Hatrack River Writers Workshop: The Brief God of Stringfellow County (wc7500, 1stPOV fantasy vernacular, readers)

This is topic The Brief God of Stringfellow County (wc7500, 1stPOV fantasy vernacular, readers) in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by muranternet (Member # 9465) on :

When I were ten I dreamed I could do Magick.
They call it “lucid dreaming” nowadays. It’s when you’re dreaming, only you know it. I guess I didn’t always know it, or maybe I just didn’t want to. Maybe I just liked dreaming better’n Reality. I used to say, “Reality’s overrated,” but that ain’t really true. If I’d thought it out more, I woulda realized it were pretty hard to rate Reality any lower than I were. But I liked the sound of it, sounded smart, and far as I knowed it were true.
I mean, I weren’t a popular kid. Dumpy and strange, I hid away from people in my books. Always had least one paperback cradled in my hand or hidden in a bulgy pocket lest someone bigger take it from me, not cause they wanted it, but cause I needed it.

-----

This is a tough one for me. I posted another thread in General about this; everyone who's read it has liked it, but nobody can agree on what the ending means. I've done some revision to clarify it. At the end the protagonist is confused; I just don't want so much of that for the reader. Thanks for looking.

Posted by EVOC (Member # 9381) on :

I would read the whole thing if you want. I like the opening.

Posted by pdblake (Member # 9218) on :

I know you're writing in the MC's voice and that is the way he speaks but I found the dialect hard going. The odd use of words kept pulling me out of the story. I doubt if I could read a whole story written like that.

Incidentally, I'm from Yorskshire and a lot of people here mix up their were and was. I'm used to hearing it, and woulda, coulda etc, but reading 7.5k of it might be hard going as far as narrative is concerned. In speech it would be fine.

Posted by muranternet (Member # 9465) on :

EVOC: sent.

pdblake: I think my first draft was in standard English, but about halfway through the protag really wanted to talk like this. It might be better as a spoken word piece, if a better orator than me read it. Plus my third read-through of Riddley Walker probably twisted up my dialect-o-meter while I drafted. :P

Edit: Square brackets, not angle brackets for UBB code.

[This message has been edited by muranternet (edited March 26, 2011).]

Posted by Aaron White (Member # 9473) on :

Riddly Walker uses dense, peculiar dialect to emphasise the cultural otherness of the protagonist. The dialect here doesn't do that; speaking as a Southerner, I thought it seemed like generic "Howdy partner."

One difficulty with aggressive use of dialect in prose is that it keeps the means of speaking front and center when it should probably recede into the background. One way around this is to communicate the character's dialect subtly. Just because I'm reading it, here's an excerpt from "Cotton Comes to Harlem" by Chester Himes:

"Here I is been cooking in white folk's kitchens for more than thirty years."

The character's dialect is communicated by a simple, unobtrusive grammatical quirk; it makes the point simply, and feels more like a poetically expressive choice than a lot of heavy dialect effects.

Pronoun confusion; which "it" refers back to what?

"I mean..." implies that the following statement proceeds directly from the previous sentence, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

[This message has been edited by Aaron White (edited March 31, 2011).]

Posted by LDWriter2 (Member # 9148) on :

Interesting, by the dialect and the use of Magick instead of magic, I assumed it takes place years ago. Maybe the turn of the last century or even before. If the date is wrong you could put in something that indicates a later time.

It's a right nice openin', git's to the problem or the problem that leads to the Problem, if you git what I mean, right quick, which is good.

I have read published stories with that dialect or something very close anyway. I would assume he was talking about school or when he is around a lot of people. It could be a good thing to be clear about where he means.

I can't really say much more than those two points. There are some hatrackers who may see something I missed but as I said that's it for me

Posted by muranternet (Member # 9465) on :

@Aaron: I think "howdy partner" is closer to the intent than otherness. Unfortunately I haven't been in the South for a long time, so I'm not 100% on the language throughout; I just drawled it out in my head. I'd be grateful if you could take a look.

@LDWriter2: I think Magick just came out that way when I did it. Might be better without the k. There's a differentiation in the MC's mind between Magick and magic, but maybe it adds too much temporal ambiguity.

Posted by LDWriter2 (Member # 9148) on :

Well in that case it's kinda like Magick is the official term and magic is the corrupted street term.

And I could be just one person who thinks that way. See if anyone else agrees.

[This message has been edited by LDWriter2 (edited April 03, 2011).]

Posted by Aaron White (Member # 9473) on :

Muranternet, sure, send it over! I'm not a real dialect expert or anything... the South has lots of different dialects and even though I've lived all my life here I can't keep them straight.

Posted by Osiris (Member # 9196) on :

I want to tell you the title of your story, even though I haven't read it, really sticks in my head. So, great title, as far as I'm concerned.

For me, the vernacular with the woulda and the were/weren'ts is a bit heavy handed for my tastes. As some other people did trip up on it, I'd recommend using a lighter touch. You only really need one or two instances to stick the voice you are going for in the reader's mind. The reader will do the rest of the vernacular work for you, using their own imagination.