Gale Leach -- Author
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Art of Pickleball
    • The Disappearance
    • Bruce and the Road to Courage
    • Bruce and the Road to Honesty
    • Bruce and the Road to Justice
    • Bruce and the Mystery in the Marsh
  • About
  • Pickleball
    • Pickleball Tips
  • Author Blog
  • Leach Lines
  • Contact
  • Reviews
  • Store

Gale's Author Blog

Here you'll find news and notes about my writing and events, as well as articles you may find of interest. For a taste of something more personal, click "Leach Lines" below.

Leach Lines

One thing leads to another

12/2/2014

1 Comment

 
I've mentioned before how much I enjoy doing research for my books. Last night, that enjoyment took a funny turn.

The current setting of this book is a fantasy world, and its technological advancement is pre-industrial, similar to that of Renaissance England. As I wrote the start of a new chapter, my characters had to go fetch some hay. Not a terribly difficult task, even if they are centaurs,* or so I thought. 

I wrote something like, "They cantered up the road to bring back some bales of hay." (Pulitzer worthy, don't you think?) Then I realized that baling of hay didn't happen until there were machines to help, and this society would not have that technology. 
Picture
I remembered seeing an album cover, years ago, that showed a drawing of what I was looking for (any Traffic fans out there?). It featured a (blank) of barley, with "blank" being the word I needed.

A Google search led me first to a site describing early harvesting in England and suggested the word "pook." I loved the sound of that and looked it up. It's definition was extremely helpful: "a haycock." What the heck is a haycock? I discovered it's "a small conical pile of hay stacked in a hayfield awaiting removal to a barn." I'd learned something fun, but pook wasn't the word I wanted, so I kept digging. 

Oddly, I came across a site specifically designed to advise writers of fantasy fiction that's set in pre-industrial worlds to avoid using the word "bale" when their characters get hay. (Apparently, there's a lot of hay gathering going on in fantasy fiction.) I thought running across that article was rather strange, but I kept looking. 

Picture
I finally arrived at the word I needed: "sheaf," with plural "sheaves" (as in "bringing in the"). The picture here looks like what I had in mind. It shows sheaves of wheat or barley--not hay--that have been "shocked" (stacked against each other in an upright position). Evidently, shocks help protect harvested grain from rain and allow it to dry faster. 

Of course, my next thought was, "Wait. What season is it in the story? If it isn't fall, the sheaves won't still be in the fields . . . or will they?"

The entanglements resulting from one tiny word seem endless, but they're also great fun. In the end, the centaurs did finally manage to canter up the road on a fine, fall day and bring in the sheaves of hay using travois, or sleds, they pulled behind them. Hooray!
-------------------

Picture
* Half human/half horse creature from Greek and Roman mythology. 

1 Comment
Elizabeth Kral
12/3/2014 11:51:03 am

It is what we get bound up with when we need the right word.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Subscribe for my best content

    Blog Mailing

    Author

    Gale Leach lives in Arizona with her husband, two dogs, and a cat. When not avoiding fur balls, she's working on a new series of novels for young adults.

    Categories

    All
    Award
    Books
    Bruce And Friends
    Children
    Life In General
    Pickleball
    Reading
    Retrospective
    Thanks
    The Rift
    Writing

    Archives

    November 2017
    August 2017
    August 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013

    RSS Feed

© 2018 Gale H. Leach