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Sunday, January 8, 2023

Writing - part xxx192 Writing a Novel, A New Romantic Protagonist, Paragraphs Topics in Scenes, Editing Dialog, Vulgarity

8 January 2023, Writing - part xxx192 Writing a Novel, A New Romantic Protagonist, Paragraphs Topics in Scenes, Editing Dialog, Vulgarity

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 30th novel, working title, Rose, potential title Rose: Enchantment and the Flower.  The theme statement is: 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 cover proposal for Rose: Enchantment and the Flower




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.  Writing number 31, working title Shifter.  I just finished 32nd novel, Rose.

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

 

I’m leaving this in the paragraph and scene section because that’s exactly where it should be.  Although in English writing, dialog is treated like individual paragraphs, we rarely really look at it that way in scene development.  Yes, we punctuate it that way, and we put it together that way, but we don’t tend to treat it that way.  I’m as guilty as everyone else at that, but I’d like to have us look at dialog and especially the editing of dialog in terms of scenes and paragraphs.

 

We’ll kind of modify our idea of paragraphs in dialog a little—let’s call them ideas or complete thoughts. 

 

When we write and edit dialog, we are seeking to make completed or complete thoughts in the context of the novel and scene.  In other words, the writer wants to make some point, to communicate some idea, or get some information first to the characters and second to the readers.  This is very important.

 

1.     Clarity –

a.      Tags

b.     Action

c.      Character setting

2.     Realism

a.      Less direct attribution or identification

b.     More contractions

c.      More real interaction (correct introductions, etc.)

d.     More showing and not telling

e.      Dump the accents as much as possible

f.      No cutesy stuff

g.     Vulgarity

h.     Complex

 

Dialog may be the most important part of writing, and may also be the most difficult to master.  If you practice, get experience, and study it, you might have some hope.  Then there are the details of the dialog itself.  This is what we will look at next.

 

What is vulgarity?  Vulgarity is the use of vulgar terms (curse words or other offensive language), offensive descriptions (especially of peoples or groups), and gratuitous depictions of human depravity (especially sexual depravity and torture).

 

The topic of vulgarity comes up all the time especially between religious based writers and not as religious based writers.  Usually, one puts this up as a morality and purity issue.  The other a free speech, reality, and creativity issue.  They both get this wrong.

 

Vulgarity in writing and especially fiction writing has nothing to do with morality or ethics, and it really has nothing to do with free speech, reality, or creativity.  These are all inconsequential to the entire point of the issue. 

 

If you remember, the point of all fiction writing is entertainment, you might get directly to the point of this vulgarity issue.  Some readers might be entertained by vulgarity, offensive descriptions, and depravity, but most are not.  If this is your audience and you are entertaining them—more power to you.  On the other hand, my audience is the normal group of educated (enough to read) adults and youth (with a reasonably high vocabulary) who want a novel they can love to read and share with others.  Vulgarity, offensive descriptions, and depravity are right out.

 

This isn’t a morality, ethical, free speech, or creativity issue—this is an issue of holding and entertaining the largest audience possible.  My editor for my first publisher was very wise and careful about this.  They did not allow any vulgarity and were very cautious of gratuitous sex and violence.  They were open about the use of foreign curse words, reasonable intimacy, and reasonable violence.  What do I mean?

 

My original publisher (I need a new one, they went out of business) did not allow me to use English curse words, but they did allow foreign language curse words.  For example, they would not have allowed damn or shit, but they would allow merde.  I suspect this was because they presumed only those who understood French or who were educated enough to understand French would not be turned off by the use of the term.  I thought this was a great policy.  Because of this, I do not use any English vulgarity (curse words) in my writing.  What do I do?

 

When I want to express a vulgarity from a character, if they are English, I use classic English interjections that are usually not considered vulgar today.  For example, bloody, darn, or I write, She let out a curse or He said a vulgar word.  You don’t have to write the word to get the same affect.  The readers get it, plus a little mystery about the actual word said is good.  You can really play this up and use it strongly in your writing.  This keeps the entertainment going and your readers from tossing your book aside.

 

I guess I need to continue with descriptions and depictions.    

 

I want to move on to editing dialog next.

 

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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