2-Minute Interview

After several days of self-sustained purgatory, I now find myself in the situation that I have finished The Collector of Tales. Finished that is in the sense that I have now edited it for the last time ; put in some notes to help those who struggle with the dialect; and, added a Forward to explain why I have even put in a dialect in parts of the book at all. I have given up on a change to the cover as somehow everything that I tried felt wrong. Yes I know it's not very sexy and some stark colours, black and blood red on white would have been more arresting but no matter. It's there now on Kindle and on Lulu.com for those who want to look.

I thought that to mark the launch of the book, I would interview The Collector about it and find out what it meant to him.

I finally caught up with him in a noisy and oddly rather sunny cafe in his home town of Breyford: a funny little town on the outskirts of nowhere. Here for the price of a chai latte and a bobbin ( that's a curious little cold crust pie-like thing with shredded vegetables and some kind of cheese in it - if you need to know) I managed to coax him into giving me a few words. Actually, quite a few words were offered and here is a small selection.

David: So what's the book all about then?

Collector: You know, it's odd but I damned if I really know. I seem to spend a lot of time wandering about and being picked on by a few curious characters who are clearly intent on making my life even more difficult than it really is. There's also this odd activity that keeps happening off stage as it were. Being followed by people in dark cloaks is bad enough. Poor old Welcome having his head caved in in the marketplace is pretty grim and those two beggars at the Sun Inn dumping me for dead on the road to nowhere more or less takes the biscuit.

David: Well could you give me an idea of the plot?

Collector: Oh, sorry, I thought I had. Well, it goes like this. I'm looking for a tale to add to my collection and I have headed off into the northern lands to hear it in the raw. In this rather strange village, I find a storyteller who is actually pretty good even though he is a bit of a head case. He tells me all about it, you see. But it's no good just relying on one source and so I head up to Trellsheim - that's the only urban centre up that way for more miles than I would bother to count. There's a lot going on up there and whilst I find a few bits of extra stuff about them, I don't actually get ot the heart of it until those two .... shall we say 'characters' .... dump me in the snow outside the town. That's when I meet the real Fire Dancers - that's what the tale I'm looking for is about - did I mention that?

David: Er, no.

Collector: Ah, well that's what it's about. In fact it was going to be called The Fire Dancers you know, originally that is. Somehow it seemed a bit too much like a fantasy story though - you know Tolkein that sort of thing. Still we took a knife to that and cut out a lot of the damage.

David: So you are not a fan of Tolkein?

Collector: Did I say that? No I didn't. I am very fond of Tolkein and I've read the book [LOTR- ed] more times than I can recall. It's just that, well Tolkein belongs in Tolkein and not in the Collector of Tales.

David: So if it's not fantasy, how would you label the story?

Collector: Now why on earth would I want to label it at all? It has a title (and a pretty good one, I don't mind saying) and there's nearly 80,000 words to tell you all about it. What else do you need?

David: Well, I mean what genre is it?

Collector: Ah, why didn't you say! Simple. It's Literary Soap.

David: I'm sorry, I've never heard of that.

Collector: Well of course you haven't. That's because it's not been written before.

David: Do you think that you could expand on this?

Collector: Well of course I can, my boy but I'm afraid that it will have to wait for another day.

With that, The Collector stood up, spilling as he did so, my untouched (and now cold) cup of coffee. He flung his day sack over his shoulder and headed off with just the briefest of nods of his head in my direction. I watched, slightly baffled as his retreating form shuffled off down towards the main road. Here, he stepped over the stream that ran down the centre of the alley - don't ask - and was gone.

Somehow he had managed to leave me feeling slightly breathless. I was just glad that I hadn't tried to interview Grendel's Mother but if you want to know why, you'll have to read the book.

The Challenge of Dialect

OK, here's the problem. If you have read the previous blog you will see that I have developed a form of dialect for use in my novel, The Collector of Tales. Now it is meant to be a form of English believe it or not, and it is there to add to the overall look and feel of The Collector's World. Firstly, there is the brutishness of the language. I refer to it as Bruta Speke. If you can, picture the English language as it developed out of Chaucer's Middle English through people like Sir Philip Sidey and others on into the world and categorisation of the language say with Samuel Johnson. During that time spelling was inconsistent and no doubt pronunciation was also substantially varied.

Such is Bruta Speke. Read it as it sounds as it is phonetic. There is no particular grammar or syntax to it as it is not that clever. Add in a touch of regional dialect too. Kegs for trousers for example. Someone once asked me if it was Cockney...for the avoidance of doubt, though my mother was born within the sound of Bow Bells, no it is not Cockney - not even close.

The second aspect of the dialect is that of understanding. When we travel to places where we do not fully grasp the local language, we find a lot of gaps in our understanding. It is an uncomfortable feeling for some, tending towards paranoia in others. Are they talkng about us! That is the feel that I am trying to generate in the Collector of Tales. Much of the dialogue can be inferred from both context and from repetition or rephrasing by the Collector himself. Some of it may seem unintelligible but if it is, that's because it is unimportant. Much of communication is pointless and if it is not understood, it doesn't matter. It's just noise. I'm talking here about human intercourse not just the dialogue in my book. That is what I want to achieve in the story.

However, some people perfer to undertsand it all and so I have resorted in paper versions to icnluding notes on the dialogue at the end of each chapter. It is not ideal and for online versions I have popped some code in to bring up the translation when you mouse over the offending text. That works better. Sadly, I cannot currently include that on Kindle but no doubt it will come in time.

Ok that's my rant about dialogue... I say that becuase I have just spent several days re-writing bits of it to make it more readily understandable and in adding in notes. I guess I should leave the last words to The Collector, for after all it is he who is the man on the ground as it were.

"Although I understood the language quite well, the dialect was a bit of a challenge and I have to say that a lot of the noise that I heard was pretty unintelligible at first. Fortunately, most conversations had few words of substance or meaning in them but every now and then I would hear a word or phrase that would give the sense to what was being said. Words, context, gestures and repetition - these would be the things that would allow me to glean understanding."

From The Collector of Tales Chapter One - The Infernal Village

How not to order a drink

From The Collector of Tales

I made it the last few feet to the bar and to the creature that I took to be in authority. It is an simple observation that I was watched with hawk-like focus by this woman from the time that I opened the door to within a few feet of the bar. As soon as I actually got there, I appeared to have become a part of the scenery. I looked meaningfully in her direction but she had started swilling a tankard in some brownish liquid from a basin beneath the bar and appeared totally engrossed both in that task and an animated conversation taking place at the far side of the room. It was pretty obvious, with all the noise around, that she couldn't possibly hear it.

I tried coughing and clearing my throat but even I knew that was pointless in the din and besides it prompted a series of hackings and spitting from a couple of men at the bar that made me sound like a girl. I waved: not a thing. I called out moderately loudly but in that room it was lost. I decided again on the very obvious.

"Drahnk, ja'bas" I yelled at the top of my voice.

A ripple of silence spread out through the room from where I was standing, passed out through the walls and was gone. It had worked though, for Grendel's Mother stirred from her labours and looked over at me. Actually, it was more like she looked through me. It was quite discomfiting. Again there were those bovine eyes and again the vacant look and the red saliva and, even more disconcerting, again the thick black beard.

"D'ja wahnt?" she growled.

"D'ja goht?" I barked.

"Horshp's!" she hissed.

"Y'allavvit'en." I grunted.

So far so good, I thought.

Then it was that I made the mistake. All those fifty-two years of good upbringing could not be held back. Much as I had tried, I simply could not help it and out it came uninvited from my hapless mouth.

"Shakoff..." I whinnied.

It had not been said loudly. In fact I had almost swallowed the word as it came out and yet the silence in the room was immediate and utter. I could hear my heart thumping. God's ear, I could hear half a dozen hearts thumping. All eyes were on me. I could feel the hostility. Something quick was needed.

"Paw'sh akov peg ah' there to."I said as loud as I dared, pointing with apparent enthusiasm (I hoped) to the pig roasting, for want of a better word, in the smoke and warmth of the fire.

"Paw'sh akov peg! Y'ah!" I thumped my chest for emphasis with my clenched right hand. "J'ah hangregish!"

I scarcely dared to look around in the unnerving quiet that had enveloped the room so I kept my eyes on Grendel's Mother. Her mouth twisted slightly and worked its way into what I think was a grin. It could have been pity and again it could have been lust.Hopefully, I would never know.

"Y'ai sh'akov peg, lurv" she replied, softening ever so slightly.

I was relieved. It looked like I had pulled it off: one serious cultural faux pas into what was frankly an acceptably rude demand for food. I ignored the all too obvious comments of "fawk'in farners" and a range of other similar obscenities from the others in the room as the volume went back up to full.

It was with slightly detached interest that I watched as Grendel's Mother poured a rich, slightly greenish looking liquid from a large tin jug under the counter into the battered tankard that she had hitherto been immolating in the basin. The liquid had a thin, oily look about it as it was poured and small white things floated and bobbed about on the surface in the tankard once it was placed on the bar before her. She gave it a vigorous stir with a stick that seemed to be lying about for the purpose and then passed the tankard to me.

The detached interest gave way to mild concern as I watched the oily liquid whirl around in the tankard that was now in front of me. There were far too many bubbles forming on the surface to be accounted for by the mild agitation of the stick. Something was clearly living and breathing in it. I noticed also that the white things had ceased to bob about. In fact they seemed to have disappeared. Perhaps, to be accurate, I should have said that they dived beneath the oily surface.

"Horshp's!" she said.

There was neither pride nor threat in her voice. It was a take it or leave it kind of statement and from the look of the drink that was described, I was pretty sure now that I was going to leave it.

"Yu'l aff a tab or'll ya pay fer't nuw,"she continued and then witha pause and a hard glint in her eye added. "Fee trupps!"

To be honest, I had no idea what Horshp's was but I presumed that it was now before me in all its greenness, floating the slightly thin and oily froth on its surface that looked vaguely off white. However, fee trupps demanded a response. This was a land of hagglers and I was expected to do the business. As it was I couldn't tell from the dialect whether she had said fee (five) or thee (three) and I was not going to pay five for a drink I was basically afraid off.

"Fee trupps! " I stammered, "Nehg, nehg! Ye nehg a fawk'in farner heer."

That at least drew some interest from those nearby.

" Di trupps 'nd ne mur vor dis greyn pus"

"Ja'horsun farner ish'ta shahk!" she countered and followed it up with an emphatic hawk and spit, the like of which landed in all its redness at the base of the tankard just where it met the bar.

"For trupps ne holper 'an," she added in a slightly menacing tone.

Three and a half trupps was more than any reasonable man would pay but I threw down the coins in feigned disgust. At least that way I would keep all my remaining teeth, for now. I added, for realism, "Ja'bas!" which, it seemed she took almost as a compliment as she flashed me one of her twitching, grimacing smiles.

"Ja'll getcha sh' akov peg," she offered.

Oh crap, I thought. More haggling and we haven't even got down to the main issue. Somehow I had to get myself a room in this place to sleep tonight. Best to go for it now I resolved.

There is something that I find fundamentally embarrassing about asking for a room for the night. To start with, I never really know what to say. Usually I'll try something like, 'Have you got any vacancies?' or, 'Do you have any accommodation?' or perhaps, 'Have you got a room?' No matter which I use, however, there is always that suggestion of embarrassment and invariably I'll swallow the words or mumble so that I will not be heard properly no matter what language I am speaking. Then I'll have to go through it all again. I guess we all create our own versions of purgatory one way or another.

That was more of less what happened when I tried to get a room sorted here. The only difference was that once we had got down to the issue, we haggled over the price. Well, that and the fact that I claimed that I was the mother of a smoking dog. Don't ask me how. All I know is that I swallowed a couple of syllables in 'accommodation' and out it popped uninvited as it were. It kind of caught her unawares and I think threw her out of focus on the price. Anyway five trupps was, I thought, a bargain even though there was the obligatory non-refundable deposit (for fumigation) which the hairy witch told me was set at another five trupps in these parts.

This was on account of the 'calymeens' she had explained. She had disappeared behind the bar for a few seconds before emerging with a look of triumph and a rather unhappy and pale looking creature vaguely resembling a trilobite which she then crushed on the bar before me.

"Ye'cob calymeen. Hah!" she said with a grin.

Personally I think that she had kept that one there for the purpose. As the viscous juices of the hapless creature spread over sticky surface of the bar, I paid my ten trupps (and the shreeve tax - another trupp) and the key deposit (another two trupps but refundable if the key is presented before sunrise which in this part of the world was currently 06.00 , Eastern Seaboard Time. Then with my bag, a huge key and my plate of smoke roasted and slightly warm pork on a dirty birch bark platter, I made my way through the crowded room to the dark narrow opening with the words 'Slepisht' scrawled on the crumbling plaster above it. The tankard of Horshp's remained on the bar untouched.

The dead trilobite watched me through its lifeless calcite eyes.

The Collector of Tales is available in paper or Kindle format