Writing Ideas - New Novel, part x134, It’s Finished, Editing, Continuing part 3

20 May 2017, Writing Ideas - New Novel, part x134, It’s Finished, Editing, Continuing part 3

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.

These are the steps I use to write a novel including the five discrete parts of 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

I finished writing my 27^th 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

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 28^th novel, working title Red Sonja.  I finished my 29^th novel, working title School.  I’ll be providing information on the marketing materials and editing.

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.

 

I explained my plan to write, protect, and backup my files.  I suspect there may be easier ways to do this, but I’m not so sure.  I’ve been writing stories for over 50 years, novels for 41 years, and with computers for 30 years.  I’ve been through a lot of changes in computers and software.  I’ve lost whole files and parts of files.  I’ve lost blog files.  That’s why I developed my current approach to writing my blogs.  The loss of critical or at least important files leads a wise person to develop some means to prevent another loss.  That’s how I developed my approach to writing, protecting, and backing up my files.  Whatever you do, make sure you protect your files.  There are other problems you need to worry about.

 

The most or least evident is changes in software.  If you haven’t been around this world very long, you don’t realize how devastating this problem can be.  I likely have some files that can’t be opened with any modern software.  I have tried to go through these files and update them to the latest versions of software.  I also hope their digital existence and all the backups are good copies because I know at some point I will want to read or use them.  They might be unusable or unreadable.

 

I do know that many of the programs I wrote and compiled back in the early days of computers will not run on anything.  Maybe on an ancient computer, but no longer. A DOS box won’t run them or any emulator I’ve found, and I lost the source code. 

 

The best protection for writing might be to print a copy at some point.  That’s what I hope my publishers are doing—that’s printing or publishing my works.  That’s an entirely different problem.  In any case, I hope you are slightly depressed and at the same time motivated to protect your writing.  Perhaps printing is a good idea.  In the future, scanners and Optical Character Readers (OCR) will be so good you could be assured you wouldn’t lose anything.  Oh, remember all your CDs, DVDs, and Blue-ray disks are all software too.  You might end up like me and my laser disks, no place to play them.  

 

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  

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