The Missing Piece of the Puzzle
Nov. 25th, 2003 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosLonger ago than I care to admit, I amused myself one day by writing a scene about a young noblewoman engaging in single combat against a mercenary to protect her home. It was pure fluff – lazy, day-dream stuff, but I amused myself sufficiently to wonder “What happened next?”
I continued to play with the characters, and quickly became dissatisfied with how un-realistic my original scenario was. So I re-wrote it.
I didn’t take it seriously for a long time, but one day I woke up and realized that my little play-story was becoming a novel, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and characters who grew and changed through the course of the story.
Last spring, I realized that I had 75% of the work done, but it was a “good parts” version. I had all the big events, but I didn’t have the other scenes which would make sense of the changes in the characters between one episode and another. Most importantly, there was nothing in the story about the common people and the work of the fief, the two things which were supposedly closest to the heart of my chatelaine heroine. The gaping hole in my story mirrored my own lack of interest in such mundane concerns – both in Seonaid’s story and my own real life.
Since then, I’ve been doing some serious personal work about how I relate to my own “fief” and my responsibilities as chatelaine, but beating my head against the wall as I tried to imagine episodes rooted in Seonaid’s day-to-day life which would enhance the story.
Yesterday, after doing yet another web search on “medieval agriculture” I finally found the bit of information I’ve been looking for for more than a year: a month-by-month calendar of the tasks of a medieval farm, including when specific crops were planted and harvested, when animals were bred and slaughtered, when trees were pruned, and etc. There’s a lot of information around about how these things are done, but this was the first time I’d found the when presented so clearly and succinctly.
So now I have the skeleton of the year, and can add the kinds of environmental details which will enhance the texture of the narrative, and have a better idea of what Seonaid and her people are doing when they’re not coping with the invaders. I feel like I’m finally ready to move forward again, and hopefully finish this project within the next six months or so.
I continued to play with the characters, and quickly became dissatisfied with how un-realistic my original scenario was. So I re-wrote it.
I didn’t take it seriously for a long time, but one day I woke up and realized that my little play-story was becoming a novel, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and characters who grew and changed through the course of the story.
Last spring, I realized that I had 75% of the work done, but it was a “good parts” version. I had all the big events, but I didn’t have the other scenes which would make sense of the changes in the characters between one episode and another. Most importantly, there was nothing in the story about the common people and the work of the fief, the two things which were supposedly closest to the heart of my chatelaine heroine. The gaping hole in my story mirrored my own lack of interest in such mundane concerns – both in Seonaid’s story and my own real life.
Since then, I’ve been doing some serious personal work about how I relate to my own “fief” and my responsibilities as chatelaine, but beating my head against the wall as I tried to imagine episodes rooted in Seonaid’s day-to-day life which would enhance the story.
Yesterday, after doing yet another web search on “medieval agriculture” I finally found the bit of information I’ve been looking for for more than a year: a month-by-month calendar of the tasks of a medieval farm, including when specific crops were planted and harvested, when animals were bred and slaughtered, when trees were pruned, and etc. There’s a lot of information around about how these things are done, but this was the first time I’d found the when presented so clearly and succinctly.
So now I have the skeleton of the year, and can add the kinds of environmental details which will enhance the texture of the narrative, and have a better idea of what Seonaid and her people are doing when they’re not coping with the invaders. I feel like I’m finally ready to move forward again, and hopefully finish this project within the next six months or so.
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*sheepish*
Date: 2003-11-25 12:42 pm (UTC)Re: *sheepish*
Date: 2003-11-25 12:50 pm (UTC)www.strangehorizons.com/2001/20010212/agriculture.shtml
Two other sites that were helpful: www.hyw.com/books/history/Agricult.htm
www.minarsas.demon.co.uk/harn/farming/calendar.htm
What's amusing is that the first author created her article after doing extensive research for her fantasy-medieval comic strip. The third one appears to have been written by a game designer. But all ring true with the other research I've done -- they just pulled together the details I hadn't put the time and energy into sorting out.
Enjoy!
Re: *sheepish*
Date: 2003-11-25 01:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-25 01:31 pm (UTC)*laughs* I wrote my MA thesis (Politics) in 1 yr 3 months, which involved doing nothing on it for 1 yr then researching and writing the whole thing in three frantic months once I heard my supervisor was heading overseas and I had an absolute deadline!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-25 01:44 pm (UTC)It's not that I have exemplary dedication, it's that the story won't let me go!
But I have sworn that I will finish it, and publish it, even if it is only self-published with a very limited audience.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-25 01:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-25 02:24 pm (UTC)Yours?
(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-25 02:40 pm (UTC)I think that in any discourse, it's critically important to be conscious of what we take for granted, as givens. Of course, that's very difficult to do, even when we remember to try.