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 25th novel, working title, Escape, is this: a girl in a fascist island nation will do anything to escape--a young cargo shuttle pilot not following the rules crashes on the island.
Here is the cover proposal for Lilly: Enchantment and the Computer. Lilly is my 24th novel.
 |
| Cover Proposal |
The picture looks like this: a girl on the ground who will do anything to escape her country; a pilot high overhead in an cargo shuttle that is about to have an engine failure; and an island nation called Freedom that isn't free at all. Now the author sets it all in action.
When the picture starts moving, the action begins, the girl is looking up from the ground at the shuttle. She can see it as it screams across the halcyon sky. The pilot looks from his seat and sees the island. Both are indirectly imagining about the other. The girl imagines the shuttle could take her away from the place she despises. The pilot tries to imagine the land and people below him, but his mind is mostly on the mission.
When the motion begins, their worlds begin to get closer. The pilot has an engine problem. The girl sees the shuttle turning back. The shuttle almost hits her. This is the power of motion to the picture that is the beginning of this (or any) novel. The picture provides the setting and the characters--the action in the picture moves them according to the plot and storyline. I'm telling you all this--the novel shows.
Rebecka
glanced up—she felt it before she saw it.
Her very sensitive and trained eyes caught the contrail she sought. Through the billowing clouds, she spotted
what she was looking for. High above, a
steady white trail moved from far in the west.
She thought she could see a dark speck at the front of that quickly
moving line. She watched for it every
day. It crossed the headland with
regularity—once every sevendays, and usually on this day. There was hope in that speck and that long
white trail in the skies.
No
one else seemed to notice it. When she
had asked other visuals about it, they shushed her. They kept their eyes down at the ground, just
as the slogans told them. They looked at
the soil of Freedom and not at the skies.
No one could fly. No one knew of
any citizens who ever left Freedom. Not
even the rumors from the Capital ever spoke of flying machines or of other
citizens who might have flying machines.
The Supreme Leader assured them that they were the only civilized nation
in the entire world. For all the
citizens, there was only Freedom and work and for her the Development Center.
She
knew she gazed at something that was not from Freedom. She knew she looked at something that was
truly free—a machine of metal that flew across the heavens. She longed for that kind of freedom. Not the freedom the slogans constantly spoke
about, not the freedom the Supreme Leader told them all citizen possessed, but
true freedom—something away from this place.
She longed for it and would give anything to achieve it—freedom.
Scott Phillips sat at the controls of a heavy lifting
cargo shuttle. He was at flight level
sixty more than ten miles above the surface of the globe and well outside of
air traffic radar coverage. He sat in a
cocoon of heavy aluminum and plasteel.
Underneath and behind him was a suborbital shuttle. It was over a hundred feet long and filled
with high priority goods. It was a
lifting body with a single hydrogen powered atmospheric compressing engine for
long cargo hauls like this.
More tomorrow.
For more information, you can visit my author site http://www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites:
No comments:
Post a Comment