Writing - part x857, Writing a Novel, Changing World and the Real

13 May 2019, Writing - part x857, Writing a Novel, Changing World and the Real

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 

Common knowledge allows you to communicate and connect with your readers, common sense normalizes your writing.  What can this mean? 

In writing, the author must define the real, reflected, and the created.  If you notice, this fits directly into the different worldviews or settings.  The real is completely real in setting or worldview.  The reflected is real however, it includes concepts that are not necessarily real but some or many humans agree with either historically, ideologically, religiously, or theoretically agree or know about them.  For example, myths, imaginary creatures like dragons, vampires, and fairies, gods and goddesses, and all.  Created means invented or extrapolated—basically science fiction.  The question is still, what is real?

For example, if I write a modern realistic novel then what must be real and what can be fiction?  I find this an easy question to answer.  Many authors might write that everything can be fiction.  I’m not of a similar opinion.  Since I have written a few historical novels, history and reality in fiction is very important to me.  Let’s look at this from the standpoint of historical fiction.

The author of historical fiction should honor every known and knowable piece of historical information that we can know about a time and place.  If an historical author does not, then they have moved automatically into the reflected or the created.  Reflected and created in history is alternate history—it is not historical fiction.  I would also specify that I personally would not want this in my reflected fiction either.

The development of alternate history produces the exact problem of the 007 movie Specter—it’s just not real and anyone who is familiar with MI-6 and British intelligence knows this.  Now, there are special and interesting things always going on in any intelligence structure, but most people don’t know the real…and this is what makes it such a great “real” to write about—because there is so much unknown and unknowable in the “real.”

So here is how all fiction, in my opinion, should work.  The real is the historical that we can and should know.  The fiction is the part that is unknown and unknowable.  The wise historian can infer or interpolate some of this unknown and unknowable, but in general, the unknown and unknowable is what the author casts in his or her fiction.  Thus, take any circumstance or person known in history.  We know just so much about that person.  The good historian or historical fiction author should be able to write accurately about that person.  The history and accuracy should be a good as possible, but then there exists the unknown and the unknowable.  We know, unless history tells us differently, that historical person usually eats meals with the regularity of anyone in their class or society.  We might have some details of the food or the meals that person ate.  If you have this information or equivalent information, then you have a known or knowable that you can write about.  If you don’t have any information, this is unknown and unknowable.  Note that history records some information such as meals and eating, but not a lot.  We have to either infer or interpolate meals based on historical information. 

My point is this.  Your historical personage has to eat.  Their eating will be based on their culture, history, and society.  Your writing should reflect this.  What you usually won’t know is details major or minor of every meal.  Perhaps you might from Ben Johnson and his journals, but most people aren’t that detailed.  The unknown and unknowable is the space of fiction.  You can write to your heart’s content about what your historical personage eats as long as you don’t contradict or rewrite history.  This is your fictional trade space. 

Eating is a simple example, but you can leap off from this to anything—the unknown and unknowable.

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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