Writing - part x637, Developing Skills, How to Suspend Disbelief, What about Readers

5 October 2018, Writing - part x637, Developing Skills, How to Suspend Disbelief, What about Readers

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

In the perfect novel, we as authors manipulate the response of the readers to a pathos reaction.  The type of pathos reaction is immaterial, the reaction is necessary.  Notice the author needs to manipulate the response to a pathos and not a bathos. In a bathos, the readers is simply laughing at you before he or she throws down your book in anger and then tosses it in the round file.

Ultimately, the author needs to understand his or her audience.  The audience, the readers are the entire point of the writing.  If you remember that all fiction is about entertainment, this will take you far.  The problem is to know what is entertaining to your readers and to provide that entertainment.

Pathos development is really the absolute means of entertainment.  The Greeks realized this by approximately 300 BC—at least Aristotle was writing about it at that time.

Entertainment come out of pathos development.  Pathos development is the appropriate reflection of the reader to the situation of the protagonist (or other characters as necessary).  What is important to understand fully is that pathos is simply not the reflection of the emotions of the protagonist in the readers, but rather, the reflection of the emotions of the scene in the reader.  For example, many great scenes in literature are very sad.  Many are euphoric.  Some are happy.  In many of these scenes, the protagonist is not sad, euphoric, or happy at all.  The protagonist might be resigned, determined, angry—there might not be a tear in his or her eye, but the reader is clutched in a bout of weeping or sadness.  You see this in the movies all the time.  We call it a touching scene.  In the touching scene, the viewer might be bawling their eyes out, but the characters are simply resolved or determined to achieve their work or goals.  I can think of many examples.

The point is this, we as authors need to understand readers such that we can develop scenes to excite this type of reaction in them.  The reaction of the readers is what provides them entertainment.  For example, I’ve read some writing that tried to excite the reader to sadness.  He characters are all weeping and filled with despair, but the reader doesn’t care or worse, the reader chuckles because the scene seems over the top—this reaction is bathos—an incorrect reaction to the emotion.  Bathos isn’t the fault of the reader, it’s the fault of the writer.

Scenes filled with weeping characters rarely if ever produce the proper reaction of sadness.  For example, in my novel, Sorcha: Enchantment and the Curse, the protagonist is weeping when confronted with her own incompetence and immaturity.  This is a comic scene.  I chuckle when I read it, and I want my readers to laugh out loud or, at least, laugh at my protagonist.  The novel is supposed to be funny.  A character who is put in a position of embarrassment for their own actions in a type of comedy. 

We develop scenes to build an emotional response in our readers.  This is one of the most important skills of the writer.      

  

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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