Of BL Writers and Dialogue - what makes and breaks?

[mc warhammer]

Mothballing isn't exactly *slang*. Including "modern" slang dates things terribly, but it's also not exactly without precedent or utility.

 

Anachronisms can persist. Especially when they step away from their literal meaning into figurative or abstract territory.

 

----

 

Incidentally - I was yammering the other day about the *glorious* British paratrooper in "Captain Corelli's Mandolin". The bulk of the cast all speak Greek or Italian, but being British and an Oxbridge type put suspiciously above his competence, he can only communicate with the local shepherd boy via...

 

His knowledge of Ancient Greek.

 

So his dialogue (in a book written in English, But about Greek-speaking folk) is rendered all as "hark, forsooth" ye olde Englishe.

 

It's a great technique, and one I think BL writers are missing a trick on for when characters are ostensibly out of their element or out of their time.

 

For example: Dark Imperium's Guilliman could benefit from a lot of archaic turn of phrase and peculiar mannerisms. :)

i had a feeling someone would take the (unintentional) bait of the slang joke and address it in all seriousness ;)

 

as for anachronisms, from my examples i clearly agree there wholeheartedly

 

also agree on playing with archaic language for effect, as long as it’s consistent across board. it can be hard to manage with various writers. on that note, i did appreciate the use of the 4 humours introduced in HR

[Bulwyf]

I find myself remembering Robert E. Howard saying that his characters simply came up to him and told him their stories in their own fashion and at their own pace. He described it like someone talking to you at a bar. He simply tried to write down as best he could what his characters spoke to him. It made the stories feel organic, alive and vital. It also meant his stories were all over the place timeline wise. As his characters spoke to him they told their personal stories as it just came to them. Most people would do the same if you asked them for their life story, recalling particular incidents versus a linear progression in time.

 

You can definitely see the authors who use dialogue as it comes organically from the characters or when it is used as a plot device. ADB does a great job at this. His characters feel like old Bob Howard's example: they just pulled up a seat next to ADB at a pub and regaled him with the time they earned the sobriquet Night Haunter or imprisoned by the Inquisition the random recollections of this other chap with a big gauntlet and a wicked sword. The dialogue as a result comes across as what people would actually say to one another versus exposition framed in a conversation.

[bluntblade]

I like that.

 

George R R Martin also strikes me as someone who does it pretty well.

[Warpmiss]

Damn it, AD-B, I was gonna make the "As you know, Bob . . ." reference.

 

 

You should always call people by their specific rank in a formal briefing. In business and the military. It’s professional and eliminates confusion.

 

 

I don't disagree with the military example, but what on Terra do you mean by "in business"? "Good question, Vice-President of Marketing and Communications"? I can just about see addressing the chairman of the board as "Chairman" being normal, but otherwise?

 

Of course, being Australian, I've never called any boss I've ever worked for by anything other than their first name, so . . .

 

On the main topic:

 

This is definitely one of the things which I feel separates the novice writer from the journeyman. Experience teaches writers to convey necessary information in the way a scene is framed, shifting between dialogue and internal thoughts of the viewpoint character and omniscient narration to best effect. No character should ever recite information known to all involved in the conversation unless it's what they would actually do in that situation.

 

For instance, in a briefing, omniscient narration can describe a hololithic display of the planet the mission will take place on to let the reader know its name; the viewpoint character can observe and react to details like toxic atmospheres or inhospitable terrain formations, in the context of noting down for themselves the problems they'll be facing; the dialogue from the briefing officer can lay out other details that aren't displayed to everyone in the room on the hololith, like mission parameters or whathaveyou.

 

At minimum, if you really can't think of a better way to get the information across, make it a character tic; Jim is the sort of guy who has to go over the details multiple times, aloud, as a coping mechanism for stress or something, and your viewpoint character Bob goes along with it while rolling his eyes and thinking to himself that everyone knows this . . .

 

Even then, you don't have Jim say, "As you know, Bob . . ." because the point is that Jim isn't thinking about the fact that everyone knows the information he's going over again.

I want to like this comment but it seems I'm out of likes for today!

 

I also think that's the way to go, in literature, at least. In a book when you have two or more characters talking about a subject they are all familiar with but the reader isn't, it's time to use narrative/descriptive elements, otherwise the conversation is going to seem very unnatural. If a character and the reader are both new to something in a story explaining through dialog is a good choice but explaining everything through dialog can still be tricky. I personally prefer the bulk of exposition to be explained in narration/description and have characters add their nuggets of information along with it in their own way (a sarcastic comment about the state of things, for example can tell you a lot about a character's personality).

 

In another medium like movies feeding the audience necessary exposition is way trickier.

[bluntblade]

Returning to this, I think Abnett has a good handle on subtle exposition in his dialogue. Enough to inform the reader, but not so much as to be incongruous.

[carlisimo]

I’ve never seen an actual mothball, but I’ve used the term at work to refer to things like water treatment plants. I can see the term surviving.

 

Anyway, the topic made me think of two pages in Execution Hour (the Battlefleet Gothic novel) that cram the game’s special orders into the dialogue. It was surely deliberate, but I don’t remember that excerpt showing up in the rulebook or any promotional material. The rest of the book is great and feels very natural. Those two pages are like a White Dwarf battle report.

[Indefragable]

I feel like "mothballing" is exactly the kind of phrase that would survive for 50,000 years of human civilization...

 

...with no one really understanding it, just knowing what it means. Crusade-era Imperial Scholars, of course, posit that--like the ancient terran mon-kee--the moth was a subterranean predator that would burrow through vessels and leave its spherical spawn throughout, thus rendering them no longer effective craft.

 

Think of the children's diddy "ring around the rosey" which is actually about surviving the Black Plague, or "cutting to the chase"'s orgins in cinema, or of course the literal mercenary origin  of a "freelance" gig.

[bluntblade]

I like that. Like Vel Kheredur knowing that "curiosity killed the cat" but having no idea how.

[Phoebus]

The problem and the distinction, in my opinion, is when the author doesn't present such a term of turn of phrase within the context of having evolved/passed beyond recognition. To stick with "mothballing," for instance, the characters mean that term in the way it's understood today. Nor is there any indication that the author is even implying a setting-specific twist to it.

[carlisimo]

The term as we use it today is already well removed from the literal meaning, so I’d say it works.

[Phoebus]

And I would agree if "mothballing" meant yet something entirely different in M31-41. It doesn't, though; the authors are using it with the same meaning we do today -- the consignment of unused and/or outdated vessels or vehicles to reserve status and storage. 

[bluntblade]

I hadn't really thought about the use of words that should be redundant by then, tbh.

[Phoebus]

It's the little things that undo my suspension of disbelief.

[Ganders]

For me, as far as the Horus Heresy series has gone on, the dialogue has gone from believable characters who converse easily with one another with loads of personality such as Abaddon, Loken, Khârn, et al, to the stilted, boring, lack pf personality that I associate 40K marines with in Old Earth, where the dialogue is stilted and forced and the only way to differentiate between marines is that one is extra angry and one likes swords.

 

This may be a deliberate plan on black library's part to show the path from the camaraderie of the crusades to the more serious nature of the betrayal but I also may be giving them way to much credit.

[bluntblade]

Do you see that regardless of the author?

[Ganders]

I've not looked at it in detail, its just the impression I have so, no i don't know if its by author.

 

I just remember being able to relate more to the earlier marines with their more 'human' interactions and dialogue. Off the top of my head I can recall enjoying the banter between characters from the first three books, eisenstein, legion, fulgrim through to betrayer and even the camaraderie and causal dialogue between the iron warriors in AE. 

In the last ten or so books the only one that instantly springs to mind is maybe Scars and more so in Brotherhood of the Moon. 

 

Since then it just seems that its just marine stereotypes with monosyllabic oaths and battle-cries. 

 

I'm obviously generalisng massively and its just my opinion and impression. YMMV.

[bluntblade]

I feel like you are, a bit. Though I focus more on whether dialogue feels right and how it's written.

 

There is one character I know is altered to something more like a 40K marine, but he remains engaging throughout his arc.

[carlisimo]

And I would agree if "mothballing" meant yet something entirely different in M31-41. It doesn't, though; the authors are using it with the same meaning we do today -- the consignment of unused and/or outdated vessels or vehicles to reserve status and storage.

Maybe one day we’ll get a BL novel written in a period-appropriate mix of High Gothic and Vulgar Gothic and everyone will be happy.

[mc warhammer]

this mothballing thing really took hold hey

 

firstly, has the meaning changed that much from its origin to today? i feel like the colloquialism still more or less means to postpone or store away. which makes sense to us in modern times as we have context for a) what a moth is or what mothballs are used for 

 

beyond that , it also seemed the 30k characters are using it in the same context not a developed one

 

i get that we use some archaic phrases that have lost literal context (like "toe the line"). but there seems to be something so specific about "mothballing" that leaps out in context of 30k

 

it may just require some tweaking or further context from the author

[Phoebus]

 

And I would agree if "mothballing" meant yet something entirely different in M31-41. It doesn't, though; the authors are using it with the same meaning we do today -- the consignment of unused and/or outdated vessels or vehicles to reserve status and storage.

Maybe one day we’ll get a BL novel written in a period-appropriate mix of High Gothic and Vulgar Gothic and everyone will be happy.

 

I mean, it could be that... or, more simply, avoiding dated, period-specific terms.

[Xisor]

Phoebus, have you read many slang-heavy, jargon-heavy books that *work*? I know the Clockwork Orange is supposed to be a bit intense that way, and I recall being weirded out when first reading the Hobbit that Bilbo was narrating about spoons and handkerchiefs and kettles and things.

 

That is to say: I'm not at all sure where an agreeable middle ground is, save to say that there's a huge element of subjectivity in it for the reader.

 

For example, on one hand, Dan Abnett routinely does this sort of thing. Fugging ninkers, not to mention fugging Strabo, feth, dataslates, recaf, amasec, whatevs. And yet he also manages the widely derided wet leopard growl. (Personally, I'm of the opinion it's a good motif, well-used, and unfairly lampooned - but also agree that I'm not sure what sodden leopards sound like!)

 

Referencing Playstations and smartphones might be a bit on the nose for some genre-stuff, but there's turns of phrase that are undeniably convenient. And, at that, I'm certain that mothballing is one of them.

 

Heavens: it at least has practical, pragmatic uses that might account for its survival.

 

Do we really expect the cultural notions of Wolves to have persisted in it's modern and historical interpretations, with all their trappings, to make it into 30k, but object to a practical phrases?

 

I get there's an element of gut feeling here, that it's a peculiar phrase that's not exactly everyday for everybody, but I couldn't tell you the last time I even saw a wolf, if ever. But I've definitely referenced things stored in lofts and garages as being mothballed.

 

To put it another way: I'm not entirely convinced inspection of this can really lead to much more than self-awareness - that *we* have peculiar tastes when it comes to this sort of things (and perhaps realisation that the lines are different for others), but that the lines aren't that meaningful beyond the individual.

 

There's no reason First Captain Ezekyle Abaddon can't be singularly obsessed with the practice cages like any given preteen at their PS4...

 

:D

[carlisimo]

I got excited about this mothball thing because I’ve seen it before in sci-fi. I finally remembered where, and found it in a Star Trek novel on my shelf. My Enemy, My Ally, by Diane Duane, Kirk talking to a Romulan commander:

 

”Funny, actually…. There were other ships called Intrepid, you know. A lot of them got in trouble all the time. One of the most famous of them, the one in mothballs in New York Harbor--”

 

”This translator is having problems. You have little round flying insects on Earth that are eating a ship named Intrepid? And you ask me about the danger of names?”

 

“The ship,” Jim said with careful dignity, giving Ael a dirty look that needed no translation, “is in honorable retirement.(...)”

But yes, the phrase has changed from its original meaning - who here has actually seen a mothball? I’ve smelled traces of them in old furniture, but I had to look up what they looked like. Imo, the term is now sufficiently removed from actual mothballs that it’ll survive well beyond anyone familiar with the things.

[1ncarnadine]

 

But yes, the phrase has changed from its original meaning - who here has actually seen a mothball? I’ve smelled traces of them in old furniture, but I had to look up what they looked like. Imo, the term is now sufficiently removed from actual mothballs that it’ll survive well beyond anyone familiar with the things.

 

 

I do. I live in a rural home, and have in one place or another for most of my life. Anything like bedding, rugs, clothing etc that goes to the garage or our little barn for storage gets mothballs. 

 

This is a really silly phrase to be picky about, because as Xisor said, it's a matter of perspective. Who's to say that frontier settlers across the Imperium don't still use balls of naphthalene (or whatever chemical) to keep various fiber-eating insectoids away from their fibers? Why wouldn't they?

 

I can see how the term itself might get lost, though. If you're not using preservative balls to keep moths away... well... yeah. Then you end up with 'naphthawads' or something. 

[Morovir]

There's another good one in William King's Fall of Macharius:

 

'Nice to see you haven't lost your touch,' Anton said. 'You can still hit the side of a barn door at short range.'
'Do you even know what a barn is?' I asked.
'It's an ancient device,' he said. 'From the Dark Age of Technology. That's where the saying comes from. It was most likely a war machine of some sort. Maybe a tank.'

 

You can truly see how much has been lost.

[mc warhammer]

I got excited about this mothball thing because I’ve seen it before in sci-fi. I finally remembered where, and found it in a Star Trek novel on my shelf. My Enemy, My Ally, by Diane Duane, Kirk talking to a Romulan commander:

 

”Funny, actually…. There were other ships called Intrepid, you know. A lot of them got in trouble all the time. One of the most famous of them, the one in mothballs in New York Harbor--”

 

”This translator is having problems. You have little round flying insects on Earth that are eating a ship named Intrepid? And you ask me about the danger of names?”

 

“The ship,” Jim said with careful dignity, giving Ael a dirty look that needed no translation, “is in honorable retirement.(...)”

But yes, the phrase has changed from its original meaning - who here has actually seen a mothball? I’ve smelled traces of them in old furniture, but I had to look up what they looked like. Imo, the term is now sufficiently removed from actual mothballs that it’ll survive well beyond anyone familiar with the things.

 

 

but the term itself as an idiomatic expression was never about actual mothballs, was it?

 

our understanding of their function and existence (which isn't reliant on seeing one) helps inform the figurative meaning.

 

and it could survive for 10,000 years to be used by transhuman space warrior knights outside of any real understanding of mothballs. it's possible, though i feel not probable. we use "beat around the bush" and "rule of thumb" and "the whole nine yards" without any direct understanding of their literal origins, but we still have things like thumbs, bushes and yards to give us some kind of reference point. even if its misleading, we think we understand it.

 

maybe something like "scot free" would be a good example of something we still use but the average person has absolutely no context for.

 

for a 20th century phrase that survives into the far flung future totally intact, my personal view is that there are better choices.

 

This is a really silly phrase to be picky

 

i don't know about you, but i'm generally only picky about silly things