Quite the Life (and all in Times New Roman 10pt!)
Tall Tales TV‘s Chris Herron again does a truly amazing job narrating The Magic Tassels. Chris previously narrated Winter Winds and did a truly superb reading.
His reading, voice skills, and emotional delivery just blow me away.
Take a listen on any of:
Enjoy!
Tim Curry invited me to take part in a Hallowe’en podcast with several other authors, each of us reading something we felt fit the season.
Hallowe’en is celebratory to me and mine, and I didn’t think that’s what Tim had in mind.
I have written horror, though.
No, not written horribly (okay, maybe, and I’m getting better (I hope)), and not quite of horrible things (although some of my work is dark, I’ll grant you), so that set me off on a search.
I came up with two things. The first, shared last week, is a concatenation of two chapters in The Shaman, each of which deals with a succubatic kind of creature, Ellewomen. That post is, strangely enough, entitled “The Ellewomen.”
This one, Them Doore Girls, is from a horror story first published in Haunts 1992 and again in my self-published Tales Told Round Celestial Campfires 2016.
FYI, the sound quality is wanting. I find it best through headphones.
Enjoy!
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Tim Curry invited me to take part in a Hallowe’en podcast with several other authors, each of us reading something we felt fit the season.
Hallowe’en is celebratory to me and mine, and I didn’t think that’s what Tim had in mind.
I have written horror, though.
No, not written horribly (okay, maybe, and I’m getting better (I hope)), and not quite of horrible things (although some of my work is dark, I’ll grant you), so that set me off on a search.
I came up with two things. The first, presented here, is a concatenation of two chapters in The Shaman, each of which deals with a succubatic kind of creature, Ellewomen.
Enjoy!
Greetings! I’m your friendly, neighborhood Threshold Guardian. This is a protected post. Protected posts in the My Work, Marketing, and StoryCrafting categories require a subscription (starting at 1$US/month) to access. Protected posts outside those categories require a General (free) membership.
Members and Subscribers can LogIn. Non members can join. Non-protected posts (there are several) are available to everyone.
Want to learn more about why I use a subscription model? Read More ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes Enjoy!
There are three basic questions when considering language in world-building:
Here I paraphrase Aristotle’s Poetics, “Avoid neologisms unless introducing some new term/word/phrase is crucial to the plot; use jargon only to move the story along.”
Do you need to invent any slang or terminology as part if the world-building process?
The Augmented Man uses lots of military, biologic, and psychologic jargon, little of which is invented. One first reader asked me “Am I suppose to understand this stuff?” to which I answered, “If that stuff was replaced with something like ‘Oh, and we did lots of biologic and psychologic stuff to them’ would you have accepted Trailer could do what he could do?”
“No. Probably not.”
“More to the point, did you believe Donaldson (the character using most of the jargon) was an authority on what he talked about?”
“Definitely.”
Long story short, I could have reduced the jargon and it would have weakened the story and that brings us back to Aristotle’s Poetics; The jargon is crucial to the plot because it adds credibility to the story.
All cards on the table moment: Some reviewers comment they had to look up some terms. Lots of readers comment on the jargon. So far all of them kept reading despite the jargon. This poses and interesting problem to me:
I have issues with each solution (and am open to suggestions).
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When asked, “How do characters move from mundane to fantastic settings?” the correct answer is:
In the Harry Potter Universe, children get to Hogwarts from Platform 9 3/4 at London’s King’s Cross station. Aside from people not noticing a young person with a tram of luggage and a caged owl on top or that youngster and all their belongings suddenly disappearing into a brick pillar, we’re back to the familiar in the unfamiliar mentioned in World-Building – Revealing Settings Through Relatable Characters.
It’s worth noting that Harry Potter’s Platform 9 3/4 is a representation of the starting point for every hero on every hero’s journey regardless of culture or mythology: We enter the fantastic via the mundane. The invitation to the mythic must be accepted or there is no journey and the invitation must be accepted in front of others – Muggles – who can’t accept or refuse to accept it. Usually there’s a mentor/guide/guardian/herald/… someone to help the young adventurer on. Harry Potter’s Mrs. Weasley told him how to “enter”, ie, pass the first challenge.
The message here is that entry into the fantastic is always around us, is everywhere, is waiting for us to become aware. Consider Keith Jarrett’s preface to his album Treasure Island:
The treasure has always been there
It is not hidden
But is only where certain people would look
At all
Thus it remains a secret to the rest
And to solace themselves
They say it’s hidden
Or buried
To still their invading thoughts.Some are calm and content
Or at peace, in their wordsSome are stirred and cloudy
But they are improving their visionOf the island
Of themselves
I make use of these “we must see the magic for it to exist” concepts myself in my short story The Magic Tassels: A shaman lives in a village and is known for the magic tassels he wears on his wrists. Different villages come and ask what the tassels are for and he asks them, “What do you think?” Everyone tells a magic story about them save three old women who mock him. Later the village is threatened and everyone will die. The villagers come to the shaman for help and his tassels turn into the magic each saw, which saves them.
Except for the three old women. When they ask him to save them he answers, “No, the only magic in my tassels is that which others put there. All the magic I gave others they already had. I merely reminded them of the magic within them. You saw nothing in my tassels, so there’s nothing I can give you. There is no magic in you for me to remind you.”
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