Romance update

[resonant]

So. The bad news is: Siilhouette doesn't want twenty thousand words; they want fifty thousand words. So I'm not as close to being done as I had thought.

The good news is: I've mocked up a little frame story to go before and after the stuff I've already written, and in addition to providing some much-needed relationship context, it also adds a lovely symmetry and a handy metaphor for the whole relationship.

It also adds appearances by characters who'd previously existed only in backstory. Which is great, except that said characters now need names and occupations and hair colors and such.

With that in mind, I'm taking votes:

[Poll #218296]

Comments

Things I've learned from your poll...

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Naming restoration businesses is hard.
Sleaze = monosyllabic.

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

Oh, I translated Silhouette stories for many years! We had to cut out the stories, because, when translated into my language, they grow larger. Isn't it ironic?

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

Er. I meant, to cut out part of the story. Normally the most creative parts, because the almost always boring sex scenes we had to keep.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Your sleazy broker boyfriend has to be some kind of capitalist--in sin terms, a usurer, somebody who makes money out of money without every making anything in particular. Some kind of broker, ideally, or a mergers and acquisitions guy who does corporate takeovers. That would be the ideal contrast to Mr. Preserver of the Past, Works With His Hands, Sweats Earnestly and makes an Honest Dollar. *g*

[aerye.livejournal.com]

Mr. Sleaze: Patrick. 'Cause, see, then he holds out his hand and says, "But all my friends call me Trick." Which sorta has multiple sleazy meanings and...um. Okay...

::Susan scurries back under rock::

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

I suggested a condominium developer. :)

Answers.

[anoddplace.livejournal.com]

Ex's job: condo developer, or maybe architect?

Ex's name: Richard. Definitely. I thought of it, and then saw that Goosey had said it too. :)

Restorer: I think I have to go with Bella Casa!

Gee, is that what you think?

[stormheller.livejournal.com]

Well, you've just described my job. Or at least the department I work in. Our motto: "I liked it so much I bought the company". (But we thought other, smaller companies *wanted* to be bought by us. Honest.)
~ Stormy
Assistant to the M&A lawyer guy
And capitalist *g*

[djinanna.livejournal.com]

Gotta admit, looking through the answers, that "condo developer" seems to me almost perfect. It's legitimate and respectable, yet simultaneously sleazy.

No! Nay! Never! Desist, I say!

[(Anonymous)]

Re. Anoddplace's comment:

No, no, you can't call him Richard! Recollect Catherine Morland's papa from "Northanger Abbey" :

"... Her father was a clergyman ... and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard ..."

If it was enough of a cliche two hundred years ago for the Blessed Jane to poke fun at it, you *can't* perpetrate it any further!

Um. Sorry to butt in. I'll just be off now ...

Hestia

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I couldn't call him Richard, anyway, as Richard was the name of my first love and thus has almost entirely positive connotations to me.

Want an LJ code so you don't have to comment anonymously? I've got scads.

Regretfully declining

[(Anonymous)]

Oh how kind of you! But I daren't. Simply reading LJ steals so much time, I dread to think what havoc the lure of writing one would wreak. Am barely held back from commenting here, there and everywhere -- as you have discovered, ahem -- by the awareness of being A Compleat Stranger to my victi - ah, journallers.

But your thoughtfulness is much appreciated; though no less than one might expect from the author of "The Familiar". (One day -- probably Real Soon Now -- I'll send the feedback you deserve on that loveliest of stories. Until I get my thoughts in order, allow me to say that "The Familiar" is one of the most purely *civilised* things I've ever read. In any fandom. Thank you for it.)

Hestia

[naomichana.livejournal.com]

I do hope you'll let us know what you decide, by the way. I now feel a teeny-tiny sense of investment in your novel, and I imagine it'll be a good while before it sees print and I can satisfy my curiosity in the usual way. :)

[tradescant.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, is he a restoration architect or a construction business owner? I'd have to say this makes a difference in naming the business.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[laughing] Everything's a learning experience if you know how to look at it.

Names in general are very difficult -- though I did discover that as soon as I removed the story from the Midwest and put it back in the North Carolina mountains where everybody's ancestors are from Scotland, minor characters suddenly started arriving with names attached, instead of having to be referred to as "Mrs. Artisanal Cheesemaker" and "Mr. Snowplow Operator" until I could attack them with a name dictionary.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I would think that romances wouldn't translate well from one culture to another. What's "forbidden" varies so much from country to country.

Though I have noticed that our library carries a few translated into Spanish. I always wonder what they make of the English-speaking American woman's preoccupation with cowboys.

The publication I used to work for was translated into five or six languages, and it got longer in all of them. I'm not actually fluent in any other languages, but I can read a bit of Spanish, and one thing I noticed was that where in English you can turn almost anything into an adjective, in Spanish you actually have to use adjectives for that purpose. So in English you can say "an ink eraser," but in Spanish that has to become "an eraser for ink." And those little words add up.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[laughing] The actual virtue of Our Hero isn't so much Working With His Hands as Appreciating Old Things. Which is why I ultimately decided to go with condo manager.

I mean, Sleazy Ex-Fiance may be able to install a bathtub, too, but he'll install the cheapest fiberglass tub-and-shower enclosure he can buy at Home Depot, whereas Our Hero has a proper appreciation for enormous claw-footed cast-iron monstrosities that require the floor underneath to be reinforced.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Simply reading LJ steals so much time, I dread to think what havoc the lure of writing one would wreak.

Heh. My vow to use my LJ only for commenting and keeping a Friends list lasted all of a week. They do tend to draw you in.

One day -- probably Real Soon Now -- I'll send the feedback you deserve on that loveliest of stories. Until I get my thoughts in order, allow me to say that "The Familiar" is one of the most purely *civilised* things I've ever read. In any fandom. Thank you for it.

Aww! I like "civilized." It makes me happy. "The Familiar" is a fairly pure example of my ur-story: They Do Chores Together. They Get Used To Each Other. They Calm The Hell Down. And Everybody's Happy.

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm Brazilian. I think we are famous because here "it's forbidden to forbid" (It's not *completely* truth and I hate that stereotype, but hélas!) We translators were given instructions not to translate literally words like "cock" or "dick" - we had to use a more "decent" synonym (normally one of those hideous circumlocutions like "the center of his maleness" and so on). Argh!

Oh, but we are a colonized nation. I'm a little older than you are; in my parents's generation it was still worse: the hero of my father's childhood was a certain Opalon Cassidy (I haven't the foggiest idea who he is) and my mother went to see all John Wayne's movies.

Yes! Everything you have commented about Spanish can be said about Portuguese too - the two languages are very similar.

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

The name of the guy is Hopalong Cassidy, LOL

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

a certain Opalon Cassidy

I knew exactly who you meant, but I adore this. It sounds like a whole different character -- a much more interesting one.