Writing - part x777, Writing a Novel, Protagonist in the Initial Scene, Naturally Looks Like

22 February 2019, Writing - part x777, Writing a Novel, Protagonist in the Initial Scene, Naturally Looks Like

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:  Deirdre and Sorcha are redirected to French finishing school where they discover difficult mysteries, people, and events. 

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:  Why don’t we go back to the basics and just writing a novel?  I can tell you what I do, and show you how I go about putting a novel together.  We can start with developing an idea then move into the details of the writing. 

To start a novel, I picture an initial scene.  I may start from a protagonist or just launch into mental development of an initial scene.  I get the idea for an initial scene from all kinds of sources.  To help get the creative juices flowing, let’s look at the initial scene. 

1.     Meeting between the protagonist and the antagonist or the protagonist’s helper

2.     Action point in the plot

3.     Buildup to an exciting scene

4.     Indirect introduction of the protagonist

The protagonist is the novel and the initial scene.  If you look at the four basic types of initial scenes, you see the reflection of the protagonist in each one.  If you noticed my examples yesterday, I expressed the scene idea, but none were completely independent of the protagonist.  Indeed, in most cases, I get an idea with a protagonist.  The protagonist is incomplete, but a sketch to begin with.  You can start with a protagonist, but in my opinion, as we see above, the protagonist is never completely independent from the initial scene.  As the ideas above imply, we can start with the characters, specifically the protagonist, antagonist or protagonist’s helper, and develop an initial scene. 

If we start with a protagonist, we need some kind of guide.  Here is a general guide for developing a modern protagonist.  We’ll look at examples and explain the ideas.

1.        Normal person (not wealthy, noble, or privileged)

2.      Loves to read

3.      Loves to learn

4.     Unique skill(s), power(s) and/or learning

5.      Pathos (poor, homeless, abused, friendless, ill)

6.     Individualistic and independent

7.      Introspective

8.     Leader

9.     Naturally good

10.  Rejection of the urban

11.   Rejection of the modern

12.  Appeal to the imagination

A romantic protagonist is naturally good.  The Romantic ideology is that children and innocents are perfect and pure just like nature and the natural is perfect and pure.  Romantic protagonists have religious leanings, but they worship on their own terms.  This comes directly out of existentialism and evangelism. 

The naturally good romantic protagonist will most likely not rock your world or the world of your readers.  Even characters who are overtly Christian and fundamentally Christian will not be negatively affected by the idea.  It does lead to illogical circumstances in literature.  One of the best can be seen by contrasting Dracula with Harry Potty. 

Harry Potty features a Romantic protagonist in a Romantic novel.  The problem is what C.S. Lewis called the spiritual paradox.  Miracles and the spiritual are very interesting problems in modern novels. The question, as posed by Lewis, is whether the power comes from within or without the known universe.  If the power is spiritual and not material, the only answer is that it must come from outside the known or defined universe.  That immediately points to God.  The spirit and spiritual things like miracles and magic always point to a higher power.  The Victorians realized, this.  The Romantic haven’t figured it out.  Therefore, Dracula, the Victorian invention of the Gothic novel is filled with references to God.  Bram Stoker invented Dracula to promote Christianity.  In his ideology, if there is an evil spiritual creature affected by crosses, running water, Christian ritual, and powered by the opposite, there must therefore be God.  Dracula presupposes and proves God.  The Victorian understood this and understood Dracula.

Harry Potty, on the other hand, is completely ignorant that magic, spirits, and spiritual creatures prove there must be God.  You have to conclude that Harry is stupid or just not well educated.  I’d say both, he is the result of Romanticism.  The Victorians are realists.  The Romantics are the opposite, in some degree.  Romantics see the world through imagery and figures of speech.  The euphemisms of the Romantics represent the complex stuff in the world that humans have a problem fully understanding, therefore, in Romantic literature, you have a constant theme of imagery.  To a modern reader, the imagery of Harry Potty doesn’t really mean much—and here there whole world view suddenly come crashing in on Romanticism.  The propose of Romanticism is to present ideas that could not be presented by realism and would not be considered by Victorian society.  Harry Potty presents a wonderful spiritual worldview devoid of the understanding of what that worldview means.  The same is true of the naturally good romantic protagonist.

The Romantic protagonist is naturally good.  This can mean a bunch of stuff philosophically, theologically, and in the real world.  In the real world, it simply is taken to be that the Romantic protagonist is good without necessarily the need of God or spiritual guidance.  It also means the Romantic protagonist could be good due to God or spiritual guidance.  What was necessary to the Victorians is unimportant to the Romantics. 

Philosophically, the Romantic protagonist has a serious problem.  If he or she is naturally good, who made him or her naturally good?  This is like Lewis’ conclusion on the spiritual nature of ideas.  Naturally good points to a spiritual nature, a spiritual nature points to the spiritual.  The spiritual points to God. 

Theologically, the Romantic protagonist has an even more serious problem.  How did he or she get naturally good?  And, what does it mean to be naturally good.  The Victorians could answer these questions, the Romantics cannot.  That provides why a Romantic protagonist and especially a naturally good one is so important in literature.

Where the Victorian protagonist was set in stone and knew the basis for his or her existence and goodness, the Romantic protagonist is either constantly questioning or ignoring.  Harry Potty is ignoring.  Other Romantic protagonists are seeking to understand.  The Victorian protagonist knows and never questions, like in Dracula.  The Romantic protagonist can and should be constantly questioning—except when he or she isn’t.  This is the power of Romantic literature.  The writer can assert the real, philosophical, and theological, or not.  But here is the rub, as Lewis specifies for us.  A realistic Romantic novel can ignore the spiritual all its author desires—it’s just a choice of focus after all.  A Romantic novel about the spiritual, Harry Potty, can ignore all it wants, but the spiritual brings up questions and ideas that must be brought out and evaluated.  The Romantic author who doesn’t is just illogical and lacks philosophical and theological insight into what they are writing.  Usually, they get away with it, because most people don’t have much of a classical education, and those who do, just smile and read the story knowing the author missed the punchline.  That is it, by the way.  Naturally good mixed with spiritual requires a punchline—or at least an understanding and explanation of how spiritual exists in the world of the novel.  This is where we get to a reflected or created vs. a real worldview.                

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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