1 October 2022, Writing - part xxx094 Writing a Novel, Now Communicating the Impossible
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: Let me tell
you a little about writing. Writing isn’t
so much a hobby, a career, or a pastime.
Writing is a habit and an obsession.
We who love to write love to write.
If you love
to write, the problem is gaining the skills to write well. We want to write well enough to have others enjoy
our writing. This is important. No one writes just for themselves the idea is
absolutely irrational and silly. I can
prove why.
In the first
place, the purpose of writing is communication—that’s the only purpose. If you want to write for yourself, you need
to invent your own writing and language that no one can and will
understand. It would be better if you
can’t understand it either.
The purpose
for writing is communication. It really
has no other purpose. You can give it another
purpose just as I can use your head as a hammer. A head as a hammer will do little for the
nail, the head, or the accomplishment of the work and the work of writing is
communication.
If you aren’t
using writing to communicate, you are using your head as a hammer—not good. In fact, irrational.
Writing is
literally the communication of ideas in the brain of the writer to the brains
of others. This process begins with speaking,
but speaking is very different than writing.
I hope that’s something you already got out of this discussion.
We have
finally arrived at the communication of the non-real.
We have
symbols and archetypes when we have literacy.
Literacy allows the communication of ideas. Yes, ultimately we are writing about word,
but I already proved to you that with literacy, we get words that are otherwise
impossible to understand or know. We get
words like love, and there are many others.
We literally
get words that can’t be drawn with a picture or that can’t be shown to
anyone. Love is one of those types of words. It is a noun and a verb that can’t be
pictured or shown with an action. Love
can be projected as a god or goddess, but that just stands in the place of the
word for those who aren’t literate.
In addition to
symbols like love, we get archetypes.
With both of these we can communicate the incommunicable through writing. This isn’t where writing starts, and it may
not be where it ends, but this is how we as writers use language in writing.
In the first
place, the writer imagines something in his or her brain. Whatever the author imagines, they want to
communicate this idea to another person.
Writing provides a standard means of communication with a non-standard
means of communication. What is this?
I usually
write that the author wants to provide word pictures to the reader. The author doesn’t just want the reader to read
the words, the author wants the reader to see what the author is
projecting. The only way to do this is through
word pictures. These word pictures are a
thousand times more powerful than real pictures. Just imagine, in a word picture, I can use
the term love. This term has a very
powerful but abstract meaning. I can’t
draw it or show it. I can only provide
it in a word picture to excite the mind of the reader.
Thus with
word pictures, as an author, I can present the world I see to my readers. Mainly, an author uses figures of speech to
achieve these word pictures. I won’t go through
all the figures of speech again. If you
want deep details on figures of speech, refer to my earlier blogs on them. I think I covered every figure of speech possible
in this blog or my short form blog. In
any case, a figure of speech can relate a word picture for a very complex word
or words.
The words
themselves in a figure of speech build a picture for the reader such that the
reader can imagine a similar scene in their mind. Thus, if I write “the beautiful sky candle,”
or perhaps, “the love infused sea,” or “the love infused fields.” These are just simple and short examples of
figures of speech. Most author develop
extended figures of speech especially in description to make the reader see
what they also see.
Now, we know
that we can’t really show our readers exactly what we see—we use figures of
speech and more or less detailed description with figures of speech to allow
the latitude of the reader to build the picture on their own. For example, I recommend about 300 words for
a major character or a major scene description, more than this doesn’t
necessarily make for a bad description, but it might give too much. Most of the time, authors don’t give enough description,
so I wouldn’t worry about too much. Just
realize, you can write too much. Just
look at the Victorians and especially George Elliot. I love George Elliot, but she is one of the most
overly descriptive writers in history.
Most don’t give nearly enough.
This is the
beginning of the entire point of fiction writing. This is what makes fiction writing fiction writing. It is the communication of the mind of the
writer to the reader through word pictures.
This is entirely different than other types of writing. It’s still all about communication.
Writing is the
abstract communication of the mind through symbols.
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.
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.
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
fiction, theme, plot, story,
storyline, character development, scene, setting, conversation, novel, book,
writing, information, study, marketing, tension, release, creative, idea, logic
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