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Friday, July 7, 2023

Writing - part xxx372 Writing a Novel, Seoirse, more Storyline

07 July 2023, Writing - part xxx372 Writing a Novel, Seoirse, more 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.

 

The ultimate point of a novel is the resolution of the telic flaw.  The telic flaw it the reason for the novel.  It is the problem the protagonist must resolve (not necessarily solve) to complete the novel.  The resolution of the telic flaw is supposed to be resolved in the climax of the novel.  I’m not certain what we call a novel where the telic flaw is not resolved in the climax.  There are such novels, most of the time they will not be published—unless they are self-published.  Anything can be self-published. 

 

So, in a normal novel (a sellable novel) with the following outline:

 

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 entire novel is about the movement of the storyline from the initial scene to the climax.  The rest of the novel in the falling action and dénouement are just cleanup.  So what do we have?

The storyline is the plot(s) of the novel driven by scenes in the outline I showed above.  Novels are always and only made up of scenes—these scenes drive the storyline from the beginning to the end.  Each scene drives toward the telic flaw resolution.  That’s where we are going.  This produces delight.  We have to tie the scenes into the storyline, which is the plot(s).

 

Here we are.  Novels are a grouping of cohesive scenes that resolve the telic flaw of the protagonist.  When I write the telic flaw of the protagonist, I don’t mean a flawed protagonist or a flaw in the protagonist.  It is possible for a protagonist to be flawed and to have a flaw.  Many times this is the point or the telic flaw of the novel.  The telic flaw is not necessarily a flaw of the protagonist.  The telic flaw is the flaw in the world that the novel must resolve.  It is the problem that must be resolved and not necessarily solved.  As I mentioned yesterday, some problems can’t be solved.  For example, the murder of the protagonist’s parents.  You can never solve this problem.  You can resolve this problem.  For example, you can find the murderer, but you can’t bring the parents back to life. 

 

So, here we are, we have a protagonist and every good protagonist comes with their own telic flaw to resolve.  We need an initial scene and from this scene, all the other scenes must support the telic flaw resolution, and there we are.  How we produce delight is in the way these scenes support each other in the resolution of the telic flaw.  In addition, part of the delight of the reader is the revelation of the protagonist.  And, there we are—the revelation of the protagonist must be a revelation of the resolution of the telic flaw. Every scene must focus and provide support for this resolution.  Any scene that doesn’t should be cut from the novel. 

 

If you noted in the outline I gave you for this novel, the scenes tell the story and also drive toward resolving the problem of the assignment.  The novel is about Seoirse, but is it also about his assignment to support Rose, and that’s the rub.  The telic flaw is that Seoirse must support Rose’s assignment to train the dangerous girls.  Actually, to integrate the dangerous girls into society and their schools.  Rose actually see this assignment in a much wider perspective.  At the same time, Seoirse is falling in love with Rose and Rose is falling in love with Seoirse. 

 

The scenes drive toward all these resolutions and in some ways they are related.  Rose may not have had in mind falling in love at all, but Seoirse is compelling her toward love.  Her real goal and the telic flaw is how Seoirse supports Rose, but Rose’s completion of her assignment also drives Seoirse’s assignment. 

 

I know this is complex, but the entire concept of scenes and the telic flaw resolution is complex.  Suffice to say, we need to write scenes which always support the telic flaw resolution.  Any scene that doesn’t must be removed from the novel.  The important point is the revelation of the protagonist along with the resolution of the telic flaw.  So you need to understand the telic flaw, the protagonist, and to some degree the resolution.  I’ll leave a little wriggle room for the resolution.  The reason is that the resolution to a very complex telic flaw might not be immediately obvious.  It might require some deep writing and rewriting.  The resolution doesn’t have to be that great, but in a really great novel, the resolution should look impossible until it is inevitable, and this kind of writing is not easy.  Who said writing was easy?     

 

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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