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Boarders Writing A Novel: Volume 14 A Memory of Civility


SpaceChampion

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Scenarios that suggest unity:

  • There is some external threat that has forced the three realms to unify.
  • It's the lingering result of some old Empire-builder, a la Charlemagne.
  • Few different waves of migration.
  • Common language (especially written language).
  • Few natural boundaries between the realms.

Scenarios that suggest independence:

  • No external threat.
  • No history of Empire.
  • Multiple different waves of migration and settlement.
  • Language differences, no written language.
  • Natural boundaries (forests, rivers, et cetera).

From what you've said, with early medieval tech, and a boxed in territory, I think having independent kingdoms is more likely - there's no need to unify, even if they have the social infrastructure to do so (which they likely don't).

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There could be a technological change that changes the political situation.  Didn't the invention of the stirrup result in the Mongols conquering nearly everything they could get to bordering the steppes?  Yeah, here it is.  And the stirrup allowed mounted knights to be possible and thus feudalism was born.  This makes going from small kingdom to a unified kingdom possible.

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6 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

I think it'd be a bigger impact to create something that never existed there before.  Going from united to disunited to united again is less impressive.


I wouldn't say it's less impressive. It's a very different narrative imperative though. A re-unification would most likely drag up all sorts of old laundry, old rivalries, reflection on why it fell apart in the first place, whether doing it again is a good idea and how it should be different from last time- but also nostalgia for the old etc...
A fresh unification would potentially be (narratively) more forward-looking.

I'd suggest that if the actual unification isn't meant to take over the entire plot a new unification might be easier to manage, because you're just dealing with the change from the previous status quo to the new status quo without a yet older status quo trying to stick its fingers into everything. But if that kind of thing's your bag...

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Wonder if my novella of a woman from an African type setting being sent to marry someone from place not modelled on a European setting, but could easily be construed as one, to avoid a war might count.

On the basis of which. How foreshadowed do things need to be?

Ending of novella ends with revolution breaking out in the city against the King, which happens because another group sought to remove the control the King and Church had over an ancient order. It's only hinted at through a single conversation between two characters at the start. The POV character is then out of the country escorting the girl back to the city. When they get back there is a Fencing Contest that ends with the start of the rebellion. Things are left in confusion as to what is happening as I focus more on what happens to the woman and the man who brought her to the city.

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That's awesome, THE FANTASY BOOK CRITIC reviewed both my latest books.

http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2016/10/mini-reviews-cthulhu-armageddon.html?m=0

The audiobook of CTHULHU ARMAGEDDON came out today. Good timing everyone. Post-apocalypse human vs. monster vs. god vs. monstrous human action! http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Cthulhu-Armageddon-Audiobook/B01LX4JCHS/

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  • 2 weeks later...

Still getting my short stories rejected. This one was interesting, because the reader thought my Antarctica story was worse than my Turkish horror story - the former has got a straight rejection, whereas the latter got a revise and resubmit. I'd honestly have thought it would have been the other way round myself, but it just shows how subjective this stuff can be.

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