Writing - part xx525 Writing a Novel, Still the Big Reveal

 11 March 2021, Writing - part xx525 Writing a Novel, Still 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 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.

 

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 turned around slowly twice more to make certain they all saw her.  She spoke the language of the fae.  It sounded a bit rusty on her tongue, but she knew it, and she spoke it very sternly, “Listen to me.  I am the Aos Si, and I have come for a reckoning.”  The sunlight suddenly blazed full on the center of the meadow.  A rush of morning breeze rustled in the tops of the trees.  A bright light seemed to settle at the top of Essie’s head—like a tongue of dancing flames.

No one spoke.

Essie cried out, “Are you afraid?  You should be.  You took a human who is under my care.  Bring her immediately to me.”

Still she heard not a sound.

Essie stepped to the closest repast and kicked over the woven platters there.  She knocked over their clay cups and broke them against each other.  She tore apart the platters.  She gathered the pieces and the fae food and kicked them into the center.  She began to squat above them on the center of the knoll.

Moans went up.  A voice rang out of the mist, “Stop.  Don’t desecrate this place any further.”

Essie stood, “I have barely begun to desecrate it.  I have not loosed my power at all.  You have not showed me the honor I deserve.”

The voice filled with anguish, “Must we?”

“I demand it.  I am the Aos Si, and I demand you honor me as you are required.”

A sudden cry went up.  Angry voices surrounded her.

Essie stood silently.  She remained completely at ease.  She sat in her hip.  She didn’t attempt to hide her nakedness.  Essie yawned, “You might as well show yourselves.  I can detect you all anyway.  I know where you are, and I know who you are.  Pryderi fab Pwyll of the Tylwyth Teg show yourself.”

“Nay.  This not fitting.  We may not look upon you while you are…you are…”

“While I am not clothed?  Then bring me my robes and give me my proper greeting.  Have you been so long without my guidance that you can’t even remember your manners?”

Pryderi called out, “Cigfa bring the robe.”

A woman’s voice rose over the din, “The robe, my lord?”

Pryderi snarled, “Yes, the robe.  Bring it now or we will not be rid of it.”

Another man’s voice called out, “I thought you said this would bring the White Lady on her head and not this creature on ours.”

Essie growled, “Do it now, or I will ruin your secret place for ages to come.  You know I can do it.”

“Aye, I know this.  I didn’t think you would come.”

“Yet I am here, and waiting very impatiently.”

A woman of dazzling beauty with long golden hair appeared behind Essie.  She held a simple robe of nearly translucent material.  It looked as if it had been woven of spider webs.  Essie held out her hands and Cigfa placed it on Essie’s arms and wrapped it around her body.  Cifga did everything she could to not come into contact with Essie’s flesh.

Cigfa stood back and admired the robe on Essie, “There, it is placed.”

Essie stood still, “You must bind my hair.”

Cigfa wrung her hands, “But it is in your hair.”

“You must bind my hair—that is the proper order and step.”

Cigfa curtsied slightly.  Then she raised her head, “I didn’t mean to give you an obeisance…”

Essie raised her hands, “But you did, and that is right.”

Cigfa called, “Rhiannon come.  You must assist me.”

A woman’s voice rose in protest, “But to touch it…”

Cigfa cried out, “It is our duty.  We are bound to it.  Come or there won’t be an end to this.”

Another golden haired woman appeared out of the mist.  She was dressed in a translucent gown similar to the one Essie now wore.  Essie’s gown appeared pure white.  Cigfa’s was rose, and Rhiannon’s blue.  Cigfa and Rhiannon each took a ribbon of white material the color of Essie’s gown.  They stood on either side of Essie and, careful not to touch the branch in her black hair, they braided and tied her hair into two long braids.  They both stepped back and stood at either side of Essie.  They both bowed their heads, then quickly raised them.  They both blushed.

Essie put out her hands, “The next.  You must crown and welcome me.”

A man stepped out of the morning sunlit mist.  A crown of leaves in a complex pattern covered his golden hair.  He wore ancient riding clothing similar to the robes of the women but of a more substantial weave.  He took the crown from his head and gingerly placed it on Essie’s.  He was tall enough and she short enough that he didn’t need to reach far.

When he placed the crown on her head, he backed and bowed—it fit precisely along the edges of the odd stick in Essie’s hair.  He let out a groan as if some force compelled him.  Another man, dressed similarly, stepped from the mist.  He held a ceramic chalice in his hands.  He stepped forward as Pryderi fab Pwyll stepped back.  He was also tall.  Essie didn’t bend her head or neck as the man placed the chalice to her lips.  She drank deeply, then took the chalice from his hands. 

Essie raised the chalice, “This is blessed and all may partake.”  She handed the chalice back to Manawyadan.  Manawyadan carefully took the chalice without touching Essie’s hands.

Essie began to sing.  The sun suddenly rested in her hair again.  Her song sounded similar to the music she played for Mrs. Lyons and Claire and Seasaìdh.  It sounded like the organ music she played for Mrs. Maddison and Father Maddison.  She sang the morning song of the Tylwyth Teg—a song as old as the Welshlands and as old as the fae.  From everywhere, the fae appeared.  All those who fled when Essie entered the secret fell of the Tylwyth Teg came to stand around her and listen to her song.  It echoed around them filled with power.  The birds and insects who had been completely silent began to sing it with her.  A white bird descended from the sky and sat on the crown in Essie’s hair.  The fae did not sing.  They listened with their faces bowed and their heads uncovered.  When she finished.  The white bird disappeared, and a panoply of sound and lights appeared above her head for a moment.  Essie smiled, “He is pleased.”

All the fae who could kneel, knelt at Essie’s feet.  They all placed their heads below hers.

Pryderi fab Pwyll turned his face away, “He is pleased.”

Essie demanded, “Now bring me the child of man whom you stole from me.”

Pryderi rose and snapped his fingers, “She is here.”

A fae with great shining golden hair carried Claire forward.

Essie didn’t look at them or Claire, “Has she been harmed?”

Pryderi raised his hands, “We dare not harm her.  She sleeps.  She is the granddaughter of the White Lady.”

“She is also under my protection.  I did not take any revenge on you Pryderi fab Pwyll or on the Tylwyth Teg.  I could have.”

“Yes, yes.  I realize this.  I…we just didn’t expect you to come here yourself.”

“Did you think I would let the White Lady take her revenge on you as well?  I am sufficient a power to rule over you.  Didn’t you know this?”

Pryderi looked shamefaced, “We do not need your rule in this time.  The White Lady is sufficient.”

“Is that why you caged me and held me?”

“The White Lady demanded that we give her fealty when she took her place…when she accepted the mantle of the land.”

Essie glared at him, “Then you should know.  I have taken my place again as the ruler of the fae courts, and I will demand an accounting from you if you do anything like this again.”

Pryderi grimaced, “Yes, my lady.”

Essie’s voice turned slightly dangerous, “Only a my lady.  You already knelt to me.  Where are your manners, Pryderi fab Pwyll?”

Pryderi stuttered, “Yes, Your Grace.”  He put out his hand, “Your Grace, you will only be able to rule us as long as the White Lady gives you leave.”

“I was formed to hold and protect all of you.  The Dagda formed me for this purpose.  Do you not understand this?”

“The world is different now, Your Grace.”

“I realize this, perhaps more than you do.  I know you hate me because you are all beautiful and intelligent, and I am slow and, in your eyes, ugly.  I am the forest and the vales.  I am the meadows and the hills.  I have found my place.  I am sworn to it.  It is best then that you know your place, Pryderi.”  She raised her voice, “Do you all hear me Tylwyth Teg.  I am your sovereign.  I rule you directly under the hand of the Dagda.”

Pryderi seemed taken aback.  All the fae called out, “Under the Dagda.”

“Yes under the Dagda.  Did you not see the Hagios Pneuma and hear the voices of the angels?  I will forgive you the past as long as you obey me in the future.”

Pryderi took a deep breath, “Then if the White Lady makes demands on us, what shall we answer?”

Essie nodded, no obeisance, “I answer only to the Dagda.  You will answer to me.  If the White Lady asks, this should be your answer.”

Pryderi didn’t look very comfortable, “Yes, Your Grace.”

“Now, I will dine with you and bless you.  Bring me my just repast and show me to my place.”

We still don’t know all—we are being shown.  Or, I should write, I am showing you in a revelation about Essie.  The showing in dialog, action, and description.  The point of my examples is to show you the setup for a great secret reveal and the reveal.

 

Of particular note is that all these secrets were already known by the current players.  Essie knew, and the Fae knew.  The readers did not know, and our characters, Mrs. Lyons, Claire, and Seasaidh still don’t know.  This current reveal was set up to show the readers about Essie.

 

You might say, it’s about time.  We are not quite at the middle of the novel.  We have reached about the end of the first half when the readers get the big reveal about Essie.  I’ll give you the rest of this reveal tomorrow, but there is much to this revelation.

 

Most importantly, from this point on, the readers know a great secret about Essie.  This great secret isn’t shared by our other characters.  You could say in the real world of the novel, the real world still doesn’t know anything really about Essie—the readers do.

 

This is powerful.  The secret is known by Essie, the Fae, and the readers, but not by anyone else.  Not even the White Lady, Kathrin, knows about Essie to this degree.  We see this information passed between Essie and the Fae. 

 

Further, as I promised, we saw to some degree who Essie is and her importance in the scheme of things in the worldview of the novel.  Here’s a quote from above:

 

“I realize this, perhaps more than you do.  I know you hate me because you are all beautiful and intelligent, and I am slow and, in your eyes, ugly.  I am the forest and the vales.  I am the meadows and the hills.  I have found my place.  I am sworn to it.  It is best then that you know your place, Pryderi.”  She raised her voice, “Do you all hear me Tylwyth Teg.  I am your sovereign.  I rule you directly under the hand of the Dagda.”

 

This is why all the imagery around Essie.  The image of the Holy Spirit and of communion.  The imagery of Essie as lower than the Fae who were once angels, but who is their sovereign.  In this way, Essie becomes a kind of figure standing for the Fae (angels punished by God, the Dagda) as a savior to them.  She is not intended to be their savior as much as to represent the savior to them.  We shall see over and over how this is true for her.  Essie represents the savior to the Fae, not in being, but in her actions.  In this way, Essie becomes an allegory for the savior of humans.

 

Look at it this way.  There really are no Fae.  There really is no Aos Si.  These beings represent an allegory of the Dagda, the God in the lives of humans.  If you don’t like allegory, it is a parallel, and an intentional one.  This isn’t something I’m trying to make known, but a representation of the real world shown through the ideas of a reflected worldview.  And the ultimate point is to be entertaining.  This is entertaining to me.  It’s exactly what I look for in a novel and a storyline.  Plus, it is filled with secrets and revelation.

 

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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