Announcement: I heard from my publisher that my Aegypt novels will continued to be titled Ancient Light and that the next two books will be called Sister of Light and Sister of Darkness. These were the original titles. They will be released individually and as a 3 in 1 volume. I saw the proposed cover. I'll keep you updated.
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.
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.
5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.
All novels have five discrete parts:
1. The initial scene (the beginning)
2. The rising action
3. The climax
4. The falling action
5. The dénouement
The theme statement of my newest novel, Valeska, is this: An agent of the organization becomes involved with a vampire girl during a mission, she becomes dependent on the agent, and she is redeemed.
Here is my proposed cover for Valeska:
In writing dialog storyline, the scene setting, character setting, and introductions (and greetings) move you into the dialog. If you are reasonably familiar with your own culture, you should be able to write cogent conversation in your novel. As with every scene, the dialog scene should build tension to a release. The excitement comes mainly out of the dialog.
The other type of scene is an action based scene. The question you might ask is this: is action handled any differently than a dialog? I'll tell you not much. A mistake, in my opinion, is to dash into the action without a setting. There is more to it than that--most action scenes include dialog and most conversations include action. I would almost be willing to conclude that all action scenes include (or should include dialog) and all conversations include action. I can imagine a scene where there is only action, but not conversation without action. I'm not sure an action scene without some degree of conversation is worth reading. It would mean either a single character event or a first person event. If a character does something in the woods and no one sees it, did it occur? I'm being sarcastic because I'm not in favor of single character scenes. The meaningful action is with more than one together--not just one.
In the past, I've written some single character scenes and I still write single character scenes, but only in extremis and when they are absolutely necessary. I will not go so far as to tell you not to write these scenes, but rather to encourage you to keep a majority of your scenes with more than one character. That means your action scenes will include some dialog.
More tomorrow.
For more information, you can visit my author site http://www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites:
http://www.aegyptnovel.com/
http://www.centurionnovel.com
http://www.thesecondmission.com/
http://www.theendofhonor.com/
http://www.thefoxshonor.com
http://www.aseasonofhonor.com
No comments:
Post a Comment