15 July 2023, Writing - part xxx380 Writing a Novel, Seoirse, Moving to the Climax
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 it’s as perfect as I want it.
I’m approaching the climax of Seoirse. It’s a little longer than I wanted, but that’s
okay. I promised I’d make this novel as
long as it needs to be. It likely needs
to be even longer. I had parts I didn’t
expand and parts I didn’t complete as well as I wanted to. That’s all right too. Remember, the extraneous has no place in a
novel. Completing a thought is not extraneous. Continuing a thought that isn’t connected to
the telic flaw is extraneous. Here’s
where I am.
How do we solve the Seoirse and Rose problem. Well I’d set up a little scene for a long
time. If you remember, Rose made friends
with a Water Kelpie. That’s a type of
Fae who turns into a powerful horse.
This is now Rose’s horse. Rose,
discovers after one of her glamour classes, that Magan, one of the girls from
the Warrior Branch, can detect glamour use.
She can probably use it too. This
allows Rose to move Magan from the Warrior Branch to the Dark Branch. This also allows Magan and Sara to continue
to communicate.
Magan can’t tell Sara everything about the Dark Branch, but
she does tell Sara about Rose’s challenges.
On Friday, Rose has planned for a competition day. This way she can find more trainers and
experts and she can have all of her ladies show off their skills. Sara challenges Rose to a horse race. Everyone knows that Rose is a newbie to riding
and Sara is an expert. Sara wants to
challenge Rose for her title or commission, but Magan convinces her not
to. Sara doesn’t have anything equal in
value to a title or a commission. If
Rose wins, Magan knows she will demand an equal take—that means Sara would lose
her life or her freedom to Rose.
Remember, Rose is part Fae, and the Dark Branch are mostly part Fae. The Fae make these kinds of deals all the
time. The prize must balance.
In any case, Rose and Sara compete. Rose bareback on her Water Kelpie and Sara
with her regular horse. The race is
exciting and Rose is leading all the way.
Then, we have an accident. The
course is not smooth and Sara’s horse stumbles.
Rose has been using her glamour to stay atop the Kelpie, Isla. Rose has just enough glamour to complete the
race when Sara’s horse begins to fall.
Rose leaps to the rescue and drags Sara off her horse. Seoirse is on his way too. He knew Rose was having problems with her
glamour. Everyone could tell because during
the race, Rose was intentionally shedding clothing. She was doing it to allow closer contact with
Isla, her mount, and glamour in the Isle of Shadows. Seoirse gets an eyeful as well as everyone
else, and Rose is left in her handmade French lace underwear.
Rose saves Sara, but in the act uses up all her
glamour. However Rose doesn’t fall off
of Isla. Seoirse on horseback is able to
get to Sara, Rose, and Isla and pries Rose’s fingers off Sara so Sara can
transfer to Seoirse’s horse. Seoirse
gets on Isla behind Rose. Rose is out.
Seoirse can speak Fae.
Isla explains that this is how she captures her prey. She gets them to climb on her back and then
she can use her glamour to hold them on.
That’s just what she’s doing with Rose. Isla can’t stop until she returns to her loch and
then transforms. Meanwhile, Colonel
Bolang is mounting a search.
When Rose, Isla, and Seoirse get to the loch, Isla steps in
and turns from horse to beautiful but naked lady of the lochs. Seoirse is left holding the completely out
Rose in his arms. We get some fun stuff
where Seoirse has to pry Rose’s fingers out of Isla’s hair (was her mane) and where
Isla explains about what she does with those she captures. Then Seoirse puts his coat on Rose, puts her
on his back and heads the long trek back to the encampment. The Colonel and the rescue party find Sara
and then Seoirse and Rose.
What we have is a situation where Seoirse and Rose can be
brought back together in peace and where Sara can be brought into the fold, so
to speak.
I’ll look at more of this tomorrow. I’m moving toward the climax, and I want to
show you how I’m going to get 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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