15 May 2026, Writing - part xxxx414 The Novel, Antiquity and Technology, Worldview, Created, Technology, Military and Exploration
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.
I want to start with these definitions as
a premise for writing.
1. Write to entertain
2. Write using the
common outline for a novel
3. Develop a telic flaw,
a protagonist, an antagonist, and plan to resolve the telic flaw.
4. Start with an initial
scene.
5. Develop and define a
modern protagonist: you get a telic flaw, a potential protagonist’s helper, and
a potential initial scene from the development.
6. Write to reveal the
protagonist.
And here is the scene:
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
I’m going to move into a more technical
subject this time. I’ve addressed this
subject before, but I haven’t in a while, and most of the time, I’ve looked at
it in the context of other writing ideas.
This is the subject of technology.
Why is technology important? The most critical point, in my mind, is
accuracy from the standpoint of the time and place of the novels we write. I’d say, technology is perhaps the most
important compared to history. Why is
that?
The obvious answer for the modern era is
the change of technology. If you write a
novel set in the 1990, and every character has an iPhone, you have done a great
harm to your technology and the historical and technical accuracy of your
novel. The iPhone was first introduced
in 2007. There are a lot of these traps
especially for the young and inexperienced who didn’t live through these
times. In other words, to a person who
spent their entire life with an iPhone (or other, so called, smart phone), the
idea of not having one is almost impossible to imagine. Likewise, the aircraft was invented in
1903. If you have an heavier than air
aircraft in your novel before about 1910, you are breaking an historical
fact. Now, you could be like some of the
creepy and silly movies and novels written in the modern era that have all
kinds of impossible historical technological anomalies. For example, one of the latest Sherlock Holmes
movies in the last ten years has an aircraft in the late 1890s or so. Now, it could be late Sherlock in about 1920,
but it’s hard to tell with the way movies are produced, and who can tell what
time they are really in. In any case,
these types of craziness defy reality and technology, but it gets worse. These are easy examples from the centuries of
knowledge and documentation. What about
the very early times in history and prehistory?
This is something I’d like to explain and
explore. My real expertise is in early
languages, cultures, and societies especially those that are early
Mediterranean and early British. These
are some of the times I’ve written about and that I use in my writing. Plus, I translate Anglo-Saxon and Athenian
Greek. These are both dead languages so
they aren’t going anywhere.
Here's my plan. I’m going to start with early technological
history like the seven basic machines and other major technologies and apply
them to writing about history. We’ll investigate
foods, cooking, warfare, agriculture, horses, husbandry (farming and animals),
crops, furniture, architecture, and so on.
The point is to begin to understand the past and past technology so we
can write historically correct and enlightening novels. In addition, we will eventually move to the
modern eras and then to science fiction.
Science fiction is all about predicting and extrapolating
technology. We’ll make a sweeping study
of technology such that we can write realistic and historically correct
fiction.
I looked at technology in a way that most
historians don’t. In terms of cause and
effect. Most historians see history as
just events, but they are all based in cause and effect. We as writers understand this about fiction
well, that is if we are successful writers.
A novel moves forward by cause and effect—they are not simply events or
elements in isolation. They are all
connected by the telic flaw and telic flaw resolution. This means novels don’t follow the historical
model, but rather a technological model.
What’s that mean?
Technology and development are always
evolutionary. Yes, there are times when
some inventor makes an accidental discovery, but most technological discoveries
have nothing to do with accidents—they are more akin to the Wright brothers who
made detailed experiments to end up with a flying vehicle. The complexity of their development and
experimentation give a lie to the idea of the accidental discovery. In fact, I’ll go so far as to totally refute
the idea of the accidental discovery.
Indeed, there are cases in history of this type of discovery, but the
experimenter had to be knowledgeable and able to recognize what he or she had
made and what it could do. I will assert
that even with a great accident, you aren’t going to discover a flying vehicle
or a faster than light means of travel.
You might discover a better way to make rubber but you better be an
expert in what rubber is and does. My
point is that we as authors need to fill in the holes that readers might not
fully understand so they figure out the real difficulty and power in both
technology and technology development. All
this needs to be in the background unless it is the basis of the telic
flaw. I try to present technology in my
novels as part of the fabric of the story and the novels. This is more obvious in my science fiction,
but also a strength of my more modern magic realism novels. Wait, magic realism and technology? How’s that?
I guess I need to touch on this. Back to worldview: real, reflected, and
created. That’s next.
Computing and computers comes from logic
and math. In the beginning, most
languages and cultures were base five.
Five fingers, therefore base five.
In Greek, for example, six is five plus one. In Latin, V is the symbol for five. You also have consonants filling the place of
number symbols, which causes all kinds of problem. However, you really can’t do real math until
you have null (0). Null is zero and wasn’t
invented in Western thought until really around 1000 AD. In fact, the concept of null is pretty much lost
in time. The problem is that with zero,
you can’t get anywhere until you have base ten.
With zero and base ten, you can do real math. When I write, real math, I mean you can do
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Further, you can move into fractions and
ratios. You can actually begin symbolic
math, which means algebra. From algebra,
you get to geometry, then trigonometry and proofs. I hate proofs, but proofs are the basis for
logic and logic with symbolic math gets you to calculus and advanced math. This all brings you to Boolean math and Boolean
logic—the next step is computers.
Computers really didn’t do anything very
powerfully or helpfully for quite a while.
They were used mainly for high end mathematics and marching
equations. That is until the great three
came out. The great three were the TRS-80,
Apple II, and the Commodore PET. The application
of these three computers into the marketplace caused the number of programmers
to go from the thousands to the millions in months. These early programmers didn’t intend to
build productivity programs, they wanted to make games. The number of programs and especially games increased
exponentially. At the same time, these
millions of programmers began to write their own business programs. They didn’t want to pay $500 to $1000 for a
word processor or a data base program—they just wrote their own. In the end, when you go from thousands to
millions of programmers, you get much better and more product. The end result was computers becoming the
basis for most gaming programs, the advent of the gaming systems, and the integration
of computers into business. Before this
great development of programs, businesses all viewed personal computers as
worthless for business. After these new
programmers invented the spreadsheet, better word processors, what you see is
what you get programming, fully developed data bases, financial programs, along
with games, the personal computer began to expand from purely entertainment for
the home into business and operations in the home. We are where we are today because of the
release of programming capability through the great three. That’s why we are where we are today.
Now, imagine what would happen if every
technology was like this. We might have
the internet. Wow, we do. The internet is purely based on millions of
people developing their own websites for business, games, fun, blogs, entertainment,
and so on and so on.
If you want to develop technology, get it
into the hands of millions of creators.
This is one of the reasons the USA is number one in the world for many
technologies, and eventually will crush the rest of the world, unless the USA
government gets in the way.
The most important takeaways from the
development of the computer is that unregulated development and entertainment
development by millions results in enormous development and creativity. The results are still not at full
fruition. The end is not in sight. The potential for the government to kill the
golden goose is always there. On the
other hand, the lack of the government interaction in obvious legal and property
issues brought about by computer technology development has potential very
negative effects. For example, cybercurrency.
The reason cybercurrency exists is only
for the purpose of committing crimes.
Cybercurrency is a secure means to pay for illegal services and
operations. In the beginning it was
mostly for child pornography and then for drugs and other illegal
products. Instead of reigning in the problem
of cybercurrency, the government is encouraging it. This would be good if the end result was the
development of technology, but sadly, it isn’t.
On the other hand, the use of cybertools to create for example, illegal
and intrusive images of people, for example, created pornography, should be
directly prevented by the government as an illegal use of a persons image. You should own the unique items and features
of your own body. That includes your DNA,
your body parts, and images of your body.
Why the government won’t protect the individual’s rights to these is an interesting
question.
Government does have a place in legally protecting
rights in the internet and computational technology. They don’t need to regulate, but they need to
protect the rights of the individual and to apply laws properly in
technology. For example, the government
needs to stop the illegal use of cybercrime that is stealing and the fraudulent
use of credit cards and other monetary implements. So, the three things I would insist the
government needs to protect is the rights and property of citizens, the illegal
use of cybercurrency, and the illegal use of the internet and technology. Instead, I’m afraid the government will place
all kinds of regulations on developers and development and continue to allow
the illegal use of products against citizens.
In any case, the most important point
about all of this is that, in the modern world, technology development comes
almost entirely from entertainment development.
Entertainment development comes exclusively through a market. There is a secondary development path, but it
tends to be dwarfed by entertainment development, and that is development through
military and exploration. I’ll write
about this, next.
Although in the past, military drove
technology, that is becoming less and less true. As I wrote, we can directly see how
entertainment driven by markets caused the greatest developments in technology from
at least the 1850s or so. During this
time, the great swap from military and exploration changed, and it was all due
to markets.
One might derive that explorations and
market began to eclipse military technological developments during the era of
the great discoverers, but in reality exploration and military technology moved
along mostly by government spending and not necessarily markets drove much of
the technological development. That’s
the only way it can work in socialist tyrannies. Wait, socialist tyrannies? Yes, until the USA and the beginning of the
great republican upheaval caused by 1776, all governments in
the world were tyrannies and socialist in nature. Although capitalism was a nascent dream, the
reality was that until the USA, no one owned real property. The monarchy (read tyrants)
controlled and owned all property and used top down means to control markets
and economies. We know how well that
worked. You did see some nations and
places more free than others, but even today, the land especially belongs to
the state and is only loaned to the citizens.
This is true in the USA today as well, that is since I lost my supreme
court case in which the USA government argued that the property belongs to the
state and not to the individual look it up it’s Stop the Beach Renourishment
vs. the Florida DEP.
In any case, until you actually had some
degree of free markets, the government was the main factor and contributor to
technology through exploration and military advancement. As I noted, this changed radically in around
1850, but really started before that. You
already saw marked changes in technology from the USA that radically affected
the world.
So, what did technological development
look like with the military and exploration?
You just need to look at ancient history to see it. Generally, these cause some degree of
stagnation because governments must bear the costs. Think back to the civil war, cartridge and improved
weapons already existed before the civil war, but the entire war was fought
mainly with muskets and musket reloading type weapons. The main reason for this stagnation is that
the government invested millions in muskets and even for the sake of improved warfare
and operations, they weren’t about to spend all that money on new weapons and ammunition. The same is true for exploration. The government sees no reason to improve
safety or security of anything dealing with exploration. Afterall, as NASA states tongue in cheek, they
can always get all the astronauts they want—launch vehicles cost real
money.
If you ever wondered why NASA and other
military and government agencies have high accident rates and don’t seem to
care much, chalk it up to military and exploration type technology
development. The Soviets were classics
on this field. They lost an unknown
number of astronauts and subjects because their space vehicles were not safe in
any sense. Ours were safer, but just a
bit safer. Our technology was driven by
entertainment and markets and although military and exploration tend to trail
those natural technology drivers, the military and exploration both benefitted
from them.
If you note, back in the day, NASA claimed
much of the technology they developed ended up in the marketplace and specially
the entertainment marketplace. I remember one of the seminal examples was the
digital watch. Yes, digital watch
technology did come from the NASA space programs but look at the result. The digital watch was just a flicker of
already developing entertainment and market based technology coming out at the
time. Perhaps the miniaturization of these
components were the result of the space program, but I suspect the space
program got much more out of the market than anything they put in. For example, why did handheld calculators
replace sliderules and other mechanical computing devices? I’m sure the space race had something to do
with it, but if you allowed the government to hold and keep that technology, no
one would ever get it. It is more likely
that the technology came out of the markets and was applied to
exploration. We see the same thing in
our time. Technology comes from the
marketplace and gets integrated into the military and exploration. Unfortunately, the technology in military and
exploratory articles is always much older than that in the market and especially
the entertainment marketplace.
There is more to this, but I should move
on and clean up the breadcrumbs. I’ll
work on that, next.
At the moment I’m focusing on the created
worldview. This is the worldview created
by an author to support a fantasy or science fiction world specifically of the imagining of the author. What I was trying to do with the information I
was writing for you is to show how technology was developed so you could
extrapolate that same technology to support a created worldview. Of course, the created worldview can also
support a fantasy worldview like Harry Potty or even Tolkien or CS Lewis. All these are created worldviews. I like to write in the reflected worldview,
but I think I might have written enough to cover that. I’m not necessarily a fan of the created
worldview for fantasy, but it is necessary for science fiction.
In science fiction, we take from the
existing world and then extrapolate our world in time and space. The best example is perhaps the port which
became the airport and then the space port and the orbital space port. This is easy because it fits within a simple
evolutionary development of technologies.
Notice, I wrote technologies. The
reason is that an orbital spaceport isn’t necessary until you have orbital
spaceships. To get to orbital spaceships,
we need suborbital spaceships, and then atmospheric aircraft and so on.
I should mention that in the near past
there were airports that were also seaports and seaplane ports. New York LaGuardia was this kind of seaplane
and airplane port. I’m not sure the seaplane
part still exists, but it was. Technology
is an interesting thing bringing about and taking away whole features that end
up forgotten and completely unknown by future generations. I should mention that in the modern world,
many of the technological developments and creations are impossible today
mostly because of government regulation and control. Much of this regulation and control came out
in spades until governments lost control of the design of technology. What you might ask?
Modern technological design is mainly a
function of the market and entertainment.
This happened around the 1850s and is still moving on. However, as nations take control of markets
and regulate everything, the ability of the market and the nations to develop
technology begins to die. As I wrote, markets and especially
entertainment markets drive modern technology development. You might expect that governments and especially
socialist governments can turn their technology development around from the
market back to military and exploration, but there you would be entirely wrong.
Someone once said, I think it was Margret
Thatcher, that socialism works until you run out of other peoples money and
this is especially true in the modern world.
Thecnology development is almost entirely the function of the markets in
the USA and markets driven by the USA.
This is pushed by entertainment and the market power of the free markets
around the world. The rest of the people
and nations get involved because the overall markets tend to be worldwide. Even if the markets in Europe are weak and
unable to develop new technology, their needs still tend to drive the capitalists
in the USA and other places. The result
is that even the crippled European markets can take some advantage of the
capitalist and free markets in the USA. Otherwise,
they would just be freeloaders sinking under their own socialist problems.
If the free markets of the USA dried up
tomorrow, there would be no money left in Europe or Aisia to develop any kind
of new technology even if they wanted to.
There is no money left for any military or exploration. Further, in communist and completely socialist
nations, it is common to literally starve the people to provide money to their armed
forces and other common technological drivers, but eventually, you run out of
that money too. The Chinese starve their
non-party members (99% of their population) and have for their entire
existence, but you can only keep starving the people for so long, and then they
either die or revolt—usually die. Russia
and the EU have significantly lower standards of living just to sustain their socialist
systems. They don’t have much money to
expend on technology development. All of
these depend on the USA for their new technology. This likely won’t change unless the USA goes
full on socialist or the EU, Russian, and China fail and are forced to dismantle
their crippling socialist systems.
For you technology extrapolation, I would just
assume a status quo from the current system, or you can extrapolate based on
your own future technology political basis, but don’t make the Traveler
mistake. What’s that?
I have been writing that for high velocity
technology development you require a free market driven by entertainment needs.
You might even extrapolate this although
I’m not certain that will get you anywhere new or different. On the other hand, you can’t expect high
velocity or even any real technology development from socialist or
non-entertainment based markets. What
does that mean? I’ll explain next.
There’s more.
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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