Writing - part x908, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Inheritance

3 July 2019, Writing - part x908, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Inheritance

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 websites 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

In the modern era with the advent of ubiquitous police and the government control of many aspects of society, it becomes very simple to exert control over an entire society.  Marx expressed this in the Communist Manifesto.  Everyone should be familiar with these procedures.  I’ll add a couple of ideas that Marx never would have thought of. 

The scientific means to control a conquered people or to take over a society from within from the Communist Manifesto:

1.     Abolition of Property in Land and Application of all Rents of Land to Public Purpose.

2.     A Heavy Progressive or Graduated Income Tax.

3.     Abolition of All Rights of Inheritance.

4.     Confiscation of the Property of All Emigrants and Rebels.

5.     Centralization of Credit in the Hands of the State, by Means of a National Bank with State Capital and an Exclusive Monopoly.

6.     Centralization of the Means of Communication and Transport in the Hands of the State.

7.     Extension of Factories and Instruments of Production Owned by the State, the Bringing Into Cultivation of Waste Lands, and the Improvement of the Soil Generally in Accordance with a Common Plan.

8.     Equal Liability of All to Labor. Establishment of Industrial Armies, Especially for Agriculture.

9.     Combination of Agriculture with Manufacturing Industries; Gradual Abolition of the Distinction Between Town and Country by a More Equable Distribution of the Population over the Country.

10.  Free Education for All Children in Public Schools. Abolition of Children's Factory Labor in it's Present Form. Combination of Education with Industrial Production.      

11.  The control of healthcare by government and the abolition of private healthcare.

12.  The abolition of cash money.

13.  The disarmament of the people and the arming of secret police forces under the control of the government.   

I added three other planks.  We see theses being used by modern societies to control the populace.  I think Marx left off the control of arms because he assumed the other mechanisms would allow full control of the people.  Let’s look at and evaluate how governments and societies have used these ten planks to enforce their control and goals on nations.

1. Abolition of All Rights of Inheritance.

One of the best ways to take over property is to prevent people from inheriting property.  The worst effect is the abolition of small businesses.  I’m not sure why Marx even thought this was a reasonable means of control. In the USA, 80% of employers are small businesses.  The abolition of inheritance causes the end of all businesses that are not built in a single generation.  This also allows large public businesses to profit and proliferate while small businesses dissolve. 

In general, the abolition of rights of inheritance prevents the accumulation of wealth across generations. It prevents private businesses from continuation beyond one generation, and it significantly reduces the competition against nationalized and public corporations. 

As I noted, the worst effect is likely the economic collapse this would cause in the economy of a society, but the loss of business isn’t the only effect.

This plank requires the abolition of ALL rights of inheritance, not just business, but of property, money, and rights as well.  This prevents the accumulation of not just wealth but of all property.  For example, there would be no family farms, no property from granny and granpa, no rich uncles, and all.  The question then is who then gets the property of the decedent?  This gets to the current government program to take wealth in the USA.  There are three methods to prevent the passing of property through inheritance.  One is to tax inheritance.  The second is to just take the property.  The third is to claim the wealth through taxes supporting a social security system with a pension which then ends with the death of the tax payer.

In the USA and most of Europe, the nations have put into place inheritance taxes.  These are usually levied on the so-called rich.  The problem is that most successful people who own businesses are wealthy at the end of their lives.  At the beginning, they might have had nothing, but fifty to sixty years of business building and productivity ends in great wealth.  A business worth five million that is taxed above four million ends up being sold or dissolved.  In most cases dissolved.  The reason is that few children of these types of parents have enough money to settle the government debt.  In addition, if the business is dissolved, usually it is sold at a bargain.  The business worth five million if dissolved might be worth one or two million.  Every penny will go to the government.  An inheritance tax is likely the most immoral tax next to a property tax.  It destroys business, people, and families.  Perhaps this is what Marx had in mind. 

Most countries haven’t started just taking property from decedents, but that is always a possibility.  The Soviets, Cuba, and Communists Chinese used and use this, but they are usually considered fascist autocracies (which all communist nations are).  The worst might be social security.

Social security was a claimed pension program invented by von Bismarck to control the German people.  Paraphrasing von Bismarck, “The aged won’t revolt because they fear the cut off of their benefits, and the youth won’t revolt because they fear the loss of their benefits.”  FDR feared an insurrection in the USA and decided to implement a social security program for the same purpose that von Bismarck did against the German people.  Now, you might ask, what is the problem with a government controlled pension program?  The problem is how such programs are used to take inheritance.

Social security takes 15% or a worker’s income and give it to the government.  This is an intentional means of reducing the value of the worker and the economy.  A loss of 15% of income is a significant taking.  If a worker invested this money or the government invested this money, the average worker would have a significant profit.  As it is, correcting for inflation, the average worker will not get back as much as was paid in.  The average worker will not get any benefit from social security.  The stock market average increase is over 14%.  Government bonds will give you about 3%.  Social security will give you a negative return.  I think it is bad enough that the worker doesn’t get any return, but worse, 15% of potential investment in the economy is literally tossed into the toilet.  But it gets worse.

Social security is not inherited.  This allows the government to take the property of every worker.  In other words, the worker puts in 15% of their life’s income, gets back less than put in, and if forced to donate the remainder to the gov at death.  This is a means to prevent and reduce inheritance.  In a real investment program, the worker would be able to pass the remainder of the savings to his or her children.  As I noted, the purpose of social security is not to help the worker—the purpose is to cause the worker to feel compelled to not rebel to protect his or her money in the government till.

The government till is empty because the government has already spent the social security money.  In legal terms this is called a Ponzi scheme.  In terms of the communist manifesto and the control of people, this is called the prevention of inheritance.    

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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