I’ve spent the last six weeks devouring information on the Bronze Age. Turns out, it’s not so easy to convert a 1000 CE to 1200 BCE. Lol. Well, oh course not, but even the simplest assumptions suddenly turn into major problems in my plot points!
Everything from the society structures to the DANG HORSES! You can’t ride horses until later in the bronze era because they’re simply too small! How the heck can you travel a shortcut on a dirt hiking trail with a chariot! You can’t. You just can’t. The axle will break on a root and then you’re stuck.
AND bronze in weaponry is VERY different from iron. Bronze is softer than steel, so you literally need to hammer it again a few times if it gets dull, which changes the whole style of fighting. You don’t have something as simple as bronze nails because they won’t hold, instead using a giant wooden peg or ingenuity to fasten boxes together.
And on top of that, freakin’ harums… If a king wanted a lady, he just stuck her in his harum, and kept her there when he got bored of her.
But, I am enjoying reinventing the world. I have spent the last few weekends devouring material on the Bronze Age. Between YouTube and Wikipedia and even a good old fashion giant textbook, I’ve been consuming as much as I possibly can, which, I admit, is somewhat limited because I only know English. I’ve been searching for the point and place in history that my “conquering” civilization got lost from the rest of the Mediterranean civilizations. My premise is that a bunch of Lukka either participating in or fleeing the Sea People’s coalition got blown off course, or after the epic Ogygian (Egypt) failure, ended up in my invented land. Very fun, though hard to investigate, being that during the great Bronze Age collapse, the Lukka, though technically Hittite (Nesa), were neither Hittite nor Mycenaean, but a place developed by Mycenaean and Minoan dissenters. AND much of it was further Hellenized over the centuries. THEREFORE, what WAS the real name for the goddess that has been lost? Was it Arrina (Hittite’s name), Eni, Sarpedon (later male-ized by a patriarchal Mycenaean culture), Letoon (Leto), Metis or Astarte (the Levant contortion of Istar)?
YES. I have been dorking out, tracing back cultures through time and myth. If every town had a weather god/ess they prayed to because crop success was VERY damn important, then the only way to come out on top is to have your weather god dominate those other gods. Therefore, Zues slept with all those other weather goddesses. Because OF COURSE, Europa, a priestess worshiping the god/ess Astar (thus “married” to Asterion), could never have decided herself that setting up an island based city (Crete) was profitable and defendable with all it’s saffron, poppies and fine clay to spin pottery.
All-in-all, my worst fear is getting context and terminology wrong. It’s a fine line, using an ancient foreign word that happens to be Hatti and not Lycician. People, who speak a closer semblance to the language and culture than I, could be tsking me. What exactly did the Lukka call their ruler or priestess? A Minos? An Anax? Was it the Hittite word, which I can’t seem to find in my translated versions of history? What if I just use king or kinglet because it means the same thing. All I can do is try my best. I’m trying not to be a cultural tourist by borrowing ideas and then misusing them. I’m trying to be as authentic as I can… without knowing Lycian or Luwian.
Comp Titles
I am still reading books for comp titles. Joe Abercrombie’s The Trouble with Peace encompasses a very similar depth of character and gritty emotional intensity of my next manuscript. It just took me much longer than I expected to read it. It says it’s only 500 pages, but I suspect the smaller font and wider margins makes it closer to 600. It’s been hard to find something that’s popular and not primarily youthful female dominated. The current fantasy trend seems to simply place a female into the previous male role, sexual preference included, then rotate the narrative point of view between male and female characters (Priory of the Orange Tree). Or the story is completely for a feminine audience (Spinning Silver).
Not to knock either of these novels. I loved both of them, especially Niclays from the Orange Tree, but I’m not sure that what I’ve written is very similar to either. Most of the narratives are dominated by young people, and I’ve found this as a similar theme in other popular books like The Bone Shard Daughter and The Obsidian Tower. This has probably always been the case, the troph of the hero youth discovering the world and conquering their fears to save the day. The YA market is large and profitable, and therefore reaching into adult fiction, but someone’s story is not over just because they got old. Just ask JK Rowling…
I’d rather avoid tapping into the Game of Thrones title, but in truth, the characters are varied and contain a depth and heaviness that, despite the breath of world, Orange Tree cannot compare with. The only titles that come close arise from The Broken Earth trilogy.
And onward. Choosing my next 450 page whopper…
