28 December 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.
Let’s take a step back and look at something old and new. This is the concept I call writing to the ah ha. What is an ah ha? The ah ha is the idea (punch line if you like) that the reader sees without the writer articulating it.
The short ah ha is a joke. If you are already the life of the party and filled with quick wit, you can easily write the short ah ha. This should be simple for you. On the other hand, if you are not a quick wit, but you are a wit, this should be simple for you. If you can’t do either, you might want to either try to develop the capacity or give up writing.
I’m being slightly facetious, but really, how interesting can writing be if there is no humor in it. You can draw out humor in a mid or long ah ha, but it isn’t the same. This is especially true in writing conversation.
Conversation in novels is never “real” conversation. In “real” conversation, we say all kinds of things that never gets into written conversation (lubricant words, noises, sayings, repetition, rabbit holes, and all). Written conversation is all the things you wish you said written in exactly the way you wanted to say it. It should be clear and to the point—not necessarily directly to the point, but to the point. Do I have to write about the models of conversation for you again?
The short ah ha is the joke, pun, sudden obvious or not so obvious realization based on a limited field conversation or narrative. You have to have wit to write these, but your wit can be slow and ponderous. These are the turns of phrase that shows the brilliance of the speaker, but really is the brilliance of the author.
There are three distinctive types of ah has: the short, the mid, and the long. Let’s look at them.
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
fiction, theme, plot, story, storyline, character development, scene, setting, conversation, novel, book, writing, information, study, marketing, tension, release, creative, idea, logic
Zen of Scenes 