I love it when this happens
I have a half-finished SF story that I've been picking at for years -- I love the concept (it was spawned by a discussion at a Worldcon about Chinese and Japanese characters being used for decoration without regard to their actual meaning), but for some reason I could never get the plot to gel properly.
So I was musing about it on the way to work today, when it hit me just as I passed under the GWB Turnpike -- I had the wrong POV character. D'oh! I was using the corrupt colonial administrator when I REALLY needed to have the exolinguist carry the story.
Ta-da -- suddenly the plot unrolled in my head like a lovely Persian carpet and Everything Became Clear. I AM going to have to track down someone who speaks Mandarin and see if they can translate some phrases for me (I'd love to do the same for the Navajo translator, but that may be harder than finding someone who speaks Mandarin) but apart from that the story should be a doddle to write.
Yay!
So I was musing about it on the way to work today, when it hit me just as I passed under the GWB Turnpike -- I had the wrong POV character. D'oh! I was using the corrupt colonial administrator when I REALLY needed to have the exolinguist carry the story.
Ta-da -- suddenly the plot unrolled in my head like a lovely Persian carpet and Everything Became Clear. I AM going to have to track down someone who speaks Mandarin and see if they can translate some phrases for me (I'd love to do the same for the Navajo translator, but that may be harder than finding someone who speaks Mandarin) but apart from that the story should be a doddle to write.
Yay!