Announcement: My editor sent a round of emails last night concerning the back cover materials. That included the book teaser and the author bio. They looked good. They also sent the covers for the individual novels. I'll put up the covers when I can. The proposed 3 in1 cover and info can be found at www.ancientlight.com. I'll keep you updated. I should have three new books out soon.
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:
The purpose of a novel is to reveal the protagonist and usually the protagonist's helper, the author needs to place them in circumstance that allows them to reveal themselves. The means can be conversation, exploration, discovery, other's conversation, confession, accidental discovery.
How to communicate and understand sources. This is a very important concept in today's world. The ability to critically look at sources for correct information leads to knowledge of the truth. This bears on an understanding of your own writing because it relates to the trustworthiness of the information provided by and provided to your characters--this then is passed to the readers in your storyline. What I'm trying to relate directly is the author's ability to manipulate and convey truth in the novel. One of the primary means is the primary witness. That is the point of other's conversation.
There are three ways to know truth: the scientific method, the historical-witness method, and logic. The scientific method can only be used to prove repeatable events. In the scientific method, you develop a hypothesis and then you test it via an experiment. The results of the experiment must be similar to prove at least the hypothesis. The scientific method is the basis for empiricism, and is the focus of most of our understanding of the natural world today. However, did you note? The scientific method can only be used to prove repeatable events. If the event is not repeatable, or if it is not based in the physical world, you can't use the scientific method. The scientific method is useless for nonrepeatable events or for concepts outside of the natural world. You might say, I understand nonrepeatable, but what can be outside the natural world? Mathematics is totally governed by logic and is not in the natural world--though repeatable, mathematics is not a repeatable event, but a logic based truth. You can't measure the accuracy of a mathematical equation--it has a solution or it doesn't. There is much more to this, but that should suffice for now. I'll get into more detail, but let's just begin with the scientific method: repeatable events and the natural 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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