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This is the thread to post questions and comments about the first book of The Song of Naga Teot series.

clong wrote:This is the thread to post questions and comments about the first book of The Song of Naga Teot series.

Im not sure what to comment on . but i noticed that 9 folks had looked at the subject w/o saying a word. It feels like when some body calls my house but doesn't leave me a message .. so I have started to comment ...

Asseri

Thanks, Asseri--there's some comments among other threads now, but I did want to say, glad you dropped by, hope you enjoy the visit, lots of resources around here.
Asseri's been emailing me for some time on various topics, and among tons of other things, she does some interesting costume/recreation work.
BTW, why do Viking women wear the beads wrapped from one broach to another across the front, and not just as necklaces?

In a comment over on the admin thread, Clong asked: when you wrote Teot's War did you already have in mind the general outline for the entire saga, or was it more of a "let's see how this goes, and later I'll figure out where the story is heading"?
I'd said there, among other things:
The very first scene I wrote was a beginning germule of the first book scene where Naga comes into the Great Hall to harp.
In that first , the ruler was a *hostile* figure. I realized on rewriting that it'd much more interesting if he was a potential *ally*.
Once that happened, I was groping around to find how that happened, and what the two men could do with each other's help after that.
Big saga blew up in my face from that, but still not all of it.
I thought I knew what I was doing, at the time.
Not then. That mss was too long.
I think now that what they saw wasn't just a horrifying length (and cost of paper), it was probably not tight enough and structured well enough to be really sharp, according to my eye these days.
Agent & various publishers thought it ought to be smaller. Worked out where I could break it (which is always hard for me) and rewrote, got the first book out there, and went back to look at the cut-off tail wagging around. It'd grown and developed new body-parts while I was elaborating and cleaning up that first book--people who'd showed up, plants and animals and all this social structure and stuff. When I went back to rewriting mss for second book I found that it'd...grown somehow, while I wasn't looking...
To continue:
I generally get visuals, scenes, people talking first, and then have to run around making sense out of where it belongs in the rest of my work, on big new chunks.
If I submerse back into an existing into narrative that I need to work on, I will get little pieces like additional after-flares, or little following sparks after the initial big fireworks that will expand on what's already there.
Sort of like groping round a house in the dark, with just some lightning to help out now and then, perhaps.
In this case, I'd developed a whole bunch of different scenes, different ideas, and I found some of them fit together. I started fleshing out cross-hatched stacks of paper together. But I had a lot of scenes of various sorts before I even realized, "You know, this stack and that one and that other one are all the same book!"



From there, I was struggling to fit all the rough bits, like a badly-cut jigsaw puzzle, together into a coherant, linear narrative.
When I'd done that, I honestly thought I had a relatively simple idea for a book.
What I actually had were two 4" thick binders of typed mss copy that, with the size requirements of the day, had to be broken down not quite in half.
Which meant rewriting.
To date, I found that I do not delete very much. Things only flesh out further, more details accrete themselves onto that caddis-shell, whenever I rewrite.
Which is precisely why, as I said over on the admin thread, that the Teot mss just yeast and bud off and get bigger every time they're split.
That's what happened to the second book, and to the third. But that's a story for another thread!

Well, I just reread the first 60 pages of Teot's War, and it is every bit as amazing as I remembered. What is really remarkable is how quickly Heather manages to build empathy for Naga, a complex character with great talents AND great personal liabilities, and at the same time to deliver a lot of information about this world's history, politics, military technology, social structure, and racial prejudices. All this in the course of a fast paced narrative in which our protagonist faces three near death experiences.

It is really refreshing after reading so many authors who (1) never build empathy for the characters, and/or take hundreds of pages to set up a story before the action starts, and/or only get around to giving history or social context when they need to take the narrative a new direction.

Thank you!
Okay, okay, the guy is a little hasty about things.
And no, I'm even going to speculate about other activities...

hgladney wrote:Thanks, Asseri--there's some comments among other threads now, but I did want to say, glad you dropped by, hope you enjoy the visit, lots of resources around here.
Asseri's been emailing me for some time on various topics, and among tons of other things, she does some interesting costume/recreation work.
BTW, why do Viking women wear the beads wrapped from one broach to another across the front, and not just as necklaces?

thanks, beads represents a huge amount of man hour wealth ,thus wearing more per inch kinda of thinking . The Vikings were a practical people in general.

Sort of like cowrie shells on clothing?

In general all cultures have visual cues to wealth. Most early cultures have simple ones. all levels might have the same basic garment design but they create a social pecking order with such thing as quality of fabric (silk vs wool) or the quality of weave ( complicated weaves Vs simple even weaves). then there is the issue of sumpuary laws about colors. Like blue for Royal or green for Hearlds and so forth.
Take metals in an iron poor location the rich might have iron rings and other items and in one there it is common then the poor.

and yes Cowies is a very acient and world wide marker for wealth .it pops up all over the globe.

Patrica Wrede has a great website about world/culture building. Very useful and thought provocking .

Asseri

Ms. Wrede is a great writer, too!! Thanks!

clong wrote:Well, I just reread the first 60 pages of Teot's War, and it is every bit as amazing as I remembered. What is really remarkable is how quickly Heather manages to build empathy for Naga, a complex character with great talents AND great personal liabilities, and at the same time to deliver a lot of information about this world's history, politics, military technology, social structure, and racial prejudices. All this in the course of a fast paced narrative in which our protagonist faces three near death experiences.

It is really refreshing after reading so many authors who (1) never build empathy for the characters, and/or take hundreds of pages to set up a story before the action starts, and/or only get around to giving history or social context when they need to take the narrative a new direction.

Yes I agree , infact i got a fortune cookie today that was like a mirror of your comment , "The best men are molded by their faults" was that not cool!

I tend to go for characters that are for the most part average sorts in their worlds but who rise to the challange of the worst kinds . Heros by chanch rather then by design. I always felt that way about the main charaters of the books.

I have a young friend whose life oddly mirrors many of Naga's. A horribe childhood ( the stuff most don't make out w/o some really bad mental issues) to when he was an eletrican's mate he had a bad "bite". What that means is a shock . The level of which only 5 % percent survive and most of them are severaly damaged for life. When he woke he had to learn all over again how to talk,walk and write. He lost huge amounts of his past/memory -things like his first kiss is gone forever. Yet he is by far one of the most well rounded and wise men I know that in fact i feel very honored to know!

Or a Co-worker I use to know who was the most challanged by fate I have ever know . She survived the lost of her husband . He is a police officer who was killed while on the line of duty . She was in the middle of a very high risk pregnency . The baby boy came very early all of the 2 lbs back in the day 18 years ago . Her parents were elderly with all the age related issues we all dread. yes she had faith and contienued to thrive . .. her son was attacked in his senior year and had his brains beating into the rough end of a steel pipe. Yet she has faith and they survive. Her beloved only child is now haunted by ghosts no one but him can see . His mother bears this as a loving parent can only do . She is an amazing women ..

I think we must all know people that would rivel the greatest Heros in the written word Heck in any culture .Ohh they make great stories and great characters. I see Naga in my minds eye like these people . they live and thrive in the most hostile areas.

Thank you for appreciating the books on that level, I'd be the last person to claim I have enough knowledge to speak on behalf of folks like those you talked about. I can talk about the impressions I've gained from those I do know.
Thanks for sharing those stories, too. An awful lot of people survive the most astonishing things, overcome the most depressing disabilities to go on to enjoy their lives. And being very well aware that pain compresses your mind to a flat zone where you can't enjoy anything, they really appreciate just being able to enjoy life!
While they don't just shrug it off, they often just get on with their lives.
Unless they have to, they don't make a big deal out of it to others. (Possibly because, heck, who has time for any *more* drama??)

They might only talk about it if something is relevant to what you're doing right now--things like saying, "ya know, you might wanna make sure you got a ground wire on that appliance, right?" And so on.

And yes, I will promptly join the crowd over there saying, "boring=good in real life!!"

Just another little note on Viking women (I can't help it - I'm an archaeologist).
The costume that is usually shown in modern pictures of Viking women is actually based on very little evidence at all. For obvious reasons, actual clothing doesn't usually survive. The brooches and beads often do, in graves, but it's often not clear whether this is how the woman would have looked in everyday life or whether this was a particular ceremonial fashion - maybe she was a priestess or had a particular rank or function that was demonstrated by the costume. Without written records, it's often very difficult to work out exactly what was going on.

It's always very interesting to see an author talking about how they write, too. Thank you.

Oh, you're welcome! I was just over on Mr. Modesitt's forum, and likewise enjoyed his FAQs and comments on writing, how he concentrates for a few hours and breaks it up, and so on. It was really interesting--and the funny part was that I hadn't thought about discussing the mechanics of putting the fanny in the chair and getting writing done.

Actual writing, as opposed to, oh, say, emails, or reading other people's postings on some fthese internet forums that we might know about, or surfin' the net in search of the right pump to go with that filter for the aquarium, or any other of that really boring but necessary bill stuff...

So, yep, I've been enjoying myself poking about and sticking my nose into all kinds of stuff round here, and not getting a lot done on the Third Book. As it's quiet for a change (this does not happen often) today I declared a Book Day, and put off everything else.

Well, except giving the cat his meds. And microwaving more hot water for tea. I'm trying not to overdo the caffeine, but I need something to drink to keep my throat working (allergies) so I'm alternating red bush tea and oolong tea. Besides, endless cups of tea require frequent breaks to recalibrate the mental concentration, right??

Oh yeah, and then there's the regular weekend necessities, changing the bed, and cleaning the tank (including filters, *no* shirking, it's been 3 weeks already, yuck!!) and various corollaries of housecats owning you (that is the correct usage, really, as in that saying, "cats have staff").

On the plus side, I have drilled through continuity checking on three rather difficult chapters today,

and only bogged down about halfway through a fourth one that came out of the old submission draft that originally went to DAW. This is where the new structure meets the old draft and gives you a right royal pain.
This is sort of like saying that you've got the trailor hitch locked on, and now you're just trying to get your brakelight connection working.
<tinker tinker swear tinker mutter mutter ouch! drop wrench!>
Anybody know where I can pick up a fresh brain?
This one's used.

Where was I-- <pouncing!>
ahhh hah, archeologist!!
So now I know where to come with certain sorts of questions, hmmm!

May I inquire what speciality you like talking about?

Evaine wrote:Just another little note on Viking women (I can't help it - I'm an archaeologist).
The costume that is usually shown in modern pictures of Viking women is actually based on very little evidence at all. For obvious reasons, actual clothing doesn't usually survive. The brooches and beads often do, in graves, but it's often not clear whether this is how the woman would have looked in everyday life or whether this was a particular ceremonial fashion - maybe she was a priestess or had a particular rank or function that was demonstrated by the costume. Without written records, it's often very difficult to work out exactly what was going on.

It's always very interesting to see an author talking about how they write, too. Thank you.

ohh yes grave goods are not the best representation of any culture. . At best they might represent the values of the after life but not the life that person lived. Look at modern burial -very bland but we love they are no less morned.

We do know that arab writers commented on the " bead madness" of the Norse contacts of their time. It refreshing for modern scholars to admit , we jsut dont know and we might never. Or its sitting moldering in some drawer just waiting for some eager undergrad .

ahh how to tie this in to Teot . It a universal issue that Woman cultures are often ignored ( we know alot about male "vikings" cause they got written about . What do we learn in the first book about the diffrent cultures and women in them . ?

asseri asked:
It a universal issue that Woman cultures are often ignored ( we know alot about male "vikings" cause they got written about . What do we learn in the first book about the diffrent cultures and women in them ?

Now I wanna give asseri something like Sherlock points for a very good question!

I can certainly talk about what I *thought* I had conveyed about women's culture in Teot's War, as opposed to both books, as opposed to where I think I'm going with the whole series, some of which hasn't even made it into third book mss. O course, what *I* thought I'd put out there, and what other people picked up may be very far from the same thing.

There's also the surrounding impressions that build up in people's minds, which may never be overtly stated in the books, too.

It would be very interesting to *me* to get a flavor of what other people intuited about it.

Since I gotta run off right now (more tea!!) I'll humbly request feedback from other folks about it and come back with spoiler notice, how's that?

PS--also posted some comments on climate and fibers that relate to this issue. That's over on world-building thread, talking about vital supplies.

I do want to get back to this one in more detail, however.
It would be good to show how strengths from the women's culture may be what redeems the entire nasty colonial blindness that's led the Tannese into their entire dependent overlord/victim role with the Cragmen as well as with native tribes such as the Sek-bloods they defeated. That's what's left their Council and the Devotees so vulnerable to Osa spies.

Clearly, some of the ambitious ones among the more conservative religious orders of the Devotees hate, fear, and despise some of the reform moves that Caladrunan and the other "modern nobles" have made. They seem totally blind to how radical it is to conspire with outside enemies to defeat inernal political forces--they apparently think they can just wobble things a little, with very few consequences, Tan=forever, total ruling arrogance. They don't realize they're going to bring the whole house down round their own ears. If they really were rulers themselves, they'd be thinking quite differently--they'd all too aware of the dangerous deep cracks, and scrambling to shore it up.
Perhaps Caladrunan and his side haven't been eager to share this information with them?

Why would the women's Quarters think differently, since they are so often a conservative force in many segregated cultures?

What extraordinary women would make it possible to analyze and overcome the problems that led to this mess?

hmm "Sherlock "points lol okay i will take that wee gift.

In refuge cultures I think womens roles make dramatic changes. I often think it improves as men are often seperated or have been killed off. But that being said. Women are often hidden powers ya know iron fists in velvet gloves. Who(Court) would what to give up what little piwer they have anyway?

Tannese women are very stratified socialy . Aa is the culture in general . Everybody has a place and be damn if its changed. Very feudal in nature.
Perhaps Japanese or even Beduin

The Upai have become a refuge nation and thus are in a state of change. But I often have seen them akin some native american nations that had a tradtion of letting the Grandmothers do a lot of the govering. Make sence they have lived a full life and have wisdom.

how is that for a start.

Ohh what women might get things back on track you ask? Naga's grandmother has my vote.. btw .

OK, I have posted a for Asseri in The Reading Room.

I trained as an archaeologist in just about any course that wasn't Ancient Egypt - because as soon as I said what I was doing, some bright spark would pipe up - "Oh, Ancient Egypt and stuff!"
So I've dug Roman, studied Ancient Greek but didn't get a chance to dig there, and I've even done an 18thC iron works, but what I've done most of is medieval and Saxon.
I'm a bit out of date on the practical side now, as I work in a bookshop instead (much easier on the knees) but I do medieval re-enactment to keep my hand in, as a 13thC Welsh mercenary - quite a different setup to the English - and the leaders of my group also portray Vikings in schools as their day job, lucky so-and-sos!

Evaine wrote:I trained as an archaeologist in just about any course that wasn't Ancient Egypt - because as soon as I said what I was doing, some bright spark would pipe up - "Oh, Ancient Egypt and stuff!"
So I've dug Roman, studied Ancient Greek but didn't get a chance to dig there, and I've even done an 18thC iron works, but what I've done most of is medieval and Saxon.
I'm a bit out of date on the practical side now, as I work in a bookshop instead (much easier on the knees) but I do medieval re-enactment to keep my hand in, as a 13thC Welsh mercenary - quite a different setup to the English - and the leaders of my group also portray Vikings in schools as their day job, lucky so-and-sos!

well one has to pay the bills right ! I have a friend who is like you but she was able to get a job for a company that does reclaimtion projects. Like the Freedom House in ( I think ) Ohio .

Myself I loveor am curious about all history and I have been very active in the SCA since 1984. But I focused on Medieval Middle East women studies(9th century focus ) for most of that time. Going 'Viking" has been very exciting for me as a change.

For note I am finishing a linen underdress that i have hand sewed and made the pattern . It a personal challange more then anything . And I made the pattern this last wensday and its nearly done . Much faster then I thought it might be since i did a lot of pieces to maximise the the fabric.


ahh well the day calls me to my real chores..

How bizarre, you two both have specialities that, if I run into problems on *this* book, I know where to come asking questions...
Strange feeling. Very cool!

Somehow, I'm still not used to being able to turn around like this to ask things. And yup, I still need to do a longer post on the women's culture.

I have a couple questions for you about specific scenes in Teot's War. . . WARNING SPOILERS BELOW





















OK, the first scene is Chapter 15, when Naga save Drin from a poisoning attempt (in rather spectacular fashion, I might add).

I lifted my head. "Excuse me, Liege, I must check on something."I gave Pitar a quick look. In a low, calm voice I said "Guard well, Pitar." I turned aside from their alerted faces and up the ramp, past sentries, down the stairs past jostling servants, into the kitchen. Potboys, assistant cooks and table stewards scattered in a shattering din.

One of the killers got away. The other didn't. When I emerged into the hall their was blood on my hands. I knocked aside a yelling sentry pawing for his sword. . .

This scene left me very confused the first time I read it, and I had to reread this jarring transitional passage and the next few paragraphs many times to feel like I was making sense of what is going on. So, my question is did you deliberately write this passage to be confusing? It's a great scene; I am not trying to be critical, but rather understand why you wrote it this way.

Second scene is in Chapter 17 (with 20 pages left in the book), when Naga, Drin, Girdeth and Aider have come back to the bowels beneath Fortress to figure out and stop the Cragmen's plot, and they run accross Isaon, who just happens to provide them with a whole bunch of info without which they could do neither. So my question is, why would you wait until this very last climactic scene to introduce this colorful character? Again, the scene is very effective . . . a compelling thrill ride in a very different millieu.

I think what you're seeing in both cases are writer's goofs--scenes that I didn't catch the problems well enough.
Isaon, for instance, is a great character, a lot of fun, but I honestly didn't even see him around, I didn't "think him up" until way down into the manuscript. He should have been properly introduced earlier on during a rewrite, and I didn't remember to go back and do so. He's not exactly the sort of old guy who fades into the woodwork, and as Naga's been observing all the folks around Caladrunan, for instance, we should have seen him earlier, noticeably.
I remember being very tired, thinking that there should be some earlier spot where he could come in, but I couldn't think how to do it without giving him a whole scene of his own (as he tends to demand that). Things were so tight on space that I couldn't think how to do it.
If I was editing it now, he might shout out some lines at the scene where Naga wakes up from the fit, in the opening of the second book. Isaon would have been one of the scholars there yelling about things, along with Pergo. He would have been interested in Naga's arcane knowledge--if somebody came down and told him about the fit, and persuaded him it was worth leaving his gauges. I could see Isaon making some very strong statements on Caladrunan's behalf, making the other ones back off. As it is, if Isaon was in there, Naga's too woozy to see him clearly, or Naga would realize down in the caves that he's seen the man before.
If I was editing for a new edition, that'd be exactly the kind of thing I'd think about fixing with two or three sentances, maybe Isaon gives some yelled comment during the fit scene which is half-heard by Naga, and a later recall comment by Naga that he remembers the old guy when they meet Isaon in the caves.
Or, I could go with the idea that there's so many people in Fortress that, try as he might, Naga's still getting blind-sided by people he's never met before, and that spooks him, which I think was my original intent, and doesn't quite come off.
I could also do both: showing how Naga's spooked by the fact that Caladrunan clearly knows Isaon well but Naga's only seen him once before, there's entire areas of Caladrunan's circle of acquaintances where Naga's got no idea what they've been up to.
Whichever way it is, I needed to do a better job of showing how this is an entire community he's joined, he's starting to get to know who each person is and what they do and where they normally belong.

On the kitchen assassin transition, I think I was trying to stay with the rush of action, with that impression of blurs of people left behind, having everything happen very fast, without taking proper account of whether I've also left the reader back there some where in the confusion!

I believe the problem may be in three places. One is before this passage even happens--the idea that he's noticed the smell of almonds, the odor of cyanide, which must be a hideously strong dose if he can smell it so well at a distance. I didn't want to overstress that clue to folks familiar with mysteries! Then I didn't explain why he went off into the kitchen first. A bodyguard's initial instinct would be to whisper something and make Caladrunan spit out what he're eating, quietly.
But he doesn't do that. He goes off into the kitchen. He left the Hall quietly, not making a fuss, and now all of sudden people are screaming and running away.
He might have two reasons for that--he might not want to cause a big embarrassing ruckus over nothing. He might want to check quietly first whether the cooks are using almond paste in everything, in spite of orders not to, as might have happened before.
Or he might want to sneak up on the poisoners, since later on he seems to have been very sure that they're still in there.
That passage doesn't make it clear which it is.

These days, I might identify the problem with the first sentence in the passage I've re-quoted below. It might help to break up the first sentance into two distinct actions, something that Naga does, and then what the people in the kitchen are doing.

Potboys, assistant cooks and table stewards scattered in a shattering din.
One of the killers got away.

There's no connection built between these two sentances. I remember casting about for other sentances to go in there, and couldn't come up with anything which didn't slow down the sound of it, the pacing of the words. The summary of that second sentance is so strong that it's hard to find anything to lead into it.

Now, I might add a whole fight scene in there (what I tried at the time seemed to drag too much) or a phrase about the setting or noise, something to cue you that the almond smell that Naga has noticed means somebody's still trying in the kitchen trying to poison other dishes.
He doesn't say why he's so sure that it's only just happened, why it couldn't have been done hours ago--perhaps there's kitchen or serving procedural reasons that it would have been noticed after a long enough time had passed.
But some wry statement of a kitchen rule in between those two sentances might have made a good transition in there.

I also notice a a further plotline gap after that--who else got hurt? Who else got poisoned? Clearly, the poisoners didn't care much who else ate out of the same dish, so long as they've nailed Caladrunan with the poison. (A very sloppy way to poison someone, as that I think about it now.)
Naga doesn't really comment, he doesn't seem to care in his single-minded focus, but perhaps he just regards all that as a mechanical part of his duty, checking on the distractions and on having an intact guard perimeter automatically, without making much mention of it to the reader. A comment on it would help, perhaps reporting something to Caladrunan, who certainly would ask.

As I was thinking about the kitchen assassination scene some more, I came up with two reasons why, even though it is confusing, it still works well: (1) it makes it seem that Naga is acting completely on instinct. We don't see his thoughts because he isn't thinking; (2) it's confusing to the readers because the scene is confusing to the participants (i.e., the reader is experiencing the same "what the hell is going on" that the characters are feeling.

Anyway, as I have already said. It is a great scene, regardless of the discontinuity.

I think you're right on both counts.
The problem is to convey that confusion without losing the reader and making it *that* hard for them to keep up.