10 March 2021, Writing - part xx524 Writing a Novel, the Big Reveal
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 |
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. Here’s the list of plots I’ve
looked at already:
Here is the list of classics that
everyone should read. What I want to do
is evaluate this list for the plots.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR
Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Dandelion Wine – Ray Bradbury –
Best modern novel in English.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible – Most important book to
understand Western culture.
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George
Orwell
9 We The Living – Ayn Rand
10 Great Expectations - Charles
Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles -
Thomas Hardy
13 Dune – Frank Herbert
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare –
better to see as plays
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 The Cadwal Chronicles – Jack
Vance
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Green Pearl Novels – Jack
Vance
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With the Wind - Margaret
Mitchel
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott
Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 Starship Troopers – Robert
Heinlein
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor
Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis
Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth
Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles
Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
37 The Tale of Genji - Murasaki
Shikibu
38 The House of Seven Gables
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
39 The Scarlet Letter
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 Dracula – Bram Stoker
43 Till We Have Faces – C.S. Lewis
44 Le Morte D'Arthur - Thomas Malory
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie
Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM
Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd -
Thomas Hardy
48 Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
49 Lord of the Flies - William
Golding
50 The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand
51 What Katy Did - Sarah Chauncey
Woolsey under her pen name Susan Coolidge
52 A Little Princess - Frances
Hodgson Burnett
53 The Secret Garden - Frances
Hodgson Burnett
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane
Austen
55 The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
56 Kim - Rudyard Kipling
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles
Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 Beowulf – Unknown
60 The Odyssey – Homer
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
64 The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell
Hammett
65 The Count of Monte Cristo -
Alexandre Dumas
66 As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Robinson Caruso – Daniel Defoe
69 The Red Badge of Courage -
Stephen Crane
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Don Quixote - Miguel De Cervantes
73 Heidi – Johanna Spyri
74 Hans Brinker - Mary Mapes Dodge
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 The Big Sky – Arlo Guthrie
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace
Thackeray
80 The Black Arrow - Robert Louis
Stevenson
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles
Dickens
82 Treasure Island - Robert Louis
Stevenson
83 The Gulag Archipelago - Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn
84 The Miser – George Eliot
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest
Hemmingway
87 Tarzan – Edger Rice Burroughs
88 The Death of Socrates – Plato
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes -
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 I, Robot - Isaac Asimov
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De
Saint-Exupery
93 Huckleberry Fin – Mark Twain
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan
Swift
96 Matilda – Roald Dahl
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre
Dumas
98 The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey
Chaucer
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
101 The Once and Future King – T.H.
White
102 The Deerslayer – James Fenimore
Cooper
103 The Black Book of Communism –
Various
104 Ben Hur – Lew Wallace
105 The Robe – Lloyd C. Douglas
106 The Pilgrim’s Progress – John
Bunyan
107 The Histories – Herodotus
108 Lives – Plutarch
109 The Call of the Wild – Jack
London
110 Stand on Zanzibar – John Brunner
111 The Shockwave Rider – John
Brunner
112 The Aeneid – Virgil
This is what I did. I looked at each novel and pulled out the
plot types, the telic flaw, plotline, and the theme of the novel. I didn’t make a list of the themes, but we
identified the telic flaw as internal and external and by plot type. This generally gives the plotline.
We have a list of all the major
plots from this list of classics in literature.
The question is what can we do with it?
This is the first step in evaluating our results. I took a percentage of the results based on
the number of classics.
Modern writing is all about the
Romantic—both Romantic protagonists and Romantic plots. This is where we are going and this is the
focus of modern entertaining literature.
In the end, we can see there are
just a few baseline plots that are characteristics of most classics. These are the revelation, achievement, and
redemption plots. When I write these are
baseline, I mean that they are overall plots that might also have a different
plotline or other plots directly supporting them. Here’s what I mean exactly about each of
these plots:
Redemption: the protagonist must make an internal or
external change to resolve the telic flaw. This is the major style of most
great modern plots.
Revelation: the novel reveals portions of the life,
experiences, and ideas of the protagonist in a cohesive and serial fashion from
the initial scene to the climax and telic flaw resolution.
Achievement: the novel is characterized by a goal that the
protagonist must achieve to resolve the telic flaw.
I evaluated the list of plots and
categorized them according to the following scale:
Overall (o) – These
are the three overall plots we defined above: redemption, achievement, and
revelation.
Achievement (a)
– There are plots that fall under the idea of the achievement plot.
Quality (q) – These are plots based on a personal or character
quality.
Setting (s) – These are plots based on a setting.
Item (i) – These are plots based on an item.
All of the plots we looked at fall
into one of these five. Let’s do that:
Overall (o)
1.
Redemption (o) – 17i, 7e, 23ei, 8 –
49%
2.
Revelation (o) –2e, 64, 1i – 60%
3.
Achievement (o) – 16e, 19ei, 4i, 43
– 73%
Achievement (a)
1.
Detective or mystery (a) – 56, 1e –
51%
2.
Revenge or vengeance (a) –3ie, 3e,
45 – 46%
3.
Zero to hero (a) – 29 – 26%
4.
Romance (a) –1ie, 41 – 37%
5.
Coming of age (a) –1ei, 25 – 23%
6.
Progress of technology (a) – 6 – 5%
7.
Discovery (a) – 3ie, 57 – 54%
8.
Money (a) – 2e, 26 – 25%
9.
Spoiled child (a) – 7 – 6%
10. Legal (a) – 5 – 4%
11. Adultery (qa) – 18 – 16%
12. Self-discovery (a) – 3i, 12 – 13%
13. Guilt or Crime (a) – 32 – 29%
14. Proselytizing (a) – 4 – 4%
15. Reason (a) – 10, 1ie – 10%
16. Escape (a) – 1ie, 23
– 21%
17. Knowledge or Skill (a) – 26 – 23%
18. Secrets (a) – 21 – 19%
Quality (q)
1.
Messiah (q) – 10 – 9%
2.
Adultery (qa) – 18 – 16%
3.
Rejected love (rejection) (q) – 1ei,
21 – 20%
4.
Miscommunication (q) – 8 – 7%
5.
Love triangle (q) – 14 – 12%
6.
Betrayal (q) – 1i, 1ie, 46 – 43%
7.
Blood will out or fate (q) –1i, 1e,
26 – 25%
8.
Psychological (q) –1i, 45 – 41%
9.
Magic (q) – 8 – 7%
10. Mistaken identity (q) – 18 – 16%
11. Illness (q) – 1e, 19 – 18%
12. Anti-hero (q) – 6 – 5%
13. Immorality (q) – 3i, 8 – 10%
14. Satire (q) – 10 – 9%
15. Camaraderie (q) – 19 – 17%
16. Curse (q) – 4 – 4%
17. Insanity (q) – 8 – 7%
18. Mentor (q) – 12 – 11%
Setting (s)
1.
End of the World (s) – 3 – 3%
2.
War (s) – 20 – 18%
3.
Anti-war (s) –2 – 2%
4.
Travel (s) –1e, 62 – 56%
5.
Totalitarian (s) – 1e, 8 – 8%
6.
Horror (s) – 15 – 13%
7.
Children (s) – 24 – 21%
8.
Historical (s) – 19 – 17%
9.
School (s) – 11 – 10%
10. Parallel (s) – 4 – 4%
11. Allegory (s) – 10 – 9%
12. Fantasy world (s) – 5 – 4%
13. Prison (s) – 2 – 2%
Item (i)
1.
Article (i) – 1e, 46 – 42%
Starting with the protagonist makes
novel writing about as easy as it is possible to make novel writing. As I wrote, if we start with the protagonist,
I can’t guarantee you the next bestseller, but I can assure you it will solve
four problems common to novelists:
1.
What is the plot?
2.
Why is my novel so short?
3.
Why is my novel so simplistic and
uncomplicated in terms of plot and theme?
4.
Why do I get writer’s block when I
want to write?
Not every writer gets writer’s
block. I never get writer’s block. I get tired of writing. I sometimes want to change up my writing
(write something different). I never run out of something to write. How could that be? Doesn’t everyone get writer’s block? Only in the movies, and I would say only
non-professional writers.
Here’s some ideas to help you
prevent writer’s block.
1.
Nothing anyone writes the first time
on paper (or ether) is worth reading, publishing, or anything else.
2.
You gotta write to learn to write
well.
3.
If you don’t like it, dump it.
4.
If you are in over your head, just
stop and regroup.
5.
These are all helpful ideas for
getting your stuff together, but why don’t professionals have the problem of
writer’s block?
Writing paragraphs may be the most
powerful way to train up your writing skills.
None of the paragraphs I wrote as a seventh grader are worth reading
now, but they sure helped me learn to write.
We are writing about training.
Every paragraph looks like this:
1.
Topic sentence
2.
Body based on the topic
3.
Conclusion and transition
Every paragraph looks like this
except dialog paragraphs. These are
special paragraphs that are designed through the speaker rather than coherent
outline.
You must include tone and body language
in the dialog, or the conversation will go awry for the reader. There is more to dialog to make it sound
correct to the reader.
I’m repeating in synopsis all my
previous advice on writing dialog, but dialog is very important and most
beginning (and some experienced) writers seem to have problems with it.
So, we saw that dialog follows
normal human conversational order, lets the dialog flow, uses contractions,
doesn’t use direct address, expresses tone, body language, tags, and action in
the dialog. These are the most straight
forward and best way to correct most dialog.
Then you need to study and practice.
Dialog doesn’t always drive to the “big
talk.” Or, perhaps I should let you
decide how much of this is “big talk.”
What I want to show you as an example is sideways talk and secrets. I am still in my novel Essie: Enchantment and the Aos Si.
This novel is filled with secrets and revelations. This is a true protagonist revelation novel
wrapped in a redemption plot. I’m not
sure how much of this I will show you, but for now, we will see the arrival and
visit of Seasairdh and Claire.
Essie
moved like lightning. She had not been
free like this for a long time. She had
been reading her book and studying it—she was still very slow with the words. She knew them once before, but she had somehow
forgotten them. The pictures and the
words were very instructive. She saw how
it was supposed to go around her neck, and she knew the talisman branch went
into her hair. They both felt warm and
correct in their places. She knew their
power filled her, although she wasn’t certain how to use them to their full
potential. They rested properly against
her body and gave strength to her. She
felt stronger than she had in a long time.
She knew their power, though she didn’t know how to fully use them—yet.
The
forest paths appeared like open roads to her.
She moved in them as if she were made to them. She moved faster than any of the fae. She moved with a certainty. They couldn’t mask their scent, nor the scent
of Claire from her. She didn’t follow their
path exactly—she paralleled it. She also
started to slow on purpose. She didn’t
want to catch them too quickly. She
might be able to overcome them in the forest or glades, but that wasn’t her
plan. She wanted to bring great fear to
them. Her intention was to threaten and
punish, and she didn’t want any accidental or intentional injury to come to
Claire. The fae could do both to a human
girl. They would try their best to keep
Claire safe—she was the White Lady’s granddaughter after all. But the fae believed they could pass any
injury off as Essie’s fault. She
realized that too.
For
some reason, Essie fully understood the fae.
She wasn’t certain why, but she knew their hearts and minds. Perhaps the fae had kept her too long in
their company, and she learned too much from them. Or perhaps she just knew everything about
them. She didn’t know. Even in her wildcat shape, she understood
them. When she stood naked, either as a
human or as a wildcat, she felt as if the entire world belonged to her. She felt like Eve in the garden with the
responsibility of the Dagda resting squarely on her shoulders—on hers and no
one else’s. As if the Dagda formed her
for this purpose alone.
She
ran at an easier pace now. It was a pace
intended to bring her to that place directly after the fae arrived. She planned to give them time to feel safe,
and to feel they arrived free from pursuit.
She knew they didn’t expect her to chase after them. She knew they could not detect her. She knew their plans before they made
them. She shouldn’t have left Claire in
the garden alone. Mrs. Lyons wore a
cross and had a presence in the world.
Claire did not. Claire was only a
child. She would be beguiled by
them. Still, now Essie must watch
everyone whom she befriended. After she
finished with the fae, she hoped, they would likely not give her any other
problems.
Essie
ran through the night. She followed her
prey into the darkness and into the hills and slight mountains of the
Welshlands. The fae intentionally kept
well away from the ancient places of humans and the White Lady’s power. They kept to the secret bowers of their kind
and the secret places of their kind.
Essie moved her course to the left and the right. She stayed out of their places and their
sight and smell. Although none of them
should be able to smell her or detect her, she didn’t want any incidents. She couldn’t become wholly invisible, but she
could blend with the land wherever she wished.
She became one with the land, and the land was hers. Every place of the fae was hers. She knew it.
She felt it.
In
her wildcat form, she didn’t tire and she didn’t hunger. She knew the moment she turned back, earthly
weariness would return to her. She began
to pace herself a little more, and she hunted.
She felt little desire to hunt while she remained in her current form,
but she wanted strength when she arrived at her destination.
The
sun began to rise, and Essie knew she came close to the place. She felt the presence of the fae
everywhere. They had set guards and
wards all around their abode. She
circumvented them all. She snuck through
them as if she flited, the shadow of a shadow.
Finally, she ran over a rise and saw the forest and the ground fall back
into a wide meadow. The meadow lay
filled with grass and the places of the fae.
It backed to a deep dark lake the color of the bluest sky. No groundwater flowed out of the lake or into
the lake. The trees here stood ancient
and cultivated for centuries. None were
as old she or the fae.
The
sun just topped the trees, and the banquet to celebrate the morning light and
the beginning day lay out on the deep green grass. Grass and fern covered knolls rose at
convenient spots just high enough to provide a place to sit. The Welsh fae, the Tylwyth Teg, lived in the open forest and
the meadows. They didn’t like anything
over their heads. They relished the open
air and the open skies. Many diverse
creatures sat awaiting the blaze of the sun on the meadow and the coming of
their king and queen to begin the day.
Essie could see them. Some looked
like humans, beautiful and fair with golden locks and pale petite faces. Some appeared like humans mixed with animals:
cefftk dwr and cwn annwn. Others
appeared hideous and still others like small humans with wings. All together, all celebrating the rising sun
and the new day.
Essie
didn’t slow her run now. She rushed down
a forest game trail and burst out of the trees near the center of the open
meadow. She ran toward the center and
creatures scattered shrieking. Some rose
into the air on bright wings. Some
jumped out of her way. Others ran to the
side and back into the forest. Many
disappeared into the morning mist rising from the lake. A great angry and forlorn cry rose up.
Essie,
the Aos Si stood in the center of the meadow for a long moment. She began to pace around the center until she
had beaten down the grass. She stood
still and turned. One moment, she
appeared as a black wildcat—the next, she stood in the middle, a naked
black-haired woman-child. A great cry
went up all around her, but she couldn’t tell if that was because of her
nakedness or because they recognized her.
Suddenly we see through the point of
view (PoV) of Essie, and I also do some telling. Yes, there is mostly showing, but there is
some telling to let you into the mind of Essie, the Aos Si. I give myself this latitude because Essie is
an animal, and animals can’t speak, plus I want you to know more about the mind
of Essie. This is a turning point in the
novel and a learning point about Essie.
Still you don’t know much.
The telling is showing. In other words, I didn’t tell you about Essie’s
characteristics as much as I showed you her mind and the characteristics were
there. Here’s an example:
For some reason, Essie fully understood the fae. She wasn’t certain why, but she knew their
hearts and minds. Perhaps the fae had
kept her too long in their company, and she learned too much from them. Or perhaps she just knew everything about
them. She didn’t know. Even in her wildcat shape, she understood
them. When she stood naked, either as a
human or as a wildcat, she felt as if the entire world belonged to her. She felt like Eve in the garden with the
responsibility of the Dagda resting squarely on her shoulders—on hers and no
one else’s. As if the Dagda formed her
for this purpose alone.
Notice, I don’t use identity here at
all. I don’t write, Essie was this or
she was that. I tell you how she feels.
I tell you what she thinks she understands. Essie is the Aos Si, and I don’t even tell you
what that is exactly. Yes, I am still
keeping secrets.
The point here is for the reader to
think about what Essie feels, says, and does.
Here is nearly one hundred percent action narrative mixed with insights
into Essie’s mind and thoughts.
The forest paths appeared like open roads to her. She moved in them as if she were made to
them. She moved faster than any of the
fae. She moved with a certainty. They couldn’t mask their scent, nor the scent
of Claire from her. She didn’t follow their
path exactly—she paralleled it. She also
started to slow on purpose. She didn’t
want to catch them too quickly. She
might be able to overcome them in the forest or glades, but that wasn’t her
plan. She wanted to bring great fear to
them. Her intention was to threaten and
punish, and she didn’t want any accidental or intentional injury to come to
Claire. The fae could do both to a human
girl. They would try their best to keep
Claire safe—she was the White Lady’s granddaughter after all. But the fae believed they could pass any
injury off as Essie’s fault. She
realized that too.
We see action, but interlaced is the
action from the PoV of Essie the great black cat. She is seeking her prey and until the end, we
aren’t exactly certain what or who that prey is. Then we arrive at the destination, and Essie
begins to take action. Perhaps we shall
see who Essie really is.
We will see how these play out. This is what brings entertainment to a novel—mysteries
and secrets.
In the end, we can figure out what
makes a work have a great plot, and apply this to our writing.
Let’s 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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