Wicked Words

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Theme-Plot Integration Part 9 - Use of Co-incidence in Plot

Here is a link to Part 8 of this Series and to the index to previous Theme-Plot Integration posts:


http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

On Google+, I belong to a "Community" run by Deborah Teramis Christian for people who "write" (build) Games that people play in alternate universes, created worlds.

As you know from my long, involved discussions of worldbuilding, it is a topic that I think Romance Writers haven't approached with enough focused concentration until just recently.

As Science Fiction and Paranormal Romance blend, writers have had to pay more attention to the process of how science fiction "worlds" are created.

Until recently, only Historical Romance delved deep into the details -- such as the names of articles of clothing, the years different historical characters spent in the same city (where there might have been an illegitimate child conceived who might have affected events later).

Today, Romance writers are exploring the stars, meeting alien species, finding interesting relationships and might-have-beens.  And so the process of extrapolating our current world into the future has become of great interest to Romance writers.

I have three huge series -- huge in the size of the books, huge in the size of the sales, and huge in the importance of what they say -- to point you to as we launch into a contrast/compare and reverse-engineering exercise. 

But first, here's a beginner's work on Worldbuilding you should take a look at. 



Next we come to a 5 book series by Anne Aguirre, titled the Corine Solomon Novels:

Blue Diablo, Hell Fire, Shady Lady, Devil's Punch, and Agave Kiss are the titles.

Corine Solomon

I talked about Anne Aguirre here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/doubleblind-by-ann-aquirre.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/12/ancient-egypt-steampunk.html

You might call the Corine Solomon novels "Urban Fantasy" -- but there is an excursion into another dimension (or two), many mysteries, and a gorgeous Love Triangle involving not-quite-human and Magically Gifted human.  The 5 novels form one long story told from a nice, tight single point of view, that of Corine Solomon.  And it is her story. 

I highly recommend all of Anne Aguirre's titles because she has a firm grip on how to structure this kind of novel, and an ability to portray the extremely "dark" without forcing you to accept a world view where there is absolutely no light. 

I particularly love Aguirre's Sirantha Jax Series.

Look over the Corine Solomon novels and if you've read them, view them as a whole, integrated "work."  Note how it is one character's "story."  Note the beginning, middle, and end "beats" of each novel -- then the overall structure of the set taken together.  Note the pacing.  Now particularly note how Aguirre replicates The Hero's Journey for Corine Solomon.  Then note how Corine has, by the end of the first quarter of each novel, four or five (sometimes 6) problems to solve.  Then note what Aguirre reveals about Corine's thinking about solving those problems. 

Note the inner dialogue Corine holds with herself about her problems.  See where she's focusing her attention, and how she defines the problems.  Each novel starts with a list of problems, and ends with those problems solved -- giving rise to more problems, true, but for the moment, a triumph.  Note how those problem-sets are constructed at the beginning to appear insoluble, and how each problem when solved brings in the tools to solve the next.

Note what Corine Solomon is thinking when she picks out a problem to tackle first.

It's always a decision made on the basis of what is RIGHT -- what's the right thing to do, or at the very least, what is the least-wrong choice.  What problem has to wait (and get worse) while this more urgent one is tackled?  And there is always the possibility that Corine will not survive to tackle the next problem on her list, but she doesn't dwell on that.  She throws all her personal resources into doing the right thing right now.  That is the essence of the Hero who goes on a Hero's Journey. 

Blake Snyder in SAVE THE CAT! has analyzed vast numbers of blockbuster films showing you how the Hero has to acquire about 6 problems as you lay pipe into the story.  Aguirre uses that structure, and it's one reason she can turn out so many novels so quickly, and all of them resonate with her readers.  She knows the structure, she knows the story she wants to tell, and she just plows on through arranging the details of her world to support that story. 

Now consider Gini Koch's Action-SF-Romance Urban Fantasy (sort of) series ALIEN.

ALIEN is much more precisely Romance, but has a lot of combat and battle scenes.  The problems that come at the Hero (Kitty-Kat) on the Hero's Journey to an HEA are more of the Enemy Aliens Attacking and Alien-Allies Need Help type.  The motivation that energizes Kitty-Kat most often is to attain and preserve a loving, peaceful and happy environment.  She takes the role of a warrior protecting her world. 

Remember, in my previous mentions of Gini's ALIEN SERIES I've pointed out that they need line-cutting.  That's a process of eliminating the words that don't say anything, don't advance the plot or explicate the theme.  Usually that's about 20% of the words in a semi-final draft.  Very often, at least for me when I do it on my own work, the manuscript doesn't get any shorter, but the end result is that all the words say something.  This is a stylistic thing.

You can see the style difference by comparing a chapter of one of the Aguirre novels with one of the Koch novels.  It's not that one is "superior" to the other, but that a professional writer should have mastery of all styles and techniques, and choose the one appropriate to the Art behind the work. 

The titles are Touched by an Alien, Alien Tango, Alien in the Family, Alien Proliferation, Alien Diplomacy, Alien vs Alien, and Alien in the House (May 2013). 

Alien Series

I talked a bit about Gini Koch's Alien Series in these posts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/04/turning-action-into-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-3.html

Both these series focus on Romance disrupted by Action, where the Action is the obstacle to be overcome and the Relationship is the goal. 

Because this is our kind of stuff, we have a hard time seeing how it's put together so we can replicate the effect.  So to find out how to do this, we should look at something that does the same thing, but in another way -- that tells a different story from a different standpoint. 

So, 5 Corine Solomon novels, 7 ALIEN novels, and 8 STEN SERIES novels, 20 novels all together, taken as a whole, contrast/compare, and extract theme, plot, and discover how the two elements become integrated. 

First, on identifying THEME. 

I can't assert "the" theme of each of these 3 series is something specific.  I'm sure each of the writers has their own idea of what they were saying (or perhaps have no idea, just wanted to say it!  Marion Zimmer Bradley worked that way - not knowing the theme until 20 years later!).

I'm pretty sure you will find your own idea of the theme as you read these series.

My overall "take" on the Corine Solomon Novels, and the Alien Series Novels is that they are essentially Romance, and so the overall theme is Love Conquers All.  Each novel individually has a specific sub-set of that overall theme brought to the fore. 

The Sten Series is not Romance, and it's a collaboration between two exemplary writers with disparate backgrounds.  The 8 novels have one Hero, and he is definitely on a Hero's Journey.  But the series taken as a whole has a much bigger theme worked out on a much larger canvass that spreads over several galaxies. 

So the Sten Series has several points of view, each carefully related to Sten's point of view.  When we visit the events other characters are involved in, we see Sten's life from outside.  We sometimes see Sten being moved about on the chessboard of inter-galactic politics.  We find out what problems other characters face - only to understand that Sten himself hasn't defined the problem he faces in a complete way. 

While the overall theme of Corine Solomon and Alien Series novels is Happily Ever After, with the caveat that such an idealic life comes only at great price, and after stringent testing of the moral fiber of the Hero, the Sten Series might be said to have the overall theme of All Is Not As It Seems. 

It's very hard to separate these 3 series though.  Sten has a Happily Ever After thread, and the other two are definitely structured on the "Great Reveal" - the "All Is Not As It Seems" theme.

What a reader sees in each of these series depends more on the reader than on the material because these 20 novels are Art. 

While Corinne Solomon and Kitty-Kat are living their own lives, Sten is living a Destiny. 

Sten's Destiny is not at all what it seems -- and with each novel, Sten progresses to what seems to be a New Destiny earned at great price.  But all he thinks he's doing is what you and I do everyday, just survive another day, survive another threat, beat off the Bad Guys, get out of a tight spot, finesse and clever yourself into a better position. 

Sten set out to survive and mind his own business.  But he got "rescued" and cast in the role of Warrior because he has a talent for surviving and minding his own business.

But what is a Talent?  That's a profound question we've discussed previously:

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

Maybe writing isn't a Talent, but we often write about characters who have a Talent. 

Corine Solomon is in love with a guy whose Talent is "Luck."  That has a whole backstory having to do with his parentage, but the point is that Talent and Luck (co-incidence) drives the plot of all 5 of the Corine Solomon novels. 

Kitty-Kat has a Talent for organizing other Talents, for leading a group of talented warriors while Luck sweeps her through personal combat, chase scenes and armed combat.  She remembers what's worked before and uses it to good effect again.  But her real Talent is for asking Question -- yes, capital Q questions, such as Kirk's "What does God need a spaceship for?"  Those are the obvious questions nobody else ever thinks of because people rely on assumptions they haven't tested when trying to solve a problem. 

Sten has a Talent for surviving.  He learns the Art of War, but it isn't inherent in him.  He finally grows up enough that all he wants is to stay out of combat situations.  But he's living a Destiny, so the harder he tries to avoid combat, the worse the combat gets.  His Talent doesn't help him get out of his Destiny, which he can't even see coming -- any more than you can see a tornado coming until it's too late. 

Perhaps the overall theme of the Sten Series is that forging the path to your destiny must inevitably affect, deflect, or inflect the paths of others toward their destinies. 

I classify all three series as Art. 

I've held forth here on the nature of Art and how a writer uses that essential nature here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

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

When you start to talk about creating Art about Destiny, you are dipping into the realm of the Supernatural, the Paranormal, the Divine, the Magical, -- or God. 

Corine Solomon deals head-on with Hell, gods, demons, angels -- and what happens when the categories get confused.  She has to sort out Good from Evil, and taken her personal choice, then stick to that choice. 

Kitty-Kat tries to ignore the whole issue of Divine Intervention, of a world Created by God.  She pretty much succeeds, as she discovers more and more about how things are just not what they seem.  She gets used to being shocked when a new aspect of Reality is revealed.  But she avoids the issue of God. 

Sten would fall down laughing or kick you out an airlock if you started prattling on about a Benevolent God.  His life provides no evidence for such an interpretation of Reality.  In other words, his life exists in the kind of world you and I live in -- where there is no evidence supporting any theory of Divine Creation. 

And yet, our whole world can be viewed -- taken as a whole -- as a Work of Art. 

Here's a little lesson from the Bible about the artisans chosen by God to create the Tent in which God revealed himself to the High Priests, the Mishkan.  The blueprint for that tent was given to Moses at Mount Sinai -- you may have seen the recent History Channel series, "The Bible" and noted the extraordinary ratings it pulled. 

By all accounts, the Tent these artisans built was a spectacular Work of Art.  I can envision it as a minature replica of the entire World that God Built.  The blueprint and the people chosen to execute that blueprint very closely resembles the process of writing a novel. 


--------QUOTE-------------

FROM CHABAD RABBI NEWSLETTER:

....

In describing the people qualified to construct the Sanctuary and its instruments, the Torah repeatedly calls them "wise-in-heart" in referring to their skill. The craftsmanship these artisans possessed was more than technical, their wisdom was a special sort -- that of the heart.

Some people are brilliant intellectually, their gifted minds master sciences, their logic and reasoning are unimpeachable. Despite these mind-gifts they may be cold, unsympathetic, unmoved by suffering. Others are kindlier, charitable, more emotional by nature, not particularly given to analysis and profound understanding. They may also be overindulgent, gullible, suspicious of or impatient with reasoning. While each sort has qualities, in extremes, or rather without tempering the initial and dominant characteristic, their deficiencies are grave.

The ideal is the wise-in-heart, proper balance between emotion and thought, feeling and reason. The qualities of learning and study, intellectual vigor, the scholar ideal, have always been glorified by our people. No matter how sincere the heart's emotions, they must be channeled, harnessed, and used. Torah inspires the heart in its search. Without Torah the most sublime emotion may degenerate into bathos or sentimental banality.

Similarly, exalted as the intellect may be, it cannot exclusively express the fullness of man. Emotional balance gives warmth and human substance to the mind's achievements. In Jewish terms it means that the true scholar, the disciple of Torah, is endowed with the emotions of love and awe of the Creator, sympathy for the lowly, affection for mankind. Such a person, the wise-in-heart, is qualified to create a Sanctuary for G-dliness wherever he goes.

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

Now think about Destiny, Fate, and the Happily Ever After.  Think about THEME and the world you are building for your characters, choosing and inspiring your artisans.

Think about the writing rule that the author must not stand up on the page, blow a whistle to get attention, and start shouting at the reader about all the wonderful things in the world that this story is not about. 

Reading a book is an intellectual exercise of emotional sensitivity.  The closer the balance between emotion and intellect in the novel, the greater the reader's enjoyment. 

The THEME is the intellectual part -- the PLOT is the emotional part.  The PLOT shows the THEME -- the emotions reveal the knowledge, the lesson to be learned. 

Think about THEME and we'll discuss Co-incident in Plot. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Food, glorious food.....

I asked on Facebook today what on earth (or not) I ought to blog about today, since it is my day to blog.

Suggestions were limited but interesting, from the new "Earth-like" planet which is surprisingly close and if only it were on the far side of the sun might be compared to Antichthon to Vulcan-types who only want sex every seventh year ... which might try the patience of a human lover... to sexual frustration in general, particularly for a vampire mated with an exoskeletal type.

I think that I will talk about food instead.

Please watch this and apply your warped and twisted writerly minds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIwrV5e6fMY

I wondered if there were a literary genre called gastropunk. As far as I can tell, there isn't, but someone has coined the name so.... I am not sure what a science-fiction/speculative fiction niche would be called that focused on food-related conspiracy theories, or food-related mutations. 

Or, indeed, on the rise of a Vegan class of latter day superhumans, at least as smart and sexy as our great, great, utterly great grandparents, who rebelled against the behemoths of modern day food stamp fare; mandatory, state-regulated school food fare; coupon-subsidize fare; work cafeteria fare; Genetically Modified fare.... etc etc and grew their own fresh, organic produce on the large and grassy lots of their local churches, encouraged by a young, unpopular (he has to be unpopular for plot reasons, otherwise his parking lots would be full and there would be no room for gardens and no need to feed his sheep to lure them to evening services) and rather hip minister (or pastor) and some die-hard elders.

Anyway, please watch Jamie Oliver's shocking and entertaining speech, spread the word, and steam some real, fresh vegetables for dinner once a week. Or more often.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Octopus Intelligence

An article that illustrates why the octopus would make a great model for an intelligent nonhumanoid alien:

The Mind of the Octopus

Octopuses in captivity appear to recognize individual human beings. They are good at solving puzzles, such as getting into closed containers, and learn quickly. They perform playful activities and show evidence of boredom if not given a challenging environment. Their colors change to express emotion.

This article included lots of information about octopuses that was new to me. For instance, they have neurons in their arms. A freshly detached tentacle will even carry out purposeful movements as if it has a mind of its own. These creatures taste as well as feel with their suckers and effectively “see” with their skin.

Unfortunately, octopuses have one disadvantage as models for intelligent extraterrestrials: They die immediately after reproducing. Of course, your ET cephalopods don’t have to meet that fate. On the other hand, think of the plot-driving conflicts that could arise if an intelligent creature had to choose between mating and living out a full lifespan.

The article mentions that octopus intelligence and ours must have evolved completely independently from each other. In that respect they’re like aliens living on our own world but in an environment (the ocean) where our kind of life can’t survive without protective gear—like outer space or a non-Earthlike planet.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot Integration Part 8 - Use of Co-incidence in Plotting

The posts with "Integration" of two skills in the title are "advanced" discussions.

Here's the index to the previous 7 parts in this series. 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

Now we'll tackle the entire STEN SERIES by Chris Bunch and Allan Cole.  It is not Romance, so we can be more objective about the story and how it's constructed. 

To do the kind of study I intend to show you how to do with a Romance genre novel would be impossible.  You'd get too caught up in the particular dimensions that we resonate to and not be able to discern the structural bones behind those dimensions. 

For a while now, I've been searching for an example I could use to illustrate the techniques that create widely selling, big hits, that are not shallow.  You see the kind of book I'm talking about in Regency Romance where an entire world of technology and psychology cradles a story which is deceptively simple on the surface, unutterably profound within. 

But readers who dislike Romance don't see the profound depths.

There's something of the same effect in action-based Science Fiction.  Readers who dislike "science" often don't see the profound depths in an action galactic-war novel. 

But sometimes it is those invisible depths that produce the gigantic, explosive, (bewildering to the publisher) sales track record of a series. 

And oddly enough there are some techniques that power action/military Science Fiction sales that can easily be applied to Romance, but seldom have been, or where you have found it, it isn't done Blockbuster Style.

I love action/romance genre novels - particularly space-military-romance -- double-particularly with a human/alien romance.  When the theme and plot are integrated using the techniques that drive the Sten Series, those mixed-genre Romances sizzle! 

When you add sizzle to profound, you will get that explosive sales pattern that you see at the top of the Romance Genre lists. 

Sten, of the Sten Series, is a sizzling hot hero who can't settle into a Relationship -- well, read all 8 novels for how that ends up. 

I think you'll find the ending of the series a springboard into a human/alien romance of your own -- completely different but the same.  (Isn't that what Hollywood is famous for demanding "the same but different?"  Well we're going to study how to do that by examining what a writing team that DID THAT consistently to make a living in Hollywood, wrote in their novels.)

I've talked about Allan Cole in previous posts as someone with a career worth studying if you plan to be a successful writer in today's swiftly changing world.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/career-management-for-writers-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-2.html

We're going to examine how he and Chris Bunch achieved what they did with the STEN SERIES. 

The point here is that the The Sten Seriesis a genuine "series" (with a masterplan behind it like Babylon 5) -- a single story in 8 volumes.  Click the title to see my reviews on Amazon, on Kindle versions. 

It is not romance genre.  It's action, military SF.  We're going to reverse engineer it and apply what we learn to ROMANCE GENRE.

Remember, the point behind all these posts dating back to 2007 is to figure out why Romance genre is not held in the high esteem we think it should be, and how to change that.  Sheer sales volume won't get us that kind of respect.  But sales volume is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for garnering that respect. 

Sales volume achieved in spite of, rather than because of, professional promotional support does gain the kind of attention that can lead to the respect we're talking about. 

THE STEN SERIES is a major clue.  Read this from Allan Cole, co-author of STEN.  Follow the link in this email letter, and read about how the series was originated and sold.

-------quote from email from Allan Cole -----------
...
The tale of how Sten came into being has to be one of the weirdest stories in writerly history. I told the story in one of the early Hollywood MisAdventures: "Sten - The Fast Turnaround Caper." And it goes into some detail. Here's the link:

http://www.allan-cole.com/2011/07/sten-fast-turnaround-caper.html My guess is that it'll have you on the floor. >g<

As for the publisher's sales efforts - they were sorely lacking. The books basically sold themselves. And sold so well in fact that our agent (Russ Galen) got well over six figures for each of the last two books. I don't think Del Rey ever realized what they had until the series was complete. This worked to our advantage. We had no NY literary rep at the start. After Wolf Worlds came out, Russ Galen - a young agent at Scott Meredith, then - called us and asked if he could represent us. Then he made Del Rey contract for the books one by one, upping the ante each time.

Around about Fleet Of The Damned, he sweetened our kitty by forcing them to give back the foreign rights, which they never really attempted to sell. Then the foreign sales took off like crazy. We kept telling the editors (Owen Locke and Shelly Shapiro) about how well the books were doing overseas - and all the mail we were getting from readers. (snail mail at first, then Compuserve), but they didn't pay much attention. In the Nineties, Del Rey let the books go out of print one by one. Meanwhile, foreign sales were soaring. We were making way more money abroad than at home - and also getting more respect. (In the late Nineties, my foreign editors flew Kathryn and I to Europe for a six-week Continental book tour... London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Munich, Geneva and Moscow... The crowds at the Moscow book-signing alone went around the block.)

Finally, a year or so after Chris died I talked to his widow, Karen, who agreed to let me see if I could get the U.S. rights back. Thanks to Shelly Shapiro, who had by then become a good friend, the deed was done with little effort. Wildside did the U.S. paperback and e-books. Books In Motion bought the audio rights. Immediately, the British sat up and took notice. Called my foreign agent (Danny Baror) and grabbed the UK rights. The other foreign publishers became newly enthused and there has been a flurry of new contracts, new editions and new readers.

I'm hoping that there is going to be a major Sten revival.

One of these days I'll finally get Sten on film. It's not a matter of "if," but "when."

So, as Laurel might tell Hardy, That's my story - and Sten's - and I'm stuck in it.

allan

Allan Cole
Homepage: www.acole.com
Allan's Bookstore: http://tinyurl.com/l9mpr5
Allan's E-Books: http://tinyurl.com/684uos8
Allan's Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/allansten
My Hollywood MisAdventures: http://allan-cole.blogspot.com/
Tales Of The Blue Meanie: http://alcole.blogspot.com/
------------End Quote---------

We'll pick this topic up again very soon, so go look over the Sten Series, especially my reviews on Amazon Kindle.

Read the books with particular attention to the PLOT aspects, and the use of co-incidence in shaping Sten's military career all the way up to admiral.  Then read VORTEX (Sten #7) with particular attention to the science of tornadoes. 

In fact, from Book 1, read with attention to the behavior of tornadoes.  You'll find by Book 7 that the THEME aspect lies within the concept of tornado. 

Ask yourself what is the Romance genre equivalent of a Tornado?  When you find the TORNADO within the structure of the whole STEN SERIES, you'll have the answer to that question, and you'll know what you can do to elevate the reputation of Romance. 

Also as I read the STEN novels on Kindle (all but one, which I got in audiobook) I used the SHARE feature to share significant quotes.  If you "follow" me on Kindle, you can see the excerpts I selected to "share" as I was thinking of doing this series of posts. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Freeloading.... Chris Ruen and David Byrne

I shall be interviewing Chris Ruen on my radio show on May 21st (http://www.PWRTalk.com) but in the meantime, this film of Chris talking with David Byrne (of Talking Heads) about copyright infringement is both entertaining and enlightening.

I hope that Chairman Goodlatte and the good persons currently deciding whether copyright laws protect creators and artists are paying attention. Please take the time to go to this site  to locate contact information by your own zip code for your representatives in Congress, then write to them about the need for greater protections for copyright owners in the internet age.



If the embed code does not work, here is the link
http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/music-and-copyright-digital-era-david-byrne-conversation-chris-ruen

One of the most striking anecdotes was when Chris Ruen explained how, as a barrista in a coffee shop where musicians congregated, he noticed that they had less money than he did, and he started to question his ideas about ripping off musicians.

By the way, here are some articles about Copyright.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/the-copyright-and-concerns-of-content-creators-90219.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandra-aistars/google-copyright-infringement_b_2782520.html

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/288763-protect-rights-of-artists-in-new-copyright-law

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

Narnia and Middle Earth: A Clash of Writing Styles

An article in the newest issue of MYTHLORE (the journal of the Mythopoeic Society) discusses why J. R. R. Tolkien disliked C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series. The best-known reason was that Tolkien disapproved of mixing characters and creatures from several different mythologies in the same story, e.g., Father Christmas, fauns, and dwarfs. Another reason was Tolkien’s professed dislike of allegory (which the article questions, because he did write some allegorical fiction himself, such as “Leaf by Niggle”), and he thought the Christian message in the Narnia books was too obvious.

However, Josh B. Long, the author of this article, highlights a more fundamental motive for Tolkien’s negative reaction to THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE and its sequels: Long quotes Lewis’s biographer, George Sayer, as saying Tolkien felt those novels were “written superficially and far too quickly.” Tolkien also disapproved of the lack of a coherent background for the Narnian universe, so different from the depth and detail of Tolkien’s own imaginary world. The fundamental objection, though, seems to have been what Long summarizes as, “Tolkien was opposed to Lewis’s compositional carelessness, superficiality, and haste.” As friends and colleagues critiquing each other’s works in progress, Tolkien disapproved of Lewis’s speed and “fluency,” while Lewis showed exasperation with Tolkien’s extremely meticulous slowness of composition. As Long puts it, “Tolkien needed someone hammering him to be productive, while Lewis needed someone to remind him to slow down and pay attention to the details.”

Now I get it. Tolkien had an aversion to Lewis’s approach to writing fiction because Tolkien was a plotter and Lewis was a pantser! Consider the diametrically different ways they created their worlds: Tolkien, as a professor of ancient languages and literatures, began by inventing his Elvish languages as a leisure-time hobby. Then he constructed a world in which those languages could be spoken. Over many years, he created the myths and legends of this world as the SILMARILLION (not published until after his death). Only later did he write THE HOBBIT, retcon its events to fit into his subcreated world, and follow up with THE LORD OF THE RINGS. For Lewis, on the other hand, every work of fiction began with “pictures.” He seems to have been a very visual thinker. For example, THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE developed from an image of a faun walking through a snowy wood with packages and an umbrella. He described his plotting process as something like “birdwatching.” Mental images would come to him spontaneously, and after a while several of them would feel as if they belonged to the same story. Only after he had accumulated a cluster of such “pictures” would he start the conscious work of constructing sequences of events to link them all together.

As a side effect of this plotting technique, the Narnia series does show inconsistencies among the various novels. Long mentions that “Lewis had planned to revise The Chronicles of Narnia to make them more consistent, but unfortunately passed away before he could do so.” I’m reminded of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover novels, which at first she wrote as one-shot books that she never intended as part of a series, with the result that geography shifts from book to book. She eventually rewrote the earliest novel, SWORD OF ALDONES, as SHARRA'S EXILE to make its events fit better into the established universe.

Contrary to Bradley’s and Jacqueline’s world-building advice not to commit yourself to any “facts” you don’t need to establish for the current story, because you might end up getting locked into something you'll want to change for a later book, Tolkien did exactly that. He built the whole world and its history before writing THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. This method at least tends to avoid inconsistencies. Tolkien, however, did revise THE HOBBIT in later editions because it wasn’t originally envisioned as part of the Middle Earth universe. I admire parts of both Lewis’s and Tolkien’s methods. I don’t see anything wrong with fast, “fluent” writing; I envy that gift. But I also delight in a deeply detailed, all-encompassing fictional universe.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Index to Theme-Plot Integration

Every once in a while I give you a chance to catch up by posting a list of previous posts in related series -- sometimes with parts that are scattered about under different topics.


You may be able to find almost all my posts on this blog by searching for the keyword Tuesday.  I post here on Tuesdays, and try to remember to label each post with Tuesday. 

So here is an index post with links to some of the individual concepts behind Theme and Plot, how to identify them, how to find commercial ones (ones you can base sell-able novels on), and how to create such a well integrated novel of your own.  There are a lot of links in this post :

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


And here are the parts of this series on integrating THEME and PLOT:


Never Let A Good Emergency Go To Waste
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html

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

Fallacy as Analysis
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html

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

The Great Steam Punk Example
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-5-great.html

The Fallacy of Safety
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-6-fallacy.html

The Fallacy of Trust
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/theme-plot-integration-part-7-fallacy.html

The Use of Co-incidence
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

The Use of Co-incidence in Plot
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

The Use of Co-incidence in Plot continued
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-10-use-of.html

The Use of Cliche in Plot
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-11-correct.html

Tom Clancy Action-Romance Formula
 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-12-tom.html

Superman Man of Steel Action-Romance
 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/theme-plot-integration-part-13-superman.html

Ruling a Community
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/theme-plot-integration-part-14-ruling.html

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

Affairs of State
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/04/theme-plot-integration-part-16-affairs.html

Theme-Plot Integration Part 17 - Crafting An Ending
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/06/theme-plot-integration-part-17-crafting.html

Part 18 Stating Your Theme
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/07/theme-plot-integration-part-18-stating.html


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Blood, glorious blood (Tick Season is Upon Us)

Have you ever had sexual contact with anyone who was born in, or lived in Africa?
If so, you probably cannot give blood in America.

In the past three years have you been outside the United States?
Maybe you cannot give blood.

Notice the racial profiling here:
"To increase protection of the U.S. blood supply, we continue to recommend that you defer blood and plasma donors who have traveled or resided in the U.K. for a cumulative period of three or more months from the beginning of 1980 through the end of 1996."

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/Guidances/UCM213415.pdf

Why is this? Because, as of March 2010, 216 people (ever) have been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, 169 of whom lived in the U.K.

There is no exemption for British vegetarians. That interests me.

Conversely, when it comes to a much more quickly devastating blood-borne illness known as "Texas cattle fever" and also as "Nantucket fever", there are no blanket restrictions on blood donating based on people who have lived in or visited Texas or Massachussetts. 

The questionnaire merely asks "Have you ever had babesiosis?"
I cannot help wondering how many would-be blood donors know what babesiosis is, let alone whether or not they have ever had it. Also, what if they know they have had piroplasmosis, but the questionnaire does not ask about piroplasmosis?


According to a 2011 article in DISCOVERY, over the last 30 years, blood transfusions caused at least 159 cases of babesiosis, twenty-eight of whom died soon after their blood transfusions.

Also, interestingly "Currently, no licensed tests for screening U.S. blood donors for evidence of Babesia infection are available. Persons who test positive for Babesia infection should be advised to refrain indefinitely from donating blood."


You get babesiosis from deer ticks. The worst part of the year for being attacked by ticks and also by mosquitoes is May, June, July. Break out the repellant.

For my Vampire-Romance writing colleagues....  Does DEET repel your vampires? 

Here's a scan of the Blood Donor History Questionnaire. It seems like rich source material for Vamp Writers. What do you think? Alas, though, there is no question pertaining to vampirism or cannibalism.

Interesting questions!
Footnote:
Babesia is a protozoan parasite of which Babesia microti and Babesia divergens are the two species most frequently found to infect humans. Infections from other species of Babesia have been documented in humans, but are not regularly seen. Babesiosis is also known as piroplasmosis. Due to historical misclassifications, this protozoan was labeled with many names that are no longer used. Common names of the disease include Texas cattle fever, redwater fever, tick fever, and Nantucket fever.

The seven states with well-established foci of zoonotic transmission (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin) are referred to as Babesia microti–endemic states 
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6127a2.htm


All the best,
Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Canine Empathy

Research has confirmed what many dog owners probably already know, that dogs react sympathetically when human beings show distress:

Dogs Feel Your Pain

The experiment confirmed that the dogs weren’t just reacting to strange behavior, such as tuneless humming. When a person pretended to cry, whether somebody the animal was familiar with or not, the typical dog would offer comforting gestures such as nuzzling and licking. Because we have bred dogs over many generations to pay attention to human behavioral signals, they have become attuned to our emotions. Doubtless the fact that they're pack animals—social creatures like ourselves—helped in their development of this gift.

Do cats (more solitary creatures) ever react to human sadness? I can’t remember any of our cats doing so. Does that mean intelligent aliens who’ve evolved from non-gregarious species would feel somehow "wrong" to us because they're deficient in empathy? Conversely, Jacqueline wrote a novel under a pseudonym, HERO, about a solitary alien species whose members, when they come into contact with Terrans, regard our willingness to risk ourselves for the good of others as a symptom of madness.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Copyright Grab by the French

Since works by American authors who write science fiction and fantasy are alleged to have been mistakenly categorized as orphan works, and put into the public domain in France, I am sharing this letter from Science Fiction Writers Of America .... although it is not my day to post.

Rowena
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Dear SFWA Members,
As many of you already know, the ReLire program currently underway in France has scanned many books it considers to be "orphan works" in order to make them available through a public database. This database has already been found to contain many titles that are clearly not orphan works or in the public domain, including a number by prominent SF and fantasy authors. A more detailed explanation of the program is available here: http://blog.authorsrights.org.uk/2013/04/26/french-copyright-grab-the-machine-creaks-into-action/
As this is a program of the Bibliotheque Nationale Francaise (French National Library), the Board is currently discussing options for applying pressure to the French government to prevent further works by SFWA members from being scanned and made available through this program, and we invite any members who have connections with the United States Trade Representative or any relevant branch of the U.S. Government to contact us. For the moment, however, we are informing all members of the issue and making them aware of the process involved in finding out whether a work is included and how to request that it be removed from the database.
All parts of the ReLire website and database are available only in French. The Society of Authors has produced translations of four key pages, the ReLire home page (http://www.societyofauthors.org/sites/default/files/ReLIRE%20home%20page.pdf), the Your Rights page (http://www.societyofauthors.org/sites/default/files/ReLIRE_authors_rights%20(3).pdf), the Search page (http://www.societyofauthors.org/sites/default/files/ReLire_search%20(2).pdf) and the FAQ (http://www.societyofauthors.net/soa-news/relire-project-note-members).
Here is a direct link to the advanced search page: http://relire.bnf.fr/recherche-avancee. The search fields are Titre (Title), Auteur (Author), Editeur (Editor) and Date d'edition (Publication date). If you are aware of any works of yours that have ever been published in French, you are strongly advised to search under all of the first three fields, as the entries in the database have been found to have many typos. Please notify SFWA of any of your works that are found in the database, as that will be valuable information in our efforts to protest the program.
If you do find any novels, stories or any other works belonging to you in the database you may request to have them removed. Please note that at this time it appears as though you will need either a French identification card (only available to residents of France) or a valid passport to make the application. We are awaiting clarification on the question of whether any other forms of identification will be accepted. For detailed information on how to apply to have work removed, see this thread on the Discussion Forums: http://www.sfwa.org/forum/index.php?/topic/4875-instructions-for-opting-out-of-the-french-relire-program/  Questions may be posted on that thread or addressed to Canadian Regional Representative Matthew Johnson (cr@sfwa.org).
Thanks to Aliette de Bodard, Lawrence Schimel, Michael Capobianco and Jim Fiscus for their help in researching and co-ordinating SFWA's response.

Targeting a Readership Part 7: Guest Post by Valerie Valdes

Last week we explored genre and archetypes with respect to Science Fiction Romance targeting a specific type of reader.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/targeting-readership-part-6.html

That post has links to previous posts in the Targeting A Readership series. 

On a #scifichat one Friday, Valerie Valdes and I had a brief exchange like so:

JLichtenberg : To be a good springboard for a story, a science doesn't have to be "hard," just well known among intended readership #scifichat 12:32pm, Feb 22 from TweetChat
valerievaldes

valerievaldes: @JLichtenberg I'd go so far as to coin a phrase and maybe call it an intentioned reader? You create interest, I create intent. #scifichat 12:35pm, Feb 22 from Web
JLichtenberg

JLichtenberg: @valerievaldes #scifichat I love that - "intentioned reader" - write a guest post on it for http://t.co/YR5WzTuuLF ?

So she wrote the following for us to ponder.   She had not seen last week's post and I hadn't mentioned the post I was discussing last week in my post.  This came out of the blue while #scifichat was discussing a definition for sociological science fiction. 

-------GUEST POST---------

A lot of writers worry about reaching a particular, intended audience with a work that may require specialized knowledge to be fully appreciated. We walk a fine line between trying to appeal to people who aren’t avid followers of the latest news in scientific advancements, or scholars of medieval animal husbandry, or whatever it is that drives us to obsession, and everyone else--a much larger group, to be sure.


Many times, though, we needn’t be so concerned about reaching that select, elusive clique of intelligentsia. Introducing something novel to a reader unfamiliar with the topic won’t necessarily shut them out. Instead of failing to target an intended reader, you may instead create an intentioned reader: one who is so intrigued by your subject that they intentionally educate themselves on it in order to better understand and enjoy your work.


This phenomenon isn’t restricted to any genre: a story may spark interest in history as easily as science or technology. For example, the slipstream works of Jo Walton encourage research into real history in order to better understand her modifications to the existing chronology and historical figures. As another example, Peter Watts’ interweaving of geothermal energy production, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering in Starfish may find a handful of readers knowledgeable about all three topics, but more likely will reach people interested or educated in one (or none!) but eager to learn more about the others.


As the movie quote goes, “If you build it, they will come.” The trick, of course, is to build something worth coming to, in a way that will spark the interest that creates an intentioned reader. A good story, not matter how obscure the topic, will never fail to find an audience.

Cheers,

Valerie Valdes
http://candleinsunshine.com/asthemoonclimbs/

------end Guest Post ------------

Don't just think about what Valerie has said here.  Think hard about what it means THAT she just blurted this out in response to my invitation (in less than half an hour!).

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Revisiting Our Youth

Annette Funicello’s death reminded me of her Beach Party movie series with Frankie Avalon in the 1960s. (There was a reunion film, BACK TO THE BEACH, released in the 1980s. I’ve acquired a VHS copy but haven’t watched it yet.) Those were our dating movies. As teenagers, my future husband and I saw all of them—BEACH PARTY, BIKINI BEACH, BEACH BLANKET BINGO, and HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI are the titles I remember. Wanting to revisit those memories, I ordered a DVD set of BEACH PARTY and BIKINI BEACH and recently watched the first one.

Good example of the difference between “classic” and “vintage”! Is this movie great art? Would I pay the theater ticket price to see it today? No. Is it still fun? Yes. Later films in the series had progressively wilder plots, sometimes incorporating fantastic details such as invisibility and a mermaid. BEACH PARTY (1963), however, doesn’t involve any events that couldn’t happen in the real world, or at least none that wouldn’t routinely happen in a romantic comedy with slapstick elements. Why did we enjoy those movies so much? (Well, I suspect my now-husband liked watching the girls in bikinis.) I remember liking them because they were sexy in an innocent teenage sort of way. They featured groups of scantily clad young people swimming, sunning, and surfing, with lots of sexual innuendo but on a level that would be considered squeaky clean nowadays. And they always focused on a love story.

After I re-watched BEACH PARTY the other night, it occurred to me that the script follows a centuries-old pattern seen at least as far back as Shakespeare’s romantic comedies. The story includes a primary couple, a secondary couple, and a clown. The primary couple consists of two fresh, young, virginal lovers, Frankie and DeeDee (Annette’s character; Frankie keeps his real name, for some reason). Their plotline arises from the sexual conflict between them. They’ve planned a romantic weekend alone in a beach cottage, or so Frankie thinks, but DeeDee gets “cold feet” and secretly invites all their friends to join them. She later explains to her girlfriend that she doesn’t want to take the next step in intimacy until she becomes a wife, and furthermore, Frankie has never said outright that he loves her. The first subplot focuses on an anthropology professor, the “fish out of water” in this movie, who has spent his career studying primitive tribes all over the world and now wants to achieve fame by writing a book about the subculture and mating rites of American adolescents. With a hotel room full of viewing and recording equipment, he regards the teenagers as strange creatures equivalent to “savages.” We can see immediately that he has something he needs to learn, just as Frankie does. The Professor has a beautiful, blonde assistant whom he sees strictly as a colleague, while it’s obvious she’s in love with him. They comprise the second couple. The “clown,” the instigator of the other subplot, is Eric von Zipper, world’s dumbest and least scary motorcycle gang leader. His harassment of the teenagers in their hangout, where they dance to rock music in the evenings and wait for “the word” from a beatnik guru called Big Daddy (a cameo appearance by Vincent Price), generates the external threat and the slapstick scenes.

DeeDee provides the focal point that weaves together the three plotlines. Partly to retaliate for her frustrating his plans for the weekend—but even more to combat his own fear of betraying the teenage guy “union” rules by confessing he loves DeeDee—Frankie pursues a voluptuous waitress. When Eric von Zipper and his gang invade the place, Eric aggressively hits on DeeDee, and the Professor, who has come there to seek a “native” informant, rescues her. Partly to get back at Frankie and partly because she’s genuinely impressed by the chivalry of the “old guy,” she pretends to be falling in love with the Professor. By the end of the movie, as we would expect, Frankie and DeeDee untangle their insecurities and declare their love to each other. The Professor comes to see the teenagers as people rather than research subjects and discovers his love for his assistant, much more appropriate for him in age and experience than DeeDee. The sexually aggressive waitress Frankie was fooling around with (but she makes it clear he did “nothing,” to her exasperation) ends up riding off with Eric von Zipper, who hasn’t learned anything. Designed as a one-dimensional comic character, he reappears in every subsequent movie, as thickheaded and arrogant as ever.

A few moments in this teenage romance would make a present-day viewer wince, especially DeeDee’s wistful song to her mirror image about trying to win Frankie back by being “nice” and “kind” to him, as if his straying were her fault. And many contemporary teenagers might have trouble identifying with her determination to stay a virgin until marriage. Yet the core of the story exemplifies the romance genre’s central theme throughout its history: It’s about a woman’s choice, holding out for love on her own terms.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Targeting A Readership Part 6

Previous Parts in this series:

Targeting Readership Part 1 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/targeting-readership-part-one.html

Part 2 is inside this post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

Part 3 is inside and woven into the following post in my Astrology Just For Writers series which by mistake has the same number as the previous part but is really Part 7:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-6.html

Targeting a Readership Part 4 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/targeting-readership-part-4.html

Targeting a Readership Part 5 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/07/targeting-readership-part-5-where-is.html

Linnea Sinclair, one of the writers who posts on here Alien Romances, pointed out a blog post where I am mentioned and the Sime~Gen Novels are mentioned.

This is the new AMAZING STORIES where Chris Gerwel is puzzling over Science Fiction Romance .

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/02/crossroads-science-fiction-romance-a-niche-before-its-time/

------QUOTE------------
The New Archetypes of Science Fiction Romance

Vampires, werewolves, witches, etc. have a significant legacy in Western culture, and are firmly entrenched in popular consciousness. Even the most culturally unaware understand the rules by which vampires operate (although Twilight’s sparkly vampires may erode this familiarity for the younger generations).

Vampires in one form or another span almost all cultures, and stories featuring them (and their psychosexual symbolism) date back thousands of years. The spaceships, aliens, psychic powers, and interstellar war featured in the works of Catherine Asaro, Heather Massey, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Jayne Ann Krentz, or Lois McMaster Bujold have a much shorter history: as archetypes go, they’ve only been around for most of the past century (with the original incarnation of Amazing Stories a major factor in their popularization).
---------END QUOTE-----------

And there is one other mention of me farther down in this (magnificent) essay.

As a writer, I have to disagree with Chris Gerwel.  Maybe I don't really grasp the point here, or maybe this blog is actually discussing something I'm not equipped to discuss.

But if it is about MARKETS, and taste in entertainment, then it's definitely about what we've been discussing here on Alien Romance. 

Note the Venn diagram in Chris's article showing a slight overlap of Romance genre and what is termed Speculative Fiction (a made up term of no meaning to me -- all fiction is by definition "speculative" because to write it, a writer must enter the mind of a character that the writer has just made up -- i.e. speculated about -- and that character must live in a world that the writer just makes up -- i.e. speculates about.

So the term itself has less meaning than any Genre name I've ever encountered -- editors and publishers know exactly what they mean by their Genre labels, even if the writers don't.

Genre is a marketing phenomenon, as I've discussed in many previous posts.

Paranormal Romance usually includes only elements that Science Fiction excludes because they are based on "Science" that is what was left in "Natural Philosophy" when "Science" split off from it -- ghosts, God, demons, angels, mythical creatures, dragons, and various forms of ESP.

There is the "Normal" that science studies, and the "Paranormal" that Magic studies.  But they are actually the same thing -- the "world" we build inside our heads to connect us to the world that is outside our heads.  That is our "Model of the Universe" or "Weltanshauung" or World View. 

All fiction belongs to that category of "Our World View" or our "View of The World." 

Fiction is about what it means to be alive, where we are, where we're going.  And all fiction is speculative by its nature.

Not all fiction is either "paranormal" or "scientific" -- in fact, most general fiction partakes of both elements because real life includes both.

Science Fiction is fiction about science, about the way people who are trained to think scientifically view the world, about how scientific mental training presents problem solving possibilities that are not available to people who have not had that training.

Science Fiction, when well written, such as that by Robert Heinlein, is perfectly and totally accessible to people who have not had scientific mental problem solving training.

Star Trek continued that tradition of accessibility to the scientifically untrained.

Science Fiction by definition INSPIRES NON-TRAINED PEOPLE TO BECOME TRAINED.

If a novel does not inspire, ignite the lust for scientific knowledge, it is not science fiction at all.

So as Gene Roddenberry said, science fiction doesn't answer questions; it poses questions.

Roddenberry also grasped the essence of science is exploration - going where no "man" has gone before.

Yes, he sold STAR TREK as "Wagon Train To The Stars" (a Western in Space), just transposing the tropes of the popular TV shows of the time into a different setting.

But then he let that transposition pose question that could not be posed in the Olde West.

That's why he fought so hard to retain Spock as a character, going so far as to give up the female First Officer (who was objected to because no real man would take orders from a woman).

Now that brings us to my objection to the premise behind Chris's article.

The difference between the Science Fiction and/or Paranormal (there is no difference between these genres at all) -- readership and the "Pop Culture" Venn Diagram circle in Chris's article, lies not in the "accessibility" of archetypes, but in the deep, innate, inborn, attitude of the reader toward "accessibility."

Now, it's true, at different epochs in one's lifetime, one may have different attitudes toward barriers.  But there are people who spend 90 years or more with the same attitude toward barriers.

"Accessibility" is the reverse of the concept "barrier."  But "barrier" is what is being alluded to in this whole argument of "accessibility." 

So here we enter into a discussion of the general nature of all humans.  To target an audience, you have to define that audience, cut that audience out of the "general" audience, and create something that appeals to that sub-set.

Of course, if you're writing a blockbuster film script, you have to be ultra-careful not to cut any audience out -- you must include all audiences.

But if you're writing a novel, you narrow your audience in order to increase the appeal of your material to those specific people. 

For a complete discussion of maximizing appeal to small audiences and at the same time hitting for a huge, broad audience, being both accessible and inaccessible at the same time, read all of my nonfiction book STAR TREK LIVES!  --- it's hard to come by a copy, but Amazon usually has a few since it went 8 printings.  The techniques of how to do this are outlined in that book.

Here we're discussing the thesis that science fiction and/or paranormal Romance might not be "accessible" because of the archetypes.

My contention is that the audience targeted by this spectrum of genres has nothing to do with the character archetypes (such as Vampire).

The specific audience targeted by both Science and the Paranormal is the audience that flat refuses to accept BARRIERS.

In life, and in fiction, in any activity whatsoever -- these are people who just WILL NOT let others define their reality.

These are people who live (or aspire to live) in an unlimited, (barrier-less), universe.

To this particular readership/audience -- any barrier you put in front of them is a red flag in front of a bull (o.k. bad analogy -- bulls are color blind).  Any barrier you define, any time you put "Authorized Personnel Only" on a door in front of this audience, expect that door to be blown off its hinges forthwith.

Think about what Romance really is.  It is an adventure.  It is an adventure into the realm of the inside of someone else's head.  It is an exploration of the inside of yourself, into places you never knew were there and which astonish you.  It is an experience which is addictive. 

Think about what exploring the stars (or the old West) is about -- it is an adventure.  It is an adventure into the realm of the inside of alien heads (non-humans).

And it does not matter if the alien is evolved on another planet or a denizen of another dimension once thought to be demons by Earth creatures. 

Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus.

In the BATTLE OF THE SEXES, we each see the other gender as "alien."

So establishing diplomatic or romantic relationships with aliens in outer space or aliens from another dimension, with or without telepathy and precognition, is exactly the same familiar and "accessible" archetype as in the Romance Plot Trope.  It's the same approach/retreat dance.

Read Marion Zimmer Bradley's DARKOVER novels. 

Now, it is true, READERS are about 5% of the total population -- readers who read fiction are set apart, perhaps by a brain structure that's either innate or developed, but it is RARE. 

READING is not just the ability to decipher little black squiggles into words you can say aloud.  READING is the ability to NOT SEE those little black squiggles, but rather to see the vast endless plains, the great depths of space, and feel the emotions of non-human beings deep in the nerves while doing nothing but sitting still staring at little black squiggles.

That is a very rare ability -- (hence the popularity of video-games and TV shows is much greater than that of little black squiggles) -- and only a very miniscule sub-set of that 5% have this even more rare attitude toward BARRIERS.

I have seen this 5% figure for the fiction reading population all my life in publishing, only 5% of people buy more than one novella year if that.  Yes, many more will borrow from libraries, but still it's a very small percentage.

Look at the story-intricacy and content of TV and film.  Shallow compared to novels, no? 

It's that barrier thing -- what unites Science Fiction and Paranormal Fiction readers is that attitude toward barriers (perhaps best summed up as "You and what army?")

And that defiant attitude is what defines Romance Genre readers of all stripes. 

I WILL NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO DENY ME ACCESS TO MY SOUL MATE. 

That's the bottom line for Romance readers -- I'm going to get what this world has stashed behind a barrier and nobody is going to stop me!  What woman gives up her man just because he's "inaccessible?"  How many Romance stories have you read where a woman goes after a Prince, or vice-versa, and lands him?  Romeo and Juliet?   "Inaccessible" is irrelevant. 

So "accessibility" of the archetypes isn't what keeps people from reading  Science Fiction or the Paranormal. (Marketing could have something to do with it, though.) 

"Inaccessibility" is what attracts readers to these genres, and striving to gain access is what builds character strength and changes lives.  That strength gained by becoming expert in the details of a fantasy realm is what defines the "geek." 

People read fiction to change their lives, to make themselves emotionally stronger and more prepared by resting from a fruitless struggle, stepping back and gaining a new perspective on the barriers keeping them penned into an unsatisfying life.

But very few can or will read fiction.  Many more will access that same mental state via images.  But ultimately, it is an emotional state that is sought.  We have to talk in depth about the relationship between emotional states and intellectual states, but that's another topic.

There is no such thing as an inaccessible archetype.  By definition, all archetypes are accessible -- that's what makes them archetypes. 

An archetype is the pattern behind the manifestation.  They exist on the astral plane (Yesod -- which is why it's called Foundation; it's the foundation of the world).  How can that which rests upon a foundation find the foundation "inaccessible?" 

You don't "access" an archetype.  The archetype accesses you, or this plane of existence.  The archetype is the source of you and the world.

Archetypes are the substance of what you are made of.  Adam Kadmon is the first archetype, the first man God made and Adam wasn't a "man."  (to understand that gender issue you have to understand how Hebrew uses gender nouns).  Adam, made from clay with the Spirit of God blown into his nostrils, was both male and female, or neither male nor female -- in the image of God, without gender.  Later, gender was created by dividing that ARCHETYPE into two.  Very mystical stuff there and a source of the Sime~Gen Premise.

Chris, in this article, is fumbling around the edges of a very profound idea that Jean Lorrah and I discovered some years ago.

I had long been discussing my theory that the kind of story I write is not of any genre known, and that in fact Science Fiction itself is NOT A GENRE.

You can literally write any other GENRE in Science Fiction.  We've almost got them all written in the 12 Sime~Gen novels and are about to launch a Sime~Gen Videogame set in the Space Age with a really huge Galactic War.  Watch for more of that in July. 

So Jean and I kicked this idea around and worked on it writing Romance in Sime~Gen -- all my novels contain a Love Story, not all are actually Romance Genre like Dushau or Those of My Blood or Dreamspy.

And Jean (being a Professor of English by trade) realized that what we had was not a new genre.

I called my genre The Hidden Genre because I found it in all other genres.

Jean realized it isn't THE HIDDEN GENRE, but is actually a PLOT ARCHETYPE.

Not a character archetype (like The Mother or The Vampire) but a PLOT ARCHETYPE like THE HERO'S JOURNEY. 

We don't have that thesis written up completely yet, but you can read a lot about it and puzzle over it here:

http://www.simegen.com/jl/intimateadventure.html

Note particularly the comment by Ronald D. Moore (of Battlestar Galactica) linked on that page. 

So Sime~Gen is Intimate Adventure and has as much in common with movies such as THE AFRICAN QUEEN as it does with STAR TREK.  (BTW Gene Roddenberry was much enamoured of exploring Africa!  Exploration of Africa was the primary inspiration for Star Trek, not The Western.)

So if you want to rocket to the top of the Romance Novel charts - target the readership that won't take no for an answer.  Target the readership that says, "Don't tread on me," and makes it stick.  Target the readership that is the most inexorable force in this universe. 

We are not the "sheep" who "look up."  We are not herdable.  We are the intractable, the incorrigible, the inexorable, the indominable.  We are the ones who see that sign "authorized personnel only" and authorize ourselves, push the door open and take a look. 

We don't obey rules, and we don't make rules for others to obey.  We think for ourselves. 

We are not leaders, and not in search of a leader and wouldn't let anyone follow us or lead us.

We have only one trait in common with one another, other than that quirk of seeing pictures instead of squiggles on the page of a novel.  We don't understand the concept "inaccessible."  We go where no man or woman has gone before. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

A Digital Archive of One's Own

The January 2013 issue of PMLA (the journal of the Modern Language Association) includes several articles about new reading technologies, mainly e-books and audiobooks. Contrary to what one might stereotypically expect from English professors, these authors don’t pronounce stuffily conservative messages viewing the new technology with alarm, but deliver some refreshing and provocative insights. I was particularly interested in “Reading, in a Digital Archive of One’s Own,” by Jim Collins, obviously an allusion to Virginia Wolfe’s “A Room of One’s Own.” (I’m still waiting for that room of my own as well as the guaranteed annual income Wolfe says every woman writer needs. Does Social Security count?)

Collins mentions the view-with-alarm commentators who worry about “the future of reading” and points out that what they’re talking about is a specific kind of reading, what they consider real reading—as opposed to whatever people do with e-books. Reading, says Collins, “is no longer a uniquely solitary practice—it is alternately solitary and social.” He seems to be thinking partly of sites such as Goodreads, which another article in this issue discusses in depth.

Some passages that especially struck me:

“If Bradbury’s firemen did suddenly turn up to do their evil work, they would be thrown into existential panic about what to burn since so many ‘book people’ are reading novels on their screen of choice. . . . but the discourse on e-books has been limited either to dire pronouncements about the final victory of digital culture over traditional print culture or to bombastic celebrations of how fast they’ve been adopted.”

”How does the existence of this kind of portable media archive completely redefine what we mean by reading? Personal libraries have been around for centuries, and the idea that we are a product of our libraries has been part of the humanist education project all along.” In other words, we are what we read, a concept Collins compares to the MP3 player slogan “You Are Your Playlist.”

Collins reassures us, “Changing the material form of the book does not necessarily result in a domino effect whereby close reading and extended narrative inevitably disappear.” He sharply summarizes the fears of the view-with-alarmers: “Change the object that is the book, and suddenly attention spans shorten, long-form narrative shrinks into sound bites, deep reading is no longer necessary, and literature departments are obsolete. According to this scenario, reading literary fiction on an e-reader is a gateway drug that leads to the hard stuff of digital culture—become psychologically dependent on that e-reader, and you’ll find yourself in an alley somewhere with a cell-phone novel written by promiscuous Japanese teenagers sticking out of your arm.” He sensibly refers us to changes in the long-form narrative throughout its history, including television series that extend their story arcs over several seasons, demanding deep engagement from viewers. This modern form of storytelling can exist only because of new technology such as home viewing devices that allow us to shelve archives of a TV program in our own houses and “view it novelistically, chapter by chapter at [our] own pace.”

As far as the “inevitable” replacement of long narratives by sound bites is concerned, that prediction is already disproved by the freedom e-books allow for publishers to produce longer novels at no greater cost than shorter ones, giving authors a flexibility in word counts never before enjoyed. And as for the fear that the typical reader will balk at tackling a very long work, fanfic seems to refute that assumption. For example, over the past year I’ve read a serialized DARK SHADOWS fanfic comprising over forty installments of fifteen chapters each, and I’m sure it’s far from unique or the longest continuous fan novel out there.

Remember, philosophers in Plato’s time were suspicious of written culture in itself because they feared depending on it would ruin people’s memories. To some extent that may be true, but would we choose the ability to memorize the entire ILIAD if we had to give up literacy for it? Each new cultural development has its losses and gains.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt