My Favorites

Friday, July 5, 2024

Writing - part xxx736 More on Reflective Worldview

05 July 2024, Writing - part xxx736 More on Reflective Worldview

Announcement: I still need a new publisher.  However, I’ve taken the step to republish my previously published novels.  I’m starting with Centurion, and we’ll see from there.  Since previously published novels have little chance of publication in the market (unless they are huge best sellers), I might as well get those older novels back out.  I’m going through Amazon Publishing, and I’ll pass the information on to you.

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 two 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 Centurion,the third edition: 




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.

 

Most of my writing has a very strongly historical basis in a reflected worldview.  This short statement needs some definition and description.  In writing, there are three overall worldviews.  The first is a real worldview.  I consider Centurion to have been written in a real worldview.  A pure historical worldview is a real worldview.  The real worldview is the worldview accepted by most as the world as it is.  Knowing the world as it is, perhaps real is the wrong word, but this will stand.  Real is the basic and non-fantastic world we experience every day.  I’m not certain there is a better or more expressive way to define the real worldview.  As a contrast let’s look at the created worldview. 

The created worldview is mostly defined as fantasy and science fiction; however, it’s a bit more complex than that.  A created worldview is a worldview that was created by the author for a novel or a series of novels.  The created worldview is related to a real worldview, but not in its details only in its reflection of usually humanity or even nonhumanity.  In general, a created worldview is based in a world completely unrelated to the real.  What does that mean?  As I mentioned, the most common understanding of a created worldview is science fiction or fantasy world, but this doesn’t completely define the created worldview.  In a created worldview, the writer usually creates the history, the basis, the features, and the settings of the worldview to fit the fantasy or the science fiction plot and point.  For example, in a created science fiction worldview, the author might describe a colony on Mars or on some other planet.  Since there has never been a human colony on any planet, this must be a created worldview.  Likewise, in a fantasy setting, a fantasy world unrelated to anything defined by history or in myth would also be a created worldview.  I consider Harry Potty a created worldview.  The reason is because many of the creatures and the magic in the Harry Potty novels as well as the settings and the history are unrelated to myth or history.  Jack Vance’s Green Pearl novels are also a created worldview.  The magic, settings, and history are completely unrelated to anything in the real world.  They are a created worldview and a fantasy genre and world.  Likewise, the Sparkly Vampire novels are a created worldview.  The reason is that the vampires don’t resemble classic historical vampires much at all.  It’s okay for mythic characters to vary in some degree from their classic characteristics, they are mythic after all, but not so much that they can’t be recognized or they don’t follow the basis for their historical understanding or basis.  Bram Stoker defined the classic vampire.  You can vary your vampires to some degree from this classic basis, but if you go too far, you have created a worldview.  That brings us to the reflected worldview.  That worldview based on the real but not created.

I’ll get to the reflected worldview, next.

This gets a little complex, but in our world there are many things that we consider not real although there is plenty of history as well as stories to support them.  For example, vampires.  I’m not sure anyone really believes in vampires, but vampires are a part of human history and myth.  If you look up vampire, you will find a host of information.  Much of is, or maybe most of it is all fiction, or is it?  The vampire is a part of human lore and human culture than is well accepted and to some degree believed, but is it real?  The same is true of all kinds of mythic creatures as well as the supernatural and the gods and goddesses.  There is much much more to these creatures, beings, and places (like Atlantis) but we don’t consider them to be part of the real world.  I call this the reflected world.  The reason is that the reflected world reflects what people believe and not what they think is real. 

You might say, this is a kind of schizophrenic view of the world, part real and part reflected.  I say it is just normal human understanding.  When my grandchildren or children ask if dragons are real?  My answer is I hope so.  A real worldview novel can’t include dragons, but a reflected worldview novel can.  This is the worldview I write in.  I write in the reflected worldview. 

I’ll give you more information about this kind of writing and worldview.

Personally, I consider the reflected worldview a more real worldview and way or writing than the real worldview.  The reason is that what people imagine and what they think about the world is sometimes more important than what we see in the real world.  We see this all the time.  For example, in religion, the expression of belief is part of the reflected worldview.  Religion is by nature supernatural.  It depends on the idea of a God or of gods as well as a supernatural understanding of the world.  Is this real?  In the sense of a worldview it is a reflected worldview, but it is still accepted as part of the real.  Unfortunately, the idea of the real and the reflected overlap one another, and we see some of this in real worldview writing.  For example, an author writing about a military action or campaign might wax eloquent about the spiritual ideas of the people or about the spiritual past that formatted the nation as a whole.

Now, about the reflected worldview.  I want to write in an obvious reflected worldview because I want to show not just the real world but rather the spiritual and supernatural depths of the world.  To me, putting words into the mouth of dragons, or into the mouths of the Fae, or into the demigods and gods and goddesses of myth is really fun and exciting.  More than that, the interaction of humans in the world with these supernatural beings is even more exciting.  This builds in the entertainment of the novel and the world of the novel. 

I’ll expand more on the writing and writing in the reflected worldview.        

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 

No comments:

Post a Comment