7 March 2017, Writing Ideas
- New Novel, part x60, Creative Elements in Scenes, Plot Devices, Flashback
Announcement: Delay, my new novels can be seen on the internet, but the publisher
has delayed all their fiction output due to the economy. I'll keep you
informed. More information can be found at www.ancientlight.com. Check out my novels--I think you'll really enjoy
them.
Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon.
This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in
installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in
addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel
was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and
tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this
blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.
I'm using this novel as an example
of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll
keep you informed along the way.
Today's Blog: To see the steps in the publication process, visit my
writing website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production
schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.
The four plus one basic rules I
employ when writing:
1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the
writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
4a. Show what can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted on the stage
of the novel.
5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.
All novels have five discrete parts:
1. The initial scene (the
beginning)
2. The rising action
3. The climax
4. The falling action
5. The dénouement
I
finished writing my 27th novel, working title, Claire, potential
title Sorcha: Enchantment and the Curse. This might need some tweaking. The theme statement is: Claire (Sorcha) Davis
accepts Shiggy, a dangerous screw-up, into her Stela branch of the organization
and rehabilitates her.
Here is the cover proposal for Sorcha:
Enchantment and the Curse.
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Cover
Proposal
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The most important scene in any
novel is the initial scene, but eventually, you have to move to the rising
action. I started writing my 28th novel, working title Red Sonja. I’m also working on my 29th novel,
working title School.
I'm an advocate of using the/a scene
input/output method to drive the rising action--in fact, to write any
novel.
Scene development:
1. Scene input (easy)
2. Scene output (a little
harder)
3. Scene setting (basic stuff)
4. Creativity (creative
elements of the scene: transition from input to output focused on the telic
flaw resolution)
5. Tension (development of
creative elements to build excitement)
6. Release (climax of creative
elements)
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 28: 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 29: Sorcha, the abandoned child of an Unseelie
and a human, secretly attends Wycombe Abbey girls’ school where she meets the
problem child Deirdre and is redeemed.
These are the steps I use to write 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
Here is the beginning of the scene
development method from the 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
Below is a list of plot
devices. I’m less interested in a plot
device than I am in a creative element that drives a plot device. In fact, some of these plot devices are not
good for anyone’s writing. If we
remember, the purpose of fiction writing is entertainment, we will perhaps begin
to see how we can use these plot devices to entertain. If we focus on creative elements that drive
plot devices, we can begin to see how to make our writing truly
entertaining. I’ll leave up the list and
we’ll contemplate creative elements to produce these plot devices.
Deus ex machina (a machination, or act of god;
lit. “god out of the machine”)
Flashback (or analeptic reference) – Current discussion.
Story within a story (Hypodiegesis)
Secrets
Flashback: Here is a definition of Flashback from the
link-- General
term for altering time sequences, taking characters back to the beginning of
the tale, for instance.
I think this is a terrible
definition. I would suggest instead: a
scene that occurs in the past, out of time sequence from the narrative time of
the novel.
This means you write a scene that
portrays the past in relation to the current time of the novel. My mentor really liked this plot device. I don’t like it at all. I see the utility of using a flashback, but I
don’t think I’ve ever used it in my novels.
I’ll take that back. The End of Honor begins with a huge
flashback. That runs through most of the
novel. Here is the example:
My name is Lyral. I am no longer alive. My life has flown like the cry of a tropical
bird, a ragged call on the twilight of an Empire. The sound, like my memory, is quickly
forgotten in the important matters of the times. Yet, in the important matter of my death, no
one gave me a choice, and I did not want to die.
While
my body lies in a pool of its own blood, the nobility of the Empire confer
around it as though the passionate stain of red never touched their
thoughts. Dear lord, my body still twitches—in
tiny movements, my arms and legs send up a morbid benison to the Hall of
Accords.
How ugly is my bruised face, stuck on a
pole for each man to adulterate with his stare.
But, they don't stare. They don't
even look. My virgin body lies eternally
silent. My once fine features are
grasped in an angry death spasm. And
neither my House nor my love is here to avenge me.
I beg to feel a single spark of
emotion. My spirit, kneeling before my
headless corpse cannot even cry. My
spirit is emotionless and nearly without feelings, yet I find analysis
easy. Death did not push away knowledge;
it only made all knowledge horrible because I can no longer act on it!
Yet analysis is not difficult. I am numb, a spirit without emotion. The seeds of emotion exist, I know them, but
I cannot feel them. They are no longer
sensations. They are only perceptions,
conceived but now foreign.
Although I sense the movement of human
affairs around me, I am no longer concerned with human life and all its
trivialities. Yet life—if I could, I
would seize it again. But, like emotion,
the physical has flown. I cannot
remember the love and desire I felt for him, though, as I contemplate his end,
I know a pang in my soul; let his death, dear God, be less savage than my own.
Death was so easy. I remember a sharp swift pain, but the
feeling was diminished by anticipation.
And I fought the loss of that treasure of God. As the mortal wound poured my life's blood on
the stone floor of the hall, I fought the loss of my life. For a moment, I was lost and dizzy. Then, I saw myself. At first, with horror: I thought I saw
through the eyes of my sundered head. My
body lay before me spattered with gore.
As I stared at it in awful contemplation, my executioner—assassin, held
aloft my head. I saw it clearly not less
than a meter from where I knelt. With
deadly certainty, I knew I was indeed past the point of life. My soul had escaped its mortal frame, and
yet, I saw with undimmed eyes.
I viewed everything with a crystal
clarity—better than I could in life.
Shadows were no longer shadows to me, they opened as if filled with
light. The depths of souls seemed to
open to me. The men who watched my death
became flames of spirit in my new eyes.
Unknown to them, they cast off their true selves like the spectrum of a
burning star: I could read them. I knew
their petty fears and ways. I knew their
thoughts. Some watched with horror,
others self-righteously, still others fearfully. They were all open to me. I looked at myself and saw no flame. The flame had gone out and not an ember was
left.
I was free. I was unfettered from any bond of my physical
body. I rose up to the heights of the
Hall of Accords and moved down below the floor.
I slid forward and back through walls and windows. Yet life had been so dear, and I gained
little joy from my newfound freedom. No
joy, but no remorse either. My only
thought was for the living.
I was sad my own life was forfeit—ended so
early, my youthful longings unfulfilled, my dreams sundered in a sword's keen
slash.
I had dreams. I would have been a Princess. My rank was high and my Father and Mother
groomed me for that role. I was to
become the lady to a Prince of the Human Galactic Empire. I remember my parents with regret, but I
remember them no more than I do my love.
Life is too short that love should so early be cut off. At once, I knew the feeling that would be his
despair, and for a moment, I felt the emotion grip my being. He loved me; indeed, he loves me.
I’m not a great fan of the
flashback, but I did use a flashback in my published novel, The End of Honor. You can buy the novel and read it for
yourself. What intrigues me more than
the flashback is the creative elements that drove this flashback. The main reason for this flashback was to
place the reader in the initial scene at an exciting and entertaining point
that wouldn’t happen until the middle of the novel. I was following my own rules about the
initial scene. I see this as an
excellent reason for a flashback. A
flashback allows you to move the initial scene to an exciting and entertaining
part in the novel. I hope you see why
this is important—the initial scene sells the novel. All the other scenes might be entertaining
and exciting, but without a strong and entertaining initial scene, you will
never sell a novel to a publisher or a reader.
I also think this is the only reason for the flashback. My mentor liked the flashback to tell
backstory. I like to use conversation to
tell backstory, but we will get to that point in the near future.
For the moment, realize you have a
very important tool to move and make your initial scene entertaining and
exciting. You can also use the flashback
for other purposes as well. I’m just not
as much a fan.
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
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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