Colors of Another Sky: On a Horse, Screaming

~ crossovercreativechaos

So. Progress report.

I currently have Jason on a horse, internally screaming. Actually screaming would terrify the horse, you see, and there’s a cliff ahead….

This, people, is a case of culture clash in action. When we say “scholar” and someone in the 1600s says “scholar” we mean two related but sometimes very different skillsets. In seventeenth century Korea, the skillset a scholar was supposed to have included many things, including knowledge of the classics, calligraphy, archery, and riding a horse. Because of various items and events, the Callers know Jason does know archery; even if he’s effectively on medical leave for a while. Scholar, historian, archer – why wouldn’t he know how to ride a horse?

Jason: (Screaming intensifies.)

In terms of story, the draft is currently about 44K words. I suspect I will also expand the glossary a bit, and definitely add a list of sources.

Much of those 44K are very rough at the moment. Dialogue scripts, notes on what to describe, a bunch of “and they got here” in between. Day job means a lot of writing in snatches, and filling in details when I have non-exhausted free time. But I think I’m about halfway through the plot. We’ve done the setup, patched up survivors, had a few critical Reveals, and are currently starting “slice of life” bits as our heroes heal up and work out any last kinks in the shark-pirate cure. From there I mean to set up for a final tracking-down of the pirates and the curse’s source, so they can end the menace once and for all. And then, of course, there’s the dragon….

I’m trying not to get frustrated at my pace. I’ve written 50K+ in a month before, so this seems slow. But this world needs a lot of research. And much of that is new stuff, instead of facts already piled up in my head over decades of reading odd things.

Granted, a lot of that new stuff also builds on things I already know. For example, I have a fair layman’s grasp on how important salt has been through history, so I knew messing with the seacoasts would be a Serious Problem. I did not know that the Jurchens actually made a habit of kidnapping Korean border officials and ransoming them back for salt….

Yeah. Those Jurchens. AKA the Manchus. Nurhaci and all that mess with Ming.

As in, I gave my characters what was meant to be a serious but local problem… but if they can’t fix it, there’s going to be a war.

Oops?

Jason would be headdesking, but he’s trying not to ride off a cliff right now. I’m sure he’ll have some pithy words later.

Upside is, I no longer have to wonder how Our Heroes come to the king’s attention. Those poor guys….

26 thoughts on “Colors of Another Sky: On a Horse, Screaming”

  3. It’s also worth pointing out that even if he did k ow how to ride a horse, he might have some trouble with the local tack.

    It takes some adjustment to figure out where you should be leaning.

    Even then, there’s the question of what the horse is trained to respond to.

    And of course it’s all so common to the people used to it that it doesn’t even occur to them that other people might have different setups.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Having been taught to ride by (mostly) three different people over three decades, OH YES THIS. Everything from how you sit, to where you look, I swear is different. Which means their horses were taught to respond differently to what you did. You’d think “increase pressure on one leg, horse moves away” would be universal. You’d think…

      Not only that, but – stirrups. Not something I’ve researched, especially not outside of Europe, but – are they metal? Leather? Rope? Exist at ALL? (If they do exist, do you have the right boot? From experience, nothing more suddenly terrifying to have your foot go through the stirrup and get caught, even when the horse is behaving. And that was with a proper riding boot and heel!)

      All my sympathies to Jason here.

      Liked by 5 people

      Reply

  4. Also horse people think that its normal to have started riding at age three and be able to teach horses before reaching your full growth. Are they assuming that Jason is a gentleman as well as a scholar? Would it be possible for a child of a merchant family not to be familiar with riding horses? This is Korea, not out Mongolia where everyone rich and poor would have to ride horses.
    Of course horses tend to stay together, so if Jason can just balance enough to stay on the horse he doesn’t have to tell it where to go.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Just have everyone going wait if you don’t know anything about horses how do you travel any distance? And yeah if you at a social/income bracket that lets you become a scholar in the past your family would have the income to own horses for travel in most places. Or he’s know how to drive a cart which also involves legged something to pull said cart

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. Jason: “Note to self: invent horse-desk. Have horse-desk reinforced to withstand headdesking. Practice use of horse-desk whilst ahorse until Equine Autopilot and Work While Riding skills are maxed out.”

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  6. I’ll admit, I’m finding I really don’t enjoy the research part of this. Been wrestling so much with the main characters and how their heads work and I’ve been avoiding researching how slave revolts typically went or how espionage worked in the American Civil War.

    I guess for me, the fun part is figuring out how the people tick.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I would think that it all flows into one another.

      The culture of the day affects how people tick affects what they do about things affects the culture.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. I’m finding that the core drivers are more constant than that. Culture seems to not so much change them as it does lean on different aspects of it. And if a culture is not compatible with how people work, it will eventually start grinding people people up until it breaks. Also there’s not a bright line of works/doesn’t work. It’s more if it works well enough it runs like that for a while until it overburdens and either tears itself apart or changes.

        But it’s less the culture I’m having problems getting excited about. That leads into (from my perspective) hilarious detours about why the female lead hates vinyl.

        More I need to have a handle on logistics, tactics and representative battles/stupid plots that actually happened. As it turns out, I’m not a great details person.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Ooof, that would be hard to research. It helps for me that I’m researching an alien time and culture; doing the Civil War would be… tricky.

      (Long story short: half the family was Southern, the other half various flavors of New England, and the Civil War got refought verbally more than enough.)

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

      1. Well, we did have ancestors on boths sides, but I sort of got the impression once it was over it was over. But my family has a history of being weird, so there is that. I think it was more they tended to be borderlands frontiers men, so when it was family on both sides it was one brother went one way and the other went the other sort of thing.

        For me it is more that it’s just the numbers and mechanics that unexcite me.

        Liked by 1 person

  7. I’ve been reading too much fiction so …. One character in “The Thorn Birds” set in 1800’s Australia doesn’t know how to ride. She can handle horses fine and hitch and drive a wagon, but riding was more of an upper class activity and she was solidly middle class, and lived in a somewhat urban area with roads.
    What are normal skills among the scholarly class in Korea? How much imagination does everyone around Jason have?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Anything to do with writing and the classics, calligraphy, painting, poetry, riding, archery, mathematics, sometimes specialties like doctoring, sometimes swordplay, sometimes martial arts (including use of spears, bolas, and some bizarre weaponry). All of these would be considered normal.

      Like

      Reply

      1. Could they imagine someone who just didn’t have time for horses? Or lived near a river/sea coast was more used to boats?

        Liked by 1 person

  8. Yay! More of this!

    Jason on a horse sounds like a comedy routine just waiting to happen.

    “Yes, we have horsepower, no, we don’t ride horses anymore.”

    …For some reason, I see Jason either in a sports car or on a motorcycle for his normal mode of transport…

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

      3. Or at least, history professor’s salary.

        There may exist non-zero engineering professors who like really fast cars.

        Of course, there also seem to be engineering professors who don’t see that regular new cars is an effective investment, don’t buy for kewl features, and just keep the things well maintained.

        Liked by 2 people

Leave a comment