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Thursday, July 23, 2020

Writing - part xx294 Writing a Novel, more Mixed Redemption Plots

23 July 2020, Writing - part xx294 Writing a Novel, more Mixed Redemption Plots

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
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 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.  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.

We found that a self-discovery telic flaw or a personal success telic flaw can potentially take a generic plot.  We should be able to get an idea for the plot purely from the protagonist, telic flaw and setting.  All of these are interlaced and bring us our plot.

For a great plot, the resolution of the telic flaw has to be a surprise to the protagonist and to the reader.  This is both the measure and the goal.  As I noted before, for a great plot, the author needs to make the telic flaw resolution appear to be impossible, but then it happens.  There is much more to this.

Most modern novels are redemption plots where the redemption is a mixture of physical and mental redemption.  Usually the protagonist fixes something in their own life that results in some type of physical resolution. 

I’d say that every author strives to write a mixed redemption plot—not all succeed.  We can see in Harry Potty, there is an obvious physical redemption in every novel.  This physical redemption is generally against evil and specifically against the incarnation of the antagonist in every novel.  I’d almost assert that Harry Potty isn’t a redemption plot at all—the redemption isn’t really a recovery from one state to another as much as it is a defeat of a person or being.  This is more of a detective plot than a redemption plot.  In a detective plot, the protagonist resolves a mystery or captures/defeats a criminal.  In a redemption plot, the protagonist recovers or gains something precious.  On the other hand, the author was either advised to or attempted to develop Harry Potty into an emotional redemption plot.  That’s why the later books get all adolescently screwy with Harry hurting his friends more than his enemies.  Plus, ultimately, Harry Potty is a Messiah plot with an end of the world theme, but I think you can see enough redemption elements in it—some added, some natural. 

The sparkly vampires are definitely a reverse redemption plot.  They seek to turn a very interesting reverse redemption plot into a psychological redemption plot, and they are somewhat successful.  It is interesting cheering for vampires, but that is what you do in this novel.  It really is a reverse redemption plot.  The protagonist seeks to lose her humanity to become a classic monster.  In writing terms this is a great means of turning an idea into a bestseller.  If you remember, I wrote before about the characteristics of great writing.  One of them was taking an old idea and turning it into something new, or taking an old idea and inverting it.  In the case of the sparkly vampires, the author has taken an old idea, monsters, and turned them into a near positive.  Harry Potty has done something similar.  Other authors have tried this approach with varying degrees of success.  Most of the popular ones have made bestsellers. 

The sparkly vampires are a reverse redemption plot because the protagonist’s telic flaw is that she wants to be a monster.  No matter how you look at it, she seeks the opposite of redemption.  It does not good to wrap this in a nice wrapper with a bow, the end point is the protagonist seeks both physical and mental degradation.  It ends up a bestseller, and I’m not certain it’s the best message for the youth, but it is a bestseller. 

Turning plots around to make great stories is what writing is all about.  The Hungry Games is a classic type of redemption plot.  It has characteristics of many of the Victorian Era French Revolution set novels.  The redemption is gaining freedom from oppression.  The author very successfully turns this into an emotional and mental redemption plot.  Except the protagonist loses.  The antagonist of this novel is the state personified by the president of the state.  The protagonist is placed in the position of fighting her allies to defeat the antagonist.  This is another great plot idea, but one that results in the exact opposite of a redemption plot.  The overall novel is a redemption plot, but the protagonist must act completely immorally and unethically to achieve this redemption.  Hey, it’s a best seller, but look at the message. 

Perhaps this is the problem with many of us authors today, we can’t see killing other allied human beings as a good means of progressing a redemption plot.  The immoral or amoral character of many of the dystopian novels is pretty obvious today.  It’s like the false trope about the people in the lifeboat, and who they should kill and eat.  The moral and human answer is always, we are human beings, we don’t ever eat other human beings and we certainly don’t murder them for our food.  When a societies moral underpinnings are based on inhuman reasoning, there are indeed consequences. 

I don’t know if this is giving you ideas or making you feel uncomfortable.  Almost all modern novels attempt a redemption plot and/or theme.  Most of them attempt a mixed emotional and physical redemption plot.  Even some that are obviously not redemption plots attempt some degree of redemption plot.  Many popular novels are reverse redemption plots.  I’m not into Gandhi plots, but immoral and reverse redemption plots are certainly not my bag.  I’m not at all adverse to war or conflict plots.  You can see Hungry Games starts as a redemption plot and moves to a conflict plot, but a conflict plot that pits the protagonist against her allies or requires her to murder her own people is a totally different kind of plot than a redemption plot.  There is no redemption in murder or betrayal.  For a great example of a redemption plot in this regard see Dune.  Perhaps Dune is a great example to look at.  It is a Messiah plot with a War plot component.  It really doesn’t mix in much of a redemption plot although the protagonist is attempting to justify his mother’s actions and his own existence.  Dune it is.  Perhaps we are moving to other types of plots and mixed plots.

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:

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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