briarcrawford
Briar Crawford
"Unleashing magic, one action-packed tale at a time."⚔
Hi, I'm Briar! I love to write fantasy, but I am still working to improve. As I practice, I'll share what I learn in hopes oh helping you writers out there.
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"DMU artisan re-creates Roman cavalry helmet for Iron Age exhibition"
Image Sources: Image 1, Image 2
"A Roman cavalry helmet unearthed as part of the most important Iron Age discoveries ever made in the UK has been replicated to show how it might have looked some 2,000 years ago.
Silversmith and De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) senior lecturer Rajesh Gogna was commissioned to bring the iron helmet, found in fragments in a Leicestershire field in 2001, to life and it has now gone on display."
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Happy Independent Bookstore Day!
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"Mountainous winter landscape with children sledding, oil on canvas" by Anton Doll(19th century )
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Happy World Book Night!
"World Book Night, celebrated on April 23 every year, is a special and enthusiastic holiday that brings the power of reading to the spotlight. Did you know that reading helps you be kinder? Yes, reading can improve your brain function and knowledge. Studies have shown that adults who regularly read fiction are more likely to engage in charity and volunteer work. However, people do not often read books as they used to in the past, and this World Book Night aims to change all that."
NationalToday
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Tales of the Shire
youtube
“Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game invites players to experience the storybook return of living life as a Hobbit in the idyllic town of Bywater. Unwind in the breathtaking pastures, visit the townsfolks’ local shops, or even enjoy second breakfast. Help bring the community together and achieve official village status by throwing the greatest Bywater Festival the Shire has ever seen.
Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game will be released in the second half of 2024 on PS5 (PlayStation 5), Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.”
These styles of games are not an interest of mine, but I thought it would be nice to share this for the cozy-game lovers out there. Enjoy relaxing the The Shire, folks!
#Cozy#cozy#cozy games#cozy aesthetic#cotta#cottagecore#lo#lord of the rings#the ho#the hobbit#hobb#hobbits#the shire#Youtube
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Must Farm is a late bronze-age settlement in England, and this post(not mine) is about the archeology that helps tell about the daily lives of the people who lived there. The village was built on stilts to hover it over a river.
More info:
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How to write the passage of time
Time is a crucial element in writing that shapes the narrative. From linear progression, to flashbacks and foreshadowing, it gives you complete control of how your story unfolds.
Here are some tips to describe the passage of time to make your narratives more compelling.
Use the natural world
Describe the changing seasons
Show plant growth and death
Visualise the ebb and flow of tides
Describe the decomposition of flora and fauna
Describe the ways that landscapes change on long journeys
Use the weather to illustrate time jumps
Illustrate the affect that shifting shadows have on a location
Use heavenly bodies like stars, the rise and set of the sun, and phases of the moon
Describe physical activities
Show family gatherings and how they change over the years
Describe the process of finishing a creative pursuit
Create repetitive activities and routines
Have a character engage in an activity, like gardening, that visually changes
Have your characters learn a new skill
Write a change in location that requires a journey to get from point A to point B
Use your setting's seasonal celebrations to illustrate a time shift for individual characters and their world
Use sound
Describe the ticking of clocks
Have your characters' voice change with their age
Illustrate changing musical styles
Have your characters improve an audible skill like singing, swordplay, or learning a musical instrument
Show a character's conversational style changing as they grow
Use the sounds of nature, like leaves becoming brittle as they crunch underfoot, or rain turning into storms
Use silence to illustrate it getting late
Describe objects
Have food left out go mouldy
Illustrate buildings and settings being overtaken by nature
Show the lifecycle of a family heirloom
Describe textiles fading and degrading over time
Describe the freshness of paint; is it wet and glistening, or cracked and dry?
Illustrate technological change and advancement
Describe the repairs in a beloved object
Show a common object like a pencil to describe how it changes with use
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Writing Tips
Punctuating Dialogue
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➸ “This is a sentence.”
➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.
➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”
➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”
➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”
➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”
➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.
“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.
“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”
➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”
➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”
However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!
➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.
If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)
➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“
“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.
➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.
➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”
➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.
“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”
➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.
“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”
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I did not expect an iron-age Celtic helmet that looks like a ball cap 🧢
It is called the Meyrick Helmet and has La Tène style decorations.
“La Tène style is "a highly stylised curvilinear art based mainly on classical vegetable and foliage motifs such as leafy palmette forms, vines, tendrils and lotus flowers together with spirals, S-scrolls, lyre and trumpet shapes"
Wikipedia
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World-building: Creating a Currency
Creating a currency might seem difficult, but it does not have to be. In this post I will help guide you along the path of creating your own fantasy currency, while also showing some historical examples from around the world.
Trade Instead of Physical Currency
While it might seem strange to some today, money was not the only thing you could use as payment. For example, in some places you could pay your taxes, work, or rent in: salt, eels, beer, saffron, or even urine. Work was also a currency; for example, if you wanted to use someone’s flour mill, you might have to work the owners field as payment.
The Roman Legions sometimes also used salt as currency. Due to the high value of salt, an ancient Roman proverb said that people who did their job well were “worth their salt.” (Or “worth their weight in salt.”
Ancient Origins
The more isolated an area, the more likely it is that they will mostly or wholly use trade as their economy.
The Details
Increments:
Technically, all you need is one coin. For example, in America you can buy anything with enough pennies(one cent); anything at all. It is the lowest increment of money they have, and technically all you need. Of course the problem is that the more expensive the item, the more inconvenient that would be. Could you imagine trying to bring enough pennies to buy a car or house?
So for the sake of convenience, other levels of money are added, such as 100 pennies equaling to a dollar. Commonly in money, single digit numbers are used for small-value currency (such as 1 cent and one dollar or 5 cents and 5 dollars), then once you get to higher levels of currency, everything is in increments of 10’s (such as 10 dollar bills, 50 dollar bills, and so on).
As well as all I mentioned, it is also worth noting that the higher you go, the harder it is for the average person to get their hands on. For example, it was not until I was working the cash register as an adult that I saw my first $100 bill.
For your own currency, start with the absolute lowest number, then decide how many more official levels you would like. In medieval England, there were13 coin types.
Names:
Rather than just calling something by their number value, many places also come up with names for them as well. For example, 25 cents in Canadian coins are called “quarters,” 10 cents are called “dimes,” and 5 cents are called “nickles.”
Slang Terms(Optional):
As if having the number value and the names are not enough for people, some places also have slang terms for their money. For example, some places base their names off of the color (such as a red 20-dollar note being called a lobster), while others might have names based off the imagery on said currency.
Area’s of Use:
Just like how you could get a coin from a different country and know it is not from your own, that also occurred in history. It is important to know what areas had what currency, and also what areas would accept other types of currency.
Your currency from your one kingdom might not be worth anything to a neighboring one. In fact, if your two kingdoms are enemies, carrying your own currency in their kingdom could put you at risk.
Sometimes, currency is more local. For example, in an isolated fishing community, the locals might still use shell coins despite the capital city of their kingdom using metal coins. This is simply because they have no one making metal coins for their small community, so they have no use for them. However, this also means that if any of them were to want to visit the city, they would need to find a way to get the correct currency.
Appearance:
Material:
Commonly for currency, you would try to pick a material that is hard for the average person to easily get their hands on. This is mostly to make it so not everyone can simply create their own money, and because rare things tend to hold more value to people. For example, gold is not easy for the average person to find, so it is still used as a currency today under the free-market system.
However, your currency can be made out of absolutely any material you prefer. In history, leather, shells, clay tokens, wooden tokens and tally’s, and metal coins, have all been used.
“Shell money is a form of currency that was used in various parts of the world, including Asia, Africa, and Oceania. This type of money makes use of a type of marine snail known as cowrie and therefore is known also as cowrie shell money. In some parts of the world shell money served as currency up until the 19th/20th century.”
Ancient Origins
Imagery:
You can really have anything you want on a coin. For example, the Canadian loonie literally has a loon on one side, and the English monarch on the other. Almost all of the other coins also sport various animals, and Canada isn’t the only place that opted for animals. There was a celtic coin with a horse, a greek coin with a crab, and a roman coin with an elephant.
Sometimes the imagery was a symbol that meant a lot to the locals(such as the ruling person, a deity, mythological creature, or another symbol with deep meaning to the locals), while other times it could be just what the area is most known for. For example, a coin with a wheat stalk for an agriculture region.
Shape and Size of Currency:
If all your coins are made out of the same material, currency size would likely dictate the increment of value; such as smaller coins being worth less than bigger coins. This is due to judging the value based on the the amount of the material there, which can sometimes confirmed by weight.
Other times, the shape may be for convenience; such as a bead or a coin with a hole so you can keep them together on a string, or having flat coins for easy stacking.
However, coins can come in any shape you wish; such as the shape of an animal, a spade, or even a knife. While there have been some rather awkwardly shaped coins in history, I do suggest keeping them somewhat small for ease of carrying.
Free Generators
If, after all this, you are still completely lost on where to start, there are free money generators you can try.
RanGen Currency Generator
Springhole Currency Generator
#writing fantasy#fantasy#fantasy novel#fantasy world#worldbuilding#world building#fantasy writing#writing#how to#writeblr#writing reference#writing resource#writers on tumblr
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"Write better fight scenes with THIS"
youtube
Note:
If you don't want to watch: make fight scenes more interesting by adding more objectives. That way, the goal is not just to punch harder, but also try to deal with the other problems as well.
The example used is in the show Arcane, where Vi is not just fighting, she is also trying to get her sister back, and trying to get the same magic orbs everyone else is.
Having several fight-scene objectives allow your character to win on one level, but lose on another, making the fight scene more interesting and setting up future scenes.
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“Discoveries Made in Roman Nîmes Include Stunning Glassware”
“These Roman finds date back to between the 2nd and 1st centuries BC and the 2nd century AD. Several of these pyres were constructed from limestone rubble or stacks of terracotta tiles, while others were simply dug into the ground. The discoveries were made along the border of the Via Domitia, a major roman road.”
I can’t get over how pretty they are 🥺
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"Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français de l'époque carlovingienne à la Renaissance - illustration Tome 6 "
Date: 1874
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What happens when you visit a medieval inn?
youtube
Jason Kingsley, the Modern Knight, discusses what happens when you visit a medieval Inn. How it works, who you might meet. The opportunities for news and the dangers.
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Unknown artist, early 1900's
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Montezuma Castle | America's Medieval Marvel Revealed
youtube
“Montezuma Castle, an awe-inspiring cliff dwelling, nestled within the limestone cliffs of Arizona's Verde Valley, resembles a medieval fortress, earning it the moniker "America's Historic Medieval Marvel." Join Kevin Hicks as he explores the history of Montezuma Castle, a remarkably preserved five-story structure which dates back to the 12th century, and the discover parallels between this and some of the medieval building techniques in Europe. As an extra treat, Kevin also explores more medieval structures at Montezuma Well, an oasis in the Arizona Desert.”
One thing he didn’t mention about Montezuma Castle is that the building is an early example of passive solar design.
When the sun is lowest on the horizon, the sun light(and heat) hits the building and helps to warm it. In summer when the sun is high on the horizon, the cliff shadows the building from the sun, keeping it cool.
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