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Post subject: Have you ever found editing to be difficult?
PostPosted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 8:36 pm 
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I've been working over the LUNAR Walking School script for the last few weeks, and I always seem to hit a frustration roadblock because while the text there doesn't seem good, it seems, well, good enough. You know? Stuff that makes perfect sense, is fairly well-written, but just doesn't flow like it should. It can be a real effort to take that and transform it into something that fits, is well-written, and flows, while retaining as much of the original textual accuracy as possible.

There always seems something so permanent about a written line of text. Is this just me? :/


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Post subject: Re: Have you ever found editing to be difficult?
PostPosted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:15 pm 
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Nah, I know what you mean. It may be a little different if you're the one that translated that line of text. I find it really difficult to edit my own scripts because as a translator you work hard to get the meaning of the Japanese translated accurately, sometimes down to the point where it influences the specific wording. To then take that and switch gears to thinking how it might sound more natural in English is really hard. As much as I'd like to have complete control and do it all myself, I think that translators and editors need to be separate people and that a translated script should be edited. Once you come around to it, it's actually quite freeing as a translator because you can just focus on doing your "job", translating, and not worry about making it sound really good. As long as someone else can read it and understand the meaning and intent, they can naturalize it for you. You have less things to focus on and it can even make you feel better about the job you did.


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Post subject: Re: Have you ever found editing to be difficult?
PostPosted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:35 pm 
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Gideon Zhi wrote:
I've been working over the LUNAR Walking School script for the last few weeks, and I always seem to hit a frustration roadblock because while the text there doesn't seem good, it seems, well, good enough. You know? Stuff that makes perfect sense, is fairly well-written, but just doesn't flow like it should. It can be a real effort to take that and transform it into something that fits, is well-written, and flows, while retaining as much of the original textual accuracy as possible.

There always seems something so permanent about a written line of text. Is this just me? :/
No, Gid, it's not you. Writing is hard work and writing well is very hard work and quite time consuming.

Even with training and background, I suffer through times when I disconnect from the subject matter, and each phrase and scene turns into pick-and-shovel work, as Brian Keith once put it, describing another form of creative artistry, acting. (Brian was the dad in an old TV series called Family Affair. He hated that role, preferring to shoot action movies such as The Hallelujah Trail and gritty TV shows such as Hardcastle and McCormick.)

Raw talent and aptitude are a start, but training and lots of practice build a writer's technical knowledge and skills. Here is some of the best advice I can offer a writer. Someone once asked a professor of creative writing at the University of Oklahoma (also a successful writer with 75 published novels, named Jack Bickham) what was the number one rule that facilitated good writing. The Professor said, "I can't name one single rule, but I can offer you three. These are rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite!!"

Heh, Bickham's final sentence says it all, I've learned over the years. Even under the best of circumstance with training, passion, and experience, all writers suffer blocks, except perhaps the late Louis L'Amour, who once said he would peck out a publishable western novel on an antique typewrite sitting in the intersection of Hollywood and Vine in Beverly Hills!

Finally, I would conduct lots of research on Lunar in general, one of the beloved RPG series with plenty of resources to draw from. Absorb and live the part as Daniel Day-Lewis did in Gangs of New York, Last of the Mohicans, and other amazing movies he did.

In RPG storywriting, a line of well-formatted, accurately translated text doesn't need to remain permanent and immutable if it's not working. If it doesn't flow, rip out the whole scene and copy it to notepad. Outline the story elements in that scene, then rewrite it in a way that does flow. Rewrite it 5 or 10 times, then polish it. Then, put it back into the strings, reformat it, rewrite and polish it some more, and play through it a half dozen times. It doesn't need to follow Japanese syntax. You're telling a story that makes sense in English, not tracking the sometimes convoluted logic of an Eastern spellbinder.

Change the order of speakers, if necessary, to built dramatic effect the way the conversation would transpire in Western cultural circles. Then, when it sounds perfect to you, give it to a person who possesses high-level linguistic skills and a poet's soul (such as Red Soul), and let that person point out different viewpoints and technical elements that you may have overlooked, so you can weigh alternative approaches. Finally, let your beta testers ferret out the rest of the cats and dogs. If your style is consistent and it works for you, in the final analysis, be true to yourself.

The one thing you don't want is someone who muddies the water of a complicated plot by jumping on minutia before they've played the whole scene and possibly the entire game and had a chance to analyze how all of the pieces fit together. That sort of input just distracts a writer from staying on task and maintaining a death grip on the big picture. It slows production to a crawl when hobby time is limited and precious. It can kill the fun and enthusiasm of doing this work in a heartbeat, the very reason we do it in the first place. I'm not getting any younger. I don't want to take years and years any longer to finish a single work.

So, build one good scene at a time, then another and another. Link them all together and you have the raw makings of a successful work. Just be sure to rest when you need it, and take meaningful breaks when you get blocks! In other words, you need healthy diversions that clear and refresh your mind. Try to write at least a few hours each day to stay fresh with the action, never skipping more than a day or two at a time. If you don't like what you wrote today, sleep on it and rewrite it tomorrow.

Accept and act upon criticism that is credible and well-meaning. Not everyone will appreciate your writing style, but if someone knows how to write your story better, he or she is free to create his or her own translation. You'll quickly discern the difference between someone whose comments are thinly veiled insults that disrespect your work and others who know how to express differences of opinion and offer suggestions without sounding negative all the time and killing the fun.

Oh, and don't expect to create great work while drinking. My writing turns puerile and impaired under even a slight influence. Save your toddy for relaxation after you've knocked off work for the day. I could say more, but I'll stop here. Good luck!


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Post subject: Re: Have you ever found editing to be difficult?
PostPosted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 4:01 am 
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My experience with editing text is somewhat limited, but my biggest and ongoing experience hasn't been too hard. The main translator's english isn't that good and a bunch of stuff was translated without context. I feel that kind of makes things easier for me because the translation wasn't that good to begin with and it's my job to make it good.


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Post subject: Re: Have you ever found editing to be difficult?
PostPosted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 5:58 am 
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For what it's worth, I've played both already-English LUNAR games to completion, and I have some guidance from a series expert as well. All that said, Walking School is pretty far removed from the main-line games; only one of the four dragons shows up, there're no Dragonmasters, Althena only really factors into one of the later chapters instead of being the central focus of the game, and Ghaleon doesn't show up at all, not to mention that the game takes place a couple of centuries before the *first* LUNAR. There are only a few small references to the main LUNAR games in the text - Vane is mentioned in the ending as the next step up from Iyen (the titular school), and one of the characters lives near Burg, the town where Alex and Luna are born 200 years later.

I'm confident that my writing is strong and that the characters are coming through well. It's just a slog. I burn out of motivation pretty quickly these days :(

The game is extraordinarily episodic, so it's pretty easy to encapsulate into well-defined chunks for writing and testing. They tend to start with the chapter title and prologue, go through with the townie text, then have all the plot stuff at the end of the segment *mostly* in spoken order, so it's pretty easy to edit, and I've got a pretty decent online guide for context. It's just so tough to plow through some of the stuff that seems "good enough" if not necessarily "good" :|

And for whatever it's worth, I don't drink. At all. So no worries there :p

Minor edit: And if you have any doubt about my writing abilities, do try Madou Monogatari or Live-A-Live, both of which had yours truly editing. Particularly LaL. It's more recent, and is one of AGTP's absolute finest patches - each chapter has its own font. It's pretty great.


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Post subject: Re: Have you ever found editing to be difficult?
PostPosted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 8:35 am 
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Gideon Zhi wrote:
It's just a slog. I burn out of motivation pretty quickly these days :(

It's just so tough to plow through some of the stuff that seems "good enough" if not necessarily "good" :|

And for whatever it's worth, I don't drink. At all. So no worries there :p
Then, either that particular project has become pick and shovel (at least at that juncture) or else your passion meter for writing has waned.

All you can do then is push yourself to the finish line with sheer willpower, because it's not fair to the expectations of product consumers for writers to deliver less than their very best effort, to freshen up those interludes of mediocre prose, no matter how long it takes to re-stoke the muse. Clancy made millions then got lazy, so now his material either sounds like a boring day at the office (to me... another life) or (dare I say it?) pulp. I wouldn't be surprised if Clancy has cloned ghostwriters to pump out formula. Pathological readers will suck it up nonetheless, but not this cowboy... anymore. It puts me to sleep now.

So, a burned out writer can reduce the amount of hours he writes per day, but he should never cut back on the number of days he writes each week.

I hope you aren't underestimating the value of formal training in the trade craft. I suppose a few people have made a real living writing without any, but I can't name a single one offhand. Course, then again, none of us in this scene are doing it for the moo-lah, so the only feedback we receive is from frequently polarized members of a niche audience (that we ourselves belong to).

Heh, you're the third highly productive teetotaler I've run into in this hobby! As I said, best of luck turning out a tip-top Lunar prequel.

Gid, you've been to heart and soul of retro-game translations lo, these many years, while many of the rest of us have either dropped out altogether or gone off to seek our fortunes, raise kids, and trek the globe off and on. Maybe ya just need a break.

I didn't mean to lecture, but that's who I am and what I do in the real world... my whole life, whatever the challenge, whatever the dream... push, push, push... myself most of all, trying to lead by example, my children, my subordinates... my peers and even my wife and bosses... push, push to the top... become the best at what we do, finish what we start and value the team over self... and never, ever quit until the job is done. Yup, working together, nothing's impossible!


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Post subject: Re: Have you ever found editing to be difficult?
PostPosted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 9:03 am 
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Garrett wrote:
My experience with editing text is somewhat limited, but my biggest and ongoing experience hasn't been too hard. The main translator's english isn't that good and a bunch of stuff was translated without context. I feel that kind of makes things easier for me because the translation wasn't that good to begin with and it's my job to make it good.
The translators I've worked with have all been outstanding people. Many have really helped me craft stories. I guess one of the best compliments I ever received was from Akujin, who said my English version of a particular RPG was more fun to play than the Japanese. I appreciated this especially because Akujin was highly fluent in both languages. In recent times, Filler and I are having a blast putting the Slayers story together. I enjoy seeing him pleased, and he says that after all these years of waiting, he is relishing the opportunity to finally play the game with English on the screen.

But a writer is not an editor. The editing process begins following the final rewrite. Frequently, raw translations serve as vehicles of data and facts, same as any other repository of research materials. The writer's job is to gather all available information and tell the story accurately, writing in a style that enhances the experience for the reader to the highest level.

The editor's job is to take a finished story and correct the grammar, misspellings, and syntax, ensuring that the final form is polished to current market standards. All successful writers quietly agree among themselves that the New York editors are nothing more than failed novelists with fancy journalism degrees from pedigree universities who happen to know their grammar and the publishing industry cold. Most of them are working on secret novels and praying for that big break some day.

Nowadays, the publishing industry's "editors" expect authors to bring in material that is almost "finish" edited when they receive it, a relatively recent trend. Therefore, many authors are finding it necessary to broaden their training and learn editing skills.

We who are writing these games at D-D are generally providing our own editing services, and we also fulfill editing functions through teamwork and even sweep out the joint at the end of the day!


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Post subject: Re: Have you ever found editing to be difficult?
PostPosted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:01 am 
Gideon Zhi wrote:
For what it's worth, I've played both already-English LUNAR games to completion, and I have some guidance from a series expert as well. All that said, Walking School is pretty far removed from the main-line games; only one of the four dragons shows up, there're no Dragonmasters, Althena only really factors into one of the later chapters instead of being the central focus of the game, and Ghaleon doesn't show up at all, not to mention that the game takes place a couple of centuries before the *first* LUNAR. There are only a few small references to the main LUNAR games in the text - Vane is mentioned in the ending as the next step up from Iyen (the titular school), and one of the characters lives near Burg, the town where Alex and Luna are born 200 years later...


It shouldn' be as different as "Lunar: Dragon Song" for NDS.


Last edited by Lalakoboldslayer on Fri Dec 11, 2009 8:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Have you ever found editing to be difficult?
PostPosted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:21 am 
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Wildbill wrote:
I hope you aren't underestimating the value of formal training in the trade craft. I suppose a few people have made a real living writing without any, but I can't name a single one offhand. Course, then again, none of us in this scene are doing it for the moo-lah, so the only feedback we receive is from frequently polarized members of a niche audience (that we ourselves belong to).


Mind, I *have* had some formal training. I have a degree in English, took a creative writing class during my final year in school. Further, as my "thesis" project for the honors college, I penned a 75,000-word Y/A Fic novel with a Comp Lit instructor (specializes in kid lit) as my chair and the creative writing guy as my second. I've also been writing for the better part of the last decade in some fashion or other, often for the romhacking side of things, but I do some fiction as well. I read Strunk & White for *fun* a few years ago :p I also consider my grammar to be quite strong, but I also realize that believable dialog isn't always going to conform to a rigid grammatical structure.

I also read a lot. I'm not sure I really believe the old "reading lots will make you a better writer" quip, but I have learned a thing or two. Most notably, I've read through the entire Harry Potter series (don't laugh, please, I enjoyed them :|) But roundabout book 4 or 5, I noticed that Ms. Rowling had a propensity to overuse ellipses to indicate character dialogue trailing off. Each time I encountered one (sometimes several times on a page) I'd replace it with another punctuation mark in my head, and almost invariably the replacement made the sentence stronger. I've since similarly checked myself every time I find myself using an ellipsis, and I almost always get rid of it in favor of straight-up punctuation. Lesson learned!

(I forgot, I also did the rewrites on Holy Umbrella, Madara, and Esper Dream 2. If you need something short, ED2 and Holy Umbrella are maybe six hours long apiece.)

I think my biggest issue is job burnout. It's been happening for a good long while, and I'm desperately in need of a change. I have some paid time off coming up, thankfully, but I really just need something else. I put in 38 hours between Friday and Sunday, then round it off with a two-hour meeting on Monday. By the time I get home, I'm pretty well blasted, and never feel like doing *anything.* It's hard to get out to do the things I like - I sing in a volunteer chorus on Tuesday nights, for instance, but a lot of the times it's a chore to get moving :( This is bleeding into my romhacking (and writing) motivation, and is certainly part of the reason my release schedule's dropped off this year.


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Post subject: Re: Have you ever found editing to be difficult?
PostPosted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 11:27 am 
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Gideon Zhi wrote:
Wildbill wrote:
I hope you aren't underestimating the value of formal training in the trade craft. I suppose a few people have made a real living writing without any, but I can't name a single one offhand. Course, then again, none of us in this scene are doing it for the moo-lah, so the only feedback we receive is from frequently polarized members of a niche audience (that we ourselves belong to).


Mind, I *have* had some formal training. I have a degree in English, took a creative writing class during my final year in school. Further, as my "thesis" project for the honors college, I penned a 75,000-word Y/A Fic novel with a Comp Lit instructor (specializes in kid lit) as my chair and the creative writing guy as my second. I've also been writing for the better part of the last decade in some fashion or other, often for the romhacking side of things, but I do some fiction as well. I read Strunk & White for *fun* a few years ago :p I also consider my grammar to be quite strong, but I also realize that believable dialog isn't always going to conform to a rigid grammatical structure.

I also read a lot. I'm not sure I really believe the old "reading lots will make you a better writer" quip, but I have learned a thing or two. Most notably, I've read through the entire Harry Potter series (don't laugh, please, I enjoyed them :|) But roundabout book 4 or 5, I noticed that Ms. Rowling had a propensity to overuse ellipses to indicate character dialogue trailing off. Each time I encountered one (sometimes several times on a page) I'd replace it with another punctuation mark in my head, and almost invariably the replacement made the sentence stronger. I've since similarly checked myself every time I find myself using an ellipsis, and I almost always get rid of it in favor of straight-up punctuation. Lesson learned!

(I forgot, I also did the rewrites on Holy Umbrella, Madara, and Esper Dream 2. If you need something short, ED2 and Holy Umbrella are maybe six hours long apiece.)

I think my biggest issue is job burnout. It's been happening for a good long while, and I'm desperately in need of a change. I have some paid time off coming up, thankfully, but I really just need something else. I put in 38 hours between Friday and Sunday, then round it off with a two-hour meeting on Monday. By the time I get home, I'm pretty well blasted, and never feel like doing *anything.* It's hard to get out to do the things I like - I sing in a volunteer chorus on Tuesday nights, for instance, but a lot of the times it's a chore to get moving :( This is bleeding into my romhacking (and writing) motivation, and is certainly part of the reason my release schedule's dropped off this year.
Did you ever try to do anything commercially with the novel?

Oh, yeah... the ellipses thing. I've been trying to adapt my evolving style to reducing them. Styles change in what flies in the commercial world. Some readers get personally annoyed by them. Japanese game writers use them for pauses. I am turning more and more to pause codes and "straight up" punctuation, too. The little box dictates much, byte limitations, on and on...

I hope I don't burn out on writing. Right now, it's my recreation, my relaxation, a way to relieve physical pressure on a herniated disk for a few hours. Meanwhile, I'm designing, developing, building, and remodeling a few houses on the side for a "third career" and having the time of my life on my final homestead, a seven acre waterfront estate on the Chesapeake Bay. I'm likely to shoot Bambi, catch Flipper, operator a loader, wire a GFCI circuit, fell a tree, and write a game scene, all in the same day. I even have my own internet tower. I'm the neighborhood slum lord for wireless! Wife Sherry still wants me to dust off, polish, and publish one of my novels, but I'm having more fun writing games, and it takes all my writing time. To go back to commercial (journalism) writing would leave my houses unfinished. Writing for a living is too consuming and would force me back into the city. Plus, I don't pay any taxes on "sweat equity". I need to finish all this construction so I can invite the D-D family to a little summer retreat one of these fine days. Need the digs to put them up in proper comfort, but I guess the bar will be closed with this bunch. Heh, more Lancers for mio!

So, take that break, Gid. You've earned it!


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