Writing - part x967 Writing a Novel, Gnosticism

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 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

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  

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