Writing - part x994 Writing a Novel, more Modern Reading and Writing

27 September 2019, Writing - part x994 Writing a Novel, more Modern Reading and 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

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.  The ultimate problem with universal education is that it is government controlled and does not result in literacy or education.  This is a critical problem for the modern world—or it should be.

The ultimate question for the writer is how does the era of universal education affect reading and writing?  This is a very important question.  It affects the vocabulary you use, the plots you use, the means of expression, and the genres of writing you use.  Then there is the screenplay culture in modern reading and writing.

To most modern authors, publishers, and readers, the narrative style is dead.  The primary reason for this is the Romantic Era in writing, but screenplay culture has also driven this modernization and improvement in writing.  There is an inherent problem with screenplay culture, but we will get to that.

Thank God narrative style is dead, however many if not most beginning writers don’t seem to realize this.  Part of the problem is that most beginning writers are steeped in the narrative style.  This is the style of all Victorian literature and much of the beginnings of Romantic literature.  Unfortunately, many of the first person and popular young adult novels are written in a sloppy narrative style.  To be clear, this is one of the real problems of the first person novel.  In the first person, the author either must stick to the viewpoint of the protagonist or move to an omniscient narrative view.  That’s what usually happens, the protagonist is going along on their way and bang, the omniscient comes out in force.  This is usually overlooked by young adult publishers because the plots and themes of young adult literature is usually not all that great and the kids don’t know any better.

Adult literature isn’t supposed to be this way.  The expectation is that the author stick to the third person and the dialog style and show and not tell.  The telling is narrative.  The showing is dialog and action based narrative.  Ultimately, the picture of the modern novel, is that the author place the characters on the stage of the novel and let them go.  The description is for the stage and the characters, the dialog and actions make the plot of the novel.  Then you can go too far—that is called screenplay style.

The problem with screenplay style is that it presents the plot of the novel in a screenplay rather than a novel setting.  There is all showing as if the writer is describing a movie.  The problem with the screenplay style is the lack of figures of speech and the lack of setting description.  A classically described screenplay style novel is Jurassic Park.  The author is well known for leaving out necessary description and a lack of in depth writing—not to mention, he doesn’t fully comprehend chaos math. 

Back to beginning writers.  Most young authors cut their teeth on the Victorian novels.  At least, I hope they did.  I recommend, modern science fiction or the main era of science fiction for example, Heinlein, Vance, Brunner, Norton, Niven, Pournelle, Panishin, just to name a few.  These are high end science fiction authors who understand the writing craft well, and who know how to show and not tell.  Don’t look to Dickens of the Bronte sisters for great modern writing skills—go for the modern experts. 

Why not list modern nonscience fiction authors.  Well those are really hard to find, and they tend to creep into telling too much.  Just look at Tolkien.  Tolkien never saw a narrative he didn’t like to tell.  He is a terrible example of how to write a modern novel well.  He was too steeped in the Victorian and the Anglo-Saxon.  There are good showers in the literary community, but science fiction has pressed the bounds of Romantic writing and showing for a while.  You can compare them and see when a little narration might be appropriate and when it isn’t.

You can also look at my novels and see how to show and not tell, as well as proper use of third person dialog style.  

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