Announcement: There is action on my new novels. The publisher renamed the series--they are still working on the name. I provided suggestions as did one of my prepub readers. Now the individual books will be given single names: Leora, Leila, Russia, Lumiere', China, Sveta, and Klava--at least these are some of the suggestions. They are also working on a single theme for the covers. I'll keep you updated.
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.
The four plus one basic rules I employ when writing:
1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.
All novels have five discrete parts:
1. The initial scene (the beginning)
2. The rising action
3. The climax
4. The falling action
5. The dénouement
The theme statement of this new novel is: An agent of the organization becomes involved with a vampire girl during a mission, she becomes dependent on the agent, and she is redeemed.
A more unique type of redemptive theme is that a being who is thought to be evil could either be found to be good or could change from evil to good. These are the types of unique themes I develop in my novels. For example, the vampire novel I am writing has a theme of a redeemed vampire. The obvious assumption is that the vampire becomes changed from a creature of evil to a creature of good. A secondary assumption could be that the vampire changes from being a vampire. I did not address this secondary assumption--there are reasons why this could be a good theme, but not necessarily in the universe of the novel I created. I do like to look as "impossible" themes and have used them in the past. That is themes where some event is classically thought to be impossible. For example, Aksinya. I don't believe any other author has written a novel where a person who calls a demon is redeemed both body and soul. Such a redemption is generally considered "impossible." I would like to pursue the "impossible" theme of a vampire turned back into a human, but I think this would be extremely difficult because of what a vampire is.
A vampire is, by definition, a human that is dead and reanimated through some means. The classical means is that the vampireness is conveyed by the vampire drinking the victim's blood. In my novel universe, the victim could only become a vampire if they were killed by the vampire and some essence of the vampire was then placed in the victim by the vampire. This is logical and doesn't reduce the strength of the idea of a "vampire." Since a vampire is already a dead human, unless you can propose the reanimation of a normal person, you can't change a vampire. This is one of the reasons a vampire is such a great pathetic character--they can't change from being a vampire, but perhaps they can be redeemed.
More tomorrow.
For more information, you can visit my author site http://www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites:
http://www.aegyptnovel.com/
http://www.centurionnovel.com
http://www.thesecondmission.com/
http://www.theendofhonor.com/
http://www.thefoxshonor.com
http://www.aseasonofhonor.com
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