So You’ve Run Out of Ideas to Steal – History and the Heroic Fantasy Writer
Posted by Jonathan Moeller on Jul 22, 2011 in News | 22 commentsLet’s be honest with ourselves – many of you are either writers of heroic fantasy fiction (like me) or want to attain this lofty station in life. But if you want to write heroic fantasy fiction – stories about men and swords and valor and evil wizards – where do you get ideas? It would look pretty suspicious if you invented a barbarian hero who goes by the name of Fonan, hails from Fimmeria, and swears by a grim god named From. (No one swears by a god named after a preposition, after all.)
So, then, where to get ideas?
I suggest turning to the history of the ancient world. Ancient history is an ideal source of inspiration for the heroic fantasy writer, for two reasons. First, it broadens the mind, and provides a greater base of story ideas. You can always tell a story written by someone who’s never read anything but comic books (or the dialog boxes in computer games). There’s a stilted artificiality to the story, with crude outlines representing actual characters, plots, and dialog. Fortunately, most writers grow out of this.
The second reason is that ancient history is public domain. It is a well of ideas that belongs to anyone who draws from it. Indeed, look at all the different stories that use the final wars of the Roman Republic as their settings – Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra, HBO’s Rome miniseries, Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series, Ben-Hur – the list goes on and on.
So where to start? I suggest taking a look at these six works by ancient writers. All of them, aside from providing great historical value, are rich with ideas for writers of heroic fantasy. (Even better, you can find free editions of these books at Project Gutenberg and most other major ebook sites.)
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest known works of literature, a collection of Sumerian legends that survived on cuneiform tablets in the great library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. It tells the story of Gilgamesh, the semi-legendary king of Uruk, and Enkidu, the wild man created by the gods to distract Gilgamesh from his oppression of the people of Uruk. Gilgamesh and Enkidu go on numerous quests and adventures together, until the goddess Ishtar, offended that Gilgamesh spurned her advances, arranges Enkidu’s death.
Crushed, Gilgamesh goes in search of immortality, only to realize that death is indeed the lot of mortal man. Simultaneously an adventure story and a reflection upon mortality, the Epic is also one of the first of the heroic duos that Jack Mackenzie discussed last week.
The Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides
From 431 to 404 BC, Athens and Sparta, the two most powerful Greek cities, fought each other in a highly destructive war, the most brutal and violent war in the history of Greece since the fall of the Mycenaeans. Historian Donald Kagan compared the Peloponnesian War to World War I in how it brutally cast aside previous conventions of warfare, and how it proved far more costly than anyone anticipated at the time.
Thucydides served as a commander on the Athenian side, until he was exiled following an Athenian defeat. Unlike most ancient historians, he did not ascribe the tides of war to the favor or disfavor of the gods, but to a more cynical political calculus – power, money, prestige, ambition.
Anabasis, by Xenophon
After the Peloponnesian War, many unemployed Greek mercenaries took service with the various factions of the Persian Empire. A band of ten thousand Greek mercenaries backed the cause of Cyrus the Younger, who wished to overthrow his older brother Artaxerxes. Cyrus won the Battle of Cunaxa against his brother in 401 BC, but was killed in the process – and the Ten Thousand found themselves stranded in hostile territory. With their generals murdered by Persian treachery, the Ten Thousand elected new generals – Xenophon among them – and began the long march home, fighting off hostile Persians, hostile tribesmen, and vicious local politics.
Xenophon recorded this adventure (while putting himself in the most favorable light, of course), and his book would later serve as one of the inspirations for Alexander the Great’s invasion of the Persian Empire seventy years later.
Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, by Gaius Julius Caesar
In 59 BC, Julius Caesar, in search of military glory, arranged to have himself appointed the governor of Transalpine Gaul. Over the course of the next eight years, he conquered all of Gaul (roughly modern France) in the name of Rome and his own personal glory, wealth, and ambition. Commentaries on the Gallic Wars began as dispatches Caesar wrote to Rome describing his military triumphs. The Commentaries present Caesar in the most positive light, and his naked aggression is always masked as preemptive defensive warfare for the good of Rome – one of the earliest examples of propaganda and positive PR spin.
The Destruction of Jerusalem, by Flavius Josephus
In 66 AD, the Jews of the Roman province of Judea, driven to rage by a succession of corrupt and incompetent governors, revolted against the empire. Rome did not tolerate rebellion, and the Emperor Nero dispatched a huge force under the command of the future emperor Vespasian and his son Titus. Josephus, one of the rebel Jewish leaders, realized that the Jews could not prevail against the legions, and managed to win Vespasian’s favor by predicting that the general would one day become the emperor. Later, Josephus wrote this account of the Jewish rebellion, partly to justify his decision to defect, and partly to excoriate the rebels for their doomed rebellion. Josephus’s book provides a detailed description of the Imperial Roman army, and a harrowing account of Jerusalem’s final days in the grip of the Roman siege.
La Chanson de Roland
In 778 AD, the Frankish king Charlemagne invaded Spain, but decided his efforts there were futile, and returned home to Francia. While traveling through the pass at Roncevalles, the Basques ambushed Charlemagne’s rearguard, killing its commander, Count Roland. Years later, this minor skirmish was raised to mythical proportions in one of the medieval French chanson de gestes – song of great deeds. In the Chanson de Roland, Charlemagne is a vigorous, centuries-old emperor, ruler of the world, fighting the heathen Saracens in the name of God. Roland is the chief of the Twelve Paladins, Charlemagne’s mightiest knights, and a treacherous Saracen king ambushes Roland in the mountains, not the Basques.
Any one of theses book will provide a rich source of ideas for the writer of heroic fantasy fiction, and each contains enough material to inspire a dozen fine novels. One of them might be yours.
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Good sources, Jonathan. I just recently read Gilgamesh, inspired by a retelling by an author friend of mine. I would add that heroic fiction writers expand their sources to include ancient texts from Africa, Asia, North and South America. Combining these resources can result in some unique results, like a tasty gumbo.
Some of the African and Asian sources are excellent for the purposes of ideas – the Egyptian Amduat, for example, or the Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
North and South American sources are harder, because most of what we know about them comes from Spanish and Portugese conquerors, and we often can’t read whatever writing is left over.
That is a handy list, thank you. I’ve read The Epic of Gilgamesh and just read The Song of Roland last year. The others have been on my to-read list. (well, except the Jerusalem one, because I just learned about it here!)
The fun thing about reading Josephus is how self-congratulatory he gets – he claims Vespasian spared him because he prophesied that Vespasian would become emperor. Which seemed unlikely at the the time, since Nero was still alive and kicking (his pregnant wife to death), but subsequent events proved the prediction true.
Excellent list! I’d add the Histories of Herodotus to it. I’d not have a career if it wasn’t for that old Halicarnassian tale-spinner! I also like plundering the Crusader-era chronicles like William of Tyre, and their Moslem counterparts, epitomized by Usamah ibn-Munqidh.
Herodotus and William of Tyre are good ones, as well.
I originally had twelve sources for this post, but I got to “Roland” and was already at a thousand words.
Still better than curry.
Ceasar’s Commentaries on the Gallic Wars was a great read. It’s been a while since I’ve read Herodotus. Check out Sundiata Keita, the D.T. Niane version. It’s very good.
I haven’t read Sundiata Keita yet – I’ll add it to my list.
Good advice. I agree absolutely. Robert E. Howard once said something along the lines of that he’d spend his whole life rewriting history if he could. And he did it very well in collections like “The Sowers of the Thunder.” I tend to think that even modern myths and plots can be translated into heroic fantasy language as well. It’s a fun exercise.
“I tend to think that even modern myths and plots can be translated into heroic fantasy language as well. It’s a fun exercise.”
That’s very true. Like, the Battle of Britain:
“And then did the men of Britannia mount their steeds, beasts of iron and oil, and took to the skies to wage war with steel and flame against their foes, the uncounted legions of the swastika.”
(No one swears by a god named after a preposition, after all.)
I’ll just leave this here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frum
Ha!
Though, in fairness, I don’t think “frum” is a preposition in the Papuan language.
I was wondering why to limit to the ancient world when you brought up Roland.
Er.
Dark Ages, to be sure, but medieval.
I was going to do more medieval ones, but the post was already 1100 words long.
I believe Paul Kearney is part way through a fantasy series based on the Ten Thousand of Xenophon’s Anabasis.
But as long as we’re on the idea of raiding pre-modern history, one could turn to raiding the history of ancient Asia — India, China, etc. — or Africa, and then even dress this up in some other cultural decoration (to disguise its origin!
).
Yes.
Frankly, I want to do a fantasy book set in a poorly-concealed expy of the Late Roman Empire. It’s a fascinating period, and really reminds me of contemporary events a great deal.
Sounds good — sign me up!
Thomas Harlan’s “Oath of Empire” series is set in a fairly late-ish and _alternate_ (though not in any way concealed) Roman Empire.
I have for many years now been failing to do a mashup between the usual medieval Eurasian thing and the pre-Columbian Americas. And I keep thinking about some sort of pulp-ish series of stories inspired by the Russo-British “Great Game” around India and Central Asia, but in a pre-modern — medieval? Hellenistic? Bronze Age? Dunno! — sort of setting.
There are numerous fun possibilities, and access to inspirational source material and reading is perhaps easier than ever. (Which may be my main difficulty: spending more time reading than writing!
)
I’ll have to check out the Harlan books.
I think part of the appeal of ancient settings is that their mindset is alien – truly alien – to the average 21st century Westerner. The ancient Egyptians of the 4th Dynasty Old Kingdom must have truly believed that their pharaohs were divine and would become the new Osiris upon death, else why pile up all those stones to build the pyramids? All this runs counter to the assumptions of the modern mind, so it’s a neat trick when a writer can inhabit the mindspace of ancient people – and take the reader along with him.
The Harlan books are fun — though in the context of the current discussion, as best I remember though they use the general “Rome v. Persia” dynamic, the stories do not really depend on that dynamic, and Harlan could have (theoretically) put very similar characters, conflicts, etc. in many different pseudo-historical settings. But the late Roman setting is fun, so: OK!
Agreed on the attractive alien-ness of ancient cultures — though, as you imply, it is sort of a blessing and a curse at once (which is what makes it fun
). Really getting that “sense of the alien” across implies either dropping the reader in the drink or giving them lots of supporting information, and doing either (or a blend) involves walking a tightrope of not losing the reader. But even something everyone thinks they know already — like, say, a medieval European setting — would be really much more alien than most (modern Western) people would expect
Excellent article, Jonathan. Scholarly and informative. While very few of my ideas are inspired by history, the Past is the place to go for ideas. Me? I get my ideas from everywhere, but mostly from old gangster films, film noir, and westerns. I toss it all in a blender, add a touch of mythology, Lovecraft, and even present day events, and then what I can cook up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But you gotta keep honing the blade of the sword until it’s sharp enough to cut through writer’s block. You also have to romance the Muse and meet her halfway.
Very true.
The big advantage for ancient history is that it’s public domain and no longer copyrighted – Caesar and his heirs have been dead for a while, and are unlikely to sue for infringement.
As for the muse, well…I start writing every night at 7PM, and tardiness is not excused.