This post and the next are continuing the theme of
sensitivity and offence – deliberate or otherwise. Everything will be
from my perspective, and the views expressed are not intended as
guidance of any kind.
If this is a delicate subject for you, please skip forward to Light Verse. Thank you.
These next three posts are going to be about the minefield that is sensitivity and offence – deliberate or otherwise. Everything will be from my perspective, and the views expressed are not intended as guidance of any kind.
If this is a delicate subject for you, please skip forward to Light Verse. Thank you.
I try to be light on the personal details in this blog, but it's not giving away any secrets to reveal that I've recently moved (back) to Wales. Despite having family there, and thinking of it as "home away from home" for most of my life, I've never managed to get to grips with the Welsh language. Well, now I'm trying again.
Being a language learner who is first-language English is a mixed blessing in this information age. Resources are plentiful, and it's easy to find other learners, but the sheer ubiquity of English means that most Welsh speakers can speak and understand English. And so, when I begin to struggle, they switch to my language out of a desire to be polite and/or speed the conversation along a bit.
This makes me self-conscious about making mistakes, hesitating, or even looking confused. And because I'm self-conscious, I make more mistakes, hesitate more, and spend most interactions looking (and feeling) confused; not to mention more than a little stupid.
But why? I don't think that other people are stupid, slow, or annoying if they don't speak perfect English. And I'm confident enough in BSL (British Sign Language) even though I know that I still make mistakes. There are probably lots of reasons, but I think that part of it could be about immersion.
When someone struggles with English, and I can't speak their first language, we have no choice but to keep going. With BSL, switching to English takes more effort than sticking to sign. But with Welsh, it's quicker and easier to use English when the I can't think of a word.
Having the "easy out" of using English, I don't try to rephrase my sentences or get creative with descriptors – I just say the word in English. And once the conversation is in English, that tends to be where it stays. 😕
It's OK to make mistakes. Say something instead of awkward silence. And remember how to say, "Please speak Welsh to me, I want to learn."
I write for adults, in that my characters are adults and I don't generally write "coming of age" or similarly YA-focused themes. But I don't write "adult" as in smut, gore, and foul language. Neither do I require exceptional levels of erudition of my audience 😉 because plain language can work just as well to tell a story.
No, there's nothing "inappropriate" in my writing – but it's still not for children. Children are perfectly welcome to read it, and some have, but I write for adults. For people with old scars, buried regrets, and long-held beliefs. There are many highly intelligent children in the world who will be able to understand the stories, and even the themes; but they will probably struggle to empathise with the characters just because they haven't been alive for long enough.
So, if I'm writing for adults, why don't my stories have explicit content? Well, to be blunt, it's because I'm writing for adults. Actual adults, not overage kids.
I think that most of us go through a phase where we revel in being old enough for "grown up" things, and seek out all the previously forbidden delights. At the same time, we develop a horror of anything that might been seen as "for kids". Cue sex, drugs, blood, and profanity, served up with a hefty helping of cynicism.
But eventually we grow to develop our own tastes, independent of what we're "supposed" to like or dislike. To quote C.S. Lewis, “To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence ... When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
What we read, watch, listen to – or choose to avoid, as the case may be – is a personal choice. I don't want to be judged on my personal choices, and have no business judging anyone else's. Stories don't have to be "gritty" to be mature, but the reverse is also true: grim and dark stories are not automatically immature.
After minutes, which felt like hours, of calling and searching, they found Madrigal in the stream where she’d been holding her breath under the water, playing at being a fish. Or maybe actually being a fish – Nesh didn’t really understand Sidrax shape-shifting.
Volnar got hold of a fish to show Maddie something or other, and then the children were both surprised when the fish died. Volnar wasted no time getting it cleaned and cooked, though Nesh felt that there was something a bit odd about using the scales and guts as fuel for the cooking fire.
The Earther showed a surprising amount of tact by taking the young Sidrax away to get her own dinner elsewhere. Nesh realised, a little too late, that Madrigal might not like to see one of her new friends being cooked and eaten. The thought irritated her, though whether because of her own lack of consideration or because of the Earther’s unexpected kindness, she couldn’t say.
Just when she thought she had him clearly defined as a bitter old man, he went and did something completely out of character, just to spite her. Life blight the wretched creature! Nesh finished her share of the fish, and then got ready for bed. She thought she’d rather be asleep when Maddie and the Earther – what was his name, anyway? – got back.
It was hard to get to sleep with so many thoughts racing around her brain, but Nesh did her best. She was very nearly almost asleep by the time she heard Maddie trotting through the stream, and barely noticed when the ground beneath her body softened and reshaped itself around her.
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A bit heavy on the telling, but that's what early drafts are for. The style and polish come later. And, that's the lesson, I suppose. Let's make it official:
Rough drafts are allowed to be rough!
The person you meet through the pages of this biog, my social media, or even the author as unconsciously revealed in my stories is not the real me. Not because I'm lying to you. but because it's impossible to fit a real person into a persona.
Again, when I say "persona", I don't mean a fake personality. What you see here is the truth and nothing but the truth – but it's not the whole truth. That would be impossible.
We are all in the same position as those blind sages who tried to describe an elephant, arguing back and forth about whether an elephant was most like a wall, a tree, a rope, a fan, a snake, or a spear. We want to have neat, familiar descriptions for people: Agatha Christie = murder mysteries, Jane Austen = witty romances, Terry Pratchett = absurdist fantasy, Malorie Blackman = dystopian YA, etc.
It's not that these descriptors are wrong exactly, but they are certainly incomplete.
Labels are useful, though. They help us to find what we're looking for, and to describe things to each other. If you're after a fast-paced action thriller, then Jane Austen probably isn't the best fit. But she's perfect if you want a subtle piece of social satire, or a contemporary view of that particular bit of history.
So, we can't completely do without labels, but labels are not enough. This is part of the trouble I'm having with creating my "author brand". Every time I try to fit my writing under a helpful label, I find myself thinking about all the ways that label doesn't quite fit. Even this portfolio-blog (blog-folio?) is hard to categorise, and this is a curated collection.
I know my stories won't appeal to everyone – that would be impossible, even if I wanted to do it – but I don't know how best to label myself so that the people who might like my work will be able to find me.
What am I: A poet? A novelist? A blogger? Songwriter? Game designer?
What's my genre: Fantasy? Historical? Superhero? Dystopian? Fairy tales?
What kind of narrative voice do I use? Comedic? Serious? Literary? Accessible?
Well... yes. All of the above. Some of those things haven't been uploaded here yet, but I've done them. And that's not even counting the projects I have in my queue, where many new and strange things are waiting to be explored.
Labels are OK, but I shouldn't get too worked up about them. They're useful indicators, not hard limits.
I've just spent half the morning on Universe Sandbox. Investigate at your own risk!
And all because I'm trying to establish some kind of calendar for my fantasy planet, and I wanted to know if my ideas about two moons would work. I started by thinking that I could just copy Mars' set-up, but those moons zip round mere hours. Blink and you'd miss it, not to mention that they're both really tiny.
I'm hoping more for an inner orbit that defines a "week" (of however many days) and slower, outer orbit of between 3-5 "weeks". I was even OK with a "weird" ratio, like 3:8 or something, so that a double full moon would be a notable affair. But it turns out that astrophysics is complicated. Who'da thunk?
This all started because I've been thinking about special dates recently, and that I really need to come up with a calendar for my fantasy world. Book one got away with hand-waving it because Kerrig doesn't care about dates much, but other books in the Fragments series cover different time periods, and reflect a variety of cultures. I need to start syncing things up, and figuring out how these different cultures mark out their weeks, months, and seasons.
Tasty, tasty research! World building! Orbital periods, annual ceremonies, climate patterns and socio-geographic culture building! The sweet, sweet crossover between physics, humanities, and art. All fun stuff, but not actually writing.
Oops.
I think I need to re-read last Saturday's post, and then put all this world-building into the "not now" pile until the draft if done. And by then, I'll know where to find the most narratively satisfying place for the special days. Because physics is cool, but what really matters is telling a good story.
Lesson: Basically, this: