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Sugar Island
Nov. 24th, 2009 10:50 pmThis week I have been extremely lax about “doing things that I actually need to do so I don’t fail,” and have instead been reading a book called Albion’s Seed which is about the way that different British regional folk traditions were transplanted to different regions of the American colonies.
It’s actually really interesting – it sounds like it ought to be dull but I just kept reading and reading and reading…my favorites were the Quakers, with the Puritans a close second, and damn there’s something wrong with those cavaliers who settled Virginia. Occasionally they throw out a hero, but generally speaking…seriously, man, leave your poor slave girls alone. Also the bearbaiting? You really need to lay off the bearbaiting.
Anyway, it got me thinking on a fantasy story I’ve been working on for oh my goodness let’s not even discuss how long, which I periodically open up, fiddle with, and put aside again. I have five files of stuff for this book. Altogether it must add up to fifty thousand words. If those words were coherent or connected the book would be done.
But anyway, the story is about a girl whose brother has been sold into slavery because of suspected involvement with a political faction that fell out of favor. Because of complicated political maneuvering that we don’t really care about, he’s been pardoned, so she’s gone to find him and bring him back home.
Every few months I have yet another epiphany about Why This Story Isn’t Working. My newest epiphany is - this is the kind of culture she comes from; forget that namby-pamby naive life! liberty! and the pursuit of happiness! idealism, she’s a cavalier. Headstrong, passionate (but self-controlled!), with a sense of entitlement and social snobbery the size of a small country.
That thing where fantasy princes say "Oh please call me Bob, I hate titles"? Oh no, she is absolutely not going to stand for that. The family honor has suffered enough already. (How dare those vulgar common soldiers think they had the right to sell her brother into slavery! A member of the gentry!) She's going to get that honor back, at sword's point if the polite option fails.
For obvious reasons, this doesn’t play well with people who have different cultural assumptions. (Including hypothetical readers. But challenges are fun, right?)
Now I just need a working cultural model for the island of sugar plantations where the brother has been sold, and this might actually become a real story…
It’s actually really interesting – it sounds like it ought to be dull but I just kept reading and reading and reading…my favorites were the Quakers, with the Puritans a close second, and damn there’s something wrong with those cavaliers who settled Virginia. Occasionally they throw out a hero, but generally speaking…seriously, man, leave your poor slave girls alone. Also the bearbaiting? You really need to lay off the bearbaiting.
Anyway, it got me thinking on a fantasy story I’ve been working on for oh my goodness let’s not even discuss how long, which I periodically open up, fiddle with, and put aside again. I have five files of stuff for this book. Altogether it must add up to fifty thousand words. If those words were coherent or connected the book would be done.
But anyway, the story is about a girl whose brother has been sold into slavery because of suspected involvement with a political faction that fell out of favor. Because of complicated political maneuvering that we don’t really care about, he’s been pardoned, so she’s gone to find him and bring him back home.
Every few months I have yet another epiphany about Why This Story Isn’t Working. My newest epiphany is - this is the kind of culture she comes from; forget that namby-pamby naive life! liberty! and the pursuit of happiness! idealism, she’s a cavalier. Headstrong, passionate (but self-controlled!), with a sense of entitlement and social snobbery the size of a small country.
That thing where fantasy princes say "Oh please call me Bob, I hate titles"? Oh no, she is absolutely not going to stand for that. The family honor has suffered enough already. (How dare those vulgar common soldiers think they had the right to sell her brother into slavery! A member of the gentry!) She's going to get that honor back, at sword's point if the polite option fails.
For obvious reasons, this doesn’t play well with people who have different cultural assumptions. (Including hypothetical readers. But challenges are fun, right?)
Now I just need a working cultural model for the island of sugar plantations where the brother has been sold, and this might actually become a real story…
