Musings on clichés and archetypes

[velvetpage]

Probably the most interesting thing about setting this book underwater, in a dolphin realm, is that many of the clichés of speech that we take for granted simply don't work. I'm hesitant to use words like "territory," "homeland," or "house," for example. I've kept "territory" because I can't think of a suitable replacement, but "homeland" has become "homesea," which my spellchecker doesn't like at all, and my dolphins don't live indoors so "house" is not really a problem.

I've been trying to create new clichés and mottos that fit dophin society. "Revenge is a dish best served cold" has no meaning in a place where food is not cooked, so I changed it to a rather clumsy reference to fat fish being more nourishing than thin, young ones. I'm going to have to tweak that a bit, but the basic idea is right. My characters don't say, "What on earth," they say, "What under the sweet green sea." They don't talk so much as sing to each other, and while I use the word "said" for ease of use, I also use the word "sang" from time to time, and more melodic synonyms liked croon, hum, intone - all of those I use often.

At the only writing workshop I made it to at Anthrocon, reference was made to the fact that senses are different when your characters are animals. You can tell a good writer from an amateur by the volume of scent referents in their books. I don't think I was consistent with this in "Dreamcarver," though it was there at least sporadically. This probably has something to do with thinking of my characters as humans more often than not. Having changed milieux entirely, though, I'm forcing myself to think of my characters as dolphins. I have to make up mannerisms of speech and body language that fit creatures who live in three dimensions, who have no legs and therefore no waists or hips, and for whom light versus dark is less important than sound versus silence. And I have to couch these mannerisms in language that my readers will automatically associate with the clichés and archetypes with which they are already familiar. My characters have to come across as simultaneously human and dolphin - dolphin for the purposes of plot but human for the purposes of character.

I suppose that's the soul of anthropomorphic writing, right there.

Comments

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I didn't think about the emotion of the person taking the revenge, only the time factor - good revenge takes time, just like a nourishing fish is one that has grown over a long period. I kept the food metaphor rather than the emotional temperature metaphor.

You're right about "under" the sea. "In" would make more sense. That's the Little Mermaid fan in me coming out. . .

[shavastak.livejournal.com]

Dolphins would think of themselves as being in the water, for sure...

But think of this. A human can be in the water, or *under* water, and they mean different things. (I think of in the water as specifically having parts above the surface, and more generally having bits of you or all of you covered in water; under water definitely implies submersion.) The key is that humans think of, and talk about, being partially or completely covered in water as a special case. To dolphins, that would be normal; they would have other special words for being partially or completely surrounded in *air*. So, they might think about being 'in the air' or 'above the water.' They do interact with the air - they have to - and generally do not seem to mind 'sticking a toe in' as it were, the same way we seem to enjoy playing in the water, but they can't stay there for too long.

Just stuff to think about.

Oh, on a semi-related note, there is much evidence to suggest that dolphins have a very keen sense of touch, especially in certain areas of their skin. They act like very touchy-feely humans; they touch up against one another a lot, in the way a human might glance over at a friend every now and then, or keep them in their peripheral vision.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've been writing them like that - circling around and brushing up against each other is not socially taboo, at least not amongst dolphins of similar ranks, but a very private character would avoid that kind of casual contact the same way a shy girl stays in a corner and tries not to be noticed.

My dolphins don't spend as much time in and around the surface as real dolphins would, because many of them are air-mages. They call air pretty regularly, and their parties include air pockets being maintained by people of insufficient rank to actually attend the party. I'm writing them as elementalists, though the only elements they are familiar with are air and water. There are a very few fire mages, mostly working with ore and the smelting thereof, and a few earth mages who mostly manifest as excellent fish herders and breeders, and sometimes gardeners.

Still, they do spend some time above the water, and work and communicate in that milieu on a fairly regular basis. Gotta remember to write that in.