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:
In the past, novel writing was all about the revelation of the characters too, it was just handled in a slightly different way. The writers had not developed the concept of show and don't tell as well as today. Just look at novels like Oliver Twist. There is a strong character revelation novel. If you note, when I write character revelation, it is both the past of the character and the now of the character. Oliver Twist is a great example of the means writers in the past used revelation. Oliver Twist is a novel about the life of that guy, Oliver Twist. Because Dickens didn't have the same toolset and his readers were not used to our modern means of revelation, he used action narrative through the writing to get the life and history of Oliver to the reader.
In a modern novel, writers use generally conversation to show the past. In some cases modern writers use flashbacks. I think these are less worthwhile, but they are an intermediate step between the "show all" of Dickens to the "revel" of the present. In modern revelation, the character tells another character or characters about him/herself. The revelation usually isn't a single event, but rather a novel-length experience. The revelation of the past is tied to the reality of the now, and the action and conversation interacts with the character from the experience of her/his past.
In a modern novel, we have gone from the certainty of the showing of history to the uncertainty of the self revelation of the character. This is a very important step in the development of the novel.
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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