4 October 2018, Writing - part
x636, Developing Skills, How to Suspend Disbelief, Reader’s Reactions
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 29th 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 30th novel, working
title Red Sonja. I finished my 29th 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
In the perfect novel, we as authors manipulate the response of
the readers to a pathos reaction. The
type of pathos reaction is immaterial, the reaction is necessary. Notice the author needs to manipulate the
response to a pathos and not a bathos. In a bathos, the readers is simply
laughing at you before he or she throws down your book in anger and then tosses
it in the round file.
How do we develop proper pathos building scenes and novels? This is the question of the ages. I’ll put forward that Harry Potty really isn’t
a great example of pathos development.
Many bestselling authors don’t do it for me. Some great authors produce intellectual
pathos. I’ll throw Jack Vance into that
pool. He doesn’t usually develop mind
blowing pathos for me, but he does produce wonderful irony and analogy that
ties his novels together.
The real picture of pathos is the question, can we develop an
emotional response in our readers and not necessarily in our characters. That is probably the perfect pathos
development. On the other hand, the
normal view of pathos development is that the character reflect some degree of
emotion, and the author can envelope the reader in that emotion. This is the power of writing and especially
novels.
How do we produce this kind of response in our readers? I would say the main ingredient is the buildup. This kind of development requires pages and
pages of proper setup. A single scene
isn’t enough. The characters, setting,
and events of the setting are all critical aspects of pathos development.
Next, the telic flaw and problems of the protagonist must be at
the forefront of pathos development. Not
to say, the telic flaw is necessarily resolved or that it is the focus of the
pathos, but it always plays in the pathos to result in the resolution of the
novel.
The pathos is reflected.
As I mentioned yesterday, the pathos is best developed and accentuated
when another character reflects the emotion.
For example, if a character succeeds in a contest, to have some person
or an official make the comment that the character’s skill at blank was
amazing. This immediately draws the
reader’s mind to the circumstance of the event and the emotion. Or, you can have a character respond
emotionally to the protagonist. This
produces a reflection in the mind of the character and the reader.
There is much more to pathos development—I’ll try to provide
more information.
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
http://www.aegyptnovel.com/
http://www.centurionnovel.com
http://www.thesecondmission.com/
http://www.theendofhonor.com/
http://www.thefoxshonor.com
http://www.aseasonofhonor.com
fiction, theme, plot, story,
storyline, character development, scene, setting, conversation, novel, book,
writing, information, study, marketing, tension, release, creative, idea,
logic
Writing—So
You Want to be a Writer, Thinking
4 October 2018, this blog is about writing in
scenes. I’m focusing on the tools to build scenes. I’ll leave up
the parts of a novel because I think this is an important picture for any
novelist. I’m writing about how to begin and write a novel.
1.
The initial scene
2.
The rising action scenes
3.
The climax scene
4.
The falling action scene(s)
5.
The dénouement
scene(s)
Announcement: I need a new publisher. Ancient Light has been delayed due to the economy, and
it may not be published. Ancient Light includes
Aegypt, Sister of Light and Sister of
Darkness. If you are interested in historical/suspense
literature, please give my novels a try. You can read about
them at http://www.ancientlight.com. I’ll keep you updated.
Today’s Blog: The skill of using language comes from
the ability to put together figures of speech that act as symbols in writing.
Short digression: back in
the USA.
Here are my rules of writing:
1.
Entertain your readers.
2.
Don’t confuse 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.
Creativity is the extrapolation of older ideas to form new
ones or to present old ideas in a new form.
It is a reflection of something new created with ties to
the history, science, and logic (the intellect). Creativity requires
consuming, thinking, and producing.
Scene
development:
Here
is the beginning of the scene development method from the 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
First step of writing—enjoy writing. Writing is a chore—especially if you don’t
know what you are doing, and you don’t know where you are going. Let me help you with that.
How
do we gain the skills to write well? We
began with reading. Reading allows us to
gain the skills to write well, but imagination provides the impetus to write
and especially to write modern literature.
How
do we activate our imagination? How do
we get ideas to write? How can we begin
to develop such ideas, especially imaginative ideas?
Thinking
is the means to develop creativity and imagination. I feel like I always have my thinking cap
on. This means I feel like I am always
engaged at some level outside the novel or writing itself (or anything else I
am using for idea development).
Ideas
are where it’s at and imagination and creativity are the sources. I am constantly looking for ideas for novels,
but also for scenes and tension and release in scenes. In general, the tension and release in scenes
is likely the best use of creativity in any novel. The reason is that a climax is a climax. Unless you can really build the rising action
to a nuclear proportioned climax, I suspect the climax and telic flaw resolution
are nothing, or they should be nothing compared to the tension and release in
your scenes.
In
fact, tension and release is the way to go—this is where your imagination must
be centered. How do we develop great
ideas for scenes?
I’ll write more tomorrow.
For more information, you can visit my author site www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel
websites:
fiction, theme, plot, story, storyline, character development, scene, setting, conversation, novel, book, writing, information, study, marketing, tension, release, creative, idea, logic
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