Writing - part x991 Writing a Novel, Results of Universal Education

24 September 2019, Writing - part x991 Writing a Novel, Results of Universal Education

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.

We live in the era of universal education.  The result of this is multifold.  First, let me remind you of the reasons for universal education.

Number one, the purpose of government according to John Locke and others from the Enlightenment is to protect private property.  The greatest private property is your body, thus life and liberty are protected by the government.  Next, actual property should be protected by government.  According to John Locke and the Enlightenment scholars, there is no other purpose for government.  A welfare, socialist, or largess government was not even considered or conceived by the greats of the Enlightenment.  They saw the problems and the power of the largess government of the Roman Empire and realized that that was a path to political chicanery and vote buying.  They realized as Mills did that the closer a government came in regulating and taxing business, the greater the influence of the government on business and of business on government.

Governments, as the Enlightenment taught us, always try to expand their boundaries.  Politicians and governments seek to take control over all.  We see this in the Roman Republic shattered into the Roman Empire.  They lost sight of the purpose of government.  Likewise, the Athenian Democracy failed and failed spectacularly specifically because they became authoritarian and sought to exert too much control.  We see the same through the eyes of von Hayek who wrote The Road to Serfdom.  In this powerful book, von Hayek proves that all government expansion outside of the protection of private property and specifically into socialism results in socialist fascism and tyranny.  Thus governments are not supposed to take on responsibility for education, but they desire to do so because of the control it gives them.

In the old proverb, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the nation.  Every modern government wishes to eventually raise every child from womb to tomb.  This would expand their power completely over all human endeavors.  Few governments except those that are communist governments like the Soviets, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and Communist China have ever been able to completely take over all children from birth to death.  The Scandinavian nations have asserted this power over their people, but not to the extent of the communists.  Many European nations are striving to achieve this goal.  The USA has taken baby steps, but by asserting en loco parentis and through compulsory education, they are making strong enroads.

As I noted, out of control governments and especially socialist governments attempt to gain control of education through compulsory education.  This is also called universal education.  The problem is that a government can’t run an effective or efficient school any more than a socialist or communist government can run a company, a railroad, or a post office.  Only a capitalistic market can ever run any of these effectively and efficiently. 

Governments have no intention of running their universal education systems effectively or efficiently.  If they did, they would immediately privatize them.  The purpose of government controlled education is multifold.  First, government controlled education produces the type of partially educated serfs the government likes best.  These serfs won’t ever amount to much, but the cream will self-educate and will be propagandized properly.  The wealthy, politicians, and a high percentage of teachers (double compared to the general public) send their children to private and parochial schools.  They want their children educated to be able to control the government and the sheep produced by government education.

Second, government controlled education produces an entire army of government employees who seek greater and greater pay and benefits.  As I noted, the purpose of the government controlled education isn’t education at all—it is the production of a socialist (government owned0 infrastructure and government agency that can never accept a cut in funding or any increase in requirements.  Thus, we produce a voting block of teachers and administrators who can be assure of voting with their pocket books—literally.

Third, as I noted, the infrastructure required for government controlled schools bring in billions of dollars in taxes cities, counties, states, and the federal government can spend for votes and to give money to groups and communities.  All of this is simply vote buying, but it’s for the children.

Fourth, government controlled schools require government officials and elected persons to govern them.  This produces a supply of like-minded and pro-government controlled education flunkies ready for the next step in the government.  If you can imagine that a person who is anti-government controlled schools or even pro-private or parochial schools will never ever be elected to a local school board.  This effectively shuts out anti-government controlled school politicians and assures the next level of political influence is filled with the same types of socialist and anti-capitalist individuals.  If this appears to be the American educational and political system in a hatbox, you get the picture.         

How well is this system working?  The test scores of youth never show any real improvement with time.  The schools cost two to three times that of private or parochial depending on the area in the nation.  The system will never change because the same thinking non-capitalists and pro-government controlled education politicians keep getting elected.  The best thing is that since the government also controls the lottery, the lack of math skills provides a wonderful tax on the math stupid and ignorant poor.  The wealthy are not so easily fooled, and they can do math. 

With government control of education, we must expect low education and continual problems in education.  You must expect these because without a market and capitalism, there can’t be any incentive to improve or provide a good or even a sufficient education. 

In the era of universal education, you can expect a quick decrease in literacy and even basic understanding of 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  

fiction, theme, plot, story, storyline, character development, scene, setting, conversation, novel, book, writing, information, study, marketing, tension, release, creative, idea, logic