ext_61640 ([identity profile] alison-sky.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] nanowrimo_lj2008-10-27 10:12 pm
Entry tags:

Weekly Plot Help - Week of October 27th

Wow, by Saturday NaNo will have begun and we will be heading into the craziness. Are you ready?

... come on, that was weak. ARE YOU READY?!

*grins* Ok, that was better.

Anyway, here's your plot help post for the week. Simple as always.


Add a comment with the help you need. Don't be shy. We're all writers here, and you never know, someone might give you a new plot bunny to add to your NaNo.

Reply to others and help them. You might be the one holding that bunny.


And just be awesome :)

Overused name or reference?

[identity profile] agdhani.livejournal.com 2008-10-29 06:14 am (UTC)(link)
My story has three races. The youngest, and most prevelent race I have dubbed Teran (or possibly Teren, haven't decided on the spelling yet). The second race is Elyri. The third is an ancient race, possibly mythical (there are ruins and writing left from a previous race. No one can realistically claim to have seen them, so it is unknown if they still exist or not).

The Elyri have a name for this race, the phae k'kaira, which means something akin to 'those who came before'. At the moment, the Teren's simply call them the Others.

My question is, is calling them Other's too cliched and over used? Should I come up with another name for them? Any suggestions or thoughts or opinions? Maybe the fact that I'm questioning it means it is too common...or maybe it is just my own paranoia, lol!

Thanks in advance.

Re: Overused name or reference?

[identity profile] claudia6913.livejournal.com 2008-10-29 03:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Other's does have that mystical, magical, and spooky connotation to it when used like that. If the Teran(Teren - I prefer this spelling) feel a sort of fear to speak of them, then Other's would be a reasonable term. However, if they are flippant, or are too young to see the danger in mocking or not being careful when speaking about something that may not be as dead and gone as they thought - Other's would be cliched.

Make any sense?

Re: Overused name or reference?

[identity profile] agdhani.livejournal.com 2008-10-29 04:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Actual mention of them doesn't come up often (at least it hasn't in the previous 2 books) and when it has, it's been a more reverant sort of context. I've also considered using the Befores...or maybe sticking with the Elyri term (or an abbreviation of it) since the Teren/Teran wouldn't have had a term for them when the moved into the region...and could easily have adopted the indigionous Elyri's name. Just not sure which way I'm leaning yet, or how important they have yet to be to the overall story arc!

Re: Overused name or reference?

[identity profile] feigned-living.livejournal.com 2008-10-29 06:28 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't think cliche is bad, exactly. Vague terms like that have always been used and in a lot of instances they work the best.

Re: Overused name or reference?

[identity profile] agdhani.livejournal.com 2008-10-29 06:33 pm (UTC)(link)
True...it is pretty vague, and I imagine some form of that turns up in all sorts of mythos...when one group of people simply doesn't have a name for some group of people they encounter they become 'other'. And not changing it now as I enter the third book is probably the easiest way to go!

Re: Overused name or reference?

[identity profile] hookavah.livejournal.com 2008-10-29 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)
What you really have to think about is would people think of calling them 'Others'? In this case, yes, but for future topics, you really wouldn't have these 'Others' with a complicated name and expect everyone else in the story to refer to them exactly. Anyways, I would think that the Others do fit. I have seen it used in many stories, but it hasn't really achieved 'cliche'.

Re: Overused name or reference?

[identity profile] agdhani.livejournal.com 2008-10-30 01:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks. I'm a bit under-read lately, so I'm not really sure how often it shows up elsewhere, only that I've seen it at least once in fiction and another time in a mythology class years and years ago.

Re: Overused name or reference?

[identity profile] standgale.livejournal.com 2008-10-30 03:16 am (UTC)(link)
in many languages, particularly where there has not been much contact with different peoples until recently, people call themselves "the people" and everyone else "the others" or something along those lines. It just sounds cool when they do it because it's in a foreign language to us. Like, the Teren could just call them "those that came before" just like the Elyri do, but because that's in our own language, we don't think it sounds as cool as phae k'kaira.
So, I think it has cultural and linguistic precedence, but it can sound a bit weird because of the way "we" think. (I'm not sure who "we" are - Western culture? English speakers? just me?)

Re: Overused name or reference?

[identity profile] agdhani.livejournal.com 2008-10-30 01:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Good points :D I imagine the Teren don't speak 'English' so they probably have a word for 'Others' too...but since the story obviously has to be written in what I know, I suppose I can use the Others and get away with it :D