slhuang

slhuang, 8 months ago

I've started talking about it in like every interview now because I want more people to see it ah hahaha, and the reaction tends to be, "omg I didn't see it BUT NOW I DO"

I guess it's not as awkward to read English without pronouns as we tend to assume? 😉

#TheWaterOutlaws

slhuang, 8 months ago

me to my sister: NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT MY WU YONG PRONOUN CLEVERNESS

her: that just means you did it well, it's so smooth nobody notices

me: well I want them to notice a LITTLE 😂

#TheWaterOutlaws

slhuang, 8 months ago

(I think most people are assuming female, even though I tried to put in subtle "Wu Yong is not a woman" moments CLEARLY THEY WERE TOO SUBTLE. That's on me lol)

#TheWaterOutlaws

slhuang, 8 months ago

Why did I do it? Well when a book is "translation convention" from a language that doesn't gender pronouns --

and the group is genderdiverse-norm in the midst of a regressive society --

but there's no misgendering via pronoun or in-POV way to introduce neopronouns --

#TheWaterOutlaws
#language
#linguistics #fantasy #pronouns #AmWriting #WritingCommunity

slhuang, 8 months ago

well then, what do, how write?

I experimented a lot & no pronouns felt best for the character!

(they're in "fantasy Chinese", which doesn't gender pronouns just as real Chinese doesn't...which doesn't stop misogyny btw. Anglophones sometimes seem to assume that'd correlate but ungendering pronouns doesn't magically heal sexism/transphobia, sadly 😭)

#TheWaterOutlaws #Chinese #pronouns #language

slhuang, 8 months ago

The craft was actually easier than I expected, but I did put a lot of thought and effort in, and a lot of time double-checking the updated drafts...

...so I hope at least a small number of people notice and get joy out of it eventually 🤣

#TheWaterOutlaws #publishing #writing

slhuang, 8 months ago

end of thread. here is the book btw!

my 150,000-word novel with one of the 5 third-person POVs written pronoun-less!

THE WATER OUTLAWS:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250180421/thewateroutlaws

plus yanno lots of swordfights 😆⚔️

#TheWaterOutlaws #fantasy #sff #SpeculativeFiction #book #books #bookstodon #EpicFantasy #language #MartialArts #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #nonbinary @bookstodon