Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 8 -- Guest Post by Flying Pen Press on Headlines and Titles

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 8
Guest Post by Flying Pen Press
Headlines and Titles

To round off our discussion of Marketing Fiction, we have this Guest Post from the publisher at Flying Pen Press, David Rozansky. 

Last week we examined Headlines and Titles, -- and there is much more to be said about choosing a title (which is what a Headline is).  This week we hear from a publishing company that has a marketing perspective on Titles with a focus on query letters.  Read carefully. 

Flying Pen Press does not specialize in Romance but is widely knowledgeable in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Gaming markets, and understands mixed genre, though is not publishing Science Fiction Romance right now.  Publishing is a business -- learn to think like a publisher from this post, and apply that knowledge as you shape your query letter to a Science Fiction Romance publisher. 


Here are previous posts in this series on Marketing:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_11.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_25.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_18.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

This guest post gives you an insight into how Marketers think, and how a publishing company shifts and changes with the marketing winds often indicated by the most recent Headlines.

You can meet David on Twitter.  See the end of this post for his contact information.

I sent the following questions and got the following responses. 

Absorb this information fully.  It could save your writing career. 

----------QUESTIONS-----------

1.  As a publisher, what genres do you look for especially, and how do you determine when to change the genre-mix of your output?

>>
Our focus is mostly on marketing print, with the practice of making ebook editions a collateral product of importance.

In that regard, we have a "platform-centric" regard for the books we publish. This has three paths to pursue:

1. We seek authors who have a fan base or a viable platform like a popular blog or a bit of fame, at least within their own niches.

2. We try to create a niche platform and find books that feed that readership. Right now, we are building a tile list for readers of Colorado-focus books and another tile list aimed at writers, such as writing guides and workbooks.

3. There are natural platforms that we wish to exploit. These develop in the news or just with popular culture. Our title The Official Rules of Poker is an example of this. When poker was the hottest thing, there was no modern book of poker rules, and so I asked Kelli Mix to write one. Without much marketing at all, it has done well, simply because it fills a demand from a natural platform.

Things are always changing. We published a bit of science fiction because early in the company's life, we knew we needed a "full" catalog, and we arranged to be publicly visible at DenCon, the World Science Fiction Convention that would be in Denver--our home town--that summer. We had a good initial launch with science fiction.

Now, we are not able to sell science fiction much at all. I believe it's due to the explosion of competing publishers and self-publishing authors, which has dramatically increased the marketing costs of the genre.

The way we choose genre mix is mostly related to "return on investment." I have a really nice proprietary list of writers, and reaching Colorado readers is as easy as stepping outside with poster board and a marker. At the same time, we see holes in these two markets where books are now needed.

And as to when we make that decision, the market tends to force our hand. This summer was just terrible for us in all genres of novels. To survive, we have to do something different. The market is always in flux, and those publishers that adapt best to change are the ones that succeed over time.

<<<

2. In the Marketing end of publishing, have you run into reader-resistance at
a) certain price-points,
b) certain title keywords,
c) certain kinds of cover-images (e.g. the old fashioned brass-bras female fighter image).

>>>

The resistance the market holds is not so much related to price-points as it is to price in general. Higher-priced titles generate fewer buyers. It's also related to value, especially with non-fiction and buzzworthy novels. Competition in a subject or fiction concept is also a factor in the impact of high-pricing, so niche books often sell better despite higher prices.

As to titles, I've seen taboo words, such as Fuck and Bitch, become acceptable in humor or edgy genres. My current writing project, Fishnets and Platforms: The Writers Guide to Whoring Your Book, has drawn positive buzz because I use the word whore in the subtitle.

However, in most all cases, Carlin's Seven Words and other expletives should be avoided, especially pejorative terms. Don't toss such words into a title unless you have good reason and good market research.

As to cover graphics, each culture and generation has its own sensitivities. In addition to images, quality is important. Consumers always judge books by their covers. Art that seems amateurish or cartoony will not sell books.

<<<

3. What sells best into your market -- and would you define your target
market?

>>>

What sells best are books by authors who have a good platform. We are acutely aware that readers follow authors, not publishers.

The target market is different for every book, and there is no way to know what submissions will appear in our inbox, so we can't say that there is a specific target market in general.

I've often said that a publishing house finds its path in the marketplace blazed by serendipity. Once we had a few successes with science fiction, we built our marketing plans around that genre and took on more science fiction.

Now we're having success with Terry Grosz's memoirs of his life as wildlife law enforcement agent, which has a strong regional interest. Are changed to regional titles.

The stiffest competition we now see comes from the self-published authors. Self-publication is now a real a game changer. It affects our business to the point that we just cannot compete.

To survive, we need our own platform reader. I come from the world of magazines, I'm used to building a leadership and then finding authors to fit content to those readers. I am now using the magazine publishing model for books via direct-response catalogs and a new title list tightly focused along niche-genre lines.

In 2014, we plan to produce catalogs for Colorado titles and catalogs for writers' guides and reference books.

Meanwhile, if we should find a manuscript with great market potential, we will certainly publish it on it's own under the Flying Pen Press imprint.

<<<

4.  Looking back at the Headlines of 2013, which issues and affairs would
seem to you to be ripe for dramatization in a novel format?  Which would translate best into a galactic-setting, which would fare better in Fantasy, and which do you think would sell better as comedy?  Please give a basis for each judgement call.

>>>

Is a little hard to say because 2013 was "The Year We shoulda seen Coming."

For example the entire NSA surveillance story was foretold in Dan Brown's Digital Fortress. Fracking could make a good plot device, but it would just be another corporate malfeasance/man-made ecological disaster story.

Still, these are both issues that can drive thrillers and spy novels.

One news item in recent years is that of the tsunami. Nobody yet has written a novel about a California tsunami and how it would impact the city of Los Angeles.

We often see New York City hit by tsunamis in disaster films, usually as a result of an asteroid strike in the Atlantic Ocean. However, despite the news of Hurricane Sandy, we don't see a tsunami novel aimed at New York City on the East Coast.

The future of galactic-setting science-fiction is wide open. The field of astronomy has exploded with ever-increasing discoveries of exoplanets. This makes science-fiction ready for complete reinvention. There is a whole lot of new science just waiting to be developed as novels. Just recently China became the third superpower to reach the moon. It may be time to reopen plots about the three superpowers engaging in a new space race, especially regarding the Moon and the exploitable Solar System.

Fantasy, we need to pay attention to business stories, especially in the field of entertainment. Hasbro, with its Hub channel, and Disney's new success with the Disney Junior channel, have developed many new franchises that are beginning to influence fantasy novels.

Watch for structuring of rights to the Dungeons & Dragons franchise for television and film. Hasbro, through the Wizards of the Coast subsidiary, is about to publish the next edition of Dungeons & Dragons, with a big product launch. If a Dungeons & Dragons show appears on the Hub network as well as a film at the same time a new edition is published, I predict a resurgence in sword and sorcery novels, led by R.A. Salvatore.

As far as humor, I think Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert-style political satire will be the way to go in the face the next election's initial rumblings.

<<<

5. As an acquisitions editor,  would you think it's too soon for writers to
use Headlines such as the 9/11 attacks as novel sources?  That was 12 years ago, but is still active headline material with continued Terrorism attacks.  Can Terrorism per se sell well yet?

>>>

Terrorism has always been good fodder for thriller novels. I don't think it was ever too early to use 9/11 is a setting for a story of courage.

However, the sensitivities of people directly affected and of people who watched it on television must be considered, at least until that generation passes into history. The same can be said for such horrible events as Pearl Harbor, Columbine, and the recent tsunamis.

<<<

6. Given the current media focus on individuals -- whether terrorist
connected or just crazy -- shooting or bombing crowded places, do you think there is any way for a publisher to market an entertainment vehicle such as a novel (or film, or webisodes) depicting either the shooter or a victim as Hero?

>>>

Any story where Good triumphs over Evil, even when Good resorts to violence, can be a good story.

Consider the film Inglorious Bastards. The good guys lock Hitler and top Nazi officers in a movie theater and blow it up.

Now, I live near the Century Theater that was the scene of the Aurora Theater Massacre. I know people who were caught in the crossfire and I often attend that theater myself. Nonetheless, I find Inglorious Bastards to be an enjoyable, albeit violent, story.

My stomach has completely turned against Batman, however. The day after the massacre, the Hot Topic retail chain displayed Batman-franchise clothing, including all the stores in the area. This lack of sensitivity will keep me out of Hot Topic forever, only because I feel a sense of dread just seeing the Hot Topic logo (or even just writing about it now).

That's how devastating bad taste can be to a business.

A novel of Jewish insurrectionists rising up against the Nazi incursion can also be a great novel of heroism.

Nazis make great villains upon which to unleash fictional terrorism.

When good-guy terrorists are "freedom fighters" and victims are purely evil tyrants or wartime enemies, it works. But if innocent lives are taken by the freedom fighters as collateral damage, there will be a public outcry--proximity to current events notwithstanding.

In storytelling, Good may resort to evil means against Evil so that good may prevail. Good may never harm innocents, nor allow harm to come to innocents. It's not unlike Asimov's Laws of Robotics.

<<<

7.  If a writer is looking to rip a story from Headlines, how long ago
should they look to find dramatic material?  When does material become "Historical" and when is it still too raw on the nerves of readers?

>>>

Have you ever noticed that schools don't teach recent history? Basically, if there are witnesses around who may dispute the history book, it's generally not taught.

Novels are marketable on current events for about the life of the news cycle. For some events, this can be one afternoon, and for others it could be a century or more.

When the news is sensitive, stories pulled from that headline must exercise great care and avoid jumping to conclusions. Many aspiring writers will likely jump on the news cycle, often in bad taste, so it's probably best to avoid the story altogether.

When the news cycle is completed, there is a period where the story is "stale." The duration of this period seems to be related to how many writers jumped on the news story in the first place. For example, we are  in a period where Desert Storm stories are too stale to be marketable.

Then there comes a period where the event is "historical." The bigger the event, the sooner and longer this period. World War Two is still a marketable setting, the Vietnam War has waned (although the '60s Antiwar Movement is still a healthy setting for novels).

There are events that keep returning as popular settings for novels. Each generation has a need to relive Pearl Harbor, it seems. Nine-Eleven will likely fall into this category, I suspect.

Writing a story pulled from the news cycle usually results in an also-told story trying to sell during the stale period. The historical period does not pre-announce itself and often occurs in the wake of a bestseller that completely saturates the topic.

Thus, writers are often warned against pulling stories from headlines.

However, there is a type of news that serves well as plot devices during or shortly after the news cycle. These events spur public debate and controversy. Even when the news is ghastly or macabre, if it becomes a political issue, it loses the "raw nerve" factor. The original Law & Order TV series successfully told such stories.

An example of this would be the Terry Schiavo story, which prompted a debate of compassionate euthanasia versus the absolute value of human life. Stories based on this news item flooded the cultural panorama, apparently unable to saturate the market.

Essentially, any fiction pulled from controversial news seems to be accepted by the public as part of the debate.

<<<

8. If a writer wants to deal with a very current, raw topic, is there an
approach to marketing that would sell such a Work?  What "slant" would a writer need to use?

>>>

With the previous answer in mind, I would frame the novel as part of the debate on a controversial topic.


----Comment by Jacqueline Lichtenberg -----------
As I've discussed at length in the various blog series on THEME -- what you extract from a Headline is not the setting, characters, historical veracity, or the actions of various people.  The writer has to distill out the THEME that the Headline defines for a large number of people who read the specific genre the writer is working within.
----End Comment-------------------

<<<

9. What Headline topics work better as non-fiction or docudrama than they do as fiction?

>>>

Almost all news does better as nonfiction or docudrama. Isn't that why people watch the news? That is when the news is at its most compelling moment.

<<<

10. Staring at their inevitable rejection slip pile, a writer may become discouraged from marketing their chosen Headline topic.  What personal considerations of the acquisition editor should a writer take into account when evaluating a rejection that says something simple such as "This is not for us at the current time."

>>>

Acquisition editors are extremely busy. They receive hundreds, perhaps thousands of queries, yet it takes a full two weeks to fully evaluate one submission. The reasons for rejection are usually not explained, or if they are, explain only vaguely and briefly. It just takes too much time to write even the shortest of rejection letters.

It is good practice to remember that acquisition editors and book editors are real people often under stress.

One terrible example happened on Friday, December 13, 2013, a gunman entered Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, not that far from my daughter's school. It happened right in the middle of #SciFiChat, a weekly Twitter chat I moderate.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg was the one to break the news to me live on Twitter. I quickly began to mobilize parents and journalists I know who have connections to the school. I also frantically culled all the information I could from the Internet, to find out if my daughter and her school were safe.

In my email, sandwiched between the lockdown notice for my daughter's school, and the safety procedures report from the Denver Public School District, there was a query … a query I wish I'd never seen.

The query was for a YA Thriller titled High School Hit Men. The protagonists are high school students who are secretly government assassins. These protagonists must deal with their school's ubiquitous bully delinquents.

At first, I was shocked. Was this some kind of cruel prank? No, worse; this was a legitimate query.

If this was a dystopian novel, where the protagonists are fighting the tyrannical government that has so violated them, I might not be as outraged. But this query made it seem that this is an acceptable reality.

Obviously, the author found that Flying Pen Press was the closest publishing house to Arapaho High School, or saw my frantic tweets on Twitter with the hashtag #Arapaho.

I'm still not sure which is more offensive: that this author was so opportunistic so as to query me with such a story at my moment of greatest horror and distress, or that the author was approving the exploitation of minors as government-trained killers.

Like Hot Topic, I will never forget this author's name, and I will never stop associating it with a sense of dread.

<<<

11. Give your contact information and URL for submission guidelines.

>>>

I can be reached at Publisher@FlyingPenPress.com, and our website is FlyingPenPress.com.

However, we are about to drastically change our submissions guidelines as we move to Colorado titles and writing guides, so please wait for the changes shortly after the New Year.

The best way to reach me is through my Twitter account, @DavidRozansky.

<<<

Keep 'em Flying,
David A. Rozansky, Publisher
Flying Pen Press

Email: Publisher@FlyingPenPress.com
Address: 1660 Niagara Street, Denver CO 80220 USA
Phone and Fax: 303-375-0225
URL: FlyingPenPress.com
Twitter: @DavidRozansky

---------
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Where Expert Romance Writers Fail

I often hang out at chats on twitter, especially those frequented by writers and fiction readers/viewers.

#scifichat is held at mid-day on Fridays (Eastern Time) and goes for 2 hours. Near the end of #scifichat on June 4th, 2010, the moderator asked the 7th of the 8 Questions in the format:

@scifichat #scifichat Q7: Can we envision a day when all disabilities are overcome? Utopia, or dystopia? #disability #progress #scifi #fantasy #books 12:31 PM Jun 4th via API

@PennyAsh Q7 I would say dystopia is more likely #scifichat 12:34 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

All my inner alarm bells went off reading @PennyAsh's comment. She's a Romance Writer. She thinks dystopia is more likely.

I've found that she and I share a lot of interests in common, books, TV shows. She's been writing fantasy romance, vampires, steam punk, and other SF/F stories. She's well trained in how to cast a story into a plot line.

Yet, the moderator's question during a discussion of Disabilities in SF triggered a lazy reversion to a non-thinking, non-SF, non-imaginative answer.

True, in the reality we live in, dystopia seems to be the norm, and "more likely."

But this is #scifichat and that means it's about science fiction and fantasy and imagination.

The point of reading the literature of the fantastic is to learn to think "outside the box" - to break through cultural blinders -- to contemplate the impossible, the improbable, the unthinkable, the "unlikely" -- and to use those thoughts to change the world in such a way that those limits don't exist anymore.

In the 1950's, if you thought humans would actually walk on Earth's Moon, you were considered somewhere near the edge of sanity. Your opinion on everything else was automatically discounted. What was known to be impossible, was indeed impossible because it was known to be impossible (and disabled people were not treated well at all.)

In the 1960's - the decade of the first Star Trek TV series - not only was the idea that we could walk on the moon now considered possible and even do-able, but the idea that anything was actually impossible became suspect!

The 1970's was an era when even unfettered male dominance of everything important could be changed.

Science Fiction has been defined by an attitude, a "Sense of Wonder" that is deeply rooted in a philosophy that says:

What Humans Can Imagine; Humans Can Do

And the corollary is true. If you can't imagine it, you can't do it.

Science Fiction led the way out of the 1950's into a Golden Age for SF where more and more titles sold more and more copies - where real SF finally came to TV (not kiddie fare, and not comedy like My Favorite Martian, but Real SF like Star Trek).

The teens who grew up on SF novels that acknowledged no limits to the imagination, created the Internet, the World Wide Web, and many generations of computer chips, to wireless networks, and on and on into massive connectivity, not to mention GPS and Satellite weather reports (if you don't remember the 1950's, you don't appreciate today's weather reporting at all).

All that progress turned on just one tiny bit of philosophy.

If you've been reading my blogs here, you know that I place an inordinate emphasis on Philosophy.

Philosophy is far more important in human personal existence, cultural existence, societal existence and even the existence of our entire technological Civilization, than most people can imagine.

Writers, however, all have to be world class philosophers.

The entire art and craft of worldbuilding, and the whole power of the writer's knack of sucking a reader into a world not their own, rests on artistic manipulation of philosophy.

Philosophy turns up in every nook and cranny of a story, but dominates the THEME component.

There is one philosophical point that is the prime signature of the SF Genre, and it is bedrock basic to Romance Genre as well.

It's a very simple point, which means it's far more profound than most people would ever want to believe. Very personal.

It cuts to the quick. It twangs the heartstrings. It makes life worth while. It scares the shit out of most humans, so they won't think about it. I just said it above - do you remember or did you skip it?

What Humans Can Imagine; Humans Can Do

And the corollary. If you can't imagine it, you can't do it.

Now how does this apply to both SF and Romance?

Look at Star Trek: The Original Series. Captain Kirk was the only one to graduate the Academy having passed the Kobiyashi Maru exam.

How he did that is revealed. He cheated. He saw it was a no-win scenario, held in his heart the absolute conviction that there is no such thing as a no-win scenario, and he CHANGED THE RULES (hacked the computer and changed the program) so he could win.

That incident so defines Star Trek as PURE SF (despite all the compromises necessary to get it onto prime time TV where SF was totally disallowed) that the incident is recounted in the 2009 Star Trek movie.

In the movie, produced forty years after the first TV show, we see the young Kirk of an alternate universe rig the computer simulator and win the Kobiyashi Maru test.

It is made clear this is an alternate universe, so they could have just said this Kirk never cheated to win his commission. But they kept that incident intact because it defines the character. All Kirks in all universes think this way because it defines Kirk, and defines Star Trek as SF.

"Kirk" is the essence of science fiction because he does not accept limits on what is possible. If necessary, he'll change the structure of reality itself to actualize what he imagines.

Think hard about that attitude.

It's a very powerful philosophy, but it's also very dangerous. Scary.

Think about it, and see if it isn't the essence of what makes humans human, and that very essence is what scares (terrifies) many people, possibly to the point of being disabled in the ability to Love.

From the caveman inventing the wheel (which was independently invented, I think three times in different parts of the world) to some college students and professors inventing the internet -- just for fun, just to play computer games they programmed, toying with the stuff they worked on seriously in their day-jobs -- humans refuse to accept "impossible" for very long.

Now, think about the core essence of Romance.

Essentially, Romance is the pathway or open doorway to HAPPILY EVER AFTER, the HEA ending. You can't get to HEA without going through Romance.

What's the point of all the heart-rending, harrowing, emotional roller coaster plot if it does NOT produce an HEA ending?

Any sensible person will tell you that the HEA ending is a ridiculous cliche because in "real" life, it's impossible. Because! It's ridiculous because it's impossible.

Ho-ho!

We have found a juncture, a point of identity between SF and Romance as genres.

Both kinds of stories must end at achieving the IMPOSSIBLE -- and thereby changing the very definition of what is possible.

Once "the impossible" has been achieved, it becomes possible, and the boundaries that circumscribe our mental lives must expand to include this new achievement.

Philosophically, SF and Romance are identical.

So why is Romance still unworthy of vast public respect?

See my blog entry (also based on a Twitter conversation - this one on #scriptchat )
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-do-they-despise-romance.html

Read the comments on that blog entry and you'll find a comment about the HEA ending.

Note that if it's true that both SF and Romance must generate endings that violate the absolute boundaries of consensus reality, then the two genres are not now and never have been separate genres.

So there's no such thing as SFR.

You can't "mix" genres that are already identical.

If you mix two things that are identical, you end up with more of that one thing.

So SF has "proved itself" by having moved the boundaries of reality for many people now living. So they accept this new reality of iphones and thus most SF no longer seems ridiculous or crazy.

But apparently, no such "proof" yet exists for Romance.

Well, look at the state of the Family in the USA (maybe worldwide). Divorce is commonplace, over 50% in some demographics. And a famous couple ostensible happy for 40 years just announced a separation.

"Falling in Love" has led to bitter disappointment for many who married because of a romantic experience.

In their reality, there is no such thing as HEA.

And they've convinced all their friends and family there's no such thing as an HEA.

Anyone who believes there is such a thing as an HEA in real life is as "crazy" as those idiots in 1950 who kept writing stories about humans walking on other planets.

So, why do people accept "hard evidence" (the divorce rate) to "prove" their belief that something is impossible?

Hard evidence showed that people could not go into space because there was no material that could withstand the forces required to climb out of the gravity well of Earth. Not only that, but hard calculations showed clearly there was no fuel that could provide the thrust. The whole idea was stupid because it's impossible to do it.

So a generation got to work and produced materials and fuel, and political backing to get funding -- and we did it. We did the impossible. We did what had only been imagined by crazy people.

Do people today perhaps think that imagining the internet and making the Web happen is just about the Web, and not about human imagination?

Do they think the change in "reality" was just a fluke? Now we just adjust to a new reality, and it'll never change again -- certainly not as a result of crazy people imagining stuff?

Do they think "reality" is now fixed and you just have to live with it -- even if they are Star Trek fans, even Kirk fans?

How do people get such fixed notions about what is possible?

Do you suppose it's inculcated by the fiction they imbibe in youth?

And where does that fiction come from?

Writers.

We have a whole new generation of writers (and their near-cousins, editors) trying to find a way to make a living within the rules set down by a publishing industry now suddenly owned and operated by big corporations who think publishing should make a profit. (it never has in human history, but they're determined to do the impossible)

Therefore, in their pursuit of the impossibility of a profitable publishing industry, they have laid down the law about what is or is not possible in the fiction they've published.

Writers, accordingly, are trained by their editors to produce fiction that conforms to those rules of what is possible.

It's not so much the rules themselves that are sacred, but the entire attitude of conforming that has become untouchable.

I was astonished to run into that hard, fast, shiny, impenetrable barrier on (of all places!) #scifichat on twitter -- the one high-tech playground where one would suppose the philosophy of the internet founders (imagine the impossible; do it) would hold sway.

Of course the 140 character limit on twitter is not my native mode of expression, but I did my best and still had a hard time breaking a mental barrier composed of *EPIC FAIL* of writerly imagination.

You want to figure out why Romance doesn't get the respect it deserves as a genre - read this exchange I accidentally started in answer to @PennyAsh's comment on dystopia being more likely.

Think about the "impossible" HEA, where the HEA is a type of "Utopia" and think about how and why general readers reject all of romance because of the HEA while fans of romance read it because of the HEA.

Should we shrug and wall ourselves off into our own little corner of the universe? Or should we analyze what's really going on?

I had no intention probing for data to analyze when I made the following casual remark in answer @PennyAsh's response to the moderator's question about dystopia and utopia.

And I suspect few on #scifichat were thinking what I was thinking when I made this remark -- that the inability to "love," to fall in love, or to experience ROMANCE, is actually a very serious handicap, a disability of the most crippling kind. I said:

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat Frankly I'm more for utopia as a VISION -- but it's not the utopia that fails but the envisioner.

This started a long-long exchange with several people -- none of whom apparenly understood what I had meant (in 140 characters) by failure of the envisioner. All of these answers are (to me) clearly confined within a tiny box created by our culture's assumptions which must not be challenged.

So @MoonWolf95 commented back at me:

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg One man's Utopia is another man's Nine Hells #scifichat

to which @PennyAsh answered

@PennyAsh @MoonWolf95 I agree, in a utopia we do not grow #scifichat

My hair stood on end. Writer's *EPIC FAIL* of imagination! How in the world can you discuss such abstract philosophical matters in 140 character bursts? So I said:

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat Naturally I disagree - at point of UTOPIA we actually finally START TO GROW (species infancy now) STARGATE ASCENSION
12:43 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg exactly, human nature will out. #scifichat
12:44 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat utopia concept - think Lensman Series, Arisians, visualization of the macrocosmic all. A utopia does growth starts
12:44 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

The next question was dropped in by the moderator:

@scifichat #scifichat Q8: Can cybernetic interfaces be a #disability themselves? #scifi #cyberpunk #computers #robot #science
12:45 PM Jun 4th via API

I thought that was the end of that exchange on Utopia. Nope.

@GeneDoucette #scifichat Utopia for ALL would A: be boring, B: be impossible to believe. Utopia for some at the cost of many would be more believable.
12:46 PM Jun 4th via web

Gene Ducette is a writer I'm going to be reading soon. David Rozansky answered my comment.

@DavidRozansky @JLichtenberg Brave New World? #scifichat
12:45 PM Jun 4th via TweetGrid in reply to JLichtenberg

So I'm thinking the Romance genre HEA really is saying "you can have this too" - i.e. Utopia for all. Boring? Impossible to believe? Enforced like BRAVE NEW WORLD?

*EPIC FAIL* of writerly imagination. How to explain that in 140 characters? And I'm talking to the smartest, most imaginative people around. How could this be happening?

Another writer/artist I'd just met last week, @MoonWolf95 adds:

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg One man's Utopia is another man's Nine Hells #scifichat
12:43 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@MoonWolf95, as @PennyAsh, likes the same books, authors, TV, that I do.

So @PennyAsh answers:

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Utopia makes a wonderful vision problem is there's always someone who wants to enforce their vision on all #scifichat
12:47 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

And I'm thinking, "No, not in a real Utopia there isn't." But that's unimaginable, unthinkable, and probably unpublishable, right?

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 @PennyAsh #scifichat "1's utopia; another's hell" - see, that's failure of writer's imagination! Stuck in past.
12:47 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

While the whole discussion veered into the next question and topic, I was stuck on this Utopia vision problem.

@JLichtenberg #scifichat 2 create NEW SF take unchallenged ancient truth and CHALLENGE IT (1 man's utopia; another's Hell)
12:48 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

Remember, every post of mine goes to maybe 1200 people who aren't "listening" to #scifichat and so have no clue what I'm talking about. So I often RT (retweet) the comment I'm answering AND try to include the nucleus of the comment in my comment so it makes sense "out of the blue" to someone not interested in SF. Most of my followers are interested in writing and the whole entertainment industry from creation to business model.

So I said:

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat But what if NOBODY wanted to force their vision on others? THAT is essence of an SF question. WHAT IF...?
12:49 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg We need things to overcome otherwise we stagnate. It's a catch 22, utopia achieved breeds dissatisfaction #scifichat
12:49 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg The cycle starts all over again #scifichat
12:49 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

David Rozandky caught up with this side-chatter while main discussion went on with Disabilities and technology.

@DavidRozansky @JLichtenberg So Utopia, like myopia, is a vision disabiltiy. #scifichat
12:49 PM Jun 4th via TweetGrid in reply to JLichtenberg

And another writer chimed in answering me:

@madpoet @JLichtenberg I wouldn't call that a failure of writer's imagination. I'd call it an acknowledgment of human nature. @PennyAsh #scifichat
12:49 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

But I was busy answering David Rozansky:

@JLichtenberg @DavidRozansky #scifichat Yes, a "vision disability" afflicts our readers, and SF writers job is to open their eyes to unthinkable possib
12:51 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to DavidRozansky

To which @PennyAsh replied:

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg I'll have to ponder this more :) might fit in my Frankenstein story #scifichat
12:51 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

And I finally saw and responded to @madpoet

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat the whole point of SF/F is to NOT ACKNOWLEDGE LIMITS OF HUMAN NATURE - go where no man/person has gone b4
12:51 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

And another writer chimed in (side-topic kept exploding)

@teresajusino @JLichtenberg #scifichat Not an ancient truth about SF so much as a truth about human nature. & yes, you can ignore that in SF, but why?
12:50 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

Why!!??? Ignore???? Oh, no, no -- but how to answer that?

@JLichtenberg @teresajusino #scifichat no, not "ignore" human nature, QUESTION OUR CONVICTION ABOUT WHAT IT IS. Always question!
12:52 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to teresajusino

And to @PennyAsh I finally answered:

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat Yes, it's definitely a Frankietein archetype challenge
12:52 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@GeneDoucette @JLichtenberg I think I'd like a definition of "utopia" before going on. #scifichat
12:53 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

The rest of the folks had been discussing disabilities created by technology, so I connected the two threads of discussion thusly:

@JLichtenberg #scifichat disability created by science - the scholarly conviction that we KNOW human nature
12:53 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

Again I was challenging the entire concept of "the impossible" being set up by academics, experts, or "everyone knows."

Meanwhile MoonWolf95 has been thinking hard:

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg But human nature can be considered a disability by itself too? #scifichat
12:53 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

But I was busy answering @GeneDoucette

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat tweet-size defn of utopia is opp of dystopia, I'd guess
12:54 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

@madpoet is still pursuing another line of thought and everyone's talking at once:

@madpoet @JLichtenberg Then we're no longer writing about humans at all. One branch of SF is the exploration of human reaction to the new. #scifichat
12:54 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@DavidRozansky @MoonWolf95 That's flawed thinking, don't you think? #scifichat
12:54 PM Jun 4th via TweetGrid in reply to MoonWolf95

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 #scifichat human "nature" could be a LIMITATION which say, soul-spirit could fight to overcome. ESSENCE OF STORY IS CONFLICT
12:55 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@GeneDoucette @JLichtenberg because if it's a variant of "everyone's happy and content" well... #scifichat
12:55 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

David Rozansky makes a brilliant remark

@DavidRozansky Utopia is world of no problems. Impossible to reach, yet we as humans always progress to solving problems. Paradox? #scifichat
12:55 PM Jun 4th via TweetGrid

@PennyAsh RT @JLichtenberg: @MoonWolf95 I see it more as a cycle moving society to the next level, either up or down #scifichat
12:56 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

And I finally got back to @madpoet

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat this chat was about how disability is treated in SF/F which means not limited to "humans" no?
12:56 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

@PennyAsh @MoonWolf95 Resistance to change and stagnation #scifichat
12:56 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Absolutely or what if no one wanted to rebel? What if no one wants to have a revolution? #scifichat
12:58 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@MoonWolf95 @PennyAsh Oddly I finished a convo w/char in that very position this morning. #scifichat
12:58 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to PennyAsh

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat well, yes, "what if" there's no conflict -- crippled writer thinks "but must have; so can't be true" -- but WHAT IF???
12:59 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

I was trying to jar everyone out of their writerly training (that I'd participated in drumming into them) - THERE MUST BE CONFLICT and there is a very short menu of where to find conflict.

I was trying to get them to imagine Utopia and some serious thinking was going on in some minds.

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg I have my romance theme for Frankenstein, this will give a nice framework #scifichat
1:00 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

I was grinning as I answered @GeneDoucette

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat I disagree. Utopia doesn't have to be boring. Can be huge challenges, projects, things to learn, levels to master
1:01 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

The moderator calls TIME! And I was way, way behind by this point.

@scifichat Tweet! That's the official end of #scifichat. But feel free to keep the conversation going.
1:01 PM Jun 4th via API

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat I got onto Utopia just being my usual abrasive, contrary, disagreeable self. Whatever "everyone" knows is untrue!
1:02 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg If you know this, by your own logic it too must be untrue :) #scifichat 1:03 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

Oho! I seem to have gotten a point across in 140 characters or less!

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 #scifichat precisely - now you're getting it!
1:04 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

But, no, not yet as Gene has been thinking like a well trained writer who carefully stays within publishable bounds:

@Gene Doucette @JLichtenberg but where is your conflict? Heroes are nominally non-conformists. #scifichat
1:05 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat mtlitudinous conflicts in utopia - think ARISIANS vs. BOSKONE
1:07 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Almost makes me want to write a utopian story :) #scifichat
1:08 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

Oho- SUCCESS! @PennyAsh is getting my point - thousands of novels about dystopia, not much about utopia except ones that reveal the flaw and destroy the Utopia or show it up for a sham. Utopia is Virgin territory (you should excuse the pun) for SF writers!

@madpoet @JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette Hang on - Boskone was a utopia? #scifichat
1:08 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

I do love talking to people who have read the books I've read!

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat -- no Arisians had evolved to a point where their lives were utopian (from our POV, not theirs)
1:10 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg My to be written list is getting longer #scifichat
1:11 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg There's another good utopia/dystopia question, who's pov are we in? #scifichat
1:11 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

I also love talking to writers - whose point of view indeed! Love it!

@madpoet @JLichtenberg weren't they secretly manipulating humanity to develop the children of the lens? #scifichat
1:12 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat Yes, Arisians bred human (and other) Lensmen to combat Boskone which ALSO manip'd human history 1:13 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

@GeneDoucette @MoonWolf95 Fair enuf. I find utopian societies inherently unrealistic, and so tend to look for proof of dystopian underpinnings #scifichat
1:14 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to MoonWolf95

@MoonWolf95 @GeneDoucette To be honest, I think a Utopian society would implode from within naturally #scifichat
1:15 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to GeneDoucette

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat yes, and idea human nature is unchangeable and inescapable is preconceived idea
1:15 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@MoonWolf95 @GeneDoucette But it comes back around to the potential causes, both of Utopia and its fall #scifichat
1:16 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to GeneDoucette

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat a real disability would be the 1 human whose "nature" was NOT what we learn in Lit classes frm Shakespear etc
1:16 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg Enough so that whatever breaks out of the cycle of human nature by definition will no longer be "human" #scifichat
1:17 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Good point :) How about utopia from the pov of those unhappy with it #scifichat
1:17 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@GeneDoucette @MoonWolf95 yes. Being discontent is an important aspect of being human. Either human and not utopian, or vice versa. #scifichat
1:17 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to MoonWolf95

Now earlier, discussing how to pitch novels @GeneDoucette had answered something I said with this comment:

@GeneDoucette @JLichtenberg ..I did that when I started with "okay, my narrator is a 60,000 y/o man." But I HATE the delimiting nature of genre #scifichat

"hate the delimiting nature of genre" - you all know where I stand on that, but I didn't have any time to open that topic with @GeneDoucette. His comment stuck in my mind, but I mis-remembered and attributed it to @madpoet so addressed this comment to @madpoet.

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat U dislike "genre delimiters" so I led U OUTof a limit U didn't know U were in (I'm so mean)
1:19 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

Then I went back to bugging @MoonWolf95 (who didn't deserve it)

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 #scifichat Well, are we so parochial that whatever breaks out of cycle of human history is so OTHER to be non-human?
1:20 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Yes, not "normal" to be dissatisfied with your society/situation #scifichat
1:20 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg To be honest - yes. Look at MacCaffrey's "Pegasus", or X-Men comix #scifichat
1:21 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat POV of those unhappy with utopia - THAT is failure of imagination
1:22 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg So far yep :) Still pondering :) #scifichat
1:23 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat "old us vs. them question" -- precisely my point OLD QUESTION. We need NEW QUESTION.
1:24 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

Of course I was thinking of a Romance genre new question. But others were finally thinking.

@madpoet @JLichtenberg Would it be fair to say that the Utopians would regard that unhappiness as a disability? #BringinItBackAround #scifichat
1:24 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us" - us vs us question :) #scifichat
1:25 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #BringinItBackAround #scifichat in a routine ho-hum SF story, Utopians wld regard unhappiness as disability.
1:25 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

And more writers thinking hard-hard-HARD.

@Agiliste @JLichtenberg: @PennyAsh #scifichat "old us vs. them question" -- New Question: What if THEM is the way to go. Rampant individualism?
1:26 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@MoonWolf95 So what if a Utopian considered their world/life to not be Utopia and it should go further? #scifichat
1:26 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 #scifichat "us vs. us" also been done to death and studied by academics. Give them something they can't understand
1:26 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg The WHAT IFs are beginning to come together... #scifichat
1:26 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @Agiliste #scifichat "What if THEM is the way to go?" now Ur thinking SF/F!!! Don't stop thinking. Say what has never been said.
1:27 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to Agiliste

@PennyAsh I like it RT @Agiliste: @JLichtenberg: @PennyAsh #scifichat New Question: What if THEM is the way to go. Rampant individualism?
1:28 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

@GeneDoucette @MoonWolf95 Fair enuf. I find utopian societies inherently unrealistic, and so tend to look for proof of dystopian underpinnings #scifichat
1:14 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to MoonWolf95

@MoonWolf95 @PennyAsh That's what we *do* at the end of the day - we play "What if?" with the Universe. Better than dice :) #scifichat
1:28 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to PennyAsh

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat YOU GOT IT - U find utopia unrealistic. NOW write what would convince U you're wrong
1:29 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Here's a WHAT IF: Utopia has achieved immortality. What if you don't want to live forever? #scifichat
1:30 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 @GeneDoucette #scifichat MoonWolf shld then write what would PREVENT utopia from imploding, see my point?
1:30 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat "what if you don't want to live forever" -- that is routine, grind the crank, writer-ly thinking. Find a NEW QUESTION
1:31 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@GeneDoucette @MoonWolf95 yes. Being discontent is an important aspect of being human. Either human and not utopian, or vice versa. #scifichat
1:17 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to MoonWolf95

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat what if human nature changed so that discontent was NOT necessarily integral (it is now - show us NEW)
1:32 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg You'd only end up with a paradox discovery - anything you do to preserve Utopia only hastens its collapse :) #scifichat
1:33 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 #scifichat SF thinking means to CHALLENGE that wall in Ur mind saying "only leads to collapse"
1:34 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@DavidRozansky @JLichtenberg Human trait of needing to search for new things is vital part of us. So seeking unobtainable utopia is...utopia. #scifichat
1:35 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@GeneDoucette @JLichtenberg Now that's a nice writing exercise. #scifichat "NOW write what would convince U you're wrong"
1:35 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg The crank is grinding :) have a fledgeling plot in mind #scifichat
1:36 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@Agiliste RT @JLichtenberg: @Agiliste #scifichat now Ur thinking SF/F!!! << The voices in my head are suggesting that may head towards Mad Max...
1:37 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat having new horizons could be utopia -- but WHAT IF UTOPIA IS ACTUALLY ATTAINABLE?
1:38 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

@GeneDoucette @JLichtenberg I think the Talking Heads said it best: "heaven is a place where nothing ever happens." #scifichat
1:38 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @DavidRozansky #scifichat Here's a heretical thought - suppose our world 2day is actually utopia for humans? (been done, I think)
1:39 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to DavidRozansky

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg Utopia is what you decide it is for you. The rest of the world can go find its own :) #scifichat
1:39 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@DavidRozansky Can't wait to put #Dystopia on the list for #scifichat topics.
1:41 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

@MoonWolf95 *wonders if @JLichtenberg is a clone of Jubal Harsaw* *grins* #scifichat
1:42 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat

(no, actually I'm just mean and relentless when I get into a writing brainstorming session)

@PennyAsh So does Utopia = Happy and Dystopia = Unhappy? Methinks not :) #scifichat
1:44 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

@johndejordy Utopia is attainable for the individual, not a group because everyone's concept of what it might be differs. #scifichat
1:44 PM Jun 4th via web

@PennyAsh @johndejordy But what if it is attainable for a group? #scifichat
1:48 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to johndejordy

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg So, what if the only people granted immortality are lifers. The general public isn't allowed it #scifichat
1:51 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@johndejordy That is why I say utopia would be for the individual. Mine would is simplistic, to live without any physical pain - and ice cream #scifichat
1:57 PM Jun 4th via web

We were all posting so hot and heavy that twitter blocked us out of posting more. The chat only went an hour or so beyond the stopping time!

Look over that discussion substituting "HEA" for Utopia.

As noted in the comments to my blog post on "Why Do "They" Hate Romance?"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-do-they-despise-romance.html

--- the world out there puts the HEA outside of the bounds of the possible. HEA is impossible just like Utopia.

Even the most imaginative SF writers can't encompass the basic concept. How could you expect their readers to approach it?

Worse, it's not just the HEA concept that's outside the bounds of thinkable thoughts -- it's the very idea of thinking outside the bounds of the thinkable that's unthinkable.

Reverse your point of view to looking at the SFR field from the side of the Romance writer, and you'll find exactly the same problem.

The romance writer imagination *Epic Fail* comes in trying to imagine the world WITHOUT the HEA -- and at the same time can't even think of the possibility of a technological advance (an SF postulate) that might challenge or involve the HEA concept.

We can mash in the Horror genre with Romance and SF if we begin to think about the reason that the general readership rejects the HEA (it's implausible).

"What if ..." the inability to fall in love, to experience Romance, to navigate that blurry mental state into the safe haven of an HEA life (for real) using the force of Love is actually a very widespread inability.

"What if ..." a huge portion of today's people are suffering from this disability - a disability so widespread that it's considered the norm?

If that were the case, what could fiction writers do about it?

We'd have a big job ahead of us.

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

Worldbuilding By Committee

Here is an AP news story I found on Yahoo. Look it up. It's relevant to the point here.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091215/ap_on_sc/as_australia_coconut_octopus

It sent me scrambling through my collectible Hardcover SF looking for one of my favorite books because I couldn't remember the author's name (probably a pseudonym and I probably knew it some years ago; might be Murry Leinster as he had many bylines used only once or twice).

The article is about Australian Scientists who have observed a species of octopus that collects coconut shells from the ocean bottom, selects ones broken in half, and carries them back to a specific spot, then constructs a shelter between two halves.

This shows tool use. There's a cognitive function revealed by the collecting for LATER USE. The octopus gains no shelter from a half it is in the process of carrying. It's only later that shelter can be provided, after manipulating two halves.

It doesn't sound like much, but the news story says that the octopus is among the most intelligent invertebrates, and this is a new discovery of tool use. I don't know how long its been considered "intelligent for an invertebrate."

I stared at this article in astonishment, vividly remembering one of my favorite books (from back in the day when there were no female characters in SF except as victims).

THE LOST PLANET by PAUL DALLAS (1956) is the novel, and there are a couple of used copies on Amazon.

Try this link.

The Lost Planet

The Lost Planet about a young boy who goes with his father to a planet where there are non-human natives who look like the octopus. They have an amphibious civilization. The boy makes friends with the child of the native ruler, and that changes the course of the relationship between the planets. Yeah, it's an old story, but this is an old book -- and one of the many influences on me.

At the time I read this book, nobody had yet told me that if "he" could do it, that meant "I" could not because I'm a girl. So as far as I was concerned I was the human making friends with the alien and fixing the mess the adults made of things.

But that's not what I remember about this book. I don't remember reading any OTHER SF novels that used the octopus as the model for an alien species.

And now it seems we've observed tool use by several octopuses.

Where is the SF written today that's predicting such impossible things?

Well, folks, TWITTER may be the place where you'll find such bold thinking turned into SF/F.

No, I'm not kidding. This is for real. It's here. It's now. You're invited.

For more on twitter, social networking, and how Web 2.0+ is changing the business of being a writer (an SF prediction of yore), check out my prior blog entries:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-love-web-20.html

And

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/marketing-via-social-networking.html

So here is the latest installment on the impact of Web 2.0 and beyond (are we up to 4.0 yet?)

Last Friday afternoon, I participated in a twitter "chat" with a publisher who has asked a group of writers to build a world for a shared world anthology and then write stories for the anthology.

Twitter chat works like this.

On the right of your Twitter browser window there's a slot called search which searches all tweets posted on twitter, even those not from people you are connected to (i.e. people whose tweets you see) or people who are connected to you (people whose tweets you don't see but who do see your tweets).

You can search the whole public stream of twitter for a certain keyword, and then see a list of posts with that keyword. As new posts with that keyword appear, the list of posts you're looking at flows before your eyes, and you see whole conversations.

So tweeters invented "hashtags" and twitter accomodated them as keywords. A "hash" is the # mark, and "tag" is a word related to the subject somehow.

Now all kinds of domains are offering twitter utilities that make this "chat" function easier. I am exploring hootsuite.com

So this publisher who is on twitter as @DavidRozansky ( http://www.flyingpenpress.com/ ) has been running #sfchat as a Friday afternoon feature for some time, where his authors chat.

He's been playing with hashtags to create different streams of conversations, and came up with the idea for creating a shared world anthology via twitter hashtag chat. He named this chat-stream #sfchatworld, and held the first meeting Friday afternoon.

I hadn't attended the previous chats he'd held, but this concept (collaborative worldbuilding) was irresistible (see my Web 2.0 posts to see why it hooks me so). The working chat was to last only 2 hours. I cleared my schedule!

David Rozansky has posted the raw chat log at:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977943165

Right in the middle of this, when it got really creative, one of the chatters piped up with the suggestion that we enable this discussion as a "Wave" on google wave.

Google Wave may be the advent of Web 4.0, but it's still in beta and works irregularly for me.

People jumped on that idea of using Google Wave with JOY. A few minutes later the enabler called for people to give their google wave addresses and started a Wave where people could side-chat the chat.

Only problem is, I had barely paid attention to Google Wave. I didn't know what it was or how it worked or why it might be useful, and I didn't have the credential they wanted to sign me into their Wave, nor know how to get that credential (except I knew someone had to invite you to be a beta tester), so I continued to read and comment on the twitter thread.

At the end of 2 hours, the group of creative, well educated, amazingly talented, and broadly read folks had come up with the charcoal sketch of a "world" that they could build together and all find stories to tell within the boundaries of that world.

Here's the deal.

The worldbuilding chat sessions (another on Friday Dec 18, 2009) were started by David's invitation to about 60 writers, and they were open to anyone else on twitter. Since for the most part, our cryptic tweets went to all our followers (often over 1,000 people apiece), a number of non-participants watched this process, and a couple ducked into the thread to say it was very interesting. You can come watch the second chat session. Follow @DavidRozansky for the announcement of the hashtag, most likely #scifichat or #sfchatworld

David Rozansky intends to select from submitted stories so that the anthology he's creating will end up about 50% established professionals and 50% new voices.

The concept is that we collectively will create the world, then anyone who wants to submit to it will send him a story. When the world has been created, the story-length and anthology length and other terms will be determined. Just participating in the worldbuilding and submitting a story does not mean your story will be accepted. This is a "real" publisher, with the usual stringent standards.

So having seen that this suddenly created world-by-committee was actually something I could write a story in, and having "met" via twitter a couple of the very lively participants, and particularly one who apparently likes all the stuff we focus on at alienromances.blogspot.com (Star Trek, Marion Zimmer Bradley, C. J. Cherryh, Katherine Kurtz, etc etc) @PennyAsh then I decided I'd like to attend the next chat and keep up on the conversation. I'd like to frame a story that would dovetail into PennyAsh's story seamlessly, so they make a pair.

So on Sunday, I fished out the invitation to Google Wave that my friend Patric had sent me some weeks ago (it ended up in google's spam trap! they trapped their own mail!), and flung myself into Wave.

I still don't understand Google Wave well, and my display (it displays in a window in your browser) flicks up and down wildly, or won't respond to scrolling, sometimes doesn't accept my entries, and I type ahead of the cursor about two lines. It's slow, balky, and everything you'd expect of a beta version (which this is and google makes it clear they're working on it, so report problems but don't complain).

Google Wave does have some features that will make it an excellent collaborative tool, though. You can not only edit your own entries but you can edit someone else's entries after they've made them.

You can add a comment directly under someone's comment to make an exchange that makes sense, rather than the usual chat where every comment comes after the previous one even if it refers to one 10 comments before. You can do that on some blog comments lists, such as on Yahoo Buzz. But this is the first time I've seen it in chat (I generally only use AIM and IRC).

So a "Wave" is a constantly moving document you create on the fly, more like a mural than a thread.

Patric told me nicknames for the cells that contain your comment, and for the comments, but I don't remember!

Patric tells me the Wave stream's data resides on google's server, not your computer, so that's why you can cross-edit. This is a powerful concept that will probably spread. But I have broadband cable, zippity fast service, and still this thing lags beyond usefulness.

And yes, Google is much in the news for invasion of privacy, and apparently this is one of those invasive tools they are inventing.

So no matter what happens with the shared-world anthology (which doesn't have a title yet), I've gained a new dimension to my social networking.

The problem with that is simply that it is yet one more thing that soaks up time.

But if Google Wave takes over, everything we do on social networking will be gathered together.

I've been wondering if Google Wave works better in Google Chrome. I've been using firefox because I found IE8 absolutely unusable (probably because of my antique computer).

So now there is a public Google Wave inventing a shared world in which many authors will participate. You can check for the summary of this new world that's being built. The summary is called #sfchat on Wave. The discussion wave is called Contact List For

They're both public at the moment, but don't ask me how to access them. I'm not sure how it happened that the shared worlds chat appeared before my eyes!

See? Isn't that exactly what the boy hero of The Last Planet experienced upon debarking at his new abode? ADVENTURE! And a new chance to make cool friends. He had no idea how the spaceship worked.

The Shared World

As for the World that's the product of a committee, so far it lacks a certain cohesive polish, but it's broad enough to work within.

If you read the raw transcript linked above here, you will see how the different writers were pulling in different directions until the editor saw a consensus building and declared this or that element accepted.

If you're studying worldbuilding, you might want to look carefully at the point where I commented on the difference between world building and adding the societal and social tensions that would generate conflict and characters for a story.

Worldbuilding doesn't have to be the first step in writing a story, and in fact rarely is.

So many of the people diving into this exercise went right to stories they wanted to tell, and perhaps characters they were already writing that they thought might have an adventure in this "world" and wanted to do what I always do, build the world around the character and story.

But "worldbuilding" is a very different exercise than "storytelling."

A "world" doesn't have "a conflict" or "a theme" -- a "world" by definition has all conflicts and all themes within it, or it's not a world.

And yet, all the writers participating in this chat seemed to have their own story trope in the forefront of their minds as they suggested parameters for the "world."

Often "world" and "setting" were confused. The World includes all the Settings you can put stories against.

People wanted to start by inventing themes, motifs, (and one person even did contribute a REFRAIN that I can use that the editor grabbed onto -- "I'm tired of Jupiter" and someone contributed graphics on the Google Wave thread with "I'm tired of Jupiter because" and that went around through the twitter chat.)

So again, read the raw twitter feed to see all the different ways creative minds approach the charcoal sketch phase of writing a story.

It's all helter-skelter and criss-crossing dance steps, but you can see that most of these people actually have perfected their own personal ways of going about this.

"Worldbuilding" can be likened to dressmaking. What we were doing last Friday is the line-drawing sketch for the dress. What we'll be doing next Friday is very likely creating the tissue paper pattern that will be mass produced and handed out to contributing writers to create stories.

Finding the social and psychological and cultural CONFLICT, the THEME, the CHARACTERS, and even the specific SETTING, is very much like hunting through bolts of material and racks of notions for the specific colors and styles to generate a specific dress from this pattern. (you could make a wedding dress or a nightgown out of the same pieces of tissue paper).

If this shared world anthology works out, it could become something totally new, and could contribute that element I asked for above, the exploration of the edges of the laws of science, the extrapolations -- the "what if; if only; if this goes on" revealing the next 50 years.

Yes, you've seen many successful mass market paperback shared-world anthologies, often with big name writers participating. I was present when some of those shared-worlds popped into existence, effortlessly, during well lubricated SF convention conversations among writers and editors who knew each other.

But this Twitter thing has brought together people who barely know each other except by twitter-@ and have not all been trained by the same editors. They work in disparate media, and many have screencredits and music as well as a variety of podcasting projects behind them.

The "Art By Committee" label pretty much originated with the film industry as a way of novel writers scoffing at the thin, childishly over-simplified results of a story-in-pictures.

And it's still true that deep, complex, nuanced, incisive stories painted on a truly broad canvass, still do better in text than video. (that may be changing real soon now!)

Video and text story-telling seem to me (futurology here) to be evolving along a converging path. When I read The Last Planet I was already living in a world where novel type stories could be told on screen. To me, TV and text had to be used together to really tell a story. We saw that world start to emerge when Star Trek fans launched fanzine fiction, mostly stories that explained the contradictions we saw on screen.

Those contradictions were mostly just mistakes that happened because of the haste and budget limitations of a TV show, but an SF trained imagination could explain them given enough text words to elaborate. We reveled in dueling one explanation against another, generating whole splinter universes.

This twitter chat process I participated in on Friday was just like what a hired team of writers would go through when creating a TV show from scratch. So far the parameters are broad enough to accommodate stories from every genre ever invented or criss-crossed into another genre, except that because the "world" is set across the galaxy in the system of a gas giant and its moons, and involves at least one (probably more) alien lifeforms, most readers would force the stories into the SF genre. But today's audiences are more sophisticated. I don't think the audiences of the near future will assume that just because it's set in space, it's SF. Or just because it has a vampire in it, it must be horror.

If done right, this anthology could become a webisode series, or even a TV series, or video game using all media to tell a multi-faceted story. Each medium could add what it portrays best, all under David Rozansky's very capable hand.

We are participating in the birth of a new entertainment medium with new uses for our million year old skills.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com