Around 700 BC, something quite amazing happened.
A man wrote a story–the first ever story written on papyrus.
His name was purported to be Homer, the Blind Poet, writing in the language of the very ancient Greeks. It's possible that he was previously a storyteller, a profession well thought of in those times–before television, books to curl up with, or even Greek plays.
But he was different; he wrote down the stories he told. Because of that, we can enjoy the Iliad and the Odyssey to this day. Although they were epic poetry, an account of a true event, when translated into a prose form, they read like novels.
 |
| The chariot ramp from the Skaian Gate |
I've just returned from Turkey, and I was anxious to see Troy, the city where the action in the Iliad took place, around 3,200 years ago. I'd already read the Iliad, but I bought a new copy, translated by classicist Emily Wilson with a poet's eye. As I read, I recognised how Homer was following all the techniques, devices, rules and guidelines for creative writing, that, as a tutor, I advise to my students to study.
But no one had written a book before!! So from where had he got his writerly skills?
My first good guess is that, although not many stories were written down (the earlier ones were written on cuneiform; clay tablets), what Homer was mostly drawing on for technique were the skills of the storyteller.
It's a tough life, being a storyteller, a performance poet, or even getting up at a local writing slam to strut your stuff. The Greek storytellers needed to keep their audience gripped while they emptied the amphorae of wine.
 |
| Bronze Age vessels discovered at Troy |
From the very first page of the Iliad–actually, from the very first line–I can see those skills in action. Homer knows the all the writing tricks. Most of his techniques relate directly with creative writing today.
So, for today's writers, here's my Top Ten Homer Writing Tips:
1 Start with a crackerjack of a first line
2 Jump into your story
3 Focus on your protagonist while establishing your main theme
4 Set up an antagonist that will make the reader bristle with anger
5 Give your characters failings as well as good points
6 Use imagery that takes the reader to the event
7 Show, don't tell both action and emotional responses
8 As you move towards the end, bring your protagonist to a low point
9 Finally, your main character achieves the thing they've dreamed of
10 Parallel your first action with your last, for a neat dénouement
 |
| The red of poppies replace the blood spilt long ago |
Let's look at these in a bit more detail.
1 Start with a Crackerjack of a first line...in my copy, these are, Goddess, sing of the cataclysmic wrath of great Achilles. So we know what style...what 'personal voice'...the writer is going to use. This is lyrical, beautiful, worthy of the gods. And we know who the story is about, and what's up with him.
2 Jump into your story...The Iliad famously starts in medias res. Much later on in the story, Homer will seed in some of the background to the war, but now he focuses on our desperate need to know what has made Achilles furious.
3 Focus on your main character while establishing your main theme...why is Achilles burning up with rage? Homer answers this by introducing his nemesis...Agamemnon, and by taking us directly into the action of the story, battle by battle.
4 Set up an antagonist that will make the reader livid....Agamemnon is the high king and field marshal of the gathered Greek troops. But he's mean and greedy and selfish. He takes Achilles' slave woman as his own...because he can. Achilles hates him for almost the whole story.
5 Give your main character failings as well as good points...Okay, Achilles is a guy with anger management problems, and he's a terrible sulker. His priorities are all wrong; his goal is to die a hero. But he's strong, fearless, focused in battle. And a faithful lover. He cries really easily!
6 Use imagery that takes the reader to the event...In the Iliad, rather than simply giving all the facts to the reader, Homer hides them in simile and metaphor. This helps the reader understand the storyline via familiar objects, as well as making the text more vivid.
Here's a moment when Hector's army reaches the Greek ships, ready to set them alight: Hector pushed ahead, as when the torrential rain dislodges the foundations of a stone, and from up high upon the rocky clifftop the river, swollen with the rainstorm, thrusts the shameless stone, which skips and leaps and flies–the woods resound around it, and it runs unstoppably on down and down, until it reaches level ground and spins no more, for all its eagerness to keep on moving–such was the threat that Hector posed. This extended description fits the voice of the poet...although it might be a little long for modern tastes you can imagine Homer's audience enwrapped in the symbolic illustration it paints.
7 Show, don't tell action and emotional responses...As well as using simile a lot, Homer is not afraid of showing us what's going on, using animated, realistic action. Here's a bit from the same battle. Teucer has just killed a Trojan spearman; Teucer darted up to strip the corpse, and Hector hurled his spear at him, but Teucer, as he sprnted, saw the bronze hurtling towards him, so he ducked–it missed him narrowly but struck Amphimachus...
Although the Iliad is mostly about men fighting with sharp weapons, there are tender parts. Here's Hector, bidding farewell to his wife before returning to battle; Then noble Hector reached towards his son, the baby wailed and wiggled back to snuggle in his well-groomed nurse's lap and dress. The child was scared by how his father looked, shocked at the terrifying horsehair plume that nodded at the top part of his helmet. His loving father and his mother laughed. Hector immediately took off his helmet and put it on the ground. It glittered brightly. Then glorious Hector kissed his darling son and took him in his arms to rock and cuddle...
8 Bring the main character down to a very low point towards the end...Achilles deeply loves his friend and lover Patroclus. So when (spoiler alert!) Patroclus goes into battle in Achilles' armour, and is killed by the Trojan general Hector, his world spins apart. His shirt is wet with tears and he cannot eat or sleep.
9 Finally, your main character achieves the thing they've dreamed of...At first, it was Achille's dream to be a hero, remembered forever. But when Patroclus dies, all he burns to do is kill Hector. And we all know how that turns out, having watched the film Troy.
10 Mirror your opening actions with your last. In the opening pages, we learn that Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, has risked coming into the Greek camp. He begs Agamemnon to let him take his daughter (who is now Agamemnon's slave trophy), home. Agamemnon hands her back to her father then snatches Achilles' slave woman, Briseis, a priestess of Apollo herself, as replacement.
One of the final scenes in the Iliad shows Priam, king of Troy, old and weary from grief, slipping into the Greek camp to beg for the return of his son's body, the great Hector, slain, and abused, by Achilles. These two huge emotional moments bookend the story, but Priam's story is even more heart-rending than Chryses', allowing the Greek audience to have a moment of empathy with the enemy side.
It takes around 30 minutes to read a single book (chapter) aloud and there are 24 books in the Iliad. Besides reading aloud isn't equivalent to telling aloud. Storytelling performances are full of gestures, actions, and facial expressions; full of humour and drama. So the Iliad, in its told form, was not just an evening's entertainment, but probably a regular spot for each episode at a favourite watering hole.
We will never know why Homer, whoever he was, decided to write these epic storytelling poems down, but I wonder if it wasn't just the latest thing at the time. Remember how everyone wanted Jane Eyre and Lucky Jim on their Kindles a decade or so ago? Homer might have thought..."this new papyrus stuff from Egypt...why not write down these stories?" It probably didn't feel like a revolutionary thought, but actually it was. For generations before him––for five hundred years, in fact––the handing on of told story was enough to keep the history of the Trojan war active and alive, but finally it was recorded for all the epochs to come.
The Iliad is a brief moment from a long war, in which the twist in the tale is that the hero is sulky and absent from battle, while the man destined to die a beloved hero is on the enemy's side. But Homer wrote many stories, about the Great Trojan War–eight in all. Sadly, apart from the Iliad–great battle story, and the Odyssey–great sea voyage of mystery and magic, we have lost the rest, apart from summaries and tiny papyrus fragments. These include the Cypria, the story of the first 9 years of the war, and the Iliou Persis, which details the sacking of Troy. It's possible that the last known copies became charred fragments when the Library of Alexandria burnt to the ground.
 |
| The view from Troy to the Aegean |
I love the allure and glamour of these ancient books, and the idea that some of the story is absolute fact. Of course storytellers embroider...that's the creative bit of writing...but as I wander up the the very pinnacle of Troy, and looked over the plain on which the armies fought, I can see the Aegean, where the black ships of the Greeks had been anchored. I felt all the players, standing just behind me; the soldiers in their gleaming bronze and the women in their trailing dresses,. They were both real people and the vivid characters in a book I love to read.
