Guest Post: What Makes a Great Storyteller?

Sorry about the disappearing act last week. I was drawing a real quick-and-messy comic about drowning in schoolwork and then my art program died suddenly when I was about two-thirds of the way done with it, sinking my little comic. And at that point, since I was afore-mentioned drowning in schoolwork, I let it go to its watery grave and saved myself/my grades.

I’m turning in my final projects for the semester tomorrow (assuming I finish them tonight, haha… ha… *cries*), so this week probably would have been more of the same, except that Anna’s got my back! (As usual!) The real Anna Taylor is a freelancer, fiction writer, and editor, as well as a super awesome accountability buddy who as very seriously threatened me with musicals and running laps more than once to help me meet a looming deadline. She’s pretty much fab all around. And she’s written up a guest post today to help save me from drowning! Thanks, Anna!

Without further ado (much or otherwise), here’s Anna’s What Makes a Great Storyteller? Enjoy!

What Makes a Great Storyteller?

Story builds upon itself. Something I’ve been struggling recently as I jump back into the world of drafting is that I want to make my stories the most eloquent, descriptive, emotional things I possibly can. I find that I can’t do that on the first draft, and the perfectionism hits me hard. I fall into the “if I can’t do it perfect on the first go round, I can’t do it at all” trap, and that doesn’t help anybody.

In the last couple days, though, I’ve decided to let go of perfectionism and let the story be what it needs right now, so that I can build upon it later. In that decision, I’ve realized that most of the story is coming out in more stage directions (He did this, she did that, she said this, then he said that). Sometimes I’ll find a little nugget of goodness in the writing, but most of the time, it’s linear and unadorned.

It’s made me ask the question, “What level of language use do I really need to tell this story effectively?”

What made Shakespeare an Excellent Storyteller?

Shakespeare is credited with having invented over 1,700 new words in the English language that we still use today. These include, but are obviously not limited to, academy, torture, dauntless, impertinent, friend, jovial, and many more. He’s also one of the most well-known storytellers literally ever. But I don’t think it was his ability to smash some words together to create new ones that made him so memorable. It was more his ability to make his audience feel something through the evocative language he used.

Language and storytelling go hand in hand. Storytelling isn’t about perfect grammar and big words. It’s not about who’s the most intelligent or eloquent. It’s about sharing ideas and lessons with others in a way that they’ll remember for years to come. The mark of a good storyteller isn’t that they used the most words in the dictionary, and no, you don’t get extra points for crossing into a different language.

The mark of a good storyteller is when your audience can’t stop thinking about it. I know I loved a story when I enjoy the telling of it. I know it was actually a great one (let’s define that as a story that affects a larger audience, and is not just subjectively good), when I haven’t watched or read the story for days, yet scenes or bits of dialogue or imagery will pop back into my head without provocation.

Shakespeare was excellent, but it wasn’t his words. It was how those words made his audience feel, and how they reacted to the story. It wasn’t his words he was really known for until some crazy person decided to analyze them hundreds of years later and concluded that he was a master wordsmith.

What Makes You an Excellent Storyteller?

Storytelling, in the end, is about taking something intangible- a thought, a feeling, an abstract concept of what a house looks like- and making it into a tangible, real thing. We obviously do this with varying degrees of vocabulary, but you don’t have to have an extensive one to make the magic happen. In fact, sometimes it’s the simplest terms that make the most concrete image of events for your readers; images that are shared across the board so that everybody sees that same thing. Because that’s the beauty of storytelling. The ability to have more than one person experience things in a similar way.

What makes you a great storyteller is your ability to state something so simply, and so clearly, that every viewer, reader, and critic is getting the same story 100% of the time, regardless of their own individual life experiences.

What makes you a great storyteller is your ability to cross barriers with words and make people see another’s life in a different way. To help others stand in your shoes for a few hundred pages, and make their own life just a little better for having read the story.

So, to say that you have to be a master wordsmith to tell a good story is like saying that you have to work at a three-star Michelin restaurant in order to cook a good meal, and that’s just not the truth. All you have to do in the end is start. In the end, the story, if made well, will build upon itself.

Can’t get enough of Anna and her wisdom? There’s much more to be had! You can find her on her website, or on her very fun YouTube channel. Enjoy! And until next week, happy writing!

Interview: Writing in a Second Language

Once upon a time, I was writing a vaguely steampunk, vaguely Gaslamp fantasy Sherlock Holmes story. The opening scene is set in Le Havre, Normandy, France, and so it made sense for me to have the conversation with the locals spoken in French. I speak ~some~ French, but definitely had to call in reinforcements to get it right. (And was delighted when my translator was able to tell, with no context whatsoever about the story or who was in it and straight through my garbled dumpster French, that this was obviously Holmes they were talking about. *fist pump*)

But! There are magical people in the world who don’t have to call in for help. Who are able to proficiently speak multiple languages all on their own. Who can write, not just a few lines of dialog, but entire stories in other languages. Linguizards like…

Linnie Steenvoorden, Dutch author and secret superhero (shh, don’t tell!), writing under the pen name of Lynne J. Stone. She was kind enough to agree to an interview about writing stories in a second language, because she is way way better than me and I have questions, haha.

Jill: What language did you grow up speaking, and what languages do you write in?

Linnie: I grew up in the Netherlands, speaking Dutch. Dutch by birth, Dutch family, Dutch school. (As Dutch as the grass, as we say here.) All my creative writing, as well as most of my social media posts, are in English. Sometimes (very rarely and for a specific audience) I might branch out to German or French in convos, but I’m not nearly fluent enough in either of those two.

J: Nice. I am trying to get fluent enough in French to be able to communicate with other humans, but it’s been slow going and the U.S. education system wasn’t much help, haha. How did you learn English growing up in the Netherlands?

L: Most TV shows we watch around here come from the US or UK. Shows here are subbed, not dubbed. Children’s programs were sometimes dubbed, but there were hardly any I watched, as youngest of the bunch. So, I got quite a good grasp of how the language sounded early on. Also, English is taught in school here, in my case, from the age of nine or ten. Add to that my natural knack for languages and I was on ‘reading the unabridged versions’ of English books by the time I started High School, when my class mates still needed the short and easy versions.

J: Man, I wish I had more of that knack, haha. So, you got good at English on the accelerated track and here you are, writing English beautifully. These days, what percent of your writing is done in English versus Dutch?

L: As I said, all my creative writing and most of my social media posts are in English. For work, I have to write in Dutch, which sometimes clashes in my head.

J: Do you find the languages clashing much in your everyday life? How does using and writing fluently in two languages show up day-to-day?

L: It results in me losing words in two (sometimes three or four) languages. One cat with an English name, and one with a Dutch one. When writing for work, I struggle to keep in with the limitations of Dutch, and professional at that. Sometimes, when expressing thoughts, I will speak in English first, or am unable to find the correct Dutch way of saying it, because English blocks it out. My co-workers are sometimes pissed off about that. I expect everyone around me to have at least a basic knowledge of English (although not everyone has). And last but not least, when reading in Dutch, especially translated work, it feels unnecessarily wordy and stiff.

J: That’s so wild that English can sometimes supersede Dutch, even at work. For the creative side of your life, you mentioned currently doing your writing in English. Have you always done that? Or was there a time when you wrote in Dutch, but then switched over?

L: Long before I started writing in English, I sometimes dreamed in English, and I had sentences that worked way better in English than in Dutch. Fast-forward to the age of social media. On a forum for a certain artist, I met a group of awesome people, who wanted to read some of my work. But… dum dum dum… they didn’t speak/read Dutch. I first tried translating something, but very soon had to give up on that. It’s far too hard. That’s why I decided to bin the Dutch story and do a complete rewrite in English.

J: Ooo, very ambitious! Do remember what that first English story was?

L: I’m not sure, it was either Home (21.699 words, and my first attempt at erotic romance), Games (21.172 words), or Strings (13.125 words).

J: And how did that go? Were there any parts about writing in a second language that were (or still are) particularly difficult?

L: It went quite well, but it’s hard starting out. Lack of confidence is probably the hardest thing. Also, knowing how to write, but not being certain if what you’re writing is correct. Nuances between words or sayings are harder in a second language. Humor is different. What’s also hard is that, if you become fluent enough, you’ll start doubting even more. Is this correct? Or am I translating this too literally from the other language? Also, not being able to translate what’s in your head to the required language. This is especially a problem for me, speaking Dutch. English words get in the way.

J: I’m not surprised to hear about nuance, confidence, and technical grammar rules, but I hadn’t considered that there are some things that are just easier said in one language than in another. Given those difficulties in writing in English, what is your favorite thing about it?

L: English has far more and better words. Writing in Dutch sometimes felt cramped and artificial. English has a much better flow.

J: So once you’ve jumped over all the writing hurdles and gotten your stories down, how do you find beta readers for them?

L: Back when I started, the ladies of the forum were most kind in reading my stuff and giving feedback. I don’t specifically ask for Beta-reads, although there are a few people that get sent my work first. I have the same readers for most of my stories, which, again, are all in English.

J: What advice do you have for someone thinking about writing in a second language?

L: Just go for it, even if you think you’re not fluent enough. Fluency comes from practice. Ask for feedback. Read a lot in your aspired language and use audiobooks to get used to the flow and sound of the words. Also, there are great text-to-speech sites/programs, so you can have your text read back to you. (www.texttospeech.com is the one I use.)

J: Alright, so let’s say I’ve done some practicing, read and listened to stories, and I think I might be making some progress, but I’m just not sure yet. How comfortable with the second language should a person be before giving it a try?

L: Comfortable enough to give it a try. Hahaha. Fluency comes from doing it a lot. There is, of course, a difference in writing for the hell of it, for friends and family, or to publish and possibly ask money. If your writing falls into those last categories, it should be well up to scratch. Ask someone honest to take a look at it, and have them give brutally honest feedback.

J: Great advice. So if people want to check out your work, what second-language story are you most proud of and where can readers access it?

L: I think I’m most proud of my story Monday. It’s one of my NaNoWriMo projects (2015), and if I would push forward with officially publishing a novel, this would be my first pick. It’s contemporary, erotic romance, only available by request. There are a few more I feel very proud of though. There’s more in The Vault than on my sites:

http://www.lynnejstone.com/
For erotic romance Dreams of the Past
Contemporary Romance Finn
And a few other snippets

https://tantewillemijn.livejournal.com/
For some of my older work, including Home, Games, and Back-Kicks and Strings.

I’ll spare y’all the Dutch works. 😉

Thanks so much to Linnie Steenvoorden for joining me for an interview! I’ve actually been wanting to do this for a long time, so thanks for making the time, Linnie!

Until next week, happy writing!

Jolabokaflod Book Haul

Three or four years ago, Mrs. Zayon at the kids’ school library introduced me to an absurdly-long-worded holiday tradition, which took me at least two years to be able to consistently pronounce correctly(ish). (Before that it was something along the lines of ‘chocoblockoflokken’.) But since it turns out that ‘Jolabokaflod’ translates into ‘Christmas book flood’, that’s actually only one syllable more than in English, so we’ll call it a wash.

Jolabokaflod is the Icelandic tradition of exchanging books and then reading them quietly on Christmas Eve; the books are usually enjoyed with a cup of hot chocolate as well. What’s not to love? In our family, we have a few tweaks to make it ours. Since not everyone likes drinking chocolate (I haven’t completely ruled out the possibility that they were switched at birth), we give chocolate bars along with the books that they can nibble at their leisure. And the chocolate and books are just given, rather than exchanged; my husband and I buy one book and candy per person and hand them out on Christmas Eve. Reading of said books is not necessarily mandatory, but it hasn’t yet not happened.

So counting on the fact that nobody in my family actually reads my blog, I thought it would be fun to give you a sneak peak of this year’s book haul! Not all of the books have quite come in yet, so there’s still the chance of a swapperoo at the last minute, but this is the plan.

For me! (who doesn’t love an excuse to buy yourself a good book?)

Un Rêve de Renard by Minna Sundberg This is the French edition of one of my favorite webcomics ever, A Redtail’s Dream, which is available in its entirety here. (Minna Sundberg is currently working on another comic called Stand Still, Stay Silent, about a scrappy salvage crew in a post-apocalyptic world. Also available online! She’s a wonder!) A Redtail’s Dream is about a young man and his dog trying to put their town back together when a supernatural and super selfish young fox accidentally tosses it in a dreamscape. Oops! I got the French edition so I can practice my sorry excuse for language skills in a story I love and am already familiar with. We’ll see if it helps!

This one is already in hand, so no backup necessary! Hooray!

For darling spouse!

Skin Game by Jim Butcher My husband already loves this series, but he doesn’t have the last couple, so I’m sure he’ll be happy to get his hands on this one. This is the fifteenth novel in the Dresden Files, a series about Chicago-based wizard Harry Dresden—think noir detective books starring a young Merlin in modern day Chicago. Possibly riding a demon T-rex, who knows.

Also in hand, so no backup necessary, but I have one anyway. Because why would I ever not buy more books?

Calvin et Hobbes, Tome 10 by Bill Watterson Hubby also loves Calvin and Hobbes comics and has most of them, so like my book, he’s already familiar with the stories and this is really just an excuse to practice French and have fun doing it. Great crossover interest for the kids, too.

For eldest child!

Amulet, Tome 1: Le Gardien de la Pierre by Kazu Kibuishi Once again, we have a already known and loved graphic novel, but in the French edition. You know the drill by now. This is the first book in an eight book series about a family that accidently gets sucked into a fantastical alternate dimension. A girl must use her great-grandfather’s amulet to protect her family and the new realm that she’s come to love.

Unfortunately, this one isn’t yet in hand. So just in case it doesn’t show up, I’m planning to blitz down to the Barnes and Nobles to collect our backup title:

Flight of the Dragon Kyn by Susan Fletcher The second book in the Dragon Chronicles series, my oldest is head over heels in love with the first book and is itching to get his hands on this one next. Unfortunately, the library doesn’t have it! Oh no, looks like I’ll have to buy it!

For the redhead!

Soeurs Grémillet, Tome 1: Le Rêve de Sarah by Giovanni Di Gregorio Lots of dream books! This is another graphic novel, and one that none of us have read, so this would take a lot of work to imbibe, but it is relatively short and youngish so hopefully manageable. It’s about three sisters trying to untangle a web of family secrets and is heartwarmy and sad and sweet, perfect for my thoughtful little boy.

This one is unfortunately sold out of where I hoped to get it from, so it isn’t looking likely. So in case that doesn’t pan out, we have a backup planned for this dude, too!

The Wonders of Nature by Ben Hoare This was kind of a no-brainer for my curious kid who wants to save the world. A nonfiction reference book with a hundred cool and beautiful things from the natural world, mixed with legends and history, he’d love this one.

For le petit!

La Boîte à Musique, Tome 1: Bienvenue à Pandorient by Gijé Carbone You got it, another French graphic novel. I’m sensing a theme, are you? In this story a girl gets shrunk down and sucked into her late mother’s magical music box. Crazy!

And… also seemingly unavailable. So our backup for our youngest is:

Dogman: Grime and Punishment by Dav Pilkey *sighs* I have succumbed.

And that is it! I’m still holding out hope for some more of those French graphic novels, but it is really truly not the end of the world if they don’t show before Christmas. I’ll just hide them and then happily tuck them into Easter baskets a few months hence. Either way, I’m looking forward to sharing exciting new books with my loved ones.

How about you readers? Any bookish traditions you adhere to? Let me know in the comments! I’m always looking for more excuses to put more books on our shelves.

And until next week, happy writing (and reading)!

Language Building Basics

A few lines of Peter Pan translated into my main fake language, Arbin.

Given the past popularity of Building a Magic System, I’ve been meaning for some time to put together some starting tips for developing a constructed language. Much like magic systems, fictional languages fall pretty firmly within the realm of world building. Furthermore, they can probably also hang out with creation myths, carefully drawn maps of undiscovered continents, and the sad tales of woe involving side characters’ childhood pets, may they rest in peace. These things might be important to the story itself… but usually aren’t. Still, they add another layer of flavor and reality to your world, as well as just being ridiculously fun.

I may as well just come out and admit that I read grammar books for fun. (We’re not gonna talk about how many I own.) And, as previously confessed, I am a world building fiend. So it probably comes as no surprise that I have scraps and bits of several fake languages, a few of which get a line or two in the books, and most of which get no face time at all. Yet I still find myself an incorrigible conlanger.  (Conlang being shorthand for constructed language.)  Therefore, proceed with caution in your linguistic endeavors- you may be setting yourself up for a lifelong addiction.

All languages have some common features, and it helps to look at these even if you plan to create a language from scratch. I’ve broken these features down into four super, super broad topics: sounds, lexicon, grammar, and ideas.  Be sure to think about each of these aspects as you make your language.

Sounds: The first step is to sit down and think about what sounds are possible in this language. (Or if it’s not a spoken language, whatever its medium of communication is- maybe it’s a tasted or smelled language, or a seen language, or some other sense I don’t even have.  Like all things in fantasy, your imagination is the final limit.)  You will need at least two distinct sounds, but will probably end up with a whole lot more.  Maybe you want a language that is beautiful and flowing like Sindarin, or maybe you’d rather it was harsh and guttural like Klingon. The sounds that make up your language are like the cells that make up a body. So think about what sounds can be pronounced in your language (and if you think English sounds are the only sounds possible, please go educate yourself). What sounds can it make that aren’t found in your native language? What sound does it not make? If your speakers are nonhumans, consider the ways that their unique physiology would play into the sounds of their language.

Lexicon: These are the words of the language, built up from the set of possible sounds. (This will end up looking something like your French-English dictionary: pomme = apple; verre = glass; etc.) While building up your lexicon, keep in mind that words often evolve in ‘families’, where words with similar meanings have similar sounds due to a common root word. On the other hand, they often don’t. So have fun with this part! This is probably the easiest part for a casual conlanger to hop into.

(Little sidenote here: you know how English has very different sounding words that mean basically the same thing? Ever wondered why? Check this video out about the evolution of the English language!

Grammar: What are the rules that govern how words, phrases, and sentences are formed? How do the parts of a sentence fit together? How do you indicate past, present, or future? Plural? Gender? How do you form questions or exclamations? Are there formal and informal versions? (Grammar alone could be an entire blog post- or an entire series of pages, actually, like the top two links in the resources below. If you want to create an actual, usable language, you will spend most of the time here in grammar.)  Another thing to keep in mind when creating a grammar is that, if your language is supposed to be a ‘natural’ language within your world, it will be rife with exceptions to the usual rules.  (Think ‘I after E, except after C’ or whatever your favorite grammatical goof-up is.)  If yours is a ‘synthetic’ language (intentionally created, spoken by robots, whatever- divine, supposedly perfect languages would probably also categorize here), it wouldn’t have those sorts of accidents in its rules.

Ideas (not sure what else to call this): What sorts of things do the speakers of this language talk about? Do they have thirty words for different kinds of ice because they live in the arctic? Or do they live in the desert and have no words for ice at all? Do they have senses that humans don’t, and require different words to describe them?  What words do they have that wouldn’t exist in another culture? What idioms have developed due to their unique culture?

So there you have, the absolute bottom level language building intro.  This is all super-duper basic stuff, but if I get into much more detail, this post is going to get absurdly long. (And this is just for a spoken language. If you are interested in creating a written aspect for the language as well, then you’ve got even more work ahead of you. But we’ll save that for another day!)  If you’re interested in more details, I’ve listed some resources below which might be helpful.  Until next time, happy writing!

Other resources:

http://www.zompist.com/kit.html (I found this one as a freshman in high school and life was never the same. If you want to make a language that is as real and complete as possible, this is worth digging through.)

http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/nyh/how__all.html (Another awesome language building kit that lays it all out there in a clean, understandable manner.)

http://www.vistawide.com/languages/language_statistics.htm (Just interesting stuff. Most isn’t applicable to constructed languages, but some bits, such as the most common sounds, most/least vowels, etc, can fuel cool ideas.)

http://conlang.org/cl101.pdf (Basic info about conlanging, both the culture of it and how to go about it, as well as a pretty good reference section for the super nerdy among us.)