Writing fiction can be a very weird, almost liminal space. ‘Liminal’ is defined as occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary threshold. Writings are often divided between non-fiction or fact, and fiction, not-fact. The act of writing fiction feels like a strange place where real life and “not-real life” intersect.

We just got back from an English Country Dance event in Atlanta, Georgia, called Fandango. We had a lovely time with dance friends we have not seen in years thanks to the pandemic.

On Saturday night, Fandago hosts a formal ball where many of us dress up in our best historical finery to kick up our heels. Outfits range across a very broad spectrum of periods and places, lending a liminal fairy tale quality to the event. Somewhere between fantasy and reality.

I found myself in a similar place with the current book. Writing a scene where characters—human and dragons– were learning and demonstrating a new dance, I found myself in need of some very specific details in order to make the scene work. I needed a very specific sort of mistake to happen, in a very specific way, in a dance that would have been held at a particular sort of event.

Eventually, after wracking my brains for some time, I was able to come up with sort of mistake I needed to have happen, and the sort of dance figure it would mostly likely happen in.  Step one accomplished. Step two proved more complex as I needed to find a dance in which it would have taken place.

Part of the trouble with that is that in the era, many dances didn’t work the way they do today, with all the moves being known ahead of time. In the day, the couple leading the set would decide upon the moves at the start of the dance, so I had to find a dance that didn’t work that way. Cotillion dances proved to be the perfect vehicle for the plot device. Except…

I scoured The Cotillons made Plain and Easy in Accurate and Practical Manner by Thomas Hurst, 1769, hoping to find a cotilion with the move I needed, and naturally I could not find one.

So, I did the only reasonable thing a writer in my position would do.

I wrote my own.

In my living room, with only my rather astonished cats to dance with, I choreographed the steps to what I will call, the Dragon Cotillion. Admittedly, I have not tried it set to music yet, but all the step counts work and it does not lead to train wrecks, at least not when done properly.  Moreover, it is one that any self-respecting minor drake or winged dragon could actually manage on the dancefloor.

Have I mentioned I have a rather rich inner life?

If you’d like to see what an actual cotillion dance might look like, check out the video below.

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