

Can it work for you? I’m not so sure. There are strong currents in both SF and Fantasy circles to make the works more accessible, which means using current structures and word choices. Plus, in Fantasy at least, you risk being labeled as following Susanna Clarke or being to close to Tolkien unless you update the language. For SF there is the revival of Space Opera which has seen a (slight) nod to 70s sensibilities, but the genre has moved quickly beyond that (IMHO). But if you do try it, it doesn’t hurt to know the history of those who have travelled that road before to see how they updated the usages to make their stories work for their audiences.

Blame Canada

Some of the leaders and pundits of your movement have been starting the side argument about how this economic downturn has its roots in "policies that are decades or more old." Stop it, or I'll point out President Bush took full credit for the surging economy in the past and slap you all around with it.

It's been eight years. The "Blame Clinton" mantra is too old. Only the brain dead politic wonks accept it. The horse is dead, stop beating it.

On the other hand continue to deny any blame, continue in the bubble you've created for yourselves, and watch your movement die out. Seriously. You've been so used to playing with loaded dice that when the game changes, you don't realize those dice are a liability.

Story Bone

"When they said 'be respectful to your elders,' I don't think they meant the Elder Gods."

What you talking ’bout, Willis?

(Originally Posted on Genre Bender)

One of the parts of my writing that I’m constantly commended on is dialog, which is also one of the things most new writers (and even many established writers) have a problem with. Want to know my secret?

Well, besides listening more than I talk and having a wide range of friendships with people from all over the world, I’ve studied stand-up comedians. As a former class clown I was always interested on how to crack a joke (it’s not as easy as you might think). So back in the days before TVs had remote controls and more than 6 channels in any market (yes, we also rode dinosaurs to school back then, in the snow, uphill, both ways) we had these things call “variety hours.” These were shows where established and up and coming comedians could get ten minutes of time to flaunt their wares. There was also the perennial Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show which would showcase many young comics. I would devour these shows.

Studying comedians is studying dialog. For most stand-up artists, that’s all they have (unless they’re Gallagher doing the Sledge-o-matic) except for costume (did you know that the late George Carlin started his stand-up career performing in a three piece suit?) and some basic stage acting. They use the language to great effect. Pacing, timing, connections, connotations and denotations all come into play and are highly practiced and controlled. They may look calm and all personable, giving one-liners seemingly off the cuff, but they’re not. They’ll adjust their timing to suit an audience, change up the order of the show, cut or add sections, but they’re all part of a planned performance. And while some of the starting comedians will sound alike, any who have made a big name for themselves have their own voices.

Jerry Lewis, Richard Lewis and Lewis Black’s comedy have very little in common except that they are masters of the comedic form. If you closed your eyes you should immediately be able to recognize any one of them, even if they aren’t the ones doing the actual recitation of their acts. They all use their own vocabulary and string their words together in a unique fashion. They also all have their own verbal ticks. Take Robin Williams (please!) for example. He’s wild and wacky, and have you noticed that not only does he do accents (or voices), he’ll change his word selection to match those accents? He’ll adjust the emphasis and pacing, change word order, all to give the effect of verisimilitude to the character he’s try to portray.

That’s the basic gist. Comedians make their living by their language usage. That language is almost always dialog of some form. It’s easier to study their conventions because they exist in isolation from narrative, which can murky the waters. Very few successful comedians sound alike. And now that we have DVDs and Comedy Central, it’s much easier to study this way.

Also, as it concerns dialog, you did notice I didn’t make the title, “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” But I’ll bet you said it that way in your head.

As a side note, this is also why a lot of new “comedy” doesn’t work on me. To many comedians go for the gaff and have no real sense of timing. Or maybe it’s that my brain still works on pre-MTV timing, so I miss the subtleness of their craft.

Whadidtheysay?

It's my contention (supported by industry dynamics) that more powerful computers are purchased to play games than for any other reason. It's a related axiom that more powerful computers are engineered to play better games. The resulting increase in other productivity measures is a side effect.

I was once asked by a nephew on why it was important to be smart. My response was, "So you can understand better jokes."

So, with that in mind, and with the general gloominess surrounding the various economic news and a slightly dimmer holidays, I offer the freshly posted quotes from the Fall 2008 Feral Writers Retreat. Yet another example of why hanging out with really smart friends is the best entertainment available. Especially if those friends are all writers.

Obama-ology

Way back in the Cold War (with Russia) there was a sweet science called Kremlinology (which strangely enough is a word recognized by the Mac system spellchecker). This involved reading official Soviet News (Pravda, western press releases, etc) and scrutinizing official published photographs to reverse engineer the politics behind the closed walls of the Kremlin to know who was in and who was out. Given that official Soviet Photographs were often doctored, eliminating embarrassing connections between the powerful and the recently dead or exiled, this was not exactly rocket science, but it still took skill and memory. Also a vast archive of previously published photos didn't hurt. In fact the photo doctoring/elimination was so widely known as a hallmark of corrupt regimes that George Orwell made it the job of Winston in 1984.

These skills are having a strange revival when it comes to the President Elect. Because Obama refuses (with good reason) to usurp the current president's power, and, in my personal opinion, people are looking for hope that the current president cannot/isn't willing to provide, the public is attempting to scry the future through appointment announcements. Soon I expect to hear what breakfast food he's eating and how that relates to fiscal policy, how many bowl movements and the regularity relates to military policy, and when he goes to sleep relates to how he'll revise "No Child Left Behind." And I'm only slightly joking here.

Mr. President (the current one, not who we'll have next year), the country is longing for leadership. You're longing for legacy. Looks like a solution in search of a problem to me, and it will help your party more than installing the "Shadow Government" your brother was talking about. Pull your head out of your nether region, sir, and do your job.

Five Random Links

Jim Hines give you the goods on author self-promotion. You'll notice he doesn't say things about "bookmarks are the bomb" or "you must make (insert swag type here)" any of that extraneous stuff. Also, just in general, his Rules on Self-Promotion work very well even before you have a book. Just saying. Tobias (whom we're happy is out of the hospital) had a post a while back on some marketing research on the types of author promotions that work (there are at least a few dozen other posts about the subject).

Also, I think Jim's #7 could also be written as, "Don't cheap out." If you're going to make the effort on producing something, don't get cheap about it. Better not to do it at all than leave a feeling of, "Well, that was crap," in a potential customer's mind. Understand that being frugal isn't the same as being cheap. Frugal is finding the best price on good quality product; cheap is chasing the pennies down the rabbit hole (as a random example, if the paper you print on will cost you $5 more for a heavier or better quality sheet, spend the $5).

Mer Haskell has more organization than I. The post is also a good view into the rewriting business. While I have such lists, I've never written them down in such a manner. Normally I go through the story (Mer's is for a novel) with my red pen and mark exactly where I think something should happen. YMMV.

Self pimp Over at the community blog, Genre Bender, I write about Death by Thesaurus. We have a number of good blog posts there about writing, BTW.

Nathan offers up some quick (and funny) Zombie Fairy Tales (hmm, must think about that) as influence by MattW doing a Zombie Haiku inspired by Christopher Moore's Haiku post and his story The Stupidest Angel (of which I am re-listening to right as we type, how's that for synchronicity!)

And the best for last, Matt Stagg wins the rejection letter contest. What, you didn't know it was a contest? Yeah, can anybody beat Matt's rejection letter? My best was my first. It was from Ellen Datlow and started something like, "We're sorry to inform you that OMNI Online is closing..." Yeah, it was such a stinkeroo I killed the market. Still not as good as Matt's letter.

It starts when you're always afraid

The Indians are upset with their government for not protecting them. That the special operations unit trained to handle this situations had to sit on the ground for eleven hours waiting for transport (because no jets were available), that the government withdrew security from the hotels two days before the attacks (because they felt the threat had passed), and that the government had failed to secure the sea ports (which were a widely known vulnerability). They are pissed. The Indian government is attempting to point west and say, "It was Pakistan's fault." It's neither India or Pakistan's fault entirely.

The truth is you can't watch everything. War is economy. Terrorism's asymmetrical aspect includes that in the calculations. To prevent a terrorist attack governments must spend multiple factors of money in comparison to what terrorists spend on attacks. We're talking levels of tens of thousands to one here. There just isn't enough money in the world for that. So smart governments work to cut the legs out from under terrorists (something we actually did at the beginning of the War on Terror) by causing the terror groups to spend more money to keep moving, resupply, etc, and only costing the targeted country slightly more than what they already were spending on standing armies. There's also the challenge of depriving terrorists of their causes. It's much harder to recruit when people aren't upset, have full bellies, and relatively stable lives. There used to be an argument about poverty and lack of education but the last eight years have proven that argument to be false (although it never hurts to also help on those fronts as well).

But I'll reiterate here terrorists are not in the business of killing innocents; they're in the business of toppling governments. Their tactic is killing innocents, striking at the fundamental social contract between the government and the governed. Their goal is to first convince the governed, which they view as passive adherents of the status quo, that their government can not protect them. This is done by keeping them in fear (the terror part). The next step is to show the governed that their government is willing to toss out civil liberties, the rule of law, and will violate the basic principles of civilization to strike back. It's the terrorist's hope that the governed will realize that their government is out of control and might be willing to use the same tactics on them. At this point the terrorists are playing on psychology to have that fear they instilled, through time and weariness (fear is tiring), change into anger. With what they've done they expect that anger will be directed at the government, which will lead to an uprising and revolution. If the terrorists are still alive (it's not a given within their own psychology, they are willing to die to accomplish the overthrow) they hope to use the resulting chaos and instability to grab the reigns of power. But by this point their main goal has been achieved.

Everybody see all the interviews with the Indians who are fed up with the impotence and incompetence of their government? Notice the pattern? The terrorists are winning.

So, what to do? First, Pakistani ISI has to go. It cannot be reformed. Trash the whole organization, put on trial those whom you can prove support the terrorists as traitors to the government (after all, one of the Taliban's and Qaeda's goals is the overthrow of the Pakistani Government). Then create a new internal and external security/intelligence agency carefully vetting all those who join and tied it to the civilian government.

The rest of the items that need to be accomplished come under the "easier said than done" category. The Autonomous Tribal Areas must be federated. No longer can a modern nation state tolerate such a condition. It can't be by fiat, but instead the tribal leaders need to be convinced that abandoning their current system will be a net gain for their people. Unfortunately right now the trend is in the opposite direction that many of the federal areas aren't so sure they want to remain that way. The Pakistani Military must be brought to heel and made subservient to the civilian government. Kashmir must be an independent country, with a stable government and the ability to protect its borders. Without all three of these actions this part of the world will continue to be unstable and a breeding ground for insurgents.

Say, wasn't all this set up by the British. Hmm. What other countries did they screw up? Oh, yeah.

If we all pull together as a team

Yesterday the official word came out, we're in recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research came out yesterday and officially proclaimed we've been in a recession since last December. The NBER is the official body that declares these kinds of things. It's kind of like the Seal of Good Housekeeping, only not so much.

Well, now that it's all official and everything, I mostly have just this to say, "D'uh, dudes." Yeah, those of us in the real economy, or working in real government, we already knew this.

So, there's going to be a slew of numbers being thrown at us in the coming days in an effort to soothe your fears and concerns. Two of those are going to be cost of living and rate of inflation. You need to listen carefully to these numbers because for the past eight years the numbers reported have a caveat. They've been "core number" which "exclude the volatile energy and food prices." You know, those things that those of us in the middle and lower ends of the economy spend most of our money on. With the recent drop in fuel prices I'll bet the numbers that you hear won't be the "core numbers" but instead the numbers that include those volatile energy and food (maybe they'll just exclude food this time) prices." This is what's known as "lying through statistic." Just thought I'd give you a preview.

I wonder how the current administration will blame this on the Clintons. Oh yes, see, Nancy Pelosi and her liberal cabal have been in charge of Congress. Thankfully the true patriot conservatives have kept them from getting any business done or else this would have been worse. Yeah, I'm sure that will be the line. Bonus points if you can spot the contradiction in that reasoning.

Look for that union label

Well, in the waning months (less than 2! And the villagers dance their dance of joy) of the Bush Presidency the various union busting activities are taking a fevered pitch.

In the past eight years we've seen the various airline companies declare bankruptcy and jettison their previous union contracts for more favorable terms, ie. fewer benefits and protections as well as offloading pensions to the government Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp all while continuing to pay their executives "bonus pay." The PBGC is having a terrible time meeting expectations, BTW, and generally pays much less than the original pension agreement (and the more companies' pensions are put into receivership, the less those pensioners get).

Then for the past month we've had the barrage of "The UAW is sinking Detroit, oh woes is us, gives us the cash," from the big three and the various right of Rush talking heads. You know, except for last year Toyota paying their employees more (with the help of year end bonus) than the UAW workers got paid. But, shh, nobody's supposed to know. Forget that the big three played their double-down bets on big SUVs while not doing a damn thing with the money except pay out bonuses (say, remember when the new GM CEO came in and was paid a signing bonus larger then the yearly union payroll of the two factories he immediately shut down? Ah, good times). You know, how they could have been, say, leading the charge into hybrids like the Clinton Initiative, instead of lobbying to get that scrapped for the Bush Hydrogen Car that's not do for about five or so years yet, and there's been talk of pushing that back as well. Or say plowing that money into R&D to make more efficient SUVs? Or maybe changing their business model from having cars engineered to require "Genuine GM Parts" instead of engineering them to last. See, it's all those damn union workers' fault. If we could just toss that nasty old contract away we'd be all sunshine and lollypops.

Now it's the teachers' unions under fire. See, our kids aren't measuring up and it's all because of that damn union. We can't fire under performing teachers or give those miracle good teachers the pay they deserve because of the union. It has nothing to do with lack of support from administrations, or parenting that lacks instilling self discipline, or a general disregard for eduction that permeates US Society or that parents are willing to sue if little Jonny or Suzy makes anything less than an "A." Nope, it's that damn union. If we could only (cheaply) fire those tenured teachers all would be right. You know, except we've had a two decade long control test with charter and alternative schools. Guess what? Those kids don't do any better. And with the increase in vouchers, the private schools are coming down as well. Yeah, see, it's all about those unions.

So, time to see what unions have done for us.

Five day work week of forty hours. Yep. Although notice this is changing. Many people are working four 10-hour days (or even four 12-hour days). When I worked at E&Y I was regularly working 70 hours (fortunately I was paid overtime, which those directing my time didn't have to pay out of pocket, but my partner was very upset and even challenged some of my time sheets). And many in the service industry work seven days. I did when I worked at Wendy's back in high school. It was against the rules back then, but it was a pay check.

Retirement. Yep. Before unionization retirement was only for the gentry. Normal people didn't retire, they worked until they were crippled or dead. This was only a hundred years ago. This is also changing. Notice how many retirees are working? It's not because they want to afford the champagne lifestyle. This is the reason I decided to get serious about writing. I could probably drive a truck in retirement, but I don't want to. I can't keep going at this rate forever, but I could probably keep writing until I kick the bucket.

Holidays off (with pay). You may think it was Scrooge's general demeanor that had him admonish Cratchit with, "Christmas is a poor excuse to pick a man's pocket every December 25th." It wasn't. This was a common business practice, one that Dickens intentionally wanted to break (it was his reason for writing "A Christmas Carol"). Holidays were considered work days (even the Pilgrims did it). Again, lots of people in the service industry work holidays. My work place can have us work holidays, although we get double time. That's a big incentive to keep us off on holidays.

Pay in dollars (or whatever your standard currency is). Anybody know what "Company Script" is? If you worked for a factory in the 1800s and early 1900s you would have known. This is a practice that, sad to say, is back on the move again. At E&Y we used to get "bonus" pay in the form of company swag. There's also a movement on to have your health care considered "pay" (former boss included her cost for health care as a part of my "overall compensation"). "Owe my soul to the company store."

Bathroom breaks. Yeah, seems basic doesn't it. Not exactly an "inalienable right" though. When I worked for the USPS, they were scheduled. Leaving your workstation "unscheduled" was cause for demerits or summary firing (worked as "casual", non-union).

And that's just the start. If you don't think all these things could be rolled back, you're leading a sheltered work life. I've seen all of these violated or ignored in my various jobs.

edited to correct some typos.

It's THAT time of year

Ah, cyber monday. And the spam falls like snow in the Cascade Mountains.

Boy, you all have been busy. There were 200 new posts waiting for me this morning. What? Don't you all have lives. Oh, wait a sec, the caller-id says Mr. Kettle is calling me back about something.

Took Mom to see the new James Bond movie. My analysis? Eh. Unless you're really into the franchise you could probably skip this one. It's a good "everything goes bang at the end" movie, but if plot holes where bunnies there would have been a stampeding herd of rabbits by the end. Plus, note to director, director of photography, and editor; you have a bunch of people with light hair and short haircuts, similar suits and builds, lots of things flying around, shooting it from extreme angles and close-ups, speeding up the footage, and editing it like an MTV video on meth does not lead to coherent story telling. Also, note to writers, "Quantum" as the name for the new baddie organization? Why? You had a perfectly respectable organization called SPECTER which you could also have reinvented (since you reinvented the main character).

On Friday we went to the Canton Museum of Art (or more appropriately, the Canton Couple of Rooms of Art), also taking Mom. The Clyde Singer show was excellent. Man, what a painter. I would say he's a modern Diego Garcia, but for the US. Part of the fun of the show were three Art Students. I pegged them as Art Students the moment they entered the gallery. Understand, there are art students and then there are Art Students. The first are fun to hang out with, the later are annoyingly conceited little twits. I've known my share of the Art Students, which I studiously try to avoid. These are the ones who know that True Art is (puh-lease). So here is this guy's work, which ranges from impressionist, cubist, realist, cartoon, and the Americana he's so well known for. More range than most other artists. And they think it's boring. Just wanted to slap some sense into their privileged rich little pinheads.

The weekend was spent putting up the outside decorations (done!, okay, well, mostly, I'm thinking of buying a new garland for the railing) and the tree. It's not decorated, but it's up. Last year we rewired the tree for multi-color LED lights, so it looks nice this year. My wife also bought a train to go around the base. We'll see how long that lasts. Many presents were also wrapped.

And now we're back at work. So far reports of Black Friday have not been encouraging. Sure, they were better than expected, but you remember just how low those expectations were this year.

Turn your geek light on

Courtesy of the "now a year older, but still better" Dan, some old timey cryptography. These are the things that make me squee.