Writing - part xx177 Writing a Novel, Protagonist Examples: Flavia DeLuca

28 March 2020, Writing - part xx177 Writing a Novel, Protagonist Examples: Flavia DeLuca

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 21^st 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 websites 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

Ideas.  We need ideas.  Ideas allow us to figure out the protagonist and the telic flaw.  Ideas don’t come fully armed from the mind of Zeus.  We need to cultivate ideas. 

1.     Read novels. 

2.     Fill your mind with good stuff—basically the stuff you want to write about. 

3.     Figure out what will build ideas in your mind and what will kill ideas in your mind.

4.     Study.

5.     Teach. 

6.     Make the catharsis. 

7.     Write.

The development of ideas is based on study and research, but it is also based on creativity.  Creativity is the extrapolation of older ideas to form new ones or to present old ideas in a new form.  It is a reflection of something new created with ties to the history, science, and logic (the intellect).  Creativity requires consuming, thinking, and producing.

If we have filled our mind with all kinds of information and ideas, we are ready to become creative.  Creativity means the extrapolation of older ideas to form new ones or to present old ideas in a new form.  Literally, we are seeing the world in a new way, or actually, we are seeing some part of the world in a new way. 

So, modern characters must look like the reader’s impression of the protagonist.  This is an interesting problem as culture and society change as does the impression of the readers.         

I’ve been presenting the means to develop protagonists and characters your readers will enjoy—precisely those that will entertain your readers.  Mainly, the ideas I’ve proposed are these: seeking knowledge, readers, decisions the reader would make, pathos building, and overall, entertaining. 

If we agree, any breech between the protagonist and the reader is not desirable, we can move forward.   

Most of the novels I have read that I really enjoyed I not only liked the protagonist, I loved the protagonist.  I can throw out examples:

1.     Johnny Rico from Starship Troopers

2.     Sara Crew from A Little Princess

3.     Menolly from Dragonsong and Dragonsinger

4.     Anthony Villiers from New Celebrations

5.     Lord Darcy from Randall Garett’s novels

6.     Horatio Hornblower from the C.S. Forester novels

7.     Keith Gersen from Jack Vance’s Demon Princes

8.     Adam Reith from Jack Vance’s Tschai

9.     Glawen Clattuc from Jack Vance’s The Cadwal Chronicles

10.  Flavia DeLuca from Alan Bradley’s novels

11.  Douglas Spaulding from Dandelion Wine

These characters are fun, entertaining, enjoyable, and likable.  I want to evaluate what makes them such good characters.  Let’s move on to Flavia DeLuca.

Flavia DeLuca is a highly unusual character in literature.  She is a child protagonist in an adult novel.  The obvious characteristics of a Romantic protagonist are there, but the author turns some of them around for the purpose of pathos development.  We meet Flavia DeLuca for the first time when she is hogtied and locked into a standing closet.  Her sisters did it, and Flavia uses the skills she has learned over time to free herself and pick the lock on the closet.  How can this not immediately endear us to the character.  Too many modern children characters are worthless wimps.  It is refreshing that the author presents us with one who is competent in some subjects. 

We learn more about Flavia.  She has a laboratory and has taught herself Chemistry to a collegiate level.  She loves poisons and is an expert in them.  How could such a girl not become a heroine who investigates murders, especially murders that involve poisons and chemicals?  Immediately, we should see Flavia is an intellectual.  She loves to learn.  One of her sisters is the real reader although Flavia isn’t a slack in the reading area, she reads mostly nonfiction and especially chemistry papers and texts.  Can you see how this all fits the mold of the Romantic protagonist?  Bradley gives us a new and different take on this type of protagonist, but it is an engaging and precise description of an unusual person and protagonist.    

Unfortunately, Flavia DeLuca is also somewhat of a modern character.  The problem is that she occasionally makes decisions the reader must disagree with.  This is especially true in the later novels.  Part of this is that the author’s attempt to depict Flavia’s youth through some examples of childish decision making.  I think this is a poor means of showing youth—it just makes the character look stupid, and readers hate this.

In spite of the author’s attempts to submarine Flavia, she still is a wonderful character.  We realize her immaturity and expect not bad decisions but innocence and lack of knowledge, and there is how to really write these types of characters.  Don’t follow Bradley’s example and have your protagonist’s make bad decisions—instead project them as innocent and naïve.  This provides a basis for not bad decisions but rather uninformed decisions or unaware decisions—that is if you need them.  I would argue that you don’t.

Just project your characters where they are and let them use the knowledge and skills you gave them.  There are plenty of other characters around them who can make bad decisions.  I never wrote that every character in a novel should make the decisions the reader expects or finds reasonable, only the protagonist.  For example, in my newest novel, of a group of characters, some wish to visit a very dangerous character, in fact one they think is a vampire.  The protagonist rightly protests this course of action.  It is dangerous and foolish.  The others put up a good argument and win the decision.  The protagonist advises some protection and recommends asking some others along. 

Do you see how this works?  I want my characters to visit the vampire, but I don’t want my readers to perceive my protagonist is not of the readers’ mind—they know how dangerous such a visit might be.  In spite of the fact I develop the storyline such that the visit seems reasonable, I want my readers to agree with my protagonist.  It isn’t the protagonist who makes a poor decision, the others combine to decide, and the protagonist is stuck with the results.  This is how I would have written Flavia in the circumstances where she makes poor decisions.  Part of Flavia’s problem is that she doesn’t have many friends and her only potential protagonist’s helper has mental issues.  All this would work with a little more realization how poor decisions harm the character.

As I noted, this doesn’t seem to hurt the novel too much because the plots aren’t that great. The power of the Flavia DeLuca novels is the use of language and the protagonist.  The plots almost don’t matter—the circumstances of the language and characters do.

In any case, the Flavia DeLuca novels are entertaining.  We shall see if the author can continue to produce well written and fun stories about Flavia, that’s who it is all about—the novels are unfortunately written in first person.  I really deplore novels in the first person.  In any case, in spite of this, I enjoy the protagonist and the novels.  It is worth looking at Flavia to see how this kind of character and novel can come together.   

Next, we’ll look at Douglas Spaulding.

The point is that we need to keep our readers content and pleased with our characters while presenting the revelation of the protagonist and the plot.    

The beginning of creativity is study and effort.  We can use this to extrapolate to creativity.  In addition, we need to look at recording ideas and working with ideas.    

    

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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