14 February 2026, Writing - part xxxx324 The Novel, Breaks
Announcement: I
still need a new publisher. However, I’ve taken the step to republish my
previously published novels. I’m starting with Centurion, and
we’ll see from there. Since previously published novels have little
chance of publication in the market (unless they are huge best sellers), I
might as well get those older novels back out. I’m going through Amazon
Publishing, and I’ll pass the information on to you.
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 two 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 the third edition of Centurion:
|
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.
I want to start with these definitions as
a premise for writing.
1. Write to entertain
2. Write using the
common outline for a novel
3. Develop a telic flaw,
a protagonist, an antagonist, and plan to resolve the telic flaw.
4. Start with an initial
scene.
5. Develop and define a
modern protagonist: you get a telic flaw, a potential protagonist’s helper, and
a potential initial scene from the development.
6. Write to reveal the
protagonist.
And here is the scene:
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
I haven’t come to the end of Bookgirl yet,
but I’m close. I wrote generally with examples
about the structure of a novel and how to write it. The basis of any novel is the scene. It might be worthwhile to get into some other
structures in novels. One of the
structures that catches a lot of attention is the chapter. What is it about the chapter and why use them?
I suspect the chapter in the history of novels
has more to do with series novels and natural breaks more than anything
else. The scene is the most natural
building block of the novel and of any fiction, while other pieces like the
paragraph, sentences, and words, are simply pieces brough together to build
scenes. Everything else above the scene
is just a little extra added to the novel for reading and organizing
purposes. I suspect the chapter was
designed in time to mainly support the serialization of the novel. There really is not other reason except, as
an author of a bunch of novels, I organize my novels as chapters for the
purpose of writing.
My organization for writing using chapters
has nothing to do with content perse and everything to do with word count and
novel development. This is what I mean. I write scenes. I write novels to be about 100,000
words. A chapter is about 20 pages or
about 5000 words with a nominal wordcount of 250 words per page. Twenty pages at 250 words per page gives 5000
words. In turn, 20 chapters at about
5000 words per chapter puts you at about 100,000 words. I aim for about 100,000 words in a
novel.
This means I better be heading into the
climax by chapter 19 with the falling action and dénouement in chapter 20. Chapter 1 is the initial scene and begins the
rising action. This is how I organize to
write my novels. There is no magic in
it, just a means to get to a specific wordcount for the novel.
You can do whatever you want with the
chapters. The chapter is just a
construction from the past, but it is a type of useful construction. When I first started writing, I had no idea
how to work with chapters. Since
chapters don’t matter, I just used them for natural breaks and even scene
breaks. That’s okay too—there really are
no rules on this, but natural breaks and scene breaks are too numerous and will
give you a bunch of short chapters when you really want reading size ones. As I noted, the chapter really came about as
a means of breaking up the serial novel.
A chapter was a nice amount to pass on to your readers. It usually includes about three scenes and provides
a good balance of words and content for the readers. At around 5000 words, the chapter is akin to
a short story.
I’m not sure how other authors handle
chapters. Editors and publishers don’t
seem to care much about the number or the length. I’ve never been asked to truncate or to
expand a chapter. I’ve never been asked
to put chapters together or to break them apart. In my opinion, they have no other purpose
than to break the novel up into readable segments. Readable in one sitting.
You do perhaps know the Bible did not originally
have any chapters of verses. It didn’t
even have sentences or paragraphs. It
was originally broken up into chapters based on reading and topics. It is a late date idea which only came in
about 800 AD due to the reduction in costs of writing with the availability of
paper and the invention of the codex (book).
So, the idea of the chapter for novels is
just a means of breaking up the novel into digestible segments. As I wrote, I aim for 5,000 word chapters and
20 of them. This is a very good way to
organize a novel. I’ll move on to other
potential parts, next.
Although chapter breaks in novels are
pretty extraneous and based only on series development and natural reading
breaks, there are real breaks in writing.
One of the main and most logical breaks is the scene breaks. A scene break occurs when the author comes to
the end of a scene. The new scene
usually starts with a new setting and potentially new characters although this
isn’t always true. You can start a new
scene without a scene break. What
exactly is a scene break.
When the scene ends, you have a natural
scene break. If you can’t naturally
identify the end of the scene. The break
happens with a change of setting, place (same thing), narrator, point of view (PoV)
(about the same thing), and potentially an idea or concept in the novel. It is highly unlikely, but it is possible to
have a natural break between thoughts or ideas.
I’m not into that—in my opinion, you really need a more concrete and
cohesive reason for a break.
The most common reason for a scene break
(or just a break in a novel) is when the characters or the setting
changes. When there is a natural break
in the narrative or the dialog, but especially the narrative. In other words, when the characters move to a
different location.
Traveling is a great plot, but not every
travel or movement needs its own plot.
For example, if our characters leave their house to go to a party, you
usually don’t need to show the entire trip.
You can, and sometimes you might want to do this, but usually you just
say they leave their house and go to some other location, you naturally pick up
the plot (showing) at some logical time in between the departure and
arrival. You might just go for the arrival. There are lots of ways to play this.
At the party, we have many options. If you are going to some real formal type of
party, your characters will go to the greeting line to meet the hosts. This is an always for formal parties. If it is an informal party (most in the USA),
your characters just join in the festivities.
I happen to like the formal party gig.
It is most common in Europe and in the USA during high end events like
political groups or military ones. In
many cases, in the USA, the informality is an illusion. The partygoer is expected to greet the hosts
at the beginning and give a thankyou and a goodbye at the end. Many people in the modern times just have no
clue about basic etiquette. In your
novels, the sophistication of your characters is up to you.
Personally, the unsophisticated will
seldomly be invited to formal or sophisticate parities. If they are or you do have these types of
events, you better get them right in the context of the novel. I suggest attending a few before you write,
or just make some good study.
In any case, I got on the subject of
parties, and I was just looking at scene breaks.
In modern novels, the scene breaks usually
are indicated with a dingbat. I’ll get
more into the scene break, next.
There’s more.
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
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