Writing - part x887, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Money

12 June 2019, Writing - part x887, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Money

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. Money

16. Weapons and warfare

17. Transportation

18. Communication

19. Writing

20. Education  

Money, money, money…I don’t know how many accounts of the ancient world or historical novels I’ve read where the protagonist or other character just pulls out some money and pays for something.  Money is ubiquitous isn’t it?  The Bible has money in it, doesn’t it? 

Actually, there was no money in the world until the Empire of Lydia invented it in about 600 BC.  All money before that is considered proto-money.  What is proto money?  Let’s talk about trade.

Before money every transaction was through trade.  All trade goods are valued by what the buyer and the seller agree in the market, but certain trade goods had value based purely on the market and not on their intrinsic value.  For example, gold.  What can you do with gold?  You can make ineffective and inefficient tools, pots, and armor—actually, gold is too heavy, malleable, with a low melting point to be good for anything except ornaments.  Then why is it so valuable?  The same with silver. 

Gold and silver have value because it is beautiful and difficult to get and purify.  Both are easier to get than copper and tin or iron, but they take work and they are rare.  Their rarity, beauty, and the difficulty of getting them are all factors that give gold and silver value outside or any real utility.  Even before the invention of money, gold and silver were traded in markets for goods and services—this use of goods with little intrinsic value for trade is called proto-money.  And then there was real money.

The Lydians took metal slugs and marked them with values.  They slugs of money could be traded at whatever market value the buyers and sellers agreed to.  The slugs of metal had no intrinsic value, but their value was based on a fixed exchange based on perceived value in gold, silver, copper, bronze, and iron.  Yes, there was iron money.  The moment there was the invention of money we had capitalism.  A barter economy uses trade in the marketplace.  A capitalistic economy uses money in the marketplace.  Both a barter and a capitalistic economy are natural because they happen without any regulation or government law.  Both are helped by rule of law, but even in communist, socialist, and fascist economies, you see a black market based on barter or capital (money). 

So what about money and proto-money.  Before the Lydians invented capital (money) in 600 BC there was no money in the world.  Therefore, you can’t write a book and have your protagonist pull out money to pay for anything until 600 BC +.  In fact, although the idea of money spread very quickly through the world after the Lydians invented it, the movement was from out of Lydia into Asia and the Mediterranean.  The Greeks were an early adopter.  The Persians, Hebrews, and Egyptians came on board quickly, but we are talking about around 300 BC when Alexander took over the known world before money and Hellenization really made its way through the rest of the world.  Everyone else were slower to adopt money.  So, you aren’t going to have money in ancient Britain, Germany, Norway, France, and all, except what the Romans brought with them. 

With money, you are on safe ground with the Roman Empire and the Greek Empires after Alexander, but you need caution before that.  There was money in Greece and Athens back in Socrates time.  However, money was not ubiquitous until after about 1800.  People had money, but unless they were wealthy or middle class tradesmen, it is highly unlikely they would have much money.  Children would rarely have any money.  The poor might have a day’s wages which they quickly spent for food and housing.  People were paid daily and paid daily.  It was only in the later times actually around 1800 or so where people were willing to allow pay for longer than a day or so.  I’m not saying it wouldn’t happen, but it was unusual.

Money in the ages of uncommonality was valuable because it was a precious metal.  Only later did the value of the money become less than its market value.  With the invention of government banks and the fixing of the value of currency, governments took to backing currency (money) through gold, silver, and copper.  In other words, they minted coinage and printed money that was worth less than face value, but the coinage and printed money was backed by real commodities.  The real value sat in banks while the people passed coins and paper with less or little value—the promise was that you could always trade your coins and paper for real metal at a fixed rate of value.

Then came fiat currencies.  Fiat currencies are where we are right now.  The dollar is the world’s primary currency.  There is no real backing other than the full faith and confidence of the USA.  A fiat currency only has an agreed value based on the marketplace.  There is no real backing.  Hope that makes you feel happy.  It scares me.  A fiat currency allows the government to inflate the value of currency to give the impression of GDP growth and benefit government spending at the expense of personal spending.  Just so you know, you can’t have government controlled inflation with a real commodity backed currency.  There are other good effects caused by a real currency, but the world doesn’t have one.  The invention of money caused a wonderful upheaval in the world.                

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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