21 June 2020, Writing - part xx262
Writing a Novel, Problems with Perfect Tense
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 29th 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.
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Cover
Proposal
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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 30th novel, working
title Red Sonja. I finished my 29th 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
Ideas. We need ideas. Ideas allow us to figure out the protagonist
and the telic flaw. Ideas don’t come
fully armed from the mind of Zeus. We
need to cultivate ideas.
1.
Read novels.
2.
Fill your mind with good
stuff—basically the stuff you want to write about.
3.
Figure out what will build ideas in
your mind and what will kill ideas in your mind.
4.
Study.
5.
Teach.
6.
Make the catharsis.
7.
Write.
The development of ideas is based on
study and research, but it is also based on creativity. Creativity is the extrapolation of older
ideas to form new ones or to present old ideas in a new form. It is a reflection of something new created
with ties to the history, science, and logic (the intellect). Creativity requires consuming, thinking, and
producing.
If we have filled our mind with all
kinds of information and ideas, we are ready to become creative. Creativity means the extrapolation of older
ideas to form new ones or to present old ideas in a new form. Literally, we are seeing the world in a new
way, or actually, we are seeing some part of the world in a new way.
I’ve worked through creativity and
the protagonist. The ultimate point is
that if you properly develop your protagonist, you have created your
novel. I should move back to the initial
scene, but I’ve been writing about showing and not telling in my short form
blog, and I want to expand that out a bit in this blog. Let’s move on to perhaps the most important
feature of the novel: showing and not telling.
Novelists are not storytellers. Novelists are story-showers. I hope you have heard the fiction writer’s
adage: show and don’t tell. This is the
most important aspect of the internal construction of the novel.
I will reveal that in reviewing a
recent self-published author’s book, I was compelled by the wholesale telling
in the book, I can’t call it a novel, that I had to address each area where the
author failed to show. That’s where I came
up with the following list:
Show and don’t tell.
Omniscient voice is poop.
Only write what the characters saw,
tasted, felt, smelled, heard, said, or any action.
Identity is a problem.
Don’t tell.
It’s all about dialog.
Perfect tense can be a problem.
It’s all about the senses.
Don’t be boring.
Eating is living and dialog.
Creativity and senses.
Start with scene setting.
Make it sense setting.
Visualizing.
So just what does it mean to show
and not tell? This seems to be a very
difficult question for new writers as well as a source of contention for
experienced writers. It seems that many
writers can’t agree or even concede on what showing vs. telling really means.
Not to worry—I have the answer.
What’s wrong with perfect
tense? Well, nothing at all. What’s wrong with adverbs? Well, nothing at all, but the fiction world
has a jihad out against adverbs. If you
didn’t know that, I’m glad to inform you.
I’m personally much happier to accept an entire class of words, adverbs,
than to use three specific verb tenses.
You might ask, what is perfect tense? Let me remind you, but let me warn you. If you aren’t familiar with how we describe
English constructions, you might need to put in some study. This is basic stuff for the writer. Here are examples of the perfect tense:
Present perfect: I have seen it.
Past perfect: I had seen it.
Future perfect: I will have seen it.
Present particle: I am seeing it.
I threw in the present participle
tense just to show you how interesting artist jihads are. I’m not very happy with the present
particle. I’ve written about it
before. It should only be used when the
character is accomplishing more than one critical action at a time. In every other case, you should weed it out
of your writing. Many authors don’t seem
to have much problem with the present particle, but the present participle in
English is a type of adverb. Notice in
the example, the verb form “seeing” modifies the “to be” verb. “Seeking” is an adverb modifying the meaning
of “am.” We shazam, it’s an adverb. Back to the perfect tense.
What’s wrong with the perfect
tense? I’m with Arlo Guthrie, Jr. If you pick up his Field Guide to Fiction Writing, you will see he isn’t enamored with
the perfect tense either. He, like I am
not against the use of the perfect tense, but let’s just see what the purpose
of the perfect tense is in fiction.
First of all, let me remind
you. We are writing in the third person,
past tense, showing style. Some of you
might be writing in the first person, past tense, showing style. If you aren’t writing in either of these
manners, you aren’t writing contemporary fiction, or you are writing in an
experimental style. I can’t help
experimental, but let’s go with contemporary fiction. Everything in contemporary fiction is in the
past tense. This means the past tense,
for all intents and purpose, is the present tense. To move into the past, the proper use of
tense requires the author to write in the perfect tense—the past perfect to be
exact, but in English, we have many options.
Writing in the past perfect isn’t a
problem until you realize how terrible it sounds. Plus, I’m less worried about how it sounds
than what it connotes. I would like to
use Arlo Guthrie, Jr.’s example, but I don’t have it in hand. Let me try to show you. Here is an example:
Jack stood quietly in the
forest. He listened with great
care. Suddenly, the snap of a branch brought
his face slowly around. He strained his ears. A dear paced not ten feet from him where he
tried to appear like just another tree.
The entire incident brought his thoughts back into the past. He had remembered another deer and another
meeting. In that one, he had barely kept
his scalp. The deer had hidden a red
savage who had been looking for him. He
had barely stopped his body from running through the woods. He had barely prevented himself from becoming
the target of a razor sharp axe. He had
nearly lost his life…
And so on. Do you see what happened? The tense changed from past to past perfect
to accommodate the “flashback.” Arlo
tells us that in this case, the author should present the past perfect for a
couple of sentences and then move back to the past tense. This makes the writing sound better. I’ll go one further. Do you see that movement into the past
perfect also indicated a change in the writing from showing to telling? The protagonist, Jack, was the point of view
(PoV) of the author showing us what was happening around him. With the movement to the past, Jack was
suddenly telling us what happened to him in the past. That’s great, but it’s telling. It might even fit in this circumstance. I’m a good enough writer to make a scene
where the telling doesn’t seem so bad.
How about this?
Jack climbed the steps in front of
the municipal building. He thoughts
returned to the man he was supposed to meet.
Jim had been a great war hero. He
had been educated in the best academies in the land. He had been a warrior on the front lines…
Do you see in this example, the
telling is just telling. Perhaps this is
information Jack knows, but it’s still telling.
The movement to the perfect tense indicates this movement from showing
to telling. I’d rather show than
tell. Therefore, the use of the perfect
tense is a good indicator of telling in your fiction. When you catch it, you need to evaluate it
carefully. If it is good writing and
necessary to the plot, theme, and telic flaw, then you might leave it in. On the other hand, my experience with the
inexperienced is that many times it is too difficult to tell what is good and
bad in your own writing. For that reason
alone, I suggest a jihad greater than the jihad against adverbs. If it is in the perfect tense or the present
participle and it’s not in dialog, kill it.
When I write, kill it, I mean put it into the past tense. If you find you are telling, stop it, and put
your writing into the past tense.
I’m not against adverbs at all, but
I righteously go through my writing looking for –ing forms to eradicate. So far, I’ve show you, get rid of
identity. That means you look for was
and were in your text and either replace it with other verbs or rewrite
it. I’ve warned you about the perfect
tense. This means you search for had in
your text and either replace or rewrite.
In addition, I search for –ing and –ly in my text. This catches the present participle and
adverbs. In every case, I evaluate if
the form of the verb and the use of the adverb is necessary. If it is I leave it in. If it isn’t, I replace or rewrite it. In addition, the verb forms indicate
telling. You really want to reduce your
telling. Remember, show and don’t tell.
The beginning of creativity is study
and effort. We can use this to
extrapolate to creativity. In addition,
we need to look at recording ideas and working with ideas.
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
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
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