Writing - part x955 Writing a Novel, Wireless

19 August 2019, Writing - part x955 Writing a Novel, Wireless

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.

The invention of the radio is the invention of wireless.  This is the beginning, and it started in 1895.  Marconi demonstrated the first wireless (radio) transmissions in 1895, and they were Morse code transmissions.  This is the first great connection between wired and wireless transmission. 

The invention of the telegraph made the initial concept of the wireless radio transmission possible.  The original and for a long time wireless communications was based on Morse code.  The reason is the complexity of radios and tuning.  I know the average person never thinks much about this stuff.  The writer of especially historical fiction needs to know not the details, but the general history of these communication means.

Transmission down a wire is pretty simple until you need to start switching the signal to different sources and destinations.  Even then, switching is basic electronics—on and off and switch to the correct place.  It gets complicated, but it’s much simpler than wireless.

The problem with wireless is not only do you have all the other problems of the wired communications, you have to tune transmissions and receptions.  Remember the crystal radio you made when you were a kid.  If you don’t or didn’t, you need to get a crystal radio kit and build one.  Your crystal will allow you to tune the reception of the radio within a transmission range.  What you need to realize is to transmit, you need a crystal, and you need to be on a specific frequency.  In the past, at the beginning, the radios could only transmit on one frequency.  Multi-frequency radios were only a glimmer in the minds of the engineers. 

Originally, radios could only transmit and receive on a single frequency.  Then someone invented a multi-crystal, multi-frequency receiver.  If you remember those movies were the radio controlled tuned the radio to the null by turning a tuning knob—the sound was a squeal that went to a peak or to a zero.  This was tuning to the null.  Up until the 1980s, many radio receivers stilled tuned to the null.  I used one in aircraft.

Transmissions was a similar problem, but at first, the best you could do was to have a single crystal for transmission.  Eventually, radios came with crystal sets.  The radio might have two, four, six, or more frequencies.  In many of these radios, the operator had to select the crystals and the frequencies he or she wanted to take on a mission.  These radios were typical during the Second World War.  It was only after the war that multi-frequency radios in a large frequency range came into existence. 

These radios had tuning systems and were very complex.  Most of them had an automatic null tuning system which used a motor to rotate the antenna or the tuner to a crystal.  You could hear these tuners operating.  Things improved in the modern era, but this stuff is still complicated.  We’ll get to this next, but here’s what this means.

In your novels, if you use radio communications, I suggest you understand them to the level where you have used them or talk to someone who uses them.  For any radio system, you need to do your research.  The era by decades is critical to radio communications.  The equipment is critical.  Morse code was common until the 1960s or 1970s.  It is still a basic capability of any radio system, but users and decoders are hard to come by.  Automatic systems are possible and not that unusual.  In fact, the teletype is a Morse code translator. 

You can and should use the radio capability and system to the full extent in your writing—if you can.  If you don’t know or don’t understand, you need to figure out something else.  I haven’t read any terrible novels in terms of radios, but I’ve read few where the author fully understood the systems—that is except for the great science fiction authors, many of whom were communications people in the military in World War Two.  They still didn’t put in enough detail.  I think they should have because it would have added immensely to the science fiction and the history projected in their novels.         

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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