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:
There is really no such thing as freedom from rules in writing. For example, every word must be put together correctly and appropriately. If you don't follow the rules of spelling and phonetics, you will never be able to produce words that anyone else can understand. Now, it is possible to invent new words, but even the words you invent must follow certain rules based on their composition. If you don't believe me, just try to make a word without any basis for vowels, phonetics, or meaning and see what you get.
If you move up to sentences, English particularly has very stringent rules governing word placement in the sentence structure. Other languages are not as specific, but you will find every language has very exacting rules for putting together sentences. If you don't follow the rules of sentence structure, no one will understand your writing. Perhaps we should talk a little about sentence structure. If you are not an expert in writing sentences...Let's add to that--if you don't have a very strong vocabulary (of proper words), and if you are not an expert in crafting those words into proper sentences, you cannot be a good writer. To be able to craft sentences means you know all the very detailed rules of English (or whatever language you are writing in) sentence construction. This is what we call grammar. Knowledge of grammar is necessary to be able to write at all. To write well requires expert knowledge. What rules do you think you can throw out to achieve any kind of worthwhile writing? I hope you answered, none. If you know the rules, you might have some ability to bend them or to intentionally misuse them to produce some effect in your writing, but without the rules, you aren't getting very far.
For example, you might misuse grammar to bring out cultural differences between a country hick and a city dweller.
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
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