Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.
I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll keep you informed along the way.
Here are my rules of writing:
1. Entertain your readers.
2. Don't confuse your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
I really haven't written enough about themes. I'm not sure all the worlds books could hold everything there is to say about themes. The theme is the beginning of all art and especially all writing. A theme is actually a tellic association (the beginning and the end) in literature, but that's an ancient Greek concept.
I started not long ago with trying to help focus creativity to write. The focusing creativity became the development of a theme. I've been trying to show through example and through explanation how to get a creative idea and turn it into a unique theme. If you have a creative idea, you can turn it into a unique theme. I like the idea of a unique theme because I don't want you writing novels that have no chance of publication (or entertaining people).
Here is an exercise that might help you develop ideas and themes. Sit down and begin to brainstorm ideas and themes. Write whatever comes to mind and write down as many as you can think of. I've done this with ideas for writing from my aviation experiences. I started a list about 20 years ago and I keep adding to the list. The list is about 200 ideas long and growing. I've written many of them into essays and stories. Your first list might be just to get your idea maker primed, or you might just use this as the beginning of your idea list. I keep a novel idea list and write down ideas as they come to me.
Once you have a unique theme, you can turn it into a plot. I turn a theme into a plot by visualization. I basically visualize the theme playing out and write it down. To do this, you need to stabilize the theme and develop characters. We'll move off from there tomorrow.
My Notes: once you have a theme, you need to begin to visualize your plot, stabilize your theme, and focus your characters. More tomorrow.
I'll move on to basic writing exercises and creativity in the near future.
The following is a question asked by one of my readers. I'm going to address this over time: Please elaborate on scene, theme, plot, character development in a new novel creation....ie, the framework, the development, order if operation, the level of detail, guidelines, rule of thumb, tricks, traps and techniques.
I'll repeat my published novel websites so you can see more examples: http://www.ldalford.com/, and the individual novel websites: http://www.aegyptnovel.com/, http://www.centurionnovel.com/, http://www.thesecondmission.com/, http://www.theendofhonor.com/, http://www.thefoxshonor, http://www.aseasonofhonor.com/.
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