Well of Sky Progress
I’m pleased to say I finished the first draft of my short story last night. Well of Sky came in at 6,180 words, a little shorter than I expected, but perfect for the antho guidelines (< 9K). I'm getting ready to read it through tonight, tweak it a little, and then I'm switching back to Beautiful Death ECE revisions. I have time to come back in a week or so and make another pass once my readers have had a chance to make comments.
I'm pleased, very pleased, with how it turned out, although there's some word choices I probably need to think through. For instance, instead of tree, I used ceiba, a very specific tree in Maya mythology (Raised-Up Sky or the World Tree). That makes sense to me. Then I asked myself whether I should leave “ten years” alone or use their word for year, tun. In the past, I would have reveled in all the strange words and phrases, proud to demonstrate my research. *wg* Oh, grasshopper. Sigh.
Now, I hesitate. The Maya knew what “year” meant; they could literally count thousands of years into the future. I need balance, and what serves the character and her story. It’s in first person, another oddity for me, and in first person, she’s not going to do a lot of “explaining.” So I left it as “year” for now. Cause where do you draw the line. If I do tun then I’d better use their word for ten. Oh, but that’s two long dashes, not a word…. And none of their written language was words anyway, it was pictures. Duh. I’m surely not telling a story in glyphs like this one, although it’s beautiful.








April 6th, 2007 at 9:49 am
I’d stick with *year* and keep it simple. The book is a relationship to your reader. Now if you are going to write pure fantasy, for fantasy only readers, you could be more clever, but ask yourself, who your readers are and what are their expectation concerning some of these details that you question.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:51 am
It is a fine line to draw. You want to add enough research to sound authentic without sounding like a show off. It is a hard line to walk. Stick with “year.” Glad you are pleased with your story, sounds very intriguing.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Yep, that’s what I did. I kept it simple–until the meaning from the Maya perspective was MORE. Or unique in some way. Like tree vs. ceiba. I mean a very specific tree with a specific purpose in the mythology. Itza. Sorcerer of water. That is a crucial element to the story. Otherwise, I used normal every day words. Hopefully I balanced the special words and terms just enough to give the setting and flavor of Maya. I might post a snippet later.
The audience is mostly fantasy readers, who might read some romance or romantic fantasy. I took that into consideration when I wrote the story. It is a love story and ends happily, but I deliberately did NOT include the same elements I would have in the romance field. I hope it works.