Writing - part x961 Writing a Novel, Writing

25 August 2019, Writing - part x961 Writing a Novel, Writing

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

Writing in history and for the purpose of writing—where shall I begin?

We have covered a lot of writing, but perhaps we should focus on history and fiction.  In the beginning was lists.  Lists turned into records.  Records turned into recordings of religious and cultural significance.  What is important to note is that nothing in antiquity claims to be fiction.  The idea of fiction just didn’t exist.

What did exist is two specific things.  The first is oral traditions.  Those oral traditions, we like to call stories, myths, or fables, but that’s not what the reciters thought they were.  They were the cultural or religious records of a people.  I mention, for example, Beowulf, the many Icelandic Sagas, the Odyssey, the Iliad, many of the Gitas, the Egyptian records, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Aeneid.  All of these started as epic poetry handed down by skalds and bards and then eventually written down.  The listeners thought of these writings as entertaining but also as absolute truth from the past.  I can assure you that no one in the past ever imagined that these pieces of epic poetry were in any way not true and not history—that is if they could fully comprehend history.

Perhaps it is important to review the concept of words and writing.  Words, culture, society, and civilization are all directly tied to religion.  The reason for the development of all writing is religion.  I mentioned this before.  Human religion starts as animism.  Animism is a characteristic of societies and cultures that don’t have writing.  With the invention of writing comes pantheonic paganism—or does the invention of pantheonic paganism result in writing.  We don’t know.  What we do know is the way humans are affected by the invention of writing.

We know this by the study of modern none literary societies and the history of early literary societies.  We know that nonliterate people can’t imagine complex ideas or forms.  For example, when a literate person thinks of the concept “chair,” they think of the word chair.  The word chair is a form or archetype.  You can’t imagine all chairs without the stand-in that is the word “chair” that represents all chairs in the world.  A nonliterate person can only imagine a chair they have seen and not an archetype.  The same works for verbs.  If I can’t imagine the verb in action, I can’t imagine the verb.  To be able to imagine an archetype, you require some means to think of that archetype—a symbol, a word, an image, an idea.  Each of these is simply represented in a word.  The word stands in for the archetype. 

Verbs are the same, but even more complex.  Think of the word “love.”  You can’t imagine love as a verb or a noun.  You can imagine actions that might demonstrate love: kissing, sex, touching, fondling, holding hands, and all.  You can’t see the picture of love in your head, only the results or actions demonstrating it.  “Love” stands as a type of archetype—it is a concept.  No nonliterate person can conceive of the idea of love—they have no way to understand it.  Just like the nonliterate can only imagine the chairs they have seen and not an archetype, likewise the nonliterate can’t conceive of the concept of love.

It is possible that early oral epic poems stood in the place of literacy, but in any case, the moment there was literacy, there were archetypes and concepts.  One of the first things the newly literate did was to write down their epic poetry.  And then there was pantheonic paganism.       

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