Bene Narras! Well, of course. Join Rachel Cunning and Arianne Belzer-Carroll as we talk about just that. We are a couple of Latin teachers and novella writers who want to help other Latinists interested in writing Latine. We generally release new short episodes every other week and aim to cover a wide range of topics on writing and publishing, including your own write-in questions! Join us for tea or coffee, and let’s chat about all things books.
The History of Bene Narras
My friend Arianne Belzer-Carroll has written several delightful novellas, and I have benefited immensely from her time spent editing my own novellas. We both love reading and writing and talking about books. We have an absurdly ridiculous amount of things in common from big-picture things to odd little random details. Sometimes we get to stumble upon people and decide we’re family. Arianne is such a person for me.
We were supposed to present on novella writing together to help others write novellas in Latin too. Then, the pandemic hit. Like many things, that presentation was scrapped. I threw out the idea of doing a series of webinars… and then Bene Narras was born on YouTube so we could do what we love doing: Hang out, talk about books, talk about Latin, and be silly together. Usually with coffee or tea.
In which Dan Conway talks about what comprehensibility means, offers some advice to new authors, and chats about how not only does plot make a good story, but it makes an understandable one, too. Oh, and validates the long sentences Arianne and Rachel like to write. That, too.
Rachel and Arianne chat with Dan Conway about the Latin Novella Database, what he’s looking for when he reads a novella, how he determines things like word count and leveling, and what he’s hoping his work will accomplish. This is part 1. Part 2 will discuss comprehensibility, compellingness, and more features of a novella! Bonus: Dan is awesome.
Idiom is tricky! In English we say “one day,” but “uno die” in Latin doesn’t mean the same thing. Rachel and Arianne discuss three ways of expressing “one day” or “at a particular time” or “someday” that aren’t the uno die many of us default to!
Those interjections we take for granted in English – oh, no! my god! go you! what! yaay! – are often harder for Latin speakers to pick up because they’re so often not taught in our degree programs. Today, Rachel and Arianne touch on the importance of dialogue, speaking/writing naturally with those interjections, and offer ten words (ranging from sad to hesitation to surprised to excited) to help move your written dialogue toward natural and fluid. Bonus: ridiculous outtakes at the end that are relevant to nothing. 🙂
This week’s episode is a little different! Ben Belzer-Carroll is our guest. He’s a middle school Latin teacher working on his first novella, so we’re taking a look at his novella’s intro and troubleshooting some of the issues he’s having. Each eipsode this week is short and focused on a specific element of writing. The first one–this one!–is what creates tone.
Those interjections we take for granted in English – oh, no! my god! go you! what! yaay! – are often harder for Latin speakers to pick up because they’re so often not taught in our degree programs. Today, Rachel and Arianne touch on the importance of dialogue, speaking/writing naturally with those interjections, and offer ten words (ranging from sad to hesitation to surprised to excited) to help move your written dialogue toward natural and fluid. Bonus: ridiculous outtakes at the end that are relevant to nothing. 🙂
This is our wrap up to the Giant Mega-Episode. Ben shows us the changes he’s made to his first chapter (and they’re pretty significant), and Rachel and I discuss some of the emotions and thoughts around the editing process. Ben’s advice for new writers: get something on the page. Focus on a compelling story over Teaching Certain Content. Also… there’s a cookie recipe at the end. 😀
In this section, we talk about leveling and how syntax and vocabulary play a role in that. Ben wants to know how to keep vocab varied and interesting while sheltering it, which is a pretty fabulous question, so we address that, too.
This section is not on how to craft good dialogue (that’ll come later!), but on why dialogue makes a difference, tips and tricks for it, the effects dialogue can have, and using it wisely.
This is part two of writer’s workshop with Ben Belzer-Carroll. In this section, we’ll talk about some tools for characterization and help Ben consider how to develop his characters.
This week’s episode is a little different! Ben Belzer-Carroll is our guest. He’s a middle school Latin teacher working on his first novella, so we’re taking a look at his novella’s intro and troubleshooting some of the issues he’s having. Each eipsode this week is short and focused on a specific element of writing. The first one–this one!–is what creates tone.
Rachel and Arianne talk about why using concrete nouns makes such a difference in the way we visualize scenes and how that aids both the interest level in a story and the comprehension level. We talk briefly about abstract ideas, get interrupted (repeatedly) by Arianne’s dog, and have a few thoughts on when it’s worth it to use a low-frequency concrete noun. Unrelatedly, it’s Arianne’s birthday today!
Rachel and Arianne talk about how verbs of action can help bring a story to life. We also discuss how to decide which verbs you want and when to make the choice to use a great verb you’re going to have to gloss.
Arianne and Rachel talk about how to decide when you can use non-high-frequency vocab. We also discuss navigating the thorny wilds of cognates and glossing, which aren’t always as straightforward as they seem. This is part two of Choosing Your Words; part 1 addresses how the Dickinson College Commentary list works and why using high-frequency vocab is important.
In this video, Rachel and Arianne talk about what “high-frequency vocabulary” means, why it’s so important to use it, and how the Dickinson College Commentaries frequency list works. (It has some fun features Arianne didn’t know about!)
We are trained to look things up in grammar books, but man, sometimes you don’t even know what things you don’t know. We all know that languages aren’t 1-to-1 translations, and Latin often differentiates between ideas where English doesn’t (and vice versa!) Rachel and Arianne talk about the differences between the verb putare and the verb cogitare and when to use each of them. Examples in Latin, as well as a little practice at the end for anyone who wants it.
Rachel and Arianne discuss how they do research: what tools they find useful, how they go looking for texts, what use they get out of primary and secondary sources. Rachel focuses on researching for myth-based texts, while Arianne talks about a wide range of sources for history-based texts, and both address how writing original plots differs from retelling known events or stories.
Arianne and Rachel interview the fabulous Emma Vanderpool! Emma has written 3,000,000 novellas, which include her well-loved Sacri Pulli and the very recent Eumachia: Patrona Pompeiana. Today, Emma talks about how she finds new ideas and what her brainstorming process looks like, and she has a lot of handy suggestions for effective writing and development.
Showing instead of telling is probably the most important and also the trickiest part of writing. We’ll address this several times, but today, we introduce what it means to show instead of to tell. We’ll give you some tips and tricks to keep an eye out for as you start to write, and we take a look at two scenes in Latin written at different levels (I and III) so we can, well, show you instead of tell you what this looks like. 🙂
Rachel and Arianne offer five idiomatic phrases that are useful in conversation and in writing: Bene narras 😀 Ain’? _________ momenti Consilium capere Facere aliquem certiorem Idiom both means “specific phrases in a language” and “how a language expresses something natively.” Idiom can be useful for color and depth. It’s also so important to make sure that we’re giving our readers a good mental representation of the language.
Brainstorming isn’t just staring at a wall and coming up with ideas on your own. Rachel and Arianne talk about where we start when we’re thinking about a new project, some techniques for and elements of brainstorming, and some methods we each find useful in beginning to process what a story will look like. (One element we didn’t mention: talk to other people!)
Rachel and Arianne introduce themselves and discuss what they think are the most important things to consider when beginning a writing project.
