Barbara Eberhard's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing-challenges"
God Speak
In my trilogies, there is a god for each country, for a total of seven.
When I first started the Reunion trilogy, I wanted to somehow make the speech of the gods look different than normal conversation. I have used italics for communications between mages via familiar communications, and among familiars as needed. So, that wasn't an option.
Complicating this decision-making, I also have the announcements from the prophecy. I had already determined that these, too, would be in italics. But they are indented more than normal text, and indented on both sides, unlike normal paragraphs. There is also space before and after the prophecies. This formatting helps them stand out as unique, though I usually have a character also explain that a prophecy was just announced.
I tried a couple of different versions for how to make the words of the gods look different. I tried underlining. That looked odd. I tried all caps. But that looks like yelling.
Finally, I settled on a different font, one that's script-like in style. The other thing I did was put a colon at the beginning and end of these quotes, rather than quotation marks. I guess I could have not used any punctuation at all, as I do for prophecies. But that's what I did.
Now six books in, I like this decision, except for one thing.
Normally, as someone is speaking, you say their name and perhaps use a verb to explain how the quote should be interpreted. So for example, '"I think we should do this," Kircha offered.'
But because the quotes of the gods are in a different style and font, I can't put this kind of attribution with their quote. I can't say, 'Miska said, :Everyone should be happy.:' Because the "Miska said" part of that would also be in the different font. And that just looks odd.
As a result of this style decision (in both senses of style - Word and otherwise), I either have to explain who is going to be speaking before the quote in the God Quote style. Or I have to explain it afterward. Assuming, of course, there's more than one god around or there's a need to explain the tone and tenor of the quote.
It's somewhat constraining to the writing. But it's also an interesting challenge.
When I first started the Reunion trilogy, I wanted to somehow make the speech of the gods look different than normal conversation. I have used italics for communications between mages via familiar communications, and among familiars as needed. So, that wasn't an option.
Complicating this decision-making, I also have the announcements from the prophecy. I had already determined that these, too, would be in italics. But they are indented more than normal text, and indented on both sides, unlike normal paragraphs. There is also space before and after the prophecies. This formatting helps them stand out as unique, though I usually have a character also explain that a prophecy was just announced.
I tried a couple of different versions for how to make the words of the gods look different. I tried underlining. That looked odd. I tried all caps. But that looks like yelling.
Finally, I settled on a different font, one that's script-like in style. The other thing I did was put a colon at the beginning and end of these quotes, rather than quotation marks. I guess I could have not used any punctuation at all, as I do for prophecies. But that's what I did.
Now six books in, I like this decision, except for one thing.
Normally, as someone is speaking, you say their name and perhaps use a verb to explain how the quote should be interpreted. So for example, '"I think we should do this," Kircha offered.'
But because the quotes of the gods are in a different style and font, I can't put this kind of attribution with their quote. I can't say, 'Miska said, :Everyone should be happy.:' Because the "Miska said" part of that would also be in the different font. And that just looks odd.
As a result of this style decision (in both senses of style - Word and otherwise), I either have to explain who is going to be speaking before the quote in the God Quote style. Or I have to explain it afterward. Assuming, of course, there's more than one god around or there's a need to explain the tone and tenor of the quote.
It's somewhat constraining to the writing. But it's also an interesting challenge.
