The Allowed Fool and the Law

In Tudor England, the only relatively safe way to tell truth to power (to coin a phrase), was to be reliably and consistently amusing about it. Kings, Dukes, dictators and tyrants have been understood to like a good laugh, and to very occasionally tolerate a really good joke at their own expense.

It helped for the longevity of the comedian if he could be excused for his impudence because it could be attributed to a harmless mental disorder.

An elegant modern term for such a repeating disorder might be "brain fart". 

College professor and Shakespearean scholar Steve Werkmeister writes an excellent blog about the allowed fool in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (January 6th), and suggests some contemporary comedians who perform this role.

https://stevesofgrass.wordpress.com/2016/06/12/twelfth-night-allowed-fools/

Some blogs age well. Observations made in June 2016 might seem even more perspicacious in January 2022.

The blog No Sweat Shakespeare offers a self-styled ultimate guide to Shakespeare's fools... and a heavy larding of irrelevant advertisements.

https://nosweatshakespeare.com/blog/ultimate-guide-shakespeares-fools/

Drew Layton writes a fascinating analysis of a song lyric copyright case (in which the plaintiff did not prevail). The words in a sentence may be identical, but copyright depends on original expression that has been created independently and separately from another work.

 https://www.eip.com/us/updates/article/music_copyright_case_discusses_originality_requirement

The same analysis might apply to jokes.

The defence in the lyric case was very well served because the defendant had kept very good records of his creative process, and had sound recordings of early versions of the song, including experiments with a variety of phrases (beginning with "tell me that...") before settling on the phrase in question.

Titles cannot be copyrighted, for instance, but documenting ones experiments might be a good idea.  The same might apply to punchlines.

Intellectual Property attorney Milord A. Keshishian of the Milord Law Group wrote an interesting blog about copyright litigation between an extremly popular comedian (and others), and an author who published a complilation work of other peoples jokes.

https://www.iptrademarkattorney.com/los_angeles_copyright_litigati/

The author made the monumental mistake of giving attribution by name to the comedians whose jokes she transcribed, published and distributed without permission.

One might use the search term "compilations of jokes" and find a great many YouTube videos of individuals telling jokes, but beware of appropriating them.

All the best,

 Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday

 

 

 

Worldbuilding From Reality Part 12 - What You Learned As A Kid

Worldbuilding From Reality

Part 12

What You Learned As A Kid 

Previous parts in the Worldbuilding From Reality series:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/05/index-to-worldbuilding-from-reality.html

I found this comic on Facebook - it is from a VERY CLEVER blog that can give you all sorts of plot ideas for Fantasy Romance - even Supernatural - if you apply the principles of worldbuilding we've been discussing.

Just like real people, fictional Characters learned something early in life that shapes opinions later.  Study this comic and transpose it to your universe and your Characters.

Here is the blog.  Do check it out.  And here is one of the entries. The image is large enough to read on the blog's archive page.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3

2020 is coming - have a great New Year.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

smbc-comics.com 

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Last Wednesday through Saturday, the 2019 ICFA met in Orlando. As usual, it was wonderful to spend four days in Florida in March. Days were pleasantly warm, and the predicted off-and-on rain never appeared. The organization is considering changes to the date and/or location of the conference. For the first time, I attended the annual business meeting, just to hear the discussion on this issue and the results of the membership survey about it. I'm happy with the present set-up except for one point, the risk of airline delays in March. March in Florida falls in the "high season," with expensive hotel rates, so a change could save money and avoid rises in cost for members who couldn't afford to pay more. The long-time conference chair (about to retire from that role after thirty-five years—we'll miss him!) and his assistant presented a detailed explanation of the factors that go into hotel convention prices and the process of negotiating with hotels. Two major alternatives suggested were Toronto or a different venue in Orlando, with other choices also discussed. Naturally, no decision has been reached yet. The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA) plans to send out another survey to get an updated sense of the membership's preferences now that more information has been supplied. Being naturally averse to change, I don't like the idea of leaving a pleasant location I'm used to, but I have faith that the IAFA officers will make the best decision for the majority. Like any change, of course, whatever happens will be good for some people and unfavorable to others, especially since U. S. residents, North Americans in general, and the smaller percentage of attendees from overseas all have different needs.

The Lord Ruthven Assembly—the vampire and revenant division of IAFA—presented its annual awards. The fiction winner was EUROPEAN TRAVEL FOR THE MONSTROUS GENTLEWOMAN, by Theodora Goss. The nonfiction award went to I AM LEGEND AS AMERICAN MYTH, by Amy Ransom. For the first time, as far as I know, both winners were present at the Saturday night banquet to receive their recognition, which was quite a thrill. Since 2019 marks the bicentennial of John Polidori's "The Vampyre"—the first known prose vampire fiction in English, the story with Lord Ruthven as the enigmatic villain—we had a panel about the influence of that work. The theme of the con was "Politics and Conflict," so the panel nominally dealt with the politics of the characters' social status and relationships but in practice ranged more widely. At the LRA evening meeting, after the business portion we screened an obscure horror film, THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST, based on or at least inspired by Polidori's tale. Only an hour long, the movie was co-written by classic SF author Leigh Brackett (who also worked on THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK). It was better than I expected, actually quite worth watching. It also contains more elements from "The Vampyre" than I'd expected from reading the Wikipedia summary; these include the vampire's "death" and revival by moonlight, the hero's inability to tell anyone about these events, and his being incapacitated with a fever while the vampire, who poses as a concerned friend, courts the heroine (in this case, the hero's fiancee instead of his sister as in the original story). In the most significant alteration, the movie takes place in equatorial Africa instead of Greece and England.

The author guest of honor, G. Willow Wilson, although also a novelist, is mainly known for her work in comics and graphic novels, especially MS. MARVEL. Her after-lunch speech on Thursday was lively and thought-provoking. She reminded us that comics have always had a "political" dimension, often invisible to both creators and audiences because of its mainstream nature. In the case of her work, though, because she isn't an Anglo male writer, her very existence in the field is regarded as "political" no matter how innocuous her content may be. She described a hate-mail electronic message she received, whose sender went to the trouble of printing every line in a different-colored font. She noted that the wildly successful MS. MARVEL was expected to last only about ten issues, because its heroine falls under the "trifecta of death"—a new, female, minority character. Wilson also raised the question of who "owns" a creative product—the fans, the writers, the publisher, the parent corporation?

Guest scholar Mark Bould, who has written extensively on science fiction, delivered the after-lunch talk on Friday. He remarked, "We need better stories," and highlighted the surge in zombie films in recent years. He characterized this trope as a "disastrous, dehumanizing, deadly story." Instead, he advocates for a narrative of "less work, more life." His theme was openly political, focusing on a "post-capitalist, post-scarcity" society that would produce luxury for all. I was especially struck by his statement about the role of speculative fiction in exposing what's thought to be "natural" and inevitable as contingent and making the supposedly "impossible" seem attainable.

One unique feature of this year's event: A display of memorabilia from the entire forty-year span of the conference. It was mildly mind-boggling to contemplate the modest programs of the earliest years contrasted with the book-sized directories of more recent conference programming.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Fictional Chronology Versus Real-Life Time

How do you handle the problem when the timeline of a fictional series slides out of sync with the real passage of time? The novels in my vampire universe were written and published over a span of many years, but the characters all exist in pretty much the same time frame although the technology of each book reflects the decade when it was written. Mostly, I don't worry about this situation, since the novels and stories can each be read independently (although some characters recur), aside from the novel that's a direct sequel to DARK CHANGELING, the first one published.

Now, however, my urban fantasy/horror novel FROM THE DARK PLACES is soon to be re-released, and I'm faced with a difficulty caused by the late-1970s setting. I've written a next-generation sequel set in the not-strictly-defined present, with cell phones, electric cars, and the Internet. The heroine, born at the end of the first book, is twenty-one. If time has passed in the books as in the primary world, she'd be about forty. What changes should I make in the new edition of FROM THE DARK PLACES to reconcile this inconsistency?

Some creators avoid the problem by aging characters more or less in real time, maybe a little slower but not slowly enough for their environment to fall out of sync with the reader's world. For example, the comic strips FOR BETTER OR WORSE and GASOLINE ALLEY do this. Another strategy is to ignore the discrepancy by changing the technology and cultural references to fit the time of publication while keeping characters the same age or letting them age very slowly, sometimes only a few years over several decades. The Ramona series by Beverly Cleary does it that way. On TVTropes, this phenomenon is called Comic-Book Time:

Comic-Book Time

In the James Bond novels, Bond's background was tacitly updated over the series, as the setting advanced with dates of publication. Therefore, as one critic noted, according to his age in the later books, he would have been a teenager in the first one, CASINO ROYALE. The TV program MASH famously lasted over twice as long as the actual Korean War, and there isn't much if any attempt to maintain consistency in the internal timeline, much less factual correspondence to the historical progression of the war. For a show produced before it was expected that fans would be able to buy all the seasons and repeatedly re-watch them, the discrepancies probably weren't obvious at the time.

Diane Duane's Young Wizards series (beginning with SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD) spans only a few years in the characters' lives, although the novels have been published over several decades. Duane has addressed the problem by issuing "Millennium Editions" of the earlier books, updating the years of the action and the associated technology, so that the characters now age roughly in real time.

As for my current quandary: The editor has agreed to go with my suggestion of locating FROM THE DARK PLACES in the indefinite past, by removing all explicit references to the 1970s but leaving the technology of the story pretty much as is. To avoid confusing readers, I plan to add a note stating that the book takes place before cell phones and widespread home computer ownership.

What do you do about a series whose internal chronology becomes disconnected from real time? Authors of historical fiction, futuristic SF, and secondary-world fantasy are lucky in this respect; they never need to worry about their stories becoming outdated. Although the Star Trek universe does have a peculiar problem along this line—some of the technology in the original series has been overtaken by present-day tech!

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Updating Older Books

When a book published years or decades ago and set in the "present" gets reprinted in a new edition, should the technology and cultural references in the text be updated so that the story will still feel as if it's set in the present?

My vampire romance CRIMSON DREAMS has just been re-released by my new publisher:

Crimson Dreams

At the editor's request, I revised scenes that included computers (and inserted mention of cell phones into places where they'd be expected) to avoid having readers distracted by outdated references. The story was contemporary when first published, and there was no reason it shouldn't feel contemporary now.

Diane Duane's Young Wizards series has been around for decades, beginning with SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD (1983). She has self-published new editions of the earlier novels in the series, collectively labeled Millennium Editions, explicitly set in the twenty-first century, with the technology updated. She believed that the obsolete references in the original editions were confusing to the contemporary YA audience because their time period isn't far enough in the past to feel like historical fiction, just enough to feel outdated. Also, the revisions eliminate the anomaly of having the characters age only a few years over a much longer real-time span:

Diane Duane's Ebooks Direct

Some authors tacitly modernize their worlds while the characters age slowly or not at all. The BLONDIE and BEETLE BAILEY comic strips, for instance. The creator of FOR BETTER OR WORSE took an interestingly different approach when she concluded the comic series a few years ago. She started over again from the beginning, reprinting the original strips with additions and revisions.

There are some works in my Vanishing Universe vampire series that I wouldn't update if I were re-publishing them, because I had a good reason for the original dating—specifically DARK CHANGELING, its immediate sequel (CHILD OF TWILIGHT), and a couple of novellas dependent on them. DARK CHANGELING had to be set in 1979 because the then forty-year-old, half-vampire protagonist had to be born in 1939 to make his backstory plausible. My quasi-Lovecraftian novel FROM THE DARK PLACES, due to be re-released by Writers Exchange E-Publishing eventually, presents a special problem. It's set in the 1970s, and its next-generation sequel (currently a work-in-progress) focuses on a twenty-one-year-old heroine who was born at the end of the previous book. How can I set the sequel in the present (to avoid confusing readers with an unnecessary 1990s setting) and have a heroine who's twenty-one when she should be middle-aged? I plan to revise FROM THE DARK PLACES to remove blatantly specific 1970s references but have it set in a sort of "indefinite past."

Do you think it's necessary or desirable to update re-released older novels with settings that were contemporary-present when first published? Does the answer vary on a case-by-case basis for you? Authors of historical or far-future fiction have it easy in the respect. (Writers of near-future SF have a slightly different problem; their settings soon become overtaken by events and transformed into alternate history. Think of Orwell's 1984.)

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Reviews 3 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Finding Your "Voice"

Reviews 3 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Finding Your "Voice"

Previous posts in this series:

Here is the index of previous posts relevant to this discussion:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

In Part 3 of this series on episodic plotting and story springboards,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html

we started sketching out the issues and topics relevant to constructing an Episodic Plot.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-4-art-of.html

In this "reviews" series we're exploring places you can find examples of what we are discussing:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/reviews-1-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/reviews-2-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

So here we are in the middle of Chanukah, a time of re-dedication, renewal -- what's called in the Comics world "An Origin Story."

This time of year is about beginnings, more than endings.

Marion Zimmer Bradley taught the oldest truth of storytelling -- "Every Ending Is A New Beginning."

Back in the Fall when I watched the first episode of the new ABC drama "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." -- I noticed how it used that line - the Origin Story - as what SAVE THE CAT! by Blake Snyder terms, "theme stated." 

Theme-stated is a line of dialogue that shows without telling the philosophical core question the work deals with, and states the question in such a way that you can "hear" the Author's Voice and know what the work is really about, regardless of what it is ostensibly about.

THEME-STATED is all about "Voice."

"Voice" is one of those elusive subjects new writers natter on about, obsess over, and just can't quite get a grip on.  It's like "style" - an intangible that can't really be taught or even learned, but must be discovered by the writer herself.

So the opening episode of this new TV drama (composed of characters and material that has been market tested in comics, film, and other media) told the "origin" of a new series.

The script provided the opening "beat" (to use another SAVE THE CAT! term) of the new series, hinting at a long series of episodes.

In November, we began an exploration of the necessary elements to construct an episodic story.  We looked at some previous posts on story-mechanics then began peeling away the masks of the element called "Springboard" (a term borrowed from TV Screenwriter's Marketing).

Story-Springboards are the mechanism that makes episodic structures work, that make Movie Serials (Flash Gordon) work, that make TV Series work, and yes, comics and novel-series too.

The elements of a series of novels are all present in, but invisible during, the first novel or episode. The universe the story will explore has to be in that first "hook" -- yes, even inside the first line of the first episode.

From there it "unfolds."

Note how the AGENT TV series opens with a guy and his kid looking into the window of a very geekish comic store with action figures -- a few lines of dialogue set up the subject of the theme (family relationships, a well-raised kid who doesn't throw a "Daddy-buy-me-that!" temper tantrum while knowing his Dad is "out of work.") The "universe" of this series is in that store window. 

Just as that quick set-up scene is in progress BOOM, an explosion high up in a building behind them -- and we do not know that the Dad has had business on the upper floor of that building. 

We just watch the Dad check to see the kid didn't get hit by debris, then TRUST the kid to stay put, and the Dad rushes across the street toward the fire while everyone else is fleeing. 

Then the Dad looks this way and that (like Superman about to change clothes and fly up from an alley -- really well acted!  My Geek-nerves thrilled no end!) drives his bare hands into the bricks of the building and climbs up into the fire.  He flinches from the flames, races into the burning room, and jumps out of a high window holding a woman draped over his extended arms.

That's an important visual -- he is NOT holding her in a "fireman's  carry" over his shoulders as he should be, but in the Superman/Lois Lane rescue position depicted on comic book covers.  It's also the position favored by Pulp Fiction covers with aliens kidnapping helpless human women (nobody explains why) and the position used by human Hero rescuing helpless human woman.

It's stupid and dangerous, but seems to be the "image" that telegraphs "strength" -- more strength and confidence than is necessary or wise.

The show progresses through explaining and demonstrating the modern tech (complete with James Bond allusions!  -- I'm gonna love this show!  It's a scream and a laugh between every commercial!) -- and ends with the inevitable showdown scene.

In that ending scene we get the REST OF THE THEME STATED ("voice" remember?).

Up until this final-showdown scene with an impending explosion that could take out half a city, (talk about the cliche stage-writing-trick of putting a "bomb under the chair.") we aren't really sure who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys" and whether this new guy belongs on the good-guy's roster.

Oh, yeah, you know because you know the universe and who owns the franchise, who wrote and produced -- I mean who hasn't been following all this on Google+ and Facebook? -- but the innocent audience hasn't been shown, so they are on the edge of their chairs wondering if they're going to like this new TV Series or not.

So we're in the showdown scene at the end of ep 1, and we learn that this building-climbing guy has a chemical in his system that will cause what amounts to an atomic explosion that could take out half a city.

This fellow, whom we met in scene 1 got fired from a low-level job because he got injured, found a doctor who was running an experiment (for an unknown nasty), got implanted with this material that will explode (just like the previous experimental subject exploded in scene 1 and took out a building top laboratory), and became a "super-hero" with a "crazy-streak" that is breaking out now.  So his inner resentments have been heated up artificially, and he is raging mad at the injustice of it all. 

Our sympathies are with this guy.,  This guy saved-the-cat by promising his kid, in scene 1, that they'd see what they could do for his birthday present, then rescued a woman from a fire!  This script is pure SAVE THE CAT! writing.  

But the SHIELD team that is supposed to be our "good guys" have decided they have to take this guy out (with a shot to the head) to save a good chunk of the city from annihilation.  (The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one, as Spock said.)

So the head of this SHIELD team is talking to the new guy while the marksman on the team is targeting the new guy's head.

The new guy gets dialogue lines that -- in lean, spare, precise, perfect dialogue! -- state one side of the political argument going on in America today, that will be the main subject of the elections of 2014. 

And right out loud, on TV, the new guy mentions GOD!!!  The source of his moral/ethical stance (which we've just seen him violating) is God.  Yet he states his resentment of the "Suits" -- the big money, ruling class, people who hire, destroy, and discard "workers" as he has been discarded -- he clearly states which "side" he's on -- what we recognize as the Good Guy Side.  Yet, just as clearly, he is not sane at that moment.  The team leader states that this new guy has expressed the philosophy that indicates he is just exactly the sort of person who should be on his team.

At that point the part of the audience which is clueless is deciding if they want to watch this show or not.

They are listening for the VOICE of the producer, but they don't know that's what they need to hear. 

They want to know what this series will be "about."

What the show is about is inside the timbre of the "Voice" of the producer, and it comes through clearly in the last few moments after all the suspenseful buildup.

The marksman makes his shot -- something is embedded in the new guy's skull, and he falls motionless.  (No blood.)

The audience sees the group they thought were the good guys apparently murder a good guy whom they liked.

Spirits plummet.  This is not a show for me.  These people are BAD, and not in a good way at all.  Yuck.


Last scene -- it is made clear that the new guy will survive and be OK.

And in that survival is the VOICE OF THE PRODUCER and the SPRINGBOARD for the series.

The "voice" is within the THEME STATED (this sub-set of that larger theme says "good guys don't murder good guys"), and the "springboard" is wound tight.  The viewers are ready to tune in next week (or DVR next week's show).  This set of Good Guys and their bags full of techie magic tricks captivate because they are "interesting."  They are "interesting" because they take risks and win -- which creates the suspense-line "what if they don't win?" 

As with The Dresden Files (long book series by Jim Butcher - 16 and counting)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00CKCWAEA/

... we have a classic character with 6 problems but in this case represented by the 6 members of the team.

This is from ABC's website: http://abc.go.com/shows/marvels-agents-of-shield/about-the-show

--------quote-----------

Clark Gregg reprises his role of Agent Phil Coulson from Marvel’s feature films, as he assembles a small, highly select group of Agents from the worldwide law-enforcement organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Together they investigate the new, the strange, and the unknown across the globe, protecting the ordinary from the extraordinary. Coulson's team consists of Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), highly trained in combat and espionage; Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), expert pilot and martial artist; Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), brilliant engineer; and Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), genius bio-chemist. Joining them on their journey into mystery is new recruit and computer hacker, Skye (Chloe Bennet).

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Marvel’s first television series, is from executive producers Joss Whedon (Marvel's The Avengers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen, who co-wrote the pilot (Dollhouse, Dr.Horrible's Sing-Along Blog). Jeffrey Bell (Angel, Alias) and Jeph Loeb (Smallville, Lost, Heroes) also serve as executive producers. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is produced by ABC Studios and Marvel Television.

-----end quote-----------

The nature of a character's character and the intricacies of the 6 problems (in this case the relationships among the 6 and the external problems they face together) are two of the essential elements in forming the "springboard."

The "springboard" has to be a "board" (character) that can BEND or DEFORM, and be made of a substance (such as a belief in God, or a disbelief, a cause, a dedication, a trusting relationship) that has the "potential energy" to make that deformed board SPRING back and hurl the character into a NEW LIFE. 

In this case, each of the six being assembled into a team are leaving what they had to become something new.

Every ending is a new beginning.

That in itself is a theme which is a component of larger themes.

The trick to understanding how theme becomes VOICE is to understand that theme is "what your story says" and that what your story says is very likely not what you set out to say, what you read it to say, what it seems to say to you. 

In fact, what your story really says is very likely not even what most of your readers think it says.

Worse -- not even academics or reviewers always nail the theme of a story.

But academics who study the whole body of a writer's work often do uncover a common thread among those works.  Sometimes they divide an author's work into "periods" -- sets of works that share something in common, and an appeal to specific audiences that are different from one another.

Authors, like people, grow and over a lifetime change, evolve different philosophical takes on the world and the meaning of life, as well as increasing skill producing text that reflects that meaning.

Every ending is a new beginning -- and as Gene Roddenberry taught, the purpose of fiction is to ASK QUESTIONS but not provide "answers." 

Themes frame those questions and begin explorations of all the related questions.

Now study up on SOUND -- and how digital sound analysis can "recognize" voices.

That's what a reader "hears" in the themes, sub-themes, and various "notes" present in the voices of the characters in a story.  It's a whole symphony of thematic-sounds -- of tones and pitches.

Every subject about human life has thousands of tones, just like "white-noise." 

The story-teller's job is to make "music" out of the "white-noise" of life by sorting tones out of the background and putting them together into something that harmonizes -- like the "voices" of the instruments of a symphony orchestra.

But the "quality" of an instrument or an orchestra lies in the "resonances" the playing of an instrument produces.  The violin you rent to give your kid his first lesson is not the same as the violin played by the lead violinist of the Philadelphia Philharmonic.

The difference in those instruments lies in the resonances of the wood and glues.

Each hand-made violin has a "voice" composed of such resonances.

Each writer has a "voice" composed of the resonances aroused within the author by handling the themes of life composing the story being told.  Note how a trained singer's voice differs from that of a person who has not exercised vocal chords and trained voice and ear.  Note the Drill Sergeant's Parade Ground voice is loud -- how does that happen?  It's not just innate -- it's training, practice, exercise, and technique. 

"Voice" is not just the strings or the bow, the touch of the violinist, the composition of the piece, the acoustics of the Hall (or recording studio), or the recording technology.

"Voice" is all of that and more.

For a work of fiction, "voice" is not any one of the craft techniques we've been studying in this blog.  It is the connections (glue) between those components, the parts of the writer's character as a person that the writer herself is not aware of -- that's the part that vibrates and produces an induced vibration in the reader.

The reader "hears" the vibration of their own body/soul combination -- not the writer's vibration! 

The "voice" the writer speaks in is not the "voice" the reader hears.

We say, as we grow up, that we've "out-grown" a particular genre or type of story.

Writers too out-grow their first stories and evolve a new voice. 

With music, as we age, our "ear" may lose acuity in certain tonal ranges.

With reading, (or TV etc) our ability to respond to certain "springboards" vibrating as they toss a character into story may change. 

As I've quoted Alma Hill saying, "Writing is a Performing Art." 

The stage upon which the writer performs is theme, which is composed of many "boards" and "nails" -- and may be hollow underneath and echo, or have trapdoors for magic tricks. 

Stages can be simple (a soapbox) or complex.  The only way to develop a "voice" is to stand up on the stage and perform just as a singer must sing to strengthen the voice's muscles. 

Here are some previous posts on THEME.

Here are 7 parts:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

And with links to parts 8, 9 and 10:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-12-tom.html

We've also been examining the integration of theme into other fundamental components of storytelling such as character:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-3-why.html

Until I have enough on a subject to post an Index, I generally list previous parts of a discussion at the top of a post -- and include links to other related subjects within a post, but often rely upon you to remember parts of a discussion.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Wired Magazine for Romance?

BUT FIRST: My March and April Book Review columns are now posted at http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/

NOW: You'd think this would be the last blog in the blogosphere to discuss Wired.

You'd think I'd be the last person in the world to read Wired.

So would I.

Guess what? The totally "random" Force behind the Universe has a different opinion. How novel.

Because I had airline miles expiring, the airline pretty much forced me to take subscriptions instead of a trip -- and the magazines they offered were even less of interest to me than Wired.

So I took a bunch of financial items like Fortune and Barron's -- and Wired. If you want to solve a real-world puzzle, "follow the money." If you want to create a plausible plot - "follow the money."

The website is http://www.wired.com/wired/ and they have SOME articles from previous issues posted.

The first issue of Wired arrived before any of the others and guess who the guest editor for the May 2009 issue is? The co-creator of LOST and the director of the new STAR TREK MOVIE, J. J. Abrams. Yes, THE "J. J. Abrams" !!!

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009190/ is the database entry with all his credits. I'm sure you'll recognize more than a few.

Yeah. STAR TREK THE IMAX EXPERIENCE is on that database.

So I read Wired last night. Now I'm not recommending you go buy this issue. It's expensive. But do rush to the newsstand and LOOK at the pages I'm going to discuss -- especially if you're writing SFR or love to read it or find out how writers find these crazy ideas. Or maybe you just find the philosophy of love, romance, and pair-bonding fascinating? Why do people come in pairs? Why is achieving pair-dom an HEA experience?

Rowena Cherry pointed out in her blog post of Sunday April 19, 2009 that there is a declining fertility among humans -- (not mentioning the concerns some scientists have about the fertility of many other species on this planet) -- and her observations actually pertain to this discussion.

As Guest Editor, J. J. Abrams focused the May 2009 issue of Wired (you all know the STAR TREK IMAX movie will be out in May -- we all have to see that!) all around PUZZLES, which is exemplified in everything from video games to the puzzle of declining fertility.

J. J. Abrams avoided doing any articles on the techniques and craft of writing, but this issue is the meat-and-potatoes of the writer's craft.

Writing a story is identical to the act of solving a puzzle. Just as with a jigsaw puzzle, for example, you start with a pile of pieces, maybe some assembled chunks, maybe some pieces that don't belong to THIS puzzle, and try to put a frame around it and fill in the images to make sense.

The writer's task is to communicate a pattern to the story-consumer that makes sense to the consumer (not the writer, necessarily), and delivers a magical emotional whammy, which in Romance is the HEA ending, clinched pair-bond.

And frankly, SOLVING PUZZLES has been a subject I've been puzzling about recently. The whole universe is a puzzle. Each novel that uses "world building" such as Jess Granger mentioned in her guest blog
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/04/guest-blogger-jess-granger-universe-its.html is a puzzle solved, with pieces left over for a sequel or maybe a new series.

Jess says the universe itself is "complicated" and therefore the universes she constructs are also complicated to reflect the real world and seem realistic to the reader. That complicated aspect makes telling a story hard.

As I see it, the universe we live our everyday lives in is COMPLICATED (this is the opposite of the view of most truly High Souls, Gurus, Great Teachers, Prophets, etc. (people who really know the answers to the puzzle).

So as Rowena points out, we have a complex puzzle to solve within the complicated universe we live in (or seem to live in), if we're going to keep living in it.

J. J. Abrams' issue of Wired focuses all the feature articles on and around solving the complex puzzle he calls THE MAGIC OF MYSTERY, and I'm saving the best for last here. This issue is replete with fascinating tidbits about the human interest in puzzles (Romance is obviously more than half mystery, isn't it?) even including stage magic tricks and the formula for WD-40 revealed!

Solving the puzzle of what another person is - that's always a driving force behind every Romance, and even behind human sexuality! Sometimes the urgency of solving the puzzle of the OTHER comes from our own, inner need to solve the puzzle of "who" we are - really. A true mate will reflect your identity. If you don't like yourself, you'll never fall in love by solving the puzzle of another person's being.

So on page 32 of Wired, there's a feature called DEAR MR. KNOW-IT-ALL where a reader asks, "My brother swears that the twin towers were felled by explosives planted there by the FBI. I've presented him with reams of evidence to the contrary, but he hasn't wavered. Will he ever see the light?"

And the psychologist answers, NO. Not only will he never see the light, but it isn't the brother's responsibility to force him to. And the article explains why so many cling so stubbornly to ANY conspiracy theory that comes along. "The human brain has evolved to find patterns, which is useful when avoiding saber-toothed tigers but less so when confronted with opaque and complex events."

We solve puzzles by finding PATTERNS. We're hard-wired pattern-finders.

The next question to the psychologist is by someone who "helped" finish his mother's crossword puzzle -- and a later article revisits this issue, concluding that it isn't HELP when you solve a puzzle FOR someone. Crossword puzzle workers in particular find it distressing when someone "helps" without being asked. Maybe it's like coitus interruptus?

Another article points out how bitterly ungrateful humans would be to aliens who dropped down and GAVE US the answers to the puzzle of the universe. It occurs to me to wonder if maybe that's why G-d didn't give us all the answers at Mount Sinai, but rather just more puzzles.

There is some seriously artistic thematic structuring behind this issue of Wired which consists of apparently random tidbits. If you look it over at the newsstand, prepare to stand there quite a while flipping pages. The index is pretty worthless, and the slick pages are full of huge pictures and ittsy-teensy print you can't read on the glossy paper in a fluorescent light.

On page 122 there's a photo-spread of THE AMERICAN STONEHENGE along with a lot of very small words about the monument. The standing stones were built recently and designed to be a mystery. The builder is kept secret too. It's supposed to contain a clue to how to recreate civilization after everything collapses. It's called THE GEORGIA GUIDESTONES. The first photo shows Hebrew words -- there are many other languages on there, too.

Right before the item on the American Stonehenge is a 3 double-page Star Trek comic book spread where Spock is marooned on a deserted planet and musing on how he got there. It's rather good.

Before the Comic is a spread on solving the puzzle of protein structure. Among the little items on how to do stage magic you'll find an editorial quote of Arthur C. Clark about any sufficiently advanced science appears to be magic.

The whole issue is about magic and mystery, solving the puzzle of how magic is DONE. There are gamers puzzles, and an item on why video game players shun cheating by asking someone who has beaten the game what the trick is. This relates back to the Q&A on solving your Mom's crossword puzzle for her, and to the theme that humans are puzzle-solvers, and that the magic is in the mystery.

The conclusion editorial points out that it isn't HAVING the solution that's important -- it's the experience of solving the puzzle - of living through it all step by step, of doing the conquering yourself. It is the PROCESS that is fascinating to humans -- the process of discovering or assembling or imposing an order on what we perceive. It might almost serve as an answer to the riddle of "what is the purpose of life?" -- to solve puzzles, to revel in mystery.

That's why writers work so hard to arrange a plot into a pattern that will induce the reader to walk through the protagonist's experience, step by step, a mile in their moccasins. That's why "spoilers" don't spoil a novel. That's why some readers read the ENDING first. HEA, Happily Ever After, isn't what the story is about. The story is about the process of getting there.

LIFE IS PROCESS, and the process is apperceiving PATTERNS. Even if the pattern actually does not exist! (as with the conspiracy theorists -- but just because they might be wrong about the pattern doesn't mean they're wrong in their conclusion!)

So LIFE IS PROCESS -- this May 2009 issue of Wired is full of very concrete items, lots of photographs, very visual and very concrete things -- all showing not telling the huge, deep, vast complexity of the universe we live in. The articles are short and single-pointed, not the rambling musings I post here.

Reading the May 2009 Wired is in itself a PROCESS. As with all SHOW DON'T TELL successes, it delivers the reader to a process which lets the reader figure out the puzzle of what the magazine is about. Having arrived at the conclusion themselves, the readers then learn something for themselves, a far more powerful and life-affirming way of acquiring a lesson than merely being told.

But now turn to page 82 (it doesn't have a number - count from page 79) for the one item that might be worth the price of the magazine to you if they don't post this graphic to the web.

The magazine has posted the image to the web here:
http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2009/mf_enigmatrix

It's a double-page spread of 10 circles with words on spokes around them (like sunshine rays), an image inside each circle, and a label on the circle. Lines of words connect all the circles to each other in a crisscrossing pattern.

There is a row of three circles across the top of the double page, a row of 4 circles across the middle of the page, and a row of three circles across the bottom. It's dazzling and dizzying with all the tiny words on the shiny paper.

The title of the article (and this one graphic 2 page spread is the whole article) is THE ENIGMATRIX, "In the universe of puzzles, codes, and games, everything is connected. Here's how." The article is by Steven Lockart, and I wish I knew him! Though he's got me out-classed by a parsec or three. I'm certain Jess Granger would appreciate this complicated diagram!

In Lockart's diagram, the circle on the far left of the middle row is labeled MATH. The circle on the far right of the middle row is labeled MAGIC. It lays out like this (with large numbers of tiny words spread all around).

BOARD GAMES ------ GAME THEORY --- CODE

MATH ----- GAMES ----- PUZZLES ---------------------MAGIC

CARD GAMES ---------PLOT ---------MYSTERIES

Now take that array and turn it 90 degrees counter clockwise.

And what do you see?

THE TREE OF LIFE

And the connecting Pathways of Lockart's diagram contain labels pertaining to real-life processes very closely expressing the essences of the Major Arcana that are usually laid along those pathways -- and it all makes sense if you stare at it long enough.

For a simple example the Path from MYSTERIES down to PLOT says DETECTIVE.

The words are concepts humans have assembled with which we attack the primordial soup and create PATTERNS. Or discern patterns. Or perhaps there is no verb for what we do with patterns. The words represent patterns of smaller concepts that we scoop together into that word -- all very abstract ideas, all graphically presented in SHOW DON'T TELL, the hardest concept a writer must master when assembling the bits of a story idea into a pattern someone else can recognize in their own life.

Perception of PATTERNS is the core of what every "soul-mate" attraction is all about. And in fact, it may be the core of what raw sexual attraction is about -- genes needing other genes to create the whole pattern of a new person.

We "see" another person's genes in their appearance (Astrology reveals these patterns in facial structure, body structure, all associated with personality, too.) And we're attracted to the bits that are missing in ourselves, so we can become "whole." One.

So the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, and Romance are all based on or contain or pivot around this side-wise TREE OF LIFE diagram connecting MAGIC as the source with MATH as the result, all through puzzles and games, ricocheting off of CODE, GAME THEORY, BOARD GAMES, CARD GAMES, PLOT, AND MYSTERY.

You gotta see this diagram.
http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2009/mf_enigmatrix

Then drop a comment here telling me what you'd like to discuss next. How to choose a protagonist? The Creationist's view of Dinosaurs? Why the HEA ending is such an ironclad requirement of the Romance form? How to make a recognizable pattern out of a story idea when the whole universe builds itself in your mind?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/