Theme-Conflict Integration Part 2: Battle of Ideas - A Grifter, A Shyster, and A Priest Walk Into A Bar

Theme-Conflict Integration 

Part 2: Battle of Ideas

A Grifter, A Shyster, and A Priest Walk Into A Bar

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Part 1 - about J. J. Abrams and sexism is here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-conflict-integration-part-1.html

Last week we discussed Theme-Marketing Integration, and this week we'll look at a particular best selling writer's recent novel for examples about how Theme and Marketing can be Integrated using Theme-Conflict Integration.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/05/theme-marketing-integration-part-1-star.html

So what if the "Bar" that the Grifter, the Shyster, and the Priest walk into doesn't serve liquor, but justice? What if the Bar is the Court of Law?  Or perhaps, the Bar is an Alien  Court of Law?

Art is an selective depiction of reality.

That selectivity is best illustrated by the cartoonist's art.

Here's an example from Dick Morris Reports back in January, 2016 when Trump and Cruz went at each other on stage at the Fox Business Republican Debate.

         

Note the YELLOW hair - strokes vaguely evocative of Trump's haircut.

Note the nose-to-nose post, squashing both (in reality different) noses flat against each other.

Note the bloodshot eyeballs shooting out of their heads.  Conflict is "eyeball to eyeball" in modern parlance, but it is not meant literally.  Here in this selective recreation of reality, you see it literally.

Note the boxing gloves, posed fist to fist -- the suggestion is of a "hit" but each hitting the other on the very well armored protection of the glove.  "The Gloves Come Off" is a metaphor for bloody fighting, fighting for real, not prize-fighting.

Note how this selective graphic representation somehow conjures "reality" in your mind's eye. That is exactly what writers do when "hooking" you into a novel.  That is a graphic representation of how to create an  opening paragraph. It is also an entire essay on how to create a book cover.

Remember the line, used politically earlier than January, "this is not a cage-match."  Meaning, it's not for real. Nobody's whole life is in danger. It's just a game played until the winner gets a prize -- it is not a grudge-match, it is a Game.

Politics is called, "The Game Of Politics."  Internationally, The Great Game - where politicians use spies to maneuver nations into a Hobson's Choice, or Prisoner's Dilemma.

It is not called the "Literature of Ideas."  Nor is politics termed, "A Meeting Of Minds."  It is a Game.

So who are the "players" of this Game?

Maybe it is "Politicians" vs. "Voters?"

And what is the name of the Game?

The Protection Racket?  The Confidence Racket (or Con Man)?  Snakeoil Salesman? Scammer? Phishing?

Note the title of this piece -- A Grifter, A Shyster, A Priest.  These are three Attributes that are  components of every living person.

We all know what a grifter is from watching the TV Series Leverage.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Nigerian-Job/dp/B001N4RAEQ/

"Shyster" is a derogatory term for lawyer, or sometimes any businessman who relies on deception or fraud.

"Priest" here means your Inner Priest, your conscience, spiritual sensitivity, sense of right and wrong, of fair and just. That Inner Priest configures your personal individual identity by patching together the crazy-quilt of beliefs, rules of thumb, maxims, old wive's tales, and cliches by which you live your life and make major spur of the moment decisions.

So grifters and shysters pretend to be something they are not.  Do writers do that?  Do writers have to do that?  Is all back cover copy fraudulent? Does being in the business of self-publishing make you a shyster?  After all, you're selling the "snake oil" of the Happily Ever After Ending.  Are writers all con artists?

What exactly is a Con Artist?

Most people probably think that all politicians are con artists, except the one oddball who seems trustworthy.  Many bar fights start from disagreements over which politician is trustworthy.

Here's an article that explains what an app detected in voice analysis of Presidential candidates:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/beyond-verbal_n_3378784.html

And here's another article that explains the same thing from a different perspective.  Compare these two articles and any others you find about this app, and reconstruct - as an archeologist does - the original press release.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/01/16/new-study-reveals-which-presidential-hopeful-is-the-low-stress-candidate/

Both articles seem to be made from the same press release, a publicity barrage that has to have had immense amounts of money behind it, yes, but also a marketing genius leveraging the USA political calendar (these articles appeared deep into January, right before the Iowa Causes.)

The company was trying to sell you an app.  And they went on a campaign to trick you into wanting it by tying it to the headlines of the day - the most popular and riveting spectator sport of January - the Presidential Primary Season. (just like Basketball Season or Deer Season.)

When you see articles announcing something like this app product -- not paid ads, but ARTICLES that might as well be paid ads, that sell you on wanting something better than a paid ad could sell you -- you are looking at marketing.  It is a whole profession, usually incompatible with the skills of a writer. Today, we conflate News with Publicity.

Each newspaper or magazine editor requires the writers to take these topical press releases and craft an article "slanted" toward their special readership's interest. So each article is ostensibly about something different -- but the core content is the press release.

Fiction writing skills let you take a press release and craft a newspaper or magazine article from that release.

In writing fiction,  you learn to take a huge mass of data (your story Idea) and re-arrange it into a straight-line (plot) that will interest (story) your particular target readership.

Writing such a release is an entirely different profession.

Today's self-publishing novelists need to master both skill sets because "publishing" means PUBLICITY, or press-release.  Getting widely distributed "news" sources to focus their readers' attention on your novel is very hard.

Writing an article from a press release is very similar to writing an advertisement, or 'cover blurb' from a press release.  Both craft skills require sorting through a jumble of facts to "bring to the surface" or emphasize certain "selected traits" (like the blond hair in the cartoon above) to "characterize" the novel.

You characterize a novel as belonging to a particular genre, appealing to a specific reader.

You selectively recreate the reality of what is in the novel, drawing a caricature, a cartoon, of the novel itself.

And like the two articles linked above, each depicting a larger reality, you take your own "larger reality" of the novel you have written, and whack-and-whittle it down by selecting TRAITS (like the trademarked "hair") and leaving out all the rest.

It is what you leave out that (for you) was the whole point of writing the novel to begin with. In fact, that most important part or point is often edited out before publication by a major house.

You can learn a lot about what to  "select" for your cartoon representation of your novel, and what to leave to the imagination, by studying the Battle Of Politicians and the Race For The White House (will they ever paint it another color?).

What you learn has to do with not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Just like that cartoon does not "tell the truth," and just like the two articles about an app being publicized do not "tell the truth" about the app.

You 'select' the traits of your novel that connect  best to your target audience.  Thus, since Trump's hair was the subject of so much attention at first, his trademark became his hair-transplant comb-over style.

So look at your Theme, state your theme a number of different ways until you hit on vocabulary and imagery that "depicts" the topic the readership has been most deeply involved in lately. In other words, rip your theme from the headlines.  Make your THEME recognizable to your target audience, so book browsers see it and say, "I love that kind of book."

The Conflicting elements have to be depicted in your blurb, too.

Note in the cartoon how the eyes pop -- I mean, really!  I wouldn't believe that image of Aliens -- but one non-verbal glance and you know what that popping eyeballs image means, even if you miss the gloves.

Donald Trump's college degree is in Business, not Law.

Cruz made a neat point of that by saying he wouldn't take legal advice from Trump.  But we all know that Trump got the advice he's spouting at Cruz from his own Lawyers.  Lawyers get to know Presidential candidates in hopes of a Supreme Court appointment in the future.

So the "conflict" in that cartoon is "lawyers vs. lawyers." The lawyers are using the politicians to fight a "proxy war."

Lawyers are famous for a) picking fights (as in divorces that would have been amicable if not for the lawyers getting involved) and b) backing people into a corner so they will "settle" whatever lawsuit.

Lawyers are also famous for charging a lot of money -- but nothing like what Publicists charge.  Lawyers, though, being lawyers seem to get to keep a bigger chunk of the fees paid.

Under current law in the USA, it is virtually legal for lawyers to behave like grifters.  To become a rich grifter, get a law degree.

What do lawyers do that is patterned on what grifters do (or is it vice-versa?).

If you've won the lottery or been in a traffic accident, a building collapse, or sold a product that some odd individual got injured using, you will find yourself surrounded three deep by Lawyers looking to "protect" you - trying to scare you with visions of people attacking you or denying you justice.  Lawyers will promise you, as the erstwhile victim, not only their protection but a windfall profit, a huge sum of money for doing nothing but "suffering."

A majority of Lawyers don't behave that way.  The small segment of that population that does "ambulance chase" and victimize the victims, are often called shysters, though not all shysters are actually lawyers.

The Idea that Grifters and Shysters have something in common is like Trump's hair - a vivid item that can be extracted from a confusing mass of information and used to depict something that a lot of people remember.

But it is an abstract Idea.

So the title of this piece is A Grifter, A Shyster and A Priest.

The "Priest" is a symbol for a person who is steeped in ideas, motivated by the abstract, and very selective about objectives.

The Grifter and the Shyster operate via emotion.  They get their mark or their client to do something the mark/client would see as self-destructive if not for the emotion aroused.

The Grifter and the Shyster play on emotion, and they both choose the emotion they evoke in their target.

The Grifter arouses Greed.

It is always said, and I've found it to be true, that if you have no Greed in your soul, you can not be fleeced by a con man.  If the price is "too good to be true" - it is not the price you will pay.   Everyone knows that intellectually (the Priest Within You told you that).  Don't fall for a bargain - because it is not a bargain.

So when Politicians offer you something for nothing -- or point to someone else they will trick into paying so you can get something -- you only fall for the trick if your Greed is in charge of your opinions.

The Shyster arouses Fear.

It is always said that you have nothing to fear but fear itself -- and that is such a truth that all your readers know it.  When you're afraid, you twitch and jerk around in ill-coordinated actions that are more self-destructive than self-protective.

So when Politicians offer to allay your fears, to deal with what threatens you, to protect you from ( big bad corporations; alien invaders; your neighbor who owns a gun) you only fall for the trick if you are afraid.

When you are afraid, the Priest Withing You who is more focused on Ideas, Intellect, principles of faith, can't shout loudly enough to be heard.  Fear is a brain-noise that will always take charge of your actions.

So a theme can be expressed (cartoon depiction of your novel for a back cover blurb) as "The Masses Can Be Manipulated."

"The Masses" would refer to the old political theory that most people are illiterate, stupid, and behave like a herd of sheep,  or cattle.  The Leaders can easily trick the Masses into doing whatever the Leader wants simply by arousing certain emotions.

Romance novels turn on a variation of this. Everyone wants to be loved, so the declaration, "I love you" changes everything.

There is such a thing as a Greed For Love - someone so desperately hungry to be loved that they believe the grifter's offer, "I'll marry you and cherish and protect you forever if you'll just have sex with me now."  You can translate that dialog dynamic into Politics very easily if you see electing someone as handing them a blank check to your bank account.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/15/maria-konnikova-interview-new-book-the-confidence-game-review-scams

The Grifter can use Greed for any missing emotion to manipulate the unsuspecting into self-destructive behavior.  Some people have Greed for Power -- offer them Power without a price-tag (like discipline and responsibility) and the mark will do anything.  Remember Spiderman -- with great power comes great responsibility.  Well, what if it didn't?  What if great power could be had without responsibility?  Then you have the novel about the ne'er-do-well Scion of a Great House who gambles away his inheritance and goes into debt.

To integrate a theme such as "The Masses Can Be Manipulated" you can define the conflict as Leader vs Follower.

Take the famous maxim, "A Sucker Is Born Every Day."  That's a theme.  What if humanity meets up with Aliens who don't bear suckers every day?

Or reverse that - and what if humanity were not producing a new sucker every day, but aliens at war out in the galaxy are?

Jean Johnson's prequel to her famous series Theirs Not To Reason Why is called The First Salik War, and Book 1 is titled The Terrans.  Book 2, The V'Dan is now available.

Here's my discussion of The Terrans:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/11/reviews-20-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

And here's where to get The V'Dan
http://www.amazon.com/VDan-First-Salik-War/dp/0425276937/

It's a First Contact novel with leading Characters, an Alien Prince in a psychic/sexual bond with a human woman who is a Politician, a Prisoner's Dilemma maneuver, and clash of notions of what constitutes Honorable Behavior.

On Jean Johnson's future Earth, humans have finally come to their senses and eliminated discrimination by skin color, elevated honesty in Politics to a level where failure to be honorable and truthful means corporal punishment by public caning, and utter physical humiliation.

In other words, fear keeps power-lust in check for law makers and especially law-enforcers and military commanders (this book introduces a Caning law previously applied only to police to be used to hold military commanders and new recruits in check). Every morning, each government official has to recite an Oath to be Honorable.  It's long, complicated, abstract, and the repeated recitation has a similar effect that prayer does. It is designed to engrave on the psyche that when you act in the name of others, you are responsible for the consequences.

Greed is controlled by Fear.

The expected signature behavior that proves Greed (for power, money, sex, anything) is in complete check by fear of Caning is Honorable Behavior.

"Honorable Behavior" is presented, in this series, as a set of rules that is objectively true, as clear and precisely determined as any scientific fact.

For most readers, the word "Honorable" means something hard, absolute, easily understood and recognized in the behavior of others.

Blake Snyder illustrates the core-value shared across the USA as "honorable behavior" as "save the cat" (take a personal risk to save the helpless).  Compare the thinking behind Snyder's image of "saving a cat" to the thinking behind that Trump/Cruz cartoon.

The thing is, in the USA today, we do not share a common creed of Honorable Behavior.

What is honorable to one (murdering a daughter who refuses to dress correctly, thus insults her parents and dishonors them) is considered death-penalty-material to others.

The difference between an illegal alien and a drug smuggler is that while they might both promise to sell you heroin, the drug smuggler will deliver.  Which one is the Honorable one?

Generation to generation the definition of what behavior is Honorable changes.

For example, in the early twentieth century, an apology was considered false and worthless if given in response to a demand for an apology.  In the 19th century, if someone uttered an insult about another person, ("You're a Horse Thief!" or "You Cheated At Cards!") the insulted had the right to deck the insulter (or shoot him dead).

In the 21st century everyone takes offense at any statement (true or not) and demands an apology, which, when choked out bitterly is still regarded as valid, and the matter as settled.  There was a time when the statement of a truth could never be considered an insult, however rude it might be.

In fact, this "I'm offended, so you must apologize even if you didn't think you did anything wrong" attitude now governs international affairs.

Heads of State demand apologies from other Heads of State -- not individual to individual, but whole countries to whole countries, involving people who never knew anything about it and have no idea what is true in  the matter.

Jean Johnson, in The V'Dan, has noticed this rise of a new custom regarding insults and apologies.

Johnson has shown (not told) how the "I demand an Apology because I feel offended and therefore you must act to assuage my feelings, never mind how you feel, only my feelings count..." attitude can be used by an Interstellar Ambassador from Earth to illustrate Earth's superior Morality.

Because Earth's Inner Priest's sense of Honorable Behavior is so superior, the lead character is Honor Bound to force Earth's behavior norms down the throats of aliens during First Contact negotiations.

All of this is rationalized by the fact that the Aliens are treating the Earth humans as if they were children, not adults -- not allowed to spend large sums of money to buy supplies for the Earth Embassy building, not allowed to buy liquor, not allowed to drive.

It is a genuine First Contact issue (and absolutely hilarious to read).  But the reason the issue is an emergency to be taken up immediately with the Alien head of state is that these Aliens keep insulting the humans by treating them as children.  Other human groups might consider the Aliens' penchant for protecting children to be a sign the Aliens are kind, considerate and honorable.

Johnson's Earth humans take offense, and because they feel offended, are honor bound to force the Aliens to apologize and adopt Earth's then-current human standards.  This novel series is full of such absolutely gorgeous work.

The way Johnson depicts interstellar politics plays into the current USA fear of being irretrievably emotionally damaged by the words of others.  It is, from this, very clear why Johnson is a national best selling author.

To the target audience for this novel, mere words are an existential threat that must be countered by wielding force majeure.  An insult flung can cause a mortal wound.

The V'Dan depicts with searing accuracy how the reader's Earth currently manages international affairs.  And this novel portends, just as our current election-cycle portends, that change is seething below the surface, about to erupt perhaps violently.

The enemy in the interstellar war of Johnson's series is a species that eats Alien sentients. The tastiest type of food they know is the flesh of sentients of species other than themselves (though I believe they do eat each other).  It doesn't matter how alien the body chemistry is, these Salik will eat anything sentient.  The Salik are Greed Personified.

The V'Dan are humans whose ancestors left earth almost 10,000 years ago, and colonized a planet (now a lot of planets) so far away from Earth the region has not been explored by Earth's budding interstellar united planets.  Somehow, many earth plants and animals were carried with the humans who eventually colonized a planet and became The V'Dan.

The V'Dan have many non-human allies in the fight against Greed Personified, the Salik. But that coalition is losing the fight against the Salik, and they know it.  They are Afraid.

So, Jean Johnson, a very well known National Best Selling author, has crafted theme and conflict around Greed, Fear, and The Priest Within.  It's a beautiful mix of carefully selected attributes, brought to the fore just like Trump's hair and the popping eyeballs.

That's what Best Selling Writers do!  Dissect any Best Seller, and you will find a pattern just like this -- something that reflects what is the most prominent Theme in the headlines divided up into recognizable adversaries who naturally conflict.  Personification and Dramatization are subsidiary techniques. Ripping theme from the headlines is the primary requirement.

The conflict is the exact conflict inside all of us -- the Grifter's Mark who believes in something for nothing; the Shyster's client who sees something to be afraid of, and The Inner Priest who knows "the right thing to do" but is not in charge.

The basic human animal will be emotion-driven, though the human spirit reaches for the ineffable.

Our current civilization has surrendered to the animal nature of humanity.  We see that in the rise and sustained popularity of Romance novel plots turning on the absolute irresistibility of sexual urges.  The V'dan and its prequel The Terrans, turns on the formation of the psychic bonded pair that will literally die (both of them) if denied sexual intimacy. Star Trek did something similar with Pon Farr, but Star Trek got that from much older science fiction works.

That inner dichotomy between the animal body and human spirit can easily be roused into Conflict.

All audiences recognize the Greed & Fear vs. Voice of Reason or Righteousness.

Look again at that cartoon.  Why do you understand what it says?

Yes, people will disagree about what it means, but everyone can see what it says.

That's what Jean Johnson accomplishes to earn the appellation, "Best Selling" writer.

Now, go watch the Politicians hurl insults at each other and demand apologies as if they are in the grip of Greed for Power and Fear of Humiliation.

Remember your early childhood. Did you ever lust after enough power to make your parents stop preventing you from doing what you wanted to do?  "When I grow up, I'm going to stay up all night!"

Greed for Power (especially over your own life and destiny) is absolutely basic to the human animal.

Now think back to your childhood, and remember how you eventually learned to refrain from some action, "...Mommy won't let!" you would tell  your friends luring you into misbehaving (then you'd probably do it anyway, then lie about it).

Eventually, you learned to do it anyway, lie about it, and not get  caught in the lie.

And beyond that,  you learned it's really better not to do that anyway because it's counter productive.

The different self-perceptions of Child vs. Adult is the pivot upon which the novel The V'Dan turns.  Just how insulting is it to  you to be treated as a child? Then why do you treat your children that way?  Does truth have anything to do with it?

Only with many decades under your belt do you arrive at "mature" considerations.  You no longer lunge greedily after the proverbial Free Lunch -- because you've learned the price.  Therefore, you have nothing to lie about.

To arrive at a life-stage where you're not greedy because you have all you need, not fearful because the worst has happened ( bankruptcy, divorce, being fired, whatever) and you handled it, you have the luxury of listening to what that Inner Priest has to say about right and wrong, truth and lies.

With enough years and enough experiences, we all turn into Gandalf or Yoda -- serene, confident, wise, having resolved that conflict between Greed, Fear and the Inner Priest.

When someone slings insults at such a Gandalf/Yoda Figure, that Figure is not insulted.  Such a Figure is not insulted by being treated as a child. Knowing that what comes out of a person's mouth says more about the speaker than about the topic being spoken of, the Figure does a kind of Emotional Judo.

Judo is based on the physics of using the opponent's strength and momentum to defeat the opponent. Many techniques of Judo and Karate are based on just not-being where the blow lands.

That's not a technique of "dodging" a blow.  It's a matter of letting the force the opponent emits expend itself on the opponent, not on you.

That's what the mature learn about insults. Let the insulter hoist himself on his own petard and hang there in humiliation.

Demanding an apology is an admission that the blow landed on its target -- it is an admission of guilt.

Demanding an apology often seems childish, petulant, an admission of weakness before the superiority of the insulter.

In emotional judo, the target flows aside and lets the force of the insult boomerang onto the insulter.

Look again at this article about stress level measurements in Presidential Candidates voices:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/01/16/new-study-reveals-which-presidential-hopeful-is-the-low-stress-candidate/

The article notes that the only candidate they measured whose voice rarely shows the kind of emotional stress (expected of Greed or Fear or lying) is Donald Trump.  He's gotten more insults and death-threats than most of the rest combined by now.  He sometimes offhandedly mentions that someone should apologize, but he rarely "demands" apologies except where appropriate.  His attitude toward apologies seems to be that they are good for the soul, so do it for your own sake.  If not, no skin off my nose. (note the nose-to-nose posture in that cartoon.)

He's old enough to know those who attempt to destroy will destroy themselves if you just stay out of the way.  For that matter, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (and Biden and Bloomberg) are old enough to have arrived at that maturity.

Perhaps this article's observation of relative voice stress indicates what the pundits have missed in analyzing Donald Trump's initial, wild popularity. They have assumed the voters are "angry" (anger is most often the emotional response of the coward to feeling fear, so calling voters "angry" is an insult).  Maybe they were wrong?

The pundits have assumed the voters are  "the masses" (sheep, followers, herd animals), instead of individuals. When panicked, the masses, the voters, stampede after a "bell-weather" or leader.

The pundits identify Trump as the leader.  The voters are just blindly following this leader out of simple minded anger.

The article shows, somewhat scientifically, that Trump's trumpeting is not stoked by anger.

He's the calm one.

Voters chose him as the best in the field (OK,  not necessarily any good, just the best of the lot, until he disqualifies himself) because he's not afraid and he's not lying.  What he says may not be true or factual, but he believes it sincerely.

He's not stressed when he says he can handle all the President's problems. (Little Does He Know!)

He is confident and relaxed, not running in fear or greed for power. He's not a "Leader" -- he's not greedy for power or fearing he'll lose. He's a goal-oriented achiever, not caring if anyone follows him.  He just goes and does his projects. He doesn't need followers.  He hires specialists.  He's undaunted, calm, confident because of his life experience, and he (unlike the other candidates who have this trait) lets it show. And that's why he's popular --  you can hear it in his voice in person. He's not stressed.

Study Trump's antics on stage, especially his epic "equal opportunity insulter" tactics, and try modeling your Leader/Hero Character after him and see what you get.  Understand the insult as a social instrument by reading a lot of Regency Romances written thirty years ago (mostly free on Kindle). Drawing Room insults are an artform well worth reviving in the interstellar era.

Such a novel won't work in today's market, as Jean Johnson well knows.  She's a best seller because she does  not use Trump as a model.  Such a Character would not be plausible to her target readership. Trump is a salesman, a marketer, a branding master.  His target audience responds to him, just exactly the way you want your target audience to respond to your Romance Novels.  So study him.

The lesson about non-stressed, confident Voices prevailing over anger, greed, fear and panic is the core theme used by Gordon R. Dickson in his long, exemplary, much celebrated best selling series, The Dorsai.

http://www.amazon.com/Dorsai-Childe-Cycle-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00GS9FLJM/

Confidence backed by real strength is a military tactic -- great strength, used properly, never comes to blows. Wars are won by maneuvers, by what the adversary knows you can do, not explosions. Destruction is counter-productive.  The Romans learned that and coined the term Pyrrhic Victory.

Combine Gordon R. Dickson with Keith Laumer's Retief novels, ..
http://www.amazon.com/Envoy-New-Worlds-Retief-Book-ebook/dp/B00NWJ7446

...about professional diplomat Retief engaged in official interstellar diplomacy, much like Jean Johnson's characters but far more effectively, and find a Theme and a Conflict you can Integrate into a Best Selling Series.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Hope For A Copyright Small Claims Court

According to the Authors Guild, it costs approximately $150,000 for a copyright owner to take a copyright infringer to court.

As I pointed out in a recent post, as long as Copyright law on the internet provides that, if a Takedown notice is ignored, or if a counter-notice (even a bogus one, or a misinformed one) is filed in response to a takedown notice, the copyright infringing work will stay up and continue to make money for the pirate and the pirate's hosts for ever, unless the author can spare $150,000 to pursue a lawsuit.

The Authors Guild reports that a Congressman in Washington has promised to introduce a bill, perhaps to set up a small copyright claims court.

Read more on https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/authors-guild-hits-the-capitol/

In other copyright infringement news, my novella ebook Mating Net apparently remains illegally available--ignoring multiple Takedown notices from me-- on Mobilism.org and the alleged copyright infringer from Ontario, KellyKing29 has now apparently uploaded over 20,000 copyrighted ebooks to the site.

Of course, it could all be ransomeware!

A quick visit to the page http://booksmobile.org/viewtopic.php?f=1292&t=719315  will show you how "AdChoices" makes copyright infringement profitable for Mobilism and its users, displaying pitches from Sterling Heights Dodge Jeep  also Parkway Chrysler Dodge (astounding how Google knows what is close to my IP location, but cannot distinguish a pirate site by its content and traffic!)

Another pirate site newly on my radar is Memoirbook.top  http://memoirbook.top . This site has an interesting blurb on any page stating that their tactics will make publishers sad.  They appear to post book titles, but mix up the authors' names, so for instance, I might find that one of my titles has been authored by Daphne Du Maurier (but the cover art shows that it's my book by me).  You might find that you've downloaded ransomeware if you try to download an ebook.

Authors should know that the law does not require you to download potential ransomeware in order to have a good faith belief that your copyright has been infringed.


All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Realms of Darkover

The latest Darkover anthology, REALMS OF DARKOVER, has been released:

Realms of Darkover

My husband, Leslie Roy Carter, and I have a co-written story in it, "A Walk in the Mountains." It features search-and-rescue and St. Bernards. I suggested the plot, he wrote the first draft, and I edited. Here's an interview with me about our contribution:

Interview on "A Walk in the Mountains"

My very first professional fiction sale, "Her Own Blood," appeared in an early Marion Zimmer Bradley anthology, FREE AMAZONS OF DARKOVER. It's a joy to be included in the "next generation" of the anthology series.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Marketing Integration Part 1, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Theme-Marketing Integration

Part 1

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Today, we'll examine why Star Wars: The Force Awakens was such a runaway box office success, even as Twitter and blogs filled up with anguished criticism. Facebook, likewise, overflowed with malaise and ennui, disappointment and boredom.

The film was a runaway HIT with some people, and a complete failure with others.

You've seen that with Star Trek "reboots" as well, and even felt it.

You love a film, and walk out of the theater giddy with inspiration, say something on Twitter and get flooded with negative comments.

Why this division of opinion?

Why so many see the film again and again, even if it is boring?

It is possible the answer to that question lies in Theme-Marketing Integration - a topic we have not discussed in detail, though we've explored Theme and Marketing.

If you think about it, Theme-Marketing Integration techniques are also being applied to the Presidential Election race, and the division in the audience runs similarly -- vehement opposition countered by enraptured worship.

So let's see if we can figure out why Star Wars: The Force Awakens is so popular and so disappointing at the same time.  What happened? What did "they" do ( well, J. J. Abrams who is also an architect behind Star Trek reboot).  Once you understand what they did and why, you can decide for yourself whether you want to do that with your own Science Fiction Romance.

Yes, Star Wars has all the ingredients of Science Fiction Romance, but does not exploit them for plot or story purposes.  The reason for that may become clear as we examine Theme-Marketing Integration.

This new series, theme-marketing integration, is a spinoff from Marketing Fiction In A Changing World.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

The world changes, is changing, will change.  Nothing in fiction is set in stone -- including Stone Age Drawings.

Cave Painters aimed their art at their current audience (not at us), and depicted what they knew, what they wanted others to remember, and what they needed their children to know.  Cave Paintings have theme.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/chauvet-cave-paintings-404753

Short, pithy article noting this may be a depiction of a volcanic eruption, prevalent at that time. That is a theme - hunting is dangerous.

Consider, Cave Painters and shamans of the time didn't live very long, and "lore" got lost as parents died before children reached adolescence.

Those Cave Painters may be the beginnings of the Scientific Revolution we live with today -- because their Art transmitted Information to those who were infants at the time it was painted, or perhaps not even born.

In other words, as the old saying goes, we stand on the shoulders of giants.  This is true in novel writing and all artforms.

It is because of the knowledge and understanding gained by our ancestors that we have the easy life we have today -- and the hard life.  It is because of the records they left us and our effort to comprehend and build on that record that we have this modern world.

Today, our art is more ephemeral, preserved mostly just as electrons, perhaps illegible to future devices.  But we are depicting the pithy essence of our world and the life we live now.

Here is the Index to the series on Depicting:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

The foundation for understanding Marketing is the understanding of "Demographics" -- separating and classifying people by age, gender, income level, education, native language, and then "targeting" something members of each group have in common with other members of their group.

Obviously, everyone is a member of all those groups, and when you assemble all the groups you are a member of, you find you are unique and don't march to the same drummer that others do.

However, sales statistics do reveal commonality.

Statistics only work in one direction -- predicting behavior of large groups of people.  There is no way to use statistics to predict the behavior of any specific individual, so therefore, to marketers individuals do not matter.

Grasp that firmly and never let go.

OK, given that Marketing is about hitting the largest number of a particular group or Group of Groups, with something they all want, lets look at one clue that we've discussed previously about how to understand why certain movies or books become popular.

Here's the previous post where we discussed Pluto and Plotting:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

Here is a quote from way down that long post:

-------quote--------
Pluto takes 250 years to circle the sun, but it's in each sign (or 30 degree swatch of the zodiac) for different lengths of time.

Remember to add say 15-20 years to see when these folks would have an impact on amusement markets because they have disposable income.

PLUTO IN LEO 1939 - 1957 (Became The Flower Children of 1960's and '70's)

PLUTO IN VIRGO generation 1958 - 1972 (Gen X)

PLUTO IN LIBRA generation (assimilating out of justice?) Late 1971 - 1984 (Gen Y? sort of)

PLUTO IN SCORPIO generation 1985-1995 or so (video game generation?)

PLUTO IN SAGITTARIUS generation 1995-2008

PLUTO IN CAPRICORN (now - 2023)

The popular press uses the 20 year swatch for a "generation" usually, or a demographic bulge of kids all born within 10 years to define a "generation." But think about the list above and see if it doesn't make better sense than the popular press definitions.
---------end quote----------

This Pluto cycle is the best explanation for the Generation Gap effect in taste that I've ever come across.

Pluto, in Astrology, can be understood as the Power that drives action. Other elements in a Natal Chart or transits will define goals, strategy, tactics, wishes, needs, ideals, drives and ambitions, but once all those elements carve out a path of action, Pluto is the source of power.

Mars triggers or starts action, Pluto finishes it.

So, as a writer always thinking Character and Story, I think of Pluto as "at all costs."  What will a character do to achieve a given goal (that's the plot, driving toward a goal), at all costs?  What is a Character willing to pay, to give up, to attain this specific goal at all costs?  The implacable, ruthless drive toward a goal is the signature of Pluto in action.

When targeting an age-demographic, a marketer looks (usually unconsciously) at the "at all costs" mechanism driving that age-group.

So look again at the Generational Positions of Pluto -- and remember, any given individual may have other planets, signs, aspects, that divert Pluto's energy in their life into something totally different than their age-mates, and Marketers just don't care about those individuals.

Remember, 20 years after birth, a generation makes its first mark on the world -- today, it may be more like 18, the voting age.

PLUTO IN LEO 1939 - 1957 (Became The Flower Children of 1960's and '70's) The flower children were all about "doing your own thing" at all costs. Drop out, at all costs. Pluto is related to sexuality, and Leo is The King (sovereign), so free choice in sexual practices as a big generational theme (and still is).  Pluto in Leo is personal sovereignty at all costs.

PLUTO IN VIRGO generation 1958 - 1972 (Gen X), Yuppies, materialism, white win, discrimination in food, and car and clothing brands. Virgo is the neat housekeeper who sees their house as messy.  All white apartments furnished in chrome and glass. So this generation wanted a NEAT WORLD at all costs.

PLUTO IN LIBRA generation (assimilating out of justice?) Late 1971 - 1984 (Gen Y? sort of)  Libra is the picky eater, and the conflict avoider. Balance, harmony, justice at all costs.  Peace at all costs -- so avoid getting the USA embroiled in another war at all costs, even surrender.

PLUTO IN SCORPIO generation 1985-1995 or so (video game generation?)  Scorpio is the Natural 8th House, connecting Sex for its own sake (not for love or Romance) and Death, Revolution, Change.  Pluto rules Scorpio, and thus when transiting Scorpio as this generation was born (who are now 20 years old from 2005 to 2015), Pluto was at the height of its power to affect Natal Charts and the world.  Thus we have a new-adult generation willing to die for Revolution - to CHANGE THE WORLD.

This Pluto in Scorpio generation has produced a determined generation. Each person, and sub-group of people, is determined to do something different from the others -- but they are all implacably determined to do whatever they'd chosen to do.

Thus we have young people organizing college campuses to impose political correctness, and the same generation equally determined to oppose that same political correctness.

The Pluto in Scorpio natal position also explains why a scattering of Americans and people all over the world, male and female, are susceptible to recruiting by Isil or Daesh - or any other totalitarian movement.  Pluto in Scorpio is totalitarian at all costs.  Or free at all costs.

PLUTO IN SAGITTARIUS generation 1995-2008 -- comes of age in from about 2015 through 2028.  Since the key attribute of Sagittarius is honesty, even brutal or tone-deaf honesty, we can expect "honesty at all costs."  Remember, truth is not the same thing as honesty.  Honesty does not distinguish between emotion or intellect. Jupiter is about International Treaties, all kinds of Legality, growth, inclusion, benevolence.  Small wonder the welcome matt is out for refugees no matter how mixed with invading soldiers the refugees may be.  Remember, Pluto is about "at all costs" and Sagittarius is about growth and honesty. Sagittarius is the Natural 9th House, foreign lands, International Law.  Welcome at all costs.

PLUTO IN CAPRICORN (now - 2023). These people will come of age in 2035 onwards. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, which represents Rules, Law, Government, and the organized part of Organized Religion. Saturn is all about discipline, strict record keeping.  These people will want predictable security and privacy "at all costs" -- so perhaps they will finally do away with hacking.

The signature element of the Pluto Natal Position is not the target chosen, but the "at all costs" attitude.

The current 20-something generation is so susceptible to Daesh because Daesh also advocates chaos as the precondition for the End of Days being summoned.  Chaos per se appeals to that young generation because it is an extreme cost that fulfills the "at all costs" attitude fueling movement toward a goal, in this case the goal of revolution.  "At All Costs" is Pluto, and Scorpio is about change, (death being only one example of a change), and thus revolution.

Remember, the goal itself does not matter -- it is not encoded into the position of Pluto.  The only information Pluto encodes is the degree of determination, that easily escalates to implacable ruthlessness.  That attitude, running full bore and ungoverned by common sense, is fulfilled in acts of rape and murder.

When well leashed by life-long discipline, Pluto's implacable determination to achieve a goal can reshape the world for the better.

The choice of destruction or construction is entirely individual.  Nothing can compel a person toward construction or destruction -- it is a freewill choice.

Now mark this point because you will find it in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  Construction vs. Destruction.  It is important to understand the "at all costs" element and the tactic of "construction or destruction."

Think back over how we have investigated the ways to account for personal taste in art.

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

With a film like Star Wars: The Force Awakens we are talking about the Marketers nailing the "taste" in entertainment of several generations.

As George Lucas planned, the main actors reprised the roles they played in their youth once again in their elder years.

Thus, though George Lucas sold the franchise to Disney, Disney nevertheless did fulfill the promise of the original project and brought us the future lives of the main characters, played plausibly by the same actors.

It was an epic plan, and well accomplished.

A lot of people complained that Carrie Fisher looked her age, 59, at the time of Star Wars: The Force Awakens being released.  Carrie Frances Fisher was born October 21, 1956.  Star Wars original Trilogy (1977–1983) was done when she was 21 to 32 years old.

The youngest part of the audience Disney aimed The Force Awakens at are a new generation - a generation born around the year 2000.  People born in 1995 (a baby-boomlet year) are 20 year olds.  The original audience for the first film is now in their 60's and 70's.

So the youngest part of the current film's audience is dedicated to change-at-all-costs.  The eldest, with Pluto in Leo, personal sovereignty-at-all-costs.

The favorite theme of the elders was revolt against tyranny, and how the individual can be the Hero on his own personal Journey.  The first Star Wars trilogy was structured on the Hero's Journey, which at its core has the assumption, a thematic assumption, that Life Matters.

Whatever you do in your life, it makes a difference. Free will choices (Leo, the King, the Sovereign) make a difference. You can (and must with Pluto in Leo) win.

But that world of can-and-must-win and free will choice makes a difference is not the real world the current 18-35 year olds live in.

They have come of age in a world where "you didn't build that" and "you can't succeed without government help" and "the system is broken" and "you can go to college, yes, but you will then be in debt the rest of your life."  A college degree might get you a minimum wage job, maybe.

In other words, they live in a world where life is futile.

To get that younger viewer to suspend disbelief and enter a galaxy far-far away, Disney changed the theme of the original Star Wars trilogy for a new theme aimed at the younger viewers.

To get anyone to suspend disbelief, a writer has to provide something in the world that is being built that the audience recognizes as real.

Since this series is about interstellar war, it is all about winning and losing -- or not.

The older generation would believe that the Good Guys would vanquish the Bad Guys -- that Good Always Wins.  If that premise were depicted, everything else would be believable and enjoyable.

The younger generation needed to see Revolution, Pluto style, destruction, especially by explosion.

And Disney went for the explosion-spectacle the younger generation wanted, Revolution By Explosion.  Given the state-of-the-art of digital film today, the result was something orders of magnitude more impressive than the original Trilogy.

Thematically, the Good Guys Win Sovereignty At All Costs, the Hero's Journey, is replaced with a clear vision of a core theme of "Life Is Futile" -- there is no personal sovereignty, and no decision matters.

Where do we see that?  Princess Leia is still fighting the same war, albeit as a general now.  Hans Solo is still scavenging.  Luke Skywalker is a failure, off on the periphery somewhere, and does not count.  Nothing he did mattered.  The Galaxy is still in the same state it was before -- tyrany reigns.

The theme is The Hero's Journey is Futile.

So a good chunk of the elder audience found this new film boring, dull, slow, pointless, and disappointing if not laughable.  They pointed at the "lame" dialogue sandwiched between action scenes with scathing comments.

And a major chunk of the in-between and younger audience loved it  for the explosions, destruction, the spectacle, the state-of-the-art visuals, and the reprise of the original trilogy's situation.  They liked the fact that nothing had changed.

The ending, with the young girl with a Lightsaber going off into the wild blue yonder seemed pasted on.  Obviously, it is meant to hint and foreshadow future films centered on her efforts to do what the previous generation failed to do - oust the bad guys.  But it does not grow organically out of the portrait of her when we first see her - scavenging for a mob-boss.

She is not driven, she does not have a goal, she is not  actively establishing personal sovereignty.  She is just existing, with no expectation of getting out of that situation.  She accepts the futility of life.

In the end, she's off with Chewy to seek her fortunes in far places, but there is no plan, no strategy, no tactic, no ambition or expectation of succeeding heroically.  She is free, but she can't see any reason to be free.  Freedom is futile.  It is just a reprise of Skywalker's emergence from his desert.

During the film, nobody builds anything, invents anything (the signature element of science fiction is SCIENCE, where discoveries and inventions are created to solve life-problems), nobody makes a better Light Saber, nobody  creates anything.

During the film, explosions, destruction, and futility are pictured and  mirrored -- the symbolism is world class art, but it symbolizes the futility of building,  not the Happily Ever After.

So the theme of Star Wars has changed from Life Matters to Life Is Futile.

When you change the theme, you change the target audience.

The same thing was done to Ursula LeGuinn's Earthsea Trilogy when it was made as a TV Feature.

It is what is always done to books made in to films -- because the target audience of the marketers of films is different from the target audience of  novelists.

That difference exists because of the difference in cost of making a film vs. making a book.

That gap in cost is shrinking.  The people born with Pluto in Capricorn may live to see video-processors as easy to work as word processors.

For now, though, the box-office success and failure of Star Wars: The Force Awakens should be studied.

For now, Life is Futile and Love Is Impotent are the dominant themes.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

EMF 24/7

Can one prove something that one does not want to prove?  Of course, but there will be a bias, and the bias may skew the results. Moreover, those reading the studies may read them with bias.

No one wants to prove that cellphones cause diabetes, brain cancer, dementia, pathological anxiety,
lowered IQ, childhood cancer, erectile dysfunction, reproductive problems, ringing in the ears, insomnia, migraines.....etc etc. But, what if they do?

In 2011 a working group appointed by the World Health Organization classified cellphone use as "possibly carcinogenic to humans".

http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet

Four prestigious American organizations concluded that there was not enough evidence/strong enough evidence/conclusive evidence/definitive evidence/replicable evidence. So, they will study the possibility for the next 20-to-30 years.

Meanwhile, a Chinese group of scientists did duplicate the Swedish studies.... and no one is talking about it.  https://betweenrockandhardplace.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/cell-phones-and-blood-brain-barrier-chinese-scientists-confirm-findings-of-swedish-salford-group/

During World War II, governments gave cigarettes to soldiers. Presumably, smoking the cigarettes wasn't compulsory, but even for non-smokers, there was no way to avoid second-hand smoke so they might as well have been compulsory.  Now, we have cellphones, and even dinosaurs who refuse to use cellphones cannot avoid the EMF of other people's cellphones.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/12/20/radiation-from-cell-phones-and-wifi-are-making-people-sick--are-you-at-risk.aspx

What will humanity look like in thirty years' time after we have been "whole-body irradiated by man-made electromagnetic fields for the entirity of our lives"? Already some individuals are more sensitive than others. And perhaps children are most at risk.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/11486167/Are-smartphones-making-our-children-mentally-ill.html

Science fiction is full of dystopian worlds... and mostly-heroic mutants. Maybe EMF 24/7 is as good a way to explain the backstory as anything else.


And now for something completely... outrageous.

Seen on a blog that is well worth following
http://musictechpolicy.com/2016/04/29/youtube-creates-financial-incentive-for-counternotices-that-profit-youtube/

In a nutshell, it is probably a conflict of interest for a hosting site that makes money from copyright infringement to encourage alleged copyright infringers to file DMCA counternotices. When a counternotice is filed, the copyright infringing content goes back up, and stays back up, unless or until the copyright owner finds the financial wherewithal to commence a federal lawsuit.  Most copyright owners simply cannot afford to do that. The result is that their pirated works remain permanently available for the financial benefit of the site and the pirate, and the copyright owner gets nothing.

Here's a link from the recent World IP Day with an interview with Authors Guild President, Mary Rasenberger. http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2016/04/26/balanced-ip-system-content-creators/id=68646/

Happy reading. And writing!

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

The Value of Boredom

A recent scientific study agrees with Neil Gaiman that boredom stimulates creativity:

Boredom, the Ultimate Creativity Hack

As Gaiman puts it, "boredom is the place you create from in self-defense." Instead of filling every minute with "productive" activity, such as scanning through phone messages while waiting in lines, we should embrace waiting times as a chance to "do nothing." The brain isn't literally doing nothing, though; those "empty" snippets of time can foster daydreaming, which leads to enhanced creativity.

Reminds me of those summer vacation days (in the childhood of our generation) when a mother would shove kids outside and order them to find something to do (with the spoken or unspoken corollary, "or I'll find something for you to do"). We usually came up with an activity to engage our imaginations, even if it was only playing school with our oldest sister as the teacher passing on what she'd learned in the previous term.

When we set aside electronic distractions and let our thoughts wander during down time, the mind "can take you into new and interesting territory." Okay, I can accept that premise. This article, though, focuses on high-tech means of filling every minute with activity. What about people like me, who carry books (in my case, usually "tree" books) everywhere? I don't read in store lines, of course, except maybe the magazine I've put in my cart to buy, but I'm always reading books in waiting rooms, etc. Sitting there doing "nothing" would lead to more impatience and anxiety than productive daydreaming. I wouldn't go anywhere without a book on hand, including in cars while other people are driving. I'm sure many if not most avid readers follow the same practice. How does that habit fit in with the recommendations of this article?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 11 Why is it wrong to blame the victim?

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration
Part 11
 Why is it wrong to blame the victim?
by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Index to previous 10 posts in this series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

How do you know when a "world" depicted in a novel you are reading is advocating "blaming the victim?"

It makes your skin crawl? It makes your mouth purse up in distaste?
 What reaction do you have to a "world" (an alien civilization, a bit of humanity trying to colonize some hostile world, Ancient History on Earth, Alternate Reality) where the law, customs, unconscious assumptions, and traditions are built around the idea that blame rests with the victim?

How do you know when you've built such a provision into some Alien Civilization you are creating to house your Romance?

We live in a world that still does "blame the victim" but about half the people vigorously oppose any hint of blaming the victim.

Hence we have political furor over things like Illegal Immigrant kids dragged here by their parents (who may or may not have been legitimate refugees, or honest folks seeking work to survive) now grown and really Americans, some of the best among us, but denied citizenship. Are they "victims?"  Do we blame kids for what their parents did?

What about the kids of people planning to put a suicide vest on the kid and send him into a crowd to detonate?  Why would a parent EVER do that?  (Character motivation in that question is thematic.)

And in a High Drama (Pluto driven) case like that, which one is the "victim?"  The child?  The parent who was "brainwashed" or inducted into some Cult that "believes in" suicide?  The people in the crowd who were killed or traumatized?

How do you look at a complex situation -- with a "backstory" embedded in it -- and decide which Character is the victim and which is the instigator?

Whose story is it?

Do Victims make good Hero material for a writer?

All Main Characters, Viewpoint Characters, have to be the individual whose decisions are causing things to happen in their world.  The Events don't have to be world shaking, but they have to have 'consequences' because consequences create the plot.

Remember, plot is the "because line" -- Hero does this - which causes that, because that happened, Adversary does that, which causes this, because this happened, Hero must do something, because of that something, other things happen.  Because -- Because is the glue that connects scenes in a logical sequence all readers can understand.

All novels are Rube Goldberg devices, just like our real world.



If you don't think so, just spend 15 minutes watching Presidential Politics, and think again.

The typical TV Series or feature film is much more simplified, just as a comic or graphic novel is simplified.  That's why TV or comics seem so "thin" or ludicrous or childish.  It is the same material you'd find in a whopping good Romance, but edited down, simplified, squashed into less space.

Real life is a Rube Goldberg device -- a super-complicated way of doing super-simple things.

Complication makes it difficult to look at a real situation and determine which actor is the instigator and which the victim.

There are certain scenarios where we make instant assumptions about which is the Underdog, which is the Good Guy, which is the Victim.

Remember last week's post on Theme-Plot Integration titled Affairs of State (discussing Star Wars: The Force Awakens) discussed Blaming the Victim, and whether Rey is Hero material.  We touched on the depiction of Good and Evil, and how Evil always wins while Good can only "contain" Evil.

Can a Victim become a Hero?

If a Victim becomes a Hero, do they carry the Blame with them?

These are thematic issues, and no two writers will answer those questions the same way.  A usable novel theme will be an answer, not the answer, and the Main Character(s) will have to choose one of several answers the writer "plants" in the plot Events.

When building a World, a writer has to build more than one Character.  Usually, whether depicted or not, the entire World is a shadowy presence behind and around the Characters.

Much of a Character's motivation comes from the unconscious assumptions his/her upbringing has inculcated.  Much of the process of "maturing" (going from Victim which every Child is, to Hero which every Adult is), is about Guilt becoming Responsibility.

Consider what you know of the psychology of the abused child.  Even a child who is not abused experiences the feeling of being abused.  Not being master of your own destiny, not having any way to assert your own decisions and make your world behave the way you want it to behave, puts you in the position of "Victim."

There's a more abstract, maybe spiritual, way of describing that position represented by Childhood.  You can call it being on the negative pole of the transaction.

In the math of Electricity, Fluid Dynamics, even Newtonian Mechanics, processes go from Here to There -- the world and the universe have a 'direction.'  The point where a process originates is called the Positive Pole and the destination where the process completes is called the Negative Pole.

This is a model which is so generalized that a writer can apply it to modeling any World -- Alien, Human, Historical, Dead Galactic Civilization.

For practice, just look around at the real world. Identify processes, and identify the poles.

Remember in Star Trek, how Scotty would struggle with a problem, then declare, "Reversing Polarity!" and bam, the problem is solved.

You can apply this model of Polarities to all novel plots, to magical processes, to the power politics of Ancient Aristocracy and to modern democracies.

"Power" -- like Electrical or Mechanical -- is static, building and building or slowly leaching away.  Or it is dynamic, flowing from one point to another point.

Political Power does that.  Social Power, Wealth, Prestige, any kind of abstract human-created Power behaves like that -- positive pole to negative pole.

There is the saying, "It is more Blessed to Give than to Recieve."  Which says it is better to be on the Positive Pole than the Negative Pole.

Frankly, personally, I don't believe that and discussed that issue in a previous entry:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

You can take any answer to the question of whether Giving or Receiving is 'better' and craft a theme out of that answer, then build a world where that answer is a reliable touchstone for deciding what to do in various circumstances.

When you build a world around a particular theme, you do need to create a "society" or more than one, that your Hero and Villain, or Protagonist and Antagonist, belong to.

This means you have to deal with issues of how Groups form, arise to dominance, and dissipate, in that World.

For example, in our world today, we assign each individual to be a member of a "Group" of some sort -- Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Generation, Child, Adult, Teen, Illegal Immigrant, Refugee, Invader, Educated, Rich, Poor, Middle Class (BTW always remember the USA does not have "Classes" as part of the social structure, so if you write about them you must explain in detail).

We all know that any given individual we meet must be a member of several such Groups.  For example: Black Female South African Rich Widow.

We often "Characterize" our Protagonist via the Groups he/she is a member of.  "Brilliant Street Orphan Pickpocket."  "Lazy Teen Party Girl."

We profile characters that way because real people in real life sort out everyone they know or see into categories like that.

That method of dealing with overwhelming heaps of data in complex arrays (e.g. the general public) is built into the analog functions of the human brain.  It is a shortcut that works (or used to, most of the time).  We classify the beasts of our jungle as predator and prey, so we know when to run and when to grab lunch.

Two of the categories pre-loaded into the human brain at birth are Predator and Prey -- or Victimizer and Victim -- or in general, Positive Pole to Negative Pole.

All human infants are born helpless.  And we scream a lot.

There is nothing more immediate, irritating, crazy-making to the adult human ear than the squall of a baby.  There are no words to that scream, but we know what it says.  We know what it feels like to need to make that sound.  Nobody remembers being that newborn, but our nerves still know.

It doesn't matter whether the infant is your own or not, you will try to make that cry stop.

Different people in different circumstances will do different things to cause the screaming baby to shut up.  But all will TRY.

We all have read the stories of new mothers beating their infant to death, smothering with a pillow, drugging them, throwing a newborn into the trash bin, drowning, -- there's no limit to human imagination. And reading those stories, we all wonder how anyone could do that.

Even if it is not your own baby, you wouldn't DO that - just not.

It is, however, well documented that sometimes a woman who has just given birth is "depressed" or otherwise in hormonal hell severe enough to attack the apparent source of the misery.  (or neglect the infant to death)

Think about your Alien Hunk that your Human has fallen in love with. Would an Alien comprehend this human behavior?  What would you write to explain it to him?

The Polarity model might be able to get the point across.

With an Adult vs. Screaming Infant transaction, the Power is all on the Adult side, right?  The Infant is on the negative pole of any transaction.

Is that how you see it?

Think hard.

When an Adult responds to an Infant Cry, who is 'calling the shots?'

Which side of that transaction is "in control."

Who is playing the tune that is being danced to?

All those quick questions are based on an assumption. Can you spot the assumption?

The assumption is rooted in the either/or model of Reality that we've discussed at great length in many posts here.

I just "gave you" two choices and told you to choose just one.

That zero-sum-game model of reality is the fundamental basis of what we call today Western Civilization.  It is not the only model of reality ever espoused on Earth by humans.  The Kabbalistic model of reality is totally different.  Zen, and many other philosophies don't use that either/or model.

Would your Aliens find the either/or model of reality "alien" to them?

So lets look at the Adult/Crying Infant transaction again.

The Polarity model of reality appears to describe the universe in an either/or zero-sum-game structure.  You are either on the Positive Pole (the Bully doing the acting) or the Negative Pole (the Victim being acted upon).

But the Polarity model allows for considerable "distance" between poles.  Energy flows from positive to negative, and a lot can happen in between.

And then there's Scotty reversing polarities.

In the case of the Screaming Infant, which "pole" the infant is on can be chosen by the Adult.  (what if your Alien Infant did the choosing, for example telepathically?)

The Adult can look at the Infant as a responsibility, and simply fulfill that responsibility with dispatch.

Or the Adult can allow the screaming sound to activate the unremembered "Helpless" condition of infancy, and FEEL that sound as an attack, feel victimized, put-upon, feel punished by that sound.  The response to being attacked is to counter-attack, or run, or destroy.

The objective of the victim is to get away, to MAKE IT STOP, or curl up and protect one's soft inner parts.

The Adult can respond to the infant's needs, and thus remain on the Positive Pole of the transaction.

Or the Adult can respond to the sound not the infant, to the irritation rather than to the needs of the other person, and thus adopt the position of Victim.

Whether you are a Victim or not depends on your Self Image more than on the Situation.

How prone you are to feeling Victimized when something awakens that unremembered position of Infancy depends on how strong and solid the transition from childhood to adulthood was.

It may also depend on individualistic personal traits, and on experiences in between.

So why is it "wrong" to "blame" the Victim?

If adult humans have a choice in any situation (even when being beaten, bullied, abused, brainwashed, etc) whether to adopt the Infancy position of being the Victim, why is it wrong to blame a person for adopting the position of Victim?

What would the world be like if there were no Adult Victims?  What if every recipient, every person on the Negative Pole of any transaction knew how to be the Negative Pole without being a Victim?

An Infant apparently can do it.  Most Adults will respond to an Infant's scream by feeding, cleaning, coddling, swinging, burping, caring gently for the Infant -- on the schedule the Infant chooses.

How many parents actually feel victimized by their infants?

Thus we live in a world of "alternating current" - where the one on the Positive Pole of a transaction is on the Negative then the Positive alternating until the transaction is complete.

We are "in conversation with" the Universe, with underlying Reality, back and forth.

Using the "wheels within wheels" model of the universe where the infinitely small is identical with the infinitely large, or where everything is composed of smaller particles, and those small particles are composed of even smaller ones etc., we can see that when building a world, a writer has to include this concept of every small thing belonging to a Group that composes a larger Group and so forth.

This is true of physical reality, and it is mirrored in social reality.

Thus every unique individual human belongs to Groups, usually many Groups.  And these Groups interact with one another along the Positive/Negative Pole axis, just as individuals do.

Groups interact with each other on the alternating current model, first one is Positive then the other is Positive.

Consider the Situation in the world today where children in school are "handled" as a Group by a Teacher (backed by ultimate Power in the school Administration).  If one of the students misbehaves, the entire class is punished -- even though few of them have any option for preventing the wild student from misbehaving.

We teach children to "blame the Group" for the behavior of an individual member of the Group.

Thus our Adults are conditioned to the idea that justice means "punish the innocent" to alter the behavior of the miscreant.

Therefore when an Adult becomes a voter and has to weigh in on public policy, the well-conditioned former-student will consider policies like "screening" all citizens to control the behavior of a few miscreants (who won't be deterred) justified.

So we spawn Groups like the TSA.  "All Air Passengers" are a Group.  A few might be miscreants.  The Group will not object when the entire Group is delayed, hassled, searched, stolen-from (yes, the TSA steals stuff, I've had it happen), and variously victimized by the Bully-Personalities that gravitate to such jobs.

Will this Group Punishment be any more effective than punishing a whole classroom full of students with extra homework because of one who speaks out of turn?

Do "All Air Passengers" have the power to prevent One Of The Group from carrying a dangerous object onto the plane? Or from using such an object?  Like a classroom full of children, they are all strangers to each other and have no power over each other.

Take cyber-security as another example. Some miscreant in another country perpetrates a crime against the Group Users Of Cyberspace.  All Users of Cyberspace are forthwith punished by having Legislators make a law forbidding members of the Group Users of Cyberspace from defending themselves with effective encryption technology.  Nobody objects to such bizarre practice because of that old classroom conditioning that the innocent are responsible for the behavior of the guilty.

THEME: Punishing the innocent will prevent the guilty from misbehaving again.

With children conditioned in the classroom to believe that justice and their own well being resides in punishing the whole class, it is no wonder that the Adults they grow into "feel safe" when all the passengers on a plane have been frisked, or all the audience at a concert have been searched.

One must, above all "feel safe."  It does not matter if you are safe. It only matters that you feel safe.  Face it, the action of instituting "screening" hoards of the innocent to prevent those bent on destruction from perpetrating destruction is ineffectual.

But as the twig is bent, so grows the tree. If whole classrooms are punished to get at the one guilty party, all members of that class have their emotional responses to future situations engraved on their subconscious minds. When a miscreant surfaces among a Group, the only solution that comes to mind is screen the entire Group.  We know nothing else because all the other solutions have been blocked from consciousness.

It is a little like learning a language natively. Each human language has a set of phonemes that carry meaning.  Learning the language natively means learning to block out of consciousness the tiny differences.  Those differences cause "accents."

For example, the words, Pin, Pen, and Pan are pronounced with very distinctive differences in some American English dialects, and absolutely the same in others.  Mary, Marry and Merry likewise sound different to some, and the same to others.

Solutions to basic problems work exactly the same way.

How you learn to solve problems gives you a problem-solving accent.  There is literally a set of thoughts that are as "unthinkable" as the "un-hearable" differences between those words.

To some people, the infant's scream opens the heart and looses a flood of love, caring, gentle kindness, and a need to soothe.  That's a problem solving technique - the problem is that the sound is unbearable and the solution is Love.

To other people, the infant's scream is an unbearable irritant that must be stopped at all costs, no matter what.  The problem solving technique is to focus on the urgency of stopping the irritation, rather than solving the infant's problem.

Just in an aside, here, I have to point out that up to about 3 months of age, an infant's hysteria can be soothed away by swaddling.  It works best with human hands. The technique is to wrap the infant's flailing arms in one hand, ans support the butt in the other, and rock back and forth.  This sends a counter-message of "safety" to the infant's brain, and works until the brain development gets to the point where other positions will work better.

This is also true for dogs. They now sell a kind of snug vest that will help an animal calm down during a lightening storm.

How you solve problems largely depends on your own self-image, your self-esteem.  A person who has high self-esteem but is also humble will spend most of the time during a problem solving session on the Positive Pole of the transaction.  A person who has low self-esteem and is prideful will spend most of the time on the Negative Pole of the transaction.

No given individual lacks Prideful moments, and even those of lowest self-esteem have magnificent moments of humility (where humility is defined as a ruthlessly accurate assessment of your own potential.)

Thus when you create an Alien Character, and confront the "What Does She See In Him?" question, and the "What Does He See In Her?" question,

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

...the answer is "it depends" -- because to be realistic, a Character has to oscillate between these polar opposites, just as real humans do.

All kinds of people (except maybe sociopaths?) will alternate rapidly from Positive to Negative -- giving and receiving -- spending most time around the middle, or slightly to one side or the other of the middle.  

Notice I keep saying receiving -- not "taking" but "accepting."  The Negative Pole is "accepting."  Trouble happens (e.g. victim-hood) when the Negative Pole of the transaction lacks selectivity about what to accept and what to reject.

If the problem is, "Find the Miscreant In This Group," these two problem-solving "accents" will go about it differently, just as they do when solving the problem of the irritating infant scream.

One type will insistently search for a way to separate the Miscreant without disturbing any member of the Group.

Another type will "default" to the routine problem solving method that his teachers "modeled" for him.

Both types will alternate behavior.

Just to make matters worse, other factors will come into play, enhancing or inhibiting problem solving until the two "types" are indistinguishable.

As a romance writer, you look for ways for Love to Conquer All, and a path to the Happily Ever After, no matter how incompatible the two types of problem solving may be.

This over-simplified description of human problem solving can be used to develop an Alien world and an Alien culture that is both recognizable to your human readers, and very Alien.

The trick is to observe Human Civilization from an Alien point of view.  Now have your human Character explain human behavior to your Alien.  None of that will go into the novel you write, but it will establish the Characters in your mind so that they will behave consistently during the story.

So, for example, your Alien asks, "Why is it wrong to blame the victim when it is impossible to tell which person is the actual victim?"

So you explain it, and the Alien asks, "So why do you punish the whole Group for the behavior of one miscreant?"

And you sputter, "But - but we don't!"

Explain that to an Alien from a species whose infants don't cry.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday Is Intellectual Property Day

Tomorrow is Intellectual Property day.  

Creators, authors fill out your book titles and your name on this list

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/727ad03949c981c140a2bf125/files/The_List_2016_World_IP_Day.pdf photo it, and upload to #AmericaCreates.

Rowena Cherry

Perils Of Being A Pantser

This week, a reader contacted me through my website (I have a new mail server, and not a lot gets through, but what does is all quality stuff) to ask when I will ever publish the story of Devoron and Demetra.

I painted myself into a bit of a corner at the end of Knight's Fork--that's one peril of being a pantser--by having an uncharacteristically pleasant Devoron announce that he had "found her". How complicated can his story now be? I've seriously cramped the timeline for wooing and winning the lady.

Devoron has always been an intersteller Scarlet Pimpernel... minus the affectations and lace-covered wrist. Therefore, I've been following rather different survival blogs from the ones I followed for J-J's marooned-on-an-island story. For Insufficient Mating Material, the enemy of the moment was hunger, thirst, lack of shelter, and deadly horny berries. (That was not a typo.) Devoron draws more on conspiracy theorists and preppers, and he cannot rely on his own biology --as the squid-like King Viz-Igerd of Knight's Fork did-- to sneak about inconspicuously, because his biology has been established already.

That does not rule out relying somewhat on the shortcomings of humans. For instance, there are sounds that humans cannot hear, and colors that humans cannot see.

There are ways to defeat facial recognition, which mostly concerns the modern lack of privacy, and which might or might not be useful thought-starters for plausible aliens skulking around on earth looking for long-lost relatives. For instance, nowadays anyone with the right camera could take a picture of a total stranger, and from that photograph, could go online and find out a great deal of private information including the contact information for that person.  Scary! Very Bourne Identity.

Usual standbys for eluding detection, surveillance or pursuit (which we've seen in everything from Rom Coms such as Three Men And A Little Lady to Bond movies to takes on Sherlock Holmes, so this is nothing new) would include reversible clothing, reversible hats, balaclavas, versatile scarves or headbands, malleable eyeglasses (for societies where eye wear is necessary and customary) where the shape can be changed with a firm pinch, ear-plug-like inserts that can change the appearance of the nose or lips, realistic masks (and there are $400 Leo Selvaggio masks available for sale which allegedly can thwart Facebook's facial recognition technology --did you know Facebook was that creepy?). There's stuff called NIR LEDs, too.  Also, there's hair styling and make up which can create such asymmetry that a camera does not recognize a face.

Where are those "80 nodal points" that facial recognition technology rely upon?
See here: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/facial-recognition1.htm

Apparently, only 30% or so of the face need be exposed for the technology to recognize you. The drawbacks with asymmetrical hairstyles and make up is that one tends to look like one is doing exactly what one is doing, and it would take a while to change the effect.  It would be helpful, I should think, to have cat-like hair follicles, that one could control individually and at will.

Some modern habits would seem particularly idiotic to an alien romance hero who wanted to keep a low profile: piercings, tattoos, carrying a GPS device (cell phone), carrying credit cards embedded with "chips".

My apologies for all the parentheses today. That's another peril of being a pantser!

Rowena Cherry

Latest Cyborg Leap Forward

Medical researchers at Ohio State University have invented a device called NeuroLife, which enables a quadriplegic to move his hand:

Brain Implant

One end of the device is implanted in his brain, with external cables that run down to his hand, bypassing the damaged spinal cord. NeuroLife transmits nerve impulses generated by algorithms based on recordings of activity in the motor cortex (if I understand the explanation correctly). The experimental subject has regained enough precision control of his hand muscles to pick up objects and even play video games. I wonder whether he can use a keyboard; the article doesn't say. That would really be a leap forward. (I know about speech-to-text programs, of course, and many people seem to love them; if I were paralyzed, though, I would have a lot of trouble "writing" by dictation and would wish for the ability to type.)

This technique took a decade of development, and the patient had to undergo months of training to get the full benefit. So it won't be an instant fix, even when it becomes publicly available (and the article doesn't mention when that might happen). Still, it's a wondrous achievement.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot Integration Part 16 - Affairs of State by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Plot Integration
Part 16
Affairs of State
by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Index to previous posts in the Theme-Plot Integration Series:

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

Believe it or not, we live in a storybook, and sometimes the "real" news headlines actually reveal that great secret.

In these writing-craft posts I focus on "how" to do the various tasks of the writing craft.  Most books on or about how to write just tell you to do this or that.  I've never found that helpful, so I am showing not telling how the writer's mind looks, sees, interprets and then uses the elements of audience appeal to create fiction that can become a Classic in its field. One sort of Classic that Romance dances around is Cinderella - the unknown girl marrying a Prince.

What Cinderella does not cover is the Pygmalion aspect -- what does Cinderella do once she is Queen and her Prince has died?  What is the difference between a working stiff and a Head of State?  Is there any difference that matters?

Study World History.  Previously I've recommended writing students read dozens maybe hundreds of biographies and autobiographies.

Here's a great biography to study if you have liked any of the Star Wars movies.

http://www.amazon.com/Skywalking-Films-George-Lucas-Updated-ebook/dp/B00292BIR6/

Now I'm saying combine World History with what you learned from Biographies, and add Contemporary History.

International Affairs are actually run as a story-plot generated by the internal conflict of the people who make the policy decisions (Heads of State, department heads, financial backers,  Powers That Be Behind The Scenes, Corporations...)

Here is a contemporary non-fiction book about our current shapers of Affairs of State that has gained much praise (and excoriation).

http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Feud-Clintons-vs-Obamas-ebook/dp/B00WPRBM1C/

We saw that reflection of neuroses of Heads of State in our world during World War II. As a close reading of Hitler biographies will reveal, he had a psychological "need" to "cleanse" -- and he projected that need into the environment.

The magnification of Pluto related forces (which I've discussed at length in these blogs as the source of War and Drama), unleashed the Final Solution.  His drive to execute the riffraff causing him to feel "dirty" created the Death Camps, burning people to ash in ovens.

Or just look at any of the TV Series Dramas that include Queen Elizabeth I, such as REIGN - which is about Mary Queen of Scots in France.
 http://www.amazon.com/The-Plague/dp/B00O3VCJK6

Those are caricature-sketches of  International Affairs, of course, but this is the point to grasp when you've got a THEME that needs to generate a PLOT.

The theme generates the plot by fueling the internal conflict of a Character who is in a position in life where his/her actions can manifest externally.

"Life" has cycles. There are times you are trapped inside yourself and nothing you think, do, or feel has any impact on the external world.  And there are times every twitch of your eyebrow is gossiped about from the mail room to the CEO's office.

Jupiter, Uranus, Pluto, all the planets are 'cyclical' -- the cycles impact different parts of your life at different times, and sometimes manifest externally.

USA Presidential candidates have three or four properties that I've noticed.
A) their Natal Charts have some tight Relationship to the USA Natal Chart(s).
B) their transits ignite pure dynamic Energy,
C) their Solar Arc contacts trigger off something usually interpreted as Sexual, Romantic, or Social during the Campaign or the ensuing Term of Office.

Nothing in a Natal Chart can really indicate whether the person "wins" or "loses."

Transits just indicate peaks and valleys from a baseline.

The Natal Chart shows whether the person is "channeling" Energy into their own interior (unlikely to do more than a few whistle stops on the campaign trail) or into their Environment (very likely to hit a peak popularity)  Sustaining that peak means successive transits must continue to sweep energy into the Environment.

Which candidate "wins" -- well, sometimes becoming President is a way of losing in "life."  It's a brutal, massively difficult killer of a job, and it uses men up in the peak of their lives.

So is becoming President (or King, Queen, Dictator) a "win?"  Or a "destiny?"

That question can be a THEME.

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

So here's a sub-theme to ponder.  A sub-theme is a theme derived from a main theme.  It's not "another" theme grabbed out of thin air because you "like" it.  A sub-theme is a theme that is an essential component of the Main Theme.

So, a sub-theme for "Is being Elected President a Win?" might be something like the Hitler story encapsulated above -- playing out a Character's innermost Needs, Drives, Ambitions, Frustrations, on the International Stage then showing his demise as poetic justice.

If the Character has a ruthless streak (Mars conjunct Pluto in the Natal Chart often produces something like ruthlessness when triggered by transit or Solar Arc), that Character might take the Force of an Economy and an Army and sweep out into the world to accomplish what their internal neuroses demand of them.

This is not a "modern" idea or a new one. You see it in the Ancient Greek plays, in all that's derived from them, in modern History books, and in today's Headlines, and even in the Blockbuster films and video games of today such as STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS.

Star Wars is the saga of a galactic war long ago and far away.  The reboot by Disney, The Force Awakens, shows how a new generation picks up the "conquer or be conquered" theme.

The film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens depicts the Good Guys as the Underdog, and the Bad Guys as the Mighty.  The Bad Guys have a Grandmother of all Death Stars that sucks up a whole Sun, then spits out a beam that can destroy planets and stars halfway across their Galaxy. And to be sure you understand that, you see them blowing up planets of Good Guys with their new weapon.

Bad Guys return with bigger, badder weapons -- the same weapons, the weapons of destruction, just bigger.

In good comic book fashion, the Bad Guys uniforms are still the same ineffective, comical "body armor" with visible seams -- the bad guys wear white.

The whole movie is about explosions, and destruction. In fact, it is about destroying antique buildings, wondrous relics, and treasured people.

It brings back Light Sabers but simplifies the whole arcane concept of THE FORCE into Dark and Light, without any morality involved. Might Makes Right (a theme) abounds all over the place.

Hans Solo and Leia have spawned a son who turns to the Dark Side, and with a face-to-face trick kills his father -- saber through the chest, just as in the King Arthur Legend, and sends him falling from an immense height echoing previous fallen villains and heroes.

Luke Skywalker is the object of the hunt, and we see him in the final scenes.  He's supposed to be raising more Jedi Knights - we learn nothing of the training he is supposedly giving.

Absolutely not one thing is being BUILT in this film, not ships, buildings, planets, or families -- nothing is growing and prospering. Destruction reigns supreme, center spotlight, destruction of things, of Characters, and of every tradition (except possibly the Light Saber, but it is treated as simply mechanical.)  Look at Affairs of State around us today. What is being built?  What do people in their twenties remember of a world building things?

We never see anyone making a new Light Saber.

In our real world, plenty of people have made new things -- the Internet, the Web, the cell phone, the smartphone, phablets, and services like Uber and Amazon Prime, Netflix.  Most of those were founded more than 20 years ago.  The target audience for Star Wars does not remember the founding of these technologies.

In this movie, there is no originality, no creation, no invention, no moment of wondrous accomplishment.  The old Millenium Falcon is resurrected, the new ship Hans Solo has is destroyed. The ending depicts mere survival as a laudable goal achieved.

In traditional science fiction, the young hero is a kid with a lab in his parent's garage -- or a young married man tinkering with tech in the basement.  The hero has been learning things, (as Luke Skywalker had been when we meet him whomping sand rats), gaining skills, and is full of unrealized potential.  The young Luke Skywalker was a typical science fiction Hero.  Rey is not. Her highest aspiration is survival.

The typical young science fiction hero meets up with his Problem. He grabs hold of it, and through much fun and games, uses his apparently irrelevant, socially unacceptable skills and accomplishments, expertise about useless subjects, to solve the problem.  Rey has a few useful skills, but using those skills is not the fulfillment of her personal dream.

Rising to Accomplishment, to become something more than mere potential, is what science fiction is about.

It's what "science" is about.

Science is organizing knowledge into patterns that can be applied to solve bigger problems.  And so is Building Character -- becoming a strong, self-reliant adult upon whom others can rely -- more a matter of organizing "who you are" into a Persona, the science of Maturation.

The internal character becomes a Character by becoming externalized into the world.  That is the link between Story and Plot, between internal conflict and external conflict.

That externalization is what a writer has to accomplish by taking the theme, a "thorn in the side" of a very particularized individual, and externalizing that theme, making it real to other Characters in the play.

In the case of Star Wars The Force Awakens, we have new young Good Guys taking over from the old young guys, and doing the same things over again -- for no apparent thematic reason than that Good Guys Must Always Be Underdogs.  In other words, our promising young good guys didn't WIN, didn't conquer the Dark, vanquish it, establish a stable and functional galactic civilization.

The theme the movie works out is that Evil Always Wins and the best any Good can do is to hold the line, to contain the Evil.

Whether that's true or not, you (the Romance Writer) can easily see that the target audience for this film lives in a world where they have never, ever, known or seen any other situation.  The highest aspiration of the USA leadership is to contain the enemy.

It pleases and amuses that young audience that their favorite fiction reinforces their assessment of reality -- i.e. Good Must Not Win Or It Becomes Evil.

In our Reality - winners are always "bad."

Large corporations are large (and old) because they have WON. That's evil by definition, because they always (in reality) do become "corrupt."  Likewise the rich.  Likewise the economic powerhouse of the USA has "won" and therefore has generated a new "underdog" now coming to destroy it.

Look at STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES. Match what happens on that Trek series with what was going on in the Viet Nam war at that time -- keeping in mind some months lag between a Headline and a thematic statement being broadcast.

Read archaeology, back beyond Ancient Greek Plays, and you will find that cycle enshrined in the basics of our Literature, ancient mythology.

Rome fell -- for a reason.

Now, with all our new science and technology, can Humanity break that cycle of destruction?

Can our Affairs of State become the product of level headed sanity and benign morality?  Can Countries and Alliances become our idealized family of nations. Can Earth ever speak to the Galaxy with one voice?

Can we become constructors who do not destroy?

Those are themes that can be the "thorn in the side" of a major Character you promote to Head of State, and see if you can create a Galactic Civilization that is not a projection of some individual's internal neuroses, personal hell-transits, or life-cycle issues.

Science Fiction has postulated that Artificial Intelligence, A.I., could arise and yank command of the world from human hands because of our irrationalities being projected onto Affairs of State.

Would an A.I. who became Head of State (maybe of All Earth) be able to remain sane?  Is it "sane" to want to be such a Head of State? What would your A.I. Character/Hero go through to avoid being elected Head of State?

Would the A.I. Characters elect their own Head of State, create a civilization separate from Humanity.  Would the position destroy that A.I. Head of State's sanity?

Is there such a thing as "The Force" and if so could an A.I. command it?  Are the Jedi Knights like the Templars?  Does commanding The Force corrupt a Character?

We touched on the Templars as a fictional concept last week:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/04/reviews-25-assassins-creed-underworld.html

What could prevent absolute power from corrupting absolutely?

Pictures of things blowing up interspersed with inane bits of comic book dialogue do not fulfill the potential of the modern cinematic medium.

The establishment in Hollywood, with the megabucks to invest, are not the Underdogs.  Does that make them the Bad Guys?

They claim there is no audience interested in exploring traditional science fiction themes (which is why they expunged most of the guts out of Star Wars).  There are head-scratching moral questions always at the heart of real science fiction.  But what if a searingly hot Romance were the driving Force of such a movie?

What audience could such a mixed-genre science not fantasy movie target?

Remember AVATAR, while ostensibly science fiction, was dressed up as Fantasy, and that worked very well indeed.

Let your imagination roam, find a story in your heart that has an audience large enough for your movie to make a profit, write it as a novel easily transformed to a 90 minute script.  Be the Heroic Character.  See what happens next.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Of This And That....

This is my take on topical matters, mostly to do with copyright --as is my wont-- but with a few petty rants thrown in for good measure.

I'll save "the petty" for last.

For readers of this blog, it is possible that you may be considering use of images to decorate your own blogs, book trailers, vlogs, or even book covers. You probably are aware that everything on the internet is not necessarily "in the public domain" and free for all to use. If you are interested in the potential extent of your liability, consider visiting stockphotorights.com and check out their FAQ pages. They really are excellent.

"But, what," you may ask, "about Old Masters and photographs of Old Masters?" You might also do an internet search of "slavish" reproduction or copying. These may help.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp.

http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/06/14/museums-can-get-copyright-right/

If you are a celebrity, or are thinking of exploiting a photo you took of a celebrity, check out "image rights" as a search term.

While on the subject of blogs and vlogs, have you considered getting a trademark for your Blog name? (I did for my "space snark" blog on the assumption that one day, "snark" will be considered a positive.) It is not a cheap process, but this article on Lexology.com explains the advantages.

If you are an alien romance author (or any other kind of author... but I have to get my metadata in) who is trying to build up a following, beware of paying for Likes and Tweets. When social media was new-and-all, it seemed like everyone was bribing others to like them and to talk about them. Now, there is enough of it that a government agency sees the possibility of a revenue stream for the Treasury coffers. So, beware!

Isn't it odd that, when one spots one incorrect spelling on a site that ought to be reputable, more examples crop up in rapid succession? On April 7th I spotted a "recieve" on an official Amazon page (the Associates Central sign up page). I wrote to Jeff Bezos (kudos to Jeff for reading his incoming mail) and received a reply from someone named Bhaskar who assured me that it would take a bit more time than usual to look into the problem. Bhaskar promised to write back to me with more information. Well, it has been ten days, and the difficult research into how to spell receive correctly... has so far eluded them.

Mind you, it's probably not as simple as one might think. One of the most prestigious educational establishments in the country sent me a fund raising mailing, promising me that if I donated an obscene amount, I would "recieve" an ornament.

I blame the popular news media and their live streaming transcription services. One cannot be immediate and excellent as well. Editing takes time.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Making a Living (or Not) as a Writer

The current issue of CEMETERY DANCE includes an interview with Ray Garton. I retro-reviewed one of his best-known novels, LIVE GIRLS, on VampChix in March:

Live Girls

Garton is a pretty big name in the horror midlist, a prolific, highly respected author. I was mildly shocked to read in the interview that he wants to get back into tie-in writing, not only because he enjoyed it, but because he "need[s] the work." He also commented that he has been increasing his short-story production lately to pay medical bills.

Another vampire author, one of my favorites, with a popular series that ran for a long time and an avidly loyal readership, posts frequently on Facebook about her financial troubles. She supplements her writing income with fannish-themed craft sales to make ends meet.

Inference from these two examples (and many others could doubtless be cited): Popularity as an author doesn't necessarily translate into financial security. Once the high-selling books recede into the backlist, the author can't live on their royalties. Sure, I knew this fact, but it's disheartening to notice fresh evidence of it.

I'm not sure whether to take some consolation (for my own modest sales record) in realizing even authors I consider successful can't live on their writing income or to feel discouraged over the state of the market. More the latter than the former, I think. It would be much nicer to see people whose work I admire receiving the deserved fruits of their creativity.

Author Brenda Hiatt compiles information about typical earnings for book-length fiction on her "Show Me the Money" site. Here's the page for traditional publishers (large and small, "tree" and electronic), updated to about a year ago:

Show Me the Money

The "median" and "range" earn-out figures are very enlightening and make it clear why most authors can't survive financially on writing alone.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt