Noveling Short Storyist Diary: Spoons

I posted a fortnight(ish) ago about having more time to write. I think I'm under pain of death to keep people updated. So what did I manage?

I spent the first week working on short stories. A few stories are in final edits and some were sent out. I'm still waiting on responses for most of those.

I submitted to a UK magazine (Mslexia) for the first time. One of the submissions requirements is being female. I don't usually put any gender modifier* on my name (or anyone else's name), but I figured I should, as many people think I'm male. It looks better than adding "P.S. I'm a girl!" to the end of my cover letter.

The second week was working on my novel, which I've now split into separate files. Writing in one file worked at the start, but with my tendency to jump around randomly, separate files helps.

And I brought some spoons, which caused some giggling at the checkout. Apparently, they can only sell them to over eighteens for safety reasons. Who knew spoons could be that deadly?

So I'm making progress. Both on writing and my cunning plan to turn spoons into lethal weapons. I'm considering writing a story about a mighty spoon warrior, but it'd probably be too silly to sell**.


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* i.e., Miss.

** Speculative magazines don't tend to go for absurdism/nonsense... which is a pity, as my mind doesn't always turn logical corners.

Names in a Multicultural World

Made-up names are common in fantasy and science fiction. So it's strange that naming conventions are often rather plain and thrown together at the last minute. There's a tendency to use Western-style [given name] [family name], no matter how non-Western the names sound.

Like many things, inspiration comes from the real world. Here are a couple of naming conventions I've found in my story research. These examples only cover a tiny portion of the naming conventions in their respective cultures. Other things to consider are whether names change when people are married, how a child is named, what names are considered offensive*, how names are structured, what part of the name is used in daily life and what implications a name might have in the society.

It's not just about what a character is called... it's about the conventions surrounding that name.

Chinese Generation Names

I've known for a long time that family name comes first in Chinese naming. What I didn't know is why the names tended to have three parts**. That's because the middle part is the generation name, giving the structure: [family name] [generation name] [given name]

The siblings and cousins of a generation all share a generation name.

How do they chose the generation name? The names are listed in a poem. They simply use the name that comes after the parents' generation name.

Aboriginal Skin Names

The concept of skin groups is common among Australian Aboriginal cultures. Each skin group has a skin name. This name dictates social behaviour, such as who they can marry.

The skin name system varies across different groups. Some have a simpler system, with only two names. In these cases, people will marry a person with the other skin name.

Other systems have up to eight skin names, leading to a more complicated system of which name can marry which other name.

Children are given a skin name based on their parents skin names. For a two name system, this is likely to be the name held by one of the parents. For an eight name system, it could be a different name entirely.

There isn't a cut-and-dried way to show how a skin name is used in daily life. There's no standard [given name] [skin name] format, as there is in many other cultures.


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* Some cultures expect children to be named after relatives. Others find it offensive to name them after someone.

** It's not a universal naming system, and the exact application of generation names varies between families. So it's not unusual to see a name in only two parts.

Pushchair Parent and the Art of Geometry

Pushchair* geometry is one of those things which looks illogical. Yet the way pushchairs are angled in narrow shop aisles is actually very cunning.

Let me show you. Below is the way you'd expect pushchair parent would hold the pushchair. In this position, as little of the aisle is blocked as possible and parent has a firm hold on the pushchair. It's also not used.

The classic pushchair position is actually this one. By placing the pushchair on the opposite side of the aisle, and leaning over, the whole aisle is blocked. This position looks bad for pushchair parent too, as parent'll have trouble seeing the things on the other shelf whilst holding onto the pushchair.

So why hold it this way? I've finally figured it out, after many years thought. It's a way to cull the competition. With all the pressure on jobs and such, a few less children will help the baby in later life.

By reaching across the aisle, a temporary human tripwire is created... just at the right height to ensure a child running past will smack into it. Voila, one less individual competing against pushchair parent's baby! It's a flawless plan.**

The trouble for the rest of us is making sure we don't run into the trap by accident. Geometry's a dangerous thing.


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* In case of international misunderstanding, a pushchair is one of those things with wheels. You push babies/toddlers around in it when you go outside. The ones where they're in a sitting position, rather than laying down to sleep.

** I'm not responsible for you trying this... I'm just commenting on a trend.

Eating Your Baby Projects - A Fishy Tale

It's not unusual to hear people describe projects as being their babies. People of all varieties do this... knitters talking about their latest woolly hats, writers their stories and candlemakers their candles.

I pondered this after a recent experience, when I woke to find two baby fishes peering at me*. I had two more turn up before the thought fully crystallised.

You see, life is dangerous for a baby fish. The fish in my tank go for quantity rather than quality. Some babies will simply never make it, even if the conditions are ideal. It usually means something's wrong inside them. But conditions aren't ideal. Their parents see them as novelty snacks (whose consumption will go towards making the next batch of eggs).

My four babies only made it because the number of adult fish in the tank had reduced and the plants had grown up. Even then, only four survived out of however many eggs laid in the tank. At this point, luck comes into play. Though the unhealthy ones get eaten, many healthy babies will also be eaten.

It's a sturdy, and lucky, fish that survives until too-big-to-eat size.

And that's the problem with the project as baby idea. People are thinking of the wrong sort of baby. Projects aren't human babies, who'll be nurtured and have every chance of success. They're fish babies. In order for some of the babies to succeed, you need to think like a fish. Demolish the flawed ones yourself, and some of the ones who were fine, to make way for better ones. You can re-use materials and ideas. Sometimes, it will be about luck. The red woolly hat will sell to the person who loves red, even if the blue one was better.

But whatever happens, you're not far away from the next batch of eggs and babies. Fish keep trying and trying, until the day when the tank is right for some babies to survive. They don't complicate it or angst about it. They just keep working on the next batch of eggs.

You can learn a lot from a fish. It's time to eat a few babies.


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* I tweeted about this, as some readers will recognise. To pre-empt the questions, the fry are kerri tetra (Inpaichthys kerri) and all four are doing well. They're also hard to photograph, especially as their colours rarely show in pictures**. So you'll have to make do with my artistic impression.

** The males are shiny blue, when they catch the light. The fact I keep shiny fish is probably not a surprise.