Authors Need Help: Brainstorming Session

[rolanni]

OK, I don’t have much experience coordinating a project this big. My general approach, when confronted with an Enormous Project is to break it down into bite-sized pieces, but! I’m not a project manager and have none of that Foo.

Below, is what I’ve got — comments and advice welcome. I’ll also be looking for volunteers, but that’ll come later.

I’m soliciting ideas on how to implement in order to achieve the goal without loss of life, and without anyone having to bear an enormous burden of work.

The Goal:  A list, for each novel, of all the Liaden-and-other-Weird-Words that appear in that novel, AND a list of Liaden-and-other-Weird-Names that appear in that novel.

What the lists would look like:

1. Title of Book, Edition
a. Word One, Page Number
b. Word Two, Page Number
Lather, rinse, repeat

2. Title of Book, Edition
a. Name One, Page Number
b. Name One, Page Number
Lather, rinse, repeat

I’m guessing that there ought to multiple eyes on each novel, in order to make sure that the maximum number of Weird Words (henceforth WW) are captured. Some of the WW will be English words (we use a smattering of obsolete English words, Just Because), some of the WW will be Terran slang, Delgadan words, and the ever-popular etcetera.

For the names — I’m guessing another buncha eyes for each book, so that the maximum number are captured.

Question: Planet and ship names — Different lists? Or folded into the Names List?

Also needed, someone or someplace to receive, and coordinate, the lists.

Ultimately, the lists will be used by Lee and Miller for Something Really Cool, and will play an important role in the Web Pronunciation Guide Project.

There is some time limitation on getting this together, but at the moment, the deadline is squishy.

So! What’s the best way to set this up?

EDITED TO ADD: Please nobody build anything yet. We're still in brainstorming mode. I appreciate everyone's input.


Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

Comments

Authors Need Help: Brainstorming Session

[stillsorting.livejournal.com]

How about building a concordance. There are free concordance programs, though I haven't look recently. I can look into it if you decide it's worth the time. Concordance program builds an alpha list of all words in the book with page #/locators. You should be able to get a text file out of it which you can run through Word spell checker.

This gives you both the list and where the words/names appear.

There are concordance programs that handle multiple books, but last time I checked, those were pay software. Might have changed in the last 5 or years.

Anybody out there know more than me about this?

Thank you very much for all the enjoyment.

Judy