I've finally written a polished draft of Age of Albion. Reading through the story and updating and editing it has turned out a draft where the characters are brighter and the story is richer. It's also given me a chance to produce a raft of exciting images, something that I usually do in the first draft.
Part of Ash and Ana's quest to find King Arthur and Merlin also means they need to track down their legendary weapons.
It's described in the book as, "The two handed great sword was very plain. The hilt had a curved guard made of gold with a rectangular piece of silver at the middle. The handle, wrapped in leather, ended in a thick gold disk with a cross in the middle. Each point of the cross had a different colour stone on it.
"The most amazing thing about Excalibur, though, was the blade. It was about a metre long, made of the shiniest and smoothest golden metal Ana had ever seen. One side of it was trimmed in silvery steel with runes carved in it that she knew said ‘Caliburn’, the sword's much older name."
It is described in the book as, "The sword looked much older than Excalibur, more unpolished and natural – the most beautiful sword Ana ever seen. It’s blade was made of a smooth black stone, shorter and thinner than Excalibur. A thin strip of white-gold metal ran along the edge making it look needle sharp and dangerous somehow. Both the blade and handle were carved with Pictish swirls and leaf patterns. Its guard had a large purple stone in the centre with three smaller rubies creeping up the blade. A jagged quartz crystal burst out the end of the pommel like a rocky flame."
I think this method of blitzing a draft then going back and doing my drawings as part of the redraft has produced a much fuller (and quicker) story. It's meant that I got the story down, the characters aligned. And then I go back and improve the detail and really round out the characters and places in the story.
What do you think of my take on these mythical weapons?
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