Writing - part x872, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Scientific Truth

28 May 2019, Writing - part x872, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Scientific Truth

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 s 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 

What is truth?  Actually, this isn’t a very difficult question to answer.  My personal opinion is that a person who doesn’t know how to discover the truth is uneducated and inexperienced.  The Greeks developed the three means to know truth stating back about 500 BC.

The Greeks discovered they could prove truth about non-repeatable events through the historical-legal method.  This method works well enough to put people in jail or to death.  It’s also used to prove historical truth—it works with non-repeatable events.  The Greeks also invented logic—they used it to prove assertions that were not readily obvious in the real world—mathematics and philosophy.  Most likely through logic, Aristotle realized something about the world.  Perhaps other Greeks before Aristotle contemplated this, but he put it into practice and developed a method for it.  We call this method the scientific method.

The scientific method is used to prove repeatable events.  Let us be very clear, because the Greeks were—you can’t use the historical-legal method to prove repeatable events, and you can’t use the scientific method to prove non-repeatable events.  Likewise, the scientific method and the historical-legal method can only be used to prove things which are measurable in the real world.  They can’t be used to prove philosophy or mathematics.  So then, what are repeatable events.

Let’s say I drop a ball from a measured distance and time it’s descent to the ground.  If I set up my experiment properly, every time I drop the ball, I will get a different answer, but the answer will be very close to all the others.  How can that be?  Aren’t all the forces acting on that ball the same?  Of course they are, the problem isn’t with the real world.  The problem is with my measurement devices and my experimental apparatus.  This variance in results occurs with every repeatable phenomena.  The problem isn’t completely in the world, but there are some issues.

First, you might ask, how do we fix experimental variability?  That’s easy.  We fix it through mathematics.  I make enough experiments—repeat the experiment enough times to reach a confidence interval.  Next, I calculate a standard deviation for the experimental results and determine the true mean.  All the results theoretically should fall within the standard deviation, and I can get a true mean for the results.  Third, for many experiments once I determine a value for the forces, I can calculate the results and check the experiment mathematically.  For example, for the ball experiment, I can calculate the pull of gravity, the time and velocity of the ball when it hits the ground.  I can further calculate the force.  All of this is pretty neat, and this is basically how science works.  Of course, I use the historical-legal method to record my scientific method results.  Then others can check my work and check the repeatability of my experiment.  I should give you the scientific method as we apply it today:

1.     Deduce a theory

2.     Design an experiment to prove the theory

3.     Conduct the experiment

4.     Analyze the results to see if the theory holds

5.     Repeat as necessary  

As you can see, the scientific method is dependent on repeatability—repeatability of the experiment, the theory, and the method itself.  From a macro standpoint, the problem with repeatability and experiments is apparatus and measurement capability, and I showed you how we fix that through mathematics.  This, by the way is why logic had to come before the invention of the scientific method.  Unfortunately, no matter how well we measure and conduct our experiments, the results are never ever exactly the same—how can this be.  Is there something in the world that prevents exactness in repeatable events?  In fact, there is. 

From the world side there is chaos theory and probability theory.    

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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