Showing posts with label Leverage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leverage. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Depiction Part 28 - Depicting A Grifter And His Mark by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction
Part 28
Depicting A Grifter And His Mark
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Index to the Depiction Series is here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

During this long series on how to SHOW DON'T TELL many intangible story elements such as Nostalgia, Love, Hatred, Fury, Alien Culture, whole battlefields, Paranormal Forces, and so on, we have delved into the major headlines of the times, searched history, read a lot of novels, and thought deeply about lofty topics.

Now let's examine a kind of Relationship that generates story both in everyday real life and in novels. 

As Romance writers, we know that one of the greatest turn-ons in a Relationship is a disparity of "power" (the dominatrix, the he-man hunk, Kings, Princes falling in love with Cinderella, Pygmalion, etc.).

A Power disparity can also be a huge buzzkill for Romance of any kind.

Humans easily hate people who are "different" -- and one visible difference is wealth which translates into the power to solve or avoid problems which literally kill ordinary people.

The Aristocrat drunken gambler who commits a crime, meets the constable on the street and is offered a ride home.  The day-laborer drunken gambler who commits the same crime is pilloried, maybe beaten and abused first, certainly doomed to death or a life as a cripple.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/depiction-part-5-depicting-dynastic.html

Disparity of social position, often denoted by gender, also has worked that way in some cultures throughout history.  Even today there are places where the law discounts a woman's word and disallows women from owning or controlling wealth and the power that comes with it.

We see many headlines, pushed by expensive and slick Press Releases so that the headline appears from a number of sources simultaneously, thus hammering home the impression that this item is a)true and b)important.

The world of the Press Release, and the world of media editorial selectivity are both closed to your average novel reader.

We are admonished to "check your sources" -- to disbelieve Fake News because it come from this or that media outlet.  This admonishment is, itself, suspicious -- as audience, you "pay" all those people to check the truth of an item before disseminating it.  You pay with suffering through commercials and occasionally buying something.

Media editors and reporters (and Press Release writers who are Public Relations experts) are paid (often not very well) to nail down 3 sources on each news item, and each of the 3 must be "independent" of the others -- in other words, not reprinting the same Press Release.

Reporters are paid to sift through Press Releases and find the things you need to know -- then make phone calls, go to events, interview real people (not Public Relations representatives) and determine if the Press Release is true and that the wording gives the facts, without spin.

Every news story arriving in your inbox has multiple hours of depressing, often futile drudgery and boredom behind it.  Or if it does not, then it should.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-7-using-media-to-advance.html

The writer has to discover a view of human society in general (through history -- based on human nature), then use the art of storytelling to select details that sketch that view for the reader.

Art is a selective representation of reality -- and the screen used to select which details to include (and exclude) is called THEME. 

Here are some examples of THEME for a novel about a Grifter and his Mark.

1) The Media Always Lies

2) The Media Always Tells The Truth

3) The Media Spins A Narrative Tale To Control Popular Vote

4) The Media Serves The Wealthy Masters Who Own The Outlet

5) The Media Panders To Its Audience To Make A Profit

6) The Media Hires Honest Kids And Turns Them Into Grifters


7) There Is Nothing Wrong With Being A Grifter If You Use The Talent To Righteous Purpose


Notice those are statements.  THEME can also be stated as a Question - and the story does not have to ram an answer into the reader's mind. 

The idea that a scam artist can be righteous is the core of many TV Series, very popular ones, such as

It Takes A Thief

Remington Steele
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remington_Steele

Leverage

White Collar

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/05/tv-show-white-collar-fanfic-and-show.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/12/sizing-up-competition-part-2-winning.html

The thesis behind these shows and so many similar ones is that the End Justifies The Means. 

You can lie, cheat, misdirect, fool, and manipulate people and it is perfectly righteous, justified, provided it is for their own good.

The thesis behind "for their own good" is that people don't know what is good for them. 

So humans who know what's good are morally obligated to do (any nefarious deed) to force ignorant humans to choose what is good for them - a free will choice. 

After so many decades of very popular, extremely well made TV Series based on the theme of "End Justifies Means" general audiences see nothing wrong with that. 

So you can use this ploy to depict truly admirable characters that the reader will embrace whole heartedly.

You can create a Character who believes that if you love someone, it is perfectly justified to trick them into loving you back. 

You dress to attract them, choose a perfume that doesn't make them sneeze even if it stinks to you, wear wicked high heels that sculpt your legs, laugh at their jokes, hide your intelligence, and pretend you like sports and getting drunk.  Wear a skirt you can't run in so they have you trapped. 

Or if you are a guy, you choose gifts to trigger gratitude so you can get her into bed, you take her to places you can't afford, laugh at her bad jokes, flatter and tease her into thinking you like her because of her formidable achievements not her bra size or pert ass.

In other words, when someone attracts your sexual interest, you may behave in ways you would not ordinarily choose to, for the purpose of attracting their sexual interest to you.  This is not considered dishonest until after the Honeymoon. 

Every human knows the "game" and is expected to discount the dis-information.  If you are naive enough to believe what you see, you get what you deserve. 

Most humans don't think those courting behaviors make the person into a grifter, or the beloved into a Mark.

Maybe your Aliens look at flirtation and the age old human mating dance that way -- as dishonest and abuse of power.

Yes, normal human behavior, perfectly well sanctioned by society and firmly counted on by the Mark, could easily be seen as reprehensible power abuse.

Aliens could easily define humanity by the disparity in "power" between the genders -- all women are weak, all men strong. 

To a human, a disparity of "power" in a relationship can be crazy-sexy or serious buzzkill.

The entire profession of Public Relations (PR) is founded on the use of advanced mathematics and "big data" to gain power over and control the behavior of large segments of the population (for their own good).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations#History

Statistics has been the mainstay of tricking people for a long time.  Things may be changing.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/19/crisis-of-statistics-big-data-democracy

Tricking people pays very well.

So tricksters have become more proficient as audiences have become more savy.

If you are constructing a Romance novel, consider whether one of your characters is 'conning' the other.  Then decide when in the novel you want your reader to twig to the trick. 

One way to be transparent to the reader while making an admirable, smart, savvy Character completely oblivious to the trick is to use the False Hobson's Choice.

First establish that the Character to be tricked understands their life and the world as a series of Free Will Choices -- but all options are listed in a menu that this Character does not know is populated with the options a powerful person approves of.

To be well and truly tricked, a Character must feel perfectly free to choose otherwise.  At the point in the novel where you reveal the trick (usually 3/4 point), the Character comes to understand that all the options available for Free Will Choice actually lead to exactly the same result, "You Are Screwed." 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/theme-plot-integration-part-7-fallacy.html

The False Hobson's Choice has been discussed previously.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/05/theme-conflict-integration-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-5.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-7.html

The Hobson's Choice concept of a Free Choice where the only item on the options menu is 1 thing is an old tradition explained here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson's_choice

By extension, if all the items on the options menu are actually the same thing by different names, you also have the ploy of the Hobson's Choice, which gives power over the naive victim to the perpetrator.

You could set a hot Romance in a political election where your Main Character sleuths out the hidden (by PR tricks) fact that both candidates are beholden to the same Big Money Donor, and will implement that Donor's agenda. 

The "aristocrats" who pull the strings on today's Earth (most all countries) don't care who wins, but only that the people gladly accept the aristocrat's agenda as their free will choice. 

You can translate that Situation and the set of Themes to a setting such as an online Dating Service that might be manipulating marriages for the purpose of guiding human genetics.

Politics set in a Galactic Civilization would qualify as Science Fiction Romance, as would Romance set in a Genetics Lab.

Maybe a dating service is funded by a University Department that obtained the Grant for genetics research.

Maybe the University Department head is an Alien sent here to reshape human genetics (to what purpose?)

Or you can rip an issue from modern headlines that will likely persist for many decades, and set the story on some planet lightyears away where some human colonists crash among Aliens.

C. J. Cherryh's fabulous Foreigner Series uses that setting to entangle the reader in Alien politics.




Maybe your Alien Planet, infested with a small but growing colony of humans, belongs to a galactic consortium of planets.  The humans are a problem - politically, maybe genetically, maybe disease breeders, maybe disseminating some religion.  The Consortium insists the planet choose between being Alien Dominated or Human Dominated (but humans are a minority).

It would likely be a human who notes that all either/or choices between two elements that are equally odious are attempts to dominate by mental castration.

Either/or choices are based on the Aristotelian model of the universe which views reality as finite and "yes" as precluding "no." 

Human creativity sees the universe as infinite and infinitely malleable.  You will find a great depiction of this human view of the universe in Star Trek: The Original Series ( ST:ToS ) and all of Captain Kirk's various creative solutions to problems.  He solved the problem even if it meant violating the Prime Directive and got away with it.

Humans don't accept limits readily. 
A vast majority may accept Microsoft's dropdown menu choices, shrug off the grayed out ones, and make a free will choice from the black ones.

But Hackers do not do that.  If the program doesn't behave the way they want it to, they rewrite the program -- and they do it with pure glee.

That personality trait now gravitating toward "hacking" has been active in human history, probably since before there were humans.

It is human creativity.  You can't keep humans in a box for long.  Someone will figure out that if you wet the cardboard, you can poke through to the wider world.  If no choices on the menu are acceptable, create some new choices and write your own menu.  That's what humans do -- and nothing spurs a man to do that faster than winning a woman's love.

Most humans can be convinced they are helpless and without any recourse than the ones on the menu populated by their manipulators.  What if, among your Aliens, most Aliens were like our Hackers and only a few would accept pre-populated menus as the only choices?

An Alien Interstellar Consortium could never get away with demanding a human/Alien colonized world choose between being human dominated or alien dominated.  They would invent other choices, or un-invent the very concept of domination.

Here's the principle to remember as you are plotting your novel.

The Grifter Character tells the Mark what the problem is, and then reveals the only solution.

The pattern is clear in the Gypsy Curse Scam.  The Grifter finds a rich Mark, arranges for accomplices to inflict some bad-luck incidents on the Mark, then explains to the Mark that this run of bad luck is due to the Mark's money being cursed.  But don't worry, I know a Gypsy who can cleanse that cash for you.  Perhaps a demonstration is orchestrated to show how luck changes after the tainted item is cleansed.

The Mark hands over the cash, or jewels, or whatever, and never sees it again -- never sees the Grifter or any of his assistants again, has no idea where to find them.

It is the same thing as the handsome suitor who finally gets the woman into bed -- has his fun for a while -- and one morning just leaves.

The Grifter's main tool in getting what he wants is the false Free Will Choice - the Hobson's Choice - either take this horse or no horse at all.

Both options are equally unacceptable -- be a human dominated planet or an alien dominated planet; go to bed with me or wind up an old maid.

Most humans readily believe the choices listed on the menu are the only choices there are.  They don't look in the back of the stable to see what other horses might be there.  They don't jailbreak their iPhone to see what it can do with third party programs. 

Can curiosity and independence be bred out of humans by an Alien genetics program run through an online Dating Service? 

Can humans stranded on an Alien world be bred for compliance or defiance at the behest of the Aliens?

The trick in keeping humans happy is to convince the humans they have a variety of free will choices.  Give them choices.  Just make sure all the items on the menu are equally favorable to your purposes, so it doesn't matter what the human chooses.

Grifters leverage this human trait.  What would your Aliens think of humans who manipulate other humans that way?

Old Science Fiction used to rely on the Aliens having heard our Radio or seen our Television to learn our languages.  Yes, Earth leaks signal, but somehow I doubt this would be possible unless the Aliens were very close to Earth (our signals are weak). 

So, what would your Aliens make of current Television News broadcasts -- or can they get Cable or Satellite?  Would they understand the trickery?  Would they admire successful tricksters?  Would they scheme to insert "fake news" items onto the internet and wait to see if they become TV News items?

How could a writer use Fake News to introduce Soul Mates to each other?  Kidnapped by a UFO?


Watch the real news for short lists of your options - either it is this way or it is that way - try to find another way.  If "they" tell you what options you may choose among, create another option or three and you will have your Science Fiction Romance blockbuster title.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com



Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Theme-Conflict Integration Part 2: Battle of Ideas - A Grifter, A Shyster, and A Priest Walk Into A Bar

Theme-Conflict Integration 
Part 2: Battle of Ideas
A Grifter, A Shyster, and A Priest Walk Into A Bar
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Part 1 - about J. J. Abrams and sexism is here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-conflict-integration-part-1.html

Last week we discussed Theme-Marketing Integration, and this week we'll look at a particular best selling writer's recent novel for examples about how Theme and Marketing can be Integrated using Theme-Conflict Integration.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/05/theme-marketing-integration-part-1-star.html

So what if the "Bar" that the Grifter, the Shyster, and the Priest walk into doesn't serve liquor, but justice? What if the Bar is the Court of Law?  Or perhaps, the Bar is an Alien  Court of Law?

Art is an selective depiction of reality.

That selectivity is best illustrated by the cartoonist's art.

Here's an example from Dick Morris Reports back in January, 2016 when Trump and Cruz went at each other on stage at the Fox Business Republican Debate.

         

Note the YELLOW hair - strokes vaguely evocative of Trump's haircut.

Note the nose-to-nose post, squashing both (in reality different) noses flat against each other.

Note the bloodshot eyeballs shooting out of their heads.  Conflict is "eyeball to eyeball" in modern parlance, but it is not meant literally.  Here in this selective recreation of reality, you see it literally.

Note the boxing gloves, posed fist to fist -- the suggestion is of a "hit" but each hitting the other on the very well armored protection of the glove.  "The Gloves Come Off" is a metaphor for bloody fighting, fighting for real, not prize-fighting.

Note how this selective graphic representation somehow conjures "reality" in your mind's eye. That is exactly what writers do when "hooking" you into a novel.  That is a graphic representation of how to create an  opening paragraph. It is also an entire essay on how to create a book cover.

Remember the line, used politically earlier than January, "this is not a cage-match."  Meaning, it's not for real. Nobody's whole life is in danger. It's just a game played until the winner gets a prize -- it is not a grudge-match, it is a Game.

Politics is called, "The Game Of Politics."  Internationally, The Great Game - where politicians use spies to maneuver nations into a Hobson's Choice, or Prisoner's Dilemma.

It is not called the "Literature of Ideas."  Nor is politics termed, "A Meeting Of Minds."  It is a Game.

So who are the "players" of this Game?

Maybe it is "Politicians" vs. "Voters?"

And what is the name of the Game?

The Protection Racket?  The Confidence Racket (or Con Man)?  Snakeoil Salesman? Scammer? Phishing?

Note the title of this piece -- A Grifter, A Shyster, A Priest.  These are three Attributes that are  components of every living person.

We all know what a grifter is from watching the TV Series Leverage.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Nigerian-Job/dp/B001N4RAEQ/

"Shyster" is a derogatory term for lawyer, or sometimes any businessman who relies on deception or fraud.

"Priest" here means your Inner Priest, your conscience, spiritual sensitivity, sense of right and wrong, of fair and just. That Inner Priest configures your personal individual identity by patching together the crazy-quilt of beliefs, rules of thumb, maxims, old wive's tales, and cliches by which you live your life and make major spur of the moment decisions.

So grifters and shysters pretend to be something they are not.  Do writers do that?  Do writers have to do that?  Is all back cover copy fraudulent? Does being in the business of self-publishing make you a shyster?  After all, you're selling the "snake oil" of the Happily Ever After Ending.  Are writers all con artists?

What exactly is a Con Artist?

Most people probably think that all politicians are con artists, except the one oddball who seems trustworthy.  Many bar fights start from disagreements over which politician is trustworthy.

Here's an article that explains what an app detected in voice analysis of Presidential candidates:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/beyond-verbal_n_3378784.html

And here's another article that explains the same thing from a different perspective.  Compare these two articles and any others you find about this app, and reconstruct - as an archeologist does - the original press release.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/01/16/new-study-reveals-which-presidential-hopeful-is-the-low-stress-candidate/

Both articles seem to be made from the same press release, a publicity barrage that has to have had immense amounts of money behind it, yes, but also a marketing genius leveraging the USA political calendar (these articles appeared deep into January, right before the Iowa Causes.)

The company was trying to sell you an app.  And they went on a campaign to trick you into wanting it by tying it to the headlines of the day - the most popular and riveting spectator sport of January - the Presidential Primary Season. (just like Basketball Season or Deer Season.)

When you see articles announcing something like this app product -- not paid ads, but ARTICLES that might as well be paid ads, that sell you on wanting something better than a paid ad could sell you -- you are looking at marketing.  It is a whole profession, usually incompatible with the skills of a writer. Today, we conflate News with Publicity.

Each newspaper or magazine editor requires the writers to take these topical press releases and craft an article "slanted" toward their special readership's interest. So each article is ostensibly about something different -- but the core content is the press release.

Fiction writing skills let you take a press release and craft a newspaper or magazine article from that release.

In writing fiction,  you learn to take a huge mass of data (your story Idea) and re-arrange it into a straight-line (plot) that will interest (story) your particular target readership.

Writing such a release is an entirely different profession.

Today's self-publishing novelists need to master both skill sets because "publishing" means PUBLICITY, or press-release.  Getting widely distributed "news" sources to focus their readers' attention on your novel is very hard.

Writing an article from a press release is very similar to writing an advertisement, or 'cover blurb' from a press release.  Both craft skills require sorting through a jumble of facts to "bring to the surface" or emphasize certain "selected traits" (like the blond hair in the cartoon above) to "characterize" the novel.

You characterize a novel as belonging to a particular genre, appealing to a specific reader.

You selectively recreate the reality of what is in the novel, drawing a caricature, a cartoon, of the novel itself.

And like the two articles linked above, each depicting a larger reality, you take your own "larger reality" of the novel you have written, and whack-and-whittle it down by selecting TRAITS (like the trademarked "hair") and leaving out all the rest.

It is what you leave out that (for you) was the whole point of writing the novel to begin with. In fact, that most important part or point is often edited out before publication by a major house.

You can learn a lot about what to  "select" for your cartoon representation of your novel, and what to leave to the imagination, by studying the Battle Of Politicians and the Race For The White House (will they ever paint it another color?).

What you learn has to do with not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Just like that cartoon does not "tell the truth," and just like the two articles about an app being publicized do not "tell the truth" about the app.

You 'select' the traits of your novel that connect  best to your target audience.  Thus, since Trump's hair was the subject of so much attention at first, his trademark became his hair-transplant comb-over style.

So look at your Theme, state your theme a number of different ways until you hit on vocabulary and imagery that "depicts" the topic the readership has been most deeply involved in lately. In other words, rip your theme from the headlines.  Make your THEME recognizable to your target audience, so book browsers see it and say, "I love that kind of book."

The Conflicting elements have to be depicted in your blurb, too.

Note in the cartoon how the eyes pop -- I mean, really!  I wouldn't believe that image of Aliens -- but one non-verbal glance and you know what that popping eyeballs image means, even if you miss the gloves.

Donald Trump's college degree is in Business, not Law.

Cruz made a neat point of that by saying he wouldn't take legal advice from Trump.  But we all know that Trump got the advice he's spouting at Cruz from his own Lawyers.  Lawyers get to know Presidential candidates in hopes of a Supreme Court appointment in the future.

So the "conflict" in that cartoon is "lawyers vs. lawyers." The lawyers are using the politicians to fight a "proxy war."

Lawyers are famous for a) picking fights (as in divorces that would have been amicable if not for the lawyers getting involved) and b) backing people into a corner so they will "settle" whatever lawsuit.

Lawyers are also famous for charging a lot of money -- but nothing like what Publicists charge.  Lawyers, though, being lawyers seem to get to keep a bigger chunk of the fees paid.

Under current law in the USA, it is virtually legal for lawyers to behave like grifters.  To become a rich grifter, get a law degree.

What do lawyers do that is patterned on what grifters do (or is it vice-versa?).

If you've won the lottery or been in a traffic accident, a building collapse, or sold a product that some odd individual got injured using, you will find yourself surrounded three deep by Lawyers looking to "protect" you - trying to scare you with visions of people attacking you or denying you justice.  Lawyers will promise you, as the erstwhile victim, not only their protection but a windfall profit, a huge sum of money for doing nothing but "suffering."

A majority of Lawyers don't behave that way.  The small segment of that population that does "ambulance chase" and victimize the victims, are often called shysters, though not all shysters are actually lawyers.

The Idea that Grifters and Shysters have something in common is like Trump's hair - a vivid item that can be extracted from a confusing mass of information and used to depict something that a lot of people remember.

But it is an abstract Idea.

So the title of this piece is A Grifter, A Shyster and A Priest.

The "Priest" is a symbol for a person who is steeped in ideas, motivated by the abstract, and very selective about objectives.

The Grifter and the Shyster operate via emotion.  They get their mark or their client to do something the mark/client would see as self-destructive if not for the emotion aroused.

The Grifter and the Shyster play on emotion, and they both choose the emotion they evoke in their target.

The Grifter arouses Greed.

It is always said, and I've found it to be true, that if you have no Greed in your soul, you can not be fleeced by a con man.  If the price is "too good to be true" - it is not the price you will pay.   Everyone knows that intellectually (the Priest Within You told you that).  Don't fall for a bargain - because it is not a bargain.

So when Politicians offer you something for nothing -- or point to someone else they will trick into paying so you can get something -- you only fall for the trick if your Greed is in charge of your opinions.

The Shyster arouses Fear.

It is always said that you have nothing to fear but fear itself -- and that is such a truth that all your readers know it.  When you're afraid, you twitch and jerk around in ill-coordinated actions that are more self-destructive than self-protective.

So when Politicians offer to allay your fears, to deal with what threatens you, to protect you from ( big bad corporations; alien invaders; your neighbor who owns a gun) you only fall for the trick if you are afraid.

When you are afraid, the Priest Withing You who is more focused on Ideas, Intellect, principles of faith, can't shout loudly enough to be heard.  Fear is a brain-noise that will always take charge of your actions.

So a theme can be expressed (cartoon depiction of your novel for a back cover blurb) as "The Masses Can Be Manipulated."

"The Masses" would refer to the old political theory that most people are illiterate, stupid, and behave like a herd of sheep,  or cattle.  The Leaders can easily trick the Masses into doing whatever the Leader wants simply by arousing certain emotions.

Romance novels turn on a variation of this. Everyone wants to be loved, so the declaration, "I love you" changes everything.

There is such a thing as a Greed For Love - someone so desperately hungry to be loved that they believe the grifter's offer, "I'll marry you and cherish and protect you forever if you'll just have sex with me now."  You can translate that dialog dynamic into Politics very easily if you see electing someone as handing them a blank check to your bank account.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/15/maria-konnikova-interview-new-book-the-confidence-game-review-scams

The Grifter can use Greed for any missing emotion to manipulate the unsuspecting into self-destructive behavior.  Some people have Greed for Power -- offer them Power without a price-tag (like discipline and responsibility) and the mark will do anything.  Remember Spiderman -- with great power comes great responsibility.  Well, what if it didn't?  What if great power could be had without responsibility?  Then you have the novel about the ne'er-do-well Scion of a Great House who gambles away his inheritance and goes into debt.

To integrate a theme such as "The Masses Can Be Manipulated" you can define the conflict as Leader vs Follower.

Take the famous maxim, "A Sucker Is Born Every Day."  That's a theme.  What if humanity meets up with Aliens who don't bear suckers every day?

Or reverse that - and what if humanity were not producing a new sucker every day, but aliens at war out in the galaxy are?

Jean Johnson's prequel to her famous series Theirs Not To Reason Why is called The First Salik War, and Book 1 is titled The Terrans.  Book 2, The V'Dan is now available.

Here's my discussion of The Terrans:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/11/reviews-20-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

And here's where to get The V'Dan
http://www.amazon.com/VDan-First-Salik-War/dp/0425276937/

It's a First Contact novel with leading Characters, an Alien Prince in a psychic/sexual bond with a human woman who is a Politician, a Prisoner's Dilemma maneuver, and clash of notions of what constitutes Honorable Behavior.

On Jean Johnson's future Earth, humans have finally come to their senses and eliminated discrimination by skin color, elevated honesty in Politics to a level where failure to be honorable and truthful means corporal punishment by public caning, and utter physical humiliation.

In other words, fear keeps power-lust in check for law makers and especially law-enforcers and military commanders (this book introduces a Caning law previously applied only to police to be used to hold military commanders and new recruits in check). Every morning, each government official has to recite an Oath to be Honorable.  It's long, complicated, abstract, and the repeated recitation has a similar effect that prayer does. It is designed to engrave on the psyche that when you act in the name of others, you are responsible for the consequences.

Greed is controlled by Fear.

The expected signature behavior that proves Greed (for power, money, sex, anything) is in complete check by fear of Caning is Honorable Behavior.

"Honorable Behavior" is presented, in this series, as a set of rules that is objectively true, as clear and precisely determined as any scientific fact.

For most readers, the word "Honorable" means something hard, absolute, easily understood and recognized in the behavior of others.

Blake Snyder illustrates the core-value shared across the USA as "honorable behavior" as "save the cat" (take a personal risk to save the helpless).  Compare the thinking behind Snyder's image of "saving a cat" to the thinking behind that Trump/Cruz cartoon.

The thing is, in the USA today, we do not share a common creed of Honorable Behavior.

What is honorable to one (murdering a daughter who refuses to dress correctly, thus insults her parents and dishonors them) is considered death-penalty-material to others.

The difference between an illegal alien and a drug smuggler is that while they might both promise to sell you heroin, the drug smuggler will deliver.  Which one is the Honorable one?

Generation to generation the definition of what behavior is Honorable changes.

For example, in the early twentieth century, an apology was considered false and worthless if given in response to a demand for an apology.  In the 19th century, if someone uttered an insult about another person, ("You're a Horse Thief!" or "You Cheated At Cards!") the insulted had the right to deck the insulter (or shoot him dead).

In the 21st century everyone takes offense at any statement (true or not) and demands an apology, which, when choked out bitterly is still regarded as valid, and the matter as settled.  There was a time when the statement of a truth could never be considered an insult, however rude it might be.

In fact, this "I'm offended, so you must apologize even if you didn't think you did anything wrong" attitude now governs international affairs.

Heads of State demand apologies from other Heads of State -- not individual to individual, but whole countries to whole countries, involving people who never knew anything about it and have no idea what is true in  the matter.

Jean Johnson, in The V'Dan, has noticed this rise of a new custom regarding insults and apologies.

Johnson has shown (not told) how the "I demand an Apology because I feel offended and therefore you must act to assuage my feelings, never mind how you feel, only my feelings count..." attitude can be used by an Interstellar Ambassador from Earth to illustrate Earth's superior Morality.

Because Earth's Inner Priest's sense of Honorable Behavior is so superior, the lead character is Honor Bound to force Earth's behavior norms down the throats of aliens during First Contact negotiations.

All of this is rationalized by the fact that the Aliens are treating the Earth humans as if they were children, not adults -- not allowed to spend large sums of money to buy supplies for the Earth Embassy building, not allowed to buy liquor, not allowed to drive.

It is a genuine First Contact issue (and absolutely hilarious to read).  But the reason the issue is an emergency to be taken up immediately with the Alien head of state is that these Aliens keep insulting the humans by treating them as children.  Other human groups might consider the Aliens' penchant for protecting children to be a sign the Aliens are kind, considerate and honorable.

Johnson's Earth humans take offense, and because they feel offended, are honor bound to force the Aliens to apologize and adopt Earth's then-current human standards.  This novel series is full of such absolutely gorgeous work.

The way Johnson depicts interstellar politics plays into the current USA fear of being irretrievably emotionally damaged by the words of others.  It is, from this, very clear why Johnson is a national best selling author.

To the target audience for this novel, mere words are an existential threat that must be countered by wielding force majeure.  An insult flung can cause a mortal wound.

The V'Dan depicts with searing accuracy how the reader's Earth currently manages international affairs.  And this novel portends, just as our current election-cycle portends, that change is seething below the surface, about to erupt perhaps violently.

The enemy in the interstellar war of Johnson's series is a species that eats Alien sentients. The tastiest type of food they know is the flesh of sentients of species other than themselves (though I believe they do eat each other).  It doesn't matter how alien the body chemistry is, these Salik will eat anything sentient.  The Salik are Greed Personified.

The V'Dan are humans whose ancestors left earth almost 10,000 years ago, and colonized a planet (now a lot of planets) so far away from Earth the region has not been explored by Earth's budding interstellar united planets.  Somehow, many earth plants and animals were carried with the humans who eventually colonized a planet and became The V'Dan.

The V'Dan have many non-human allies in the fight against Greed Personified, the Salik. But that coalition is losing the fight against the Salik, and they know it.  They are Afraid.

So, Jean Johnson, a very well known National Best Selling author, has crafted theme and conflict around Greed, Fear, and The Priest Within.  It's a beautiful mix of carefully selected attributes, brought to the fore just like Trump's hair and the popping eyeballs.

That's what Best Selling Writers do!  Dissect any Best Seller, and you will find a pattern just like this -- something that reflects what is the most prominent Theme in the headlines divided up into recognizable adversaries who naturally conflict.  Personification and Dramatization are subsidiary techniques. Ripping theme from the headlines is the primary requirement.

The conflict is the exact conflict inside all of us -- the Grifter's Mark who believes in something for nothing; the Shyster's client who sees something to be afraid of, and The Inner Priest who knows "the right thing to do" but is not in charge.

The basic human animal will be emotion-driven, though the human spirit reaches for the ineffable.

Our current civilization has surrendered to the animal nature of humanity.  We see that in the rise and sustained popularity of Romance novel plots turning on the absolute irresistibility of sexual urges.  The V'dan and its prequel The Terrans, turns on the formation of the psychic bonded pair that will literally die (both of them) if denied sexual intimacy. Star Trek did something similar with Pon Farr, but Star Trek got that from much older science fiction works.

That inner dichotomy between the animal body and human spirit can easily be roused into Conflict.

All audiences recognize the Greed & Fear vs. Voice of Reason or Righteousness.

Look again at that cartoon.  Why do you understand what it says?

Yes, people will disagree about what it means, but everyone can see what it says.

That's what Jean Johnson accomplishes to earn the appellation, "Best Selling" writer.

Now, go watch the Politicians hurl insults at each other and demand apologies as if they are in the grip of Greed for Power and Fear of Humiliation.

Remember your early childhood. Did you ever lust after enough power to make your parents stop preventing you from doing what you wanted to do?  "When I grow up, I'm going to stay up all night!"

Greed for Power (especially over your own life and destiny) is absolutely basic to the human animal.

Now think back to your childhood, and remember how you eventually learned to refrain from some action, "...Mommy won't let!" you would tell  your friends luring you into misbehaving (then you'd probably do it anyway, then lie about it).

Eventually, you learned to do it anyway, lie about it, and not get  caught in the lie.

And beyond that,  you learned it's really better not to do that anyway because it's counter productive.

The different self-perceptions of Child vs. Adult is the pivot upon which the novel The V'Dan turns.  Just how insulting is it to  you to be treated as a child? Then why do you treat your children that way?  Does truth have anything to do with it?

Only with many decades under your belt do you arrive at "mature" considerations.  You no longer lunge greedily after the proverbial Free Lunch -- because you've learned the price.  Therefore, you have nothing to lie about.

To arrive at a life-stage where you're not greedy because you have all you need, not fearful because the worst has happened ( bankruptcy, divorce, being fired, whatever) and you handled it, you have the luxury of listening to what that Inner Priest has to say about right and wrong, truth and lies.

With enough years and enough experiences, we all turn into Gandalf or Yoda -- serene, confident, wise, having resolved that conflict between Greed, Fear and the Inner Priest.

When someone slings insults at such a Gandalf/Yoda Figure, that Figure is not insulted.  Such a Figure is not insulted by being treated as a child. Knowing that what comes out of a person's mouth says more about the speaker than about the topic being spoken of, the Figure does a kind of Emotional Judo.

Judo is based on the physics of using the opponent's strength and momentum to defeat the opponent. Many techniques of Judo and Karate are based on just not-being where the blow lands.

That's not a technique of "dodging" a blow.  It's a matter of letting the force the opponent emits expend itself on the opponent, not on you.

That's what the mature learn about insults. Let the insulter hoist himself on his own petard and hang there in humiliation.

Demanding an apology is an admission that the blow landed on its target -- it is an admission of guilt.

Demanding an apology often seems childish, petulant, an admission of weakness before the superiority of the insulter.

In emotional judo, the target flows aside and lets the force of the insult boomerang onto the insulter.

Look again at this article about stress level measurements in Presidential Candidates voices:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/01/16/new-study-reveals-which-presidential-hopeful-is-the-low-stress-candidate/

The article notes that the only candidate they measured whose voice rarely shows the kind of emotional stress (expected of Greed or Fear or lying) is Donald Trump.  He's gotten more insults and death-threats than most of the rest combined by now.  He sometimes offhandedly mentions that someone should apologize, but he rarely "demands" apologies except where appropriate.  His attitude toward apologies seems to be that they are good for the soul, so do it for your own sake.  If not, no skin off my nose. (note the nose-to-nose posture in that cartoon.)

He's old enough to know those who attempt to destroy will destroy themselves if you just stay out of the way.  For that matter, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (and Biden and Bloomberg) are old enough to have arrived at that maturity.

Perhaps this article's observation of relative voice stress indicates what the pundits have missed in analyzing Donald Trump's initial, wild popularity. They have assumed the voters are "angry" (anger is most often the emotional response of the coward to feeling fear, so calling voters "angry" is an insult).  Maybe they were wrong?

The pundits have assumed the voters are  "the masses" (sheep, followers, herd animals), instead of individuals. When panicked, the masses, the voters, stampede after a "bell-weather" or leader.

The pundits identify Trump as the leader.  The voters are just blindly following this leader out of simple minded anger.

The article shows, somewhat scientifically, that Trump's trumpeting is not stoked by anger.

He's the calm one.

Voters chose him as the best in the field (OK,  not necessarily any good, just the best of the lot, until he disqualifies himself) because he's not afraid and he's not lying.  What he says may not be true or factual, but he believes it sincerely.

He's not stressed when he says he can handle all the President's problems. (Little Does He Know!)

He is confident and relaxed, not running in fear or greed for power. He's not a "Leader" -- he's not greedy for power or fearing he'll lose. He's a goal-oriented achiever, not caring if anyone follows him.  He just goes and does his projects. He doesn't need followers.  He hires specialists.  He's undaunted, calm, confident because of his life experience, and he (unlike the other candidates who have this trait) lets it show. And that's why he's popular --  you can hear it in his voice in person. He's not stressed.

Study Trump's antics on stage, especially his epic "equal opportunity insulter" tactics, and try modeling your Leader/Hero Character after him and see what you get.  Understand the insult as a social instrument by reading a lot of Regency Romances written thirty years ago (mostly free on Kindle). Drawing Room insults are an artform well worth reviving in the interstellar era.

Such a novel won't work in today's market, as Jean Johnson well knows.  She's a best seller because she does  not use Trump as a model.  Such a Character would not be plausible to her target readership. Trump is a salesman, a marketer, a branding master.  His target audience responds to him, just exactly the way you want your target audience to respond to your Romance Novels.  So study him.

The lesson about non-stressed, confident Voices prevailing over anger, greed, fear and panic is the core theme used by Gordon R. Dickson in his long, exemplary, much celebrated best selling series, The Dorsai.

http://www.amazon.com/Dorsai-Childe-Cycle-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00GS9FLJM/

Confidence backed by real strength is a military tactic -- great strength, used properly, never comes to blows. Wars are won by maneuvers, by what the adversary knows you can do, not explosions. Destruction is counter-productive.  The Romans learned that and coined the term Pyrrhic Victory.

Combine Gordon R. Dickson with Keith Laumer's Retief novels, ..
http://www.amazon.com/Envoy-New-Worlds-Retief-Book-ebook/dp/B00NWJ7446

...about professional diplomat Retief engaged in official interstellar diplomacy, much like Jean Johnson's characters but far more effectively, and find a Theme and a Conflict you can Integrate into a Best Selling Series.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Dialogue Part 7 - The Gigolo and Lounge Lizard by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Dialogue Part 7
The Gigolo and Lounge Lizard
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Previous entries in this Dialogue series are found here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/dialogue-parts-1-4-listed.html (which has been updated with more posts).

This entry is not about the SHOWTIME TV Series The Gigolo, but in a way it is in that general direction.

A Gigolo is a paid Escort for a rich woman (which may include sex) who attends formal Events.  A Lounge Lizard is an out of work Gigolo who is looking for a woman to hire him. 

In either situation, the writer is faced with the task of writing the Gigolo's dialogue -- the pick-up line, and the long, smooth stream of lies he utters as part of his job.

A Gigolo is a professional liar.

So see the entry on Liar Dialogue:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/dialogue-part-5-how-to-write-liar.html

...and for a discussion of The Misnomer
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html

This post is a dialogue writing lesson, exercising the writer's ability to come up with "snappy dialogue" and "retorts" and "one-liners" but above all, the specific line a character says to another character that makes the reader understand how the character who believes a lie could be taken in by such a transparent gigolo.

The bald truth is that the writer generally does not nail the gigolo or lounge lizard dialogue on the first try. 

Great dialogue is usually produced on rewrite, maybe the 5th rewrite.  But somewhere in that first-draft blurt-the-story-out attempt at dialogue will be a line, a word, a dynamic moment of CONFLICT that has to be preserved.

Usually the problem embedded in first draft is pacing.

Very often an editor will return a manuscript with a marginal notation that says this dialogue is not PLAUSIBLE -- or I DON'T BELIEVE THIS -- or MAKE ME BELIEVE IT -- or IT'S UNCLEAR WHY THIS CHARACTER BELIEVED THIS.

Editors see a manuscript from one perspective, writers from another, and readers from yet another.

When all 3 see a solid product, it's a 3-dimensional image and none of the 3 views show the whole thing.

And yes, the touchstone that makes great dialogue work is THEME.  I know you're weary of hearing me say that, but it's nevertheless true.  Most of us have to conform our dialogue to the theme in rewrite.

Conforming dialogue to theme not a random process, not a matter of "taste" and not just characterization or description, nor of the writer's "voice" nor of just how you feel at the moment.  There is a systematic structure behind dialogue, and it can be learned.  Some writers have a talent, an "ear" for dialogue.  Others have to learn it. 

Good dialogue is a necessary but not sufficient condition for making a sale.

Dialogue is such a complex skill that showing you have that skill on page 1 or 2 can hook an editor. 

If you demonstrate you have all the skills that are woven together in good dialogue, an editor is more likely to assume you are able to take editorial direction. 

So if your Romance Novel starts with a Lounge Lizard approaching your heroine with a pick-up line, maybe rescuing her from a sticky social situation to demonstrate what an exemplary Escort he is, you have an immediate, conflict-fraught, instance of off the nose dialogue, oblique references subject to misunderstandings in layers.

If the guy is just looking for a paying gig with this richly dressed woman, and ends up falling in love with her -- (after he seduces her into hiring him, or when she flat refuses to hire an Escort) -- you have conflict on all levels.

If you set your story on, say, a Cruise Boat, (where they can't escape each other), you can ratchet up the tension and suspense because there is a fixed time when the cruise will be over.

From there, you have many choices for complications to your plot -- cruise boat mechanical failures, bad navigation leaving them in a terrible storm, hijackers forcing them to port in a terrorist held country, -- you choose the list of complications that arise via the theme you have chosen. 

You can do that plot on a Space Ship -- a cruise ship or say, a military vessel on a mission, or a cargo vessel, or a hospital ship (Research that by reading James White novels), or a Colony (lost or otherwise).  Each setting shapes the plot, and explicates a different theme which then shapes the Relationship between Gigolo and Rich Woman.

But the dialogue technique is the same, regardless of location, regardless of the subject of the discussion, regardless of the character of the characters.

The substance, the content, of the dialogue differs with theme, but the method of creating dialogue out of the speech you hear in your head is pretty much the same.

There are differences depending on what the characters are doing.  If they're breathless in the middle of a sword fight, separated in a loud gun-battle, or suffocating as a space ship loses air, they will speak in shorter bursts, but the trick of creating that dialogue is the same, regardless.

Master this single technique and it will serve you in almost any genre or format.

It's often taught as, "Don't Speechify." 

Don't make your characters speak in long paragraphs flowing from subject to subject, even if the logic behind that line of thought is vital for the reader to grasp.

Don't write SPEECHES -- like a Presidential State Of The Union Address! 

Dialogue is not a newspaper article explaining a whole incident all at once.

Dialogue is not speech, and it's not speeches. 

Dialogue is not an essay.  Dialogue isn't even a letter you'd send to a friend. 

Dialogue is more like texting than it is like school essay writing.

If you read some science fiction written in the 1930's and 1940's when all those writing science fiction were beginning writers, well educated and well versed in explaining science -- but not in portraying relationships -- you will find dialogue that today is called STILTED.

Stilted dialogue makes the characters sound self-conscious - as if they know the reader is listening.

In stagecraft, the technique you must master is called "the fourth wall" -- the wall between the audience and the stage, so the characters are unconscious of the audience.  Yes, Greek Plays use the narrator, the chorus, etc. addressing the audience directly.

This evolution of storytelling from the shaman around the campfire to Showtime streaming video episodes of Gigolo. 

Another indication of that 4th wall effect, of the characters being unaware of the audience watching is the choice of "Person" in which to tell the story.  The 3rd person (he, she, etc) and past tense (he said, she howled) creates that 4th wall and makes it both transparent and firm.  That allows the audience to "identify with" the characters, but there are many skills necessary to make that effect work.

Beginners almost always grab for the much easier First Person (I couldn't believe it when my Date for the Prom turned into a wolf right before my eyes.)

It is so much easier to write First Person -- to BE the character, and reach out and talk directly to the audience (like the Greek Chorus and narrator), to make the drama of immediate and engaging concern to strangers that you now see a flood of novels using this format. 

That's a trend, a style, and it will turn again, so if you intend to launch a career that spans many trends, become facile with all persons and tenses for storytelling.  Master point of view and it will hone your dialogue skills.

Why does point of view (and "person") matter to dialogue?

Because the Identity of the speaker is fleshed out by not only choice of vocabulary, but also by how and whether that character waits for the other character to finish speaking, by what "go-stop" cues the character will accept or respond to.

How patient is this character?

You can TELL NOT SHOW easily by saying to the reader in the narrator's voice, Tom was an impatient man, a type-a personality on the hoof.  Or you can SHOW NOT TELL that same information by how Tom interrupts people who are speechifying at him.

Relationships can be defined in SHOW rather than TELL by the rhythm of the dialogue, by what's left out, by finishing each others' sentences (or not even bothering) -- about how well or poorly the two people communicate with each other, and how the weave a third person into the conversation.

One of the stark changes in society over the last century (no, I'm not that old; I read a lot) is the art of conversation.  Today people communicate but they don't converse much or often.

If you're building a Romance Novel, you want the two principles who will end up with each other to converse even better than they communicate.

The difference between conversing and communicating is the main skill of the Lounge Lizard. 

The Lounge Lizard, the Gigolo looking for work, is a master of conversing freely, arousing emotions in the targeted woman that re so bright, clear, and pleasant that the flare of emotion obliterates the lack of communication.

Conversation is "off the nose" dialogue - the words are not about what the conversation is about.  You don't say what you mean and mean what you say.  In Conversation, you induce in the other person the illusion that they understand who you are.

This is the main skill of the Confidence Man, the grifter, the scam artist.  But it is also what happens when you meet a true love. 

Conversation happens between people "on the same wavelength."  These two Lovers have some element of world-view in common.  That's the one topic they never have to talk about (on the nose) because they resonate to that one underlying truth about the nature of Life.

They can (and usually do) disagree and fight over everything else. 

Their conversation is all about that everything else.

The Lounge Lizard is master of mimicking that resonating effect by dancing around the one issue or subject he perceives is most important to that woman. 

Both men and women treasure that sensation of resonating to another person's world-view.  When a couple finds they resonate on several topics, that their combined world view is a symphony in perfect attunement, there is no way to destroy that relationship.

If that resonance is real, it will hold them together forever.

The Lounge Lizard wants to avoid "real resonance."  But at the same time, he offers the illusion of that resonance to his paying client. 

That's the Gigolo's inner conflict, upon which you can build his external conflict. 

This is the same conflict dynamic as the Spy who lives under cover in the foreign country and pretends to hold their beliefs -- only to find that over time, he becomes loyal to those alien beliefs, betrays his country and is a Traitor. 

There's a principle in classical magic - you become what you pretend to be.  Thus when you don magickal robes to officiate in a ceremony where you must act like your Higher Self, eventually you become that Higher Self in everyday life. 

This principle is so pervasive that those who have not studied magic know it, believe it, and/or accept it when they see it.

You are what you eat; you become what you pretend to be. 

So the writing technique is the same whether you're writing Romance or Mystery (or Science Fiction or SFR etc.)

Here's an example of dialogue from an action-mystery novel well worth studying for dialogue.  We have a set of characters who have become friends, even close friends, and lovers during the course of solving other mysteries.  Dana is the star, and should therefore have the most dialogue. (that's a rule to learn -- face time and lines of dialogue are maximum for THE MAIN CHARACTER - the one whose story you are telling.)

Proportions and pacing are essential components of Show Don't Tell.

Here "She" is Dana, the star of the novel.

---quote from Gray Wolf Mountain, a Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense by Jean Henry Mead ----
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008UEH6ZA/

She thought again about Rhonda Bailey's connection and he reason both bodies were dumped in the same stream. The killer must live nearby.

“How far are we from the cabin where Gus was found?” she asked Tom.

He turned to survey the area to get his bearings. “About a mile as the crow flies, I’d say.”

“I wonder if the sheriff’s deputies have searched the cabin for clues to the killer’s identity.”

“I’m sure they have.”

Dana thought for a moment. “Why didn’t the killer bury the bodies instead of bringing them here? He obviously wanted them found. A warning to others to stay away?”

“Looks that way,” Jeff said.

“Why is he leaving clues?” Dana said to no one in particular.

“He may consider it a game like hide and seek. Psychopaths are usually intelligent people who consider themselves superior to others. I think he might be taunting the rest of us.”

When nothing else was found, they drove back to the original site, where Jeff showed them the drag marks and probable site where they body had been found.   ...

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

While you think about how you might rewrite that exchange here's the author's biography from Amazon.

The author of 20 books, Jean Henry Mead has published ten nonfiction books and ten novels, including the Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series and Hamilton Kids' mysteries. She also writes Wyoming historical novels (Escape, A Wyoming Historical Novell and No Escape, the Sweetwater Tragedy). The national award winnning photojournalist began her writing career as a news reporter in California. Her award-winning articles have been published domestically as well as abroad, and she has served as a news, magazine and small press editor. She also established the Western Writers Hall of Fame now housed at the large and impressive Buffalo Bill Musesum in Cody, Wyoming.

NOTE: Jean Henry Read did a stint as a news reporter. 

Do you understand how this ingredient in a writing career is vital?

Marion Zimmer Bradley did it.  Allan Cole did it.  The list is endless.

Non-fiction is where the money is in wordsmithing. 

So you should read Gray Wolf Mountain with an eye on the dialogue, and what you might change to transform it to another genre, or to create different characters.

Let's study that one little snatch from page 139 of the Kindle edition.

Notice how SHORT the utterances are.  The group is standing around a piece of evidence (at the 60% mark of the novel, just past the half-way point) feeling the threat of physical violence (which is realized) and trying to "profile" the killer from where Rhonda Bailey's body has been found.

They have discovered a cigarette lighter with initials on it somewhat down stream from where the body had been found.  Whose is it?  How did it get there?  Why didn't the police find it?  Etc.

Notice the SHORT sentences, question, answer -- think of a bouncing ball going around a conversational circle.  This is not an interrogation of a suspect, but a brainstorming session over a problem.  The technique applies to any scene where people do group problem solving. 

Notice how intact Mead keeps that 4th wall.  The characters are talking to each other, not aware we're listening.  They aren't giving US information.  There's no, "As you know, Bill, ... etc."  They aren't describing the scenery to each other for our visual delight.

They are intent on problem solving, and aware of impending threat from a crazy guy.

So let's consider what we might do while reading (remember on Kindle you can insert NOTES as you read, and highlight and bookmark text so this kind of study is easy.)

-----------FREEHAND REWRITE ---------------

She reconsidered Rhonda Bailey's connection to all this. 

“How far are we from the cabin where Gus was found?” she asked Tom.

He glanced around at the pine forest.  "You think the killer lived nearby?"

"Well, both bodies were dumped in the same stream." 

He glanced around at landmarks only he recognized. “About a mile as the crow flies, I’d say.”

“Do you think the sheriff’s deputies have searched the cabin for clues to the killer’s identity.”

“I’m sure they have.”

Dana paced, muttering. “Why didn’t the killer bury the bodies instead of hauling them here?"

"Maybe he wanted them found?"  Tom followed kicking at debris, looking for more evidence.

"As a warning to others to stay away?” she guessed. 

“Looks that way,” Jeff inspected the creek.

“Why is he leaving clues?” Dana said to the silent trees.

“Psychopaths are usually intelligent people who consider themselves superior to others. I think he might be taunting the rest of us.”

"You think he may be playing a game like hide and seek?"

Tom nodded slowly.  Jeff watched him a moment, then headed back for the car, saying, "You should see the drag marks where we think the body was moved." 

-------------END FREEHAND REWRITE---------

Notice how much longer that approach makes it than the original.

If you've got a rewrite order that says to reduce the length, those are exactly the changes you'd make to shrink it. 

Also notice how the characters and situation morph under those tiny changes.

NOW ON TO THE MEAT OF THE MATTER

Society, civilization, mythology and technology are all components of every world you must build around your characters.

Even when working in contemporary Romance, or near-time science fiction romance, or Urban Fantasy Paranormal Romance set in sort-of the current day, you have to "invent" your world from the point of view of your main character.

Even the world seen by your subordinate characters if you use them as Point of View characters has to "match" the world as it is perceived by your Main Character. 

Putting these pieces together into a work of art is an art in itself, like mixing oil paints to smear on a canvass and suggest (using 2 dimensions) a 3-D picture.  The human brain interprets the shadings and textures and creates the imagined 3-D image.  Reading a story in text-only, the imagination creates that extra dimension of emotion, of emotional connection. 

The best place to learn to understand what sexual seduction is all about is the study of Advertising, of PR, of spin-doctoring, of motivational speaking, of selling. 

A victim of seduction believes -- is deeply convinced -- that this is True Love, a Soul Mate.

A real Soul Mate knows what you mean when you tell them how you feel.

Your words resonate and produce behavior that confirms, that validates, your emotional life within the emotional life of the other.  Like music.  One string vibrates, the air transmits the energy, and the other string vibrates without having been touched.  That is resonance.

That's what advertisers mean when they say a "message resonates" with the public.  They mean that people who haven't heard the original message nevertheless repeat that message.

That's how love works when it is REAL.

Mimicking that effect is what the Lounge Lizard or Gigolo does.  His job is to accompany his employer and convince rooms full of people that his employer is not paying him money to be with her, but that she is a prime example of womanhood because she has won his high regard (and just LOOK at him; wow! she must be something!). 

Having arm candy around you paints a picture of you, doctor's your spin, makes a statement about YOU.  It isn't real, and most people in that formal party do know that, but nevertheless the glow of approval of that Arm Candy individual paints the employer in a light different from the actual reality.

So making that emotional contact, and hitting the "note" that resonates is an artform.

After centuries of hit-or-miss, that artform has been codified into a science.  The science is called PR.  It is the art of convincing you to do what you would never do under mere hypnosis -- behave in a self-destructive manner untrue to your own character.

These techniques can be applied to your benefit.  A Gigolo looking for a job may notice you hunting the audience for a suitable man to hire and present himself using what he's noticed (Sherlock Holmes fashion) about you.

They can also be applied to induce you to behave in a way that benefits the Gigolo not you.

From a writer's point of view, the Gigolo or Lounge Lizard role is identical to that of today's politicians.  What you see is not what you get. 

Politicians hire PR people

I've discussed PR and its origins and uses many times.  Self-publishing writers have to master this branch of psychology -- or hire a firm to do it for them just as publishers do.

Here are some links in case you're not familiar with the kind of "arm twisting" tactics developed to "control" the behavior of herds of people.

FROM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_public_relations

----------QUOTE-----------
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization and the public.[1] Early forms of public influence and communications management have existed since the dawn of ancient civilizations, but the professionalization of the discipline occurred in the early 20th century. Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays helped establish the field as a professional practice in the United States, Basil Clarke and Sir Stephen Tallents pioneered the field in the United Kingdom, while Arthur W. Page is considered the father of corporate PR.

The field became more established after World War II, in part due to talent from war-time propaganda efforts moving into the private sector.
----------END QUOTE--------

For another angle on the explanation of PR:
http://www.slideshare.net/Brett509/public-relations-theory-537389

And note this:
http://www.fullsail.edu/ is a school for animation artists, especially videogame builders, where you can get a bleeding edge tech degree to work in the Public Relations (advertising) field where image is everything.

Dig down and you'll find this very math-driven field of PR is pretty much the art of the con man, the grifter, the trickster. 

In January 2014, we discussed an example of this kind of psychological judo that can let an advertiser throw you over the shoulder and cart you away.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-8.html
--------------------QUOTE---------------
Statistics have proven such accurate predictors of the behavior of large populations of otherwise dissimilar individuals (people, yes, but this would apply to non-humans as well) that people use those numbers to create their opinions.

And a growing number of young adults are using statistics reports "backwards."

Using statistics forwards means collecting data on individuals and predicting how large numbers of individuals will move together in the same direction.

For example: how many iPads will Apple sell in the next six months?  How many people will upgrade from a Samsung to an iPad (and think it's an UPgrade?).

Those are questions statistics can answer accurately.

Will you upgrade from a Samsung or Kindle to an iPad and think it an UPgrade?

Statistics can't answer that.  It would be using statistics "backwards" to predict your behavior based on the behavior of a majority, or even a significant minority of people "just like you."

But your friend you go to lunch with at work might use released statistics to make a confident assumption about your future behavior.  That lunch conversation can become the core of a novel's conflict by Integrating that THEME (working statistics backwards) into the WORLDBUILDING (contemporary Romance).
---------------END QUOTE--------------

Since we have been conditioned, in school and in news reports of STUDIES, and in doctor's offices where prescriptions are given (or not) based on statistical studies of the effects of the medication rather than on experimental evidence of how this medication affects you, therefore we tend to skip over the inconvenient truth that the "average" response to anything has no relevance to you, personally. 

The systematic, repeated dunning in of the message "statistics show" means "you are average" by PR techniques has thwarted every math teacher's strident insistence that statistics can not be worked backwards. 

One primary PR technique is the appeal to "experts" -- i.e. people who know better than you, and the subliminal message that you better be afraid of authority and do as experts say because they know better than you.  Fortunes have been poured into perfecting statistics because they can be used to bolster that argument.

So besides greed, fear, and insecurity are traits the grifter activates in a Mark.  The Lounge Lizard targeting a client has perfected the appearance of power and authority.

Stop and think a moment about that.  Remember the watchword of all story telling is SHOW DON'T TELL.  Think how you would show rather than tell how your Gigolo character sweeps his Mark off her feet -- then think about what she would do once she figures out what he did to her.  Creative retaliation is a way to SHOW not TELL.

The art of the con man, the grifter, the trickster, uses the traits of your psychology as weapons against you, just as the con man uses greed.

If you have no greed in you, no con man can have any effect on your behavior -- because without greed you have no fear of loss and are not in awe of authority but choose to obey of your own free will. 

In other words, without greed, you can not be forced to do anything because the only ones who have authority over you are ones to whom you have given (thus may rescind) authority. 

Should such an authority induce you to act against your own best interests, you will not do it. 

In fact, even if such an authority claims this action is in your best interests, you will not do it -- because if your mind is not clouded by greed that induces fear-of-loss and makes you tremble before "authority" that threatens to strip you of whatever you treasure, then you will see it is not in your best interests to comply.

Greed within us allows those among us who are greedy for power to attain power over us. 

That's an abstract statement (a TELL not a SHOW) about how the greed mechanism of the human subconscious shapes our civilizations (all of them back to the dawn of time).  To use that principle in drama you must SHOW it, not TELL it. 

So the absence of greed which allows for resistance to authority translates easily into plot where you can best show without telling that the individual has no greed.  That embeds characterization into action. 

By now you've seen the film, LONE SURVIVOR -- a perfect example of characterization embedded in plot where the US Soldiers let the shepherds go instead of killing them to insure the squad's safety.  That scene is why you cry at the end of that movie.  If that characterization had been done with tell -- people talking about these soldiers back in the barracks -- you wouldn't cry at the end.  Pay particular attention to the dialogue in that scene.

Here is an omnibus of a duo-logy I wrote about a Lone Survivor who is not human rescued by a human battleship engaged in an interstellar war. 



Controlling the behavior of others by activating their Greed is a principle that pre-dates modern psychology -- you find it in the Ten Commandments! 

Where it says do not covet your neighbor's ass, wife, property etc -- DO NOT COVET is code for do not be greedy. 

Want what you have and you will have what you want.

Violate that one commandment and every con man in the world will gravitate to you because you have Mark written on your forehead in bright fire.

But both men and women who have not yet found their Soul Mate harbor a greed for that experience of resonating with another Soul.

We are greedy for a whole orchestra of souls, children and family, to resonate with.  We are at rest only when surrounded by those we resonate with.

That is the nature of the human being.  Remember the article I linked in a previous post about how a married man's testosterone level drops as his kids are born -- if he spends his time with wife and children.  It's an effect beyond merely having sex with his wife.  Family tames the aggressive, trouble-making tendencies of excessive testosterone. 

We are all greedy for that experience of rest -- and the mere promise of it (a hot-sexy Gigolo image) will ignite that greed.

But understanding that the promise is an illusion breaks the Gigolo effect and turns the greed to disgust.

How many people know enough math to understand what's being done to them by "commercials" and that a Lounge Lizard is a walking sandwich board commercial!.

The concept "Lounge Lizard" refers to a person who goes where the "action" they are looking for tends to congregate.  The "Lounge" is some kind of high class drinking establishment, and the action sought is rich employers looking for an employee. 

In other words, the person seeking to influence the behavior of someone goes to the place where lots of people open to being influenced congregate. 

For example, an advertiser selling expensive cars wants to advertise on a TV show watched by people who have a lot of money. 

How many people understand the value of words?  Especially the words in advertising copy?

Here is an eye-opening article on the shift in TV advertising for Apple products between 2013 and 2014.  (read this excerpt with an eye to casting it into dialogue as demonstrated above in the rewrite exercise.)

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-apple-borrows-dead-poets-society-evocative-ad-ipad-air-154937

--------QUOTE FROM ARTICLE-------------
 Using the Dead Poets source material is a curious choice. You might think going with third-party copy—the film was written by Tom Schulman, who won a screenwriting Oscar for it—betrays a continuing lack of confidence in the brand's own voice, or at least the current expression of that voice. And maybe it does. But still, it's an inspired passage that fits wonderfully with the Apple brand.

"Medicine, law, business, engineering—these are noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life," Williams (as Professor Keating) says in the voiceover. "But poetry, beauty, romance, love—these are what we stay alive for." That message is pure Apple, going back to the "Think different" days as well as Justin Long's teasing of the spreadsheet-loving John Hodgman in the "Get a Mac" ads. Apple's business is art (and the business of art), not commerce—though the visual storytelling here cleverly shows the product contributing to both.
-----------END QUOTE---------------

Notice that's from a website called "adweek.com"  -- adweek is FOR advertisers, and as a self-publishing writer that would include you.

Do you understand the nuances of this article (read the whole thing). 

It reveals the way people trying to trick you think about you.

This article is about selling tech devices, but it is the same process used by a Gigolo or a Politician.  Trace out the reasoning, then trace that reasoning backwards.  The objective never articulated is to get you to part with your MONEY to buy a DEVICE.

Those who follow Apple on the financial market know there is about $400 worth of profit in every iPad Air (#5) fully loaded with memory (cost about $935).  Yeah, in the USA these devices are THAT overpriced. 

How does Apple get away with this? It makes similar profits on iphones and macbooks.

Advertising, that's how.

What's advertising?  PR.  What's PR?  Mathematics.

When you understand what Apple is doing to "get away with it" you will understand what Politicians do to "get away with it" (whatever "it" they've tricked the public into doing lately).  All advertising is trickery -- it's all seduction. 

If you're self-publishing, you have to understand how they do this and decide how you can employ it and still conform to your own sense of ethics.

Look at the tuition to Full Sail University linked above.  That is an expensive education, and only the best and brightest can manage to graduate from such a school. 

Full Sail University is a for-profit university and its graduates work on Oscar Winning pictures.  This school has already produced an army of soldiers taking the field to conquer and control your behavior.  And there are many other schools more specialized in producing high-skilled practitioners of PR. 

Understand this pattern in our real world.  Understand how this pattern developed historically, pivoting especially around WWII. 

Understand that your reader has no clue that this is being done, but she is unconsciously (and happily) dancing to the tune played by PR practitioners (selling everything from hair spray to anti-aging creams, from vitamin supplements to SUVs).

Now, worldbuild the environment of your story, and be sure to include this PR element.

The Gigolo is a PR expert-for-hire, ready to convince everyone at the party that he is your escort, and that you are Somebody because he admires you.  His admiration elevates you.  His job is to make everyone else admire you because of how he admires you.  It's an old artform, and a new mathematics. 

The Gigolo or Lounge Lizard (male or female variety) is the SHOW for this element of human nature that gives rise to PR, while the PR article on Wikipedia is the TELL for the same thing.  BTW "Lot Lizard" is slang for whores who use CB radio to lure truckers to truck stop lots for a cheap quickie. 

If you're building an Alien Romance novel, you have to know (but don't have to let the reader know) what character elements your Alien's Grifter or Gigolo uses to get a handle on a Mark.  What is the Alien's weakness?  Is it Greed and Covetousness?  Or something else? 

Among humans, the use of slang or circumlocutions like "Lot Lizard" is a sure sign that there's repressed Guilt underlying the choices of action, driving motivation.  So give your Aliens some oblique-speak idioms to designate their unsanctioned actions. 

The human strength is how we become immune to PR once we see the mechanism of it working on us. 

What is your Alien's strength? 

Now pit the human and alien lovers-to-be against each other using the Greed trait to create the conflict.  Then do the dialogue exercise demonstrated above using seduction as the subject, not finding a murderer (either one is problem solving).

Maybe your trio in this dialogue is an alien grifter team (as depicted in the TV Series LEVERAGE that I've written about:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/02/tv-shows-leverage-and-psych.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 3: Making A Living At Writing by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 3
Making A Living At Writing
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

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

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

So here we are in 2014 and the world of marketing fiction is morphing even faster than ever.  In fact, "marketing" in general is under a high-impact game-changer of an ad-campaign.  The targets of this campaign mostly have no idea they've been targeted -- which is the way Public Relations is supposed to work, sneaking through your critical thinking filters. 

The groundbreaking ad campaign was launched for the film Anchorman 2.  Ron Burgundy suddenly appeared all over the place, coming at you from every medium.

http://www.hypable.com/2013/12/04/ron-burgundy-quotes-anchorman-promotional-appearances/ 

I saw several items on the financial news back in December 2013 about this ad campaign for Anchorman 2, during the talk about how the only thing wrong with Obamacare is the lack of a sufficient PR thrust to cause people to sign up for Obamacare (while news items kept appearing about the lack of Security on the back end of the healthcare.gov website.)

In the Entertainment biz, (of which publishing is a part), no matter how interesting your story, if it doesn't have an appropriate ad campaign, it won't make you a profit. 

Do you know how it "happens" that something like the Burgundy promo suddenly appears on NEWS SHOWS?  And everywhere else, while ads are appearing -- most hits on the YouTube video which has been pushed viral?  That it didn't "go" viral but was pushed viral on purpose is the story.  But how did that story make it onto a news broadcast?

Publicity Release, that's how.

There are a number of online services that promise free or fee-paid distribution to news outlets for a press release you write -- and they even admit that there is a standardized technique for writing such press releases.  They show you how.  But that isn't enough.

Any reporter, editor, etc. is now bombarded with thousands of these things a day. 

It's not enough to "put out" a "press release" -- professional back-channel access to the decision makers is necessary, and before that can be effective, there has to be a "story." 

This is the NEWS GAME, behind the scenes.  It has its own language and buzz-words as well as an entire business model for attracting the attention of large numbers of people who, because of whatever they have in common, will very likely do something with the information.

The most successful novelists I know of (and sometimes know personally) have one of two starting-professions under their belts before they "make it big" in the book biz.

1) Journalism
2) Marketing

It doesn't matter what kind of Journalism and it doesn't matter marketing what.  These two professions ingrain an entire outlook on the world that trains the subconscious to think in certain ways when organizing an Idea for a Story.

So we're going to examine how the News Game has changed -- where it was decades ago, why it was that way, and what forces caused it to change.

ANCHORMAN 2 is a marvelous case in point since it is sort-of about NEWS, but is fiction, and got this groundbreaking Public Relations Campaign.

That's what's "wrong" with self-publishing -- most writers just don't understand Public Relations, or how to create an ad campaign (nor do they have a sufficient budget).  And they don't understand Journalism -- which is the interface between the writer and the audience.  If you get "reported on" you are important.  How do you get "interviewed" on a news show and have them introduce you as the author of a book which they put on screen?

How do you get a cover design on your book that an eye-blink of exposure on a TV screen would give a viewer a need to buy that book?

It's magic, right?  Sheer dumb luck?  It could happen to anyone?  All you have to do is get your book in print?

What do you need a "publisher" for? 

PR, that's what. 

PR is the most expensive part of producing a book.  Just as in film production, the writer gets the least amount of the budgeted money, the book writer gets the least amount in advance from the publishing budget, and the least of the profits. 

Self-publishers who establish a publishing budget covering all the items a big publisher puts into a budget have a very good chance of succeeding. 

One reason writers go to self-publishing is that they learn how the author's contract pays them 6% to 10% of the NET proceeds from sale of the book.  The publisher keeps the rest.

No, actually not.  The publisher SPENDS the rest on staff and tasks required to produce and market that book.  Publishing (like the News Game we're going to discuss) used to be a zero-profit business.  It used to be that big companies owned a publishing company for the prestige of it (I'm not kidding; I know first-hand), and the company policies of the publishing arm of the company were designed to lose money.

The publishing company's job was to lose money AS A TAX WRITE-OFF.

They were in the business of exciting original thought with stimulating IDEAS, of instructing, informing, investigating, and incidentally entertaining.  The business aim was to break even -- make office rent, salaries, printing fees, etc etc -- not to make a profit.  So for every big, best seller, they would deliberately publish really "important" books that just could not possibly earn what it cost to print and distribute. 

The mission statement didn't include this, but the real mission was to lose money and gain prestige for the company that owned the publishing company.

That all changed when the US tax laws that governed warehousing of product changed.

Two decades later, technology swooped in and blindsided paper publishers -- e-books are now the battleground, and self-publishing may be our Renaissance.  (we're seeing this trend in Indie film and Indie everything else.) 

Note also that most all the US operating publishers are actually owned by foreign companies.  The shift in the tax laws gutted US Publishing to the point where we had an era writers called "Pac Man Publishing" where companies ate each other (this is happening with our Airlines now, and Healthcare delivery and innovators are entering that phase.) 

Just remember this:  IT IS ALL ABOUT THE TAX LAWS. 

So let's add a third starting-profession to the list of pre-published-author professions:

1) Journalism
2) Marketing (PR is part of Marketing)
3) Business Administration

One of the items in the BA curriculum is Public Relations and the place and function of the PR Department in the corporate structure.  Accounting is supposed to cover Tax Laws, but if you self-publish, you have to learn all that, too.  Tax laws are the elephant in the room.  You stand or fall as a business on Tax Law.

A self-publisher is a corporation -- has to be!  At least an LL.C.  There's an annual fee imposed on corps by each state -- a tax.  It's all about taxes. 

If you self-publish an e-book, and get sued, they can take your house, car, any other property.  Put the book into a corporation, and all the laws are different, but they are different in each state. 

And a self-publishing writer has to be a Master of administering or managing a PR department -- even if she wears all the hats in this corp, she has to do the PR and be the PR Department manager herself.  Each of these jobs is a full time job, and each requires a 4-year University Degree or at least the knowledge acquired in that degree work, plus the real-world, hands-on, skills gained by working with people. 

So google the following query:
anchorman Burgundy promotion

Study the results from the point of view of 1) Journalism ( a news organization deciding this film's promotion is NEWS - not the film itself!), 2) Marketing (that provides the news organization with the material to make that decision a slam-dunk) and 3) The Business of monetizing an investment in a piece of fiction (watch the film).

From the outside, the results of PR look like magic.  It's not.  It's science so advanced that it looks like magic. 

So beginning writers assume they can write a great novel, self-publish it, and LUCK may strike and boost them into this pinnacle of profit that the Burgundy films enjoy simply because their writing and their story are so much better than that movie (which they probably are). 

It's true: Luck Can Do That.  And the odds tilt in your favor if you write well. 

But self-publishing for profit requires a whole lot more savvy than that. 

It requires understanding business. 

Being a successful self-publisher means understanding the business structure well enough to know exactly where "Talent" resides in the Business Model, and precisely what the value of the content produced by Talent is worth in terms of ROI. 

Remember the old Hollywood saw, "I'll make you a star."  Mostly, the producer saying that was a grifter who just wanted to "make" the girl, but sometimes they could and did "make a star."  How talented an actress was Marilyn Monroe?  How good a singer is Madonna?  Are there better actresses or singers?  Why aren't they as well known? 

Is fame proportionate to ability?

See this entry on FAME:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html

Making a living at writing (even if you use a publisher) also requires the writer's concept of their product's place in the business model to morph as fast as the business model itself is morphing.  (which in 2014 is fast!  Tax law changes will ensure even faster morphing, never mind Healthcare changes.)

Take the ANCHORMAN 2 promotional campaign as an example of how your PR approach must now shift.

The Business channels carried items noting how the unique aspect of this promotional campaign was because it utilized multiple media forms simultaneously - a timed barrage. 

It's on TV, Radio, YouTube, Internet ads, and I don't know about print, blogging.  The campaign itself is the news item, as much as the sequel to a popular movie.

OK, the subject of the movie has wide appeal -- but the effectiveness of the YouTube ad plus all the multi-channel hype was highlighted on the Business channel coverage when one of the anchors said his whole family wants to see that movie -- the teen from YouTube or Netflix exposure, his wife from another medium and himself from other sources. 

Each channel of communication with potential audience demographics now requires a different medium of communication of the "message."  But "messaging" is still King. 

Apparently, the producers of this film spent more on promotion than on the movie, and one of the stars is getting his cut off the back end (not up front which is usual).  In other words, he gets a percent of the box office, so he's out there beating the drum just before the film hits -- TIMING is the other biggie in advertising.  Messaging (saying it in a way that gets across) and Timing are the keystones of an ad campaign.

And it is a campaign.  It's a WAR between those who can profit from selling you the product, and your resistance to spending that money.  Also the consumer has limited time to spend on entertainment.  You are, as Heinlein said, vying for the buyer's beer money and leisure time.

There is a whole science behind getting "people" to DO SOMETHING. 

That science, PR, works well enough that the cost/benefit equation works better in favor of those who know and utilize that science.

Advertising used to be an Art.  During the 20th century, it became a science (Public Relations is now math based on statistical studies of how large populations respond to messaging).  You've seen TV news using "focus groups" to predict elections or graph public opinion of viewers watching a segment.

PR is founded on the assumption that "people" are a herd -- that people see a person (a leader or influencer -- such as Klout attempts to spot by analyzing your social media interactions) move in a direction and they just follow like a herd.  Therefore, the only way to "make a profit" is to control that herd's movements, and PR is the math behind that control.  We've discussed all that at considerable length on this blog.

Here are 3 previous items on this blog that discuss PR:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html

Control the Influencers - the Leaders - and you control the herd.  Any cowboy/gal can tell you how that works.

For a century, this science has been growing, becoming refined and more accurate -- so successful that the general opinion that an individual has of "people" is that they (people plural) aren't very smart. 

"Yell FIRE in a dark theater!"  It brings to mind that image of a stampede for exits.

One PR principle is to keep that herd in a panic -- or some peak emotional state, pathos, sympathy, revulsion, all do the job.  The key to controlling the herd is whipping up emotion because emotional states (fear-fight-flight) wipe out critical thinking, paralyze the ability to discern the con-game, the grifter's skills at work.

We discussed the TV Show Leverage here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/business-model-of-writers-in-changing.html

If you missed prior discussions involving PR, review them here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/story-springboards-part-2-tv-shows.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-3.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-2.html

If you've studied Leverage, (and the many other TV Shows that focus on con-men tricking "marks" into self-destruction) you are equipped to make yourself PR proof. 

Once you see the strings of greed and fear con-men pull to make their "marks" dance, you will never be a "mark" again.  If you can achieve that mindset, you have a serious chance of being successful at self-publishing. 

Seeing is believing. 

Until you see what PR at publishing houses does, and how they do it, and how you have been a victim of it, you have no chance at success in self-publishing. 

You don't need a college degree to do this, but you do need to know what is in those textbooks.  You don't need a teacher.  Teach yourself.  Go to the library or buy some used textbooks (much cheaper now in e-book format!) and just learn it. 

So returning to the grifter's secondary tool of "fear."  That's "Yelling Fire In A Crowded Theater."  Just get the herd moving, and human stupidity will do the rest for you.  Remember, the principle behind PR is that Aroused Emotion obliterates critical thinking.  Once you've short-circuited human critical thinking, you own that herd.

As long as you, the writer with aspirations of self-publishing, are a member of the herd that Publisher's PR Departments own, you will not succeed at self-publishing.  Your indignation and defiance are emotions aroused by the "stupidity" of publishers who refuse to publish the "better" kind of book you write, and thus your critical thinking is shunted offline, and they own you.

As long as you are in rebellion against traditional publishing, you will fail because they own you.

You will not fail because your book is not marketable (though that does cause failure).  You will fail because of your emotional state.

You can master your emotional state easily by coming to understand how the Confidence Operator is jerking you around.  Find where your handles are sticking out, and don't let them get hold of you by your handle.

For writers, that handle is generally, "I write better than that."  And very often, that's true.  What the writer must learn to go professional, especially as a self-publisher, is that there is a low, but clearly defined threshold that a story must meet, and any quality above that just doesn't matter in marketing.

How well you write just doesn't matter.  How important your story is used to matter -- in today's publishing world that publishes FOR PROFIT ONLY -- "importance" of what you have to say doesn't matter.

Once you get that fixed in your mind, you can research why lesser works than your own sell so much better.

But you won't understand the data you're gathering until you understand PR.

Many times great disasters with horrendous death tolls have occurred in public places (such as bars or theaters) with insufficient exits.

"Messaging" is the science of figuring out what to yell in that darkened theater to raise the emotional state to the point where critical thinking evaporates and the mindless herd is created (in politics, it's call a Bandwagon).

"Timing" is the science of picking when to Yell.

Targeting a Market is the science of "getting all those people packed into that theater" -- "finding your audience."

"What Is The Lowest Common Denominator that all those people share?"

That's what "audience" means to PR folks -- not the definition of the word audience, which is about "those who hear" but how to gather those people all together to yell your emotion-raising message causing the herd to lunge all together in one direction.

If you think about what that means, you may see why Science Fiction is not so popular.

Science Fiction has been defined as "The Literature of Ideas."  That is, it is about THINKING.

Only in ROMANCE is it possible to have truly peak emotional experiences while at the same time still thinking critically.  (I said Romance, not sex.) 

Science Fiction is always about the story (fiction) of some revelation about the structure of the universe (science) that organizes (science) the knowledge gained into a pattern than can be used to invent new things.

In the typical, old fashioned, science fiction a young boy (always a boy) who has a brilliant mind discovers some new fact that his elders could never have found.  Using this new fact, the boy invents, fixes, adds-on, or otherwise morphs what tools his elders were using and thus solves a problem older people could not.

The driving force in old style Science Fiction is the boy's emotional need to "prove himself" -- or one of the other emotional issues of teen boys, but never the sexuality inherent in the teen years.  SF was usually set in the time of life of the Rite of Passage into adulthood, and thus defined what it means to be an adult, as opposed to being a child.

That type of Science Fiction has almost disappeared from the shelves (or Amazon). 

Stories about the process of becoming The Adult In The Room via the application of critical thinking and bold exploration of new ideas have not been given the PR push (that Anchorman 2 has gotten) for at least 10 years.

It is as if those selecting books to put PR muscle behind do not want young people to admire and emulate those whose behavior is controlled more by critical thinking than by emotional-herd-behavior. 

People who default to critical thinking when someone yells FIRE, are generally the sort who simply will not respond to advertising for shaving cream, perfume, tooth paste, or a muscle car.  They simply can not be fooled by advertisements, not even for political candidates. 

People who default to critical thinking are immune to advertising, and every other grifter's trick. 

Science Fiction, from the publishers whose mission-statement included losing money, or break-even at best, taught readers not only to admire critical thinking, but also how to do it when the whole mob around you is screaming, "FIRE!"  The science fiction fan was always the one who grabbed the fire extinguisher before the blaze got out of hand -- or set himself to become that person as an adult.

The measure of adulthood was the ability to default to critical thinking, no matter what others were doing.

That's not the same as being "emotionless" (as Spock was portrayed).  It's not lack of emotion.  It's that one trains one's emotions to be subordinate to critical thinking in the decision-making process.  Once that training is complete, one is an adult. 

From another view, Science Fiction is the fiction about people who defy the rules (because that's how science advances -- by people finding the mistakes in previously accepted Laws of Science). 

These individuals have the characteristic that Klout.com is looking for -- the clearly delineated difference from everyone else.

The lowest common denominator of the Science Fiction reader is high intelligence and unique critical thinking in the midst of peak emotion.

That's what makes the Science Fiction hero/heroine a prime candidate for Romance Genre.

For the astrology buffs reading this -- Romance is usually signaled by a Neptune transit.  Critical thinking is generally associated with an easy Mercury/Saturn connection, and/or Saturn transit to the 3rd/9th axis.  When the two are combined, you get prophetic brilliance, or Love At First Sight.  The true Happily Ever After generally results from that combination, whereas the hard Neptune transit "Romance" generally results in a really rough "The Honeymoon Is Over," moment. 

So now I'll give you a week to review Marketing, PR, the history of publishing, and other points I've skimmed through here.

Next week we'll discuss more about why it is that Journalism is a great way to start a fiction writing career aimed at making a living from writing.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com