It is rather odd, as I sit here during the summer solstice of the year 2022, and I remember a time, many years ago, gathered with my Druid friends, at Stonehenge, on this same solstice day, watching the sun.
It is funny, remembering the times and the long talks with those around me, about being a natural human being, and living life, connected to the world around us, and honouring it. I was so young and filled with wild and creative ideas, and yet here I sit on a muggy humid day, and I feel no different. I have aged, I have wisdom (Allegedly) and the silver is running in threads through my hair, and yet time feels stood still, nothing has changed and everything has changed, it is a fun and strange place to be in life.
There is a quality to my thoughts and thinking process that feels timeless, I still believe in freedom, and living as natural a life as is possible in this modern cyber-tech world, and I am still captivated by those stories that never appear to age. If anything, as you read them, they appear to be relevant, even if they were written one hundred years ago. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells still appears as relevant now as it always has to me, it is a quality I have always admired in a good book, and in many ways, is something I have tried to emulate in my own stories.
Does the reader know which age HTTK is set in, or the year Abigail goes to university, and meets her roommate Birch for the first time? I hope they don’t, it is something I have tried to erase to keep the atmosphere and feelings of my work present, so the reader always feels they are in the moment.
The strange thing is, I actually use real calendars when I write, so that all my days of the week and special events are perfectly timed through my stories. The story of HTTK, actually starts on January first, 2038, and travels through the eight books, to finally end in mid August of the year 2039. The whole eight books last for a time period of one year and seven months, as this story was set in the future, but did it feel that way?
No… Not really, and that is because I took a group living in the future, threw in a whole host of modern day items, mixed up with items from yesteryear, and played one thing off against the other. As the result, it created a story that appeared so real, the reader no longer knew what actual age they were in. I, as always, lobbed in a few things to create that sense of time that had past, so that the reader in the present day would identify with them, and forget this was a futuristic story. A good example, would be. “Cool bangle.”
Jade utters these words as she picks up a very everyday object, such as a roll of cellophane tape, it is something we all know, yet to her it is a strange item, and one she mistakes as an item of jewellery, which is one of home occupations. Another good example from book one would be when Jade leans over a reading guard, to discover he is reading a Harry Potter novel. Before killing the guard, she whispers her approval to herself, regarding the novel as “A classic.”
That one line takes the story into the future, a future where the work of JK is an established classic of literature, which I do believe one day it will be regarded as such, once enough time has passed. The comment puts Jade in the future, it is a gentle reminder of what kind of story you are reading. Uncle Walter died hunting elephants, as Robbie explains, as he describes the barbed arrowhead, he has got the smithy to make for him. Hunting elephants in Britain, since when you ask? It is in that moment you realise, the world was destroyed and left to ruin, and obviously elephants escaped from the zoo, to find freedom roaming in the British countryside, of which Uncle Walter was a specialist at hunting them down.
The world came to an end in 2012, and this is 2038, which is 26 years later, and a great deal has changed. The readoption of the words lord and lady again, shift the clock. Titles revised from age past, and the story starts to feel like it is more a medieval story, with talk of King Arthur and Robin Hood, until of course you realise, Blades is sat on a roof fixing a wind turbine to generate power, aided by young Eric, and Harry thinks his vibes ain’t cool, because he thinks Eric is after bedding his daughter.
One era crashes with another, and the ancient walk side by side with the modern, and the reader no longer has any idea which era they are in, they are too engrossed in the story to care, and it all seems to sit happily side by side and no one notices the story has become a timeless work. Is it modern, medieval, or futuristic, who knows, it just fits? Actually, it takes a massive amount of thought and careful writing to create such a smooth flowing story, that washes away the time period, and lulls you into the words?
I do feel setting a book in a specific era can be a great thing, period dramas especially fit. My wife has a passion for Pride and Prejudice, a real classic period novel, but I also feel it can be limiting. Does anyone really know when Rise of the Raven was set? I cannot deny, for this one I used sleight of hand. It is clearly pre-Roman invasion of the British Isles, but apart from that, what else can provide a clue?
I will not deny, there is a little deviousness involved in this one. The Fae are far more advanced at this time than the realm of men, we see this in the day to day living of Branna and Ariel, who at this time are using charcoals and quills to write on parchment, something the world of men has not yet come to adopt in day to day life. Most of the realm of men cannot read, so why would they write, their life is hunting and toil in the fields. When Branna makes her escape, her first encounter is a hunter who trades furs for gold and silver coins, he is considered a very rich and wealthy man by Roack, who realises his possessions will enhance the status of Branna.
Later in the settlement at Tintagel, she enters a long house, of wood, with dirty floors and a fire pit in the centre, it is a very different way of living compared to her small brick house in Avalon. There are no separate rooms, just one large one, and they all sleep on the floor, where as Ariel and Branna sleep together in a bed in Avalon.
Bouncing the two completely different life styles, plays a trick on the mind, and suddenly the era and dates disappear, and all that matters is the story. To add more weight Berengar walks out on his father, passing through a door, that has a heavy cloth to cover it. The house is of wooden construction, and yet they hang heavy materials to create their doorways, all of this distorts the time frame, and draws the reader closer to the details of the characters and their dialogue.
It is sleight of hand, and deliberate, as I want these stories to flow in such a seamless fashion, the reader becomes more and more engrossed. What year is Abigail’s Summer set in, does anyone know or really care?
It is a modern novel set for this age, and yet the years over the series pass by. In book one Abigail is nineteen, in book two she is twenty four, and by book five, she is twenty nine, and each book feels like it is being read as something set in this moment, this year, possibly this day. There is only one person alive at this point who knows the year, and that is me, because once again, I set the story to a real calendar, so that the bank holidays and dates line up perfectly to each day mentioned. On the calendar, Curio’s Summer is set exactly five years later, and yet, the date appears to be irrelevant, you are reading it now, and it feels like now, because the themes of the story fit perfectly with today, or tomorrow, or to that fact, the day after, and the day after that. No year appears to fit, and yet the story like Kingdom feels like it is happening now.
The Curio Chronicles have lots of clues as to this modern age time, but what year? Well it was all written in 2020-1, but was it relevant for that year? Well no not really, we know this because there is no virus in the story. I deliberately did not make any mention to the lockdowns or the virus, simply so in five years time, the books will still feel they were written for that time. There is social media, and Insta, and Abby swipes open her phone, so it does fit now, but there again, it also fits six years ago, and will probably fit in another six years.
I use the phrase, “Gossip travels faster than email.” So, it is a current book, and just to throw the reader off, in the last book of the series, (Not published yet) I add, “Gossip travels faster than messaging.” It shows the advance of technology, and keeps the books fresh. Birch is a naturist, and lives naked, which fits nicely with the 1980’s and 90’s, but does it fit today? Actually, with over fifty million naturists in Europe in 2021, and those are just ones we know about, Birch is a hell of a lot more current and up to date than most people realise.
At the start of the next book. (Book three whilst writing this) there is a reference to the World Naked Bike Ride, an event that has been running globally since 2007, and once again the story is modern, but how modern, and that all plays into the comfort of the reader who imagines the things happening in the book are going on right now? It is a deliberate ploy to make the reader place the characters in a modern time frame in their minds. The reader can create a picture of Abby, based on their own knowledge of what a quaint country village looks like today, or next year, and that brings Abby to life, and makes her very real to the reader, and as a result, the reader can identify better with her.
One of the best aspects of writing stories that appear timeless is the characters, it is clear from HTTK, that Hearne, Opal and Morgan le Fey are ancient, but the one character I especially enjoyed writing was Ariel. We see her in Rise of the Raven, where she is just under 200 years old, and yet appears young and vibrant, like a mid twenties modern woman would be. In kingdom eight, which is set many hundreds of years later, she is lifted from her box, where she has slept for ten lifetimes, and is revived by Runestone, she truly is timeless as she has not aged a day in her magical period of sleep. In two more books I am writing related to kingdom, Ariel will be featured, one set ten years after Rise of the Raven, and another one set eighteen years after the end of Heirs to the Kingdom.
It is a concept I wanted to play with more, and Kingdom is the perfect vehicle for it, and through Ariel within these stories, the passage of time becomes important to who she is, as she reflects back on her life which has spanned the ages. It is similar to Una and her sisters, who were imprisoned and then awoken, and had to adapt to a completely different world. I wanted to elaborate more on this in Kingdom, which I did in book five, where she talks about meeting King Arthur. I wanted more, but was defeated by the page count, and so through Ariel, I have the chance to express it more through her life. She truly is a timeless character who can look back on the world of men at its start, and has moved through the ages to live in the future.
For myself, it is all a big part of the joy of writing, and I hope for the reader, it makes the story more intense, and real. I want the readers to be focused and present in the moment, and so engrossed the story swallows them up, so they bask in the pleasure of immersive reading. Has this been achieved yet? As the reader of this blog, and I assume my books, only you would know. It is always a joy to get feedback on the books and how the reader perceives them, and all the comments and messages I get, I read with a thrill, knowing in part I have achieved my goal, it is also another great joy of writing for all of you.
I want seamless and timeless stories, and I am always looking to make the effect deeper and better for each new reader, and so, with that in mind, I will to look to the past, and note the improved efforts, and then, I shall continue my quest, and try my best to write timeless.
Robin John Morgan is a writer and blogger, who has published the fantasy magical adventure series Heirs to the Kingdom, and the modern sexual and body positive series The Curio Chronicles, he has also written Rise of the Raven, a dark fantasy, of political intrigue, love, loss and betrayal. He blogs his thoughts and opinions on ‘Robin’s Space,’ here on HTTK about his writing life, and also blogs as a guest for other sites, which includes a naturist world.
All his books are available world wide in digital and print formats.