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.
The concept of trust, science, and logic is kind of like economics. You might have heard the Milton Friedman quote: "There's never a free lunch." This means that is something sounds unreasonable in economics, it usually is. For example, the statement, increasing the minimum wage helps low wage workers. In economics, apply the concept of "no free lunch." Increasing the minimum wage means a business has to pay its workers more, which always leads to less employment and more automation. When the cost of robots (like auto check-out stations in supermarkets) becomes less than the cost of employing a human, the business will move from human employees to robots. This means when a government increases the minimum wage, many low wage people will lose their jobs and those jobs will go away for ever. This doesn't just affect minimum wage people. When wages are artificially increased by any means, people lose their jobs. For example, an increase in union wages always precedes layoffs. There never is a free lunch in economics.
Science, data, and logic are like economics, I just don't have a simple and pithy means to test them like the idea of a free lunch. I do have logical reasoning that I can use. For example, ghosts--as Ambrose notes, I can imagine the idea of a human spirit remaining on the earth, I cannot fathom the idea of the filaments of their clothing also having a "spirit." In other words, ghosts can't ever have clothing on. If a ghost had clothing, you would have to conclude that the clothing had some kind of spirit. Therefore, ghosts must always be naked. Do you get the logic here? That same logic applies in every scientific concept. I tried to illustrate it in drugs. Until a drug (of any kind) has been through a double blind placebo experiment, there is no way to know if the effect of the drug (material) is due to a placebo effect (20% in most experiments) or due to the material. If a drug has not gone through the FDA process (or a similar process in another nation), I wouldn't touch it. As a scientist there is no basis in science unless the drug has been through the appropriate testing.
Let's be even more direct--not only is FDA type testing assuring you scientifically that the drug has at least a 51% confidence (minus placebo) of effectivity, it also assures you of drug safety. As recently seen with the many liver failures caused by a "natural" substance young people were taking for muscle enhancement, some natural things can kill you. Try hemlock, or too much vitamin D. A drug overdose is bad--what about the overdose of a substance that is unproven and undefined in the human system. As a scientist, you need to have your spidey senses working all the time. A good scientist does not trust anything without reasonable proof.
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
No comments:
Post a Comment