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On contractions: consistency, and how to write for a God
14 years ago
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To my clients, first things first: My doctor's appointment is next Tuesday, the 19th. Dr. Spencer can't give me a diagnosis, but he's going to give me a referral to another doctor for my ADD (which I will make an appointment with the second I get the referral) and he'll be able to give me a prescription. Please be aware that I know my pace has been glacial, at best, but as soon as I get diagnosed and prescribed, I hope to be knocking out your pieces within a day or two at the most, each. <3 Thank you for being so supportive and understanding; I love and appreciate every single one of you.
With that out of the way, I must confess I haven't had the presence of mind to do much each day other than read and, on occasion, write. I've actually not been up to my 1000 words a day for the past few. In fact, I've taken off almost a week—a week I'll have to make up. But I have been outlining, researching, and otherwise planning, and it's given me a lot to think about.
That said, I have come to a conundrum, when writing advance dialogue for the God in my story, Riehelia.
At first, I wasn't even sure if she should speak. I've never written for an actual deity before. The whole thing has floored me—I know the kind of God she is. I know what she values. I know what she wants of the people and the world she's created. I know her personality, how she feels. She is quite human, for a deity.
I wanted her to be casual, but not the down-to-earth, "could be human if you didn't know any better" speech patterns of Gods in the realm of Pratchett and Gaiman. That didn't fit her—particularly in this story, which is essentially a straight-up fantasy (styled after fantasy JRPGs).
Writing her dialogue has been a tumultuous experience, because I want her to be relatable to the characters without being too lofty. As such, I've given her the use of contractions: words like "I'm", "I've", "didn't", etc.
But in other places, the use of phrases like "cannot", "(I) am not", and their ilk have crept into her dialogue.
The problem is, the way I've written it, with a mixture of both, is what has felt most natural to me.
How do you feel? Is a relatable, human-like God(dess) figure capable of mixing contractions?
Here's an example passage. Her dialogue is much like this through the entire scene. You tell me if it's jolting:
Riehelia wrote:I am afraid that it was you alone. You had my full power; you simply didn't know how to control it.
...
It's... complicated, young one. But I would have done the same for Etus. I would have done the same—a thousand times.
To my clients, first things first: My doctor's appointment is next Tuesday, the 19th. Dr. Spencer can't give me a diagnosis, but he's going to give me a referral to another doctor for my ADD (which I will make an appointment with the second I get the referral) and he'll be able to give me a prescription. Please be aware that I know my pace has been glacial, at best, but as soon as I get diagnosed and prescribed, I hope to be knocking out your pieces within a day or two at the most, each. <3 Thank you for being so supportive and understanding; I love and appreciate every single one of you.
With that out of the way, I must confess I haven't had the presence of mind to do much each day other than read and, on occasion, write. I've actually not been up to my 1000 words a day for the past few. In fact, I've taken off almost a week—a week I'll have to make up. But I have been outlining, researching, and otherwise planning, and it's given me a lot to think about.
That said, I have come to a conundrum, when writing advance dialogue for the God in my story, Riehelia.
At first, I wasn't even sure if she should speak. I've never written for an actual deity before. The whole thing has floored me—I know the kind of God she is. I know what she values. I know what she wants of the people and the world she's created. I know her personality, how she feels. She is quite human, for a deity.
I wanted her to be casual, but not the down-to-earth, "could be human if you didn't know any better" speech patterns of Gods in the realm of Pratchett and Gaiman. That didn't fit her—particularly in this story, which is essentially a straight-up fantasy (styled after fantasy JRPGs).
Writing her dialogue has been a tumultuous experience, because I want her to be relatable to the characters without being too lofty. As such, I've given her the use of contractions: words like "I'm", "I've", "didn't", etc.
But in other places, the use of phrases like "cannot", "(I) am not", and their ilk have crept into her dialogue.
The problem is, the way I've written it, with a mixture of both, is what has felt most natural to me.
How do you feel? Is a relatable, human-like God(dess) figure capable of mixing contractions?
Here's an example passage. Her dialogue is much like this through the entire scene. You tell me if it's jolting:
Riehelia wrote:I am afraid that it was you alone. You had my full power; you simply didn't know how to control it.
...
It's... complicated, young one. But I would have done the same for Etus. I would have done the same—a thousand times.
I'm also very glad other people think on these kind of things, I'm a rabid world-builder :D
You dialogue style is looking good so far.
One of my biggest issues with Riehelia right now is that she loves sentence fragments and em-dashes. She breaks her own narrative to clarify things often. It's this very soft, kind, yet firm way of speaking, like she knows the truth but wants to relay it in a way that doesn't totally break the minds of the mortals she's speaking to. I find it endearing, but I don't want the result to wind up too jarring. Example:
[quote=I cannot tell you, Reve, how sorry I am that so many have been hurt. So much, I wish that I could take all of that pain away. But I couldn't be awakened until you two made it here to me—until Lux brought back the bracelet, and the pieces of my heart with it. Before then, I slept. I lost my will long ago... And for that, I am truly sorry. It was... a weakness that will be hard to forgive.[/quote]
I honestly haven't had this much trouble with any of the other characters. I just feel that her grief and her self-awareness—yes, this God is self-aware suddenly faced with speaking directly to mortals!—affects her speech in that way. It seemed natural to me that she might even be struggling to FORCE herself to be casual (that's not so much a reference to the contractions as the way she openly confesses her feelings to them), but I didn't want to do whatever I want and then lie and say that was on purpose.
But worse to me is the idea that she will come off like A) the booming, unrelatable god that SPEAKS IN ALL CAPS or the B) totally down-to-earth God that the reader can't take seriously, because she might as well just be one of the other characters. That seems more frightening to me. So I'm taking the dialogue seriously, in particular, because I'm realizing it's a HUGE part of her characterization... particularly since she's lost most of her power by this point.
A good substitute for the "I cannot tell you" kind of thing, would be a " It is difficult to describe," Or possibly omit that sort of thing at all. It is just a bit too "close" feeling. It is coming along very, very well, though, this is just a little nitpicking.
I am afraid that it was you alone. You had my full power; you simply didn't know how to control it.
...
You protected the one you loved, Lux. You made a choice—the same choice I would have made.
...
It is... complicated, young one. But I would have done the same for Etus. I would have done the same—a thousand times.
...
I am called Riehelia. I created this world... along with my beloved, Etus. You wear my bracelet on your wrist. But... it is yours, now. You have earned it. [ The last two, in particular, are sentences that have bugged me. ]
...
R: It is all right not to believe in me, Reve. I want you to be curious. I want you to live life, to enjoy all that we created here, together. Whether or not you believe in us is inconsequential, so long as you are good. Respect, belief; they should be earned. But if it never mattered to you, from the day you opened your eyes until they day they closed, who is responsible for your life, it would mean little to me—so long as you are good, and harm no other who walks the world as you do.
Note that I only had to extract two contractions from this, but they seem to be the breaking point, for me.
Maybe it's because I hear her in a different voice than you do, maybe d:
Of course, this is for a character that never touches the ground and knows everything, so... Yeah. lol
And contractions... No. Gods have all the time in the world, why would they shorten something as beautiful as a word? Also... Why would they speak words? One of Ora's lines in my story refers to just that idea: (after being asked how a mortal can understand a God) "We are not speaking. You are listening in a way only you know how. Through words. We speak to you, but never in words, for they have no meaning to us." I'm also going to try my hardest to never have Ora ask a question...
I hate to use my own ideas as examples, but it's the best I can think of off the top of my head... Just what I'm doing. ^^; Hope it gives you some ideas. If you want a different example, try Athena's speech in Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter books. She's eloquent and proper, but at the same time trying to use some modern jargon... And failing comically. lol Sort of like an older, wiser person trying their hand at today's figures of speech. It's almost like a poor translation. lol
It honestly sounds like this version of Athena actually fits in with my view of Riehelia, although I don't know that I can really apply any comedy to her -- at least, not at first. I thought perhaps she used contractions because she relates to the mortals, but then, she's been asleep for this whole time. So I kneecapped myself, there; surely she wouldn't be that keen on their way of speaking. And just being able to sense and relate is out, since I've said she's lost her power. She's practically the opposite of omnipotent at this point. So, if anything, she ought to be stuck wherever she was when she went to sleep!
Another vote for "avoid contractions", with good reason. >;3 Thank you.
I've just been playing with your snippets in this journal. I tend to over-word things sometimes because I like descriptive writing. I also give characters a lot to say usually. Something like the following:
"In your tongue, my [oldest] name is "Riehelia". I brought this world into existence along with my beloved, Etus. The [You wear a] bracelet on your wrist... it was once something I wore, but it appears to have found its place [home] with you. You have earned the right to wear it now."
I think you are wanting more simplicity with her though XD I get what tone you want for her. She is clearly very kind, very serene and probably very awkward having to converse with mortal beings. Perhaps she has spent a long time avoiding contact and doesn't know how best to word things. It must be strange for a God to be social. They might get bored, they have so much power supposedly but what do they do the rest of the time? Are the always creating life? Do they even have interests and preferences? If they're non-judgemental and know everything, would they really need to communicate with other beings? I don't know the character enough to say for sure, these are just my impressions of her from the small parts you put in here.
If she is mostly unseen in the story, then her words are more important in how you give her character. If the characters can see her in some form, you can rely less on her speech and more on description of her appearance instead. If you don't want her to speak much and still get the point across, you can let the characters see her facial expression or the way she carries herself in a given situation.
It's hard to write a deity. I have not ever done it myself, but trying to comprehend just how such a powerful existence would communicate is quite difficult. Why would they speak to us like we speak to each other? Why would they have emotions, varying tones in their voice, would they even bother speaking? Perhaps it is more fitting for them to talk to us without any actual sound at all, directly to us in some odd way. Maybe they communicate through emotions, maybe it's so fast we don't need to anticipate anything, we just -know- what they want us to understand.
Also I just realised I essentially said what Markoh said. Sorry about that XD!
*tired*
x_x;; sorry if I havent really helpful XD haha!
I have a feeling that all of the unearthly communication, the need to speak through visual cues, the ability to simply make them understand without explaining -- I might be able to pull it off, but I might not want to do that right off. As of right now, I'm not sure how much of her power has been lost or what that would reduce her to. I know she won't just be human -- she wasn't human to start with. My concern is having a starting point for her to be introduced and then room to grow into something more impressive when she gets her power back. That means I might need to save some of the more incomprehensible, godlike traits for later, when she has regained her former splendor and is, legitimately, all kinds of powerful again... :D I don't want to pull the rug out from under myself too early.
So, my goal is, don't let her ramble on and on and on -- that's the one thing I know I need to do. I try to keep her dialogue clear and simple, as well as somewhat airy. So she gets to seem very godlike, but I don't want to turn her into the exposition machine or the chick-who-will-not-shut-up-because-I-can't-let-her-speak-simply. X3 It's a tightrope, but people posting here have helped me. I think I just need to develop a handful of rules for her based on suggestions here, and then make sure her dialogue fits those rules.
Scott
Perhaps you could add a quirk such as the speech being telepathic and based on the character's own language abilities rather than an external construct. That way each character would experience their god through the filter of their own understanding.
Also i think it has some of the flavour of your story just a tiny bit but i think it may help
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3FsASNavdU
I imagine this gives her a combination of wisdom and uncertainty that will be easy to play up in her dialogue. I just don't want to be ham-handed about it, you know?
No problem, glad I could help! Good luck!
"But... it is yours, now. You have earned it."
This is the statement of an approachable being, It is not so much. . . un-godlike, as perhaps a little TOO human (or if you prefer, earthly). From what I can glean from your examples, perhaps something like this would serve you better:
"However. . . I pass it to you, for you have proven your right to possess it."
Still approachable and familiar, but grand enough to be a deity's speech. When I write dialogue for omniscient beings, I tend to see them as wise mentors. These are entities that can think and see in multiple directions and planes. So will try not to have their followers, whom the deity will see as beloved, have experiences so significant that their brain begins to vaporize and leak from various orifices.
However, if the effect doesn't wind up as obvious as I intended, in the end, it'll be better for me to just go all the way "grand", because it'll be better to to do that than to wind up handling the whole thing with a heavy hand and fail horribly!
I did like the notion of her being a unique presence to anyone she encounters -- not so much in a way that would alter her appearance, but that wouldn't require them to understand a different language or they would feel a sense of oneness with her automatically. But I may have to forego a little of that, because she is supposed to have lost most of her power; that wouldn't change her ESSENCE -- it doesn't make her human, naturally, but I need the impact to be somewhat diminished so that, later, when she's more powerful those features will be more impressive.
Thank you so much for the help!!
Another way to think about it... have you ever read Niel Gaiman's American Gods? It shows a few different Gods in different styles and views :)
Yes. I've read it. :)
But I'm glad you've read it, wonderful literature ^^