Writing Exercise, Chinese Translation, and Other Challenges

I got another writing exercise posted this week. Then I finished my Chinese translation of “After You’re Gone.” A couple people challenged me to do a couple more projects.

“The Offensive Restaurateur and the Bellicose Connoisseur”

At the script group this week we did an exercise on the title “The Offensive Restaurateur and the Bellicose Connoisseur.” I was a little more prompt getting it recorded and posted this time.

Description: Two unpleasant people in a restaurant do not get along well. https://soundcloud.com/dynamiclethargy/the-offensive-restaurateur-and-the-bellicose-connoisseur

I used a new trick when I did the recording. One of the lines in the story is in French. After I recorded the line, I used Voice.ai to alter my voice. I wasn’t happy with the pronunciation after the conversion. Since I was going to convert the voice anyway, I recorded Google’s translate program to get the proper French pronunciation, and then converted that. I felt it worked well. Because the voice gets converted, I don’t think most people will realize that the line was created differently from the rest.

“After You’re Gone”

I finally got the Chinese translation of “After You’re Gone” to a point where I felt it was OK to share with my niece and brother-in-law. I sent it off and they got the file. I haven’t heard what they think of it yet.

Shut Up and Write

At my last Shut Up and Write session I talked about recording my writing exercises. One of the people in group suggested I do a training video for the less technically inclined. Maybe I should do that.

Writing Challenge

At the script group I talked about a radio play I heard on CKUA (some time in the early 90s) where they had a scene where the line “The grounds are excellent” is used five time by five different characters and had five different meanings. Once is by a lawyer talking about a lawsuit. Once by a guy working on a radio in the room. Once by someone tasting some coffee. Once by a guy who had been out inspecting the property around the house. I forget what the other meaning was.

In response, someone challenged the group to write a story where the word nice shows up in every line of dialogue. I had a look at the different meanings. I wish he’s picked a different word. The word originally had a negative connotation suggesting that the “nice” person was not all that clever. I found out that the French City of Nice has a different origin. It comes from the Greek word for victory.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Another Short Story Posted and Work on “After You’re Gone”

I actually got some things done this week!

“A Secret History of the Mischievous Mafioso.”

I did this writing exercise a couple weeks ago, but only got around to recording it this week. We wrote for only 20 minutes instead our usual 30 minutes, so it ended up shorter. That might be a good thing.

Parker was onto a major scoop. The burly man across from him had secrets to tell.

·         https://soundcloud.com/dynamiclethargy/a-secret-histrory-of-the-mischevious-mafioso

One thing that struck me was that when I am writing, I should avoid words I have trouble pronouncing.

“After You’re Gone”

This script is based on some conversations I had with my wife before she died. I have tried to fictionalize the conversation to allow me to have some distance from it. I have worried that it is still something I shouldn’t share. My wife was a private person, so might have objected. On the other hand, many other people face these same decisions, and this could help them.

I want to ask my brother-in-law how he feels about it. He doesn’t speak or read English, so I’ve been translating it into Chinese. I used Google translate. First, I translated from English into Chinese, then back to English to check that it still makes sense. However, translation can be fraught with traps, like idioms which don’t translate well.

I had one Chinese friend review it and she made some changes. I did a back translation and made a few of my own changes. I had a second Chinese friend review it and they felt that it was an OK translation. They did bring up that I had translated it to simplified Chinese characters. That makes me wonder if I should have translated it to traditional Chinese characters.

Deciding that is the next stage in my journey.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog