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World Building – Towns and Villages

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One of the things that I often do when I am writing a story is to sketch a map of the area where the story takes place. This helps me to visualise what the characters will be able to see. The thing is though, you can’t just bang down stuff randomly (well you can, but it isn’t realistic – you want your world to be realistic don’t you?)

How settlements form

Typically people build houses where there is shelter from the elements, adequate supplies of food, water and fuel. They also like to build them in easily accessible places for the most part. All villages and towns grow from farmstead, places a farmer, and his family, decided to settle.

However not all of these farmsteads ends up as a village. There are loads of outlying farms in populated countryside, some of them are ancient or at least built on the remains of an ancient farm. What distinguishes those that get bigger?

There’s an element of luck, but mainly it is because they either have an abundance of some resource or they lie along a convenient route. Trade is the reason most of our towns exist. Certainly this is true of the most ancient ones. There exceptions to this, but these tend to be modern capital cities (Washington DC being an example) or new towns intended to displace people from densely populated inner cities (like Milton Keynes, or Cumbernauld).

Villages

Look closely at the next handful of villages you drive through. There is a clear difference between an extended farm

English: Corfe Castle Village Square This is t...
English: Corfe Castle Village Square This is taken in the Square, looking west towards the National Trust shop and the war memorial in the centre of the Square. This is now used as a roundabout for the village traffic as well as a seating area for the tourists (as depicted by the photograph)! The National Trust shop is located in the village as the castle is a National Trust property. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

with houses for the labourers and a proper village. Villages tend to have a focal point, usually a green space, but sometimes a market square. Modern villages still have them, there will be an open area possibly with a children’s play area. Around this there will be a Church, possibly a pub, a shop or two and often a war memorial. Even if there isn’t an open area there will be a cluster of the Church (with graveyard), a pub, shop and war memorial. These will be surrounded with houses, perhaps along a single linear road. If there is a second cross road this may also have houses along it. The cross roads (sometimes a Y) will often run on two sides of the Church, or the village green if there is one.

Optional extras, depending on the size of the village

  • village hall (needs about 1,000 residents to be viable);
  • school (needs a couple of hundred kids aged 4-11 within five miles to work);
  • more shops and pub (scale up shops per 200 inhabitants, and pubs per thousand);
  • larger villages have more streets, keeping everything within minimum walking distance.

Of course when you are world building for a story you make the village suit the narrative that you are conveying. It doesn’t really matter if the shops, pubs or anything else is economically viable. If you need an internal rivalry then two pubs might be a way to do it. If you need a football team, or a Women’s Institute then write in the Pavilion and pitch, or the village hall or whatever you need.

Communities

A key feature of villages is that typically people know who there neighbours are, and in the smaller more settled ones far outside the commuter belt, the lineages of all the residents. Or at least some of the inhabitants know all of that. This can be a feature for interesting stories. The other thing that happens in these sorts of communities is that the smarter kids leave for university and jobs in the big city. Some of the others join the services (including some of the smart ones) and go away that way. Often they reappear later in life, retired in their forties, or professionally qualified as the local GP, district nurse, solicitor, entrepreneur, mechanic. A good way to bring people in without having to make them complete strangers to the rest of your characters.

Towns

English: Wigtown market square gardens. The ga...
English: Wigtown market square gardens. The gardens in the market square with the town hall in the background. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Towns are a whole different order of magnitude different. They don’t scale into villages, there is a sort of multiplier effect with proper towns. Almost every old town that I have looked at, and I do pay attention on my travels, is based around a market, and very often also a river crossing.

Towns tend to be on the nexus of trade routes, and they draw in people from surrounding villages for markets and also specialised trades. As well as being bigger than villages, especially with the tradespeople, they also have a lot more in the way of amenities. There will be a square, with a town hall of some sort on it, and often also a church. In many modern towns the square has been infilled, usually with parades of shops, descended from the market stalls that once stood in the same place.

Like the villages the towns are often formed around a cross roads, this can be two sides of the main square, or sometimes they join at one end of a widened high street and then split out after the shopping area (Reigate in Surrey does this, the A25 and A217 being the primary routes).

Another key feature of a town, other than being astride a trade route, is that it tends to have an abundance of something useful (or it did have in its early days). This could be something simple like weavers in a sheep farming region, or a watermill in an arable area. There ought to be something. This might not matter to your story though and you don’t need to worry about it much. However it could also be useful as a hook, or a clue.

How I draw maps

Firstly I think of the sort of place that I need for my story, and the key locations I need it to have. Once I’ve listed those out I get myself a blank sheet of paper (although I do sometimes use squared paper).

Pencil usually starts with some outline topographical features (which way is uphill, where are the water courses).

Then I put the focus of the village/town on the map, along with some routes. I see this as growing the town organically.

Next down are the key locations I need relative to each other. I then fill in the gaps between them with the other necessary parts of the village/town. i.e. the pubs, shops and civic amenities. If it is a mediaeval walled town then I add these in now as well. If there is a need for industry I also stick that in too.

Lastly I add in some houses for the people to live in, making sure to put the bigger ones upwind of the town (the richer districts of towns/cities tend to be upwind on prevailing winds because the rich folk can afford to build where the air is sweeter). I try to put in at least one building for every ten inhabitants, in modern times maybe two to three times that much, we live much less densely these days, even though there are more of us.

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alternative, WW2

Commentary – Hunting Nazis

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I’ve written a short story called Hunting Nazis for the End of Module Assessment (EMA) for A215 Creative Writing. The target word count was 2,500 with an upper limit of +10%. The first draft weighed in at 5k words, double the target length. However some of this was because although I plotted it I needed to tell myself the story in the first draft. Once I got to the end it was much easier to re-edit and take out some of it.

Hunting Nazis

The central premise is that Reggie and Dot (from the earlier story Planting the Past) have been hunting nazis guilty of war crimes against the members of the French resistance and SOE agents supporting the network that they were both part of during World War Two. The story takes place in Berlin in 1953 when they are tying up the last few loose ends.

There are a couple of supporting characters, Paul, another ex-resistance fighter, but one that Dot (called Nancy by him as that was her code name) doesn’t trust, she’s convinced that he betrayed people to the Germans. He was arrested and deported to Berlin by the Gestapo as they left France in September 1944. Somehow he managed to survive this and the fall of Berlin to the Soviets and then establish a nightclub in a converted public air raid shelter near the Potsdamerplatz. One of his employees, a barman named Gustav is an ex-SS rifleman attached to the unit lead by SS Captain Hechte in the final days of the Reich. Reggie and Dot are looking to recover a relic stolen by Hechte and to confirm his death in May 1945 at the hands of the soviets.

There are also a couple of friendlies from their SOE days, still employed by British Intelligence but now spying on the soviets with the help of Paul and his nightclub. Their worry is that Reggie and Dot’s activities might scare off the Soviet officers they’ve been blackmailing if they are too blatant.

No spoilers, so that’s as much as I can say other than that it all comes to a climax in an abandoned bunker under the Soviet zone.

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A215 – Life Writing – Working in the Dark

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From the two pieces I’ve already posted, Early Memories & Initiative at Night and another I drafted this piece as part of the life writing tutorial for A215 Creative Writing. It has summarised the original freewrites and linked them with a through-line.

Working in the Dark

“How many civil servants does it take to change a lightbulb?”
“None, they prefer to work in the dark!”

As a small child I play with lego by candlelight, a power cut. I sit beside the glass door to the balcony, the rest of the room is dark and impenetrable. The multicolour swirl pattern on the carpet is vivid. The thick green base tile and the red and white lego bricks forming into a house. In the dim Scottish winter night I can’t play for long before it is too dark.

Almost twenty I spend a night navigating between bases on the Pentlands to solve puzzles with a group of fellow officer cadets. After a day at university we are flung unexpectedly onto the hills. A psychological trick when we expected to spend the evening drinking in the mess. In the dark we find inventive solutions, much to the chagrin of the Directing Staff. A land rover rolled to change the wheel without a jack. We run a stretcher casualty through a minefield. This carries on all night. We are disqualified, the solutions we found in the dark aren’t approved.

Almost thirty I set up the Climate Change Levy Administration. My first day is greeted by a dark, empty office, no furniture, just a carpet. My new boss thinks the task is impossible in the time. No-one in our Department has ever run an operational case-working team, so there are no ideas about how to set one up. Less than a fortnight later I have begged, borrowed and scrounged facilities for twenty-two people, and recruited twenty people, built an IT system and got the process going. We finish two weeks early.

By forty I understand that I am at my best when working in the dark, improvising and adapting to overcome issues.

 

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A215 – Life Writing – Initiative at Night

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Here’s the second of the pieces I wrote for the A215 Creative Writing online tutorial on life writing.

Saturday 13th December 1991

It’s 3am on a Saturday before Christmas 1991, I’ve only been awake for 21 hours. After a day of lectures I went with the UOTC to Redford Barracks in Edinburgh for a training camp. Since 1830 I have been on the Pentland Hills doing orienteering and solving problems with a team of third year cadets. We’ve not been good at following the approved DS solutions. To change the tire on a land rover without a jack we ignored the planks and mik crates and instead rolled the vehicle onto its side before righting it after we’d changed the tire. Our time was the fastest, but the officer wasn’t pleased. To take a casualty across a minefield (laid with dummy mines that emit smoke if you tread on them) we simply picked up the stretcher and ran across the minefield to the designated helicopter landing site. We got a lecture about that, although some Paras did the exact same thing in Helmand almost twenty years later, and that was with real mines and a real casualty.

About eleven it starts to snow, and when we cross the Pentland Hills as a gaggle with a bunch of other teams it is several inches deep and we have a snowball fight across the line of march. My team are all pretty fit and taking this in our stride, we range up and down the column, encouraging some of the newer recruits who are obviously struggling with this unexpected night exercise. We start some singing to raise morale, and a few minutes after we do we bump into the Colonel, who joins us for ten minutes as we march over the summit. Some snowballs follow the other column with whom we are exchanging places. The Colonel finds this amusing, but carefully avoids joining in.

Over the other side we need to spot some vehicles using night vision equipment and then re-assemble some weapons. This is followed by an indoor stint where we are asked a whole bunch of military knowledge questions. I ruin the graph showing that scores decline with sleep deprivation by scoring 100%, although the rest of the teams manage to keep to the theory.

After this, we go next door to a room with a pile of cables, headsets, batteries and some unfamiliar radio equipment. Jimmy, the Royal Signals sergeant major running the stand, briefs us that we need to assemble an automatic re-broadcast station using the pieces given. The rest of the team turn and look at me expectantly. The bounce is wearing off, but I am still very much awake.

‘Joe, you know about radios, what do we do?’ asks Ian, who’s in the engineer troop. I look around and a couple of the others have sat down.

‘Why don’t you guys get a brew on and I’ll have a look at it’ I reply, unstrapping the webbing that I’ve been carrying all evening. ‘There’s a flask of hot water on the top, and a burner in that pouch’ I say, handing it over to Ian. ‘Chocolate in the ammo pouches, share it round.’

Over the last two and a half years I’ve become an expert at looking after myself, and by extension others, when out and about. I never go anywhere without a brew kit, chocolate to share and food for 24 hours. Weighs me down, but well worth it for unexpected jaunts like tonights.

I take control of the assorted bits of signals equipment. I’ve never seen this particular type of radio before, but the principles are the same as the ones I have used. Looking round the main transmitter box I find several labelled ports for leads to be attached, including a coax style connector for sending signals in and out. By the time I’m done attaching wires and plugging in cables and headsets Ian has made a brew, passed it round with the chocolate and boiled water to re-fill the flask. It’s been about ten minutes and I tell Jimmy that it’s done. I drink the remnants of the very strong sweet coffee Ian made and chew on a mars bar. Jimmy gives it a quick once over and then confirms that it works by sending a message between two other similar sets on different frequencies.

We set off into the dark for our next map reference, which turns out to be a group of four ton trucks to take us back to the barracks. We can sleep, but it’s only two and a half hours until breakfast!

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Poetry – Bloom by James Kemp

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Bloom

“Splash!”

A roar over my head closes
from behind and drowns the radio.
Binoculars brought to bear, I observe
the seed embedding. It grows
a small orange blossom. Morphing
into a larger, darker flower
climbing from the point of impact.

Rain patters over the iron roof
as sods and stones strike sonorously.

The flower is gone, dissipated
in a cloud of dust, and silence
returns.

Notes

This was the first full poem that I wrote, and this is the fourth draft, which may not be the final version. It was prompted from the memory of watching artillery shells burst when training as an artillery forward observer at Warcop training area in Cumbria in 1991. On the FOO course I gave an incorrect map reference and the first ranging shell burst about 150m in front of me (the wartime safety distance is 250m, in peacetime double that). Normally you don’t see the orange flame of a bursting shell, I only saw it for an instant, and that most likely because of how close I was to the impact point. By chance the shell landed right in the centre of the field of vision of my binoculars. Needless to say this event was accompanied by copious swearing as I ducked back down inside the trench. That was followed by “Add one thousand, repeat.”

As part of my drafting process I read out the poem on video camera, so you can watch/listen to it as well as read it.

<iframe src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/1hsOw80cs-U” height=”315″ width=”560″ allowfullscreen=”” frameborder=”0″>

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Books, universe

Five Reasons for Establishing a Colony

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In looking through my notes from previous story and game design ideas I came across one about the reasons why colonies might be set up. This was primarily for a set of scenarios for science fiction games set in Jim Wallman’s Universe that a group of us having been playing around the Full Moon each month since 1996.  That said, they are based on actual historical reasons why people left the UK and other European countries to live elsewhere (although not always on an uncertain and dangerous frontier).

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1. Religious/Ascetic Freedom

This covers people leaving to avoid discrimination as well as those that might want to live in a place where the temptations and ‘polluitng influences’ of modern life are not present. Examples of this include Amish and similar sects that avoid advanced technology (although quite why they’d get in a spaceship I’m not sure). Features of this sort of colony may include:

  • lack of high-tech industry (unless necessary to sustain the colony – even them imports would be more likely);
  • Colonists will be complete family groups, from birth to death;
  • no luxury housing or flashy entertainment (forget the five star hotel complex or New Vegas);
  • primarily farming, fishing and hunting;
  • minimal mining & raw materials processing (mainly for construction and export);
  • very tight group, outsiders would be obvious and shunned if not co-religionists. There may be restricted areas only for the faithful if there are frequent visits by groups not sharing similar beliefs;
  • no significant police/security apparatus, discipline would be enforced by social norms and religious leaders;
  • Outside support may be a necessary requirement to maintain the colony;
  • Only co-religionists would be accepted for settlement.

2. Mining Colony

In a place where surveys have shown significant concentrations of valuable minerals then there may be an attempt to settle on a commercial basis. This would be the equivalent of the oil rig workers in remote parts of Earth, or perhaps similar to some of the mid-19th century Californian or Australian pioneers looking for gold. Features of this sort of colony could include;

  • everyone on the colony is employed by, or contracted to, a specific company or consortium;
  • Colonists are likely to be single adults without dependents and of working age;
  • heavily geared around mineral extraction and perhaps also processing ores into metal;
  • they could be focussed on producing stuff for export, and also on individuals returning home again when they’ve completed their tour, or struck it rich;
  • minimal manufacturing, agriculture or any construction not required for the mining and export operations;
  • limited off-world support, if not profitable within a short time period the colony will be closed down again and all colonists repatriated;
  • small security capability, mainly geared around dealing with drunk & bored miners on an off-duty binge (i.e. a security team rather than a police force, discipline is company and offenders are likely to have pay docked or be sent home as sanctions).

3. Farming/Ranching

This one is perhaps more an outcome of a collection of other motivations, but perhaps also from people that can’t get the space to have their own farm in the home country, and instead choose to emigrate in the hope of getting their own land. Certainly this seems to have been a common enough motivation for some of the 18th & early 19th century settlers in North America. Features of this sort of colony may include:

  • lots of agriculture, and strong exports of food and other agricultural products (especially luxury products);
  • Colonists will be heavily weighted to adults of working age, but will also include family groups, although perhaps few elderly in the early stages;
  • lots of small settlements, spaced reasonably far apart, perhaps 10-20kms from each other with cultivated land between them;
  • limited mining and heavy industry, and what is there will be geared to supporting the agricultural industry;
  • well developed chemical and pharmaceutical industries, as well as food and materials processing to turn produce into saleable goods that are worth more as exports;
  • Neglible police/security (think more one man sherrif/constable alongside his farming/other duties with backup from the posse if required).

4. A Better Life[TM]

Isn’t this really the motivation for everyone that decides to get up from where they are and go somewhere else? The typical example here is probably the current migrations of people to other countries. This sort of thing is less likely to directly establish a colony, but is probably a pretty common second wave that could make the difference between a colony bumping along at subsistence level and really making it. Features of a colony with a high proportion of better lifers might include:

  • mature long established colony (perhaps at least 5-10 years old);
  • lots of recent arrivals, with a broad population mix (including babies and children, but not likely to have many elderly unless the colony has been around for more than 50 years);
  • an above average economy with relatively high living standards (luxury housing, entertainment complexes, wide range of consumer goods and agricultural produce);
  • a work hard, play hard culture (immigrants tend to be harder working, and they have a determination to succeed – regardless of what you might have read in the Daily Fail);
  • high productivity leading to sustainable living at better than subsistence level;
  • likely use of robots, automation and other high tech industries within a broad economic base;
  • Mature police and justice system, as a consequence of maturity of the colony with a sustained population growth.

Political/Doctrinal Dissidents

There will be loads of different political systems and doctrinal variations that will lead to people choosing to leave. Possibly some of these may co-exist on the same continent/planet as fallings out happen and it is too expensive to relocate somewhere radically different. Others may be new colonies that are settled from a homeland. Historical examples of this could include the Jacobites that moved to Canada in the 18th Century, or perhaps some of the dissidents from Eastern Europe that made their home in London in the nineteenth. There may also be examples of small towns in North America settled this way too. Anyway some features of these colonies may include:

  • some oddly extreme governance models;
  • mostly adults of working age, perhaps towards the younger end of this (I’ve noticed that people tend to soften in their political activism with age). Total population is likely to be relatively modest, and may be kept that way by frequent splits;
  • unless the political/doctrinal belief prohibits it, there will be a lot of automation and robots in use to run the economy (after all there isn’t time for a good political argument if you need to work very hard all day to make ends meet);
  • the economy is likely to be based on a few things and be relatively spartan (from necessity rather than for doctrinal reasons);
  • strong police/security environment. This may not be immediately obvious, but there is a close relationship between extremism and strict enforcement of thought typical of police states.
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A215 Short Fiction: Daprav – A Creation Myth

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As part of my Creative Writing course I need to write a short story for my next assignment. So rather than racking my brains about it I’ve been going back over stuff I’d written, but not finished, in the past for some inspiration. I also plan to do the exercises in the book to see what that sparks up too. Anyway I was looking through my role-playing archives and went through a fantasy game I used to run where I made up all of the setting myself rather than using a published one (there are about 17k words on this, and on top of that a stack of index cards). I was rather taken by the creation myth I wrote for the primary god in a theocracy.

Daprav

It is important to distinguish between Daprav Himself and the Church, which forms the bulk of his worshippers. Daprav is an active paternalistic God by inclination. He favours wandering amongst his people in disguise, perhaps to keep an eye on them. He is also known for speaking to His prophets in the heart of their soul, although He is not above manifesting should those prophets need a major miracle performing.

The worshippers of Daprav don’t have faith, they have knowledge. The evidence of His existence is a daily phenomenon. His priests work many miracles and are enjoined to look after the flock, tending the ill and feeding the hungry. This is tempered with an injunction on the people to obey the word of Daprav, and by extension of the priesthood.

In the beginning…

Daprav is the creator of the world and all the things in it. He did this a very long time ago and spent many millennia wandering through it revelling in the beauty of his creation. He taught the early men a great deal and established many temples, each bearing slight differences according to the aspects he displayed to the tribe that built the temple. However all men were one in their devotion to Daprav and he was able to ensure that there was no strife.

One day whilst hunting with the Obor Tribe in the great fastness of the Green Forest Daprav came across an enchanted grove. This intrigued Him as He had not enchanted the grove nor had any of the priests that He had empowered with his miracles. Entering the grove He called out to its enchanter. Out from behind a tree stepped a powerful sorceror. Daprav commanded him to speak his name.

“I am known as Hapt and I was born to work magic”.

Others also stepped out from behind other trees numbering thirteen in total. They also spake their names:

“Temed, the giver of gifts” a female holding a box;

“Mistear, an archer of great repute” a slim young woman knocking an arrow to her longbow;

“Miral, the killer of many” an older male with many scars on his body and a huge axe;

“Dado, an enchanter, I created this grove” a bearded man in white robes with a golden sickle;

“Fabrius, also a creator of magics” a youth short in stature and stocky with it;

“Eubulus, a singer of songs and a teller of tales” a young man in patched clothes and holding a set of pipes;

“Aulos, the healer of wounds” a woman wearing white with braided blonde hair;

“Horin, the lover of all” a full-breasted woman with red lips and a jar of wine;

“Mousai, protector of the innocent” a man clad in armour from head to foot;

“Drok, the joker” a mischevious looking youngster dressed all in red;

“Valdese, a brave and gallant warrior” tall, dark and handsome, a man to break the hearts of many a maiden, and to carry off the souls of men in battle;

“Ojibwa, a thief and a damned good one” a medium sized woman with a lithe look to her movements as she stepped out from behind the tree.

“Why have you enchanted this grove? And why are you all here?” Daprav asked.

“We want to be Gods also, and you have the means to make that so.” Answered Hapt who appeared to be their leader. “We are the foremost amongst our kind and desire to share your divinity. Will you give it to us?”.

“No. This cannot be so. You must go from here and forever banish any thought of elevating yourselves to godhood”.

“If you will not co-operate then we shall take it from you.”

And with that the thirteen worked their magic as they had planned. They cast a spell on Daprav the like of such has never before or since been seen. Their careful preparations however went awry. Instead of stealing the Divinity from Daprav they instead put him into an endless slumber. They were able to visit the world as spirits and speak unto the people thereon, but were forever banished as punishment for attempting to make themselves Gods.

Had Daprav not been sent into a deep sleep He would have been able to counter their dealings with the various tribes and prevent the strife that was to come to His perfect creation. Each of the thirteen brought their own gift to the world, and with it some corruption of the people. Over the years the tribes formed their own sects and religions as the memory of Daprav was corrupted and forgotten. In time all living people had forgotten of Daprav’s very existence. However He continued to exist, trapped in the sacred grove.

After about two millennia the growth of the tribes had reduced the Green Forest to a fraction of its former size and brought the grove from the depths to its very edge. He appeared in a dream to His prophet Reatham who was sleeping nearby. Reatham was a hunter and Daprav placed images of plentiful game in his dreams along with clues to the location of the grove. Reatham found his way to the grove and woke Daprav.

After such a long hibernation Daprav was weak and required sustenance to build His strength back to its former glory. However with no followers or temples He could not gain strength from sacrifices. Reatham went out amongst the people and preached to them about the goodness of Daprav. However not all was well with the world. The spirits of the thirteen were still strong and afraid that an awakened Daprav would take revenge on them stirred up the people to act against Daprav’s supporters.

Reatham was killed by an angry mob incited by the spirit of Miral. The mob were persuaded that Reatham was enthralled by an evil spirit that meant to destroy the livelihood of the town. It was all Daprav could do to avoid being torn apart himself. After escaping from the mob He travelled about the world gradually building up strength and itinerant followers one by one. After some time He spoke to Rontium and commanded that he feed the poor and homeless in his district and to tell them that the food came from Daprav.

Strengthened by the prayers of the faithful Daprav was able to regain some of His powers and perform minor miracles. Many of the worshippers didn’t realise that He was the deity and instead thought Him to be a priest of Daprav, so diminished was His power. One believer who saw Him truly was Anley, a lay healer. She helped and healed the sick in His name. This boosted His following still further and in time restored more of His powers.

It was about this time that the worship of Daprav became the main religion in the small town of Balham, now known as Templeton. With the growth of His following He was able to stand up to the spirits of the thirteen and make overt use of His powers to protect Balham. It was about this time that the Duke of the District was persuaded by the spirit of Miral to destroy Balham and kill all of the people living there. He gathered his forces and attacked the town.

Daprav called down a lightening bolt from the heavens and smote the Duke from his saddle. Many of the disheartened troops fled, although many others switched sides and pledged their allegiance to Daprav, including Earl Shabas who vowed his life to the God to atone for his previous wrongs against the people of Daprav. Daprav heard the oath and granted him the name of Sir Waldo with His blessing and the ability to heal the wounds of others simply by laying his hands on the afflicted part. Sir Waldo went on to lead his men to glory in the wars of independence that the Church of Daprav fought with those misguided by the spirits. 

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A215 TMA01 – Night Patrol

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Here is the text I submitted for the Creative Writing assignment. The first and third parts are unaltered. I lightly edited Part 2 based on the feedback received (in net terms I added five words). Part 1 is a freewrite, intended to spark ideas based on a prompt. Part 2 is, in my case, a piece of autobiographical writing (my apologies if anyone recognises the events in question). Part 3 is a reflection on the process of doing the assignment.

Part 1: Freewrite on prompt ‘Walking at Night’

Some of the most fun I ever had was wandering about in the dark. As a teenager I used to play outside at night, walking through the streetlights, with others playing hide and seek in the dark corners. It taught me to move silently and to use shadows to sneak back to the lamp-post we used as the home base. Later I put those skills to a different use wandering British Army training areas armed to the teeth and looking for trouble. Everything was secured so that it wouldn’t rattle, money was left behind, loose bits of equipment tied or taped down using dark green paracord, black electician’s tape or black gaffer tape depending on what it was. When I was done I would jump up and down and shake my body like there was a disco thumping, all the while listening for rattles, squeaks and rustles.

Preparations complete I would go with the other members of the patrol into the dark. The landscape always looks different at night, especially without lights. Crossing a wide open field is very hard, landmarks can usually only be made out a few yards ahead, even in bright moonlight the horizons are a lot closer than in daylight. 

Part 2: Autobiographical writing ‘Night Patrol‘

I’m on point for the patrol. The countryside renders in dark blue and grey, lit by stars and a sliver of moon. The horizon is close, sky and grass blend together less than 100 metres away. Trees stand darkly, visible further out. We move in foot long grass parallel to a track, avoiding waist high patches of thick, jagged gorse.

Each step is slow and deliberate. My left foot moves forwards. Toes gently touch the ground before I place the rest of my foot down. I slowly pass my weight from right leg to left as I scan the vague horizon. I listen carefully. My full attention is to the front, others behind me are watching to the left, right and rear. We move silently and without lights. It’s November in Inverness and the air smells icily fresh. The breeze cools my face. Moving makes me overheat because of the weight I carry, 30 pounds of food, water and ammunition round my waist, my combat jacket laden with chocolate, notebook, torch, knife, whistle and more ammo. I’m wearing multiple layers, t-shirt, shirt, jersey, combat jacket, scarf, woollen hat, helmet and two pairs of gloves. These are unavoidable, we may lie in ambush for hours.

 

Ahead the ground undulates, which means we’re close to the trenches. The spoil is camouflaged with turf, but it stands proud of the surroundings. A barbed wire entanglement resolves itself ten metres in front, the wire only apparent when I can touch it. The patrol commander produces white mine tape from his jacket. He ties some to the wire as we skirt around it. In the gap, I spot a hair thin trip-wire stretching blackly across my path. One end is on the stake holding a corner of the entanglement, the other lost in the dark.

I wave the patrol into cover before carefully placing white tape over the trip-wire. I follow it to find a flare on a post. I want to deactivate the flare, but the patrol commander shakes his head. We mark the trip-wire and pass the patrol over it. A few metres further on I see sandbags atop the nearest hillock. Another silent hand signal and we form a line. Moments later a soldier is highlighted on our skyline. Looking around I observe three other trenches.

I hold a thunderflash prominently for the patrol to see. The commander next to me does the same, and together we pull the strikers. It sounds like a giant match being struck, but doesn’t seem to attract any reaction. I throw mine in a great arc to land near the closest trench. As it leaves my hand I count in my head. I re-take control of my rifle. I get to four. Lightning flashes accompanied by a tremendous bang. The patrol starts shooting. The night air now smells of burnt carbon and fireworks.

There are shouts of “Stand To!”. We’ve taken them by surprise. Return fire pops and crackles all across the position, not just the trenches closest to us. Most don’t appear to know where we are. I can see muzzle flashes of the closer firers. Each shot is accompanied by a blue flash, and I can tell that they aren’t pointed at me. I hear several flares hiss up and burst with a soft pop. A series of short-lived, cold suns brighten the neighbourhood. Sharp, moving shadows subside as they drift downwards on a parachute. Clear fire orders can be heard and the shooting slows slightly.

Surprise over, we leave in reverse order. While I provide covering fire, a comrade runs into the tripwire we marked and gets tangled. Three others bunch round to help. I hear inventive swearing and the flare fizzing. I close one eye to preserve my night vision, they are clearly silhouetted. Before following I find a smoke grenade and pull the pin. I check the breeze, release the lever and lob it to obscure my departure.

Speed is now more important than stealth. I charge past my friends, beyond the flare light, throwing myself onto the ground. I fire a few times until they thunder past me. The commander shouts to regroup at the lone tree. I sprint after them. When I get to the tree there is a feeling of exhilaration. Clouds of steam show how much exercise we’ve done. Behind us there is still shooting. I pull a water bottle from my belt, it is chilled as though from the fridge and it tastes sweet. 

 

Part 3: Reflective commentary

Free writing is new to me, I hadn’t previously written from a prompt. Usually I have an idea for a story, I think about it and then type. The free write shown here is a straight first draft, and I stopped when I got to the requisite word count. It triggered memories of 25+ years ago when I regularly walked in the dark.

I originally tried to write some fiction based on the freewrite. I took a piece that I had written for the online tutorial and tried to see how I could use the techniques learnt in the tutorial. I wrote about 400 words but decided that the link to the freewrite was tenuous. So I decided to try writing what I knew, and wrote an autobiographical piece that directly flowed from the freewrite. While writing it I consciously tried to describe the scene in terms of sight, sound, smell and hearing as per exercise 3.3 in the coursebook. The first draft came out at almost double the required word count, however reading it back I felt that I could edit it to fit.

I posted the first draft of Part 1 & Part 2 on the Forum (Kemp, 2013) in the hope of getting some feedback. There was one response, which made some suggestions which I directly incorporated into a second draft ([REDACTED], 2013). As well as those suggestions I re-ordered some paragraphs to make the narrative flow better, re-wrote it into present tense and removed repetition and superfluous words as per the feedback from the online tutorial. This brought the draft down to just over 800 words, which although on the high end was within the tolerance allowed. I then posted this revised draft on the forum in case there was any further feedback. A few days later I then re-edited to make it shorter, testing each word for necessity.

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