Out of Context piece of writing.

niall mc cann

Hey there folks,

Wonder if you could take a look over a piece I've been writing; it's just a retelling of Deirdre of the Sorrows, and like the title says this is very out of conext, but I'd appreciate any feedback you could give me, cheers!

They left them there, with a fian of soldiers who stayed in the barracks but were not permitted to enter the fort itself. There was a staff of cooks and slaves, most of whom were not permitted in the fort. Conor left a nurse with them, named Leabharcham- she had nursed Conor himself as a child, and he trusted her totally. Feidhlimid and his wife had had their daughter late in life, much later than Conor had ever seen before or even thought possible, so he felt they’d need the support. Culain, another of Conor’s chieftains, had sent his dogmaster with them, and a pack of dogs who he promised would sire fierce and savage guard dogs that he assured them would grow into tireless protectors of the place. So Conor left the lonely place with as much protection and support as he could spare, and returned to Emain Macha. On the day he left, Iseult and Feihlimid stood behind him at the gate, Leabharcham behind them, wishing him safe journey. It was damp but not raining, and there was a fresh breeze in the air. He returned to Emain Macha, and found it a changed place, more at rest and calmer. The child may not have passed from the minds of the inhabitants, but the memory of her lay dormant and low on people’s list of concerns. Conor himself journeyed at least once a year to the dún, but no one else seemed to think of it as often. When Iseult died the following year, a handful of chieftains travelled with him to the funeral, and when Feidhlimid passed away two years after that, even fewer accompanied him to witness the last connection of the child to the outside world laid finally into the ground. The daughter they left passed into dim memory in the minds of the people of Ulster, and her name was lost to most of them.

Her name was Deirdre.

pickarooney

Are you happy that the rest of it is good or have you not written it yet? What does your retelling of the story add to the original legend (to be honest I've only ever read a very abridged version)?

I would say that anyone familiar with Irish folklore will probably know the story so would need something new from it and anyone not familiar with it is going to get frustrated with the unpronounceable names. Now, I'm not suggesting you go change everyone's name or use some revised, simplified spelling, but it's important to think a little of your audience.

niall mc cann

I'm happy that it can be good.

I have a pretty detailed framework of about 13,000 words written up that I'm happy with, and from that I've got the first three chapters written properly (about 17,000 words). I'm going through them at the minute rewriting and polishing; I don't know why I posted that piece really, except that it was the piece I was working on at the moment I decided to post.

As to what's new about it, well, it's still Deirdre of the Sorrows. I'm just trying to make it feel more of a political epic and less of a fairy tale; trying to place it in a landscape that's more about remaining true to our values and the weirdly contradictory places those values can take us than I've seen related before. Modernising it, basically, like every generation does.

As for the names... they do bug me a bit, but slightly less than trying to spell them phonetically, which rarely works either, really, and I'm not prepared to change them (though I have changed a few elements of the story).

I'll post up the opening paragraphs (which is probably what I should have posted last night in the first place), if anyone has any observations or advice on it, I'd love to hear it!

The First Part:
Clan Uisnigh is Forged, Never to be Broken

The moon was large and white and low in the sky on the night that Uisnigh died. Ardán followed him in the centre of the small group of soldiers on their winding path around the drumlins that undulated across the landscape. Cearbhall’s dún sat on the slopes of the highest hill, the buildings standing low and dark at this hour of the night, looking in the distance like damp moss clinging to a rock. Farther down the slope a high wooden wall of wattle and earth ringed the entire fort, cutting the ground behind it off from the surrounding landscape. They made their way towards it, quickly and silently. He had been part of expeditions like this before, but this one stuck in his mind vividly for years after, and he could recall exactly, it seemed to him, the precise consistency of the thick muck that clung to his boots, weighing down each step he took. He remembered the short-lived relief of reaching the occasional stretches of solid ground, only to find his thick, dark, woollen cloak snagged on the spiky blackthorns which grew on them. He didn’t complain, the other men were bearing the same burden, and he’d borne similar ones himself before. He didn’t even complain later as he held his father’s dying body in his arms, feeling the warm, sticky blood squelch out through the linen tunic, and seeing the dirty red film of blood that hung across his lips in a bubble. He remembered the sight of that bubble and the feel of his father’s body as the life went out of it for many years after it happened. He thought of it often.
They were sent here by Conor McNessa, lately the High Chieftain of Ulster. His father had been called to the king’s tent the previous night, and had spent a short time within it speaking with Conor, Fergus McRoidh, his great general, and Nessa, his mother and chief advisor. When he emerged, he’d come back across the war camp and sat by the fire with his own clan folk. He didn’t speak a word about what had been said in the King’s tent, but he didn’t have to. Within those insubstantial walls the fate of the chieftain Cearbhall had been decided, and Clan Uisnigh would know their role in it as soon as was necessary. His father had been calm, and in good spirits, and had eaten and drunk his fill before lying back on the grass before the fire, curling himself into his cloak and closing his eyes for the night. Ardán hadn’t paid particular attention to his father that night, how he acted or behaved. When Uisnigh had been summoned to the king’s presence they all knew broadly speaking what would be asked of them, they’d done it before. They would be going alone into danger, as quickly and as quietly as they could, to slit throats and set fires. If Uisnigh had had any presentiment that this was a mission he wouldn’t be coming back from, Ardán could not recall him betraying it. He would often replay that night in his mind too, but he supposed his father simply had not known. If a man knew when he was walking to his death, why would he continue?

pickarooney

It's pretty good, but you really need to look at the double and triple adjectives which drag down the nouns in the first section.

I love the cadencing of the opening line. I'm not sure if it's deliberate but there's a real rhythm to it that comes across nicely when read out loud. The second line doesn't follow logically or in terms of tempo. Who did Ardán follow and where did he go? The moon is the subject of the first line, not Uisnigh, so you'll need to either add a line detailing what Uisnigh was doing the night he died or just make Ardán doing his own thing.

niall mc cann

pickarooney wrote: »

It's pretty good, but you really need to look at the double and triple adjectives which drag down the nouns in the first section.

You're right, I'll have to go through it again and surgically remove some of those.

I love the cadencing of the opening line. I'm not sure if it's deliberate but there's a real rhythm to it that comes across nicely when read out loud.

It's very deliberate, and it's causing me some serious headaches trying to replicate through the rest of the piece.

The second line doesn't follow logically or in terms of tempo. Who did Ardán follow and where did he go? The moon is the subject of the first line, not Uisnigh, so you'll need to either add a line detailing what Uisnigh was doing the night he died or just make Ardán doing his own thing.

You're right, but it's a tougher thing to address than the adjectives... the entire first chapter is essentially Ardan reminiscing about the night that his father died. That's all invention, of course, and as I understand the original myth Clann Uisnigh were so called because of where they came from, rather than who led them, but I want to include the character of Uisnigh (or at least his death) as something that becomes a hugely symbolic bonding event in the minds of his sons, rather than relying on simple fairytale logic for why they all so eagerly betray their province and run away with Deirdre.

Anyway, the first and second chapters still need fairly significant rewrites, so I'll have to address it evenually!

Thanks for casting your eye over it anyway!