Alex Beecroft's Blog, page 48

The Cheese-mite theory of Historicals

I had a great time at the UK Meet this year, though the intense (and wonderful) experience of being in a room with 40 odd other people who are all buzzed and happy and excited at being with kindred spirits did lead to me being utterly exhausted the next day.

There have been several write-ups of the day that cover the excellent talks, sumptious food and the excitement of all being in this together.  For example this from Jenre's blog, Well Read:

http://jenre-wellread.blogspot.com/2011/07/report-from-uk-meet-2011.html

and this one from Erastes

I would like to mention that the free anthology the attending authors contributed to is getting some great reviews!

http://kassa011.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/review-british-flash/

So if you haven't got a copy it might be worth checking out.

I was involved in the panel on how to write the gay historical, alongside Erastes and Charlie Cochrane.  (I was glad they made me speak first or I would have been too intimidated after their contributions!)  We each spoke for about 5 minutes and then took some questions.  Rather than doing another round-up post of what happened, I thought I'd post the text of my speech, as a kind of hard backup.  I understand that all three will be available on Speak Its Name and/or The Macaronis by next week.

Anyway.  I wrote this down, then I read it out, then I practiced the speech three times without the text.  Then on the day I dispensed with paper or notes and just talked, trying to get the same main points across.  So this text and what I actually said are certainly not identical, but I believe that the gist of the two things is the same.

 

The Cheese-mite theory of Historicals

1. What makes a historical feel like a historical? Characters.

If you were to ask me "what is the most important part of establishing your book as a historical?" I would have to say "it's the characters." I really don't think that any amount of scene setting, even if it's done in the most exquisite detail and with scrupulous historical accuracy, can convince the reader that they are in another era the way you can by having a character whose attitudes are historical and firmly embedded in their time.

I have read books where the setting certainly appeared to be 100% authentic and full of detail, and yet the characters who moved through that setting were so modern in their thoughts and actions that the overall experience of reading the book was similar to going to a mediaeval theme party. Where the character doesn't match the setting you get a sort of cognitive dissonance that just screams fake fake fake, and it's almost worse – imo – when the author has clearly got all the other stuff right. If they've gone to all that trouble and researched their physical world so well, it makes it even more jarring and unpleasant to see it populated by characters who would fit right at home in a contemporary if they only changed their clothes.

Some historicals I've read go as far as having aggressively modern main characters – characters whose role appears to me to walk through their world criticizing the way everyone else behaves and holding them up to 21st Century standards. These are the characters who are horrified at the barbaric practices of the doctors of their era (forgetting that these practices are the pinnacle of modern knowledge to the rest of their society,) who are unaccountably squeamish about standard forms of discipline (such as giving a child a thrashing, clipping a disobedient wife about the ear, or flogging a criminal) and who, for some reason, know better than everyone else in their society about matters of hygiene and diet, and are not ashamed to look down on their ignorant compatriots with all the smugness of a different century.

I mean, yes, if you really hate a particular era so much that you'd enjoy writing a book about how rubbish it was, by all means do so. But don't create a character who could not have existed in that time to do it with. It would be far better to use a modern main character, who came by his attitudes honestly, being sent back into the past by freak wormhole incident or TARDIS.

2. So how do you write characters who don't think like modern people?

This is tricky of course because you as an author think as a modern person does, and – as a modern person – you abhor many of the attitudes of the past (such as gay people are rubbish, women are rubbish, slavery is necessary, leeches are good for you etc.)

The first thing you have to do is to parcel all that up and leave it aside for a while, while you read as many of the original sources as you can get hold of. If the original sources exist, then listen to the voices of people from that century. You usually find that in some things they are indistinguishable from the voices of modern people – they still worry about their appearance and their income and what their families are up to. They have the same needs for love and wealth and respect that we have. But if you listen harder you can start to pick out the framework of assumptions that governs the way they go about fulfilling those needs.

For example, I read a journal of an 18th Century woman bewailing the sexual double standard between men and women – so far so modern – but she concluded that men ought to behave with more chastity rather than women with less. So far so unusual, so strange – so much an attitude that if you read it in a book you would be instantly convinced that you were in a different time. Just a little throwaway thought, and it's different enough from what we take as written nowadays to make you feel like you're in a different time.

Or, for a different example, it's become quite fashionable to claim that Ancient Greece or Rome was a sin-free happy time for gay people. But that's because we're modern and we're not paying attention to the nuances. Suppose you're an Ancient Roman senator, and you fall in love with a barbarian gladiator – you're fine if you want to be a top, but shame, shame upon your name and your ancestors if you don't. There's another attitude that makes no sense today, but if you based your characters internal or external conflict on it then the book could only be a historical, because it's a conflict specific to that time.

3. Modern attitudes in historical characters.

This doesn't mean that your characters have to have some kind of standard set of era-specific beliefs. In no age has everyone all believed exactly the same thing. For example, in the same century, there were people who loathed slavery enough to dedicate their lives to fighting it, people who dedicated their lives to fighting for it tooth and nail, people who might not have campaigned but who bought slavery-free sugar when they could, and a large set of people who were too busy with their own lives to have a position either way.

You can give your characters almost any attitude you wish, so long as you can show how they came by it given the conceptual framework within which they have to work. For example, gay people in the past had to come to some kind of reconciliation or rejection of their society's views that allowed them to accept themselves, but how they achieved that will be specific to their time and society. They can't – eg – say "God is love, therefore my love is holy," before Christianity. They can't say "this persecution is against my human rights," before the invention of the concept of human rights.

On a less serious note, your characters probably shouldn't say "ew, this cheese is full of mites, take it away!" in the 18th Century. In fact they should probably say "ooh, lovely, I do like to see a cheese with a bit of life to it. Bring me a spoon!" If they did, you'd certainly know you weren't in 21st Century Kansas any more. And that is my whole point.

Blogging on Samhain's Blog today.

On the subject of what Historical and Fantasy novels have in common.

http://www.samhainpublishing.com/2011/07/what-history-and-fantasy-have-in-common/

OK films: Green Lantern and Harry Potter

It's probably some kind of blasphemy to group those two together, but on the other hand I had exactly the same reaction to both of them; they did not bore me but they did not wow me either.

I wasn't familiar with the Green Lantern comics, though I admit to a prejudice on the grounds that I've never thought DC comics were as good as Marvel.  (I must be one of the few people in the world who didn't like the Spiderman films that the critics seem to regard as classics.)  Seriously, DC, why do you go in for such wisecracking whiny brats as your heroes?  This was another of the same sort.  It's probably meant to be endearing, or something, but I just wanted to punch the git through much of the story.  OTOH, the world building and the special effects saved the day, and really the ability to give your imagination physical form is one of the cooler superpowers.

I've got to admit that the Harry Potter films lost me at the same place that the books lost me – I was interested up to Prisoner of Azkaban, and then I got bored.  I had to go and see the final one as it was a major event in my childrens' lives – they'd grown up with HP and now it was over.  But I didn't go in really caring about any of it, and the film didn't make me care.  I've already forgotten most of what happened, and I thought it was a shame that such a long event, so important to so many people, should have ended on such a note of mere adequacy.  I wanted it to go out on a note of excitement and awe/satisfaction rather than with a shrug.

The problem might be me, mind you, as I haven't even watched the first episode of the new Torchwood – no Ianto, no interest.  I like the look of Captain America, though, which I feel a little embarrassed about, due to the whole ridiculous jingoistic nationalism of the concept.  But Hugo Weaving always makes a fantastic villain, and the high-tech WW2 setting could be fun, and I guiltily admit that I kind of like the shield.  Also I'm gearing up for the Avengers and I want to get the background in first.

Worked hard all morning. Did no writing.

Urgh.  I've spent all morning setting up my page on the Romance Wiki, which of course included making a page for each of my books, and in many cases making a page for several of my publishers.

If you have a romance wiki page, and you're in an anthology with me, or share a publisher with me, you may find there's now an entry for those things, which you should just be able to link to, rather than having to write them up yourselves   At least that's a bonus!

http://www.romancewiki.com/Alex_Beecroft

Now to make some lunch and actually try to get some writing done.

Wildfire Chapter 3, part 1

In which Freyja is as good as her word.

Chapter Three.

Dreams out of Season .

Alfred looked up, staring out into the darkening air with a vacant stare. Sceldwulf was in his thoughts. The old man had told him once, when he was a small boy and sat rocking in his father's shield, fancying himself a hero in a war-bound long-ship, that there was more to life than fighting. This was what he had said;

 

"In my day you didn't lounge around all day waiting for a war to take your mind off your own want of work. Lying there waiting for someone to drum up a battle somewhere! We were warriors alright, proper warriors – every day was a struggle against Death, and he was a strong one in those days.

It's a poor warrior who fights just with other men. We faced down the rages of the gods; the sea like a grey giant and us tangled in his tossing hair, and him roaring with the pain of it. Hauling fish out of the deep like a divine thief, on a little rickety boat with your feet already ankle deep in water. Farming too, that's no job for the faint-hearted; praying for rain, and praying for the rain to stop; toiling in the cold wind with your back breaking to till the soil, and then watching the sea-birds gobble all the seed.

Oh my lad, you want to be a fighter you say? Well there's nothing to being a fighting man, it's a warrior you should be. Dance the sprightly dance with Death, bait him like a bear in his den with a sword, or with words, and then, whatever men think of you you'll be a thing of which even the gods take notice."

Alfred had laughed at him, when he was a child. Now he sat pondering. Goldboru had slaves and servants to farm and fish for her. She had nobles to fight her wars, but she fought no wars. What was the use of being a fighting man in days of peace? How could one bait Death with words? He shifted position in the dust. His head ached with the sunshine and hard thinking. He felt as useless as a knife rusted in the scabbard.

A shadow fell across his eyes. He saw a stranger before him smiling, with the sun at his back like a golden shield. The sunset lapped up the sky like tongues of fire.

"Oh!" said Alfred, "I thought, when I looked for you this morning, that you were long gone."

"No," Ingeld was slightly out of breath, and looked windblown, as if he had been riding hard. His horse, led to the stable by the welsh horseboy, looked as fresh as if it had merely trotted out to welcome its master home from a long journey. "I've been scouting out ways in which best to get to the next hall." 

"Wulfgeat," said Ingeld, "That's the name of the lord of that hall. I'm inclined to make his acquaintance…I should be glad of someone to travel with me, if you fancy making the trip."

He took a long drink from the traveller's wineskin he had slung over his shoulder. Then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked at Alfred inquiringly.

"To Wulfgeat's hall?" Alfred couldn't credit his ears. "Why would I want to go there? He'd kill me as soon as look at me. He has no fondness for Christian men."

"Hark at him!" Ingeld mocked.  "He doesn't think much of my bravery, but he won't take the test himself. I've stayed in this hall long enough, though they'd have my head if they knew what's round my neck. You don't even dare to go there for a look? Is that what Christianity does to a man?"

He pointed at Alfred's sword that lay at the door with the other men's weapons.  "That doesn't make you a warrior you know. It's not dealing death that makes you a hero but facing your own. It's no use your sitting here waiting to be tested. Go out and test Death. The taste of it will sharpen you till you gleam."

"You are a witch!" Alfred exclaimed, "Get out of my head! You're not welcome to my thoughts."

"I'm no witch," said Ingeld.  "I just take the time to look at people. I thought I knew that scowl."

Alfred was not convinced. "My grandfather said almost the same thing to me as you have said." he mused, "And that was fifteen years ago now. Still, they say truth changes little while the years lengthen."

He looked at the stranger steadily. "We may have no enemies, nevertheless my duty is to guard the hall. It would go hard to desert it just to look at a neighbour. Do you have no retinue that will go with you?"

"You didn't look too closely at my entrance," said Ingeld good-humouredly. He sat down on the dirt step beside him. "I came here alone. I did have companions, but Freyja separated them from me."

"How?" said Alfred. He didn't understand that the other man was speaking as a poet may.

"They fell in love.  One by one they found themselves wives, and settled down, and had families. Her cats ate some – they died – but the most of them just left me for women. I reckon you would too, if you sit around me long enough. Maybe there's even one waiting for you in Wulfgeat's hall."

Alfred laughed. His hound, lean and sharp-nosed, loped up to him with a charred bone from the fire-pit in its mouth. He rubbed it behind the ears while it growled at him playfully and wagged its stick-like tail.

"Now I certainly shan't come," he said. "I've no desire as yet to give away my little wealth and my own council. I doubt if I shall marry until Ecgbert returns. To be ruled by one woman is enough."

"Think on it though," said Ingeld.  "And if you've changed your mind in the morning I'll wait for you."

The night darkened. In from the clustering village came the farmers and craftsmen. They left their labours for a short hour of light and companionship by the fire.

"It's elf-shot alright," a burly, red faced man with a gloomy look was saying to his neighbour. "There's little doubt in my mind; I've seen that look before. My best calf! Twitching like I'd cut its head off, and all lame in its left legs. Bloody damned elves! And these priests told me the elves wouldn't come on my land when they'd blessed it.

"'That's as maybe.' I said to them, 'But can you cure my elf-shot beasts if your damn spells don't work?'

"'We use no spells,' says they.

'Then how can they work?' says I. They didn't answer me that."

"And now your beast is elf-shot?" his neighbour asked in sympathy.

"Twitching and jumping like a mad thing. My best calf, that was going to feed my family through the winter!"

"Elves!" his neighbour sympathised, "And I thought they were supposed to be the companions of the gods."

"They're out for themselves like anyone else." The wronged farmer muttered grimly, "But if I could get my hands on one I'd make him know what a man's anger feels like…"

"Elves!" Alfred scoffed, "Elves and orcs and ettins, they're all part of the demon clan. As far as I can see he can expect them to visit him if he goes on thinking like that."

"I have seen elves," said Ingeld, "And thurs and ettins, but I haven't seen any of the other sorts. What do they look like?" His voice was full of innocent curiosity.

"The worst of them look like men."

"So your priests say?" said Ingeld.

"So they say."

"But," there was the catch of a laugh in Ingeld's voice, "How do you know that your priests are not demons?"

"You're mad!" Alfred exclaimed.

"So you say."

The youngest warrior sang;

"We have heard of the battle when Hnaef was slain,

Hero of the Half-Danes, Hildeburh's brother.

She was a sad woman, sorrowful queen

To the Jutish people. It was judged

Well that she weave a work of peace;

Hold faith with the Frisians and with Finn, her lord.

But battle came, and blades were buried

In heroes to the hilt. Hnaef died then,

The Scylding was slain by the sword of her son.

He held it just, the Jutish youth,

To make war on his mother's folk. Men cannot tell

Until the time comes to what strange end

The Shepherd of men will shape their path.

Finn's son also fell, the fine mail and his mother's prayers

Proved no protection. On one pyre she placed them;

Hnaef and his sister-son. Hot fire devoured them.

Nor was vengeance in vain awaited

For Hnaef of the Half-Danes…"

Ingeld fell asleep on the floor with the light of the fire on his face. He didn't care too much about other people's grief. He was still sleeping when they brought out the bedding for the honoured retainers. The stranger should not have been sleeping in the Hall, so they gave him no blanket and he lay in the hearth with the dogs.

The moon wheeled breathlessly across the sky, whipping up his black horses until the clouds flew from their mouths like foam. The dawn was grey and young when Alfred crept from under his bench, stood amid the armour and the propped spears like a scavenger after a battle. Over to Ingeld he walked, stealthily and with uncertainty in his eyes. He reached out to the stranger where he lay curled up like a child in the womb to shake him by the shoulder and wake him. At the first slight touch Ingeld woke with a shout of fear and a look of nightmare on his face.

"Get a grip on yourself!" exclaimed Alfred, in concern, "It's no night-walker, it's only me."

Relief and humour followed a passing confusion on Ingeld's face.  "Did I give you a fright? Sorry. There have been some powerful dreams  tonight."

"That's more true than you know." said Alfred, and his face was eager. "I've seen my wife tonight."

"In a dream?"

"It was a true dream, I'm sure of it."

"Ha!" said Ingeld in mock bitterness, "Didn't I tell you not to sit too close to me. But it struck fast with you! So what's her name? What about her family, how rich is she?"

"Her name is Raegn." said Alfred rapidly, "I don't know her family, or her wealth, or her skill at weaving and keeping house. I don't particularly care about that. She's very beautiful and she is going to marry me."

"Do you have any clue at all as to who she is?"

"Her name is Raegn," Alfred repeated, chanting the words as a poet will, "And I think she is a warrior-maid. She is tall as a queen and she carries a spear. A corslet of gleaming mail is on her breast, and around her waist a swordbelt studded with many stones. Her hair lights up the sky."

Ingeld frowned, "As far as I can see, past your lovesick prose," he said, "There is such a woman living near here. I have heard the skalds talk of her, they say that she slew Audun the Reckless, son of Hrolf Lankhair, when he came raiding in these parts. He won't be missed overmuch. For a woman that was a deed worthy of merit…The skalds called her Raegn Eldrethsdotar."

Alfred grasped the strangers arms in a hard grip.  "Where?" he said "Where does she live? If you value your skin you'll tell me quickly."

"You weren't too keen to go there when I asked you yesterday," said Ingeld "I doubt that you can have changed your mind overnight."

"She lives in Wulfgeat's hall?" Alfred demanded.

"She does," said Ingeld, "And for that and another reason you should be careful how you go about getting her. Her mother Aetheldreda, Eldreth we call her, is a very deepminded woman and knows ways of doing things that wouldn't occur to ordinary folk. You don't want her as an enemy."

"You're going there today, aren't you?" said Alfred.  "Well I'm coming with you."

He hauled the smiling stranger to his feet and paced about him like a wolf in a cage.

"I hoped you would ride with me." Ingeld avoided the young man's prowlings and sat himself down at the mead-bench with an expectant look.

"Come on." said Alfred, "I'm impatient to see her. Listen! I'll tell you my dream; It felt like I was awake. I felt the chill air flow down from the great hill, with no smell of sea in it, and the turf beneath my feet was damp and smelt of moss. The birds were singing and so was she. She sang of deeds and heroes I have never heard of, and her hair was white as water that shines in the sunlight. Her arms were white as snow."

"I'm sure she's as fair as the golden Sif herself," said Ingeld with a wry smile, "But as for setting out now, will you go without making ready a horse? Will you run on the way there?"

"I'm going to do it now," said Alfred, heading for the stables.

"You might also arrange for some breakfast." Ingeld called after him, "My stomach cannot live on your tales of love."

Tea and Crumpet at Jessewave's blog

Recently Josephine Myles, JL Merrow, Charlie Cochrane, Clare London and I were interviewed by Wave about our role as acquisitions team and editors for Tea and Crumpet – and the interview is now up on Wave's blog!

So if you'd like to know a bit more about where this celebration of all things queer and British comes from – and for a chance to win a copy – head on over to Wave's blog, where we'll all be popping along later to answer comments!

How not to do research

I hope not all authors are like this, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it's a tendency at least I share:

On Saturday it was the Cambridge day of dance.  The Riot had been invited but we couldn't field enough members to make a side, so I went in support of my husband's side, the Coton morris men.  At the first dance spot a lady fell into conversation with me – which is normal enough, cos that's partly what it's all about (connecting people, getting them to talk and laugh together).  She explained that she was a classically trained dancer who was "respectfully and non-judgmentally" writing a book about dance.  So far so good – I'm all in favour of people writing books, as you know.

Then she said "which village are you from?  Tell me about your tradition."  I was a bit non-plussed by the village thing, because it's been almost a century since all the members of most morris sides all came from the same village, and I didn't initially twig that that was what she was assuming.  I said, "well, these are the Coton morris men and they dance in the Cotswold style."

At which she looked at me as though she'd stopped believing a word I said, and (in a kind of 'stop messing me about' voice) she said "Coton isn't in the Cotswolds."

 

That was when I realised that she must have done what I would have done – read one or two books about the subject and thought I was an expert.  In her case, she had presumably read up on Cecil Sharp, assumed nothing had changed in the intervening hundred years, assumed she had pinned down the framework within which the right questions could be asked and was non-plussed herself by the fact that my answers didn't fit.  If I had worked this out at the time, I would have been more ready to forgive her, but at the time I was only aware that she was reacting to me as if she thought I was lying to her, and I was annoyed.

While I was resisting her suspicious look and trying to explain that you no longer have to live in the Cotswolds to dance the Cotswold dances, John from Coton passed by with the hat, saying "spare some beer money?" 

My interviewer, who wanted me to provide her with free gratis research, out of the kindness of my heart, then rolled her eyes at me in horror and scorn and said, self-righteously "They can buy their own beer!"

And that was pretty much the last straw for me.  I thought – If you were really willing to learn about this stuff, I would tell you that passing the hat around for beer money is (almost) the whole damn point of morris dancing.  I would tell you that, traditionally, what you just did would result in the side coming round to your house and ploughing up your garden in retaliation.  Giving a few coins for beer money is about saying thank you for the entertainment, and entering into a sort of good-fellowship with the side.  So what you just did amounts to openly spurning us.  Morris dancing is no longer about dances carefully hoarded in a single village and passed on from father to son – but, even when it was, I'm willing to bet that it started and ended in the pub, because it's about community, and one of the pillars of community is shared drinking.  But I won't even try to tell you these things now, because I think you imagine it's some kind of sacred pagan remnant of Merry Olde Englande, and – if I said that the beer money is the most sacramental thing about it – I don't think you'd believe me anyway. 

I talked to a different lady for ten minutes about molly dancing and what I knew about the tradition, where it came from and what it was about.  But that was because she appeared to be genuinely interested in what I was saying.  She treated me like an equal and not like a specimen.  I'm usually happy to tell anyone anything I know about morris, which admittedly is very little (but I know which people to direct an enquirer to if they want to know more.)  But in the face of this author's disbelief and lack of generosity, I ended up not telling her anything at all.

What I learn from this experience (I hope) is that if I am ever in the position of interviewing someone to get material for a book, I will

(a) not assume I already know better than them.  I will go in with the mind-set that I know nothing, when compared to the person who is actually involved in the activity.  Rather than cross questioning them like a hostile witness I will try to simply be interested and listen to what they have to say.  (If they actually are making stuff up, I can find that out later by asking the same questions to other people.)

(b) if I am offered some small, simple way of reciprocating their goodwill/reimbursing them for their time and information, I will not react with contempt at the thought.  It may turn out to have been my one chance to prove exactly how "respectful" I really am.

On the positive balance of the day, one of the sides who turned up to dance were the Foggy Bottom Morris Men, who had come all the way from Washington DC.  They were lovely people, and a great side – very good dancers indeed, with beautiful singing voices, but not so very perfect that you'd have to hate them (it's folk dance, you don't want it to be too flawless   They danced Cotswold style with a Border attitude, which made for an excellent combination, and I would now definitely class them as one of my favourite sides.  I hope we managed to make them feel welcome, and I hope they come back again when they can.

Wildfire, Chapter 2 part 2.

By gentle persuasion, a bit of misdirection (and quite a lot of blackmail) Loki has persuaded Freyja to dismiss her loyal elvish maidservant, and agree to do a spot of matchmaking on Midgard:

~

 

Outside, the grove of hazels whispered at the washed blue sky and scattered the last drops of the early morning rainfall, flashing as they fell to the ground. Cloudshadow waited there with a small bundle of clothes. She had strapped on her belt her eating knife in a sheath of linen stitched with slivers of glass, and at her right, suspended from red loops, hung a pouch full of sharp elf-shot and a sling with a well worn handle.

"You have deprived my Lady of a faithful servant." she said.

"How would you like to go home?" said Loki.

Cloudshadow hefted her bundle from one hand to the other and, having done this, she looked up into the god's beautiful eager face impassively.

"That's where I am going," she said.

"Without dishonour?" Loki finished.

"There will be no dishonour for me," Cloudshadow said. "My people know you."

"Yes, they do," Loki admitted. "But Freyr does not. He will believe his sister, and your King will believe Freyr; you will be disgraced."

Cloudshadow bowed her head in silence. Minutes passed as Loki watched her without moving. Then, in a small voice she said "I want to go home without dishonour…I want to go home."

Loki lifted her head so that she could not avoid his gaze, "You will come with me then. I am going to Alfheim in one or two days. Before that you will go to Sigyn."

He watched the thought slide over the surface of her dark eyes. "If you go without me," he said, "I can force Freyr to disown you. I can make you an exile from your people; a wanderer with no king and no lord, no place in all the nine worlds."

"I won't go without you."

"And you will keep your mouth shut when you are there."

"I will."

"Good." said Loki and he ruffled her hair, smiling. "Now go."

He watched her as she ran away from him down through the wide streets.  He made sure she was running where she had been told before he began to toil uphill through the trees, heading for the High-One's watching eyrie, where it was forbidden to go.

Hlithskjalf was a rocky crag rising bleak and pale to scrape the highest branches of Yggdrasil the World-tree. Perhaps it was a practical joke of long years storms, or a tooth of Ymir the frost giant, from whose body the worlds had been formed.  At the foot of this huge pinnacle the hall named Valaskjalf sprawled. It had no windows, but a watching air was over it and a gloom of ancient darkness was solemn on its heavy walls of bronze.

From the side of the hall, narrow steps wound a spiral, cut crudely in the crumbling grey stone, up and up until the air grew thin and the nine worlds were spread out like moving maps in infinite and minute detail beneath. In the single carved and worn stone seat which was hollowed at its peak by repeated use and obliging weather there sat a bright and beady eyed hedgehog sniffing at the stone in incongruous surprise.

Odin frowned when he saw it there. There is a warrior's spirit in that animal, he thought to himself. Only undaunted bravery could have taken it up there; the wind is strong and there is death at every turn of the stair. If only the gods had such a spirit, such Will, but we are deathless and having no whip and lash behind us we decline and accomplish nothing.

He turned away and, leaning on his staff like an old man, he began to make his way down the long slope towards the Paddocks of Power. Then he shook his head and, laughing into his grey beard at this sudden attack of sentiment, straightened his back and without looking behind him strode on with a strong gait.

A hawk flashed across the sun. Freyja landed on the crag with a screech and a clatter of wings. She cocked a hawk's amber eye at the hedgehog, wondering whether or not to rip open its throat. It rolled itself into a spiny ball as she considered, but when she folded her wings and perched sedately upon one arm it poked out its long nose and said "Well?"

"Well what?" said the hawk, exhibiting a foul bad temper.

"Have you calmed down yet?"

"I'm debating," said Freyja, "Whether or not I ought to kill you and eat you. No-one would know if I did; no-one but me knows that you're here." She flexed an iron-sharp claw experimentally and whet her beak on the stone.

"Cloudshadow knows," the hedgehog lied professionally. "And she will have told Sigyn by now. Besides, if you tried, I should just turn into a dragon and swallow you whole. You forget I am a shape-changer, not tied to one fylgja like you.  Now, look at this."

He pointed with his sharp nose to a minute dark blur in the green of the tiny island of forest that was the Angles' new homeland. As she directed her yellow gaze to it it became distinct, and was a mortal hall. Its doors were open to the day.  Warriors sat there disconsolate with rusting swords and rebellious scowls, yawning at peace.

"The brown-haired one who tells tales of his bravery to his dog," said the hedgehog, snuffling with laughter.

"Very pretty," the hawk approved.  "It won't take much to make a girl fall for him."

"He takes after his grandfather," said Loki and then he pointed out the girl.

"Well she's a disappointment and no mistake," Freyja sniffed. "Oh, she's no strain on the eyes, but what manners! A girl like that should be more demure."

Loki said nothing.

"Very well.  I'll send them dreams tonight, but you'll have to get them to meet before it will take properly.  I still wish you'd tell me why I'm doing this."  She eyed the prickly beast with a sharp eye, but he began to make his laborious way down the steps.

"You mean," he said, "you haven't worked it out yet? After I gave you such a very obvious hint?"

"What hint?" said Freyja with her wings outstretched.

"Come now.  Not even you can be that stupid!"

With a sudden stoop the hawk dived for him, but her claws closed on nothing.  It was a long while before she realised that the white moth blown away by the wind had been, just a moment before, the slow-moving animal her taunting enemy.

Shining in the Sun is a bestseller, apparently :)

Thanks to Bruin Fisher, author of the wonderful "Work Experience" for pointing out to me that attitudedirect.com are featuring Shining in the Sun.  Their number one bestseller, apparently!  How very cool! http://attitudedirect.com/SHINING-IN-THE-SUN.html

This reminds me that I haven't yet mentioned this lovely review by Alan Chin, author of the beautiful and haunting The Lonely War, even though it's been quite a while since I squeed over it myself.

At first blush this seems like a rather simple yet well-told story of opposites attract. Beecroft hooks the reader with vividly drawn characters and then draws the reader into a beautifully crafted world where both rich and poor can find a middle ground to protect each other and even flourish for a time.  These characters come alive because of their genuine emotions and concerns.

But as both characters' lives begin to catch up with them, the plot becomes more complex, with twists and turns that give the reader a nice range of emotional experiences. This is no simple tale of rich man meets poor boy. It is a multifaceted web of situations and emotions.

Whole review here at Dorothy's Closet

It's taken a while for this to find its audience, because I think it's a slightly different audience than the one that likes my age of sail books, but it's nice to see it blossoming. 

Thank you so much to attitudedirect.com, to Alan and to Bruin

Plot cards

I'm currently at the stage of thinking up a new novel length plot, and for the first time I'm trying it using plot cards.  I reckon that I comfortably write 1000 words a day, so one card is going to represent the amount of stuff I can write in one day.  This means I need 100 cards in order to have material enough to fill a 100K book.

So far, after 3 days of trying to think of stuff, I've got 29 cards, and already the thing is looking more like a kind of intimately focussed quest story, instead of the big epic magical shoot-em-up I thought it was going to be.

It's an unusual method for me – normally I start at the beginning of a book and work logically through to the end, putting in the steps that have to happen as I go along.  With the cards I can go "ooh, I'd love a scene where X happens", write it down, and then have to shuffle things around to see where I can fit it in.  I strongly hope that this will result in a plot which takes some unpredictable swerves and contains unexpected coolnesses.  I sometimes think that being too linear in plotting makes things predictable.

But at least it means that I know where I'm going!  At the moment, I think I have an opening third that I was not expecting myself, and two thirds where I still have no idea what will happen.  Still, I guess that's not bad going for three days.  Maybe another week will see me in possession of a whole plot and ready to start writing again.

Anyone here with experience in plotting in scene cards?  How do you use such an apparently random method while making sure you have rising tension and rising stakes?