Writing - part x823, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Theology

9 April 2019, Writing - part x823, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Theology

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.

I realize that theology and Christology are not on everyone’s radar screen.  The point is that both theology and Christology has directly affected the 80% of the population of the West who are Christians plus all the other Christians in the world and has indirectly affected 100% of the people who are touched by Western civilization. 

This is huge.  It is like the question of how many people have been directly and indirectly affected by the Bible—the answer is huge.  The Bible, Judaism, and Christianity have directly and indirectly affected almost every living human being.  The affect is much greater than any other religion and any other culture or civilization.  It is like English and the effects of English on the world.  It makes the connections easier if you realize that the influence of English comes directly out of the influence of Western technology which is the result of Western Civilization, which is the direct result of Christianity.  In other words, there would be no Western Civilization or technology without Christianity.  Christianity is the power behind the modern world.  Those things that affect it directly affect the world and the way great numbers of people think in the world.  Therefore, theology and to a degree doctrine are very important subjects to understand.

I’ll repeat.  There are five major Christian theologies and five major Christian doctrines.  A theology is a way a religion views God and the system of reasoning for its beliefs.  A doctrine is a mode of worship and means of thinking about systematic application of theology.  The major theologies are Natural, Calvinism, Armenian, Turbingen, and Evangelical.  The major doctrines are Dogmatic, Reformation, Reformed, Anti-Creedal, and Vatican II.  The basis of these theologies and doctrines and the way they interact indicate how entire groups of people think and will act.  This should be very important to any modern thinker, and critical to any modern writer.  This is about understanding your readers and your society.  Let me outline how these ideas work.

I wrote about Natural Theology, how it turned into Turbingen School and then Evangelical Theology.  I skipped Calvinism and Armenian theology not because they are not important, but because they are logical extremes of Natural Theology.  The theology of Calvinism came about because of the question of the means of salvation and a misunderstanding of Natural Theology.  In fact, the reformation was a correction of the Christian Church back to its roots and Natural Theology.  The reformers of the 1500s in the reformation saw the church had gone astray from the concepts of Natural Theology.  Natural Theology said that Christianity was a persuasion to accept Christ as the savior of humanity—salvation was a gift and nothing could be done to earn it.  The Catholic Church at the time had made a business of selling salvation.  The question of the reformers was “What must I do to be saved.”  The Catholic Church said, you had to accomplish all kinds of works and deeds.  The doctrine of the Catholic Church at the time is called Dogmatic.  You give and in return God gives.  On the contrary, the New Testament documents say that salvation is a gift from God and freely given--in other words God gave and you accept.  The question for the reformers is how do you appropriate this salvation?  Luther, looked back at Natural Theology and reaffirmed it in the creeds of what became known as Lutheranism.  His view was that you could do no works to accept salvation.  He seemed to miss the New Testament statement that “Faith is the work of salvation,” or directly from the Greek, “Persuasion is the work of salvation.” 

In any case, Luther got it mostly right and you can understand his point well.  God offers the gift of salvation and man can’t ascent to accept salvation without the input of God through the Holy Spirit (which is God).  This way salvation is not a deed or work in Luther’s mind.  Calvin still had a problem with this.  Calvin asserted that man could do nothing to accept the gift of salvation.  Since the New Testament documents are very clear that all will not be saved, only the elect can and will be saved.  Calvinism is an experience of finding that you are one of the elect and acting in response.  No mental assent was required.  For many reasons Calvinism is irrational.  Arminius completely rejected Calvin and called Luther to be more direct about human persuasion and reason based in Natural Theology.  Arminius asserted that the gift of God’s salvation was an absolute choice by man.

The bottom line is Luther was a balanced return to Natural Theology but with an ambivalence about the means of appropriating salvation.  Armenian Theology was also a return to Natural Theology with the assertion that man must make a distinctive choice.  Calvinism was a rejection of Natural Theology.  In Calvinism man makes no choice at all. 

The doctrines developed through these Theologies are Luther led to Reformation Doctrine.  Armenian led to Anti-Creedal Doctrine.  Calvinism led to Reform Doctrine.  All Christianity falls into one or the other of these Theological and Doctrinal camps.  By the way, modern Catholic is a modification of Natural Theology codified in the Doctrine of Vatican II.  Vatican II is almost precisely Natural Theology and shares many characteristics with Reformation Doctrine.

These are basics that are very important to understanding Christianity and Western Civilization.       

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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