Writing - part x885, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Soup

10 June 2019, Writing - part x885, Writing a Novel, Changing World and Soup

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 s 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 and warfare

16. Transportation

17. Communication

18. Writing 

Food in history is one of my most favorite topics.  The reason is that most people have no clue.  We all assume the worldview of our event horizon.  The real world of food—that is what people ate is a significant marker in human history.  Why can’t the writers get it right?

First of all, you need to look at how we cook and what we cook.  What are the basic foods, and how are they cooked?  Let’s make a list:

1.     Meat

2.     Fruits and vegetables

3.     Grains

4.     Milk

5.     Water based stuff

Methods of cooking:

1.     Baking

2.     Broiling

3.     Boiling

4.     Frying

With a cutting tool, fire, non-fire safe containers, ovens, a mortar and pestle, and a heat safe pot, I can eat broiled meat, fermented stuff, baked goods, and mixed food casseroles.  We’ve added beer, wine, cheese, and our vegetables and fruits.  I need to reiterate, in a starvation culture (all cultures in the ancient world) stretching calories is the goal that is critical to survival.  The concept of the casserole or whatever you want to call it, is significant to making food go far enough to feed lots of people.  And then there was soup.

Soup and soup based and type foods, in fact, all boiled or heated via water foods are really late developments in humanity.  When I write late, we are talking about some time in the Bronze Age before about 1200 BC but no earlier than about 2000 BC as an invention, but not available to the average person until well after about 1000 AD or later.  The reason is the cost of metal.

Metal was always rare and valuable until about 1500 AD or so.  I write or so because metal was always tied to money after 600 BC (the invention of money in Lydia), but before that metal was relatively rare, and metal wasn’t really inexpensive and available to the average person until after 1750. 

Metal is rare in the ancient world and in history until about 1750.  You will not have soup, gruel, potage, tea, coffee, in the average household.  The wealthy might have it because they can afford a pot.  The average person either had to go to an inn or they had to use a shared resource.  Thus the many stories about stone soup.  That’s the other point.

If I can make soup, I can make the food go a long ways.  I can also reuse other foods and cooking.  For example, the pieces of vegetables or meat that would be discarded can be cooked in a soup to produce a palatable dish.  Soup is hot and filling.  Then there are armies.

Armies do march on their stomachs.  The problem is that meat is expensive and unneeded to move armies.  Armies need carbohydrates.  The best way to feed an army carbohydrates is through gruel.  The Roman Legions issued every Legion and most Cohorts two pots.  Two pots were used to make wheat gruel.  Almost no one else in the world had a pot or a way to make wheat gruel.  You might ask why not—they didn’t have big pots or any pots, they didn’t want to eat gruel, and soup tastes better. 

The Legions and the Legionnaires either just loved their wheat gruel, or they got used to it.  For punishment, they would get barley gruel.  Like I wrote before barley bread and gruel doesn’t taste very good.  You might ask why not make bread for the legions?  Takes ovens.  I can’t move ovens around easily, but I can move pots.  Plus making bread takes time, boiling up some gruel doesn’t take much time at all, and you can do a lot with gruel.

In the field, when they legionnaires didn’t have their pots, they carried cracked roasted wheat (barley if they were bad).  This might not sound appetizing, but it fed the Legions and conquered the known world.

Soups are late date and we have almost everything we need to make most foods, the rest is inventions on how to make the food easier to cook, preparation, and stretching the calories.           

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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