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:
I know in K-12 and college you don't have much scope in choosing your teachers, but let me give you some advice. Don't try to learn the profession of writing from someone who is not published. This was my mistaken premise for a long time. I assumed that a person who was teaching writing actually understood writing and creativity. I was wrong, and universities are wrong to employ people who have a writing education, but who are not professional authors. You can't learn to write fiction from someone who has not spent that 10,000 successful hours of experience in learning to write. When I write, 10,000 successful hours, I mean that they have produced one million words and are acknowledged as a writer by being paid for their works.
Once you have acquired the basic skills of writing: word usage, sentence construction, paragraph development, scene development, and novel construction, you are ready to begin to build the skills of writing. The only way to build the skills of writing is to write. When you have put together one million words--if you learn the skills, you will be publishable.
You might ask, how do I get those skills that are not usually taught: scene development and novel construction. You have to find it through reading novels or from blogs like this. You might luck into a class taught at a university by a published author, but I wouldn't count on it. A university wouldn't hire me to teach because my credentials are in the sciences and not English.
So, here is what to do, keep reading and keep writing. Until the world of education changes and takes it out of the control of the unpublished and places it in the hands of the professional, you will mostly have to learn on your own. Look for authors and experienced professionals in the field of writing--those people will be able to teach you the skills you need to progress.
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