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Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Writing - part xxx370 Writing a Novel, Seoirse, Storyline

05 July 2023, Writing - part xxx370 Writing a Novel, Seoirse, Storyline

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 31st novel, working title, Cassandra, potential title Cassandra: Enchantment and the Warriors.  The theme statement is: Deirdre and Sorcha are redirected to French finishing school where they discover difficult mysteries, people, and events.     

Here is the cover proposal for Cassandra: Enchantment and the Warriors




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.

 

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.

 

I’m now writing Seoirse, and since I retired from my day job, I’m back to a chapter a day.  I could likely write two chapters a day, but my brain gets tired.  I think it’s important to report again on how to write a novel.  Let’s start at the beginning.

 

I already developed the protagonist for this novel: Seoirse Séamas Wishart.  That is his name in Gaelic.  His common or English name is George James Wishart.  Why the difference.  It all has to do with the worldview of my novels.  The worldview is reflected and therefore the supernatural exists.  We are mainly writing about the common and mythical supernatural in the world.  I’d like to say that whatever the basis for the usual supernatural in human thought exists in the reflected worldview of this and my novels.  Thus there are vampires, werewolves, fairies, the Fae courts, dragons, gods, goddesses, and other mythical creatures.  They aren’t the world.  They world of my novels is the world you see around you.  The supernatural aspects are generally unseen, unknown, and rare.  They exist like the supernatural exists in the world today: generally unseen, unknown, and rare.  That’s the basis of the world in my novels.

 

This is where I am with Seoirse.  I’ve been writing a chapter a day.  That means I’ll likely have a completed novel in less than a month.  That’s what I usually do when I have an idea and a novel to write.  I’m also writing pretty exclusively when I should be working on a publisher or an agent. 

 

In any case, I love writing a new novel.  The scene descriptions and insight I gave you were all telling and not showing.  The novel is all showing and no telling.  This is important to note and understand.  Showing an outline of the scenes is just telling and an author could use this to write a novel.  My point to you is that I don’t outline my scenes.  I write notes at the end to describe where I’m going and what I want in the scene.  Then I write and rewrite and write the scene again until its as perfect as I want it.

 

About perfection.  I’m not into perfection and I don’t think you can achieve perfection in any writing.  It depends on what you mean by perfection.  I’ve never read a book without any punctuation, spelling, or grammar errors.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t aim to get rid of all errors, but what ever you do, there will always be some error—and, I’m the least concerned about these kinds of errors.  The most important part of the writing is the storyline, continuity, and the delight of the reader. 

 

I wrote yesterday about delighting the reader.  This is the main and major goal in writing, but there are other points in delivering this kind of experience for your readers.  This is the goal and there are literally a million ways to get there.  A wise author looks for and develops these ways.  Most specifically, these are the tension and release in a scene.  They are also related to the storyline.  I really should write about tension and release, perhaps I’ll go there soon.

 

Tension and release are most likely the most difficult part of scene development to write about.  The reason is that tension and release is all about creativity.  This is where the author really shines.  This is also what sells the book and the skill of the author.  Tension and release is all about the miniature rising action and climax in a scene.  I don’t call them that to separate them from the development of both in the novel.  Tension and release are not the same as the rising action and the climax in the novel, they are driven by the storyline.  Most properly, the storyline is the rising action and the climax.  In fact, the storyline is the main plot driving the entire novel.  Let me remind you that the outline of most successful and bestselling novels looks like this:

 

1.      The initial scene

2.     The rising action scenes

3.     The climax scene

4.     The falling action scene(s)

5.     The dénouement scene(s)

 

To be clear, there are some other ways to organize and write a novel, but they are no very effective nor popular with readers.  For example, Roman Fluve—this is the novel outline for Jon dos Pasos USA trilogy.  No climax, all scene based, multi-protagonists, boring, but a classic—mostly because of the subject and the fact that it was one of the first Roman Fluve type novels.  A more modern example, is the Martian Chronicles by Bradbury.  Same style, but notably, Ray Bradbury was a short story author who turned his short stories into an extended semi-connected narrative based on Mars.  Sound like USA?  I’m not intentionally going over the different types of novel outlines.  There are about ten different ways to write a novel, including this standard outline—the point is the others are not very effective or enjoyable.  They do succeed in some degree, however, because all novels are scene-based and all scenes involve tension and release.  The tension and release are what really give the readers a sense of delight.

 

Now, having written that, the sense of delight for the reader is not just encapsulated in the scenes—part of the power of the normal novel, in fact, the overwhelming power of the novel is not just the tension and release in the scenes.  That would just make it a collection of short stories tied together with a theme—just like USA, the Martian Chronicles, or Game of Thrones.  The overwhelming power of the novel is that these miniature episodes of tension and release producing delight in the mind of the reader feed into the storyline of the novel.

 

What do I mean by that?  In the current novel I’m writing, the delight in the scene I described yesterday comes both from the tension and release in the scene itself: Rose with her new friend a Water Kelpie is found and rescued by Seoirse who promised the hobs to spank her when he found her.  The delight for the reader isn’t just in the tension and release in this scene, it is encapsulated in the fact that this happened to the protagonist, Seoirse, and the protagonist’s helper, Rose.  It isn’t just this scene, it is all the other scenes and the connection of this scene into the larger novel.  This is the storyline.  That’s where I’ll be going, next.

 

Next, I’ll look at the storyline and cohesion.  

 

I guess I should move on from there.

 

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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