Making Up Your Own Country

By Rachel Hauck

A few years ago when I set out to write about royal romances, I knew I would have to develop my own kingdoms, much like Meg Cabot's Genovia, and develop my own royal families and customs.

If you think making up people is hard, try a country! I know the spec writers are used to this but it was a exercise in diligence for this romance writer.

Choosing A Name

First, I had to come up with a name. Seemingly simple on the surface but as I mulled over different titles and googled them, I discovered it wasn't so easy.

Some names I liked were in the Urban dictionary with derogatory meanings. Others were technical terms. Or actual gaming worlds.

Go figure the gaming world would have the best kingdom names.

I decided to choose a name that sounded like the kind of kingdom I wanted. Could I use to describe the people, the geography, the royal family?

I chose the name Brighton for my first kingdom.

I used a headline for the brothers-prince: The Future Looks Bright For The Princes Of Brighton.

Ah, clever right. Yea... ;p

However I didn't thoroughly research Brighton. I knew it was a city in England but didn't really take it into account. And I should have. The name does work and it felt right to me, but a few of my English readers didn't care for the reference.

My second country was the Grand Duchy of Hessenberg. I wanted a duchy because it added a different texture and flavor to the stories. I also wanted a more Germanic sounding name.

In my research of European duchies, I discovered many were once mighty nations like Normandy, Tuscany and Saxony, but over the centuries were absorbed into larger nations like France, Italy and Germany.

What if my duchy faced a similar peril? The story thread for my second novel was born.

Culture

Once I came up with names, I had to figure out the culture. For the sake of simplicity, I gave them both a British culture. The language was English and the money in pounds.

Research revealed various traditions and customs and laws among European royals, so I was able to develop my own royal protocol that felt authentic.

After World War 1 many of the European royal houses collapsed. Russia, France, Italy, Germany so I used that to cause problems for Hessenberg.

I decided both were rich in art and film, ancient feeling nations with a long history. A long history does impact the culture. The people come from something. They've endured trials, and dark times as well as light and success.

Location

Next I had to decide where to put my little kingdoms. Since I initially wanted a German influence in Hessenberg, I decided to put both nations in the North Sea.

There's not much there but oil rigs and shipping lanes but what a great opportunity to create natural resources for my country.

Economy

So when creating fictional worlds or cities, be sure to consider location and what resources aid or harm the economy.

I decided both nations had a wealthy of natural resources like minerals and gems. Oil and gas. Shipping also played a part in their economy, as well as tourism.

Geography

Since they are island nations, I gave them rich coast lines and gorgeous beaches. Lots of tourism to go along with it.

I also made them mountainous so the characters could have a bird's eye view of the ocean. I just loved the idea of the heroine standing on top of a mountain and looking down over an enclosed bay.

To anchor the characters, I created a capital city in each country and of course, a royal palace. Or two.

The cities I imagined to be "old world" European and tried to create a Dickenesque kind of charm and feel.

I did a lot of research on European architecture, trying to blend British, German and Russia styles.

I came up with business, street names, all the things one would do if making up a city in an familiar American setting.

In the first book, Once Upon A Prince, the hero, Prince Nathaniel II (the second) kept referring to his home as Brighton. As if it was one big city.

Then I realized I needed to be much more specific. He needed a city. A palace. A street. An apartment. An office.

So in developing a new world, start wide and zero in, smaller and smaller until you see the pattern in the royal wallpaper.

History

The history path was a bit humorous. Because I didn't know all of the history myself, the characters spoke to each other as if it was a brand new to them too.

"Hey, listen to this new information. You know my country Brighton, in the North Sea, by England?"

Ha! Pretty sloppy.

While rewriting, I changed the dialog so it sounded as if my American heroine studied Brighton Kingdom history in school.

When the prince referenced an historical point, she'd respond, "The Entail of 1914? I remember it from history. What about it?"

I also had to weave my royal family in with the rest of the royal families of Europe. King George IV, Czar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm II were first cousins. Grandsons of Queen Victoria.

Could my House of Stratton be her descendants as well?

Since there was a 1914 time/storyline, I decided Prince Nathaniel's great grandfather was a cousin of George, Nicholas and Wilhelm.

But I had to go beyond 1914. How old was the nation? What was it before Brighton? Was it once a part of Britain?

I decided Brighton was a serf kingdom for England until 1550s when the first king, King Stephen, freed the people from Henry VIII.

With that in view, I had to decided what kind of people lived on the island then and what kind of descendants they created.

That's when the story started to feel more real to me. And when the story feels real to me, it will feel real to the reader.

Same will happen with you. Make sure you know your world. It won't happen on the first draft but as you write, things will begin to pop. Holes will be revealed.

There you have it. A few tips for creating your own country.

Go write something brilliant.

***

USA Today Bestselling author Rachel Hauck lives in sunny central Florida with her husband and ornery pets.

She also co-authored the critically acclaimed Songbird Novels with platinum selling country music artist Sara Evans. Their novel Softly and Tenderly, was one of Booklists 2011 Top Ten Inspirationals.

A graduate of Ohio State University with a degree in Journalism, she worked in the corporate software world before planting her backside in uncomfortable chair to write full time eight years ago.

She’s the author of RITA and Christy nominated books. 

Rachel serves on the Executive Board for American Christian Fiction Writers. She is a mentor and book therapist at My Book Therapy, a conference speaker and worship leader.

Rachel writes from her two-story tower in an exceedingly more comfy chair. She is a huge Buckeyes football fan.

Visit her web site: www.rachelhauck.com.

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From a page of life . . .

by Nicole Petrino-Salter
               

Borrowing from our stockpiles of life experiences, we often create stories to mirror our emotions, our reactions, our hopes, our sorrows, and whatever else we’ve collected in our young or lengthy lives. We etch those words on a would-be page which best describe what we want to tell, share, or admit.

Story provides us with an escape for expressions of all kinds of feelings. Within the framework of writing a novel, we can figure out how to reveal the humanity which forces its way into our souls even when we wish we could exhibit the sublime. However, the very nature of story allows for the telling of sweetness and light or the communication of struggle and hardship.

The bright and hopeful or the dark and sinister can all reside within the pages of life and the pages of stories. As authors we write what suits our souls. As Christians who create novels, we decide what best serves the talents given us by our Lord. There is purpose and meaning in all kinds of stories. As authors determine who their readers will be, so must readers understand that not all stories will suit their tastes or emotional makeup.

The writing life serves as a confessional or a celebration of the experiences tallied on any given days. When we make the characters so real to a reader as to gain an attachment or a revulsion to them, we’ve succeeded in transmitting a page of life. When we, as the writer, suppress tears creating a scene, at least we know our heart is pouring onto that page. Or perhaps we’re laughing at the ridiculous humor and know if somehow it’s tickled our funny bones, surely someone else will also laugh.

The power of life put to the page . . . it’s a privilege and a pleasure to write.

Nicole Petrino-Salter writes love stories with a passion. You can find her most days here.

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The Storyteller's Granddaughter

Kimberly Brock’s writing has appeared in anthologies and magazines. After studying literature and theater, she earned a degree in education. She lives north of Atlanta where she is a wife and mother of three. Visit her website at kimberlybrockbooks.com for more information and to find her blog. You can also find her Author page on Facebook at Kimberly Brock, or tweet her @kimberlydbrock. She is currently at work on her next novel.

My education in story really began with my grandfather, Papa.

He was a storyteller, a hayfield evangelist who spent a lot of time on a tractor, full of homegrown anecdotes, which my family and the community at large, heard a million times over. He was known for these stories, which he cultivated for years, and if you were lucky enough to run into him at Shoney’s or at the Kroger or even if you happened to be an unsuspecting telemarketer, you had plenty of chances to learn one version or another by heart. He would launch into these allegories at any given moment and although we often rolled our eyes or checked our watches, it was a striking revelation and a blessing to me when, at his memorial service, I heard bits of his well-worn phrases floating through the crowd.

He had a voice. He had something to say about how he saw the world. Maybe he was right, maybe he was wrong, prejudiced or naïve or fanciful or judgmental. But he knew a secret about story and I learned it by watching the power in his parables. Few days have passed in all the years since his death when his words don’t come back to me, either in my own thoughts or from the recollections of others, even from those who never met him, but still somehow inherited the words. They were a foundation for how to think about the world and our place in it, the basis for all our stories, I think. If there’s anything that influences my life and shapes my writing, guiding the themes I choose to explore, this is it, what we all remember; his masterpiece, in a way. This is what he would say:

Have you ever wondered where your breath comes from? You can’t bargain for it, you can’t survive without it, and even when you don’t need that breath anymore, there’ll still be breaths left to take and somebody else left to take them. Now what do you think about that?

And I have been thinking about that, for about forty years.

Our breath is a wonder. We have no inkling of where it comes from. It is unfathomable. Beyond us. A continuous miracle. As a writer, I value that kind of vast wonder at the world. To tell the stories I’ve been given, I know it’s necessary to leave my mind open to possibility. How wide can I cast my net? How high can I fly? How low can I fall? How dark and strange can the way become and what feats of daring will it take to find my way home?

Breath is terrifyingly out of our control. As much as we rely on it for survival, we can’t bend it to our will or do without it. Story is like that. We need it to make sense of our lives. And to remind us that sometimes life doesn’t make sense. We need it to reveal truth. And to teach us that sometimes truth is not so easily defined. You can’t bargain with your breath, just as you can’t rush whatever it is that you are learning from the experience of discovering a story. It requires courage to continue and faith that the next breath or word will come, and the next and the next, until it’s done.

Because one day, it will be done. Our stories will be told one way or another. They’ll stand on their own and we’ll realize how lucky we’ve been to have done the hard work, and that we really need to get started on the next one. Because more than anything, a story teaches us that we have something to offer of our experience to this world and that the reach of our stories will inevitably extend beyond our own lives. We tell them for ourselves, but also for those who will take hold of them for future understanding, strength, joy and comfort. 

From my Papa’s stories, I learned about the world, about loss and resentment and forgiveness and redemption. But above all, I learned the lessons of breath: wonder, faith and perpetuity. I learn these every time his voice comes to me, clear and certain, with a bit of humor or wisdom or an enduring hope. I am convinced that when I cease to need these breaths, I’ll leave something behind stronger than a ghost or a regret, because I’m the granddaughter of a storyteller. And this is the story I will tell, what I believe I know:

A breath holds eternity. And this is where a story exists, where a storyteller must live, in the space in between.

Now, what do you think of that?

Can the river heal her?

Roslyn Byrne is twenty-four years old, broken in body, heart and soul. Her career as a professional ballet dancer ended with a car wreck and a miscarriage, leaving her lost and grieving. She needs a new path, but she doesn't have the least idea how or where to start. With some shoving from her very Southern mama, she immures herself for the summer on

Manny's Island, Georgia, one of the Sea Isles, to recover.

There Roslyn finds a ten-year-old girl, Damascus, who brings alligators, pumpkins and hoodoo into her sorry life.

Roslyn rents a house from Damascus's family, the Trezevants, a strange bunch. One of the cousins, Nonnie, who works in the family's market, sees things Roslyn is pretty sure she shouldn't, and knows things regular people don't. Between the Trezevant secrets and Damascus's blatant snooping and meddling, Roslyn finds herself caught in a mysterious stew of the past and present, the music of the river, the dead and the dying who haunt the riverbank, and a passion for living her new life.

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Commit Literature

When I began writing my first novel in 1993, I made a decision that still guides my work today. I would not try to write “great literature.” I would instead content myself with a simple little story, but I would write it to the best of my ability, and work hard to improve my skills to assure that what I wrote, while no masterpiece, would at least reflect well upon my Maker. I believe the most important words a Christian can apply to any kind of work are these, which were written to slaves by a man in chains:

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24) NIV

So I wrote slowly and painstakingly, carefully considering every word from many different standpoints. I sought out the opinions of intelligent acquaintances, and was never too proud to make constructive changes when suggested. Then, through a series of remarkable events (which I hope to write about one day in this column) to my very great surprise that first novel was published. But what surprised me even more was a comment made about that novel by an editor at a major newspaper. He said it “verged on committing literature.”

How strange it was to hear that word, when “literature” was the very thing I told myself I would not do.

Since those days Providence has seen fit to let me finish eight more novels, with six of those in print so far, and one memoir which may outlast them all. At the risk of seeming immodest, there have been several literary awards and many not uncomplimentary reviews, all of which when taken together have tended to imply that others see in me a puzzling habit of producing “literature.” This has caused me some confusion, for not once in all the years of writing—a million words or more—have I gone back on my original decision. Never have I consciously attempted literature.

Literature was for the academy. It was dense, impenetrable, lofty and apart. I simply wanted to tell unusual stories that might entertain readers, might enchant them through the characters and images brought to mind, and might perhaps leave them with a useful thought or two. How did that amount to literature?

For help in thinking through this question I looked to that ever-faithful writer’s servant, Webster’s. It turns out “literature” might not be the stuffy snob I once suspected. It is only “writings in prose or verse; especially: writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.”

Well. That didn’t sound so bad. In fact, this was a fair description of what I expected to read in every novel worth my time. It’s what one should expect from any gifted novelist who does his best to write “with all his heart, as if working for the Lord.” Indeed, now that I think about it, this is what every novel in the Christian Fiction genre ought to be: “excellence of form or expression, and ideas of permanent or universal interest.” For what is the alternative? Mediocrity of form and expression? Unimportant and uninteresting ideas? As an inheritor of the greatest story ever told, what kind of Christian storyteller would I be if I was satisfied with that?

Since I am indeed a Christian truly serious about the faith, I have finally decided to accept this fact: whether I try to write a Transcendent Masterpiece or simply keep on trying to amuse, my underlying goal must be to “commit literature” as it is defined above. If that is not my goal, if I am satisfied with less, then I am not writing for the Lord with all my heart, and in that case I would do best to stop writing altogether and seek some other kind of work.

In exactly the same way, whether you are a home schooling mother, a scientist, an assembly line worker or a lawyer, if you are a Christian you are called to work with all your heart as if working for the Lord. No job is too mundane for that calling; no task is too trivial. Those words were first meant for slaves, remember, written to them by a man in prison. I cannot help being a writer; this gift was given without asking if I might prefer another. Similarly, a slave by definition cannot choose his work, but in following St. Paul’s admonition he can most certainly redeem it. Perhaps life has assigned you only ditches to be dug, but in the way you dig them you decide if you are making literature or pulp. Every task, from the most denigrated to the most celebrated, becomes a form of praise and worship if it’s done with all your heart as if for the Lord. That choice is always yours.

Praise the Lord with excellence in whatever work you do, and prepare to be surprised when others call it something more than you dreamed possible.


Athol Dickson’s novels have been favorably compared to the work of Octavia Butler (Publisher’s Weekly), Daphne du Maurier (FaithfulReader.com, by Cindy Crosby, Christianity Today fiction critic), and Flannery O’Connor (The New York Times). His They Shall See God was a Christy Award finalist. River Rising was selected as one of the Booklist Top Ten Christian Novels of 2006, was a Christianity Today Best Novel of 2006 finalist, an Audie Award winner, and winner of the Christy Award for best suspense novel of the year. Winter Haven was a Christy Award finalist and a Romantic Times Top Pick. Both The Cure and Athol’s most recent novel, Lost Mission won Christy Awards in the suspense category, and Lost Mission is currently nominated for a Clive Staples Award. Athol lives with his wife in southern California.

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Get Thee to the Swordfight

People are funny. And not always funny ha-ha. When Lost Mission hit the shelves last September, a few people told me it was well written as far as that went, but it started off too slowly. I was prepared for any criticism except for a slow start, since the story mentions two miracles in the first four pages alone. (A church bell seems to ring by itself, and a fresco is “not painted by human hands.”) I even tossed in a couple of boys who are nearly burned alive. These folks did admit it “got better” later on, but still, apparently the miracles and near death experience were barely enough to pique their interest.

Maybe I should have burned the boys.

Of course I know a novel has to hook the reader from the very first word these days. Even an Amish romance must be thrilling from the get-go, otherwise the jaded citizenry will wander off to channel surf their countless choices in realty television shows, or “meet” a dozen perverts a minute on Chat Roulette, or even worse, read somebody else’s book. But I did think I had done my duty, hook wise, with two miracles and a couple of burning boys in four pages flat, so color me confused.

In situations like this it’s good to consult the specialists. I decided to check out the first four pages of a few stories that have done pretty well, and what I found there was instructive: Aunt Polly fails to spank her nephew. Yawn. Tom Sawyer goes back on the shelf. A man—we don’t even know his name yet!—rents a house. So much for the first four pages of The Great Gatsby. On page one of another novel we learn the Hudson River valley is uncivilized, and we learn it some more on page two, and more on pages three, and four, and by then it is clear The Last of the Mohicans wouldn’t last long in the hands of today’s impatient reader. In fact, none of these so-called “classics” would pass muster nowadays, yet people in the olden times seemed to think they were okay. So between then and now, what changed?

We did, I’m afraid. Once upon a time a troubadour could count on Lords and Ladies to sit and listen in the castle without interrupting him to say, “Get thee to the swordfight already.” Once it was possible to write a novel about a great white whale in which the whale did not appear until around page three hundred. But nowadays, unless there’s pending death, dismemberment or damnation in the first sentence it’s close the book and pass another novel.

Blame it on Robert Adler, that mad Austrian scientist who invented the television remote control. He hoped to liberate us from the senseless tyranny of having to move more than one finger to switch from NBC to CBS to ABC and back again (the only three options back in ‘56), but his impatience with the time consuming walk from couch to television set unwittingly created a slave race of channel surfing zombies.

Or maybe Adler’s Folly was just one more step in the long attention span decline that began with Gutenberg, (real name, “Goose-skin”) the inventor of movable type, a devilish creation which made it possible for the Average Joe’s reading choices to outnumber his brain cells. But really I suspect we’d have to go much further back to expose the roots of this problem, because even Gutenberg suffered from an early indication of the looming plague when he took a little longer than expected to come up with the printing press and got sued by an investor who was “losing patience.”

It turns out slow beginnings aren’t even my only shortcoming as a novelist.

In Lost Mission, I also made the mistake of setting some scenes in the 1700’s and others in the here and now. I never dreamed this would cause so much trouble, yet some people have complained it's hard to follow the transitions between timeframes. In my defense, I did see this one coming. In the book are subtle hints, along the lines of “Pay attention, dear reader, because we’re about to leave the old timey days.” Lest you think I’m exaggerating, allow me to quote Lost Mission's first transition. Here’s the setup: at this point in the story we are crossing the Atlantic toward the New World on a Spanish galleon with an eighteenth century friar, and then . . .

“. . . this is just the first of many journeys we shall follow as our story leads us back and forth through space and time. Indeed, the events Fray Alejandro has set in motion have their culmination far into the future. Therefore, leaving the Franciscan and his solitary ship, we cross many miles to reach a village known as Rincon de Dolores, high among the Sierra Madres of Jalisco, Mexico. And we fly further still, centuries ahead of Alejandro, to find ourselves in these, our modern times.”

You see the problem. (I know you do, because you’re one of the few who haven’t gotten bored with this column already and gone off to Google something better.) If a reader can’t (won’t?) follow along with an in-your-face transition like that, it’s hard to hope she will remember basic plot points or character’s names from one chapter to another.

Should an author pander to such people?

Just imagine where that could lead. Think of eBooks with embedded comments to remind readers that John is “the narcissist you met in chapter three” and New York is “the city where this story is taking place.” Such things are certainly feasible in this electronic age, but are they wise? Don’t brains, like muscles, atrophy unless we use them? One does hope to let the reader’s memory and imagination do some of the work, otherwise what do we have? Television, I suppose.

In a culture with 150 channels in the basic cable package, and 116 second delivery times in fast food drive through lanes, and eight minute speed dating (not to mention three minute online speed dating), I suppose impatience with old fashioned storytelling had to reach this fevered pitch. And I suppose it was too much to hope my novels would escape unscathed. After all, some of the people who read them also enjoyed that mega bestseller which is not entitled Your Best Life Later. But it does leave me wondering how a novelist should respond.

Should authors embrace the current reality by getting a character killed, kidnapped, betrayed or broken hearted in the very first phrase (never mind the first sentence) of page one? Should we try for two miracles per page rather than two pages per miracle? Should we (as some are doing) crank out four or five novels a year for fear of being otherwise forgotten in the reader's rush to choke words down like French fries? This path has the advantage of keeping the author in print. Might it also make authors part of the problem, like drug pushers who claim they only give the people what they want?

Or should we hope there are enough sober readers left who still know the difference between reading a novel and channel surfing? Ah, the high road. Writing for that vanishing breed would be a risky choice for those of us who survive on advances and royalties, but while it might keep us up at night worrying about the bills, at least we could still look in the mirror in the morning.

There is always compromise, of course, a middle path between these two extremes, and that’s what most of us do, including me. But where does compromise lead us? Given the change in attitude from the days of Cooper, Twain and Fitzgerald, it seems the real choices are two: join our culture’s epidemic of impatience and make a living, or write for thoughtful folks and risk going out of print. Imagine you’re a novelist, struggling to survive on words. What would you do?

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Come and Stori

Marcia Lee Laycock is a pastor's wife, mother of three grown daughters, care-giver to two golden retrievers and a six-toed cat. She is also a writer and speaker. Visit www.vinemarc.com

In Papua New Guinea most of the people speak a pidgin language, a trade language, called Tok Pisin. When my family and I moved there we spent the first while learning how to speak it. I loved that time because of the many phrases and words that made me smile.

For instance, when someone invites you to visit he or she will say, "Yu mas cam na stori wantaim mipella" - "You must come and story with me." Because the written word is a relatively new thing there, verbal communication is vital. Telling stories is their way of understanding the world and people around them, their way of relating what is in the depths of their hearts.

A man who had lived in that country a long time said, “you don’t just blurt information here, you must build on it, make it into a drama, give it life.”

I once watched a Papuan friend tell a story to a small group. We were sitting in a half-circle, the story-teller squatting in the middle. His head swivelled as he made eye contact with those on both sides, often repeating parts and using his hands with emphasis to make sure they were getting it all. His audience leaned forward, intent on his words, even though it was a story they all knew well, an old folk tale that had been told and re-told for many generations.

I have heard it said that there are less than thirty unique plot-lines from which to choose when writing fiction. With such limited material, I once despaired of ever doing anything unique. But, like that Papuan man who kept his audience spellbound, I have discovered that it isn’t so much the story itself that captures people, but the way in which it’s told and the unique perspective of the teller.

Jesus knew this when he told stories to those he sat with in the markets and houses of Palestine. The stories he told weren’t anything new. They were simple stories about fishermen and farmers, about the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. But as He told them He allowed them to see with His eyes, giving them a perspective that took them to depths they had never gone before. In a sense, He told them what they already knew, but in such a way that they drew in their breath with fresh understanding. He allowed them to see with His Father’s eyes and the view was suddenly astonishing.

We too can open the eyes of our readers to the wonder of our world and our God. The Apostle Peter, as he was preaching, once said “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2Peter 1:16).

We have not seen Jesus face to face on this earth, but we have seen his majesty. We’ve seen it in the world around us, in the people around us, and most astonishingly in our own lives. As believers we have had the longings of our hearts satisfied, the drama of our lives given meaning, and that which was once dead brought to life. That is the story we can and must tell, over and over, in all the plot lines and all the turns of phrase.

It is a simple truth, the essential truth, the only story. May He find us faithful.

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