Depiction Part 2: Conflict And Resolution

Depiction Part 2:
Conflict And Resolution
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Think about this and we'll get back to it below

In Depiction Part 1,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html
we defined depiction at some length.  Here's a short excerpt to remember this working definition.

--------quote-------
It's the brain trick that lets us look at a scrambled page full of LINES and "see" a map, and understand it as a depiction of a territory (real or imagined).

Writers depict both concrete and abstract elements in mere words.  Readers agree to accept the emphasis the writer's selection of certain attributes and omission of other attributes to "depict" a character, situation, philosophy, threat, conflict, or the stakes in a transaction.

If the writer writes, "It was a dark and stormy night ..." the reader may KNOW there were some street lamps or car headlights (or carriage lanterns) but at the same time understand that the main character's emotional "place" is inside the primal threat-zone that dark and stormy nights were for cavemen.

The character is aware of the light, but seeing only the dark. 
---------end quote----------

So a depiction is NOT a photograph.  It is not a complete analysis.  A depiction deliberately leaves elements out in order to exaggerate the role of other elements in determining the materialization of results.

A depiction is a work of Art.  We've discussed fiction as Art and the methods the writer uses to create that Art -- the how, and the why of the writer's job has been covered in many long posts here, especially in the various series on Worldbuilding

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

...and how to blend the Worldbuilding skills into various individual craft skills (such as theme, characterization, etc). 

Once you've built your multidimensional alter-reality, you must then depict it for your reader.

To depict the World you have built, you must select certain attributes to mention outright and others to leave as implied.  That process produces a depiction of an alter-reality that depicts our own -- a First Derivative, mathematicians would call it.

So in Part 1 of this series we looked at how to depict Relationships. 

Romance is a process, Love is a Relationship.  There are all kinds of Relationship, "Buddy," "Adversary" "Mortal Enemy" "Brother-Rival" etc etc. 

And in every relationship we work with in fiction you will find the seeds of Conflict.

Conflict is the Essence of Story, but it generates Plot  (where Story is the character's change due to impact of Events, and Plot is the sequence of Events caused by a character's actions or inactions).

Books on story craft or writing will all use different words to refer to a moving-part of a story-construct, but all the vastly commercial kinds of fiction have the same moving-parts -- Setting, Character, Conflict, Theme -- and all the English language ones have 4 types of word-usages: Exposition, Narrative, Dialogue, Description. 

A writer's "Voice" is established by the proportions of those word-usages employed to convey the structural components.  That proportion establishes pacing, which is a part of the genre signature. 

We've delved deeply into the details of how to do each of these individual things, and how to pair them, blending two into one seamless whole.

Many beginning writers launch their first story attempts already able to synthesize these skills into a sellable page and chapter.

But very few of those confident in their story-telling skills have thought through or mastered the Art of Depiction.

Teaching writing workshops, I get manuscript after manuscript of very interesting, intriguing, wildly commercial stories with great premises, delightful imagination, and strong romantic intrigue -- but they are unsellable because they start with a massive Expository Lump, a huge pre-history of the entire world the writer has meticulously built or a long personal history of the characters and their ancestry.

It is easy to point to page 25 or 55 and say, "This scene is page 1 of this work."

But the author will not know how we (the professional writers at the table) all arrived at that same conclusion.  And it is spooky how much unanimity a group of professionals have when analyzing the same manuscript for a beginner.  The beginner often thinks it's a conspiracy -- even when the professionals haven't spoken to each other about this manuscript.

Most professional writers don't know how they learned to do that analysis, and just shrug it off as "experience."

I remember learning this technique, and hope I can explain it.

It isn't enough to point to an interior page and say, "This is page 1."

The author of the piece will fight that, tooth and nail, because you see the reader MUST KNOW all this other stuff before that point or the reader just won't understand.

And that's true, absolutely true. 

The professionals at the table will all suggest different solutions to the problem.  They all agree on the problem -- but never, ever, on how to solve it.

How you solve that problem changes the nature of the story, the plot, the target audience, and most of all the characters themselves, very often it changes the theme, and requires the Worldbuilding to undergo major revision.

The beginning writer must learn what to do with that initial expository lump before that lump is formed into words, before those words at set down -- in fact, before the World for this story is Built.

I am using the term DEPICTION to represent that arcane process of solving that problem of the Expository Lump that has to be conveyed before the story starts.  I've never seen this process described exactly this way in books on writing craft.

I wasn't taught it as such.  All my teachers (professional writers and editors) could do was point at where the story really starts and say, "cut all this other stuff, start here."

And my response was always a (very silent) "NO NO NO!!!"

So I invented this method of "Depiction" -- and many years later, I see what appears to me to be many other writers using this method.  The end result, regardless of the process of arriving at it, has to be that uniform STARTING PLACE that all pros agree is where the story starts.

Expository Lumps are often strewn throughout a novel.  This method of Depiction will solve those problems, too. 

Here are some previous post on Expository Lumps

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/source-of-expository-lump.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/sexy-information-feed.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/dissing-formula-novel.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-much-is-too-much-world-buliding.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/source-of-expository-lump-part-2.html

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

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

Assuming you've been reading this Tuesday blog series since 2008, and have thought about those posts, here is the advanced lesson in depicting Conflict and depicting Resolution that will solve the problem of the 25 pages of throat clearing before page 1 of the story.

This method often does away with those "Introduction" or "Prelude" additions that editors resort to when they can't get the author to depict.  Understanding depiction and how to do it is not in the job-description of editors.  Those who can teach this come to editing via another path. 

Like everything else in Art and Story-craft, it's a learn-by-doing kind of thing, so we'll work with the "Real World" around us to extract elements that could be used in depicting a conflict and a resolution.

PAGE 1 of any piece of fiction starts with defining the Conflict.

That's actually what pros teaching writing workshops look for to spot that page 26 opening scene error.

The story starts where the Conflict kicks off the plot.

Depicting Conflict is the missing skill for such writing students.

The opening of any novel is where the This vs. That or Her vs. Him is first depicted.

Now remember -- a Depiction is not the whole, entire, complete, multiplex Situation.

Depiction is done by leaving important, vital, crucial elements out of the picture, then presenting elements of that picture that merely hint or suggest the presence of those crucial elements.

This artistic skill leverages the reader's simple, human tendency to make assumptions.

You give them this; they assume that.

It is the human brain's short-cut mechanism at work there.  It is the mechanism that causes us to be prejudiced and intolerant, and it is responsible for our ability to appreciate Art in all its forms and media.

So after you've defined the Conflict, you depict that conflict on Page 1.

Remember, an "outline" contains only the moving parts of the plot, Beginning, Middle, End Events. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/finding-story-opening-part-1-action-vs.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-11-correct.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/09/verisimilitude-vs-reality-part-2-master.html

Depiction as I'm using it here is the Art of creating Verisimilitude -- the illusion of reality.

It works the same way that caricature works -- the eye sees a few sparse lines and fills in the rest.  A caricature is not a photograph but a representation of certain, carefully selected features of the subject.

So when Depicting a Conflict for your opening, you carefully select Features of that Conflict to incorporate into your opening Dialogue, Description, Exposition (yes you are allowed to use some exposition, just not in lumps) and Narrative. 

Your Conflict, on Page 1, is distributed among those 4 language elements, and that single conflict must be present in all instances of those 4 language elements -- usually throughout the entire novel, no matter the point of view.  Conflict pervades the work -- that's what makes it a story.

How do you select what Features of your Conflict to include on Page 1 and which other features to explore in depth later?

To select the elements of Conflict on Page 1, you look at the last page (that you haven't written yet.)

That's where the outline comes in. 

The outline you scribbled down when you had this Idea flood into your conscious mind should have little except the 3 major points, Beginning, Middle, End.  The rest is commentary.

Example: 
1. Pandora sees a Box
2. Pandora Opens the Box
3. Pandora gets shut up inside that Box. 

The Conflict is Pandora Vs. The Box.  The Middle (the worst thing that could happen) is Pandora Opens The Box.  That doesn't resolve the conflict, it escalates it as a good Middle must.  The End resolves the conflict by blending Pandora and the Box into one, removing her "issues" from the world.

Of course the Situation just sits there begging for a sequel.  That's good plotting.

At this stage of Depicting a Conflict and its Resolution, the beginning writer will likely discover that the Last Page doesn't match the First Page she has in mind.

That is the conflict that is Resolved at the ending as envisioned is not the same conflict that begins on Page 1.

Many writers will handle this problem by ignoring it -- or pointing to Masterwork novels where many conflicts are braided into a complex mulch-layered plot to justify their choices.  Most beginning writers want to be that sort of Masterwork writer.  Depiction is the art form that must be mastered to create such a Masterwork.

It isn't that you must already be a Big Name writer to get away with bait-and-switch plotting.  It's that you must have the skills that make Names Big.  Some of those skills are writing skills.  Some aren't.  Writing skills can be learned.

So, take this rich, multidimensional, braided plot and multiple viewpoint story you have in mind, and choose a few, sparse elements of The Conflict to depict on Page 1.

Then craft the last page out of a specific Resolution to that Conflict.  Yes, you may have to revised that ending a few times as you write, but having a target depicted lets you revise that depiction as you go.  This is the skill that lets professionals hit deadlines, to predict when signing a contract how long it will take to write that novel. 

It's not that you always stick to an outline -- it is that you have an outline to revise as required. 

Given the immense World you have Built in your mind, how do you sort out which of the conflicts that seethe within that world to depict on Page 1.

You look to your THEME.  The Theme is the philosophical statement about life, the universe, and everything that this work of fiction makes.  It is the moral of the story, or the proposition to be debated. 

That statement about The Universe and its underlying Reality dictates how your Conflict will be resolved.  That statement defines the ENDING EVENT of the story.

For example, if you are writing a Romance, your philosophical statement, your Major Theme, is "Happily Ever After Is Attainable In Reality" -- or maybe "Only Happily For Now can be Attained, and that's enough."  or maybe "HFN is not enough."

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/beauty-and-beast-constructing-hea.html

If your theme is HEA is Real, then your Page 1 must depict the ABSENCE OF HEA -- people wanting something, misery for lack of whatever, a big problem that is major because of the absence of a partner (example: unwed pregnancy).

The Ending is then HEA Realized (wedding in the offing, commitment, birth, whatever solves the problem).

The Middle would then be the point in the focus couple's life where the partnership is just not working out - that internal and/or external forces drive them apart (deployed to Iraq, denied Military permission to marry).  Or maybe what drives them apart for the Middle Event is some kind of Political Campaign or issue.

Love And Politics always equals EXPLOSIVE ACTION.  In fact, Love and Politics is sometimes more explosive than Religion and Politics.

Perhaps your Couple is divided by their stances on hot-button-political issues of today, even though they live in a Galaxy Far Far Away.

By using today's Headlines, but depicting those headlines rather than just copying them into your story, you can lift today's social conflicts out into the galaxy, place them between human and non-human, and have a whopping series of novels that sells big.

How do you do that?  How do you "depict" a political conflict torn from today's headlines?

Remember, depiction is the art of lifting up certain elements and suppressing others.  It's not distortion, but point of view.

Each person sees the world around them from a unique point of view - their own.

Humans tend to regard what they see as the whole reality that is there -- but what they see is a selected depiction. 

We have a brain mechanism that selects reality for us, so we can free up brain space for handling more critical life-or-death decisions.  And that brain mechanism is the source of both our Art Appreciation and our deadly-to-each-other prejudices. 

So you, the author, must replicate the effect that point-of-view has on the Character's convictions.

Take, for example, our real-world political situation.  In order to avoid having to fill up our brains with thousands of data points, in the USA we "reduce" our reality to two political positions.  In other countries, there are many political parties with similarities to each other and some differences their constituents consider critical.  Voters there have to think about many more abstract concerns than those in the USA.

In Europe, for example, "Far Right" means Nazi.  In the USA, the "Far Right" means anti-Nazi.  But because of the Internet, many voters in the USA have adopted the European definition of "Far Right" and now point the finger at the Right in the USA as being Nazi oriented.  Those targeted by that finger object.  Conflict reigns.

Consider the Conflict breaking apart your Soul Mate Couple that has its origin in that kind of linguistic mislabeling.  They fall in love. 

The Conflict becomes clear. Opening Scene: they are walking to an ice cream shop after seeing a wonderful movie they both enjoyed, but it had a woman in it who went for an abortion for well-depicted reasons. 

The guy admits he always votes Republican, and that movie explains exactly why the Republicans have the correct approach -- because abortion shouldn't be legal. 

She, however, always votes Democrat because, after all, she's a woman, and "how dare you" is her bristling response -- nobody is going to tell her how to manage her own biology.

Why do I mention this?  Because International Sales and Translations are where the professional writer actually, finally, turns a profit.  It's vital to keep the world market in mind when crafting a depiction.  Abortion is a good example because the yes/no argument is very different in the rest of the world.  This intimate argument by a couple where marriage is a looming issue uncovers a Foreign Policy Issue between them which could break that couple up.

Should a man be allowed to force a woman to have his baby? 

If he's to be disallowed, who does the disallowing?  Government? Religion? Neighborhood busy-bodies? Doctors?

THEME: how do I get you to do what I want even if you don't want to?

MASTER THEME: There Are No Objective Criteria Of Right And Wrong Use Of Force (if I can get away with it, then I can do it). Or put another way Pride vs. Humility makes a great Conflict:




Today, in the USA, it's merely a case of seeing "people" (on TV mostly) doing things you don't want to let them do, and getting "The Government" to force them to behave the way you want.

Government is The Power that the people use to force other people to behave properly.

A long-long time ago, there was a comic strip everyone read because it was syndicated in all the newspapers, There Ought To Be A Law.

It DEPICTED (and from it you can learn the Art of Depicting) activities that nobody had the power to stop, so they'd throw up their hands and declaim, "There Ought To Be A Law" against that activity.

http://miamiarchives.blogspot.com/2012/09/there-oughta-be-law-comic-strip-1952.html

http://www.toonopedia.com/bealaw.htm

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

There Ought To Be A Law and They'll Do It Every Time (two syndicated comics) depicts a world where people can't use government to control other people's behavior, but they want to because something has to be done.

The urge to control other, misbehaving, people is universal among humans and a source of Conflict you can tap repeatedly.  Life and morality can be "depicted" as either a fight for control of others or the results of people being "out of control."

How many times do news stories about an urgent emergency requiring an Act of Congress contain the phrase "the situation is out of control."  And not one reporter challenges that by asking, "when was the situation in control?" or "who controlled the situation before this" or "was the old controller of the situation doing a good enough job?" 

Why does this situation need "controlling" from outside the situation? 

Watch The News -- watch it carefully and keep asking questions like that to find ways to depict your story's conflict and a satisfying resolution.

So here's half the conflict between the serious couple coming out of the movie Theater:

He says, "You can't be serious! You vote Democrat? YOU??? I don't believe it."

She says, "Republicans are superstitious idiots."

He says, "I am not!"

She says, "Then how could you possibly believe all those lies?"

He says, "What lies?  It's the Democrats who lie rather than take responsibility.  It's the Democrats who think government has to solve every problem with more and more money!" 

She says, "I do not think that!!!  How can you say that?"

Note that each of them is accepting the depiction of their own party as the truth about the other's party.

That is, the Democrats (whom she trusts as a primary source) depict the Republicans as superstitious idiots, so she repeats that depiction without treating it as a "depiction" (i.e. as a statement that leaves something out in order to emphasize something else.)

Anyone who identifies as Republican must be a superstitious idiot.  Anyone who identifies as Democrat must be a person who won't own up to responsibility for the results of their own actions -- "unintended consequences" means "I'm not guilty."

Neither one is penetrating that depiction of the opposite party.

Go watch some TV news and analyze for that tendency -- especially political ads.

So let's list some points He could point to as Democratic dogma.

a) Government Is The Solution
b) It's an Emergency therefore the usual rules are set aside and we can do "whatever it takes" (therefore to get rid of onerous rules, one has to create an emergency.)
c) Got a Problem? Give us a lot more money and we will fix it for you
d) It's just one rotten apple who broke the law. The system is sound.
e) It's proven science so the government must impose it on everyone
f) Only government can protect you from actions of your neighbor
g) If it should be done; then therefore government must do it because nothing else is powerful enough to accomplish it.
h) The Experts know, so we have to believe them and act as if they are correct
i) Income Inequality is a travesty that government must prevent
j) We must educate all children in identical values because otherwise we won't be able to control the resulting adults and then we'd have anarchy.

Now think about those (each could be the thematic foundation of a long series of long novels). 

Would any Democrat accept that phrasing as a statement of their own beliefs?

Would any Republican accept the opposite statements as their own beliefs?

We routinely use the brain short-cut mentioned above to avoid having to learn a lot of facts and then think with them -- and instead, we extract a couple visible facts and imagine what fills in the blanks.

That "fill in the blanks" process is "prejudice" -- it's the basis of "racism" (all Blacks are lazy bastards), "ageism" (all people over 60 are technical illiterates), and of War (all Germans are Krauts; all Japanese are Japs, all Muslims are Islamists).

Study the political fracas in TV Ad Blitzes to look for the "depiction" of your reality then compare that depiction with the underlying reality as you see it.

When you can see the pattern of how the Advertising "lifts" elements from the pea-soupy reality of the opposition (CONFLICT) party and presents to you a mere depiction OF THE CONFLICTING ELEMENTS, then turn to the huge World you have Built in your mind, and do that exact same thing to present your fictional world to your very real readers. 

That will generate your Page 1, your middle, and your Last Page conflict resolution.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
https://flipboard.com/profile/jacquelinelhmqg

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 8 - Use of Statistics by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 8
Use of Statistics
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here is Part 7 of this series on Theme-Worldbuilding Integration, titled Another Use of Media. 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-7.html

That post has a link to Part 6 which contains links to previous parts.  Here we will build on those posts. 

Part 7 is about a Fortune Magazine article about "The One Percent" of our population (a statistics based argument).  I found that article in a magazine in a doctor's waiting room, which led to a conversation with a young woman who plays videogames. 

Statistically, women videogame players are a minority, but in the 40% range.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/06/12/women-50-percent-gaming-audience/2411529/

Marketers use statistics like this to shape the creation and packaging of products (like novels, for example) and to "Target an Audience" with advertising.  We've discussed targeting audiences at some length and will no doubt return to that topic:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

Back in November 2013, a story broke in the Washington Post that caught my eye.

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/new-york-post-claims-census-falsifies-unemployment-figures-5436

And here is a set of graphs about employment trends statistically broken down:
http://www.economicpopulist.org/comment/reply/5210

It was a report, which called into question the accuracy of statistics released by a government agency -- a statistic which large numbers of people may have used to decide whether Barak Obama had done a good enough job rescuing the economy to deserve re-election. Later push-back pointed out how these numbers are produced by being passed from hand to hand across agencies, and that the career civil service employees really do take getting accurate figures together seriously.  This would be very hard to disrupt.  So the question becomes why did the Washington Post print that story in the midst of the Obamacare website disaster and not sooner? 

Dancing a political candidate through a "campaign" is all about packaging a product and targeting the market for that product (ignoring the 1% because they don't count, majority rules so the 1% are powerless.)

Marketers call this packaging and targeting "messaging."  You have to use the right keywords to get your message to "resonate" -- e.g. to get retweeted, or repeated as fact, even if what you're saying is not fact. 

For example: "Reverse mortgages are safe and effective" is the message, but the fine print says that you will own your house only until the last owner leaves.  That means if you are 92, get thrown into a nursing home against your will for 6 months, you thereupon have no home to go back to if you should violate statistics and survive incarceration in a nursing home.  ROMANCE NOVEL: Gal's grandmother incarcerated, loses home, gets well, has no place to live unless Gal throws her live-in-Guy out.  Now what?

Political Strategists determine what "messaging" keywords to use via statistics generated from "Focus Groups."  All of this is a use of the power of Science to manipulate people using knowledge of what those people do not know -- ignorance is bliss, and blissful people don't rebel. 

Remember this post is about Theme-Worldbuilding Integration and that idea, that "blissful people don't rebel" is an example of a theme cast as worldbuilding, fully integrated. 

A government statistical release is a "package."  It is "Messaging" packaged to be believed, because who would distrust a "non-political" department of government staffed by Civil Service employees who of course have no political opinions of their own.

If you hire a publicist who hates Romance to publicize your book, would you trust their "messaging" about your book to your audience? 

That's not a rhetorical question: it is what publishers do by assigning novels to their publicity department, staffed by people hired by their Human Resources department folks whose degrees are not in Romance Writing.  Such publicists are very likely well schooled in statistics and Public Relations courses abound in their C.V.

If you haven't studied the formulae used to generate statistics such as the Labor Department or Census Department release, studied the vast array of "assumptions" taken as "fact" when generating the numbers, and exactly which direction to reason from the numbers, you may come to incorrect conclusions.

At some point, we must discuss that 1% from Part 7 of this series on Theme-Worldbuilding Integration again because that 1% statistic is at the heart of this culture's entire sense of "right vs. wrong" and who can and should do what to fix it.  That is a massive theme and a huge conflict we can use to great advantage in galactic Romance, and it is salient to the development of Paranormal Romance novels because the concept of "Right vs. Wrong" bespeaks the mystical view of the universe.

For example, speaking of that 1%, I have just read a wondrous Romance novel, Girl of My Dreams by Morgan Mandel:



Girl of My Dreams is about a TV show where 25 women vie for the favor of a male Billionaire.  It's a contest and the prize is potential marriage to a Billionaire (1%-er)who happens to be quite a hunk, too.  This is a novel worth studying in conjunction with Part 7 of this series on Theme-Worldbuilding Integration. 

So back to the boring concept of Statistics and what a Romance writer can do with it.

People use statistics as an accurate picture of the entire world around them because statistics produce accurate predictions -- such as the outcome of an election via exit polls --  and if their own experience is at variance with the picture, they assume "It's just me."

For example, if the candidate you voted for doesn't win, you assume "everybody" voted for the other candidate.  Statistics don't lie.  You are the 1% on that issue.  You are the oddball.  You don't count. 

That is a CONFLICT, an Internal Conflict,  -- the exact type of CONFLICT that is at the heart of every story, and especially at the heart of a good Romance because it's all about self-perception vs. your perception of others and what that conflict implies about whether you should change yourself -- or change others. 

That conflict is HUMAN vs. NATURE -- where in this instance what passes for "Nature" isn't grass and trees, storms and earthquakes, but "society."  "NATURE" is the general environment that we never notice - the air we breathe, water we drink, people creating the traffic jam we have to penetrate to get to work on time.

Road engineering is done not just from physics (to calculate degree of embankment on curves) but commuter volume statistics which is as political as employment statistics.

There's a Hollywood adage that explains why low-budget pictures don't get made. 

"You can't steal a million dollars from a million dollar movie budget." 

It's a principle you can use to understand the political component of building commuter roads based on employment statistics and "expectations."  We set, using statistics, a certain percentage of every large-budget project to shrug off as a loss due to "waste, fraud and abuse."  There's a percentage of "we can't account for it" and "miscelaneous" in every budget.  The larger the budget, the larger the absolute value of that number.

That principle is one way writers can implant a statistical theme into their Worldbuilding.

If your Lead Male is an engineer building a road or a website, his job depends on the size of the budget of that project, and his management of that budget to disallow "waste, fraud and abuse" in excess of a certain percentage -- a percentage set by political considerations, but excused by statistics.

If your theme is "Honesty is the Best Policy" then your Lead Female becomes the woman who is, maybe the Auditor for that project or for some agency -- or maybe for a political candidate's campaign looking for dirt on the incumbents who launched your Lead Male's project.

Do you see now why STATISTICS is a matter of Ultimate Concern to Romance Writers?

If your Lead Male accepts that his bosses "know" the correct percentage to allow for "waste, fraud and abuse" (and maybe wants his own cut of that percentage), and your Female Lead is convinced the correct percentage for "waste, fraud and abuse" is zero, you have a Hot Conflict. 

Which one will prove their idea is correct?  What would the other take as proof their own idea is wrong?  Is it Evil to compromise on a Principle?  Is this percentage a Principle -- or a political whitewash?  Ultimately, what do you let the hottest lover you have ever had in your life get away with, just to keep them in your bed?   

Our perception of our environment is shaped by whatever information flows through our conscious and subconscious awareness (today: the internet news stream does a lot of the shaping.)

I've noted in this blog on writing craft that a savvy writer has to monitor headlines for the context in which their readers actually live, and use what the reader already "knows" whether it's true or not, but craft the ART behind the story that's being written in such a way as to reveal something new. 

If the artist thinks the audience believes incorrectly, and writes a story only to correct the audience's misconceptions - the work will fail as a story. 

If the artist understands what the audience believes, and understands many other points of view from the inside, then the artist can depict the contrast between these various beliefs as CONFLICT. 

When each character speaks sincerely and convincingly from a unique point of view, the conflict among the characters leaves the audience with a question.  The audience members are each free to decide what the answer is, or ought to be.

That clear, convincing presentation of opposite sides of an argument (say about the project management's ability to eliminate "waste, fraud and abuse" entirely) will make the novel or story "resonate" -- i.e. get tweeted and retweeted about. 

The audience won't come out of reading the story with the same opinion as the writer, but they will memorize that writer's byline or subscribe to their releases on Amazon.

See last week's post, Reviews Part 4, for more on following a byline:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/reviews-4-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

Capturing of a reader's attention to the point where the reader memorizes and follows a byline is what the Artist does art for.

Art is done by rearranging the bits and pieces a reader already takes for granted, or does not realize that they know in order to show the reader a new picture that is interesting.

Here is a post in the series on what makes a story "interesting."

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

There is a rampant assumption loose in the world today that can be used to magnificent advantage by a fiction-artist.

That assumption, which is taught by and supported by the National Curriculum called "Common Core" (a product of the Bill Gates Foundation and Microsoft who definitely do know better), is that statistics can and should be applied BACKWARDS.

What does that mean?  Statistics is a mathematical gadget that manipulates numbers derived from observing specific attributes distributed across a "population."

The "population" sliced and diced by statisticians may or may not share other characteristics.

Statistics have proven such accurate predictors of the behavior of large populations of otherwise dissimilar individuals (people, yes, but this would apply to non-humans as well) that people use those numbers to create their opinions.

And a growing number of young adults are using statistics reports "backwards."

Using statistics forwards means collecting data on individuals and predicting how large numbers of individuals will move together in the same direction.

For example: how many iPads will Apple sell in the next six months?  How many people will upgrade from a Samsung to an iPad (and think it's an UPgrade?).

Those are questions statistics can answer accurately.

Will you upgrade from a Samsung or Kindle to an iPad and think it an UPgrade?

Statistics can't answer that.  It would be using statistics "backwards" to predict your behavior based on the behavior of a majority, or even a significant minority of people "just like you."

But your friend you go to lunch with at work might use released statistics to make a confident assumption about your future behavior.  That lunch conversation can become the core of a novel's conflict by Integrating that THEME (working statistics backwards) into the WORLDBUILDING (contemporary Romance).

For example, the lunch-friend is a Guy your Gal really wants to go out with on a real Date.  He makes this swaggering, sweeping prediction about her trashing her Kindle for an iPad.  She scoffs.  She wants him.  She buys an iPad and flashes it around the office.  He approves and crows his triumphant I TOLD YOU SO.  She pretends he's right.  He invites her out.  At work the next day, he overhears her scorning her iPad to a girlfriend, but praising him as a fabulous Date.

That's a THEME-Worldbuilding integrated CONFLICT. 

It is also a Story Springboard, not the whole story.  It's up to you to finish the story. 

Here is Part 6 of Story Springboards with links to previous parts:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/story-springboards-part-6-earning.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Plot Integration Part 5 - A Great Steampunk Example

We did weeks of Theme-Worldbuilding discussions ranging all over how philosophy shapes our real world, and how whatever philosophical issues (themes) are driving your customer's real world have to be incorporated in the foundation of your fictional world in an "off the nose" way.  And this is the 5th in the Theme-Plot Integration series. 

Theme-Worldbuilding-Plot -- it all has to end up being "of one  piece, a single unified whole when you get done writing.

That is, the issues have to be there, but a direct and forthright discussion of the day's hot topics just isn't amusing when you have to live amid a morass.  You read fiction to get a birds-eye-view of your life, not to relive it! 

Getting that mix right is an artform, a performing artform.

Here are the previous 5 parts of this series: 

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/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html

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

Now, in November I posted a report on Chicon7 -- the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago in September 2012.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/chicon7-con-report.html

At that convention, I was touring the Dealer's Room and happened to be drawn into a discussion with a fellow who was minding a table -- upon which was the following novel:



As a reviewer, I became interested, and I really liked the pitch for this novel.  It just sounded so very promising that I accepted a review copy.  I'm glad I did.

The Thunderbolt Affair is a "steampunk" novel with a twist -- the technology is more SF than Fantasy, and the History is alternate universe but with a strong logic behind it.  Both the History and the Science "work" in this novel's "worldbuilding."  This sets it apart from other things published under the Steampunk genre label. 

As with all good Steampunk, you get more out of it the more "real" history you know.  Steampunk and other alternate history exercises are a playground for historians as galactic science fiction is a playground for inventive scientists.

So all in all The Thunderbolt Affair is a very worthwhile read, a lot of fun, and a pleasure to return to when you have to put it aside. 

Here's the official back cover copy that so intrigued me, copied from Amazon:
------------QUOTE----------------
“What you will be working on is underhanded, unfair, and damned un-English.”

1887
The British Empire is in danger of collapse and teeters on the brink of war with the Kaiser Reich. Spies and saboteurs play at deadly games in the British shipyards as each side seeks naval superiority.
Ian Rollins is collateral damage in their shadow war. The “accident” and his grievous injuries are about to bring his naval career to an ignominious end. But with the aid of a former Pinkerton detective, a clandestine agent for the Admiralty, a brace of Serbian savants, and one, mostly sober valet, he might survive. If he can master the skills necessary to command the world’s first fully operational combat submarine, the HMS Holland Ram, and protect the secrets of the Thunderbolt.

Historical Note. The Fenian Ram, fictionalized for this novel, does exist and is currently on display at the Paterson Museum in Paterson, NJ.
-----------END QUOTE------------

I don't just rave about novels I discuss in this blog.  I dissect them and look for ways they could be improved.  I look for reasons why a book went to a small publisher rather than a larger house, or vice-versa.  I look for things that enlarge the potential market and things that restrict it to a smaller market.  I look for characteristics of the piece that identifies who will enjoy it -- and who won't. 

I started to read The Thunderbolt Affair -- mostly just because I was given a copy.  I kept on reading because I got caught up in -- ok, yes, I admit it -- the love story. 

I'm a sucker for a good Romance, and the glaring anachronism in this novel of portraying a female mechanic against this Steampunk background just tickles me no end.  Or she may be a technologist -- an implementor who MAKES things, rather than a theorist or researcher who nails the basic science, or an inventor who comes up with new applications of basic science.  She fabricates models and prototypes, and by the way, improves the design as she goes.  A man who loves that woman, loves me! 

I always enjoy the SF novels featuring inventors who just cobble together stuff and get it to work, -- um, sort of work anyway.  Then they improve it.  I love the thinking behind "improving" inventions -- even though I think the worst swearword in the English language today is "Upgrade." 

But then I loved The Thunderbolt Affair for the rich detail of inventing crazy stuff out of nothing much.  I am also a sucker for stories of the improbable accomplished by clever people, sometimes from cleverness, sometimes by accident, sometimes by sheer cussed determination. 

Reading The Thunderbolt Affair was, though, more like reading a great fanfic than like reading a Mass Market Paperback.  I could easily see the structural problems, and even see how the editor should have fixed those problems, but because it was a roaring good story, I didn't care.

Toward the 3/4 point, I realized I had to point you at this novel because it's a vivid example of how to limit your possible readership to a very small group.  You can get this in ebook - and it is worth the ebook price.

The author admits editors told him he had too much technical detail about the things they build (these things include a couple of submarines and some artificial mechanical limbs, even a mechanical eye that eventually should be able to let the wearer "see"). 

The point of the novel, the thing that drove the writer to complete the project, was his love of Steampunk technology, and he wanted to show off what can be done with the basic capabilities and materials of the 1800's and a lot of imagination. 

But beta readers and editors prompted him to trim, cut, condense the technical explanations -- which he said he did.  I think he did, from the way the tech stuff reads.  It's expository lump after expository lump.

But his editors gave bad advice. 

Now, if you're serious about learning to do what I've been describing in this blog since 2006 when I started posting here every Tuesday, go get a copy of The Thunderbolt Affair, read it and take notes, figure out what went wrong inside this writer's mind, and then come back here and finish reading this post.

START FINISHING READING THIS POST HERE AFTER READING THE NOVEL.

OK, now that you've read the novel, and probably some of the reader commentary on Amazon, let's think about what the editor of this novel should have said.

When you are handed a manuscript that has "too much" of something (say for example, too many sex scenes in a Romance -- which is, believe it or not, possible!), do you tell the writer to cut some of those scenes? 

When you are handed a manuscript that has expository lumps, do you tell the writer to trim, reduce, condense or break up the expository lumps?  Is that the cure for expository lumps (and sex scenes are usually expository lumps technically speaking). 

Think about The Thunderbolt Affair -- consider what the full blown technical dissertations on the machinery and ship building must have been like, and why the author wrote them out in full.

I'm betting (though I don't know for a fact) that this kind of expository lump over-kill happens for the same reason that 'too many sex scenes' happens --- it's INTERESTING.

The author is fascinated, interested, engaged, enamored, transported, and somehow fulfilled by these scenes and just massages them over and over and over because it feels good to the author.  The assumption is that if it feels good to the author, it will feel good to ALL READERS.

Nope.  Not the way entertainment works. 

Marion Zimmer Bradley taught an old quotation, so old and oft quoted you have to consider it an adage:  "The book the writer wrote is not the book the reader reads." 

Readers make up their own characters, emotions, even background images, room decorations, clothing, etc. -- they "see" the main characters in their minds, and it doesn't look the way the writer sees it!

How can you convince yourself of this?  Find a graphic artist, show your manuscript and ask the artist (without further input from you) to draw the scene. 

You won't recognize it! 

When you do get anything even a little bit recognizable, it's because you talked to the artist, watched them draw and pointed out changes as they went. 

Here are three examples from my own work:

All 3 of these novels (plus 9 more in the Sime~Gen Universe) are now available in e-book, paper, and 2 in audiobook with 4 more in production at audible.com

Now here's the ONE cover that all the inveterate fans of Sime~Gen agree is most representative of the series. 

This is the omnibus edition (in hardcover and paper) containing House of Zeor, Ambrov Keon, and Zelerod's Doom.

It's also available as a poster from the artist who is the incredibly famous (justifiably so) Todd Lockwood.

http://www.toddlockwood.com/galleries/books/02/sime_gen.shtml

In the poster print, there's no overprinting -- the title and author names, just the gorgeous art.

I got to talk to the artist for a long time, to explain what this character looks like -- and it's close, seriously close, and very much as the fans see it, and the way all the visual artists see it, but not what I see. Still, it's so gorgeous!

In the course of working with the professional editors for these novels, and interacting with the growing fandom surrounding them, I learned much of what I'm showing you how to do here.

Here's the trick that's so important to master. 

When the editor or beta reader tells you there's too much of something, and the cure for that is to CUT THAT SOMETHING -- to reduce the amount of words devoted to it -- that may not be the way to fix the problem the editor or beta reader is having with your material.

Readers, even professional editors, don't necessarily know what's bothering them, though they can point to WHERE it bothered them.

The business of being a professional writer is the business of reverse engineering reader responses to find the cause the reader does not know is there.

Some people learn to do this by having the process explained to them.  Others need concrete examples.  And others have to have it DONE TO their own work by other hands.  Marion Zimmer Bradley did this kind of thing to my own prose -- just took my words and re-did them so they'd work right in a scene. 

Bradley was a talented writer.  I don't think she really knew how she'd learned to do what she did -- she may have been born with this talent.  But I learned from her rewriting of my prose.

So, what do I notice first about The Thunderbolt Affair?

At the half-way point, I looked up and said to myself, "There are three novels here, loosely packed between two covers.  Shaken not stirred.  They just aren't blended properly, but I don't know why."

By the 3/4 point, I realized the author apparently had no clue he had fallen off the conflict line.  Which he had, but by the time I got to the end, I realized where the issue really was.  Theme-Worldbuilding integration, the subject of this series.

Now this is an advanced series.  We've been at this writing craft discussion for 6 years or so, and only if you've been digging back into those posts, or have been following for 6 years, do you see instantly what I mean by "falling off the conflict line" or what I call "the because line." 

However, even if you've mastered your conflict line and how to stay on that because-line, you probably won't know how to "fix" this novel we're discussing.

It's got three distinct because-lines --- and virtually no theme of enough moment to support three plot-lines.

So fixing this because-line issue won't fix this novel and make it salable to the huge market for Steampunk in general, or for Romantic Steampunk! 

Here's what I see after finishing the novel.

We have a sub-strata of the technical because-line -- the British navy stole a submarine, reverse engineered, improved on the design using an outside consultant (Tesla by the way is justly famous in our real world), and built a larger submarine that it then used to avert a war by displaying what a threat that ship could be. 

On top of that (very solid and interesting) foundation, we have a Love Story (main Navy character falls for female mechanic-genius).  Nothing much ever comes of that infatuation on any because line. 

And, disconnected from everything, just puttering along in counterpoint, we have a saboteur and an espionage threat (complete with kidnapping the girl but nothing ever comes of that) and ultimately the theft of the big ship, but NOTHING COMES OF THAT THEFT because the Hero gets the ship back through heroic efforts which are well foreshadowed.

These three separate novels have a few laborious cross-linkages, some "because" connections, but nothing strong enough to drive the three plots together. 

The real author-love is lavished on the technology (which I adore!) and the rest is tossed in on top of that just to make a book -- the whole thing just doesn't crystallize as a single unified entity, a NOVEL.  It's 2 novels and a non-fiction book.

Why?  This author worked so hard, he tried so hard, he's so proud of his work, why doesn't it make a novel?

The three main elements are not INTEGRATED -- they haven't become one thing. 

We know whose story it is, the Captain of the submarine.  We see his career unfold as he becomes the Captain and trains a crew in this new technology.  He falls in love and gets his girl, his promotions, and saves his country while he's at it.  Any writer would be proud of that story! 

The worldbuilding is as sound as it could possibly be -- Steampunk has lacked this dimension of technological plausibility, so what is preventing this thing from solidifying?

You might conclude, from the "because-line" problem, that the novel won't crystallize because while the story is solidly constructed, the plot is not of the same caliber. 

I think that's true.  The plot is not as strong as the story, but why is that?

We have a dynamite action-scene opening with the theft of the little submarine.  Then we follow the little submarine as it is worked on by an outside consultant-genius, concurrently with building another larger submarine.  We have the Captain losing a hand and an eye, and the technologist consultants concurrently working on an artificial limb of the Captain's design.  And we have sporadic attacks by "someone" for "some purpose." 

There's nothing lacking for plot material, so how could it have failed to crystalize?

Go back over those three PLOTs carefully. 

1) Stolen technology improved and employed by a government using foreign national to do improvements.

2) Hero falls in love with fascinating genius-woman mechanic and wins her heart

3) Foreign government spies infiltrate and attempt to steal technology and fail because of Hero and genius-woman

What THEME do these 3 plots have in common? 

If you've got 3 plots, you need 4 themes, but they must be RELATED IN A VERY SPECIFIC STRUCTURAL MANNER.

You need a master theme, and 3 sub-themes or versions of that theme, all leading to a single STATEMENT at the end of the Master Theme in a moment the reader will experience as a REVELATION, boosting the reader to a new level of understanding of "Life, The Universe, And Everything."

The Thunderbolt Affair lacks this commonality of structure created by THEME.

It is as if the author had this IDEA -- "write a steampunk that could actually have happened" -- and then said, well I need a love affair and the Hero has to get his girl, and there's no action after the opening on the theft of the submarine so I'll toss in some spies.  Well, how should this thing end?  The Hero has to do something GRAND (it is steampunk after all; he's got to have some punk in him, break some rules?)  So the author cooked up the spies and a grand plot to steal the submarine again so the hero could save the country from a war.

It's very common to see this kind of thing done by new writers.  Here's "my book" but it's not good enough yet, so "grab this from this other book and throw it in," then grab something else from some other book and toss that in just to keep the plot moving.  And the parts just do not go together because they did not arise organically from a single, central, theme.

Very talented writers do this "theme integration" thing that we've been discussing at such length by innate instinct, never consciously considering theme at all.  Others (like me) have to sort out the threads of ideas, and focus and re-focus on the particular theme I really want to talk about.

So what's the theme in The Thunderbolt Affair?  Don't steal because it'll always come to naught?  Or maybe "If you really need to win, steal first and often?"  Or "Hire the best genius inventor around?"  Or "Genius inventors are all very fine, but you'll lose crown and country if you don't have a daring-do-Hero on tap?" 

Frankly, after reading this book closely, I have no clue what the theme is or what the author wanted it to be.  It says contradictory things all at once, and ends up saying nothing. 

Why do the 3 plots not crystallize, forming a single articulated work of art?  Why is the theme (which I believe the author knows, but doesn't know he hasn't stated) so invisible?

This book has 3 plots -- and not 1 conflict.

The STORY is that of the Captain who succeeds in a) getting a promotion to the new Submariner Service b) getting the girl and c) saving crown and country.  BUT WHO IS TRYING TO PREVENT HIM FROM DOING ANY OF THAT? 

No preventing force, no plot.  There's a great story and no CONFLICT -- without conflict there's no plot.

The author tried to disguise the lack of conflict by tossing in 2 extra plots that shouldn't be there, but those 2 extra plots (whichever 2 of the 3 are the extras) won't mix in properly because they explicate different themes destroying the "composition" of this book.

I can't tell which plots are "extra" because all 3 have equal weight.  In a well constructed work of art, one element dominates all others, each of the other elements supports and explicates the details of the main one, illuminating it from all angles.  The subordinate elements must have lesser "weight" (fewer words) than the unifying and dominating element.

Yes, the spies are trying to prevent launch of the new submarine, and/or to steal it or the new technology (their goal is never made clear), but that's not preventing our Hero the Captain from attaining his goal -- which goal is never made clear.  The Captain doesn't know he has a goal regarding the woman he falls for until way into the book, and nobody is trying to thwart him from "getting the girl."  When she is kidnapped, it's by the spies who want her for her expertise, not to thwart The Captain. 

And so it goes throughout the entire book -- every place there should be a conflict, there is a complication substituted for it.  That's why the thing wanders into loving description of technology during which all progress on all the story lines just stops.  There's no development of an urgent necessity to know how the technology works, and the technology is presented in indigestible lumps of exposition.  Cutting that down won't help.  It would be fascinating reading if we needed to know it -- if there were any suspense causing us to barrel through those explanations determined not to miss the essential clue to the mystery and not let The Hero solve the mystery before The Reader! 

You will find this thematic structure I've been describing above in every great novel that's lasted for generations -- though the older ones are much harder to discern because this structural trick was just being invented when they were propagated.  Reading from Ancient Greece onwards through the Middle Ages, you can see how the rules of this structure were developed stepwise. 

Here are some previous posts with links to other previous posts to study if you haven't followed this.  Also you may, in the course of analyzing The Thunderbolt Affair, discover that you have found an even better way to get your novel to "crystallize" -- to create a unified matrix of artistic statements that move your reader to the core.  If you do, be sure to teach your method.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-5.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Pointing and Viewing Conflict

We've had a couple of fun discussions going on over on my Yahoo group where several of my students from recent online class have decided to take up residence. We've been discussing both point of view, and conflict. As I say i every one of the classes that I teach: it's almost impossible when talking about the craft of writing fiction to talk about solely one aspect of that craft. Commercial genre fiction is more than one aspect of writing, just as a a cake is more than an egg.

The point of view you choose in writing directly impacts upon the kind of conflict you end up working with. Not only the point of view character you choose to write from, but also the style of point of view: first person, third person, tight third. In first person point of view you are likely going to have a lot more internal conflict than you would in regular third person point of view.

A side note: you may notice that when I talk about writing. I tend to use the word "likely" a lot. That's because there is no one 'every time -- all the time' rule in writing, except of course things like grammar and spelling. I have this fear --- and yes it does happen --- that if I say something like "first person point of view has far more internal conflict" that I'm going to get comments on this blog, pointing out specific stories where first person point of view lacks internal conflict. I know that. As I said, there is no every time -- all the time rule.

So back to point of view and conflict. If you're writing first person point of view or tight third point of view, you are likely going to have a lot more internal conflict. I think one of the reasons for this is obvious. But if not, here it is: you're dropping the reader tightly and intimately into the character's skin. When you do that, the character's thoughts and feelings are in the forefront.

The point of view character you choose, whether in tight third a regular third, greatly affects the form of the conflict. Each character starts out in a story with a goal or a set of goals, which likely will change or morph as the story progresses. The thwarting of these goals is what creates conflict. How that conflict is structured depends upon how you build your character. Is he an introspective chap? Is she a gregarious gal? Does he say one thing and think another? Was she raised in a home where her opinions are not valued? All these kinds of things, many of which are back story, impinge on conflict.

I apologize if to any of you, this sounds simplistic. But I judge a lot of unpublished writing in national contests, and I teach a lot of classes to unpublished writers. Sometimes the most simple things are the ones that are overlooked. This includes the integration of the various segments of the craft of fiction, which is why I'm talking about point of view and conflict.

One of the most common questions --- that Jacqueline has addressed here many times --- is whose point of view should I be in? The obvious answer is the point of view of the character, who has the most to lose at that point in the story. Or as Jacqueline puts it: the character who is on the positive pole of the transaction. The character whose actions will make a difference. Obviously, if the character's actions make a difference, this creates an emotional reaction in the reader, because it changes the flow of the story. So the two are really very well intertwined.

So when you're creating your characters remember to create them with conflict in mind. Structure them in such a way that the plot allows you to question and challenge their goals and their values.

I love literary agent Donald Maas's tip: "Take your character's greatest strength and make it his greatest weakness."

That's the purest form of choosing the proper point of view, and integrating it with conflict.

~Linnea

HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, Feb. 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

She fought the urge to salute and instead watched him head for a striper standing in the corridor, realizing she didn’t know his name or rank. Not that it mattered. There was something very familiar about him, something that resonated in a distant yet warm part of her heart. Something that told her she not only trusted him but that she’d follow him into the jaws of hell and out again. And never regret it.

WINDOWS TO THE SOUL

One of the interesting things about studying the craft of writing is that you realize 1) there is no one right and perfect way to write and 2) concepts you think you know can be overhauled and freshened with a mere turn of a page and a new phrase.

One of those phrases, for me, is Window Character.

Next weekend my local RWA chapter is hosting an all-day workshop with Todd Stone of Novelist’s Boot Camp fame. Stone’s workshop is great not only because he’s an ex-Airborne officer who teaches in a kilt. But because of his merger of military tactics and discipline with the often wiggly and elusive craft of writing.

Window Character is one of his terms, his concepts.

It’s not something I didn’t know about. Secondary or tertiary character is probably an equally as apt description. If you go by archetypes, this would be the “Friend,” the confidant. The character who can function as the sounding board for the main character.

Stone’s twist on this is not only to make the character the sounding board but to make the character a window to the past.

This nicely addresses the problem of info dumps and backstory. I’ll get to why in a moment.

Stone writes: “A window characters…provides multiple opportunities to give the reader glimpses into your protagonist’s true nature.” The key thing is that your window character knew your main character BEFORE the story began. And knew him very well. (And yes, the antagonist can also have a window character.)

Stone says: The window character is a subordinate who
1) Shares the protagonist’s experiences
2) Has a relationship based on friendship not romance
3) Has conflicting personality points with the main character
4) Has the same agenda or understands the main character’s agenda
5) Must let the main character have the foreground

Yes, the window character is a secondary character and we all feel we know all there is to know about secondary characters. But what makes the window character special or slightly different are the points above. Most succinctly, the window character has been on the main character’s journey for a while. Or knew her “when…” This is an almost guaranteed solution to the icky problem of backstory.

Backstory are all those things that happened to the main character BEFORE the novel actually starts. Backstory likely shaped the main character into who he is at the story’s start and very often provides the motivation and explanation for his actions. But backstory is boring, it’s mostly unnecessary and if amateur writers have one consistent failing, it’s the flailing around in backstory in the book.

“Fiction is forward moving,” says writing guru Jack Bickham.

“People pay more money for prize fights than reminiscences,” advises writing guru Dwight Swain.

Those are two reasons why backstory is so deadly and why a window character is the perfect solution. The writer doesn’t need several paragraphs explaining the disastrous ending of the protagonist’s previous marriage, which is backstory. The writer needs a window character to see, hear and feel the experience as the main character and the window character interact with each other (with reader as voyeur):

“How are your holidays so far, Theo?” Liza was still squatting next to
him.

“Fine,” he lied. “Yours?”

“Kids are up to their eyes in toys they don’t need, as usual. And they can’t even get to the ones under the tree until Christmas.” She nudged him with her elbow and grinned. “My husband’s cousin Bonnie is in town. She’s a couple years younger than you, thirty-four or thirty-five, single. Real cute. Like you.” She winked. “You’re clocking out for vacation, right?”

He nodded reluctantly. He’d wondered why she asked about his schedule when he ran into her at the courthouse yesterday. Now he had a feeling he knew.

“Why don’t you come by the house tomorrow night, say hi to Mark and the kids, meet Bonnie?”

He rose. She stood with him. Liza Walters was, as his aunt Tootie liked to say, good people. But ever since he’d divorced Camille last year, Liza had joined the ranks of friends and coworkers trying to make sure Theo Petrakos didn’t spend his nights alone.

“Thanks. I mean that. But I’ve got some things to do.”

“How about next week, then?

I’m sure you’ll like her. You could come with us to the New Year’s concert and fireworks at Pass Pointe Beach.” She raised her chin toward Zeke. “You too, Zeke. Unless Suzanne has other plans?”

“New Year’s Eve is always at her sister’s house.” Zeke splayed his hands outward in a gesture of helplessness. “Suzy doesn’t give me a choice.”

Liza briefly laid her hand on Theo’s arm. “Think about it. You need to have some fun. Forget about the bitch.”

He smiled grimly. Forgetting about the bitch wasn’t the problem. Trusting another woman was. “I’ll let you know, but I’m probably scheduled on call out.”

“That Bonnie sounds real nice,” Zeke intoned innocently as Liza went back to photographing a splintered bookcase. “Thirty-five’s not too young for you. I mean, you’re not even fifty.”

Theo shot a narrow-eyed glance at the shorter man. “Forty-three. And don’t you start on me too.”

Zeke grinned affably. “So what are your plans for tomorrow night, old man?”

“I’m restringing my guitar.”

“Alone?”

Theo only glared at him.

Zeke shook his head. “Still singing The Down Home Divorced Guy Blues? Man, you gotta change your tune.”

“I like my life just the way it is.”

“When’s the last time you got laid?”

“If you focus that fine investigative mind of yours on our dead friend’s problems, not mine, we just might get out of here by midnight.”

“That long ago, eh?”

“I’m going to go see what I can find in the bedroom,” he said, ignoring Zeke’s leering grin at his choice of destination. “You take the kitchen.”

Zeke’s good-natured snort of laughter sounded behind him as he left.

(from The Down Home Zombie Blues by Linnea Sinclair, Bantam Dell 2007)


Both Liza and Zeke function as window characters in my CSI:Miami meets Men In Black science fiction romance novel. Theo—the main character—is a homicide detective. Zeke is his long-time partner. Liza is a forensics technician. Rather than penning…

Theo Petrakos is a forty-three year old detective who went through a divorce that has left him emotionally scarred and leery of relationships…

I let you in to Theo’s life and let his friends—my window characters—show you what’s going on with him. Did I know I was creating a window character when I created Zeke? (Who, more than Liza, continues to function that way throughout the book.) Nope. I’m a pantser, pretty much an instinctual, organic writer. The character just felt right.

Now I know why.

The other important function of the window character is to act as a sounding board for the main character’s ideas…and to throw monkey wrenches into them. This is a wonderful source of conflict because it’s not from the expected source: the antagonist. It’s from the main character’s friend. Who not only makes the main character rethink his plans but makes him doubt himself as well.

“And what do you think,” Theo asked quietly as his friend voiced the one downside he’d overlooked and now feared, “the news media will do to Jorie?”

Zeke’s mouth opened, then closed quickly.

“A freak show, Ezequiel. It’d be a fucking freak show.” Everyone would want a piece of Guardian Commander Jorie Mikkalah. The National Enquirer. The Jerry Springer show. And worse. Bile rose in Theo’s throat. How could he have been so stupid as not to realize what would happen? All this time he’d seen the Guardians’ reluctance to reveal their presence as a selfish act. And he’d ignored what Jorie told them the Guardians learned from experience: nil-tech worlds routinely acted illogically—sometimes even violently—when faced with someone from another galaxy.

“I’m not putting her through that.”

“The Feds will never let that happen. They’ll put her under lock and key.”

Another scenario he’d come up with and feared. “I’m not letting that happen, either.”

“Theophilus. I don’t think you have a choice.”

“Like hell I don’t.” Theo spun away from him and resumed pacing.

“What are you going to do, risk hundreds of people’s lives because you don’t want a bunch of scientists in some basement room of the Pentagon asking Jorie questions? I think she can handle that. She’s probably been trained to handle that.”

Theo could see the tight, pained expression on Jorie’s face as she told him about her captivity with the Tresh. He could feel her shivering against him. He could see her fingers trace the rough scar on her shoulder.

He could see her getting into a dark government sedan with darkened windows, knowing he’d never see her again.

His breath shuddered out. This was the only scenario he’d agree to. And that, too, had flaws. “I’ll give them the zombie, the weapons.” They had both Guardian and Tresh now. “I’m not giving them Jorie.”

“You can’t hide her in your spare room the rest of her life. She has no Social Security number, no ID. She can’t even get a job.” Zeke raised his arms in an exasperated motion. “Talk about illegal alien!”

“I’ll get her an ID. A whole identity.”

Zeke stared at him. “Be serious.”

“I am.”

“You know what that costs, a good fake identity?”

“I can take equity out of my house to pay for it.”

Zeke barked out a harsh laugh. “Brilliant, Einstein. Traceable funds. There goes your career.”

“I’m not going to write a fucking personal check.” Theo glared at him. “I’m not that stupid.”

“Then listen to yourself, damn it! You’re talking felony jail time. Your life down the shitter. You do know what they do to cops in the Graybar Hotel, don’t you?”

“You’re assuming I’d get caught.”

“No, she’d get caught, suddenly surfacing in all the databases.” Zeke ticked the items off on his fingers. “She’d have to get a job, buy a car, rent an apartment—”

“Not if she’s living with me, she won’t.”

“Living with—what’re you going to do, Theophilus? Marry her?”

Theo raised his chin and met Zeke’s question with a hard stare. This was one of the decisions he’d made driving through the bright Florida sunshine in the middle of Christmas Day with Jorie by his side. And a dead zombie behind them. “Yes.”

“You’re—Ay, Jesucristo.” Zeke dropped his head in his hands, then lifted his face slightly and peered up at Theo. “You got a thing for women with fake identities?”

The not-so-veiled reference to his disastrous marriage hit him like a sucker punch. Theo looked away, keeping his temper in check. But he couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice when he turned back. “I’m sorely tempted to kick the shit out of you for saying that.”

Zeke straightened slowly, eyes wide then narrowing. “You want to take it outside, Theo? We can take it outside.”

In the above snippet from The Down Home Zombie Blues, Theo’s partner and best friend is punching holes in everything Theo wants to do, in the very things Theo believes are the only answers to the problem. It even escalates to the point where the two friends threaten to come to blows.

This isn’t the usual conflict from the opposition. It’s the more deadly conflict from within. It strips the safety net away from the main character. It leaves him totally alone—which is exactly where he needs to be in the last quarter of a fiction novel.

The window character—who knows the main character better than anyone—is the perfect person for the job of conflict. Their shared history—their backstory—becomes a workable ingredient in increasing the conflict rather than info slathered on, stopping the flow of action.

So here I am, seven books in with Bantam, and I’ve learned something. Yes, it was something I was already doing—I wrote Zombie long before I read Stone’s book. But now I know why I did it, I know why it works, I know what it can do and because I know all that, I can do it better in future books.

Writing is often an innate process but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to understand the craft of creation. Actually, because it’s so innate and often elusive, it’s vitally important we understand the craft of creation: why did that work? And more importantly, how can I do it again?

That is, if you want to sell your next book.

Thanks, General Stone. ::Linnea salutes::

~Linnea

Linnea Sinclair
RITA award winning Science Fiction Romance
Bantam 2007-2008: Games of Command, The Down Home Zombie Blues, Shades of Dark
2009: Hope's Folly
http://www.linneasinclair.com/

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS: villains, conflict and killing off characters

A couple of disclaimers.

First, this blog will contain SPOILERS for Gabriel’s Ghost, Shades of Dark and the movie, Serenity.

Second, I know I’m not remotely in the category of Joss Whedon. The man is brilliant. Beyond brilliant. Don’t take my questions and/or criticisms of his work as anything more than the ramblings of an author looking to make sense of the craft of fictional entertainment.

That being said, you by now may have surmised I watched the movie, Serenity, recently, and am somewhat perplexed over the death of Wash’s character. I watched the movie, not just because I thoroughly enjoyed Firefly, and not just because Whedon provides one helluva good romp with his stuff, but because I wanted to learn. One of the downsides of being an author—and YA author Stacey Kade (watch for her debut with Hyperion in 2010--right now she's still SFR author Stacey Klemstein) and I were chatting about this—is that reading for pleasure seems to happen less and less. It’s hard to read—or watch—something in your genre and not analyze characterization, plot, conflict and the like. So I found myself last weekend watching Serenity with one eye and breaking it down with the other: oh, bit of a plot twist, there. Oh, some layered on characterization here. Oh, major plot conflict coming up. Oh, here’s the regroup and revise scene…

Then, sitting in the cockpit of Serenity, just having crash-landed on the world of Miranda, Wash gets lanced. Skewered.

And I go, WTF?

Yes, obviously, it was an emotional moment. And writing is about emotional moments. “It’s the author’s job to manipulate the emotions of the reader,” said writing guru Dwight Swain. And I subscribe to that. But it’s also said that fiction must be more logical than real life.

And Wash’s death wasn’t plot-logical. It was emotional, no doubt. It wrenched the reader. But it wasn’t logical to the plot and didn’t create or improve on the growth of a major character.

Emotion for emotion’s sake is not enough in fiction. When it’s done like that, it becomes a cheap shot. Or what writing guru Jack Bickham refers to as “dropping an alligator through the transom.”

Book’s death, on the other hand, was plot logical. It impacted heavily on Mal and that was shown clearly. Mal was the one to find Book, was the one to hold him as he died. Prior scenes showed their friendship and their backstory conflict. Book’s death was a clear catalyst to Mal.

Wash’s wasn’t. For one thing, Wash and Mal had no backstory conflict and though they were clearly friends, it was a calm friendship for the most part. There wasn’t a Wash-Mal issue as there was a Book-Mal issue. Wash was a minor character who served a great role and was also the husband of Zoe, another minor character.

The two major characters, to me, in Serenity, were Mal and River. Writing gurus always ask: Whose story is it? And that’s a huge question that must be answered as you craft your fiction piece. If you don’t know whose story you’re telling, your piece will wander all over the galaxy, lost, in search of coherent and cohesive plot and conflict.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg details much of this on her Sime~Gen site:
http://www.simegen.com/school/workshop/WORKchoosingProtag.html

The main POV character is the one who ACTS FIRST -- the person attempting to impose their agenda on the course of events -- to get things to come out in their own favor. The VILLAIN or ANTAGONIST is the one who is acted-upon and objects.

River, through help from her brother, Simon, acts to escape the psychic detention facility that’s held her and tortured her. They end up—and much of this is backstory—on Mal’s ship, Serenity. But it’s Mal who acts—when the Alliance assassin confronts him, demanding River’s surrender—to tell the Alliance to take a hike and it’s Mal who acts to thwart the Alliance. Zoe, Jayne, Wash, Simon and the rest are all minor characters. The two main POV characters—and most of the movie’s scenes are with one or the other as key—are Mal and River.

Given that, Wash’s death is useless. Simon’s death would have made more sense. River is a main POV character. Simon is her beloved brother. His death would have forced her into “character growth.” Wash’s death doesn’t force with Mal or River into character growth (any more than had already occurred.)

So to me, Wash’s death was a cheap shot, basic stage door faux-trauma simply for the shock value. As a movie-goer, I thought it was an exciting, emotional scene. As an author, I thought it was sloppy.

Now, Stacey, much more a Whedon-ite than I am, had a bit of a different take on the matter:

“Wash...I probably wouldn't have killed him off, no. But here's the thing, it does, in a sick and twisted way, which is Joss's way, make sense for him to be the one to die. He is the MOST innocent out of all of those involved. And Mal...well, I think it all relates back to the Battle of Serenity in the war between the Alliance and the Brown Coats. Mal believed in the war, thought he was fighting on the side of good. He was in charge of a platoon. He and Zoe fought and continued to fight even after the battle was essentially over. Not only did they lose, but he and Zoe were the only ones who walked away. All the others reporting to him died. After that, Mal withdrew. He gave up his white hat, ceased to see himself as a good guy. He wanted nothing to do with helping others or getting involved in any cause. He looked out only for himself and what benefited him. He got involved in helping others only when forced by circumstances and the fact that he couldn't completely tamp down his do-gooder (for lack of a better term) conscience. He did not want the responsibility of all those lives on his "boat." In fact, Mal would have preferred, I think, to die rather than to be responsible for their deaths (see ep "out of gas").

So, in this situation, here we are again, Mal leading innocents into hopeless battle. He's taking on that white hat again, and his hands are bloodied by the deaths of those who follow him. And he's not going to quit this time.He has to confront his fear that he's going to cause the death of all these people and lose AGAIN. He's being forced to be the hero and he's going to go through with it, even if it kills him.”

I can see Stacey’s point but notice how much it relies on backstory—television episodes of Firefly, that the movie-goer may not have seen. The author can’t assume they’ve seen them. So to build a huge emotional twist like Wash’s death based on backstory unavailable to the viewer at the moment strikes me as… less than good. The movie should be able to stand on its own as a cohesive unit.

Now, it may be there were earlier scenes between Wash and Mal that were cut. That happens all the time and that’s a failing of any media—books included—that have time or word count restrictions. You have X amount of pages to do something or X amount of minutes to do something.

But to me, then, if you cut the prequel, the rationale for a major character’s death, then cut the death scene. Or rewrite it. Wash could simply have been seriously injured, his injuries providing conflict to the fleeing crew (Drag him along or leave him behind? Slow us down? Save his life?) and Mal. I would have bought into that fully. It might have even created more conflict and tension.

Wash’s death to me was quick, final and senseless.

I know. People die for senseless reasons all the time in real life. But read what I wrote above: fiction must be more logical than real life.

(BTW, Jacqueline has an excellent critique of an episode of Star Trek: Voyager in a similar vein. I couldn’t find it on the Sime~Gen website but I’m sure it’s there and perhaps she’ll post a link.)

So how does this fit in with my books?

Two characters. One I killed off, one I didn’t.

Del in Shades of Dark. Ren in Gabriel’s Ghost.

I really hated killing off Del because he was a hugely fun character. But Sully, a main character, had to have growth, had to experience sacrifice, had to be motivated to reach deeper inside himself. The two main motivations for Sully in Shades of Dark were Del and Chaz. I took both away from him near the end of the book. Chaz, of course, he regained. Del had to die. But Del had to die not only for Sully’s growth and lesson but to partially redeem Del as a character and yes, to be true to the character of Del as I built him. He wasn’t as much an evil character as a selfish one. But his selfishness was, to a great extent, cultural. As was his penchant for sacrifice and, in the end, sacrifice he does. He dies so Sully can live. Which, based on Del’s upbringing, mindset and culture, was exactly the way things should be.

I took pains to prequel—lightly so but I did it—that this was a possible outcome all through the book. Del’s line of “…and I shall walk again with kings…” and his adherence to Stolorth traditions set up completely the book’s end. Rash’mh han enqerma. A sacrifice in exchange for an unspeakable wrong. This was one of Del’s guiding principles—and yes, villains can have principles—and it was the logic behind his death.

So was Sully’s challenge to Del:

“You’ve told me many times I still need training. That a rogue Kyi like me is capable of utter destruction if I’m not careful. Then heed your own warning. Don’t force me to find out just what I’m capable of. Because when the dust settles, I will be the one left standing. And you know that.”

The character I initially killed off then rewrote and didn’t was Ren in Gabriel’s Ghost. Again, I was looking for a catalyst for change for the main character, Sully. But at the point I would have done it—and I’m grateful to the crit partners who pointed this out none too gently—it would have been more for emotional manipulation that character growth. It would have, in essence, been a cheap shot. The timing and placement were wrong and going back and rereading the old pages, I could see where Linnea the author had run out of ideas so, hey, let’s kill someone.

I ended up not doing so because Ren, alive, forced much more character growth on Sully then Ren’s death ever could have.

It’s a very easy trap to fall into when writing: let’s just throw on a bunch of actions that engender scary and unhappy emotions, and keep the reader reading. But eventually that’s exactly what the story will feel like: things just thrown on. More is not always better. In fact in fiction, more often produces crap. Conflict must come with a why, not just an ouch.

Maybe next week I’ll touch on why the capitulation of the Alliance assassin at the end of Serenity also set my writerly teeth on edge.

Unless you all want to open that dialogue here too…

(and I still think Joss Whedon is a freakin’ genius, and if I could produce stuff even half as good as he does, I’d be a happy camper…)

~Linnea

SHADES OF DARK, the sequel to Gabriel’s Ghost, July 2008 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

I watched Sully’s eyes snap to black, his lips, thin. His hand clasping mine tightened. Shock gave way to anger, which gave way to something more primal, more male. It tasted of jealousy, possessiveness, dominance.

And all I had said was, “Hello, Sully. I just met Del.”

I poured the encounter into his mind almost as fast as he retrieved it. I held nothing back, not Del’s seductive handsomeness nor the power that fairly seethed beneath his surface, nor the ease with which he rendered me helpless, folding the Grizni back around my wrist.