25 April 2017, Writing Ideas
- New Novel, part x109, Creative Elements in Scenes, Plot Devices, Fashion
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.
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|
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)
Fashion – Current discussion.
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
Fashion: here is my definition – Fashion is the use of ideas related to beauty and social acceptance to further a plot.
Fashion
is a great example of how the above are plot devices and not just themes or
plot ideas. I use the fashion plot
device in many of my novels, but I haven’t based any novel on fashion as a
theme or a plot idea. Fashion in my
novels is wholly a plot device and not a theme or a plot idea. What I mean by a plot idea is a continuous concept
used through the entire novel. For
example, a novel about the fashion industry would be a plot idea in a
novel. If the theme was about fashion in
the fashion industry, the theme might be about fashion too. I think you get the point.
Fashion
is broader than it seems at first. I
define fashion as beauty and social acceptance.
This is made with the assumption that fashion is a type of beauty and
social acceptance. That is the reason
people want to be fashionable is to reflect their idea of beauty and to be
socially accepted. The use of fashion as
a concept is very powerful as a plot device.
For example, you can have a character who thinks they are very beautiful
(fashionable) or you can have a character who imagines that are very ugly
(unfashionable). The point is that the
plot device is the character’s imagination—they might be ugly as sin or
beautiful as a rose. The point is what
they imagine and what others also observe.
I use these ideas all the time in my writing.
Here
is an example from my writing from Shadow
of Darkness.
The bed was small, but large enough for
two thin girls. Sveta still wore Klava’s
old shirt to sleep in. It was stained
with the blood from her wounds, but clean and usable. In Berlin
When they undressed, Katya stared at
Sveta’s back and limbs. There was a
horrible chunk of flesh carved out of her right calf. Katya realized that was why she walked with a
cane. The ragged edges of the wound were
healed, but the center was pink and still healing. It must hurt her terribly. The back of Sveta’s legs were peppered with irregular
scars. They were nearly everywhere. Her right arm was similarly marked, and Katya
wondered if that affected her ability to write?
Then she answered her own question, of course it did. Katya’s could not realize her face was so
filled with pity. Sveta was
beautiful. Katya could look at her own
ungraceful but budding form and see some hallmarks of the beauty that she would
be, but Sveta was beautiful. A beauty
that was immediately breathtaking. The
awful marks on her body only seemed to accentuate, by contrast the amazing
beauty that was already there. Katya
wondered if she were jealous and realized she couldn’t be. Whatever forces in the universe made Sveta so
beautiful, the same marred her beauty, and yet that made her seem even more
beautiful.
Sveta pulled on her old stained shirt,
but that only partially covered her scars.
When Sveta turned around, she noted
Katya’s stare, “I know it looks terrible.”
She lowered her head.
Katya slowly shook her head, stepped
forward, and put her arms around Sveta, “I’m so sorry, Sveta.” How could she tell this poor girl that the
wounds made her seem even greater in her eyes?
Words could not tell.
Katya helped Sveta to the bed. She let Sveta sleep next to the wall. Before Katya fell asleep, she heard Sveta’s
husky whisper at her back and a gentle clicking. She rolled over a little, “What are you doing
Sveta?”
“I am praying.”
“Praying?”
“Praying the rosary.”
“You are not Jewish?”
“No, I am not Jewish. Uncle Vasily thought I was when he first
found me, but I am Christian. Are you
Jewish?”
“Yes, I guess. We are all Soviets.”
“I am sorry about the Jews.” Katya heard a strange catch in Sveta’s voice.
Katya turned the rest of the way to face
the other girl. In the dim light, she
could see tears along Sveta’s cheeks.
Sveta continued, “I tried to do
everything I could to stop it. I didn’t
do enough.”
“You tried to stop it? Father told us much of what he saw. It was terrible. The Germans perhaps killed Grandmother
because she was a Jew. How could you
stop it?”
Sveta didn’t say anything more. She just continued her prayers. Her voice was more muffled than before. The clicking of her rosary seemed to go on
for a long time.
Sveta
is beautiful. She is unusually
beautiful, but she was also wounded during the war (World War Two). This is using the fashion plot device. I’m using to draw an expression from the
reader and the other characters. You can
see it in the response of Katya to her. This
isn’t just about beauty or fashion—this is about the impression of beauty and
the effect of beauty on a person.
Fashion can be a very powerful plot device.
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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