Revisions, revisions

[la_marquise]

Still trotting on with the revisions on Grass King. I'm a little in love with it again, a year or more after the final lines were written. We'll see how long that lasts: I've passed the big revision of the start but have yet to hit the next major rewrites, which begin from the chapter after the one I'm currently working through. But mostly I like to rewrite. It's soothing, I have a map, I can see the other shore.
One casualty of this current process is in the names, though. I'm pretty good, usually, about letting go of character names when I have to. Gracielis, Thiercelin, Yvelliane -- all are renamed from the early drafts. This time, it's the turn of my five cadre, the elemental warriors. Sujhien, Hsirei, Lienye, Qiaqia, Tsai, as currently written.
Hard to read, harder to pronounce, said Nice Editor, and she has a point. I've seen people struggle with them. I know how they're said, of course I do, but they aren't spelled to fit standard English pronunciation and that really is a bit much of me. (For anyone who wonders, it's Soo-gee-en, Shear-ay, Lee-en-ee, Chee-a Chee-a, Tsigh.) A couple of them are hard to respell by English rules, annoyingly, and so there are changes on hand. Sujien, Shiray, Chiachia, Sai. I can live with those. But my heart bleeds a little over the last one. There's no sensible way to spell Lienye in English, so he's Liyan (or possibly Lyan: I'm not sure). He doesn't mind, but I do, a little.
I'll get used to it. I always do.

Skirt of the day: still jeans.
(The photos will return when I have a chance to take some. It's been busy round here this week.)

Comments

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Lienni?

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Looks too feminine, sadly.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's too bad. I really like the originals. I would not have known how to say Hsirei, though. Taking the h out of Sujhien doesn't change it much to my eye, but Shiray is so different from Hsirei that it's like a different language. Oh well.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I like the originals too :-( Shiray may go to Shirai, but part of me is trying to avoid faux-Chinoiserie.

[llwheeler.livejournal.com]

Reading the originals in a book would not have bothered me. But then, I don't think I really "sound things out" even mentally when I read. Just sort of accept it and keep reading. And I know I don't care if I'm pronouncing names the way the author intends them to be pronounced...

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Thta's my approach, too. But they bothered Nice Editor, so...

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

Gracielis, Thiercelin, Yvelliane are great names. The names are one of my favourite things about LWG.
I wouldn't have been put off by the first Grass King names, but on the whole I do prefer the new ones, though I prefer Tsai to Sai. Liyan is good, but Lyan makes me think 'Ryan' :(

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Tsai may stay: it's the clearest. And you're right about Lyan.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

I like Tsai too, however I would have definitely pronounced all the others wrong.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I think Tsai is fine as is.


And: Yay! for falling back in love with the book.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

For years I thought Penelope was pronounced to rhyme with antelope.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

My big issue was with blancmange. Also marchpane.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

O_O marchpane is like saucepan! I have learnt something new today.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

oops I'd never thought about marchpane...

But my most-embarrassing-learn-by-reading word was macabre.

And one of our political advisers pronounced epitome wrong in a meeting a couple of weeks ago. She is *very young* and *very bright*, and luckily I only chortled inwardly.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Falling in and out of love with a book in progress is a great thing -- on the one hand, wildly extravagantly enamoured...on the other hand, disillusioned and disgusted and impatient. All the things we need to keep ourselves honest.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I have this trouble too. I struggle to find a simple phonetic spelling, but it's tough when you not only hear the name, you see the image of the person, it feels like summarily changing the names of your family to suit strangers, though you know that you just sound twee and pompous to non writers.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Oh, yes. It really hurts asking Lienye to give up part of his name. Translation issues...

[aberwyn.livejournal.com]

Recent discussion of names at the writing group made me realize that even highly intelligent people can have trouble with names in fantasy works, or even in works of realism from other cultures, such as, say in Russian novels.

IE, I think you're right to simplify them.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Thank you: that helps.

[aliettedb.livejournal.com]

Uh? A lot of these sound and read fine to me. Guess there's no accounting for taste (one thing I did learn of writing the Aztec books was that English-speakers can only deal with a very limited number of phonemes. Most diphtongs are out; and double consonants are pretty rare. Coming from French, which has more flexibility in that department, this feels strange).

[aliettedb.livejournal.com]

Also, yay on liking the revision process!

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I like your Aztec names, but I recognise the problem. The cadre are spelled according to a fudge of Pinyin and Wade-Giles, because that was what worked. But, of course, I forgot that most people don;t work with 6 Chinese dictionaries on a shelf over their desks.

[stina-leicht.livejournal.com]

i'm so happy that you're loving your work again. [hugs] that makes me soo look forward to reading the next one. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I spent the last year thinking of this book as a failure. It's so nice to realise that it does, in fact, work (mostly).

[anef.livejournal.com]

I quite like the names as they are - unpronounceable names are part of the charm of novels set in exotic environments, and help conjure the illusion. Couldn't you have a pronunciation guide at the front, rather than changing them?

I also find it confusing if there are lots of characters (particularly the same sort of characters) whose names begin with the same letter - such as S.

PS Chiachia makes me think of pandas.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I did wonder about the pronunciation guide. I might ask Nice Editor.
Qiaqia got her 'q's because Chiachia makes you think of pandas!

[cianthecat.livejournal.com]

I def think Tsai and Qiaqia are fine as is. Chiachia does not work for me, it does remind me of pandas! Or some pokemon type of thing. Maybe because I have done a lot of work throughout Asia (including China and Mongolia) I didn't struggle with them at all, but I agree with anef's comment, its part of reading fantasy. Even if the reader's interpretation isn't the correct one, its just a name that they say in their head, and I somehow feel that the spelling of the name is just as important for the identity of the character and the world you are building.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Thank you. That's helpful.