Announcement: We are in the countdown phase for the publication of my new novels. The date on the internet is 1 September. We will see how close we come, or if the publishers meet the deadline. My Aegypt novels will be titled Ancient Light, and the next two books will be called Sister of Light and Sister of Darkness. These were the original titles. They will be released individually and as a 3 in 1 volume. The proposed cover and info can be found at www.ancientlight.com. 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 my newest novel, Valeska, is this: 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:
Description can also be incorporated into conversation and action narration. In fact, a perfect balance in modern writing is to deviate from early writing in this regard. In the past, writers many times would write extensive passages of description and scene setting. They generally placed these long passages at the beginning of the scene--they were excellent settings, but too much. A perfect example of this can be found on Mill on the Floss. The author goes on and on in description to build the world of the place. This might have appealed during the high days of Dickens, but it won't cut it today. Unfortunately, today, authors seem to have lost the fine sense of scene development and dig immediately into the action.
If you see novel writing as character revelation, you should be able to realize both the problem with Dickens' era over description, and modern lack of description. In the early days of the novel, you can cut the writers some slack for overusing the omniscient and narrative voice. They were developing the art of the novel. Today, you have too many good examples to not understand. If you take my rules of thumb, developed from Arlo Guthrie's Field Guide to Writing and use at least 300 words for your major characters and 100 words for minor characters. For a scene setting, use at least 300 words. These are minimums, but the will give you a good basis for descriptions.
Now, realize that all the other stuff the Victorian Era writers were trying to put in their descriptions must come with character and place revelation.
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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