25 July 2023, Writing - part xxx390 Writing a Novel, Seoirse, Editing, were and was
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.
Here is a list of parts of words and words you can use to
search your documents. I’ll discuss each
of these.
-ing
had
-ly
were
was
gotten
even
said
got
utilize
were and was –
what’s the problem with were and was. In
the first place were and was are identify verbs. Identity works well in dialog and is not very
unusual in English speech. However,
identity, especially in narrative can get annoying to readers and can usually
be replaced with stronger verbs. That’s
the problem, were and was are just weak verbs.
There is more to the problem with was and were, but we’ll get to that.
Here's an example of identity with was and were:
The house was dark and gloomy.
The women were teachers.
In isolation or in context both of these statements might be
worthwhile and acceptable in your writing.
The first is really questionable and the second might be necessary. I’ll give a couple of more examples then move
to fixing them:
The girl was nice.
The girls were nice.
This gets to the real problem of the first example and identity. In the statement the women were teachers,
this is a statement of identity for these women. It is part of their makeup and explains a
quantifiable and provable concept of their existence. On the other hand, the girl was nice or the girls
were nice, or almost any other amorphic or unestablished statement may or may
not be absolutely correct. In the case
of the women were teachers, that is an absolute fact. For anyone being nice, that is an opinion
without any other basis, in the isolated context of the statement. That’s the real problem with identity—it’s
mostly telling. Telling us that the women
were teachers is not problematic at all.
Any rewrite is very difficult and convoluted when the simple statement
is sufficient. For example, would you
write:
The women worked as teachers. This is a better statement in terms of
showing and not using identity, but it tells us how they worked and not who
they are. They are teachers. What I’m writing for you is that, the women
were teachers is a reasonable use of identity and when you check it out, you
may or may not want to change it, but I wouldn’t sweat it too much. On the other hand…
Nice is a quality that isn’t definable like teachers. You can’t go to nice school and you can’t put
up a list of training and characteristics for niceness. This is just flat out telling. Now, if you want to identify the girl as nice,
don’t tell us, show us. That’s more writing—yes,
it is. To fix this write something like
this.
Rose couldn’t help helping children. She always kept sweets in her pockets, and
she always helped them cross streets.
She was just that kind of girl—nice through and through.
Short example, but this shows just what being nice is
talking about and how the character, Rose is nice. Notice, there is no identity until we get to
the end, she was just that kind of girl.
I also like this use of identity—it is a type of figure of speech. The girls were nice is a similar identity verb
problem that must be solved in a similar fashion—show us how they are nice.
Back to the more common example of identity—the house was
dark and gloomy. I recommend showing us
how the house is dark and gloomy. That’s
the easiest way out of this. I really
don’t mind you showing use and concluding that the house was dark and gloomy,
but in this case, the use of identity just cuts off potential great description. In other words, the use of identity is
pointing out a bigger problem of lack of description. Bingo.
Wouldn’t you like to know where your description needs work? If you haven’t figured out from my other writing
about writing, description is the bane of most modern authors—they just don’t
provide enough. Searching for was and
were usually will point out a lack of description.
So, for identity verb problems seek out was and were and
evaluate if they need enhancement or replacement. In many cases, you can use a stronger
verb. In some cases, you need to add description. In some cases, just dump the sentence. However, there is more to was and were.
Was and were are part of a participle construction just like
-ing. So, for example:
She was running.
They were running.
This is identity, but it is also the past participle
(continuous) verb construction. I already
wrote about this, and a search for was and were will find these. As I discussed before, you don’t have to get
rid of every participle construction, but in many cases, if not most, this is
better writing:
She ran.
They ran.
Past tense normal construction of the verb. Short sweet, and in most cases, says the same
as the former. Look for was and were,
and fix them.
I want to write another book based on Rose and Seoirse, and the
topic will be the raising of Ceridwen—at least that’s my plan. We shall see.
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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