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Sunday, December 18, 2022

Writing - part xxx172 Writing a Novel, A New Romantic Protagonist, About Paragraph Order

18 December 2022, Writing - part xxx172 Writing a Novel, A New Romantic Protagonist, About Paragraph Order  

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. 

 

True editing is about language, ideas, and reason.  It’s not just about grammar, spelling, and punctuation.  We’ve moved well away from spelling, punctuation, and grammar.  I’m looking at sentences.

 

Yes, sentences are much more difficult than words.  Look at words.  I just need to ensure they are spelled correctly, are the correct word, are not repeated, and sound right.  Sound right is something we haven’t looked at yet—we shall.  That is an advance editing technique.

 

Sentences are something else entirely.  When we look at sentences, we need to look at word order, word use, grammar, which includes, punctuation, correct verbs, correct number, correct tense, and all.  We have touched on these with the word list. 

 

Word editing is simple compared to sentence editing, but sentence editing may be the most important for cohesiveness, clarity, and understanding.  We really haven’t gotten into logic and reasoning much.  I’ve centered our original editing on the words, and showed you how editing words can be used to help edit sentences. I’m standing by the, but you must get to the more important parts of sentence editing.    

 

Let’s turn sentence editing into logical or reasoned editing, as well as touching on paragraph or multi-sentence editing. 

 

We’ve looked at word editing and then sentence editing.  The next stage is multi-sentence editing.  This specifically means paragraphs.  I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming.  Yes, paragraphs are the next stage of editing, and this is a very important part of editing.

 

Unfortunately, many writers have no idea first how to craft a paragraph, second where to break paragraphs, and third how to use paragraphs.

 

We all know we are supposed to use paragraphs, but many have never been taught how to write a paragraph, break, or use them.  This is a problem of education.  Let me remind you about how to write a paragraph.  Every paragraph has the following form:

Topic sentence

Sentences supporting, arguing, and/or developing the topic

Conclusion or implied completion

Tie to the next paragraph

 

This is how every paragraph should be written except one type—dialog.  In English, we break each statement of dialog by a new speaker into a paragraph break.  That doesn’t mean the dialog statement is a complete paragraph—it’s just the way we break dialog.  Extended dialog can be broken into paragraphs, and each of those should follow the paragraph development form.

 

Pretty simple, yes?  Paragraphs are relatively simple, but they are perhaps the biggest problem for new writers.  The best hope for you is to write a lot.  Look at your paragraph structure.  Make certain your paragraphs connect in some fashion.  Know when to stop and when to start a paragraph. 

 

Next, let’s look at these:

Connecting paragraphs

Breaking paragraphs

Paragraph order

Topics in paragraphs related to scene development

 

In paragraph order, we have two related topics.  The first is what we have been addressing from the beginning with paragraphs, and that is the order of the sentences in the paragraph.  The second is the order of paragraphs in the scene.  This second topic will roll into the next area or interest—paragraphs in scene development.

 

About the best advice I can give you on the first topic is stick to chronological and logical order.  We will address when you might break this little rule, but do it carefully and deliberately, and do not confuse your reader.

 

Back in the 1980s or so, it was for some reason considered literary to write confusing and temporally displaced writing—especially in science fiction.  Just like with Ulysses, I drank the Kool-Aid with every other unsuspecting and ignorant reader and writer.  After I figured out what a load of crap and stupidity the market and the so-called experts were pitching, I came to my own conclusions on this subject.  That’s why my second rule of writing:

 

2. Don’t confuse your readers.

 

The novels I’m referring to, both Ulysses and any novel like it, and the science fiction form the 1980s were all confusing.  They were not entertaining.  They were not worth reading.  No one in their right mind will enjoy or read them in the future.  The only reason anyone reads Ulysses is because some literary professor tells the gullible and the inexperienced that the novel is in someway great.  It is not in any way great—it is crap.  Now, back to sentence order in the paragraph.

 

We always start with a topic sentence.  No matter where you think you put the topic sentence, the reader will take, accept, and understand the first sentence to be the topic sentence.  This is immutable—it’s the rule of paragraphs and reading and writing.  So, if you intent to place the topic sentence somewhere other than as the first sentence, don’t do it.  It will only confuse your readers and most likely knock them out of the suspension of disbelief. 

 

When a reader encounters a paragraph with a topic sentence anywhere but the first sentence, they will stop reading, and try to make heads or tails out of the paragraph.  They will wonder why you broke the paragraphs where you did.  They will not be immersed in the writing anymore.  That’s a real problem.  Likewise, when you put the paragraph together, you need to use some logical means of constructing and connecting the paragraphs.

 

In description, the connections are usually some logical flow based on position.  Fro example, left to right, or right to left, or top to bottom, or bottom to top.  This is perhaps the best and most logical means of structuring physical description.  For people and other things this will work too.  You can also use a connective strategy based on physical connections.  For example, with a building, you might make a circular description.  You might do that with a person’s face.  The point is this—be deliberate, be connective, be organized.  That’s the overall point.

 

Topic sentence first.  Next sentences in some logical fashion connect together and are organized in such a way that the reader follows the order and the sense.  I’m writing using very technical terminology, but the ultimate point is to entertain.  The only way to entertain is when your reader can understand and not be confused.  The reason for technical terms is to help you understand in a detailed fashion how to put together a paragraph.  Let me outline this:

 

Topic sentence

Sentences supporting the topic

      -Be deliberate

      -Be connective

      -Be organized    

Conclusion or implied completion

Tie to the next paragraph

 

I didn’t write about temporal order—that is time order although I started with that.  I transitioned to description.  When we are writing about action—action should always be in chronological order.  There are times when you might want to break this rule.  I can think of a few, but these are advanced techniques and should be used carefully and strategically.

 

In some cases, to build excitement, you might want to put in a later action event and then drive the writing up to it.  Here is a sloppy example I just made up:

 

Jack took a deep cut to his right arm.  He’d made a terrible mistake and left himself open to the attack.  The sword had blown through his repost and touched his forearm.

 

This is an example, and I’m not certain I’d write anything this way.  I’m just writing that this is an okay paragraph.  It has a topic sentence.  The next sentences describe what happened in a chronological sense.  The topic gives the punchline, and that’s a problem to me.  This is why I write, be very careful with this type of writing.  Remember secrets?

 

I think that the most powerful tools for the writer is revelation.  Revelation means revealing to the reader so the punchline or the ultimate exciting parts come at the end.  If you put them at the beginning, the rest is just catchup.  I want my readers to be on the edges of their seats waiting with baited breath for the next exciting reveal.  That is the power of fiction writing. 

 

I advocate logical and connective order in description and chronological order in action.  If you do something different than this, you need to be very careful and you need to lead and prep the reader.  I advise not.  Make it simple.  Simple construction does not mean simple writing.  Complex writing does not mean good writing.  What we want is understandable and ultimately entertaining writing.  Think about the writing you like to read best.  It isn’t dense, complex, difficult, and/or convoluted.  I can assure you it is clear, simple, easy to read, and logical.  That’s the goal.

 

We’ll look at paragraph order or order of paragraphs next.

 

I’m certain there is more.  We can add topics as we go along.

 

We’ll continue to look at logic and reason as we transition to multi-sentences and paragraphs.

     

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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