31 August 2019, Writing - part
x967 Writing a Novel, Gnosticism
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 29th 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 30th novel, working
title Red Sonja. I finished my 29th 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
Pretty interesting that human
thought was so greatly affected by religion—it gets worse, or better depending
on your point of view. If you notice, we
reached science from the mysterium. The
predictable secrets were the effects that required a telic cause. The concept of the telic cause was the
philosophical name the Greeks gave to god.
But the concept of science required a different answer than god—it required
something else and something that was repeatable. This was what Aristotle consolidated in the scientific
method.
We aren’t certain if Aristotle
invented the scientific method, but this was the third means to know truth that
the Greeks had been searching for. If
you remember, the historical-legal method is used to prove nonrepeatable
(unique) events—basically history and historical events. Logic is the second method to know truth, and
is used to prove nonmeasurable events (like math). The scientific method is used for repeatable
events.
Science itself uses all three
methods to prove truth, but the scientific method is perhaps the least usable,
but the most important for science and technology. At the same time, we use math, logic, and the
historical-method in science. Let’s see
how the scientific method works in regards to the secrets of the
mysteriums. Actually, it is easier to
help you understand the scientific method by looking at a concept that was
evident everywhere, but not really understood as a concept until Isaac
Newton. The concept is gravity.
Gravity fits our criteria for a
secret perfectly. If we imagine the
concept of gravity as an always predictable effect, then we have the perfect
idea to prove using the scientific method.
If I drop an object of any mass (weight) and measure it’s time of fall,
in a vacuum, it will always take the same time to fall the same distance. If I drop a non-aerodynamic object or an
object that never reaches an aerodynamic speed, it will always take the same
time to fall the same distance. What
this means is if I drop a ball, for example, ten feet, no matter the weight of
the ball, it will fall at the same rate.
I can measure the time of fall.
The ball will accelerate that is its speed (velocity) will continue to
increase as it falls until it hits the ground.
If I measure the time of fall, it will be the same, actually, it will
never be the same. The time of fall should
be the same every time, but because of the inaccuracy of my timing device, the
inaccuracy of my dropping device, the inaccuracy of my measuring device for
distance, and all, the time will possibly be the same, but realistically, each
experimental drop will be slightly different than the last. The time will be close, but not the
same. Dropping a ball to measure the
time of fall is a repeatable experiment.
Let’s say I repeat this experiment
ten times. I will get ten different
results. I take the ten results and
calculate a mean and a standard deviation from the mean. This is using math (logic) to determine the
mean of the result—this allows us to determine the approximate value of the
acceleration of gravity. It’s a little
more complex for this because I actually need to compute speed and
acceleration, and that requires math too.
In any case, I get a value for gravity and a standard deviation for my experiment. If I controlled the experiment well and did
my math correctly, I will get a value that is close to the actual value for
gravity. If I make enough experiments, I
will eventually get a number that is exactly correct for the acceleration of
gravity.
The secret is that the balls will
fall the same distance in the same amount of time—this is the effect. The cause is gravity, and with the scientific
method, the historical-legal method, and logic, I can determine the acceleration
due to gravity. This is the force of
gravity—the force of the cause.
This was a masterful piece of
information to the people of the ancient world.
They could prove that not only was the secret predictable, but it was
understandable. Now, a real secret was
pi and the Pythagorean Theorem. These can
be got at with logic only, but they only represent a couple of the secrets we
knew. The point is that geometrically, I
can use the scientific method to determine these causes—that is pi and the
theorem.
The power of this concept was
amazing. It didn’t reduce people’s understanding of God or gods, what it did
was allowed humans to move from the idea that spirits and gods caused the
secrets and forces in the world to the idea that the forces of the world were
features of the world—the ancient Greeks would say of the Cosmos. What this led to in religion was
Gnosticism. This was really an
unintended fault of Christianity, but was caused by the advent of the human
understanding of forces of nature 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
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
