What Does She See In Him?

This is going to be an oddly rambling post, especially juxtaposed to the 2 on Scene structure and the Plot Vs. Story one on walking and chewing gum.

But trust me, all these rambling bits and pieces will eventually come together into something you might use to generate that elusive Mega-Alien Romance Movie-TV Series.

First I have to acknowledge that August 6th was a sad day for us as writers and as movie goers. Several of the Titans of The Biz passed away during that week, including the young and vibrant genius I keep quoting here, Blake Snyder.

Go to his website and drop a note on the blog at http://www.blakesnyder.com

His third book is due out this fall. I'm sure I'll be quoting it.

See a shortened list of those who've passed on at
http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/08/rip-notices.html

I hope I don't have to add any more any time soon.

As I've said before, what I'm attempting to convey with these posts on writing craft and the internal dynamics of the PNRomance, is just the essence our common heritage of campfire storytelling art and craft passed down through the generations.

These losses just make our task more formidable but also more urgent. Techniques must be passed on, taken up, carried on, and passed on again. This is our legacy for the far, far future of humankind. Our job here is to infuse that legacy with love.

Don't think that because you haven't heard of or memorized some director's or writer's byline that they haven't been contributing to our success with this task of illuminating a genre.

We are regarding Alien Romance as a genre or a crossed-genre. Some people are using the term "Speculative Romance" but SF never succeeded under the title "Speculative Fiction." It makes dictionary sense, but somehow not commercial sense. But this post isn't about what we call what we do. It's about the components that will eventually generate a label that will carry the genre to prominence. In this case "What Does She See In Him?"

See my comment on Margaret Carter's August 6th entry on this blog about Lovecraft and Romance that somehow lacks a title and thus a specific URL.

So once again let's revisit several of the craft techniques we've been discussing and synthesize them, doing several at once, finding the connecting links among all these apparently different writing processes.

In this effort, we may be able to resolve some of the conflicts we see between ways of teaching and ways of learning the fictioneer's trade.

So, what the heck DOES "she" see in "him?"

The reason that obvious question (that every Romance editor reads MS's looking for the answer to) is so hard to answer (in a writing lesson, in life, and when writing a novel) is that it is incredibly poorly phrased.

A good half, maybe 90%, of the answer to any math problem lies within the statement of the problem.

This key question to the Romance Genre Signature is poorly phrased for the same reason I discussed in Plot Vs. Story

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html

Writers who set out to teach writing all seem to use different words to refer to the same moving parts of stories because writers are mostly readers who are self-taught to become writers (since it's unskilled work, a hobby anyone can do, who would deign to teach it?) and have to make up their own vocabulary for what their artist's eye sees.

Yeah, it's not just the Romance or Alien Romance genres that are disregarded. It's WRITING that bears a stigma (not the stories produced but the craft itself). Ask any wife with a contract to deliver a book on deadline. Editors get more respect.

I have yet to cover in this blog the difference between an Editor and a Writer. These two skills require two totally separate brain functions which produce individuals with completely distinctive traits.

Producers and Writers likewise are distinctively different, which you'll see after you know a bunch.

But sometimes you get both in one package. Fred Pohl leaps instantly to mind. It will be a long post when I tackle that personality difference, but for the moment, let's focus on this nagging question that you, as a writer, must answer for the editor to decipher well enough to buy your MS.

What does she see in him?

To answer that question in your fiction convincingly, you must have an answer that makes sense to you, then you need to orchestrate a large number of these individual writing craft skills we've been illuminating, and you must do that orchestrating not with the conscious mind but with the subconscious.

That means "walk and chew gum," Or drive and sing along with your iPod, or cook and watch soap opera. Yeah, now you've got it. You must multi-task when you write.

You learn the procedures individually, then you combine them, doing two at once, then three at once, etc. until you're doing everything at once and don't even know it.

The typical daily 5PM routine of a Mother of small children comes to mind. You can do that; you can write a novel.

So using all these skills you have to convince an editor or producer that "She" does indeed see something in "Him," something that the READER/VIEWER will actually understand without having to think too hard, and that something explains why "She" does wacky things to be with "Him."

And you have to convince an editor your characters' actions make sense when the editor herself (himself sometimes) has no clue that the question is indeed poorly phrased.

What a tall order. (yeah, I love cliches)

So where to start figuring this out?

We discussed the construction of the HEA, the Happily Ever After ending that is so much a signature element of the Romance Genre that it must be the target ending for the Alien Romance, nevermind that not all SF ends happily.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/beauty-and-beast-constructing-hea.html

The HEA ending has to evoke a certain feeling in a reader.

More, it has to ping that bell for a huge readership composed of a lot of different kinds of people who maybe have at most one or two things in common.

An ENDING can be factored into its component parts to create a BEGINNING, which is why some writers start by writing the ending first.

The ENDING (HEA or not) contains all the elements within the story. All. No exceptions unless it's a series, in which case the Story Arc overarching all the volumes is the DRAMATIC UNIT that contains all the smaller ones, and each volume is a dramatic unit holding up that arch.

The structure-within-a-structure motif applies to every genre. Nothing can be in the composition that does not figure into understanding the ending. That's what it means "end." It won't feel like an ending at all if there are pieces in the drama that are left out of the ending (of the novel or the series, whichever, but everything drives toward that ENDING). It has to be an ending to be satisfying to the consumer who paid you to do this. And "ending" by definition contains ALL the elements that went before it.

The HEA is an ending.

But the HEA is not the ending of the Plot. It's not the ending of the Story. It's the ending of a DRAMATIC UNIT.

We discussed The Scene as a DRAMATIC UNIT, but I don't think I pointed out strongly enough that the entire story is a DRAMATIC UNIT, and if the story is in a series, then the whole series is likewise a DRAMATIC UNIT. (I'm putting these moving-parts tech terms in CAPS for a reason. I'm not shouting at you. I want you to be able to find the section of this discussion that answers questions that will arise later.)

Think about what that "entire story is a dramatic unit composed of smaller but identical dramatic units" concept means in terms of this poorly stated question, "What Does She See In Him?"

A Dramatic Unit starts with a feeling -- ANTICIPATION -- and ends with a feeling -- SATISFACTION.

The little dramatic units all string together in a rising arc of tension, driving toward that ultimate satisfaction, but to get there, to "rise" in emotional tension, each small unit must deliver something, a teaser, a hint of how that ending will feel. (sound familiar? It is, pretty much, like sex.)

HEA is a type of satisfaction. It is primarily the reader's satisfaction. Readers pay the bills, and have to get what they thought they paid for or they won't buy again.

So something has to be satisfied.

Before you can deliver an emotion driven by anticipated satisfaction, you (as any salesman knows) must first awaken curiosity, desire, need, an awareness of the lack of something. But more than an awareness of a lack (at a friend's wedding, crying because you don't have anyone to marry), the salesman (i.e. the writer, in this case) must first awaken ANTICIPATION that the lack, whatever it is, will be SATISFIED at the end.

In general, the novel can deliver any sort of satisfaction.

A mystery delivers the solution, satisfying the need to know (and the best is when the reader gets their guess about the solution ratified, but it can't be too easy.) A Western or Action Drama delivers dead bad buys and righteous good guys surviving.

The Romance and all genres crossed into Romance (Vampire, Lovecraft Horror, SF, Paranormal, Action, etc) has to deliver the HEA. The HEA is an extrapolation into a SECURE and PREDICTABLE future.

So if the HEA is the defining element in Romance, why does "she" have to see anything at all in "him?"

Take for example the woman on the hunt for a man, let's title this story STALKING WOMAN.

She cries at a friend's wedding, bereft with loneliness. She spies a guy. She sets her sights. She executes her plan. She hooks him. She preens at her wedding. She has achieved her goal, totally triumphant.

Is that an HEA?

No, it's an Action Adventure ending, goal achieved. War won. Captivity escaped or survived. Or as a romance reader might assess that ending, it's trouble in the making. Therefore, in a Romance, that wedding would be the MIDDLE (down-point) of the novel, where her real troubles begin, with the stakes raised, maybe Mr. Right appears as a waiter at her wedding to Mr. Wrong? Or it might make a decent opening to something like MR. AND MRS. SMITH which I discussed at some length in

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html
and
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/choosing-age-of-your-protagonist-to-win.html

What's the connection (walk and chew gum) between the CAUSE OF THE ATTRACTION and the EXTRAPOLATION INTO THE FUTURE ending? Think again of STALKING WOMAN.

Where is the error in phrasing the question, "What Does She See In Him?" And vice-versa of course.

Your objective is to deliver an HEA to a reader you've never met and probably won't. How do you know what will satisfy that reader, what their idea of HAPPY might be? How do you know that your reader will be enthralled by a woman who sees heroism in a truck driver? They might be repelled by heroism in a truck driver. What kind of HEA can a truck driver's wife expect?

Does it matter "what" causes the attraction in "What Does She See In Him?" Will any human trait work as "attractive" enough for any reader you might reach to anticipate the satisfaction of a permanent relationship?

Next think about "See." What does she SEE in him (& Vice-Versa).

Does the character have to "see" something in another character in order to have their romance genes activated?

That is, "see" in the sense of be consciously aware.

Is it indeed the CHARACTER who has to understand why she is attracted to this guy, in order for the READER to experience anticipation satisfied?

Do people in real life know why they marry a particular person? Are they always right about that?

Does a reader have to know the exact and true REASON that one character is attracted to another? And does the reader have to agree with the character about "what" the attracting trait is? Might not the reader "see" a different attracting attribute than the attracted character THINKS is causing the attraction?

Who among us understands themselves deeply enough to articulate what it is about our spouse that attracted or attracts us?

Do you know why you dislike certain people? Or do you just make up excuses, rationalizations for a feeling you feel, but somehow need to explain because our culture demands that we explain ourselves?

Can a reader attain satisfaction and an HEA sensation if all you offer is a rationalization about why one character is attracted to another, knowing that what one person sees in another may not always actually be there?

Thus the dual-POV Romance lets the reader see what he sees in her, what she sees in him, and maybe that neither one is seeing correctly.

But then does everyone reading this know what is REALLY going on inside their own subconscious mind? As the writer, you need to do most of your writing work subconsciously, outside your own awareness, and you need to trust your subconscious to produce usable material. How much do you really need to understand about your own subconscious in order to achieve that? (Well, as everyone knows, writing is unskilled labor, you see. So easy anyone can do it.)

Remember, we're talking about SF or SF Romance, or Paranormal Romance, where the two characters involved might not be of the same species. There may be no "she" or "him" involved at all.

For me, that's what makes it interesting. (see my Dushau Trilogy - and if you can't find it at a reasonable price, I'm expecting it'll be available again in a new edition. Subscribe to this blog, or see my FriendFeed box for other ways to get announcements.)

So this discussion of such a simple question is getting really confusing. Such a mess.

"What does "She" see in "Him?"

When answering a question that is so apparently simple leads to a mess like this, it's reasonable to suspect the question was not phrased well, and so can't be answered directly.

We're juggling a lot of parameters here, all moving parts in the fiction delivery system.

A) The Editor
B) The Reader
C) The Characters
D) The Reviewer
E) The Writer

All of these have to achieve satisfaction at the end of your dramatic unit. Yes, you get to be satisfied, too.

All these people are all different. Three of them you'll never really know well, or at least don't know now. (even if you write a book on contract for a given editor, that editor may move before your book is turned in)

How do you figure out what all these people are anticipating and what will satisfy their anticipation and give them a sense of a secure future? And what has the answer to that question got to do with the problem of what one character sees in another?

I have an answer to that. It may not be your answer.

Some writers maybe shouldn't even know their own answer to that! Too much conscious input can ruin a story, which is another reason I use editingcircle.blogspot.com for analyzing THROW AWAY exercises at writing craft techniques. If you workshop a story you want to sell, focusing conscious critical attention on every moving part, you end up producing an unsellable mess that looks like an assignment for a writing course, not a story for publication. So you need to make up toss-off stuff to workshop and practice techniques, (doing scales at home) then PERFORM your actual story for sale and send it to an editor (dress rehearsal) THEN finally perform the rewrite to editorial specs for publication.

Now that you've gnawed on this problem set a bit, I'll show you my answer if you show me yours (that's what the comments section here is for).

If you've been reading my posts here for the last two years or so, you probably know my answer.

PHILOSOPHY.

Philosophy is the carrier wave that you impress your information on, and it carries that information to your editor, reader, reviewer (me), and back to yourself, delivering satisfaction.

The carrier wave of the universe.

I hope you all understand radio and broadcast TV well enough to understand how a carrier wave works. It's like the dial tone you hear when you open your telephone and it's ready for a call. (but a dial tone isn't a carrier wave)

A carrier wave is a plain, simple, smooth, regular ripple, a hum underneath the universe. In STAR WARS terms, The Force which can carry A DISTURBANCE to those sensitive to the carrier wave.

In the case of humans and culture (yours, your reader's, your editor's), the carrier wave is our ambient culture's values. Our philosophy.

The USA is an amalgam of dozens of disparate and often conflicting cultural heritages, which is one reason some of our artistic products such as films do well in other countries. Most individuals in the USA partake of several conflicting philosophies. It's a wonder we're even a little bit functional!

The writer is a performing artist who selectively recreates the reader's reality (which is the carrier wave that connects writer and reader).

Your philosophy (you have one even if you don't know it) shapes what you "see" as reality. No two of us see the same reality. We filter whatever objective reality may be out there into a shape and color that fits our philosophy.

Philosophy comes first. Emotions are shaped by philosophy. Actions are powered by emotion. Results proceed to manifest - and this is the spooky part - to express in concrete, everyday reality, the exact philosophy the subconscious holds as that philosophy flows down through the lower 3 levels. The universe is all of one piece.

In previous posts here, I showed you how that works with the level of Actions and Material results, in the 20 posts on the Tarot.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/10/10-swords-your-chickens-come-home-to.html -- has an index of the previous posts

The levels of Philosophy and Emotion, Wands and Cups, are covered in two as yet unpublished volumes, but I'm hoping to have those available soon. Delays keep happening.

The artist selects carefully among all the bits of philosophy that she knows, to highlight and explicate those bits of philosophy that the writer, editor, reviewer and reader have in common. That's why a writer must know more philosophy than almost any other profession, philosophers included.

To create the bonding force between two characters, a romance writer selects bits of reality and leaves out other bits, to bring a picture, an image, a pattern to the foreground, a pattern the reader (and editor) will recognize only subconsciously.

When a reader recognizes some pattern in a story subconsciously, they "buy into" the premise of the fiction (believe six impossible things before breakfast). The World the writer has Built becomes real to the reader even if it mostly doesn't resemble their ambient reality.

The congruence between the reader's perceived ambient reality and the fictional built world becomes the CARRIER WAVE, the philosophical juncture between the subconscious of the writer and the subconscious of the reader.

THUS

The question, "What does she see in him" becomes utterly meaningless.

What she is consciously aware of, uses as an excuse, or rationalizes about him is NOT the source of the attraction, and satisfying that rationalization would produce no more pleasure than satisfying any other neurotic need ever does.

Neurotic need: take for example someone whose neurotic need is to be rich. Goes to school, gets degrees, works hard, workaholic trait busts up the family, gets HUGE fortune amassed, commits suicide leaving a note about misery. (notice that I told a story here in PLOT OUTLINE form)

A neurotic need is one that can't be satisfied by the apparent target of that need.

"What she sees in him" is that kind of illusion or twist. No amount of "him" will satisfy her need for him.

That's how it is in the real world. Our subconscious, true needs, bind us to each other, not our conscious rationalized needs (which often drive us apart - hey, guys, CONFLICT IS THE ESSENCE OF STORY).

Depict that subconscious binding force via your selective recreation of reality, i.e. worldbuilding, in your fiction, and your characters walk off the page into your readers' dreams.

Trying to answer the question "What does she see in him" creates what Hollywood calls "on the nose" dialogue and plotting. It just fails to communicate, or amuse, or to mean anything because it says what it means rather than placing the real meaning in subtext.

"On the nose" dialogue gets instant rejection in Hollywood. "On the nose" plotting gets instant rejection in Manhattan.

So "What does she see in him" becomes a totally new question. You should restate it for yourself, because your restatement may not be mine, and the stating is an artform in itself.

But mine is, "What subconscious element binds writer, reader, editor, reviewer, and CHARACTER together? What is the carrier wave?"

The carrier wave will be found in the philosophy.

Once you've sorted the carrier wave out of the background noise of our ambient culture, you can use it to carry your information (emotion is information). Then you will have the tone or wavelength that becomes your THEME.

How do you find themes? How do you figure out what themes will work for this or that story, plot or drama?

This subject is a big, amorphous mass of sticky stuff. How can you train your subconscious to sort through it all and find ART you can use to convey your ideas?

Remember, readers live in a big amorphous mass of sticky stuff that doesn't make any sense to them. They read novels to be shown patterns which they can later see hidden in the stuff of life. That's what artists do, find and display patterns that art consumers won't discover on their own.

So how do you train yourself to look at your world, the same world your readers live in, and re-sort the amorphous mass of reality into a pattern your readers will enjoy because you can make life make sense to them? (i.e. deliver to them an HEA that is plausible enough to feel in their bones)

Back again to PHILOSOPHY (my answer to most questions).

That big amorphous mass we call reality sorts itself very neatly into patterns of 10 compartments, and once sorted neatly enough, every living person on this earth will find something in it to recognize, and something to respond to emotionally because it communicates directly to the subconscious.

That pattern of 10 is most commonly and easily available as the Tarot.

One of the first things you learn when you start to study Tarot is that it pretty much pre-dates most religions and contains the recognizable basics of all religions. The understructure is the structure of the universe, and all religions are derived from ways that Avatars have used to explain what they saw when then ascended on High and viewed All Reality from the perspective of the Throne.

Thus, internalizing the structure of The Tarot, and using that structure as your carrier wave, can let you communicate with readers of vastly disparate religions, and even atheists and agnostics.

The Tarot is particularly well suited to communicating Love.

That's why, when this blog posed the question of why it is that Alien Romance is not a highly respected genre, and the question of what we can do to change that arose, I decided to finish my series of volumes on The Tarot and make them available.

The way of looking at the world through the structure of Tarot shows reality as iterations of a unified pattern of 10. It is just one of the many (MANY) philosophies extant in the USA nevermind the rest of the world. It's not a question of "right" or "wrong." It's a question of what we have in common, and of all those elements in common, what can be used in Worldbuilding.

This pattern of 10 method, and subsets of it, subsume religious and philosophical barriers, and can be accessed by any artist (you don't need a mathematical mind).

From explaining Tarot for writers, I went to giving a primer on Astrology in a series of posts starting 7/15/2008
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/07/astrology-just-for-writers.html

There are 5 posts so far directly on astrology and a few other posts mentioning it in passing.

Astrology is also mentioned in the posts on Tarot because they are really the same subject, and if you know one, it's easy to explain the other in terms of the one. It doesn't matter which you start with.

These two esoteric disciplines, Tarot and Astrology, address the SYMBOLISM we all share as human beings. I've barely touched on how the writer can use symbolism in fiction. Academics write papers on it. I'm sure you've all studied it in college.

Tarot and Astrology are not separate and apart from Psychology, Sociology, Archeology, Anthropology, Linguistics, or even bio-physics.

If you know any of those academic disciplines, you will immediately pick up on the repetitive echoes of them in Tarot and Astrology. You may discover there's nothing left for you to learn from Tarot and Astrology. Most of your readers won't know these disciplines either, and you should never let your knowledge show through "on the nose" in your fiction.

As with the terminology of the difference between plot and story and drama, it doesn't matter what you call this carrier wave element of humanity that binds us all, and binds us into pairs, and then families. I call it philosophy. Invent your own term.

You don't have to be gnostic or agnostic or atheist or a follower of any religion to "get it" on the level an artist needs to have it in order to create with philosophy.

It doesn't matter what you CALL the human soul, or the way our souls connect.

It does matter that you have a clean, clear, operational, precise and accurate personal internal grasp of the moving parts and working components of the amorphous sticky-ball we are embedded in.

The ARTIST's job is to peel away the layers of sticky and amorphous slop in our universe and reveal the pattern underneath it.

That is what those who formulated the question "What Does She See In Him?" were groping toward without knowing it.

The question that the artist must answer for the reader in metaphorical visual terms, though the characters are ignorant and should remain ignorant, is "Which universal elements do "She" and "Him" share?"

Do they live in the same universe or different universes?

What two lovers believe doesn't matter. Look how many mixed marriages work just fine!

The binding force of the universe that rivets us into pairs is not affected by belief or rationalizations. It is a product of the carrier wave subsuming our reality.

The easiest and quickest way I have found for understanding the relationship between Philosophy, Emotion, Thought, and Deed is this Tarot Structure study that I walked you through on this blog.

But I only explored a single pathway connecting the 10 different states of mind. There are ever so many other ways to connect Her this to His that.

The interconnecting pathways between the 10 different states of consciousness sort the impossibly complex mess of reality into something even the human mind can handle and the human heart can respond to. All readers subconsciously know this pattern, and exult to see it depicted in art.

Tarot is the artist's filing system. It clarifies the subconscious and makes it accessible to your art.

It's not what one person "sees" in another. It's what one person responds to in another (CUPS - Romance is all about CUPS, EMOTION), and why that response happens.

Once you can parse the universe of your everyday reality into this ten-fold filing system, the binding forces among souls becomes clear. If you can show that clarity to your readers, they will respond with joy and relief and satisfaction of understanding that love is not mysterious nor bewildering nor crippling.

This 10-unit model of the universe explicated by Tarot corresponds to what the old time mystics called The Music Of The Spheres, and yes there is a relationship to the planets of our solar system. And you can learn it well enough to play that Music - writing is a performing art. Love, Romance and even Sex all have an analogue in Music.

So you take my 25 blog posts and amalgamate them, infuse the result with your OWN philosophy (not mine, for crying out loud!), select from that amalgam, and extract a theme you can build a world to showcase.

Then answer the question in your fiction: What note is "She" tuned to? What scale is "She" singing on?

She will bond with a lover who can play her as if she were the Stradivarius among women. He will bond with a lover who can play him as if he were a Steinway among men.

See? It's not "what" or conscious awareness of a trait. It's recognition of that 10-fold pattern underlying the Tarot, and the 10-fold variable model of human personality inherent in Astrology (9 planets, Sun and Moon make 11 just like Tarot's shadowy 11th Sepherah). Isn't it odd that Pluto was demoted from planet status, a shadowy 11th element in our Astrology?

Western music uses an 8 tone based musical scale. But that's not an intrinsic property of sound. It's a convention. Ever listened to Japanese music?

Analogy, archetype, meta-cognition, fuzzy math. Meat and potatoes for the writer.

Go listen to the Music of the Spheres and determine what scale you will perform your masterpiece in. Listen to some Opera duets between male and female singers. There's no "what" and no "see" involved. It's soul level attunement.

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

Pointing and Viewing Conflict

We've had a couple of fun discussions going on over on my Yahoo group where several of my students from recent online class have decided to take up residence. We've been discussing both point of view, and conflict. As I say i every one of the classes that I teach: it's almost impossible when talking about the craft of writing fiction to talk about solely one aspect of that craft. Commercial genre fiction is more than one aspect of writing, just as a a cake is more than an egg.

The point of view you choose in writing directly impacts upon the kind of conflict you end up working with. Not only the point of view character you choose to write from, but also the style of point of view: first person, third person, tight third. In first person point of view you are likely going to have a lot more internal conflict than you would in regular third person point of view.

A side note: you may notice that when I talk about writing. I tend to use the word "likely" a lot. That's because there is no one 'every time -- all the time' rule in writing, except of course things like grammar and spelling. I have this fear --- and yes it does happen --- that if I say something like "first person point of view has far more internal conflict" that I'm going to get comments on this blog, pointing out specific stories where first person point of view lacks internal conflict. I know that. As I said, there is no every time -- all the time rule.

So back to point of view and conflict. If you're writing first person point of view or tight third point of view, you are likely going to have a lot more internal conflict. I think one of the reasons for this is obvious. But if not, here it is: you're dropping the reader tightly and intimately into the character's skin. When you do that, the character's thoughts and feelings are in the forefront.

The point of view character you choose, whether in tight third a regular third, greatly affects the form of the conflict. Each character starts out in a story with a goal or a set of goals, which likely will change or morph as the story progresses. The thwarting of these goals is what creates conflict. How that conflict is structured depends upon how you build your character. Is he an introspective chap? Is she a gregarious gal? Does he say one thing and think another? Was she raised in a home where her opinions are not valued? All these kinds of things, many of which are back story, impinge on conflict.

I apologize if to any of you, this sounds simplistic. But I judge a lot of unpublished writing in national contests, and I teach a lot of classes to unpublished writers. Sometimes the most simple things are the ones that are overlooked. This includes the integration of the various segments of the craft of fiction, which is why I'm talking about point of view and conflict.

One of the most common questions --- that Jacqueline has addressed here many times --- is whose point of view should I be in? The obvious answer is the point of view of the character, who has the most to lose at that point in the story. Or as Jacqueline puts it: the character who is on the positive pole of the transaction. The character whose actions will make a difference. Obviously, if the character's actions make a difference, this creates an emotional reaction in the reader, because it changes the flow of the story. So the two are really very well intertwined.

So when you're creating your characters remember to create them with conflict in mind. Structure them in such a way that the plot allows you to question and challenge their goals and their values.

I love literary agent Donald Maas's tip: "Take your character's greatest strength and make it his greatest weakness."

That's the purest form of choosing the proper point of view, and integrating it with conflict.

~Linnea

HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, Feb. 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

She fought the urge to salute and instead watched him head for a striper standing in the corridor, realizing she didn’t know his name or rank. Not that it mattered. There was something very familiar about him, something that resonated in a distant yet warm part of her heart. Something that told her she not only trusted him but that she’d follow him into the jaws of hell and out again. And never regret it.

Is anybody out there? Help for new speculative romance writers

kudos to the Hubblesite for posting such incredible images
Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, C. Ma, H. Ebeling, and E. Barrett (University of Hawaii/IfA), et al., and STScI

It's an almost universally accepted truth among Romance writers that Romance writers are delightful people, consummate professionals, and extraordinarily helpful to others in their profession.

Test the premise. Visit the websites of established authors in any genre, and you might discover a treasure trove of excellent advice, tips, links, resource materials, texts of workshops, templates... and much, much more.

If an author has been awarded the Preditors and Editors "Author's Site of Excellence" award, you ought to find helpful information beyond self-promotion on that site.

However, increasingly, authors are sharing the info from their blogs and websites in other forums as well.

One remarkable website is http://www.iwofa.net
IWOFA is an acronym for Infinite Worlds Of Fantasy Authors, and so far 400 authors of speculative fiction have joined this cooperative (free to join) group

This is the page with Member Articles.
http://www.iwofa.net/memberarticles.htm


A website you may not have discovered, and which caters to all genres is 1stTurningPoint.com

The Treasure Trove page of articles on a variety of subjects is http://1stturningpoint.com/?page_id=539


If you are a member of LinkedIn.com, you will find dozens of helpful groups
including Authors of Romance Helping Authors of Romance, and also First Time Authors.

On GoodReads.com there's Tips For Self Promotion Sales and Advertising. I'm not sure if the link will work for non-members, but just in case, here it is: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/8255.Tips_for_Self_Promotion_Sales_and_Advertising

Another source of advice and tips is the Published Authors group http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/8322.Published_Authors

Also, there are groups for every genre, and one that might be of interest to readers and writers has over 1,800 members and is: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/390.Paranormal_Romance


Finally, and this is the only recommendation today that is not free:
www.romance-ffp.com

Of course, readers may visit free. Authors must belong to RWA ($75) and then may join the subgenre chapter FFandP for the annual subscription of a further ($15).

Authors can add photos, bios, facebook, twitter links, and add all their books to the library, where readers can search by genre and subgenre, or just browse by author, with links to purchase the books.



I've mentioned blogs and newsletters before. One of the most helpful, free newsletters is Penny Sansevieri's and you can sign up for it at http://amarketingexpert.com

Also, check out the permanent links in our sidebar. The Galaxy Express is a superb blog in our genre. And, please, if you know of another great blog, website, or group that ought to be included in this discussion, please add the url to our Comments.


Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
Space Snark™

IWOFA chapters sampler
http://www.freado.com/book/3726/IWOFA-Sampler-#1--October-2009

Competing in a social networking contest (please vote)
http://tinyurl.com/Award-5-Stars

When at story doesn't work

This is where I started to have fun. While researching I found out that Buffalo Bill's Wild West show was in England in 1887. These were some of my heroes from my youth. And I really enjoy writing Cowboys. Dax's character seemed to take off and I was envisioning his back story in my mind.


Chapter Three
David Alexander Cochran opened his eyes with some difficulty and looked at the three feathers that swung back and forth in front of his face. He lay on his side in the dormitory facing a long row of empty bunks. Empty bunks meant that he had overslept. Great. His first day in England and it was already half wasted.
“Great Dax,” he mumbled to himself. “Not only did you sleep in but apparently you’re seeing things.”
He rolled over on his back and wiped the sleep from his eyes. The feathers were attached to a twisted circle of willow branch that was intricately woven with brightly color threads. The circle hung from the bunk above him. He was pretty sure it hadn’t been there when he fell asleep the night before. How in the heck did it get up there during the night without him knowing it?
He heard a chirp and realized that he was not alone. Two people stood at the end of his bunk. He sat up and his head pounded in protest. It felt like he’d been on a three-day drunk. If only he had. That could be fixed with a concoction he’d picked up from the Arapaho.
“Dream catcher for Dax.” Red Shirt said in his broken English from the end of his bunk. The Indian’s Chippewa wife, Little Deer, stood beside him smiling broadly. She didn’t speak a word of English but she nodded in agreement as if she understood what they were talking about.
Maybe she did. Dax sure as hell didn’t.
What was she holding in her hands? Was it a bird? Was he still dreaming?
As if she read his mind Little Deer opened her hands a bit. Sure enough a bright yellow bird sat nestled in her palms. She brought her hands up to her face and said something to the bird and it broke into song. Red Shirt nodded his approval and the two walked off, leaving Dax scratching his head in confusion.
“They were worried about you,” Buck said. Buck Taylor dubbed King of the Cowboys by Will Cody was just a few years older that Dax. Buck had a way with horses and could do things with a rope that seemed impossible. They’d become friends since Dax joined the show last winter, more so in the two weeks they’d spent on the ship since there’d been plenty of time for talk.
“Was it the Comanche?” Buck asked.
“What?”
“In your dreams,” Buck said. “I figured from the way you were hollering that you must have been dreaming about the Comanche.”
“I was hollering?” Dax asked. He tried to remember what he’d dreamed about but all he could recall was a sense of fear and a lot of running from something or someone. The rest of it was pretty much a mystery. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and looked sideways at Buck.
“Like you were being skinned alive,” Buck said.
Dax ran a hand down his bare chest just to make sure his skin was still attached. He’d come close to losing it one time and that was enough.
“I don’t remember what I dreamed about,” Dax confessed. “Maybe it was the Comanche.” He looked at Buck as if he held the answers. “Was I really that loud?”
“Loud enough that they heard you out in the Indian Camp. Loud enough that Little Deer made you that dream catcher. She said it would catch the bad spirits that caused nightmares and let the good spirits through so you’ll only have sweet dreams from now on.”
“That loud,” Dax groaned. It was humiliating to think that every one on the twenty-three acre exhibition grounds had heard him carrying on.
“Jasper kicked the end of your bunk and you stopped,” Buck explained. “But yeah, it was loud. Everyone jumped up and grabbed their guns because they thought we were under attack.”
“Dang it,” Dax moaned. “Now everyone probably thinks I’m some namby pamby momma’s boy who’s afraid to be away from home.
“Nobody thinks that,” Buck said. “We all know what you’ve been through in the past. It would be enough to give anyone of us nightmares, Cody included. Still you better hope that thing does its job or you’ll be sleeping out in the cold next time.”
Dax dubiously eyed the dream catcher. His experiences with the Indians, especially Geronimo, had taught him not to doubt the things that were in the spiritual realm. It seemed like a mighty big job for a bunch of thread and feathers to pull off. Still there was nothing to lose by leaving it be.
“Are you planning on lollygagging all day?” Buck asked.
“I’m up,” Dax kicked the blankets off and reached for his pants. “Is there anyplace around where we can take the horses for a good run?”
“There’s a park,” Buck said dryly.
“A park?” He was supposed to run Katie through a park? Sounded kind of sissified for a horse that was used to the wide-open spaces. He needed to get her out where he could let her have her head and run the kinks out from being on the ship. Dang it. He needed to run his own kinks out too. There was nothing like riding flat out with the wind in your face to settle a man’s mind and get rid of the cobwebs. That was probably why he’d had the nightmares. There had been too much time spent closed in. There were those who would argue that being in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean didn’t count as being closed in. However being on a boat could give one a feeling of claustrophobia since there was no place on it where you could run. Plus the smells tended to get to him. Unwashed bodies, all the animals below deck, and the scent of the ocean were not smells he enjoyed. He would much rather fill his lungs with the smells of prairie grass and the wind. Flowers weren’t bad either. The girl he’d talked to yesterday, the one called Merritt. She smelled like flowers. Like real pretty flowers. Pretty like she was. I wonder if she will come to the show…
“Welcome to the mother country,” Buck said with a wide grin. “Whatever you plan on doing, just make sure you’re back here in time to get ready for the reception tonight. Major Burke has got all the promoters coming. They want to get things going right away and get the public excited about the show.”
“Great,” Dax sighed. “Guess I better get my suit pressed too.”
“You got it,” Buck said. “And a shave wouldn’t hurt either.”
Dax ran his hand over the three day growth of beard. “Maybe I’ll just grow one of them lip squirrels like you got.”
Buck’s lips quirked beneath his impressive handlebar mustache. “You always were jealous of my good looks,” he said. “Maybe if you try hard enough you’ll grow enough hair to have one of these.”
“I’m not sure if it’s worth the trouble,” Dax said. “From what I can tell it hasn’t impressed the ladies.”
“And that scruff you’ve got on your face has?”
“I’m not giving away any of my secrets,” Dax replied as he opened the trunk sitting at the end of his bunk and rummaged through it for his suit. “But I had one leaning out of her carriage yesterday so she could talk to me.”
“Most likely she was trying to get away from the buffalo.” Buck laughed.
“Think what you will,” Dax said. “She said she was coming to the show.”
“Try not to scare her too bad if and when she shows up,” Buck laughed as he left. “Maybe we’ll let Cody sweet-talk her into staying.”
“Go ahead. Laugh it up,” Dax mumbled as he pulled his rolled up formal suit from the trunk. The sea voyage had not been kind to it. It was a mass of wrinkles. He found the shirt and tie that went with it and threw it on his bunk. Thankfully, Cody employed a laundress with the show so he wouldn’t have to deal with it himself. He’d have to use his own brand of sweet-talking to get it done on time but the prospect didn’t bother him too much. He’d never had any trouble charming the ladies when he needed too.
Dax pulled on his shirt and boots. Without even thinking about what he was doing, he strapped on his double action colt and checked the cylinder for bullets. It was so much a part of him that some of the members of the show had ribbed him about wearing it that first day on the ship. He did leave it off after that and felt naked the entire time. It wasn’t as if he was planning on shooting at fish, although it had been tempting to give it a try when some skimmed over the waves as they steamed along. Flying fish they were called, or so one of the sailors said. He wasn’t one to shoot an innocent animal, or fish as the case may be but it did seem like a challenge at the time. Still he resisted the temptation with the knowledge that there would be plenty of opportunity for trick shooting once they reached England.
His first task of the day was taking care of Katie. So after charming the laundress and grabbing a bite in the ground floor dining hall set up for the performers he made his way out of the dormitory that had been built especially for their stay on the American Exhibition grounds.
The amphitheater seated over 20,000 people with room for another 10,000 in standing room only. The arena, which was part of the amphitheater, was a third of a mile in circumference, which gave room for a lot of whooping and hollering when the time came for the show to begin. Dax had a feeling the British had no idea what was about to hit them.
The Indians with the show created their own village on the grounds. Their teepee’s looked just a bit out of place with the buildings of London looming in the distance. However there was already a sense of community among the different groups represented. Cook pots bubbled over open fires and children scampered about, glad to be free after two weeks aboard ship. There was close to a hundred Indians of various tribes with the show along with a hundred white men and women who served as performers, wranglers, musicians and staff. Then there were the various animals: horses, buffalo, deer, elk and a great brown bear that looked mean enough to kill the Queen herself but was as harmless as a kitten.
The people of London best be forewarned. The American Wild West had just hit town.

“Quit messing with it,” Dax said to Buck later that evening.
“I hate these dang things,” Buck said as he stuck his finger in the neck of his formal shirt. “I feel like there’s a noose around my neck and the hangman is waiting to drop the trap.”
“If Cody catches you fingering it one more time he’ll be stringing you up himself,” Dax replied. “Eat one of them bitty sandwiches so you’ll quit thinking about it.”
“I can’t,” Buck said. “It chafes my neck when I swallow.”
Dax shook his head. Buck might dazzle the eye on horseback but in the middle of a formal affair he was lost. And this was one heck of a formal affair. He’d been introduced to more Lords and Ladies than he could shake a stick at. It was so crowded at the reception that it near to impossible to move without several excuse me’s and I beg your pardons. He tried to keep an eye out for the pretty girl he’d talked to the day before but it close to impossible to find anyone in the mass of people, especially someone he didn’t really know. He was certain he’d recognize her if he saw her again. There was something about her blue eyes…
“Do you think everyone in the entire city of London is here tonight?” Buck groaned.
“Only the important ones,” Dax said.
“Makes it darn near impossible for a man to breath,” Buck grumbled, then quickly recovered as a dandy approached them and asked Buck a question.
Dax hid a grin behind his cup of punch. Even though he talked like a cowboy he could hold his own in polite conversation when needed. It was one of the reason’s Cody hired him on. He was adaptable. He had grown up in Boston’s polite society with his stern grandmother before heading west to find his father. She had taught him about the finer things in life. He knew how to dress for a party and hold a teacup. He could even dance a waltz if the situation called for it. From the looks of the company gathered in the ballroom of the fine house on Park Lane there wouldn’t be any waltzing tonight unless it was two-stepping one of the tunes the Cowboy band played. Tonight it was all about the Wild West show.
Red Shirt and a few of the other Chiefs stood in the corner of the parlor decked out in all their feathered finery. Occasionally one or more would nod in agreement at the group of men and women gathered around them. Mostly they talked about the Indians as if they were an exhibit in a museum but every now and then someone would ask a question and Red Shirt would try to answer in his broken English. One gent clearly thought that Red Shirt was deaf as he kept shouting questions at him as if it would help him to understand. Dax felt sorry for the man. Just when he was getting used to using the white man’s language he was suddenly bombarded with the British accent.
Annie Oakley and her husband Frank Butler were doing much better than Red Shirt. Even though Annie was barely five feet tall she was still a commanding presence, even in her self made costume that was a bit out of place among the satins and silks of the ladies but still suited Annie herself. Frank, who was a fair shot himself, doted on wife and made sure all attention was on Annie. Cody was with them and the two men entertained a group in the center of the room with tails of Annie’s shooting feats.
“I’ve heard rumors that she can shoot the ash off a cigar while you hold it in your mouth,” one gentleman said to Frank.
“Actually it’s the ash off a cigarette.” Frank’s pride was evident.
Dax moved closer while the crowd murmured their disbelief. He knew where the conversation was headed and needed to be available for Cody.
“Not only can she shoot the ash off a cigarette,” Cody said. “She can shoot a dime at 90 feet.”
The murmurs grew to a rumbling. Dax managed to hide his smile as he heard the remarks.
“And she can split a playing card from the side.”
“Impossible.”
“Hard enough for a man to do so, but a woman?”
“I simply do not believe it.”
Dax watched as Cody smiled and sipped his drink until the words the showman had been waiting on reached his ears.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Cody lifted his arms wide and addressed the crowd as if he were treading the boards of a stage play. “Would you care for a demonstration?”
The rumbling of disbelief changed to a chorus of ascent.
“Of course we will need a gun,” Cody added and one appeared as if by magic. Dax grinned at Cody’s plan. It was Annie’s very own smooth bore Winchester that had been made specifically for her and secretly carried in to the party beneath one of the blankets worn by an Indian. Dax’s own double action colt sat beneath his right arm in a shoulder holster, just in case he needed it. It was there strictly for demonstration purposes, or so he reminded himself. Years of living on the edge had definitely left a mark upon his soul.
Annie smiled humbly as she took the rifle and Frank beamed with pride. Their host, who was one of the American Exhibition sponsors, guided them to the balcony that overlooked the garden behind the house. The party guests poured from the house, some into the garden, some onto the balcony while others gathered at the row of tall windows that stretched across the back of the house.
“How can she see?” Someone in the crowd asked. “Isn’t it too dark?”
Cody talked to the host while the crowd once more murmured their disbelief. In just a short while a line of servants appeared in the garden, each one carrying a torch. Another servant made his way through the crowd with a tray of glassware.
“I hope none of this is important to you,” Cody remarked loud enough for the crowd to hear.
“Something from my wife’s side of the family,” the host said jokingly. “I’m quite sure I can live without it.”
The crowd laughed at the joke as the tray was flourished to the crowd before being placed upon a small table that had also appeared by magic.
“Stand back please,” Cody addressed the crowd below. “It would pain me to see any of you injured by broken glass.”
The anticipation grew as the people below backed away from the balcony to make room for a clear area in the center of the torches. Dax noticed that the before mentioned wife and owner of the glassware winced when she saw the damage being done to her carefully tended plants below. Not a good night for their hostess. He was sure Bill would make it up to her with ringside tickets or a personal tour. He was good that way. Dax made his way down a staircase to the garden to help out on the remote possibility that Annie missed a shot. She never missed a shot.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Cody intoned in his best showman style. “Allow me to present to you the most impressive display of sharp shooting ever seen on this fair ground.” He swung an arm toward Annie, who stood with her rifle in her hand, poised and ready. “I give you Annie Oakley!”
Frank pitched a glass in the air as soon as Cody’s words faded away. The light from the many torches caught it and the reflection of the firelight made the glass glitter in the darkness as it tumbled through the night sky. In the blink of an eye Annie raised her rifle and shot the glass. Dax ducked as he reached the bottom step and quickly stepped away to avoid the flying shards. Another glass quickly flew into the air followed by another. The applause grew louder with each successive shot as Frank kept on throwing and Annie kept on hitting her targets. Cheers erupted when Frank held up the empty tray along with cries of encore.
“Now folks,” Cody said. “We don’t want to show off too much. Just come on out and see the show for a taste of what life is really like in the Wild West.”
“I want to see that young man shoot,” a voice said from the end of the balcony.
Dax looked up and saw a man pointing a finger right at his chest. Torch light bounced off gold hair shot with silver and he recognized him as the gentleman he’d talked to on the street. The gentleman with the very pretty daughter. Was she here too? His eyes quickly scanned the crowd on the balcony but there was no young faces above, no one with golden blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Just older types, mostly gentlemen with a few ladies scattered among them, all looking at him with bright interest since it appeared he was to be the second act.
“He is Kid Cochran, is he not?” the man asked. “The fastest gun alive, or so the advertisements say.”
“Why yes he is,” Cody said. Kid Cochran, celebrated scout to the United States
Cavalry, friend of the Sioux and the dreaded enemy of Geronimo himself.” He arched an eyebrow in Dax’s direction. “And the fastest gun alive,” he added with his showman's flourish.
“Have him shoot,” the gentleman said. He held up his glass. “I will throw it in the air.”
Dang…He wasn't Annie. Sharp Shooting wasn't his game. There was a difference between what Annie did and what he did. But he couldn't back down and he sure couldn't let Cody down. Dax looked at Cody who just barely tilted his head as if he disapproved of the notion. Dax knew he didn't, that it was all part of the show. It would get people talking. It was exactly the reason why he was here. They had not planned on someone from the crowd calling him out. That just made it that much better. The fact that it was Merritt's father was an added bonus. Maybe there was hope that he would see her again.
“I'm not sure if our hostess can spare any more of her fine glassware,” Dax said. “You got something else I can shoot at?”
The gentleman grinned in delight. “What do you suggest?”
Dax scratched his chin and twisted up his face as if he had to think on it for a bit. It was all staged of course; he knew Frank had him covered. Still it would be a delight to have the English gent dig up the coins.
“How bout a few of those shillings? Isn't that what you call money in these parts?”
“It is,” the gentleman replied. “However I do not customarily carry shillings upon my person.” There was subdued laughter from the crowd at this remark. “Can anyone spare a few? I promise to pay you back of course.” The laughter was louder this time, jovial, with several men adding agreement or disagreement to the gentleman's promise of compensation.
“I have some coins Father,” a feminine voice said.
Dax's heart suddenly jumped into his throat. She was here. The girl from the street. Merritt. The crowd parted and she appeared by her father's side with her hand in her reticule as she dug for coins. She wore a dress of blue satin, with her hair pinned up. A few tendrils caressed her cheek and long graceful neck. A desire to kiss that neck suddenly overcame him. She glanced at him from beneath lowered lashes as she placed the coins in her father's palm and Dax felt it like a punch in the gut. It had been a very long time since he'd reacted with such intensity to a woman. It wasn't as if he hadn't been around any, he'd had plenty of women in his lifetime. It was just that none had stirred him. Not since Rebekkah…
“Will this do?” The gentleman held up a coin between his forefinger and thumb. Merritt stood beside him with her hands gripping the rail. She looked as if she regretted stepping forward. As if she wished to remain in the background. A girl with chestnut hair dressed in gold joined her at the rail and they linked arms. She relaxed somewhat, as if she drew courage from her companion. What was she afraid of?
“Only if you have five more.” Dax reminded himself that he was here for the show, not to chase pretty girls. That would come later, he hoped.
“I do,” he said. “Do you have need of a weapon?”
Dax grinned, shook his head and drew his colt from the holster beneath his arm. Those closest to him gasped in shock or admiration, he could not tell. He simply shrugged as if it were perfectly normal to carry a double action colt to fancy parties and checked the chamber. “You best give me some room.” Those around him backed away with an undercurrent of anticipation.
“Your name sir?” Cody asked the gentleman.
“Thomas Chadwyke, Earl of Pemberton.”
Cody shook his head. “I don't think I'll ever get used to all these fancy titles.”
“You may call me Pemberton,” the Earl said.
“Pemberton,” Cody smiled broadly. “When I say go I want you to throw all six coins in the air.”
“All six at once?”
“All six at once.” Cody said. “Make sure you throw them into the circle of light where Kid Cochran can see them.”
“Very well,” Pemberton shook his head as if he were dealing with an indulgent child. Dax backed away until he was next to one of the torches. He scanned the balcony and the night sky to make sure there was nothing in his line of sight to distract him. And to make sure no one would be injured in case a bullet just happened to stray off course. That wouldn't help the show a bit.
“Are you ready?” Cody asked the both of them.
Dax took a deep breath, expelled it and nodded. Pemberton held his hand over the garden with the coins in his fist and nodded also.
“One. Two. Three. Go!” Cody shouted the last word. As soon as he heard it Dax dove, rolled and came up firing. Before the crowd could even gasp he heard the ping of six coins as they were deflected by six successive shots. One landed on the ground before him and he picked it up, examined the hole in the middle and flipped it up to Lord Pemberton. He kept his eyes on Merritt, who stood beside him, her eyes wide and sparkling with excitement.
“Here's one,” someone shouted, holding up a coin.
“And another!”
Three more voices joined in and the five remaining coins were held up for inspection, all of them showing evidence of his bullets hitting the mark.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Kid Cochran,” Cody shouted and the crowd burst into applause.
Dax bowed for the crowd but kept his eyes on Merritt who applauded also, her face showing her amazement of his feat.
“Good Show!” Pemberton shouted. Then he, his daughter, and her friend disappeared into the crowd.

An online Lovecraft-focused magazine, the Innsmouth Free Press, posted an interesting, thoughtful review of my novel WINDWALKER’S MATE, a paranormal romance partly inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror.” Excellent publication—check it out! They praise WINDWALKER’S MATE as a romance, saying, “the plight of emotionally scarred Shannon Bryce will keep readers turning pages,” and, “Fans of paranormal romances who have grown weary of vampires and werewolves should find much to enjoy in Margaret L. Carter’s novel.” As a Lovecraftian horror novel, however, the reviewer considers it unsuccessful, partly because the romantic interludes break the mood of cosmic dread and, more significantly, because he considers Lovecraftian horror incompatible with romance, a Lovecraftian romance being “an oxymoron.”

In principle, he has a valid point. Lovecraft’s world-view is hard-line monistic materialism. The cosmos is utterly indifferent to human life, and all living things as well as the physical universe as a whole are destined to ultimate nonexistence. Romance, on the other hand, promotes a fundamentally optimistic philosophy of life. To a strict Lovecraftian, the romance belief in happy endings would be at best a pleasant delusion.

In practice, though, I’m not so sure. On that premise, no atheist could seek any lasting happiness in this life, and that doesn’t seem to be the case with most nonbelievers. Many of those I’ve met and read about seem to have happy marriages and fulfilling careers. For instance, Isaac Asimov, a thoroughgoing but quite cheerful rationalist, stated explicitly that the prospect of the ultimate entropic death of the universe and his own personal dissolution into nothingness after bodily death didn’t bother him a bit. A belief in the long-term meaninglessness of existence doesn’t appear to keep people from pursuing goals and enjoying life in the short term. Moreover, in the vast scheme of things, why would a rational mind consider the existence of a monstrous entity from another dimension any more of an impediment to normal life than the hazards of wars, plagues, or tsunamis? Even an author who shares that bleak world-view (which I don’t) could write a sort of existentialist Lovecraftian romance—the cosmos is meaningless, so we’ll create our own private meaning.

Still, the Innsmouth Free Press reviewer is quite correct that the *mood* of Lovecraftian horror clashes conspicuously with that of romance. Can any two genres be successfully crossed, or are there truly some pairings that are irreconcilably incompatible? After all, I still encounter people who think the idea of vampire romance is too weird to accept.

Margaret L. Carter
Carter’s Crypt

Dragons Anyone?

Did you know dragons are legends in many cultures? In China the hills of Kowloon are supposed to represent one emperor and seven dragons. In Viet Nam there's a legend that the Vietnamese people descended from the mating of a fairy and a dragon. And since the Pendragon Legacy series was about dragonshapers, I took a lot of pictures of dragons during my recent trip to Asia. I thought you all might enjoy them.

Plot vs. Story

The moving parts of a piece of fiction are well known to every writer who has been able to sell work consistently to the larger publishers.

Every workshop I've taught in where I've watched other writers analyze student work has shown me clearly that every single writer who has perfected a system (any system -- everyone invents their own working system) for producing completed works of fiction knows these moving parts.

And most really successful writers are self-taught so they have invented terminology for what they perceive and need to manipulate in order to produce salable work.

I've seen the words Plot and Story used interchangeably, with some other word used to designate the Plot when the word "Plot" is used to designate the "story."

It can be terribly confusing for beginners, and I suspect that's why writers are mostly self-taught.

Learning to write is a process of discovery.

Recently, on LinkedIn, I answered a question about whether you write for love or for money, and I said LOVE.

You can only write for love, really, because getting money for your writing is more a gamble, like venture capital. Venture capitalists love what they're doing enough to gamble on it.

BUT -- having love igniting your need to write, your true personality shows through and you land somewhere on a spectrum from utter carelessness of maybe "well writing is an unskilled profession anyone can do" or egotistical "I can do anything without half-trying" all the way down to a choked-up, self-defeating "I don't know HOW because nobody ever taught me, and everything I produce is embarrassing trash."

Well, nobody ever will teach you. But you don't already know how to write if you haven't put in the necessary effort to teach yourself.

And if you truly love what you need to write, and truly need to have that message reach someone you don't even know, then you will be greatly moved to learn the craft of writing, and maybe even delve deeply into the art behind the craft.

Again, your true personality will show through, along with your absorbed values, in the manner in which you approach this task.

You may go to amazon and buy a lot of expensive books on the theory that they will "teach" you. (personally, I'd hit the free local library first) Or more likely today you'll Google up some instructions.

So learning "to write" is a process, and the first step in the process is learning that you don't know "how" to do it. You know how to read a novel, but you don't know how to reverse that process into writing a novel until you've really taught yourself and then practiced what you've learned.

Reading is the first step in learning to write, but it's reading that is very different from the reading that readers do. A writer reads to reverse-engineer the fiction into its moving parts, it's necessary components.

You already know all the unnecessary components of your own story that you must write for love. The unnecessary parts are the really interesting parts for a reader, and it's the payload the writer must deliver.

But the second step in learning to read like a writer is learning to be interested in the VEHICLE that delivers the payload. That vehicle has a chassis composed of these moving parts we've been discussing individually. The same chassis can carry a large number of different genre-vehicles.

Now, in response to questions asked in the comments section of these blog posts, we are going to look at how to connect the moving parts we've examined into a chassis strong enough to carry that payload which you are creating out of love of it.

Writers who muddle their way into the craft and teach themselves to get to consistent, professional (make a living at it) word production eventually discover the nature of these mechanical parts of the composition and discover how the writer manipulates these parts to produce that final, polished work.

But being self-taught, or taught by someone who was self-taught, they use different terms to refer to the parts of the chassis and the connecting links.

So, like everyone else, I've adopted some terms from my teacher, and I've sorted out the moving parts of the composition, and given them names and learned how to mold them into place.

Maybe my terminology will illuminate these interior (necessarily invisible in the finished product) moving parts for you.

So let's see if we can walk and chew gum, juggle a few plates, and spin a lug-wrench at the same time.

On http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/ which is for learning exercises for writers, back in March 2009 Ozambersand raised a question which I answered at length in the comments section of one of my posts.

http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/03/worldbuilding-trunk-ated.html

In July, I posted two explorations of Scene Structure on this Alien Romance blog which now contains over 800 posts, so here is one of the URLs

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html

That's Part 2, and you'll find the link to Part 1 in there.

In the comments from Part 1 and Part 2 on Scene Structure, one of Linnea Sinclair's writing students, Kathleen McGiver and a new commenter here Sharon, asked about the difference between Plot and Story. ozambersand kindly searched out that bit that I had written in a comment, and here it is for the record excerpted from the comments on worldbuilding-trunk-ated.

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PLOT is the sequence of things that happen, EVENTS. Events must be displayed in a because-chain to make a plot.

PLOT = BECAUSE

Because Obama was elected President, Stem Cell Research will be revived, and because of the research Somebody will be cured of paralysis, and then be elected President. PLOT. EVENTS. BECAUSE.

STORY is what those events mean to the characters emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, or in life.

Story is also linked to Because and is the result or cause (motive) behind (BEHIND) Events in the Plot.

Because Obama fulfilled his lifelong dream to be President, he has discovered that he doesn't know everything and can't do everything at once. Now, he doesn't know why he can't seem to hire enough of the right people to fully staff his administration. "Oh, why are the people I admire tax cheats?" The Events leading to his discovery of the answer to that question is his STORY. The Events themselves are the PLOT.

The BACKGROUND is President and White House and Recession and Bank Crisis and Middle East. Everyone reading the story knows all that.

The FOREGROUND is winning election, choosing and hiring people, admiring people, being admired, spending political capital, making risky choices, living with the HUGE consequences.

Look at a painting, say a portrait -- Mona Lisa. The chair, the blurry sketch of buildings and hills, sky, even her dress is BACKGROUND. The FOREGROUND is her face and hands.

Take a genre - Urban Fantasy - the URBAN part is background, the FANTASY is foreground because you have to explain the laws of magic etc in that universe and to be worth explaining they have to generate plot.

STORY is the character's personal experience and responses to the things that happen - the psychological and spiritual lessons learned.

The story of a man who falls in love with a thief only to discover the folly of attempting to reform her and decides to learn her craft and join her.

The BACKSTORY is all that went on before the plot begins, the things that happened that made them what they are.

BACKSTORY - The son of an ex-Nun and a seminary student who married for Love, falls in love with a thief and learns the folly - etc.

Who his parents were is backstory -- they never appear overtly in the novel, but their presence is in every word he utters, every decision he makes whether he knows it or not. You don't have to tell the reader the BACKSTORY (often it's better if you don't -- that's why you need all these other tools, so you'll have other ways to convey the information where necessary).

But you have to know the backstory to keep everything in the novel consistent and believable.

The B-story is the story arc of a character who is a confidant or intimate-enemy of the A-story's main character.

As I pointed out previously, the B-story character is often the last invented and is a sub-set or factor of the A-story main character -- someone he/she confides in and spills his guts to. In a film, the B-story carries your THEME.

The A Story main character pours out their heart (in a few choice lines) to the B-story character, thus informing the audience what's inside the A-story character that maybe even the A-story character does not know.

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The glue that holds plot and story together is the THEME. I've done a number of posts on theme here, especially in the posts on Worldbuilding.

When the THEME does not glue the Plot to the Story, or bolt it on firmly with lots of grease so it moves nicely, or weld it so it can't move, when the THEME doesn't connect the plot to the story, then the EVENTS in the plot happen, but they don't happen TO ANYONE. The events become meaningless and readers get bored.

When the STORY doesn't change the characters actions, then the EVENTS don't proceed from the story through the theme, and again readers get bored reading about a single character's angst without events that illuminate and change that angst.

A well written composition will have the plot and the story so tightly welded or so perfectly articulated and well greased, that the reader can't tell the difference between plot and story. Each event and each reaction will be both at once.

But to create that effect, the writer has to know the difference.

In addition to doing all that, the World you build to cradle your plot and story has to explicate your theme. It's rooted in your theme. And the fastest, most efficient way to build the right world for this plot and story is to build the world from the theme.

Remember, art is a selective recreation of reality, not reality itself. It's what you select to leave out that makes it art, and that communicates your theme.

Theme is a game you play with your readers.

No two writers do this process of inventing moving parts of a story the same way.

Even a given writer will invent stuff in different orders for different projects. That's called creativity. It isn't a science. It isn't reproducible by other people. It's "magic" -- and its procedures depend more on who you are at that moment than on what you're trying to accomplish.

In other words, how you go about inventing the moving parts that will form the chassis that will carry your payload to your reader depends on where you are on that spectrum I mentioned above. Remember too that you as an individual can move along that spectrum from too timid to too confident, and may in fact rattle back and forth between the extremes during the writing of a particular work. Rattling back and forth may be a sign that the writing is going well!

Yet there are rules. Creating a work of fiction is not random or chaotic. It has a system behind it. Your system. Not anyone else's. (Rattling might be part of your system, but I don't advise teaching that part.)

When your work of fiction is all done, it can be reverse engineered to expose the moving parts and their relationship to each other (glued, bolted, welded).

In fact, most of the enjoyment that a reader gets out of a novel comes from their "kitten-and-ball-of-twine" unraveling of the beautiful, polished composition you've presented to them. But keep in mind, the reader who is not a writer doesn't really want or need to win that game with the writer.

Take Mystery Writing, for example. Readers want to joust with the writer to solve the mystery before the writer reveals all. But if it's too easy, the reader doesn't enjoy the game and won't read that writer's stuff again. If it's too hard, the reader who is not a writer likewise won't enjoy the game and won't read that writer again.

Getting it just right, hiding the moving parts of your composition, is an artform, and a game you play with the readers. It has to be fun or it isn't worth it.

Reverse engineering fiction to understand the story gives one the illusion that one understands the everyday world better. And since it's magic, the illusion can become reality. Magic is done via imagination and emotion, both of which are best delivered via fiction.

The theme is what communicates most loudly to readers, the handle by which they remember the novel and your byline. That's why the title has to be the theme, so they can remember it and recommend it. A theme portrays the world as the artist's eye sees it. A theme can say the world has meaningfulness, or that life has a meaning, or that life is meaningless and futile, or that the world is merely a figment of your imagination.

Fiction that bespeaks a theme that explains a reader's reality with verisimilitude can change the way the reader sees their world, and thus change the story of their life, and thus change the plot of their life as they make choices based on this thematic insight.

Or a work of fiction can just be loads of fun to read and not affect the reader much if at all.

Which way a work affects a reader is not the writer's choice. But it is a sobering consideration when tossing off a trash novel under a pseudonym or as a work-for-hire.

So the writer has to work at inventing and arranging the moving parts and putting them together to make a picture so that the reader can take the picture apart and understand it as pieces.

How can writer and reader work together to have the most possible fun?

THEME

That's the answer to almost everything about writing craft.

Theme is the organizing principle, and it is the subject about which writer and reader are communicating.

So no matter what the sequential order in which the writer invents the moving parts of a work of fiction, at some point before finishing the composition, the writer has to step back from creativity and take a long, jaundiced look at what has been created and exercise that artistic selectivity.

Which pieces to use, which to showcase, which to emphasize, which to show and which to tell can all be determined by reference to the theme.

To find the theme of this particular piece, ask yourself "What am I trying to say, here?" What's the take-away these readers should hold onto?

Do I want to say, "The business cycle can not and SHOULD NOT be eliminated?" Or do I want to say "Recessions and Depressions are a natural part of human commerce and we just have to live with them or commerce will stop."

Either statement could become an "in your face" approach to some non-human culture that arrives in Earth Orbit ready to trade for primitive artifacts like iPods, bound books and quaint little discs called Blu-Ray. (Argsel! You won't believe this! The pictures are all flat! It's abstract primitive art! We'll make a fortune!!!)

A novel, or a series of novels set in a well built world, has to take a stand on some philosophical point, and ask and answer (even if tentatively) a set of questions about that point. A set of questions. Set. They have to go together in a chain like a movie Detective interrogates a prisoner.

So if the plot is a Romance, then the core theme has to be something akin to LOVE CONQUERS ALL. But a specific Romance could say it's a good thing or a bad thing that love conquers all.

Whether it's good or bad depends on, well, for example, if you're the King who needs his Heir to marry fellow royalty for the alliance, but love conquers your plan and the Heir runs away with a peasant, then "love conquers all" is a real bad thing.

The social and economic problems that proceed from that runaway Heir and his heirs could make for a wildly successful series of Action Romance novels. Drop a comment with series that follow this pattern if you can think of any. There are quite a few.

So in the case of the Runaway Heir and his 10 kids raised on a farm, the STORY is that the Heir tussles with his responsibility to the throne and in his final epiphany (in the first novel) wrenchingly decides that his personal revulsion for being King overrides the Kingdom's need for him to be King. And he escapes (from some trap the King created) and goes running off to rescue his Beloved.

That's the story.

Here's the Heir's Character Arc, his story. "I have to become King. I love this Peasant. I have to marry this Princess-Shrew (who's a great manager and ought to be a Queen). I don't want to become King. I would make a terrible King and probably murder that Princess-Shrew. I refuse to marry Shrew. I love Peasant Woman. I WILL NOT ACCEPT MY FATE." That's the story arc, from accepting the fate of becoming King after his father, to rejecting it.

The PLOT is the sequence of events that TELLS THAT STORY.

Now if the story is the arc from accepting fate to rejecting fate, then the THEME (underneath the Love Conquers All theme) has to be something like "Birth is not Destiny" or "I am a person who can make my own decisions" or "Fate is not decreed by God." Or maybe "God Makes Mistakes and I'm One Of Them".

Pick a theme that EXPLAINS WHY the character goes from Accept to Reject to Action.

Using that theme create the PLOT. And don't forget that all this is cast in SCENES.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html

But before you break the narrative into scenes, you need the 4 cardinal points of the plot structure (unless you are a pantser today).

Say, for example:

Open - a huge gala PALACE BALL introducing Heir to Princess-Shrew, Peasant serving in the kitchen?


1/4 - Heir causes the Princess to reveal her nasty personality and hatred for the Heir's kingdom and contempt for the kingdom's King.


1/2 - Heir compares the two and chooses Peasant as the better person, tries to get Peasant qualified to become his Queen. FAILS (1/2 to a HEA ending is the FAILURE part)


3/4 - Heir arrives at his long foreshadowed epiphany about his destiny and rejects the Kingdom and his father. Princess-Shrew was right not to respect the King. 3/4 result is that Peasant is imprisoned by King to prevent contact with Heir to force or blackmail Heir into marrying Princess.


END - Heir breaks Peasant out of prison, does something definitive to thwart the ambitions of Princess-Shrew, and Heir and Peasant take a powder, riding off into the sunset to an HEA.

OPENING OF FIRST SEQUEL - the King dies, throwing the Kingdom into political chaos. Nobody knows where the Heir went. He's probably dead. The Bells Toll.

I can already plot out 3 sequels, a multigeneration series, with the original Heir dying at 95 and telling his 30 year old grandson that the grandson is actually the King of Whatever and that's why the grandson has fallen in love with the Queen of Whichever (Whatever and Whichever are your Worldbuilding elements). Royalty is best off marrying Royalty and there's no hiding the fact of Royalty. (That is, the Heir's character arc has continued full circle back to his childhood acceptance of his role in the world).

Note how the STORY is all about "I" and how I feel about things and what I want and what I reject.

Note how the PLOT is "Heir" + ACTIVE VERB

In this plot, "Heir" is the main POV character. "It" is his "story." The story arc is all about what's going on inside Heir, therefore it is his story, therefore he's the main POV character, gets the most lines of dialogue and the most face-time.

Because it's his story, it is his PLOT. The important EVENTS that change the SITUATION are all generated by his ACTION. Every other character's arc and story and plot-moves all support the Heir's story and plot.

The cast of characters has to be organized like that, in heirarchy, to create a neat composition for the reader to reverse engineer. It's easy to organize the characters once you have the themes organized as I showed you in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

Note how both the story and the plot illustrate the THEME. Maybe the theme of the first novel in this Heir And Princess series is "I won't take it any more."

If the Heir's story arcs back (at age 95) to acceptance of his Royalty, then the theme the writer is displaying to the reader, the bit of "reality" the reader "takes away" says things like there is an inherent difference between people because of their genes or the status of their birth parents. Or perhaps it says, the old Greek Myth lesson that you can't escape your destiny, all is foretold at birth. Some of us aren't people, but rather objects on the chessboard. There can be no HEA if you resist your destiny.

How the arc develops and ends bespeaks the theme.

The moving parts of any work of fiction aimed at a wide audience will always have this kind of mechanism. The best writers hide that mechanism beneath layers of flesh and blood.

The exact same mechanism can support literally thousands of tales, none of which even remotely resemble the others, but all of which will delight pretty much the same audience.


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Here are 3 posts I did on THEME

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/shifting-pov.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html

Now everybody run quick and post a comment THANKING OZAMBERSAND for finding this tidbit on plot and story that I had lost.

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

I Learned About Writing Fiction From That...

A Writer's "Thought Cloud" of sorts:

Don’t tell it; show it! Whenever possible, translate information into people doing things (Swain)

* Every good story starts at the moment of threat (Bickham) * R.U.E.: Resist the Urge to Explain (Browne/King) * Readers want to see a character overcome obstacles (Dixon) * Vividness outranks brevity (Swain) * Figure out whose story it is. Get inside the character—and stay there (Bickham)

* Never switch point of view in order to convey information that you can't figure out any other way to TELL THE READER. That will cause you to divert attention from the "ball" and will only frustrate the reader, not inform him. If there really is no other way for the reader to learn something, then they shouldn't know it (Lichtenberg) * It’s not the experience that creates the trauma but the way the character reacts to it (Swain)

* If there is one single principle that is central to making any story more powerful, it is simply this: Raise the stakes (Maass) * Your main character must light a fire he can’t put out (Swain) * Conflict generates plot (Lichtenberg)

* When you use two words (a weak verb and an adverb) to do the work of one (a strong verb) you dilute your writing and rob it of its potential power (Browne/King) * Create a character. Give her an obsession. Watch where she runs (Bell) * Readers read to experience tension (Swain) * Backstory delivered early on crashes down on a story’s momentum like a sumo wrestler falling on his opponent. Backstory belongs later (Maass) *

~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

Worldbuilding/Influences -- How fast does your world spin?

Since my headline suggests a scientific bent, let's get that out of the way first.

http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzearthspin.htm

<< The speed at which the earth spins varies upon your latitudinal location on the planet. If you're standing at the north pole, the speed is almost zero but at the equator, where the circumference of the earth is greatest, the speed is about 1,038 miles per hour (1,670 kph). The mid-latitudes of the U.S. and Europe speed along at 700 to 900 mph (1125 to 1450 kph) >>

Other links on this excellent site http://geography.about.com/lr/earth_speed/412208/2/ will tell you the effect of seizmic activity on the speed of Earth's rotation, and wobble...

Gosh! "Wobble". Maybe the poles have shifted ever so slightly, which explains the change in the climate. (And maybe most people reading this know that.) I privately suspected it before reading Matt Rosenberg's posting dated Jan 5th 2005 about an extra inch of tilt on Earth's axis.

Alternative answers to how fast our world spins:
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question75533.html

Apparently, if the Earth stopped spinning, the atmosphere would continue to travel (would that be an inertia effect?) at approximately 1,000 mph and everything not anchored to bedrock would be pulled off the face of the Earth!
http://ask.yahoo.com/20020411.html

I read in a newspaper (July 19th 2009) that scientists at France's Bureau de Longitude have concluded that the Moon is 238,857 miles away... and that advanced life could not have emerged here, 3.8 billion years ago, if the Moon had been at any other distance.

On a NASA site on the internet http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/q1733.html a scientist says that, if the Moon were closer to Earth than it is our tides would be higher (and lower), our days would be shorter, there would be 410 days in a year, and our world would spin faster. The premise is that 900 million years ago, the Moon was 21,250 miles away.

A 9.9 meter High Tide at Vazon Bay, Guernsey

NASA scientists answer some great related questions here.
http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/arot.html

Enough of links already! Put too many in a blog, and one confuses the bots.

However, asking a simple question online can lead to all manner of thought-starters for an alien romance author. The other thing to notice is that you cannot trust one source for your research. That is another fabulous reason for giving attribution to your sources.

More food for thought: what might have happened if the Russian volcano that erupted in mid June (causing red skies at night over Britain in the week of July 14th, and perhaps the most extraordinary flight of "C-shaped" clouds which I failed to capture on film) had coincided with a full moon and 9.9 meter tides? Assuming that that which affects tidal flow affects human fertility.

Sunset Dinosaur Clouds off the Hommet Headland, Guernsey

As an author of alien Romances, my interest isn't so much in the numbers as in the effects of spin on my characters. I wonder whether the pace of life is different for everyone on holiday, or whether some people live at a frenetic pace no matter where they are.

In Europe, Americans are undeservedly notorious for whistle-stop tours of tourist sites, kind of like a scavenger hunt with the aim being to check off as many items from a list as quickly as possible. Maybe that's not fair.

Germans have a unfair reputation for "bagging" and "hogging" the best sunning spots on the beaches or beside hotel pools. Apparently a holiday firm now offers German clients the option of paying a fee to reserve the best sun loungers by hotel pools. This book-the-best-poolside-seat is not offered to other nationalities.

I minded the latter sort of thing less (yes, someone ignored the significance of my beach bag on a choice patch of sand while I was in the sea, and pitched their wind break and tent and towels and toys where I had planned to dry myself in the sun) when I am in Guernsey.

One definitely lives at a much more easygoing pace when the speed limit is between 15mph and 35mph, when some roads are so narrow that oncoming traffic has to pull into a field entrance to let the other by, and where it's a routine courtesy to flatten the mirrors on your driver's side doors to let oncoming traffic pass. And, when you look up from time to time, and notice (from where the con trails are, and what the upper atmosphere winds are doing to them) where the jet stream is.

Since I started writing about the young tearaway Prince Thorquentin (and his talent for creating computer programs to disguise large alien spacecraft as convincing cloud masses), I've been taking a greater interest in clouds. One has to be really quick on the draw sometimes. Rearing bears, gaping Tyrannosaurs, snapping bats, mating crabs, monstrous prophets with outstretched arms... they don't stay in shape for very long.


Lenticular Prophet



Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

More on when a story doesn't work

Getting back to my revamp of a proposal after traveling to the RWA national conference.

In Chapter two I introduce Merrit's paranormal abilities and set up the plot point of Von Swaim's desire to control Merrit's talent. When doing a proposal its important to suck the reader in but you don't want to reveal to much too soon.

Chapter Two
“Cheeky sort wasn’t he,” the Earl said.
“Indeed!” the Countess exclaimed. “I always heard the Americans were rather forward.” Merritt folded her hands primly and kept her eyes upon her lap, as she well knew her mother’s mood.
“Accosting young girls on the street.”
“I hardly think he was accosting me.” Merritt boldly spoke out. “I consider it more as being polite.”
“Obviously they have no idea of propriety,” the Countess continued.
“Now Evelyn,” her father interrupted. “The young man was just trying to drum up business for the show is all. I’m sure any insult you imagined was entirely unintentional.”
“Imagined?” her mother gasped.
Merritt turned her head toward the window as her father winked at her. He had cleverly taken her mother’s mind off the cowboy and onto herself. It was no wonder he was such a success. He knew how to handle people. He knew what they were thinking and how to get them to come to his way of thinking. It was a gift that served him well, especially in Parliament. However when it came to his daughter the gift was useless. If only they would not worry so. If only they would just leave her alone. She had never hurt anyone and she certainly had never injured herself. If only she could just be what she was meant to be instead of what her parents and all of proper English society expected her to be. It just wasn’t fair. Not fair at all.
Harry moved the carriage along at a quick pace to make up for the delay. Merritt watched the streets as they passed. The snow from earlier in the day was nearly melted but a few patches remained on the shaded side of the street. What was left had turned into muddy brown water that trickled down the curbs and into the sewers below and eventually dumped into the Thames.
The streets were busy. The population of London had grown rapidly in the past few years, especially on the east side, which had become the haven for the poor. On the west side, where her family resided, people went about the everyday business of life. Tradesmen and solicitors, bankers and lawyers, governesses with their charges, all picked their way through the puddles on the street, rode their horses or were driven in a wide assortment of vehicles. Heavy wagons filled to the top with kegs and casks, boxes and bags stopped along the way to fill orders for the merchants. All in all a normal day in London, except for the fact that a herd of buffalo accompanied by cowboys and Indians had just passed by.
Another normal day for the normal people. What would it be like to be perfectly normal? Merritt could not even begin to imagine.
The carriage came to a stop. “We’re here sir,” Harry called down.
Merritt looked up at the tall building with the same feeling of dread that had been her constant companion since her parents informed her of their decision. A small sign hung over the door. Institute of Paranormal Research. Dr. Edmond Von Swaim.
They exited the carriage. Merritt gathered her skirts and reluctantly followed her parents up the steps with Rose and Jerry close on her heels. Did they think she would actually dash off down the street?
If only I could…But she could not. Any normal person would. But any normal person would not be here in the first place. She was not normal. She was paranormal. Or so her parents thought. They had latched onto the word as soon as they understood its meaning. They felt it explained her spells perfectly yet they wanted to be sure. They needed a diagnosis because with a diagnosis there could be a cure. It all made so much sense when they explained it to her. But now…that the time was nigh…it made no sense at all.
The door swung open before the Earl could lift his hand to knock. Her mother hesitated on the step before her as if she were suddenly afraid.
Imagine how I feel…Merritt knew they wanted to help her. They wanted what was best for her. They also wanted to protect the family from the whispering that went on when someone in their circle had experiences that were considered…objectionable. It would solve all their problems if Merritt had an illness that they could put a name too.
If only they would listen…if only they would ask…if only she were braver and stronger. If only she had been the one to die instead of her brother Christopher. If only…
The Earl took the Countess’s arm and led her inside. Merritt, always the dutiful daughter, had no choice but to follow. A butler, who stood a full head taller than her father, held the door open. His face was impassive, but Merritt could feel his eyes upon her. She marched straight ahead as her father looked upward and around, his eyes calculating the wealth of the Institute as one might inventory the jewels upon the neck of a dowager countess.
The foyer was a full three stories high. Before them was a grand staircase with a hall beside it that led back to a closed door. To the left was a closed door and to the right a sitting room. The fire was not lit, nor the lamps, and the heavy velvet drapes were drawn closed against the light of day. It all seemed very desolate and lonely even though the wood was well polished and the furnishings rich with ornate carvings and plush fabrics.
The sound of a clock ticking was overpowering in the sudden quiet when the door was closed behind them. To Merritt the sound was frighteningly omnipotent. She could not help but look upward to the source and saw a huge pendulum swinging directly over the door. The clockworks were above, on the third story behind a walkway that crossed from one side to the other. She could not see them clearly in the dim light but they seemed immense and complicated. Why would anyone need or want a clock that big?
A middle-aged woman dressed in a simple gray dress and white apron and wearing a white cap came down the impressive staircase and dropped a curtsey to her father.
“Dr. Von Swaim awaits you in the upper parlor,” she said. She spoke with a heavy accent, possibly German since it was known that Von Swaim was of German descent. “Your servants may await you in there.”
Her father started to protest then thought better of it. Merritt wondered if the overbearing presence of the butler had anything to do with his hesitancy. He motioned Rose and Jerry into the parlor. Jerry made it clear by his stance that he was not happy about the situation. Rose simply sat down on a sofa and let out a long suffering sigh.
“For privacy sir,” the woman said when they were settled. “Doctor Von Swaim has also canceled all of his appointments for this afternoon so you need not worry about anyone disturbing you during your visit.”
“Very well,” her father said. “Lead on.”
Merritt took a firm grasp on the railing as she followed her parents up the grand staircase. As she watched her feet climb the stairs her insides felt as if she were descending into a deep dark pit. Her parents had insisted on enough doctors in her lifetime to dread any thought of any type of an exam, especially one that was as mysterious to her as this. What exactly did a paranormal exam involve?
For once her mother kept her chatter to a minimum. She always used it as a mask but in this situation there was no place for it. There was no hiding the fear or intimidation that any of them felt.
The light was brighter on the second floor. Gas lamps lit the hallways and the curtains were open on the opposite ends of the building to let in the light of day. The woman led them across the landing from the staircase and opened a set of double doors.
Bookcases, two stories high, filled the walls on either side. French doors covered the back wall and opened invitingly to a balcony that overlooked a courtyard. Merritt could hear water bubbling below and imagined it must contain a fountain of some sort. Deep burgundy curtains hung beside the windows that flanked the French doors. An ornate birdcage made of brass stood upon a stand next to the window and a bright yellow canary piped a few notes when they were shown into the room. A large sofa also covered in burgundy sat along the wall on the right with wing chairs on either side. End tables flanked the sofa and were covered with an assortment of gewgaws made of brass and glass. Some seemed to be spinning; it would take closer examination to be certain.
The left side of the room contained a huge desk with two small chairs before it. The desk held a smaller collection of gewgaws and a large crystal prism that seemed to Merritt to be as long as her arm. There was a door built into the wall directly behind the desk and she could not help but wonder where it led. Into the bowels of hell?
“The Doctor will be with you presently,” the woman said and closed the double doors behind her as she bowed her way from the room.
“You think they would have offered tea,” her mother said as she sat down in one of the wing chairs.
“We are not here for a social visit,” the Earl reminded her.
“Well, yes, I realize that,” the Countess replied. “Still it would be the hospitable thing to do, considering.”
Merritt let mother’s words pass over her without a response. Her father turned his back on both of them and perused the collection of books that filled the shelf behind the chair. Merritt walked to the balcony to see if there really was a fountain beyond.
A large telescope sat on the balcony aimed upwards at the sky. A stool was beside it with a sextant lying upon it. The instrument of the sea seemed strangely out of place in such an enclosed area. The courtyard was enclosed on the sides with a high brick wall and another building stood behind it. Dr. Von Swaim must have use of both buildings as a door from it opened into the courtyard also. The back of it was plain and tall with small windows that were covered with iron grates and shuttered from the inside. A chill went down her spine as she looked it over. What was the purpose of closing off the lovely courtyard from view? And why the grates? Were they meant to keep people in or people out?
The courtyard was, as she first surmised before her inspection of the building beyond, quite lovely. A large fountain with a replica of the earth done in metals was the centerpiece and water spurted from the top and coated the sides before falling into the stone basin beneath. Japanese maples with tightly budded leaves graced the centers of four uniform triangles that formed the corners of the gardens and neat boxwoods hedged the sides with benches placed before them. A brick walk surrounded the fountain and freshly tilled earth between the two begged for plantings of colorful flowers. It was a heady contradiction to the heavy and overpowering massiveness of everything she had seen inside the institute.
She heard her father’s harrumph of impatience and turned to see what caused it. The canary peeped inquisitively as she stepped inside so she paused beside its cage.
“I imagine you wish you could fly away,” she said softly to the bird. It hopped from its perch high in the cage to another that was closer to her face. Its dark eyes blinked several times as it examined her.
“Such a pretty cage,” Merritt said. “But it is still a cage, no matter how pretty it is.” She turned her head and looked at the building behind the courtyard.
Still a cage…
The canary jumped from the bar with a loud chirp as the pressure of the room changed with the opening of the door. Merritt felt a cold breeze swirl over her face and the few tendrils of her hair that had escaped the careful attentions of her maid tickled her cheek when she looked into the room.
She recognized Dr. Edmond Von Swaim. (Describe here) How could she not? He currently was the darling of the social circuit and was often mentioned in the gossip columns of the newspaper. Merritt had been present at a few of the functions he attended, as he was a must-have on any guest list. He usually performed feats of hypnotism or other sorts of trickery at the parties that were expounded on at great length in the columns the next day. He had impressed her parents enough that after a few discreet inquiries, they had decided to take Dr. Von Swaim into their confidence regarding Merritt and her “spells.”
His answer? She must be examined immediately before her spells worsened or she did harm to herself. They were exactly the words her mother most feared, since she had been dreading the prospect for these many years.
Maybe he will have an answer…or even a cure…It was too much to hope for. Merritt watched as her father shook hands with Dr. Von Swaim, and her mother greeted him warmly.
Why do I feel such a sense of dread?
Usually she had a vision or warning sign if something bad was about to happen. In this instance there had been no warning yet she still had the feeling that something was horribly wrong. Perhaps the canary had the same concerns. It piped mightily, as if in warning, as Dr. Von Swaim approached her with his arms open wide. Did he actually mean to embrace her?
“My dear Merritt,” he said with a welcoming smile on his broad and ruddy face. His voice held just the slightest accent of his German origins.
Merritt held out her gloved hand so that he might take it, but also to keep him from encroaching upon her. He took her hand, clasped it between his two palms and gave it a firm squeeze. It seemed on the surface to be comforting but then again something about it disturbed her. Perhaps it was in the way he evaluated her. She looked into the deep-set blue eyes beneath the heavy blonde brows. There was no mistaking it. His demeanor was kind and friendly but he was calculating her worth, just as her father had when they arrived at the institute.
“Your parents have expressed their deep concern over your condition,” he said as Merritt carefully pulled her hand free.
“They trouble themselves over nothing,” Merritt said. “I have strange dreams, nothing more.”
“Nonsense,” the Countess said. “Who has dreams in the middle of the day? When they are often wide awake?”
“Come my dear,” Von Swaim said. “Sit and tell me of your dreams.” He stepped back and extended his arm, just stopping short of touching her back as if he would propel her forward.
Merritt suppressed a heavy sigh as she made her way to the sofa. There were no other options and there certainly was no escape. The only thing to do was get it over with as quickly as possible. She sat down and Von Swaim joined her. Her parents took position in the wing chairs on either side. Von Swaim sat forward, placing his body between Merritt and her father. It also placed his body between Merritt and the door.
“It would help me to know more of what you experience,” Von Swaim said. “Tell me of your dreams.”
It seemed too personal…too revealing…however he was a doctor. It was his intent to help her or so she hoped. If he could make the dreams, the visions, the spells, go away…Merritt looked at him hopefully.
“They are more like visions than dreams,” she explained. “I simply see things.”
“What type of things?”
She thought carefully of what she should say. It was all so confusing. Should she tell this man her deepest darkest secrets? Or would the basics be enough? It certainly would not hurt to share the things she told her parents. It wasn’t as if they had not already told him what they knew about her spells.
“Sometimes I see Papa at work talking with his friends…”
“About subjects that she should have no knowledge of,” the Earl interjected.
“Do you mean policy discussions? Von Swaim asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you bring home notes or letters that she would have access too?”
“No.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Merritt said. “I would never look at Papa’s personal papers.”
“You do read the daily,” her mother said. “That’s enough to feed anyone’s imagination.”
“She speaks of things during her spells that she has no way of knowing. How someone will vote, or who will side with whom. It is almost as if she knows the outcome before it happens.”
Indeed,” Von Swaim said. “Very curious. Is she usually right about the things she sees?”
“Almost always,” her father said.
If only they knew…
“Any other instances? Anything besides parliament?” Von Swaim studied her intently, his eyes moving over her face and down enough to make her feel uncomfortable.
Merritt shifted her body so that he was not so close, and not so oppressive. She shrugged. “There have been a few other things.”
“She saw poor Mrs. Poole drop dead,” her mother said. “Our butler’s mother,” she went on to explain.
“No, I did not see her drop dead,” Merritt interjected. “I simply saw her lying on the floor. Then I asked Poole if he had seen her lately.”
“And when he did she was dead.”
“Yes. She was.”
“Quite dead,” her father volunteered. As if anyone could be any deader than dead.
“Fascinating!” Von Swaim jumped up from the sofa and strode across the room as if he could not contain himself.
Merritt looked at the man in disbelief. Poor Poole had lost his mother and Dr. Von Swaim was looking at her as if she had just given him a fortune in jewels.
“Is there anything else?”
Merritt twisted her hands in her lap. She knew what was coming before her mother even said it.
“We have noticed things moving about sometimes,” the Countess said timidly. Merritt could not blame her for being timid. It would be difficult to believe unless one had actually witnessed it. Small objects did have a habit of falling off of surfaces or in one instance flying across a room when she was in the midst of one of her more troublesome spells.”
“Excellent,” Von Swaim exclaimed. He came back to the sofa and knelt in front of Merritt before grasping her hands. “You must allow me to hypnotize you.”
Run…
She felt trapped once again. Pinned against the sofa with no chance of escape. She did manage to free her hands from his grasp yet he remained on the floor before her, practically kneeling on her skirts.
“Do you think it would help, Dr. Von Swaim?” her father asked.
“The subconscious mind holds much danger for those not familiar with its workings,” Von Swaim said as he finally rose to his feet. “Imagine Merritt’s mind as a battlefield with her subconscious at war with her consciousness. It seems to me that at the present time her subconscious is winning the battle. If I do not find out the cause I am afraid that Merritt’s consciousness may eventually be lost to you forever.”
“Oh my!” Her mother gasped. “Merritt lost?”
“The sanitariums are full of such cases.”
“That is unacceptable.” The Earl jumped to his feet while her mother held her handkerchief to her face to hide her distress.
Merritt was skeptical about his comments. There was no war going on in her mind. She just had dreams. Very vivid, very real dreams. She always knew whom she was and where she was when she awakened. It seemed as if Dr. Von Swaim had made a more accurate diagnosis of her parent’s fears and was using it to achieve his own ends.
“If you believe hypnotism will help, then by all means proceed,” her father said.
“Are you certain you will be able to hypnotize me?” She had seen performances of such things before but always felt as if there was collusion involved on the part of all parties.
“I have found that the stronger paranormal activity lends itself to susceptibility in these cases,” Von Swaim replied. He held a hand out to help her rise from the sofa and she had no choice but to take it. “Come my dear,” he said and led her to a gilt chair placed before his desk. “Please stay where you are so there will be no distractions,” he instructed her parents who had begun to follow.
They sat down together on the couch and smiled encouragement to Merritt. She smiled reassuringly in their direction and was pleased to see her father take her mother’s hand into his. There was nothing to fear. Her father would not let any harm come to her.
Merritt sat down with her back to the window while Von Swaim opened a desk drawer and removed an object. The light caught it as he carried it around the desk. It was a crystal, cut in the shape of a large diamond and suspended from a chain.
He sat down opposite her and dangled the crystal from the chain in front of her. “I want you to concentrate,” he said. “Concentrate on the crystal. Concentrate on the light. Watch it carefully.”
The crystal twisted back and forth, slowly winding then unwinding on the chain. Merritt watched the light from the lamps and the sun dance through the different angles of the cuts, each one casting a different color around it as if it was alive with its own aura. She heard the canary chirp once, heard the fountain cascading behind her, and heard the soft breathing of her parents. As watched the crystal spin up and down the chain she felt as if the walls of the room were falling away. The fountain became distant and then she heard the giant clock with the pendulum swinging back and forth.
Tick…tock…tick…tock…
The noise moved inside her head and became an echo of her heartbeat. Tick…thump….tock…thump-thump.
She was no longer in the room inside the institute. She was no longer with Dr. Von Swaim and her parents. She was standing in the middle of a circle. The ground beneath her was hard packed earth that was scarred with the imprint of many types of hoof prints. A light shone directly on her, blinding her. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from it and the light faded.
Someone was with her. “Trust me,” a voice said. “You’ve got to trust me.” The voice seemed vaguely familiar and she searched the area inside the light until she saw a silhouette. Her forehead furrowed as she tried to put a name to the face that was hidden beneath the shadow of a wide-brimmed hat.
“Don’t move,” the voice said. “Trust me. I will never hurt you.” Then he raised a gun in his hand and shot her.
Merritt screamed. She felt her body spinning and then she landed beside the desk. Her hands gripped the sides of the chair as if she were on a boat in huge swells that threatened to break over her head.
As she caught her breath she looked at Dr. Von Swaim for an answer to what she had said or done while under the effects of his hypnosis. But Von Swaim was not looking at her. He looked beyond her. Merritt turned in her seat and saw the birdcage. It was no longer beautiful. It was twisted and ruined with the bars broken and pulled apart.
The canary sat upon the rail of the balcony with its beak wide open as it sang a sweet song to the clear blue sky above. It turned and looked directly at Merritt before it extended its wings and flew away.
“My word!” her father said.
Her mother simply cried.