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Thursday, April 18, 2024

Writing - part xxx658 Writing a Novel to Entertain, Parts of Reality, Books and Printing

18 April 2024, Writing - part xxx658 Writing a Novel to Entertain, Parts of Reality, Books and Printing

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.

6. The initial scene is the most important scene.

 

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.

 

I finished writing my 34th novel (actually my 32nd completed novel), Seoirse, potential title Seoirse: Enchantment and the Assignment.  The theme statement is: 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 cover proposal for Seoirse: Enchantment and the Assignment




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.  I finished writing number 31, working title Cassandra: Enchantment and the Warrior.  I just finished my 32nd novel and 33rd novel: Rose: Enchantment and the Flower, and Seoirse: Enchantment and the Assignment.

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 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.

 

For novel 35: Eoghan, a Scottish National Park Authority Ranger, while handing a supernatural problem in Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park discovers the crypt of Aine and accidentally releases her into the world; Eoghan wants more from the world and Aine desires a new life and perhaps love.

 

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.

 

My main focus, at the moment, is marketing my novels.  That specifically means submissions.  I’m aiming for agents because if I can get an agent, I think that might give me more contacts with publishers plus a let up in the business.  I would like to write another novel, but I’m holding off and editing one of my older novels Shadow of Darkness.  I thought that novel would have fit perfectly with one potential agent who said they were looking for Jewish based and non-Western mythology in fantasy.  That’s exactly what Shadow of Darkness is, but they passed on it.  In any case, I’m looking for an agent who will fall in love with my writing and then promote it to publishers.  That’s the goal.

Let’s keep writing to entertain ourselves with the knowledge that what will entertain a great reader, like we are, will entertain other readers.  That’s our only hope.

Let’s look back at entertainment and writing.  As I wrote before, writing is communication.  What we imagine is that we simply communicate words from one person to another, but the reality, especially in writing, is we are communicating word pictures.  Here’s the problem. 

I imagine the world structurally in my mind.  This is where my reality lies and this is where my imagination lies.  Until someone invents a mind viewer, you will never know what is really going on in someone’s mind or thoughts.  In fact, the Greeks, as well as most real philosophers would argue that even then, you will never really know a person’s thoughts.  Thoughts live in the realm of the unreal world.  Let’s look at little at the Greek worldview—that’s the worldview basis for Western civilization.

The very idea of writing and especially fiction writing represents the areas of logic and the historical method.  You can also toss in the scientific method and harm, but they are less critical and important in writing. 

The very important part about writing and especially entertaining (successful) writing is that it comes from the part of the world (kosmos, creation) that is not measurable and not physical.  I’m repeating myself, but this is very important.  An author creates a novel (story) in his or her mind.  The mind might be physical, but the concepts within the mind are not physical.  These ideas (concepts) need to be turned into description, narrative, action, and dialog in the mind of the writer.  Then the writer turns these ideas into word pictures.  Finally, the author turns these word pictures into symbols.  We happen to call these symbols writing. 

The reader takes these symbols and turns them into word pictures and finally ideas in their own mind.  The author’s hope is that his or her word pictures are dynamic and understandable to the reader.  Most specifically that the reader can imagine the ideas the writer presents in some degree of similar color and comprehension.  The better the author can accomplish this, the better the reader can experience the ideas of the writer.  This is what entertainment is all about. 

As authors, we need to understand we aren’t simply recording in symbols description, narrative, action, and dialog.  We are presenting word pictures, word paintings, if you like, of what we imagine.  The better and more effectively we can express then word pictures and paintings to our readers, the more entertaining and exciting our writing will be.  However, we can never lose sight of the fact that we are representing the unreal and nonphysical in symbols.  We are presenting logic and ideas and projecting them to another mind—the tool just happens to be language and writing.  They are different, just as we saw in looking at the evolution of religion and culture.  These are connected by the hip in history.

We also saw how we can prove truth.  There is much more to this subject, but just to know that there is truth and that you can absolutely prove truth should make most people happy.  As a scientist, I know this is true of the physical world through the scientific method.  As a student and teacher of history, I know this is true of the historical method.  And, as a writer, I know this is true of logic and reasoning.  Each of these tools are critical to cultures and societies, and in writing, logic and reasoning are the most important tools.  They all lead, by the way, to language and especially writing.  Perhaps I should move to the history of writing next.  It fits directly into how to know truth as well as culture and the evolution of religion.  It’s also very important to understand as a writer.

Let’s look at the history of writing.  Writing begins with proto-writing.  We don’t have many examples of proto writing because there was little reason to make copies and the originals just deteriorated.  The few pieces of proto-writing we have are on stone, clay, or ceramics.  The only reason for proto-writing that we have identified was for kings (leaders) to track what they were giving to the priests for accountability.  In the ancient world, the idea of supplication of the spirits (animism) or the gods (patheonic paganism) through sacrifice was critical to the religion and the society.  I don’t think I mentioned before, but in the ancient world, all meat was sacrificed. 

The way the world worked was that meat, land based animals were always sacrificed to the gods of spirits—this was to placate the spirit in the animal.  If you remember, the idea of animism comes from the lack to understanding of physical laws with the idea of spirits that move things.  In the mind of the animist, anything that moves on its own has something in it that causes it to be able to move.  To the ancients, this was a spirit.  That’s the animism and what animism is all about. 

For some reason, the Greeks and other ancients didn’t see sea animals as animals that required to be placated or that had spirits.  This is interesting in itself.  Perhaps this had to do with the idea that water was itself inhabited by some spirit and the overall water had to be placated.  What we do know is that all animals with blood that breathed air were considered to have spirits that required to be placated and also, the sacrifices to the gods were these animals. 

The way sacrifice worked for the Greeks was that a person brought an animal or item for sacrifice to a certain god.  The animal was killed on an altar outside the temple and prepared as a meal for the god.  This meal was presented, by the priests, to the god in the inner chamber where the statue of the god existed.  After the god had a chance to eat, the priests took their tithe (or gift from the owner of the animal).  The tithe was usually about 10%.  The gift might be more, but the one who presented the sacrifice would get the remaining meal and meat.  This is why the market (agora) was right by most temples or Parthenon.  The owner either took the remaining meat home or sold it in the marketplace.  This is how meat entered most ancient cultures and societies.  This also applied to the festivals. 

In a festival, the priests would solicit sacrifices for the specific god and sacrifice.  Many times the wealthy or the general populace would provide the money for the sacrifices or the animals (or other commodities, like wine, for certain festivals).  The sacrifices went the same as an individual sacrifice, but the meat and food was usually distributed to the people.  What does this have to do with proto-writing?  I’ll show you, next.

Apparently, in the ancient world, kings, the wealthy, and other leaders became concerned that their sacrifices weren’t getting to where they should go—in addition, the trade in meat and meat based products was very lucrative.  It became a big deal both religiously and in terms of wealth when, for example, a sheep or two were misplaced in transport or during the sacrifice.  These people wanted an accounting.  What they did was invent proto-writing.

Proto-writing was a means of making marks on some portable substrate such that the marks always represented the same thing.  You can see how this started.  Some king sent five sheep and two cows to a temple for a sacrifice.  The merchants reported that only four sheep and a cow made it to the market after the sacrifice.  The next time the king sent some animals, he had a scribe draw pictures of four sheep and two cows, and asked for a receipt.  You can imagine the pictures and the arguments that went on between the king and the priests.  They eventually reached a consensus on the symbols (pictures) they would use to represent sheep and cows as well as the numbers of sheep and cows.  That’s proto-writing.  The symbols look similar to what they represent and usually represent a noun, like a sheep.  As I noted, we have very few examples of proto-writing, but you can see where proto-writing went from here.

Some bright scribe got the idea that every noun and even verbs should be represented in the writing so the reports and the communication could be more direct and better.  I should mention that in proto-writing as well as early writing, everything was mnemonics.  I’ll explain this, next, as well as how we got to realish writing.

Eventually, those using proto-writing wondered if they could use it to express more complex thoughts and ideas.  Their answer is represented by hieroglyphics.  With hieroglyphics, the writers determined symbols that represented consonant sounds with determinants to indicate the words and in some cases the ideas.  For example, h-t could be hat, hit, hut, hot, het, and many others.  The way the Egyptians solved this problem was to place a hat symbol following the h-t to indicate a hat, or a hut after h-t to indicate a hut, and so one.  In addition, hieroglyphics lent themselves to rebus because of the nature of the determinates.  A rebus is like a picture of eye, heart, USA to mean I love the USA.  So proto-writing began to become writing.  The stone based hieroglyphics were pretty uniform and meant to be read cold, but most, in fact, all early writing was mnemonics and not writing in the sense we use the term.  Any and all writing in the ancient world was written to be memorized and the writing, the mnemonics on the page ensured the reader (memorizer) get the words exactly right.  This is the way, for example, Torah and the Tanakh work.  Hebrew, like Egyptian as well as most all early written languages has no vowels.  In fact, Hebrew didn’t have vowels until about 800 AD when the Masorites added the Amharic pointlets to the Hebrew consonants.  Greek is one of the only two (the other is Korean) and perhaps the first written language to have vowels.  That doesn’t mean it could be read cold—that only means it could be potentially read without memorization.  I’ll get to that, next.

All ancient written languages except hieroglyphics were meant to be memorized and referred to to make sure the reader got the text exactly correct.  The text of all ancient writing does not have spaces between the words, punctuation, any separations at all, for example, there are no verses or chapters in ancient writing.  In the new Testament documents, the chapters were added (separated out) in about 800 AD and the verses in about 1200 AD.  Punctuation wasn’t added until the invention of punctuation about 1400 AD or so.  This isn’t just about the New Testament—all documents were treated like this.

As I wrote, in the past, all written documents were mnemonics.  A great example is the Hebrew Torah and Tanakh, Hebrew doesn’t originally have any vowels, spaces, punctuations, or breaks of any kind between the words.  The text is memorized and used to ensure the readings or recitations was exact.  In the past, all texts were read aloud.  In reading the Torah or Tanakh, the reader has two helpers one at each side to ensure the texts is recited (read) properly.  It is almost impossible to read the text of any ancient document without either adjusting the text by separating the words or memorization.  In the past, most texts came with a scroll slave.

When you bought a scroll in the ancient world, you paid from 20,000 to 50,000 dollars equivalent cost.  The French wrote the cost of a book was about the same as the cost of a 40 acre farm.  The scroll would come with a slave who had memorized the text.  The slave would provide the reading of the scroll until he could pass that on to another either another slave or to the owner.  When that happened, we aren’t certain what happened to the scroll slave.  These details aren’t written about much in history.  We guess the slave either stayed with the work or returned to the original owner.  It’s possible the new owner received some type of refund for the services or the slave.  We do know that Plato was a scroll slave of just this type. 

When you wrote a letter in the ancient world, the same type of event happened.  I’ll get to that, next.

Yes, ancient texts were all mnemonics including letters.  So, what’s the point in writing a letter if you needed someone who had memorized it.  Well, that’s why letters in the ancient world are usually very long.  If we were educated in Greek or Latin the way all educated people were in the past (until about 1900) then we would all know that.  Very short missives, of course, did not require a scroll slave.  When I write short, I mean short, like the proto-writing.  If you needed a receipt for a sale or a list of sacrifices, these were easy to produce and an educated person could make numbers and marks on a tally, but a letter was something else in the ancient world. 

If you look at our big record of ancient first century documents, the New Testament, you will see the type of letter common during the times.  They are long, in Greek, and written in a very complex logos to unstated telos structure, although to the Greeks this was a common and normal style.

When I wanted to write a letter in this time, I would call on the libraus.  The purpose of the libraus was to write the letter for me.  Even the most educated and erudite people of the time would use a libraus—very few would write a letter in his or her own hand.  This was for many reasons, but the most important reason was the cost of writing, skill of writing, and the scroll slave. 

Here's how the process worked.  The libraus would come over with different inks and types of writing substrate usually papyrus and vellum.  Papyrus was cheaper, made of papyrus (reeds) but didn’t last as long as vellum which was very thin animal skin.  The cost of vellum could have been twice that of papyrus.  Also the inks were of different qualities and costs.  The letter writer (you) would indicate the quality you wished for the substrate and the ink, and the libraus was ready to go.  I’ll explain that, next.

The author of the letter would dictate the letter.  Now, I need to explain something about the people of the ancient world.  Let’s just take an example from Jewish history with the realization that it applies to most of the educated ancient world.  I will expand this to the Greeks and the Romans.

In the Hebrew community after the development of the Synagogue and Rabbinic system, early date in the second Kingdom, late date after the return from Babylon, every boy went to Torah School, the synagogue and Rabbi, to memorize the Torah.  From eight to twelve, the boys, memorized the Torah.  They memorized it because that was what they did and because the writing was mnemonics.  At their bar mitzva before they were thirteen, they were required to read the Torah in the synagogue as part of their right of adulthood.  We aren’t certain what happened to those who couldn’t achieve this milestone, but we assume they were coached, like today.  We do know that when the Torah (or Tanakh) is read in the synagogue, it must be with the original language (Hebrew without pointlets or spaces) scrolls and two helpers stand beside the reader to ensure the reading is correct.  As I want to be clear, the reader memorized the text then used the writing to ensure they spoke the exact words.  This was very important to the Jewish people. 

I also need to mention that the memorization of the Tanahk was a further and advanced study for most boys and men in Hebrew society.  In addition, the Rabbis would memorize the Mishna and the Talmud.  These documents were not written down until after 100 AD.  Further, the Hebrews in the age of the Septuagint (LXX) and completed in about 250 BC memorized that as well.  The Septuagint included the Torah and the Tanakh as well as other documents.  The main point I’m making here is that the educated had incredible memories by our standards.  They memorized at least 100 works and that was the norm for this class of people.  When the average male in Israel memorized at least five (Torah), is it odd to imagine the educated (Rabbis) memorizing 100 or more?

Now, about the Greeks and Romans.  Latin and Greek were similar to Hebrew except that they included vowels.  The addition of vowels didn’t improve the ability to read a work cold, but it helped.  It made for better fare.  I’ll eventually explain how we actually got to works that didn’t require memorization or a scroll slave, but that’s latter. 

The Greeks and the Romans had to memorize their scrolls too.  We know they did from history and we know the average educated person, including women, were well versed in the classics of Greece.  Remember, from about 332 BC to 200 to 300 AD, the Romans were a highly Hellenized society.  They learned Greek writing and Greek language and Greek ways.  Greek was the language of the educated, culture, philosophy, and the world.  Even most, if not all, of the Hebrews spoke Greek.  This is proven by the Greek in the New Testament. 

From the Greek dialogs, it’s obvious the Greeks all memorized the classics in their language.  They knew it because to read it required them to memorize it. 

I think it’s very clear, the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Romans all had incredible memories and used their time in education to memorize the books so they could read them.  Suffice to say, if you wanted to write a letter (or any other document) before you called for the libraus, you wrote the document (letter) in your mind and prepared it well.  You might be making changes as you moved forward, but you had a strong idea of what you wanted to say and how you would say it, then you rang up the libraus.  That’s next.   

So, you have an idea what you want to write, and you hire a libraus to come over with all his types of papers and inks.  You choose the type of substrate you want: papyrus or vellum and the type of ink you want, then the libraus begins—that is, you begin. 

You recite your writing from your mind to the libraus.  We aren’t certain exactly how the process went, but the purpose of the libraus wasn’t just to write down what you said.  The purpose of the libraus was the same as the wonderful and well trained secretaries from the great age of the industrial revolution.  Let’s me explain a little.

My mother was one of these secretaries.  She was trained in a secretarial school and knew shorthand, typing, accounting, and all the special skills we expect from much better educated people today.  My mother would take notes for letters from an executive and turn those notes into amazing letters for another executive.  I never saw her do it as a secretary, but I saw her do it as an adult writing for the family or others.  What my mother did as a secretary is what the libraus did for his customers.

The libraus turned ideas into a Greek logos to unstated telos form.  What is that?  In English, like in Latin, the style of writing is introduction, body, and conclusion.  This is the modern form we find in most Western Civilization cultures.  It’s the way we expect the educated to write, and it’s the way we teach people to write.  It’s a style and a form, but not the only style and form of writing.  Ancient cultures notably follow certain literary forms and styles in writing, and they aren’t what we are used to.

The form you find in almost all ancient classical Greek is the logos to unstated telos.  The is the form of the Aesop’s fables.  The originals in Greek do not have any morals.  The morals, in every case, were added by the Romans who translated the fables into Latin.  Aesop’s fables are all written in the logos to unstated telos form.  Now, to be clear a logos is a logical argument.  It is many times mistranslated as word.  This is incorrect according to Woodhouse, Vine’s, and Strong’s, the dictionaries for Greek to English.  I’ll explain about this Greek logos to unstated telos form, next.

Just like an Aesop’s fable, a Greek dialog and all Greek ancient literature is in the form of the logos to unstated telos.  You know this about the dialogs because every student of the Greek dialogs wants the writer, speaker, to just get on and say the conclusion—this never happens.  You will rarely if ever find a stated telos (roughly a conclusion) in any ancient Greek writing.  We do find some stated telos in the New Testament documents, but this is unusual, and thankful for most readers.  As I wrote, in Latin and in English, we expect a stated conclusion—that’s the point of the writing in our minds, but the Greeks had a different idea.

To the Greeks, the conclusion (telos) was supposed to be obvious from the logos.  Their thought was that is the logical argument was definitive and correct, the conclusion must be obvious from it.  As I wrote, this is what they thought about Aesop’s fables.  They were self-explanatory, until the Romans screwed them up.  If you realize this about Greek writing, you will save yourself a lot of heartache and problems understanding it.  In terms of the libraus, the libraus purpose was to ensure the letter fit into the logos to unstated telos style and structure.  In some cases, I’m sure the author insisted on keeping a few telos.  That’s what we see in the New Testament and a few Greek writings.  The author didn’t want his or her readers to miss the main or some point in the account.  Just like the Romans adding the moral to the Aesop’s fables they didn’t understand well, the later writers wanted the readers to not miss the main point of the writing.  We only see small touches of this until Latin became the written language of the world instead of Greek.

The libraus finishes the writing for the author and makes sure it is in the logos to unstated telos style—this is the first copy.  The libraus reads back the writing and makes corrections required by the author.  In the end, the final writing is what the author wanted and approves.  The structure that is fixed by the libraus can be considered like changing English from an indirect from to a more direct address.  For example, from the post was mailed to I mailed the letter. 

When the first copy is complete, the composition copy, and the author is happy with it, the libraus takes it back to his shop.  That’s next.

At the shop, the libraus and/or his apprentices (or journeymen), make three copies of the letter.  When these are complete, the libraus goes back to the author and presents them.  If the copies are acceptable, the next stage is the choice of the deliverer.  I should mention, there are three copies of the text.  One goes into the records of the libraus, one goes to the author, and the last is the copy to be delivered.  In the ancient world, there is always the possibility of finding these three documents.  I think I mentioned before, we have no copies of any document in antiquity (until about 600 AD), but there is always the possibility, and as we know, caches of documents, notably those kept by the author have fallen to us in history.  How do we know?

We think that the reason we have all of the letters of Paul to the Christian church is that his collection of his letters fell into the hands of his disciples and were kept safe and copied.  That’s why we find all the documents together in the copies.  This is true of some other authors.  It was their copies that were eventually recopied and passed to us in time.

Now, to delivery.  The deliverer was either the author, a friend or relation who was traveling in the direction, or a scroll slave.  The big deal was that the deliverer had to memorize the text of the letter.  The letter was not just sent to the receivers.  The letter was sent with someone who had memorized the text.  I bet you thought that letters were sent cold and read cold just like they are today, but that isn’t true at all in the ancient world.  Someone was required to memorize the letter, and this was very important.

When the author taught the text to the deliverer, they could ensure the inflection, the grammar, the pronunciation, and all the rest was perfect.  Because these documents didn’t have spaces, sentences, paragraphs, punctuation, or any other ways to delineate and understand the text, the details of how the words were supposed to be grouped and said were very important. 

Suffice to say, the deliverer took the letter to the recipients, read it to them, and stayed with them until someone had memorized the letter.  I’d like to point out, the only way the text could be passed on and used was if someone had memorized the text.  If the text was forgotten, the contents could not be understand without great difficulty.  I’ll explain next how we got to texts that we could read cold, next.

The most important point to remember about ancient texts is that they are mnemonics with, in the case of Greek and Latin, vowels, but no spaces between the words, no punctuation, no capitalization, no sentences, no paragraphs, no chapters, nothing but words run together on a scroll, and that’s all there are at this point—scrolls.

The question I suspect you have is how did we go from this type of mnemonics to texts a person could read cold.  The first thing that would require is spaces between the words.  In fact, this was happening as part of the movement toward more education in the Greek and Latin cultures.  Actually, as always the Greeks started it and the Romans completed it. 

In Greece we have three types of schools: the gymnasium, the lyceum, and the schule.  The gymnasium is where the Greeks went to study and practice athletics, cultural activities, and learned (memorized) their literature as well as studied their philosophy.  The lyceum is where educated citizens went to discuss and recite the literature—mostly discuss.  The ­gymnasium and the lyceum were free to use by the Greek citizens.  This was sufficient for the Greek citizens, but in the Hellenized world, everyone wanted to memorize the Greek writing, learn Greek writing, learn Greek culture, and study Greek society.  Obviously, the gymnasium and the lyceum were not enough since they only accommodated Greek citizens and not Barbaros (Barbarians).

What came about are the schule.  A schule was more like a modern private school.  The students paid to learn about Greek language, writing, culture, religion, and society.  These were very common in the areas conquered by Alexander the Greek and strongly Hellenized, but we also think they were popular in areas that were just interested in Greek culture and language. 

With the advent of the schule, the Barabaros (Barbarians—non-Greeks) had an opportunity to learn about everything Hellenic for a cost.  In addition, attracted to learn were the middle and lower classes of society especially the middle class.  Everyone wanted a foot up, and becoming successful in a Hellenized world meant learning.  This led to some real changes in writing.  I’ll get to that, next.

The schules led to something else as well.  In Greece, an education was always available through the gymnasium and the lyceums—not so much.  Although gymnasiums and lyceums were available, they only catered to the citizens and the wealthy.  The lower classes were excluded by the culture and the society, but these groups as well as the lower wealthy class wanted their children’s and their education.

One of the biggest obstacles to reading in the ancient world was that you needed a scroll slave or someone who had memorized the text.  For the wealthy, sending a book slave with a child was normal, but for the less wealthy or the middle class or the lower classes, a $20,000 slave was an impossibility.  This led to the development of teaching texts in Greek based schule.  If you can’t guess, the main point of the teaching texts was that the words were separated for the first time.  This allowed the document to be read without memorization, or as the ancients agreed, it allowed memorization without a scroll slave.

The idea of separating the words in a document was considered a grave fault for a couple of reasons.  Although this made the text readable, it also cost more.  The spaces in a text added considerably to the cost of the document and when a scroll costs from $20,000 to $50,000 the increase was significant.  As the costs of paper, the number of libraii and the costs of ink decreased over time, the costs of a scroll did too.  This led to more texts being produced with spaces between the words.  We aren’t certain when spaces became the norm, but by about 600 to 800 AD, most texts included spaces between the words.  The teaching text had become the normal texts and a scroll slave wasn’t required.  Another very important event or events in the first to third centuries also led to some great changes in writing and reading.  I’ll get to that, next.      

Everything before about the forth Century was scrolls.  Actually, there was something before scrolls too.  We see this in the cuneiform tablets and presume it in the Egyptian papyrus—that is stacks.  You can’t turn tablets into scrolls, but you can turn papyrus sheets into them.  We think that the Egyptians just stacked sheets in order and kept them in boxes or cubies.  The problem was if the document got out of order—no one had invented the page number, yet.  The Egyptians solved this problem by sewing or gluing the sheets together in order and rolling them up, thus the scroll.  This worked great for a long time, but suddenly, documents became very important and available.  The reason was Constantine.  Constantine declared the Christian Church to be the religion of the Empire. 

With his declaration came the need to copy, promote, and send the historical documents of the Church, what is called the New Testament out to the ends of the empire.  Constantine ordered 50 copies be made, and it was so.  Somewhere someone got the great idea to make a codex instead of a scroll.  A codex was written on both sides of the page, therefore saving space and money, it could be referenced much more easily, ever tried finding your place in a scroll, and it could be carried easier. 

Over night, the codex became the form of choice for all writing.  What is a codex?  It’s a book.  A book is a codex and a codex is a book.  The invention of the book owes itself to Constantine and the New Testament, or as I like to call them, the Christian historical documents. 

As I wrote, the codex was very important because is reduced the cost of a document by half.  Writing on both sides of the page was a great economic choice plus, the ability to mark and find your place or a place was a great advancement in writing. 

As you can see, the cost reduction from scrolls to books also made spaces between words in what was thought of as training documents more popular, and suddenly, people could read texts cold.  This transition happened in about the 10th Century.  This small change in the world was a great change for writing and literature.  No longer was a scroll or book slave required, and suddenly all the very ancient texts began to be converted to the new training type form with spaces between the words.  This revolution lasted for a while, but really took wings with the invention of the printing press.

We went through a lot of time and history to get from proto-writing to books, but the real movement in full scale literacy was the invention of the printing press. 

I wrote the cost of a scroll was easily from $20,000 to $50,000 in today’s dollars.  How do we know, just look up the cost of a Torah scroll today—about $50,000.  When the codex of book was invented, we think the cost of the book, as compared to a scroll, went down by about half, so $10,000 to $25,000 per codex.  The data is hard to compare and come by because of time, inflation, and many other factors, but going from $20,000 to $50,000 with a scroll slave to $10,000 to $25,000 without a scroll slave is a great economic change.  Going from $10,000 to $25,000 without a scroll slave to $1,000 to $2,500 without a scroll slave was an incredible change.  We know this is about the change, ten times less cost, is about the change from a codex to a printed book.  In addition, the printed book could be made over and over in a printing run.  Economics of scale are incredible in getting to printing.  Further, printing gave life to space and other modern features of writing.  We’ll get to that.  The most important point is printing.

Printing of books isn’t really where all the money was, but printing made books available to the wealthy and middle class.  It changed the world significantly.  Before the printing press, the average library in antiquity (before 1450) had seven books.  Although some historians like to make ancient libraries filled with scrolls, we know that very few libraries had 10 books, fewer had even 100.  It is almost impossible to imagine any place in the ancient world with as many as 1000 scrolls.  The wealth and value of this is nearly impossible to imagine.  However, after the printing press, a thousand books is imaginable, but it wasn’t the books that made more of the print or the wealth—it was shorts.

Martin Luther was the most prominent author of the early 1500s because his papers were sold at very low cost.  The people had access to literacy, but not to things to read.  The printing press made inexpensive (comparably) shorts available to people who wanted something to read.  I’ll get more into this, next, and about print space too.

The cost of books going down over 10x was significant, and that led to many more owning and reading books, but the real power of the press was that costs continued to go down for books as the demand increased and the availability increased.  Much of this was due to shorts or papers printed for general consumption that were much cheaper than books.  These led eventually to the penny novel which were chapters from a larger novel published and printed in series which were then bought for a penny with each instalment.  Go figure, from religious papers to penny novels. 

Something else really set off the book as well as the penny novel costs and availability.  I’d like, as a side note, to point out the two main reasons for every great human invention—the capitalistic market.  The market is controlled by two things, cost and availability.  The greater the availability the lower the cost and the less the availability the greater the cost.  In addition, the greater the cost, the less the availability and the lesser the cost, the greater the availability.  These are the laws of the market.  That’s why I mentioned the two main reasons for every great human invention—they are all market based and market determined.  Nothing else matters, and by the way, without a market, things will not be invented.  This is why socialists and socialism have never invented anything and will never invent anything.  This is also why, even though the Chinese invented a moveable type earlier than Europe, no one could take advantage of it.  Feudalism and feudal type systems, like the Chinese, are socialist dictatorships—no market.  In Europe, the people were literate due to Christianity, had a relativity free market and could sell their products freely.  In book making, the laws of the market allowed some key developments that resulted in the costs going down another ten times.  Mainly, the cost of paper went down due to the invention or rather the availability of underwear.  I’ll get to that, next.  Just remember this, however, if you want your stuff and you want it cheap, make sure you have a strong capitalist market.  

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.  Before I get to that, I want to write another novel about dependency as a theme.  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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