Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 4 - Sidewalk Superintendent

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration
Part 4
Sidewalk Superintendent
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous Parts in this 4-way Integration Series:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding_14.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding_21.html

My objective in this long series of blogs on writing craft is to dissect the Romance Novel into components, dissect the Science Fiction novel into components, then blend the compatible components of each genre into something like Science Fiction Romance, Futuristic Romance, Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, Mystery Romance, or whatever combination that can attract the respect we all know that "Romance" (as a human experience) deserves.

Our Civilization as a whole once discarded the importance of "romance" in the form of "love" -- assuming that love had little or nothing to do with marriage.

Then an era came in that elevated Romance (marrying for love, even if it was just infatuation) to the absolute epitome of the Value System.

Then Romance as the touchstone of finding and cementing Relationships for life was discarded.

Today physical infatuation (instant and irresistible sexual attraction) has replaced Romance at the epitome of value systems that direct young people into marriage or other Relationships intended to be Lifelong. 

Meanwhile, millions read stories about finding a Soul Mate and living Happily Ever After.  The contradiction (the conflict which forms the essence of Story) is sidelined in the plot.

As we have developed disposable gadgets, replacing rather than repairing them, so too have we developed disposable Relationships. 

I suspect that long-term trend of disposable gadgets/Relationships is again at the verge of reversal. 

And here's an article on a widely read source (never mind the auspices) that might be a harbinger of this shift in attitude.  I disagree with a lot this article says, but the departure from the prevailing attitude is stark.  Find out why you disagree with this article, and your reason will make the Theme of a whopping-good Romance.

--------------QUOTE-------------
Still, that bit of propaganda is nothing compared to the underlying misconception that so many of us carry around consciously or subconsciously, because we’ve seen it on TV and in the movies, and read it in books a million times since childhood: namely, that there is just one person out there for us. Our soul mate. Our Mr. or Mrs. Right. The person we are “meant to be with.”

We think that our task is to find this preordained partner and marry them because, after all, they’re “The One.” They were designed for us, for us and only us. It’s written in the stars, prescribed in the cosmos, commanded by God or Mother Earth. There are six or seven billion people in the world, but only one of them is the right one, we think, and we’ll stay single until we happen to stumble into them one day.

And when that day happens, when The One — our soul mate, our match, our spirit-twin — comes barreling into our lives to whisk us off our feet and take us on canoe rides and deliver impassioned romantic monologues on a beach in the rain or in a bus station or whatever, then we’ll finally be happy. Happy until the end of time. We can get married and have a perfect union; a Facebook Photo Marriage, where every day is like an Instragam of you and your spouse wearing comfortable socks and sitting next to the fireplace drinking Starbucks lattes.

Yeah. About that. It’s bull crap, sorry. Not just silly, frivolous bull crap, but bull crap that will destroy you and eat your marriage alive from the inside. It’s a lie. A vicious, cynical lie that leads only to disappointment and confusion. The Marriage of Destiny is a facade, but the good news is that Real Marriage is something so much more loving, joyful, and true.

    I didn’t marry The One, I married this one, and the two of us became one.

We’ve got it all backwards, you see. I didn’t marry my wife because she’s The One, she’s The One because I married her. Until we were married, she was one, I was one, and we were both one of many. I didn’t marry The One, I married this one, and the two of us became one. I didn’t marry her because I was “meant to be with her,” I married her because that was my choice, and it was her choice, and the Sacrament of marriage is that choice. I married her because I love her — I chose to love her — and I chose to live the rest of my life in service to her. We were not following a script, we chose to write our own, and it’s a story that contains more love and happiness than any romantic fable ever conjured up by Hollywood.

Indeed, marriage is a decision, not the inevitable result of unseen forces outside of our control. When we got married, the pastor asked us if we had “come here freely.” If I had said, “well, not really, you see destiny drew us together,” that would have brought the evening to an abrupt and unpleasant end. Marriage has to be a free choice or it is not a marriage. That’s a beautiful thing, really.

God gave us Free Will. It is His greatest gift to us because without it, nothing is possible. Love is not possible without Will. If we cannot choose to love, then we cannot love. God did not program us like robots to be compatible with only one other machine. He created us as individuals, endowed with the incredible, unprecedented power to choose. And with that choice, we are to go out and find a partner, and make that partner our soul mate.

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

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/i-didnt-marry-the-one-she-become-the-one-after-i-married-her/

Just after I wrote the words above that quote, "the verge of reversal," I noticed return tweets from the author of the book I set out to discuss in this blog entry. 

He plans a sequel to the novel of interest here, and that news changes the way I will discuss this novel.

To make a lifelong career in writing, you should learn these trends of Civilization, the root reasons for them (roots which this 4-way Integration series is discussing), and how to leverage the prevailing trend to sell your own fiction without trying to write just what the Market wants. 

Today, however, you don't have to try to sell Mass Market at all, since there are many successful self-publishing writers creating whole new markets.

Writers often ask which way should they go, Self-Publishing or Traditional Publishing, or Small Press.  My answer is, "That's the wrong question."

The term "Rebranding" has risen to public notice the last few years.  You even hear the term on TV News.  It is a way of controlling the public image using Public Relations techniques (which I've discussed in this blog at length).

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_18.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_25.html

Your byline is your brand.  So your decision of whether to go Self-Publish, Small Press, or Traditional Publisher is not an either/or decision.  It is a both/and/and decision.

The real question is not whether to do this or that or the other, but rather under what brand name do I do this, and what brand name do I use when I do that? 

The question is: "Should I use the same brand name (byline) for this publishing venue as for that?"  Many professional writers do Mystery under one name, Science Fiction under another, Romance under a third.  Many have been required to do so by their editors. 

I used the Daniel R. Kerns byline for my space-action-adventure novels, HERO and BORDER DISPUTE (on Kindle in a combined edition) because the acquisitions editor required it since they are a different Brand than Sime~Gen etc etc.  But HERO and BORDER DISPUTE are Alien Relationship driven novels.



The Branding wisdom is that a brand should define the product in the most narrow terms possible. 

That's why big companies like Pillsbury buy brands from other companies, the put Pillsbury in tiny print on the back of the package and keep the brand name in large print on the front.  ConAgra does that, too.  Publishers establish Imprints and do the same. 

As a writer, you are Pillsbury or ConAgra, and you may own many Brands, many bylines. 

Each of these fiction markets is targeting a different set of readers looking for a different product.  If your current product differs from your previous products, use a different byline or Pen Name.

Here are three posts on the use of a pen name.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-11.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript_8.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/information-feed-tricks-and-tips-for.html

If your product has a common thread that connects all the works configured for different markets, then use the same byline.  Brand the thread. 

Sensitivity to the tastes of the market at the end of the pipeline you choose to put your product into gives you the best chance of success in that market. 

Way back when I took my first formal course in writing, I learned the trick of this from the textbook.  They warned that students tended not to believe the advice.  Those students rarely launched a career as a selling writer on the 4th lesson of the course, but those that followed the advice generally did.  I know one other student who rejected the advice and did not sell.  I took the advice and sold the homework assignment for the 4th lesson.

That was my first short story sale, and it is posted online for free reading -- the first Sime~Gen story sold:

http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/oht.html

The advice was simple in its complexity:

Study the editor or agent you intend to sell to.  Craft your piece to push that individual person's buttons. 

It does  not mean write something your heart isn't in.  It doesn't mean violate your personal standards to be commercial.  It means nothing more than what it takes to revel in a good conversation -- pay attention to who you are talking to, and listen to what they are saying.

It is exactly the same advice that is followed by successful social-networkers.  If you join a Group on Facebook, or a "Community" on Google+ or any such social grouping (say at a cocktail party), lurk for a while and let the conversation soak into your head, develop an idea of "who" these speakers are and why they are saying what they are saying -- and to whom they are saying it.

Then when you have something to say that adds to their enjoyment of the social interaction, say it, paying attention to the silent-gaps that indicate an invitation to comment.  Watch the body language.  Pay attention, then participate. 

It's that simple.  If you can socialize, you can sell fiction. 

The only difference between a cocktail party conversation and publishing is that at a cocktail party, people speak in half-sentences, innuendo, raised eyebrows, and Toasts.  In publishing, people speak in books and stories.

Each novel you read, each short story in a magazine, is a sentence in a conversation among a Group.  In Science Fiction, that Group consists of about 1500 to 1700 professional writers who are members of the Science Fiction Writers of America (and its foreign equivalents).  Romance Writers of America is bigger.  Mystery Writers of America is probably bigger.  And there are umbrella organizations for writers.

Novels are sentences in a conversation among writers -- readers are the sidewalk superintendents.

The Market for a Manuscript is the Agent.  The Market for the Agent is  Editors.  The Market for Editors is the Committee with cover artists, Publicity specialists, managing editors, budgeting people, and all sorts of business functionaries who have not and will never read the book in question, but who will decide on the basis of a 3 sentence description whether to allow the infatuated editor to buy it.

Marketing, Genre, Branding and byline about summarizes my twitter-conversation with Rabbi Gidon Rothstein, author of the (almost) Futuristic Urban Fantasy Romance Mystery that does not quite (yet) fit any Genre label. 

He is inventing a new Genre, but has two major plot-threads that dominate the novel we'll examine, Murderer in the Mikdash. 

This novel is Futuristic Romance, and it is Futuristic Mystery.

It is a bit akin to Isaac Asimov's Black Widow mysteries in intellectual sharpness, but I think of it more like Randall Garrett's forensic magician stories, or even Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, magic using private eye. 

This novel's Characters and Theme are nowhere near (in fact rather opposite) those examples, but the worldbuilding behind the story belongs to that category. 

Since Dresden Files has over 20 (long) novels and counting, and has had a (short) TV Series made from it, I see no reason this novel won't develop into the same sort of Urban Fantasy publishing property. 

Here's my interview with Jim Butcher. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/04/dresden-files-interview-with-jim.html

As I noted, the novel we're exploring is titled MURDERER IN THE MIKDASH and it is by Gidon Rothstein. 

This novel is nothing (at all) like Jim Butcher's work, yet it fits the same publishing niche, and is part of the same "conversation" among writers that all of the series I've mentioned so far have created.

 Murderer in the Mikdash is THE SAME but DIFFERENT, just as you learn in SAVE THE CAT! 

Murderer in the Mikdash is not "Occult Fantasy" -- it is the exact opposite (which gives it the "but different" property).  No magic,  just a "just the facts ma'am" near-future world. 

Writers need to study Murderer in the Mikdash both for where it succeeds at an impossible task of depicting "the future" (it is genuinely Futuristic) and where it fails at depicting Romance within the Romance Genre rules. 

I have read a few of Rothstein's short stories in the collection called Cassandra Misreads The Book Of Samuel.  In the years between writing Murderer in the Mikdash, and the Cassandra material, the author learned a lot about writing, so the observations I've made about "Murderer" here will not apply to any sequels -- in fact, this first novel may be rewritten and re-released as part of a set. 

Therefore, grab yourself a copy of it as it is now because it warrants your study, and if a rewrite shoots it to a higher profile, you will want to know why that happened and what changes caused that to happen. 

So starting with this one now, you will be ready to follow where this discussion leads in a couple of years.

Here's the book I'm talking about:


So we're going to discuss this novel which is excellent in itself, but could not "make it" in Mass Market because it appears to be aimed at a narrow, specifically defined readership which marketers have not identified. 

The reasons Mass Market editors would reject this novel, in the form it is in right now, are detailed in my 7-part series on what it means to be an Editor.

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

That Part VII post has links to the previous posts in the series. 

Different sections of Murderer in the Mikdash are imprinted with the genre signatures of different genres.  Today you can "mix" genres, but not splice them together unmixed. 

Many of the scenes in MURDERER IN THE MIKDASH have "Romance" written all over them, but the ending veers into a more "Literary" signature -- avoiding even the HFN ending. 

So to me, Murderer in the Mikdash screams for a sequel. 

Therefore I was beyond delighted when the author answered my Tweet and told me he has material for a sequel and is working on it. 

But he also said he wasn't able to sell it to Mass Market after great effort.  So in this analysis of the novel, I'm going to probe into the under-structure to illustrate why that happened to an otherwise excellent, pristine, perfect, totally amazing, commercially viable Work. 

What's wrong with publishing that it could REJECT such a book?  Why aren't you seeing it advertised all over Amazon, etc.? 

Would I have risked my job as a big traditional publishing editor (which I've never been) to accept this book?  Probably not. 

Would I have taken this author on as a client if I were an Agent at a big Agency?  Probably not. 

Would I have taken him on if I were an Indie Agent?  Again, probably not because, as currently styled and written, this book had to go to an ebook Indie Publisher and they mostly don't do business with Agents. 

This situation is wholly unacceptable.  It's too good a book to be buried without honors.

But how to fix the situation? 

Direct contact with the author via twitter has given me a bunch of clues about what to do with this material, and in the next few posts I will share some of those ideas with you -- because I firmly expect many of you have similar properties in your desk drawers that failed to make the Mass Market cut, and you don't know why. 

As noted, Murderer in the Mikdash has earned my A+ grade for the integration of a long-long list of the techniques we've discussed in these Tuesday blog entries. 

Here's why I titled this Part 4 of this series "Sidewalk Superintendent"

A sidewalk superintendent is a passer-by on the sidewalk around an urban construction site which is partitioned off by a safety fence.  The passer-by peeks through a knot-hole in the fencing and criticizes what the workers are doing (or not-doing).  Mostly the passer-by sees men standing around (on the clock; paid with his tax dollars) doing nothing visible.

So the passer-by who knows nothing of construction criticizes what the Builder is doing.

And that's what I'm doing here with this novel.  I'm peering into it from outside, admiring the achievement I could NEVER have achieved -- but have vast ambitions to achieve -- and finding flaws in the execution.

At the moment, staring through the fence with one eye, I see a ragged hole in the ground, a lot of mud at the bottom where it rained, a cement truck backing up, and a faded picture on a sign that indicates what the building may be when it's built. 

Before the author tweeted me back, I didn't know there would be a sequel, and didn't know he was aware of the steep learning curve it would take to get this book into Mass Market.  I didn't even know it was his first novel, or he'd tried to market it to Mass Market.

So I had read the book with the assumption that the author thought the story was DONE.  But through the hole in the fence, I see that very big pit, some cement forms that had been knocked together, and a crew standing around doing nothing with their hard-hats under their elbows.

Now, with the Twitter exchange, suddenly, I see a work crew arrive on a big transport, jump down, clamp their hard-hats on, and begin pouring cement and wheel-borrowing loads around the site.  It'll be a building in no time!  It's going to be beautiful!!! 

As you read this novel, keep an eye out for Dialogue that should be narrative, and narrative that should be dialogue.  Watch for exposition that should be scenes.  It's subtle, and occurs only in a couple of places, but it's a no-sale flaw for a first novel. 

After buying a few novels from an author, some editors will accept a draft with this issue, blue-pencil the troublesome paragraphs and just X them out and scribble an indecipherable marginal note, relying on the previously demonstrated skills of the author to tell the author how to fix the issue. 

The appropriate techniques to use for various sorts of information feed are different in different genres and all genres differ from Literature.  Editors rely on authors to know the genre signature of the line the Editor is buying for. 

The choice of what to narrate, and what to detail in a scene, is entirely dependent on genre.  Just reversing narration and dialogue information feed  can shift genres.  For example, if you introduce a sex scene and then end the chapter with "Go To Black" (as in screenwriting, HARD CUT, in playwriting, CURTAIN), you get one genre. 

If you write 5 pages of athletics, detailing who did what to whom, with long paragraphs of what it means to each of them, you get a totally different genre. 

In various places in Murderer in the Mikdash, the decision to couch the information in dialogue, exposition or narrative was made using the rules of different genres, not always with the rules of Literature though the book was aimed at the Literature (general fiction) Market somewhat like THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yiddish_Policemen's_Union

Most editors would not know why they have to (regretfully) reject the Murderer in the Mikdash manuscript because of that variance in narrative and dialogue styling. 

Many younger editors would blame their rejection on the futuristic element and/or the Biblical element or the Jewish element -- even though they had bought manuscripts with one or another of those elements before and knew of all the Awards THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION had won, and even of the stellar sales performance of other novels rooted in Jewish tradition such as the award winning Historical (radical feminist) series titled RASHI'S DAUGHTERS

http://maggieanton.com/ 

Or the hysterically funny Interview with a Jewish Vampire ...

http://www.amazon.com/Interview-Jewish-Vampire-Erica-Manfred-ebook/dp/B006LPQ5IO/

...which might not "click" with a reader who had not read Anne Rice's Interview With a Vampire that became such an incredible media phenomenon and triggered a flood of Vampire Romance novels

http://www.amazon.com/Interview-Vampire-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B004AM5R20/

Or the incredible best selling Mystery Series by Faye Kellerman that I've raved about in these blogs (mostly because of the Romance/Marriage/Life-building narrative) The Decker/Lazarus series.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/40352-peter-decker-and-rina-lazarus

That Goodreads page lists the novels in order.  Remember Goodreads is owned now by Amazon, but you can sign in with your Facebook account.

Good editors have sensibilities that align with the sensibilities of their target readership -- so they tell writers, "I just want a good story."  They have no clue what "good" means, but they just know it when they see it.

If they don't see it, they don't know why, and don't know how to fix that -- but mostly they've learned by harsh experience that most writers just wouldn't know what to do with the editor's complaints. 

Editors don't have time to mess with writers (which is why they only deal with Agents, but today Agents don't have time to teach writing)  -- and there's more than enough material to fill the editor's pipeline, so they reject what isn't up to snuff.

Subtle things like getting the narrative and dialogue portions sorted out can make the difference.

We will dig deeper into the structure of Murderer in the Mikdash next week.  I hope by then you'll have read the book.  It's not very long.

Here it is again:


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript Part 2, Troubleshooting by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript
Part 2
Troubleshooting
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Face it, humans make mistakes; even writers make mistakes.

Writers have an advantage, though.  If discovered before anyone else reads the manuscript, an error can be corrected, and nobody will ever know how fallible you are.

The problem though is that structural errors are even more elusive than typos.  A writer who knows and understands her characters, who can hear them talking (well, yelling) at each other, making out, flirting, getting to second base, will have the worst time with structure.

That's correct -- the very best writers who produce the very, very best fiction, are the blindest to their own structural errors.

This is easy enough to understand if you've been following this blog for a few years.  You know how much of what the reader loves most about a Romance Novel is created in the writer's subconscious.  So when the subconscious gets cute and clever and decides to have fun at your expense, the writer can't see what happened because it happened outside of the conscious mind. 

A well trained subconscious can be trusted to present great stories already formatted for the genre where the story will sell best.  The most fun you can give your subconscious is a best seller. 

We've gone through many exercises to train the subconscious, so we won't repeat them here.  For the most part, the way to train your subconscious to produce publishable stories with a clear genre signature is to trust your subconscious.

When your subconscious yells, "Here's a Great Idea!" just sit down and write it. 

OK, the first scribbles should be what you use for an "outline" -- whatever notes that capture that initial burst of creative vision and configure it for a market.

Here are some entries that discuss this process:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-to-learn-to-write.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/finding-story-opening-part-1-action-vs.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html

The objective is to hit the springboard of the idea with all your weight and leap for the sky and even for orbit.

Make a habit of taking that leap the instant your subconscious delivers an Idea, and you train your subconscious to deliver more Ideas because you've rewarded it with FUN. 

Here is the index post to Story Springboards, how to create and use them. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/index-to-story-springboards-series-by.html

If the idea is really hot, you may be 1/3 to 1/2 the way through typing the novel at top speed before you come up for air. 

But then you might hit a brick wall -- even at the 3/4 point you might hit a brick wall.

What does it mean to hit a brick wall? 

It means there you sit staring at a blank page and you don't know what happens next.  Or worse, you suddenly realize nothing happens next -- i.e. you're at "the end" but the story or the plot isn't over yet. 

Maybe you suddenly understand that the ending you had in mind just won't work -- it's not satisfying, or for some reason you don't want to write it that way.

Perhaps you just sit there exhausted and without any further interest in this story.

That happens, even when you've already sold the novel on the basis of a 1-paragraph description, signed the contract, cashed the check, spent the money -- and you have a deadline you suddenly realize you can't meet.

What do you do?

One obvious tactic is to abandon that entire manuscript and start over from scratch, crafting a story that actually fulfills the contract requirements. 

I'm sure you've read many such novels.  Ordinarily, they don't rank with a writer's best work, and you as a fan of that writer, may be so disappointed you don't buy her next book.

So abandoning a nearly done manuscript is a last resort, something to be avoided.  We'll discuss what to do with abandoned manuscripts in another part in this series.

In any event, no matter what, tabling a manuscript in midst of first draft is not an option.

It simply is not an option -- if, that is, you intend to become a professional writer that editors can depend on to fulfill contracts.

If you find you've hit that brick wall (and it's not writer's block, but a totally different phenomenon), and you just shrug and pick up some other project, you are training your subconscious to create un-writable stories, unpublishable, un-usable work.  You're rewarding bad behavior. 

You are rewarding your subconscious for sloppy work if you let it get away with a half-assed idea like that.

It's like allowing your teenager to walz off to a party leaving their room and the bathroom a tumbled mess, and the kitchen a dysfunctional disaster zone, all for the sake of having a little fun.

Dogs, teens, and even writers, really do live for the fun of it.

Fun is the main objective of life.  FUN is what it's all about, and it is your stock in trade.

FUN is your product.

If you aren't having fun, you have nothing to sell.

Your subconscious is short-sighted like a dog or a teenager.  The more you reward your subconscious by letting it off the hook, by letting it go off to play a different game instead of cleaning up the mess it made, the more messes it will leave littering your life.

And that applies not just to unfinished (or un-finishable) manuscripts, but also to every other aspect of your life.  The detritus piles up around you until you can't move, can't do anything because of all the half-done things you didn't finish.

The only way out of that kind of depression, that paralysis amidst unfulfilled obligations, is discipline.

The inspired productivity of your imagination is symbolized in Astrology by Neptune and Jupiter.

Management of what you produce is symbolized by Saturn -- ruling Capricorn the 10th House of career. 

Saturn is a manager.  Saturn doesn't produce, but reduces, tames, and takes the product of imagination and turns it into something useful.  I Use is the keyword of Capricorn.

Here's an index to my posts on Astrology Just For Writers.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

Saturn is the tool you must use to Troubleshoot a failed manuscript.  Mars is the source of the energy to make it so.  But Saturn is the key function.

Everyone has all these planets, signs and Houses somewhere in their personality makeup.  You can draw on, activate, or strengthen these personality elements in yourself and you will then find them turning up in your characters with a lot more Show and a lot less Tell. 

Shifting your "mood" or mental function mode from Creativity (Neptune/Jupiter) to Productivity (Saturn) is a trick unique to your specific personality.  Nobody can teach you how to do this.

Each writer (or other sort of business owner) has a methodology that works for them.  It may take some years to find the one that works best for you.

Some techniques include going shopping, chocolate ice cream, going ball room dancing, maybe horseback riding, playing tennis, cleaning house,  -- anything physical, and especially things that take a bit of courage. 

The principle is to break out of Creative mode.  Running full tilt into a brick wall in a manuscript might do that, but rarely completes the job. 

So after you take a break, then you come back to the manuscript with your head in editorial mode, distanced from the story, absolutely clinical.  Maybe you print out what you've written and take it out on the back porch to sit and read and scribble in margins.  Or maybe you bring it up on your tablet and go to the park to eat popcorn and read it over. 

For more on "editorial mode" here's the link to Part 7 of the series on "What Exactly Is Editing"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vi.html

It has links to the previous 6 parts on Editing.

So once you have caught your breath after hitting that brick wall, you shift your mood to clinical distance, and discipline your subconscious into cleaning up its mess before you allow it to rush off to play with a different toy.

You have to discipline yourself to break up with one boyfriend before you can allow yourself to go out with another -- if you don't, then your life will get harder not easier.

This is very hard to make yourself do. 

So here are some of the questions to put before yourself as you pick up a Brick Wall Manuscript to Troubleshoot it.

1) Is this story idea salvagable?

   a)if not, what do I do? (shelving the MS is not an option)
   b) if it is, what do I do?

2) Why did I want to write this story?

3) What does this story have to say and to whom (to what market?)

4) Why did I start writing at the point in the life-story of this couple that I did?  Why didn't I have (or stick to) a firm road-map from beginning to end with a dynamite MIDDLE SCENE to pivot around?

5) Why did I choose this Opening?  This first scene?  This first paragraph? 

6) What Ending did I plan to use? 

7) Why is that Ending unreachable from this Beginning?

8) Which is more important to the FUN my readers want, the ENDING or the BEGINNING -- or maybe the MIDDLE?

9) If the MIDDLE event is the most fun in the story, why don't I make that the ENDING?

10) If the BEGINNING is the most fun, why isn't that the ending?  (meaning, back up the timeline of these characters' lives to the point where their story really starts)

Do you see the system here?  Question decisions that you made consciously, then question the decisions you made subconsciously. 

The principle behind this is to LOVE YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS, but treat it kindly as you discipline it.  A "spoiled brat" subconscious will tear your life apart just like a teenage kid driving drunk can kill someone and end up in jail turning his parents' lives into hell for the next 5 years of court litigation.  Don't let the drunken spoiled brat have the car keys. 

You love your subconscious by treasuring the brick wall it created to prevent you from wasting more time writing garbage.

Your subconscious stopped you for a REASON.

Your job as a professional creator of FUN is to find out what that reason is.

It will be a Good Reason (saving you from wasting time) if your subconscious has been well raised under firm but not cruel discipline.  It will be a Bad Reason (causing you to waste time) if you have a spoiled rotten subconscious. 

A spoiled subconscious can be housebroken and civilized, but it takes time and many instances of cleaning up the mess it made. 

A well disciplined subconscious will produce stories that tell themselves, characters that take control of the plot and veer it in an unplanned direction, and the writer will discover delights along the way.

A spoiled brat subconscious will produce characters who yank the plot out of the writer's hands and cavort along drunkenly to nowhere worth going.

If you have a spoiled brat subconscious, you are writing emotional therapy suitable for your eyes only (which might be converted to publishable material later when you've disciplined your subconscious by sending it to Military School.)

If you have a well disciplined subconscious, you may be creating publishable material but you ran into a brick wall because you've made a mistake.  Your subconscious recognized the mistake and stopped you -- returning your kindness for stopping it from spoiled brat behavior.

If your subconscious needs more discipline, then you must rewrite this manuscript, brick wall or not -- to discipline it, and show don't tell it the kind of story you will accept from it.  You must be firm about what is unacceptable behavior.  It will be a difficult job rewriting this mess, and in the end you will not have a publishable manuscript -- or at least not one up to the standards you want for your primary byline.

See these blog entries on Pen Names:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-11.html

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

Part 2 has a link to Part 1 on pen names.

If you market the results of a training exercise for a fractious subconscious, it is usually best to create another byline for that material.  That's not the main reason for creating a new byline (or brand), but it is a compelling one.  As noted above, it is most probable that fans of your better work will be disappointed by an exercise in discipline.  But a byline you create for this reason can create fans of its own!  You may just have "found your voice" and a whole new way of writing.

Here are a couple on Voice.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/source-of-expository-lump-part-2.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/reviews-3-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

Nothing a writer creates is ever useless.  It's just a matter of finding its proper market.

If your subconscious is disciplined, then you must FIX THIS MANUSCRIPT, and it shouldn't be very hard to do.  The result will be saleable and will please your readers.

No matter where your subconscious is on the road to professionalism, Fixing This Manuscript is a more profitable option than setting it aside, shelving it, or trashing it.

So go to a movie, have ice cream in the park, go jogging or mountain climbing or whatever you do to shift mental gears.  Then work through that list of 10 Questions until you have discovered where your mistake was made, and why.

Armed with that information, go on to read Part 3 of this series on When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Astrology Just For Writers Part 11-The Fishtank Model of Romance

Most writers and readers don't want to know anything about Astrology, and that's fine.  There are plenty of other systems for parsing the patterns of human life.

A writer only needs one such system, but having several can give a writer the flexibility to work with vastly different audiences.  Adding Astrology to your toolbox can position you to take advantage of unexpected opportunities with unruffled aplomb.

But you don't need to become an astrologer, or even to "learn" astrology or do it.  You only need to learn to think like an astrologer, and to understand what lives look like from the point of view of someone well versed in this craft.

Here are the previous posts in this Astrology Just For Writers series that help you get the perspective we'll discuss next.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html lists posts on Astrology

And here are additional ones:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/astrology-just-for-writers-part-9-high.html

Part 10 was on August 30, 2010.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html 

And this is Part Eleven.  The intention is to collect this series into an e-book and make it available for download on simegen.com.

The 20 posts on the Tarot Swords and Pentacles that I've done here will likewise be published along with the discussions in volumes on Wands and Cups, plus a volume on how and why to study Tarot, and when and how to shun it.

Here are two posts indexing the 20 Tarot posts available.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html

When using Tarot to structure a novel, never mention cards, suits, mysticism, foretelling the future, etc.  Keep your use of these tools "off the nose" and be able to say, "It just came to me."

To achieve that unruffled aplomb, that level of "Cool,"  in the face of the opportunity of a lifetime, the one thing a writer needs to learn about using Astrology in their writing is, just as with Tarot, never mention the name "Astrology" or "Natal Chart" -- or any of the planets or stars that Astrology tracks.  Never mention "influenced by" or "under a transit."  Not even "Horoscope!"

Mentioning the source is what Hollywood screenwriters call being "on the nose" -- or in the parlance of the narrative text writer, "telling" rather than "showing."

I've seen this "on the nose" error in text a lot lately, even from seasoned professional best sellers.  That happens because the editors don't catch it and send it back for rewrite.  Editors need to know this stuff just as writers do.

Lazy writers, or any writer just in a hurry or being lazy, tend to try to disguise expository lumps as dialogue or description.  When that is done, the dialogue or description comes out "on the nose."

Here are some of my entries about Expository Lumps:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-much-is-too-much-world-buliding.html

And there's another on August 23rd, 2011

Also see my series on Editing.  Here's the final installment, and it has a list of the previous parts at the top.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html

A master craftsman writer portrays the life (and arc) of a character in a way that is familiar to the readers -- they know real people who've lived through that pattern (or died in it).  But you must not tell the reader how you found out about that pattern.  It just came to you.

There is a popular commercial running in 2011 for Progressive Insurance in which the iconic saleswoman shows a prospective buyer the "Bundling" machine.  You put your information in once, and get out two products in a box.

The buyer turns to her marveling and asks, "How did you think of that?"

She answers, "Oh, it just came to us."  Then looks over at a centaur shopping the shelves of bundles.

That line, "Oh, it just came to us."  is supposed to be a tickler, funny, amusing, memorable to the viewers.

What most viewers don't know is that it is the stock answer to that question in Hollywood.

It's so routine, and so stock, and so necessary when a producer or director asks a writer "How did you think of that?" that the "never let them see you sweat" rule kicks in automatically, and the only answer is a nonchalant shrug with, "Oh, it just came to me."  Saying essentially you have a genius that the nuts-n-bolts people who make your story real for viewers just don't have.  You are indispensable to the process, but not overly impressed with yourself.  It was an accident you thought of this ingenious solution.

This is so absolutely ingrained in the Hollywood culture that Blake Snyder ( http://blakesnyder.com ) of the Save The Cat! books insists this is the only way a writer can respond to that question.  He teaches writing, and goes out of his way to make this point.  There's skill, craft, and lots of sweat behind these ingenious solutions to production problems, but you as a seller of your skills must never let them see you sweat.

And that's true of the relationship between you and your reader as well.

You must never let the reader know how you know -- know what process you used to create the magic they adore.

It won't be magic if you do.

Think of a painter facing a well prepared blank canvass.  Most often, after settling on the subject, the painter reaches for charcoal not pigment, and maybe a ruler, and draws in a whole lot of very faint lines later to be erased.  Those lines set up the composition, the perspective, the point of view from which the subject's inner nature will be revealed.  The painter deliberately plans how the viewer's eye will sweep across the images, and what they will notice first, what next, and what will be in focus and remembered.

Yes, it's all very deliberate skill in painting.  It's learned early and practiced like a musician practices scales until the painter can have an image "just come to him" and boom, it's on the canvass and you never know what happened even if you were watching.  The Master Craftsman usually isn't conscious of "what happened" either -- he really lives the "it just came to me" moment without asking himself how that happened.

Teachers on the other hand have to unravel that "just came to me" moment and convey the individual skills to the craftsman one at a time, in boring repetitive drills.

That's what we're doing here in this blog for writers who want to figure out how better writers achieve those marvelous effects.

Today's craft point is a look at Astrology from the writer's point of view.

So let's look at the two lead characters in a Romance.  Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT! series of books on screenwriting, says all Romances belong to his "genre" called Buddy Love.  I recommend you read those books.

Blake Snyder On Amazon

Also, because of the encroachment of graphic novels, film, webisodes, games, and other visual media on storytelling,  today's text-narrative writers must incorporate the pacing and visual emphasis that fiction consumers have become accustomed to.

So I recommend getting Snyder's screenwriting SOFTWARE that goes with the books, and using that to lay out the structure of your novel.  I am particularly involved with that software right now because I'm a beta tester on version 3.0 and I really love the improvements.

You can find it at blakesnyder.com or Amazon.  The software is also called SAVE THE CAT!  You can also find it on professional screenwriting software sites like Final Draft.  It's integrated with Final Draft 8

So now you're looking at a blank canvass to create your characters, their arcs, and the story they must live through.

You've nailed the transit influences affecting them.  Since this is a Romance, of course Neptune is hard at their respective sensitive spots.  But other influences can fly through that long-arc Neptune transit as well.

So you need a mental model too understand what these two people are and why they act and react as they do.

And that model has to be comprehensible to your readers especially because you're not going to explain it "on the nose." 

Without learning astrology, what can you visualize that will tell you what is happening to this couple, this pair of Soul Mates, falling in love?

Visualize it like this, and see if this works for you.

A Soul incarnates at a particular moment.  Astrology captures the moment of birth in a flash-photo still shot called the Natal Chart.

That chart delineates the positions of the planets of the solar system, and the Sun and Moon, at the time of birth.  It further captures the two lines delineating the path to the horizon east and west, plus the point directly overhead at Noon - the highest point the Sun reaches on that day at that longitude and latitude.  The opposite point is directly under foot, opposite the Sun's peak of arc, midnight.  That line is called the MC, and defines the 10th House and the 4th House, the mystical purpose for taking this life vs. the foundation of the Home under the person's metaphorical feet.

The Ascendant defines the view of "reality" the person has from inside his life, and what others see when they look at him.  Opposite the Ascendant is the 7th House cusp, which delineates partnerships, significant others, spouses, and the public (when you figure what all those things have to do with each other, how they're all absolutely identical, you'll have an understanding you can use to write fiction.)

Different astrological systems of mathematics assign different ways to calculate the positions of the other 8 "House cusps" -- I favor Placidus, Tropical, and it works well enough for my purposes (creating characters).

This up/down, horizon to horizon framework delineates the support structure of this character's life.  When you put the planets, Moon and Sun, into the framework positioned relative to the  birthplace on Earth at that moment the baby draws first breath, you then have a giant clock with at least 10 "hands" moving at different paces.  You can get fancy, and delineate 20 hands to the clock.  But a writer doesn't need that.

You don't need to understand how those clock hands move as much as you need to understand that they're there, they're set with precision, there's no escaping, and everyone alive is utterly familiar with their permutations and combinations in dynamic effects.

That "setup" of life at birth is the part of astrology that lets you make your characters "the same" as Hollywood always wants, and as Manhattan publishers need and will buy.

When something has become popular (like Harry Potter) the purveyors of fiction strive to duplicate exactly what it was that sold so well..  And that's why they always want "the same but different."

Writers, however, have read a lot of books, and usually want to put their work forward as "different" and not at all the same.  "Different" feels like the essence of art, the essence of your soul. (because it is)

You can do "different" and get small readerships.  Or you can add in "the same" dimension and strike for larger readerships.  It's a choice.  Create a pen name for each career path.

But first see my entries on PEN NAMES.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/should-you-make-up-pen-name-part-ii.html

The Blake Snyder Save the Cat! books and software show you how to do "the same" without infringing on your personal "different" and thus unleash your full potential as a commercial writer.

Now visualize this giant clock everyone is born inside.  Each of us live inside a clock set to a different time zone, a unique (or nearly unique -- even twins are born at different times) time zone.

This clock forms the framework of your life, the outside of your life, not the inside.

Think of this framework as the walls of a fishtank.

Fishtanks come in a lot of shapes and sizes, but they have transparency in common.  At least one wall is transparent (think of the giant aquarium at a zoo).  Most fishtanks are transparent on at least 3 sides.

The tank you live in, your natal chart, defines the size and shape of your life just like the walls of a fish tank.

You can think of it as walling you away from what's out there.  Or you can think of it as containing a benign environment uniquely suited just to you, thus protecting others from your environment.  This should be familiar to SF readers of space adventures with intelligent aquatic creatures.  Metaphor?  Maybe. 

Unlike most fish, you can see OUT, hazily.  With distortion.  You can see the reflective walls of other people's tanks, and sometimes glimpse through those walls into the life of another.

In this (admittedly limited and distorted) analogy, your Soul is the fish.

Unlike fish, you can create, shape, decorate, personalize and customize your tank.  You create your inner environment.

What your Soul is capable of creating, how nicely you can arrange things, what you can "do with the place" is limited by your talent, determination, and other resources your soul brings into this life.

You live your life within your natal chart, within your clock, by the choices your Soul makes, and the resources and wisdom it has brought with it, and what it learns from this life.

The "clock" does not say "You will meet a tall, dark, non-human, stranger and fall in unrequited love."

The clock does not say a tall dark stranger will come into your life.

The clock says it's time to meet strangers, go find one.

Whether there's a stranger there or not, and how you respond to that particular individual stranger, is a matter of the Soul, not the clock.

It's not that there's no such thing as "destiny" -- it's that "destiny" is far more complex than the Ancient Greeks ever knew.

"Destiny" is crafted from the material at hand (via the clock, the shape of the fishtank, the limits of imagination in fixing up the place inside the tank), by freewill choices, but not just your own.  Everyone has free will and makes choices which you respond to.  And others respond to your choices.  You interact (i.e. fall in Love) with others who likewise live in fishtanks of their own, tanks you can sometimes almost see into, but never enter.

In my universe paradigm, there's a third force acting to shape and reshape "destiny" for each of us and all of us collectively - God.  But the fishtank analogy holds whether there's a third outside force or not.

So here your character is inside her fishtank, and is moving stuff around trying to make the place (her life) comfortable.  (i.e. has landed a plum of a job promotion, and really sees the big bucks coming soon)

And she decides out of pride of place to clean her tank walls nice and clear and transparent so she can see and understand the world (i.e. takes a course and learns something, or proves something).

She wants love, so she makes herself more visible, her real self, or what she wants to believe is her real self.

And what happens when she cleans her tank wall is that she SEES another tank out there because it's time to meet strangers, and she can now see through her own reflection to something that is not herself.

She sees another tank wall, and reflective though it is, it seems to curve around the edges of her tank very neatly, and with the angle just so, she can SEE the Soul swimming around inside his life.  Or she thinks she does.  Part of the image is a reflection of herself, but having cleaned her tank walls, she is seeing something that is not herself.  Thrill of a lifetime. 

Wow. He's gorgeous.  Just look at those sweeping, draping fins!

The two souls can get close, nudge their tanks right up to touching, so it seems the walls have merged into one wall, and they can create new life together.  But neither can leap over into the other's tank and swim there.

The analogy kind of breaks down because Soul Mates who marry do actually merge into one.  Those two tanks bond and stick together.

But the insides are always separate, even when most of the reflection effect at the tank surfaces is eliminated by bonding the two tank walls together.

Lives are SEPARATE -- Souls merge.

We each live in our fishtanks, isolated and alone.  But we can share a Soul, mate with a Soul.

Think of this analogy.  The two tanks come together, the walls fuse so they can almost just about see into each others' tanks (there's always reflection -- what we see when we look at others is a reflection of our inner Self).  So they move into such harmony that they each redecorate their tanks to match, so you can't tell it's two rooms.

Maybe she quits her job, and he quits his (ok, today it's more likely they'll get laid off), and they start a business together -- a shop, a newspaper, a blog-for-money operation, e-Bay sales, whatever.  They change their lives to harmonize.

That's what "Happily Ever After" -- the HEA ending -- actually looks like.

We talked about the Happily Ever After concept in a 4 part series the Tuesdays in October 2011 titled Believing In Happily Ever After.

Using the fishtank analogy of lives that are set up at Birth, and Souls trapped inside those lives at least for this incarnation, you can see immediately why people today just don't credit the Happily Ever After goal as realistic.

You can never really get inside another person's life.  You can't let them inside yours.

You can't even see inside other people clearly, which leads to misunderstandings.

Consider a good marriage where, after some time, one partner wanders off to live mostly in the far end of his tank, becoming mostly invisible from the mated tank.  Left alone, she ends up living at the far end of her tank, where there's a view into someone else's tank.

No matter how close some part of your life is to another's, or how visible, there's a part of your life they can't see or share.

That's what it means to be an individual, a unique person, a sovereign person.

Since everyone has that experience, it's easy to see why most people don't believe another person would deliberately live their life only in the corner of their tank that touches the other tank.

Until you mix in the Soul Mate dimension, that delineates the unique pleasure of being near another, willingly sharing a life (redecorating) for the sheer pleasure of the meaningfulness you find in the other's company, there's no way to explain Happily Ever After to those who have no experiential model for it.

That is, there is no way to explain unless you're a writer who has mastered show don't tell, the off-the-nose techniques Blake Snyder teaches so ably.  The genre that specializes in making the unbelievable real to the reader is Science Fiction and its more recent offshoot adult Fantasy.  When you mix SF/F with Romance or just plain Love, you get PNR and SFR.

PNR writers need a firm grasp of the esoteric or occult disciplines such as Tarot and Astrology to make the rules of magic of a constructed fictional world real to their readers.

Here is where you can find my novels, and my co-author Jean Lorrah's, to see how we apply these principles.

http://astore.amazon.com/simegen-20

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com