24 December 2022, Writing - part xxx177 Writing a Novel, A New Romantic Protagonist, Paragraphs Topics in Scenes, Topics for Tension and Release
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: 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. Writing is the abstract communication of the
mind through symbols. As time goes by,
we as writers gain more and better tools and our readers gain more and better
appreciation for those tools and skills—even if they have no idea what they
are.
We are in
the modern era. In this time, the action
and dialog style along with the push of technology forced novels into the form
of third person, past tense, action and dialog style, implying the future. This is the modern style of the novel. I also showed how the end of literature
created the reflected worldview. We have
three possible worldviews for a novel: the real, the reflected, and the
created. I choose to work in the
reflected worldview.
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.
With that said, where should we go? Should I delve into ideas and creativity
again, or should we just move into the novel again? Should I develop a new protagonist, which, we
know, will result in a new novel. I’ve
got an idea, but it went stale. Let’s
look at the outline for a novel again:
1.
The initial scene
2.
The rising action scenes
3.
The climax scene
4.
The falling action scene(s)
5.
The dénouement
scene(s)
The initial scene is the most important scene and part of
any novel. To get to the initial scene,
you don’t need a plot, you need a protagonist.
Let’s be very clear.
You can start with a plot, a protagonist, an idea, or an idea for an
initial scene. The easiest and most
controlled method is to start with a protagonist. As I’ve written over and over, a protagonist
must come with a telic flaw. I think it
is impossible to have a protagonist without a telic flaw, but I suppose you
could develop a completely lackluster protagonist without any telic flaw
connected to them.
Here is my list for the characteristics of a Romantic
protagonist. I am not very happy with
most of the lists I have found. So, I
will start with a classic list from the literature and then translate them to
what they really mean. This is the
refined list. Take a look.
1. Some power or ability outside the norm of society that
the character develops to resolve the telic flaw.
2. Set of beliefs (morals and ideals) that are different
than normal culture or society’s.
3. Courageous
4. Power (skills and abilities) and leadership that are
outside of the normal society.
5. Introspective
6. Travel plot
7. Melancholy
8. Overwhelming desire to change and grow—to develop four
and one.
9. Pathos developed because the character does not fit the
cultural mold. From the common.
10. Regret when they can’t follow their own moral compass.
11. Self-criticism when they can’t follow their own moral
compass.
12. Pathos bearing because he or she is estranged from
family or normal society by death, exclusion for some reason, or self-isolation
due to three above.
13. From the common and potentially the rural.
14. Love interest
Here is the protagonist development list. We are going to use this list to develop a
Romantic protagonist. With the following
outline in mind, we will build a Romantic protagonist. However, I’m going to ignore the first
step. Instead of starting with an
initial scene, I’m just going to design a Romantic protagonist. Then we may apply the outline to them.
1.
Define the initial scene
2. At the same time as the above—fit a protagonist into the
initial scene. That means the minimum
of:
a.
Telic flaw
b.
Approximate age
c.
Approximate social degree
d.
Sex
3. Refine the protagonist
a.
Physical description
b.
Background – history of the
protagonist
i. Birth
ii. Setting
iii. Life
iv. Education
v. Work
vi. Profession
vii. Family
c.
Setting – current
i. Life
ii. Setting
iii. Work
d.
Name
4. Refine the details of the protagonist
a.
Emotional description (never to be
shared directly)
b.
Mental description (never to be
shared directly)
c.
Likes and dislikes (never to be
shared directly)
5. Telic flaw resolution
a.
Changes required for the protagonist
to resolve the telic flaw
i. Physical changes
ii. Emotional changes
iii. Mental changes
b.
Alliances required for the
protagonist to resolve the telic flaw
c.
Enemies required for the protagonist
to resolve the telic flaw
d.
Plots required for the protagonist
to resolve the telic flaw
e.
Obstacles that must be overcome for
the protagonist to resolve the telic flaw
Here’s what I want to do or how I want to place these on a
protagonist. Let’s clean them up a
little and begin to evaluate a protagonist.
I’m not ready to write a new novel yet, and I’m too busy to
put the extra time to write an initial scene.
I’ll repeat. I just
finished up Rose, and I want to finish up Cassandra. I’m moving in that direction. For now, I’ll focus on the finishing steps of
Rose, and then the marketing development steps. This might get tedious, but I’ll try to keep
it meaningful and helpful.
I am into heavy editing for Rose, and I’d like to
finish with Cassandra. I’m using Cassandra
as an example for my other blog, so I really do need to catch it up before I
run out of material. In any case, I was
going over the basics of real editing.
I’ll repeat myself.
If you have a problem with basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation, you
might not have the required level of education to write effectively. If this is true, you need to get more
education and of the correct types.
True editing is about language, ideas, and reason. It’s not just about grammar, spelling, and
punctuation. We’ve moved well away from
spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I’m
looking at sentences.
Yes, sentences are much more difficult than words. Look at words. I just need to ensure they are spelled
correctly, are the correct word, are not repeated, and sound right. Sound right is something we haven’t looked at
yet—we shall. That is an advance editing
technique.
Sentences are something else entirely. When we look at sentences, we need to look at
word order, word use, grammar, which includes, punctuation, correct verbs,
correct number, correct tense, and all.
We have touched on these with the word list.
Word editing is simple compared to sentence editing, but
sentence editing may be the most important for cohesiveness, clarity, and
understanding. We really haven’t gotten
into logic and reasoning much. I’ve
centered our original editing on the words, and showed you how editing words
can be used to help edit sentences. I’m standing by the, but you must get to
the more important parts of sentence editing.
Let’s turn sentence editing into logical or reasoned
editing, as well as touching on paragraph or multi-sentence editing.
We’ve looked at word editing and then sentence editing. The next stage is multi-sentence editing. This specifically means paragraphs. I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming. Yes, paragraphs are the next stage of editing,
and this is a very important part of editing.
Unfortunately, many writers have no idea first how to craft
a paragraph, second where to break paragraphs, and third how to use paragraphs.
We all know we are supposed to use paragraphs, but many have
never been taught how to write a paragraph, break, or use them. This is a problem of education. Let me remind you about how to write a paragraph. Every paragraph has the following form:
Topic sentence
Sentences supporting, arguing, and/or developing the topic
Conclusion or implied completion
Tie to the next paragraph
This is how every paragraph should be written except one
type—dialog. In English, we break each
statement of dialog by a new speaker into a paragraph break. That doesn’t mean the dialog statement is a
complete paragraph—it’s just the way we break dialog. Extended dialog can be broken into
paragraphs, and each of those should follow the paragraph development form.
Pretty simple, yes?
Paragraphs are relatively simple, but they are perhaps the biggest problem
for new writers. The best hope for you
is to write a lot. Look at your
paragraph structure. Make certain your
paragraphs connect in some fashion. Know
when to stop and when to start a paragraph.
Next, let’s look at these:
Connecting paragraphs
Breaking paragraphs
Paragraph order
Topics in paragraphs related to scene development
I wrote that the order of the paragraphs relates directly to
the scene development outline, and that this flows into the topics of the
paragraphs related to scene development.
If everyone understood this little point, we would have a lot more great
writers, and our inexperienced writers would begine to blossom as never before. That’s because scenes are the basis of writing
fiction and novels. To perfect scene
writing is to perfect fiction writing.
I’m repeating the scene development outline below:
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
Yesterday, I noted the following as the most basic form of
paragraphs in the scene. This is the
minimum. I’m not certain you can write a
scene in four paragraphs. You can try,
and your scene based on this might be better than many others who have no clue
about writing scenes.
Scene setting (introduction of creative elements)
Scene tension development (chronological)
Scene release
Scene kicker
I’ll repeat that this is a recursive order. That is, this means if you have multiple creative
elements to use to build tension the scene paragraph order might look like
this:
Scene setting (introduction of creative elements)
Scene tension development (chronological)
Scene setting (introduction of creative elements)
Scene tension development (chronological)
Scene release
Scene kicker
And this. You might
also have multiple releases in the scene.
Then the order would look like this:
Scene setting (introduction of creative elements)
Scene tension development (chronological)
Scene release
Scene setting (introduction of creative elements)
Scene tension development (chronological)
Scene release
Scene kicker
Now, I will state the obvious (to me). Each of these paragraphs is headed by a topic
sentence. That means that each has a
very specific point in the scene. That
should be obvious by the outline, but may not be exactly obvious because most
of us don’t write this way. Whoops, then
why look at it this way?
There is more than one reason. The first is to get you acquainted with
paragraphs as the bedrock of the scene.
This is a critical idea that every author needs to understand. Built into
this is the idea of paragraph organization—this is not taught well enough to our
students. The topic sentence is a major
piece of this.
Next, we need to develop the scene for tension and
release. The best way to approach this
is through paragraph organization. You
might not write this way, but you need to think this way. That is, you need to think in terms of
setting, creative, plot, and climax elements.
This type of thinking naturally drives the topics of paragraphs. You might not think this way, but you will or
must write this way.
Ultimately, even if the author isn’t thinking in terms of
paragraph organization in the scene, he or she will be writing this way. If he or she isn’t, there will be a
significant disconnect in the writing. Furthermore,
the tension and release in the scene is the most critical element in the
development of the scene. Wow.
Ultimately, the question comes down to how do we write great
tension and release? I’ll try to give a
very short synopsis of this. I’m mostly
trying to write about editing, and not just about tension and release. The question is are your scenes exciting and
entertaining. Mine are. I write scenes to be entertaining and
exciting. How do I do it?
In the first place, I plan every scene for excitement. In one of the most recent scenes I want to
use as an example, I had Rose and Robyn from my newest complete novel, Rose:
Enchantment and the Flower or Lady (I’m still figuring out the title), take
a couple of bikes and go riding. Rose
had never ridden a bike and Robyn is eight.
Do you see the setup here? The
entire idea is exciting and recks of entertainment. I have them plan to make an excursion around
the island of Rousay.
Setting elements?
There are all kinds of cultural and building things around Rousay on the
main road around the island. Its about 6
miles around, so not to much for even a new bike rider. Part of the problem is learning to ride a bike. I’ve used this motif more than once in my
novels. Learning to ride a bike while
under pressure to achieve and to travel is a great builder of excitement and
entertainment. I didn’t like all the
places you can see around Rousay Island, but they are all part of my setting
elements.
I turn these setting elements into creative elements by
having my characters go to them and interact with them. This provides tension and release. For example, can you imagine the first time
Rose gets on a bike. Robyn tries to help
her, but Robyn is eight and can only help so much. Rose falls, but gets up. The entire first tension development is Rose
learning to ride. I bring in all kinds
of fun help and stuff, but the point is that the first tension build is learning
to ride a bike. The first big release is
that Rose learns to ride and is exhilarated.
She is also injured. That is a
small tension development. Robyn has
brought bandages and antiseptic spray.
That is a tension and then a release.
Next, they explore a cairn and a broch.
That’s just fun with a slight tension and then release. Next, Rose gets a call from the Merfolk or at
least aquatic Fae. That is the big
tension development in the scene. I draw
this out for nearly the entire scene. The
contact and information from the Merfolk drive many creative elements to plot
elements. This also includes a gift they
give to Rose for her help. Ultimately,
the excursion and the communication with the Merfolk allow Rose to discover the
mystery of Rousay and help Shiggy complete her assignment. That is a plot and part of a climax element.
This scene is filled with tension and release. It is a long scene, almost a chapter. Let me reiterate: every scene I write in every novel is
designed like this. Not all are such
powerful scenes, but every one if filled with excitement and entertainment. I’ll give another example.
In Rose, when she is first found by Shiggy, Rose is
covered with at least five years of dirt wearing a dress she outgrew years
before. No underwear and only a
pocketknife to her name. Shiggy is a
fashion maniac, not because she is necessarily a fan of fashion—Shiggy is an
intelligence officer in the MI structure.
Her job is to look a certain part all the time. She abhors dirt on humans, bad fashion, and
bad manners. Can you imagine what Shiggy
will do to Rose? That’s an entire scene. The entertaining part is that Shiggy must
teach the completely ignorant and uneducated (about human hygiene and fashion)
Rose in her Shiggy method of teaching. This
is highly entertaining to me, both to write and to read. As I noted to you, determine from your
characters what the scene should show, and develop exciting and entertaining tension
and release into the scene.
The best way to develop tension and release is through setting
elements turned into creative elements turned into plot elements turned into
climax elements.
We build these scenes with paragraphs. Each paragraph has a topic sentence that drives
the tension and release. That’s the
entire point.
I want to move on to editing dialog next.
I’m certain there is more.
We can add topics as we go along.
We’ll continue to look at logic and reason as we transition to
multi-sentences and paragraphs.
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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