Writing - part x984 Writing a Novel, Beginning of Fiction

17 September 2019, Writing - part x984 Writing a Novel, Beginning of Fiction

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

Fiction did not spring fully armed from the mind of Zeus.  It took a long time for human thought to really wrap around the concept of the empirical world and to realize there are concepts that are created from the minds of humans.

Boccaccio and Chaucer weren’t the only ones, but they were some of the first who produced stories purely for the intention of entertainment but that were not based on previous stories, poetry, or ideas.  The world wasn’t quite sure what to call these stories.  Actually, the world didn’t care.  There was no presumption of fiction, fact, myth, or history.  That’s not to say people did not comprehend the difference, but they knew inherently what was “real” and what was fiction.

The people in this time used the historical-legal method to determine what was historical and fact, and what was myth and fiction.  They understood the means to know truth, and they didn’t have any problem with picking out the facts and the fiction.  Part of the reason there is confusion today is because of the Enlightenment and the Empiricists.  I’ll give you the truth.  You may or may not like it.

As I noted, every educated person was taught the historical-legal method until about the beginning of the 20^th Century.  As we have seen, the documents of the New Testament are excellent history.  They are better and more accurate history than any other documents in antiquity.  The world notably assumed that these documents could be nothing but history.  They applied the historical-legal method, and the documents proved the historical reports about Jesus Christ.  As I noted, all documents in antiquity mentioned miracles, sacrifices, and the gods.  The empiricists had no problems with the historical ramblings of the Caesars, Plato, Pliney, or Aristotle.  These were historical, but they were about historical figures in their historical context.  What bothered the empiricists was the problem of the God. 

As I wrote, science in the Big Bang proves God must exists, and Emmanuel Kant proved through philosophy that the not God cannot exist.  The empiricists don’t want to acknowledge there must be a God, and the New Testament documents proves historically the Christian God.  Because they can’t reconcile God with their view of empiricism, they have no other option than to hide the conclusions of science, reason, and history.  The best way to do this is to stop teaching the historical-legal method and logic. 

This is just what we have seen happen.  Before the 20^th Century, every intellectual, in fact, every child was taught the three means to know truth.  Today, only the scientific method is taught to most students up through the university.  Only lawyers are taught the historical-legal method, and only mathematicians are taught mathematical logic, but not rhetorical logic.  The main reason is that once any educated person is taught the historical-legal method in regard to historical documents, the first question the student would ask is, “can you use this with the New Testament or other assumed religious documents?”

The question the empiricists don’t want to answer is just this one.  The answer is, yes, by magnitudes.  In fact, other so-called religious documents grossly fail the historical-legal tests.  All other documents in antiquity have serious issues compared to the New Testament documents. 

The point about fiction is this.  If you have the historical-legal method, you can pretty easily determine what is history and what is fiction.  If you don’t, you have to label the fiction and what you as an empiricist want to be fiction.  The empiricists concluded that the truth of the New Testament documents were too dangerous to them and their empirical agenda.  The result is a worldview based on unreality.  In any case, we see a movement to label documents in the present and the past to match the views of the empiricists. 

Then came or about the same time came the novel.   

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