When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript Part 7 -- How To Climb Over The Wall That Hit You

When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript

Part 7

How To Climb Over The Wall That Hit You 

Index to  "When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript" 

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/04/index-to-when-should-you-give-up-on.html

Sometimes you shouldn't try to burst through that brick wall that just loomed up and hit you, and sometimes you shouldn't climb over or burrow under. Sometimes, the solution is to go write something else. Sometimes that's not an option if you have sold the thing on the basis of a one-paragraph description (which I've done -- even sold a trilogy like that), so here are ideas about what to do if you must produce that particular novel or story.

If you hit a wall in midst of a novel length work, there's a very high probability you made a huge mistake on PAGE 1, very likely Parag 1.

Go back to the outline, nail the point at which the conflict is initiated, nail the resolution, and find the MIDPOINT. 

With those three "beats" (see SAVE THE CAT! writing textbooks) explicitly one-sentenced before your eyes, you can draw the line between them with defined SCENES.  

Three Book Series SAVE THE CAT!

Find the scene that derailed your writing -- chances are it is either a) off the because-line between conflict and resolution,,,

... so CURE is to delete that scene ...

...or b) involves explicitly showing rather than telling something deeply personal that's been festering in your sub-conscious for years and needs some psychological probing ...

... so CURE is harder. 

You don't need to put in your idiosyncratic life details (which is probably the wall that you hit) -- you need to put in the details you will find by reading "self-help" books on that psychological hangup.

To find exactly how to craft that scene, read the most popular current self-help on that topic and then articulate the problem as a question to post on QUORA -- see what answers turn up, and that will likely be what you can use to convey an understanding to your audience.

Now go back to drafting the manuscript and start on page one incorporating the "foreshadowing" for that emotionally potent and revealing scene using every art of SYMBOLISM ... 

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/02/index-to-theme-symbolism-integration.html

...and Art of subconscious cultural associations -- every ART -- because this "hit a wall" problem is best and most expeditiously resolved by the use of ART. 

This process will allow you to deliver your manuscript on contract deadline and in publishable form -- and likely facilitate the publisher wanting to buy your next novel.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

How To Learn To Write - Part 2 - How do writers influence their audience

How To Learn To Write

 Part 2 

 How do writers influence their audience? 

Part 1 is

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-to-learn-to-write.html

Part 2 is my answer to a question on Quora. 

https://www.quora.com/How-do-writers-influence-their-audience

On Quora, George Ireland requested my answer to the following question:

How do writers influence their audience?

John Joss a nonfiction and novel writer, journalist, answered very correctly, 

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

Writers in any medium—technical writers, journalists, poets, advertising copywriters, PR writers, film and television writers, speech writers, business-proposal writers, nonfiction or novel writers—influence their audiences by having mastery over grammar, syntax, spelling and vocabulary. They also have a clear understanding of the needs of their audience(s). Then they apply pen or pencil to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and write the correct words that address the subject with brevity and clarity in terms that they know that audience can grasp and will ‘act’ upon.

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

And all of that craftsmanship and skill set acquisition applies equally to fiction writing. 

However, fiction never works well if the author writes consciously to influence the reader, or spur to a specific action the writer has selected.  It comes off preachy, exposition heavy, abstract, and even insufferably arrogant (read Ayn Rand for examples).  Characters seem wooden, two-dimensional, stiff, cardboard, and cliche.  

Reading fiction is taking a ride in a Character’s head — or perched on a shoulder.  

Reading fiction is always an adventure, leaping out of the everyday existence and into a situation or problem entirely outside the reader’s experience. It may be a situation the reader would like to visit in reality (such as a Romance) or it may be one they’d never, ever, want to visit (a cautionary tale such as Orwell’s 1984).  

The writer defines the Character, and the resources of material goods, talents that may lie hidden, skills already proven, aspirations driving the character toward a goal, just as the player does when entering a Game. 

Within these parameters of personality and resources, the character must solve the problem, resolve the conflict, and make some progress toward the aspiration.  If you can’t get there from here, the novel is about going somewhere else to start over.  But it is progress.

The novel may be about redefining what goals would be satisfying or worth while — such as a Law Student who drops out of school to raise kids.  Sequels might be about the Law Student joining the PTA then running for School Board, then Legislature, maybe national office after that - maybe finishing the Law degree while the kids are in High School.

A reader whose life is stalled always enjoys working the problem of a Character who is acting to break out of a stall.

Such an adventure inside the mind and life of a Hero might seem like it is an  “influence” spurring a reader to pick up the pieces of their own broken life and move on.  But that isn’t what the writer is doing.  

The writer is selling FUN - entertainment - and if you don’t have FUN you can’t sell it, and you certainly can’t deliver what you don’t have in stock. So the writer is not selling INFLUENCE when writing fiction — it’s no fun to “be influenced” — it is lots of fun to gain a more dimensional understanding of yourself, your world, and the goals you might choose to drive toward. 

By reading fiction, a person can gain enough perspective on the world to define their own real-world options as a problem to be solved. Riding in the head of a character who is working out (usually by trial and error; sometimes by being instructed) a methodology of problem solving and techniques of conflict resolution, can inspire (not influence, inspire) a reader to attempt some real-life experiments. 

Now here’s the trick. 

The writer must have a clear vision of the “world” they are inviting the reader into. The writer must evoke (not describe, summon) the fictional world in such a way that the reader can recognize it as possibly somewhat like their own everyday-life, but different. The writer must know, understand, grok, comprehend that difference so completely that, without effort, the writer transmits the specific, singular, vividly portrayed difference that distinguishes the fictional reality from everyday reality while at the same time asking the question — is it distinctively different?

This is what I learned from Gene Roddenberry while doing the multitudinous interviews for STAR TREK LIVES! 

— good fiction doesn’t TELL the reader the answer to the mysteries of life.  Good fiction asks questions.  Good fiction re-phrases the questions the reader has been pondering. Good fiction questions the viewer’s assumptions about reality, about life.  Good fiction poses old questions in new forms and leaves the viewer to chew it all over.

Good fiction does not choose the answer for the reader, or limit what the “right” answer might be.  

Good fiction, I learned from Leonard Nimoy while doing interviews, is “open textured” — giving an outline and inviting the viewer to fill in with their own imagination.  

Good fiction does not “influence” but rather inspires and motivates.  Robert Heinlein inspired, as did Star Trek, many readers to major in math, science and engineering. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 16 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg - Star Trek, Star Wars & Quora

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 16
Star Trek, Star Wars & Quora
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts of this series Marketing Fiction In A Changing World are found here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

I was asked by a connection on Quora the following question:

----------quote from email via Quora----------

Robb Ramshaw asked you to answer.
Which is more SciFi, Star Trek or Star Wars?
----------end quote------------------

There is ever so much more to say on this topic, but it is an orbital-view perspective on the evolving of science fiction into the broader mass market -- as a consequence of social change, not a cause of it. Of course, there's always the question of whether there is any difference between "cause" and "effect."  Feedback loops may govern chaotic systems for short times.

Without thinking much, I wrote the following answer.

Neither Star Trek nor Star Wars is "real" SF -- just the best imitation the broader audience will accept.

Here is an example: an old song by John Denver, Sing Australia, which fakes a digireedoo sound. If you know the native instrument's sound, you can recognize the edges of the hint of the instrument -- it isn't the real thing, but it evokes the real thing.

http://amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dprime-digital-music&field-keywords=Sing+Australia

Now, that is the musical equivalent of what Star Trek and Star Wars did when taking science fiction to the broader audience.  It's fake, but it's also real -- it evokes the real thing without being the real thing itself.

In the Bantam paperback STAR TREK LIVES! I said many times that ST:ToS was the first real science fiction on TV, and that was true for decades until Babylon 5.  But every science fiction reader knows that ST (and SW) were 1930's SF.  Aimed at teen-boys, they excluded women.

With fan fiction, women fixed that.

Jean Johnson came to mass market Romance and then Science Fiction Romance via Harry Potter fanfic.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/11/reviews-20-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

Now science fiction and fantasy (except maybe in TV and movies) are for adult men and adult women and adults in general.  There's much appeal to teens, but it isn't exclusive.  And I don't mean sex scenes -- I mean issues that mature adults must confront to be happy in life.  (like "What the heck is The Donald doing running for President?")  Real, adult, issues that are meaningless to teens.

On alien romances I discuss this at length.

ST and SW were not at all the sort of thing the readers were reading at that time.  The breakthrough, though, had to start "at the beginning" to bring the audience into the subject matter gently.

That's why Gene Roddenberry sold ST as, "Wagon Train To The Stars."  A Western TV show that was popular even among all the Westerns on TV and in the Movies, Wagon Train was about people trying to survive and travel through a hostile environment, cooperating in spite of animosities among them.

As Margaret Carter points out in a comment -- Kirk was also drawn from Hornblower.  A third ingredient is Roddenberry's own personality, and his real-life experiences.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/plane

 That comic penetrates the core of Roddenberry's experience of life. 

So ST's "people story" is very mundane, except for Spock, and ST's exploration-plot is very mundane (except for Physics and Warp Drive).  The Aliens are Indians, the Crew are just doing their job.

Science Fiction is about the impact of technology derived from basic science on the anthropology, sociology, and psychology of humans.

These are expensive productions and must draw a huge audience.

Each has real (even great) science fiction embedded in the worldbuilding, but it's not up front and demanding.  In 'real' science fiction you must bring a solid grasp of the science to the story in order to understand how the story is postulating that what you've been taught, what you use every day in your job as a scientist, what you know to be true, -- actually is false!  And "here" is how things really are.  You, as reader, must accept 6 impossible things before breakfast, reason within that altered frame of reality, and solve the Problem the plot is throwing at the Characters using this "false" science.

This mental exercise is FUN -- for scientists.

At some point soon, all humanity at every level of intelligence, must become "scientists" of some kind.  And we have to learn to discard established and settled science to reason adroitly in a world that just works differently than we "know" reality works.  That brain exercise is our most crucial survival trait.  

ST and SW have begun a trend, and we're in Stage 3 of that trend now.  Stage 2 began with the advent of fanfic, and its subsequent explosion online (remember the Internet was generated by ST fans wanting to play a game, and the Web came from overseas as a method of handling connections and seeing what's on the pages.)  You're looking at a bootstrap process, and we're almost up to loading the Startup Applications list.

You will recognize Stage 4 of the transition when big budget productions eliminate "action" and "war" and destruction-derby and spectacle for the sake of spectacle and start telling 'real' stories about very unreal people dealing with totally unthinkable problems they must solve by THINKING -- not hitting.

We've had some of those on TV tip-toeing around the core of the matter.  For example: the colonizing of strange worlds, the lost colony, the going back in time and colonizing primitive Earth (also done on ST:ToS but on another planet into an Ice Age epoch).

But each of those focused on physical prowess to survive life-or-death easily defined challenges.  In "real" science fiction, the challenge is not easily defined -- and in fact, as in a murder-mystery what you initially see is not what is really there.

You will see Stage 4 of this transition make fortunes on stories about solving problems with science, with thinking not hitting.  Consider the popularity of Sherlock Holmes re-imaginings and you will see the beginnings of Stage 4.

Consider the popularity of the TV Series MacGyver.  There have been a plethora of small hits like that.  We have medical shows, we have the TV Series House, and Bones.  Little by little popular fiction is inching toward real science fiction.

Getting into Stage 4 is not about making Hollywood produce real science fiction.  It is about the new audience now growing up learning to demand such TV or Streaming (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Indie originals) fiction.

The first real breakthroughs to Stage 4 may come in the Fantasy genre.

So far, though, mass audiences don't have the patience to sit through a story they can not understand unless they learn something they don't already "know" -- and they will not tolerate stories that postulate that what they know is not true.

That patience will appear in the mass audiences when grade schools start teaching kids how to think not what to think, and turning them loose to teach themselves.  Teaching yourself is fun.  Being force-fed is not fun.  We foster an emotional aversion to learning new things, to questioning all "facts" presented, to discarding "what you know" by our current test-oriented teaching methods. So we produce mass audiences who don't think learning (and un-learning what they know) is fun.

Entertainment has to be fun.  If you are psychologically blocked against learning and un-learning for fun, then the only alternative left to assuage the itch for fun is hitting, conquering, vanquishing, attaining ascendancy over others instead of learning who they are.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

The Wrong Way To Write A Story

I've said here any number of times there's no "right" or "wrong" way to write, or tell a story, and no "wrong" story to tell.  I've illustrated that with exploring several interesting novels.  Examples:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/04/gene-doucettes-immortal-revisited.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/02/research-plot-integration-in-historical.html
But all across the web I'm finding people explaining what they don't want to do with their writing, and for what reasons -- and I'm finding professionals with money to invest in producing or publishing who are explaining what they need from writers and it is what the writers want to avoid doing.

And ne'er the twain shall meet, it seems.

So here's one more attempt to explain to each of these groups what the other is talking about and why.

I've been messing around with graphics software, Adobe professional level stuff that reminds me of Macromedia (Adobe bought Macromedia a while back).  I've never mastered any of these programs as I have Word Processors gallore.  Graphics programs are tools for doing something my mind does not do, while word processors are tools for showing you what my mind does!

However, in messing around with graphics I've found something you don't see right off in word processors that could illuminate this communications problem between writers and producer/publisher folks.

It's LAYERS.  Today's computer graphics (such as Photoshop) are in "layers."  Layers give you the power to animate things.  It's quite a neat trick, and you don't need to buy the software to find out how it's done.  I've put the link in below. 

Your "ART" goes in the "background" layer, that's your worldbuilding, the philosophy, the iconic dimension of your imagery. 

The "CRAFT" goes in the "foreground" layer, and there are multitudinous layers in between until you get to the "mid-ground" where Art and Craft blend into solid commercial art.

People running a business founded on delivering your artistic product to a market large enough to make back their investment plus a profit for you and them are looking for is CRAFT.

They don't know, and don't want to know (and between you and me shouldn't know) anything at all about your ART -- your writer's art to be art must be invisible to the naked eye of the businessman/woman.

The editor/businessperson/investor is only interested in your CRAFT, your ability to pour your (Neptune-ruled) formless ART into the pre-constructed (Saturn-ruled) mold.

That's what programs like Photoshop do -- they set up a very limited FORM into which various half-baked products (a picture you just snapped) can be poured and then "set" or chilled (rendered) into something sharper, brighter, or morphed into a suggestion of something other than the original.

Film and TV professionals use programs that are far more sophisticated, less limited, having larger but more precise tools (and requiring a lot more computer power) to create things like the film Avatar or the Harry Potter films.

But you don't need the software to seat the major concept in your mind.  Look at this tutorial video - or look up some other tutorial videos on animation on YouTube.

http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial/Adobe-Flash-Tutorial-Basic-animation/73931

Now here's what's going on with the conversation between writers and publishers.

Writers are talking about creating one LAYER of the finished product, while Publishers/Producers are talking about another LAYER which goes on top of the artistic layer.

The writers or art-originator is creating ART.

Astrologically ART is ruled by Neptune, and is nebulous, fuzzy, without edges, all about philosophy and vision into the higher levels of reality, beyond the mere physical.  Neptune is Romance, Soul-Mates, about "making love" and all the processes that enliven the Soul and connect you to the ineffable.

Astrologically Publishing/Producing and all sorts of businesses are ruled by Saturn, structure/discipline/application.  Saturn is all about the concrete world, and the practical results obtained within concrete reality.  Saturn is about Making a Living, about marriage as a business arrangement, about the physical body, and about "having sex" and the processes of procreation. 

These are two separate "layers" of our existence, and if you stretch the analogy of how Art software works to create these marvelous animations, to create the vivid colors, and to alter the appearance of reality (just consider some of the Superbowl commercials), you can visualize each of the "Planets" of the zodiac in your natal chart as LAYERS OF YOU, layers of reality overlying each other and interpenetrating to produce what you laughingly call your life.

So while your editor is earnestly explaining the realities of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and plot-structure, character continuity and arc in terms of marketability and profit margin, audience "reach" and so forth, you are yelling back that "There Is No Wrong Story!"  There can't be such a thing as an "error" in writing -- this is my story! 

You're talking about two separate "Layers" and you haven't run the function called "rendering" yet.

A writer who is trying to market their own material needs a cut-down tool like Photoshop (and its accompanying suite if you need to do animations), a tool you can use without completely mastering the entire suite of tools.

Fooling around with tools like this can give you not only the concept of LAYERS but also sharpen your ability to create those visual "icons" that bring the background worldbuilding and philosophy into the foreground of the craft layer, welding them together (rendering) inextricably so that no among of editing can destroy what is precious to you about your story.

There is no "wrong" in Art.  There are many "wrongs" in Craft.     

Producers and publishers usually don't look for new talent unless they're desperate in a failing market.  Think twice about being "found" and dragged into a failing market -- do it if you have a strategy for spring-boarding yourself out of that avalanche of downward pressure.

Here are the statistics for 2011 from Publisher's Weekly

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/financial-reporting/article/50805-aap-estimates-e-book-sales-rose-117-in-2011-as-print-fell.html

--------------QUOTE-----------
Despite slowing growth rates in the final quarter of 2011, e-book sales rose 117% for the year, generating revenue of $969.9 million at the companies that report sales to the Association of American Publishers. Sales in all trade print segments fell in the year, however, with the mass market paperback segment showing the largest decline with sales from reporting houses down almost 36%, to $431.5 million. Adult hardcover and trade paperback sales were off 17.5% and 15.6%, respectively. In children’s, the YA/hardcover segment sales fell 4.7% and paperback sales fell 12.7%.

 The religion segment had a solid year, with sales up 8.4% in all formats. And in audio, physical audio sales fell 8.1% at reporting companies, while downloadable audio rose 25.5% for the year.
-----------END QUOTE---------

Also remember "the medium is the message" -- writing for one delivery system is not the same as writing for another.  Study your delivery systems, business models, and let the data soak into your subconscious where it will be melded with your Art. 

Producers and Publishers will generally go back to the Names who have presented them with usable material on a regular and hassle-free basis.

They all want someone they can ask, "Give me something in this genre," and get "I'll have it for you in three weeks."  And when they get the manuscript, they want to be able to finger Paragraph 3, page 100, and email back "there's an error right there" -- get the answer, "Oooops, sorry. I'll have a clean manuscript to you tomorrow morning."  And when the morning comes, the rewrite is in the inbox -- and it does indeed correct the error.

Without even explaining what exactly the problem is, the investor gets it fixed because the craftsman is a craftsman. 

What did the craftsman do to fix the error that the investor couldn't do?  The craftsman went back to the file in her head that has all the layers separate - the file that has the "image" unrendered, un-flattened, with all the pieces distinctly separate.  And the craftsman then brought up one of the layers which was causing the problem, tweaked it a bit in a way that did not even TOUCH the underlying Artistic Vision, then re-rendered the Image, saved it, attached the file and emailed it back. 

It's that simple for a writer to fix a problem an editor or publisher has with a story -- if the writer has created the thing in layers to begin with, saved the layer-rich file, rendered a copy that's flattened and submitted that.

Most beginning writers "have an idea" -- and it comes to their conscious mind already rendered so it can't be easily edited one layer at a time.  So when a potential investor says "this is wrong" the beginner "feels" (not thinks, feels) the art is attacked at a visceral level because the "art" and "craft" are "flattened" into one layer at the Idea level.  But all that's being perceived by the potential investor is the grainy, blurry feel to the edges of the objects in the rendering, the craft not the art. 

One is discussing the sharpness of the image and the other is discussing what the image is of.  Neither can win the argument because it's not an argument yet.  To argue and thus resolve a problem, you must both be talking about the same thing.

To fix that tendency to produce "an idea" without layers (a Polaroid print not a digital image), the new writer has to master the "Photoshop" in her artistic mind, separate the layers of "My Idea," use the mending tool to snip out "noise" and sharpen the edges, and re-render it as a marketable product. 

The graphic artist always keeps a copy of the project (several copies in various stages actually) in the original file format that keeps the "layers" and all the rest of the effects separate.  The rendered end-product is delivered to the investor. 

The rendered product is something the artist has no emotional investment in (just a financial investment).  That's the secret to dealing with editors, publishers and producers.

Read this item on why and how lovingly written screenplays get morphed into something unrecognizable by the production process.

http://www.quora.com/Why-do-studios-rewrite-scripts-after-buying-them/answer/Sean-Hood
Think of every story you write (especially something shorter than a novel) as a potential screenplay which will (not might, will) undergo this process.  Put your Art down inside the background layer where it won't be touched.

You can follow me on Quora:

Follow Jacqueline Lichtenberg on Quora

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com