L.J. Stanton's Blog, page 4

Book Review: Night of the Grizzlies

Sometimes the best thriller, the most terrifying horror, is non-fiction. Night of the Grizzlies is one of those books. If you have a morbid curiosity about bear attacks, then this is the book for you. If that isn’t up your alley, then avoid this book like the plague (or at least, how we used to think people would avoid the plague).

Night of the Grizzlies is the true story of the August 1967 bear attacks in Glacier National Park. Two women lost their lives in the first deadly attacks in Glacier National Park. It is a story that reminds us to respect the natural world around us. And perhaps most importantly—don’t feed the wild animals.

RESPECT THE WILD

We have learned so much since this incident. Reading this book and hearing that people used to leave their trash everywhere and that visitors had been able to hang out nearby dumps to watch bears, is mind-boggling. We as humans seem to require the “school of hard knocks” to learn lessons that seem common sense in hindsight. Night of the Grizzlies is the story of how misinformation kills, and that if you don’t respect the dangers of nature someone will pay the price.

MIND THE LANGUAGE

Admittedly, this was written in 1969 and the language is exactly what you’d expect. Native Americans are referred to as “Indians”. Women are “hysterical”. With that in mind, it is still well worth the read.

-L.J.

Author of The Dying Sun, Book 1 of The Gods Chronicle.
Pedantic Scribe of the ‘Scribe’s Journey Podcast’

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

PBS Night of the Grizzlies Documentary

National Parks After Dark, Night of the Grizzlies Pt 1

How To Stay Safe In Bear Country

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Narrativity: AKA the Best Small Con You've Never Heard Of (And Should Attend)

Do you like small conventions? Intelligent discussion? Do you have the ability to debate points like an adult and then have dinner with the holder of said dissenting opinion? Do you have an interesting affectation (not required but definitely encouraged)? Basically, when boiled down to it, do you have an open mind and enjoy learning and the occasional well-placed f-bomb?

Then Narrativity is for you.

Narrativity: A Convention for Story

In simplest terms, Narrativity is a gathering of writers, readers, and other interested parties who want to get together and talk about storytelling, and how to do it better. With a single track of programming, ideas can carry through from one panel to the next and the conversation continues all weekend.

From Narrativity.fun

I am sitting in the airport on my way home from my first Narrativity and am already planning to attend next year. It was far above any convention I have ever attended, and undoubtedly has set my standards too high for other professional conferences.

I cannot say enough good things about this conference, the people who run it, the people who attended it, or the panels and the discussions. I had the privilege of attending as a panelist, an experience I will always treasure as this was my first speaking opportunity (both in person and online) as a professional to other and with other professionals.

The best part of Narrativity is the genuine discussion. It was refreshing. In this day and age of dissenting opinions equal hatred and a new nemesis, the opportunity to discuss topics in a creative space with the desire to come to the bottom of an issue and chew through it is rare. I had many differences of opinions with panelists and attendees, and then promptly went and hung out (at dinner, and at a dog park) with those people. Some of the best new friends I have made from this convention are people I had the most fun arguing and debating with. It was, pardon me, fucking refreshing.

Narrativity will always have a special place in my heart. I have been completely won over.

I can’t wait for next year.

-L.J.

Author of The Dying Sun, Book 1 of The Gods Chronicle.
Pedantic Scribe of the ‘Scribe’s Journey Podcast’

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Writing Revisions: Plot Holes and Snarls

One of the greatest challenges with writing The Gods Chronicle series is the number of perspective characters and plotlines. Keeping everything straight can be complicated, which is why I have a massive ‘book bible’ with all of my notes. Unfortunately, sometimes things slip through the cracks. Sometimes they become small plot holes that can be easily fixed with a couple paragraphs of new work. Sometimes, they become full-blown tangled snarls and require a great deal more work to fixed. The hole I found in The Pantheon Prophet was at first small, and then with further thorough contemplation turned into a massive snarl that thoroughly messed with the continuity and timeline of my novel —which is an awesome opportunity.

REVISING V.S. EDITING

First drafts suck. It’s the draft where your characters get to do what they want, plots are indulged, and you do whatever you want to creatively. That doesn’t make for a good story, but it gets everything out on the table. Once that’s complete and out of the way, it’s time for the revising stage—not the editing.

Revision: Leave Grammar out of it

Don’t worry about fixing your grammar when you’re revising. There isn’t much point in investing time and energy to pages and paragraphs that might get summarily cut. Using my example from above, I could have wasted a lot of time editing the chapters that ended up being cut for plot purposes. Thankfully, I didn’t. The revising part is for far more painful things than punctuation: Killing Your Darlings.

Kill Your Darlings

Now killing your darlings doesn’t just mean killing characters. It might be scenes, plots, dialogue, anything that gets in the way of telling a solid narrative. But don’t despair! And whatever you do, don’t just throw away your darlings. There are many times that a scene could be recycled or reused for a different book, or repurposed within another edit. If you use the snapshot/rollback feature in Scrivener, or keep a book bible where you can place cut scenes, I highly recommend it. That way you never have to regret cutting something.

Part of killing your darlings means doing what is necessary to serve the story, and that means looking at your story now from the reader’s perspective. There are some awesome things we as writers enjoy (like experimenting with different narrative devices, perspectives, etc.) but are cumbersome to the reader. We’ve all read something that felt like the author was enjoying their intellectual masturbation just a little too much—try to catch those moments before you put your readers through them.

Revise every step of the way

Revising isn’t a one-and-done step. It should be done after each draft, each edit, to make sure that your story is still the story you wish to tell. You should have numerous drafts for your manuscript, and at each step along the way, you should do a revision read. The revision step should be where you find your biggest plot snarls and fix them. Once you feel that you have a draft that you can’t make any better no matter how much you personally poke at it, then it’s time for the editing stage.

Editing: Development, Line, Copy, Oh my!

Every author goes about this process a little differently, but every manuscript needs to go through these processes.

Developmental Edits

Developmental edits are similar to revision stages. If revising isn’t your strong suit, or if you have a major problem that you can’t solve, a developmental edit is a must. Many editors offer this service, as do some beta readers. Revising is one of my strong suits (after a decade of working on it), so I personally don’t hire an editor for this stage. That said, I do make sure that the editor I hire for the next stages can also do developmental edits. I prefer an editor that is mindful of the big picture, not just the trenches.

Line Edits

These are the trenches. Grammar, voice, and flow are done here and you need an editor for this stage. You need a different set of eyes, as it’s far too easy for your own eyes to slide over a sentence and miss a typo. Especially when you already know what the sentence is supposed to look like, or what you meant to say. These are the edits that aren’t worth doing until revisions and developmental edits have been done. They take more time and are more detailed than the previous versions. Don’t waste your time or money on pages that revising will scrap.

Copy Edits

The Last Edit. The edit that needs to come after the line edit, as it is the in-depth pre-proof read and reread that should smooth out everything. The copy edit is another one that you must hire an editor to do. None of the edits should be exclusively done by you for the same reasons as above, but also for one more very important reason: emotional stakes. Your editor will be more emotionally distant from the project, which can offer a great deal of clarity to the story.

ProofReading

Proofreading is your last pass. There shouldn’t be any more major revisions, edits, or changes after this point—if there are, then this isn’t proofreading, it’s copy editing.

Now, I’m off to go kill some darlings.

-L.J.

Author of The Dying Sun, Book 1 of The Gods Chronicle.
Pedantic Scribe of the ‘Scribe’s Journey Podcast’

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Book Review: Birth of the Anima

Birth of the Anima by Kelsey K. Sather, finalist for the NIEA, is the first book in the Ancient Language of the Earth series. It tells the story of each Anima, their triumphs and failures, as they attempt to complete their task of bringing Order to a Disordered world. It is a book full of heavy themes such as ecocide, stewardship, consent, agency, sexism, and some of these themes are less subtle than others. There is a lot going on in this book, and I wish that it had either been longer or streamlined.

SPOILERS BELOW

I want to get a couple of the technical issues out of the way first. I admit, I came into this book with a fundamental misunderstanding of the style of story I was going to read. The middle third of Birth of the Anima are short stories that tell you about the other Animas. There are a lot of characters to keep track of and the stories are very circular. Anima is made, her role explained to her, she fights, she dies. I admit, I did not enjoy this section. I ended up skipping or skimming several of these chapters because they didn’t seem relevant to the story bookending them. These shorts are stories that I wished they had been placed in a separate anthology.

MOMENTS VERSUS SCENES

Nerdwriter does an excellent breakdown of what a moment is versus a scene in movies, and there is a great deal that a writer in any medium can take away from this. Birth of the Anima suffers from unearned moments. The most glaring of these moments for me was when the main protagonist, Freda, arrives in Haven. There is a sudden time skip to months down the road where she shares her first kiss with the woman she has desperately wanted for those long months. For the characters, there is weight in this moment. For the reader, there’s whiplash. I barely know Freda and I don’t know Tillie, so the moment loses its meaning and feeling. There are very few scenes where you as the reader get to breathe and learn to love the characters. These scenes are instead given to worldbuilding, to teaching you the importance of homesteading and caring for the planet we live on—lessons that are at the expense of the characters, instead of bringing you closer to them.

a study in consent

The overarching theme within this book is consent and respect, but it’s a theme that I wish had been explored in both the subtle and bold ways that it is expressed. The lack of consent and of agency, that many of the characters and Animas have showcases the necessity of the Anima. Yet in an excellent, rather insidious show of ends justifying the means, the Animas are usually thrust into the role with little to no choice. The last Anima seems to have stumbled into the role completely on accident, with no knowledge ahead of her as to what this journey truly entails.

Over all, I give Birth of the Anima 2/5 stars. I may not have been the perfect target audience, and I think there is enough to recommend this book if you enjoy YA books with LGBTQA* representation.

-L.J.

Book Review: The Household Guide To Dying, by Debra Adelaide

“Delia has made a living writing an acerbic advice column and a series of wildly successful modern household guides. As the book opens, she is barely 40 but has only a short time to live. The novel charts her preoccupation with two things: how to make provision for her husband and daughters - and how to make her peace with her past.”

— The Household Guide to Dying synopsis, by Debra Adelaide

I picked up this book over 10 years ago while working at Chapters. It was placed in the bargain section and normally, I’m a book snob and don’t tend to buy from there. The stickers on the books drive me more than a little insane when I try to pull them off. But a book with a name like The Household Guide to Dying is one I simply couldn’t resist. If nothing else, the author and I clearly share the same sense of humor.

I have now read this book twice, and each time I’ve treasured it. It is a quaint book, a bit old fashioned, but I love the dive into Australia that I rarely get the chance to experience. The protagonist, Delia, is a Type-A woman who wants to finish the book she’s working on, leave instructions for her daughters about all the important moments in their lives, and help her husband move on with finding a new wife to continue his life with. Did I mention that book she’s working on is The Household Guide to Dying? A book written about her experience dying of cancer.

The Household Guide to Dying is both not as heavy and emotionally wrought a book as you’d expect, and it is. There are brilliant moments of levity mixed within the exhaustion of a slow, bitter death. I only wish that the fictional Household Guide to Dying was available. But since it doesn’t, this is the next best thing.

I lost a good friend to cancer last summer. Or rather, who died due to incompetent doctors and an unfeeling healthcare system that doesn’t take the pain and suffering of people with chronic illness to heart. I am still struggling with her death, but books like this help. They destigmatize talking about death and dying.

The Household Guide to Dying may not be your most pleasant read of the year, but it might be one of the most important ones.

-L.J.

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Personal Anecdote: Imposter Syndrome

The Dying Sun was meant to be the first book in a trilogy. When I completed the manuscript, it was approximately 72 000 words long. It fell right into the “correct length for a new fantasy author” guide. I was reasonably proud of myself for this achievement and handed it off to my beta readers. By the time The Dying Sun was sent to the presses, it was approximately 182 000 words long with a two-part series planned, and at minimum four books per part of that series. Why did it grow? And what does this have to do with Imposter Syndrome?

WHAT IS IMPOSTER SYNDROME?

While it likely doesn’t need to be defined, I’ll do so anyway. Imposter Syndrome is the feeling that no matter how accomplished you are, you’re not the real deal. Pertaining to authors, this is often the idea that no matter how much you write, you’re not a real author because of XYZ reasoning. If you write, you’re a writer. If you have authored something, you are an author. Simple as that.

BELIEVE IN YOUR ABILITY TO CULTIVATE YOUR ABILITIES

The Dying Sun is a diverse fantasy not for the faint of heart. It is a poignant novel of epic magic and intrigue. It was a novel I thought I wasn’t good enough to write, and maybe I’m not. There are points it could certainly be improved—I promise stylistic improvements in its sequel, The Pantheon Prophet. Continued growth is extraordinarily important in both life and work. But when I outlined The Dying Sun, I thought its scope was beyond my abilities and beyond my reach. I undercut and minimized the story for the sake of fitting it into a streamlined version that generic blogger lists on the internet instructed. No one was going to read a big book by a no-name author, so therefore I needed to keep it short and sweet.

In reality, no one is going to read a story that sucks. And the original version of The Dying Sun was a bulky outline at best. I did a disservice to both the story and my skills, by being afraid to reach for the stars and write the grand epic that The Gods Chronicle series could be. I had a lot of work on my plate, and I had a lot of growth to do. Everyone takes a different journey to find that place of growth, but you shouldn’t be afraid of it.

TAMING DRAGONS

Imposter Syndrome should help keep you humble. It’s something that many of us, if not all of us, have felt from time to time. It is doubt, anxiety, insecurity, and it’s entirely useable in small doses. Imposter Syndrome is a dragon, but it’s tameable. You should use it to stay humble, as a challenge to aspire to be better and to keep learning. Don’t let it stop you from reaching for opportunities.

Stay humble, but be bold.

-L.J.

RELATED POSTS

L.J.’s Writing Method

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"Just gotta have a little faith," Character Review: Let's talk Dutch. Let's talk Red Dead Redemption 2.

CHARACTER BUILDING SHOWCASE: THE DEPLORABLE, THE LOVABLE, THE FATHER FIGURE.

Worldbuilding isn’t just about building the settings or the cultures of the world you’re populating. Character histories are important, and your character is going to have preexisting relationships prior to the start of your story. Those relationships shape your protagonist and therefore impact the plot, especially so in character-driven stories. Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2)is a character-driven plot (I would argue that most good narrative games are character-driven) that focuses on the player character, Arthur, and his relationship with the gang’s leader Dutch.

spoilers ahead

Dutch is a compelling, complicated character. You, the player, are given your first real insight to Dutch’s personality when he stops Micah from abusing/raping/murdering (who knows which one or if it’s all of the above) a woman. Dutch is presented as a gentleman gang leader, a criminal with a good heart that just wants to look after his people. He is charismatic and a smooth-talker.

He’s also a completely selfish cad, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

character creation

There are many ways writers develop characters, from spreadsheets to Buzzfeed-style questionnaires and everything in between. Developing a multifaceted character means understanding a couple of things that the writers for Dutch and RDR2.

Character interactions

How does this character make other characters feel?

How does this character’s actions impact other characters? (Large and small decisions)

Character Motivations (External)

What are their goals?

Large overarching goals

In-the-moment and short term goals

Character Core

How does your character view themself?

How do they wish to be perceived by others?

Character Struggles

How do the characters’ motivations and core desires conflict?

How do those motivations and desires line up?

Developing character struggles is hugely important for creating characters that feel real. People have internal conflicts. We have unrealistic or inflated views of ourselves, and we have hopes and aspirations of what we would like to be. Sometimes those conflict with reality in minor ways, other times they can be earth-shattering. These are important to keep in mind when building a character.

Dutch is an extremely conflicted character. At the start, he doesn’t appear to be. You, the player, are told that he is unhinged but I didn’t think he felt that way upon the first playthrough. His stress level felt understandable and made me doubt the narrative other characters were spinning. In my second playthrough, I can see the truth to what I’m told and how thing Dutch’s very smooth veneer is thin and cracked. He has strong anarchist beliefs, teaches self-reliance and self-determination, yet leads a gang where he expects complete loyalty and faith in his leadership. He expects everyone to pitch into the gang coffers, hunt for food, and bring supplies back to camp—a strong sense of social responsibility that is at odds with his underlying true desires. At the end of the day, everything about the camp and the gang is built to bolster Dutch’s self-image and ego. The two people who have been with Dutch longest, Arthur and Hosea, are two people constantly being needled and loyalty questioned because their faith isn’t blind loyalty. Eventually, it becomes the main point of contention within the game as Dutch’s veneer continues to crack.

Why is this important?

Because Dutch’s character is a slow burn. It is a gradual change and it is excellent. He is a villain who you don’t suspect, and you are able to become horrified by his actions and your part in his destructive spiral. It is often painfully obvious who the villain is going to be, and while there is a time and a place for such villains, it is always refreshing to give the reader (or player) a moment of disgust and revelation.

I wholeheartedly encourage playing RDR2 to grow as a writer (or, frankly, just for the sake of it).

-L.J.

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Everything You Need to Know About Writing Horses Part 2: Riding 101

Dispelling Writing Riding Tropes1) bareback VS Saddle

Often I’ve read about a frantic protagonist who has never ridden a horse before (or rarely has) who hops on a horse bareback, sets off at a gallop, and is fine. I’m going to burst the bubble here: your protagonist fell off and broke their neck. Or didn’t even make it to getting on the horse, as it’s not easy to do (especially if you’ve never done it before). Give your protagonist either time enough to get their horse tacked up, or give them riding skills (even if very basic).

If you’re going to have your protagonist riding bareback, consider the gait the horse is moving at. A walk is easy. A trot is exceptionally bumpy on the average horse, and a canter/lope feels like riding a wave. Your character probably is just falling off if they’re riding a gallop bareback unless they’re an extremely talented horseman with a great seat.

2) Rein Slapping

Reins are connected to the bit, which is in the horse’s mouth. Slapping the horse with the reins sends reverberations down to the mouth or actively shakes the bit, which can cause pain. Please don’t encourage this. Have your protagonists use their legs to ask for movement. And they don’t need to yank on the horse’s mouth to stop. A horse might need a gentle pull on the reins, but a rider should use their seat.

“By the time she tired, her coat was dark and slick with sweat. Somehow she still managed to find the energy to spook at a training flag at the opposite end of the arena.
Merikh brought Remahdi to the arena’s center. He set himself deeper into the saddle, and the mare stopped firmly. As much as he tried to keep the barn a retreat from politics, it never failed to follow him here.”

— Chapter 3, The Dying Sun by L.J. Stanton3) multiple riders, one horse

Be kind to your fictional horses. Most horses can carry one rider comfortably, two riders if necessary. Anything more than that is going to hurt your horse or, quite simply, not fit on the horse to begin with. Consider the size of your character’s horse. Something delicately built like an Arabian is not going to comfortably fit three riders on it. A horse the size of a Shire, on the other hand, can more comfortably fit two and maybe be sweet enough to endure a third (but certainly not at any haste).

4) Get on and go

Unless your characters are in the utmost haste (the antagonist is literally right behind them), please give your riders time to warm up their horses. Wild horses walk, trot, canter quite a bit naturally during their day. A horse at pasture does so too, but a stalled horse spends a great deal of unnatural time standing. That means that they need to warm up before you can take off at a canter or gallop with them. Conversely, if they’ve been under saddle for a long time (especially if there has been a lot of difficult terrain or fast movement) then they also need cooling down.

How To Use A Warhorse

Horses have several different uses in war. There are plenty of places to look up cavalry techniques, so I’ll leave it to better tacticians to describe those to you. But as far as individual horse and rider, I can help with that.

Horses are best used defensively to protect the rider. There are several dressage maneuvers which have developed out of warhorse use. They are the levade, croupade, courbette, capriole, and ballotade. Collectively, these are referred to as airs above ground. The names in particular you don’t need to memorize, but they should be looked into and videos watched of them before you try to write them into a scene.

“Another grenade exploded, but this time it felled more rioters than guards. In the chaos, another group of Onyx Swords or rioters slipped past Merikh’s guards. Zahira tensed. Merikh sat deep in the saddle as the mare drew up her forelegs, leaned back, and launched herself into the air, kicking out with her back feet. She nearly slipped when her hooves hit the cobblestones beneath them. She recovered quickly, and at Merikh’s urging, broke through the startled line of men in front of them.”

— Chapter 43, The Dying Sun by L.J. Stantonlevade

Similar to a rear, but with improved balance on the hind legs (minimal risk of falling over). It exposes the belly of the horse, but a horse can be taught to strike with its forelegs from this position.

Limited usefulness.

courbette

Start with a levade, the horse then jumps up and forward to land back on their hind legs.

Same problems as the levade, but more defensive for the rider as anyone standing in front of the horse is going to be either shoved out of the way or crushed when the horse returns to standing.

capriolle

Starts with a levade, the horse then leaps forward and kicks backward while at the peak airborne phase, then lands in a new forward position

A capriolle is described in the above quote. It is a highly technical maneuver but by far the most useful underutilized maneuver that a warhorse can (or should be) able to do. It can help clear the space around a rider, and a hit from a horse’s back legs will shatter bones and/or kill the person hit.

Last, but not least, a simple kick from those hind legs is a powerful weapon that a rider (whether on or off) the horse can use. It provides a more stable position for the horse to maneuver from, less likelihood of falling over, and the hindquarter muscles are much stronger than the forequarter.

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'The Dying Sun': Finalist for the NIEA!

The National Indie Excellence Awards were announced on May 28th, 2021 and The Dying Sun was a finalist for Fantasy! The NIEA has been around for the past 15 years and has showcased the best that the independent and self-publishing industry has to offer. Congratulations to each of the other finalists and the winners, especially in the Fantasy Category. I have a whole new list of books in my TBR pile.

FANTASY FINALISTS

The Last Lumenian, by S.G. Blaise

Steggie Belle & the Dream Warriors, by Elias Pell

Birth of the Anima, by Kelsey K. Sather

The Dying Sun, by L.J. Stanton

The Lightning Knight: The Knights of Nine, Book One, by Sean P. Valiente

House of Scepters, by Anne Zoelle

FANTASY WINNER

Ascendant: Songs of Chaos, Book One, by Michael R. Miller

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All You Will Ever Need To Know About Writing Horses, Part 1.

Trust me, I’m not exaggerating with that title. Before I became a full-time writer, I spent my days teaching riding lessons. I went to university for Equine Sciences, and spent my teenage years apprenticing under a marvelous horseman who taught both working cowhorse and fixed ‘problem’ horses.

Note: if a term isn’t defined, feel free to ask for the definition in the comments. It likely isn’t a term you would want to use in a fantasy setting, but further education is always awesome!

Getting the Details Correct: Why Does It Matter?

Immersion, first and foremost. Horseback riding is not an uncommon hobby, especially among fantasy readers. While some readers are fairly forgiving of issues, it’s one of my personal biggest pet peeves. So to make it easy for writers, here are all the major details most people don’t know, don’t get correct, etc etc.

The Basics: horse 101Anatomy

Hoof & Leg

Horses stand on what is the equivalent to the human middle fingernail. The leg is the equivalent of the finger. That’s why horse legs are spindly and fragile.

hooves need to be picked out by their caregivers (riders or grooms) at minimum before and after riding. Debris can get caught in the grooves of the hoof (or in the shoes) which can lead to injuries (think of if you had a piece of gravel jammed under your fingernail and then had to type with it)

Mouth

Horses have a space between their incisors before their molars, which is where the bit fits in their mouth.

The older the horse is, the more ground down their teeth are and the harder it is for them to break down forage.

Eyes

Horses have horizontal pupils, though their eyes are dark enough you don’t normally see them. Because their eyes are on the sides of their heads, they have blind spots directly in front of their nose, below their neck, and behind their tail.

Horses have terrible depth perception. They aren’t colorblind, but they are dichromatic (unlike humans who are trichromatic) and see blues and greens. No reds.

Tack (Gear)

Halters & Lead Ropes/Shanks

Rope or leather that goes around a horse’s muzzle, along the cheeks, and then behind the ears and below the jaw. Depending on the time period and culture, these can be plain and simple or highly decorated.

Arabian halters are usually styled differently as a thing chain that goes behind the ears, sometimes across the brown, down the cheeks and around the muzzle.

Halters do not have anything go into the horse’s mouth and the lead rope attaches underneath it. Halters can be left on when the horse is being ridden (under the bridle) and the lead rope can be tied around the neck or attached to the saddle if there is a place for it.

Bridles

The general style of a bridle is similar to a halter, except that instead of having a piece that attaches around the muzzle (a noseband), the cheek pieces attach to the bit.

Reins attach to the bit and then go back to the rider. There are two main types of rein: split reins and loop reins. Loop reins are one single piece of leather (or two that buckle or tie together in the middle) from one end of the bit to the other. Split reins are two pieces of leather, one for each side of the bit. Managing split reins can be very difficult for beginner riders (I always tied them together to make a loop rein or just gave my students loop reins until they mastered the basics).

Bits

There are too many different types to break down and this isn’t for the faint of heart to play around with. If you really want to get into this level of detail, comment and I’ll give you more info!

Bitless Bridles, Hackamores, Riding Halters, etc.

Lead ropes can be made into loop reins and the halter can be turned into a bitless bridle in this way. The average, well started horse will understand the pressure cues being given this way.

Saddles

Modern day saddles come in two main types: western and english. Both of these riding styles have ancient roots. Western saddles are bulkier, with a horn in the front. English saddles are smaller and lightweight.

Many ‘working saddles’ have a built up pommel area in the front of the saddle (in front of where your thighs would be if you were in the saddle). Consider what sort of setting you have, what kind of tools horses are being used for, etc. in your worldbuilding to figure out what kinds of saddles make the most sense.

Cinch/Girth

Cinch is the western term for the band that goes underneath the horse’s belly and keeps the saddle in place. Girth is the english term for it. As long as you keep consistent, either word is an acceptable term to use. To tack up properly, you need to “tighten the cinch”.

Stirrups need to be adjusted between riders that have different leg lengths. So if you have an extremely tall character and an extremely short one, please take a moment to adjust the stirrups before they sit in a saddle the other was riding in.

Saddle Blankets

Saddle blankets go underneath the saddle as a protective layer between the saddle and the horse. Western style saddles have lambskin on the underside of the saddle to have additional padding for the horse, but still require a blanket.

English style saddle blankets (saddle pads) are smaller and thinner than the western blankets as the english saddle is smaller and lighter.

““Are you sure you are?” Loralee asked, glancing dubiously at Jin’s tack. Loralee handed her mare to Jin before double-checking the amira’s saddle. The cinch tightened an inch. Loralee buckled the clip and retied the knot before taking her mare back from Jin.”

— Chapter 8, The Dying Sun by L.J. StantonDiet & Care Needs

Obligate herbivores with one stomach, horses need frequent small meals to keep their gut-fill at appropriate levels. Large meals several times a day is harder on a horse’s body.

Horses primarily eat roughage (grasses). They can also have their diet supplemented with different grains, fruits, and vegetables.

Fun fact: horses don’t get drunk off beer.

Personality & Body Language (They Aren’t Dogs)

Horses are prey animals first and foremost, unlike dogs, and react to the world through that lens. It means there is a high likelihood of horses spooking at nothing, or at dark spots on the ground. They tend to be cautious at water crossings unless trained. They can be loyal, but they certainly don’t do things like wag their tails happily.

Whinnying and nickering aren’t anywhere near as common a behaviour as movies and television would have you believe (once again, prey animals). Horses will shriek, whinny, and nicker to communicate with each other for different reasons.

Blowing (exhaling loudly) in combination with lip licking is a stress relief/self soothing behaviour.

Horses greet each other by sniffing noses and smelling breath. A horse will do the same with a person or an animal that comes up to it (like a dog or a cat).

Pinned ears are a threat and sign of imminent danger. Pinned ears are usually followed by nipping, biting, shrieking, striking, and/or kicking

Striking is with the forelegs, kicking with the back legs.

HERD DYNAMICS

Lead Mare

decides where the herd stops to graze, drink, etc. etc.

helps decide whether or not spooking is necessary

Lead Stallion

protects the herd from predators and competition

Mares

make up the rest of the herd. These may be a group of sisters and aunts, but mares will come and go from herds as other stallions harass/steal mares, so they aren’t always related. Liking the stallion has a greater bond than family.

Bachelor Bands

colts (male foals) are kicked out of their birth herds when they reach sexual maturity. For safety, they will often form bachelor bands. During mating season, these bands may break up or splinter depending on whether there are herds with mares nearby.

Gaits (speeds)

Walk (4 beat)

Trot (2 beat, diagonals)

Canter/Lope (3 beat)

Gallop (4 beat with hang time)

See Part 2 in two weeks for Riding!

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