How Do You Know If You've Written A Classic Part 2 - Spock's Katra by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 How Do You Know If You've Written A Classic

Part 2

Spock's Katra

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Here is Part 1 in this Series about writing a "classic."
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-do-you-know-if-youve-written.html

This Part 2 is an Interview of sorts done for an online Star Trek 'zine.  I wrote it because, on Facebook, Kirok L'stok ( his pen name), messaged me asking for a contribution to a planned e-zine to be posted here
http://tupub-books.blogspot.com.au/

The posting date for the 'zine was Sept 8, 2015.

Here's what he asked:
---------quote---------------
I write under the pen name of Kirok of L'Stok, head of publishing for TrekUnited and editor of our irregular fanzine, Personal Logs, previous issues of which can be found on our website at Tupub-books.blogspot.com.au. Our latest 'zine, 'Spock's Katra', will be a celebration of the life and influence of Leonard Nimoy as a man and Spock as a pivotal character in Star Trek. I've put out a call for new fiction and short stories and I'm going to illustrate it, in much the same way as our previous issues, with fan art.

In our mundane world, Leonard Nimoy's death means we will never see him play Spock again but, through the magic of fan fiction, Spock will never truly die. Through the work of the fans whose lives he touched, we can share a resonance of his legacy, the TV episodes and movies that captured our hearts and minds. Is it a vanity to think that our fan produced fiction could equate to the Vulcan Katra, the essence of their being that outlasts their death? Perhaps so, but it is a pleasant fantasy to think that by putting pen to paper, or more likely fingers to keyboard, we can bring Spock to life, along with McCoy and Scotty, and that the original crew of the Enterprise can continue their adventures for as long as Star Trek fans remember them.

Could I impose on you for your thoughts on what gave the character of Spock, and by extension the chemistry of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, such universal impact on fan fiction? Was it something about the characters or storylines and settings of Star Trek, did it fill a niche that was opening at the time for depth of character or perhaps address a burgeoning appetite for science fiction? Your opinion, as a professional with roots that intertwine with the very beginnings of Star Trek fan productions would be invaluable.

We would be delighted to publish anything from a paragraph box-out to an article and will send you a copy of the draft for your approval before release. If you feel that you can't help us, that's perfectly understandable and please accept my apologies for intruding on your time.
Thank you for your contributions to Star Trek fandom.

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

This was sort of like the usual interview questions I get from time to time, but lots of new things had been happening, and I had come upon many new insights into the dynamics behind Star Trek's odd success.

I have been asked questions like this many times, and every time I give a different answer using the same material, laced with new and different observations.

This year's high-impact Event for me was the loss of Theodore Bikel.

I've written about him in this blog previously:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/career-management-for-writers-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

I got a phone call while in the midst of writing this essay saying he had passed away.  He had been doing public appearances just a month prior.  Not only did he appear in classics.  He was a classic, all by himself.

I became a Bikel fan via his folk music recordings, had them all on vinyl, bought them again (it's a lot) on compact tape for my car, then bought them ALL OVER AGAIN on CD, and now have bought them all over yet again on MP3 for my phone.

He was also a fabulous writer.  He wrote the dust-jacket copy for his vinyls, did various articles, and I think best of all, his autobiography.
http://www.amazon.com/Theo-Autobiography-Theodore-Bikel/dp/0060190442/

He did a lot of audiobook recordings, but apparently never recorded his own autobiography.

But Theodore Bikel was primarily an actor, and his IMDB page is huge.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000942/

I even own an Amazon Prime streaming copy of one of his earliest movies, Fraulein, in which he sings a "Russian Gypsy Song" written just for him in that movie.  The following Variety Obituary notes that he's had another song written into a Broadway Play just so his character would have a song.

They had cast him in a musical as a character who didn't sing!  He was an actor's actor.

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/theodore-bikel-fiddler-on-the-roof-star-dies-at-91-1201544826/

Theodore Bikel spent a huge amount of his time touring in Fiddler On The Roof.  I saw him do it at Dinner Theater, and elsewhere, portable sets that fold up into wheeled boxes, lots and lots of vibrant energy, great singing.

Most people know him from Fiddler which is starred in on Broadway -- also The King And I -- but for me he's a folksinger who could bring all kinds of cultures to life, even if you didn't understand the language.

That's the essence of science fiction -- connecting with cultures you do not understand via art.

So it's not surprising that most Star Trek fans remember him from the film, The Enemy Below, which was the inspiration of one of the all-time favorite Star Trek Episodes, Balance of Terror, the one in which we first meet the Romulans and note the similarity to Vulcans.

So later, Theodore Bikel was cast as Worf's adopted human father, and it made such good sense!

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000942/

He passed away just as I was writing this explanation of why Spock was such a powerful Character he walked off the screen and into the real lives of countless viewers who weren't even science fiction fans (to begin with, anyway).

And you all know we lost Leonard Nimoy this year, as well.

All of this has me thinking about Classics -- what makes a classic?  How do you create a Classic?  How do you know if you've done it before you even first send it to an Agent?

And can you make any money writing Classics?  Most of the really famous writers of the far past whose works we study in school today died as paupers.  Classics generally have little value to the contemporary audience they are created for -- but they become more popular with time, and out-live their creators.

Star Trek appears to be one of those.  My question is, of course, will Sime~Gen also be one of those?

While I was thinking about this, the request for a contribution to an online fanzine issue about Spock and Leonard Nimoy came to me via Facebook from Kirok of L'Stok.  Here is what I wrote for http://tupub-books.blogspot.com.au/


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      When Star Trek was first aired, after Gene Roddenberry’s long struggle, and the Network demands to eliminate the female First Officer because it was not plausible that men would take orders from a woman (I kid thee not!), Spock filled two dramatic positions.

      That one Character had to represent both the Resident Geek role and the Not-One-Of-Us-But-Our-Boss role (i.e. the female role of Number One had been folded into the Spock-half-alien persona.)  Originally, Spock was demonstrably emotional but Number One (the female) was not.  That would have been an entirely different series!

      The combined Figure was given all the dimensions of a real person, a Character, by the brilliant portrayal Leonard Nimoy brought to the role.  Time will tell if he created a Role, or just a Character.

      A “Role” is a fictional figure that can be played by other actors.  King Lear is a “role.”  Actors hatch the ambition to play such a role.
      Spock is in the process of becoming a Role, though “classic trek” may be a thing of the past.

      A “Role” has a “spirit” – the writer creates the etching of a Character but the Actor gives that etching 3-D life, 3-D printing as it were.

      The Character, barely formed, dropped into American consciousness and like a spark on dry tinder, lit a fire.  Mostly it was the female viewers who ignited in discovery of new vistas.  But a lot of men saw how they could embark on a life of achievement – and just incidentally attract women of achievement.

      I was among the women who caught fire from Spock, but I was different from the average viewer.  I was a lifetime science fiction reader, at the threshold of launching a career in science fiction writing.

      I knew what I wanted to write because I knew what all the men (and a few women using male bylines) had done wrong.  I knew that if I could just do it “right” I could drop a spark into dry tinder and ignite a forest fire of ambition among my readers.

      I didn’t get the chance to do that because Gene Roddenberry did it first.

      But he was hampered by the “rules” of Network television.  Even today, rules like that constrain the creativity of TV Series producers, and there are business model reasons for that.

      But this constraint was almost immediately seen by the fans who had become ignited by Spock – and other Characters, and how they fit together into a Crew.

      Gene Roddenberry always said that Kirk, Spock and McCoy were each a fraction of his own personality.  That’s why they work as an ensemble – together they make one whole human being, but factored apart, they make comprehensibly simple what is ordinarily hidden within human complexity.

      Star Trek was, and for decades continued to be, the only science fiction on TV.  Other shows tried to repeat that ignition of fans and failed.  They had no idea why they failed.  They thought it was the science fiction that ignited the fans.  So they produced Westerns set in Space and called that science fiction, and had no clue what they’d done wrong.

      Meanwhile, the fans became a Wild Fire, spreading and spreading.  Ruth Berman and Devra Langsam, long time members of active and organized fandom (yes, fandom is not what the newspapers portray it to be), decided to go where no fan had gone before.

      Traditionally, fan publications (fanzines, magazines by and for fans who were members of organized fandom) published non-fiction about science fiction books, writers, conventions, and general activities that members of organized fandom participated in.

      Ruth and Devra each decided to create a ‘fanzine’ to contain FICTION, and articles that might have been published inside the fictional universe.  Like traditional fanzines, these publications had a Letter Column (LoC) section where fans could talk to each other about previous issues.  All on paper.

      And so the wild fire spread and spread.

      Ruth Berman’s ‘zine was T-Negative (Spock’s blood type) and Devra Langsam’s was Spockanalia – all the trivia about Spock.  They were the first ‘zines.

      Think about that.  A character in a TV Series held in vast contempt by the general public “sparked” the two first science fiction fanzines to contain fiction.

      The whole “Mary Sue” type of story originated in T-Negative which also published my Trek alternate universe, Kraith.  Spockanalia was editorially designed to stick closer to established cannon and create within Roddenberry’s own vision.

      Jean Lorrah – much later the author of sizzling hot best-seller Star Trek novels from Pocket that are still in e-book availability – co-authored a Star Trek Fan Fiction short-story that was published in Spockanalia, which is how she came to my attention.  I came to her attention when a friend of hers sent her my first published science fiction novel, House of Zeor.

      Jean went on to write the Night of the Twin Moons fanzines (about Sarek, Spock’s father) and then to write for the professionally published Star Trek novels at the same time she and I were writing and selling novels in my series, Sime~Gen.  It’s all connected.
      Here is a page describing the Trek Connection behind everything Sime~Gen:

      http://simegen.com/history/startrek.html

      That Spark that flew off the TV Screens into our living rooms and set everything aflame could well be considered “Spock’s Katra.”

      The fictional character inhabited us, and millions of other women, who created fiction by the millions of words, created conventions where the printed ‘zines could be sold to each other, created artwork, sculpture, costumes, created and created.

      That Creative Spark ignited a firestorm, and for the first time ever, caused a cancelled TV Series to be revived.  Worse, it was a much derided, disregarded, maligned, and sneered at TV Show because it was science fiction which is only for kids because they’re gullible enough to believe that non-sense.

      The question always asked is “why” did Trek ignite a firestorm because people in the biz want to duplicate that magic.

      To answer that question, I originated the project that eventually became the Bantam paperback Star Trek Lives!   One of my objectives among many was to explain to Hollywood what they had really done by putting Trek on the air, and why it worked.  Gene Roddenberry loved the Star Trek Lives! book project and wrote the introduction to it when it was finally sold.

      Long story there.

      Mostly I focused the book on The Spock Effect by detailing who the fans were and what they did under the impact of discovering the Spock Character.  That discovery was called Spock Shock, because it left people glassy-eyed.

      That “Effect” is what eventually became termed Spock’s Katra, the feeling of having Spock inside you.

      The book Star Trek Lives! was formulated and written long before the coining of the term Katra: the Soul, the Spirit, the very personal Identity that can remain as an organized entity after the body is dead.

      The “Effect” that the Character Spock had on the dry tinder of women who had never had exposure to science fiction they could personally relate to (because the only science fiction Manhattan would allow to be published was for boys, not even for men) was explosive.

      They responded to what I had seen as missing from the field of science fiction.  In a word, “Relationship.”  In a word, “Romance.”  In a word, “Intimacy.”

      So while we were researching, sending out questionnaires, collecting Star Trek fanzines (within months, there were literally hundreds of publications, once non-science fiction fans got hold of the Idea of T-Negative and Spockanalia). I was also writing the beginnings of my Sime~Gen Series.

      Let me set the record straight.  My first story sold was a Sime~Gen story, and it was sold in 1968 to Fred Pohl, who eventually bought Star Trek Lives! when he had moved from the Magazine industry to the Book Industry.

      I was a professional, selling science fiction writer before I ever wrote my first Star Trek fanzine article (for Spockanalia) or my Kraith Series for T-Negative.  Most newspaper articles about me say I “came out of” Star Trek fandom.  That’s not true.  Star Trek, Star Trek Fandom, and I all came ‘from the same place’ – the place where Gene Roddenberry acquired Spock’s Katra.

      So, after selling my first story, and launching the Star Trek Lives! project, I created a statement of what the difference is between traditional (for teen boys only) science fiction, and the unique contribution to the field of science fiction that I could bring.

      I eventually dubbed that unique contribution, Intimate Adventure.  I called it the “Lost Genre” because it is a pattern that turns up everywhere, and no publisher would group these novels together and put a genre label on them so everyone who loves Intimate Adventure could buy with confidence.

      Here is a link to two articles, one FOR THE SCIENCE FICTION READER, and one FOR THE FEMINIST READER, describing what I had noticed as missing from science fiction.  I named a lot of novels published subsequent to Star Trek’s fame that illustrate the influence Trek had in creating Intimate Adventure.

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

      Intimacy across the human/non-human Gulf is the spark that lit the Trek conflagration.

      The Katra, later invented for Vulcan culture, depicts the ultimate Intimacy as it can be ‘carried’ by an intimate to its peaceful resting place.  What service could be more intimate or more demanding of heroics?

      The invention of the fictional concept Katra is a result of something I helped create – a “feedback loop” between fiction creator and fiction consumer.

      Historically, writers just wrote and publishers or producers just guessed what their market wanted.

      When Star Trek fandom flashed into a conflagration, these decision makers noticed, and had access to samples of what the consumer really wanted from them.

      Kraith Collected (which had 50 contributors) was seen around the Star Trek offices at Paramount, dog eared and well read.  And it wasn’t the only one.

      Today, the professional decision makers can just drop in and read any fanfic posted online.

      Sales statistics and viewer numbers are fast and accurate, via our electronic data collection – all of which technology can be traced back to men and women who were fired up by Star Trek, often by Spock and his expertise with a computer.  We’re still inventing Trek equipment – the transporter, warp drive are all being worked on.

      So the ripples of Spock’s Katra spread and changed the way the world of fiction distribution works as well as the daring-do of work-a-day scientists.

      When we were researching for Star Trek Lives! we didn’t know that was going to happen.  We just knew that Everything Had Changed.

      The change that I thought was most vital, and most important for the future of humanity thousands of years hence, was the shift in the definition of Science Fiction to include Intimate Adventure.

      Of course, when we were writing Star Trek Lives! (1970-1974) we didn’t know we’d win.  But we knew that Gene Roddenberry had given us Spock, the main tool needed to explain to women why it is that science fiction is the most important art-form ever created.

      When we meet up with real Aliens “out there somewhere” we have to establish Relationships across that conceptual Gulf.

      The Spock Character is a fictional alien.  The whole Vulcan Culture is fabricated out of Gene Roddenberry’s take on Humanism as a life philosophy.  I.D.I.C. is the Vulcan philosophy I wrote about in Spockanalia in a fictional-article titled Mr. Spock On Logic.  My explanation of “Infinite Diversity In Infinite Combinations” was not Gene Roddenberry’s (we hadn’t yet met in person).

      What I said in that article, and in the subsequently written Kraith stories was that Logic Is Beautiful, and Beauty Is Logical.

      Aesthetics and Logic are not two separate things, nor even two sides of a coin, nor even reflections of each other.  They are THE SAME THING.  Just one thing.

      When you experience Beauty, you are experiencing Logic.  When you experience Logic, you are experiencing Beauty.  They are inseparable.  That is a non-human, and very Alien concept.

      Roddenberry’s personal notion of Spock and Vulcan culture were struck me (when I found out about it during interviews) as way too mundane to be science fiction.

      That is probably the reason Star Trek, and Spock, sparked the appeal to a wider audience that science fiction generally commands.

      Roddenberry’s Vulcans just weren’t alien enough to suit me, so I created a Vulcan for Kraith that is truly Alien – non-human, defying all the imperatives of human Nature.

      http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/

      I used that concept of Logic Is Beautiful as the invisible, underlying theme of Kraith.  It is one of the cornerstones of the worldbuilding (meticulous science fiction writer style worldbuilding) behind the Kraith Series.

      Simultaneously with writing the Kraith Series, I was also writing Star Trek Lives!  Well, some weeks I’d work on one, some weeks the other, but all this was interwoven into the fabric of a life raising kids and founding a career.

      The career I was founding was professional science fiction writer, and the second professional fiction project I undertook was a Sime~Gen Novel.

      Remember, I had set out to add something new and unique to the field of science fiction, but Gene Roddenberry beat me to it.

      So now my job was to explain what he’d done with Spock, and how to do it again, on purpose, so Hollywood would begin to produce lots and lots of TV Series I would love to watch.

      In order for my explanation of what GR had done to be taken as valid, I had to duplicate the Spock Effect.  I had to create a new Spock.

      I had to use my notion of Intimate Adventure, my lifelong immersion in the field of science fiction, my degree in Physical Chemistry (minor in Math), my conviction that humanity is in for huge trouble if we don’t learn how to Bond with Aliens, and prove that I understood what had happened with the Spock Character’s explosive popularity.

      I needed to write a novel with a “Spock” type character that would make Spock fans write fiction in my universe.

      But which universe? I had many possible series outlines on file.  But I had sold that one story, Operation High Time.  I knew that universe backwards and forwards, and it came to me that one of my Characters was indeed Spock.

      In the Sime~Gen Universe, Reincarnation is real.  In other words, souls are real.  So is telepathy, telekinesis, etc etc, a whole panoply of psychic abilities are real, and some of the characters have those abilities.

      The Sime~Gen timeline I had mapped out in the 1970’s already spanned thousands of years of future history.  To write the novel that would prove my theory of the Spock Effect, I just had to pick an Incarnation and a particular time in the historical development of my Sime~Gen Interstellar Civilization and write a novel about that Incarnation of this main character.

      GR sold Star Trek as “Wagon Train To the Stars” (Wagon Train was a record-setting, long-running Western TV Series), and I knew that. Fandom knew a lot that the general public and journalists didn’t.

      At the time, there was little science fiction set in the horse-and-buggy technological level of the Old West.  By running back along my timeline from the year my first sold story was set within, I found a Historically pivotal Event with plenty of conflict and Western Adventure, that involved one of the Incarnations of my Main Character’s Katra.  That Character, Rimon, Del Rimon, Klyd, Digen, Klairon is a version of Spock.

      So I wrote the novel, House of Zeor, about Klyd Farris, to prove The Spock Effect.

      The timing of publications came out just barely even, so that House of Zeor is a tiny footnote in Star Trek Lives!

      I bought a few boxes of the hardcover Doubleday edition of House of Zeor and sold them to Spock fans active in Star Trek fandom on a money-back guarantee.  I sold 60 copies to that sub-set of Trekdom on that guarantee (at the time, the price of that hardcover book was the cost of several gallons of gasoline) and never had one returned.

      During that time, all of a sudden, fans started sending me fan letters with questions about the worldbuilding behind the Sime~Gen Universe.

      I answered at length, and eventually started publishing as a kind of carbon-copy fanzine.  Very quickly, a fan stepped up to do an actual mimeo fanzine, we called Ambrov Zeor, and before I knew it we had fans writing fanfic in the Sime~Gen Universe.  At one point there were 7 Sime~Gen ‘zines – some just non-fiction, some letters only, and several with fiction, letters and articles.  The two longest running have their contents now posted online for free reading, and there’s lots of new material online, too.

      With the spontaneous generation of Sime~Gen fanfic, I had proven that Sime~Gen had the “whatever it is” that Star Trek had.
   
   That element is Spock’s Katra, the soul of Spock, the Intimate Adventure that soul pursues.

      My original definition of Intimate Adventure is that you take an Action Adventure story, and replace the “Action” (fist fights, war, combat, violence) with Intimacy, (not with sex, but with emotional honesty) and you get Intimate Adventure.

      In Intimate Adventure, the heroic courage the main character exhibits is on the field of Emotion, not the field of Combat.
      In Intimate Adventure Logic and Emotion are not walled off from each other.  Compassion is Logical.

      That first novel, House of Zeor, also had a career parallel to Star Trek’s.  It was in print continuously for 20 years (unheard of in genre fiction, but especially in science fiction which was usually in print for about six weeks).  Then House of Zeor came back into print in various forms, and now it’s in a new print edition, audiobook and e-book as well.

      But meanwhile, my second novel in the Sime~Gen Universe, about another Incarnation of that same character, several centuries later in the era of digital telephone dialing, won my first Award.

      As I was writing that novel, Unto Zeor, Forever, Jean Lorrah’s review of House of Zeor came to me on the fannish grapevine.  I wrote back to her, and she sent me a story she had written in my universe, creating a wholly new setting in a different geographical setting, with different characters.

      Meanwhile, I sent Jean the manuscript for Unto Zeor, Forever, and she sent it back with extensive rewrite notes, most of which I incorporated into the final draft.

      We printed her Sime~Gen story in the fanzine Ambrov Zeor, and she sent another.  In those days, to get a free copy of a ‘zine (sold for printing and postage only, but still very expensive) you had to contribute something, so if you wanted another writer’s sequel to their story, you had to contribute a story of your own.  So Jean did some stories about these Sime~Gen characters she had created and their Householding Keon.

      And then we met at a Star Trek Convention and she handed me the outline for a full length novel set in the Sime~Gen Universe.
      She was already a professional writer, and it showed in her work so far.  I took her outline to Doubleday, and a few months later we sold it to hardcover publication, and later mass market, and now with all the others in new paper and e-book editions.

      Her first professionally published novel is titled First Channel, and is about Spock’s Katra in the form of Rimon Farris, centuries before it was Klyd Farris in my first novel, House of Zeor.

      She wrote that story because Rimon Farris wouldn’t quit nagging her to tell the story of the First Channel, and how the reality of his life differed from the legend I had cited.

      On the strength of having a hardcover novel published, she got a full professorship.  She is an English Professor with a specialty in Chaucer and noted for identifying the Shaman Archetype.  She has identified Intimate Adventure as a Plot Archetype (like The Hero’s Journey).

      Thus started a partnership that has woven warp and woof of the Sime~Gen Universe fabric to include an Infinite Diversity In Infinite Combinations.  It’s not easy for a Chemist to collaborate with an English Professor.

      After many novels, we incorporated Sime~Gen as a separate entity and bought the simegen.com domain where we host the previous fanzine stories plus millions of words of fanfic created just for online publication, and secured copyrights and trademarks.

      After the 12th Sime~Gen novel came out, the publisher (now Wildside Press) asked for a volume of fan-written stories.

      That anthology is titled FEAR AND COURAGE, was edited by two fans, has 14 writers, and contains many stories newly written for the anthology.

      Fans have also compiled a Sime~Gen Concordance slated for publication probably end of 2016, fairly well patterned on the original Star Trek Concordance by Bjo Trimble.

      In a way, this anthology publication is comparable to the moment when Pocket Books and Paramount bought A. C. Crispin’s Yesterday’s Son – which was I believe the first time they had contracted with an unpublished writer for a Star Trek novel.

      Yesterday’s Son is about a son of Spock, and time travel.

      I know about this novel because A. C. Crispin, the author who went on to write Star Wars and other film spinoff novels, brought me the manuscript (you guessed it, at a Star Trek convention) to ask if it was good enough to sell to Pocket.

      I took it home, read it, wrote her a list of stuff she had to change to conform to the “formula” demanded by Paramount and Pocket (yes, they had a guidelines sheet they sent out to professional writers they chose, just the way Romance publishers did.  I had a copy, but there was no way she could get a copy at that time.).

      I didn’t expect to hear from her.  But she made the changes, polished up the ragged edges where the changes had to be made, and sent it back to me.  It was perfect.  I offered to agent it to Pocket. We signed a contract. I hand carried it into the office in Manhattan (I lived near), and they bought it.  It hit best seller status, and the uproar about how much better it was than the previous books set Pocket and Paramount on a new path.  People who write for the love of the material attract readers who read for the love of the material.

      As I said, Yesterday’s Son is about Spock’s son.  Do you see the connection?  Kirk is the “star” but everything that changes the real world is rooted in Spock’s Katra.

      So why is that?  What does Spock add to standard science fiction that causes the real world to erupt?

      It’s not just that he’s sexy.  Lots of characters are sexy and they don’t change the real world.

      It’s why he’s sexy that matters.  Which leads to the question of what sexuality actually is, where it comes from, and what it means for humanity.

      Science Fiction is about the effect of technology derived from basic science on people, humans and otherwise.

      Most basic science discoveries start a few decades before the discovery.  The start is always some innovation in Mathematics.  Math is a language, and you need it to describe and talk about reality.

 Once people discuss (intimately) using the newest Math to describe something, innovation happens.  Discovery happens.  Math is the key.

      It’s all very boring, abstract, logical.

      Remember the TV Series Numb3rs?

      Old fashioned science fiction from the 1930’s and 1940’s tried to keep the emotion out of the logic of Math.  That’s futile, to coin a phrase.

      What I wanted to add to science fiction as a field was the emotional dimension – the science of emotion, the logic of beauty, the “math” equivalent of the language in which to discuss emotion.

      I’ve barely scratched the surface of that project.  Here’s what I’ve got so far.
   

      Kabbalah is the math of emotion, the math of human bonding.

      I set out with my first story and first novel to depict the connection between logic and emotion, but just illustrating it in a whopping good story and leaving the reader to figure out what it all means to them, personally.

      I learned writing craft techniques as I went along selling novels and stories.  Each novel I’ve done illustrates a different craft technique.  But I knew, from my first studies of fiction, that telling a good story is what writers do.  It’s up to the reader to interpret the meaning.

      Or as Gene Roddenberry taught me, in countless hotel rooms and convention hall greenrooms where we interviewed him for Star Trek Lives!, good fiction asks questions but doesn’t give answers.

      So I didn’t set out to give answers, but to ask questions.  Fans have answered my questions by writing their stories, their original characters, into my universe.

      Here’s my biography and bibliography
      http://www.simegen.com/jl/

      Or find the novels of Jean Lorrah and me on Amazon:
      http://astore.amazon.com/simegen-20

      And here’s where I blog on writing craft, a co-blog with a number of widely published Romance writers:
      http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/

      Simultaneously with the various incarnations of Star Trek in film and TV Series, we’ve seen the rise of the field of Fantasy.

      At the same time, mathematicians and theoretical astrophysicists decided that it was so improbable that another planet existed out there somewhere with the characteristics of Earth that we may as well not bother looking.  Established science voted against the existence of exo-planets.  As usual with science, they eventually reversed that opinion.

      Also, theoretical physics pretty much nixed the idea of traveling to the stars because it would be impossible.

      Then a whole new generation grew up inspired by Trek movies and reruns.  They gathered evidence to the contrary, so that now we have orbital telescopes mapping exo-planets and galaxies moving in formations, all with new math theories sparking particle physics experiments like the Hadron Collider.  We have identified the God Particle, the Higgs Boson, and are in hot pursuit of anti-matter, (Trek’s fuel supply for starships) identifying an anti-neutron.

      First the math, then the discoveries, then the technology.  We’re on the way to the stars.

      But during those decades when science said, “Forget it,” the fiction field that burgeoned was Fantasy.

      The worldbuilding included parallel universes, alternate realities where Magic prevailed over Physics, and vast visions of demons, angels, discorporate beings, Ghosts, Vampires, Werewolves and other shapechangers, all taken from every mythology humanity has created.

      All of these genres and sub-genres have something in common.  They are written by and for people who are searching for some kind of comprehensible description of “all reality” that makes sense in their daily lives.  A Unified Field Theory of Emotion.

      Most of the stories involving demons, angels, supernatural creatures, Vampires, shapechangers are the same stories often told of First Contact with Aliens from Outer Space.

      Our interest in these other sentient species is to make friends, enemies, conquests, vassals, or trading partners.  In other words, we seek Relationships with The Other.

      The form and dynamic of that Relationship is infinite in combinations.  But in general, the readership thirsting for these stories cannot abide the concept that humans are alone in creation, as science was saying during those years.

      The more mundane stories center on the intelligence evident in other animals on this planet – dolphins, Bonobos, dogs – we see sentience everywhere.  Now that we’ve seen other planets somewhat like ours, and found life in the caldera of sub-sea volcanoes as well as under the antarctic ice, we can’t imagine that there isn’t another species out there that we can relate to, trade with, and learn from.

      We’re still trying to figure out what a human being is.

      For many of those leading the charge into this strange future, Spock was the first Alien they ever met.  And Roddenberry’s idea that Logic and Emotion are two different things often prevails because it seems so reasonable.

      Since that dichotomy between Logic and Emotion is such a widespread assumption, science fiction (or fantasy) has to explore the opposite notion, that these two things are really the same thing.

      The way fiction explores a notion is to build an entire fictional world around that notion, letting that world evolve aliens, then bringing them into conflict with humans.

      I did that to create my second award winner, Dushau, which won the Romantic Times Award, the first Romantic Times Award given for a science fiction novel.  It is about a Romance between an Alien Soul incarnated in a human body (not knowing she’s alien), and an Alien so long-lived he remembers her, but doesn’t recognize her katra until the third book in the series.

      That book would never have sold, and would never-ever have garnered the attention of Romance Readers and been voted excellent, had it not been for Star Trek, Star Trek fan fiction, and a whole new generation trying to understand human nature by looking at ourselves from the Alien viewpoint.

      All across the Romance Genre, across Westerns, across Mysteries, across International Intrigue, throughout the world of genre fiction we have evidence of how viewers’ enjoyment of Star Trek created a demand for different views of what makes Spock so fascinating.

      Or perhaps those views have the same origin as Spock, which Gene Roddenberry often said came from adventure Radio Shows of his youth.

      Here is a free ebook, very short, giving an extremely condensed history of the brand new field called variously Science Fiction Romance, Paranormal Romance, Fantasy Romance
.
      http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2015/06/free-ebook-brief-history-of-science.html

      Here is the booklet free on smashwords.com
      https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/548258

      It seems the idea of combining science fiction and romance genres became popularized via Star Trek fanfic.  Because the hybrid genre was based on a common experience, watching Star Trek, sharing those fanfic stories allowed people to talk to each other in a language they had in common, Trek.

      Like Math, a fictional universe is a language.  The language has to come first, then the discoveries, then the applications.

      Like Math, and computer programming, fiction has created many languages, most of which are now being used to discuss “the human condition” the Unified Field Theory of Emotion, via online fanfic where writers reincarnate TV Series Characters into various original universes of their own.

      Star Trek fanfic created text based narrative from a TV Series.  Meanwhile, Trek films were made, and as computers became more Trek-Universe-Like, Star Trek Games were created.  In fact, we now have Trek fanfic done as live-actor streaming episodes, with some participation by original Trek professionals.

      Thus the intangible spiritual energy we might term Spock’s Katra has dispersed into our real world and saturated every medium of expression, music, podcast, TV Series, DVD, film, comic, graphic novel, videogames and more media to be invented.

      And in the wake of that vibrant effect, Sime~Gen has become contracted to a videogame company now hard at work taking Sime~Gen from cold text to visual media.

      So whatever it is that sparked so much creativity via the Spock Effect is still soaking into mundane reality and changing the world.

      I have described, to the best of my current ability, how all this works, in a series of books on the Tarot from the Kabbalistic point of view.  I first encountered Tarot at a Star Trek convention, and for many years taught the subject at Trek and SF cons.

      I came to understand Tarot from the perspective of Kabbalah and the Tree of Life.  Tarot is no good for predicting “the future” but it is dynamite at worldbuilding.
      I call the series volumes on Swords and Pentacles, Tarot Just For Writers, and you can find them for Kindle, here:
      http://astore.amazon.com/simegen-20
  In the upper right, browse by category box, click Tarot.  Or the combined volume of all 5 books:
      http://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Minor-Arcana-Books-ebook/dp/B010E4WAOU/
   Free on Kindle Unlimited.

      The overall series title is The Not So Minor Arcana because it is for intermediate Tarot students who want to go beyond the Major Arcana and understand arcana such as the origin of Spock’s appeal.

      Spock’s appeal isn’t about sex, but about Soul and Relationship, about the archetype behind humanity.  In Kabbalah that’s called Adam Kadmon, the First Man, Adam who was neither male nor female before Eve was separated leaving only Adam.  This could be the origin of the concept Soul Mate, two halves of a whole.

      The science fiction romance genre is powered by the incessant search for the nature of Humanity.  That’s why Roddenberry gave up Number One, the female First Officer, to keep Spock.

      He knew the only way to get perspective on “the human condition” was to view us from outside.

      No two Star Trek fanfic writers see the same thing when looking at us from Spock’s eyes.  Each, however, adds something vital to our understanding of humanity.

      Much later, after Star Trek was an assured success, Roddenberry allowed the establishment of Spock’s Katra – delineating the dual nature of Vulcans as a non-material matrix allied to a material body.

      The Katra survives the death of the body, and seeks its rest among its ancestors, even if it must be carried in a human for a time.
      This dual nature – material and non-material – shared with Vulcans is key to understanding Spock’s immediate appeal.

      The Spock Character appealed to creative women, highly intelligent women, who were not science fiction readers because there was no science fiction for women because science was too hard for women to understand.  We all know that women can’t do science or command starships crewed by men.  But those viewers already imagined a world where they did anything and everything.  When they saw that world depicted on a TV Screen, they recognized it.  And they recognized Spock as the kind of man who would seek Intimate Adventure with them.

      Many women who had never written fiction before were compelled by this fictional character’s dual nature of body and soul to tap their own creativity.  They could envision the power of the Soul Mate, the eternal nature of identity.

      When Spock touched off their creativity, these women liked themselves better and went on being creative.  It’s the most amazing thing!  Creative men were attracted to these women, and now we have a third highly creative generation reshaping our world, proving the Higgs Boson, stalking the anti-neutron, postulating evidence for string theory and mapping the shape of the universe, maybe inventing the Sonic Screwdriver and the Light-saber.

      Watch this animation
      http://www.upworthy.com/we-already-knew-the-earth-was-not-the-center-of-the-universe-but-now-we-know-exactly-where-it-is

      My current theory, (tomorrow another theory will arise, as usual) is that what humans and aliens from outer space will have in common is that dual-nature – body and soul, body and katra.  Everything else is a wild card.

      Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.

      We have a lot of writing to do!

      Jacqueline Lichtenberg
      http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
   

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 12 - Marketing To The Young

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 12
Marketing To The Young
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The Index post with links to the previous parts of this series is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

Facebook has gained the reputation for being the venue of the old fogies, while younger people seek other social networks. 

On Twitter, a #scifichat topic brought up this post on comics for 7 year old girsl:

http://www.itinthed.com/16328/what-taking-my-daughter-to-a-comic-book-store-taught-me/

We'll reference that comics issue in Part 13 of this series.  Now let's look at what the adults are discussing on Facebook. 

A question popped up on Facebook in the Allan Cole's World Group:

https://www.facebook.com/peggy.brunyansky  posted this question:
----------QUOTE-------------
This semester, I gave my students a list of songs that had a history behind them. They were to research the songs and explain that history among other things. I used "Abraham, Martin and John," "It is Well with my Soul," "Imagine," and a number more. I will add "Fortunate Son" next semester. Does anyone have suggestions of songs to add to my list?
-----------END QUOTE---------

Allan Cole recommended IN FLANDERS FIELD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkKEynoTwp8

Whereupon a lively discussion ensued that ranged across centuries of history and drew me in.

My first answer:

https://www.facebook.com/jacqueline.lichtenberg

--------QUOTE----------
Nichevo -- an "old Russian Folk Song" written specifically for the film Fraulein and sung in that film by Theodore Bikel (who later recorded it) who knows quite a few real Russian Folk Songs and did a marvelous job of faking the reality of the Hollywood-originated brand-new-old-traditional-folk-song. He tells the story on a concert-album - BRAVO BIKEL, and I finally found the movie on Amazon.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/bravo-bikel-theodore-bikel/id898873818
 That album is a history lesson and a half all by itself.
--------END QUOTE-------

Then Peggy answered me:

------QUOTE---------
Neat. I love sneaking in a little history and literature when students aren't expecting it. ...
---------END QUOTE-----------

Which inspired me -- meanwhile, others were posting very interesting comments about what songs to include.

So I added some more clues:

Lay down a breadcrumb trail through IMDB.COM to Broadway Musicals (like FIDDLER) back and back to the Theodore Bikel AUTOBIOGRAPHY titled THEO -- which tells the tale of his escaping Vienna (he's 90 in 2014) right before the blast of WWII, pioneering in Israel, Studying theater in London, just a goshwow tale in evocative prose written by a master raconteur. His career takes you all the way to musicals on Broadway, then movies and then TV. (Yiddish Theater - get his Yiddish album).

The grabber for modern students though is that Theodore Bikel played 2 parts on Star Trek - my favorite as Warf's human adopted father. Make them learn to use IMDB.COM and teach about inter-corporate ownerships -- Amazon, IMDB, GOODREADS, audible.com, (it's an education in Business Model of Entertainment Industry) and what it means "Voice Talent" other than singing.

That opens the topic of the remake of the music distribution system. There are few examples of actors students KNOW whose life-history in music goes back past 1929. Theo makes it easy to learn history with his exquisitely written (he's a WRITER, too) autobiography. You've got to read it to believe it. I've read a lot of them and I've never read one this good.
http://www.amazon.com/Theo-Autobiography-Theodore-Bikel/dp/0299300544/

-----------END QUOTE------------

Do you see the depths of worldbuilding techniques you can learn by reading autobiographies? 

Track which companies own which, look at corporate decisions and they won't be so mystifying when you know what they're trying to do to you (yes, TO you).

Last year, we had a major hack of Sony.  Will that be in your autobiography?

I asked Peggy if I could excerpt her assignment and my answers for this blog entry.  She replied:

--------QUOTE----------
Jacqueline, you are welcome to do so. I am so pleased that you like the assignment. My students do too and, as their first assignment, it eases them into research and citations as well as sneaking in a mini-history lesson. They tell me they enjoy the class more than they anticipated.
-----------END QUOTE---------

Many popular songs of the past are Romances -- as this discussion revealed.  Many are political rabble-rousers, too -- but Romance is there.  And many very popular actors of the past are associated with such Romantic songs from Broadway to Hollywood. 

Making a poem like In Flanders' Field or other such commemoratives into a "song" in your novel could give you a marketing tool as part of a video promo on YouTube.  Now you might have to write the song and coerce someone you know into recording it -- margins for such productions promoting a novel are very slim, but there are many unexplored possibilities. 

People who have been through Peggy's course may be both the source and the audience for such an effort.

Soon, we will discuss some more innovative developments in the field of Romance Genre publishing.  

For now, consider the potential of music as a component of Worldbuilding.  Remember how famous Spock's Vulcan instrument became?  Nimoy even made an LP album of songs (on Vinyl and some now digital
http://www.amazon.com/Spaced-Out-Leonard-William-Shatner/dp/B000W223QU/
) mostly because of that quick scene on TV. 

Today television rarely does that to an actor's career, but YouTube does. 

Go where your audience is, express what they're feeling with all the tools at your disposal that are not at their disposal because they aren't professional writers who study the craft all day every day. 

The ability to express an emotion with precision is a hard-honed talent that has become a rare skill.  You can trace that kind of development if you follow the career of Theodore Bikel.  And as I've recommended before, read all the Allan Cole autobiographical works. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

   

Theme-Character Integration Part 5 - Fame And Glory: When You're Rich They Think You Really Know by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Character Integration Part 5

Fame And Glory: When You're Rich They Think You Really Know

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Theodore Bikel, my favorite actor (Worf's human father on Star Trek), singer, raconteur, did an album a long time ago with a song from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (he played Tevye on Broadway and toured it for years). 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QQZQNY/  99cents for that single song

There's a line in "If I Were A Rich Man" -- "when you're rich, they think you really know!"

That is a wondrous song that captures the depths of human psychology, line after line.

It looks at being rich from a poor man's perspective, but not a poor man powered by greed, avarice, jealousy or resentment of those who are rich. 

The song is really about what stops us from great achievements, and what keeps us going toward great achievements which we sometimes achieve!

Would it ruin some "Master Plan" if I were a rich man?  The assumption is that riches "just happen" -- that there is no fundamental difference between a person who happens to be rich, and a person who just happens to be poor.  What kind of strength of character does it take to look at the world that way, when you just happen to be poor? 


So today we're going to use Point of View to talk about Strength of Character as a thematic element in the episodic novel (or series) Springboard. 

Here are some previous posts on the Springboard construction:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

In Part 3 of this series,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html
we started sketching topics relevant to constructing an Episodic Plot.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-4-art-of.html

We will return to the Springboards series with a Part 5 on Zombies and a Part 6 on Earning a Sobriquet.  But first we pick up the issue of Springboard Construction for a long series of novels by delving deeper into issues of Theme-Character Integration.

There was a TV show a while back titled FAME.  And that was the theme of the series -- all about a special High School teaching performers the skills to achieve fame on the stage.

The Klingons in Star Trek embodied WAR IS GLORIOUS as a theme.

"Fame" and "Glory" often equal "Riches" in the minds of Characters who do not have these traits.  Notice Tevye only yearned for "a small fortune." 

The starry-eyed attraction toward "fame" (or local popularity) and the sense of achieving something "glorious" (e.g. something that goes viral on YouTube), are deep human responses that are laced with raw thematic material writers can use with wondrous results.

I had a quick exchange on Twitter a few months ago with Rex Sikes and Becket Adams

Twitter Bios:

Rex Sikes' Movie Beat conversations w filmmakers Inet radio show, website & blog - subscribe to podcast actor/producer/director/ filmmaker & interview host

And Becket Adams bio:

Business writer @theblaze. Opinions are my own. Re-tweets because they're funny, foolish, or newsworthy. badams@theblaze.com

------twitter exchange--------

BecketAdams 9:02am via Web

Pro tip: Just because someone famous and/or inspirational said it doesn't mean it's wise or true.

RexSikesMovieBT 9:04am via TweetDeck

How2 get your movie funded @FlywayFilmFest @Trigonis "it's bout who you R (who r you?) becuz people give2 people not2 projects"

JLichtenberg 9:04am via HootSuite

@BecketAdams Agreed, one should not idolize the famous. Just because you're rich doesn't mean you REALLY KNOW!

JLichtenberg 9:06am via HootSuite

@RexSikesMovieBT It's a combo! "who you R" = "what project U choose" = "what ppl you know who know U" = "FUNDING INVESTED IN U"

JLichtenberg 9:09am via HootSuite

@RexSikesMovieBT "Who U R" = Keeping Ur Word = delivering ON TIME = No gossip, bad-mouthing others, or Put-Downs. Character is a MUSCLE

And after a couple minutes, @RexSikesMovieBT answered me, so I Retweeted.

JLichtenberg 9:25am via HootSuite

RT @RexSikesMovieBT: @JLichtenberg very wise words you share! ==> THANK YOU!

Somewhat later RexSikesMovieBT answered:
I am quoting speaker in my tweets.RT @JLichtenberg: @BecketAdams @RexSikesMovieBT Excerpted Ur tweets on getting movie funded…

-----------end twitter exchange----------

Which praise got me to thinking.  Most people just preen themselves when praised, or maybe get shy and crawl under a rock. 

Me?  I THINK -- I dissect and analyze what I said, what that praising person thought I said, why they thought that, why I said what I said just that way and not another way, and how the exchange created a "stirring in The Force" as they say.

THINKING-THINKING-THINKING

It is often said men consider thinking about emotion to be anathema, a horror to be avoided at all costs, and a sure sign of a lack of strong character.  Only WOMEN think about feelings -- and only women talk about feelings, articulate emotions "on the nose."

That's certainly true in our current culture.

But is it a universal truth about humankind?

After all, we have the whole Book of Psalms which has been preserved and is read regularly to this day -- and it is mostly poetry about feelings written mostly by men (I can't prove only by men, but the attributions are all to men, mostly King David.)

Being a science fiction writer by trade, I generally come to "but is it a universal human trait" with the immediate backlash of, "what would non-humans for whom it is a universal trait create for a culture?"  Or what if they didn't have that trait at all? 

That's how Gene Roddenberry (as I learned while interviewing GR and the actors and crew of Star Trek (ToS) for the Bantam Paperback STAR TREK LIVES!)  arrived at the concept "Vulcans" and why Gene fought to have Spock retained, combining "Number One" (the unemotional female first officer) with Spock-half-Vulcan-science-officer character, who turned out to be the source of SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE as a genre.

Yes, the first human/alien romances were Star Trek Fan Fiction --  the first Christian SFR (written by a Reverend's wife!) is posted for free reading on simegen.com:

http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/showcase/

It is Star Trek fan fiction about a Romance with Spock involving a Christian woman who is a very devoted and sincere Christian -- so the conflict is inherent in the situation.  The work abounds with deep themes.  And it's well crafted, easy reading. 

SFR and romance novels in general are really about character.

One of the signature expressions of "character" is the way people respond to "Fame and Glory" (Spock is a great example of both) -- either by being famous and preening under yes-men praise and fawning-fans, or by lusting after the Glory of Fame from a low-self-esteem position.  Hence the Spock character became the center of many "Mary Sue" stories. 

Part of the appeal of Romance to the very young teen girl is the aura of "what it will feel like to have HIS attention on ME."  Awakening sexual awareness is all about very greedy attention-grabbing.  Hold that thought.  We'll get back to greed at the end of this blog entry.

Attention-grabbing is the core of fame.  It is also the core of the High School yearning for "popularity."

"Glory" is often seen as the pre-requisite to Fame.  The HS Football Star's girlfriend, for example. 

Being voted "Most Popular" in High School, it turns out, is not the key to success in the rest of life.  But during the High School years, popularity is often seen the only way to success in life. 

Likewise, in college -- being the Party Guest Of The Year is not the key to success that can substitute for actually learning how to think, and how to teach yourself anything you subsequently need or want to know.

Fame does not mean you really KNOW!!!

The only ones who think that fame means you really know are those who are not famous.

Do you see the subject we're circling around here?

It is the simple thesis I've been harping on in these blogs.

CONFLICT IS THE ESSENCE OF STORY

And a whole lot of "conflict" that generates story-movement is all about Point Of View.

The famous look at the world from one point of view; the non-famous see it all from a different point of view. 

Likewise with riches, with real expertise, with age, with wisdom, with disability due to injury, with disability due to birth defects, etc etc -- each of these points of view provide different perspectives which, when pitted against each other, create conflict that causes the characters to change. 

Story is the sequence of lessons learned by the main character whose story you are telling, the lessons that are mileposts along that character's arc.  "Story" means how that character changed his point of view. 

The plot is the sequence of events that happen TO the character who internalizes a lesson from that event.

The main character does something on page 1 -- makes a decision, parses a problem and sets a goal, evaluates a character and decides to invest in that character's project, or tries to get others to invest in their own project.

How is Romance related to investing? 

Romance is related to investing via the investment that one makes in the Significant Other -- the Soul Mate.

Soul Mating is all about joining two into one -- just like merging a business. 

To make the joint-venture profitable, both firms must eliminate the overlapping and duplicated departments (secretarial pool, rented space in the cloud). 

In the case of Romance, it can be the renting of two apartments that has to be eliminated.  It used to be that record collections and book collections would be merged, discarding duplicates -- with iTunes and e-books, that isn't how it's done anymore.  Today it's more about cancelling duplicate ISP accounts.

Once joined, the Soul Mates each "lack" something ( look up "packing fraction" in atomic physics -- the energy an atomic nucleus does not have because it was emitted when the components joined to create that nucleus.)  In a Romance, the packing-fraction would be the discarded duplicate DVD, book, or ISP account, the extra square-footage rented, etc. 

Now look again at Star Trek. 

Gene Roddenberry joined two characters into one, in order to get his show on the air, in order to appease the Network which refused to risk money on a show that put a woman in command of men on a bridge crew.

GR had to discard either Spock or Number One (by making her male), and chose the non-human crew member to speak of how humans look from the outside.  

Science Fiction is all about Point of View from inside a Character.  Crafting and expressing that Point of View requires clarity of a theme wholly integrated into (married to) a character. 

To do that, Gene Roddenberry lost the avante guarde thrust into a feminist culture that he wanted Trek to be. He got it back with the first inter-racial kiss on TV, Kirk and Uhura, but when he made this decision to drop Number One, he didn't know he'd be able to pull that off.

So Uhura got lines like, "I'm scared, Captain."  But the show got on the air.

Gene Roddenberry (and quite a few others) got fairly rich from it all -- a "small fortune."  He got rich because "they" invested in him, not in Trek. 

Does that mean the Rich Really Know?  Does that mean GR really knew? 

Well, he did become famous, too, so obviously that means he really knew, right? 

Think about it.  THINK-THINK-THINK.

Combining Number One and Spock drove human male Characters on the show to speaking about emotion, out-loud on TV.  What a concept! 

I knew Roddenberry -- spoke with him in private, personally, recorded and transcribed interviews with him, studied what he said and excerpted it for the book STAR TREK LIVES!  (all this while writing Sime~Gen Novels, too). 

So during this twitter exchange cited above, my thoughts went from considering why people invest in getting movies made (usually via Kickstarter) -- to the idea that they are investing in YOU, in the person not the project, to why "they" invested in Roddenberry.  He was, at that time, a known Character -- it was only the Idea that was crazy-nuts-ridiculous.  They invested in him, not Trek. 

*I*N*V*E*S*T*I*N*G* in YOU -- wow. 

It is not the project but YOU that gets the investment.  How very personal that makes all business -- just like romance gets really, intimately, personal.

OK, person not project.  Hmmm.  And Conflict is the Essence of Story as well as of Plot.

If you want to understand the world, you have to "follow the money." 

So in your novel that you are writing, you depict how investment money (or emotion) flows to the Character not the Project that the Character is launching.

Remember that THEME is the glue that holds the entire artistic composition of a novel, TV screenplay, Series, Feature Film, -- any fictional work -- together.

That's why SAVE THE CAT! emphasizes the necessity of getting that "Theme Stated Beat" just right. 

I happened to have been watching the fall, 2013 first episode of the season of ONCE UPON A TIME just before engaging in that twitter exchange, and I had noted how (once again) this show delivered a picture-perfect THEME STATED BEAT. 

At this moment, I don't remember what that theme was -- I just remember how that beat leaped out at me in vivid technicolor as being just, absolutely, p*e*r*f*e*c*t*l*y executed.

And that perfection came from the construction of the characters. 

Consider that each of the characters in ONCE UPON A TIME is "famous" in their own right -- from the fairy tale characters they are based upon.  Some of them are "rich" too.

When you're rich, they think you really know.

So with all of this sizzling around in my head, I got into a conversation with a professional writer in a chatroom between tweets in that twitter exchange.

The conversation was about "life, the universe, and everything" -- A.K.A. "what's wrong with this world?"  I mean what else do professional writers talk about in off moments in private?  It went from current political campaign maneuvers to assisted living facilities to water quality control to building new bridges and infrastructure, all the way to G-d Himself.

During that chatroom exchange I got onto one of my hobbyhorses -- CHARACTER. 

We follow fictional characters episode after episode because of the story of the characters -- not because of the PLOT. 

It is the character arc that intrigues us.   

During the years of ST:ToS, series characters were not allowed to "arc" -- because the shows had to be viewable in any order to qualify for syndication and thus be worth the cost of production.

But fans wouldn't accept that "anthology" structure.  Fans wanted to follow the characters through life-changes -- such as finding true love.  So they wrote and shared their own Trek stories. 

For fans, aired-Trek was just the springboard for the stories they shared. 

Here is a non-fiction book about the development of Fan Fiction.  I have an essay in here, as does Rachel Caine, author of the best-selling Morganville Vampires series.
http://www.amazon.com/Fic-Fanfiction-Taking-Over-World/dp/1939529190/

A "springboard" -- like a diving board -- must flex under the weight of the character, then "spring" upward to hurl the character into the arc. 

The board must not break at the bottom of the flex.  What gives your story springboard that flexibility and strength to support the weight of the character is theme. 

Fame and Glory Makes "them" Think You Really Know so "they" invest in you rather than your project

That is a concept replete with strong and flexible thematic material. 

So as I was tweeting, I found myself in this chat room expounding on a thesis -- a point that seems to be escaping notice by the general public, and is therefore a theme to generate a Best Seller. 

Fame, Glory, Riches are tools.  Who is the tool user? 

Your characters are tool-users, just like real people.  Sometimes a Character gets used, as if he/she were a tool.  They invest in you, not your project.  That's how politicians get "chosen" by the financial backers to be "groomed" for office.  The money gets invested in grooming the politician's image, not in what the politician stands for, not his personal hobby-horse, not his project but in him. 

Lots of really great books and films have spoken on themes such as The Hollywood Producer who says, "I will make you a star!"

Here is the gist of the micro-essays I hammered out between the tweets cited at the top of this entry.

------edited transcript of chatroom discussion ------------

ME 9:46 am
    ...yes, I object strongly to high-density populations -- VERY strongly.  Humans are not built for that.  It ruins all sense of morality. (previously cited studies on rats over-crowded turning violent)
    But schools are AWFUL EVERYWHERE -- graph historical deterioration against growth of Fed Dept of Ed.

 SHE 9:47 am
    The people who were running for school board were against diverting all the tax payer money to the private schools which is stripping the public schools of all the arts and sports programs.
    No music, no art, no sports of any sort, not school plays, no concerts.

 ME 9:48 am
    I'm against arts and sports programs in public schools -- flat against. 
    COERCION AND BULLYING ARE WRONG
    And that's what "sports" has become.  No such thing as "sportsmanship" any more.  Public School sports programs do not build character as they once did.  Sports was all about character building; now it's about winning, not about how you play the game, or behave toward the loser.  Nobody loses, so no character building happens.
.....
 ME 9:50 am
    Art used to be about character building (the shows I love are about STRENGTH OF CHARACTER IS REQUIRED FOR SUCCESS) -- today Fed money supports pub school arts programs that prevent art from expressing necessity to be a STRONG CHARACTER (kids now think "strong" means bulging muscles gained by taking pills). 
  "Art" used to be taught as a method of displaying poetic justice abroad in the world.  Those who adhered to the highest moral standards would win in the end.
    That was THEN -- this is NOW.
    Things have changed.

 SHE 9:51 am
    It's still wrong to strip the public schools of these programs just to send a few other kids to special ed classes.

 ME 9:52 am
    If you make it a fight over money -- bullies win by crying "You victimized me."
    WATCH for the victim mentality and how passive-agressives play the victim card to mask the fact they are bullies.
    THE LESS MONEY THEY CONTROL THE MORE HONEST THEY WILL BE -- control of large amounts of money you didn't make by your own sweat tests character, and it is character that our society is lacking right now. 
------pause chatroom transcript--------------

I was thinking about Tevye's lack of envy and jealousy, about his unconscious assumption that money was not a limited resource, that if he had a small fortune it didn't mean others in the town would have less.  "Would it upset some master plan?" he asks.  In his world, sending some kids to special ed would not mean "stripping the public schools of programs."  Tevye didn't live in an Aristotelian, zero-sum-game world.  Is Tevye a "strong character?"

Remember, we're chasing what it is about "story" that creates "interesting."  Is it in the point of view? 

We are looking into the story-element "character" and pondering the adage "follow the money" to understand why investors invest in the person, not the project (and how that can make for interesting episodic story-structures.)

Some investors may have decided that strength of character is the signature of a person who will be able to bring a project to successful (profitable) conclusion.  Gene Roddenberry was definitely seen as having strength of character. 

Other investors may be looking for a "weak character" who can be manipulated and bamboozled into doing the investor's bidding. 

The twitter exchange above indicates publishers invest in you more than in your novel. 

Do you have the "strength of character" to imbue your fictional characters with strength?

Can you show-don't-tell character strength? 

Can you increase or decrease a fictional character's strength during that character's arc, and pace that change in such a way as to interest your audience?

The essence of story is character while the essence of plot is conflict. 

In this chatscript, I expressed a point of view about the world around us as suffering from a gradual weakening of "strength of character."  If that's true, what does that mean to publishers looking to profit by investing in you, the writer, rather than in your book?

Entertainment that is intrinsically interesting to the greatest number of people, entertainment with "reach," is (today; not in ST:ToS's market) entertainment structured around Character Arc.

Character Arc used to be only growth of characters toward a stronger moral or ethical fiber, an increasing ability to handle large amounts of power over others and not wimp out on choosing "the right course of action" over the "expedient course of action" or the popular course, or the profitable course. 

The advent of the anti-hero has led to popularity of a character arc that traces the devolution of character.

A great example of that is Laurell K. Hamilton's Vampire Series about Anita Blake. 

Up to #22 in that series now:
http://www.amazon.com/Affliction-Anita-Vampire-Hunter-ebook/dp/B009NY3HSG/

I think that anti-hero character devolution trend has bottomed out and we're turning a corner.

I see that turning in the evolution of the Vampire Romance -- the Vampire once represented the epitome of seductive Evil, and has been transformed by Romance fans into a hero returning from the pits of hell to be a staunch advocate of morality (at least to the extent of not-killing his lovers).

The Sexy Vampire Hero is so interesting to me for how he resists temptation (for blood).  Resisting temptation is a measure of strength of character.  The Anita Blake Series describes giving in to temptation as the only sane course. 

-------Back to chatroom discussion where I'm talking to a professional writer -----------

 ME 9:55 am
    You are intrepid -- and you don't see all that's happening around you because you are a person of very strong character. 
    You would not be challenged by being handed control of billions of dollars -- you don't understand the kind of challenge others face when in that position because you are such a GOOD person, down to the core.  They are good people, too  -- and you recognize yourself in them -- but fail to comprehend where exactly they are weak that you are strong.

 SHE 9:57 am
    I guess that's true. When I fantasize about winning the lottery my first thought is all the swimming pools I'm going to fund for the Town, the half-way houses....

 ME 9:58 am
    OK, so you see what I mean.  Watch for it -- it is subtle, but devastating.  And the origin is at the point where the Fed d of ed deleted the teaching of GEOMETRY PROOFS from HS.
    They just lately promulgated an actual prohibition on teaching geometry proofs in that Core thing they're beating down people's throats.  That core thing rewrites history -- in ways only you would see -- considering that praise from your former HS History Teacher.

 SHE 10:00 am
    Actually, I see in the candidates they put up for office how they have no understanding of how things work.
    I don't mean politics either.
    They don't understand the difference between a law and a regulation. The don't understand what jurisdictions are.

 ME 10:01 am
   Yes, law vs reg -- YES!
    Very important.
    Also I watch a lot of shows about grifters and rackets -- watch for those tactics being used on voters and then the voters do not see it even though they watch the same TV shows.

SHE 10:02 am
    I was at a forum where they're asking businesses to discuss outdated and duplicating regulations, ones that cause more harm than good.
    But none of these people spoke about regulations, only laws.
    They had no idea about the difference.
    These people are running businesses.
    Also, I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, "well, that's a good law because it does standardize certain safety measures and make things easier."
    But, THEY consider it too much paperwork.
    It really is nuts. One good thing that came down from, actually I think it was Obama, was that there had to be a country wide standard of chain of command for first responders.

ME 10:03 am
    'REGS THAT DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD'  -- don't confuse the tool with the tool-user when examining the source of a result.
    "Guns don't kill people -- people do"  "videogames don't make children into criminals"  and 'regulations don't cause the harm - it is the regulation creators and users who do the harm'  -- PEOPLE DO THE HARM NOT THE TOOL THEY USE. 
   That's a principle - a theme - in TV shows about grifters and rackets.
  Grifters can only manipulate Marks who haven't the strength of character to ignore their own Greed.  Protection Racket uses the Greed for Safety to manipulate Marks by arousing fear.  The Mark's Greed is the tool the Grifter uses. You can't eliminate Greed from human nature.  That tool is always there for grifters to use.  It's the grifter that does the harm, not the Greed.  
   That's related to what I was saying about CHARACTER.  It's people of weak character who shoot people, become criminals because of their chosen entertainment, waste themselves on the internet, or bully others on Facebook. Facebook is a tool -- IT IS THE TOOL USER WHO DOES THE HARM, not the tool.  A rock can make a meditation garden restful or that same rock can be a weapon to murder someone with or drop off an overpass onto a car.  You can't eliminate harmful behavior by eliminating tools like guns.  The one bent on harm will pick up a rock, which can be even more deadly. 

 SHE 10:06 am
    The Chain of Command Reg is so that CAPTAIN, means the same level of authority and responsibility throughout the country.
    When firemen from New York go to help out in New Mexico and someone says, "ask the Captain," they all know exactly what they all mean.

 ME 10:08 am
    YES - CHAIN OF COMMAND FOR FIRST RESPONDERS -- yes, but it is the tool USER who sees that wondrous powerful tool of Chain of Command and decides to use it for harm (maybe because they don't see the harm but just the personal gain). 
   "Too much paperwork" complaint is because the weak character of the people involved in a long chain of command makes the whole chain REQUIRE SUPERVISION.     They aren't individuals who operate on individual judgement calls made on the spot.  Ordinary, normal people aren't considered smart enough to act on personal recognizance and take the consequences of their actions.  All decision-making must be centralized and "accountable" to others -- no individual judgement allowed.  If we'd done that in WWII, we'd have lost. 
   Today people think personal, on the spot, judgement calls must be eradicated because of the "danger" that the judgement call won't be correct and the person who made that call (or their supervisor) will be legally liable.  In a world where kids are raised to have increasingly strong characters throughout life, they automatically mature to make correct judgement calls (mostly) no matter how fast-moving events may be. 
  Developing strong judgement is the main side effect of developing strong character.    Since we have deteriorating strength of character, we think it's better to have "tight supervision" and "chains of command" (long ones) so responsibility can be escaped as long as you don't act on your own judgement. 
   Once supervision is in place, then the "power-seekers" (who are always of weak character) will flock to the control point of central command and use those regulations to DO HARM (whether they realize what they are doing is harm, or not).  We appoint certain people to become Users of the Tools that we make others into -- but those "power-seekers" are not of stronger character than the "tools" they are appointed to use.
   An entire chain-of-command composed of individuals of weak character will not perform nearly as well as a single individual of strong character -- e.g. a Hero. 
   The source of all the problems making headlines (I'm seeing hot novel-topics all over the place!)  today that all seem unrelated to one another is WEAK CHARACTER. 
    Don't blame the tool (gun, Law, Regulation, or Bible) for the tool user's bad judgement stemming from weak character.
 ----------END TRANSCRIPT--------

So the character trait that you can base a long, interesting episodic series upon lies within that element quoted in the song from FIDDLER - "when you're rich, they think you really know."

Fame, Glory, Riches

Those of "weak character" look upon those traits as something to be desired, something which can solve all their problems, alleviate their emotional pain (about which they will not speak because it's an emotion). 

Those of "strong character" look upon those traits as undesirable because they cause more problems than they solve.

Today's audiences seem to want their fiction to solve all problems without the agony of increasing character strength (that teen-angst-agony used to be called Growing Pains).

The solution to most problems that avoids all Growing Pains, or character Arc, avoids all strengthening of character, is violence -- sometimes substituted for by sex.

Only those of weak character "...kill only when I have to." 

Those of strong character don't kill because they never "have to." 

Writing Exercise

Create a Hero and an Adversary -- imbue one with a strong character and one with a weak character -- then convince your reader that each one has a "project" they want the other to "invest in" which is "right" and "righteous." 

Pit them against each other, let the explosion blow apart and reassemble each of the characters -- let the characters ARC, each becoming stronger in character and thus less prone to use force (of law, regulation, grifter-trickery, or backup Authority such as Religion) to get the other to do what they want.  Get the characters to "invest" in each other (that's the core of the Buddy Story from Save The Cat!). 

Relationships between Lovers who happen to become Buddies are the essence of the kind of Springboard that can propel an episodic plot.   

If you want a model for this, check out the TV Series Suits,

http://www.usanetwork.com/suits/cast/harvey-specter

and look carefully at the characters of Jessica and Harvey and their Relationship.  I think of Mike Ross as the Star of this show, but he doesn't have a love-relationship with his prime Adversary.  Louis Litt, however, just may be the mirror of the Harvey/Jessica relationship.  Look at the "strength" depicted in Harvey (who now has an old love-relationship returning to his life), and watch how he mentors Mike into similar strength -- how he clashes and meshes on values.

Study that show for the almost-but-not-quite tease in these Relationships. 

Watch all the shows in close order to capture the "off-the-nose" discourse on ethics and values -- stating the ideal, then not-quite living up to it, then taking the consequences of that failure. 

You might want to do a contrast/compare study between Suits and The Incredible Hulk TV series
http://www.amazon.com/The-Incredible-Hulk-Pilot/dp/B000WFSLRM/

In HULK, the Hero and the Adversary are the same person. 

Some of the episodes were written by my Facebook friend, Allan Cole, and he has told that story in "My Hollywood Misadventures" which is now in paper, e-book and audiobook:

http://www.audible.com/pd/Bios-Memoirs/My-Hollywood-MisAdventures-Audiobook/B00FAUNP1Q/

If you can trace the character arcs in your own story in a way that reveals the Poetic Justice behind all the events of Life, The Universe, And Everything -- it is very likely that the publishers you submit the story to will view you as a Strong Character worth investing in.

Your strength will be revealed in the path, the dynamic arc, of your characters because the characters will be fully integrated into the theme. 

For a book editor, "investing in you" can mean sending you a contract, then sending you rewrite orders.  The editor will consider that the investment has paid off if you send back a rewritten manuscript that now comes up to the publisher's specs.  Profit comes when the product actually markets easily. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Career Management for Writers in a Changing World

Last week we took a detour from Theme-Plot integration into Business Model discussions. 

http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/business-model-of-writers-in-changing.html


In November 2012 I went to a benefit concert where Theodore Bikel sang folksongs in many languages (all but one of which I know a bit of). As you probably know by now, I'm a big Theodore Bikel fan, and will rave about him below, but this is more about planning and executing a long, targeted and lucrative career in the arts. So first lets take a long look at a writer's career you should study. Here's a writer I have followed for about twenty years less than I've followed Theodore Bikel, and about whom I know a lot less. He's Allan Cole:

a very friendly guy, comfortable and voluble in the "new media" world -- blogging, Facebook, twitter, etc. I've run into him almost everywhere, and just take his presence forgranted because he's always around, saying something to think about or to relay to others who've been talking about it.

Just look at his picture.  Isn't that a guy you'd be glad to sit and listen to for a while?  Well, if you're planning a  career as a writer -- or even any kind of creative endeavor in any medium yet to be invented -- you would do well to pay attention to Allan Cole.

Here are some clues for how to start -- and don't grit your teeth.  Sometimes studying can be fun! 

Here's his IMDB page --

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0170426/

IMDB is the movie database with all the credits listed so you can see who did what -- or look up a PERSON who works on movies and see what movies or TV shows they've done.  All that with only a free account, and you can find great movies and TV shows and click through to buy with Amazon just like that!  With a paid account, there's lots more information for professionals. 

Here's Allan Cole's public bio from IMDB. 

-----------QUOTE-------------
Allan Cole is a best-selling author, screenwriter and former prize-winning newsman who brings a
rich background in travel and personal experience to his imaginative work. Raised in Europe and the Far East, Cole attended thirty-two schools and visited or lived in as many countries. He recalls hearing The Tempest for the first time as a child sitting on an ancient fortress wall in Cyprus - the island Shakespeare may have had in mind when he wrote the play. Rejecting invitations to become a CIA operative like his father, Cole became an award-winning investigative reporter and editor who dealt with everything from landmark murder cases to thieving government officials. Since that time he's concentrated on books and film. His novels include the landmark science fiction series, "Sten," the highly-praised fantasy trilogy, "Tales Of The Timuras," and the Vietnam war classic, "A Reckoning For Kings." Allan has sold more than a hundred television dramas, ranging from "Quincy" and "The Rockford Files" to "Walker, Texas Ranger." He lives in Boca Raton, Florida, with his wife, Kathryn.
-----------END QUOTE -----------

The "Sten" series novels mentioned in that bio (terrific reading!)

Here's #1 -- follow the link to find the others.



have been published then reprinted interntionally with huge sales numbers, and recently been republished in USA editions in ebook, paper, and audiobook from audible.com (fabulous reader!).  It's no wonder.  They're great reading or listening, but they have another dimension to them.

As I've been telling you on this blog, the knack of selling text-stories in today's market CHANGED.  The big sales now go to novels structured like screenplays -- and/or with scenes structured like screenplays -- and/or with characters formulated like TV characters.

I've been unable to tell you when that shift happened.  It wasn't abrupt, and it wasn't bally-hooed about in the media, and it wasn't noted in books on writing craft.  It just sneaked up on us.

Now I know when it happened.  I ran into one of Allen Cole's blogs, I don't remember where, perhaps on twitter, a couple years ago.  This one is about his adventures as a screenwriter in Hollywood.

http://allan-cole.blogspot.com/   -- titled MY HOLLYWOOD MISADVENTURES

As of Jan. 2013, http://alcole.blogspot.com/  carries installments of a biographical laugh-a-minute life story episode in Allan Cole's life titled THE BLUE MEANIE (also set in Los Angeles, but prior to the Misadventures).  It's about the time when Allan worked as a journalist and managed apartment buildings.

Who could resist such a title?   It's about "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen!" 

You will note Allan Cole had many successes in selling screenplays.  But what about the failures and the embarrassments and the just plain disasters wound up in the origin of those successes?  Most writers won't tell on themselves.  Allan Cole tells on himself, and makes you double over in laughter while he's at it. 

When you're done reading these blogs (a bunch are collected into an ebook for easy reading, find the link on the blog page at the top), you will have a new perspective on what it means "career in writing." 

And don't think this pertains just to Hollywood.  The same stuff goes on in print publishing.  It's the nature of big business to treat "talent" or "content providers" as the least important cogs in the wheels. 

Now remember, we're looking at a biography that stretches into the past in order to construct a game-plan for a life and  career that stretches into the future.

Look at the history of the STEN series.  It started in the early 1980's, a bit after Sime~Gen which began in 1969 -- from material developed decades before that. 

Note this blog:
http://stencole.blogspot.com/
-- where Allan gave us a wonderful series of posts during the election cycle titled HOW THE ETERNAL EMPEROR STEALS ELECTIONS -- the "Eternal Emperor" of note is one of the main characters in the STEN series who definitely belongs on the USA NETWORK CHARACTERS WELCOME series.  In fact, several of the characters from STEN, including Sten himself, belong on USA as stars of their own series! 

Here's a quote from Allan Cole on Facebook pointing us to parts of his autobiography:

--------------QUOTE-------------
Allan Cole I've written two parts of it:

Lucky In Cyprus - https://sites.google.com/site/colesnewspreviews/the-lucky-in-cyprus-page and

Tales Of The Blue Meanie - https://sites.google.com/site/colesnewspreviews/the-summer-of-love-page
I've got two more I'm writing (not counting the MisAdventures) Lucky In Okinawa and The Game Warden's Sons
-----------END QUOTE------------

Now think hard about this "changing world" that I've been talking about in posts like those about the crumbling business model for writers, the whole social media evolution and self-publishing, then Indie ebook-only publishers, now web-series TV. 

What I call "the fiction delivery system" is shifting hard, as hard in the coming decades as in the century after Guttenberg's movable type concept hit the world.

From historyguide.org

Guttenberg worked on his gadget in the mid-1400's -- 500 years later, a similar distribution channel opening created "Hollywood" -- i.e. flicks, film, movies.  Stories in pictures that MOVE.

But distribution was clumsy -- people had to go to special places to see these "flicks."

OK, but by 1950 Television was deploying those moving-image stories into people's living rooms.

There was a market for such pictured-fiction, they knew, from the hoards that frequented movie houses --- and from the immense success of radio fiction that developed concurrently. 

It's all about how much it costs to put the story into the consumer's hands.  Remember that when creating your career plans.  COST vs. PRICE

It costs such-and-so to create the product and move it to the consumer, but what will the consumer pay?  How much do they want it, and how much free cash flow do they have to spend on stuff they just want?

Now consider your age as you launch your writing career.  How many years will you be at this business?  Of course, there's always the chance you'll strike it rich and retire early, but really, is that what you (a born storyteller) want?  To not-write new stories?

Look now at the career arc of Theodore Bikel. 

He is a great writer, true, but he's an actor, a singer, raconteur and many other kinds of performer.

Here he is on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000942/

Here is his website:
http://bikel.com

And here is the photo from that website:  

And that's exactly how he looks today, so I didn't take any photos of him during his performance that I just went to see.

If he looks familiar -- or sounds familiar (you can get all his recordings as MP3 on Amazon ) it might be because he played Worf's human father on Star Trek. 

Here is the little auditorium at the benefit, and the tiny stage with really spiffy, ultra-modern sound equipment and excellent lighting -- all the technical trappings you could hope for anywhere.  I got there early.  Eventually, the place filled up. 

Many of the shows he was in happened so long ago they aren't on IMDB.  There is one film, in particular, I'd love to have titled Fraulein that Theo was in, and on one of his albums which is a recording at a live concert, he tells the story of how he was hired to play a Russian, and asked if he knew any Russian songs.  So he said, "A few." (actually it's more than a few, but that's how you talk in Hollywood.)  And they asked him to bring in a few and perform for them.  So he did, and they loved the songs -- but said they couldn't use them because of copyright.  All the songs were very old folk songs, but that's how they talk in Hollywood.  So they said they'd have a genuine old Russian folksong composed for him to sing.  He sang it in this film, it says on the recording of the concert.  The song is, I think, titled Nichevo. 

I have searched for this movie many times -- but as I was writing this blog entry, I poked around Amazon some more, and found this listed as available for STREAMING (to my Kindle Fire, or my TV, or probably even my phone if I could figure out how to do that).  So I got it. 

Here's the details from that movie on Amazon's page:

 Product Details
Synopsis: A Nazi's fiancee helps an escaped U.S. soldier, then meets him in postwar Berlin.
Starring: Dana Wynter, Mel Ferrer
Supporting actors: Dolores Michaels, Margaret Hayes, Theodore Bikel, Luis Van Rooten, Helmut Dantine, Herbert Berghof, James Edwards, Ivan Triesault, Blandine Ebinger, Jack Kruschen, Dorothy Arnold, John Banner, Edith Clair, Peter Coe, Gabriel Curtiz, Don Diamond, Ed Erwin, Fred Essler, Gerry Gaylor, Alex Goudavich
Directed by: Henry Koster
Genre: Romance, War, Drama
Runtime: 1 hour 37 minutes
Release year: 1958
Studio: 20th Century Fox
ASIN: B0025X6072 (Rental) and B0025X7W5G (Purchase)
Rights & Requirements
Rental rights: 24 hour viewing period Details
Purchase rights: Stream instantly and download to 2 locations. Details
Format: Amazon Instant Video (streaming online video and digital download)

1958 -- can you believe that?  I found a movie from 1958 mentioned on a record from I suppose the 1960's -- that I haven't seen -- with Theodore Bikel in it. 

NOTE THE GENRE OF THIS FILM -- ROMANCE.

This is a perfect example of what I'm pointing out to you here as an element to consider carefully as you manage your career as a writer, a "content provider."  1958 -- about 500 years after Guttenberg.  Think about that.  Think very carefully about the implications for our future -- "if this goes on ..."

Here's where to see the movie for yourself -- NOTE HOW YOUNG HE LOOKS compared to the picture from his website which is how he looks now.  Imagine your life "then" and "now."  And remember he was born in 1924.  He's going on 90.  What will your "backlist" look like when you're going on 90? 



Many of the shows he was in happened so long ago they aren't on IMDB.  There is one film, in particular, I'd love to have titled Frauline that starred Theo, but it doesn't turn up in google search -- it's very old.

Here's Theo's autobiography (told you he's a writer!)




I was sure I'd seen it on Kindle, but the only one I can find now is the paper edition.  *sigh* We really need an ebook edition.

I have the first edition which I got him to autograph long ago. 

Here's a quote from Kirkus Reviews:

----------QUOTE-------
Review

"A compelling life, taking Bikel from pre–World War II Eastern Europe to an acting career in Israel; emigration to England after the war, training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and initial success in British theater and film; a leap to the Broadway stage and stardom in The Sound of Music; productive years as a Hollywood character actor; a new career as a folksinger in the late1950s; then several decades of activism, as president of Actors’ Equity and a prominent figure in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements."—Kirkus Reviews
---------------END QUOTE---------------

If you're planning a career -- not just "I want to get my book published," but "I want to make a living as a writer," you need to read dozens of such biographies before planning your life.

But this one is particularly interesting when compared to Allan Cole's life. 

Theo was born in 1924, barely escaped annihilation in the war, spent time learning acting in England and lived in Israel before it was "Israel" officially (again), and in Paris where he learned Russian gypsy songs.

Look at both of these careers as the relentless application of the need to communicate, regardless of the technological means at hand.  Each time, during these chronicled decades, these documented decades of history, that technology or life-circumstance changed, each man grabbed hold of what was available and poured "message" into the "speaking tube" between himself and his audience.

Allan Cole tells of how he just fell into screenwriting while trying to launch a novel career, and considers himself a novelist who sometimes writes for screen. 

HERE'S THE BIG KICKER:
I didn't know this when I started writing this post, but trading comments with Allan Cole on his Facebook Group, I mentioned Theo Bikel and here's what Allan Cole said:

--------QUOTE-------------

Allan Cole Theodore Bikel! Fabulous actor, and dedicated supporter of worthy causes. First time I saw him was when he played one of the Nazi officers who captured Bogart and Hepburn in The African Queen. Talk about being totally opposite the character you're playing. Now, that's acting. Followed him closely his entire career.
---------END QUOTE--------

In case you don't know the film, here it is, and you can rent it on Amazon for $2.99 to watch streaming instantly (see, that's what I mean by a changing world - some of the really oldest material is still available.  Plan your career accordingly.  Don't put out anything you're going to be ashamed of later. 

Read about Theo, and you'll always find an acoustical guitar around in his life somewhere.  He still plays acoustic guitar (and very well, too!).  When he had no work as an actor, he was singing at parties -- not even getting paid to do it -- way into the wee hours.  Today his voice is as deep, resonant and strong as ever. 

There's an energy inside these people that just pours out, and like water, finds a channel somewhere. 

Is that you?

Is that what you're like?  Is what you do who you are? 

Then check out the arc of technology into the future, such as we can see it today.

If civilization holds together long enough, we will see over the next few decades how technology will change our civilization at its roots, just as the printing press did. 

The way we communicate, and with whom we communicate, has changed.  All this "social networking" stuff is more like the moving type concept added to the printing press concept.  It's a furbish added on top of the internet, a refinement.

And there will be more such innovations, just as there came newspapers, magazines, color printing, paperback novels, the Ace Doubles novels, radio drama, TV drama.

And here we are, with these people whose lives are all about communicating, who are now "accessible" on the web -- and look at that concert venue!  I've been to many concerts, but that was the closest I've been to a stage. 

Oh, there was one unforgettable experience I had in Las Vegas one time I was passing through and spent some time at Circus Circus -- just happened to luck into sitting almost right under the net looking up at a flying act, dust from the net falling into my eyes.  NEVER been so close (and these guys were the world-famous sort who perform for Ringling).  Circus has been one of my primary hobbies for a long time, so it was a glamorous moment, yes, but instructive in so many other ways. 

So yes, life delivers a few of these moments when you can "make contact" with a performer.

But consider being the performer.

Writing is a performing art.  What does it take to keep performing regardless of the twists and turns  of the technology of your delivery channel?  Do you have that? 

You see, the trick is to know that you don't "change yourself" -- or your art or your product -- to fit changing times.  You draw upon the raw material you collected growing up, and shape that material to fit the currently available channels for output. 

In the 1950's, when television was new, singers took their record hits from record-store sales and radio, and performed them on TV.  Elvis Presley was a "discovery" on "The Ed Sullivan Show" (a variety show, recycling stage performances to TV.

Performers had to adapt to "the small screen."  Red Skelton is another name you should look up for a media-evolution spanning career study. 

I saw in the popularity of a weekly half-hour show called The Hit Parade the earliest origins of, believe it or not, videogaming.

The Hit Parade was just the biggest selling recorded singers/songs of the week -- and that was pre-vinyl when records were breakable.  The show actually spanned the transition to the 45RPM (those little records with the big holes.) 

It was "The Lucky Strike Hit Parade" -- it had only one sponsor, the cigarette brand Lucky Strike.  Despite loving the show, I never became a smoker.

What did I see in that televised show of singers standing at a mike on a stage just singing songs you heard on the radio?  I saw THE MUSIC VIDEO -- and then they invented the music video!

But when I saw Music Videos take off as an artform, I saw videogames -- interactiving games.

When I saw interactive videogames take off, I saw all kinds of things that are only now becoming part of our lives (such as actual pilot training done by simulator, and drone planes used for various purposes controlled remotely).  I wasn't the only one to project these developments.  SF writers poured out more visions of futures than will ever happen.

Speaking of changing media, here's another item I found posted on Allan Cole's facebook Group.
----------QUOTE------------
Allan Cole
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57548460-1/curtains-for-cursive-typing-replaces-handwriting-in-schools/
Curtains for cursive? Typing replaces handwriting in schools
Keyboards continue their slow march to domination, overthrowing pens and pencils in schools across the nation. Read this article by Amanda Kooser on CNET.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
I've heard so many talking about this. I'm going to put this in that January blog post where I'm recommending writing students study the careers of Allan Cole and Theo Bikel. It's about anticipating media changes in the future. The new 007 movie, which I haven't seen, is reputed to have little in the way of imaginative, astonishing gadgetry we've never thought of before - but good chase scenes. Life in the arts is all about CHANGE -- I'm expecting videogames and music video artforms to converge soon.
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I still think the music-video and video-game artforms (think about smartphones!) are on a collision course and will be the foundation of new artforms designed for new distribution technology that will carry the stories of the future.  The evolution will follow something similar to what we've seen in the graphic novel (which is one of the most exciting things happening!)

And remember it's all about COST vs. PRICE.  Business model.  That's the key to a long career.

Now, remember when you were 10 years old?  15?  What was life like then? 

Think about what life will be 60 years later.

Consider the shortening intervals between culture-shifting innovations in communications and travel technology.  500 years from Guttenberg to 1955 -- overlapping in there radio, TV, and computers, -- Star Trek and the internet overlapping development -- the web coming from European origin then overlapping, setting fire to inventions, and now web radio from around the world, and Web TV.

We've seen more real change in how we live in the last 50 years than in the previous 500.

Where will we be 50 years from now?  Consider 2012 saw the first real evidence that there really is such a thing as the "Higgs Boson" -- the "God Particle" that is the medium or origin of gravity, and thus possibly the key to interstellar travel.

Will we find the "particle" responsible for "time?" 

How could that change how you entertain your customers? 

What basic skills that I've been pointing you toward will you need 50 years from now?  How many of these story-structure skills will be useful to you then?  How much effort should you put into developing those skills?

Think about Theodore Bikel's voice training in England -- read his autobiography!   He tells "stories" in song.  That's what folksongs are -- little vignettes, stories encapsulated for transmission through the generations.  The Bible is a SONG -- ever heard it sung?  It's a SONG!!!  Look how long that's lasted.  The acoustic guitar -- that's a descendent of the lyre that King David (who wrote most of the songs sung in The Temple now available as the Book of Psalms, part of the Bible in many printings.)  Songs have structure.

Think about Allan Cole's experiences in the military.  Martial arts is often called poetry in motion.

Novels and feature films tell stories with a structure -- derived from life itself. 

What have you got that's similar to what these men with long, variegated careers had when they started? 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com