How to Breathe Underwater (trilogy: Lessons in Skills for Life) (Page 8 of 8)

These two books... are you planning to ship them in one volume?

Hi Norm.

It is a world that has three distinct societies.
The Skilled
These societies, Tower and Liberty, are run magically.
Technical advancements are down to the imagination of the Creators. The Far-Skills, Speaking and Jumping, are used in preference to mechanical means of distance travel or speech. Skills do take energy from the Skill-user, so are used judiciously to avoid exhaustion. 
However, the emphasis in these two areas is very different, and they are in continual conflict.

Tower; a harsh, black and white society, based on military rigidity.  The martial skills, Artillery, Persuasion and Coercion, are most prized. The artisan skills, Creation and Healing, are necessary, but are provided by lower grade staff.

Liberty; colourful, artistic, hedonistic. Skills are used for pleasure seeking as well as for practical use. Even practical uses are expected to have some artistic value. Creation is therefore the most highly prized Skill. Artisans and artists are equally valued in society.  Liberty is becoming jaded and aimless.

Non-Skilled
The Edge was originally the refuge for the Non-Skilled, but is now an ascetic conclave of people who refuse to use Skills for everyday life. They believe that imagination and creativity only thrive where life isn't given to a person on a plate. There is technology, but it is dependent on being hand made, or made by machines that have themselves been hand-built, so equivalent probably to life in the 18th/19th centuries. The use of Skills in the area is punished. Because of the difficulties of proving Skill use, they use Enforcers from Tower to prove guilt.

thanks. Two more chapters up today. More in transit, waiting for me to pointplunder

Here's an example:

Notes:
1. "...never give a second thought..." trivializes them
2. There are 3 instances in this where we're told what did not occur as opposed to what did
3. Overall, this procession is very "nice". There is no true penalty for power use (at least none by chapter 4) - you just hug a Minx and you're off to the Garden of Eden

What I've done here is sprinkle random names instead of "Speak" or "Jump" etc and tried to envision it in a way that it's a power no sane person would want. Now the MC is no longer the "Chosen One" who gets the great power -- she's an average person who really doesn't want it - but fate will make her suffer until she gives in and accepts it

mmk. my thoughts on your thoughts on my thoughts

1. Ok, no problem - as long as you're aware you've made the Skills commonplace and ubiquitous enough to be taken for granted, you grasp the fundamental difficulty in making the story more otherworldly.
2. A "not" is simple and powerful expression ("John was the guy who'd never learned to dance"), but pile 3 into one paragraph...

At some point it becomes clear that the writer is visualizing a lot of action and has either overlooked that the reader can't or is being deliberately cagey.

A more realistic/relevant example: "John didn't believe in the war" in a book set in 1980 probably means Vietnam and works because the modern reader knows what to compare against. In a fantasy novel, this becomes a footnote that the reader is expecting will join up later (big war? Small war? Recurring war? Relevant war? What was the cost? Recent?).
Better: "John lost his wife in the war eighteen years ago" (War occurred once, is not still occurring, and is distant past - here's how it affects John now, and we can expect John to react certain ways because of it).

This is really a snippet of a broader discussion related to the old "Bob saw something" structure. I'm not suggesting don't use them - but rather think about what questions each one raises.

New question.
Contractions: yes to dialogue, but in narrative? Accepting that this is a close third, tightly in the POV head, with little or no authorial comment.
My agent is anti, I am dithering.

yes, my feeling too. In particular would contracted to say, he'd or she'd looks and sounds better to me. So in a sentence: 'She had always thought she would feel differently. But she did not.' it just feels so much more likely to say 'She'd always thought she'd feel differently. But she didn't.'  Especially with a teen audience.

I think this example, as it is 1st person, isn't  what I mean though. 1st will always have contractions as even the narrative is funneled through the POV mouth.

squared.

I'm no academic either.

"She didn't trust her judgement."  This describes the character's state of mind.  It's just half a step beyond dialogue.  If you (or the editor) will accept the contraction when she expresses herself, what about when the narrator is speaking for her?

"The sun isn't up yet." -- the verb is contracted with the closely associated adverb.

"The sun's not up yet." -- the verb is contracted with the noun that is the verb's subject.  The subject is grammatically more remote from the verb than the adverb that negates the verb.

One might accept the contraction of closely linked verb and adverb and reject the contraction between the more remote subject and verb.

I've been thinking about the contraction issue for the past week. I've been poking at various texts. Still reaching, but here are my early thoughts:

The sun's not up yet.
--isn't a contraction I would normally use in narrative. I'm sure a few of these may have slipped by

The sun isn't up yet.
--I would use this contraction in narrative. *But* I always boot negatives when I find them. I'd be much more likely to say "The sky was tinged pink with the first traces of morning" than point out the missing sun.

She didn't trust her judgement
--"She doubted her own judgement" or "She found herself second-guessing her facts". Actually, I shy away from these kinds of tags anyway. They're more reader cues than character thoughts. I'd be more likely to write "She shut the door firmly, but hesitated" and let the reader assign the state of self-doubt.

The men ran into the house where they'd left their shoes
--Now here's one I use to solve cadence problems and make a smoother read. I'm thinking about this case. Can I write around it? Probably so. Really it's just a shortcut. I can train myself out of it with very little cost, effectively ending contraction use in narrative.

Definitely a worthy adventure. Thank you for asking this question!

Don!t sweat it so badly.  Preserve the scansion, even if it means that your editor will have to tolerate a contraction.