Writing - part x631, Developing Skills, How to Suspend Disbelief, more Modern Imagination and Entertaining Characters

29 September 2018, Writing - part x631, Developing Skills, How to Suspend Disbelief, more Modern Imagination and Entertaining Characters

Announcement: Delay, my new novels can be seen on the internet, but my primary publisher has gone out of business—they couldn’t succeed in the past business and publishing environment.  I'll keep you informed, but I need a new publisher.  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 29^th novel, working title, Detective, potential title Blue Rose: Enchantment and the Detective.  The theme statement is: Lady Azure Rose Wishart, the Chancellor of the Fae, supernatural detective, and all around dangerous girl, finds love, solves cases, breaks heads, and plays golf.  

Here is the cover proposal for Blue Rose: Enchantment and the Detective. 

Cover Proposal

The most important scene in any novel is the initial scene, but eventually, you have to move to the rising action. I am continuing to write on my 30^th novel, working title Red Sonja.  I finished my 29^th novel, working title Detective.  I’m planning to start on number 31, working title Shifter. 

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 30:  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 31:  TBD 

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

          

Today:  Suspension of disbelief is the characteristic of writing that pulls the reader into the world of the novel in such a way that the reader would rather face the world of the novel rather than the real world—at least while reading.  If this occurs while not reading, it is potentially a mental problem.  To achieve the suspension of disbelief your writing has to meet some basic criteria and contain some strong inspiration.  If you want to call the inspiration creativity, that works too.  Here is a list of the basic criteria to hope to achieve some degree of suspension of disbelief. 

1.      Reasonably written in standard English

2.      No glaring logical fallacies

3.      Reasoned worldview

4.      Creative and interesting topic

5.      A Plot

6.      Entertaining

7.      POV

Everything is about entertainment.  The purpose for all published novels is entertainment.  Other than this is the only point of fiction literature, one of the main reasons is that entertainment can fill a lot of holes as well as result in the suspension of disbelief.

The factors that do lend themselves to entertaining are these:

1.      Characters

2.      Plot

3.      Setting

4.      Topics

5.      Writing

6.      Use of figures of speech (vocabulary and language).

How to develop entertaining protagonists?  I can’t leave the discussion of entertaining protagonists without mentioning the romantic character.  I assert that we are still in the Romantic Era for writing, but whether we are or aren’t, the romantic character is the favored character of most readers.  If your protagonist is a romantic character or has romantic characteristics, this will improve the chance your readers will find them entertaining. 

So, what does a romantic character look like?  I happen to have a short list.  This isn’t a perfect list, but it gets the basic idea.  I’ll find examples as well.

1.       The common man, innocence of humans, and childhood (children)

2.      Focus on strong senses, emotions, and feelings

3.      Awe of nature

4.      Celebration of the individual and individualism

5.      Importance of imagination

Another thing the romantics eventually discovered was imagination in the plot and setting of the novel.  This is still broadly applicable to the characters as well as our examples will show.  Harry Potty is just this type of character.  Harry is about an unimaginative as you can imagine.  He doesn’t achieve anything through his own actions—he is really a poor romantic character, but his author placed him in a completely imaginative setting and with imaginative skills. 

Magic isn’t that new, the genre of magic realism isn’t that new, but the acceptance of Harry Potty and his world is.  We saw the wide acceptance of a new genre into the reading community.  The reason, in my mind, is romanticism and imagination.  The idea of magic isn’t new.  The idea of a magical boy in a magical school that is all connected to the regular world is a pretty new idea. 

The romantics would have loved this idea because they would have said it allowed them to express new ideas that realism could never touch.  The author of Harry does touch on new concepts and ideas, but not that much.  It’s sad.  The ideas the world has a problem with are really depression, weakness, lack of learning, insufficient education, and a few other very deep subjects.  The author doesn’t use her newfound imaginative world to delve very deeply into these critical issues.  This is one of the things that makes Harry poor writing.  It is entertaining, but in some ways for the wrong reason.

Don’t get me wrong, the purpose of all novels is entertainment.  The point is that entertainment always touches on issues and concerns of the readers.  I don’t mean the concerns of the political or scientific world, although those can be entertaining and important.  I mean the immediate concerns of the readers—those that touch them to the core. 

For young adults it is acceptance, love, friendship, success, sports, and all the typical problems and concerns that touch them.  For adults it is pretty much the same, but adult concerns are somewhat different than those of young adults.

In any case, romantics use imagination to touch on issues that would be almost impossible to breach in any other way.  For example, my novel, Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon, uses a demon and sorcery to bring to light the Russian revolution and World War I.  I use the imagery and imagination to show my readers temptation and redemption.  I delve into very important human concepts through the use of sorcery and a demon.  For example, I show both good justice and poor justice through the prosecution of my protagonist, Aksinya by an ecclesiastical and an Austrian court.  The point is exactly this—to show justice in a real way and achieve entertainment from that entire idea.  It would be almost impossible without the irony of sorcery being judged in a church court and a government court of law to express the full entertainment of such a situation to my readers.  At the same time, sorcery provides the initiative and the imagination for exactly that scene.  The purpose is entertainment the execution provides much more than that, and the catharsis for the reader both in terms of frustration and relief at the verdicts are the goal.  That is the depth of entertainment--pathos.                

  

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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