alien romances

Sunday, August 10, 2014

The Fight Over The Right To Establish E-Book Prices

Few writers are unaware that there is a debate raging about the price of e-books. Some would say that a retailer may sell any item (that it has negotiated the right to sell) for any price it pleases...

... as long as it pays the copyright holder (or copyright owner) the price it agreed to pay the copyright holder (or copyright owner) for the privilege of acting as middleman.

The crux of Amazon's rant about fighting for lower, "more affordale" e-book prices cannot be about the price it charges to readers. It must be about the price it PAYS to copyright owners and copyright holders.

Also (and I will get to this later), Hachette ought to be giving Amazon the same price per ebook that it gives to a lending library, because when a copyright owner "sells" one ebook to Amazon, Amazon then assumes the right to lend additional copies.

Under copyright law, Hachette and any other copyright holder has an absolute right to set whatever price makes sense to Hachette for any given work it holds.

It is for Hachette to calculate the cost of acquiring, editing, proofing, publishing, distributing, and marketing any title in a bundle of formats. Hachette has no duty to sell at a loss or to subsidize another publisher (Amazon) or manufacturer of devices (Amazon) or retailer (Amazon) or for-profit subscription service (Amazon) or marketplace for used products (Amazon).

Nor does Hachette or any other copyright holder or copyright owner have to give away any rights granted under the law.

BITLAW on the Distribution part of copyright protections for copyright holders. (Mostly with regard to physical products, rather than ebooks. As noted, First Sale Doctrine does not apply to digital content.... which is what ebooks are.)

The wording about "rental", "lease" and "lending" is of interest, given KU and Lending Enabled. Copyright owner have the exclusive rights to agree or not to agree to renting, leasing and lending and subscription models.

http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html

Distribution:

The distribution right grants to the copyright holder the exclusive right to make a work available to the public by sale, rental, lease, or lending. This right allows the copyright holder to prevent the distribution of unauthorized copies of a work. In addition, the right allows the copyright holder to control the first distribution of a particular authorized copy. However, the distribution right is limited by the "first sale doctrine", which states that after the first sale or distribution of a copy, the copyright holder can no longer control what happens to that copy. Thus, after a book has been purchased at a book store (the first sale of a copy), the copyright holder has no say over how that copy is further distributed. Thus, the book could be rented or resold without the permission of the copyright holder.

Congress has enacted several limitations to the first sale doctrine, including a prohibition on the rental of software and phonorecords.

When Amazon talks about the price of ebooks, commentators should not overlook the fact that for many ebooks, when Amazon facilitates a "sale" (really a license to read), it often also acquires the right to make multiple additional copies available for LENDING by the reader who paid Amazon, also for backup, also for account sharing as noted in the Engelin revelations

http://epubor.com/share-kindle-fire-books-with-friends.html#M2

http://dearauthor.com/ebooks/sharing-a-kindle-account-with-a-friend/

And http://dearauthor.com/ebooks/how-to-share-an-ebook-without-stripping-the-drm/

"it was revealed that up to six Kindles could share one account. The Kindles did not need to be in the same household or owned by the same person. Thus, according to Amazon’s interpretation of the Kindle terms of service, up to six Kindles can share one account and the digital copies attached to that one account."
Also http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx3CY8UVEMY3HUU "The problem comes with the number of devices a book can be on at one time. Most books you can put on 6 devices at a time, if you have more than 6 people in the club with Kindles then you will have a problem."

Also this http://kindleworld.blogspot.com/2010/01/sharing-kindle-books-on-one-account.html .

My point is, when Hachette negotiates a deal with Amazon, it's more like licensing an ebook to a lending library than selling one product at a discount or wholesale price for the retailer to sell on once.

Nowhere in Amazon's rant is this acknowledged. Amazon ought in my opinion to be paying Hachette at least $14.99 for the right to distribute six or more copies for every one "sold" to a Kindle reader.
Possibly the existence of lending and account sharing may also throw off the rationale for pricing in Amazon's "Dear KDP author" letter.

CORNELL is also worth quoting.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

Here's an interesting side note regarding copyright infringement;

(e) Involuntary Transfer. — When an individual author's ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, has not previously been transferred voluntarily by that individual author, no action by any governmental body or other official or organization purporting to seize, expropriate, transfer, or exercise rights of ownership with respect to the copyright, or any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, shall be given effect under this title, except as provided under title 11.²

Here we get to the matter of content (ebooks)

§ 202 . Ownership of copyright as distinct from ownership of material object

Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied. Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object.

Here's the skinny from the Government, I think from Wikipedia.

The Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) authorized copyright legislation: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." That is, by guaranteeing them a period of time in which they alone could profit from their works, they would be enabled and encouraged to invest the time required to create them, and this would be good for society as a whole. A right to profit from the work has been the philosophical underpinning for much legislation extending the duration of copyright, to the life of the creator and beyond, to their heirs.

The original length of copyright in the United States was 14 years, and it had to be explicitly applied for. If the author wished, they could apply for a second 14‑year monopoly grant, but after that the work entered the public domain, so it could be used and built upon by others.

Exclusive rights for copyright holders

to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies (including, typically, electronic copies)
to import or export the work
to create derivative works (works that adapt the original work)
to perform or display the work publicly
to sell or cede these rights to others
to transmit or display by radio or video.^[28]

The phrase "exclusive right" means that only the copyright holder is free to exercise those rights, and others are prohibited from using the work without the holder's permission. Copyright is sometimes called a "negative right", as it serves to prohibit certain people (e.g., readers, viewers, or listeners, and primarily publishers and would be publishers) from doing something they would otherwise be able to do, rather than permitting people (e.g., authors) to do something they would otherwise be unable to do. In this way it is similar to the unregistered design right in English law and European law. The rights of the copyright holder also permit him/her to not use or exploit their copyright, for some or all of the term. There is, however, a critique which rejects this assertion as being based on a philosophical interpretation of copyright law that is not universally shared. There is also debate on whether copyright should be considered a property right or a moral right.^[29]

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html

My apologies that the above was somewhat repetitive, but one has to quote multiple sources.
:-)

Now, an interesting comment revealed the sense of entitlement that readers who own Kindles feel, and perhaps this is because Amazon sold them Kindles based on a promise of cheap reading?

What George Orwell really said
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/orwell-is-amazons-latest-target-in-battle-against-hachette/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

"Customers have a lot invested in devices and internet connections..." quoth one correspondent to explain why publishers and authors should accept less for ebooks.

Is it Hachette's fault (or the responsibility of any other copyright holder or copyrigh owner) that Amazon might have made a promise like that in order to market its own proprietary devices? Is it Hachette's duty to make good on a promise Amazon may have made?

Sincerely,
Rowena Cherry (aliendjinnromances)
PS. Most of the Amazon letter (there was no copyright notice on it.)

Dear KDP Author,

Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the 
foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when 
movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 
25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of 
copies were sold in just the first year.

With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy 
and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have 
celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and 
circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary 
culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many 
bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use 
unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. 
The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new 
paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them 
and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion. 

Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary 
establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 
billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about 
e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being 
released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. 
With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no 
returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no 
transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be 
resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been 
caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far 
those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding 
with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly 
disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.

The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position 
that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” 
They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten 
times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up 
rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with 
e-books.

Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They 
think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against 
mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If 
we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books 
actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that 
is working hard to make books less expensive.

Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes 
down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books 
from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would 
sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, 
if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then 
customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue 
at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The 
important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties 
involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty 
check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is 
simply bigger.

But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change 
can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are 
hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback 
books – he was wrong about that.

And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this 
issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: 
“Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to 
this post are worth a read).  A petition started by another group of authors and 
aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered 
over 7,600 signatures.  And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and 
readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a 
healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another 
piece worth reading.

We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between 
large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. 
Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even 
acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in 
our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take 
authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) 
jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we 
suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this 
dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business 
operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy 
charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and 
repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their 
revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage 
from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making 
books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please 
email Hachette and copy us.
.....................
Please consider including these points:

- We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to 
overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.
- Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like 
paperbacks did.
- Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take 
them out of the middle.
- Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not 
united on this issue.

Thanks for your support.
 
The Amazon Books Team

P.S. You can also find this letter at www.readersunited.com

Thursday, August 07, 2014

Values Dissonance

This is a term used on TVTropes.org. It refers to fiction (in whatever medium) written and-or set in a different time or place, in which the characters and-or the author cheerfully and unquestioningly embrace values that seem strange or downright immoral to contemporary American readers. I thought of Values Dissonance last week while watching the first few episodes of one of my favorite old sitcoms, BEWITCHED. Having never seen the very earliest episodes, I was eager to make up for the omission.

The early 1960s were a different world in several ways, starting with the oddity (from today's perspective) of a perfectly healthy, intelligent, childless middle-class woman (not a wealthy lady of leisure) staying home and doing nothing but take care of the house. The depiction of smoking as a ubiquitous activity—Darren and Samantha don't seem to smoke but do offer cigarettes to visitors as a routine gesture of hospitality—didn't surprise me, since I'm old enough to remember when almost all adults smoked everywhere. (I WAS shocked, though, upon viewing TWILIGHT ZONE episodes in which characters even smoked in a doctor's office.) But I did find the BEWITCHED characters' drinking habits jarring, because alcohol use wasn't part of the 1950s-60s subculture in which I grew up, except maybe champagne for the adults on New Year's Eve or an occasional beer in summer. In BEWITCHED, Darren seems to have a cocktail every afternoon upon getting home from work, and "I need a drink" is his typical response to stressful moments. Alcoholic beverages are everywhere, including in Darren's office! From the viewpoint of today's more health-conscious culture, those people look like alcoholics in the making.

A deeply unsettling instance of Values Dissonance, however, occurs in the episode "It Shouldn't Happen to a Dog." A client of Darren's advertising agency, during a party at Darren and Samantha's home, makes an aggressive pass at Samantha, even getting her alone outside and physically cornering her. In desperation she turns him into a dog. When Darren finds out about the incident, he doesn't believe the man's behavior justified the punishment, is more worried about losing the account than about Samantha's feelings, and angrily declares that a "normal wife" (i.e., one who isn't a witch) would have found a less drastic way of dealing with the situation. He eventually apologizes and knocks out the guy (now restored to human form) with a clean punch to the jaw, but only after catching the man pawing Samantha on the office couch. In other words, he doesn't take his wife's testimony about sexual harassment seriously and effectively blames her for the incident! To a modern viewer, Darren's apology after viewing the client's caddishness with his own eyes looks like too little, too late. Yet Samantha readily forgives him, and the writers clearly expect the audience to accept this outcome as a happy reconciliation. In another episode, Darren is having trouble with an ad campaign, and Samantha gives him some ideas that strike him as brilliant. After thinking them over, though, he jumps to the conclusion that she must have created them by magic. When she assures him she didn't, he doesn't believe her. This man who's supposed to be madly in love with his wife calls her a liar and implies that she couldn't possibly have the intelligence and creativity to produce good ideas on her own. Again, he changes his mind only upon being presented with proof, in this case the fact that the client rejects the new slogans instead of jumping at them. This is supposed to be a good marriage?

Of course, for many viewers BEWITCHED has an essential problem at its core—Darren's insistence that Samantha abstain from magic (a condition that gets violated every week, of course, as desperate situations justify exceptions). In the words of Endora, Samantha's mother, he's refusing to let his wife "be herself." His prejudice against magic seems to run no less deep, even if less violent, than the typical witch prejudice against mortals. Admittedly, as a comment on TVTropes points out, Darren could never survive in Samantha's world. (On their first meeting, her father disintegrated him, albeit only temporarily.) And Samantha does seem happy to embrace the mortal lifestyle. But she's doing it only to make her husband happy, and her constant "lapses" hint at dissatisfaction with the status quo. Nowadays, would we accept as funny and romantic a series whose whole premise relies on a man's readiness to accept his wife as long as she's willing to suppress her own identity and "pass" for "normal"? The writers seem to present the show's theme as an ongoing affectionate compromise between two people trying to succeed in a mixed marriage. To a viewer nowadays, it may look as if Samantha makes all the concessions.

What common attitudes and customs reflected in today's media might look shocking or bizarre to future audiences?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Strong Character Defined - Part 2 - Responsibility by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Strong Character Defined
Part 2
Responsibility
by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Part 1 posts on Oct 21, 2014 with the following URL
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/strong-characters-defined-part-1.html

We've been discussing Theme-Character Integration, combining two skills into one for a seamless flow into the Art of the Story.

And of course, since Plot (what happens) is meaningless unless it impacts a Character to create the Story (the arc of how the Character changes under impact of Events), creating "appealing" characters is the main objective of professional writers.

The Character must be comprehensible at the starting point, the change in character has to be comprehensible during the novel, and the new Character has to be plausible.

Most Market Reports contain the specification that the submission must be about "Strong Characters" -- but editors never define what, exactly, a 'strong' character is.

Market Reports do not contain calls for "Weak Characters" -- so we have nothing to contrast it with.

However, the News is full of examples of Weak Characters, and of characters who do not "arc" -- do not learn from Events.

So we've been puzzling over this requirement of "Strong" characters -- a must in an action-Romance! -- and how to use a Character's attributes to convey thematic information without large info-dumps and expository-lumps.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/theme-character-integration-part-7.html
Gives a clue about how to define Character Strength and has a list of previous Parts.

We have discussed at length how to use current Headlines to generate novel plots, and here is yet another way to use current events as information (even when they aren't actually real-world information).

Here is an example from 2014 of a show-don't-tell that a Character is WEAK.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/25/three-secret-service-agents-on-obama-detail-sent-home-after-one-was-found-passed-out-drunk-in-hotel-hallway/
---------QUOTE--------
WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — The Secret Service sent three agents home from the Netherlands just before President Barack Obama’s arrival after one agent was found “drunk and passed out” in an Amsterdam hotel, The Washington Post reports.

The three agents were benched for “disciplinary reasons,” said Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan, declining to elaborate. Donovan said the incident was prior to Obama’s arrival Monday in the country and did not compromise the president’s security in any way.

Still, the incident represents a fresh blemish for an elite agency ...
----------END QUOTE--------

You take a job (any job) and you are giving your Word of Honor that you will do whatever the job-description says, usually involving being a subordinate to a hierarchy above you. Of course, being hired to BE the top of such a hierarchy is another thing, and we have to discuss "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely" together with the old fashioned (but popular Fantasy premise) of Royalty running the world.

Now here's the definition of Strong Character you can use in a Plot.

A "Strong Character" keeps his/her Word of Honor.

For references, see Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover Series, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain (Vampire-Romance) series.

These employees did not keep their Word of Honor to be vigilant at all times in order to fend off any threat to their package. It doesn't matter that this package was POTUS. What matters here is the Word of Honor.

Noblesse Oblige (illustrated in the St. Germain novels) is a related topic.

It means the obligations of being born Noble.

Being Royal or Noble -- OWNING LAND is the definition -- being the King of your Own Castle in the USA -- means being OBLIGED, or obligated, to provide certain kinds of protection to others.

The way you get to be Noble is to keep your Word of Honor when you're just a hired soldier. You distinguish yourself on the battlefield (or for non-combatants on the field of political maneuvering), and get Knighted. Your children distinguish themselves and get awarded a Barony (Land and tenants), and their children earn a greater amount of land and tenants, etc. How? By prospering on the land they have been awarded command of (all Land belongs to the King).

So the heirarchy goes right up to the King who owns everything and appoints certain people to be custodians of the economy and of the safety of the Kingdom from invasion.

A great example of this is illustrated in the long series by Katherine Kurtz called The Deryni Series. Like Darkover, border Lords are responsible for defending the Kingdom's border.

"Responsible" is the key word here -- "Strong Characters" fulfill their Responsibilities no matter what the personal cost.

And that personal cost is usually emotional (Love, etc. all the Romance ingredients).

No matter the emotional pain, no matter the personal deprivation (not allowing oneself to get drunk or "have a good time" with a willing damsel), the Strong Character fulfills all responsibilities.

But the writer can't just say "this is a Strong Character" and let that be the end of the matter.

No, it has to be illustrated, all encapsulated in SHOW DON'T TELL.

And that's what this news item does.

The news item does not say these agents were of Weak Character.

It shows you what they DID (Plot) and indicates a story-arc for a character who isn't mentioned here, a character you can make up and write about, who did not LEARN FROM EVENTS -- who didn't "arc" within his own story.

Scan the news for other examples of Weak Characters, then see if you can find any Strong Characters who are being highlighted by the Media.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Sunday, August 03, 2014

Lessons From A Pyrrhic Victory

While it would not be exactly true to say that I have a "fondness" for any underdog in any fight, I dislike unfairness, particularly when the Media piles on and stirs the pot with half truths and --what I perceive as-- maliciously inaccurate reporting.

I am talking about a recent libel suit against the estate of a deceased author, in which the majority of a jury allegedly found for the plaintiff.

http://redalertpolitics.com/2014/07/29/jury-awards-jesse-ventura-1-8m-defamation-case-american-sniper-author-chris-kyle/

Almost every talking head that I have heard has vilified the plaintiff and focused on emotional buzzwords equivalent to "motherhood" and "apple pie" to suggest that the outcome of the trial was an outrage simply because of the buzzwords associated with the defense.

This might give comfort to authors who may consider libelling (or allegedly libelling) a public figure for profit, especially when pundits on TV asseverate that anyone can publish anything (regardless of truth) about any public figure.

Perhaps the supermarket tabloids do so with impunity, but perhaps they have better insurance policies than the average debut author.

Reality check. Word Castle Publishing kindly purblishes online a sample contract, so I have made fair use (I hope) of a couple of pertinent clauses which are typical of my experience with four other publishers whose contracts I have read, but which are supposed to be confidential.

Author Warranties

3. The work does not infringe upon any copyright, privacy rights, rights of a third party, or any common law or statutory law.

4. The work does not contain any material of a libelous or obscene nature.

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com/sample-contract.html

And....

B. Author Agrees to hold Publisher harmless and indemnify the Publisher against any claim, demand, action, suit, proceeding or any expense whatsoever, arising for claims of infringement of copyright or proprietary rights, or claims of libel, obscenity, invasion of privacy, or any other unlawfulness based upon or arising from the publication or any matter pertaining to the work.

C. Author warrants and represents that to the best of Author’s knowledge and belief, all statements of fact contained in the work are true and based on appropriate and diligent research. A note may be added to the work to show proof of research completed if Author so desires.

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com/sample-contract.html

Please notice such words as "privacy", "libellous", and "based on... diligent research". Also notice "indemnify the Publisher" and 'hold Publisher harmless". In theory, that means that the Publisher and the Publisher's insurance company will not pay out.

Notice also that most publishers put the entire onus of any breach of the above-mentioned warranties on the author and the author's heirs and assigns.

Interestingly, there appear to be three authors of the book, but only one is mentioned as the plaintiff. I wonder why. No matter.

Check your own contracts. Then read this account of the controversial trial. It is probably not typical.... in that the Publisher and the Insurance company is paying up.

http://redalertpolitics.com/2014/07/29/jury-awards-jesse-ventura-1-8m-defamation-case-american-sniper-author-chris-kyle/

I visited Amazon to check out the front matter of the allegedly true memoir in question, but Look Inside is not available. Preview is not available on Barnes and Noble, either.

Scribd came through with the front matter disclaimer:

"The events that happened in this book are true, recounted from the best of my memory.... we've reconstructed dialogue from memory which means that it may not be word for word...."

http://www.scribd.com/read/163638913/American-Sniper-The-Autobiography-of-the-Most-Lethal-Sniper-in-U-S-Military-History

I guess, if you put dialogue into the mouth of someone else, and you admit in the front matter that what you remember that he (or she said) may not be word for word.... you shouldn't have a legal leg upon which to stand.

This has been a highly instructive saga. We could all do well to learn from it, even if most of us write science fiction and fantasy, and our front matter disclaims any resemblance of our alien characters to any real person alive or deceased.

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

alien romances

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Gaiman on Genre

The new issue of the JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS includes Neil Gaiman's guest of honor speech from the 2013 International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Having been enthralled by the talk when I heard it in person, I'm delighted to have the printed version to remind me of so many great lines I'd recalled only vaguely.

Gaiman's main topic is genre, but he begins by discussing the interaction between author and reader. As authors, he says, "What we give the reader is a raw code, a rough pattern, loose architectural plans that they use the build the book themselves. No two readers will ever read the same book, because the reader builds the book in collaboration with the author." Reminds me of Jacqueline's Tailored Effect! Gaiman mentions the not uncommon experience of returning to a beloved childhood story and rereading a scene that you remember "so vividly, something that was etched onto the back of your eyeballs when you read it" and discovering that the rain, wind, sounds of horses, etc. that you remember so clearly aren't on the page—"you realize you did it all." Something like this experience probably inspires a lot of fanfic: We're driven to articulate what we saw in the original work that was implied but not openly expressed there.

Gaiman takes a stab at defining genre, after briefly discussing the pragmatic market definition of it as a heuristic device for enabling readers to find the kinds of stories they like on bookstore shelves. Some comments:

"Genre, it had always seemed to me, was a set of assumptions, a loose contract between the creator and the audience."

He compares porn movies to musicals by drawing an analogy between the sex scenes and the songs. "In a musical the plot exists to allow you to get from song to song and to stop all the songs from happening at once. So with a porn film. . . . If you've gone to a musical and there are no songs, you are going to walk out feeling that you did not get your musical money's worth."

"If you take them out—the songs from a musical, the sex acts from a porn film, the gunfights from a Western—then they no longer have the thing that the person came to see. . . . If the plot is a machine that allows you to get from set piece to set piece, and the set pieces are things without which the reader or the viewer would feel cheated, then, whatever it is, it's genre. . . . Subject matter does not make genre."

I'm not sure this statement doesn't minimize the importance of plot a bit too much. Still, it blew me away when I heard it. Each genre has its defining elements. A romance reader expects a love story at the center of the plot and a happily-ever-after (or happily-for-now, at least) at the conclusion. It has been quite rightly said that GONE WITH THE WIND and Diana Gabaldon's OUTLANDER aren't romances, because they don't conform to these "rules"; they are better described as "novels with romantic elements" (a category, incidentally, that the RWA has deleted from its RITA contest on the grounds that the category dilutes the organization's focus on romance). Genre fiction even has its "obligatory scenes," without which the reader will feel cheated out of the anticipated reading experience. For example, in the original STAR WARS, it seemed obvious that Luke Skywalker would have to face Darth Vader in combat, since at that point all we knew about Vader was that he'd allegedly killed Luke's father. The absence of that confrontation at the end of the first movie came as a disappointment—but a clear set-up for a sequel. We knew the story wasn't "finished."

Gaiman again: "Now the advantage of genre as a creator is it gives you something to play to and to play against. It gives you a net and the shape of the game. . . . Another advantage of genre for me is that it privileges story."

Do science fiction and fantasy, being broader genres than the romance or the Western, have certain defining "set pieces" without which we aren't in the genre anymore? Or, more narrowly, do certain subgenres, such as the quest fantasy, possess these elements?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Index to Theme-Character Integration Series by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Index to Theme-Character Integration Series
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Following is the list of posts in the general topic of how to craft Themes and Characters so the two elements become indistinguishable to the general reader.

"Integration" of two basic skills is the foundation of creating that "suspension of disbelief" that readers seek when entering a fantasy world, or when leaping into an adventure set in an impossible (but maybe desirable) landscape.

Part 17; Building a Lead Character From Theme

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2021/04/theme-character-integration-part-17.html

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Onward to Mars?

In connection with the 45th anniversary of the first moon landing, there are stories in the media about Buzz Aldrin's proposal to skip returning to the moon and instead focus on reaching Mars. The major obstacle to achieving this milestone with current technology, he maintains, is the assumption that the voyage must resemble the moon missions, with astronauts landing and then returning to Earth. Aldrin advocates a one-way journey—or, more accurately, permanent colonization. He compares prospective Mars pioneers to the Pilgrims, who left England with no expectation of returning. Even more extremely, the Polynesian voyagers who settled Hawaii presumably lost touch with their homeland altogether.

While I can't imagine ever wanting to do such a thing, examples such as these illustrate that plenty of people in history have been adventurous or desperate enough to transplant themselves permanently to a new home. Our hypothetical Mars pioneers, in fact, would be much better off than the colonists at Jamestown, having the advantage of constant communication with home, not to mention more reliable resupply ships.

Some critics insist the red planet is too inhospitable to attract permanent settlers; instead, they envision a research station with rotating staff, like the outposts in Antarctica. Either way, I'm reminded of Heinlein's various Mars novels. The first expedition as described in STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND didn't fare well. They all died by murder or suicide, leaving baby Michael Valentine Smith to be brought up by Martians. In RED PLANET and PODKAYNE OF MARS, however, the human inhabitants think of Mars as their home and Earth as an exotic foreign world their ancestors left behind. I'm optimistic enough to hope I'll live to see the first beginnings of that kind of future. I'm sixty-five; with luck, I may have another thirty years. Consider how far we've come in other fields of technology over the last thirty years.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Theme-Character Integration Part 7 Defining Character Strength by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Character Integration
Part 7
Defining Character Strength
by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this sequence on Theme-Character Integration:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/theme-character-integration-part-6-hero.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-4.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-3-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-character-integration-part-2-fire.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/theme-character-integration-part-1-what.html

Here is a TV Series Episode that clearly and cleanly defines the interface between Theme and Character-strength.

The Series is INTELLIGENCE on CBS and the episode in question is titled ATHENS.

http://www.cbs.com/shows/intelligence/episodes/212922

This is Episode 9 of the First Season.

Why is that important? Because strength of character is abstract, illusive, and a trait that is "revealed" one component at a time, not on the first page of a novel or the pilot for a TV Series.

"Strength" of character means one thing to an editor, producer, or agent, and another to the writer -- yet another to viewers/buyers.

What one person sees as strong another sees as weak.

The assessment of a character is very much based on the end-customer's View of the Universe and is idiosyncratic -- very, very personal.

Strength of Character is a Trait that can answer the question "What does she see in him" that is the core of Romance, but is especially relevant to Science Fiction Romance (my favorite kind).

INTELLIGENCE is a mundane science fiction romance -- and a pretty good one.

The couple in question is an ex-soldier who volunteered to have a "chip" inserted into his brain (which works because he has a certain rare genetic mutation) and the woman assigned to be his bodyguard and protector because he's worth maybe a billion dollars (remember the 6 Million Dollar Man? this is an UPDATED version.)

So episode by episode (or for a novel, chapter by chapter) we have seen this man's character revealed as the attraction between the two Special Forces grade individuals heats up.

At first wary, the mutual respect is established and grown as each saves the other from harrowing circumstances, and they develop teamwork precision like a circus act where each puts his life in the hands of the others.

And meanwhile, respect grows with the management team sending them on missions, and the tech team that works the "chip" miracles.

So we have many "variables" of character traits filled in for both these people and a really neat ROMANCE blooming nicely.

Now, remember this is a CBS drama, not USA CHARACTERS WELCOME.

There are two "beats" (see Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT! screenwriting instruction series for beats definition) to pay attention to in order to learn to assess a "strong character" for the fiction market, and then to analyze many examples, then create some of your own.

Here's the story. Gabriel, the fellow with the chip in his head, gets amnesia (long international terrorist plot business that's irrelevant). When he wakes up in the middle of the attack on his headquarters without any memory of who these people are, he doesn't know the good guys from the bad guys.

3/4 through the episode, when he's now convinced the attackers are the good guys and he's helping them beat his real friends, the showdown scene, the turning point into the final act, is his bodyguard eye-to-eye with him trying to convince him that she is the "good-guys" side and the attackers are the bad-guys.

Gabriel's chip has been hacked in such a way that the data attached to his friends' personnel files has been changed to make them seem like bad guys, killers, victimizers of children.

The DATA shows the bad guys as the good guys.

Riley (his bodyguard) stares Gabriel in the eye and tells him to stop thinking and just FEEL -- telling him that his memory of facts is gone, but his FEELINGS originate in another part of the brain and are more reliable in sorting good from bad.

This is the NEW CULTURE PARADIGM we see in all these most popular TV shows.

This entire generation of viewers has been educated from primary school to understand the world in terms of feelings and to put aside all facts in favor of what feels right. (look for that theme if you haven't noticed it -- it sells big time in Romance).

We see in Romance -- if you read some written in the 1950's and 1960's then skip ahead to 2000, you will note this trend, then follow it back decade by decade until you locate the turning point in philosophy -- the theme that lust and passion are irresistible, that there's no use trying to use intellect to over-ride animal lust, and that all hook-ups or even marriage must have searing-passionate-animal-lust as the foundation.

That might correlate to the divorce-rate rise -- a statistical researcher might get a paper out of it.

But to sell fiction, you have to understand the world the reader thinks is real in order to invoke suspension-of-disbelief. So pay attention to the cultural shift from THINK FIRST, and STOP CRYING OR I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT upbringings, to DON'T EVER OFFEND ANYBODY.

The worst crime children learn about in primary school is making someone feel bad by doing something better than they can do it. Everyone gets a certificate of merit, a prize, a ribbon, just for showing up, so the incapable won't feel bad about being incapable.

So we see this EMOTION trumps THOUGHT as a major, cultural assumption, a philosophy, and that makes it THEMATIC MATERIAL.

In this episode of INTELLIGENCE, we see one of the love-interest characters convince the other love-interest character that you can tell the good guys from the bad guys by how you FEEL and that all data, all facts, all thought is unreliable.

The story is rigged so that in this instance, that is actually true -- and that rigging is what makes this a beautiful example of THEME.

The "Character" element that integrates with the theme is that Gabriel - the chip-guy - buys it. He relies on how he feels about Riley and throws in with his employers against the invaders.

And he wins the day back for them.

Then the STRENGTH of character scene comes at the end, final tag of the episode, where it is made crystal clear that emotions trump facts or thought. How you feel is the only important and determining factor.

So this series defines "STRONG CHARACTER" as someone with the courage to act on emotion-only against all the facts. Facts are unreliable; emotions are the truth.

You know that the TV Series Intelligence is still using the same mechanism to create "strong characters" for an audience because this episode which showcases and defines "strong character" first wipes out Gabriel's memory of facts, then replaces the facts with lies. When he's convinced the lies are truth, he still acts like Gabriel -- loyal and strong, and ferociously protective of children.

The script bores right to the core of the definition of Strong Character by removing Intellect from Reliable Information Source. By eliminating that one factor, the script reveals the unspoken cultural assumption of the definition of high moral fiber. The best people strive to follow their heart, not their brain. So lies don't matter (because nobody will pay attention to them), but feelings do matter.

If you dig back a few decades you will find all TV action-shows, all Science Fiction, and most Romance depicted the STRONG character as the one who followed Intellect, determined and cross-tested facts, and "did the right thing" regardless of how they felt about an issue, regardless of the emotional loss or pain they might cause themselves or anyone.

Today the definition of what illustrates "strength of character" has done a 180.

However, the actual writing craftsmanship is still the same!

"Strong Character" in fiction is defined by the integration between the character's emotional life and the character's external, fact-based life.

The concept "Integration" means essentially that two elements merge to form a third, and that the proportions of each ingredient are defined so that the "third" they create has a recognizable consistency. That's a marketing thing. Large markets are created by producing consistent products that are all the same -- if you buy Tide to wash your clothes, and buy another package with exactly the same LABEL next month, you expect the new package to contain the same washing-power. Likewise with books - if it says Science Fiction Romance or Paranormal Romance or Vampire Romance, it better deliver just like all the others under that label.

So today's market is looking for characters who have an unshakeable dedication to following their feelings and ignoring all intellectually ascertained facts.

It is the UNSHAKEABLE trait that is the defining ingredient in "Strong Character."

No matter what happens, that integration point between intellect and emotion will not change in that character -- not amnesia, not maiming, not disabling, not disease, not helplessness, not imprisonment, not torture, not anything will alter the proportions of Intellect and Emotion behind plot-moving decisions and actions.

That integration point is stable, meaning the character is both sane and admirable.

It's the exact same writing technique -- the exact opposite message.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Naming Characters

A few days ago, I read a blog post on choosing character names. Among other things, the author discussed the common practice of using baby name books as references. I've done that in the past (besides a mainstream baby book, I have an old paperback of "New Age" naming suggestions for more exotic ideas). Now, though, I depend on the CHARACTER NAMING SOURCEBOOK, published by the Writer's Digest book club. It's divided by ethnic group and includes surnames (and explanations of each culture's naming rules) as well as first names. It also contains useful lists of the most popular American names by birth year.

That blog post talked about taking care not to name characters after her family members or close friends. I tread carefully in that area, too. Several of my favorite names have been barred from use in my fiction because they're worn by relatives or co-workers. On the other hand, I wouldn't go so far as to eliminate the name of every person I've ever been acquainted with. Another matter to consider is repetition of initials. Many authors tend to gravitate toward particular letters in naming heroes and heroines. In my case, I seem to default to L and M for heroines. Without realizing I'd done it until it was too late, I published two pieces with heroines named Laurel and Lauren, respectively. As for minor walk-on characters, if I don't pay attention, I lapse into the same few default names for all of them. Some authors keep charts of names they've used. While I don't do that, I can see the usefulness of the custom. Writing teachers advise against having major characters in a book or story with similar-sounding names or even ones that start with the same letter.

In real life, of course, a family or social circle often includes people with same-initialed names, names with similar sounds, and even identical names. For a long time we had three women named Betty in the office where I worked. At another period, we had four Joans. Fiction, though, imposes an artificial variety on names for the sake of clarity. Likewise, in defiance of "realism," we try to avoid ludicrous puns or names that don't "sound like" a proper hero, heroine, or villain, unless they're purposely chosen for the humor or incongruity.

One precaution I take, which I don't think I've seen mentioned, is avoiding famous and even moderately famous names. (Somebody only vaguely familiar to me might be a major celebrity to others.) If a given-plus-surname combination pops too readily into my brain, I Google it to make sure I haven't heard it somewhere and consciously forgotten it. In particular, if my character is an author, singer, etc., I don't want to name him or her after a real artist in the same field. Of course, it's almost impossible to invent a name combination not borne by SOME real person. The point is to make sure it's not a person readers will have heard of and have distracting associations with. In one of my early novels, I gave the heroine, Jenny, a boyfriend named Craig. My critique partner pointed out the humor, which was lost on me. I'd never consciously heard of the Jenny Craig company before then, although it might have lodged in my unconscious mind at some point. Needless to say, I changed the boyfriend's name. The heroine of DARK CHANGELING, my first vampire novel, was originally called Britt Logan. When I realized the airport in Boston, the hero's home town, is Logan Airport, I changed her last name to avoid the unintentionally funny coincidence. Such coincidences do happen in life. When I met my husband, his family lived on a street called by my mother's maiden name. But real life, unlike fiction, isn't required to be artistically appropriate.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 9 Guest Post by Chuck Gannon (Nebula Award Nominee)

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 9
Guest Post
by
Charles Gannon
(Nebula Award Nominee)

Is the Charles Gannon title we'll discuss today and then hear directly from Gannon himself.

This is not a review of the contents of this book, but about its origins.

This is about Marketing Fiction in a Changing World, Part 9 in this long series, about why these Tuesday blogs are relevant now, today, and will very likely give you writing tools that will be relevant twenty or thirty years from now, to teach to the 12-year-old who hasn't been born yet -- despite technological advances in the fiction delivery system.

The previous parts of this series about Marketing Fiction In A Changing World can be found at:

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

Here below, Charles Gannon gives you a glimpse of the reasons why you should read the Tuesday posts on this blog.

Gannon's book FIRE WITH FIRE is making a huge impression on readers in 2014 and there's another book out in Spring, TRIAL BY FIRE. He first turned up in my sphere via STAR TREK decades ago.

He was just a kid then, but I treated his early attempt at writing a story as if he were an adult and a seasoned professional -- two barrels right between the eyes.

He took the douse of cold reality like a pro and came back with a serious game-plan.

It was a beautiful thing to behold -- and definitely demonstrated the difference between a to-be-professional-writer and a never-to-be-professional-writer.

The difference is not in the quality of the writing.

As Marion Zimmer Bradley taught in her writing workshops, any literate person can learn to write well enough to sell prose.

As any reader knows, lots of that kind of prose gets published -- and isn't worth your time to read.

Therein lies the difference -- anyone can learn the craft; not everyone has a) the vivid imagination and b) the personal stuffings, the character, to take the punishment of the world of performing arts, c) something to say that you want to hear.

When you find imagination and strong character among the kids you encounter, treat them like adults and dish it out plain and simple.

I have tasked Chuck Gannon to pay it forward, Robert A. Heinlein style, and treat the kids who come to him as equals -- some of them will take fire from that, and some of those will carry his own work forward to future generations.

However much things change, they stay the same.

Art is all about sorting the unchanging from the morass of churning change.

Science Fiction is the vehicle that best showcases the edge that being able to do that sorting gives us.

Charles Gannon titles aren't Science Fiction Romance, per se, but if you want to write SFR that roars into the marketplace, study what Gannon has accomplished with crafting a marketable, award-worthy novel.

------QUOTE FROM CHUCK GANNON http://www.charlesegannon.com/ ----------

I met Jacqueline Lichtenberg when I was 12 years old.

She was talking about Star Trek at a local library and I was dazzled by her energy, her passion, her eloquence, her humor. And, more wonderful still, when I approached her afterward, she was utterly and wonderfully receptive. So much so that she said the magic words: "Send me something! I'll tell you what I think. But be warned: I'll tell you the truth!"

I already knew I wanted to be a writer, but at 12, that vision is a very inchoate one. How does one make a living? How does one get to be good enough to be worthy of publication? Who will show me HOW?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg had all those answers and more. After the closest critique of any fiction I have received TO THIS DAY, she continued to be available as mentor, information source, adviser (adviser, as I and the English prefer) and, best of all, a wonderful friend.

If you have the opportunity to work with her, do so. To ignore that opportunity is like leaving a winning lottery ticket laying in the middle of the road.

If you are reading this, you are halfway to finding out if you CAN be a writer, and what it will take. Which is different than MAKING you a writer: no human can do that. But what Jacqueline does is BETTER: she gives you the unvarnished truth and maximum hope based on your extant skill set. And that kind of integrity, excellence, insight and honesty is rare indeed.

And perhaps rarest of all values is this one: what Jacqueline teaches NEVER gets old. Fashions, in writing as in everything else, come and go, but the core and classical principles remain constant. And those are the bedrock of Jacqueline's own writing and her mentor-ship. Go ahead: see for yourself. You'll be glad you did.

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

So click on over to http://www.charlesegannon.com/ and survey where he has gotten to in his career.

Then read his work, examine the covers, the blurbs, and any marketing materials you can find involving him.

Watch, listen, think hard, and see how the techniques and methods, the angle of view, and the application of the oldest story-telling-craft to this modern world can be applied in the here and now to captivate a target audience.

Strip out the particulars, and you will find this methodology easily pertains to the creation and marketing of Science Fiction Romance.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Sunday, July 13, 2014

E-Book Buyer Beware

Not to damn Amazon with faint praise, but Amazon is good for one thing: establishing the lowest legal rung of the e-book pricing ladder.

As a general rule of thumb, if someone is selling an e-book for less than Amazon, that someone is probably either a credit card scammer, an identity thief, or a copyright infringer. That's my opinion. There are exceptions.... for instance, currently, some Hachette titles.

If one does an internet search engine search for "E-Book Scam" or "E-Book Credit Card Scams" you will find some information, but not as much as one might expect given the number of sites that apparently offer thousands of ebooks for sale, often, all for $1.50. They may even offer e-books that do not exist, and never have existed.

If the price looks too good to be true, do not give the purveyor your credit card information without doing a great deal of due diligence.

What due diligence? you may ask.
Well, try googling the name of the TGTBT site.
Try a "WhoIs" search, for instance "http://www.whois.com/whois/nameofthesuspicioussite.com" and if you find that the e-book seller is using Privacy Protect services, you might wonder why anyone would give their name, address and credit card information to someone who does not want their identity known.

Personally, I am offended that identity thieves and credit card scammers use authors' names and book titles as bait. I am astounded that the scam works, and that there are people honest enough to pay for ebooks who nevertheless are drawn to sites that do not post the name and contact information of their copyright agent.... and that warn customers that it might take 12 hours before the e-book can be delivered, or that promise to "Take Requests" for ebooks that are not listed in their inventory.

Happy summer reading.
Rowena Cherry

Thursday, July 10, 2014

New Paranormal Romance

Amber Quill Press has just released my new paranormal romance with Lovecraftian elements, SEALING THE DARK PORTAL:

Sealing the Dark Portal

I really like this cover. The butterfly is heroine Rina's familiar, a jeweled ornament on a pendant that comes to life. Rina is an alien in a sense, because, although human, she comes from a different space-time continuum. But at the beginning of the story she doesn't know that. Almost everything she remembers about her past is an illusion. Although she thinks she has lived an ordinary life in our world, in fact two years earlier she fled here from her homeland with her memories altered for her own protection. Now the creatures from the void between dimensions that overran her world have pursued her here. She must regain her memories and her magical ability in order to defeat them. Moreover, an enemy sorcerer has tracked her from their devastated homeland and plans to open a portal onto the void in our world also.

I gave Rina a werecat bodyguard who came across with her to watch over her in secret. When she meets him and her true memories awaken, she also has to deal with memories of the past intimacy they shared. He has the power to take three forms—human, domestic cat, or cougar (mountain lion). I had fun with him and with Rina's very assertive butterfly familiar.

The spark for this novel was the concept of two people who'd known each other in a different world meeting again in this one, while one of them doesn't remember the former life. Yes, the "false memory" motif has appeared in lots of fantasy fiction, but the example that inspired me was the brief scene at the end of Stephen King's Dark Tower saga, when Susannah and Eddie find themselves safe in New York with new identities and new lives ahead of them. How did those lives play out, I wondered? Suppose a comparable pair of characters discovered they weren't safe after all?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Genre: The Root Of All Passion by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Genre: The Root Of All Passion
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this series on Genre:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/genre-root-of-all-evil.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/06/genre-root-of-all-confusion.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/06/genre-root-of-all-decisions.html

And here is a July 2014 update on e-book Bestsellers on Amazon -- showing how few of the top selling e-books are put up by a single person rather than a publisher. Small publishers do better than self-publishing for authors. A small publisher can offer an array of books all narrowly focused to a particular readership, drilling down to the root of passion for those readers.

http://authorearnings.com/july-2014-author-earnings-report/

And now we'll look at genre as the root of all passion.

I found this article when klout.com emailed me they had a new interface design, so I went over to klout.com to check that out. (showing I had a klout of 56)

http://io9.com/the-real-reason-why-you-pass-judgment-on-other-peoples-1521078441

The article on io9.com is a couple excerpted paragraphs from Salon.com -- here is an excerpt of the excerpt.

--------from io9.com ----------
.... The result of all this baggage is a preposterous, resentful pecking order in which readers get way too much pleasure out of pissing on other readers' preferences and/or jumping, on the slightest pretext, to the conclusion that their own are being ridiculed. ....
-------END QUOTE----------

Here's the whole, original article:
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/07/is_the_literary_world_elitist/
The title on Salon.com is
Is the literary world elitist?

What readers who take offense at unfamiliar words and challenging books are telling us about our culture

-----excerpt from end of full article-----------
If, however, I did fear, deep inside, that my inability to appreciate any celebrated book betrayed my complete intellectual and aesthetic inadequacy, I would probably be pretty angry. I’d feel the need to stick my oar in and announce that “The Adventures of Augie March” is actually a crap novel, that it is objectively boring and that the critics who praise it are charlatans. Even if I couldn’t explain exactly why I dislike it, I might want to register that dislike because somebody should be speaking out against this hoax being perpetrated on the public by the literary establishment. I’d resent that establishment and the snooty, Bellovian way it expresses itself, with fancy words like “crepuscular.” And I’d want everyone else who, like me, could see through this emperor’s new clothes to know that they are not alone, and get them to tell me I’m not alone. It’s usually those with the least faith in their own opinions who become the most outraged when the consensus does not agree with them.

If I did feel that way, it also probably wouldn’t be my fault. If I had such attitudes, chances are it would be because at some early — or even later — stage in my life, someone with similar anxieties would have taken them out on me and made me feel small and stupid and tacky. And to make myself feel better, I might do something similar to someone else: for example, mock my little brother for reading George R.R. Martin. Petty abuses like this get passed on in pretty much the same way the bigger ones do. All the same, even if we’re not to blame for our insecurities, we are responsible for recognizing them for what they are. And for growing up and getting over it.

--------end excerpt-----------------

What leaps out at me is, "It's usually those with the least faith in their own opinions who become the most outraged when the consensus does not agree with them."

Faith in one's own opinion often comes about when you, yourself, have worked the problem, systematically applying the axioms and postulates of your own personal philosophy and/or religion -- an internally consistent theory about Life, the Universe, and Everything -- and arrived at your own understanding. When that much exertion results in a conclusion, there can't be much intellectual insecurity about the conclusion.

When, however, your opinions are based on what other people tell you your opinion should be, there is little chance you will have anything but intellectual insecurity and go through life striking out in impotent rage.

From the first quote from io9.com, what leaps out at me is "resentful pecking order."

We all recognize that "pecking order" in the way Romance is "pecked at" especially for the HEA.

Almost any plot-development based on a thoughtful evaluation of another person's emotional reality will be vilified by anti-Happily-Ever-After devotees.

This article on Salon.com suggests that those who oppose the exploration of the paths to an HEA do so because they are intellectually insecure in their rejection of the existence of the HEA. Could that explain the viciousness of the attack?

I believe that reading Romance genre sensitizes readers to the way the world looks from another person's point of view -- something all good Literature does. Romance is not a genre to be looked down on, but a Literature to be looked up at.

The core essence of Romance is a heightened sensitivity to how another person feels, a sensitivity to emotion that pierces the intellect.

Romance is a state of mind as well as heart, an altered consciousness that we can attain most easily when under the dissolving impact of a Neptune transit.

Older astrology books taught that the Neptune transit signified a state of mind in which one's perceptions of reality were "blurred" or dissolved in a way that made one's views "false."

But the higher truth is that if you have exerted yourself in training your mind and emotions to work on a theory of reality that is without internal contradictions, then the Neptune transits responsible for Love At First Sight will sharpen your judgement of human nature and your ability to perceive the emotions of others and plumb the depths of character.

You will see that Love and know, at the first glimpse, what you're looking at.

Read what I've said here again and note the interweaving of "thought" and "mind" and various references to emotion such as "feel" blended into "know."

There is a psychological study which asserts that some people perceive the world through emotion, while others perceive through thought or logic -- and that this cognitive style is inherent in you, not under your control, not a choice, not something you can acquire or change.

There are spiritual approaches to understanding the state of being human that encompass both the emotion based reality, and the logical or intellectual based reality.

Such spiritual disciplines strive to get the emotional and logical faculties to interact in a balanced way.

I suspect that exactly where that "logic/emotion balance point" is for an individual is a matter of inherent traits, but getting to that balance point is a struggle for everyone.

One essential ingredient in a life securely ensconced in such a "logic/emotion balance point" is the presence of the right opposite number with the complementary attributes -- e.g. The Spouse.

There is also another tenet of classic Astrology that holds that the physical appearance of a person is indicated in the natal chart. For example, people with long-shaped faces generally have a prominent Capricorn or Saturn or both.

Note President Obama seems (by the published official Birth Certificate) to have Saturn in its own sign Capricorn with Jupiter in conjunction, emphasizing his Capricorn nature. (his Sun is in Leo.)

Now check out the proportions of his face -- also his slender build is typical of strong Saturn or Capricorn -- his reputation for being "no-drama-Obama" (such a Capricorn trait, though Leo is famous for drama) was acquired while that conjunction was activated by transit -- and he was able to convince the Nation that he would be a great manager for the Executive (Capricorn) Branch because he looks (and sounds) like a Manager -- which is what Capricorn is really good at, what Saturn is all about -- organization - while Leo is about commanding.

So Love At First Sight might be based on seeing that complementary natal chart, that Spouse material, in another person's appearance.

Love at First Sight might also have an aura component -- a psychic perceptibility activated in a unique way by this particular individual. Pheromones would figure in that.

That's the bottom line in any Romance Novel -- two unique individuals fitting together, hand in glove, and recognizing that fit, even if only subconsciously.

Now consider the problem of resolving the Romance Triangle situation -- where two different characters are opposite numbers for a third.

A woman beset by two lovers has to choose one of them. Each one is "perfect" because each completes her in a unique way. So she has to choose one on the basis of which side of her personality she wants shape her life.

The Romantic Triangle novel gives the writer the opportunity to display decision making tools, both cognitive and emotional.

One thing I've noted in our current world is a lack of decision-making precision, a lack of understanding of the process of decision making, and a lack of hard-practice at the process.

That lack has led to a distrust of the individual's judgement. You see this in things like trying to make a single rule that everyone follows before pulling a Fire Alarm at a school -- or a whole list of procedures that have to be followed in a particular situation. It's as if nobody dares risk relying on another person's judgement for anything.

That's the world your reader is living in, so consider it carefully. Small wonder there's intellectual insecurity.

All real-life decisions are a leap into the dark, deep-end of the pool -- you are diving in blind, you do not have sufficient information, nor will you ever have it. Risk-Risk everything's a risk, and intellectual insecurity leaves one with a paralyzing terror in the face of possible failure.

But you must use all the information you have to arrive at a decision that is the best you can make (logically), so that in retrospect, no matter what goes wrong you will not waste resources revisiting that decision but devote all your energy to solving the current problem. When you have become a strong character with strong decision making skills, you can boldly go where no one has gone before with the confidence that you can surmount any challenge that dares to meet you.

This kind of decision making process is most evident in Romance novels, and thus Romance gives readers the most practice you can get vicariously.

This exercise in virtual decision making is especially salutary when the writer can step the reader through a rigorous logical evaluation of a character, and then through an equally rigorous emotional evaluation of that character.

Bringing the two branches of the decision tree together in the final pages of the novel lets the reader arrive at their own answer to the question "which one should I marry?" before the character decides -- and then the reader can test their resolution against the main character's resolution and go away arguing the case.

Even writers can re-think which two characters should get together finally. You all read about J. K. Rowling rethinking Harry Potter's link-up?

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/10/jk-rowling-harry-potter-heresy-ron-hermione

As the Romance field has grown, and branched into hybrid genres such as Paranormal Romance or Interstellar Adventure-Romance, the opportunity for series that move the characters through the "I love you" point to the "I do" point, and on to the "We're pregnant" point and even beyond to the "I don't know what to do with your child!" point.

When the structure of a Relationship, or the destiny (I married a medical student; now he's a successful doctor and I feel like a widow, or single-mother) seems just plain wrong for your personality and ambitions -- what do you do about it?

Did you choose the wrong one of your two suitors? What is the life of the other man's wife like today?

How do you work this problem? How do you define this problem?

The permutations and variations on this essential life conflict have barely been touched on by the Romance field.

My favorite of the current works-in-progress on this theme is Gini Koch's ALIEN series. Book 9, ALIEN COLLECTIVE came out in May 2014:

http://www.amazon.com/Alien-Collective-Gini-Koch-ebook/dp/B00FX7LUUY/

Kitty Kat, the heroine of the ALIEN novels, is an ordinary human at the start, acquires some new traits along the way, but even when kicked way off her center, she returns to her own stable intellect/emotion point and continues to function. Her marriage to an alien is as much in spite-of as because-of, the insane hyper-sexuality between them. She chose this man not just for the sex, but because of his strong character that complemented her own.

We often grapple with the definition of a strong character. Editors mean one thing by the term, writers another, readers yet another. There is a very real core to all three definitions.

What it takes to be a "strong character" is balance at a stable point inside you where Intellect and Emotion conjoin, co-mingle, and become indistinguishable from one another. Such a person, Saint-Class-Human, would have all emotional impulses not "under control" but "programmed" to give intellectually correct answers. Such a person can leap before looking and always nail the landing.

For a strong character, every life-choice must satisfy both emotional preferences and intellectual honesty. A "strong character" is on his/her way to that saint-class-human.

Even if the character has a morality or an ethic that is non-human, or what the reader would consider criminal, or culturally unacceptable, if that character's emotional responses are stringently consistent with his/her intellectual standards (impeccable logic, given the premises) then the character will be seen as "strong." Not stubborn -- strong.

Such a character, with fully integrated emotions and thinking, will absorb the impact of shattering events with just a bit of recoil, then surge back into the fray with renewed determination. That's what strong characters do. They don't give up. They don't give in. They don't crumble.

Where does such "strength" of character come from? It comes from the stability at the balance point where emotion and logic join into a single, clear assessment of any life-situation.

For such a fully integrated character, a Neptune transit (falling in love, ga-ga infatuated, unable to think of anything else) will be FUN, not an occasion for actions destructive to the life or career that's been built so far. What has been built so far will be strong enough to absorb the impact of True Love, integrate the new Spouse into all the on-going affairs, and make progress even while courting.

A Romance novel gains plausibility when these improbable Events happen to an integrated personality.
Stories like that "work" because in reality, we all know how the integrated personalities around us seem to just sail through vicissitudes unscathed while everyone else is smashed to pieces.

A person may appear to have a strong Saturn or Capricorn (look like a great manager) but not have that "strength of character" that can be achieved only by stabilizing at that emotion/logic balance point.

A lover will judge not just by good looks, but also by performance under stress.

That's why we love Science Fiction Romance where lovers get to see their prospective spouse under the impact of bizarre, unthinkable, and screw-ball stress. Smart women flee from men who crumble. Smart men flee from women who crumble. We aren't all that smart, so we love reading about smart characters.

But with practice, with determination and unrelenting striving, one can get to be that smart.

That's the hope all humans harbor. You can't change "who" you are -- but you can be a strong version of you, rather than a weak version.

Reading good Romance can provide the vision of what you could be, if you sweat it out and train rigorously to find your emotion/logic balance point. Nobody can tell you where yours is. You have to risk everything to find it. What do you risk? Reliving that emotional pain referenced in "Is the literary world elitist? What readers who take offense at unfamiliar words and challenging books are telling us about our culture" that triggered your version of intellectual insecurity.

Either intellectual or emotional insecurity vitiates the strength of character necessary to cope with our real world. By reading Romance, and especially the hybrid genres of Romance, you can evaluate and assess where inside you those insecurities reside, what caused them, and then find what you can do to confront your demons and exorcise them.

In other words, you can find out how to become the kind of "strong character" you so admire in novels.
Concentrate on reading the writers who have the aspect of strength you have set yourself to master.

If there is any criticism of Romance Genre that actually holds up well on scrutiny, it's that many authors of Romance do not themselves train in rigorous internal consistency of philosophy that comes automatically when you live at that stable emotion/logic balance point. But many of the most popular Romance writers do. Very often, they get to their balance point by writing Romance!

Beginning Romance writers just (tell rather than show that this character falls in love with that character on first sight -- and there is no way readers can figure out what "he sees in her" or "she sees in him" because there is nothing to see.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/09/theme-dialogue-integration-part-2-whats.html

This harks back to THEME that I talk about so much. The writer has to have a thematic rationale for Love At First Sight that the writer wants to explain in this novel -- where does it come from, why does it happen, does it really mean anything in the long-run? Religion can be the explanation, or karma, or life-is-random, or "I'm helpless before my carnal emotions." But the writer has to be saying something with that First Sight Plot Event in such a way that the reader can "hear" it being said, and later "see" it working in their real world.

The weak character is "helpless before carnal emotions." If the character becomes a strong character as a result of striving with carnal emotions, you have a novel series, because this kind of "strength" -- that comes from a totally consistent philosophy of life, consistent with emotional reality and consistent with logical reality -- takes decades of hard living to achieve (sometimes in a past life).

The best source of plot-events to throw at your weak character who is developing strength is the typical Pluto Transit event that I have, in previous posts, identified as the source of Melodrama.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html

In real life, solid relationships seldom result from lust-at-first-sight where the couple has incompatible personalities.

But even that does happen -- really! Sometimes, such relationships result in 50th Anniversaries with hoards of grandchildren swarming about.

It's a crazy world, and lots of highly improbable things happen. Such improbabilities are the real life venues for stories. You see it in biographies and autobiographies.

Love Conquers All. It really does. And that fact is a mystery humans can't help but probe.

Romance is all about emotion -- and intellectual insecurity (as noted in this article) is a condition that blends both emotion and intellect, body and mind.

You can't have ROMANCE without "mind" -- but you can have sex and lust without "mind."

The Romance Genre is by definition all about finding that balance point within the character's personality where intellect and emotion blend harmoniously. And the Love Conquers All premise behind the Romance Genre is all about how that balance point is attained by partnering with the right opposite number.

A coupling that facilitates the advancement of each character toward their own balance point exerts a strong influence on the course of Events around them -- and perhaps on the destiny of Humanity and perhaps the Universe, depending how mystical you want to get.

Showing rather than assuming or telling this process of balancing intellect and emotion can make Romance genre novels more accessible to those who can't believe in the reality of Happily Ever After.

When you mix Science Fiction with Romance, you can demonstrate the kinds of balance points that are favored by a sensitive dominance of intellect over emotion. You can show how emotion can be trained by the intellect to recognize and react to that which is consistent with the philosophy or religion the character has consciously chosen.

Achieving that intellect/emotion balance point and thus becoming "strong" characters, a couple can indeed and in reality, live a Happily Ever After ending. Just contemplate those 50th Wedding Anniversary celebrations -- some people do make it to the HEA.

The easiest way to get to the HEA is to vanquish your Intellectual Insecurities -- as delineated in this article I cited at the top of this post:

Thursday, Feb 6, 2014 05:00 PM -0700
Is the literary world elitist?
What readers who take offense at unfamiliar words and challenging books are telling us about our culture
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/07/is_the_literary_world_elitist/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com