The power of language - ethnic cleansing

I had an interesting comment the other day. I'll re-post it here so you don't have to hunt it out:

A special language challenge for you, if I may: Your plot summary refers to "ethnic cleansing". There is nothing clean about "ethnic cleansing". How about an alternative, more appropriate term instead? Not easy, perhaps, but worth the effort surely. 

I had a long think about this. If I haven't misunderstood the post, the proposal is that we should not use the word "cleansing" in the context of an activity that involves the persecution of one group of people by another, because the word "cleansing" is intrinsically positive. If we use "cleansing" then perhaps to some people the persecution may sound reasonable, acceptable.

There is something to be said for this point of view. I'm a believer in the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf theory (language influences thought and also some aspects of non-linguistic behaviour) so I can see how this might work. We can see positive examples of this in the changes in attitude during my lifetime towards various groups thanks to the banning of abusive / patronising language about those groups in the public sphere.

So, should a writer avoid using a language chunk like "ethnic cleansing" and look for  / create something else? "Ethnic displacement / expulsion / forced relocation" perhaps?

At the moment  I'm not sure. To be honest "ethnic cleansing" is excellent shorthand and I know my audience will understand exactly what is meant. Nor will they think it is something positive because it has only ever been reported as something bad. If I use another expression the audience will have to pause to try to work out what I mean and I don't necessarily want that.

Nevertheless, I think it's an interesting point and I shall continue to ponder the issue. Any thoughts welcome.

Lisbon and the relics of the Saints

Relics and busts of saints in St Roque, Lisbon

November has been a very busy month in my bread and butter job, which hasn't left time for continuing the novel. 
However on a trip to Lisbon at the end of October I visited a great church - the Church of St Roque.
Like all towns which were centres of trade in the past, everybody lived in fear of the plague. St Roque was a plague survivor and became the person you prayed to when you were feeling poorly.
In a chapel of this church I found this amazing collection of saintly bones. What made this collection unusual was that there was also an artist's impression of what the saint looked like in bust form, sitting on top of the glass casket with the bones, something I've never seen before. For some reason they all seemed to be female saints in this chapel (and fairly hot saints according to the artist).
Now I'll give you three guesses what Celia and the Colonel are going to find in the hidden chamber in the chapel as described in Chapter 31...

Chapter 30 – Discoveries and Chapter 31 – Evidence

Recently I went to a packed workshop held at ‘The Munich Readery’ run by Rita Banerjee who teaches at the Ludwig Maximilian University.

The title of the workshop was Character Development and playing with persona and we looked at the different types of characters you have in a novel, specifically ‘flat’ characters who don’t develop (e.g. Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice) and ‘dynamic’ characters (e.g. Elizabeth Bennet or Mr Darcy in the same novel) who do.

Rita then introduced us to a simple but powerful character development tool. By answering a set of very wide-ranging questions about the character (e.g. attitude to authority, dream life, fridge contents etc) you develop a clear mental picture of him or her before you even start writing.

I found the tool very helpful and applied it to the new character, Morpheus Herman, that I introduced in Chapter 29 – The Inquisitor. Morpheus is a ‘bad’ character, but I was dissatisfied with my first version. He was just a cardboard cut out baddie and I didn’t find him very convincing. By answering all these questions about Morpheus for myself, I was able to establish a back story for him that partially explains the way he is now and makes his actions more plausible. You can see the result in Chapter 31- Hidden Treasures below.

For the first time in this blog, I’m putting up two chapters at the same time. I hope you enjoy them.

The story so far ... Celia Thomas, a Munich based art restorer is working on a project to rescue some 16^th century paintings in Croatia. While in Zagreb she glimpses somebody she believes to be her journalist brother Ned, who was apparently killed in Bosnia in 1995. As she starts to investigate his disappearance she stirs up a lot of trouble for herself and those around her.

Celia is back in Croatia to supervise the removal of the paintings to Munich for restoration. Meanwhile her husband Franz is examining two sources of information that might reveal something about what happened to Ned.

Chapter 30 – Discoveries and Chapter 31 - Evidence can be found on the right under 'Good Stuff'

Chapter 29 - The Inquisitor

Portrait of the Cardinal Inquisitor
Don Fernando Nino de Guevara
El Greco

It's difficult for a contemporary westerner to imagine the terror a character like Don Fernando on the left here wielded in the 16th century. For us, figures in the church (well, the Church of England at any rate) are seen as mostly benign and slightly ridiculous.
 Don Fernando was not that sort of churchman at all as you can read here if you are interested.
This portrait was the inspiration for the new character that makes his appearance in Chapter 29.

The story so far...
Celia is  preparing for the paintings to be moved from Istria to her studio at the Department for Conservation in Munich. Franz meanwhile has far bigger problems to deal with. Could he be going to jail?

Chapter 29 – The Inquisitor can be found on the right under 'Good stuff'.

A snake in the grass

Grass snake

The other day I was walking my dog in the woods near where we live when she nearly trod on a snake about as long as my arm (honest! See picture). Bianca - bless her heart - isn't the brightest thing on four legs and doesn't always notice everything that's going on around her, so she didn't see the snake as it shot off into the bushes, but I nearly jumped out of my skin. 

Bianca

Anyway, this set me thinking and I've decided I need someone to add a surprise element to the story, so a new character is going to appear in Chapter 29. I may have to cheat a little bit and back-fit references into earlier chapters to make the character more plausible, but it's my book so I can do what I want.
The question is, should this character be male or female? Hmm!

Chapter 28 audio file available now!

Lido, Venice - photo KR

 Don't feel like reading yourself? No problem, just listen to me reading to you Chapter 28 - 'Jesus and the dinosaurs' by clicking here and downloading an mp3 file. 
Just what you need to while away those boring hours on the beach!

Chapter 28 - Jesus and the dinosaurs

 I'm reading a great book at the moment,'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt and I'm feeling smug because she does exactly what I said was a key element in writing a best seller, she finds a relatively obscure field (in her case, furniture restoration - in '50 Shades of Gray' it was sado-masochism. Funnily enough I find myself far more entertained by the former) and the reader learns something about the topic in the course of being told a story.
In that spirit I hope you enjoy this chapter where you can learn something about how to rescue 15th century paintings. In case you ever need to do so.

The story so far ... while Franz rescues Nicoleta from being trafficked into prostitution in Italy, Celia is back doing what she does best, rescuing works of art. And once again, there are some surprises in store for her...

Chapter 28 – Jesus and the dinosaurs can be found on the right under 'Good stuff'.