Writing - part x855, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Worldview

11 May 2019, Writing - part x855, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Worldview

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 

Common knowledge allows you to communicate and connect with your readers, common sense normalizes your writing.  What can this mean? 

Ultimately, common knowledge and common sense are related directly to worldview.  The author develops a setting which provides a worldview.  I’ve written before about real, reflected, and future worldviews which are setting and setting elements.  The number one point for fiction is entertainment.  To entertain requires the author to communicate.  Specifically, the author is communicating a setting, a plot, and characters.  The communication of each of these requires the author to share a degree of common knowledge or common sense.  Without shared ideas, there can be no communication.

What are we sharing exactly?  As a writer, I want to provide a worldview that appeals and entertains.  There are worldviews that can’t appeal, but make wonderful plots and novels.  In fact, I’ve written just such a novel, Escape from Freedom.  This novel has a futuristic worldview.  It is set on a planet other than earth.  The setting of Escape from Freedom is not appealing, but it is entertaining. It is also hard science applied to science fiction.

Most of my novels portray an historic reflected worldview.  The common knowledge and common sense in those novels is based on the historical events and world of the times.  For example, although I address the historical issue of the times, I stay away from issues that would sidetrack the plot or the characters.  For example, even though global cooling was a scientific theory during the 1980s, I don’t even mention it in my novels.  Likewise, I don’t mention global warming in my novels set today or in the future.  If I were to write a novel about climate issues or climate science, I might bring up the theories of the 1980s and of today, but I don’t find these types of novels entertaining or appealing.  Plus, from my view of common sense and common knowledge, the focus of my novels is the protagonist, followed by the plot, and finally, the setting.  The setting complements the protagonist and the plot, and not the other way around.

What I do is design a protagonist that matches the times, the common knowledge, and the common sense.  I don’t design a plot with a setting and build the protagonist from the plot and setting.  So, how does this fit in common sense and common knowledge?

I develop the protagonist based on my event horizon (I lived during those times) and the history of the times.  I research the history to make my protagonist as realistic and entertaining as possible.  I usually don’t write about entertainment or populist ideas, therefore, my characters aren’t focused on television, movies, or music.  But when I need entertainment concepts, I pull them directly from history.  For example, in Essie: Enchantment and the Aos Si, Essie learns popular music from the radio in Britain.  To fill in this information, I researched the popular music of the times and provided Miss Essie a list of tunes.  These tunes enchanted her schoolmates and her friends.  Many of my readers would recognize the names of the tunes and might recognize when they were popular.  Younger readers might be surprised to hear the titles and match them to the times.

You can see the common knowledge of the times isn’t common unless someone is knowledgeable or has it in their event horizon.  I try to make my novels as historically accurate as possible.  This means gathering the common knowledge of the times and applying them to the novel.  This is how you write a historical novel.  Notice that the author in some respect is driving the common knowledge of the reader.  The point is to not cause a jolt or obvious incorrect idea.  I’m not saying you should have any incorrect history in your novels, but we know that fiction writers take the real and turn it into the fictional.  You must be cautious to not be obviously out of bed with the real world.  For example, the latest Specter 007 movie has MI-6 and MI-5 being consolidated and brought into a new building.  That’s just pure science fiction.  I don’t like my novels set in the modern era to be science fiction.  For anyone knowledgeable about the British intelligence system, the movie is just silly—for the uneducated, I guess it’s okay.

This is the problem with falling too far out of common knowledge and sense.  I need to address this in more depth.

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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