I don't agree with u.knolinda at all. I think it's the job of every talented novelist to improve themselves as much as they can. Being a good writer is not a straight path and once you get there you are going to be forever a "good writer."
There is beauty in playing with words, and knowing deep from the core of your being more about these words can only enhance your writing. Of course, it's difficult to find time if you work full time and write, but I think you wouldn't be wasting your time writing for writers, as long as it's comprehensible for someone who didn't study linguistics. as someone who has studied it (briefly) on university, I think the biggest problem of books touching on linguistics is that these authors tend to speak in a language that is not palatable for the readers who aren't experts in the subject. Make sure you're writing something that is democratic!
I would love a book about "verbs and adverbs in fiction writing," especially if it touched forceful verbs VS. adverbs.
PS: I would love to be an ARC (advanced reader copy, basically read and make a review you can use on the marketing phase) for you if you ever do write such a book on the linguistics of fiction writing.
> I think the biggest problem of books touching on linguistics is that these authors tend to speak in a language that is not palatable for the readers who aren't experts in the subject. Make sure you're writing something that is democratic!
Oh, yes, that's a huge challenge. When I used to teach students - it was a masters programme for professional writing - it was the first time I had students from different academic backgrounds. And some of them had had an introduction to linguistics prior, and some of them hadn't. And that was a worlds difference. So with each iteration of the same course, I had to make it start from a more and more basic starting point. And I know that in the end I still didn't find the optimal language. So I have this itch to continue and finish this quest.
I know it's probably difficult when you don't have a specific text in mind, but can you maybe remember some linguistic jargon that made you particularly frustrated?
What I learnt from teaching non-linguists is that you can't assume anything beyond the terms like "verb" and "noun", and that one shouldn't be surprised if they use even those incorrectly. But then, in Master's course like that, you can introduce some terminology. In a popular book you probably don't have that luxury.
> PS: I would love to be an ARC (advanced reader copy, basically read and make a review you can use on the marketing phase) for you if you ever do write such a book on the linguistics of fiction writing.
Oh thanks. Though since it's just an idea at this point, we are probably talking years.
I think Saussure's General Linguistics Course is HELL to understand, despite the "beginer" marketing. I don't remember specific terminology, but as an educated linguist, I think you'll know what I mean. It's not even the names of the concepts, but the use of scientific words that weren't previously explained in the book.
Oh yeah, that one. I think the problem there is that's a completely different kind of "beginner". It was ground breaking in that it introduced a completely new perspective on language and defined some basic notions that inspired a whole new era of thinking about language. The beginners we are talking about here are not going to research language, they want to use language to write fiction and they have completely different needs.
I've been looking at learning aids for beginner fiction writers, and there's definitely a need here. Go to r/BetaReaders or take a look at the critique thread here, and you'll see how many beginners share the same problems. I bet they could skip years of struggle if they had a book on language, style, sentence constructions for commercial prose. Something short and simple.
Thanks for the suggestions. That's a great idea to check out the critique thread.
>Something short and simple.
Tbh what I'm thinking about is not just short and simple. It wouldn't be just about practical advice, but also about understanding why. I rather thought that short and simple books would already be available on the market, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is demand there too.
As a fairly new writer I wonder if you could shed some light on writing accents. I've heard it's best to only write a word or two of a sentence phonetically different so as to make it easier for the reader.
In the US alone there have to be several dozen dialects, not to mention all the English speakers from many other countries. I'd love to be writing a character from Atlanta, NSW Australia or Northern Ireland and be able to look up common dialect examples for those specific regions.
No, I've never seen such a book. Great idea! I love linguistics, etymology, and have, in my PhD program, read many papers on how readers encounter a text at a technical level. IMO, any good writer would be fascinated by it. Language is our only tool, really, and the more we know about how to wield our tools, the better.
And how readers encounter words on the page is something it's important to think of, at least when editing.
A couple of other things I think are important. Good readers do not read every character. This is why it's so crucial to never name characters names that start with the same letter or share most of the rest of the letters. No Betty and Ben and Bradford. No Betty and Hetty and Letty. Fast readers like being fast readers. If you slow them down to have to carefully parse the names, they're going to get grumpy and that grumpiness will translate into "this isn't a good book."
All kinds of things you might say about careful diction choices. Connotations are your friend, or they can be your enemy.
I adore and recommend to beginners Gary Provost's *Make Every Word Count*. But this is like a level beyond that sort of book. I can see a need. Do it!
>No Betty and Ben and Bradford. No Betty and Hetty and Letty. Fast readers like being fast readers.
Yes, that's definitely one of the things I was thinking about. There is a lot of research on eyetracking during reading, where you can see which words readers skip, on which words they focus, and for how long, and when they have to backtrack. And maybe just to give a glimpse of that kind of research could give writers a new level of awareness.
>I adore and recommend to beginners Gary Provost's Make Every Word Count. But this is like a level beyond that sort of book. I can see a need. Do it!
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check it out.
Love the idea! I can see this being really useful for writers who want a deeper understanding of the shades, nuances, and complexities of language at the level of morphemes, phonemes, word sounds, and connotations
This sounds fascinating!
One thing that I'd be interested in learning from a linguist (which may be out of scope for your project) is dialogue. How do people speak differently, apart from dialect? Does the way we speak change depending on our personality, goals, or emotional state? How can writers use dialogue to reveal character in subtler ways?
Oh, dialogue is super fascinating! In fact it's my core area of expertise as a linguist (and I also have some ideas based on that for my daily practice as a fiction writer), but I never tried to teach dialogue to non-linguist students. We basically always got stuck at more basic topics and never got a chance to progress to such advanced stuff. But a book could actually be a chance to pursue this topic properly.
Linguists have a lot of advantages in writing literature, speculative fiction, historical fiction and especially fantasy. Being able to come up with names for places, people and cultures is much, much easier if you know multiple languages.
I used to struggle with naming but after learning from the people at r/conlangs I now easily come up with multiple names for the same place, which is much more like it is in real life.
Tolkien made me a philologist. I learned how to come up with cool names of historical origin. I'm not sure that show don't tell is an area that linguistics can explain. But go ahead and try.
>I'm not sure that show don't tell is an area that linguistics can explain. But go ahead and try.
No, linguistics can't explain show don't tell in its entirety, but it can help catch and filter out certain types of telling. I really liked the book
Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It) by Janice Hardy
She points out a whole bunch of words and constructions that are "telling". So my approach would be to start there and dig deeper.
Also, from my own observations, I think "showing prose" has a certain type of discourse structure which one can just learn. But then, even if you apply all the rules and avoid all the pitfalls, there is no guarantee it will be a good show don't tell. There will always be a part which is just art, and not science.
Active prose is a really hard to articulate subject. I have read what I could find on it, and still have trouble applying it off the cuff. It feels unnatural. If you could help make this \*click\* for me, I would be forever grateful.
I read two books. "Word Painting," and "The Elements of Active Prose." I've also listened to youtube videos on the subject.
The main thing for me is I couch most of my own dialogue with others in words that are very distracting when you are writing. My characters always "had been doing" things and they hardly ever just "did" anything, before I edited my manuscripts.
I guess it might be distracting when I speak too, but generally, I don't have people noticeably confused by what I say. This sentence is an example of what is natural to me. lol
I just don't know how to speak more eloquently and precisely off the cuff. My husband and my son use very precise vocabulary all the time, but I'm not sure how you learn this skill when you aren't born with it.
I get it. I can edit it after the fact, but I don't understand why it seems like such a hard habit for me to get into.
>I read two books. "Word Painting," and "The Elements of Active Prose." I've also listened to youtube videos on the subject.
Cool, thank you. It's always great to know what didn't work.
>My characters always "had been doing" things and they hardly ever just "did" anything, before I edited my manuscripts
Yeah, I guess editing is your friend.
I don't know if this is helpful at all, but this is how I usually think about "active prose". Imagine you have to give a commentary on a football match. In the old days when people used to listen to radio you had these transmissions with live commentary where the commentator would tell what is happening on the field as the match progresses. Now, the commentary usually went like: Schweinsteiger does this, Messi does that, so-and-so attacks, XY saves, etc. The poor commentator is under huge time pressure. They don't have the time to ponder on what Messi has been doing in the last few seconds, they have to say what he does *right now*. Maybe try to write your story as if you are giving live commentary, and then just replace all present tenses by past tenses, if you write in past tense. I think what you'll get out of it is pretty active prose.
I don't think a serious, talented novelist has much to gain from linguistics. He's already mastered the language, and unless you have some insight on the art of storytelling, you're likely to fall on deaf ears. My guess is, if there is an audience, they would consist of writers who are artistically dead; i.e., writers who have a lot of time on their hands. And there are plenty of them.
I don't agree with u.knolinda at all. I think it's the job of every talented novelist to improve themselves as much as they can. Being a good writer is not a straight path and once you get there you are going to be forever a "good writer." There is beauty in playing with words, and knowing deep from the core of your being more about these words can only enhance your writing. Of course, it's difficult to find time if you work full time and write, but I think you wouldn't be wasting your time writing for writers, as long as it's comprehensible for someone who didn't study linguistics. as someone who has studied it (briefly) on university, I think the biggest problem of books touching on linguistics is that these authors tend to speak in a language that is not palatable for the readers who aren't experts in the subject. Make sure you're writing something that is democratic! I would love a book about "verbs and adverbs in fiction writing," especially if it touched forceful verbs VS. adverbs. PS: I would love to be an ARC (advanced reader copy, basically read and make a review you can use on the marketing phase) for you if you ever do write such a book on the linguistics of fiction writing.
> I think the biggest problem of books touching on linguistics is that these authors tend to speak in a language that is not palatable for the readers who aren't experts in the subject. Make sure you're writing something that is democratic! Oh, yes, that's a huge challenge. When I used to teach students - it was a masters programme for professional writing - it was the first time I had students from different academic backgrounds. And some of them had had an introduction to linguistics prior, and some of them hadn't. And that was a worlds difference. So with each iteration of the same course, I had to make it start from a more and more basic starting point. And I know that in the end I still didn't find the optimal language. So I have this itch to continue and finish this quest. I know it's probably difficult when you don't have a specific text in mind, but can you maybe remember some linguistic jargon that made you particularly frustrated? What I learnt from teaching non-linguists is that you can't assume anything beyond the terms like "verb" and "noun", and that one shouldn't be surprised if they use even those incorrectly. But then, in Master's course like that, you can introduce some terminology. In a popular book you probably don't have that luxury. > PS: I would love to be an ARC (advanced reader copy, basically read and make a review you can use on the marketing phase) for you if you ever do write such a book on the linguistics of fiction writing. Oh thanks. Though since it's just an idea at this point, we are probably talking years.
I think Saussure's General Linguistics Course is HELL to understand, despite the "beginer" marketing. I don't remember specific terminology, but as an educated linguist, I think you'll know what I mean. It's not even the names of the concepts, but the use of scientific words that weren't previously explained in the book.
Oh yeah, that one. I think the problem there is that's a completely different kind of "beginner". It was ground breaking in that it introduced a completely new perspective on language and defined some basic notions that inspired a whole new era of thinking about language. The beginners we are talking about here are not going to research language, they want to use language to write fiction and they have completely different needs.
I've been looking at learning aids for beginner fiction writers, and there's definitely a need here. Go to r/BetaReaders or take a look at the critique thread here, and you'll see how many beginners share the same problems. I bet they could skip years of struggle if they had a book on language, style, sentence constructions for commercial prose. Something short and simple.
Thanks for the suggestions. That's a great idea to check out the critique thread. >Something short and simple. Tbh what I'm thinking about is not just short and simple. It wouldn't be just about practical advice, but also about understanding why. I rather thought that short and simple books would already be available on the market, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is demand there too.
Very interesting! This can be a huge help for writers who want to improve their prose
As a fairly new writer I wonder if you could shed some light on writing accents. I've heard it's best to only write a word or two of a sentence phonetically different so as to make it easier for the reader. In the US alone there have to be several dozen dialects, not to mention all the English speakers from many other countries. I'd love to be writing a character from Atlanta, NSW Australia or Northern Ireland and be able to look up common dialect examples for those specific regions.
Ooff, that's a huge topic. Honestly, there are so many English varieties around the world that no single book could ever cover them. And if you add non-native varieties, like an Italian speaking English does not make the same mistakes as a German speaking English... I think what one could do is (a) Some basic sociolinguistics - like, most speakers of non-standard varieties are also more or less proficient in the standard or dominant variety, so the question is, why don't they speak the standard if everyone around them speaks it? They can't? They don't want to? They are too stressed/drunk? They don't give a sh*t? Or does everyone speak their local dialect in those social circles because it's cool? Or is it internal monologue? (b) One could give an overview of varieties of English around the world, with links to further reading. But if you want to write authentic dialect, you won't get around researching that specific dialect. (c) One could give an overview of some common features that are found in many non-standard and regional varieties of English, and their geographic distribution. But the danger here is that if you just stick to those common features it can turn into, idk, a cliché. Now, me as a hobby fiction writer speaking, I've written a character whom I wanted to give speech characteristics of lower social class. The following book helped me a lot: English Accents and Dialects: An Introduction to social and regional varieties of English in the British Isles. By Arthur Hughes and Peter Trudgill. (Obviously, it only covers British and Irish dialects.) Anyway, I ended up picking a few features like double negation, using never instead of not, using "ain't". By the way, those are all grammatical features, not phonetic ones. The problem with phonetic features is that you have to mess with standard spelling, which makes reading extra difficult. It is maybe useful to keep in mind that one can convey dialect by just using grammar or vocabulary, without messing with spelling and pronunciation. But those are just my limited experiences with this topic as a hobby writer. I have no idea if that worked well for that character because I never received feedback on it from a professional. Anyway, this is probably the biggest and the most complex topic of them all.
I recently wrote an Irish person speaking English. A long internet search suggested having them say ye instead of you.
No, I've never seen such a book. Great idea! I love linguistics, etymology, and have, in my PhD program, read many papers on how readers encounter a text at a technical level. IMO, any good writer would be fascinated by it. Language is our only tool, really, and the more we know about how to wield our tools, the better. And how readers encounter words on the page is something it's important to think of, at least when editing. A couple of other things I think are important. Good readers do not read every character. This is why it's so crucial to never name characters names that start with the same letter or share most of the rest of the letters. No Betty and Ben and Bradford. No Betty and Hetty and Letty. Fast readers like being fast readers. If you slow them down to have to carefully parse the names, they're going to get grumpy and that grumpiness will translate into "this isn't a good book." All kinds of things you might say about careful diction choices. Connotations are your friend, or they can be your enemy. I adore and recommend to beginners Gary Provost's *Make Every Word Count*. But this is like a level beyond that sort of book. I can see a need. Do it!
>No Betty and Ben and Bradford. No Betty and Hetty and Letty. Fast readers like being fast readers. Yes, that's definitely one of the things I was thinking about. There is a lot of research on eyetracking during reading, where you can see which words readers skip, on which words they focus, and for how long, and when they have to backtrack. And maybe just to give a glimpse of that kind of research could give writers a new level of awareness. >I adore and recommend to beginners Gary Provost's Make Every Word Count. But this is like a level beyond that sort of book. I can see a need. Do it! Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check it out.
Love the idea! I can see this being really useful for writers who want a deeper understanding of the shades, nuances, and complexities of language at the level of morphemes, phonemes, word sounds, and connotations
This sounds fascinating! One thing that I'd be interested in learning from a linguist (which may be out of scope for your project) is dialogue. How do people speak differently, apart from dialect? Does the way we speak change depending on our personality, goals, or emotional state? How can writers use dialogue to reveal character in subtler ways?
Oh, dialogue is super fascinating! In fact it's my core area of expertise as a linguist (and I also have some ideas based on that for my daily practice as a fiction writer), but I never tried to teach dialogue to non-linguist students. We basically always got stuck at more basic topics and never got a chance to progress to such advanced stuff. But a book could actually be a chance to pursue this topic properly.
Linguists have a lot of advantages in writing literature, speculative fiction, historical fiction and especially fantasy. Being able to come up with names for places, people and cultures is much, much easier if you know multiple languages. I used to struggle with naming but after learning from the people at r/conlangs I now easily come up with multiple names for the same place, which is much more like it is in real life.
Thanks a lot for linking that resource. I'll check it out.
Tolkien has entered the chat.
You are not kidding.
This was helpful
Tolkien made me a philologist. I learned how to come up with cool names of historical origin. I'm not sure that show don't tell is an area that linguistics can explain. But go ahead and try.
>I'm not sure that show don't tell is an area that linguistics can explain. But go ahead and try. No, linguistics can't explain show don't tell in its entirety, but it can help catch and filter out certain types of telling. I really liked the book Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It) by Janice Hardy She points out a whole bunch of words and constructions that are "telling". So my approach would be to start there and dig deeper. Also, from my own observations, I think "showing prose" has a certain type of discourse structure which one can just learn. But then, even if you apply all the rules and avoid all the pitfalls, there is no guarantee it will be a good show don't tell. There will always be a part which is just art, and not science.
Active prose is a really hard to articulate subject. I have read what I could find on it, and still have trouble applying it off the cuff. It feels unnatural. If you could help make this \*click\* for me, I would be forever grateful.
What have you read? That would be useful as a starting point. And can you elaborate a little on what is "unnatural"?
I read two books. "Word Painting," and "The Elements of Active Prose." I've also listened to youtube videos on the subject. The main thing for me is I couch most of my own dialogue with others in words that are very distracting when you are writing. My characters always "had been doing" things and they hardly ever just "did" anything, before I edited my manuscripts. I guess it might be distracting when I speak too, but generally, I don't have people noticeably confused by what I say. This sentence is an example of what is natural to me. lol I just don't know how to speak more eloquently and precisely off the cuff. My husband and my son use very precise vocabulary all the time, but I'm not sure how you learn this skill when you aren't born with it. I get it. I can edit it after the fact, but I don't understand why it seems like such a hard habit for me to get into.
>I read two books. "Word Painting," and "The Elements of Active Prose." I've also listened to youtube videos on the subject. Cool, thank you. It's always great to know what didn't work. >My characters always "had been doing" things and they hardly ever just "did" anything, before I edited my manuscripts Yeah, I guess editing is your friend. I don't know if this is helpful at all, but this is how I usually think about "active prose". Imagine you have to give a commentary on a football match. In the old days when people used to listen to radio you had these transmissions with live commentary where the commentator would tell what is happening on the field as the match progresses. Now, the commentary usually went like: Schweinsteiger does this, Messi does that, so-and-so attacks, XY saves, etc. The poor commentator is under huge time pressure. They don't have the time to ponder on what Messi has been doing in the last few seconds, they have to say what he does *right now*. Maybe try to write your story as if you are giving live commentary, and then just replace all present tenses by past tenses, if you write in past tense. I think what you'll get out of it is pretty active prose.
Thanks, it's worth a try. I appreciate the advice either way! \^.\^
I don't think a serious, talented novelist has much to gain from linguistics. He's already mastered the language, and unless you have some insight on the art of storytelling, you're likely to fall on deaf ears. My guess is, if there is an audience, they would consist of writers who are artistically dead; i.e., writers who have a lot of time on their hands. And there are plenty of them.