4 October 2022, Writing - part xxx097 Writing a Novel, Suspension of Disbelief
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.
I’m sticking
with these ideas at the moment. The most
important takeaway for the writer is that your job isn’t just describing,
writing action, and putting together the showing of fiction. That’s part of the technical actions of a fiction
writer, but most importantly, your job is to communicate your mind to the
reader.
We don’t
really care about what you think—your thinking isn’t really part of this. What matters isn’t what you think, but what
you can imagine. This should take all
the wind out of the sails of those who want to make some kind of social
statement. Writing is about entertainment. Social statements are usually not entertaining. They are boring. In fact, fiction writing isn’t about social
statements at all. If you think it is,
your probability of publication is almost zero.
Entertainment is what fiction writing is all about. This is the purpose of fiction, to
entertain. If you aren’t entertaining,
you will fail.
This is the
part where we get into writing the impossible.
The impossible is possible through fiction. The hard part is that the author must make
the impossible seem reasonable. This is
part of the suspension of disbelief.
Hold to the
rational, and if your writing is sufficient, the reader will stick in the
suspension of disbelief. Now, back to
the idea of the created and the reflected worldview.
I love to
write in a created or a reflected worldview.
Both are very easy and fun for me to write in. I rarely write in a real worldview, just
because it isn’t my style. I should
mention, it is very possible to screw up a real worldview for the same reasons
you can screw up a created or a reflected worldview—reason.
No matter
the worldview, reason must govern the world setting. This is part of the idea of communication and
especially the communication of ideas.
In general, the ways that writing works as a system of symbols and
archetypes, the only real difference between the real and the created and
reflected worldviews is subject matter.
The subject matter of the real worldview is what most people would agree
is the actual fabric of the world. The
subject matter of the created worldview is the future or fantasy creation of
the author. The subject matter of the
reflected worldview is the world that might exist in the real world, but no one
is sure. I’ll give an example of the
reflected worldview in a moment.
Back to the
main point of writing. We are taking
ideas from the imagination of the author and the author is using words
(symbols) to communicate what he or she pictures in his or her brain. The only way to convey these pictures
properly is through these word symbols as well as what we call figures of
speech. Figures of speech allow the
writer to use symbols (words) in ways other might never have imagined they
could be used. Wrapped up in all of this
is reason or rational ideas.
Yes, ideas
and communication must be rational. You can
describe a person a blue, pink, red, yellow, green, or white. The real trick of this symbol is to be consistent.
These are metaphors and, of course, don’t
describe the actual color of a person.
The actual color of a person shouldn’t matter except to a racist. What matters is the use of the metaphor in a
rational way to describe a person, place, or thing. There is more to this.
Many times
novels and the ideas in novels are entirely metaphors or better figures of speech. The metaphor is simply a type of figure of speech. It is not improper to have a person bark,
bite, growl, or make any other type of animal noise—this is simply a figure of
speech for the way they responded. I’ve
heard and read all kinds of silly information about how you shouldn’t attribute
animal sounds in tags for speech. I’m
here to tell you, if you don’t you are not really using the symbols of your
craft properly. If you follow every
modern rule by the so-called experts, don’t expect to write like Shakespeare. You can’t and you won’t. The rules haven’t changed, not much.
Actually,
the next place we need to go is the history of novel writing. Let me describe
the reflected worldview and then I’ll move to this next subject. It fits perfectly with our subject.
The
reflected worldview is the worldview that might have existed in the past. It has historical antecedents and a
historical basis although it may not be what the average person believes today.
The reflected
worldview basically includes the supernatural and the unseen in the world. It includes all the historical creatures and
beings the world has asserted at some period of other were on the earth. The historical basis is what makes this such
a fun worldview. The current fad of
magical realism fits directly in the reflected worldview. There is a caveat. The reflected worldview must be based on what
people historically believed. If it is
created by the writer, that isn’t a reflected worldview but a created worldview. An example of this is Harry Potty. Harry Potty is a created worldview and not a
reflected worldview. Rowling’s magic is
not based on historical records or ideas, and no, magic is something people
really believed and some believe exists today.
It always follows certain rules that are documented in The Golden
Bough.
This brings
up a really interesting concept or idea in writing. The reflected worldview is rational because
it is based in history. The created
worldview can have issues when the author just makes up stuff that isn’t
completely rational. That is basically
the problem with Rowling’s novels. The
magic isn’t completely rational. Hey, it’s
written for kids—why did you expect a dissertation?
Most early
writing attempted to be real worldview.
If you notice, however, the idea of what is real has changed quite a bit
since Robinson Caruso.
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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