Writing - part x239, Novel Form, Foreshadowing Tension and Release

2 September 2017, Writing - part x239, Novel Form, Foreshadowing Tension and Release

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 28^th novel, working title, School, potential title Deirdre: Enchantment and the School.  The theme statement is: 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.  

Here is the cover proposal for Deirdre: Enchantment and the School. 

Cover Proposal

The most important scene in any novel is the initial scene, but eventually, you have to move to the rising action. I continued writing my 29^th novel, working title Red Sonja.  I finished my 28^th novel, working title School.  If you noticed, I started on number 28, but finished number 29 (in the starting sequence—it’s actually higher than that).  I adjusted the numbering.  I do keep everything clear in my records. 

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 29:  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.

 

This is the classical form for writing a successful 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 (protagonist, antagonist, and optionally the protagonist’s helper)

d.      Identify the telic flaw of the protagonist (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

              

The protagonist and the telic flaw are tied permanently together.  The novel plot is completely dependent on the protagonist and the protagonist’s telic flaw.  They are inseparable.  This is likely the most critical concept about any normal (classical) form novel. 

 

Here are the parts of a normal (classical) novel:

 

1.      The Initial scene (identify the output: implied setting, implied characters, implied action movement)

2.      The Rising action scenes

3.      The Climax scene

4.      The Falling action scene(s)

5.      The Dénouement scene

             

So, how do you write a rich and powerful initial scene?  Let’s start from a theme statement.  Here is an example from my latest novel:

 

The theme statement for Deirdre: Enchantment and the School is: 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.

 

Here is the scene development 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

          

If you have the characters (protagonist, protagonist’s helper, and antagonist), the initial setting, the telic flaw (from the protagonist), a plot idea, the theme action, then you are ready to write the initial scene.  I would state that since you have a protagonist, the telic flaw, a plot idea, and the theme action, you have about everything—what you might be lacking is the tension and release cycle in your scenes.

 

Here is an example of developing or building tension and release in a scene.  This example is from Shadow of Darkness an Ancient Light novel.  Sveta is meeting another important historical figure.    

 

I already foreshadowed this meeting more than once in the novel.  I already prepped the reader and Sveta about this character.  Everyone in the Soviet knows who she is.  This is Stalin’s daughter.  She is exactly what I described here. 

 

One of my favorite stylistic and artistic features in my writing is the use of historical settings, people, and things that are precisely accurate.  I describe the people, places, and things from pictures.  I introduce and provide their histories.  Notice how this is accomplished in this scene.             

 

Here is the scene:        

 

        Wednesday afternoon began again with a hairstyling.  In the office at the convent, Mother Anna helped Sveta into her rust colored dress.  This time Father Nikolay delivered Sveta to the house of the Commissar for the People's Commissariat for Trade and Industry.  Sveta met His Beatitude in the foyer and saw many of the same people she had met at the earlier parties.  She spoke to more Americans and many more British members of the various embassies.  Comrade Abakumov and Comrade Beria were present although Stalin did not appear.  Abakumov and Beria spoke extensively to His Beatitude, but Sveta received the impression that they mainly addressed her and not the patriarch.  Sveta did not have to correct any horribly mangled translations, but those who needed translators requested her over and over again.  The other Russian translators even seemed to defer to her.

        Sveta noticed a dark haired translator whom she had not met before.  This specific translator was short and had a round face.  She was not pretty—both her nose and mouth were straight and formed an angular juncture in the middle of her face.  She was older than Svetlana.  At the end of the evening, she approached Sveta, and His Beatitude indicated Sveta should speak to the woman.  The woman tossed her head and pulled her cigarette out of her mouth, “Good evening, Svetlana Evgenyevna.”

        “Good evening.  I’m sorry we haven’t been introduced.”

        The woman pulled out a package of premium cigarettes, the kind only Communist Party members could get, and offered one to Sveta.

        Sveta smiled, “I don’t smoke, thank you.”

        “You should learn, that is, if you want to run with this group.”

        Sveta just stared.

        “I am Svetlana also, Svetlana Iosifovna.  You may have heard of me.”

        “Yes, I know your name.”

        “Where did you learn to speak American English so well?”

        Sveta paused a long moment.  She looked around for His Beatitude or Father Nikolay.  Neither was in sight, “I don’t know.  My memory was injured during the war.”

        “You speak as though you lived there,” Svetlana Iosifovna said this as though she wished she had.

        “My papers say nothing about leaving Russia, and I don’t think I would want to.”  Sveta screwed up her lips, “I was not treated well in Germany.”

        “You speak German too?”

        “I can speak many languages.”

        “And you learned all these in Moscow.”

        Sveta shrugged, “I can’t remember learning them.  I just know them.”

        Svetlana Iosifovna leaned against the wall, “You are lucky Svetlana Evgenyevna.  The NKVD is interested in you.  They like your style and your skills.”

        “Many would not care to excite the interest of the NKVD.”

        Svetlana Iosifovna squinted her eyes at Sveta, then she grinned, “That was a joke.  You are very subtle Svetlana Evgenyevna.  I understand what you mean.  That is not the attention that I meant, but I know you understand me also.”  She half turned, “We will meet and speak again.  I work occasionally for the NKVD.  I translate American English for them.  I would like to practice with you.”  She looked back, “Perhaps soon.”  Svetlana Iosifovna walked away.

        After a few moments, Father Nikolay came to get Sveta, “His Beatitude has left already.  It is time to go.”

This doesn’t have to be about an historical figure.  Any figure will do.  Notice the use of description to set the person and the place.  Notice the use of conversation to communicate the ideas being passed in the scene.  Notice the tension and release as well as the entertainment caused by the four large creative elements in the scene. 

 

The first is the cigarette.  This is a setting element that turns into a creative element.  It also becomes an identification element with its association with the Communist Party and individuals. 

 

The Communist Party is a second creative element.  It is also a setting element that is then turned into a creative element.  It is used to express the wealth and social position of the participants and especially of Stalin’s daughter.

 

Svetlana Iosifovna, Stalin’s daughter, is a setting element who becomes a creative element, and, indeed, becomes a character in her own right, of importance, in the novel.  Svetlana Iosifovna is entertaining.  She is also a sounding block to the Communist Party and to Stalin himself.  She provides a desperate type of entertainment.  Anyone who looks up her life knows she is a perfect example of the failure of the Soviet system amid the murders of millions.

 

The fourth is the joke.  Is Sveta really making a joke or is she just expressing her true feelings without any political bias.  Svetlana Iosifovna takes Sveta’s statement as a joke when Sveta meant it as a straight forward appraisal.  This should also inform the reader (and Sveta) about how simple statements can be interpreted in the highly charged environment of the Soviet State.  I would like to feel that my writing in this novel is filled with these slightly off statements, especially from Sveta’s mouth, that express the depth of horror about the Soviet.  I would hope to give the reader a visceral feel of this horror.   

 

I’ll give you more examples.

 

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