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Author Topic: craig, tthree questions
Craig
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First ?...Is there any consensus as to the amount of pages a good first chapter makes.

Second ?...Is the term Ancient's to describe a very old species of being over used?

Third ?...If you believed the word Ancients was over used, would you use it anyway if it was the best way to describe a very old and intelligent species.

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Grumpy old guy
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IMHO
1. As many as it takes
2. I think it is
3. Don't they have a name?

Phil.

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rstegman
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Other than the fact that I can never spell the word, I tend to have no problem with it. Archaeologists sometimes, if they have no name for a find, will give it the name of the area it is located or first found. I am not sure if Audrey Norton's Forerunner is copyrighted.
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extrinsic
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Chapter word count or page count in published works ranges from one page, one word to thousands of words and hundreds of pages.

Chapter division functions are a syntax organization function. A foremost function and organization of a chapter is similar to a narrative overall whole; that is, a completed action-event and completed overall idea. A first chapter's primary function is introductions, for example, most important a central dramatic complication, a routine that is subject to or is interrrupted, and the scenes, events, settings, and characters who are involved.

Theoretically, a chapter can be a portioned division of the whole: one-fourth of a page or word count per chapter in the case of a three-act structure, four chapters total; five chapters in the case of a five-act structure, though roughly twelve in actual practice. An episodic narrative may have numerous chapters: twenty, thirty, fourty, fifty, a hundred. Even a chapter with no words, only a blank page. What does that signal? I favor chapter breaks at major and minor plot pivots, after dramatic turns that no less leave a final outcome of the dramatic complication unsatisfied until the last chapter: denouement.

A use for a chapter break is a longer pause and stronger transition than a line break or punctuation signal of a pause or transition. Word, phrase, clause, paragraph, section, chapter, book, and novel divisions signal pauses and transitions and, most important, emphasis the same ways punctuation does.

"Ancients" is like any word or term, needs context and texture for signaling its clear and strong meaning. I oftentimes use the term ancients to mean the ancient Greek philosphers of rhetoric: Sophocles, Plato, Socrates, Plutach, Aristotle, and their like dusty old bones. Ancients can mean family ancestors, religious ancestors, social ancestors mythical and legendary ancestors, predecessor species, old-age living persons or recent deceased ancestors, persons of a classical antiquity. Nor need ancients necessarily mean persons. A sequoia tree could be an ancient, for example. Statuary of personified natural or spiritual forces--the possibilities are infinite.

In any case, since ancients may mean many different meanings, a best practice is to place it in a context and texture that signals its precise meaning. Context in a literary sense is who, when, where; texture is what, why, how.

[ July 27, 2014, 06:51 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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MattLeo
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quote:
Originally posted by Craig:
First ?...Is there any consensus as to the amount of pages a good first chapter makes.

In my opinion a "consensus" is unlikely. If a chapter successfully launches the story, then it's a good opening chapter regardless of length.

As a benchmark, I'd say an opening chapter with much fewer than a thousand words is unusually short, and one with much more than six or seven thousand or so is unusually long. But if the reader reaches the end of the chapter without much difficulty and wants to read on, the length of the chapter is right.

That said, "too long" sometimes means that there ought to be a chapter break somewhere. When an opening chapter has done what it needs to do, it normally should end promptly. This takes advantage of a reader expectation that the action through a chapter should generally rise until something is accomplished or the story reaches some kind of turning point. When authors downshift to exposition in the middle of an opening chapter it feels wrong, but at the start of the second chapter is often a good place to put a few paragraphs of exposition or informative observation -- if you don't go overboard. I find inserting a chapter break in the right place can often be surprisingly effective at transforming openings.

Then again often you need to cut extraneous stuff from openings, or open at an entirely different point in the story.

quote:
Originally posted by Craig:
Second ?...Is the term Ancient's to describe a very old species of being over used?

"Ancient" is the commonplace English adjective for things that are old in a historical sense. It shouldn't impinge on the reader's consciousness unless he's in a *general* state of wondering what you're talking about.

quote:
Originally posted by Craig:
Third ?...If you believed the word Ancients was over used, would you use it anyway if it was the best way to describe a very old and intelligent species.

It's worth considering what you mean before you start worrying about which word to choose. For example, suppose you notice you're using the word "red" a lot. So you reach for your thesaurus and pick out "scarlet" as an alternative. But "scarlet" isn't just another name for "red", it means something particular and more specific than "red", so you'd better not use "scarlet" unless that's what you mean.

So what does it mean for a species to be "ancient"? Do you mean it had an advanced civilization before humans did? Or before humans existed as a species? Are there other "ancient" species? What do they have in common? Do they occupy some kind of special place in galactic civilization? Are they *predecessors* to the current interstellar civilization?

Depending on what you mean you could use words like "pre-human"; "venerable", "primordial", "early", "predecessor", "senescent", "archaic" etc. But these all *mean* different things, and we can't tell you what word to use unless we know what you mean.

"Ancient" is a perfectly good word, if you mean "old in terms of galactic history".

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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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Other possible terms are Elders, Old Ones, First Ones, Forerunners, and I've seen them all used.

I believe that Anasazi means Ancient Ones, so you could come up with your own word and use it that way.

But, please, don't put an apostrophe between your word and the letter s when you mean plural? Only use that apostrophe when you mean possessive.

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Reziac
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quote:
Originally posted by Craig:
First ?...Is there any consensus as to the amount of pages a good first chapter makes.

Second ?...Is the term Ancient's to describe a very old species of being over used?

Third ?...If you believed the word Ancients was over used, would you use it anyway if it was the best way to describe a very old and intelligent species.

First, no. Chapters can be a few words or the entire book. Some use them to separate groups of scenes or POVs; others use them to create an episodic feel (I dislike this). I don't use them at all, myself.

Second, when I see "Ancients" I think "Stargate". Yours would have to be seriously distinctive to override that rather entrenched preconception. (Admittedly I'm a Stargate freak.)

Third, see Second and think up your own. What do they call themselves? what do archeologists THINK they called themselves?

See also "Digging the Weans" by Robert Nathan.
http://www.joshpachter.com/pages/weans.pdf

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Robert Nowall
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I don't think anybody holds an exclusive on calling an old species "the Ancients." But you might want to avoid cliches and confusion.
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Craig
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Thanks all...Kathleen, you made the light bulb go on in my thick skull and I believe I now have my solution, thanks.
Also, as you have requested, no more apostrophe if I mean plural.


As far as the number of pages go, I didn't explain myself properly concerning what I was thinking, but thanks for the insight. I think I understand.

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