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 three tests used for all documentary evidence in history are: the bibliographical test, the internal test, and the external test. Let's see how we can use these tests.
The way people think about the world is rooted in their religious (spiritual) view of the world--no kidding. There are four stages in religious thinking (religions):
1. Animism - gods in everything, man is fated
2. Pantheonic Paganism - gods rule certain things and both man and god are fated
3. Mysterium - gods rule and man can know god through rituals and education
4. Gnosticism - god is there and man can be like him through knowledge
Animism begins to die out when a culture begins to externalize big gods vs. little gods. In animism things are pretty simple--a god is in everything and the god makes the thing grow or move. Stuff that doesn't grow or move doesn't have a god or gods in it. With literacy, there is suddenly god things that are no longer real in the world. For example, love. Love is an incredible powerful idea. It is an idea that is impossible without literacy. You can imagine the verb love, but love isn't like running or jumping. Love isn't like sex or fighting. You can't have love without a written word for love. In fact, many early cultures even with literacy don't have a word for love. There is no early Hebrew word for love. Greek breaks love into about ten different types of love. Japanese makes love from "more like." Love is a very difficult concept and a very difficult idea. One of the first goddesses in a culture is a goddess of wives and fertility. A wife and fertility are concepts that don't require love--they require sex and marriage, but not love. In fact, most early cultures don't apply words like love to women, but rather to other men. Love in this sense is not sexual at all--it is love of a comrade. Love of a shield brother. Love of a brother. This the Greek word for love of a real brother or a shield brother is phileo. Before you can love man, there must be a love of the gods. In Greek the love of the gods--only applied to gods--is agape. Man can't agape in classical Greek. In early Hebrew, there is no word for love. There is a word for God's affection for man--it isn't love, and there is a word for man's affection for other men and God--not generally applied to women.
The point is this--love is a complex idea that must have a goddess. In Greek, the goddess of love was Aphrodite. Aphrodite was specifically the goddess of pathos and man's fate. She seduced men, not to love, but rather to betray their wives and brothers. Thus her husband was the god of metallurgy and her lover, the god of war. Pantheism takes very new concepts in literacy (like love) and civilization (like metals, music, etc.) and turns them into gods. The lessor animistic gods become demigods or small gods. In Greek culture dryads, nyads, centars, etc. The new gods take over the roles of force in the culture and suddenly, the culture begins to realize that gods aren't making the world run. This change in thought begins with the invention of philosophy.
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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