Writing - part xx044 Writing a Novel, Characters and Pathos, Reflected Worldview and God Machines

16 November 2019, Writing - part xx044 Writing a Novel, Characters and Pathos, Reflected Worldview and 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.

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.               

I can identify with Anna McCaffrey’s protagonist even though she is a girl, a musician, and from a medieval culture that isn’t anything like my own or anything in our world.  Part of the reason for this is my own worldview and part of this is the author’s created worldview.

There are three types of worldviews a writer can build a novel from.  First a real worldview.  A real worldview is a worldview entirely built on the real world.  There is fiction in the plot, settings, characters, and themes but not in the worldview of a real worldview.  I’m not sure how I can express this more strongly.  A real worldview is based entirely on the current cultural and social event horizon.  I guess I should explain this.

The cultural and social even horizon is what people believe about their world and their times.  For example, in the real worldview of the middle ages before 1400, there was no America.  No South America.  There was no printing press.  There was no aircraft.  You can go on and on about what didn’t exist or what wasn’t known.  People had no idea that germs caused illness.  A novel written in this time that is 1400 could only be written with a real worldview based on all these things that didn’t exist in anyone’s minds.

Today, the same is true.  We think we are a peak of knowledge, but although we know more about the world and science today, we are as ignorant of some things as were the people in 1400.  An author writing with a real worldview can only write from the current event horizon.  Then there is the reflected worldview.

A reflected worldview is a worldview that starts from an event horizon based on belief and not on the real world.  Here’s where things might get a little miffed up.  There are things in human thought that not everyone agrees are real.  An easy example is dragons.  Most people agree that dragons don’t exist and never existed.  However, dragons are a fixture in human thought.  At one time, most humans agreed dragons exist, and there is a body of information about dragons.  If you want to call this myth, that’s great.  Then there are gods or God.

Some few people don’t believe in gods or God today.  Many people do believe in gods or God.  There are bodies of literature based on gods and God.  To be clear, I am not intentionally equating any ideas or religion just giving you a focus on worldview.  Some people believe in vampires, but most do not.  There is still a large body of writing both fiction and mythical about vampires.  Are vampires real—they are in a reflected worldview.  A worldview that is based in what humans have imagined in a cultural or social horizon about the world is a reflected worldview.  It is reflected because it reflects the belief of humans about their world.

Again, to be clear, many Christian writers (I among them) know the reflected worldview about Christianity is a real worldview.  I am not foolish enough to agree that everyone thinks this.  Therefore, when I include Christian ideas in my novels, I handle them as I do a reflected worldview.  My purpose in writing is to entertain you and nothing else.  If you learn something from my writing it is only because of the accuracy of my writing and historical details. That’s the point after all, a reflected worldview can be as accurate historically and in the real world as an real worldview.  The difference is that a reflected worldview can include all kinds of neat stuff and information—like dragons, vampires, fairies, gods, goddesses, spiritual creatures, ghosts, and everything else that has and can come out of the human mind.  This is what makes a reflected worldview.  I like the power of a reflected worldview for what it allows me to do as a writer.  I feel that I can express ideas and humanity with much greater power and depth than a real worldview.  Then there is a created worldview.

Anna McCaffrey writes mainly created worldviews.  The world of Pern from Dragonsong is not a real or a reflected worldview, it is a created worldview.  It is based on other human worldviews, but it is not based in the real or a reflected worldview.  The author had to completely design the worldview that is the setting of the novel.  It is a science fiction novel after all.  The power of the reflected and the created worldview is the ability to express ideas and pathos that may apply to a greater audience of readers than a real worldview might.  Dragonsong represents this.

The created and the reflected worldview allows more room for the author to develop pathos.  Additionally, they allow the author more latitude to resolving the telic flaw.  

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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