31 May 2019, Writing - part x875,
Writing a Novel, Changing World and Using 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
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 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.
|
|
Cover
Proposal
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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
From the ancient Greeks and propagated
through civilization, we have three means to prove truth: the historical-legal
method for non-repeatable events, the scientific method for repeatable events,
and logic for the non-measurable (like math).
These three means to know truth
interact and support each other. For
example, I mentioned before how the historical-legal method is used to record
and report scientific method results. In
addition, logic, through deduction, is used to support both the
historical-legal and the scientific method.
Mathematics, which is completely based in logic, is used to support both
other methods.
So, what can you do with the means
to know truth? The first is that you can
use them. I’ve used them and explained
them in some of my writing. In most
novels, you won’t need to explain, but you will always want to use them. They don’t need to be overt, but every novel
is about secrets—secrets revealed is the climax of almost every novel, in one
way or another.
Not every novel is a mystery novel,
but every novel is filled with secrets.
If you apply the three means to know truth, you will achieve a basis for
understanding than most of your readers will acknowledge. As a lark, let’s look at the means to not
know truth. These come mostly out of
Eastern civilizations, but they are not isolated to Eastern civilizations. The ways to not know truth are these:
meditation, spirituality, revelation, and mentallization. None of these methods can be used to know
truth.
Meditation all day on the wrong
concepts or idea remain mediation on the wrong ideas and concepts. No one will ever determine anything through
meditation. In the West, we expect
people to study and think about some subject.
Meditation will definitely not get you to truth and never result in
anything new. In fact, meditation on
nothing will result in nothing. The
Greeks believed that human thought is what set humans from the animals. No though was considered impossible by the
ancient Greeks. Humans thought because
humans were humans. The entire idea of
not thinking about something would have been considered impassible and silly by
the Greeks. They would have said that
the non-thinker was not human. I think
this has a lot of validity.
Spirituality has its own
problems. I’ll go with the idea that
meditation on God and His ideas might have a potential for great influence on
people, but the end point is the problem.
If I note that God told me or God revealed to me, that’s a great
personal confession, but it can’t apply to me.
This is the ultimate problem with spirituality—it applies only to the
confessor and not to anyone else. I’m
not against the idea of spirituality, in fact, I like it in literature, but the
idea that you can prove truth through spirituality is a huge stretch. As I noted before, the moment an author
brings spirituality into his or her writing, the gauntlet is down—they must
bring God into the mix. Spirituality
equals God, but that is personal and a reflection of society and culture—the proof
goes much deeper.
Revelation has the same problem of
spirituality. In fact, the two are very
similar. One is a study, the other is a
realization. These have their place in
literature, but not in proving truth.
The truth is for the one who has the revelation. If the reader agrees or accepts the view of
the writer or protagonist, that’s great, but it is an individual discovery and
not a communal truth.
Finally, mentallization is pure hokum.
You can only mentalize or conceptualize
only what you can conceive or already know.
For example, the people of the twentieth century could barely
conceptualize computers—they were writing about slide rules in the hands of
space goers until computers hit them upside the head. Not a single science fiction writer got the
advent and universality of computers right at all. They were all flopping around in the dark
while computers were changing and advancing the world. And then computers started slowly appearing in
science fiction. It started as magic and
spirituality and slowly became a part of reality—then it was reality.
I think if science fiction writers
had appropriately applied the three methods to know truth, they would have
predicted, extrapolated, and interpolated to the proper use of computers. As it is, they missed it all. You see in my novels in 1984 the prediction of
the electronic book. I even called them eBooks.
Unfortunately, this novel wasn’t published until 2008. The electronic book was already a
reality.
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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