Announcement: My new novels should be available from any webseller or can be ordered from any brick and mortar bookstore. Information can be found at www.ancientlight.com. Check out my novels--I think you'll really enjoy them.
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:
Then the point becomes how to design the plot, theme, and resolution (climax). I transitioned (kind of) from the rising action to the climax. I'm actually in the process of transitioning. The rising action starts at the end of the initial scene and builds into the climax. That means the author should (hopefully) have some idea what the climax is. I will confess, that I have written whole novels by sneaking up on the climax. That's not to say I didn't know where I was going, but rather that the rising action seemed to build itself to the climax.
Let me go on the record to express that I don't like authors who write with no cohesive plan in their writing, but I will forgive those who let the story unfold in its own time and space. I've written before that the theme will determine the climax, the trick is to find it through the plot. I think this is absolutely true. The theme must determine the climax of the novel and the plot should follow along. The problem is to find the proper resolution of the theme (and in some cases to define fully the theme). Themes are or should be very simple, but the complexities of a novel will affect and drive the theme outcome (resolution) in a way that might not be obvious until the author plans or writes the storyline. This is not as unusual as it might seem. Books don't write themselves, but the storyline isn't cut and dried at all. When an author begins to write, he doesn't have any idea of the full gamut of complexities he is about to endue within the novel. Those complexities come out and can only come out with the writing and sometimes editing of the novel. The interconnections themselves are many times unpredictable. For example, in my published Chronicles of the Dragon and the Fox novels, I had an ornamental pin that was given to a character in one novel. In the final edit of the third novel, I went back and added the pin into the narrative to connect the characters between the two books. A tiny paragraph about a pin reaffirmed and connected the novels in a very special way. Anyone reading both novels would immediately get the connection. Within novels themselves, the author discovers these magical means of connecting the characters and events.
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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