10 April 2021, Writing - part xx555 Writing a Novel, Turning
Overall Plots into the Telic Flaw
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 |
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. 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:
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%
This time,
let’s start with the plots that we found define the protagonist, and then determine
a telic flaw from that. We will develop a
protagonist and a telic flaw from archetype plots.
I’ve never tried this before but is sounds interesting. Perhaps I’ll determine a protagonist with a
telic flaw I want to write about.
I guess I should approach this in as logical a fashion as
possible. So, I guess we should start
with the overall plots. Here’s the list.
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%
Perhaps one method would be to write a list of the various
types of plots. For example, let’s start
with redemption. What things might a
person be redeemed from. Let’s realize
our list won’t be comprehensive. There
are possibly millions of things a person could be redeemed from, but let’s make
some kind of list. I’ll put down a whole
buch of things—even ones I’m not very interested in:
Redemption:
1.
From some kind of life of sin or
immorality – this is a classic redemption.
This might include criminality, murder, stealing, adultery, rape,
pornography, prostitution, general immorality, and all. This is actually a classical type of redemption,
but it isn’t all there is.
2. From some kind of curse – this is a type of redemption found
in the classics. This is one of my
favorites to use. Here’s some
specifics. How about from being a
vampire, a werewolf, a family curse, a specific curse, from magic use, from
some other esoteric physical belief. I’ll
leave that to your imagination. I can
think of some things, but it might get ugly.
We’ll here is an example, in the days of Galileo much of the world believed
in an terra-centric (earth-centric) solar system (universe). Galileo observed the solar system was
helio-centric (the earth revolved around the sun). Such a redemption from a false belief to a
true scientific belief, could be seen as redemption from an esoteric physical
belief.
3. From an incorrect or evil system of belief. For example, from a cult or a different religion. A classic is from paganism to
Christianity. This is also a type of
classic and historical redemption. The opposite
is true to some people. For example, an atheist
might consider redemption from religion to atheism. This is a pretty varied view of the world.
4. From lack of success to success. This includes from poverty to wealth, from
ignorance to education, from lack of training to training, from lack of skills
to skilled. If you remember, the
redemption plot means the protagonist must do something to change, this becomes
very clear.
5. From physical, emotional, or mental slavery. This really has legs. If the term slavery seems too far, how about
from an abusive relationship or abusive job or an abusive situation. This is a very common theme and plot
today. Think about the Red Badge of Courage
where the protagonist is afraid and a coward.
That is this type of redemption.
6. From a life of penury to a life of value and success. Perhaps this is too much like number four
above, but this is kind of a mix of four and five. The idea that people are locked in a cycle of
poverty or of lack of education is this point.
7.
Are there more—yeah I think so. I’ll try to think of more for tomorrow when
we look at the revelation plot.
Revelation
1.
The protagonist, but this might be
too general.
2.
The life of the protagonist—that’s
just the plot of the novel.
3.
The secrets of the protagonist—that’s
the life of the protagonist
4.
Okay, we can see this is a very
general kind of overall plot. It’s still
important. The protagonist needs something
to reveal. In the past, that is in the
Victorian Era and before, the revelation of the protagonist was a new
idea. The authors did it, but they had
little perception of this idea. In
general, in the early development of the novel, the authors were more
interested in presenting a revelation of the plot and not the protagonist. In the earliest novels, the authors couldn’t
help but reveal the protagonist because they were journal style novels. In a journal, the revelation of the
protagonist is a given, but even with these novels, the author’s focus was on
the plot (what the protagonist did) and not necessarily the protagonist. As the novel evolved and matured, the protagonist
became more and more important, while the plot became less important. This is not to say the plot wasn’t important,
but look at novels like David Copperfield or The Christmas Carol
or Great Expectations. These are
all Victorian Era novels, but their focus is more on the protagonist and the protagonist
revelation than the plot. As I noted,
the plot is still important, but a rambling plot is an indication of a
protagonist revelation. In the modern
era, we see even more focus on the protagonist with the true development of the
Romantic protagonist. Just look at Harry
Potty or any other modern and especially youth novels. Yeah, there is a strong plot, but the protagonist
is the focus. The revelation of the protagonist
is the most important part of these novels.
Where you see a dilution of this is with multiple protagonists and with
multiple plots. Game of Thrones
and The Martian Chronicles are examples of these types of novels. In fact, you will find in most short story
style novels, this is true. In any case,
the revelation of the protagonist means we need an interesting and exciting protagonist. Long story short…
Let’s go ahead and transition to the achievement plot.
Achievement
1.
Wealth
2.
Position
3.
Education
4.
Any goal
5.
Magic
6.
Athleticism
7.
Defeat enemy
8.
Save someone or something
9.
Profession
10. Redemption
11. Solve crime
12. Solve mystery
13. Find something
14. Uncover mystery
15.
Discover something or someone
I’m sure there’s more, but this is a great list. We can pull some of this together and begin
building a protagonist and a plot. Actually,
we will be picking overall plots to make a protagonist.
Let’s say we want a revelation type novel. That gives us a revelation type plot. This means we will focus the novel and the plowe
ts on the protagonist. I think this is a
great idea. If you want to do something different,
you need to focus on the plot in a historical or a science fiction
setting. For example, I have an author
friend who wrote a wonderful historical fictional account of the War of
1812. The focus of this novel was that
war. He followed five different individuals
through the war. That’s five protagonists. Likewise, but in a science fiction/fantasy
setting, the Game of Thrones is a multi-plotline and multi-protagonist
novel that revels lots of plotlines. I
don’t recommend the later although the former is a great idea for this type of
novel.
So, we want a great and interesting protagonist with all
kinds of secrets and stuff to reveal. Then
we need to move on to redemption and achievement.
We definitely want a redemption plot—there are must so many,
and we really want a matching achievement plot.
So what do we want our protagonist to achieve? We could start with the concept of the Romantic
protagonist and move from there. That’s
probably the best approach.
In the end, we can figure out what makes a work have a great
plot, and apply this to our writing.
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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