06 July 2023, Writing - part xxx371 Writing a Novel, Seoirse, more Storyline
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 31st novel, working title, Cassandra,
potential title Cassandra: Enchantment
and the Warriors. The theme
statement is: Deirdre and Sorcha are redirected to French finishing school
where they discover difficult mysteries, people, and events.
Here is the cover proposal for Cassandra: Enchantment and the Warriors:
|
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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.
For novel 33, Book girl: Siobhàn Shaw is Morven McLean’s savior—they
are both attending Kilgraston School in Scotland when Morven loses everything,
her wealth, position, and friends, and Siobhàn Shaw is the only one left to
befriend and help her discover the one thing that might save Morven’s family
and existence.
For novel 34: Seoirse
is assigned to be Rose’s protector and helper at Monmouth while Rose deals with
five goddesses and schoolwork; unfortunately Seoirse has fallen in love with
Rose.
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.
I’m now writing Seoirse, and since I retired from my day job,
I’m back to a chapter a day. I could
likely write two chapters a day, but my brain gets tired. I think it’s important to report again on how
to write a novel. Let’s start at the
beginning.
I already developed the protagonist for this novel: Seoirse Séamas
Wishart. That is his name in
Gaelic. His common or English name is
George James Wishart. Why the
difference. It all has to do with the
worldview of my novels. The worldview is
reflected and therefore the supernatural exists. We are mainly writing about the common and
mythical supernatural in the world. I’d
like to say that whatever the basis for the usual supernatural in human thought
exists in the reflected worldview of this and my novels. Thus there are vampires, werewolves, fairies,
the Fae courts, dragons, gods, goddesses, and other mythical creatures. They aren’t the world. They world of my novels is the world you see
around you. The supernatural aspects are
generally unseen, unknown, and rare.
They exist like the supernatural exists in the world today: generally
unseen, unknown, and rare. That’s the
basis of the world in my novels.
This is where I am with Seoirse. I’ve been writing a chapter a day. That means I’ll likely have a completed novel
in less than a month. That’s what I
usually do when I have an idea and a novel to write. I’m also writing pretty exclusively when I
should be working on a publisher or an agent.
In any case, I love writing a new novel. The scene descriptions and insight I gave you
were all telling and not showing. The
novel is all showing and no telling.
This is important to note and understand. Showing an outline of the scenes is just
telling and an author could use this to write a novel. My point to you is that I don’t outline my
scenes. I write notes at the end to
describe where I’m going and what I want in the scene. Then I write and rewrite and write the scene
again until its as perfect as I want it.
About perfection. I’m
not into perfection and I don’t think you can achieve perfection in any
writing. It depends on what you mean by
perfection. I’ve never read a book
without any punctuation, spelling, or grammar errors. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t aim to get rid
of all errors, but what ever you do, there will always be some error—and, I’m
the least concerned about these kinds of errors. The most important part of the writing is the
storyline, continuity, and the delight of the reader.
I wrote yesterday about delighting the reader. This is the main and major goal in writing,
but there are other points in delivering this kind of experience for your
readers. This is the goal and there are
literally a million ways to get there. A
wise author looks for and develops these ways.
Most specifically, these are the tension and release in a scene. They are also related to the storyline. I really should write about tension and
release, perhaps I’ll go there soon.
The ultimate point of a novel is the resolution of the telic
flaw. The telic flaw it the reason for
the novel. It is the problem the
protagonist must resolve (not necessarily solve) to complete the novel. The resolution of the telic flaw is supposed
to be resolved in the climax of the novel.
I’m not certain what we call a novel where the telic flaw is not
resolved in the climax. There are such
novels, most of the time they will not be published—unless they are self-published. Anything can be self-published.
So, in a normal novel (a sellable novel) with the following
outline:
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 entire novel is about the movement of the storyline from
the initial scene to the climax. The
rest of the novel in the falling action and dénouement are just cleanup. So what do we have?
The initial scene introduces the protagonist, the
protagonist’s helper (if there is one) and/or the antagonist, the initial
setting, and the telic flaw. The
importance is the protagonist and the telic flaw. That’s it.
As I noted, the telic flaw is the problem the protagonist must resolve
in the novel. The protagonist and the telic
flaw are the centers of the entire novel—that’s it. Perhaps we should look at the telic flaw.
As I wrote, the telic flaw is resolved by the protagonist and
not necessarily solved. What does that mean? Many complex problem and issues that might be
assigned for the protagonist to resolve can’t be solved. The most obvious of this is in a
tragedy. In a tragedy, the protagonist can’t
solve the telic flaw, the telic flaw overcomes the protagonist, but in these
cases, the telic flaw is resolved by the death of the protagonist. In other words, the problem isn’t a problem for
the protagonist anymore because he or she is dead.
In most cases, we are writing about comedies—a work where
the protagonist successfully overcomes and resolved the telic flaw. I have an author friend who is very up to
date with modern literature and identifies what is called an ambivalent
resolution. In an ambivalent resolution,
the climax doesn’t necessarily resolve the telic flaw and the ending can be
unhappy. I think the classic ideas are
sufficient to describe this type of resolution as a classic telic flaw comedy
resolution. The main point of the comedy
is that the protagonist overcomes the telic flaw. That doesn’t mean the resolution is ambiguous. That is entirely reflected in the idea that
the telic flaw is resolved and not solved.
Solved means the problems go away. The detective solves the crime and the bad
guy goes to jail. That is a
solution. In a resolution, the detective
might solve the crime, but there is still some ambiguity, maybe the wrong
person was caught and charged. Maybe the
detective was wrong. We see these types
of resolutions all the time—they are common and not that uncommon.
From my standpoint, any time the protagonist overcomes and
resolved the telic flaw, you have a comedy, and any time the telic flaw overcomes
the protagonist (even if it is resolved), that is a tragedy. As I wrote, the most common outcome in a
tragedy is the death of the protagonist.
However, you can have the death of the protagonist’s helper in a
tragedy. For example, if the telic flaw was
the love of the protagonist for the protagonist’s helper and the protagonist’s
helper dies, the telic flaw is resolved, but it has overcome the protagonist and
that’s a tragedy.
Back to the telic flaw and resolution in the more common
comedy. This resolution occurs in the
climax. Can it happen anywhere
else? Not really, if it does, you have
not properly identified the telic flaw, the novel is too long, or something else
went wrong. This is where we get to the
storyline.
The storyline is the plot(s) of the novel driven by scenes in
the outline I showed above. Novels are
always and only made up of scenes—these scenes drive the storyline from the
beginning to the end. Each scene drives
toward the telic flaw resolution. That’s
where we are going. This produces
delight. We have to tie the scenes into
the storyline, which is the plot(s).
Next, I’ll look at the storyline and cohesion.
I guess I should move on from there.
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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