Writing - part xx527 Writing a Novel, Still After the Big Reveal

 13 March 2021, Writing - part xx527 Writing a Novel, Still After the Big Reveal

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:

 

Here is the list of classics that everyone should read.  What I want to do is evaluate this list for the plots. 

 

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Dandelion Wine – Ray Bradbury – Best modern novel in English.  

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible – Most important book to understand Western culture.

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 We The Living – Ayn Rand

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

 

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Dune – Frank Herbert

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare – better to see as plays

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 The Cadwal Chronicles – Jack Vance

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Green Pearl Novels – Jack Vance

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

 

21 Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchel

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 Starship Troopers – Robert Heinlein

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

 

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand

37 The Tale of Genji - Murasaki Shikibu

38 The House of Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne

39 The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

 

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 Dracula – Bram Stoker

43 Till We Have Faces – C.S. Lewis

44 Le Morte D'Arthur - Thomas Malory

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand

 

51 What Katy Did - Sarah Chauncey Woolsey under her pen name Susan Coolidge

52 A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett

53 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling

56 Kim - Rudyard Kipling

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 Beowulf – Unknown

60 The Odyssey – Homer

 

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins

64 The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett

65 The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Robinson Caruso – Daniel Defoe

69 The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

 

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Don Quixote - Miguel De Cervantes

73 Heidi – Johanna Spyri

74 Hans Brinker - Mary Mapes Dodge

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno – Dante

77 The Big Sky – Arlo Guthrie

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

 

80 The Black Arrow - Robert Louis Stevenson

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

83 The Gulag Archipelago - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

84 The Miser – George Eliot

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemmingway

87 Tarzan – Edger Rice Burroughs

88 The Death of Socrates – Plato

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 I, Robot - Isaac Asimov

 

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 Huckleberry Fin – Mark Twain

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift

96 Matilda – Roald Dahl

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

 

101 The Once and Future King – T.H. White

102 The Deerslayer – James Fenimore Cooper

103 The Black Book of Communism – Various

104 Ben Hur – Lew Wallace

105 The Robe – Lloyd C. Douglas

106 The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan

107 The Histories – Herodotus

108 Lives – Plutarch

109 The Call of the Wild – Jack London

110 Stand on Zanzibar – John Brunner

 

111 The Shockwave Rider – John Brunner

112 The Aeneid – Virgil

 

This is what I did.  I looked at each novel and pulled out the plot types, the telic flaw, plotline, and the theme of the novel.  I didn’t make a list of the themes, but we identified the telic flaw as internal and external and by plot type.  This generally gives the plotline. 

 

We have a list of all the major plots from this list of classics in literature.  The question is what can we do with it?  This is the first step in evaluating our results.  I took a percentage of the results based on the number of classics. 

 

Modern writing is all about the Romantic—both Romantic protagonists and Romantic plots.  This is where we are going and this is the focus of modern entertaining literature. 

 

In the end, we can see there are just a few baseline plots that are characteristics of most classics.  These are the revelation, achievement, and redemption plots.  When I write these are baseline, I mean that they are overall plots that might also have a different plotline or other plots directly supporting them.  Here’s what I mean exactly about each of these plots:

 

Redemption:  the protagonist must make an internal or external change to resolve the telic flaw. This is the major style of most great modern plots.

 

Revelation:  the novel reveals portions of the life, experiences, and ideas of the protagonist in a cohesive and serial fashion from the initial scene to the climax and telic flaw resolution.

 

Achievement:  the novel is characterized by a goal that the protagonist must achieve to resolve the telic flaw. 

 

I evaluated the list of plots and categorized them according to the following scale:

 

Overall (o) – These are the three overall plots we defined above: redemption, achievement, and revelation.

 

Achievement (a) – There are plots that fall under the idea of the achievement plot. 

 

Quality (q) – These are plots based on a personal or character quality.

 

Setting (s) – These are plots based on a setting.

 

Item (i) – These are plots based on an item.

 

All of the plots we looked at fall into one of these five.  Let’s do that:

 

Overall (o)

1.     Redemption (o) – 17i, 7e, 23ei, 8 – 49%

2.     Revelation (o) –2e, 64, 1i – 60%

3.     Achievement (o) – 16e, 19ei, 4i, 43 – 73%

 

Achievement (a)

1.     Detective or mystery (a) – 56, 1e – 51%

2.     Revenge or vengeance (a) –3ie, 3e, 45 – 46%

3.     Zero to hero (a) – 29 – 26%

4.     Romance (a) –1ie, 41 – 37%

5.     Coming of age (a) –1ei, 25 – 23%

6.     Progress of technology (a) – 6 – 5%

7.     Discovery (a) – 3ie, 57 – 54%

8.     Money (a) – 2e, 26 – 25%

9.     Spoiled child (a) – 7 – 6%

10.  Legal (a) – 5 – 4%

11.  Adultery (qa) – 18 – 16%

12.  Self-discovery (a) – 3i, 12 – 13%

13.  Guilt or Crime (a) – 32 – 29%

14.  Proselytizing (a) – 4 – 4%

15.  Reason (a) – 10, 1ie – 10%

16.  Escape (a)  – 1ie, 23 – 21%

17.  Knowledge or Skill (a) – 26 – 23%

18.  Secrets (a) – 21 – 19%

 

Quality (q)

1.     Messiah (q) – 10 – 9%

2.     Adultery (qa) – 18 – 16%

3.     Rejected love (rejection) (q) – 1ei, 21 – 20%

4.     Miscommunication (q) – 8 – 7%

5.     Love triangle (q) – 14 – 12%

6.     Betrayal (q) – 1i, 1ie, 46 – 43%

7.     Blood will out or fate (q) –1i, 1e, 26 – 25%

8.     Psychological (q) –1i, 45 – 41%

9.     Magic (q) – 8 – 7%

10.  Mistaken identity (q) – 18 – 16%

11.  Illness (q) – 1e, 19 – 18%

12.  Anti-hero (q) – 6 – 5%

13.  Immorality (q) – 3i, 8 – 10%

14.  Satire (q) – 10 – 9%

15.  Camaraderie (q) – 19 – 17%

16.  Curse (q) – 4 – 4%

17.  Insanity (q) – 8 – 7%

18.  Mentor (q) – 12 – 11%

 

Setting (s)

1.     End of the World (s) – 3 – 3%

2.     War (s) – 20 – 18%

3.     Anti-war (s) –2 – 2%

4.     Travel (s) –1e, 62 – 56%

5.     Totalitarian (s) – 1e, 8 – 8%

6.     Horror (s) – 15 – 13%

7.     Children (s) – 24 – 21%

8.     Historical (s) – 19 – 17%

9.     School (s) – 11 – 10%

10.  Parallel (s) – 4 – 4%

11.  Allegory (s) – 10 – 9%

12.  Fantasy world (s) – 5 – 4%

13.  Prison (s) – 2 – 2%

 

Item (i)

1.     Article (i) – 1e, 46 – 42%

 

Starting with the protagonist makes novel writing about as easy as it is possible to make novel writing.  As I wrote, if we start with the protagonist, I can’t guarantee you the next bestseller, but I can assure you it will solve four problems common to novelists:

 

1.     What is the plot?

2.     Why is my novel so short?

3.     Why is my novel so simplistic and uncomplicated in terms of plot and theme?

4.     Why do I get writer’s block when I want to write?

 

Not every writer gets writer’s block.  I never get writer’s block.  I get tired of writing.  I sometimes want to change up my writing (write something different). I never run out of something to write.  How could that be?  Doesn’t everyone get writer’s block?  Only in the movies, and I would say only non-professional writers.

 

Here’s some ideas to help you prevent writer’s block.

 

1.     Nothing anyone writes the first time on paper (or ether) is worth reading, publishing, or anything else.

2.     You gotta write to learn to write well.

3.     If you don’t like it, dump it.

4.     If you are in over your head, just stop and regroup.

5.     These are all helpful ideas for getting your stuff together, but why don’t professionals have the problem of writer’s block?

 

Writing paragraphs may be the most powerful way to train up your writing skills.  None of the paragraphs I wrote as a seventh grader are worth reading now, but they sure helped me learn to write.  We are writing about training.

 

Every paragraph looks like this:

1.     Topic sentence

2.     Body based on the topic

3.     Conclusion and transition

 

Every paragraph looks like this except dialog paragraphs.  These are special paragraphs that are designed through the speaker rather than coherent outline. 

 

You must include tone and body language in the dialog, or the conversation will go awry for the reader.  There is more to dialog to make it sound correct to the reader.

 

I’m repeating in synopsis all my previous advice on writing dialog, but dialog is very important and most beginning (and some experienced) writers seem to have problems with it. 

 

So, we saw that dialog follows normal human conversational order, lets the dialog flow, uses contractions, doesn’t use direct address, expresses tone, body language, tags, and action in the dialog.  These are the most straight forward and best way to correct most dialog.  Then you need to study and practice.

 

Dialog doesn’t always drive to the “big talk.”  Or, perhaps I should let you decide how much of this is “big talk.”  What I want to show you as an example is sideways talk and secrets.  I am still in my novel Essie: Enchantment and the Aos Si.  This novel is filled with secrets and revelations.  This is a true protagonist revelation novel wrapped in a redemption plot.  I’m not sure how much of this I will show you, but for now, we will see the arrival and visit of Seasairdh and Claire.

 

When they finished, they all returned to the guest parlor.  Seasaìdh asked, “So what happened?”

Essie didn’t say anything.  She curled up on the rug in the middle of the floor.  In the wan early sunlight that blinked through the windows, she went to sleep.

Claire looked at her with unbelieving eyes, “Why is it morning?  I woke in the garden.  Did I sleep there?”

Mrs. Lyons and Seasaìdh didn’t know what to say.  Finally, Seasaìdh stated, “It’s Tuesday, Claire.”

Claire stared at her, “But I fell asleep on Sunday.”

The bell rang.  Mrs. Lyons stood, “I wasn’t expecting guests this early.”  She went to the front door.  She returned with Father and Mrs. Maddison. 

Mrs. Maddison glanced around the room at her eyes settled on Essie still asleep, “We missed Essie at her Monday lessons and came to see if everything was all right.”

Mrs. Lyons pointed to the chairs in the room, “Please sit down.  Would you like tea?”

The Father and Mrs. Maddison weren’t sure what to do.  They sat, and Mrs. Lyons went for the tea things.

Seasaìdh shrugged, “Essie is tired today.  We were all busy yesterday.”

Mrs. Lyons came in with the rest of the tea from breakfast.  As she poured, she remarked, “I’m sorry I didn’t call you.  We had a little…um…a little excitement yesterday, but all is well today.”  She didn’t explain any further.

They shared tea, but didn’t elucidate any further.  Mrs. Lyons saw them out with, “We’ll see you tomorrow.  I’m sorry we missed Essie’s lessons yesterday and today.”

Father Maddison returned, “Why don’t you let Essie spend the rest of the week with your friends.  We’ll pick back up next week.”

Mrs. Lyons held the door, “That’s a splendid idea.  Thank you for understanding.”

They walked to their automobile, and Mrs. Lyons closed the door.

When she returned to the guest parlor, Claire was speaking to Seasaìdh, “What happened?  Why did I lose an entire day?”

Seasaìdh asked, “What do you remember?”

Claire closed her eyes, “Essie had gone for tea.  We had been reading our book.  I felt sleepy and laid down on the stone.  I felt so comfortable there in the sunlight.  I dreamed that I was with the most beautiful people I had ever seen.  Their hair looked like the sunlight and their faces as pale as Essie’s.  They spoke a strange language.  The women wore nearly invisible gowns and the men old fashioned clothing.  They didn’t speak to me at all.”

Seasaìdh sounded breathless, “Did you see a black wildcat?”

“No, nothing like that.  I dreamed of a girl who looked like Essie, and who wore a gown like theirs.  Her hair was black and in long braids.  All the golden haired people bowed down to her.”

Seasaìdh glanced at Mrs. Lyons, “Well, Aunt Tilly.  It looks like the trouble may begin soon.”

Claire sat up, “Trouble?”

Mrs. Lyons sucked in her cheeks, “Perhaps no trouble.  Claire, you just slept a long time and experienced a wonderful dream.”

Claire’s face turned petulant, “It felt so real…  Why was Essie naked in the garden?  That was not polite at all.”

Mrs. Lyons took her hands, “Essie is learning.  She came to retrieve you from the garden.”

“Did I sleep there the entire time?   A whole day and night?”

Seasaìdh became evasive, “Perhaps you had a fae dream?”

“A fae dream,” Claire’s nose wrinkled up, “I don’t believe in such things.  Do you?”

Seasaìdh twisted up her lips, “I do know there are things we don’t fully understand in the world.  It is just like the Dagda.  I dunna fully understand, but I do know Him.”

Claire wondered aloud, “Strange things happen around Essie.”

Mrs. Lyons nodded, “Yes.  Strange but wonderful things.  When she wakes, why don’t you read to her again?”

Claire looked toward the garden, “In the garden?  Will I sleep and have dreams again?”

Mrs. Lyons smiled, “Perhaps you will, but I think Essie has taken care of these things on her own and I doubt it will happen again.”

Claire still looked longingly at the garden, “She said she had seen the fae…”

Mrs. Lyons picked up her book, “Perhaps you did too.”

Scenes and scenes and here is a great example of a scene closing.  This is what one of my author friends calls a sequel.  In this scene, we see very little explanation, but a completion of the scene.  In a true sequel, the protagonist reflects on his or her activities and plans the next step in the progress toward the current or overall goal of the novel. 

 

I’m really not into scenes and sequels used in this manner, but still it is a reasonable way to look at them.  In the case of this scene closure, the protagonist, Essie is asleep on the floor. The dialog is all to h benefit of the other characters and the entertainment of the readers. 

 

Our readers know what has gone on. Claire has no idea.  She has been asleep in a fae dream.  Mrs. Lyons and Seasaidh have no idea.  Only Essie (and the readers) know, and she isn’t telling. 

 

The point of this closure is to end the sequence of the scenes and more toward closure for this section of the novel.  There is still a bit more to this—that is the end of this sequence of scenes about Seasaidh and Claire.  I’ll show you the final part so you can see how this is ultimately closed.  My point from the beginning was to show how dialog is used to drive revelation and secrets.  I think I achieved my goal. 

 

In the end, the scene outline is a critical part of each piece of this example.  I should have brought this out with each transition and the movement to each scene. What I do want to point out is the kicker at the end of this scene, and I’ll mention the output of the scene.

 

First, the kicker for the scene is this:

Claire looked toward the garden, “In the garden?  Will I sleep and have dreams again?”

Mrs. Lyons smiled, “Perhaps you will, but I think Essie has taken care of these things on her own and I doubt it will happen again.”

Claire still looked longingly at the garden, “She said she had seen the fae…”

       Mrs. Lyons picked up her book, “Perhaps you did too.”

   

I, as he author, am characterizing this scene and the entire sequence of scenes with these simple statements.  What did Claire see and experience?  What did the readers see and experience?  Was it real or only illusion? 

 

I was real because the author wrote it down and described it all, but we know it was all imagination.  These are simply words on a page.  The readers turn them into pictures in their mind.  The author just provides the imagination and the words.  Was it all a dream?  The next scene might tell us more.  At this point, we see the output is that Claire is not sure, but it must have been a dream.  This is like many experiences we have in our dreams. Sometimes, we even ask ourselves—was that real or only a dream.

 

This is what I really love about secrets and mysteries in novels.  In this case, the reader has been shown an entirely different world than the first blush of Mrs. Lyons’ house and the village of Lyonshall.  There is something secret and unknown lurking in Mrs. Lyons’ garden and in the village.  The reader knows this.  Mrs. Lyons has an inkling.  Seasaidh is familiar with such things.  Claire is unbelieving even though she is a child. 

 

I really love this kind of uncertainty mixed with writing certainty.  It is real because it was imagined and written, but it really isn’t real at all—or is it?  “Perhaps you did, too.”

 

We will see how these play out.  This is what brings entertainment to a novel—mysteries and secrets.        

 

In the end, we can figure out what makes a work have a great plot, and apply this to our writing.     

  

Let’s 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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