Writing - part x785, Writing a Novel, Protagonist and Created Worldview

2 March 2019, Writing - part x785, Writing a Novel, Protagonist and Created Worldview

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

Romanticism and Romantic protagonists typically reject the modern.  This isn’t what it might seem.  Romanticism, because of its love of nature and the natural, saw perfection and enlightenment in the antecedents of culture and society.  Thus, they brought myth and spirituality into their writing. 

Romanticism itself is a rejection of realism.  If you understand this much of Romanticism makes perfect sense.  Romantics wanted to be free of the confines of Victorianism to be able to express ideas and concepts that Victorian realism wouldn’t touch. 

The reflected worldview that took ancient and not so ancient fable, myth, and spirituality and turned it into a real-looking setting gave the Romantics the ability to write about ideas and subjects the Victorians could never handle.  This foray into the past was very productive for Romanticism, but even more interesting to some romantics, as they came into popularity, was the future.  The future required speculation and extrapolation. 

I’ve mentioned, the Romantic Movement rejected the urban and technology of the Victorian realism, but with speculation, they couldn’t ignore technology anymore.  Ever wonder why science fiction is so filled with bucolic views of the future where there is either no urban or a world of the urban with an unfulfilled desire for nature?  If the Victorians were writing science fiction, I suspect you would be overcome by a pretty basic view—the world filled with technology and cities surrounded by technology based farms—kinda like today.  Instead, we have a picture either so at odds with the modern world we see (dystopian or utopian) or changed back to nature for our own good or as a metaphor.

There are many movies just like this, and this is the picture of Romantic science fiction.  To make science fiction, the author can and should start with a real or reflected worldview, but then extrapolates it through technology, politics, and historical information to produce something new and unique.  This new and unique worldview is a created worldview.  It should and may share many common human aspects with the real or a reflected worldview, but it must be different from either.

The created worldview can’t be completely separated from the basis of the real or reflected.  The reason for this is that when writing about humans and human problems, there must be human continuity so the readers can appreciate, enjoy, and be entertained.  There is the focus of the Romantic in science fiction.  Romantic plots in science fiction are all about human issues cause by the future and specifically by technology.  Can you see the reflection of the Romantic ideals in this?  The rejection of the urban and technology comes out through the plots—they focus on the human element of technology and change and not the technology and change itself.

You can see examples everywhere.  Almost every science fiction and fantasy movie in the Modern Era is about technology going out of control and requiring humans to put it all back together.  The technology can’t be trusted and the urban is evil.  Look at almost every science fiction type horror movie from the Terminator shows to The Fly.  The problem is technology, and the problem is the urban.  Many if not most novels portray this basic plot idea.  There are a few hard science fiction novels at the very beginning of modern science fiction that revel in technology, but if you notice the plots, they are all centered on human interaction and human intervention to fix, solve, or redirect technological problems to resolve the plot.  A Victorian novel would focus on the protagonist actually developing and properly using the technology.  For example, you see many Victorian science fiction characters properly using and developing technology.  The technology always works and works properly.  The plot is about the use of the technology.  Usually, the technology doesn’t fail, the humans do.  

In any case, the created worldview along with the Romantic’s view of technology has given us the science fiction we have today.  It is interesting to see what another approach might lead to in science fiction—the question is if a non-Romantic view would sell.                                

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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