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.
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. If we are using the proper method (scientific) to prove the proper type of event (repeatable), then the next question is the reliability of the data.
First, you need to be able to see the data. In any scientific paper I have published or given, the data was available and either in the paper or to the reviewer or audience. No one hides their data, unless there is a problem with it. Just as we have heard about NOAA manipulating the weather data from the past, such manipulation (without explanation) in a paper is blatant fraud. Legitimate scientists do not manipulate data (without explanation). Legitimate scientists do not throw out data that is troublesome--they explain it.
Second, since the scientific method is all about repeatability, the means of testing repeatability is statistics. The pool of events and the pool defining the statistical elements must be large enough to prove the hypothesis. In science we use the concept of confidence to prove the validity of the statistics. Usually, a confidence of 95% is used for general reliability, 99% is used for safety, 51% is used in human drug trials. The reason the confidence is so low in human drug trials is that the sample size is usually low and the reliability (confidence) for human reaction in a double blind test so low. This doesn't mean there is a problem with the data, but possibly with the conclusion.
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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