Karen Wiesner: The Stories Behind Classic Fairy Tales (Woodcutter's Grim Series), Part 1

WOODCUTTER’S GRIM SERIES—

Classic Tales of Horror Retold

by Karen Wiesner

Supernatural Fantasy Romance/Mild Horror

For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter's Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenseless…and the terrors would escape to the world at large. 

This will be the first of eight posts focusing on my Woodcutter's Grim Series and the stories behind classic fairy tales.

Since I was a child, I had a love for all things supernatural. HOW TO CARE FOR YOUR MONSTER was a book I read over and over when I was young. It was written by Norman Bridwell (the guy who wrote the Clifford the Big Red Dog series). I wore that book out. Funny thing is, my husband also said it was one of his favorite books when he was young, too. I’d never known anyone else who’d ever read it. Meant to be, huh? 

Some of the earliest horror books I remember reading were an out-of-print series of teen horror called TWILIGHT: WHERE DARKNESS BEGINS, YOU'LL LIKE MY MOTHER by Naomi A. Hinze (gothic horror, which I adore), and DRACULA, of course. Stephen King books were the cornerstone reading of my teenage years. One of my all-time favorite horror novels since becoming an adult is THE RUINS by Scott Smith—an unusual horror novel that has no chapters whatsoever and is 384 pages you literally cannot put it down from start to finish. Brilliant! 

My Woodcutter's Grim Series started when I was putting together a proposal for my promotional group Jewels of the Quill’s first Halloween anthology, SHADOWS IN THE HEART. I'd always wanted to write a horror/fantasy series, and I spent quite a few years considering how to go about it. My mind went first to childhood fairy tales. Most of them are, by nature, horror stories sometimes mirroring real-life events that were probably the stuff of nightmares at the time they were written. So I knew I wanted to create a fairy tale horror/fantasy town in which those old tales came to life in terrifying ways. Calling the town Woodcutter's Grim seemed completely logical. All of the stories in the Woodcutter’s Grim Series are loosely based on popular or traditional fairy tales, nursery rhymes, poems, folktales, parables, mythology, and other "lore".

When I wrote and published the first collection of "classic fairy tales retold in modern times as horror or fantasy", few others were doing anything like it. Right after that, a slew of projects similar to this came about, including the TV shows GRIMM (which was amazing) and ONCE UPON A TIME (not as inspiring to me but nevertheless interesting), and many movies turning fairy tales into deep characterization horror fests with a twist, such as SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (and the sequel) with Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth, and RED RIDING HOOD with Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman. 

What are some of the most memorable books and authors of the supernatural you read as a child? Do you love to read or watch tales of fairy tales reimagined? Leave a comment to tell me about your favorites! 

Happy reading! 

Find out more about Woodcutter's Grim Series here:

http://www.writers-exchange.com/woodcutters-grim-series/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBYBH1

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner 

Writer Emergency Pack

One of my Christmas presents was a clever little item called the Writer Emergency Pack. It's a deck of cards with prompts to help a stuck fiction writer get unstuck. The pack includes brief instructions for a group storytelling game using the cards, but it seems mainly intended for individuals. It comprises two numbered sets of cards. The first presents a one-sentence suggestion with an illustrative sketch, while the corresponding number in the second half of the deck elaborates with further details. Although I haven't actively used this product yet, I find reading the prompts fun in itself.

The story sparks aren't random ideas such as "Throw your heroine off a cliff," which was sort of what I expected. (That would have been fun, too, though.) They're more serious and of more general application. Some examples: What if your story were changed to a different genre? Talk it out. (What would the protagonist and antagonist say if they had an honest discussion?) Stop talking. (How would the characters handle not being able to communicate verbally? This hint reminds me of the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER episode when the whole town was magically silenced.) Kill the hero. (If the hero died at this point, what would happen next? Who would carry on?) Imposter. (Some character is not what he or she seems.) An apparent blessing turns out to be a curse. Take away your hero's allies and other support. Bring on the zombies (which could mean any type of mindless horde). The explanatory note cards briefly explore the ramifications of the proposed twists.

If I did apply the cards to a writing project, as a devoted outliner I would probably find it more helpful in the planning phase than the first draft.

The deck is sold on this Amazon page:

Writer Emergency Pack

By the way, my first new e-book in quite a while (as opposed to re-releases) has just been published by the Wild Rose Press. "Yokai Magic" is a light paranormal romance novella featuring an enchanted Japanese scroll and a cat spirit:

Yokai Magic

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Reviews 37 - Ilona Andrews Magic Shifts

Reviews 37
Magic Shifts
byIlona Andrews 

The Reviews series has not been indexed yet.  And I have messed up the numbering, resulting in two posts numbered 34. I'm not planning to fix that, as I think this is the only duplicate.

The first Reviews 34 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/11/reviews-34-implausible-made-real-by.html

The second Reviews 34 is:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/05/reviews-34-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html
Today we again raise the topic of what, exactly, is Paranormal Romance?

In fact, it would be good to ponder the abstract problem of what Romance really is.

The best way to figure out where you, the writer, stands on these two questions is to read-read-read.  Read reams of non-fiction, yes, but loads and loads of fiction outside your target genre.

It is painful, I know, but as you did in High School and College, read things you don't enjoy.  Yes, you must read for enjoyment because enjoyment is your stock in trade, what you have to sell, and if you don't have any enjoyment, you can't sell any.

You must have an overflowing reservoir of enjoyment in your heart.  Therefore, read Ilona Andrews (all titles).  Pay special attention to the Kate Daniels novels.  If you read them already, just because they are best sellers - read them again as a set.

At the same time, to convey that enjoyment in your heart to others, to purvey that enjoyment you have collected over years, you must understand more about story structure than your reader does.  You must make the structure of your story as invisible to your readers as the great writers you've been reading make their story structure invisible to you.

Therefore, today we take up a relationship-driven Action-Romance-Paranormal by a husband/wife collaborating team.  There are a few like that working in the field today, but the Ilona Andrews byline is the best example at my fingertips right now.

MAGIC SHIFTS is a "Kate Daniels Novel" -- and the 8th in the Series.

The collaboration is seamless -- there is no jarring shift from one writer's style to the other.  It is a blended style, probably done somewhat the way Jean Lorrah and I collaborate, with every word gone over by both.

They have mastered the trick of "pacing" -- the narrative moves smoothly from cerebral to action scenes.

They have SHOW DON'T TELL down pat. The Characters do not tell you what they are feeling (and the novels replete with conflicting feelings).  Even if you have not read the previous novels, you know what these people are feeling.

The two main Characters, a retiring Alpha pair from a shapeshifter Pack, are not yet married, but yes they are very married, oh, very very married.

This is a Couple novel -- an after-the-Romance novel, which does ask the question, "Can this couple ever get to Happily Ever After?"

The answer seems to be Yes, but maybe not "ever-after" -- as there are still problems to be solved.  They are now living in typical suburbia, adjacent to acres of wild forrest to run in, with houses on the block inhabited by other shapeshifters who have left the Pack to follow the Alpha Couple out of loyalty or other personal necessity.

Yes, I recommend the previous novels in this series, and yes, I have read them.  If Shapeshifter novels are your passion, you must know all your readers will have a familiarity with these works.

But the Kate Daniels universe has another, vastly interesting, quirk.  Here is not a choice between magic and technology, not a World Bridge to cross to go from where Magic works to where Technology works.  Here, Magic washes over the Technology based normal world you know, and disables all our devices and gadgets.  Civilization adjusts, and we see our world in semi-ruins but life goes on, with Magic working sometimes and Technology working other times.

The shifts can be dangerous.

Meanwhile, Magical creatures rampage and must be stopped.

Plenty of monster hunts, and battles, and plenty of mysterious puzzles to solve.  The latter gives this the flavor of a Mystery/Detective series while the puzzles themselves work a lot like science fiction.

So, just don't miss reading Ilona Andrews titles.  It is a trustworthy,, go-to byline.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacqquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 22 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg - Karen Chance's Cassie Palmer Novels

Reviews 22
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Karen Chance's Cassie Palmer Novels 

I have not yet posted an Index to my reviews here, but this is #22 of the series of reviews about the field of Science Fiction Romance, Paranormal Romance, and related genres and what you can learn by studying various novels "published as" various genres.

I particularly focus on "ingredients" in other fields that can be smoothly blended into a dynamic Romance plot.

The results of a smooth blend are clear in the Historical Romance field.

Historical Romance produced hundreds, maybe thousands, of titles over a span of a couple of decades, and then as those born in the 1970's became book buyers, Historical Romance writers blended Women's Lib into Historical periods -- with some justification, and sometimes as pure fantasy.  Women raised in the Victorian era were portrayed as undaunted feminists -- and sometimes that "worked" for modern readers, and sometimes not so much.

Growing up in an oppressive environment cripples and warps most Personalities, so that the occasional individual who weathers the storm of denigration and negative messaging becomes a social outcast among her compliant peers.

But such defiant individuals have existed in all epochs of human history.

Look to the Biblical story of Dinah, of Deborah, of the several named Yehudit.  Look to the female Saints.

It isn't womanhood per se that determines whether you are outstanding, exceptional, defiant, un-bendable, or in the parlance of the writing craft, A Hero.

The hallmark of most science fiction is that the central character, the Hero or Point of View Character, the protagonist is one of those Unbendable humans who marches to his own drummer.

I haven't seen any research on this, but just scanning the people I know and their life-stories, I can't see any difference in the percentage of those Unbendables who are male vs those who are female.

The Unbendables are rare.  Societies that treasure their Unbendables thrive.  Societies that trash their Unbendables perish quickly.

Parents of an Unbendable usually see they've spawned an Ugly Duckling very early in the child's life.  Some Parents are proud of that kid -- others keep trying to bend them.

To study the Unbendable as a Character, read (and it's a joy and a delight, not like a school assignment task) Karen Chance's series about her Unbendable character, Cassie Palmer.

It's Paranormal Romance, but the Romance plot develops very slowly over the story-arc of the novels.

The 7th novel in the Cassie Palmer series is titled REAP THE WIND.

Cassie Palmer Novels:
Touch the Dark
Claimed by Shadow
Embrace the Night
Curse the Dawn
Hunt the Moon
Tempt the Stars
Reap the Wind (2015)
Ride the Storm

Here's her page on Amazon where you can "follow" her and get an email when a new book comes out.
http://amazon.com/Karen-Chance/e/B001I9Q83A
All these novels are recommended, but they are so well written that you can dip into the series at any point and completely understand the action and romance.

The entire (long) novel is Cassie's increasingly desperate attempts to rescue the guy she loves, a Soul Mate from a very neat, (original) curse ripped from the Arthurian Legend headlines.

This fellow was/is the Merlin of Arthur's Kingdom.

Legend has it Merlin "lived backwards" -- a concept not explained in most Arthurian literature.

The science fiction part of this Fantasy-Romance is the precise, scientific way the Curse is explained and the way to lift the Curse is posited.

Karen Chance has used the best skills of Game Oriented Worldbuilding to create a Magic dimension that makes sense.

The Situation is that long ago the Greek/Roman gods were swept out of our Reality and walled away from us.

The project of building that magical wall was a team effort, spearheaded by one of those Unbendable types, a woman.

Now, another group of women, bent on siezing Power, have decided to bring back one of those gods.  Like most Sorcerer Apprentice thinking, they truly believe they can control the results of their initiative to their own advantage.

Cassie Palmer is more realistic, though almost totally ignorant of the  Magical skills involved.

Cassie has been "chosen" by some kind of Magical Power to fill the (always female) office of Pythia, a Seer who can transcend Time and implement various sorts of Magic, given enough training in youth.

Cassie has not had any of that training.  She's learning as she goes, beset by enemies who leave her no time to learn.

She was raised by a formidable crowd of Vampires, short tempered folks with way more Power than is good for the world.  She learned to become inconspicuous, quiet, un-noticed lest she set off a violent storm among those Vampires.  But she is an Unbendable.

Despite her up-bringing, or perhaps because of it, she arrives at adulthood with the habit of thinking for herself, charting her own course, making her own decisions, and not standing in awe of what appears to be Authority wrapped in Power.

In other words, she is your typical science fiction hero.

She asks pesky questions, finds her own answers, doesn't totally believe anything she's told until she verifies it, plunges ahead with action based on whatever theory she considers most probably correct, and in the process takes a lot of personal, emotional, and physical damage -- and comes back swinging, relying on her next best theory.

She's a Strong Character, in the definition of the publishing industry.

Here are some of my previous posts on publishing's oft-repeated demand for "strong characters" -- a demand most beginning writers mis-interpret.  Karen Chance has gotten it right, so study Cassie Palmer for the traits highlighted in these posts.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/strong-characters-defined-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/08/strong-character-defined-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-plot-integration-part-15.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-symbolism-integration-part-1-you.html

And for Romance writers, I particularly recommend:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-every-novel-needs-love-story-part-2.html

The Unbendables are only one sort of Strong Character.

The Unbendable Trait tends to generate fanfic about testing that character to destruction to find out what is inside the Unbendable shell.  That is the origin of much of the fanfic often called "Get Spock."  Or even, "Hurt/Comfort."

Before you can destroy (e.g. Bend) a Character with dramatic impact, you must first convince the reader the Character really is Unbendable, or Strong in some other way.  Towering, Formidable, perhaps justly Famous, or Great.  The Purely Strong Character invites the reader to destroy him.

This is why Superman collapses under the rays of Kryptonite.

But note that when stripped of his Powers, Superman adheres to his values.  How you regard Risk, and how you take Loss indicates whether your Character is Strong or Weak.  Adhering to values despite pain, loss or any other threat is Strong Character.

Every Unbendable Character must have a flaw, a crease, a crack, a weak spot.

Now look at Cassie Palmer's physical appearance.  She is short, built slight, -- wiry strength but no Titan.  She doesn't look formidable.  Physically, she is a mouse.

Then the Power chooses her to be Pythia -- which gives her access to Abilities Beyond Mortal Men.

But she has no clue how to use this Power.  To wield it as she would wish to, she would have had to be raised in the Pythia's household and trained to be the Pythia successor.

The girls who were so raised work to unseat Cassie from the Office of Pythia (i.e. kill her).

And the Pythia's Office itself has enemies out there who are not resting while Cassie learns the ropes. They do politics with explosions, spells, poisons.  They look for definitive solutions to the problem of Cassie Palmer.

The one ally she knows she needs is Merlin.  Her enemies win one by removing his Soul with a Curse that sends it backward in Time, skipping from one era to another, arriving to "inhabit" his own (somewhat immortal) Self, then skipping on --- a little like the 1989-1993 TV Series Quantum Leap.

Headlines are wondrous places to rip dramatic material from -- but old TV Series likewise provide grand opportunities.

Note how this theory explains the legend of Merlin "living backwards" and thus "knowing the future."

Cassie's current strategy in Reap the Wind is to remove the Curse on Merlin by time-teleporting back the one man who has the ability to cast a Curse-Removal-Spell.  The hitch is that she must go with him.

If they can catch up to Merlin at a moment when his future Soul is passing through backwards in time, and get that Curse-Removal-Spell thrown just exactly right, they can save Merlin's life and return to present time with a strong ally who knows a lot more magic than anyone else.

Cassie has limited energy for such Magic Stunts as transporting two people back thousands of years in time, or into the Realm of Faery.  She is kept scrambling and using more energy than she can afford by the former Pythia's students trying to derail her efforts to save Merlin.

REAP THE WIND is one wild time-travel-chase-scene liberally salted with mortal-combat and magic battles.

The action/battle scenes would make wondrous Indiana Jones style film material if this series is ever made into a TV Series or film.

As I've noted on many occasions in these blogs, the trend in novel publishing is toward the same structure that draws millions to theaters, as opposed to the few hundred thousand who buy any given novel in print, e-book or audiobook.

Romance Readers have an insatiable taste for Action today.  REAP THE WIND definitely provides a feast of action.

This novel leaves you eager for #8 in the series titled RIDE THE STORM -- a title that promises more breakneck action between love scenes.  "Follow" Karen Chance on Amazon to be notified when it is available.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Strong Characters Defined Part 3: Tit For Tat in Paranormal Romance by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Strong Characters Defined
Part 3
Tit For Tat in Paranormal Romance
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous posts in the Strong Character Defined series are:

Part 1 in Strong Characters Defined series posted:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/strong-characters-defined-part-1.html

Here is another post with foundational material about Character:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/theme-character-integration-part-7.html

And here is Part 2 in this series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/08/strong-character-defined-part-2.html

Today we're going to examine a Theme that turned up in a quote posted on Twitter.

This tiny quote reveals a Theme that can be used as foundation of a really hot Romance which has a Character-driven Plot, and might be a long series of very long books.

Michelle McKee retweeted a tweet that @Goodluck Msangi sent to @tase_ny :

---------quote from Twitter Retweeted by Michelle McKee----------
Goodluck Msangi ‏@tase_ny May 12

Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good  for each other and for everyon… http://bible.com/111/1th.5.15.niv …

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

That's from Thessalonians 5:15 which is posted on the URL ".niv"
https://www.bible.com/bible/111/1th.5.15.niv

The full, non-twitter condensed, version is:

"Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else."

I have no idea what this conversation was about or why the retweet ended up before my eyes, but it fits perfectly with the discussion on Depicting Culture using Dialogue:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/strong-characters-defined-part-1.html

Aphorisms, platitudes, punch-lines of jokes, and every sort of encapsulated Ancient Wisdom passed down in sayings or children's rhymes can be used to depict the culture your characters live in without ever a word of Exposition (thus avoiding the dreaded Expository Lump.) 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html

We all know that Bible Quote as a version of "An Eye For An Eye" -- which is so garbled in translation it's hopeless to try to explain that it's not Revenge or "making someone pay" but rather, just like the US Constitution, LIMITS the power of the judiciary by expressing the precise liability a person has for the damage done to another person. 

Therefore, it makes marvelous fodder for the care and feeding of a Romance.

We all know that Couples argue (even fight) over Politics, Education, Birth Control, or the cut of a political candidate's suit.  Most of the time, the domestic issue is not the ostensible issue.

Marion Zimmer Bradley taught that the Villain is the Hero of His Own Story -- that who is good and who is bad is a matter of Point Of View.  She learned that from her mentors.

Read the quote again.

Words like "pays back" and "wrong" and "strive" and "good" are subject to wildly varying definitions as you switch point-of-view to tell a great story.  There are hundreds of distinctly different novels set in dozens of Worlds buried in that one little quote as you change the definition of those qualitative words as you shift Point of View.

When you write a story from two points of view, you (as writer) must draw a STARK (i.e. artistic) distinction in black and white for the comparison of the points of view.

The reader must feel secure in comprehension of that distinction before you introduce any shades of gray.  The nature of that distinction is the source of your narrative hook.  Readers will accept or reject a book on the basis of whether the difference, the conflict, has personal relevance.

Fiction is not reality, but rather an artistic depiction of reality.  Certain attributes your Built World are exaggerated, others minimized, to bring depict the Theme of this character's Life. 

Shades of gray, and "there's no such thing as an absolute Truth" just won't work to fuel the hot-hot scenes you want to write, and won't hit the reader in the G-spot of imagination.

You need the high contrast of absolute Right and absolute Wrong, but once those polar opposites are in place, you can bury them in colors chosen from the palate of colors appropriate to your Theme (just as an artist selects certain tones to key a picture; writers must select just a few tones of reality to depict their world and let the reader fill in the rest.)

"Never repay a Wrong with a Wrong" makes a dynamite theme if both the Protagonist and Antagonist (or both who will form a Couple) are absolutely committed to behaving that way, yet define what is Right and what is Wrong differently. 

So even though the real world the reader lives in is painted in shades of gray, blue, red, yellow, green and everything between, the Art that is sought by a Romance Reader needs to separate the shades, to bring up the contrast. 

The romance reader won't be able to sink into the story if it isn't clear "What She Sees In Him" and "What He Sees In Her."  At the same time, it has to be clear why the Couple doesn't  just skip the story-part and get married today.  The Conflict is them vs whatever-keeps-them-apart. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/theme-conflict-integration-part-2.html

The essence of story is Conflict.

Therefore, what she sees in him and vice versa has to be utterly clear (even if it is to change later in the novel via an Epiphany.)

So let's assume both the Soul Mates are Strong Characters when they meet.

And let's suppose, since this is the season, that they are working together for a particular Political Candidate.

They are both on "the same side" - so there should be no barrier to them getting together.

Let's employ what I like to call "karmic plotting" -- using some Paranormal Dimension to explain how and why the main characters came to this Situation, why they are in it together, why they want to kill each other even if not literally.

Maybe this Couple were the victims of an Arranged Marriage way back in the Middle Ages.  Maybe they never shared a bedroom?  Maybe, in bitter retaliation and grand defiance against his inattentiveness and against her Father for hurling her into this, she had a kid by another guy and pretended it was the husband's kid (but the husband knew better).  The husband threw the wife and kid out of the mansion and repudiated them publicly.  (i.e. he returned a Wrong with a Wrong). 

In other words, the Arranged Marriage is "unfinished business" in their karmic relationship.

And let's take the case of a married woman getting pregnant by another man as the karmic background here.

So each of them is feeling relentlessly attracted to the other (without even considering sex in the mix), and absolutely scared white lipped at the idea of getting involved with each other. 

The part of the mind that has an affinity for RIGHT says, "Marry that one!" and the part of the mind that has a weakness for WRONG says, "Run!"  because running is the easy way out which a Strong Character would never choose.

As the campaign they're working on heats up, the campaign manager turns to Attack Ads, and maybe includes lies about the opposition's record.

Let's say the Opposition is claiming to be the son of a famous person -- and that connection is what makes his following trust him.

In a Conference meeting about their next attack ad, one of the Couple blurts out a suggestion, "Just say he's not the legitimate son of Famous Guy.  His wife cheated and he's been fooled into accepting this guy as his son." 

"We don't have any proof of that."

"What do we need proof for? It'll hit only two weeks before the election - early voting will be under way!"

And the other one of the Couple says, "We can't do that.  It would just be so wrong!"

The first one of the Couple says, "Not only can we do that, we should do it because of all the dirty lies he's told about our Guy."

The Campaign manager considers, "Well, tit for tat, we'd be even."

"Besides," adds the first one of the Couple, "there is so little resemblance between father and son that I wouldn't be surprised if he isn't really the father."

So the Campaign Manager launches the disinformation ads.

At a Campaign stop, in the middle of the novel, the two get a Tarot Reading, or a Psychic divines the Relationship of their previous lives -- but they don't believe any of that non-sense.

Meanwhile,the Couple destroys the headquarters staff as they argue every aspect of the issue and the staffers take sides, then fight between themselves. 

If you're writing from this Outline, you insert encounters with Psychics, Clergy, and some spooky experiences on the campaign trail.  Oh, and they get the endorsement of a Romance Writer famous for Historicals, who has written Their Story.

The parallels between the Middle Ages arranged marriage build slowly, and there's confusion in them both as they dream the Past, and it's the same as the Present.  Maybe they decide to break the jinx by having sex which they never did in the Past?

Not only are they now arguing that the Campaign Ads should not have veered toward such a blatant lie, but also that it's bad karma to lie.

Maybe they start to think the Campaign Manager is a reincarnation of the son she fobbed off as her husband's?  This novel can be very spooky in a realistic way as the staff takes sides in the Couple's battle.

The Campaign becomes ineffectual for lack of staff cohesiveness.

The Campaign loses. 

The Opposition Candidate (now Elect) turns out to be the son of another man.  The Lie turns out to be True.   The Public is outraged, and divided over whether this man (an imposter) is actually Elected or not.

The newly Elected Official commits suicide, because he had no idea he wasn't his father's son and couldn't face the world after living a lie so publicly.

The Couple has to attend the Funeral, as part of the Political Campaign Staff.  Be sure to give them jobs on the Campaign that would require them to do the courtesy.

At the Wake after the funeral, they get drunk together, having both learned that one does not respond to a Wrong by doing another Wrong.  The Karmic Consequences are just way too severe.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

The Dreaded Rejection Letter

This may turn out to be Part 1 of a series.  

Among my "circles" on Google+ I met a Paranormal Romance Writer (what a co-incidence!).  Her name is Azure Boone, and I haven't read any of her romance stories yet, but her Google+ profile says (irresistibly) "Writer of paranormal romance involving demons and angels."

So I saw her note about a blog post she'd written:

http://motherfugnwriters.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/190/ 

That's a Wordpress blog so you don't see the title in the link.  It's "Rejection is not my color."  It's a suggestion that editors use a color code with rejection letters, pointing to a set of "reasons for rejection" posted online, so the rejected writer can know why their manuscript wasn't suitable.  I have way too much to say about that, but I've said most of it previously on this blog. 

I let the post pass by me, then went back and dropped a comment, and pointed Azure to another item I'd just dropped on Google+.

It went like this:

I posted about Talentville.com
---------- QUOTE--------
Now this is an intriguing concept, but it's expensive to join in.
-----------END QUOTE------

Talentville.com is a new online screenwriting community connecting aspiring writers with Hollywood Insiders, created by Final Draft co-founder and creator Ben Cahan.  It charges an annual fee, and is for very serious screenwriters investing in their education.

I found Talentville.com mentioned on a Facebook Group of screenwriters I belong to, and Final Draft is my software-of-choice for screenwriting. 

Then I saw Azure Boone's post about rejection -- and "click" went my mind.

So I posted to Azure using her "handle" so she'd see it, on the Talent.com post, and flagged a Screenwriter ( +Randall Oelerich )who had just noted how much fun Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had starting out at the beginning of the PC revolution. 

------------ Here's what I said ---------
+azure boone Saw your note on rejection letters. I've gotten my share, and my share of acceptance letters, and my share of queries. Professionals ahead of me on the career track always said don't listen to others who are at your level of development as a writer. "If you listen to the dogs barking, you'll go deaf before you learn anything." -- But I found that adage to be dwindling into the middens of history.

With fan-fiction writing and now with organizations like Taletnville.com (there are a number of these things around), peer-review is beginning to be the training ground. Screenwriters are getting "audience-review" on YouTube when they hook up with short-film makers. Some enterprising folks are monetizing these efforts, so participants have to think "business model" when deciding to join.

We are creating an entirely new world. As +Randall Oelerich noted about Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, they had fun in "the early days." THESE are our early days. We have to learn to use language accurately, and not call it "rejection" when an outlet takes a pass on a project.
----------------

Azure responded very quickly with this:

--------Azure---------

Hello, and thanks for the wisdom. I was thinking that no rejection letters come with the word rejection written anywhere on it, but a writer doesn't need it to, a rejection is a rejection, or a pass, is a pass.

The issue I addressed isn't about the word or term as we have come to understand the process of "rejection" but the manner in which the pass/rejection is made. I think the publishing industry would further the entire cause for writers and publishers if they worked together on meeting needs, not at a feel good word level, but at a functional level. The solution I presented in my blog was literally a solution, even though I made it fun.

Did I misunderstand you?
--------------

Well, no, she didn't misunderstand me, but even though it was only a few minutes later, I'd already thought a thousand thoughts.  Well, you know me, I think and my fingers fly over the keyboard, and before I knew it, I had a whole blog post in my answer to her.  Here's what I answered.

-----------
+Azure Boone Before I drop the link I have for you, I need to say this.  Yes, I do in fact love your basic thinking behind suggesting quick-color-code answers -- and yes, I got it that the suggestions were laced with humor.  This is the kind of thinking that we need to keep doing, not just stop right there where you ended off.  Your post should be a springboard into this knotty topic.

And it is knotty, because it's a whole "point of view" thing, and it is the BIG point of view/business-model thing that new writers (in text and image industries both) come acropper on over and over.  There's "art" and there's "craft" and there's "social networking" and there's "audience building" and there's far-out nebulous philosophy stuff of which thematic statements are made.  AND THEN THERE'S BUSINESS.

But ultimately, delivering the artist's view on a theme to a consumer who's in the mood to be enchanted by participating in a game of ideas, is a business.  At least in this world we currently live in, it is a business.  Note how quickly media promotion folks grabbed onto social networking, and are busy twisting "social" into a tool to warp behavior.

When you present your art-product to an "editor" (producer, first reader, whatever), when you take your product to market you are crossing the line from creation of a product to the marketing of that product.  You are not talking to a "partner" but to an "exploiter" whose living depends on taking your product and putting it on a store shelf.

Think about those drum-pounding people who try to sucker "inventors" into patenting something through their business.  Or think about that "seen on TV" website where these handy inventions are marketed - think about the catalogs that market gadgets.

That's the realm you venture into when you first send your manuscript out the door.

And right outside your door, the path to your audience takes a right-angle bend!

You and the editor are actually working at cross purposes.

If you ever studied vector analysis, you know that I'm describing the straight line that goes up the graph at a 45 degree angle -- that's the path that leads to the audience, or market.

The editor is looking for a product that can be shoved along that 45degree angle path directly to the market that editor has been hired to reach.

It is not the editor's JOB to educate writers in the business.  Nor is it the Agent's job to teach writing.

(truth is, that's become my job these days!)

If the editor spends even one second trying to determine how to explain (to a total stranger who might be an amateur writer with their heart on their sleeve) what exactly disqualifies this manuscript from this publication line, that will probably mean the editor will get fired for not performing the job they were hired to do.

That job is to provide a steady stream of product for a conveyor belt that CAN NOT BE STOPPED OR PAUSED -- it is a relentless, timed, mechanism that only makes a profit if it moves at that steady pace.

Editors rarely last long in any job.  And long-working editors are getting rarer and rarer.  They run panic-stricken most of the time, when the sales numbers come back.  Sales tracking is a whole new world too!

Editors can't stop to tell you why your product doesn't fit their requirements. 

Mostly they don't know, and don't have the time to care, nevermind figure out how to explain it.  

Their job isn't explaining.  Their job is picking, and picking correctly.  Then picking again, and again.  FAST. 

But they can (and do) tell you what they need.  And your color-code system has potential to streamline the editor's direct call for a particular product.  Only they won't call to writers.  They will call to Agents.

Used to be that was done over the Power Lunch (I've been at many such Manhattan lunches).  Agents and editors hang out, make friends, and the agent scopes out the editor's "buttons" -- what they really like, and what they are madly searching for.  Then the agent lets certain writers in their stable know what there's a market for -- the agent chooses those writers by what the writer has already produced along that line.  (I've been on all sides of this process.)  The Agent's profit margin depends on generating the right product for the right editor. 

The reason it works this way is simply, "TIME IS MONEY."  Nobody has any time to waste, training writers to write.  This is even more true in the screenwriting biz.

Agents have the same biz model.  Time is money.  They must supply product to the editors in a form the editor can use to fill their conveyor belt.  The product must FIT that pre-built conveyor belt.  It's a pipeline from the publisher to the reader who will pay for that product.  The pipeline is built by business, and it's as fixed and solid as an oil pipeline.  Like an oil pipeline traversing thousands of miles, it carries product that's hot and under pressure, and must arrive at the destination exactly, thusly, so! 

The pipeline costs a lot to build and maintain, so it must deliver enough product to make back that cost plus the salaries of everyone who shoves product into that pipeline -- and these days, it must also make a profit for the shareholders of big corporations that own publishers (or film companies). 

The commercial art delivery system is a relentless business model.  If the pressure ever slackens, the razor-thin margins collapse bringing the company down with it. 

If you find that you, as a writer, can't or don't want to produce for pre-built pipelines, then maybe you don't want to write commercial fiction.  Today there's a market for "handmade" (no two alike) novels.

Manhattan, the Big Six, and Hollywood are mass producers.  That's why it's called "Mass Market Paperback" -- because it's a product designed to be mass produced, like the Model T Ford and all its successors.  Thousands of identical items produced and moving through that delivery system fulfill the voracious needs of a "mass" market -- i.e. lowest common denominator taste.  Many novels, different authors and titles, the same words arranged differently, identical product that gets assembled along the conveyor belt and then fits the pipeline.  Model T's were all black.  Today we get cars in different colors, but the production principle is the same.  Mass produced cars; mass produced entertainment. 

Maybe you, as a writer, would prefer the "Tailor Made" or "Hand Made" business model, of original art pieces, no two alike, no duplications -- paintings such as you see in an upper class Art Gallery, not prints you find in Target. 

It's something to think about before you launch a career.  You can do both.  That's what Pen Names are for!

You might want to read my blog post on whether you should create a pen name.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/should-you-make-up-pen-name-part-i.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/should-you-make-up-pen-name-part-ii.html

So now I've accidentally written a whole blog post, I'll insert the link to my 7-part series on EDITING, which is aimed at trying to give writers insight into the editor's point of view, so the writer can make a smoother approach and carry on the business of selling art to the commercial market.

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

That link leads to Part 7, which has links to the previous parts at the top of the post.  (yes, I write humongous-long-insanely-abstract blog posts).

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Poetic Justice In Paranormal Romance Novels Part 3

Parts 1 and 2 of this series, were posted on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com the previous 2 Tuesdays.

 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetic-justice-in-paranormal-romance.html

 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetic-justice-in-paranormal-romance_15.html

We're looking at creating a working definition of Poetic Justice that will fit Paranormal Romance to enhance the believability of the Happily Ever After ending. 

So far, we have the following axioms to build into the Paranormal world:

1) Free Will
2) The Reality of the Soul (otherwise no Soul Mates)
3) Uniqueness of the Individual
4) Love Conquers All
5) Happily Ever After is possible though not guaranteed
6) Poetic Justice is real

In creating the plot of the Paranormal Romance Novel, look for ways to challenge the postulates you use these axioms to prove.  That will give your plotting a scintillating bizzaz that will glue the reader to the words.

If you didn't learn how to construct proofs in beginning Geometry, pick up some books and learn how to do that.  Working through geometry proofs is one of the most powerful cognitive disciplines for plotting any story, but it is especially applicable to all kinds of fantasy novels, from elves and trolls to dragons and demons and all the way to Urban Fantasy magic realism.

The more fantasy there is in your constructed universe, the more essential is the cognitive procedure internalized in elementary geometry.

So, last week we worked out a definition of poetry in terms of the Western musical scale based on 7 full tones, (we didn't discuss the 5 half-notes which add depth and texture) and came to the following:

-------------------

7 is a biggie, so the Western musical scale is a great analogy to use in worldbuilding.

Poetry and music are different level manifestations of the same thing.  Poetry is not just the sounds of the words,  but the abstract meanings.  Concepts can be mapped onto this system of 7 or 7X7. 

One of those concepts is "Justice."

Poetry is not about rhyming, but it is about harmony.

Poetry is as much about the groups-of-7 as it is about the intervals between those 7 elements in a group.

Poetry is about how very distinctively different things interact with, blend with, meld with, unite with each other.

Poetry is about how two can become one.

Poetry is about the underlying unity of reality. 

Poetry is about Love Conquers All. 

-------------------

So we know that Poetry is how Love Conquers All -- through harmony, through resonance, through the way that the two G strings on a guitar are the same note, an octave apart, and when you pluck one of them, the other picks up that energy through the air and vibrates its own note.

Poetry is about resonance - about how one event in one place and time stirs the substrata of reality setting off a resonating note among other events, other souls, in other places and times.

In other words, poetry is about how two distinct Events in different places and times can both be manifestations of the same thing. 

So what's Justice? 

Most people would say Justice is an evening or balancing of the Scales -- one event weighing the same as another, keeping the universe in balance.

That would work fine if the goal of life were to remain static. 

The statue of the goddess blindfolded holding the scales of Justice is Roman based on the older Greek concepts.  Our whole modern civilization in the U. S. A. is from the Roman (via England) which came from the Greek, which grew from Ancient Egypt - Persia (which is now Iraq/Iran).  Babylon (Syria) figures in there.  The Code of Hammurabi.  Assyrian roots. 

Hey, look, they all kind of knew each other, married into each other's clans, bled ideas and propagated ideas down the ages. 

But this current version of Western Civilization owes much to Ancient Egypt.

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

If you don't know about the Code of Hamurabi, it may be because you weren't a dedicated Star Trek fan looking up every Shakespeare and classical reference.  Kirk loved Hammurabi -- saved his butt in a court of law. 

Read this if you need a refresher:

http://public.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/hammurabi.html
But note that the article admits the Hebrew Torah is more famous. 

A lot of US Law is based on the Torah laws, or if not actually the Law itself, then the underlying concept of JUSTICE is what the US legal system lifted from these ancient documents.  (I'm assuming you all know the elements and ingredients in the Magna Carta.) 

So as a writer trying to convince a reader that some strange, made-up universe of yours would actually work in practice and is real (at least for the moment of the story), mine those ancient documents for the unused or abused, the disregarded or oddball interpretation that might sound strange to a reader, but would "ring true."

"Ring true" means poetry. 

Pick up the resonance of ancient events, and harmonize modern fantasy events with them.  It'll come out plausible.

So we're looking for poetic justice.

Does your universe need a portrait of the ideal state of human civilization as static?  Or do you need, as most science fiction novels will, a sense of dynamic progress?

Are things, affairs of humans, wizards and elves, only "right" when they are in "balance" (i.e. static) -- or does your universe have a purpose, a goal that it hasn't reached yet?

If it is a universe which is progressing, what is it progressing from and to? 

The reader doesn't need to know (doesn't want to) but you must have a notion of what your universe is about  in order to select each detail to be consistent with that notion.  Consistency builds verisimilitude.

Maybe you don't have this notion consciously -- maybe you have to write it to find out what it's about.  Many great talented writers work that way.  Others think they can and fail without knowing how disastrous their failure is.

So give the issue of Justice some conscious thought, then let it cook in your subconscious and see what worlds and universes you build.

The most fertile source of crazy ideas is the world around you and the ancient worlds from which it came. 

The Romans as noted above, portrayed Justice as static, a balance, evil balanced against good.  When you get the scales straight, one pan weighing the same as the other, you have achieved Justice.

But does your heart yearn for a world where Love Conquers All -- and I mean All.  Shouldn't the Good outweigh the Bad?  Shouldn't Justice mean there's more Good than Bad and the scales are tipped, skewed? 

Does Justice mean "I win?"

Or does Justice mean "There is no right or wrong - just stalemate?" 

Isn't that the formula for the Horror Genre novel?  Evil can never be destroyed or transformed into Good - it can only be locked away, chained with sigils and signs, sealed with theSeal of Solomon and left sleeping for the next generation to deal with.

Can Love Conquer All in a universe where you can not destroy or transform Evil into Good?

Is that why elements of the Horror genre just totally ruin a good Romance novel?  It's a "note" (tone, or sound) from a different scale.  It isn't the same song Romance Novels are made of. 

Think about my favorite Paranormal Romance genre - the Vampire Romance.

Until the advent of The Good Vampire - the vampire who was a decent human in life and who therefore fights the "curse" to behave decently (think of the TV Show Forever Knight and my Vampire Romance Those of My Blood) - any novel that had "a vampire" in it was automatically published under the Horror genre label.

Then all of a sudden, we had a slew of Romance novels about GOOD VAMPIRES - or vampires whose nature might be very "dark" but who were capable of love, affection, bonding.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain is one of the ground-breakers, and especially her novel which is more Historical Romance than Vampire Novel, Hotel Transylvania.

And now "vampire" does not automatically mean Horror genre.

There are panels at science fiction conventions about the Good Vampire. 

What does it mean about the nature of our real reality -- and our culture's opinion about the existential nature of reality -- that we, as writers and readers, have transformed the darkest most evil mythological creature into a force for Good In The World???? 

That's only one example.  Look around you.  Good things are being transformed into bad (not actual evil; there really isn't much of that around, but there's plenty of dark stuff).  But really awful things are being used for Good and transformed into Good.

Love, your ability to love, and your highest idealism is lighting up the farthest corners of this world -- often via the Internet, Web 2.0, and so on.

People help strangers in trouble on the other side of the world.

Is this a static world where the best we can hope for is a stalemate, a balance between Good and Evil? 

Most Paranormal Romance novels today are about that age-old battle, armegeddon, between Good and Evil -- but in my reading, I've found that for the most part, writers are portraying the scales tilted with Good on the heavier side of the balance. 

The static balance between Good and Evil is no longer the highest aspiration, the portrait of the ideal world, the Roman vision of the best we can do. 

Today people live in a dynamic world where the scales of Justice are tilting toward the Good.

But in the real world of your reader's daily life, the scales actually are swaying wildly this way and that, averaging better maybe, but in any given life, swaying wildly.

So you can build your fictional Paranormal Romance world with a non-static portrait of Justice.

That means you must be able to portray your Good and your Evil in ways that the reader can distinguish one from the other and make an informed choice which side to root for. 

If you, yourself, inside your own mind, are not able to define just what is Good -- in terms that don't simply mean "I win is good."  then you won't be able to get your reader to ponder their own definition of good, and come away with an Aha! moment, or as I said in Part 1 of this series of posts, a religious experience.

So, in terms of the Paranormal Romance novel, what you're looking to deliver is the Happily Ever After moment portrayed as Poetic Justice.

That moment has to be when the Soul Mates come out of the Pluto transit which I discussed here on August 30, 2011, find the sun shining as the Neptune Transit of "falling in love" wanes, see that the honeymoon is over (even if they spent it in Jurassic Park running for their lives) and understand that they will live Happily Ever After.

The Poetry in that moment resides in Events previous to that moment that belong to the same "chord" made from the scale of 7 cardinal emotions.  

If you've forgotten, here are some posts where I discussed the 7 cardinal emotions as depicted with the "Lower Face" of the Tree of Life.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/09/7-of-swords-conflict-avoidance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/11/4-pentacles-almighty-cliche.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/10/astrology-just-for-writers-part-3-genre.html

The "Justice" of Poetic Justice resides in the Good that has resulted (and will likely yet result) because of the Soul Mates' survival, of what they did to survive, what they did to get themselves into that fix, in the whole backstory of how they were swept together by "fate" and events larger than themselves and could never have foreseen they'd arrive at this moment.

Poetic Justice is evidenced by a long, improbable, chain of Events on a " because line" (where each choice results in an event that causes another event which presents another choice etc in unbroken sequence) that finally results in the Soul Mates bonding and living Happily Ever After.

Poetic Justice says to the modern mind fostered by the scientific view of the universe that science doesn't know everything, that the universe makes sense, that life has a purpose, that it's not all random and haphazzard, that you can win if your heart is pure and your actions ethical.  Poetic Justice says because you have lived the universe has changed in a significant way -- and changed to the Good.

Poetic Justice is how the writer says to the reader that life is meaningful, that there is a purpose, that your personal struggles are taking us closer to the goal. 

It's not an easy thing to code into a novel's events without any expository lumps.

If you succeed, the payoff is huge in terms of reader loyalty to your brand.

The best way I know of to learn to do it is to analyze every movie you see and every book you read to see how others have done it for you.  At the same time, you need to find ways in which the world out there, the "real" world, actually does behave poetically and justly.  News stories, biographies, non-fiction, all that is fodder for the creative mind.

If you look for Poetic Justice in the real world, see it depicted in fictional worlds, can nail it consciously, eventually your subconscious will code it into the plots of your novels.

If you set out to write a novel, deliberately, to exemplify poetic justice, you will probably produce something so "on the nose" (so explicit) that it won't sell because it comes off "contrived."

If you see the world as poetic and just, that vision will resonate in the fictional events blasting into your consciousness as pure inspiration.  Very likely, you won't even recognize that you've done it until years later.  By then, you'll understand that the rigorous training you put yourself through paid off big time.

In fact, you may suddenly see the poetic justice in your own life. 

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Poetic Justice In Paranormal Romance Novels Part 2

Last week

 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetic-justice-in-paranormal-romance.html

we ended off with a load of loaded questions:

Is Justice a figment of the imagination?  Or is it a property of Reality?

Is Justice real?  Does it exist?  Or is it imaginary?

Then there's the problem of what exactly is poetry?  Does it mean rhyme? 

Maybe the term "poetic justice" is an oxymoron? 

And of course we have to add, "What does poetic justice have to do with Paranormal Romance, or any other sort of Romance?" 

We developed a list of concepts for the worldbuilder of a Paranormal Romance novel to include in the premise of the universe so that the Happily Ever After ending will seem plausible even to those who are absolutely convinced it can never happen in reality. 

1) Free Will
2) The Reality of the Soul (otherwise no Soul Mates)
3) Uniqueness of the Individual
4) Love Conquers All
5) Happily Ever After is possible though not guaranteed
6) Poetic Justice is real

I've mentioned here before that the main reason Romance novels as a whole don't seem realistic to most readers is that the genre has a rule against challenging the underlying premise of Romance.

The commercial concept "genre" is all about repeating a specific experience for a specific readership that comes to the bookstore looking for that exact experience.

Science Fiction genre is based on the emotional experience that science works, it solves problems when it's used by someone with knowledge and creativity.

Fantasy challenges the Science Fiction premise by using the SF premise and turning it on itself -- "What if everything you think is real actually isn't?"  Fantasy has developed genre rules that aim it at readers whose assumptions about reality are in flux.

Romance genre in general is aimed at those who want to experience that ineffable, once in a lifetime, feeling of having a part of the brain activated that normally doesn't respond - the part that melds you to a Soul Mate.   

Or we can look at it all from a different direction. 

Science fiction, and in fact most Literature, reaches the largest audiences when the unconscious premise of the readers is directly challenged -- and definitively exonerated or blown to smitherines then reassembled into something new.

The Paranormal Romance is popular because it's doing just that -- challenging the widely accepted premise about reality that science can (and mostly has) explained everything..

Science Fiction flourished as the literature that challenged the absolute conviction of the majority that we can never, ever, "go to the stars" and that there are no civilizations "out there" for us to meet, no planets for us to colonize.

Now science (mostly via the internet) has convinced a majority that the galaxy or maybe the whole universe is what science fiction portrayed.  Now we have actual discoveries of real planets, even probably earth-like planets around other stars.  It is possible that there are "people" out there, or empty planets to colonize.  "Life" at least is a near certainty among the stars, when a few decades ago it was a silly idea for the useless idiots of society. 

But now along comes Stephen Hawking and declares we can never - ever - reach those planets because of the inherent nature of space-time. 

So once again the majority view has become absolute and unassailable and unquestionable, as "majority" almost always is.  There will be no interstellar civilization for us to join, or create.  You can hardly sell an interstellar adventure these days.  Even one without any non-human aliens like Joss Whedon's Firefly doesn't fly. 

The torch of vital, creative imagination has passed to the realm of Fantasy, particularly Urban Fantasy which postulates MAGIC IS REAL.  The interest in the Paranormal has surpassed the high water mark of the interest in interstellar civilizations. 

Science declares absolutely, (and proves it convincingly) that magic is superstition and not real.  Only stupid fools "believe in" Tarot, Astrology, Ceremonial Magic.

Science can explain every human experience as a  bit of brain chemistry or brain-electronics, including out of body experiences and near-death experiences.

So creative writers take up the challenge. 

What if Magic is not impossible?  What if "reality" really is multi-layered, and magic and/or religion actually had it right and science has run up a blind alley?

What if we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater? 

What if Ancient Wisdom actually was wise if not totally "right?"

So we have a plethora of Urban Fantasy novels portraying our everyday world as a thin film over a seething cauldron of (something -- Evil?  Mystical Good?  Armegeddon being fought or prevented?).

The Potterverse is probably the most widely known of these, with the magic users being schooled and interpenetrating our world with train station doorways in pillars. 

We get through that door and into an otherwhere -- and find the same old/ same-old human stories of power use and abuse, of politics and skullduggery, of heroism and search for identity.

But you know what?  If you look closely, you'll find Poetic Justice (and a good dollop of Love Conquers All) laced through the foundation of the Potterverse.

So how do we duplicate that popularity?

Nobody has ever found the magical combination for making a runaway best seller.  For every success, there are several dozen contemporarily published novels or films that have the same elements, but don't capture the public eye.

Yet every really big, big success has these certain elements, including Poetic Justice. 

Poetic Justice must be a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition, for popularity.

For famous films, study Saving Private Ryan and Elf.  Both illustrate poetic justice in action.

I'm sure that if you hadn't studied this element before last week's post, you've looked for it now and can't find anything really popular that does not have this element. 

If it's not Poetic Justice -- then it illustrates poetic injustice, which establishes the "reality" of the underlying concept of poetic justice.  Even a story about poetic injustice illustrates the point. 

Poetic Justice can be the source of the primary thematic statement for any work of fiction. 

But how do you, as a writer, use Poetic Justice as a fictional element?

You need to settle on a working definition of Poetry and one of Justice.  It doesn't have to be what you believe.  It doesn't have to be what others believe, or part of any religion.

It just has to be a statement that your fictional characters illustrate graphically (i.e. in pictures, in actions, not in words).

It doesn't have to be unique, or new to your audience.  Cliche actually works well when generating a theme from an axiom you're building into your world. 

"What goes around, comes around."

"As you sow, so shall you reap." 

"Hoist on his own petard." 

"Gets his just deserts."

So let's hack out a working definition of poetry.

You know we're not talking about doggerel, or any cheap rhyming words that only work in one language.  

We're talking about the abstract level of reality which is recognizable as things like "poetry in motion." 

What exactly is that and where does it come from?

Poetry is like Soul, in that the whole world is made of it, so it's very hard to see that it's there.

In Judaism, the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, which are the story of the life of Moses, starts poetically.

In fact, the whole Torah is a poem -- it's a song that's sung, not read.  That's right, it has a tune, and a rhythm, and all the words fit --- do you know how long it is?  Check it out.  That's epic.

Well, the story of this one man's life starts out, "In the beginning," and tells the story of God creating everything by simply saying words.  And it ends with Moses' death.  It doesn't end with entering the Land of Israel.  Moses doesn't get to do that.  He goes up on a mountain and dies in  a place that is to remain unknown (so he won't be worshiped).  He doesn't get to enter the Land of Israel, his life's work complete.  But he gets to see it.  It's not a tragedy - he gets to know how it all will come out and that his life's work will be complete, and why he can't be the leader into the Land of Israel.  It's not a "Happily Ever After" because we know how it came out later.  But it is poetry.  It is poetic justice. 

Isn't that cool?  The whole of reality is described as a poem.  We are the words that God is speaking (not spoke; is speaking) recreating this reality with the vibration of Voice every split-instant.  We are a song. 

If you take that view, and really think about last week's post where we explored how it is that we can be unaware that we have a Soul, just as maybe a fish is unaware of water, it's small wonder that the concept "poetry" is so difficult.

We are a song.  How can we understand songs if that's what we are?

We are vibration.   Science has dug down far enough to portray matter as vibrating particles.  There is nothing but energy, vibrating energy -- it just seems solid. 

So the music analogy, the music of the spheres, can give us a working tool for injecting our fiction with poetic justice.

Think of a musical chord.  If you don't know, go look up how musical chords are formed.  The individual tones relate to each other in a specific way (and yes, there are many 'scales' in different cultures; some seem like noise to the untrained ear.)

But the tones of a scale, and the chords made out of that scale, relate to each other in precise mathematically defined ways. 

Here's a whole presentation on this subject:

http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/eecs20/week8/scale.html 
When you put the tones of a chord together, they resonate to produce a unique sound, a recognizable sound. 

Now, think of each tone in a scale as a personality trait.  In Western music, we use octaves - 7 distinct tones.

Way back when, astrology only knew 7 "planets" -- Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn.  And that was enough to describe all the permutations and combinations of human personality, the ways we are the same and the ways we are different.  (Today we have Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, too -- but they are regarded as "generational" -- so that everyone born in a given 20 year stretch mostly has these slow moving planets in similar enough places that the individuals of a generation move with commonality through life -- the Baby Boomer Generation is a real example.)

We are unique, each and every one of us, but we are all composed of combinations of the SAME 7 traits. 


The combinations make us unique, not the ingredients. 

There are 7 days in the week, and Kaballah identifies 7 levels to the Soul and 7  cardinal emotions to be mastered by the Soul in this life.  You can go on and on identifying 7's - think Rainbow.  The universe is made of groups of 7.

7 is a biggie, so the Western musical scale is a great analogy to use in worldbuilding.

Poetry and music are different level manifestations of the same thing.  Poetry is not just the sounds of the words,  but the abstract meanings.  Concepts can be mapped onto this system of 7 or 7X7.  One of those concepts is "Justice."

Poetry is not about rhyming, but it is about harmony.

Poetry is as much about the groups-of-7 as it is about the intervals between those 7 elements in a group.

Poetry is about how very distinctively different things interact with, blend with, meld with, unite with each other.

Poetry is about how two can become one.

Poetry is about the underlying unity of reality. 

Poetry is about Love Conquers All. 

Think about that, and next week we'll look at how to hack out a working definition of Justice. 

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Poetic Justice In Paranormal Romance Novels Part 1

We've been focusing on the plausibility (in real life) of the Happily Ever After ending, employing Astrology and every other philosophical tool we can find to explore how such a wish-fulfillment fantasy can actually be "real."

We added 2 posts on astrology just for writers, part 10 and part 11, to the collection in the last few months, finding ways a Paranormal Romance book can be constructed without ever mentioning astrology or Tarot.

I wrote:
The key the writer needs to grasp is how a character's free will choices combine with the prevailing influence in her life to produce events which, though decades apart in time and place, nevertheless are related poetically.

Two foundation concepts that make the Happily Ever After (HEA) ending plausible are Free Will and the Uniqueness of the Individual.

In the fishbowl analogy:


http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-11.html
we discussed how souls can meld while lives remain separate, though reflective and in harmony.

Now we need to consider how these 2 premises, Free Will and Uniqueness, apply specifically to the Paranormal Romance novel.

The most concrete manifestation I have yet found of how these two human properties combine to produce the Happily Ever After in real life is often called Poetic Justice.

Literature teachers sometimes demand that a "book review" written by students to prove they read the novel in question should point out how the ending demonstrates poetic justice. Old classic novels all had this element, though it's harder to find in recently published SF Fantasy or Romance.

If your education hasn't supplied that drill for finding the poetic justice in a novel, I suggest you adopt it as a regimen for a few years. It will give you a handle on the subconscious beliefs of the largest audiences.

Today's Paranormal Romance novels don't all demonstrate poetic justice.

The reason may be that the writers and editors aren't sensitive to it, or that they don't think the intended audience understands it, or wants it in life, or fantasizes about it, or yearns for it. Since finding Poetic Justice in fiction may not be taught in all High Schools as it once was, those writers and editors might be correct.

So the new writer's job becomes bigger and much harder. To break into the field of Paranormal Romance novel writing, you may need to explain what poetic justice is, where it comes from, how to recognize it in "real" life, and then blindside the reader with a revelation at the ending that will leave them gasping, in tears, or maybe even with a religious experience.

Yes, I said religious -- an encounter with God that brings the reality of the Eternal Soul out of Religion and into real life.

As I've said in this blog, one of the premises of Romance novels in general, but particularly the Paranormal Romance novel, is that the Soul is real.

The Soul may not be tangible, or even subject to definition in words, but it's real, just like gravity and Kepler's Equations are real.

Very often, an individual human's first awareness, first loss of virginity, is in the first blush of Love. The idea of Love At First Sight is based on that kind of touch to the Soul by another Soul.

Think about that. If nothing touches your Soul, you don't know your Soul is there, can't feel it as yourself, your Identity.

If your whole inner world is untouched by anything, anyone, outside you, you don't know you have an inner world at all.

Here's a theory of Soul. Souls are like candle flames. A family is a group of Souls that all have been ignited from one, ancestral, candle. Parents ignite your soul, you then ignite your children's souls. These are not the same flame. Each is individual, each dances in the breeze differently, each candle burns down at a different rate, slanting this way and that according to the substance of the candle and wick. But there is an underlying similarity, a commonality among Souls ignited by the same Flame.

The first Soul, Adam, was ignited by God's breath. We all have been ignited from Adam.

Think about the Soul conflagration that engulfs the whole Earth.

We are one flame, but each is a unique individual.

A child, among family, doesn't feel that "individual" until puberty when the be-all of existence is to separate from The Mother and become an independent individual.

When that sense of individuality is established, the first thing it does is reach out to TOUCH another Soul. Puppy love. Teen crushes.

When the reach is returned, the newly individualized Soul finally gets a sense of having a Soul by being touched by another Soul.

That's the first loss of virginity, something very special that never happens again in a lifetime -- until the actual Soul Mate touches and unites in that special way.

Finding a Soul Mate does not guarantee a Happily Ever After. But it awakens the yearning for it.

That's the yearning the Romance Novel can fulfill. By painting that vision vividly and with depth of detail, the Romance Novel writer can touch the reader's soul and open doors into possible futures. The inspiration can sustain a reader through the search for a real life Happily Ever After.

The Paranormal Romance novel can open bigger doors into a bigger world, just as the Science Fiction Romance Novel can ignite a curiosity about science and the role of science in Love.

The Science Fiction Romance novel deals with the adventures of a Soul in the single, shallow, layer of "reality" that science addresses.

For more on what part of reality science addresses, see my posts on Tarot. 20 posts on Tarot are listed in these posts, but we keep coming back to this subject as we do to astrology and religion.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html

The Paranormal Romance Novel deals with the other dimensions of reality portrayed in my Tarot posts.

The Paranormal deals with that which is above, beyond or maybe beneath the "normal."

The assumption is that what we ordinarily see as "reality" is actually only a thin film, a crust, or a "user interface" like the "skin" you can "download" to decorate your Yahoo page.

As in the Potterverse, the "muggles" or normal people, just have no clue what's really out there.

In Horror genre, what's "out there" is truly ugly and a serious threat of which most people must be kept ignorant. There's no way to conquer it at all. The most you can do is closet it away for future generations to deal with (think enchanted chains on the Vampire's coffin, sealed with the Seal of Solomon and magical sigils of angels.)

In Paranormal Romance novels, what's "out there" is scary at first, but with the strength of Love, it can be conquered and perhaps even turned to Good.

Love Conquers All is an assumption of all Romance, but truly vital in the Paranormal Romance story.

So a Paranormal Romance worldbuilder must include at least some axioms about such topics as:

1) Free Will
2) The Reality of the Soul (otherwise no Soul Mates)
3) Uniqueness of the Individual
4) Love Conquers All
5) Happily Ever After is possible though not guaranteed
6) Poetic Justice is real

Different writers can use different axioms to cover these elements, but failing to cover these elements and make all the components of the worldbuilding behind the story conform to whatever axioms you use will cause readers to respond that the story is "contrived" or "unrealistic" or the villains are cardboard or the hero and heroine are idiots not worth reading about.  Yeah, that's the level of worldbuilding in SF or Paranormal or Fantasy novels that causes willing suspension of disbelief.

The reader doesn't have to believe in God, or find God real in their own life.  The reader just has to be able to relate to the position of the characters on these subjects -- without any single word ever making these philosophical abstractions explicit in the novel.  

If you miss any one of those elements, the Happily Ever After ending will seem more implausible to more readers than you might guess. 

So let's see if we can find a poetic justice definition that can work for authors of Paranormal Romance. It's one thing to unravel a Romance story to find the poetic justice inside, and quite a different thing to portray poetic justice in your romance story. The one process is not the opposite of the other.

Now think about this: God is a paranormal element.

I don't think religion is a paranormal element. Religion is a word we use to designate an organization, or a belief system, more than a law of the universe. Religion is what other people tell you about God. So religion is a different subject that belongs to anthropology and culture, two other aspects of worldbuilding.

Here we're looking for the universal, underlying, principles of reality that can make a Paranormal Romance world seem utterly real to the readers for whom The Paranormal is ridiculous in daily life. The point of the exercise is to find a way to present and explain Poetic Justice to readers, editors, and the general public that adds to their sense of how real a fictional universe is.

Science Fiction writers specialize in imagining a universe where what we absolutely know for a fact turns out to be not at all true.  Happily Ever After is in that category for a lot of readers, the same category as intelligent life on other planets.  

We have to show not tell that the Happily Ever After with a Soul Mate is actually Poetic Justice, even though Happily Ever After is a ridiculous premise in real life.  

If you just slap Poetic Justice into your Paranormal world, it will be one more thing readers have to suspend disbelief about. If you grow your version of Poetic Justice from the core premise of your world, it becomes one of the elements that convince readers your world is real.

So we have to find out what justice is and what poetry is, and why people in all cultures the world over cherish these notions while they only yearn for a Soul Mate and Happily Ever After and call those silly wishfulfillment fantasy.

Do you need God in your worldbuilding as an axiom? A postulate? A premise? Do you need God as an element in your fiction in order to portray Justice in the world?

Does "Justice" come from outside or inside "reality?"

What exactly is justice and how do you tell if it has manifested (yet)?

If you know enough mythology, you have many gods to choose from, fickle ones, ones that come from dysfunctional families, benign ones, neutral ones, bribable ones. You also have a cast of thousands of demons, elves, pixies, trolls, and a plethora of supernatural creatures to include or exclude from your world.

You can use (though you might not be able to sell it right now) Islam and the Prophet, or any Islamic concept of Justice and how it can be arrived at. All of those beliefs belong to the paranormal, and can be inventoried in a Paranormal Romance novel's worldbuilding.

You can study the era of the Prophets in Judaism -- theory is that at one time, during the days of the Temple, nearly everyone received Prophecy from God, but only a few got prophetic visions that pertained to the future history of Judaism, visions that were worth preserving. Most people got information about ordinary things or matters of personal concern. As far as I know, no Paranormal Romances have been set in that time and place -- could blow the whole Paranormal Romance publishing industry to the top of the charts.

Theory in Judaism, particularly Kabbalah, is that today people get real "prophetic" visions in dreams -- personally applicable information, on a routine basis. "Prophetic" doesn't necessarily mean "about the future" -- but it can mean just deep insight into the true meaning, the Paranormal meaning, of what's happening on the surface of events today.

So Prophecy is a Paranormal element that can be used in Romance worldbuilding, and has been. Many stories begin with a dream of the One who will be the Soul Mate.

Fantasy Romance is routinely lumped in under Paranormal Romance. But most people associate the word Fantasy with "impossible" or "unreal" -- or even consider it unhealthy to dwell on, mentally or emotionally.

That's why "wish fulfillment fantasy" is a pejorative.

Paranormal, however, is often associated with "crazy."

Which brings us to the question: Is Justice a figment of the imagination? Or is it a property of Reality?

Is Justice real? Does it exist? Or is it imaginary?

Then there's the problem of what exactly is poetry? Does it mean rhyme?

Maybe the term "poetic justice" is an oxymoron?

We'll explore this a little more next week in Part 2 of Poetic Justice in Paranormal Romance novels.

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com