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.
Time to look at logic. The word "logic" refers to two types of study: rhetorical logic and philosophical logic. We are not talking about rhetorical logic. I don't want to get into a huge fur-ball about the different types of logic, but suffice to say, if you took a course in logic, you most likely studied rhetorical logic. Rhetorical logic is how to evaluate sentences in a language to not their rhetorical correctness. This is not the kind of logic I mean when I write of a tool to know truth. If you took a course in mathematical logic, you are coming closer to the idea of "logic." For the record, rhetorical logic comes out of the philosophical logic.
Philosophical logic is the structured use of thinking to prove a truth (or a falsehood). Where the scientific method can only be used on repeatable events in the physical world, and the legal-historical method is used to document non-repeatable events in the physical world, logic can be used to understand both events and concepts in the physical (empirical world) and outside the empirical world. I know if you are steeped in empiricism, you won't immediately understand what I am writing about, but there are events and concepts in the real world that are not in the physical world. Before you get all worked up, think very carefully about this. One perfect example of concepts that are not reflected the physical world are emotions and thought. For example, what are you thinking? I have no idea what another person is really thinking, and I will never know. A person can always lie. People routinely lie about their emotions. They might smile directly to your face while wanting to kill you. Don't you have emotions or thoughts you would never act on and that you would never want another person to know? Thoughts and emotions are real--they are part of the real world, but the scientific method doesn't work on them very well (the events are not usually repeatable), and the legal-historical method documents--if a person says they are happy, but they are dying inside, history records "happy." To a degree, logic can be used to determine thoughts and emotions, but logic has a much more powerful role.
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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