Writing - part xx296 Writing a Novel, more Types of Plots

25 July 2020, Writing - part xx296 Writing a Novel, more Types of Plots

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 21^st 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

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.  This moves us on to plots and initial scenes.  As I noted, if you have a protagonist, you have a novel.  The reason is that a protagonist comes with a telic flaw, and a telic flaw provides a plot and theme.  If you have a protagonist, that gives you a telic flaw, a plot, and a theme.  I will also argue this gives you an initial scene as well. 

So, we worked extensively on the protagonist.  I gave you many examples great, bad, and average.  Most of these were from classics, but I also used my own novels and protagonists as examples.  Here’s my plan.

1.     The protagonist comes with a telic flaw – the telic flaw isn’t necessarily a flaw in the protagonist, but rather a flaw in the world of the protagonist that only the Romantic protagonist can resolve.

2.     The telic flaw determines the plot.

3.     The telic flaw determines the theme.

4.     The telic flaw and the protagonist determines the initial scene.

5.     The protagonist and the telic flaw determines the initial setting.

6.     Plot examples from great classic plots.

7.     Plot examples from mediocre classic plots.

8.     Plot examples from my novels.

9.     Creativity and the telic flaw and plots.

10.  Writer’s block as a problem of continuing the plot.

Every great or good protagonist comes with their own telic flaw.  I showed how this worked with my own writing and novels.  Let’s go over it in terms of the plot.

This is all about the telic flaw.  Every protagonist and every novel must come with a telic flaw.  They are the same telic flaw.  That telic flaw can be external, internal or both.

We found that a self-discovery telic flaw or a personal success telic flaw can potentially take a generic plot.  We should be able to get an idea for the plot purely from the protagonist, telic flaw and setting.  All of these are interlaced and bring us our plot.

For a great plot, the resolution of the telic flaw has to be a surprise to the protagonist and to the reader.  This is both the measure and the goal.  As I noted before, for a great plot, the author needs to make the telic flaw resolution appear to be impossible, but then it happens.  There is much more to this.  Here’s the list of plots I’ve looked at already:

1.     Redemption

2.     Detective or mystery

3.     Messiah

4.     End of the World

5.     War

6.     Anti-war

7.     Revenge or vengeance

8.     Revelation

Here is where plots and themes start to be interposed.  The setting of the Hungry Games is a war or really the beginning of a war through the resolution of the war.  At the same time, Hungry Games starts as a pretty obvious Messiah plot with touches of end of the world.  What’s with this mixture, and should plots really have some many pieces?  Let’s look at it this way.  War is a setting, a theme, and a plot.  We see war as a theme pretty rarely, but anti-war was a very popular theme during the Cold War.  You can see, anti-war is a great theme for governments who want to keep their activities on the down low.  All the anti-war ideas during the Cold War did were to promote the activities of the Soviet communist party.  This resulted in millions of human murdered by the communists and socialists during the Twentieth Century.  Anti-war is a theme and a potential plot, but it was almost uniquely developed during the Cold War.  The war theme, setting, and plot is much more useful. 

As I noted, you can see war used as a setting in many novels.  The beginning of the Twentieth Century saw many novels set in the conflicts of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth.  Some of these also had anti-war themes, but many, although they didn’t celebrate war, did use war as the setting.  Not many had war based plots.  On the other hand, after World War Two, just as after many of the British wars and wars of earlier centuries, we started to see war plots take the stage again.  A war plot has war as the setting, shows war as a necessary evil, and usually involves soldiers of some variety conducting military operations that are eventually successful.  And, yes, you can mix and match all these plots, settings, and themes.  Thus, in the Guns of Navarone, we see a mystery or detective plot in a war setting with a war plot and a war theme.  In Where Eagles Dare, we see a detective plot in a war setting with a war plot and a war theme.  In On the Beach, we see a war setting in an end of the world tragedy and an anti-war theme.  In the Hungry Games, we have an eventual war setting, with a failed messiah plot, an end of the world theme, and an anti-war theme.  In the last Harry Potty novel, we have a messiah plot with an end of the world theme, and a war plot and theme mixed with a vengeance plot.

Now, there is a very interesting add to the list—the vengeance or revenge plot.  These are considered b-grade type of plots, but they exist in some a-grade writing, and I don’t mean Harry Potty.  Jack Vance uses the revenge plot and theme to great success in his Demon Prince novels.  I’m not sure I’ve seen it used with such skill or in many other great novels.  Most of the time, revenge or vengeance plots and themes tend to be rather simplistic or get old fast.  Vance produces a powerful need for vengeance and powerful antagonists to complete the vengeance against.  This is part of the problem with normal revenge plots, the reasons begin to feel unimportant as the protagonist endures and eventually, against normal foes, revenge suddenly seems like well revenge instead of justifiable return.  This is why detective novels are much more prevalent than vengeance novels.  Catching the perp by the hand of the law is usually more interesting than revenge and the falling action and dénouement is the bad guy or gal getting their just deserts. 

Vance solves much of these problems by casting his protagonist as an official private type policeman and detective while keeping the crimes and actions of the antagonist at a fever pitch.  The vengeance isn’t vengeance as much as it is direct action in a detective plot that happens to have the resolution as vengeance.  This is a highly effective means of developing this type of plot.  I mentioned before revelation plots, let’s look at this next.         

   

In any case, lest start with the idea of an internal and external telic flaw.  Then let’s provide it a wrapper.  The wrapper is the plot.       

      

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  

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