Writing - part x845, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Education

1 May 2019, Writing - part x845, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Education

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 

Most people have no idea how writing and reading came about.  They assume that people always read and write just like they do today—the truth is much further than they can imagine.  The Greeks invented or rather developed something else in writing.

Education was one of the greatest changes caused by near universal literacy.  You might think that education came first and then literacy, but education was the norm—it just wasn’t the type of education we think as education.

Education to us is schools, but schools are not the norm in education.  Most people were educated by their families.  Information from literacy to math and science was passed on in the home.  Schools were for other degrees of refinement—the types of refinement for society and for further education and politics.  Let’s think about this.

In the beginning, literacy was a function of availability to scrolls, book slaves, and the owners of the scrolls, and the best way to gain that availability was through the gymnasiums, lyceums, and scholas.  Gymnasiums were training for the body and the mind, lyceums were for the mind alone, and scholas were paid places for general education.  The main point was the availability of scrolls and people who had memorized the scrolls.  Then real literacy came about—where people could begin to read scrolls, codices, and then books without the need of another.

Still, education was about availability of literature.  This may sound odd, but all primary education was in the home.  If you read the earliest records we have in history, once literacy began to become somewhat universal, children were taught to read in a single day, usually by their mothers.  This was common for basic subjects.  Advanced education was advanced because of the availability of books.  Parents sent their already literate children—they had basic educational skills to a teacher who had books and the ability to explain the contents of the books.  This was the budding private education started in the era of scrolls.  Things weren’t really all that different at all between the Greeks and the 1800s.  The education came from the home and was then private.  Those who could afford education or those who were capable of education beyond the norm many times received it because of the way the world was—the church, organizations, governments were always looking for people who could and wanted to be educated.  Plus people saw a great value in education—they were willing to pay to have their children educated.  And then something happened.

Political leaders realized that a population could be controlled through education…and we entered the era of near universal education.  The younger the better.  If you don’t believe this, just look at the literacy rates before and after government intervention in education—they went down.  The tenth plank of the Communist Manifesto is compulsory education for all, and Hitler’s Mine Kampf highlighted compulsory education for all.  The reason is the state wanted their hand in the molding of the youth.  Dewey and other similar voices in the USA wanted the same control over the people.  In any case, I thought you might want a historical perspective on education, and why government is so interested in it.

Milton Freedman wrote that a free person can’t be educated by government education.  This is why the wealthy, politicians, and government controlled school teachers send their children to private and parochial schools. 

The most important thing to note, is that sometimes history isn’t exactly what it seems.  Great inventions change the world.  Some inventions radically change the world.  The world is significantly different than it would have been without these innovations—and authors should be aware of the basis and the effects of these changes and innovations.

The world changes and history is not the event horizon you know—it is immense, broad, and deserves to be represented accurately and with an open mind.                       

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  

fiction, theme, plot, story, storyline, character development, scene, setting, conversation, novel, book, writing, information, study, marketing, tension, release, creative, idea, logic