tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90865730577996928412023-06-20T06:55:24.107-07:00Steam and Quill: A Writer's BlogNathan Hanawalthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03217200185912862641noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9086573057799692841.post-77034949698478750932015-08-12T11:40:00.004-07:002015-08-12T11:44:40.808-07:00Link to my Smashwords Page<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">One of the things I have noticed
about steampunks on the web is that many of them are writers of one sort or
another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am no exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I absolutely love writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's a near obsession with me; I have to
write and it doesn't matter whether I ever publish or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stories come into my head and then I put them
on the page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I've taken to putting the
short stories I finish on <a href="https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/NathanHanawalt" target="_blank">Smashwords</a>, which is a great resource for writers
like me who just need to write.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So far
I've only got two up there, one of them a gaslamp fantasy and the other a short
historical fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will add more as I
finish more, and I don't charge for the stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just like to write, and I guess I wonder if
people like to read what I've written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So if you're interested, go on over to <a href="https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/NathanHanawalt" target="_blank">Smashwords</a> and have a look.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While you're there do a quick search on the
main page and you may find that quite a few people have put their work on
display; some of it's free, some of it's not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But in our constant search for works in this medium, another source is
always welcome, and <a href="https://www.smashwords.com/" target="_blank">Smashwords</a> has some good stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Nathan Hanawalthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03217200185912862641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9086573057799692841.post-10582130204939695052012-10-26T07:02:00.000-07:002015-08-12T10:49:07.305-07:00Names in Alternate History<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So one of the things about writing historical fiction (and
especially alternative history) is finding the balance between accuracy and
reading comprehension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If, for instance,
one is writing an alternate history of the Aztec Empire in which the Aztecs repulsed
the conquistadores and survived to the present day, one is faced with the
tricky decision of whether to go with authentic Aztec place-names, or come up with
a scenario in which somehow the Aztecs named all their cities in Spanish (a la
present-day Mexico).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first glance,
one might think: well duh, use Aztec names.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Okay, that presents some problems:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
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First off, most of the towns and cities in Central America
were founded long after the Aztecs had been replaced as the people who got to pick names for them, so Aztec names
do not exist for many places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’d have to
make them up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s not very easy,
unless you’re well-schooled in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahuatl" target="_blank">Nahuatl</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Granted,
if you’re writing a book about Aztecs you’re probably better with Native American
languages than I, but still, thinking up place-names in an exotic native tongue
is no easy task.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Secondly and more importantly, no one will have any idea to
where you are referring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you decide
that present-day Ciudad Juarez will be called Xochipatl in your universe, you
will have to somehow let your readers know that Xochipatl is Juarez.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See, language is all about context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When someone says “Ciudad Juarez,” the reader
is immediately put in mind of a wild border town on the Rio Grande across from
El Paso, Texas, surrounded by desert and longhorns and gauchos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A hundred
images come to mind when one thinks “Ciudad Juarez.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What images come to mind when one thinks of “Xochipatl?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
didn’t get any, and I’m the one who made it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And even if in your universe you don’t want Ciudad Juarez (excuse me, “Xochipatl”)
to be a wild border town, or want it to be in a different location, the fact is that
readers need a location to which to relate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Otherwise there will be no sense of distance between places in your
universe, no sense of geography, no sense of the little things that make a
world real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For all the reader knows,
Xochipatl and Tenochtitlan are just next door to each other, and they can’t
understand why Catuahtec is so devastated because his girlfriend Choxibil is
moving to Nuahotl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Why, that’s not very
far from Icslixa, what’s he on about?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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You see?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be
tricky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You would get so bogged down
outlining the geography and explaining where everything is in relation to (or
what it is comparable to in our rather more mundane world) that the story would
get sidelined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pure fantasy is a little
easier to deal with, at least in this respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Readers go into the book knowing that they are unfamiliar with that
universe, and are prepared for a little explanation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But most readers are of the mind that they
are quite familiar with our world, and aren’t expecting a geography lecture
when they read alternate history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
cry: “Get on with it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know where
Ciudad Juarez is, for goodness’ sake!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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On the other side of the notebook, though, you have that
nagging little voice that tells you: “Hey, you can’t call it Ciudad Juarez,
because the Aztecs don’t speak Spanish!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And if you allow too many inconsistencies like that your story becomes
less and less believable, and it will be harder for the reader to be drawn into
your world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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And one might ask why I wrote this long quasi-tirade about
place-names, alternative history, and so on and so forth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, ask away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really, I was just blowing off some
steam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, I’m not writing an
alternative history where the Aztec Empire has persisted down to the present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m actually writing an alternate history in
which the Roman Empire developed steam technology and so never collapsed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when I write about places in the Roman Empire
it is important that they sound Roman (or Germanic, for the places in
Germania).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem, as outlined
above, is that if I write “Lutetia” will anyone know I’m talking about Paris? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no idea. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have decided to go with the Roman names, and
hope that I can write well enough to explain it all properly and not have
people fall asleep while they’re wading through it all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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Check back soon, I’ll have previews of my steampunk novel “Steam
Centurion” up for viewing!<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Nathan Hanawalthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03217200185912862641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9086573057799692841.post-84561248060714486872012-10-25T05:41:00.001-07:002012-10-26T22:04:28.487-07:00First short story up on Smashwords!<br />
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Well, I’ve put my first short story up for free on
<a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/248266" target="_blank">Smashwords.com</a>, and I feel pretty good about that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have written ever since I was old enough to
know which end of the pencil not to stick up my nose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Turns out it’s both.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who knew?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But before I completed <a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/248266" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Affair of the Atil Artifact</a>, I had never
actually finished any story I had ever started to write.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s changing, now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not precisely certain what it was, but
something has given me more focus, and I am concentrating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used to just write bits and pieces of
stories and then say to myself: “Meh, connect them together later.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the problem there is that it turns out
that my plots tend to develop as I write, and so the bits and pieces I write
here-and-there wind up not belonging to the story on which I’m working.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure every other writer has a similar
problem: dozens if not hundreds of little story-snippets on sheets of paper or
word processing files, fugitives from the aether of the imagination, given form
but no function, waiting to belong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
always feel like I owe those pieces; I brought them into the world, and I need
to find a place for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I
will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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But Affair of the Atil Artifact was not like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, I sat down one day, a light-bulb clicked
on, and then I was off!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I churned out
the full story in about a day and a half, and then spent months going through
it, cleaning it up, making it make sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I hope you enjoy it, and be sure to check back soon for the ongoing
adventures of the British Museum’s Division of Curious Devices and Remarkable
Artifacts!</div>
Nathan Hanawalthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03217200185912862641noreply@blogger.com0