Tag Archives: Constructed Languages

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 14, Theory and Technique

14.44: Realism vs. Rule-of-Cool

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard

Where do you draw the line between what seems plausible, and what would be cool? If you pick “plausible,” how do you stay cool? If you pick “cool,” how do you avoid knocking the readers out of the story? And finally, how might we structure things so that when the time comes, we don’t need to choose one or the other, because we can have both?

Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and engineered by Alex Jackson

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Take something super-cool, and make it sound realistic. Now take something very grounded and make it sound outlandishly incredible.

Terminal Uprising, by Jim C. Hines

Archive Seasons 11-15, Guest, Live Audience, Season 12, Theory and Technique

12.51: Constructed Languages, with Dirk Elzinga

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Your Hosts: Howard, Mary, Dan, with guest host Beth Meacham

Dirk Elzinga, an associate professor of linguistics, joined us live at LTUE to talk about constructed languages, and how we, as writers, might go about constructing them for our work.

Liner Notes: The big stack of notes from Dirk required its own page. Below are links to specific tools mentioned during the episode.

Credits: This episode was recorded live at LTUE by Dan Dan the Audioman Thompson and mastered beneath a pyramid of stone tablet encyclopedias by Alex Jackson.

 

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Come up to with a non-combat, non-warfare metaphor to talk about a debate.

Always Coming Home by Ursula Le Guin