9 May 2019, Writing - part x853,
Writing a Novel, Changing World and Common Knowledge Problems
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 29th 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.
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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 30th novel, working
title Red Sonja. I finished my 29th 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
What is common knowledge? In the main from a very simplistic
standpoint, common knowledge is cultural, but there is more to it than that—and
there can be problems with common knowledge.
The most important point of common knowledge is that as an author, I
must be able to make a connection with my readers.
There are a few real pitfalls with
common knowledge. You might want to
dodge them or not. I just need to point
out those potential problems, and you can decide what to do about them.
The first is common knowledge that
potentially breaks the reader’s suspension of disbelief. Now, all common knowledge problems can likely
be described as those that will break the reader’s suspension of disbelief, but
these are ones that are emotionally jarring to the reader. Perhaps I need to remind you about suspension
of disbelief.
The suspension of disbelief is the
state of the reader who is immersed in your writing. This is the state where the mind is filled
with the word pictures of your description, narration, and dialog and the
reader is completely convinced and held by your novel or story. This is the state you want the reader to remain
in until the last drop of the novel. I’ve
written extensively about how to build and hold the reader in this state. Anything that knocks the reader mentally out
of this state of suspension of disbelief is a negative to your novel and to
your readership.
A majority of your readers are older
and more established. You need to understand
and expand your thinking to their event horizon—especially if you are young. If you are older, you might be part of this
group. This is the pre-Baby Boomers and
the Baby Boomers. A large portion of these
educated and very strong readers are also classically trained. You tell me, what do you think a curse,
inappropriate, or indelicate word might do to the crowd who cut their teeth on
Victorian and early Romantic literature?
You know exactly what will happen—they might be jarred out of the suspension
of disbelief.
My publisher was very sensitive to
this group. I was encouraged to not use
any word like that to hold onto this group of readers. Think of it this way. In any group, an indelicate word might jar
them out of the suspension of disbelief.
Why include any word that might do that.
What is interesting, is my publisher didn’t mind foreign indelicate
words. The argument was that any English
reader sophisticated enough to know the meaning of the word wouldn’t mind it,
and it wouldn’t affect their suspension of disbelief. Any English reader who didn’t know what the
word meant wouldn’t be offended anyway.
I recommend this as a rule for your writing. It’s not just curse, inappropriate, and
indelicate words—it’s any word that might jar your reader out of the suspension
of disbelief. Your publisher and editors
should help you with this, and I’ve written in the past about how to write
around these subjects.
The second problem is common
knowledge that isn’t really common knowledge.
I can think of a lot of them.
Many are already debunked. One of
them is the role of cholesterol in heart disease. For example, not that long ago, doctors told
people to eat margarine instead of butter because polyunsaturated fats were
supposed to be bad for your—they caused cholesterol in the blood. From an event horizon standpoint, this is a
wonderful historical piece you can and should include in your novels from that
time. In other words, mother tells her
kids to eat margarine instead of butter—I’m simplifying, but I hope you get the
point. On the other hand, in a more
modern novel or even in a historical based novel, expressing a scientific
opinion that margarine is more healthy than butter would get the informed
reader to think about somewhere you don’t want to go—it might knock them out of
the suspension of disbelief. Common
knowledge changes based on the event horizon.
It is appropriate and fitting to bring up the subject as a historical
fact from an earlier time—the handling of it is important.
The best way to handle these issues
is to simply use them as historical markers.
They are too heavy to handle out of context and sometimes even within
context. For example, unless you are writing
a novel about global warming or global cooling, I wouldn’t even touch it as an
issue. For some readers, it is common
knowledge, for others it is bunk, and for still others it is unimportant. We don’t write novels based on other
opinions, but we don’t want to wander into minefields unless that is our
intent.
As an example of this, let me point
out my published novel Centurion. Centurion
covers the history of the Levant during the early First Century. It specifically involves the history of the
Centurion who executed Jesus Christ.
This is obviously a controversial issue for some and an issue of
religion and belief for others. I simply
handled it as a historical issue and from an historical context. I’m sure that might irritate some and
disappoint others, but by using historical sources and information, the novel
conveys the real feelings of the people and the events of the times. My point is that this is a novel that
intentionally deals with a controversial time and issue. It attempts to do this wholly historically and
yet in a way that incorporates the common knowledge of our time. A novel that speaks to the historical event
horizons of the times and explains it in a way that modern readers can
understand the real history of the First Century in that place.
The overall point is to capture the
suspension of disbelief of my readers and hold them in that suspension of
disbelief. I think the novel
accomplishes this very well.
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
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
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