Past Cheats for Future Lessons

You have me cornered because I don’t have a new story ready and therefore no field notes on how I used Homer on a new story.

This week’s newsletter is a cheat.

I’m not reflecting on anything I did this previous week and I’m not even near a computer right now. I’ve been on a stunning and remote island in the north Atlantic. The water is freezing and I’ll write about it some day.

But, it is an additional layer of cheat. I’m still working out which Homeric tools will be best for my latest short story.

So, like I said, cornered.

How can I faithfully tell you about what Homeric tools I’m going to use on a new story after I wrote all those pieces on Homer and the tool box? I’m going to tell you about a short story I wrote where The Iliad was the major inspiration with a little cunning escape like Odysseus.

The violence thesaurus and epithets from The Iliad were the primary tools I used.

Vivid, visceral violence shocked my attention back to the page every time there was a battle outside the gates of Troy. With a story concerning fighting and glory, take some time and copy the best.

While I did not have chariots and spears in my story, I could relay violence that I knew first hand. Men of ancient Greece served in the military and almost certainly saw combat. This near certainty is what gives me the confidence to say much of Homer’s descriptions came from his first hand knowledge of violence.

I have never served in combat and do not pretend to know the specifics of that reality.

But, I’ve been in a couple fights and have competed in martial arts. I can bring in that specificity. Hurling a man to the ground, the pain of bare knuckles grinding against the bony plate of your sternum, seeing a knee snap the wrong way, having my own tendon ripped off the bone.

I can bring that to the page.

The flow of large scale combat and military or paramilitary operations are all things which had to be thoroughly researched. But, combining the two earned great feedback from an editor. That thesaurus of specific physical violence leapt off the page.

What other tools did I grab for this piece in particular? The Homeric epithet.

Each of my major characters got tagged with a unique epithet. This built their world and their characters. Every one unique, layered, and whole through the use of these simple titles. As a writer, I could feel more of who these characters are just by finding these titles for them.

I’ll happily give you those examples when the piece is published - it’s currently out for consideration and I can’t post any specifics!

Try giving your character a nick name and see how much more they fill out in your imagination just by that little title they carry with them. It goes another layer of mystery deeper if that nick name is only used by a select group of characters instead of the whole cast.

What of Odysseus? I wrote the story after I learned the lessons from Homer but before I formalized and wrote the lessons.

I gave you an honest boon of knowledge in action, just not from a new, incomplete work. I’ll give a full breakdown when the story is published.

So I squirmed out of the deal while fulfilling the deal - something I think Odysseus would be proud of. Telling the suitors he is not looking to get married to Penelope is technically true. Why would he get married to a woman he is already married to?

What tools have you used this week?

Talk soon,
Blake