Writing - part x893, Writing a Novel, Changing World and more Competition

18 June 2019, Writing - part x893, Writing a Novel, Changing World and more Competition

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

What’s the big deal with money?  Money is also called capital.  People get confused about this all the time, so let me define this for you.  The use of capital for trade instead of proto-money or goods is called capitalism.  That’s all capitalism is.  Capitalism means using capital (money) to purchase goods and services instead of barter.  Let’s talk about markets.

The law of markets is that price is governed by availability and availability governs price. 

The law of competition is that in any market competitive pressures will all cause prices to reduce because availability will always go up—that is unless the government tries to control the market.  A fascist economy is a socialist economy that is controlled by the government through regulations.  A socialist economy is one where the government owns businesses.  A communist economy is where the government owns the means of production.  These three types of economies, fascist, socialist, and communist, are unnatural economies—they require government control to enforce them.  The problem is that no one can control a market.  This is a short way of expressing the law of markets and the law of competition.

Competition in markets and in life are interesting subjects.  If you look at technology and the development of technology in history, you will find that markets and capital did something wonderful in the world—they created entertainment markets that are driven by capital.  Let me explain.  Almost all modern inventions were developed as entertainment with little perception of their power of importance.  Aircraft and computers are great examples.

Aircraft were originally invented simply for the purpose of conquering flight.  The Wright Brothers and indeed no one else had any idea how aircraft and flight would change the world.  They invented the aircraft and suddenly everyone wanted to learn to fly.  At the time, flight had no purpose other than entertainment.  The only people who could afford to fly were the wealthy and the dedicated.  Flying was so inefficient in the early years that until the late 1920s and 1930s airshow aircraft were railed into the areas for the shows.  The pilots road in the trains.  Then something happened, the airplane was developed to the point that it was perceived to be efficient for mail, high priority cargo (light cargo), and people.  The development of the aircraft was almost entirely driven by entertainment and the wealthy.  Without the wealthy and a market for the entertainment of flying, aircraft would never have gone from nothing to the most powerful, fast, and effective means of travel.  Computers had a little different path of development…let’s see.

Computers were originally developed to solve complex repetitive math problems.  You can see the beginning of analog computers in the sliderule.  And then digital computers came about.  Digital computers added something new to the capability of the computer—the ability to save data as well as compute stuff.  The geeks who ran and programmed the computers were still few in number and computers filled rooms, still the geeks began to make computer games.  Not computer games that we are familiar with, but games like war and empire.  There were more, but there were no graphics and few displays.  Some computers could only output paper, but there were games and geeks.  Then the Altar Six happened and the world changed a little.  The Altar Six was a personal digital computer for experimentation.  It outputted in digital code and saved programs on a magnetic tape.  The point was it was inexpensive enough for individuals to own.  The geeks bought them.  The geeks had programmable calculators at the time.  They wrote games for these, but the games were pretty lame.  Then the Apple I came out which wasn’t too exciting—it was a kit.  Then the RS60, the TI90, and the Apple II came out.  These were not kits.  These were whole computers with some graphic capability.  Geeks and the wealthy bought these contraptions and began writing programs.  The world went from about thirty thousand programmers mostly managing numbers and data to millions of programmers writing games and other stuff.  The computer went from a NASA and business property to an entertainment property in a day.  The power was the number of programmers and the entertainment.  Many if not most of the programs were games, but some people wrote programs to track their finances, made word processors, and databases.  The world of the computer radically changed when one of these programmers wrote the first spreadsheet program. 

Personal computers which business had considered duplicative and worthless, were suddenly useful for business.  The personal computer almost overnight went from pure entertainment to useful, efficient, and effective.  People still played games, and technology first for entertainment and expensive came out of the personal computer and inundated every society.  The compact disk for example.

Compact disks and computer compact disks were initially very expensive.  Only the wealthy and dedicated could afford them.  This is always true in a market and with technology driven by entertainment.  Almost all technology is driven by entertainment—the rest is driven by need. 

With this background, we can understand the reason entertainment markets are necessary to technology development.

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