Writing - part x822, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Evangelism

8 April 2019, Writing - part x822, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Evangelism

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. 

Let’s look at a subject that is really ignored in the modern era.  I’m not certain how much this can help your current writing.  I would argue that theoretically, this subject can really help those who write historical and futuristic fiction.  It depends on how your write your historical and futuristic fiction.  There are two ways to write historical fiction—let’s look at this.

The first and most common way to write historical fiction is to write a novel that projects modern ideas and history as historical ideas and history.  In other words to present modern ideas and historical ideas as the same.  I think this is perhaps the most egregious and perverse means of presenting a false view of history.  The author is either completely ignorant of the past, is intentionally attempting to education people in a false view of history, or both.  The real historical world is very different both culturally and socially from our current world.  The true author attempts to convey this in historical writing.

The second and less common means of historical writing is to actually incorporate the past into a novel to convey the actual way people thought and acted in the past.  This approach actually goes back into time to give a complete view of the way the people thought and acted.  To this end, let’s look at how the world changed and how people thought in the past.  This is more of a historical look at the world for the purpose of understanding how the world worked in the past and how people thought and acted.  We’ll use historical information to see what concerned affected their lives. Here is a list of potential issues.  We’ll look at them in detail:

1.   Vocabulary

2.   Ideas

3.   Social construction

4.   Culture

5.   Politics

6.   History

7.   Language

8.   Common knowledge

9.   Common sense

10. Reflected culture

11. Reflected history

12. Reflected society

13. Truth

14. Food

15. Weapons

16. Transportation

17. Communication

18. Writing 

Literacy brought about perhaps the greatest change in thought.  You can see that directly out of literacy, the ancient Greeks invented the three ways to know truth.  We use these ideas to record history, continue rule of law, create science and technology, develop mathematics and philosophy, and basically progress human invention and society.  There is much more that came out of literacy.

We are not done with Turbingen School.  Turbingen School is a theology.  To be specific, there are five major Christian theologies and five major Christian doctrines.  A theology is a way a religion views God and the system of reasoning for its beliefs.  A doctrine is a mode of worship and means of thinking about systematic application of theology.  The major theologies are Natural, Calvinism, Armenian, Turbingen, and Evangelical.  The major doctrines are Dogmatic, Reformation, Reformed, Anti-Creedal, and Vatican II.  Turbingen directly affects almost all theology and modern thought about Christianity and religion in general, but what came out of Turbingen is even more important in modern Christianity.

What came out of Turbingen was Evangelical Theology.  This is how it came about.  Søren Kierkegaard developed a philosophy called existentialism.  It was a philosophy and a wonderful philosophy, but it came directly out of theology and a new and rational worldview.  In the past, Christianity and general religion was communal and not individual.  The individual was saved through the communal actions of the church on the member’s behalf.  Søren Kierkegaard came to a philosophical conclusion that individuals can only be responsible for their own salvation, that salvation is individual and not communal.  The concept of existentialism is much more complex and detailed than this, but the basic idea of existentialism is that an individual is responsible for and create his or her own reality.  To Søren Kierkegaard, that reality was simply their lives and of course, their salvation. 

The idea of the individual being responsible for salvation was not a new idea, it was a redevelopment philosophically of Natural Theology from the early Christians.  What made it new and powerful was the application of existentialism to philosophy.  How it affected the church was the results of existentialism to the church, doctrine, and theology.  The ideas of individual salvation were both rational and historical, and Karl Barth ran with them.

The only problem was that Karl Barth didn’t understand the connections of existentialism to Natural Theology.  He should have gone back to the original, instead he developed a new theology—the most prevalent theology today.  Karl Barth called his theology, evangelical and asserted it was the original views of the founders, but it wasn’t. 

If you remember, Natural Theology focused on logic, the historical method, and the scientific method as means to prove God and Christianity.  Evangelical Theology rejected the conclusions of the Turbingen School, but they still misunderstood the ramifications of logic and the historical method in providing historical documents as proof texts.  The starting point of Evangelical Theology was the same as Turbingen.  They concluded that the historical documents were not necessarily historical but rather they were simply “inspired.”  It was unimportant that the historical documents (Tanakh and New Testament) was historically viable and provable, what was important was what the “believers” believed about them.  As I’ve written, the original teen Hodos had historical accounts that convinced them.  Greeks did not have a word for faith or belief.  They were convinced.  Evangelical Theology should have gone back to Natural Theology, it didn’t.  Therefore, the wooing of the Spirit and the interpretation of the “believer” became the means and the measure of truth.  Thus, the historical accounts didn’t matter, but rather what the “Spirit” told the “believer” about the historical accounts.  Thus, modern Evangelicals will not find it unusual for a “believer” to state that God showed them something in the historical documents intended for their enlightenment and perhaps only applicable to them.  This is completely opposite of the very concrete Greek, and historical understanding of the Church.  In other words, the Evangelical might assert understanding beyond that of a scholar who understands the Greek because “God told him or her.”  The irrationality and heresy of this position should be obvious.  If the very concrete Greek doesn’t mean what it says historically and culturally, then it doesn’t mean anything at all.  So we are in the Evangelical Age of Theology.

In the end, Evangelical Theology may be as damaging to truth as Evangelical Theology.  The problem is that neither is historically accurate in terms of early Christianity or the documents of Christianity.  Evangelical Theology is less dangerous than Turbingen School, but still, it doesn’t necessarily represent accurate Christianity.  It leads directly to the idea of independence from reason and from the historical God.  Perhaps we should look at doctrines a little before we move on.

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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