Writing - part x911, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Centralization of Transportation and Communications

6 July 2019, Writing - part x911, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Centralization of Transportation and Communications

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

We have barely dodged the bullet on this one.  Did you wonder why a certain group of very vocal people who own all kinds of beautiful and expensive automobiles and planes so industriously want to promote and build public mass transportation?  Take a look at the sixth plank of the Communist Manifesto. 

The freedom of movement is a freedom that control economies don’t wish the people to have.  This is why private aircraft travel is constantly under attack in the USA and has been effectively destroyed in the rest of the world.  General aviation is dead in the rest of the world and is being regulated out of existence in the USA.  If you haven’t noticed, regulation is one of the most effective means a government has to expand their power.

In the USA, the government has made general aviation so expensive through regulation that the average person can’t afford it.  It still exists because the dedicated and the wealthy still have an option.  In the rest of the world, general aviation is dead.  There are some commercial operations and corporate operations, but in general, the average person can’t afford to fly privately.  Additionally, Europe has effectively banned aviation fuel which makes normal piston aircraft unusable there.  This and pay to play has killed private aviation.  Pay to play means the pilot has to pay to use aviation services.  There is also a very high fuel tax, but that is meant to limit ground transportation as well.  In the USA, the private pilot pays for government aviation services through the very high fuel taxes which makes aviation gas cost about 2 dollars more per gallon than regular fuel.  In any case, all controlling governments would love to get rid of aviation especially private aviation.  As the plank notes, they would like to replace it with mass public transportation that is owned by the government.

Europe has come a long way in getting the poor out of automobiles.  High costs, high cost and requirements for licensing, high fuel costs, and other disincentives has significantly moved automobiles out of the reach of anyone except the wealthy.  If you have a car in Europe, you are wealthy.  The USA is moving down this same path as quite a clip.  New safety regulations continue to eat at the cost of automobiles.  New control and tracking technologies will allow the government to know where every automobile is and who is in it.  They have already done this with aircraft.  By 2020 every aircraft in the USA must have a system to inform the USG where it is.  This will soon become common in cars as well.  Automobiles will be soon self-driving.  This great capability also allows the government to control automobiles. 

The great white shark of public transportation is likely a dead idea.  The government now owns every mass transportation system in every city with a train, subway, or bus service.  The cost of anyone stepping on a city bus in the USA is about $100 less than $1 is usually paid for by the user.  Government run transportation is horribly inefficient and distinctly allows the control and movement of people—think school buses.  With new technology, why control through ownership—why not control through direct control.  Control governments tend to be stupid, inefficient, and ineffective.  Still, they would like to build and force the people to ride trains, subways, busses, and government owned aircraft.

As I noted, we have dodged the bullet on transportation, but not on communication.  Today, the government doesn’t control the press, but one party does.  The government does control the airwaves communication apparatus.  They license radio and television transmissions.  Now, the allocation of radio frequencies is definitely a government function, but the terms and allocation itself should be in the marketplace and not by the government.  Government control of any bandwidth gives too much power to the government.

The plank of the Communist Manifesto means specifically the control of all communications.  If the government had its way, they would control the internet, telephones, radio, television, and all.  See how far they have gone and how far they would like to go. 

The control of transportation restricts all people in a society except those special few who claim to need transportation free from governmental controls.  They still get their internet, phones, television, radio, and other communications as well—the rest of us are banned, shadow banned, restricted, rejected, and controlled.  That’s the way of a control based government.     

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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