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Posts Tagged ‘help me o internets’

a question for the color-blind

So Dead Rick, one of the protagonists of this book, is a skriker. That means he’s a faerie who can take shape as a black dog. I have a scene in which he’s talking to a (faerie) character whose eyes are many shades of green.

And it occurs to me that dogs are red/green colorblind.

Advice on how to describe this from his perspective? My experience with colorblind men is that some shades I call green they will also call green; other shades they will mistake for grey, yellow, or brown. So would her eyes look like a mixture of different colors? Or would the shading be mostly lost, and her eyes will look much more uniform to him?

I mean, yeah, I could just cop out and say he’s a faerie, he doesn’t have to share the biological qualities of a dog’s eyesight. But I’ve given him good scent and hearing, so it only feels right to limit his vision. If I’m going to write what amounts to an alien perspective, I should commit to it, ne? So I would appreciate advice from colorblind people (or dog owners, for that matter) in how to represent this.

another icon request

Will anybody make me an icon with this quote from Hamlet?

“Cudgel thy brains no more, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating.”

Because sometimes, that is the perfect line to describe the state of my brain.

short-notice research!

Apparently I need to Know Stuff about the early history of photography for the Victorian book. Any buffs out there who might know a good book I could read about it? I pretty much only care about nineteenth-century technology; later developments are less relevant for my purposes.

Science-y query (another non-trip post)

If you’re a math-and-science type person, please read this and give me your thoughts.

***

Tonight I thought up a question that really shouldn’t wait until after my trip is done, because depending on the answer, I may end up working it into the revision I’m trying to do while I’m here.

Before the question, though, the background: Charles Babbage designed two devices, the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine. The former is essentially a calculator, doing polynomial functions; the latter (had it been built) would have been an early computer, capable of being programmed to do several different mathematical jobs.

So imagine you’re reading a book set in 1884, and it tells you that faeries got hold of those ideas and built them, But Better — for values of “better” that involve extrapolating this design in a magical direction. My question to you all is twofold. First, what extrapolations would you consider reasonable, given the parameters? Second, what extrapolations would make you say “Oh please” and put the book down? Example: “It would be cool if it could do calculations using imaginary numbers, but dumb if it could run World of Warcraft.” Or whatever. In essence, I want this to be interesting, but I don’t want it to be interesting in a way that’s totally divorced from the original purpose of the design.

I’m soliticing feedback because this is, among other things, a matter of the boundary between “suspension of disbelief” and “excruciating torture of disbelief.” Which varies from person to person, though math-and-science type people are likely to have a much firmer boundary than those who don’t know Babbage from Byron. Also, thanks in part to a declining series of math teachers in my education, I no longer have much love for the subject; ergo, if I ask my brain to think about “math magic,” it pulls up images of workbooks designed to make third-graders believe math is fun. So I am ill-suited to judging what I can get away with designing. Would it bother you if the faeries’ Analytical Engine performed non-numerical calculations of some kind? What if its function was predictive, analyzing a situation to make semi-divinatory, pseudo-statistical descriptions of the future? Would something like that bother you? What wouldn’t bother you, that also isn’t so mundane that it wouldn’t add much to the story? (The other ideas I’ve come up with so far all fall into that latter camp.)

Feel free to respond however you like — brainstorm, talk amongst yourselves, go off onto wild digressions about nineteenth-century math. I know some of you have thought about math + magic, so I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Her Majesty Not Appearing in This Folklore

Most of the Robin Hood stories I’ve seen have put him sometime in the reign of Richard the Lionheart, with mentions of how John is scheming in his brother’s absence.

How come Eleanor of Aquitaine never shows up in those stories?

I mean, she was still alive, and at various points she seems to have been left in charge of England while Richard was off on his own business (i.e. Crusade). Why have I never seen a Robin Hood story that makes use of this? Is there one out there I should know about?

what I crave

Catching up on Supernatural made me realize that, when all is said and done, there is a particular flavor of story I love above all others — a flavor I haven’t been getting enough of lately.

To whit: the dramatic serialized arc.

Unpacking that . . . I want a dramatic story (as opposed to a comedic one, though using comedy as the jab to set up the impact of the subsequent dramatic cross is even better) — which for me, by the way, means really strong character development; I cannot live on plot alone. I also want the story to be told in installments, whether those are novels of a series or episodes of a TV show. And finally, I want the installments to form an over-arching narrative shape: I want there to be an endpoint the story is trending toward, that helps define that shape, rather than it being created wholly on the fly.

I realized this because of a discussion over on Fangs, Fur, and Fey, and as I said there, this form has a downside: it really has to stick the landing. If you give me an awesome series that whiffs in the final installment, it’s often worse than a standalone novel or film that whiffs the final chapter, if only because I’ve invested so much more time and energy into it. But that investment is also why serialized narratives can affect me so powerfully — and the closer you come to getting it right, the more I will thank you for having pulled my guts out and played cat’s-cradle with them.

(When I said I wanted drama? I meant it.)

This is why I love the Lymond Chronicles. It’s why I love Supernatural — they’ve done a better job of the multi-season metaplot thing than most comparable shows. It’s why I love the anime series X, cracktastic as it is. Some seasons of Buffy pulled it off; George R. R. Martin might do the same, thirty years from now when his series is finally done. But I haven’t tried any new TV lately that’s done it for me, and I’ve had so little time for fiction reading that I’m coming up short there, too. So I throw this open to the peanut gallery: what stories — in whatever medium — do you think would hit all three of those buttons? Dramatic, serialized, and closed-arc, delivering a satisfying macro-level experience as well as good moments along the way. What should I be reading/watching, in my oh-so-copious spare time?

translation question

I don’t suppose anyone reading this journal speaks Castilian Spanish? (i.e. the Spanish of Spain, not Latin America.) I could use some help with incidental words of a casual variety, like endearments and insults, that probably vary from culture to culture (and therefore shouldn’t just be pulled from a dictionary).

Okay, new question

My brain is blurring out from staring at lists of Latin nouns, so I’m going to throw this a bit wider open and see what the commentariat can suggest.

In this totally hypothetical story that I’m totally not working on, there is a group of female knights under holy orders, in a secondary-world setting modeled on medieval Europe, serving the Queen of a place that will probably look like France. I want their names to form a list of the virtues they are supposed to uphold. (There is room for irony here, as they will not always live up to those names.)

What virtues would you expect to see on that list?

I need a total of twelve; suggest as many as you like. Bonus points if you can provide me with Latin nouns matching your suggestions, ending in either -tas or -ia — I’m trying to see if I can get a satisfactory set without having to rejigger any of the Latin. (I can put together twelve on either pattern, but not without leaving out some concepts I think I’d like to include.)

more web-fu needed

The book I’m reading tells me there was a Catholic church opened, I think in Whitechapel, on 22 June 1876. (Following the decision of a priest belonging to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate to start preaching to Whitechapel laborers.) Can anybody help me figure out which church this is? St. Anne’s? Their website gives no history.

Or, y’know, find me a list of Catholic churches in Whitechapel as of 1884 or thereabouts. It’s a measure of our modern age that I was terribly disappointed to discover Wikipedia did not already have a page for “Catholic churches in Whitechapel” that I could check for founding dates.

EDIT: Nevermind. Found my web-fu, then found this.

a question for the Londoners

If you were to talk about where Pelham Crescent is in London, what district name would you use? Kensington? South Kensington? Is it close enough to count as part of Knightsbridge? (Not according to Wikipedia, but.) Or something else entirely?

It’s a beast, trying to sort out the boundaries of intra-urban place-names for a city you don’t live in. And for all I know the areas were defined a little differently in 1884, but that officially falls into category of “if you can prove me wrong, Dear Reader, then you bloody well deserve your victory.”

what should I do?

So I’ve mentioned before that I’ll be one of the GoHs at Sirens. But I’m allowed to submit my own programming proposal, apart from the stuff I’m already slated for, and I kind of think I would like to do something.

The question is, what?

I have a few ideas floating around my head, but none of them have really leapt up and convinced me that’s what I should go with. I therefore turn to you, The Internets, and ask: if you were coming to hear me do something at a con other than give a keynote address and present on my own writing (which are part of my GoH duties), what would you want it to be?

They have a good outline of different programming models here. The first two are out (paper and pre-empaneled paper set; I’ve had enough of those for now), and I’m unlikely to assemble a panel discussion in the remaining time. But that leaves everything from workshops on down as a possibility. And while this year’s theme is faeries and the conference is generally focused on women in fantasy, neither of those is a straitjacket. Practically any interest of mine could fit into this — though I don’t think I inkle-weave well enough to teach anybody else, and I suspect there would be liability issues with a “Stage Combat 101” class.

So help me brainstorm. If you could have me host a discussion on any topic, or teach a workshop on some skill (writing-related or otherwise), or anything else random, what would it be? I’m not sure if I want to riff off some of my website essays, or talk about the role of violence in fiction, or how to write politics, or fight scenes, or whatever. Too many ideas, not enough decision. Halp?

more researching

I’m about to go pick up a mess of books on Irish immigrants in Britain, and I’ve recalled a couple of Scotland Yard histories from Stanford’s auxiliary library facility, but in the meantime: does anybody have a specific recommendation for a history book that would talk about the Fenian bombings of the 1880s, and the early history of the Special Branch in investigating them?

things I have not been able to suss out

Hey, historians! Can anybody tell me when the north bank of the Thames was properly embanked/walled/whatever, east of the Victoria Embankment? That one formally ends at Blackfriars, and I’m trying to figure out what the riverbank would look like to someone standing a bit further east (between Blackfriars and Queenhithe) in 1884. As in, is it a mess of wharves and wooden pilings and what-have-you, or has someone built a nice tidy stone wall by then?

Why yes, I am obsessive about my details. How could you tell?

Anyway, my books don’t say, and I can’t get the Internet to help me. Possibly my fu is just not on tonight. And yeah, Peter Ackroyd has that whole book on the Thames, but it’s 11 p.m. and even Amazon Prime can’t teleport things to my desk. So I figured I’d ask and see if anybody can answer the question without me having to add to my research shelf.

10K!

Thanks to April’s “500 a day” rule, missing several days has not prevented me from arriving at the 10K milestone on schedule.

For the record, the title hunt is still on. If you’ve sent me e-mail and not gotten a reply yet, I promise to take care of that soon. In the meanwhile, keep on suggesting; I appreciate all the help.

Word count: 10,025
LBR quota: It’s the River Fleet. I think it counts as blood.
Authorial sadism: Leaving Dead Rick standing knee-deep in the aforesaid Fleet, wondering whether he’s going to run into a tosher or Blacktooth Meg first.

calling all occultists

I need references for books on the history of spiritualism, theosophy, the Golden Dawn, etc. Not modern New Age books on their ideas, but scholarly works on what those movements were doing in Great Britain in the nineteenth century, up to (you guessed it) 1884. Overview-type references would be a good place to start, though I’d also be interested in books that really delve into the nitty-gritty, so if I decide to make use of particular people or events I’ll be able to do it properly.

Any other occult movements of the period that I haven’t mentioned here are also welcome. This is a topic that especially needs sorting of wheat from chaff, so if this is a subject you know, please do point me at the reliable books.

London volunteer needed

Do you live in London, or close enough that you could make a day trip there without too much inconvenience?

Do you have an aversion to foul smells?

If your answers are respectively “yes” and “no,” then I have a psychotic request to make. One of the things I want to research in London is Bazalgette’s Victorian sewer system. Since his work is still in use, access is limited; my one shot, pretty much, is the “Sewer Week” visit (yes, really) that Thames Water hosts each year. Unfortunately, the tour is on May 18th, which is still inside my four-week physical therapy window after I get out of this boot. In other words, too early for me to go wandering around surface London, let alone its sewers.

So I can’t make it. But maybe you can.

I’m seeking one (1) volunteer who loves me and/or the Onyx Court books well enough to spend the evening of Tuesday, May 18th tramping around the West Ham trunk sewer, taking notes and photographs and questioning the guide on my behalf. If you’re able and willing, e-mail me (marie [dot] brennan [at] gmail [dot] com), and one lucky winner will get to endure dreadful smells in the service of historically accurate writing.

Reward is a signed advance copy of A Star Shall Fall, which I will hand-deliver during the dinner I buy you when I come to London in (probably) June. Or else mail to you, if dinner doesn’t work out.

Feel free to pass this request along to friends who might be able to help, if you yourself can’t (or don’t want to!) do it.

a question for those in the romantic know

My understanding of romance subgenres is that Regencies are a separate category from historicals. So not counting those — what time period/place combinations are the most commonly depicted in historical romance novels?

(My money’s on Scottish highlands of whatever period as the runaway winner, but feel free to tell me I’m wrong.)

Help Me, Victorianists — update

For those who may have missed it over the weekend, I’m offering a prize to the person who helps me find a title for the Victorian book. If you know nineteenth-century British lit, please take a look at that post for details on what I’m after.

A few clarifications, to help refine the hunt:

1) Although “should include a verb” is #3 on the list of priorities, it’s a pretty big #3; that’s pretty much the single unifying characteristic of the series titles so far, as seen from the shopper’s point of view (i.e. before they read the book and find out where it came from). I want something where a person who’s maybe read the other books could see the title and think, “Is that a new Onyx Court book?” So I’m pretty seriously committed to maintaining this pattern unless I absolutely can’t.

2) Please do quote the passage your suggested title comes from, rather than just the phrase itself. The reason for this is that I don’t just need a title; I need an epigraph (the quotes that head up the different sections) from which the title will come, and so I’m also judging whether the passage fits the story or not. I’ve already had at least one suggestion where the title-phrase would be perfect . . . except that the passage it comes from isn’t, no matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise. And it’s easier for me to judge that if I don’t have to hunt for the source of the phrase.

3) Until you see a post saying “Hey guys, I found a title!,” assume I am still taking suggestions. Feel free to keep sending them in.

4) It did occur to me that there’s one other angle which could work for the end of the book, in terms of epigraph subject matter. It’s a bit more of a spoiler than the last post was, though, in that you can begin to guess where I’m going with the story. So I’ll put it behind a cut again, and if you don’t want to be spoiled for the book, you can just ignore what follows.

This is why one suggestion came so close . . . .

Help me find a title — *please*

You may have noticed that I’m still talking about “the Victorian book,” rather than something with an actual name. This is because, while I have prospects for a title, none of them are quite right — none of them click and make me think, yes, I’ve found it. And while I’ve been speed-reading Victorian literature in a search for The Right One, the Victorians were a wordy bunch of bastards, and I can only get through so much on my own.

So. I’m offering up a complete signed set of the Onyx Court series — Midnight Never Come, In Ashes Lie, an advance copy of A Star Shall Fall, and the Victorian book once I have it — to the person who points me at the right title. Suggestions can be posted in the comments here, or e-mailed to marie [dot] brennan [at] gmail [dot] com.

According to the model set by the previous titles, and arranged in generally descending importance, my criteria are:

  1. The title must be a quote from a work of more-or-less period British literature. (The book takes place circa 1884.) Earlier is better than later; the Romantics are fine, but one Kipling poem I found, dating to 1906, is not.
  2. It must be a short but evocative phrase, along the lines of preceding examples.
  3. It should, if at all possible, contain a verb.
  4. Bonus points if the verb is paired with an interesting noun (a la “midnight,” “ashes,” or “star”).
  5. I vaguely feel like it should come from a novel, because novels are such a characteristic 19c form of literature. This is, however, an optional restriction, which I’ll happily ditch if I find a good title from another source.

And one more thing, which is high in importance, but excluded from the list so I can put details behind a cut. If I keep to the previous pattern, the quote from which the title is drawn should be the epigraph for the final section of the novel. I know what kind of sentiment I want that to convey, and I can even give examples of quotes that come very close but haven’t given me a title. If you want to steer clear of even the vaguest spoilers as to where this book is going, though, don’t look behind the cut; just know that quotes which talk about London or cities are in the right vein.

Moving on to the examples . . . .

Icon needed.

My eternal gratitude to whoever can make me an LJ icon showing Inigo Montoya with the text “I hate waiting.” (Preferably him on the cliff, around about the point where he says that.)

Edit: And we have a winner! Thanks to greek_amazon.