Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 5 - Ace Doubles by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 5
Ace Doubles
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In Part 3 of this series we began looking at Making A Living as a writer.  The discussion of how to achieve that continues here in Part 5.  Part 6, next week, will bring these ideas together. 

Here are the previous parts of Marketing Fiction In A Changing World:

Part 4: Understanding The Headlines You Use For Springboards:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_18.html

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

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

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

Long ago, in the mid-20th Century, Science Fiction was just getting a start.

A lot of publishing projects, writing projects, etc. were all put on hold for World War II.

That interval concluded around 1947 - a couple of years after the official end, troops had mustered out, reclaimed or acquired spouses, found jobs, started families, -- and in England, were still in the process of rebuilding buildings.

By the mid-1950's the rebuild had primed the pump of world economies and we were roaring along in publishing.

During that era, many science fiction magazines thrived, and niche imprints were created for books. 

ACE books, which still publishes some of the best stuff, especially in kick-ass heroine fantasy, launched a unique, exploratory publishing program called Ace Doubles. 

It was the biggest publishing genre innovation since maybe The Dime Novel which brought the Western genre to the densely populated East Coast -- ignited dreams and send droves of people to colonize the USA mid-West. 

The Ace Doubles ignited a furor of book-buying of science fiction.

Now these "books" were really composed of 2 novella length works -- longer than magazine stories, but shorter than Novels. 

Ace put 2 of these long-stories back to back, but upside down with respect to each other.  Each side of the volume was a "front cover" with illustration.

They packaged a well known writer on one side, and a beginner or unknown on the flip side.

Many great writers got their start this way. 

But at the same time, by using this format, ACE was able to import works from England, introducing popular English Science Fiction to the US audience. 

Marion Zimmer Bradley's SWORD OF ALDONES (her first novel; she had sold short work to a magazine prior to that) was an ACE Double.

It was a marketing ploy, and it worked fabulously well by making longer works cheap and accessible, and exploration of new authors painless.

E. C. Tubb was one of the British imports. 

I've recently picked up the audible.com version of the first three novels in Tubb's DUMAREST OF TERRA series, remembering it and finding it still stands up.

Here is a glimpse of the ACE marketing and decades later, the audible.com marketing via Wildside Press.  Study this.
              
If you're just starting out as a writer, this is what you aim to accomplish -- longevity.  Tubb's heirs are benefiting from this series which ran over 20 books.

Now, I have to tell you about DERAI, the second in the Dumarest saga.



Dumarest is a man from Earth, traveling the galaxy (much populated by various human cultures).  He has gotten so far from Earth that nobody's ever heard of it except as the legendary (how ridiculous!) birthplace of humankind.

 Now look at this non-fiction book from Wildside Press (available for reading on google) is an excellent history of science fiction, and the influential writers of so long ago.






Google this:
E. C. Tubb Serialization 

You should find this book at the top of the list and it will display a comment on Tubb's work in the mid-1950's.

I have this vague memory of my first encounter with Dumarest.  I used to haunt the used book stores and buy British magazines (tattered and yellowed with age) and other very hard-used paperbacks, reading Science Fiction from the 1930's and 1940's while waiting for the next new book.

Today, there's no way any one person can read everything the big publishers are churning out in Science Fiction Romance, Fantasy and PNR.  That has not always been the case!

So in my mind, E. C. Tubb and Dumarest and this style of storytelling he uses seems to me to have been one of those used magazines from the 1950's -- it was old when I got it, and is long since gone.  So I can't check this.

Everything online, and the serious scholars who have searched hard, are saying the Dumarest material dates from the mid-1970's Ace Doubles -- see the covers above. 

I could be confusing two different Tubb works. 

According to this book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=9j70AAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA138&dq=E.%20C.%20Tubb%20Serialization&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q=E.%20C.%20Tubb%20Serialization&f=false

Tubb dominated the British SF magazines in the mid-1950's and it could be some of that material that grabbed me.

Later, ACE did Tubb works in Ace Doubles. 

In the mid-1970's, the copyright laws were changed, so many earlier works were re-copyrighted so heirs could benefit from re-sale.  Nobody knew then what e-books would do to the reprint market -- or what the advent of Science Fiction Romance would do.  But right now, those older works are re-appearing, and they reveal the origins of SFR, PNR, etc.

Read page 138 of the book on Google.  Part 4: REBIRTH AND BUSINESS PLAN (1954-55).

It claims that Tubb wrote in a melodramatic vein.

That word, used in reference to science fiction, is a perjorative. 

It was used to disparage some of my favorite works -- the Lensman Series by E. E. Smith, Ph.D. -- along with the term "Space Opera."

These are terms which simply scorn anyone who respects these works.

But the fact is these works were and still are, deep, far-ranging philosophically challenging explorations.  They could even be seen as "subversive" -- even today! 

The second Dumarest novel, DERAI, is a Romance.

It is a standard modern-day ROMANCE!  (except for the ending, plus the idea that the man who marries the heiress gets control of her fortune).  It even has a Heroic-Heroine Telepath who falls in love with the Hunk Hero non-telepath assigned as her bodyguard. 

The ending, by requisite marketing formula, requires the heroine to die, leaving Dumarest single, free, available, and able and willing to travel to the next planet in search of Earth. 

That's what the series is about - Dumarest's quests to find his way back to Earth, and all the adventures he has getting there.

But using a science fiction twist, Tubb leaves her alive and even happy! 

Meanwhile, she has informed Dumarest of who knows where Earth is.  And he is now in hot pursuit of that information, knowing the galaxy-spanning organization is his mortal enemy.

So the Dumarest saga is about how one man confronts seemingly overwhelming odds to go home to Earth.

The other thing I noted about E. C. Tubb's writing which didn't distinguish the work against the background of contemporary works, but causes it to stand out against today's novels -- vocabulary.  The choice of word is excellent, precise, jewel-like (very much as you find in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain Vampire novels).

Tubb doesn't reach for those OED gems, though -- he uses normal, everyday vocabulary, but uses it well.

So I recommend the Dumarest saga as a way to study how to achieve inconspicuous but elloquent precision in vocabulary usage.

Just like a TV Series Hero, Dumarest has to stay footloose.  But his character is such that he does form relationships, and his personal integrity requires him to risk even his life for the sake of those relationships. 

He demonstrates Self Respect -- something you don't find a lot of on TV Series these days.  When you do find it on TV, it's watered down compared to this.

Which brings me to an article published last year, the 13 attributes of successful people.

If you are building a character to be the center-pole of a long series, a quintessential Hero, use this list and test every line of dialogue and every decision that character makes against this list.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/11/18/mentally-strong-people-the-13-things-they-avoid/

Check Dumarest against that list.  See what markets on both sides of the Atlantic.

Now, why would a modern Romance writer want to study dusty old adventure-action novels written for boys?

It's not the "dusty" or "old" part that you need to study -- or emulate.  (Please, no emulation of the dusty or old parts!).

To figure out what to do TODAY that will last and last and come back into print to put your grandchildren through college -- study the parts of these novels, the ingredients, that have lasted.

The parts that still work will very likely still work 50 years from now. 

To figure out how to use that information to create a galaxy you can tell a long-romance-saga against, you do need to know something about what else was going on during the early 20th century. 

What did life feel like?  Well, Hollywood isn't a reliable source of historical information, but it does show the Fantasies and Aspirations -- the wishes, dreams, spirit -- of that time.

Combine watching some really old films on Netflix with some non-fiction written at that time (not in modern times) about the world-forces shaping people's lives.  "Life" is mostly about wedging yourself a place between sweeping, storming forces.  We all try to find our place, our "Home" as Dumarest does, and make a safe place to raise children.

I should also note that board gamers look at the Dumarest of Terra Series as the origin of the extremely popular (Dungeons & Dragons level popular) TRAVELER game. 

Study the Dumarest phenomenon (how popular it was -- it is in the same category as the Sten Series, also from Wildside) against those two dimensions, Hollywood dreams and cold-hard-facts of history, and you will understand what Ace Doubles were and what they did for science fiction.

That is what has to be done for the HEA plausibility in the Romance genre.  We have the leverage now.  We have but to use it.

Here is the first of the Sten novels:
http://www.amazon.com/Sten-The-Series-Vol/dp/1434430979/

There are 8 main novels and several additional newer volumes.  They are in paper, e-book, and audiobook. 

Sten dates from the 1980's or so, and the series was written concurrently with a large number of screenplays (mostly TV) by Cole and Bunch. 

Stack up STEN next to DUMAREST, and contrast-compare what innovation they brought to their decade's audience. 

While you're at it, you might want to make a third column for the 8 original Sime~Gen volumes (there are now 12 volumes). 

Look at the strong influences and criss-crossing thematic lines.  Look at the character-formulae relative to that list of 13 things successful people avoid. 

Now look around at the current headlines.  Evaluate the current culture surrounding your target audience.  Check your Market. 

Wildside Press is today reviving the Ace Double format.  Two of the new, first publication Sime~Gen novels are part of that program. 



These two new novels are available in this paper Doubles format, and individually as e-book and audible.com editions.

Study these achievements that test out over time, adapt the principles behind these achievements to your purposes, and launch a byline that you will live with for the rest of your life.

Up until recently, Romance Genre was never considered "reprintable" -- today, Bestselling Romance writers are bringing their own backlist books out as e-books (yeah, Bestselling writers are self-publishing).  And these golden oldies are selling very well!

Yes, pre-cell-phone plots seem awkward.

Yes, women who lack adherence to those 13 principles of successful people in that article seem implausible. 

But yes, that's how life was -- and still is for a lot of women world-wide.

Consider that when you're rummaging around in your mind for a story that's marketable today and for the next 50 years.

Then ponder this article, and why it is that self-published writers don't make much money.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygreenfield/2013/12/09/how-much-money-do-self-published-authors-make/

And in that article is this link:
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/self-publishing-debate-part3/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

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

Targeting A Readership Part 6

Previous Parts in this series:

Targeting Readership Part 1 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/targeting-readership-part-one.html

Part 2 is inside this post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

Part 3 is inside and woven into the following post in my Astrology Just For Writers series which by mistake has the same number as the previous part but is really Part 7:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-6.html

Targeting a Readership Part 4 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/targeting-readership-part-4.html

Targeting a Readership Part 5 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/07/targeting-readership-part-5-where-is.html

Linnea Sinclair, one of the writers who posts on here Alien Romances, pointed out a blog post where I am mentioned and the Sime~Gen Novels are mentioned.

This is the new AMAZING STORIES where Chris Gerwel is puzzling over Science Fiction Romance .

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/02/crossroads-science-fiction-romance-a-niche-before-its-time/

------QUOTE------------
The New Archetypes of Science Fiction Romance

Vampires, werewolves, witches, etc. have a significant legacy in Western culture, and are firmly entrenched in popular consciousness. Even the most culturally unaware understand the rules by which vampires operate (although Twilight’s sparkly vampires may erode this familiarity for the younger generations).

Vampires in one form or another span almost all cultures, and stories featuring them (and their psychosexual symbolism) date back thousands of years. The spaceships, aliens, psychic powers, and interstellar war featured in the works of Catherine Asaro, Heather Massey, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Jayne Ann Krentz, or Lois McMaster Bujold have a much shorter history: as archetypes go, they’ve only been around for most of the past century (with the original incarnation of Amazing Stories a major factor in their popularization).
---------END QUOTE-----------

And there is one other mention of me farther down in this (magnificent) essay.

As a writer, I have to disagree with Chris Gerwel.  Maybe I don't really grasp the point here, or maybe this blog is actually discussing something I'm not equipped to discuss.

But if it is about MARKETS, and taste in entertainment, then it's definitely about what we've been discussing here on Alien Romance. 

Note the Venn diagram in Chris's article showing a slight overlap of Romance genre and what is termed Speculative Fiction (a made up term of no meaning to me -- all fiction is by definition "speculative" because to write it, a writer must enter the mind of a character that the writer has just made up -- i.e. speculated about -- and that character must live in a world that the writer just makes up -- i.e. speculates about.

So the term itself has less meaning than any Genre name I've ever encountered -- editors and publishers know exactly what they mean by their Genre labels, even if the writers don't.

Genre is a marketing phenomenon, as I've discussed in many previous posts.

Paranormal Romance usually includes only elements that Science Fiction excludes because they are based on "Science" that is what was left in "Natural Philosophy" when "Science" split off from it -- ghosts, God, demons, angels, mythical creatures, dragons, and various forms of ESP.

There is the "Normal" that science studies, and the "Paranormal" that Magic studies.  But they are actually the same thing -- the "world" we build inside our heads to connect us to the world that is outside our heads.  That is our "Model of the Universe" or "Weltanshauung" or World View. 

All fiction belongs to that category of "Our World View" or our "View of The World." 

Fiction is about what it means to be alive, where we are, where we're going.  And all fiction is speculative by its nature.

Not all fiction is either "paranormal" or "scientific" -- in fact, most general fiction partakes of both elements because real life includes both.

Science Fiction is fiction about science, about the way people who are trained to think scientifically view the world, about how scientific mental training presents problem solving possibilities that are not available to people who have not had that training.

Science Fiction, when well written, such as that by Robert Heinlein, is perfectly and totally accessible to people who have not had scientific mental problem solving training.

Star Trek continued that tradition of accessibility to the scientifically untrained.

Science Fiction by definition INSPIRES NON-TRAINED PEOPLE TO BECOME TRAINED.

If a novel does not inspire, ignite the lust for scientific knowledge, it is not science fiction at all.

So as Gene Roddenberry said, science fiction doesn't answer questions; it poses questions.

Roddenberry also grasped the essence of science is exploration - going where no "man" has gone before.

Yes, he sold STAR TREK as "Wagon Train To The Stars" (a Western in Space), just transposing the tropes of the popular TV shows of the time into a different setting.

But then he let that transposition pose question that could not be posed in the Olde West.

That's why he fought so hard to retain Spock as a character, going so far as to give up the female First Officer (who was objected to because no real man would take orders from a woman).

Now that brings us to my objection to the premise behind Chris's article.

The difference between the Science Fiction and/or Paranormal (there is no difference between these genres at all) -- readership and the "Pop Culture" Venn Diagram circle in Chris's article, lies not in the "accessibility" of archetypes, but in the deep, innate, inborn, attitude of the reader toward "accessibility."

Now, it's true, at different epochs in one's lifetime, one may have different attitudes toward barriers.  But there are people who spend 90 years or more with the same attitude toward barriers.

"Accessibility" is the reverse of the concept "barrier."  But "barrier" is what is being alluded to in this whole argument of "accessibility." 

So here we enter into a discussion of the general nature of all humans.  To target an audience, you have to define that audience, cut that audience out of the "general" audience, and create something that appeals to that sub-set.

Of course, if you're writing a blockbuster film script, you have to be ultra-careful not to cut any audience out -- you must include all audiences.

But if you're writing a novel, you narrow your audience in order to increase the appeal of your material to those specific people. 

For a complete discussion of maximizing appeal to small audiences and at the same time hitting for a huge, broad audience, being both accessible and inaccessible at the same time, read all of my nonfiction book STAR TREK LIVES!  --- it's hard to come by a copy, but Amazon usually has a few since it went 8 printings.  The techniques of how to do this are outlined in that book.

Here we're discussing the thesis that science fiction and/or paranormal Romance might not be "accessible" because of the archetypes.

My contention is that the audience targeted by this spectrum of genres has nothing to do with the character archetypes (such as Vampire).

The specific audience targeted by both Science and the Paranormal is the audience that flat refuses to accept BARRIERS.

In life, and in fiction, in any activity whatsoever -- these are people who just WILL NOT let others define their reality.

These are people who live (or aspire to live) in an unlimited, (barrier-less), universe.

To this particular readership/audience -- any barrier you put in front of them is a red flag in front of a bull (o.k. bad analogy -- bulls are color blind).  Any barrier you define, any time you put "Authorized Personnel Only" on a door in front of this audience, expect that door to be blown off its hinges forthwith.

Think about what Romance really is.  It is an adventure.  It is an adventure into the realm of the inside of someone else's head.  It is an exploration of the inside of yourself, into places you never knew were there and which astonish you.  It is an experience which is addictive. 

Think about what exploring the stars (or the old West) is about -- it is an adventure.  It is an adventure into the realm of the inside of alien heads (non-humans).

And it does not matter if the alien is evolved on another planet or a denizen of another dimension once thought to be demons by Earth creatures. 

Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus.

In the BATTLE OF THE SEXES, we each see the other gender as "alien."

So establishing diplomatic or romantic relationships with aliens in outer space or aliens from another dimension, with or without telepathy and precognition, is exactly the same familiar and "accessible" archetype as in the Romance Plot Trope.  It's the same approach/retreat dance.

Read Marion Zimmer Bradley's DARKOVER novels. 

Now, it is true, READERS are about 5% of the total population -- readers who read fiction are set apart, perhaps by a brain structure that's either innate or developed, but it is RARE. 

READING is not just the ability to decipher little black squiggles into words you can say aloud.  READING is the ability to NOT SEE those little black squiggles, but rather to see the vast endless plains, the great depths of space, and feel the emotions of non-human beings deep in the nerves while doing nothing but sitting still staring at little black squiggles.

That is a very rare ability -- (hence the popularity of video-games and TV shows is much greater than that of little black squiggles) -- and only a very miniscule sub-set of that 5% have this even more rare attitude toward BARRIERS.

I have seen this 5% figure for the fiction reading population all my life in publishing, only 5% of people buy more than one novella year if that.  Yes, many more will borrow from libraries, but still it's a very small percentage.

Look at the story-intricacy and content of TV and film.  Shallow compared to novels, no? 

It's that barrier thing -- what unites Science Fiction and Paranormal Fiction readers is that attitude toward barriers (perhaps best summed up as "You and what army?")

And that defiant attitude is what defines Romance Genre readers of all stripes. 

I WILL NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO DENY ME ACCESS TO MY SOUL MATE. 

That's the bottom line for Romance readers -- I'm going to get what this world has stashed behind a barrier and nobody is going to stop me!  What woman gives up her man just because he's "inaccessible?"  How many Romance stories have you read where a woman goes after a Prince, or vice-versa, and lands him?  Romeo and Juliet?   "Inaccessible" is irrelevant. 

So "accessibility" of the archetypes isn't what keeps people from reading  Science Fiction or the Paranormal. (Marketing could have something to do with it, though.) 

"Inaccessibility" is what attracts readers to these genres, and striving to gain access is what builds character strength and changes lives.  That strength gained by becoming expert in the details of a fantasy realm is what defines the "geek." 

People read fiction to change their lives, to make themselves emotionally stronger and more prepared by resting from a fruitless struggle, stepping back and gaining a new perspective on the barriers keeping them penned into an unsatisfying life.

But very few can or will read fiction.  Many more will access that same mental state via images.  But ultimately, it is an emotional state that is sought.  We have to talk in depth about the relationship between emotional states and intellectual states, but that's another topic.

There is no such thing as an inaccessible archetype.  By definition, all archetypes are accessible -- that's what makes them archetypes. 

An archetype is the pattern behind the manifestation.  They exist on the astral plane (Yesod -- which is why it's called Foundation; it's the foundation of the world).  How can that which rests upon a foundation find the foundation "inaccessible?" 

You don't "access" an archetype.  The archetype accesses you, or this plane of existence.  The archetype is the source of you and the world.

Archetypes are the substance of what you are made of.  Adam Kadmon is the first archetype, the first man God made and Adam wasn't a "man."  (to understand that gender issue you have to understand how Hebrew uses gender nouns).  Adam, made from clay with the Spirit of God blown into his nostrils, was both male and female, or neither male nor female -- in the image of God, without gender.  Later, gender was created by dividing that ARCHETYPE into two.  Very mystical stuff there and a source of the Sime~Gen Premise.

Chris, in this article, is fumbling around the edges of a very profound idea that Jean Lorrah and I discovered some years ago.

I had long been discussing my theory that the kind of story I write is not of any genre known, and that in fact Science Fiction itself is NOT A GENRE.

You can literally write any other GENRE in Science Fiction.  We've almost got them all written in the 12 Sime~Gen novels and are about to launch a Sime~Gen Videogame set in the Space Age with a really huge Galactic War.  Watch for more of that in July. 

So Jean and I kicked this idea around and worked on it writing Romance in Sime~Gen -- all my novels contain a Love Story, not all are actually Romance Genre like Dushau or Those of My Blood or Dreamspy.

And Jean (being a Professor of English by trade) realized that what we had was not a new genre.

I called my genre The Hidden Genre because I found it in all other genres.

Jean realized it isn't THE HIDDEN GENRE, but is actually a PLOT ARCHETYPE.

Not a character archetype (like The Mother or The Vampire) but a PLOT ARCHETYPE like THE HERO'S JOURNEY. 

We don't have that thesis written up completely yet, but you can read a lot about it and puzzle over it here:

http://www.simegen.com/jl/intimateadventure.html

Note particularly the comment by Ronald D. Moore (of Battlestar Galactica) linked on that page. 

So Sime~Gen is Intimate Adventure and has as much in common with movies such as THE AFRICAN QUEEN as it does with STAR TREK.  (BTW Gene Roddenberry was much enamoured of exploring Africa!  Exploration of Africa was the primary inspiration for Star Trek, not The Western.)

So if you want to rocket to the top of the Romance Novel charts - target the readership that won't take no for an answer.  Target the readership that says, "Don't tread on me," and makes it stick.  Target the readership that is the most inexorable force in this universe. 

We are not the "sheep" who "look up."  We are not herdable.  We are the intractable, the incorrigible, the inexorable, the indominable.  We are the ones who see that sign "authorized personnel only" and authorize ourselves, push the door open and take a look. 

We don't obey rules, and we don't make rules for others to obey.  We think for ourselves. 

We are not leaders, and not in search of a leader and wouldn't let anyone follow us or lead us.

We have only one trait in common with one another, other than that quirk of seeing pictures instead of squiggles on the page of a novel.  We don't understand the concept "inaccessible."  We go where no man or woman has gone before. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Business Model of Writers In A Changing World

I've been inserting posts in this blog about the Writer's Business Model for years.  Here's one of many:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html

The thesis I learned from Alvin Toffler's Future Shock decades ago is now a constantly growing reality for writers -- as a writer you are self-employed and a "small business."  Well, micro-business.  But a business none-the-less.

So I've also done posts on Marketing -- about which I really know nothing and have no education in that field.  But I keep running into people with marketing expertise and learning from them.

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

I just had a writing student self-publish an item and come back to me bewildered about why 3 readers commented in public that they were disappointed, couldn't relate to the main character.

The writer felt the book was terrible.  I counter-argued that the marketing was terrible -- the particular readers who thought from the blurb that they'd like the book did not like it because they couldn't relate to the main character.  If the marketing targeted readers who could relate to that character, the readers would not be wailing out their disappointment.  That's really how it works.  Markets are divided by what kinds of characters they can relate to.

The same plot told from a different character's point of view could grab that audience. 

There are rules for picking a protagonist, and I've detailed them in prior posts.  But self-publishing is all about business model -- and the choice of protagonist is all about business model.

The business of writing is, however, still in massive flux.  The audiences are changing faster than publishing can keep up. 

Here is another take on the theories I'm kicking around, looking for how this all will settle out. 

I've been blogging for some time about the WRITER'S BUSINESS MODEL constructed on shifting sands.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/02/amateur-goes-professional.html

Only new, small, startup, Indie with no baggage, NIMBLE companies can do the kind of things required by the new audiences.  As a new writer, or an older writer going Indie, you have a chance  nobody before you has had.

One important point to remember: release on many platforms  not just Amazon or B&N or Smashwords (which reaches a lot) -- reach for wide availability, and plan to add platforms and outlets as the appear (remembering they will disappear, too). 

I blogged on the state of TV fiction, noting the increasing # of commercials and the disappearance even of REPEATS -- how there are vast stretches on hundreds of channels (I did a lot of flipping and channel surfing)  -- showing the shrinking market for TV fiction while netflix, hulu, Amazon and others are grabbing "content" to stream.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/07/targeting-readership-part-5-where-is.html

The title is WHERE IS EVERYBODY? because I saw a huge lacuna in the TV broadcast fiction flow.   People who schedule TV and sell commercial time (I've known some) know when there's audience and when not!  I don't.  But I know they put stuff in front of eyeballs, and if they can't find eyeballs they don't put the stuff there.

I argued in that post that my observations showed a massive shift in habits of the viewing public.

I've done a series of blog posts starting in December 2012 focusing on the origin, development, and effect of PR into modern "Marketing" (i.e. commercial advertising) with lots more to say about that, and how an Indie writer can exploit that trend.  I've learned a lot from examining this current election cycle.

THEME-PLOT INTEGRATION is the series title for those.  There will be a few more in that series later.

Here's PART 4 with links to prior parts. 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html

I thought I was the only one to see what I was seeing in bits and pieces I could glean from TV and online ads about the election.

But one of the foremost media personalities with a track record in POLLING has (in disgust because he was oh-so-wrong) spat out the exact observation I (without the expensive input sources he has) made!

Here's his article on it (note the disgust he evidences - the confused distress in the semantics).

http://www.dickmorris.com/the-campaign-made-no-difference/

Billions spent on TV ads literally made no difference in people's political opinions.

What's astonishing to me is that I knew this before the billions went to TV ads, and he (who has all the info I don't have) didn't know it.  Can that be true?  Really?  I seriously doubt it.  He ran an internet campaign to collect millions to spend on political ads and spent it.  Many other organizations did the same.  It wasn't unpaid volunteer work.  People got paid to write and produce those ads, to market-test them, to track the statistics, oh a lot of people made a living from those millions that had nothing to do with educating voters. 

Note in this discussion that nobody spends money like that on ads selling books.  Even a blockbuster movie doesn't get ad-blitz coverage like that.  Fiction isn't profitable to advertise -- that's the only firm conclusion I know of.  The few book commercials I've seen have been sparsely distributed.  Today book trailers go up on YouTube and get distributed via social networks -- not TV.  Cost-effectiveness is the reason. 

Ad resistance is heartening to me because I see how TV ads have manipulated people into self-destructive behavior, and it seems while I wasn't paying attention, the trend has reversed.

It's dismaying because all the other evidence I have indicates people are just as amenable to self-destructive behavior as ever because they can't see fallacies in other people's reasoning because (many people in education have told me) of the lack of elementary school training in basic reasoning. 

As I've pointed out in my series on Theme-Plot Integration, a writer who can identify and define a popular fallacy can sell a lot of fiction using that insight.  Critical thinking is now a marketable commodity.  Think about that! 

Note that the fallacies I'm pointing out in the Theme-Plot integration series that writers can use are not about "fact-checking" (though that's a fertile field to plow).  The facts behind a fallacy may or may not be solid -- it's the conclusion that's fallacious.

I see in the gaming community a glimmer of light. 

Here is a group that is training mind-and-hand to not fall for specious tricks for the benefit of the tricker to the detriment of the trickee. 

Some of my most popular blog entries here are

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

and this one with over 1500 views:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/02/tv-shows-leverage-and-psych.html

Those are about TV shows which focus on armoring viewers against con artist's tricks (i.e. advertising). 

The fragmentation of audiences into different media (which left that silent hole in TV Fiction as I surveyed it during a period between "seasons" ) could be the counter to the whole thing of controlling the world by creating herd behavior. 

Kickstarter.com is a beacon of real hope here, as is the whole social media trend.  Indie self-publishing ebook industry is coming along.  Amazon is making FEATURE FILMS!!!

People want to do what they want to do when and where they want to do it with whatever they happen to have at hand, and no back-sass.  

People just won't deal with barriers like DRM.

However it may seem to outsiders, this behavior is not capriciousness or whim, it's the drive to a self-chosen goal.

What audiences have at hand these days is a smartphone.  Various tablets likewise.  There are platform wars going on by those whose business model requires proprietary control of their product.  People just won't STAND FOR THAT.

So create your business model to cater to those who WON'T STAND FOR THAT.

Provide them a product that delivers the pleasure hit of a world where "I DON'T HAVE TO STAND FOR THAT!"  And a life-model that shows how to stand independently within a bonded cooperative partnership -- where the partnership doesn't have to stand for that!

The success of C. J. Cherryh's FOREIGNER series is real evidence that I'm onto something here.



If you haven't been reading that, get #1 and work through it in numerical order.  It's a series of trilogies, all about the same Main (POV) Character, telling his personal STORY -- but as he becomes a mover and shaker in a giant, multicultural environment.  C. J. Cherryh is one of the best writers working today -- and this particular series is lightly laced with alien romance -- which you just don't see unless you know it's there.  Sex is "go to black" and use your imagination.  But the Relationship, the intimate personal relationship between human and alien is what drives the plot. 

The aliens live in a world where "herd" creatures evolved to human levels (maybe beyond), but their "herd" instincts are different from anything on earth --- yet somewhat similar. 

The human "herd" works the opposite of earth's animal herd -- we don't follow a leader.  We all make individual decisions and if others make the same decision (usually for different reasons) -- we all SEEM TO RUN IN THE SAME DIRECTION -- but that's not what's happening. 

Working with that in this changing world where what appeared to be a human herd (as detailed in the Theme-Plot Integration posts on fallacy spotting) can reach a very wide audience among those who JUST WON'T STAND FOR THAT (whatever 'that' may be in your novel).  And toss in an alien civilization trying to puzzle out humans, and you can really confuse the aliens, getting a lot of mileage out of one thematic premise.  C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner universe is a grand example.

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

Theme-Plot Integration Part 4: Fallacies and Endorphins

If you're reading this on New Year's Day, stop and come join us for our annual Sime~Gen New Year's chat -- info and instructions on the Sime~Gen Group on Facebook and/or http://out-territory.blogspot.com

Then come back and read about how to use the basic Theme and Plot techniques I've been harping on in these Tuesday posts to avoid expository lumps.  Yes, that's what this is all about -- avoiding boring the reader by telling rather than showing.  Put all the information into the substrata of the composition, into the structural elements.  This is an advanced lesson, combining two techniques, Theme and Plot. 

Previous parts in this Theme-Plot Integration Series:
Part 1 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html
Part 2  http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html
Part 3  http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html

Before we continue with all this criticizing and negativity, let me just point out that the reason we harbor so many fallacies is that our brains are structured to arrange information in such a way that we are most likely to find what we need to know to survive -- and to do that, we just ignore stuff that doesn't seem to pertain to our lives.

This brain structure quirk has kept our species alive but it isn't necessarily pro-individual survival.

The key is of course choosing your fallacies wisely, and ditching the ones that impair your survival, and your ability to accomplish your particular purpose.

The process of ditching a cherished fallacy even has a name which has become a touchstone of writer-craft structure.  This is a very specifically formulated moment in film or novel, a singular moment in the entire life of your Main Character. 

This exquisite moment is called The Epiphany and it is the main climax of the Story, but not usually the Plot.  It is the moment the Main Character realizes where he/she has been oh-so wrong about something, that there has been a fallacy in reasoning, and/or a failure to ask and answer a question, to discover a key fact. 

The Epiphany in a Romance is usually the moment that one character finally understands why he/she has been doing these ridiculous things, taking irrational risks to save someone else's butt, or attacking some other person out of virulent dislike that nobody else can understand.  The Epiphany is "I Love You." 

Religious Enlightenment stories pivot around the Epiphany "God is Real." 

Betrayal stories pivot on "My Best Friend Is My Worst Enemy." 

Constructing a good epiphany requires first laying down a really plausible fallacy. 

One good source of dynamite fallacies is the lies everyone believes.

Here's a blog post on the business of Film Making - and Screenwriting pinpointing 4 lies that have been sold as truths to the unsuspecting.  If your main character is trying to break into an industry that markets art (any such industry from oil-paintings sold at street fairs to High Fashion in Paris) these 4 lies are wondrous sources of Fallacy to harbor and Epiphany when the fallacy is shattered.

http://www.raindance.org/hollywoods-4-biggest-lies/ 

The thesis in that article is that Hollywood is a film MARKETING industry (not film making industry).

For the purpose of studying Fallacies and how they are used in our real world so we can use them in fictional worldbuilding, we need to consider that Marketing is based on PR (public relations) which is, thanks Bernays - (as mentioned previously in this series, see Links above) a science. 

I've been talking about writing as a performing art and the business of writing as a marketing problem here for years. 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/marketing-via-social-networking.html

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

And there is the 7 part series I've done on Editing that has helped a lot of beginners get their start.

This has links to the prior parts all listed at the top:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html

Marketing now runs on commercials and sound-bytes, YouTube videos and Endorsements.  It used to be jingles and slogans when all they had was radio and B&W magazines.  But since Bernays came up with his herd-instinct idea driven by fear of the behavior of other humans (a wondrously fruitful fallacy for writers to explore), Marketing has been a Science. 

We have had blockbuster TV shows set in Advertising Companies or revolving around a character who writes advertising for a living.  Those characters are always rich -- there's a reason for that.  In real life, those who've mastered Advertising Copy Writing and TV Ad production are a lot richer than any mere novelist. 

Does Advertising work for Marketing because humans really do have a herd instinct?  Or does it work for another reason? 

Are humans who are conditioned to behave as individuals, who don't need or want a "Leader" because they aren't followers and therefore don't prize Leadership, who aren't subject to any herd instinct or tendency, actually dangerous? 

To whom are they dangerous?  What exactly is the danger?  Who would take damage if humans got loose?  The answer to each of those questions could be used to form that Epiphany Moment in a film or novel.

Some of the best romance stories pivot on the subconscious fear of love, leading to the Epiphany that Love Is Not A Threat, that fear of love has a fallacy at its root. 

That type of fallacy novel is about the lies we tell ourselves. 

See the post on Weaponizing Lies
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/dialogue-part-4-legal-weasel.html

Here is a website devoted to videogames made by Bioware and Lucasarts (now part of Disney) based on Star Wars. 

http://www.swtor.com/info/setting

Note, the whole Star Wars saga is based on the current-world's most cherished fallacy -- and nobody, but absolutely nobody, ever identifies this fallacy: that "peace" can be achieved by the process of "fighting," fighting to the death. 

This is such a whopping huge Fallacy that once you have that Epiphany that it's utter nonsense, and you no longer wonder why all these millennia of fighting for peace have not resulted in Peace On Earth, then suddenly the whole world becomes incomprehensible.  Why would you hire a politician who wants to "fight for you" -- before you have this epiphany, it's so reasonable to want to vote for the Champion who can win your rights for you, and afterwards it becomes clear how Advertising has perpetuated this particular Fallacy. 

There's at least a series of novels in finding out who benefits from perpetuating that fallacy. 

Star Wars must be the single biggest marketable product to come along selling the "Fight For Peace" fallacy as necessary in the "War Against Evil." 

Star Wars  may be bigger than Star Trek by now. 
Star Trek is based on "when we become wise" (as Gene Roddenberry always said in his speeches at conventions) we will have peace.  Peace achieved through acquiring wisdom is the theme.  But Star Wars out-sells Star Trek. 

Fighting is more fun than becoming wise.

Fighting is fun because of that endorphin addiction noted in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/dialogue-part-5-how-to-write-liar.html

Endorphins are create by the body, relaxing and triggering a pleasure response. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorphins

----------QUOTE WIKIPEDIA --------------
Endorphins ("endogenous morphine") are endogenous opioid peptides that function as neurotransmitters.[1] They are produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in vertebrates during exercise,[2] excitement, pain, consumption of spicy food, love and orgasm,[3][4] and they resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce analgesia and a feeling of well-being.

The term implies a pharmacological activity (analogous to the activity of the corticosteroid category of biochemicals) as opposed to a specific chemical formulation. It consists of two parts: endo- and -orphin; these are short forms of the words endogenous and morphine, intended to mean "a morphine-like substance originating from within the body."[5]

The term "endorphin rush" has been adopted in popular speech to refer to feelings of exhilaration brought on by pain, danger, or other forms of stress,[2] supposedly due to the influence of endorphins. When a nerve impulse reaches the spinal cord, endorphins that prevent nerve cells from releasing more pain signals are released. Immediately after injury, endorphins allow animals to feel a sense of power and control over themselves that allows them to persist with activity for an extended time.[citation needed]
---------------END QUOTE-----------

Humans can achieve this kind of response just from imagination.  So indeed, the "fallacy" of "fighting for peace" seems on the surface, from personal internal experience to be a "no brainer."

You FIGHT: You feel pleasure. 

Just as in the post on Liar Dialogue, Part 5 in the Dialogue Series:

You lie: You feel pleasure

You exercise power over others: You feel pleasure.

The book, You Can't Lie To Me by Janine Driver, illustrates how basic it is to the human animal to feel a rush of endorphins when exercising power over other humans.  Lying from a position of power, tricking others into doing what you want by reshaping their idea of reality, produces an addictive rush of endorphins -- it's addictive because you become immune to the effect and thus require a bigger rush or endorphins to get the pleasure hit.  You need more and more power over more and more people just to feel normal. 

Think about that concept -- read up on the science -- then think about "who" Bernays was, what his biography was, where inside him did the idea of humans as a herd to be controlled by lies come from?  Why are humans running loose without anyone controlling them dangerous?  To whom are they dangerous -- really, to whom? 

How many plots with dynamite epiphanies can you create by trying out different answers to those questions? 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Genre: The Root Of All Decisions

Last week I responded to the confusion one reader of these posts who is also a writer expressed.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/06/genre-root-of-all-confusion.html
In the course of that post I said:

------
That's right - genre shapes the world of entertainment so that what you may may have access to, or may discover first, depends entirely on what others want rather than on what you want (or really need).  So you learn to be satisfied with what others want - and in a way that's "good" because it allows you to "fit in" and to discuss what others know about. In another way, though, it sows confusion within you about "who" you really are, what your purpose in life is, and how that relates you to everyone else.  
------

This situation (which is changing so fast it's confusing) has profound consequences for writers, readers, and probably human civilization.

Marketing is based these days on some mathematical principles I discussed in a previous post here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-to-change-perception-of-romance.html

One principle of marketing I didn't discuss in any depth is information overload.

Way back in the 1970's Alvin Toffler (a journalist) wrote a book titled FUTURE SHOCK, which I urge you to acquire and read.  It's had many printings and you should be able to find it easily.

http://www.amazon.com/Future-Shock-Toffler-Summary-ebook/dp/B004XQVJB6/rereadablebooksr/ 

That is a link to a "study guide" to Future Shock -- on Kindle.  That book is so important it's still being studied, and I think younger people probably need the "guide" because many of the then-contemporary references are now obscure after only 40 years.

In this book, Toffler pointed out to the general reading public something that only SF writers and readers, and some scientists, were discussing.

Remember the World Wide Web only began in 1990 with the creation of HTTP, hypertext, the code for web pages.

In the 1980's, there were Lists and Bulletin Boards proliferated, but only a few neighborhoods had dial-up services that allowed you to get your computer to read these Boards.  Every Christmas, the access to the Boards would clog up and become impossible as the number of people with a modem increased 10-fold or more via gifts.

Through the 1990's fiber optic cables were laid at a frantic pace, all based on a lie deliberately told by a corporation head -- about the rate of increase of the amount of information being transmitted on "the web."

The lie led to the dot-com bubble bursting in 2000's.

Now, in 2011, we're seeing "slowdowns" again as data transmission maxes out what fiber was laid and lit.  (also as corps fight government for control of traffic patterns and volumes)

All of this was foreseeable by Toffler in the 1970's.

The core of the issue, for Romance readers and writers anyway, has two nuclei.

A) The basic hardwired LIMIT of the human brain & emotions for decision making

B) The available strategies that attract the most people trying to deal with those hardwired limits being exceeded

Marketers (who invented genre and continually re-define it) know what neuroscientists discovered around the time Toffler was writing.

The human brain's wiring allows a human to make a certain number of decisions during a wake-period (i.e. per day).

Then you have to sleep. 

Confusion sets in as that limit is reached.

Modern living (cell phones, texting, web-surfing via phone, at work, etc) has an increased number of decisions per day built into the infrastructure.

Agricultural living centuries ago didn't require any such pace of decision making, except maybe when being over-run by invaders.

And then there would be a few days of stark terror, followed by bare survival, followed by resuming the slow pace.

Google saw the opportunity in the information overload situation and has made good sorting information out, and sorting real information from noise (i.e. spam).

But now even Google brings up thousands of pages on almost any search terms.  How do you sort the sort?

Also CNN made good by deploying camera/news crews all over the world, making them satellite broadcast capable, carrying their own batteries, able to report on anything anywhere at any time.  That opened a flood of information sources that was simply overwhelming, in spite of very professional editing.

See my blogs on what is an editor.  This one has a list of the previous ones in the series:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html

The CNN you see today does not in any way resemble the CNN that dominated cable news for a decade.

There's more reason for that than merely political slant.

The reason, (from an SF writer/ futurologist point of view) is rooted in item B) above -- available strategies that attract people.

The influx of sheer information is causing a whole generation that is now in their 40's to fight back by ignoring information such as CNN specialized in providing.

In the 1990's, information (live visuals from around the world) was a novelty, and the events seemed "important" simply because we never would have known had CNN not had a crew on the spot.

20 years later, world events don't seem so important.  They are on every TV channel -- hundreds of channels that didn't exist in 1990 -- and on the Web newsfeeds (which didn't exist then) -- and now in newspapers delivered to your iPad or Kindle.

What is common, what floods in with force and abundance, becomes "cheap" and therefore uninteresting.

But it's uninteresting for another reason.  The human brain can accept just so much information in one day, and that's it. 

As the limit is reached, each successive incoming item is less interesting.  The nervous system can't respond to being jerked around like that (yes, this is relevant to Romance novels - very relevant).

Bombarded and stressed to actual, inherent, hardwired physical limits, people fight back by ignoring.

All of this flood of information has been added on top of what we are hardwired to prioritize -- child-care, getting money, food, shelter, and paying attention to those intimate individuals inside our lives more than the faceless strangers outside our lives.

So TV news has become soap opera, a hard-news story such as the tornados in the central USA in April/May gives a few facts then cuts away to quotes from victims giving personal "color" to the story, making it a story rather than an information dump.

Those who want to make headlines (politicians, ax grinders) start squabbles and sling insults at each other.  So-and-so said such-and-such about whoever.  Whoever answered by trashing So-and-so.

Since when is name-calling news?

And what has that to do with Romance?

Oh, it has everything to do with Romance. 

Readers of novels seek out a novel to GET AWAY FROM the information dump, the stress of being required to learn stuff (yes, neuroscientists have measured the number of things a human brain can learn between sleeps, too, and it's a hardwired limit)

But what is the process of "seeking out a novel" these days?

Well, that process has changed markedly, and will change even more.

But here's one clue quantified by marketers.

As with the fight to be at the top of Google's search results page for your keyword, the fight for your attention pervades e-space.

Marketers have discovered that most people (probably not you, if you're over 40 and an SF reader) will CHOOSE FROM the first 3 to 5 items they come across.

A purchase will be made if there are 3 or 4 choices.  If there are more than 5 choices offered, the customer will more likely wander off into confusion, unable to MAKE A DECISION.

There you are, 10 novels almost identical (all labeled Romance) -- choose one.  Most people won't choose.

There you are facing 3 Romance novels.  Pick.  Flip-flip, oh, that's interesting, CLICK BUY NOW.

People act decisively when there are fewer things to compare.

That's hardwired into the basic human brain, and remember the fog of confusion that sets in when an individual is reaching a decision-limit for the day.

These days, with all the influx of information, the demand for decisions, the need to learn new procedures for doing things you always used to do without thinking -- (I have to discuss my adventures with my new iPod as a Kindle reader, but that's another topic, yet intimately related) -- each and every one of us is walking around maxed out by noon every day.

Yeah, by noon or halfway through your day whenever you started, you've pretty much learned as many things as you can for the day, made as many decisions as you can, and the "fog" begins to set in.  By 3PM or the equivalent for you, forget it.

Now, I've been reading a whole lot of urban fantasy with contemporary settings, lots of fantasy (a few really good SF novels I have to talk about in my review column), and just lots of fiction.

I can't even scratch the surface.  There are more books than ever on my to-read stack, and I can't DECIDE to discard unread ones!!!  Too many decisions. What if I miss something important.

Yet no way can I read it all.

So I can't say my cross-section analysis is as good as it has ever been.  I know I'm missing out on some things.

But -- I think I've found something that may exemplify a trend.

We all know the social analysts have compiled statistics on the changes sexual mores in the USA, maybe the world.  These trends among readers show up in what editors demand of writers -- the way they promulgate a formula for a Romance line.  That is, so many sex scenes of such and so length, such and so amount of graphic language, and various situations that must be there and others that must not.

Westerns used to have some of that kind of formula behind them, but that formulaic approach is one reason the Romance Genre as a whole does not acquire more respect. 

But it's also one of the reasons Romance sells so much better than most other genres.

After the relentless pounding our nerves take in a day, when we're totally maxed out on learning and deciding, we want to read something that's predictable while fresh and new, and that soothes the nerves rather than challenges.

So what's the trend?

With Romance genre reading as a background, readers are venturing into other sub-genres such as Fantasy-Romance or SF-Romance, or Paranormal Romance (all of which I devour ravenously).

And what I'm seeing in the way writers are crafting the romance branch of the plot parallels what we see in everyday life, the way people conduct their "real" lives.

The trend I want to point out here is one about how writers depict Relationships forming in a Romance.

It must be 20 years now since the moral standard emerged that says serial monogamy is not "sleeping around." 

The standard has become to test drive a boyfriend before getting really serious.

Triangle Situation Romances are bleeding into SF and Paranormal sub-genres with these assumptions firmly in place. 

And of course the plot revolves around the woman making a choice between boyfriends.

Do you see where I'm going?

Information.

Test drive your guys until you find "the right one" -- the one who delivers the best sex, or the best sense of self-worth, or security, or sense of danger, or whatever you're looking for or need in a guy.

But our exterior, non-relationship, world floods us with more information than we can tolerate, and our defense is to ignore most and depend entirely on "editors" to select what we really need to know and present it in 90-second bytes called "news."

We have to ignore even those 90-second news items in order to have the capacity to evaluate all the information gathered on test-driven guys.

We test-drive so many guys, collect so much information about all of them, we end up not deciding. 

I think the buy-decision research that shows offering a customer too many choices results in the customer wandering off without making a purchase explains the plethora of "ex's" littering so many people's lives.

The "arranged marriage" allows you only one choice.

"Playing the field" drowns you in too much information, resulting in no-decision.

Marrying your High School sweetheart or the boy-next-door may soon come back into fashion, simply because the number of choices are fewer and therefore a decision is made.

Now, what if misery results from a bad choice made too young in life?

That brings us back to what I said at the top here:

-----
So you learn to be satisfied with what others want - and in a way that's "good" because it allows you to "fit in" and to discuss what others know about. In another way, though, it sows confusion within you about "who" you really are, what your purpose in life is, and how that relates you to everyone else.  
-----

"Learn to be satisfied with what others want" -- in choosing a guy, that means succumbing to the social pressure to be married and have kids (or adopt).  You then have to make do with the husband you have, somehow making your peace with the flaws.

Perhaps the Romance genre will revive the scene of the neighborhood kaffee klatches where the mothers sit around minding the kids and bitching about their husbands -- learning thereby that everyone has something to bitch about and that's what binds us together.

In the 1970's, women's lib became the "what others want" that you had to be satisfied with, as it became the norm for married women to work for a living.

In the 1950's, prevailing opinion among working men was that a man ought to be paid more than a woman because a man had a family to support.  If the man wasn't paid more for his work, his wife would have to work, and if she did that his children would not grow up to be happy, well adjusted human beings.

I kid thee not!!!  That was indeed the rationale.

Today I don't know many families where both spouses don't have careers.  These are people raising kids who were raised by two working parents.

OK, today many households have one or the other spouse out of work.  Let's hope that's really temporary! 

SFR premise though - suppose the current hard-recession, double-dip recession or mini-depression the USA is in leads to working spouses being paid double and the other spouse staying home to care for kids?

It might put daycare centers out of work, or shorten school hours depending on non-working parent to do the rest of the schooling.

That could reshape society again. 

Since the real problem shaking the roots of our society is the Information Explosion Alvin Toffler discussed, sheltering one parent (doesn't matter which gender) from the pounding the workplace inflicts could produce the kind of excess decision-making-capacity in that non-working parent that is necessary to have patience with kids.

Now, what would that generation of kids grow up to be like?  More like the adults of the 1980's, pre-web?

Do you suppose Road Rage is the result of Information Overload?

I saw a series of clips from YouTube focusing on fistfights, hair-pulling catfights, and one really horrid shooting the other day. 

In most cases where images of violence between people having an argument over something petty have made it to the top of YouTube, the scene shows many other people just standing around.  No help offered.  No attempt to quell the hitting or bullying.  No interference.  NO DECISION.

We see the general public (via YouTube and handy phone-video) having turned indecisive if not indifferent or ignoring of new information such as "somebody might be hurt."

I can't believe this is because a majority of people just don't care about other people.  I can't believe this is because violence against strangers or even family members in public is approved of. Yes, some of these videos might be staged, but why would anyone watch videos of people ignoring a fight in a public place?  It's amusing because it illustrates how the viewer feels inside.  Apathetic, foggy, due to information overload.

We're just maxed out on decision making all day every day, just as Toffler discussed. 

Being maxed-out is affecting the way we choose a spouse, the way we raise our kids (letting the over-indulge in video games; using the TV as babysitter), and the way we interact with strangers in public (not getting involved because that could lead to even more decisions to make.)

And it affects how marketers market books at us -- limit choices in order to get a sale.

Take the marketer's thinking into account when you decide what genre to write in -- or to mix-n-match, or to invent a totally new genre and hope for your book to become a "market maker" like Harry Potter. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg Unlimited
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com