The British Isles remain a few years behind everything else in the main line in terms of politics and Baen novels. It’s just how things have ended up. The current most recent novel in the British Isles is the Dragon Award Finalist 1635: The Weaver’s Code by Eric Flint and Jody Lynn Nye. More than nine years after Eric’s post below, the British Isles are STILL in 1635.
As a result, authors are still fairly constrained in what we can write in the British Isles. With that said, constrained doesn’t mean we can’t write anything. Tim Sayeau wrote the charming story “A Guest At The New Year” (Issue 6) and the sequel “Rose-Hip And Red Velvet” (Issue 9), which are set in England. (Personally, I’m hoping to read more of the story – hint, hint, Tim if you are reading this!) The story itself works without any reference to politics, but even within it, there were a few references that had to be removed because the political situation is still fluid.
The basic rule is that the short stories in the magazines can’t muck about in anything that hits on high politics, as Eric explains in more detail below. Because everything is canon, all the writers have to be careful if we write anything that uses.
– Bethanne (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine)
13 January 2016 12:33
The problem mostly involves people trying to write stories that take place in the British Isles, if those stories either impinge upon so-called High Politics — or, and this is the trickier issue, presuppose that something already established is going to stay that way. This same issue exists everywhere in the series, of course, but most things happening on the continent are taking place within the context of story lines that are established through early/mid 1636. The problem with the British Isles is that that story line is lagging behind most of the others, since PARCEL OF ROGUES ends in very early 1635 — more than a year earlier than the series as a whole.
What that means is that someone writing a story set in the British Isles that takes place any time after the end of 1634 can’t assume that the political situation isn’t going to change out from under your story. The only way you can avoid that is to write a story that is so detached from politics that it could fit within _any_ political development. That’s not impossible, but it is tricky. That’s why Walt wants you to co-ordinate with him.
It’s much less of a problem to use English or Scots or Irish characters _outside_ of the British Isles, so long as they aren’t prominent historical figures and so long as you refrain from making references to any political developments in Britain after 1634.
I have found that, in general, I can usually accommodate whatever people write so long as they avoid two things:
1) Establishing major political developments.
2) Using a major political figure where and when they couldn’t be situated. This second problem can usually be worked around, though, so long as people are only using a major figure for a brief period of time — and so long as the place they want him or her to show up isn’t implausible. For instance, if you want to have Rebecca Abrabanel make a brief appearance in your story set somewhere in the USE, that’s probably manageable. But if you want to have her briefly appear in your story set in the West Indies/Russia/moons of Saturn, that isn’t going to fly.
Usually, though, the worst that happens is that if there’s something in a Gazette story that I find problematic AND the story is one that I want to reissue in a paper edition, you may have to do some rewriting or I’ll do a little editing. Usually it’s no big deal. Iver gave one example [below] of how he had to tweak one of his stories. Another example is Mark Huston’s “Twenty-Eight Men,” that was first published in Gazette #10 and was then reissued in paper in Gazette V. There was a brief depiction of a political reaction by Mike Stearns that I didn’t think was plausible. So, for the Baen paper edition, I just cut the three paragraphs I didn’t like. There have been other examples like that, and I’m sure there will be more in the future.
By way of example of the risks of playing in someone else’s sandbox, before I wrote Federico and Ginger, I checked with the Ed Board as to whether I could use Princess Kristina (as Federico’s student) and where. I was assured that she was going to be in Grantville, as implied by the end of the novel 1633.
The story was written and published in GG 6. But when Eric got around to working on Baltic War, he decided that he wanted Princess K in Magdeburg not Grantville. So I rewrote Federico and Ginger so Federico commuted between Grantville and Magdeburg and Princess K just came to Grantville for the big performance, and it’s the rewritten version that appears in the Grantville Gazette online archive.
So…. changes of plan happen and since it’s Eric’s sandbox you need to adjust. If you don’t like it, write a story in your own universe and then you set the rules.
Choosing British Characters (including Celts)
13 January 2016 09:37 (Walt Boyes)
What I want everyone to understand is that you cannot just pick characters in England, Scotland or Ireland and write about them, without in every case checking with [the editor-in-chief] first. You cannot write about prominent Britons or Scots or Irish because any of them may be used in mainline authors’ work. The English, Irish, and Scots who have already been canonized also already belong to somebody.
I don’t want any more rules-lawyering. If you find that you absolutely must tell a story based in the British Isles, including Orkney, etc., talk to [the editor-in-chief] first before you put a lot of words on paper, or in electrons.
