|
Long time lurker in this thread. Thanks for all the interesting advice and discussions! English isn't my first language, but I've been trying to write some stuff in english lately. I've had quite a few short stories published in Swedish, both in small publications and online on Storytel by a small publisher, and people seem to like it so far. So I'm beginning to grow at least a little more confident on how to handle my ideas and my voice, when it comes to writing in swedish. Quite a small market, though. So it would be very interesting to see if writing in english would work. I hope it is OK to post a small excerpt here? You don't have to go into deeper reading. What I'm most interested in is: from a quick read, does the language work at all, or does it seem all off? Are there just some oddities and grammatical stuff that could be ironed out with a little work? Or does it read like complete stupid gibberish? ----- "The cleptark is a small man, hunched and thin, polite but guarded. He resides in his little Palace, a modulat house with rows of small but steady legs underneath, the legs now folded in serene zen-positions. The house is capable of joining the Caravan of Cleptomants any minute, crawling across the wild outback like a giant centipede. Should they chose to leave, that is. The cleptark suffers from some kind of illness, everywhere else long gone out of fashion. Jonson thinks it might be Parkinsons, noticing how the old mans hands shake as he pours them both tea in worn plastic cups. The tremors come and go, and as the cleptark notices Jonsons curiosity he says: ‘The Weak Arm of the Law caught me once. They cured me from my ability to crack physical locking mechanisms. Thoroughly. With a brain-gun. Aren’t The Arm adorable?’ ‘Cracking physical things is just what I need to talk to Your Cleptiness about.’ Jonson says, looking out through a window, trying not to stare at the trembling hands. ‘Just don’t ask me to pick a lock.’ says the cleptark. Outside, Tribe Kids come dashing between the scattered Lego village of modulats, carrying fish for the Cleptomants dinner on sticks leaning from their shoulders. Jonson connects the muffled, distant bang he heard while approaching the camp with the fishing, the Cleptonic Tribe Kids dynamating one of the lakes in the area, careless about the finely tuned reinvented and engineered ecology of the lakes. Jonson understands them, still disapproves. The Cleptomants, being traditionalists in most cases, practise age and gender differentiation. They are also, in most cases, highly pragmatic, at least when it comes to semi-organized crime. Everyone have their role. Jonson passed bad-tempered guardian cleptoraptors on his way to the camp. Crossing a seemingly endless stretch of Middleclass ex-territory on his bicycle, he spotted them crouching among the abandoned villas and houses. Jonson wears a carefully designed scent for them to pick up, and he could see the cleptoraptors raising their antennas, sniffing to deduce if Jonson was a threat or just a mere distraction as they searched for Middleclass loot in the ex-suburb, or for representants from The Arm to harass. Now, some of the cleptoraptors have returned to the modulat village for recharging, the season being to downcast for efficient use of their solar driven metabolism." ..... --------------- NoButterUtter fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Oct 29, 2018 |
#
¿
Oct 29, 2018 07:53
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 12:29 |
|
|
Thanks for reading and commenting! I do read a lot of english prose, but I guess I tend to read and appreciate stuff that has a certain tone/style/rythm to it. So maybe I should broaden my influences a bit. "Representatives" - of course, I know this. That was just sloppy... Or maybe I was thinking of "Repentants" from the Arm. Hmmm... I'll see if I can come up with something for thunderdome in the near future!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2018 18:38
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:....He wanted to start writing in English, so he spent a few months with something originally written in French and rewrote it in English, then compared his rewriting with a professional translation to see how their approach to rhythm, idiom, word choice etc. differed from his. I don't think he did an entire book by any means, but from what I remember it was really beneficial for him in developing a more authorial voice in English writing. That seems like something I'd give a try. A lot of "Swedish Crime" (or whatever it's called) is also published in English, and even if I don't like the genre that much it's easy and accessible. Cool way of learning! feedmyleg posted:As a native English speaker, the more I lean into my style the more I worry that my writing comes off as that of an ESL writer. I tend to go overly formal, which is what I'm picking up a bit from your writing as well. I don't think it's a bad thing, but worth noting that it definitely doesn't come off as casual, conversational, or invisible in style. ... and I actually know these things. Some are very obvious errors for me, too, when spelled out like this. (Maybe I should just stick to my first language, and hope that I'll write something worth translating in the proper way...)
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2018 19:53
|
|
|
After The War posted:Language aside, I quite like your rhythm and structure. It reminds me a lot of New Wave Science Fiction, Sam Delaney in particular. What English-language fiction do you like to read? feedmyleg posted:I definitely don't think anything in your sample is reason to abandon the idea—I liked the sort of slightly-aloof-yet-playful tone in the piece. And those errors are really the sort of thing Proofreading it is. Thanks a lot. Also, nice to hear about the "slightly-aloof-yet-playful" thing, because that's just the kind of style/voice I've been trying to achieve for a long time in Swedish, interesting that it seems to come through in English too. Kind of embarrased to admit that I've been on some kind of two-decades-long binge of William Gibson and post-singularity SF like Greg Egan and Charles Stross... But I'll check out Samuel Delany too, cool. Also, Yiddish Policemen's Union was amazing, first heard about Michael Chabon in this thread.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2018 19:54
|
|
|
Oh dear, the non-native english writer and long time lurker from a few pages ago is back. I do have a full story now, 4500 words. I plan to submit the swedish version to my "publisher" in a few days, after doing another revision (It's a small but hard-working swedish publisher, and he does release some of my short stories in E-book and audiobook format). I've also done a translation in English. It's a kind of darrrrrrk and grrrrim fantasy/horror story, and it's actually based on the lyrics of one of the songs for our crappy doomish-stonerish metal band. It's called "Smoke on the bog"... yeah, you get the pun. Actually, it's not about that kind of "smoke" at all. Anyway, we're thinking about releasing the song on our up-and-coming first album, perhaps as a single, so I imagine that some kind of co-release of the short story would be cool. At least we can re-use the artwork. Is there someone who would be interested in looking at this story? The main thing would be pointing out blatant grammatical faults, and terrible misuse of words. I seem to realize what mistakes I've done as soon as I become aware of them, but I miss a lot of stuff. If you have suggestions for the story itself, go ahead. So... a non-english dude trying to do a slightly bloody and creepy, but still aloof, Borges in English. How bad can it be? If I've understood everything correct, the best thing to do is to paste a link to a google doc in the "Fiction submission" thread, right? Nevermind, I'll go and do that... Edit: seems the Fiction Submission is dead so I have to start a new thread. Stupid me. Edit 2: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3879199 NoButterUtter fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jan 10, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2019 22:04
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 12:29 |
|
|
sebmojo posted:Yes, put it in a thread and link it here and in creative chat if you like Like this? https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3879199 Oh, by the way... It seems that the thread has the "shitpost" banner, and it probably is, but for the future - what did I do wrong and can I change it?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2019 21:04
|
|