Wandering Adventure Party

#WritersCoffeeClub February 15: How big are your settings?Well, this is the current size of my interactive map with the locations of all the folk tales I have translated and added to the wiki.Of course, "globe-trotting" tales are rare - most German-language folk tales take place in a single village and its surrounding regions, or even in a single building.https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Main_Page

#WritersCoffeeClub Feb. 13: Do you use maps as reference materials as you write?Constantly. I translate 19th century local legends, and most of these are tied to real world locations that can (or at least could) be visited. Researching and identifying these locations takes up a significant portion of the work I put into this project.My main tools for this are #OpenStreetMap , Google Maps, and Arcanum Maps - the latter for its historical maps, as a lot of the place names used in these tales are no longer in use today.I am also creating an interactive online map showcasing the locations I have been able to identify, and you can see it on the main page of my wiki:https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Main_Page

@juergen_hubert Here's the article - I hope it's useful in your contexthttps://lithub.com/rebecca-makkai-on-the-most-underutilized-tool-in-fiction-setting/

#WritersCoffeeClub 9. Do you subscribe to 'show, don't tell?' Why, or why not?No, at least for what _I_ am writing about.Consider this: I translate old German folk tales which were written down in the 19th century. The audience for these tales were the immediate family and neighbors of the storytellers. Thus, they had the same intense awareness of the local cultural, historical, and geographic context.My readers generally do _not_ have this awareness. A lot of the stuff in these tales would be hard to understand even for modern-day Germans, so what chance does an international audience have?So while I try to translate the actual tales as faithfully as possible, I must also tell my audience about this context so that they can understand them.And as an aside, this is one of the major reasons why I do not use #LLM translations. Even if such models _could_ faithfully translate from my sources (which I doubt), they would probably make a huge mess of explaining the context of these tales. And my audience deserves better.

@adaddinsane A lot of German folk tales are messed up by modern standards, but this one stood out nevertheless.

#WritersCoffeeClub 4/2: How much detail do you use to describe your settings?The setting in question is mostly 19th century Germany and surrounding areas - which is as alien to a modern English-language audience as many fantasy worlds.Thus, I have an appendix giving some cultural context, and the tales I translate have numerous additional commentary and footnotes. This is actually a large portion of my work, in addition to the translations themselves. This is also part of the reason why I refuse to use #LLM for translation (beyond the usual ethical objections) - I want the readers to understand the context of the tales, and AI would inevitably get that wrong.

#WritersCoffeeClub 2/3. What signature marks your work as definitively and effectively yours?I translate old German folk tales into English.Please tell me of _anyone_ else who is doing that these days!

#WritersCoffeeClub 1/29 Which phrase, paragraph, or page are you most proud of writing this month?'Until quite recently, there used to be a second, smaller graveyard in Reith, the parish village of the outer valley estate in the Alpbachgrund valley through which the Alpbach stream rolls down from the Plaknerjoch. This second graveyard was barely the size of an elongated chamber. It was called “The Graveyard of the Innocent”, since only children were buried there who had not received baptism. Such graveyards also exist in many other villages. But it was very painful for the inhabitants when they lost a little child so quickly that they could not receive the holy baptism nor even the emergency baptism. Thus, usually everything possible was attempted so that even a half-dead child could receive the blessing of the holy baptism and a name. And physicians and midwives were praised and rewarded highly if they succeeded in extending the fleeting life of such a child for just long enough so that they could still be buried in the large graveyard.'

#WritersCoffeeClub 26. Do you include things you personally find repellent in your work?I am translating old German folk tales. Many of them are fun, but others absolutely include repellent elements such as:- Misogyny - Child abuse- Antisemitism, up to and including slanders that were used as excuses for pogromsAnd I refuse to pretend that these elements are not in the source material. Anything else would be dishonest.

#WritersCoffeeClub  21 JanWhen writing about unpleasant feelings, how do you avoid alienating the reader entirely?The German folk tales I translate generally don't into great depth when it comes to the interior life of the characters - it's rare when they are described in more detail than "he/she was overcome by dread".Thus, I don't worry about alienating the readers with this. However, deeply unpleasant _actions_ usually get content warnings.

#WritersCoffeeClub 1/20. Figuratively speaking, do you travel with the caravan or solo over the hills?I have a few fellow folklorists I talk with. But ultimately, "translating old German folk tales into English" is an _extreme_ niche. In fact, I don't think anyone else is doing that right now.Though I'd love to connect with other #folklore translators from other countries and cultures, if they are out there.

#WritersCoffeeClub Jan 18Are you comfortable making a reader uncomfortable? How far will you go?Read this blog article about changeling stories fro German folklore, and tell me.But take the CW at the beginning seriously.https://sunkencastles.com/2025/10/27/a-long-history-of-ableism-the-changeling-narrative/

@juergen_hubertGuten Morgen,in welche Sprache übersetzt du?#WritersCoffeeClub

#WritersCoffeeClub January 13th: Are you actively building your working vocabulary? How?This is pretty much automatic, since my work is about translating German texts into English - which is not my native tongue. Thus, I am frequently looking up words in order to translate obscure German terms.

@michal_h21 Well, since many other digital libraries allow downloading whole books, the legal reasons don't make much sense either. Unless they have copyrighted books in their archives as well.That doesn't mean I won't be able to use these books, but if I want to have offline copies, I have to do some tedious PDF merging...EDIT: Yup, they have some copyrighted works as well...https://ceskadigitalniknihovna.cz/view/uuid:391740b0-d625-11e9-9b82-005056827e52?page=uuid:5ba49d66-83d1-4616-97e2-466c45313ca4&source=mzk

#WritersCoffeeClub 1/4: Share a tool of your trade.Wikipedia. (Everyone else already said Scrivener.) A lot of my work requires a great deal of research. A lot more than people even begin to realize. Wikipedia is basically my one-stop shop for finding it. Especially with the search engines turned to pure fucking worthless slop. The paper I'm looking for won't show up there, but somebody cited it as a source, so it's right there on Wikipedia.

@ratsnakegames ...I am not familiar with that acronym.

#WritersCoffeeClub 1 Jan: What's the greatest benefit you've taken from the writing community online? Community.People with regular jobs to go to generally don't realize how socially isolating being a full-time self-employed writer can be! Normal people don't have a clue what you do and don't find it relatable, and you don't work with or among other people. Frequently go several months at a time without a work-related event.Just being able to talk to people in the same place is priceless.

#WritersCoffeeClub 28 Dec. How does your prose create and maintain tension?I always try to remember Alfred Hitchcock's answer …A journalist asked Hitch in the early 1950s, "sir, how long can the leading couple kiss?"(Received wisdom back then was if a screen kiss was more than a chaste peck the censors would classify the movie as suitable for adults-only.)Hitchcock thought for a minute, then said:"Fifteen minutes—but first I show the killer slipping a bomb under their love seat."

#WritersCoffeeClub  – 24 Dec What's ‘load-bearing’ in your life which helps you write?Right now, the day job which helps pay the bills.I love to write, but €200/month in revenues is _not_ enough to live from.