So I am writing a "book"

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by idimmu

you can be 'dead persion #2' im going to be the grand visor

I don't see why you keep on insisting on being some large face covering. Surely being a vizier (alternate spelling vizir) would be better.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Kurashima

Idler has been playing Age of Mythology & The Titans Expansion pack FAR too much lately.

'At all' in that case.

Rise of Nations is an infinitely better game in every way, except for the lack of Crocodiles with LASER BEAMS ON THEIR HEADS.

[-=Zyth=-]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

I don't see why you keep on insisting on being some large face covering. Surely being a vizier (alternate spelling vizir) would be better.

He could do the face mask of the sun god ra, and sneak behind people and say 'Boo'

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by -=Zyth=-

He could do the face mask of the sun god ra, and sneak behind people and say 'Boo'

Boo says whaaaat?

[Vermillion]

A few problems:

A marching army of 2 million men is FAR too many. Standard armies in the Athenian world tended to be in the tens of thousands, the largest army ever assembles during the period was the Xerxes invasion force, for which the numbers are unclear. The highest estimate, provided by heroditus, is about 1,7 million men, but that includes, auxilliaries, camp followers, non-combatants and women. Most sources place the number of combatant troops at significantly under a million.

I cannot emphasise enough, if you are going to set a book in a historical setting, then know your history. Not just general facts, but specifics such as what people ate, how they lived, what they wore and why. Know the culture and society as well as the events, or the tale will suffer.

[Aryn]

so you're saying hero #2 was introduced near the begining where he rescues hero1 from the forest. perhaps you could reintroduce him later by having hero1 come back to ask for a favour, or to return a favour.

either have it so when hero1 leaves he swears he'll bring back *somehtingcool* to the farmer one day.
or... when the hero1 is looking for the big bad army.. he runs into an ambush, and just so happens to get saved by hero2 AGAIN.. hero2 then remains as a major character for the rest of the story

[Deepflow]

vermillion and mrl come along and spoil all the fun

incidentally...

why dont you make the companion for the hero a woman? one who fancies his gf...

or not, but a butch lesbian in a greek story sounds kinda "kewl"

though bisexual and not butch would be better, then they could have a sexy threesome.

[Aryn]

i'd also like to point out that this facination with gay greek men is quite comical
it sounds like you want him to write a book about greek hotmansex0r so you guys can read it
pervs :\

[W]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

I cannot emphasise enough, if you are going to set a book in a historical setting, then know your history. Not just general facts, but specifics such as what people ate, how they lived, what they wore and why. Know the culture and society as well as the events, or the tale will suffer.

I will go with Heinlein on this one; the more you know about a subject, the harder it is to write about. People with special knowledge might notice that the details don't fit, but if you can adopt the details to the story, it's that much easier to write, and will be more enjoyable for the non-geeks.

[-=Zyth=-]

Originally Posted by Aryn

i'd also like to point out that this facination with gay greek men is quite comical
it sounds like you want him to write a book about greek hotmansex0r so you guys can read it
pervs :\

I can only speak for my own comments in this, but its a book, not Disney. The other commentators are suspect however.

Except for the horse...

[XeeThot]

Make the sidekick a horse...

Like a gift given him by Minerva, the horse is not magical but excels in strenght, endurance and intelligence...

Maby there can get a chapter where the horse, saves the hero from a trap by smelling the just unlit oil lamps the assassins used while they waited by the road....

[Super]

Originally Posted by I am Idler

It's going to be a 5-600 pager book of some sort

5 pages to 600 pages? Pretty vague isn't it?

[Phang]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Write the book like its an episode of neighbours or saved by the bell or some other popular 20th century television show about wacky teenagers and the crazy antics they get up to at school only have it set in the Lyceum in 200BC and have Milos and the girl (who is the daughter of the headmaster King Leonidas) be pupils at the school and you can have like plato and aristotle being teachers there and then have Milos be gay and the girl wants to have sex with him but he says no because she doesnt have a penis and hes really popular and is the captain of some greek sports team (i dont know what games the greeks played) but shes a bit of a nerd and it could be like Grease but only hes gay and stuff so she tells all her girlfriends about how he doesnt want to date her and they are all like "whatever" then instead of a persian army have them be a gang of schoolyard bullies from a local persian school who are terrorising the lyceum students and noone can stop them but then the Oracle who teaches their religious education class tells Milos how to beat the bullies and he goes to the forest with the girl after school to make out (he stopped being gay) then they meet a farmer there who shows them the sword in the stone and he pulls it out and kills all the bullies and you can use the cultural contrast to make profound social commentaries on todays society and it would be really cool and id probably read it.

2nded

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Phang

2nded

My idea was so much better.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by XeeThot

Make the sidekick a horse...

Like a gift given him by Minerva, the horse is not magical but excels in strenght, endurance and intelligence...

yeah at least 18s in all of those. and it should have magical horse shoes giving it two kick attacks per round (at 1d8 +2, magical). and maybe a breath weapon that improves as the hero gains levels!

oh, and heros in greek literature always have their flaws. achilles was incredibly arrogant etc. not saying you have to conform to their style, but a violent misogynist as a hero would make for good fun between the hero and whichever hottie he ends up with.

[Super]

Make one character have access to a timemachine, which malfunctions every time with hilarious results.

[Phang]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

My idea was so much better.

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

stuff

tl;dr

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Super

Make one character have access to a timemachine, which malfunctions every time with hilarious results.

i, in real life, have numerous time machines that malfunction every time i attempt to use them as time machines.

to date, hilarity has not ensued.

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by W

I will go with Heinlein on this one; the more you know about a subject, the harder it is to write about. People with special knowledge might notice that the details don't fit, but if you can adopt the details to the story, it's that much easier to write, and will be more enjoyable for the non-geeks.

That is really only true at the extreme. Somebody who spends time trying to get the shape and coposition of middle Greek horseshoes correctly will lost track of the concept, indeed the search for accuracy can eventually occlude the story you are trying to tell.


However that does NOT apply at the level we are talking about. You need to understand the history in order to breathe life into the characters and the setting. How did the people see their Gods? What was the weather like in ancient Greece? How did the people react to the state/govrnment? What did people know about the world?

If you do NOT know then you risk doing what many bad authors do, and that is writing a default position being contemporary norms, and that throws the reader off. A good book transports the reader into another world, not the same world where things are just labelled differently. The more you understand about the culture and the norms of th period, the easier it will be to have your chracter fit into that society, and the more impact you will have on your reader.

[Cmdr_Cyrax]

Originally Posted by acropolis

yeah at least 18s in all of those. and it should have magical horse shoes giving it two kick attacks per round (at 1d8 +2, magical). and maybe a breath weapon that improves as the hero gains levels!

Are you saying the sidekick should be a roleplayer?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

If you do NOT know then you risk doing what many bad authors do, and that is writing a default position being contemporary norms, and that throws the reader off. A good book transports the reader into another world, not the same world where things are just labelled differently. The more you understand about the culture and the norms of th period, the easier it will be to have your chracter fit into that society, and the more impact you will have on your reader.

Rewriting homer's odyssey or thucydides or any of the classical poets and playwrights would be pretty dull though. Plus transplating cultures in witty social commentaries is well funny.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

That is really only true at the extreme. Somebody who spends time trying to get the shape and coposition of middle Greek horseshoes correctly will lost track of the concept, indeed the search for accuracy can eventually occlude the story you are trying to tell.


However that does NOT apply at the level we are talking about. You need to understand the history in order to breathe life into the characters and the setting. How did the people see their Gods? What was the weather like in ancient Greece? How did the people react to the state/govrnment? What did people know about the world?

If you do NOT know then you risk doing what many bad authors do, and that is writing a default position being contemporary norms, and that throws the reader off. A good book transports the reader into another world, not the same world where things are just labelled differently. The more you understand about the culture and the norms of th period, the easier it will be to have your chracter fit into that society, and the more impact you will have on your reader.

hmmm.

i'd say that while historical accuracy is one of avoiding the 'relabeling' issue, it isn't the only way. perhaps not even the best way. the best way to answer the "how did the people see their gods" question is "in whatever way is best for the story."

if the story is to be historical fiction, then obviously accuracy is of the utmost importance. but if the story is to be a satire of the current international political order (as jonny would have it), then a complete relabeling is the correct thing to do (in a voltairish kind of way).

but it doesn't have to be either of these, and neither relabelling nor accuracy are necessarily important.

anyway, your underlying argument renders literary triumphs such as 'zadig' as being wastes of time written by "bad authors" pretty much by definition

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Cmdr_Cyrax

Are you saying the sidekick should be a roleplayer?

no, the sidekick should be a comwardly poet, forced to assist the hero because their interests coincide. he survives by amazing 'luck', but his luck later turns out be the intervention of the Gods (Hades forced Zeus to agree never to intervene on Milos' behalf, but that didn't mean that Zeus couldn't intervene to protect the poet. As the poet was acting to protect Milos, Zeus was actually able to help Milos, indirectly. And Hades could do nothing but stew)

It's the horse that likes to participate in online role-playing forums.

[Marilyn Manson]

I hope there will be gay sex in it. You couldn't have a fiction book about ancient Greece without gay sex.

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

I hope there will be gay sex in it. You couldn't have a fiction book about ancient Greece without gay sex.

Ah yes, the Spartan league... when gays ruled the world...

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Ah yes, the Spartan league... when gays ruled the world...

Spartans were too busy repressing the helots and impressing Plato to have time for gay sex.




They left that to plato :ninja:

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by acropolis

anyway, your underlying argument renders literary triumphs such as 'zadig' as being wastes of time written by "bad authors" pretty much by definition

Christ, the horrors of GD board...

(This is not directed specifically at you Acropolis, but fired out in general)
(It is also the result of me being in a somewhat bad mood today, as there is some shit going down at work which I cannot discuss)

Stop arguing for the sake of arguing. Yes in the worldwide scheme of literature it is in the whole possible for authors to use the tactic of anachronism in principle to advance their writing or even make a telling point about their chosen subject or field.

I am not attacking the foundations of modern and archaic literature by making grandiose statements about what is and is not acceptable in writing amongst the literary elite, I am not attempting to impose my personal will on 2000 years of prose and literature across 191 countries.


I am telling a first-time writer who is thinking of writing a book set in classical times that he had better know his history exceptionally well, as this will aid him in both the creative writing process and telling his story in context, it will also make it slightly less likely to be dustbinned by prospective publishers. Without the knowledge of the culture and society in which the book is based, the setting is wasted and useless, and will in fact be detrimental to the work itself.

The fact that literary giants have, at one point or another in the past, written texts which make clever and subtle use of anachronism successfully is utterly irrelevant.

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Spartans were too busy repressing the helots and impressing Plato to have time for gay sex.

You should read into the Spartan military schools and training regimens. Gay sex, and for that matter gay sex with young boys, was not only encouraged but was considered to be a significant component of a students military training.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

You should read into the Spartan military schools and training regimens. Gay sex, and for that matter gay sex with young boys, was not only encouraged but was considered to be a significant component of a students military training.

I've got news for you verm. Your girlfriend videoed over that history channel programme with gay porn

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I've got news for you verm. Your girlfriend videoed over that history channel programme with gay porn

I KNEW that retro '70s "Baow Chicka- Baow Baow" soundtrack didnt seem very Spartan...

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Stop arguing for the sake of arguing. Yes in the worldwide scheme of literature it is in the whole possible for authors to use the tactic of anachronism in principle to advance their writing or even make a telling point about their chosen subject or field.

I am not attacking the foundations of modern and archaic literature by making grandiose statements about what is and is not acceptable in writing amongst the literary elite, I am not attempting to impose my personal will on 2000 years of prose and literature across 191 countries.


I am telling a first-time writer who is thinking of writing a book set in classical times that he had better know his history exceptionally well, as this will aid him in both the creative writing process and telling his story in context, it will also make it slightly less likely to be dustbinned by prospective publishers. Without the knowledge of the culture and society in which the book is based, the setting is wasted and useless, and will in fact be detrimental to the work itself.

The fact that literary giants have, at one point or another in the past, written texts which make clever and subtle use of anachronism successfully is utterly irrelevant.

i'm not arguing for the sake of arguing.

to my knowledge, there has yet to be a 'great work of literature' wherein both the setting was a different culture, time, and place from the author, and a decent level of historical accuracy was maintained.

it seems that the way of things is that authors have time for a great story or historical accuracy, but not both. shakespeare's histories were great works (no matter what nod has to say), but they certainly didn't maintain HA. In 'Julius Caesar', for example, there was virtually no HA, and the social satire exception doesn't help you out either, as Shakespeare wasn't making social commentary (or making 'clever and subtle use of anachronism'), he was writing about the nature of betrayal.

You do bring up something that I had not considered. As historical fiction is somewhat in style right now, accuracy might help you get picked up by a publisher.

[W]

I'm still going with Heinleins point. Historical (or other factual) accuracy matter zero except to the ones that want their fiction to be factual instead of realistic, and will handicap a fictional author to the extreme.

What's wrong with writing a book about a past time period as tho it happened on a completely different planet with parallell tendencies? Realism=/=factuality.

As they say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. If you start using some facts, they won't fit in with the rest of the story unless it too is brought to sync with facts, and you end up spending more time researching facts than writing an enjoyable story. If you feel free to invent things that never happened, you're more likely to make it realistic (as in details fitting together and making sense in a hypothetical world).

[Super]

Yeah W is right. Let's give the greeks LAZAR GUNZ!

[Phang]

the issue is more 'don't actually lie' rather than 'add in tons of knowledge'. if the army was 300k max (whatever) then don't make it 2 million. etc.

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

.

Name one historically accurate novel, set in a society from the distant past, that doesnt suck.

JUST ONE

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Name one historically accurate novel, set in a society from the distant past, that doesnt suck.

JUST ONE

Atlas Shrugged.





lololololololol

[W]

Originally Posted by Super

Yeah W is right. Let's give the greeks LAZAR GUNZ!

The greeks having lazer guns is not remotely realistic. As the main point of my posts is to argue that realism and a good story is independant of facts, you completely failed to grasp them.

[Cmdr_Cyrax]

Originally Posted by Super

Yeah W is right. Let's give the greeks LAZAR GUNZ!

This sort of thing has already been done.
Read 'the guns of the south' by harry turtledove. Basicly a time traveller goes back in time and gives the south modern weaponary in the american civil war.

He's an alternate history writer and most of his books are something along those lines. You may have some competition...

[I am Idler]

righto, I have been here since 7am.. so I've had a little time to check up on some facts.. (Vermillion has been especially helpful, as has W, so thank you).

4 internet sources has constantly told me that Xerxes invasion force was counting 2 million men in total, while others say 150.000 men and 600 boats.

Also I have been printing almost 200 pages with various information about Greece in the period of the story.. so I asume that will teach me a ting or two I didnt know.

I had the idea that hero1's friend is hero #2's slave, who is given to hero#1 to aid him on his journey.. just a thought.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by W

The greeks having lazer guns is not remotely realistic. As the main point of my posts is to argue that realism and a good story is independant of facts, you completely failed to grasp them.

LASER.

Crappy pedantism yes, but you should know better. And what LASER stands for.

[I am Idler]

uh oh. I've just introduced.. Ares

and he gets a deadly wound.! (he will be saved by daddy zeus, but not in a while)

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

You should read into the Spartan military schools and training regimens. Gay sex, and for that matter gay sex with young boys, was not only encouraged but was considered to be a significant component of a students military training.

Originally Posted by I am Idler

uh oh. I've just introduced.. Arse

ITS A CONSPIRACY

[I am Idler]

I actually knew about that.. but Vermillion provided some exellent points which I have now taken into consideration..
(for example I discovered that Ares wasnt immortal, which is a great thing, with a mortal god)

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

LASER.

Crappy pedantism yes, but you should know better. And what LASER stands for.

Perhaps he meant one of the guns used in lazer tag.

[I am Idler]

would it be ok to let king Leonidas be killed by the corrupt advisor as the persians hammer the city gates? yes it would

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Perhaps he meant one of the guns used in lazer tag.

That would be great. Go back to WW2, give a group some Lazer tag guns, claim they were powerful weapons then laugh, laugh!

[W]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

LASER.
Crappy pedantism yes, but you should know better. And what LASER stands for.

I will from now on never write lazer with an s again.

JUST TO SPITE YOU

[I am Idler]

hmm.. hero has a armour with the trident used by mr. Triton stashed in a cabinet

yes yes, thats a splendid idea.. now to link them together

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by W

I will from now on never write lazer with an s again.

JUST TO SPITE YOU

ahahahha woo can't spelelleleppeeee

[Radical Edward]

write an alternate history book in which the romans had an industrial revolution.....

unless there already is one.