11 March 2017, Writing Ideas
- New Novel, part x64, Creative Elements in Scenes, Plot Devices, Framing Device
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.
 |
Cover
Proposal
|
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)
Framing device – Current discussion.
Story within a story (Hypodiegesis)
Secrets
Framing device: Here is a definition of Framing
device from the link-- A single action,
scene, event, setting, or any element of significance at the beginning and end
of a work. The use of framing devices allows frame stories to exist.
This
is an adequate definition. A great
example is Ray Bradbury’s The Martian
Chronicles. The link uses the
example from… “Arabian Nights, Scheherazade, the newly wed wife to the King, is
the framing device. As a character, she is telling the "1,001
stories" to the King, in order to delay her execution night by night.
However, as a framing device her purpose for existing is to tell the same 1,001
stories to the reader.”
I
think a framing device can be a little broader than this. For example, I could argue that the soul of
the being from the spaceship Athelstan Cying from the Ghost Ship Chronicles: Athelstan Cying is a framing device. The purpose for the novel plot and theme is
this creature from an earlier time. The
being “frames” the theme and plot of the entire series of novels. The concept of this being doesn’t form the
bases “frame” of stories, but rather of the scenes in the novel.
In The Martian Chronicles, Mars and the
spaceflights to Mars as well as the Martians forms the framing device for the
novel. The Martian Chronicles is a set of connected short stories. Another framed novel is Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin. This is a set of connected short stories
framed by Tuf and his biowarfare spaceship.
I’ll give you a bit from my Ghost
Ship Chronicles as an example.
As if he rose, buoyed up from dark ocean
depths, Den Protania—the new Den felt himself come awake. The process of waking, in his memories, at
once so familiar, yet after a millennia of sleeplessness, so strange. Within moments after he woke, he became aware
of pain. Pain deadened by drugs and
nerve induction, but still, a wash of ceaseless agony. Den worked a long time to filter out the
throb of his body awareness along with the residual physical feeling that
lingered beyond the drugs. Uncomfortable
things the drugs—he recognized they slowed his mental processes along with the
pain.
Den lay quietly with his eyes closed. After he dispensed with the pain, he
possessed little energy left to do more than rest. Slowly, he took stock of the physical body
fate left him. The body was thin and
lanky, well muscled but unfortunately untrained. Not trained at all—the entire brain and body
was undisciplined. Den was shocked; the
man's nervous system was almost untouched by productive neural paths, and his
motor skills were completely undeveloped.
On one hand, the body was like a blank slate, a body and mind he could
cultivate, had to cultivate since he was now irrevocably bound to it. Yet it was a liability—an obstacle to his
capabilities until he could properly develop it.
The new Den stretched his introspection
further. He explored the stored
knowledge and the mental processes.
Difficulty and frustration blanketed the brain's immediate memories, and
a progression of similar feelings overlaid the long-term thoughts. In each case, the theme was similar, the
striving of immaturity to overcome an impossible adversary. So ingrained was failure and depression, he
wondered if he could overcome the limitations of the man's mind and achieve
anything with it himself. Immediately,
he put away such speculations—the mind and body were undisciplined, but the
unsuccessful strivings he remembered were fettered by a lack of motivation and
exertion. He would affect a change by an
alteration in lifestyle. Not a great
change at first, he realized the danger in that, but a gradual improvement, one
that could be explained by his near brush with death.
Under
these circumstances, it was not uncommon for a person to change
personality. But he realized one very
important fact—if he wanted to integrate comfortably into the company of the
ship, he must show a reasonable progression of change. If Den Protania changed too radically,
someone might realize he experienced more than a brush with death. That kind of realization might torch off a
reaction he could not control. Even in
enlightened times, emotions rather than reason could govern human thoughts, and
a hysterical reaction from an entire ship’s Family would be deadly. If anyone acquired an inkling of what
occurred in the person of Den Protania, Den could easily anticipate his
end—captivity and death.
The reality of the situation was not hard
for him accept, but his circumstance was outside normal reason. If he could not understand it, he knew the
situation would be impossible for others to accept. The incident was impossible. It was an occurrence that existed only in the
realm of imagination. Yet, because he
knew it happened, it was incredibly real.
Even so, he could not answer the fundamental question: how could he
exist bodiless and then replace this body's rightful owner? The idea was borne of fantasy, yet it had
occurred.
On a new train of thought, Den reviewed
his new mind’s knowledge of history and was disappointed to find so little that
concerned his original period, the end of the old Empire. Only a clouded and circumspect panoply of war
and atrocities overlay Den’s memories.
He held different recollections of the
same times, and the events were still very real to him. Suddenly, as though viewed backward through a
dim telescope, tiny, brilliantly focused images trailed through his thoughts
and overlay the memories in the dead man's mind. He caught himself up sharply and tried to
halt the sudden flow of remembrances.
With surprise, he found he could not stop the transfer of memories. He strove to save Den's true memories from
the ancient thoughts that once marked the life of a long cold corpse. The effort was akin to physical, and he did not
have the strength to halt it. When the
transfer of thoughts was complete, he sank exhausted in the bunk. In a new combined mind, he was thankfully
able to separate much of the long forgotten from the youthful thoughts of the
man he now was.
The “framing” in this example is the
new “soul” within Den Protania. He is
the beginning and the end of this series of novels. He, himself, is the framing device.
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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