Dark Age Fiction: Jeff Blackmer's Blog

Did you know that when you started writing your story that you made a promise to the reader? You probably didn’t come right out and plainly state it, but you made it nonetheless. Have you ever read a book or watched a movie and thoroughly enjoyed it until you got to the end? Then finally, the climax and denouement and you either muttered it outloud or whispered it under your breath…”what a stupid story”.

What? You enjoyed the first 95% of the story? What went wrong?

The writer, in setting up the story, establishes an expectation of the outcome. We know, fairly soon, how the story should end. Most often the hero will overcome incredible odds or great suffering, or do some great thing that inspires or moves us, but in the end, he will triumph and we will be satisfied. Or, perhaps that won’t happen at all. Maybe we are watching or reading a tragedy, and the ending will be sad. It matters not. The writer, by the way the story is told, sets up an expectation for the ending.

How would we have felt if, at the end of Avatar, Jake had died? We would have felt cheated. How would we have felt if, at the end of Romeo and Juliet, the lovers had lived? We would probably have been confused, and frankly, again, cheated.

Don’t get to the end of your story and break the promise you made to the reader at the beginning. If you do, your readers will stop believing you.

 Every once in awhile someone will say they really like Draegnstoen but question the reason for dragons in the story. There are several reasons I put them there. First of all, in some ways, the dragons are metaphorical, a representation of Rome, and a representation of accomplishing a great task, of “slaying a dragon”. They are also intentionally scarce in the story, appearing in only two chapters and seen only by the royal family and the king’s archers. In fact, at one point, King Vortigern asks captured Bodric (son of the chief archer) why the Brits place so much importance on the longbow.
“We find them useful in killing dragons,” says Bodric.
Vortigern scoffs. “I have never seen a dragon.”
“There are many kinds of dragons,” answers Bodric.

Lastly, if we look at the dragon myth, we will find that it is pervasive throughout the world. Virtually every society and every culture has a dragon myth, from China, to Europe, even the Native Americans. Dragons are mentioned in the Bible and even the Inuit have stories of dragons. There are many sorts of mythical animals, told in countless stories, but the dragon is one common to almost every people. It seemed such a curious, unexplainable thing that I wanted to explore it in Draegnstoen and give the myth one more look, something just a little bit different.

Hello to all.
I have been encouraged by many to begin a blog and have finally decided to do so. For many who have, for years, known that I like to write, “Dark Age Fiction” perhaps seems an odd name for a blog. You see, I was supposed to be a Science Fiction writer.

My first day of kindergarten, when the teacher asked what we wanted to learn that year, my hand shot up. “I want to learn to read and write!”
As a kid I once got a half hour of uninterrupted time on my mom’s typewriter and wrote the first page of a story about a trip to the moon. I read *all* the science fiction books at the local library. I would go back each week to see if they had any new ones. In 5th grade we were allowed to give oral book reports in front of the class, five minutes each and a friend challenged me to see who could do the most that year. I won with eighty six.

After writing a number of short stories, I decided that the real challenge must be in the novel, and several years ago I gave it a try, a practice novel. Not entirely satisfied, I tried again. A better effort, but still not happy with it. But the biggest thing that puzzled me was that neither was science fiction. One was a modern day South Seas Adventure, and the second was 19th century Historical Fiction. And then I got the idea for Draegnstoen. It was a concept that had been percolating in my head for years. A bunch of seemingly random ideas that came together to make an interesting story.

I had always been interested in the royalty of England. I would read about a particular ruler and then wanted to find out who came before them. I kept following that course back through time until the history began to falter, taken over by legend, and there, in the Dark Ages, I knew there was a story – An historical fantasy about Stonehenge, Old King Coel, the Picts, and driving the Romans out of Britain.

After writing Draegnstoen, and getting a positive review on Harper Collins website “Authonomy”, I was able to secure an agent, Linn Prentis. She informed me that a publisher willl most likely want a second book, a sequel of sorts. Therefore, I have, for the time being, set aside three science fiction projects I was working on, a mystery thriller, and my 19th century adventure story (which I do like well enough to fix up).

It seems that I have put my feet on a different path, historical fantasy. But that’s okay, I love it, and revel in it. There are so many stories to tell. The next book is Highland King, the story of Doncann, nephew of Coel from Draegnstoen. After that, a book called Woden, several stories about the mythology of Ireland and another about Wales. This Dark Age/Iron Age era speaks to me, and I am listening.