The mantra that has leaped out at me from every corner of my little world is, "The Business Model must change." It comes in variations: The Business Model has failed. The Business Model is obsolete. The Business Model is outdated.
The way to make a profit marketing anything is to have the right business model.
I wish they'd taught me about marketing in grammar school instead of harping on penmanship and drawing maps -- even the hours spent mastering spelling turned out to be a waste since now spellcheck does it for you as you type. And arithmetic? Even my phone has a calculator!
A fiction writer is the sole proprietor of a BUSINESS and thus needs a business model, and that business model must be correct or the writer won't turn a profit.
What does a writer do with profits? Buy bread, milk, cheese, DVDs, books, and pay the utility bills, rent and lowest on the list is usually clothes.
So a writer needs to know not only how to craft a terrific idea into a story, but must craft that story to a business model. If the end product does not fit the correct business model, the end product (the novel) can't be well marketed, and there will be no profit.
The artist side of our creativity listens to the bean counters and screams SELLOUT! But it's not really. It's opportunism.
What good is great art that molders away in the artist's basement? To do its job, art must connect with an art consumer.
The artist or writer in this case (writing is a performing art, as I learned from Alma Hill) has three choices.
1)Write anything you want and let it molder away unread by anyone but yourself.
2) Write what you want and build a mechanism for delivering what you want to the people who want it. That is build a delivery chute for your art.
3) Or be an oppotuntist and write what you want, what fires your creative furies, but first shape it so you can PACKAGE IT to fit down existing delivery chutes.
If you try to build your own delivery chutes and conveyor belts, (which is what startup ebook publishers are doing using new tools) you incur an additional overhead and take time and energy away from writing.
If you use existing delivery chutes, you may squash your art with the shrinkwrap, but most of your art will reach consumers hungry for that product.
What's happening today that has publishing melting down (and reforming), that has the very definitions of genre changing faster than publishers can invent logos, that has profits dwindling and copyright becoming an archaic term nobody understands -- what's happening today is THE BUSINESS MODELS OF THE WORLD ARE MELTING DOWN.
That's right. It's not just publishing that has foundations crumbling, it's every kind of business there is from autos to construction, and even Old Time Religion revivals.
Politically, we're all blaming it on the financial industry and its business model that collapsed in 2008 (the whole idea of distributing risk via derivative securities; mortgages that were securitized and sold abroad -- that's a business model of how to make money off of selling to people who can't afford to buy what you're selling).
But we, as writers, have to look at a much bigger picture here. The reason the financial industry was able to grow the securitization business model so explosively lies way outside the financial industry. Their brilliant idea for a business model was possible because of the computerization of the whole world. They did it all by computer! (and didn't spend the extra money necessary to figure out how to de-construct those securities when parts of the mortgages failed or needed refinancing.)
The people in the finance industry who know they operate on a business model, and are artistically creative enough to create new business models created one -- and it didn't work well at its first big test.
But it was a brilliant piece of creative work, inventing a CHUTE to deliver their PRODUCT to a hungry MARKET. They built a new mechanism to deliver product, and they built it out of the newest high-tech computerized materials.
Take GM and Chrysler as an example of the opposite phenomenon. They didn't change their bussiness model to a computerized high tech model fast enough -- by the time they put any real effort into tech, they were so far behind the times that at the first titanic blow from outside their industry, they collapsed.
Publishing is in the same situation. The biggest publishers still insist on doing business on paper, and even demand printed manuscripts. Hollywood script submissions are also still somewhat skewed toward paper copies!
The EPIC list ( http://www.epicauthors.com/links.html ) is always abuzz with the issues of e-book reading devices and e-publishing, new publishing companies, specific genre requirements, and advice to authors on how to promote your latest book from a small, independent e-publisher.
As a reviewer, I can say that some (maybe a lot) of these e-books are easily as well crafted as anything Manhattan is publishing in Mass Market. But they're usually aimed at a much narrower, smaller market.
But this is changing too, and changing fast. Soon, the e-book will be the mass market "chute" to put your product down, and paper books will be for narrow, specialty markets.
Today, however, the Mass Market paperback sells more copies of any given title than e-books do.
If you want your art to reach a broad market, you have to understand what it means "Mass Market" -- and how that relates to "High Concept" in screenwriting.
Notice the word MARKET in the title of the pocket sized paperback printed on cheap paper that yellows and crumbles in a couple decades or less. (some do have quality paper; you can tell because they cost more and feel heavy in your hand. Those pages will out-last the glue.)
What does it mean, "mass" market? It means HUGE. The Mass Market paperback is designed to be delivered down a CHUTE that has a wide bore and is very long, with many branches.
When you think Market, think of a huge factory making many copies of a thing, trucks and boxcars waiting outside, loading up and chugging off to deliver some of those things to various destinations where they'll be sold.
Think of Henry Ford inventing the assembly line to create cars the mass-market people could afford. He wasn't the first to hit on this concept, but he was the first to apply it to a product people wanted and make it work, the Model T Ford.
The entire innovation of the industrial revolution is based on UNIFORMITY. It's based on ARBITRARY CONVENTIONS. It's based on STANDARDIZATION.
Prior to the industrial revolution, everything was made by hand -- embroidered seat cushions, shoes made by a cobbler to match your own feet, patchwork quilts, rugs on a loom. No two looms or weavers were alike, no two die lots matched even almost, and no two copies of the same item were ever the same!
The business model of the master mason who built buildings, the farrier who shoed horses, the blacksmith who made plough blades and rifles, was based on the individual, specialized, made-to-fit, customized, and truly excellent item. The mastercraftsman sold his items on his reputation for excellence, not uniformity.
There was no such thing as "quality control" and "planned obsolescence" (where the factory puts out a certain percentage of lemons set just below the complaint-tolerance level of the consumer, and designs the object to fail after a certain amount of usage so the customer will buy another one).
The business model was UNIQUENESS + EXCELLENCE.
It became UNIFORMITY + BARELY-GOOD-ENOUGH.
Alvin Toffler wrote a (HC + Mass Market Paperback) non-fiction book in the 1970's called FUTURE SHOCK which also had some sequels that rode on the success of the first one but added little to his message. His message was that the business model was about to shift again, a paradigm shift prompted by the computer age, that would change things nobody at that time was even thinking ever could change.
He was right! He predicted what he called a return to the cottage industry of the customized item -- as opposed to the factory produced uniform item. He predicted that commuting to work in a centralized office would be replaced by telecommuting. He didn't predict the internet, but because of the internet, his predictions have come true.
The E-book publisher is essentially a cottage industry. They employ editors, writers, POD printers, website builders, and billing system such as Paypal, scattered all over the world. And they deliver a customized product, a Niche Product, rather than the Mass Market product.
The film industry has seen the rise of the Indie company producing niche films with craftsmanship worthy of awards. And you all know YouTube! Everyone with a cell phone can make a video to post on YouTube -- though they all don't grab as big an audience.
Toffler's theory was that technology would free us from having to conform ourselves to the median, to accept what the average person wants because the mass market product is cheaper. He predicted that the customized product would be cheaper than the mass market product.
So far, that prediction hasn't happened.
The e-book is not reaching the huge, MASS of the mass market yet.
The BUSSINESS MODEL of "mass" is being chisled away, but it hasn't collapsed yet.
Still, look at the Neilsen numbers on cable news shows --
http://www.nielsenmedia.com/nc/portal/site/Public/menuitem.43afce2fac27e890311ba0a347a062a0/?vgnextoid=9e4df9669fa14010VgnVCM100000880a260aRCRD
Keep in mind that there are about 310 MILLION people in the USA and the typical TV show only draws 23 million or so. Maybe 30-40 million for a big news event.
30 Million out of 300 million is not a MASS MARKET.
We seem to be a fragmented and fragmenting nation, but maybe not. See the article on Facebook and Twitter I've sited near the end of this blog entry.
Toffler's vision is coming true -- technology (900 TV channels, thousands more online sources of entertainment, thousands more e-books per day published than paper books) has shattered the Mass part of the Mass Market. Mass Market paperbacks don't sell nearly what they once did to a much smaller nation (60 Million -- and a product had to reach a third of those to be successful.)
We have more choices and less knowledge of how to make wise choices.
Another of Toffler's predictions is coming to pass. His book was called FUTURE SHOCK because it predicted that the rate of change in the fundamental rules of living, working productively, and making wise choices among products would change faster than the basic human brain can adjust.
Toffler predicted that humans would go into a state of "shock" (being unable to think) because of the pace of change. He based this on the ability to adapt with age. In Medieval times, the methods and wisdom you learned from your father would last you all your life, and still be true when you died of old age.
A cobbler, for example, who knew the best method of dying shoe leather would end his career using that same method and it would still be state-of-the-art, though his grandson might encounter an improvement, but it would only be a slight improvement and it wouldn't shatter the cobbler business model.
Human beings need that kind of stability over their lifetimes. But technology has lengthened lifetimes and it looks like it will lengthen career-lifetimes. Meanwhile, whole industries have come and gone, and our methods of doing everything have been shifted on their foundations by (as Toffler predicted) the computerization of the world.
(and computerization has hardly BEGUN to penetrate all the way through this world)
Those who lived through the industrial revolution "came in off the farm" -- you can't keep 'em down on the farm was the song and slogan. Young people abandoned life on the land for the cities, and went to work in factories where they could make a fortune doing the same thing all day over and over.
And those factories turned out masses of identical objects.
That business model now co-exists (think Neanderthal and Homo sapiens) with the computer driven E-business model.
The E-business model is dissolving the foundation of the Mass Production business model faster than humans can adapt, so some older people still cling to the older model (and that's what collapsed GM) while some younger people grab for any crazy thing that's possible to do with the new tools (which caused the collapse of the financial system).
OK, now what's this image of the world got to teach writers about marketing?
One of the foundation cornerstones of the Mass Market Paperback business model is that authors are never EVER allowed to do their own marketing. In the 1970's, that began to fall away, and today, it's shifted entirely to the other end -- most authors, especially in e-books -- are required to do their own marketing (finance or make YouTube videos, online banner ads, virtual blog tours, and anything they can think of).
Meanwhile, authors aren't paid more to cover the expense of self-marketing.
The mass market business model is tilting dangerously askew because of this. The Mass Market model only works with a market that's massive in size. And with those markets, the publicists hired by the publisher (usually working in-house) do manage to reach reviewers and get buzz started about a book.
Note what Colby Hodge said in her blog entry here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/when-story-doesnt-work.html
Colby has swerved into a LARGER mass market because it's open to her, Historicals. Mysteries are still big. Westerns are gone. Romance is big, but (Toffler again) Romance is fragmenting. Mysteries are fragmenting too. Customization is slowly replacing Standardization which replaced customization even more slowly!
Since the cost per item is lowered by mass production, more people can afford to buy the item, and thus the item reaches more people in total. 10% hard-core fans made is 10,000 from a book that sells 100,000 copies, and 40,000 from a book that sells 400,000 copies.
How can an artist do this and keep their integrity?
By understanding the concept MARKETING from the inside and then applying that understanding to art.
The writer is essentially a creative person. The solution to every problem in life is to create something new that has never existed before and can't be copied because it is unique.
That is what storytelling is all about -- being unique. Being the only one telling this story. Being the single source for this customized product.
Your story, your characters, your plot, your theme are fresh, new, different, and therefore exciting. You know your story will ignite ravenous hunger for more in your fans, if only they knew you exist and could find your novel.
Writers entering the marketplace today have a unique problem.
"The Marketplace" is standing on a crumbling foundation, tilting worse that the Leaning Tower of Pizza.
New writers today have a career decision to make that no writer has ever had to make before.
You can write for the market that will, I'm sure, replace this one as the high-profit-margin business model, the e-book that is tailored and customized.
You can write for the old, traditional Mass Market that's still reaching a much wider (but diminishing) audience than the e-book and work at a fair but diminishing profit.
In other words, you can try to use the delivery chutes that e-book publishers are beginning to learn to build, or you can try to use the delivery chutes that Mass Market publishers are using.
In either case, before you "have an idea" for a story, you need to study the size and shape of the chute that will deliver it to your market, and you need to study that market, and train your subconscious to "have" ideas that fit the delivery chute you have chosen.
Business people create chutes. Writers fill them.
Some writers have both skill sets, and I've found lately that the currently most successful writers come out of the business community, with a background in commercial art, advertising art, advertising writing, and every aspect of managing a business.
But to be able to do your own, personalized, individualized creative art with its unique aspects intact, your integrity unblemished, and still reach a Mass Market customer base, you must create an idea that is already formulated to fit a commercial market.
Over the last 5 years, I've seen e-book publishers reinventing that uniformity of product. Profit lies in creating large numbers of identical things, so the unit price comes down.
That principle has been eroded but not replaced.
So writers need to learn how to apply wild, unbridled creativity to one part of the product they produce, and uniformity, conformity, and standardization to the other part.
The part of the story that has to "fit down the chute" -- has to be uniform. It has to be exactly like every other story that the chute was designed to deliver to a particular audience.
Imagine, if you swung through the Mall shopping 'till you dropped, and hit up the vending machine for a coke. You feed your bill into the slot and poke the button. Down comes the red can. Pop! Take a swig. IT'S 7-UP!!! Some people would spew it out on passers-by in shock, and scream for their money back. You might be more restrained, but still irked.
Our whole society and all our expectations are configured by standardization, uniformity, conformity.
We buy a coke; we want coke in the can.
It's the same way with novels. Buy a Romance, you want an HEA ending. Buy an Alien Romance, or a Paranormal, you want plenty of complications but satisfaction in the end, anyway.
Buy a Horror Novel, you want to be creeped out big time, right?
Romance, and Horror are two "chutes" that conduct a product from your mind to your reader's mind.
These chutes have been built by businesses with business models, and they depend on the standardization aspect of the product to make it fit down the chute and arrive at the correct audience. The genre formulas are the packaging, the standard aspect of the art. Plots, characterization, story, theme all are standardized so that marketers know what to market your art "as."
If they guess wrong, and package and market 7-Up as Coke, the market will evaporate.
Meanwhile, another part of the fiction market has been thriving on the return to customization. Board games such as Dungeons & Dragons which became all the rage in create-it-yourself fiction rely on a standardization of story and elements, put together in a creative way by a "dungeon master" who marshalls the playing group. The fun is in the group activity, and the push-pull among the players for command of the customization of their stories.
Board games still exist and are enjoyed, but the BUSINESS MODEL now still growing despite the recession is VIDEO-GAMES. The battle of the game-console technology is heating up, and online gaming is huge and growing (World of Warcraft; Second Life etc etc.)
The video and online gaming is an example of the new business model Toffler predicted, which discards standardization. But even in these games, uniform "rules" and standard ways of deploying resources (rolling dice for "powers" for your character) are what make the game go.
If you market a game that doesn't generate its rules via the standard formula, players won't flock to it. They don't want to learn everything from scratch in order to create their own fiction with your game no more than readers want to learn to read all over again just to read your book.
Today more young people play video games than read books.
What's going on there?
Maybe it's not what everyone thinks it is. Maybe it's not that young people don't want to READ. Or can't read.
Maybe it's what Toffler predicted. Customization replacing Standardization. Younger people growing up in the electronic age are embracing the new world their elders can't stretch to accomodate. They are willing to work to customize their tools (phones) and entertainment. They don't want to let someone else do it for them and make it like everyone else wants it to be. They want to make it their own way -- just like us creative artists want to write our own stories our own ways, not to fit the delivery chutes the marketers have built to suit their business model.
The basic human being can accept only so many paradigm shifts in one lifetime, and there have been several huge, basic "throw every skill you have out the window and start from scratch" paradigm shifts in the last 30 years. Everyone today who is over 50 is suffering some kind of FUTURE SHOCK.
Several times in a lifetime is just way too fast for humans.
Those who reject customization (some people have trouble programming their ring tones!) say things like "I prefer the feel of real books" despite the fact that a good e-book reader can customize the font to be more readable to old eyes. But of course, the "quality" (i.e. standardization) of the fiction available in the format can be an issue, too. Amazon's Kindle program is trying to break down that barrier by presenting the same Mass Market fiction as Kindle downloads.
The biggest innovation with Kindle that may reshape our landscape is that they deliver newspapers and magazines via Kindle download that is supposed to be hassle free for the computer-averse. That may save the business model of newspapers and magazines.
One day, the kids born in the 1990's will cling to their video consoles, e-book readers or handheld device despite the availability of something new that their children feel is "better."
How do you market fiction into this changing world?
Do you customize or standardize? Where, in the structure of fiction, does the creative writer get to create?
If you decide you'll have to build your own delivery chute between yourself and your consumer, here is a story about a person Jean Lorrah ran into at MediaWest Convention.
---------FROM JEAN LORRAH via email -------------------------
One of the reasons we do conventions: I just did a podcast with Mark Eller, who became a podcaster to publicize his own books. Here is the information for finding the interview online, though he doesn't know exactly when he will post it:
Bookmark http://www.podfeed.net/podcast/Chronicles+with+Mark+Eller/17298 . Then watch for an episode featuring me. In five minutes I managed to plug simegen.com, lochness-monster.com , tipsonwriting, jeanlorrah.com , the Sime~Gen books, the Nessie books, and the Savage Empire books.
Mark, at age 50, has suddenly fallen into a bunch of connections that have brought about the sale of seven of his books to small presses and his being chosen as a judge for a "reality" TV show on the CW network called The Write Stuff. http://www.thewritestufftv.com/ . The CW is a small network, but it is on most cable systems.
The premise of the show is that writers today have to do a heck of a lot more than writing for their books to succeed, and on the show they will have to demonstrate their abilities to do everything. What they win is a small press single-book contract and a marketing campaign, but who knows? If they get the 30 million viewers that they hope for, and one-thirtieth of them buy the book, it will be a huge best-seller.
It is VERY clear that the winner will not be the best writer, but the cleverest marketer among the contestants. But unfortunately that's what book publishing is today.
---------------END FROM JEAN LORRAH via email -----------------
Now that's an example of a man who is building a new fiction-delivery-chute.
And it's going in the right direction -- MEDIA. Via the podcast which is internet radio, usually voice only but sometimes with video now, niche audiences are being configured for each of thousands of special interests.
The total population of the world is growing fast, and the cost-per-unit of customized product is dropping fast. Where the two trends meet, niche marketing will explode.
Thus we have the call-in talk show done with online radio! And online radio advertising customized for novelists to promote their own work.
---------------FROM A PROMOTIONAL EMAIL ---------------
PIVTR has another new program in its line-up. It's called "Crazy Tuesday" (c) 07.
What's that? What is "Crazy Tuesday?" I'm delighted you asked.
"Crazy Tuesday" (c) 07 takes place on the first Tuesday of each month. Between the hours of 10 to 2 p.m. eastern standard time for $100, an author, playwright, screenwriter, actor/actress, free-lance, independent, publishing company, publicist, agent, the world can promote, market, brand, sell, advertise (whatever is clean and wholesome. PIVTR is a family station!) to get the word out about you and your product.
Contact Lillian for all of the details.
Don't delay. The first Tuesday of July and September are already booked!!
LCauldwell @ internetvoicesradio.com
Let the WORLD know about you!
Check out the website and look around: http://internetvoicesradio.com
----------------END PROMOTIONAL EMAIL---------------------
Web radio is another whole new business-model-busting tech application fragmenting the mass market and the underlying concept of standardization. It's a result of a huge paradigm shift, and many people are just shrugging off web radio as unimportant. It is, however, a harbinger of what is yet to come. (we've barely started on computerizing the world)
The production cost is way down because there's no broadcast antenna, huge airwave license fee, and electric bill. Some simple equipment that's easily available, some software specializing in recordings that can be webcast, a short but steep learning curve, and the talented and determined are in business, building a niche audience for a customized product.
The audiences on web radio are large and growing. Like e-books, the audience size doesn't rival Mass Market media like Cable and Broadcast TV, but like e-books this entertainment delivery system is chiselling away at the foundations of the mass market business model.
That foundation is Standardization. Standardization was developed to reduce unit costs to where the vast majority of people could afford the product if they wanted it.
Cost reduction via technology is making standardization obsolete in certain aspects of product design -- the aspects that the consumer can customize themselves.
Microsoft rose to dominance on standardizing the platform (Windows) and letting developers create applications all of which run on the same command sets and design look.
Their success changed the business model of the computing world that Toffler was familiar with. And yet his predictions are coming true, one by one.
The lesson writers can take away from all this is that success in this churning market depends on standardizing the invisible and the user interface -- letting the consumer customize everything else.
See my post on Web 2.0. The Web concept failed, and it's being patched with customizing tools like RSS feeds, news and social networking aggregators, twitter aggregators, etc.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-love-web-20.html
For a writer, that means standardize your plot structure then use your creative art to induce the reader to IMAGINE THEIR OWN STORY using your story as a springboard into their own story.
Your product is no longer your own story. In this changing world, your product is fuel for your readers' imagination in ways it never could be before.
And it's all about marketing, not writing talent. The best marketer will win.
Check out this recent news story on Yahoo Tech news
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090522/tc_nm/us_summit_social_2
----------quote-----------
And analysts and investors, in search of the next Google-like hit, are paying close attention to the breakneck speed at which Facebook and Twitter are adding new users.
While the popularity of the two social media firms has yet to translate into the kind of revenue-generating machine that Google Inc developed with its search advertising business, some say Facebook and Twitter have become so central to the Internet experience that they are inherently valuable.
...
Facebook grew to 200 million active users in April, less than a year after hitting 100 million users.
----------end-quote--------
Note that 200 million. Check the sizes of the average TV shows in viewers. Small wonder advertisers are abandoning TV -- which can be seen as each hour carries more and more minutes of ads instead of show. They're desperately trying to get enough advertising bucks to keep the shows on the air.
Read that exerpt. Listen to how they think and how they talk. "monetize" "adding new users" "inherently valuable" -- and "internet experience" !!! --
Amusement and Entertainment (which is what novels are) has become an "experience."
Interactive, and most of all customized, experience.
The whole social networking phenomenon is an example of customized entertainment. And it's being made into a mass market product. But the current business model can't figure how to monetize it, and that figuring is indeed being done by people so young they probably never read Alvin Toffler's brilliant bit of futurology, Future Shock.
Toffler was right about so much, chances are the answers are in there.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Heroes, Finalists and Deadlines...
Daq-Cat, Miss Doozy Kitty and your truly want to extend our deepest appreciation to all heroes, past and present, today as here in the USA, it's Memorial Day: military personnel, law enforcement personnel, emergency medical personnel, emergency veterinary personnel. All those who put their lives on the line for unknown and other unseen others. We salute you, we honor you, we wish you and yours many blessings. We'd not have the life, the freedoms we do today but for your diligence and sacrifices. Thank you.
Shameless BSP: The Prism Award Finalists Are Announced!
Posted with permission:
"Jennette Heikes & Theresa Kovian are pleased to announce and congratulate our finalists in the Prism Contest in alphabetic order:
Dark Paranormal
Immortals: The Redeeming by Jennifer Ashley
Hotter After Midnight by Cynthia Eden
Mona Lisa Craving by Sunny
Erotica
A Mermaid's Kiss by Joey W. Hill
Carnal Desires by Crystal Jordan
Siren Singing by Isabo Kelly
Fantasy
The Dragon Master by Jennifer Ashley w/a Allyson James
Dragonborn by Jade Lee
King of Sword & Sky by C.L. Wilson
Futuristic
Fallen by Claire Delacroix
Moonstruck by Susan Grant
Shades of Dark by Linnea Sinclair
Light Paranormal
La Vida Vampire by Nancy Haddock
The Trouble with Moonlight by Donna MacMeans
Wicked Game by Jeri Smith-Ready
Novella
"The Spacetime Pool" by Catherine Asaro
"Dark Nest" by Leanna Renee Hieber
"Kung Fu Shoes!" in These Boots were Made for Stomping by Jade Lee
Time Travel
Twist by Colby Hodge
Madman's Dance by Jana G. Oliver
A Sexy Time of It by Cara Summers
Young Adult
Cave of Terror by Amber Dawn Bell
CHOSEN: A House of Night Novel by P.C. Cast
Sleepless by Terri Clark
Category winners and rankings, as well as the coveted Prism Statue Award, will be announced on July 16, 2009 in Washington D.C. at RWAR National and Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal Chapter at The Gathering.
Jennette Heikes, Co-coordinator for Dark Paranormal, Erotica, Novella & Time Travel
Theresa Kovian. Co-coordinator for Fantasy, Futuristic, Light Paranormal & Young Adult"
Dark Paranormal
Immortals: The Redeeming by Jennifer Ashley
Hotter After Midnight by Cynthia Eden
Mona Lisa Craving by Sunny
Erotica
A Mermaid's Kiss by Joey W. Hill
Carnal Desires by Crystal Jordan
Siren Singing by Isabo Kelly
Fantasy
The Dragon Master by Jennifer Ashley w/a Allyson James
Dragonborn by Jade Lee
King of Sword & Sky by C.L. Wilson
Futuristic
Fallen by Claire Delacroix
Moonstruck by Susan Grant
Shades of Dark by Linnea Sinclair
Light Paranormal
La Vida Vampire by Nancy Haddock
The Trouble with Moonlight by Donna MacMeans
Wicked Game by Jeri Smith-Ready
Novella
"The Spacetime Pool" by Catherine Asaro
"Dark Nest" by Leanna Renee Hieber
"Kung Fu Shoes!" in These Boots were Made for Stomping by Jade Lee
Time Travel
Twist by Colby Hodge
Madman's Dance by Jana G. Oliver
A Sexy Time of It by Cara Summers
Young Adult
Cave of Terror by Amber Dawn Bell
CHOSEN: A House of Night Novel by P.C. Cast
Sleepless by Terri Clark
Category winners and rankings, as well as the coveted Prism Statue Award, will be announced on July 16, 2009 in Washington D.C. at RWAR National and Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal Chapter at The Gathering.
Jennette Heikes, Co-coordinator for Dark Paranormal, Erotica, Novella & Time Travel
Theresa Kovian. Co-coordinator for Fantasy, Futuristic, Light Paranormal & Young Adult"
What I find so cool on a personal note is that I blurbed (ie: read the manuscript before publication for a quote/opinion) both MOONSTRUCK and FALLEN and totally loved both books!
I'm also jazzed to see Colby Hodge, Jade Lee, Donna MacMeans, Isabo Kelly, Catherine Asaro, C.L. Wilson and Leanne Renee Hieber on the list. Except for Donna, they were all part of either my Intergalactic Bar & Grille party or the SF/F panel at RT this year. Woot!
Now, back to work for me... (that's the deadlines part). ~Linnea
SHADES OF DARK, the sequel to Gabriel’s Ghost, July 2008 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/
Something cascaded lightly through me—a gentling, a suffused glow. If love could be morphed into a physical element, this would be it. It was strength and yet it was vulnerability. It was all-encompassing and yet it was freedom. It was a wall of protection. It was wings of trust and faith.
It was Gabriel Ross Sullivan, answering the questions I couldn’t ask. Not that everything would be okay, but that everything in his power would be done, and we’d face whatever outcomes there were together.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Mixed Metaphors and other inspiration
I meant to take questions... but forgot. My apologies. I've been deeply wrapped up in writing articles for a new authors' marketing and promotion advice website 1stTurningPoint.com
My first three topics were LinkedIn.com, Tips for Creating Buzz, and Online Piracy.
In the course of my peregrinations around the social networks, I saw a mixed metaphor that had originally been used in a business context, and which was being mocked as horrible writing.
"We're skating on thin ice. If we're not careful, we'll end up in hot water."
Being the contrarian and underdog lover that I am, I immediately started to imagine an alien world where the metaphors could work together. It's the moon Europa that is an ice planet with water underneath. Right?
It would only take a submarine volcano...
Actually, we wouldn't have to go to Europa. Imagine a volcano under the Arctic. Poor polar bears. Alas for the Russians if they started to drill for oil in the wrong spot, just to stake a claim.
The other bit of text that going me going was a url that I enjoyed so very much that I had to make a joke on LinkedIn.com .
http://whorepresents.com
Yesterday, I noticed that the punctuation on the url has been changed to http://WhoRepresents.com thereby thwarting a storyline I was considering where my Prince Thor-quentin might visit the offices hoping to acquire a gift to take home to his brother. Actually, it doesn't thwart it, as long as the old url was in use in 1995.
Best wishes for everyone's safety this Memorial Day weekend!
Rowena Cherry
alien romances, futuristic romances
My first three topics were LinkedIn.com, Tips for Creating Buzz, and Online Piracy.
In the course of my peregrinations around the social networks, I saw a mixed metaphor that had originally been used in a business context, and which was being mocked as horrible writing.
"We're skating on thin ice. If we're not careful, we'll end up in hot water."
Being the contrarian and underdog lover that I am, I immediately started to imagine an alien world where the metaphors could work together. It's the moon Europa that is an ice planet with water underneath. Right?
It would only take a submarine volcano...
Actually, we wouldn't have to go to Europa. Imagine a volcano under the Arctic. Poor polar bears. Alas for the Russians if they started to drill for oil in the wrong spot, just to stake a claim.
The other bit of text that going me going was a url that I enjoyed so very much that I had to make a joke on LinkedIn.com .
http://whorepresents.com
Yesterday, I noticed that the punctuation on the url has been changed to http://WhoRepresents.com thereby thwarting a storyline I was considering where my Prince Thor-quentin might visit the offices hoping to acquire a gift to take home to his brother. Actually, it doesn't thwart it, as long as the old url was in use in 1995.
Best wishes for everyone's safety this Memorial Day weekend!
Rowena Cherry
alien romances, futuristic romances
Saturday, May 23, 2009
When a story doesn't work
Yes its me, the missing blogger. There are a lot of reasons for my lack of posts, the foremost being that I've been working on historicals lately and its hard for me to think "alien" when I'm back in another century. The other is that my Colby Hodge career has taken a beating lately. I got so far behind in my writing with my dad's illness last year that Colby kind of fell by the wayside. Then she ran out of contract right when the economy tanked. So while I have fans asking for the next books in the Star series, the publisher doesn't want to publish them. Its all about the sales. (But please Zander fans, keep asking. Let the publisher know you want his book.)
So I finished a historical, started the next one and took a look at what was going on in my career and the market. Since my publisher did not want to go with more Star books I wrote up a proposal on another series. A sci/fi heavy post apocolyptic world that would cover three books. It had mech heroes, paranormal heroines, and three different societies all struggling for control. I shopped it around to several different publishers and it got rejected at each one. There was no empathy for the characters. Quite a blow to me, who writes strong character driven stories. Also this market is just not strong enough at the moment. The fan base just is not there. The fans are hard core but the numbers don't support it. While I love the genre, my sales in historicals are four times what I sell in sci-fi.
So what does my failure to sell this series have to do with writing? Stick around for the next several weeks and you'll find out. I'm going to post the proposal, then show you what I did to revamp it for a new and rising trend in today's market.
Jericho by Cindy Holby writing as Colby Hodge
Things are not always what they seem.
Setting: A dark future
There are times in history when progress takes a great leap forward. The twentieth century was such a time. In that century, innumerable discoveries were made that changed the face of the world.
Late in the twenty-first century a synthetic was created called admanium. It was touted that this synthetic could bond with any living tissue. People with missing limbs could have new ones bonded into their skeleton and with the advent of synthetic skin no one would know the difference between the original and the replacement. Further experiments were done to see if the admanium could be used to replace failing organs such as kidneys, the liver, or even the heart but while the substance could bond, it could not replicate the purposes of those organs.
During these experiments another discovery was made… a discovery that changed everything. Admanium displayed the ability to bond with brain cells. Alzheimers and Dementia were no longer a dreaded result of the aging process. Through outside stimulus those that suffered from these diseases were able to live out their lives in a normal way and recall their loved ones.
This led to another discovery. A discovery made by a group heavily involved in researching connectomics which is the wiring of the brain. Researchers could trace the estimated 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses and the human mind became an instrument of great power. It also proved beyond any doubt that the human mind held paranormal capabilities. An International Institute for Paranormal Research was formed with scientists from around the world. They discovered that Admanium administered to subjects with paranormal tendencies could achieve mind control over those who did not possess such talents. When the discovery was made public, the general outcry was one of fear and paranoia instead of joy.
Everyone wanted the power. Nations worried that others may use it against them. Mass hysteria broke out around the world. Paranoia became the norm. War broke out and biological weapons were used. The great cities of the world were decimated and the nations of the world became isolated from each other by circumstance and by choice. The biologics also affected the weather into extremes. The far north became an artic wasteland, earthquakes destroyed everything west of the Rockies and the East coast began at the Appalachian Mountains. Islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific disappeared beneath giant waves, along with Southeast Asia and Japan.
Some people survived because of immunity to the biologics. Others were forever genetically altered. Some sought refuge in the mountains and forests. Others stayed closed to what were once the cities and did what they could to build a new society. In times such as these the strongest take control. The IPR (Institute for Paranormal Research) formed a new society in the Midwestern United States and with new technology developed from the admanium enclosed the surviving generations in a dome. All of the Dome citizens were encouraged to lead peaceful lives through subliminal messaging enhanced by the admanium.
Not everyone went inside the dome. Some of the survivors did not want to be controlled by the IIPR who felt they knew what was best for everyone. There were in the IIPR who thought they should have all the power. Then there were some who just wanted to be left alone.
The dome is run by a ruling council which oversees the administration of the PRISMs. (Paranormal Research Instruments of Subliminal Messaging or PRISMs) The PRISMs are culled from the general population by the IPR to be instruments of the government. In reality they are nothing more than tools, used for their paranormal abilities and attached to the computers that regulate every aspect of life inside the dome. The PRISMs are controlled by the governing body which then make “suggestions” to the PRISMs who in turn use subliminal messaging to keep the population under control. Everyone is happy and everyone is at peace and order is kept in society. The PRISMs have no idea of what they are doing in reality. Due to the mind control that the council holds over them, they live in a dream like state called symlife where they think they are functioning normally. In reality they are kept plugged into the computers where they eventually wither up and die. There are some who hold value and the use of muscle stimulants and intravenous feeding keeps them alive for a while and easy prey for the whims of the council.
Those who do rebel against the council suffer a worse fate. Some are executed. Some, who are deemed to have potential, are reintroduced into society with some alterations made by the admanium. They become servants and are used to work the baser tasks that keep the society running. Others are incorporated into the army after being outfitted with the admanium so that they may better serve the society that they harmed with their criminal acts. All of these have their memories and consciousness erased so that all they know is obeying the orders given to them without thought.
Edmond Swain is part of the ruling council. That is not enough for him. He thinks there should be one person in charge instead of a council. But in order to achieve that goal he needs an edge. He needs a PRISM that is stronger than the others. He begins a quiet search for someone who he can use to accomplish his goal.
Outside the dome people are just trying to survive. They have their own independent society. They till the earth and scrounge for whatever they can find to make life more livable. They have to put up with disease, the elements and the wild beasts that roam the deep forests that have reclaimed the earth. They also have to deal with the lawlessness of the Scrabbers who inhabit the mountains and only attack at night. The so called Scrabbers are descended from those who suffered genetic mutation due to the Great Biologic War.
Those who live ouside believe freedom is worth their struggle to survive. They are free of the whims of the IPR ruling council, except when the council decides their lawlessness needs to be controlled and send their mechanized army to attack and acquire workers for the dome.
Merritt and Dax live outside the dome in the place called The Real. Dax’s father is the leader of the group and hopes that Dax will take over some day. Dax doesn’t think about that now as he is in love with Merritt. He knows there is something special about her and trusts her instincts as she seems to know when trouble is coming their way.
On the day of their wedding the mechs from the dome attack. Everyone scatters from the celebration but the mechs follow only Dax and Merritt. It is as if they are being tracked as they run through the ruins of the former city. Finally they are cornered and Dax is severely injured when he tries to fight them. Merritt is taken and Dax is given over to the mechs to replace the soldier that he killed.
Swain takes Merritt as his PRISM. He alters her memory so that she thinks she is his daughter and the symlife that she lives as she is connected to the master computer is very real. Except for the dreams she has. The dreams of her past life with Dax.
Dax is enhanced with the admanium and incorporated into the mechs. They are all interconnected to each other and to the master computer. It is there that he sees flashes of his past life. His sees images from his life with Merritt and he realizes what has happened to him. His consciousness returns and he rebels and escapes with one thought.
Find Merritt.
He finds help in a Doctor who thinks Swain and the council are committing crimes against humanity. At one time he had been involved with genetic research using admanium. He realized what he was doing was wrong and went into hiding where he helps those who try to escape their fate. Meanwhile the council is after Dax because if it is known that a mech has escaped and the life chosen for him it will bring chaos down upon their society.
Dax finally finds Merritt and takes her away. But Merritt does not know if Dax is real or just a product of her dreams. She does not know which life is truly hers. The one Swain created for her or the one she lived in the Real. Only Dax’s love can bring her back to discover her true self. Then she can help him defeat Swain and the council and show the inhabitants of the Dome that really living life makes it all worth while.
Next week chapter one.
So I finished a historical, started the next one and took a look at what was going on in my career and the market. Since my publisher did not want to go with more Star books I wrote up a proposal on another series. A sci/fi heavy post apocolyptic world that would cover three books. It had mech heroes, paranormal heroines, and three different societies all struggling for control. I shopped it around to several different publishers and it got rejected at each one. There was no empathy for the characters. Quite a blow to me, who writes strong character driven stories. Also this market is just not strong enough at the moment. The fan base just is not there. The fans are hard core but the numbers don't support it. While I love the genre, my sales in historicals are four times what I sell in sci-fi.
So what does my failure to sell this series have to do with writing? Stick around for the next several weeks and you'll find out. I'm going to post the proposal, then show you what I did to revamp it for a new and rising trend in today's market.
Jericho by Cindy Holby writing as Colby Hodge
Things are not always what they seem.
Setting: A dark future
There are times in history when progress takes a great leap forward. The twentieth century was such a time. In that century, innumerable discoveries were made that changed the face of the world.
Late in the twenty-first century a synthetic was created called admanium. It was touted that this synthetic could bond with any living tissue. People with missing limbs could have new ones bonded into their skeleton and with the advent of synthetic skin no one would know the difference between the original and the replacement. Further experiments were done to see if the admanium could be used to replace failing organs such as kidneys, the liver, or even the heart but while the substance could bond, it could not replicate the purposes of those organs.
During these experiments another discovery was made… a discovery that changed everything. Admanium displayed the ability to bond with brain cells. Alzheimers and Dementia were no longer a dreaded result of the aging process. Through outside stimulus those that suffered from these diseases were able to live out their lives in a normal way and recall their loved ones.
This led to another discovery. A discovery made by a group heavily involved in researching connectomics which is the wiring of the brain. Researchers could trace the estimated 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses and the human mind became an instrument of great power. It also proved beyond any doubt that the human mind held paranormal capabilities. An International Institute for Paranormal Research was formed with scientists from around the world. They discovered that Admanium administered to subjects with paranormal tendencies could achieve mind control over those who did not possess such talents. When the discovery was made public, the general outcry was one of fear and paranoia instead of joy.
Everyone wanted the power. Nations worried that others may use it against them. Mass hysteria broke out around the world. Paranoia became the norm. War broke out and biological weapons were used. The great cities of the world were decimated and the nations of the world became isolated from each other by circumstance and by choice. The biologics also affected the weather into extremes. The far north became an artic wasteland, earthquakes destroyed everything west of the Rockies and the East coast began at the Appalachian Mountains. Islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific disappeared beneath giant waves, along with Southeast Asia and Japan.
Some people survived because of immunity to the biologics. Others were forever genetically altered. Some sought refuge in the mountains and forests. Others stayed closed to what were once the cities and did what they could to build a new society. In times such as these the strongest take control. The IPR (Institute for Paranormal Research) formed a new society in the Midwestern United States and with new technology developed from the admanium enclosed the surviving generations in a dome. All of the Dome citizens were encouraged to lead peaceful lives through subliminal messaging enhanced by the admanium.
Not everyone went inside the dome. Some of the survivors did not want to be controlled by the IIPR who felt they knew what was best for everyone. There were in the IIPR who thought they should have all the power. Then there were some who just wanted to be left alone.
The dome is run by a ruling council which oversees the administration of the PRISMs. (Paranormal Research Instruments of Subliminal Messaging or PRISMs) The PRISMs are culled from the general population by the IPR to be instruments of the government. In reality they are nothing more than tools, used for their paranormal abilities and attached to the computers that regulate every aspect of life inside the dome. The PRISMs are controlled by the governing body which then make “suggestions” to the PRISMs who in turn use subliminal messaging to keep the population under control. Everyone is happy and everyone is at peace and order is kept in society. The PRISMs have no idea of what they are doing in reality. Due to the mind control that the council holds over them, they live in a dream like state called symlife where they think they are functioning normally. In reality they are kept plugged into the computers where they eventually wither up and die. There are some who hold value and the use of muscle stimulants and intravenous feeding keeps them alive for a while and easy prey for the whims of the council.
Those who do rebel against the council suffer a worse fate. Some are executed. Some, who are deemed to have potential, are reintroduced into society with some alterations made by the admanium. They become servants and are used to work the baser tasks that keep the society running. Others are incorporated into the army after being outfitted with the admanium so that they may better serve the society that they harmed with their criminal acts. All of these have their memories and consciousness erased so that all they know is obeying the orders given to them without thought.
Edmond Swain is part of the ruling council. That is not enough for him. He thinks there should be one person in charge instead of a council. But in order to achieve that goal he needs an edge. He needs a PRISM that is stronger than the others. He begins a quiet search for someone who he can use to accomplish his goal.
Outside the dome people are just trying to survive. They have their own independent society. They till the earth and scrounge for whatever they can find to make life more livable. They have to put up with disease, the elements and the wild beasts that roam the deep forests that have reclaimed the earth. They also have to deal with the lawlessness of the Scrabbers who inhabit the mountains and only attack at night. The so called Scrabbers are descended from those who suffered genetic mutation due to the Great Biologic War.
Those who live ouside believe freedom is worth their struggle to survive. They are free of the whims of the IPR ruling council, except when the council decides their lawlessness needs to be controlled and send their mechanized army to attack and acquire workers for the dome.
Merritt and Dax live outside the dome in the place called The Real. Dax’s father is the leader of the group and hopes that Dax will take over some day. Dax doesn’t think about that now as he is in love with Merritt. He knows there is something special about her and trusts her instincts as she seems to know when trouble is coming their way.
On the day of their wedding the mechs from the dome attack. Everyone scatters from the celebration but the mechs follow only Dax and Merritt. It is as if they are being tracked as they run through the ruins of the former city. Finally they are cornered and Dax is severely injured when he tries to fight them. Merritt is taken and Dax is given over to the mechs to replace the soldier that he killed.
Swain takes Merritt as his PRISM. He alters her memory so that she thinks she is his daughter and the symlife that she lives as she is connected to the master computer is very real. Except for the dreams she has. The dreams of her past life with Dax.
Dax is enhanced with the admanium and incorporated into the mechs. They are all interconnected to each other and to the master computer. It is there that he sees flashes of his past life. His sees images from his life with Merritt and he realizes what has happened to him. His consciousness returns and he rebels and escapes with one thought.
Find Merritt.
He finds help in a Doctor who thinks Swain and the council are committing crimes against humanity. At one time he had been involved with genetic research using admanium. He realized what he was doing was wrong and went into hiding where he helps those who try to escape their fate. Meanwhile the council is after Dax because if it is known that a mech has escaped and the life chosen for him it will bring chaos down upon their society.
Dax finally finds Merritt and takes her away. But Merritt does not know if Dax is real or just a product of her dreams. She does not know which life is truly hers. The one Swain created for her or the one she lived in the Real. Only Dax’s love can bring her back to discover her true self. Then she can help him defeat Swain and the council and show the inhabitants of the Dome that really living life makes it all worth while.
Next week chapter one.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Coming Attractions
Jacqueline Lichtenberg and I are lining up a few very special guests for days that the regulars aren't able to fill.
Look forward to:
David Lee Summers (on Space Pirates)
Cathy Clamp
Rachel Caine on June 12th (on Vampires)
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Look forward to:
David Lee Summers (on Space Pirates)
Cathy Clamp
Rachel Caine on June 12th (on Vampires)
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
All Romance Is Alien Romance
At our latest Marriage Encounter meeting, the presenting couple read us an abridged version of THE VELVETEEN RABBIT, the classic story about a stuffed bunny who is made real by a little boy's love. The discussion question focused on moments in our married life when our spouse's love makes us feel "real." Coincidentally, the homily at my niece's wedding this past weekend touched on the same subject, with the message that when love takes us outside of ourselves, we become most truly ourselves. That strikes me as an excellent capsule description of the value of romance novels.
At our best, we make our beloved feel "real" by making him or her the center of our universe. I imagine one of the sharpest losses involved in widowhood must come from no longer being the most important person in the world to one other person. Fortunate widows and widowers continue to enjoy the love of children, friends, or siblings, but those people all have their own lives. It couldn't be the same as having a life partner who creates that feeling of "realness" in a unique way. Romance fiction of all subgenres captures this wonderful experience and allows the reader to relive it in all its freshness with each new story.
To achieve this feeling of being "real," we have to bridge the gulf between our self and another person who is also locked inside his or her own skull. If we are all mysteries to each other, and especially if men are from Mars and women are from Venus, in a sense all romance is "alien romance." By writing about unions between human characters and supernatural entities, mythical creatures, or extraterrestrials, authors make concrete the metaphor of reaching out to the Other that underlies all erotic love no matter how "mundane."
Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)
At our best, we make our beloved feel "real" by making him or her the center of our universe. I imagine one of the sharpest losses involved in widowhood must come from no longer being the most important person in the world to one other person. Fortunate widows and widowers continue to enjoy the love of children, friends, or siblings, but those people all have their own lives. It couldn't be the same as having a life partner who creates that feeling of "realness" in a unique way. Romance fiction of all subgenres captures this wonderful experience and allows the reader to relive it in all its freshness with each new story.
To achieve this feeling of being "real," we have to bridge the gulf between our self and another person who is also locked inside his or her own skull. If we are all mysteries to each other, and especially if men are from Mars and women are from Venus, in a sense all romance is "alien romance." By writing about unions between human characters and supernatural entities, mythical creatures, or extraterrestrials, authors make concrete the metaphor of reaching out to the Other that underlies all erotic love no matter how "mundane."
Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The Medium Is The Message
This is a writing lesson in the effect of SETTING on story, plot and character -- i.e. the place of SETTING in storytelling. And this lesson is from a Hollywood producer.
J. Neil Schulman, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Neil_Schulman
the SF writer and producer of the (incredible!!) movie (starring Nichelle Nichols) LADY MAGDELENE'S, sent me an email advertisement with an itinerary for a Cruise titled PSYCHICS AT SEA.
Yes, this is a real ad from a real company, Carnival Cruise.
Schulman's comment on this ad was: Does this sound like a perfect setting for an episode of Monk, Murder She Wrote, Matlock, or what? (for our non-USA residents, these TV shows are cultural icons here. I wish I could give the equivalent in your own culture).
Thus primed, almost salivating, I scrolled down to read the advertisement (I mean, I KNOW Neil and he's really sharp about this stuff) and as I read, INSTANTLY stories began scrolling behind my eyeballs.
This is the effect Blake Snyder (and other screenwriters) label "High Concept." One sentence and you're seeing whole stories. But no two people necessarily see the same stories! It's all ideosyncratic and internal. Novelists must (these days) hit for the highest possible concept for a novel because it's only the high concept novels that get advertising push from publishers! So this is a lesson for all writers.
If you don't have a complete grasp of High Concept, see http://www.blakesnyder.com/2006/02/the-death-of-high-concept/
and read the comment on Blake's post by Sarah Beach which she posted on Feb 9th (not the earlier comment).
Keep the concept of High Concept firmly in mind while you read about this SETTING and note what stories scroll behind your eyeballs.
Your stories might not be Romance, per se. Neil suggested a number of detective mystery characters who would explode into a plot set here. Your character could be from international intrigue, or the Dirty Dozen, a politician, a Pathologist. The setting could include Grand Opera or retired Western actors or any other group with a common interest thematically related to your main character.
Before you open your imagination and read on to see what I thought of, jot down what you think of as you read about this setting. This is a writing exercise, and it's not "just for fun." You could find yourself with a real, genuine, sellable HIGH CONCEPT. Relax and read this.
Here's the advertisement sans graphics:
----------------------
PSYCHICS AT SEA
Cruise on the Carnival Triumph to Canada
Sept 3-7 Labor Day weekend
Presented by Susan Duval Seminars and Utopia Travel
Thursday, Sept 3: Departure mid-morning by private bus from the Doylestown area to the port in NYC. Refreshments will be provided, compliments of Utopia Travel. Upon boarding, get settled in your cabin (complimentary chocolates and wine for everyone!) and have fun exploring the ship. A Meet and Greet Reception with the Psychics will be held in the early evening. Our group will be seated together for dinner, and our wonderful Guest Psychics will join different tables each night, so that you can get to know them personally.
Friday, Sept 4: Fun Day at Sea. Get a private reading and attend a seminar given by one of our outstanding psychics, and enjoy the camaraderie of new friends with similar interests from our area. In addition, you'll be able to get luxurious spa services, sit outside on the deck, go to an art auction, visit the duty-free shops, see a first class stage show, try your luck at the casino, sing karaoke at the piano bar, play mini-golf, take a yoga class, work out at the gym, soak in the whirlpool, get pampered at the hair salon, dine on fabulous gourmet meals in beautiful settings, and dance the night away. There are tons of activities for children and teenagers as well. Bring the family!
Saturday, Sept 5: Stay on-board and relax, or choose one or more shore excursions in charming St John, New Brunswick. Some of the options are: lobster cookout, kayaking on the St. John River, harbor cruise, Bay of Fundy coastal photography class, golfing at Rockwood Country Club, discover the picturesque fishing village of St Martins, St John River cruise, visit a rural farm, or explore Hopewell Rocks (a designated UNESCO biosphere reserve). You may register for your excursion when full payment is made or while you're on board. Another psychic seminar or gallery will be offered in the evening.
Sunday, Sept 6: Another Fun Day at Sea to relax, enjoy the amenities of the cruise ship, receive private readings, and get to know your new friends. A seminar or gallery will be held during the day.
Monday, Sept 7: disembark at 9:30am and take the bus back to the Doylestown area. You'll be back in time for your neighborhood Labor Day picnics in the afternoon!! Brag about your cruise!!
-----------------------------
Schulman is a FILM PRODUCER (and an SF writer). He saw this advertisement and his mind produced stories in PICTURES.
Jot down what pictures you see.
Here's what came to my mind, just instantly off the top of my head, that I wrote back to Schulman.
---------------
Oh, yeahhhh. Among the showman psychics is of course a REAL one.
A showman psychic wants to murder the real one for being too good, but the real one strikes first and throws the showman psychic-murderer overboard into the icy water, or better if it's a Monk ep then the real psychic innoculates the showman psychic with whatever virus is killing people aboard ship, but they're stuck at sea because of a storm that tosses the ship around and makes everyone vomit.
I can just see Jessica Fletcher making friends with a real psychic. Jessica would be very protective, but then find she's protecting the murderer -- but then find it was self-defense.
Monk would catch whatever virus is killing people and solve the crime anyway.
Or better yet, let Monk be onboard under cover posing as a psychic. He's good enough to make the showmen think he's the real thing. But the really REAL psychic catches him and thinks Monk is the murderer because he isn't who he says he is.
Oh, the SETTING can become THE STORY. Nice.
---------------
And Schulman wrote back:
Practically writes itself, doesn't it? :-)
-----------------
And yes, stories that arise from a High Concept do indeed "write themselves."
When you find a story you are writing dies in your hands, it's very possible the real problem lies in the Concept itself.
Or possibly in the Setting.
If you change the setting of your story, you might find everything about the story morphing before your eyes into something that could attract serious advertising money.
You can also refresh a story you're writing by changing the SETTING of only one scene. See Blake Snyder's technique he calls POPE IN THE POOL in SAVE THE CAT! (http://www.blakesnyder.com/ )
"Pope in the Pool" is the technique of setting an expository lump in a place fraught with suspense and cognitive dissonance due to the setting is a very old trick. In writing for the stage, they teach you to sit your main character in a chair centerstage, a chair with a BOMB planted under it.
Blake Snyder names the technique after a scene where two people in an office in the Vatican dialogue at each other about the exposition while the viewer sees through the window that the Pope is swimming in his private pool. And you can't take your eyes off the Pope because you're wondering what he's wearing, or not wearing and whether someone else will notice. Meanwhile, you learn all this important stuff about the story. A "Pope In The Pool" technique can be worked into almost any story, including narrative.
The bomb and fuse gimmick is the suspense image and it can work if done literally, but stands for any EVENT the viewer will anticipate while watching a clock (fuse) tick off the seconds until the event HITS the characters who will be surprised and have to react.
Notice both the bomb and the pool are SUSPENSE techniques, but they are VISUAL. Even in narrative, go for the VISUAL. Use the reader's imagination to evoke the image by reference to the SETTING. (Pope = Vatican)
What the bomb is and what the fuse is can be derived from the SETTING, either the setting for this whole story, or the setting for this particular scene.
The artistically appropriate suspense mechanism will leap out at you once you've selected the correct SETTING for your story.
Note how Schulman was thinking (not what he thought, but HOW he arrived at the thought).
Here's a setting, PSYCHIC CRUISE. What interesting character do we know who would have an adventure on a Cruise? And he thought of a couple of well known TV "characters" who have done shows on cruise boats (BUT THIS IS A PSYCHIC CRUISE).
But you should think of the characters who've been floating around in your own mind for a while. Characters you know well. Then think of a theme for the Cruise (or Dude Ranch expedition, safari, whatever) that would be the last place on earth you'd ever be able to drag that character (conflict is the essence of story!) Go for high contrast here.
Neither Monk nor Fletcher would normally choose to go on a psychic cruise. So immediately, I thought of what would bring each of these characters to this cruise and added my usual SF twist (the unthinkable is in fact true - lump it - that's SF's prime mechanism).
You know the "formula" of the Monk Episode, and the Murder She Wrote Episode. If you've seen 5 or so episodes of either show, you KNOW that formula. Some of those episodes may be available online.
So given the SETTING, and a CHARACTER, and given a plot-structure, the whole story unreels before your eyes. That's what Concept does.
Now, take that SETTING of the Psychic Cruise, pick a character you've got bouncing around in your head or about whom you've been writing and choose a plot-structure you've mastered.
Put them all together and write an OUTLINE of a story (or 3 stories).
Can anyone provide the URL of the posts where I've discussed outlining?
Now do the exercise again with another specialized group on a Theme Cruise (there was once a Star Trek Cruise with the stars of the show -- pick a theme of your own.) Note you can also do this in space, cruising across the galaxy with various species in confined quarters.
Some scriptwriting books call this a BOTTLE -- you bottle-up the characters, confining them. That creates CONFLICT that must RESOLVE within the bottle, a conflict that wouldn't exist were it not for the bottle.
Then do it again, trying to inject all the potential for VISUALS that Schulman saw in this advertisement for a Psychic Cruise.
Perhaps you want to start by writing the galactic advertisement.
That's the exercise, but it could produce something that's actually sellable. In that case, don't post it anywhere. Develope it yourself. But if you spin off useless material as I did, show us what you produced on editingcircle.blogspot.com in the comments section.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com/
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
http://twitter.com/JLichtenberg
J. Neil Schulman, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Neil_Schulman
the SF writer and producer of the (incredible!!) movie (starring Nichelle Nichols) LADY MAGDELENE'S, sent me an email advertisement with an itinerary for a Cruise titled PSYCHICS AT SEA.
Yes, this is a real ad from a real company, Carnival Cruise.
Schulman's comment on this ad was: Does this sound like a perfect setting for an episode of Monk, Murder She Wrote, Matlock, or what? (for our non-USA residents, these TV shows are cultural icons here. I wish I could give the equivalent in your own culture).
Thus primed, almost salivating, I scrolled down to read the advertisement (I mean, I KNOW Neil and he's really sharp about this stuff) and as I read, INSTANTLY stories began scrolling behind my eyeballs.
This is the effect Blake Snyder (and other screenwriters) label "High Concept." One sentence and you're seeing whole stories. But no two people necessarily see the same stories! It's all ideosyncratic and internal. Novelists must (these days) hit for the highest possible concept for a novel because it's only the high concept novels that get advertising push from publishers! So this is a lesson for all writers.
If you don't have a complete grasp of High Concept, see http://www.blakesnyder.com/2006/02/the-death-of-high-concept/
and read the comment on Blake's post by Sarah Beach which she posted on Feb 9th (not the earlier comment).
Keep the concept of High Concept firmly in mind while you read about this SETTING and note what stories scroll behind your eyeballs.
Your stories might not be Romance, per se. Neil suggested a number of detective mystery characters who would explode into a plot set here. Your character could be from international intrigue, or the Dirty Dozen, a politician, a Pathologist. The setting could include Grand Opera or retired Western actors or any other group with a common interest thematically related to your main character.
Before you open your imagination and read on to see what I thought of, jot down what you think of as you read about this setting. This is a writing exercise, and it's not "just for fun." You could find yourself with a real, genuine, sellable HIGH CONCEPT. Relax and read this.
Here's the advertisement sans graphics:
----------------------
PSYCHICS AT SEA
Cruise on the Carnival Triumph to Canada
Sept 3-7 Labor Day weekend
Presented by Susan Duval Seminars and Utopia Travel
Thursday, Sept 3: Departure mid-morning by private bus from the Doylestown area to the port in NYC. Refreshments will be provided, compliments of Utopia Travel. Upon boarding, get settled in your cabin (complimentary chocolates and wine for everyone!) and have fun exploring the ship. A Meet and Greet Reception with the Psychics will be held in the early evening. Our group will be seated together for dinner, and our wonderful Guest Psychics will join different tables each night, so that you can get to know them personally.
Friday, Sept 4: Fun Day at Sea. Get a private reading and attend a seminar given by one of our outstanding psychics, and enjoy the camaraderie of new friends with similar interests from our area. In addition, you'll be able to get luxurious spa services, sit outside on the deck, go to an art auction, visit the duty-free shops, see a first class stage show, try your luck at the casino, sing karaoke at the piano bar, play mini-golf, take a yoga class, work out at the gym, soak in the whirlpool, get pampered at the hair salon, dine on fabulous gourmet meals in beautiful settings, and dance the night away. There are tons of activities for children and teenagers as well. Bring the family!
Saturday, Sept 5: Stay on-board and relax, or choose one or more shore excursions in charming St John, New Brunswick. Some of the options are: lobster cookout, kayaking on the St. John River, harbor cruise, Bay of Fundy coastal photography class, golfing at Rockwood Country Club, discover the picturesque fishing village of St Martins, St John River cruise, visit a rural farm, or explore Hopewell Rocks (a designated UNESCO biosphere reserve). You may register for your excursion when full payment is made or while you're on board. Another psychic seminar or gallery will be offered in the evening.
Sunday, Sept 6: Another Fun Day at Sea to relax, enjoy the amenities of the cruise ship, receive private readings, and get to know your new friends. A seminar or gallery will be held during the day.
Monday, Sept 7: disembark at 9:30am and take the bus back to the Doylestown area. You'll be back in time for your neighborhood Labor Day picnics in the afternoon!! Brag about your cruise!!
-----------------------------
Schulman is a FILM PRODUCER (and an SF writer). He saw this advertisement and his mind produced stories in PICTURES.
Jot down what pictures you see.
Here's what came to my mind, just instantly off the top of my head, that I wrote back to Schulman.
---------------
Oh, yeahhhh. Among the showman psychics is of course a REAL one.
A showman psychic wants to murder the real one for being too good, but the real one strikes first and throws the showman psychic-murderer overboard into the icy water, or better if it's a Monk ep then the real psychic innoculates the showman psychic with whatever virus is killing people aboard ship, but they're stuck at sea because of a storm that tosses the ship around and makes everyone vomit.
I can just see Jessica Fletcher making friends with a real psychic. Jessica would be very protective, but then find she's protecting the murderer -- but then find it was self-defense.
Monk would catch whatever virus is killing people and solve the crime anyway.
Or better yet, let Monk be onboard under cover posing as a psychic. He's good enough to make the showmen think he's the real thing. But the really REAL psychic catches him and thinks Monk is the murderer because he isn't who he says he is.
Oh, the SETTING can become THE STORY. Nice.
---------------
And Schulman wrote back:
Practically writes itself, doesn't it? :-)
-----------------
And yes, stories that arise from a High Concept do indeed "write themselves."
When you find a story you are writing dies in your hands, it's very possible the real problem lies in the Concept itself.
Or possibly in the Setting.
If you change the setting of your story, you might find everything about the story morphing before your eyes into something that could attract serious advertising money.
You can also refresh a story you're writing by changing the SETTING of only one scene. See Blake Snyder's technique he calls POPE IN THE POOL in SAVE THE CAT! (http://www.blakesnyder.com/ )
"Pope in the Pool" is the technique of setting an expository lump in a place fraught with suspense and cognitive dissonance due to the setting is a very old trick. In writing for the stage, they teach you to sit your main character in a chair centerstage, a chair with a BOMB planted under it.
Blake Snyder names the technique after a scene where two people in an office in the Vatican dialogue at each other about the exposition while the viewer sees through the window that the Pope is swimming in his private pool. And you can't take your eyes off the Pope because you're wondering what he's wearing, or not wearing and whether someone else will notice. Meanwhile, you learn all this important stuff about the story. A "Pope In The Pool" technique can be worked into almost any story, including narrative.
The bomb and fuse gimmick is the suspense image and it can work if done literally, but stands for any EVENT the viewer will anticipate while watching a clock (fuse) tick off the seconds until the event HITS the characters who will be surprised and have to react.
Notice both the bomb and the pool are SUSPENSE techniques, but they are VISUAL. Even in narrative, go for the VISUAL. Use the reader's imagination to evoke the image by reference to the SETTING. (Pope = Vatican)
What the bomb is and what the fuse is can be derived from the SETTING, either the setting for this whole story, or the setting for this particular scene.
The artistically appropriate suspense mechanism will leap out at you once you've selected the correct SETTING for your story.
Note how Schulman was thinking (not what he thought, but HOW he arrived at the thought).
Here's a setting, PSYCHIC CRUISE. What interesting character do we know who would have an adventure on a Cruise? And he thought of a couple of well known TV "characters" who have done shows on cruise boats (BUT THIS IS A PSYCHIC CRUISE).
But you should think of the characters who've been floating around in your own mind for a while. Characters you know well. Then think of a theme for the Cruise (or Dude Ranch expedition, safari, whatever) that would be the last place on earth you'd ever be able to drag that character (conflict is the essence of story!) Go for high contrast here.
Neither Monk nor Fletcher would normally choose to go on a psychic cruise. So immediately, I thought of what would bring each of these characters to this cruise and added my usual SF twist (the unthinkable is in fact true - lump it - that's SF's prime mechanism).
You know the "formula" of the Monk Episode, and the Murder She Wrote Episode. If you've seen 5 or so episodes of either show, you KNOW that formula. Some of those episodes may be available online.
So given the SETTING, and a CHARACTER, and given a plot-structure, the whole story unreels before your eyes. That's what Concept does.
Now, take that SETTING of the Psychic Cruise, pick a character you've got bouncing around in your head or about whom you've been writing and choose a plot-structure you've mastered.
Put them all together and write an OUTLINE of a story (or 3 stories).
Can anyone provide the URL of the posts where I've discussed outlining?
Now do the exercise again with another specialized group on a Theme Cruise (there was once a Star Trek Cruise with the stars of the show -- pick a theme of your own.) Note you can also do this in space, cruising across the galaxy with various species in confined quarters.
Some scriptwriting books call this a BOTTLE -- you bottle-up the characters, confining them. That creates CONFLICT that must RESOLVE within the bottle, a conflict that wouldn't exist were it not for the bottle.
Then do it again, trying to inject all the potential for VISUALS that Schulman saw in this advertisement for a Psychic Cruise.
Perhaps you want to start by writing the galactic advertisement.
That's the exercise, but it could produce something that's actually sellable. In that case, don't post it anywhere. Develope it yourself. But if you spin off useless material as I did, show us what you produced on editingcircle.blogspot.com in the comments section.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com/
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
http://twitter.com/JLichtenberg
Monday, May 18, 2009
So what's Dock Five really like?
One of the most fun, writerly things is inventing and describing alien (as in, not where you're sitting right now) settings and places in SF/SFR books. One of the toughtest writerly things is inventing and describing alien settings and places in SF/SFR books.
Mugwump much, Linnea?
One of the things I've wondered about since I was a wee kidling (and yeah, I really did think about this stuff) is whether the color I deem to be "red" is the color you see. That is, I know we have an agreed upon experience called "this is the color red" but do my eyes and brain process 
and interpret that color the same way you do? We've been told that cats and dogs only see in shades of gray. So if I asked Daq-cat to point out something "red" (ie: the cover of SHADES OF DARK), though we both would agree the cover was red, what he sees is different than what I see. His "red" would be, we're told, a shade of gray. Mine is, well, what I call "red." (And who's to say I'm right and he's wrong?)
and interpret that color the same way you do? We've been told that cats and dogs only see in shades of gray. So if I asked Daq-cat to point out something "red" (ie: the cover of SHADES OF DARK), though we both would agree the cover was red, what he sees is different than what I see. His "red" would be, we're told, a shade of gray. Mine is, well, what I call "red." (And who's to say I'm right and he's wrong?)Lost yet?
Have another cup of coffee.
I think about things like that when I write my settings, my worlds, my ships. Which is why I get into arguments with myself as to how much to describe in some level of detail, and how much to describe in concept and let you all come to your own interpretations. Especially when I'm describing or dealing with something that has no exact counterpart in our current experience.
So what is Dock Five--that seedy, disreputable conglomeration of mining rafts in deep space somwhere near the Aldan-Baris border--really like? What is the Boru Karn, Sully's personal ship, really like? Is Admiral Mack's Cirrus One Station the same as Chaz Bergren's Moabar Station? Well, no. Cirrus One has parrots. But other than that, does Linnea have a stock space station she drops into each story?
In my mind, no, oddly enough. My mind's eye sees Moabar Station and Dock Five and Cirrus One in completely different colors and styles. To a great extent, it's as if I drop myself into my character's skin and see his world exactly as he sees it. (Which adds another layer of personal interpretation...oy!). But all--since I'm still me--have to have a constant basis of information and experience.
For me it's cruise ships. As many of you know, that's been an addiction of mine for several decades. The feeling of being isolated, dependent and yet with pretty much everything you need (including a full hospital) is something I've drawn from being on cruise ships. But what if my reader has never been on a cruise ship, or never served on a naval vessel? What if my reader is a land-locked Kansas farm-dwelling reader from a long line of land-locked Kansas farmers?
How do I make them understand what Dock Five or the Boru Karn is really like?
I think this is one of the problems non-SF readers have with coming in to SF or SFR: this flow into and acceptance of the never-experienced. Reading SFF trains the mind to reach for analogies and find a workable interpretation--even if perhaps that interpretation isn't what the author had in mind. SFF readers don't mind not fully getting everything at first. They're willing to go along for the ride and figure it out as it happens.
But if a reader's experience on the pages has been predominantly the known and familiar: a supermarket, a television, a Chevrolet pick-up, it can require a little more work, a little more "suspension of disbelief" to envision the bridge of a starship. I see this happening most often when my books are reviewed by a romance site and a reviewer who admits s/he's never read SF before or much SF. The reviewer may note: loved the book but wish Sinclair added more description of the starship bridge. The same book reviewed by an SF or paranormal romance site will state: loved the book and her descriptions were so spot-on I felt as if I were there!
One of the keys, obviously, is that everything is experienced through the characters. But keep in mind that to my characters--other than Theo Petrakos in The Down Home Zombie Blues--their "normal" is our "unreal." Starship bridges, faster-than-light travel, Stolorths, telepathic furzels and bio-cybes are their norm.
So what is Dock Five really like? It's seedy, run-down, cramped and smelly. Yet it functions; for the most part, its inhabitants aren't in fear of their lives from the facility (the denizens are another matter). Is it the same as a back-alley in some derelict New York City neighborhood? If you want it to be, sure. But it's different that that. For one thing, there's no sky. And you can't 
eventually run away from the area--there's really no escape (unless you can breathe vacuum). Dock Five--to me--has something of the feel and smell of subways tunnels. A factory or warehouse basement. But without the brick/stone moldy smell. It's all metallic. It's small enough to be familiar to its inhabitants (something that makes them feel secure) but large enough and, moreover, convoluted enough in design to make getting lost a very real possibility. (corridor image from DAZ3D)
eventually run away from the area--there's really no escape (unless you can breathe vacuum). Dock Five--to me--has something of the feel and smell of subways tunnels. A factory or warehouse basement. But without the brick/stone moldy smell. It's all metallic. It's small enough to be familiar to its inhabitants (something that makes them feel secure) but large enough and, moreover, convoluted enough in design to make getting lost a very real possibility. (corridor image from DAZ3D)A maze? Kinda sorta. But not quite.
It goes back to whether or not the red I see is the red you see.
So how much do you bring your own experiences into what you read, and how much are you willing to let the author take you on an unfamiliar journey?
~Linnea
SHADES OF DARK, the sequel to Gabriel’s Ghost, July 2008 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/
The Karn jerked hard, alarms screaming in triplicate, overload warnings flashing. The grating sound of metal wrenching echoed off the bulkheads. Snapped power lines whipped past the front viewport as something thumped, hard, and something else thudded, once, twice. The ship lurched then we were thrown sideways, my armrest catching me in the ribs in spite of my safety straps.
“Full shields!” I said hoarsely. God damn, that hurt. “Verno, don’t let her spin. Marsh, crank those sublights higher.”
We dove away from station—a hideously ugly departure. Narfial controllers cursed the Fair Jeffa, assuring us the freighter was back on course and was never a threat to us at dock.
“Bite my ass,” Sully intoned.
The Karn jerked hard, alarms screaming in triplicate, overload warnings flashing. The grating sound of metal wrenching echoed off the bulkheads. Snapped power lines whipped past the front viewport as something thumped, hard, and something else thudded, once, twice. The ship lurched then we were thrown sideways, my armrest catching me in the ribs in spite of my safety straps.
“Full shields!” I said hoarsely. God damn, that hurt. “Verno, don’t let her spin. Marsh, crank those sublights higher.”
We dove away from station—a hideously ugly departure. Narfial controllers cursed the Fair Jeffa, assuring us the freighter was back on course and was never a threat to us at dock.
“Bite my ass,” Sully intoned.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Star Trek 2009
Yes I am a total Trekkie. I admit it. I was so enraptured with Star Trek that my posse and I pretended to be the cast. And yes I was Captain Kirk. We were also talking Trek. We were so outrageous about it that the "cool" members of our girl scout troop used us as an example of how geeky can you get. I have to laugh at that now. After all Star Trek is still around and I did get published in the genre. And I wouldn't change my geekdom for anything. It made me who I am today and fed my imagination. I even wrote fan fic before fan fic was cool.
So imagine my excitement at another Trek movie. With a young hot cast who did not fail to give tribute to the original players. The movie was everything I could want and more. Chris Pine was appropriately rebellious yet managed to laugh at himself. Zachary Quinto gave Spock a sexiness that was too die for. I won't give that secret away, lets just say he "smoldered" And the rest of the cast was just perfect. Sulu's tribute to George Takei's fencing scene, Karl Urban channeling Bones (Was anyone else skeptical at that casting decision? I now bow down to whoever made that decision and say awesome!) Uhura's mysteriousness and Chekov's accent were spot on. and Scotty. I couldn't wait to hear him say..."I'm giving her all she's got!"
Please powers that be, tell me there will be more. As for me, I'm seeing it again this week and can't wait for the DVD release. Santa, please put it in my stocking so I can once more sink into Trek bliss.
Can you tell I loved it?
Sequel Trouble
If you have a question or topic you'd like addressed, please post it in a comment, and we'll try to help.
Lisa writes:
Getting going on Book 2 is a fabulous strategy. When I was doing the Unpubbed contest circuit, I noticed that the authors who were entering two titles at the same time seemed to do much better... in that they retired much sooner from the lists, and I infer that they made sales.
How much to repeat... is an important balance when you've built an alien world, and yet every book in the series has to be a stand-alone.
When I was writing Insufficient Mating Material (sequel to Forced Mate), my editor Alicia Condon suggested that I ought to take J K Rowling as my role model as regards backstory telling.
If course, I was not going get the page count or the ink. So, I spent a delightful summer acquainting myself with Harry Potter, and trying to extrapolate proportions for "potted" versions of my own backstory. (Bad pun. Couldn't resist. Sorry!)
Here's my take: (Somewhat repetitive)
1. Break any rule of thumb rather than bore your reader.
2. Avoid info dumps at all costs. (Six lines of explanation is more than enough.)
3. On any given page, tell the reader only what she absolutely must know in order to understand the current action, or rules of your alien world.
4. Delay telling as much as you can of the back story.
5. Reunions of beloved characters from the previous book are fun for your established readers, but not so much for someone coming cold to Book 2, not having read Book 1, so any cameo appearances must be meaningful and advance the new story.
6. Use family trees, charts, maps with annotations as creative and visually different techniques for communicating backstory, who's who info etc.
7. Do not rely on being able to use footnotes. Some editors will be nervous about the possibility of the printer being unable to line them up.
8. "Dear Reader" letters in the Front Matter are a possibility, but frequently are skipped by the very reader you wanted to bring up to speed.
9. Prologues ought to be short, but can be very useful and entertaining. A great example would be the J K Rowling scene where the Minister of Magic is obliged to brief the British Prime Minister.
10. Consider putting a fresh spin on the backstory by having someone else relate it... I like to remember that "Summer Lovin'" duet from Grease where the Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta characters gave different accounts of a sweet summer romance.
11. My personal favorite backstory comunicator is my own Grievous. A "Greek Chorus" character is extremely useful. Or an employee who habitually covers his backside by making absolutely sure he understands his orders.
What have I missed?
Rowena Cherry
Lisa writes:
I might want to get going on Book 2. But knowing how much to repeat from Book 1 is becoming a bit of a struggle.
Getting going on Book 2 is a fabulous strategy. When I was doing the Unpubbed contest circuit, I noticed that the authors who were entering two titles at the same time seemed to do much better... in that they retired much sooner from the lists, and I infer that they made sales.
How much to repeat... is an important balance when you've built an alien world, and yet every book in the series has to be a stand-alone.
When I was writing Insufficient Mating Material (sequel to Forced Mate), my editor Alicia Condon suggested that I ought to take J K Rowling as my role model as regards backstory telling.
If course, I was not going get the page count or the ink. So, I spent a delightful summer acquainting myself with Harry Potter, and trying to extrapolate proportions for "potted" versions of my own backstory. (Bad pun. Couldn't resist. Sorry!)
Here's my take: (Somewhat repetitive)
1. Break any rule of thumb rather than bore your reader.
2. Avoid info dumps at all costs. (Six lines of explanation is more than enough.)
3. On any given page, tell the reader only what she absolutely must know in order to understand the current action, or rules of your alien world.
4. Delay telling as much as you can of the back story.
5. Reunions of beloved characters from the previous book are fun for your established readers, but not so much for someone coming cold to Book 2, not having read Book 1, so any cameo appearances must be meaningful and advance the new story.
6. Use family trees, charts, maps with annotations as creative and visually different techniques for communicating backstory, who's who info etc.
7. Do not rely on being able to use footnotes. Some editors will be nervous about the possibility of the printer being unable to line them up.
8. "Dear Reader" letters in the Front Matter are a possibility, but frequently are skipped by the very reader you wanted to bring up to speed.
9. Prologues ought to be short, but can be very useful and entertaining. A great example would be the J K Rowling scene where the Minister of Magic is obliged to brief the British Prime Minister.
10. Consider putting a fresh spin on the backstory by having someone else relate it... I like to remember that "Summer Lovin'" duet from Grease where the Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta characters gave different accounts of a sweet summer romance.
11. My personal favorite backstory comunicator is my own Grievous. A "Greek Chorus" character is extremely useful. Or an employee who habitually covers his backside by making absolutely sure he understands his orders.
What have I missed?
Rowena Cherry
Twenty Five Free Ways To Buzz A Book
My grandmother on the distaff side used to say, "If you've nothing nice to say, don't say anything..." Switch "nice" for "helpful" and you have my current philosophy.
I've recently been invited to become a contributing member of the teaching blog "1st Turning Point", which got me thinking about what I have to offer (or pay forward), and I took a look at a "25 Ways to Promo" list which I assembled a while back. I'm astonished how important Amazon seemed three years ago. Now... I think my old list is out of date. So here's my new 25 point "To Do" list.
All authors for the purpose of this article will be considered female. (No sexism intended).
#1. Help the search engines find her. Why? Even if you know where to find your alien romance writing friend, her blog, and her books, “hits” help. The more visitors the search engine spiders find, the more priority the author's website gets. So: Google her. Ask Jeeves about her. Dogpile her. A9 search her. Use Alexa. Try a Yahoo search. Blog search. Search on Technorati. Even better, set up a Google Alert for her name, also common misspellings of her name, and for her book titles.
#2. Having “Searched” or been "Alerted", Visit… her website; blogs; author pages. If you may comment, do so. Everyone who takes the time to blog or post content is grateful when visitors comment. Human nature leads more people to read a post that has received a lot of comments.
#3 Follow. Favorite. Share. Google's Blogger, Twitter, Facebook "Pages", Squidoo lenses, You Tube videos and more allow you to become a follower or a fan. Do so. Connect wherever you can. It's good for both of you, because follower/fan photos show up.
#4 Click to read (and rate) any reviews she has written, or Lists she has set up. These days, anyone can make an EssentiaList on Barnes and Noble.com, a Listmania on Amazon.com, a Top Ten list on Chapters.Indigo.ca, also Listopia on GoodReads.com/ If you like her reviews or lists, click Helpful.
#5. If you see a good review of a book you've enjoyed —on any bookselling site that allows customers and visitors to comment on reviews-- click Helpful if it truly is a helpful review. Votes help both the reviewer and the author.
#6. Tag her books wherever you can. Amazon isn't the only place (Amazon isn't even one site… there's Amazon.ca, Amazon.uk, Amazon.de etc etc) Many book selling sites encourage readers to tag.
What is a tag? It's a search term that a reader might be using to find a type of book she likes, when she is looking for a new author. Some tags might be "Romance", "Fantasy", "Mystery", "Shapeshifter", "Georgian Romance", "Humor" or "Space Opera".
#7. When you are on an admired author's Amazon book page, click on links to:
Put it on your wish list, it’s extra, free advertising for the book. Tell a friend. Scroll down the book page to Tag this product. Or make a search suggestion).
#8. Join in the Customer/Reader discussions on her book page, or on the forums. Ask a question. Start a discussion. Hundreds of eyeballs scan the discussions on Barnes and Noble bookclubs. The search engines pick up on the discussions. The longer a discussion keeps going, the better the PR buzz for your friend. This does not just apply to Amazon and B&N. Discussion anywhere is "buzz".
#9. Review her book… Most people know that a customer can write a review on Amazon.com. There's a purchase requirement with Amazon (and I think with Barnes and Noble, too). However, many sites don't require a reader to have bought a book from them in order to post a review: GoodReads.com, Shelfari.com, LibraryThing.com, E-Bay, Powells, FlipKart, We-Read (on Facebook), NexTag etc etc.
#10. Smak her. Have you ever noticed the "Add This" or "Share" or "Recommend" widgets on online pages and on You Tube? If you think your author friend's blog, or news about her is interesting, syndicate the news to Digg It, Reddit, Technorati, Stumble Upon, Furl and as many of the other 40 or so sites as you have time and energy for. It's self promo when she does it. It's news when someone else does it.
Smak is SmakNews.com. News for women, posted by women.
#11. If the author has a reminder on a public calendar (Amazon has one, other sites have the function, too) for a booksigning near you, click on Remind Me Too. Booksignings are nerve-racking. Support is always appreciated, even if you don’t buy a book.
#12. If she lists an "Event", which one can on Facebook, GoodReads, and too many other places to mention, be sure to RSVP with a kind comment about the book.
#13. Make her a top friend on MySpace, Bebo etc, Give her book cover image as a "gift" on Facebook, with her permission, make her cover into a widget or tile it as a background, or keep it on the top page of your Shelfari/GoodReads/MyB&N display of what you are reading.
#14. If you have a MySpace page or Bebo.com, or Twitters, or Clasmates.com, or facebook.com, or theyack.com (and if you don’t, but really want to help, get one… it’s free) invite your author friends to be your friends there. Write a bulletin about your friend or her book. Add a comment on their profile page’s comments section. Your comment is their opportunity to say something about their book without the appearance of soliciting. Review their book on your MySpace blog. Or on You Tube!
#15. If her publisher has a forum, join it and ask her questions. For instance, Dorchester Publishing (home of Leisure and LoveSpell authors) has http://forums.dorchesterpub.com/
Again, your comment will be seen by hundreds, if not thousands, and it will give your friend a reason to post something interesting and quotable about her book without seeming to be self-promoting.
#16. If you have a blog or website, (and you should always secure your own domain name before you become famous yourself) publicize your friend’s upcoming signings/author talks/workshops on your blog. Mention her website URL. Link to your author friend’s website or blog on yours. Put her book as a 'must read' on your own site, or in your own newsletter. Have a list of links to authors you like, and blogs you enjoy.
#17. If you belong to readers’ group sites, or book chat sites, or special interest sites, post what you are reading. Plugs never hurt. These are also picked up on RSS feeds and the search engines.
#18. Join your favorite author’s yahoo group, let her know where you’ve seen her book in stores, or where you’ve seen discussions of her book, or reviews of her book.
#19. Drop in on her online chats to say how you enjoyed her book. Supportive friends at chats are cool because chats can be chaotic, and typing answers takes time.
#20. Tweet on Twitter about how much you are enjoying the book. Retweet or reply to any comments you see that promote the book, or the author.
#21. Offer to take a bunch of her bookmarks to conventions, or conferences, and make sure they are put in goodie bags, or on promo tables. Or simply visit her table at a convention, and sign up for her newsletter, or pick up her bookmark and tell someone else how good the book is. Offer to slip her bookmarks into your own correspondence when you pay bills, taxes, etc.
#22. Instead of quoting Goethe in your sig file, try quoting a line from your friend’s blurb in the week of her launch.
#23. Ask for her book in your local library. If they don't have it, maybe they will order a copy. If the library won't do that, ask if they would enter the book in their system if the author were to donate a copy to them. Once a book is in one library's system, it gets into the database for other libraries.
#24. If you see your favorite author’s books in a supermarket or bookstore: face her books (if there is room), turn one so the cover shows. Tell store personnel how much you like that book, or that the author is local. If you don’t see her books, especially when they ought to be there, ask about them.
#25. If you are connected on LinkedIn.com and your author friend is listed as "Author" or "Freelance Writer" or similar, consider "recommending her" on the strength of her writing. Recommendations on LinkedIn are intended to be for professional purposes.
Bonus Tip:
If you are an author buy colleagues' autographed books from them at booksignings to use in your own giveaways instead of always giving away your own books.
copyright: Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com
Appearing today on Keta's Keep
I've recently been invited to become a contributing member of the teaching blog "1st Turning Point", which got me thinking about what I have to offer (or pay forward), and I took a look at a "25 Ways to Promo" list which I assembled a while back. I'm astonished how important Amazon seemed three years ago. Now... I think my old list is out of date. So here's my new 25 point "To Do" list.
All authors for the purpose of this article will be considered female. (No sexism intended).
#1. Help the search engines find her. Why? Even if you know where to find your alien romance writing friend, her blog, and her books, “hits” help. The more visitors the search engine spiders find, the more priority the author's website gets. So: Google her. Ask Jeeves about her. Dogpile her. A9 search her. Use Alexa. Try a Yahoo search. Blog search. Search on Technorati. Even better, set up a Google Alert for her name, also common misspellings of her name, and for her book titles.
#2. Having “Searched” or been "Alerted", Visit… her website; blogs; author pages. If you may comment, do so. Everyone who takes the time to blog or post content is grateful when visitors comment. Human nature leads more people to read a post that has received a lot of comments.
#3 Follow. Favorite. Share. Google's Blogger, Twitter, Facebook "Pages", Squidoo lenses, You Tube videos and more allow you to become a follower or a fan. Do so. Connect wherever you can. It's good for both of you, because follower/fan photos show up.
#4 Click to read (and rate) any reviews she has written, or Lists she has set up. These days, anyone can make an EssentiaList on Barnes and Noble.com, a Listmania on Amazon.com, a Top Ten list on Chapters.Indigo.ca, also Listopia on GoodReads.com/ If you like her reviews or lists, click Helpful.
#5. If you see a good review of a book you've enjoyed —on any bookselling site that allows customers and visitors to comment on reviews-- click Helpful if it truly is a helpful review. Votes help both the reviewer and the author.
#6. Tag her books wherever you can. Amazon isn't the only place (Amazon isn't even one site… there's Amazon.ca, Amazon.uk, Amazon.de etc etc) Many book selling sites encourage readers to tag.
What is a tag? It's a search term that a reader might be using to find a type of book she likes, when she is looking for a new author. Some tags might be "Romance", "Fantasy", "Mystery", "Shapeshifter", "Georgian Romance", "Humor" or "Space Opera".
#7. When you are on an admired author's Amazon book page, click on links to:
Put it on your wish list, it’s extra, free advertising for the book. Tell a friend. Scroll down the book page to Tag this product. Or make a search suggestion).
#8. Join in the Customer/Reader discussions on her book page, or on the forums. Ask a question. Start a discussion. Hundreds of eyeballs scan the discussions on Barnes and Noble bookclubs. The search engines pick up on the discussions. The longer a discussion keeps going, the better the PR buzz for your friend. This does not just apply to Amazon and B&N. Discussion anywhere is "buzz".
#9. Review her book… Most people know that a customer can write a review on Amazon.com. There's a purchase requirement with Amazon (and I think with Barnes and Noble, too). However, many sites don't require a reader to have bought a book from them in order to post a review: GoodReads.com, Shelfari.com, LibraryThing.com, E-Bay, Powells, FlipKart, We-Read (on Facebook), NexTag etc etc.
#10. Smak her. Have you ever noticed the "Add This" or "Share" or "Recommend" widgets on online pages and on You Tube? If you think your author friend's blog, or news about her is interesting, syndicate the news to Digg It, Reddit, Technorati, Stumble Upon, Furl and as many of the other 40 or so sites as you have time and energy for. It's self promo when she does it. It's news when someone else does it.
Smak is SmakNews.com. News for women, posted by women.
#11. If the author has a reminder on a public calendar (Amazon has one, other sites have the function, too) for a booksigning near you, click on Remind Me Too. Booksignings are nerve-racking. Support is always appreciated, even if you don’t buy a book.
#12. If she lists an "Event", which one can on Facebook, GoodReads, and too many other places to mention, be sure to RSVP with a kind comment about the book.
#13. Make her a top friend on MySpace, Bebo etc, Give her book cover image as a "gift" on Facebook, with her permission, make her cover into a widget or tile it as a background, or keep it on the top page of your Shelfari/GoodReads/MyB&N display of what you are reading.
#14. If you have a MySpace page or Bebo.com, or Twitters, or Clasmates.com, or facebook.com, or theyack.com (and if you don’t, but really want to help, get one… it’s free) invite your author friends to be your friends there. Write a bulletin about your friend or her book. Add a comment on their profile page’s comments section. Your comment is their opportunity to say something about their book without the appearance of soliciting. Review their book on your MySpace blog. Or on You Tube!
#15. If her publisher has a forum, join it and ask her questions. For instance, Dorchester Publishing (home of Leisure and LoveSpell authors) has http://forums.dorchesterpub.com/
Again, your comment will be seen by hundreds, if not thousands, and it will give your friend a reason to post something interesting and quotable about her book without seeming to be self-promoting.
#16. If you have a blog or website, (and you should always secure your own domain name before you become famous yourself) publicize your friend’s upcoming signings/author talks/workshops on your blog. Mention her website URL. Link to your author friend’s website or blog on yours. Put her book as a 'must read' on your own site, or in your own newsletter. Have a list of links to authors you like, and blogs you enjoy.
#17. If you belong to readers’ group sites, or book chat sites, or special interest sites, post what you are reading. Plugs never hurt. These are also picked up on RSS feeds and the search engines.
#18. Join your favorite author’s yahoo group, let her know where you’ve seen her book in stores, or where you’ve seen discussions of her book, or reviews of her book.
#19. Drop in on her online chats to say how you enjoyed her book. Supportive friends at chats are cool because chats can be chaotic, and typing answers takes time.
#20. Tweet on Twitter about how much you are enjoying the book. Retweet or reply to any comments you see that promote the book, or the author.
#21. Offer to take a bunch of her bookmarks to conventions, or conferences, and make sure they are put in goodie bags, or on promo tables. Or simply visit her table at a convention, and sign up for her newsletter, or pick up her bookmark and tell someone else how good the book is. Offer to slip her bookmarks into your own correspondence when you pay bills, taxes, etc.
#22. Instead of quoting Goethe in your sig file, try quoting a line from your friend’s blurb in the week of her launch.
#23. Ask for her book in your local library. If they don't have it, maybe they will order a copy. If the library won't do that, ask if they would enter the book in their system if the author were to donate a copy to them. Once a book is in one library's system, it gets into the database for other libraries.
#24. If you see your favorite author’s books in a supermarket or bookstore: face her books (if there is room), turn one so the cover shows. Tell store personnel how much you like that book, or that the author is local. If you don’t see her books, especially when they ought to be there, ask about them.
#25. If you are connected on LinkedIn.com and your author friend is listed as "Author" or "Freelance Writer" or similar, consider "recommending her" on the strength of her writing. Recommendations on LinkedIn are intended to be for professional purposes.
Bonus Tip:
If you are an author buy colleagues' autographed books from them at booksignings to use in your own giveaways instead of always giving away your own books.
copyright: Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com
Appearing today on Keta's Keep
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Worst Rejections
Not long ago I read a lively blog thread on “worst rejections,” a topic productive of endless reminiscence and speculation. Have you received rejections that baffled you with their ambiguity and cluelessness? Or, worse yet, an implicit rejection in the form of a requested submission being completely ignored?
Very early in my attempt at a writing career, I mailed a follow-up query about a story I’d sent to a small magazine and got a reply to the effect of, “all unsolicited manuscripts have been returned.” What the heck did that mean? All the submissions were so inferior they were rejected in disgust? The magazine was overstocked and therefore automatically returned all manuscripts? They were currently closed?
My two most baffling rejections came from agents. When first trying to sell my werewolf novel SHADOW OF THE BEAST, I sent the prologue and synopsis to an agent who then requested the full manuscript. She eventually rejected the novel on the grounds that a book should begin with something “important” happening. I thought, “Good grief, it starts with both of the heroine’s siblings being killed by a feral animal!” I later realized I’d made a newbie mistake in not including the prologue because the agent already had it. By the time she got the rest of the book, she must have forgotten all about the prologue and thought the story started with the heroine catching a bus to work.
My other most peculiar (and exasperating) agent rejection followed an appointment at the 2000 RWA con. I’d pitched a vampire romance and made it perfectly clear that paranormal romance was the only kind I wanted to write. The agent asked to see the partial. A few months later, she rejected the novel because—it was “too paranormal” for her!
Do you have any provocative or puzzling tales from the rejection trenches?
Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)
Very early in my attempt at a writing career, I mailed a follow-up query about a story I’d sent to a small magazine and got a reply to the effect of, “all unsolicited manuscripts have been returned.” What the heck did that mean? All the submissions were so inferior they were rejected in disgust? The magazine was overstocked and therefore automatically returned all manuscripts? They were currently closed?
My two most baffling rejections came from agents. When first trying to sell my werewolf novel SHADOW OF THE BEAST, I sent the prologue and synopsis to an agent who then requested the full manuscript. She eventually rejected the novel on the grounds that a book should begin with something “important” happening. I thought, “Good grief, it starts with both of the heroine’s siblings being killed by a feral animal!” I later realized I’d made a newbie mistake in not including the prologue because the agent already had it. By the time she got the rest of the book, she must have forgotten all about the prologue and thought the story started with the heroine catching a bus to work.
My other most peculiar (and exasperating) agent rejection followed an appointment at the 2000 RWA con. I’d pitched a vampire romance and made it perfectly clear that paranormal romance was the only kind I wanted to write. The agent asked to see the partial. A few months later, she rejected the novel because—it was “too paranormal” for her!
Do you have any provocative or puzzling tales from the rejection trenches?
Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Urban Fantasy Job Hunting
The May 2009 issue of LOCUS, the newspaper of science fiction and fantasy, now (since it was sold to a professional publisher,) billed as "The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field," is devoted to Urban Fantasy.
http://www.locusmag.com/ is their online site.
I've written here before about the shift in popularity away from SF and toward Fantasy, which is allowing the development of the Paranormal Romance and SF Romance field. So, in the context of the release of the new Star Trek movie, let's talk a little about what Romance readers can expect and what writers can provide for them.
This is an exercise in worldbuilding by using a "connect the dots" technique on what we often term "the real world."
So here are some dots.
I've started to get the copies of Business Week that I was forced to spend airline miles on. The first issue is the May 11, 2009 issue. Putting Locus together with Business Week (and later with a NEWSWEEK article on Star Trek we'll get to later) started my mind percolating.
So let's think about choosing your background for your story in such a way that it excites readers, gets their minds percolating in a pleasurable way. That's what SF does -- makes you think, shows you how to think but not what to think.
You want to create a background that makes your reader anticipate a good read, an experience "just like" the latest book they loved, but different, unique and especially yours. You want your readers to memorize your byline and search the world for MORE of your stuff.
To do that, you have to pull thousands of little details together, details lurking in the background, or just off the edge of your potential reader's peripheral vision.
How do you do that? You read eclectically, often in a way that appears to your family, randomly! You collect a mental store of trivia others have never heard of.
If wide reading on many subjects repells you, you probably aren't going to be a fiction writer (maybe non-fiction in one field?) If trivia doesn't grip you, then you probably should look for another line of work. But assuming you think you have a few novels in you, think about two nearly mutually exclusive sources such as Business Week and Locus in one breath, then think BACKGROUND, and even "backstory."
Or if you're into film writing, think SET PIECE. And SETTING.
How does a writer cradle a ho-hum-yawn-not-again plotted Romance in a background that makes that old story new again?
You must do that because there really aren't that many stories, or or plots, or that many Romances either.
What hooks readers is how these particular, very individualistic characters adjust themselves to the harsh world they must live in, and still manage to nurture deep, rich and intimate Relationships.
Writers seem to be born with characters yelling in their heads, "TELL MY STORY NEXT!" I've seen 4 year olds do it with blunt crayons! Characters are often innate traits of writers. (there are exceptions; Hal Clement was one such. The hero of his novels was always the World and the Science. The characters just investigated and learned how the science works.)
But backgrounds, now there is where writers can get wildly creative if they have a big enough store of trivia.
Note how the 4 year old with blunt crayons always chooses a background they know.
As an adult, you need to tell your story against a background you know, too, but it does not (and perhaps even should not) have to be some place you have been, or are familiar with, such as the Trek Universe worked over so well by fan writers (like me and my Kraith Universe ( http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/ )).
Or it can be someplace you just make up or imagine as the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, imagined his Galaxy.
Or that place you imagine can be right here on earth, a place a lot of people (even your potential readers) have been or seen on TV ( 90210 for example).
In my August 2009 review column (which will likely be posted to the web for free reading in September 2009) I reviewed an international intrigue thriller that's likely to be a movie soon titled THE INCREMENT.
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/ (scroll down to August and you'll see the book cover -- that's where the review links will be).
THE INCREMENT
Or see my review here:
http://www.amazon.com/Increment-Novel-David-Ignatius/product-reviews/0393065049/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_3?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=3
The author of THE INCREMENT, David Ignatius, says in his comments that though the book is partly set in Iran, and though he's actually been there, THIS IRAN is totally imaginary. He didn't say it was an alternate-reality fantasy world, likely because the marketing department would scream "LIMITING THE AUDIENCE" -- but that's actually what this book is and does.
Yet the new Star Trek movie is billed as "alternate universe" to the one we originally saw on TV and its successors, just as Kraith is an "alternate universe" to ST:TOS.
So that means THE INCREMENT is an URBAN FANTASY marketed as a contemporary international intrigue thriller and it even has some intricate relationships, though I wouldn't call it a Romance. A little re-writing and it could easily have been a Romance!
But it's being marketed at the top of the marketing pyramid with lots of publicity money behind it -- likely because it's not being marketed as what it really is, an Urban Fantasy!
OK, so how would a Paranormal Romance Writer follow in David Ignatius's illustrious footsteps? Of course if I really knew for sure, I'd have done that by now! But let's think about how it might be done.
START WITH TWO STEPS AND CONNECT THE DOTS:
1. Note via Locus that "Urban Fantasy" has begun to surface in a big way. I've been talking about BUFFY and other TV shows like REAPER and SUPERNATURAL (see my blog post here http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/04/puzzle-of-romance.html ) and the DRESDEN FILES (which I reviewed another novel from in the forthcoming October Issue -- you can see all my 2009 picks at http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/ ) and Locus is surveying a whole lot more. It's a trend.
2. NOTE via Business Week that the general media is now admitting but dancing around something SF writers have talked about since at least the 1950's -- probably much earlier but I haven't time to research it. I'll tell you about it below.
THEN REMEMBER my column here last week
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/writing-tips-tweets.html
where I talked about an emerging trend of using Tech to solve problems created by Tech.
Now, #2 above -- the BUSINESS WEEK headline on the cover, lower left corner, said THE U.S. HAS 3 MILLION JOB OPENINGS; "Why that may NOT be good news for the economy."
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130040117561.htm
QUOTES FROM BUSINESS WEEK
-------------------
"...with 13 million people unemployed, there are approximately 3 million jobs that employers are actively recruiting for but so far have been unable to fill. ... People thrown out of shrinking sectors such as construction, finance, and retail lack the skills and training for openings in growing fields including education, accounting, health care, and government."
...
"The U. S. economy has changed dramatically over the past couple of years-- faster, it seems than the workforce can adapt. The evidence is clear in an underappreciated report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics known as JOLTS, for Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey, which has been issued monthly since December 2000."
--------------------------
Now doesn't that depict a "harsh" world for characters to find meaningful relationships in?
All right, so let's hunt up some more dots to connect into this picture.
I often hear Bernanke's testimony before congress as I'm cooking because I have a TV I can see from the kitchen. I've heard him and Greenspan talking about retraining people for the new jobs of the 21st century -- and that all America has to do is pour money into community colleges to retrain our workforce.
I think it's a good thing that Obama's "stimulus" allocates money for community college retraining of adults project. Obama made a speech on retraining the workforce on Friday May 8, 2009. That WILL work for a lot of people and save families and lives and children's futures, not to mention the whole USA economy. It's a good thing, and something we need to do at any cost.
BUT.
And it's a great big but.
Read the article titled HELP WANTED in the May 11, 2009 issue of Business Week http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130040117561.htm
Now think real hard. What is actually going on in this turbulent and bewildering shift in employment. Remember how I talked about the wireless connection for digital picture frames last week
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/writing-tips-tweets.html
Another trend, solving tech problems by ladling on more tech. But the picture frames solve the problem of the anti-tech grandma you want to show your children to.
The "smart" gadget, smart machine trend tells you something. Replacing computers, you have a smart-phone with a camera and web access. They put chips in cars now -- you almost hardly have to drive them anymore! Corner too fast, it levels out. Get too close to a bumper, the chip stops the car (OK, I can't afford such a high end car, but my first response is I don't want that! I want to be in control of my vehicle! So maybe I'm becoming anti-tech.)
But it's a trend. Smart machines, not monstrous computers you have to be a genius to keep running!
What is going on here?
Our society has hit some kind of limit that Congress and the Fed and others "in charge" either don't recognize or can't admit exists for political reasons.
Dig back into your pile of trivia stored in your mind. Do you remember why 100 is the AVERAGE IQ?
OK, IQ tests are rigged to reward people of a certain cultural background, but all that aside, the IQ test is supposed to measure not what you know but how fast you can learn. They've been tweaking the test to eliminate racial bias and so on; it's probably still not very good, but it's good for statistics.
Always remember statistics can tell you very accurately how large populations behave, but DO NOT WORK IN REVERSE. They can't tell you a thing about any given individual in that population! The math isn't designed to work in reverse!
But IQ tests when aggregated can tell you about the characteristics of millions of people, and predict the behavior of that population with high accuracy.
100 is the average because about half the people in the world score below 100 while half score above.
Scroll back and read what I said above about WRITERS. We're eclectic readers and collectors of vast piles of trivia. Why? Not because we're a whole lot smarter (IQ wise) than others, but because we get a pleasure hit out of "dabbling" in anything and everything. We're attracted to what we don't know.
It's more an attitude or character trait than a measure of learning ability, but as a group we tend to maximize whatever natural learning ability we might have. We perform at possibly over 90% of our personal potential for learning, while MOST people are lucky to use half what they were born with.
Marion Zimmer Bradley often said anyone who can write a literate sentence can learn to write fiction. So I'm not saying writers, per se, are extra-high intelligence (thought some, like Isaac Asimov, are/were). But writers are good at finding patterns in trivia! (I can't now recall if I talked about pattern recognition in this aliendjinnromance blog or in my review column, but some of you will remember that discussion.)
So here's a pattern from the dots.
Long ago, SF writers started depicting a future civilization when half or more of the people lived on the public dole (welfare).
Why?
In some novels it was because it really didn't take so many people to run the world, produce food, clothing, shelter, entertainment and luxuries for everyone. Machines (maybe robots) did most of the work, and the rest of us loafed. ( PBS NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT has done a week's worth of segments on household robots being developed in Japan that do laundry, dishes, & cleaning! By 2020 they'll be on the market.)
In other novels, the world was depicted pretty close to what I'm seeing in this Business Week article -- and possibly also in the Locus issue.
Business Week is saying essentially that though we have massive excess "workers" employers simply CAN'T fill jobs.
Greenspan and Bernanke (and now Obama) are always talking about solving that problem by simply retraining the work force. But employers have found that's getting to be less and less possible.
According to Business Week, retraining older workers has worked pretty well in Germany where the government provides a part of a new worker's salary for the first year so the employer can "retrain" them to what they need. But employers in Germany are quoted as pointing out that they need that government assistance because "you never know what'll happen" when you hire "someone."
That might be a way of saying without saying the extremely politically incorrect observation I'm making. (controversial or "edgy" premises sell large numbers of books!)
As tech progresses, it takes a higher and higher IQ to be able to learn the jobs needed to produce the dumbed-down tech like wireless picture frames.
The jobs that are being produced that really pay well are jobs that require an IQ above 100 to learn even if not to do on a day to day basis. Maybe in 10 years, that'll be 110 to learn and 105 to do daily.
Our workforce lacks the intelligence to be able to do the jobs we need done.
That's not a property of our culture or civilization or society. It's a property of the human brain -- but as I've pointed out in a previous blog post here, the human brain is mutable. As long as you keep requiring it to adapt, it will keep adapting. In older people, that adaptability wanes, but pushed hard you can get some adaptation. But not enough to make an IQ 98 person at age 12 into an IQ 105 person at age 55.
The jobs we need done require higher IQ than average to learn, and by definition you can't have more than half the people above average! (In SF though, you might be able to raise that average, which was done so many times in SF novels in the 1950's it became an unpublishable cliche.)
SF has been predicting, graphically, for decades, that our jobs outstrip out IQ, and our civilization could crash because of it.
But note, Grandma who needs a wireless digital picture frame isn't dumb, stupid, or low-I.Q.
She may have been a Bank VP or a factory manager, or even a science reporter (though these days that's not likely as women of that generation were barred from such professional success). But she may have been VERY smart. Only now she just can't learn to maintain a PC and plug a picture frame into its USB port and download her own photos.
Grandma may flinch visibly when someone says USB PORT. Thirty years ago she'd have had no trouble learning it.
There's your big problem. As you age, your original IQ trends downward. The older you are, the harder it becomes to learn, especially if you haven't been learning steadily in between. Routine jobs erode the ability to learn new things.
These wireless frames are hot sellers because they're EASY and both the younger people who are busy and older people who prefer to avoid learning -- and those who really can't learn -- love the whole concept. Hence they are best sellers, must have household tech.
Tech is making the world easier to live in but harder to create.
And so the threshold IQ level for being able to hold a job that's worth a living wage is going up and up. Soon, anyone with an IQ below 115 won't be worth anything in the labor market. Robots will do yard work, repave roads, build skyscrapers, all run from nice cool offices by Suits wearing diamond watches -- or diamond studded Bluetooth ear piece.
Now look at Urban Fantasy. Contrast that with old fashioned SF.
Actually, my September to December review columns are basically about just this subject -- SF and Urban Fantasy.
The way you tell if a story is Science Fiction or not is: "If you can leave out the Science and still have a story, it's not SF to begin with."
SF is waning in sales volumes of titles, really falling off the charts while Fantasy is booming.
What's the difference? They both tell the same STORY. Like I said above, same old ho-hum romance, different setting, goshwow story!
The difference between urban fantasy and sf is the science.
Today's science is much HARDER (required IQ to decipher concepts) than the science of the 1930's and 1940's. It didn't take as high an IQ to comprehend a scientific explanation then as it does now.
Science itself has become unpopular. What's "popular"? More than half the population likes it and wants it.
Now our science -- the exciting, cutting edge, speculative, goshwow science -- is comprehensible only to people with an IQ well above 100, which means to less than half the population.
We may have passed that halfway point sometime in the 1990's as the tech bubble inflated -- some day someone will make a graph and we'll see an inflection point.
Urban Fantasy heroes have to be brave, perhaps have integrity or grit or a streak of pure evil -- but they don't have to be smart. Even the geeks who run computer searches don't have to be smart. Hacking is not a trade for the high I.Q. people either -- you buy or steal your "hacking tools" which are programs someone with a high IQ makes and sells to hackers.
Urban Fantasy is about the potential achievements of ORDINARY PEOPLE -- people with an IQ of about 100 -- the average reader, maybe 105. These stories show how average-joe can achieve GREAT THINGS, (power, popularity, save the world, defend mankind from evil -- easy things to understand).
Science Fiction -- to have any modern science in it at all -- has to be about really REALLY smart people. The kind of people the average reader can't identify with. It's no fun to be out-classed, or to be shown a destiny you want but can't have because you're not smart enough even to understand the dumbed-down exposition in an SF novel.
In the old days, SF didn't have to be about such geniuses.
Here's another dot for our pattern. NEWSWEEK May 4, 2009, published a Star Trek article titled WE'RE ALL TREKKIES NOW. I commented on it online, and posted a link to my comment and got a whole bunch of new twitter followers! Here's the NEWSWEEK LINKS:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195082 -- We're All Trekkies Now
My comment is labeled as posted
Posted By: JacquelineLichtenberg @ 05/08/2009 2:08:06 PM
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/popvox/archive/2009/05/07/round-up-of-newsweek-s-trek-coverage.aspx -- list of Star Trek coverage in NEWSWEEK, lots of stories.
The thesis of this Newsweek article (ignore the politics; that's just NEWSWEEK) is one that I totally agree with, and that's an important dot to this pattern. STAR TREK depicted humanity as capable of taking on the universe and prevailing. STAR TREK showed humanity as having outgrown war and embracing new contact with the unknown -- going where no one has gone before.
In the decades since ST:TOS, SF has been eclipsed by fantasy universes (on TV, in film, and in books) where humanity is depicted as threatened (in serious danger of being destroyed) by the Unknown -- and possibly unknowable. What I've called in this blog a picture of reality as a thin film over a seething cauldron of evil.
The self-perception (at least in America) has become one of being overwhelmed by a universe inimical to our existence.
So the problem employers are having filling jobs today reflects the general public's taste in entertainment. People are overwhelmed. By tech. By war. By government conspiracy or at least secrecy and incompetence. And now by the housing bubble bursting. Overwhelmed by evil is the same as overwhelmed by something that can kill you, destroy what you've accomplished in life (take away your pension).
Now do you see the technique? Deconstruct or reverse-engineer our everyday world into dots, then reconnect the dots into a DIFFERENT pattern. That will, if you use the genre structures we've discussed, give you that effect Hollywood is always looking for (and Manhattan lusts after), "The Same But Different."
To summarize, here are the dots for today's exercise:
1) URBAN FANTASY in Locus and Alternate Universe such as THE INCREMENT and STAR TREK
2) BUSINESS WEEK - 3 million jobs open with 13 million unemployed and Obama's solution is to "retrain" the workforce. (your characters are in retraining or teaching re-trainees).
3) NEWSWEEK - We're All Trekkies Now. Geeks have inherited the Earth and the White House. The Star Trek spirit of seeing an upbeat future awakens again -- or does it?
4) The popular theme of being overwhelmed (or almost overwhelmed) or needing protection from Evil that seethes beneath the surface of everyday life. Will that theme give way to Star Trek's HOPE theme, and if it does, what turbulence will disrupt romance?
5) Not mentioned here, but there's a trend of 30 and 40+ year old women FINALLY beginning to have children that might be relevant to building your SF Romance world.
So now re-connect the dots and do a little original worldbuilding.
Take your readers' awareness of the general IQ frustration (just think of the last time your computer made you feel helpless and you've got the emotion) as the background you're cradling your romance (or whatever genre; this process works for all genres) in, and tell a whopping good story about how IQ itself is a major stumbling block in intimacy in relationships.
You may generate more obstacles for your plot by creating characters to represent the various sides of the philosophical argument on the true nature of Humanity, and therein will lie your THEME.
Are humans like lemmings, carrying the seeds of their destruction within them (i.e. creating tech so "high" that we can't produce workers to maintain it but we become dependent on it for lack of basic grunt-work skills (spinning, weaving, farming, shepherding, metal working)? Or are humans infinitely adaptable, with brains that will re-circuit so that each generation's IQ 100 is actually HIGHER THAN the IQ 100 mark of the previous generation?
Is that what's happening already? It used to be parents had to get their kids to program the VCR. Now kids live online and text with their thumbs in coded words. Grown kids have to send pictures of their kids to their parents via dumbed-down-wireless-pictureframes. The parents won't twitter and the keener parents will just barely facebook but not myspace.
Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing are beyond today's 60 year olds.
The Web is the territory of the young (OK. I'm a misfit. So what else is new?)
How does the May/September Romance work out in a world with a generation gap like this? Will the Star Trek movie change anything?
You may, if you wish, post exercises on editingcircle.blogspot.com as comments for and get some input on how you do the exercise.
And remember, you don't have to AGREE with my analysis here - in fact it's better if you don't - in order to reconnect these dots into a new pattern and profit from the exercise. These dots could be a springboard into a hot Romance full of impossible things before breakfast.
Do you, as a writer, follow the trend -- or do you forge it?
And also remember, our objective in my last few posts here is to work the puzzle of how to get an SF Romance onto TV or into the movies to do for the genre what we have done (according to NEWSWEEK, anyway) for SF.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
http://www.locusmag.com/ is their online site.
I've written here before about the shift in popularity away from SF and toward Fantasy, which is allowing the development of the Paranormal Romance and SF Romance field. So, in the context of the release of the new Star Trek movie, let's talk a little about what Romance readers can expect and what writers can provide for them.
This is an exercise in worldbuilding by using a "connect the dots" technique on what we often term "the real world."
So here are some dots.
I've started to get the copies of Business Week that I was forced to spend airline miles on. The first issue is the May 11, 2009 issue. Putting Locus together with Business Week (and later with a NEWSWEEK article on Star Trek we'll get to later) started my mind percolating.
So let's think about choosing your background for your story in such a way that it excites readers, gets their minds percolating in a pleasurable way. That's what SF does -- makes you think, shows you how to think but not what to think.
You want to create a background that makes your reader anticipate a good read, an experience "just like" the latest book they loved, but different, unique and especially yours. You want your readers to memorize your byline and search the world for MORE of your stuff.
To do that, you have to pull thousands of little details together, details lurking in the background, or just off the edge of your potential reader's peripheral vision.
How do you do that? You read eclectically, often in a way that appears to your family, randomly! You collect a mental store of trivia others have never heard of.
If wide reading on many subjects repells you, you probably aren't going to be a fiction writer (maybe non-fiction in one field?) If trivia doesn't grip you, then you probably should look for another line of work. But assuming you think you have a few novels in you, think about two nearly mutually exclusive sources such as Business Week and Locus in one breath, then think BACKGROUND, and even "backstory."
Or if you're into film writing, think SET PIECE. And SETTING.
How does a writer cradle a ho-hum-yawn-not-again plotted Romance in a background that makes that old story new again?
You must do that because there really aren't that many stories, or or plots, or that many Romances either.
What hooks readers is how these particular, very individualistic characters adjust themselves to the harsh world they must live in, and still manage to nurture deep, rich and intimate Relationships.
Writers seem to be born with characters yelling in their heads, "TELL MY STORY NEXT!" I've seen 4 year olds do it with blunt crayons! Characters are often innate traits of writers. (there are exceptions; Hal Clement was one such. The hero of his novels was always the World and the Science. The characters just investigated and learned how the science works.)
But backgrounds, now there is where writers can get wildly creative if they have a big enough store of trivia.
Note how the 4 year old with blunt crayons always chooses a background they know.
As an adult, you need to tell your story against a background you know, too, but it does not (and perhaps even should not) have to be some place you have been, or are familiar with, such as the Trek Universe worked over so well by fan writers (like me and my Kraith Universe ( http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/ )).
Or it can be someplace you just make up or imagine as the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, imagined his Galaxy.
Or that place you imagine can be right here on earth, a place a lot of people (even your potential readers) have been or seen on TV ( 90210 for example).
In my August 2009 review column (which will likely be posted to the web for free reading in September 2009) I reviewed an international intrigue thriller that's likely to be a movie soon titled THE INCREMENT.
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/ (scroll down to August and you'll see the book cover -- that's where the review links will be).
THE INCREMENT
Or see my review here:
http://www.amazon.com/Increment-Novel-David-Ignatius/product-reviews/0393065049/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_3?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=3
The author of THE INCREMENT, David Ignatius, says in his comments that though the book is partly set in Iran, and though he's actually been there, THIS IRAN is totally imaginary. He didn't say it was an alternate-reality fantasy world, likely because the marketing department would scream "LIMITING THE AUDIENCE" -- but that's actually what this book is and does.
Yet the new Star Trek movie is billed as "alternate universe" to the one we originally saw on TV and its successors, just as Kraith is an "alternate universe" to ST:TOS.
So that means THE INCREMENT is an URBAN FANTASY marketed as a contemporary international intrigue thriller and it even has some intricate relationships, though I wouldn't call it a Romance. A little re-writing and it could easily have been a Romance!
But it's being marketed at the top of the marketing pyramid with lots of publicity money behind it -- likely because it's not being marketed as what it really is, an Urban Fantasy!
OK, so how would a Paranormal Romance Writer follow in David Ignatius's illustrious footsteps? Of course if I really knew for sure, I'd have done that by now! But let's think about how it might be done.
START WITH TWO STEPS AND CONNECT THE DOTS:
1. Note via Locus that "Urban Fantasy" has begun to surface in a big way. I've been talking about BUFFY and other TV shows like REAPER and SUPERNATURAL (see my blog post here http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/04/puzzle-of-romance.html ) and the DRESDEN FILES (which I reviewed another novel from in the forthcoming October Issue -- you can see all my 2009 picks at http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/ ) and Locus is surveying a whole lot more. It's a trend.
2. NOTE via Business Week that the general media is now admitting but dancing around something SF writers have talked about since at least the 1950's -- probably much earlier but I haven't time to research it. I'll tell you about it below.
THEN REMEMBER my column here last week
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/writing-tips-tweets.html
where I talked about an emerging trend of using Tech to solve problems created by Tech.
Now, #2 above -- the BUSINESS WEEK headline on the cover, lower left corner, said THE U.S. HAS 3 MILLION JOB OPENINGS; "Why that may NOT be good news for the economy."
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130040117561.htm
QUOTES FROM BUSINESS WEEK
-------------------
"...with 13 million people unemployed, there are approximately 3 million jobs that employers are actively recruiting for but so far have been unable to fill. ... People thrown out of shrinking sectors such as construction, finance, and retail lack the skills and training for openings in growing fields including education, accounting, health care, and government."
...
"The U. S. economy has changed dramatically over the past couple of years-- faster, it seems than the workforce can adapt. The evidence is clear in an underappreciated report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics known as JOLTS, for Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey, which has been issued monthly since December 2000."
--------------------------
Now doesn't that depict a "harsh" world for characters to find meaningful relationships in?
All right, so let's hunt up some more dots to connect into this picture.
I often hear Bernanke's testimony before congress as I'm cooking because I have a TV I can see from the kitchen. I've heard him and Greenspan talking about retraining people for the new jobs of the 21st century -- and that all America has to do is pour money into community colleges to retrain our workforce.
I think it's a good thing that Obama's "stimulus" allocates money for community college retraining of adults project. Obama made a speech on retraining the workforce on Friday May 8, 2009. That WILL work for a lot of people and save families and lives and children's futures, not to mention the whole USA economy. It's a good thing, and something we need to do at any cost.
BUT.
And it's a great big but.
Read the article titled HELP WANTED in the May 11, 2009 issue of Business Week http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130040117561.htm
Now think real hard. What is actually going on in this turbulent and bewildering shift in employment. Remember how I talked about the wireless connection for digital picture frames last week
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/writing-tips-tweets.html
Another trend, solving tech problems by ladling on more tech. But the picture frames solve the problem of the anti-tech grandma you want to show your children to.
The "smart" gadget, smart machine trend tells you something. Replacing computers, you have a smart-phone with a camera and web access. They put chips in cars now -- you almost hardly have to drive them anymore! Corner too fast, it levels out. Get too close to a bumper, the chip stops the car (OK, I can't afford such a high end car, but my first response is I don't want that! I want to be in control of my vehicle! So maybe I'm becoming anti-tech.)
But it's a trend. Smart machines, not monstrous computers you have to be a genius to keep running!
What is going on here?
Our society has hit some kind of limit that Congress and the Fed and others "in charge" either don't recognize or can't admit exists for political reasons.
Dig back into your pile of trivia stored in your mind. Do you remember why 100 is the AVERAGE IQ?
OK, IQ tests are rigged to reward people of a certain cultural background, but all that aside, the IQ test is supposed to measure not what you know but how fast you can learn. They've been tweaking the test to eliminate racial bias and so on; it's probably still not very good, but it's good for statistics.
Always remember statistics can tell you very accurately how large populations behave, but DO NOT WORK IN REVERSE. They can't tell you a thing about any given individual in that population! The math isn't designed to work in reverse!
But IQ tests when aggregated can tell you about the characteristics of millions of people, and predict the behavior of that population with high accuracy.
100 is the average because about half the people in the world score below 100 while half score above.
Scroll back and read what I said above about WRITERS. We're eclectic readers and collectors of vast piles of trivia. Why? Not because we're a whole lot smarter (IQ wise) than others, but because we get a pleasure hit out of "dabbling" in anything and everything. We're attracted to what we don't know.
It's more an attitude or character trait than a measure of learning ability, but as a group we tend to maximize whatever natural learning ability we might have. We perform at possibly over 90% of our personal potential for learning, while MOST people are lucky to use half what they were born with.
Marion Zimmer Bradley often said anyone who can write a literate sentence can learn to write fiction. So I'm not saying writers, per se, are extra-high intelligence (thought some, like Isaac Asimov, are/were). But writers are good at finding patterns in trivia! (I can't now recall if I talked about pattern recognition in this aliendjinnromance blog or in my review column, but some of you will remember that discussion.)
So here's a pattern from the dots.
Long ago, SF writers started depicting a future civilization when half or more of the people lived on the public dole (welfare).
Why?
In some novels it was because it really didn't take so many people to run the world, produce food, clothing, shelter, entertainment and luxuries for everyone. Machines (maybe robots) did most of the work, and the rest of us loafed. ( PBS NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT has done a week's worth of segments on household robots being developed in Japan that do laundry, dishes, & cleaning! By 2020 they'll be on the market.)
In other novels, the world was depicted pretty close to what I'm seeing in this Business Week article -- and possibly also in the Locus issue.
Business Week is saying essentially that though we have massive excess "workers" employers simply CAN'T fill jobs.
Greenspan and Bernanke (and now Obama) are always talking about solving that problem by simply retraining the work force. But employers have found that's getting to be less and less possible.
According to Business Week, retraining older workers has worked pretty well in Germany where the government provides a part of a new worker's salary for the first year so the employer can "retrain" them to what they need. But employers in Germany are quoted as pointing out that they need that government assistance because "you never know what'll happen" when you hire "someone."
That might be a way of saying without saying the extremely politically incorrect observation I'm making. (controversial or "edgy" premises sell large numbers of books!)
As tech progresses, it takes a higher and higher IQ to be able to learn the jobs needed to produce the dumbed-down tech like wireless picture frames.
The jobs that are being produced that really pay well are jobs that require an IQ above 100 to learn even if not to do on a day to day basis. Maybe in 10 years, that'll be 110 to learn and 105 to do daily.
Our workforce lacks the intelligence to be able to do the jobs we need done.
That's not a property of our culture or civilization or society. It's a property of the human brain -- but as I've pointed out in a previous blog post here, the human brain is mutable. As long as you keep requiring it to adapt, it will keep adapting. In older people, that adaptability wanes, but pushed hard you can get some adaptation. But not enough to make an IQ 98 person at age 12 into an IQ 105 person at age 55.
The jobs we need done require higher IQ than average to learn, and by definition you can't have more than half the people above average! (In SF though, you might be able to raise that average, which was done so many times in SF novels in the 1950's it became an unpublishable cliche.)
SF has been predicting, graphically, for decades, that our jobs outstrip out IQ, and our civilization could crash because of it.
But note, Grandma who needs a wireless digital picture frame isn't dumb, stupid, or low-I.Q.
She may have been a Bank VP or a factory manager, or even a science reporter (though these days that's not likely as women of that generation were barred from such professional success). But she may have been VERY smart. Only now she just can't learn to maintain a PC and plug a picture frame into its USB port and download her own photos.
Grandma may flinch visibly when someone says USB PORT. Thirty years ago she'd have had no trouble learning it.
There's your big problem. As you age, your original IQ trends downward. The older you are, the harder it becomes to learn, especially if you haven't been learning steadily in between. Routine jobs erode the ability to learn new things.
These wireless frames are hot sellers because they're EASY and both the younger people who are busy and older people who prefer to avoid learning -- and those who really can't learn -- love the whole concept. Hence they are best sellers, must have household tech.
Tech is making the world easier to live in but harder to create.
And so the threshold IQ level for being able to hold a job that's worth a living wage is going up and up. Soon, anyone with an IQ below 115 won't be worth anything in the labor market. Robots will do yard work, repave roads, build skyscrapers, all run from nice cool offices by Suits wearing diamond watches -- or diamond studded Bluetooth ear piece.
Now look at Urban Fantasy. Contrast that with old fashioned SF.
Actually, my September to December review columns are basically about just this subject -- SF and Urban Fantasy.
The way you tell if a story is Science Fiction or not is: "If you can leave out the Science and still have a story, it's not SF to begin with."
SF is waning in sales volumes of titles, really falling off the charts while Fantasy is booming.
What's the difference? They both tell the same STORY. Like I said above, same old ho-hum romance, different setting, goshwow story!
The difference between urban fantasy and sf is the science.
Today's science is much HARDER (required IQ to decipher concepts) than the science of the 1930's and 1940's. It didn't take as high an IQ to comprehend a scientific explanation then as it does now.
Science itself has become unpopular. What's "popular"? More than half the population likes it and wants it.
Now our science -- the exciting, cutting edge, speculative, goshwow science -- is comprehensible only to people with an IQ well above 100, which means to less than half the population.
We may have passed that halfway point sometime in the 1990's as the tech bubble inflated -- some day someone will make a graph and we'll see an inflection point.
Urban Fantasy heroes have to be brave, perhaps have integrity or grit or a streak of pure evil -- but they don't have to be smart. Even the geeks who run computer searches don't have to be smart. Hacking is not a trade for the high I.Q. people either -- you buy or steal your "hacking tools" which are programs someone with a high IQ makes and sells to hackers.
Urban Fantasy is about the potential achievements of ORDINARY PEOPLE -- people with an IQ of about 100 -- the average reader, maybe 105. These stories show how average-joe can achieve GREAT THINGS, (power, popularity, save the world, defend mankind from evil -- easy things to understand).
Science Fiction -- to have any modern science in it at all -- has to be about really REALLY smart people. The kind of people the average reader can't identify with. It's no fun to be out-classed, or to be shown a destiny you want but can't have because you're not smart enough even to understand the dumbed-down exposition in an SF novel.
In the old days, SF didn't have to be about such geniuses.
Here's another dot for our pattern. NEWSWEEK May 4, 2009, published a Star Trek article titled WE'RE ALL TREKKIES NOW. I commented on it online, and posted a link to my comment and got a whole bunch of new twitter followers! Here's the NEWSWEEK LINKS:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195082 -- We're All Trekkies Now
My comment is labeled as posted
Posted By: JacquelineLichtenberg @ 05/08/2009 2:08:06 PM
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/popvox/archive/2009/05/07/round-up-of-newsweek-s-trek-coverage.aspx -- list of Star Trek coverage in NEWSWEEK, lots of stories.
The thesis of this Newsweek article (ignore the politics; that's just NEWSWEEK) is one that I totally agree with, and that's an important dot to this pattern. STAR TREK depicted humanity as capable of taking on the universe and prevailing. STAR TREK showed humanity as having outgrown war and embracing new contact with the unknown -- going where no one has gone before.
In the decades since ST:TOS, SF has been eclipsed by fantasy universes (on TV, in film, and in books) where humanity is depicted as threatened (in serious danger of being destroyed) by the Unknown -- and possibly unknowable. What I've called in this blog a picture of reality as a thin film over a seething cauldron of evil.
The self-perception (at least in America) has become one of being overwhelmed by a universe inimical to our existence.
So the problem employers are having filling jobs today reflects the general public's taste in entertainment. People are overwhelmed. By tech. By war. By government conspiracy or at least secrecy and incompetence. And now by the housing bubble bursting. Overwhelmed by evil is the same as overwhelmed by something that can kill you, destroy what you've accomplished in life (take away your pension).
Now do you see the technique? Deconstruct or reverse-engineer our everyday world into dots, then reconnect the dots into a DIFFERENT pattern. That will, if you use the genre structures we've discussed, give you that effect Hollywood is always looking for (and Manhattan lusts after), "The Same But Different."
To summarize, here are the dots for today's exercise:
1) URBAN FANTASY in Locus and Alternate Universe such as THE INCREMENT and STAR TREK
2) BUSINESS WEEK - 3 million jobs open with 13 million unemployed and Obama's solution is to "retrain" the workforce. (your characters are in retraining or teaching re-trainees).
3) NEWSWEEK - We're All Trekkies Now. Geeks have inherited the Earth and the White House. The Star Trek spirit of seeing an upbeat future awakens again -- or does it?
4) The popular theme of being overwhelmed (or almost overwhelmed) or needing protection from Evil that seethes beneath the surface of everyday life. Will that theme give way to Star Trek's HOPE theme, and if it does, what turbulence will disrupt romance?
5) Not mentioned here, but there's a trend of 30 and 40+ year old women FINALLY beginning to have children that might be relevant to building your SF Romance world.
So now re-connect the dots and do a little original worldbuilding.
Take your readers' awareness of the general IQ frustration (just think of the last time your computer made you feel helpless and you've got the emotion) as the background you're cradling your romance (or whatever genre; this process works for all genres) in, and tell a whopping good story about how IQ itself is a major stumbling block in intimacy in relationships.
You may generate more obstacles for your plot by creating characters to represent the various sides of the philosophical argument on the true nature of Humanity, and therein will lie your THEME.
Are humans like lemmings, carrying the seeds of their destruction within them (i.e. creating tech so "high" that we can't produce workers to maintain it but we become dependent on it for lack of basic grunt-work skills (spinning, weaving, farming, shepherding, metal working)? Or are humans infinitely adaptable, with brains that will re-circuit so that each generation's IQ 100 is actually HIGHER THAN the IQ 100 mark of the previous generation?
Is that what's happening already? It used to be parents had to get their kids to program the VCR. Now kids live online and text with their thumbs in coded words. Grown kids have to send pictures of their kids to their parents via dumbed-down-wireless-pictureframes. The parents won't twitter and the keener parents will just barely facebook but not myspace.
Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing are beyond today's 60 year olds.
The Web is the territory of the young (OK. I'm a misfit. So what else is new?)
How does the May/September Romance work out in a world with a generation gap like this? Will the Star Trek movie change anything?
You may, if you wish, post exercises on editingcircle.blogspot.com as comments for and get some input on how you do the exercise.
And remember, you don't have to AGREE with my analysis here - in fact it's better if you don't - in order to reconnect these dots into a new pattern and profit from the exercise. These dots could be a springboard into a hot Romance full of impossible things before breakfast.
Do you, as a writer, follow the trend -- or do you forge it?
And also remember, our objective in my last few posts here is to work the puzzle of how to get an SF Romance onto TV or into the movies to do for the genre what we have done (according to NEWSWEEK, anyway) for SF.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Monday, May 11, 2009
How Much is Too Much (World Buliding & Balance)?
Since I'm essentially brain dead after completing a twenty-five+ page "author questionnaire" for Random House (and it could have gone more than twenty-five pages...I just gave up out of exhaustion)... I'm going to piggyback a post that's going on today at The Galaxy Express about world building, or as Heather delightfully puts it: The 7 Unnecessary Science Fiction Worldbuilding Details.
But Heather neatly broke down those things that irk her and to a great extent, rightly so. There are certain 'givens' in genre fiction. The trouble to me come when you're dealing with cross-genre fiction. How much does an author do to bring a new reader "up to speed?" What kind of assumptions can we make about our readers coming from two different camps?
Jacqueline's done some great posts on info dumping before:
But Heather neatly broke down those things that irk her and to a great extent, rightly so. There are certain 'givens' in genre fiction. The trouble to me come when you're dealing with cross-genre fiction. How much does an author do to bring a new reader "up to speed?" What kind of assumptions can we make about our readers coming from two different camps?Just to torture myself, I have a Google-search on my name that brings to my inbox daily a list of blogs that mention me. I've found some pretty neat reviews that way and met lots of new fans. But I've also read a number of "back fence" conversations by both SF and Romance readers who find huge fault with SFR--and usually for the opposite reason (or the other side of the same coin...bear with me, I'm really tired.)
The SF readers for the most part don't get the 'required HEA' in SFR and express distaste to displeasure on the amount of time spent on the romantic relationship. To them, going into the hero's or heroine's thoughts about the other is rather like noting that chairs are decklocked. That's something they simply don't want to know. Yet if it's left out, the romance readers riot.
The SF readers don't particularly care that much about things romance readers look for: descriptions of anything from clothing to the hero's apartment/cabin/house. Where to romance readers, setting can "set the mood" to SF readers, setting is...setting. 
On the other hand (are four fingers and a thumb...oh, wait, I'm blogging) I recently read an interesting post on Goodreads where a romance reader decried SFR for it's use of "futuristic names" (what's wrong with Jack, she asked?). I knew what she was getting at but I wondered if it wasn't more a stereotype than actual occurrence. My characters aren't named Jack but they are named Philip, Mack, Branden, Sully and Theo. For starters. I think the day of the main characters in SFR or futuristics being T'Kwee'gre'sha and Perr'k'ray-roo are long gone, if they ever were. But because "alien sounding names" are often used for worlds or items, I think there's a general belief that SFR is chock full of T'Kwee'gre'shas. (And by the way, as a Yank originally from New Jersey, names like Padraig, Siohban, Ceallach and Sinéad confuse the heck out of me and they're all names from right here on this planet.)
So the question becomes, how much is too much--to which part of your readership? What assumptions can you make about SFR readers? How do you keep one half entertained without insulting the other? Can we assume everyone knows what an airlock looks like and does? That's like assuming I know how to pronounce reticule, a word often found in historical romances. It's part of my history, I should know that, eh?
I don't. Even when I'm not totally tired. ~Linnea
HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, Feb. 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/
But, yeah, get shot by a Surger, and it still hurt like a bitch and could put you flat out dead if someone’s aim was good. Not center mass, as they were taught. That only worked on the good guys, but it wasn’t the good guys who needed shooting. It was the bad guys, and they were smart enough to wear body armor. Good luck getting a standard Surger to penetrate that.
Okay, maybe at point-blank.
But at point blank, the bad guys had already shot you dead with their nice powerful Carver-12s.
But, yeah, get shot by a Surger, and it still hurt like a bitch and could put you flat out dead if someone’s aim was good. Not center mass, as they were taught. That only worked on the good guys, but it wasn’t the good guys who needed shooting. It was the bad guys, and they were smart enough to wear body armor. Good luck getting a standard Surger to penetrate that.
Okay, maybe at point-blank.
But at point blank, the bad guys had already shot you dead with their nice powerful Carver-12s.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Desperately Seeking A Stopper
A few weeks ago Linnea Sinclair shared a fabulous post about mentoring. Well, I don't claim to mentor, but I will pinch hit on occasion.
This last week, Lillian Cauldwell and I have been fighting a dragonish problem… but we are not well matched as temporary critique partners.
I fly under false colours, writing scatological social and political satire disguised as futuristic romance aka alien romance (which is not set in the future). Lillian writes well researched psychic mystery stories for young adults, and her heroes and heroines are African-American and Hispanic teens who see ghosts and are transported back into history through time and space.
Lillian's work reminds me of Indiana Jones in junior high.
Our dragon's name is "The Stopper" and we can't crack it.
For those not familiar with "The Stopper" it's an escalated version of a hook or grabber, intended to stop an agent or editor from answering the phone while your pages are in their hands. Ideally, one would like to come up with a "stopper" that not only leads to a contract, but that goes viral when the book is released.
Emily Bryan achieved something of the sort for "Distracting The Duchess" (a historical romance) with "I'm going to have to shorten his willy." People who had no intention of buying the book were happy to tweet about the line.
From a GoodReads.com discussion of first lines, come some more examples of great stoppers:
“I don’t know how other guys feel about their wives leaving them but I helped mine pack.”
“I’ve been sleeping with your husband for the last two years."
“When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.” That's from Firebreak, by Donald Westlake.
If those examples represent the gold standard for stoppers, dross might be this year's Bulwer Lytton winners:
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm
For those who have never heard of it, the Bulwer-Lytton is an international literary parody contest, which honors the memory of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873).
Entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. … Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words …."It was a dark and stormy night."
Winner
Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."
Garrison Spik
Washington, D.C.
Dishonorable Mention (Children's Literature)
Joanne watched her fellow passengers - a wizened man reading about alchemy; an oversized bearded man-child; a haunted, bespectacled young man with a scar; and a gaggle of private school children who chatted ceaselessly about Latin and flying around the hockey pitch and the two-faced teacher who they thought was a witch - there was a story here, she decided.
Tim Ellis
Haslemere, U.K.
Runner Up (Children's Literature)
Dorothy had reasons to be nervous: a young girl alone in a strange land, traveling with three weird, insecure males badly in need of psychiatric help; she tucked her feet under her skirt to keep the night's chill (and lewd stares) away and made sure one more time that the gun was secured in her yet-to-develop bosom.
Domingo Pestano
Alto Prado, Caracas, Venezuela
Find more here: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm
Lillian Cauldwell is trying to find a stopper for her second novel in the Anna Mae mystery series, which is targeted at young readers from eight to eighteen. Anna Mae is a youngster with psychic powers which she has inherited from her grandmother, and ghosts from the past guide her to find ancient, buried treasures.
She would very much appreciate any reader's opinions on which of her drafted first lines comes closest to grabbing their interest. (I've deliberately not presented the five examples in any kind of order.)
6.
Missing: Black teenager, last seen asleep in bed, Anna Mae Botts is five foot three inches, weighs one hundred pounds, brown eyes, and a butterfly birthmark on back of left calf. If you have any information, please call the Lowry sheriff’s department at 604-983-8867.
7.
Anna Mae Botts struggled. Her heart thumped. She gripped the sheets. A boy opened a golden box and dissolved into ashes.
If something works, Lillian would like to know why. If readers can put their fingers on why one or more drafts veer off course, that, too, would be instructive.
Thank you, and Happy Mothers' Day.
Rowena Cherry
This last week, Lillian Cauldwell and I have been fighting a dragonish problem… but we are not well matched as temporary critique partners.
I fly under false colours, writing scatological social and political satire disguised as futuristic romance aka alien romance (which is not set in the future). Lillian writes well researched psychic mystery stories for young adults, and her heroes and heroines are African-American and Hispanic teens who see ghosts and are transported back into history through time and space.
Lillian's work reminds me of Indiana Jones in junior high.
Our dragon's name is "The Stopper" and we can't crack it.
For those not familiar with "The Stopper" it's an escalated version of a hook or grabber, intended to stop an agent or editor from answering the phone while your pages are in their hands. Ideally, one would like to come up with a "stopper" that not only leads to a contract, but that goes viral when the book is released.
Emily Bryan achieved something of the sort for "Distracting The Duchess" (a historical romance) with "I'm going to have to shorten his willy." People who had no intention of buying the book were happy to tweet about the line.
From a GoodReads.com discussion of first lines, come some more examples of great stoppers:
“I don’t know how other guys feel about their wives leaving them but I helped mine pack.”
“I’ve been sleeping with your husband for the last two years."
“When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.” That's from Firebreak, by Donald Westlake.
If those examples represent the gold standard for stoppers, dross might be this year's Bulwer Lytton winners:
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm
For those who have never heard of it, the Bulwer-Lytton is an international literary parody contest, which honors the memory of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873).
Entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. … Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words …."It was a dark and stormy night."
Winner
Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."
Garrison Spik
Washington, D.C.
Dishonorable Mention (Children's Literature)
Joanne watched her fellow passengers - a wizened man reading about alchemy; an oversized bearded man-child; a haunted, bespectacled young man with a scar; and a gaggle of private school children who chatted ceaselessly about Latin and flying around the hockey pitch and the two-faced teacher who they thought was a witch - there was a story here, she decided.
Tim Ellis
Haslemere, U.K.
Runner Up (Children's Literature)
Dorothy had reasons to be nervous: a young girl alone in a strange land, traveling with three weird, insecure males badly in need of psychiatric help; she tucked her feet under her skirt to keep the night's chill (and lewd stares) away and made sure one more time that the gun was secured in her yet-to-develop bosom.
Domingo Pestano
Alto Prado, Caracas, Venezuela
Find more here: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm
Lillian Cauldwell is trying to find a stopper for her second novel in the Anna Mae mystery series, which is targeted at young readers from eight to eighteen. Anna Mae is a youngster with psychic powers which she has inherited from her grandmother, and ghosts from the past guide her to find ancient, buried treasures.
She would very much appreciate any reader's opinions on which of her drafted first lines comes closest to grabbing their interest. (I've deliberately not presented the five examples in any kind of order.)
1.
Make love, not war Anna Mae Botts remembered from her dream-vision, but the AK 47 automatic rifle slung over Jonathan Selassie's shoulders said something entirely different. She awoke with a start.
2.
Carried by six teenagers, three girls dressed in white shorts, yellow tee shirts and flip flops; three boys dressed in the Atlanta Braves tee shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots, the Holy Relic gleamed in the mid day sun. Ahead of the procession a sixteen-year-old boy dressed in combat fatigues and slung over his left shoulder an AK47 rifle led the way. Behind them, a dust storm whirled and wiped out all traces of their prints.
3.
Twelve year old Anna Mae Botts awoke with a jerk. She tried grasping the sides of her mattress only to find herself bound with rope and her mouth stuffed with a cotton rag, Anna Mae wailed inside her mind. “Granma!”
4.
Twelve-year-old Anna Mae Botts struggled awake. Heaviness trapped at her limbs.
She willed her mind to break free of the oppressive smell of cinnamon and frankincense. The obnoxious odor blocked her mind and sent her spirit spinning into an opened black pit where a wooden rod became a snake rope and seven metal circular keys opened a rectangular gold box with angel wings outstretched on top and meeting in the middle.
5.
“I’m cold.”
We’d just stepped out from the Lowry Dollar Cinema. The sun bathed me with its heat. My tee shirt clung to my back. Yet, I shivered in the hot sun. Raul looked at me. A slight grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “It’s hottah than blazes out here. Yar always cold. Here!” He gave me a quick tight hug. “Bettah?”
6.
Missing: Black teenager, last seen asleep in bed, Anna Mae Botts is five foot three inches, weighs one hundred pounds, brown eyes, and a butterfly birthmark on back of left calf. If you have any information, please call the Lowry sheriff’s department at 604-983-8867.
7.
Anna Mae Botts struggled. Her heart thumped. She gripped the sheets. A boy opened a golden box and dissolved into ashes.
If something works, Lillian would like to know why. If readers can put their fingers on why one or more drafts veer off course, that, too, would be instructive.
Thank you, and Happy Mothers' Day.
Rowena Cherry
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