24 April 2017, Writing Ideas
- New Novel, part x108, Creative Elements in Scenes, Plot Devices, Utopia
(anti-utopia)
Announcement: Delay, my new novels can be seen on the internet, but the publisher
has delayed all their fiction output due to the economy. I'll keep you informed.
More 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.
Today's Blog: To see the steps in the publication process, visit my
writing website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production
schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.
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.
4a. Show what can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted on the stage
of the novel.
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
I
finished writing my 27th novel, working title, Claire, potential
title Sorcha: Enchantment and the Curse. This might need some tweaking. The theme statement is: Claire (Sorcha) Davis
accepts Shiggy, a dangerous screw-up, into her Stela branch of the organization
and rehabilitates her.
Here is the cover proposal for Sorcha:
Enchantment and the Curse.
 |
|
Cover
Proposal
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The most important scene in any
novel is the initial scene, but eventually, you have to move to the rising
action. I started writing my 28th novel, working title Red Sonja. I’m also working on my 29th novel,
working title School.
I'm an advocate of using the/a scene
input/output method to drive the rising action--in fact, to write any
novel.
Scene development:
1. Scene input (easy)
2. Scene output (a little
harder)
3. Scene setting (basic stuff)
4. Creativity (creative
elements of the scene: transition from input to output focused on the telic
flaw resolution)
5. Tension (development of
creative elements to build excitement)
6. Release (climax of creative
elements)
How to begin a novel. Number one thought, we need an entertaining
idea. I usually encapsulate such an idea
with a theme statement. Since I’m
writing a new novel, we need a new theme statement. Here is an initial cut.
For novel 28: Red Sonja, a Soviet spy, infiltrates the
X-plane programs at Edwards AFB as a test pilot’s administrative clerk, learns
about freedom, and is redeemed.
For novel 29: Sorcha, the abandoned child of an Unseelie
and a human, secretly attends Wycombe Abbey girls’ school where she meets the
problem child Deirdre and is redeemed.
These are the steps I use to write a
novel:
1.
Design the initial scene
2.
Develop a theme statement (initial
setting, protagonist, protagonist’s helper or antagonist, action statement)
a.
Research as required
b.
Develop the initial setting
c.
Develop the characters
d.
Identify the telic flaw (internal
and external)
3.
Write the initial scene (identify
the output: implied setting, implied characters, implied action movement)
4.
Write the next scene(s) to the
climax (rising action)
5.
Write the climax scene
6.
Write the falling action scene(s)
7.
Write the dénouement scene
Here is the beginning of the scene
development method from the outline:
1.
Scene input (comes from the previous
scene output or is an initial scene)
2.
Write the scene setting (place,
time, stuff, and characters)
3.
Imagine the output, creative
elements, plot, telic flaw resolution (climax) and develop the tension and
release.
4.
Write the scene using the output and
creative elements to build the tension.
5.
Write the release
6.
Write the kicker
Below is a list of plot devices. I’m less interested in a plot device than I
am in a creative element that drives a plot device. In fact, some of these plot devices are not
good for anyone’s writing. If we
remember, the purpose of fiction writing is entertainment, we will perhaps
begin to see how we can use these plot devices to entertain. If we focus on creative elements that drive
plot devices, we can begin to see how to make our writing truly entertaining. I’ll leave up the list and we’ll contemplate
creative elements to produce these plot devices.
Deus ex machina (a machination, or act of
god; lit. “god out of the machine”)
Flashback (or analeptic reference)
Story within a story (Hypodiegesis)
Third attempt
Secrets
Judicial Setting
Legal argument
Prophecy
Two way love
Three way love (love rival)
Rival
Celebrity (Rise to fame)
Rise to riches
Military (Device or Organization manipulation)
School (Training) (Skill Development)
Supernatural
Comeback
Retrieval
Taboo
Impossible Crime
Human god
Revolution
Games
Silent witness
Secret king
Messiah
Hidden skills
Fantasy Land (Time Travel, Space Travel)
End of the --- (World, Culture, Society)
Resistance (Nonresistance)
Utopia (anti-utopia) – Current discussion.
Fashion
Augmented Human (Robot) (Society)
Mind Switching (Soul Switching)
Unreliable character
Incarceration (imprisonment)
Valuable item
Identification
Contest
Search
War
Brotherhood (sisterhood) (camaraderie)
Crime
Theater
One way love
Utopia (anti-utopia): here is my definition – Utopia (anti-utopia) is the use of a perfect social construct (government, system, society, and etc.) to further a plot.
From
the very moment the first utopia was proposed in literature, the first
anti-utopia novel followed it. In my
opinion, utopias are for the immature and ignorant. The last great attempt at utopia, the Soviet
Union and communism, ended with the murder of over 100 million human beings (at
the hands of the communists). This utopia and the deaths haven’t ended because there
is still a horrific and vile communist nation on the face of the globe
(China). In my opinion, if you want to
write about utopia, go ahead, but no adult will believe you. There are some classical novels based in
utopia: Utopia, Lost Horizons, and I can’t remember any others off the top of my
head. Now, let’s get to the meat of
utopia—anti-utopia.
Anti-utopia
is a very popular and well used plot device.
Just look at popular and young adult literature to see modern examples.
Look at early and late science fiction for older examples. The fascists in World War Two and their
cousins, the socialists and communists excited a huge development in
anti-utopia novels. 1984 is a wonderful example as is Animal Farm. Add to those: Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, The Hungry Books, and a whole bunch more. Every dystopian novel can be considered to
use an anti-utopian plot device. My Ancient Light novels are marketed as
dystopian—that should show just how popular anti-utopian has become. I have written a dystopian novel that uses an
anti-utopian plot device.
Here
is an example from my writing from Escape
from Freedom.
V10+S10537 Rebecka trudged home
alone from the Development Center. She
took the shortcut across the headlands instead of the main road—that way she
wouldn’t have to view the pictures of the supreme leader or read the current
slogans posted along the way. She rated
a sensitivity level ten plus for visual acuity and a sensitivity level ten for
detecting scents. The colors of the
posters always upset her and the smell of the processing facility made her
nauseous. Usually Racheal, Robin, and
Ruth walked home with her this way, but they had not been released from their
normal shifts immediately, and Rebecka felt hungry, plus her head hurt. She always finished her quota early and
usually, Robin released her from their shift on time.
She
wasn’t hypersensitive to sounds the way she was to visuals and scents, but the
soft murmuring of the wind and the crashing of the waves on the cliffs below
always refreshed her. The clean scent of
the cold ocean became very welcome after blending chemicals and matching colors
all day at the Center. She could look at
the green grass, the toiling dark blue sea, and the white and grey cliffs and
imagine a place much different from the Development Center, their small
community, and the bleak windowless room where she lived. She longed for somewhere, anywhere away from
this place.
She
stopped at the center of the headlands on the thin path her work companions and
she had long worn in the high grass, and moved a few feet from it toward the
ragged wedge of land that jutted out into the deep roiling ocean. The sea grass whipped against her long,
stiff, dark-green dress and tugged against her heavy work boots. She waded through it to where the grass finally
gave way to bare rock.
White
bird droppings covered the stones at the edge of the cliff. She unconsciously noted and cataloged the
chemicals in the excrement. She closed
off the acrid urea scent of it from her conscious thoughts. The smell would have overwhelmed a less
experienced chemical blender. She could
easily mask a single scent—multiples continued to be difficult for her. With that complete, she could step to the
edge of the precipice and gaze down at the crashing surf many meters
below. She could discern no beach here,
only cliffs. She heard that in some
places citizens could actually touch the sea, but she knew of no place like
that anywhere near her community or the buildings of the Development Center.
Many
times she had thought about casting herself to the mercies of the waves, but
she feared the water and she didn’t want to die—she only wanted to escape. She heard tales of citizens who had once
escaped from Freedom, but no one knew if those were true or only myths. The Supreme Leader spoke to them every free
day once a month and told them about the evil places beyond the horizon. Were those the places also myths? Did they really exist?
Rebecka
glanced up—she imagined it before she saw it.
Her very sensitive and trained eyes caught the contrail she sought. Through the billowing clouds, she spotted
what she searched for. High above, a
steady white trail moved from far in the west.
She thought she could note a dark speck at the front of that quickly
growing line. She watched for it every
day. It crossed the headland with
regularity—once every sevendays, and usually on this day. She felt hope in that speck and in that long
white trail across the skies.
No
one else seemed to notice it. When she
had asked other visuals about it, they shushed her. They kept their eyes focused on 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 remained the only civilized nation in the entire
world. For all the Citizens, there was
only Freedom and work, and for her, the Development Center.
Rebecka knew she gazed at something that
didn’t come from Freedom. She knew she
looked at something that was truly free—a machine of plasteel that flew across
the heavens. She longed for that kind of
freedom. Not the freedom the slogans
constantly harped about, not the freedom the Supreme Leader told them all
Citizens possessed, but true freedom—something away from this place. She longed for it and would give anything to
achieve it—freedom.
Escape from Freedom is one of my new
science fiction novels—I’m looking for a publisher. This stand-alone novel is about a horrible
anti-utopian place called Freedom. I can’t
begin to describe the horrors of this place—that’s why I wrote the novel. The novel gives wonderful details through the
writing—through showing, of the terrible place Freedom is. The problem is that the people who live in
Freedom have no idea how terrible their lives and world is. That is what makes the anti-utopian plot
device so powerful. In this novel, the
people have no idea their society is cocked up.
Compare that to other anti-utopian novels—in most, the people know how
terrible, they just can’t do anything about it.
How would it be not to know…?
More
tomorrow.
For more information, you can visit my
author site http://www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites:
http://www.ancientlight.com/
http://www.aegyptnovel.com/
http://www.centurionnovel.com
http://www.thesecondmission.com/
http://www.theendofhonor.com/
http://www.thefoxshonor.com
http://www.aseasonofhonor.com
fiction, theme, plot, story, storyline,
character development, scene, setting, conversation, novel, book, writing,
information, study, marketing, tension, release, creative, idea, logic
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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