[Crit] As we seem to be doing openings again...
Helen Kenyon
OK, I've nearly got to the end of revising the damn novel. So I'm
looking back at the beginning, intending to sharpen that up again. Last
time I posted this, everyone thought generic medieval. Is this any
clearer? Also, what about the POV shift? The two POV characters are Huw
and Elen. Normally we get a chapter of each POV, though I do sometimes
shift between scenes and, just once, within a scene. And as not one
critter commented on it, I think I might have pulled that off. :-)
Anyway...
Huw paused for a moment to switch the saddle he was carrying from
his aching right arm to his left. He was almost home. A hundred miles
in five days -- on foot. Not bad going.
Hitching his saddlebags further up on to his shoulder, he walked on
under the ancient gateway into the city of Arloros. His footsteps
echoed briefly under the stone arch, then he was out in the open again:
warm evening sunshine on his face, the hubbub of people walking and
talking and the clatter of horse-drawn traffic loud in his ears. He
stopped on the edge of the pavement with the old, crumbling walls behind
him, the bustle of the traffic in front, and paused for a moment to look
around.
[Snip 550 words in which Huw looks for changes in his surroundings
brought about by the war, hears the Town Hall clock strike 9 and decides
to spend the last of his money on some food.]
He glanced to his right, looking for a gap in the traffic. An open
carriage, pulled by a pair of matching chestnuts passed by at a steady
trot. The red-painted wheels scattered the birds from the gutter. As
the carriage passed him, he saw that the passengers were a man in his
forties and a woman, probably ten or twelve years older than himself.
Mid thirties? The man looked vaguely familiar, but it was the woman who
met his gaze for a moment, a look of -- was that pity? -- on her face.
Dammit, he wanted no one's pity.
She had obviously never had to go short. Her chestnut hair was
thick and sleek, bound in a loose plait which fell down her back. He
glanced from her pretty pink dress to the immaculate paint work on the
carriage. Those horses hadn't come cheap either. Their hooves barely
seemed to clip the ground; all air and fire, they trotted on, slender
legs stretching, touching and lifting high to stretch again. Huw let
his eyes follow the carriage as it rolled on down the street.
Elen sighed, smoothed the skirt of her new dress and leaned back
against the soft cream leather upholstery, enjoying the last of the
sunshine. Or at least, she had been enjoying it. Now she felt guilty.
As the coach rolled on, leaving the South Gate behind, Siarl said,
"What is it? You've gone very quiet."
She turned, regarding her cousin thoughtfully. "That young man, by
the drinking fountain. He looked so lost."
"Did he? I can't say that I noticed him."
Elen frowned. Siarl could be so... so self-absorbed. She let her
gaze stray down his body, starting at the top with his crisp black
curls, moving on to linger for a moment over the strong profile, then
sweeping down the length of his body, taking in the white linen shirt --
trimmed at neck and cuffs with fine lace -- his long, lean breeches-clad
legs, finishing at his immaculately polished black boots.
It wasn't that Siarl was callous; he just didn't think. Elen did
not look round, but in her mind's eye she saw the young man still, his
back to the fountain, his bags and a -- had that been a saddle? -- at
his feet. Nothing really special about him, apart from the fact that he
was so lean and hungry looking: dark-haired, a little below average
height, thin faced. His boots had been dusty and travel stained, as
were his trousers and shirt. Just another young man unable to settle
back into ordinary life after the war? Or a man who had lost family and
possessions in the conflict? She would never know.
Her carriage rolled smoothly on up Wall Road.
Obviously, Elen *is* about to know as she's heading straight into an RTA
with a heavy wagon and Huw is going to help. And then the rest of the
book happens. But anyone got any thoughts? One critter did suggest that
I should put the carriage crash on page one, but I really can't see how
I can do it. Besides, would you care about a crash if you hadn't met
the people concerned?
Helen
--
Helen, Gwynedd, Wales *** http://www.baradel.demon.co.uk
Now with added serious stuff (basic maths and how to be an NVQ assessor).
**Please delete the extra bit from e-mail address if replying by mail**
Terje Johansen
I don't do a lot of crits, but there were a couple of huh's here...
1. He had gone 160 km's in five days? Along cross country, in riding boots?
with a heavy saddle on one shoulder?
2. Upper class woman looking directly at scruffy street person, or
commenting him afterwards?
3. No guards at the gates?
4. What I call the Anne Rice syndrome; the man looks with female eyes. A
woman sees the fancy dress and the plait; a man would see her curves and
cheekline. A woman sees the beauty of the horses; a man would think of them
as 'fast, powerful, controlled'.
I had real problems putting this into an age. The good wagons and the
groomed horses would indicate 1600 or later; neither does Hew carry an arm -
in the wilderness - which would indicate even 1800 or later.
Me, I'd start the story by Hew stumble into town and explain his way past
the guards at the gate.
-Terje Johansen
---
comp.publish.electronic.misc - where e-publishers and e-writers meet.
Graydon
> Hitching his saddlebags further up on to his shoulder, he walked on
> under the ancient gateway into the city of Arloros. His footsteps
> echoed briefly under the stone arch, then he was out in the open again:
> warm evening sunshine on his face, the hubbub of people walking and
> talking and the clatter of horse-drawn traffic loud in his ears. He
Don't do this; it's much of what gives the generic feel.
It's the only kind of traffic there is, unless Huw thinks of
pedestrians, ox-drawn, and horse-drawn as inherently seperate.
The only other thing I'd advise is that collissions with animal
traction aren't anything like collisions with machine traction and
stealing an account from a period source might well give you a
sufficent wierdness to de-genericize the first half of the book all on
its own.
--
and he sat down on the burning sand | angantyr@
looked at the red on his brown right hand | sympatico.ca
and he spoke to the Devil about his plans | *new address*
out to the East of Eden. -- Shriekback, "The Bastard Sons of Enoch"
Laurel Amberdine
message news:kCFFFKAv...@baradel.demon.co.uk...
>
> OK, I've nearly got to the end of revising the damn novel. So I'm
> looking back at the beginning, intending to sharpen that up again. Last
> time I posted this, everyone thought generic medieval. Is this any
> clearer? Also, what about the POV shift? The two POV characters are Huw
> and Elen. Normally we get a chapter of each POV, though I do sometimes
> shift between scenes and, just once, within a scene. And as not one
> critter commented on it, I think I might have pulled that off. :-)
> Anyway...
It still looks pretty generically medieval, or perhaps generically
post-medieval to me. What was supposed to clue me in to another setting?
> Huw paused for a moment to switch the saddle he was carrying from
> his aching right arm to his left. He was almost home. A hundred miles
> in five days -- on foot. Not bad going.
> Hitching his saddlebags further up on to his shoulder, he walked on
> under the ancient gateway into the city of Arloros. His footsteps
> echoed briefly under the stone arch, then he was out in the open again:
> warm evening sunshine on his face, the hubbub of people walking and
> talking and the clatter of horse-drawn traffic loud in his ears. He
> stopped on the edge of the pavement with the old, crumbling walls behind
> him, the bustle of the traffic in front, and paused for a moment to look
> around.
>
> [Snip 550 words in which Huw looks for changes in his surroundings
> brought about by the war, hears the Town Hall clock strike 9 and decides
> to spend the last of his money on some food.]
>
> He glanced to his right, looking for a gap in the traffic. An open
> carriage, pulled by a pair of matching chestnuts passed by at a steady
> trot. The red-painted wheels scattered the birds from the gutter. As
> the carriage passed him, he saw that the passengers were a man in his
> forties and a woman, probably ten or twelve years older than himself.
> Mid thirties? The man looked vaguely familiar, but it was the woman who
> met his gaze for a moment, a look of -- was that pity? -- on her face.
> Dammit, he wanted no one's pity.
He's a very observant person. Is this normal for him, even though he's so
tired? In fact, he sounds a bit like a writer. :)
So far the only hook I see is : why is Huw carrying a saddle? Is there
anything else unusual or unique about him that you could hint at? I don't
think that's catchy enough (or fantastic enough) to get me interested.
This is nitpicky, but "South Gate" and "Wall Road" struck me as quite
generic. Those names are used in a dozen MUDs and RPGs that I can think of.
Does the city have any history or personality to produce more interesting
names?
> Obviously, Elen *is* about to know as she's heading straight into an RTA
> with a heavy wagon and Huw is going to help. And then the rest of the
> book happens. But anyone got any thoughts? One critter did suggest that
> I should put the carriage crash on page one, but I really can't see how
> I can do it. Besides, would you care about a crash if you hadn't met
> the people concerned?
I would certainly care about people in a crash, whether I knew them yet or
not, so long as they didn't appear to be obviously obnoxious. I know what
it's like to be in a (car) crash. It's very unpleasant. I can relate.
This is probably my personal taste, but I wouldn't keep reading, even though
everything is very well written. I get the feeling there's going to be a
lot of description of beautiful people, and interesting places, but less
story-action than I like. I also don't see anything fantastic or weird yet.
All IMO,
-Laurel
Mary K. Kuhner
the two main characters feels rather contrived to me. The part
from Elen's point of view accomplishes nothing except set-up (a
solution to the problem of how to describe a POV character,
in particular) and I find myself frustrated because just as I
am beginning to get interested in Huw, I'm pulled away.
I'm not really given much reason to engage with Elen yet.
But I'm a notorious non-describer of my main characters, so take
this with a grain of salt. It's not something I miss when it's
not there at all.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Helen Kenyon
<anga...@sympatico.ca> writes
>> talking and the clatter of horse-drawn traffic loud in his ears. He
> ^^^^^^^^^^^
>Don't do this; it's much of what gives the generic feel.
>
Oooh... Thanks. Well spotted.
>It's the only kind of traffic there is, unless Huw thinks of
>pedestrians, ox-drawn, and horse-drawn as inherently seperate.
>
>The only other thing I'd advise is that collissions with animal
>traction aren't anything like collisions with machine traction and
>stealing an account from a period source might well give you a
>sufficent wierdness to de-genericize the first half of the book all on
>its own.
I think my collision is okay, but time to re-read Black Beauty,
methinks...
Helen Kenyon
Amberdine <cir...@NOSPAMmtco.com> writes
>
>It still looks pretty generically medieval, or perhaps generically
>post-medieval to me. What was supposed to clue me in to another setting?
>
>
>He's a very observant person. Is this normal for him, even though he's so
>tired? In fact, he sounds a bit like a writer. :)
>
got to be the amateur detective to solve the murders.
>So far the only hook I see is : why is Huw carrying a saddle? Is there
>anything else unusual or unique about him that you could hint at? I don't
>think that's catchy enough (or fantastic enough) to get me interested.
>
The first hint of unusual comes when he shows he can use magic, yet
isn't part of the Beccian temple hierarchy. But I really don't see how
I can get that on page 1.
>
>This is nitpicky, but "South Gate" and "Wall Road" struck me as quite
>generic. Those names are used in a dozen MUDs and RPGs that I can think of.
>Does the city have any history or personality to produce more interesting
>names?
>
The trouble is, it's realistic. Most British/Welsh place names are
purely descriptive and Baradel is an alternate Wales. Exotic just
wouldn't feel right.
>
>I would certainly care about people in a crash, whether I knew them yet or
>not, so long as they didn't appear to be obviously obnoxious. I know what
>it's like to be in a (car) crash. It's very unpleasant. I can relate.
>
>This is probably my personal taste, but I wouldn't keep reading, even though
>everything is very well written. I get the feeling there's going to be a
>lot of description of beautiful people, and interesting places, but less
>story-action than I like. I also don't see anything fantastic or weird yet.
>
>
>All IMO,
>-Laurel
Well, the crash will happen in a couple of paragraphs (which probably
puts it on page 3). After that, we learn that Huw has just been
released from prison after narrowly escaping hanging for treason. Then
he falls over a body in a back alleyway. But it's not an action packed
novel (though there is action). It's whodunit rather than thriller.
Thanks anyway.
Helen
Thinks: It's getting a better reception this time around. I must be
doing something right. :-)
Helen Kenyon
<terje.j...@tandbergtv.no> writes
>
>I don't do a lot of crits, but there were a couple of huh's here...
>
>1. He had gone 160 km's in five days? Along cross country, in riding boots?
>with a heavy saddle on one shoulder?
It was done a) out of necessity and b) almost as a penance.
>2. Upper class woman looking directly at scruffy street person, or
>commenting him afterwards?
Ah... That's Elen's charity work. She's about to notice a one-legged
man on a crutch and a woman struggling with a baby and an undernourished
toddler scarcely able to walk. I hope the "huh" was a "That's unusual"
not an "I don't believe that".
>3. No guards at the gates?
No, just as there are no guards on Chester's gates. (Yes, I know
Chester's gates are not longer on the town's perimeter, but you know
what I mean.)
>4. What I call the Anne Rice syndrome; the man looks with female eyes. A
>woman sees the fancy dress and the plait; a man would see her curves and
>cheekline. A woman sees the beauty of the horses; a man would think of them
>as 'fast, powerful, controlled'.
>
Thanks for this. I'll give it some thought. On the other hand, I was
trying! A woman would have seen much more than a fancy dress. She'd
have seen the style, the pattern of the fabric and noticed Elen's not
very fashionable hair style. Huw *is* a horse-breaker by trade. Horses
are how he made his living before the war.
>I had real problems putting this into an age. The good wagons and the
>groomed horses would indicate 1600 or later; neither does Hew carry an arm -
>in the wilderness - which would indicate even 1800 or later.
>
Good, that's exactly the period I wanted. Victorian-ish.
>Me, I'd start the story by Hew stumble into town and explain his way past
>the guards at the gate.
>
>
>-Terje Johansen
>
No guards, no explaining necessary.
Thanks for the comments.
David Owen-Cruise
<kCFFFKAv...@baradel.demon.co.uk>:
> Huw paused for a moment to switch the saddle he was carrying from
>his aching right arm to his left. He was almost home. A hundred miles
>in five days -- on foot. Not bad going.
Rather good going hauling cargo poorly design for human carrying,
especially if he's had to deal with any terrain.
> Hitching his saddlebags further up on to his shoulder, he walked on
>under the ancient gateway into the city of Arloros. His footsteps
>echoed briefly under the stone arch, then he was out in the open again:
>warm evening sunshine on his face, the hubbub of people walking and
>talking and the clatter of horse-drawn traffic loud in his ears. He
>stopped on the edge of the pavement with the old, crumbling walls behind
>him, the bustle of the traffic in front, and paused for a moment to look
>around.
>
Graydon's caught the anomaly of noticing the horses already.
>[Snip 550 words in which Huw looks for changes in his surroundings
>brought about by the war, hears the Town Hall clock strike 9 and decides
>to spend the last of his money on some food.]
>
Do we really need 550 words? I didn't miss them much.
[snip]
> She had obviously never had to go short. Her chestnut hair was
>thick and sleek, bound in a loose plait which fell down her back. He
>glanced from her pretty pink dress to the immaculate paint work on the
>carriage. Those horses hadn't come cheap either. Their hooves barely
>seemed to clip the ground; all air and fire, they trotted on, slender
>legs stretching, touching and lifting high to stretch again. Huw let
>his eyes follow the carriage as it rolled on down the street.
>
That's an awful lot to notice on a carriage rolling past. I'd expect a
little more jargon on the horses from a cavalryman.
...
> Elen frowned. Siarl could be so... so self-absorbed. She let her
>gaze stray down his body, starting at the top with his crisp black
>curls, moving on to linger for a moment over the strong profile, then
>sweeping down the length of his body, taking in the white linen shirt --
>trimmed at neck and cuffs with fine lace -- his long, lean breeches-clad
>legs, finishing at his immaculately polished black boots.
Sorry, but a paragraph to describe a character early in the book made my
eyes roll.
> It wasn't that Siarl was callous; he just didn't think. Elen did
>not look round, but in her mind's eye she saw the young man still, his
>back to the fountain, his bags and a -- had that been a saddle? -- at
>his feet. Nothing really special about him, apart from the fact that he
>was so lean and hungry looking: dark-haired, a little below average
>height, thin faced. His boots had been dusty and travel stained, as
>were his trousers and shirt. Just another young man unable to settle
>back into ordinary life after the war? Or a man who had lost family and
>possessions in the conflict? She would never know.
> Her carriage rolled smoothly on up Wall Road.
>
It's better at not feeling medieval than it was. I get the feeling that
there's nothing much outside the city walls, which doesn't seem right for
the era to me.
--
David Owen-Cruise
"Letters are things, not pictures of things."
Eric Gill
PWrede6492
one is paying careful attention because one has been asked. Since most of your
readers won't have been asked, this could be a problem. The difficulty seems
to me to be that you begin with very few active clues that this isn't generic,
and quite a few that lead in that direction:
In article <kCFFFKAv...@baradel.demon.co.uk>, Helen Kenyon
<ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> writes:
> Huw paused for a moment to switch the saddle he was carrying from
>his aching right arm to his left.
Ok, we start with him walking along carrying a saddle. Saddle implies horse
transportation. Horse transportation implies pre-industrial setting. Not
*necessarily* generic-medieval, but nothing to counter the default impression.
> He was almost home. A hundred miles
>in five days -- on foot. Not bad going.
That's 20 miles a day. Which seems like rather a lot for an apparently heavily
burdened man to cover, even over really good ground.
If you are shooting for a Victorian-type setting, do they have trains? Because
one of the easiest ways to shoot the "generic-medieval setting" problem right
in the heart would be to have Huw think somewhere in here that he could have
taken the train, but didn't have the cash (or the line into Arloros hasn't been
reopened since the war, or didn't get finished because of the war, or
something).
> Hitching his saddlebags further up on to his shoulder, he walked on
>under the ancient gateway into the city of Arloros.
"Ancient gateway," again, doesn't *necessarily* mean generic-medieval setting,
but it's certainly going to predispose a lot of readers in that direction.
Walled cities, like castles, are associated with medieval-to-ancient times; you
don't find too many modern cities building walls, and you certainly don't find
many that are still confined within the ancient walls that the Romans, say, put
up. The word "ancient" also has resonances that hint at a generic-medieval,
rather than modern, setting. Again, it's not *necessarily* implied, just that
the resonances are there.
If you give a clear this-is-a-Victorian-type-era clue or two elsewhere (like
the train, or a mention of Huw passing a factory, or even Huw being glad that
things like trains and factories haven't shown up to spoil his home town yet),
then the ancient walls will be interesting and intriguing by contrast; standing
on their own, they add a feather to the generic-medieval feeling.
>His footsteps
>echoed briefly under the stone arch, then he was out in the open again:
"Stone arch" -- same as "ancient walls." Was he walking on a road, or
cross-country? If it was a road, maybe you could do something with the paving.
>warm evening sunshine on his face, the hubbub of people walking and
>talking and the clatter of horse-drawn traffic loud in his ears.
"horse-drawn" -- same as "ancient walls" and the saddle; it's not *necessarily*
generic -medieval, but there's nothing about it, and nothing so far, to
indicated otherwise.
> He
>stopped on the edge of the pavement with the old, crumbling walls behind
"Pavement" is the first descriptive word that doesn't belong with a
generic-medieval setting, and you don't give us any details -- cobblestones?
Macadam? -- that might further distance it from g-m setting. And it's undercut
by the immediate "old, crumbling walls" that follows, reminding us again of
those very medieval-city walls.
The first really major clue that this isn't g-m setting appears to come in the
bit you skippped -- the Town Hall clock striking. Then we get to the open
carriage with the painted wheels and high-bred horses, which don't sound at all
generic-medieval. But by that time, you've got a fair weight of assumption to
crawl out from under.
You've basically got two choices: to subtract stuff, or to add stuff. That
is, you can take out all of the things that hint at generic-medieval setting
entirely. Or, you can add something that clearly establishes (in the first
paragraph or two, no later) that this is a Victorian tech-level culture -- a
single clear reference (say, to trains or gas lamps or factories or machine
guns) that is strong enough to overcome all the feather-light accumulated
implications elsewhere. Or, you can pair each feather-light hint at
generic-medieval setting with a slightly stronger hint at a more modern culture
-- referring, for instance, to the Town Hall clock being just visible above the
ancient walls. Or, you can add a bit to your description of each of the things
that hints at generic-medieval setting, so as to take the medieval out of them
-- referring, perhaps, to the machine-stitching of the saddlebags, for
instance, or to how useless the city walls would be in any modern war.
Personally, I like the feel of the ancient walls and so on, and the idea of
contrasting them with more modern/Victorian tech and culture has a lot of
appeal. However, you do seem to be rather long on description (the fact that
you could cut 550 words from the opening you posted -- and that you wanted to
-- is indicative) so you might want to tighten some. Emphasis on the "might"
-- if that part you cut has more of Huw's internal reactions to what he's
seeing, then it could be less description than character development.
I'd certainly read on.
Patricia C. Wrede
Heather Anne Nicoll
<snipping bits and adding others>
> Graydon's caught the anomaly of noticing the horses already.
I'm not certain I'd call it an anamoly, myself. We have a guy who's
carried a gods-be saddle how far? This indicates a certain amount of
dedication to horses, so it's not unreasonable to me that he'd have an
eye for them.
If there were, as some people have suggested, a little more indication
of the period and indication of the progress of technology, it would
seem even more reasonable to me - after all, if a man could have taken
the train instead of carrying a saddle over the miles to get here, and
still bothered to bring the saddle, it's quite likely he'd know a good
horse when he saw one, and isn't just carrying around the saddle because
it'd be expensive to replace.
I'm blithering a little. What I mean is - if there's an alternative to
horse transport, someone who went to the bother of lugging around a
saddle instead of selling the thing and taking the train with the cash
thus acquired is likely to notice good breeding.
> > She had obviously never had to go short. Her chestnut hair was
> >thick and sleek, bound in a loose plait which fell down her back. He
> >glanced from her pretty pink dress to the immaculate paint work on the
> >carriage. Those horses hadn't come cheap either. Their hooves barely
> >seemed to clip the ground; all air and fire, they trotted on, slender
> >legs stretching, touching and lifting high to stretch again. Huw let
> >his eyes follow the carriage as it rolled on down the street.
> That's an awful lot to notice on a carriage rolling past. I'd expect a
> little more jargon on the horses from a cavalryman.
My thought on this paragraph was, "Oog. Pink." But I'm opinionated. ;)
I agree that it's a lot to notice - a flash of a face, perhaps, the
colour of dress and hair. The horses would be more noticable, and the
paint job on the carriage.
Moving right along. The transition didn't bother me. Though I do a lot
of transitioning in my work, so it might be a case of my brain being
very used to them and not really noticing. I wouldn't make any
judgements based on that. ;)
> Sorry, but a paragraph to describe a character early in the book made my
> eyes roll.
Agreed. I have a minor problem with underdescribing early on in what
I'm doing; part of this is that I've been doing a lot of tight-third and
first person work lately, and I can't really justify having a character
think overmuch of the descriptions of things he/she is already familiar
with.
I think there are smoother ways of getting the description in there, and
it is an appropriate place to put at least a hint of one, but sort of
breaking off and doing a full two paragraphs (more or less) of
description based off a brief glance seems a bit off to me.
I'd probably include just a brief hint of what he looks like (shortish,
darkhaired, somehow interesting to her) and put the fuller description
in when they actually meet (which I presume has to do with the carriage
crash) and she has a chance to get a better look, and more time to file.
--
Heather Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.dslonramp.net/~darkhawk/
"If we're all going somewhere, let's get there soon.
This song's got no title, just words and a tune." - Elton John
Heather Anne Nicoll
> He's going to notice _horses_, but it's just plain wrong for him to
> think of the _traffic_ as horse drawn, _unless_ there is another, more
> common type which converts 'horse drawn' into a special case.
Well. Yes. That.
Helen Kenyon
<mkku...@eskimo.com> writes
The change of POV was attempting two things. Firstly to sneak in a
description of Huw (because at least one of my critiquers had imagined
him as a big, beefy bloke, which was completely wrong), secondly to make
the accident more exciting. Originally the crash was viewed in the
distance from Huw's POV. I was thinking that getting up close would be
better. And... OK, I it was three things. Thirdly, to introduce us to
Elen's POV much earlier, as several of the critiquers seem to prefer her
POV to Huw's. And... OK, four things... To introduce and describe Siarl
earlier than before. A critiquer (a different one) had thought he was
small, slight and brown haired. Not that the hair colour matters, but
it *is* important that the reader knows that he's bigger and physically
stronger than Huw. Otherwise the image through most of the book will
clash horribly with the description in Chapter 29 (The library scene.)
But I could stick with Huw's POV throughout the accident. I'll try both
versions on my critiquers and see what transpires.
Graydon
[gunch]
> In article <kCFFFKAv...@baradel.demon.co.uk>, Helen Kenyon
> <ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> writes:
> > He was almost home. A hundred miles
> >in five days -- on foot. Not bad going.
>
> That's 20 miles a day. Which seems like rather a lot for an apparently heavily
> burdened man to cover, even over really good ground.
That's not a lot; that's decent, for a fit man in the prime of life
carrying an awkward ~20 lb saddle and a not-so-awkward pair of ~30lb
saddlbags. He's not going to be happy about it, but it's not that
noteable unless the weather has been bad.
> If you are shooting for a Victorian-type setting, do they have trains? Because
> one of the easiest ways to shoot the "generic-medieval setting" problem right
> in the heart would be to have Huw think somewhere in here that he could have
> taken the train, but didn't have the cash (or the line into Arloros hasn't been
> reopened since the war, or didn't get finished because of the war, or
> something).
Hee.
I like that.
A road crew with steam powered equipment would be another good way to
do that; having to climb a hill to get around the paving crew would
make a good thought for Huw to have about his journey.
> > Hitching his saddlebags further up on to his shoulder, he walked on
> >under the ancient gateway into the city of Arloros.
>
> "Ancient gateway," again, doesn't *necessarily* mean generic-medieval setting,
> but it's certainly going to predispose a lot of readers in that direction.
> Walled cities, like castles, are associated with medieval-to-ancient times; you
> don't find too many modern cities building walls, and you certainly don't find
> many that are still confined within the ancient walls that the Romans, say, put
> up. The word "ancient" also has resonances that hint at a generic-medieval,
> rather than modern, setting. Again, it's not *necessarily* implied, just that
> the resonances are there.
Also note that hardly anyone in NorAm has seen a modern city with bits
of old city wall in it; it's a completely alien expectation, so while
you've seen the old gates in various places and think of them as
landmarks, a NorAm audience are going to assume that the gates are in
active use and get bewilderd by the absence of guards.
PWrede6492
<anga...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>Also note that hardly anyone in NorAm has seen a modern city with bits
>of old city wall in it; it's a completely alien expectation, so while
>you've seen the old gates in various places and think of them as
>landmarks, a NorAm audience are going to assume that the gates are in
>active use and get bewilderd by the absence of guards.
Oh, quite a lot of us have *seen* them -- while traveling. There just aren't
any around *here*. So yes, they're a bit exotic, and not at all the default
expectation.
But it's more than that, I think; it's also that at the beginning of a book,
*everything* has a bit of extra weight, because the reader is *looking* for
clues. City walls and castles are strongly associated with medieval Europe.
Because of this, they've come to be used as ... I suppose you'd almost call it
a standard generic clue. If a story mentions a castle or a city wall, early
on, with no additional clues (like plastic stairs or gas lighting or trains),
then the reader defaults to the medieval assumption. It's not fair, but it's
how it works.
Patricia C. Wrede
Graydon
> In article <84gse4$2p5$1...@localhost.localdomain>, Graydon
> <anga...@sympatico.ca> writes:
> >Also note that hardly anyone in NorAm has seen a modern city with bits
> >of old city wall in it; it's a completely alien expectation, so while
> >you've seen the old gates in various places and think of them as
> >landmarks, a NorAm audience are going to assume that the gates are in
> >active use and get bewilderd by the absence of guards.
>
> Oh, quite a lot of us have *seen* them -- while traveling. There just aren't
> any around *here*. So yes, they're a bit exotic, and not at all the default
> expectation.
Numerically, yes, quite a lot; proportionately? Dunno.
> But it's more than that, I think; it's also that at the beginning of a book,
> *everything* has a bit of extra weight, because the reader is *looking* for
> clues. City walls and castles are strongly associated with medieval Europe.
Oh yes. I _still_ have an image of the thing as fit to stand a seige
in ~1300 or so, even though I know that's wrong.
> Because of this, they've come to be used as ... I suppose you'd almost call it
> a standard generic clue. If a story mentions a castle or a city wall, early
> on, with no additional clues (like plastic stairs or gas lighting or trains),
> then the reader defaults to the medieval assumption. It's not fair, but it's
> how it works.
Reading looking for context ambiguity, that a war has just ended and
the wall is crumbling both imply that the wall is not militarily
significant, but I wouldn't get that if I hadn't been reading that
carefully or lacked the general discussion context, I don't think.
Graydon
> David Owen-Cruise <owen...@umn.edu> wrote:
> <snipping bits and adding others>
> > Graydon's caught the anomaly of noticing the horses already.
>
> I'm not certain I'd call it an anamoly, myself. We have a guy who's
> carried a gods-be saddle how far? This indicates a certain amount of
> dedication to horses, so it's not unreasonable to me that he'd have an
> eye for them.
He's going to notice _horses_, but it's just plain wrong for him to
think of the _traffic_ as horse drawn, _unless_ there is another, more
common type which converts 'horse drawn' into a special case.
Helen Kenyon
Nicoll <dark...@mindspring.com> writes
>David Owen-Cruise <owen...@umn.edu> wrote:
><snipping bits and adding others>
>> Graydon's caught the anomaly of noticing the horses already.
>
>I'm not certain I'd call it an anamoly, myself. We have a guy who's
>carried a gods-be saddle how far? This indicates a certain amount of
>dedication to horses, so it's not unreasonable to me that he'd have an
>eye for them.
>
on. Huw (a native of Baradel) only knows horse-drawn traffic. If this
was book 1 or book 3 and I was doing Mark's POV, as he's originally from
our world, "traffic" to him means cars and buses and vans, so he'd
qualify it. Huw wouldn't. It was Terje who said a man wouldn't notice
the horses. Actually, I'm confident Huw would, but I'm not so sure I've
had him notice the right things. <Re-reads the passage in question.>
Nope. That needs a re-write. Should be more on the lines of:
"He glanced from her pretty pink dress to the immaculate paintwork on
the carriage. Those horses hadn't come cheap either. Nice cross-breds,
mainly native cob to keep them sensible, but enough Mirroni blood to
give them a bit of go. Decent shoulders and length of rein too; they
should ride as well as they drove."
>
>My thought on this paragraph was, "Oog. Pink." But I'm opinionated. ;)
>
Pink is not typically Elen, as we discover later. :-)
>
>I'd probably include just a brief hint of what he looks like (shortish,
>darkhaired, somehow interesting to her) and put the fuller description
>in when they actually meet (which I presume has to do with the carriage
>crash) and she has a chance to get a better look, and more time to file.
>
I've just discovered that posting these bits is a good way to distance
oneself from a passage. You're right. There's too much description in
too short a space, but it's the description of Siarl that shouldn't be
where I put it; that should be moved to the time of the crash.
(Besides, that means that Huw can notice him as someone he vaguely
recognises. To Elen, Siarl is just her familiar cousin.) Elen *has*
been watching Huw as the carriage passed him. He's caught her attention
as the only person standing still in the middle of the bustle.
Helen Kenyon
<pwred...@aol.com> writes
>
>Ok, we start with him walking along carrying a saddle. Saddle implies horse
>transportation. Horse transportation implies pre-industrial setting. Not
>*necessarily* generic-medieval, but nothing to counter the default impression.
>
plenty of industry, but only on a small scale.
>> He was almost home. A hundred miles
>>in five days -- on foot. Not bad going.
>
>That's 20 miles a day. Which seems like rather a lot for an apparently heavily
>burdened man to cover, even over really good ground.
>
The reason for the walk is explained in Book 1. (Which I plan to start
the first draft of tomorrow. New Year's resolution: write more, finish
more.) And yes, it is a lot, but Huw was not entirely sane during the
journey.
>If you are shooting for a Victorian-type setting, do they have trains? Because
>one of the easiest ways to shoot the "generic-medieval setting" problem right
>in the heart would be to have Huw think somewhere in here that he could have
>taken the train, but didn't have the cash (or the line into Arloros hasn't been
>reopened since the war, or didn't get finished because of the war, or
>something).
>
Unfortunately, they don't have steam engines.
>"Ancient gateway," again, doesn't *necessarily* mean generic-medieval setting,
>but it's certainly going to predispose a lot of readers in that direction.
>Walled cities, like castles, are associated with medieval-to-ancient times; you
>don't find too many modern cities building walls, and you certainly don't find
>many that are still confined within the ancient walls that the Romans, say, put
>up. The word "ancient" also has resonances that hint at a generic-medieval,
>rather than modern, setting. Again, it's not *necessarily* implied, just that
>the resonances are there.
>
Baradel never had Britain's population explosion, due to the fact that
the dominant religion is pro birth control and pro living in balance
with the land and what it can comfortably produce. However, it is
perhaps poised on the point of an industrial revolution. They're just
about 150 years behind us, that's all. The tech is about 16th century,
I suppose, but the social organisation is more 19th century.
>If you give a clear this-is-a-Victorian-type-era clue or two elsewhere (like
>the train, or a mention of Huw passing a factory, or even Huw being glad that
>things like trains and factories haven't shown up to spoil his home town yet),
>then the ancient walls will be interesting and intriguing by contrast; standing
>on their own, they add a feather to the generic-medieval feeling.
>
However you have given me an idea. Would a bicycle shoot the generic
medieval feel stone dead? There is a certain leakage of ideas and even
artefacts between our world and the world which contains the land of
Baradel, so bicycles could either have arisen through parallel evolution
or one slipping through from here and being copied. (There's a
person/organisation which stops (or tries to stop) inappropriate tech
like internal combustion engines and guns sneaking through, and stops
serious magic leaking in the other direction, but a bicycle wouldn't
cause any problems.) If I have a butcher's delivery boy swish past on
his way home from work in paragraph two, then that might just set people
off on the right track.
I think I could introduce gas lights too. They could just be coming in
so therefore are to be found only on main and better off streets. As
these could have been installed during the rebuilding after the war,
they'll be new to Huw and he can justifiably notice them. We can also
see the bulky gas-holder rising above the older warehouses.
(You see here a bit of world tweaking going on. I tend to make stuff up
on a need to know basis, therefore, as it's midsummer and we've not been
out in the better-off streets after dark, I didn't need to know what the
street lighting was, though I knew there was some.)
>Or, you can pair each feather-light hint at
>generic-medieval setting with a slightly stronger hint at a more modern culture
>-- referring, for instance, to the Town Hall clock being just visible above the
>ancient walls. Or, you can add a bit to your description of each of the things
>that hints at generic-medieval setting, so as to take the medieval out of them
>-- referring, perhaps, to the machine-stitching of the saddlebags, for
>instance, or to how useless the city walls would be in any modern war.
>
Eeep... Now you say it, it's all so blindingly obvious. Yes, yes,
yes... There was a bit more in the part I cut, for instance the striking
of the Town Hall clock and the drinking fountain erected by public
subscription, but not enough. It *was* a bit woolly.
>Personally, I like the feel of the ancient walls and so on, and the idea of
>contrasting them with more modern/Victorian tech and culture has a lot of
>appeal. However, you do seem to be rather long on description (the fact that
>you could cut 550 words from the opening you posted -- and that you wanted to
>-- is indicative) so you might want to tighten some. Emphasis on the "might"
>-- if that part you cut has more of Huw's internal reactions to what he's
>seeing, then it could be less description than character development.
>
>I'd certainly read on.
>
>Patricia C. Wrede
The 550 words cut were not pure description. In it, Huw reveals that he
has virtually no money left, he goes to wash his face and have a drink
at the public drinking fountain/horse trough and he decides what to do
next. I cut them so I could see people's reaction to the POV transition
without burdening the group with an overlong post.
Your comments have been extraordinarily helpful.
Helen Kenyon
>carrying an awkward ~20 lb saddle and a not-so-awkward pair of ~30lb
>saddlbags. He's not going to be happy about it, but it's not that
>noteable unless the weather has been bad.
>
Strange, I admit, it's supposed to be strange, but not out of the
question.
>
>Also note that hardly anyone in NorAm has seen a modern city with bits
>of old city wall in it; it's a completely alien expectation, so while
>you've seen the old gates in various places and think of them as
>landmarks, a NorAm audience are going to assume that the gates are in
>active use and get bewilderd by the absence of guards.
Ah... We're back to that 100 years and 100 miles thing again. Round
here you can guarantee that the houses called Ty Newydd (New House) are
usually around 500 years old. (Presumably gaining the name because they
were the first house in a new settlement.) Farmers think nothing of
having 2500 year old standing stones on their land. And further afield
in the heart of England, the school where my brother teaches has already
celebrated its own millennium. Old mixes with new all the time.
<Thinks> So, I need to get that mingling into the description of the
opening.
Michelle & Boyd Bottorff
>
> He glanced to his right, looking for a gap in the traffic. An open
> carriage, pulled by a pair of matching chestnuts passed by at a steady
> trot. The red-painted wheels scattered the birds from the gutter. As
> the carriage passed him, he saw that the passengers were a man in his
> forties and a woman, probably ten or twelve years older than himself.
> Mid thirties? The man looked vaguely familiar, but it was the woman who
> met his gaze for a moment, a look of -- was that pity? -- on her face.
> Dammit, he wanted no one's pity.
> She had obviously never had to go short. Her chestnut hair was
> thick and sleek, bound in a loose plait which fell down her back. He
> glanced from her pretty pink dress to the immaculate paint work on the
> carriage. Those horses hadn't come cheap either. Their hooves barely
> seemed to clip the ground; all air and fire, they trotted on, slender
> legs stretching, touching and lifting high to stretch again. Huw let
> his eyes follow the carriage as it rolled on down the street.
I think you need the carriage to stop, there's too much noticing going
on for a drive-by.
Also the descriptions feel too... technical to me. There's no sense of
CHARACTER in them. Frankly it sounds to me like "so-and-so on critters
said I needed to describe this, so I am."
I'm sure I'm not explaining this right. Let's see. If I can
illustrate.
Say the viewpoint observer is a Calvary Officer:
An open carriage pulled to a halt in front of him, the matched chestnuts
in the traces prancing in place, as the coachman bellowed at the
street-sweeper who blocked his way. Nice, Huw thought. Free action,
good hocks. His gaze swept upwards, and followed the reins back to the
bellowing driver. Heavy-handed fool, Huw thought, those weren't coarse
mouthed troopers, but proper high-bred prads, and they needed a lighter
touch. But what can you expect from the driver of a carriage like that.
He glared scornfully at the immaculate paint work and the wheels picked
out in red. The sides were cut low, and the hood folded back so that
everyone could better admire the lady inside, with her long chestnut
hair and her pink frills. Her serene gaze turned his way, and for a
moment he thought he saw pity in her face. How dared she pity him?
Better to pity her vaguely familiar looking escort in his starched up
shirt, and fashionable black small clothes. Or better still, pity the
poor team the pulled her. Their mouths would be ruined in no time with
that idiot in charge of driving them.
And now he's a detective:
An open carriage pulled up in front of him, and despite his wearyness he
found himself falling back into the old habits of analysis. Open
carriage -- they weren't going far then. Perhaps down to the
promenade?** No the occupants weren't dressed fashionably enought for
that. Her pink dress was simply cut, and no woman of fashion would wear
so simple a braid when going on the strut. Some kind of person errand
then. Visiting relatives... the man, though some ten years or so older
than her, had a similar facial structure. Her brother, perhaps, rather
than her husband. He took another closer look at the gentleman. Hadn't
he seen him before?
At this point, the woman's gaze fell upon him and he thought he saw pity
in it. He winced a bit. But beneath the smarting of his pride his mind
kept busily tucking away inferences. Obviously she was tender hearted
lady. A philantropist perhaps? From the quality of the horses and the
immaculate and very fashionable carriage he could well believe she could
afford to be as charitable as she wished, without ever once feeling the
pinch herself.
**I had a critique where this sort of use of thought questions dumped
directly into the narrative stream was put down on no uncertain terms...
but they work for me.
Anyway, I'm sure neither of these descriptions will fit your book. :)
I hope you understand that I didn't mean them that way. At the very
least my descriptions didnt have nearly so much visual detail. But I
think I showed how different people would describe the same scene
differently, and how you can give a feel for the viewpoint character
through your description.
Your Huw is still more of an enigma that I really think he should be at
this point... but then, maybe you're doing that on purpose. <shrug>
Hope this helps you.
Michelle
Graydon
> The change of POV was attempting two things. Firstly to sneak in a
> description of Huw (because at least one of my critiquers had imagined
> him as a big, beefy bloke, which was completely wrong), secondly to make
Is that important?
Some readers _will_ get the appearance of the characters completely
wrong, no matter what you do; I'm really not sure it's important.
(The number of people convinced Aragorn is blond, frex.)
> the accident more exciting. Originally the crash was viewed in the
> distance from Huw's POV. I was thinking that getting up close would be
> better. And... OK, I it was three things. Thirdly, to introduce us to
> Elen's POV much earlier, as several of the critiquers seem to prefer her
> POV to Huw's. And... OK, four things... To introduce and describe Siarl
> earlier than before. A critiquer (a different one) had thought he was
> small, slight and brown haired. Not that the hair colour matters, but
> it *is* important that the reader knows that he's bigger and physically
> stronger than Huw. Otherwise the image through most of the book will
> clash horribly with the description in Chapter 29 (The library scene.)
You can do all that from Huw's pov, though, even Elen's pov; all it
takes is for Huw to pick up, from dress cues and the fact that she's
look at the poor, that she's one of those charitable society women.
Given his present cranky and sensitive state, that's not at all
implausible.
Siarl similarly; have Huw comment to himself on how much further down
the carriage springs are on the big fop's side, and how the coachman
wears the coat well but doesn't know his job, not to have shifted the
boxes of sand over to the lady's side to even things out for the
horses.
Oh, yeah -- don't assume your critiquers are right. Even the very
best ones sometimes aren't.
Graydon
> "He glanced from her pretty pink dress to the immaculate paintwork on
> the carriage. Those horses hadn't come cheap either. Nice cross-breds,
> mainly native cob to keep them sensible, but enough Mirroni blood to
> give them a bit of go. Decent shoulders and length of rein too; they
> should ride as well as they drove."
Truly, no matter how much detail your critiquers want Right Now, stop
trying to give complete information; it's death on the flow of the
tale.
Huw is tired, dry, wondering how many meals he can get out of the tack
he's carrying, still emotionally recovering from almost dying,
especially if he did that long walk as a pennace, and that doesn't
sound the way horse people talk rested; the ones' I've heard almost
never say what more that one half is, and imply the other half by
type. ('half-Perch warmblood, and smart as bricks', frex)
Have him say the horses are worth more than the driving, or similar;
it'll get over that he notices horses, it gives a bit of his state of
mind, and the reader can wonder how accurate his judgement is for
awhile until it gets confirmed. If you want to lean on the point that
Huw does have skill with horses, have him comment on some fiddlin'
detail of tack -- that the coachman can't drive but doesn't have the
checkreins too short, or why he puts the trace buckles at the collars,
or something like that.
Terje Johansen
>in five days -- on foot. Not bad going.
>echoed briefly under the stone arch, then he was out in the open again:
>stopped on the edge of the pavement with the old, crumbling walls behind
>around.
>
>[Snip 550 words in which Huw looks for changes in his surroundings
>brought about by the war, hears the Town Hall clock strike 9 and decides
>to spend the last of his money on some food.]
>
>carriage, pulled by a pair of matching chestnuts passed by at a steady
>trot. The red-painted wheels scattered the birds from the gutter. As
>the carriage passed him, he saw that the passengers were a man in his
>forties and a woman, probably ten or twelve years older than himself.
>Mid thirties? The man looked vaguely familiar, but it was the woman who
>met his gaze for a moment, a look of -- was that pity? -- on her face.
>Dammit, he wanted no one's pity.
> She had obviously never had to go short. Her chestnut hair was
>thick and sleek, bound in a loose plait which fell down her back. He
>glanced from her pretty pink dress to the immaculate paint work on the
>carriage. Those horses hadn't come cheap either. Their hooves barely
>seemed to clip the ground; all air and fire, they trotted on, slender
>legs stretching, touching and lifting high to stretch again. Huw let
>his eyes follow the carriage as it rolled on down the street.
>
>against the soft cream leather upholstery, enjoying the last of the
>sunshine. Or at least, she had been enjoying it. Now she felt guilty.
> As the coach rolled on, leaving the South Gate behind, Siarl said,
>"What is it? You've gone very quiet."
> She turned, regarding her cousin thoughtfully. "That young man, by
>the drinking fountain. He looked so lost."
> "Did he? I can't say that I noticed him."
>gaze stray down his body, starting at the top with his crisp black
>curls, moving on to linger for a moment over the strong profile, then
>sweeping down the length of his body, taking in the white linen shirt --
>trimmed at neck and cuffs with fine lace -- his long, lean breeches-clad
>legs, finishing at his immaculately polished black boots.
>not look round, but in her mind's eye she saw the young man still, his
>back to the fountain, his bags and a -- had that been a saddle? -- at
>his feet. Nothing really special about him, apart from the fact that he
>was so lean and hungry looking: dark-haired, a little below average
>height, thin faced. His boots had been dusty and travel stained, as
>were his trousers and shirt. Just another young man unable to settle
>back into ordinary life after the war? Or a man who had lost family and
>possessions in the conflict? She would never know.
> Her carriage rolled smoothly on up Wall Road.
>
>
>with a heavy wagon and Huw is going to help. And then the rest of the
>book happens. But anyone got any thoughts? One critter did suggest that
>I should put the carriage crash on page one, but I really can't see how
>I can do it. Besides, would you care about a crash if you hadn't met
>the people concerned?
>
>--
>Helen, Gwynedd, Wales *** http://www.baradel.demon.co.uk
>Now with added serious stuff (basic maths and how to be an NVQ assessor).
>**Please delete the extra bit from e-mail address if replying by mail**
I went back to the first posting for an extra look, after you told us more
about Hew in the commentary postings; I wanted to see what I could learn
about him - and this time I looked closely.
Hew is obviously a strong man in good health; the previous owner of a horse.
He has been in this city before. He is broke, but has pride - and a resent
of people better off than himself. Thin face, unkempt, hungry-looking. In a
Victorian setting he IS the man-in-the-street, except that he should not be
rich enough to own a horse or a saddle.
So what you have here right now is a man who has seen better times, but
never was rich. A cavalry officer? Quite possibly so. But I can't say that I
feel anything for him yet, or know anything of his past with this city.
Now I'll put myself in his place for a moment. My first move would have been
to search out the barrack area; looked for old faces, seen if I could have
gotten a free meal or a stable to sleep in for a few nights. I might even
have tried to get a new employment there. I would NOT have walked aimlessly
about after five days in the wilderness, I can assure you. (And if the horse
had died on me out there, my sacks would be well stocked with horsemeat as
well).
--
Graydon
scripsit:
> The tech is about 16th century, I suppose, but the social
> organisation is more 19th century.
That's impossible.
Social organization is a function of communcations and transport
technology; 16th tech can't support the kind of centralization and
rates of communication necessary for 19th century social organization.
(No developed canal system, no rail roads, no major improvements in
wagon tech -- chain traces, steel wheel rims, better spoking, leaf
springs, or shell technology wagon beds -- and no road building tech
recovery/improvements to cope with the traffic.)
If the public square isn't covered in manure, they've got better than
16th century tech to be able to afford to keep it clean, too.
[bicycles]
> cause any problems.) If I have a butcher's delivery boy swish past on
> his way home from work in paragraph two, then that might just set people
> off on the right track.
A bicycle is much harder to build than a steam engine.
Really -- you need roller bearings, wire spoke wheels, and moderately
precise gears, even if the frame is wood and not steel tubing.
Bicycles are early twentieth century technology; steam engines are
late eighteenth.
It's a good idea, but if you use it, they have the capability to build
good, 50 mph+, regular schedule trains, and you'll have to come up
with a very good reason indeed why they don't have them.
Berry Kercheval
> In article <84gse4$2p5$1...@localhost.localdomain>, Graydon
> <anga...@sympatico.ca> writes
> >
> >That's not a lot; that's decent, for a fit man in the prime of life
> >carrying an awkward ~20 lb saddle and a not-so-awkward pair of ~30lb
> >saddlbags. He's not going to be happy about it, but it's not that
> >noteable unless the weather has been bad.
> >
> Thank you. I'm glad someone doesn't think Huw's trek is unreasonable.
> Strange, I admit, it's supposed to be strange, but not out of the
> question.
When I was younger and went backpacking, my group used to do 20 miles
a day easily, on hilly California wilderness trails. We'd often start
around 7AM and be done with our 20 miles -- after several long rests
and sporting in the creeks -- by 3 PM. That was with state-of-the-art
backpacks of course. That darn saddle will make it much more work,
but hardly impossible. IMHO.
Morgan E. Smith
On Fri, 31 Dec 1999, Graydon wrote:
> PWrede6492 <pwred...@aol.com> scripsit:
> [gunch]
> > In article <kCFFFKAv...@baradel.demon.co.uk>, Helen Kenyon
> > <ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> writes:
> > > He was almost home. A hundred miles
> > >in five days -- on foot. Not bad going.
> >
> > That's 20 miles a day. Which seems like rather a lot for an apparently heavily
> > burdened man to cover, even over really good ground.
Umm, well, it's a stretch, though.
The average distance a medieval person travelled in a day was 14 miles.
If you lived more that 7 miles from a "market", you had to have more than
one day to go to the place, conduct your business, and get home.
If your central character is very fit, and if the terrain is relatively
level and the trail/roads are good, and the weather is fine, they might
travel 20 miles on foot. It's unlikely, though, because of the burden.
One can travel over level ground on foot at a rate of 4 miles an hour,
walking at a good and steady pace. That does work out to 24 miles in 8
hours, but that also assumes that there are no breaks whatever, and that
there aren't hills, mud, or ruts in the road.
Is there any way to say this in terms of time *spent* travelling rather
than distance travelled? That's how I avoid anomolous non-tech travel
problems: it takes my central character x amount of time to go from point
a to point b, but it takes an army about 2.5 times as long, slowed down by
baggage trains and incompetent soldiers and the need to make camping
arrangements. A single person walking takes two days to get from here to
there, but a mounted man can do it in six hours, or what-have-you.
Just as a side-note: around here, we still measure distance quite often
by travel times: "How far away is Lethbridge, anyway?" "Oh, about three
hours, if you do the speed-limit."
Morgan Smith
hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu
: I think you're collating two posts there. Graydon's comment was spot
: on. Huw (a native of Baradel) only knows horse-drawn traffic. If this
: was book 1 or book 3 and I was doing Mark's POV, as he's originally from
: our world, "traffic" to him means cars and buses and vans, so he'd
: qualify it. Huw wouldn't. It was Terje who said a man wouldn't notice
I'm coming in a bit late on this, but it occurred to me that the simplest
way to convey the _presence_ of the horse-traffic, without the anomoly of
using the retronym[*] "horse-drawn traffic", would be to substitute
something like "the clatter of hooves" for the original phrase. (I'm
assuming you'd have a cobbled-type street so they'd clatter.)
[*] retronym: a term referring to what originally would have been the
default, invented only after there is an alternative
--
*********************************************************
Heather Rose Jones hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu
**********************************************************
hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu
: Helen Kenyon <ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this>
: scripsit:
: [bicycles]
:> cause any problems.) If I have a butcher's delivery boy swish past on
:> his way home from work in paragraph two, then that might just set people
:> off on the right track.
: A bicycle is much harder to build than a steam engine.
: Really -- you need roller bearings, wire spoke wheels, and moderately
: precise gears, even if the frame is wood and not steel tubing.
: Bicycles are early twentieth century technology; steam engines are
: late eighteenth.
Would you be willing to make that late 19th century? My great-grandmother
bought her first bicycle in 1896. The entry from her diary is rather fun.
"Wed. April 1st '96 -- Auntie gave us each 2 checks today - one was all
that was left to us of our share of interest $8.68, the other was $100
more of the principal. I deposited mine in Bank & drew $80 to pay for
bicycle, outfit, & express on it. M. sent it to the dealer in Adams
Center [New York] who orders my bicycle. It will probably be 2 or 3 weeks
before it gets here because I ordered so late. M's Aunt Inez has ordered
one from her brother Murray. I don't know what make it is, but I guess it
is a cheaper kind of bicycle. Mine being a Rambler, it is at least one of
the highest grade which if not _the_ highest grade that is manufactured.
But there is so much competition among bicycle manufacturers (all claiming
that their make is best) that it is hard to tell. The chief test of a
wheel is its reputation also its strength, its lasting & wearing
qualities. A company like the Rambler Co. of 17 yrs. standing, ought to
know how to turn out an excellent wheel by this time."
(Note: she uses "wheel" as an alternative for "bicycle", not for the
literal wheel only.)
Mary K. Kuhner
Helen Kenyon <ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
>And... OK, four things... To introduce and describe Siarl
>earlier than before. A critiquer (a different one) had thought he was
>small, slight and brown haired. Not that the hair colour matters, but
>it *is* important that the reader knows that he's bigger and physically
>stronger than Huw. Otherwise the image through most of the book will
>clash horribly with the description in Chapter 29 (The library scene.)
Rather than describing Siarl in order to get across the point that
he is bigger and stronger than Huw, you might simply have Huw notice
this at some point--a small man might well take particular notice
of a big one, due to long-standing expectations of being pushed around
or bullied. If you describe Siarl I will probably lose the germane
detail in a mass of hair color and so forth.
There's also "looked over Elen's head at Huw" and similar manuvers,
which is how I'm currently trying to get Chernoi's height across.
In general, if you can give your descriptions a bit more attitude
I think they'll come across as more character revelation and less
"I need to describe this". Huw may not care what color Siarl's hair
is, but his slightly threatening size, or his ostentatious wealth,
or the overly protective way he leans over Elen would be more
noteworthy. (These may all be wrong: I don't get a clear picture
of Siarl's behavior or stance or body language from your descriptions,
and I find that that's the one I'm missing, not the static
description.)
Again, though, I'm not very visual, and this advice may be a severe
minority view.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Graydon
[20 miles a day]
> Umm, well, it's a stretch, though.
Truly, no. I can do 15km in 3 hours, and I'm damn near sedentary.
> The average distance a medieval person travelled in a day was 14 miles.
> If you lived more that 7 miles from a "market", you had to have more than
> one day to go to the place, conduct your business, and get home.
Huw is not a medieval; he has good, fitted boots, and he has not been
-- so far as we know -- subject to famine or winter starvation at any
point in his life, and he's travelling on a metalled road.
Medieval marketing travel rates tend to reflect the interesting fact that
taking things to market is very slow; driving sheep or geese, frex, is
not a quick process. It also reflects the odd truth that medieval
people didn't like to work hard and didn't have a protestant work
ethic prodding them into a vague sense of unease when they weren't.
The _could_ work hard, startlingly and surprisingly hard, but they
would tend not to set up things so that they had to more often than
they must.
> If your central character is very fit, and if the terrain is relatively
> level and the trail/roads are good, and the weather is fine, they might
> travel 20 miles on foot. It's unlikely, though, because of the burden.
50lbs that you can wear is not a major burdern for a fit man in the
prime of life. Really. _Especially_ not to someone raised in a
muscle powered culture.
> One can travel over level ground on foot at a rate of 4 miles an hour,
> walking at a good and steady pace. That does work out to 24 miles in 8
> hours, but that also assumes that there are no breaks whatever, and that
> there aren't hills, mud, or ruts in the road.
Why assume 8 hours? Good light infantry units could sustain 60 and 70
miles per day for a couple weeks.
20 miles per day, under those circumstances, made me think Huw wasn't
in any particular hurry.
Graydon
> Graydon <anga...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> : A bicycle is much harder to build than a steam engine.
>
> : Really -- you need roller bearings, wire spoke wheels, and moderately
> : precise gears, even if the frame is wood and not steel tubing.
> : Bicycles are early twentieth century technology; steam engines are
> : late eighteenth.
>
> Would you be willing to make that late 19th century? My great-grandmother
> bought her first bicycle in 1896. The entry from her diary is rather fun.
By dates, sure, by technological periods, no; so far as I'm concerned
the 20th century starts with the introduction of a practical maratime
steam turbine in the Jubilee Year, and that is coincidentally around
when both IC engines and reasoanbly affordable gear machining in
ferrous metals came in. (and ends with LSI circuitry and the landing
on the Moon.)
> "Wed. April 1st '96 -- Auntie gave us each 2 checks today - one was all
> that was left to us of our share of interest $8.68, the other was $100
> more of the principal. I deposited mine in Bank & drew $80 to pay for
> bicycle, outfit, & express on it. M. sent it to the dealer in Adams
> Center [New York] who orders my bicycle. It will probably be 2 or 3 weeks
> before it gets here because I ordered so late. M's Aunt Inez has ordered
> one from her brother Murray. I don't know what make it is, but I guess it
> is a cheaper kind of bicycle. Mine being a Rambler, it is at least one of
> the highest grade which if not _the_ highest grade that is manufactured.
> But there is so much competition among bicycle manufacturers (all claiming
> that their make is best) that it is hard to tell. The chief test of a
> wheel is its reputation also its strength, its lasting & wearing
> qualities. A company like the Rambler Co. of 17 yrs. standing, ought to
> know how to turn out an excellent wheel by this time."
>
> (Note: she uses "wheel" as an alternative for "bicycle", not for the
> literal wheel only.)
This is lovely; thank you for posting it.
Julian Flood
> It's a good idea, but if you use it, they have the capability to build
> good, 50 mph+, regular schedule trains, and you'll have to come up
> with a very good reason indeed why they don't have them.
Why didn't the Romans have steam engines?
--
Julian Flood
Life, the Universe and Climbing Plants at www.argonet.co.uk/users/julesf.
Mind the diddley skiffle folk.
Graydon
> Graydon wrote:
> > It's a good idea, but if you use it, they have the capability to build
> > good, 50 mph+, regular schedule trains, and you'll have to come up
> > with a very good reason indeed why they don't have them.
>
> Why didn't the Romans have steam engines?
They couldn't build them in any economic way.
They had half-decent hammer mills, and reasonable metals extraction
from ore technology, but their mining tech was dreadful -- no
explosives! -- and so were their pumps, so no forced air for
steelmaking. They didn't know much about making sheet steel -- no
rolling mills, which came in in England in the reign of James the
Sixth and Last, no experience of ferrous hot rivets and complex plate
armors (building a white armor was completely beyond the peak of Roman
technology) -- and they didn't know much about valves or have a
general concept of machinery, as distinct from engines or instrument
making.
The idea that the medievals didn't experience material progress is
utter nonsense; they experienced a lot of it, and passed it on to the
Rennaisance and the Early Industrial periods.
High Queen of Procrastination
>
> Helen Kenyon <ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this>
> scripsit:
> > organisation is more 19th century.
>
>
> Social organization is a function of communcations and transport
> technology; 16th tech can't support the kind of centralization and
> rates of communication necessary for 19th century social organization.
Mmm... perhaps such a situation could occur if 'magic' is particularly
pervasive in this society? If magic had supplanted
(scientific)technology then there would be no need for telephone wires
and such... just sprinkle the pixie dust in a convenient pool of water
and viola! Instant communication. *G* From the snippet of story
included, I'm not certain if this is that type of world or not, but it
is an idea.
(I've got a somewhat similiar world brewing in the back of the mind
myself. Atrocious level of scientific technology, incredibly high level
of "magic", and a society more advanced then our own.)
(snip use of bicycles to distinguish world from generic medieval fantasy
world)
> It's a good idea, but if you use it, they have the capability to build
> good, 50 mph+, regular schedule trains, and you'll have to come up
> with a very good reason indeed why they don't have them.
The wood and plain spirits formed a union to protest all the sound
polution and the destruction of their territory? (^_^)'
A. Hazard
Getting ready to party like it was 1999...
Helen Kenyon
<anga...@sympatico.ca> writes
>Helen Kenyon <ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> scripsit:
>> The change of POV was attempting two things. Firstly to sneak in a
>> description of Huw (because at least one of my critiquers had imagined
>> him as a big, beefy bloke, which was completely wrong), secondly to make
>
>Is that important?
>
seem a little odd. But you're right, it's impossible to ensure that
*everyone* sees the characters like I do. Though the more that can, the
happier I'll be.
Helen Kenyon
<anga...@sympatico.ca> writes
>Helen Kenyon <ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this>
>scripsit:
>> organisation is more 19th century.
>
>
>Social organization is a function of communcations and transport
>technology; 16th tech can't support the kind of centralization and
>rates of communication necessary for 19th century social organization.
>
>wagon tech -- chain traces, steel wheel rims, better spoking, leaf
>springs, or shell technology wagon beds -- and no road building tech
>recovery/improvements to cope with the traffic.)
The terrain rules out a good canal system and a railway. (If the
Victorians couldn't build a railway north-south across Wales, I don't
know who could.) Also coal is only just beginning to be exploited, so
if there are any steam engines, they're not yet economic to run. (I'm
not ruling out stationary engines, but the mines in Mid and North Wales
converted to steam *very* late. And doing so was what made many of them
uneconomic after running successfully on water power for many years.)
Baradenes have the tech to produce high quality metal work, they just
can't *mass* produce it. On the other hand, the roads and vehicles are
good. There is a light, horse-drawn tramway from Arloros to Daria (on
the coast) to carry goods from the port and a good passenger coach
service between Arloros, Dunraven and Daria.
This is not our world. Some of the muzraen (the priestly magic users)
can use telepathy to communicate easily between the cities. There is
also a good Royal Messenger service with mail carried either on coaches
or by fast riders changing horses.
>
>If the public square isn't covered in manure, they've got better than
>16th century tech to be able to afford to keep it clean, too.
>
Well, they have lots of little boys and girls with shovels working for
tips. I'm sure a by-law about keeping roads clear or some kind of road
tax would work wonders too.
>[bicycles]
>> cause any problems.) If I have a butcher's delivery boy swish past on
>> his way home from work in paragraph two, then that might just set people
>> off on the right track.
>
>A bicycle is much harder to build than a steam engine.
>
>Really -- you need roller bearings, wire spoke wheels, and moderately
>precise gears, even if the frame is wood and not steel tubing.
>Bicycles are early twentieth century technology; steam engines are
>late eighteenth.
>
>It's a good idea, but if you use it, they have the capability to build
>good, 50 mph+, regular schedule trains, and you'll have to come up
>with a very good reason indeed why they don't have them.
It might be that the bicycles (or at least the better ones) are imported
from our world. I don't know who's doing the importing, but I know
who'll know. I just need to have a quiet word with Conrad (who works
for the person who's doing the controlling of what slips from our world
to theirs).
Baradel doesn't have trains because a) the terrain doesn't lend itself
and b) they don't feel the need. Bicycles *would* be terribly useful to
speed deliveries in a crowded city. I can see that they would also be
the latest thing amongst certain of the well-to-do.
Or I might go right off the idea of bicycles. I just put an omnibus in
too. If I take the bike out, I'll certainly leave the 'bus in. That
might be enough in itself.
Helen Kenyon
<terje.j...@tandbergtv.no> writes
>I went back to the first posting for an extra look, after you told us more
>about Hew in the commentary postings; I wanted to see what I could learn
>about him - and this time I looked closely.
>
>Hew is obviously a strong man in good health; the previous owner of a horse.
>He has been in this city before. He is broke, but has pride - and a resent
>of people better off than himself. Thin face, unkempt, hungry-looking. In a
>Victorian setting he IS the man-in-the-street, except that he should not be
>rich enough to own a horse or a saddle.
>So what you have here right now is a man who has seen better times, but
>never was rich. A cavalry officer? Quite possibly so. But I can't say that I
>feel anything for him yet, or know anything of his past with this city.
>
Pretty much spot on. You'll learn more, of course, but it is only the
first page! I can't get everything in the very first paragraphs. You
have to bear with me a bit and everything will unfold, honest.
>Now I'll put myself in his place for a moment. My first move would have been
>to search out the barrack area; looked for old faces, seen if I could have
>gotten a free meal or a stable to sleep in for a few nights. I might even
>have tried to get a new employment there. I would NOT have walked aimlessly
>about after five days in the wilderness, I can assure you. (And if the horse
>had died on me out there, my sacks would be well stocked with horsemeat as
>well).
>
>--
>-Terje Johansen
What you don't know, (but would have if you'd read book 1) and will know
if you keep reading, is that he's just been released from prison in the
south after being fined heavily. He (along with the rest of the Light
Cavalry) was found guilty of treason and is *very* lucky to have escaped
hanging. The horse was sold -- along with his other belongings -- to
pay off the fine, but he raised enough by selling everything else and
managed to hang on to the saddle. He is a bit wary of his reaction here
and is just planning to pass through en route to the family farm which
is another 10 miles to the north.
However, he's just about to fall over a dead body, which rather messes
up his plans and it's another two weeks and a whole book before he
actually manages to get home. And then book 3 starts when he goes south
again to get the horse back. So the saddle and the loss of the horse is
important.
Graydon
> In article <84ie70$bpj$1...@localhost.localdomain>, Graydon
> <anga...@sympatico.ca> writes
> >Helen Kenyon <ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this>
> >scripsit:
> >> organisation is more 19th century.
> >
> >
> >Social organization is a function of communcations and transport
> >technology; 16th tech can't support the kind of centralization and
> >rates of communication necessary for 19th century social organization.
> >
> >(No developed canal system, no rail roads, no major improvements in
> >wagon tech -- chain traces, steel wheel rims, better spoking, leaf
> >springs, or shell technology wagon beds -- and no road building tech
> >recovery/improvements to cope with the traffic.)
>
> The terrain rules out a good canal system and a railway. (If the
Then how do they feed a city large enough to support the degree of
specialization required to be able to produce carriages of that
quality?
That's a _very_ high standard of steel making, compared to the
historical norm; good springs aren't easy.
> Victorians couldn't build a railway north-south across Wales, I don't
> know who could.)
Look at the Swiss railways system of that period; it's not impossible,
just not the cheapest useful approach.
> good. There is a light, horse-drawn tramway from Arloros to Daria (on
> the coast) to carry goods from the port and a good passenger coach
Who made the rails?
Steel rail means a mass production capability.
> This is not our world.
Sure, but it still takes three pounds of stuff and a gallon of
drinking water per person, each and every day, at a minimum, moving
into that city, to keep the people there alive. How does it get
there?
> Some of the muzraen (the priestly magic users)
> can use telepathy to communicate easily between the cities. There is
> also a good Royal Messenger service with mail carried either on coaches
> or by fast riders changing horses.
Which again, implies high surples activities; economies where 90%+ of
the population are farmers can't afford to do that, they don't have
enough surplus to pay for it past survivial.
> >If the public square isn't covered in manure, they've got better than
> >16th century tech to be able to afford to keep it clean, too.
> >
> Well, they have lots of little boys and girls with shovels working for
> tips. I'm sure a by-law about keeping roads clear or some kind of road
> tax would work wonders too.
Only if the little boys and girls can be spared from what else they
are doing, and the tips are the best way they can make money. If
they're not, they'll do something else.
> Baradel doesn't have trains because a) the terrain doesn't lend itself
> and b) they don't feel the need. Bicycles *would* be terribly useful to
> speed deliveries in a crowded city. I can see that they would also be
> the latest thing amongst certain of the well-to-do.
You have to explain how they're feeding themselves without trains,
though; Victorian cities _need_ trains, or equivalent, they're not
possible without trains or a good cannal system.
hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu
: The terrain rules out a good canal system and a railway. (If the
: Victorians couldn't build a railway north-south across Wales, I don't
: know who could.) Also coal is only just beginning to be exploited, so
I've never gotten the impression that they _couldn't_ build a north-south
railway -- simply that they didn't see it as useful. Railways were for
moving into or out of major population centers, not for moving from one
rural area to another. (If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd toss out the
suggestion that there was an active avoidance of encouraging better
internal communication/movement within Wales as contrasted with keeping
the lines of communication/transportation focussed on London, Manchester,
etc. But I'm not a conspiracy theorist, so I'll continue leaning more
toward pragmatics.)
Helen Kenyon
<mkku...@eskimo.com> writes
>
>In general, if you can give your descriptions a bit more attitude
>I think they'll come across as more character revelation and less
>"I need to describe this". Huw may not care what color Siarl's hair
>is, but his slightly threatening size, or his ostentatious wealth,
>or the overly protective way he leans over Elen would be more
>noteworthy. (These may all be wrong: I don't get a clear picture
>of Siarl's behavior or stance or body language from your descriptions,
>and I find that that's the one I'm missing, not the static
>description.)
>
Siarl can be sneaked in during the sorting out of the mess after the
carriage crash.
Helen Kenyon
Morgan E. Smith <mes...@calcna.ab.ca> writes
> If your central character is very fit, and if the terrain is relatively
>level and the trail/roads are good, and the weather is fine, they might
>travel 20 miles on foot. It's unlikely, though, because of the burden.
>
It's supposed to be rather odd that he did it so fast, but I'm happy
that it's well within the bounds of possibility. The road is good, the
weather is fine. Perhaps a bit on the hot side, but he can walk early
morning and rest during the hottest time, then walk on again in the
evening. It's mid-summer, so light until very late. Huw is the first
one back. The others are days behind him, following at a more normal
pace.
PWrede6492
<anga...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>You have to explain how they're feeding themselves without trains,
>though; Victorian cities _need_ trains, or equivalent, they're not
>possible without trains or a good cannal system.
Or *some* sort of water transport. That's why all the major ancient and
medieval cities (London, Paris, Rome, etc.) were all seaports, and the largest
were also at river mouths -- you can get a lot more food to a city faster by
water than overland if all you've got is ox-carts. And from what I remember of
Wales, water transport is even more necessary -- too many mountains, not enough
arable land close by anywhere.
You can do a certain amount of fudging of the culture and background due to
magic replacing tech, but Graydon's right: 19th century society plus 16th
century tech just isn't plausible. It's also not what this bit seems to be
trying to imply, not with that town hall clock and that well-sprung open
carriage.
Patricia C. Wrede
PWrede6492
<anga...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>> Why didn't the Romans have steam engines?
>
>They couldn't build them in any economic way.
Actually, I'm given to understand that they *did* have steam engines -- as
little novelty toy-things. It just never occurred to them to hook the engines
up to anything large (or, quite possibly, they didn't have the tech necessary
to build one large enough to be useful).
Patricia C. Wrede
Graydon
> In article <84jahk$885$1...@localhost.localdomain>, Graydon
> <anga...@sympatico.ca> writes:
> >You have to explain how they're feeding themselves without trains,
> >though; Victorian cities _need_ trains, or equivalent, they're not
> >possible without trains or a good cannal system.
>
> Or *some* sort of water transport.
Well, yes, but this place is already established as being inland and
uphill; the odds of a good river that is navigable down to the sea
seem a bit low given that, so it's going to need locks to barge much
up.
Graydon
That had -- if my really flakely spelling memory works for the name --
little rotary things called alieopiles, which are a closed kettle on
pivots; the thing is heated, and whirls because the spout(s) are bent
so both arms of the spout are perpendicular to the axis of rotation.
Powering anything with an alieopile is really challenging; they're not
capable of more than atmospheric pressure, and they don't have a power
stroke in a piston, so you have to get them up to steam and then
_clutch_ them somehow to get useful work out of them. IMS, this _was_
done, once, to open some doors in a temple, and it was very nifty and
everyone looked at them and said 'slaves are cheap'.
One of Watt's pumping engines, with sliding D valves and a boiler
capable -- eventually, the first few were pretty feeble -- of greater
than atmospheric pressure -- and a way to let the thing build up a
head of steam before load was placed on it, that they didn't have.
PWrede6492
<anga...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>Well, yes, but this place is already established as being inland and
>uphill;
Already established where? I don't recall anything in the posting that
specified either one. Or was that from the first time she posted it? I think
that was when I was on hiatus...
Patricia C. Wrede
Graydon
There's a horse drawn tramway from the seaport, and the old walls
don't attempt to include the port, and there's no mention of a river,
so it's inland, and it's a Wales analog, so it's uphill.
Not, I admit, direct textual evidence; this is stuff that's been
mentioned in author responses.
Michelle & Boyd Bottorff
> Why assume 8 hours? Good light infantry units could sustain 60 and 70
> miles per day for a couple weeks.
<Boggle>
Good light infantry units in what army and time-period?
Michelle Bottorff
Helen Kenyon
>specialization required to be able to produce carriages of that
>quality?
>
>That's a _very_ high standard of steel making, compared to the
>historical norm; good springs aren't easy.
>
top of my head estimate, subject to variation, Arloros is about the size
of (what I imagine) 19th century Chester was. Dunraven, in the south,
is bigger, perhaps Bristol-sized. I'm sure that Bristol had coach
builders, possibly Chester too. We're not talking huge quantity here.
Also, we're not in today's throwaway society. A coach would be an
investment and used for many, many years. There output could be quite
small but steady.
>> Victorians couldn't build a railway north-south across Wales, I don't
>> know who could.)
>
>Look at the Swiss railways system of that period; it's not impossible,
>just not the cheapest useful approach.
>
Sorry, I wasn't precise enough. I meant the Victorians couldn't raise
the money to build a north-south railway across Wales, not that they
physically couldn't. There were a couple of abortive attempts which
went under with the investors losing their money.
>> good. There is a light, horse-drawn tramway from Arloros to Daria (on
>> the coast) to carry goods from the port and a good passenger coach
>
>Who made the rails?
>
>Steel rail means a mass production capability.
>
I will look into where the rails were made for the Ffestiniog railway
and the other early narrow gauge local railways. (I'm pretty certain it
must have been locally, or how did they get them here? <Thinks> By sea?)
If the answer means that a railway is not possible, then the horse-drawn
tram service will hastily be withdrawn. If the answer is favourable,
then it will stay. :-)
>> This is not our world.
>
>Sure, but it still takes three pounds of stuff and a gallon of
>drinking water per person, each and every day, at a minimum, moving
>into that city, to keep the people there alive. How does it get
>there?
>
Vegetables and grain, and things like milk and dairy produce come in on
wagons from the surrounding countryside. The city is set in decent
farmland. The meat walks in on its own legs and is slaughtered in the
city. A slaughterhouse is actually an important location in the plot.
>> Some of the muzraen (the priestly magic users)
>> can use telepathy to communicate easily between the cities. There is
>> also a good Royal Messenger service with mail carried either on coaches
>> or by fast riders changing horses.
>
>Which again, implies high surples activities; economies where 90%+ of
>the population are farmers can't afford to do that, they don't have
>enough surplus to pay for it past survivial.
>
But who said 90% were farmers? I didn't. I'm pretty sure I can grow and
harvest enough stuff to feed the cities comfortably with under 50%
employed in farming. By using a system of releasing factory workers and
even domestic staff out into the country at harvest time (like the hop-
picking working holidays enjoyed by Londoners until relatively
recently), I can provide enough semi-skilled labour at the key points in
the year. As an example, in 1851 in England and Wales, only 20% were
employed in Agriculture.
However, there are increasing problems amongst the poor in the city,
which is a plot strand in book 3.
>> >If the public square isn't covered in manure, they've got better than
>> >16th century tech to be able to afford to keep it clean, too.
>> >
>> Well, they have lots of little boys and girls with shovels working for
>> tips. I'm sure a by-law about keeping roads clear or some kind of road
>> tax would work wonders too.
>
>Only if the little boys and girls can be spared from what else they
>are doing, and the tips are the best way they can make money. If
>they're not, they'll do something else.
>
Children are not supposed to be working under the age of 10, though
plenty do in the mills and tanneries, especially as many men have been
killed in the recent war and the family need the income. This would be
a way for the even younger kids to earn a few copper denars to add to
the family income.
>> Baradel doesn't have trains because a) the terrain doesn't lend itself
>> and b) they don't feel the need. Bicycles *would* be terribly useful to
>> speed deliveries in a crowded city. I can see that they would also be
>> the latest thing amongst certain of the well-to-do.
>
>You have to explain how they're feeding themselves without trains,
>though; Victorian cities _need_ trains, or equivalent, they're not
>possible without trains or a good cannal system.
I'm not talking London sized cities here. I'm confident I can get
enough goods in and out by road. Perhaps I've been using the wrong word
with "Victorian", that's just my own mental shorthand to describe the
feel I want for the city. Perhaps I should be saying Regency, but I
don't know enough about that period for it to evoke the right mental
images. I'm thinking very early Victorian, not turn of the century.
Helen
(musing that "turn of the century" has just ceased to be a useful
phrase, but using it anyway.)
Helen Kenyon
<pwred...@aol.com> writes
>In article <84jma6$cgh$1...@localhost.localdomain>, Graydon
><anga...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>
>>Well, yes, but this place is already established as being inland and
>>uphill;
>
>Already established where? I don't recall anything in the posting that
>specified either one. Or was that from the first time she posted it? I think
>that was when I was on hiatus...
>
I don't ever remember saying "uphill". Arloros is inland, 30
(relatively level) miles from the nearest good port. But I still think
I can feed the city from the local countryside. I'm only talking a city
the size of 19th century Chester. Or -- sudden realisation -- is my use
of the word "city" confusing people? Cities can be quite small in the
UK.
Helen
Graydon
Europe, and British India at least, 1750 or so up to trains getting
really widespread. Young, fit, well fed people with a good baggage
train can _move_ on good roads.
Terje Johansen
I loved the 'Sharpe' series (author name slipping from my memory) of the
British regiments under Wellington. If I remember correctly, the Brits used
'staggered' marching; four normal steps followed by four fast. Considering
their heavy backpacks and the number of drunks in their ranks, it was
impressive that they could march that fast. Not that the French seemed to do
much less.
Back to topic; 100 miles in 5 days is possible even with a moderate load if
the walker is strong, motivated and in a hurry. But is Hew?
Hehe. Here in Norway we'll say that a man hurries faster when he gets closer
to home; 'he smells the meatballs'.
--
-Terje Johansen
---
comp.publish.electronic.misc - where e-publishers and e-writers meet.
PWrede6492
<anga...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>Not, I admit, direct textual evidence; this is stuff that's been
>mentioned in author responses.
You're right, of course. I think I must be a bit hyper-focussed from the cold,
still. (*Much* better, thanks.)
If the city is inland and uphill, it becomes even more important for the author
to know how it gets food in for its population (unless a "city" in this
universe is much smaller than one normally things of) and why it was built
where it was and how it managed to grow to city-size in the first place. A
fairly large majority of real-life big cities that I can think of at the moment
were built where they were -- and grew as big as they did -- because they were
transportation centers.
Patricia C. Wrede
PWrede6492
<ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> writes:
>The road is good, the
>weather is fine.
You might want to mention the road, and that he's come most of the way on one.
At least one of your critiquers mentioned that he thought Huw was coming in
from the wilderness, and while I didn't mention it directly, that was at least
partly behind my comment about whether 20 miles was reasonable.
Patricia C. Wrede
PWrede6492
<ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> writes:
> I'm only talking a city
>the size of 19th century Chester. Or -- sudden realisation -- is my use
>of the word "city" confusing people? Cities can be quite small in the
No, it's the combination of "city" and "Victorian."
I think you still have a problem, though. Farming technology is just as
important to city growth as transportation technology. Medieval through
Elizabethan cultures had plenty of people and the same amount of land with
which to feed folks, but they couldn't get really large cities in very many
places because of a combination of transportation (got to get the food into the
city) and yield (scratch plows just don't do as good a job, even if you rotate
crops and fields and manure them).
I don't really think you have a problem, based on what you've said; if they
have tramways and coaches and so on, especially in a relatively small (and
therefore not-so-rich) city, then they've got a fairly consistent early
Victorian culture and early Victorian tech. Unless this is a problem later?
What do you mean when you say they've got 19th century culture and 16th century
tech?
Patricia C. Wrede
Graydon
> In article <84jahk$885$1...@localhost.localdomain>, Graydon
> <anga...@sympatico.ca> writes
> >Then how do they feed a city large enough to support the degree of
> >specialization required to be able to produce carriages of that
> >quality?
> >
> >That's a _very_ high standard of steel making, compared to the
> >historical norm; good springs aren't easy.
> >
> How large were you thinking is a large enough city?
It depends very much on how good the communication is; the minimum
population basin to be able to make those carriages is about a hundred
thousand, and that assumes wheeled vehicles are a major export. So if
the economic region is mostly elsewhere, and Arloros is on one edge of
it, Arloros can be pretty small. If Arlos is the main city of its
region, Arloros needs to be at least 20 kpeople.
> Very rough, off the top of my head estimate, subject to variation,
> Arloros is about the size of (what I imagine) 19th century Chester
> was. Dunraven, in the south, is bigger, perhaps Bristol-sized. I'm
> sure that Bristol had coach builders, possibly Chester too. We're
> not talking huge quantity here. Also, we're not in today's
> throwaway society. A coach would be an investment and used for
> many, many years. There output could be quite small but steady.
Sure, but it's not _output_ that's the problem; _input_ is the
problem.
They need --
oak, ash, other speciality woods, cut, sawn, and dried
- saw makers
- ax makers
- both of whom need steel, their own speciality tools,
abrasives; the saw makers need a cutting oil from
somewhere (clove, whale, or distallate)
- lumberjacks (who must be fed)
- transport (which means draft horses) for the timber
- some of the speciality woods come from far away, so shipping
for timber, which implies things about how good the ships
are (1800 naval tech minimum)
wheelwrights
- wrought iron or steel tires
- bunches of speciality tools
- planes, which implies either a foundry industry or
access to high quality hardwood to make the plane bodies
and is a whole seperate trade
- saws, which are different from tree felling saws
- someone able to forge wrought iron or steel axles
(sounds trivial; getting a six foot iron bar straight with
a hammer is _not_ trivial at all.)
- grease
- very possibly bearings, which imply metal lathes, and metal
lathes (and the trolleys) imply an infant machine tools
industry
springs
- foundry capable of producing consistent spring steel in ~2"
wide strip up to six feet long; that takes water power and
annealing ovens
paint
- paint would be either milk or oil based, so they've got a
fishing surplus (and a way to refine cod liver oil!) or a
dairy surplus
- pigment sifting and grinding
- someone making decorative metal leafing, whole nother trade
And that's just off the top of my head; if the thing has a folding
top, you've implied either a cloth industry or a leatherworking one,
too, plus whoever makes the ribs for the top. Bits, shoes, and
harness for the horses, which is four seperate trades at a minimum
(harness makers buy from buckle-makers); it just goes on and on.
Once you start adding up all those trades, and how they get what they
need, and how they get fed, you have to have a lot of people, and they
have to have enough work that they're eating all the time.
> >> Victorians couldn't build a railway north-south across Wales, I don't
> >> know who could.)
> >
> >Look at the Swiss railways system of that period; it's not impossible,
> >just not the cheapest useful approach.
> >
> Sorry, I wasn't precise enough. I meant the Victorians couldn't raise
> the money to build a north-south railway across Wales, not that they
> physically couldn't. There were a couple of abortive attempts which
> went under with the investors losing their money.
Well, sure, but this economy is different; if Baradel is flourishing,
and can build carriages like that, they certainly ought to be able to
at least consider short stretches of railway.
> >> This is not our world.
> >
> >Sure, but it still takes three pounds of stuff and a gallon of
> >drinking water per person, each and every day, at a minimum, moving
> >into that city, to keep the people there alive. How does it get
> >there?
> >
> Vegetables and grain, and things like milk and dairy produce come in on
> wagons from the surrounding countryside. The city is set in decent
> farmland. The meat walks in on its own legs and is slaughtered in the
> city. A slaughterhouse is actually an important location in the plot.
Have you done the numbers for _how many_ wagon loads have to come in,
every day?
> >> Some of the muzraen (the priestly magic users)
> >> can use telepathy to communicate easily between the cities. There is
> >> also a good Royal Messenger service with mail carried either on coaches
> >> or by fast riders changing horses.
> >
> >Which again, implies high surples activities; economies where 90%+ of
> >the population are farmers can't afford to do that, they don't have
> >enough surplus to pay for it past survivial.
> >
> But who said 90% were farmers? I didn't. I'm pretty sure I can grow and
> harvest enough stuff to feed the cities comfortably with under 50%
> employed in farming.
That implies late 19th farming tech -- steam threshing, third and
fourth generation horse drawn machinery, disc coulter plows -- at a
minimum; I don't think NorAm hit 50% off the farms until after
Hitler's War.
It also implies, pretty strongly, that the other 50% of the population
have something to _do_, which implies considerable industry.
> By using a system of releasing factory workers and even domestic
> staff out into the country at harvest time (like the hop- picking
> working holidays enjoyed by Londoners until relatively recently), I
> can provide enough semi-skilled labour at the key points in the
> year. As an example, in 1851 in England and Wales, only 20% were
> employed in Agriculture.
I am _deeply_ astonished at that figure -- how did the person who
produced it define 'Agriculture'?
> >You have to explain how they're feeding themselves without trains,
> >though; Victorian cities _need_ trains, or equivalent, they're not
> >possible without trains or a good cannal system.
>
> I'm not talking London sized cities here. I'm confident I can get
Neither am I.
It's a question of how many people have to do what work to get one
person's food into the place, for the proportions of people in such a
city not occupied with moving food.
> enough goods in and out by road. Perhaps I've been using the wrong word
> with "Victorian", that's just my own mental shorthand to describe the
> feel I want for the city. Perhaps I should be saying Regency, but I
> don't know enough about that period for it to evoke the right mental
> images. I'm thinking very early Victorian, not turn of the century.
Very Early Victorian is ~1835; starting to be trains, starting to be
steamships, muttering about wrought iron bridges and really good
masonary bridges, machine tools starting to proliferate in
manufacturing, compressed air technology appearing, really good
canals.
Julian Flood
> the weather is fine, they might
>>travel 20 miles on foot. It's unlikely, though, because of the burden.
See these legs? 25 miles, the first twenty three in eight hours(*), in the
dark, in the rain, over well-metalled roads and clarty fields. 20 miles with
a 30lb load would be easy even for me, with a pub stop half way and a
reasonable bed at the end.
I find some of the crits for this piece are over-detailed. Sometimes
one has to trust the writer and wait, which is perhaps why one finds
fault with books that fans adore.
(*)All concerned were pleased to see that the millennium sun rose on time.
Julian Flood
> they didn't have the tech necessary
> to build one large enough to be useful)
The people who built the big beam engines were, in many ways, less capable
engineers than the Romans, and they had fewer resources. Their materials
were slightly better, but the Romans had steel, could see the use of steam
for temple door opening (perhaps) and things like that.
Great man theory.
<> I came up from New Rome this morning on the Imperial Train. Fifty miles
an hour out of the town we once knew as Hispalis, steady as the foundations
of the Senate house, with two of the new double compound engines taking the
gradient like a swallow breasts the air. As we rattled through the
countryside a tree caught my eye, a tree that I recognised from the first
time I travelled this road. Then I'd had shackles on my legs.
It set me thinking, called up the black demon that has sat on my shoulder
all my life. When we hooted to come through the defile a mood of despair had
settled on me. How strange to be seventy years old! Stranger still to be
where I am, after such years of struggle and loss and pain. I would have
smiled had I not seen the place where Bulla... No, I'll not think of that,
not yet, not until I have to. I will write it all down. Instead of passing
this summer as I usually do in hunting, fishing (now there's a pastime for
the wise), I'll spend the days and nights setting down the tale of my life.
I have the paper just in from Seres, the pens, the ink. I have the drive
inside me, the need to explain, the ghosts of the past to call up and
exorcise. I'll fish after the sun has set or before it rises. Let us begin.
Graydon
> (PWrede6492) wrote: of steam engines:
> > they didn't have the tech necessary
> > to build one large enough to be useful)
> The people who built the big beam engines were, in many ways, less capable
> engineers than the Romans, and they had fewer resources.
I think, if you examine these contentions in detail, you will discover
that both of them are incorrect.
> Great man theory.
>
> <> I came up from New Rome this morning on the Imperial Train. Fifty miles
> an hour out of the town we once knew as Hispalis, steady as the foundations
> of the Senate house, with two of the new double compound engines taking the
> gradient like a swallow breasts the air. As we rattled through the
> countryside a tree caught my eye, a tree that I recognised from the first
> time I travelled this road. Then I'd had shackles on my legs.
> It set me thinking, called up the black demon that has sat on my shoulder
> all my life. When we hooted to come through the defile a mood of despair had
> settled on me. How strange to be seventy years old! Stranger still to be
> where I am, after such years of struggle and loss and pain. I would have
> smiled had I not seen the place where Bulla... No, I'll not think of that,
> not yet, not until I have to. I will write it all down. Instead of passing
> this summer as I usually do in hunting, fishing (now there's a pastime for
> the wise), I'll spend the days and nights setting down the tale of my life.
> I have the paper just in from Seres, the pens, the ink. I have the drive
> inside me, the need to explain, the ghosts of the past to call up and
> exorcise. I'll fish after the sun has set or before it rises. Let us begin.
> <>
You could do something with that.
Hedgehog
<URL:mailto:ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
> However, there are increasing problems amongst the poor in the city,
> which is a plot strand in book 3.
Cripes. Great minds, and all that. Wetstone is afflicted in a like fashion ...
--
Hedgehog
Laurel Amberdine
news:84l8o1$tg4$1...@localhost.localdomain...
> Helen Kenyon <ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> scripsit:
> > In article <84jahk$885$1...@localhost.localdomain>, Graydon
> > <anga...@sympatico.ca> writes
> > >Then how do they feed a city large enough to support the degree of
> > >specialization required to be able to produce carriages of that
> > >quality?
> > >
> > >That's a _very_ high standard of steel making, compared to the
> > >historical norm; good springs aren't easy.
> > >
> > How large were you thinking is a large enough city?
>
> It depends very much on how good the communication is; the minimum
> population basin to be able to make those carriages is about a hundred
> thousand, and that assumes wheeled vehicles are a major export. So if
> the economic region is mostly elsewhere, and Arloros is on one edge of
> it, Arloros can be pretty small. If Arlos is the main city of its
> region, Arloros needs to be at least 20 kpeople.
<snip of long and impressive analysis>
Not complaining, but I just had an odd feeling reading this. A long,
detailed explanation of realistic necessities in fiction, written by someone
who just posted a story with POVs from an intelligent, immortal raven and a
telepathic badger? :)
-Laurel
Graydon
> <snip of long and impressive analysis>
>
> Not complaining, but I just had an odd feeling reading this. A long,
> detailed explanation of realistic necessities in fiction, written by someone
> who just posted a story with POVs from an intelligent, immortal raven and a
> telepathic badger? :)
Oh, well, you see, the Blessed Novel is set on Earth.
A billion years in the future, after there have been four major clades
of intelligenct species; protein based life is extinct. (It starts
going extinct in about 40 years, when a subset of the medical
nanomachinery goes fully Darwinian, and starts making people -- and
then everything else -- into what they want to be; the direct brain
interfacing got tested on remarkably sensible people, and a few tiny
bugs in the scoping rules got missed. Whupsie.)
So the intelligent, long lived raven, the telepathic badgers,
Herevor's family, the squirrels with a job safety complaint, and much
else besides, are hard sf.
It's just a good idea to be paying really scrupulous attention if you
want to notice this from the text.
Cally Soukup
> Helen Kenyon <ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> scripsit:
>> "He glanced from her pretty pink dress to the immaculate paintwork on
>> the carriage. Those horses hadn't come cheap either. Nice cross-breds,
>> mainly native cob to keep them sensible, but enough Mirroni blood to
>> give them a bit of go. Decent shoulders and length of rein too; they
>> should ride as well as they drove."
> Truly, no matter how much detail your critiquers want Right Now, stop
> trying to give complete information; it's death on the flow of the
> tale.
> Huw is tired, dry, wondering how many meals he can get out of the tack
> he's carrying, still emotionally recovering from almost dying,
> especially if he did that long walk as a pennace, and that doesn't
> sound the way horse people talk rested; the ones' I've heard almost
> never say what more that one half is, and imply the other half by
> type. ('half-Perch warmblood, and smart as bricks', frex)
> Have him say the horses are worth more than the driving, or similar;
> it'll get over that he notices horses, it gives a bit of his state of
> mind, and the reader can wonder how accurate his judgement is for
> awhile until it gets confirmed. If you want to lean on the point that
> Huw does have skill with horses, have him comment on some fiddlin'
> detail of tack -- that the coachman can't drive but doesn't have the
> checkreins too short, or why he puts the trace buckles at the collars,
> or something like that.
It occurs to me that you've described the horses and the lady as
"chestnut" -- would his attitude be out of place if he dismisses her
as the kind of wealthy nitwit who chooses the horses to match her
hair?
--
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend
to the death your right to say it." -- Beatrice Hall
Cally Soukup sou...@pobox.com
joy beeson
>A bicycle is much harder to build than a steam engine.
>
>Really -- you need roller bearings, wire spoke wheels, and moderately
>precise gears, even if the frame is wood and not steel tubing.
>Bicycles are early twentieth century technology; steam engines are
>late eighteenth.
I had dropped a flag intending to say that, but with more emphasis.
But after reading your post, I realized that most of the precision
work is in the drive train, and the high-wheelers didn't have drive
trains. Ball-bearing hubs make a bike a lot easier to ride, but
carriage wheels will work.
But on further thought, I remembered that high wheelers were rich
men's toys, of little practical use -- you could carry messages, but
not much in the way of parcels, they aren't terribly maneuverable in a
crowd, and they were expensive. (And there was a reason the first
chain-drive bikes were called "safety bikes".)
A further objection is that where you have rich men on bikes, you are
pretty soon going to have excellent roads, and where you have
excellent roads, you are only fifty years off from an automobile in
every stable, and garages behind homes too humble to have stables.
But when my chain broke out in the boonies, I learned that the
hobby-horse is honestly a practical way to get around -- and that was
on a frame that wasn't built for it, and would allow me to touch only
one foot to the ground.
Moreover, on a proper hobby-horse, when you come to an obstacle,
instead of having to dismount, you can put your feet down and lift
your wheels over the obstacle, then continue with scarcely a pause.
A hobby-horse would be much better than back packs and hand carts for
delivery, even when traffic conditions keep the rider from proceeding
faster than he can walk. It takes the weight off the delivery boy, it
isn't as hard to pull as a cart, and it's narrow for darting through
temporary openings in the traffic.
It would be harder to push a hobby-horse up a hill than to pull a
hand-cart up a hill, but that would be partly compensated by getting
to ride down the other side -- and if there is a little clear space
before the hill, you can ride part of the way up. (I got, if I recall
correctly, about halfway up each hill, but that was with good
pavement, good bearings, a light machine, and a clear shoot from the
previous hill.) (But it was with only one foot down, and that foot
not my stronger.)
I was thinking that cranks on the front wheel would enable the rider
to get up those last few feet of hill without dismounting, but I think
that it would be more practical to design the hobby-horse with a drop
frame, so that the rider could walk while astride the machine, pushing
on the handle-bars. A drop-frame would also make it easier to hop on
and off the machine when it's necessary to alternate between riding
and pushing. (This should actually be a mixte frame, of course.)
--
Joy Beeson
j beeson at global two thousand dot net
Cathy Purchis-Jefferies
> Very Early Victorian is ~1835; starting to be trains, starting to be
> steamships, muttering about wrought iron bridges
The bridge in Iron Bridge was built in MDCCLXXIX, which I believe was 1779, so
do you mean muttering about wrought iron bridges being useful enough to be worth
making lots of?
--
"George" Cathy Purchis cat...@value.net
The Peregrine Hacker Interpretive Web sites
http://pwp.value.net/catpur/hacker.htm
Berry Kercheval
> That had -- if my really flakely spelling memory works for the name --
> little rotary things called alieopiles, which are a closed kettle on
> pivots; the thing is heated, and whirls because the spout(s) are bent
> so both arms of the spout are perpendicular to the axis of rotation.
That was Hero of Alexandria's aelopile.
Helen Kenyon
<terje.j...@tandbergtv.no> writes
>
>Back to topic; 100 miles in 5 days is possible even with a moderate load if
>the walker is strong, motivated and in a hurry. But is Hew?
>Hehe. Here in Norway we'll say that a man hurries faster when he gets closer
>to home; 'he smells the meatballs'.
>
>--
>-Terje Johansen
>
himself and the prison, before anyone changes their minds and decides to
hang him after all. And he wants to get *home*...
Helen Kenyon
<pwred...@aol.com> writes
>What do you mean when you say they've got 19th century culture and 16th century
>tech?
>
>Patricia C. Wrede
Um... Good question. Their culture is actually entirely their own and
probably not quite like anything we've actually had. The dominant
religion is not Christianity to start with. Literacy is not prized, but
is seen as a work skill required by the (growing) middle class. I think
I'm thinking of the way some of the nobility made their money in
industry. Though still predominantly landowners, industry is seen as
the way forwards. And I'm probably thinking of the social changes that
begin in book 3. I'm probably thinking more of where the society is
going than where it is now.
Or in other words, I think I know what I'm doing in the book and
everything is consistent. I'm just explaining it very badly.
Helen Kenyon
><ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> writes:
>
>>The road is good, the
>>weather is fine.
>
>You might want to mention the road, and that he's come most of the way on one.
> At least one of your critiquers mentioned that he thought Huw was coming in
>from the wilderness, and while I didn't mention it directly, that was at least
>partly behind my comment about whether 20 miles was reasonable.
>
>Patricia C. Wrede
I think roads are implied if not directly mentioned when Huw's
explaining that he was well out of the city when the first murder
actually occurred.
Helen Kenyon
<electric...@which.net> writes
>In article <MKAPXHA9...@baradel.demon.co.uk>, Helen Kenyon
><URL:mailto:ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
>
>> which is a plot strand in book 3.
>
>
off from the rural contraceptive methods, are having more children
faster than is good for them or (ultimately) the city. Family planning
clinics will be her project for book 3. (Though progress will be
hindered by getting involved in the mystery of who killed the king
before the war.)
Helen
Hedgehog
<URL:mailto:anga...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Sure, but it's not _output_ that's the problem; _input_ is the
> problem.
[And lots of other useful stuff.]
Filed and noted; by a strange coincidence, this may be useful
in Breakouts.
--
Hedgehog
Graydon
> Graydon wrote:
> > Very Early Victorian is ~1835; starting to be trains, starting to be
> > steamships, muttering about wrought iron bridges
>
Well, yes, the first one, and very notable, and about as economic as
gold-plating toothbrushes, IIRC.
> do you mean muttering about wrought iron bridges being useful enough to be worth
> making lots of?
I'm probably thinking of a particular size of single truss span,
there; rail making pushed wrought iron prices down and made truss
structures cheaper than masonry around then for a lot of bridging
applications, I know that, but the details have escaped me.
Helen Kenyon
<sou...@pobox.com> writes
>It occurs to me that you've described the horses and the lady as
>"chestnut" -- would his attitude be out of place if he dismisses her
>as the kind of wealthy nitwit who chooses the horses to match her
>hair?
>
He does think of this later, though by then he realises that she's not a
nitwit.
Helen Kenyon
<cat...@value.net> writes
>Graydon wrote:
>
>> Very Early Victorian is ~1835; starting to be trains, starting to be
>> steamships, muttering about wrought iron bridges
>
>making lots of?
>
>"George" Cathy Purchis cat...@value.net
There's a beautiful iron bridge at Betws-y-Coed too, which unless my
memory is playing me false (always possible), is known as the Waterloo
Bridge because it was built in 1815.
Helen
Helen Kenyon
>It depends very much on how good the communication is; the minimum
>population basin to be able to make those carriages is about a hundred
>thousand, and that assumes wheeled vehicles are a major export. So if
>the economic region is mostly elsewhere, and Arloros is on one edge of
>it, Arloros can be pretty small. If Arlos is the main city of its
>region, Arloros needs to be at least 20 kpeople.
>
It'll be bigger than 20 thousand. Blaenau Ffestiniog, at its peak, had
a population of 10,000 and Arloros is more Chester sized, which was
considerably bigger. (Note. I'm not good with numbers. If forced,
I'll do actual calculations, but I prefer to work by feel and instinct
using words like "big", "not so big" and so on. :-))
>Sure, but it's not _output_ that's the problem; _input_ is the
>problem.
>
[snip list which has been noted]
I think you might be in danger of proving that bumble bees can't fly,
here. Small cities clearly existed and worked in the past, pre-
railways. I have a large empire not too far to the East, which is a bit
undefined at the moment as I haven't needed to go there yet and have
just picked up snippets of information as it gets mentioned, but there's
a flourishing E-W trade.
>
>Well, sure, but this economy is different; if Baradel is flourishing,
>and can build carriages like that, they certainly ought to be able to
>at least consider short stretches of railway.
>
The horse drawn light railways are looking more and more feasible. (So
they're definitely in.) I would think they've been running for over 100
years, first on wooden rails, then, as they proved their worth, on cast
iron.
I found the following figures. Average loads for one horse:
Packhorse 3 cwts
Horse and cart 1 ton
Wooden tramway 2 tons
Cast-iron tramway 10-12 tons
Canal 70 tons
This makes canals the transport system of choice, all other things being
equal. But they're not (for my story, anyway). In Baradel, the land
tends to the mountainous, and while you can still engineer canals if you
have the willpower and manpower, once completed, they have operating
problems due to lack of water. Even with a Welsh type rainfall, high-
level canals tend to have difficulty gathering enough water to operate
all the locks. (This was always a problem IIRC on the Leeds-Liverpool
canal.)
So I do have railways. But not north-south as the trade doesn't tend to
go that way and the passenger transport between Dunraven (which is on
the south coast) is provided for by a coach service running on good
roads paved with stone setts or macadamised.
[I had said]
>> By using a system of releasing factory workers and even domestic
>> staff out into the country at harvest time (like the hop- picking
>> working holidays enjoyed by Londoners until relatively recently), I
>> can provide enough semi-skilled labour at the key points in the
>> year. As an example, in 1851 in England and Wales, only 20% were
>> employed in Agriculture.
>
>I am _deeply_ astonished at that figure -- how did the person who
>produced it define 'Agriculture'?
>
I can't find a definition of agriculture in the book, but here are the
figures for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland for 1851.
Employment of the People of the UK 1851 as % of occupied population
Occupation Eng & Wales Scotland Ireland
Agriculture 20.9 22.7 42.9
Fishing 0.2 1.5 0.3
Mining 4.0 4.0 0.4
Building 5.5 5.2 2.0
Manufacture 32.7 36.5 22.8
Transport 4.1 3.6 1.4
'Dealing' (shops etc.) 6.5 5.6 3.6
Public and professional 4.6 3.5 2.2
Domestic service 13.3 10.5 10.4
Totals 91.8 93.1 86.0
Source _Mid-Victorian Britain 1851-75_ Geoffrey Best (Fontana Press
1988). I realise that these figures don't quite total to 100%, but I
presume the missing workers are accounted for by the Army, nave and odds
and ends like the Church.
Helen Kenyon
<anga...@sympatico.ca> writes
>
>I'm probably thinking of a particular size of single truss span,
>there; rail making pushed wrought iron prices down and made truss
>structures cheaper than masonry around then for a lot of bridging
>applications, I know that, but the details have escaped me.
And, according to my husband, the iron work for the bridges for the
Ffestiniog railway was made locally, so it's quite feasible that the
railway lines were too. The Co-op supermarket now stands on the site of
the works, but Boston Lodge (just nearby) is still making and repairing
locos.
Helen Kenyon
<jul...@argonet.co.uk> writes
><> I came up from New Rome this morning on the Imperial Train. Fifty miles
>an hour out of the town we once knew as Hispalis, steady as the foundations
>of the Senate house, with two of the new double compound engines taking the
>gradient like a swallow breasts the air. As we rattled through the
>countryside a tree caught my eye, a tree that I recognised from the first
>time I travelled this road. Then I'd had shackles on my legs.
[snip]
I think you posted a bit of this once before. I can't remember whether
I said then that I liked it. *I'd* definitely read on. Oh, and I liked
the snippet of the WIP (The one with the coach driving up the hill.)
These two are my favourites, as far as I remember, of the bits you've
posted here.
Have you tried any US publishers with either? (Assuming they're
finished, that is.)
Helen Kenyon
<pwred...@aol.com> writes
>In article <UWBJAXA4...@baradel.demon.co.uk>, Helen Kenyon
><ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> writes:
>
>>The road is good, the
>>weather is fine.
>
>You might want to mention the road, and that he's come most of the way on one.
> At least one of your critiquers mentioned that he thought Huw was coming in
>from the wilderness, and while I didn't mention it directly, that was at least
>partly behind my comment about whether 20 miles was reasonable.
>
>Patricia C. Wrede
The geography isn't actually important in _Demon Killer_ as -- apart
from the trip to the house party at the bad guy's country estate -- it
all takes place within the city. I'm trying for a claustrophobic feel
with the abnormally hot summer and the demon (that should really be
"demon") stalking the streets killing someone each night.
However, this discussion has been extremely helpful in raising a few
points that I will need to address while writing The One About The War,
which is book 1 and which goes just before _Demon_. I need to get all
the geography and economics worked out for that one as I have to move
armies, food, artillery and refugees around convincingly.
I did keep my New Year's resolution and began the first draft. Would
this beginning entice anyone to read on? (Note: "He" is not Huw, though
he'll meet Huw very soon.)
Helen
Light rippled and shimmered above him. It was so cold, he couldn't
feel his body; so cold, it made him want to gasp. He clamped his mouth
shut and held his breath.
How deep had he gone? How long had he been floating upwards through
bitter cold water?
Something touched his face in the greyness, like the fleeting touch
of groping fingers. He wanted to cry for help, but if he tried to
breathe, he would drown.
Terror rose. His chest was bursting. He breathed out a stream of
silver bubbles, which rose away from him, dancing ahead of him towards
the light. He knew that if he didn't break the surface within a few
more seconds, he would pass out and then the breathing reflex would cut
in and he would drown.
He kicked harder, fighting towards the rippling membrane of light
which hung above him. There was no sensation of movement; he seemed to
be suspended, motionless, between the deep sea and darkness and light
and life.
The last air had gone from his lungs. His heart pounded in his
ears; his vision was fading. He burst out into bright sunlight and
gulped air in a long, tearing breath.
Looking straight up into a deep blue sky daubed with white clouds,
he breathed out and drank air again, then looked down as he bobbed in
the water, to see ocean stretching away to a hard grey horizon. The sun
was sinking towards the sea, casting a glittering path across the waves.
He floated, coughing and gagging. He had swallowed a fair bit of
water, despite his determination to keep his mouth closed. Despair
poured through him after the momentary relief at being able to breathe.
Now he was just going to have to swim until he was too exhausted to stay
afloat any longer, and then he really would drown.
And then he turned to look in the other direction. Scarcely twenty
metres away, waves slapped and hissed onto a long, gently curving beach.
Above his head, white wings spread taut, sliding lazily through the
clear air, a seagull cried -- a mournful sound.
He wiped the fronds of soft seaweed from his face and struck out
for the shore. After only two strong strokes, his knee hit the bottom
and he floundered to his feet to find he was standing thigh deep in the
gently swelling waves.
Graydon
> I think you might be in danger of proving that bumble bees can't fly,
> here. Small cities clearly existed and worked in the past, pre-
> railways.
Sure.
But what you're doing _isn't_ that; you're postulating 50% of the
population or more not involved in agriculture or food prep/storage in
any way. I don't think you can find an example of that that doesn't
have machine traction.
And, also, 20k people+ is _not_ a small city by pre-machine traction
standards; it's a _big_ city.
> I can't find a definition of agriculture in the book, but here are the
> figures for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland for 1851.
>
> Employment of the People of the UK 1851 as % of occupied population
>
> Occupation Eng & Wales Scotland Ireland
>
> Agriculture 20.9 22.7 42.9
> Fishing 0.2 1.5 0.3
> Mining 4.0 4.0 0.4
> Building 5.5 5.2 2.0
> Manufacture 32.7 36.5 22.8
> Transport 4.1 3.6 1.4
> 'Dealing' (shops etc.) 6.5 5.6 3.6
> Public and professional 4.6 3.5 2.2
> Domestic service 13.3 10.5 10.4
>
> Totals 91.8 93.1 86.0
>
> Source _Mid-Victorian Britain 1851-75_ Geoffrey Best (Fontana Press
> 1988). I realise that these figures don't quite total to 100%, but I
> presume the missing workers are accounted for by the Army, nave and odds
> and ends like the Church.
Looks like 'domestic service' is hiding most of the food prep numbers.
Keep in mind that if you want Baradel to have proportions like that,
relatively advanced and widespread industry is not optional. (I think
I've got my sense of chronology off; those are the sorts of numbers
I'd expect for ~1870, rather than 1850, and clearly I need to read up
on the period again.)
Jo Walton
anga...@sympatico.ca "Graydon" writes:
> paint
> - paint would be either milk or oil based, so they've got a
> fishing surplus (and a way to refine cod liver oil!) or a
> dairy surplus
Tiny niggle - paint was often linseed oil based. Linseed is linen-seed,
the seeds of the flax plant, and can be a by-product of the linen cloth
making industry. It's also used for weatherproofing.
That was a brilliant list.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Interstichia; Poetry; RASFW FAQ; etc.
Ian A. York
Graydon <anga...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>But what you're doing _isn't_ that; you're postulating 50% of the
>population or more not involved in agriculture or food prep/storage in
>any way. I don't think you can find an example of that that doesn't
>have machine traction.
Here's a throwaway remark in Robert Massie's _Peter the Great_:
In the second half of the seventeenth century, Holland ... was at the
peak of its world power and prestige. ... In most European nations of
the day, the vast majority of the people were tied to the land, engaged
in the simple process of feeding themselves and creating a small surplus
to feed the towns and cities. In Holland, one Dutch peasant, by
producing larger crops per acre, by somehow extracting more milk and
butter from his cows and more meat from his pigs, was able to feed to of
his non-farming fellow citizens. Thus, in Holland more than half the
population was freed for other activities, and they bustled into
commerce, industry, and shipping.
Not sixteenth century, may be a special case, and no further reference for
this, but it hints that it's not completely impossible.
Ian
--
Ian York (iay...@panix.com) <http://www.panix.com/~iayork/>
"-but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a
very respectable Man." -Jane Austen, The History of England
Graydon
> In article <84nm1h$oq5$1...@localhost.localdomain>,
> Graydon <anga...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> >But what you're doing _isn't_ that; you're postulating 50% of the
> >population or more not involved in agriculture or food prep/storage in
> >any way. I don't think you can find an example of that that doesn't
> >have machine traction.
>
> Here's a throwaway remark in Robert Massie's _Peter the Great_:
>
> In the second half of the seventeenth century, Holland ... was at the
> peak of its world power and prestige. ... In most European nations of
> the day, the vast majority of the people were tied to the land, engaged
> in the simple process of feeding themselves and creating a small surplus
> to feed the towns and cities. In Holland, one Dutch peasant, by
> producing larger crops per acre, by somehow extracting more milk and
> butter from his cows and more meat from his pigs, was able to feed to of
> his non-farming fellow citizens. Thus, in Holland more than half the
> population was freed for other activities, and they bustled into
> commerce, industry, and shipping.
>
> Not sixteenth century, may be a special case, and no further reference for
> this, but it hints that it's not completely impossible.
Holland is a)flat, b)loaded with navigable water which was in heavy
use as transport, c)clement, and d)unusually fertile becuase it's
effectively a deltaic mud flat, plus e)had very strong private
property laws as applied to land for the time; they were also as a
nation very heavily engaged in trade and industry, so that the people
who would otherwise be farming had other occupation and there was
pressure for innovation in farming, since there was a labour shortage.
That last point should not be ignored; it's not impossible, no, but
you need a social mechanism to produce the labour shortage that will
try to take people who might otherwise be farming and give them
something else to do, or they will keep farming, and methods -- in an
already inherently conservative occupation -- won't tend to change.
Mary K. Kuhner
> Light rippled and shimmered above him. It was so cold, he couldn't
>feel his body; so cold, it made him want to gasp. He clamped his mouth
>shut and held his breath.
This seems out of order unless he's just been teleported under the
water: if he got here in any normal fashion he must already have
been holding his breath.
> How deep had he gone? How long had he been floating upwards through
>bitter cold water?
"How deep was he?" maybe?
> Something touched his face in the greyness, like the fleeting touch
>of groping fingers. He wanted to cry for help, but if he tried to
>breathe, he would drown.
This is the paragraph that got my attention. I wonder if you could
start here.
> Looking straight up into a deep blue sky daubed with white clouds,
>he breathed out and drank air again, then looked down as he bobbed in
>the water, to see ocean stretching away to a hard grey horizon. The sun
>was sinking towards the sea, casting a glittering path across the waves.
> He floated, coughing and gagging. He had swallowed a fair bit of
>water, despite his determination to keep his mouth closed. Despair
>poured through him after the momentary relief at being able to breathe.
I think I would feel more connected to the protagonist's physicality
with some use of other senses here, particularly touch and taste and
smell. His throat is burning, he tastes iodine and salt and seaweed,
he still feels the awful cold. Getting only vision is distancing, and
can create the impression that he felt better too quickly.
You might also have some waves slap him, and his eyes full of stinging
salt water.
I would keep reading, though with a few trepidations. I'd be a little
annoyed to find out he got out there in a normal fashion; currently
the clues suggest teleportation or some such pretty strongly, or
perhaps falling from a flying machine/beast.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Hedgehog
<URL:mailto:ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
> In article <ant01153...@julie.dollin.which.net>, Hedgehog
> <electric...@which.net> writes
> >Cripes. Great minds, and all that. Wetstone is afflicted in a like fashion ...
> >
> Elen's very keen on family planning. The poor women in the city, cut
> off from the rural contraceptive methods, are having more children
> faster than is good for them or (ultimately) the city.
Heavens. Contraception has been bugging me for *yonks*. How is it, I
ask myself, that the world-of-Wetstone women are so liberated, as in,
are not subject to random baby-making?
I still don't have a good solution, not even in the Sandlands.
--
Hedgehog
Karen Lofstrom
: Heavens. Contraception has been bugging me for *yonks*. How is it, I
: ask myself, that the world-of-Wetstone women are so liberated, as in,
: are not subject to random baby-making?
: I still don't have a good solution, not even in the Sandlands.
The sponge -- plus vinegar. Actually used during the Victorian period
and I have some vague memory that it was used in Roman times
too. Small fine textured sponge saturated with vinegar and snugged up
close to the cervix. The sponge holds the vinegar in place; the
vinegar kills the sperm.
I also have the impression that coitus interruptus was widely used as
a contraceptive method. Less reliable than the sponge, I would think.
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"If you ever come within a mile of our house, will you stay there all
night?" -- Sir Roche Boyle
Julian Flood
>
> Julian Flood scripsit:
> > The people who built the big beam engines were, in many ways, less
> capable
> > engineers than the Romans, and they had fewer resources.
>
> I think, if you examine these contentions in detail, you will discover
> that both of them are incorrect.
Well, the internal clearances of their fire pumps were better than those
being used in the eighteenth century -- I actually went to the Imperial
College library and browsed -- more than adequae for steam. Also, the people
who built the first steam engines were just that, individuals, not the
society as a whole -- a patrician Roman had immense resources compared with
the plumbers and blacksmiths of Cornwall. Cawsey Arch is a good thing to
look at if you want to think about relative abilities of the two societies,
routine for the Romans, a new achievement for the North of England.
> > <> I came up from New Rome this morning on the Imperial Train.
> You could do something with that.
You'll be pleased to know that Terry Pratchett said much the same.
--
Julian Flood
Life, the Universe and Climbing Plants at www.argonet.co.uk/users/julesf.
Mind the diddley skiffle folk.
Graydon
> , Graydon wrote:
> > Julian Flood scripsit:
> > > The people who built the big beam engines were, in many ways,
> > > less capable engineers than the Romans, and they had fewer
> > > resources.
> >
> > I think, if you examine these contentions in detail, you will
> > discover that both of them are incorrect.
>
> Well, the internal clearances of their fire pumps were better than
> those being used in the eighteenth century -- I actually went to the
> Imperial College library and browsed -- more than adequae for steam.
I seem to recall Watt getting away with 1/8" tolerances in the early
engines. (eek.)
Those were bronze pistons, no?
> Also, the people who built the first steam engines were just that,
> individuals, not the society as a whole -- a patrician Roman had
> immense resources compared with the plumbers and blacksmiths of
> Cornwall. Cawsey Arch is a good thing to look at if you want to
> think about relative abilities of the two societies, routine for the
> Romans, a new achievement for the North of England.
What the Romans did, they did really, really well, no question.
But the _range_ of things the Roman engineering did was really quite
narrow, and by the late 18th, the range of things Western Civ was
doing was a)significantly wider than the Roman and b)getting rapidly
wider.
> > > <> I came up from New Rome this morning on the Imperial Train.
>
> > You could do something with that.
>
> You'll be pleased to know that Terry Pratchett said much the same.
Well, so _have_ you?
Cathy Purchis-Jefferies
Helen Kenyon wrote:
<figures for how much a horse can move snipped>
> This makes canals the transport system of choice, all other things being
> equal. But they're not (for my story, anyway). In Baradel, the land
> tends to the mountainous, and while you can still engineer canals if you
> have the willpower and manpower, once completed, they have operating
> problems due to lack of water. Even with a Welsh type rainfall, high-
> level canals tend to have difficulty gathering enough water to operate
> all the locks. (This was always a problem IIRC on the Leeds-Liverpool
> canal.)
According to the Nicholson Ordnance Survey Guide to the Waterways:
"Water supply (for the Leeds & Liverpool) was, however, a problem and in
spite of the building of copious reservoirs, the canal had to be closed for
months on end during dry summers, driving carriers' custom away to the
railways."
Parts of that canal sound really interesting, but I'm not sure about all the
locks and industrial stretches.
--
"George" Cathy Purchis cat...@value.net
Helen Kenyon
writes
>
>Here's a throwaway remark in Robert Massie's _Peter the Great_:
>
> In the second half of the seventeenth century, Holland ... was at the
> peak of its world power and prestige. ... In most European nations of
> the day, the vast majority of the people were tied to the land, engaged
> in the simple process of feeding themselves and creating a small surplus
> to feed the towns and cities. In Holland, one Dutch peasant, by
> producing larger crops per acre, by somehow extracting more milk and
> butter from his cows and more meat from his pigs, was able to feed to of
> his non-farming fellow citizens. Thus, in Holland more than half the
> population was freed for other activities, and they bustled into
> commerce, industry, and shipping.
>
>Not sixteenth century, may be a special case, and no further reference for
>this, but it hints that it's not completely impossible.
>
Thanks for this. I think my city is within the bounds of possibility.
Good husbandry leading to high yields seems to be the answer.
Helen
Helen Kenyon
<mkku...@eskimo.com> writes
>
>I think I would feel more connected to the protagonist's physicality
>with some use of other senses here, particularly touch and taste and
>smell. His throat is burning, he tastes iodine and salt and seaweed,
>he still feels the awful cold. Getting only vision is distancing, and
>can create the impression that he felt better too quickly.
>
>You might also have some waves slap him, and his eyes full of stinging
>salt water.
>
>I would keep reading, though with a few trepidations. I'd be a little
>annoyed to find out he got out there in a normal fashion; currently
>the clues suggest teleportation or some such pretty strongly, or
>perhaps falling from a flying machine/beast.
>
>Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
It's a long time before he remembers how he got there, but it wasn't
through any normal means at all.
Thanks, useful comments.
This is actually my third serious go at this novel. The first, when I
was about 14 years old, started about 3 chapters before this point
(which is the transfer of the Guy From Our World to Baradel). The
second attempt, when I was about 21, started a scene or so before this
point. i.e. we saw the run up to the transfer and how he got into the
water. I think I've finally started at the right point this time.
Helen Kenyon
<cat...@value.net> writes
>According to the Nicholson Ordnance Survey Guide to the Waterways:
>"Water supply (for the Leeds & Liverpool) was, however, a problem and in
>spite of the building of copious reservoirs, the canal had to be closed for
>months on end during dry summers, driving carriers' custom away to the
>railways."
>
>Parts of that canal sound really interesting, but I'm not sure about all the
>locks and industrial stretches.
>
>--
>"George" Cathy Purchis cat...@value.net
Oh, those were some of the best bits. And the locks are quite awe
inspiring. Big enough for two wide barges side by side and very deep.
Being in the bottom with all the water boiling in through the sluices is
an experience never to be forgotten. I've sailed (navigated?) almost
the entire length, done in two separate holidays about 12 years apart.
When my daughter was a tiny baby (and hence couldn't crawl or toddle
over the side), Graham and I did the Yorkshire end, starting not far
below the Bingley Five Rise locks and finishing at the tunnel at the top
of the Pennines.
When our son was finally big enough to be able to swim reasonably well,
we did the Lancs end, which was much grimmer and more industrial, but
absolutely fascinating. We started in Wigan (yes it does have a pier)
and went up through Blackburn and Burnley. With a little time to spare,
on the return journey, we sailed on beyond Wigan in the Liverpool
direction and finished up in some strange industrial wasteland on the
way to Ormskirk. Definitely one of out best family holidays ever.
Manny Olds
> In article <19991230182843...@nso-fb.aol.com>, PWrede6492
> <pwred...@aol.com> writes
>>
>>Ok, we start with him walking along carrying a saddle. Saddle implies horse
>>transportation. Horse transportation implies pre-industrial setting. Not
>>*necessarily* generic-medieval, but nothing to counter the default
>>impression.
>>
> Yes, pre-industrial, or rather pre-industrial revolution. There is
> plenty of industry, but only on a small scale.
Perhaps a horse-drawn steetcar or some other hint that we are not in Olde
Medievalle Lande would be helpful. Just a whiff of industry, something
like that.
Darn you. Thinking about this has given me an earworm:
"Everything's up to date in Kansas City. They've gone about as fur as they
can go..."
--
Manny Olds <old...@clark.net> of Riverdale Park, Maryland, USA
"The folks who got hysterical about atom bombs in the fifties are
hysterical about other things now." -- Joy Beeson
hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu
:> his non-farming fellow citizens. Thus, in Holland more than half the
:> population was freed for other activities, and they bustled into
:> commerce, industry, and shipping.
:>
:>Not sixteenth century, may be a special case, and no further reference for
:>this, but it hints that it's not completely impossible.
:>
:>Ian
: Thanks for this. I think my city is within the bounds of possibility.
: Good husbandry leading to high yields seems to be the answer.
Besides which, if your city is on the parallel-equivalent of Anglesey,
it's even more plausible. (Didn't Giraldus Cambrensis note that Anglesey
could feed the entirety of Wales?)
--
*********************************************************
Heather Rose Jones hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu
**********************************************************
Jonathan W Hendry
>>> >
>>> Well, they have lots of little boys and girls with shovels working for
>>> tips. I'm sure a by-law about keeping roads clear or some kind of road
>>> tax would work wonders too.
The horses in Chicago which pull carriages all seem to wear a bag
under their tail, to catch anything. Seems to work relatively well.
Something like that would help a great deal, though you'd still
need somewhere to put it, or some method of removing it. The poor
might collect it to dry and use as fuel for the fire.
>>> Baradel doesn't have trains because a) the terrain doesn't lend itself
>>> and b) they don't feel the need. Bicycles *would* be terribly useful to
>>> speed deliveries in a crowded city. I can see that they would also be
>>> the latest thing amongst certain of the well-to-do.
Another way to speed deliveries would be an elevated walkway running
from roof to roof. Probably with lots of tolls to keep out the
riffraff. If it's only used by messengers, it could be quite
rudimentary and rickety. (Small, thin people might be in much
demand as messengers.)
Graydon
> The horses in Chicago which pull carriages all seem to wear a bag
> under their tail, to catch anything. Seems to work relatively well.
If and only if you can make the bag out of nylon or something else
which doesn't rot readily when it has manure dumped on it daily.
The idea existed, but was too expensive for regular use pre synthetic
fibers.
piranha
Terje Johansen <terje.j...@tandbergtv.no> wrote:
>
>4. What I call the Anne Rice syndrome; the man looks with female eyes. A
>woman sees the fancy dress and the plait; a man would see her curves and
>cheekline. A woman sees the beauty of the horses; a man would think of them
>as 'fast, powerful, controlled'.
good grief.
i want characters to view things differently from
each other (it helps me feel them as real), but i
most definitely don't want to be served more pap
that presumes all {wo}man act and think alike, in
easily distinguished ways. i've got such pap up
to my bushy eyebrows.
a man i know who has serious allergies thinks of
horses as "shit, get away from me". give me a
character like that in your fiction, and i'll be
a lot happier than if every damn male character
views horses as fast, powerful, and controlled.
a woman who works with horses for a living will
view them quite differently from a man who's never
had any contact with them. and guess what? one
woman who works with horses for a living is going
to view them differently from another.
gender stereotyping is b-o-r-i-n-g.
-piranha
------------------------------------------------------------------------
please help fight spam -- http://www.cauce.org/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
piranha
Helen Kenyon <ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
>
> Hitching his saddlebags further up on to his shoulder, he walked on
>under the ancient gateway into the city of Arloros. His footsteps
>echoed briefly under the stone arch,
the first images i get are all pointing me at medieval
times. i think this is mostly the problem; you are
trying to set this in a different time overall, but the
earliest images you present clue in differently.
you've got to get something victorian in there right
in the beginning, to shunt my mind into a different
direction. i don't have a problem imagining a city
that contains both "modern" and ancient things; i was
born and reared in europe after all. but realism is
not always the best way to get an idea across, as odd
as that may sound. if i stood in the city myself, i
would get a sort of holistic impression, a gestalt
of the city and the times all at once. since i am
not there myself, i've got to wait for you to create
the gestalt, and you can greatly influence how it is
formed.
>[Snip 550 words in which Huw looks for changes in his surroundings
>brought about by the war, hears the Town Hall clock strike 9 and decides
>to spend the last of his money on some food.]
hm. you might want to take those 550 words out perma-
nently. this opening is long enough for my taste be-
fore giving me anything particular to care about.
the town hall clock is, btw, a fine hint that we're
not in medieval times. a few more of those, before
bringing up any ancient walls and arches, and i'll
be set.
> He glanced to his right, looking for a gap in the traffic. An open
>carriage, pulled by a pair of matching chestnuts passed by at a steady
>trot. The red-painted wheels scattered the birds from the gutter. As
>the carriage passed him, he saw that the passengers were a man in his
>forties and a woman, probably ten or twelve years older than himself.
>Mid thirties? The man looked vaguely familiar, but it was the woman who
>met his gaze for a moment, a look of -- was that pity? -- on her face.
>Dammit, he wanted no one's pity.
i have had carriages drive past me at a steady trot,
and i don't know that i could have identified a look
of pity, nevermind all the other stuff huw here sees:
> She had obviously never had to go short. Her chestnut hair was
>thick and sleek, bound in a loose plait which fell down her back. He
>glanced from her pretty pink dress to the immaculate paint work on the
>carriage. Those horses hadn't come cheap either. Their hooves barely
>seemed to clip the ground; all air and fire, they trotted on, slender
>legs stretching, touching and lifting high to stretch again. Huw let
>his eyes follow the carriage as it rolled on down the street.
i've not read any of your work before, so ignore if i
am yakking about stuff i just don't know enough about.
i like characters to give me a clearer sense of who
the person is right off the bat. huw looks at a lot
of stuff here, and it feels, despite all the descrip-
tion, vague to me as to who huw is. how somebody
looks at a carriage, the horses, and the occupants
can tell me a lot. when you introduced huw, he was
carrying a saddle, and i wondered where his riding
beast was. now i know the riding beasts of the time
are horses, but huw here doesn't look in detail at
those horses (me, being a horse person, would look
in much greater detail at them), he has some airy-
fairy impression of these. so now i think huw isn't
a horse person. if that is not true, you've got to
show him noticing a lot more specific stuff about
the horses, in horseperson's terms.
does huw like women? does he have political issues
with rich people? is he a master wheelright? does
he have an eye for colour? for fashion? for horse-
flesh? nothing sticks out here for me to start
building an image of huw; he's a very generic guy,
except that he's carried a saddle over some distance,
and that was many paragraphs back. :-)
> Elen frowned. Siarl could be so... so self-absorbed. She let her
>gaze stray down his body, starting at the top with his crisp black
>curls, moving on to linger for a moment over the strong profile, then
>sweeping down the length of his body, taking in the white linen shirt --
>trimmed at neck and cuffs with fine lace -- his long, lean breeches-clad
>legs, finishing at his immaculately polished black boots.
*heh*. romance novel type descriptions. at least
you didn't have siarl look in the mirror. i don't
like this sort of thing, it makes me roll my eyes.
one of my favourite SF authors rarely does detailed
description of her characters at all, and i am fine
with that. it smacks of telling instead of showing
if i am giving a blow-by-blow rendering of every
bit from curl to ruffle.
if something about a person's appearance is important
(zie's blind, very strong, much smaller than average,
and these things matter to the story) i prefer to ex-
perience them indirectly, through clues rather than
through description by somebody staring at the per-
son.
i don't mind the switch of viewpoint, if it is going
to tell me something about elen, but first i want to
have something about huw to anchor him in my mind.
i actually like stories that alternate viewpoints to
give different accounts of the same moments, but if
you just did it to describe siarl, i would prefer you
let me see him through huw's eyes, at this time. or
wait with it, if it's not that important.
>Obviously, Elen *is* about to know as she's heading straight into an RTA
>with a heavy wagon and Huw is going to help. And then the rest of the
>book happens. But anyone got any thoughts? One critter did suggest that
>I should put the carriage crash on page one, but I really can't see how
>I can do it. Besides, would you care about a crash if you hadn't met
>the people concerned?
sure.
i care about a crash in meatspace where i am very un-
likely to know the people concerned (hopefully). yes,
sure i'd care. enough to read on about the people.
but it isn't required. i have no problem with you
starting the way you have. i mainly want to know more
personal detail about huw, and i want to figure it out
myself rather than be told.
Brian Pickrell
>
>
> > the weather is fine, they might
> >>travel 20 miles on foot. It's unlikely, though, because of the burden.
>
> See these legs? 25 miles, the first twenty three in eight hours(*), in the
> dark, in the rain, over well-metalled roads and clarty fields. 20 miles with
> a 30lb load would be easy even for me, with a pub stop half way and a
> reasonable bed at the end.
20 miles a day over good roads with a backpack is a doddle. Three miles
an hour is a reasonable pace over easy roads. Twenty miles is less than
seven hours of walking. But with something as heavy and awkward as a
saddle, I don't think I could do it at all. My shoulders couldn't take
it, or at best I'd spend as much time resting my arms as walking. Much
more likely, though, is that I'd have fixed up some sort of backpack or
harness out of anything at hand--the bridle, or even my shirt--and tied
it across my back. After five days of fiddling with it, I'd have a very
complicated, but fairly comfortable, rig.
Huw wouldn't think 100 miles in 5 days was good time. More likely, he'd
think it was very SLOW time, and wish he hadn't insisted on keeping the
stupid saddle.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Pickrell.................What does not kill me only makes
...............................me stranger.
...............................
Brian Pickrell
> But it's more than that, I think; it's also that at the beginning of a book,
> *everything* has a bit of extra weight, because the reader is *looking* for
> clues. City walls and castles are strongly associated with medieval Europe.
> Because of this, they've come to be used as ... I suppose you'd almost call it
> a standard generic clue. If a story mentions a castle or a city wall, early
> on, with no additional clues (like plastic stairs or gas lighting or trains),
> then the reader defaults to the medieval assumption. It's not fair, but it's
> how it works.
If Helen's referring to the old, medieval city gate, why doesn't she
just call it the old, medieval city gate?