7 October 2021, Writing - part xx735 Writing a Novel, Creativity and Reflected Worldview
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.
For Novel 32: Shiggy
Tash finds a lost girl in the isolated Scottish safe house her organization
gives her for her latest assignment: Rose Craigie has nothing, is alone, and
needs someone or something to rescue and acknowledge her as a human being.
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 becomes inevitable in the climax.
There is much more to this.
I evaluated the plots from the list of 112 classics 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.
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.
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%
Previously, I defined creativity and how to build and apply
it. The trick now is how to use
creativity to develop the telic flaw and the plot(s). I write plot(s) because we determined that
there is no novel with a singular plot.
Plots come in all shapes and sizes that we an apply in all kinds of ways
to our writing.
I gave an example of how I approach creativity and the
development of a telic flaw. It all came
from the protagonist. That’s how I
recommend designing a novel. We really
are talking about a design process.
Let’s talk about some means of creativity development. There are three ways you can go.
1.
Real worldview
2. Reflected worldview
3.
Created worldview.
Do I need to define these again? Perhaps definitions and discussion is
necessary.
The real worldview is the normative view of the world from
the standpoint of a specific society and culture and their event horizon. This is what is accepted as normally and
notionally true. If you are writing
about history or the actual world in history or in modern times, you are most likely
working in a real worldview. The problem
with the real worldview is that it can change radically based changes in
culture and society. For example, people
in certain times believed fervently in many non-real ideas and things. At the turn of the Twentieth Century, astrophysics
believed the universe was filled with aether, light was waves, and that the
universe was eternal. Einstein and
others proved that there is no aether to allow the propagation of light, that
light is made of particles and waves, and that the universe has a beginning
called the Big Bang. What was once real,
became reflective and historical false theories. The world of science is filled with these
wrong ideas. At one time, people
believed the earth was flat and not a sphere.
Science proved otherwise and the idea that the world is not a sphere
moved from real to reflected or just fanciful.
There is much more to this. In
the ancient world, people believed in animism and gods and goddesses. As people and time progressed, they became
monotheists and stopped believing in spirits (animism) in everything. Today, a secular worldview has almost destroyed
the idea of a God at all in common modern society and culture. Is the belief in God about to become a
reflected worldview and not a real worldview?
That is very interesting since science, philosophy, and history proves
there must be a God. In any case, that
is the real worldview. Let’s go to the
created worldview.
The created worldview is simply one that the author invents for
a novel. The created worldview is almost
always based on a real or a reflected worldview, but it expands beyond the
reflected and can’t be traced back to the real.
We usually think of science fiction and fantasy as created worldview,
but the created worldview is a bit more expansive than that. For example, Harry Potty is a created worldview. The author took a reflected worldview based
in magic, and created an entire world setting that no one had ever thought of
before. That is a ket feature of the created
worldview—it is a worldview that already exists? As I noted, most science fiction is a created
worldview. Still, every author normally
starts with a real or a reflected worldview and builds a created worldview from
it. Here’s an example. A writer might project the near future by
having a spaceport in orbit. There has
neve been an orbital spaceport before.
They have been imagined in other science fiction, but they are neither
reflected nor real. To make a created worldview
spaceport, the author would start with an airport and extrapolate it into
space. The author might additionally
research other author’s or scientist’s ideas of a spaceport, and develop the
spaceport from this. In any case, the
author creates the spaceport and the worldview from a real or reflected
worldview.
There is then the reflected worldview.
I’ll leave up the definitions for the real and the created
worldview. Let’s look at the reflected
worldview.
The reflected worldview is a very special creative space for
the author. Many authors use this
creative space without fully comprehending exactly what they are doing. Let’s give a very simple definition. The reflected worldview is the use of a
setting that is based on what your or any culture believed as a society and
culture. This doesn’t mean you have to
write about history or that culture to produce a reflected worldview. It just means that the beliefs, myths, and
the ideas of the society and culture can make up the worldview of your
novel. What does this mean?
In simple terms, it means you can write about vampires,
witches, dragons, ghosts, werewolves, wizards, magic, gods, goddesses, Paul
Bunion, fairies, and all. You can write
about all of them or only some of them.
You can build a reflected worldview that includes anything known by
human cultures. You can even use
fiction, but that can be a little problem.
I’ll mention that a bit.
When I write, you can even use fiction, I mean that in the
context of the reflected worldview. For
example, if you are writing about vampires, you will undoubtedly use Bram
Stocker’s fictional vampire, Dracula, as your model. You can’t help doing this because Bram Stoker
defined the idea of the vampire in society, culture, and fiction. On the other hand, if you write about
dragons, there are few historical or mythical dragons defined in popular
literature that have really stuck in people’s collective minds. You might use the dragon in The Dragon and
the George, but not that many people have read this fantasy novel. Here is how you are supposed to develop a
reflected worldview, and this is how ai do it.
If I want to write about dragons, I research dragons. I get together all the myths, cultural references,
and social references in history to guide me.
Then I develop my dragon or dragons based on those references. In a well developed reflected worldview, you
want your readers to be able to make some research and discover that your
dragon or whatever you designed fits into a historical worldview. This lends power and realism to your setting
and characters. I do this with all my
characters and settings and not just the creatures in them.
I’ll write more about this, but I want to mention the
created worldview and dragons. Typically,
you will find most of your dragons in a created worldview rather than a reflected
worldview. The Dragon and the George is
just an example of a great reflected worldview, and it isn’t unique, it’s just
unusual for the inclusion of dragons in a reflected worldview. More commonly, you find dragons in a created
worldview. Anne McCaffrey’s dragons from
Pern are exactly that. The dragons from How
to Train Your Dragon are exactly that.
You can’t do a search of literature or history and find either McCaffrey’s
or the Train dragons. They are
made up from the mind of their authors.
McCaffrey in science fiction and Train in fantasy.
This is the huge difference between the reflected worldview and
the crated worldview. The reflected
worldview ties the writing, setting, and plots into the real world of the
reader. This is a very important
point. While the created worldview for
all it’s power and setting is still created.
It’s usually science fiction or fantasy or both.
I write in a reflected worldview. I am trying to see the world in a new
way. I then write to convey that new
view to my readers. Perhaps we can look
deeper at this.
Let’s see what else we can find in creativity and the reflected
worldview.
In the end, we can figure out what makes a work have a great
plot and theme, and apply this to our writing.
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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