Just a quick note to let everyone know that book ten of THE SILURIAN is no longer called, The Sons of Avalon--I have just discovered there is already an Arthurian based novel with that title, so...book ten is now title-less, and is just called B10, till I can come up with something AMAZINGLY FABULOUS and not at all taxing. Like cutting down every tree if the forest WITH...a herring, which is what I've been doing for a while now...I can say it's not every effective.

Writing The Silurian

Writing The Silurian (and I hope this article makes sense, as I wrote it while being tormented…and like The Silurian itself, probably too long…)
WARNING: contains a few spoilers.

Question: what is a story?

Answer: it is the continuous narrative of conflict.

In order to write any story, a book, a novel, a movie, something must happen. And from that happening—the conflict—the plot arises. What is it that happens in the story to the protagonist that sets him off on his life’s adventure? What conflict is he facing and how does he solve this conflict? And do these series of conflicts make sense? That is, cause and effect: happening A causes happening B to take place, and so on and on down the line in a domino effect until you have a full and complete story—and in The Silurian’s case, a bloody long one! (Not yet finished too…) This is how I write my books, through logical actions and reactions: not all authors work this way, that is, making it up as it goes along. Most authors sit down and pre-plot their novels before beginning. When I sit down to write, I have no idea where the story is going to go; my stories write themselves through understanding and knowing my characters exceptionally well, how they behave in any given situation, what is true to their natures, and how they respond to the happenings that happen to them, or made by them. My books are character driven.

If I pre-plotted my books, I wouldn’t write them, as then I would already know everything that’s going to happen, and that would bore me enough to not bother to write; the story would be already written in my head. I have done this before, pre-plotting an entire story from start to finish in my head, and guess what? I never wrote it down, because I had already written it; the story was already done and set and known. I still have that story in my head and I will never write it for that reason.

But I write blind, not knowing what will happen next, and this way, I want to keep on writing to discover the journey my characters are on, to go on that journey with them. It is really, a magical mystery tour—the journey more important than the destination. I write through intense visualisations, quite often spontaneous, that I see it all graphically in my head, like a movie; the players do things of their own accord, mostly at night when I try to get to sleep, keeping me awake for hour after hour, and I write down what they did the following morning. Some scenes play themselves over and over and over again, until I know it like my own self: I lived Bedwyr losing his arm for months and months before I actually came to the point of having to write it down. It hurts to write his story, and like a lot of authors, I suffer in some weird way that is deeply psychological; in the past, I have been near to nervous breakdowns that scare me wildly…but…

The Fox’s story is deeply embedded in my creative psyche, and I have to pull him out slowly, by actually being him, living his life, seeing through his eyes, being there; times when I can see the clear sky, and smell the fresh unpolluted air of his world, where there is no sound louder than thunder, or the roar of battle; where the Sun is in the sky, and not out in space; where there are no motorways slicing through the very ground where he walks; where at any moment you can die on the sword of an invader, or a traitor, or see those you love run through their very hearts; living this life of the Fox is entire, complete and unceasing, and full of love, desire, passion, and the sheer indomitable strength to survive. And I sit down and write from his point of view. The Silurian saga is so deeply ingrained into my being, I call it my own personal myth, as Arthur himself is my own personal hero; I am widely fascinated by King Arthur today as I was when I first heard of him at age 12. I will always have Arthur as my mythical hero, but the Fox is something entirely different and personal to me—he generates this story by living in the very centre of the beating heart of power: Arthur.

But this is not telling you how I plot The Silurian story over so many books.

As I said above, the answer is that I just make it up as it goes along. I write a lot of experimental ‘what if’ scenes that Bedwyr stars in, his own show, and from those experiments, I can often see which way to go next: if the ‘what if’ scene works and follows the internal logic of his preceding story, then it will stay; if the ‘what if’ scene doesn’t work and makes no sense to the logic of his preceding story, that is, it doesn’t match up with anything gone before it, or would lead down paths that become dead ends, or just don’t work to his character, then they get deleted outright.

What if such and such happens?

What if Arthur or Bedwyr did such and such? Would it work? Write it down and find out! Often the ‘what if’ device will lead to something totally unexpected. There are dozens of things in The Silurian I just did not expect to happen, merely because I allow total freedom to Bedwyr to go his own way, and boy, does he ever go his own way! As does Arthur. There are only three things I know about The Silurian course of events with absolute surety: Bedwyr was going to lose his left fighting arm in battle; that he was homosexual, and that Arthur will die in his ‘arms’ at the end, at the Battle of Camlann. Everything else is in flux, and dependent on the domino effect of one logical event leading to another.

For those who are true fans of my work, Book Nine, The Fox on the Water, was never meant to be the way it came out. In that book, Bedwyr was supposed to have gone north to Medraut, and not to follow Arthur over the water. If the Fox had stayed in Britain and gone to Medraut, the story would be totally different to what it is now. The reason for the change of Bedwyr’s fate was because a very astute best friend of mine wanted him to follow Arthur, and not Medraut, and so, he did, and I knew he would fight that Battle on the Beach. The course of The Silurian is not set in a pre-plotted state of stone, but it rises and falls like the water. And water…is important, that will become clear in the final edition, The Sons of Avalon…

Back to Work:

You need as new writers to identify who or what the engine of your story is: its beating heart, its catalyst, its point of gravity around which everything else revolves, as the Earth revolves around the Sun. Arthur is the Sun, around which Bedwyr’s life revolves, so in a way, in this story, there are two protagonists who are catalysts to each other. Your protagonist should be your story’s engine, and your protagonist should be in conflict with something: something is standing in his way from achieving whatever it is that he wants. He must overcome, or die trying.

Both Arthur and Bedwyr are in conflict within themselves, with each other, and with the outer world, and this continuous conflict naturally generates The Silurian story, following internal logic. If you have no conflict, you will have no plot, and therefore no story to write; you will have only descriptive scenes and telling. Develop a strong ‘work ethic’ of instilling ‘showing’ scenes that have a point to them, that then leads to the next point, logically.

Technical stuff:

A lot a beginner writers fail to include a context to their stories. (See my next post). There is a greater world out there that your characters live within, and this outer world will often intrude and cause harm, and sometimes good. (I also write about context in The Hero’s Journey; see ‘older posts’).

The context of The Silurian may be narrowed somewhat, and that is because I am writing from the narrowed single point of view, and Bedwyr will only tell you things that he knows about. He is not an omniscient observer or storyteller; he is a highly focused storyteller, narrowed to the very centre of the action, himself and Arthur together, where both of them are often pulled apart either by their own actions, or the intrusion of the greater context, or the political reality of their world. Bedwyr can only impart what he knows or has knowledge of; he cannot tell of the greater world outside of his realm as he does not know about it. Narrowing the point of view can often strengthen your story, keeping it tight to a focused point that holds the reader with it.

If you write in the third person, omniscient, all-knowing point of view, you can bring in a wider context that your characters live within; but remember, first person POVs are narrowed to that first person. So it never ceases to amaze me when reviewers point out a lack of context or something else that Bedwyr could not possibly know about.

Internal Logic:

You also must, must use internal logic in your story. That is, the characters must behave true to their natures and the world and society that affects them, and the plot that you have created.  

An example of this is Arthur rarely drinks and hardly ever gets drunk; it’s not in his nature, so when he does get drunk, there are reasons for it; his breaking of character needs to have a reason: he got roaring drunk with the Fox in book seven because he lost a baby, another one…and in book nine, he totally lost control and Bedwyr found him drunk on duty—something Arthur would never, ever do in previous books. By the time we get to book nine, Arthur's hold is beginning to slip, so he allowed himself to fall into the kind of rebelliousness that Bedwyr often does: he got drunk. This behaviour of Arthur's would have been totally unthinkable for him earlier in his life; it would have been against his nature and against the logic of the younger Arthur. But it is allowable in book nine, because of his long, long years of struggle, pain, and loss. There was an internal logic for Arthur being drunk on duty in The Fox on the Water: because of all his loss.

So what I’m saying here is you cannot write scenes that have no internal logic, scenes that do not follow a pattern or a reason that is true and unique to your story; scenes that don’t have any point, reason, or meaning. This is how my books progress, through internal logic.

Another example of this internal logic would be say, Bedwyr going out whoring with women; Bedwyr never does this. If I was to write him going out whoring, it would not be true to the internal logic of the story he’s telling. So imagine a scene where he did go whoring, just for the hell of it. The reader would immediately feel cheated, or jarred, and you’ll say, ‘Bedwyr never goes whoring with women!’

And if he did do such a thing, why did he do so? And what would the consequences be? He would have to have a logical reason for it, as he did in book five. In book five, he went with the girl Lelah in order to prove to the men he was no sodomite, and that event led onward to other things; Lelah enforced herself into his life and she became more to him than just a whore. If on the other hand, he had told that story merely for the hell of it, it would not have fitted the internal logic of who he is as a man, as a person: he paid for that happening with further action down the line. This is how The Silurian story unfolds; one event leads to another, following a logical path of action and reaction.

Action and Reaction:

A writer cannot produce scenes in novels that have no consequences. If you do write scenes with no consequences they will feel gratuitous, or like filler scenes, there just for the hell of it to display how great a writer you are or how rich your knowledge of a particular subject is. The consequences of a scene usually have resolutions; whether good or bad or undecided, but they should be there somewhere. In The Silurian, many events will seemly have no resolutions, and yet they do; the resolutions to one event will often appear in another book.

For instance, Cynan Aurelius murdered Arthur's fist wife in book one. Cynan did not pay for that murder until book four. But he did pay; that scene of conflict was not left unresolved.

Amr of the Boar Clan turned traitor in book three and paid for it in book four. See? Action and reaction, and finally, resolution that follows the internal logic of your story. Bedwyr lost his arm in book six, and he lost his way for it in book seven; was put back together again by his lover, Sawyer, also in book seven: the resolution. Events and the consequences of those events: this is story building, and this is how I write. This is how I write all of my books besides The Silurian.

And as I try hard now to write the final book, book ten, The Sons of Avalon, all of the past will come back in one great resolving event to tear the Silurian down and kill him. So even though for Arthur and Bedwyr this is a negative resolution, it is still a resolution of the story of their lives.

Arthur's death in battle is inevitable; he himself predicted it right from the very first pages of the first book of the series; he was allowed to do that for a number of reasons: one, it raises the tension and helps develop an emotional bond between character and reader; secondly, because Arthur is the Once and Future King; and thirdly, everyone who knows anything at all about King Arthur, they know he ends his story at Camlann; gives his sword to Sir Bedivere (Bedwyr) to cast away into the lake; it is already known through Romance, but it is the way you write it that matters. You have all been waiting for this for almost ten books! It cannot be avoided, for the events have already been set in motion long ago; the wheel turns, and those who ride the wheel will come around again. Act and reaction.

Just Write by showing, not telling:

Write a scene, and then, follow that scene with the consequences of that scene—this is the essence of ‘showing’. When you write a true ‘showing’ scene, it must have a consequence, for that is the whole point of writing a showing scene in the first place: to advance the story through live action. What happens to the character in the showing scene? And now carry it through with logical events that match your character’s nature, and what matches the world in which he lives, true to the nature of the action.

For instance, a science fiction hero would not be rescued from trouble by a magic wielding witch; that might happen in a fantasy world, but not in the world of science. The Silurian is set in the real world; there are no wizards wielding light-bearing staffs as in Lord of the Rings, so whatever happens in your story, it must happen according to the internal reality of that story. If a man is run through his heart with a sword in The Silurian, he will die; he won’t be healed by a magic crystal from the Lost Paradise of the Fairies, or the touch of a king. These things might be believed in, but they are not real, and do not really happen. Bedwyr’s lost arm will not grow back. This means the internal logic of The Silurian must follow real life. If this story was a fantasy, then even then, the internal logic must be magical or fantastical to satisfy your readers. Reader satisfaction is very, very important to a writer of creative fiction; never promise something and then fail to deliver it.

Scene:

Technically, a scene contains an identifiable event, a happening: it doesn’t have to be a battle or a fight; this is not what is meant by action or conflict—the conflict is the problem the hero faces in order to overcome, or fail, accordingly. A scene is ‘a point of action or conflict’. e.g.: a man gets called into the boss’s office and told he’s been fired. This is a scene: something happens—the conflict is being fired and how to overcome this. Something active happens in a scene, and a scene is different from narrative. Technically too, a scene contains dialog, but I think there could be scenes without dialog.

Narrative:

Narrative is where the writer tells you, the reader, information. There is no active conflict or dialog in a narrative scene; it is pure ‘telling’. Scenes are ‘showing’.

Bedwyr’s story is an intense mixture of active happening and narrative telling; he rarely speaks in the passive voice, which makes everything he says seem to be happening as he speaks, in the here and now, and not merely told to you from a distance.

Good writing is a balanced mixture of scene and narrative. It is not wrong to ‘tell’; but too much telling in long blocks of writing will kill your story dead in its tracks, unless of course, you have something really fabulous to tell. But for most beginner writers, ‘telling’ should be sparsely populated throughout your story (that old, ‘need to know’ thing), but don’t please, try to avoid it altogether, for then you’ll be left with a story so exhausting in action it will bore your readers as surely as a book of nothing but dry reporting of dry information.

Another point about telling: it is best to avoid it until you have built up an emotional bound between reader and character, for really, no one wants to read a load of dry information about a character before they’ve got to know them. Put your characters into danger, a bind, a problem, build an emotional relationship first with good active scenes that demonstrate the character’s conflict, and then gently drip-feed ‘telling’ information as the story progresses.

Learning a balance between scene and narrative is hard, but it will come naturally with lots and lots of writing practice. Just write and see what comes out, because that is what I did. I just sat down one day in 2003 and wrote and wrote and wrote, and out came The Silurian. (With an awful lot of rewriting and endless editing). Though I do admit to having many years of writing experience before I did that sitting and writing with the Fox. I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote through all of the criticism and put downs; I studied my craft until I was mad. I did my apprenticeship with fanatical dedication, and back then when I first began to write, I would not give up for all the money in the world, and I had none then, and I still have none now, so it made no difference.

I was and am a writer. And to be a writer, you can do only one thing: write.

And be strong about it; strong enough to learn from your critics; critics are not always there to destroy you, but to help you improve and to show you where you’re going wrong. Criticism is not always bad, even when you’re being torn to bits; you will learn from your mistakes, and if you can rise above the terrible hurt of being torn apart…you will earn the right to call yourself an author. I have earned that right. I worked for it, and though I still can’t make any money from writing, I know inside myself, I am a bloody good writer.

Silurian Points

I would like to post here to clear up a few points raised by recent reviews of the first three books of The Silurian series. Please, this is not about criticising these reviews, merely to address a few points that I am aware of and would like to explain for the sake of my own work as an independent author, and for any new readers taking up The Silurian for the first time.

The ‘stand alone’ issue.

I’ve come across this before in regard to my work, in that, most publishers prefer novels that run in a series to be ‘stand alone’. That is, each book is a complete story in itself, yet still part of the overall series—a book that can be released on its own by the publisher. A fine example of this is of course, the seven Harry Potter books, where each book is a stand alone story.

In writing The Silurian, (and as I don’t have a publisher) I never intended my books to be ‘stand alones’. As Bedwyr’s story is a continuous narrative, it just wasn’t possible to parcel up his life into neat stand alone events, that would make up a single book, complete in itself. The Silurian books therefore are not stand alone, but continuous, where I’ve tried as best I could to demarcate his narrative enough to separate them into individual books, merely for convenience sake. Each book therefore runs into the one that follows it, and I had to arbitrarily divide them where I could find a natural break in his lifestory: almost like a break in the landscape that is divided by a river, and yet the land continues on in exactly the same way over on the river’s far side.

Bedwyr’s life and story is a single continuous whole, as most lives are, and the separation into books is artificial to me. The Silurian is one long life story; it has no divisions, only events that mark certain major turning points in Bedwyr’s life. Thus, the major turning point in book 3 is Bedwyr finally admitting and carrying out homosexual love with another male, his lover, Marc. Book 3 feels transitional because that is exactly what it is; a transition between Bedwyr’s old life of denying his love of men, and finally carrying it out, not to the point of acceptance, but merely he could no longer stand to deny it. Book 3 really could quite easily be a part of book 4. I just needed to break the narrative somehow, but I do not intend these books to be written or read as stand alone stories. I have had emails from readers who say they read these books for hours, and even days at a time. These readers see that Bedwyr’s life is one continuous whole, and not like other book series, where stand alone is true for them. It is not true for me, or for Bedwyr.

So for new readers coming to The Silurian, please do not expect stand alone reads; this was not my intention, but to give an account of a life that stretches in one long move from the point where Bedwyr decided to begin talking, on the battlefield at age sixteen, to where he will decide to end his story, somewhere at the end of book 10 as a grown man at the end of his life.

Spoken Word

The Silurian is meant to be read as a spoken word narrative, and not as a grammatically correct authorial novel, written as a standard text. Therefore, mixed metaphors will come out of Bedwyr’s mouth along with all kinds of other idiosyncratic ways of speaking, and these I do not correct, as they are his words. Because it is his point of view and not mine.

If I were writing a standard third person novel, I would not use mixed metaphors, or other grammatical mess ups; I would try to be as grammatical as best I could. But Bedwyr does not see or speak grammatically correctly; he speaks in a lyric, spoken-word narrative way that is all his own, that I call, Bedwyr Speak.

So, Bedwyr will say what he says, because it is him. He will say, ‘further’, instead of ‘farther’ for distance; he will speak without thought to political correctness, (thank you, Fox!); he will be sexist in his language, not because he is sexist, but because that is standard language to him; he will describe the male penis as a ‘cock’ or a ‘prick’, not because he’s being deliberately dirty in his language, but because ‘cock’ and ‘cocking’ are the terms used for such things to him.

To us, ‘cock’ is usually used as slang, or the language of pornography, but to Bedwyr, ‘cock’ is the correct form to use, as he knows no other. The word ‘penis’ does not exist in his vocabulary, and I don’t think he’s even heard that word before in his life, except perhaps if a learned man were to use it in a Latin speaking way, (and even if he did know it, he wouldn’t use it, as it’s ludicrous to him to talk in such a ‘proper’ way).

What you see is what you get with the Fox.

Sex

Rude and raw sexuality is natural to Bedwyr, to his brothers; it is not something to be prudish over, not something to be spoken off in whispers or an embarrassed way, but spoken of openly and often, as the Celts, until the time of Roman Catholic Christian sexual prohibitions, were openly sexy and sexual people, who understood that lots of fucking was all part of the living world. So, openly talking about sex is no different to Bedwyr than him openly talking of battle, or love, or travel, or eating, or drinking, or anything else; sex is just another of life’s great joys or trails to be freely imparted.

Women are not treated badly because there is a lot of sex; the women of Arthur and Bedwyr’s world are as eager for sexual pleasure as the men are, and will take it as wantonly as the men. The ‘freedom of the thighs’ it was called, and it gave women a position of power, often, over their men; for they could close those thighs just as quickly as opening them. This is not bad treatment of men over women. It is men and women being near equals in the sexual stakes. Arthur's many female bed-mates were just as keen as he was, in some cases more so, for sex, and they would use their sexual favours freely to suit themselves.

I am quite tired of this idea, whether stated openly or implied, that women are always sexual victims of men, merely because the men have a lot of women in their beds. Or because the story is written from a male point of view.

By the time of book 5, you will see just how sexually demanding the women of Bedwyr’s world really are when you encounter the Matriarch of the White-tooth Dynasty, Madam Imperia. And an astute reading of book 5 will reveal that it was Bedwyr who was the victim here of sexual harassment, and not the other way round.

Bedwyr’s bad treatment of his first girlfriend, Arna, was not the result of him being a misogynistic fifth century warrior, but because of his sexual confusion and his youthful immaturity. Arthur adores women as goddesses and treats them as such; and Bedwyr treats women as they are: human beings who live and die and connive just like the men. He reserves for women no special place of adoration, and he will respect them, or disrespect them, according to those women’s own behaviour. He gives no special place for mistreatment. No special place for favour. Women must earn respect just as the men do; women to him are people who can be either good or bad, according to their own lights. Just like men.

So I toast the Fox’s spirit, for without him, there would be no Silurian.

The Silurian, Book Two: The King of Battles

It seems The King of Battles was liked enough to become a Finalist in Dan Poynter's Global eBook Awards, and has gained an excellent review on Dan's site. In fact, all of the Silurian books are now gaining excellent reviews that can be read on Smashwords.com. In fact, The Silurian now has 22 FIVE STAR reviews on Smashwords alone. There are more on my other sites of publication, Lulu.com and Bibliotastic.com

Book One, The Fox and the Bear also seems to be popular. But what happens to book three, Arthur's Army, where Bedwyr finally comes out as a lover of men? Book three has a lot of catching up to do, in spite of its intense battle when Arthur takes his men to their limits in his South Saxon Campaign; and all of them so young...never mind, such is life.

Yet my series of books seems to be touching readers hearts more than I could have imagined; Bedwyr's story seems to be resonating with astute readers, who are looking for deeper reads than the usual mass published fare. I would like to thank here all those readers who have taken the trouble to contact me with your views and reviews.

While I'm here, I will say that Book Ten, the final book, The Sons of Avalon, is now just over 120,000 words, and I'm struggling like I have never done before to write Bedwyr's story. It's hurting me so deeply I can barely write a few paragraphs in weeks, unlike the other books, where I could fly and dive and soar with the Fox, full of energy. Now, this energy is all but gone, and like Arthur's sword that will fall deep into the lake, I fear I am falling with it, and losing the power to go so far away over the hills with the Fox. I love him too much to work my way with him to the end, but I know I will, as I owe it to him and to Arthur, and to the readers who have discovered The Silurian.

Many Changes and The Sons of Avalon

Many Changes and The Sons of Avalon

Book Ten…now stands at 60,000 words.

This has not been an easy time. Great changes have come right at the same time as the writing of my final Silurian book. It’s quite extraordinary that I wrote all of the current nine books in a small room, in a small house in suburban Sydney, with a view of the side of the garage. And then…the final book loomed, and I was suddenly no longer living in that suburban house…twenty-seven years in one house, looking at the wall or the garage. My whole life looking at rows and rows of houses, streets, traffic, congestion, suburban barrenness, and then…two great changes suddenly arrived unforeseen. I moved house, 420kilometers away from that tiny room, and now I have a fantastic house, perched on a hill with views to mountain ranges.

I live alone here, far from family, save for my brother, who lives around the corner from my new house. And then my beloved father died…

I cannot write much beyond a word here and there, a sentence now and again, as I’ve become almost totally disconnected from all the things that made The Silurian my life’s work. The Silurian is still my life’s work. But these great changes have upset the balance of my writing life, and I cannot say when the balance will return.

Bedwyr is still my alter ego, and he always will be.

Arthur is still my obsession, and he always will be.

But now everything has changed so much, so poignantly, I’m struggling to write the Fox’s words down with the same energy I once had. The Fox himself is balanced for the final throw of his spear, the final cast of Arthur's sword into the lake…this is all about death and yet, birth. The birth of the legend of King Arthur.

I began writing The Silurian in November of 2003, and now in 2011, I’m almost all written out. But knowing the Fox as I do, his life-force is as radiant as ever; stronger than me, with a power of will I can only dream of, I’m banking on him to get me through this final book. And when this story will end, I cannot say. It’s possible more changes will come to me soon, and if so, this will slow the story even more, but I'm hoping to finish it within the year. I'm hoping my great writing energy will return, as this energy is the Fox’s, is Arthur's. They are my fuel, and together, they burn like golden fire, the Sun of my inner life, is The Silurian, the Sun of my inner life, is Bedwyr the Fox.

And when it is all over, I plan a companion book made up of deleted scenes from all ten books, and a deeper account of what it’s been like to spend eight years living the life of a Dark Age Arthurian warrior, who just happens to be bent…

This is all I can say for now.

I wish all my readers good health and happiness.