I heart languages. I majored in Linguistics in college, and as part of that I studied two foreign languages. I’m super excited that my library offers free online language courses (and am frustrated that they don’t use more technical terminology. I want to conjugate, darn it!). I transcribe things into the International Phonetic Alphabet. For fun.

But it wasn’t on a conscious level that I began using characters who spoke other languages in my works. I started with a native English speaker—but a native Irish English speaker.

This might actually be trickier than using a foreign language, because it’s easy to forget all the subtle differences between American and Commonwealth English. I mean, I speak English, how hard could it be, right? (Not as easy as you think.)

I think my next project will feature a character who speaks Russian as her native language. This will have more challenges for me because I want to learn all I can about the language to make her voice (in English) more authentic.

For example, in Russian, you can reorder the phrases of a sentence without changing the meaning. “To the store I went” and “I went to the store” are both perfectly acceptable. Moving a phrase to the beginning of the sentence adds emphasis. (So “To the store I went” is like saying “[No,] I went to the store.”)

Which brings me to a dilemma: in English (or just in “good writing”), we tend place emphasis on things at the end of sentences. So what do you think? Should I use the Russian emphasis pattern to stay truer to the way my character would think, or should I conform to the writing standards of English?

And if you have any questions about any of your foreign (or not-so-foreign) characters’ use of language, feel free to ask me!

More fun facts about language and meaning this week from Livia Blackburne

Photo by Eric Andresen

If you’ve been here a little while, you know that I’m a big fan of Alicia Rasley (and her co-blogger, Theresa Stevens, of course). I’m knee deep in revisions for the rest of the month, and Alicia goes and posts a great article on backstory. How can I not “reblog”?

A preview (emphasis and image added):

We know we need [backstory], so make it work. Part of the problem is that "layered-on" backstory (that which is meant to make the reader feel sorry for the character or understand some motivation) often ends up just being contrived– the rivets are showing, and the reader can feel the extraneousness of it. "Right, right, she was orphaned and we’re supposed to feel sorry for her. Got it." . . .

This makes the character and backstory work together for coherence. But the coherence requires us as writers taking the backstory we invent seriously, and imagining what it would REALLY cause in this particular person. That is, stop thinking of it as "backstory" and start thinking of it as "her/his past".

Read the rest: edittorrent: Coherence in backstory

What do you think? How can we take backstory more seriously and use it better?

Photo by Todd J

Ha ha, we’re back! I came across a handout from a class on backstory at last year’s National Romance Writers of America Conference.

Author Winnie Griggs says on her handout: “Whether you are a plotter or a pantser, the more time you spend figuring out what makes your character tick, the easier your story will be to write and the more depth it will have.”

For significant events in the characters’ lives, she includes how that event impacts her character’s life-view. The handout also outlines several ways to reveal the backstory (obviously, the full content was covered in the class, and I didn’t attend the conference, so I can’t help you fill in all the blanks).

This handout also features a chart for tracking your backstory against the backdrop of the historical events before and during your novel—an important aspect that we haven’t really discussed. Especially if you’re writing a historical novel, mapping out the events in the years before your novel may help you find some events that could have an impact on your characters.

Using a chart may or may not help you figure out your character’s history and personal motivations. But as I looked over the chart, I wondered how other people come up with backstory details. When it comes to backstory, are you more of a planner, a fixer/grafter or a happy coincidencer? Are you more likely to allow the story to grow out of something that happened before your story starts, or to fill in the blanks in your characters’ pasts as you write them?

How do you craft what came before?

Photo by Earl

On the topic of “little ideas” again, I was looking to add some dialogue to increase tension in an argument scene, and I remembered a conflict from the first half of the book that had kind of faded in the second. A ha!, I thought. I can tie this back in here, and it will look so natural—you’d never know it was new stuff grafted on! I was very excited for another “little idea.”

As I read books, even great books, I often wonder which parts were planned all along, and which ones the author had to go back and add—characters or events to explain motivation or justify later actions, plot devices and twists, foreshadowing, even jokes that refer back to previous events in the story (which came first, the joke or the event?). (Yes, I do perform a lot of unnecessary mental gymnastics while I read. It keeps me young.)

And then I wonder, “Where do little ideas come from?” (I know, I know, when two big ideas love each other very much . . . save it, thank you.) I came up with three sources: planning, “fixing” (grafting it on later) or happy coincidence.

Planning is when you’ve known you were going to do this all along. So far, I always know who the killer is in a mystery, so I can plan some of the little hints in his/her behavior that act as clues, and I can foreshadow that big reveal in little ways. Even little ideas may be planned. Often, planning comes from fixing/grafting or happy coincidence during the plotting stage of writing, so you’re all ready when fingers hit the keyboard.

Fixing or grafting is when you’re writing merrily along and suddenly you realize, Hey, wait a minute. What the character’s doing here doesn’t make sense. I need to go back and add something before this to justify this story turn/plant this clue/SAVE HIS LIFE!!!

Happy coincidence is when you’re writing merrily along and suddenly you realize, Hey, wait a minute. This would be the perfect place to hearken back to X event/Y clue/Z character in my story. Oh, how neat and tidy! I am oh so very clever! (I love these ones.)

I think we all probably tap into these as we write. I’m afraid happy coincidence is the one I use most, though that may not be the case—and those are often the type of little ideas I’m most worried about losing.

What do you think? Are there other sources for little strokes of genius? Which do you use the most?

Photo by Rishi Bandopadhay

Are you ever afraid you’ll run out of ideas? I am. Writing fiction takes up a lot of ideas.

Mostly, I’m not afraid of running out of the high-level, story-starting ideas. Those ideas come from everywhere—watching television, reading the newspaper, reading other novels, brainstorming on other projects, etc. Generally, it takes me two of those big ideas combined to get really excited about a story. And once I’m really excited, I can’t wait to start writing.

But I’m afraid of running out of the little ideas. Things that solve problems on a scene level: tricks to get characters out of (or into!) scrapes, gadgets and technology, historical and cultural facts, and so forth. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been incredibly lucky to come up with the number of ideas (and solutions rooted in my research) that I’ve had in the first place—what if I run out?

Sometimes, I want to save these ideas. “Yeah, I could use this here,” I tell myself. “It might help this scene, but what if I need that exact kind of plot device/gadget/tidbit more in a year or two or five? I mean, I guess I could use it then, too, but won’t that make my writing . . . redundant?”

I’m trying to learn to trust myself—if I have an idea that works for this story that punches it up, I probably shouldn’t wait to see if maybe this story will work okay without it and I can use it later. It’s not “wasting” an idea if you actually put it to use—and who knows if you’ll ever have occasion to use something like that again. And even if you do, chances are that you’ll have to customize it to your characters and their story, so it would probably look very different.

What do you think? Where do you get your “little” ideas and solutions? Do you think something like that might be recognizable? Do you know of any writers who repeat the same plot devices too much?

Photo by Steve Koukoulas