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.
Here is my proposed cover for Valeska:
Truth in a novel is like conversation in a novel. No conversation in any novel reflects any real conversation. If you are familiar with the transcripts of conversations, you will know that very few speakers speak in complete sentences and that most conversation is filled with non-verbal sounds and extraneous words. A real conversation in a transcript is many times not completely understandable and sometimes a speaker whose conversation is completely understandable in person is impossible to understand in a transcript.
Novels and conversation in novels are the exact opposite of a transcript. In conversation in a novel, the author writes the conversation to read like a real conversation, but in reality it could never be a real conversation (not unless two actors were reading it directly). You could not take the transcript of a real conversation and include it in a novel (not unless the transcript itself were the focus of the novel). Likewise, the author takes conversation and makes it seem real to the reader. The conversation in a novel is what we conceive a conversation to be. A conversation in a novel could never reflect the truth of a conversation in the "real" world. On the other hand, the transcript of the most interesting conversation in the world would never make it in a novel. A novel's purpose is to entertain. The purpose of a conversation is to communicate.
The conversation in a novel is not "truth" in the sense of the real world--it is "truth" only in the world of the novel. It is also truth that is boiled down to the essence of purity to entertain. In this way, the truth in a novel is like conversation in a novel. The author provides a perfect and entertaining view of the world by perfecting something, like conversation, that is very imperfect in the "real" world.
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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