# Author Intrusion and Naming Languages => .. Up a Level This week I submitted chapters three and four of Raging Alone[1] to the writing group. There were some good points made but one of the ones that the entire table brought up was the names. => https://fedran.com/raging-alone/ 1: https://fedran.com/raging-alone/ Like Sand and Blood[2], Raging Alone is focused around a small, isolated clan in the desert. The language and the names were inspired by people I've worked with over the years with a healthy borrowing from French and Japanese. However, they appear not to be names that are easy for English readers to understand[3]. => https://fedran.com/sand-and-blood/ 2: https://fedran.com/sand-and-blood/ => /blog/2012/10/25/introduction-to-miwafu/ 3: /blog/2012/10/25/introduction-to-miwafu/ Once I figured that out, I made a point of having Sand and Blood start off slowly to introduce characters and conventions gradually instead of throwing a lot of names quickly at the reader. In some ways, it ended up coloring that entire piece; more than once I was told it started off too slowly which dragged out Rutejìmo's flaws. With Raging Alone, though I got much of the same thing. However, since I just finished a round of Author Intrusion[4], I realized I could quantify my efforts using what I just finished writing wrote[5]. => /tags/author-intrusion/ 4: /tags/author-intrusion/ => /blog/2019/04/30/author-intrusion/ 5: /blog/2019/04/30/author-intrusion/ # Metadata I keep information about the chapter in the top of each file in a YAML “front matter”. ``` --- title: Sulking characters: primary: [Desòchu] secondary: [Kiramíro] referenced: [Gemènyo, Hyonèku, Kiríshi, Chyojímo, Hikòru] --- > There is no more graceless being than a teenage boy coming into his age. --- Nagufiga Makinàfu, *Sexuality Among the Sands* Like most typical days in Shimusogo Valley, the hot midday blew winds... ``` The key part is the `characters` section which lists the point of view (`primary`), characters in the chapter (`secondary`), and those who are talked about but not present (`referenced`). This is also what is used to populate the footer of the chapters such as this one[6] at the bottom. => https://fedran.com/raging-alone/chapter-01/ 6: https://fedran.com/raging-alone/chapter-01/ ## Author Intrusion Using the last post[7] for setup, I can use JMESPath[8] to create a comma-separated list of characters that are in the chapter. => /blog/2019/04/30/author-intrusion/ 7: /blog/2019/04/30/author-intrusion/ => http://jmespath.org/ 8: http://jmespath.org/ If I just wanted a list of secondary characters, I would use: `characters.secondary[] | sort(@) | join(', ', @)` which says get all the items from `characters.secondary`, then sort them, then combine them together. If I want all the characters from all three categories (`primary`, `secondary`, and `referenced`), I can just replace `secondary` with `*` to get `characters.*[] | sort(@) | join(', ', @)`. Related to that, I can also get the count of character in the chapter with: `characters.*[] | length(@)`. ## Analysis Running the tool on the first five chapters of Sand and Blood, I get: ``` $ author-intrusion chapter list -f file.num -f title -f "characters.*[] | length(@)" -f "characters.*[] | sort(@) | join(', ', @)" ``` ``` | Num | Title | Count | Characters | |-----|------------|-------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | Rutejìmo | 7 | Chimípu, Ganósho, Gemènyo, Hyonèku, Rutejìmo, Tejíko, Yutsupazéso | | 2 | Confession | 10 | Byodenóre, Chimípu, Desòchu, Gemènyo, Hyonèku, Rador, Rutejìmo, Shimusògo, Somiryòki, Tejíko | | 3 | Morning | 17 | Chimípu, Desòchu, Gemènyo, Hyonèku, Kizúchi, Laminar, Mapábyo, Mifuníko, Nidohána, Ojinkomàsu, Opōgyo, Panédo, Rutejìmo, Tachìra, Tachìra, Tejíko, Yutsupazéso | | 4 | Rivals | 6 | Desòchu, Karawàbi, Palasaid, Rutejìmo, Tejíko, Tsubàyo | | 5 | Decisions | 14 | Chimípu, Desòchu, Gemènyo, Goryápe, Karawàbi, Mapábyo, Mifuníko, Pidòhu, Rutejìmo, Shimusògo, Somiryòki, Tejíko, Tsubàyo, Yutsupazéso | ``` Well, seen this way, I didn't do a very good job of “gradually” introducing character names at all. One might said I did an absolutely terrible job of introducing the constructed language. I guess that points out that a subjective belief verses objective analysis. Now, I don't distinguish characters who are there but not named so the list is smaller. Below is a quick test of the seven names in the first chapter. I use `expr - 1` because there is the entry in the matter which I don't want to include and readers don't see. ``` sand-and-blood$ for i in Chimípu Ganósho Gemènyo Hyonèku Rutejìmo Tejíko Yutsupazéso;do echo -n "$i: "; echo $(expr $(grep $i chapter-01.markdown | wc -l) - 1); done Chimípu: 2 Ganósho: 0 Gemènyo: 1 Hyonèku: 22 Rutejìmo: 23 Tejíko: 0 Yutsupazéso: 3 sand-and-blood$ ``` Above you can see that Ganósho and Tejíko were not listed by name but the others did. Regardless, what I thought was a gradual introduction was closer to me throwing a bowlful of names at the reader and saying “here you go!” Let's see if I did better with Raging Alone: ``` | Num | Title | Count | Characters | |-----|--------------|-------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | Sulking | 7 | Chyojímo, Desòchu, Gemènyo, Hikòru, Hyonèku, Kiramíro, Kiríshi | | 2 | Comfort | 5 | Chyojímo, Desòchu, Hikòru, Hyonèku, Kiramíro | | 3 | The Call | 8 | Chyojímo, Desòchu, Hikòru, Kiramíro, Pikonàga, Somiryòki, Tejíko, Yutsupazéso | | 4 | Baby Brother | 4 | Chyojímo, Desòchu, Rutejìmo, Tachìra | | 5 | Waking Up | 5 | Desòchu, Kiríshi, Rutejìmo, Somiryòki, Tejíko | ``` Well, I've done a lot better job of reducing how many names are thrown at the reader but it also points out I'm still throwing a lot of them in the first chapter. Getting that number down to four or five would make it an easier introduction and points out a possible place to trim down the story. In the writing group, we found a way of cutting out two or three names out of “The Call” which would make it much more manageable. Now, chapter five is the “inciting event”, so where I would normally split a chapter, I would probably want to add it after chapter five so we get to the “big event” faster. But that's for another blog post. ## Conclusion Sometimes, its hard as an author to see problems in the story while writing it. One of the reasons I created Author Intrusion was to help me focus them the problem I struggled to see. In this case, I thought I was being gradual with names but once it was pointed out, it was obvious I was not. I also realized there are some additional checkers I could include to help identify these problems while writing: * #17[9]: Introduce a checker that counts a number of entries (a JMESPath such as one against characters) against a threshold => https://gitlab.com/author-intrusion/author-intrusion-rust/issues/17 9: https://gitlab.com/author-intrusion/author-intrusion-rust/issues/17 * #18[10]: Ensure that every chapter has an epigraph (my style guide) => https://gitlab.com/author-intrusion/author-intrusion-rust/issues/18 10: https://gitlab.com/author-intrusion/author-intrusion-rust/issues/18 * #19[11]: Check that a character in narrative is identified in the metadata. => https://gitlab.com/author-intrusion/author-intrusion-rust/issues/18 11: https://gitlab.com/author-intrusion/author-intrusion-rust/issues/18 # Metadata Categories: => /categories/programming/ Programming => /categories/writing/ Writing Tags: => /tags/author-intrusion/ Author Intrusion => /tags/fedran/ Fedran # Footer Below are various useful links within this site and to related sites (not all have been converted over to Gemini). => /now/ Now => /contact/ Contact => /bio/ Biography => /bibliography/ Bibliography => /support/ Support => /fiction/ Fiction => //fedran.com/ Fedran => https://mfgames.com/ Coding => https://moonfire.us/ The Moonfires => /categories/ Categories => /tags/ Tags => /privacy/ Privacy => /colophon/ Colophon => /license/ License => https://lists.typewriter.press/subscription?f=RDQ6f3AFHXnX2o763d5TgUmaYP7N763gR6FjZyGUUFWhyRkpgZF9I35ySICDBEdFFtgG Mailing List => https://d.moonfire.us/blog/2019/05/02/author-intrusion/