16 December 2024, Writing - part xxx899 Scene Outline, Novel Outline, Lilly: Enchantment and the Computer
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 the third edition of Centurion:
|
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)
I went through the scene outline to show you how
to approach writing a scene. I think it
is relatively simple—that doesn’t mean it is easy, but once you know the basics
of writing a scene, with the right elements, you can write a great scene. If you can write a great scene, you can
potentially write an initial scene, the rising action scenes, the climax scene,
a falling action scene, and a dénouement. That
means, if you can write a scene, you can write a novel.
Now, to get to a novel, and to a great scene,
you need a great protagonist. I
recommended a Romantic protagonist. The
reason is the Romantic protagonist is my favorite type and generally, the
favorite of most readers. In fact, I
don’t know of a single reader who doesn’t love a great Romantic protagonist, or
even a close to Romantic protagonist. I
point out Harry Potty who has become one of the most popular protagonists in history
and is very close to a Romantic protagonist.
I think he’d even be more popular if he was a full on Romantic
protagonist. Just a thought.
With a fully developed Romantic protagonist,
writing a scene is pretty easy and writing a novel is relatively easy. In my short form blog, I’m going over the telic
flaw from the protagonist and how it pertains to the novel and how it comes
from the development of the protagonist.
Perhaps this idea of the telic flaw belonging to the protagonist is the
most important factor in novel development.
This is why I write that the first step in writing a novel is the
Romantic protagonist development. I’ll
consider if I should give you the basics and telic flaw from the design of the
protagonist, like I’m doing in my short form blog. I’ll try to expand this idea to help bring
out the concept of the initial scene.
I’ve done this before, but I’ll try to give you something new out of
this, next.
As I wrote before, the telic flaw for the novel
comes from the protagonist. In addition,
the protagonist defines all kinds of things issues and in time, the setting,
the place, and all. As I wrote, the
protagonist defines all these things in the novel. The novel and the telic flaw of the novel
comes directly from the protagonist.
I could go through all my protagonists and
define the telic flaw from that protagonist for you. I think I did this before. Perhaps I should do it again. That might be a very worthwhile set of
examples. I’ll think about it. You see the list of novels above. I think I’ll use my list of novels from the
first to the last I’ve finished. That’s
next.
A Season of Honor: This was the first novel I wrote. The very Romantic protagonist is Baron Shaun
du Locke. Shaun has a lengthy history
that I developed for the novel and actually that I used to write the two other
novels in the series, The End of Honor and The Fox’s Honor. Shaun du Locke was a prince who was deposed
because he fell in love with the wrong woman—a power his brother could not
allow, and she was executed. It’s not
incorrect to say that Shaun was haunted by this action and the loss of the Lady
Lyral Neuterra. The problem is that
Shaun was contracted to take Lyral’s cousin and near twin, Elaina Acier to her
arranged marriage on the Imperial Capital planet Arienth.
There is the telic flaw of the novel. Shaun must deliver Elina to Arienth, but the
woman in question looks like his lost love, and of course, he is falling in
love again. It’s not just how Eliana
looks but it is her personality and skill as a noblewoman.
If you notice, the telic flaw for the novel
comes directly out of the protagonist.
It isn’t really a flaw in the protagonist, but rather a flaw in the
world of the protagonist, and a flaw he must rectify (resolve). This is exactly what I mean by the
protagonist beings the telic flaw of the novel with them. I’ll look at The Fox’s Honor, next.
The Fox’s Honor stars Devon Rathenberg
as its Romantic protagonist. Devon is in
the succession but from another branch of the imperial family so considered
outside it. He is the Emperor’s chief of
intelligence, the Fox. In this capacity,
Devon has devised a plan to save the Emperor, the Human Galactic Empire, and
the people of the empire. He must die to
reveal the Emperor’s enemies and the nobles who have been conspiring against
the power of the Emperor.
However, Devon has fallen in love with a lady,
the Lady Tamar Falkeep. Tamar happens to
be on the planet where Devon must cause his own death through losing a duel,
thus, Devon will state his love to the Lady and carry out his mission. You see the telic flaw that comes with this
character, right?
Devon’s telic flaw (the novel’s telic flaw) is
that Devon must die to revel the Empire’s enemies and yet he is compelled to
confess his love to Lady Tamar. Tamar is
enraged and follows the knight when he fights and loses the duel on purpose,
but she can’t let him die. She saves his
life and forces him to live. As you can
see, the telic flaw for the novel, the loss of Devon’s honor comes directly out
of the protagonist. Tamar is the
protagonist’s helper. The end result is
a massive clandestine operation and then a military operation for Devon and
Tamar to get back their honor and their lands.
I’ll move on to The End of Honor, next.
The End of Honor is an unusual
novel. It starts with the death of the
protagonist’s helper and the protagonist is nowhere to be seen. The protagonist is Prince John-Mark who is
Baron Shaun du Locke in A Season of Honor. Prince John-Mark is the second son of the
Emperor and falls in love with the Lady Lyral Neuterra. He works long and hard to be able to win the
hand of the lady, but the alliances and the match is seen as a threat to the
power of the Emperor’s first son. Do you
see the telic flaw here?
The telic flaw that John-Mark brings to the table
is that he is really in love with Lyral, but the entire Human Galactic Empire
thinks John-Mark is seeking Imperial power.
In any case, his actions and love sparks a civil war in the Human
Galactic Empire. It’s a war his brother
begins with the assassination of the Emperor and the execution of Lyral
Neuterra. There you go, the protagonist,
John-Mark comes with his own telic flaw and that’s the telic flaw of the
novel. The telic flaw is a civil war in
the Empire—the resolution is the end of this war. I’ll move on to Antebellum, next.
Antebellum is about the south in
1965 and the 1860s. The protagonist is
Heather Roberts. She is a hard-working
and industrious girl who wants to go to college, but whose family is dirt poor
and not interested in educating girls.
Heather is deeply involved and has many friends in her community. The greatest mystery of that community is
about the Robert’s plantation house, Belle Fleur. The house disappeared near the end of the
civil war and hasn’t been seen since. In
addition, Heather’s namesake Syble Heather Roberts disappeared with the house
at the same time. Then, in the initial
scene, Heather finds and enters the house, but the house suddenly disappears
and can’t be found.
You can see the telic flaw for Heather and the
novel is this house, Belle Fleur and the mystery of the house and Syble Heather
Roberts. This is indeed the problem
Heather must resolve in the novel.
Pretty simple. The protagonist
defines the telic flaw, and comes with a telic flaw—that’s what makes the
novel. I should mention that this novel shows
the plantation house bit by bit as Heather investigate the mystery. I’ll look at Aegypt, next.
Aegypt is the first novel in my Ancient Light
novel series. That was the name the
publisher and I came up with for the series.
The first novel was published, Aegypt, and the next two Sister
of Light and Sister of Darkness were on contract with a trilogy of
these three novels planned. You can
still see this information on the internet, but alas, my publisher went out of
business, and I was left high and dry.
In Aegypt, the protagonist is Paul
Bolang. Paul is a lieutenant in the
French Foreign Legion and a man who loves warfare. He was university trained in Egyptian
Archeology and is a language expert and expert in Egyptian hieroglyphics. You can see that Paul is a Romantic
protagonist. Paul discovers the
foundation of an Egyptian temple in front of Fort Saint, a Foreign Legion
outpost in Tunesia. Paul calls for an
archeological expedition, and one comes from England and Oxford. The temple foundation hides a tomb and a
great mystery and ancient secret.
Do you see the telic flaw that Paul owns in the
novel? The telic flaw of Aegypt
is the mystery of the tomb below the foundation. The archologists explore the tomb and cause a
host of problems and more mysteries as well as unusual deaths.
The very Romantic protagonist, Paul Bolang comes
along with a telic flaw, or you might write that he finds the telic flaw of the
novel as part of his life and history.
That’s exactly how this works.
Even if the telic flaw doesn’t just tag along with the protagonist, it
is discovered, found, or presented to the protagonist. For example, in a detective or mystery novel,
many times the protagonist is presented a problem to resolve: a crime, a
mystery, a secret, and all. This is
another way the telic flaw tags along with the protagonist. Next is Centurion.
Centurion is a regularly published
novel, but my publisher went out of business.
In fact, all the novels I’ve written about in the list about the telic
flaw have been regularly published. I’m
looking for a new publisher, but as my author friend pointed out to me—no one
is looking to republish anything that isn’t already a bestseller. Therefore, I’m having Centurion
republished by Amazon. That’s an
entirely different problem and account.
I will share in the future. Let’s
get back to Centurion.
The protagonist and a Romantic protagonist in Centurion
is Abenadar. Abenadar is a half-Roman,
half-Jew whose mother was the concubine of the Roman ambassador to King Herod
Agrippa. This is important because the
moment Abenadar is acknowledged as a Roman citizen, he joins the legion and
begins his training as a legionnaire.
The entire novel is about Abenadar’s life as a legionnaire and his
advancement to Centurion. Along the way,
we do get to see the historical Jesus because Abenadar is the Centurion assigned
the crucifixion of Jesus.
The telic flaw of the novel is relatively
simple—it is the advancement of Abenadar as a legionnaire and his life as a
Centurion. The main problem is that he
is a half-Roman which is a real problem because Abenadar is a great leader and
politician.
In some ways this novel is just a classic
revelation of the protagonist. The
climax just happens to reflect an important historical event. This is a very common historical novel
setup. This is also my bestselling
novel. I hope people can continue to
enjoy reading it in the third edition.
I’ll move to Athelstan Cying, next.
Athelstan Cying is another of my science
fiction novels. In this novel, we start
with the spirit of a powerful psionic master who is miraculously still around
after a millennia. He is trapped on the
ship, Athelstan Cying which was used by the rogue psionics to escape their
prison by the Reps on the Imperial Capital of Arienth. The Family Trader ship, Twilight Lamb
discovers the Athelstan Cying and goes to explore and salvage it. On the Twilight Lamb, we are introduced to
Den Protania. Den is a failure on the
Twilight Lamb and in the Family Traders.
He is studying in Shuttle, but failed already in Astrogation and
Command. Den is the Captain’s son, but
he is headed toward being left planet side.
When the Twilight Lamb’s salvage crew boards the
Athelstan Cying, Den is part of the crew.
He disregards his orders and causes an accident where he is impaled on
ship structure. The spirit tries to save
Den, but ends up stuck in Den’s body. We
now have the very Romantic protagonist—a new soul inside the body of a failing
Family Trader. You should be able to
spot the telic flaw just from this short explanation. I’ll make it clearer.
Den, as a member of the Twilight Lamb needs to
change and change radically. Bring into
this the capitalistic nature of the Family Traders who expect their crew
members to pay back to the ship their costs of life and training. Den is in a deep hole made deeper by his
rescue and fault during the salvage operation of the Athelstan Cying. The goal of the new soul in Den is to succeed
and become an active and prosperous member of the crew. At the same time, he must keep his soul and
new attributes as well as his new mind secret from the rest of the crew. Who could imagine such a thing?
Unfortunately, or fortunately, Natana Kern who
was Den’s chief rival on the Twilight Lamb is also a trained Journeyman in
psionics and psychiatry. She is assigned
to “help” Den after the disaster and to recommend to the Ship’s Council what to
do about Den. She discovers his strange
new soul and identity. Instead of
turning him in, she decides to help him because of the psionic information she
can get from him as well as the fact Den has become a new man, and the type of
man Natana always wanted him to be.
The telic flaw of the novel, and the telic flaw
brought by the protagonist is this resolve to succeed on the Twilight Lamb as
well as to make things right for all the suffering and problems Den has caused
in the Trader Family.
Yes, this is a complex problem and a complex
science fiction novel. It ends up being
a fun novel full of entertainment, excitement, and a little romance. As I wrote, the protagonist defines the telic
flaw just by existing. I’ll move on to
the next Ghostship Chronicles novel, Twilight Lamb.
I’m not finished with Den and Natana. This novel, Twilight Lamb takes the
next step in their lives—together. We
still have Den with the soul of an ancient psionic master and Natana, a super
genius astrogator, but by this time, Den has become a Journeyman in Command,
Astrogation, and Shuttle. Those were the
three areas he studied before and three journeyman ranks is unheard of in the
Trader Families. Because of Den’s
success, the ship grants him some boons.
He still has his debt, but they allow him and Natana to wed.
At the end of the previous novel, Athelstan
Cying, Den and Natana were attacked and imprisoned by the group called the
Athenian Charter. This is a political
and criminal group using psionics for crime and to influence planetary
governments. Den and Natana want to
investigate and identify this group. Twilight
Lamb is all about the intrigue and investigation that Den and Natana are
accomplishing. Do you see the telic
flaw?
The telic flaw for Twilight Lamb is the
investigation of the Athenian Charter as well as Den and Natana’s continued
revealed life on the Family Trader ship.
You can see exactly how the telic flaw comes out of the protagonist and
in this case, the protagonist’s helper.
They are both psionic experts who use their skills to work against the
Athenian Charter. I’ll look at Regia
Anglorum, next.
At the end of Twilight Lamb, Den and
Natana save the ship (Twilight Lamb) from a hijacking from a civilian liner,
the Regia Anglorum. In the end, Den and
Natana are allowed to take over the command of the Regia Anglorum. In the novel, Regia Anglorum, Den and
Natana are no longer the protagonist and the protagonist’s helper—I introduce a
new character, Nikita. Nikita is the
child of a performer and a Family Trader member. She was left by her father, and her mother
dies—so Nikita was left alone on the streets of Carnival on the planet El
Reshad.
The first voyage of the Regia Anglorum includes
El Reshad as a trading point. Nikita is
a psionic genius and has been using psionic powers since she was a child, for
survival. When Natana goes planetside to
El Reshad, she notes Nikita and her power.
She is able to contact the child and eventually convinces her to join
the Family Traders. Sounds like the end
of things—a happy solution. Actually,
this is a protagonist revelation novel.
We get acquainted with Nikita, but we know nothing about her. She knows little about herself. She has wonderful skills (Romantic
protagonist) and especially psionic skills, but she is still a child who looks
about eight but is really over eleven.
The novel is all about how Nikita integrates into the Family Traders and
into the ship. So, you can see exactly
how the telic flaw follows the protagonist.
Let me give you an aside. This novel allows me to show my readers the
world of The Ghostship Chronicles in a way the other novels couldn’t
that is through the integration of Nikita, I show their education system, their
finance system, their apprenticeship system, and their ship, especially the
inside. Plus, Nikita is a great
character. This is a great example of a
revelation type novel and a self-discovery as well as a coming of age type
novel. It really isn’t a young adult
novel, but that’s okay, I think adults and young adults will love it. The point is that this is the type of novel
where the mystery of the protagonist drives the telic flaw of the novel. Unusual, not that unusual in science fiction,
but not super common in the modern world of literature. I’ll move on to The Second Mission,
next.
The Second Mission is a partner published
novel and still available for purchase.
The protagonist is a scientist for the United State’s Nuclear Studies,
Alan Fisher. Alan happens to be
standing at the wrong place when future people are sending an agent back into
time on the second time travel mission.
Alan happens to be standing at exactly the same location the future time
travel is occurring, but in the past, and that means Alan is pulled back into
time with the legitimate time traveler, Sophia.
Sophia’s job is to live in Athens 400 to 399 BC
and record the words and world of Socrates to allow the future to evaluate how
closely his words are to Plato’s recordings (writing) of them in the Socratic
Dialogs. The telic flaw should be
obvious, and it comes directly from Alan.
Alan must first work to survive in the world of Athens Greece during 400
to 399 BC. He must be an asset for
Sophia. Plus, he needs to figure out
some way to return to his time.
You can see how the telic flaw comes directly
with and from Alan. Sophia is the
protagonist’s helper, and this isn’t the first novel I wrote with a
protagonist’s helper from the beginning of the novel. As an add, this novel includes my modern
translations of the last five Socratic dialogs put into more modern speech and
for more modern understanding—context to the dialog. I also put the entire Greek culture and the
death of Socrates into a context the reader can understand. It’s a fun book. I’ll move on to, Sister of Light.
Sister of Light is the second novel in
the Ancient Light series and the novel following Aegypt. Aegypt and Sister of Light were
both regularly published, but Sister of Light didn’t make it to the
marketplace. My publisher went out of
business. The novels were on contract to
be published individually and as a trilogy.
So is life.
Sister of Light follows Paul and Leora
Bolang as they make a life in the 1920s and 1930s in France and the USA. Leroa is the protagonist of this novel. She
is also a goddess of light revived by a cabalistic spell devised by her sister,
the goddess of darkness. The goddess of
light is a being who has limited powers in the world, but most of them have to
do with light and life. The goddess of
darkness is all about death and darkness.
The problem is that from Aegypt, although the body of the goddess
of darkness was destroyed, her Ka or soul still remains in the real world and
still can negatively affect mankind.
Leora and Paul do some work to prevent her actions in the world, but
Leora doesn’t really get involved until the goddess of darkness begins to
directly attack them. The goddess of
darkness takes Paul prisoner because she is trying to get an offering formula
back, the offering formula of the goddess of darkness and Osirus.
That’s really more information than you need to
get to the telic flaw. The telic flaw is
that Leora and Paul simply want to live their lives in peace, but the goddess
of darkness intends to make their lives hell on earth. Leora must fight her sister and attempt to
remove her from existence. In that
light, this is a pretty simple telic flaw, but developed over two novels, then
three when we get to Sister of Darkness.
We’ll get there, but Hestia: Enchantment of the Hearth is
next.
Hestia: Enchantment of the Hearth is my first enchantment
novels. In this novel, I branched off
from the previous series novels into a new idea—writing about those beings and
creatures we presume can’t be redeemed.
I wanted to see if I could give them a path to redemption. The first was Hestia.
Hestia is the most powerful goddess of the
Greeks. She is a titan and the virginal
goddess of the hearth. In Hestia:
Enchantment of the Hearth, a young archeologist accidentally invokes Hestia
into the real world. The archeologists
are mostly secular, so they can’t imagine an actual god or goddess could
exist. Angela, one of the archeologists,
is the protagonist of this novel. She is
one of the senior archeologists on the dig.
She is trying to understand just who and what this Hestia person is. And that’s basically the telic flaw. However there is more to it.
To be very clear, the telic flaw of Hestia:
Enchantment of the Hearth, is for Angela to understand about who and what
Hestia is and what this means to Angela personally. As a sideline, this novel turns into a really
fun mystery about ancient gods and demigods in Greece. There is a lot of comedy in the novel due to
Hestia’s ability to control certain things, but not others. In other words, her powers aren’t very
obvious to the archeologists or anyone else.
I’ll move on to Sister of Darkness, next.
Sister of Darkness is the third Aegypt and
Ancient Light novel. It all
started with Aegypt. This novel
was on contract in a trilogy and an individual publication when my publisher
went out of business. In Sister of
Darkness, Leora is the protagonist again, and she and Paul are acting
together during World War Two to stop her sister Leila, the Goddess of Darkness
from destroying the world through the German Nazis.
The Goddess of Darkness is still acting out of
Germany and Berlin, and the real event that gets the entire plot going is the
Goddess of Darkness’ search for her items of power. The Germans are directly acting as her
surrogates in this. To aid in her search
and actions, when the Goddess of Darkness regains the Osirus Offering Formula,
she also kidnaps Lumiere, Paul and Leora’s oldest daughter who was intrigued
and drawn to the Offering Formula. We
have a very complex novel that moves between Leora and Paul as well as
Lumiere. The telic flaw is the defeat of
Liela, the Goddess of Darkness and the return of Lumiere. This comes with Leora as Lumiere’s mother and
Liela’s sister. I’ll note again, the
protagonist, Leora brings this telic flaw with them into the novel, and this
telic flaw becomes that of the novel and the protagonist.
This novel was on contract, and slated to be
published, but my publisher went out of business before it could be
produced. Oh well. Such is life.
I’ll move on to Shadow of Darkness, next.
At the end of Sister of Darkness, Lumiere
is not rescued from Leila. Leila is
defeated by Paul and Leora, but they assume their daughter was consumed and
destroyed when they all defeated Leila.
Unfortunately, they were wrong.
Leila escaped to the east—she was not destroyed only weakened, and now
Lumiere has the black tablet and controls Leila’s servants.
At the beginning of Shadow of Darkness,
Lumiere is heading to the east with Oba, Liela’s remaining servant, now
Lumiere’s servant, to try to end Leila.
The only problem is the Russian fifth Shock Army, and the remaining
German defenders of Berlin. Lumiere is
caught up in a firefight and is wounded nearly fatally. She is rescued from the battlefield by two
Russian Jews who happen to be a journalists for the Soviet. They nurse her back to health, but Lumiere
has lost many memories, her leg is permanently injured, as is her voice, and
she is alone, unable to speak Russian.
We actually know a lot about Lumiere from Sister
of Darkness, but the reader doesn’t need to know much about her. That’s because Shadow of Darkness is a
protagonist revelation and self-discovery novel. We learn about Lumiere as she learns about
herself. Those who have read the series
from the beginning know a lot about Lumiere, but this is a new Lumiere, a
changed and damaged Lumiere. There’s the
telic flaw.
The protagonist, Lumiere comes with marvelous
secrets and mysteries waiting to be discovered all over again. She has really no idea who she really
is. As I noted, the series readers will
have some idea, but there is much more to the story. The revelation is worth the tale itself, and
that is the point of the telic flaw.
This is one of those wonderful telic flaws that the protagonist brings
to the table, but that becomes even more poignant when she is injured and
suddenly dependent on others. I’ll move on
to Shadow of Light, next.
We aren’t done with Lumiere, yet. At the end of Shadow of Darkness,
Lumiere and her friend, Alexandre, escape into the West through East
Berlin. They are captured by the
Americans and the State department takes over their case. At the last moment, before they are deported
back to the Soviet Union, Bruce Lyons has Churchill and the Queen assert their
authority to the president and Lumiere and Alexandre are safe, so to
speak. The problem is then, again,
Lumiere.
Lumiere hasn’t finished her quest to remove
Liela, the Goddess of Darkness from the earth, and that is the telic flaw. This telic flaw causes everything in the
novel. In the first place, Lumiere knows
where Leila is, China. She knows Leila
is working through Mao. She needs a
place in the Foreign Office that allows her access to China, and she needs the
blessing of the Organization in languages and especially in the Chinese
languages.
The point is that the telic flaw is the problem
of Liela, this has been the problem from the beginning of the Ancient Light
series and Aegypt. This telic
flaw comes into more and more focus as the series progresses. Each novel has it’s own idea in the telic
flaw and importance to the overall resolution.
The resolution of Shadow of Darkness sets up the series for the
next novel, Children of Light and Darkness.
Children of Light and Darkness is the next book in the Ancient
Light series and part of the novels that started with Aegypt. In Shadow of Light, Leila, the Goddess
of Darkness is finally defeated, but that isn’t the end of the problems
affecting the world or the Bolang family.
In the beginning of Children of Light and
Darkness, we find that Lumiere and Alexandre have gone missing in Burma and
possibly China. The new protagonist,
Kathrin has been sent from the Organization to look for them. What is unusual about this is Kathrin’s
position, she’s an operative, not an agent, and the fact that James Calloway
was assigned with her. He’s an agent and
an MI6 share. They have an, uh,
relationship.
We also learn that Kathrin and James have
discovered two ten year old girls who are revered as goddesses, and who appear
to have supernatural powers. They
conclude that these girls are Lumiere’s and Alexandre’s children, but none of
the reports say their children were with them or missing at all.
The telic flaw of this novel should now be
evident. The protagonist, Kathrin must
rescue Lumiere’s children and return with them to Britain. There is more to this, of course. For some reason the girls become enamored of
Kathrin, and she must become their mother.
For very important security reasons, you don’t counter the wishes of two
very potentially powerful and dangerous ten year old girls. Kathrin becomes their mother, and all kinds
of interesting revelations ensue.
This is a revelation novel. Kathrin has a great secret that isn’t
revealed until deep in the novel. There
are hints everywhere, and that isn’t exactly the climax of the novel. The point is that with this type of
protagonist revelation novel, the telic flaw may be straightforward, but the
overall plot can be very complex. My
overall point, in all of this is the telic flaw comes with the protagonist, and
that is the telic flaw of the (world of the) novel. I’ll move on to Warrior of Light.
The protagonist of Warrior of Light is a
new character, Daniel Long. Daniel Long
has moved with his family from their old neighborhood to a new one. His father Mr. Long was promoted in the
Organization and the families of certain assets are hosed in an old
neighborhood near Kensington Gardens. In
this new neighborhood, Danny hopes for peace and acceptance that he didn’t have
in his previous place. He meets the
Calloway children who are led by Sveta and Klava. Sveta and Klava are the two young goddesses
from Children of Light and Darkness.
They are now fourteen and on the look for friends, allies, and potential
warriors. Danny is a very nice young man
just entering the sixth form and an expert in languages. He is a perfect candidate for a warrior, and
he now lives close by.
Danny Long has stepped into a minefield, but he
doesn’t know it yet. Sveta and Klava are
wonderous young women at the cusp of womanhood.
He is looking for the life his father gave up for his mother—the life of
an agent in the MI structure or the military—at the beginning, he has no idea
about the organization or what his father does for a living. The telic flaw brought by Danny Long into this
novel is that he desires to become a warrior, like his father, and his father’s
friends. He also wants to become a
warrior to impress and win the hearts of Sveta or Klava, but he has no real
idea what that means. The girls
certainly do, and they are grooming him to be a great warrior.
Warrior of Light is a self-discovery and
coming of age novel about the trials and tribulations of a young man who is
suddenly beset by real life goddesses.
He slowly and surely gains this little, but important knowledge as part
of his realization and the revelation that he goes through. As I noted, the specific telic flaw is that
Danny Long wants to be a warrior and moves to that purpose. This is a very fun novel. The next is Shadowed Vale.
As I’ve shown, the protagonist beings the telic
flaw with them. All we need to know is a
little about the protagonist and suddenly, the telic flaw becomes obvious in
the novel and for the novel. In the case
of Shadowed Vale, one of my Ghostship Chronicles novels, Nikita
is again the protagonist. This novel is
not exactly a direct continuation of Regia Anglorum, but it does pick
off directly from the end of that novel.
We see Nikita return home with her family, Den and Natana to take up her
life again on the Trader Family ship.
Den and Natana continue their investigation of the Athenian Charter
while Nikita continues her life as a member of the ship. There are changes that embroil Nikita and her
family. The first problem for Nikita is
Alex.
Alex became Nikita’s foil in Regia Anglorum. He was a boy who couldn’t stand being bested
by and girl of any stripe, but especially a sickly and small one like
Nikita. However, Alex’s heartfelt
problem is that he is an expert in engineering design while his family is all
Command. Alex sees a future where he is
trapped aft of cargo in engineering and he would do almost anything to not go
there. This is one of the side issues in
the novel, but a key one that affects the protagonist, Nikita. The other side issue is Nicole who is a
musician and song writer. She has almost
no hope in the Trader Family because her industry and skills aren’t represented
at all in on the ships. Nikita on the
other hand is a synthesist. She can
solve problems just by evaluating them and her solutions almost always
work. Do you see the telic flaw?
Nikita’s synthesist skills bring about the telic
flaw immediately in the novel. She must
solve and resolve Alex’s problem, Nicols problem, and there is her
problem. Natana is pregnant and the
child in the womb is obviously psionic and obviously touched by Mara, another
psionic personality that Natana accidentally picked up from Den. I’ll not get into these details, but Mara is
a slight problem from the beginning of Den and Natana’s interactions. Mara isn’t exactly the problem, but Nikita’s
new sister is a real problem for her because of her psionic powers.
So, the telic flaw of this novel is all about
Nikita’s continued integration into the ship as well as her integration into
her own family. The details just happen
to be very detailed and problematic. The
title, Shadowed Vale, is one of the first missing Family Trader ships,
that we learn about at the end of Regia Anglorum and the beginning of Shadowed
Vale. The climax of the novel is the
resolution of this problem which ties back into the entire Family Trader issues
and problems. Next, I’ll look at Warrier
of Darkness.
The protagonist of Warrior of Darkness is
Klava. This is the last official novel
in the Ancient Light Series, but not necessarily the end of the world or
characters. I use them through-out my
other novels as characters and as settings.
Klava happens to be the current Goddess of
Darkness in this age. Her mother,
Lumiere, was a Goddess of Darkness in her time, but she rejected the title and
the authority, however, Klava picks up the mantle and is using her powers to
defend Ireland from the PIRA during the 1980s.
This was a dark time for the people of Northern Ireland as well as the
people of Britain. Note, that Klava is
using her powers for the good of the people and through the Organization, but
Klava has issues. First, she is
blind. Second, she lives a pretty
terrible life because of certain personal propensities. That is, to her drinks that are clear or
light colored, look unappetizing to her mystical black and white perception—so
she drinks Guinness beer, and she smokes.
She smokes as a nervous habit.
She has also taken up with a priestess—actually a young teen whom she
found on the street and who takes care of her and her flat. Klava is using her powers to fight against
the PIRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) and especially the PIRA’s use of
magic to try to keep their bombs on target.
That’s the telic flaw.
Basically, Klava is a one-person army fighting
very grave evil in the world. She has
the help of the Organization, but she is basically on her own. I do need to mention that Klava has been
granted a very specific power that causes the bombs to explode back on those
who touched, made, and are in anyway connected to them. Therefore, with her power, she can deflect
the explosion back to those who set it and made them. Since the Soviets provide most of the bombs
to the PIRA, that means the Soviet munition’s workers and sometimes their
families are harmed as well as the PIRA agents.
This causes great distress to Klava’s soul. She knows every death and counts each
death—in fact, she has a chain that measures each death and each life she
saved. The saved are way greater than
the deaths, but it still bothers her.
There is much more to this, but that’s all I’ll get into at this
moment. The point is the telic flaw.
Klava comes with an excruciatingly wonderful
telic flaw—she is driven to prevent the deaths of the innocent but repulsed by
the deaths of even the guilty. In
fighting the PIRA, her life and existence is in a constant strain between these
forces in her mind and heart. Yeah,
that’s not a lot to go on from a full on telic flaw standpoint. The real issue of the telic flaw of the novel
comes out of the fact that Klava is a goddess and she is raped by a magic user
who rescues her from one of the bombings.
There is more to this issue, but the main problem is that a goddess
accepts a warrior for life and is timed to that man as her helpmeet and
protector. Because a man took her
sexually, she is in a terrible conundrum and the fact that she is pregnant make
the problem worse. This is a
particularly dark novel, and a very interesting end to the series. My point is simply, the telic flaw comes with
the protagonist, and boy does Klava bring along a real telic flaw. I’ll move on to the next novel, Dana-ana:
Enchantment and the Maiden.
The protagonist for Dana-ana: Enchantment and
the Maiden isn’t Dana-ana—it is Byron Macintyre. Byron just happens to rescue and bring home
Dana-ana. You might ask, how does this
fit into the telic flaw for a novel about Dana-ana? The reason is that we discover that both
historically and indirectly Dana-ana is connected to the Macintyre family. Historically as high priests from the
Anglo-Saxon and Celtic days, and indirectly because Byron’s father is a
professor of ancient British languages and history.
Byron brings the telic flaw in almost the same
way he rescues Dana-ana at school and takes her home. Then what is the telic flaw?
Dana-ana: Enchantment and the Maiden is a revelation
novel. The revelation is about
Dana-ana—just who is Dana-ana? As the
novel progresses, she becomes more and more important and more and more
connected to the Macintyre family. The
fun in the novel is the revelation and the mystery of Dana-ana. This is directly connected to Byron simply
because he rescues and brings her home, but as I noted, the blood and history
runs much deeper than this. The novel is
all about the revelation and mystery of Dana-ana, but is also all about the
revelation and history of the Macintyre family in their associations with
Dana-ana in the past. This is a pretty
complex novel filled with magic and very telling historical revelations—all of
them true, but most of them barely remembered in common knowledge. Again, the protagonist delivers the telic
flaw, although this telic flaw is a little different than the others I’ve
mentioned. We’ll move on to Aksinya:
Enchantment and the Daemon.
Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon is one of my favorite
novels, and especially in the Enchantment Series. We see the nearly perfect idea of
redemption for the unredeemable in a Faust-like character Aksinya. Aksinya is the protagonist of Aksinya:
Enchantment and the Daemon. She is a
young woman, eighteen, who calls a demon using sorcery and makes a contract
with him. She contracts with the demon
to protect her family from the Bolsheviks but is too late. Her family is dead, and she is bound to the
demon Asmodeus who only wants her to sin and be filled with the desire for
luxeria. Luxeria is one of the seven
deadly sins. It is the desire for sex, food,
drink, and entertainment—basically, lust of the flesh.
The telic flaw should be obvious by now—Aksinya
wants to be free from the demon and his temptations. The real problem is that only she can see
him, and he does tempt her to horrible evil and thoughts and actions. You can directly see how the protagonist
brings the telic flaw into the novel and the novel is all about that telic
flaw. Again, I want to emphasize, the telic flaw isn’t necessarily a flaw in
the protagonist, but rather in the world of the novel that includes the
protagonist. In the case of this novel,
the telic flaw is indeed a flaw in the protagonist—both a flaw and a problem
that is a literal demon. The question is
one of redemption. Can Aksinya be
released and saved from the demon she herself called by her own free will? With that, I’ll move on to the next novel, Khione:
Enchantment and the Fox.
Khione: Enchantment and the Fox is another of those
interesting and odd novels I wrote to show how a character whom we might think
could never be redeemed, indeed can be. The
focus of the novel is Khione, but the protagonist is a graduate student, Pearce. Pearce is a very honest and earnest young man
who, with his friend find a feral and naked girl killing cats and other animals
around the campus of Boston University and eating them. Their interference in her hunt ends in
disaster when the girl is hit by an electric bus and knocked out in the middle
of the street. Pearce takes the girl
back to his apartment where she attacks him.
In the scuffle, Pearce accidentally grasps an ancient coin on a leather cord
around the girl’s neck, and she immediately stops resisting him. Pearce discovers that Khione is a Greek
demigoddess who is cursed to be loved (sexually) by men and hated by
woman. She is the offspring of the
uncatchable fox and the Greek snow goddess Khione. Khione has been a sexual slave for millennia. There is the telic flaw.
Pearce must find a way to convince Khione that she
is wrong in her thinking and that she can be redeemed from her situation. This novel has a very powerful Romantic
plot. The ultimate one who cursed Khione
was Hestia (the same Hestia of Hestia: Enchantment of the Hearth). In addition, Khione was granted freedom when Angela
of the same novel gave her earthstuff (the ancient coin) back to her. She has all the elements of redemption
available to her, but she has been rejecting it. That becomes Pearce’s telic flaw and the
telic flaw of the novel. That’s the
point, the telic flaw comes with the protagonist. Next is Valeska: Enchantment and the
Vampire.
Yes, I know.
I advised you not to follow the trends and write a vampire book, then I
went and wrote one. I wasn’t following
the trends, I was following my own Enchantment Series concepts—you know,
taking a character who appeared to be unredeemable and finding them some type
of redemption. I did this with the
vampire, Valeska.
Valeska is not the protagonist of this novel—she
is the focus. The protagonist is George who
is a language expert in European and especially Eastern European languages and
a member of the Organization. He is also
an MI6 share from the Organization. George
accidentally encounters Valeska on a night when she is hunting, and when he is
making a contact for Polish intelligence, a contact that goes horribly
wrong. George has no backup and is shot
during the contact. He is dying when
Valeska encounters him. She wants blood
to continue her lifeless vampire state.
He thinks he is dying. Because
George is a Christian, Valeska can’t just take his blood—she can only take the
blood of non-Christians. He is dying and
doesn’t care, so he allows her to drink.
This exchange in some way heals George.
He doesn’t become a vampire, but his body is healed, and he wakes
unexpectedly in a hospital. This is only
part of the telic flaw. The second point
is that because Valeska took the blood, though freely given, of a Christian,
she can’t hunt anyone else. She’s become
dependent on Goerge for life. That’s the
telic flaw.
To be very specific, the telic flaw is that
Valeska has become dependent on George for life. The telic flaw itself is what is George going
to do about Valeska. His issues and
strange healing has gotten the Stela branch of the Organization involved and
interested. There are other people
looking closely at George’s life and associations. Those are mostly Valeska, at the moment.
The telic flaw of the novel is the life that
George and Valeska weave together as a symbiotic couple. They aren’t in love, but they love each other
like family. The Organization wants to
know just who this person, Valeska, is, and George has other issues based on
who he is and his eligibility as a bachelor.
As an aside, I described the basic telic flaw, but Valeska is a
romance novel, but not necessarily about Valeska and George rather another
special woman and George—the problem is that Valeska is the sticking point in any
potential relationship—the redemption comes very close to many people, and the
mystery is very deep. I’ll move on to Lilly
Enchantment and the Computer, next.
The protagonist of Lilly Enchantment and the
Computer isn’t Lilly—she’s the focus.
The protagonist is Dane. Dane
befriends Lilly and she becomes enamored with him because she has never met a
man/boy who has ever been kind and helpful to her. Lilly is a computer genius and going to
college on a math scholarship. Dane is
just a nice guy. The nice guy happens to
recognize the genius in Lilly and can really appreciate her capabilities. He legitimately works to help her. Then the real problem happens.
Lilly has made friends with a ancient Japanese
man who lives near the campus. She
shares her food with him and his cat.
The problem is that the man is a Japanese Kami (god) of metalwork who
came to the USA to revitalize his followers, but who hasn’t had much success in
the modern era. He grants his powers and
authority to Lilly, while he gives the authority of Lilly’s priest to
Dane. There is the telic flaw.
I know this telic flaw is a little obscure, but
the novel is a revelation and discovery novel.
It deals with Dane having to help guide and assist Lilly as she comes to
understand her powers and the needs of her shrine in the modern world. Lilly’s skills and her computer abilities
allow her to bring great help to others through her powers and the shrine. The problem is that this attracts the
attention of some powerful Japanese Kamis in Japan, but that’s part of the
resolution and not the telic flaw. In any
case, Dane becomes both the helper and the mediator for Lilly in the real world
and in the supernatural world. This is
all attached to the telic flaw and comes out of Dane’s attachment to Lilly. I’ll move to the next novel, Escape from
Freedom.
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
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