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Sunday, April 28, 2024

Writing - part xxx668 Writing a Novel to Entertain, Parts of Reality, Imagination to Words

 28 April 2024, Writing - part xxx668 Writing a Novel to Entertain, Parts of Reality, Imagination to Words

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.

6. The initial scene is the most important scene.

 

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.

 

I finished writing my 34th novel (actually my 32nd completed novel), Seoirse, potential title Seoirse: Enchantment and the Assignment.  The theme statement is: 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 cover proposal for Seoirse: Enchantment and the Assignment




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 finished writing number 31, working title Cassandra: Enchantment and the Warrior.  I just finished my 32nd novel and 33rd novel: Rose: Enchantment and the Flower, and Seoirse: Enchantment and the Assignment.

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 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.

 

For novel 35: Eoghan, a Scottish National Park Authority Ranger, while handing a supernatural problem in Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park discovers the crypt of Aine and accidentally releases her into the world; Eoghan wants more from the world and Aine desires a new life and perhaps love.

 

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.

 

My main focus, at the moment, is marketing my novels.  That specifically means submissions.  I’m aiming for agents because if I can get an agent, I think that might give me more contacts with publishers plus a let up in the business.  I would like to write another novel, but I’m holding off and editing one of my older novels Shadow of Darkness.  I thought that novel would have fit perfectly with one potential agent who said they were looking for Jewish based and non-Western mythology in fantasy.  That’s exactly what Shadow of Darkness is, but they passed on it.  In any case, I’m looking for an agent who will fall in love with my writing and then promote it to publishers.  That’s the goal.

Let’s keep writing to entertain ourselves with the knowledge that what will entertain a great reader, like we are, will entertain other readers.  That’s our only hope.

Let’s look back at entertainment and writing.  As I wrote before, writing is communication.  What we imagine is that we simply communicate words from one person to another, but the reality, especially in writing, is we are communicating word pictures.  Here’s the problem. 

I imagine the world structurally in my mind.  This is where my reality lies and this is where my imagination lies.  Until someone invents a mind viewer, you will never know what is really going on in someone’s mind or thoughts.  In fact, the Greeks, as well as most real philosophers would argue that even then, you will never really know a person’s thoughts.  Thoughts live in the realm of the unreal world.  Let’s look at little at the Greek worldview—that’s the worldview basis for Western civilization.

The very idea of writing and especially fiction writing represents the areas of logic and the historical method.  You can also toss in the scientific method and harm, but they are less critical and important in writing. 

The very important part about writing and especially entertaining (successful) writing is that it comes from the part of the world (kosmos, creation) that is not measurable and not physical.  I’m repeating myself, but this is very important.  An author creates a novel (story) in his or her mind.  The mind might be physical, but the concepts within the mind are not physical.  These ideas (concepts) need to be turned into description, narrative, action, and dialog in the mind of the writer.  Then the writer turns these ideas into word pictures.  Finally, the author turns these word pictures into symbols.  We happen to call these symbols writing. 

The reader takes these symbols and turns them into word pictures and finally ideas in their own mind.  The author’s hope is that his or her word pictures are dynamic and understandable to the reader.  Most specifically that the reader can imagine the ideas the writer presents in some degree of similar color and comprehension.  The better the author can accomplish this, the better the reader can experience the ideas of the writer.  This is what entertainment is all about. 

As authors, we need to understand we aren’t simply recording in symbols description, narrative, action, and dialog.  We are presenting word pictures, word paintings, if you like, of what we imagine.  The better and more effectively we can express then word pictures and paintings to our readers, the more entertaining and exciting our writing will be.  However, we can never lose sight of the fact that we are representing the unreal and nonphysical in symbols.  We are presenting logic and ideas and projecting them to another mind—the tool just happens to be language and writing.  They are different, just as we saw in looking at the evolution of religion and culture.  These are connected by the hip in history.

Here’s an idea to really wrap your mind around—the literate think in word pictures—that is words, and not in terms of pictures.  Since we use words so often in speech, and we understand these words in terms of symbols, it should not be surprising that we think and see the world in terms of works in the symbols we understand.  Preliterate people don’t do this at all.  In fact, archetypes can’t exist without a written language.  For example, what is a chair?  The literature see the word chair—that’s an archetype.  The nonliterate can only visualize a chair they might have seen in the past—they have no way to develop an archetype because there are some many types of chairs, but all those many types of chairs are all chairs.  If you can’t imagine the word for chair, you can only imagine a type of chair.  Things become even more difficult when the word is not a noun or verb that can be visualized—like love.  Love is a noun and a verb, but you can’t take a picture of love—not a concrete picture.  You can have a euphemistic picture of love, but which type of love and what love and any picture like that might be mistaken for something else. 

Love is a term that can’t exist without literacy.  You can’t have something that can’t be drawn or pictured without a word to describe it.  There are many of these types of words in English (as well as other languages).  Here’s the kicker, love only exists as a symbol representing a sound (word) in English. As a written word, it has reality, but as an idea, it is not part of the physical world.  More, next.

I guess most people don’t think about this.  Most are wrapped up in the empiricist view of the world and have completely neglected or ignored the unreal parts.  Yet, they had to have heard about and studied these ideas in math. 

In math, there are real numbers and unreal numbers.  There are imaginary numbers.  These are real things that don’t exist in the physical.  They are not empirical in many cases, they can’t be written without a symbol, like pi or the natural log.  The reality is that all mathematics is not physical but rather from the place outside the physical world.  Yet they are part of the world humans can understand and know.  This is the realm of logic and reason.  What I find fascinating is that a huge component of the writing community would call themselves part of the empiricist army, but they use non-physical stuff like words and ideas every day.  Is that an irony or what?

Knowing about this philosophical stuff is important, but the big deal is imagination and where that comes from.  Authors don’t just write, they develop ideas within their imagination space and then they write those ideas down on paper in symbols.  That’s what is important to know.

Just as I mentioned that in the ancient world, writers developed their thoughts completely before they hired a libraus, the same is true of the modern author.  They need to fully develop their ideas in imagination before they try to place them on paper.

So how do we get our imagination going?  I’ll look at that, next.

You don’t need to understand that imagination exists in something other than the physical to be able to use it properly.  All you need is imagination, right?  Yes, you don’t need to understand it to use it, but you can enhance your use of it.  That’s the point. 

If imagination resides in the non-physical, then the non-physical is the way we can jump start it.  Let’s look at things that move ideas into our imagination sphere, or rather into the non-physical place where our thoughts reside.

So, what things move into idea space?  The first is symbols.  In fact, we can enumerate those physical or empirical inputs into a person—those are seeing, touching, smelling, hearing, and tasting.  These all go in as sensory inputs, but are converted into ideas as they move into the brain.  To be most specific, these are not symbols at all and require little processing.  You can just experience them and let them go.  There is more to turning them into ideas and using them in the information sphere. 

To be sure, the sensations are cataloged and processed by the mind, and then saved in some fashion, but we want to put them to use in the idea sphere.  To do that means we must take them in as symbols first.  Which and how do the experiences of sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell become symbols?

We already have been writing about reading which is the act of taking in symbols as letters and words into the mind, and doing something with them.  That is actually decoding the words formed by letters, and that is one of the main ways we bring in symbols. 

Another means of symbol input and decoding is music, singing, or speaking.  I already wrote to you that as a literate person, you see language as word pictures.  This means that all speaking must bring symbols into the mind.  These symbols are decoded and turned into thoughts. 

Touch, smell, and taste are not quite the same as sight and hearing.  A symbolic language doesn’t really exist for them.  We can use them directly and should.  I’ll look at symbols in the idea space, next.

I don’t know about you, but when I use my imagination to develop characters, a plot, or a dialog, I don’t use symbols like words, I imagine the setting, actions, and dialog in a mind picture.  Now, the dialog will take the form of symbols, but the rest won’t.  The basic form of imagination is pictures or video running through your brain.  Eventually, we must categorize and turn these ideas into symbols.  That process is writing.

Here's what I’m thinking.  Usually, I imagine the entire scene or at least parts of the scene and then turn the scene systematically into symbols (words).  This is what I advocate in the scene outline.  I develop the scene, but use specific steps to turn the pictures from my mind and imagination into words on a page.  This is the creative process in a nutshell. 

I’m not advocating a piecemeal approach to writing from your imagination as much as a disciplined process or method.  As I’ve written before, start with scene setting.  Set the stage of the scene first.  This only makes sense because it grounds the reader and the scene.

I find it highly frustrating and confusing when a writer immediately jumps into the action or dialog in a scene without setting the stage.  I do understand the presumption of place and setting if it hasn’t changed from a previous scene, but that’s not what I’m writing about.  The problem is coming in cold to a scene without any setting.  This should make any and all of your writing better—just set the scene.

As I noted, moving the pictures in your mind to the page as words is the creative process.  I’ll repeat what I wrote before.  If you have imagined a scene, writer’s block is impossible because all you need to do is move the picture to the words.  That’s the process of writing.  There is a step beyond this one, the crafting of the writing or as most call it, editing.  I’ll look at this, next.

Crafting comes with editing—that’s my opinion.  Yes, you can craft your writing as you write, that is, as you turn your imagination into words and then into symbols, but the real power for crafting your writing is with editing.

I’m not a real fan of outlining perse, but writing a first draft might be considered akin to making a detailed outline of your imagination.  Usually, I like to craft a large amount of my draft as I write it.  This is especially true of the dialog.  Usually, for me the dialog comes out as a wholistic piece.  Many times when I need to craft it to add in new ideas or connections, it becomes very difficult.  The reason is that for me, dialog is tightly wound, so tightly wound that unraveling a single strand affects the whole.  That to some degree is my problem and part of my style of writing.

As I started and stated in this section, when you put the first blush of your description, narration, action, and dialog on paper from your imagination, you can craft all you want, but the most important point is to get it on paper.  Once your imagination has form, then we can craft.

Crafting is the editing for completeness, great writing, and entertainment.  Focus on entertainment.  In the crafting process, we don’t really care much for grammar, punctuation, or spelling—we are going for entertainment and great writing.  The details can wait.  You might call this the first edit, but it’s really more than an edit—this is the place where the heavy lifting really begins.

As I wrote, you might be able to craft very well as you write the first draft.  You might use little tricks like I do when you put together the first draft.  For example, when I need a description, I usually stop writing and research the object or person I need to describe.  For me, the description produces setting elements that I can use for the rest of the text.  On the other hand, if I’m writing a tight dialog, I usually skip description until the first edit.  That’s because I don’t want to break the train of thought in the writing.  Dialog is that way for me.

Perhaps I should write more about crafting in editing and what it means, next.

When I was a younger writer, I understood that editing was all about improving the writing, but I thought that was all about spelling, grammar, and punctuation.  I didn’t understand the concept of crafting the writing.  I’m using these two terms editing and crafting to delineate between editing for spelling, grammar, and punctuation and improving and fixing the story and plot. 

Yes, you need to have the best and most perfect spelling, grammar, and punctuation possible, but it will never be perfect.  More important is the action, description, narration, and dialog.  This will never be necessarily perfect either, but we are aiming for entertaining and not perfection. 

Once you get the first draft on paper (or aether), you need to go through the text to improve the description, first.  That’s the easiest and If you didn’t get it in the first draft, do it now.

Description is easy and will provide more setting elements to improve the rest of the writing.  Next, look at the action and narrative.  Action and narrative can always be improved by addition of creative elements from the setting elements.  This can also be applied to the dialog.  As you bring in setting elements, use them in the rest of the document to increase entertainment and excitement in the writing.  This is crafting.  Also, as you work through the text figure how you can fit the scene into other scenes and other plots and characters in your novel.  These are generally creative elements you can use to improve your scene.  Of course, all of these improvements are driven by the imagination of the writer.  This is perhaps the most important point of both editing and crafting.  We’ll look at this, next.

In using imagination in crafting your writing, you must read the symbols your placed on paper and turn them into words and then word pictures.  In other words, you put yourself in the place of the reader as you read your own writing.  This isn’t editing in the normal sense at all.  When we are editing, as I’ve defined it, we are looking intently at the test to determine the proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation.  These are the trees, we need to look at the forest when we are crafting.  Yes, at some point you will need to edit, but crafting is much more important for the early work—that is the early drafts.

Most critical for the writing is getting the entire development of the text right.  It’s very difficult to determine good examples, but let me give it a try.

You might write in a first draft:

Jane woke.  She dressed, and stepped down to breakfast.

Crafting the text, you might write:

The brilliant sunlight finally touched Jane’s window and flooded over her slumbering eyes.  She woke gently but dazzled by the light.  She stretched under her warm covers for a moment, yawned, and finally threw them off. 

You can keep going.  This would be a great time to describe Jane, the room, and her toilet as she prepares to step down to breakfast.  The difference between the first writing and the second is crafting the action, narrative, and description.  This is exactly what I mean when I write, you put down your first draft which might look like the first example, and craft it into something that really creates word pictures in the minds of our readers.  Alternately, you should craft while writing the first draft.  The point is to get to a beautiful rendition that will entertain and excite your readers.  This requires imagination, to see the world from the reader’s viewpoint and from the viewpoint of the writing itself.  It also requires crafting to develop the words that form the word pictures.  I should address this next—that is crafting to develop the word pictures for the minds of the readers.

Perhaps being a poet first is a major requirement for an author.  I write this because in the past, it seems many of the greatest authors were also poets.  In the middle past, that is after the invention of printing and before the modern era, many long works of literature were also works of poetry.  I point out Shakespeare, Milton, and many others of that time.  The reason this is important is that the poetry in many of these works enhanced the power of the imagination and the work itself. 

For example, the poetry moved these works from simple description, action, narration, and dialog to metaphor and euphemism.  I’m not sure you can do poetry without figures of speech—and that’s the main point of crafting.

Some people just naturally think in terms of figures of speech.  Every word they put on the page fits into that mold, however, for the rest of us, we need to work on figures of speech.  Our brains need to be attuned to it to be able to write this way, and we need to write this way—that is with and through figures of speech.  I’d almost say the more the better, but someone is certain to take it to too great an extreme.  Remember the rule: don’t confuse your reader, and then apply as much figure of speech as you wish.  Even better if the figures of speech drive an undercurrent in your plot while the main plot flows at the top of the writing.

When I was young, I used to think in terms of multiple overlapping plots similar to the type of writing in Shakespeare where you find many overlapping ideas that give similar but not the same conclusions in the writing.  I’m not sure I agree with this anymore.  It’s just too complex.

In the main, I think great authors write in allegory or parallel structure.  Parallel is the more common mode—there may be multiple plots, but they all support the main plot—the parallel structure comes out of the figures of speech.  Likewise for the allegory although an allegory is usually tied more closely or tightly to the plots and the narrative.  I suspect you want an example:

Jane went to the zoo and saw many animals.

Parallel with figures of speech:

Jane went to the zoo and was amazed at the menagerie that only Noah could fully appreciate.

We have two distinct figures of speech here: the menagerie and Noah.  To continue these as parallels, all I need to do is express another figure of speech connected to Noah, the flood, and anything else from the Biblical account or about a menagerie. 

This is the kind of thing an author needs to expand and write for every single idea in the writing.  This is crafting the writing.        

I want to write another book based on Rose and Seoirse, and the topic will be the raising of Ceridwen—at least that’s my plan.  Before I get to that, I want to write another novel about dependency as a theme.  We shall see.

 

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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