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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