Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Switzerland: The perfect location for a medieval novel.

I was hoping to come back to the medieval period for my blog, and we will. First we need to get some commercial stuff out of the way.


As you may know, my novel “Legend of the Mystic Knights” is now out for the Kindle on Amazon.

Furthermore, I just got a new web page;  www.warusho.com.
I know the site may look a little tacky, but I thought I would try to incorporate the Mystic Knights theme into it, until I have my other novels published.
So with this stuff out of the way, let’s get into our time machines and head back to the medieval period. It was a time of upheaval; humankind was now emerging from the dark ages, and knowledge was being reborn at the same time when warfare was being waged by knights throughout Europe and the Middle East.


This week, I am going to discuss why I choose the country of Switzerland as the location of my novel.

In my novel, Switzerland is referred to as Helvetia or Kingdom of Helvetia. The name comes from the Gaulish tribe who had inhabited the region. The name has been used, and is synonymous with Switzerland. This is pretty interesting; Helvetia is the female national personification of Switzerland.

One of the benefits of having Switzerland is its proximity to other nations. The country is located north of Italy, this is vital in my novel since the Catholic Church has an important part in this story, as it did during the medieval time period in Europe.

SPOILER ALERT: Readers of my novel will have guessed this by now. In the ending of the prologue, there is a great wall being built. This wall is to seal off Italy, since it has been run over by the evil in my novel. This will be important since the church abandoned Rome and moved its papal headquarters to another city. This is a vital point later in the series.

There are numerous students at the school of the Mystic Knights of the Dead Killers who have come from different countries in Europe. Northern Switzerland was a perfect location for the knight school since it could be accessible from countries in the west or north.

Another reason I choose Switzerland is because of is its rich history. Switzerland has been the center of many changes and conflicts during its long history. Having a novel set in an alternate time-line, allows me to adjust history to align itself into this time-line. One of my favorite scenes in the novel is where the protagonist describes a monument. The monument is a true monument and is dedicated to a battle which occurred in the Swiss Alps. In my novel, I could describe vividly this monument, but change the battle it was commemorating, in this case against a vampire army.

Of course, I choose Switzerland because of it beauty. To me, there is nothing more gorgeous than rock covered mountains contrasted against green lush valleys below. Add the exquisiteness of nature to the incredible traditional architecture of Switzerland, and you have a novel that almost writes itself.

Next time, I will discuss the social and economic roles of the characters in my novel.

18 comments:

  1. That was interesting info about Helvetia and how has Gaulish origins. I love tidbits of information like this, along with how Helvetia is the female national personification of Switzerland. Aside from that, I agree, Switzerland is a beautiful place for the setting of your book.

    BTW: I am very excited about your book and look forward to hearing more about your success.

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  2. I found it interesting to read about why you choose Switzerland as the setting for your book, especially how that worked with your plot. I've not been to Switzerland, but all the pictures I've seen have been beautiful.

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  3. How interesting that Helvetia is the female national personification of Switzerland. What a great piece of interesting information. Looking forward to reading your book...I'm trying desperately to get to it.!!!

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  4. Hi William - fascinating background on Switzerland and I can understand why you chose it for your book. One thing I never realized was that Switzerland has seen many conflicts - in my mind it has always been the peaceful and beautiful country of the Swiss Alps.
    Lenie

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  5. Have been going to Switzerland since I was 5 years old. Caesar was in Switzerland in his time. Why did you decide on Switzerland instead of Jerusalem?

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    1. Thank you for commenting. That is a wonderful question Catarina. First, I needed to establish the order of Mystic Knights and also the protagonist, who in the first novel is only a page. Being just a page, I needed to show him training and being educated, which would have been harder to do if he was on a crusade with a knight to the Middle East. However, Jerusalem is going to be a major city in the upcoming sequels to the novel.

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  6. An interesting insight into your choice of setting. I travel all the time, but somehow my stories tend to be set in Idaho and Montana as those places have left their mark on me from the time I was a wee little one. Your post makes me even more excited for my upcoming trip. I'll only be spending one night in Switzerland in Zurich, but I'm looking forward to it. We'll also be driving through a good bit of that country as well.

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  7. Have you spent much time in Switzerland William? I'm curious as to whether you created the setting for your novel based on personal experience or whether it was done remotely through research (and imagination).

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    1. I have never been to Switzerland. I am going to have a blog soon describing how I do research and then write about locations. Thanks for leaving a comment.

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  8. Congrats on your novel William. This is a highly educational post. The female national name for Switzerland "Helvetia" and the reasons you chose Switzerland. I definitely enjoyed them as I pictured your descriptions.

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  9. I think you chose wisely. Glad to see things coming along with your novel.

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  10. As a kid (and later) I read the entire series of Asterix and Obelisk. An Adventure series of two gauls from a tiny village. They had a potion that provided them superhuman strength. Obelisk had fallen into it as a baby so was always strong. Asterix had the smarts so was always keeping Obelisk out of trouble. My point is that these cartoons provided a lot of European history and facts. They traveled to Helvetia a lot so understand very well the connection to your book and why it would be a great setting.

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  11. I know that series of cartoons. If I remember It was set during the roman occupation.

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  12. It was interesting to know why you have selected Switzerland for your novel and I also liked description of Helvetia and about origin of Gaulish. First time I came to know that Helvetia is the female national personification of Switzerland. When I checked your website and saw a monster up on a great wall I was wondering about that later after reading this post I came to know why monster was there in picture and howling winds OMG! seems bit scary to me.

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    1. The funny part is, that is a pre-made website from Website Creator by CM4all . I used it because it was the only one close to the theme of my novel.

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  13. BTW congratulations for your Novel ,,, I wish you good luck with that.

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  14. I don't know much about Switzerland. Thanks for the brief info about it.

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  15. Hi William,
    Awesome post which contain very useful information about your journey. very interesting and informative article. I liked it. Great points included in the post. Thanks for sharing views. Have a great week ahead.

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