What You Can Do In A Novel That You Can't Do In A Movie

Novels, especially long ones, can draw a reader into complexities, depths, abstractions, theory of life, the universe, and everything -- with a variegated texture impossible to duplicate in a motion picture. Novels can argue for and against several propositions at the same time. Films -- because of the nature of how the human brain assimilates information -- simply can't do that.

In addition, today's viewers are conditioned to bits that can be sandwiched between commercials. Many young people who do not read printed text at all prefer to spend their entertainment hours watching short videos on YouTube or comic/animation websites, stories broken into webisodes.

At theaters, the management offers popcorn refills you can go get in the middle of the movie.

People can't sit still for more than an hour these days. And most 20-somethings are so conditioned to the 40 minute class or TV show that they see nothing wrong with their disability. They think it's normal to be unable to sit still for three hours. They think it an unusual imposition, an irrational demand, to pay attention to one thing and one thing only for three hours. (hence many workplaces now allow texting and surfing while at the work-desk)

And the same is true of reading novels. Though some fantasy genres are able to sell very thick novels (about 600 printed pages), most books have become shorter. And if they're not shorter, they are more "thinly" plotted, structured like movies.

People live their lives and imbibe their fiction in sound-bytes and 5-minute YouTube videos. To understand, comprehend, and grok a really complex theme, the reader must be able to remember what happened on page 20 by the time they get to page 620. Modern life does not foster this ability.

Books on how to write novels don't even explain how to construct a long, long novel that isn't over-written, fat, wandering, shapeless and boring with a sag in the middle.

So I was delighted when a student writer asked me (and then reminded me) to explain the structure of very long novels, with emphasis on how to structure a novel for 3 viewpoint characters, even if they're all protagonists.

It's really very simple to do, but infernally difficult to explain.

In order to understand how to craft such a long novel that doesn't sag in the middle or peter out at the end, you have to have a firm grasp of the basics of structure that I've discussed previously.

Protagonist, antagonist, conflict, beginning, middle, end, and THEME.

And the most important structural component in a long piece is THEME.

A short story (under 7,500 words) can have one theme, and only ONE. It must be something very clear, starkly simple, mostly concrete -- something you can say in 3 to 10 words. "Life is Just A Bowl Of Cherries" -- "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" -- a bumper sticker.

A novelette (to 17,500 words) can have a DOMINANT THEME and 1 SUB-THEME (and only one).

A novella (17,500 to 40,000) can have a DOMINANT THEME and 2 SUB-THEMES (only 2).

A NOVEL (40,000 words and up) (up to any length) can (but doesn't have to have) a DOMINANT THEME and UP TO 3 SUB-THEMES and no more than 3.

I did not make this up. I learned it in the Famous Writer's Course (a correspondence course on how to write fiction which I completed in the 1970's).

I've been a professional reviewer since the 1980's and a paid reviewer for The Monthly Aspectarian since 1993. I've read a lot of books in addition to the books I read just because I want to. I have NEVER seen this above paradigm of thematic relationships successfully violated.

If you want to see how it works in practice, read the early draft of my Sime~Gen Novel, UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER which is titled SIME SURGEON and posted for free reading at
http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/surgeon/SURGEON1.html Then read UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER (which had a HC edition and a paperback edition so you might find a copy somewhere).

The difference is the thematic structure paradigm strictly enforced, rigidly applied -- because my editor at Doubleday insisted or no publication. Her favorite mantra "It isn't clear" -- comes from how she searches for that thematic structure and the inner relationships between the sub-themes. But she, like most writers, does that subconsciously.

Marion Zimmer Bradley was a seat-of-the-pants writer who let her subconscious work out of conscious sight. Don't ask a centipede how it walks! If you don't naturally think in terms of THEME on first draft, don't try to "learn" how.

It is not a thing that can be learned. However, if you do work thematically naturally, but are untrained in how to do it -- you can learn to perfect your performance. (Remember: Writing Is A Performing Art).

It doesn't matter how you get to the final, finished product -- only that you do get there. So if you must write a very long novel and don't work with theme in your outline stage -- you will just have to rewrite.

A 2 hour movie uses up the material that would fit somewhere between a short story and a novelette. At the very most about 20,000 words of narrative text makes a 110 page film script.

A long running TV series like the 20 years of GUNSMOKE would be a series of novels. A miniseries like THE WHEELERS, can be a series of big fat novels shrunk to the small screen.

So if you're structuring a novel that you hope one day will become a motion picture, try to stay with one, single, monotone, theme.

If you can't construct a novel that will come out to about 40,000 to 80,000 words with one single dominant and clear theme -- then you really won't be able to do the longer forms.

If you attempt the longer form without the primary skills, you will end up with furious, emergency rewrites to order from an editor who has no idea what you really meant -- because you didn't make it clear.

If you write using THEME to structure your work, you will be able (with practice) to write and sell a second or at most 3rd draft of a 160,000 word novel.

If your subconscious is well trained in doing this thematic work, you may be able to do that without actually knowing that you're doing it. Then only minor rewriting will be necessary.

Whether you do it consciously or unconsciously, your finished product must fit this paradigm in order to succeed as a story. If it doesn't fit -- you might sell it; you might get it through editorial with minor hassles; you might even excite a lot of readers. But you won't find your novel still on the shelves years later, and you won't have a drawer full of respectable reviews that you are proud of.

In order for bloggers to talk about your book -- they need to have an idea of what your book says. And what your book says is your THEME.

If you can't find the themes of the novels you read, you need to practice until you can. Some people learn by example, so here's an example from my blog last week.

Michelle West's THE HIDDEN CITY -- is a tour de force of thematic clarity and complexity.

As should be the case, the title is the theme. This novel is about the hiddenness of entire communities.

The novel follows two points of view until well into the story where the universe has been clearly laid out -- then bits of other points of view are woven cleanly into the text.

There are 2 major point of view characters, protagonists both. But they have a conflict between them -- that resides HIDDEN within each. Their relationship gradually reveals what is hidden inside them as they gather other people about themselves -- each of which has something hidden inside that they must learn about. The reader learns what is hidden, and some of it is revealed to the character who is hiding it -- but not to the other character.

These are not "secrets" -- these are things that exist but the character is not aware of their own subconscious issues until events and relationships reveal them later in the book. They can then become "secrets" -- a thing which is known but deliberately withheld.

The setting is a city built over the remains of an ancient ruin -- which only the protagonists know how to enter. Below their normal reality lies a HIDDEN CITY.

So the physical setting explicates the psychological theme.

Then the antagonists as they are introduced through offstage action (hidden from view at first) turn out to be something very different from what they appear to be on the surface.

When the protags and antags finally come to a gigantic confrontation, much is revealed -- only to lead to more questions about what may yet be hidden from view.

One point of view character is a magic-user -- and the "hidden" and also "secret" nature of magical power is thematically discussed through her.

So the setting is HIDDEN, the characters have inner traits hidden from themselves, they hide things from each other, and the final action is triggered by lessons in impersonating those above or beneath your station in life and thus finding things within yourself that have been hidden from your consciousness.

Everything in the novel relates to that theme of HIDDEN.

HIDDEN is the DOMINANT THEME and it pervades everything in the novel, every description (even the various places they live).

There are 3 sub-themes. A sub-theme is another statement about the broader, more abstract or philosophical Dominant Theme.

The dominant theme DOMINATES the other 3. These are not 4 separate statements about the nature of reality. You can't find a set of 4 themes to write a novel about by randomly choosing philosophical statements from a book of quotations, your personal cardfile of story ideas, or just by picking a thought that occurs to you as "neat!"

These are an AXIOM and 3 POSTULATES derived from that axiom and proved by it. Think Boolean Algebra. Think Tetragrammaton. PROVED by it -- shown not told. Dramatized truths.

One of the sub-themes in THE HIDDEN CITY is virginity. One character is a sexual virgin and a virgin in the sense that she's never killed a human being. Another character is neither kind of virgin -- BUT is a virgin in the sense that she has never had a family that cared about her.

The process of losing virginity is the process of REVEALING the adult hidden within the child. It was there all the time; you just weren't aware of it.

Two of the characters are so traumatized that they don't speak aloud -- so they invent a secret language of gestures. That serves a vital plot point at the ending. Nothing that is established is there just to explicate the theme -- everything must figure in the plot or it gets cut. Ruthlessly cut. (save it for the website) This very long novel is actually sparsely written -- there is not one word that should be cut. There is no decoration. Nothing is there simply because it's interesting. Every word is functional.

One of the characters makes a living (and gets embroiled in all this trouble) by exhuming archaeological treasures from the city beneath the city, treasures the antagonists are after for magical reasons. Reasons of POWER.

They are all abandoned by family, bereft, orphans all in different ways. Alone, they forge bonds of family among themselves and become a community in search of safety in the shadows.

The Dominant Theme pervades, but each sub-theme illuminates or discusses the dominant theme.

So we have
1. HIDDEN COMMUNITIES
a) virginity hides the adult
b) archeology reveals the past
c) languages conceal and reveal magical power

And it's all done in show don't tell.

That's why I spent all of last week's blog entry raving about this book. I had picked up and discarded 3 huge novels and was feeling as though nothing good was being published this month -- and then I found this and couldn't put it down.

If you can't tell what a book is about by the bottom of page 1, it is not going to be a good book. I know. I've read a lot of books, turning pages and hoping.

What the story is about is the THEME. In a film, you should know within 2 minutes what the film is about -- and by the 5th minute (page 5 of the script) the theme will be stated, even if obliquely.

The first theme you introduce in a novel and lay out in dramatized detail is your DOMINANT THEME. Don't touch the sub-themes until chapter 2 or even chapter 5. Make sure your dominant theme is clear before you start discussing it.

If a reader doesn't want to read a book about your dominant theme's philosophy, you don't WANT them paying money for your book because they'll only go on amazon and write a scathing review dissing your book! Don't sucker the reader. Respect the reader. Tell them what you're talking about right on page one (but not in so many words).

Take the first line of Marion Zimmer Bradley's first version THE SWORD OF ALDONES. We were outstripping the night. The whole novel is about running away from metaphorical "darkness" -- evil, power let loose, subconscious guilts for letting power loose. The key confrontation that turns Regis Hastur's hair white is at NIGHT.

Take the opening image from her runner up for the Hugo, THE HASTUR GIFT. The riding party crests a ridge and looks down on the valley of Thendara -- the Comyn Tower across the town from the Terranan Tower at the space port. The book's main conflict is Magic vs. Technology and the THEME is the far reaching consequences of the knowledge of both (i.e. LOOKING DOWN -- seeing the pattern from above). Those who know must lead, even where none follow.

So, how do you take an idea that's been throbbing in your mind for years and turn it into a large novel that has this structure?

First you practice writing the single 75,000 word novel until you can do it in your sleep -- protagonist, antagonist, conflict, beginning, middle, end, THEME.

The large novel with 3 protagonists is just 3 of these novels, and it's not quite 3 times as long because you don't have to repeat the background.

Each of the sub-themes is the story of ONE protagonist - antagonist pair.

And they are bound together by the dominant theme, which is the one thing you really want to say about "life, the universe, and everything" -- with this novel. Each protagonist's story explicates and illuminates that one dominant theme.

So you have a "Star" and 3 "Co-Stars" or Supporting Actors. The co-stars must have lives, backstories, personal quirks and "buttons," internal conflicts and enemies which show-don't-tell the arguments for and against the thesis that forms the Dominant Theme.

A long, complex novel is an argument about the topic -- showing all sides of the issue, from different points of view. And eventually, the writer must "end" the novel with a conclusion to the argument -- but with a long novel where all sides of the issue have been thoroughly illustrated and discussed, the ending can be equivocal from the reader's point of view -- but the characters must come to a conclusion they intend to live with. In a sequel, that conclusion can be blasted to pieces -- but for the reader to be satisfied with the novel, the main characters must find some kind of peace on the main issue.

Take Classic Star Trek. It's classic because it's structured exactly this way with a Dominant Theme "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and two prominent sub-themes "Logic demands curiosity" and "Emotional health demands security".

Kirk - "Follow me!" (into the unknown for the sheer fun of it)
Spock - "Unknown, Captain" (therefore something to be pursued, solved, discovered)
McCoy - "I don't want my molecules scrambled - " (exploration isn't worth the risk)

Kirk, Spock and McCoy are 3 protagonists. Scotty, Uhura, Chekov, etc are SUPPORTING characters.

Now "who" are Kirk, Spock and McCoy? I learned from Gene Roddenberry while interviewing him for Star Trek Lives! that he always saw Kirk, Spock and McCoy as 3 parts of himself.

In other words, the 3 added up to ONE PERSON -- one whole, fully dimensional person.

So how do you write a novel with 3 protagonists so that the 3 themes are all sub-themes of the same dominant theme?

You start with ONE character -- one fully dimensional, whole, complete personality. Then you factor that personality into 3 parts.

Roddenberry used to say that Kirk, Spock and McCoy were himself in different moods.

So try that. Take one character you fully understand and plunge him/her into different moods. Or give them different backgrounds, upbringing, advantages and disadvantages - the same basic person actualized and realized by different challenges. Or in different incarnations.

The trick here is to do the exact opposite of what a reader does.

The READER sees 3 different characters and plunges into the story to find out how they RELATE to each other -- how they are parts of a whole.

The WRITER does the opposite. The writer sees 1 single whole character and plunges into the story to discover how that character manifests as 2 or 3 people.

Remember the protagonist and antagonist are reflections of each other. They are bound together into conflict by a single theme.

So each of the 3 protagonists has a theme (sub-theme to the whole novel) and a personal antagonist bound in a conflict which must be resolved by the end of the novel.

The first conflict to be introduced must be the last conflict to be resolved. See Marion Zimmer Bradley's CATCH TRAP. I watched her struggle with that ending word by word, event by event. It taught me how that structure must go, and how to take an imagined story and craft it into the structure. It means changing things that to you, as a writer, are so real that you scream, "No, that's not the way it HAPPENED!" But that's what it takes to craft a great novel which is a work of art, a work of a Performing Art.

In a work of art, every single element is a "reflection" of other elements.

You take one whole thing and display it in different versions, different lighting, different moods, different circumstances. To "perform" a long novel, the one thing you take (your raw material, your clay or paint or sounds) is your Dominant Theme.

Theme works this way in music too. Study how musical chords are constructed. Long novels are constructed just exactly that way -- around a group of themes that are related philosophically like the notes in a chord played in a key.

Ever heard of "keynote" -- and by extension "keynote address?" Think of your long novel as a convention and your dominant theme as the keynote address. Or the typical ending of a speech, "On that note, let me present to you -- "

Themes get their unity by starting out as one thing -- and then being factored into a series of related things. Poetry works the same way as a long novel -- no matter how long or short the poem, all the parts are about that one single idea, concept, notion.

It is that underlying unity of theme -- the ultimate pervasiveness of the dominant theme -- that gives your built universe verisimilitude -- that makes it seem real, possible, plausible enough for people to walk into it with you.

And in a longer work, what keeps the reader picking the book up every night rather than watching TV, is the precise relationship between the Dominant Theme and the Sub-themes -- how they argue the point of whether the thematic statement is true or not -- how the sub-themes prove the point (not whether they prove the dominant theme's point, because they must prove it, but HOW it happens!).

That's where the kind of suspense comes from that lasts after the book is put down -- and a longer work has to be constructed to be put down. Everyone has to pee sometime!

The reader wants to know HOW these characters will come to understand the truth of the dominant theme, while being reassured that they will come to that understanding. If the characters don't come to understand it - the reader will be disappointed. Failing to produce that understanding is the writer's cop-out, not a surprising "twist."

Having stated your dominant theme at the opening, drawn a clear picture, then introduced the sub-themes to argue, challenge and ultimately illuminate and support the dominant theme, you must (at the resolution of the conflict; as near the climax as possible) make it clear that the characters finally understand that Grand Truth represented by the dominant theme.

And you're taking a big chance when you do this. Half the readership will disagree with your idea of Grand Truth, Transcendental Truth, Self-Evident Truth. And they won't want to read your book because it's drivel.

The trick is to make your drivel so crystal clear, your statement of the nature of reality so penetrating and powerful, that it will be fun for your detractors to read so they can argue against your point.

In order to get people arguing against your point, you must MAKE YOUR POINT -- clearly. And that means you must use this thematic structure.

Once you get them arguing, though, your name will be all over the bloggosphere and amazon won't be able to keep your novel in stock.

You have to goose people into arguing the truth which is your Dominant Theme's statement.

I've given you two examples, THE HIDDEN CITY and STAR TREK. OK, let's do an exercise because you have to practice this to get it. But as I said, it's really easy to do if you've learned all the previous techniques we've discussed and have explored enough different philosophies to have something to say.

So let's create a dominant theme and 3 sub-themes.

Try this one:

THE GAVEL FALLS

a) Deadlines
b) Decisions
c) Ceremony, Formality

Take that and create 3 or 4 characters to illustrate the arguments.

a) Deadlines -- the character is a college student whose HS teachers always gave him extensions when he missed the deadline for an assignment. Now he's editor of the college newspaper (brilliant guy - think Barak Obama with time-management issues). It doesn't come out on time. The students impeach him.

b) Decisions: The College Dean advisor to the Newspaper must decide what to do about this kid who doesn't beleive in deadlines but is a brilliant newspaper editor.

c) Graduation -- The Valedictorian who wins his/her position over the Newspaper Editor. Maybe this is the Student Body President -- or a Football Star. The Newspaper Editor doesn't get his diploma at the graduation but the character who understands formality and ceremony does - and lands a great job, too.

OK, that was a quick, off the cuff exercise. If I were really going to write this theme set, it wouldn't be a college campus story.

Here's what to do to teach yourself to do this.

1) do this much of an outline (a, b, c, above) for 5 different stories, different settings, that could be titled THE GAVEL FALLS. Extend a, b, and c to be complete thematic statements such as -- "deadlines are for dodos" -- "decisions should always be hedged, CYA" -- "Ceremony doesn't count" Use your own variants -- push your imagination to find off-the-wall statements about these subjects.

2) create 5 more theme-sets and run the same exercise for each of the 5.

You can quit as soon as it becomes so easy, it's boring.

The drill is the point here, not "learning" but "practice." The better you condition your subconscious to think in theme-sets like this, the easier it will be when you sit down to write a long novel. Your subconscious will do all this work for you before telling you that you have an idea for a long novel.

Just remember a long novel is not a movie. To make it into one, a screenwriter will choose one of the sub-themes, make it dominant, then change it to be a statement the chosen audience for the movie will either agree with or violently disagree with. This could become the inverse of your own personal philosophy of life. (note what happened to Ursula LeGuin when Earthsea was made into a TV miniseries). When the theme changes, the characters change characteristics.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.slantedconcept.com

Two Heads Are Better...

I've had the pleasure this past weekend to have friend and author Stacey Klemstein aka Stacey Kade as my houseguest. Besides the fact that Stacey and I get along hilariously well (even though I'm near her mother's age) it's wonderful to be able to talk--at any time--to another writer. Writing is such a solitary occupation (other than the five hundred or so people living in my head). And yes, while I certainly chat a lot with other authors and authors-to-be via email, there's something special about sitting in side by side rocking chair, feet on the railing, sucking down a beer (me) or Fuzzy Navel (her) on my front porch, debating plot structure, conflict and why we like dark-haired male protagonists better than blonds. Or whatever.

No, it's not the same as speaking to another author on the phone. It's just not.

We've hashed out a number of issues this weekend--she, on her second book and proposal for Hyperion (her first YA paranormal--The Ghost and The Goth--will be out in 2010) and me, the follow-up book to Hope's Folly (the third book in the Dock Five series.)

The fun thing about this Linnea-Stacey combo is we approach the craft of writing fairly differently. She's very much in the Vogler/Writer's Journey camp. I'm solidly Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer. We both subscribe to Deb Dixon's GMC but even with that, we come at ideas and structure in different ways. Which means she gets me thinking and I get her thinking.

Over the past few years that we've been critters for each other, we found it works very well. We've even started teaching writing workshops together.

I know there are authors who don't use critters or beta-readers (I use both). I was in a workshop this weekend with Romance Divas where a few posted that fact. That's great if they don't need the feedback. Me, I do. That doesn't mean I incorporate every comment. But I do consider andl listen to them. Sometimes they prove I'm wrong in my writing and I make changes. Sometimes they prove I'm right. Sometimes I can see why the comment was made but I feel strongly that what and how I wrote it is how it has to be.

But I still need the feedback. Understand--for those of you who aren't authors--that by the time a manuscript gets to the final draft, the author has likely read it over (and over and over) dozens of times. The brain fills in words or meanings that may not actually be on the page. Honest, it does. Fresh eyes and another brain, to me, are very helpful.

On the flip side, helping Stacey dissect her work makes me see more clearly how and why I do things. Explaining a concept to her helps me incorporate it more effectively in my own prose.

It's really a win-win situation.

So I'm in final edits now on Hope's Folly. Bantam has the manuscript and my editor, Anne, is giving it her fresh eyes once over. She, too, will have changes or suggestions. Which, yes, I'll run by Stacey. She knows my characters and worlds as well as I do. Maybe even better.

So I guess that makes three heads...

BIC HOK! (Butt In Chair, Hands on Keyboard: the writer's war cry)

~Linnea

The Saddest News About Joan Winston

Folks:
I'm posting this on Sunday the 14th -- with news of what happened on 9/11/2008.

We have sadly lost one of the Greats of Star Trek fandom, Joan Winston.

Notice appears on Gene Roddenberry's page on imdb.com -- she would be so pleased.

Here is a different notice from one of her relatives:
----------------------
It's with great sorrow that I share with you the news of the passing of Joan Winston earlier today. She was a wonderful and crazy woman that brought joy to many who shall remain with us as long as the conventions go on.

Services will be held Sunday September 14th, 2008 at the Plaza Funeral Home located at 630 Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan at 9:30am. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to The Hebrew Home for the Aged at Riverdale located at 5901 Palisade AvenueBronx , NY 10471 (718) 581-1417 (phone) who cared for her in her final months. Please feel free to pass along this information as you feel appropriate.

Please remember, I'm never too busy for your referrals.

Craig S. Rosenfeld,
CRSRemax Realty
GroupActive Member of the Council of Residential Specialists
csrosenfeld@yahoo.com

www.craigrosenfeld.com

------------------------

The online New York Times obituary for Joan Winston can be found here.....

http://www.legacy.com/NYTimes/DeathNotices.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=117338745 And they have a Guest Book but I don't know how long it will be up or open.

------------------------

You can contribute remembrances and tributes to the Joan Winston page and memorial at http://www.simegen.com/joan.html which is growing rapidly.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Senator McCain's choice of a running mate has stimulated lots of discussion in news media and blogs about the balance of family and career in women's lives. Most future societies imagined in science fiction take it for granted that women will have careers similar to men's. As someone mentioned on this blog many months ago, SF characters often embark on their adventures with no mention of the possibility of children. Maybe this phenomenon results from authors and readers taking it for granted that future technology will guarantee infallible contraception. Even so, some people will certainly want offspring, and someone will have to take care of them. I like the system envisioned in J. D. Robb's mid-twenty-first century mysteries, when the position of "professional parent" exists, with individuals who choose that path being paid a stipend at public expense. Still, there would be many couples in which both partners want to work outside the home at the same time. Robb's fiction also predicts robots advanced enough to serve as nannies.

Will housekeeping and child-care robots, if they ever reach that degree of sophistication, put an end once and for all to the home-career conflict? Or will they produce a class dichotomy in which wealthy and middle-class people have practically unlimited choices while those who can't afford robots still face the same quandaries present-day families do? Would households able to afford robot servants be in the same position as the wealthy people who kept houses full of human servants in the nineteenth century?

There's no assurance, of course, that the present-day trend toward gender parity in employment and career flexibility for both sexes will continue in the direction it's going. Economic and social upheaval might lead to a reversal of the cycle. The 1950s middle-class North American ideal of the two-parent-single-earner household, made possible only by the postwar economic boom, was a short-lived anomaly. It followed a period in which women flooded the workplace. A reversion to the one-earner family might occur as a result of a catastrophe like the population crash postulated in William Tenn’s short story “Down Among the Dead Men,” in which laws forbid women from working in any remotely hazardous job because they are too valuable as “breeders.”

In pre-industrial eras, women almost universally contributed to the household's earnings; they did it within the home, as most men also did. If wage-earning work could be returned to the domestic setting, numerous problems would be solved. Unfortunately, many jobs just don't lend themselves to telecommuting. Moreover, lots of people actually like going out to their jobs rather than staying home twenty-four hours a day.

In Japan, household and caregiving robots are already becoming commercially available. There is hope that robotic “servants” may encourage women to bear more children and alleviate the economic problems caused by Japan’s low birthrate.

Notice that the problem continues to be stated in terms of persuading WOMEN to devote more energy to families. Returning to the topic of a female presidential or vice-presidential candidate, have you ever heard a reporter ask a male politician how he expects to harmonize the demands of family life with a high-pressure career?

Information Feed & Michelle West's THE HIDDEN CITY

For my review column, ( http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/ ) I'm going to review Michelle West's fantasy opus THE HIDDEN CITY with as much enthusiasm and I think maybe more enthusiasm than I did her first 2 novels in this Universe, HUNTER'S OATH and HUNTER'S DEATH.

For my review of HUNTER'S OATH and HUNTER'S DEATH see my September 1996 review column:
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/1996.html
Unfortunately, West didn't use the "Pope In The Pool" technique from Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT series. The stageplay device of the "bomb under the chair" technique would have livened up the info-dump, too.

During this post-halfway point several times the viewpoint drifts (for no reason other than information feed -- which makes those drifts a massive flaw). Prior to that we had a nicely selected 2-point-of-view narrative that cut down on the background the reader needed to know, but then struggling with that information feed problem of this huge and complex universe, she finally had to TELL US. But by then, we were curious enough to listen to what she told us.

I have no idea what I'll be saying about this book. But here's advance warning -- this is a book you don't want to miss. It is Intimate Adventure -- and not Romance (at least so far).

In spite of any weak points -- probably caused by a word-limit that required slicing and dicing the plot -- this is a gripping, readable, breezy, LONG book that you don't mind setting down because you will enjoy being drawn back to it. The hardcover is large and my hands get tired holding it! (who says reading isn't a physical exercise!)

But if you're struggling with writing the information feed for a large and complicated universe, you'd do well to study THE HIDDEN CITY because it shows you both how to do really great information feed -- and what happens when you just have to fudge a little to make everything fit. It also shows you where in the story to make your fudge-and-patch back-and-fill shuffle without throwing the reader out of the story.

In West's HIDDEN CITY universe, magic is practiced by those with certain talents. You are born with the ability to do this or that type of magic, and if not formally trained you might be a big danger to yourself and others. The most fascinating of the Talented to me are the Makers whose art and utilitarian objects exceed all design specifications.

THE HIDDEN CITY is the first in a new series called THE HOUSE WAR, set in the same universe as her previous novels.

HIDDEN CITY kicks off with an immediately engrossing introduction to the characters, and though the book is over 600 pages (thick) with decent sized print densely packed, the story zips right along.

The two main characters are a 10 year old girl with a fascinating backstory, and a scavenger guy who is an adult with a mysterious and mixed past, very chequered.

The girl has certain character traits that endear her to me -- compassion, generosity (she's starving and has no clothes against the coming winter, but gives charity lavashly), and a non-confrontational spirit. She doesn't challenge the world like Anita Blake, but she doesn't obey orders either and isn't afraid.

The guy wants to be the opposite kind of person, alone, selfish, independent, not necessarily on the easy side of the law. He wants to be -- but something in this kid ignites the other part of himself he really wishes wasn't there.

The way West handles revealing all the information of this complex, deep and broad universe with these two difficult, nuanced, living-breathing and changing characters is positively DELIGHTFUL. It's so good that even when you finally get to the expository lump disguised as dialogue, you don't CARE. You really want to learn what you are being told.

So if you want an example of the end result of applying the method I sketched in last week's blog entry ( http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/ ) try THE HIDDEN CITY.

Oh, and it doesn't lean on the previous books in this universe. All the information you need about the universe is "fed" to you in this volume. (quite a trick, let me tell you!)

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Dangerous pets in a space ship

I don't have anything particularly "crafty" to post today. On Rowena Remarks (my solo blog) I'm posting a haphazard countdown of my promotional efforts as the release day for Knight's Fork approaches.

On my GoodReads.com author group, Rowena Answers, I'm responding to a variety of questions, if anyone wishes to ask something that would be off topic here.

My mind is on wild animals, and semi-domesticated pets because I'm participating with Jacquie Rogers in a "Down Home Everloving Mule" contest, and several authors from different genres will be discussing our pets and animal characters in our novels on my Crazy Tuesday radio show.

Here's an excerpt from Knight's Fork where Grievous (the only man in my alien romances) reacts powerfully and pungently to finding himself in the Imperial Suite with a couple of tigers.



"How very King Henry the Eighth of you, Sir!" the eternally impertinent Grievous opined upon receiving his secret orders in the Imperial Suite's conversation pit.

Tarrant-Arragon was accustomed to Grievous's chauvinistic assumptions that everyone knew the finer points and personalities of English history. However, he was interested. He had been likened to Henry the Eighth before, on account of his own exaggerated reputation for disposing of unfaithful companions.

"Really, Grievous?" Tarrant-Arragon draped his arms over the curved back support of the pit seating, in an exaggeratedly relaxed pose. "Did your Henry the Eighth of Englishmen maroon his sisters on alien worlds with unsuitable suitors?"

"Not exactly, Sir, but he did invade Scotland to make sure that the infant Mary Queen of Scots married his young son Edward."

"He succeeded, I infer?"

"Nah, Sir. King Henry's sister's daughter-in-law objected to his tactics and married off the little girl to a Frog prince instead."

"A frog prince?" Tarrant-Arragon arched an eyebrow at his man. An amphibian shapeshifter? That would make oral sex interesting!

"Yup. A frog. That's what we call the Frenchies, Sir. I dare say you'd call it a racial slur."

"I dare say I would." Tarrant-Arragon lost interest. "Ahhh, if this Henry the Eighth's tactics did not work, why do you make the comparison, Grievous? It's hardly flattering to have my methods likened to the behavior of an ineffective tyrant." He put the stress on "ineffective."

"You shouldn't be flattered, Sir."

"Quite so," Tarrant-Arragon murmured, thoroughly enjoying what might be his last unintended insult from his human side-kick. "Do go on."

"Here's the scheme as I grasp it, Sir." Grievous said. "Oh, my Lord! What the…?"

The man's posture stiffened. Fear leaked from his pores. "You've got a tiger loose in here, Sir," he said in a strangled whisper.

"I've two."

The human squeezed his ankles and knees together. He interlaced his fingers, and pressed his balled, linked hands into his lap. He swallowed hard, and the lump humans have in their scrawny throats jerked.

"They're my sister's. I could hardly smuggle two tigers aboard The Trajant. They'd eat the crew while she sleeps, and give the game away." In some amusement, he watched Grievous's light blue gaze zigzag, as the Englishman tried to locate the second tiger.

Alph was "couchant" under the dining table, quietly amusing himself with an unopened container of wine, which he'd hooked from the table onto the carpeted floor. Tarrant-Arragon had last seen Bey-ta investigating the suite's guest restroom where it sounded –faintly, to Djinn ears—as if he had found something less sophisticated to drink.

Tarrant-Arragon stroked his upper lip, and decided to take pity on his man. "You're quite safe, Grievous. Relax and you won't smell so much like prey. I need you on The Trajant. Do continue to give me your understanding of my 'scheme'."

Grievous blinked rapidly. "Right you are, Sir. For whatever reason, 'Rhett has a bee in his bonnet about going to Earth in a hurry. So you're making his trip possible before he thinks better of it. Am I doing all right? I don't still smell tasty, do I, Sir?"

Tarrant-Arragon pushed off the seat, and strolled to the table, where he opened a new wine, and poured a glass for himself and Grievous, and slopped a small quantity into a bowl to keep Alph happy.

"You are doing well so far." He handed Grievous the wine and stood over the man while he took his first swig. "Moreover…?"

"Moreover, Sir—thank you kindly—moreover, what 'Rhett doesn't know is that you're giving him a one-way ticket. In keeping with the jolly splendid legal precedent of 'Give a dog a bad name and hang him for it'—"

"A favorite precept of mine," Tarrant-Arragon agreed, and raised a toast to various vindictive mantras. "Not dissimilar to 'Be done by as you did'. But preemptive."

The bouquet of the wine had improved Grievous's body odor....



Rowena Cherry

Simoun

I've been watching an anime series called SIMOUN, in which I'm struck by some parallels to Jacqueline's Sime-Gen universe.

SIMOUN takes place in a world where all people start life as female. At the age of seventeen (normally) they choose a permanent, adult sex—just as in the Sime-Gen series everyone undergoes a biological transformation at maturity. Just as Gens look superficially a lot like children, but aren't, women in the SIMOUN universe look like adult versions of the girls all children start out as. One interesting feature of this species, however, is that the change from girl to man isn't near-instantaneous like the changeover from child to Sime. There's a period of transition in which the new adult male looks rather hermaphroditic (with breasts, for example). The big difference between this species and Sime-Gen humanity, of course, is that the girls in SIMOUN get a choice about their adult sex. A child in Jacqueline's universe establishes (becomes Gen) or changes over (becomes Sime) involuntarily. It's also implied that the eventual development into Sime or Gen is determined prenatally, perhaps at conception. Girls in SIMOUN may decide beforehand what choice they plan to make, but nothing is irrevocable until they actually take that step. The universal experience of having been female must surely give men of this species a different view on the world from that experienced by real-life human males.

Another similarity involves the Simouns, the two-seater aircraft for which the series is named. Mysterious artifacts left over from a vanished civilization (there's another Sime-Gen parallel!), they are powered by huge, green gems. Apparently the energy source of these gems comes from human life-force. Each Simoun is piloted by two Sibyllae (an order of priestesses), who first kiss each other, then press their lips to the gem to activate it. Very reminiscent of transfer! A Sibylla, alone among all the citizens of this country, has special dispensation to postpone her choice of a permanent sex. This exception is necessary because only girls who haven't yet changed into adults have the ability to pilot the Simouns. Sibyllae range from preteen children to young women well past the age when they would ordinarily have chosen their adult gender. At the time the series takes place, Sibyllae are encouraged to retain their positions because the country is entangled in a seemingly endless war with a neighboring nation that wants the secret of the Simouns. To the Sibyllae and most of their fellow citizens, the Simouns are mystical, divine devices. Using one or more Simouns to inscribe a Ri Majon, a symbol in the air that produces magical effects, is often referred to as "praying to the skies." The Ri Majons remind me of the Endowment in later installments of the Sime-Gen series. A small minority, however, holds the heretical view that the aircraft are merely machines. As Arthur Clarke famously said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

A Simoun operates best when the two pilots, the "pair," have a deep emotional connection. Because of the desperate circumstances of the war, though, it's becoming necessary to pair up girls who have no such feelings or may even dislike each other. I was reminded of the Tecton bureaucracy in UNTO ZEOR FOREVER.

Another significant difference between the two series is that changeover and establishment confer new powers on the young adult Simes and Gens. In SIMOUN, on the other hand, children (a select group of them, anyway) have the unusual powers, and adults are no more extraordinary than men and women in our own world. It's not uncommon in Japanese anime and manga to encounter this motif of children or adolescents having special gifts they lose upon the threshold of adulthood. For example, in NEON GENESIS EVANGELION, only teenagers within a narrow age range have the ability to form a symbiotic relationship with the giant battle robots called EVAs. I wonder what the cultural significance of this motif is? Or is it only a result of the marketing fact that teenagers are a major target audience for anime and manga, so that child and teen heroes naturally play a central role and are the ones with special powers? That theme appears in Western fiction, too. For example, in the Mary Poppins books, babies understand the language of birds, but older children have forgotten it. In Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series, the newest wizards (adolescents) are the strongest in terms of raw power (but not refined skill).

Wikipedia has a detailed entry on SIMOUN, in case you'd like to get more information than my rough summary. This series contains many provocative elements, and I've only skimmed the surface.

Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)

Sexy Information Feed

I touched on the technique I have dubbed Information Feed last week:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/source-of-expository-lump.html

So it's possible some writers may be trying to dissect their expository lumps into a linear information feed stream that's also dramatic, gripping, suspenseful and explicates their theme. At the beginning of a project, the theme is not usually even known, which is why dissecting lumps is part of the rewrite process. You may not know which parts of a lump you need until you've at least drafted an ending.

Here are a few more clues to the Information Feed technique and how to apply it.

So imagine (yeah, real hard, I know) you have created an entire universe in your mind filled with characters in love and angst all jumping up and down to get their OWN stories told.

My students know that the first thing I will pound on them for is choosing the wrong protagonist, someone whose story is not being told just now, a bystander not even as involved as Doctor Watson in Holmes's investigations.

One reason a writer produces expository lumps at the opening of a story is simply that they've chosen the wrong viewpoint character. The real story is happening offstage, and so lump by lump, the writer tries to tell that gripping real story from the point of view of "nothing happening."

The following technique will probably not help you discover which character your story is actually about. But it might break the logjam and let you begin investigating your universe to discover where the stories are happening.

So here's how to take your well and thoroughly imagined Universe where the reader has to know ALL THIS STUFF before they can understand the story -- and straighten it out into a linear sequence of information bits that are fun to learn instead of lumps to swallow.

You have to play a trick on yourself.

Pretend your imagined universe is real, that you've just been there and all this really nifty stuff happened to YOU - not to a character in the story, but to YOU (you might be a character in the story, but that might lead to writing a Mary-Sue.)

Remember one of the most seductive traps for a beginning writer is to try to tell the story from First Person when it's not appropriate. That's why it's good to be your-real-life-self explaining where you've been and why you have a black eye rather than being a character in the story. You can recount the story as if telling about a new favorite TV show. You want to hook them, but don't want to reveal "spoilers."

And that's what "expository lumps" are mostly composed of - spoilers - stuff you gotta know but not NOW.

So, here you are in front of your parents, your landlord, your boyfriend, maybe the police, an insurance adjuster, a private eye you have to hire or your least favorite clergy authority figure.

You don't want to confess. You don't want to admit you've been wandering around inside a TV show, inside someone else's business. You really don't want them to know how seriously sexy this whole thing is!

This is so awful. This is so embarrassing. This is private stuff. It's top secret. If you tell them, you'll have to kill them. Or they'll think you're crazy.

But there you are, evidence dripping from your hands, peeping from under your skirts, bulging out of your pockets.

They start asking questions, and you must come up with something to say -- even if it's not an explanation. Even if it's a lie. You want the respect of these authorities, but the questions keep coming and you have to say something. What to say first that will kind of "break it gently" that you've been seduced. Or done some heavy duty seducing and pried a really hot story out of someone they'd never let you associate with.

"So why didn't you do your homework last night?" "Where did you get that black eye?" "When are you going to fork over last month's rent?" "So who's the father this time?" "Why is there a puppy peeking out of your coat pocket?"

So the interrogation of you begins, and you have to say something. Some bit has to come first -- something has to be kinda "interred at the foot of a sand dune" and hidden to the end where it'll be a surprise, a twist, a shock, a hook for a sequel (I mean, who has sex just once if it's really great sex?)

Lump-dissection is all about building SUSPENSE. And the main technique is what Linnea Sinclair called being a "puzzler" rather than a "plotter" or "pantser" as a writer.

Meaning, do you plot out every event before you write, or do you fly by the seat of your pants, or do you ferret out the ending by solving some puzzle you start with and don't know the answer to.

All that is from the writer's point of view. And it really doesn't matter how the writer does it. It only matters that the reader can't TELL how the writer did it.

Every good novel contains (after rewriting) a firm plot-sequence, a because-line, and the kind of surprising and delightful details that a "pantser" will create on the fly, PLUS a good, hard puzzle for the reader to solve. The best way to achieve all that is to do 3 drafts, one as each of the 3 kinds of writers.

When you're breaking expository lumps, it is most effective to be a "puzzler" -- and unwind the lump into a trail of bread-crumbs as clues to the big revelation. The way to figure out which bit of the lump is a bread-crumb and which a big revelation is to present yourself before your imaginary authority figure for interrogation.

So answer the question about your condition after this adventure in your universe.

"Well, it isn't actually a puppy. It's a baby turus."

"A baby what?"

"I'm not totally sure it's a baby."

Examining the creature. "Where in the world did that thing come from?"

"I found it in a crashed space ship."

This completely omits mention of the tall-dark-handsome-almost-human Guy you pulled from the ship just before it exploded which is how you got the black eye.

Shouts of laughter and the interrogator reaches out to remove the puppy's pasted-on costume and find out what breed the dog is. The costume doesn't come off. The ears are real.

"It's a mutant something. How do you know it's a turus?"

"This guy told me." or "The Turus told me." Or "The dying mother Turus told me."

"We better call animal control."

"No!" Now you have to come up with a reason NOT to call animal control.

Do you see how an impenetrable ball of wax can become a linear string of data under interrogation?

ASKING QUESTIONS is the key to dissecting an expository lump, and discovering what goes now and what goes later, what's a bread-crumb and what's the payload at the end of the trail.

As I noted in the discussion of the Expository Lump, what goes first and what goes second is a function of WHAT THE READER IS ASKING.

Your reader can be your interrogator, and you have to satisfy that curiosity while not giving away the whole ball of wax.

As with most structural issues that arise while crafting a piece of fiction, the Expository Lump yields to a systematic questioning.

You just have to know what the questions are, and to find out you have to go adventuring in your universe - and figure out "who" will confront you with questions on your return.

In the writer's mind, the reader is an Authority Figure -- skeptical, wary, unconvinced, and with the power over you of NOT BUYING this book.

Now, don't let that intimidate you, and don't let the rule against expository lumps choke you up.

You don't want to prevent yourself from passing a Lump. You'll only give yourself writer's block doing that. In fact, most writer's block cases are just cases of rampant perfectionism, or sometimes not having the confidence to say what you want to say. So nevermind -- spit it out! Just splosh it onto the page.

In rewriting, remember that nothing is permanently gone. Delete something here, you can put it in over there. But to make this technique pay off, you have to have something to delete. So write those lumps! Then handle them as if undressing a sex partner.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

A puzzler

"Are you a plotter or a pantser?"

If you are a published author, how many times have you been asked that? If you are a reader, do you care whether or not an author is methodical and well organized? If you are a writer who is seeking publication, do you try to change your ways if you see a pattern and all your favorite authors are proud plotters? (Or proud pantsers?)

Or... is the question really code for something else? Does the interviewer really want to know if you write plot-driven, or character-driven stories?

According (I think) to Orson Scott Card, there are four types of stories: event (or plot) focused; character centered; idea based; or about milieu.

No one has ever asked if I write Idea, or Milieu. Among speculative fiction writers, I'd think some of us (but not me) might be more interested in an idea, or in world-building. In my opinion, Lord of the Rings (the book, not the movie) was a Milieu story.

I've digressed from the confines of being "plotter" or "pantser".

This year --I've been honored with a few interview requests-- I've seen a third option both asked, and discussed on writers' loops: that of puzzler.

Given that I'm asked the question, I like to give a thoughtful, unique, and interesting answer. Maybe I don't always succeed, but a monosyllabic response must miss the point of doing an interview, mustn't it?

Until yesterday, I often compared my own writing approach to solving a jigsaw puzzle in which the corners and outline were always in place first, but some of the pieces (including outside pieces) were identical in color and shape on at least two sides so I might not notice they started out in the wrong place until the work was almost completed.

Yesterday I attempted a chess analogy. It actually doesn't work as well as a jigsaw puzzle, unless I think of my editor --or someone else-- as an opponent in the process, which of course, I don't.

I write chess-titled Romances. I have done since 1993. It's ironic that other authors have chess covers, isn't it?

I write character-driven stories, usually centered on the hero. Plot... or a series of thrilling events... isn't my primary interest.

Comparing the beginning of a work to having a chess board before me is interesting (to me). Of course, my editor would never tolerate a cast of thirty-two: 16 good-guys and 16 baddies.

Well, I don't need the sidling Bishops, and I don't need a full complement of pawns on either side, either. Moreover, I can cut down on the Rooks (or castles) and if I think of them as the spaceships and palaces (or milieu, not characters), I'm almost down to a manageable cast.

You might (or might not!) be interested to know why I didn't have time to send Christmas cards last year. My editor needed me to write out a "Castle", an entire spaceship on which a climactic scene took place, and also two "Knights" from Knight's Fork.

She was right, of course.

Each character has its strengths, powers, and limitations. They can only move as far, and in the directions dictated by who/what they are, and what is in their way.

There are rules. Every move has consequences. There's a time limit. There are space constraints. Pawns can be transformed into more powerful pieces.

My fanciful little chess analogy ought to fail on account of the color contrast. In politics, not everyone acts as his party expects. However, I collect chess sets. I have a Cretan set, where Black is Gold and White is Silver. Once the men (chessmen) are rubbed a few times, it's hard to tell which side they're on.

With that happy thought, I'll wish you a safe and happy Labor Day.

Rowena

By the way, I heard this week that Insufficient Mating Material won the 2008 Hollywood Book Festival's Romance category.

Guises of Oppression

Right now I'm reading a nonfiction book, SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME: THE RE-ENSLAVEMENT OF BLACK AMERICANS FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO WORLD WAR II, by Douglas A. Blackmon. I had no idea this appalling chapter of our history existed! It's about the system of convict leasing widespread in the American South from the 1870s all the way to the early 1940s. Poor, mostly illiterate people, overwhelmingly black men, were arrested on flimsy charges, sentenced to fines they couldn't possibly pay, and essentially sold to mines, factories, or farms to work off the "debt." In a way the system was worse than pre-Civil War chattel slavery, because these "employers" had no financial interest in giving the workers proper food or medical care. If an employer needed cheap labor and had friendly connections with a local sheriff or magistrate, getting a supply of convicted "debtors" was easy. Often no specific charge was even recorded, and many of the "crimes" that were cited consisted of vague offenses such as vagrancy, abusive language, or leaving a job without permission.

This account of institutionalized abuse highlights at least two socio-political facts relevant to constructing imaginary cultures: (1) Ingrained biases hang on stubbornly, and it may require society-wide changes to shake these attitudes loose. For many decades after the Civil War, large numbers of southern white people sincerely believed the welfare of their region depended on keeping black citizens "in their place" and furthermore maintained that the black population (except for a handful of troublemakers) was "contented" with the status quo. (2) Oppression takes different forms, and when knocked down in one guise, it can easily reappear in another if those institutional changes aren't made. In speculative fiction, we can imagine many varieties of social inequity, disguised as well as overt. Suzette Haden Elgin’s short story “We Have Always Spoken Panglish” (it’s online; just google the title) portrays an alien society in which the ostensibly “contented” ethnic underclass can protest their status in only one way, by keeping their native language a closely guarded secret. To complicate matters, in SF different intelligent peoples may live together on the same world or space station, raising the question of whether their differences really do justify some kind of unequal treatment. Suppose an aquatic species and a land-dwelling species, for instance, occupy the same planet, coming into frequent contact at the shoreline? Obviously it wouldn't be fair or even sensible to treat these two kinds of creatures exactly alike. What would constitute fair, equal-but-not identical treatment? Suppose, on Earth, dogs became intelligent? Dogs, as far as we can tell from interacting with them in real life, are pack animals who enjoy obeying a leader and feel insecure without one. How would that facet of canine character affect our treatment of sapient dogs? (Cats, on the other hand, if they attained human intelligence, would of course be capable of ruling the world, except that they wouldn't want to bother.) In Cordwainer Smith’s classic “Ballad of Lost C’Mell,” the Underpeople, genetically engineered from animals, have to fight to get recognized as full citizens.

You can read in depth about Blackmon's research on the legal enslavement of convicts at:

www.slaverybyanothername.com

Source of the Expository Lump

I was recently asked to evaluate the first 2 chapters of a novel which I have watched this author develop. It's main target is to become a TV Series -- and I believe the premise has the potential to draw in Star Trek, Babylon 5, and Battlestar Galactica (2) fans.

The premise is rich, deep and broad, the worldbuilding meticulous, the scope nearly infinite. It could be a huge story writ on a galactic canvas (like The Lensman Series) or more like Dallas, mostly set in one place (this solar system) but about the people and inter-related families.

The concept is dazzling, the flexibility of the material designed to allow many authors to contribute. I've seen some of the outline and "bible" material, and I'm entranced.

So I was delighted to get electronic copy of the first 2 chapters in novel style that I could read on my Palm.

Right off, I fell into Writing Teacher mode, being more "critical" than I would be if I were reading this for review. And you all know how picky I am about books I review! Can you imagine being the target of my "find something wrong" mode of reading? Ouch.

Still, because I love the premise as much as this author does, I avidly devoured the first 2 chapters. It helped that I was sitting in a) a dentist waiting room, and then b) a car repair shop waiting room. When I finished, I stared at the wall a while before I decided what exactly I was noticing in this first draft manuscript.

A final draft should read in such a way that the Writing Teacher mode never notices anything.

The story should unfold beat by beat, each beat where it belongs but the content leaping with flames of delight. The author should be invisible; the story vivid.

One doesn't expect that in first draft. First drafts are for debugging. So I read looking for bugs.

The sentence, paragraph and word-choice work in this first draft is top drawer professional. The visual descriptions will make any producer salivate. As I said before, the worldbuilding is superb. The characters are likewise, vivid and well rounded, deep and fundamentally interesting. What is presented in the first 2 chapters is intriguing.

So what's WRONG? Why is this text dragging? Why don't the characters leap off the page? Why won't it translate in my mind into a script? What rules is it violating?

OK, as I was reading, I mentally marked out paragraphs for deletion because they were EXPOSITORY LUMPS. But this is first draft material. Any writer, however experienced, passes some Lumps when drafting an opening. You just delete them, or shred them and sprinkle throughout the rest of the story, and what's left is usually a fantastic opening.

Rewriting is no big deal. You expect to do that, and it's largely a mechanical exercise when it comes to curing the lumpiness of a piece of goods. In fact, the classic cure is to move the opening scene to a later point in the story, skipping over the throat-clearing and pencil sharpening.

But this particular 2 chapter opening is "right" for the story this author is telling. Two conflicting elements smash together explosively kicking off a huge Interplanetary War Story.

But the whole thing just does not WORK. Why?

Well, when you delete ALL the Expository Lumps in this 2 chapter opening, you haven't got anything left that's 2 chapters long. Nothing happens. It's all "about to happen" -- not happened and creating consequences. There's no because-line; no plot line.

The author has told me how much FUN it is to be writing this story at last. It's exciting and fulfilling and very real. The characters are jumping up and down to get their story told.

Well. That is the problem, you see. The author has held back on writing the story while the background develops, fleshes out, becomes dimensional. The characters have lives and histories, and backstory-gallore. The politics, history, technological advances (this is set in a near future century when humans have colonized the solar system) and elaborate backstory on the colonization and its politics.

The source of the expository lump is the author's own familiarity with the material.
The author knows too much. The author started to write the story too late in the creation process. Screenwriting books warn over and over about starting to write too early in the creation process. These 2 chapters are an example of what happens when you start too late.

Both too soon and too early result in just about the same kind of unusable text, delineated with TELL rather than SHOW. Both result in a text sequence that weights every detail with the same importance, instead of prioritizing.

If the writer doesn't yet know the world, the writing process turns into worldbuilding block by block of impenetrable prose about the background instead of storytelling. If the writer knows the world too well, the writer is afraid the reader won't understand the story without all that the writer knows, so writing turns into an info-dump instead of storytelling.

And that, in essence, is what an Expository Lump is -- some rich-delicious detail that the writer wants the reader to know all about IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND the emotional, strategic, and political import of the events in the character's life.

The reason these events are important is TOLD rather than SHOWN (or dramatized).

Exposition is "about" the facts, an explanation of the facts. It is what the writer thinks the reader needs to know before starting the story or getting on with the events that form the because-line of the plot.

Exposition is the data that goes into the equation, not the equation itself (the plot and story are two variables in the equation that is a work of fiction). The equation is the problem the reader is working in his mind while the writer feeds in the data. Exposition doesn't register with a reader as data and isn't put into the equation.

Exposition is rhetoric laced with opinion, slant, and possibly the omniscient point of view. It is everything the character already knows before the reader arrives.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/exposition gives a more dictionary sort of definition. Exposition is the writer's effort to make the reader understand "things" the exact same way the writer does.

The writer wants very much to share this vision, this story, this imagined world with the reader.

The writer wants to draw the reader in to the dreamscape using photographic reality. And the writer desperately wants the reader to enter into the exact dreamscape the writer is in. It has to be THE SAME DREAMSCAPE, so therefore everything (absolutely everything) has to be described in detail and explained back to twenty years before the story starts (or twenty centuries).

But in order to gain entree into the dreamscape, the reader needs a Japanese Brush Painting of the "reality" the writer has created -- not a digital photograph with sharp detail.

New writers (and experienced, published writers just starting a new project) can't do this -- simply CAN not do brush-painting style evocation.

Why?

Because without all the relevant details, the reader MIGHT NOT GET IT.

The reader might make other assumptions, mistake the hero for the villain, or think the main character is behaving without sufficient motivation.

Motivations have to be explained -- in exposition. Because otherwise, the reader might guess wrong!

Exposition says, "This is MY story and you have to understand it MY WAY - or otherwise don't read my story."

Marion Zimmer Bradley taught me to understand that expository lumps come from the writer standing in the "wrong place" to tell the story. She called this kind of overly detailed storytelling "self-indulgent." The writer is standing in a self-indulgent psychological space -- demanding the reader enter into the writer's own story, and no other.

Being jarred out of that "place" is what makes a talented amateur into a seasoned professional writer.

There is a knack, and a talent, and also a learned skill to handling expository lumps.

You can never avoid depositing them on your page. You must learn to handle them.

The skill part is learning to dissect a lump into its component parts, preferably even before you've finished inputting the entire lump in words.

Recognizing you are passing a lump is just a matter of practice. The more diligently you rewrite, the more your subconscious will learn to recognize something "wrong" before you finish entering it. But sometimes you have to finish writing the lump before you know what to do with it.

Lumps consist of "important" and even "vital" information the reader actually wants all twined around stuff the reader isn't (yet) ready for.

There can be elements of the characters' backstory -- who the father was, when the mother died and of what University they all went to -- things about the character's backstory that are characterization, motivation, color, and even worldbuilding (such as this alien species marries and raises children before going to grammar school).

There can be elements of politics, office or national level, perhaps what political party the character is registered in, or how the career was blunted because of supporting the wrong person for promotion.

There can be elements of description -- how the room is furnished, floor plan of the apartment, what's visible out the window, what people are wearing (which can also be worldbuilding), what type of computer or handheld device, how clean or dirty things are, what kind of music is playing.

There can be the reasons why things are the way they are in this scene -- and those reasons can involve other characters, other places, decisions made and executed long ago or recently. Lumps usually refer to things, issues, and situations that are "offstage" -- thus theoretical and abstract to the reader who hasn't yet been "backstage" of this story.

Those categories of expository lump material are not the only categories. And a clever writer can disguise all that in a nicely flowing narrative that is interesting and engaging. So how do you test your own words to see if you've committed a Lump?

A) identify WHY you wrote that particular information in exactly this particular place. If it is because YOU want the reader to know it; delete it.

B) identify WHY you think the reader is dying to know this information. Find where you've created suspense on this issue prior to this point.

C) consider if there is any other way to convey this information to the reader. What would it take to convert that ONE PARAGRAPH into "show" rather than "tell?" A whole chapter maybe? Another whole character with speaking part?

D) delete the Lump and reread the whole story again a few days later. If you can't retype the Lump into the story without looking at what you deleted, then it shouldn't be added back.

The first mistake new writers make is to misplace information. The expository lump in Chapter One may in fact contain vital information to make Chapter 10 work, but that doesn't mean it belongs in Chapter One. There is a "rule" for conveying information to a reader without causing the reader boredom, impatience, or pain.

The rule in information feed is FIRST MAKE THE READER CURIOUS. Then make the reader even more curious. Ratchet up the suspense.

If there's something you, the writer, desperately need the reader to know, DON'T TELL IT.

Withhold that information until you feel the suspense in your own gut. Use characters and events, deeds and decoration, red herrings, but mostly foreshadowing to create suspense. Set up a question the answer to which lies in the information, but don't answer the question until the right moment.

Read up on writing craft techniques for creating suspense. Draw the suspense TIGHT, and then tighter, until when you break the suspense by presenting the tidbit of information, the reader is so relieved to find out that it's pleasure not pain to learn it.

Remember, people come to read fiction for pleasure. Don't make them work at it. Make it fun!

Play the game with the reader. You've read a good book or two; you know what that game is.

It's FUN!

So the process of breaking up a lump requires you to tease it apart until all the facts you've included stand separately. (some people would write down a list) Identify why you think the reader is dying to know each item on the list -- and most importantly, why you want the reader to know, and know it right now -- or maybe later will do.

Consider what the reader might imagine if you don't give the information.

Try leaving the information out. That will leave space for the reader to fill in the color, the backstory, the characterization, the details and make the world their own. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go watch some TV shows that have reams of fan fiction posted about them -- then go read the fan fiction that fills in the gaps from the televised show.

That's what readers pay writers for -- to unleash their own imagination, not to demonstrate the writers'imagination.

Marion Zimmer Bradley often repeated the quote, "The story the reader reads is not the story the writer wrote." I don't have the original attribution handy, but it was an important point she made often.

The grim reality is that readers don't want to read YOUR story.

Readers want to experience their own story their own way. You, as writer, are there only to provide the template for the entertainment -- you are the band playing the dance music, not the dance instructor leading everyone's moves on the dance floor. So don't provide too much detail and discipline -- open up the vision with a few brief, artistically chosen details so that the reader fills in the rest and makes your story their own.

In my Tuesday Aug. 19, 2008 post

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

I talked at length about how writing is a performing art. When you commit an Expository Lump, you are not performing, you're listening to the prompter (your own imagination) whisper your lines then repeating them in a dull monotone.

When it comes to backstory, you have many tools beyond exposition.

You have dialogue, sparse brush painting style description, actions (actors call it business) that speak louder than words, and narrative. Don't forget flashback, but that's a real tricky technique. Even though you move back in time, you must keep the story moving forward.

Marion Zimmer Bradley often described exposition as the writer popping up out of the paper to stand on the page, blow a whistle, and call TIME OUT while the writer explains the story to the reader, thus blowing the reader's suspension of disbelief, destroying the dreamy mood, peeling the readers' feet out of the characters' moccasins, and basically ruining the whole thing. The writer's "style" pre-empts the reader's imagination. So now the story is no longer fun to read.

So after deleting everything you possibly can from your Lump (keep the trimmings aside in a note file because you probably will need to put it in later; just because you're deleting it doesn't mean you're scrapping it), convert the rest of the Lump that really has to go here to Show rather than Tell.

Yes, this will take many more words and make the story longer, may require another character, or even a sub-plot and additional chapters. So you must choose with your artistic senses what to discard and what to show. Show only those things that really ADVANCE THE PLOT forward.

The key to choosing which details to expound upon and which to delete (even though in your mind's eye, you see the deleted ones -- the reader gets to choose their own details) is your THEME.

Any detail from your Lump which illustrates the theme can stay if you really need it to advance the plot. Any detail which does not illustrate or explicate the theme has to go no matter what else you have to change. Everything in the composition must explicate the theme(s) of this particular piece. Otherwise, what you've produced isn't art, nevermind performing art.

So now we see that Expository Lumps destroy the reader's enjoyment because they force the reader to see it your way while what the reader is paying you for is to stoke up their own imagination so they can see it their own way.

But the reader is also paying for a rip-roaring good story, and that means a story that moves, a plot that rocks!

How do you achieve that with all this background to stuff into the reader's head?

Keep in mind one of my simple definitions I've repeated many times here.

Action = Rate Of Change of Situation. Or PACING = Rate of Change of Situation.

Hollywood has set the standard for pacing in all genres. Novels now are hitting this standard, too. I review, remember. I read lots of books. Change has happened.

The Situation must change materially every 3 pages of script (according to several courses I've taken recently) -- or in a book every 3 pages of manuscript (or about every 750 words which is a rule I learned from A. E. Van Vogt in the 1950's and it has become the rule today.)

With a discipline like that, you won't produce any expository lumps because during a Lump the Situation can't change.

In fact, that's a good definition of Lump. It's a lump because it stops the flow of the story, the changes that generate the plot. Events don't "happen" inside a Lump. A Lump tells you about events that aren't happening right now or to these people.

And that's a good test to see if a paragraph is an Expository Lump or not. If the Situation of the plot has changed during that paragraph (not the reader's understanding of the Situation, but the actual Situation as the main character sees it) then it's not a Lump.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.slantedconcept.com/

http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Poverty and Speculative Fiction

Readers of this blog who are also on the FFandP yahoogroup may have noticed that Arwen (of Tarot by Arwen) posted a notice about International Blog Action Day, which takes place on October 15th.

Every year, for one day of a year, the Blog Action Day group aims to turn the blogsphere into a global think tank, but simply demonstrating global awareness of a world problem is enough.

This year's topic is Poverty.

http://blogactionday.org

"From the About Page:

One Issue, Thousands of Voices
Global issues like poverty are extremely complex. There is no simple, clear answer. By asking thousands of different people to give their viewpoints and opinions, Blog Action Day creates an extraordinary lens through which to view these issues. Each blogger brings their own perspective and ideas. Each blogger posts relating to their own blog topic. And each blogger engages their audience differently.

Mass Participation
From the smallest online journals, to huge online magazines, to EU ministers, to professionals and amateurs, Blog Action Day is about mass participation. Anyone is free to join in on Blog Action Day and there is no limit on the number of posts, the type of posts or the direction of thoughts and opinions."

http://blogactionday.org


If Arwen's post held out a baton to me, I've certainly run with it. I'm not sure why. I write Futuristic Romance. Normally, Romance writers are encouraged to write escapist fantasy, where Knights in armor smell manly but nice, no one has bad breath, heroines walk the streets without stepping in anything gross, there's almost always food in the space ship kitchens and the beds are clean. We tend to assume that Poverty and Disease (with the frequent exception of infertility) have been solved in our futuristic worlds.

"What do I know?" "What can I say?" "I'd like to help, but I've nothing to contribute..." has been a common thread on private discussion loops.

Showing up is probably enough. Posting a short excerpt from a novel where a hero or heroine face poverty or discuss poverty or destitution would work, I think. It has occurred to me that I probably ought to have something in one of my future books where some kind of privation is acknowledged, but basically I've been at a loss for what to do.

I got my answer today. Apparently, this is Capuchin month, and a monk was in church to explain how today's collection would help relieve a little bit of the effects of poverty in downtown Detroit. I'm going to interview that monk for October 15th. Although I don't have anything useful to say, I can make sure that a man who has taken a vow of Poverty gets his message out on the Blog Action Day for Poverty.

Will you sign up, and speak up on October 15th?

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

Back to the Future

Here's a book titled YOU CALL THIS THE FUTURE? by Nick Sagan (son of Carl Sagan) and two other authors:

http://www.amazon.com/You-Call-This-Future-Inventions/dp/1556526857/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219328593&sr=1-1

Profusely illustrated, it explores SF predictions of future technology, whether they have come true, and, if not, how close they are to realization. Each device or concept has two or three pages devoted to it. Some topics include flying cars, bionic body parts, robots, space travel, and cryonics. A few present-day marvels far outstrip the expectations of most Golden Age SF, such as calculators, cell phones, and personal computers. Some other examples of long-awaited technology, e.g. time travel, remain as distant as ever. I'm a little surprised that the authors don't include a section on the cashless economy, speculated about as long ago as Edward Bellamy's late nineteenth-century utopia LOOKING BACKWARD. This book is a fun read and a useful resource for SF writers.

Wrting As An Artform - A Performing Art

I've written extensively about writing as an artform in my review column

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/

but right after returning from Denvention III, the World Science Fiction Convention of 2008, I had another blazing, blinding insight into the mysteries of ART and storytelling.

For most people, this will seem boring, complex, abstract and maybe trivial or absurd. But this is an example of how I learn.

I suspect this insight was sparked by several factors I will identify below. It is a "perfect storm" of input and experiences that brought me what I want to share with you.

I think that reading -- and then writing about what you've read -- as well as writing original stories of your own, is a process, an adventure in consciousness. As you can't learn anything by reading books ABOUT that thing -- you can't learn to write by reading about writing. You have to do some writing -- but there's more to the homework. You have to assemble and express what you've learned. The apprenticeship method -- "See one. Do one. Teach one."

I want to point you to my review column of June 2008

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2008/

Where I discuss Spiderman 2 (which is a Romance, you know). I wrote that column nearly 6 months before this huge insight which came to me while I was watching (again) Spiderman 2.

Long ago, when I was in grammar school, Alma Hill, a professional writer who ran the first (free) writing workshop I ever joined which was under the auspices of the N3F (National Fantasy Fan Federation), a companion organization to SFWA ( Science Fiction Writers of America), taught me something that forms the foundation of this massive new insight. I use it for the motto of the WorldCrafters Guild (the free writing school we run on simegen.com).

Writing is a Performing Art.

As you can't learn acting or dancing or playing a musical instrument by reading about them, you can't learn writing by reading about writing. But likewise, just practicing in a room by yourself won't give you the skills of an actor, dancer or musician -- you must get out on stage before people and PERFORM because the art is a performing art. And WRITING IS A PERFORMING ART. It sounds so simple. I told you, therefore you know it. Ah, but it doesn't work that way. This is a very abstract notion that brings together a thousand theories of the universe into one package. It is profound!

WRITING IS A PERFORMING ART.

When you finally come to internalize that bit of wisdom, you begin to be able to flip your point of view from "outside looking into a story" to "inside looking out from the story into the world" -- onstage/offstage -- and then to flip back and forth so rapidly you can hardly tell which way you are looking at a piece of fiction.

So this insight I'm going to try to describe will sound obvious and useless from one point of view, and "the key to the universe" from another point of view.

It's complex because it is a synthesis of a huge range of experiences I've had at Denvention 3, then afterward, but goes back to grammar school, and includes much of the writing and working that I've been doing this last two years.

On the other hand, it is soooo obvious, that in retrospect I wonder how I could be so dull witted as not to have seen it and understood the implications before this. I suppose the whole world already has understood this and I'm the last to learn it. But I believe I can see it now because of a series of experiences. Here's a short list of those experiences.

At Denvention 3, right at the beginning of the convention, Kristin Nelson (Linnea Sinclair's agent) gave a talk on how to construct a query letter description of a novel you have written and are trying to sell. I listened raptly because she was painting what I knew already for years, but knew it as if it were an analog video. But she was painting me the same picture in DIGITIZED form. She made it soooo clear. So vivid. So sharp-edged.

I quoted Jean Lorrah's notes on Kristin Nelson's the method of formulating a novel description in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/denvention-3-walk-con.html

At the end of Kristin's talk, I commented from the audience and Kristin paraphrased my comment about writing the cover copy before you write the novel brilliantly:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/08/straight-from-reviewers-mouth.html

In my con report blog entry, I forgot to mention an encounter with Lois McMaster Bujold outside the Dealer's Room when we were headed in opposite directions at con speeds. She rattled off the startling news that she would be quoting me in her Guest of Honor speech at the Convention and sped away (remember, the mean free path of a pro at a con is about 15 feet, maybe 30 if you move fast enough).

So I sped off in the opposite direction and about 30 feet later, it hit me what she'd said. Wow. Amazing. She's quoting me in the Guest of Honor speech at WorldCon.

Here is her blog entry with a transcript of her speech which is about genres and particularly the blending of Romance and SF which is a hobbyhorse of mine.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?useaction=blog.view&friendID=164952151&blogID=423204224

Here's a quote out of the middle of Lois's magnificent speech:

So the two genres -- Romance and SF -- would seem to be arm-wrestling about the relative importance of the personal and the political. My solution for The Sharing Knife was to align the two levels by making the central characters be each a representative of their respective and conflicting cultures. Even so, to balance the elements I still had to divide the tetralogy into two halves, the first pair of volumes concentrating on cementing the relationship, and the second pair looking outward from this now-firm foundation once again to the larger stage. Most of all The Sharing Knife as a whole does not have a villain-driven plot, fun and cathartic as those can be. (I know: I've written a boatload of them.) For the political side, I set Dag and Fawn to wrestle with a much more difficult and diffuse problem, a demographic problem, not of merely destroying the villain du jour, but of building connections and friendships and fresh ways of doing things that will allow both their peoples to meet the challenge of many new dangers in their future. Building is harder than destroying. "Winning" in the usual sense is not what's going on, here, but the prize is certainly their world. Seeing where the books' argument is finally going to end up must wait for February 2009, and the last volume, Horizon.

The reader-response from the skiffy crowd so far has been exactly as my hypothesis predicted -- once the focus shifted back to the political in Book 3, they perked up and decided it was really a story after all. Except for the usual holdouts, who only process action as significant when it takes the form of "guys hitting each other", who are likely not the audience for these books in the first place. Although I am reminded of Jacqueline Lichtenberg's tart description of action scenes, roughly paraphrased: "The story is going along, but then stops while guys hit each other. Guys hit each other for three pages, then stop. The story starts again." (I've been watching a bit of shonen (that is, boys') anime lately, and I must say that describes those episodes to a T.)

Lois's comment on a casual comment I had made about action plotting (probably made the same comment on a number of panels over the years -- but didn't quite HEAR myself) finally penetrated all the way when I saw it paraphrased in print on her blog. I learn from reading not hearing.

At another point at Denvention 3 I was on a panel with Marc Zicree and once again thinking through what he has done with Star Trek and other SF in the visual media.

I'm also on the social network LinkedIn where from time to time writers ask very insightful questions that I feel impelled to answer. Sometimes I'm surprised at what I say! I answered a few questions on writing --

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelinelichtenberg

is my profile, and LinkedIn members should be able to find my answers (and link to me) on that profile.

So, these experiences are sinking in as I finally get some time to plop down and watch what's collected on my TV recorder. The oldest thing on there is taking up 3 hours of space and it's SPIDERMAN 2. Well, I can't erase it without watching it again. That's one I don't have the DVD for. So I watched it again.

Here's a quote from my June review:

Look more closely at Spiderman 2. Ostensibly about a guilt ridden Superhero fighting a monster created by pride, this movie discusses in depth the issue of what makes a human being a hero just as Elf discusses what property of the world creates the kindly generosity of Santa’s annual ride.

Where does the power come from? Where does magic come from? How does being the focus of the magic generated by public attention (Santa has his moment, but Spiderman is always expected to perform miracles) change a person? Where inside the ordinary human psyche does this magical power come from? And what can break it?

Are we all just broken superheroes or supernatural beings who could change the world if only we were fixed?

We all have our favorite answers. For Elf, the power comes from belief, which once restored let Buddy find his place in his world. For Spiderman, the power comes from a clear conscience purified by confession.

Power, which the world views as magical, or Star Wars dubs "The Force," is viewed as connected to the foundations of what many cultures call morality. But as Theodore Sturgeon advised, we must ask the next question, not just stop thinking at "Right Makes Might".

Well, I stand by all that. But now, out of the stew of experiences noted above and more, I see something in Spiderman 2 with that kind of DIGITIZED clarity Kristin Nelson achieved in her talk on query letters.

Amidst this stew of experiences, I had occasion to remember an insight I had into the genre of Comedy while watching the Mary Tyler Moore show.

I saw how the script writers took everyday human embarrassments, saying or failing to say something at just the right point, foibles, failings and pure NIGHTMARE ( like showing up at school in only your underwear ) -- experiences that we all think about in passing but then shun, flinch away from thinking about -- and then the screenwriter portrays those experiences on the screen in SHOW DON'T TELL.

At full concert pitch, the writer PERFORMS the experience for the viewer. The fictional situation and characters are "caricature" sketches of reality, not photographic recordings of reality. These are all analog experiences, analogous to but not the same as our everyday reality.

"The same as" wouldn't be funny.

The actors are tools the writer uses to evoke that exquisite pain, keeping it just short of the viewer's conscious recognition as pain.

I saw the mechanism by which comedy writers turned ordinary people's ordinary experiences of the ordinary world inside out and exposed the human's interior life for all the world to see.

That "exposure" of what is personal and private is what makes it funny.

I saw the mechanism that makes comedy "work" -- that gets a laugh.

And the great spiritual benefit of laughter lies not just in the physical release of tension and the physical exercise of the diaphragm -- it also lies in sharing our innermost subconscious reality with OTHER PEOPLE. Sitting in an audience (or watching TV alone, knowing others watch alone too), you can experience the subconscious and painful reality others live in and recognize yourself in those people.

Comedy, when done right, is a binding force of society as strong as love. And thus the Romantic Comedy rules the roost in films!

This Mary Tyler Moore insight came to me years and years before Blake Snyder wrote his definitive books on screenwriting, SAVE THE CAT! and SAVE THE CAT GOES TO THE MOVIES!

Snyder's main point is that the essence of story is the PRIMAL experience. He goes to considerable length explaining what "Primal" means in this context. The plot, the life-issues the main character faces must be (in order for the story to be movie material, not a novel) so basic, so purely human, that a caveman could understand it (no insult). It has to be something viewers grasp clearly from the images, something every human being understands because they are human.

What I saw in MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW is exactly what it is that makes COMEDY so very PRIMAL.

It was one of those "flip" moments when instead of being a viewer, watching from the outside, I became a writer, evaluating from the inside. I saw where inside the writer the primal comedy came from -- I saw the mechanism of comedy apart from the art of it. And I saw the art of it as the teasing balance on the edge of unbearable PAIN - emotional pain, primal emotional pain.

You're probably thinking: "Well, everybody knew that already! Where have you been?"

I'm sure you've read this exact same thing in many books about writing.

*sigh* but knowing and understanding are not the same thing. In that moment, watching THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, what I knew became something I understood. I grokked comedy as a writing craft -- consistent and reproducible, methodical and mechanical -- as well as an artform, unique and magical -- and as a performing art.

That insight has stayed with me, and now all these years later, I have another to add to it. This one is on SUPERHERO FANTASY.

One of the questions on LINKEDIN.com that I was intrigued by but didn't get to answer fully was about why it is that Americans are so responsive to the superhero movies today. I still don't know the answer to that question in full, but I have a whole new perception of what a superhero movie is.

What is the appeal of comic books? Graphic novels? Superman. Green Arrow. Lone Ranger. Spiderman. Buffy.

Just as I said in my Spiderman 2 review -- this is the story of every human being living inside him or herself.

Every one of us is a Superhero inside. We all know beyond a doubt who we really are -- and it is NOT that clumsy wimp or clutzy dunce the rest of the world sees.

We fight our everyday battles ( car breakdowns; buses that get us to work late; cell phones out of juice; stains on the white shirt we have to wear to a meeting; stubborn or suborned computers; high gas prices) until we reach total collapse of strength and will.

Our story is the story of confronting and facing down our internal demons, our own personal emotional issues (Spiderman's bout with Guilt is not everyone's emotional struggle; some people don't get disabled by Guild). Spiderman 2 is not OUR story, but it is ANALOGOUS TO the story of all our disparate emotional lives.

We gravitate toward the primal Superhero stories because they are about our own lives -- with ourselves cast as Superhero. We help others at risk to ourselves; we fumble and stumble and fall, cast off that "identity" and stand tall, lower our voices and answer the phone with our corporate voice. We all have many identities.

And we get confused. Are we really the Superhero -- or the wimp?

The primal Superhero story is about Identity. But it's our own search for identity -- the perplexing question of whether we are what the world sees us to be or what we know ourselves to be?

Where does our strength come FROM?

That is the COMIC BOOK STORY.

Like Comedy, the comic book story is about our universal internal life exposed for all to see and all to share.

When a comic book character (think Tom&Jerry) falls off a cliff and smashes flat against the ground, it is ANALOGOUS to what we feel when something unexpected and emotionally painful stuns us. Comic book action makes our invisible emotional responses visible.

The appeal of the comic book is simply that it replicates in art, writ larger than life, our very own internal struggle with that which opposes our will, ethics, morals, or sense of identity.

Just as Comedy exposes our inner, most secret fears of embarrassment and other emotional pain of that social sort -- the Comic Book (especially the violent Superhero ones) exposes our inner struggle with conflicting demands, thwarted will, the pain of being defeated, and the eternal search for the strength to overcome.

The ostensible primal story of the Superhero is the story of Strength coming to the rescue of the Weak and Defenseless.

But the secret to understanding why these stories are so popular among the weak and defenseless is the opposite to what you normally assume.

It isn't the fascination with being rescued that is so riveting. It is the affirmation of the inner conviction that you, yourself are inherently the Rescuer -- but you just have to figure out where to get the strength. The Super Strength.

Thus the most popular (and Primal) Superhero stories are about the Superhero's struggle to find out where to get the strength. Or when having the strength, the power, finding out when NOT to use it.

That isn't someone else's story. That is the story of our own everyday life exposed for all to see. We drive cars that are lethal weapons. Every driver has super-power. Every driver has the kind of super-power and super-problems that Spiderman does.

So contrast and compare THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW with SPIDERMAN 2. What do they have in common?

Writers who know how to use art to expose the mechanism of our internal psychological reality have mastered the hardest lesson in any course on writing -- SHOW DON'T TELL.

Reading about it won't give you any skill at using it.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com/