7 June 2021, Writing - part xx612 Writing a Novel, Plots and Classics, Frances Hodgson Burnett
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.
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.
*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?
The British Broadcasting Corporation ignores great children’s
literature unless it is perverted. Perhaps
the greatest British work for children and adults from the Victorian Era is A
Little Princess.
All of Burnett’s novels are wonderful. They represent the perfect literature for
children in the age when heroes and heroines came from the parlor and not the
battlefield. In this regard A Little
Princess is perhaps the greatest piece of British literature from the Nineteenth
Century. What Katy Did is the
greatest piece of American children’s literature from the same time
period. What I need to explain is why A
Little Princess is better—better enough to call a true classic.
*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.
A Little Princess
is about Sara Crew and her exile to a British boarding school from India. She is a nearly perfect child in every way—so
much so she is like a princess. Her
father dies and leaves her penniless and without a single relative. She must make her way as a servant in her
school, teach children, and run errands.
She has little hope for the future.
The Secret Garden is
almost as great a novel as A Little Princess. The difference is that the protagonist, Mary,
is the opposite of a good child. She
learned only to be selfish and self-serving although she also came from a
military father and an aristocratic mother.
Her parents die and leave her to her Uncle. Mary must change to become a pleasant and
productive child. She redeems herself and
her cousin.
In some ways, The Secret Garden is a greater book and
novel than A Little Princess, because it is redemptive, but the lack of
a Romantic protagonist and purely Romantic plot makes A Little Princess better. I’ll try to explain this.
Let’s evaluate these novels 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?
These two novels are remarkable and wonderful novels. They are entertaining in the extreme. I find A Little Princess to be more
entertaining, but they are both great.
These novels are both three times novels. You should have had them read to you as a
child, have read them yourself, and have read them to your children. In addition, I have read these novels just
for fun over and over.
There are many many adaptations of these novels. Most of them are good. Some are better than others. These novels are classically Victorian, and
that makes them easy to adapt. I’d like
to see some accurate and well done movies of these novels. Most of them miss key points because of
modern ideas and stupid interpretations, but they aren’t as bad as the really
bad ones like Heidi and Tarzan.
Sara and Mary are not Romantic protagonists. This is unfortunate. If they were, these would be nearly perfect
novels. In spite of this small problem,
they are still great protagonists. Just
a few tweaks might have made them Romantic.
Both of these novels has somewhat Romantic plots. By that, I mean the author presents us a
problem that appears to be impossible to resolve, but in the end seems
inevitable. That is one of the redeeming
characteristics of the novels and what makes them so entertaining.
These two novels present the highest of human values. Where they miss is from the religious
standpoint. Not that they don’t include
religion, but the Victorians presumed religion.
What these novels needed was more of God as the means of redemption and
not just the assumption of redemption through God.
The uniqueness of these novels comes from the use of middle
class and noble children in pathos. The
wealthy and noble were usually not set in a pathos setting, that had to wait
for the Romantic Era. The power of this was
to present realistic characters who were like the readers but in a pathos
state. This excited the entertainment values
of novels and their popularity.
These novels really projected the future because they made
the middle and noble class become pathos bearing characters. That was new and became the basic setup for
most children’s or at least many children’s novels. Just look at Harry Potty for just this
development. He was middle class, an
orphan, and abused—that’s pathos developing.
Mary and Sara started it all.
What’s the difference between these two novels? If you haven’t read them, you need to. If you
haven’t, you need to read them right way.
The main difference between A Little Princess and The Secret
Garden is the characters. Sara is a
princess and maintains her character and her strength. She is tempted to lapse, but she perseveres. Mary is a problem child who needs help. She is unpleasant from the beginning. This is what really affects the reader and
the novels. We love Sara from the
beginning. We dislike Mary from the beginning. She has zero appealing qualities. This works great for the novel, but ruins the
protagonist for us readers. That’s
it. I’ve been writing about this in my
other blog.
We’ll look at Rudyard Kipling 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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