Writing - part x622, Developing Skills, How to Suspend Disbelief, Feelings and Entertaining Characters

20 September 2018, Writing - part x622, Developing Skills, How to Suspend Disbelief, Feelings and Entertaining Characters

Announcement: Delay, my new novels can be seen on the internet, but my primary publisher has gone out of business—they couldn’t succeed in the past business and publishing environment.  I'll keep you informed, but I need a new publisher.  More information can be found at www.ancientlight.com.  Check out my novels--I think you'll really enjoy them.

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 website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.

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.

     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.

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 29^th novel, working title, Detective, potential title Blue Rose: Enchantment and the Detective.  The theme statement is: Lady Azure Rose Wishart, the Chancellor of the Fae, supernatural detective, and all around dangerous girl, finds love, solves cases, breaks heads, and plays golf.  

Here is the cover proposal for Blue Rose: Enchantment and the Detective. 

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 30^th novel, working title Red Sonja.  I finished my 29^th novel, working title Detective.  I’m planning to start on number 31, working title Shifter. 

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 31:  TBD 

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:  Suspension of disbelief is the characteristic of writing that pulls the reader into the world of the novel in such a way that the reader would rather face the world of the novel rather than the real world—at least while reading.  If this occurs while not reading, it is potentially a mental problem.  To achieve the suspension of disbelief your writing has to meet some basic criteria and contain some strong inspiration.  If you want to call the inspiration creativity, that works too.  Here is a list of the basic criteria to hope to achieve some degree of suspension of disbelief. 

1.      Reasonably written in standard English

2.      No glaring logical fallacies

3.      Reasoned worldview

4.      Creative and interesting topic

5.      A Plot

6.      Entertaining

7.      POV

Everything is about entertainment.  The purpose for all published novels is entertainment.  Other than this is the only point of fiction literature, one of the main reasons is that entertainment can fill a lot of holes as well as result in the suspension of disbelief.

The factors that do lend themselves to entertaining are these:

1.      Characters

2.      Plot

3.      Setting

4.      Topics

5.      Writing

6.      Use of figures of speech (vocabulary and language).

How to develop entertaining protagonists?  I can’t leave the discussion of entertaining protagonists without mentioning the romantic character.  I assert that we are still in the Romantic Era for writing, but whether we are or aren’t, the romantic character is the favored character of most readers.  If your protagonist is a romantic character or has romantic characteristics, this will improve the chance your readers will find them entertaining. 

So, what does a romantic character look like?  I happen to have a short list.  This isn’t a perfect list, but it gets the basic idea.  I’ll find examples as well.

1.       The common man, innocence of humans, and childhood (children)

2.      Focus on strong senses, emotions, and feelings

3.      Awe of nature

4.      Celebration of the individual and individualism

5.      Importance of imagination

Pathos building characters fit closely in the romantic model, and one of the main reasons is the focus of romanticism on senses, emotions, and feelings.  If you notice above rule 4a. Show what can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted on the stage of the novel.  This is fundamentally a romantic idea.  The Victorian idea would read something like this: tell what can be perceived by the characters in the novel.  Then the classic Victorian author would proceed to explain every nook, cranny, and idea pictured or real from the mind of their protagonist.  We’ve grown way out of this, so don’t even think of doing it.

The concept of the senses is purely a romantic idea.  To the Victorians, the senses were to be distrusted and to be repressed.  However, the romantic author isn’t necessarily interested in the senses of the characters as much as the senses of the readers.  The romantic author uses the senses of the characters and rule 4a to excite the senses of the reader.  It is always the senses of the reader that matter.  The reason for this is the emotions and feelings of the protagonist reflected on the readers.

The beginning of the Romantic Era, the authors fell into the traits of the Victorians, but today, we don’t tell, we show.  The romantic author wants and needs to show the emotions and feelings of the characters and the means are the senses.  This is also how we produce the suspension of disbelief.  If I can make my readers feel the emotions of my characters through the senses and actions, then my readers will be caught in the suspension of disbelief—it is very difficult to knock a reader out of the suspension of disbelief when they are emotionally attached to the characters and especially the protagonist.

Remember, it isn’t the feelings of the protagonist, it is the feelings of the readers that matter.  A good author can bring a reader to tears while the protagonist is simply recounting a simple and singular event in their lives.  I’ll use the examples from before.

Menolly, one of my favorite examples from Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, only occasionally shows us any emotion.  She is a shy and reticent character, yet her experiences of previous abuse and love of music induce feelings in the reader.  The authos could have brought out some of her pain and suffereing even stronger in the text, but to a degree, the author milks Menolly’s experiences as much as possible to generate emotions and feelings in the reader. 

My character Azure from Blue Rose: Enchantment and the Detective, is a woman whose life and experiences immediately generates strong emotions.  Not reflective in her, but through the reader.  I made her a very strong person and personality.  She is not an emotional person.  The circumstances she is placed in and her history provide more than sufficient emotions and feelings to the reader and to the characters around her.  I don’t tell you about these feelings, I show you these feelings.

Jonny Rico from Starship Troopers is a pretty emotionless person.  He is moved by emotion, but that is a liability in a soldier and a space marine.  Jonny’s experiences and the feelings generated by the espirit de corps and military comradery evoke emotions and feelings in the readers. 

These feelings and emotions in the readers are what hold the readers in the suspension of disbelief.  Perhaps we need an example.     

  

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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