Uther Pendragon: Blog

In comments on two -- Edit: make that 3 -- recent stories, readers have called for more about the characters.

Now, I always take that as a compliment. I've succeeded in conveying enough of characters that some readers treat them as real and want to know hat happens next.

the two stories are otherwise very different, though.

I stopped Your Zee at a point where the main characters' relationship is quite precarious. (Partly because I don't really believe that it can turn into something lasting.)

Hath Eyes has characters who are going to get married in a while. I don't feel that taking them through their long engagement will interest either the readers who have requested it nor -- and I'm more dedicated to this -- myself. I could write as tory about their marriage later, but I probably won't.

Like a Gentlewoman ends with the characters married and with a baby. That's the end of every Regency Romance that I've ever read. It's certainly the end of a story. I don't plan to write another story about them, but -- even if I did -- it would be another story. (And, I might point out, SOL doesn't have a story code for stories about faithful married couples.)

I have written a few series, but I stop a story when that story has been told. If the hero is not named Adam, a prequel is possible; if the story doesn't end with thermonuclear war or the Sun's going nova, a sequel is always possible. That doesn't mean that I'm called to write it.

I've been asked what happened to ASSTR and what's going to happen.

I don't know the first, and I suspect that nobody knows the second. A person more knowledgeable has recommended ASSD,

alt.sex.stories.d

That's the discussion forum for alt.sex.stories. Apparently, they discuss the site fairly often.

I've been posting a new chapter or an entire story once Monday through Friday of every week since Easter.

That depended mostly on posting stories that had been previously on ASSTR, but not here.

Unless I go to the God Joined Together universe, I have about run out of those stories. Karen which is still running, was a series on ASSTR which I'm turning into a serial on SOL. So, you're going to see a lot fewer short stories from me in the next few months, and the longer stories will not fill up the week.

The alphabetical-dialogue story series has, at last, come to an end.

These are all old stories, but somehow I hadn't posted N - Y on SOL. I had Zeno up, but I took it off the series to keep the order consistent. Now that Yield has been published, I can put Zeno back in.

In 1754, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act. The act, however, did not cover the United Kingdom; it merely covered England and Wales. A parent could veto the marriage of any child under the age of 21.

Now, for most of the residents of England and Wales, this rule was absolute. Travel to Scotland was only slightly more thinkable than travel to the moon. To those with whom Regency Romances deal -- the aristocracy and the upper reaches of the gentry -- travel to Scotland was possible, and elopement to Scotland was one option that young couples thwarted of marriage would, at least, consider.

A road was constructed in 1770 which was the fastest land route from much of England to Scotland. Gretna Green was the first village in Scotland on that road.

Gretna Green became synonymous with elopement. Couples could elope to many places -- from London, a trip by sea would probably have been faster in those days -- but you only threatened to elope to Gretna Green.

While the act applied equally to sons and daughters in wording, among the people who counted at The Season, few men were married before age 21, and most women were.

A girl was typically 16 when she took "her Season." While The Ton attended balls for every Season thereafter, the next stratum of society down did not. A girl who turned 18 unwed was a reject, and she had to choose between spinsterhood and a less suitable marriage than she had previously considered.

In such a social milieu, waiting until you are 21 was an intolerable torture.