PraxisPoetica Process Notes

PraxisPoetica VIII. Step 5. Let's roll out the whole flow and Kanban Board of Process and Artifacts from the Premise

Jan 25, 2026 - 13 min read - 2700 words

Author of the `Denying The Amerikan Dream` series of novels. `Wandering into the Promised Land`, the eldest, currently being born, right here online.

Intro

Yep. We forgot the Vision Document. And, more importantly, we forgot the flow, the rolling out from the Premise through the whole process. We forgot the benefits of the view from 30,000 feet. In both senses of the words. Last night I had, figuratively speaking, all of the digital artifacts I’ve already completed (well, except the manuscript) spread out on the floor and there seemed to be repetitions, conflicts, maybe superfluous elements… hmmm, what was that about conflict leading to change?

PraxisPoetica VII. Step 4. Transition. From Premise to Opening and Ending Scene

Jan 21, 2026 - 9 min read - 1800 words

v. o. kapelman

Author of the `Denying The Amerikan Dream` series of novels. `Wandering into the Promised Land`, the eldest, currently being born, right here online.

Intro

See YouTube Video - Kurt Vonnegut, Shape of Stories (subtitulos castellano)(thanks for the screen capture!)
Kurt Vonnegut’s rejected master’s thesis, The Shape of Stories is actually a major contribution to our understanding of how to see extremely helpful X-Rays of the plot of the novel we are writing.
As long as we see each plot point as this famous author saw them: a plot point, as what happens; but also a because of that effect on the protagonist.
Because when we talk about the ending scene, we are not talking about what happens in the end. It isn’t that there are merely a “string of external events” ending the plot. The question is how the Protagonist is affected by the events, empowered to get what they have been wanting, willing to make the change, by any means necessary.

PraxisPoetica VI. Step 3. The Novel Blueprint

Jan 18, 2026 - 16 min read - 3200 words

v. o. kapelman

Author of the `Denying The Amerikan Dream` series of novels. `Wandering into the Promised Land`, the eldest, currently being born, right here online.

Intro

So what exactly is a novel blueprint, and how does it help you create a plot that touches on the third rail? I thought you’d never ask.

In a nutshell: A novel blueprint is a scene-by-scene progression of your external plot, as driven by the internal struggle each event triggers in your protagonist. (Lisa Cron, Story Genius, Chapter 9)

PraxisPoetica V. Step 2. The Pivotal Character Who Must Win By Any Means Necessary

Jan 7, 2026 - 19 min read - 4100 words

v. o. kapelman

Author of the `Denying The Amerikan Dream` series of novels. `Wandering into the Promised Land`, the eldest, currently being born, right here online.

Intro

There are many things about the Pivotal Character that make us realize we’re already on full-blown auto process mind jump with this novel (often this protagonist is the inspiration for the whole thing):

Rolling right out of the first part of the premise:character.

Without even trying your mind is automatically working on a number of things, rolling out more.
- OK, this person is really significant, is a mover. What are they like physically? Age? Color hair? Face?
- Psychologically?
- And where does Aaron fit in socially? What social class? Is he working or studying,
- What hegemony is he subject to? Is his family a member of a cult? A revolutionary organization? Is it pro-hegemony or anti-hegemony? Submissive or independent? Or, interestingly enough for Aaron as the novel begins 😄 BOTH?

PraxisPoetica IV. Step 1. The Premise that Impels the Writer and Drives the Story

Dec 27, 2025 - 11 min read - 2300 words

v. o. kapelman

Author of the `Denying The Amerikan Dream` series of novels. `Wandering into the Promised Land`, the eldest, currently being born, right here online.

👉 Important note (2026-01-04): In an initial version I used an incorrect definition for Premise. That has now been corrected

Correct:

Character + Conflict + Resolution

Because when we say Premise is your whole work in a nutshell, that premise is a thumbnail synopsis of your work, we are talking about a full cause and effect trajectory, and not just any conflict leading to any of the crises with their particular climax and resolution instances.

Incorrect

Character + ~~Crisis~~ + Resolution

🙏 I made a mistake 😖 I stand corrected, sorry! 🙏

Not Abstract, Not an Elevator Pitch.

It’s the (not so) secret point, the whole point of writing the novel, nothing to do with marketing or how to get published.

For that we have jacket blurbs and, well, elevator pitches and so on, as needed.

But this is Step 1: right after we get the initial Spark, that indelible vision, explosion inside you, for writing the book.

What are the first steps we take to start to get it down, with keyboard, pencil, voice?

Inspiration

The inspiration may be:

an idea
a character
a situation
a strong emotion
something you have read or heard
something else that seems to constitute a good story idea
some or all of the above

PraxisPoetica III The huge influence of Lajos Egri in Contemporary Writing Process sources

Dec 25, 2025 - 7 min read - 1500 words

v. o. kapelman

Author of the `Denying The Amerikan Dream` series of novels. `Wandering into the Promised Land`, the eldest, currently being born, right here online.

Lajos Egri

==update== 🔥👉 Amazing honesty and forthrightness: Lajos Egri is copiously cited and his teachings fully shared in John Yorke’s wonderful book, Into the Woods - How Stories Work and How We Tell Them (2015), with which I became familiar (and read) thanks to Katja Kaine’s fascinating article The Story of The Novel Factory; which I read while considering the use of the Novel Factory Software (recommended) thanks to its community thoroughness and support, on the one hand, and deep writing process and social roots, on the other. It has amazing flexibility in the use and wealth of its many features. As in the case of Plottr, you can do a lot worse than using this novel writing system for your own projects. (For me, Obsidian is still the best (especially with the new Bases database features, now making it a super-Notion), and that’s where I find myself doing most of my actual writing. But I won’t finalize that setup for this particular project, I prefer to spend my time on writing process itself and the scenes and manuscript, while I still have time and brain 😅).
I’ve made, and will continue to make, extensive reference to Lajos Egri and his works in all notes published here, related to my writing process for fiction.
Note on John Yorke’s book itself: While I’m thrilled that finally in our modern era many of the writers making invaluable contributions to the literary and artistic process, like Lajos Egri (copious, serious bibliography!), are becoming recognized, and even more importantly, understood. I just wish the book dealt even more towards connecting Lajos Egri to the actual writing process itself (which he does somewhat, though you have to dig through the notes and bibliography) instead of dwelling on how many acts (3 acts is natural, no, what about 5? isn’t that better? wot’s more natural?) should be mechanically imposed on the novels we are writing, along with Hero’s Journey. Anyway…

What’s your point?

Many writing process books and materials exist that use the seed, roots and tree metaphor (either in whole or in part, in so many words or else directly, indirectly, usually with distortions) in order to express how the novel emerges concretely from a writer’s creative activity. I am happy if people get help from these works. I just want to make sure that Lajos Egri gets heard through all the noise and gets the credit he deserves for his amazing contributions, including, and above and beyond, the metaphor. He was one of the first in revolutionary times to use a scientific approach to writing, empowered by historical and dialectical materialism. Thank you, maestro, Hungarian immigrant activist and militant defender of the rights of the working class who taught so many contemporary mistresses and masters of the craft, yesterday and today: why and how to write —v. o. kapelman, 2025.

Note Series on PraxisPoetica for Wandering Into The Promised Land

Nov 24, 2025 - 1 min read - 100 words

v. o. kapelman

Author of the `Denying The Amerikan Dream` series of novels. `Wandering into the Promised Land`, the eldest, currently being born, right here online.

Featured

PraxisPoetica for Denying The Amerikan Dream. Wandering Into The Promised Land.

PraxisPoetica II Essential Writing Process

Nov 24, 2025 - 14 min read - 2900 words

v. o. kapelman

Author of the `Denying The Amerikan Dream` series of novels. `Wandering into the Promised Land`, the eldest, currently being born, right here online.

Intro

👉 If you have no idea of what Dialectics is, and you’ve never heard of Dialectical Materialism or Historical Materialism, well, it’s time you did. It certainly fits into the “drop everything you’re doing and do that now” category. Here’s a ten-minute course made up of 11 sentences that you can take right now, prepared just for you in Brussels, Belgium by Karl Marx in 1845: Theses On Feuerbach by Karl Marx. I’m going to give it a quick read right now to make sure I know what I’m talking about. It certainly puts the praxis into our PraxisPoetica.

Read it? What ya think?

Love that eleventh sentence:

Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.

And the tenth isn’t bad either:

The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society or social humanity.

Pantsers, Plotters, Plantsers and Lajos Egri Dialectics

See Pantser, Plotter, and Plantser: The 3 Dominant Types of Writers as a starting point. Now, we’re going to go beyond that, to the question of praxis, with Lajos Egri Dialectics.

Everyone is always telling me, and in a way they’re right, to just sit down and finish the… book.

In a way, they’re right.

PraxisPoetica I Writing and Publishing Process

Nov 19, 2025 - 12 min read - 2500 words

v. o. kapelman

Author of the `Denying The Amerikan Dream` series of novels. `Wandering into the Promised Land`, the eldest, currently being born, right here online.

Intro

The first in a series of notes (see PraxisPoetica) intended as a review of the writing and publishing process ever-present during the creation of the first novel in the Denying The Amerikan Dream series Wandering Into The Promised Land. Who Promised What To Who, Now? Community Edition

The Blue Folder

Writing my first novel of the Denying the Amerikan Dream series: Wandering Into The Promised Land. Who Promised What To Who, Now? It’s spark, though, goes all the way back to the early 1980’s. In this blue notebook right here.

So, what’s inside? Here are the pages, here’s the spark and their sparks that I wrote down in the early fractal 1980’s.

Of course a lot’s changed since the early 1980’s. Some things are much more profound now, others much less. Others suffered qualitative leaps of inner tearing and others, of joy.