Depiction Part 13 - Depicting Wisdom by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction

Part 13
Depicting Wisdom
by
 Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The previous parts of this series are found here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

Wisdom is an intangible.  So how do you Show Don't Tell?

The PR (Public Relations ) science that creates ads for perfume, and even food -- both of which are tangible -- is really selling the experience of smelling or tasting, which is intangible.  So you learn depict Wisdom by studying TV Commercials, even web-ads.

Intangible aspects of human experience are rooted in the tangible.

You can look at this two ways:
A) that which is tangible creates the intangible
B) that which is intangible is the "Foundation" or creative channel which causes the tangible to manifest.

OK, you can sprain your brain on that one.

So lets look at some of the fundamental components of the general subject of wisdom as a means of generating one-liners that people will enshrine in those little digital samplers you see all over the place, with a tag crediting your Character with saying it just exactly so!

1) What is Wisdom?
2) Where Does Wisdom come from?
3) How do readers identify the Wisdom level of a Character?
4) Does Wisdom have anything to do with Truth?
5) Who was the wisest human in human history?
6) Does a real-world historical character's wisdom shape your reader's world?
7) If you see historical bits of wisdom creating the standards of wisdom in the current world, should you include some Historical Character in your Worldbuilding for your current characters to quote? If you should include such a quote, how do you include it?
8) Does your target audience respect Wisdom or despise it?
9) Is Wisdom sexist?
10) What historical real world females are quoted today as having achieved Wisdom?
11) Are there more Wise Men than there are Wise Women in your reader's real world acquaintance?
12) If your readers are largely female, do they need a Wise Character to look up to and emulate -- to strive to become?  Does that character have to be female, too?
13) Does the Romance Genre typically use the first encounter and process of internalizing a point of Wisdom as the plot-driver? 14) Are men sexually attracted to young women who utter Ancient Wisdom couched in Modern Vernacular?
15) Does the application of a point of Wisdom to real life create success in Love Stories, Romance novels, real life business, child rearing, rejoining a career track after childbirth?

Perhaps, for our purposes, the most important question would be how do you find a bit of Ancient Wisdom and re-cast it into modern vernacular applicable to a sizzling hot Alien Romance story?

Is the Wisdom component part of the story or the plot?  Or does it only belong in the Theme?

Is the "Theme Stated" Beat in Save The Cat! actually the quotable one-liner that encapsulates an Ancient Wisdom into modern vernacular?

   Those are just a few of the most obvious questions to ponder when creating the Wisdom factor in your fictional work.

There are a lot of ways to use these concepts in Fiction, and I'm sure that with self-publishing successes turning up, we will find and define many more ways to Depict Wisdom.

Via the biggest, broadest Markets, we have good illustrations of the methodology in Yoda of Star Wars and Gandalf of Lord of the Rings.  Both are male.

When Wise women are depicted, the writers aiming for the big markets usually grab for some caricature of the Witch.  In the days of Radio Drama, Black Women were given the wisdom lines, keeping the family on track ethically and morally.  But they were usually Grandmothers.

The world has changed drastically -- and the rate of change seems to be speeding up as people communicate electronically.

So we have plenty of examples of Wisdom in science fiction and fantasy genres.  But Wisdom as a salient component of Romance seems to have gone missing.  Young women, nubile females, with a yen for a Soul Mate are not depicted as "attractive" because of their deep Wisdom and ability to articulate the oldest truths.

We won't get through that whole list of questions in one post, but we can get started by pondering what exactly is meant by Wisdom, what it is objectively, what the modern world thinks it is...

 

...and perhaps what you can do to express your Theme in a Wisdom Quotable.

From a writer's standpoint, Wisdom is a component of Character -- and so part of this discussion relates to Depicting Characters, and also to formulating Character, creating a Character who belongs in your Story, is a product of his/her World that you have built and thus depicts that world, and does things to change that world.

Always ask yourself if you want to write fiction that can change the world, or if you want this particular story to simply state the problem in the world today.  Or do you want to write a story that, as Gene Roddenberry always taught, simply asks a question.  If you are asking a question, how do you pose that question in Show-Don't-Tell terms?  And how does this question manifest as the Theme that glues your plot to your story.

Here's an index to advanced, two-technique synthesis on Character.

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

Here's the series on Dialogue - it has more than 4 posts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/dialogue-parts-1-4-listed.html

Here's the most elementary entry on Dialogue:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/dialogue-as-tool.html

Dialogue is one of the most efficient ways of depicting Character, and those one-line zingers that get quoted forever are generally types of wisdom quotes.

 

If you enjoy the exercise in pondering the abstracts of which comes first, the Wisdom or its manifestation, you should read the posts on this blog about Tarot -- or grab the Kindle compilations to nibble at in odd moments when you're looking for a plot-twist or solution to a conflict.

You can find the Tarot posts on Pentacles (tangible) or Swords (not-so-tangible) elements here:

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

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

Each of those lists has links to 10 posts on each Suit of the Tarot.

Here is the Kindle version of all twenty of those posts, plus 20 more on the Suits of Wands and Cups.
http://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Minor-Arcana-Books-ebook/dp/B010E4WAOU/

My approach to Tarot is simple. It is no use whatsoever for "foretelling" the future.  But it is a potent tool for creating riveting Plots, especially Romance plots that explore scientific truth.

You've seen the "quotes" that I've strewn through this post so far.

As a writer, have you noticed the ones that impact you most strongly have the fewest words, writ largest?

For example, what is the most terse, transparent, and easy to comprehend definition of Wisdom you have ever encountered?

King Solomon, the son of King David, was known far and wide for his Wisdom, so at the end of his life he wrote down the principles he used that were regarded as Wise.  These principles are all derived from what is derived from (many generations) the Torah, the 5 books of Moses, but distilled into the vernacular of King Solomon's day and age.

King Solomon defined the beginning of wisdom as the beginning of Knowledge rooted in the fear of God.  I could argue against that definition in many thousands of words because I disagree.





Those who have read my extensive discourses in this blog on the spiritual dimension of the Soul Mate, of Love Conquers All, realize that I see the real world as fabricated out of Love.

 

In my personal view, LOVE of God is the beginning of Wisdom.

But King Solomon's father, David, was the man who ran for his life saved only by the Hand of God, fought more fiercely and bravely than King Arthur, and handed a United Kingdom to his son, Solomon.

So naturally King Solomon would see in David's fear of God the source of his wisdom, obedience and thus success.




In the Book of Proverbs, King Solomon wrote at the very beginning, right after his definition,

 

This historic figure whose Proverbs reverberate throughout our whole culture -- right alongside, interwoven with, often indistinguishable from the Helenistic roots of our civilization (Aristotelian Logic) -- implores us to pay close attention to our Parents.

King Solomon didn't make that up.


Here's a hint of his main Source.

 

Note the 5th Commandment is the link between the Commandments that depict the Relationship between humans and the Creator -- and those that depict the Relationship between humans and humans.

The link-concept between the two sets of Commandments is Creation.  The Creator created humans, and then fathers and mothers create more humans.

Another source of Wisdom encapsulated in this graphic is what you learn when you read across (pairing #1 with #6 -- #5 with #10) -- so that you ponder how it is that Honoring your parents (not necessarily loving or approving of or even respecting your parents, but rather just Honoring) is related to the process of not "coveting."

In other words, Honoring your origins prevents you from hating others who have things you wish you had but don't.  Hate, envy, resentment, and the impetus King Solomon cites as the sign of a lack of Wisdom that causes us to chase after bait like a bird getting caught in a net, come from not knowing or understanding or revering your origins.

Ever noticed how fans of an Superhero bore right down to "The Origin Tale?"  How much money and brain-power have been spent trying to discover "the origin of life?"  Or think about the relentless pursuit of the Big Bang origin of the universe.  We know, deep down, that knowing our origin is vastly important, and the beginning of happiness.  We just have to KNOW our ORIGIN.

And that's what King Solomon pegs as the beginning of Knowledge -- fear of God, an awareness of the Originator of our origin.  We just have to find out.

How exactly Characters in a Romance story might find out something about their Origin ("I was adopted. I don't know who my mother was.") is the substance of a Theme -- a huge theme that could support a long series of long books that could live forever. Consider Oedipus Rex.

So maybe King Solomon got his "Wisdom" which we preserve in the book of Proverbs from his Father's biography and fear or obedience to God.  David's main life-theme was Praising God (even when handed the dirty end of the stick).  He praised God even from the depths of his worst suffering (which was epic!)

Remember, King Solomon's father, King David, had one of those trick memories, and annually would recite the entire Torah (all 5 books) before the people.

The Torah itself is actually a SONG -- it's written to be sung, not spoken.  King David is renowned for his musical talent, and is the author of most of the Book of Psalms -- the songs sung in the Temple daily by the Levites.

So when King Solomon explains that the beginning of his Wisdom lies with his father and mother, he is telling us (today) how to acquire that magnitude of Wisdom which caused him to be revered.

The whole book of Proverbs consists of nothing but quotables -- often more quoted than the one-line zingers our motion picture industry prizes.  Solomon's pithy distillations are very short conclusions about very knotty subjects.

These Proverbs are potent, concentrated conclusions on these topics, not lengthy lectures, info-graphics or How To lessons.  Nothing Made Simple.

So through the ages, many great writers have written extensive commentary on each and every one of the entries in King Solomon's list of Wisdoms.

Here's an example of one of the most quoted Rabbis annotations to Proverbs:
http://www.judaism.com/malbim-on-mishley/dp/BEBBE/

Here is a quick biography of the Malbim (a nickname -- all the great Rabbis whose commentaries are quoted have nicknames -- the custom was not invented JUST for Twitter!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbim

It isn't "simplicity" to use fewer words.

The concepts behind the words are deep and abstract, the subject intangible.

The few words are the tip of the iceburg of the main thought.  It's up to the reader to unravel and delve deeper into the subject when they come to a point in life where they are questioning in that area.

The Proverb is a brief, terse, one-liner, so that it will be remembered and quoted until it becomes a cliche.  "A stitch in time saves nine."

Then one day, something happens -- you walk your Character into a Situation -- and the Proverb comes to mind.

If you write it well, the reader will think of the cliche-Proverb before your Character does and will be rooting for your Character to remember that principle.  The Character then has to morph the Proverb into a form that applies to that Character's problem.

That's why I mentioned The Malbim -- a much quoted commentator.  The commentators "update" the encapsulated Wisdom from Proverbs, giving it the context of their time.

When you read the comments from the 1800's in Europe (the Malbim's venue) you notice they may as well be about some Alien Species among the Stars.

That is why they are salient to a writer's arsenal. They give you an alien perspective, and for a writer of science fiction romance stories that alien perspective is a priceless treasure trove of Ideas.

Know the original Book of Proverbs, read the commentary, see how the commentator of the 1800's translated the Ancient World into his era, grasp the technique used, then transpose that original wisdom into something applicable to your interstellar civilization.

Even readers who have never read the Torah, the Bible, or flat disbelieve in God, will recognize these principles even after you have morphed them into the cultures of non-humans.  That sense of recognition of the alien provides the necessary verisimilitude so the reader can walk a parsec in your Hero's moccasins.

Each of these bits of Wisdom encapsulated by King Solomon are Life Lessons you will find pegged in every culture throughout time, maybe spun in different ways, maybe inside-out in Values, but lessons considered Wisdom.

Learning some bit of wisdom is your Main Character's job in life.

In a series of long novels, the entire series sums up to ONE such Life Lesson, while each of the novels depicts some stage on the way to that big insight.  King Solomon's Proverbs are each the theme of a long Series, while the Commentators give you the intermediate steps for the individual books.

If you quote one of the Proverbs or the Commentator's wisdom, be sure to get the attribution correct.  That's important for all kinds of mystical reasons.

Oh, and be aware that with these internet sampler patches, the quote attributions need cross-checking.  Many are not correct.  Some people just put a name on there to make you respect the saying.  There are websites where you can plaster any words you type onto one of these samplers, and attribute the words to anyone.

But accuracy of attribution is not why I've included the images I found on Pinterest and by Googling.
In fact, the ones improperly attributed or mis-quoted, are your most valuable resource as a writer of romance stories.

These quotes represent popular wisdom -- some of which may have a kernal of truth behind it -- but for you, the point of pondering these quotes is to discern how they depict our current cultural realities.

Some substantial fraction of your readers will believe these things.

If you adopt one of these as a Theme, your Plot must argue against the quote (as well as for it), or its interpretation and application by your typical reader.

You also have to pay attention to how you choose vocabulary.

Sometimes you want an obscure word to rivet attention and make people look things up.  Sometimes you want to teach the meaning of an obscure (or made-up) word via show-don't-tell, and sometimes you want to be clear, plain, unequivocal and accessible by using the most common vernacular.

So, to sum up -- "What is Wisdom?"  Our oldest texts defining Wisdom may be Chinese, but the most relevant to the U.S.A. today's culture is either Aristotle or King Solomon.

Your original contribution may be quoted for centuries to come if you can distill Aristotle vs Solomon into Interstellar Civilization.

King Solomon says "fear of God" is the foundation of Knowledge.

Then he describes how fools take "bait" like a bird flying right into a net just to peck at some seed.

 


King Solomon wrote -- "O Simpletons" -- yes, the great, revered example of the Wisest of all Men was not "Politically Correct."

Now, who will be the revered Wisest Of All Women and will she be Politically Correct?

Remember, Wisdom is intangible.  Show Don't Tell means make it tangible.

Give it a symbol (remember the Seal of Solomon and the Shield of David?).

Give that symbol to a Character and make it emotionally meaningful to that Character (a lone surviving photo of Parents, an old, crumbling book of poems or sheet music, a piece of religious-themed jewelry, a Sword with an engraved blade?), challenge the Character to internalize that Wisdom.

Start your story at the beginning.  As King Solomon did, start with the tendency to be lured by bait despite the discipline of the Father and the teaching of the Mother.  Start with your exceptionally smart Character being a "Simpleton" as King Solomon termed the gullible.  Start with a Love of Folly and teach your Character the Wisdom of Solomon.  If you get stuck, read the Malbim's commentary.

There is a more handy source than these printed books, though.  On iTunes,
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ous-nach-yomi/id267721005?mt=2

Nach Yomi goes through the books of the Bible after the Torah, discussing the commentaries.  Just listen to the podcast for 20 minutes and you'll be brim full of story and plot.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Can Serials Work Via E-publishing?

I Retweeted a post on twitter and got into a discussion of the Question titling this post.

First a quick primer on basic Twitter which, if you know how twitter works, you may skip. If you don't "do" twitter, please read this.

-------Writer's Tutorial On Twitter -------------

Even if you don't plan to join twitter, you should be aware of the potential use of tweets in your narrative writing to shatter your Expository Lumps. Tweets work in drama because you can optionally set twitter to tweet to your phone, not just in a browser. News Services and TV News Shows twitter breaking news and even Amber Alerts and CDC alerts. Twitter is THE bulletin source for moving plots fast forward.

People in different parts of a theater can tweet or text during a show and discuss dialogue lines, or plan dinner, or plot an assassination (because tweets can be "private" and even coded.

On Twitter, RT means "re-tweet" meaning that you copy a tweet from someone you follow, paste it into your 140 character tweet box at the top of your page, put RT and an @ sign in front of the person's handle, and trim to 140 characters, then send it out. Your own handle gets auto-added so people who follow you and thus get your tweets will see that you are forwarding what someone else said. Only the tweeple who follow you will see what you posted. The tweeple who follow the person you're RT'ing will NOT see your RT unless they follow the person you're RT'ing too.

Twitter is one-way communication unless you make it two-way. But tweets are "public" and can be sorted by keyword, so strangers can converse.

If a RT is interesting, the people who follow you might follow the person you RT'd.

So when you "talk" by tweeting on twitter you have to be aware that readers will see only what you said, not what you're responding to. Like listening to half a telephone conversation. There's an art to including kibitzers gracefully and your Expository Lump suffering readers are kibitzers.

On Twitter, clicking a twitterer's handle (@something) sends you to their homepage where you can find out who they say they are and what they've been tweeting lately.

That's on the crude interface supplied by Twitter. There are "clients" you can download that present twitter data more neatly.

I wrote a long post about Web 2.0 recently,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-love-web-20.html
and Twitter is just one of the newer and more popular components of Web 2.0. Twitter can be RSS "syndicated" so you can follow your twitter traffic on friendfeed.com or just follow me on friendfeed.com (scroll down the right sidebar of this post for my friendfeed box). And you can put your tweets in a box on your blog, so your blog always shows what you've just been talking about, with links). Simplify and organize your web-life.

-------END TUTORIAL ON TWITTER---------

So I (who follow KFZuzulo and "hear" all her tweets) retweeted a retweet sent by KFZuzulo where she starts with her own comment, then supplies the comment she's Retweeting.

It looks like so:

@KFZuzulo Or by "episode"=Serials!! ->RT @kriheli prediction on where publishing is heading chapter by chapter publishing #followreader

So KFZuzulo was answering kriheli's comment that publishing is headed for chapter-by-chapter presentation, and KFZuzulo said that means "episode" or "serials" which I know is in fact already successful with certain readerships online.

The hashtag #followreader was in @kriheli's original post. These hashtags are used to let strangers sort the whole twitter feed by subject and find people saying interesting things in order to follow more interesting tweeple.

Frankly you might want to follow @kriheli if you're interested in the E-book business model that Margaret Carter discussed here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/business-model-of-e-publishing.html

So in response to my RT of her RT, @KFZuzulo asked me a question that looked like so:

KFZuzulo @JLichtenberg Do you think serials can work via e-publishing?

And I replied with a #followfriday hashtag because it was Friday and thus the hashtag was "allowed" by protocol. #followfriday means I recommend that other Tweeple should follow @KFZuzulo who is Kellyann Zuzulo who supplied us with a Guest Post here on this blog
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/living-with-fatal-flaw.html
My reply to her looked like this:

@KFZuzulo Serials working in E-publishing? THAT's a blog topic not 140C's I'll try to cover it #followfriday @KFZuzulo

Another feature twitter has is that you can sort the feed so you can see any post with your handle in it. I'm @jlichtenberg and you can find me at
http://twitter.com/jlichtenberg

Though twitter allows for private Direct Messages, all these posts I've mentioned went to all our followers, in aggregate, probably over 3,000 tweeple.

So my answer is much more than the 140 characters limit on twitter.com

1) My answer is related to the difference between Knowledge and Wisdom (oy, she's waxing metaphysical again!)

2) My answer is related to the history of the media in all its glorious forms.

3) My answer is related to the 4-generation rule (unto the 4th generation); it takes 4 generations to effect a basic cultural change.

4) My answer is related to my blog post here "I Love Web 2.0"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-love-web-20.html

Let's do those points in reverse order.

4) Technology is the natural place to start since this is a question about E-publishing, a new form of delivery system for fiction.

We've finally got handheld screens that are legible to most people, and not most but a lot of people are used to cell phones with some "features" like web access (called smart phones). I read e-books on a PALM TX which has wi-fi access to the internet if there's a hotspot. But it's not a phone and doesn't have wireless access to the internet. I have a phone that does have wireless access to the internet, but it doesn't have a download for mobipocket reader which is the one I use.

And of course, we now have the electronic paper display used by Amazon's Kindle that pleases a lot of other people. Sony and others are making readers, and building in wi-fi or wireless capabilities to make it easy to download e-books and newspapers.

Some new, lower-energy-consuming chips are revolutionizing the palm top market, (with more innovations on the market next year) so we are very close to solving the tech problems and dumbing down the machinery so anyone can use it. At the same time smart-devices like smart-phones are smarting-up the users. Generally, you like what you're used to and you like new things that are easier than you're used to.

I covered a lot of the Cloud Computing and interactivity on the web in my "I Love Web 2.0" post, so we won't go over that again. Just remember it and think about the rising tide of CHANGE sweeping over us. At the same time, think about why Science Fiction is a shrinking genre while SFRomance is a growing genre.

(Though I have to admit EUREKA's use of smart-roads and boson-clouds as a landing field for a crash-down of a space ship is pure SF at its best! TV Shows like EUREKA (on scyfy channel) are also smarting up the users.)

Smarting-up the users is where the 4-generation rule comes into play.

Here's where you should either read or remember Alvin Toffler's first book, FUTURE SHOCK. The point he made is still valid, and much of what he predicted has already come true (the rest seems on the way).


Humans are hardwired to tolerate only so much change. A person can make only so many "decisions" (a brain function as much as it is a mental function) per day. As you age, you can tolerate change less and less, make fewer decisions per day. Read Toffler's book for the full explanation. And trust me, to understand the e-book publishing potential, you need to read FUTURE SHOCK. It's not out-dated (yet).

The result of this purely physical nervous system limitation of humans to make major changes in the way they think and do things during a single lifetime is the 4-Generation rule. It takes nearly 80 years at the very least to make a major change to a culture.

A recent study revealed that multi-tasking (the tempo of the modern world) actually chips away at efficiency and productivity.

Here's an article:
http://www.apa.org/releases/multitasking.html

---------QUOTE-------------
The measurements revealed that for all types of tasks, subjects lost time when they had to switch from one task to another, and time costs increased with the complexity of the tasks, so it took significantly longer to switch between more complex tasks. Time costs also were greater when subjects switched to tasks that were relatively unfamiliar. They got "up to speed" faster when they switched to tasks they knew better, an observation that may lead to interfaces designed to help overcome people's innate cognitive limitations.

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

So the last word on the tech underpinnings of the new Fiction Delivery System has not been posted! But the culture is changing.

3) The 4-generation rule (unto the 4th generation); it takes 4 generations to effect a basic cultural change.

In the last 20 years with the advent of the Web and now Web 2.0 and even 3 and 4.0 starting to show up, with the digitalization of TV broadcasts, and other fundamental infrastructure changes especially integration by "aggregators", we have made several of these fundamental changes in the whole way "the world" works, all at once within one generation.

As a result, there are those of you reading this blog who shudder and flee at the idea of opening a twitter account. You don't know what it is and you don't want to know. You want it to go away, and you can't see any reason why the TV News shows give it so much attention and credence.

Your grandchildren will cling to networks like twitter (it's losing money and may not survive, but microblogging probably will; there's now a micro-blog that lets you use a lot more than 140 characters) and those grandchildren will likewise shudder at the thought of opening a something-else-account.

Through the middle-decades of life, humans embrace these new tools or major changes, shift career direction, experiment with new brands etc. By age 40, advertisers have lost interest in you. By age 50, you've lost interest in advertisers with NEW NEW NEW things to offer. By age 70 you actively resent anyone changing anything.

That's not wrong, or evil, or anti-progress. It actually is progress to resist change! It's progress toward stability, and valuing what progress has already been made more highly than progress that might (or might not) yet be made.

The 70-something's aversion to rapid change is nature's way of stabilizing society because at a certain rate of change, all society will disintegrate. Humans can't tolerate it.

And, according to Alvin Toffler, we're right at the edge of that rate of change.

What happens when a society disintegrates?

WORLDBUILDERS LISTEN UP.

The portrait of a disintegrated society has been painted before our eyes by CNN in these last few decades. Bosnia. (Ireland almost got there) Afghanistan. Iraq. Everyone for himself and devil take the hindmost. Then non-combatants aggregate themselves under the protection of "strongmen" who bears arms to protect, to ferociously exact revenge so his group will be feared and left alone. (Hatfields and McCoys to the 4th or 5th generation).

When the social glue fails, there's blood in the streets (literally) and starvation at home. Foreign countries see an opportunity to seize the disintegrated region for its raw materials and labor resources. Conquest is the result of social disintegration. Starvation. Poverty beyond belief.

So "society" a nebulous, almost indefinable thing (try explaining "social networks" to someone who's not online!) has a use and a purpose, as well as a structure!

So where does society come from? How do we stabilize large groups?

2) That question brings us to the HISTORY OF THE MEDIA IN ALL ITS GLORY.

When society disintegrates, there is no education of the young except in how to scavenge enough to eat today, and build a fire for tonight.

Our vertical integration of generations is what stabilizes society. Lore. Campfire morality tales. Cave paintings. Faith. History. And maybe above all technology, and the science that goes behind it. Technology gave us flint knives and which berries are edible. Today it gives us e-books, a new medium, and "social networks" which are currently "destabilizing" society while they form a totally new platform for stabilization.

But all this change takes time if it's not to be destructive. For a serious tutorial on the hows and whys of that time-requirement, read

C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner Series

Yeah, read SF about a non-human society to understand what humans create and use for "society."

Vertical integration of the generations is why the resistance to change built into the human brain during aging is GOOD. The job of youth is to innovate. The job of age is to discard innovations that are destructive to the stability of society -- because without society we're back to every-man-for-himself-and-devil-take-the-hindmost.

So it isn't improvement or progress toward a better world that elders resist. But they do resist.

They resist INSTABILITY caused by running experiments in change in society at large when such changes really need to start on the lab bench, and proceed to the pilot plant and field testing before being released. But youth is "impatient" with methodical testing. It's the nature of youth, and that's not bad unless it is not restrained by age. Not STOPPED, mind you, but RESTRAINED (slowed).

What the elders understand that youth does not is just what is at stake in their madcap pursuit of "progress" in all directions except stability.

If society disintegrates to hand-to-mouth again, and if two generations don't get book-learning educations, continuity is lost and society disintegrates even further. With climate change threatening famine, sword-rattling threatening mass destruction, and free-travel mixing up the genes of viruses and bacteria, bedbugs making a come-back because of hotels not changing sheets every night, and bedbugs being a prime vector for bubonic plague which is mutating and making a comeback, -- those who have lived long enough to learn to see "4 moves ahead" in the chess game of life want to avoid any innocent looking first move that could lead to destabilization in a 4th move.

Elders can see that we can't afford to be off-balance taking a step forward just when we must face one of those major threats (threats that youth discounts as something that will never happen because youth is immortal).

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

What we have today is the result of vertical integration of the generations - the elders teaching the youth, and restraining youth until they get some sense.

OK, this resistance to change analysis is very simplistic, and you can easily argue against my thesis here, but just wait a few minutes and think about these points as a skeletal outline in the subject of serialization as the future of the fiction delivery system.

So "the media" started around campfires in caves, then minstrels roving the countryside singing for their supper (advertising business model), and continues unbroken to Radio, TV, CNN, satellite feeds, and RSS feeds. (do subscribe to this blog; you won't regret it, and if you don't know how to subscribe to a blog, click one of the SUBSCRIBE icons to the right. Try GOOGLE and it'll lead you to the Google Reader setup.)

Ponder Margaret Carter's post on the business model of the e-book again.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/business-model-of-e-publishing.html

And consider this treasure of a post titled Traditional v self-publishing: a false comparison by Alasdair White (who isn't the famous musician Alasdair White, but rather the famous business management consultant Alasdair White). I met him on LinkedIn where he answered a question on publishing with the following totally brilliant analysis:

http://pm-solutions.com/infosys/blog/?p=32

Note that "e-publishing" is synonymous in some people's minds with "self-publishing" which couldn't be farther from the truth. But the e-publishing industry has grown up from scratch in about 10 years or so. Nobody knows what e-publishing IS, least of all the e-publishers, except that it's a big change. Just as TV started by copying the business model of Radio, e-publishing started copying publishing, and has now diverged markedly.

After reading Alasdair's analysis, I pointed him to Margaret Carter's post on the business model discussion among Romance Writers of America members and he wrote me back with the following illuminating insight which I'm quoting with permission:

----------------FROM ALASDAIR WHITE------------------
LinkedIn
Alasdair White has sent you a message.

Date: 8/31/2009

I read through the post you link below and it seems to me that there are still some fundamental misconceptions as to the relationship between author and publisher (no matter what form the publisher takes). The author, publisher, bookseller and reader form a value chain (in business terms). The author invests their time in the creation of a manuscript. The publisher invests their skills (and adds value) to the manuscript and turns it into a saleable product. The bookseller invests in facilities and stock and takes the product and sells it, The reader invests in buying the product and 'consumes' it.

Each part of the value chain is investing time, skill, and/or money in their part of the activities of the value chain. Each is taking a 'risk' with their investment. Each receives a reward for risk taken once the value chain is completed. Except when the author is commissioned by a publisher (who then effective buys the time and skills of the author who then has no investment in the product) there is no valid reason for an author to assume that they have any relationship with a publisher other than that of supplier.

Normally, if a product is supplied to another part of a value chain, then the supplier is recompensed at a fixed value - but very few authors simply want to be paid a fixed price for their manuscript - they want to garner the rewards of the sales (hence the royalty system). Thus, in exchange for a greater potential reward, they risk their short-term recompense.

BUT, and this really irritates me, authors then want an advance against the royalties - so they are now expecting the publisher to become a bank and to lend them money- which is possibly OK (although poor business management) because the publisher could set up the contract in a way that the author has to repay the advance proportionately if the sales fail to reach a certain break-even level. But can anyone name an author who would accept that?

No, the author wants an advance (fixed amount payment) AND a royalty and consider those publishers that don't pay advances as exploiting the authors and trying to avoid the risk. Now that is pure unadulterated greed speaking - but I bet the same complainers are criticizing those bankers who were paid bonuses in the good times but don't have to repay them in the bad - but it is the same argument.

If authors are paid an advance, then they should receive no royalty whatsoever until the sales reach a break even point which is determined by advance+in-house investment in bringing the manuscript to print+production costs (designers, printers etc)+marketing spend+lost opportunity cost (return that could have been generated had the money not been used as it was). This would, on an average novel push the break even sales to around 3000-5000 copies - which, for most novels is fantasy.

The fact that e-publishing does not have the printing costs (usually less than 30% of the final production cost) means only that producing an e-publication is marginally less costly than doing it as a hard-copy. And authors who feel hard done by need to take a crash course in the economics of publishing.

Even with our parsed down operating model it still costs a lot to link the first part of the value chain with the last part and authors need to consider whether they wish to take a risk of greater rewards (royalties only) or to be paid for their work at a fixed price. Personally (as both an author and a publisher), I feel that the combined advance+royalties model is unworkable and essentially unfair as it penalizes the publisher. If authors want the greatest return then they simply have to be willing to share in the risk.

Alasdair
http://pm-solutions.com/infosys/blog/?p=32

----------------------END QUOTE FROM ALASDAIR WHITE--------------

What has this to do with "Can Serials Work Via e-publishing?"

Well, that question is actually a complex question. First you must understand what publishing is/was. Then get a good grasp of the Web 2.0 model of cyberspace -- and anticipate where Web 4.0 will take us.

Alasdair is teaching us some things about "Media" as an industry that writers don't generally internalize. He's showing us "what" we as writers are actually doing. And his posts reveal a world totally different from what any creative artist would envision as the delivery mechanism for their art to their end-consumer.

Understanding the infrastructure of the fiction delivery system, and the meaning to "society" of the madcap pace of CHANGE in that delivery system over the last few decades, we can turn our attention to the really difficult part of this Question: What exactly is serialization?

In the history of the MEDIA, when did the SERIAL arise?

I honestly don't know.

But I think the origin of the Serial relates to my post on the Medium Is The Message:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/medium-is-message_19.html

Fiction has always been a for-profit endeavor by the fiction creator. The shaman was supported by the tribe in exchange for Wisdom conveyed in a form they could understand and use. The Minstrel brought news and got fed for it. In the Middle Ages, Church copyists copied older documents and were supported by charity gifts to the church, and by their scribe function. Think about it in terms of a business model - the fiction-delivery-system and the news-delivery-system.

The printing press, of course, is the evolutionary step in "The Media" which is comparable to the leap into electronic distribution.

But this one, Web 2.0, social networking, and gaming (interactivity between the consumer and the story), is much bigger even than the printing press or even "motion pictures."

If words are to be distributed FOR PROFIT, they have to go down a delivery system that has a pre-determined size, shape, delivery point and most especially that "value chain" that Alasdair White tutored us in.

The delivery system is the "business" and the words are just the commodity being purveyed by the business.

This is something new writers trying to "sell" their work have a very hard time grasping. They think of editors as "gatekeepers" who favor one person over another rather than African hunters spearing fast-moving antelope in a jungle to supply meat to a Packer shipping to South America.

I wrote a lengthy reply to a Question on a LinkedIn Group I'm on (LinkEds & Writers). I'm going to insert that Answer here because most of you won't be able to access it inside the Social Network and INSIDE a "Group" within that Social Network. Most readers can skip this insert. I'm mostly just sending the new writers to absorb Alasdair White's post on publishing as a business.

-----------FROM Q&A on LINKEDIN.COM LINKEDS&WRITERS----------

Q: I just distilled and posted an email I got from a very disgruntled young writer. It's a rant about the industry - what would you advise this writer?

Here's the transcribed email
http://ontext.com/2009/08/beginning-writer-bitches-publishing-industry/

A: (by Jacqueline Lichtenberg - there are well over 30 Answers so far -- I'm editing mine down)

I have encountered this "beginning writer's rant" that has echoed down the ages.

Beginner Commercial Artists are both right and wrong because they don't understand what they are doing or what the "industry" does or should do, but they do understand that what the industry is doing is wrong somehow, inadequate or philosophically askew.

I'm in a discussion with another LinkedIn member who answered a question on self-publishing with a marvelous analysis of the business models of publishing of all sorts.

His name is Alasdair White (but he isn't the famous Scottish musician).

I saw his answer to a question on LinkedIn and urged him to post it on a blog where anyone could get at it so I could point people at it. I mentioned it on twitter and made White a new fan out of a publisher.

The blog entry is here:
http://pm-solutions.com/infosys/blog/?p=32

Then I linked to White's post in a blog I will post on Tuesday Sept. 1, 2009. I'm a writer and co-blog with other writers on the craft and the industry, with a lot of beginning writers among our readers. My day to post is Tuesday.

I told Alasdair White that I would post a link to his blog, and pointed him to a post on the co-blog about an argument among Romance Writers of America members regarding the status of e-publishing.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/business-model-of-e-publishing.html

Alasdair kindly read that entry by my co-blogger Margaret Carter, and emailed me a lengthy and brilliant answer which I am going to ask if I can insert into my blog with a link to his. But I found this question first.

I think this discussion and analysis of publishing as a business from the management point of view that Alasdair brings to it (and his exemplary articulateness) is just the vision that new authors in the "rant" stage need the most.

Armed with this view of art as commodity, and understanding publishing (or video or TV or other media) as a business that must be managed, a new writer in the throes of The Rant may be able to found his own publishing business and serve his own target audience, or perhaps become the dominant player in the entire Entertainment Delivery System.

I am convinced our Fiction Delivery System is massively out of kilter and about to break. I think it should break. We are entering a new era and need an entirely new Fiction Delivery System.

However, the principles Alasdair so succinctly gives us in plain layman's language, will prevail. Nobody who attempts to create the new Fiction Delivery System can succeed without a full grasp of this picture.

Alasdair gives us the view from outside that artists need to make the leap from Art to Commercial Art.
-----------------END QUOTE FROM Q&A-------------

So again, what has this to do with where Serialization came from and where it's going?

We have serialization because the STORY we want to send down that value-chain delivery system channel is larger than the channel, so we have to break it into pieces (just as an email or web-page is broken to be sent across the internet then reassembled).

A cave dweller's campfire only lasts so long, and dawn's chores come too soon. Stories had to be SHORT -- or serialized.

Dickens serialized his novels in newspapers, same reason. Reach more people, don't try their patience with long involved exposition, leave them wanting MORE, serialize the story.

Magazines, especially genre ones like Action, Mystery and Science Fiction, relied on the Serialized Novel to bait readers into subscribing (back when a magazine cost 25 cents and that was a lot of money).

Radio brought the radio serial, and soap opera serialization which became the story-arc I've discussed here at length along with story structure and how to create and place climaxes, though I didn't address the issue of how to structure climaxes to allow a novel to be serializable. (yes, there is a craft technique for that, too.)

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/amber-benson-tara-on-buffy-vampire.html

Radio serials like The Lone Ranger and Superman translated directly to early TV. Yes, though made in anthology format, The Lone Ranger (also running as a comic strip in newspapers), actually had a story arc, the story of the man who was the lone survivor of a Ranger compliment ambushed by the Cavendish band. The Lone Ranger had a story-arc mission -- nail Cavendish. He wore the mask so Cavendish would not know he was a survivor of that battle, and would drop the mask only after Cavendish was dead.

And of course, don't forget Dr. Who just because it was only in England all those years before we imported the TV show.

And early film resorted to the Serial installments (Buck Rogers etc) to get people into the theater to see the A and B pictures even if they really weren't that interested -- and that loyal audience then made superstars out of actors like Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, Bing Crosby. The weekly serial installment was the value-added along with a few cartoons.

So serials exist because the delivery mechanism is too narrow for the entire story as one piece, and as bait to get an audience for some other product.

The "delivery mechanism size" issue includes the problem of the audience's attention span.

Cave men couldn't sit by the fire for 6 hours every night. Today's audience won't sit in a theater for 4 or 5 hours to watch 2 movies, 2 serial installments, and 4 cartoons (an afternoon like that used to cost $0.50 -- $0.25 if you were under 12).

So today's theaters offer 2 hours and COMMERCIALS. But films are more and more often becoming series if not actual serials!

Meanwhile, we have a trend I've been documenting in my review columns for the beginning of 2010, reviewing many many books which are parts of long series or beginnings of new series.

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2010/

Series and serials have one thing in common -- cliffhanger climaxes. It's only the placement of the climaxes and story-arc shape that differs. But they both accomplish one thing. They break a story into short chunks that can fit into the commercially driven business of delivery and parse into that "value chain" that White is tutoring us in.

Although the e-book and blog-posting format doesn't limit the size of posts (except for the technical issue of how long it takes to download which is largely solved), the person who reads the e-media limits the practical length by simply not having the attention span, or the actual time to read, or possibly the interest. (Yes, I know, this post is way too long and very boring, but it's a complicated question!)

The generation raised on Sesame Street has been conditioned to the commercial-break sound-byte length installments.

So though the actual e-medium can carry 6 or even 10 hours of reading in one download, the longer the piece the smaller the audience.

One thing all writers agree on. The objective is to reach a larger audience, the bigger the better. That's why microblogging like Twitter is burgeoning and the quality of a tweeter is measured by the number of followers, and their followers rather than the information density of the tweets put out.

The children of the Sesame Street generation and their children now, are jittery nervous wrecks compared to readers of the Elizabethan era.

The expository lump was regarded as richness in the Elizabethan era, and practiced as an artform (really! I studied it as an artform in High School where it was revered!) Today the expository lump is anathema.

So serialization leaves you with the problem of "What Has Gone Before." The e-serial can solve this with a hyperlink! But most readers won't follow the link.

Which leaves writers with this problem I indicated in my first point.

1) My answer is related to the difference between Knowledge and Wisdom

Can you tell me what that difference is and why it's related to the issue of whether serials can work via E-publishing?

Let's try this easy thumbnail, micro-blog size definition.

Knowledge is facts; Wisdom connects facts into a pattern.

That's wholly inadequate, but let's run with it.

I've talked a lot about pattern recognition on this blog, because it's a basic component of art. Here's one of my posts which is about the key question any Romance has to answer, "What Does She See In Him?"

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

Notice how I keep tossing in links here to other blog posts? To answer the question Can Serials Work Via E-Publishing?, I have to arrange those little but convoluted points I've made in previous blogs into a pattern you can recognize.

What have I been talking about here since I launched into my 20 posts on The Tarot?

See: http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/12/10-pentacles-cake-comes-out-of-oven.html
and follow the links back to Ace of Swords.

The overall objective of my many posts here is to figure out why the Romance genre in general, and maybe the SFR and PNR sub-genres too, are so scorned.

This question, Can Serials Work via E-publishing holds a clue to the answer if you can see the pattern behind these 4 points I'm highlighting.

The solution to a problem lies in the formulation of the problem. How you ask the question determines the answer. You can't solve an algebra problem unless you can state it properly.

KFZuzulo has given us an opening statement that could lead to the solution.

20 years ago, Romance genre publishing shunned the sequel, the series, and the story arc. Each novel had to be self-contained, (have very little if any sex), and end with an HEA.

Each story would have to start with the couple meeting, and end with them deciding to settle down together.

That's a tiny slice out of a story-arc of life, and it's the slice where more than likely Neptune is messing both of the characters up with some transit or another.

Usually, the Romance Novel would cover a time-span of weeks, months at most -- some maybe a year so you could do two Thanksgiving Dinner scenes.

The couple would meet, forget the rest of the world exists, and settle down to live HEA. The background, setting, world news situation, career goals, supporting cast, and everything else was incidental and often not well done. The Historicals, Regencies, etc broke through that mold and gave us richly researched detail from the real world history, showing that the typical Romance reader was educated and curious, and could enjoy learning useless trivia just for fun.

But the main story was still largely without conflict, without combat to the death, without a town or corporation or enterprise that was more important to the couple than their relationship. And most especially without challenging the premise: Love Conquers All.

The general reader would see the Romance as too easy, too comic-book, too facile. Too obvious.

In the old fashioned comic book (not the graphic novel mind you!) the characters would CHANGE the instant they hit epiphany, saw the light, understood who the villain really was, and would act without hesitation or introspection -- and all this would happen within a ridiculously short time frame.

For a real person to undergo serious spiritual enlightenment, character change at a basic level, major maturation, takes TIME. Years, not months. Decades not years. The bigger the lesson, the longer it takes to go from the mental insight to actual behavior.

The Romance often turns on an issue of the commitment-shy, on previously burned lover who just can't be sure this isn't a rerun of that failure.

Other plots use various reasons why one lover can't give her/ himself completely to another person, and use that instead of real conflict. (that's an internal conflict, not enough to turn a plot)

Romance has always explored the deepest psychological urges, wishes, aspirations, and vast issues of self-image, self-esteem -- massive psychological issues.

But 20 years ago, the genre required an author to invent new characters for each book, and resolve that character's deepest (hardest) psychological issues in 400 pages (or less).

These novels would span a few days, weeks, months, and chronicle personality changes that in reality take years, decades, or several lifetimes of karmic progress.

And the characters would walk away from these life-long problems scott free into HEA, as if they would never have that problem again.

This compressed time-frame and abbreviated page-count created a story that most people just couldn't decode. It would seem that the characters were cardboard puppets manipulated by the authors through unrealistic gyrations.

Today that's all changed. (well, not in all branches of the field).

Today though, the Fantasy field has produced the super-sized long novel sometimes spanning decades and generations. Some characters are hundreds of years old already (I do love Vampire novels).

The SFR can span decades of a character's life.

Women in Romances are expected to have a career, hobbies, interests, and an eclectic education. Some women are corporate bosses, and still have Romance in their souls.

Both women and men can be deeply involved in the issues of their world. That means that the internal conflicts that take a lifetime to work through can be REFLECTED in the external world the writer builds, and those conflicts can be tackled and partially resolved externally, or even symbolically, and thus the resolution and character-arc can seem far more realistic to readers (because that's how life actually works as explained in my Tarot posts).

Which means there can be, and usually has to be, a sequel or three.

With more room, the writer can tell you a much more realistic story about the stages of maturation and soul growth any human must go through in order to cement a love relationship that has a chance to last HEA.

Which brings us to the ultimate point.

KNOWLEDGE of what happened to a couple can be conveyed in one of these old fashioned Romance novels. The reader can add the details and stages of development by imagining it all on a more realistic time-frame. The novel only has to convey the KNOWLEDGE of what happened and who it happened to.

But if a reader is not already in the context of the Romance field, ready to imagine the years and years of character arc that are not detailed in the story, and picks up one of these old-style abbreviated novels, and absorbs the KNOWLEDGE of what happened the story makes no sense. And they discard the whole genre because of the "shallowness" of the characters.

The Romance author has given KNOWLEDGE (facts, actions, feelings as facts) but no WISDOM.

The reader outside the context of Romance can't see the PATTERN. They can't see there is a Wisdom to be acquired.

The main theme of the Romance Genre is LOVE CONQUERS ALL.

"Love Conquers All" is WISDOM, not knowledge.

I can tell someone that love conquers all with a straight face and they'll just laugh and shrug it off as inappropriate hyperbole.

They get the FACT that I said it. They have the KNOWLEDGE of what it means. But the WISDOM escapes them totally because they can't see the pattern made by scattered bits of knowledge that I have but they don't.

You can't convey the meaning of Love Conquers All, or the realistic-ness of it, in 400 pages. That's too small a chunk to contain wisdom, though it can contain knowledge.

Artists (and as Alma Hill taught me; Writing Is A Performing Art) reveal those patterns that people with scattered bits of knowledge can't see.

What art is for is to convey WISDOM, not facts.

To convey Wisdom vertically down the generations, binding society together and stabilizing it so the children can grow up secure in self-knowledge is the mission of the Artist.

The old Romance Genre was constrained to eschew Art and thus could only suggest a sketch of the Wisdom that Love Conquers All. To enjoy reading that old genre, you pretty much had to engulf the Wisdom that love conquers all before you started reading.

The new Romance Genre has had the shackles taken off by competition from e-publishing, just as women threw off the shackles of second-class citizenship in the 1970's. That was nearly 40 years ago. 2 X 20 years ago. We're HALFWAY through the 4 generations needed to make this change.

The new Romance Genre may lead us through the second half of this transition because of the advent of (#4 of my points) TECHNOLOGY.

Web 2.0, interactivity, RSS feeds, blogs, all these tools of distribution and publicity, are a new delivery system constrained by the audience to the short-take and the sound-byte. The YouTube video says it all in 90 seconds or less. Usually much less.

Structure the story into SCENES as I described in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html

The Love Conquers All romance novel SERIES or SERIALIZATION is uniquely suited to convey this intangible, unbelievable but vital bit of wisdom to younger generations because now you can tell your whole story, raise understanding of the rich complexity of identity and relationship, and then connect your data points into a pattern your artist's eye sees.

That pattern seen by the artist, encoded into fiction, and conveyed to the non-artist is Wisdom. And that Wisdom is the "Value" you contribute to Alasdair White's "Value Chain."

So with online technology you can tell a story that spans a long enough time-frame that the psychological changes your characters undergo seem realistic, convincing, maybe inevitable. You can do that by serializing Flash Gordon style -- or maybe invent an entirely new style.

With the 6 tricks of scene structure, you can block your scenes and connect them into neat chapters that will each start with a powerful narrative hook and end with a cliff hanger fraught with questions about what will happen next. Somebody please remind me to do a Part 3 to the scene structure series covering serialization.

With serialization giving you enough space to develop the details of step-wise psychological change, you can tell a Romance to anti-Romance readers and make them believe every word.

It's all about enough space to tell the story, and as our ancestor storytellers have taught us, the way to get more space is to serialize and serialization turns knowledge of isolated facts into the rich tapestry of wisdom.

Love Conquers All as knowledge is worthless. As wisdom, it is priceless.

You can deliver that payload of wisdom, even or maybe especially, in the e-published serialization, whether it's self-published, or in a newsletter or e-zine, or by a volume e-publisher or a big trade publisher.  But whatever method you adopt, Aladair White's wisdom about the "Value-Chain" has to be applied. 

That Value Chain concept is an Ancient Wisdom we all need to grasp. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://twitter.com/jlichtenberg