Fantastic creatures of the sea – and how to research them?

[starfishstar]

So, as I'm gently pondering What to Write Next, there's still this idea in my head about drawing on the mythology of selkies... Possibly for my young-Sherlock-and-Mycroft-mythical-AU idea, or possibly for some original story yet unknown.

Or maybe it won't end up being selkies, maybe I'll try to learn more about Icelandic folklore while I'm there later this summer, and look for inspiration there? Or perhaps something else that I haven't even thought of yet will emerge, as I'm on the lookout for fascinating fantastical creatures?

All I know is that I'm intrigued by the idea of doing something along the lines of the capaill uisce in Maggie Stiefvater's "The Scorpio Races" – drawing on folkloric traditions, but with a modern twist. (Like J. K. Rowling did, too – all those magical beasts, boggarts and hippogriffs and all, she didn't invent those, she drew from existing mythology.) Although, I think I like even more the idea of creatures that are sort-of-human-sort-of-not – like werewolves, or selkies, or even the dragons-that-can-disguise-themselves-as-humans in Rachel Hartman's "Seraphina."

However – as a Rachel Hartman or a Maggie Stiefvater proves – creating a richly imagined and culturally respectful inspired-by-mythology original work doesn't happen overnight. In fact, generally it happens through years of research. (And brainstorming and world-building and trying and failing and trying again...) Which I guess leads me to my question:

Any thoughts about how to go about this sort of research? I don't mean by reading novels, though those could be good too, if they're well and accurately researched. But I'm more thinking nonfiction – actual academic books on the history and traditions and origins of Scandinavian folklore, or maybe Celtic folklore... I would want to get well beyond the superficial read-it-on Wikipedia level – but I'm also not sure how committed I would be to reading dry-as-sandpaper academic texts. Is there nonfiction out there that's engaging? Is there fiction that's so well-researched it could serve as a source to learn from?

What do you do, writer friends??

Comments

[nerakrose]

i finished the first book in the inheritance trilogy the other day, and i loved it. :D it's really good. the world building is amazing and the premise is pretty interesting.

hmm, if you want just one to start with, go with six of crows. it's not THAT spoilery in regards to the grisha trilogy (as i said, none of the characters from that make an appearance) and it takes place in completely different locations. the spoilery things it refers will likely make little sense out of context and you'll just forget about it, or it might be just the thing that when you get to the grisha trilogy will make you confused as you can't work the information into the story (until much, much later, when it actually happens). it works as a stand alone story in away that the first book of the grisha trilogy doesn't. that being said, the grisha trilogy is a light and fast read and i read it in the span of about five or six evenings. (the first book isn't that weak either, did i make it sound like it's awful? it isn't, or i wouldn't have finished it, much less continued reading the rest of the series...)
they're also completely different stories, in that six of crows is about murderous teenage thieves pulling a massive heist, and the grisha trilogy is more akin to your standard "girl discovers she has powers and chosen to save the world" narrative. the magic system is really interesting, with magic being something inherent (there are genetic explanations) and then there being different "versions" (or as some see it, castes) of magic. one of the characters in six of crows is a heartrender (means she can kill you with the power of her mind pretty much. there are two types, heartrenders and healers.) who was part of the war/resistance that took place in the grisha trilogy.

i can translate from pretty much anything into danish, and even though english isn't my native language by far, i can translate into english too but ofc nobody would hire me to do that :P although if there's a serious lack of icelandic -> english translators i might look into that...
anyway, i'm basically looking at: icelandic, finnish, english, swedish & norwegian -> danish. what i should be focusing on is finnish -> danish because...well, that's my degree. but finnish is Hard and time consuming, whereas the other languages i don't have to first suss out what the sentence means before i translate it, i just have to translate it. i can also do german -> danish, but i would prefer not to as german tends to give me headaches. (i can't deal with the capitalised nouns and the verb-comes-last sentence structures, it's like trying to find a needle in a rainbow coloured haystack. the grammar and vocabulary on the other hand, not an issue. no wait, that's a lie. i hate the german conjunctive with a passion and it's 110% related to the fact that i never managed to master it in use because it's too damn complicated. is it called conjunctive in english? i mean stuff like "sie habe", like...like if you're in a court room and rattling off a list of things a person allegedly did, you'd use "sie habe" about a woman allegedly doing things. if i recall correctly, anyway...)

[starfishstar]

Okay, I'm bumping NK Jemison higher on my to-read list, and I'm adding Six of Crows. :-) Definitely like reading different authors' imaginings of how magic works!

Unfortunately, I have no idea how market demand for Icelandic-->Danish is. Or any of the other languages to Icelandic, for that matter... Icelandic-->English I would guess would be mostly in the realm of literature? And maybe the geothermal/energy industry? My translator friend who's feeling out the possibility of learning Icelandic well enough to translate from it (!!) translates into French, and my only real expertise is German-English, so I'm pretty uninformed about translation between Scandinavian languages – I do know one guy who translates from German and Danish to English. But then, there's always more demand into English, right? :-P

Ha, yes, the German "Konjunktiv I"! Luckily, you're pretty much okay as long as you can passively understand it in writing; you rarely really have to say it, when just going about your colloquial, spoken life unless you want to be perfectly correct.

Man, though, I'm glad I learned German in school, when I was still reasonably young. If I were trying to tackle Icelandic grammar now, as an adult with a less flexible brain and without the German background already firmly rooted, yikes!

[nerakrose]

the translation market is so weird, i don't know if it's even possible to aim for something specific! atm i'm more interested in technical translations (as opposed to literary) as they pay more and also because literary translations do my head in :P but we'll see.

i'm also really glad that i learned german in school when i was younger, i don't think i'd have learned it otherwise. knowing icelandic didn't really help actually :P it might be in part because i hadn't learned much grammar before i left iceland, i hadn't quite reached that stage of schooling. but nothing is impossible! i didn't start studying finnish till my twenties and it's been going well. :)

[starfishstar]

Fwiw, all the professional translators I know specialize to some degree, because it's better to be an expert at one or two things than to be sort of passable in a bunch of topic areas. (e.g. one is a medical translator, some do journalism, one only translates novels...) since being able to write accurately on whatever topic you're translating about in the target language is at least as important as being able to understand the source language! Technical translation seems like a smart thing to aim for, since there's always demand, and it should be reasonably well-paid. But again, I'm no expert on the specifics, because I fell almost immediately into a working relationship with one primary client, so I never had to look that hard for others. My translator life was atypical. ;-)

[nerakrose]

oh, that makes a lot of sense. :D i'll just have to see what's out there - i have topics i can do better than others, definitely. :) thanks!