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The Late-Blooming Writer

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by Olive Balla

Olive Balla245You’re over fifty, your kids are raised, your relationships are simple, you’ve learned most of life’s lessons firsthand, and now you want to write. Welcome. Welcome to the ranks of Late-Blooming Writers. As one of the aforementioned, I’ll share some of the bits and pieces of information gleaned along my path toward publication.

First, set a goal. Want to write meaningful poetry? Want to knock out a bestselling novel? Write down what you want to make happen. And then put it someplace where you’ll see it. Often. Next, stretch your brain-muscle. A good way to do that is to meditate. Thousands of pages of research indicate that meditating a few minutes a day will change the actual physical make-up of your brain. So will Sudoku, or jigsaw and crossword puzzles. And you’ll need to grow a tough skin. Not the kind that insulates you from the world, or squeezes the juice from your sensitivities. But the kind that allows the slings and arrows of rejection to roll harmlessly off as you do the trial and error thing to find your Writer’s Voice.

Then you’ll need to bone up on the basic rules of grammar and the elements of style. Strunk and White offers a small but priceless treasure trove of style tidbits. Besides learning the difference between showing and telling, you’ll need to use strong verbs, stay away from passive voice, and use few, if any, adjectives or adverbs. Oh, and you would be wise to eschew any iteration of the verb “to be.” You get the idea. Just as with any craft, you must first learn the rules, beginning with the basics.

Pitfall number one: Writer Entitlement. It’s an interesting but recurring phenomenon in wannabe writers, that their opinions about their own writing skills outshine the reality. I’ve read this in countless articles and blogs, so there must be something to it. We’ve always been told how well we write, so we figure our success is assured. However, none of us have been born with the Consummate Writer Gene already firmly installed. The kind of writing that gets published requires hard work and focused attention, followed by vigorous, time-consuming (often painful) revision.

Pitfall number two: Memoirs. Once you’ve generated dozens of chapters of the novel you can’t quite finish, after writing several essays and short stories, and once you’re absolutely certain you’ve reached the apex of writing competency, you’ll find yourself considering the possibility of writing your memoirs. Some would say it’s never too early to chronicle your life experiences. But unless your aim is to produce something solely for the historical value it might have to your family, it seems to me a better idea to put a memoir on hold—at least until after your first book is published. Although your life has doubtless resembled a roller coaster in its hairpin curves and surprising twists and turns, it’s tough to sell a memoir until someone, somewhere, knows your name. That is, unless you dated someone famous and decide to write a kiss-and-tell. Note: Just a suggestion, but if you want to write your memoirs as revenge for a lifetime of wrongs, you might consider finding a good attorney to cover your back. Libel suits can be expensive indulgences.

Pitfall number three: You believe the only-partially-true statement that all one has to do to achieve publication is to write. A lot. But the sad truth is it takes much more than cranking out ream upon ream of verbiage to make one’s way into the semi-rarified strata of published writer. Unless writers have occasion to be catapulted into the focus of the national news media, they must learn the ropes of the publishing industry, subscribe to various writers’ magazines and e-zines (or better yet, start one), join critique groups, build an extensive platform, and basically eat, drink and sleep writing. The key is to never stop learning and revising yourself.

Pitfall number four: You fear time is against you. Late bloomers often fall victim to this downward spiral of thought. You grow more and more impatient as the days, weeks, and months go by and your folder of rejections thickens. But hang in there. The process will not be hurried. Google writers who were published after the age of fifty and revel in the knowledge that you’re not alone.

The good news is that hundreds of books have been written on the subject of writing. Everything from workbooks to software is available. Pick one and get started. You’re on the ground floor, so there’s nowhere to go but up. Good luck. And as Tiny Tim said, “God bless us every one.”

AnArmAndALeg72Olive Balla, author of suspense novel An Arm and a Leg, is mother of 3, grandmother to 13, great-grandmother of 4, a retired educator, and part-time professional musician. Having been everything from secretary at a used car dealership, a university student, and a high school Spanish teacher, Balla states her characters are, in part, amalgamations of people she’s met. Living with her husband Victor in the Albuquerque area, she spends her spare time in a small woodworking shop designing and building everything from breadboxes and wine racks, to a porch bench. Visit her website at: omballa.com.

This article was originally published in the January 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



Grammatically Correct: Me, Myself, and I

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by Dodici Azpadu

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The personal pronouns, I and me are frequently used incorrectly because writers do not remember the rules for case. Case is the grammatical functions pronouns have in sentences. To make matters worse, speakers regularly use myself in place of I or me because they do not know which is correct.

Do not be confused by celebrities who have a penchant for me, myself, and I.

Use subjective case I for all subjects.

My co-star and me are just friends. [Wrong]
My co-star and myself flirted innocently at the gala. [Wrong]
My co-star and I are cheating on our spouses. [Correct]
I lived above the garage because my mother and me argued constantly. [Wrong]
I lived above the garage because my mother and I argued constantly. [Correct]

Use subjective case I for subject complements. Subject complements are additional information about the subject/actor, and they follow linking verbs. In dialog, writers can have characters speak idiomatically. A character enters a house, and his spouse calls to him from another room. “Is that you?” The character will probably answer, “It’s me.” Regardless of how often It’s me is said, writers should know the correct form.

It is I. [Correct]

Notice this strange subject complement structure.

I denied that the thief was me. [wrong]

Sometimes it helps to reorganize the sentence to tease out the correct form. Me was the thief, obviously does not work.

I denied that the thief was I. [Correct]

In this instance, the correct form is stiff. If writers prefer, they can rewrite the sentence.

I denied that I was the thief. [Correct]

None of the above examples will support the use of myself. Remember: Myself is always wrong as a substitute for I or me.

Use the objective case me for all object positions.

Object of a preposition. The easiest usage to remember is object of a preposition. Prepositions are words that connect nouns or pronouns to other words in the sentence, usually for purposes of modifying the other words. To, from, and with, for example, are prepositions, and they are always followed by objective case pronouns.

The clerk gave the bag to my girlfriend and myself. [Always wrong]
The clerk gave the bag to my girlfriend and I. [Wrong]
The clerk gave the bag to me. [Correct]

Direct or indirect objects of verbs. Briefly, a direct object receives the action of a verb. An indirect object tells the reader to whom or for whom the action of the sentence is done. Thus,

They gave I the gift. [Obviously wrong]
They gave me the gift. [Correct]
They gave the gift to Robert and I. [Familiar, but wrong]
They gave the gift to Robert and me. [Correct]

When speakers and writers are unsure about this structure, they are often tempted to use myself.

They gave the gift to Robert and myself. [Wrong]

Resist the temptation. Myself is a reflexive or intensive pronoun. It should never be substituted for I or me.

I weighed myself. [Reflexive]
I took him to the doctor myself. [Intensive]

A simple matrix will help keep the important elements in order.

Subjective Case Objective Case Possessive Case
Singular I Me My
You You You
He, She, It Him, Her, It His, Her, Its
Plural We Us Our
You You Your
They Them Their

Although the focus of this article is on I and me, case rules that apply to I and me apply to all personal pronouns.

TracesOfAWoman

Dodici Azpadu, MFA, PhD is a novelist, short story writer, and poet. Her fiction publications include: Saturday Night in the Prime of Life and Goat Song (Aunt Lute/Spinsters Ink) and subsequently Onlywoman (London, England). Living Room (2010) and Traces of a Woman (2014), both by Neuma Books, are available as ebooks. She’s currently at work on a novel, tentatively titled Living Lies.

WearingThePhantomOut100Her poetry publications include Wearing the Phantom Out (2013) and Rumi’s Falcon from Neuma Books. Individual poems have appeared in Malpais Review, Adobe Walls, ContraACultura (online), Parnassus, Sinister Wisdom, Latuca, The Rag, and The Burning Bush. Her work has also been anthologized in Centos: A Collage of Poems and Hey Pasean!
Dodici teaches “The Joy of Poetry” and “Craft of Creating Writing” classes through University of New Mexico’s Osher Lifelong Learning.

This article was originally published in the July 2011 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



There’s No Such Thing as a True Story

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by Joycelyn Campbell

website-hamster-75Autobiographical memory is a factor in almost every genre of writing, including fiction, memoir, poetry, history, and journalism. So it’s important to understand how autobiographical memory actually works and how reliable it is—or isn’t.

The scientists are telling us that memory is a reconstruction, and yet we, as people, tend to stick to our old-fashioned ideas that memory works like a video camera, for example, that it just records, and it files things away in mental DVDs that we can pull down and set playing. And in a way, that’s not surprising, because we see memories as foundational for who we are. We commonly feel that we are our memories; our memories define us. So something needs to change. … Accepting that memories are not literal representations of the past as it happened doesn’t mean that we have to forget about them or start disbelieving them all. But they’re shaped by who we are now. They’re shaped by what we feel, what we believe, what our biases are. (Charles Fernyhough, Pieces of Light)

According to neuroscientist Karim Nadar, it may be impossible to bring a memory to mind without altering it in some way. Memories we replay mentally over and over or talk about a lot with others are especially susceptible to such alterations. And when you retell it, the memory becomes plastic, and whatever is present around you in the environment can interfere with the original content of the memory.

What we now know is that our brains happily reconstruct memories, though we are frequently fooled into thinking that the reconstructions are seamlessly recorded recollections. … Even for the sharper memories born from strong emotions (often called flashbulb memories), time erodes the infrastructure, leaving cracks and gaps. Instead of remembering specific, perfectly accurate details, what constitutes memory over time are general impressions of events with spotty details—and the older we get, the spottier they become. (Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow)

There is more than one way to lay down a memory. We’re not talking about a memory of different events, but multiple memories of the same event—as though two journalists with different personalities were jotting down notes about a single unfolding story. … The conviction that memory is one thing is an illusion. (David Eagleman, Incognito)

The world is made of stories, not of atoms.

So said poet Muriel Rukeyser. And she was correct. The world of atoms is composed of facts, details, events, objects, phenomena, information, etc. In the world of atoms, things happen (events take place).

The world of stories consists of our perceptions and interpretations of what happened, as well as the meaning we assign to it.

The things that happen to, or around, us and our stories or explanations about those things are not the same thing. But because of the speed with which our unconscious brain processes information—and the fact that we’re not aware of what it’s doing—we think that our story about what happened is what happened.

It usually goes like this:

  • Something happens.
  • We pay attention to selected aspects of what happens. How do we decide what to pay attention to? For the most part, our unconscious makes that decision for us, based on the model of the world it maintains.
  • We miss most of it! We’re not capable of consciously perceiving everything that is going on around us. Our unconscious can process around 11,000,000 bits of information at a time compared to the 40 bits we can process consciously. There’s an amazing amount of filtering going on every single moment.
  • We come up with an explanation for the parts we paid attention to. We have an inner interpreter/narrator whose job it is to maintain an ongoing narrative of our lives, creating order out of chaos, making cause-and-effect connections, and generally leading us to believe we understand what’s going on. Our inner narrator is a great confabulator. If it doesn’t have all the information, it will make something up. We will almost always believe what it tells us, and we can’t stop ourselves from interpreting or explaining.
  • A set of brain circuits—usually brilliant, sometimes buffoonish—force narrative structure on the chaos of our lives. Our minds constantly struggle to extract meaning from the data rivering through our senses. … In the same way that your mind sees an abstract pattern and resolves it into a face, your imagination sees a pattern of events and resolves it into a story. If there is no story there, we are only too happy to invent one. (Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal)
  • We assign meaning to our explanation of what we paid attention to or noticed. We decide the meaning of things. And we can’t stop ourselves from making meaning.
  • After the fact, we have a memory of what happened, which is really a memory of our fragmentary perception overlaid by our explanation and the meaning we attached to it. This is not a memory of what actually happened in the world of atoms. Our memory tells us stories. So what we get to keep from our experience is a story. The kinds of memories that make the best stories—and the easiest ones to recall—are of events that had a strong emotional impact.
  • Each time we tell the story (to ourselves or others), we edit it. Talking and/or writing about an experience interferes with our memory of it. We remember not what we have experienced but what we have said about what we experienced. Usually the editing is unintentional, but if you pay attention, you can catch yourself in the act of editing to suit your audience, your purpose in telling the story, the impression you’re trying to make, or even your mood.
  • We have a tendency to reshape the irregular features of our world into smoother, more symmetrical forms. Inconvenient details tend to be pruned from our memories, and facts that do not fit together in a coherent way tend to be forgotten, deemphasized, or reinterpreted. The process of retelling a story in our own narrative style places certain constraints on what we recall, and these constraints guide our reconstruction of events. (Joseph T. Hallinan, Why We Make Mistakes) Essentially, we edit the stories of our lives the same way we edit our writing; the only difference is that when we edit our writing, we’re doing it on purpose.
  • What we are left with is the latest version of our altered recollection (and selected perception) of something that happened and what it means to us.

Everyone always has a point of view, in real life as well as in stories. We—and our characters—can’t help but view the world subjectively since everything that happens, happens to us. When you’re writing a story from a character’s point of view (POV), you include only what that character is aware of. But unless you’re a really bad writer, you don’t include random bits of information just because you find them interesting or because you discovered them in the course of your research. You edit those out.

Your POV character acts, reacts, and interprets events based on his or her model of the world the same as we do in real life. No one is a completely reliable narrator because we are all selectively paying attention to—or screening out—various things, interpreting what we pay attention to, creating cause-and-effect explanations, and assigning meaning.

Furthermore, our experiences modify the lens through which we view our entire past, present, and future, and like any lens, our worldview lens shapes and distorts what we see. The way we—and our characters—change is by altering the way in which we view the world.

Given the manner in which autobiographical memory works, it’s clear that there can be no such thing as a true story, whether the story in question is entirely made up or is based on actual events. A story can be more or less “truthy,” but it can never be absolutely accurate and true.

Joycelyn Campbell PhotoJoycelyn Campbell is a writer, teacher, and self-styled metacognition specialist (for lack of a better word). Through Farther to Go! she helps people discover what they really want in life and how to use their brain—and narrative structure—to get more of what they want and less of what they don’t want. She also facilitates Monthly Meetings of the Mind (& Brain) at North Domingo Baca Multigenerational Center in Albuquerque. Find out more at farthertogo.com.



The Athletic Mind-set for Writers

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by Sherri Burr

SherriBurr

In May 2009, I took a research trip to France that included a trip to the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros. At the time, I was putting the finishing touches on a book chapter called “Athletes as Television Celebrities: Why we watch, How they benefit, Must they be responsible.” I love watching athletes at the top of their game and feel they have much to teach writers about discipline, preparation and the head game or mind-set of a champion.

Tip 1: Discipline

Webster’s Dictionary defines discipline as “to train or develop by instruction and exercise [especially] in self-control.” Tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams and Raphael Nadal became stars in their sport because they trained and developed their talent and skills to a level of perfection that permitted them to overwhelm opponents. One of the challenges is to keep that up after you have obtained a certain level of success.

All of these players struggled in their opening rounds of the French Open as they faced other individuals who were developing their game, wanted to win, and had the discipline to practice, practice, practice. Nadal eventually lost to a Swede named Robin Soderling who thought of him as just another player and exploited the fact that Nadal was not disciplined about his game in the early rounds. The Williams sisters also lost well before reaching the championship round when they showed up with limited preparation to play on the red clay of Roland Garros.

Similarly, writers must be disciplined about developing talent and continuing to exploit it. Just as there can be one grand-slam wonders in tennis, there are a lot of one-book authors. The trick is to keep plugging away. Authors like Tony Hillerman did not start out on the best sellers list. Nor did he write one book and decide to rest on his laurels. Rather, he loved what he did and kept plugging away. Even toward the end of his life, Tony was trying out new plot ideas on friends.

Tip 2: Preparation

Athletes must constantly prepare. They smash balls with hitting partners before their games, study their opponent’s game, and make themselves as physically fit as possible to endure long matches. As writers, we must master our craft. I recommend attending workshops and classes even when you consider yourself an accomplished talent. Be open to learning from different genres. Although I write nonfiction, I once attended an 8-week novel writing class. This class was helpful when I wrote my memoir Living with New Nephew.

Tip 3: The Mental Game

While discipline and preparation are important, star athletes must also have their mental game operating at its peak. The mental game requires belief that you can win and the ability to calm yourself and keep plugging away when you don’t win a point or match as quickly as you’d like.

The number-one ranked female tennis player going into the 2009 French Open was Dinara Safina, a lumberjack-looking 23-year-old Russian who never won a grand slam tennis tournament despite being in three finals. Physically, Safina looks like she can overpower any player with her 6’0″, approximately 180-pound frame. Mentally, she becomes a wreck when she has to play in the finals for a championship. She chastises herself for missing points. “Why am I such a chicken?” she openly asked at the French Open championship.

As writers, we cannot afford to be like Safina. There are enough critics in the world. Rather than become your top critic, become your most important supportive coach. Tell yourself that you can write that article or book. If your dream is to become a published author, then create a business card that says your name followed by the word author. You have to believe it before you can make it a reality.

The bottom line is that to succeed as a writer requires discipline, preparation and a strong mental game. In other words, writers can benefit from adopting an athletic mind-set.

A Short and Happy GuideSherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, she has authored or co-authored twenty books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well Being (West Academic, 2014). Sherri is also a long-time member of SouthWest Writers and a regular contributor to the organization’s newsletter SouthWest Sage.

This article was originally published in the September 2009 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



Revising Fiction: Render Your Setting Effectively

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by Kirt Hickman

Revising Fiction

Every scene you write will take place somewhere. In other words, every scene will have a setting. You must transport your readers to that setting. How do you do that effectively?

Determine Setting Elements

First, ask yourself: What impression do I want to make? That the place is desolate? Opulent? Filthy? Dangerous? Foreign? Something more subtle? Choose details that can be experienced by each of the five senses, that will promote the impression you want to make. Work these details into the action of the scene.

Second, find ways for your setting to meaningfully affect your characters and plot. I’m not talking about having your character sit on the beanbag chair, lean on the granite countertop, or walk across the plush, forest-green carpet. I’m talking about using the fountain pen on the desk as a murder weapon, encoding a message that your hero must decipher into the wall tapestry, or shooting a hole through a window that looks out upon the vast vacuum of space while your characters are standing nearby. These kinds of elements will force your characters to interact with their setting. It will make the setting an integral part of your story.

Describe the Setting

When a character first walks into a setting, don’t stop the action to describe every nuance of the place. Better yet, don’t stop the action at all. The original prologue of my science fiction novel, Worlds Asunder, could have begun:

The traffic control room was small. It had two rows of computer terminals. Behind them sat the traffic controllers, facing a central holographic display that showed the current traffic patterns. Two federal agents stood behind Director Snider. The smell of sweat hung in the air. Suddenly, an alarm sounded.

Find a way to work these details into the action of the scene:

Director Jack Snider pulled at the collar of his jump suit in the sweat-fouled air of the traffic control room. He would have paced the aisle behind the second tier of computer terminals if it wouldn’t have betrayed his nervousness. As it was, he felt trapped. The federal agents who stood behind him, looking past his shoulders, made him uneasy, claustrophobic.

“Something’s wrong,” Chavez, the controller, said. Her voice, edged with tension, carried in the small room.

Snider’s heart surged. Trajectory traces crisscrossed the holographic display that dominated the front of the room. The muted voices of the controllers speaking into their comm links died into silence as the trajectory displayed for the Phoenix turned red and separated from the green line of the ship’s assigned flight path. An alarm sounded, reverberating off the walls and ringing in Snider’s brain.

Enhance the Description

Find opportunities to show how the day-to-day life of your character differs from that of the reader who wants your story to carry her away from her mundane world. Bring out the setting elements that are specific to your setting’s time period, country, or culture. If your story takes place in the present day, show setting elements that are specific to your character or his situation. If he’s a cop, show him cleaning his gun or escorting handcuffed prisoners through the police station. Make him sweat in his Kevlar vest. Include the sounds of sirens and the clanging of iron doors, and have him say something only a police officer would say. Now the reader has a sense of what your character’s world is like.

Consider this excerpt from the opening scene of Worlds Asunder:

Chase sucked the last of the coffee from his seal-pak mug, then checked the date for probably the fifth time that day. Just two more weeks to retirement. Then he could go home to Earth and what was left of his family.

In this paragraph, Chase holds not just a mug, but a seal-pak mug. The reader doesn’t know exactly what this is, but with a reference to the slight lunar gravity a few sentences later, she can fill in the blanks. The reader also knows from this paragraph that Chase is not on Earth, which certainly makes his setting different from the reader’s here and now.

Describe from your Character’s Viewpoint

Finally, make sure you’ve described your setting in a way that reveals the viewpoint character’s attitude and emotional state. Is the room cramped, or cozy? Is it cluttered, or lived in? Are the furnishings antiques, or are they just old and outdated?

Do all of these things and you will immerse your reader in your character’s world, which is where she needs to be if she’s going to buy into your story.

WorldsAsunderKirt Hickman is a technical writer turned fiction author. His books include three sci-fi thriller novels Worlds Asunder (2008), Venus Rain (2010) and Mercury Sun (2014), the high fantasy novel Fabler’s Legend (2011), and the writers’ how-to Revising Fiction: Making Sense of the Madness (2009).

This article was originally published in the April 2010 issue of SouthWest Sage, and is reprinted here by permission.



Steven T. Murray and Tiina Nunnally: On Translating and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

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by Joanne Matzenbacher

Steven T. Murray and Tiina Nunnally are a husband and wife team who make their living as literary translators of Scandinavian languages into English. Steven (using the pseudonym Reg Keeland) is well known for translating the Millennium series, beginning with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Tiina has translated over forty books, including works by Vidar Sundstøl (Minnesota Trilogy), Sigrid Undset, and three novels by Klas Östergren. Both Steven and Tiina have translated Henning Mankell and Camilla Läckberg, as well as other crime fiction authors.

How did you become translators? How did you find a publisher?
Steven: I studied German in high school and college and then attended Stanford’s program abroad at the campus in Germany. I was disappointed that the American students didn’t have an opportunity to speak more German, so I was impressed when I met students staying in Denmark and Sweden who had really learned the language. I ended up joining the Scandinavian Seminar program and studying at a Folk High School north of Copenhagen. That’s how I learned to speak fluent Danish. Eventually I started my own publishing house, Fjiord Press, which Tiina and I ran for 20 years. We published mostly German and Danish titles in English translation, and our books got lots of reviews in the major newspapers, including The New York Times. That was how we established our reputations as translators of Nordic literature.

Tiina: I spent a year in Denmark as an exchange student, and no one spoke any English with me, so I had to learn to speak Danish! I fell in love with the country and the literature and wanted to share the books I was reading with my English speaking friends. The first book I translated was a wonderful memoir called Early Spring by Tove Ditlevsen – the story of a working-class girl growing up in Copenhagen in the 1930s and yearning to become a poet. I was lucky enough to meet the publisher of Seal Press at a party in Seattle, and she asked to see the translation. I was thrilled when she decided to publish the book!

What are some of the most difficult parts of a book to translate?
Steven: – Slang is always difficult, but the Internet is a big help. If I can’t find a word in my dictionaries, I Google the word on teenagers’ blogs in Scandinavia, to see how the kids are using it.

Tiina: Humor is always difficult to translate, because something that’s funny in one language may not be funny at all in another language. And swear words always present a problem. For example, in the Scandinavian languages, the worst epithets have to do with the devil. But in English, a curse about the devil wouldn’t have much impact. Most of our swear words have to do with God or sex. I once translated a Danish author’s novel that was filled with swear words. When he looked at my translation, he sent me an email saying: “How did all these Gods get into my text?!”

How long does it take to translate a novel?
Steven: The Millennium trilogy took about 11 months, but that was fast work on my part, because each book was more than 900 pages in manuscript! So that was actually equivalent to translating six regular sized novels. Generally, we each try to do about four or five books a year. We’re both full-time literary translators.

Do the authors you translate know enough English to read the translation? Does anyone ever say to you that the nuance or feeling isn’t exactly right?
Steven: I agree. Sometimes authors think that just because they have the ability to speak English (however fluently) they also have the ability to capture all the nuances in writing. Two very different skills.

Tiina: Some authors get more involved than others. Most Scandinavians speak good English, but writing English is a whole different matter, especially when it comes to writing fiction. We’re always happy to work with an author on the final version of a translation. It’s especially helpful if we can email him or her questions. But authors have to trust the translator. And our first loyalty is always to the author and the text – we realize that we have a big responsibility, because we are the author’s voice in English. Accuracy and artistry are both essential.

In any language there are certain words that just don’t translate well. How often do you encounter the dilemma of “just how do I say that?”
Tiina: A word-for-word translation will never convey the nuances or depth of a literary text. It takes more than linguistic knowledge of two languages to be a good translator. We often say that we’re like musicians who have to “play” the text for the reader. We’re also like actors, who have to give up our own identity and inhabit the voice of the author. Every translator brings his or her own experience and talent to a text, but it’s important not to insert too much of yourself into the translation. We want the translation to read as if the book had originally been written in English. Translation is an art, not a science.

In Swedish and other languages, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is titled Men Who Hate Women. Who changed the title for the English market, and why?
Steven: The British publisher acquired the world English rights to the trilogy, and I guess he thought the books needed titles that would have greater commercial appeal. So he changed the titles of books 1 and 3 and created what some people are calling the “Girl” trilogy.

Why did you choose to use a translator pseudonym?
Steven: We strongly believe that translators should get credit for their work, which means having their names on the cover and/or title page and getting mentioned in PR for the book. But if the editor or publisher makes major changes to the text without the translator’s permission, so that the final English version no longer reflects our work, then we sometimes (reluctantly) choose to use a pseudonym. In the case of the Millennium books, I wasn’t given enough time to go over the final editing, and I also didn’t agree with many of the changes that had been made. For example, in one scene where Blomkvist is at his sister’s house, she asks him how he’s doing. Larsson wrote, “I feel like a sack of shit,” but this was arbitrarily changed to “He told her he felt as low as he had in life.” These kinds of changes alter the tone and flow of the writing, and I didn’t want to be blamed for such things.

Do you read the book cover to cover before starting the translation?
Steven: We usually don’t read the book before we start translating, especially if it’s a crime fiction novel. We like to be as surprised by the story as the reader will be, and it helps to keep the translation as “fresh” and exciting as possible. But of course we go back and revise many times after finishing the first draft.

Tiina: I was interested to read that Gregory Rabassa, who has translated so many amazing novels from Spanish, doesn’t read the text in advance either. And by the way, he has written a fascinating memoir about his life as a translator called If This Be Treason.

Did you like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo from the start?
Steven: As soon as Lisbeth Salander appeared on the scene, I knew it was going to be a great book.

JoanneMatzenbacherJoanne Matzenbacher does email marketing for independent bookstore Bookworks. She also reviews books that she’s currently reading plus those new to the marketplace in a monthly column titled “It’s About Books.” Joanne retired from Dex Media as a trainer/sales manager and now lives in Denver where she keeps in constant communication via computer with the Bookworks store in Albuquerque. Books are her best friends and companions for life, so she considers this to be her dream job.

This interview was originally published on the Bookworks blog and in the October 2010 issue of SouthWest Sage. It is reprinted here by permission of the author.

Related Article:
“Tiina Nunnally Receives Knighthood” by Gayle Lauradunn
October 2013, page 1, SouthWest Sage



Grammatically Correct: To Comma or Not to Comma

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by Dodici Azpadu

061957-firey-orange-jelly-icon-people-things-people-singing200

If writers understand the basic rules for comma usage, they will not worry about unnecessary commas. However, some people prefer to operate by what not to do. That’s why even the most rigorous grammar texts include sections on unnecessary commas.

Most writers know that a comma is necessary between compound independent clauses, and the comma is followed by a coordinating conjunction to be correct.

Bob returned the lawnmower, and he asked to borrow the clippers. [Correct]

Most writers also know that if the subject (he) of the second clause is removed, the comma is also deleted.

Bob returned the lawnmower and asked to borrow the clippers. [Correct]

The compound elements returned the lawnmower (verb and object) and asked to borrow the clippers (verb and object) are connected without a comma.

So the rule is: No comma between compound elements unless the elements are independent clauses.

A slightly more complicated version of this application occurs when the compound elements are subordinate clauses.

She said that she was serious, but that she wasn’t rigid. [Incorrect]

The compound elements are both dependent clauses introduced by that, so no comma is necessary.

She said that she was serious but that she wasn’t rigid. [Correct]

Another curious rule regarding unnecessary commas: No comma between an adjective and a noun or between an adverb and an adjective. Most writers would never use a comma between an adjective and a noun in a sentence like the following.

It was a dirty job. [Correct]

Some writers have a problem when the adjective noun occurs as part of a series.

It was a boring, dirty, job. [Incorrect]

It was a boring, dirty job. [Correct]

If writers remember how to use an adjective and noun (dirty job), they can apply the rule to adverb and adjective combinations.

He was a dangerously, rebellious boy. [Incorrect]

He was a dangerously rebellious boy. [Correct]

As in many situations, judgment calls are the most difficult. Another rule for unnecessary commas is: No commas to set off restrictive or mildly parenthetical elements. Simply stated, commas are unnecessary if the element restricts the meaning or is essential for the meaning.

The film, Hero, is an epic of Chinese history. [Incorrect]

The film Hero is an epic of Chinese history. [Correct]

Not just any film is an epic of Chinese history. The specific film is essential to the meaning.

Judgment calls also come with parenthetical expressions. The following sentence contains the rule and the example.

Some parenthetical expressions, by the nature of the qualifying information contained in them, require commas. [Correct]

However, when it comes to unnecessary commas the rule is: No commas to set off mildly parenthetical expressions.

She, essentially, taught reading and writing. [Incorrect]

She essentially taught reading and writing. [Correct]

Comma usage is one reason writers keep a grammar book on their work tables. When in doubt, check the table of contents or the index under unnecessary commas.

TracesOfAWoman

Dodici Azpadu, MFA, PhD is a novelist, short story writer, and poet. Her fiction publications include: Saturday Night in the Prime of Life and Goat Song (Aunt Lute/Spinsters Ink) and subsequently Onlywoman (London, England). Living Room (2010) and Traces of a Woman (2014), both by Neuma Books, are available as ebooks. She’s currently at work on a novel, tentatively titled Living Lies.

WearingThePhantomOut100Her poetry publications include Wearing the Phantom Out (2013) and Rumi’s Falcon from Neuma Books. Individual poems have appeared in Malpais Review, Adobe Walls, ContraACultura (online), Parnassus, Sinister Wisdom, Latuca, The Rag, and The Burning Bush. Her work has also been anthologized in Centos: A Collage of Poems and Hey Pasean!
Dodici teaches “The Joy of Poetry” and “Craft of Creating Writing” classes through University of New Mexico’s Osher Lifelong Learning.

This article was originally published in the October 2011 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



Joint Authorship: Professional Marriages Made in Heaven or Hell

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by Sherri Burr

SherriBurrJoint author collaborations can be as complicated as marriages, and last as long or as briefly. Jimmy and Rosalind Carter survived a multi-decade marriage before deciding to co-author a book. They raised several children, ran a peanut farm, governed the state of Georgia, and lived in the fish tank known as the White House. Yet when the two decided to write a memoir together, their marriage almost collapsed. What they found is that they didn’t remember the same events and dialogue, or reflect in the same way on the significance or meaning of events. In the end, they published a memoir with separate his and her parts, with different typesets so that you knew when one was speaking.

If Jimmy and Rosalind had problems co-authoring together, what does it say for the rest of us? Many collaborations are entered into with haste and the parties often repent in leisure. Unfortunately, some joint authors have headed to court to resolve their differences.

The copyright statute defines a joint work as one prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole.

Courts have considered whether the researcher of a play or the contributor of two scenes and new characters to a movie can be considered joint authors. The answer was “No,” in Childress v. Taylor. Someone who supplied underlying research material, which the playwright turned into a play, does not become a co-author. Similarly, in Aalmuhammed v. Lee when a film consultant contributed two scenes with new characters, Arabic translation into English subtitles, and selected prayers for the film Malcolm X, that person did not become a joint author, but rather the appropriate designation was religious consultant.

By contrast, a court said that the author of an outline and two chapters could potentially be considered a joint author of a novel. In the case of Maurizio v. Goldsmith, Goldsmith asked Maurizio to help write a book about first wives, and proclaimed that they “would make a lot of money off the book and get rich.” Goldsmith and Maurizio worked together on the outline. It wasn’t until Maurizio attempted to formalize their agreement by asking for co-authorship credit and 25 percent of the profits from the book that Goldsmith reacted badly. After Maurizio sued, the court ruled there were serious joint authorship issues that could be tried by a jury.

A recent joint authorship case involved two law professors. The parties, Kate Bloch and Kevin McMunigal, agreed to write a casebook together in 1999. In 2000, they entered into an agreement with Aspen Publishers to produce Criminal Law: A Contemporary Approach in April 2003. Their book published in April 2005. Afterwards, the professors agreed to separate and reached a separation agreement in November 2007. Aspen said it would give them individual contracts if they could separate in writing. McMunigal submitted a new casebook proposal, which Aspen accepted. Bloch did not submit a new proposal and repudiated the separation agreement. McMunigal sued, claiming the casebook is a collective work and not a joint work.

Unlike a joint work, a collective work is defined as one in which a number of contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole. Prominent examples are periodicals, anthologies, and encyclopedias and the SouthWest Sage newsletter. The contributors to the Sage retain their copyright in their individual work.

In McMunigal v. Bloch, the court found that the casebook was a joint work and not a collective one. The professors intended to become co-authors when they entered into a publishing contract that described them as co-authors and specified joint obligations, including requiring they submit a single manuscript. Further, they both supervised the casebook and it did not list who authored which chapters. Thus, the casebook could not be partitioned like a collective work.

To avoid ending up in a court, here are some suggestions that hopefully will make your joint author collaborations flow smoothly:

1. Pick someone to work with whose work you have examined and admired.

2. Memorialize the contribution in writing, even if it’s on a napkin to indicate who is responsible for what parts of the work.

3. Draft a schedule and stick to it. Pick one person to ride herd on the other author(s).

4. Decide at the beginning, when you like each other, how you might someday end the collaboration if necessary. Prepare the equivalent of an authorship prenuptial agreement.

A Short and Happy GuideSherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, Burr has authored or co-authored twenty books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well Being (West Academic, 2014).

This article was originally published in the September 2011 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



An Interview with Author RJ Mirabal

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RJ Mirabal is a New Mexico native and former high school English teacher whose debut novel The Tower of Il Serrohe was published in 2012 by Black Rose Writing. The Tower was a finalist in the science fiction/fantasy category of the 2013 New Mexico/Arizona book awards. Visit RJ’s website to read a synopsis and sample chapters of his novel, along with updates on the sequel, Extreme Dust Storms May Exist, scheduled for release in the spring.

Tell us about your debut novel. Wrenched from a deteriorating lifestyle when his promiscuous wife kicks him out, anti-hero Don Vargas rents a dilapidated casita which, unknown to him, is actually a portal to another world. Vargas takes readers through a dusty portal on a Southwest contemporary fantasy quest into a larger-than-life alternate Rio Grande Valley where local clanspeople are at war with the Soreyes who terrorize them on a regular basis. The clanspeople need Don to save them from the wily Soreyes’ mysterious Tower, but he only wants to drink his troubles away.

What do you hope readers will take away from The Tower of Il Serrohe? This book explores how perception governs our relationship with the universe. All of what we perceive to be reality is a function of our perception, which is informed by our normal senses and our emotional and philosophical states of being. And, as in most literature, I hope readers will see that evil is bad, kindness is good, and love is essential to life. But, honestly, my main focus is entertaining and enlightening my readers who can share in my imagination as they read the book.

What unique challenges did this work pose for you? I had to put myself into the skin of a character who shares little with me in terms of values and lifestyle. And I wanted readers to appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of the New Mexico setting. We who live here find it second nature to enjoy our landscape and interesting lifestyles, but to capture it in a novel that isn’t entirely realistic was a fascinating challenge. Finally, I wanted to take readers on a great adventure. Keeping it all interesting was a constant challenge, and only readers can judge whether I succeeded.

What was the most rewarding aspect of writing The Tower? To see my characters become a reality on the printed page, with their lives and unexpected problems taking place on the New Mexico landscape, has been the most rewarding for me. To talk with people about how these characters and their lives came alive for them is a writer’s dream.

How did this project come together? The story idea was inspired by the old adage: “Write what you know.” I knew New Mexico and I have enjoyed fantasy stories since childhood, so I combined the two and placed my fantasy in New Mexico instead of the typical Medieval European setting. The other spark that started the fire of my story was taking on the challenge of writing about someone with personal problems I didn’t share. From initial idea and a couple of short stories that gave birth to the much more complex novel, it took 30 years to complete this story. Of course, I wasn’t working on it that whole time. I actually spent the last three years on the majority of the writing, editing, and getting it published by 2012. But the story ideas and my writing style improved over those years. I read continually, taking inspiration and tips from every author I read.

Are you a pantser or a planner? I start out as a pantser once I have an idea that intrigues me. I usually write one or two chapters (not always the first chapters) off the cuff, usually in a torrent. Then I step back and start mulling and plotting in such detail I can copy my notes to the draft and flesh out additional details. Strangely enough, when I’m plotting, I’m still being a pantser because I seldom go back and make drastic plot changes unless I’ve discovered a logic gap or have a revelation that energizes the story.

Why do you write in the particular genre you’ve chosen? I have always been more fascinated by stories beyond “reality.” In junior high, I got hooked on science fiction and I still admire the icons of that genre: Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Jack Williamson, Kurt Vonnegut, and dozens more. Then along came J. R. R. Tolkien and fantasy was added to my list, along with great mystery writers like Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, and many new writers such as Henning Mankell (Kurt Wallander series). Two of my favorite writers are fellow New Mexicans: Tony Hillerman, the famous writer of Navajo detective mysteries, and Rudolfo Anaya, well-known author of the Hispanic experience. Both writers have evoked the New Mexico landscape, culture, and lifestyle. I have tried to bring together these diverse elements in my writing.

What has been the most challenging so far—writing or promoting? At first, I thought writing was difficult. But now that I am learning and struggling to promote my book, I find the writing to be fun and the promoting to be drudgery. If I could afford it and found someone who could do a great job of it, I’d turn over the promotion to someone else. Maybe once I have a bestseller! Having to talk up my own work is not in character for me, in addition to the realization many contacts have to be made before one pans out. When I write, I can knock out as many pages, etc. as is needed to tell the story—much easier to me in comparison.

What are you working on now? My editor, Peggy Herrington, and I are putting the finishing touches on the final draft of the sequel to The Tower of Il Serrohe entitled Extreme Dust Storms May Exist. This story centers on Esther Jiron, a sixteen-year-old honor student, who is drawn into the alternate valley of the first book, the Valle Abajo. Once again the clanspeople of the Valle are under the cruel siege of the Soreyes who terrorize and dominate the Valle. Esther is called to the Valle to help the clanspeople fight off this continuing threat just as they had called Don Vargas. Of course, there will be many surprises as the story develops. I’ve already mapped out the basic plot and am writing the first few chapter drafts to conclude the saga in a third installment entitled Zero Visibility Possible.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. KL has a new speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



Revising Fiction: 5 Goals of an Opening Scene

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by Kirt Hickman

Revising Fiction

Your opening scene must accomplish several things:

Make it clear from the outset who your hero is

Write the first scene of Chapter 1 from your hero’s point of view. I go a step further and make my hero the first named character in the book. Your reader will pick up on these cues. If you start Chapter 1 from the viewpoint of some other character, your reader will incorrectly assume that this character is the hero, which might cause confusion later on.

Show your hero’s ordinary life

Your story should pull the hero away from his ordinary life. Before it does, however, you must show the reader what that life is like. This will help the reader understand the impact the crisis will have on that life and on the hero. Show the reader what kind of person your hero is. Give her a moment to connect with him in a setting she can understand and relate to.

Hook your reader

Many people will read the first page of a book while they’re standing in the bookstore deciding which book to buy. If your story doesn’t rev up by the bottom of the first page, you’ll probably lose these readers. Therefore, give your hero an immediate desire, even if it’s just a cup of coffee, and place an obstacle between him and the thing he wants. Otherwise your opening will lack tension.

My first novel, Worlds Asunder, begins:

“It was really embarrassing.” Edward “Chase” Morgan drew the top card from the deck: the queen of diamonds. “We’d just returned from hitting a crack factory and warehouse in Cuba. This was back when President Montros thought he could stop the drug trade with air strikes.”

He tapped his cards on the table. Michelle Fairchild, his materials engineering intern from Mars Tech, had won every game that evening. Not this one, though, if he could help it. Chase needed just two cards to win and Michelle hadn’t laid down any of hers. Unfortunately, the queen wasn’t one of the two. He tossed it onto the discard pile.

Smiling, Michelle picked it up, then placed it and two others on the table. Chase groaned. That group put her in the lead and, at double or nothing, the credits were starting to add up.

The opening dialogue promises an embarrassing story about my hero, Chase Morgan. It hooks the reader in just four words. The rest of the paragraph reveals Chase as an adventurous character, the card game gives him an immediate want, Michelle presents an obstacle to victory, and the credits provide the stakes of the game.

Make your hero likable

As the scene progresses, I show Chase caring (in a paternal manner) for both his intern and his dog, poking fun at himself, and losing the game graciously. The scene gives the reader several reasons to like him.

Define your hero’s goal

Because you need to show a snippet of your hero’s normal life before crisis disrupts it, you might not introduce the external conflict (your hero’s goal in the story) until some time later. Nevertheless, reveal his goal before the end of the first chapter. In Worlds Asunder, I do this about two pages later:

The comm panel buzzed. Chase stretched his lanky frame and got to his feet, then leapt to the terminal against the slight lunar g.

“We’ve got a ship in trouble,” Security Chief Stan Brower said. “The Phoenix. Snider needs you to assemble a team…”

[Chase] logged into NASA’s data net and scanned the Phoenix file. He scrolled past the physical statistics— size, class, thrust-to-mass ratio—and came to the corporate data.
OWNER: Stellarfare
CREW: Randy Lauback, Phyllis Conway
He read the last line again. His investigations career had come full circle, it seemed. It would end where it had begun. With Randy Lauback.

Chase knew then that he had to take the case, however long it might last, and follow it through to completion. He owed Randy that much.

This not only defines his goal, solving the Phoenix case, but also gives him a personal stake (some unspecified, yet important, history involving the ship’s pilot).

If you haven’t accomplished all these things by the end of Chapter 1, find ways to do so. This may mean deleting scenes from the beginning of your book and starting the story when the crisis occurs; it may mean changing the viewpoint character of the opening scene or moving a different scene—one written from the hero’s viewpoint—to the front of the book; or it may mean accelerating the pace by moving background information to later pages.

WorldsAsunderKirt Hickman is a technical writer turned fiction author. His books include three sci-fi thriller novels Worlds Asunder (2008), Venus Rain (2010) and Mercury Sun (2014), the high fantasy novel Fabler’s Legend (2011), and the writers’ how-to Revising Fiction: Making Sense of the Madness (2009).

This article was originally published in the March 2010 issue of SouthWest Sage, and is reprinted here by permission.



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