As a writer, you're increasingly told to show don't tell . It's one of those phrases which has infiltrated all lessons from the highest ranked authors to the little primary school child taking their first steps into writing. Ironically, there are now so many clichés in this particular idea that it is now becoming something of a cliché itself! But one particularly significant area of inspiration and writing when this works at its best is when we are dealing with the supernatural. By its very meaning, the supernatural transcends the laws of nature. It's our job as writers of historical fiction not only to convey that but - and this is a real biggie! - to acknowledge and accept that these beliefs were true. Belief in these ideas (which, at best, now get you labelled as quirky) was commonplace in history, and you need not look too far back to find them. According to surveys run ten years ago, 34% of people in the UK said they believed in ghosts, and 42% of people in the USA
Yesterday was Lord of the Rings Day. Every January, we sit down for an entire day and watch the three Lord of the Rings films back-to-back. And that's the extended versions. It's a perfect way to spend a January Saturday, when Christmas is over and before the gardening season truly begins and you feel bad for being inside! I thought yesterday, as I was crying at the Fellowship of the Ring, that I would do a blog post about Boromir and how he's actually a pretty awesome character. Then I thought, when I opened Blogger to write, that all of the Fellowship play important roles, and there's someone there who would appeal to everyone. So, in this 9 part series on characters, let's take each of the Fellowship and discuss the role they play in the story. What's their character arc? What's their purpose? You never know - it might teach us a thing or two about designing our own characters. WARNING: This contains spoilers. Obviously! The first one we're going to