overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Kennings. I absolutely love kennings.
What are you reading in 2025?
- Thread starter Elodan
- Start date
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
That was the word!
I tried doing those when running a test game of the Beowulf duet game and while satisfying, it was hard. I probably needed a kennings cheat sheet.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Yeah, when Gardener is on, the book is great. That's what makes the philosophy dumps so weird -- he's clearly capable of doing a better job with the clunky parts.
(I have the same questions about Larry McMurtry's throw-across-the-room-it's-so-bad The Last Kind Words Saloon, which feels like the most successful westerns author of the last 50 years deciding to aggressively give the finger to his fans who wanted an OK Corral novel.)
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
During one of my many English lit classes I had to write a poem using as many kennings as possible. That was hard. Look at Germanic languages and their compound words. German is a great place to start. One word for vocabulary is “Wortschatz” which translates directly to word treasure, or word hoard.
They’re mostly noun-noun or noun-verb constructions that make sense in context. Glamdring the Foe Hammer is one. Foe Hammer being a kenning for weapon. So Tolkien named a sword Glamdring the Weapon.
Check out the wiki article. There’s lots of examples.
Kenning - Wikipedia
Autumnal
Bruce Baugh, Writer of Fortune
John Scalzi has blogged some about it. He finds the learning through experience very interesting.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Some write by dictation, Kevin J. Anderson is one example. Others write by speaking aloud as they type, Robert E. Howard is one example. Scalzi is probably the type to just write what reads well rather than sounds good. Hence the learning curve.
Scalzi might--or might not--hear his prose in his head as he composes it. Some writers do, some don't--I mostly do, but I don't claim it means my prose is anything special. It's plausible that I hear my prose in my head because I spent so much time listening to people read other writers' prose, though I think I have memories of hearing my prose in my head from before I'd even considered that as a job, or for that matter known that job existed.
When you record audiobooks, you can tell who hears their prose, especially among equally good writers.
When you record audiobooks, you can tell who hears their prose, especially among equally good writers.
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Autumnal
Bruce Baugh, Writer of Fortune
John Scalzi: Writing For Audio Made Me A Better Writer, Period
Cut dialogue tags and consider the narrator — tips from the Hugo Award-winning author of Audible Studios' "The Dispatcher."
www.audible.com
As I said, I don't have any strong delusions about my writing, but I think the time I spent recording audiobooks--listening to other people's writing, in still other people's literal voices--shaped my writing, and at least improved my ear for dialogue. (He's right about dialogue tags, or anything else repeated a lot, just jumping out of the text when it's read aloud.)John Scalzi: Writing For Audio Made Me A Better Writer, Period
Cut dialogue tags and consider the narrator — tips from the Hugo Award-winning author of Audible Studios' "The Dispatcher."
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