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, so every scientist and researcher needs to keep their spidey sense going to spot the evidence of the misuse of science and the scientific method. Spidey sense is what I call it for my students. If something doesn't make sense in either, the use of the scientific method, the data, the means of data collection, the logic of the science itself, then there is likely something wrong with the paper. I mentioned some great examples in the last few days. There are many many more. Lawyers and politicians use science today to try to prove their own populist or not so populist positions. It is as if they were trying to prove the earth is flat to prevent exploration or to call some silly idea settled. There is very little in science that is fully settled. In my own field, there is no complete agreement on the mechanisms of lift production. Lift is produced by Bernoulli, F=ma, and momentum turning flow. Which is more powerful and which dominate--it depends on the situation. Bernoulli doesn't work at all on a symmetrical wing--whoops. The NASA website claims Bernoulli is the way lift is produced--is NASA wrong? Yeap, NASA is wrong. In reality, NASA wants to simplify the subject for the less educated in the field of aerodynamics. On a symmetrical wing, F=ma is one of the main means of lift production, but even that doesn't explain all the lift, so we have momentum turning flow at the leading edge.
So, if you want to study aeronautics, don't depend on NASA. If you want to study the atom, all those atomic models you learned so long (or short) ago, are simplifications. You see, when you are young and or uneducated, someone determined that less knowledge of science was better than complete understanding. So kids in Harvard don't understand why there are seasons on the earth and can't describe an electrical circuit. Children today know how to put on a condom, but don't have any idea why--if you don't believe me, just ask an average one. The smart ones don't need condoms. Unfortunately, the smart ones need a better scientific education than they are getting. Well perhaps they'll learn at Harvard--not. Just keep your spidey sense going and learn all you can about the subject you are writing about. There is another tool we use to know truth, and this one relates directly to writing and learning--the Legal-Historical method.
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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