With the coming of the controversial movie, “Blindness”, based on the novel of the same name by José Saramago, we will turn our attention towards the part of written language that only seems to get attention when it is misused.
No, not spelling.
Punctuation.
Saramago’s novel is actually somewhat famous for being one of the few published pieces of literature that intentionally abuses punctuation. Leaving out commas is one thing, as commas and other parenthetical marks are often a matter of opinion rather than concrete law, but Saramago’s “Blindness” actually removes quotation marks, periods, and many other literary clues that make communication flow from author to reader. There are passages of dialogue that are missing the quotation marks, leaving the reader uncertain as to who is talking. There are sentences that go on for a full page or more. Paragraphs continue unabated. Perhaps these are stylistic choices made with the intention of putting the reader in a state of discomfort, or unease, or leaving them confused like the characters in the book may be. However, other authors of other books have taken this similar challenge and mastered the concept without completely ignoring proper modes of written communication. The major sticking point is the inconsistency, making it appear that Saramago simply did not know how to write, and the publishers assumed it was avante garde, and everyone just went with it.
Rather than turn to a lesson on how to properly use such punctuation as the comma, exclamation point, question mark, or quotation marks, I would instead like to play a little while in the sandbox of punctuation you may not see every day.
For instance, the Irony Mark (؟). Also known as a ‘snark’ or a ‘zing’, it’s to be used to indicate that a sentence should be understood at a second level. Originally proposed by the French poet Alcanter de Brahm (aka Marcel Bernhardt), it was picked up in 1966 by Hervé Bazin for his book Plumons l’Oiseau. Bazin had a few other suggestions for additional marks, such as the doubt, certitude, acclimation, authority, indignation, and love point. Personally, I think Bazin has quietly succeeded with at least the final suggestion. After all, perhaps you have written something similar to in your own text messages or emails to friends and loved ones. How different is his proposal ( ) to our own usage (<3)?
The interrobang (‽) is a superimposition of two familiar marks, the question and exclamation, or the interrogative mark and the bang. More and more frequently, the same effect is being seen in established literature and common usage when the two marks are used simultaneously. Eg: “How could you do such a thing?!” The order in which they appear has no consistent bearing on the meaning, or emphasis, of the sentence preceding them, but many users agree that the interrogative should appear first to make certain that the question is apparent. Emphasizing the tone and urgency of a sentence is not aided by repetition of the characters, despite common and informal usage today. “What have you done?!?!?!” Despite the increasing frequency of the combination, it should be noted that the use of both-at-once predates the invention of the interrobang. Invented in 1962 by Martin K Speckter, the interrobang lived for almost a full decade, making its way onto typewriters and into dictionaries. After that, the fad ended and the two characters were again divided to be only set together in dialogue, informal writing, or chess moves.
A mark that is used, but for a sound only heard in African languages, is the click. Yes, there is a symbol for the click. Often, especially in names, an exclamation point will suffice, but this is usually only for sounds that fall immediately before a soft consonant, like an “n” or “m”. !Mbobi is a difficult name for non-native speakers to pronounce, but such names can be a source of pride for people who work in foreign lands but are unwilling to make drastic concessions to the english speakers they interact with. The actual palato-alveolar click, done with the tongue creating a pocket of air against the roof off the mouth, and then, with a velaric ingressive airstream mechanism, plosively released. The symbol for such is the ǂ, followed or preceded by a consonant indicating the dictation of the sound. I recommend a lot of practice.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Word of the day : NaNoWriMo
We’re going to learn another new, weird word, today. It isn’t latin, and it isn’t any other foreign language. The word is Nanowrimo. In the spirit of all things internet, it’s an abbreviation of a phrase.
National Novel Writing Month.
In the month of November, 1st through 30th, interested parties will devote themselves to creating a 50,000 word novel. That word count is actually pretty low, considering the size of most novels these days, and a novella is only 40,000. Novels you might have heard of, ranking in at about 50k, are Brave New World, and The Great Gatsby. 50k is not the upper limit, but the lower limit. Entrants can write as much more than that as they like, even completing two novels if they want.
The idea of the event is to encourage writing, plain and simple. In fact, a book written by the originator of the event, is titled “No Plot? No Problem!” and is designed to aid newcomers in feeling comfortable with, and understanding the concept behind, Nanowrimo.
I’m introducing you to this event to not only encourage fledgling authors out there to give it a go for themselves, but also to warn you about the upcoming deluge of words. Through the month of November, it is very likely that this blog will see few picture tutorials. I intend to write, on average, about 1,667 words a day. It is, without a doubt, a marathon, and I am inviting you to spectate. Cheer me on, laugh, or just watch to see if I can actually accomplish this feat – it’s up to you.
The rules of the contest state that you can not use pre-written material, so I won’t be able to tap into any of the stories I’m currently in the midst of. I would, however, be interested in seeing if I can pull the two facets of this blog together and ‘illustrate’ the 50k words with photography. It would help keep me motivated, possibly inspire a section, and may even keep people from avoiding this page for a full month if massive quantities of text is not their style.
Wish me luck. One month until November, and Nanowrimo.
National Novel Writing Month.
In the month of November, 1st through 30th, interested parties will devote themselves to creating a 50,000 word novel. That word count is actually pretty low, considering the size of most novels these days, and a novella is only 40,000. Novels you might have heard of, ranking in at about 50k, are Brave New World, and The Great Gatsby. 50k is not the upper limit, but the lower limit. Entrants can write as much more than that as they like, even completing two novels if they want.
The idea of the event is to encourage writing, plain and simple. In fact, a book written by the originator of the event, is titled “No Plot? No Problem!” and is designed to aid newcomers in feeling comfortable with, and understanding the concept behind, Nanowrimo.
I’m introducing you to this event to not only encourage fledgling authors out there to give it a go for themselves, but also to warn you about the upcoming deluge of words. Through the month of November, it is very likely that this blog will see few picture tutorials. I intend to write, on average, about 1,667 words a day. It is, without a doubt, a marathon, and I am inviting you to spectate. Cheer me on, laugh, or just watch to see if I can actually accomplish this feat – it’s up to you.
The rules of the contest state that you can not use pre-written material, so I won’t be able to tap into any of the stories I’m currently in the midst of. I would, however, be interested in seeing if I can pull the two facets of this blog together and ‘illustrate’ the 50k words with photography. It would help keep me motivated, possibly inspire a section, and may even keep people from avoiding this page for a full month if massive quantities of text is not their style.
Wish me luck. One month until November, and Nanowrimo.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
In Media Res - In the Middle of Things
No pictures, this week. Instead, we’re going to talk about another aspect of the palette of pixels. Words themselves paint a picture, and while some would say it takes a thousand words to make a picture, I would beg to differ. You just have to know how to use the different tools.
One tool used by the word-artist is something called “In media res”. It’s a term from Horace’s “The Poetic Arts”, and it’s part of his description of an ideal poet.
“Nor does he begin the Trojan War from the double egg,
But always he hurries to the action, and snatches the listener into the middle of things…”
(Double egg being a reference to the egg-with-two-yolks laid by Leda, Helen’s mother, after her run-in with Zeus. Yes, Greek myths are weirder than we were told in grade-school.)
The encyclopedia describes the technique like this:
In medias res, also medias in res (Latin for "into the middle of things") is a literary and artistic technique where the narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of from its beginning (ab ovo or ab initio). The characters, setting, and conflict are often introduced through a series of flashbacks or through characters relating past events to each other. Probably originating from an oral tradition, the technique is a convention of epic poetry, one of the earliest and most prominent examples in Western literature being Homer's Odyssey and Iliad. Other folk epics beginning in medias res include the Portuguese The Lusiads, the Spanish Cantar de Mio Cid, Germany's Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs), the Indian Mahābhārata, and the Finnish Kalevala. Virgil's Aeneid began the tradition in literature of imitating Homer, continued in Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, John Milton's Paradise Lost and Inferno from Dante's Divine Comedy.
Like with the Indiana Jones series, where you meet Indy right in the middle of a small, introductory adventure, this device has been used over and over again because of its effectiveness. The audience has no time to decide if they like this or that character, or to be put to sleep by some long and boring struggle to get to the adventure. War movies rarely begin with our hero getting suited up to head off to boot camp, or in Horace’s example, being born. That’s 16 years of prologue the audience now has to get through, before the hero even thinks about joining this conflict.
This technique has its ups and downs, however, and cannot be used simply because it lends itself to a quick and easy hook. Inevitably, the storyteller must turn around and explain this background. Flashbacks work for this, but can be tricky. Dialogue is an excellent tool, where two characters discuss or explain something that has happened previously, outside the context of the story. You must always be careful, though, of telling, rather than showing, events that are important to your tale. After all, your characters will be telling the events from their own perspective. Even if they tell it exactly as it happened, a discerning audience will take this conversation with a grain of salt and may have their doubts about the veracity of your background story.
These flashbacks, whether true flashbacks, or dialogue, or some other device to show a past event, must be used with care. Each one has the threat of overtaking the real story you’re trying to tell, and it can be jarring for the audience to go back and forth. They very well may lose track of which time is ‘now’, and which has already happened. Details that you want them to remember may be lost in the time you’ve taken to explain a history lesson. Be prepared to remind your audience about important facts when you come back from these flashbacks, and emphasize what is important now, as opposed to what was the focus then.
The most important thing to remember is that ‘in media res’ is a technique to begin a story. It should not dictate anything else about your story, and once you’re past the first few paragraphs and deep into the action, your audience should be given enough information that they be able to forget that they were dumped into this tale in the middle of things.
One tool used by the word-artist is something called “In media res”. It’s a term from Horace’s “The Poetic Arts”, and it’s part of his description of an ideal poet.
“Nor does he begin the Trojan War from the double egg,
But always he hurries to the action, and snatches the listener into the middle of things…”
(Double egg being a reference to the egg-with-two-yolks laid by Leda, Helen’s mother, after her run-in with Zeus. Yes, Greek myths are weirder than we were told in grade-school.)
The encyclopedia describes the technique like this:
In medias res, also medias in res (Latin for "into the middle of things") is a literary and artistic technique where the narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of from its beginning (ab ovo or ab initio). The characters, setting, and conflict are often introduced through a series of flashbacks or through characters relating past events to each other. Probably originating from an oral tradition, the technique is a convention of epic poetry, one of the earliest and most prominent examples in Western literature being Homer's Odyssey and Iliad. Other folk epics beginning in medias res include the Portuguese The Lusiads, the Spanish Cantar de Mio Cid, Germany's Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs), the Indian Mahābhārata, and the Finnish Kalevala. Virgil's Aeneid began the tradition in literature of imitating Homer, continued in Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, John Milton's Paradise Lost and Inferno from Dante's Divine Comedy.
Like with the Indiana Jones series, where you meet Indy right in the middle of a small, introductory adventure, this device has been used over and over again because of its effectiveness. The audience has no time to decide if they like this or that character, or to be put to sleep by some long and boring struggle to get to the adventure. War movies rarely begin with our hero getting suited up to head off to boot camp, or in Horace’s example, being born. That’s 16 years of prologue the audience now has to get through, before the hero even thinks about joining this conflict.
This technique has its ups and downs, however, and cannot be used simply because it lends itself to a quick and easy hook. Inevitably, the storyteller must turn around and explain this background. Flashbacks work for this, but can be tricky. Dialogue is an excellent tool, where two characters discuss or explain something that has happened previously, outside the context of the story. You must always be careful, though, of telling, rather than showing, events that are important to your tale. After all, your characters will be telling the events from their own perspective. Even if they tell it exactly as it happened, a discerning audience will take this conversation with a grain of salt and may have their doubts about the veracity of your background story.
These flashbacks, whether true flashbacks, or dialogue, or some other device to show a past event, must be used with care. Each one has the threat of overtaking the real story you’re trying to tell, and it can be jarring for the audience to go back and forth. They very well may lose track of which time is ‘now’, and which has already happened. Details that you want them to remember may be lost in the time you’ve taken to explain a history lesson. Be prepared to remind your audience about important facts when you come back from these flashbacks, and emphasize what is important now, as opposed to what was the focus then.
The most important thing to remember is that ‘in media res’ is a technique to begin a story. It should not dictate anything else about your story, and once you’re past the first few paragraphs and deep into the action, your audience should be given enough information that they be able to forget that they were dumped into this tale in the middle of things.
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