14 March 2023, Writing - part xxx257 Writing a Novel, A New Male Romantic Protagonist, Details, Telic Flaw Resolution, Plots, Adultery again
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.
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
I’ll repeat. I just
finished up Rose, and I want to finish up Cassandra. I’m moving in that direction.
This is where I’m going.
I need to finish up Cassandra, and that’s what I’m going to do. That might take a month or so. At the same time, I want to write a follow-on
to Rose. Basically, I want to
finish up Rose, and resolve the overall telic flaw introduced in the
first novel. To do this, I need a
new protagonist. I could use Rose, and I
was thinking about this, but my readers suggested I should keep the number of
male and female protagonists about equal.
Not sure why, but I did get a great idea for an initial scene and for a
protagonist. I’ve been developing this
protagonist for my short form blog, but I can move some of that development
here and make some comments on it.
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. I removed the breadcrumbs from the blog just
to make it easier to read. Here’s what
we have left.
a.
Plots required for the protagonist
to resolve the telic flaw - What I should really do is go through the list of classic
plots and pick those I would like to include in the novel. Maybe I’ll do just that.
b.
Obstacles that must be overcome for
the protagonist to resolve the telic flaw
Here is the list of classic plots from the list of over 100
greatest novels and books in English.
What we discovered is that novels are never a single plot—they are
multiple plots that fit together to eventually resolve the telic flaw. If you can grasp this, you can pick plots to
enhance and develop the entertainment in your novels. That’s what I want to do here. I’ll look at the plots and see what I can put
into this novel as well as try to develop more ideas for the development of the
novel and the protagonist.
Overall (o)
1.
Redemption (o) – 17i, 7e, 23ei, 8 –
49%
2. Revelation (o) –2e, 64, 1i – 60%
3.
Achievement (o) – 16e, 19ei, 4i, 43
– 73%
Achievement (a)
1.
Detective or mystery (a) – 56, 1e –
51%
2. Revenge or vengeance (a) –3ie, 3e, 45 – 46%
3. Zero to hero (a) – 29 – 26%
4.
Romance (a) –1ie, 41 – 37%
5. Coming of age (a) –1ei, 25 – 23%
6. Progress of technology (a) – 6 – 5%
7. Discovery (a) – 3ie, 57 – 54%
8. Money (a) – 2e, 26 – 25%
9. Spoiled child (a) – 7 – 6%
10. Legal (a) – 5 – 4%
11. Adultery (qa) – 18 – 16%
12. Self-discovery (a) – 3i, 12 – 13%
13. Guilt or Crime (a) – 32 – 29%
14. Proselytizing (a) – 4 – 4%
15. Reason (a) – 10, 1ie – 10%
16. Escape (a) – 1ie, 23
– 21%
17. Knowledge or Skill (a) – 26 – 23%
18. Secrets (a) – 21 – 19%
Quality (q)
1.
Messiah (q) – 10 – 9% - I’m not a fan of the
messiah plot at all. This plot is way
overused in modern literature—it should be rejected unless you hit on a real Dune-like
novel idea. Let’s write a little about
the messiah plot so you can spot it easily.
Yes, Dune has a very strong classical messiah plot. This isn’t saying much because the messiah
plot is a relatively modern plot type.
It just didn’t appeal at all to the early writers. This is one of the reasons I’m not a fan, the
other reason is what it has turned into in the modern era.
The most well-known messiah plot is
Harry Potty. Harry is a full-on
messiah. And here is the problem of the
messiah plot. In Dune, Paul
Atradies had to become like a god to be the messiah. A messiah always has god-like powers. The ascent of Paul from an aristocrat to a
god is the entire point of the novel.
This is very entertaining and new (at the time) in Dune. In Harry Potty it’s just overdone.
Harry Potty is a god, if you didn’t
notice. He has god-like powers, in fact
all the wizards and witches have god-like powers. They are all like gods. This is a very sad situation, especially for
the readers. The expectation of a
messiah is that they have god-like powers and they change the world for the better. That’s exactly what Harry does, but in
addition, the Romantic protagonist is supposed to come from the common and have
skills that they discover and develop to make them uncommon. The idea of the Romantic protagonist is that
anyone can be like them if they have similar skills they develop. For the reader, the question is, how can I
ever be like Harry—he is a messiah.
Now, readers will live with the idea of
a special skill like magic or sorcery as long as it is presented
correctly. This is the magic plot. Unfortunately, Harry isn’t just about
magic—Harry is all about saving the world through the defeat of the being who
cannot be defeated except by Harry. This
is a full-on messiah plot mixed with the fate or the blood will out plot. Harry is an aristocrat born into his messiah
persona—he did not become, he was born.
The other obvious messiah plot in the
modern era is the Marvel or DC universe.
These movies disgust me. They are
all about gods not humans. The moment we
bring in a god, the entire plot is usually about saving the world. That’s cute, but it is a messiah plot not a
human plot. I don’t like messiah plots. Now, I do have a confession.
My Aegypt novels (Ancient
Light) have goddesses as characters and protagonists. Isn’t that a messiah plot? I’d say no.
My characters are thrust into roles and skills they must develop and
learn. They self-discover their skills,
and they then develop them. This allows
the reader to feel like the magic character—the powers of the goddesses is a
discovered skill that isn’t like a messiah or like a normal god. In addition, their powers are limited in
scope, so they can’t wield them to save the world or sometimes themselves. In other words, their god-like powers are
very limited and are similar to human level skills. They just have some senses and abilities that
are extra-human. In addition, in my
novels, the characters are not messiahs.
They are not saving the world as much as they are living in the world
and trying to make it better with what they have available.
I don’t like messiah plots and I don’t like messiah
characters. I don’t intend to have this
plot in Seoirse.
2.
Adultery (qa) – 18 – 16%- I’ll skip this plot
here as a quality plot because I already covered it under the achievement
plots. You might ask, what is the
difference? I’ll answer that because it
is important.
The achievement plots are all about
striving for a goal. The quality plots
are about the interjection of a quality into the novel or the plot. The protagonist with an adultery achievement
plot is striving for adultery. On the
other hand, the protagonist of the adultery quality plot isn’t striving for
adultery, but still achieves it—it is a quality of the protagonist and not a
goal. Yes, these aren’t that different,
but I think you can see there is a difference.
Achievement is a goal, while quality is an accident (or a quality in
itself).
I’m not a fan of either, but you can
see how the adultery quality plot might be used in a novel like Seoirse. If Seoirse were coerced or tricked into a
relationship that hurt or offended his love for Rose or Rose’s budding love for
him, that could be an effective adultery plot.
As I’ve mentioned before, with adultery, we are writing about the full
gamut from all-out sexual betrayal to mistaken betrayal through
miscommunication or misunderstanding.
These two are great plots we will get to, but they are seldom used in
modern writing. Or at least they aren’t
used as much in modern Western writing as they are in modern Eastern
writing.
The Eastern authors interject the
miscommunication and misunderstanding plots strongly into their writing. This is very similar to the Victorians. The adultery plot at the miscommunication or
misunderstanding and below the sexual level is prevalent in these types of
plots. For example, the protagonist sees
his love interest on a date, communicating privately, or in a compromising
situation with another. The entire
incident is an intentional or an unintentional setup, and the protagonist
doesn’t see the result. There is a
misunderstanding or an intentional misunderstanding. How might this work in Seoirse.
I’ll
not say if I’ll use this, but let’s propose that Rose wants to get Seoirse off
her back and out of her life. She’s
upset with him for more than one reason and knows of his infatuation. Therefore, Rose invites another person to
take her to a dance. She dances and
speaks with this person while ignoring Seoirse.
The result will be a non-sexual adultery plot. In a more risqué novel, this could turn into
a full-on adultery plot. Now, I’ve used
my entire time discussing this type of plot.
I guess it’s worth it.
3. Rejected love (rejection) (q) – 1ei, 21 – 20%
4. Miscommunication (q) – 8 – 7%
5. Love triangle (q) – 14 – 12%
6. Betrayal (q) – 1i, 1ie, 46 – 43%
7. Blood will out or fate (q) –1i, 1e, 26 – 25%
8. Psychological (q) –1i, 45 – 41%
9. Magic (q) – 8 – 7%
10. Mistaken identity (q) – 18 – 16%
11. Illness (q) – 1e, 19 – 18%
12. Anti-hero (q) – 6 – 5%
13. Immorality (q) – 3i, 8 – 10%
14. Satire (q) – 10 – 9%
15. Camaraderie (q) – 19 – 17%
16. Curse (q) – 4 – 4%
17. Insanity (q) – 8 – 7%
18.
Mentor (q) – 12 – 11%
Setting (s)
1.
End of the World (s) – 3 – 3%
2. War (s) – 20 – 18%
3. Anti-war (s) –2 – 2%
4. Travel (s) –1e, 62 – 56%
5. Totalitarian (s) – 1e, 8 – 8%
6. Horror (s) – 15 – 13%
7. Children (s) – 24 – 21%
8. Historical (s) – 19 – 17%
9. School (s) – 11 – 10%
10. Parallel (s) – 4 – 4%
11. Allegory (s) – 10 – 9%
12. Fantasy world (s) – 5 – 4%
13.
Prison (s) – 2 – 2%
Item (i)
Article (i) – 1e, 46 – 42%
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
Let’s use this list, again, to design a new protagonist. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.
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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