Why J.R.R. Tolkien's semi-colons became the bane of my writing existence

For a while now, my wife has been going to a small casual reading group involving another household of friends of ours. I recently joined in, once they decided to read N.K. Jemisin's excellent Broken Earth trilogy. And since, hey, I like reading books, I've decided to stick around!

And to my great pleasure, the next thing we're tackling is The Silmarillion.

It's deeply amusing to me to go back and reread Tolkien, whose work I've loved all my life, now that I've published a few novels of my own. After having worked with a few editors now, and in particular one editor on all three of the Rebels of Adalonia books, I've started being more aware of editing-level details in other people's work.

Even Tolkien's. And this time through The Silmarillion in particular, I noticed one huge thing that leapt out at me: SO. MANY. SEMI-COLONS. Like, every other sentence or so.

If you've read this particular Tolkien work, you know that it's written in deliberately formal, mythic language. I've known this for ages, of course. But this time around, the semi-colons particularly stood out for me because my editor on the Rebels books very specifically made me yank a great number of semi-colons out!

I now have a much, much better understanding of where my propensity for throwing semi-colons all over my prose came from. :D

So with this in mind, I thought I'd share with you all today a list of other quirks in my own writing I know I have to keep on top of, lest they get out of my control.

In no particular order:

1) Why should I say something in twenty words when I can use a hundred instead? Verbosity. It's my superpower.

Let me underscore this for y'all: the draft of the book I submitted to Carina Press that became Valor of the Healer clocked in around 118,000 words. Its original draft was more like 167,000. I took out over fifty thousand words editing that thing down. That's a short novel's worth of words right there, folks.

When I write posts for my own site, the SEO plugin I've got complains at me about this, too. It gets cranky if I have too many sentences that are too long.

2) If I get fixated on a particular word or phrase I really love, I run the risk of overusing it all throughout a draft. Sometimes across multiple books.

I've learned about Scrivener's functionality for checking word frequency in a draft. I WILL be making more use of this!

3) I also overuse ellipses, particularly if I'm writing a shy character. This came up a lot as I was creating Faanshi in the Rebels books.

4) I find it all too easy to get into a rut with sentence structures, too. The first time through a draft I don't always catch this, but it's a thing I look out for in edit passes. It helps my prose flow better if I vary up the sentence structures and lengths.

5) Likewise with catching myself starting consecutive sentences with the same word. In fact, while writing this post, I rearranged the previous item in this list just so all the sentences wouldn't start with "I"!

This is another thing the SEO plugin on angelahighland.com will complain to me about.

There's more I could go into, to be sure. But in the name of curbing my natural verbosity, I'll cut it off here and turn it over to you all. Particularly fellow writers, whether you write professionally or for pleasure: what are your own quirks you catch yourself doing in your work?

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Angela writes the Free Court of Seattle books as Angela Korra'ti, and the Rebels of Adalonia books as Angela Highland. Either way, you can find all her books at angelahighland.com! Or, you can find her on Facebook or Twitter. (She makes no apologies, however, for her comma choices.)

In honor of Valentine's Day week, my favorite fictional couples!

On Goodreads this month, because of Valentine’s Day, I received an author question asking me who my favorite fictional couple was. And since said holiday was this past Tuesday, I thought I’d make my post on Here Be Magic today an expanded version of my answer to that question!

So here you all go, in no particular order, my list of ten of my favorite fictional couples:

#1:

Heroine: Luthien Tinuviel

Hero: Beren

Source: The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien

Why I like them: Because they are a shining example of a romance in which both involved parties actively contribute to the story. In particular, I love that Luthien takes on no less than Morgoth himself, the biggest bad in Middle-Earth EVER, to save her man.

#2:

Heroine: Sira di Sarc

Hero: Jason Morgan

Source: A Thousand Words for Stranger, by Julie E. Czerneda

Why I like them: This was the Czerneda book that made me fall in love with this woman’s writing, and decide that she was the writer I wanted to write like when I grew up. The story starts with the “captain with a heart of gold takes on mysterious stowaway” trope and I’m a sucker for that. Once the truly staggering strength of Sira’s telepathic gifts is revealed, I adore how Jason does not flinch from standing at her side.

#3:

Heroine: Amelia P. Emerson

Hero: Emerson

Source: The entire Amelia Peabody series, by Elizabeth Peters

Why I like them: Because Amelia is a parasol-wielding force of nature, because Emerson is adorably gruff, and because I love how every scene-closing cry from Amelia of “Oh, Emerson!” is totally code for “and then sex was on”. ;D Plus I love their mutual proposal to one another at the end of Book 1, and Amelia’s assertion that “I embroider very badly. I think I would excavate very well.”

#4:

Heroine: Nefret

Hero: Ramses Emerson

Source: ALSO the entire Amelia Peabody series, by Elizabeth Peters

Why I like them: Because I adore how the series outlines the developing relationship between these two characters, from when they meet as children (and Nefret is established as the only living creature capable of making Ramses shut up) clear up to when they finally declare love for one another. He Shall Thunder in the Sky, when that climactic resolution finally happens, is one of my very favorite books in the entire series.

#5:

Heroine: Isabella, Lady Trent

Hero: Suhail

Source: The Memoirs of Lady Trent series, by Marie Brennan

Why I like them: The dynamic between these two had strong callbacks for me to the aforementioned Amelia and Emerson, in no small part because what draws them together is mutual interest in science. Also, their mutual interest in science is all about dragons! Which is awesome. +1 as well for Suhail coming from an Arabic-analogue culture, which makes him a hero of color.

#6:

Heroine: Marion Ravenwood

Hero: Indiana Jones

Source: The Indiana Jones movies, but in particular, Raiders of the Lost Ark

Why I like them: There are REASONS Raiders of the Lost Ark is my all time favorite movie. But the ones that are pertinent to this list is the crackling chemistry between Indy and Marion all throughout the movie, starting with how she greets him with a punch to the jaw. Also, Harrison Ford.

#7:

Heroine: Leia Organa

Hero: Han Solo

Source: The Star Wars movies, but in particular, The Empire Strikes Back

Why I like them: See previous commentary re: mmmmmm Harrison Ford mmmmmmm. Also every single one of their scenes together in Empire. <3 “I’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee!” “I can arrange that!”

#8:

Heroine: Lois Lane

Hero: Clark Kent/Superman

Source: Multiple adaptations in TV and movies, but in particular, Christopher Reeves’ original Superman movie, the 90’s TV show Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and the WB Superman, Batman, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited cartoons

Why I like them: Because all my favorite implementations of Lois stay true to her core as a fearless reporter, and all my favorite implementations of Clark/Supes uphold his inherent heroism. And when they’re thrown together, their feelings for one another are radiant. Of my three favorite Superman adaptations, I’m most partial to Lois and Clark, because Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain spent all of season 1 being adorable cinnamon rolls at each other. <3

#9:

Heroine: Buffy Summers

Hero: Angel

Source: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Why I like them: Because Buffy and Angel were delicious, delicious angst. “Ohnoez they can never actually be together” (for values of ‘be together’ meaning ‘actually have sex’) “because Angel will turn evil!” And, of course, they went there, which leads to one of Buffy’s most badass moments at the end of season 2 and arguably in the entire series.

#10:

Heroine: Dana Scully

Hero: Fox Mulder

Source: The X-Files

Why I like them: Because through so much of the early seasons of the show, they took the time to set up deep working trust between these two characters. So when we finally got signs that the relationship was turning romantic, it felt like a logical progression to me. I could argue for hours about how the relationship has played out since then—but for purposes of this post, I’ll simply say that Mulder and Scully: yep, I ship it.

How about the rest of you? Tell me about your favorite fictional couples in the comments!

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Angela may not be a romance writer, but she is absolutely a romantic sucker and has love stories in both her urban fantasy Free Court of Seattle series (written as Angela Korra'ti) and the high fantasy trilogy Rebels of Adalonia (written as Angela Highland). If you've read her books, come tell her which characters you ship at angelahighland.com, on Facebook, or on Twitter! And if you haven't read her books, she invites you to start. ;D

Archive Post: Reading fantasy in other languages

Veronica sez: Here's a fun post from the Archives!

Hi all, Angela back again, this time to chat with you all about reading fantasy in languages that aren't your own!

If you follow my blog or my social network accounts, you'll have seen two things about me. One, I'm a huge Tolkien nerd--I had quite a lot to say about The Desolation of Smaug, not to mention the character of Tauriel. And two, I'm also working on learning two languages at once, French and German!

Put these together, and what do you get? My slow-going Trilingual Hobbit Reread!

When I first learned that the movies were coming out, that seemed like an excellent excuse to re-read The Hobbit. But since I'm also interested in languages, it also seemed like a great chance to try to improve both my French and German vocabulary. I'd already previously purchased a German translation that I happened across in a Barnes and Noble, and once I also acquired a French translation, I was ready to go.

I've been re-reading each chapter of the book in English, and then reading both of the translations. It's been great fun, not only refreshing my memory of the events in Tolkien's original prose, but also seeing what the translators do with his work. In particular, I've been intrigued by the differences in how the two translations handle songs. The French translator does a straight translation of the various songs and riddles, without worrying too much about whether the same rhythm of syllables is kept, or whether things still rhyme. The German translator, on the other hand, makes a distinct effort to rearrange the scansion and rhyming schemes to get something that still adheres to the overall concept of the song or riddle--but which makes more sense to a German reader.

Doing this with a book I've known all my life--I first read The Hobbit in sixth grade AP English--has been huge fun, and I'm looking forward to proceeding into The Lord of the Rings in French as well. But what I'm really looking forward to is getting enough familiarity with French to be able to read original works in that language!

I've discovered several authors in Quebec in particular whose works I'd like to read, notably Élodie Tirel, author of the Luna Elfe de Lune series--YA-level fantasy, where the language is somewhat simpler for me and my beginner's level of French. And also, when I'm better at French, Esther Rochon. I've had the pleasure of reading one of her stories translated into English, and I'm very much looking forward to reading her in her actual language.

Likewise, I've found several other interesting names to explore courtesy of reviewing the award winners for Canada's Prix Aurora awards, in recent years.

Why read books in other languages, you might ask? Partly because I'm a language nerd in general. But also because I feel it'll broaden my horizons as both a writer and a reader, to take the time to explore science fiction and fantasy works from a non-Anglophone perspective.

Even reading The Hobbit in other languages is getting me a little of that, given that every so often, in both of the translations I own, I run into things that make sense only to speakers of those languages. I've been telling people I'm fantasizing about owning a copy of The Hobbit in all the languages I eventually would like to study. And I'm only half-kidding!

So how about the rest of you? If language barriers were no object, what other languages would you like to read urban fantasy, fantasy, or paranormal romance in?

Alternately, if you're a language nerd who's read genre works in other languages--or better yet, a native speaker familiar with works in your language--what titles would you recommend to readers who'd like to broaden their linguistic horizons?

Talk to me in the comments!

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Angela Korra'ti, a.k.a. Angela Highland, is the author of the Rebels of Adalonia series from Carina Press. Book 2, Vengeance of the Hunter, is forthcoming in April 2014! Come say hi at http://www.angelahighland.com/, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.