Writing - part x861, Writing a Novel, Changing World and the Real History in Fiction

17 May 2019, Writing - part x861, Writing a Novel, Changing World and the Real History in Fiction

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 real is the known and the knowable.  The fiction trade space is the unknown and the unknowable. 

The fiction author creates fiction in the fictional trade space.  The fictional trade space is the unknown and the unknowable.  If the author wanders out of the fiction trade space, they are writing alternate history or science fiction. 

This is the ultimate point for the author of historically based works, the historical revelation itself is a part of the entertainment, and I don’t mean artificially developed non-historical revelation.  This is an important subject to look at.  I’ll elucidate this point next.

There is always fictional trade space in human history.  The reason is because of the unknown and unknowable.  Until modern times, the records of human history and of individuals could only be so detailed.  In the future, perhaps every moment of one’s life will be recorded.  In this case, there will be no fictional trade space.  Before that happens, there is always fictional trade space in the unknown and the unknowable. 

For example, if I write about a past historical person, I have a limited set of available knowledge about what that person said or did.  In a novel, the trade space is between the words and actions we know.  For example, if I had a film of King George VI, I could use his words and actions as the center point for a scene.  I would want to set it in the historical place and time, and I would want to record in writing his words and a description of his actions.  At the same time, there are a million actions and many people all around him who are not caught on the tape.  You might discover some historical snippets, like what his wife or a counselor said, but those are just more fodder to use to define the trade space, because there is so much more that isn’t known or knowable. 

I can have almost anyone in the crowd and express almost any opinion.  I could have a Nazi sympathizer who runs afoul of the crowd and causes a policeman to come haul him or her away.  I could have all kinds of intrigue in the crowd, the counselors, or others.  The fictional trade space is enormous.  Unless I am writing an alternate history or science fiction, the only rule I must uphold is the rule of the real.  I can’t impose what is not real on the reality of the history.  I find this to be an enormous trade space for my fictional writing, and I’ve used it a lot.  Then there is the reflected.

The real is restricted by history.  The reflected is also restricted by history, but who is to say a thousand fae creatures didn’t secretly attend King George VI’s presentation or speech.  If I had a film of King George VI’s coronation, we know that in myth, the Fae kings and queens were either considered equals or vassals of the King.  Equals are always invited to their nation’s coronations.  Vassals of high rank are always invited to coronations.  Even more, who is to say, King George VI forgot to invite a specific king or queen of the Fae.  What if he didn’t believe in the Fae, but he had advisers who implored him to invite them?  What if there was an oversight, an accident or a mistake.  The reflected worldview expands the fictional trade space exponentially.

Then there is back to the real fictional trade space.  What if a little known or little remembered vassal of the King was intentionally, accidentally, or mistakenly left off the list of invitees?  You can always develop a character of nobility by either borrowing one from real life (dead, forgotten, or missing) or making your own from history. 

In my yet unpublished novel, Aksinya: Enchantment and the Deamon, I made my own from real nobility.  I took a Russian prince who died young (21) and paired him with a noble Hapsburg princess (a Duke’s daughter) from Germany.  They produced my character, who was then a Russian princess.  The lines of nobility in Russia were so confounded and reduced during the 1917 revolution, that who is to say my character couldn’t really exist.  She exists in my novel, and that’s enough.  The fictional trade space is great in the unknown and the unknowable.  This the use of the real to develop a realistic character within the fictional trade space.  In fact, I would expect my research to be so good, many might conclude that Aksinya was a real person.  I don’t intend to change the real, but to provide a completely realistic character who can be the protagonist of a novel.

You can see how large the real world can be developed to expand the fictional trade space, however, I love to dwell in the reflected worldview because the fictional trade space is even larger.    

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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