SEE Commentaries #4 - #6

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As before, these are notes which explain my thought processes and decisions while writing SEE, provided here as a service (or a warning!) to other writers.

These three chapters have only minor adjustments in general. The usual things like Capitalization and fixing typos. There are a few cases where I have changed "Yes" to "Aye" but in the main it will be difficult to spot most alterations. I have slightly changed one or two speeches but nothing that has any major significance.

Chapter 4

In this chapter Garia is abruptly aware of her circumstances and realizes that they are difficult. She suddenly has a different body, one that is smaller, weaker and more vulnerable. She has no idea how women are treated in this society so she has to tread carefully.

All she can do is follow people around the palace and do what she is told. In general, most people seem to want to help her and this is a certain reassurance, but there is always Morlan lurking in the background. There is as yet little opportunity for her to get an overview of where she is.

Chapter 5

This is the first battle with Morlan and she has to do it all on her own. Morlan has a preconceived idea of what Garia is and assumes that much of what she tells him is nonsense. The session does not end well. Fortunately a familiar face is at hand to help her recover from the confrontation and the King further reassures her.

When they first meet Keren is wearing clothes of a type not mentioned anywhere else in the story. At the time I wrote this chapter I had no idea what the clothing would look like, the royal colors or anything like that. Leather breeches seem questionable for exercising in the hot summer sun but we do not learn just what Keren had been doing; if for example he had spent the morning in the Armory his gear would have been acceptable. Subsequently his movements match those of Garia and he dresses differently.

Chapter 6

The second battle with Morlan shows Garia beginning to fight back but still having no idea how she will convince anyone of her plight - or even if that is a sensible thing to do. This time she talks with Keren, who has a more open mind, and seems to convince him that she really is from another world.

Garia is frustrated because she has been placed into a situation where nobody wants to tell her anything. She has a temper but obviously wants to keep it in check in this unusual situation. Later on we'll learn that she has knowledge of techniques for handling her temper but against that the hormones in her new body threaten to take her unawares.

At the end of the day, the second since she arrived at the palace, she gets the chance to physically explore her new body. I decided that, as it was a gender change, I could not see anyone overlooking the opportunity to find out what the new body did. I didn't feel that it was necessary to go into great graphic detail, though.

Garia

I'm not sure where the name came from. It sort of just surfaced during the weeks before I started writing. I had no idea if it was a real name or anything. Subsequently I have learned that Garia is a place in India, but the word can also mean "small girl" which suits the circumstances completely. Recently most searches also return a brand of golf cart. I have not found the name in use in any other story.

If you have ever read the David Eddings series "The Belgariad" you'll know that the hero there is called Garion. I subsequently realized that people could think that I took the name from there, especially since the tone of some of the story could be said to be similar, but this is definitely not so.

Keren

Another name thought up at the spur of the moment. As the story progressed I found that I was thinking up hundreds of names, many of which would appear only once or twice. However, this does reflect real life at the risk of confusing the reader.

It had to follow the naming rules for Anmar, which at this stage were rudimentary. All names begin with a consonant, although I boobed with the Queen's eldest daughter Elizet. I have subsequently passed that off as being a link to the distant land Terys came from, where the rules are likely different. Female names end with -a, -et, -el or -y while male names end with -n, -ar, -s and occasionally -o. There are exceptions, usually for people who are presumed foreigners.

Background

Since most of this story is told from Garia's point of view, I did not feel it necessary to provide any background beyond what she would know at any one time. A lot of stories spend several paragraphs near the beginning explaining where it takes place, who various people are, their relations to one another and so on. Personally I find this off-putting. I tend to gloss over such descriptions and pick up what I need to know further along the tale.

In fact, I prefer the way I wrote this, as it provides the reader with a mystery on top of everything else. If you want to find out why something is the way it is, read more! I don't think I let it get out of hand anywhere, though. If the reader has to know something at any one time, there will always be somebody ready to explain it to Garia.

The palace

This can be thought of as a grid, with the buildings occupying the lines and with courtyards in the squares between. All courtyards have cloisters, though some will be paved and others set out as formal gardens. There is no map of the palace in existence. Very few rooms are specifically defined in relation to one another. You can assume that the palace is vast, with maybe 6-8 columns wide and perhaps 12-15 rows deep, half of which are within the old Chivan fort.

Since the description of the palace layout is so vague (and deliberately so) I have provided a little extra information in What Milsy Did, though that provides no help regarding the overall layout. For the purposes of either story, we don't need to know any more and more detail would just get in the way.

Comments

Anmar Names

I always thought that Garia was a feminization of Gary. Change Y to I and add the A.


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin

Garia's name

That may be what you'd think, but extensive G00gling - down to page 63 in one case - finds only a very small number of people with that name. If I recall, when I first tried that before beginning to write SEE I didn't find anyone at all, despite the baby name reference.

Originally it was just "My name is Gary, uh," with a pause indicating a sudden realization that such a name might not be a clever idea. I decided that might be too complicated for the moment and just went with "Garia" as a sign that local pronunciation might be heard differently.

Names are difficult. I googled every single name to begin with but after a while I realized that I was spending too much time not writing. Most of the names are sufficiently unusual that they aren't likely to be found by English-speaking readers, with certain exceptions. I'll make a note of those in a future commentary.

Penny

Google matters?

I would think that Google results are probably not relevant on Anmar? ;-) I've not written a story set in another world or universe to ours, so names haven't been a problem for me. Besides, in most cases the name, first name that is, is from somebody I know. I've only had to research one name and that was so I could use the background to explain why a boy in the U.S. would have such a name. That story has only gone for two pages so far.

The only name problem I've had is my first heroine, Karielle Elyse. I invited reader comments and criticism and a reader critized her name pretty strongly. Not only do I have sources for both, Elyse also happens to be the name of a woman that was one of the host/researchers on a PBS history show. So it is hardly unknown. When I came back and strongly responded she jumped on me about asking for criticism and getting mad when I got it. Well, that was hardly the type of criticism I expected, and I don't feel name choices are up for discussion.

So, this is all a roundabout way of saying you, as well as any writer, are free to use whatever name you like. So, whatever floats your boat! ;-)


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin

Character names in fiction

I always thought that the authors who wrote fiction had the right to name their characters anything that they wanted as long as it didn't intentionally slander a real person. Isn't that why the disclaimer is there. You know the one I mean. How can any fictional character's name be legitimately criticized? It doesn't make sense.

Much Love,

Valerie R

Character names

In my case it wasn't an accidental collision with a real person that concerned me, since I knew that I would be "inventing" names that belonged on a completely fictional world.

I was more concerned that the names I chose might mean something crude, rude, unpleasant or just plain wrong in a non-English language. I am aware that not all readers of BC have English as a first language.

That is why I began looking through search pages for a few chapters before giving it up as a lost cause. Besides, occasionally even people in English-speaking countries sometimes have weird and wonderful names and I didn't want to chance a lawsuit some years down the line.

Penny

Um...

Daphne Xu's picture

I thought the subject or title was a request to "see" commentaries #4-6, and I was puzzled as to what those commentaries were. Come to think of it, in a sense, this was...

-- Daphne Xu

-- Try saying freefloating three times rapidly.

Subject title

Point taken.

Most readers here refer to the book as SEE and so that was what I used as a shorthand. Perhaps I'll change that in future to S.E.E.

Penny

Doubled chapter?

I've been taking this opportunity to read SEE for a third or twentieth time and noticed that chapter 5 seems to be written twice over, one after the other. The two doubles are slightly different, so I'm not sure if the rewritten passages are confined to one or the other.

Aargh!

Looks like I bungled the editing process and left the old version below the new version.

How do I know? The new versions have updated copyright clauses, amongst other things.

Well spotted, thank you. I have now fixed this.

Penny

I take it most of the changes

I take it most of the changes are spelling and grammar edits, as well as some geographical updates? when I reread its normally either searching for specific information, or skimming,

The general layout of the palace is interesting, now that its more clearly established, almost all windows are in rooms- not in the halls/corridors, but almost every room has windows, great for keeping the rooms lit and allowing air out in the summer, but as a consequence the halls will get less lighting, and thermal insulation suffers greatly, and because most of it is solid construction, curious how they managed to add pipping retroactively as they aren't dealing with truss construction so its not like the walls are mostly empty space or filled with a loose insulator, unless (in the wooden parts) the walls are actually double layer of wood with air in between, the stone sections might have a layer of gravel between the walls, but I don't know if the Romans were the ones who made that innovation or if that was later, otherwise they would have had to channel them through the drainage ducts.

Palace layout

Most of the changes will be minor edits, yes. There will only be a small number of occasions where it may be necessary to make more substantial alterations, such as the extra day I needed to put in the journey down from the mountains. The previous commentary explained the reasoning behind that.

Many of the palace corridors will have rooms either side so, yes, the halls/corridors could be gloomy. This is a plot feature!

This is not always the case, for example in chapter 39 there is an incident where Garia is walking a corridor with windows which open onto a courtyard when the other side of the courtyard is struck by lightning. In this case I would suppose there to be a large chamber or chambers to the other side, but with a corridor to allow passage without going through the chamber.

Most of the palace is made of wood. The only stone parts would be walls and towers from the old Chivan fort which have been incorporated into the design. The lower floors would be of stone or clay tiling while the upper floors would be of wood. Pipes might be routed through floor or ceiling spaces but, frankly, I haven't devoted much thought to the subject.

Penny