Theme-Conflict Integration Part 2: Designing a Conflict by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Conflict Integration 

Part 2 

Designing a Conflict

 by 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Part 1 of Theme-Conflict Integration is here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-conflict-integration-part-1.html

-------quote from Part 1------------
The error that we, as Science Fiction Romance writers, have been trying to correct is the assumption that Romance is "pulp" and only pulp.  The assumption is that Romance is suitable only for lining bird cages and wrapping dead fish.  Oddly, that was always the assumption about science fiction.  Hmmm.

It is an unconscious assumption, and our entire civilization is founded upon it.

Once you see that manifesting in TV News, popular TV Series, and heated blog controversies over "sexism" you understand that we've been had.  Big time.

Like Science Fiction, Westerns, and many other genres so disparaged, Romance is not now and never has been "throw away" literature.  It is CLASSIC by it's very nature.

That fact is so terrifying that it is buried in the subconscious (Neptune, Pisces -- the best horror genre novels are fabricated out of NEPTUNE EVENTS (illusion) just as Romance Genre pivots on a Neptune Transit).  Buried in the collective subconscious, that fact about Romance being Classic Literature by its very nature is left to suppurate and rot us all out from the inside.

Do you see how I've taken a CONFLICT (the battle of the sexes over the prestige of Romance Genre) and edged it over into a THEME?

--------end quote from Part 1----------

Part 1 is titled Battle of the Sexes.  One would think that "battle of the sexes" pretty much covers the entire field of Romance.

However, I read eclectically, all around the spectrum and even into non-fiction, looking for "what she sees in him" and "what he sees in her."  You might think that's the core of "Romance" -- but wait!  It's actually the core of all "relationship" driven stories -- and the core of Life as depicted in those fascinating biographies I keep pointing you toward.

One way to puzzle out "what X sees in Y" is to examine human life-paths using the tool of Astrology.  Those who discard Astrology without actually learning any generally think it is just superstition and nonsense.  Actually, it's an empirical science.

It was developed by those who observed the heavens and observed human life-paths, and human nature, and puzzled over the problem "what does she see in him?"

What do humans see in each other?

Take a big example known to every reader of this blog.  What did the USA electorate see in Barak Obama?  What do they see now?  How come everyone doesn't see the same thing in this vast, larger-than-life public figure? 

The fact that we don't all "see" the same thing in every fictional character -- take Spock for example -- mirrors ordinary human life and existence. 

When two (or more) people who have observed the same person (maybe a prospective employer and the Human Resources director in his company) hold opposite assessments of that person's skills, character, personality, potential, etc. you have CONFLICT.  And that kind of conflict is what generates great novels.

Take for example, the head of the IT department at a large Hewlett Packard plant gearing up to make a new computer here in the USA.  As they're interviewing for positions, the place is mostly dusty concrete floors, big dirty windows, echoing chambers where machinery will chug and assembly lines move.  Touring what's going to be the cubicle corral and in the back the exec offices of the IT department that's tasked with keeping all the desk workers' computers functioning, the man who will run that department looks at the wispy slip of a woman with an operatic contralto voice and a dazzling smile.

She looks at a medium height, brown haired, brown eyed Geek and thinks she sees through his crisp white shirt the vague outline of a Superman T-shirt logo.  She can't stop smiling, thinking, "Home at last!  Yes!!!"

Problem is his ex runs the HR department and saw that exchange of smiles during the tour.  His ex tables her resume and tells him that when his call-back for a second interview went through, she declined without noting a reason.

She checks her phone every 15 minutes for missed calls.  Nothing until she gets a job offer from another company and reluctantly (jacking up the offered salary by hemming and hawing) accepts.

Who is she working for?  How does she come into contact with the HP IT guy again?  What happens to the ex in HR as a result of them comparing notes? 

Which hackers get jailed because these two get together?

CONFLICT is the result of what this human (or non-human) sees in another human (or non-human.) 

CONFLICT is the key to generating both plot and story, where plot is defined as the series of Events, what people do because of what others have done, and story is defined as the meaning of the Events to the characters who experience them (lessons learned, ambitions ignited, possibilities expanded, Happily Ever After Achieved.)

HEA or Happily Ever After is the end of the STORY -- but not necessarily of the plot. 

A Couple such as described in this example might end up married into an HEA ending, and there could still be more books in this series.

For example, you have this crackerjack anti-hacker team working at this giant Corporation HQ (yes, she comes to work for him, probably a few books later is his boss) -- but the next novel in this Universe might be about characters only mentioned or introduced in Book I -- such as an Uncle or Grandparents.  It could center on relatives of the ex who had attempted to manipulate the HR woman into marrying this IT guy because of some larger, intricate international plot?

If you look at what I've sketched here, you'll see another version of Gini Koch's ALIEN SERIES -- that I keep raving about because it really is that good.  It's Romance, yes, but a Romance set in a very realistic world.

What?  Aliens on Earth secretly defending Earth is realistic?

Well, no, not exactly -- but the Earth that these strangers are trying to live on is very realistic -- although depicted as a caricature.

Caricature is a valid artistic tool for bringing up certain traits that are ordinarily not consciously noted by the audience. 

http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/museum/exhibits/Bob_Hope/Presidential Awards.htm

In the upper left corner of that page, you'll see a famous caricature of Bob Hope.  His chin and his nose were NOT like that -- but this caricature is very identifiable.  Check out Bob Home images in his various movies as he aged.  This caricature is brilliant work.

Caricature is generally considered the province of humor.

But actually that's not true.

All fictional conflict is caricature.

Now, I couldn't create a visual portrait of a person using caricature -- though Kelly Freas once did a caricature of me and it was startlingly informative.

But the fictional CONFLICT that a writer pulls out of the depths of a misty, abstract, intellectualized THEME is a caricature.

I've pointed out in previous posts that the best source of IDEAS is HEADLINES - yes, newspaper, blogs, newsletters, TV or radio or whatever comes next. 

Here's the index to MARKETING FICTION IN A CHANGING WORLD -- note the one titled HEADLINES AND TITLES:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

The TITLE of a novel is a HEADLINE formulated from the THEME. 

Headline writing is what journalists do.  Book and Chapter titles is what fiction writers do.  Actually, non-fiction writers also do exactly the same thing. 

Find a way to convey the core of the matter (the conflict extracted from the heart of theme) in 6 words or less, preferably less.

The Headline says what this piece is ABOUT.

What anything is ABOUT is the theme.  The theme is the point you are making.  The point you are making is the reason the reader wants to read the piece you've written.

If your headline/title fails to convey the THEME - then the readers who read it will hate it and report that your writing is boring, and those to whom you are really addressing this piece will shun it because it's not about what they are interested in. 

The TITLE is key to the conflict and maybe it's resolution.  Usually, the real meaning of a good title (one that can't be resisted and can't be forgotten) is revealed at the 3/4 point in a 4-act structured novel.

So ripping your story from the HEADLINES (e.g. titles of news stories) works, provided, as I've said before, you are working with headlines from several years or decades prior to when your novel will be published.

If the reader hasn't yet forgotten the kerfuffle, or digested it or reached a personal accommodation with it, the story you write about that theme probably won't work as fiction.  (It might work as non-fiction.)

So in ripping from the headlines, it's important to judge your timing.

Occasionally, a contemporary basis works well if it catches the imagination of the marketers. 

But let me point you to an item which is both ancient and modern, a headline that's recurred just this year after being relegated to the dustbin of academic history for a century or so.  You can mine this for themes because it's old, and sell the resulting story because the theme is new.  What a trick!

It's also in audible.com edition and you can find it on that page, but the Kindle is only 99cents. 

Here below are 25 quoted POINTS (headlines?) from an article on THE BLAZE

This article defines one side of a conflict you could use to fuel an epic Romance.  The other side you can easily rummage out of your mind, I'm sure.  The one-sidedness of this article is what gives it the clarity to be a useful source of Headlines to rip into a novel, but in a novel you must also argue the other side of any conflict.  After all "conflict" is a concept that implies 2 sides (at least).  For clarity, and to deliver a satisfactory resolution to your reader, work hard at dividing your thematic material into two clearly separated positions. 

Watch for examples of this artificial division into two and just two sides.  You'll see it in political advertisements, in Talking Heads TV shows, in Talking Points displayed in campaign "debates" and so on.

The real world is complicated and complex, with all issues having thousands of "sides."  But only a  very tiny percent of our general population has the patience to gnaw through all that clutter to figure out what they think.  So politicians and marketers of all sorts (including book marketers) have to "simplify" things down to just two diametrically opposed views, and then convince the audience that these are the only two choices.  And you see this illustrated in this "pamphlet" which is short because it's showing you only one side, and pretending there actually is only one other side. 

What tickles my imagination about this pamphlet titled THE LAW is that it's from 1850 culture. 

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro used this kind of material (absorbed over a lifetime interest in History) to generate her incredible 1978 Best Seller redefining Vampire Romance Historical, The Palace:

That links to the Kindle page with various other editions.  The Palace was the foundation of her best selling St. Germain novels, a Life Work worthy of our greatest respect.

In The Palace, Renaissance Florence provides the background for this story of the collapse of the artistic and literary life of the city after the death of San Germano's friend, Lorenzo the Magnificent, followed by the rise of the fanatical Savonarola.
---------
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Florence

Citizen Government in Renaissance Florence

From 1328 until 1434, Florence was a city republic governed by a broad swath of citizens from the elite merchant and banking families. They used a method of sortition to draw candidates for public office. During the late 13th and 14th centuries, popular revolts led to periods when public office was also shared among citizens from the middle and lower artisan class.
----------

Note how the writer's mind associates across all the barriers between France in 1850 and Forence's city republic and morphing governmental forms in the 1300's.  And here we are again in the 2000's.  Remember how we discussed cycles and oscillation as a key to understanding (and thus depicting) a character's "life."
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/information-feed-tricks-and-tips-for.html

History is background, but also thematic substance.  One sort of thematic substance you can take from a pamphlet reference like THE LAW is that History moves in CYCLES, a spiral where even though the repetition is not exact, it's recognizably an "here we go round again" experience for those who know what happened before.

That effect (the cyclical nature of Life's events) can be used to add verisimilitude to the wildest fantasy settings.  It's used in the Sime~Gen Series where, a thousand years after the collapse of this civilization we're in now, humans pull together a whole new, global civilization and rebuild from scratch to reach out into Space The Final Frontier.

The cycle of history goes round again -- but with a difference. 

So read this list of issues covered in this 1850 pamphlet THE LAW, with the titles showing how it surfaces again in today's headlines and write it into your fantasy world.  This is the substance of High Drama, but even more-so it is the fuel of every great Romance (think Helen Of Troy!)

I'll list the 25 headlines here, but click through to the article for the substance behind each of these quotes.
To get the real gist of this list, you should read the article itself, but first ponder these excerpts from the article:
http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/01/24/this-obscure-french-pamphlet-from-1850-perfectly-describes-todays-america/

Each of the 25 could be made into a THEME for a Romance Novel, and if you sequence them properly you will have a SERIES -- or serial -- or an entire "Universe" if you do the science fiction worldbuilding to incorporate these fertile themes into your work.

Read this list as if it were a spelling list in a school course, and your task is to use each word in a sentence in such a way that the sentence adds up to a micro-short story.  Or you could do this for NanoWriMo this November.

Read this and monitor your blood pressure.  Imagine you want to break up a marriage so your main characters can get close without inappropriate spouses in the way.  Start a breakfast table (before coffee) conversation about one of these 25 points -- BAM! Divorce! 

------BEGIN HEAVILY EDITED QUOTE----------

: The following quotes come from French classical liberal, economic journalist and legislator Frédéric Bastiat’s 1850 pamphlet, “The Law.”

1. It started with “hope and change"  ”While society is struggling toward liberty, these famous men who put themselves at its head are filled with the spirit of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They think only of subjecting mankind to the philanthropic tyranny of their own social inventions. Like Rousseau, they desire to force mankind docilely to bear this yoke of the public welfare that they have dreamed up in their own imaginations…".....

2. And a social justice agenda   "Now this must be said: When justice is organized by law — that is, by force — this excludes the idea of using law (force) to organize any human activity whatever, whether it be labor, charity, agriculture, commerce, industry, education, art, or religion. ..."...

3. That enabled Obamacare ”But when the law, by means of its necessary agent, force, imposes upon men a regulation of labor, a method or a subject of education, a religious faith or creed — then the law is no longer negative; ....

4. And the IRS scandal, DOJ malfeasances, etc. ”Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it...

5. Where law was used as a weapon ”But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws.

6. And condoned in a culture of political corruption ”

7. Imbued with such a philosophy, Washington was a political free-for-all  ”  Under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law takes property from one person and gives it to another ....

8. Public education remained ever powerful “You say: “There are persons who lack education,” and you turn to the law. But the law is not, in itself, a torch of learning which shines its light abroad. ....

9. Leading to Common Core being foisted upon the children   "....Conventional classical thought everywhere says that behind passive society there is a concealed power called law or legislator (or called by some other terminology that designates some unnamed person or persons of undisputed influence and authority) which moves, controls, benefits, and improves mankind.”

10. The media was effectively an organ of the administration  

11. …Really ”  ....  just as the gardener needs axes, pruning hooks, saws, and shears to shape his trees, just so does the socialist writer need the force that he can find only in law to shape human beings. For this purpose, he devises tariff laws, tax laws, relief laws, and school laws.”

12. Truly ”   To these intellectuals and writers, the relationship between persons and the legislator appears to be the same as the relationship between the clay and the potter.” 

(JL interjecting here -- John Denver song about the Potter's Wheel -- and current soaring fame of Harry Potter.  Metaphor and imagery are artistic tools that can propel writers into the category of Classic.)

13. So the welfare state that had once started small… ” ..... See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. ...

14. Grew and grew and grew ”  ... It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. .....

15. When re-election time came, they spoke of Republicans ”throwing granny off the cliff” and wanting “dirtier air, dirtier water“ ”Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. ....

16. The community organizers sprung to action “..... If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good?  .....

17. Chanting slogans like ”This is what democracy looks like” “The strange phenomenon of our times — one which will probably astound our descendants — is the doctrine based on this triple hypothesis: the total inertness of mankind, the omnipotence of the law, and the infallibility of the legislator. These three ideas form the sacred symbol of those who proclaim themselves totally democratic.

18. And speaking of all sorts of previously unknown ”rights” ”The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. ...

19. While the President said ”You didn’t build that“ “Thus, according to [a tutor to the Dauphin in the Court of Louis XIV] Bossuet, persons derive nothing from themselves. Patriotism, prosperity, inventions, husbandry, science — all of these are given to the people by the operation of the laws, the rulers.

20. And while the President won re-election, due to efforts of the House and various scandals, he now makes statements like “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone“ “In cases where the alleged evil is so great that ordinary governmental procedures cannot cure it, Mably recommends a dictatorship to promote virtue: “Resort,” he says, “to an extraordinary tribunal with considerable powers for a short time. The imagination of the citizens needs to be struck a hard blow.” This doctrine has not been forgotten. Listen to Robespierre: ...

21. While his party pushes an inequality meme ”  ..... Since all persons seek well-being and perfection, would not a condition of justice be sufficient to cause the greatest efforts toward progress, and the greatest possible equality that is compatible with individual responsibility?

22. And dreams of equalization ”You say: “There are persons who have no money,” and you turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law supplied with milk from a source outside the society. .....

23. And the conservatives are left with a tall task ”Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism.  ... 

24. A very tall task ”Socialists desire to practice legal plunder, not illegal plunder. Socialists, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law their own weapon. And when once the law is on the side of socialism, how can it be used against socialism? For when plunder is abetted by the law, it does not fear your courts, your gendarmes, and your prisons. Rather, it may call upon them for help.

To prevent this, you would exclude socialism from entering into the making of laws? You would prevent socialists from entering the Legislative Palace? You shall not succeed, I predict, so long as legal plunder continues to be the main business of the legislature. It is illogical — in fact, absurd — to assume otherwise.”

25. And so here we stand today “As long as these ideas prevail, it is clear that the responsibility of government is enormous. Good fortune and bad fortune, wealth and destitution, equality and inequality, virtue and vice — all then depend upon political administration."

Where does it all end? Here’s what Bastiat says:

“But if the government undertakes to control and to raise wages, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to care for all who may be in want, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to support all unemployed workers, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to lend interest-free money to all borrowers, and cannot do it; if, in these words that we regret to say escaped from the pen of Mr. de Lamartine, “The state considers that its purpose is to enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to strengthen, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the people” — and if the government cannot do all of these things, what then? Is it not certain that after every government failure — which, alas! is more than probable — there will be an equally inevitable revolution?”

--------END HEAVILY EDITED QUOTE--------

Even before I edited out most of this article, the article was a caricature of a book from 1850 that painted a caricature of 1850 which could be taken as a caricature of today!

Note the reference in point #1 to the 17th century, written in the 19th century.  Now we're in the 21st century talking about the 19th.  Remember this periodicity when worldbuilding. 

So you may consider all fiction and non-fiction as caricature -- and the Classics are all caricatures! 

To become classic like this book THE LAW, the work has to leave out or de-emphasize some truths and exaggerate others to dominate the picture, just as that line-drawing caricature of Bob Hope is not Bob Hope's picture.

Now do you see your Helen of Troy emerging from the juncture of Theme and Conflict?

Those 25 points are thematic.  Your characters will each read that pamphlet and SEE different things, just as two people assess a third differently.  And boy will they fight over breakfast the next morning! 

Imagine if your characters are each running for public office against each other, cramming for a "Debate."  Now imagine they each have the hots for the other (or better yet already married, and running against each other as an extension of that breakfast conversation), but are on opposite sides of this argument about the purpose of government. 

Each of your readers is convinced their OWN IDEAS are the correct assessment and each is rooting for a different spouse in this family quarrel.

Remember we discussed how "interesting" means the IDEA arises from within the reader, not from within the writer? 

ON WHAT MAKES AN INTERESTING STORY
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-4-art-of.html
The Index to Springboards is here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/index-to-story-springboards-series-by.html

The same is true of "reliable information."  That which the reader extracts (apparently on their own) from what they "see" (e.g. are SHOWN not told)  is convincing. 

That which is SHOWN to the reader becomes convincing because the reader has to put the puzzle together and arrive at an idea of what it means. 

What is TOLD to the reader is immediately suspect -- review your responses to reading that list of points! 

Your own assessment is TRUE -- someone else's assessment is SUSPECT, dubious or plain lies, and in any event uninteresting.

As a writer, you must find that spot where Theme and Conflict intersect, then SHOW it (not tell it) to your reader and let them discover their own truth, not yours.  Then the book you write will be "interesting" to your reader, and true (at least while reading.) 

Notice particularly how this set of 25 thematic issues all go together for form a perfect bundle -- the core theme is "purpose of government."  Each issue taken up in turn is individual, but the theme each issue illustrates is related in exactly the way we noted in previous posts that themes designed for long, multiple Point Of View novels, must be related.

Here is the Index to posts on THEME:

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

Here is one of the early posts listed in that index post:

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

The reason themes forming the structure (and title) of a single work must be related is that the only things a reader will both enjoy and believe (if only temporarily for the story) are the thoughts the reader originates.

Nobody looking to read a whopping good story is at all interested in what you have to say, but your THEME is exactly what you have to say.  So don't say it.  Show it just the way that list of 25 points shows what the argument is regarding "What Is The Purpose Of Government?"  

Your job as a writer is to provide the disciplined framework (the nest) and the energetic spark that begins the reader's question, (the egg) leading to the reader hatching their own idea -- not yours.  Yes, people are as possessive of their own ideas as a mother hen of her chicks.

Watch yourself discard the writer's ideas as you read the next few novels you pick up.  It is very instructive when you catch yourself hatching your own chicks -- but it's very hard to catch yourself. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Story Springboards Part 7 - The Knack of Hooking Readers by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Story Springboards Part 7
The Knack of Hooking Readers
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

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

Next week I'll post an index of the Story Springboards series which will be added to in the future.

---From intro to Part 3----------
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html
of Story Springboards --

This post series on Story Springboards explores the essence of what "interesting" means from the point of view of a writer and how to use that knowledge to sell fiction, especially Science Fiction, and double especially Science Fiction Romance.

All the books on how to write stories tell you (without showing) that to sell fiction, all you have to do is write an "interesting" story.

No instruction is more frustrating than that simple sentence "just write an interesting story."  So let's delve a little deeper than writing teachers usually do.

"What is interesting and how do you write it?"

And what has that to do with the Art of Episodic Plotting?
---------------end quote-------

So the instruction is "just write an interesting story" --- but books on writing never ask "interesting to whom?"

The key bit of information left out of writing craft textbooks and especially "Creative Writing" courses is that there is a huge chasm between what "interests" you and what your reader will find "interesting" about the story.

Study this image carefully.  This is a "show don't tell" of the technique we're focusing on here.

You can just barely see the ridges of the screw-threads, but focus on them.  They tell the tale.

A second bit of information missing -- perhaps because teaching it would give the teacher's competition an "edge" over the teacher? -- is that the reader that must be HOOKED FIRST is not the end-user who buys the book off the shelf, off Amazon, Kobo, or wherever e-books are sold.

The reader who must be hooked FIRST is the editor/publisher.  Second is that publisher's market department.  Third is reviewers.  Fourth is maybe the reader.

The order of the hooks you create and implant in your FIRST PAGE is set by the market you are hitting for. 

Now, if you write to self-publish, the first hook has to be directly to your reader.  Intuitively, you think that is easier -- but given the failure-rate of self-published novels, I'd suspect there's a knack to it as obscure as the other hook-structures.

It is, however, all learn-able stuff and the learning thereof is actually FUN to the type of person who is inherently "a writer" -- and crazy-making boring to end-user readers who just want to be entertained.

Consider how your perspective on a TV Series changes when you visit the "Lot" and see that the town you thought was New York is actually a tunnel of plywood flats propped up behind by slats of wood.  The buildings (or space ships or whatever) you thought were "real" just aren't and never were.  It is an illusion you fell for.  You were tricked.

You never look at any TV show again the same way.

Well, it's the same for most of the techniques we talk about on this blog on Tuesdays.  Once you know the trick of it, novels just don't affect you the same way.

One of the components of the "Story Springboard" is the HOOK -- writing textbooks identify only the "narrative hook" and ignore all the rest of the intricacies of the "hook techniques."  Writing texts tell you to "write a million words for the garbage can" as if it would help to practice your mistakes until they are ingrained.

Anyone who trains young children in athletics or martial arts, or even driving a car or playing a musical instrument will tell you that HOW YOU START is the key to how well you will master the skills.  It is critical to thread the trainee into the procedures just as you thread a cap on a bottle and then twist, seating it just so.

If you put the cap on tilted, the threads cross and twisting makes a mess that's very hard to undo.

Likewise with training to write.  How you START learning to write is critical.  If you start correctly, all the rest just comes easily and presto you're selling fiction.  If you start off-kilter, you have to undo everything you've learned and start over, sometimes again and again.  And sometimes the process "strips the threads" and it takes years for the damage to heal.

So learning to construct a sequenced set of hooks can be easy, natural, effortless, and people say, "Oh, she's so Talented!"  Or it can be all hard and twisted and confusing, and people say, "Get a real job."

So before you start "spinning your yarn" (or twisting the cap on your story), spend however much effort it takes you to drill and drill until you can bring that story-cap down level, square on top of the "bottle" that will hold your story.

So why do I say the "hook" or the beginning of the story is the CAP?  Isn't the CAP the last thing you do, the ENDING of the story?

As we've discussed in various story-structure series on this blog, the ending is the beginning. 

In fact, almost any problem you have with structure later on, the climax points, the middle-event definition, or getting the last scene to be the actual END climax, finding the final word of the tale, any problem can be traced to an error in the opening page.

Yeah, "error."  It's a mistake, because every story, every tale, has an exact and precise OPENING or BEGINNING -- a point at which the audience can find entry into the entire story -- the character's nature and the problem confronting the character, the setting that hurls the problem at the character, the moral dilemma that must be sorted out, the Relationships that provide the solution which is a new problem, etc.

There is a point at which a character's life is "open" enough to allow onlookers to "enter" that life and walk in that character's moccasins.  It is just like the open point at the top of a screw-top bottle's thread -- it is AT a certain spot in the character's life in time and in place (character's age and the setting).

Finding that point is a process that blends Art and Craft.  Once found, that point then becomes known and familiar to the writer -- and the problem changes from "find the hook" to "build the hook into a springboard."

The Art component of the Hook requires knowing your end-user, your reader who will pay money for your novel.

The Craft component of the Hook requires knowing your MARKET - which is the publisher (or producer) who will pay you for your manuscript or your screenplay long before any reader has been offered your product.

So visualize a fish hook -- a beautiful curve with really wicked barbs sticking out in every which direction.  That's what we have to build the springboard of the story around.

Think VELCRO.  (or a zipper).

Velcro has the property that most resembles STORY.  It's a better analogy than a fish hook, but it is similar.  A fish hook is designed to hook-and-hold a specific, particular fish, and requires a specific bait to attract that fish and induce it to bite at the hook.  The bait also HIDES THE BARBS.

Velcro likewise has that design element -- but is even more narrow in its usefulness.

Velcro sticks to it's MATE material, the OPPOSITE curlicue material.  A fish hook will stick to almost anything. 

So a fish hook might be a better analogy for a story aimed at a large market -- a TV Series or Feature Film, something very expensive to produce that must earn millions within the first few days needs a fish hook that will stick to anybody. 

Velcro is more like genre fiction, Romance, Cozy Mystery, Paranormal Romance -- it only sticks to those who are made from the opposite material.

And there you have the inner secret of INTERESTING (as previous parts of this series have discussed), and the core energy-source of Springboards.  Opposites.  Bring two opposites together, and BANG something happens.

When things "happen" -- that is interesting.  CHANGE of SITUATION is interesting.  The whiff of a change in the air is interesting. 

Here's a quote from the end of Part 3 of this STORY SPRINGBOARDS series:

---------quote---------
When concepts of TIME and EXISTENCE are configured differently, everything in the culture that uses those concepts becomes configured differently.  The differences cause the most trouble when the participants yelling across the cultural gap are unaware there is a gap.

This kind of miscommunication is the ESSENCE OF CONFLICT. 

Resolution of conflict is one essential ingredient in climaxes. 

Anticipating a climax is the essence of "Interesting." 
----------end quote-------------

Miscommunication that the reader sees but the characters do not provides the ANTICIPATION (foreshadowing) of change of situation (action).

When one character "finds out" (but perhaps the other hasn't yet found out), the situation changes.

It's that change of situation that is the very essence of "interesting" -- and it is most powerful before it happens, not during or after the Event.  Interest is about "what will happen next."  So when the reader finds out what happens next, that bit of "interesting" is gone -- so the writer must keep planting these foreshadowing hints that "Wait! There's more!" as the pitch-man announces. 

These interlaced and overlapping lines of CHANGE OF SITUATION form the fabric that must be created to support an episodic plot structure -- such as we discussed in Part 3 of Springboards.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html

"Write an interesting story" -- means, learn that the writer is the opposite of the reader, and the writer's brain works in the opposite direction from that of the reader.

Think again of threading a screw top onto a bottle.  The thread on the top screws in the opposite direction from the thread on the bottom. 

"Interesting" happens when the thread of the TOP interlocks with the thread on the BOTTOM -- and TURNS (i.e. change happens). 

As you TWIST the top onto the bottom (or the bottom onto the top) there is anticipation of "what happens next" -- the knowledge that eventually, you hit the end of the screw thread and the top and bottom are mated securely.  But when you BEGIN this process, the top and the bottom are not connected (yet) -- change hasn't started (yet) -- there is POTENTIAL ENERGY.

That potential energy is your springboard.

Will the top come down level enough to engage the thread on the bottom?

Will the threads engage?

Will the top turn level enough to twist into a secure mating?  Will it turn enough times to get there?  The suspense is killing me.

"What will happen next?" is the question that writing textbooks tell you to answer.

But they rarely mention how to construct WHAT WILL HAPPEN FIRST.

It is "What Happens First" that is both the barbs on your hook that capture editors, publishers, publicists, and readers -- and the springboard that flings the reader into the story on the shoulders of the characters.

Real life doesn't have a "What Happens First" -- there is always something that happened before.

Take the Bible as an example.  The first 5 books of the Bible are a simple autobiography -- the story of the life of Moses written by God but transcribed by Moses himself.  God sets out to tell the story of ONE MAN'S LIFE, and He says, "In The Beginning" and starts with the creation of existence.  And ends with Moses death (a real tear-jerker because Moses for all his service to God, doesn't get to the Promised Land.)

Even God couldn't figure out what happened FIRST in the story of Moses, so He started with the beginning of Creation.

Generally speaking, modern novels don't go quite that far back.  Normally, we don't even start with the birth of the main character.

The story we tell STARTS where the two elements that will conflict to generate the plot first come into contact, and ENDS with the RESOLUTION of that one conflict.

In the case of the Bible, the conflict started by Moses confronting Pharaoh is still going on.  The conflict started by God choosing Abraham is still going on.  We have a suspense building flash-forward via Prophecy, but the details are still happening.

So when we tell a story, we cut out a smaller piece of canvass, and lay down perspective lines that give us a close-up view of the threads of one character's life that will (or will not) interlock with another character's life, and screw down into place (or strip the threads and seat crooked.)

So the top and bottom screw threads represent the pair of characters who will conflict to generate the plot (Hero and Villain, or Male and Female lovers-to-be, or Buddy Cops, or Detective and Quarry, etc), but they also represent the writer and reader.

Writer and reader have to MESH in just that way -- like opposites, jousting with each other like Detective and Quarry, or flirting like lovers, or Teacher and Student, or Parent and Child, or whatever combination your genre prefers.

Writer and reader are two halves of a whole.

That's why we learn early in life to memorize the byline of an author who tickles our imagination just right, then find all the rest of their books.  Writers have a 'voice' and if a writer's 'voice' soothes a reader's nerves the way a certain singer's voice does, the reader will collect that writer's novels.

You don't get this effect with TV or Movies because what you see on the screen is the product of many, many voices -- and a whole orchestra of instruments behind (camera crew, casting directors, etc).  So being a fan of a film and TV production is more like being a fan of The Mormon Tabernacle Choir than of a particular singer in the choir.

With novels, yes, there is a whole production crew, and very often the "voice" of the editors and others at a publishing company show through into the finished product, but the "voice" of the byline writer dominates the reader's experience making novels a much more personal interaction.

So the "Knack of Hooking Readers" -- even first-readers such a slush-pile readers, agents, editors, etc -- lies in training yourself to recognize OPENINGS.

Yes, it's called a story-opening (a stage-play term), an "opening scene," because just like with the screwtop, there is that little open spot where the top and bottom screws "mate" -- an opening spot where the screw threads can MESH.

The first drill, before you even begin to search your mind and heart for a story to write, is to watch the people around you, listen to their lives as they chatter to each other about having the car break down on the freeway, taking the kid to the doctor before racing to get to work on time, stopping to pick up dinner at the supermarket only to find the market's salad bar closed for suspicion of salmonella (eek!), and whatever other adventures ensue.

Listen to real lives unfold.  Think about "making friends" (making friends with new people at a new job requires finding one of those "open" spots to thread yourself into their lives).  Read a lot of biographies and autobiographies (comparing biographies and autobiography of the same person is a good learning experience).  Try to find biographies of people who aren't particularly "famous" because that's where you'll find "real" lives just like your reader's lives.

Here's one biography I recommend which is edited by Allan Cole (the screenwriter) from tapes of stories told by his Uncle.  It is a collection of first person anecdotes, not a novel or novelized biography.  It is very different, and very much to the point of the subject of Hooks and Springboards.  It is in paper, e-book and audiobook and you can find them all here:




Now, make a habit of recounting your day when you get home at night.  It helps if you live with someone who will listen, but if not make a diary entry -- verbalize the sequence of events of your day as if telling them to someone.

Notice how you tend to tell the story out of chronological order, starting in the middle with the interesting thing -- the thing that interests YOU most -- then backtracking to what caused it.

One error beginning writers make is starting in the wrong place, choosing the wrong opening event, or laying out the whole tapestry of what WILL cause something to "happen" before saying what did happen.

Remember, "interesting" means CHANGE OF SITUATION.  Action = Rate Of Change Of Situation (not one character beating another over the head with a broadsword). 

A hook without any barbs on it to capture interest is created by detailing the SITUATION before an EVENT changes that situation.

Three paragraphs detailing a situation is way too much prelude to change.

The most complex set of barbs on your hook can be created by putting the CHANGE of the situation in the very first 10 words, the first line of the story.  Then sketching (not detailing) the Situation that the change altered. 

By creating your opening in that order, you present your reader with an entire tapestry (a velcro surface) of questions.

If you've chosen the EVENT and your wording of how you present that EVENT to match the genre you are aiming for, then some of your hooks on your Velcro will engage the slush-pile reader, some will engage an agent, some will engage an editor, and some will send that editor bouncing to the marketing department crying, EUREKA! 

Each hook in your side of the Velcro strip of that opening paragraph will mate with one of the "eyes" on the target strip. 

Note that the first thing that you learn about your Character or the Situation that has remained unchanging around them for years of their life is not the first thing you present to your readers when you tell the story.

To you, the writer, the first thing you learn about the Character (which comes in a multi-dimentional burst of I HAVE AN IDEA!) is what is INTERESTING to you, the writer.

That first thing is NOT the thing that is interesting to the reader.

To "write an interesting story" is the opposite (look again at the screw threads) of the process of reading an interesting story.

The process of becoming interested in a story is the opposite of the process of interesting someone in a story.

Think about the most boring person you've ever met.

When that person tells you about something that happened, or discusses something you told them that happened to you, your eyes close.  Why?  Is it because they don't know what they are talking about?  Not likely.  Most likely is the way they use DETAIL.

Your mind has already leaped over to the next thing after the thing that comes next -- way beyond --- and the boring person is wading through minutia you already grasped.

Boring usually happens not when things are SLOW (suspense, creeping horror etc is very interesting, and very slow) -- but when details are presented in the wrong order, in the wrong place.  Boring also happens when you TELL someone what they already know, or think they know (even if they don't.)

It's not speed that makes things interesting.

"Interesting" is all about change that portends more change.  "Interesting" is all about QUESTIONS -- questions the reader poses to herself, not the questions the writer articulates.

"Interesting" is all about what is NOT SAID -- rather than what is said.

Inference, innuendo, off-the-nose dialogue, all are techniques that raise questions without specifying what the question is exactly.

"Interesting" is all about "The Socratic Method."

 Here's a quick reprise in case you've forgotten:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method

The discourse is between writer and reader. 

The reader is actually the curious questioner -- the initiator of the dialogue -- not the writer.

The reader is riffling through a whole lot of books (on a shelf or in a Kindle) asking, "What am I in the mood for tonight?"  Or perhaps, "Is there an interesting Romance on my Kindle?"

Many readers (especially slush pile readers and editors) come to the stack of reading matter in a state of being bored.  They don't want to read anything - but it's their job to read.  And it's just boring for all the reasons any job gets boring.  So the question the potential reader is asking is, "What would break through this boredom?" 

The writer's job is to SURPRISE that bored reader. 

And that surprise has to be about 3 or 4 words long.  Maybe only one word.

Surprise always breaks boredom.  The Unexpected is key. 

What a given group of readers "expect" depends on the group and why they are a group.

What surprises one group, shocks and repels another.  Shock-repel can be as interesting as surprise, but the Romance field generally doesn't host shock-repel openings (middles maybe, not usually ends).

The opening (there's that word again - look at the open spots in the mated screw threads and ponder this) words of your manuscript have to break into that boredom with a SURPRISE.

When the idea for a story bursts into your consciousness, it is almost always a SURPRISE wrapped in DELIGHT and it energizes you, making you reach for something to jot down that idea, or capture the rapid-fire dialogue that just rushed to mind.

Those first jotted words can be the actual opening of your novel, but that is likely to happen only if you've trained and trained, sweated and strained, to bend a hook into a springboard.

More than likely the first explosion of IDEA will be from the middle or end of a novel -- or maybe something that never makes it into the actual novel. 

The actual opening of the novel based on that IDEA has to create for the reader that same SENSATION of "I've Got An IDEA!" 

The writer must encapsulate the experience of HAVING an IDEA for the reader.

That's where the Socratic Method comes in. 

The objective of the writer is to get the reader to have the idea, rather than just telling the reader what your idea is.

If you go back to thinking about that Most Boring Person You Know again, you may discover the essence of the quality "boring."  Other people's IDEAS are boring.  YOUR OWN IDEAS are INTERESTING.

"Just Write An Interesting Story" means "Let Your Reader Have All The Ideas."

Your ideas are boring to your reader.  Their own ideas are interesting to them. 

Readers are most entertained by having their own ideas erupt into their own consciousness. 

Being a reader rather than a writer means being cozy with the concept that the IDEAS are IN THE NOVEL.  That the writer is "Talented" -- that the book is interesting. 

The writer is not talented.  The book is not interesting. 

The READER is the interesting component in this transaction.

If you, the writer, are not interested in the Reader, the transaction won't work.

Note in the explanation of Socratic Method the technique involves stating a thesis that is to be refuted.

It's a thesis that begs to be refuted.

One common human trait is the urgent need to CORRECT someone who's wrong about something. 

To create a story-opening, find a moment where your main character is involved in a changing Situation -- find a moment of change where your character is convinced of an INCORRECT THESIS -- or one that your reader (because of the genre) will know is wrong and will want to correct.

"Love Conquers All" is one such thesis.

"Now that's a baby so ugly only a mother could love him."  An opening line of dialogue like that triggers the Romance reader's impulse to read the next line because that thesis just has to be refuted. 

And that makes the observation of the "ugly baby" a SPRINGBOARD.;

Note the simple two words "ugly baby" state a theme, arouse a need to REFUTE, and open a whole plethora of possible EVENT PATHWAYS leading to or away from various conflicts. 

Can love conquer the ugliness of a baby?  Is there such a thing as an ugly baby?  What would be the effect on a person who was regarded as ugly as a baby?  Could their personality ever come out right? 

Maybe this novel is about a photographer who does photo-journalism, but as a hobby collects baby pictures of really ugly babies (human and otherwise), with the idea of selling them as a book some day.  What if he takes his collection to an editor just hired by the magazine he works for (probably an online publication) to try to sell it.  Would she have a high opinion of this man -- even if she were attracted to him?  Maybe he was an ugly baby and his personality is warped by that -- or maybe, he only thinks he is.

Are you getting the SPRINGBOARD concept now?  The spring (potential energy) is wound up inside the THEME.

In this Story Springboards series we've also discussed the Episodic Structure.

Take the Ugly Baby hook, and create a TV Series out of it, using episodic structure.

The photographer would do as a main character, getting sent to exotic parts of the world on news stories, finding all sorts of babies to take pictures of for his project, having harrowing adventures getting his stories in on time, acquiring and losing various Reporters (photographers generally work with reporters who write the text of the stories) along the way.  A Reporter might last him a season or two, but the Editor back at home-base is always the same, and his main love interest (however much he hates that).

Now, take the same Ugly Baby hook and create a NOVEL OUT OF IT.

Photographer on dangerous assignment -- gets shot at, or has a burning building fall on him and loses his eyesight, which Event causes him to develop his Relationship with his Editor (or Nurse-cliche, Physical Therapist cliche, whatever), he gets his eyesight back, and has the choice of picking up his photography career, or maybe settling down to get married and run a studio and take wedding and baby pictures for a living.

Same Hook, same Springboard, two different story-structures, each of which can work with a plethora of thematic statements about Ugly Babies, fate, destiny, and perception, or possibly (for science fiction) eugenics.

Hot stuff wound up inside two innocent words that spark questions when juxtaposed.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Story Springboards Part 6 - Earning a Sobriquet by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Story Springboards
Part 6
Earning a Sobriquet
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here is a list of the previous parts in this Story Springboards series -- about how to build a "springboard."  In this section we've been examining the adage "just write an interesting story and it will sell."  "Interesting" is a very complex subject.  What interests you might not interest anyone else.  What interests you today might bore you tomorrow.

So what is the secret of being "interesting?" 

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

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

We looked at the link between fame, glory and the "interesting story":
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/story-springboards-part-5-explaining.html
Examines the popularity of Zombies and offers an explanation which might lead you to find the next most-popular subject.

In Reviews Part 3,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/reviews-3-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html
we discussed the TV Series version of Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. -- and noted in the dialogue the use of the concept "Origin Story."

Origin Stories in superhero land are about how the "Hero" became "Super" -- how they got started on a career of crime-fighting or protecting the helpless or innocent.

An Origin Story is a certain type of "story springboard." 

In Romance, the "origin story" can be the "how we first met" story.  Or it can be the recent 'breakup' story of one member of the couple-to-be that sets up why the new Relationship just can't crystalize yet.

In Romance, "Pet Names" are sobriquets that personal and unique to the couple, often so confidential people use them as passwords. 

In Romance, the partner occupies the position of "Superhero" from the point of view of the lover -- the "He can do no wrong," position and "She is mine," position. 

Almost every Superhero has a nickname -- "Superman" is a nickname for Clark Kent which is formed as a sobriquet -- an alternative name that is derived from an observable trait.

Remember, there are many mystical ramifications of Names that we've discussed.  In Magic for Paranormal Romance you want to build into your World a definition of true-name and a mechanism that describes how finding out the true name and calling a person or thing by that true name actually works. 

True Names can be powerful - and so can sobriquets.  A sobriquet can mask a true name, or resonate with the person more strongly than the true name.

Many "ordinary people" acquire nicknames as sobriquets. 

In the Air Force and other military organizations (like the Space Patrol) the "nickname" often becomes a "call sign." 

In Battlestar Galactica "Starbuck" is a call sign and a nickname, a sobriquet.

Native American cultures had the custom of not naming a child until the personality and/or sponsoring animal-god (totem) was evident.  In many cases, that name had to be earned by a coming-of-age feat. 

What feat did your Main Character execute (maybe in college?) that earned a sobriquet?

Many cultures have various ways of creating layers of "names" for everyone.  There's the name you are given -- and the name you earn -- the name plastered upon you by your enemies -- the name awarded by History.

In fact, you find the power of Naming a person also in the Bible as God renames people variously: Abram became Abraham; Sarai became Sarah; Aaron became Aharon; Jacob became Israel (after wrestling with an Angel), and so on and on.

In online communities, people create an Avatar and name it.  This custom was also practiced in organized Science Fiction Fandom decades before the internet, and today you can register for the World Science Fiction Convention and give a fannish-name to be inscribed on your badge (so everyone will know who you really are -- as your "real" name would be meaningless.) 

Actors (and pole dancers in strip joints) use "stage names." 

Undercover Agents adopt and discard names, but think of themselves by one name.

Hackers make an art of adopting or awarding a sobriquet. 

Writers use "Pen Names" -- known in journalism as a by line. 

All these alternative names are to be considered when naming a character.  Each one you use for a character has to be carefully chosen -- it is an art!  You don't want "too many" names or the readers will get confused.  You might know many sobriquets your character has been known as over his lifetime, but use only one in this story. 

In a Romance, intimating a long-disused sobriquet to a lover is a form of revelation, a baring of Character. 

The sobriquets your Character has been awarded define both the character and the "circles" in which that character has moved. 

The sobriquet then becomes "interesting" because it hints at relevant information yet to be revealed, and at questions such as, "Well, then why aren't you currently moving in Hacker circles?"  "Why did you quit playing World of Warcraft?" 

So Avatar sobriquets are usually chosen by the person who is known by them, while appelations are chosen by those who love them, or hate them -- or just peripherally know them or have been impacted by their actions. 

Adding to or changing a person's NAME has potent magical significance, and that magic makes the Name a source of "springboard" energy for a storyteller.

That's why, very often, the correct first word of a novel -- or even of a pitch for a screenplay or novel -- consists of the character's full name.  Consider what you learn of a character whose full, proper name is six names followed by a list of titles. 

The Name of a character can be intriguing, interesting, portentous, suggestive.

Referring to our "ripped from the headlines" theme on this blog, I should point out that the conservative commentator Anne Coulter (who writes books, appears on several TV news comment shows, and has her own show) has earned the sobriquet, Firebrand.

Wound up tight within the sobriquet, you will find the Origin Story for your superhero.

Very often, a character will "appear" to a writer out of the blue, and the writer knows that character only by the sobriquet the character reveals.  Unraveling that nickname into the Origin Story could easily reveal the powerful springboard for an episodic work.

The sobriquet plastered upon a "Figure" by adversaries or enemies usually contains invective expressing how this Heroic Figure is anathema to the opposition.

The story of how a particular sobriquet was earned, and how that nickname differs from the person's given or family name, makes a terrific subject for a First Novel -- not necessarily the first in the story's own timeline, but the author's first sale to a major outlet.

So let's think a little bit about the earning of a nickname.

The concept "an earned name" speaks to the individuality of a person -- what makes you different from others.  Your given name may be in honor of an ancestor and your family name is inherited -- these are names that connect you to the Past, Present, and Future -- they are symbols of the time-binding function of humanity.

The earned name speaks entirely to what makes you different, singular, and identifies you with an achievement or style of achieving.

The sobriquet, therefore, is the element of CHARACTER that "springs forth" to create that character's story.

And since the sobriquet is earned by DOING something -- it therefore connects the story to the plot, (hus showing the reader the bud that will open to the many-petaled flower of the theme. 

The meaning of your story is the theme, and the sobriquet of your main or ancillary characters connects that meaning to the event sequence which forms the plot.

So "what he did to earn this sobriquet" is the SHOW that is not a TELL. 

Naming characters is a "show-don't-tell" exercise in explaining your theme. 

Your theme is what you have to say, which is what this story is about. 

Many people think they'd love to write novels, but they just don't know where to start.

One place to start is with the springboard -- and one filament in that board that is flexible enough to bend and then spring up to hurl the reader into the story is the Name of the Main Character.

Inside the theme, which is shown by the Main Character's appellations, lies the sound of your Voice.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/reviews-3-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

The story springboard propels your main character into his "story."  It is a "leap" (as in "leap of faith.") 

The character jumps off a cliff, dives into a situation.  Maybe the Main Character gets fed up and runs away from home, cuts all ties with his past and forges out into the world to create a new identity.  In other words, the beginning of the "Origin Story" for your character-sobriquet is where the character "leaps into action." 

And all of that is hidden within the Name and attendant sobriquets.

The sobriquet awarded to your Main Character by another character poses the question and hints at the answers.

And therein lies one of the best kept secrets of writing an "interesting" story.

"Interesting" is not you TELLING the reader the story.

"Interesting" is you hinting at stories within stories -- stories untold -- questions lurking in the background but not quite asked.

Reading a novel is an adventure.  The best part is not knowing what will happen next.

The novel reader wants to figure out what will happen next just before the Main Character twigs to the tricks being played.

Writing a novel is very much like a teacher using the Socratic Method to teach.  You don't TELL the answers.  You ASK the questions, and thus SHOW the matter to the students who feel entertained and thus interested.

What does "interesting" mean?

It means something you do not know.

What "interests" people?

Their own ideas, thoughts, and imagination -- theirs, not yours. 

Review the tweets cited in this post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html

What's in a Name?

Inside a Name you will find an organizing principle for the meaning of an Origin Story.

More examples and exercises on creating story-springboards via Theme-Worldbuilding Integration on January 14, 2014 on this blog.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Story Springboards Part 4 - The Art of Interesting Episodes by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Story Springboards Part 4
The Art of Interesting Episodes
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here is the index of previous posts relevant to this discussion:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

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

We noted that most books on how to write fiction end up with the famous writer just saying that a new writer simply has to write an "interesting story" and it will sell.  That is what most famous writers have done to get famous, and it is good advice.

Problem is -- how do you write something "interesting?"  What do you do with all the story ideas boiling around in your head to form them into an "interesting" story?

That brought us to the problem of what exactly the word "interesting" actually means.

A tweet from twitter attributed the property "interesting" to thoughts, which set us off on an investigation of the properties of language and its use for communication.

What exactly does "interesting" mean?

One person means one thing by a word, another means a different thing -- but they both think they mean the same thing by that word.

I Love You is one of those marvelous examples.  Men mean one thing during sex, women hear another totally different thing in those words.  Later, comparing notes, furious arguments and searing emotions erupt.

Words are incendiary weapons.  Very possibly words are "weapons of mass destruction" instead of "weapons of mass instruction." 

To a writer, "words" are the, single, most interesting subject in creation! 

So to ponder what "interesting" is all about, what it really means, let's look at what most people would consider to be the opposite of interesting.

Boring.

Miscommunication, which we discussed in Part 3, over various concepts of TIME in various cultures has been the cause of culture-wars throughout history.  Miscommunication between the sexes involving the simple little phrase "I love you," (which is more precise in Greek, but still very slippery), has caused wars and the rise and fall of huge corporations.

Miscommunication between the generations likewise causes massive friction, and shapes personalities during childhood. 

As the twig is bent; so grows the tree.   What your love-life will shape up to be might be discernible in childhood via the issue of, "Mommy, I'm bored." -- (or put another way, how you learn to move from 'bored' to 'interested.') 

Miscommunication causes the "I'm bored," conversation between child and adult to go nowhere. 

The child is convinced that "interesting" is a property of THINGS, and boredom would be gone if only Mommy would supply an interesting toy, or game. 

Mommy, having survived boredom, probably knows that "interesting" is a property of the person who is interested, not of the thing they are interested in.

The Happily Ever After (HEA = never bored?) ending is a full resolution of the conflict while the HFN (Happily for Now = I found an interesting Event/Person) ending is a partial resolution -- leading to SEQUELS when boredom sets in again and the search for another interesting object is launched.

"I love you" can be all about sustaining an "interest" in you.  Many happily married couples cite a fascination with the "surprising" (i.e. Uranus/Aquarius) nature of the relationship. 

SIDENOTE: Tom Baker, who played DOCTOR WHO for many years, was a multiple Aquarius and played the Doctor in that "footloose" interested in all humans, never attached to anyone for long, mode of the Aquarius male. 

The core essence of the Art of Episodic Plotting (which reached a level of perfection with Baker's DOCTOR) is simply the concept "interesting."

Spock made the single word "Interesting" a household metaphor. 

INTERESTING is something children just don't understand.  It happens to them sporadically, is totally delightful, turns on something inside that they adore, makes the wriggle with pleasure, and they don't know why that happens. 

A child has no mastery of how to direct their own attention or hold attention on a subject long enough to penetrate to the core concept.

Part of the definition of "child" is the state of being "non-sexual" or "pre-sexual."  A child lacks a direct awareness of sexuality.  But it is there, within them, anyway, and something at the periphery of that zone of awareness is stirred when "interest" is "aroused."   

You know how easily a child is distracted from whatever they are doing or however they are feeling.  The older the child, the harder they are to distract.

One underlying problem today is how adults have not developed attention spans longer than say, a 14 year old's.  Beyond the natural lengthening of attention span by age, it takes training and discipline to stick to a task long enough to finish it. 

How many would-be writers have a multitude of unfinished works?  How many rejections happen because a work is turned in 3 or 4 drafts too soon -- for lack of that attention-span discipline to finish it?

That kind of discipline of attention comes only with maturity (in astrology represented by Saturn.)  The age of 7 is pivotal, and interestingly enough that year is the year that Saturn makes its first square with its own place. The opposition (1st peak of success) comes at age 14. 

That attention span deficit is why you can "distract" a child under the age of 7 from a tantrum or "Mommy buy me this" or any other problematic behavior.

Which brings us to why we discussed the linguistic and cultural aspects of TIME as a component of "interesting" last week.  

The condition of childhood is a SHORT view of TIME (time is also represented by Saturn) -- the adult condition requires lengthening that TIME-SPAN or attention-span.  For the mature adult, "now" is a much longer span of time than it is for a child. 

But attention span does not lengthen naturally, or simply by the passage of time.  It is just like musculature -- it changes and matures only by usage, by exercise, by effort. 

That's another reason the HEA or "Happily Ever After" ending seems implausible to many.  "Ever After" is a long time to be "interested" in anything, let alone a person.  Those who remain mystified by their roving "interest" and are subject to spans of "boredom" will not be able to relate to being interested in someone for the rest of their lives.  Those who have mastered their internal "interest" needle can much more easily imagine a person who is captivating for a lifetime. 

The trick of lengthening attention span (so you can hold a job and/or a Relationship) is to learn all about the intricate notions of "interesting" so that external influences can't "distract" you.

That lesson is also the trick behind writers finishing a writing project -- something as long as a book takes months, sometimes years, to finish.  Most of the hours spent toiling on a book are spent on repetitive, "boring" tasks.  Thus the writer who intends to make a living from the craft must master their own attention mechanism -- master it to a degree not expected of the audience.

To do that, the writer who works consciously (rather than from innate Talent) can benefit from understanding the abstract depths of the word "interesting."

What is the origin of interest, what is the effect, what is the use, why does it exist, how does it work?

How many parents know the following exchange by heart?

"I'm bored!"

"You have a closet full of toys. Here, play with this one."

"I don't want to."

"Try this one"

"It's too boring." 

"Well, I can't help you."

A while later, "Mommy, I have nothing to do!"

"So do your homework."

"No. It's boring." 

And on and on. 

Many writers will be able to recognize in that exchange the same pattern that underlies the phenomenon that has become known as "Writer's Block." 

Being "bored" by your own thoughts is not a property of the thoughts any more than a child being bored by their toys is a property of the toys. (ask a toy-manufacturer; watch focus-group tests of toys!)

No parent has ever won this fight about boring toys (or homework) unless the parent has matured enough to have spotted the misnomer issue with "interesting" that we discussed in Part 3. 

The misnomer issue is all about language, about words and definitions, where they come from, how they evolve, and how we come to agreement on what words mean. 

Words exist at the intersection of Art and Magic, but we use them for Science.

The concept of where "interesting" originates can be applied to Writer's Block as well. 

Maturation is the process of sorting out what originates inside of you (e.g. who you are, finding yourself, etc.) from what originates outside. 

Maturation is the process of becoming an individual distinct from your parents, and even from your environment, becoming independent and self-sufficient.  Watch time-lapse photos of a fetus developing, and consider that process continues throughout the entire lifetime. 

The child is "bored" because the child is not "self-sufficient." 

Very often the writer is "blocked" because their own material "bores" them, just as the child's own toys bore the child.  (classic cure parents learn is to save a new toy for those rainy-day-I'm-bored moments, using the Uranus method of igniting "interest" via novelty.  This tactic may benefit the parent more than it does the child, but that's a topic for a YA novel.) 

The immature can substitute novelty for interest. 

You can be immature at age 50! ... in fact, there is always some part of you that is immature. 

So we're closing in on the core element that defines what is, or is not, "interesting," and thus what a writer must do to turn out an "interesting story." 

"Interesting" is partially about something you didn't know before.

The tweet  cited in Part 3 indicates that happiness comes from having interesting thoughts -- and that can be interpreted as being "self-sufficient." 

Many children learn to entertain themselves by telling themselves stories they make up (most who eventually sell novels start off like that!).   

Reading stories written by people who are more mature than you are can inspire you to make the effort to distinguish yourself, to become the individual you are born to be, to realize the unique potential that is you. 

But while we are, each of us, unique, we are also composed of the same array of variables that compose everyone else.

We discussed this from the writer's point of view in the series on Astrology and Tarot. 

You'll find those posts listed in Part 3's index to Art and Craft of Story and Plot Arcs summary of previous discussions.  (see the top of this post)

We are unique by virtue of having our common variables filled with differing values, thus making each of us a unique pattern composed of components we have in common. 

That's why "astrology" works -- everyone has the ten variables astrology studies, but they are arranged differently and each Soul uses each of these variables with different degrees of mastery. 

Everyone has a Sun Sign -- so we all understand on a non-verbal level "what" the Sun Sign provides to people (e.g. energy). 

Captain Kirk was acted by an Aries (so was Spock) and portrayed an Aries - an explorer charging ahead of the pack, not a "Leader" (Leo) who made policy.  Kirk was not comfortable in the Admiral's role (Leo) and wanted his ship back -- for a reason.  Gene Roddenberry was a Leo and ran the set like a Leo male.

1/12th of us have the same Sun Sign (and usually don't get along with those of the same sun sign.)  We recognize that commonality and resonate to it.

And so on around the zodiac -- then variations modify each of us when "Houses" are considered.  And the Soul wearing that natal chart is the wild-card that changes everything. 

So while we are self-sufficient individuals, we are also part of various groupings, (1st House of Self, always opposite 7th House of Group) and we do not see a contradiction in this. 

Thus, when we read a book on writing craft that says all you need to do to sell your writing is to tell an "interesting story," we do not see a contradiction in that instruction.  We grow up considering "interesting" a property external to Self, a property of the object of interest.  We grow up as audience, not performer.

We resonate to that instruction because we have, at some time, been interested in something.

We have read a lot of books that we found "boring."

We all want to write "interesting" books.

Surely the essential ingredient that distinguishes an interesting book from a boring book is a property of the book.

Books that don't sell well fail in the marketplace because they are intrinsically boring, right?

But then how can it be that those books, when self-published, have a small cadre of enthusiastic fans?

They say, "There's no accounting for taste."  Really?

Some will also say that the people who adore one type of book (say, for example the Romance Novel?) just aren't as well educated as normal people.

All of these paths of reasoning are based on the idea that the quality called "interesting" is a property of the object which has captivated interest (book, movie, TV show, game, whatever) and not a quality of the specific person who has become "interested."

A writer has to look at it differently.

A writer is out-putting the object in which other people will be "interested."

That is a drastic Point Of View shift, from audience to performer (writing is a performing art.)

Ponder that curious property of language noted above: one distinguishing characteristic of children who will grow up to be professional writers is interest in the meaning of words.

Words and their meaning are not intrinsically interesting.  If they were, everyone would be "a writer."  Everyone would read the dictionary for fun! 

No!  "Interesting" is a property of the person who is interested -- not the object that they are interested in.

In writing an "interesting story," the writer is not the person who is to be interested (writing itself is often lonely and boring).  The audience, the reader, is the one whose interest is to be ignited.

The reader's interest is inside that reader -- not inside the story. 

The writer does NOT write "an interesting story."  That's how it seems to the reader -- but that is not how the process seems to the writer. 

The discovery some writers make only after selling novels and seeing them marketed, listening to fans raving and others giving it 1-star on Amazon, bloggers tearing it apart and sounding as if they never read it, is very simple.

Marion Zimmer Bradley always quoted, "The book the writer wrote is not the book the reader reads."

What does that mean?

The book the reader reads is either "interesting" or "boring" depending on the READER, not on the book.

MZB also held that anyone who can learn to write a literate English sentence can sell their writing - fiction and/or non-fiction. 

Another mentor of mine was Andre Norton (the YA author).  I was in her house one time, and she gave me a tour of her book shelves.  She had a vast collection of rare books on anthropology, archeology, pre-history, etc. etc. and could tell you what she'd learned from each of them.

Just listening to her talk about those precious books ignited a ferocious desire to read them -- not because the books had the quality "interesting" but because she was interested in them.  If you picked one up and tried to plow through it, you would be bored to tears. 

Those books engaged Norton, though.  *yes, I know Norton was a pen name.*

Good teachers are like that.  They not only know their subjects inside-out and upside-down, but they just plain and purely love the subject (whatever it is at the moment).

I was "turned on to" DOCTOR WHO in just that way.  A friend visiting me who was a fan of my novels spent several hours on my back porch enthusing over THE DOCTOR in his various incarnations.  I had to get my hands on the videotapes.  I was not disappointed! 

"Interesting" is a property of a PERSON -- not of a THING. 

My friend who turned me on to The Doctor resonated to that material because of a property of her (which I shared). 

If you (the writer) are interested in what you are writing, many of your readers will "catch" that interest from you. 

Yes, "interesting" is contagious.

You don't write "an interesting book" -- you kindle the interest of others, not by the thoughts you think but by your sizzling-hot love of those thoughts.

"Interesting" happens when reading a book because of the CONTACT (like a lit match touching a candle wick) of your inner "flame" with the reader's inert wick.  It is not "the book" which is interesting.  It is YOU.

"Interesting" is a force, an electricity, a power, that you (your personality) conducts like a copper wire conducts electricity -- just like the human Soul conducts Love.  It's pure energy -- not a property of you, or the book you write, or any physical object, and not of the thought.  "Interesting" is a force - perhaps The Force - which you conduct into reality just as you conduct Love into reality. 

And the part of YOU that ignites the reader is usually some part that you are completely unaware exists, unaware that it is conducting a charge.  (springboard = potential energy; interesting = kinetic energy)

More: the part of the reader that is kindled is a part the reader is unaware exists.

It is the lack of awareness of those energies that causes the riveting of attention we term "interest." 

Interest is riveted just as when a person touches a "live wire" and electricity stiffens the person's body.

Just watch the practiced mom on the rainy day when the kid goes "I am bored."  She takes out a toy, (or maybe an adult book) and enthuses about it.  First thing you know, the kid is interested.  The kid has no idea WHY the kid is interested -- but the Mom has studied that kid carefully and chosen from an array of available toys that "speak" to that part of the kid that is not yet developed.  When the Mom 'closes the contact' (throws the switch inside the kid), interest happens. 

The process of personal growth -- of "going where no man has gone before" -- is what we term "interesting."  Traveling there takes energy -- that energy flows through the contact with external reality and into the person creating the potential for change, the tantalizing promise of change.

A Romance happens (Neptune - the blurring, unreality-effect of the zodiac) when two people meet and each finds within the other something that they don't know is inside themselves.

That same definition applies to frenemies, and to "Moby Dick" obsession-style Arch Enemies (Moriarty) (Darth Vader). 

Recognition of Self inside Other leading to an expansion of the definition of Self is another way of defining "interesting."  It happens when energy flows from one person to another. 

Expanding (Jupiter) is part of Maturation (Saturn), which explains why the deliberate mental gymnastic exercises necessary to expand attention-span leads to self-mastery which leads to finding absolutely everything "interesting" by becoming large enough (Jupiter) to touch things, and strong enough (Saturn) to control the in-rushing energy. 

So spend some time walking around your life looking for manifestations of that definition of "interesting" as an energy akin to Love.  We'll be using it to construct "episodic stories" and structuring "climaxes." 

We'll drill down into Springboards a bit more in the Dec. 10, 2013 post, Theme-Character Integration Part 5 - Fame and Glory - When You're Rich They Think You Really Know. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Story Springboards Part 3 - Art of Episodic Plotting by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Story Springboards Part 3
Art of Episodic Plotting
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here is the index of previous posts relevant to this discussion:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

This post series on Story Springboards explores the essence of what "interesting" means from the point of view of a writer and how to use that knowledge to sell fiction, especially Science Fiction, and double especially Science Fiction Romance. 

All the books on how to write stories tell you (without showing) that to sell fiction, all you have to do is write an "interesting" story. 

No instruction is more frustrating than that simple sentence "just write an interesting story."  So let's delve a little deeper than writing teachers usually do. 

"What is interesting and how do you write it?"

And what has that to do with the Art of Episodic Plotting? 

Note the first post in this series is from a selling writer who is intrigued by "art heists" -- and introduces the elements about art theft which is intriguing to her.  
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-springboards-part-1-art-heists-by.html

This multi-part discussion of springboards is intricately related to the underlying structure of short stories, novels and screenplays -- serials, sequels, episodes, braided plots, converging plots, parallel plots, all sorts of technically different but very marketable structures. 

"Interesting" is a property of those structures much more than it is of a particular subject, but remember that THEME is the foundation of story structure, which is why we've been examining how to "integrate" theme into each of the other elements of structure.

For each type of structure, a different type of SPRINGBOARD is necessary.

The springboard (wound up potential energy that is about to hurl the reader into a ballistic arc with an "ending" of belly-flopping or slicing into the pool) is energized by the quality "interesting"  but "aimed" at a target which is identified as "genre."  The strength and flexibility of the springboard you construct depends on how well "integrated" theme is with the rest of the components of the story structure. 

That is, you can sell any structure in any genre, mix and match, if you construct your springboard just right. 

The springboard is the main subject discussed in your logline, pitch, or query letter, but it is never mentioned by name.  The springboard has to be shown, not told.

This is why the "logline" or pitch for a story, and the "query letter" and synopsis or summary or treatment, is such a useful tool to the editor who has to choose whether to invest the company's money in this project.

The "springboard" reveals which audience demographic will be "interested" by this story.

Showing not telling your springboard is also why it is so hard for a writer to create the selling pitch or query letter -- the inclination is to TELL the editor, not show.  But the editor is looking for a master of show-don't-tell. 

The logline, query letter, etc reveal to the editor whether you, the writer, know what you're doing -- or not. 

If an editor backs a writer who does not know what he/she is doing, the editor tends to get fired.  The alternative for the editor is to try to teach that writer the "ropes."  Time spent on teaching one writer is time that can't be spent perfecting other manuscripts.  So an editor who is "developing" one writer has to buy other products that are perfected already. 

So there is a small market for beginning writers who haven't mastered "springboards," and a large market for writers who have. 

Story Springboards Part 2 is found here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/story-springboards-part-2-tv-shows.html

So now let's put "interesting" under the microscope. 

A while ago, the following "interesting" tweet appeared in my twitterfeed. 
--------------
Tweet from http://twitter.com/MadMachX    
The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts.

--Timothy Dwight
----------------

This philosophy (yes it is a philosophy and therefore makes a terrific novel theme) is based on a "misnomer" that everyone believes from earliest childhood -- the labeling of an object (or in this case a thought) with an attribute which does not originate within that object. 

Here's the URL to the post where the power of the "misnomer" is discussed in depth.  It reveals an essential component of the process of grabbing the "interest" of a target audience, the use of language. 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html

Cross-correlate that post on misnomers with the post on TALENT

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/talent-mystique-or-mistake.html

The misnomer twist in that tweet above is the attribution of the property "interesting" to the object in which the person is interested. 

The philosophy behind that attribution is very similar to the thinking behind the misnomer "Fast Food."  (the healthiness of the food is attributed to the method of delivery -- misdirecting the problem-solving attention away from the real problem.)

Remember a problem is a manifestation of a CONFLICT - and conflict is the essence of story as well as plot.

In constructing the foundation for a long series of novels, a TV Series, a movie-serial, or an episodic videogame, you have to load the problem(s) with enough potential energy to "spring" all the way to the ending of the Series. 

Understanding climaxes (both within a story, at the end of a scene or chapter, and at the end of a story, and how the series of climaxes must relate to each other) requires an understanding of the initial state -- the springboard before it has sprung, and where the weaknesses are in the springboard that might cause it to break or mis-fire. 

I don't think there are any books on writing craft that reveal the internal mechanism of the writer's mind that must function (consciously for some, unconsciously for most) to produce a "springboard" with enough energy wound up in it to reach "the end" of a long arc (series of novels, or a TV Series) and still have enough punch to blow off energy in the biggest climax of the series.

In a TV Series, there is usually a team of writers brainstorming the final climax, which is often why a series will "peter out" or fall off track as writers come and go from the team.

Most writers who do formulate a powerful springboard, do it by accident, but there is a method to it that can be learned, even by those born without any writing Talent.

One thing "writers" come by naturally, that is a sure sign a child has the capacity to make a living at writing, is a curiosity about words for their own sake, an interest in words beyond the mere meaning.

Such a curiosity includes words in many languages, both cognate with the native language of the child and non-cognate languages -- AND "made up" languages like Klingon or Elvish.

So the child learns early that you can't translate anything from one language to another, not really.  You can approximate and create the illusion of understanding, but not the understanding itself.  That's why most all children create their own words for the feelings and concepts developing in their minds -- convinced no human has ever before needed such a word.

You can't really translate from that internal apprehension of a "meaning" to an external, mutually agreed upon meaning. 

VENN DIAGRAM

Look at all the circles as representing the same concept in different languages. 

And consider that children and adolescents don't "speak the same language" as adults, or grandparents.  Language reflects the "generation gap."  A "living language" evolves.

A concept symbolized by a word has connotations and denotations. 

Denotations are easy to translate most of the time, but the native speaker hears a word and hears echos of all the connotations that go with the denotation and all the depth and texture of semantic loading, of emotional associations, and colorations imposed by their own generation -- and by prior generations. 

For example, when you hear the word Chocolate, do you FEEL 'bitter' or 'sweet?'  Chocolate itself is very bitter.  But we think sweet because we are accustomed to sugar that's lightly flavored with chocolate.

Note how an English word may overlap a small arc of Mandarin and another Arc of Hebrew -- but coincide reasonably well with both only in that tiny section in the middle.  And even there, there are discernible differences (symbolized by the colors). 

You might say an English word with most of your meaning at the top of the orange circle, and the translator could only find Mandarin or Hebrew words at the bottom of the English set of associated concepts where the circles overlap.

But when the translator says that word in Mandarin, the listener would "hear" all the connotations and associations and allusions contained in that word's Mandarin circle, barely noting the area of definition where there is an overlap, and never knowing of the existence of the associations you actually meant.

I've had novels "translated" -- they are unintelligible in the translated form.   

The same overlapping circles effect is true even within a given language.  That's why children invent their own words and define their own circles.

No two people know or use any given word in exactly the same way because we each have different accumulated connotations that we attach to words as we learn them, and emotional associations that are evoked because of subsequent experiences. 

Children learn this difference in usage early in life -- for example, the 4 year old's definition of NOW is very different from their 40 year old mother's definition of NOW.  "I want my blankey," does not mean "I want my nice clean blanket after it's been through the wash." 

So consider the three circles as three people - mother, father, child - earnestly discussing when they will arrive at the child's friend's birthday party. "Now" does not mean "now." 

If such variance exists among speakers of the same language, consider how different languages express views of the world that are inherently different and literally untranslatable. 

No two languages divide the world into the same circles of definition.

The word, "interesting," is subject to this very interesting effect.

A similar effect happens between two people using the same language, and it is a larger effect when two people are using different dialects of the same language.  (Is that piece of furniture a davenport, a sofa, or a couch?  A writer has to know what their reader will envision.) 

Those who know only one language and culture learned before the age of 7 (the age at which language brain centers start to become set), can't grasp how the very words we use shape our perceptions of reality and limit our imagination.  Things that are commonplace to some people are unthinkable to others -- simply because of language.

We think in words.  That's why children make up words to talk to their friends of the same age. 

The classic examples from Linguistics include Navaho, and other Native American languages that depict TIME not as a linear arrow, but as something else.

One of the complaints against Native Americans in the 1870's was that they were "lazy."  Or untruthful.  The Native American would agree to work a job, and then not show up "on time."  The person who hired the Native American would fire him for being late, and the Native would be offended because he wasn't late -- even if he was three days late. 

No amount of translating could work through this conceptual problem.  The solution then employed was to conscript Native children into American schools and inculcate the linguistic domains of definition (and ethics, morals and religion that go with them) into the child at an early enough age that the child would grow up to be employable (which was deemed the key to happiness). 

OK, none of the real history was that simple.  But a lot of it hinges on words providing limits to what we can conceptualize.  There are many such examples in cultures around the world. 

If this kind of gap is possible among humans, just imagine what we may run into on some of those planets now being discovered "out there.' 

Hebrew, likewise, handles the verb TO BE in ways entirely different from English.

When concepts of TIME and EXISTENCE are configured differently, everything in the culture that uses those concepts becomes configured differently.  The differences cause the most trouble when the participants yelling across the cultural gap are unaware there is a gap.

This kind of miscommunication is the ESSENCE OF CONFLICT. 

Resolution of conflict is one essential ingredient in climaxes. 

Anticipating a climax is the essence of "Interesting." 

Next week we'll look at "boring" for clues about how to write "interesting" stories. 

January 21, 2014 Story Springboards Part 7 takes a closer look at boring/interesting with skills&drills. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com