30 June 2020, Writing - part xx271
Writing a Novel, Make it Sense Setting, Visualizing
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.
Visualizing. Visualizing is the means to write properly
with showing. If you learn to visualize,
you will be able to write well. You don’t
hear much about visualizing, but this is the means most great writers use to
write especially their first cuts. What
does it mean to visualize?
Visualization means seeing the story
in your head, developing it in your head, then writing it down in a coherent
manner. This is exactly what I do. I visualize what my characters are going to
do over and over in my mind. I review the
plots and storylines in my mind. I run
them like film clips and I make notes to remind myself of what my characters
are supposed to do. I place these notes
directly in my manuscript where I can review them and modify them as the novel
develops. I only delete them after I’ve
written the scene or had my character complete their actions. That’s how it works in a nutshell, but I
suspect you want more details.
First, I visualize the actions of my
characters. This means I have to
visualize the setting details including the characters. This starts with the initial scene. The initial scene is the most critical scene
in the novel. If you get a great initial
scene idea, you should write it down immediately. In any case, I usually review an initial
scene and the initial setting over and over in my mind before I begin to
write. Usually, I begin to make my novel
notes. I start with the settings: time,
place, and characters. I usually develop
all these things at once. That’s because
the protagonist, plot, theme, and telic flaw are all one. The protagonist comes with the telic flaw and
the plot and theme come out of that telic flaw.
I’ll repeat for those who don’t remember, the telic flaw isn’t
necessarily a flaw in the protagonist, it is the flaw in the world of the
novel, the protagonist must resolve.
Second, once I visualize the
settings, place, time, characters, and the initial scene, I begin to write the
initial scene. As I mentioned, I have
notes, I’ve already visualized the scene more than once, and the writing of it
is more of a catharsis than an entirely new thing to me. If you remember back to when I was writing
about creativity and the catharsis. I
wrote that you should fill your mind with all kinds of good stuff and then let
it all out in a creative outburst. This
is what Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle called the catharsis. To me, writing is a catharsis. I fill my mind with the details of my story,
and then I let them all out at once. I
visualize them in scenes, and I write them down in scenes. The scene is the simplest major construction
of the novel.
Yes we write starting with letters,
words, sentences, paragraphs, then scenes, but scenes are the simplest
construction in a novel. A novel is a
collection of scenes, hopefully sequential that leads to the telic flaw
resolution. Here’s the outline of the
novel to remind you.
1. The
initial scene
2. The
rising action scenes
3. The
climax scene
4. The
falling action scene(s)
5. The
dénouement scene(s)
Chapters are merely a collection of
scenes or a single scene. Focus on a
single scene at a time. Write your novel
scene by scene. I don’t outline the
scenes, but if it helps you, outline by scene.
Third, focus only on the scene at
hand. Write the current scene. I try to complete a scene in a single
sitting. If you get ideas for another
scene, put it in your notes. I keep two
sets of notes. I always have a note file
for every novel. When I’m writing the
novel, this file is open and I refer to it over and over during the
writing. My note file includes mostly
characters names, short notes on them, place names with necessary notes, and
cumulative notes for the novel. I usually
don’t include plot or telic flaw notes, but I do usually include the theme
statement.
The way I progress the scenes of the
novel is through my notes at the end of each chapter or scene. I’ve written before, the way I pace, measure,
and develop my writing is by chapters.
This is a very artificial method, but it works great for me.
I plan to write a 100,000 word
novel. A 100,000 word novel breaks very
nicely into 20, 5,000 word chapters. A
chapter might contain one to three scenes.
When I sit down to write, I plan to end a chapter at about 5,000 words,
with pica 12 double spaced, and regular margins, that gives about 20 pages of
text. When I sit down to write, I plan
to write about 20 pages or 5,000 words and break to a new chapter. Part of the reason I write this way is
because when I started writing novels on computers, the word processor programs
couldn’t handle novel length works. They
could easily handle chapter length writing.
Plus, in the early computers, there was always the problem of file
errors and problems. Thus, if you broke
your novel into 20 chapters, there was less chance of losing large amounts of
material or your entire novel if you had a file problem. I continue to use this method even though
computers and software has gotten much more reliable. I use it now, more as a method of pacing and
development than for file safety, but you can still see the chance of my losing
an entire novel is much less than trying to write the novel into an entire file. I’ve written extensively about my methods for
files and filing, so I won’t continue at this point.
As I noted, I write by chapter. At the end of each chapter, I include notes
about where I think the novel and specifically the next scene should go. These are notes from my scene development and
from visualizing the characters next moves.
Perhaps I should expand on this, and I haven’t finished with
visualizing.
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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