Writing - part xx280 Writing a Novel, Plots, Telic Flaw Plot Wrapper

9 July 2020, Writing - part xx280 Writing a Novel, Plots, Telic Flaw Plot Wrapper

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. 

I’ve worked through creativity and the protagonist.  The ultimate point is that if you properly develop your protagonist, you have created your novel.  This moves us on to plots and initial scenes.  As I noted, if you have a protagonist, you have a novel.  The reason is that a protagonist comes with a telic flaw, and a telic flaw provides a plot and theme.  If you have a protagonist, that gives you a telic flaw, a plot, and a theme.  I will also argue this gives you an initial scene as well. 

So, we worked extensively on the protagonist.  I gave you many examples great, bad, and average.  Most of these were from classics, but I also used my own novels and protagonists as examples.  Here’s my plan.

1.     The protagonist comes with a telic flaw – the telic flaw isn’t necessarily a flaw in the protagonist, but rather a flaw in the world of the protagonist that only the Romantic protagonist can resolve.

2.     The telic flaw determines the plot.

3.     The telic flaw determines the theme.

4.     The telic flaw and the protagonist determines the initial scene.

5.     The protagonist and the telic flaw determines the initial setting.

6.     Plot examples from great classic plots.

7.     Plot examples from mediocre classic plots.

8.     Plot examples from my novels.

9.     Creativity and the telic flaw and plots.

10.  Writer’s block as a problem of continuing the plot.

Every great or good protagonist comes with their own telic flaw.  I showed how this worked with my own writing and novels.  Let’s go over it in terms of the plot.

This is all about the telic flaw.  Every protagonist and every novel must come with a telic flaw.  They are the same telic flaw.  That telic flaw can be external, internal or both.

I’ve mentioned before that you can either start with a plot or plot idea or you can start with the protagonist and the telic flaw.  I like to start with the protagonist and the telic flaw, but you can start with the plot.  We also saw how the plot can be disconnected from the telic flaw.  When I write this, I do with caution.  Remember, the plot must resolve the telic flaw, but many types of plots can be matched with certain types of internal and external telic flaws.  This means you can view telic flaws and plots as archetype concepts.  We do this with caution, and I haven’t really studied this much, but it’s very worthwhile to address.

Let’s see what types of telic flaws might be generic.  We saw from Starship Troopers and Johnny Rico that the internal and external telic flaw of self-discovery is one potentially generic telic flaw.  From Sara Crew, the internal and external telic flaw of personal success is another potentially generic telic flaw.  In general, any telic flaw that is independent of the culture, time, place, and circumstances can be potentially a generic telic flaw. 

Now, notice, the moment you set the protagonist in time and place, you pretty much have begun to connect the plot to the telic flaw.  You can see this with Johnny Rico.  His is definitely a generic telic flaw both internal and external, but the moment the author sets him in future terra with a bug war, the plot is set.  When I say the plot is set I don’t mean the author has no work ahead, and every author will write a different plot, but that the writer should be able to produce a complete plot from the telic flaw.

Likewise, with Sara Crew, personal success is definitely tied to the time, place, and culture.  She has a distinct problem with achieving her telic flaw resolution because of her time, place, and culture—it is independent of her.  Let’s think about this.  We can take the telic flaw of personal success and place it on a protagonist, set the protagonist, and then wrap a plot around that protagonist.  Let’s do that with personal success.

We can place the personal success telic flaw on many types of characters.  Generally, we want a pathos developing one.  You definitely need one who needs personal success.  So, the poor, common, unconnected, abused, disabled, and all.  You can start with this type of character, or as in Sara Crew’s case, you can drive him or her to this position (zero).  Like all novels, we start with our protagonist at zero or we drive them to zero.  Now, define success.

What is the end hero state for the protagonist?  Is it to own a business, have a job, be the president of the country, own a starship, or be the pirate chief?  Define the end state, or choose the time and place.  In Victorian England, your choices for end state of a woman or a man are significantly limited.  Move to the beginning of the Twentieth Century and both sexes end state blossoms.  Move to the end of the Twentieth Century and they expand even more significantly.  Take your novel into the future and science fiction and the world or universe is the limit.  On the other hand, take you character back to the middle ages, Medieval, or any of those times and your protagonist won’t usually be a common person, not unless you are delving into science fiction or fantasy.

You can already see the interconnection of setting, protagonist, telic flaw, and plot.  This is why I think it should be easy to write a plot.  Of course, we know that developing the plot is more difficult than this, but we should be able to get an idea purely from the protagonist, telic flaw and setting.  All of these are interlaced and bring us our plot.      

If you have a telic flaw, and I’d like to have both the same internal and external telic flaw, then you have a plot. 

With this information, perhaps we can bound the plot and telic flaw in a way that will help us design a telic flaw and a plot.     

In any case, lest start with the idea of an internal and external telic flaw.  Then let’s provide it a wrapper.  The wrapper is 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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