Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 122
April 6, 2013
Rules for Writing and Storytelling
This is the handout I’ve prepared for the writing workshop today. Have I missed anything?
RULES FOR WRITING
Omit needless words
Write transparently
Show don’t tell
Therefore avoid these words in narrative:
Adverbs (usually end in -ly)
BE verbs (thus continuous tenses and passive voice)
Sense-words (see, hear, etc)
Bookisms (sob, shout, request, etc.)
Parasites (really, certainly, pretty, um, etc)
!
Then
Begin/start
Which was, who was, that was.
RULES FOR STORYTELLING
Every scene should:
Make internal sense (the characters really would do that)
Furthers the plot (setting the scene for something important later)
Reinforce the theme (the robot is a symbol for democracy)
Be entertaining or interesting (or in some way make the reader keep reading)
March 31, 2013
And now for something completely silly…
From Letters to the Journal of Transcircumstantial Linguistics
Implications of New Evidence on the History of Late Cretaceous Languages
A.B. Dunwitte, W.B. van Beek, R. Akutagawa
There have been many attempts to find, one would hesitate to say forge, links between the so-called “Cretaceous Languages” (K-Ls) and those of our home timeline. The curious reader may find arguments for relationships between one or more K-Ls and Algic, Sino-tibetan, and Turkic to name only the most popular. However, unambiguous evidence has yet to present itself for any genetic relationship other than that between the K-Ls (all K-Ls) and the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, specifically English.
A case study of the value of this interpretation is presented in the reconstructed origins of the city of Megga. Stories of this paradisiac city or garden are wide-spread in many K-L mythologies, including Ethlek Meggha, Fesh Ma’ash, and Kacharan Me’eye. In addition, the archaic toponym for the forests north of the Hell Creek Floodplain (The Thalassian province of Pinea), Nuwa is well attested from Nwa and Thalassian sources, as is Spek Nmo for the Floodplain, itself (The Ethlek lands, the Face of God). The cognate nature of these two sets of terms is widely accepted, reconstructed at proto-Ethlek *Mega and proto-Nwa *Nuam.
The genetic relationship between these two groups of words did not come to light until recently, when a single tax document on a 1st dynasty Senerian merchant vessel was found to preserve the intriguing ethnonym “Nu Amaga people” to describe “barbarians dwelling along the lanes of the Seaway.” Thus it seems likely that Me’eye, Meggha, Megga, Nwa, and possibly nwirga (“pirate” in most K-North American languages) are all derivatives of a phrase reconstructable as *nu ameega.
The temptation to name the first Maastrichtian human settlement “New America” is great indeed.
But what sort of language did the “Meggans” speak? We can make surprisingly specific educated guesses.
The most conservative K-Ls are to be found in the jjii, or etching plates, of the Orthodox Memorialist churches of Seneria (the largest state on the southeastern coast of the K-Asian continent). There, may be seen a language that, like “Meggan” preserved analytic morphology and lacked vowel harmony.
However we can already see the elision of unstressed vowels, (see Old Memorialist pejis, Orthodox Memorialist pjis, and modern Senarian jjii). If we are the reconstruct the English word “pages,” we must also assume a very early “Meggan” shift of preferred emphasis from the first to the second syllable of nouns. This shift in turn must have occurred after the voicing of intervocalic consonants (Orthodox Memorialist dar, Old Memorialist ada’r from “Meggan” *a’der, Eng. “water”). A later tendency to turn intervocalic voiced consonants into flaps or burrs is present only in K-North American languages such as Eethlek (ni-rrar), and Nwa (arra). Accusative morphology is common among K-Ls, leading to the assumption that the reconstructed form *do it eat food (for unagentive direct objects) versus *do him eat father (agentive direct object) was already commonplace by time of the Fall of Megga.
The implications of this monogenic theory of K-L evolution extend far beyond the reconstruction of the “Meggan” language. If all K-Ls can be assumed to have derived from 21st century American English, then the K-world itself becomes an in incalculably valuable natural laboratory of linguistic evolution. For example, the fact that no K-L has been found to be tonal or pitch-determined gives credence to the proposed relationship between the ASPM mutation (present in most European-Americans and all examined K-people) and atonality. In addition, the multiple unrelated instances of head-final languages in what must have once been a solely head-initial world adds another brick to the Chomskian citadel of universal grammar.
03 Reading3
The people: Paul Jenkins, Pavlina Borisova-Bensen, Daniel M. Bensen
The Menu: Duck on a bed of wheat, hot apple cider, and “The Wrath of Khan”
The purpose: to read through the next chapter of Dan’s new book, and help him see what needs fixing.
Thanks for listening!
March 30, 2013
Writing Workshop in Sofia!
Do you want to write stories in English?
Come to our writing workshop on Sunday, April 7th and learn writing rules and tips from SF and fantasy writer Daniel M. Bensen. We will talk about small ways to improve writing (avoid adverbs and the verb “to be”) as well as big ways (make a scene do more than one thing, give your characters goals they can’t achieve). We will then read a sample of your work and discuss how to improve it.
WHERE: 45 Gurko St. (press the buzzer for Mezhduchasie)
WHEN: Sunday the 7th of April 3:00pm
WHAT to bring: A sample of your work (250 words in English) and something to write with
COST: free!
CONTACT: Daniel M. Bensen, bensen.daniel@gmail.com, 088-686-4855 BEFORE Saturday the 6th of April
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http://choveshkata.net/
Място, на което книгите сбират човеци
March 25, 2013
Newsletter 2
It’s been a week of consolidation and organization.
I did house-keeping stuff like prioritizing my marketing plans (webpage stuff is at the top of the list and coming soon). I put the finishing touches on my book proposal (such as adding little pictures of the covers of the books I am comparing Tyrannosaur Queen to), and now I’m going to let it sit for a while before coming back to it.
I’m close to finishing revisions of chapter 2 of Tyrannosaur Queen, and about halfway through writing the first draft of chapter 4 of New Frontiers. I’m getting a lot of great feedback from Tyrannosaur beta-readers, and I’m feeling good, especially about the beginning, which has been read and re-read so many times it’s polished to diamond brilliance. New Frontiers is of course rougher. It’s chapter four and I’m still a chapter away from killing the murder victim in this supposed murder mystery. Also the main character isn’t awesome enough. Working on that.
On Twitter, Cory Doctorow retweeted a comment about dubstep, which was cool. And I heard about and started reading Used Aliens, which so far is pretty funny and educational. I did not know that about bass fishing.
I also had a very interesting conversation with Simon Roy of Robot Dreams and C.M. Kosemen of Irregular Books. No hints yet about what we talked about except one: H.G. Wells. Yeah.
In other news the emminent DValdron on althistory asked for help with his Thule timeline (empire-building Inuit, yeah!) and I have yet to think of any ideas. Contact with the Sakhalin Ainu? Give me a hand here.
Stay tuned for more this week: a gallery, a place to put a podcast at least.
Чао
March 24, 2013
02 Reading 2
The people: Paul Jenkins, Pavlina Borisova-Bensen, Daniel M. Bensen
The Menu: Duck on a bed of wheat, hot apple cider, and “The Wrath of Khan”
The purpose: to read through the next chapter of Dan’s new book, and help him see what needs fixing.
March 17, 2013
01Reading 1
The people: Paul Jenkins, Pavlina Borisova-Bensen, Daniel M. Bensen
The Menu: Duck on a bed of wheat, hot apple cider, and “The Wrath of Khan”
The purpose: to read through the next chapter of Dan’s new book, and help him see what needs fixing.
In case you don’t know, the World’s Other Side is my completed second novel, a alt-history, sci-fi thriller-romance I’m currently polishing up to show to literary agents and (eventually, hopefully) get published. To do that, though, I needed a way to gain perspective on the story, and see what worked and what didn’t on a big scale. Enter Paul Jenkins, playwright extraordinaire and fellow EFL teacher, who suggested an outloud reading of the book (actually, this is a simplification. Paul originally came up with the idea of reading through The Kingdoms of Evil, and he, Pavlina, and I read through several chapters of Freetrick’s adventures…which it didn’t occur to me to record. Sorry). Anyway, I deeply thank Paul for his idea, and for agreeing to lend his (professionally) trained voice to the recording. I also thank Pavlina, who had already read and commented upon this chapter twice (first when I first wrote it, and then again after I had written the whole book, for which I owe her a picture of a baby Triceratops…it’s a long story).
Neither me nor Pavlina are trained speakers, and none of us has the first clue of what to do with audio recording aside from which end of the microphone to talk into. So I apologize in advance for the quality of this production. It’s not supposed to be an audio- or podio-book as much as it is a teaser for my new book, and a way for interested people to see part of my writing process. Stay tuned at the end for commentary by the Three Scary Voices.
And now for some background in the story. You’re going to listen to Chapter 3, in which the character introductions are mostly done and we set up for the plot. Here’s what you haven’t read yet (unless you’re one of my beta readers. For more information on being a beta reader, see the bottom of this page):
The World’s Other Side is a alt-history romance/techno-thriller that takes place in an alternate-history world in the Age of Exploration turned out very differently. Five hundred years ago, the people of the southern super-continent of Gondwana discovered and colonized the Northern Hemisphere. Now, a tiny community of English-speaking refugees tries to survive in the North American city of Shikaakwa, capital of the Native-run Ilinwa Republic.
George Boatman is the leader of a gang of young men of White-town. Although he once trained to be a priest, George is now the leader of a gang, fighting to protect the White-Towners against the Ilinwa majority.
Bounce Nakmara is a foreign student from the world’s strongest military and economic power, Gondwana. She studied the Ilinwa language, but finds herself living with a host-family of English-speaking barbarians.
Wentama Inoka is a police officer of the Native American Ilinwa majority, who falls in love with a White girl.
Joan is George’s sister and the object of Wentama’s affection. She finds herself straddling two worlds, unwilling to choose one over the other.
In chapter one, the story opened with an act of vengeance. In retaliation for the rape and beating of a woman in his community, George Boatman firebombed the Ilinwa culprit’s house. Upon his arrival home, George discovered that his grandmother agreed to host a foreign student from wealthy and powerful Gondwana.
The student, Bounce Nakmara, was everything George hated about modern global society. She was arrogant and commanding, sexually promiscuous, and scornful of the faith and traditions of his people. Worse, as a wealthy, foreigner she would bring down the scrutiny of the local police.
The police were already interested in George’s community. In chapter two it emerged that the house George burned down had been owned by a member of a powerful local crime syndicate, the Mound-Builders. A scion of the syndicate was killed in the fire, and now the boss demanded vengeance. Wentama, an Ilinwa (Native American) police officer working the White-Town beat, has been charged with finding the culprit and “nailing him to a tree.”
Interested in the story? Want to give your feedback? Want a free dinosaur picture? Become a beta reader and all this wealth and power can be yours. Just let me know in the comments if you’re interested.
Thanks for listening!
March 16, 2013
Bibliography
The most fascinating thing about paleontology is just how much concrete information people have been able to pry out of the fossil record. Paleontologists know (or at least can infer) mind-boggling amounts of detailed information about the climate, ecology, and biota of the Late Cretaceous, which means that there’s surprisingly little I could just make up when writing Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen. Errors no doubt crept in, both because of the needs of the story and my own poor understanding of the science, but if you want to really learn something about the Maastrichtian, take a look at:
For Hell Creek’s plant species (except for the fictional “saltbrush”), Description of Several Common Fossil Leaf Species from the Hell Creek Formation by Kirk R. Johnson, and Latest Cretaceous Leaf Megafloras from the Jose Creek Formation of New Mexico by Garland R. Upchruch and Greg H. Mack, and Plants and the K-T Boundary by Douglas J. Nichols and Kirk R. Jonson.
For the climate of Hell Creek, Evolving ideas about the Cretaceous climate and ocean circulation by William W. Hay, The Maastrichtian (Late Cretaceous) climate in the Northern Hemisphere by Lena B. Golovneva, The late Cretaceous environment of the Arctic by R.A. Spicer and A.B. Herman, Cretaceous forest composition and productivity inferred from a global fossil wood by Emiliano Peralta-Medina and Howard J. Falcon-Lang, and Cretaceous wildfires and their impact on the Earth system by Sarah A.E. Brown, Andrew C. Scott, Ian J. Glasspool, and Margaret E. Collinsona.
For the dinosaurs’ behavior, Horn Use in Triceratops by Andrew A. Farke, The Predatory Ecology of Deinonychus and the Origin of Flapping in Birds by Denver W. Fowler, Elizabeth A. Freedman, John B. Scannella, and Robert E. Kambic, Forelimb biomechanics of nonavian theropod dinosaurs in predation by Kenneth Carpente , and A Comparison of the Jaw Mechanics in Hadrosaurid and Ceratopsid Dinosaurs Using Finite Element Analysis by Bell PR, Snively E, and Shychoski L.
For Hell Creek’s ecology, Spatial niche partitioning in dinosaurs from the latest cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of North America by Tyler R. Lyson and Nicholas R. Longric,, Latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Aridity Indicated by Paleosols in the McRae Formation, South-Central New Mexico by Brenda J. Buck and Greg H. Mack, Dinosaurs and Dirt by G.J. Retallack, Hadrosaurs Were Perennial Polar Residents by Anusuya Chinsamy, Daniel B. Thomas, Allison R. Tumarkin-Deratzian, Anthony R. Fiorillo, and Theropod teeth from the Prince Creek Formation (Cretaceous) of northern Alaska, with speculations on Arctic Dinosaur paleoecology by Anthony R Fiorillo, Roland A Gangloff.
And the website that (for me) started it all, Phillip Bigelow’s Hell Creek Faunal Facies (http://www.scn.org/~bh162/hellcreek2.html).
In addition to those who helped me without knowing it, I also owe whatever scientific accuracy can be found in this story to the kind help from the Dinosaur Mailing List (http://dml.cmnh.org/), the Hell Creek Forum (http://www.hellcreek.tk/), and TV Tropes (http://tvtropes.org). Specifically, Ron Blakely (paleogeography), K. Kripchak (paleoclimatology), Renato Santos, Tom Parker, Nick Turinetti, Avipes, Patrick Grant, Albertonykus, and mmartyniuk (dinosaur behavior and appearance), alethiophile, Night, Last Hussar, Yej, fishsicles, and Sabre’s Edge (military history and other random questions).
