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Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Writing - part xxx154 Writing a Novel, A New Romantic Protagonist, Editing Words, said

30 November 2022, Writing - part xxx154 Writing a Novel, A New Romantic Protagonist, Editing Words, said

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:  Let me tell you a little about writing.  Writing isn’t so much a hobby, a career, or a pastime.  Writing is a habit and an obsession.  We who love to write love to write. 

 

If you love to write, the problem is gaining the skills to write well.  We want to write well enough to have others enjoy our writing.  This is important.  No one writes just for themselves the idea is absolutely irrational and silly.  I can prove why.

 

In the first place, the purpose of writing is communication—that’s the only purpose.  Writing is the abstract communication of the mind through symbols.  As time goes by, we as writers gain more and better tools and our readers gain more and better appreciation for those tools and skills—even if they have no idea what they are. 

 

We are in the modern era.  In this time, the action and dialog style along with the push of technology forced novels into the form of third person, past tense, action and dialog style, implying the future.  This is the modern style of the novel.  I also showed how the end of literature created the reflected worldview.  We have three possible worldviews for a novel: the real, the reflected, and the created.  I choose to work in the reflected worldview.

 

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. 

 

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. 

 

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.

 

With that said, where should we go?  Should I delve into ideas and creativity again, or should we just move into the novel again?  Should I develop a new protagonist, which, we know, will result in a new novel.  I’ve got an idea, but it went stale.  Let’s look at the outline for a novel again:

 

1.      The initial scene

2.     The rising action scenes

3.     The climax scene

4.     The falling action scene(s)

5.     The dénouement scene(s)

    

The initial scene is the most important scene and part of any novel.  To get to the initial scene, you don’t need a plot, you need a protagonist.

 

Let’s be very clear.  You can start with a plot, a protagonist, an idea, or an idea for an initial scene.  The easiest and most controlled method is to start with a protagonist.  As I’ve written over and over, a protagonist must come with a telic flaw.  I think it is impossible to have a protagonist without a telic flaw, but I suppose you could develop a completely lackluster protagonist without any telic flaw connected to them. 

 

Here is my list for the characteristics of a Romantic protagonist.  I am not very happy with most of the lists I have found.  So, I will start with a classic list from the literature and then translate them to what they really mean.  This is the refined list.  Take a look.

 

1. Some power or ability outside the norm of society that the character develops to resolve the telic flaw.

2. Set of beliefs (morals and ideals) that are different than normal culture or society’s.

3. Courageous

4. Power (skills and abilities) and leadership that are outside of the normal society.

5. Introspective

6. Travel plot

7. Melancholy

8. Overwhelming desire to change and grow—to develop four and one.

9. Pathos developed because the character does not fit the cultural mold.  From the common.

10. Regret when they can’t follow their own moral compass.

11. Self-criticism when they can’t follow their own moral compass.

12. Pathos bearing because he or she is estranged from family or normal society by death, exclusion for some reason, or self-isolation due to three above.

13. From the common and potentially the rural.

14. Love interest

 

Here is the protagonist development list.  We are going to use this list to develop a Romantic protagonist.  With the following outline in mind, we will build a Romantic protagonist.  However, I’m going to ignore the first step.  Instead of starting with an initial scene, I’m just going to design a Romantic protagonist.  Then we may apply the outline to them.

 

1.     Define the initial scene

2.     At the same time as the above—fit a protagonist into the initial scene.  That means the minimum of:

a.      Telic flaw

b.     Approximate age

c.      Approximate social degree

d.     Sex

3.     Refine the protagonist

a.      Physical description

b.     Background – history of the protagonist

                                                  i.     Birth

                                                ii.     Setting

                                              iii.     Life

                                               iv.     Education

                                                v.     Work

                                               vi.     Profession

                                             vii.     Family

c.      Setting – current

                                                  i.     Life

                                                ii.     Setting

                                              iii.     Work

d.     Name

4.     Refine the details of the protagonist

a.      Emotional description (never to be shared directly)

b.     Mental description (never to be shared directly)

c.      Likes and dislikes (never to be shared directly)

5.     Telic flaw resolution

a.      Changes required for the protagonist to resolve the telic flaw

                                                  i.     Physical changes

                                                ii.     Emotional changes

                                              iii.     Mental changes

b.     Alliances required for the protagonist to resolve the telic flaw

c.      Enemies required for the protagonist to resolve the telic flaw

d.     Plots required for the protagonist to resolve the telic flaw

e.      Obstacles that must be overcome for the protagonist to resolve the telic flaw

 

Here’s what I want to do or how I want to place these on a protagonist.  Let’s clean them up a little and begin to evaluate a protagonist.

I’m not ready to write a new novel yet, and I’m too busy to put the extra time to write an initial scene.

 

I’ll repeat.  I just finished up Rose, and I want to finish up Cassandra.  I’m moving in that direction.  For now, I’ll focus on the finishing steps of Rose, and then the marketing development steps.  This might get tedious, but I’ll try to keep it meaningful and helpful.

 

I am into heavy editing for Rose, and I’d like to finish with Cassandra.  I’m using Cassandra as an example for my other blog, so I really do need to catch it up before I run out of material.  In any case, I was going over the basics of real editing.

 

I’ll repeat myself.  If you have a problem with basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation, you might not have the required level of education to write effectively.  If this is true, you need to get more education and of the correct types. 

 

Repetition isn’t the only simple problem in editing.  This is a level above spelling, grammar, and punctuation, but there is another level above that.

 

The other problems with word is related to the following list:

 

-ing

had

-ly

were

was

gotten

even

said

got

utilize

 

There was/were

This is the secret list of words you need to get rid of as much as possible.  I’ll go over them specifically and explain why.  What I do in my writing is to evaluate every one of these and get rid of the ones that can be fixed.  Here we go.

    

said

 

For example: 

 

He said. “The cows came home.”

 

She said, “I don’t like you.”

 

He said, “Don’t be late.”

 

She said, “Turn out the lights.”

 

Now is the time for a little controversy.  Some authors swear by said.  Some authors say said doesn’t matter at all.  Then, there are authors, like me, who do not use said at all.  Let me tell you why to all three.

 

Some say that readers just ignore the word said.  I say, if that is true, then why even use it. 

 

Those who say the word or address don’t matter at all, I say to them, well, if that is true, then why include anything. 

 

The answer is, of course, you require tags to indicate who is speaking.  Therefore, you need to include some means of indicating that a speaker is speaking.  This means that using some means of saying someone said something is required.  You can’t just ignore it, and even if readers ignore the word said, it is a totally wasted effort if you can’t write how the character said something.  In other words, it is necessary to us some type of word like said, let’s say, cried, blubbered, screamed, whispered, mumbled, and all to express the way the statement was made.  Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough words like this and said tells us nothing other than that someone said something.

 

Let’s look at this from a real human standpoint.  Experts tell us that dialog is over 90% body language.  This means gestures, facial expressions, movements, twitches, and all.  Let’s just say that 50% of all communication and dialog is body language—the author must use this to develop dialog.  It’s not just tags to identify the speakers, and it’s not just showing how they spoke, it is also showing how they are moving, looking, and all when they speak.  I argue that any author who doesn’t consider this is not giving us good dialog and in fact, is producing dialog that isn’t understandable to the reader.  If communication is as low as 50% dialog, than means every statement should have some motion or expression or means of speech defined for it.  If it is 90% of communication, then it should be more.  I’ll go with the 50% number.

 

This means that every statement in a dialog needs some gesture, expression, means of speech, and all to show the reader exactly what is happening.  Said just doesn’t cut it.  Therefore, I don’t ever use said.  Here is how I might correct the examples from above:

 

He waved. “The cows came home.”

 

She yelled, “I don’t like you.”

 

She smiled, “I don’t like you.”

 

He laughed, “Don’t be late.”

 

He cried, “Don’t be late.”

 

She patted the bad, “Turn out the lights.”

 

She snarled, “Turn out the lights.”

 

Let me also write that I disagree with those who think humans can’t show animal-like speech characteristics.  For example:

 

He growled. “The cows came home.”

 

She tweeted, “I don’t like you.”

 

He roared, “Don’t be late.”

 

She spat, “Turn out the lights.”

 

Some argue that you shouldn’t use terms like this to express how a person spoke.  I write that everyone understands these, and no one could possibly misunderstand them.

 

My conclusions.

 

You must use tags to identify who is speaking.

 

Use those tags to identify how the speaker is speaking.

 

Use those tags to show body-language and how the speaker is moving and their facial expression while speaking.

 

Many words in English allow this:

 

He smiled.

 

She giggled.

 

She tittered.

 

These all indicated facial expressions while showing us how the person spoke.

 

The last words are:

 

There was/were

 

On to the next tomorrow.  Oh, I should write, that in one of my final edits of a completed work, I search for the words above and remove them when possible.  We’ll see more, next.

    

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  

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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