Writing - part x280, Novel Form, Love and Tension

13 October 2017, Writing - part x280, Novel Form, Love and Tension

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.  We are moving toward the climax of the novel and of the revelation of the protagonist.  Sveta declares her love for Aleksandr and suddenly everything is changed.

 

Love is a powerful tension developer in any novel.  I recommend using it in any adult level novel.  In this novel, love has been an undertone.  It was muted, but finally comes out in full power and array in this scene.  We knew Sveta had feelings and love for Aleksandr.  We knew Aleksandr loved Sveta, but can his love stand up to the truth?                      

 

Here is the scene:        

 

        Sveta turned to Aleksandr, “Would you please let yourself out for a moment.”  She wiggled her arms and legs, “I need to get the rest of the metal out of my clothing, and I would like to change.”

        “Sure.  Knock when I can come back in.”  Aleksandr went out into the hallway.  After a time, he heard Sveta’s knock and reentered the room.  Sveta was dressed in another of her work dresses.  It was slightly rumpled from being packed.  She sat on the bed.

        Aleksandr sat in his chair at the desk.  He turned it around toward her, “What are you going to do next Svetlana?”

        “No longer, Svetochka?” she sighed.  “I knew this would be the way our friendship would end.  I steeled my heart for years.”  She gave him a bitter smile, “I told you, and I told myself, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”

        “Who are you, Svetochka?”

        “It is too late, Sasha.  Save such endearments for a woman you can truly love.  I will tell you who I am since it makes no difference now.  My name is Lumière Bolang.  I was born in America.”

        “That is why you speak perfect American English.”

        “Yes.  My parents were French, and I lived in France.”

        “Therefore the French.”

        “During the war, my parents had to move to England.  I lived and was abducted there.”

        Aleksandr nodded, “Oba told me.”

        “He did?”

        “He said he abducted you.  He told me something about your stay in Germany.  You learned German there.”

        “Yes.  I’m sure he told you about my aunt and my mother.”

        Aleksandr looked down, “A little.”

        “Do you believe it?”

        “I’m not sure what to believe.”

        “You must believe it, Sasha.  The world is full of powers that eat at the souls of men.  My aunt is one of them.  She is the one I am fighting.  She is the one who placed this taint on my soul.  My mother and father are Egyptologists.  My father is Paul Bolang.  He was a Colonel in the French military and fought with the British military during the war.”

        “He is the warrior,” Aleksandr whispered.

        “What is that?”

        “Nothing.”

        “My mother is Leora Bolang.  She is the Goddess of Light.”

        “Oba told me.  From a four thousand year old tomb.”

        Sveta nodded, “Al most four thousand years…there is your truth, Sasha.  You see, I speak ancient Egyptian.  Only eight beings on the earth speak ancient Egyptian:  my mother, my father, my aunt, Oba, my two brothers, my sister, and me.  I can read any ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic you place in front of me.”

        “I saw, you could do much more than that.  Your aunt, why do you fight her?  Why do you seek her?”

        “She came into the world in 1926.  She manipulated Hitler.  She made Stalin the cruel power he was.  Don’t you remember the changes Stalin wrought around those years?  She is working through Mao Zedong.  In 1938 Mao divorced his wife, He Zizhen, and married the actress Jiang Qing.  The woman, He Zizhen, was his long-time lover.  He married her in 1933.  His previous wife, Yang Kaihui, was arrested and executed in 1930.”

        “Why does that matter?  These were all political marriages.”

        “Perhaps…, unless you understand that the Goddess of Darkness works through women like this.  She seeks women who are beautiful and malleable.  Those whom she can use to influence men and who desire to accomplish dark deeds.  If necessary, she discards them like dirty clothing.  If they meet her desires, she cultivates her evil in them.”  More quietly, “Just as she cultivated her evil in me.  That’s why I left my mother and father.  When I touched the tablet, I was defiled by its evil.  When I learned to use the tablet, I became like the Goddess of Darkness.  That is the evil inside me.  That is the reason I can’t return to my family.  I would defile them.”

        “But you aren’t evil, Svetochka.”

        Sveta was breathing hard.  She didn’t say anything.

        “So you plan to go to China?”

        “Yes, Sasha.  Oba and I will go to China to seek out the Goddess of Darkness.  This time, I will make sure of her end.”

        “Svetochka, how are you going to influence or infiltrate any thing in China?”

        Sveta bared her teeth, “Why are you ridiculing me.  I speak the languages almost as well as you do.”

        Aleksandr nodded his head, “Svetochka, you speak Chinese better than I do.  That is not the problem.  Look at yourself.”  He pulled his small mirror off the wall and flashed it in her face, “What do you see.”

        She flicked her fingers, “I see me.”

        “What will the Chinese see?”

        Sveta stood mute.

        “I’ll tell you what they will see.  They will see Svetlana Evgenyevna Kopylova.  You are a Russian, and the Soviet state will soon name you a criminal.”

        “No one can detect me if I don’t want them to.”

        Aleksandr’s voice rose, “Svetochka, the last time you tried to escape detection, the Germans and the Russians almost killed you.  You can’t prevent detection.  You don’t look Chinese.  You don’t have any papers or authority to be in China.”  He yelled at her, “How long before they find out and put you in a Gulag, a Chinese Gulag?”

        Sveta pulled her legs against her chest and put her face in her knees.  Her shoulders rose and fell with intense emotion.

        Aleksandr bit back his fear and slowly approached her.  She cried silently.  He sat beside her on the bed, and she raised her face to him, “Then what should I do, Sasha?”  Her face was covered with tears and her nose ran.  She looked more like a lost child than a goddess of any kind.

        Aleksandr tentatively placed his arm around her shoulders.  She put her face against his neck.  He felt her soft sobs.  He drew her closer, and she put her arm around him.  She repeated in a sloppy wet voice, “What should I do, Sasha?”

        He sighed, “I don’t know what we should do, Svetochka.”

        She gulped, “You uttered my name with such affection.  Does that mean you don’t hate me?”

        “I never hated you, Svetochka.  The strange things I have heard and seen today would be difficult for anyone to understand.”

        “Sasha, I am tainted by evil.  I am imperfect and impure.”

        “Svetochka, you are no different than anyone else in this world, but you are incredible.”

        Sveta lifted her face, “Would you still like to kiss me, Sasha, even though you know who I am?”

        In answer, he put his lips against hers and held her in a tight embrace.  After a few minutes, she pulled back from him.  The wetness of her tears and her nose covered his face, “I think I should stop kissing you for now.”

        “Why, Svetochka?”

        “Because I do love you, Sasha.  Even if you no longer love me.  I have loved you for so long,” she shuddered.  “I know who you, are, and I love you for it.  I’m afraid I would give myself to you now, but that would be wrong, and Oba is coming with the food.  It would be embarrassing for him and for us.”

        Aleksandr stared at her in amazement.  Such wisdom and such naivety should not exist in any one person, especially a goddess.  He stood and took out his handkerchief.  He wiped her face and then his.  She kissed him again on the lips then pulled back her head, “Go sit down.  Oba is at the door.”

 

If you haven’t used love as a tension development, you should and you should know some things about love before you do.  The first is this—the longer the buildup the better.  In the not so distant past, people waited until marriage before consummating their love.  I agree with this view from a moral and a literary standpoint.  One of the greatest powers in writing is delayed gratification.  Thus, the writer puts obstacles in front of the lovers to build tension and extend entertainment.

 

In this scene, Oba comes between Aleksandr and Sveta.  In further scenes other incidents and events step in front of any chance at intimacy.  The wise author delays the declaration of love for as long as possible.  This plays well with enticement of love and the building of love.  Following the declaration of love, the author provides little space for intimacy, or if there is intimacy, she lets the lovers converse.  Dialog is always a great way to increase love and reveal the protagonist.

 

There is always more, but just remember secrets and conversation.  This can drive almost any novel, especially about love.  

   

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  

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