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Dissonance



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Mon Feb 29, 2016 1:26 pm
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Vervain says...



A Working Series Title novel.
Previously A Flight of Dragons.

- - -

Spoiler! :
Image


- - -

On the first day of the third month, Lord Shirzad rode home with his wife.

Katin hid with the horses.


- - -

The only thing Katin ever heard clearly was the death rattle of a feral dragon. Everything else is muddled, coming through ears that don't filter out words as well as they should, passing through a mouth that asks for people to repeat themselves more than anything. She learned early on that she wasn't the same as anyone else in Lord Shirzad's household, and she started clinging to the steward's skirt. Herah kept her safe.

Now Herah has abandoned her. When Lord Shirzad's wife falls ill, he blames Katin and exiles her to the wasteland—a place where things die more than they ever lived. Stumbling through brittle gray grasses with only a borrowed leather cloak to keep her warm at night, she's convinced she'll die of thirst long before the snakes ever get her.

She didn't account for the dragons.

- - -

Those of you who followed my misadventures in LMS may remember AFOD—it's that idea that crops up out of nowhere, you write about 15k for, and you forget about for five months because no one seems interested and you thrive off of feedback and yet don't want to flood the Green Room by posting it and this and that and wow that's a vicious cycle.

In any case, this is going to be my thread for talking about and agonizing over the cruelties of this idea, which is probably going to need at least two full-body rewrites once I'm done if not more.

Right now, I'm standing at 14k, so I'm not going to go back and rewrite what I have there until I finish the first draft. Progress on AFOD may be slow, but hey, that's how I work; I usually write about 1k for a given project in a week, if (and only if) I sit down and dedicate myself to it for a bit. I'll probably see if I can muse things out to myself in this thread, if I don't feel too awkward about it.

- - -

An open question or two:

My protagonist is hard of hearing. While I do have my own very limited experience to help me with this, are there any things I should remember about being hard-of-hearing that I'm probably going to forget as a hearing person? Any tips, any tricks, anything you'd like to mention?

In addition, how difficult is it usually to learn sign language? (Not just ASL, but any sign language.) I'm looking into learning ASL myself, but it could be a while before I actually put that plan into motion, so any tips there?

Any feedback is super duper really appreciated! (And, if you'd like, I'll help you out in return with a review!)
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Mon Feb 29, 2016 3:01 pm
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Evander says...



Lipreading is very exhausting and energy taxing and not all of it is accurate. It's incredibly easy to misread something and then lose track of the entire conversation or misread and mishear something and then derail the conversation by accident. I have to tendency mishear a lot of things as swears, which leads for interesting moments of embarrassment.

After talking with a lot of d/Deaf/hard of hearing folk, there's also an added issue with speaking. I tend to have to concentrate incredibly hard to not mess up words with 's' because it comes out like 'sh' without me really hearing it. (I'm sure you could probably tell what words I royally mess up with.) I also have issues with 'm', 'n', and 'k'. Although I've had issues with the two former my entire life, it's only been amplified by the loss.

Katin will probably go through a lot of guesswork when it comes to speaking and lipreading, which really sucks a lot of the time.

As far as tips go, I don't tend to go to many social events considering the fact that it's difficult to interact. A lot of people don't tend to realize that hard of hearing means that there's a degree of things you can't hear. (A lot of people assume that the world is muffled for hard of hearing people and completely soundless for d/Deaf people. That's not the case. A lot of d/Deaf people have degrees of hearing left but choose to not disclose that because hearing people will go, "But you can hear, so just listen better." "You're actually hard of hearing, then. Not d/Deaf. Stop making a big deal of out it.")

Brief rundown: deaf is medically deaf, Deaf is culturally deaf with the history and the sign and being involved in the community, hard of hearing is tricky though. Some people capitalize Hard Of Hearing for those in the community and others just stick with Deaf and use hard of hearing to simplify when explaining. There are hard of hearing people without capitalization who are involved in the community, but don't feel like they belong since they can still hear some conversation/talk on the phone/understand little kids. You might want to work out the Deaf culture in your world and seen how everyone feels about the labels.

From my experience, people who say they know sign language or that they would "learn it for me" never quite follow through. Or they'll stick up their middle finger, laugh, and go "that's sign language, right?" People are kinda insensitive when it comes to that stuff.

According to one of my internet acquaintances who is fluent in ASL, it takes about five years of hard practice. If you're not committed, it takes even longer. What works best is solid immersion or having a signing buddy to be with, so you can correct each other. ASL University is an American Sign Language Resource by a Deaf person, which is pretty good for looking up small signs here and there. It also has grammar resources and lessons. This is a good fingerspelling resource, if you want to become proficient in fingerspelling.

Weird thing about being hard of hearing: little kids are oh so difficult to understand. They tend to talk softly, really fast, or slurred which means comprehension from my end is near impossible.

Uh, this is a bit more than a brief rundown but I hope it does help! If you have any more questions, feel free to just message me.

Also: DRAAAAAAAGONS.
Want to talk about your project? Head on over to the Writers Corner! If you have a question about writing, then head on over to Research! Is your question not big enough to warrant its own thread? Ask away in Little Details!

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Mon Feb 29, 2016 3:38 pm
Vervain says...



Thank you so so so much! D/deaf/hoh culture is going to come more into play at the point I'm at, since Katin is out of her semi-rural environment, so I want to work that out now, definitely, as I'm moving forward.

You are the beeeest <3 (or the bee-iest, idk, are you made of bees?) Thank you a ton, Adri!
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Mon Feb 29, 2016 7:33 pm
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Angelreader77 says...



I can't add much to what Adrian said because it's wonderfully explained. Being hard of hearing, there's a lot of guessing involved. And at times what I hear is so warbled- I have to ask them to repeat themselves. I have this tendency to bluff- after someone has repeated a question twice and I still have no idea what they said, I throw in an "I don't know" and really really hope it wasn't an obvious question.

Even though I can hear pretty well with my hearing aids, it's much harder to listen in when the person isn't soeaking to me directly? Can't keep up with group conversations very well, I'm afraid.

One of the strangest things I've noticed is that I can't hear someone when they're wearing sunglasses. pretty weird but it's mainly because I can't see their eyes and for one, I have no idea whether they're looking at me and speaking to me. And then there are these really big sunglasses that end up covering all their expressions so I can't read them that well.

I don't think there's a Deaf Community where I live and I've been trying to learn ASL for a while. I'm learning it from videos and mirrors but having someone to practice with would really help. I don't know if I'm doing it right half the time. XD

Like Adrian said, children are hard to understand. Accents too! Um, that's more or less it. Hope I helped! C:
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Mon Feb 29, 2016 7:49 pm
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Vervain says...



I have a kind of auditory processing disorder, so I already go through the "huh? what did you say? can you repeat yourself? I'm sorry" bits of trying to hold conversations a lot - it's just hard to guess what parts of that apply to being hard of hearing and what parts don't, as well as what's involved that I might not even think of.

You bring up a great point about being able to see and read expressions! I hadn't even really thought of that before you mentioned it, but now I'm going to sit down and work through that with my protagonist, haha.

Thank you so very much!
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Mon Feb 29, 2016 11:56 pm
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Vervain says...



Katin


(post under construction)


- - -

She didn't know how long she walked. She didn't know how late it was when she finally fell asleep, somewhere on the edge of the waste with predawn darkness seeping into her gut.

She woke up in a nest of grasses, half-buried like a rodent, and kept walking.


- - -

The Short: Katin is hard of hearing. She was born to a lesser servant in the household on the edge of the Suvan Waste, a woman who disappeared without a trace after the death of the old lord, gods rest. Raised to be obedient, she still hesitates before asking people to repeat themselves unless it's something important—she doesn't want to interrupt anything.

When she's exiled, she has to learn quickly how to fend for herself, and luckily stumbles across a deep crack in the earth with a river running through it. Unfortunately for her, so did a flight of feral dragons, and a girl wearing a dragon-skin cloak isn't much different from a misshapen hatchling to them. Shenanigans ensue.

- - -

The Long:
Spoiler! :
(Still under construction, so please be patient! I'll update this with plenty of details once I get them all straightened out.)

Name: Katin (Suvani)
Age: 15 or so.
Gender: Feminine.

General Appearance:
Memorable Features:

Faults:
Talents:

Family:
Childhood:

Patience Breaking Point:
Status in Society:

History:

Character Arc:
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Tue Mar 01, 2016 12:06 am
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Vervain says...



Herah


(post under construction)


- - -

"What are you doing here? We needed you in the house an hour ago!" With her dress crumpled and smudged with so much flour, Herah looked like she'd been in a fight with the cook. Katin wouldn't put it past her.


- - -

The Short: Herah is the steward of the household of the Suvan Waste. She's worked for them since long before the death of the old lord, born within the walls and with every intent to die within them as well. When the feral dragon was trapped in the courtyard three years ago, she was the first to think to evacuate those who were in danger. In a sense, she's the mother of the entire household, even taking it upon herself to tutor the lady-mother at times when Beruz's knowledge falls short.

She's fond of Katin, even if the girl is aggravating at times, and doesn't want to see the girl go—but she can't fight Shirzad's wishes. The most she can do is equip the newly-exiled servant with enough water and food to survive a few days in the waste; there are no laws against that.

- - -

The Long:
Spoiler! :
(Still under construction, so please be patient! I'll update this with plenty of details once I get them all straightened out.)

Name: Herah (Suvani)
Age: 40 or so.
Gender: Feminine.

General Appearance:
Memorable Features:

Faults:
Talents:

Family:
Childhood:

Patience Breaking Point:
Status in Society:

History:
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Tue Mar 01, 2016 12:14 am
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Vervain says...



The Dragons
Qayat, Royin, Hanin


(post under construction)


- - -

One, two, three—four eggs, each emitting their own soft glow, like they were stars plucked down from the sky to nest in the walls of the ravine.


- - -

The Short: Well, they're dragons. In the course of AFOD, they're rather young hatchlings—think of them like puppies, rowdy and just beginning to explore the world around them, and not quite aware of their own strength or limitations yet. As they grow older, they develop their own personalities.

Qayat is the most curious of the three, with a tendency to poke her nose into everyone's business, usually forgetting that nose is rather larger and scalier than they're used to.

Royin is very focused, keeping her siblings in line when they try to do silly things while Katin is attempting (usually a futile effort) to specifically train them.

Hanin is the most personable, open to any change that comes his way, and—while he's not as curious as Qayat—he has a friendly 'grin' that, er, scares people away more than it draws them in.

As for that fourth egg, well, we don't talk about that.

- - -

The Long:
Spoiler! :
(Still under construction, so please be patient! I'll update this with plenty of details once I get them all straightened out.)

The fourth egg's fate: It hatched, all right, but the hatchling hardly took a few steps out of its shell before it came down obviously sick. It spent a day or two suffering, unable to eat or drink, before Lord Arshek gently broke it to Katin that the poor thing wouldn't live very long anyway, so it was more merciful to kill it now than to let it keep suffering. Katin, hesitant, agreed to the process, but it didn't do very nice things to her perception of her moral compass.

She named it Mihan, after the godly messenger Mihanzel.

--

Name: Royin
Age: Hatchling.
Gender: Female.

General Appearance:
Memorable Features:

Faults:
Talents:

Family:

Patience Breaking Point:
Status in Society:

Character Arc:

--

Name: Qayat
Age: Hatchling.
Gender: Female.

General Appearance:
Memorable Features:

Faults:
Talents:

Family:

Patience Breaking Point:
Status in Society:

Character Arc:

--

Name: Hanin
Age: Hatchling.
Gender: Male.

General Appearance:
Memorable Features:

Faults:
Talents:

Family:

Patience Breaking Point:
Status in Society:

Character Arc:
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Mon Mar 07, 2016 7:38 pm
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Vervain says...



The Plot


(post under severe construction)


- - -

This is going to be where I'll be posting and updating my short versions of my plot outline as I go. I'll probably not have much here for a while, until I'm revising and revising and revising everything; right now, I'm still rebuilding a little. I'm probably going to update this with scraps of ideas more than anything, but for now, it's a short outline of what I have already written.

Spoiler! :
• Katin learns she will be the maid for Shirzad's wife when they return from the city.
• Shortly after arriving, Lady Parvaneh falls ill and Shirzad blames Katin; Katin is exiled to the waste.
• Katin finds a ravine full of dragons, and a pair of them 'adopt' her and use her to look after their eggs.
• A wayward prince finds a wayward exile in the midst of his search for a dragon fit for royalty.
• Prince Farrokh's party takes Katin with them back to the city, considering she probably knows more about the eggs than they do.
• SHENANIGANS.
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Mon Mar 07, 2016 7:58 pm
Vervain says...



Suvani House


(post under construction)


Shirzad

She said earlier, when Lord Shirzad was talking with the physician in private, he had roared so loud that the glass window in the temple nearly shattered.

- - -

The Short: The tempestuous lord of the household on the Suvan Waste, Shirzad treats everything with a passion—his household, his duties, and most of all his family. He has become extremely protective of his immediate family after his father died and Erakh was injured. When his wife falls ill, he's desperate to find an explanation and a cure.

Erakh

The young lord rolled his eyes and lay back on the divan, propping his good leg up on the table like a child stubbornly defying his parents' orders. "What a woman," he said to thin air.

- - -

The Short: Shirzad's younger brother. Erakh was badly injured three years ago, shortly after being knighted, when a feral dragon landed in the courtyard and got its wings stuck so it couldn't fly away. His left leg was badly mangled, and now he has trouble moving on his own, but that doesn't stop him from walking and riding—though it does make it considerably more painful. He's selfish by choice; considering he's gone through all this pain for the sake of his brother's household, he'd like something in return.

Parvaneh

Lady Parvaneh smiled reassuringly, her eyes crinkling up again with joy, and clasped her hands together in front of her chest. "Spice tea, if you would."

- - -

The Short: A city lord's prized daughter, Parvaneh was more than happy to marry Shirzad after spending what seemed like forever negotiating the terms. She was a sickly child, and it was hers and her father's hopes that moving away from the dense population and high traffic of the city would do her well; instead, she fell ill again as soon as she set foot in her husband's household.

- - -

The Long:
Spoiler! :
(Still under construction, so please be patient! I'll update this with plenty of details once I get them all straightened out.)

Name: Shirzad
Age: 24-or-so.
Gender: Masculine.

General Appearance:
Memorable Features:

Faults:
Talents:

Family:

Patience Breaking Point:
Status in Society:

History:
Character Arc:

--

Name: Parvaneh
Age: 21-or-so.
Gender: Feminine.

General Appearance:
Memorable Features:

Faults:
Talents:

Family:

Patience Breaking Point:
Status in Society:

History:

--

Name: Erakh
Age: 20.
Gender: Masculine.

General Appearance:
Memorable Features:

Faults:
Talents:

Family:

Patience Breaking Point:
Status in Society:

History:
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Sun Mar 13, 2016 3:11 am
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Vervain says...



The Plot, Rewritten


(post under construction)


- - -

Oops.

Have some notes.
Spoiler! :
Katin was raised in the household on the Suvan Waste. When Lord Shirzad goes to the city for the prince's wedding, though, he loses her in a bet against Lord Arshek, the royal physician—and Katin is cut away from everyone and everything she knows.

Arshek uses her as an assistant with his magical dealings, kept secret from the public and the royal family for fear of persecution against so-called 'demons'; when his dragon eggs hatch, they bond with her first. Katin's teetering stability is pushed over the edge as the prince comes to fear her and the princess pursues a fascination with magic, all on top of the political discussions of whether or not these creatures should be killed to maintain the social order of Marad.

And then, of all things, a drunk Shirzad is brought before the queen and demands her back—Katin finds herself pitted against his champion by law, and faces the hardest decision of her short life. Should she lose by her own lack of skill and training, and sacrifice the palace life and the dragons she has come to love, or win by magic, and sacrifice the trust those around her have come to have in her?

- - -

Katin - a hard-of-hearing teenage girl; when she's lost in a bet to the royal physician, she must change her way of life to suit the palace and Lord Arshek's peculiar magical experiments. She manufactures some flimsy friendships with the skittish prince and sickly princess, but when Arshek's dragon eggs hatch and she finds herself imbued with dragon magic, all of that falls to ruins around her. Then Shirzad returns to the city and demands Maradi justice—and Maradi justice means he can assign a champion to fight the offender, Arshek, who assigns Katin as his own champion. In the ring facing a fierce lady knight, Katin's only chance to win is to fight dirty—and use magic to maintain her way of life.

Farrokh - the crown prince of Marad.

Tamina - the princess of Marad.

Parvaneh - Farrokh's bride.

Arshek - the royal physician.

Jahan - Arshek's medical assistant.

Nazdel - Arshek's daughter, a scholar.

Shirzad - the lord of the eastern reach and the Suvan Waste.

Erakh - Shirzad's younger brother, a knight of Marad.

Hera - the steward of the eastern reach.

Royin, Qayat, Hanin - a trio of dragon hatchlings that bond with Katin as their 'mother'.

Mihradel - a lady knight.
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Sun Mar 13, 2016 3:35 am
Evander says...



:o *fangirls*
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Mon Mar 21, 2016 1:41 am
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Vervain says...



A really quick update here!

Nothing very substantial, but I did a ton of plotting and am currently in the phase where I'm transferring the plot to an actual physical outline and putting everything in order and in layers of importance in my head. So basically a lot of stuff that you guys don't get to see, but! A few characters have switched around, as you can see in the post about "The Plot, Rewritten", and it's going to be interesting to play with, I think.

I am so looking forward to writing this! ^^
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Reviews: 425
Wed Mar 23, 2016 3:24 am
Vervain says...



I'm making progress on my outline, as I'm planning to write a little of this in a lower-stress version of Camp NaNo. (By no means am I going to aim anywhere close to 50k in April.) About a third of the way through outlining, and it's looking good.

I'm also starting to toss around ideas for a different title. I love A Flight of Dragons, but it's just not good enough for the finished product, and I've known that since I chose it for a working title. I'm largely going to wait until I'm done with the first draft to scour it for important images and themes, so I know more of what I'm working with in that regard, but I'm so eager to get a name I really adore... Sigh.
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Sun Mar 27, 2016 3:05 am
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Vervain says...



Working title change! Even Veronica Roth can't make me regret my love for one-word titles that end in specific sounds. (See my project Balance for another example, haha.)

So, what was previously the extremely generic A Flight of Dragons is now the slightly less generic and cooler-sounding Dissonance.

Also, I got the whole thing outlined! I'm thankful for that, and I'll be trying to write the first scene or two before Camp NaNo starts so I'm not floundering and mucking up my beginning. Thanks to my readers for their patience in me updating them on the second version <3 And I'll probably post some more plot/character thoughts in a bit!

Open Question:

I intend on using multiple forms of communication in the novel between multiple different characters. Specifically, two of them (Katin and Jahan) will speak through verbal communication, writing, and localized sign language. Because I'm uncomfortable describing signs and I don't want to hurt anyone in the Deaf community by potentially appropriating the system used for gloss and other modern sign-related things, I'm still trying to toss around different ways to show how they're communicating. (I did throw this past @Adrianmoon who was super kind and helped me out but I just want to make sure that no one else has an issue, practical or cultural, with this?)

So what I'm thinking is that for verbal dialogue, using "quotation marks" (American ones, none of this single-quote nonsense :P); for writing, using italics; and for sign dialogue, using «guillemets» to show speech. Is this okay, or would it be too othering, do y'all think? Would it look okay in text and translate well without too much of an explanation besides "they signed" tags once in a while?

My purpose for this: I just want it to be clear when they're speaking in sign language versus verbal dialogue so people don't object to the styles of speaking changing between mediums.

Thank you very much for your time!

-- edit: I've also added a copy of the working book cover to the first post!
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One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.
— Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex