If you want to go beyond the level of just assigning different skin tones and heritages to random characters, you’re going to have to do some research. Because yes, all people are the same, but they’re also quite different. For now, we’ll set aside the argument that race is an artificial construct, and concentrate on how someone outside a minority group can gain enough knowledge of the group’s common traits to realistically represent one of its members.
So what is Pragmatics? Basically, it deals with those areas of meaning which aren’t really meaning. What does that mean? It deals with implications (in the lingo, “implicature”), and with presuppositions, and with using language to do things rather than just send messages.
One of the most common pieces of advice for new writers is “Keep your seat in the chair.” The downside is that it becomes all too easy to sit at the desk for hours without moving. This can lead to stiffness and circulation issues even with an ergonomically correct desk and chair. Ergocise.com is a program which pops up a reminder to stretch at pre-set intervals.
As part of her continuing series on How Linguistics Can Help You, Juliette Wad discusses that ubiquitous genre activity making up words.
Neural networks are really amazing things. In my last post I talked about how a word brings up all of its meanings simultaneously; today I’m going to talk about how that’s not all it brings up.
I’m talking about connotations and allusion.
FirstWorldWar.com has a deep archive of WWI pictures, which are clearly labeled and sorted. Whether you are doing a historical fantasy, steampunk, or staging a war in your science-fictional world, this will prove fascinating reading.
Choosing the right word is critical to getting our meaning across as writers. Here are a few initial things to think about:
1. Does this word have the meaning I’m looking for?
2. Does it supply that meaning unambiguously?
3. Does it have the proper positive, negative, mysterious, or other desired connotations?
4. Does it reflect on the attitude or identity of the point of view character?
by Juliette Wade This one’s funny, because it sounds like grammar, or maybe computer programming… Syntax is the study of how sentences are put together. Part of this is word order. This is the one everyone fears because it often involves diagramming sentences. Actually, one of my most intense and wonderful classes was Syntax 1 […]
Morphology is a fantasy and science fiction writer’s best friend. Seriously. Why? Because everyone uses it, and I mean everyone, whether they know it or not. Every story that makes up a name for a group of people and then pluralizes it is using morphology. Every story that takes a nice-sounding made-up word and then adds on a suffix to make the name of a country or city is using it too.
Sometimes coming up with the right character name can be the hardest part. Whether working in secondary worlds or the real world, we have some research tools to make picking that perfect name a little easier.
In these provocative, mind-bending tales you’ll find alternative realities, surreal landscapes, haunted mansions, future battlefields, enraged poltergeists, mythological mischief-makers, and freedom fighters on a far planet.
Katherine Quevedo hails from Portland, Oregon, where she works as an analyst and lives with her husband and two sons. Her Pushcart and Rhysling nominated fiction and poetry appear in Nightmare Magazine, Asimov’s, Fireside Magazine, and elsewhere.
