: Re: How to write when thinking in multiple languages? When writing, scenes come to my mind in different languages mixed together. For example in a single scene a description will be in French, some

If it's your first draft, just write it as it comes. You can't edit a blank page.

After your first draft, go back through and clean up the polyglossolalia. If you're writing in third person, pick one language and make it all that. (Obviously if your characters speak multiple languages, you can decide what to keep and what to translate.)

If you're writing in the first person, you may choose to have a multilingual narrator. You then have to pick one "main" language (the language of whatever you think your audience will be) and figure out from there how much of the other language(s) you want to translate for them. For example, if the first-person narrator's main language is French, you can leave in a few swear words in Spanish, but if she's going to have a lengthy conversation in English, you need to translate that for your French readers.

There's a certain charm in code-switching (when a character changes languages for a few key words because the main language just doesn't have the term or phrase), so I wouldn't edit out your other languages entirely.

Load Full (0)

: The backstory's overwhelming the actual story I have a character with a grim past (forced to watch torture). I need him to have that grim past in order to explain his behaviour in the story

@Debbie451

Load Full 3 Comments

: Methods for creating slang I am interested in creating slang or a vernacular for a particular group in my story. I want it to be distinctive and a definite marker for in-group/out-group, but

@Debbie451

Load Full 5 Comments

: Beginning to write a novel? I already wrote the girl's (Ali) chapter and I'm very pleased with it as I've been trying a lot of different things for about two years now and when I start the

@Debbie451

Load Full 1 Comments

: Scene order: is this order of scenes confusing? Okay so say is my story scene order is in this order in the book. Future scene (insight) --> past scene (flashback) --> present day. What

: Re: How to write when thinking in multiple languages? When writing, scenes come to my mind in different languages mixed together. For example in a single scene a description will be in French, some

More posts by @Debbie451

: The backstory's overwhelming the actual story I have a character with a grim past (forced to watch torture). I need him to have that grim past in order to explain his behaviour in the story

: Methods for creating slang I am interested in creating slang or a vernacular for a particular group in my story. I want it to be distinctive and a definite marker for in-group/out-group, but

: Beginning to write a novel? I already wrote the girl's (Ali) chapter and I'm very pleased with it as I've been trying a lot of different things for about two years now and when I start the

: Scene order: is this order of scenes confusing? Okay so say is my story scene order is in this order in the book. Future scene (insight) --> past scene (flashback) --> present day. What

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top