The Miller
When it comes to research for a story, I'm a bit of a minimalist. The way I look at it, facts can get in the way of imagination - or maybe I'm just a bit lazy. Anyhow, the problem is that once you start researching a topic, you end up with tonnes of data and there's the temptation to shoehorn it into your story.
So what's the point? Well, I needed to know if bagpipes existed in medieval times, and strangely enough, the earliest mention of them in England appears to be from Chaucer's General Prologue, which says of the Miller:
A baggepipe wel koude he blowe and sowne,
And therwithal he broghte us out of towne.
Getting back to my Weaver's Second Tale, written in the style of a Sherlock Holmes story, Arthur Conan Doyle often had Holmes make reference to a previous case early on in his stories. So I decided to do the same. Below is that 60-word section, with Friar Ted arriving on the scene and explaining to Doctor Weston what he's been up to:
“Myself? I’ve been residing with the Thane
Of Ayr who was afflicted by the bane
Of other-worldly bagpipes late at night.
The purpose was to cause a fatal fright,
To scare the man to death whilst in his bed
By cunning use of superstitious dread.
The culprit I unmasked within a day -
No more am I at liberty to say.”
More news on The Weaver's Second Tale next week.
Below are links to my two Global Short Story Competition winners, my short-listed story for the National newspaper, Abu Dhabi, and my Canterbury Tale published by Coscom Entertainment:
http://coscomentertainment.com/?p=159
http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesjuly09.pdf
http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesdec09.pdf
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/short-story-a-day-for-decisiveness
Happy writing!
So what's the point? Well, I needed to know if bagpipes existed in medieval times, and strangely enough, the earliest mention of them in England appears to be from Chaucer's General Prologue, which says of the Miller:
A baggepipe wel koude he blowe and sowne,
And therwithal he broghte us out of towne.
Getting back to my Weaver's Second Tale, written in the style of a Sherlock Holmes story, Arthur Conan Doyle often had Holmes make reference to a previous case early on in his stories. So I decided to do the same. Below is that 60-word section, with Friar Ted arriving on the scene and explaining to Doctor Weston what he's been up to:
“Myself? I’ve been residing with the Thane
Of Ayr who was afflicted by the bane
Of other-worldly bagpipes late at night.
The purpose was to cause a fatal fright,
To scare the man to death whilst in his bed
By cunning use of superstitious dread.
The culprit I unmasked within a day -
No more am I at liberty to say.”
More news on The Weaver's Second Tale next week.
Below are links to my two Global Short Story Competition winners, my short-listed story for the National newspaper, Abu Dhabi, and my Canterbury Tale published by Coscom Entertainment:
http://coscomentertainment.com/?p=159
http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesjuly09.pdf
http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesdec09.pdf
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/short-story-a-day-for-decisiveness
Happy writing!
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