Writing - part x928, Writing a Novel, Personal Rides

23 July 2019, Writing - part x928, Writing a Novel, Personal Rides

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

Transportation means have changed significantly over time. 

At first real transportation was about cattle cars—not usually literally, but you had to sit in proximity to many other people, you had to be on time, and you could only travel to places the trains went.  This was obviously limiting.

The transportation companies tried to reduce the effect of these problems.  The wealthy could buy more space and private spaces, but they still had to be on time and they could only go where the trains ran.  The world was becoming smaller, but not small enough.  Someone finally got the people out of the cattle cars.

That person invented the motor car—the automobile.  The automobile ideally needed a road and the better the road the better, but an automobile was much more capable than wagons and horses and oxen—transportation just became infinitely better.

At first, the roads were limited and most people couldn’t afford automobiles, but they could ride on buses or taxi cabs.  These were chartered automobiles.  These weren’t that new, buses and taxis existed in the age of the carriage.  Not everyone could afford carriages and horses, but automobiles were ultimately affordable. 

How can that be?  The cost of commodities and products always go down with time.  The cost of operations can and should go down, but they can only go down so far.  The cost of maintaining horses or oxen is very high.  You need space, feed, animal doctors, and they eventually die.  A common automobile engine at the beginning produced about 100 times the power of a horse at a significant reduction in cost.  For example, I have to feed a horse about a bale of hay a day.  I can run an automobile all day with a few gallons of fuel—and I am getting the same power as 100 plus horses. 

The maximum speed of an encumbered horse might be about 30 miles per hour, but a horse can’t keep that speed for very long.  They might average about the same as a person 5 to 8 miles an hour.  An automobile doesn’t require space, it does require fuel and occasional maintenance.  You can name it, but you don’t need to.  In any case, cars are operationally much less expensive than a carriage…and the average person could own one.

In the beginning, and even today, you don’t need to—you can charter an automobile, hire a taxi.  You can also rent an automobile.  The most important point of the automobile is you don’t have to be on time and you can have pure privacy.  Rent or own and it is yours.  You can travel wherever roads go and even were roads don’t go.  Ultimately, the governments became afraid of the freedom the automobile presented to the average person, they began discovering ways to curb the automobile and the ability to travel. 

The first was a license.  You couldn’t just let anyone drive.  That reduced the poor and the disadvantaged, but it wasn’t enough.  In some nations, the cost of a license to drive is as much as $10,000 a year.  This definitely keeps the poor and disadvantaged off the road. 

The next means is to make the cost and licensing of automobiles very expensive.  In most European nations, the cost to license a car is about $10,000 a year.  The nations, to protect the people, force auto makers to put all kinds of expensive dubious safety devices on the automobiles.  These make the cost of the vehicle go up significantly.

The third means is through taxes.  Fuel taxes make car operations very high.  Car taxes, make purchasing expensive.  Property taxes, keep the costs high. 

Authoritarian governments don’t want people to be able to travel without the permission of the government.  Automobiles give the average person the ability to move where and when they want.  The only means of transportation the governments fear more than automobile transportation is air transportation.  

And then there were war machines.   

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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