Writing - part x820, Writing a Novel, Changing World and the Enlightenment

6 April 2019, Writing - part x820, Writing a Novel, Changing World and the Enlightenment

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 

Literacy brought about perhaps the greatest change in thought.  You can see that directly out of literacy, the ancient Greeks invented the three ways to know truth.  We use these ideas to record history, continue rule of law, create science and technology, develop mathematics and philosophy, and basically progress human invention and society.  There is much more that came out of literacy.

Science is great and balanced empiricism is wonderful, but without rational thought and the historical method, you are doomed.  The Age of Enlightenment ushered in the modern era, but it also exacerbated the worst of the worst problems the Age of Enlightenment brought about.  What it did in the popular imagination was to crystalize and elevate the scientific method beyond its applicability and usefulness.  Without the historical method, you have no history or science and you are doomed to repeat all the badness the world participated in the past.  Without logic, you can’t fully comprehend your scientific data or your historical data.  If you don’t think this is a serious problem, just read some history.  Plus you can see the direct effects of the problems of the Age of Enlightenment in philosophy and history today.

The most egregious fault is the rejection of history.  The idea put forth is that eyewitnesses are not accurate and therefore not trustworthy.  If this is true, then all our records of history and science are questionable.  Such an idea is not rational and can’t stand, but it has entered the historical and the philosophical lexicons.  The problem with philosophy is both a harbinger of the rejection of history and the direct result of the solution of the greatest problem in philosophy.

From the very beginning of philosophy, philosophers have attempted to prove the existence of God.  To be most precise, you can’t prove a true, you can only prove a not true.  If you remember your geometry, you know this to be an absolute proven truth.  So since the beginning of philosophy, humans have attempted to prove God exists, therefore the proposition not God must be not true.  The unique problem for philosophy comes in two curses.  The first is that Emanuel Kant proved the proposition that not God must be not true.  His proof has stood more than 100 years and no one, at this point, has any hope of finding fault with his proof.  Emanuel Kant is a rather hated philosopher because he actually presented an irrefutable proof for God.  With this proof, the entire world of philosophy blew up.  Many philosophers do not want there to be a God, and many philosophers just want to ignore Kant’s proof.  The problem for philosophy, is that their one and almost only proof has been completed, and they don’t like the answer.  If you wondered what happened to philosophy in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries—that’s it.  It has lost its mojo because of Kant, but there is another problem for both philosophy and science—the Big Bang.

Before the Big Bang theory, philosophers assumed the universe was eternal.  Big Bang squashed eternal universe theory like a big fat bug and destroyed it.  If you are a repeated Big Bang theorist or a single Big Bang theorist, your problem is the same—the Big Bang proves the universe had and has a beginning, and potentially an ending.  The problem with this for science and philosophy is that to have a Big Bang you require what the Greeks called a telic cause.  A telic cause the cause for the beginning and end of anything.  The problem with science and the Big Bang is that until 0.33 seconds into the Big Bang, time doesn’t exist.  If there is no fourth dimension, no time, you can’t measure anything.  That means you use any known science to understand the Big Bang itself and anything up to 0.33 seconds in the Big Bang.  In fact, since time doesn’t exist until 0.33 seconds into the Big Bang, you can’t really know that 0.33 seconds is 0.33 seconds—it could easily be infinity or no time at all.  To understand the Big Bang requires logic and mathematics we don’t have yet.  If you have ignored logic as a means of understanding you have a problem.  The ultimate problem is what the Big Bang connotes.

The telic cause of the Big Bang kind of looks like God.  It really depends on how you define God and what assumptions you make, but the Greeks called the ultimate telic cause, God.  In fact, philosophers from almost the beginning postulated that God, if he exists would be the telic cause of the universe.  With eternal universe, the scientists and the philosophers didn’t have to worry about a real live no kidding God, but suddenly Kant proved God can’t not exists and the Big Bang proved there must be a telic cause.  As I noted, scientists don’t want or like God any more than philosophers.  God kinda ruins the party.  If there is really a God, you can’t ignore Him, and more and more science and philosophy proves there really is and must be a God.  The Age of Enlightenment didn’t kill God, the Age of Enlightenment just found God to be inconvenient.  The rest of our great thinkers just jumped the gun on pronouncing God to be dead, and now they have to contend with a worldview that is entirely contrary to what they wanted or imagined.

Philosophers and scientists caused their own problems, and so did theologians and the church.  This was also an outgrowth of the Age of Enlightenment and philosophy, but the philosophers and the conclusions are similar, but the results almost the same.  You might not like them.       

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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