26 April 2026, Writing - part xxxx395 The Novel, Antiquity and Technology, Worldview, Reflected
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’m going to move into a more technical
subject this time. I’ve addressed this
subject before, but I haven’t in a while, and most of the time, I’ve looked at
it in the context of other writing ideas.
This is the subject of technology.
Why is technology important? The most critical point, in my mind, is
accuracy from the standpoint of the time and place of the novels we write. I’d say, technology is perhaps the most
important compared to history. Why is
that?
The obvious answer for the modern era is
the change of technology. If you write a
novel set in the 1990, and every character has an iPhone, you have done a great
harm to your technology and the historical and technical accuracy of your
novel. The iPhone was first introduced
in 2007. There are a lot of these traps
especially for the young and inexperienced who didn’t live through these
times. In other words, to a person who
spent their entire life with an iPhone (or other, so called, smart phone), the
idea of not having one is almost impossible to imagine. Likewise, the aircraft was invented in
1903. If you have an heavier than air
aircraft in your novel before about 1910, you are breaking an historical
fact. Now, you could be like some of the
creepy and silly movies and novels written in the modern era that have all
kinds of impossible historical technological anomalies. For example, one of the latest Sherlock Holmes
movies in the last ten years has an aircraft in the late 1890s or so. Now, it could be late Sherlock in about 1920,
but it’s hard to tell with the way movies are produced, and who can tell what
time they are really in. In any case,
these types of craziness defy reality and technology, but it gets worse. These are easy examples from the centuries of
knowledge and documentation. What about
the very early times in history and prehistory?
This is something I’d like to explain and
explore. My real expertise is in early
languages, cultures, and societies especially those that are early
Mediterranean and early British. These
are some of the times I’ve written about and that I use in my writing. Plus, I translate Anglo-Saxon and Athenian
Greek. These are both dead languages so
they aren’t going anywhere.
Here's my plan. I’m going to start with early technological
history like the seven basic machines and other major technologies and apply
them to writing about history. We’ll investigate
foods, cooking, warfare, agriculture, horses, husbandry (farming and animals),
crops, furniture, architecture, and so on.
The point is to begin to understand the past and past technology so we
can write historically correct and enlightening novels. In addition, we will eventually move to the
modern eras and then to science fiction.
Science fiction is all about predicting and extrapolating
technology. We’ll make a sweeping study
of technology such that we can write realistic and historically correct
fiction.
I looked at technology in a way that most
historians don’t. In terms of cause and
effect. Most historians see history as
just events, but they are all based in cause and effect. We as writers understand this about fiction
well, that is if we are successful writers.
A novel moves forward by cause and effect—they are not simply events or
elements in isolation. They are all
connected by the telic flaw and telic flaw resolution. This means novels don’t follow the historical
model, but rather a technological model.
What’s that mean?
Technology and development are always evolutionary. Yes, there are times when some inventor makes
an accidental discovery, but most technological discoveries have nothing to do
with accidents—they are more akin to the Wright brothers who made detailed
experiments to end up with a flying vehicle.
The complexity of their development and experimentation give a lie to
the idea of the accidental discovery. In
fact, I’ll go so far as to totally refute the idea of the accidental
discovery. Indeed, there are cases in
history of this type of discovery, but the experimenter had to be knowledgeable
and able to recognize what he or she had made and what it could do. I will assert that even with a great
accident, you aren’t going to discover a flying vehicle or a faster than light
means of travel. You might discover a
better way to make rubber but you better be an expert in what rubber is and
does. My point is that we as authors
need to fill in the holes that readers might not fully understand so they
figure out the real difficulty and power in both technology and technology
development. All this needs to be in the
background unless it is the basis of the telic flaw. I try to present technology in my novels as
part of the fabric of the story and the novels.
This is more obvious in my science fiction, but also a strength of my
more modern magic realism novels. Wait,
magic realism and technology? How’s
that?
I guess I need to touch on this. Back to worldview: real, reflected, and
created. That’s next.
I’ll cover this again because I think it
is very important for the writer. I like
to write in the reflected worldview as much as possible. I also write science fiction in a created
worldview, but with a strong reflected worldview basis. Let me explain the three types of worldview you
can write from and we’ll see why they are important and what makes them
different. This really does have a lot
to do with technology and technological interpolation and extrapolation. I’ll eventually get to that. For now, let’s look at the three different writing
worldviews.
First, there is the real worldview. The real worldview is a view of the world
that has become the normal societal and cultural view of the world. I’ll not say it is the correct worldview or
even the accepted worldview, but in some ways it is the acknowledged
worldview. For example, if you ask the average
person what about the supernatural, they will give you some answer that is ambivalent,
but most will not acknowledge or accept the idea of the supernatural. Then ask them about religion and their beliefs. Religion is all about the supernatural. In fact, the idea of religion and religions
is completely wrapped up in the supernatural, but the acknowledgment of the
people you question usually won’t change—they will continue to deny the
supernatural while holding tightly to their religious ideas. On the other hand, if you ask the intelligentsia,
they will categorically deny any concept of the supernatural or religion. They will do so based on their own ideas on
the reality of the world. In their worldview
the supernatural of any kind can’t exist.
They will die on this hill.
Then bring up aliens and UFOs. This is a very interesting idea in the real
worldview. Even though zero, that is
zero with a capital z and nothing at all behind it. Zero, evidence in the real world of any
aliens or UFOs, the average person will waffle worse than on the subject of the
supernatural. The intelligentsia will
waffle as well, but they will pontificate that in the unbounded universe,
aliens must exist although most have zero, that’s zero evidence or idea about
them at all. They get all their
information from the movies, TV, or social media.
Let’s talk about UFOs. Anyone with any sense and real knowledge on
this subject knows that in unclassified sources (now, but previously classified
by the government), the military has stated that all alien and UFO ideas were
used as programs to intentionally high high technology programs. The original programs the military hid with
aliens and UFOs was Oxcart (the U-2 program), the A-12 (single seat fighter
version of the SR-71), and the nuclear aircraft (cancelled due to Linus Pauling’s
papers and work on the danger of a flying nuclear reactor). Today, we don’t know what programs the
military is hiding with their alien and UFO false flag programs and false
information, but they are. Even some
presidents have gotten into the fray with some either stupid or intentionally
false information and statements. It is
indeed supposed to be classified data if there is an intentionally alien and
UFO misinformation program. All we know
about officially is the original ones—just search for the Project Blue Book
program.
What we can conclude about aliens and UFOs
is that they are intentionally programmed misinformation used by the government
to hide high tech programs from the world and people. Basically, they are a great means of fooling
people. No harm, no foul, but this
begins the great difference between the real worldview and the reflected
worldview. I’ll not begin on the reflected
worldview yet, but let’s continue with the real.
As you can see, even the intelligentsia as
well as the common person will be at least ambivalent on aliens and UFOs. It is normal for the average person and the intelligentsia
to imagine that aliens and UFOs exist even with zero, with a big z proof and
the confessions of the government as to their collusion on this issue. Even the officials who know better will
waffle, and this isn’t much different, although much greater believed than the
supernatural. In fact, a very high percentage
of people trust in religion, but generally deny the supernatural and still also
believe in aliens and UFOs.
There are other ideas programs and
concepts accepted by the herd of humanity as real, but are they real or are
they even provable? If you read real
worldview writing, you will conclude that the supernatural, religion, and aliens
can’t exist. They usually don’t appear
in these novels, however, you will also read about other less provable ideas
that are within the so-called fabric of current human reality that are much
more dubious in nature.
Let me address just one of those. You might not read anything directly in a real
worldview novel about high cholesterol diets or butter or even red meat, but
society for decades accepted the unproven and less than scientific idea that
butter and meat was bad for human consumption, but bread and grains were. This goes completely against multiple sources
of knowledge and science about human diet.
In the first place, high carbohydrate grains were never a normal source
of food for early humans—that had to wait for agriculture, and we already looked
at that in history and antiquity. No way
to get it and no way to cook it until about 10,000 years ago. Further the human palate, intellect, and
brain and body growth, strength, and fitness is based on protein consumption. The more the better. Science is showing us this and all the demons
of the previous false ideas are slowly eking their way into the real worldview. It takes time, but as I noted, the entire worldview
about food is slowly changing. We are
literally going back to what your great grandmother was telling you years ago. The real worldview is changing.
There is much more to this, and I’ll
continue with the real worldview, next.
So, here is the great question: what exactly is a real worldview? I can tell you now and very simply, the real
worldview is what your culture and society views as truth in the world. However, even that is pretty difficult. This is what people will tell you, not from
their hearts, but from their minds is the way of the world. In their heats people desire the supernatural
to exist. They would never let their minds
entertian such an illogical idea, but their hearts so desire it, they can
almost taste it. Even among the religious,
the idea of the supernatural is problematic.
Although, you can’t have religion without the supernatural, the very
idea is hard for the average Western person to accept in their minds. The Asian or Eastern mind sees this a little
differently—they accept the idea of the supernatural as natural in human
thoughts and endeavors, and I would conclude that the Western worldview does
not improve their cultures in this respect.
The older Western view of the great fathers and mothers of science like
Newton, Aquinas, Aristotle, and many many others that could imagine the
supernatural in its place in the real world were smarter and more well rounded
than today.
The idea of aliens and UFOs has somewhat superseded
that of the supernatural in the minds of the West to the point that even great
scientists like Hawking and Sagan could write with a straight face about the
potential for cosmic beings (like aliens) who could put the fabric of nature
into action (become the telic cause of the Big Bang (creation). They did this so they didn’t have to touch
the idea of God or the supernatural.
That in itself is suspect in the real worldview. Again, you might ask, what is the real
worldview? And I must reply, it is what
your culture accepts as real. I can give
you characteristics of it.
In the first place, in the real worldview,
people don’t go to church, synagogue, or to any other religious meeting unless
it is to infiltrate and make fun of or condemn the religious ideas. Even then, the real worldview stays out of
religion. Religion is meant as some kind
of social or cultural window-dressing and certainly not something to respect or
accept. In the real worldview, religion
is a crutch and a plot device, not a fixture or setting (unless it is
negative).
Science and the world of science, in the
real worldview is truth of the most certain type. However, that truth must support the real
worldview, so there can be no context that moves science from the real world
truth into the supernatural or into the extraterrestrial. In science fiction, the writer can move the
real into the extraterrestrial, but that becomes a created worldview, and not a
real one.
Generally, the real worldview settles into
science as understood in movies and on TV—it’s not real science, but rather the
journalistic view of science. That should
really scare you, because journalists in the modern era can barely read and
write much less process science. However,
this point should give you a view of the real worldview—it’s the society’s
opinion as a whole about the science, and not science at all. If the general population believe it to be true,
then it is truth in the real worldview.
To give an example, the earth centric view of the universe and solar
system before Copernicus and Galileo, placed the earth in the center of the
entire creation (universe). The average
person believed this without a shred of question. Or, better yet, the flat earth view of the
1400s could not imagine Columbus would not fall off the edge of the world when
traveling to the west. So much for scientific
consensus especially of the masses. In
fact, there really is no such thing as scientific consensus, but there is
popular consensus about the real worldview.
Almost every book is written today with
this worldview. It isn’t a very pretty
worldview, but it is what people imagine the world to be like. There are alternatives, and I’ll get to
them. I write in the reflected worldview. I’ll get to that, next.
So, what is the reflected worldview? The real worldview is what people think, with
their brains, the world is really like.
The reflected worldview is what people think with their hearts and
emotions the world is really like. There
is no room in the modern real worldview for the supernatural or aliens or the extraterrestrial
or for God or the gods. In the real worldview
people don’t go to church or synagogue and worship of the real God or other
gods does not provide miracles or even solace.
That’s where the reflected worldview comes in.
The reflected worldview is the world as
people want it to really be even if they aren’t so sure. This is why I state that the reflected
worldview might actually be more real that the real worldview. The real worldview simply is a echo chamber
for the intelligentsia, those who strive to tell us what the world is really
like, while the reflected includes all the minority views and hopes that abound
in the world. That’s not to say the reflected
worldview can’t include foolishness—it abounds in foolishness. It’s just that the reflected worldview really
reflects the hearts of the humans on the planet. It’s all about what might be and what people
hope exists as opposed to harsh reality that certain groups can’t help but
insist must exist or not.
So what does the reflected worldview look
like. When my grandchildren ask: are
there dragons? My reply is: I hope
so. I like to write about dragons. Are they real? Probably not, but there is enough of the idea
about dragons in the reflected worldview to fill a few million books. Make an internet search and you will find
generous information on dragons, and yet, no one has seen a dragon unless you
count Komodo lizards, alligators, crocodiles, and dinosaur fossils. Whoops, a rose by any other name is a rose,
isn’t it?
You can extrapolate or interpolate the
idea of dragons into any point of the reflected worldview. Like about gods or the supernatural in
general. The God and religion fit easily
in this category, but things in the reflected worldview get problematic
quickly. In the real worldview, the busybodies
of the illuminati wish that religion and the God would just go away, but there
is too much sticking out into the world that is both real and reflected for
religion and God to play just a side role.
In other words, you might be able to ignore the gods and goddesses of
the past in antiquity, but that Jewish and Christian God just has too many
traces in the real world to ignore, and this is where the real and the
reflected worlds both meet and separate.
If you notice, the idea of dragons has
pieces that stick up into the real world to tempt use about their existence. Few would agree that a full on dragon exists
in the world today, but everyone really wants there to be. It’s too interesting for one or two not to,
and I haven’t even begun to write about writing about dragons. Everything else fits this way into the reflected
worldview. The stumps of these ideas
push up through the real and give hope to what cultures know can’t or shouldn’t
be—and then there are those real trees that grow, like Judaism and Christianity,
up through the world and can’t be hidden.
There is just too much there there, and that’s where I love to
write. This is the basis for the
reflected worldview and the basis for real fiction, in my mind.
Yes, there is great scope in writing in
the real worldview—it’s a popular place to write, but I’m a great advocate of
the reflected worldview, and that’s where I’ll go, next.
I know the idea of the reflected worldview
and the real worldview is a little confusing.
Just take a look at the average novel today, and that is the real
worldview. Take a look at the average
science fiction, fantasy, or magic realism novel, and suddenly you have
potentially burst into the reflected worldview, but not necessarily. How’s that?
Harry Potty is not a reflected worldview
it is a created worldview similar to science fiction. What?
I hate to put it in these terms, but if you do an internet search and
the topic of the novel comes up in a basic drag for information, that is a real
or reflected worldview. On the other
hand, if you make an internet search and the only place you find information
about a topic is for that book or set of books, like Harry Potty, that is a
created worldview. I haven’t moved into
the created worldview yet, but as a teaser and touch on this subject—if the
author invents the concepts in the novel, it is a created worldview. And…I know you are asking then what is the
difference between that and the reflected worldview. Here it comes.
If you bring up a dragon in your novel,
and the dragon looks and acts like a rabbit, you are not writing in the reflected
worldview. A creature called a dragon
who looks like a rabbit is comedy and satire, but not reflected. The ideas themselves are part of the joke,
but even Monty Python wouldn’t call a rabbit who acted like a dragon a dragon—that
ruins the humor.
If you make a search on the internet for
dragon, or if you research the idea and word dragon, and your writing about a
dragon matches closely or even not so closely, but closely enough that your
readers can figure out you are writing about a dragon, you are most likely in
the the reflected worldview. The
reflected worldview is the worldview that includes those places, things, people,
and beings that might not be real, but that we as a culture and society
acknowledge and imagine might exist.
Then why isn’t Harry Potty considered a
reflected worldview? Some of the
creatures and beings in Harry Potty are from the reflected worldview, but many
are simply borrowed either from other fiction or from the mind of the
writer. There is nothing wrong with this
from a writing point at all, but in my opinion, this is what makes Rowling’s
writing juvenile and not necessarily for adults. The stories are good enough, although I have
problems with the protagonist and the messiah and blood will out plots, but the
use of magic realism is fun and the writing is fun. Where I am also not endeared to the writing
is the magic system itself.
I’ve written over and over, if you want to
write about magic you must follow two basic concepts in your writing—first, a
logical and reasonable basis for your magical system. I recommend using Frazer’s Golden Bough
for this, but an author can write a reflected worldview magic system that is
logical from other magical sources, it just gets more difficult. You can also create your own magical system,
but that requires reasoning, logic, and continuity. You can fool children and youth, but not
necessarily thinking adults without reason and continuity.
The second point of a magic system, in my opinion,
is you must define and describe the reflected worldview consistently. This means usually that you must bring up God
or the gods. In other words, you can’t
have the supernatural without defining to some degree the supernatural. What do I mean?
Look at vampires. If you go with the Bram Stoker classical
vampire, you have a creature of Satan and evil who is affected by crosses,
flowing water, holy water, garlic, and stakes through the heart. All these are Christian symbols and basic to
a vampire. A vampire not affected by
these items is no vampire at all. There
is room for modifications based on historical and fictional accounts of vampires,
and I don’t mean just created stuff. For
example, my vampires drink blood only during the full moon—that matches with some
Asian vampires. In addition, my vampires
don’t make other vampires just by drinking their blood. Do the math, if just drinking the blood made
new vampires and a single vampire was consuming blood nightly, the number of
vampires would quickly overwhelm the world.
Even in Bram Stoker’s account the author is slightly ambivalent about
how a vampire gets made.
Dragons are similar. According to Western myth, dragons were
created by God to guard specific places and things. They accumulate treasure for this reason when
their initial purpose was ended or as part of their initial purpose. Again, like vampires, the idea of God can’t
be ignored. Or I guess you can ignore
the whole God thing, but it becomes a thing for the average reader. Let me note, that Bram Stoker, the inventer
of the modern vampire was writing to prove God.
If a creature like a vampire can exist then God must exist. It is part of that logical thing. In my opinion and my writing, the existence
of the supernatural proves the existence of the supernatural—if there are
supernatural creatures, there must be God.
There is more to this, and I’ll get to it 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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