05 August 2023, Writing - part xxx401 Writing a Novel, Seoirse, Marketing Materials, Word Count
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.
I’ve titled my most recent novel, Seoirse: Enchantment
and the Assignment. I think it’s
time to start on the marketing materials.
I’m still editing, but I’m reaching the end stages of that. I know I went through marketing materials not
that long ago with Rose, but that seems like the right way to go, plus,
that will force me to work on them—I’d really rather be editing. That’s the most fun for me. Reading your own work and fixing the large
and small details to make it as perfect as possible is the best part ever of
writing. I’d have to say, writing it in
the first place is a close second, but when you see the completed novel on your
screen, and you experience the interplay of characters and plot, that’s makes
life worth living and writing worth writing.
I do need to write this again. I write to entertain. The number one person I’m trying to entertain
is me. If my novels aren’t entertaining
to me, how can they be entertaining to anyone else. Further, I write what I love to read. When I produce a novel, it’s because I love the
ideas in the novel. I craft it to be as
entertaining and exciting as possible.
Now, on to marketing materials.
Here’s the basic format I use. I’ll
explain this as I go and as I populate it.
Title of Work:
Seoirse: Enchantment and the Assignment
Author(s) Name:
L. D. Alford
Type: Either Screenplay or Book
Book
There isn’t much to say about this—this
was an identification for an agency or a publisher. It’s pretty meaningless for this set of marketing
materials. I know some groups might ask
for this—that’s the reason I leave it in.
Length: Either # of words for books, or #
of pages for screenplays
120,000 words
Yes, this novel is a little too
long. I’m certain it wouldn’t be the
first novel a publisher might pick up from me.
I haven’t got the whole length yet, because I haven’t put it together in
a single file yet, but I know it’s pretty long for a novel. So, what is the norm, and what does that
mean? Here’s a little chart:
Flash Fiction: 300 to 1500 words
Short Story: 1500 to 10,000 words
Novelette: 7,500 to 20,000 words
Novella: 30,000 to 50,000 words
Novel: 50,000 to 110,000 words
If you take a look at the information
written for genre and word-length, you will find that word-length and novels
are genre dependent. I won’t go into
that much at all. Let’s just say you
might want to take a look at that if you write exclusively in a certain genre especially
in young adult or romance.
Here’s the big deal. Most inexperienced writers write novels that
are too short. With experience, the
novels tend to get longer. My early
novels were short in the 60,000 word range and above. Of my published novels, they go from 62,000
to the longest at 114,000 words. Yes,
one of my published novels came in at over 110,000 words.
Because of the way I write, my novels
tend to be in the 100,000 word range, and I’ll have to say in the 110,000 word
range—that’s just because as you mature as a writer, your writing tends to
lengthen. You really do have more to
potentially excite and entertain a reader.
I will warn you. You don’t want
your novels to be too long or too short.
I intentionally cut some of my science fiction series The Ghostship
Chronicles into shorter novels when the first began getting up in the
80,000 word range. I want to keep the
viability of the series as science fiction (for publication) so they are a
series of novels very tightly held together.
Yes, this current novel is too
long. I know it. I suspect it might be published as is if I
can find a publisher who loves my style and type of writing. That’s always the problem—to find a publisher
who wants to publish your specific type and style of writing. I had one before, and they took a risk with
my longer novels. As I wrote, with
experience, your novels and your writing get better, but longer.
I should mention about my approach to
writing and how that drives my novel length.
Keywords and Market Focus:
Genre:
Magic Realism Mystery
Author
Bio: Approximately 120 words
The
finest entertainment in literature is an escape into a real and inviting world—so
asserts L. D. Alford, a novelist who explores with originality those cultures
and societies we think we already know.
He builds tales that make ancient and modern people real to us. His stories uniquely explore the connections
between present events, history, and the future—he combines them with threads
of reality that bring his fiction alive.
L. D. Alford is familiar with technology and cultures—he earned a B.S.
in Chemistry, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, a Ph.D. in Aerospace
Engineering, and is a graduate of Air War College, USAF Test Pilot School, and
Air Command and Staff College. He is
widely traveled and has spent long periods in Europe, Asia, and Central
America. L. D. Alford is an author who
combines intimate scientific and cultural knowledge into fiction worlds that
breathe reality.
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.
None
Other
Information: If you have more work, a
website, anything interesting and professional, especially any awards or
recognition.
Blue Rose:
Enchantment and the Detective www.LumiereNovel.com,
the child of a Fae is discovered and trained to become a powerful asset in
British supernatural intelligence.
Deirdre: Enchantment and the School www.HestiaNovel.com, the child of a Fae
secretly attends a girl’s boarding school until Deirdre discovers her.
Sorcha: Enchantment and the Curse www.GoddessoftheHearth.com, a
cursed woman becomes a deadly spy at the hands of a dangerous mistress.
Essie: Enchantment and the Aos Si www.HearthGoddess.com, a matron rescues
and educates the Queen of the fae.
Lilly: Enchantment and the Computer www.GoddessofLightNovel.com, a
math genius girl gets a boyfriend and becomes a Japanese goddess.
Valeska: Enchantment and the Vampire www.GoddessofDarkness.com, a British
agent accidentally becomes involved with a vampire.
Khione: Enchantment and the Fox www.GoddessNovel.com, a graduate student
discovers a demigoddess in modern
Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon www.AksinyaNovel.com, a Russian princess
calls a demon to protect her family.
Dana-ana: Enchantment of the Maiden www.Dana-ana.com, the mystery of Dana-ana
Goewyn.
Hestia: Enchantment of the Hearth www.EnchantmentoftheHearth.com,
the misadventures of archeologists in modern Greece.
Antebellum www.AntebellumNovel.com
the mystery of a house that has been missing since the American Civil War and
the girl who is called to it.
The Second Mission
www.TheSecondMission.com is a
historical fiction novel about ancient
Centurion www.CenturionNovel.com published
January 2008 and Aegypt www.AegyptNovel.com also published in
January 2008 are historical fiction novels from OakTara Fiction www.OakTara.com
The Chronicles of the Dragon and the Fox is a science
fiction series published by OakTara Fiction
The End of Honor (published, July 2008) www.TheEndofHonor.com
The Fox’s Honor (published Oct 2008) www.TheFoxsHonor.com
A Season of Honor (published Nov 2008) www.ASeasonofHonor.com
Ancient Light is a suspense series published by Broadstreet,
Eleutheria, September 2014 in a three-in-one www.AncientLight.com.
Aegypt (second edition published by
OakTara Fiction, 2014) www.Aegypt.com
Sister of Light (published by OakTara
Fiction, 2014) www.SisterofLight.com
Sister of Darkness (published by OakTara
Fiction, 2014) www.SisterofDarkness.com
More information is available at www.ldalford.com
L.D. Alford has more than 70 technical papers published in
international journals on flight test, military policy, flight safety, space,
and cyberwar. His military aviation
writing is featured as Military Aviation Adventures on www.wingsoverkansas.com.
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)
L. D. Alford is a novelist whose writing uniquely explores
the connections between present events and history—he combines them with
threads of reality that bring the supernatural alive.
Dr. Alford is a scientist and widely traveled author who
combines intimate scientific and cultural knowledge into fiction worlds that
breathe reality.
4. No more than 2 sentences that include
“other,” i.e. any reasons, relationships, or other factors that might make your
work more attractive.
Rose:
Enchantment and the Flower continues the magic realism themes
introduced in L.D. Alford’s Enchantment and
Ancient Light novels. It is a standalone novel.
Rose: Enchantment and the
Flower is exciting magical realism mystery fiction from the
celebrated author of Blue Rose: Enchantment and
the Detective, Deirdre: Enchantment and the School, Sorcha: Enchantment
and the Curse, Essie: Enchantment and the Aos Si, Lilly: Enchantment and the Computer, Valeska: Enchantment and the Vampire, Khione: Enchantment and the Fox,
Dana-ana: Enchantment of the Maiden,
Hestia: Enchantment of the Hearth, Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon,
Antebellum, and published novels: Centurion, Aegypt, The End of
Honor, The Fox’s Honor, A Season of Honor, Sister of Light, and Sister
of Darkness.
I left in generic information which I’ll likely modify a
little in the development of the marketing materials. I’ll go over each second and try to be
consistent with what I’ve written before, but who knows what jewels a little creativity
will produce.
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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