Posted in writing, tagged first drafts, inspiration, King Arthur, maps, research, writing on August 31, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I missed posting yesterday. I just got busy. Oh, well, better late than never–or even later.
I’ve done a map for Merlin’s Gambit to help keep me on track as I write the story.
I’ve noted, as well as I can, the locations of the various tribes of southern Britain in the fifth century. And the places I think may be of importance tot he story.
Posted in Uncategorized on August 23, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I’ve done it again, haven’t I. Almost a month since my last post. All I can say is that I’ve been head down in research.
And it’s paid off. I now have a shape, a plan for at least the first part of my story that feels . . . if not actually historical, then historically possible. Well, except for the dragons, of course. But they’re kind of the inspiration for my version of the Arthur legend, so the dragons stay.
But I now have a more-or-less historical basis in which to set my story, which won’t resemble the usual tradition in several ways. It simply isn’t plausible for Arthur to be King of all Britain. There wasn’t any such thing until after England and Scotland were joined under one crown–well over a thousand years after Arthur could have existed. There wasn’t even a King of England until Alfred the Great (one of those Saxons whose ancestors Arthur would have been fighting against) at least 300 years after Arthur.
And it’s not really plausible that Arthur was somehow defending all of what would become England, either. So this story is going to have a much smaller geographical reach. But the research has given me a good idea of the general area in which a Vortigern and an Ambrosius might have been operating. And why they might have been enemies. And an idea of where to slot my Arthur into that context. So, we’ll see how this works out. I think I’m even going to figure out how to have Arthur born in Tintagel, though not, of course, in the way Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote it.
This doesn’t mean my research is finished. Far from it. Mostly it’s going to change direction. I need to get more background for the world building. What would these people wear? What kind of houses would they live in? What would they do when they weren’t fighting?
And, I’m probably going to have to do a similar research on the Saxons, but that can come later. For now, I’m ready to carry on with the story.
Meredith Mansfield, Author 