Chapter, As Per BLP's Request...

[TodHackett]

This is an early chapter from the novel I am working on, The Legend of Skara Brae.

Some notes:

1. I'm sorry it's in all caps. In MS Word, I have it in "Small Caps", and there's a reason for this. Each of the five sections of my book has an interchapter-- I try (try) to model them on Steinbeck. This is one of those interchapters. I take a lot of liberties with different fonts in my book, so the small caps is sort of a way to set the interchapters off.

2. This chapter is an attempt to lay out the setting and play with various symbols. If you have any ideas or suggestions, or if something isn't clear, could be phrased better, doesn't make sense, etc.-- PLEASE tell me! I promise I'll be respectful.

3. I will provide more background to anyone who wants it. I will provide more chapters, too, if anyone's interested.

4. G#.

CHAPTER III:
“The Palouse”

"...Flee the minion. Be naked. Travel light. Because there will come catastrophe. Every night expect the flood, the earthquake, the fire, and think of the stock. Be in a position to lose nothing by it when the bombs fall..."
-Stanley Elkin, A Bad Man

SIX FIGURES RIDE ACROSS FORGOTTEN FIELDS. THEY ARE REFUGEES FROM TIMES AND PLACES IMMEMORIAL. THIS MASS OF WRETCHED REFUSE—THESE USED, BROKEN PEOPLE ARE COMING FOR... FOR WHAT? FOR WHAT THEY WILL, THEY RIDE SWIFTLY OVER HILL AFTER ROLLING HILL, THEIR HORSES BEAT A PATH THROUGH A VAST AND SHAPELESS PLAIN OF WHEAT.
THIS PLACE IS AN AEON CAPTURED IN A MOMENT; THE PRESENCE OF THIS PLACE, THE SUM OF TEN MILLION YEARS OF SLOW, STEADY PROGRESS. BUT EVEN THAT IS ACCIDENTAL—A TIRING, TORTURED CONCENTRATION OF CIRCUMSTANCE; OF CRUSHING ICE AND RUSHING WATER. THIS ARDENT, ACCIDENTAL STRUGGLE TOWARD DESTINY, LIKE A STUMBLING DRUNK LEAVING DEFT, DELIBERATE FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND.
HERE STAND ROCKS REDUCED TO RUBBLE; RUBBLE DASHED TO DUST. AND HERE, AMID THE TEMPEST-TOSSED GRASSES, THE DUST IS PLAIN TO US, BUT THE WIND IS CONCEALED. IT IS ONLY IN MY MIND’S EYE THAT I SEE THE TRUE NATURE OF THIS PLACE: THIS GROUND OF SAND WAS ONCE A MOUNTAIN. THESE HILLS ARE THE RIPPLES ON A RIVERBED, THESE GRASSES THE ITENERANT SETTLERS IN A HARSH AND BARREN SARGASSO. HERE, A LAKE BREACHED ITS DAM A THOUSAND TIMES; HERE TORRENTS HAVE POURED OUT OVER THE THRISTY LAND TIME AND TIME AGAIN, CARVING IT LIKE A CARCASS.
AND THESE PEOPLE? THIS MASS OF MISPLACED MIGRANTS? WHAT PLAN PLOTS THEIR PROGRESS? BUT HERE, TOO, THERE IS NO DELIBRATION. THEY ARE THE FLOTSAM OF BROKEN SHORES; DRIFTWOOD UPON A VAST, UNEASY SEA. THEY HAVE COME FROM BROKEN FAMILIES, BROKEN HOMES AND CULTURES, BROKEN TIMES AND BROKEN PLACES. THEY TAKE FLIGHT TOWARD FANTASTIC FUTURES. THEY FLEE THE LAW; FLEE THE FORTUNATE, THE DESPERATE AND SLAIN; FLEE THE RESTRAINTS OF REFINED FREEDOM. AND HERE THEY HAVE ASSEMBLED, ON THE APPROACH TO THIS BROKEN CITY, WHERE THEY HAVE FOUND THEMSELVES AND BUILT THEIR OWN LIVES OUT OF SCRAPWOOD AND MUD.
THEY SEEK ADVENTURE, THESE OUTCASTS, OR GOLD, OR SPOILS, OR TALES OF SAME. THEY FLEE THEIR PAST IN ORDER TO UNLOCK THE SECRETS OF THEIR OWN HISTORY; THEY HAVE TRAVELED FAR.
AND NOW, THEY COME RIDING, RUSHING, TOWARD THE BROKEN WALLS OF SKARA BRAE. WITH EACH HOOFBEAT, GAINING FORCE; WITH EACH SWIRLING GUST OF WIND THEIR HURRICANE SOULS GATHER DETERMINATION, STRENGTH OF WILL. THEY GATHER WHAT THEY CAN AND LEAVE A TRAIL OF WASTE AND DEBRIS BUT THEY ARE HERE, THEY ARE ALIVE, THEY WILL KEEP MOVING.
THEY HAVE BEEN USED, BROKEN, SCATTERED—THEY ARE NO COMMON ENEMY. THIS HORDE, THIS WRITHING, SCREAMING TORNADO WHIRLING ABOUT ITS EMPTY CORE. IT COMES, WHISPERING THROUGH DOORWAYS, SHATTERING THROUGH LOCKS.

Thank you for your time. I must go now, but I will be back shortly.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Please promise you won't do a "The Dave" on me. :eek2:

First off; I love your prose. It's really evocative. It reminds me some of Michael Moorcock's fantasy books. I have a few minor suggestions and a question, if you don't mind.

The question first:

What kind of story is this?

Skara Brae was a real neolithic settlement in the Orkney isles of Scotland, uncovered after a huge storm in the 1800s. It is over 5,000 years old; possibly as old as 5,500. I had the pleasure of visiting it a couple of years ago and it is very impressive (as are the Orkneys in general).

Is the book based on the real SB? Is it historical? Fantasy? Something else?

Now the suggestions (here it comes - he's going to go postal on me now!): :eek:

1. Wouldn't "time and place immemorial" work better? - it's the more usual usage.
2. And in the same paragraph, a full stop after "what they will"?
3. If this is set in the real Skara Brae, I'm not sure that there would be vast plains of wheat (although my knowledge of neolithic botany is meagre, I am fairly certain that the people that lived there were hunter-gatherers, not farmers), besides, the Orkneys aren't that vast. Also, "forgotten" wheat fields would quickly become overgrown. A third point here, wheat is not usually planted on hills as it requires ploughed land.

These are all minor points; but they all occur in the opening paragraph, and so become quite noticable. The rest of the piece is virtually error-free, just a couple of other things stood out when I read it.

4. Hills tend to be a little large to be ripples - that must have been some river! Apart from that, I really like the description in this section. Perhaps you could say that the hills were once islands in the river's stream?
5. Last point I promise! Skara Brae (and again, I am assuming that you refer to the real place) had no walls (apart from those of the dwelling places, which were half-buried in the midden in which the place was constructed). It was a small and isolated settlement. See wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae). Of course, most people won't have been there and won't be aware of that. You were just unlucky enough to find a pedant that had! ;)

I really can't wait to read more of this Tod. You have real talent. Thanks for sharing it and sorry for being so picky.

XC

[blp]

Thanks for posting, Tod. I'm probably totally the wrong person to comment on this since, it turns out, it's not the sort of thing I'd usually read, but, still, might manage few points - with the hands on sub-editing approach I favour:




SIX FIGURES RIDE ACROSS FORGOTTEN FIELDS. THEY ARE REFUGEES FROM TIMES AND PLACES IMMEMORIAL [unlike X, I'd just lose this phrase. It's a cliché]. THIS MASS OF WRETCHED REFUSE—THESE USED, BROKEN PEOPLE ARE COMING FOR... FOR WHAT? FOR WHAT THEY WILL, [new sentence] THEY RIDE SWIFTLY OVER HILL AFTER ROLLING HILL [rolling hill - cliché. new sentence] THEIR HORSES BEAT A PATH THROUGH A VAST AND SHAPELESS PLAIN OF WHEAT.
THIS PLACE IS AN AEON CAPTURED IN A MOMENT; THE PRESENCE OF THIS PLACE, THE SUM OF TEN MILLION YEARS OF SLOW, STEADY PROGRESS [more off punctuation, plus repetition of the word 'place' means I'd rewrite as follows: This place is an aeon captured in a moment; the sum of ten million years of....and then I think it needs thought, because the only part of 'slow, steady progress' that seems true is 'slow' - and that seems redundant.] BUT EVEN THAT IS ACCIDENTAL—A TIRING, TORTURED CONCENTRATION OF CIRCUMSTANCE; OF CRUSHING ICE AND RUSHING WATER. THIS ARDENT, ACCIDENTAL [too soon to repeat 'accidental'] STRUGGLE TOWARD DESTINY, LIKE A STUMBLING DRUNK LEAVING DEFT [do you mean, leaving deft, deliberate footsteps despite being a stumbling drunk? it's not clear. My first reaction was 'what would be deft about a stumbling drunk?], DELIBERATE FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND.
HERE STAND ROCKS REDUCED TO RUBBLE; [comma] RUBBLE DASHED TO DUST. AND HERE, AMID THE TEMPEST-TOSSED [sounds accidentally lifted from Poe's 'Raven' and not quite accurate, unless the grass has been cut. More 'tempest ruffled' or similar. and no need for the hyphen, which means it's wrong] GRASSES, THE DUST IS PLAIN TO US, BUT THE WIND IS CONCEALED. IT IS ONLY IN MY MIND’S EYE THAT I SEE THE TRUE NATURE OF THIS PLACE: THIS GROUND OF SAND WAS ONCE A MOUNTAIN. [now you need a semi-colon] THESE HILLS ARE THE RIPPLES ON A RIVERBED,[and another] THESE GRASSES THE ITENERANT[itinerant] SETTLERS IN A HARSH AND BARREN SARGASSO. HERE,[delete comma] A LAKE BREACHED ITS DAM A THOUSAND TIMES; HERE TORRENTS HAVE POURED OUT OVER THE THRISTY[!!] LAND TIME AND TIME AGAIN, CARVING IT LIKE A CARCASS.
AND THESE PEOPLE? THIS MASS OF MISPLACED MIGRANTS? WHAT PLAN PLOTS THEIR PROGRESS? BUT HERE, TOO, THERE IS NO DELIBRATION [this sentence doesn't quite follow. you say 'but', yet you're not contradicting anything directly]. THEY ARE THE FLOTSAM OF BROKEN SHORES; DRIFTWOOD UPON A VAST, UNEASY SEA. THEY HAVE COME FROM BROKEN [repetition works, except the first 'broken' two lines before since it's not part of the list] FAMILIES, BROKEN HOMES AND CULTURES, BROKEN TIMES AND BROKEN PLACES. [Hmm...and the rest seems to be fine]


Best of luck with the competition!

[TodHackett]

XC--

Dude, no worries.

On to the point-by-point.

This is not the "real" Skara Brae. Actually, my setting and plot are stolen-- straight up stolen-- from a video game. Two of them, actually, but both from the same series. They are "Tales of the Unknown" and "Thief of Fate", both from the 1980s RPG series, "The Bard's Tale". For more, see these sites:

http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/pc/bardstale1/walkthrough.shtml (a walkthrough of "Tales of the Unknown"... this is, essentially, a play-by-play of the central 70 pages of my novel).

http://www.geocities.com/thebardstale/thiefoffate-story.html (a summary of the setting behind "Thief of Fate". Take a look at the map of the Wilderness. This is where I draw the description of the surrounding countryside, including the Vale of Skara Brae (in "Thief", it's called the "Vale of Lost Warriors"), the Mountains ("Cold Peak"), the Copse ("Twilight Copse") and Stony Brook (my modification of "Crystal Spring")).

http://www.geocities.com/thebardstale/ (not much of the story, but the music and artwork are pure C64... gritty, tinny, dinosaur PCing at its best!).

But the setting is also drawn from a real place-- the Spokane and Yakima Valleys in Eastern Washington State, USA, where I grew up. The section I showed you is called "The Palouse". The Palouse is a real place, with a unique and amazing geologic history. Take a look here, paying close attention to the chapters entitled "Palouse Hills" and "The Missoula Flood":

http://www.pwcn.org/geonotes/geonote09.html

And driving I-90, which I have done more times than I can count, all you see once you get east of the Cascade Range are hills and wheat, just as I described them. It's truly awesome, but then the Pacific Northwest has long been known for this sort of beauty.

My intention in this chapter is to merge fiction with fact-- I do this to set up the book as allegory; as fiction that refers to fact. In the whole work, though, the Palouse is the only "real" place that is mentioned.

So, the book is fantasy based on a "real" fantasy RPG, but meant as political allegory. We'll get to that later. But in some respects, the surveillance/manipulation/contrivance/mediation themes that run through the work are self-conscious allusions to the work's primary source material.

1. & 2.-- These phrases are trite and I've never liked them. Gotta think of something better. Suggestions welcome.

3. & 5.-- It's from an RPG. See above.

4.-- See the "Palouse Hills" section in the Website I alluded to earlier.

Finally-- there was this wheat-field across the street from the house in Spokane where I grew up. It was small-- maybe a dozen acres-- and when I walked home from Mead Jr. High and Mead High School, I used to pass it. In autumn, when the stalks were tall and the wind came up, it looked like the ocean at Santa Cruz. It was one of the most beautiful sights I'd ever seen-- like God showing me a painting-- and I'll remember it 'till the day I die.

Thanks for your comments... and I'd REALLY love to see the "real" Skara Brae sometime. Whenever I can get back to Europe...

[TodHackett]

BLP--

Thanks so much! I'll examine your comments more closely when I have time. It's midnight here and I have to work early tomorrow. But be in touch!

[TodHackett]

So we're on the same page...

+++++

The Legend of Skara Brae: Summary

Compositional Structure: The book is written in five sections, using a framing device that suggests circularity in the narrative. The book starts at the end of one summer (section I; ca. 40 pages in length), cycles through fall, winter and spring (sections II, III, and IV respectively, each about 80 pages in length), and returns to the beginning of summer (section V, ca. 40 pages). Within these sections, there will likely be a sub-structure, most likely made up of short, 2-3 page vignettes.

Narrative structure: Both summer sections are in first person, from the perspective of the character of Mitchell, a wandering bard and collector of stories. The internal sections are in third person, voiced by a narrator who is possibly inside the book (the Old Man in the Keep amid the ruins of Skara Brae) and possibly outside of it.

Setting: The city of Skara Brae, both before and after its destruction. Skara Brae and the countryside that surrounds it is the fictional setting for The Bard’s Tale, a series of early computer-based RPGs that were released in the 1980s. The setting of Legend, and much of the plot, are borrowed from these games. As for the city itself, I model it on provincial European towns (I think of Heidelberg, Nuremberg and Avingon), ca. 1480 or so... just after the printing press.

Plot summary:
Hermann, a wandering bard, comes to visit the town of Skara Brae. While he is there, there is a catastrophic fire in the town’s central tower; many of Skara’s citizens perish or go missing. The city council declares martial law as winter comes and a fierce blizzard maroons the town. Skara is plunged into a frigid famine while the militia takes over the businesses and the town council deliberates, led by a hedonistic, childish old fool named Ownekopf. Hermann decides that he must figure out how to save the town from whatever is happening. In order to do so, Hermann assembles a small group of friends and allies to explore the city and unravel the plot that has brought Skara to its knees. He explores many of the hidden parts of the town—the Wine Cellars of the Scarlet Bard Tavern and the sewers beneath; the bizarre and evil Temple of the Mad God; the fortress of the Baron Harkyn, the mysterious noble who controls the local wineries. Finally, Hermann finds himself inside the Tower itself, the mysterious and foreboding scene of the original crime against Skara.
In the process, Hermann learns about the Skara’s history, and the ever-increasing corruption of those who claim to protect it. Armed with a new perspective on local politics, Hermann becomes disgusted with the town council and the way they have mishandled the crisis. Realizing that he is powerless to do anything about Skara’s leadership or to change a system that is rotten from the inside, Hermann struggles to act as a good person caught up in a hopelessly evil situation. As the book reaches its climax in the Spring section (the fourth section in the book), Hermann is manipulated into acting as a poster-boy for an unjust war and commits a pointless murder for which he is lynched. He escapes from the mob by barricading himself in the wine cellar from earlier in the book. As he does so, the town is leveled in an apocalyptic battle of some sort. Hermann—the sole survivor of the apocalypse—escapes through the toxic soup of the city sewers. He returns to what's left of Skara to begin a new, monastic life and chronicle the events leading to the town’s downfall. For years, he waits for someone to come and hear his story; this story is finally retold to Mitchell, one of a small band of adventurers who come to investigate the ruins.

[TodHackett]

Forget it. I'm too juiced up now to sleep.


Thanks for posting, Tod. I'm probably totally the wrong person to comment on this since, it turns out, it's not the sort of thing I'd usually read...

It's that bad, huh? (SIGH!)

Well, alright. Maybe it's utter crap. But I'm still gonna give the contest a shot...

I think I addressed most of your comments on the first paragraph of my chapter in the response to XC. Let me say it again-- I have never liked this paragraph. It is the red-headed stepchild of this chapter, and it's brought me nothing but trouble!

Shoot, you're right about "accidental". Missed that in proofing. Same (maybe) with "broken", later on...

What's up with all the oxymorons? "Ardent, accidental"? "Deft, deliberate"?

I tried to make this section all about collision. It's describing geology, and political turmoil, the plight of refugees, and revolt, and brokenness and destruction. These oxymorons are meant to collide; to make noise; to jar the reader.

More than that, the "drunken, deft, deliberate" thing is my attempt to draw contrast between differing points of view. With many drunks (the "I drive better when I'm drunk" types, or the ones who try desperately to act sober as they get drunk), their drunken actions do become more deliberate-- to a point where they're almost a mock-up of themselves. They think they're bein' all smooth an' ****, but to sober people, they look like idiots. So there you have it-- it's all about POV.

BTW, Drink and drunkenness is a recurring theme in _Legend_ (not that you'd know that, having only this chapter). The "sand" is a geology ref., as I explained to XC.

"Tempest-tossed"-- it's from the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty (I sang it in school. It's one of those propagandist rituals we do here in America...). Here's the poem (can't remember who wrote it, but you can Google it if you'd like):

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to be free;
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore--
Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door."

(That's the thing about America-- the dream is SO beautiful, but the reality is often SO ugly...)

The reason I picked that phrase and referenced this poem should be obvious.

At the same time, this section is largely about sound-- about making music out of phrases whose images are jarring and whose meanings are often contradictory. Hence, all the alliteration. This is b/c the section falls amid other sections that are narrated by a wandering bard; a kid who hears music and sees beauty even in ugly, dissonant things. (Once again-- you wouldn't know this. My fault.)

What's up with the commas and semi-colons?

What's up is I don't know how to use them properly. I have never been sure where to use which. Once again, it's all about sound and rhythm to me. So a semi-colon is just a comma with a longer pause. If I thought I needed a long, non-broken (i.e. non-period) pause, I used a semi-colon. If I thought I needed a short pause, I used a comma.

So, BLP-- is there a standard for this sort of punctuation, and if so, where do I find it? (Not saying I'll use it, necessarily. In some places a comma just sounds too short to me, and I can't deal with that. I may get hammered for misusing convention, but it's my choice.)

(And yes, that's me pulling a "TheDave".)

There are a couple of your edits I didn't address... but I'll take a good, hard look at them before I submit this thing. And, please, if you could, reconsider your "not the sort of thing I usually read" position. Even where I might have chosen not to incorporate them, I liked your comments. They were insightful and on point. And even if you don't edit any more of the piece, I'd be honored if you read it!

OK, enough grovelling.


...might manage few points - with the hands on sub-editing approach I favour.

****in' Brits!

Look-- you don't need the "u", so why put it in? Y'know, it's precisely these sorts of inefficiencies that lost you your Empire!

K. Rant over. Thanks, again, for your comments.

[blp]

Ha. I'm half American. And I don't give a **** about the British Empire.

No, it's not 'that bad', just very very much not my sort of thing. It is a sort of fantasy novel isn't it? Or if not, it's making something mythic of the past. My tendency is to constantly play everything down.

I recommend Strunk and White's classic writing/grammar manual The Elements of Style periodically on this site and might as well again re your grammar inquiry. Whether it will help you specifically with this comma/semi-colon issue I can't remember. As I understand it, it's vague territory, but neither mark is really about creating a pause. If you really want to just do that, use an ellipse (...). Commas do real work in laying out the sense of a sentence: The world I have discovered is green and plentiful vs. The world, I have discovered, is green and plentiful. See the difference? Semi-colons, as far as I know, are generally used when you need to separate large chunks of information (especially if they require commas internally) that are not sentences, e.g. If I am elected, I promise to hold a referendum on Europe even if no one wants one; build dedicated cycle lanes on all, and I do mean all, London Streets, no matter how big or how small; wear my trousers inside out regardless of the fact that it will make most of you think I'm crazy. But any good grammar book should be able to sort this out for you better than I can.

Poe uses that phrase in The Raven, as follows: 'Whether tempter sent or tempest tossed thee here ashore.' Funny. Anyhow, I still don't think it works that well for grass.

Don't be discouraged. Aside from my little nits, this is largely just a matter of taste. You should definitely enter the contest.

[TodHackett]

Strunk & White would be the first place I would go too. So I went there-- I hold before me _The Elements of Style_, 3rd Edition, ISBN 0-205-19158-4.

S&W have plenty to say about commas, but devote only two passages to semicolons. The first is on pages 5-6:

"If two or more clauses grammatically complete and not joined by a conjunction are to form a single compound sentence, the proper mark of punctuation is a semicolon."

So, BLP, now I review your critical marks. And doing so, I see that you were right on just about everything. Kudos!

The second passage is on page 26, BTW, and deals with the stylistic flaw of composing paragraphs made up entirely of "loose" sentences. More specifically, the rule is meant to curtail paragraphs made up entirely of "...[sentences] consisting of two clauses, the second introduced by a conjunction or relative". S&W suggest using semicolons as one way of "recast[ing] enough of them to break the monotony...".

I will take a good hard look at my work in light of all this. Thanks, BLP, for teaching me something new!

[TodHackett]

If I am elected, I promise to hold a referendum on Europe even if no one wants one; build dedicated cycle lanes on all, and I do mean all, London Streets, no matter how big or how small; wear my trousers inside out regardless of the fact that it will make most of you think I'm crazy. But any good grammar book should be able to sort this out for you better than I can.

Funny, BLP-- I think you're actually misusing semicolons here. The reason I think this is that the clauses that begin with "build dedicated cycle lanes..." and "wear my trousers inside out..." would not stand as complete sentences. As I understand S&W, that's the test-- you can use a semicolon instead of a period (in order to make your prose less choppy) if (and only if) each clause could stand as a complete sentence, were you to have a period in place of the semicolon.

Gawd, that's awkward. Well, I have more important editing to do, so it will have to stand...

[blp]

There you go: 'better than I can'! Not easy things these semi-colons. I tend to avoid them. Note that Strunk doesn't say this is the only way they can be used, but, yeah, looking back at my example, I'm dubious about it.

I somehow missed a lot of your response earlier to Xamonas, so hadn't read about how you were using the computer game as a basis for the whole thing and also how you were bringing in an area of America. Still not quite sure why you're doing this, but I find it very interesting that you are.

On the subject of wheatfields and tempest tossed grass, have you seen Werner Herzog's film The Legend of Kaspar Hauser? Aside from being an amazing film, it's got a great great shot of a field of long grass or wheat blowing in the wind near the beginning.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I remember the computer game. It was in a bagful that my brother gave me when he sold his Amiga (and I still had one). I could never get it to load.

My comments about the historical innacuracies of your vision of Skara Brae are henceforth redirected at the writers of said game. Although, it is likely to cause confusion in those that know of the real place; as it did in my case.

I suppose it comes down to your own preference. How fond of the name are you? Is it worth the inevitable comparisons? Does it require a disclaimer at the start of the book perhaps? Just thoughts.

[TodHackett]

XC--

I hope, by the time the book is done, to have an "author's intro" that sort of explains all this. It will be drawn from my personal experiences in the weeks following 9/11/2001-- I was living in a tiny room, in a basement in Seattle, and working nights at a hotel. The hotel was busy with cancellations and so forth, and so they were losing money by the sackful, and started cutting employee hours. So, I spent a lot of my time in that basement room, listening to the news on the radio and playing BT as a sort of escape and catharsis.

It's a fantasy game-- complete schlock of course, and a fantasy way of dealing with a problem that is at once close to home and 2,000 miles away. And, it was a sort of return to my youth... I wasted a LOT of hours on BT, delving dungeons, exploring cities and so on... it was sort of a comfort, a kind of reversion to former years of innocence.

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond, and be in touch.

[TodHackett]

I somehow missed a lot of your response earlier to Xamonas, so hadn't read about how you were using the computer game as a basis for the whole thing and also how you were bringing in an area of America. Still not quite sure why you're doing this, but I find it very interesting that you are.

On the subject of wheatfields and tempest tossed grass, have you seen Werner Herzog's film The Legend of Kaspar Hauser? Aside from being an amazing film, it's got a great great shot of a field of long grass or wheat blowing in the wind near the beginning.

Haven't seen the film, BLP, but I'll check it out!

As for using the game as a basis, read my explanation to XC (immediately above this post). That should give you a rough idea. As for "how bringing in an area of America"...

This area-- the Palouse-- is the closest thing I have to a home. I, like the main character in my book, travel from place to place. Why, in the span of last ten years, I have lived in no fewer than six cities, and spent months travelling away from home besides. So bringing in this real place-- and bringing it in only here-- is (like the novel itself) a sort of homage to beautiful memories of my youth and childhood.

Mooring _Legend_ in this area of America is also a way to introduce the theme of America as "melting pot" and "refuge"-- beautiful dreams that, once again, are somtimes quite ugly in their reality. The Pacific Northwest was one of the last places to be "settled" by displaced peoples looking to build the community of their dreams, and sometimes (as in the cases of the Whitman Massacre and Chief Joseph's flight from the US Cavalry), it was quite bloody.

Hope this helps, BLP. And thanks again, to both of you, for the careful attention and consideration you have given to my work. I think of writing as an effort to step outside oneself-- to read something you [I]remember writing, but to read it for the first time. Of course, that's not quite possible, so a writer desperately needs "real" people on the outside looking in.

I really appreciate it!