Writing - part x944, Writing a Novel, Still on Punctuation

8 August 2019, Writing - part x944, Writing a Novel, Still on Punctuation

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

Communications have moved in a more unpredictable and interesting manner over time—especially in the modern era.

Communications can occur through any of the senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.  The most obvious seems to be hearing because that is how most of our communication through speech is presented.  However, sight is the most used and powerful of human senses.

Okay, I didn’t hit much on punctuation yesterday.  I focused on vowels and spaces.  I guess spaces are a type of punctuation—perhaps the earliest.  I’ll leap indirectly into punctuation.

I mentioned yesterday that to convenience beginning in around 600 AD both teen Hodos (Christians) and the Masoretes began to mark out chapters in the New Testament documents, the Septuagint, and for the Masoretes in the Torah and the Tanakh.  The reason was to aid apologists and the readers in finding texts.  I really need to mention why it took them so long.  The primary answer is in mnemonics and the second is in rabbinic context.  In some ways, they are the same. 

In about the 600 AD point, the concept of spaces in the words, and now vowel pointlets for Hebrew had become, if not accepted, then inevitable.  Before spaces between the words, all writing is mnemonics.  Mnemonics means the reader has memorized the text.  All the reader has to do is bring to mind any point in the text and the text is immediately in the mind of the reader—that’s how memorization works.  Those who had memorized the text didn’t need chapter breaks for reference—those who were reading and searching through texts through reading did need some help.  Also, those who were reading needed some help in breaking the text into ideas.  The Greeks called these logos while the Romans and we call this ideas or concepts.  The problem is that a Greek logos can’t really be broken into chapters, ideas, or concepts like English or Latin can.  This is a major problem in breaking the Greek into chapters.  Hebrew is a synopsis-body written text, so it isn’t too difficult in Hebrew.  This is also where Rabbinic context comes in.

When everyone has everything memorized, all a rabbi has to do is recite a single portion of any text to bring out a context and concept.  What the rabbi means isn’t just a single statement or part of the context, the rabbi means the entire context.  In the Greek New Testament documents and the Septuagint, this is an immediate problem of understanding.  The writer intended for the reader to take each quote or allusion within the entire context of the quote not just the portion quoted.  You can see how true this is when you review in your mind that until 600 AD there were no breaks other than spaces in the text.  Before about 300 AD there were no spaces in the text at all.  There were no verses, paragraphs, or sentences to quote—everything is a statement in context.  This is called rabbinic context.  If you need more explanation, you should ask your rabbi.

Not much later, the Masoretes and the Christian scholars began to break the text into paragraphs, then sentences, and finally, they numbered the sentences or verses in the text.  This was a great idea for finding information, but a terrible idea from the standpoint of the Greek text.  Hebrew wasn’t so bad, but the language and information isn’t much improved, especially in translation by breaking it into paragraphs (ideas) and sentences.  Both were completely unacceptable in context to the Greek logos to unstated telos structure of the writing.  Whatever, that’s what we have to live with now.  Ultimately, the problem is that, like the Aesop’s fables, the Roman Christians broke the Latin text into paragraphs and sentences based on their language structure and the intro, body, conclusion concept of their writing.  The harm isn’t irredeemable, but it does color our understanding of the text and in some cases missed many of the critical aspects of the logos to unstated telos structure of the original.

Paragraphs and sentences are indeed punctuation structure.  There is more.                

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