22 January 2023, Writing - part xxx206 Writing a Novel, A New Romantic Protagonist, Marketing Materials, Type and Words
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 30th novel, working title, Rose,
potential title Rose: Enchantment and the
Flower. The theme statement is: 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 cover proposal for Rose:
Enchantment and the Flower.
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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. Writing number 31, working title Shifter. I just finished 32nd novel, Rose.
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.
Here is a list of the basic marketing information I am
putting together:
Proposed Cover
Title of Work:
Rose: Enchantment and the Flower
Author(s) Name:
L.
D. Alford
Type: Either Screenplay or Book
Book
Why
does this matter? I worked with an agent
who wanted this information, so I left it in my marketing materials. It should be obvious, but let me mention
something that has gone wrong in the world of writing.
You
see this all the time with some bestsellers—they are writing a screenplay type
novel and not a novel at all. I guess they
are planning for the movie version and want to save time in writing the screenplay. How can you tell it’s a screenplay?
If
the description is poor, there is a lot of telling, a bunch of action without
much dialog, and did I write poor description?
You can spot them a mile away.
Usually a gaudy cover with coming soon to the big screen on them. They didn’t even wait for the book to become
popular.
Then
there are authors such as Harlan Ellison and George Martin. Both were unwilling to compromise on the
adaptation of their writing and paid a high price for it—in some ways.
In
any case, don’t write your novel as if you think it’s going to become a screenplay—just
write a good entertaining novel. Make
sure there is lots of description and lots of good dialog.
Length: Either # of words for books, or #
of pages for screenplays
113,845
words
What’s
the big deal with number of words? This
is the measure of any piece of writing in the world of writing. It isn’t pages or weight, it is number of words. If you have written something less than about
40,000 to 50,000 words, you haven’t written a novel. Usually, the cut off point is about 40,000
words. Plus, the word count is highly
related to the type of literature or the genre of the work.
I’ve
really become used to writing 100,000 word novels. I don’t think I could write a shorter one,
and usually I’m putting them together in the 115,000 word range. One of my early novels was published at
114,000 words, so I don’t see this as a problem, but as I wrote, the genre can
make a great difference.
In
general, science fiction comes in at around 75,000 words. One of my published science fiction novels
weighs in at 93,300 words. It was still
published, and I’ve been writing science fiction in the 100,000 word length for
a while. My problem is just getting a
publisher who loves my work and wants to publish my newer works.
In
any case, I don’t think novels in the 100,000 word realm will hurt your chances
unless you are writing for a young adult publisher. They are intentionally looking for shorter
works, and there are other genres, like the science fiction I mentioned that
might wish something shorter than 100,000 words.
If
100,000 words can be a possible problem what about longer novels. Yeah, novels in the 125,000 word length are most
likely right out. Many publishers won’t
even want to read them. They will assume
your skill is rambling or way too inclusive or worse. 150,000 words is right out. You should cut a novel like this into
multiple volumes. I did this with my
Ghostship Chronicles novels. The novel
was getting long and I broke it into five pieces, each about 75,000 to 100,000
words long. My publisher was eyeing it
for publication, but it never made contract.
I need a new publisher.
So,
you can see, Rose: Enchantment and the Flower is in the normal range for
a good novel. I hate to write for a
literary novel because literary is one of the genre that is dead at the
moment. No one wants to publish or read
literary works any more. We can just
call this a normal type novel and length.
We’ll get to genre soon.
Keywords and Market Focus:
Genre:
Author
Bio: Approximately 120 words
Synopsis: Approximately 1000 Words
Synopsis: Approximately 500 Words
Synopsis: Approximately 200 Words
Concept
of the Work: Approximately 250 Words
Registration:
WGA, ISBN, or Library of Congress, Write the number.
Other
Information: If you have more work, a
website, anything interesting and professional, especially any awards or
recognition.
Reviewer’s
quotes.
1. No more than 3 sentences about the content of
your manuscript.
2. One sentence about successful works similar
to yours.
3. No more than 2 sentences about yourself. (use
3rd person)
4. No more than 2 sentences that include
“other,” i.e. any reasons, relationships, or other factors that might make your
work more attractive.
Internet
site development
You might ask where did all this come from and what do I do
with it? It comes from my forty year
experience with writing and publishing and working with different publishers
and their representatives. I’ll have to
confess, this isn’t all my own ideas. I
received the main list years ago. The
second section came from a similar source.
My publisher wanted something very similar to that.
Through extensive submission making and writing, I’ve found
the information above fills all the squares.
I’ve also discovered that if and when you get a publisher, the first
thing they want is some of this information.
They want blurbs. They want a synopsis
(if they didn’t already have one). They
want exciting marketing stuff. In
addition, they will want a cover idea, and they will usually want you to go
through their photo provider to find photos that fit your cover ideas. Modern covers are put together from photo and
other artwork that your publisher can or has purchased from their graphics providers. Then they stitch them together into a
cohesive cover. I take a little
different approach. I’ll discuss that
tomorrow and show you what I put in the proposal.
All of this information is important for a publisher and for
you to market your work. Further, I use
this to populate my websites. I haven’t
bought a URL for a while, but I use the many I have for my novels. If I finally get another publisher and a work
on contract, I’ll get a real URL for the novel title. This is another important part especially for
sales and marketing to readers. I’ll go over
that too. I added that to the list at
the bottom.
This is the list of marketing materials. I’ll go over the cover proposal next.
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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