2 July 2020, Writing - part xx273
Writing a Novel, Make it Sense Setting, Tracking Visualizing
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 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 29th 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.
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Cover
Proposal
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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 30th novel, working
title Red Sonja. I finished my 29th 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.
I’ve worked through creativity and
the protagonist. The ultimate point is
that if you properly develop your protagonist, you have created your
novel. I should move back to the initial
scene, but I’ve been writing about showing and not telling in my short form
blog, and I want to expand that out a bit in this blog. Let’s move on to perhaps the most important
feature of the novel: showing and not telling.
Novelists are not storytellers. Novelists are story-showers. I hope you have heard the fiction writer’s
adage: show and don’t tell. This is the
most important aspect of the internal construction of the novel.
I will reveal that in reviewing a
recent self-published author’s book, I was compelled by the wholesale telling
in the book, I can’t call it a novel, that I had to address each area where the
author failed to show. That’s where I came
up with the following list:
Show and don’t tell.
Omniscient voice is poop.
Only write what the characters saw,
tasted, felt, smelled, heard, said, or any action.
Identity is a problem.
Don’t tell.
It’s all about dialog.
Perfect tense can be a problem.
It’s all about the senses.
Don’t be boring.
Eating is living and dialog.
Creativity and senses.
Start with scene setting.
Make it sense setting.
Visualizing.
So just what does it mean to show
and not tell? This seems to be a very
difficult question for new writers as well as a source of contention for
experienced writers. It seems that many
writers can’t agree or even concede on what showing vs. telling really means.
Not to worry—I have the answer.
Visualizing. Visualizing is the means to write properly
with showing. If you learn to visualize,
you will be able to write well. You don’t
hear much about visualizing, but this is the means most great writers use to
write especially their first cuts. What
does it mean to visualize?
Visualizing means the author
pictures the scene, sets it, and then puts it into action before writing it
down. As the author writes it down, he
or she pictures the action, dialog, and settings in his or her mind and puts
them on paper. Visualizing is basically using
the imagination to picture the scenes first and then write them. You might ask,
isn’t this the only way to write?
This is all about technique at the
moment. One of the biggest impediments
to writing fiction is the way people are taught to write. Writing fiction is significantly different than
writing a technical paper, but appropriately, in school, we are all taught how
to write technical papers and not necessarily fiction. If you do get some teacher who wants to teach
you to write fiction, you usually get someone who has never published anything
for pay and definitely no fiction. The
problem is that they have never been trained how to write fiction, and they have
never sold a piece of fiction. How’s
that going to work?
We were appropriately taught to
write technical papers by outlining and research. Research first and then outlining, then you
write. This is not a good approach to
fiction. If you take this approach, your
chances of telling are very high. This
is just one of the reasons that journalists usually make terrible fiction
authors. They are so used to telling,
they can’t figure out how to show.
Showing begins with visualizing, and visualizing is part of your
research.
I’m going to repeat the scene
development outline from above and annotate it for visualization:
1.
Scene input (comes from the previous scene output or is an initial scene) – the
author has visualized the initial scene or the output from the previous scene.
2.
Write the scene setting (place, time, stuff, and characters) – the author has
visualized the setting.
3.
Imagine the output, creative elements, plot, telic flaw resolution (climax) and
develop the tension and release. – this is purely the act of the author
visualizing the output of the scene, see one above.
4.
Write the scene using the output and creative elements to build the tension. –
this is an act of visualizing.
5.
Write the release – this is the author visualizing the tension release in the
scene.
6.
Write the kicker – this is an act of visualizing. The author then has the visualized output to
develop the next scene.
Every step in the scene development
outline is an act of visualization. The
author is imagining the action, dialog, and settings in the scene for the
purpose of putting them as showing on paper.
The author writes only what he or she can imagine—that is
visualize.
As I wrote before, visualize means
to see, smell, hear, taste, and physically feel on the stage of the novel. If you can’t visualize it, don’t write
it.
I intentionally don’t outline. This isn’t to prevent me from telling. I wouldn’t be telling in any case. I don’t outline because the purpose of the
writing isn’t like a technical paper—that is the purpose of the fiction isn’t
to take your notes and them put them in the correct place in the document. The purpose of your notes is to help you
remember where your visualization was going.
A novel or any fiction is like a
journey of revelation. It isn’t a set of
notes relating to the settings, time, place, and characters. It is a showing, in writing, of the
imagination of the author of the journey of revelation of the protagonist. That journey of revelation just happens to
resolve the telic flaw of the novel. In
this regard, you can outline all you want, as long as you use that outline only
to visualize.
Yesterday, I showed your character
description compared to character notes.
One was about the character, the other showed the character. We are all about showing in our novels. What I do exactly is I imagine what my
characters are going to do on the next stage of their journey in the
novel. Where they are going to go, what
they are going to do, and what they are going to say. Until I write the scene, I don’t know every
detail of their actions. I have to
visualize them over and over, and finally write them in the scene. When I write, write them into the scene, I
mean that I write them cohesively along with the setting and other characters
in their actions and dialog. I don’t
mean for this to sound so complicated, it is and it isn’t. It isn’t a mechanical process—this is a
wholly creative process of visualizing and putting that visualization on paper.
As I noted before, I write by
chapter. Instead of an outline, at the
end of each chapter, I include notes about where I think the novel and
specifically the next scene should go. These are notes from my scene development and
from visualizing the characters next moves.
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
http://www.aegyptnovel.com/
http://www.centurionnovel.com
http://www.thesecondmission.com/
http://www.theendofhonor.com/
http://www.thefoxshonor.com
http://www.aseasonofhonor.com
fiction, theme, plot, story, storyline, character development, scene, setting, conversation, novel, book, writing, information, study, marketing, tension, release, creative, idea, logic
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