Writing - part x876, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Problems with Truth

1 June 2019, Writing - part x876, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Problems with 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 

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).

What are we going to do with truth?  Actually, if you haven’t been taught the three means to know truth, you need to get an education.  This will improve your writing incredibly—it should improve your life as well.  The ability to know truth is a life and game changer.  One of the reasons I like to write in a reflected worldview is to provide a powerful metaphor to the real world.  Metaphor allows you to communicate with readers on a level that might not be possible on a level of truth.  In other worlds, the real world to those who can’t know truth is simply what they understand (common knowledge and sense) and what they see or have seen (event horizon).  As long as you can communicate, your only means of developing expression and entertainment is through metaphor rather than truth. 

This is exactly what the Romantics were all about.  They did know truth and were trained in the three methods to determine truth, but they couldn’t write about many of the truths they knew—they couldn’t write about it because the Victorians wouldn’t hear about much of what the Romantics wanted to write about: sex, excrement, bathroom habits, infidelity, other religions, incest, criminality, social issues, unemployment, poverty, healthcare, illness, and all those things nice people didn’t speak, think, or do. 

The Romantics weren’t just interested in scatology, they also wanted to relate to the world, investigate real human problems, and help fix them.  You can’t do this without interacting with the truth.  Yet, the Romantics found that metaphor and figures of speech were much more powerful in expressing these truths than simply saying them straight out.

For example, if I write about the poor, the average Victorian and even the more modern people and eras will just ignore it.  On the other hand, if I give a face to the poor, that is an entirely different expression.  Here is a direct and timely example.  A novel called, The English Orphans was written in the late 1800s.  In this novel, the Victorian wealthy class people fall into poverty because of the death of the father.  The mother and son succumb to overwork and leave three irl children in abject poverty.  One girl is adopted.  Two go to the poor house.  The depictions of the impoverished life of these children put a picture on the poor.  The fact that they came from the wealthy class brings them close.  In addition, the novel has a new wealthy family fail and fall into poverty.  This family had looked down on the poor and their neighbors.  Here is the point.

In the classical Victorian Era, an author would not have been able to write about the wealthy losing their wealth—not without finding fault with the now poor.  If you remember, in the Victorian mind, the wealthy and aristocratic were born to their positions.  They could become poor, but then would become wealthy—like Oliver Twist.  Their positions, like their births would come out.  On the other hand, the Romantics saw a world where people failed or became impoverished not because of their own fault—through the loss of a father and breadwinner.  The also saw a world where people who do to no fault of their own could not use or develop the skills they had.  The way to express this was through metaphor and through showing the effects and results of society and culture.  You can see how this was not possible through realism or without a proper picture developed directly about the culture and society.          

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  

fiction, theme, plot, story, storyline, character development, scene, setting, conversation, novel, book, writing, information, study, marketing, tension, release, creative, idea, logic