Monday, January 3, 2011

Writing as a Process, Maritime Culture

I was recently at the local Goodwill, and while i was there, I found a book. The Traveler's Guide to Fantasyland. It is an alphabetical listing off every overused gimmick and cliche of the fantasy genre, from glowing swords, to mystical elves, to the official management terms for evil minions of the Dark Lord. As I read and laughed through this book, I compared each entry to what I have written so far in my own attempt at the great fantasy novel. For the most part, the comparisons were favorable in my favor. There were a few things that stung, and have prompted me to do so major revisions, now that the creative sap has started rising again. The dream sequences are going to be totally trashed as a series. I will keep one or two, but they will generally be just the kind of nightmares you might have after surviving a massacre, rather than the prophetic sort. I will need to investigate another medium of expressing what i was going to convey there.

A friend and coworker (That would be you, Carla) gave me a few books to read. These showcased life on a set of small islands in the English Channel, complete with mucking about in tiny boats moving from island to island. This dovetailed with the Fantasyland Guide to cliched maritime cultures (all fat, untrustworthy merchants, if not actively involved with the evil powers, then dominated by greed, sloth, and envy). It made me realize how little effort I have put into the standing maritime power of the novel. Lacking rival maritime nations, they are not going to have large military warships, and they arent going to all be overweight merchant aristrocrats.

So, I did some reading on Wikipedia, and a few other resources (a questionable use of vacation time, that) and after wandering off into the Hanseatic league, whaling, the SeaSheperds, and the Potomac history, i came back to my proverbial home. The culture in question, the Glennish, arrived in the area in a flotilla of small ships. They were escapees and refugees from a larger culture that has since collapsed, and vastly retreated, leaving the dark haired, raven loving Glennish behind. They have settled a large coastal area, as well as several hundred scattered small islands. Most of these islands are only a few square miles in size, many even less than that. A few are quite far out in the sea, but are not horribly important.

Industry is a question, since Fantasyland has no discernable economy, other than bales sitting on wharfs. The Glennish have two principle economic activities, fishing and trading. With so many islands and a warm sea, fishing is good. This is a seasonal thing, as the winter brings a different oceanic current, and the shoals of fish leave for warmer waters. This brings the large whales into the islands for wintering and calfing. Now these arent the kind of whales that need conservation, these are large toothed whales that are more than capable of sinking ships and devouring crews. Those who whale are heralded as brave and stupid, but thanked when they bing in a hold of whale meat, no matter how bad it tastes. A person can only eat so much salted cod!

The trade aspect comes from their large number of small and medium sized ships. They ply up and down rivers, buying low and selling high. This is usually food goods close to their islands, potatoes and cattle, and that sort of thing. But over longer distances, spices, wine, oils, and other goods are more dominant, along with long preserved salt cod and other long duration food goods. Salted cod is a rare delicacy when the ocean is weeks away on foot, but everyone is no longer impressed by the dry aged beef. What, steak again?

This has built their nascent empire. The ships are getting larger to go farther and carry larger loads, and local trade is taking a back seat to long distance trade. The dreams of empire are growing, who else has the power or skill to master the oceans, and they have profitted greatly from selling everything from slaves to ogre rum, and everything in between.

Like New England, or the Chesapeake, the ocean and sealife provide for the Glennish. Cooked fish is commonplace in the market, ships and netmakers are common as fleas in a doglot. The trade ships are large, enclosed with square rigging, and some carry a few marines to fight the uncommon pirate ship. Sometimes these ships, in lean times, make take a touch of piracy of their own.

Another aspect, during the previous war, I repeatedly go back to the devastation caused not just by the war, but by the famine, disease, and banditry that followed after the end of conflict. The Glennish won the war, but not without their own suffering, which is all to easy for even the writer to overlook (they are technically the bad guys). While they were not touched by disease and famine as much (they had long been exposed to many of these foreign people before and the sea doesnt need to be planted and harvested) they were deeply afflicted by piracy. Many evacuees had poor island refuges from the war. To keep up what they needed, they had to turn to raiding each other, and the merchant ships bringing goods and supplies to the beleaguered city. This caused quite a few skirmishes on the water, and telling pirate from fisherman was often just a matter of opportunity.

Now, the Glennish are resurgent. Their fleets are active again, and a generation has passed since the war. The place feels vibrant and strong even with the lingering ghosts of death and war. Trade is up, and the ships can carry soldiers to foreign shores, and each battle claims a new city for the Glennish, a new port for their ships, a new stronghold for their dream of empire. It will not be long before their muscle is flexed, and their eyes turn from the disinterested islands and coast, but to the rich interior of the continent. All of the great empires of the past have been terrestrial, and soon the men of the sea will follow that lead.