Asian Languages, and Why People Find Them Hard

Now, I think I'm actually going to do what this blog promises, and write about languages.
Me, I'm an Asian language person. The two languages I know with any familiarity (apart from my mother tongue) and Japanese and Chinese. But a lot of people I know would rather kill themselves than learn an Asian language. These same people the go off to Spanish, or French, or something else European.

I, for the life of me, can't get my head around other European languages. It just does not compute. So this got me to thinking - what is the difference? If you learn Italian, it's easier to learn Spanish after that. But if you learn Italian, and then try you hand at Chinese, then you'll have just as much trouble as when you first learned Italian.

So what makes them different, and rather incompatible?

Well, to me the most marked difference is cultural. Obviously, Asian languages are not from the same culture, but they are from a group of cultures that have influenced each other over the time through war and trade and other national pursuits. Same in Europe. You can hardly say French culture is like English or German culture, but they have influenced each other.

Has Asia influenced Europe, or vice versa? Over the past 100 year - yes. Over the past 1000? Minutely. This was of course due to the sheer distance between the two cultural blocks. And while these days planes and other means of transportation can get you from one place to the other quickly, these things didn't exist, or were too expensive in the days gone past.

Now, some may say that culture doesn't really relate to language all that much. I mean, things can be translated, can't they? We can watch Japanese, Chinese and Korean movies with subtitles, and you understand what's being said.

Well, that's because translators are brilliantly smart people. They don't translate things word for word - if they did, you would have all sorts of strange words and phrases running about. They translate from culture to culture as well. This is the only reason, in my view, that computers can not be relied on to do the translating for us. Culture has a huge effect on language. On its grammar, its word choice, the way words are put together in phrases - the influence of culture can not be denied.

Therefore, in my mind at least, Asian languages are hard for European based foreigners to compute because culture almost has to be learnt hand in hand with the language. For example, in Japanese, there and heaps of words and phrases that begin with 気 (ki). Ki, loosely translated, means "spirit, mind, heart." But Japanese words such as care, pay attention, like, weird, calm down... all these words are basically descriptions of "ki". You won't find them in a dictionary, because they're sentences rather than words. So anyone trying to learn Japanese by reading Manga, say, is going to have an awful lot of trouble figuring out what "drop you heart" actually means (it means calm down). There are all these things that either have to be either explained, or understood culturally.

So I think maybe not coming from the same cultural background hampers people in learning languages. Although, I am most definitely of Anglo-Saxan background, and I can't for the life of me figure out European grammar (the feminine and masculine words ect... nope.) But I can think with my words all twisted around in Japanese. Maybe that's just me - I'm found to be fairly weird :p

Random Revelation

Just out of nowhere:

Keeping a person interested is a balancing act between giving someone enough information to care, and enough mystery that they want to know.

May seem rather obvious, but still. I like to write stuff down (almost seems counter-productive to say that really). It makes it seem solid.

If someone does care, they won't read. But if you tell them too much, they will get bored. So you've go to know where to go to, and where to stop.

Something I have yet to learn, I think :)

Beta's and Stories Not Dying

I love my Beta readers. I truly do. They spot things I would never spot, and if their tastes are different from mine, then they're a little harder on my prose, and it makes me work harder.

But sometimes....

I have a world. It was built rather organically, over the time of about six years, and five drafts. So was my story. There was no planning aspect to it to start off with. So it more than definitely has it's problems. But when I've fixed one, another shows up.

Tonight was one such night. Nobody understood the world that Kira lived in, so I had to show them it. Because it's first person, and I was adverse to changing the story, I did that mainly through her thinking. It worked for one Beta. Another said it sort of worked. The third basically said (paraphrasing here): why the heck are you info dumping and why am I forgetting who your character is.

.............

Wonderful.

I spent the end of what has been a wonderful day mightily depressed. Because I believe that I have a good story here. I believe it has a reason for being. I love my characters.

But what is the point of all that if someone can barely get past the first chapter because of confusion issues? And how to get over the confusion issues if I can not feed out the information (in small chunks, but still, not absolutely huge amounts). there is way too much info that HAS to be understood in order to get on with the plot as it. Believe me, when I started this, I had none of that info in there. It confused the hell out of those that read it.

But the thing is, the point of this story has never been the plot. The plot is better than it was at the start, and it may continue to get better. What I have realised is that a number of things have stayed continuous over all those drafts. They are the major turning points and inciting incident.

And as long as they, and the characters, stay the same, it's still the same story. It may be different in its execution, but it is forever the same. Because the message I want to get across is still the same. That message being: There is no right or wrong side. Everyone believes they are right. And so when my main character if thrown into this world, as long as she meets the same opposition, the story is intact.

How she gets through those points is up for debate. I like what I've got, but I could make it better. I may try to. In fact, I think I will. There are two chapters that will remain largely similar. The rest of the first six chapters are important for the introduction. But they can be done differently.

My character needs to meet the Manda, my world has to be introduced, and someone else has to die and deliver and object into her hands by the end of it. I can still do all that, with the same sort of tension, by writing the start differently.

The thing that amazes me is that there have been several of these moments thus far. These moments run along the lines of : "oh god, why don't I give up and go to the next one (project, book, whatever)."

Then I get over myself, my story pops back up and say: Hey, I'm still the same in essence.

I find it ironically amusing, myself.

Fixing Things

Beta's are wonderful people. They truely are. But sometimes, they say something and you feel like hitting your head against a wall.
Often, you feel that way because they're right. For example, Beta A had trouble believing that my characters would be as perceptive as they are. Point taken. They probably wouldn't. I can fix that.
With beta B, I think we may differ in writing styles. But that is good. It's still headbanging, but I look at what she points out, weigh it up, and go in again.
Beta C doesn't really like my main character (something I've tried to fix). But she likes my writing. So does Beta A.
However, being me, I won't be happy unless I get some type of perfection :D

So yes. This is basically a post saying I will do it. And how I will do it.

Beta A reads everything first. I will fix that plot thing by this weekend.

I'm hoping to have fixed the characters thing with changes to my first chapter, and some of the others. I've also removed characters.

I will fix chapter 1 by next Wednesday. What beta B suggested changing was largely editorial stuff - not that much to do with the plot. Which is good.

I will finish reading through Beta A and B's work by tomorrow, and send them off their chapters. On Thursday afternoon, I will do that plot fixing. On Friday after noon, I will plan my other story out more, and attempt to write something else. Maybe see if I can do a short story (surely I can at least finish one without turning it into the start of a book.)
Saturday - probably more plot fixing
Sunday - More of the same. If I'm finished by then, then I will go over my Beta's chapters.
Monday - fix that first chapter.

After that, it depends on the feedback I get. *sigh* will probably have to find one last person to look through this all. After I've looked through it.

The point of this post: I will do these things. I will fix things. Each time a beta comes up with a problem, an answer comes fairly naturally to me. Things have not fallen apart yet. I must breathe.

Off to read my beta's chapters. Wish me luck for the week ahead.

Mystery and Suspense

Someone (I can't remember who) once said that you don't need a bomb to go off on your first page. But you had to at least hint at it. The thing that starts my book off is at the end of my second chapter. But my world is complicated, and I needed readers to understand both what is normal for this world, and my characters mental state. So I started four pages before major inciting incident.
So I've had major hints towards an impending bomb. (This bomb thing is not literal, mind you. Just a metaphor). Overhead conversations, weird people showing up - all very good and fine.

There is just one problem. My MC. Given a chance, she will ignore what is going on around her. She doesn't want to know. Her mother has just died, she has a hard time relating to people normally, and she just wants the world to leave her alone.

After the end of the second chapter, she becomes less passive. She has a very definite reason to start paying attention - she is literally dragged into the plot.

I think I should be doing this earlier.

The whole idea was that the mystery of what the heck was going on would make readers interested. Fine. good. But that still leaves me with a passive main character for most of the first chapter. She has her reasons, but I need to make her care.

But if I make her care, than the mystery will be lost. My inciting event at the end of chapter two won't have the "slam" that it had before.
But then I realised that there is more than one way to keep a reader interested. Not only mystery, but suspense.

The difference between the two is simple: where is the reveal? In suspense, you know there's a bomb in the room, and you're watching to see how the characters deal with it. In mystery, there are hints that there's a bomb in the room, but you're watching to see if the characters figure out that there's a bomb even there. You, as a reader, don't even know that there's a bomb there. You just get hints or clues.

The only problem is that my MC is in the mood to plain out ignore any such hints or clues. So I have to show her there's a bomb there earlier, so she does something. Anything - even if that's just agreeing to go to a place she hates. At the moment, her grandfather makes that decision. She should make it.

And so the first chapter gets a makeover. Again.

New Query for The Manda

It has a new name! A better one. But I'll keep tagging it under it's working name, so everything is all in the same place. But here's my query:

Dear Agent,
Having lived in the remote Australian bush town for most of her life, seventeen-year-old Kira Hilta has avoided the outside world and the problems that go with it: the powerful factions, the rebels, and the Manda – a race of dangerous, silent shapeshifters. When Kira finally comes into contact with the Manda, they are not what she expects. They talk to her when they’re supposed to be incapable of speech. They're intelligent, but bound to the will of the humans that control them.


The Manda resent being used as mindless tools by humanity, and they pour their hate of mankind into Kira’s head, until Kira is ready to jump into the nearest river to escape. But it isn’t Kira the Manda are interested in: Kira’s grandfather has something that is precious to the Manda and those that use them and he is killed for it. Kira sets out to hunt down his murderer. The world she enters is complex, political, and on the edge of collapse.


As she attempts to survive in this new world, Kira is drawn into it, developing an influence and connections of her own. When she discovers the identity of the killer, she must decide what to do. She can either seek closure through revenge, abandoning those reliant on her, or yield to the killer. Pressed for time, Kira decides to take the unexpected road, and conspiring with the Manda is looking like the unexpected best option.


“When the Mute Speak” is a completed young adult fantasy, of a approximately 58000 words. It’s themes and ideas follow in the tradition of Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy, and Isobelle Carmody’s Obernewtyn.

Thank you for your time,

Sian Chapman

Terrified of the Hunger Games

Now, I finally did get around to reading the hunger games - about a month ago. I was a very late uptaker (as I was with Harry Potter - what is it with me and popular books?). I enjoyed the book immensely. When I have time, I will read the other two.

But here's the thing. I started writing The Manda when I was about 13. It's been through five drafts since then, and is finally approaching something marketable.

Every Beta reader I have has told me that Kira (my MC) reminds them of Katniss. After reading the hunger games, I can see why. They're not the same person, but they definitely share similar characteristics.

Plot wise, the books couldn't be any more different. My MC end up creating a neutral hospital, not starting a rebellion. Plots have nothing similar (except a oppressive government, but even that isn't that marked. Definitely not as marked as it is in the Hunger Games series. Mine is also slightly more balanced - there's a repressive rebellion too. I mean, you've gotta keep it interesting :D )

I have this innate fear that I will be passed over for representation or publications because someone (agent/publisher/editor) believes I'm trying to rip off the hunger games. I feel as if some shred of my story has been ripped away from my ownership.

I just hope it doesn't come over as too pronounced.

Just random thoughts and worrying :)