Re: probably a bloody obvious question...

On Sun, 20 Aug 2000, H. S. Teoh wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 03:59:31PM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> [snip]
> > Hey, anything's good.  Culture/location is almost automatic, since any
> > conlang I make is going to be intimately tied to a story, and
> > culture-building *is* something I take time with.
>
> True enough... I find that designing a language is so much easier when you
> have a cultural backdrop to help you make linguistic decisions. Without a
> conculture to go with it, a conlang can easily become an ad hoc mosaic of
> arbitrarily-chosen linguistic curiosities, often quite incoherent.
<nod>

> But as for stories... I have the problem that I can create storylines well
> enough, but I can't *write* a story in an interesting way... (yeah, what
> *am* I doing on this list, eh? ;-) One idea I had to get around this
> problem was to actually write the story in the conlang itself, or at least
> present the story as a collection of manuscripts, book excerpts, recorded
> dialogues, etc., all written in the conlang, that gives a somewhat
> detailed picture of the conculture and its history. In fact, by carefully
> choosing what to include, the collection may well become the "story"
> itself.
I've thought of doing that, but I write for publication (three sales, two
published) and no *way* would I find a market.  What I'd like to do with
the current project and any future ones, though, is have a website
(eventually) with a learning-grammar, reference grammar and short
stories/poetry related to the culture in question.  I think I'd better
get my bachelor's first, though.  <G>

YHL, unfortunately a math major