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Monday, February 25, 2019

Writing - part x780, Writing a Novel, Protagonist in the Initial Scene, Nature

25 February 2019, Writing - part x780, Writing a Novel, Protagonist in the Initial Scene, Nature

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:  Deirdre and Sorcha are redirected to French finishing school where they discover difficult mysteries, people, and events. 

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:  Why don’t we go back to the basics and just writing a novel?  I can tell you what I do, and show you how I go about putting a novel together.  We can start with developing an idea then move into the details of the writing. 

To start a novel, I picture an initial scene.  I may start from a protagonist or just launch into mental development of an initial scene.  I get the idea for an initial scene from all kinds of sources.  To help get the creative juices flowing, let’s look at the initial scene. 

1.     Meeting between the protagonist and the antagonist or the protagonist’s helper
2.     Action point in the plot
3.     Buildup to an exciting scene
4.     Indirect introduction of the protagonist

The protagonist is the novel and the initial scene.  If you look at the four basic types of initial scenes, you see the reflection of the protagonist in each one.  If you noticed my examples yesterday, I expressed the scene idea, but none were completely independent of the protagonist.  Indeed, in most cases, I get an idea with a protagonist.  The protagonist is incomplete, but a sketch to begin with.  You can start with a protagonist, but in my opinion, as we see above, the protagonist is never completely independent from the initial scene.  As the ideas above imply, we can start with the characters, specifically the protagonist, antagonist or protagonist’s helper, and develop an initial scene. 

If we start with a protagonist, we need some kind of guide.  Here is a general guide for developing a modern protagonist.  We’ll look at examples and explain the ideas.

1.        Normal person (not wealthy, noble, or privileged)
2.      Loves to read
3.      Loves to learn
4.     Unique skill(s), power(s) and/or learning
5.      Pathos (poor, homeless, abused, friendless, ill)
6.     Individualistic and independent
7.      Introspective
8.     Leader
9.     Naturally good
10.  Rejection of the urban
11.   Rejection of the modern
12.  Appeal to the imagination

Many times Romantic protagonists are described as loving nature or going back to nature.  Actually, a better description is that Romantic literature rejects the urban.  There is more to this—the Romantic Era is a rejection of the urban ideal of the Victorian Era. 

The Victorians idealized technology and the city.  To them, everything was about high society and progress, read this as effectively the urban and mechanization.  The Romantics didn’t embrace nature as much as they rejected the Victorian idea of modernization that was specifically represented as technology and the urban setting.  Thus, in Victorian novels people took walks in gardens.  These gardens were completely controlled environments designed to a cultural and social ideal.  Victorians idealized manufacturing and modernization.  Their novels did not revolve around these settings necessarily, but there are some novels that do, and most Victorian novels, although they might complain about the human problems caused by manufacturing and technology, but it isn’t the manufacturing and technology that is the problem.  The Romantics didn’t necessarily rebel against or reject manufacturing and technology, they rejected the human circumstances that resulted in the urban.

As I wrote, the Victorians would walk in controlled carefully sculptured gardens next to their homes.  The Romantics would bypass the garden to make a walk or a walking tour in the woods or just along a country lane.  The Romanic settings are in the country and usually move away from or escape the city and its environs.  One of the most tell-tale ways to determine a Victorian novel is the characters are happily moving into the city to urban manufacturing jobs.  Of course the protagonist would never be going to any job, they are all aristocrats.  On the other hand, the protagonist and characters of Romanic novels are moving away from the cities and into more natural settings.  They change from industrialized and sickly because of it into the freedom and natural settings outside the city.  There is more.                   

More tomorrow.

For more information, you can visit my author site http://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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