Blog Tour - Blog Stop Six - Hah?

As you might have noticed 'Stop Six' is missing...

(Sad face)

But that's no reason to miss out on what I had to say so here it is... just for you

Build me a world and make me a people.

The Faelings Doom Series is set in the world of Abod le A’nor.  It’s a fantasy world, it isn’t a science fiction one.  No spaceship can take you from here to there.  Only ‘magic’ can.

When building this world, I took great inspiration from the cultural variety of our own and realised that all peoples are the sum total of all that has gone before.  We are shaped by our histories even though we really may not recognise it (and apparently learn nothing from them either – what’s that saying? History repeats itself!).  The things we do, say and think are all influenced by what has gone before.

Case in point – ‘Going off half cocked’ is a term still used in the English language.  Of course we all know what it means – acting before we should or without thinking, but in reality it is the influence of the use of a weapon that often went off half-cocked, literally.  The flintlock firearm was the source of further sayings that we use without thought to their origin.  ‘Lock, stock and barrel’ – meaning, including everything completely; and ‘flash in the pan’ – something that happens only once or is not repeatable.  While the sayings are still in use today, the gun that influenced them has been out of favour since the mid-19^th century.

The development of language/dialect is just the same.  With the movement, integration and merging of peoples and cultures, new and interesting variations of language occur.  English, for example, seems to me to be like a sponge, soaking up words from various other languages and making them its own.  This is an inevitable evolution.  This has never stopped and in this day and age of technology is now far more open and influenced by every part of the globe.

So how then do I make my world follow this same pattern of progression from ancient to ‘modern’?

The story of ‘Gift of the Blood God’ starts in Ancient times with a priestess, her husband and the secretive manipulations of a magical creature – a Fae – that has his own agenda.  What evolves from his schemes will change the face of their world irrevocably, the echoes of which resonate through their history until we find ourselves in the present where my two unsuspecting sisters are inextricably caught by the web of his machinations.  These sisters are from our world, taken by magic to a place that resembles nothing like our ‘advanced’ civilisation.  No cars, phones, laptops, no electricity… none of the normal luxuries of our modern existence that we take for granted.  They can’t even speak the same language as the natives.  Everything they learn, at least at first, they learn visually.

To the reader, however, I have been kinder than I have to them.  The book is written from many points of view and the reader is let into the secrets of this world well ahead of our two poor heroines.

A device I have used to help my readers understand the differences between Melory and Lorraine’s modern thinking and those of Abod le’s was to alter the way the text was written.  The book, coming from many POV’s strives to let the reader discern that difference with the alteration of the language.  If the scene is set in the Etherworld (the name the inhabitants of Abod le have given to basically any place outside their own world) then the language is colloquial, contemporary, and even a little coarse.  This goes for the occasions when the POV is either of the two sisters’.  If we are visiting a character from Abod le, however, the language is more formal, perhaps even a little ‘flowery’ to allow the flavour of their ‘otherness’ to shine through.  The text is also spattered with examples of their own language, and if the meaning is not immediate there is a glossary at the end with the translations.

EXCERPT

(Please be aware, this excerpt contains a few swear words)

“Leave him be, woman,” Simeon pulled her hurriedly aside with a warning glare.  She noted his use of the Mavishan tongue.  Did he think such speech would make her heed him the more?  She was not full-blood, Mavishan principles were nothing to her…  “The lad is young and unused to such wiles.”

Renee laughed and yanked her arm from his forbidding hold.  What did he know of anything?   Arrogant man!  But then were not they all, those pure-blood Mavishan, good for little but fucking, their seed potent and powerful.  Oh, they all tried to pretend they did not, preaching their morality, their abstinence, but she knew better… Simeon may have been a good few years her elder, at least a score and ten, but that did not make him wise, only rigid and, as pure descendant, full of hypocritical dogmatism.

“Think you that I do mean to hurt him?”  Renee sneered.  She had never heard that fucking hurt any man should he want it enough, and she was confident of her appeal.  The Tishan youth would want it; she had seen it in his eyes.  And Tishan had no such scruples; rampant coupling was an acceptable trait of that particular community; did they not even have abodes exclusive for such purpose?  The Houses of… well some ancient ancestor of the Tishan, a priest reputedly, who had turned from the preaching of abstinence to the law of Tota whatever that entailed.  He had begun the tradition, an answer to the failing magic of Tishan blood, their lives edging shorter and shorter…

And Simeon was well aware of this, he after all lived in their midst.  The lad was no virgin; he had cast a look of speculation down the contour of her tunic-clad body, her curves easily made out in the cling of her take on the Mavishan attire.  Tishan dress for woman was utter foolishness for such a life as hers but the simple shapes of Mavishan garments had not been satisfactory either; the blending of the two had definitely given all who saw her pause, and she smiled for the effect.  “You are foolish if you think such behaviour will be of harm.  I am clean and he…” she cast a speculative eye, a healer’s eye though she was no adept, but she saw easily more than skin, intuited gratefully the vibration of health and vigour, “does look so too.  Mayhap if you did throw off the binds of Mavishan regulation and deign to give such a try yourself would you not then forward me such impudent advice.”

Simeon’s blue eyes flared as his lips pressed in disapproval.  “And what that he will expect to negotiate a price?”

Shock spread Renee’s face at the implication.  The urge to slap the Souls-ease surged through her veins, though she managed to control it.  “I am no whore, as you do well know…”

The glacial eyes flashed with justification, “You know not as much as you think, Renee, Voden’s child.  If you do initiate such pastime then payment is his.  That is the way of Tota.”

Well now that was a startling piece of information.  She cast the youth a further speculation.  To pay for what she wanted, how did that thought take her?  It was not the way of Mavin’s people; they did share freely and without restraint, but she was tired of those she knew, all familiar; fearful; her gift anathema… only the brave, the very brave would let her touch them.  Oh for the anonymity of a stranger.  Renee had some coin if such were needed; and if not then a talent enough to turn his head…  Yes, she decided, as a greed for the promise of strong arms and thighs turned her lower regions to wobbly jelly.  It took her well enough.