Category Archives: writing

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Nobody cares that it’s called a ‘poop deck’.

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If you’ve read any of my recent posts, you are aware that I’m having an epic and very public fight with chapter 10. I’ve drafted it twice and was getting ready to rewrite it for a third time before I handed it over to my wife. My wife is a lovely and tolerant woman, and also the most well read person I know. I actually had to design our house around built in bookcases (if you don’t believe me, ask her. This actually happened.) Anyhow, she’s usually a good sounding board for identifying ideas that suck, but she’s always kind enough to not say “this sucks,” instead offering suggestions on how it could be better.

Turns out, chapter 10 didn’t straight-up suck, it just needed a little more focus, which we got to the bottom of fairly quickly before dissolving into an argument discussion about the intention of a particular character, as if he were real. It kind of made me feel good because it’s the sort of discussion we have over other people’s books. One of the big messages though, was “you’re not Patrick O’Brien*, nobody cares what a poop-deck is.”

There is a balance between what is necessary for plausibility and what is just too much information. While I have spent a reasonable amount of time and energy researching historical British naval terminology, it’s completely unnecessary for anyone reading my story to know that. Furthermore, it would be best if they didn’t. So, describing the poop-deck is overkill, I need to find another way to deal with the description.

At this point, I bet you’re already not asking yourself, what is a poop-deck? -assuming you haven’t already not bothered googling it. Contrary to what you may be imagining, this is not where sailors take their poops, that’s done at the head. According to Wikipedia, the name poop-deck originates from the French word for stern (rear of the ship), which is la poupe, from the latin puppis. The poop-deck is the highest deck at the stern. It was typically unarmed and served as the station for the signaling officer. So, poop-deck aside, how am I going to deal with naval terms nobody except Patrick O’Brien fans will care about? Well, it’s pretty straight forward. As much as possible I’m going to limit the naval jargon to dialogue, then back that up with action for context. Instead of saying something like:

  Todhrel made his way to the poop-deck.

I’m going to say something more along the lines of:

  “An’ he’s on the poop sir, shall I call ‘im?” the young midshipman said.
  “No, I’ll fetch him.”
  Todhrel mounted the narrow stairs to the deck with more vigor than he felt.

I can’t say this sort of approach would be a solution for everyone, but it’s how I’m going to do it, and hopefully, I’ll be able to avoid the over-sharing of details no-one cares about.

 

* Patrick O’Brien wrote the Master and Commander books, which are exceptionally dry and full of obscure naval terms. I love these books. Jack Aubrey is my 3rd favorite captain after Mal (if you have to ask, don’t bother), and Kirk (I repeat).

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Progress report – I’m making progress!

I haven’t done a good blog post in a while. I’ve been trying to type one up, and have about 3 going right now that I just don’t like very much. In any case, I have finally managed to nail down a draft of chapter 10 of War of Shadows that feels pretty good. I need to spend a bit more time with it before I can go on to one last short chapter with this character before heading back off to the main character. I’m even planning to take some time off next week so that I can focus on writing, although the week already seems pretty full, and so that may not really pan out. Right now, I’m sitting at about 76,000 words, making up 17 chapters and a short prologue. There are still quit a few bits and pieces in those first 17 chapters that could be expanded and better fleshed out, and so realistically, once I get that all done, I’d probably closer to that original 80,000 target. When it’s all said an done, I’m looking at 90-95K words, I’m planning 4 more chapters, two of which are likely to be fairly short.

One of the interesting things (to me) about this book as I move toward the end is that I’ve got these brothers who are headed for opposite sides of the war. This is something that’s known to the reader from about chapter 6 or so. The ‘other brother’, the one who is not the protagonist, isn’t a super evil take-over-the-world bad guy. He’s nobleman making his claim on land he feels he’s entitled to. After I’d written him, I found that instead of being an unlikable character, which I expected, he’s not -and that works fine. At the outset of the story, these brothers are pointed in very different directions and have goals that could be described as opposite, yet as they advance I can see them possibly ending up where the other had intended to be – at least vaguely. I’m thinking that during one polishing pass through or another, I might really play this up, a sort of tale of two brothers thing.

Well that was rambling wasn’t it… I’ll try to think up something interesting to say next time.

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Flash-in-the-pan fiction; Eight donated words

As I was perusing twitter today, and looking for new ways to procrastinate, I came across a gem of a tweet from @EmilyFRussell (https://pisscoffeeandvinegar.wordpress.com/), the author of Aurian and Jin: A love story. She donated to the twitterverse the following eight words: Kerfuffle, shibboleth, axiom, seraglio, hexerei, sanguine, and squeen. I have taken up the totally unnecessary challenge of using all of these in a sentence (not really possible). The further challenge was to do it in fewer than 800 words. Well, my distinguished challenger (of sorts), I have done this in fewer than 800 characters, with some bonus vocab. Enjoy.

 

Amoleqi tugged nervously at the sleeve of his thawb and squeaned at the door to the seraglio of the prince’s women. Just striding past caused a shortness of breath and light-headedness. He firmly believed in the old axiom that seraglios were dens of hexerei. A whiff of pungent incense from under the door put a vision of the lurid hangings of sanguine, incarnadine, and puce that must furnish such a place. More than anything, he wished to petition the king to eliminate such places, where the minds of men were molded like soft clay, but he was among the shibboleths of the court. No man, no matter how noble, from a different district could bring up such a topic without starting another contentious kerfuffle.

 

Definitions, from the OED where possible, and yes I’m taking some liberties, but I think I was true to the intent and general meaning.

Incarnadine – Properly, Flesh-colored, carnation, pale red or pink; but also used for various shades of crimson or blood red. (OED)

kerfuffle – commotion / disturbance, particularly involving conflicting viewpoints. (This word not in the version of the OED I have)

shibboleth – This one seems to have no easy translation, I’ve checked a couple of sources. Basically it’s a manner of speaking or habit that sets a class apart or distinguishes foreigners. (My version of the OED doesn’t give a particularly good definition of this)

axiom – self evidently true.

seraglio – The part of a Mohammedan dwelling-house (esp. of the palace of a sovereign or great noble) in which the women are secluded; the apartments reserved for wives and concubines; a harem. (From the OED)

hexerei – witchcraft (I hella like this word BTW. IMF use it at some point, the sound of it evokes some really great imagery.)

sanguine – Using definition 1 in my version of the OED – Blood red

squean – to look askance (Squeen appears in the Urban dictionary. I opted for the OED version)

BONUS WORDS

thawb – The robe traditionally worn in middle-eastern cultures

puce – Purple/brown color