Classical Themes - 1 of 4

Classical Themes within the ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ series

Myths, magic, rituals, quests, places, people and animals; all of these elements are helping to shape the forthcoming tales in my ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ series. Here is the first of FOUR posts.

Magical beasts and food; feuding siblings; rags to riches; death and rebirth; initiation and rites of passage; serpents, dragons and treasure – drawing on ancient and classical themes are of utmost importance in providing familiar storytelling arcs that readers can naturally connect with. Whether we realise it or not, most stories will resonate with an ancient theme and ‘remind’ us of something we have encountered previously in our conscious or subconscious. Fairytales are but one example of how repeated themes provide a wide variety of stories. 

Consider:

Sleeping Beauty                      Beauty and the Beast

Cinderella                               Snow White

King Arthur                              Chronicles of Narnia

Red Riding Hood                     Alice in Wonderland

Lord of the Rings

Stag in misty forest

I have immense pleasure incorporating these fascinating myths, legends and beliefs into my ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ series and hope you, my readers, have as much pleasure hunting for the morsels embroidered into my tales; small threads weaving through the whole. In my second ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ novel I have elements of the following themes:

Rights of Succession of Kings

This is deeply rooted in Indo-European mythology. There is an underlying, ancient archetype of a son or grandson killing their father or grandfather in order to marry and/or rule alongside the queen or mother goddess. The son has a hand in despatching the father (not necessarily a blood descendant and not necessarily with malice) and the son-lover joins the female sovereignty until the next ‘son’ arrives and repeats the cycle.

Think of:          Perseus and Acrisius, or

                        Oedipus and Laius

Celtic warrior aloft a war chariot drawn by two horses

Feuding Siblings

These also appear frequently in my sagas, though not all are blood-related. Brothers and sisters can be actual relatives, or bonded kinsfolk in religious orders or warrior bands. For my second ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ I was inspired by the half-brothers Nissyen (who wished for harmony) and Evnissyen (who wished for discord) from the ‘Sorrows of Branwen’ in the Mabinogion. Where there is disharmony, there is always interesting conflict!

Pair of wolves

Cinderella Stories

These are another recurring theme in many cultures: a hero or heroine undergoes a series of trials at the domestic hearth or in the wilderness, their true worth revealed at the story’s climax. This crisis-initiation-resolution appears in several forms. I’ve already used it for two main characters in my first novel in my series ‘Wulfsuna’ and expect to see it again in future sagas.

Midnight pyre

• Can you think of other classical themes repeated in literature?
• Do you like to include ancient themes in your writing?

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Blood, betrayal and brotherhood.

They come to honour a Warrior-Lord’s dream,

An ancient saga weaving their destiny,

But a treacherous rival threatens their fate.

The Wolf Sons are coming.

WULFSUNA

Blank Page Syndrome

Beginning any project can prove a fearful experience for many; a perilous precipice of white expanse where no words dare to fall. Toes curl, hair bristles on the back of necks and fingers pause over keys. They envy those who freefall into the abyss and dream of the day when chapters gush onto the page in a vomit of inspiration. Yes, writing is a messy craft for some.

I recently wrote a blog on keeping a writing ‘log’ after experiencing insecurities over the little time I thought I was spending on my craft. It turned out these insecurities were unfounded and other areas of my life had only appeared to have consumed my writing time. Quite often doubts and insecurities arise when we are confronted with what our own psyche views as a mammoth task.

Starting a new novel, entirely undrafted or plotted in any way except for a title had shaken my confidence. The ‘Blank Page Syndrome’ had crept in while I had been busy with daily work and family routines, to undermine my ability to even begin! Goodness, it had even cast doubts on whether I was doing any writing at all, about anything.

A few weeks into the log settled those initial doubts. Then it was time to get to work on the fear of that vacant page. Where did I begin? I read books, lots of books, all factual research on various topics relating to the novel I hoped to write. As I made notes on Druidry, equine history, Autism and the movement of Celtic peoples after the departure of the Roman Empire from Britain, visions emerged. My vacant page contained words, not of a story per se, but of scenarios.

Finding the roots of your story is one way to chase away the Blank Page Syndrome. Once you set down roots, it is hard to be uprooted as the trunk expands, branches spread and leaves grow with your ideas. Soon these disparate scenarios contain characters, or at the very least names or titles of the protagonists. They may not have faces or hair colour, but they are saying things and moving around a landscape that is slowly emerging, like a watercolour filtering over paper.

Soon you discover you are linking these scenarios together and forming a jigsaw with them, slotting in new ideas or moving them around. External factors or other characters appear to tip the delicately balanced plot, sometimes even before it has completely formed and you find the story spiralling into unknown, unplanned pastures.

You have the beginnings of a book!

• Have you ever suffered with the blank page syndrome? If so, how have you dealt with it?
• Are you a tight plotter, loose pantster or a little of both?
• If you have an idea do you stall it and pause to assess if it will be detrimental to the original plot, or run with it and see where it will lead?
• Do you throw out an idea if it doesn’t fit within the strict confines of the perfect story arc you created, or allow it to alter your story?

Writing as ‘E S Moxon’, Elaine's debut historical fiction adventure ‘WULFSUNA’ was published January 21^st, 2015 and is the first in her Wolf Spear Saga series. She is currently writing her second novel, set once again in the Dark Ages of 5^th Century Britain, where the legendary Saga ensures a Seer and one named 'Wolf Spear' are destined to meet. You can find out more about Elaine’s novels on her website or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

Elaine lives in the Midlands with her family and their chocolate Labrador.

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Blood, betrayal and brotherhood.

An ancient saga is weaving their destiny.

A treacherous rival threatens their fate.

A Seer's magic may be all that can save them.

WULFSUNA

The Woman Behind the Wolves

This post follows on from my last blog entry 'Folklore of the Nix', which you can read here.

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WULFSUNA is a book about battles: physical battles of blood and carnage, mental battles against pride and fear and emotional battles of torn responsibility, love and betrayal. It is also a book mostly about men. The Seaxen (Saxon) tribe of the ‘Wolf Sons’, whose name is the book’s title, is a war-band of viking warriors. Many of the women they knew are either deceased, too infirm to travel or have chosen to remain in Germania.

The book opens with the tribe’s arrival in the east fens of Bryton (Britain) and follows their journey inland, to a long-destined meeting between two halves of a tribe, separated by sea and some twenty years apart. However, amid all the sweating oarsmen, helmeted nobles and axe-wielding warriors is one who is stronger than all of them; she is a Seer and her name is Morwyneth. Who is she? Well, so far she has been shadowed by her more muscular counterparts and so I felt it was time for her to emerge; for the world (who have not yet read my book) to know the woman behind the wolves of the WULFSUNA.

I've been a little busy recently, so my blog has been a rather serene forest. I do bring good news though, so I hope you will forgive the lull. The first book in my 'Wolf Spear Saga' series required a final edit, which has not long been completed. Then, as some of you may have seen, I commissioned Lightweaver Productions to create a book trailer to promote 'Wulfsuna'. If you haven't seen it, you can view it here. Publication is a short way away, which is very exciting though also adds to the nerves! Hopefully I will have an update by the end of summer 2014 for you.

'Meet My Main Character' - a blog hop

Another blog hop! I do love doing these and reading everyone else's 'hops'. It's so interesting to see what other writers are up to and glean an insight into their writing world. This time I've been tagged by a fellow Dark Ages author Matthew Harffy. Matthew is currently writing a series of novels set in Seventh Century Northumbria, the first of these being 'The Serpent Sword'. You can read all about his main character in his blog hop here

As for me, come and meet my main character WULFGAR OF SACHSEN:-

Antagonist or Protagonist?

ANTAGONIST: An opponent or adversary opposing action of another

PROTAGONIST: Principal character, supporter of a cause, from Greek = First Actor

Recently, whilst working on my WIP, I examined principal character interaction to solve some issues. Something interesting revealed itself. Let me explain (keeping names aside so as not to reveal plot spoilers!). There is an antagonist, one of my hero’s nemeses. He opposes the hero’s actions and becomes an untrustworthy adversary. However, he is opposing the hero because of something he believes in, a ‘cause’ (see ‘Protagonist’ above). Likewise I have a protagonist who, at the beginning of my story, opposes most things and people he comes across, including long-standing friends (see ‘Antagonist’ above).