12 May 2021, Writing - part xx586 Writing a Novel, Plots and Classics, Louisa May Alcott
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.
|
|
|
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.
For Novel 32: Shiggy
Tash finds a lost girl in the isolated Scottish safe house her organization
gives her for her latest assignment: Rose Craigie has nothing, is alone, and
needs someone or something to rescue and acknowledge her as a human being.
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 is our list of 112 classics. I told you this is a compilation of lists
from various sources. These are all true
classics in most every genre of literature.
What I’m going to do now is look at the list and evaluate if they include
a Romantic protagonist or a Romantic plot.
Second, I’m going to mark those that are true classic novels with an asterisk.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy – No Romantic protagonist or
Romantic plot.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy – No Romantic protagonist or
Romantic plot.
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
*13 Dune – Frank Herbert –Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier – Somewhat Romantic protagonist and
Romantic plot.
*17 The Cadwal Chronicles – Jack Vance – Romantic protagonist and Romantic
plot.
*19 The Green Pearl Novels – Jack Vance –Romantic protagonist and Romantic
plot.
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic plot.
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchel – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic plot.
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic plot.
*25 Starship Troopers – Robert Heinlein – Romantic protagonist and Romantic
plot.
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky – No Romantic protagonist or
Romantic plot.
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
*29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll – No Romantic protagonist and
somewhat Romantic plot.
*30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame – No Romantic protagonist or
Romantic plot.
*33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis –Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
43 Til We All Have Faces – C.S. Lewis – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
*37 The Tale of Genji - Murasaki Shikibu – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic plot.
*38 The House of Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne – No Romantic protagonist
and somewhat Romantic plot.
*39 The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne – Somewhat Romantic protagonist
and Romantic plot.
*40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic plot.
*42 Dracula – Bram Stoker – No Romantic protagonist and a Romantic plot.
44 Le Morte D'Arthur - Thomas Malory – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins – No Romantic protagonist and somewhat
Romantic plot.
*63 The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery –Romantic protagonist but no Romantic
plot.
*48 Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott –Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
51 What Katy Did - Sarah Chauncey Woolsey under her pen name Susan Coolidge –
Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
*52 A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett – Somewhat Romantic protagonist
and somewhat Romantic plot.
53 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett – No Romantic protagonist
and somewhat Romantic plot.
*56 Kim - Rudyard Kipling – Romantic protagonist and somewhat Romantic plot.
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic plot.
64 The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett – Somewhat Romantic protagonist and
somewhat Romantic plot.
*65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas – Romantic protagonist and
somewhat Romantic plot.
*97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas – Romantic protagonist and Romantic
plot.
66 As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
*68 Robinson Caruso – Daniel Defoe – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
*69 The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane – Somewhat Romantic protagonist
and somewhat Romantic plot.
*70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic plot.
*72 Don Quixote - Miguel De Cervantes – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
*73 Heidi – Johanna Spyri – Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
*74 Hans Brinker - Mary Mapes Dodge – Romantic protagonist and Romantic
plot.
75Ulysses - James Joyce – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic plot.
77 The Big Sky Country – Arlo Guthrie – Somewhat Romantic protagonist and Romantic
plot.
78 Germinal - Emile Zola – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic plot.
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray – No Romantic protagonist or
Romantic plot.
*80 The Black Arrow - Robert Louis Stevenson – Romantic protagonist and
Romantic plot.
*82 Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson – Somewhat Romantic protagonist
and Romantic plot.
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
86 For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemmingway – No Romantic protagonist or
Romantic plot.
*87 Tarzan – Edger Rice Burroughs – Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad – Somewhat Romantic protagonist and no
Romantic plot.
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery – Somewhat Romantic protagonist
and no Romantic plot.
*93 Huckleberry Fin – Mark Twain – Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams – Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
*95 Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
*96 Matilda – Roald Dahl – Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl – Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
*100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo – Romantic
protagonist and Romantic plot.
*101 The Once and Future King – T.H. White – Somewhat Romantic protagonist and
Romantic plot.
*102 The Deerslayer – James Fenimore Cooper – Romantic protagonist and Romantic
plot.
104 Ben Hur – Lew Wallace – Romantic protagonist
and Romantic plot.
105 The Robe – Lloyd C. Douglas – Romantic
protagonist and Romantic plot.
106 The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
*109 The Call of the Wild – Jack London – Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
*110 Stand on Zanzibar – John Brunner – No Romantic protagonist or Romantic
plot.
*111 The Shockwave Rider – John Brunner – Romantic protagonist and Romantic plot.
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.
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.
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%
I’d like to willow down the list of classics to some true
entertaining classics. We’ll then look
at these in more details.
Let’s do a little comparison between these classic works and
evaluate them. Here is how we will
evaluate them:
1.
Are they entertaining?
2.
Would you read it again?
3.
How’s the protagonist?
4.
How’s the plot?
5.
How does it relate to actual human
values and life?
6.
Did the author write in a way that
makes this work truly unique?
7.
Is this work important to humanity
and to the future?
Yes, the British Broadcasting Corporation left off a bunch
of great American writers who I had to add back in. Actually, to be correct, it’s the novels we
are writing about and not the authors.
The authors just happen to come along with the novels. In any general list of classics, Little
Women should be included, but is Little Women a true classic. Perhaps.
I pulled it off the list just because of this specific question. I think it is worth reading, but it is a dated
classic with less for modern readers and writers than some of the others.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott – Somewhat Romantic protagonist or
Romantic plot.
Little Women
deals with the youthful trials and tribulations of four girls during the USA Civil
War period. Their father is away at war
and they face middle class privations while their mother helps people in their community. Now, that’s the official line. In reality, this is a story about four pretty
normal children all with hopes and aspirations.
They happen to be the one percenters of their times. They really are the wealthy class and not the
middle class. In the Nineteenth Century,
the modern and Western World was still slowly moving out of a starvation
culture. Those who had plenty of money
ate well, the rest did not. You could
levy this fault on almost every Victorian Era novel and those before. It was only at the movement into the
Twentieth Century that food became relatively available and it still was a starvation
culture for the poor.
My chief gripe with Little Women is on three
points. The first is that we have a
wartime setting novel with no wartime plot.
That is almost criminal. Especially
in the USA during the Civil War. What
readers really wanted to know is what was happening in the world around the
four girls, and they get nothing. From
the novel, there is no affect for them at all.
Their sisters in the South are being raped and killed by Federal
Troops. Their Northern sisters are
losing lovers and in some cases their lives and livelihoods, and these girls or
the author is oblivious to it. Some
wartime setting with a wasted potential plot.
My second gripe is that this is really a novel about the
wealthy and privilege. As I noted this
complaint could be made about any of the novels preceding it, but in the USA,
this is especially interesting because the USA itself had a very large and
growing middle class, mostly farmers. We
don’t get middle class farmers but rather wealthy townsfolk. I’m great with that, but the author seems
oblivious of the nature of the Little Women household and position. I wanted to read about the times and the
wealthy certainly didn’t live in the times.
My third gripe is the same as every reader of the novel from
the beginning and, as I understand, the publisher. The protagonist of Little Women
marries the last man in the world the readers imagine she should marry. Her reasons are barely understood by
her. We must conclude that Little
Women was really never an honest or forthright attempt to show the reader a
story of courage and fortitude like the readers would enjoy. We can’t be sure what the author was
thinking, but the climax doesn’t fit and disappoints more than it uplifts
especially in a children’s novel. It as
if the author is saying, you can have all your desires and wishes foiled by
making the choices in life you shouldn’t make.
Further, notice most of the rest of Alcott’s novels fade
into obscurity. This is true for many
classic writers. They have many stories,
but only one great novel that can be considered a classic.
Let’s evaluate this novel according to the criteria.
1.
Are they entertaining?
2.
Would you read it again?
3.
How many movies/plays are there of
the novel?
4.
How’s the protagonist?
5.
How’s the plot?
6.
How does it relate to actual human
values and life?
7.
Did the author write in a way that
makes this work truly unique?
8.
Is this work important to humanity
and to the future?
Yes, Little Women is entertaining until the last
third, then it gets strange. Right as Jo’s
success, the novel takes an odd twist.
Yes, I’ve read this novel more than once. The first time I was disappointed. The second time, I was sad for the writer and
the protagonist. The third time, I
couldn’t finish it.
Yes, this novel has been adapted in many other media. The problem is that overall story has issues. These issues with the ending have been fixed
in various ways, but they still leave the reader or viewer with a bad taste in
their mouth. Jo makes more people sad by
her poor choices than anyone in comedy literature.
I’d go with Jo is a prototype Romantic protagonist. The real problem is she compromises in
situations no real Romantic protagonist should or would. She does have a special skill, that of
writing. For some reason, the author
could not help but strike Jo down in her success.
The plot is not Romantic. The plot is dismal. Jo should have married Laurie. The end result was sadness for the reader,
the families, and perhaps Jo herself. This
is the message conveyed very well by the author and many adaptations. Pretty sad.
Yes, the human values are important, but how much more
important they could have been if the novel actually reflected the history and
times. It is a sad loss of basic human
information that would have made the novel much more than an entertaining youth’s
novel.
Perhaps the most important point of Little Women is
its unique appeal to youth and to women of the times. At the same time, the author could not really
allow her protagonist independence or even her own mind. Something happened in the baking of the novel
that baffles the reader. It is unique in
some ways, but loses that uniqueness in others.
Little Women
is a snapshot and not the earth breaking work it could have been. A little history, a little deprivation, a
little more of the people and the society, a little more real reader’s appeal,
and the novel could have been much much more.
As it is we do have a torn and incomplete snapshot of the times and of a
family ignoring the greatest conflict on the shores of the USA.
We’ll look at Thomas Hardy next.
In the end, we can figure out what makes a work have a great
plot and theme, 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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