PLOTTING FICTION: Where to Next?

An Iron Age Celtic Village  (St. Fagans Heritage Park, Cardiff, Wales)

 

 

 

When I started writing Dragons in the Sky back in the early '80's, I had a pretty good idea of how the story began. It started with me hearing the voice of the girl, Olwen, telling me her story, as if I was channeling Olwen. She is a young Celtic girl, raised by the Druids to become  priestess and medicine woman. The first chapters of the story came easily as I wrote down Olwen's words, sometimes using Bardic verse instead of regular prose chapters. She lives in a village called Caer Gwyn, much like the one in the above photo, located below a hill fort at the site of what is now called Old Sarum, on the Salisbury Plain. I've made a number of trips there to research and conjure Olwen's spirit.

 

 

Something dreadful happens at the Midsummer when Olwen is soon to be sent to the Holy Isle for her initiation.  The ricon's (tribal chieftain) renegade son, Sholto, has arrived at Caer Gwyn with a woman, the wife of another chieftain and a young boy he has taken as hostage from a rival tribe.  At the Midsummer Ceremony at the Great Stones, the angry warriors of the opposing tribes attack Caer Gwyn.  In the chaos that ensues when the village is set on fire, Olwen runs to the woods to hide and witnesses Sholto killing his younger brother Ned. He takes her as a hostage and heads south to the Narrow Sea where they take a boat across the Channel to the lands of the Belgae tribes. Olwen tries to alert the ship's boy that she is being held captive, and he tries to help her escape, but Sholto kills him.

They head off toward the east on horseback, crossing the lands of various other Celtic tribes until they reach the Alps, the country inhabited by the Helvettis, and continue on their journey.

As they proceed they meet a young warrior/hunter who tells Sholto that a king to the south is recruiting warriors for his army. This interests Sholto so he heads south, keeping a close eye on Olwen as she is his 'luck piece' because nobody dares to harm a Druid.  I know what happens once they reach Illyria, but it was the in-between part of the journey that has puzzled me.  So I have taken time to write out a rough plot of the possible things that might happen along the way, including several more escape attempts by Olwen.

I've decided to put some of it into Bardic verse rather than describe things step-by-step. The story, as told by Olwen, is written in a poetic cadence. One thing I've decided is that, having been held a captive for so long (it would take them a couple of months to cover the territory), she likely developed what is known now as "the Stockholm syndrome" where a captive becomes somehow 'attached' to their captor.  I also can see her using magic and her skills with herbs and medicines, to help her survive the arduous and sometimes frightening journey. But it was Sholto that was causing me some concern. Although the story is in Olwen's voice, I still need to make it clear what his intention are, what is he hoping to achieve on this journey?  Hopefully I have that taken care of now with my ideas for the plot outline.  It has been quite a different writing journey for me after spending all that time writing Shadow of the Lion which was based on a historic plot.  Writing pure fiction is quite a lot trickier!

Celtic Warriors



WHAT'S WYNN BEEN DOING?

MOUNTAIN LAKE AND WILD FLOWERS

What's Wynn been doing? Wynn's been on a road trip. These are just a couple of the many photos I took. I'll post a few more soon on my other two blogs, especially the http://travelthroughhistory. blogspot.com Here's how this came about. I was offered a media trip, all expenses paid, to this mountain resort called Three Valley Gap. There's a ghost town there and a wonderful collection of antique cars and railway memorabilia. As I write travel stories mostly slanted to history, this was right up my alley. So of course I accepted.

Three Valley Gap is about a six hour drive from the Coast so I invited my friend Andrea along.
She drives a nice little jeep and I knew we'd have a super time together. They listed her as my official 'photographer' so the two of us were off on 'assignment'. It's a lovely drive to the mountains and the weather was absolutely perfect, glorious autumn weather, warm and sunny.
We enjoyed our leisurely drive there, arrived late afternoon.

THE LONG, WINDING ROAD

The chateau was far more than we'd expected. It's a huge complex right at the convergence of three mountain valleys, at the end of a lake. The size of it was rather daunting, especially as it was the end of the season so hardly anyone was staying there. Quite something to have the place to ourselves -- well, more or less!

Problem was, the restaurant there closes at 7 pm and there is no bar. We didn't think to stock up on wine for the weekend. But we enjoyed ourselves wandering around the place, and especially touring the ghost town which has a lot of historic buildings from various places around the area all put together like a frontier town, with lots of artifacts and interesting things to look at including this incredible antique car collection, and a collection of old rail cars that brought back some childhood memories.

We drove into the nearest town, Revelstoke, the next day but it was closed up tight because it was Sunday. You could have shot a cannon down the street! It's basically a railway town built in a very pretty mountain setting.

Before we left the chateau on Monday we treated ourselves to a six minute helicopter tour. If I can figure out how to put movie clips up on my blogs I'll add a clip of the tour. It was so quick that it hardly seemed it had happened before we were landing again, but it was fun.

On our way home we stopped at another historic railway site -- where the last spike was driven connection the rail lines from East to West. And then, because the weather was so gorgeous, we took back roads, meandering through the mountains and valley by the lakes and farms. We stopped at Salmon Arm and had coffee with my daughter, stopped at a farm to buy fresh produce, home made sausage and at another place where they make fresh cheese. Then we pulled into Vernon and had a little visit with my friend Rosie.

It was midnight before we arrived home again after our little adventure. Then I've had this very busy week starting with an early breakfast meet Tuesday with Argentina Tourism and then my classes.

I'll have to write a new blog about my classes, especially my new Life Writing group which is so exciting and inspiring! Besides this I've been catching up on writing and just finished my story about walking the barrios of Santiago Chile. Now it's time to get back to the novel so I will be posting a new Progress Report soon.

THE CHATEAU, THREE VALLEY GAP B.C.