Writing - part xxx320 Writing a Novel, Cassandra, Genre and Novel Length

16 May 2023, Writing - part xxx320 Writing a Novel, Cassandra, Genre and Novel Length

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 30^th 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 30^th novel, working title Red Sonja.  I finished my 29^th novel, working title Detective.  Writing number 31, working title Shifter.  I just finished 32^nd 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.

For novel 33, Book girl:  Siobhàn Shaw is Morven McLean’s savior—they are both attending Kilgraston School in Scotland when Morven loses everything, her wealth, position, and friends, and Siobhàn Shaw is the only one left to befriend and help her discover the one thing that might save Morven’s family and existence.

 

For novel 34:  Seoirse is assigned to be Rose’s protector and helper at Monmouth while Rose deals with five goddesses and schoolwork; unfortunately Seoirse has fallen in love with Rose.  

 

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.

 

At this point I want to finish editing Casandra: Enchantment and the Warriors and produce the marketing materials.  I intend to show you the marketing materials before I’m willing to begin writing Seoirse.  I also need to work harder at getting a publisher—basically submitting manuscripts to potential publishers and agents.

 

Here is my list of basic marketing materials:

 

Title of Work:

 

Cassandra: Enchantment and the Warriors

 

Author(s) Name:

 

L. D. Alford

 

 

Type: Either Screenplay or Book

 

Book

 

Length: Either # of words for books, or # of pages for screenplays

 

110,000 words

 

We measure novels in terms of words.  The way we do this is with the word count feature in your word processor.  The way we used to do this was by estimating the words from the number of pages and the average word count per page.  That’s not needed anymore. 

 

We don’t want to write our novels too short or too long.  Either can be a deal breaker with a publisher.  We established novel length to be 50,000 to 120,000 words.  The average being about 80,000 words.  I wrote that I aim for about 100,000 words.  This makes for a good novel size and is about the length of novel I like to read.  Genre also determines novel length. 

 

I’ve found that as I get more and more experience, my novels increase in length.  My earliest novels were about 60,000 words to 70,000 words while my later novels are averaging around 110,000 words.  I just think I’m getting better at writing strong and cohesive novels. 

 

My most popular published novel was also the longest of my published and early novels at 114,100 words.  That was Centurion.  My publisher didn’t make any cuts to it and felt like it was complete and entirely cohesive.  It’s also my most successful novel, and it’s historical.

 

That said, historical fiction tends to weigh in at around 100,000 words.  As you note, they can be longer.  Historical fiction lends itself to greater length mostly because those who enjoy historical fiction also like their novels to be a little heftier.  When I write heftier, I mean with content and not with fluff.  I do need to write about fluff and extraneous material in fiction writing.

 

Science fiction and fantasy tends to lend itself to longer writing.  Although you can find many crossover novels in science fiction and fantasy, and these will tend to be shorter and longer.  What I mean is that young adult novels which come in in the lower range at about 60,000 words to 80,000 words can also be enjoyed by adult science fiction and fantasy readers.  That makes shorter science fiction novels very viable.  So, the real message is don’t try to fluff up a short novel or over cut a long novel to fit.  If they are cohesive and well written, the length shouldn’t matter that much unless the work is much shorter than 60,000 words or longer than 120,000 words.  Those are really too short and too long.

 

Now, about fluff.  Fluff tends to be a real problem for some writers.  Fluff is extraneous material and poor constructions in the writing.  These are the kinds of problems we need to edit out of our writing.  The real question you might have is what do you do with a novel that is too short or too long.  Too long and already well edited means you might cut it in two.  I did this with my Ghostship Chronicles.  The first novel got too long, and I cut it in half.  That resulted in a 79,000 word and a 70,000 word novel—just about right for the market. 

 

If a novel is too short, don’t try to fluff it up.  You might work with the descriptions and the action.  You might rewrite it a few times to make it much better.  Especially with description, authors tend to scrimp.  Don’t scrimp.  Give us full on descriptions with great details.  My main prepublication reader bugs me all the time about description, and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it.  It seems the more I describe the more she wants.  That’s great, but an interesting conundrum.  Most modern writers don’t give enough description, you can make a work longer and stronger with improved description. 

 

The action scenes are similar.  We don’t want to ruin the tempo and tone of them, but we want the reader to not be confused.  Many action scenes can use better and more descriptive writing.  If the novel is still too short, you might need a compete rewrite or you might have produced a novel idea that just isn’t long enough.  Put it away for a while and start writing another novel.

 

To help you with novel length, let me write about how I organize my writing.  I write by chapter with the aim of 5,000 words or about 20 pages of 12 point double spaced type.  I’m going for 20 chapters in a novel.  Twenty times 5,000 gives 100,000 words.  If I get much shorter and the novel is complete, that’s it.  If I get a little longer—well, I’ve never gotten a little longer.  The novels tend to resolve themselves at around chapter 18 to 20.  Funny how that works.  In the past, I just wrote based on the idea and my novels were shorter.  This method of writing tends to give me 100,000 words or more.

 

We’ll most on to keywords and market focus, next.

 

Keywords and Market Focus:

 

 

Genre:

 

 

Proposed Cover:

 

Author Bio: Approximately 120 words

 

Synopsis:  Approximately 1000 Words

 

Synopsis:  Approximately 500 Words

                    

Synopsis:  Approximately 200 Words

 

Concept of the Work:  Approximately 250 Words

 

Registration: WGA, ISBN, or Library of Congress, Write the number.

 

Other Information:  If you have more work, a website, anything interesting and professional, especially any awards or recognition.

 

Reviewer’s quotes.

 

1.  No more than 3 sentences about the content of your manuscript.

2.  One sentence about successful works similar to yours.

3.  No more than 2 sentences about yourself. (use 3^rd person)

4.  No more than 2 sentences that include “other,” i.e. any reasons, relationships, or other factors that might make your work more attractive.

 

The plan is to fill in these marketing materials.  I already put in the title, author’s name, and the type.  I’ll opine on these next. 

 

I put together this list from internet sources, information sources, publisher requests for information, and other ideas from agents.  The point is to fill out this information and with it, you should be able to produce your submission letters and provide the information a publisher requires.  This isn’t the end-all, but it does prepare you for most information requests from your publisher.

 

In addition, this provides you with all the information you will likely want to populate a website with.  You can actually take this verbatim and fill a website for your novel.  I’d recommend being a little more creative in your website development, but with the information above, you can provide a potential reader or publisher with everything they need to give your novel a first blush look.

 

Is a website helpful—who knows.  When you have a published work, I think it can be.  In the interim, I’m not sure.  It’s hard today to tell how many visitors you’ve had and the success of the website in advertising.  This is especially true if you don’t have any works to sell.  It’s also true if you don’t have any sales.  If you are self-published on Amazon or are advertised on Amazon, you can easily see your sales.  That’s not as true with your own website. 

 

I’m of the opinion that you should own your own website for every novel.  I’ll get into this as we move along on the marketing materials. 

 

The first point is to have a plan and to develop your marketing materials.  The plan is listed above.  I’ll get to the details next.   

 

I’m still editing Cassandra and I’ll cover some of this before I get to the marketing materials.

 

I’ll repeat.  I just finished up Rose, and I want to finish up Cassandra.  I’m moving in that direction. 

 

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