Revise, revise, revise. Plus a question for Germans

[feuervogel]

In the effort to get this bloody short story as polished as possible to send in as my Viable Paradise application, I've asked my new writing group and some writerly friends for crit. It's definitely getting tighter with the input from Don, who also caught a continuity error that I added on revision (oops), and the underlying internal conflict is going to be a bit more prominent.

Which leads me to the question for the Germans. Is there any sort of stigma associated with Valkyries/Walküre? Like, is it an insult, or is it part of the right-wing neo-fascists' adoration of all things Germannia, or whatever? I don't want to commit a major faux pas.

And I was beset by yet another vague idea for a story when reading ... someone's blog post about how teenage girls aren't yet part of mainstream canon and how there's more to their lives than being popular & crushing on people, like forming friendships with other girls. I just don't know which of my women I want to revisit as a teenager. Hikaru would be focused on becoming a Hessian, and she could be dealing with her family's expectations (as well as her being a lesbian... yes, I know the lesbian military officer is cliche, but I didn't start off with that as part of her character. It just happened.) But Azar, the second MC of The Novel, could have a very interesting story, though I would have to do a LOT LOT LOT LOT more research, because she's a (probably Shi'a) Muslim living in a dictatorship not unlike present-day Iran, except without the morality police, etc.

I still need to figure out how I'm going to write a story basically about Berlin & its history that would be of interest to people other than me.

Comments

[acari]

Take what I say with a grain of salt. I am not particularly knowledgable about opera.

I wouldn't say Walküre per se has a stigma attached to it, but Wagner sure has. When it comes to him and his immediate family there is the Nazi stigma. Wagner, the person, is suspect (raging antisemite etc.) but his music is still considered one of the greats, I'd say. He is no Beethoven or Mozart, though.

[feuervogel]

That's the only thing I could think of, the Wagnerian problem. But, like, neo-fascists haven't tainted all of the old Germanic heroic folklore, like Siegfried and company?

I hadn't heard of it as a problem, and the first page of google hits is all about the recent Tom Cruise movie and its historical basis, so I wanted to check with some contemporary Germans. Though in my Goethe class, we had a brief discussion about the word "Führer," which carries a certain stigma in non-Germany places, but it doesn't as much in Germany. Führerschein, Stadtführer, usw. Over here, there's only one person it refers to, because most Americans are only familiar with Germany from shitty WW2 movies.

[zombieallomorph]

I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Yes, neo-fascists do use Germanic heroic folklore, and my guess is, this applies to valkyries, too. But they didn't really change their meaning for the rest of us, and people still use Germanic folklore elements in creative ways (just like they use German type).
I guess people are way more likely to associate valkyries with big women singing opera.

As long as your story isn't about, I don't know, a group of people talking about their pure blood and eliminating parasites or something, it will be perfectly fine and no one will think of Nazis. :)

[feuervogel]

*twitch* Definitely not about that! This *cough* private security company *cough* has a special forces unit with a female commander. One of her troops thought it would be funny to put a sign reading "Valkyrie" up over the official unit name (Lightning), so, because she's got a very sardonic wit, she opted to take that as their new name.

[acari]

Now, see, that is funny. No worries there. :)

[feuervogel]

Hikaru is so much fun. She's a badass with impostor syndrome that periodically flares up. She's like 10th generation Company, so there was never any question what she'd do with her life.