1 January 2023, Writing - part xxx185 Writing a Novel, A New Romantic Protagonist, Paragraphs Topics in Scenes, Editing Dialog, Small to Big Talk
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’m leaving this in the paragraph and scene section because
that’s exactly where it should be.
Although in English writing, dialog is treated like individual
paragraphs, we rarely really look at it that way in scene development. Yes, we punctuate it that way, and we put it
together that way, but we don’t tend to treat it that way. I’m as guilty as everyone else at that, but
I’d like to have us look at dialog and especially the editing of dialog in
terms of scenes and paragraphs.
We’ll kind of modify our idea of paragraphs in dialog a
little—let’s call them ideas or complete thoughts.
When we write and edit dialog, we are seeking to make
completed or complete thoughts in the context of the novel and scene. In other words, the writer wants to make some
point, to communicate some idea, or get some information first to the
characters and second to the readers.
This is very important.
1.
Clarity –
a.
Tags
b.
Action
c.
Character setting
2. Realism
a.
Less direct attribution or
identification
b.
More contractions
c.
More real
interaction (correct introductions, etc.)
d.
More showing and not telling
e.
Dum the accents as much as possible
f.
No cutesy stuff
g.
Complex
Dialog may be the most important part of writing, and may
also be the most difficult to master. If
you practice, get experience, and study it, you might have some hope. Then there are the details of the dialog
itself. This is what we will look at
next.
For some reason, realistic interactions is a significant
problem for the inexperienced writer.
I’m not certain why this is, but it’s a real issue, and makes the dialog
not just strange but almost unreadable.
The reason is lack of real human interaction.
Just look at how people interact with one another verbally—they
almost always follow a certain set interaction.
I’ll outline it, and then explain it:
1.
Greetings
2. Introductions and salutations
3. Small talk
4. Big talk (in depth conversation)
5.
Farewells
Almost every human interaction follows this pattern, and everyone
should know it. Perhaps the problem for
the inexperienced is that they don’t converse enough, or they aren’t aware
enough about real human interaction. I
suspect it is just lack of experience, and the desire to get to the pitch
before the buildup.
Buildup and pitch are exactly what we are building up to. We are moving from introductions and small
talk to big talk. This transition is
perhaps the most important in dialog construction. This is also where authors get hung up.
Usually, the problem is moving into the big talk. You see that’s exactly where we want to
go. We need to discuss the big and important
subjects, and we need to transition to them in a way that feels and seems
natural.
You can’t write a complex or entertaining novel filled with
only small talk. You can try, but I’ll
bet no one will read it. If they do,
they’ll not be entertained. The most important
point to remember in dialog is this—the author wants to get out information to
the readers and the characters. That is
the entire point of dialog. There are
just plain entertainment aspects as well, but although that’s not secondary, getting
the information to your readers and characters is not more important than entertainment,
but you need to do it together. Entertain
and communicate. That’s asking a lot.
At this point, let’s just say we want to get information to our
readers and our characters. We hope the
rest will follow—I’ll try to help you with that to, but we are writing about
style and skill, and that is very hard to teach.
Point is, we want to get from small talk to big talk, and we
want to do it so the dialog sounds reasonable and normal. You need to play this out in your mind. That’s the way I do this for every scene I
write. I imagine the characters in the
scene and I write exactly how I want them to seem in the scene. This is all about using imagination to see
the scene and to then communicate the scene including the dialog. I see my characters moving, acting, emoting, sensing,
speaking, and communicating to build from small talk to big talk. A great example is tea.
Bring your characters to tea. This isn’t appropriate in every setting or dialog,
but many of my setting work perfectly for this.
I have tea.
The host pours—actually who pours is a huge deal in serving
British tea. The host pours, offers
sugar, cream or milk, and snacks. The
small talk moves a little about. In
fact, the host might prevent moving to the big talk on purpose before its
time. At some point, when everyone is
served and happily sipping their tea, we might move to the big talk. There must be some reasonable
transition. You don’t go from sipping
tea to “where is my money” in a single word.
We back into this type of communication.
Likewise, we don’t immediately break into the big without
some buildup. I can give you a great
example. Here it is from Rose.
That evening, Erin, Molly, Dorsi, Ava,
Rose, and Robyn sat to tea on the floor of Rose and Robyn’s room. Everyone who came, and everyone who passed
the room could not help but notice the sign beside the door with Lady crossed
out and Rose replacing it.
Those who entered the inner sanctum, the
Holy of Holies of the august Lady Tash, could not miss the white lace, white
coverings, white bedclothes, white drapes, beautiful and obviously expensive
heirloom caskets, oriental rugs, and the pastoral painting above her bed.
Ava walked right up to the painting, “Is
this really an authentic Crome?”
Rose patted the rug beside her, “Come
Ava. I just brought it because it’s my
favorite.”
“Your favorite? Then there are more?”
“Of course, there are more. This is the one my sister let me take from my
room. I really couldn’t be parted from
it.”
Ava sighed a great sigh. She came and sat on the beautiful rug where
Rose indicated.
The others sat in a circle on the very
large, colorful, and astonishingly comfortable rug. Rose set teacups with saucers and a small
plate before each girl. She did it with
grace and flare as though this were the exact job she had accomplished for the King
or at least for royalty.
Ava touched the heavy fabric of the rug,
“Just how old is this?”
Rose was preparing the tea, “It is a bit
tatty isn’t it. I didn’t want another
because the others are a little newer and not as soft.” She whispered, “I think this one was brought
to England around 1806 from Turkey or perhaps India. They call it a silk hundred-year rug.”
Ava put her hands together, “Yes, because
it takes a hundred years to make one.”
Rose laughed, “It’s just a comfortable
place for friends to sit. I’m certain it
was in 1806 too.”
Ava gave her a look that said she was
certain ladies did not sit around on a silk hundred-year rug to drink their tea
in 1806, but for some reason Rose made the whole experience seem as though
everything was perfect and she was indeed just a lady with her friends. Even the way she sat.
Rose sat on her legs to the side in a
very gentile fashion. It looked
comfortable and so elegant. Ava tried to
bring her feet around like that but gave up and sat Indian style like the
rest.
By this time, the tea was ready, and with
an easy cadence, Rose served each of them by pouring the tea, and offering
sugar and cream. The tea ware looked
unbelievable. Ava thought it was easily
a thousand-pound set, but it could be twice or thrice that. The cups were delicate and likely hand
fired. They were very colorful with
roses and other flowers, but the colors were not the usual Cheapside dull, they
were vibrant and permanent with a glaze that made the designs look translucent. Each of the pieces, the saucers, the small
plates, and everything else had a similar, but not the same floral
pattern. It looked as though each of the
pieces were handmade and hand painted.
She took as unobtrusive a look as possible under her saucer. On the bottom was no label but a potter’s
seal mark, which was indecipherable to her.
When all the tea was poured, Rose pulled
a box from under her bed and from it brought a large plate with the same design
as the tea service. It was overflowing with
small cakes, biscuits, and filled chocolates.
Dorsi had been quiet until then. She asked, “Where did you get fresh cakes,
biscuits, and chocos?”
Rose let out an elegant giggle, “I spoke
to the catering company. They said they
would deliver for me.”
Every one of the girls looked at Rose in
amazement. They could imagine no one
else being able to do such a thing—even if the cost was a small fortune.
When everyone had their tea and everyone
their snacks, Rose began, “This is Bagends and we are all Baggies. I’m very pleased to invite you to our
tea. In the future, we shall use our
time in study as well as planning.”
Dorsi asked, “Planning? Planning for what?”
Rose didn’t bat an eyelash, “Why planning
for all our success. We shall take the
school by storm. Every Baggy shall succeed,
and Bagends shall be the place where success is for everyone.”
Ava asked, “What do you mean success for
everyone?”
Rose leaned forward, “Sweet Ava, I want
every girl who goes through this school and particularly this house to be adept
at every subject they are taught, every sport they accomplish, every duty they
work, every aspect of a lady that they desire, and every activity they want to
pursue in this school.”
Erin raised her hand, “I wish to go to a
movie with our house next Saturday.”
Rose raised her chin, “Why shouldn’t
you?”
“I can’t afford it.”
“I can.”
“Yes, but I can’t.”
“I can, and I will take you.”
Erin’s eyes widened, “You would do that?”
“Of course, I would. Why shouldn’t I?”
Erin’s chest was heaving, “Someone might
take advantage of your generosity.”
Rose put out her hand, “I don’t care if
every Baggy takes advantage of my generosity.
We are the Baggies of Bagend. Why
should we not help each other? That’s
what house members do for each other.”
Molly, who was usually quiet, spoke up,
“That isn’t the way it has been done in the past.”
“That is the way it shall be done in the
future—at least while I’m here.”
Molly sat up straight on her knees, “What
do you wish from us?”
Rose smiled, “Very perceptive of you,
Miss Molly. I give you a point.”
Molly’s eyes brightened.
Rose continued, “Erin is astounding in
Gaelic. I love her accent, as well as
her speaking skills. She’s very good at the
details of the language too. Erin, could
you help Dorsi with her Gaelic?”
Dorsi twirled her hair, “Who said I
needed help?”
Rose laughed, “Please don’t turn down a
little help. We shall have a study group
for Gaelic. Robyn and I will be in
it. We shall all help each other. I noticed in class that you could use a
little help. Isn’t that true, Dorsi?”
Dorsi put her face in her hands, “It’s
true. I’m having a little, well a great
deal of trouble with the verbs.”
Erin grinned, “We could tell.”
“Molly, we shall have a study group for
Welsh. Will you help us?”
“I shall, if they’ll listen.”
“Why shouldn’t they listen?”
“They don’t think well of the scholarship
students.”
Rose touched her hand, “I realize that precisely,
Molly. That’s why I asked you and these
other girls to tea. This is something I
would like to work out for our house.
The Baggies of Bagend will work together. That’s my plan.”
Erin replied, “If they don’t?”
Rose’s eyes turned sinister, and she glared
over her teacup at each of them, “They certainly don’t want to get on my bad
side. I would definitely advise against
it.”
A couple of the girls visibly shuddered. Dorsi tittered nervously.
Rose smiled, “Now everyone, eat to your
heart’s content. The cakes won’t be fit
tomorrow, although the biscuits and chocolates should make a nice snack later.”
Rose
poured more tea.
Rose is providing tea for the purpose of bringing her house
and class together. That is the big talk
she wants to engage in. She makes the transition
from small talk to big talk almost seamlessly at this point:
When everyone had their tea and everyone
their snacks, Rose began, “This is Bagends and we are all Baggies. I’m very pleased to invite you to our
tea. In the future, we shall use our
time in study as well as planning.”
Do you see how this is done.
The transition is from the tea—small talk to the future and study—big talk. The conversation stays in big talk from that
point on. This sounds just like a real
conversation. It feels like a real
conversation. That’s the point. This is how we write conversation and dialog,
and this is how we trade small talk for big talk. I could give you more examples. Perhaps I should.
Next, we will transition to the small talk and the big talk.
I want to move on to editing dialog next.
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
No comments:
Post a Comment