Swearing in Fantasy and Fiction

A lot of writers worry about the use of bad language in their work. It is a legitimate concern, depending on the audience you are writing for. Some writers abhor the use of expletives and curses, choosing to avoid it entirely. Some writers dump expletives with abandon, and pepper their dialog with spicy adjective sandwiches. Most of us, however, use them when they’re needed and when they fit. In YAF writing, I avoid them in favor of younger equivalents, like “rats,” and “dang,” and such. But in adult writing, I use them when I feel they’re necessary, which doesn’t mean all the time, and doesn’t mean never.

Certain characters swear in certain situations. Eliminate the cursing and it seems odd to many readers - including myself. Other characters don’t swear or use expletives, and for them to do so out of character also appears obvious and artificial. And, by obvious, I mean the author made the decision to swear or not to swear, but the character didn’t make that decision. They created a character that should curse, and then sanitized them. This disturbs me, though not to the point that I’d put the book down if the plot were good.

If you create a character that should swear – then let that character swear. If not, then don’t. Circumstances may warrant a shift in terminology, but that’s up to the author to make obvious. I’ve spent enough time in the military to find it odd when military characters don’t swear. And I’ve spent enough time around those with delicate sensibilities to find it really jarring when they do swear. So, for me, when I’m writing, it’s salt and pepper. Season carefully, but don’t over season and don’t under season.

As for the actual expletives and swears (I consider these different things), there are many routes to take.

A character may go off in a foreign language (maybe one you made up) and you can show the depth of that by shrewd physical descriptions of the reactions of other characters who do speak that language. In this way, you get away with swearing entirely without even having to swear, or curse, or use an expletive.

Then there are insults, none of which need to include an expletive or swear. Calling someone a “mouth-breather” for instance, a perfectly good insult without an single expletive or curse. If you want to go this route with insults, you should check out The Shakespearean Insult Kit.

Then there are swears, which are usually religious in nature, and not necessarily taking a God’s name in vain (which implies without expecting aid from a deity). However, many times (probably the majority) they are taken in vain. The point is, it’s perfectly legitimate to use this, and it’s expected. Why shouldn’t someone call on a God for aid? And, given that they’ve never received any, why shouldn’t they begin to do so in vain? Therefore, swearing by the names of a God makes perfect sense, whether magical assistance is expected or not.

Then there are those swears that are overt. “By the crispy butt-hairs of Johassmit!” Does anyone think this character is actually relying on his God’s crispy butt-hairs? Of course not. This is an overt bastardization of a call for aid, and is meant as both a swear and displayed as irreverence. It is tactical. And while the character making this curse may not disbelieve in the given God, they’re showing open contempt, almost as if daring the deity to do something about it.

Then you’ve got expletives, which are typically (in my definition) having to do with either procreation or fecal matter. There are so many of these in existence, that making some up which fit your story won’t surprise anyone except on the first use. Every human society will have them. If the adults didn’t create them, then the children did, (at least in regards to the excrement), and when the children became adults, it’s not as if they forgot them.

Don’t ignore expletives, swears, or curses. It’s easy to avoid them in narrative, but in dialog, use them artfully and appropriately. Consider the audience for your book when employing them, consider the culture of your people, and the characterization of the individuals. If you choose not to use them, then you have the duty to come up with suitable replacements. A Viking that has just watched their family murdered in front of him is unlikely to scream “Rats!” Maybe he’ll remain silent and glare at the executioners in a combination of fear and impotent rage. It really depends on the character. But if he’s the type to swear, and it’s a story I’m writing, then you can expect a blue streak.

Originality in Modern Literature

Many fantasy and science fiction writers are concerned about the names of their characters, the names of their places, the names of their objects. It’s not so much plagiarism they’re concerned about – it’s a desire for originality. For those who write contemporary fiction or those who write historical fiction, names are less of a concern – they can be researched, and they can match reality.

At what point does the unintentional use of something become plagiarism? At what point is it unoriginal? At what point is it fan fiction? These are questions writers are going to ask more and more as modern work continues to pile up at a previously unseen rate. Is it inevitable that some writers are going to “bump into” each other? I think so. We’re all being influenced by cultures that are all influencing each other, and given that we’re all swimming in the same global ocean, it’s almost inevitable we’ll encounter some of the same fish. We are all influenced by our time, our experiences, and of our environments.

Is it possible that in another hundred years, anything new will be fan fiction? I doubt it. And this question has been asked before throughout history. As an example, Charles Duell (Commissioner of the US patent office in 1899) is quoted as saying “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Presumably the poor guy had just finished a very bad week of copy-cat submissions to the patent office. Obviously, this didn’t stop inventors from inventing. For us, this would be like saying “Everything that’s been written has been written.”

We know that’s not true. I will go further and suggest that it will never be true. So don’t spend time wringing your hands and searching the internet for people using names identical to the ones you’ve created for your story. I’m not saying you don’t want to strive for some level of originality, but I believe it should be sufficient if you make your own characters, make your own plot, make your own dialog, and never copy anything from anyone else. If, by some random chance of extreme serendipity, you should happen to write the same exact story as someone else, then I suggest it’s time to purchase a lottery ticket. You could also submit it to the scientific community as “proof of telepathy.” Heck, you could even write a story about it – an author who always ends up writing stories that are identical to the stories of other authors just prior to them being published. Imagine the frustration! If I were to do that, though, I’d probably use a musician (mainly because the social environment for musicians is typically more interesting than writers). An artist could be interesting too. On the other hand, it’s such a common idea, that perhaps this story has already been written and is already published. Which gets me to my point. If you wanted to write it, then write it first – then look to see if it’s out there (but only if you have to). If you find something – it won’t be your story.

Rolled Gold

What will a dog do for a pretzel? My dog is a rescue mutt. Once we decided to get a dog, we searched for a long time, trying to locate a Golden Retriever of the more mellow variety that would get along with our children. We found very few. Apparently Goldens are in big demand. But we didn’t need a pure bred or anything, just a dog, and so we ended up looking at a wide variety.

The dog we ended up with is a mixture of breeds I’ve never been able to identify. She has the body of a Golden Retriever, but she’s slightly more muscular and a bit larger than your average golden. I was told that the police officer who caught her in assumed she was some type of Rottie mix. At first, I found this somewhat unlikely. She doesn’t have a Rottweiler’s snout, and isn’t quite that muscular. But I can see where someone might think she’s part Rottie, as she has similar coloring (albeit with very long hair). And later, when I learned her personality, I discovered it was very similar to a Rottie’s protective nature. She’s a barker, and might be potentially dangerous to people who don’t know her, and that she considers a threat to her family. In the end, I decided that she might be some kind of Burmese / Golden / Rottie / Gorden-Setter mix. She has a small white spot on her chest, and white tips on her paws. The coat of a Burmese, but the coloring of a Rottie. At the same time she has the feathering of a Golden, and the retriever instincts of a Setter.

In any case, we’ve had her for over ten years, and while she’s getting on in age, I’m surprised at how spry she still is. She’ll still play, although she won’t fetch anymore. She must be at least twelve or thirteen years old now, because she was fully grown when we got her. I think she may have had pups. When we first got her, she looked like she was still getting over lactating, although that might be because she was so emaciated. I was tempted to name her “Nipples,” but my wife nixed that.

Recently, I decided to teach her to roll over. She’s always known how to sit and how to lay down, so I think someone must have spent some time training her. (She also doesn’t beg – or didn’t used to until the kids started feeding her at the table).

Using Rolled Gold pretzels, I told her to sit, lay down, and then roll over. She looked at me like I was crazy, so I made a circular motion with my hand and repeated the command again. To my surprise, she rolled onto her back! Praising her, I fed her the pretzel and repeated the sequence. Sure enough, she did it again. So, for the past few weeks, I’ve been reinforcing the behavior, and now she’ll do it without the pretzels (although this is obviously disappointing to her).

I can’t help but wonder if she used to know this command, or if she just happened to roll over at one point and figured out that’s what I wanted.

Playlists and Personalities

Is there an association between how you listen to music, and who you are? Could looking at your music playback habits (not the music itself) tell others something about what they can expect from you? Fortune tellers – pay attention. Surely this is just as accurate as counting the number of macadamia nuts in a jar of mixed nuts to determine the state of the world economy. Surely this is just as effective as reading about your zodiac attributes on a menu in a restaurant. And since those techniques obviously work, perhaps using attributes of musical behavior to identify other behaviors might actually have some validity. (Or not).

Now, in order to actually map the traits to the way people listen to music, a large sampling of music listeners and their habits must be taken and correlated. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate such a study, and in the absence of evidence, I am left to create my own, largely from opinion. I will now endeavor to do so, mainly because I find it fun. So a word of advice, opinions are cheap. After all, you aren’t paying anything to read this. That’s what the ads are for. And now, to the types and their definitions.

Alpha-listers

Alpha-listers are people who listen to their music straight down the list. And, because the list is typically alphabetical, these people are denoted by this label. Chronic Alpha-listers can sometimes be classified as lazy or as ignorant. Lazy because they didn’t bother creating a playlist, or ignorant because they don’t know how. Other types can become Alpha-listers from time to time, if they are bored with their playlists and do not have the opportunity to create a new one. Alpha-listers often have many friends, but only a few good friends. They are easy to get to know, and hard to get to know well.

Randomizers

Your typical Randomizer sets their music to play randomly and is happy with what they get. These people are often anal about their music library and purchase only those songs they really want. Randomizers don’t often purchase albums. Randomizers love surprises, and enjoy getting new things. They aren’t particularly creative, and despite the name, they enjoy absolute control over their music via the initial selection. Randomizers are excellent planners. Randomizers often have many friends, and are happy to meet new people. They are outgoing and confident.

Snipers

Snipers look for specific songs. They’re prone to getting a song in their head, and then wanting to hear it. They’re also prone to getting in car accidents while surfing through their music. Snipers are often creative types that live in their heads. Some of them have excellent memories, and can identify a song in just a few bars. Repeat Snipers are prone to obsession. See Repeaters in the sub-categories section for more information. Snipers prefer meat. Very few of them are vegetarian. And when they are, they’re lethal cauliflower hunters. Beware cauliflowers.

Secret Agents

Secret Agents use a queue to create a temporary playlist. This playlist vanishes right after it’s used, just like IMF briefings. You listen once, and it’s gone, then you create the queue again. Like Randomizers, Secret Agents are good planners, but they are obsessed with immediate control, and better at short-term planning than long-term planning. They must have it now rather than later, and are bad at delaying satisfaction. They think quickly, and can become impatient with others. In meetings, they’re the ones shaking their legs or staring out the window.

Playlisters

Playlisters are planners of another sort. These are the people that construct their music lists ahead of time, preparing for contingencies by envisioning the future. Playlisters are often dreamers, and they consider both their own needs and the needs of others. They control their circumstances through contingencies. They’re often excellent at risk aversion, and can identify potential problems before they occur. They love pleasing and surprising other people. Most of them also like pastry and pasta.

Compact Diskers

People who still listen to music on CDs in their car represent a shrinking class of users that haven’t yet transitioned to the new all-digital paradigm. This may not be their fault. It may not be by choice. Therefore there are actually two sets (and further sub-classes). Those who could transition and haven’t, and those that would like to, but can’t. Diskers are often burners. They’re limited to a small set of music at a time, and so they are similar to Playlisters in that regard. They plan their music ahead of time. You can identify chaotic Diskers, and organized Diskers by the state of their music collection. If the disks are scattered all over the car and poorly labeled, then the individual is likely chaotic and may be good at planning, but poor at implementation. These are your creative types, and they’re fine swimming through chaos and searching for what they want. The other type – the anal planners – will have an organized library they keep intact. These people know exactly where everything is, and need to control their environment. They’re hard workers, and excellent at administrative tasks.

Artist Afficiendos

Those who listen to specific artists are music lovers who recognize the talents of specific individuals. These are people who understand patterns and use them to make their decisions. They’re often quiet people, excellent listeners, and effective advice-givers. They pay attention to their music just as they pay attention to other people. They’re cerebral thinkers, with a penchant for analysis. “Can you dig it, can you dig it?” Oh yeah. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the undisputed truth, baby. Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re close to everyone, they just understand. A lot of the time, they may keep their mouths shut about “what it is.”

Sub-Categories

Seekers

Seekers will move through a song to get to the “good” parts. They know what they want, and they’re impatient to get it. Seekers are those you’ll find in line at fast food restaurants most often. Chronic seekers can be shallow people, and sometimes callous and blunt. They can be creative, but they move from project to project and seldom complete anything, even though they may be capable of brilliant work.

Repeaters

Like Seekers, Repeaters know what they want, but they’re more patient. They can practice delayed gratification to get to the “good parts” but they also enjoy the whole song. They follow the path of the music, letting it wash over them. They’re also prone to obsession, and may have large music libraries because they’ve become bored with specific songs by playing them over and over. Repeaters are most often Playlisters or Snipers.

Introverts in the Workplace

Cup from Zazzle.com

When it comes to the tech industry, the new “trend” in work space environments is “open office.” Essentially, this means you place everyone in a big room in easy sight of each other, and let them work together. If someone has a question, they shout it out, and anyone with the answer sounds off.

It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? You spend your entire day with your entire group. Or, in some cases, your entire department. Maybe even your entire company. Minus the executives, of course, since they have to make phone calls all the time and need their own offices. Everyone else sits in the “big room” and hammers on their keyboards together.

Agile methodologists and experts are touting this concept and selling it to tech companies left and right. It’s the new way to produce. And statistically, companies that adopt it do produce more. Although it may have more to do with the visibility of Agile tracking techniques than with the open office environment. Regardless, this appears to be how companies are going to expect their employees to operate in the future. Developers, QA, Technical Writers, and anyone else on a development team, are going to be expected to sit together and work in one big room. No offices. No cubes. No isolation.

But there’s a problem. A significant (somewhere between 25-40% of the population) are introverts. This poorly understood group isn’t necessarily shy – that’s another attribute altogether. Introverts are simply people who require isolation to recharge. They can and do operate in groups quite well, but it is draining to them, and placing them in work environments where they cannot have quiet and isolation over the course of the work day can and will produce extended stress. To make matters worse, many introverts are exactly the type of people who fall into software engineering professions.

Therefore, I predict that the future of the software industry will be filled with stressed, frustrated, irritated people who are forced to work long hours side-by-side with extroverted co-workers who are quite satisfied to operate in noisy crowded environments. Some of these introverts will seek employment elsewhere. Others will attempt to find isolation. And others will attempt to work from home whenever possible. For introverts, online collaboration is much less draining. Introverts are fine working with others over a computer from a quiet isolated environment. It’s about control. They can walk away, or they can turn the computer off. They can simply tell a colleague they want to work on something alone for a while. But in a crowded office, that option is more difficult. They’re forced to interact, and forced to be around people all of the time.

Eventually, companies will begin to consider introverts. They’ll “re-learn” that not everyone is the same, and start grappling with the concept of providing both isolated and collaborative spaces. When they do, they’ll discover that a lot of people who enjoy their work and are willing to work long hours to produce exceptional output have been stifled and overlooked. Then this trend will shift, and combinations of environments will be considered. Privacy, isolation, and quiet spaces – permanent ones – should always be provided as a refuge, not just for introverts, but for everyone. Open spaces should also be provided, and collaborative sessions should be scheduled, planned, and ended accordingly. This gives introverts the time they need to recharge, and that makes everyone happy.

Android 4.1 Mini PC – Review

Ug007 Mini Pc Android 4.1

This product is essentially a computer that plugs into any HD television through its HDMI port. It supports bluetooth, WiFi, USB connections, and even external 3G cards. It does require power (you have to plug it in). It’s very small and easily fits in a pocket, and yet it’s just as powerful as a top-end Android phone, running any of the Android applications available on Google Play. But, unlike a mobile device, it’s designed specifically for operation on a high definition television.

So what do you do with an Android device that you can carry in your shirt pocket? My telepathy fails me here, so I can’t answer that question. All I can tell you is what I’m going to do with it, and what I’ve already done.

Logitech Wireless Touch Keyboard K400

The first thing I did was plug it into my television and connect the wireless keyboard I bought to control it. I selected a keyboard with a built in track-pad so I wouldn’t have a mouse getting lost in the couch with the television remotes. After plugging it in and turning it on, I began the initial setup. This mainly involved entering my email account, and connecting my WiFi router. After a few seconds, I had access to my email, my docs, and my music on Google Play. Apps I’ve already purchased on Google Play were immediately available, I downloaded those first. It doesn’t cost me anything to add them to new devices once I’ve purchased them. I also downloaded a variety of free apps. Some of my favorites include Caustic 2, AIDE, Documents to Go, Google Earth, Pinterest, Skype, SkyDrive, Flixster, Redbox, WAVE, and various news sites like CNN and NPR. Of course, I added YouTube, and TED.

I started to play around a bit. How well could it handle streaming video? As it turns out, pretty well. Of course, it helped that the WiFi router was just around the corner from the television. YouTube videos streamed quickly and perfectly, and in 1080P. The videos were crisp and clean, and the audio was clear. How about some games? I let my son have a go, and he was quickly cutting ropes for some hungry creature to eat candy. After 2o minutes of watching this, I was extremely bored, and took it away from him again to check my email.

WAVE required an external USB sound card. Fortunately, I expected this, and had purchased a HDE 7.1 USB External Sound Card Audio Adapter for that purpose. Once the external mic and speakers were connected, I was able to PTT and receive audio perfectly over my free WAVE Connections account. This gave me voice access and map with all my family’s phones.

Dinner time came and went, and I decided to see how well it would work downstairs – away from the router. It was slower, but still functional. The YouTube videos took longer to cache, but once they had the cache, they streamed in HD without a hitch. I also have a receiver downstairs. It supports multiple HDMI inputs (I use it to switch between the television, the XBox, and the iPod dock). With the Droid in the receiver, I was able to stream my entire music library from Google Play right through my living room surround sound speakers. It sounded great, and since my iPod has become a rather permanent part of my car (I only ever take it out now to load new music), this suddenly gave me the capability to single source my music library and access it from any receiver and any television.

Some people will call this thing a toy. It is. It’s a geek toy. But it’s a COOL geek toy, and I love it. I showed it off at work, and immediately people wanted to buy one. And at 63 bucks, why not? I’ll probably order a couple more, for that matter, and stick them on every television in the house. The one problem is security. JellyBean doesn’t restrict account access very well. It does handle multiple account logins, but other users may still be able to access your email when they login to the device. Not so much a problem at home, but you can see where it could be an issue at work. This is logged as a known issue with JellyBean, and I expect Google will fix it in the next OS update.

Anyway, I’m planning a vacation this summer, and I’m going to leave my laptop at home. I’ll just stick this in my luggage and bring the collapsible bluetooth keyboard I bought a while back. Stick this sucker in the hotel television, and I’m good to go. I hope they have televisions with HDMI ports. Of course, if they don’t, I’ll still have my phone and my Nexus 7, so I won’t be without backup.

Now, if I can just get my hands on a Samsung Galaxy S4…

Getting In Character – The Princess Stereotype

Getting into a character’s head can sometimes be difficult, particularly when the character is very divergent from you. I have many characters in my current story, and only a couple of them have personalities even close to my own. The most difficult is the young princess I’ve created.

Originally, I thought to use the “strong independent woman” stereotype. She doesn’t start out as a princess, she starts out as an orphan who follows the path of the Gardener’s Guild. The world she exists in is highly patriarchal, and the Gardener’s Guild is one of the few organizations that permit women in positions of leadership – a tradition born of need as it is a profession with high attrition. Gardeners are warriors, and their role in this society is to protect the towns and cities during emerald risings which occur every three weeks. At that time, the jungle surrounding them animates, differentiates, and attempts to slaughter everything that isn’t part of the jungle.

Later in the story, those who placed her on this world in care of the Regent of her city, come to retrieve her. When she discovers the truth, she is immediately reluctant to leave. She has a romantic interest in the son of the Regent with whom she has been having a secret relationship for some time. She is not a noble, and therefore they are not allowed to marry. They were planning to elope against the Regent’s wishes. And yet, all this time, she actually was of noble blood, she simply didn’t know it. So now, even though their marriage could be legitimate, she is being forced to return to her homeworld. She has no choice. Her mother, the Queen, has been assassinated (as was predicted). If she does not return, her kingdom will fall to an invasion. It was for this reason that she was sequestered on her current world, and it is for this reason that she must now return to a world she doesn’t even know. Worse, her role there will not be a Gardener. They have no need of Gardeners there. Her role will be to sit in a tower and power the aether that their technology uses as a power source. She is, in effect, a medium to translate the energy they need.

Throughout the story, the princess has to grapple with these issues. They become worse when her chief guardian (an old mage) tells her that her lover (the son of  the regent) is a poor decision, and not worthy of her. She suspects he is simply trying to convince her that leaving is the best thing, but she is not sure. She questions his motives, and her own. She considers running away with her lover. She envisions different futures, and sees no satisfaction. Her only ambition in life has been to eventually become GuildMaster of the Gardener’s Guild – the height of her profession. Now, no matter which way she looks, that ambition is impossible to achieve.

There is some angst, but the princess does not have the personality for extended self-misery. Her mother was something very special. She served as queen without a king for a hundred years, guiding and shaping the culture of her people. She was respected and loved. As her mother’s daughter, the princess has many of her mother’s traits. She controls her emotions most of the time. She thinks about what she has to do in order to reach her goals, but she considers how her actions affect others. In short, she’s a natural leader, and stress does not prevent her from thinking. These traits have also made her an excellent Gardener. She does not panic, and she controls her fear.

Now, near the end, she is about to be reunited with her lover, the young heir to the regency, and she is unsure of what she should tell him. He has been following her, trying to catch up with her before she leaves this world for her own, and she had decided early on that if she saw him again, that she would invite him to come. He had been willing to give up his inheritance in order to elope and marry her, but that was before he knew that they would be leaving this world for another. She is unsure of how he will react, and yet cannot reconcile herself to running away from her mother’s people while they are in need. If they die because she does not return, the fault will be laid upon her. And the enemy that seeks to invade them will enslave the population and use them as food. It’s what they do.

So here I am, a humble writerdood, trying to grok the intricacies of this mentality and describe it in prose. It has been (and still is) a difficult task. Her head is one I have a hard time getting inside. The old man, that I can do. The boy, he’s no problem. The arrogant archer and the huge armored warrior, they’re not that hard. But the princess? She’s turned out to be a bear. Not a real bear, mind you, I mean difficult. Even a short synopsis of the situation is hard. As you can see, the circumstances are complicated, even before throwing the character’s personality into the mix.

Do you have any characters that give you trouble like this?