An online Lovecraft-focused magazine, the Innsmouth Free Press, posted an interesting, thoughtful review of my novel WINDWALKER’S MATE, a paranormal romance partly inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror.” Excellent publication—check it out! They praise WINDWALKER’S MATE as a romance, saying, “the plight of emotionally scarred Shannon Bryce will keep readers turning pages,” and, “Fans of paranormal romances who have grown weary of vampires and werewolves should find much to enjoy in Margaret L. Carter’s novel.” As a Lovecraftian horror novel, however, the reviewer considers it unsuccessful, partly because the romantic interludes break the mood of cosmic dread and, more significantly, because he considers Lovecraftian horror incompatible with romance, a Lovecraftian romance being “an oxymoron.”
In principle, he has a valid point. Lovecraft’s world-view is hard-line monistic materialism. The cosmos is utterly indifferent to human life, and all living things as well as the physical universe as a whole are destined to ultimate nonexistence. Romance, on the other hand, promotes a fundamentally optimistic philosophy of life. To a strict Lovecraftian, the romance belief in happy endings would be at best a pleasant delusion.
In practice, though, I’m not so sure. On that premise, no atheist could seek any lasting happiness in this life, and that doesn’t seem to be the case with most nonbelievers. Many of those I’ve met and read about seem to have happy marriages and fulfilling careers. For instance, Isaac Asimov, a thoroughgoing but quite cheerful rationalist, stated explicitly that the prospect of the ultimate entropic death of the universe and his own personal dissolution into nothingness after bodily death didn’t bother him a bit. A belief in the long-term meaninglessness of existence doesn’t appear to keep people from pursuing goals and enjoying life in the short term. Moreover, in the vast scheme of things, why would a rational mind consider the existence of a monstrous entity from another dimension any more of an impediment to normal life than the hazards of wars, plagues, or tsunamis? Even an author who shares that bleak world-view (which I don’t) could write a sort of existentialist Lovecraftian romance—the cosmos is meaningless, so we’ll create our own private meaning.
Still, the Innsmouth Free Press reviewer is quite correct that the *mood* of Lovecraftian horror clashes conspicuously with that of romance. Can any two genres be successfully crossed, or are there truly some pairings that are irreconcilably incompatible? After all, I still encounter people who think the idea of vampire romance is too weird to accept.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter’s Crypt
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Dragons Anyone?
Did you know dragons are legends in many cultures? In China the hills of Kowloon are supposed to represent one emperor and seven dragons. In Viet Nam there's a legend that the Vietnamese people descended from the mating of a fairy and a dragon. And since the Pendragon Legacy series was about dragonshapers, I took a lot of pictures of dragons during my recent trip to Asia. I thought you all might enjoy them.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Plot vs. Story
The moving parts of a piece of fiction are well known to every writer who has been able to sell work consistently to the larger publishers.
Every workshop I've taught in where I've watched other writers analyze student work has shown me clearly that every single writer who has perfected a system (any system -- everyone invents their own working system) for producing completed works of fiction knows these moving parts.
And most really successful writers are self-taught so they have invented terminology for what they perceive and need to manipulate in order to produce salable work.
I've seen the words Plot and Story used interchangeably, with some other word used to designate the Plot when the word "Plot" is used to designate the "story."
It can be terribly confusing for beginners, and I suspect that's why writers are mostly self-taught.
Learning to write is a process of discovery.
Recently, on LinkedIn, I answered a question about whether you write for love or for money, and I said LOVE.
You can only write for love, really, because getting money for your writing is more a gamble, like venture capital. Venture capitalists love what they're doing enough to gamble on it.
BUT -- having love igniting your need to write, your true personality shows through and you land somewhere on a spectrum from utter carelessness of maybe "well writing is an unskilled profession anyone can do" or egotistical "I can do anything without half-trying" all the way down to a choked-up, self-defeating "I don't know HOW because nobody ever taught me, and everything I produce is embarrassing trash."
Well, nobody ever will teach you. But you don't already know how to write if you haven't put in the necessary effort to teach yourself.
And if you truly love what you need to write, and truly need to have that message reach someone you don't even know, then you will be greatly moved to learn the craft of writing, and maybe even delve deeply into the art behind the craft.
Again, your true personality will show through, along with your absorbed values, in the manner in which you approach this task.
You may go to amazon and buy a lot of expensive books on the theory that they will "teach" you. (personally, I'd hit the free local library first) Or more likely today you'll Google up some instructions.
So learning "to write" is a process, and the first step in the process is learning that you don't know "how" to do it. You know how to read a novel, but you don't know how to reverse that process into writing a novel until you've really taught yourself and then practiced what you've learned.
Reading is the first step in learning to write, but it's reading that is very different from the reading that readers do. A writer reads to reverse-engineer the fiction into its moving parts, it's necessary components.
You already know all the unnecessary components of your own story that you must write for love. The unnecessary parts are the really interesting parts for a reader, and it's the payload the writer must deliver.
But the second step in learning to read like a writer is learning to be interested in the VEHICLE that delivers the payload. That vehicle has a chassis composed of these moving parts we've been discussing individually. The same chassis can carry a large number of different genre-vehicles.
Now, in response to questions asked in the comments section of these blog posts, we are going to look at how to connect the moving parts we've examined into a chassis strong enough to carry that payload which you are creating out of love of it.
Writers who muddle their way into the craft and teach themselves to get to consistent, professional (make a living at it) word production eventually discover the nature of these mechanical parts of the composition and discover how the writer manipulates these parts to produce that final, polished work.
But being self-taught, or taught by someone who was self-taught, they use different terms to refer to the parts of the chassis and the connecting links.
So, like everyone else, I've adopted some terms from my teacher, and I've sorted out the moving parts of the composition, and given them names and learned how to mold them into place.
Maybe my terminology will illuminate these interior (necessarily invisible in the finished product) moving parts for you.
So let's see if we can walk and chew gum, juggle a few plates, and spin a lug-wrench at the same time.
On http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/ which is for learning exercises for writers, back in March 2009 Ozambersand raised a question which I answered at length in the comments section of one of my posts.
http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/03/worldbuilding-trunk-ated.html
In July, I posted two explorations of Scene Structure on this Alien Romance blog which now contains over 800 posts, so here is one of the URLs
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html
That's Part 2, and you'll find the link to Part 1 in there.
In the comments from Part 1 and Part 2 on Scene Structure, one of Linnea Sinclair's writing students, Kathleen McGiver and a new commenter here Sharon, asked about the difference between Plot and Story. ozambersand kindly searched out that bit that I had written in a comment, and here it is for the record excerpted from the comments on worldbuilding-trunk-ated.
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PLOT is the sequence of things that happen, EVENTS. Events must be displayed in a because-chain to make a plot.
PLOT = BECAUSE
Because Obama was elected President, Stem Cell Research will be revived, and because of the research Somebody will be cured of paralysis, and then be elected President. PLOT. EVENTS. BECAUSE.
STORY is what those events mean to the characters emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, or in life.
Story is also linked to Because and is the result or cause (motive) behind (BEHIND) Events in the Plot.
Because Obama fulfilled his lifelong dream to be President, he has discovered that he doesn't know everything and can't do everything at once. Now, he doesn't know why he can't seem to hire enough of the right people to fully staff his administration. "Oh, why are the people I admire tax cheats?" The Events leading to his discovery of the answer to that question is his STORY. The Events themselves are the PLOT.
The BACKGROUND is President and White House and Recession and Bank Crisis and Middle East. Everyone reading the story knows all that.
The FOREGROUND is winning election, choosing and hiring people, admiring people, being admired, spending political capital, making risky choices, living with the HUGE consequences.
Look at a painting, say a portrait -- Mona Lisa. The chair, the blurry sketch of buildings and hills, sky, even her dress is BACKGROUND. The FOREGROUND is her face and hands.
Take a genre - Urban Fantasy - the URBAN part is background, the FANTASY is foreground because you have to explain the laws of magic etc in that universe and to be worth explaining they have to generate plot.
STORY is the character's personal experience and responses to the things that happen - the psychological and spiritual lessons learned.
The story of a man who falls in love with a thief only to discover the folly of attempting to reform her and decides to learn her craft and join her.
The BACKSTORY is all that went on before the plot begins, the things that happened that made them what they are.
BACKSTORY - The son of an ex-Nun and a seminary student who married for Love, falls in love with a thief and learns the folly - etc.
Who his parents were is backstory -- they never appear overtly in the novel, but their presence is in every word he utters, every decision he makes whether he knows it or not. You don't have to tell the reader the BACKSTORY (often it's better if you don't -- that's why you need all these other tools, so you'll have other ways to convey the information where necessary).
But you have to know the backstory to keep everything in the novel consistent and believable.
The B-story is the story arc of a character who is a confidant or intimate-enemy of the A-story's main character.
As I pointed out previously, the B-story character is often the last invented and is a sub-set or factor of the A-story main character -- someone he/she confides in and spills his guts to. In a film, the B-story carries your THEME.
The A Story main character pours out their heart (in a few choice lines) to the B-story character, thus informing the audience what's inside the A-story character that maybe even the A-story character does not know.
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The glue that holds plot and story together is the THEME. I've done a number of posts on theme here, especially in the posts on Worldbuilding.
When the THEME does not glue the Plot to the Story, or bolt it on firmly with lots of grease so it moves nicely, or weld it so it can't move, when the THEME doesn't connect the plot to the story, then the EVENTS in the plot happen, but they don't happen TO ANYONE. The events become meaningless and readers get bored.
When the STORY doesn't change the characters actions, then the EVENTS don't proceed from the story through the theme, and again readers get bored reading about a single character's angst without events that illuminate and change that angst.
A well written composition will have the plot and the story so tightly welded or so perfectly articulated and well greased, that the reader can't tell the difference between plot and story. Each event and each reaction will be both at once.
But to create that effect, the writer has to know the difference.
In addition to doing all that, the World you build to cradle your plot and story has to explicate your theme. It's rooted in your theme. And the fastest, most efficient way to build the right world for this plot and story is to build the world from the theme.
Remember, art is a selective recreation of reality, not reality itself. It's what you select to leave out that makes it art, and that communicates your theme.
Theme is a game you play with your readers.
No two writers do this process of inventing moving parts of a story the same way.
Even a given writer will invent stuff in different orders for different projects. That's called creativity. It isn't a science. It isn't reproducible by other people. It's "magic" -- and its procedures depend more on who you are at that moment than on what you're trying to accomplish.
In other words, how you go about inventing the moving parts that will form the chassis that will carry your payload to your reader depends on where you are on that spectrum I mentioned above. Remember too that you as an individual can move along that spectrum from too timid to too confident, and may in fact rattle back and forth between the extremes during the writing of a particular work. Rattling back and forth may be a sign that the writing is going well!
Yet there are rules. Creating a work of fiction is not random or chaotic. It has a system behind it. Your system. Not anyone else's. (Rattling might be part of your system, but I don't advise teaching that part.)
When your work of fiction is all done, it can be reverse engineered to expose the moving parts and their relationship to each other (glued, bolted, welded).
In fact, most of the enjoyment that a reader gets out of a novel comes from their "kitten-and-ball-of-twine" unraveling of the beautiful, polished composition you've presented to them. But keep in mind, the reader who is not a writer doesn't really want or need to win that game with the writer.
Take Mystery Writing, for example. Readers want to joust with the writer to solve the mystery before the writer reveals all. But if it's too easy, the reader doesn't enjoy the game and won't read that writer's stuff again. If it's too hard, the reader who is not a writer likewise won't enjoy the game and won't read that writer again.
Getting it just right, hiding the moving parts of your composition, is an artform, and a game you play with the readers. It has to be fun or it isn't worth it.
Reverse engineering fiction to understand the story gives one the illusion that one understands the everyday world better. And since it's magic, the illusion can become reality. Magic is done via imagination and emotion, both of which are best delivered via fiction.
The theme is what communicates most loudly to readers, the handle by which they remember the novel and your byline. That's why the title has to be the theme, so they can remember it and recommend it. A theme portrays the world as the artist's eye sees it. A theme can say the world has meaningfulness, or that life has a meaning, or that life is meaningless and futile, or that the world is merely a figment of your imagination.
Fiction that bespeaks a theme that explains a reader's reality with verisimilitude can change the way the reader sees their world, and thus change the story of their life, and thus change the plot of their life as they make choices based on this thematic insight.
Or a work of fiction can just be loads of fun to read and not affect the reader much if at all.
Which way a work affects a reader is not the writer's choice. But it is a sobering consideration when tossing off a trash novel under a pseudonym or as a work-for-hire.
So the writer has to work at inventing and arranging the moving parts and putting them together to make a picture so that the reader can take the picture apart and understand it as pieces.
How can writer and reader work together to have the most possible fun?
THEME
That's the answer to almost everything about writing craft.
Theme is the organizing principle, and it is the subject about which writer and reader are communicating.
So no matter what the sequential order in which the writer invents the moving parts of a work of fiction, at some point before finishing the composition, the writer has to step back from creativity and take a long, jaundiced look at what has been created and exercise that artistic selectivity.
Which pieces to use, which to showcase, which to emphasize, which to show and which to tell can all be determined by reference to the theme.
To find the theme of this particular piece, ask yourself "What am I trying to say, here?" What's the take-away these readers should hold onto?
Do I want to say, "The business cycle can not and SHOULD NOT be eliminated?" Or do I want to say "Recessions and Depressions are a natural part of human commerce and we just have to live with them or commerce will stop."
Either statement could become an "in your face" approach to some non-human culture that arrives in Earth Orbit ready to trade for primitive artifacts like iPods, bound books and quaint little discs called Blu-Ray. (Argsel! You won't believe this! The pictures are all flat! It's abstract primitive art! We'll make a fortune!!!)
A novel, or a series of novels set in a well built world, has to take a stand on some philosophical point, and ask and answer (even if tentatively) a set of questions about that point. A set of questions. Set. They have to go together in a chain like a movie Detective interrogates a prisoner.
So if the plot is a Romance, then the core theme has to be something akin to LOVE CONQUERS ALL. But a specific Romance could say it's a good thing or a bad thing that love conquers all.
Whether it's good or bad depends on, well, for example, if you're the King who needs his Heir to marry fellow royalty for the alliance, but love conquers your plan and the Heir runs away with a peasant, then "love conquers all" is a real bad thing.
The social and economic problems that proceed from that runaway Heir and his heirs could make for a wildly successful series of Action Romance novels. Drop a comment with series that follow this pattern if you can think of any. There are quite a few.
So in the case of the Runaway Heir and his 10 kids raised on a farm, the STORY is that the Heir tussles with his responsibility to the throne and in his final epiphany (in the first novel) wrenchingly decides that his personal revulsion for being King overrides the Kingdom's need for him to be King. And he escapes (from some trap the King created) and goes running off to rescue his Beloved.
That's the story.
Here's the Heir's Character Arc, his story. "I have to become King. I love this Peasant. I have to marry this Princess-Shrew (who's a great manager and ought to be a Queen). I don't want to become King. I would make a terrible King and probably murder that Princess-Shrew. I refuse to marry Shrew. I love Peasant Woman. I WILL NOT ACCEPT MY FATE." That's the story arc, from accepting the fate of becoming King after his father, to rejecting it.
The PLOT is the sequence of events that TELLS THAT STORY.
Now if the story is the arc from accepting fate to rejecting fate, then the THEME (underneath the Love Conquers All theme) has to be something like "Birth is not Destiny" or "I am a person who can make my own decisions" or "Fate is not decreed by God." Or maybe "God Makes Mistakes and I'm One Of Them".
Pick a theme that EXPLAINS WHY the character goes from Accept to Reject to Action.
Using that theme create the PLOT. And don't forget that all this is cast in SCENES.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html
But before you break the narrative into scenes, you need the 4 cardinal points of the plot structure (unless you are a pantser today).
Say, for example:
Open - a huge gala PALACE BALL introducing Heir to Princess-Shrew, Peasant serving in the kitchen?
1/4 - Heir causes the Princess to reveal her nasty personality and hatred for the Heir's kingdom and contempt for the kingdom's King.
1/2 - Heir compares the two and chooses Peasant as the better person, tries to get Peasant qualified to become his Queen. FAILS (1/2 to a HEA ending is the FAILURE part)
3/4 - Heir arrives at his long foreshadowed epiphany about his destiny and rejects the Kingdom and his father. Princess-Shrew was right not to respect the King. 3/4 result is that Peasant is imprisoned by King to prevent contact with Heir to force or blackmail Heir into marrying Princess.
END - Heir breaks Peasant out of prison, does something definitive to thwart the ambitions of Princess-Shrew, and Heir and Peasant take a powder, riding off into the sunset to an HEA.
OPENING OF FIRST SEQUEL - the King dies, throwing the Kingdom into political chaos. Nobody knows where the Heir went. He's probably dead. The Bells Toll.
I can already plot out 3 sequels, a multigeneration series, with the original Heir dying at 95 and telling his 30 year old grandson that the grandson is actually the King of Whatever and that's why the grandson has fallen in love with the Queen of Whichever (Whatever and Whichever are your Worldbuilding elements). Royalty is best off marrying Royalty and there's no hiding the fact of Royalty. (That is, the Heir's character arc has continued full circle back to his childhood acceptance of his role in the world).
Note how the STORY is all about "I" and how I feel about things and what I want and what I reject.
Note how the PLOT is "Heir" + ACTIVE VERB
In this plot, "Heir" is the main POV character. "It" is his "story." The story arc is all about what's going on inside Heir, therefore it is his story, therefore he's the main POV character, gets the most lines of dialogue and the most face-time.
Because it's his story, it is his PLOT. The important EVENTS that change the SITUATION are all generated by his ACTION. Every other character's arc and story and plot-moves all support the Heir's story and plot.
The cast of characters has to be organized like that, in heirarchy, to create a neat composition for the reader to reverse engineer. It's easy to organize the characters once you have the themes organized as I showed you in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html
Note how both the story and the plot illustrate the THEME. Maybe the theme of the first novel in this Heir And Princess series is "I won't take it any more."
If the Heir's story arcs back (at age 95) to acceptance of his Royalty, then the theme the writer is displaying to the reader, the bit of "reality" the reader "takes away" says things like there is an inherent difference between people because of their genes or the status of their birth parents. Or perhaps it says, the old Greek Myth lesson that you can't escape your destiny, all is foretold at birth. Some of us aren't people, but rather objects on the chessboard. There can be no HEA if you resist your destiny.
How the arc develops and ends bespeaks the theme.
The moving parts of any work of fiction aimed at a wide audience will always have this kind of mechanism. The best writers hide that mechanism beneath layers of flesh and blood.
The exact same mechanism can support literally thousands of tales, none of which even remotely resemble the others, but all of which will delight pretty much the same audience.
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Here are 3 posts I did on THEME
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/shifting-pov.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html
Now everybody run quick and post a comment THANKING OZAMBERSAND for finding this tidbit on plot and story that I had lost.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Every workshop I've taught in where I've watched other writers analyze student work has shown me clearly that every single writer who has perfected a system (any system -- everyone invents their own working system) for producing completed works of fiction knows these moving parts.
And most really successful writers are self-taught so they have invented terminology for what they perceive and need to manipulate in order to produce salable work.
I've seen the words Plot and Story used interchangeably, with some other word used to designate the Plot when the word "Plot" is used to designate the "story."
It can be terribly confusing for beginners, and I suspect that's why writers are mostly self-taught.
Learning to write is a process of discovery.
Recently, on LinkedIn, I answered a question about whether you write for love or for money, and I said LOVE.
You can only write for love, really, because getting money for your writing is more a gamble, like venture capital. Venture capitalists love what they're doing enough to gamble on it.
BUT -- having love igniting your need to write, your true personality shows through and you land somewhere on a spectrum from utter carelessness of maybe "well writing is an unskilled profession anyone can do" or egotistical "I can do anything without half-trying" all the way down to a choked-up, self-defeating "I don't know HOW because nobody ever taught me, and everything I produce is embarrassing trash."
Well, nobody ever will teach you. But you don't already know how to write if you haven't put in the necessary effort to teach yourself.
And if you truly love what you need to write, and truly need to have that message reach someone you don't even know, then you will be greatly moved to learn the craft of writing, and maybe even delve deeply into the art behind the craft.
Again, your true personality will show through, along with your absorbed values, in the manner in which you approach this task.
You may go to amazon and buy a lot of expensive books on the theory that they will "teach" you. (personally, I'd hit the free local library first) Or more likely today you'll Google up some instructions.
So learning "to write" is a process, and the first step in the process is learning that you don't know "how" to do it. You know how to read a novel, but you don't know how to reverse that process into writing a novel until you've really taught yourself and then practiced what you've learned.
Reading is the first step in learning to write, but it's reading that is very different from the reading that readers do. A writer reads to reverse-engineer the fiction into its moving parts, it's necessary components.
You already know all the unnecessary components of your own story that you must write for love. The unnecessary parts are the really interesting parts for a reader, and it's the payload the writer must deliver.
But the second step in learning to read like a writer is learning to be interested in the VEHICLE that delivers the payload. That vehicle has a chassis composed of these moving parts we've been discussing individually. The same chassis can carry a large number of different genre-vehicles.
Now, in response to questions asked in the comments section of these blog posts, we are going to look at how to connect the moving parts we've examined into a chassis strong enough to carry that payload which you are creating out of love of it.
Writers who muddle their way into the craft and teach themselves to get to consistent, professional (make a living at it) word production eventually discover the nature of these mechanical parts of the composition and discover how the writer manipulates these parts to produce that final, polished work.
But being self-taught, or taught by someone who was self-taught, they use different terms to refer to the parts of the chassis and the connecting links.
So, like everyone else, I've adopted some terms from my teacher, and I've sorted out the moving parts of the composition, and given them names and learned how to mold them into place.
Maybe my terminology will illuminate these interior (necessarily invisible in the finished product) moving parts for you.
So let's see if we can walk and chew gum, juggle a few plates, and spin a lug-wrench at the same time.
On http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/ which is for learning exercises for writers, back in March 2009 Ozambersand raised a question which I answered at length in the comments section of one of my posts.
http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/03/worldbuilding-trunk-ated.html
In July, I posted two explorations of Scene Structure on this Alien Romance blog which now contains over 800 posts, so here is one of the URLs
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html
That's Part 2, and you'll find the link to Part 1 in there.
In the comments from Part 1 and Part 2 on Scene Structure, one of Linnea Sinclair's writing students, Kathleen McGiver and a new commenter here Sharon, asked about the difference between Plot and Story. ozambersand kindly searched out that bit that I had written in a comment, and here it is for the record excerpted from the comments on worldbuilding-trunk-ated.
-------------------
PLOT is the sequence of things that happen, EVENTS. Events must be displayed in a because-chain to make a plot.
PLOT = BECAUSE
Because Obama was elected President, Stem Cell Research will be revived, and because of the research Somebody will be cured of paralysis, and then be elected President. PLOT. EVENTS. BECAUSE.
STORY is what those events mean to the characters emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, or in life.
Story is also linked to Because and is the result or cause (motive) behind (BEHIND) Events in the Plot.
Because Obama fulfilled his lifelong dream to be President, he has discovered that he doesn't know everything and can't do everything at once. Now, he doesn't know why he can't seem to hire enough of the right people to fully staff his administration. "Oh, why are the people I admire tax cheats?" The Events leading to his discovery of the answer to that question is his STORY. The Events themselves are the PLOT.
The BACKGROUND is President and White House and Recession and Bank Crisis and Middle East. Everyone reading the story knows all that.
The FOREGROUND is winning election, choosing and hiring people, admiring people, being admired, spending political capital, making risky choices, living with the HUGE consequences.
Look at a painting, say a portrait -- Mona Lisa. The chair, the blurry sketch of buildings and hills, sky, even her dress is BACKGROUND. The FOREGROUND is her face and hands.
Take a genre - Urban Fantasy - the URBAN part is background, the FANTASY is foreground because you have to explain the laws of magic etc in that universe and to be worth explaining they have to generate plot.
STORY is the character's personal experience and responses to the things that happen - the psychological and spiritual lessons learned.
The story of a man who falls in love with a thief only to discover the folly of attempting to reform her and decides to learn her craft and join her.
The BACKSTORY is all that went on before the plot begins, the things that happened that made them what they are.
BACKSTORY - The son of an ex-Nun and a seminary student who married for Love, falls in love with a thief and learns the folly - etc.
Who his parents were is backstory -- they never appear overtly in the novel, but their presence is in every word he utters, every decision he makes whether he knows it or not. You don't have to tell the reader the BACKSTORY (often it's better if you don't -- that's why you need all these other tools, so you'll have other ways to convey the information where necessary).
But you have to know the backstory to keep everything in the novel consistent and believable.
The B-story is the story arc of a character who is a confidant or intimate-enemy of the A-story's main character.
As I pointed out previously, the B-story character is often the last invented and is a sub-set or factor of the A-story main character -- someone he/she confides in and spills his guts to. In a film, the B-story carries your THEME.
The A Story main character pours out their heart (in a few choice lines) to the B-story character, thus informing the audience what's inside the A-story character that maybe even the A-story character does not know.
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The glue that holds plot and story together is the THEME. I've done a number of posts on theme here, especially in the posts on Worldbuilding.
When the THEME does not glue the Plot to the Story, or bolt it on firmly with lots of grease so it moves nicely, or weld it so it can't move, when the THEME doesn't connect the plot to the story, then the EVENTS in the plot happen, but they don't happen TO ANYONE. The events become meaningless and readers get bored.
When the STORY doesn't change the characters actions, then the EVENTS don't proceed from the story through the theme, and again readers get bored reading about a single character's angst without events that illuminate and change that angst.
A well written composition will have the plot and the story so tightly welded or so perfectly articulated and well greased, that the reader can't tell the difference between plot and story. Each event and each reaction will be both at once.
But to create that effect, the writer has to know the difference.
In addition to doing all that, the World you build to cradle your plot and story has to explicate your theme. It's rooted in your theme. And the fastest, most efficient way to build the right world for this plot and story is to build the world from the theme.
Remember, art is a selective recreation of reality, not reality itself. It's what you select to leave out that makes it art, and that communicates your theme.
Theme is a game you play with your readers.
No two writers do this process of inventing moving parts of a story the same way.
Even a given writer will invent stuff in different orders for different projects. That's called creativity. It isn't a science. It isn't reproducible by other people. It's "magic" -- and its procedures depend more on who you are at that moment than on what you're trying to accomplish.
In other words, how you go about inventing the moving parts that will form the chassis that will carry your payload to your reader depends on where you are on that spectrum I mentioned above. Remember too that you as an individual can move along that spectrum from too timid to too confident, and may in fact rattle back and forth between the extremes during the writing of a particular work. Rattling back and forth may be a sign that the writing is going well!
Yet there are rules. Creating a work of fiction is not random or chaotic. It has a system behind it. Your system. Not anyone else's. (Rattling might be part of your system, but I don't advise teaching that part.)
When your work of fiction is all done, it can be reverse engineered to expose the moving parts and their relationship to each other (glued, bolted, welded).
In fact, most of the enjoyment that a reader gets out of a novel comes from their "kitten-and-ball-of-twine" unraveling of the beautiful, polished composition you've presented to them. But keep in mind, the reader who is not a writer doesn't really want or need to win that game with the writer.
Take Mystery Writing, for example. Readers want to joust with the writer to solve the mystery before the writer reveals all. But if it's too easy, the reader doesn't enjoy the game and won't read that writer's stuff again. If it's too hard, the reader who is not a writer likewise won't enjoy the game and won't read that writer again.
Getting it just right, hiding the moving parts of your composition, is an artform, and a game you play with the readers. It has to be fun or it isn't worth it.
Reverse engineering fiction to understand the story gives one the illusion that one understands the everyday world better. And since it's magic, the illusion can become reality. Magic is done via imagination and emotion, both of which are best delivered via fiction.
The theme is what communicates most loudly to readers, the handle by which they remember the novel and your byline. That's why the title has to be the theme, so they can remember it and recommend it. A theme portrays the world as the artist's eye sees it. A theme can say the world has meaningfulness, or that life has a meaning, or that life is meaningless and futile, or that the world is merely a figment of your imagination.
Fiction that bespeaks a theme that explains a reader's reality with verisimilitude can change the way the reader sees their world, and thus change the story of their life, and thus change the plot of their life as they make choices based on this thematic insight.
Or a work of fiction can just be loads of fun to read and not affect the reader much if at all.
Which way a work affects a reader is not the writer's choice. But it is a sobering consideration when tossing off a trash novel under a pseudonym or as a work-for-hire.
So the writer has to work at inventing and arranging the moving parts and putting them together to make a picture so that the reader can take the picture apart and understand it as pieces.
How can writer and reader work together to have the most possible fun?
THEME
That's the answer to almost everything about writing craft.
Theme is the organizing principle, and it is the subject about which writer and reader are communicating.
So no matter what the sequential order in which the writer invents the moving parts of a work of fiction, at some point before finishing the composition, the writer has to step back from creativity and take a long, jaundiced look at what has been created and exercise that artistic selectivity.
Which pieces to use, which to showcase, which to emphasize, which to show and which to tell can all be determined by reference to the theme.
To find the theme of this particular piece, ask yourself "What am I trying to say, here?" What's the take-away these readers should hold onto?
Do I want to say, "The business cycle can not and SHOULD NOT be eliminated?" Or do I want to say "Recessions and Depressions are a natural part of human commerce and we just have to live with them or commerce will stop."
Either statement could become an "in your face" approach to some non-human culture that arrives in Earth Orbit ready to trade for primitive artifacts like iPods, bound books and quaint little discs called Blu-Ray. (Argsel! You won't believe this! The pictures are all flat! It's abstract primitive art! We'll make a fortune!!!)
A novel, or a series of novels set in a well built world, has to take a stand on some philosophical point, and ask and answer (even if tentatively) a set of questions about that point. A set of questions. Set. They have to go together in a chain like a movie Detective interrogates a prisoner.
So if the plot is a Romance, then the core theme has to be something akin to LOVE CONQUERS ALL. But a specific Romance could say it's a good thing or a bad thing that love conquers all.
Whether it's good or bad depends on, well, for example, if you're the King who needs his Heir to marry fellow royalty for the alliance, but love conquers your plan and the Heir runs away with a peasant, then "love conquers all" is a real bad thing.
The social and economic problems that proceed from that runaway Heir and his heirs could make for a wildly successful series of Action Romance novels. Drop a comment with series that follow this pattern if you can think of any. There are quite a few.
So in the case of the Runaway Heir and his 10 kids raised on a farm, the STORY is that the Heir tussles with his responsibility to the throne and in his final epiphany (in the first novel) wrenchingly decides that his personal revulsion for being King overrides the Kingdom's need for him to be King. And he escapes (from some trap the King created) and goes running off to rescue his Beloved.
That's the story.
Here's the Heir's Character Arc, his story. "I have to become King. I love this Peasant. I have to marry this Princess-Shrew (who's a great manager and ought to be a Queen). I don't want to become King. I would make a terrible King and probably murder that Princess-Shrew. I refuse to marry Shrew. I love Peasant Woman. I WILL NOT ACCEPT MY FATE." That's the story arc, from accepting the fate of becoming King after his father, to rejecting it.
The PLOT is the sequence of events that TELLS THAT STORY.
Now if the story is the arc from accepting fate to rejecting fate, then the THEME (underneath the Love Conquers All theme) has to be something like "Birth is not Destiny" or "I am a person who can make my own decisions" or "Fate is not decreed by God." Or maybe "God Makes Mistakes and I'm One Of Them".
Pick a theme that EXPLAINS WHY the character goes from Accept to Reject to Action.
Using that theme create the PLOT. And don't forget that all this is cast in SCENES.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html
But before you break the narrative into scenes, you need the 4 cardinal points of the plot structure (unless you are a pantser today).
Say, for example:
Open - a huge gala PALACE BALL introducing Heir to Princess-Shrew, Peasant serving in the kitchen?
1/4 - Heir causes the Princess to reveal her nasty personality and hatred for the Heir's kingdom and contempt for the kingdom's King.
1/2 - Heir compares the two and chooses Peasant as the better person, tries to get Peasant qualified to become his Queen. FAILS (1/2 to a HEA ending is the FAILURE part)
3/4 - Heir arrives at his long foreshadowed epiphany about his destiny and rejects the Kingdom and his father. Princess-Shrew was right not to respect the King. 3/4 result is that Peasant is imprisoned by King to prevent contact with Heir to force or blackmail Heir into marrying Princess.
END - Heir breaks Peasant out of prison, does something definitive to thwart the ambitions of Princess-Shrew, and Heir and Peasant take a powder, riding off into the sunset to an HEA.
OPENING OF FIRST SEQUEL - the King dies, throwing the Kingdom into political chaos. Nobody knows where the Heir went. He's probably dead. The Bells Toll.
I can already plot out 3 sequels, a multigeneration series, with the original Heir dying at 95 and telling his 30 year old grandson that the grandson is actually the King of Whatever and that's why the grandson has fallen in love with the Queen of Whichever (Whatever and Whichever are your Worldbuilding elements). Royalty is best off marrying Royalty and there's no hiding the fact of Royalty. (That is, the Heir's character arc has continued full circle back to his childhood acceptance of his role in the world).
Note how the STORY is all about "I" and how I feel about things and what I want and what I reject.
Note how the PLOT is "Heir" + ACTIVE VERB
In this plot, "Heir" is the main POV character. "It" is his "story." The story arc is all about what's going on inside Heir, therefore it is his story, therefore he's the main POV character, gets the most lines of dialogue and the most face-time.
Because it's his story, it is his PLOT. The important EVENTS that change the SITUATION are all generated by his ACTION. Every other character's arc and story and plot-moves all support the Heir's story and plot.
The cast of characters has to be organized like that, in heirarchy, to create a neat composition for the reader to reverse engineer. It's easy to organize the characters once you have the themes organized as I showed you in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html
Note how both the story and the plot illustrate the THEME. Maybe the theme of the first novel in this Heir And Princess series is "I won't take it any more."
If the Heir's story arcs back (at age 95) to acceptance of his Royalty, then the theme the writer is displaying to the reader, the bit of "reality" the reader "takes away" says things like there is an inherent difference between people because of their genes or the status of their birth parents. Or perhaps it says, the old Greek Myth lesson that you can't escape your destiny, all is foretold at birth. Some of us aren't people, but rather objects on the chessboard. There can be no HEA if you resist your destiny.
How the arc develops and ends bespeaks the theme.
The moving parts of any work of fiction aimed at a wide audience will always have this kind of mechanism. The best writers hide that mechanism beneath layers of flesh and blood.
The exact same mechanism can support literally thousands of tales, none of which even remotely resemble the others, but all of which will delight pretty much the same audience.
--------------
Here are 3 posts I did on THEME
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/shifting-pov.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html
Now everybody run quick and post a comment THANKING OZAMBERSAND for finding this tidbit on plot and story that I had lost.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Monday, August 03, 2009
I Learned About Writing Fiction From That...
A Writer's "Thought Cloud" of sorts:
~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com
Don’t tell it; show it! Whenever possible, translate information into people doing things (Swain)
* Every good story starts at the moment of threat (Bickham) * R.U.E.: Resist the Urge to Explain (Browne/King) * Readers want to see a character overcome obstacles (Dixon) * Vividness outranks brevity (Swain) * Figure out whose story it is. Get inside the character—and stay there (Bickham)
* Never switch point of view in order to convey information that you can't figure out any other way to TELL THE READER. That will cause you to divert attention from the "ball" and will only frustrate the reader, not inform him. If there really is no other way for the reader to learn something, then they shouldn't know it (Lichtenberg) * It’s not the experience that creates the trauma but the way the character reacts to it (Swain)
* If there is one single principle that is central to making any story more powerful, it is simply this: Raise the stakes (Maass) * Your main character must light a fire he can’t put out (Swain) * Conflict generates plot (Lichtenberg)
* When you use two words (a weak verb and an adverb) to do the work of one (a strong verb) you dilute your writing and rob it of its potential power (Browne/King) * Create a character. Give her an obsession. Watch where she runs (Bell) * Readers read to experience tension (Swain) * Backstory delivered early on crashes down on a story’s momentum like a sumo wrestler falling on his opponent. Backstory belongs later (Maass) *
~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Worldbuilding/Influences -- How fast does your world spin?
Since my headline suggests a scientific bent, let's get that out of the way first.
http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzearthspin.htm
<< The speed at which the earth spins varies upon your latitudinal location on the planet. If you're standing at the north pole, the speed is almost zero but at the equator, where the circumference of the earth is greatest, the speed is about 1,038 miles per hour (1,670 kph). The mid-latitudes of the U.S. and Europe speed along at 700 to 900 mph (1125 to 1450 kph) >>
Other links on this excellent site http://geography.about.com/lr/earth_speed/412208/2/ will tell you the effect of seizmic activity on the speed of Earth's rotation, and wobble...
Gosh! "Wobble". Maybe the poles have shifted ever so slightly, which explains the change in the climate. (And maybe most people reading this know that.) I privately suspected it before reading Matt Rosenberg's posting dated Jan 5th 2005 about an extra inch of tilt on Earth's axis.
Alternative answers to how fast our world spins:
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question75533.html
Apparently, if the Earth stopped spinning, the atmosphere would continue to travel (would that be an inertia effect?) at approximately 1,000 mph and everything not anchored to bedrock would be pulled off the face of the Earth!
http://ask.yahoo.com/20020411.html
I read in a newspaper (July 19th 2009) that scientists at France's Bureau de Longitude have concluded that the Moon is 238,857 miles away... and that advanced life could not have emerged here, 3.8 billion years ago, if the Moon had been at any other distance.
On a NASA site on the internet http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/q1733.html a scientist says that, if the Moon were closer to Earth than it is our tides would be higher (and lower), our days would be shorter, there would be 410 days in a year, and our world would spin faster. The premise is that 900 million years ago, the Moon was 21,250 miles away.
A 9.9 meter High Tide at Vazon Bay, Guernsey
NASA scientists answer some great related questions here.
http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/arot.html
Enough of links already! Put too many in a blog, and one confuses the bots.
However, asking a simple question online can lead to all manner of thought-starters for an alien romance author. The other thing to notice is that you cannot trust one source for your research. That is another fabulous reason for giving attribution to your sources.
More food for thought: what might have happened if the Russian volcano that erupted in mid June (causing red skies at night over Britain in the week of July 14th, and perhaps the most extraordinary flight of "C-shaped" clouds which I failed to capture on film) had coincided with a full moon and 9.9 meter tides? Assuming that that which affects tidal flow affects human fertility.
Sunset Dinosaur Clouds off the Hommet Headland, Guernsey
As an author of alien Romances, my interest isn't so much in the numbers as in the effects of spin on my characters. I wonder whether the pace of life is different for everyone on holiday, or whether some people live at a frenetic pace no matter where they are.
In Europe, Americans are undeservedly notorious for whistle-stop tours of tourist sites, kind of like a scavenger hunt with the aim being to check off as many items from a list as quickly as possible. Maybe that's not fair.
Germans have a unfair reputation for "bagging" and "hogging" the best sunning spots on the beaches or beside hotel pools. Apparently a holiday firm now offers German clients the option of paying a fee to reserve the best sun loungers by hotel pools. This book-the-best-poolside-seat is not offered to other nationalities.
I minded the latter sort of thing less (yes, someone ignored the significance of my beach bag on a choice patch of sand while I was in the sea, and pitched their wind break and tent and towels and toys where I had planned to dry myself in the sun) when I am in Guernsey.
One definitely lives at a much more easygoing pace when the speed limit is between 15mph and 35mph, when some roads are so narrow that oncoming traffic has to pull into a field entrance to let the other by, and where it's a routine courtesy to flatten the mirrors on your driver's side doors to let oncoming traffic pass. And, when you look up from time to time, and notice (from where the con trails are, and what the upper atmosphere winds are doing to them) where the jet stream is.
Since I started writing about the young tearaway Prince Thorquentin (and his talent for creating computer programs to disguise large alien spacecraft as convincing cloud masses), I've been taking a greater interest in clouds. One has to be really quick on the draw sometimes. Rearing bears, gaping Tyrannosaurs, snapping bats, mating crabs, monstrous prophets with outstretched arms... they don't stay in shape for very long.
Lenticular Prophet
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzearthspin.htm
<< The speed at which the earth spins varies upon your latitudinal location on the planet. If you're standing at the north pole, the speed is almost zero but at the equator, where the circumference of the earth is greatest, the speed is about 1,038 miles per hour (1,670 kph). The mid-latitudes of the U.S. and Europe speed along at 700 to 900 mph (1125 to 1450 kph) >>
Other links on this excellent site http://geography.about.com/lr/earth_speed/412208/2/ will tell you the effect of seizmic activity on the speed of Earth's rotation, and wobble...
Gosh! "Wobble". Maybe the poles have shifted ever so slightly, which explains the change in the climate. (And maybe most people reading this know that.) I privately suspected it before reading Matt Rosenberg's posting dated Jan 5th 2005 about an extra inch of tilt on Earth's axis.
Alternative answers to how fast our world spins:
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question75533.html
Apparently, if the Earth stopped spinning, the atmosphere would continue to travel (would that be an inertia effect?) at approximately 1,000 mph and everything not anchored to bedrock would be pulled off the face of the Earth!
http://ask.yahoo.com/20020411.html
I read in a newspaper (July 19th 2009) that scientists at France's Bureau de Longitude have concluded that the Moon is 238,857 miles away... and that advanced life could not have emerged here, 3.8 billion years ago, if the Moon had been at any other distance.
On a NASA site on the internet http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/q1733.html a scientist says that, if the Moon were closer to Earth than it is our tides would be higher (and lower), our days would be shorter, there would be 410 days in a year, and our world would spin faster. The premise is that 900 million years ago, the Moon was 21,250 miles away.
A 9.9 meter High Tide at Vazon Bay, Guernsey
NASA scientists answer some great related questions here.
http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/arot.html
Enough of links already! Put too many in a blog, and one confuses the bots.
However, asking a simple question online can lead to all manner of thought-starters for an alien romance author. The other thing to notice is that you cannot trust one source for your research. That is another fabulous reason for giving attribution to your sources.
More food for thought: what might have happened if the Russian volcano that erupted in mid June (causing red skies at night over Britain in the week of July 14th, and perhaps the most extraordinary flight of "C-shaped" clouds which I failed to capture on film) had coincided with a full moon and 9.9 meter tides? Assuming that that which affects tidal flow affects human fertility.
Sunset Dinosaur Clouds off the Hommet Headland, Guernsey
As an author of alien Romances, my interest isn't so much in the numbers as in the effects of spin on my characters. I wonder whether the pace of life is different for everyone on holiday, or whether some people live at a frenetic pace no matter where they are.
In Europe, Americans are undeservedly notorious for whistle-stop tours of tourist sites, kind of like a scavenger hunt with the aim being to check off as many items from a list as quickly as possible. Maybe that's not fair.
Germans have a unfair reputation for "bagging" and "hogging" the best sunning spots on the beaches or beside hotel pools. Apparently a holiday firm now offers German clients the option of paying a fee to reserve the best sun loungers by hotel pools. This book-the-best-poolside-seat is not offered to other nationalities.
I minded the latter sort of thing less (yes, someone ignored the significance of my beach bag on a choice patch of sand while I was in the sea, and pitched their wind break and tent and towels and toys where I had planned to dry myself in the sun) when I am in Guernsey.
One definitely lives at a much more easygoing pace when the speed limit is between 15mph and 35mph, when some roads are so narrow that oncoming traffic has to pull into a field entrance to let the other by, and where it's a routine courtesy to flatten the mirrors on your driver's side doors to let oncoming traffic pass. And, when you look up from time to time, and notice (from where the con trails are, and what the upper atmosphere winds are doing to them) where the jet stream is.
Since I started writing about the young tearaway Prince Thorquentin (and his talent for creating computer programs to disguise large alien spacecraft as convincing cloud masses), I've been taking a greater interest in clouds. One has to be really quick on the draw sometimes. Rearing bears, gaping Tyrannosaurs, snapping bats, mating crabs, monstrous prophets with outstretched arms... they don't stay in shape for very long.
Lenticular Prophet
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Saturday, August 01, 2009
More on when a story doesn't work
Getting back to my revamp of a proposal after traveling to the RWA national conference.
In Chapter two I introduce Merrit's paranormal abilities and set up the plot point of Von Swaim's desire to control Merrit's talent. When doing a proposal its important to suck the reader in but you don't want to reveal to much too soon.
Chapter Two
“Cheeky sort wasn’t he,” the Earl said.
“Indeed!” the Countess exclaimed. “I always heard the Americans were rather forward.” Merritt folded her hands primly and kept her eyes upon her lap, as she well knew her mother’s mood.
“Accosting young girls on the street.”
“I hardly think he was accosting me.” Merritt boldly spoke out. “I consider it more as being polite.”
“Obviously they have no idea of propriety,” the Countess continued.
“Now Evelyn,” her father interrupted. “The young man was just trying to drum up business for the show is all. I’m sure any insult you imagined was entirely unintentional.”
“Imagined?” her mother gasped.
Merritt turned her head toward the window as her father winked at her. He had cleverly taken her mother’s mind off the cowboy and onto herself. It was no wonder he was such a success. He knew how to handle people. He knew what they were thinking and how to get them to come to his way of thinking. It was a gift that served him well, especially in Parliament. However when it came to his daughter the gift was useless. If only they would not worry so. If only they would just leave her alone. She had never hurt anyone and she certainly had never injured herself. If only she could just be what she was meant to be instead of what her parents and all of proper English society expected her to be. It just wasn’t fair. Not fair at all.
Harry moved the carriage along at a quick pace to make up for the delay. Merritt watched the streets as they passed. The snow from earlier in the day was nearly melted but a few patches remained on the shaded side of the street. What was left had turned into muddy brown water that trickled down the curbs and into the sewers below and eventually dumped into the Thames.
The streets were busy. The population of London had grown rapidly in the past few years, especially on the east side, which had become the haven for the poor. On the west side, where her family resided, people went about the everyday business of life. Tradesmen and solicitors, bankers and lawyers, governesses with their charges, all picked their way through the puddles on the street, rode their horses or were driven in a wide assortment of vehicles. Heavy wagons filled to the top with kegs and casks, boxes and bags stopped along the way to fill orders for the merchants. All in all a normal day in London, except for the fact that a herd of buffalo accompanied by cowboys and Indians had just passed by.
Another normal day for the normal people. What would it be like to be perfectly normal? Merritt could not even begin to imagine.
The carriage came to a stop. “We’re here sir,” Harry called down.
Merritt looked up at the tall building with the same feeling of dread that had been her constant companion since her parents informed her of their decision. A small sign hung over the door. Institute of Paranormal Research. Dr. Edmond Von Swaim.
They exited the carriage. Merritt gathered her skirts and reluctantly followed her parents up the steps with Rose and Jerry close on her heels. Did they think she would actually dash off down the street?
If only I could…But she could not. Any normal person would. But any normal person would not be here in the first place. She was not normal. She was paranormal. Or so her parents thought. They had latched onto the word as soon as they understood its meaning. They felt it explained her spells perfectly yet they wanted to be sure. They needed a diagnosis because with a diagnosis there could be a cure. It all made so much sense when they explained it to her. But now…that the time was nigh…it made no sense at all.
The door swung open before the Earl could lift his hand to knock. Her mother hesitated on the step before her as if she were suddenly afraid.
Imagine how I feel…Merritt knew they wanted to help her. They wanted what was best for her. They also wanted to protect the family from the whispering that went on when someone in their circle had experiences that were considered…objectionable. It would solve all their problems if Merritt had an illness that they could put a name too.
If only they would listen…if only they would ask…if only she were braver and stronger. If only she had been the one to die instead of her brother Christopher. If only…
The Earl took the Countess’s arm and led her inside. Merritt, always the dutiful daughter, had no choice but to follow. A butler, who stood a full head taller than her father, held the door open. His face was impassive, but Merritt could feel his eyes upon her. She marched straight ahead as her father looked upward and around, his eyes calculating the wealth of the Institute as one might inventory the jewels upon the neck of a dowager countess.
The foyer was a full three stories high. Before them was a grand staircase with a hall beside it that led back to a closed door. To the left was a closed door and to the right a sitting room. The fire was not lit, nor the lamps, and the heavy velvet drapes were drawn closed against the light of day. It all seemed very desolate and lonely even though the wood was well polished and the furnishings rich with ornate carvings and plush fabrics.
The sound of a clock ticking was overpowering in the sudden quiet when the door was closed behind them. To Merritt the sound was frighteningly omnipotent. She could not help but look upward to the source and saw a huge pendulum swinging directly over the door. The clockworks were above, on the third story behind a walkway that crossed from one side to the other. She could not see them clearly in the dim light but they seemed immense and complicated. Why would anyone need or want a clock that big?
A middle-aged woman dressed in a simple gray dress and white apron and wearing a white cap came down the impressive staircase and dropped a curtsey to her father.
“Dr. Von Swaim awaits you in the upper parlor,” she said. She spoke with a heavy accent, possibly German since it was known that Von Swaim was of German descent. “Your servants may await you in there.”
Her father started to protest then thought better of it. Merritt wondered if the overbearing presence of the butler had anything to do with his hesitancy. He motioned Rose and Jerry into the parlor. Jerry made it clear by his stance that he was not happy about the situation. Rose simply sat down on a sofa and let out a long suffering sigh.
“For privacy sir,” the woman said when they were settled. “Doctor Von Swaim has also canceled all of his appointments for this afternoon so you need not worry about anyone disturbing you during your visit.”
“Very well,” her father said. “Lead on.”
Merritt took a firm grasp on the railing as she followed her parents up the grand staircase. As she watched her feet climb the stairs her insides felt as if she were descending into a deep dark pit. Her parents had insisted on enough doctors in her lifetime to dread any thought of any type of an exam, especially one that was as mysterious to her as this. What exactly did a paranormal exam involve?
For once her mother kept her chatter to a minimum. She always used it as a mask but in this situation there was no place for it. There was no hiding the fear or intimidation that any of them felt.
The light was brighter on the second floor. Gas lamps lit the hallways and the curtains were open on the opposite ends of the building to let in the light of day. The woman led them across the landing from the staircase and opened a set of double doors.
Bookcases, two stories high, filled the walls on either side. French doors covered the back wall and opened invitingly to a balcony that overlooked a courtyard. Merritt could hear water bubbling below and imagined it must contain a fountain of some sort. Deep burgundy curtains hung beside the windows that flanked the French doors. An ornate birdcage made of brass stood upon a stand next to the window and a bright yellow canary piped a few notes when they were shown into the room. A large sofa also covered in burgundy sat along the wall on the right with wing chairs on either side. End tables flanked the sofa and were covered with an assortment of gewgaws made of brass and glass. Some seemed to be spinning; it would take closer examination to be certain.
The left side of the room contained a huge desk with two small chairs before it. The desk held a smaller collection of gewgaws and a large crystal prism that seemed to Merritt to be as long as her arm. There was a door built into the wall directly behind the desk and she could not help but wonder where it led. Into the bowels of hell?
“The Doctor will be with you presently,” the woman said and closed the double doors behind her as she bowed her way from the room.
“You think they would have offered tea,” her mother said as she sat down in one of the wing chairs.
“We are not here for a social visit,” the Earl reminded her.
“Well, yes, I realize that,” the Countess replied. “Still it would be the hospitable thing to do, considering.”
Merritt let mother’s words pass over her without a response. Her father turned his back on both of them and perused the collection of books that filled the shelf behind the chair. Merritt walked to the balcony to see if there really was a fountain beyond.
A large telescope sat on the balcony aimed upwards at the sky. A stool was beside it with a sextant lying upon it. The instrument of the sea seemed strangely out of place in such an enclosed area. The courtyard was enclosed on the sides with a high brick wall and another building stood behind it. Dr. Von Swaim must have use of both buildings as a door from it opened into the courtyard also. The back of it was plain and tall with small windows that were covered with iron grates and shuttered from the inside. A chill went down her spine as she looked it over. What was the purpose of closing off the lovely courtyard from view? And why the grates? Were they meant to keep people in or people out?
The courtyard was, as she first surmised before her inspection of the building beyond, quite lovely. A large fountain with a replica of the earth done in metals was the centerpiece and water spurted from the top and coated the sides before falling into the stone basin beneath. Japanese maples with tightly budded leaves graced the centers of four uniform triangles that formed the corners of the gardens and neat boxwoods hedged the sides with benches placed before them. A brick walk surrounded the fountain and freshly tilled earth between the two begged for plantings of colorful flowers. It was a heady contradiction to the heavy and overpowering massiveness of everything she had seen inside the institute.
She heard her father’s harrumph of impatience and turned to see what caused it. The canary peeped inquisitively as she stepped inside so she paused beside its cage.
“I imagine you wish you could fly away,” she said softly to the bird. It hopped from its perch high in the cage to another that was closer to her face. Its dark eyes blinked several times as it examined her.
“Such a pretty cage,” Merritt said. “But it is still a cage, no matter how pretty it is.” She turned her head and looked at the building behind the courtyard.
Still a cage…
The canary jumped from the bar with a loud chirp as the pressure of the room changed with the opening of the door. Merritt felt a cold breeze swirl over her face and the few tendrils of her hair that had escaped the careful attentions of her maid tickled her cheek when she looked into the room.
She recognized Dr. Edmond Von Swaim. (Describe here) How could she not? He currently was the darling of the social circuit and was often mentioned in the gossip columns of the newspaper. Merritt had been present at a few of the functions he attended, as he was a must-have on any guest list. He usually performed feats of hypnotism or other sorts of trickery at the parties that were expounded on at great length in the columns the next day. He had impressed her parents enough that after a few discreet inquiries, they had decided to take Dr. Von Swaim into their confidence regarding Merritt and her “spells.”
His answer? She must be examined immediately before her spells worsened or she did harm to herself. They were exactly the words her mother most feared, since she had been dreading the prospect for these many years.
Maybe he will have an answer…or even a cure…It was too much to hope for. Merritt watched as her father shook hands with Dr. Von Swaim, and her mother greeted him warmly.
Why do I feel such a sense of dread?
Usually she had a vision or warning sign if something bad was about to happen. In this instance there had been no warning yet she still had the feeling that something was horribly wrong. Perhaps the canary had the same concerns. It piped mightily, as if in warning, as Dr. Von Swaim approached her with his arms open wide. Did he actually mean to embrace her?
“My dear Merritt,” he said with a welcoming smile on his broad and ruddy face. His voice held just the slightest accent of his German origins.
Merritt held out her gloved hand so that he might take it, but also to keep him from encroaching upon her. He took her hand, clasped it between his two palms and gave it a firm squeeze. It seemed on the surface to be comforting but then again something about it disturbed her. Perhaps it was in the way he evaluated her. She looked into the deep-set blue eyes beneath the heavy blonde brows. There was no mistaking it. His demeanor was kind and friendly but he was calculating her worth, just as her father had when they arrived at the institute.
“Your parents have expressed their deep concern over your condition,” he said as Merritt carefully pulled her hand free.
“They trouble themselves over nothing,” Merritt said. “I have strange dreams, nothing more.”
“Nonsense,” the Countess said. “Who has dreams in the middle of the day? When they are often wide awake?”
“Come my dear,” Von Swaim said. “Sit and tell me of your dreams.” He stepped back and extended his arm, just stopping short of touching her back as if he would propel her forward.
Merritt suppressed a heavy sigh as she made her way to the sofa. There were no other options and there certainly was no escape. The only thing to do was get it over with as quickly as possible. She sat down and Von Swaim joined her. Her parents took position in the wing chairs on either side. Von Swaim sat forward, placing his body between Merritt and her father. It also placed his body between Merritt and the door.
“It would help me to know more of what you experience,” Von Swaim said. “Tell me of your dreams.”
It seemed too personal…too revealing…however he was a doctor. It was his intent to help her or so she hoped. If he could make the dreams, the visions, the spells, go away…Merritt looked at him hopefully.
“They are more like visions than dreams,” she explained. “I simply see things.”
“What type of things?”
She thought carefully of what she should say. It was all so confusing. Should she tell this man her deepest darkest secrets? Or would the basics be enough? It certainly would not hurt to share the things she told her parents. It wasn’t as if they had not already told him what they knew about her spells.
“Sometimes I see Papa at work talking with his friends…”
“About subjects that she should have no knowledge of,” the Earl interjected.
“Do you mean policy discussions? Von Swaim asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you bring home notes or letters that she would have access too?”
“No.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Merritt said. “I would never look at Papa’s personal papers.”
“You do read the daily,” her mother said. “That’s enough to feed anyone’s imagination.”
“She speaks of things during her spells that she has no way of knowing. How someone will vote, or who will side with whom. It is almost as if she knows the outcome before it happens.”
Indeed,” Von Swaim said. “Very curious. Is she usually right about the things she sees?”
“Almost always,” her father said.
If only they knew…
“Any other instances? Anything besides parliament?” Von Swaim studied her intently, his eyes moving over her face and down enough to make her feel uncomfortable.
Merritt shifted her body so that he was not so close, and not so oppressive. She shrugged. “There have been a few other things.”
“She saw poor Mrs. Poole drop dead,” her mother said. “Our butler’s mother,” she went on to explain.
“No, I did not see her drop dead,” Merritt interjected. “I simply saw her lying on the floor. Then I asked Poole if he had seen her lately.”
“And when he did she was dead.”
“Yes. She was.”
“Quite dead,” her father volunteered. As if anyone could be any deader than dead.
“Fascinating!” Von Swaim jumped up from the sofa and strode across the room as if he could not contain himself.
Merritt looked at the man in disbelief. Poor Poole had lost his mother and Dr. Von Swaim was looking at her as if she had just given him a fortune in jewels.
“Is there anything else?”
Merritt twisted her hands in her lap. She knew what was coming before her mother even said it.
“We have noticed things moving about sometimes,” the Countess said timidly. Merritt could not blame her for being timid. It would be difficult to believe unless one had actually witnessed it. Small objects did have a habit of falling off of surfaces or in one instance flying across a room when she was in the midst of one of her more troublesome spells.”
“Excellent,” Von Swaim exclaimed. He came back to the sofa and knelt in front of Merritt before grasping her hands. “You must allow me to hypnotize you.”
Run…
She felt trapped once again. Pinned against the sofa with no chance of escape. She did manage to free her hands from his grasp yet he remained on the floor before her, practically kneeling on her skirts.
“Do you think it would help, Dr. Von Swaim?” her father asked.
“The subconscious mind holds much danger for those not familiar with its workings,” Von Swaim said as he finally rose to his feet. “Imagine Merritt’s mind as a battlefield with her subconscious at war with her consciousness. It seems to me that at the present time her subconscious is winning the battle. If I do not find out the cause I am afraid that Merritt’s consciousness may eventually be lost to you forever.”
“Oh my!” Her mother gasped. “Merritt lost?”
“The sanitariums are full of such cases.”
“That is unacceptable.” The Earl jumped to his feet while her mother held her handkerchief to her face to hide her distress.
Merritt was skeptical about his comments. There was no war going on in her mind. She just had dreams. Very vivid, very real dreams. She always knew whom she was and where she was when she awakened. It seemed as if Dr. Von Swaim had made a more accurate diagnosis of her parent’s fears and was using it to achieve his own ends.
“If you believe hypnotism will help, then by all means proceed,” her father said.
“Are you certain you will be able to hypnotize me?” She had seen performances of such things before but always felt as if there was collusion involved on the part of all parties.
“I have found that the stronger paranormal activity lends itself to susceptibility in these cases,” Von Swaim replied. He held a hand out to help her rise from the sofa and she had no choice but to take it. “Come my dear,” he said and led her to a gilt chair placed before his desk. “Please stay where you are so there will be no distractions,” he instructed her parents who had begun to follow.
They sat down together on the couch and smiled encouragement to Merritt. She smiled reassuringly in their direction and was pleased to see her father take her mother’s hand into his. There was nothing to fear. Her father would not let any harm come to her.
Merritt sat down with her back to the window while Von Swaim opened a desk drawer and removed an object. The light caught it as he carried it around the desk. It was a crystal, cut in the shape of a large diamond and suspended from a chain.
He sat down opposite her and dangled the crystal from the chain in front of her. “I want you to concentrate,” he said. “Concentrate on the crystal. Concentrate on the light. Watch it carefully.”
The crystal twisted back and forth, slowly winding then unwinding on the chain. Merritt watched the light from the lamps and the sun dance through the different angles of the cuts, each one casting a different color around it as if it was alive with its own aura. She heard the canary chirp once, heard the fountain cascading behind her, and heard the soft breathing of her parents. As watched the crystal spin up and down the chain she felt as if the walls of the room were falling away. The fountain became distant and then she heard the giant clock with the pendulum swinging back and forth.
Tick…tock…tick…tock…
The noise moved inside her head and became an echo of her heartbeat. Tick…thump….tock…thump-thump.
She was no longer in the room inside the institute. She was no longer with Dr. Von Swaim and her parents. She was standing in the middle of a circle. The ground beneath her was hard packed earth that was scarred with the imprint of many types of hoof prints. A light shone directly on her, blinding her. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from it and the light faded.
Someone was with her. “Trust me,” a voice said. “You’ve got to trust me.” The voice seemed vaguely familiar and she searched the area inside the light until she saw a silhouette. Her forehead furrowed as she tried to put a name to the face that was hidden beneath the shadow of a wide-brimmed hat.
“Don’t move,” the voice said. “Trust me. I will never hurt you.” Then he raised a gun in his hand and shot her.
Merritt screamed. She felt her body spinning and then she landed beside the desk. Her hands gripped the sides of the chair as if she were on a boat in huge swells that threatened to break over her head.
As she caught her breath she looked at Dr. Von Swaim for an answer to what she had said or done while under the effects of his hypnosis. But Von Swaim was not looking at her. He looked beyond her. Merritt turned in her seat and saw the birdcage. It was no longer beautiful. It was twisted and ruined with the bars broken and pulled apart.
The canary sat upon the rail of the balcony with its beak wide open as it sang a sweet song to the clear blue sky above. It turned and looked directly at Merritt before it extended its wings and flew away.
“My word!” her father said.
Her mother simply cried.
In Chapter two I introduce Merrit's paranormal abilities and set up the plot point of Von Swaim's desire to control Merrit's talent. When doing a proposal its important to suck the reader in but you don't want to reveal to much too soon.
Chapter Two
“Cheeky sort wasn’t he,” the Earl said.
“Indeed!” the Countess exclaimed. “I always heard the Americans were rather forward.” Merritt folded her hands primly and kept her eyes upon her lap, as she well knew her mother’s mood.
“Accosting young girls on the street.”
“I hardly think he was accosting me.” Merritt boldly spoke out. “I consider it more as being polite.”
“Obviously they have no idea of propriety,” the Countess continued.
“Now Evelyn,” her father interrupted. “The young man was just trying to drum up business for the show is all. I’m sure any insult you imagined was entirely unintentional.”
“Imagined?” her mother gasped.
Merritt turned her head toward the window as her father winked at her. He had cleverly taken her mother’s mind off the cowboy and onto herself. It was no wonder he was such a success. He knew how to handle people. He knew what they were thinking and how to get them to come to his way of thinking. It was a gift that served him well, especially in Parliament. However when it came to his daughter the gift was useless. If only they would not worry so. If only they would just leave her alone. She had never hurt anyone and she certainly had never injured herself. If only she could just be what she was meant to be instead of what her parents and all of proper English society expected her to be. It just wasn’t fair. Not fair at all.
Harry moved the carriage along at a quick pace to make up for the delay. Merritt watched the streets as they passed. The snow from earlier in the day was nearly melted but a few patches remained on the shaded side of the street. What was left had turned into muddy brown water that trickled down the curbs and into the sewers below and eventually dumped into the Thames.
The streets were busy. The population of London had grown rapidly in the past few years, especially on the east side, which had become the haven for the poor. On the west side, where her family resided, people went about the everyday business of life. Tradesmen and solicitors, bankers and lawyers, governesses with their charges, all picked their way through the puddles on the street, rode their horses or were driven in a wide assortment of vehicles. Heavy wagons filled to the top with kegs and casks, boxes and bags stopped along the way to fill orders for the merchants. All in all a normal day in London, except for the fact that a herd of buffalo accompanied by cowboys and Indians had just passed by.
Another normal day for the normal people. What would it be like to be perfectly normal? Merritt could not even begin to imagine.
The carriage came to a stop. “We’re here sir,” Harry called down.
Merritt looked up at the tall building with the same feeling of dread that had been her constant companion since her parents informed her of their decision. A small sign hung over the door. Institute of Paranormal Research. Dr. Edmond Von Swaim.
They exited the carriage. Merritt gathered her skirts and reluctantly followed her parents up the steps with Rose and Jerry close on her heels. Did they think she would actually dash off down the street?
If only I could…But she could not. Any normal person would. But any normal person would not be here in the first place. She was not normal. She was paranormal. Or so her parents thought. They had latched onto the word as soon as they understood its meaning. They felt it explained her spells perfectly yet they wanted to be sure. They needed a diagnosis because with a diagnosis there could be a cure. It all made so much sense when they explained it to her. But now…that the time was nigh…it made no sense at all.
The door swung open before the Earl could lift his hand to knock. Her mother hesitated on the step before her as if she were suddenly afraid.
Imagine how I feel…Merritt knew they wanted to help her. They wanted what was best for her. They also wanted to protect the family from the whispering that went on when someone in their circle had experiences that were considered…objectionable. It would solve all their problems if Merritt had an illness that they could put a name too.
If only they would listen…if only they would ask…if only she were braver and stronger. If only she had been the one to die instead of her brother Christopher. If only…
The Earl took the Countess’s arm and led her inside. Merritt, always the dutiful daughter, had no choice but to follow. A butler, who stood a full head taller than her father, held the door open. His face was impassive, but Merritt could feel his eyes upon her. She marched straight ahead as her father looked upward and around, his eyes calculating the wealth of the Institute as one might inventory the jewels upon the neck of a dowager countess.
The foyer was a full three stories high. Before them was a grand staircase with a hall beside it that led back to a closed door. To the left was a closed door and to the right a sitting room. The fire was not lit, nor the lamps, and the heavy velvet drapes were drawn closed against the light of day. It all seemed very desolate and lonely even though the wood was well polished and the furnishings rich with ornate carvings and plush fabrics.
The sound of a clock ticking was overpowering in the sudden quiet when the door was closed behind them. To Merritt the sound was frighteningly omnipotent. She could not help but look upward to the source and saw a huge pendulum swinging directly over the door. The clockworks were above, on the third story behind a walkway that crossed from one side to the other. She could not see them clearly in the dim light but they seemed immense and complicated. Why would anyone need or want a clock that big?
A middle-aged woman dressed in a simple gray dress and white apron and wearing a white cap came down the impressive staircase and dropped a curtsey to her father.
“Dr. Von Swaim awaits you in the upper parlor,” she said. She spoke with a heavy accent, possibly German since it was known that Von Swaim was of German descent. “Your servants may await you in there.”
Her father started to protest then thought better of it. Merritt wondered if the overbearing presence of the butler had anything to do with his hesitancy. He motioned Rose and Jerry into the parlor. Jerry made it clear by his stance that he was not happy about the situation. Rose simply sat down on a sofa and let out a long suffering sigh.
“For privacy sir,” the woman said when they were settled. “Doctor Von Swaim has also canceled all of his appointments for this afternoon so you need not worry about anyone disturbing you during your visit.”
“Very well,” her father said. “Lead on.”
Merritt took a firm grasp on the railing as she followed her parents up the grand staircase. As she watched her feet climb the stairs her insides felt as if she were descending into a deep dark pit. Her parents had insisted on enough doctors in her lifetime to dread any thought of any type of an exam, especially one that was as mysterious to her as this. What exactly did a paranormal exam involve?
For once her mother kept her chatter to a minimum. She always used it as a mask but in this situation there was no place for it. There was no hiding the fear or intimidation that any of them felt.
The light was brighter on the second floor. Gas lamps lit the hallways and the curtains were open on the opposite ends of the building to let in the light of day. The woman led them across the landing from the staircase and opened a set of double doors.
Bookcases, two stories high, filled the walls on either side. French doors covered the back wall and opened invitingly to a balcony that overlooked a courtyard. Merritt could hear water bubbling below and imagined it must contain a fountain of some sort. Deep burgundy curtains hung beside the windows that flanked the French doors. An ornate birdcage made of brass stood upon a stand next to the window and a bright yellow canary piped a few notes when they were shown into the room. A large sofa also covered in burgundy sat along the wall on the right with wing chairs on either side. End tables flanked the sofa and were covered with an assortment of gewgaws made of brass and glass. Some seemed to be spinning; it would take closer examination to be certain.
The left side of the room contained a huge desk with two small chairs before it. The desk held a smaller collection of gewgaws and a large crystal prism that seemed to Merritt to be as long as her arm. There was a door built into the wall directly behind the desk and she could not help but wonder where it led. Into the bowels of hell?
“The Doctor will be with you presently,” the woman said and closed the double doors behind her as she bowed her way from the room.
“You think they would have offered tea,” her mother said as she sat down in one of the wing chairs.
“We are not here for a social visit,” the Earl reminded her.
“Well, yes, I realize that,” the Countess replied. “Still it would be the hospitable thing to do, considering.”
Merritt let mother’s words pass over her without a response. Her father turned his back on both of them and perused the collection of books that filled the shelf behind the chair. Merritt walked to the balcony to see if there really was a fountain beyond.
A large telescope sat on the balcony aimed upwards at the sky. A stool was beside it with a sextant lying upon it. The instrument of the sea seemed strangely out of place in such an enclosed area. The courtyard was enclosed on the sides with a high brick wall and another building stood behind it. Dr. Von Swaim must have use of both buildings as a door from it opened into the courtyard also. The back of it was plain and tall with small windows that were covered with iron grates and shuttered from the inside. A chill went down her spine as she looked it over. What was the purpose of closing off the lovely courtyard from view? And why the grates? Were they meant to keep people in or people out?
The courtyard was, as she first surmised before her inspection of the building beyond, quite lovely. A large fountain with a replica of the earth done in metals was the centerpiece and water spurted from the top and coated the sides before falling into the stone basin beneath. Japanese maples with tightly budded leaves graced the centers of four uniform triangles that formed the corners of the gardens and neat boxwoods hedged the sides with benches placed before them. A brick walk surrounded the fountain and freshly tilled earth between the two begged for plantings of colorful flowers. It was a heady contradiction to the heavy and overpowering massiveness of everything she had seen inside the institute.
She heard her father’s harrumph of impatience and turned to see what caused it. The canary peeped inquisitively as she stepped inside so she paused beside its cage.
“I imagine you wish you could fly away,” she said softly to the bird. It hopped from its perch high in the cage to another that was closer to her face. Its dark eyes blinked several times as it examined her.
“Such a pretty cage,” Merritt said. “But it is still a cage, no matter how pretty it is.” She turned her head and looked at the building behind the courtyard.
Still a cage…
The canary jumped from the bar with a loud chirp as the pressure of the room changed with the opening of the door. Merritt felt a cold breeze swirl over her face and the few tendrils of her hair that had escaped the careful attentions of her maid tickled her cheek when she looked into the room.
She recognized Dr. Edmond Von Swaim. (Describe here) How could she not? He currently was the darling of the social circuit and was often mentioned in the gossip columns of the newspaper. Merritt had been present at a few of the functions he attended, as he was a must-have on any guest list. He usually performed feats of hypnotism or other sorts of trickery at the parties that were expounded on at great length in the columns the next day. He had impressed her parents enough that after a few discreet inquiries, they had decided to take Dr. Von Swaim into their confidence regarding Merritt and her “spells.”
His answer? She must be examined immediately before her spells worsened or she did harm to herself. They were exactly the words her mother most feared, since she had been dreading the prospect for these many years.
Maybe he will have an answer…or even a cure…It was too much to hope for. Merritt watched as her father shook hands with Dr. Von Swaim, and her mother greeted him warmly.
Why do I feel such a sense of dread?
Usually she had a vision or warning sign if something bad was about to happen. In this instance there had been no warning yet she still had the feeling that something was horribly wrong. Perhaps the canary had the same concerns. It piped mightily, as if in warning, as Dr. Von Swaim approached her with his arms open wide. Did he actually mean to embrace her?
“My dear Merritt,” he said with a welcoming smile on his broad and ruddy face. His voice held just the slightest accent of his German origins.
Merritt held out her gloved hand so that he might take it, but also to keep him from encroaching upon her. He took her hand, clasped it between his two palms and gave it a firm squeeze. It seemed on the surface to be comforting but then again something about it disturbed her. Perhaps it was in the way he evaluated her. She looked into the deep-set blue eyes beneath the heavy blonde brows. There was no mistaking it. His demeanor was kind and friendly but he was calculating her worth, just as her father had when they arrived at the institute.
“Your parents have expressed their deep concern over your condition,” he said as Merritt carefully pulled her hand free.
“They trouble themselves over nothing,” Merritt said. “I have strange dreams, nothing more.”
“Nonsense,” the Countess said. “Who has dreams in the middle of the day? When they are often wide awake?”
“Come my dear,” Von Swaim said. “Sit and tell me of your dreams.” He stepped back and extended his arm, just stopping short of touching her back as if he would propel her forward.
Merritt suppressed a heavy sigh as she made her way to the sofa. There were no other options and there certainly was no escape. The only thing to do was get it over with as quickly as possible. She sat down and Von Swaim joined her. Her parents took position in the wing chairs on either side. Von Swaim sat forward, placing his body between Merritt and her father. It also placed his body between Merritt and the door.
“It would help me to know more of what you experience,” Von Swaim said. “Tell me of your dreams.”
It seemed too personal…too revealing…however he was a doctor. It was his intent to help her or so she hoped. If he could make the dreams, the visions, the spells, go away…Merritt looked at him hopefully.
“They are more like visions than dreams,” she explained. “I simply see things.”
“What type of things?”
She thought carefully of what she should say. It was all so confusing. Should she tell this man her deepest darkest secrets? Or would the basics be enough? It certainly would not hurt to share the things she told her parents. It wasn’t as if they had not already told him what they knew about her spells.
“Sometimes I see Papa at work talking with his friends…”
“About subjects that she should have no knowledge of,” the Earl interjected.
“Do you mean policy discussions? Von Swaim asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you bring home notes or letters that she would have access too?”
“No.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Merritt said. “I would never look at Papa’s personal papers.”
“You do read the daily,” her mother said. “That’s enough to feed anyone’s imagination.”
“She speaks of things during her spells that she has no way of knowing. How someone will vote, or who will side with whom. It is almost as if she knows the outcome before it happens.”
Indeed,” Von Swaim said. “Very curious. Is she usually right about the things she sees?”
“Almost always,” her father said.
If only they knew…
“Any other instances? Anything besides parliament?” Von Swaim studied her intently, his eyes moving over her face and down enough to make her feel uncomfortable.
Merritt shifted her body so that he was not so close, and not so oppressive. She shrugged. “There have been a few other things.”
“She saw poor Mrs. Poole drop dead,” her mother said. “Our butler’s mother,” she went on to explain.
“No, I did not see her drop dead,” Merritt interjected. “I simply saw her lying on the floor. Then I asked Poole if he had seen her lately.”
“And when he did she was dead.”
“Yes. She was.”
“Quite dead,” her father volunteered. As if anyone could be any deader than dead.
“Fascinating!” Von Swaim jumped up from the sofa and strode across the room as if he could not contain himself.
Merritt looked at the man in disbelief. Poor Poole had lost his mother and Dr. Von Swaim was looking at her as if she had just given him a fortune in jewels.
“Is there anything else?”
Merritt twisted her hands in her lap. She knew what was coming before her mother even said it.
“We have noticed things moving about sometimes,” the Countess said timidly. Merritt could not blame her for being timid. It would be difficult to believe unless one had actually witnessed it. Small objects did have a habit of falling off of surfaces or in one instance flying across a room when she was in the midst of one of her more troublesome spells.”
“Excellent,” Von Swaim exclaimed. He came back to the sofa and knelt in front of Merritt before grasping her hands. “You must allow me to hypnotize you.”
Run…
She felt trapped once again. Pinned against the sofa with no chance of escape. She did manage to free her hands from his grasp yet he remained on the floor before her, practically kneeling on her skirts.
“Do you think it would help, Dr. Von Swaim?” her father asked.
“The subconscious mind holds much danger for those not familiar with its workings,” Von Swaim said as he finally rose to his feet. “Imagine Merritt’s mind as a battlefield with her subconscious at war with her consciousness. It seems to me that at the present time her subconscious is winning the battle. If I do not find out the cause I am afraid that Merritt’s consciousness may eventually be lost to you forever.”
“Oh my!” Her mother gasped. “Merritt lost?”
“The sanitariums are full of such cases.”
“That is unacceptable.” The Earl jumped to his feet while her mother held her handkerchief to her face to hide her distress.
Merritt was skeptical about his comments. There was no war going on in her mind. She just had dreams. Very vivid, very real dreams. She always knew whom she was and where she was when she awakened. It seemed as if Dr. Von Swaim had made a more accurate diagnosis of her parent’s fears and was using it to achieve his own ends.
“If you believe hypnotism will help, then by all means proceed,” her father said.
“Are you certain you will be able to hypnotize me?” She had seen performances of such things before but always felt as if there was collusion involved on the part of all parties.
“I have found that the stronger paranormal activity lends itself to susceptibility in these cases,” Von Swaim replied. He held a hand out to help her rise from the sofa and she had no choice but to take it. “Come my dear,” he said and led her to a gilt chair placed before his desk. “Please stay where you are so there will be no distractions,” he instructed her parents who had begun to follow.
They sat down together on the couch and smiled encouragement to Merritt. She smiled reassuringly in their direction and was pleased to see her father take her mother’s hand into his. There was nothing to fear. Her father would not let any harm come to her.
Merritt sat down with her back to the window while Von Swaim opened a desk drawer and removed an object. The light caught it as he carried it around the desk. It was a crystal, cut in the shape of a large diamond and suspended from a chain.
He sat down opposite her and dangled the crystal from the chain in front of her. “I want you to concentrate,” he said. “Concentrate on the crystal. Concentrate on the light. Watch it carefully.”
The crystal twisted back and forth, slowly winding then unwinding on the chain. Merritt watched the light from the lamps and the sun dance through the different angles of the cuts, each one casting a different color around it as if it was alive with its own aura. She heard the canary chirp once, heard the fountain cascading behind her, and heard the soft breathing of her parents. As watched the crystal spin up and down the chain she felt as if the walls of the room were falling away. The fountain became distant and then she heard the giant clock with the pendulum swinging back and forth.
Tick…tock…tick…tock…
The noise moved inside her head and became an echo of her heartbeat. Tick…thump….tock…thump-thump.
She was no longer in the room inside the institute. She was no longer with Dr. Von Swaim and her parents. She was standing in the middle of a circle. The ground beneath her was hard packed earth that was scarred with the imprint of many types of hoof prints. A light shone directly on her, blinding her. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from it and the light faded.
Someone was with her. “Trust me,” a voice said. “You’ve got to trust me.” The voice seemed vaguely familiar and she searched the area inside the light until she saw a silhouette. Her forehead furrowed as she tried to put a name to the face that was hidden beneath the shadow of a wide-brimmed hat.
“Don’t move,” the voice said. “Trust me. I will never hurt you.” Then he raised a gun in his hand and shot her.
Merritt screamed. She felt her body spinning and then she landed beside the desk. Her hands gripped the sides of the chair as if she were on a boat in huge swells that threatened to break over her head.
As she caught her breath she looked at Dr. Von Swaim for an answer to what she had said or done while under the effects of his hypnosis. But Von Swaim was not looking at her. He looked beyond her. Merritt turned in her seat and saw the birdcage. It was no longer beautiful. It was twisted and ruined with the bars broken and pulled apart.
The canary sat upon the rail of the balcony with its beak wide open as it sang a sweet song to the clear blue sky above. It turned and looked directly at Merritt before it extended its wings and flew away.
“My word!” her father said.
Her mother simply cried.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Books to Movies
This week I saw the film of HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE. I enjoyed it very much. Everything in it was wonderfully rendered. As usual, though, so much had to be left out. One of the production staff has been quoted as saying that to include everything in the novel would have required eight hours. Well, yeah. The natural medium for a novel adaptation is a TV miniseries, not a novel. And, yes, I know a film can’t be a word-for-word transcription of a book. Still, I watch movies based on novels in hopes of seeing the story transferred to the screen as faithfully as possible. If the producers don’t like the original story well enough to aspire to that goal, why do they bother with it at all? (Which, fortunately, isn’t the case with the makers of the Harry Potter film series. I’ve seen a few screenplay adaptations to which my reaction was an infuriated, “If you wanted to make up your own darn story, why didn’t you do so and call it something else, instead of exploiting a perfectly good book?”)
The HALF-BLOOD PRINCE movie opens with spectacular scenes of dark magic attacks on Muggles, including the collapse of a bridge. That montage represents a good choice to show events only mentioned in dialogue in the book. The book’s delightful first scene, however, a meeting between the British Prime Minister and the Minister of Magic, was omitted. (I’ve read that it was “in and out” several times in the course of production, so I hope it will be an outtake on the DVD.) The movie skimps on visits to Voldemort’s past, which I consider the heart of the story. The investigation of the Half-Blood Prince’s identity gets pushed into the background. And we never actually see Snape teaching Dark Arts, quite a disappointing omission, even though it doesn’t hurt plot development.
There’s one added event that's not in the book, wholly gratuitous in my opinion (and setting up a problem for the adaptation of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS), but I won’t describe it because of the spoiler factor. I can give an example, though, from another epic fantasy film—PRINCE CASPIAN. An inordinately big chunk of the middle of that movie comprises an attack on Miraz’s castle that isn’t in the book at all and includes jarringly out-of-character actions and dialogue from Peter. This intrusion occurs at the expense of leaving out the long, thematically vital sequence in the novel where Aslan leads Susan, Lucy, and a troop of dryads and other pagan creatures across Narnia to join the final battle. What a disappointment that loss was!
The way I see it, in filming a book there are good alterations, omissions, and additions, and there are gravely misguided ones. Too often, producers and directors seem tone-deaf as to which is which.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
The HALF-BLOOD PRINCE movie opens with spectacular scenes of dark magic attacks on Muggles, including the collapse of a bridge. That montage represents a good choice to show events only mentioned in dialogue in the book. The book’s delightful first scene, however, a meeting between the British Prime Minister and the Minister of Magic, was omitted. (I’ve read that it was “in and out” several times in the course of production, so I hope it will be an outtake on the DVD.) The movie skimps on visits to Voldemort’s past, which I consider the heart of the story. The investigation of the Half-Blood Prince’s identity gets pushed into the background. And we never actually see Snape teaching Dark Arts, quite a disappointing omission, even though it doesn’t hurt plot development.
There’s one added event that's not in the book, wholly gratuitous in my opinion (and setting up a problem for the adaptation of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS), but I won’t describe it because of the spoiler factor. I can give an example, though, from another epic fantasy film—PRINCE CASPIAN. An inordinately big chunk of the middle of that movie comprises an attack on Miraz’s castle that isn’t in the book at all and includes jarringly out-of-character actions and dialogue from Peter. This intrusion occurs at the expense of leaving out the long, thematically vital sequence in the novel where Aslan leads Susan, Lucy, and a troop of dryads and other pagan creatures across Narnia to join the final battle. What a disappointment that loss was!
The way I see it, in filming a book there are good alterations, omissions, and additions, and there are gravely misguided ones. Too often, producers and directors seem tone-deaf as to which is which.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Where do ideas come from?
"Where do your ideas come from?" is the most frequent question I'm asked as a writer. And it's the most difficult question to answer. Because ideas are all around us and come to us in the strangest ways.
For example after seeing a movie my husband and I changed our usual evening neighborhood walk to one through the mall. And while strolling through a toy store, we saw a stuffed owl. And I wanted it. It was cool. Built like a puppet, I could turn his head and flap his wings or open and close his eyes. Now I had no use at all for an owl--but hey, if I included him in my book and used him in a video of the book he'd become a legitimate tax deduction. So my High Priestess suddenly had a pet owl named Merlin. And of course Merlin wasn't any pet owl, he had special abilities, abilities which developed from book to book during the Pendragon Legacy series. (LUCAN will be out in September and excerpts are at www.susankearney.com)
But I digress. Another example is that during my research I come across all kinds of interesting facts. For example, while King Arthur's castle may have been unearthed in England, legend has it that before Arthur died he left the Holy Grail in Avalon. Now, no archeologist has ever found Avalon--a city reputed to have receded into the mists. But what if no one has ever found Avalon because it's not on Earth?
Newspaper headlines are also great fodder for ideas. One that stuck in my mind was that male fertility worldwide is down 30%. That's huge! What if the trend continued? What if male fertility continues to rise? What if we had to find the Holy Grail to save mankind from extinction?
These questions were the basis for my new series. So the ideas came from a stuffed owl, a newspaper headline and an ancient legend. Hmmm. If I tell people the truth, it sounds a bit strange . . . but then I've always liked the unusual.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
6 Tricks of Scene Structure - Part 2
My original post on Scene Structure drew a very interesting question from Kathleen McIver paraphrased:
Ah, pardon me ... what is a scene?
My instant reaction: "Um. Ooops."
So I dashed off a quick answer to the question in the comments section of 6 Tricks of Scene Structure
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure.html
You'll want to read the comments, too because I had to fill in other gaps in what I'd covered.
But of course, my quick comments are not sufficient to really answer the question, "What actually is a scene and how do you identify a scene in finished works?" And perhaps more importantly, Kathleen asked:
"And does this mean that we, as the author, should be able to break down our entire novel into 3-page sections, each of which has these elements?"
Even more wisely, Kathleen noted how she didn't know enough to phrase a question the answer to which would provide the information she's missing. I truly respect that mental capacity! Wow, this is one sharp lady.
So I've been thinking about this for a couple of days.
It's funny what you forget you know, and how you can assume that others know it as well as you do.
But some people just grow up into the skill without noticing they learned anything. Others have to learn one painful lesson (scathing review) at a time. The ones who have to learn it make the best teachers of it.
Linnea Sinclair touched on this once again in her post on Worldbuilding techniques that are necessary even in contemporary Earth settings.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/world-building-for-writers-politics.html
Contemporary authors do worldbuilding, too, and the better they do it the broader audience they reach. Really, audience is proportionate to this craft skill because, when added to a High Concept the worldbuilding is the tool that delivers the punch the High Concept hints may be there.
Also, the better the worldbuilding, the more concise and sharp the dialogue because the characters have something to talk to each other about besides the worldbuilding that each of them take for granted.
Careful worldbuilding helps avoid the expository lump. But it's a tricky tool.
The trick to using the worldbuilding tool is THE SCENE.
And the scene structure discipline also helps eliminate the lumpish aspect of exposition.
This was articulated by Blake Snyder in SAVE THE CAT! where he labels it the POPE IN THE POOL technique and describes it as an expository lump disguised as dialogue between two people sitting across an office desk. The window behind the desk is over an indoor pool in the Vatican. The Vistor Chair can see the Pope disrobing and diving into the pool. The Official behind the desk can't see that. (Blake's field is comedy, and mine isn't)
I haven't seen the movie that scene is from. But if it were my scene, I would start it when the Visitor enters the office, shakes hands, sits down and the Official opens with the subject of (the expository lump). Just where the lump gets boring, the Pope enters the swimming pool, and behaves as if not observed, taking his swim. Meanwhile, the conversation hits a snag.
Remember the key to great dialogue is that every spoken encounter (very often a scene is simply two or more characters exchanging words) is MORTAL COMBAT of some sort (even in Romance; sexy foreplay is mortal combat of a sort -- "I want you now." "Wait a while -- then again, maybe not tonight."
Every dialogue exchange (even in novels) has to advance the plot AND the characterization AND relationship, as well as the story.
Some dialogue exchanges lap over from one scene to another, and leave over punctuation comments for later. The dialogue in the film, Mr. And Mrs. Smith illustrates this technique.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html
A "scene" is not a discrete entity, isolated from the rest of the story.
Like atoms reach out and bond with other atoms (sometimes of different elements) to form molecules, so scenes reach out and bond with other scenes sometimes of different types, to become a story (novel or film; same rule)
Dialogue can be the binding factor.
One dialogue technique I particularly like is Pillow Talk.
If a couple has an issue arise over breakfast, separates to race through the day overcoming harrowing obstacles toward minimally rewarding goals, arrive home pulverized and exhausted, blow off excess energy in sex, then exchange comments about the morning's issue in brief, maybe one-word, comments, you get that binding force making a scene come full circle.
The morning breakfast scene raised an issue, the issue was discussed in the underlying theme of what each individual faced alone during the day, that harrowing experience changed their attitude or take on the issue, and after sex, with barriers down the couple is able to resolve the original conflict.
The couple re-binds during pillow talk, and the marriage becomes more sound because each took a beating during the day.
In Mr. And Mrs. Smith, we see a couple who keeps secrets from each other. The secret each keeps is that their day-job is to kill people, and each is really REALLY good at it.
They have marriage issues because of the reticence. They resolve those issues with dialogue snippets of an ongoing conversation that continues as they team up to fight against an overwhelming force trying to kill each or both of them.
So the conversation continues in bits of dialogue strewn through almost all of the scenes, and reinforced by the visuals chosen as background for those scenes (as Pope In The Pool).
So a "Scene" is NOT simply a conversation unit.
What exactly is the property that defines a "Scene"?
Is it an artform to identify scenes? Or just another of the cut and dried techniques anyone can learn?
Well, maybe a little of both, but Hollywood has hammered out this definition to a science. Some books on screenwriting go into it in detail.
Mostly, though, you learn it by reading and watching a lot of stories looking to see if each story follows "the rules" you've just learned about scenes.
Originally, the stage play worked out that a "scene" goes from when a character enters the stage, to when that or some other character leaves.
"Scene" is defined by who's on stage (or camera).
That's because in real life, a group dynamic is defined by who's there and what they know about whom, and what the other guy does not know about whichever issue is going on. What some character wants another to know, and what must be withheld (Conversation in the murder mansion does not flow freely when they know Columbo is in the room.)
Real life has scenes, too.
"Don't make a scene in the restaurant this time."
What does that mean?
It means "Don't wax dramatic and attract attention with hystrionics."
If you must fight, whisper?
And there you have the "Scene" defined as a unit of story.
It's a DRAMATIC UNIT.
It starts when a trigger for drama appears. The meat of the scene, the MIDDLE, delivers (as the middle of a story) a CHANGE that advances the PLOT and preferably the story too. The dramatic unit ends when explosion that's been triggered dissipates leaving "damage" or change behind. That changed Situation is the hook for the next scene in the chain.
As I've detailed any number of times in these writing technique essays, the backbone of the story is CONFLICT and the two (or more) units that conflict RESPOND TO EACH OTHER - so that the plot is the sequence of events along a BECAUSE CHAIN.
Because Mom grounded Michael, he climbed out his bedroom window, the trelis broke, he fell, broke his ankel, spent Christmas in the hospital, met the girl he would eventually marry and hated her on sight.
The trellis would not have broken had his mother not grounded him, etc, BECAUSE -- the plot is the chain of because events.
The story is the reason (character motivation) that the characters respond this way not that way to whatever event confronts them.
Michael, living a different story, would not have climbed out the window. He might have stolen Mom's car keys (before he got his license even) and stormed out the front door, driving off despite her effort to stop him. Maybe he then runs over her as he guns the motor out of the driveway?
THAT is the story - what grounding means to Michael, what his options are, which option he chooses and why, and what he learns from that choice so that when confronted with the same kind of choice toward the END, he chooses differently.
OK, given that plot and story, and the irresistible urge to write Michael's story -- do you have to "chop it up" into 3 page scenes?
NO! But also YES! At the same time, yes and no.
You don't CHOP it. You do like Michaelangelo, and you FREE the story from the shapeless block of marble in your head.
You, as an artist, are charged with the responsibility to show the reader or viewer the artistic beauty of the universe hidden within the amorphous mass of everyday life. They can't see it (because Hollywood and Manhattan have trained them from childhood to the 3-page scene) unless you show it to them in Scenes.
They'll never see it if they can't sit still through it, and by our frenetic culture and our relentless training, we can't focus and concentrate for longer than a 3 page scene. Deplorable but true, and the commercial artist doesn't rail against the deplorable, but rather just uses it as part of the artist's toolbox.
So you don't perform on your material an operation that is alien to that material.
You don't chop it. You don't cut it.
You know that because of a lifetime of watching movies and reading books and yearning to "be a writer" by actually writing something, you know that your subconscious has already arranged this story into "scenes" and then, because it's an eager puppy jumping all over to get your attention, subconscious has made a mess of all the supportive material.
Subconscious wrapped your story up in batting and gift paper and made it glitter, then gave it to you. But before you could open it in an orderly fashion, subconscious gnawed it open and flung wrapping and batting all over the place.
Inside that mess is your glowing, polished, beautiful, well structured story.
It's your job to find that story, and sweep away the mess to reveal those marvelously chained together SCENES.
As you do this over and over, subconscious will learn like a puppy dog, and bring you the story clean and shining so there's not much mess to clean up.
So how do you do that?
Start with the knowledge of the structure of a Scene as outlined in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure.html
As you write, watch your page count and word count. Really, make a habit to check it constantly.
If you reach 750 words or 3 script pages WITHOUT advancing the plot by delivering an explosive resolution to the scene's narrative hook, STOP WRITING.
Sit back, and start measuring, and rearranging the exposition (usually it's exposition that's the culprit -- stuff you oh so want the reader to know before something else happens so they'll understand the emotions is exposition. CUT IT. Save it in a note file. Dissect it and sprinkle it throughout the rest of the story. Never let exposition expand a scene beyond 750 words.)
You know what this Scene must do -- somebody has to learn something, get injured, have an idea. You know what CHANGE this scene must deliver.
Ask yourself why it's taking so long?
Usually, you can first draft a scene at say 1500 words, then just cut the middle out and make it the plot-mover of the next scene.
After you've done this process a few (or more) times, you will find that your subconscious will quit trying to write longer scenes that nobody will read. Subconscious wants its scenes read, trust me. It can be trained to do this for you, and increase your productivity to professional levels.
But you have to train your subconscious, and this process works.
Write it out, cut the middle, glue the ends together, use the left over material to construct (mind you CONSTRUCT via the 6 elements) another scene.
A "Scene" is a dramatic unit, but it can look like a plot unit in an action flick, or like a story unit in a slow sex scene.
Have you ever wondered why some readers claim a really hot-hot-HOT sex scene is BORING?
It's the 3-page effect.
Now a really great sex encounter can go on for 12 pages or so in a novel, even a whole chapter covering a weekend of hot stuff.
But if it's a 12 page encounter -- it will have to be 4 SCENES strung together.
And those 4 scenes have to have an over-all shape.
"Scene" is a dramatic unit, not a plot unit or a story unit. DRAMATIC.
What does that mean?
Emotion.
Specifically EMOTIONAL PITCH.
A scene has to start on a low emotional pitch (because the previous scene blew the energy of the previous scene's narrative hook to provide an ending, a resolution of a conflict).
A scene has to END on a higher emotional pitch than it started on.
BAM - that's the end of the scene. Huge blow-off of emotional energy.
That leaves the characters (you should excuse the expression) deflated, and thus ready to start another scene on a low emotional pitch.
Now if you string 4 sex scenes together non-stop, you start the first one on a LOWER emotional pitch than the last one ends on.
Draw a graph.
Think of a sine wave. Tilt it so the right side is higher than the left.
Each down point is higher than the last downpoint, so there is a RISING PITCH running through all 4 sex scenes yet each scene starts down and ends high, the emotional pitch changing during the scene. If the emotional pitch doesn't change, it's not a "Scene" yet. That's what scenes do; they change the EMOTIONAL PITCH, the dramatic tension. And the change, through a whole story must be up, up, up, DOWN, up up up, to the ending BAM. A "climax" (ahem, dramatic sort as well as the usual) is a UP TO DOWN in a BAM!
The final of the 4 sex scenes then BLOWS OFF HUGE -- and really flattens the characters.
That's the payoff, the resolution of the simmering emotional tension at the beginning of the 4 scenes, and it has to be huge after 4 scenes of it.
Now you can't let your BECAUSE LINE of the plot languish, stop dead, slack off even a bit, during these 4 sex scenes.
The plot must advance, right along with the story.
So BECAUSE they succumb to sex, something HAPPENS in scene one, that CAUSES something else in scene two, that CAUSES something new in scene three, that finally materializes big time in scene four, and hurles them back (willy nilly, ready or not) into the "real world" where they must fight for their couple-hood.
That's how you keep the reader not-bored during a long, complex, intimate interaction where there are only 2 characters in conflict for 12 whole pages.
So first draft the 12 page sex scene, then (like a knitter who's dropped a stitch) go back down and pick up the plot, and PULL that through the sex scene (an item caught on the TV news and ignored, not understood, or actually missed as they disrobe up the stairs leaving breakfast to burn to a cinder) and add a plot-CHANGE into each of the 4 scenes.
Now go back and find the STORY thread that you dropped, and PULL that through the sex scene. Perhaps a jealous lover knocks on the door? The owner of the mountain cabin drives up to evict them -- changes his mind. Drug runners they owe money to almost find them hiding in the basement (guess what they're doing down there!).
Now you've got the relationship, the plot and the story all beating like the heart-beat of a novel.
All of it simultaneously.
Now measure again, by page count, and cut, trim, condense, eliminate, or add or move to EVEN OUT THE PACING.
Remember the SCENE is your main pacing tool. Something has to CHANGE in the plot, the story, and the character arcs EACH THREE PAGES.
PACING = RATE OF CHANGE OF SITUATION
I've said that before, again and again.
This week, I finished my edit run-through of the 5 books on Tarot which will be availble (I hope soon) in PDF and other e-book formats, and eventually as POD. The volumes on Swords and Pentacles appeared in this blog and will be here for free reading. The volumes on Wands and Cups have never before been published (this was a project bought by a publisher which went bankrupt and I hate unfinished projects litering my desk).
Those volumes on Tarot are the precursor to the volumes on writing craft tentatively titled INSIDE THE WRITER'S MIND.
That's a whole lot of tedious editing yet to do, and it will take time.
You can subscribe to this blog, or see my FRIENDFEED box for the various social networks where I'll put the announcement when the volumes are ready.
Meanwhile, you can find the Tarot posts by searching TUESDAY (my posting day) here, or start here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/12/10-pentacles-cake-comes-out-of-oven.html
and follow the directions to work backwards to the Ace of Swords (they are written to be read in sequence Ace to Ten.)
I'm very late getting this post written so it's not getting proofed very well. It should have gone up an hour ago! If anything here is unclear or not sufficient, please drop a comment and ask, or just say you don't get it.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://twitter.com/jlichtenberg
http://facebook.com/jacqueline.lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Ah, pardon me ... what is a scene?
My instant reaction: "Um. Ooops."
So I dashed off a quick answer to the question in the comments section of 6 Tricks of Scene Structure
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure.html
You'll want to read the comments, too because I had to fill in other gaps in what I'd covered.
But of course, my quick comments are not sufficient to really answer the question, "What actually is a scene and how do you identify a scene in finished works?" And perhaps more importantly, Kathleen asked:
"And does this mean that we, as the author, should be able to break down our entire novel into 3-page sections, each of which has these elements?"
Even more wisely, Kathleen noted how she didn't know enough to phrase a question the answer to which would provide the information she's missing. I truly respect that mental capacity! Wow, this is one sharp lady.
So I've been thinking about this for a couple of days.
It's funny what you forget you know, and how you can assume that others know it as well as you do.
But some people just grow up into the skill without noticing they learned anything. Others have to learn one painful lesson (scathing review) at a time. The ones who have to learn it make the best teachers of it.
Linnea Sinclair touched on this once again in her post on Worldbuilding techniques that are necessary even in contemporary Earth settings.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/world-building-for-writers-politics.html
Contemporary authors do worldbuilding, too, and the better they do it the broader audience they reach. Really, audience is proportionate to this craft skill because, when added to a High Concept the worldbuilding is the tool that delivers the punch the High Concept hints may be there.
Also, the better the worldbuilding, the more concise and sharp the dialogue because the characters have something to talk to each other about besides the worldbuilding that each of them take for granted.
Careful worldbuilding helps avoid the expository lump. But it's a tricky tool.
The trick to using the worldbuilding tool is THE SCENE.
And the scene structure discipline also helps eliminate the lumpish aspect of exposition.
This was articulated by Blake Snyder in SAVE THE CAT! where he labels it the POPE IN THE POOL technique and describes it as an expository lump disguised as dialogue between two people sitting across an office desk. The window behind the desk is over an indoor pool in the Vatican. The Vistor Chair can see the Pope disrobing and diving into the pool. The Official behind the desk can't see that. (Blake's field is comedy, and mine isn't)
I haven't seen the movie that scene is from. But if it were my scene, I would start it when the Visitor enters the office, shakes hands, sits down and the Official opens with the subject of (the expository lump). Just where the lump gets boring, the Pope enters the swimming pool, and behaves as if not observed, taking his swim. Meanwhile, the conversation hits a snag.
Remember the key to great dialogue is that every spoken encounter (very often a scene is simply two or more characters exchanging words) is MORTAL COMBAT of some sort (even in Romance; sexy foreplay is mortal combat of a sort -- "I want you now." "Wait a while -- then again, maybe not tonight."
Every dialogue exchange (even in novels) has to advance the plot AND the characterization AND relationship, as well as the story.
Some dialogue exchanges lap over from one scene to another, and leave over punctuation comments for later. The dialogue in the film, Mr. And Mrs. Smith illustrates this technique.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html
A "scene" is not a discrete entity, isolated from the rest of the story.
Like atoms reach out and bond with other atoms (sometimes of different elements) to form molecules, so scenes reach out and bond with other scenes sometimes of different types, to become a story (novel or film; same rule)
Dialogue can be the binding factor.
One dialogue technique I particularly like is Pillow Talk.
If a couple has an issue arise over breakfast, separates to race through the day overcoming harrowing obstacles toward minimally rewarding goals, arrive home pulverized and exhausted, blow off excess energy in sex, then exchange comments about the morning's issue in brief, maybe one-word, comments, you get that binding force making a scene come full circle.
The morning breakfast scene raised an issue, the issue was discussed in the underlying theme of what each individual faced alone during the day, that harrowing experience changed their attitude or take on the issue, and after sex, with barriers down the couple is able to resolve the original conflict.
The couple re-binds during pillow talk, and the marriage becomes more sound because each took a beating during the day.
In Mr. And Mrs. Smith, we see a couple who keeps secrets from each other. The secret each keeps is that their day-job is to kill people, and each is really REALLY good at it.
They have marriage issues because of the reticence. They resolve those issues with dialogue snippets of an ongoing conversation that continues as they team up to fight against an overwhelming force trying to kill each or both of them.
So the conversation continues in bits of dialogue strewn through almost all of the scenes, and reinforced by the visuals chosen as background for those scenes (as Pope In The Pool).
So a "Scene" is NOT simply a conversation unit.
What exactly is the property that defines a "Scene"?
Is it an artform to identify scenes? Or just another of the cut and dried techniques anyone can learn?
Well, maybe a little of both, but Hollywood has hammered out this definition to a science. Some books on screenwriting go into it in detail.
Mostly, though, you learn it by reading and watching a lot of stories looking to see if each story follows "the rules" you've just learned about scenes.
Originally, the stage play worked out that a "scene" goes from when a character enters the stage, to when that or some other character leaves.
"Scene" is defined by who's on stage (or camera).
That's because in real life, a group dynamic is defined by who's there and what they know about whom, and what the other guy does not know about whichever issue is going on. What some character wants another to know, and what must be withheld (Conversation in the murder mansion does not flow freely when they know Columbo is in the room.)
Real life has scenes, too.
"Don't make a scene in the restaurant this time."
What does that mean?
It means "Don't wax dramatic and attract attention with hystrionics."
If you must fight, whisper?
And there you have the "Scene" defined as a unit of story.
It's a DRAMATIC UNIT.
It starts when a trigger for drama appears. The meat of the scene, the MIDDLE, delivers (as the middle of a story) a CHANGE that advances the PLOT and preferably the story too. The dramatic unit ends when explosion that's been triggered dissipates leaving "damage" or change behind. That changed Situation is the hook for the next scene in the chain.
As I've detailed any number of times in these writing technique essays, the backbone of the story is CONFLICT and the two (or more) units that conflict RESPOND TO EACH OTHER - so that the plot is the sequence of events along a BECAUSE CHAIN.
Because Mom grounded Michael, he climbed out his bedroom window, the trelis broke, he fell, broke his ankel, spent Christmas in the hospital, met the girl he would eventually marry and hated her on sight.
The trellis would not have broken had his mother not grounded him, etc, BECAUSE -- the plot is the chain of because events.
The story is the reason (character motivation) that the characters respond this way not that way to whatever event confronts them.
Michael, living a different story, would not have climbed out the window. He might have stolen Mom's car keys (before he got his license even) and stormed out the front door, driving off despite her effort to stop him. Maybe he then runs over her as he guns the motor out of the driveway?
THAT is the story - what grounding means to Michael, what his options are, which option he chooses and why, and what he learns from that choice so that when confronted with the same kind of choice toward the END, he chooses differently.
OK, given that plot and story, and the irresistible urge to write Michael's story -- do you have to "chop it up" into 3 page scenes?
NO! But also YES! At the same time, yes and no.
You don't CHOP it. You do like Michaelangelo, and you FREE the story from the shapeless block of marble in your head.
You, as an artist, are charged with the responsibility to show the reader or viewer the artistic beauty of the universe hidden within the amorphous mass of everyday life. They can't see it (because Hollywood and Manhattan have trained them from childhood to the 3-page scene) unless you show it to them in Scenes.
They'll never see it if they can't sit still through it, and by our frenetic culture and our relentless training, we can't focus and concentrate for longer than a 3 page scene. Deplorable but true, and the commercial artist doesn't rail against the deplorable, but rather just uses it as part of the artist's toolbox.
So you don't perform on your material an operation that is alien to that material.
You don't chop it. You don't cut it.
You know that because of a lifetime of watching movies and reading books and yearning to "be a writer" by actually writing something, you know that your subconscious has already arranged this story into "scenes" and then, because it's an eager puppy jumping all over to get your attention, subconscious has made a mess of all the supportive material.
Subconscious wrapped your story up in batting and gift paper and made it glitter, then gave it to you. But before you could open it in an orderly fashion, subconscious gnawed it open and flung wrapping and batting all over the place.
Inside that mess is your glowing, polished, beautiful, well structured story.
It's your job to find that story, and sweep away the mess to reveal those marvelously chained together SCENES.
As you do this over and over, subconscious will learn like a puppy dog, and bring you the story clean and shining so there's not much mess to clean up.
So how do you do that?
Start with the knowledge of the structure of a Scene as outlined in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure.html
As you write, watch your page count and word count. Really, make a habit to check it constantly.
If you reach 750 words or 3 script pages WITHOUT advancing the plot by delivering an explosive resolution to the scene's narrative hook, STOP WRITING.
Sit back, and start measuring, and rearranging the exposition (usually it's exposition that's the culprit -- stuff you oh so want the reader to know before something else happens so they'll understand the emotions is exposition. CUT IT. Save it in a note file. Dissect it and sprinkle it throughout the rest of the story. Never let exposition expand a scene beyond 750 words.)
You know what this Scene must do -- somebody has to learn something, get injured, have an idea. You know what CHANGE this scene must deliver.
Ask yourself why it's taking so long?
Usually, you can first draft a scene at say 1500 words, then just cut the middle out and make it the plot-mover of the next scene.
After you've done this process a few (or more) times, you will find that your subconscious will quit trying to write longer scenes that nobody will read. Subconscious wants its scenes read, trust me. It can be trained to do this for you, and increase your productivity to professional levels.
But you have to train your subconscious, and this process works.
Write it out, cut the middle, glue the ends together, use the left over material to construct (mind you CONSTRUCT via the 6 elements) another scene.
A "Scene" is a dramatic unit, but it can look like a plot unit in an action flick, or like a story unit in a slow sex scene.
Have you ever wondered why some readers claim a really hot-hot-HOT sex scene is BORING?
It's the 3-page effect.
Now a really great sex encounter can go on for 12 pages or so in a novel, even a whole chapter covering a weekend of hot stuff.
But if it's a 12 page encounter -- it will have to be 4 SCENES strung together.
And those 4 scenes have to have an over-all shape.
"Scene" is a dramatic unit, not a plot unit or a story unit. DRAMATIC.
What does that mean?
Emotion.
Specifically EMOTIONAL PITCH.
A scene has to start on a low emotional pitch (because the previous scene blew the energy of the previous scene's narrative hook to provide an ending, a resolution of a conflict).
A scene has to END on a higher emotional pitch than it started on.
BAM - that's the end of the scene. Huge blow-off of emotional energy.
That leaves the characters (you should excuse the expression) deflated, and thus ready to start another scene on a low emotional pitch.
Now if you string 4 sex scenes together non-stop, you start the first one on a LOWER emotional pitch than the last one ends on.
Draw a graph.
Think of a sine wave. Tilt it so the right side is higher than the left.
Each down point is higher than the last downpoint, so there is a RISING PITCH running through all 4 sex scenes yet each scene starts down and ends high, the emotional pitch changing during the scene. If the emotional pitch doesn't change, it's not a "Scene" yet. That's what scenes do; they change the EMOTIONAL PITCH, the dramatic tension. And the change, through a whole story must be up, up, up, DOWN, up up up, to the ending BAM. A "climax" (ahem, dramatic sort as well as the usual) is a UP TO DOWN in a BAM!
The final of the 4 sex scenes then BLOWS OFF HUGE -- and really flattens the characters.
That's the payoff, the resolution of the simmering emotional tension at the beginning of the 4 scenes, and it has to be huge after 4 scenes of it.
Now you can't let your BECAUSE LINE of the plot languish, stop dead, slack off even a bit, during these 4 sex scenes.
The plot must advance, right along with the story.
So BECAUSE they succumb to sex, something HAPPENS in scene one, that CAUSES something else in scene two, that CAUSES something new in scene three, that finally materializes big time in scene four, and hurles them back (willy nilly, ready or not) into the "real world" where they must fight for their couple-hood.
That's how you keep the reader not-bored during a long, complex, intimate interaction where there are only 2 characters in conflict for 12 whole pages.
So first draft the 12 page sex scene, then (like a knitter who's dropped a stitch) go back down and pick up the plot, and PULL that through the sex scene (an item caught on the TV news and ignored, not understood, or actually missed as they disrobe up the stairs leaving breakfast to burn to a cinder) and add a plot-CHANGE into each of the 4 scenes.
Now go back and find the STORY thread that you dropped, and PULL that through the sex scene. Perhaps a jealous lover knocks on the door? The owner of the mountain cabin drives up to evict them -- changes his mind. Drug runners they owe money to almost find them hiding in the basement (guess what they're doing down there!).
Now you've got the relationship, the plot and the story all beating like the heart-beat of a novel.
All of it simultaneously.
Now measure again, by page count, and cut, trim, condense, eliminate, or add or move to EVEN OUT THE PACING.
Remember the SCENE is your main pacing tool. Something has to CHANGE in the plot, the story, and the character arcs EACH THREE PAGES.
PACING = RATE OF CHANGE OF SITUATION
I've said that before, again and again.
This week, I finished my edit run-through of the 5 books on Tarot which will be availble (I hope soon) in PDF and other e-book formats, and eventually as POD. The volumes on Swords and Pentacles appeared in this blog and will be here for free reading. The volumes on Wands and Cups have never before been published (this was a project bought by a publisher which went bankrupt and I hate unfinished projects litering my desk).
Those volumes on Tarot are the precursor to the volumes on writing craft tentatively titled INSIDE THE WRITER'S MIND.
That's a whole lot of tedious editing yet to do, and it will take time.
You can subscribe to this blog, or see my FRIENDFEED box for the various social networks where I'll put the announcement when the volumes are ready.
Meanwhile, you can find the Tarot posts by searching TUESDAY (my posting day) here, or start here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/12/10-pentacles-cake-comes-out-of-oven.html
and follow the directions to work backwards to the Ace of Swords (they are written to be read in sequence Ace to Ten.)
I'm very late getting this post written so it's not getting proofed very well. It should have gone up an hour ago! If anything here is unclear or not sufficient, please drop a comment and ask, or just say you don't get it.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://twitter.com/jlichtenberg
http://facebook.com/jacqueline.lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Monday, July 27, 2009
World Building For Writers: POLITICS
World Building For Writers, Or Why Everyone in the Galaxy doesn't Speak English
TOPIC: Politics
TOPIC: Politics
(again, from a course I taught in 2008)
Contemp? Sci Fi? Regency? Police Procedural? It doesn’t matter. If you write commercial genre fiction, then the political climate of your story world is important. It’s important because your character(s) relates to it in any way no way else does. I don’t care if it’s January 4th, 2005 or Solstice 1352 or Yelbragh 19498th . Whatever is going on politically in your story world has some impact on your story.
Some more than others. Let’s play with some ideas:
• A war or change of command destroys a long-standing monarchy
• Gay marriage is legalized globally
• Polygamy has never been a crime
• Women lose the right to vote
• Sorgs (a third gender long cast in to the role of caretakers) obtain the right to own property
• Gun ownership is banned in the US
• Legalized time travelers create a new level of citizenship…
It doesn’t end. Its limits are your creativity. Your plot. Your conflict.
Unless your story has a political plot line (Princess Leia has to find a way to stop Darth Vader and the evil emperor), the politics may be very much in the background. For the READER. But you, writer, need to know the political climate of every novel you pen, from a contemporary romance to a medical thriller to an outer space saga.
“But in a contemporary romance?” you squeak.
“Yep,” I bellow back.
Let’s say your characters, Josh and Jillian, are destined to fall in love. You, writer, know something must keep them apart in the beginning. ‘I don’t like you yet’ isn’t sufficient conflict. What is? Judging from contemps I’ve read, often is a subtly political issue: she’s a tree-hugger, he’s a corporate mogul paving paradise and putting up parking lots. She’s a nosy news reporter. He’s a secretive cop. Whatever.
The problem with writing in our current time period (give or take a dozen years) is that we’re so used to our “world” we forget the elements that build it. We forget that from the city councilwoman right up to POTUS, politics shape what we do daily, even if it’s the approval of a new skateboard park down the street, or a zoning decision that permits larger signs. Traffic lights exist at the intersections they do because at some point, some politician or political (regulatory) body decided those were the intersections that needed lights.
How do your characters feel about the mayor of their town, the governor of their state? Are your characters politically liberal or conservative? Again, this can be subtle in a contemporary novel—very subtle—or it can be a main issue. But you, writer, need to answer those questions.
Do you need those answers before you write? Depends. Are you a plotter or a pantser? Your writing style is your own. Just remember that the political climate—and your characters’ response to it—is a question that must, eventually, be answered.
If you write urban fantasy, you likely are inventing an entirely new political system, one where vampires or demons or werewolves have their own political agenda, and possibly even political party. If you write fantasy—what are the politics of magic? Would the use of magic be regulated? Taxed?
If you write outer space sagas than span star systems, you need to create a multitude of political and regulatory entities. No, one person cannot rule the galaxy, solo. It’s logically illogical. One person ruling an entire planet is even a stretch. There would be sub-governments, divisions, deputies, factions and more.
Contemp? Sci Fi? Regency? Police Procedural? It doesn’t matter. If you write commercial genre fiction, then the political climate of your story world is important. It’s important because your character(s) relates to it in any way no way else does. I don’t care if it’s January 4th, 2005 or Solstice 1352 or Yelbragh 19498th . Whatever is going on politically in your story world has some impact on your story.
Some more than others. Let’s play with some ideas:• A war or change of command destroys a long-standing monarchy
• Gay marriage is legalized globally
• Polygamy has never been a crime
• Women lose the right to vote
• Sorgs (a third gender long cast in to the role of caretakers) obtain the right to own property
• Gun ownership is banned in the US
• Legalized time travelers create a new level of citizenship…
It doesn’t end. Its limits are your creativity. Your plot. Your conflict.
Unless your story has a political plot line (Princess Leia has to find a way to stop Darth Vader and the evil emperor), the politics may be very much in the background. For the READER. But you, writer, need to know the political climate of every novel you pen, from a contemporary romance to a medical thriller to an outer space saga.
“But in a contemporary romance?” you squeak.
“Yep,” I bellow back.
Let’s say your characters, Josh and Jillian, are destined to fall in love. You, writer, know something must keep them apart in the beginning. ‘I don’t like you yet’ isn’t sufficient conflict. What is? Judging from contemps I’ve read, often is a subtly political issue: she’s a tree-hugger, he’s a corporate mogul paving paradise and putting up parking lots. She’s a nosy news reporter. He’s a secretive cop. Whatever.
The problem with writing in our current time period (give or take a dozen years) is that we’re so used to our “world” we forget the elements that build it. We forget that from the city councilwoman right up to POTUS, politics shape what we do daily, even if it’s the approval of a new skateboard park down the street, or a zoning decision that permits larger signs. Traffic lights exist at the intersections they do because at some point, some politician or political (regulatory) body decided those were the intersections that needed lights.
How do your characters feel about the mayor of their town, the governor of their state? Are your characters politically liberal or conservative? Again, this can be subtle in a contemporary novel—very subtle—or it can be a main issue. But you, writer, need to answer those questions.
Do you need those answers before you write? Depends. Are you a plotter or a pantser? Your writing style is your own. Just remember that the political climate—and your characters’ response to it—is a question that must, eventually, be answered.
If you write urban fantasy, you likely are inventing an entirely new political system, one where vampires or demons or werewolves have their own political agenda, and possibly even political party. If you write fantasy—what are the politics of magic? Would the use of magic be regulated? Taxed?
If you write outer space sagas than span star systems, you need to create a multitude of political and regulatory entities. No, one person cannot rule the galaxy, solo. It’s logically illogical. One person ruling an entire planet is even a stretch. There would be sub-governments, divisions, deputies, factions and more.
Why?
Because the entire planet, the entire star system, the entire galaxy doesn’t speak English.
Good world building must have two key elements as a base:
1 – Logic
2 – Plausibility
Where a lot of amateur SF and F writers fail is they ignore logic and plausibility in world building. The entire galaxy speaks English. All sentients look (relatively) the same and breathe oxygen. One being rules the universe.
A solar or star system is a very large physical area. A galaxy is gi-normous. The universe is, well, beyond galactic proportions. Logically, keeping in touch with and track of beings across the galaxy would not be an easy feat. Look at our own technological failures on our one planet and multiply that by thousands. “Can you hear me now?” is still the annoying war cry of cellular telephone customers. Computer systems crash. Computer systems get attacked by viruses. Yes, certainly, a civilization that is capable of star travel will have advanced communications system but they won’t be any more perfect than ours are today. They will break down, there will be dead zones, there will be technological limitations.
So the Universe’s OverLord can NOT transmit his proclamations instantaneously to his subjects, galaxy-wide. It just ain’t gonna logically happen.
The larger the scope of your novel, the more governmental and regulatory entities you’ll have populating it. As James Bond traverses the globe, he deals with the Russians, the Afghans, the French, the Bahamian government, the CIA, FBI, FAA and God only knows who and what else.
But you, writer, should know.The diversity on our own planet is the template you can use to create your cities, states, countries and worlds, whether you’re populating a distant galaxy or recreating New York City in a demon-run urban fantasy. We have the FAA and the CIA. We have school boards and zoning boards. We have steelworker’s unions. Some countries have presidents. Some have kings or queens. Yes, it could mean dragging out your old college Political Science textbook, but you need to do that when you build your story world.
Who would hold the power in your story world, and why? In many of CJ Cherryh’s SF novels, space captains and pilots hold a lot of power because they’re the necessary link in supplying the various worlds. Economics drive politics in those books. But in her FOREIGNER series, lineage and legal assassination fuel the political parties.
In my AN ACCIDENTAL GODDESS, religion heavily influences politics. Just as it does in the Middle East on our own planet. The Taliban, anyone?Politics also influences the creation of law enforcement agencies and militaries. A space based fleet will be of little help with a riot at a dirtside spaceport. Is local law enforcement independent or a puppet agency of a dictator? How are jurisdictions established?
Politics in your story world can be a driving force or it can be a subtle influence. But you, writer, must have it structured in your mind and in your notes, or you’ll be shortchanging your reader and your characters.
Some useful links:
Patricia Wrede’s Fabulous Questions
http://www.sfwa.org/writing/worldbuilding1.htm
WEBSITES:
World building:
http://www.writesf.com/00_Course_Outline.html
http://www.sfreader.com/authors/DavidWalton
http://www.specficworld.com/resources/world.html
http://www.sfwa.org/bulletin/articles/baxter.htm
http://www.sff.net/people/julia.west/CALLIHOO/webwriter.htm#worldbuilding
Historicals:
http://www.literary-liaisons.com/articleshome.html
http://www.literary-liaisons.com/resources.html
Some useful books for learning more about military/police:
Air Force Officer’s Guide, Col Jeffrey C Benton USAF, Stackpole Books, 2002
She’s Just Another Navy Pilot, Loree Draude Hirschman, Naval Institute Press, 2000
When You’re The Only Cop in Town, Jack Berry & Debra Dixon, Gryphon Books, 2002
Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets, David Simon, Ballatine, 1993
True Blue, Lynda Sue Cooper, Gryphon Books, 1999
~Linnea
HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, Feb. 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: www.linneasinclair.com
This wasn’t Fleet. This was at best a rogue’s gallery—an uncertain and desperate attempt at salvation and justice… Hope’s Folly suddenly sounded all too accurate.
This wasn’t Fleet. This was at best a rogue’s gallery—an uncertain and desperate attempt at salvation and justice… Hope’s Folly suddenly sounded all too accurate.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Twist wins Prism
Proud to announce that Twist won the Prism for best Time Travel at the Romance Writers of America's national conference in DC. The Prism is presented by the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapter of RWA and is one of the more prestigious awards given as it allows the Paranormal category to be broken down into its appropriate categories. Also Linnea Sinclair, who was not present, won for Best Futuristic Romance with Shades of Dark
Thursday, July 23, 2009
RWA
This past weekend I went to the Romance Writers of America conference in Washington, D.C. This was my second time, my first being in the year 2000 when it was last in D.C. Almost 2000 people attended this year’s RWA. To me, that’s a BIG convention, although regular attendees of five-figure-size conventions such as DragonCon and Otakon would snicker at the idea. Nevertheless, I had a great time and never felt lost. (Emotionally, at least. Literally, I wandered in constant confusion with the hotel’s floor plan.) The Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal chapter held its Gathering and awards dinner Thursday night, a cozy little event. After the awards, a panel of authors talked about their work.
Almost all the authors I heard were highly entertaining, informative, or both. Janet Evanovich (opening ceremony speaker) and Linda Howard (Thursday’s luncheon speaker) were very funny. Eloisa James, a historical romance novelist who’s also a university professor, spoke at Friday’s luncheon. I also attended a “chat with Nora Roberts,” and I can’t get over the fluency and wit of Evanovich and Roberts in answering an hour’s worth of questions “cold.” I would have to think over some of those questions all day to come up with any sort of coherent answer, much less a witty one. Jade Lee conducted a lively interactive session about the relationship between character and setting. A writer who had worked for many years in the funeral industry gave a two-hour presentation on “body disposal.” I was expecting an emphasis on criminal body disposal, but in fact the session focused on the legal issues, physical phenomena, and funerary customs surrounding death. Fascinating stuff, with slides (not many of them gross). In a workshop on avoiding clichés, I turned in the first two paragraphs of my vampire novel in progress for public critique and was properly humbled—but also helped and encouraged.
The RITA Awards on Saturday night featured romantic and humorous movie clips and author Anne Stuart as mistress of ceremonies performing comic snippets in a succession of silly outfits.
An exciting moment for me was meeting the editor of Silhouette Nocturne, where I have a submission pending, and having her recognize my name on sight.
In general, I prefer relaxing little conventions (such as Darkover, held every Thanksgiving weekend north of Baltimore), but I loved RWA even though it’s exhausting. When it finally rolls around to Washington again, I’ll go.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
Almost all the authors I heard were highly entertaining, informative, or both. Janet Evanovich (opening ceremony speaker) and Linda Howard (Thursday’s luncheon speaker) were very funny. Eloisa James, a historical romance novelist who’s also a university professor, spoke at Friday’s luncheon. I also attended a “chat with Nora Roberts,” and I can’t get over the fluency and wit of Evanovich and Roberts in answering an hour’s worth of questions “cold.” I would have to think over some of those questions all day to come up with any sort of coherent answer, much less a witty one. Jade Lee conducted a lively interactive session about the relationship between character and setting. A writer who had worked for many years in the funeral industry gave a two-hour presentation on “body disposal.” I was expecting an emphasis on criminal body disposal, but in fact the session focused on the legal issues, physical phenomena, and funerary customs surrounding death. Fascinating stuff, with slides (not many of them gross). In a workshop on avoiding clichés, I turned in the first two paragraphs of my vampire novel in progress for public critique and was properly humbled—but also helped and encouraged.
The RITA Awards on Saturday night featured romantic and humorous movie clips and author Anne Stuart as mistress of ceremonies performing comic snippets in a succession of silly outfits.
An exciting moment for me was meeting the editor of Silhouette Nocturne, where I have a submission pending, and having her recognize my name on sight.
In general, I prefer relaxing little conventions (such as Darkover, held every Thanksgiving weekend north of Baltimore), but I loved RWA even though it’s exhausting. When it finally rolls around to Washington again, I’ll go.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
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