This is a writing lesson in the effect of SETTING on story, plot and character -- i.e. the place of SETTING in storytelling. And this lesson is from a Hollywood producer.
J. Neil Schulman, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Neil_Schulman
the SF writer and producer of the (incredible!!) movie (starring Nichelle Nichols) LADY MAGDELENE'S, sent me an email advertisement with an itinerary for a Cruise titled PSYCHICS AT SEA.
Yes, this is a real ad from a real company, Carnival Cruise.
Schulman's comment on this ad was: Does this sound like a perfect setting for an episode of Monk, Murder She Wrote, Matlock, or what? (for our non-USA residents, these TV shows are cultural icons here. I wish I could give the equivalent in your own culture).
Thus primed, almost salivating, I scrolled down to read the advertisement (I mean, I KNOW Neil and he's really sharp about this stuff) and as I read, INSTANTLY stories began scrolling behind my eyeballs.
This is the effect Blake Snyder (and other screenwriters) label "High Concept." One sentence and you're seeing whole stories. But no two people necessarily see the same stories! It's all ideosyncratic and internal. Novelists must (these days) hit for the highest possible concept for a novel because it's only the high concept novels that get advertising push from publishers! So this is a lesson for all writers.
If you don't have a complete grasp of High Concept, see http://www.blakesnyder.com/2006/02/the-death-of-high-concept/
and read the comment on Blake's post by Sarah Beach which she posted on Feb 9th (not the earlier comment).
Keep the concept of High Concept firmly in mind while you read about this SETTING and note what stories scroll behind your eyeballs.
Your stories might not be Romance, per se. Neil suggested a number of detective mystery characters who would explode into a plot set here. Your character could be from international intrigue, or the Dirty Dozen, a politician, a Pathologist. The setting could include Grand Opera or retired Western actors or any other group with a common interest thematically related to your main character.
Before you open your imagination and read on to see what I thought of, jot down what you think of as you read about this setting. This is a writing exercise, and it's not "just for fun." You could find yourself with a real, genuine, sellable HIGH CONCEPT. Relax and read this.
Here's the advertisement sans graphics:
----------------------
PSYCHICS AT SEA
Cruise on the Carnival Triumph to Canada
Sept 3-7 Labor Day weekend
Presented by Susan Duval Seminars and Utopia Travel
Thursday, Sept 3: Departure mid-morning by private bus from the Doylestown area to the port in NYC. Refreshments will be provided, compliments of Utopia Travel. Upon boarding, get settled in your cabin (complimentary chocolates and wine for everyone!) and have fun exploring the ship. A Meet and Greet Reception with the Psychics will be held in the early evening. Our group will be seated together for dinner, and our wonderful Guest Psychics will join different tables each night, so that you can get to know them personally.
Friday, Sept 4: Fun Day at Sea. Get a private reading and attend a seminar given by one of our outstanding psychics, and enjoy the camaraderie of new friends with similar interests from our area. In addition, you'll be able to get luxurious spa services, sit outside on the deck, go to an art auction, visit the duty-free shops, see a first class stage show, try your luck at the casino, sing karaoke at the piano bar, play mini-golf, take a yoga class, work out at the gym, soak in the whirlpool, get pampered at the hair salon, dine on fabulous gourmet meals in beautiful settings, and dance the night away. There are tons of activities for children and teenagers as well. Bring the family!
Saturday, Sept 5: Stay on-board and relax, or choose one or more shore excursions in charming St John, New Brunswick. Some of the options are: lobster cookout, kayaking on the St. John River, harbor cruise, Bay of Fundy coastal photography class, golfing at Rockwood Country Club, discover the picturesque fishing village of St Martins, St John River cruise, visit a rural farm, or explore Hopewell Rocks (a designated UNESCO biosphere reserve). You may register for your excursion when full payment is made or while you're on board. Another psychic seminar or gallery will be offered in the evening.
Sunday, Sept 6: Another Fun Day at Sea to relax, enjoy the amenities of the cruise ship, receive private readings, and get to know your new friends. A seminar or gallery will be held during the day.
Monday, Sept 7: disembark at 9:30am and take the bus back to the Doylestown area. You'll be back in time for your neighborhood Labor Day picnics in the afternoon!! Brag about your cruise!!
-----------------------------
Schulman is a FILM PRODUCER (and an SF writer). He saw this advertisement and his mind produced stories in PICTURES.
Jot down what pictures you see.
Here's what came to my mind, just instantly off the top of my head, that I wrote back to Schulman.
---------------
Oh, yeahhhh. Among the showman psychics is of course a REAL one.
A showman psychic wants to murder the real one for being too good, but the real one strikes first and throws the showman psychic-murderer overboard into the icy water, or better if it's a Monk ep then the real psychic innoculates the showman psychic with whatever virus is killing people aboard ship, but they're stuck at sea because of a storm that tosses the ship around and makes everyone vomit.
I can just see Jessica Fletcher making friends with a real psychic. Jessica would be very protective, but then find she's protecting the murderer -- but then find it was self-defense.
Monk would catch whatever virus is killing people and solve the crime anyway.
Or better yet, let Monk be onboard under cover posing as a psychic. He's good enough to make the showmen think he's the real thing. But the really REAL psychic catches him and thinks Monk is the murderer because he isn't who he says he is.
Oh, the SETTING can become THE STORY. Nice.
---------------
And Schulman wrote back:
Practically writes itself, doesn't it? :-)
-----------------
And yes, stories that arise from a High Concept do indeed "write themselves."
When you find a story you are writing dies in your hands, it's very possible the real problem lies in the Concept itself.
Or possibly in the Setting.
If you change the setting of your story, you might find everything about the story morphing before your eyes into something that could attract serious advertising money.
You can also refresh a story you're writing by changing the SETTING of only one scene. See Blake Snyder's technique he calls POPE IN THE POOL in SAVE THE CAT! (http://www.blakesnyder.com/ )
"Pope in the Pool" is the technique of setting an expository lump in a place fraught with suspense and cognitive dissonance due to the setting is a very old trick. In writing for the stage, they teach you to sit your main character in a chair centerstage, a chair with a BOMB planted under it.
Blake Snyder names the technique after a scene where two people in an office in the Vatican dialogue at each other about the exposition while the viewer sees through the window that the Pope is swimming in his private pool. And you can't take your eyes off the Pope because you're wondering what he's wearing, or not wearing and whether someone else will notice. Meanwhile, you learn all this important stuff about the story. A "Pope In The Pool" technique can be worked into almost any story, including narrative.
The bomb and fuse gimmick is the suspense image and it can work if done literally, but stands for any EVENT the viewer will anticipate while watching a clock (fuse) tick off the seconds until the event HITS the characters who will be surprised and have to react.
Notice both the bomb and the pool are SUSPENSE techniques, but they are VISUAL. Even in narrative, go for the VISUAL. Use the reader's imagination to evoke the image by reference to the SETTING. (Pope = Vatican)
What the bomb is and what the fuse is can be derived from the SETTING, either the setting for this whole story, or the setting for this particular scene.
The artistically appropriate suspense mechanism will leap out at you once you've selected the correct SETTING for your story.
Note how Schulman was thinking (not what he thought, but HOW he arrived at the thought).
Here's a setting, PSYCHIC CRUISE. What interesting character do we know who would have an adventure on a Cruise? And he thought of a couple of well known TV "characters" who have done shows on cruise boats (BUT THIS IS A PSYCHIC CRUISE).
But you should think of the characters who've been floating around in your own mind for a while. Characters you know well. Then think of a theme for the Cruise (or Dude Ranch expedition, safari, whatever) that would be the last place on earth you'd ever be able to drag that character (conflict is the essence of story!) Go for high contrast here.
Neither Monk nor Fletcher would normally choose to go on a psychic cruise. So immediately, I thought of what would bring each of these characters to this cruise and added my usual SF twist (the unthinkable is in fact true - lump it - that's SF's prime mechanism).
You know the "formula" of the Monk Episode, and the Murder She Wrote Episode. If you've seen 5 or so episodes of either show, you KNOW that formula. Some of those episodes may be available online.
So given the SETTING, and a CHARACTER, and given a plot-structure, the whole story unreels before your eyes. That's what Concept does.
Now, take that SETTING of the Psychic Cruise, pick a character you've got bouncing around in your head or about whom you've been writing and choose a plot-structure you've mastered.
Put them all together and write an OUTLINE of a story (or 3 stories).
Can anyone provide the URL of the posts where I've discussed outlining?
Now do the exercise again with another specialized group on a Theme Cruise (there was once a Star Trek Cruise with the stars of the show -- pick a theme of your own.) Note you can also do this in space, cruising across the galaxy with various species in confined quarters.
Some scriptwriting books call this a BOTTLE -- you bottle-up the characters, confining them. That creates CONFLICT that must RESOLVE within the bottle, a conflict that wouldn't exist were it not for the bottle.
Then do it again, trying to inject all the potential for VISUALS that Schulman saw in this advertisement for a Psychic Cruise.
Perhaps you want to start by writing the galactic advertisement.
That's the exercise, but it could produce something that's actually sellable. In that case, don't post it anywhere. Develope it yourself. But if you spin off useless material as I did, show us what you produced on editingcircle.blogspot.com in the comments section.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com/
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
http://twitter.com/JLichtenberg
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
So what's Dock Five really like?
One of the most fun, writerly things is inventing and describing alien (as in, not where you're sitting right now) settings and places in SF/SFR books. One of the toughtest writerly things is inventing and describing alien settings and places in SF/SFR books.
Mugwump much, Linnea?
One of the things I've wondered about since I was a wee kidling (and yeah, I really did think about this stuff) is whether the color I deem to be "red" is the color you see. That is, I know we have an agreed upon experience called "this is the color red" but do my eyes and brain process 
and interpret that color the same way you do? We've been told that cats and dogs only see in shades of gray. So if I asked Daq-cat to point out something "red" (ie: the cover of SHADES OF DARK), though we both would agree the cover was red, what he sees is different than what I see. His "red" would be, we're told, a shade of gray. Mine is, well, what I call "red." (And who's to say I'm right and he's wrong?)
and interpret that color the same way you do? We've been told that cats and dogs only see in shades of gray. So if I asked Daq-cat to point out something "red" (ie: the cover of SHADES OF DARK), though we both would agree the cover was red, what he sees is different than what I see. His "red" would be, we're told, a shade of gray. Mine is, well, what I call "red." (And who's to say I'm right and he's wrong?)Lost yet?
Have another cup of coffee.
I think about things like that when I write my settings, my worlds, my ships. Which is why I get into arguments with myself as to how much to describe in some level of detail, and how much to describe in concept and let you all come to your own interpretations. Especially when I'm describing or dealing with something that has no exact counterpart in our current experience.
So what is Dock Five--that seedy, disreputable conglomeration of mining rafts in deep space somwhere near the Aldan-Baris border--really like? What is the Boru Karn, Sully's personal ship, really like? Is Admiral Mack's Cirrus One Station the same as Chaz Bergren's Moabar Station? Well, no. Cirrus One has parrots. But other than that, does Linnea have a stock space station she drops into each story?
In my mind, no, oddly enough. My mind's eye sees Moabar Station and Dock Five and Cirrus One in completely different colors and styles. To a great extent, it's as if I drop myself into my character's skin and see his world exactly as he sees it. (Which adds another layer of personal interpretation...oy!). But all--since I'm still me--have to have a constant basis of information and experience.
For me it's cruise ships. As many of you know, that's been an addiction of mine for several decades. The feeling of being isolated, dependent and yet with pretty much everything you need (including a full hospital) is something I've drawn from being on cruise ships. But what if my reader has never been on a cruise ship, or never served on a naval vessel? What if my reader is a land-locked Kansas farm-dwelling reader from a long line of land-locked Kansas farmers?
How do I make them understand what Dock Five or the Boru Karn is really like?
I think this is one of the problems non-SF readers have with coming in to SF or SFR: this flow into and acceptance of the never-experienced. Reading SFF trains the mind to reach for analogies and find a workable interpretation--even if perhaps that interpretation isn't what the author had in mind. SFF readers don't mind not fully getting everything at first. They're willing to go along for the ride and figure it out as it happens.
But if a reader's experience on the pages has been predominantly the known and familiar: a supermarket, a television, a Chevrolet pick-up, it can require a little more work, a little more "suspension of disbelief" to envision the bridge of a starship. I see this happening most often when my books are reviewed by a romance site and a reviewer who admits s/he's never read SF before or much SF. The reviewer may note: loved the book but wish Sinclair added more description of the starship bridge. The same book reviewed by an SF or paranormal romance site will state: loved the book and her descriptions were so spot-on I felt as if I were there!
One of the keys, obviously, is that everything is experienced through the characters. But keep in mind that to my characters--other than Theo Petrakos in The Down Home Zombie Blues--their "normal" is our "unreal." Starship bridges, faster-than-light travel, Stolorths, telepathic furzels and bio-cybes are their norm.
So what is Dock Five really like? It's seedy, run-down, cramped and smelly. Yet it functions; for the most part, its inhabitants aren't in fear of their lives from the facility (the denizens are another matter). Is it the same as a back-alley in some derelict New York City neighborhood? If you want it to be, sure. But it's different that that. For one thing, there's no sky. And you can't 
eventually run away from the area--there's really no escape (unless you can breathe vacuum). Dock Five--to me--has something of the feel and smell of subways tunnels. A factory or warehouse basement. But without the brick/stone moldy smell. It's all metallic. It's small enough to be familiar to its inhabitants (something that makes them feel secure) but large enough and, moreover, convoluted enough in design to make getting lost a very real possibility. (corridor image from DAZ3D)
eventually run away from the area--there's really no escape (unless you can breathe vacuum). Dock Five--to me--has something of the feel and smell of subways tunnels. A factory or warehouse basement. But without the brick/stone moldy smell. It's all metallic. It's small enough to be familiar to its inhabitants (something that makes them feel secure) but large enough and, moreover, convoluted enough in design to make getting lost a very real possibility. (corridor image from DAZ3D)A maze? Kinda sorta. But not quite.
It goes back to whether or not the red I see is the red you see.
So how much do you bring your own experiences into what you read, and how much are you willing to let the author take you on an unfamiliar journey?
~Linnea
SHADES OF DARK, the sequel to Gabriel’s Ghost, July 2008 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/
The Karn jerked hard, alarms screaming in triplicate, overload warnings flashing. The grating sound of metal wrenching echoed off the bulkheads. Snapped power lines whipped past the front viewport as something thumped, hard, and something else thudded, once, twice. The ship lurched then we were thrown sideways, my armrest catching me in the ribs in spite of my safety straps.
“Full shields!” I said hoarsely. God damn, that hurt. “Verno, don’t let her spin. Marsh, crank those sublights higher.”
We dove away from station—a hideously ugly departure. Narfial controllers cursed the Fair Jeffa, assuring us the freighter was back on course and was never a threat to us at dock.
“Bite my ass,” Sully intoned.
The Karn jerked hard, alarms screaming in triplicate, overload warnings flashing. The grating sound of metal wrenching echoed off the bulkheads. Snapped power lines whipped past the front viewport as something thumped, hard, and something else thudded, once, twice. The ship lurched then we were thrown sideways, my armrest catching me in the ribs in spite of my safety straps.
“Full shields!” I said hoarsely. God damn, that hurt. “Verno, don’t let her spin. Marsh, crank those sublights higher.”
We dove away from station—a hideously ugly departure. Narfial controllers cursed the Fair Jeffa, assuring us the freighter was back on course and was never a threat to us at dock.
“Bite my ass,” Sully intoned.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Star Trek 2009
Yes I am a total Trekkie. I admit it. I was so enraptured with Star Trek that my posse and I pretended to be the cast. And yes I was Captain Kirk. We were also talking Trek. We were so outrageous about it that the "cool" members of our girl scout troop used us as an example of how geeky can you get. I have to laugh at that now. After all Star Trek is still around and I did get published in the genre. And I wouldn't change my geekdom for anything. It made me who I am today and fed my imagination. I even wrote fan fic before fan fic was cool.
So imagine my excitement at another Trek movie. With a young hot cast who did not fail to give tribute to the original players. The movie was everything I could want and more. Chris Pine was appropriately rebellious yet managed to laugh at himself. Zachary Quinto gave Spock a sexiness that was too die for. I won't give that secret away, lets just say he "smoldered" And the rest of the cast was just perfect. Sulu's tribute to George Takei's fencing scene, Karl Urban channeling Bones (Was anyone else skeptical at that casting decision? I now bow down to whoever made that decision and say awesome!) Uhura's mysteriousness and Chekov's accent were spot on. and Scotty. I couldn't wait to hear him say..."I'm giving her all she's got!"
Please powers that be, tell me there will be more. As for me, I'm seeing it again this week and can't wait for the DVD release. Santa, please put it in my stocking so I can once more sink into Trek bliss.
Can you tell I loved it?
Sequel Trouble
If you have a question or topic you'd like addressed, please post it in a comment, and we'll try to help.
Lisa writes:
Getting going on Book 2 is a fabulous strategy. When I was doing the Unpubbed contest circuit, I noticed that the authors who were entering two titles at the same time seemed to do much better... in that they retired much sooner from the lists, and I infer that they made sales.
How much to repeat... is an important balance when you've built an alien world, and yet every book in the series has to be a stand-alone.
When I was writing Insufficient Mating Material (sequel to Forced Mate), my editor Alicia Condon suggested that I ought to take J K Rowling as my role model as regards backstory telling.
If course, I was not going get the page count or the ink. So, I spent a delightful summer acquainting myself with Harry Potter, and trying to extrapolate proportions for "potted" versions of my own backstory. (Bad pun. Couldn't resist. Sorry!)
Here's my take: (Somewhat repetitive)
1. Break any rule of thumb rather than bore your reader.
2. Avoid info dumps at all costs. (Six lines of explanation is more than enough.)
3. On any given page, tell the reader only what she absolutely must know in order to understand the current action, or rules of your alien world.
4. Delay telling as much as you can of the back story.
5. Reunions of beloved characters from the previous book are fun for your established readers, but not so much for someone coming cold to Book 2, not having read Book 1, so any cameo appearances must be meaningful and advance the new story.
6. Use family trees, charts, maps with annotations as creative and visually different techniques for communicating backstory, who's who info etc.
7. Do not rely on being able to use footnotes. Some editors will be nervous about the possibility of the printer being unable to line them up.
8. "Dear Reader" letters in the Front Matter are a possibility, but frequently are skipped by the very reader you wanted to bring up to speed.
9. Prologues ought to be short, but can be very useful and entertaining. A great example would be the J K Rowling scene where the Minister of Magic is obliged to brief the British Prime Minister.
10. Consider putting a fresh spin on the backstory by having someone else relate it... I like to remember that "Summer Lovin'" duet from Grease where the Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta characters gave different accounts of a sweet summer romance.
11. My personal favorite backstory comunicator is my own Grievous. A "Greek Chorus" character is extremely useful. Or an employee who habitually covers his backside by making absolutely sure he understands his orders.
What have I missed?
Rowena Cherry
Lisa writes:
I might want to get going on Book 2. But knowing how much to repeat from Book 1 is becoming a bit of a struggle.
Getting going on Book 2 is a fabulous strategy. When I was doing the Unpubbed contest circuit, I noticed that the authors who were entering two titles at the same time seemed to do much better... in that they retired much sooner from the lists, and I infer that they made sales.
How much to repeat... is an important balance when you've built an alien world, and yet every book in the series has to be a stand-alone.
When I was writing Insufficient Mating Material (sequel to Forced Mate), my editor Alicia Condon suggested that I ought to take J K Rowling as my role model as regards backstory telling.
If course, I was not going get the page count or the ink. So, I spent a delightful summer acquainting myself with Harry Potter, and trying to extrapolate proportions for "potted" versions of my own backstory. (Bad pun. Couldn't resist. Sorry!)
Here's my take: (Somewhat repetitive)
1. Break any rule of thumb rather than bore your reader.
2. Avoid info dumps at all costs. (Six lines of explanation is more than enough.)
3. On any given page, tell the reader only what she absolutely must know in order to understand the current action, or rules of your alien world.
4. Delay telling as much as you can of the back story.
5. Reunions of beloved characters from the previous book are fun for your established readers, but not so much for someone coming cold to Book 2, not having read Book 1, so any cameo appearances must be meaningful and advance the new story.
6. Use family trees, charts, maps with annotations as creative and visually different techniques for communicating backstory, who's who info etc.
7. Do not rely on being able to use footnotes. Some editors will be nervous about the possibility of the printer being unable to line them up.
8. "Dear Reader" letters in the Front Matter are a possibility, but frequently are skipped by the very reader you wanted to bring up to speed.
9. Prologues ought to be short, but can be very useful and entertaining. A great example would be the J K Rowling scene where the Minister of Magic is obliged to brief the British Prime Minister.
10. Consider putting a fresh spin on the backstory by having someone else relate it... I like to remember that "Summer Lovin'" duet from Grease where the Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta characters gave different accounts of a sweet summer romance.
11. My personal favorite backstory comunicator is my own Grievous. A "Greek Chorus" character is extremely useful. Or an employee who habitually covers his backside by making absolutely sure he understands his orders.
What have I missed?
Rowena Cherry
Twenty Five Free Ways To Buzz A Book
My grandmother on the distaff side used to say, "If you've nothing nice to say, don't say anything..." Switch "nice" for "helpful" and you have my current philosophy.
I've recently been invited to become a contributing member of the teaching blog "1st Turning Point", which got me thinking about what I have to offer (or pay forward), and I took a look at a "25 Ways to Promo" list which I assembled a while back. I'm astonished how important Amazon seemed three years ago. Now... I think my old list is out of date. So here's my new 25 point "To Do" list.
All authors for the purpose of this article will be considered female. (No sexism intended).
#1. Help the search engines find her. Why? Even if you know where to find your alien romance writing friend, her blog, and her books, “hits” help. The more visitors the search engine spiders find, the more priority the author's website gets. So: Google her. Ask Jeeves about her. Dogpile her. A9 search her. Use Alexa. Try a Yahoo search. Blog search. Search on Technorati. Even better, set up a Google Alert for her name, also common misspellings of her name, and for her book titles.
#2. Having “Searched” or been "Alerted", Visit… her website; blogs; author pages. If you may comment, do so. Everyone who takes the time to blog or post content is grateful when visitors comment. Human nature leads more people to read a post that has received a lot of comments.
#3 Follow. Favorite. Share. Google's Blogger, Twitter, Facebook "Pages", Squidoo lenses, You Tube videos and more allow you to become a follower or a fan. Do so. Connect wherever you can. It's good for both of you, because follower/fan photos show up.
#4 Click to read (and rate) any reviews she has written, or Lists she has set up. These days, anyone can make an EssentiaList on Barnes and Noble.com, a Listmania on Amazon.com, a Top Ten list on Chapters.Indigo.ca, also Listopia on GoodReads.com/ If you like her reviews or lists, click Helpful.
#5. If you see a good review of a book you've enjoyed —on any bookselling site that allows customers and visitors to comment on reviews-- click Helpful if it truly is a helpful review. Votes help both the reviewer and the author.
#6. Tag her books wherever you can. Amazon isn't the only place (Amazon isn't even one site… there's Amazon.ca, Amazon.uk, Amazon.de etc etc) Many book selling sites encourage readers to tag.
What is a tag? It's a search term that a reader might be using to find a type of book she likes, when she is looking for a new author. Some tags might be "Romance", "Fantasy", "Mystery", "Shapeshifter", "Georgian Romance", "Humor" or "Space Opera".
#7. When you are on an admired author's Amazon book page, click on links to:
Put it on your wish list, it’s extra, free advertising for the book. Tell a friend. Scroll down the book page to Tag this product. Or make a search suggestion).
#8. Join in the Customer/Reader discussions on her book page, or on the forums. Ask a question. Start a discussion. Hundreds of eyeballs scan the discussions on Barnes and Noble bookclubs. The search engines pick up on the discussions. The longer a discussion keeps going, the better the PR buzz for your friend. This does not just apply to Amazon and B&N. Discussion anywhere is "buzz".
#9. Review her book… Most people know that a customer can write a review on Amazon.com. There's a purchase requirement with Amazon (and I think with Barnes and Noble, too). However, many sites don't require a reader to have bought a book from them in order to post a review: GoodReads.com, Shelfari.com, LibraryThing.com, E-Bay, Powells, FlipKart, We-Read (on Facebook), NexTag etc etc.
#10. Smak her. Have you ever noticed the "Add This" or "Share" or "Recommend" widgets on online pages and on You Tube? If you think your author friend's blog, or news about her is interesting, syndicate the news to Digg It, Reddit, Technorati, Stumble Upon, Furl and as many of the other 40 or so sites as you have time and energy for. It's self promo when she does it. It's news when someone else does it.
Smak is SmakNews.com. News for women, posted by women.
#11. If the author has a reminder on a public calendar (Amazon has one, other sites have the function, too) for a booksigning near you, click on Remind Me Too. Booksignings are nerve-racking. Support is always appreciated, even if you don’t buy a book.
#12. If she lists an "Event", which one can on Facebook, GoodReads, and too many other places to mention, be sure to RSVP with a kind comment about the book.
#13. Make her a top friend on MySpace, Bebo etc, Give her book cover image as a "gift" on Facebook, with her permission, make her cover into a widget or tile it as a background, or keep it on the top page of your Shelfari/GoodReads/MyB&N display of what you are reading.
#14. If you have a MySpace page or Bebo.com, or Twitters, or Clasmates.com, or facebook.com, or theyack.com (and if you don’t, but really want to help, get one… it’s free) invite your author friends to be your friends there. Write a bulletin about your friend or her book. Add a comment on their profile page’s comments section. Your comment is their opportunity to say something about their book without the appearance of soliciting. Review their book on your MySpace blog. Or on You Tube!
#15. If her publisher has a forum, join it and ask her questions. For instance, Dorchester Publishing (home of Leisure and LoveSpell authors) has http://forums.dorchesterpub.com/
Again, your comment will be seen by hundreds, if not thousands, and it will give your friend a reason to post something interesting and quotable about her book without seeming to be self-promoting.
#16. If you have a blog or website, (and you should always secure your own domain name before you become famous yourself) publicize your friend’s upcoming signings/author talks/workshops on your blog. Mention her website URL. Link to your author friend’s website or blog on yours. Put her book as a 'must read' on your own site, or in your own newsletter. Have a list of links to authors you like, and blogs you enjoy.
#17. If you belong to readers’ group sites, or book chat sites, or special interest sites, post what you are reading. Plugs never hurt. These are also picked up on RSS feeds and the search engines.
#18. Join your favorite author’s yahoo group, let her know where you’ve seen her book in stores, or where you’ve seen discussions of her book, or reviews of her book.
#19. Drop in on her online chats to say how you enjoyed her book. Supportive friends at chats are cool because chats can be chaotic, and typing answers takes time.
#20. Tweet on Twitter about how much you are enjoying the book. Retweet or reply to any comments you see that promote the book, or the author.
#21. Offer to take a bunch of her bookmarks to conventions, or conferences, and make sure they are put in goodie bags, or on promo tables. Or simply visit her table at a convention, and sign up for her newsletter, or pick up her bookmark and tell someone else how good the book is. Offer to slip her bookmarks into your own correspondence when you pay bills, taxes, etc.
#22. Instead of quoting Goethe in your sig file, try quoting a line from your friend’s blurb in the week of her launch.
#23. Ask for her book in your local library. If they don't have it, maybe they will order a copy. If the library won't do that, ask if they would enter the book in their system if the author were to donate a copy to them. Once a book is in one library's system, it gets into the database for other libraries.
#24. If you see your favorite author’s books in a supermarket or bookstore: face her books (if there is room), turn one so the cover shows. Tell store personnel how much you like that book, or that the author is local. If you don’t see her books, especially when they ought to be there, ask about them.
#25. If you are connected on LinkedIn.com and your author friend is listed as "Author" or "Freelance Writer" or similar, consider "recommending her" on the strength of her writing. Recommendations on LinkedIn are intended to be for professional purposes.
Bonus Tip:
If you are an author buy colleagues' autographed books from them at booksignings to use in your own giveaways instead of always giving away your own books.
copyright: Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com
Appearing today on Keta's Keep
I've recently been invited to become a contributing member of the teaching blog "1st Turning Point", which got me thinking about what I have to offer (or pay forward), and I took a look at a "25 Ways to Promo" list which I assembled a while back. I'm astonished how important Amazon seemed three years ago. Now... I think my old list is out of date. So here's my new 25 point "To Do" list.
All authors for the purpose of this article will be considered female. (No sexism intended).
#1. Help the search engines find her. Why? Even if you know where to find your alien romance writing friend, her blog, and her books, “hits” help. The more visitors the search engine spiders find, the more priority the author's website gets. So: Google her. Ask Jeeves about her. Dogpile her. A9 search her. Use Alexa. Try a Yahoo search. Blog search. Search on Technorati. Even better, set up a Google Alert for her name, also common misspellings of her name, and for her book titles.
#2. Having “Searched” or been "Alerted", Visit… her website; blogs; author pages. If you may comment, do so. Everyone who takes the time to blog or post content is grateful when visitors comment. Human nature leads more people to read a post that has received a lot of comments.
#3 Follow. Favorite. Share. Google's Blogger, Twitter, Facebook "Pages", Squidoo lenses, You Tube videos and more allow you to become a follower or a fan. Do so. Connect wherever you can. It's good for both of you, because follower/fan photos show up.
#4 Click to read (and rate) any reviews she has written, or Lists she has set up. These days, anyone can make an EssentiaList on Barnes and Noble.com, a Listmania on Amazon.com, a Top Ten list on Chapters.Indigo.ca, also Listopia on GoodReads.com/ If you like her reviews or lists, click Helpful.
#5. If you see a good review of a book you've enjoyed —on any bookselling site that allows customers and visitors to comment on reviews-- click Helpful if it truly is a helpful review. Votes help both the reviewer and the author.
#6. Tag her books wherever you can. Amazon isn't the only place (Amazon isn't even one site… there's Amazon.ca, Amazon.uk, Amazon.de etc etc) Many book selling sites encourage readers to tag.
What is a tag? It's a search term that a reader might be using to find a type of book she likes, when she is looking for a new author. Some tags might be "Romance", "Fantasy", "Mystery", "Shapeshifter", "Georgian Romance", "Humor" or "Space Opera".
#7. When you are on an admired author's Amazon book page, click on links to:
Put it on your wish list, it’s extra, free advertising for the book. Tell a friend. Scroll down the book page to Tag this product. Or make a search suggestion).
#8. Join in the Customer/Reader discussions on her book page, or on the forums. Ask a question. Start a discussion. Hundreds of eyeballs scan the discussions on Barnes and Noble bookclubs. The search engines pick up on the discussions. The longer a discussion keeps going, the better the PR buzz for your friend. This does not just apply to Amazon and B&N. Discussion anywhere is "buzz".
#9. Review her book… Most people know that a customer can write a review on Amazon.com. There's a purchase requirement with Amazon (and I think with Barnes and Noble, too). However, many sites don't require a reader to have bought a book from them in order to post a review: GoodReads.com, Shelfari.com, LibraryThing.com, E-Bay, Powells, FlipKart, We-Read (on Facebook), NexTag etc etc.
#10. Smak her. Have you ever noticed the "Add This" or "Share" or "Recommend" widgets on online pages and on You Tube? If you think your author friend's blog, or news about her is interesting, syndicate the news to Digg It, Reddit, Technorati, Stumble Upon, Furl and as many of the other 40 or so sites as you have time and energy for. It's self promo when she does it. It's news when someone else does it.
Smak is SmakNews.com. News for women, posted by women.
#11. If the author has a reminder on a public calendar (Amazon has one, other sites have the function, too) for a booksigning near you, click on Remind Me Too. Booksignings are nerve-racking. Support is always appreciated, even if you don’t buy a book.
#12. If she lists an "Event", which one can on Facebook, GoodReads, and too many other places to mention, be sure to RSVP with a kind comment about the book.
#13. Make her a top friend on MySpace, Bebo etc, Give her book cover image as a "gift" on Facebook, with her permission, make her cover into a widget or tile it as a background, or keep it on the top page of your Shelfari/GoodReads/MyB&N display of what you are reading.
#14. If you have a MySpace page or Bebo.com, or Twitters, or Clasmates.com, or facebook.com, or theyack.com (and if you don’t, but really want to help, get one… it’s free) invite your author friends to be your friends there. Write a bulletin about your friend or her book. Add a comment on their profile page’s comments section. Your comment is their opportunity to say something about their book without the appearance of soliciting. Review their book on your MySpace blog. Or on You Tube!
#15. If her publisher has a forum, join it and ask her questions. For instance, Dorchester Publishing (home of Leisure and LoveSpell authors) has http://forums.dorchesterpub.com/
Again, your comment will be seen by hundreds, if not thousands, and it will give your friend a reason to post something interesting and quotable about her book without seeming to be self-promoting.
#16. If you have a blog or website, (and you should always secure your own domain name before you become famous yourself) publicize your friend’s upcoming signings/author talks/workshops on your blog. Mention her website URL. Link to your author friend’s website or blog on yours. Put her book as a 'must read' on your own site, or in your own newsletter. Have a list of links to authors you like, and blogs you enjoy.
#17. If you belong to readers’ group sites, or book chat sites, or special interest sites, post what you are reading. Plugs never hurt. These are also picked up on RSS feeds and the search engines.
#18. Join your favorite author’s yahoo group, let her know where you’ve seen her book in stores, or where you’ve seen discussions of her book, or reviews of her book.
#19. Drop in on her online chats to say how you enjoyed her book. Supportive friends at chats are cool because chats can be chaotic, and typing answers takes time.
#20. Tweet on Twitter about how much you are enjoying the book. Retweet or reply to any comments you see that promote the book, or the author.
#21. Offer to take a bunch of her bookmarks to conventions, or conferences, and make sure they are put in goodie bags, or on promo tables. Or simply visit her table at a convention, and sign up for her newsletter, or pick up her bookmark and tell someone else how good the book is. Offer to slip her bookmarks into your own correspondence when you pay bills, taxes, etc.
#22. Instead of quoting Goethe in your sig file, try quoting a line from your friend’s blurb in the week of her launch.
#23. Ask for her book in your local library. If they don't have it, maybe they will order a copy. If the library won't do that, ask if they would enter the book in their system if the author were to donate a copy to them. Once a book is in one library's system, it gets into the database for other libraries.
#24. If you see your favorite author’s books in a supermarket or bookstore: face her books (if there is room), turn one so the cover shows. Tell store personnel how much you like that book, or that the author is local. If you don’t see her books, especially when they ought to be there, ask about them.
#25. If you are connected on LinkedIn.com and your author friend is listed as "Author" or "Freelance Writer" or similar, consider "recommending her" on the strength of her writing. Recommendations on LinkedIn are intended to be for professional purposes.
Bonus Tip:
If you are an author buy colleagues' autographed books from them at booksignings to use in your own giveaways instead of always giving away your own books.
copyright: Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com
Appearing today on Keta's Keep
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Worst Rejections
Not long ago I read a lively blog thread on “worst rejections,” a topic productive of endless reminiscence and speculation. Have you received rejections that baffled you with their ambiguity and cluelessness? Or, worse yet, an implicit rejection in the form of a requested submission being completely ignored?
Very early in my attempt at a writing career, I mailed a follow-up query about a story I’d sent to a small magazine and got a reply to the effect of, “all unsolicited manuscripts have been returned.” What the heck did that mean? All the submissions were so inferior they were rejected in disgust? The magazine was overstocked and therefore automatically returned all manuscripts? They were currently closed?
My two most baffling rejections came from agents. When first trying to sell my werewolf novel SHADOW OF THE BEAST, I sent the prologue and synopsis to an agent who then requested the full manuscript. She eventually rejected the novel on the grounds that a book should begin with something “important” happening. I thought, “Good grief, it starts with both of the heroine’s siblings being killed by a feral animal!” I later realized I’d made a newbie mistake in not including the prologue because the agent already had it. By the time she got the rest of the book, she must have forgotten all about the prologue and thought the story started with the heroine catching a bus to work.
My other most peculiar (and exasperating) agent rejection followed an appointment at the 2000 RWA con. I’d pitched a vampire romance and made it perfectly clear that paranormal romance was the only kind I wanted to write. The agent asked to see the partial. A few months later, she rejected the novel because—it was “too paranormal” for her!
Do you have any provocative or puzzling tales from the rejection trenches?
Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)
Very early in my attempt at a writing career, I mailed a follow-up query about a story I’d sent to a small magazine and got a reply to the effect of, “all unsolicited manuscripts have been returned.” What the heck did that mean? All the submissions were so inferior they were rejected in disgust? The magazine was overstocked and therefore automatically returned all manuscripts? They were currently closed?
My two most baffling rejections came from agents. When first trying to sell my werewolf novel SHADOW OF THE BEAST, I sent the prologue and synopsis to an agent who then requested the full manuscript. She eventually rejected the novel on the grounds that a book should begin with something “important” happening. I thought, “Good grief, it starts with both of the heroine’s siblings being killed by a feral animal!” I later realized I’d made a newbie mistake in not including the prologue because the agent already had it. By the time she got the rest of the book, she must have forgotten all about the prologue and thought the story started with the heroine catching a bus to work.
My other most peculiar (and exasperating) agent rejection followed an appointment at the 2000 RWA con. I’d pitched a vampire romance and made it perfectly clear that paranormal romance was the only kind I wanted to write. The agent asked to see the partial. A few months later, she rejected the novel because—it was “too paranormal” for her!
Do you have any provocative or puzzling tales from the rejection trenches?
Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Urban Fantasy Job Hunting
The May 2009 issue of LOCUS, the newspaper of science fiction and fantasy, now (since it was sold to a professional publisher,) billed as "The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field," is devoted to Urban Fantasy.
http://www.locusmag.com/ is their online site.
I've written here before about the shift in popularity away from SF and toward Fantasy, which is allowing the development of the Paranormal Romance and SF Romance field. So, in the context of the release of the new Star Trek movie, let's talk a little about what Romance readers can expect and what writers can provide for them.
This is an exercise in worldbuilding by using a "connect the dots" technique on what we often term "the real world."
So here are some dots.
I've started to get the copies of Business Week that I was forced to spend airline miles on. The first issue is the May 11, 2009 issue. Putting Locus together with Business Week (and later with a NEWSWEEK article on Star Trek we'll get to later) started my mind percolating.
So let's think about choosing your background for your story in such a way that it excites readers, gets their minds percolating in a pleasurable way. That's what SF does -- makes you think, shows you how to think but not what to think.
You want to create a background that makes your reader anticipate a good read, an experience "just like" the latest book they loved, but different, unique and especially yours. You want your readers to memorize your byline and search the world for MORE of your stuff.
To do that, you have to pull thousands of little details together, details lurking in the background, or just off the edge of your potential reader's peripheral vision.
How do you do that? You read eclectically, often in a way that appears to your family, randomly! You collect a mental store of trivia others have never heard of.
If wide reading on many subjects repells you, you probably aren't going to be a fiction writer (maybe non-fiction in one field?) If trivia doesn't grip you, then you probably should look for another line of work. But assuming you think you have a few novels in you, think about two nearly mutually exclusive sources such as Business Week and Locus in one breath, then think BACKGROUND, and even "backstory."
Or if you're into film writing, think SET PIECE. And SETTING.
How does a writer cradle a ho-hum-yawn-not-again plotted Romance in a background that makes that old story new again?
You must do that because there really aren't that many stories, or or plots, or that many Romances either.
What hooks readers is how these particular, very individualistic characters adjust themselves to the harsh world they must live in, and still manage to nurture deep, rich and intimate Relationships.
Writers seem to be born with characters yelling in their heads, "TELL MY STORY NEXT!" I've seen 4 year olds do it with blunt crayons! Characters are often innate traits of writers. (there are exceptions; Hal Clement was one such. The hero of his novels was always the World and the Science. The characters just investigated and learned how the science works.)
But backgrounds, now there is where writers can get wildly creative if they have a big enough store of trivia.
Note how the 4 year old with blunt crayons always chooses a background they know.
As an adult, you need to tell your story against a background you know, too, but it does not (and perhaps even should not) have to be some place you have been, or are familiar with, such as the Trek Universe worked over so well by fan writers (like me and my Kraith Universe ( http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/ )).
Or it can be someplace you just make up or imagine as the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, imagined his Galaxy.
Or that place you imagine can be right here on earth, a place a lot of people (even your potential readers) have been or seen on TV ( 90210 for example).
In my August 2009 review column (which will likely be posted to the web for free reading in September 2009) I reviewed an international intrigue thriller that's likely to be a movie soon titled THE INCREMENT.
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/ (scroll down to August and you'll see the book cover -- that's where the review links will be).
THE INCREMENT
Or see my review here:
http://www.amazon.com/Increment-Novel-David-Ignatius/product-reviews/0393065049/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_3?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=3
The author of THE INCREMENT, David Ignatius, says in his comments that though the book is partly set in Iran, and though he's actually been there, THIS IRAN is totally imaginary. He didn't say it was an alternate-reality fantasy world, likely because the marketing department would scream "LIMITING THE AUDIENCE" -- but that's actually what this book is and does.
Yet the new Star Trek movie is billed as "alternate universe" to the one we originally saw on TV and its successors, just as Kraith is an "alternate universe" to ST:TOS.
So that means THE INCREMENT is an URBAN FANTASY marketed as a contemporary international intrigue thriller and it even has some intricate relationships, though I wouldn't call it a Romance. A little re-writing and it could easily have been a Romance!
But it's being marketed at the top of the marketing pyramid with lots of publicity money behind it -- likely because it's not being marketed as what it really is, an Urban Fantasy!
OK, so how would a Paranormal Romance Writer follow in David Ignatius's illustrious footsteps? Of course if I really knew for sure, I'd have done that by now! But let's think about how it might be done.
START WITH TWO STEPS AND CONNECT THE DOTS:
1. Note via Locus that "Urban Fantasy" has begun to surface in a big way. I've been talking about BUFFY and other TV shows like REAPER and SUPERNATURAL (see my blog post here http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/04/puzzle-of-romance.html ) and the DRESDEN FILES (which I reviewed another novel from in the forthcoming October Issue -- you can see all my 2009 picks at http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/ ) and Locus is surveying a whole lot more. It's a trend.
2. NOTE via Business Week that the general media is now admitting but dancing around something SF writers have talked about since at least the 1950's -- probably much earlier but I haven't time to research it. I'll tell you about it below.
THEN REMEMBER my column here last week
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/writing-tips-tweets.html
where I talked about an emerging trend of using Tech to solve problems created by Tech.
Now, #2 above -- the BUSINESS WEEK headline on the cover, lower left corner, said THE U.S. HAS 3 MILLION JOB OPENINGS; "Why that may NOT be good news for the economy."
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130040117561.htm
QUOTES FROM BUSINESS WEEK
-------------------
"...with 13 million people unemployed, there are approximately 3 million jobs that employers are actively recruiting for but so far have been unable to fill. ... People thrown out of shrinking sectors such as construction, finance, and retail lack the skills and training for openings in growing fields including education, accounting, health care, and government."
...
"The U. S. economy has changed dramatically over the past couple of years-- faster, it seems than the workforce can adapt. The evidence is clear in an underappreciated report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics known as JOLTS, for Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey, which has been issued monthly since December 2000."
--------------------------
Now doesn't that depict a "harsh" world for characters to find meaningful relationships in?
All right, so let's hunt up some more dots to connect into this picture.
I often hear Bernanke's testimony before congress as I'm cooking because I have a TV I can see from the kitchen. I've heard him and Greenspan talking about retraining people for the new jobs of the 21st century -- and that all America has to do is pour money into community colleges to retrain our workforce.
I think it's a good thing that Obama's "stimulus" allocates money for community college retraining of adults project. Obama made a speech on retraining the workforce on Friday May 8, 2009. That WILL work for a lot of people and save families and lives and children's futures, not to mention the whole USA economy. It's a good thing, and something we need to do at any cost.
BUT.
And it's a great big but.
Read the article titled HELP WANTED in the May 11, 2009 issue of Business Week http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130040117561.htm
Now think real hard. What is actually going on in this turbulent and bewildering shift in employment. Remember how I talked about the wireless connection for digital picture frames last week
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/writing-tips-tweets.html
Another trend, solving tech problems by ladling on more tech. But the picture frames solve the problem of the anti-tech grandma you want to show your children to.
The "smart" gadget, smart machine trend tells you something. Replacing computers, you have a smart-phone with a camera and web access. They put chips in cars now -- you almost hardly have to drive them anymore! Corner too fast, it levels out. Get too close to a bumper, the chip stops the car (OK, I can't afford such a high end car, but my first response is I don't want that! I want to be in control of my vehicle! So maybe I'm becoming anti-tech.)
But it's a trend. Smart machines, not monstrous computers you have to be a genius to keep running!
What is going on here?
Our society has hit some kind of limit that Congress and the Fed and others "in charge" either don't recognize or can't admit exists for political reasons.
Dig back into your pile of trivia stored in your mind. Do you remember why 100 is the AVERAGE IQ?
OK, IQ tests are rigged to reward people of a certain cultural background, but all that aside, the IQ test is supposed to measure not what you know but how fast you can learn. They've been tweaking the test to eliminate racial bias and so on; it's probably still not very good, but it's good for statistics.
Always remember statistics can tell you very accurately how large populations behave, but DO NOT WORK IN REVERSE. They can't tell you a thing about any given individual in that population! The math isn't designed to work in reverse!
But IQ tests when aggregated can tell you about the characteristics of millions of people, and predict the behavior of that population with high accuracy.
100 is the average because about half the people in the world score below 100 while half score above.
Scroll back and read what I said above about WRITERS. We're eclectic readers and collectors of vast piles of trivia. Why? Not because we're a whole lot smarter (IQ wise) than others, but because we get a pleasure hit out of "dabbling" in anything and everything. We're attracted to what we don't know.
It's more an attitude or character trait than a measure of learning ability, but as a group we tend to maximize whatever natural learning ability we might have. We perform at possibly over 90% of our personal potential for learning, while MOST people are lucky to use half what they were born with.
Marion Zimmer Bradley often said anyone who can write a literate sentence can learn to write fiction. So I'm not saying writers, per se, are extra-high intelligence (thought some, like Isaac Asimov, are/were). But writers are good at finding patterns in trivia! (I can't now recall if I talked about pattern recognition in this aliendjinnromance blog or in my review column, but some of you will remember that discussion.)
So here's a pattern from the dots.
Long ago, SF writers started depicting a future civilization when half or more of the people lived on the public dole (welfare).
Why?
In some novels it was because it really didn't take so many people to run the world, produce food, clothing, shelter, entertainment and luxuries for everyone. Machines (maybe robots) did most of the work, and the rest of us loafed. ( PBS NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT has done a week's worth of segments on household robots being developed in Japan that do laundry, dishes, & cleaning! By 2020 they'll be on the market.)
In other novels, the world was depicted pretty close to what I'm seeing in this Business Week article -- and possibly also in the Locus issue.
Business Week is saying essentially that though we have massive excess "workers" employers simply CAN'T fill jobs.
Greenspan and Bernanke (and now Obama) are always talking about solving that problem by simply retraining the work force. But employers have found that's getting to be less and less possible.
According to Business Week, retraining older workers has worked pretty well in Germany where the government provides a part of a new worker's salary for the first year so the employer can "retrain" them to what they need. But employers in Germany are quoted as pointing out that they need that government assistance because "you never know what'll happen" when you hire "someone."
That might be a way of saying without saying the extremely politically incorrect observation I'm making. (controversial or "edgy" premises sell large numbers of books!)
As tech progresses, it takes a higher and higher IQ to be able to learn the jobs needed to produce the dumbed-down tech like wireless picture frames.
The jobs that are being produced that really pay well are jobs that require an IQ above 100 to learn even if not to do on a day to day basis. Maybe in 10 years, that'll be 110 to learn and 105 to do daily.
Our workforce lacks the intelligence to be able to do the jobs we need done.
That's not a property of our culture or civilization or society. It's a property of the human brain -- but as I've pointed out in a previous blog post here, the human brain is mutable. As long as you keep requiring it to adapt, it will keep adapting. In older people, that adaptability wanes, but pushed hard you can get some adaptation. But not enough to make an IQ 98 person at age 12 into an IQ 105 person at age 55.
The jobs we need done require higher IQ than average to learn, and by definition you can't have more than half the people above average! (In SF though, you might be able to raise that average, which was done so many times in SF novels in the 1950's it became an unpublishable cliche.)
SF has been predicting, graphically, for decades, that our jobs outstrip out IQ, and our civilization could crash because of it.
But note, Grandma who needs a wireless digital picture frame isn't dumb, stupid, or low-I.Q.
She may have been a Bank VP or a factory manager, or even a science reporter (though these days that's not likely as women of that generation were barred from such professional success). But she may have been VERY smart. Only now she just can't learn to maintain a PC and plug a picture frame into its USB port and download her own photos.
Grandma may flinch visibly when someone says USB PORT. Thirty years ago she'd have had no trouble learning it.
There's your big problem. As you age, your original IQ trends downward. The older you are, the harder it becomes to learn, especially if you haven't been learning steadily in between. Routine jobs erode the ability to learn new things.
These wireless frames are hot sellers because they're EASY and both the younger people who are busy and older people who prefer to avoid learning -- and those who really can't learn -- love the whole concept. Hence they are best sellers, must have household tech.
Tech is making the world easier to live in but harder to create.
And so the threshold IQ level for being able to hold a job that's worth a living wage is going up and up. Soon, anyone with an IQ below 115 won't be worth anything in the labor market. Robots will do yard work, repave roads, build skyscrapers, all run from nice cool offices by Suits wearing diamond watches -- or diamond studded Bluetooth ear piece.
Now look at Urban Fantasy. Contrast that with old fashioned SF.
Actually, my September to December review columns are basically about just this subject -- SF and Urban Fantasy.
The way you tell if a story is Science Fiction or not is: "If you can leave out the Science and still have a story, it's not SF to begin with."
SF is waning in sales volumes of titles, really falling off the charts while Fantasy is booming.
What's the difference? They both tell the same STORY. Like I said above, same old ho-hum romance, different setting, goshwow story!
The difference between urban fantasy and sf is the science.
Today's science is much HARDER (required IQ to decipher concepts) than the science of the 1930's and 1940's. It didn't take as high an IQ to comprehend a scientific explanation then as it does now.
Science itself has become unpopular. What's "popular"? More than half the population likes it and wants it.
Now our science -- the exciting, cutting edge, speculative, goshwow science -- is comprehensible only to people with an IQ well above 100, which means to less than half the population.
We may have passed that halfway point sometime in the 1990's as the tech bubble inflated -- some day someone will make a graph and we'll see an inflection point.
Urban Fantasy heroes have to be brave, perhaps have integrity or grit or a streak of pure evil -- but they don't have to be smart. Even the geeks who run computer searches don't have to be smart. Hacking is not a trade for the high I.Q. people either -- you buy or steal your "hacking tools" which are programs someone with a high IQ makes and sells to hackers.
Urban Fantasy is about the potential achievements of ORDINARY PEOPLE -- people with an IQ of about 100 -- the average reader, maybe 105. These stories show how average-joe can achieve GREAT THINGS, (power, popularity, save the world, defend mankind from evil -- easy things to understand).
Science Fiction -- to have any modern science in it at all -- has to be about really REALLY smart people. The kind of people the average reader can't identify with. It's no fun to be out-classed, or to be shown a destiny you want but can't have because you're not smart enough even to understand the dumbed-down exposition in an SF novel.
In the old days, SF didn't have to be about such geniuses.
Here's another dot for our pattern. NEWSWEEK May 4, 2009, published a Star Trek article titled WE'RE ALL TREKKIES NOW. I commented on it online, and posted a link to my comment and got a whole bunch of new twitter followers! Here's the NEWSWEEK LINKS:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195082 -- We're All Trekkies Now
My comment is labeled as posted
Posted By: JacquelineLichtenberg @ 05/08/2009 2:08:06 PM
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/popvox/archive/2009/05/07/round-up-of-newsweek-s-trek-coverage.aspx -- list of Star Trek coverage in NEWSWEEK, lots of stories.
The thesis of this Newsweek article (ignore the politics; that's just NEWSWEEK) is one that I totally agree with, and that's an important dot to this pattern. STAR TREK depicted humanity as capable of taking on the universe and prevailing. STAR TREK showed humanity as having outgrown war and embracing new contact with the unknown -- going where no one has gone before.
In the decades since ST:TOS, SF has been eclipsed by fantasy universes (on TV, in film, and in books) where humanity is depicted as threatened (in serious danger of being destroyed) by the Unknown -- and possibly unknowable. What I've called in this blog a picture of reality as a thin film over a seething cauldron of evil.
The self-perception (at least in America) has become one of being overwhelmed by a universe inimical to our existence.
So the problem employers are having filling jobs today reflects the general public's taste in entertainment. People are overwhelmed. By tech. By war. By government conspiracy or at least secrecy and incompetence. And now by the housing bubble bursting. Overwhelmed by evil is the same as overwhelmed by something that can kill you, destroy what you've accomplished in life (take away your pension).
Now do you see the technique? Deconstruct or reverse-engineer our everyday world into dots, then reconnect the dots into a DIFFERENT pattern. That will, if you use the genre structures we've discussed, give you that effect Hollywood is always looking for (and Manhattan lusts after), "The Same But Different."
To summarize, here are the dots for today's exercise:
1) URBAN FANTASY in Locus and Alternate Universe such as THE INCREMENT and STAR TREK
2) BUSINESS WEEK - 3 million jobs open with 13 million unemployed and Obama's solution is to "retrain" the workforce. (your characters are in retraining or teaching re-trainees).
3) NEWSWEEK - We're All Trekkies Now. Geeks have inherited the Earth and the White House. The Star Trek spirit of seeing an upbeat future awakens again -- or does it?
4) The popular theme of being overwhelmed (or almost overwhelmed) or needing protection from Evil that seethes beneath the surface of everyday life. Will that theme give way to Star Trek's HOPE theme, and if it does, what turbulence will disrupt romance?
5) Not mentioned here, but there's a trend of 30 and 40+ year old women FINALLY beginning to have children that might be relevant to building your SF Romance world.
So now re-connect the dots and do a little original worldbuilding.
Take your readers' awareness of the general IQ frustration (just think of the last time your computer made you feel helpless and you've got the emotion) as the background you're cradling your romance (or whatever genre; this process works for all genres) in, and tell a whopping good story about how IQ itself is a major stumbling block in intimacy in relationships.
You may generate more obstacles for your plot by creating characters to represent the various sides of the philosophical argument on the true nature of Humanity, and therein will lie your THEME.
Are humans like lemmings, carrying the seeds of their destruction within them (i.e. creating tech so "high" that we can't produce workers to maintain it but we become dependent on it for lack of basic grunt-work skills (spinning, weaving, farming, shepherding, metal working)? Or are humans infinitely adaptable, with brains that will re-circuit so that each generation's IQ 100 is actually HIGHER THAN the IQ 100 mark of the previous generation?
Is that what's happening already? It used to be parents had to get their kids to program the VCR. Now kids live online and text with their thumbs in coded words. Grown kids have to send pictures of their kids to their parents via dumbed-down-wireless-pictureframes. The parents won't twitter and the keener parents will just barely facebook but not myspace.
Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing are beyond today's 60 year olds.
The Web is the territory of the young (OK. I'm a misfit. So what else is new?)
How does the May/September Romance work out in a world with a generation gap like this? Will the Star Trek movie change anything?
You may, if you wish, post exercises on editingcircle.blogspot.com as comments for and get some input on how you do the exercise.
And remember, you don't have to AGREE with my analysis here - in fact it's better if you don't - in order to reconnect these dots into a new pattern and profit from the exercise. These dots could be a springboard into a hot Romance full of impossible things before breakfast.
Do you, as a writer, follow the trend -- or do you forge it?
And also remember, our objective in my last few posts here is to work the puzzle of how to get an SF Romance onto TV or into the movies to do for the genre what we have done (according to NEWSWEEK, anyway) for SF.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
http://www.locusmag.com/ is their online site.
I've written here before about the shift in popularity away from SF and toward Fantasy, which is allowing the development of the Paranormal Romance and SF Romance field. So, in the context of the release of the new Star Trek movie, let's talk a little about what Romance readers can expect and what writers can provide for them.
This is an exercise in worldbuilding by using a "connect the dots" technique on what we often term "the real world."
So here are some dots.
I've started to get the copies of Business Week that I was forced to spend airline miles on. The first issue is the May 11, 2009 issue. Putting Locus together with Business Week (and later with a NEWSWEEK article on Star Trek we'll get to later) started my mind percolating.
So let's think about choosing your background for your story in such a way that it excites readers, gets their minds percolating in a pleasurable way. That's what SF does -- makes you think, shows you how to think but not what to think.
You want to create a background that makes your reader anticipate a good read, an experience "just like" the latest book they loved, but different, unique and especially yours. You want your readers to memorize your byline and search the world for MORE of your stuff.
To do that, you have to pull thousands of little details together, details lurking in the background, or just off the edge of your potential reader's peripheral vision.
How do you do that? You read eclectically, often in a way that appears to your family, randomly! You collect a mental store of trivia others have never heard of.
If wide reading on many subjects repells you, you probably aren't going to be a fiction writer (maybe non-fiction in one field?) If trivia doesn't grip you, then you probably should look for another line of work. But assuming you think you have a few novels in you, think about two nearly mutually exclusive sources such as Business Week and Locus in one breath, then think BACKGROUND, and even "backstory."
Or if you're into film writing, think SET PIECE. And SETTING.
How does a writer cradle a ho-hum-yawn-not-again plotted Romance in a background that makes that old story new again?
You must do that because there really aren't that many stories, or or plots, or that many Romances either.
What hooks readers is how these particular, very individualistic characters adjust themselves to the harsh world they must live in, and still manage to nurture deep, rich and intimate Relationships.
Writers seem to be born with characters yelling in their heads, "TELL MY STORY NEXT!" I've seen 4 year olds do it with blunt crayons! Characters are often innate traits of writers. (there are exceptions; Hal Clement was one such. The hero of his novels was always the World and the Science. The characters just investigated and learned how the science works.)
But backgrounds, now there is where writers can get wildly creative if they have a big enough store of trivia.
Note how the 4 year old with blunt crayons always chooses a background they know.
As an adult, you need to tell your story against a background you know, too, but it does not (and perhaps even should not) have to be some place you have been, or are familiar with, such as the Trek Universe worked over so well by fan writers (like me and my Kraith Universe ( http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/ )).
Or it can be someplace you just make up or imagine as the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, imagined his Galaxy.
Or that place you imagine can be right here on earth, a place a lot of people (even your potential readers) have been or seen on TV ( 90210 for example).
In my August 2009 review column (which will likely be posted to the web for free reading in September 2009) I reviewed an international intrigue thriller that's likely to be a movie soon titled THE INCREMENT.
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/ (scroll down to August and you'll see the book cover -- that's where the review links will be).
THE INCREMENT
Or see my review here:
http://www.amazon.com/Increment-Novel-David-Ignatius/product-reviews/0393065049/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_3?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=3
The author of THE INCREMENT, David Ignatius, says in his comments that though the book is partly set in Iran, and though he's actually been there, THIS IRAN is totally imaginary. He didn't say it was an alternate-reality fantasy world, likely because the marketing department would scream "LIMITING THE AUDIENCE" -- but that's actually what this book is and does.
Yet the new Star Trek movie is billed as "alternate universe" to the one we originally saw on TV and its successors, just as Kraith is an "alternate universe" to ST:TOS.
So that means THE INCREMENT is an URBAN FANTASY marketed as a contemporary international intrigue thriller and it even has some intricate relationships, though I wouldn't call it a Romance. A little re-writing and it could easily have been a Romance!
But it's being marketed at the top of the marketing pyramid with lots of publicity money behind it -- likely because it's not being marketed as what it really is, an Urban Fantasy!
OK, so how would a Paranormal Romance Writer follow in David Ignatius's illustrious footsteps? Of course if I really knew for sure, I'd have done that by now! But let's think about how it might be done.
START WITH TWO STEPS AND CONNECT THE DOTS:
1. Note via Locus that "Urban Fantasy" has begun to surface in a big way. I've been talking about BUFFY and other TV shows like REAPER and SUPERNATURAL (see my blog post here http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/04/puzzle-of-romance.html ) and the DRESDEN FILES (which I reviewed another novel from in the forthcoming October Issue -- you can see all my 2009 picks at http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/ ) and Locus is surveying a whole lot more. It's a trend.
2. NOTE via Business Week that the general media is now admitting but dancing around something SF writers have talked about since at least the 1950's -- probably much earlier but I haven't time to research it. I'll tell you about it below.
THEN REMEMBER my column here last week
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/writing-tips-tweets.html
where I talked about an emerging trend of using Tech to solve problems created by Tech.
Now, #2 above -- the BUSINESS WEEK headline on the cover, lower left corner, said THE U.S. HAS 3 MILLION JOB OPENINGS; "Why that may NOT be good news for the economy."
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130040117561.htm
QUOTES FROM BUSINESS WEEK
-------------------
"...with 13 million people unemployed, there are approximately 3 million jobs that employers are actively recruiting for but so far have been unable to fill. ... People thrown out of shrinking sectors such as construction, finance, and retail lack the skills and training for openings in growing fields including education, accounting, health care, and government."
...
"The U. S. economy has changed dramatically over the past couple of years-- faster, it seems than the workforce can adapt. The evidence is clear in an underappreciated report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics known as JOLTS, for Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey, which has been issued monthly since December 2000."
--------------------------
Now doesn't that depict a "harsh" world for characters to find meaningful relationships in?
All right, so let's hunt up some more dots to connect into this picture.
I often hear Bernanke's testimony before congress as I'm cooking because I have a TV I can see from the kitchen. I've heard him and Greenspan talking about retraining people for the new jobs of the 21st century -- and that all America has to do is pour money into community colleges to retrain our workforce.
I think it's a good thing that Obama's "stimulus" allocates money for community college retraining of adults project. Obama made a speech on retraining the workforce on Friday May 8, 2009. That WILL work for a lot of people and save families and lives and children's futures, not to mention the whole USA economy. It's a good thing, and something we need to do at any cost.
BUT.
And it's a great big but.
Read the article titled HELP WANTED in the May 11, 2009 issue of Business Week http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130040117561.htm
Now think real hard. What is actually going on in this turbulent and bewildering shift in employment. Remember how I talked about the wireless connection for digital picture frames last week
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/writing-tips-tweets.html
Another trend, solving tech problems by ladling on more tech. But the picture frames solve the problem of the anti-tech grandma you want to show your children to.
The "smart" gadget, smart machine trend tells you something. Replacing computers, you have a smart-phone with a camera and web access. They put chips in cars now -- you almost hardly have to drive them anymore! Corner too fast, it levels out. Get too close to a bumper, the chip stops the car (OK, I can't afford such a high end car, but my first response is I don't want that! I want to be in control of my vehicle! So maybe I'm becoming anti-tech.)
But it's a trend. Smart machines, not monstrous computers you have to be a genius to keep running!
What is going on here?
Our society has hit some kind of limit that Congress and the Fed and others "in charge" either don't recognize or can't admit exists for political reasons.
Dig back into your pile of trivia stored in your mind. Do you remember why 100 is the AVERAGE IQ?
OK, IQ tests are rigged to reward people of a certain cultural background, but all that aside, the IQ test is supposed to measure not what you know but how fast you can learn. They've been tweaking the test to eliminate racial bias and so on; it's probably still not very good, but it's good for statistics.
Always remember statistics can tell you very accurately how large populations behave, but DO NOT WORK IN REVERSE. They can't tell you a thing about any given individual in that population! The math isn't designed to work in reverse!
But IQ tests when aggregated can tell you about the characteristics of millions of people, and predict the behavior of that population with high accuracy.
100 is the average because about half the people in the world score below 100 while half score above.
Scroll back and read what I said above about WRITERS. We're eclectic readers and collectors of vast piles of trivia. Why? Not because we're a whole lot smarter (IQ wise) than others, but because we get a pleasure hit out of "dabbling" in anything and everything. We're attracted to what we don't know.
It's more an attitude or character trait than a measure of learning ability, but as a group we tend to maximize whatever natural learning ability we might have. We perform at possibly over 90% of our personal potential for learning, while MOST people are lucky to use half what they were born with.
Marion Zimmer Bradley often said anyone who can write a literate sentence can learn to write fiction. So I'm not saying writers, per se, are extra-high intelligence (thought some, like Isaac Asimov, are/were). But writers are good at finding patterns in trivia! (I can't now recall if I talked about pattern recognition in this aliendjinnromance blog or in my review column, but some of you will remember that discussion.)
So here's a pattern from the dots.
Long ago, SF writers started depicting a future civilization when half or more of the people lived on the public dole (welfare).
Why?
In some novels it was because it really didn't take so many people to run the world, produce food, clothing, shelter, entertainment and luxuries for everyone. Machines (maybe robots) did most of the work, and the rest of us loafed. ( PBS NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT has done a week's worth of segments on household robots being developed in Japan that do laundry, dishes, & cleaning! By 2020 they'll be on the market.)
In other novels, the world was depicted pretty close to what I'm seeing in this Business Week article -- and possibly also in the Locus issue.
Business Week is saying essentially that though we have massive excess "workers" employers simply CAN'T fill jobs.
Greenspan and Bernanke (and now Obama) are always talking about solving that problem by simply retraining the work force. But employers have found that's getting to be less and less possible.
According to Business Week, retraining older workers has worked pretty well in Germany where the government provides a part of a new worker's salary for the first year so the employer can "retrain" them to what they need. But employers in Germany are quoted as pointing out that they need that government assistance because "you never know what'll happen" when you hire "someone."
That might be a way of saying without saying the extremely politically incorrect observation I'm making. (controversial or "edgy" premises sell large numbers of books!)
As tech progresses, it takes a higher and higher IQ to be able to learn the jobs needed to produce the dumbed-down tech like wireless picture frames.
The jobs that are being produced that really pay well are jobs that require an IQ above 100 to learn even if not to do on a day to day basis. Maybe in 10 years, that'll be 110 to learn and 105 to do daily.
Our workforce lacks the intelligence to be able to do the jobs we need done.
That's not a property of our culture or civilization or society. It's a property of the human brain -- but as I've pointed out in a previous blog post here, the human brain is mutable. As long as you keep requiring it to adapt, it will keep adapting. In older people, that adaptability wanes, but pushed hard you can get some adaptation. But not enough to make an IQ 98 person at age 12 into an IQ 105 person at age 55.
The jobs we need done require higher IQ than average to learn, and by definition you can't have more than half the people above average! (In SF though, you might be able to raise that average, which was done so many times in SF novels in the 1950's it became an unpublishable cliche.)
SF has been predicting, graphically, for decades, that our jobs outstrip out IQ, and our civilization could crash because of it.
But note, Grandma who needs a wireless digital picture frame isn't dumb, stupid, or low-I.Q.
She may have been a Bank VP or a factory manager, or even a science reporter (though these days that's not likely as women of that generation were barred from such professional success). But she may have been VERY smart. Only now she just can't learn to maintain a PC and plug a picture frame into its USB port and download her own photos.
Grandma may flinch visibly when someone says USB PORT. Thirty years ago she'd have had no trouble learning it.
There's your big problem. As you age, your original IQ trends downward. The older you are, the harder it becomes to learn, especially if you haven't been learning steadily in between. Routine jobs erode the ability to learn new things.
These wireless frames are hot sellers because they're EASY and both the younger people who are busy and older people who prefer to avoid learning -- and those who really can't learn -- love the whole concept. Hence they are best sellers, must have household tech.
Tech is making the world easier to live in but harder to create.
And so the threshold IQ level for being able to hold a job that's worth a living wage is going up and up. Soon, anyone with an IQ below 115 won't be worth anything in the labor market. Robots will do yard work, repave roads, build skyscrapers, all run from nice cool offices by Suits wearing diamond watches -- or diamond studded Bluetooth ear piece.
Now look at Urban Fantasy. Contrast that with old fashioned SF.
Actually, my September to December review columns are basically about just this subject -- SF and Urban Fantasy.
The way you tell if a story is Science Fiction or not is: "If you can leave out the Science and still have a story, it's not SF to begin with."
SF is waning in sales volumes of titles, really falling off the charts while Fantasy is booming.
What's the difference? They both tell the same STORY. Like I said above, same old ho-hum romance, different setting, goshwow story!
The difference between urban fantasy and sf is the science.
Today's science is much HARDER (required IQ to decipher concepts) than the science of the 1930's and 1940's. It didn't take as high an IQ to comprehend a scientific explanation then as it does now.
Science itself has become unpopular. What's "popular"? More than half the population likes it and wants it.
Now our science -- the exciting, cutting edge, speculative, goshwow science -- is comprehensible only to people with an IQ well above 100, which means to less than half the population.
We may have passed that halfway point sometime in the 1990's as the tech bubble inflated -- some day someone will make a graph and we'll see an inflection point.
Urban Fantasy heroes have to be brave, perhaps have integrity or grit or a streak of pure evil -- but they don't have to be smart. Even the geeks who run computer searches don't have to be smart. Hacking is not a trade for the high I.Q. people either -- you buy or steal your "hacking tools" which are programs someone with a high IQ makes and sells to hackers.
Urban Fantasy is about the potential achievements of ORDINARY PEOPLE -- people with an IQ of about 100 -- the average reader, maybe 105. These stories show how average-joe can achieve GREAT THINGS, (power, popularity, save the world, defend mankind from evil -- easy things to understand).
Science Fiction -- to have any modern science in it at all -- has to be about really REALLY smart people. The kind of people the average reader can't identify with. It's no fun to be out-classed, or to be shown a destiny you want but can't have because you're not smart enough even to understand the dumbed-down exposition in an SF novel.
In the old days, SF didn't have to be about such geniuses.
Here's another dot for our pattern. NEWSWEEK May 4, 2009, published a Star Trek article titled WE'RE ALL TREKKIES NOW. I commented on it online, and posted a link to my comment and got a whole bunch of new twitter followers! Here's the NEWSWEEK LINKS:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195082 -- We're All Trekkies Now
My comment is labeled as posted
Posted By: JacquelineLichtenberg @ 05/08/2009 2:08:06 PM
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/popvox/archive/2009/05/07/round-up-of-newsweek-s-trek-coverage.aspx -- list of Star Trek coverage in NEWSWEEK, lots of stories.
The thesis of this Newsweek article (ignore the politics; that's just NEWSWEEK) is one that I totally agree with, and that's an important dot to this pattern. STAR TREK depicted humanity as capable of taking on the universe and prevailing. STAR TREK showed humanity as having outgrown war and embracing new contact with the unknown -- going where no one has gone before.
In the decades since ST:TOS, SF has been eclipsed by fantasy universes (on TV, in film, and in books) where humanity is depicted as threatened (in serious danger of being destroyed) by the Unknown -- and possibly unknowable. What I've called in this blog a picture of reality as a thin film over a seething cauldron of evil.
The self-perception (at least in America) has become one of being overwhelmed by a universe inimical to our existence.
So the problem employers are having filling jobs today reflects the general public's taste in entertainment. People are overwhelmed. By tech. By war. By government conspiracy or at least secrecy and incompetence. And now by the housing bubble bursting. Overwhelmed by evil is the same as overwhelmed by something that can kill you, destroy what you've accomplished in life (take away your pension).
Now do you see the technique? Deconstruct or reverse-engineer our everyday world into dots, then reconnect the dots into a DIFFERENT pattern. That will, if you use the genre structures we've discussed, give you that effect Hollywood is always looking for (and Manhattan lusts after), "The Same But Different."
To summarize, here are the dots for today's exercise:
1) URBAN FANTASY in Locus and Alternate Universe such as THE INCREMENT and STAR TREK
2) BUSINESS WEEK - 3 million jobs open with 13 million unemployed and Obama's solution is to "retrain" the workforce. (your characters are in retraining or teaching re-trainees).
3) NEWSWEEK - We're All Trekkies Now. Geeks have inherited the Earth and the White House. The Star Trek spirit of seeing an upbeat future awakens again -- or does it?
4) The popular theme of being overwhelmed (or almost overwhelmed) or needing protection from Evil that seethes beneath the surface of everyday life. Will that theme give way to Star Trek's HOPE theme, and if it does, what turbulence will disrupt romance?
5) Not mentioned here, but there's a trend of 30 and 40+ year old women FINALLY beginning to have children that might be relevant to building your SF Romance world.
So now re-connect the dots and do a little original worldbuilding.
Take your readers' awareness of the general IQ frustration (just think of the last time your computer made you feel helpless and you've got the emotion) as the background you're cradling your romance (or whatever genre; this process works for all genres) in, and tell a whopping good story about how IQ itself is a major stumbling block in intimacy in relationships.
You may generate more obstacles for your plot by creating characters to represent the various sides of the philosophical argument on the true nature of Humanity, and therein will lie your THEME.
Are humans like lemmings, carrying the seeds of their destruction within them (i.e. creating tech so "high" that we can't produce workers to maintain it but we become dependent on it for lack of basic grunt-work skills (spinning, weaving, farming, shepherding, metal working)? Or are humans infinitely adaptable, with brains that will re-circuit so that each generation's IQ 100 is actually HIGHER THAN the IQ 100 mark of the previous generation?
Is that what's happening already? It used to be parents had to get their kids to program the VCR. Now kids live online and text with their thumbs in coded words. Grown kids have to send pictures of their kids to their parents via dumbed-down-wireless-pictureframes. The parents won't twitter and the keener parents will just barely facebook but not myspace.
Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing are beyond today's 60 year olds.
The Web is the territory of the young (OK. I'm a misfit. So what else is new?)
How does the May/September Romance work out in a world with a generation gap like this? Will the Star Trek movie change anything?
You may, if you wish, post exercises on editingcircle.blogspot.com as comments for and get some input on how you do the exercise.
And remember, you don't have to AGREE with my analysis here - in fact it's better if you don't - in order to reconnect these dots into a new pattern and profit from the exercise. These dots could be a springboard into a hot Romance full of impossible things before breakfast.
Do you, as a writer, follow the trend -- or do you forge it?
And also remember, our objective in my last few posts here is to work the puzzle of how to get an SF Romance onto TV or into the movies to do for the genre what we have done (according to NEWSWEEK, anyway) for SF.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Monday, May 11, 2009
How Much is Too Much (World Buliding & Balance)?
Since I'm essentially brain dead after completing a twenty-five+ page "author questionnaire" for Random House (and it could have gone more than twenty-five pages...I just gave up out of exhaustion)... I'm going to piggyback a post that's going on today at The Galaxy Express about world building, or as Heather delightfully puts it: The 7 Unnecessary Science Fiction Worldbuilding Details.
But Heather neatly broke down those things that irk her and to a great extent, rightly so. There are certain 'givens' in genre fiction. The trouble to me come when you're dealing with cross-genre fiction. How much does an author do to bring a new reader "up to speed?" What kind of assumptions can we make about our readers coming from two different camps?
Jacqueline's done some great posts on info dumping before:
But Heather neatly broke down those things that irk her and to a great extent, rightly so. There are certain 'givens' in genre fiction. The trouble to me come when you're dealing with cross-genre fiction. How much does an author do to bring a new reader "up to speed?" What kind of assumptions can we make about our readers coming from two different camps?Just to torture myself, I have a Google-search on my name that brings to my inbox daily a list of blogs that mention me. I've found some pretty neat reviews that way and met lots of new fans. But I've also read a number of "back fence" conversations by both SF and Romance readers who find huge fault with SFR--and usually for the opposite reason (or the other side of the same coin...bear with me, I'm really tired.)
The SF readers for the most part don't get the 'required HEA' in SFR and express distaste to displeasure on the amount of time spent on the romantic relationship. To them, going into the hero's or heroine's thoughts about the other is rather like noting that chairs are decklocked. That's something they simply don't want to know. Yet if it's left out, the romance readers riot.
The SF readers don't particularly care that much about things romance readers look for: descriptions of anything from clothing to the hero's apartment/cabin/house. Where to romance readers, setting can "set the mood" to SF readers, setting is...setting. 
On the other hand (are four fingers and a thumb...oh, wait, I'm blogging) I recently read an interesting post on Goodreads where a romance reader decried SFR for it's use of "futuristic names" (what's wrong with Jack, she asked?). I knew what she was getting at but I wondered if it wasn't more a stereotype than actual occurrence. My characters aren't named Jack but they are named Philip, Mack, Branden, Sully and Theo. For starters. I think the day of the main characters in SFR or futuristics being T'Kwee'gre'sha and Perr'k'ray-roo are long gone, if they ever were. But because "alien sounding names" are often used for worlds or items, I think there's a general belief that SFR is chock full of T'Kwee'gre'shas. (And by the way, as a Yank originally from New Jersey, names like Padraig, Siohban, Ceallach and Sinéad confuse the heck out of me and they're all names from right here on this planet.)
So the question becomes, how much is too much--to which part of your readership? What assumptions can you make about SFR readers? How do you keep one half entertained without insulting the other? Can we assume everyone knows what an airlock looks like and does? That's like assuming I know how to pronounce reticule, a word often found in historical romances. It's part of my history, I should know that, eh?
I don't. Even when I'm not totally tired. ~Linnea
HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, Feb. 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/
But, yeah, get shot by a Surger, and it still hurt like a bitch and could put you flat out dead if someone’s aim was good. Not center mass, as they were taught. That only worked on the good guys, but it wasn’t the good guys who needed shooting. It was the bad guys, and they were smart enough to wear body armor. Good luck getting a standard Surger to penetrate that.
Okay, maybe at point-blank.
But at point blank, the bad guys had already shot you dead with their nice powerful Carver-12s.
But, yeah, get shot by a Surger, and it still hurt like a bitch and could put you flat out dead if someone’s aim was good. Not center mass, as they were taught. That only worked on the good guys, but it wasn’t the good guys who needed shooting. It was the bad guys, and they were smart enough to wear body armor. Good luck getting a standard Surger to penetrate that.
Okay, maybe at point-blank.
But at point blank, the bad guys had already shot you dead with their nice powerful Carver-12s.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Desperately Seeking A Stopper
A few weeks ago Linnea Sinclair shared a fabulous post about mentoring. Well, I don't claim to mentor, but I will pinch hit on occasion.
This last week, Lillian Cauldwell and I have been fighting a dragonish problem… but we are not well matched as temporary critique partners.
I fly under false colours, writing scatological social and political satire disguised as futuristic romance aka alien romance (which is not set in the future). Lillian writes well researched psychic mystery stories for young adults, and her heroes and heroines are African-American and Hispanic teens who see ghosts and are transported back into history through time and space.
Lillian's work reminds me of Indiana Jones in junior high.
Our dragon's name is "The Stopper" and we can't crack it.
For those not familiar with "The Stopper" it's an escalated version of a hook or grabber, intended to stop an agent or editor from answering the phone while your pages are in their hands. Ideally, one would like to come up with a "stopper" that not only leads to a contract, but that goes viral when the book is released.
Emily Bryan achieved something of the sort for "Distracting The Duchess" (a historical romance) with "I'm going to have to shorten his willy." People who had no intention of buying the book were happy to tweet about the line.
From a GoodReads.com discussion of first lines, come some more examples of great stoppers:
“I don’t know how other guys feel about their wives leaving them but I helped mine pack.”
“I’ve been sleeping with your husband for the last two years."
“When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.” That's from Firebreak, by Donald Westlake.
If those examples represent the gold standard for stoppers, dross might be this year's Bulwer Lytton winners:
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm
For those who have never heard of it, the Bulwer-Lytton is an international literary parody contest, which honors the memory of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873).
Entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. … Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words …."It was a dark and stormy night."
Winner
Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."
Garrison Spik
Washington, D.C.
Dishonorable Mention (Children's Literature)
Joanne watched her fellow passengers - a wizened man reading about alchemy; an oversized bearded man-child; a haunted, bespectacled young man with a scar; and a gaggle of private school children who chatted ceaselessly about Latin and flying around the hockey pitch and the two-faced teacher who they thought was a witch - there was a story here, she decided.
Tim Ellis
Haslemere, U.K.
Runner Up (Children's Literature)
Dorothy had reasons to be nervous: a young girl alone in a strange land, traveling with three weird, insecure males badly in need of psychiatric help; she tucked her feet under her skirt to keep the night's chill (and lewd stares) away and made sure one more time that the gun was secured in her yet-to-develop bosom.
Domingo Pestano
Alto Prado, Caracas, Venezuela
Find more here: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm
Lillian Cauldwell is trying to find a stopper for her second novel in the Anna Mae mystery series, which is targeted at young readers from eight to eighteen. Anna Mae is a youngster with psychic powers which she has inherited from her grandmother, and ghosts from the past guide her to find ancient, buried treasures.
She would very much appreciate any reader's opinions on which of her drafted first lines comes closest to grabbing their interest. (I've deliberately not presented the five examples in any kind of order.)
6.
Missing: Black teenager, last seen asleep in bed, Anna Mae Botts is five foot three inches, weighs one hundred pounds, brown eyes, and a butterfly birthmark on back of left calf. If you have any information, please call the Lowry sheriff’s department at 604-983-8867.
7.
Anna Mae Botts struggled. Her heart thumped. She gripped the sheets. A boy opened a golden box and dissolved into ashes.
If something works, Lillian would like to know why. If readers can put their fingers on why one or more drafts veer off course, that, too, would be instructive.
Thank you, and Happy Mothers' Day.
Rowena Cherry
This last week, Lillian Cauldwell and I have been fighting a dragonish problem… but we are not well matched as temporary critique partners.
I fly under false colours, writing scatological social and political satire disguised as futuristic romance aka alien romance (which is not set in the future). Lillian writes well researched psychic mystery stories for young adults, and her heroes and heroines are African-American and Hispanic teens who see ghosts and are transported back into history through time and space.
Lillian's work reminds me of Indiana Jones in junior high.
Our dragon's name is "The Stopper" and we can't crack it.
For those not familiar with "The Stopper" it's an escalated version of a hook or grabber, intended to stop an agent or editor from answering the phone while your pages are in their hands. Ideally, one would like to come up with a "stopper" that not only leads to a contract, but that goes viral when the book is released.
Emily Bryan achieved something of the sort for "Distracting The Duchess" (a historical romance) with "I'm going to have to shorten his willy." People who had no intention of buying the book were happy to tweet about the line.
From a GoodReads.com discussion of first lines, come some more examples of great stoppers:
“I don’t know how other guys feel about their wives leaving them but I helped mine pack.”
“I’ve been sleeping with your husband for the last two years."
“When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.” That's from Firebreak, by Donald Westlake.
If those examples represent the gold standard for stoppers, dross might be this year's Bulwer Lytton winners:
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm
For those who have never heard of it, the Bulwer-Lytton is an international literary parody contest, which honors the memory of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873).
Entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. … Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words …."It was a dark and stormy night."
Winner
Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."
Garrison Spik
Washington, D.C.
Dishonorable Mention (Children's Literature)
Joanne watched her fellow passengers - a wizened man reading about alchemy; an oversized bearded man-child; a haunted, bespectacled young man with a scar; and a gaggle of private school children who chatted ceaselessly about Latin and flying around the hockey pitch and the two-faced teacher who they thought was a witch - there was a story here, she decided.
Tim Ellis
Haslemere, U.K.
Runner Up (Children's Literature)
Dorothy had reasons to be nervous: a young girl alone in a strange land, traveling with three weird, insecure males badly in need of psychiatric help; she tucked her feet under her skirt to keep the night's chill (and lewd stares) away and made sure one more time that the gun was secured in her yet-to-develop bosom.
Domingo Pestano
Alto Prado, Caracas, Venezuela
Find more here: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm
Lillian Cauldwell is trying to find a stopper for her second novel in the Anna Mae mystery series, which is targeted at young readers from eight to eighteen. Anna Mae is a youngster with psychic powers which she has inherited from her grandmother, and ghosts from the past guide her to find ancient, buried treasures.
She would very much appreciate any reader's opinions on which of her drafted first lines comes closest to grabbing their interest. (I've deliberately not presented the five examples in any kind of order.)
1.
Make love, not war Anna Mae Botts remembered from her dream-vision, but the AK 47 automatic rifle slung over Jonathan Selassie's shoulders said something entirely different. She awoke with a start.
2.
Carried by six teenagers, three girls dressed in white shorts, yellow tee shirts and flip flops; three boys dressed in the Atlanta Braves tee shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots, the Holy Relic gleamed in the mid day sun. Ahead of the procession a sixteen-year-old boy dressed in combat fatigues and slung over his left shoulder an AK47 rifle led the way. Behind them, a dust storm whirled and wiped out all traces of their prints.
3.
Twelve year old Anna Mae Botts awoke with a jerk. She tried grasping the sides of her mattress only to find herself bound with rope and her mouth stuffed with a cotton rag, Anna Mae wailed inside her mind. “Granma!”
4.
Twelve-year-old Anna Mae Botts struggled awake. Heaviness trapped at her limbs.
She willed her mind to break free of the oppressive smell of cinnamon and frankincense. The obnoxious odor blocked her mind and sent her spirit spinning into an opened black pit where a wooden rod became a snake rope and seven metal circular keys opened a rectangular gold box with angel wings outstretched on top and meeting in the middle.
5.
“I’m cold.”
We’d just stepped out from the Lowry Dollar Cinema. The sun bathed me with its heat. My tee shirt clung to my back. Yet, I shivered in the hot sun. Raul looked at me. A slight grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “It’s hottah than blazes out here. Yar always cold. Here!” He gave me a quick tight hug. “Bettah?”
6.
Missing: Black teenager, last seen asleep in bed, Anna Mae Botts is five foot three inches, weighs one hundred pounds, brown eyes, and a butterfly birthmark on back of left calf. If you have any information, please call the Lowry sheriff’s department at 604-983-8867.
7.
Anna Mae Botts struggled. Her heart thumped. She gripped the sheets. A boy opened a golden box and dissolved into ashes.
If something works, Lillian would like to know why. If readers can put their fingers on why one or more drafts veer off course, that, too, would be instructive.
Thank you, and Happy Mothers' Day.
Rowena Cherry
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Guest Blog. Magical Beings
MAGICAL BEINGS
Courting the Craft of Paranormal Romance
We’re a multi-cultural society, a global community of varying histories and legends. And yet, somehow, we all share a fascination with the supernatural … with the idea that the things unseen are not inactive. The concept of myths and legends shared through storytelling is as old as the spoken word. Among the cultures of the world, there is no shortage of fantastic tales and captivating creatures that haunt the psyches and dreams of a village’s or nation’s inhabitants. A further binding feature in every culture is the pursuit of romance and love. Combine the two, and you have a formula for a riveting story. It is not unexpected, therefore, that tales of magical beings in paranormal romance continue to explode as a popular fiction genre.
The area of romance fiction generated $1.375 billion in U.S. sales in 2007, a five percent increase over 2006, making it the biggest fiction publishing category for that year, according to Business of Consumer Book Publishing. The next largest market is sci-fi & fantasy, generating $495 million in revenue for the same year. A recent article in The New York Times reported that Harlequin Enterprises had fourth-quarter earnings in 2008 that were up 32 percent over the same period a year ago.
The paranormal romance formula seems simple: magical being meets normal, or latently magical, potential mate →withholding of secrets or self →conflict → third party interference → challenge of skills →new awareness → resolution. Or something along those lines. However, there are certain standards of storytelling that must be in place for the concept to work. The most successful paranormal authors have figured out certain aspects of the storytelling that ring most true with readers.
Following are some general guidelines as to why some supernatural romances work so well:
• The magical skills and idiosyncracies of the hero or heroine are established early on and closely followed. This is sometimes called world building, but it’s also personality building. A reader wants to get the sense that the character could be a real person, someone they can understand. The only way for that to happen would be if the author knows their character as well as or better than she knows herself. So if, for instance, our hero Shazam has a fiery temper that can erupt without warning, the reader needs to be given glimpses of that before the actual eruption. It builds tension, as well as an affinity for what Shazam is thinking and feeling.
• Supernatural skills have to be super. A reader doesn’t want a hero who can read really fast or jog backward. Exceptional abilities make for exceptional characters. One single ability that is carried out with unusual panache and an understanding that very few can do what he or she can do makes for riveting reading. As an example, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series focused on a family of vampires, unusual in itself. Yet, additionally, each vampire had a unique gift that gave him increased value to his family, and to the story: e.g. the ability to read minds; the ability to influence thought; the ability to heal; the gift of foresight.
• Despite characters being in possession of such tremendous skills, the reader wants to be able to identify in some way with those characters. These are the all-too-human traits. Does she love dogs? Does he notice the way she never wants to be alone? Does an abiding anger or vengeance keep him from recognizing the feelings another has for him? Does she want to break free from her tribe or pack or past to forge a new life, but doesn’t know how? These very human dilemmas will make even a superstrong, shapeshifting vampire sympathetic in some way. Without it, the reader won’t care and won’t read on.
• Finally, the atmosphere of the story sets the tone for the story itself. Yes, this is world building; it is also world decorating. Whether it’s regency time travel or urban fantasy, the reader wants to be submerged in the very air that surrounds the characters. What are the smells and temperature of the wind that blows in from the past, or the breeze that shuffles over the ripe fruits of the souk? The successful paranormal author structures an environment that, though supernatural, is believable because it is consistently on display through the use of vivid description. This is where research on the author’s part is most apparent. A story told among the sidhe (shee) of Ireland must convey the essence of Ireland like a well-written travel article would. Travels among the djinn of the Middle East must evoke the exotic scents and textures of locales that most Western readers will never have visited. Research, imagination, and lush narrative combine for the successful setting.
Once these building blocks are in place, it’s up to the author to carry the story through. An unpredictable plot is a sure way to hold the attention of the reader, and that really does depend upon the skill of the author. In today’s rapidly evolving storytelling industry, one thing that is predictable, however, is that romance fiction is here to stay.
K. F. Zuzulo
Author of A Genie in the House of Saud: Zubis Rises, from Mystical Publishing
and The Third Wish, from Sapphire Blue Publishing
www.zubisrises.com
Courting the Craft of Paranormal Romance
We’re a multi-cultural society, a global community of varying histories and legends. And yet, somehow, we all share a fascination with the supernatural … with the idea that the things unseen are not inactive. The concept of myths and legends shared through storytelling is as old as the spoken word. Among the cultures of the world, there is no shortage of fantastic tales and captivating creatures that haunt the psyches and dreams of a village’s or nation’s inhabitants. A further binding feature in every culture is the pursuit of romance and love. Combine the two, and you have a formula for a riveting story. It is not unexpected, therefore, that tales of magical beings in paranormal romance continue to explode as a popular fiction genre.
The area of romance fiction generated $1.375 billion in U.S. sales in 2007, a five percent increase over 2006, making it the biggest fiction publishing category for that year, according to Business of Consumer Book Publishing. The next largest market is sci-fi & fantasy, generating $495 million in revenue for the same year. A recent article in The New York Times reported that Harlequin Enterprises had fourth-quarter earnings in 2008 that were up 32 percent over the same period a year ago.
The paranormal romance formula seems simple: magical being meets normal, or latently magical, potential mate →withholding of secrets or self →conflict → third party interference → challenge of skills →new awareness → resolution. Or something along those lines. However, there are certain standards of storytelling that must be in place for the concept to work. The most successful paranormal authors have figured out certain aspects of the storytelling that ring most true with readers.
Following are some general guidelines as to why some supernatural romances work so well:
• The magical skills and idiosyncracies of the hero or heroine are established early on and closely followed. This is sometimes called world building, but it’s also personality building. A reader wants to get the sense that the character could be a real person, someone they can understand. The only way for that to happen would be if the author knows their character as well as or better than she knows herself. So if, for instance, our hero Shazam has a fiery temper that can erupt without warning, the reader needs to be given glimpses of that before the actual eruption. It builds tension, as well as an affinity for what Shazam is thinking and feeling.
• Supernatural skills have to be super. A reader doesn’t want a hero who can read really fast or jog backward. Exceptional abilities make for exceptional characters. One single ability that is carried out with unusual panache and an understanding that very few can do what he or she can do makes for riveting reading. As an example, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series focused on a family of vampires, unusual in itself. Yet, additionally, each vampire had a unique gift that gave him increased value to his family, and to the story: e.g. the ability to read minds; the ability to influence thought; the ability to heal; the gift of foresight.
• Despite characters being in possession of such tremendous skills, the reader wants to be able to identify in some way with those characters. These are the all-too-human traits. Does she love dogs? Does he notice the way she never wants to be alone? Does an abiding anger or vengeance keep him from recognizing the feelings another has for him? Does she want to break free from her tribe or pack or past to forge a new life, but doesn’t know how? These very human dilemmas will make even a superstrong, shapeshifting vampire sympathetic in some way. Without it, the reader won’t care and won’t read on.
• Finally, the atmosphere of the story sets the tone for the story itself. Yes, this is world building; it is also world decorating. Whether it’s regency time travel or urban fantasy, the reader wants to be submerged in the very air that surrounds the characters. What are the smells and temperature of the wind that blows in from the past, or the breeze that shuffles over the ripe fruits of the souk? The successful paranormal author structures an environment that, though supernatural, is believable because it is consistently on display through the use of vivid description. This is where research on the author’s part is most apparent. A story told among the sidhe (shee) of Ireland must convey the essence of Ireland like a well-written travel article would. Travels among the djinn of the Middle East must evoke the exotic scents and textures of locales that most Western readers will never have visited. Research, imagination, and lush narrative combine for the successful setting.
Once these building blocks are in place, it’s up to the author to carry the story through. An unpredictable plot is a sure way to hold the attention of the reader, and that really does depend upon the skill of the author. In today’s rapidly evolving storytelling industry, one thing that is predictable, however, is that romance fiction is here to stay.
K. F. Zuzulo
Author of A Genie in the House of Saud: Zubis Rises, from Mystical Publishing
and The Third Wish, from Sapphire Blue Publishing
www.zubisrises.com
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Build-a-Bear Babies
The May 2009 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN has a one-page essay on the ethics of designer genes, quoting from a NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ARTICLE that referred to reproductive technology producing “Build-a-Bear babies” to order. It’s only a matter of time before clinics offering in vitro fertilization will enable parents to select not only the sex of a baby but such superficial traits as eye and hair color. As SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN puts it, the very idea evokes the specters of “Brave New World and, of course, the Nazis’ quest for a blond, blue-eyed race of Aryans.”
One concern mentioned in this essay—“will selection of traits perceived to be desirable end up diminishing variability within the gene pool, the raw material of natural selection”—strikes me as too far-fetched to worry about. Too few families will be able to afford these services to leave a trace on the DNA of the planet’s total population. A more plausible social problem would be, as many SF authors have speculated, that a genetically enhanced elite minority might exercise privileges and status over the masses who can’t afford designer children.
Personally, I have no moral qualms about gene manipulation in principle. I don’t believe all reproductive technology is “against nature” or blasphemous, any more than pacemakers, dialysis, or bionic limbs are. Nor do I believe an embryo before the implantation stage of development is an individual with personal rights (although of course it should still be handled with respect). Lines, however, must be drawn, and where should we draw them?
Granted that such technology may ethically and lawfully be practiced at all, its use to prevent genetically based illness and deformity seems obviously right. The more severe the affliction, the more acceptable intervention would be. On the related topic of sex selection, if a particular sex is chosen to avoid a sex-linked inherited disorder, that choice seems a perfectly legitimate goal. How about conceiving a baby specifically designed as a tissue donor for a gravely ill sibling (which has already been done)? Here the lines get fuzzier. Using a human being for an instrumental purpose, in principle, violates human dignity, yet if the parents are planning to have another baby anyway, why not include that benefit?
More vexed questions arise on points such as genetic engineering to conceive a boy or girl simply because of a preference for that sex. Many people also have reservations about designing an embryo for high intelligence (if that choice could be made—at present, we don’t know enough about the nature and origins of “intelligence”). I admit I’d find that prospect appealing. Others would, if possible, want to endow a child with musical, artistic, or athletic talent. In my opinion, a lot depends on whether these decisions would be made for the child’s happiness or the parents’ pride. Which leads to the slippery slope of ordering physical appearance from a menu of traits to produce a child who matches a cultural model of “beauty.” Moreover, I see a significant difference between an attempt to infuse an embryo with certain traits and a prior determination to destroy any embryo (or abort any fetus) that doesn’t measure up to the ideal.
According to SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, the U.S. currently has “no binding rules” for the application of fertility technology. The U.K. has the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority to license and regulate clinics. Aside from obviously recklessly unsafe practices such as the notorious “octomom” case, I’d be dubious of any attempt to restrict most of these choices by law. Again, few couples could afford to seek genetic manipulation for frivolous purposes, fewer still would want to bother, and anyway clinics would establish their own ethical codes and might often refuse such requests. My main concern about “Build-a-Bear babies” is that a child designed to embody the parents’ ideal of their “perfect” offspring might not live up to expectations. In the world as we know it, no children (or parents!) are perfect. What would it do to familial relationships if perfection were expected as an entitlement?
Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)
One concern mentioned in this essay—“will selection of traits perceived to be desirable end up diminishing variability within the gene pool, the raw material of natural selection”—strikes me as too far-fetched to worry about. Too few families will be able to afford these services to leave a trace on the DNA of the planet’s total population. A more plausible social problem would be, as many SF authors have speculated, that a genetically enhanced elite minority might exercise privileges and status over the masses who can’t afford designer children.
Personally, I have no moral qualms about gene manipulation in principle. I don’t believe all reproductive technology is “against nature” or blasphemous, any more than pacemakers, dialysis, or bionic limbs are. Nor do I believe an embryo before the implantation stage of development is an individual with personal rights (although of course it should still be handled with respect). Lines, however, must be drawn, and where should we draw them?
Granted that such technology may ethically and lawfully be practiced at all, its use to prevent genetically based illness and deformity seems obviously right. The more severe the affliction, the more acceptable intervention would be. On the related topic of sex selection, if a particular sex is chosen to avoid a sex-linked inherited disorder, that choice seems a perfectly legitimate goal. How about conceiving a baby specifically designed as a tissue donor for a gravely ill sibling (which has already been done)? Here the lines get fuzzier. Using a human being for an instrumental purpose, in principle, violates human dignity, yet if the parents are planning to have another baby anyway, why not include that benefit?
More vexed questions arise on points such as genetic engineering to conceive a boy or girl simply because of a preference for that sex. Many people also have reservations about designing an embryo for high intelligence (if that choice could be made—at present, we don’t know enough about the nature and origins of “intelligence”). I admit I’d find that prospect appealing. Others would, if possible, want to endow a child with musical, artistic, or athletic talent. In my opinion, a lot depends on whether these decisions would be made for the child’s happiness or the parents’ pride. Which leads to the slippery slope of ordering physical appearance from a menu of traits to produce a child who matches a cultural model of “beauty.” Moreover, I see a significant difference between an attempt to infuse an embryo with certain traits and a prior determination to destroy any embryo (or abort any fetus) that doesn’t measure up to the ideal.
According to SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, the U.S. currently has “no binding rules” for the application of fertility technology. The U.K. has the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority to license and regulate clinics. Aside from obviously recklessly unsafe practices such as the notorious “octomom” case, I’d be dubious of any attempt to restrict most of these choices by law. Again, few couples could afford to seek genetic manipulation for frivolous purposes, fewer still would want to bother, and anyway clinics would establish their own ethical codes and might often refuse such requests. My main concern about “Build-a-Bear babies” is that a child designed to embody the parents’ ideal of their “perfect” offspring might not live up to expectations. In the world as we know it, no children (or parents!) are perfect. What would it do to familial relationships if perfection were expected as an entitlement?
Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Writing Tips Tweets
Personally, I feel twitter is a fad -- somewhat like CB Radio was/is. Its popularity may be peaking now. It may disappear, replaced by something else, or it may be left only to those who've found a real use for it.
But at this time, I think most people who spend any time phone texting or online will find twitter useful, provided they are selective about the people they link to.
Me, I'm all about writing, reading and screenwriting -- the place of the entertainment media in nourishing the soul (can you think of any better soul-nourishment than a good Romance?)
So projects like this new one below catch my interest.
Jean Lorrah, my sometime collaborator and co-owner of Sime~Gen Inc., ( www.jeanlorrah.com ) has started a twitter.com account to post short tips on writing for writers.
http://twitter.com/tipsonwriting is the page that will show you the list of tips.
You can get these sent to your phone as text messages if you join twitter, or have them sent to your own twitter account by "following" tipsonwriting . Or log into the http://twitter.com/tipsonwriting/ page to see them. And Jean has the feed from the tips account posted on various websites. It's currently on the top page of simegen.com too.
Subscribing to Jean's Writing Tips Tweets could be the quickest way to break writer's block. Just try each day to do what the Tip suggests, in the simplest way you can, not for publication but just a practice swatch for yourself.
You might want to post the results on
http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/05/post-tips-on-writing-exercises-here.html
as a comment and get feedback on your exercise. But that might be intimidating so it could be better to just keep it in your own file to be mined for publishable ideas later.
But if you're practicing, just do a practice swatch of words for yourself and presto you'll be writing and then the words will come roaring out.
Jean might take contributions or retweet other writers' tips later. DM her on twitter.
Twitter isn't ONLY for those who have unlimited text messaging on their phones. There are a number of websites around that help you use twitter or publicize your activity on twitter. And there's a browser toolbar you can install on your browser to help you follow your incoming tweets, or send tweets. More brands of browsers will no doubt be getting this toolbar enabled for all kinds of social networking sites.
friendbar is an add-on for the firefox browser. Browse some add-ons here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3794
People are blogging like mad about the tools that make twitter easier to live with.
Here's an article:
http://www.randygage.com/blog/tweet-this-a-twitter-manifesto
Jean Lorrah found http://www.tweetlater.com which helps you manage multiple twitter accounts. Imagine that - MULTIPLE twitter accounts!
These Web 2.0 tools are being invented faster than I can keep track, but their purpose is to relieve the frantic and overwhelmed feeling we all get from multitasking beyond our capacity and to dodge spam floods such as the current worm infection is causing.
A lot of these tools will fail quickly. Much of it is advertising supported with a "free" level and a professional or paid subscription level.
As I said, Twitter is designed to help you avoid dealing with tons of spam in your email box. Dodging spam is a trend among younger people today both because parents want to insulate them from the trash in spam, and because life is too short to scan spam for hours a day. So they connect to a limited number of people they really know, and communicate in depth with that small number. That makes texting and tweeting a very efficient and cost-effective method of establishing and maintaining deep relationships.
But the social networks can waste a lot of time, too.
Twitter has a higher velocity message flow because each message is so short, so it feels like it's less of a burden. The shortness of the messages are like the half-sentence utterances in a real life conversation.
I can hardly wait for a teen romance novel that consists of nothing but tweets, like the Historical novels that consisted of nothing but letters (or like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain novels, though the letters are less plot-movers than they were in her earlier books.) I loved that format and can see a huge potential for it in twitter.
Can you imagine, for example, a time-travel romance with the two lovers separated by centuries but communicating through a portal that would allow only tweet-sized text messages?
Perhaps I'm intrigued by "short" because it's something I can't do. I don't suppose readers of this blog have noticed that trait of mine ...
The problem with twitter is that it is indeed "faster moving" -- which makes you pant to keep up if you follow more than four or five very taciturn people. Hence these other online tools for "managing" your twitter account(s!)
It's a trend, though, to use one more technological application to cure a problem caused by another technological add-on to an otherwise frantic life, and it's happening in all walks of life. Maybe we should term it Tech-Defense, or Tai Kwon Tech?
For example, some techie noticed how the older generation resists techie gadgets (like digital picture frames) and came up with a digital picture frame application that simplifies shouting over the chasm between generations.
They put a digital picture frame on the household wireless network.
There are quite a few manufacturers of those wireless frames, and already a factory-installed mall ware virus was distributed by Best Buy last year via one of the USB plug picture frames. But the viruses haven't yet invaded your computer over the wireless connection. Maybe next year.
But the deal is this.
Young people can take phone or digital pix and EMAIL THEM directly to grandma's picture frame. The frame logs onto grandma's house wireless (you may have to go install a router), and downloads 40 or 50 pictures at say 3AM. It download the pix you uploaded via email attachment (or other means) to the hosting website.
The next day, a whole new slide-show turns up for Grandma to see and she did nothing to make it happen. She doesn't even have to understand how it works! She'll just grin delightedly at her grandchildren.
I love this concept. It is a subscription product though, and the kids have to take the pictures, upload them to the site which the frame logs onto, and pay for renting the bandwidth on the picture hosting site. Here's an example: http://www.ceiva.com/ is a hosting website that sells its own picture frame. You can also find it by searching ceiva on amazon. They gotta be making a fortune on this! I can handle tech, and I want it!
The Digital picture frame has become one of the hottest products on the market, and there are a number of sites that are set up to share pictures with a frame.
I think it'll be the biggest seller this coming gift season -- because I WANT ONE VERY BADLY! The wireless feature really has me hooked.
But consider both Jean's twitter writing tips and this picture frame all in one breath.
We're looking at a TREND here - tech that cures tech problems. Writers of futuristic or paranormal romance can exploit this concept. Find a problem, any problem that keeps lovers apart, and cure the problem with an application of the very thing that caused the problem to begin with. "Hair of the dog."
Think of this scene. A guy wants a girl to pay attention to him. He swaps the picture frame on her work desk for a wireless frame of his own. Then sends her pictures to sell himself to her? Or maybe he hacks into her frame's download site and intersperses his own pix with those of her cousin's new baby?
Practical joke: swap your frame for someone else's and send them baby pictures of someone you want to embarrass.
Paranormal: Suppose a techie ghost finds a way to impose pix on a wireless frame?
Oh, the story potential is totally endless! Welcome to the 21st Century.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
http://www.slantedconcept.com
PS: if you get anything published based on anything like twitter or digital frames, do please be sure I get a review copy and a note referencing this blog! Whee!!! The story potential of those wireless frames is totally endless!!!
But at this time, I think most people who spend any time phone texting or online will find twitter useful, provided they are selective about the people they link to.
Me, I'm all about writing, reading and screenwriting -- the place of the entertainment media in nourishing the soul (can you think of any better soul-nourishment than a good Romance?)
So projects like this new one below catch my interest.
Jean Lorrah, my sometime collaborator and co-owner of Sime~Gen Inc., ( www.jeanlorrah.com ) has started a twitter.com account to post short tips on writing for writers.
http://twitter.com/tipsonwriting is the page that will show you the list of tips.
You can get these sent to your phone as text messages if you join twitter, or have them sent to your own twitter account by "following" tipsonwriting . Or log into the http://twitter.com/tipsonwriting/ page to see them. And Jean has the feed from the tips account posted on various websites. It's currently on the top page of simegen.com too.
Subscribing to Jean's Writing Tips Tweets could be the quickest way to break writer's block. Just try each day to do what the Tip suggests, in the simplest way you can, not for publication but just a practice swatch for yourself.
You might want to post the results on
http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/05/post-tips-on-writing-exercises-here.html
as a comment and get feedback on your exercise. But that might be intimidating so it could be better to just keep it in your own file to be mined for publishable ideas later.
But if you're practicing, just do a practice swatch of words for yourself and presto you'll be writing and then the words will come roaring out.
Jean might take contributions or retweet other writers' tips later. DM her on twitter.
Twitter isn't ONLY for those who have unlimited text messaging on their phones. There are a number of websites around that help you use twitter or publicize your activity on twitter. And there's a browser toolbar you can install on your browser to help you follow your incoming tweets, or send tweets. More brands of browsers will no doubt be getting this toolbar enabled for all kinds of social networking sites.
friendbar is an add-on for the firefox browser. Browse some add-ons here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3794
People are blogging like mad about the tools that make twitter easier to live with.
Here's an article:
http://www.randygage.com/blog/tweet-this-a-twitter-manifesto
Jean Lorrah found http://www.tweetlater.com which helps you manage multiple twitter accounts. Imagine that - MULTIPLE twitter accounts!
These Web 2.0 tools are being invented faster than I can keep track, but their purpose is to relieve the frantic and overwhelmed feeling we all get from multitasking beyond our capacity and to dodge spam floods such as the current worm infection is causing.
A lot of these tools will fail quickly. Much of it is advertising supported with a "free" level and a professional or paid subscription level.
As I said, Twitter is designed to help you avoid dealing with tons of spam in your email box. Dodging spam is a trend among younger people today both because parents want to insulate them from the trash in spam, and because life is too short to scan spam for hours a day. So they connect to a limited number of people they really know, and communicate in depth with that small number. That makes texting and tweeting a very efficient and cost-effective method of establishing and maintaining deep relationships.
But the social networks can waste a lot of time, too.
Twitter has a higher velocity message flow because each message is so short, so it feels like it's less of a burden. The shortness of the messages are like the half-sentence utterances in a real life conversation.
I can hardly wait for a teen romance novel that consists of nothing but tweets, like the Historical novels that consisted of nothing but letters (or like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain novels, though the letters are less plot-movers than they were in her earlier books.) I loved that format and can see a huge potential for it in twitter.
Can you imagine, for example, a time-travel romance with the two lovers separated by centuries but communicating through a portal that would allow only tweet-sized text messages?
Perhaps I'm intrigued by "short" because it's something I can't do. I don't suppose readers of this blog have noticed that trait of mine ...
The problem with twitter is that it is indeed "faster moving" -- which makes you pant to keep up if you follow more than four or five very taciturn people. Hence these other online tools for "managing" your twitter account(s!)
It's a trend, though, to use one more technological application to cure a problem caused by another technological add-on to an otherwise frantic life, and it's happening in all walks of life. Maybe we should term it Tech-Defense, or Tai Kwon Tech?
For example, some techie noticed how the older generation resists techie gadgets (like digital picture frames) and came up with a digital picture frame application that simplifies shouting over the chasm between generations.
They put a digital picture frame on the household wireless network.
There are quite a few manufacturers of those wireless frames, and already a factory-installed mall ware virus was distributed by Best Buy last year via one of the USB plug picture frames. But the viruses haven't yet invaded your computer over the wireless connection. Maybe next year.
But the deal is this.
Young people can take phone or digital pix and EMAIL THEM directly to grandma's picture frame. The frame logs onto grandma's house wireless (you may have to go install a router), and downloads 40 or 50 pictures at say 3AM. It download the pix you uploaded via email attachment (or other means) to the hosting website.
The next day, a whole new slide-show turns up for Grandma to see and she did nothing to make it happen. She doesn't even have to understand how it works! She'll just grin delightedly at her grandchildren.
I love this concept. It is a subscription product though, and the kids have to take the pictures, upload them to the site which the frame logs onto, and pay for renting the bandwidth on the picture hosting site. Here's an example: http://www.ceiva.com/ is a hosting website that sells its own picture frame. You can also find it by searching ceiva on amazon. They gotta be making a fortune on this! I can handle tech, and I want it!
The Digital picture frame has become one of the hottest products on the market, and there are a number of sites that are set up to share pictures with a frame.
I think it'll be the biggest seller this coming gift season -- because I WANT ONE VERY BADLY! The wireless feature really has me hooked.
But consider both Jean's twitter writing tips and this picture frame all in one breath.
We're looking at a TREND here - tech that cures tech problems. Writers of futuristic or paranormal romance can exploit this concept. Find a problem, any problem that keeps lovers apart, and cure the problem with an application of the very thing that caused the problem to begin with. "Hair of the dog."
Think of this scene. A guy wants a girl to pay attention to him. He swaps the picture frame on her work desk for a wireless frame of his own. Then sends her pictures to sell himself to her? Or maybe he hacks into her frame's download site and intersperses his own pix with those of her cousin's new baby?
Practical joke: swap your frame for someone else's and send them baby pictures of someone you want to embarrass.
Paranormal: Suppose a techie ghost finds a way to impose pix on a wireless frame?
Oh, the story potential is totally endless! Welcome to the 21st Century.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
http://www.slantedconcept.com
PS: if you get anything published based on anything like twitter or digital frames, do please be sure I get a review copy and a note referencing this blog! Whee!!! The story potential of those wireless frames is totally endless!!!
Monday, May 04, 2009
What Authors Do Besides Write
Yes, I've been absent the past two Mondays. I can't even blame it on my deadline (which still looms menacingly). I was at RT which is author shorthand for the most fun you can have with your clothes on. RT is the annual Romantic Times BOOKlovers Convention, this year in Orlando, FL. About 250 authors and 1000 readers, editors, agents, librarians and booksellers get together to make merry and swap stories for a week.
Male cover models also make an appearance. Cover art is a large part of the book industry so it's no surprise that guys compete for these coveted modeling jobs. Some, like Fabio or John D'Salvo make careers of it. Most use it as a springboard for acting jobs in soaps, ads or movies.
However at this RT, decidely one of the most popular of the boys was a real boy: nine month old Jack Browne, courtesy of his mommy, author Isabo Kelly. Jack participated in last year's RT in Pittsburg, via, um, the womb. Isabo was the "pregnant Ninja lady" at the Intergalactic Bar & Grille Party. But this year Jack was a shining star all his own.
(L to R above) Starships and Sorcery Panel: Leanna Renee Heiber, Linnea Sinclair, Stacey Kade, Isabo Kelly 
Above: Shades of Dark wins the RT Reviewers' Choice Award!
Male cover models also make an appearance. Cover art is a large part of the book industry so it's no surprise that guys compete for these coveted modeling jobs. Some, like Fabio or John D'Salvo make careers of it. Most use it as a springboard for acting jobs in soaps, ads or movies.
However at this RT, decidely one of the most popular of the boys was a real boy: nine month old Jack Browne, courtesy of his mommy, author Isabo Kelly. Jack participated in last year's RT in Pittsburg, via, um, the womb. Isabo was the "pregnant Ninja lady" at the Intergalactic Bar & Grille Party. But this year Jack was a shining star all his own.
So here's to a future Mr. Romance and starship captain!
And of course, the rest of the convention went something like this:
(below): Me, authors Bonnie Vanak and Stacey Kade:
(L to R above) Starships and Sorcery Panel: Leanna Renee Heiber, Linnea Sinclair, Stacey Kade, Isabo Kelly
(Below) Authors Cindy Holby (Colby Hodge) and Stacey Kade
Above: Shades of Dark wins the RT Reviewers' Choice Award!
~Linnea
Linnea Sinclair
// Interstellar Adventure Infused with Romance//
// Interstellar Adventure Infused with Romance//
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Shield Magic! Is That Why Darth Maul's Face Was Red?
It was Beltane two days ago. I've done enough research to carry off an intelligent interview with a Wiccan, but not enough to write about Beltane with any degree of originality.
Here are two fabulous links for anyone interested:
Beltane -- Holiday Details and History
Author: Christina Aubin [a WitchVox Sponsor]
http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usma&c=holidays&id=2765
Pagan Celebrations of Beltane and May Day
http://blog.beliefnet.com/apagansblog/2009/04/pagan-celebrations-of-beltane-and-may-day-1.html
There's another very cool link I followed from one of these sites: "In Praise Of Pagan Men" with a discussion of The Green Man.
In Praise Of Pagan Men
However, The Red-Faced Man interests me a great deal more!
(Pun, by the way, very much intended.)
I watch television, often alone in the kitchen, while I am cooking, and some meal or other was just about at critical mass when I glimpsed The History Channel, which was discussing a great native American warrior named Roman Nose, also his warpaint, also his vision quest, and the fatal mishap that befell him because a squaw (not knowing of one component of his shield magic) used a metal kitchen implement in preparing his final meal before battle.
I'd seen warpaint in Westerns, and I've seen it used by modern warriors... did Donald Sutherland use it, or just frighteningly loud music, from his hippie tank in Kelly's Heroes?
However, I'd never thought much about the designs. Roman Nose's vision quest (I think it was Roman Nose, but I was multi-tasking) was inspired by red jagged lightning, and white blobs of large hail.
War paint seems to have something in common with the Viking Berserkers bearskin shirts: frighteningly recognizable to the enemy, fearsome brand character, part of getting a warrior "into the zone" and motivated.
Having --reluctantly-- missed the rest of the show, I came back later to my computer and looked up a word that the narrator had used to describe the warriors' beliefs in the power of his rituals and in the application of his war paint.
Shield Magic.
"Shield Magic. Shield makes you turn red and halves the damage you take (I think) until you leave the room. I always use it whenever I see a hard enemy..."
The top Shield Magic searches lead me to a popular game or six. Dragonquest. Warhammer. Nero.... Also, I found a few literary references, and mentions of the Uruk-hai who wore the white hand of Saruman as warpaint.
Giving the impression of being blood-soaked, maybe with bits of white bone showing through cut skin, and still fighting ferociously... well, that would be daunting to the enemy.
Hence, Darth Maul would have two powerful reasons for his red complexion, although I assume it was natural, along with his horns, and was --presumably-- deliberately supplemented by his rune-like tattoos.
My own Viz-Igerd from "Knight's Fork" turned red on occasion, and his enemy, The Saurian Dragon, mockingly compared the effect to the Red Uakari (unfortunately, my copy editor made it "red uakari").
Did you perceive Darth Maul as a potential love interest? How about a sex interest? If so, why?
What about a Native American warrior in his war bonnet and war paint?
What about a Knight of old, mounted on his huge destrier (the computer tells me I've misspelled that), with a jupon over his chainmail, and his face completely hidden by his helmet?
What about Darth Vader?
Footnote:
On Tuesday May 5th 2009, my CRAZY TUESDAY radio show will be about "MAGICAL BEINGS" and I will be taking a two-hour long whirlwind tour of the Magical World, discussing World-building and magical characterization with Kellyann Zuzulo, and Joy Nash, with a flyby appearance from L.S. Cauldwell.
Here are two fabulous links for anyone interested:
Beltane -- Holiday Details and History
Author: Christina Aubin [a WitchVox Sponsor]
http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usma&c=holidays&id=2765
Pagan Celebrations of Beltane and May Day
http://blog.beliefnet.com/apagansblog/2009/04/pagan-celebrations-of-beltane-and-may-day-1.html
There's another very cool link I followed from one of these sites: "In Praise Of Pagan Men" with a discussion of The Green Man.
In Praise Of Pagan Men
However, The Red-Faced Man interests me a great deal more!
(Pun, by the way, very much intended.)
I watch television, often alone in the kitchen, while I am cooking, and some meal or other was just about at critical mass when I glimpsed The History Channel, which was discussing a great native American warrior named Roman Nose, also his warpaint, also his vision quest, and the fatal mishap that befell him because a squaw (not knowing of one component of his shield magic) used a metal kitchen implement in preparing his final meal before battle.
I'd seen warpaint in Westerns, and I've seen it used by modern warriors... did Donald Sutherland use it, or just frighteningly loud music, from his hippie tank in Kelly's Heroes?
However, I'd never thought much about the designs. Roman Nose's vision quest (I think it was Roman Nose, but I was multi-tasking) was inspired by red jagged lightning, and white blobs of large hail.
War paint seems to have something in common with the Viking Berserkers bearskin shirts: frighteningly recognizable to the enemy, fearsome brand character, part of getting a warrior "into the zone" and motivated.
Having --reluctantly-- missed the rest of the show, I came back later to my computer and looked up a word that the narrator had used to describe the warriors' beliefs in the power of his rituals and in the application of his war paint.
Shield Magic.
"Shield Magic. Shield makes you turn red and halves the damage you take (I think) until you leave the room. I always use it whenever I see a hard enemy..."
The top Shield Magic searches lead me to a popular game or six. Dragonquest. Warhammer. Nero.... Also, I found a few literary references, and mentions of the Uruk-hai who wore the white hand of Saruman as warpaint.
Giving the impression of being blood-soaked, maybe with bits of white bone showing through cut skin, and still fighting ferociously... well, that would be daunting to the enemy.
Hence, Darth Maul would have two powerful reasons for his red complexion, although I assume it was natural, along with his horns, and was --presumably-- deliberately supplemented by his rune-like tattoos.
My own Viz-Igerd from "Knight's Fork" turned red on occasion, and his enemy, The Saurian Dragon, mockingly compared the effect to the Red Uakari (unfortunately, my copy editor made it "red uakari").
Did you perceive Darth Maul as a potential love interest? How about a sex interest? If so, why?
What about a Native American warrior in his war bonnet and war paint?
What about a Knight of old, mounted on his huge destrier (the computer tells me I've misspelled that), with a jupon over his chainmail, and his face completely hidden by his helmet?
What about Darth Vader?
Footnote:
On Tuesday May 5th 2009, my CRAZY TUESDAY radio show will be about "MAGICAL BEINGS" and I will be taking a two-hour long whirlwind tour of the Magical World, discussing World-building and magical characterization with Kellyann Zuzulo, and Joy Nash, with a flyby appearance from L.S. Cauldwell.
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