Writing - part x802, Writing a Novel, Changing World, more Love

19 March 2019, Writing - part x802, Writing a Novel, Changing World, more Love

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:  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. 

Let’s look at a subject that is really ignored in the modern era.  I’m not certain how much this can help your current writing.  I would argue that theoretically, this subject can really help those who write historical and futuristic fiction.  It depends on how your write your historical and futuristic fiction.  There are two ways to write historical fiction—let’s look at this.

The first and most common way to write historical fiction is to write a novel that projects modern ideas and history as historical ideas and history.  In other words to present modern ideas and historical ideas as the same.  I think this is perhaps the most egregious and perverse means of presenting a false view of history.  The author is either completely ignorant of the past, is intentionally attempting to education people in a false view of history, or both.  The real historical world is very different both culturally and socially from our current world.  The true author attempts to convey this in historical writing.

The second and less common means of historical writing is to actually incorporate the past into a novel to convey the actual way people thought and acted in the past.  This approach actually goes back into time to give a complete view of the way the people thought and acted.  To this end, let’s look at how the world changed and how people thought in the past.  This is more of a historical look at the world for the purpose of understanding how the world worked in the past and how people thought and acted.  We’ll use historical information to see what concerned affected their lives. Here is a list of potential issues.  We’ll look at them in detail:

1.   Vocabulary

2.   Ideas

3.   Social construction

4.   Culture

5.   Politics

6.   History

7.   Language

8.   Common knowledge

9.   Common sense

10. Reflected culture

11. Reflected history

12. Reflected society

13. Truth

14. Food

15. Weapons

16. Transportation

17. Communication

18. Writing 

The first subject I want to look at is vocabulary.  Vocabulary has changed enormously in every language, but there is much more to this subject than simply using different words for things.  The first is that in any culture, words are loaded with significance.  This is especially true with time and changes in culture and society. 

In English culture, we have love moving from a concept of warriors and respect to the idea of men and women and respect.  It was a concept that brought these diverse groups into a powerful alignment—a new social alignment.  The result of this change is that the word and concept “love” has become more euphemistic than ever.  This is true of much of our society and our words.

It is not unusual that societies move from more concrete to less concrete in terms of words and vocabulary.  This should seem odd to us.  Younger societies have fewer words and yet generally more concrete word usage.  However this isn’t always so.  Our society has over one million words, yet we are significantly a euphemistically based language.  What is concrete compared to euphemistic?

When I write that some languages are more concrete I mean that some languages (and societies) expect the words used to mean exactly what they say.  Although we see common figurative use of the language but some cultures’ words and expressions mean exactly what they say, and this is especially true of earlier or younger languages and cultures.  An example is difficult to easily come up with, but try this.  In English, I might say, “How do you do?”  This is a euphemistic phrase that is a pleasant greeting.  It is also a euphemism that has little deep import—it’s nearly thoughtlessly used in English.  This phrase has morphed over time to many similar phrases.  All societies have similar types of greetings and exchanges.  Greek unusually has a similar greeting charis (grace).  The import of this simple greeting is so great that Christianity took it as a topic of theology.  I don’t want to give too much to a simple word of greeting, but the importance of the greeting “charis” or grace in ancient Greek appears to have significantly more significance than “How do you do?” in English.  The Greeks seemed to intend this word to mean more than just a thoughtlessly used word of greeting.

Another example from the Greeks.  In English, we have a general word “worship.”  “Worship” means many things.  It is a euphemistic word that expresses many rituals or concepts, but we understand it in this sense.  The Greeks don’t have a similar word.  The Greek words usually translated by worship mean to prostrate oneself (proskuneo), to jump for joy (agalliao), to bend (bow) (kampto), and there are many more.  The Greeks didn’t have a simple euphemistic term that included all means of worship, they needed to use a descriptive word that concretely illustrated the specific action of worship.  You see this over and over in ancient Greek…and the opposite over and over in English.

There are ancient languages and cultures that started very euphemistically and remain this way.  Off hand, these are Japanese (perhaps the most euphemistic) and Hebrew.  Both of these languages are much more euphemistic than English. 

Another indicator of euphemism is the need to use context to understand the meaning of words.  English is pretty bad, but both Hebrew and Japanese significantly require context to understand proper meaning.  For example, the word koi in Japanese can mean love or a carp.  You must have the context.  In Hebrew, the word a (alph) means one, a, person, ox, comrade, partner, and some other meanings.  The poetry of the Japanese and the Hebrews use this ambiguity to great effect.  English does too.  Greek, on the other hand, is well known for its very unembellished poetry and expression.  Where English might express, “It was a dark and stormy night,” the Greeks would surely write, “The rain was falling, the wind was blowing, and it was night.”

What does this have to do with vocabulary?                               

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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