Writing - part xx043 Writing a Novel, Characters and Pathos, Preventing God Machines

15 November 2019, Writing - part xx043 Writing a Novel, Characters and Pathos, Preventing God Machines

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

Perhaps I should go back and look again at the initial scene—maybe, I’ll cover that again as part of looking at the rising action.  The reason is that I’m writing a rising action in a novel right now.

That gets us back to the protagonist—complexity makes the protagonist and the telic flaw one and the same. 

The novel is a revelation of the protagonist.  The telic flaw is connected directly to the protagonist.  The plot is the revelation of the telic flaw.  This connects the protagonist to the plot and the telic flaw.  The point is that to plan a novel, I simply need to plan the revelation of the protagonist.  To accomplish this, you need to develop a protagonist.

When I write you develop your protagonist, you write notes about:

1.     Name

2.     Background

3.     Education

4.     Appearance

5.     Work

6.     Wealth

7.     Skills

8.     Mind

9.     Likes

10.  Dislikes

11.  Opinions

12.  Honor

13.  Life

14.  Thoughts

15.  Telic flaw

I design a protagonist around the initial scene.  This is the way I write a novel.  This isn’t the only way to write a novel, but it is the way I have discovered to write well-conceived and powerful novels.  This goes back to the initial scene. 

Above, I gave you four options for developing the initial scene.  Yesterday, I told you to take two off.  Authors have used three and four, but they don’t produce the kinds of exciting initial scenes we want.  Here’s the list again.

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

Let’s plan to put one and two together.  Let’s also focus on the other characteristics of the initial scene.  Notice that first, the initial scene must include the protagonist.  This should be obvious, but let’s go down the list.  I’m looking at background and pathos.

Looking at the classic pathos developing scene from A Little Princess, the emotions of the characters are not very strong, but the reader is significantly affected by the circumstances and situation.  How can this be?  More specifically, what are the characteristics of a scene or of a characters that builds pathos?

A character is pathos building who through no fault of their own is:

1.     hungry

2.     sad

3.     abused

4.     an orphan

5.     penniless

6.     abandoned

7.     cold

8.     injured

9.     falsely convicted or accused

10.  desiring for information

11.  education

12.  to read

13.  a child

14.  a female

15.  beauty

16.  loss of a child

17.  general loss

18.  friendless

19.  alone

20.  afraid

21.  helpless

22.  isolated

The antagonist or less positively, the circumstances of the setting, produces suffering and misfortune in the protagonist and this results in pity and fear in the reader.  This is the formula for the development of pathos in any fictional work.

Overdramatic is hard to do, but perhaps it is possible.  The worst problem in most cases of melodrama is not any of these, but rather deus ex machina.

Authors prevent god machines or coincidence first by not writing coincidence plots.  The plots I mean are those overused and trite Victorian Era holdovers where the resolution is that the protagonist finds their proper family or place in society.  What might have been convincing in a town of 20,000 becomes unbelievable in a world of seven billion or so.

The other prevention measure isn’t a prevention measure at all but a time machine.  Authors control the time in their novels.  In this way, novels are time machines.  If I get to the resolution and it requires my protagonist to know how to pick locks, the god machine is that the protagonist accidentally or intentionally knows how to pick locks.  The wise author realizes they can turn the coincidence into reality through time. 

One of my favorite and incorrectly used examples of this is in the Flavia DeLuca novels.  Flavia, a ten year old chemistry genius, we learn in the initial scene has been taught to pick locks and to escape bonds.  She learned from her butler cum handyman because her sisters tie her up and lock her up.  You can see the motivation and the need for such skills.  This whole idea builds pathos in the reader for Flavia—again wasted to a degree in these novels.  You would think that Flavia’s special skills would help her resolve the telic flaw of one of the novels.  It helps, but in the first novel, when you most expect the skill to be of use, it isn’t.  Talk about a let down.

Back to the point.  If your character needs the lock pick skill to resolve the telic flaw, introduce early just how, when, and where she learned the skill.  When you need it, it isn’t coincidence, it is simply a skill of the protagonist.  You can use this time dilation effect in all kinds of ways.  For example, not just skills, but things, places, placement, people—everything that is necessary to the resolution of the telic flaw can be recovered or developed in the edits of the novel. 

This is one of the ways the author can develop a plot where the resolution of the telic flaw appears to be impossible, but then provide a means of resolution that appears to the reader to be predictable.  You, as the author, don’t want the resolution to be predictable at all.  You want the reader, in retrospect, to believe the resolution was predictable.  In fact, in the perfectly written climax, you want the reader to be one step ahead of the protagonist.  The resolution means suddenly appears perfectly obvious when just a moment before it was hopeless.  For my favorite example, you should read Dragonsong by Anna McCaffrey.  The resolution of Dragonsong gives a perfect example of the climax of a novel where the reader suddenly is caught in the events of the work.  What seemed impossible suddenly becomes obvious.  The pathos development in this novel is also very well done.  There is only a little sentimentality.  The author uses the circumstances of the protagonist to drive home the pathos the reader experiences.  The power of the work comes from underplaying the sentiment and allowing the natural pathos of the scenes to come out.  Who cannot feel sorrow for the child whose musical skills are phenomenal, but who is prevented from her rightful place?

This is a very powerful pathos building theme.  The author of Dragonsong plays this theme as a cultural refrain based on sexism.  This is a practical motif for the medieval setting of this science fiction novel.  How much more powerful when you are able to excite the same pathos in readers not due simply to sexism, which is a transient social ill, but simply due to the societal, social, or cultural impediments to a skilled person.  For example, the student who wishes to learn but either can’t afford the tuition or can’t succeed to the proper educational institution.  That is not to say Dragonsong doesn’t fill the bill as an outstanding work of fiction.  However, a more powerful work appeals to all readers and not just to a few.  A more powerful work appeals to the pathos of all because they recognize the problems of the protagonist could or are theirs. 

Dragonsong goes a long way to building this appeal, but a less appreciative or sympathetic male reader might reject the protagonist’s problems out of hand.  Likewise, a less appreciative or sympathetic female reader might reject the protagonist of A Sword in the Stone’s problems out of hand because they are the problems of a male in a martial and physically based medieval culture.  What we want to do, and what I attempt to do is produce pathos development that both men and women, boys and girls can appreciate because the desires and problems of the protagonist’s may not be their problems, but the readers can imagine the protagonist’s problems as their own.

For this reason, the reflected worldview provides some very powerful ammunition for the author.               

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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