Fate – Stories to catch your breath

Banner with Fate short story collection image

In previous centuries, belief in fate was strong. Kismet, karma, destiny, the will of a god or gods were the ways people accepted good or bad fortune. Going further back, Greeks and (the especially superstitious) Romans were extremely wary of the Fates.

Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos were the three Moirai, the version of the […]

Policing – A complicated subject for writers

Bas-relief of Ancient Rome vigiles by Carlo Sorgi (1941) at the Italian National Firefighters Training School

When I wrote a post about Ancient Roman law enforcement, I discovered how complicated the system was. Vigiles were principally firefighters but carried out policing duties as well and cohortes urbanae were heavy duty riot police. They’d […]

Settings, settings, settings – Dresden

Dresden by night along the River Elbe Photo by Kolossos, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Character and plot are the elements that drive a story for me, but neither can work properly without interaction with the setting in each scene. It can be weather, time of day, city, village, mountains, muddy road, […]