6 November 2017, this blog is about writing in scenes. I’m focusing on the tools to build 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 how to begin and write a novel.
- The initial scene
- The rising action
- The Climax
- The falling action
- The dénouement
Announcement: Ancient Light has been delayed due to the economy. Ancient Light includes Aegypt, Sister of Light and Sister of Darkness. If you are interested in historical/suspense literature, please give my novels a try. You can read about them at http://www.ancientlight.com. I’ll keep you updated.
Today’s Blog: The skill of using language comes from the ability to put together figures of speech that act as symbols in writing.
Short digression: back in the USA.
Here are my rules of writing:
- Entertain your readers.
- Don’t confuse your readers.
- Ground your readers in the writing.
- Don’t show (or tell) everything.
4a. Show what can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted on the stage of the novel.
- Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.
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.
Scene development:
Here is the beginning of the scene development method from the outline:
- Scene input (comes from the previous scene output or is an initial scene)
- Write the scene setting (place, time, stuff, and characters)
- Imagine the output, creative elements, plot, telic flaw resolution (climax) and develop the tension and release.
- Write the scene using the output and creative elements to build the tension.
- Write the release
- Write the kicker
First step of writing—enjoy writing. Writing is a chore—especially if you don’t know what you are doing, and you don’t know where you are going. Let me help you with that.
Now, with these basics: a protagonist, a telic flaw, an antagonist, and optionally, a protagonist’s helper, you can develop a plot. Very simply, the plot is the resolution of the telic flaw of the protagonist. The novel is also the revelation of the protagonist that leads to the telic flaw resolution.
Tension and Release, we have the input of the scene from the previous scene or as the initial scene. Setting, input, output, tension and release, these four elements allow us to write an entertaining and focused scene that takes into consideration the plot and climax of the novel.
Tension and release is the mini-rising action and mini-climax in a scene. A scene may have one or more mini-climaxes. I turn setting elements into creative elements in the scene to build tension and then eventually release. To actually understand tension and release, you must start with the setting elements.
Setting elements are anything that begins the scene on the stage of the novel. I started with three characters and here they are:
Protagonist: a detective in a crime mystery. She is young, smart, tricky, and has a child-like face. Let’s also add that she smokes John Player Specials like a chimney and drinks Guinness at every meal including breakfast. Otherwise, she puts on an act like a dandified Lady.
The Scotland Yard inspector who is actually the official on the case is a stuck up Oxford type who does use unorthodox policing methods but would never be caught doing them.
His assistant is a tough middle aged woman who speaks with a relatively high middle class London accent and is a stickler for police and gentlemanly decorum.
Plot devices, are basic plot designs in writing that an author uses to produce entertainment in a scene. Plot devices are creative elements. Each scene may incorporate one or more plot devices at least one of which must relate to the telic flaw and the climax.
The scene I described yesterday could be termed a golf plot device or a golf plot element. In writing about plot devices (plot elements) I called this a games plot device. Take it from me, the more plot devices (elements) you can incorporate in your scenes, the better. Thus, sports or games is just one such device. I have incorporated the sports plot device in many of my novels’ scenes. In almost every novel where I have had a school or school scenes, I’ve put in something about sports or games. My favorites are shooting and fencing. Many of my characters are spies or military officers or agents. Shooting and fencing skills fit right in and they are sports.
I have used soccer, dance, gymnastics, field hockey, and tennis in my novels. Dance is not really a sport, but many times takes the place of a sport for girl’s schools. It is a great sport if boys and girls are involved and we are talking about really dancing. In any case, sports and games are just one type of plot device interjection you can make in a fitting scene.
My favorite plot device is the eating plot device.
The next step will be settings, items, and finally plot devices.
I’ll write more tomorrow.
For more information, you can visit my author site www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites:
http://www.sisterofdarkness.com
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Zen of Scenes 
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