Rising Action – Description and Character Development more Last Names

31 July 2012, this blog is about writing in scenes.  I’ll leave up the parts of a novel because I think this is an important picture for any novelist.  I’m writing about the rising action.

1. The beginning
2. The rising action
3. The Climax
4. The falling action
5. The dénouement

I’m looking at symbols in writing literature.  Let’s start with the definition of a symbol:

1. Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible. See Synonyms at sign.

The concept in art relating to symbols is symbolism.  Its definition follows:

1. The practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships.

I’ll leave up these definitions.

Lets look at langauge as a symbol.  Authors use language as the paintbrush of their art.  Language itself is a symbol and is used to form symbols.  One of the chief uses of language is called figures of speech.  Here is the definition of a figure of speech:

A figure of speech is the use of a word or words diverging from its usual meaning. It can also be a special repetition, arrangement or omission of words with literal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it, as in idiom, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, or personification. Figures of speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use, as any figure of speech introduces an ambiguity between literal and figurative interpretation. A figure of speech is sometimes called a rhetorical figure or a locution.

The internet is a fantastic place to search for last names.  Before the internet, I used dictionaries, national name lists, and bibliographical dictionaries.  These are great sources, but you have to find them, research in them, and finally modify or accept a name you want.  Plus, if you are searching for a specific meaning of a name, you have to reasearch the name too.  This can be tedious.  It would tak me sometimes months to get the right name–especially for the protagonist.

Today, with the internet, a simple search will give you national lists of names.  For Aksinya’s name, I searched Russian nobility during the Communist Revolution.  I found many sources for names.  I found the exact historical characters I wanted to bestow as the mother and father of Aksinya.  I discovered connections between names and people I added to the novel.  I’ll write more tomorrow.

We’ll move on to more about scenes soon.  I also want to leave myself a note.  I was asked by one of my blog readers to explain how I decide what to tell and what not to tell in my writing.