9 April 2017, Writing Ideas
- New Novel, part x93, Creative Elements in Scenes, Plot Devices, Supernatural
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 – Current discussion.
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
Augmented Human (Robot) (Society)
Mind Switching (Soul Switching)
Unreliable character
Incarceration (imprisonment)
Valuable item
Identification
Contest
Search
War
Brotherhood (sisterhood) (camaraderie)
Supernatural: here is my definition – Supernatural is the use of spiritual creatures, spiritual beings, and spiritual situations to further a plot.
This
is my basic plot device. It usually isn’t
the theme of my novels or the plot of my novels, but I use it as a means to
construct and further the plot. A great
example of this is found in School. I needed a means for Sorcha, my protagonist’s
helper, to remain in the boarding school without anyone realizing she wasn’t an
official student. I used a little supernatural
trick. I developed the plot such that
Sorcha is the child of a human and an Unseelie fae (Nightshade). Thus Sorcha can use fae glamour to change her
appearance and to affect her teachers so they accept her as a student. It isn’t as simple as putting a spell on
someone—it’s the use of trickery and suggestion. Still, the use of the supernatural isn’t the
focus of the novel necessarily or the theme of the novel—it is simply a plot
device that gets my student into the school.
There is much more to this.
I
like to use the supernatural plot device in many if not most of my novels. To a degree, I see it as a primary
characteristic of my writing. I like to
interject the supernatural as part of the natural in all of my writing. I don’t use this plot device in my science
fiction.
Let
me point out that vampires, werewolves, and other creatures like them are all
the use of the supernatural. An author
can use this as a plot device, a theme, or a plot in itself.
The
first is from School:
Deirdre stared at the other girl. She sat in the last seat next to the
window. It was the seat Deirdre always
coveted. She sniffed—it was already taken.
She cocked her head and squinted at the girl. Something seemed off about her. Deirdre scratched her cheek. There was something strange about the girl’s
clothing, but Deirdre couldn’t tell exactly what. She squinted a little more. The sun reflected across the courtyard and
burst through the windows. Deirdre
caught both a whiff and a view. As the
early morning sunlight cascaded across the windows, the clothing of the girl in
the corner desk suddenly changed. At one
moment, it appeared like the perfect uniform: pressed, dark blue, wrinkleless,
tie tied exactly and correctly. The next
moment, everything changed. The skirt appeared
faded black and not blue. The sweater looked
threadbare and washed-out. The shirt was
entirely white and not pinstriped at all.
The tie was tied perfectly, but it was black and not the color of any
house.
Deirdre
smelled it too. It was the sweet scent
like honey in the comb. Like boiled down
sunlight and dandelions. It could only
be one thing, the scent of the power of the fae. She thought it smelled particularly like fae
glamour. When the sunlight came back to
normal brilliance, the girl’s uniform looked ordinary again. Deirdre knew some
tricks she could use to cut through fae glamour, but she didn’t want to try
them now. She examined the girl. She was short, perhaps as short as Deirdre. That was part of Deirdre’s problem—she was
short and very conscious of it. The girl
wasn’t well developed either—Deirdre was there too. The girl looked thin—almost as thin as Deirdre.
She
moved her attention to the girl’s face. She
was trying very hard to ignore Deirdre.
Her hair looked very dark—as dark as Deirdre’s hair was light. The girl’s complexion was pale, as pale as Deirdre’s
sickening strawberry light skin. Her
face was heart-shaped with a slightly pointed chin and thin cheeks. Her dark hair fell long and loose. Deirdre’s hair was strawberry blond and also
long. She had put it up in a tight
French braid today. Deirdre couldn’t see
the girl’s ears. It suddenly became important for her to examine them. She moved sidelong toward the back of the
room and the girl.
When
Deirdre came close, the girl shifted her seat closer to the window and she
turned her head away. By then, other
girls began entering the classroom.
Deirdre didn’t take her focus off the girl, but she kept an eye on the
others. No one came close to her…to them—that
was good.
Deirdre
sat in the chair next to the girl. She
carefully scooted her chair slightly away from the girl—she understood this
exactly about herself. She assumed
others would also be uncomfortable with someone too close. She could barely stand to have her mother,
father, brothers, or sisters hug her—she never wanted anyone too close to her. Deirdre checked her watch. It was an awesome pilot’s watch she got from
her sister’s husband, Daniel when they sent her off to Wycombe Abbey. It wasn’t a girl’s watch at all—she loved it. She still a little time before class.
Deirdre
turned her head down and slightly toward the girl, “Good morning. I’m new here. Are you?”
The
girl didn’t turn her head. She seemed to
make up her mind and hissed, “Read the atmosphere.”
Once
an idea struck Deirdre, she never gave up, “I’m not used to being ignored. I’m trying to be pleasant. I’m new, and I’d like to make friends.”
The
girl gripped the desk with white knuckles.
She made a strange sound under her breath and said a couple of ancient
Gaelic words.
Deirdre
waved her hands under her nose, “There isn’t a problem with your glamour,
sweet. It won’t work against me.”
The
girl turned in shock toward Deirdre, “It won’t work?”
“Not
at all. I’m immune.”
The
girl stood with a panicked look on her face.
Her clothing flickered for a moment then came back to its visible
perfection. The bell rang, and a tall
smiling woman wearing a severe blue skirt suit and a poufy blouse breezed into
the room. The girl sat firmly back in
her seat. Deirdre noticed her eyes were
light grey, and her nose was slightly sharp like her chin. Deirdre wasn’t sure if the girl was very
beautiful or just very unusual looking.
I
love this—a little mystery, a little secret, some conflict, some humor, some
discomfort. Each of these play in the
scene and build the entertainment and excitement.
The second
example comes from Essie: Enchantment and
the Aos Si:
In the morning, Mrs. Lyons and Essie ate breakfast and stepped directly out
into the gardens. Essie carried a couple
of picture books, her notebook, and a pencil.
Mrs. Lyons brought the current novel she was reading. Mrs. Lyons read a story to Essie then set her
to work copying letters.
In the late morning, Mrs. Lyons heard a
car pull into her short drive and looked up in surprise. She noted the car drove all the way up to the
front of her house. Essie looked up
too. The bell sounded loud enough Mrs. Lyons
heard it from the garden. She made an
unhappy noise and stood, “Essie, stay here.
I’m going to check the door. I’m
not expecting any visitors today.”
Essie nodded and returned to her writing.
Mrs. Lyons stepped back through the guest
parlor door and to the front of the house.
She answered the door to find a rough looking man outside. A very old Triumph coupe stood in her
drive. The man wore dirty farmer’s
clothing, but Mrs. Lyons couldn’t tell if the dirt was honest and new or old
and questionable. Mrs. Lyons asked, “May
I help you?”
The man smiled, “I believe you can. You have one of my animals here—I’ve come to
collect it.”
“One of your animals? Whatever can you mean?” At that moment, a scream rose from the
garden. It sounded like Essie’s voice,
and a cry like none Mrs. Lyons had ever heard from the throat of a human
being. Mrs. Lyons slammed the front door
and bolt locked it. She moved as quickly
as she could to her bedroom. She picked
up her cane and then the semi-automatic pistol from under her pillow. Then she moved to the guest parlor door as
fast as her old legs would carry her.
When she threw open the door a young man
held Essie fast by the arms. He dragged
her forward, out of the garden. At the
same time another young man beat her back and legs with a whip. The men dressed much like the older man who
came to Mrs. Lyons’ door.
Mrs. Lyons yelled, “Let go of that girl,
immediately.” The men laughed at
her. They kept dragging and
striking. With each blow, Essie cried
out a horrible scream. Between each
scream, she pronounced something under her breath, but each strike of the whip
caused her to writhe and lose her words.
Mrs. Lyons stepped out of her house and
brandished her cane. She jogged toward
the men, and brought her cane down on the one with the whip. He whirled suddenly and held the whip up as
though he meant to strike Mrs. Lyons. At
that moment, the older man stepped around the corner of the house. The man with the whip suddenly ignored Mrs.
Lyons. He turned immediately back to
Essie and struck her again.
Mrs. Lyons’ face flushed with rage. She brought the cane down on the man’s back
again—once, twice. The man turned toward
her. The younger man who held Essie’s
arms cried, “Don’t stop, for God’s sake don’t let it change. It’ll cut me to ribbons.”
The man who confronted Mrs. Lyons took a
quick glance at the older man and then at Mrs. Lyons. He turned back toward Essie and struck her
again. Mrs. Lyons hit the man again as
solidly as she could, “I told you to stop hitting the girl.”
Essie kept screaming. Flecks of foam burst between her lips with
each blow. The back of her dress turned
red with stripes from the whip.
Mrs. Lyons’ voice rose a notch, “I order
you to stop right now.”
The older man, called, “Don’t stop. If you value your lives, don’t you dare stop
now.”
Mrs. Lyons turned to the older man, “Stop
it this instant.”
“You don’t understand, Mrs. Lyons…”
“I understand that you are beating my
ward…”
“It isn’t human, Mrs. Lyons, and it’s not
your ward. It’s our responsibility.”
Mrs. Lyons glared at the man. She raised her cane and struck the younger
man on the head this time. The man
turned and grabbed Mrs. Lyons’ cane. He
wrenched it out of Mrs. Lyons’s hand and threw it to the side. Then he turned to strike Essie again.
Mrs. Lyons brought up her pistol, “I told
you to stop. If you strike that girl
again, I shall shoot you.”
The older man yelled, “She’s got a gun.”
The man with the whip spun around and
grasped the barrel of Mrs. Lyons’ pistol.
Mrs. Lyons fired. The bullet
struck the whip and passed through the man’s palm. The whip flew through the air. The struck man leapt back with a cry and a
look of absolute surprise on his face.
His hand began to stream blood.
The older man cried, “Grab the whip and
use it—it’s our only hope.”
Mrs. Lyons shot the whip further down the
path. She pointed her pistol at the man
who held Essie, “Let the girl go, or I shall put a bullet in your brain.”
The man let go of Essie, and she fell back
onto the ground. Essie writhed a
moment. Whatever words she was trying to
speak rushed out of her heart, mind, and mouth.
She gave another scream, but this one sounded completely
animal-like. She shook and writhed
again.
The older man yelled, “Get back, all of
you. It’s too late to stop it. It’s about to change.”
Mrs. Lyons roared, “Don’t move an
inch. I will shoot anyone who harms this
girl.”
The older man yelled, “It’s not a
girl. Are you daft? It’ll kill you as quickly as it’ll kill us.”
Mrs. Lyons moved where she could see the
men and still stand near Essie, “All I know is you were causing her enormous
pain and suffering. I will not allow you
to continue.”
The older man pointed, “It’s too late for
any of that anyway. Look at it…”
Mrs. Lyons glanced down at her feet.
Essie’s face and body were changing.
Mrs. Lyons heard bone crack and sinew reverberate. She could barely stand to watch it. Essie didn’t shrink, but her hair grew to
cover her entire body. Her face and arms
and legs deformed and molded to something else entirely. Her shape changed from a young woman to an
animal—a large black animal—a cat. When
the change was complete, Essie twisted out of her clothing and paced warily
near Mrs. Lyons. The cat stared at the
men in a way Mrs. Lyons had never seen Essie stare at anything or anyone
before.
Essie
is the Aos Si. The Aos Si is a shape
changing being. It is a girl or a witch
who changes into a great black cat. This
little supernatural plot device allows Essie to live in the world of humankind
and the world of the fae. This builds
entertainment in the novel.
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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