When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript Part 5 - The Writing Prompt vs Creativity by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript
Part 5
The Writing Prompt vs Creativity
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

This series of posts is about Writer's Block and what to do about it.

Here are the previous posts in this series:

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

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript_15.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript_22.html

This series is about that "taking stock" long-view we do several times a year -- Holidays, New Year's, Birthdays, Anniversaries.  When can you just "quit" (a job, a marriage, a drive to get your kids to behave, a small business you've started and failed at)?  And when you do decide to quit, what's next?  Feeling depressed that time of year, every year, for the rest of your life? 

This "When Should You Give Up On" series is about making that decision in such a way as to open new possibilities, new avenues to pursue with the confidence that the same thing won't happen again (and again, again etc).

So this Part 5 in this series is about the mistakes and blind-alleys we all pursue on some projects, and how to back out of a blind alley manuscript and use the bits and pieces that are worth something to generate future works.

This is a multi-stage process, though it may surface in one snap-moment, all completed.  Mostly, it's your subconscious that makes the decision and redirects your life -- not so much the conscious mind.  If you do creating writing, as a hobby or as a living, you are mostly subject to your subconscious decisions.  (not everyone is like that)

So there is a reason that you do not know for your diving at warp-speed into a black hole, hitting a brick wall, and being defeated, quitting, and leaving your life littered with half-started projects (writing projects as well as other sorts).

This post is about ferreting out that reason, then reprogramming your subconscious to create and present you with projects that can go to completion, to publisher, to publication, to sales, to reprints. 

Projects that can go through the brick wall like that bear a certain signature that other projects do not.  For the ones that can go through, you need to gather persistence, stubbornness, and strategy.  For the duds in your life, you need to just junk them. 

So what if you have to junk a project?  In essence, what you do with a brick-wall creating disaster of a manuscript is toss out most of the blather you wrote, distill out the essence of what you wanted to say, and then write yourself a "Writing Prompt."  Yep, just like in school or on a job application.  A writing prompt, only with a twist. 

Writers often get asked, "Where do you get your crazy ideas?" 

With Science Fiction Romance, or Romance in general, the "crazy idea" is the HEA, the Happily Ever After ending.  Half the world doesn't believe in the HEA as a reality.  Where we get our "crazy ideas" about things like the HEA is very simple -- we get them from Writing Prompts. 

Only the writing prompts a writer creates as a springboard into a story come from the version of "real life" that the target reader holds dear.  You will find a comprehensive sketch of that version of real life in sources such as ABC News, CNN news, news stories of today, yesterday, and all time.  The annual New Year's roundup, the lists of Forbes Man Of The Year, the Best City for Raising Children, etc.  Each and every datapoint coming out of these sources can be a writing prompt given a good twist.

Sometimes you start out using a Writing Prompt as a Springboard into your story --

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

--and then hit that brick wall we've discussed. 

Somehow you fall off the "because line" that we have established in early posts in this Tuesday section on writing craft, creative writing, story, and story writing.

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

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-plot-integration-part-15.html

We have maybe two generations of graduates today who have been trained to respond to the Writing Prompt, but not to "color outside the lines" and give the prompter something that will just plain blow their minds.

Why have we raised a generation of school-essay-writing graduates to "give the promter what the prompter wants?" 

You don't think that's true?  Scroll down this wikihow page:
http://www.wikihow.com/Answer-a-Writing-Prompt

----------QUOTE-----------------
How to Answer a Writing Prompt

Three Methods:Expository Prompts, Narrative Prompts ,Persuasive Prompts

Students of all kinds, from elementary school to those applying for post-graduate educations, are tested on their writing ability through writing prompts. Successful students are able to understand what kind of essay the prompt is calling for and answer it with what the tester wants to see.

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

Isn't that the saddest, most frustrating thing you've ever read? 

To succeed in school, and then in job applications, one must conform, one must "understand what kind of essay the prompt is calling for" and then "answer it with what the tester wants to see."

That's the secret of success, and the main source of writer's block. 

As you are trained in childhood, so you will continue.  As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.  Well, humans being human, we do have the capacity to chuck our childhood training and strike out into the wild world, hacking our own paths.  But only a few do that, and only a few of those survive it.

We are training creativity out of our children.  We are training maturation out of our children.  We are training children never, ever, to dare to write creatively -- never to do creative writing, never to invent new ideas. 

You will fail in school and in life if you do not give people who have power over you what they want. 

But real success is giving people who have power over you something they never considered might exist. 

Real success is doing what a Hero does in a story.  A hero does not "do all he/she can."  A Hero (by definition) does what he/she can NOT do.  A Hero pays no attention to limits, especially not those set by others, by rules, by regulations.  A Hero gets the job done, no matter the personal cost. 

Yes, Villains share many of those traits, grit, guts, determination, obliviousness to cost. 

That's why Hero and Villain characters come in matched sets -- the villain is fabricated out of the substance of the Hero's character.  That's what it means "nemesis."  Matched sets of characters insure that your story will reflect your reader's reality, sucking them into the story.

That wikihow.com entry on How To Answer A Writing Prompt clues us in to why and how the plausibility of the HEA, the Happily Ever After ending, has eroded away. 

The last few decades of schooling has churned out a couple generations of adults who see daring to do something other than what is expected as a path to Failure. 

I started this series on "When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript" in response to a twitter discussion on #litchat and #amwriting threads. 

Dozens of people participated in discussing, with serious worry, whether it is ever proper to trash a manuscript before finishing the first draft -- or even after several drafts.  When do you quit?  How do you know it's right to quit?  They were seriously worried -- and I didn't know what they were worried about until I saw this wikihow entry on how to respond to a writing prompt.

Now, remembering a few of those tweets, and a couple of items on Google+, I can see clearly why they could not deal with the issue of a false-start on a writing project.  Had I seen this instruction at the same time as the tweets appeared, I'd have realized what thought process was behind the phrasing of those tweets.

The brick wall these tweeters were running into trying to answer each others' concerns was simply their training in never, ever, under any circumstances, answering a writing prompt with something unexpected or uncalled for.

In other words, you are not allowed to think and express original ideas.

Originality itself is disallowed by this kind of training in how to answer a writing prompt. 

If you read that page on wikihow, you will note that I never -- ever -- follow any of these "rules" -- not in my fiction writing, not in my novels, not in my short stories, certainly not in my non-fiction like Star Trek Lives! and not in anything I've sold to publishers -- and never, ever in my professional review column, nor in this blog series on writing craft.

My business model is original ideas expressed in original ways -- delivering "the unexpected" with high-impact. 

I don't respond to writing prompts that others create.  I take the writing prompt and rewrite it, then explore areas that rewrite opens to show connections between the narrowly defined topic-sentence material and much broader, Big Data sources such as statistics. 

In other words, I find the rules -- in order to break them.

I break the rules only after I've demonstrated that I can follow that rule.  Then I break the part of the rule that is preventing original thinking, not the part of the rule that facilitates originality. 

The part of the rule cited on this wikihow.com entry on how to answer a writing prompt that prevents original thinking is the part that says

-------------
what kind of essay the prompt is calling for and answer it with what the tester wants to see
-------------

The alternative rule, that prompts editors to buy your story for Mass Market distribution is:

----------------
find out what your reader wants to see, and give them what they'd never expect.
---------------

That's Hollywood's rule of "the same but different." 

Perhaps the reason we get nothing but remakes out of Hollywood these days is that kind of training in answering prompts with what the tester wants.

The Expository Prompt, for example has to be answered with an essay that explains or describes -- not an argument or an opinion. 

But any true explanation will be nothing but an argument supporting an opinion -- to omit your own opinion and your argument for it when explaining or describing is to use the opinion/argument of someone other than yourself -- regurgitating what someone tried to teach you.

How do you know if you have what it takes to be a commercial fiction writer? 

You know for a fact you can make it in fiction writing if you are the sort of person who can not be taught, who always questions, never believes your teachers, and refuses to give them what they want or expect. 

So when you are deep into a manuscript, and just hit that brick wall, how do you create a writing prompt to spur you through to completion of the project?

Look at this wikihow.com page and list the keywords for the 3 methods of writing prompt.

Remember, we have to find the rule and analyze it in order to break it with useful original thinking.  And remember that novels have a structure as precise as school essays or news stories such as you find on abcnews.com

1. Expository Prompts
Explain or Describe
2. Narrative Prompts
Tell, Time, Event
3. Persuasive Prompts
Persuade or Convince

All of these are very useful in breaking through writer's block in narrative fiction.  Story writing is done just like this -- with each of the 3 types of writing prompts delineated here representing a genre and/or a style.

The writer's block creating element in these instructions lies entirely in that first paragraph at the top of the page -- give what they are asking for. 

The creative writers rule is never give what they're asking for.  Do the unexpected.

You will find a version of that rule in the screenwriting books I keep pointing you to, SAVE THE CAT!, SAVE THE CAT! STRIKES BACK, and SAVE THE CAT GOES TO THE MOVIES.

All screenwriting books dwell on this element at great length,  many using different terms for the process.

It is the "twist" or the "great reveal" or any term that designates delivering the unexpected.

Part of the technique of the unexpected is laying down the "foreshadowing" -- the bits of detail, suggestive glances, the red-herring in the mystery, that leads the reader to expect one thing while you plan to deliver another with a twist.

Here's an example, ripped from the Headlines last year (and now a tradition of sorts), of a mundane news item built on a twist.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/holiday-newborns-home-christmas-stockings/story?id=27816983

The news story has a picture of newborns swaddled in red Christmas Stocking baby blankets to present to new parents taking a baby home on Christmas.

Study that for how to design a twist into your failed manuscript.

You have the standard (ho-hum) image of the red plush Christmas Stocking (a blatantly commercial invention; nobody wears such things in their boots).  That leads the reader to imagine the image of them hanging from a mantel. 

Then the "reveal" or "twist" -- the stockings are laid in bassinets with newborn babies inside. 

Stumbling across this ABC News item online, the writer with a manuscript they want to abandon can create a writing prompt to impel their narrative over that brick wall.

It is very possible that the story has failed to crystallize because that "Christmas Stocking" item has been omitted. 

Try letting your protagonist who is not moving forward with the story come upon an image of this sort (not a baby in a stocking, but something from your worldbuilding ) -- cognitive dissonance.  Maybe they phone home about it, or write a poem, or shout out on twitter, or whatever -- and stir the plot-pot to a boil. 

The misleading image you are later (say at the 3/4 point) going to twist to surprise the reader should appear in some form, maybe symbolic or iconic, on page 1. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/06/mr-ed-and-writing-great-american-novel.html

It should reappear a number of times, especially at major turning points.

And then at the point in the plot where you need the "twist" the reader has been set up to expect one thing -- and you deliver another thing entirely.  This will fail if the reader does not see that it is "right" and "fitting" and poetical.  It will fail if, in retrospect, the reader does not say, "I knew that would happen." 

And it will fail if it is what the reader expected or wanted. 

That's one reason the whole Romance field is discredited by a lot of readers.  Since the Romance genre reader expects and demands an HEA, writers don't introduce other possibilities, then twist into the HEA. 

Real life is full of such twists.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/if-hea-is-implausible-how-come-it.html

You twist the Christmas Stocking into a swaddling blanket.

You twist the Tall Dark Handsome Hero into the Arch Villain -- or vice-versa, and the Villain comes to the Heroine's rescue.

You twist the friendly, crime-free small town into a Den Of Vampires. 

You twist the popular Cheerleader into a Vampire Slayer or time traveler.

Well, all of those have been done to death and are now expected.

Your job is to create new unexpected twists, but first you must understand where those classic twists came from by studying good novels that use them. 

Study writing prompts carefully because they do telegragh the answers that are expected.  Just as the "Leading Question" is forbidden in examining a witness in court, so too is the Leading Prompt forbidden.

The lawyer's rule is never ask a question you don't know the answer to.

But when it comes to fiction writing, the rule is never ask a question you do know the answer to.

In fact, that is the essence of Science, and thus Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Romance.  Ask questions nobody has ever asked before, and therefore questions that nobody knows the answer to.

It is the fiction writer's job to formulate new questions and postulate answers that will work only for the particular character who is the hero of the story.

Such unique, new questions are the writing prompt you need to formulate for yourself to break down the brick wall that is blocking you from finishing a manuscript.

But at the same time, your personal writing prompt has to be composed of the classic questions, just as the stages of creating an essay for school are laid out in this wikihow.com item on writing prompts.

Those questions are the ones many of my Tuesday blog posts have been about.

1. Whose story is it? (twist - not the person the reader expected)
2. What is the story about? (theme-character integration; twist with past-life experiences haunting and motivating)
3. Where and When does the story begin? (where the two elements that conflict to generate the plot first collide -- twist by using symbolism like the Christmas Stockings in the ABC News story )
4. What is the Conflict? (this vs. that -- twist with a resolution that creates another conflict)
5. What is the Resolution? (the last page solves the problem; twist with a bitter-sweet loss, self-sacrifice, poetic justice)
6. What is the Plot? (the series of Events on a Because-line - twist with hidden character motivations that are later revealed)

Fill out those 6 points for your failed manuscript, then construct a writing prompt with a question that you do not know the answer to.

For example, my breakout novel, Those Of My Blood was written without knowing the ending.  The writing prompt was something like, "Will Titus Kill His Father?"  or "What Would Make It Morally Acceptable For Titus To Kill His Father?"  We have a lot of vampire novels where the younger vampire kills the elder who "made" him -- Those of My Blood is built on several "twists" of that standard trope.  Is it ever right to kill your father? 



And you might want to read:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/original-thinking-in-romance-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/happily-ever-after-life-patterns-part-2.html

Ask yourself, do you want to read something that says what you want, or something that asks a question you could never have thought of?

Would you pay money to read something that is what you expect?  Or something that surprises you?

The measure of writing ability is not the ability to guess what the author of the writing prompt wanted, but rather the ability to express an insight beyond the capability of the author of the writing prompt.

To express such insights, you must develop such insights.  That process is what being a writer means.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

How To Learn To Use Theme As Art

Before we get to the topic - here's my posting schedule.
------------------------------
Tuesday September 30th is Rosh Hashannah, Oct 14 and 21 are the holidays of Succoth and Shmini Atzeret that nobody's ever heard of because it's not on most USA calendars. Wednesday the 22nd is Simchas Torah that some people may have heard of -- so I won't be posting then and I doubt I'll have time to write something for Rowena to post for me.

However, this below is at least double my usual posting size which is already triple what a blog post ought to be. And the ideas discussed last week, the week before, and now here this week are pretty heavy stuff. So giving you some time to digest it all seems like a good idea.

If anyone is actually reading all this, please let me know what you'd like to discuss next. I have two topics in mind. One we've kicked around on this blog quite a lot -- why it is that the Romance genre is so disparaged? And another writing craft topic -- exactly HOW does a writer use an "outline?" Where can you get a blank outline to fill in and write your novel? On the third hand, maybe something else will occur to me. So unless you ask, you might not get either of those topics from me.

Now to the topic.
------------------------------
How To Learn To Use Theme As Art

Believe it or not, the way to learn to use theme as art is to practice meticulous worldbuilding.

What is meticulous worldbuilding? It doesn't necessarily have to be done consciously. You can program your subconscious to create universes around your characters, to wrap the background around the character in such a way that it makes logical sense that this character would do this thing at this time in the character's life -- and that the blowback from the action it would cause the character to learn an important lesson and change because of it.

But how do you do that? How do you train your subconscious to create universes that "work" in fiction, worlds that are "meticulously" built?

Beginners and amateurs (and outsiders from the writing profession) believe that whatever is going on in their own imaginations constitutes a story, a novel, a movie. They believe what they dream, imagine, wish, hope for, or dread is Art and is an "idea for a story."

Nothing could be farther from the truth -- and still be exactly, precisely, meticulously true at the same time!

When an untrained beginner "has an idea" -- they get fired up with the conviction that this idea is unique, and that its value commercially lies in its uniqueness, and that they therefore must take the advice of lawyers and authors of great properties like Superman and protect themselves from people who want to "steal their idea."

This fallacy leads them swiftly down a blind alley. Some go looking for a ghost writer or co-author -- a writer with writer's skills to "turn this idea into a money maker."

All professionals have been approached by (and mystified by) people who say, "I have this great commercial idea, but I just need someone to write it. I'll give you half the money!"

And all professionals are beset by people who have written a story, novel, script, whatever, and "I just want you to rewrite it; you know, give it a little polish." Or suggestions that they will use to polish it.

The amateur possessed by An Idea seeks a very specific emotional payoff. Nothing a professional writer can do to their material will produce that payoff. That's why there are so many unsuccessful collaborations or ghost-writer contracts. That's why professionals don't want to touch an amateur's idea -- doing so leads into a quagmire of the very internal, very personal, unique-to-the-idea-generator, emotional search for satisfaction.

That imagined satisfaction would come, the amateur believes, from "seeing my story in print." Or on stage or in film.

Hence the huge market for self-publishing. There is a small percentage of books which ought to be self-published -- but it is not a huge market. Predators have enlarged that market because amateurs will pay to see their book in print. What the amateur hasn't grasped is that nobody wants to read their story. The devastation they experience is usually not handled well.

The big gaping difference between the amateur and the professional writer is not whether you make actual money off your words, but rather whether you understand the mechanism inside you that produces IDEAS.

Do you know what an "idea" is, where it comes from, and what to do with it once you have it?

Amateurs believe their ideas are unique and therefore sellable.

Professionals know that among their ideas are a few really valuable ones that can be monetized because the idea is NOT UNIQUE.

If it's personal, it's not sellable but rather "self-indulgent."

A professionally saleable idea is universal. It is a perfect reticulation of an archetype (one archetype per story; not half a dozen of them at once). It can't be given away to another writer to write because everyone already has it. And therefore it can't be stolen.

Hollywood is full of stories about writers who had been circulating a script on a given topic or background - an idea - and when a movie comes out using that idea, the amateur sues the producer or company for plagiarism. As I said - some amateurs don't handle rejection well because they don't understand the concept of An Idea plus the concept of Monetizing An Idea.

The thing which makes an idea worth money to a publisher or producer is that the seeds of it already reside within the audience, and probably every writer on earth, past, present, and future. It will be recognized as "mine" by a vast number of people.

The amateur "has an idea" and it is "mine." And therefore, they believe, proprietary stock in trade.

The amateur who writes such an idea up into a novel or script produces what Marion Zimmer Bradley referred to as a "self-indulgent story." It's a story about themselves, not about humanity.

The amateur is trying to write about his/her own personal experience of the world, of people. The amateur produces what became labeled in Star Trek fanzines as the "Mary Sue" story -- where the main character is an avatar of the author. When the author is not conscious of that mechanism, the resulting story is even worse.

The amateur who is unaware is enthusiastically and ritualistically indulging him/herself telling their own personal story -- without grounding in the archetype.

The professional (even one who has never sold) is not telling their own personal story -- but is telling YOUR STORY, the audience's story, the world's story, a readership or viewership's story -- a constituency's story.

The process of telling someone else's story is not clinical, intellectually distanced, calculated, deliberate.

The professional does something different from what the amateur does only in that moment after the self-indulgent personal story has burst into consciousness.

The professional takes the personal story that erupts from the subconscious and traces it back to its roots in the archetype that runs that professional's own personality.

For more on archetypes and your personality and your personal life and how you fit into the set of patterns common to all humanity -- psychology, timed-patterns of life's challenges, and the "lessons" life hurls at you personally -- see Astrology and the Tarot.

Many of the blazing, world-wide instant classics are actually stories which are visible in the writer's natal chart -- but not in their lives. Karmic stories from past lives, perhaps, or unrealized potential.

If you don't like that esoteric approach, read a lot (hundreds) of biographies and autobiographies, learn sociology, psychology, anthropology, archeology, etc etc. Actually, it's a good idea to have a solid grounding in all these anyway, but Tarot and Astrology do provide shortcuts and for some people clarification. For others, they are nonsense.

The point is that somewhere inside the amateur and the professional writer lies something totally personal, absolutely unique, the purest definition of Identity, which is at the same time also completely universal, utterly common, the purest definition of Society.

Astrology depicts this graphically in the opposition of the 1st House by the 7th House.

So, at the interface between the very, VERY personal -- and the infinite, the divine, the root commonality of all humanity -- Art is born.

At this innermost sanctum of your being, you grok or perceive the core pattern of existence, a core that you share with many other human beings, none of whom are anything like you.

Your recognition of what you have in common with others who are less articulate than you are is your stock in trade, the Art you can monetize commercially.

Yet your recognition has no value without that twist, turn, flip, color, depth, variation on the themes that is uniquely you.

Each human being is likewise unique.

One of the myriad things we have in common, and thus can learn from Art, is how each of us is unique and yet the same.

That's why Hollywood insists that scripts be "fresh and edgy -- totally original" and at the same time "exactly like some big, huge blockbuster success." Huge blockbuster successes are huge because they are rooted in an archetype, something Blake Snyder terms "Primal."

What we all find comfortably familiar is uniqueness.

The Art of storytelling lies in showing (without telling) the reader/viewer how the uniqueness of a character traces back down into the subconscious, deep, deep, abstract, theoretically, ineffably, to that divine spot in Creation where we are all the same.

The Artist (in any medium) connects the celebration of our uniqueness to the safety of our sameness.

That act of showing without telling the nature of the connection between the unique and the archetype is the one skill the professional has -- that the amateur doesn't (yet).

Depicting the connection can be learned -- maybe even taught.

SEEING that connection can not be learned or taught. It is the Art that is born within. It is the core skill of the magician -- perceiving the True Name of a Thing and thus gaining power over that thing.

It is a Gift.

Because of that universal fact, we have the burgeoning field of the Adult Fantasy novel -- thick novels filled with elaborate worldbuilding and characters who are born with magic, and others who are not. It's a juvenile premise -- some have Talent denied to others. But it's juvenile because it's primal, an archetype. Like all archetypes, it's both true and false at the same time. The Archetype exists above the level of reality where true and false first divide (see my books on The Tarot -- The Not So Minor Arcana.)

So the Artist's job is to connect the celebration of our uniqueness (the part the amateur writer gets very well indeed) to the more abstract security and safety of our sameness - the safety in numbers, the safety in protections of Law and Privilege and Riches, the safety of joining a gang, marrying a strong man.

The juxtaposition of Celebration and Safety -- exuberance and relaxation -- the simultaneous experience of these two opposites is exactly analogous to orgasm.

That's why the end of a book is called a climax.

The ability to find that connection is a Gift, a Talent -- a Vision. The connection itself is not yours. You don't own it. You don't have a proprietary interest in it. You can't sell it. The only thing that is yours, that you can sell, is your way of describing that connection.

We haven't discussed this aspect of writing before because the method relies on gaining a solid grasp of what Art is, where it comes from, and how to practice it, either commercially or as "fine art." Commercial fiction is one thing -- Creative Writing is another, more akin to "fine art" than to reaching a huge, artistically illiterate audience.

Previously, we've discussed the thematic sub-structure of various sized stories and how using that thematic backbone lets you paint on a much larger canvas, using more point of view characters.

All these different writing skills we've been discussing previously are actually not a hundred different, separate skills to be mastered only separately. They are actually just one single, unified thing.

Once you have:

1) read about one of these skills (Worldbuilding, Description, Dialogue, Action, Suspense, Exposition (yes, you need exposition, just not in lumps), Pacing, Dramatizing, Characterization, Motivation, Conflict, Resolution, Climax, etc etc)

2)read some more novels, dissecting out how different authors use these individual skills, then tried writing bits and pieces of something exercising that skill

3)then (and only then) you must start to practice integrating them.

Here we're talking about Art-Theme Integration, probably the easiest cross-term to master yet the hardest to describe.

With each and every individual writing skill, you work on it separately, master it separately (producing your million words for the garbage can because a finished Work needs all the skills simultaneously, but you must produce work which uses ONLY ONE skill at a time in order to train your subconscious), then integrate each separate skill with each and every previously mastered skill. Yep. Actually learn to walk and chew gum; pat your tummy and rub your head; whirl a plate on a stick and juggle four balls.

It's a program you put yourself through systematically. Writing is a performing art and you train to do it just exactly the way a ballet dancer trains for the Met. Ballet teachers don't let you go en pointe on day one of your training. Writing teachers don't let you start your magnum opus on day one of the class.

Like any performing art, writing takes training -- much more training than skill or even talent.

The more systematically you work on it -- the faster your subconscious will start to comply. Remember subconscious can not be taught, but it can be trained. It has the intelligence of a dog. You need kindness, consistency, and positive reinforcement not punishment to alter a behavior.

Well, all this is very nice -- very theoretical, very pie-in-the-sky, and very inspiring.

But HOW DO YOU DO IT??

What do you do with your mind to find that vision inside you which SEES the ART with which the universe is put together?

Very simple. You live in the real world. Daily. You pay attention to the real world around you.

That's how you train your subconscious to do fictional worldbuilding. It's the same training a graphic artist goes through. There's a trick to using your eyes to see what is there and how it would look in 2 dimensions that would suggest the 3rd dimension.

If your readers are going to believe the world you build -- it has to be congruent with the world they live in even though it lacks a dimension or more. So you need to learn a trick.

People (you included) live in their own subjective realities -- some components dictated by social sanction, some by personal needs, some by family needs, etc. but all very subjective.

Remember that THEME is a statement that your work of Art makes -- theme is what you have to say about that connection between the infinitely personal and the ineffably universal.

But if you simply write what you have worked out about that connection, you end up with (likely a better selling) a non-fiction work on a topic using a thesis, not a story about a character illustrating a theme.

The THEME is what you have to say. Once you have had "an idea" then traced it back to its roots in the ineffable which resides inside you, found how it connects to everyone else in the world, you are standing there in your mind looking at this discovery, screaming WOW!!!

Now you are seized with an irresistible urge to run back and TELL EVERYONE about this incredible discovery.

NOW I UNDERSTAND!!!! THIS IS IT. THIS IS THE KEY TO THE UNIVERSE! IF EVERYONE KNEW THIS THERE WOULDN'T BE ANY MORE WAR!!!!!!!!!!

That urge to TELL EVERYONE is your theme trying to be born out of your Art.

What are you going to SAY????? To whom? Who would have a chance of understanding this abstract, intangible, free floating feeling of a concept?

If you run out your front door and start babbling to the garbage truck driver -- what will happen?

In my first award winning novel, UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER, there's a quotation I wrote as part of the thematic statement of the novel. This was my second published novel and I did attempt more skills than I had. So I used a "device" to nail the theme -- quotations from a hypothetical work. One of them does, I believe, hold true in the real world.

"You can not give Wisdom as a Gift."

You can't tell someone a fact and transfer your wisdom into their heads.

And if you manage to couch the fact in Art and weave a novel around it -- the readers won't gain the wisdom you injected into it.

Marion Zimmer Bradley quoted this quote: The book the reader reads is not the book the writer wrote.

And that's OK. The reader shouldn't be reading YOUR book. That's what professionals understand that amateurs don't.

Make that credo your touchstone. The book the reader reads is not the book the writer wrote.
You can't go into that astral plane space in your head and bring back wisdom and inject it into the heads of your readers.

All you can do is assure them that there is a connection between their personal individuality and something larger that all humanity shares -- maybe with other species on other planets, too.

Yeah, I know -- that doesn't help at all when you're burning up to TELL THEM EVERYTHING.

So you must take this inner Artistic vision and turn it into 1 to 4 clean, clear, related, statements. This will be the theme, and maybe as many as 3 sub-themes that form the backbone of your work.

Everything in the work will either be derived from the theme or you will have to go through on second draft and select one of the themes from the pea-soup you wrote and then delete everything that doesn't explicate that theme. It's work. It's what you do for a living. Delete.

It's a process. It takes practice to do it with precision.

Now, how do you tell if you've arrived at a thematic statement derived from your artistic vision that actually does reside within most all humanity? Or at least your audience?

You can get lost in your imagination. You need to do a reality check both before you dive into your mind to find the connection between your view of reality and everyone else's view of reality -- and after you've returned with your theme burning holes in your mind.

There are a lot of things writers do on a day to day basis that fosters the subconscious' ability to identify these "universal themes" and to particularize or individualize the universality into something unique that is not the writer's own self.

A lot of writers just wander over to the mall, sit on a bench and people-watch. Actors do that too.

Some go to movies and watch the audience at least as much as they watch the movie.

Some join clubs, do volunteer work, work for the Red Cross disaster services, volunteer for political campaigns. Well, everyone does something like that -- but writers spend their time while doing these things OBSERVING.

That's the key word. OBSERVING. Just like a graphic artist. Just like any performing artist.

Performing Arts usually require 2 opposite skills. First there's the writer who creates the script -- then the actors who perform it. The choreographer who designs the dance -- the dancers who perform it.

Writers find their "script" or choreography or sheet music on the astral plane, in that space inside where the individual connects to the ineffable. The UNIVERSE is already written -- it's your script. Once you've been given your script, you must perform it.

By training your ability to OBSERVE -- like a detective, or a professional athelete, or a river boat pilot, an actor, a musician learning a song by hearing it -- honing your ability to observe until you could happily trust your life to it, you train your subconscious to see the patterns beneath reality.

You will know you have a viable commercial property when you find a self-indulgent, personally inspired IDEA connected to an Archetype which you have seen expressed in your outer-reality in several ways recently. When that happens, it means the universal consciousness is engaged in the issue and ready to listen to what you have to say on the subject. When you have a MATCH between the archetype you have discovered and the subject a lot of people are engaged in, you have a commercial property.

And you can talk about that idea, rave about it to everyone, try your best to 'GIVE IT AWAY' and you won't be able to.

It's commerical value can't be stolen from you, plagiarized, etc -- because it arises from the Art which is uniquely your own. No matter how you shout about it -- no other writer will be able to write your book.

Of course, after you've put all the words down -- yeah, people can steal your words, so they have to be protected by copyright every which way you can think of.

That's the business of writing.

But the professional knows that ideas are cheap, plentiful, but can't be stolen.

Nobody is interested in your personal ideas except you. What is personal to you is personal to you -- boring to anyone else.

Read some biographies and you'll see. What is interesting about a unique person is how they are actually just like you and me.

Isn't that what people are searching for in a Presidential Candidate? Someone they can relate to who understands what life is like for them?

So how do you pull this off? How do you train yourself to see, at one and the same instant, both the intensely personal and the unifying ineffable?

Watch television. You never know what you'll see after you've spent some years training your OBSERVATIONAL SKILLS.

Here's an example. Very personal.

I recently watched a few clips of the Summer Olympic games in China. And I've seen many news clips of Chinese government meetings, stock trading floors, etc. And there were a number of clips I saw of Chinese rescue officials working after a big earthquake.

I SAW at that time, the visible evidence of the underlying social sanctions of the Ancient and Modern Chinese culture -- which I know from archeology and anthropology go back thousands of years.

China is a culture where the individual is secondary, the family, the town, the group is primary. The family name is given first -- the personal name second -- and they don't put a comma between to show they've been reversed in order.

The value of the individual is how they FIT IN - how they are THE SAME. People who work in an assembly plant wear uniforms. They move the same. They gather at the same hour before work to do Tai Chi or some exercises -- all in UNISON.

This never astonished me or attracted my attention before the 2008 political conventions were broadcast.

Of course, China is like that. We all know that. What's to notice?

Many times, I've heard interviews with business people in the new China where it is possible for private individuals to establish businesses. Over and over, I've heard native Chinese who were educated in America point out that China doesn't INNOVATE -- but they're real real good at copying.

With the heating up of the 2008 political campaigns, I had occasion to stare at the US Natal Chart -- we have an Aquarius MC with an Aquarius Moon right on the MC. Our business in the world, our reason for existence is to be DIFFERENT. To Innovate. To Need Freedom! To be individuals first. We have a Cancer (home; mother; apple pie; nurturing; business incubators) on the 2nd House -- our main value is the FAMILY. But the family supports the individual -- not the other way around.

When I saw the conventions in the USA, (a lot of it I watched on C-SPAN so I saw things the networks neglected to broadcast because it's boring) I observed something I had seen before but not observed.

There were thousands of people in the auditorium (for both conventions - same image), and they were all dressed alike, but no two were wearing the same thing. Each day and evening had its "uniform." (casual; dress casual; office casual; semi-formal; formal) But G-d forbid two women would buy their dresses in the same store!

Well, no -- there were some delegations that had adopted hats, scarves, jackets to distinguish their state. DISTINGUISH their individuality. But even the people who were "in uniform" -- were all differently dressed in some other way. Balloons on their heads, stovepipe Dr. Seuss hat, etc. And their body language was distinctive, too.

A similar gathering of Chinese who were intent on the formal installation of a political figure to an office would have been really dressed alike. They would sit in their seats, feet on the floor, eyes front, and cheer in unison in all the right places. In China, ceremony is ceremony.

The USA delegations (both parties) during many of the speeches (except the main ones network broadcast, but even then!!!) milled about their seats, talked to people privately, totally self-absorbed in their conversations, came and went -- whole sections were empty at times -- stopped once in a while to applaud a speaker, and a few actually listened. But each adopted an individual seated posture.

Even during the major speeches, TV interviewers nabbed celebrities for an aside conversation while the other celebrity was speaking!

Both conventions' speakers were speaking to a milling throng of individuals, not an audience.

There I am paralyzed by this VISION -- what would a Chinese citizen who had never seen anything American in their life THINK of America to see this?

I know what I think of China to see the way they behave.

I have seen political conventions, and other huge gatherings of Americans on TV before, and the audiences looked normal to me, un-remarkable, practically invisible. Everyone is like that everywhere I go -- so what's to notice?

Suddenly - everything is to notice! That's what observation is.

My extremely negative reaction to Chinese public behavior must be mirrored in the average Chinese person's reaction to American public behavior.

I would assume the images of the convention delegates' behavior broadcast world wide by at least CNN, if not many other networks, must be telling the Chinese that Americans don't take government seriously, that these American people know they have no sayso in how this election comes out, all decisions are made in the back room just like in China, the people have no power, and that they really don't care who becomes President of the USA anyway. All Americans care about is themselves as individuals.

Most of all, those images of our public behavior have to mean to the Chinese that we have no strength, no substance, no guts, and will be easily beaten.

OK, you may disagree with "what" I saw and how I've expressed it here. That's actually good. It means you have a VISION and therefore are an ARTIST and will eventually find a THEME to turn into a novel.

My point is that from the ambient "reality" I have extracted a contrast-compare essay subject, two cultures alien to one another.

Take that attribute, individuality vs. the collective, and worldbuild a galactic civilization, find characters who are in conflict because of the differing philosophies -- and you have something which can communicate to all the people who have seen these TV images I've described (millions).

Translated into thematic language, you would have Individuality Poisons Society. Or maybe The Individual Must Reign Supreme. Only through the group can prosperity be safe. Humanity's progress depends on the individual secure in personal freedom.

Apply to that some specific individualities, connect the individuals to the archetypes, cut, trim and hone a theme from all that, and you are ready to plot a novel.

Well, you are ready if you've studied enough philosophy to understand the long history of the argument and conflict between the individual and the collective (1st House/ 7th House in Astrology -- which lies athwart the perennial conflict of 10th House, 4th House -- career and home).

You don't study philosophy etc to find out what you think. You need it to know what your readership thinks so you can talk to them in a language they understand.

There is an old adage that you have no doubt seen in almost every book on writing you've read: Write What You Know.

You can't do that if you don't know anything.

It doesn't mean use your own profession, home, family, neighbors, school, education or job as what you write about.

You know this cliche: "I've forgotten more about XYZ than you will ever know!"

What does that mean? Think about it. It means this elder has reached the point of being an ARTIST in his field -- working mostly from the subconscious and thus producing results far superior to those produced by a neo who has to think about everything.

What "you know" -- is what you've forgotten.

And that's what you should write about -- that's where your Art can define THEMES for you.

In order to have forgotten something -- you must first learn it.

So the business of being a commercial writer is the business of learning something about everything. There is no field that isn't professional training for a writer.

That's nice because writer-types generally have an eclectic and far-ranging curiosity about everything but don't tend to stick with a subject long enough to become professional in it, at least not unless it involves the use of words.

Once you have a firm grasp of how the world works, and how it looks and seems to others, you can build fictional worlds that seem realistic to others. To accomplish that, you will have to use Theme as your main Artistic Medium.

So if you're a professional writer, you have an excuse to self-indulgently become a dilletante!

But that only works if you then use what you've forgotten to produce deathless prose!

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

First Chapter Foibles

Since Cindy talked about prologues, I'll talk about first chapters. I know we played around with opening lines/scenes a few weeks back. We'll deal less with word choice here and more with content.

One of the biggest problems writers have is where and when to start the story. If you're like me, most of your stories emerge as a serious of scenes or conflicts in your mind--rather like a movie trailer with flashes of action, passion, problems. If you're lucky, the opening scene is in one of those flashes.

I'm rarely lucky. More often, I have to ruminate on the feelings those flashes have given me. I have to let what I see as the conflicts percolate, ferment. I have to get into my characters' skins. Then I have to decide where and when to start the story.

I learned that's easier to decide when I listen to the experts:

"You can start a story in any way and at any point and, regrettably, I've read the manuscripts that prove it," writes Dwight V Swain in his Techniques of a Selling Writer. "But that doesn't mean that some beginnings aren't better (read: 'more effective') than others." To Swain, the more effective technique involves change. "To start a story, a change my prove the trigger for continuing consequences. That is, it must set off a chain reaction. Responding to change, your character must do something that brings unanticipated results. He must light a fire he can't put out."

I love that last line: He must light a fire he can't put out.

"The story starts where the elements that will conflict to generate the plot first come together, eyeball to eyeball," says Jacqueline Lichtenberg on her Sime~Gen writer's school pages. "That contact starts the cause-effect chain which is the plot. The story can't start until that has happened. The story is the sequence of changes inside the character caused by his changing internal conflict. It is SPURRED by confrontation with the external conflict. "

Continuing consequences or cause-and-effect chain... it doesn't matter what you call it. But the impetus is the same. Something significant (to the character) and unexpected happens. This is where you start your story.

"Every good story starts at a moment of threat," writes Jack Bickham in his The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes. "Nothing is more threatening than change."

Now, don't be overpowered by the words here: conflict, threat, change. This does not mean you have to start your story with a car going over a cliff. Though that certainly is attention-getting. Threat and change can be small things. They only have to be big to your main character. Whatever the threat or change is must matter deeply to your main character. It can be something as innocuous as a change of schedule. Or a cell-phone mistakenly left at home that day. It can be a decision a character makes, believing it's the right decision. But it turns out to be very, very wrong. (IE: the road to hell is paved with good intentions...)

I like to think of the key ingredient of a first chapter as The Point of No Return. From here, your main character has nowhere to go except into more trouble as he or she tries to deal with the change or threat.

However you do it, what happens in that first chapter forces the rest of the book to unfold. It's critical to remember that because one of the more common errors I see in beginning novelists is to start with a lot of backstory, or a travelogue or paragraphs and paragraphs of setting description. They don't get to the change, the impetus for the conflict, until chapter 3 (and many an agent or editor will tell you that beginning writers' manuscripts can almost all have the first two chapters deleted and be the better for it--for just that reason).

"Fiction looks forward, not backward," Bickham writes. "When you start a story with background information, you point the reader in the wrong direction, and put her off. If she had wanted old news, she would have read yesterday's newspaper."

I've used exactly those techniques in every one of my published novels. In Finders Keepers, Captain Trilby Elliot's routine repairs on her ship are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of an enemy ship...that crashes. And presents her with a wounded survivor. In Gabriel's Ghost, Captain Chaz Bergren's daily fight to survive on a prison planet is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a former enemy--who she believed to be dead. In An Accidental Goddess, Gillie Davre wakes up in a space station sickbay--three hundred and forty two years later. In Games of Command, Captain Tasha Sebastian learns she's been busted down to the rank of commander and now must work side by side with a former enemy. And in The Down Home Zombie Blues, Commander Jorie Mikkalah arrives on a planet to find her undercover agent is dead and a key piece of equipment is now in the hands of the locals.

Each of my main characters handles the change by starting a fire she can't put out. Every one of these changes put my main characters eye to eye with the cause of the conflict.

Backstory, history and setting are all woven in as the characters act and respond. As they move from one problem to the next. As they take one step forward and two steps back. As conflict builds. Until by the end of the first chapter, the character has nowhere to go but into more trouble.

And the reader has no choice but to turn the page to start Chapter Two.

Take a hard and honest look at the first chapter in your unpublished manuscript or work-in-progress. Have you opened at The Point Of No Return? Or have you started with backstory, or have you left your character too many routes of escape, too many options?

~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

Line Edits, Plotting and Synopsis, Oh My!

Welcome to my world.

I'm in line edits on SHADES OF DARK (July 2008) which is not to be confused with (substantive) edits, which is not to be confused with galley edits. Which is not to be confused with writing the book. Line edits are, essentially, the second-round-pass on a finished manuscript. You've written the whole book, your editor has read it and come back to you with suggested (substantive) changes (ie: the funny part here should be funnier, the scary part here should be scarier, I think it's out of character for the character to say X at this point, etc..). You've made those substantive changes along with whatever punctuation and grammar changes your editor noted. Now the manuscript goes to the CE (Copy Editor), who basically checks spelling on every word and verifies every comma, question mark and quotation mark. And so do you.

Those are called line edits. Keep in mind you've already done a bunch of comman to em-dash changes during substantive edits. Now, you're doing more. Different ones. New ones. Ones you thought for sure you did or ones your editor did and the CE doesn't like.

You also change things per your publisher's "style sheet." IE: Bantam wants "toward" not "towards." Both are legal English. Six books in, I've pretty much trained myself to write toward. But some towards slip through. So do some advisors where Bantam wants advisers. I also write ship's logs or ship's systems and Bantam wants the ship's logs or the ship's systems.

I could argue the points--I sometimes do with "STET" clearly written over their changes, as when the CE for The Down Home Zombie Blues changed "sighting a rifle" to "citing a rifle"--but understand line edits are grueling. I get too tired to argue (except when "citing" is obviously wrong, unless one it issuing the rifle a citation...)

It doesn't end there, though. After this, you get galley edits. The galleys are the book's actual pages and you have to typo-snipe again.

Figure by this time you've read your own manuscript, oh, at least two dozen times and you can no longer 'see' what you wrote. The brain fills in automatically for what's not on the page. You anticipate. You miss things. It's nuts.

Add to the above the fact I'm writing Hope's Folly, Philip's story (from Gabriel's Ghost and Shades of Dark). And I'm revamping the synopsis for Moon Under Glass (totally new, unrealted SFR).

In the midst of that I'm prepping for an out of town book signing (Orlando, February 9th), a radio interview tomorrow (February 5th), an out of town conference (Columbia, SC, February 29th-March 2nd), and prepping/planning/coordinating workshops and talks I have with the other authors involved for the Columbia SC conference as well as a San Francisco appearance mid-March and the huge Romantic Times conference in Pittsburgh, end of April.

Have I mentioned that I basically spend 18+ hours a day in front of my computer?

Now do you know why? Welcome to my world.

~Linnea, back to line edits, synopsis revamping, laying out the Celebrate Romance conference program and figuring out what in hell I can talk about at my upcoming conferences and still sound both sane AND witty...

http://www.linneasinclair.com/

Judged by Your Peers: Contests & Writers

It's the start of the silly season again. What that means for many RWA members who are yet to be published is that the first three or so chapters of their novels-in-progress have found their way to the desks of published authors for judging in contests like the prestigious Golden Heart, HOLT Medallion, Touch of Magic, Daphne du Maurier and others. I've judged the major RWA contests and several of the local chapters for four years or more now (time blurs when you're on deadline). Because I'm published in SFR, I tend to get paranormal manuscripts to judge (though I have judge historicals and mysteries as well, lately). I've read some incredibly good unpublished manuscripts. I've seen some horrors.

I take time—a lot of time—grading each submission. These days, the chance for judge's comments are becoming rare so all you can do is plop a score down. I wrestle over the low ones because I know the printed matter sitting in my grubby little hands is someone's baby, someone's heart and soul, someone's sweat and blood and tears. But I have given low scores because the reality is, giving a high mark to a work that is simply not "there" yet is doing no favor to the writer. Sure, a high score will get you to the finals and read by a NY editor or major agent, but if your writing is sub-par, you're going to go down in serious flames at that point.

The sad thing is, I've yet to see a manuscript where someone actually Could Not Write. What I see are manuscripts where the flaws outnumber the plusses, where a writer is so anxious to get his or her story on paper that style and craft go flying out the window.

Some of the worst are honestly in the paranormal realm (though it may be that I simply see more of those because of my published specialty). But I think the paranormal (science fiction romance, futuristics, vampire/werewolf romance, fae, elves, etc.) has additional problems because, for the most part, setting isn't a given, a shoe-in, a throw-away. Setting and world-building are as important as character and pacing in the pages of a PNR/SFR.

So let's talk about some of the things NOT to do in your next contest submission in that genre:

1. The character doesn't fit the world. You've constructed a society where people lives in unheated castles with no plumbing, but they have starships. They wear loin cloths but have laser pistols. Granted, you could explain that by creating some serious cultural schisms (ie: the Amish in today's society) but I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing a costume drama where the writer decided that being outer space would also be a Cool Thing to have in the story. It's jarring, it makes no sense and I have a hard time, as a reader, understanding how your character got to be where he is with no access to technology. Yet when he's kidnapped by The Bad Guys he automatically knows how to pilot an X-3 Razor Fightercraft and take it into hyperspace. Correspondence courses, maybe?
   
   
2. The entire planet has the same weather, landscape, language and customs. Okay, maybe on a really small moon. Or, of course, if the planet's been colonized and/or terraformed and/or colonists lives in domes. The whole colonist-populated world has a different dynamic than indigenous. If you don't know how to build the societies and cultures on a planet, for Pete's sake, look under your feet. You're standing on one. Look at our cultural diversity, our weather patterns, our polar caps, our deserts, our rain forests. Yes, this is based on our position from our solar system's star (and other criteria related to that) but if you're positing a naturally populated world then it will be (if we're talking humans), in a similar set-up. But even Jupiter has weather. And Mars has polar caps. As an aside, I'm perfectly fine with the possibility that a political region (solar system, sector, quadrant or whatever) would have a "legalized" common language in addition to regional languages. English has become the common language of pilots on this planet. So a "standard" language over a sector or system is plausible as along as—AGAIN—you give a nod to the fact that there are regional languages, or at some point have been regional languages. I have a really hard time with manuscripts where everyone speaks ONLY English or ONLY whatever the outer space language is called. If nothing else, slang will differ by regions (what some of you call "soda" is called "pop" in other regions of the USA.)
   
   
3. Things happen because you want them to: This is actually a common flaw that transcends genres. I've seen this problem in so many unpublished manuscripts. The writer forces an 'event' because that kind of event is needed. Yes, all writers make up the things that happen. But you have to set them up so they are logical to the plot, the characters, and the world. It's the logic and integration to the plot that are missing. I call it the "Just Happens To" syndrome. It's where coincidence and not conflict are fueling the plot. The heroine just happens to be walking down a crowded city street and a little girl just happens to drop her book bag and the heroine just happens to notice that (and no one else does) and pick it up and just happens then to go into a luncheonette where the waitress just happens to recognize the book bag as belonging to the hero's daughter (and the heroine just happens to be evasive when questioned about it) and just happens to call the hero on her cell phone who just happens to be across the street and he grabs a cop who just happens to be there so they can arrest the heroine for theft. Of course, it just happens that the hero is an attorney and he realizes the error and it just happens he needs a new secretary and it just happens the heroine just got her paralegal certification and so he offers her job to make up for his shabby treatment of her…and so on. It's a series of forced coincidences that stretch credibility after the third or fourth "just happens." Why would the attorney ASSUME theft? What kind of police officer would ASSUME a crime has been committed? Why wouldn't the heroine just say "I saw a little girl drop this, perhaps she lives around here?" Why in hell didn't she run after the kid and give her the book bag back? It's one big misunderstanding (also called the BM in writerly lingo) and flimsy coincidence after another, just because the writer wants the heroine to be in the same office as the hero. Or on the same starship. Or in the same castle.
   
   
4. Nothing happens (as opposed to "Just Happens To" above). I judged a nicely written fantasy piece recently that had lavish settings and a possibly interesting set up in a otherworldly kingdom—and NOT medieval, which was a very nice change!—but nothing happened to make me care to continue reading. I met the princess, who was the female protagonist. We see her tutor, her boredom with same, we meet some of her father's royal advisors, we meet the king. We get a glimpse of some medieval/typical European types coming to speak to this king, but what we've really gotten is a very boring day in this young woman's life and a Home-and-Gardens tour of her castle. I guessed the fact that she's bored is the impetus to the piece, but I was bored, too. Although the castle and surroundings were really lovely. But I kept waiting for something to happen. I kept waiting for the writer to give me a reason to care about the princess. Other than she was bored and prone not to listen to her elders, there was nothing interesting about her. Being a princess isn't interesting enough. Granted, in real life, very few of us are on first name basis with a princess (a few drama queens, definitely. But a princess…). In fantasy, however, princesses are dripping off the castle walls. We have a plethora of princesses. Especially late teenaged ones who are bored with their tutors. Writing guru Dwight Swain advises to start your novel at the point of no return, at the point where something happens to your main character to force him on a path from which there is only one direction: into more trouble. Noted SF author Jacqueline Lichtenberg tells you that conflict is the essence of a novel's story. Listen to those wise words. Start your novel with (logical) trouble. Save the tour of the castle for later.
   

I have a feeling that those manuscripts I see that fall prey to these common and very fixable errors are because the writers don't have crit partners in place vetting their words. I can't stress the importance of crit partners. You, writer, know what you meant to say. But you may not have said so, and your brain—submerged and bloated by the writing process—isn't always capable of telling you that. You need to have "fresh eyes" vet your writing, especially before you send it out to be judged. And those "fresh eyes" should not be your mother or your best friend, unless your mother is Nora Roberts and your best friend is Jacqueline Lichtenberg. I'm not seeing bad writing out there in contest-land. I'm seeing common, fixable errors.

So BIC HOK! (Butt In Chair, Hands on Keyboard) And get thee to a good crit partner. And you'll win the next contest you enter. ~Linnea

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

…and suddenly I love you beyond all measure is not just words but a heart, a soul bursting open, a stripping raw of all pretense. It is Sully, it is Gabriel, it is his tears on my face, his body in mine, our minds seamless. It is hopes and dreams and failures. It is apologies and a prayer for redemption. It is heaven and damnation.

All that I am is yours pales beside it.

It is everything.

It is love.

Seduced by a Secondary Character

I’ve been seduced by a secondary character.

Okay, years ago when Gabriel’s Ghost first exploded out of my brain (I was living in Coral Springs, FL, at the time and can very distinctly remember waking at 5 am because Sully Would Not Let Me Sleep!)…anyway, when Gabriel’s exploded and was finished, I’d always thought I’d do Ren’s story. For those of you who’ve read my 2006 RITA-winning novel (shameless plug, but hey, if I don’t, who will?), you’ll remember Ren as the 6’7” blue-skinned sexy-as-hell young monk-turned-mercenary. Long-time friend to the hero, Gabriel Ross Sullivan. New friend and confident to the heroine, Chaz Bergren.

It’s not Ren’s story I’m writing. It’s Philip’s.

Huh? You all go.

Yeah, huh.

Let me backtrack and explain something here. About a month ago, The Down Home Zombie Blues was released by Bantam. So hopefully you all are buying that book now, and are reading it and are anxious to talk about Jorie and Theo. But understand, Jorie and Theo, to me, are last year’s news. In authorland, we live in a time warp, one set by our publishers who deem we produce books in one year and then have them appear in the next. So while you’re just now devouring Jorie and Theo and their Men In Black Meets CSI:Miami story, I’m just finishing another book in my contract with Bantam. And this book—Shades of Dark—was the sequel to Gabriel’s Ghost. But it wasn’t Philip’s story. Not yet.

But Philip—who had a minor part in Gabriel’s—as Chaz’s ex-husband and a bit of a nemesis to Sully, appears in Shades of Dark a lot more. And in so doing, demanded his own story.

And who am I to argue with an admiral? Moreover, who am I to argue with an admiral who so unexpectedly seduced me with his heroism and his charm?

You all are going, but…but…we want to talk about Theo and Jorie! Kip and the zombies! Aunt Tootie!

I know. But my heart belongs to Philip. And all along, I thought it would be Ren. It’s not. It’s Philip.

But if you want to talk about Theo, my homicide cop hero in Zombie Blues, then I can at least tell you he’s a bit like Philip. They’re both “good boy” heroes . I know the trend has long been for bad boys. Alpha males. I like alphas. I’ve been accused of being an alpha female (like there’s something wrong with that?). But Theo and Philip are both betas, or maybe even gammas. (Though I’m not really all that hip on those kinds of pigeon-holes.) Zombies’ Theo is a nice guy in all meanings of the word. Hard-working, loyal, patriotic, loves his elderly aunt and uncle, keeps his nose clean and has recently has his heart trashed. He doesn’t swagger (well, any more than the average cop with a Glock on his hip), doesn’t do stupid shhhhhtuff in relation to the women in his life. He doesn’t view falling in love as a disease or life-sentence in prison.

Philip—even though he’s Chaz’s ex and yeah, I know a number of you didn’t like him because of that—is pretty much the same way. He’s honorable, loyal and capable of love. Maybe a bit more afraid of it than Theo is, but he wants it. Yeah, he does.

He just didn’t, at age forty-five, think he was going to find it with his dead best-friend’s daughter. Who’s twenty-nine.

But that’s really all I can say about that at this point, because the book that’s exploding out of me in the same way Gabriel’s Ghost did several years ago, is only 21,000 words in (think: five chapters) and not even yet sold. Not even yet seen by my agent.

But I had to write it because Philip would not shut up.

So watch for Shades of Dark in July 2008 from me and Bantam. You’ll see Philip in there, eventually. It’s still Chaz’s and Sully’s story, and a very intense one at that. I was actually pretty shocked at what happens to Sully. And what Chaz has to face. But hey, I only type the words as they’re told to me.

Philip does come into the story mid-point on, and a lot of things I’d wondered about him in Gabriel’s are suddenly answered. Not all nicely, either. But it opened a dialogue between Philip and me…and from that Hope’s Folly (working title) was born.

So for those of you waiting for Ren’s story, sorry. Not this year. But he has time, you know. Stolorths have longer life spans. He’s only, what, about twenty-one years old in our terms? He has time. Philip’s forty-five and very willing to accept that time is running out, and that love is not for him, ever.

Surprise.
~Linnea

http://www.linneasinclair.com/
RITA-award winning Science Fiction Romance

Aliens Who Give Rise to Vampire Legends

Folks:

Cindy Holby wrote Friday June 15th:
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So after I had a morning meltdown we put our heads together. And what did we come up with?
Aliens. Aliens who are the reason there is a vampire legend. Actually it was pretty cool to come up with a new concept on an old tale. Plus we made up lots of slang and my heroine only lost a few of her really snarky lines.
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And in the comments Linnea wrote:
Jacqueline Lichtenberg beat you to that, darling. Read her THOSE OF MY BLOOD if you want to learn about aliens and vampires and why they're on this planet. ;-) Then read her DREAM SPY which is awesome. ~Linnea
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Whee! Thank you Linnea and thank you Margaret for mentioning THOSE OF MY BLOOD and DREAMSPY and noting all the decades of history behind the "vampires are aliens from outer space" tradition.

I first got the idea from, Black Destroyer the short story -- A. E. Van Vogt? I remember the story, but I have also heard it described by many people when doing panels and none of them read the story I read! They think it's horror, and I think it's Intimate Adventure.

I do however believe that Black Destroyer was the originator of this vast and fascinating SF/Fantasy cross-genre concept. That story is one of the (many) reasons I became an SF writer.

I'm sure that Cindy originated the idea, too. Just because it's been practically done to death (ahem) doesn't mean that someone can't create it originally.

It is a logical extension of both the vampire myths and SF lore.

Think about Stargate (the movie, and then the series) and Stargate: Atlantis. Stargate (the movie) just extended this 1940's traditional SF approach from some select myths to ALL the gods in Earth's mythologies, and tied them all together in a Ragnarok of the Stars.

So I wanted to point out to those reading my comments on screenwriting something that many beginning writers don't understand.

In Hollywood, this happens all the time -- that an established, working screenwriter faced with a deadline and a monkey wrench such as Cindy describes for us would reach out for a logical extension of a concept and latch onto something a new writer has CREATED ORIGINALLY out of their own imagination.

Perhaps that author has written and even submitted the script -- or just shopped the idea around, possibly on an internet site.

A few years later a TV episode or theatrical release appears based on this new writer's original concept and the writer is absolutely convinced the established pro stole the idea.

But the pro did not steal the idea any more than Cindy and her editor stole MY idea.

(OK not quite the same. Mine has been published and re-published and widely reviewed and discussed -- and I know I was writing in an established sub-genre with its own rules.)

So back to my hypothetical story of the new screenwriter: The pro re-originated the idea. He didn't have to steal it. He just had to be well read enough and artist enough to synthesize the ingredients.

This is why you can't copyright an idea.

But here's where the new writer who thinks his idea is original can get in trouble. And it's where Cindy could get in trouble if she's unfamiliar with this huge and seething sub-genre (one of the first cross-genre genres).

When I wrote THOSE OF MY BLOOD and DREAMSPY, I already knew this SF/Fantasy/Horror hybrid genre like the back of my hand. All of its bits and pieces are part of my Sime~Gen universe premise on the thematic level (in fact Black Destroyer is one of the foundation bits of Sime~Gen).

Before writing THOSE OF MY BLOOD. I also updated my state-of-the-art research into the hybrid genre (cross-genre didn't exist at that time, and it was impossible to sell cross-genre books. THOSE OF MY BLOOD got 22 rejections and finally was published as SF because there was no SF-Romance category at that time, though a few vampire-romances had begun to appear. Rewrites had to tone down the romance and bring the SF to the fore.)

I did the worldbuilding behind THOSE OF MY BLOOD and DREAMSPY to carefully enumerate, point by point, all the thematic statements and details used by other novels (see Margaret Carter's various publications on the Vampire genre -- she's SUCH a scholar!).

I was careful not to copy or infringe or take as my own anything that had been used before. Most writers don't do that. It's too much trouble, too time consuming. And trust me, it is NOT done in Hollywood. They don't care.

They don't care because they aren't legally bound to avoid using ideas others have pioneered.
And there's a very good reason that you can't copyright AN IDEA (vampire legends originate with aliens from outer-space is an IDEA; all the little gods people have worshipped through the ages were just Go'auld mining Earth for hosts is an IDEA (and not an original one).)

The most incredibly commercial ideas in Hollywood are commercial because they aren't original -- even if the scriptwriter originates the idea without direct exposure to the literature where it's been pioneered.

What makes a concept commercial in Hollywood is that the audience is already familiar with it.
After nearly thirty years of developing the "vampires can be accounted for as visiting aliens" concept, it became a Hollywood original in Stargate where "all gods were just aliens".

(note how Stargate stays away from Christian, Moslem and Jewish beliefs -- haven't done Buddha or any LIVING religion but just pick on "old superstitions.")

(also note Stargate is being cancelled, but Atlantis will continue a while.)

So if you set out to write a script that will make you a Name in Hollywood, and you come up with something truly original that's never been done before, or a twist such as the Vampire-Alien combo, don't think that you can copyright that idea. You can't even Register it with the Guild's script-registration service. They only take completed screenplays.

An IDEA somehow exists "out there" external to our minds, and when the time is right, that IDEA inserts itself into dozens and dozens of minds (maybe millions) at about the same time. It isn't a race between you and all other originators, either.

Remember Thomas Edison wasn't the first to invent the lightbulb. But he got the historical credit because he had the commercialization machinery behind him.

After an idea has come out a few times, and failed -- THEN the big commercial success happens. So let others go ahead of you -- but to maintain your artistic integrity, if you get a chance to write the book out of the screenplay, be sure to note their names in your acknowledgements and that you walk in their footsteps.

If you think someone has stolen YOUR idea -- just remember that you stole it from the same place they got it from.

It's not the idea that becomes successful -- it's the commercial machinery behind the idea that makes the idea successful.

So it's entirely possible that because of THOSE OF MY BLOOD and DREAMSPY winnowing the ground first, Cindy's book may become the hottest commercial success of this very old idea and she may get the credit for originating it just as Thomas Edison got credit for the lightbulb.


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Where it all began...GAMES OF COMMAND original files

I've received a lot of fan mail (thank you!) since Games of Command came out the end of February. I'm just tickled that readers so love Sass and the admiral, Jace and Eden. A lot of my fans know--since I'm not shy about it--that the original manuscript ran over 300,000 words...and was a series of emails between a dear friend and myself. Rather a "continuing adventure" just for fun and never meant to be published.

Readers have also been clamoring for all those scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor.

I thought I'd lost a lot of the original, due to computer crashes and such. But I did come across a few files from 2001. They're not the FIRST original files but pretty durn close. I'll share them with you over the next few blogs...

Please note some names/scenes/settings may NOT match the book. This is the seed from which the book was sprouted.


Enjoy! ~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com


ORIGINAL CHAPTER ONE from my notes dated 2001



Sickbay, Triad HUNTERSHIP Vaxxar

There might be worse things in the galaxy than a lethal alien virus. An admiral with an attitude, and an agenda, could well be one of them.

Chief Medical Officer Eden Fynn glanced at the time stamp in the corner of her screen. “Damn!” She increased the document’s scroll rate. There was a required staff meeting in five minutes, and she had fifty more pages to review. A second outbreak of Nar’Relian flu had inexplicably surfaced at three United Coalition spaceports in the past month, resulting in five more deaths. Finding a cure was now a race against time. She’d waited for two days for this critical analysis. Yet when it finally arrives, she had to go play Dutiful and Obedient CMO because Kel-Paten had his proverbial cybernetic knickers in a knot over something. Again.

“Cal, can you load these stats into my medalytic program? Got another command performance with the full staff in the ready room in five.”

The portly, gray-haired doctor smiled knowingly. “He’s overdue by about thirty-six hours this week, isn’t he?”

“The admiral just likes to be efficient,” Eden replied as blandly as the tired grin on her face would allow her.

“The admiral likes to see how high we all can jump, and when.” Caleb Monterro accepted the thin data-disk that Eden held out to him. “Be glad to help. We need some fast answers on this one. But I’ll tell you, I don’t envy your having to go to these meetings of his. Especially this late.”

"The admiral has his own view of time," Eden agreed as she straightened a stack of files on her desk. It was already a half hour into Third Duty Shift, which was Cal’s shift, not hers as ship's CMO. But medical work rarely respected schedules.

“It’s been different working with the Kel Triad these past six months." Cal absently tapped the thin disk against his palm. "Not like on the Regalia, with Captain Sebastian.”

“Tell me about it,” she quipped. A med-tech interrupted any further conversation, handing a new patient file to Monterro to review.

They parted with an exchange of tired smiles.

But, yes, what Cal had said was true. Their captain had her own way of doing things, and in Eden’s opinion, that to a great extent was what caused some of Admiral Kel-Paten’s problems. The other cause was a supposition she’d only recent begun to consider. It wasn’t one she wanted to explore further, right now. Especially because if she were right, and the bio-cybernetic construct in charge of the newly formed Alliance Fleet was actually experiencing emotions. Then she, as Chief Medical Officer, might just have to Section Forty-Six him.

She didn’t think that would go over well in the Triad part of the Alliance. It might even start another war. Then a puzzling virus would be the least of their problems.

The lift door pinged. She spent the short ride up to the Bridge Deck searching for more pleasant thoughts: the meeting shouldn’t take more than an hour and a half, two hours at most. That would leave her just enough time to get back to her quarters, change into some comfortable hiking gear and unwind with a leisurely late-shift stroll through one of the simdecks’ “Scenic Trails of the Universe” programs. It would unkink muscles now tense from hours of sitting. And maybe would unkink a mind tired from staring at medical data that made no sense.

Eden entered the stark ready room, a relaxed smile on her face. She only had to play “dutiful and obedient officer” for another ninety minutes and then she was free to do as she pleased.

Unfortunately, Fate and the Universe, as they often do, were just at the moment making plans of their own.

Ready Room, THS Vaxxar

Admiral Branden Kel-Paten noted the exact time of Dr. Fynn’s arrival in the same way he noted the exact time of every one of his officers’ arrivals: on a digital read-out in the lower left corner of his field of vision. The angular numbers were a bright shade of yellow-green, a color he'd found disruptive at first, as he'd found disruptive many of the bio-mechanical enhancements that had been added to his human form. He’d said something about the color choice to the Bio Engineers, hesitantly, as he'd been young enough then to still experience the emotion of shame. And the engineers had been sharp and caustic in their reply: he was a fifteen year old child and in no position to dictate preferences to these experienced and degreed professionals.

Truth was, he was more than just a fifteen year old child; he and eleven others had been human experiments, lab-bred from the best genetic materials available so that the Triad could produce five Senior Captains to helm and command the Triad’s five quadrants. But out of the dozen crèche-lings that had fertilized in the test tubes, only three had lived past their tenth birthday. And only one -- Kel-Paten, literally “Kel” (for the Keltish Triad) P.A.-Ten -- Paracybernetic Augmented Humanoid Ten -- survived past his fourteenth birthday and into enough human maturity where the mechanical enhancement procedures could begin.

The psycho-synthesizing had started three years later.

Over the years -- almost thirty more of them -- he'd gotten used to the putrid yellow-green color of his visual readouts. So now when he noted his CMO’s arrival it meant nothing, other than she was on time, and Sass wasn’t.

Again.

Oh, Captain Sebastian still had seventy-two point four seconds in which to arrive on time, but he knew she wouldn’t. The look she’d given him over the vidcom when he’d told her to be at the ready room at 2030 hours had portended that. She was off-shift at that time-- as most of his command staff would be-- and was scheduled to play a zero-g racquetball game at 2030 with a certain unmarried commander from Engineering who, Kel-Paten felt, was a little too attentive to Captain Sebastian lately. The info packet he’d downloaded from HQ after they’d cleared the ion storms could’ve waited until First Shift, until the “morning” as dirtsiders would say. There was no reason for a 2030 hours conference, other than such a meeting would keep Sass where he could keep a eye on her. And that was something he lately felt more and more inclined to do.

Sass... Captain Sebastian arrived at exactly 2034.43.2, her bright pink cropped t-shirt top and side-slit work-out shorts still damp from her recent exertions.

Something heated flared correspondingly inside Kel-Paten, his gaze taking in far more of her than he was used to seeing. At least, not while he was awake. He didn’t miss her playful tap on Dr. Fynn’s arm with the tip of her racquet as she strode by.

“Whipped his ass, 5-4!” she rasped, still somewhat short of breath.

(to be continued... more of the ORIGINAL Chapter One next time...)