Sunday, July 25, 2010

Babel Fish vs Brain Power

I have a mind like a dump. I can say that because it is my mind. One never knows what is buried in there and that might be turned up by an intergalactic bulldozer! Anyway, one of the authors participating in celebration of diversity in SFR currently going on at The Galaxy Express mentioned The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Jul 24, 2010 ... Science fiction for me was the dark dystopian future of 1984 stretching to the absurdity of HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. ...
www.thegalaxyexpress.net/
Google Alert.... credit Kim Knox http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2010/07/parallel-universe-one-thing-stays-same.html .

Following this diversity series has stimulated me to think about some of the less diverse aspects of SFR: how writers cope with communication between species and races. It seems to me, it's either some version of the babel fish (usually an implanted chip rather than a parasite) or it's brain power and hard work in the language lab (or hypnopedia in the only one of my books where I give a nod to the problem).

Is there anything else? Could there be? Possibly "Texting" gives us a clue. From time to time, I think about all the troubles we have with our computers and the internet (worms, Trojans, viruses, hackers, malware) and apply it to what might happen to people with a robotic "babel fish" implanted in their heads.

With that in mind, I allowed a "villain" (more of an opportunistic mischief maker who happened to be a world leader) to mess with undiplomatic holographic messages in Knight's Fork.

However, before posting what would have been a very short post on that point, I thought that I ought to check that the "babel fish!" reference that popped up in my mind was accurate and properly attributed. One does try to be responsible.

Imagine my delight when my "Babel Fish" research led to this! (Below. From Wikipedia. Apparently, free to share.) I love lists for worldbuilding.  Credits and attribution at the bottom of the post.

This is a list of races, fauna, and flora (as well as creatures without category) featured in various incarnations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Races

Aldebarans

The popular anti-teleport song claims that "Aldebaran's great, OK", but the Aldebarans are better known for their liqueurs (sold at Miliways), and fine wines (as Trillian prepared for Zaphod after deactivating all the Heart of Gold kitchen synthomatics).

Altairians

Advanced species known for their love of the movie Fight Club and their intense hatred of rabbits. It will take less than thirty of their dollars a day for hitchhikers to see the universe; so long as said hitchhikers avoid buying fruit drinks at Ursa Minor Beta nightclubs, which cost sixty Altairian dollars.

Amoeboid Zingatularians

The Amoeboid Zingatularians appear as a stellar replacement in the long-running comedic play No Sex Please, We're British at the end of fit the third of the radio series.

Bartledanians

Inhabitants of the planet Bartledan. The people of Bartledan are similar to humans, but do not breathe. Due to their view on the Universe - that the Universe is what the Universe is, take it or leave it - they have no desires, dreams or hopes, to the point that the protagonist of a Bartledanian novel abruptly dies of thirst in the penultimate chapter of the book due to a briefly-mentioned plumbing problem earlier on. Bartledanian literature is renowned, and its books are notable for being exactly one hundred thousand words long. Netball is a popular sport among the people of Bartledan despite the fact that no one cares about winning.

Belcerebons

The Belcerebons of Kakrafoon Kappa had an unhappy time. Once a serene and quiet civilization, a Galactic Tribunal sentenced them to telepathy because the rest of the galaxy found peaceful contemplation contemptuous. Ford Prefect compared them to Humans because the only way Belcerebons could stop transmitting their every thought was to mask their brain activity (or its readability) by talking endlessly about utter trivia. The other approach to dampening telepathic communication was to host concerts of the plutonium rock band Disaster Area. Thankfully, during the concert, an improbability field flipped over the Rudlit Desert, transforming it into a paradise, and cured the Belcerebons of telepathy. A Disaster Area spokesman said that this was "a good gig".

Betelgeusians

A race similar to humans in many ways.

Blagulon Kappans

Blagulon Kappans are methane-breathing life forms from Blagulon Kappa, which only appear in the books as the sophisticated police that attack Zaphod Beeblebrox. They die because Marvin the Paranoid Android causes their ship to commit suicide by sharing his overly pessimistic view of the Universe with it. This in turn renders their space suits, which are remote controlled by the ship, unusable. This proves fatal because they cannot breathe in the thin oxygen atmosphere of Magrathea. However, in the TV series the police are simply humanoids and able to breathe the air.

Dentrassis

Dentrassis are the best cooks and the best drink mixers in the universe. The Vogons can now afford them by being professionally bad tempered. Described by the character Ford Prefect as "The best cooks and the best drinks mixers, and they don't give a wet slap about anything else." In most versions of the story, they help galactic hitchhikers board Vogon Constructor Ships "partly because they like the company, but mostly because it annoys the Vogons."
The Dentrassi were also a demo coding group for the Atari ST home computer.

Dolphins

Dolphins are the second most intelligent creatures on Earth, just above humans. They tried in vain to warn humans of the impending destruction of the planet. However, their behavior was misinterpreted as playful attempts to whistle for fish and jump through hoops. Their story is told in the novel So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Flaybooz

Flaybooz are small, gerbil-like creatures. Though flaybooz have no ears, they are extremely sensitive to vibration and can actually explode in extreme circumstances. Thor, the Asgardian and sometime rock god, held the record for spontaneous flaybooz detonation when he debuted his new tune “You Wanna Get Hammered?” from a chariot in orbit around Squornshellous Delta. The record had previously been held by intergalactic rock stars Disaster Area, who dropped a speaker bomb into a volcano crater where the flaybooz were enjoying a static electricity festival.
Contrary to an almost universal norm, it is the male flaybooz who nurtures the young. A full-grown flaybooz can fit up to fifty young in his pouch, but generally there is only room for a couple, as males like to carry around a small tool kit in case of emergencies, maybe a few beers, and a copy of Furballs Quarterly. From the novel And Another Thing....

G'Gugvuntts and Vl'hurgs

Two species which existed in the distant past, a very great distance from the Milky Way galaxy. The G'Gugvuntt were enemies of the Vl'hurgs, and these strange and warlike beings are on the brink of an interstellar war, because of an insult uttered by the G'Gunvuntt leader to the mother of the Vl'hurg leader. They were meeting for the last time, and a dreadful silence filled the air as the Vl'hurg leader was challenging the G'Gunvuntt leader to retract the insult. At the precise moment, the phrase "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle" (muttered by Arthur Dent to himself, which for some strange reason was carried by a freak wormhole in space back in time to the farthest regions of the universe where the G'Gunvuntts and the Vl'hurgs lived) filled the air, which in the Vl'hurg tongue was the most dreadful insult imaginable. It left them no choice but to declare war on the G'Gunvuntts, which went on for a few thousand years and decimated their entire galaxy.
After millennia of battle the surviving G'Gugvuntt and Vl'hurg realised what had actually happened, and joined forces to attack the Milky Way in retaliation. They crossed vast reaches of space in a journey lasting thousands of years before reaching their target where they attacked the first planet they encountered, Earth. Due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was swallowed by a small dog. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy states that this sort of thing happens all the time.
In the film, the phrase is stated as: "I wouldn't want to go anywhere without my wonderful towel." In the computer game The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, any remark that the text parser does not understand has a chance of triggering a story arc involving the player's poorly chosen words travelling to the negotiation table and becoming the aforementioned insult.

Golgafrinchans

The Golgafrinchans are a race from the planet Golgafrincham that appears in fit the sixth of the radio series, episode 6 of the TV series and the novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. In their ancient history, they tricked the most useless third (the middlemen) of their population to get on a spaceship and leave the planet, by spreading rumours of the horrific fates their planet was doomed to soon undergo, such as being eaten by a mutant star goat, or collapsing into the sun. The plan was to get them to crash on a "harmless" planet, thus losing any capacity for space travel; they would then be out of everyone's hair.
Soon after they managed to get rid of these people - including all the telephone sanitizers - the entire remaining population was wiped out by a plague contracted from a dirty telephone.
The survivors who left on the spaceship eventually did crash onto Earth, as planned. They managed to possibly wipe out the primitive, but wise, population of original inhabitants, thus corrupting Deep Thought's 10-million-year plan to discover the Ultimate Question to the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. They are presumed to be the ancestors of modern humans.
Ancient Golgafrinchan culture included a sect known as 'the great circling poets of Arium', who would abuse travellers, circle them and throw rocks at them. Afterwards, they would recite an epic poem which usually involved the rescue of a beautiful monster from a ravening Princess by five sage Princes on four horses.
See also: Listings for specific Golgafrinchan characters

Grebulons

The Grebulons are a race that appears in the novel Mostly Harmless. They are observing the Earth, but do not know why.
During the centuries-long spaceflight the Grebulons were all in suspended animation with their memories saved to the ship's computer (which was struck by an asteroid influenced by Guide Mark II). With the loss of the backup, after the robots carrying it also fell out of the hole made by the asteroid, the Grebulons awoke with no idea where they were going or who they were. What little instructions they could extract from the wrecked computer told them to "land" somewhere and "monitor" something, so they landed on Rupert and monitored the televisionEarth. transmissions from
Trillian later reveals that the Grebulons are a missing reconnaissance fleet from the war that she was meant to cover (which never happened because the Grebulons never arrived with their respective army).

Haggunenons

The Haggunenons of Vicissitus Three were encountered in the fit the sixth of the radio series when Ford and Zaphod attempted to steal an Admiral's flagship from the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. According to the Guide, the Haggunenons "have the most impatient chromosomes in the Galaxy. Whereas most species are content to evolve slowly and carefully over thousands of generations, discarding a prehensile toe here, [...] hazarding another nostril there, the Haggunenons would have done for Charles Darwin what a squadron of Arcturan Stunt Apples would have done for Sir Isaac Newton. Their genetic structure is based on the quadruple sterated octohelix...." Their tendency to evolve almost instantaneously has the downside of discarding one deficiency for another. For example, when they reach for sugar for their coffee, they may evolve "into something with much longer arms, but which is probably perfectly incapable of drinking the coffee." They resent stable species, and wage war on them in their horribly beweaponed chameleoid black battle cruisers.
The Haggunenon Admiral turned out to have been sleeping on his flagship in the form of a chair while Ford, Arthur, Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin returned it to its proper time and place at the vanguard of an invasion fleet. It then evolved into a copy of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, from which Ford and Arthur were able to escape, but which ate Marvin, Trillian and Zaphod. Those three later made their escape when the admiral evolved into an escape capsule.
This monster also appears in the "Dungeons and Dragons Epic Level Handbook" as the Hagunemnon. Like their Hitch-hiker's counterparts, they too are unstable shapeshifters with a deep loathing for non-shapeshifting lifeforms.
See also: Haggunenon Underfleet Commander

Hingefreel

A race with only a very small mention, at the start of Chapter 1 of the novel Mostly Harmless. Hailing from Arkintoofle Minor, they built spaceships powered by bad news, which is the only thing that travels faster than light. Their ships were very fast, but didn't work particularly well, and were extremely unwelcome wherever they arrived.

Hooloovoo

A Hooloovoo is a hyperintelligent shade of the colour blue.
Little is known of them, except that one participated in the construction of the starship Heart of Gold. At the launching ceremony one was temporarily refracted into a free-standing prism. This is probably analogous to the ceremonial multicoloured lab coats worn by the rest of the team.

Hrarf-Hrarf

Hrarf-Hrarf are a race of beings whose lifespans flow backwards in linear time. Their lives begin at death, and end "in a really quite extraordinarily pleasant birth." They are also described as the "only race known actually to enjoy hangovers, because they know it guarantees that a tremendously good evening will ensue."
The race is mentioned only in the radio series The Secondary Phase, written specially for that series by Douglas Adams in the mid-1990s.

Humans

Humans are bipedal creatures from Earth, and the third most intelligent species on that planet. (Surpassed only by mice and dolphins.) Originally thought to have evolved from proto-apes, humans may in fact be descendants of Golgafrinchan telephone sanitizers, account executives, and marketing analysts who were tricked out of leaving their home planet to arrive on the planet ca. two million BC. These Golgafrinchans apparently displaced the indigenous cavemen as the organic components in the computer designed by Deep Thought.
Interestingly, although the term "humanoid" is applied to many races throughout the galaxy, "humanity" refers specifically to the qualities of humans.

Jatravartids

Jatravartids are small blue creatures of the planet Viltvodle VI with more than fifty arms each. They are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented aerosol deodorantwheel. before the
Many races believe that the Universe was created by some sort of god or in the Big Bang. The Jatravartid people, however, believe that the Universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. They live in perpetual fear of the time they call "The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief". The theory of the Great Green Arkleseizure is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI.
(A similar concept was used in the short story "God's Nose" by Damon Knight.)
For the 2005 movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams created a new character called Humma Kavula, a missionary whose apparent mission is to spread the religion of the Jatravartids. The Jatravartids are only seen on screen during two brief (and poorly lit) shots, though their discarded aerosol cans are found all over their planet's surface. "Caveman"-style illustrations of the Jatravartids feature in one episode of the Hitchhiker's GuideTV series.

Krikkiters

This race of quiet, polite, charming and rather whimsical humanoids caused the most devastating war in the history of the Galaxy (with over two "grillion" casualties). Their homeworld, Krikkit, is surrounded by a black cloud, so they had no knowledge of the universe outside their world. When a spaceship crashed on the surface of Krikkit, the inhabitants quickly stripped it of its secrets and used them to create their own "flimsy piece of near-junk" craft, Krikkit One. Upon reaching the outer edge of the dust cloud and seeing the galaxy for the first time, the people of Krikkit marvelled at its beauty before casually deciding to destroy it, famously remarking "It'll have to go." The Earth game of cricket is a racial memory of the events of the Krikkit Wars. The story of these events is told in the novel Life, the Universe and Everything.

Lamuellans

Lamuellans are a humanoid race from the planet Lamuella. It is on this planet that a passenger starship crashes, and Arthur Dent is the only survivor. There he becomes the planet's Sandwich Maker. The Lamuellans are led, more or less, by Old Thrashbarg, the tribe's priest to Almighty Bob. Other residents of the village include Kirp, a fisher, Grarp the Baker, Strinder the Tool Maker, and Drimple the Sandwich Maker's apprentice. The planet is also home to Perfectly Normal Beasts and Pikka Birds. The complete story is found in the novel Mostly Harmless.

Magratheans

They are sentient beings that live on planet Magrathea. In the past during the time of the Galactic Empire, they created and sold planets to rich customers. They are very mysterious and seem to show up whenever something important happens, which is seen the most in the third book:Life, the Universe, and Everything. In the first book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy it is revealed that they have been asleep waiting for the galaxies' economy to improve, but were awakened prematurely to rebuild the Earth after its destruction by Vogons. They are the race who built the Earth, at the request of the Mice. However, in the film, the Mice and the Magratheans are the same species.

Mice

Mice are the physical protrusions into our dimension of a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings who commissioned construction of the Earth to find the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything. As such, they are the most intelligent life form on that planet.
In their home dimension, a popular sport is Brockian Ultra-Cricket, a horribly violent game which involves hitting people for no readily apparent reason and then running away, before apologising from some distance - often through a megaphone. However, it is completely unrelated except in name to the earth sport of cricket.

Oglaroonians

Natives to the small forest world of Oglaroon, Oglaroonians have taken what is a fairly universal trait among sentient species (to cope with the sheer infinite vastness of the universe by simply ignoring it) to its ultimate extreme. Despite the entire planet being habitable, Oglaroonians have managed to confine their global population to one small nut tree, in which they compose poetry, create art, and somehow fight wars. The consensus among those in power that any trees one might observe from the outer branches are merely hallucinations brought on by eating too many oglanuts, and anyone who thinks differently is hurled out of the tree, presumably to his death.

Poghrils

An exceptionally pessimistic race from the star system of Pansel. Due to the Heart of Gold's Infinite Improbability Drive causing a wave of improbability when passing through the system, two-hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly fried eggs landed on the surface of their home planet, unfortunately too late to save the vast majority, who had already succumbed to famine, though one did manage to survive for two further weeks, before dying of cholesterol poisoning.

Shaltanacs

The Shaltanacs are a race from the planet Broop Kidron Thirteen, who had their own version of the Earth phrase, "The other man's grass is always greener." Although, given their planet's horticultural peculiarities, theirs was, "The other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauve-y shade of pinky russet," and so, the expression fell into disuse, and the Shaltanacs found they had little choice but to become exceptionally happy and content with their lot, which surprised everyone else in the galaxy, who had not realised that the best way not to be unhappy is not to have a word for it.

Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax

The Silastic Armourfiends were an insanely aggressive race who lived on the planet Striterax approximately twenty billion years ago "when the universe was young". They were extremely keen on fighting – one of the best ways to deal with a Silastic Armourfiend was to lock him in a room by himself, since he would beat himself up sooner or later. They wrecked the surface of their planet in constant wars, and the whole population lived within bunkers deep below the surface.
In an attempt to deal with the problems their violent nature created, the Silastic Armourfiends passed a law that anybody who had to carry a weapon as part of their normal work (including policemen, security guards and primary school teachers) must spend a minimum of 45 minutes each day punching a sack of potatoes. It was hoped that this would allow them to work off their surplus aggression. This plan worked only until someone had the idea to simply shoot the potatoes, and the Silastic Armourfiends were excited about their "first war for weeks."
During one of their more unpleasant wars, the Silastic Armourfiends asked the great computer Hactar to design the ultimate weapon for them. The computer complied, creating a hand-held bomb which would connect the core of every major sun via hyperspace, destroying the entire universe. The Silastic Armorfiends attempted to use the bomb to blow up a munitions dump, but fortunately Hactar had built a dud weapon since it could not conceive of any occasion when the use of the real thing would be justified. The Silastic Armourfiends disagreed, and pulverised Hactar.
Eventually, after smashing the hell out of the Strenuous Garfighters of Stug and the Strangulous Stilletans of Jajazikstack, the Silastic Armourfiends found an entirely new way of blowing themselves up, which was of great relief to the Garfighters, the Stilletans, and the potatoes.
"The best way to pick a fight with a Silastic Armorfiend was just to be born. They didn't like it, they got resentful"

Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak

An enemy of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax.

Strenuous Garfighters of Stug

An enemy of the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax.

Vogons

Fauna

Algolian Suntiger

The tooth of an Algolian Suntiger is part of the mix for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It "spreads the fires of the Algolian suns deep into the heart of the drink."

Ameglian Major Cows

See Dish of the Day (cow).

Arcturian Megadonkey

An animal featured in the proverb "to talk all four legs off an Arcturian Megadonkey", and also served grated at a dinner on the planet Magrathea.

Arcturian Megagnat

A creature from Kakrafoon. It is mentioned during a description of the many uses of towels whereby you can "huddle beneath it for protection against the Arcturian Megagnats under the stars of Kakrafoon."

Babel fish

The Babel fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and is a universal translator which simultaneously translates from one spoken language to another. It takes the brainwaves of the other body and what they are thinking then transmits the thoughts to the speech centers of the hosts brain, the speech heard by the ear decodes the brainwave matrix. When inserted into the ear, its nutrition processes convert sound waves into brain waves, neatly crossing the language divide between any species you should happen to meet whilst traveling in space.
Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.[1] Arthur Dent, a surviving Earthling, commented only 'Eurgh!' when first inserting the fish into his ear canal. It did, however, enable him to understand Vogon Poetry - not necessarily a good thing.
The book points out that the Babel fish could not possibly have developed naturally, and therefore proves the existence of God as its creator. However, certain people say this proves the nonexistence of god as proof denies faith, and without faith, god is nothing. "'my, that was easy', says man, and goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

Boghog

The Boghog is the only native animal of planet NowWhat, "all other having long ago died of despair".
Boghogs are tiny, vicious creatures with unaccountably thin and leaky skins. Boghog meat is almost completely inedible and is the primary source of food for the settlers on NowWhat.
The language of the boghogs consists of biting each other very hard on the thigh and thus was never learned by anybody else.

Damogran Frond Crested Eagle

A Damogran Frond Crested Eagle inhabites Damogran, a desert planet where Zaphod Beeblebrox steals the Heart of Gold. A Damogran Frond Crested Eagle incorporated the first two pages of Zaphod Beeblebrox's speech into its nest, which it built out of paper mâché, and "was virtually impossible for a newly hatched baby eagle to break out of." Since apparently the Eagle had, for some reason, heard of survival of the species and become opposed to it.

Equinusian packbeast

At the beginning of the radio series The Quandary Phase, the voice of The Book describes any attempts to appeal to the better nature of the Vogons as "flogging a dead Equinusian packbeast." Director Dirk Maggs answered that this expression can be read as either referring to a horse (Latin name Equus caballus), or a separate horse-like alien species, or both.

Fuolornis Fire Dragon

A majestic creature that, despite having "breath like a rocket booster and teeth like a park fence" was revered in the land of Brequinda for the mystifyingly sexy way in which it flew about the fragrant night skies, along with their tendency to bite anybody who didn't revere them. So sexy were the dragons that they would induce mass exodus to private quarters when crossing the full moon. Although generally peaceful, they nonetheless managed to bite and burn other people quite a bit; behaviour which led eventually to their extinction and use in making hamburgers. The most current edition of the Guide has yet to mention this crucial fact, much to the disappointment of hitchhikers. Also according to the Guide, most of Brequinda now seems to contain restaurants selling the dragon meat burgers, possibly indicating that some find the meat tasty. Dragons are shown as part of the defense system of the godly planet of Asgard in the novel And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, but it is never said whether or not these are the same or different dragons.

Greater Drubbered Wintwock

According to the novel Mostly Harmless, these are no longer found on the planet Stegbartle Major in the Constellation Fraz.

Mattress

Mattresses are friendly, dim-witted, docile creatures capable of speech. They are all called Zem and live in the swamps of Squornshellous Zeta. Many of them are slaughtered, dried out, and shipped around the Galaxy to be slept on by grateful customers, though they do not appear to mind this. Many of the movements they make, such as gupping and willomying, are so unique that etymologists have driven themselves half-insane tracking down new words for them.

Perfectly Normal Beast

The Perfectly Normal Beasts are a species that migrate across the Anhondo Plain on Lamuella twice a year (one direction in the spring then back again in the autumn). The migration takes about 8 to 9 days during which time they form a solid mass. They appear from thin air at one end of the plain then disappear again at the other. They are called Perfectly Normal Beasts because naming them normalizes the event of their migration and keeps people from worrying about its cause. It is likely that the Domain of the King was built to take advantage of this odd, mile-wide gap in the bi-yearly migration, situated as it is on a rather nice stretch of land that would otherwise be badly trampled every now and then (or, the space-time warp was specifically manipulated by the Domain's original builder as a matter of convenience).
The local Lamuellans capture the beasts and kill them for their meat. The method uses similar techniques to a matador but also requires use of the Pikka Birds to get their attention. The best of the meat is eaten straight away while the rest is salted and stored for consumption until the next migration. It was consumed on its own until the arrival of the Sandwich Maker and is now always placed between two slices of bread.

Pikka Bird

The Pikka Birds are birds native to Lamuella. They are known for being surprised by ordinary everyday objects and events such as the sun rising but completely ignoring unusual events such as spaceships landing. They are accustomed to staring blankly at a few anonymous atoms in the middle of the air. They are also used to attract Perfectly Normal Beasts. According to Arthur Dent's description of them in the radio series The Quintessential Phase and the novel Mostly Harmless, their eggs make rather a good omelette. On his first encounter with a Pikka Bird, Ford Prefect is disturbed by its physical similarity to the bird-shape taken by the sentient Guide Mark II.
(Pica pica is the Latin name for the magpie).

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is a creature that hails from the planet of Traal, and will eat anything. The beasts are impossible to kill. To deal with a beast, one should wrap a towel around one's own head. This creature is so mind-bogglingly stupid that it assumes that if someone cannot see it, then it cannot see the person. Despite this, the Guide did state, erroneously, that "ravenous Bugblatter beasts often make a very good meal for (rather than of) visiting tourists" in its article on the planet Traal. This led to deaths of those who took it literally. The guide's editors avoided lawsuit by summoning a poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty, and therefore prove that their claim, the nicer one, must be true. This led to life itself being held in contempt of court for being neither beautiful nor true, and subsequently being removed from all those present at the trial.
In the computer game The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Bugblatter Beast asks its victims their names before killing them, and carves the names on a memorial outside its cave. The game also describes the Beast as having Lasero-Zap eyes, Swivel-Shear Teeth, and several dozen tungsten carbide Vast Pain claws forged in the sun furnaces of Zangrijad, all implying that it is a cyborg.
According to the radio scripts, the Beast's eyes can turn red, green, then a sort of mauvy pink.
In the 2005 movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Guide has an entry on what to do if you face certain, unavoidable death at the claws of a Bugblatter Beast: the same method for "What to do if you find yourself trapped beneath a large boulder with no means of escape" from fit the eighth of the radio series. The entry is this: "Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer."
In the movie, the Vogons apparently have a Bugblatter Beast trapped inside a metal box, about the size of a shipping container. The Beast is never seen (apart from a large green eye), but the box is continually shaking back and forth. The Vogons use it to execute people who are convicted of crimes such as kidnapping the President, and as such Tricia McMillan was nearly fed to it.

Scintillating Jeweled Scuttling Crabs

Scintillating Jeweled Scuttling Crabs live on the planet Vogsphere, the Vogons' homeworld. Vogons eat the crabs, "smashing their shells open with iron mallets." They cook the crabmeat with the native trees. Although the Vogons migrated to the Megabrantis Cluster, the political hub of the Galaxy, every year the Vogons import twenty-seven thousand scintillating jeweled scuttling crabs from Vogsphere and "while away a drunken night smashing them to bits with iron mallets."

Vegan Rhino

Little is known about Vegan Rhinos. They are mentioned once in The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy when, while having dinner on Magrathea, Zaphod asks Arthur to "try some Vegan Rhino's cutlet. It's delicious if you happen to like that sort of thing"

Vogon Slapsticks

Vogon Slapsticks are odd creatures from the 2005 movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They originated, most likely, on the planet Vogsphere. In shape they look like rust-brown poles stuck into the ground with a rectangle on top, sometimes having a hand print inside it. Ford Prefect pulled one out of the ground, causing it to squeal in a high pitched frequency. It escaped Ford's towel and then slithered into the ground. They smack anyone who thinks or has an idea, then disappear back into the ground. Their name originates from slapstick comedy, which involves exaggerated physical violence.

Flora

Fallian albino marsh worm

The Fallian albino marsh worm spends its life absorbing hallucinogenic gas from the marshes of Fallia. After it dies, it turns into a stiff-ish, cigarette-like object. Hitchhikers call these joysticks.
  • One puff and you feel blissfully happy. Love everybody, forgive your enemies, all that stuff.
  • Two puffs make you curious about just about everything, including the horrible death that is probably coming your way for you to have lit this baby in the first place. This is going to be great, you tell yourself. I am about to experience an energy shift to a new plane of existence. What will it be like? Will I make new friends? Do they have beer?
  • After the third puff, your brain explodes and you feel a little peckish. From the novel And Another Thing...

Fluff

While not, strictly speaking, flora by itself, four bits of fluff collected in the computer game The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy can be made to grow into a fruit-bearing tree. The fruit gives its eater a glimpse of future foresight (necessary for winning said game).

Joopleberry Shrub

A mauvey pink russet plant from planet Broop Kidron Thirteen. It is the basis for the no longer used Shaltanac phrase, "the other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauvey shade of pinky russet."

Ratchet Screwdriver Fruit

A bizarre crop with an unusual life-cycle. Once picked, the fruit must be kept in a dark, dusty drawer for several years, after which time the outer skin crumbles to dust leaving an unidentifiable metal object with screw-holes and various ridges and flanges. This object will inevitably get thrown away when discovered. There is general uncertainty as to the benefits of this behaviour to the ratchet screwdriver species as a whole.

 

Legal Stuff (also copied from Wikipedia)

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NOTES

In my various adventures with ebook pirates, I've discovered that some pirates --who make declarations designed to bamboozle EBay staffers-- are under the impression that popular novels are available free, for all, under GNU licensing.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

Only the author of a work ought to be able to "copyleft" (the opposite of copyright) her work, so if you see someone claiming that they have the right to "resell" a colleagues' work under a GNU license, you ought to report the instance.

Trivial Self-Amusement

Did the Staples (TM) saying "That Was Easy" come from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ?
'my, that was easy', says man, and goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

There's a rule of thumb that I was told (repeatedly) when I started entering RWA chapter contests and that is "no more than 6 adverbs per page". It might have been 6 adverbs/adjectives.

The adverbs and adjectives absolutely make this list. Are there any that you'd edit out?

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Fiction Delivery

RT BOOK REVIEWS magazine is getting it! In their August issue they conclude an article by quoting author J. A. Konrath: "The story isn't on ink, or e-ink, or a computer screen. That's only the delivery system. The story is in your head. The easier it is to get the words into your head, the better."

This comment comes from "Format Fever," an article about why publishers choose to release a book in hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, or e-book. The pros and cons of the various formats are discussed, e.g., hardcovers earn more money per copy, but many readers are understandably reluctant to buy them, not only for the expense but because of their size and weight. Paperbacks are more likely to be impulse purchases than more costly formats are. There's a sidebar about where and how bookstores display books. Hardcovers at the front of the store preferably sit at waist level or higher. That's because not only do sellers want those products at eye level for an adult reader, they want the books specifically at adult male eye level. Men are more likely to buy a hardback on impulse than women are. Who knew? Actually, I wasn't too surprised to read that women have more of a tendency to consider price, not to mention the question of whether a volume will fit in one's purse. Trade paperbacks lie on tables at waist height to invite easy picking up and browsing through. Book clubs like trade paperbacks, which often contain value-added content such as discussion questions that the mass market edition doesn't have. Mass market paperbacks are displayed near the entrance for, again, impulse buy purposes and for the "non-browsing" customer who wants to get in and out quickly. (Now, there's a personality type I can't relate to.)

Authors who've been "promoted" to hardcover mention getting hostile letters from readers, accusing them of greed. Many readers still don't understand that the author has no control over the format and pricing of the book. Personally, if I had the chance to get published in hardcover, I'd be dubious of whether the higher price would make up for lost sales. Sure, there would be a paperback edition six months later, but how many readers would wait to buy it in proportion to those who would forget all about the book by then?

Avon is experimenting with an innovation of releasing novels previously published in hardcover in both trade and mass market sizes at the same time. And of course, although the RT article unaccountably doesn't mention this trend, major publishers now more often than not release the Kindle or other e-book edition simultaneously with the hardback. The trouble is that some of them miss the point and over-price the e-book. Now, that IS greed. But not the author's fault.

The article remarks that readers may feel "it is very hard to justify $25 for eight hours of entertainment." (On the other hand, people spend seven dollars at a movie matinee for about two hours of entertainment; a book looks like a bargain in comparison. After all, the book is rereadable.) The RT writer doesn't even bring up the first question that leaps to my mind when I read this sentence: Who in her right mind would pay the $25-30 suggested retail price for a hardcover? First, if the book comes from a major publisher, one can borrow it from the library and, if it's a personal keeper, buy the paperback later. Or, if it's a "can't wait" author for that particular reader, has she never heard of Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com? The only times I've ever paid full price for a hardcover or trade paperback since a merciful Providence gave us Amazon.com were for products from obscure presses that don't have their wares discounted with the Internet booksellers.

Choice is wonderful!

Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Greed Is Good?

Gordon Gekko, fictional Wall Street Power User, dwells on the mantra

"Greed Is Good."

Here's a quote from:

http://www.timeslive.co.za/entertainment/article525768.ece/Gekkos-ex-learns-greed-lesson

---------QUOTE------
 "Greed is good" was the maxim of Michael Douglas's 1987 film Wall Street. Now, his former wife appears to have taken the lesson to heart.

Diandra Douglas is suing the actor for half of his income from the new sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - though the couple divorced in 2000. The Oliver Stone film is due out in September, with Douglas reprising his role of Gordon Gekko - the self-styled "master of the universe".
--------END QUOTE---------

CNBC ran a poll on Friday July 1 asking if viewers thought greed is good.  It was nearly a split decision, from the way they asked the question.  They didn't specify good for what.

I'm telling you, greed is the writer's best friend! 

It is a perfect, High Concept character motivation.  Nobody, reader or viewer, needs an explanation of what greed feels like, or what it's like to go up against someone fired up with greed.

Now, beyond that, the thematic discussion makes perfect fuel for either a soft-sweet romance or a hot-spice romance, and you can even found a raging action-romance on it.

Greed is a good motive for a protagonist who "comes to his senses" because of love (or a good knock on the you-know-what) and it's a great motive for a villain who gets his comeuppance good and proper.

We discussed the film Toy Story 3 last week, July 13, 2010 on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com

On http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/06/25/toy-story-3-beat-sheet/  you can read the analysis of Toy Story 3 and see just how important THEME is to this light-entertainment film that isn't supposed to draw audiences seeking "serious thought."

You should also note this entry on blakesnyder.com
http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/07/02/kieran-kramer-saves-the-cat-and-so-much-more/ where a NOVEL is analyzed for "beats" --  can you see the trend in Romance there?  Just as I pointed out in my July 13 post noted above.  Theme and Romance and Novels and SCREENPLAYS go together.

Now, plot some stories with greed as the main theme subject.  The word "greed" by itself isn't a theme.  It can be a motif, a character motivation, or almost any other element in a story.  Make it a theme by taking a position on the subject.  "Greed is good" is a great starting point, but move on from there.    

Challenge yourself to a writing exercise.  This is like a pianist doing scales rather than playing an entire piece. 

1) Create a POV character who hates greed (because he/she is riddled with it and rejects Self). 

2) Create a POV character who lauds greed and proves (as Gekko) that greed is the personality trait to foster if you want to get rich or stay rich. 

3) Create a SUPPORTING ROLE character who fights greed in human society.  Generate a POV character from the supporting role (B story character), a POV character that the supporting character can redirect.

4) Create a Villain or simple antagonist who either embraces Greed or eschews it, but does so with way too much force. Explain why he/she's so obsessed. 

5) Create a character whose hidden fear is that his inner greed will overtake him - perhaps he starts out living the severe austerity of a street-begging Monk with a bowl and a robe, no sandals, and suddenly has to command a galactic fortune that's shrinking alarmingly fast.

6) Create a greed-theme based character with your own formula for a character.  Then build a world to display that character's lessons in greed -- such as Wall Street was chosen to display Gekko's philosophy.

Remember all the TV Series you've seen using Confidence Men (White Collar rules the roost at the moment) as lead characters. In the grifter's world, the handle they look for in a Mark is Greed. 

If you don't have greed activated in your character, if your greed doesn't rule you, no grifter can possibly get you to do anything against your best interests - and the grifters good at their trade, the ones who might succeed, won't even try you.  There are plenty of "Marks" in the world who wear their greed on their sleeves.  You don't have to be one of them.  That's a theme.  Work it every which way. 

The reason these exercises are relevant to success in the story marketplace today is the same reason CNBC and film makers are shouting about this film "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." 

We as a society will be, possibly for the next 20 years, debating how to "govern greed." 

I discussed the 20-year fiction-taste trend cycles here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-6.html
and here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-6.html

It's Pluto transiting Capricorn.  Capricorn is the natural 10th House of Vocation and Government and is ruled by Saturn, Restriction and Discipline.

The financial meltdown of 2008-9 coincided with Pluto making stations on the USA Natal chart's 8th House (other people's money, inheritance) -- and for a Nation, 8th House is all about taxes.  Pluto is all about the hidden world beneath the world, and the nuclear magnitude power that seethes down there.  Pluto rules the Natural 8th House (Scorpio) just as Saturn rules the Natural 10th House (Capricorn). 

Greed is a natural desire magnified beyond all limits.

We have a natural awareness of the possessions of others (8th House), and the Values of Others (also 8th House).  The 8th House is naturally opposed to the 2nd House, our personal Money, Possessions, and Values.  So we're always comparing what we have to what others have.

The problem comes from coveting what others have.  When that natural tendency to compare gets magnified, it becomes a desire FOR what others have, not just curiosity.  Magnify that and you get Greed. 

Pluto's main effect is just exactly that, magnifying.  Pluto releases that subterranean nuclear level (super-volcano magnitude) power into the channel of a natural, normal, ordinarily good, human tendency of being aware of what's around us. 

So it's entirely possible we may see the whole USA society confronting a government (Saturn) exploding with unbridled (Pluto unbridles) greed for control (Saturn) especially of "other people's money" (8th House).


Or it might not go that way.  Don't let your imagination fail here.


http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/where-expert-romance-writers-fail.html

People will be on all sides of this issue, subliminally worried about it and confused because the "Conservatives" who are deepest into Christianity pound the table about Greed as a Sin, while the rest of our world keeps trying to de-demonize sins in general, pounding the table about acceptance of what used to be taboo because it's based on primitive superstitious religion. 

That's a CONFLICT, in case you didn't notice. 

And so there's a building audience that will be grabbed by fiction that discusses all sides without taking a side. It's a puzzle everyone will be working on solving.  

Grab your piece of this action with all the greed you can muster.

But once you have done that, stuff that greed back into the lock-box that your emotional anti-virus software keeps for you. 

When doing business as a writer, keep your greed completely out of the transaction.  Agents and Editors will blacklist you if you don't.  They won't deal with someone who wants more than they're worth.

But if you don't know exactly what your product is worth, you will get taken to the cleaners.  (you know I love cliches for a reason).

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Sunday, July 18, 2010

This week the Galaxy Express hosts "Parallel Universe"

Are you going to Orland for the RWA convention? (I am not.) If so, or if not, do you know about the online event at The Galaxy Express?
From July 20-31,The Galaxy Express will host Parallel Universe, a science fiction romance online event that will coincide with the Romance Writers of America’s 30th Annual National Conference (July 28-31 in Orlando, FL). It will be the virtual SFR gathering for those unable to attend the conference.

Parallel Universe will feature a series of guest posts from authors and bloggers on a variety of scintillating science fiction romance topics.

If you’re attending the RWA conference, the hotspot for SFR fans is The Gathering, hosted by the Fantasy, Futuristic, & Paranormal Chapter of RWA.
 
The theme of this year’s Parallel Universe is diversity. I was asked to write about diversity of genitalia --why do people assume that I am an expert in that fertile field?-- but in the end, I wrote about a great deal more than bifurcated manhood, and only lightly touched on hemipenes.

While I was refreshing my memory for the piece, a tapir penis crashed my computer. I had to think for all of 20 seconds about whether I wanted to report to Firefox what I'd been looking at when the problem occurred. I reported on my Facebook profile instead.

My piece should show up on the 29th, in the evening.

Provisional Schedule for Parallel Universe Blogs

Tuesday July 20
Lisa Paitz Spindler
Gini Koch

Wednesday July 21
Nancy Cohen
Ella Drake

Thursday July 22
Ann Somerville
Donna S. Frelick - Spacefreighters Lounge/SFR Brigade

Friday July 23
Rebecca Baumann – Dirty Sexy Books
Kim Knox

Saturday July 24 
Cathy Pegau – Queen of the Frozen North
J.C. Hay

Next Sunday July 25
Sheryl Nantus
Kimber An – Enduring Romance

Monday July 26
Lizzie Newell
Rae Lori

Tuesday July 27
Robert Appleton
Violet Hilton

Wednesday July 28
Jess Granger
Laurie Green – Spacefreighters Lounge/SFR Brigade

Thursday July 29
Pauline B. Jones
Rowena Cherry

Friday July 30
Katherine Allred
KS Augustin

Saturday July 31
Ellen Fisher
Marcella Burnard

Please leave a comment (SFR related) letting us know whether you'll be at RWA or at some other book signing or book promo event this summer.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Last week I mentioned that we took a Loch Ness cruise. The portion of the loch we viewed was mostly undeveloped, consisting of green hillsides with few buildings. The trees grow right down to the water in many places, so there's no bank in a practical sense. Filker Dr. Jane Robinson's song about the Loch Ness Monster, I found, contains truth in advertising where she sings:

"Twenty-four miles by one short mile, and a hundred fathoms deep;
There's jagged rock at the bottom of the loch, and the water is thick with peat."

While I can't testify to the rocks at the bottom, we observed firsthand how the peat washing down from the shore turns the water almost black. It's not hard to imagine mysterious beasts hiding under the surface. Unfortunately, from what little I've read on the "sightings," the evidence for their existence seems sparse and dubious. It's a big lake but still a limited space to conceal a viable breeding population of large animals.

My favorite part of the stop in Edinburgh was an underground ghost tour. Many of the old streets in that city have been covered over, producing subterranean tunnels. The owner of a pub where the tour ends (with complimentary shortbread and a shot of whiskey) leases a stretch of the underground streets and offers the tours. The experience began with a room where medieval torture instruments (mostly claimed to be authentic, except for the perishable items made of rope or leather, which are replicas) were displayed behind glass. I kept my mouth shut about the chastity belt, having heard that its abuses have been much exaggerated in popular lore. (I've read that the device served more often to protect the lady from rape in case of an attack on the castle, rather than a forceful guarantee of her virtue, and she often kept the key herself.) Then, on to the underground streets and chambers. Definitely creepy. Aside from faint, blue emergency lights at regular intervals, the area wasn't "improved" at all. Because the structures consist mostly of limestone, water seeps in, creating puddles on the stone floors. My most immediate fear was of not of ghosts but of falling, since the guide's flashlight supplied the only source of light besides the emergency lamps. She dressed in Goth fashion and appeared quite earnest about her belief in the restless dead who supposedly haunt the tunnels. The area does contain one "improved" section, a Wiccan temple in current use, which has a gate to protect it from tourists. The guide showed us a chamber where the group used to hold services but abandoned it because of evil forces, now trapped within a protective stone circle. After mentioning scary incidents that had happened when people dared to step within the circle, she asked whether anyone in the group wanted to try. Naturally, not even the one person who'd claimed skepticism about the supernatural didn't make a move. I was tempted, but the trespass would have seemed rude, given the guide's apparently genuine fear (unless she was an excellent actress). Anyway, why take chances? :)

In past centuries homeless people lived down there, preyed upon by criminals who knew the police wouldn't enter the tunnels to interfere. The guide showed us the supposedly most haunted room, infested by poltergeists resulting from an episode when a large group of people, including women and children, died from being trapped in the room by a fire.

The second part of the trip took us to Northern Ireland. One of my favorite authors, C. S. Lewis, grew up in Belfast, but his family's home and church lay too far outside the city center for a visit. On the bus tour I did get a distant glimpse of Campbell College, where he and his brother attended briefly. I also got to see, if only for a minute from the bus window, a statue of Lewis standing outside an open wardrobe, emblematic of his classic THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE.

The walking tour of Derry (otherwise known as Londonderry) was emotionally wrenching, because the guide's deep feelings about the years of the Troubles came across so strongly. While checking the date of "Bloody Sunday" on Wikipedia, I discovered about a dozen entries by that title, three of them in Ireland. The event commemorated in Derry occurred on January 30, 1972, when British paratroopers shot into a crowd of demonstrators, wounding many and killing fourteen. This incident brought to mind our own civil rights movement occurring at the same period. In Ulster, however, the protests were on behalf of Catholic citizens deprived of housing and jobs by the Protestant majority. Coincidentally, on June 15 of this very year, shortly before our group arrived, a government inquiry finally came to the conclusion that the demonstrators were peaceful and the troops completely unjustified in shooting them. The British government apologized, and some surviving family members of victims expressed forgiveness. The guide showed us a memorial as well as political murals painted on the sides of buildings, which make the events of almost forty years ago seem very immediate.

It occurred to me once again that the most bitter hostility doesn't tend to exist between groups that are distant and very different. The most implacable hatreds on our planet seem to spring up between people who live as close neighbors and, to outsiders, look almost alike—French and English during the Napoleonic War era, French and Germans in the two World Wars, Israelis and Palestinians, branches of the same family in the border states of the U.S. during our Civil War, the Hatfields and the McCoys—and the Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants in Ulster. Our group was privileged to visit Derry at the moment of what the guide described as almost a miracle of reconciliation in the history of his home town. I was sad to read in the news about the violence that happened just a couple of days ago during the annual Orange Order march in Belfast.

Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Toystory 3 Analyzed for "Beats"

Read this: 
http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/06/25/toy-story-3-beat-sheet/ 

CAUTION: that analysis contains "spoilers"

I don't accept that any good story can be "spoiled" by knowing what will happen before you read/see it and I've discussed why in these posts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/03/prologues-and-spoilers.html

And

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

The analysis of Toy Story 3 is where you'll find how the film fits neatly onto the Beat Sheet developed by the late, great, Blake Snyder.

http://www.blakesnyder.com/tools/ is where you can download the beat sheet to use.

It's explained in detail in Snyder's
Save The Cat! screenwriting series

Now what has this screenwriting trick to do with solving the problem of why Romance is not the most respected genre in publishing?

Where is the Nobel Prize for Best Romance Novel?

Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet - that's where.

What is that "beat sheet" and where did it come from?

Snyder tells in his books how he watched hundreds of films, over and over, and extracted the "beats" (at what elapsed time each story-development plot-point is reached).

He found that all the widely heralded, highly regarded, raved about, high box office grossing films all had the exact SAME STRUCTURE.

It isn't a "rule" some gate-keeper in Hollywood made up and imposed.

It's a habit evolved by producers from audience feedback.

They learn how to do it by doing it.

On Twitter, I recently exchanged notes with a producer who had posted a tweet of advice saying learn to please an audience. So I tweeted back, prodding with "how do you learn to please an audience?" and he retorted - by getting up on stage of course.

I didn't fling back my writerly response, "I'm a writer, not an actor!"

It wouldn't have done me any more good than it ever did Dr. McCoy.

But I thought about it until this morning I found the link to this Toy Story 3 blog post in my mailbox.

Also yesterday, my fanfic writing friend whom I used for this writing lesson on converting exposition to action -
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/05/tv-show-white-collar-fanfic-and-show.html

- mentioned that she has found her speed and facility with plotting increasing as she bats out tiny vignettes based on the TV show White Collar and gets reader feedback.

She can really TELL when she has done it correctly. The response to a well plotted piece is orders of magnitude greater than the response to an ordinary piece.

And that's exactly why I recommend fanfic writing as a way to learn this trade. It's how writers do what actors do in Little Theater. Learn to please an audience. What those producers whose blockbusters Blake Snyder studied have that we don't have - is just that, HOW TO PLEASE AN AUDIENCE.  And Snyder found and codified the secret.  The Beat Sheet, and his analysis of genres. 

As I've said before, writing is a performing art, an insight given me by the first professional writer to take me under her wing and pound some sense into me -- Alma Hill. I've discussed that here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/wrting-as-artform-performing-art.html

So what does it mean to "perform" a plot "well?"

Beats.

Rhythm, just like dancing, playing an instrument, acting onstage. 

The Beat is what gives a piece the exact pacing that reader/viewers expect.

You know how it throws you off if your dance partner, Yoga or Martial Arts partner, or sex partner, misses a "beat." Fun turns into not-fun, and it's all in expectations of the actions of another.

In storytelling, the writer is the dance-partner of the reader/viewer.  That's why writers who just want to do their Art their own way fail in the marketplace - because they're dancing solo with a partner who wants carnal contact. 

Why is Romance Genre so emphatically disqualified from the super-huge audiences commanded by blockbuster films like Toy Story 3?

Beats.

Pacing is the very important element that puts off the wider audiences and they don't even know it.

We've examined how "outsiders" explain their aversion to Romance Genre here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-do-they-despise-romance.html

and here

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/is-there-taboo-against-romance-in.html

That's what trained professional writers see (and what widely read readers feel) is "wrong" with Romance.

But I submit that the real problem is the PACING - the exact points at which the plot moves forward a notch and the exact direction in which it must move to satisfy reader/viewers used to productions aimed at the very wide audience.

In graphic Art, trainees spend years and years studying and perfecting the ability to perceive and execute what is called "Line" - an element of composition that is the connecting point between the interior artistic content the artist wants to convey and the viewer of the work who may know nothing of art.  "Line" guides the eye and commands the attention.  "Line" says it all.  (watch Olympic Figure Skating). 

"Line" is what causes you to gasp when you first see an object, pierced by it's beauty.

"Line" is what makes you remember a company logo, and it's why companies pay millions to artists to create such memorable logos.

"Line" is what blockbuster movie fans look for and respond to when they think they're actually focused on something else.

The Romance Genre, packed into a side-channel of paper publishing for so long, has developed its own "Line" and its own "Beat Sheet."

And those elements, as original and enjoyable as they are, clash horribly with what the general audiences expect.

Not, mind you, with what general audiences WANT -- but with what they EXPECT.

Having expectations dashed is painful, not entertaining.

If Romance Genre can take its distilled essence (Love Conquers All; Falling In Love clarifies reality rather than obscuring it) and re-cast that essence into the Beat Sheet and Line that larger audiences expect, it will not only be accepted, it will be more popular than anything else ever has been.

Now that seems to have nothing to do with Toy Story 3.

Well, folks, "Romance Genre" is our "Toys."

People are expected to "grow out of" reading Romance.

Read the analysis on blakesnyder.com (and maybe some of the comments, too) and you'll see the analogy holds better than you would expect.
http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/06/25/toy-story-3-beat-sheet/

Just like the Toys, the Romance Genre clings to us, reaches for other readers, fights being discarded.

The "Debate" section describes where we are now in this Romance Story.

New "adult" motifs are injected to hold older attention. But just as with SF/F, the Romance readership cycles generation to generation -- just as with Toys. A new generation is reading Romance, a generation raised on visual media.

Also note how the blogger at blakesnyder.com keeps harping on how THEME carries Toy Story 3 to the wider audience. It's about toys - so it's for kids, right? But THEME is the most fun an adult can have with a story. So it hits both audiences.

Romance, like SF/F and all genres these days, has to change "Line" and "Beat" to sustain a "reach" into a readership broad enough to keep publishing profitable.

The world is changing. Novels have to become visual, structured like movies. Don't forget the as yet unrealized field of novels with text and video co-mingled. Only technology keeps that from Kindle distribution.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Human Evolution (Extrapolation)

Any author of alien romance would be fascinated to read Susanna Baird's July 8th article published on AOL. explaining that Tibetans Evolved at Fastest Pace Ever Measured

At least, I assume so. The more science that backs up whatever is convenient for the purposes of telling a great science fiction, the better. That's why I love books such as "The Physics of Star Trek" by Lawrence Krauss, and "The Science Of Star Wars" by Jeanne Cavelos.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the interesting scientific assertion that genitalia (at least in beetles) evolve much more quickly than other parts. Apparently, it's a matter of what intrigues and pleases the female of the species.

It seems that blood and lungs and genes and DNA evolve in humans. That's a matter of survival in a harsh environment. Of course, we've heard about blood doping, and the suggestion that training at high altitudes can give endurance athletes a competitive advantage.

Aliens from harsher environments than ours could plausibly be considered supermen. If their gravity were heavier (as with my Great Djinn from Tigron) they could leap higher and further. If their air were thinner, they'd seem far more athletic in our rich air.

One has to remember the obverse of this. If these aliens are going to take a human wife home with them, she is going to have problems with their thin air and heavy gravity (as my Djinni-vera does in "Forced Mate".)

Another bit of useful trivia is the effect of weightlessness (space travel) on the human body. For instance, bones lose mass, everywhere except the skull, and some of that unnecessary calcium finds its way to the kidneys where it creates "stones". The Johnson space center in Houston has an astounding display of astronaut kidney stones.

For that reason, gymnasium scenes about spaceships make a lot of sense... and I do have a few of those. Exercise is very important if your alien or human interstellar traveler is going to stay in shape, and reasonably comfortable in the bathroom.

I'll just point out a couple of interesting features of the study of Himalayan Tibetans as reported by Susanna Baird. The Tibetans live almost 3 miles about sea level, but are otherwise closely related to the Han Chinese who live nearby as the crow flies (probably not a crow!) but 3 miles lower.

Time scale. This rapid evolution (of more than 30 genes) is estimated to have taken  "the evolutionarily brief span of 2,750 years."

If one has a premise that ones aliens are forgotten human colonists, they'd have had to have left Earth at least in 750 BC. (Or over 100 generations ago.)

Number of mutated genes necessary for a single functional adaptation.
 
Just as retaining e-book and POD rights requires about 23 changes to a boilerplate publishing contract, "Researchers found more than 30 mutated genes in the Tibetans, most of which were not mutated in the Chinese. More than half the mutated genes related to the body's processing of oxygen."
 
You'd think that one gene would suffice? Apparently, for plausibility, base any evolution on a lot more tiny mutations than that!

Does anyone know what the threshold would be, beyond which interbreeding ought to become impossible? 
 
Since I started writing in 1992, I "solved" that problem to my own satisfaction with the concept of "smart semen"....


Ooops. I just burned breakfast. Gotta go.

Rowena Cherry

Thursday, July 08, 2010

I'm Back

Yesterday we returned from a 12-day group tour of Scotland and Northern Ireland under the auspices of Irish singer Seamus Kennedy. A native of Belfast but now living a couple of towns over from us right here in Maryland, he performs traditional material as well as some funny pieces such as "The Unicorn Song" and the one about the Scotsman's kilt. Visit his website:

Seamus Kennedy

Buy his CDs! Read his book, a collection of true anecdotes about life in the Irish music business compiled by Seamus and a few of his friends.

The soccer World Cup games dominated public awareness while we were over there, not a topic that holds much interest for me, but it certainly added to the holiday atmosphere.

Among many other historic sites, we visited the places I was most eager to see, Culloden, Loch Ness, and the Ulster Folk Park (about the Scots-Irish immigration to North America, with a village of period-authentic cottages and other structures). I didn't see the monster. In fact, I was mildly disappointed in the Loch Ness cruise—great scenery, but the guide didn't talk at all about the history of the monster's legend and alleged sightings.

In Ulster the most memorable experience aside from the Folk Park was the walking tour of Derry, which focused on "Bloody Sunday," the Northern Ireland analog of our civil rights upheaval that was happening at the same time. The guide's narrative conveyed such gripping emotional immediacy; those events of almost 40 years ago are still like "only yesterday" there.

More about the trip next week.

Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt