TV Show White Collar Fanfic And Show Don't Tell

The previous two weeks, we have looked at 7 Pursuits to engage in that will help you teach yourself to write.  Those posts are:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/04/7-pursuits-to-teach-yourself-writing.html

and

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/04/7-pursuits-to-teach-yourself-writing_27.html

One very fruitful exercise in teaching yourself to write is writing fan fiction about your favorite TV show or movie characters.

So now we're going to use the USA Networks TV show White Collar for a lesson (an arduous lesson) in SHOW DON'T TELL.  I'm going to try to show-not-tell how to show-not-tell, then explain what I did and give you a chance to do the drill.   

You don't need to have watched White Collar to grasp the elements in this drill, but it might help to browse the website for White Collar.

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/whitecollar/  (the website comes on with audio-commercials)

Writing is a performing art, as I've told you I was taught, and as such it is a vocation, a calling, more than a profession.  Writing is a lifestyle.

Writers do it even when reading.  Can't help it.  If you're a writer, you are constantly and incessantly rewriting everything you read, or even TV shows you watch -- even great TV shows like White Collar. Yes, Watching TV is work for a writer.  I watch about 6 hours of fiction a week. 

So a friend of mine pointed me to a bit of fanfic she had written based on White Collar.  She's a seasoned professional writer who can't write without plot, pacing, style, structure, and conflict that resolves.  Like all writers, she rewrites TV shows as she watches them, then continues to write the show's story-arc, fixing little things here and there. 

Like me, she watches White Collar with an eye on the pickle Neal finds himself in.

That situational pickle is why I like the show.  I liked Remington Steele, Quantum Leap and It Takes A Thief for the same reason - the pickle inherent in the situation. 

Most TV series, especially anthology series, don't address the inherent pickle.

That pickle is called the "springboard" and is a vehicle to get you into the story, not something that they intend to resolve. 

Quantum Leap is a good example.  Only occasional episodes addressed the physics of the problem that got Dr. Sam Beckett stuck leaping from one time to another or how to get him out of that pickle.  The point of the show was "solving problems" in people's lives by taking over their life from inside their own body. 

But the only thing that interested me was the pickle and the solution, not the problems of the people he visited. 

Time Travel Romance routinely does this too.  The mechanism of the time travel leap is more fascinating to me than the Romance unless the writer can make them one and the same -- the novel A Knight In Shining Armor now out on Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Knight-Shining-Armor-ebook/dp/B000FC0QO8/rereadablebooksr/
is an example of making the Romance more prominent than the time-travel mechanism. 

So, in the TV Show White Collar, the Romance and the pickle are intertwined perfectly.  You've got to solve the pickle to solve the Romance.  You've got to solve the Romance to solve the pickle. 

Neal agrees to work for the F.B.I. helping catch white collar criminals (his colleagues and rivals) in order to get out of jail so that he can find and maybe rescue his lover, the one serious relationship in his life. 

At the point of this story, Neal has just seen his soul mate killed in an explosion and has nothing left.  The F.B.I. has him on a leash (an ankle tracking device).  Meanwhile, he's become good friends with the only cop ever to catch him.  The cop keeps tempting him to go straight. And any romance reader can see Neal's  wide-open to a new lover, but not emotionally settled enough yet.  

So my friend the writer starts plotting, and out comes a (brilliant) solution to Neal's pickle. 

It's 2AM after a hard day writing for pay, and she's jumping up and down with this fabulous idea.  Got to write it or she won't sleep a wink, nevermind write the next piece in a way that can earn her pay.  The mind writes what the mind writes. 

So she wades in to solve Neal's pickle in a real quick fanfic.  She's tired and wants to get right to her idea.  This piece is aimed only at those who watch this show's episodes over and over and probably write fanfic about it themselves.  They know the material, they don't need an introduction just a quick sketch of her particular variation on Neal's character, and then into the story she wants to write.

So she perpetrates the biggest no-no in the writing craft, right up front of her story where it really matters, she starts off with tell rather than show, cramming in some foreshadowing that doesn't belong in the opening, then dashes off the story itself and posts it.  As an afterthought, she points me to the first chapter of the story (which already has rave reviews being posted), "Look what I wrote.  What do you think?"  And of course she's referring to her solution to the pickle.   

And what do I do? 

I rewrite her opening tell into show and send it to her.

I had a grand old time writing fanfic to my friend's fanfic.  Then I realized I'd done a writing lesson I could use to show you what I've been talking about when I say "show don't tell" -- my friend does not need this lesson and knows that I know that.  She was not offended when I showed her my scene, and even agreed to let me use it for you.

Here's the URL for the story she posted - it has 7 chapters you can find in the dropdown at the upper right:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5885164/1/Grace_In_The_Confidence_of_Others

Here's the opening paragraphs as she wrote them. Read them, study, and rewrite them as SHOW rather than TELL before reading what I did. 

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

Summary – When Neal is playing a con, pulling a heist or creating a forgery, he has all the confidence in the world. But when these tools are not an option the only thing he has to save himself and the lives of others is something he's not too sure of at all, his own self worth.

Grace in the con fidence of others

Chapter 1/7

By Ultracape

They hung in almost every office, were tacked on nearly all the peg boards and some having been enthusiastically signed with a flourish by the grinning artist were framed and brought home and displayed in places of honor. There were few in the F.B.I.'s White Collar Crime Division who had not yet felt graced with a Neal Caffery original sketch.

It was the easiest con he'd every pulled, even if it was totally unintentional, and nothing to be proud of. As far as Neal was concerned if they were foolish enough to think his creations were any good he'd brag about his talent and play along. Then maybe he would not be the first one people looked to when something went missing in the office. Maybe he could get through a day feeling like his honest work meant something.

Even when he put his life on the line, something that happened with increasing frequency it seemed, it was not his word people trusted, it was his tracking anklet and the ever present threat of prison for the slightest infraction of what he felt were arbitrary and inconvenient rules, just begging to be broken for a good or even not so good cause.

The thing was, while it was rare for Neal to find any task difficult, when he did face difficulty, he did not have the experience to work it through. Fitting in, being accepted; playing by the rules eluded him, frustrated him and turned every day into a struggle to achieve what seemed to come so easily to others.

Gaining people's respect and trust in a persona for a con, for a heist, for the space of no more than a few weeks, was easy, especially for a man of Neal's brilliance. But earning the trust of others with nothing to show for his life but a list of alleged crimes, one conviction and a prison term was a greater challenge than he'd ever faced.

None but Neal's handler, partner and friend, F.B.I. Special Agent Peter Burke, could see through the armor of his fashionable suits, his charming veneer, his eagerness to be helpful, his know it all (because he did) attitude and his wit and puppy dog eyes to the troubled, childlike soul, the person who thought of himself as worth less than his doodles.

Now, just months since his girlfriend, Kate, had been killed, Neal's self-confidence was at an all time low. As far as Neal was concerned, the murder of his lady love, had been the final blow showing him that no matter what he did, what he accomplished, he was worth nothing, just some tool to be used by whoever needed his considerable criminal talents.

If trading his life for a hostage was needed it was no problem, and good riddance if said trade ended in his death. Thievery and coercion were against the law except if some mysterious uber-leader wanted to maneuver Neal into steeling something that supposedly didn't exist from a foreign government. But once Neal accomplished the deed, blowing him up was a convenient way to get rid of his inconvenient presence. And just for fun, pining a crime on him to cover up someone else's misdeeds was no big deal. As far as everyone was concerned, Neal deserved to be in prison, or dead.

Fine, he got the message. He was free as long as they could use him and his choices were prison or death and Neal did not want to go back to prison. Maybe this early morning meeting with Peter would lead to a means to an end. His experience as a consultant for the F.B.I. showed him how easy it was to step in front of a bullet even when he wasn't trying.

Having arrived early, Neal took out his small sketch pad he always kept with him to occupy his time. As usual, his thoughts drifted off to Kate and flashes of their life together, always ending with the explosion that took her from him. It was just that burst of brightness, this time from the sun angling its rays against a building and reflecting suddenly onto his face that he became aware he was staring out at the clear day, the tall glass monoliths sparkling in the morning light. He was halfway done before he even realized he was sketching the cityscape, somehow, even in black and white, capturing the brilliance of sparkling buildings, giving them a vitality unseen by passersby. His back to the door, Neal was so focused on his work that he did not notice the two men, one carrying a file, who walked into the room until one of them gasped.

"Oh my G-d, Peter!"

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

OK, to do a good job rewriting this opening, you should read the whole story, all 7 Chapters, but I had read only this first chapter to the end before I couldn't resist creating a SHOW out of this TELL opening. 

For the purposes of this drill, just reading that first chapter should be enough. 

I'm going to show you here an illustration of a simple fact I learned from Marion Zimmer Bradley. Writing is a craft.  It can be trained into you like driving, tennis, pottery.  The training consists of drill-drill-drill, and that's about it.  Talent of course helps, but is neither a necessary or sufficient condition to doing what I'm going to show you. 

This is an exercise in "put in the data and grind the crank."  It is a mechanical exercise devoid of artistic dimensions.  It is an exercise in walking and chewing gum.  It is an exercise in doing a lot of writing craft techniques simultaneously, and cross-integrating each with the other. 

This scene appeared in my mind, WHOLE and complete, produced by the training my subconscious has endured over the years.  Writing it down only took a few minutes.  I did not think about this.  I didn't laboriously figure it out.  My subconscious produced the scene in a flash-photo and I knew it was the SHOW that corresponds to the TELL in this story opening just twisted into my own characters. 

I watch this TV show, and I have inside my own head, a Neal & Peter set that doesn't resemble those my friend writes about here.  So in writing the scene down, I distorted her characters, and deleted points she had inserted as foreshadowing of the subsequent events that I hadn't read about yet. 

For her to attach my opening scene to her story would mean the entire thing would have to be rewritten, after rewriting my opening to correct the characters to be her own characters.  The foreshadowing I deleted would have to be moved to later.  And then the pacing and plot and everything else would have to be adjusted.

Had she stopped to create an opening scene instead of the long "tell" opening, it would have been an entirely different scene than the one I concocted.

This will be the case with anything you come up with to cast that TELL opening into a SHOW opening.  Your Neal (whether you've watched the show or not) is not my Neal or Ultracape's Neal. 

That's what makes fanfic so much fun!  You can have your cake and eat it too!  You can have dozens, even hundreds, of versions of the same character in various versions of a pickle, and watch the problem get worked out in thousands of ways. 

If you have no idea how to transform her TELL into a SHOW, here's a clue.  You need to create a SCENE in which almost all the information in her TELL is illustrated by visuals, by things, by actions, and by acting business.

To show not tell, you need to create a scene, so your piece must have a scene's STRUCTURE. 

If you don't know the rules for creating a scene, first read:

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

And it's sequel post:

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

Yes, "show don't tell" means "construct a scene that conveys this without saying this."

Scene Structure mastery cures Expository Lumps. 

Ultracape's opening "TELL" is mostly exposition. 

If you don't know what an Expository Lump is, or have been excoriated by your beta readers for expository lumps (or told your writing is boring), read these posts first:

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/sexy-information-feed.html

And this one focusing on Michelle West's novel THE HIDDEN CITY as an example of information feed. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/for-my-review-column-httpwww.html

I call what Ultracape did for the opening "information feed" - and she chose telling the information as exposition and narrative instead of showing it with a full fleshed scene. 

She did that because it's easier and faster.  You will find that you do it often, too, and on rewrite you are faced with the problem of how to fix it.  Sometimes a scene is the solution, so this exercise may help you meet a looming deadline one day. 

WRITE YOUR OWN SCENE NOW.

OK, now here's what I did with it.  Read what I did, then we'll go through it again, identifying the craft skills for various items in this scene.  Then you can rewrite what you did, if you think it's warranted.  You can post your results as a comment on this blog to get feedback. 

------------
GRACE IN THE CON FIDENCE OF OTHERS
(opening rewrite by Jacqueline Lichtenberg)

The motor pool sedan lumbered over the broken field. 

Neal Caffrey sat beside his handler, Peter Burke, who wrestled the car up next to a row of identical ones and parked it precisely in line.   Neal clutched a plain brown wrapped package in his lap and noted the hint of a smirk on Peter's otherwise friendly face.

Peter got out, pocketing the keys and leaned on the open door.  He surveyed the immense bon fire smoking downwind of the parked cars.  On the other side of the fire, a small fire truck and four geared up firemen supervised the flames.  On this side, four guys in F.B.I. jackets watched, hands in their pockets.

Peter looked back at Neal, eyebrows raised. "Well?  You going to pay off this bet, or not?" 

I'm not a welcher.  Never have been.  Even Peter knows that.  I thought.

Neal got out, slammed his door, and tucked the package under his arm.  "What now?" The bon fire of counterfeit currency blazed merrily. 

"Follow me."

Peter led the way up to the group of F.B.I. guys, hitched his suit jacket back and shoved his hands in his pockets, starting to talk before Neal got close enough to hear against the wind. 

As he approached, Neal's artist's eye took a snapshot of the tableau. 

In one instant, the group opened and swallowed Peter, becoming a group of five F.B.I. guys, one of which didn't wear a labeled jacket. But five F.B.I. guys, solid and unbreakable. 

Odd man out, Neal joined the group, very aware that it was still five guys and him, not six guys.

"...sure thing," one of them was saying.  "But I have to see what's in the package first."

"No problem," replied Peter, and gestured casually to Neal to unwrap the package in his arm.

Neal held the bottom of the package and ripped the taped shut top open.

"Oil paintings, on canvass," said Peter. "They'll burn easily.  All forgeries, we don't ever want to get back into circulation, if you know what I mean." 

One of the guys plucked a rolled canvass out of the package and held it open.  He whistled.  "You sure this isn't the real thing?" 

Neal interjected, "They're not."

The guy asked, "How do you know?" And he scrutinized Neal, as if checking his face against memorized wanted photos. 

"I painted them."

All four guys riveted eyes on Neal. 

"So," Peter broke in, "can we feed your fire?" 

"Go ahead." The guy handed Neal back the rolled painting. 

Peter gestured to Neal and the moment of paying off his bet with Peter came upon him like a cold shower. He'd been stupid to open his mouth and volunteer to burn these himself.  He had been so sure he'd been right about Dorothy Putnam's double timing her S.E.C. boss on those CDO's.  But she'd been lily white, and Peter had won the bet.

Neal walked up to the fire, gaining the alert attention of both firemen at the left and right of the pile of burning currency. 

A gust of wind drove the flames and smoke away from Neal, and he took that moment to hurl the first painting onto the fire. 

I can make more. he thought grimly as he flung each painting onto the leaping flames.  So why does this hurt? 

The brown wrapper followed the canvasses, flapping in the wind.

Neal turned to face the welded together group of five F.B.I. guys and paced the distance back to them. 

He could have just let me burn them in my fireplace. He made it back to the car certain he'd shown no hint of the pain he didn't let himself feel. 

By the time they arrived at the office, Neal's back had relaxed enough for him to stride freely down the corridor, even though fully aware of each of his freehand sketches displayed on the walls. 

They hung in almost every office, were tacked on nearly all the peg boards and some having been enthusiastically signed with a flourish by the grinning artist were framed and brought home and displayed in places of honor.

He realized he'd been doing a lot more of those sketches since the murder of his lady love.  There were few in the F.B.I.'s White Collar Crime Division who had not been captured in a Neal Caffery original sketch.

Why do they keep them? The scene of the morning returned full force, Peter melding seamlessly into the group of four F.B.I. guys, and himself apart.  He tried to shake it off.  They don't see me as just some tool to be used by whoever needs my unique skills!

But Neal knew that as far as those four guys were concerned, he deserved to be in prison, or dead, if they could only remember the right wanted poster.

But I've decided to do whatever it takes to stay out of prison, and I can do whatever I decide to do. Right?

Peter's phone rang. As he slipped it from his pocket, he said, "Neal, wait for me in my office, okay? I'll be right back."  And he took off down the hall, phone to his ear. 

Neal sighed and watched him go.  See?  What did I tell you? he told himself silently.  I'm just a convenience, a crime solving appliance.

He slipped into Peter's office and took out his small sketch pad he he carried for waiting-room-moments. 

As usual, his thoughts drifted off to Kate and flashes of their life together, always ending with the explosion that took her from him.

But this time, it was just a burst of brightness from the sun angling its rays against a building and reflecting suddenly onto his face, not an orange and angry black explosion.

He became aware he was staring out at the clear day, the tall glass monoliths sparkling in the morning light. His hand was sketching the cityscape, a simple pencil sketch capturing the brilliance of sparkling buildings, giving them a vitality unseen by passersby.

His back to the door, Neal was so focused on his work that he did not notice the two men, one carrying a file, who walked into the room until one of them leaned over his shoulder and gasped.

"Oh my G-d, Peter!"
-------------

And from there it's as Ultracape wrote it, presenting Neal with an opportunity to wriggle out of his pickle. 

This is an exercise in SHOW DON'T TELL.

In narrative or screenwriting, you must create VISUAL IMAGES out of intangibles, just as commercial writers have to make you want to buy a perfume or a particular brand of toothpaste. 

Things that have to be illustrated are emotions, attitudes, moods, character, relationship, background, backstory without exposition. 

So let's go through what I wrote again, looking for how I did that.  Then you can go through what you did, and see if you can think of a better way to do what you did. 

So here's my scene again with comments in CAPS. 

---------

The motorpool sedan lumbered over the broken field.  (OPENING IMAGE - A ROUGH JOURNEY NEARING AN END)

Neal Caffrey sat beside his handler, Peter Burke, who wrestled the car up next to a row of identical ones and parked it precisely in line.  
(CHARACTERIZATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP (BESIDE) AND OF PETER (NEAT, CAREFUL, ORGANIZED, RULE-CONSCIOUS).  SETTING AND BACKSTORY INDICATED - IDENTICAL CARS - FORESHADOWS THEY ARE FBI - FORESHADOWS THE IMAGE OF 4 MEN TOGETHER)

Neal clutched a plain brown wrapped package in his lap
MYSTERY, A QUESTION IS PLANTED, WHAT'S IN THE PACKAGE, WHY CLUTCHED? CHARACTERIZATION, CLUTCHING - NOT LIKE NEAL TO HANG ON. RELUCTANT TO CHANGE.

ALSO NOTE USE OF SYMBOLISM THROUGHOUT -- IF YOU HAVEN'T STUDIED THE USE OF SYMBOLISM SEE THIS POST
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html
and noted the hint of a smirk on Peter's otherwise friendly face.
CHARACTERIZATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP - WHAT NEAL NOTICES; OF PETER'S PERSONALITY; AND FORESHADOWS TO THOSE WHO WATCH THE SHOW THAT SOMETHING REALLY INTERESTING IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN AND NEAL ISN'T HAPPY ABOUT THAT.

Peter got out, pocketing the keys and leaned on the open door. 
BACKSTORY SYMBOLIZED WITH TYPICAL COP STANCE BEHIND OPEN CAR DOOR, CHARACTERIZES PETER IN METICULOUS POCKETING OF KEYS, ALSO SHOWS WITHOUT TELLING THAT NEAL HAS NO WAY OUT OF THIS SCENE EXCEPT FORWARD -- ONLY WE ALL KNOW HE CAN HOTWIRE THE CAR IN 15 SECONDS.  BUT IF HE DID, WHAT WOULD THAT DO TO THE RELATIONSHIP.  SO HE'S TRAPPED. 

He surveyed the immense bon fire smoking downwind of the parked cars.
VISUAL IMAGE THAT BEGINS TO REVEAL WHERE THEY ARE AND WHAT'S HAPPENING.  IT'S ALSO A VISUAL HOOK INTO THE SCENE. 

 On the other side of the fire, a small fire truck and four geared up firemen supervised the flames. 
SHOWS WITHOUT TELLING THAT THIS BON FIRE IS LEGIT, ON PURPOSE.

On this side, four guys in F.B.I. jackets watched, hands in their pockets.
TYPICAL GUY STANCE WHEN COMMUNING WITH BUDDIES, NON-THREATENING BODY LANGUAGE, YET STRONG, INDIVIDUAL AND SELF-CONFIDENT BODY LANGUAGE. ALSO JACKETS SHOW DON'T TELL THAT THIS IS AN FBI OP.

Peter looked back at Neal, eyebrows raised. "Well?  You going to pay off this bet, or not?"

AHA, DOWN TO BRASS TACKS OF THE SCENE.  PAY OFF WHAT?

NOTICE THAT SHOWING WITHOUT TELLING IS ROOTED IN PROMPTING THE READER/VIEWER TO ASK QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU PROVIDE ANSWERS.  THAT'S INFORMATION FEED TECHNIQUE, AND THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF STORYTELLING.

I'm not a welcher.  Never have been.  Even Peter knows that.  I thought.

NEAL'S SELF-IMAGE IS SHOWN BY HIS PRIDE IN KEEPING HIS WORD.  RELATIONSHIP IS SHOWN IN THAT NEAL KNOWS PETER KNOWS NEAL'S CHARACTER IS STRONG. THEN DOUBT CREEPS IN - THE BAREST HINT WITH "I THOUGHT".  ULTRACAPE TOLD US NEAL'S SELF-IMAGE WAS CRUMBLING UNDER THE REALITY OF HIS LOSS OF HIS SOUL-MATE, AND HERE WE SEE WITH OUR OWN EYES THE FRISSON OF THE FIRST CRACKS IN NEAL'S SELF-IMAGE SHOWING UP IN HIS SOLID RELATIONSHIP WITH PETER.


Neal got out, slammed his door, and tucked the package under his arm.  "What now?" The bon fire of counterfeit currency blazed merrily.

ACTION MOVES THE PLOT OF THIS SCENE ALONG.  AND A TAG-LINE OF TELL REVEALS WHAT WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING AT, AND MOST READERS NO DOUBT SUSPECTED, A CONTROLLED DISPOSAL OF COUNTERFEIT CURRENCY -- NEAL'S BIGGEST SKILL IS COUNTERFEITING CURRENCY OR ARTWORK.  IT'S HIS LIFE, THE PRODUCT OF ALL HIS EFFORTS TO LIVE WELL, GOING UP IN SMOKE UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE AUTHORITIES.  IT IS DEFEAT IN IMAGES.

"WHAT NOW?" IS THE CORE OF THE DILEMMA ULTRACAPE SKETCHES IN THE OPENING TELL.  NEAL IS AT A SYMBOLIC CROSSROADS IN HIS LIFE, NOTHING LEFT BEHIND, NOTHING VISIBLE AHEAD, FAILURE AT EVERYTHING, NOTHING TO PEG HIS SELF-ESTEEM ON ANY MORE. HE HIMSELF IS GOING UP IN SMOKE.  

"Follow me."

AGAIN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEM IS SHOWN.

AN ALTERNATIVE WAY TO DEPICT THIS BIT OF THE SCENE IS TO HAVE NEAL HEAVE HIMSELF OUT OF THE CAR, STALK AGGRESSIVELY ACROSS THE FIELD, AND HURL HIS PACKAGE INTO THE FLAMES WITHOUT ASKING PERMISSION, TURN AND BELLIGERANTLY YELL AT PETER, "SATISFIED?" -- THAT WOULD CHANGE THE CHARACTERIZATION, THE RELATIONSHIP, AND THE GIST OF THE STORY.

Peter led the way up to the group of F.B.I. guys, hitched his suit jacket back and shoved his hands in his pockets, starting to talk before Neal got close enough to hear against the wind. 

SHOW'S WITHOUT TELLING PETER'S A MEMBER OF THE FRATERNITY, ACCEPTED.  ALL ULTRACAPE'S EXPOSITION ABOUT ACCEPTANCE IS WRAPPED UP IN THIS AND SUBSQUENT IMAGES, SHOWN IN IMAGES NOT TOLD IN WORDS. 

As he approached, Neal's artist's eye took a snapshot of the tableau.

THIS STORY IS ABOUT NEAL'S ARTISTIC ABILITY, SO HERE THAT IS SHOWN WITHOUT TELLING, SHOWN WITH ACTION AND DESCRIPTION. 

NOW COMES SOME DESCRIPTION TO ILLUSTRATE THE EMOTIONAL CONTENT OF THE IMAGE NEAL CAPTURES WITH HIS ARTIST'S EYE.

In one instant, the group opened and swallowed Peter, becoming a group of five F.B.I. guys, one of which didn't wear a labeled jacket. But five F.B.I. guys, solid and unbreakable. 

Odd man out, Neal joined the group, very aware that it was still five guys and him, not six guys.

AGAIN NEAL'S UNCHARACTERISTIC SENSE OF ALIENATION SURFACES, AND IT SURFACES IN THE IMAGE OF THE FIVE GUYS AND HIM -- IT IS THE ARTIST IN HIM THAT IS ABLE TO EXPRESS EMOTION THAT HE OTHERWISE COULD NOT FACE VERBALLY. 

"...sure thing," one of them was saying.  "But I have to see what's in the package first."

"No problem," replied Peter, and gestured casually to Neal to unwrap the package in his arm.

AGAIN, WHO'S BOSS AND WHO'S OUTSIDER ILLUSTRATED, AND WE NOW MOVE TO REVEAL WHAT WAS CONCEALED IN THE SECOND PARAGRAPH OF THIS SCENE, CLUTCHING A BROWN PAPER WRAPPED PACKAGE. 

Neal held the bottom of the package and ripped the taped shut top open.

"Oil paintings, on canvass," said Peter. "They'll burn easily.  All forgeries, we don't ever want to get back into circulation, if you know what I mean." 

One of the guys plucked a rolled canvass out of the package and held it open.  He whistled.  "You sure this isn't the real thing?" 

FORESHADOWING THAT THIS ENTIRE THING IS ABOUT NEAL'S ART - AND ALSO HIGHLIGHTING THE SELF-ESTEEM ISSUE AT THE CORE OF THE STORY. 

Neal interjected, "They're not."

WORD INTERJECTED ILLUSTRATES NEAL IS THE OUTSIDER HERE.  AN INSIDER WOULD ADD OR ANSWER. HE'S NOT EVEN BEING ADDRESSED AND MUST INTERJECT.

The guy asked, "How do you know?" And he scrutinized Neal, as if checking his face against memorized wanted photos. 

AGAIN REJECTION.  SURELY BY NOW EVERYONE IN THE FBI KNOWS NEAL'S FACE. BUT NO, HERE'S A CREW THAT DOESN'T RECOGNIZE HIM.  NEAL IS FORCED TO SAY:

"I painted them."

BY LEAVING OUT LONG DESCRIPTION OF THE STRANGLED TONE OF VOICE NEAL IS USING HERE, THE GRATING SOUND OF IT ON HIS OWN EARS, THE BARE WORDS CARRY THE SUBTEXT AND LET EACH READER INTERPRET HOW THE LINE IS DELIVERED FOR THEMSELVES, THUS MAKING THIS SCENE THEIR OWN. 

All four guys riveted eyes on Neal. 

NOW HE'S GOT THEIR ATTENTION - DOES HE REALLY WANT IT.  BUT AGAIN, HE'S ODD MAN OUT.

"So," Peter broke in, "can we feed your fire?" 

ILLUSTRATES THEIR RELATIONSHIP - PETER SAVING NEAL FROM EMBARRASSMENT AT THE HANDS OF PETER'S COLLEAGUES.  PETER, MEMBER OF THE FRATERNITY; NEAL, OUTSIDER.

"Go ahead." The guy handed Neal back the rolled painting. 

STAGE BUSINESS HERE AN ACTOR COULD MAKE A LOT OUT OF. LET THE READER READ IT. 

Peter gestured to Neal and the moment of paying off his bet with Peter came upon him like a cold shower. He'd been stupid to open his mouth and volunteer to burn these himself.  He had been so sure he'd been right about Dorothy Putnam's double timing her S.E.C. boss on those CDO's.  But she'd been lily white, and Peter had won the bet.

HERE NEAL'S INNER DIALOGUE IS REVEALED WITH SOME NARRATIVE, AND THE OFFHAND REFERENCE TO AN EVENT NOT MENTIONED IN ULTRACAPE'S OPENING IS INSERTED TO SHOW DON'T TELL THAT NEAL IS NOT ONLY AT THE NADIR OF HIS LIFE, BUT INSULT TO INJURY HE'D LEAD THE FBI IN THE WRONG DIRECTION ON THEIR LAST CASE -- ON THE TV SHOW THERE IS NO DOROTHY PUTNAM OR SEC SCANDAL OR CDO BUSINESS.  I JUST MADE THAT UP FOR A BET NEAL HAD JUST LOST. 

Neal walked up to the fire, gaining the alert attention of both firemen at the left and right of the pile of burning currency. 

A gust of wind drove the flames and smoke away from Neal, and he took that moment to hurl the first painting onto the fire. 

SYMBOLIC OF WHERE HE IS IN LIFE, HURLING HIS PAST INTO THE FIRE BECAUSE IT'S ALL A WORTHLESS SHAM. 

I can make more. he thought grimly as he flung each painting onto the leaping flames.  So why does this hurt? 

AS MOST MEN, NEAL FEELS HIS FEELINGS BUT HAS NO CLUE (AND DOESN'T WANT TO HAVE) WHERE THEY COME FROM OR WHY HE FEELS.  HE KNOWS HE CAN "MAKE MORE" -- REBUILD HIS LIFE -- BUT ON MORE SHAM, MORE CONS, A FALSE AND FAKE LIFE WORTH NOTHING BUT BURNING IN A BLEAK, OPEN FIELD UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYES OF THE AUTHORITIES. 

The brown wrapper followed the canvasses, flapping in the wind.

REALLY NOTHING LEFT, NOT EVEN THE WRAPPER.

WHAT HE HAD CLUTCHED TO HIMSELF, HE HAS NOW THROWN AWAY.  THIS IS THE BACKSTORY OF THE WHOLE TV SERIES UP TO "NOW" WHEN ULTRACAPE SOLVES THE PROBLEM EVER SO NEATLY. 

Neal turned to face the welded together group of five F.B.I. guys and paced the distance back to them. 

OK, BRAVELY FACE THE FUTURE. 

He could have just let me burn them in my fireplace.

AGAIN THE MORPHING RELATIONSHIP, THE UNCERTAINTY THAT HE EVEN UNDERSTANDS PETER.

He made it back to the car certain he'd shown no hint of the pain he didn't let himself feel. 

THIS INVITES FANFIC READERS TO RE-WATCH ALL THE SHOWS FOR HINTS OF NEAL'S INNER LIFE SHOWING THROUGH WHEN HE THINKS IT DOESN'T.  ALSO AGAIN, ANOTHER SHOW DON'T TELL OF HOW THE FACE HE TURNS TO THE OUTER WORLD IS A CONSTRUCT, NOT WHAT HE KNOWS AS HIS TRUE SELF.  HE DOESN'T LET HIMSELF FEEL HIS OWN PAIN, SO IT WON'T SHOW, BECAUSE - WHAT? IF IT DID SHOW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN? REJECTION? AGAIN, THE POINTS OF CHARACTERIZATION ULTRACAPE HIGHLIGHTED ARE SHOWN, NOT TOLD.  BUT IT'S JUST A LITTLE DIFFERENT THAN HER NEAL WOULD DO IT. 

By the time they arrived at the office, Neal's back had relaxed enough for him to stride freely down the corridor, even though fully aware of each of his freehand sketches displayed on the walls. 

HERE WE JOIN THE NARRATIVE ULTRACAPE WROTE WITH A DIFFERENT SEGUE.  HER OPENING "THEY HUNG IN ALMOST EVERY OFFICE" IS REALLY COOL, AND I WAS VERY SORRY TO LOSE IT.  SO I PUT IT IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH, AFTER REVEALING WHAT "THEY" ARE -- BETTER THAN SCRAPPING IT TOTALLY. 

They hung in almost every office, were tacked on nearly all the peg boards and some having been enthusiastically signed with a flourish by the grinning artist were framed and brought home and displayed in places of honor.

He realized he'd been doing a lot more of those sketches since the murder of his lady love.  There were few in the F.B.I.'s White Collar Crime Division who had not been captured in a Neal Caffery original sketch.

Why do they keep them? The scene of the morning returned full force, Peter melding seamlessly into the group of four F.B.I. guys, and himself apart.  He tried to shake it off.  They don't see me as just some tool to be used by whoever needs my unique skills!

But Neal knew that as far as those four guys were concerned, he deserved to be in prison, or dead, if they could only remember the right wanted poster.

But I've decided to do whatever it takes to stay out of prison, and I can do whatever I decide to do. Right?

Peter's phone rang. As he slipped it from his pocket, he said, "Neal, wait for me in my office, okay? I'll be right back."  And he took off down the hall, phone to his ear. 

Neal sighed and watched him go.  See?  What did I tell you? he told himself silently.  I'm just a convenience, a crime solving appliance.

BLENDING INTO ULTRACAPE'S FIRST SCENE, BRINGING A SHOW DON'T TELL IMAGE INTO THE APPROACH TO THE OFFICE, CREATING AN EXIT FOR PETER SO HE CAN RE-ENTER WITH THE GUEST AND NEW OFFER.

He slipped into Peter's office and took out his small sketch pad he he carried for waiting-room-moments. 

As usual, his thoughts drifted off to Kate and flashes of their life together, always ending with the explosion that took her from him.

But this time, it was just a burst of brightness from the sun angling its rays against a building and reflecting suddenly onto his face, not an orange and angry black explosion.

He became aware he was staring out at the clear day, the tall glass monoliths sparkling in the morning light. His hand was sketching the cityscape, a simple pencil sketch capturing the brilliance of sparkling buildings, giving them a vitality unseen by passersby.

His back to the door, Neal was so focused on his work that he did not notice the two men, one carrying a file, who walked into the room until one of them leaned over his shoulder and gasped.

"Oh my G-d, Peter!"

AS PETER BRINGS HIS GUEST AND SUGGESTION INTO NEAL'S LIFE, WITH THAT BURNING PAINTINGS SCENE TACKED ONTO THE OPENING, WE HAVE A REVERSAL OR SWITCH, A BIG TURNABOUT IN THE RELATIONSHIP.

IN MY OPENING SCENE, NEAL IS FEELING -- NOT THINKING -- THAT PETER HAS REALLY ABANDONED HIM, THAT PETER IS BEING CRUEL ON PURPOSE IN SOME WAY, AND NEAL ISN'T SURE HE DOESN'T DESERVE IT.  NEAL IS JUST IN GRIEVING MODE, TOTALLY LOST, AND FEELING ABANDONED BY PETER, HIS LAST FRIEND.  BUT HERE, ALL OF A SUDDEN, IT'S REVERSED, AND PETER IS PROVIDING A SOLUTION THAT TAKES INTO ACCOUNT WHAT ART REALLY MEANS TO NEAL, A MEANING NEAL HIMSELF HAS NO CLUE (YET) EXISTS.

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

Now, go over the scene you constructed, identify the techniques you did use, and make sure you've used all of the ones I've noted above.

Make your scene says what you want it to say, and with the characterization spin that you prefer -- but make it clear and vivid what your spin actually is.

This is a drill in SHOW DON'T TELL which is designed to prompt you to carry the dynamic evolution of a new icon for modern Romance into the future. It's all about Relationship shown but not told. 

For more on the Romance iconization, see:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/04/turning-action-into-romance.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Intergalactic Bar & Grille Party Photos

Okay, it's that time of year. The fantabulous Romantic Times BOOKlovers Convention just concluded--this year in Columbus, OH. The 5th (I think it's 5th) annual Intergalactic Bar & Grille Party was a hit! Here are some photos from the fun and mayhem. Authors hosting the party, along with me, are: Jess Granger, Karin Shah, Jade Lee, Catherine Asaro, Isabo Kelly, Colby Hodge aka Cindy Holby, Liddy Midnight, Janet Miller, and Stacey Kade aka Stacey Klemstein...

Special thanks to Nikki (aka Expendable) for these photos!

Next year, Los Angeles!
~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

Authors Raising Money For Charity

May is the month during which Brenda Novak and her publishing industry friends auction off books, critiques, promo packages, advertising space, book tours, chocolate, jewelry and much, much more to raise money for Diabetes Research.

Here's Brenda's Home page
http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/

Here's Rowena Cherry's page.
http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=1773459

Here's my demo (mine is 7 minutes long and is the first chapter of Mating Net) although the offer is for 2 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_ydNfyLM4Y

Technology and the Writing Biz

Here’s an op-ed article from the Baltimore SUN contrasting traditional books with e-books, with special reference to reading WINNIE THE POOH aloud to a child:

Reading and Computers

And here’s a piece from the same day’s editorial page about writing on the computer versus the old-fashioned way:

Writing and Computers

And last, a long article from the NEW YORKER about whether the iPad can “save books.” This one is mainly about the BUSINESS of publishing:

iPad and Kindle

The first piece listed above skirts annoyingly close to the fallacious contrast often made between e-books and “real books.” Once and for all, media folks, e-books are BOOKS. I can remember similar scorn for paperbacks as “not real books” (“trashy paperback” in some circles was one word, like “damnyankee”). E-books serve better than paper books for some functions and not so well for others. I agree with the writer of that article about children’s picture books; even a full-color electronic display would be only a second-choice substitute for the traditional format. On the other hand, children’s material composed specifically for the electronic format could take advantage of features unavailable to old-fashioned books, such as interactivity.

The editorial about writing on the computer makes one assertion I heartily disagree with—that a word processor never improved anyone’s writing. It has certainly improved, if not revolutionized, mine! Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I was reluctant to rewrite because every change meant retyping a page, and a major rewrite would require weeks of repetitious work. I tended to think long and hard about whether replacing a not-quite-there phrase with a better alternative was worth the time and manual labor. (Not to mention the risk of introducing new typos with each iteration.) Now I can keep revising until the work is as close to perfect as it’s likely to get. And responding to editors’ revision requests may not be exactly a pleasure, but it’s no longer a nightmare. Viva technology!

Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt

7 Pursuits To Teach Yourself Writing Part II

This is Part II, continued from Tuesday April 20.

3) What Is Your Favorite Story

Of all the stories you have floating around inside you, which one(s) are your real favorites?

Which universe have you created that you really live in, while just visiting our shared reality occasionally?

Which character pops up leading your stories most often?

Oh, yes, you have dozens, right?

Probably not. Probably, if you are like most writers, for long stretches of your life you will actually write only one story, about one character, with one problem.

Those Literary Criticism writers I discussed above actually do produce some useful information as they compare works from a given writer over a lifetime.

One thing that turns up among many prolific writers is very similar to what movie critics find about Lead Actors -- there is a single character or "type" and a single story-theme that the writer or actor does with exceptional audience "reach" (breadth of appeal).

And as I have said that I learned from my first writing teacher, Alma Hill, Writing Is A Performing Art.

Writing and Acting are really the same profession.

The skills of one apply to the other.

Very likely, your favorite story will be the story you can craft with the broadest possible "reach."

In Hollywood marketing, "reach" is the measure of how many different demographics will pay to see a work. Does it appeal to 15 year old boys AND 30 year old women, AND 25 year old men and women, and Parents taking their kids, AND 20 year olds taking a date? Can you get them all into the theater? Then you have "reach."

Or you might be in a "niche" market, and not have a very broad reach but really, really REALLY hit that single demographic, 15 year old boys who will drag their date into the theater whether she likes it or not.

And woe betide her if she says she doesn't.

If you read enough biographies, you'll find a lot of very popular writers have been shocked and surprised by the explosion in popularity of a particular thing they've written. Some can duplicate that success, and some can't. I think mostly those who can't are those who have written something very well indeed, but it isn't a favorite inner story of their own.

Why are we talking about this? Because one pursuit you can't stray from is the pursuit of the right mentor for you at this particular time in your development.

That mentor will be someone who is currently selling your favorite character in your favorite story.

If you pursued the study of archetypes, you will be able to see why you resonate to that author's work. Your story, inside of you, is somehow also the same as this author's. But the similarity will be on the highest abstract level, and the differences will mask that similarity in every way possible.

It's the differences that you have to sell. That's your stock in trade.

But what makes your stuff sell is the "vehicle" - the archetype behind it all.

Well mastered craftsmanship lets you showcase the differences and hide the similarities. And that's what gives you penetrating power into an existing market.

If you can't find books on writing by a writer whose work tells you that you belong in his orchestra, in his classroom, among his peers, playing his song, then you must learn by studying how and why you respond to his stories.

A "pantser" learns best by studying what others have externalized. A plotter learns best by studying what's inside themselves. I do both.


4) What Is Your Natural Trope?

One of the pursuits of a writer who wants to reach a broad and deep market, to extract money out of her audience, is the formal education in "literature."

Since the printing press is much older than the moving-picture, there's a lot more written about story-craft in reference to text-based stories than about films.

A film, though, is a story. It's a story in pictures. It's images and iconography, and in many ways far more powerful than the written word. But in other ways, pictures are less powerful than the written word.

But if you have studied the Shamanistic story telling, the Bardic tale, the living oral traditions that led to the Ancient Greek theater, to Rome, to Shakespeare, etc., you surely have noted that the genres created in each medium bear a haunting similarity to each other.

The Adventure, The War Story, The Costume Drama, The Coming Of Age Tale, The Hero's Journey.

Each prototype is adaptable to each medium we've invented so far.

Now, it seems 3-D is the next big thing, but it's so expensive that only the simplest, most visual stories (AVATAR) can be distributed in that medium.

So for the next few decades, I would suggest new writers perfect ways of crating their stories to blend both text and images. In time, distribution costs may come down to where a select few "classics" written for future media will reach future generations.

So, search the inventory of stories floating around in your mind, then learn the popular tropes, the genres, the rule-bound formulaic stories, and study how old genres evolve into new genres.

Consider the "Dime Novel Western," Hard Boiled Detective novel, the Bodice Ripper, the Gothic Romance, the Kickass Heroine SF-Romance, the time-travel Romance, the adventure, the soap opera, the sourcerer's apprentice and all the ever morphing forms.

Then contrast-compare those extant forms with the classic, eternal "storytelling" tropes.

Learn the forms that make classics, then search through the stories inside you and find out what you have in those forms.

Now, it may happen that almost all the stories inside you are of one or another classic form. That could make life easy because you already have inventory to sell. Or it could make life hard because you don't know which one to work up into selling form or where to market it.

But more likely, you will find your own stories are the same as the extant forms you imbibe a lot of. Your favorite entertainment shapes your inner dialogue, but you also gravitate to the extant form that most resonates with your own personal story.

I've discussed how and why this matching happens in several posts on Astrology Just For Writers, with a list of links to them here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

And in a discussion of Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT! series on screenwriting, is a discussion of what you can achieve with the knowledge of how your internal stories match (or don't) with the tropes that are most popular now, and classically.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/04/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html

If it happens that your internal stories just don't match any of the commercial genres, then you have at least three possibilities.

a) You can found a genre with a blockbuster they'll name the genre after.

b) You can whittle, craft, rearrange, develope, unfold, and morph your internal dialogue to match one of the currently extant genres.

c) You can develope a whole new internal dialogue.

Or you can do all of the above. None of this is a betrayal of your personal artistic nature or the gift you bring to the world. It's just mastering a craft, no more complex than learning to talk at age 2.

Storycraft is a language you can acquire as a native speaker -- without knowing grammar, spelling or punctuation. Or it's a language you can learn as an adult, a second language meticulously learned through grammar, vocabulary drill,and ennuciation.

If you speak story as a native, you become a pantser whose stories sell because your internal stories are already in the language everyone else speaks.

If you learn it as an adult, you become a plotter who tells only part of their internal story - the part that can be translated.

So when you've sifted the seething mass of stories inside you down to a set of those that match the external market.

So discovering your natural trope is the 4th pursuit in teaching yourself to write. If your natural trope isn't popular right now, that's a problem to solve by taking up the 5th pursuit, the study of your natural audience.

5) Who Is In Your Natural Audience?

You might think of this pursuit as "Where did everybody go?"

Or perhaps, when everyone is stampeding in the opposite direction from where you're going, you might ask, "What do they know that I don't know?"

As I noted above, actors and writers are really doing the same thing, and so spend a lot of time people watching, especially stampeding herds of people (i.e. trends in reading tastes).

Studying your audience, finding out what amuses them, what they laugh at, what they think about, what they worry about, is very likely the biggest life-long pursuit of a writer.

The commercial fiction writing craft is all about audience "reach" -- how broad an audience can you entertain? How little do they have to have in common with one another to enjoy your product?

But you don't have to be a commercial fiction writer to slice out a demographic of your own and entertain them fully and deeply.

Today, you have self-publishing options, and ebook publishers who are developing famous imprints in very narrow niche audiences.

Today you have many more choices for what to do with your internal story dialogue than ever before.

Find your natural audience, then ask yourself if you want to do what it takes to reach beyond that natural audience.

Very often, that might mean reducing the emotional impact on your natural audience in order to stir and fascinate a broader audience.

Once you've made that decision, you can choose a medium of delivery.

Today, there is a thriving independent film market beginning to develop niche audiences.

In any delivery medium, though, reaching your audience is all about cost, investment, up-front expense.

Part of your expenses as a writer include your education (not tax deductible yet), and the time spent on your day-job.

Who you want to write for, and what mechanism you want to use to reach that audience will shape and empower the fiction you produce.

For example, there was a time you couldn't write a sex scene in a YA novel. That world has changed. But the rules for YA sex and general audience sex scenes, and "Adult" sex scenes are still different.

So you will find yourself re-evaluating what audience you want to write for, and what medium to write in, for each individual work you tackle. Thus studying your natural audience, and audiences around the fringes of your natural audience will become a lifelong pursuit, not a single career decision graven in stone.

When you write a story, you are just like the oldest of old time storytellers. You are standing up before an audience, and what you say, how you say it, when you pause, and when you shout, all depends on how well you know the people behind the faces looking up at you from across the campfire.

Writers are just like actors, singers or dancers. It's the same craft performed in different media.

Writing is a performing art. To master it, you must perform.

And that doesn't mean just write a 1,000 words a day.

The story is not told until someone hears it.

The story is not written until someone reads it.

How well you can get your story to "go over" with your natural audience depends on practice - incessant practice.

But how well you can reach beyond your natural audience also depends on practice. A lot of that practice is practice at getting rejection slips and figuring out what to do about any comments on them.

Learning to reach beyond your natural audience, to reach enough people to justify book publication expenses, to justify a stage production or film production, takes persistent practice.

The more expensive the medium of production, the farther beyond your natural audience you must "reach." And so the more practice it takes.

Finding your natural audience is the first step in a long, involved pursuit. Once you identify your natural audience, you must figure out what they have in common with other audience-fragments you might reach with only tiny adjustments in your internal story's tropes.

And you have to do this over and over again for each story you want to tell. So again and again, it becomes a lifelong pursuit in teaching yourself to write.

However, just as telling your story can't happen until there is someone to tell it TO -- likewise, teaching yourself can't be done in total isolation.

6) Who Is Your Natural Mentor?

When you have done all you can do by yourself, when you have produced several works you have polished until you can't see a difference between your work and the other similar works in your genre, then you need a mentor.

Again, a mentor is not a teacher. A mentor is more like a drill instructor, a martial arts sensei, or a dance teacher or orchestra leader.

Before a mentor can help you at all, you must have the basics down pat, but not to the point where you believe you know it all, or where you've practiced your errors to be habits you can't change.

A mentor does something. You copy it. The mentor tells you what you did wrong, kicks your feet into allignment for the posture, drills you in the forms, tells you your note is flat, sets the tempo. You do it again and again and again until you conform your output to standard.

Who will you accept that kind of discipline from? How do you find that person? How will that person recognize you?

In teaching yourself to write, you will adopt many lifelong pursuits. Searching for your mentor -- and your next mentor and the next -- becomes a lifelong pursuit.

A mentor can't teach you. You can use a mentor to teach yourself, but only if you have defined what you must master and what you're willing to suffer through to master it.

The other 5 pursuits listed here help you define what you must master.

Only you can set limits on what you will suffer to achieve mastery.

Generally speaking, searching for a mentor will most likely not prove successful.

Mentors find you.

A potential mentor is someone who has just recently mastered what you now need to master.

People who are ready and willing to "pay it forward" - to pass on what they have internalized to a non-verbal understanding, will not generally go around looking for someone to mentor.

But they will be working in the field, demonstrating their mastery, cutting a swath through all the competition.

In the course of that, they may stumble upon your output, and recognize that the one thing it lacks is this newly mastered technique.

And they will offer a clue, a comment, a crumb, to help you recognize what's missing.

If you respond by accepting that casual input and putting it to use, incorporating it easily and quickly, and producing something ELSE to show them (not saying, "I made these changes. Is it right now?" but creating something new that does demonstrate an attempt at the technique) -- then perhaps you will capture this mentor's attention.

Once captured, you may not be able to shake that attention off so be careful who you respond to.

The flip side of the coin is that once you accept input from a mentor, you then must "pay it forward." You can't fail to offer that crumb to someone else who is lacking it.

Accepting a mentor doesn't cost money. It's much more expensive than that.

"By your students you'll be taught."

When you offer to mentor someone, you have to be vulnerable to what comes back at you because of it.

From that experience, though, will come your next great work.

Ultimately, that's where all our ideas come from -- other people.

Today, you can accept mentoring after a fashion via printed or ebooks on the craft.

But as with living, hands-on mentors, no one single source will inculcate everything you must master.

As I mentioned above, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of books on screenwriting and on novel writing.

They all pretty much say the same thing, over and over, in different ways, just as living mentors impart their craft in different ways.

Which book is good for you will depend on who you are and where you are in the learning curve at the moment you pick it up.

You can read the same advice 6 times and think you have it -- then read a 7th book and WHAM finally get it.

It all boils down to little sayings all professional writers know -- such as "show don't tell" "conflict, resolution" "characters must arc" -- but exactly how you personally implement these sigils of the craft depends on who you are.

If you go to
http://www.triggerstreet.com/

Sign up, and then look for JLichtenberg, you will find about 19 in depth analyses that I have done of screenplays others have written (some of the screenplays are still available there for free reading - some subsequently rewritten).

Quickly look through the screenplays and what I singled out as the main problem, and you will find that the same thing happens with screenplays as with novels -- over and over, the real and only problem with beginning writers (and seasoned pros, too) is CONFLICT.

Identifying, developing, and resolving a single main conflict, a thread that runs right through the work as the backbone of the work, is the one thing necessary to sell a work, and the last thing writers master.

Really. All these books on writing try to convey ways, means and methods of getting your mind to grapple with a conflict in such a way that a reader/viewer can grasp that conflict and experience its resolution as the personal payoff to sitting through the storytelling.

Every trope and genre has a specific conflict, and a pattern of events that leads to a resolution of that conflict.

All our lives have a main conflict (the story of your life) -- read my posts on Astrology and Tarot for more specifics.

We resonate to fiction that discusses our main life conflict "off the nose" - subconsciously, or by distancing the issue.

It's CONFLICT that connects your internal stories to your audience's internal stories.

Showing rather than telling CONFLICT is the main technique all books on writing try to mentor new writers into realizing in their drama.

Here are some books that do a fine job of it - books recommended by Rowena Cherry. In my opinion, you would do just fine picking a book off the library shelves or out of the discard bin at a used book store.

7)Books others use or recommend.

Three suggestions from Rowena Cherry - the writer who started this co-blog:
-------
Laughing at myself. Some would say that I did not do a very good job of teaching myself to write... so my list might not be a good recommendation.
Ronald B Tobias's "20 Master Plots" is always close at hand when I draft a new book, but I tend to take two of his master plots at a time, and mix them, one for the hero, the other for the heroine.

"I rely heavily on "The Joy Of Writing Sex" by Elizabeth Benedict (I think), because I don't naturally enjoy writing about sex."

"Al Zuckerman's "Writing The Blockbuster Novel" has some excellent recommendations of blockbusters to read (Thorn birds, The Godfather, Gone With The Wind..." However, I have yet to write a blockbuster, so either the advice left too much to extrapolation, or I am a lousy student.

Probably the latter!"

"Orson Scott Card's "Characterization" book is excellent, but if you read "How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" you find the same great advice, pretty much."
--------

I would agree with all three of those.

Pray hard, close your eyes, pick a book, start reading in the middle of the book. You'll find the mentoring advice you need to get started on this pursuit.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Meridian Magazine:: Ideas and Society: Orson Scott Card on the Dismantling of America

Meridian Magazine:: Ideas and Society: Orson Scott Card on the Dismantling of America

Maybe this article by Orson Scott Card doesn't paint the picture of cause and effect, the relationship between culture and storytelling, just exactly right, but it's a clear statement.

And I have definitely seen this shift happen, as he describes it. I also think something Good has been discarded along with Old Culture quirks that weren't working well.

So if you intend to publish your storytelling, I'd definitely recommend you read this article, save it, and maybe re-read it in 20 more years.

Research your genre's books published in the 1960's, and write contrast/compare essays between them and books being published today. See if you can nail the difference, and use that as the core conflict to generate yourself an original universe to tell stories about.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Stephen Hawking Says Aliens Exist - AOL News

Stephen Hawking Says Aliens Exist - AOL News

Jobs

What do people do for a living in our science fiction romance and alien romance worlds?

I see farmer-colonists, teachers (magical and religious), healers, a plethora of law enforcers, also law makers, nightclub owners and bar tenders, entertainers (and pleasure-givers) and athletes, explorers, warriors, rulers, traders, doctors, newsmen, pilots and other functionaries necessary for the running of a military or civilian space station or space ark. Also the pirates, bounty hunters, assassins, smugglers, freedom fighters.

Maybe that's a comprehensive list, after all. Are there any glaring omissions that strike you?

If so, what gets glossed over, and why?

Have you read a small stack of books and been left with a niggling feeling that some of today's (and yesterday's) worldbuilding is rather superficial?

On the other hand, the submission guidelines for mid-list books seem to be calling for shorter manuscripts. Few debut authors could write a rich, sprawling Dickensian work.

I watch Mike Rowe's "Dirty Jobs" with great interest, and wonder how much of civilization's truly nasty jobs could be presumed to be done by robots in the future.

Limited Editions and E-Books

Cemetery Dance Publications will soon put out a limited edition of a new novella called “Blockade Billy” by Stephen King. Judging from the blurb, the story combines baseball and horror. This news even got a big article in the Baltimore SUN:

Baltimore Sun

This isn’t the first King title Cemetery Dance has published, but it’s the first time they’ve had an “exclusive” on a limited first edition by him. Although I subscribe to CEMETERY DANCE magazine, I’ve never bought one of their books. They produce deluxe, short-run products that are too expensive for me. I’m not a collector; I buy books strictly to read the words, and the idea of spending $25 for a novella makes me go “eek!” and run the other way. Even if it does include extras such as collectible baseball cards. (Thanks to online bookstore discounts, I never spend that much for NOVELS.) But I really, really wanted this novella now instead of many months later when it may get included in a King story collection at standard hardcover prices. To my delight, Amazon.com offered copies of the Cemetery Dance release at a deep discount of $13 and change. So I ordered it.

A few days later, it was announced that Cemetery Dance would not have enough copies (it’s a 10,000-copy run) to fill outside orders. Amazon canceled the availability of the book. Bummer. Then, happily, King’s regular publisher stepped up to the plate (to draw upon the baseball theme). They will release a non-limited edition in May at the reasonable price of about $14. Yay! I put that product in my Amazon shopping cart but did not pre-order. When I discovered today that the Kindle edition, still cheaper, has just been released, I bought it. Instant gratification, no waiting until nearly the end of May.

You may have figured out that I’m chintzy when it comes to shopping. I buy too many books not to seek bargains wherever available. (If my husband ever looked at the statements for the credit card I use at Amazon, he would doubtless say I buy too many books, period.) If I simply must read a new book right now, I buy the hardcover at the Amazon or Barnes and Noble online discount. If there’s a cheaper Kindle edition and it’s not one of the authors I feel I need to have in hard copy, I buy that. If I can wait, I either request the book from the library or buy the paperback later (or both). With older books, I often buy used copies from the online sites, especially if it’s something I’m not sure I’ll be enthusiastic about. As for highly overpriced items such as academic books, in most cases I couldn’t own them at all if not for cheap used copies.

The point of all this rambling—aside from “new Stephen King horror novella, yay!”—is to applaud what a wealth of format and price choices readers have nowadays and what innovative things some publishers and retailers are doing in the book distribution business. Well, some of them; some are trying to expect exorbitant prices for e-books and claiming that $9.99 Kindle editions are underpriced! If major publishers start charging near-hardcover prices for e-books and then act surprised when readers won’t buy them—well, they would be shooting themselves in the foot. The argument that e-books need just as much editing, formatting, etc. as print books, coming from mass market publishers, is disingenuous. When an e-book comes into existence as an additional format of a book that has already been released in print, all that work has already been done. Profits from the e-book should be mainly gravy. Our independent e-publishers (Hard Shell, Amber Quill, Ellora’s Cave, Mundania, etc.) seem to get along just fine pricing e-books at or below mass market paperback rates. Granted, they probably pay their editors a lot less than New York publishers pay theirs. But that difference couldn’t justify pricing e-books equal to (or even near) the print edition of the same book.

On the whole, though, there’s much going on to celebrate. In DIFFERENT SEASONS Stephen King labeled the novella the “banana republic” of fiction, the format nobody wanted. (As in, “Senor, your story is going to be here a long, long time.”) Now, thanks to the Internet, fiction of that length can be published and profitably sold to readers as a stand-alone unit. No longer do we have to hunt for a magazine or anthology willing to give the poor thing a home.

Speaking of anthologies, there’s a new one called WARRIORS that includes stories by three of my SF and fantasy favorite authors. The topic in general, though, doesn’t interest me a bit. I’d love to read those stories, but I’m not willing to pay the cost of a whole hardcover for them. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could buy electronic versions of individual stories out of an anthology, like individual songs off a music album? Actually, the Marion Zimmer Bradley estate is doing that very thing with items from the Darkover and SWORD AND SORCERESS volumes. They’re offering the individual tales separately on Fictionwise.com, with a generous cut to the authors. I wish more anthology editors would think of doing that.

So many potential opportunities for readers and writers. Truly, we live in frabjous times.

Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt

7 Pursuits To Teach Yourself Writing Part I

My posts are always too long, so this time I'll try an experiment. I'm going to post this one in 2 parts, Part I and Part II, posted a week apart, even though it's a single long piece. How many of you who want to read Part II will forget to?

http://www.amazon.com/review/RSRPV96SU9D4W/ref=cm_cr_rev_detmd_pl?ie=UTF8&cdMsgNo=3&cdPage=1&store=books&cdSort=oldest&cdMsgID=Mx1S6NK71GGPZ5F#Mx1S6NK71GGPZ5F

Is a comment on a review I wrote of SAVE THE CAT!

The review I wrote has drawn 3 marvelous compliments from readers (and from Blake Snyder when he first published the book). This third comment though asks for a list of (currently available) books on screenwriting that would teach what you need to know before SAVE THE CAT!

Any list I could give you would probably be useless in a year or so because many of the titles would be out of print unless they were e-books. And even then, they would likely be out of date in some way because the entire field of "commercial entertainment" is always morphing. I will put a list though at the end of Part II.

And the truth is, though I've read countless books "on screenwriting" (started in grammar school and High School too, reading every book on playwriting the library would stock - inter-library loan books too) I've never read a screenwriting craft book that actually taught how to write a STORY.

Writing a script (stage play or screenplay) is a secondary skill.

You've seen any number of screenplays "based on a story by" -- screenplays have to be based on a story! Before you can write the screenplay, you must craft the story itself or find one already crafted.

Creating that story is actually a separate craft from screenwriting, and it is best learned by studying books on novel craft.

Yet a novel is structured differently than a play.

You have to learn that difference in order to write a story that would be useful to a screenwriter, yourself or someone else.

There is a way to teach yourself that difference and how to leverage that difference into a blockbuster screenplay based on a story by you.

So I'm going to give some examples of where to look, and how to identify a writing textbook that can help you -- but with a focus on what to do with those texts and how to do it.

The reason there are so many books on screenwriting is twofold.

a) there is no "one thing" to master and then you can do it. No two writers are alike, no two people master any performing art the same way, or in the same order. The ones who will sell scripts generally go this route, selecting a few courses, reading a lot of books because multitudes of approaches are needed.

b) there are multitudes of people who want to "become" screenwriters and will read books to dream about it, but will likely never finish any script. They keep buying books and paying for courses so the field grows. The ones who will sell scripts generally don't do it via this route, taking lots and lots of courses and buying lots and lots of books.

How do you teach yourself writing craft for storytelling in any medium?

Story craft is a huge subject. To master it, you must understand that the subject is bigger than you are.

Marion Zimmer Bradley had a 3X5 card tacked over her desk saying nobody ever told you not to be a plumber.

There are more efficient ways of making a living. Writing is the hardest work and the most underpaid except maybe ballet dancing.

Except for the top 1 to 5% of writers, the best paid working writers make less than minimum wage if you add up all the hours spent at it over a lifetime.

Writing is a vocation not an occupation.

It's a Calling.

You must dedicate your whole life to it and be willing to sacrifice everything else (sometimes your sacrifice isn't accepted and your family will miraculously stick by you no matter how you neglect them; but you must be willing, often savagely willing).

Read a lot of biographies. You'll see every really famous writer's biography includes a myriad occupations, all apparently disconnected. The career of writing is composed of odd jobs and a life of study.

So I'm going to list some of the pursuits that might lead through that myriad occupations to a career in writing. And from all this you may discover how to find the books on writing craft and screenwriting craft that will synthesize these pursuits into a sellable screenplay or novel (or both).

1) What is storytelling?

The first pursuit is to define what you are pursuing.

There is a craft called "storytelling" which is a theatrical discipline, and a folk-art.

Storytelling specifically refers to a person who stands up before a live audience and creates with words and dramatic delivery a story usually with a moral or lesson. It is perhaps the most ancient form, and most respected. The original objective may have been cultural continuity, bringing the young into the community.

It isn't exactly what I'm referring to as "storytelling," but all of its craft disciplines are very specifically relevant to learning to teach yourself the craft of commercial fiction writing for text or dramatization.

The most important lesson you can learn from storytellers is audience awareness.

A person who simply mouths off about their own internal fantasies is not story-telling. The "telling" part involves connecting emotionally to the audience and that means being aware of the audience's main fantasies. More about that later.

So the first "pursuit" on our list is to study storytelling from shamanistic origins through Broadway stageplay, even perhaps including folk music performances and today's popular rap forms until you understand exactly what you are aiming to master.

Storytelling is the core origin of "entertainment" - the kissing cousin of the Bardic Craft (traveling living newspaper and history book all wrapped in poetry and a rousing well lubricated singalong).

And all of these living person delivery systems are bundled up today in the "Classroom Teacher" from Kindergarten through 16th Grade. The school librarian or public children's librarian is another manifestation of this. Some even play guitar and sing to the tots!

These teachers are usually our first contact with live entertainment, the first ignition of the desire to share our fantasies, our inner lives, with others.

Teaching is entertainment at its best.

So to teach yourself, you must entertain yourself.

Learning is something else altogether.

I have held elsewhere that there is no such thing as "teaching" -- that one person can not convey either information or a world-view by force into an unwilling or disinterested mind. Even indoctrination doesn't work very well without an entertainment aspect.

But there is "learning" -- and "learning together" as a group activity.

As in "The King And I" -- "by your students you'll be taught" -- if you don't open yourself to absorbing lore from your students, they can not and will not absorb anything from you. So be careful who you set out to teach.

The English words "teaching" and "learning" imply one-sided activity, each disconnected from the other, each able to exist in isolation.

This is a property of the English language, a way of dividing the world into compartments that is distinct from the way languages from other Language Families divide the world.

The formal study of Linguistics, especially neurolinguistic programming, is highly recommended as a pursuit under this first category of pursuits. If you are to use language to tell a story, you might be more successful if you know how language works and why it works that way.

Screenplays are "a story in pictures" - and pictures are also language. See my blog entry on the new iconography:

TURNING ACTION INTO ROMANCE
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/04/turning-action-into-romance.html

It's about a new Iconography of the modern action-romance, images reveal theme: TOUCHED BY AN ALIEN DAW Books Cover image vs. a still from the movie FACE OFF. 
So if the concepts teaching and learning are actually just artifacts of the English language, what really does happen in a classroom or when you read a book about how to do something? How are skills transmitted in real life?

A real life transmission situation is better described in terms of music and resonance.

A classroom is more like an orchestra than it is like a mother bird feeding chicks.

I think those who participated in Blake Snyder's screenwriting workshops got that impression of playing in an orchestra he was directing. And orchestral directing is, like writing, a performing art.

In the transmission of an artform from generation to generation, the vast majority of what is transmitted is non-verbal, even sometimes spiritual. And that's true of a verbal artform, so transmission is best done in person.

My own hands-on, in person, orchestra leader was Marion Zimmer Bradley.

No two writers could possibly be more opposite in nature and function than Marion Zimmer Bradley and Jacqueline Lichtenberg, but I absorbed things from her that can not be put into words.

I was recently reminded of all she ignited within me by a query that came to me on twitter after a #scifichat,

(for how to participate in twitter online chats see
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/02/strange-benefit-of-social-networking.html )

@All_Day_SCIfi asked me if I knew of any good books on literary analysis.

Since High School, I've had many encounters with "literary criticism" and none have been informative or useful - perhaps because I'm an originator of the "literary" that others "criticise."

The query did say "analysis" which is what I do to stories, but not just to "literary" stories -- I devour stories delivered in any medium and analyze what makes them work, or not work, and what I would choose to do to the story to make it work or work better.

Many years ago, I was a Guest at The Conference On The Fantastic that Margaret Carter reported on this year:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/international-conference-on-fantastic_25.html

I attended several memorable panels, talks and paper readings at that event, met Stephen King, and had other remarkable experiences all in the space of a few days.

One of them was a paper on Marion Zimmer Bradley - of course I couldn't miss hearing that so I was one of the first to arrive, and got a front seat and listened with absolute attention.

At that time, the Conference was new, and Professors didn't write papers on mass market original novels, nevermind SF or Fantasy. The Conference on the Fantastic has changed my world in that regard.

This particular paper drew some very deep and searching conclusions about Marion, her work, her worldbuilding, and the substance of the themes she was working with. Almost all the conclusions and assumptions in the paper were based on the final paragraph of one Darkover novel.

As it happened, I knew something the writer of the paper did not know, and according to the rules of literary criticism was forbidden to research and discover. What I knew, invalidated everything in the paper resoundingly.

I knew that the final few lines of that novel were not written by Marion, but by an editor. I knew because I'd seen the original and Marion told me how the ending got changed, not because she was incensed about it but because she was illustrating a point about how to work with themes, how to craft a beginning and an ending that match (just as in a symphony -- she was a student of opera, another pursuit I'd recommend).

The change in wording of the final sentence changed the theme drastically. It changed it to a theme she personally did not want her byline associated with but which the editor thought would sell better, and which the editor thought was what she really meant anyway.

She discussed it with me also to illustrate what it means to be a professional fiction writer working in the mass market paperback medium, as opposed to hardcover original where writers have more authority.

It was, at that time, very common for a mass market paperback editor to change a writer's words (legally, it was in the contracts that they could do so) without the writer's knowledge or consent and then print the book. Even when that wasn't in the contract, it was career death to object publically.

The reason for this is simply deadlines. Mass Market moves production faster and on a lower budget with less time and fewer people, and little or no cross-checking at every step. That makes it oddly like film production where, though there is much checking and changing, the writer is simply out of the loop after delivering the script. The pace is frantic for time is money, and decisions are made not on the basis of the art but on the basis of cost.

Objecting to such routine practices in production is the difference between an "artist" and a "commercial fiction writer."

An artist's work depends on every punctuation point and even misspelling - every paragraphing choice and every word choice. Nothing can be changed without destroying the artistic effect.

A commercial fiction writer buries the important stuff, the art, so deep these commercial changes made by many hands along the production channel don't matter.

In this particular case Marion ran into, the change in the ending mattered a lot -- but Marion settled it privately and never had that happen to her again by that editor.

The professor writing a paper about Marion based on that ending could have discovered the origin of those words by asking Marion (she was still alive then and easily reached).

But that's against professor rules. You can't ask an author what they meant to say, even if the author is still alive, and derive a point of "literary criticism" from what the author says they meant to say. You have to work from the printed text.

My personal opinion of literary criticism and scholarship in general reached an all time low at that point, and has stayed there.

Maybe I should change my opinion now that the Conference on the Fantastic has changed my world. It's possible that analyzing mass market work has caused professors to change their rules of evidence, and that would change my opinion.

But I did learn the lesson Marion was demonstrating. Master the layered construction of a story and learn what "they" will change during production, and what you can sneak past them. But also learn how to react professionally when something turns out differently than you intended.

And that's what "storytelling" really is.

The story you have inside you to tell will stay inside you unless you can master the craft of delivering that story to an audience, and Marion's experience with having her ending changed demonstrates what the writer goes through to deliver a story to an audience.

StoryTELLING - delivering - is a mechanical craft that anyone can learn.

But I've never seen anything like this lesson written down in books on writing, or screenwriting.

Many books on screenwriting are only annecdotes about personal experiences and cheerleading to inspire dreams of success. One book like that, more storytelling than instruction, is WRITING THE KILLER TREATMENT (selling your story without a script) by Michael Halperin.

From the title, you'd think it was about how to extract the working parts of your story into an outline that a skilled screenwriter could use to craft a completed script "based on a story by."

But no. It doesn't tell you how to do it. It tells you that you must do it and how much fun and profit there is when you do. It's a $15 book I found to be a total waste of time and money - not because it's a badly written book. No, it's a very entertaining, lively, and zestful bit of inspirational writing. It's the title that's misleading (to me). Others might construe it to mean something more like what's actually inside the book.

Marion's lesson to me in telling me about how the last lines of a novel got changed without her having a chance to object or negotiate was tossed at me in response to something I had said or done -- and in the context of my learning curve, because the lesson was chosen and tailored for me at that time, I learned a thousand things from it.

If you pick up WRITING THE KILLER TREATMENT at the right point in your learning curve, you may learn a thousand lessons and sell screenplay because of it.

A good book on writing craft is one you are ready for.

A bad book on writing craft is one you are beyond - or one you aren't ready for.

If you run into a "bad book" on writing craft, put it on your shelf. There may come a day you need it -- or a day you will refer a student to it because it's just what they need at that point in their learning curve.

Marion also said many times, anyone who can write a literate English sentence can write and sell fiction.

You can teach yourself. You don't need to pay thousands of dollars for classes, or hundreds of dollars for books on writing (libraries are full of craft books for free reading and the internet is replete with hints, tips, and blogs like this one, even online courses that aren't very expensive.)

So where do you start teaching yourself?

Well, once you are well launched on pursuit #1, "What is Storytelling?" you are ready to ask yourself a group of questions that will launch you into more pursuits, some of which may turn into occupations.

Question-asking is the major technique of the storyteller, and I don't just mean the Socratic Method.

The answer to any question lies in the formulation of the question. Get the formulation wrong, and you will never find the answer.

The best place I know of to learn questioning is in the pursuit of an education in the sciences.

Philosophy is another subject area, especially religious philosophy, that trains the mind in questioning.

See my blog entry on Theodore Sturgeon's motto, Ask The Next Question for more on that:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/theodore-sturgeon-ask-next-question.html

So "What is Storytelling?" naturally leads me to ask:

2) What Stories Are You Telling Yourself?

I know of 3 kinds of writers: Deliberate Plotters, Pantsers, and Hybrids.

Deliberate plotters need to know consciously, exactly what they're doing, why and how all laid out in an outline before they do it. They make great formula mystery writers.

Pantsers (the majority, I think) write "by the seat of their pants" -- just make it up as they go along, do what the characters dictate, follow the character's nose through the story. Marion was that kind of writer; completely subconscious.

Hybrids, like me, do it both ways at once, and vacilate back and forth without rhyme or reason. But I've trained myself to be more of a plotter, and Marion often said how she admired my ability to plot.

But what is it that you are doing when you write a story? Is it just plotting?

Most writers (commercial and otherwise) have thousands of stories bursting inside their heads, dream bits in different universes every night, and have a hard time choosing one story to write and finish.

In fact, that's one way to tell if a young child is going to "be a writer."

Marion often said, perhaps quoting Robert A. Heinlein, the only reason to be a writer is that you can't do anything else.

Writers write. And if they can't write, they stare at a blank wall and tell themselves stories. Incessantly.

It is the nature of a writer to glance at a cereal package and leap off into a whole story.

Writers, like actors, sit on shopping mall benches and people-watch, guessing what soap opera each passer-by is wound up in.

Writers don't strain for story ideas. They don't hunt for them. They don't go somewhere else to "get an idea." They have to beat the ideas off with a stick.

For commercial fiction writers, that stick is made of the filter question, "Can I Sell This Story?" "What's the market for this story?"

For the screenwriter, the filter is not about the story at all -- nor even about the idea. The screenwriter searches for "High Concept" which is a wholly different animal than a novelist tames.

Here is one place I discussed the High Concept in screenwriting:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/medium-is-message_19.html

And here I discuss how concept distinguishes a novel from a screenplay

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2006/11/converting-novel-to-screenplay.html

So before you can choose a filter, you have to know which kind of story your mind keeps generating. You have to inventory, contrast, compare, examine, slice and dice, what's floating around inside your mind.

Unless, of course, you're a "pantser" by nature, and looking too closely at the content of your internal stories would be like asking a centipede how it walks.

In that case, you need to focus more externally and examine closely what you do for relaxation, for entertainment. What do you do when you're doing nothing? What carrot do you put on a stick and chase through your daily chores so you can get it for a reward?

Is it a TV show, a movie, a book, all of the above multi-tasked?

Since you are selling FUN, you need to have some in stock to sell. Go have some fun. Acquire that fun, intellectually, emotionally, and/or non-verbally. Repackage it and sell it.

The pursuit of the contents of your internal stories will, most likely, lead you to the pursuit of the study of archetypes, of  THE HERO'S JOURNEY and similar insightful works.

Psychology, socialogy, and every kind of -ology listed in any university catalogue can be applied to sorting, categorizing, and warehousing your inventory of internal stories.

One or another of those thousands will have commercial potential.

Why? Because one or another of your stories actually also resides within thousands and thousands of other people.

Those stories that reside in thousands, millions, or everyone are either based in archetypes or they are pure archetypes.

That's why so very often we hear the cries of, "They Stole My Idea!"

They didn't steal it, they got it the same place you did -- "up there somewhere."

I've done twenty posts on Tarot Minor Arcana which discuss slicing and dicing archetypes and how a writer can employ these principles in the process of writing. The posts are listed in these posts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html lists Suit of Swords

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html lists Suit of Pentacles

All of this came out of my own examination of my internal stories.

My external stories, what's been professionally published, are very different - but not unrecognizable.

See next week, Tuesday, on this blog for part II.

This is short, right?  *sigh*

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Silly Season: Time for the BookLovers Convention

Yep, it's spring, so yep, it's time for the start of the silly season: the gi-normous Romantic Times BOOKlovers Convention, this year held in Columbus, OH. We're talking two or more thousand readers, writers, booksellers, librarians and other industry professionals, plus four hundred or more (I lose count at these things) published authors. Oh, and a handful of male cover models.

Do you now see why it's the silly season?

It's great fun, a super time for readers and authors to meet, a super time for authors to connect with other authors, a super time for librarians and booksellers...and I think the male cover models endure the best they can.

Here's my schedule for those so inclined:

PRE-CON Aspiring and Advanced Writer Workshops

Monday 4/26
10:15-12:00: FINDING MR. GOODWRITE: Linnea Sinclair and Stacey Kade
1:30-2:45: POINT of VIEW: Linnea Sinclair & Stacey Kade
4-5 PM RESEARCH: Linnea Sinclair & Stacey Kade

Tuesday 4/27
TUES 10 – 11AM: STAYING INSPIRED - : Linnea Sinclair & Stacey Kade
3:00-3:45: ASK US ANYTHING/Smith/Parmley/Sinclair/Groe/Lee/Kade

Yeah, Stacey and I do the dog & pony together a lot. We write from different philosophies but we end up at the same place. We're also crit partners, so it's fun for students to see how authors who don't agree on the philosophies of the craft still work together.

MAIN CONVENTION PROGRAMMING

Wednesday 4/28
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
CRAFT: FROM REGENCY TO RIGEV V: WORLD BUILDING ACROSS THE GENRES
Panelists: Cathy Clamp aka Cat Adams, Lynne Connolly, Donna MacMeans, Karen Miller aka KE Mills, Linnea Sinclair

6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
READER: INTERGALACTIC BAR AND GRILLE PARTY (This is THE big party for this genre, kids!)
Hosted by: Catherine Asaro, Jess Granger, Cindy Holby aka Colby Hodge, Stacey Klemstein aka Stacey Kade, Isabo Kelly, Janet Miller aka Cricket Starr, Karin Shah and Linnea Sinclair

Friday 4/30
11:15 AM - 12:15 PM
CRAFT: PITCHES AND BLURBS AND TAG LINES, OH MY!
Panelists: Gwynne Forster, Stacey Klemstein aka Stacey Kade, Jackie Kessler, Linnea Sinclair

1:30 PM - 2:30 PM SPECIALTY: WRITING KICK-ASS FIGHT SCENES
Panelists: Leanna Renee Hieber, Isabo Kelly, Stacey Klemstein aka Stacey Kade, and Linnea Sinclair

2:45 PM - 3:45 PM
SPECIALTY: KICKING BUTT AND KISSING HEROS: BEING STRONG AND FEMININE AT THE SAME TIME IN FICTION
Panelists: Karen Miller aka KE Mills, Linnea Sinclair, Jeri Smith-Ready

Saturday 5/1
BOOKFAIR 11am-2pm OPEN TO THE PUBLIC! This is a phenomenal time--all your authors in one place.

Next year the con's in Los Angeles, CA. FYI.

Hope to see you all in OH for this one! ~Linnea


Linnea Sinclair
// Interstellar Adventure Infused with Romance//
Available Now from Bantam: Rebels and Lovers (Book 4)
http://www.linneasinclair.com/

Gaia's Zits -- or Of Lice and Men

Suppose we live on a sentient being?

It's not a new idea. There's James Lovelock's and William Golding's Gaia Theory (Earth as a single organism), and books by Asimov, Orson Scott Card, the Helliconia trilogy, and many more. That doesn't mean that "it" cannot be "done" again.

We've all spoken of "Mother Earth", or "Mother Nature" but, I wonder, would a planet be male or female or hermaphrodite or a barren neuter?

The Earth breathes. It breaks out. Its skin crawls and wrinkles and shifts. It has warm flashes and cold spells. Frozen, liquid filled, life bearing comets might or might not be compared to spermatozoa... should I compare planets to giant clams in the oceans? A star's life cycle might be compared to that of the mythical phoenix.

Before the eruption, I was developing a thought about the arrogance of mankind, not merely politicians at Kyoto or Copenhagen, but of all of us to think that we have changed or could change the climate. It is true that a sufficient overpopulation of fleas can kill a dog. I accept that. But, I think we're more of the order of lice.

Entertaining gateway page to information about headlice
http://www.headlice.org/faq/index.htm

Fascinating piece on how volcanoes have shaped human history
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8622520.stm

If you look at the cross-section of an animated volcano, you may be struck by its similarity to a pustule

I've no idea if a host's acne outbreak is disastrous for headlice, but volcanic eruptions are potentially very serious for humans.

In Europe it is feared that the eruption of Eyjafjallajoekull will set off one of the Earth's most dangerous volcano systems: Katla, and perhaps Hekla. It sounds counter intuitive, but if the weight of a glacier keeps an icy lid on a volcano, and that glacier is melted, then there could be a chain reaction.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/21/icelandic-fissure-eruptuon-triggers-worries/

http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/2010/03/icelandic-volcanic-eruption-cycle.html


 "Eyjafjallajokull has blown three times in the past thousand years," Dr McGarvie told The Times, "in 920AD, in 1612 and between 1821 and 1823. Each time it set off Katla." The likelihood of Katla blowing could become clear "in a few weeks or a few months", he said.

 Mount Hekla is one of Iceland’s most active volcanoes. It was known to islanders as the “Gateway to Hell” – with good reason. When it erupted in 1159 BCE the effects were felt hundreds of miles away. In Scotland the whole of the west coast was devastated. A sulphuric cloud of ash and acid rain fell on the land, a tsunami raced across the sea and the sun was hidden for years. 

Maybe life will end in December of 2012! This cycle could go different ways for us, but either way, there's not a lot we can do about it. We cannot stop volcanoes from erupting.

Apparently, the volcanic cloud over Europe is too high to be seen from the ground at least from southern Britain, and the white clouds of it as seen from the air are quite pretty. The problem for aviation, apart from visibility, is the glass in the clouds. Glass is what can melt in the extra heat of an engine, then solidify again.  However, it is now possible to fly below the cloud and around the periphery, and the cloud will thin as it spreads.

The high level, and very white volcanic ash-and-glass clouds could reflect heat away from Earth.... (by the way, one can now buy sunscreen in the form of a face powder!) in which case, "global warming" will be mitigated. 

Or, the subsequent eruptions could be violent enough to jolt the Earth off her current axis, in which case, the North Pole will shift (if it hasn't already). Or, the subsequent eruptions could cause "insta-melt" of a lot more than the glacier in which Eyjafjallajoekull is set. Eyjafjallajoekull has four vents, I'm told, and it erupted through a glacier which may have caused larger grit lumps and a greater volume of steam than might otherwise have been the case.  If the next round --if there is a next round-- causes a great deal of insta-melt, there could be tsunamis and flooding.

Maybe Mother Nature will wash the lice out of her hair.  Was Noah's flood related to the Icelandic volcanoes? It's interesting to reflect that an Eyjafjallajoekull eruption has been know to last for two years, and that 5.33 million years ago, the Mediterranean sea is thought to have filled within a mere two years. Like a storm drain. And 9,500 years ago, a small flood created the Black Sea. Was that global warming? Or an Eyjafjallajoekull effect.

Just to digress a little more, next winter --or the one after that-- could be cold enough to freeze the Mississippi.

"Iceland’s Laki volcano erupted in 1783.... The winter of 1784 was also one of the longest and coldest on record in North America. New England reported a record stretch of below-zero temperatures and New Jersey reported record snow accumulation. The Mississippi River also reportedly froze in New Orleans."(news.yahoo)

On the other hand, if global flooding and famine and cooling are (or may be) coming, are our priorities as science fiction, alien romance, and Romance writers in the right place?

Footnote.

Lovelock's initial hypothesis 

James Lovelock defined Gaia as:

a complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.

FictionA number of works of fiction use the Gaia hypothesis as a central part of the plot. In two of his science fiction novels, Foundation's Edge (1982) and Foundation and Earth (1984), Isaac Asimov describes the planet Gaia as one on which all things, living and inanimate, are taking part in a planetary consciousness to an appropriate measure. In Asimov's story Gaia strives for an even greater superorganism that it calls Galaxia, and that comprises the whole galaxy.


See more at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

PS, Rusty's link to his tongue-in-cheek blog on a similar topic is http://unitedstatesofscamerica.blogspot.com/2010/04/iceland-saves-earth.html


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

Technology Nostalgia

Lately FORWARD DAY BY DAY, an Anglican daily devotional guide, has been reprinting meditations selected from issues throughout its 75-year run. This past Sunday a meditation from 1936 began with: “After driving a motor car all day, you are tired partly because so many pictures, so many things, come before you in a very short time. In twelve hours you see miles and miles of countryside, cities, people, gas stations, other cars. Then at night you arrive home and you are at peace.” (What would this writer think if he or she could experience the pace of a typical day in our time?)

The point of the meditation is the need to rest and “refuel” (spiritually) at frequent intervals during life’s journey. What it brought to my mind, though, was the quaint image of a long trip in a “motor car”—a novel activity in that era when reliable cars, good highways, and convenient gas stations were still relatively new—as a daring, challenging experience. It also reminded me of a book I recently read about the history of the Burma Shave signs (remember those?—the last one was officially taken down in the early 1960s). When first invented, this mode of advertising was a daring new experiment. Now it’s material for reminiscence about the “olden days.”

The reading reminded me, too, of a poem by Kipling with the refrain, “Farewell, Romance!” The old ways and artifacts appear “romantic” in the sense of adventurous and exotic. The caveman complains that the displacement of flint spear heads by metal ones will mean the death of romance. Likewise, the replacement of crossbows by firearms. The stagecoach is romantic; the noisy, smoke-spewing train isn’t. Thoreau, too, associates trains with the soulless pace of modern life; “the railroad rides on us,” he says. Nowadays, though, trains feel quaint and romantic to us, a subject for folk songs. Whatever has faded into the past takes on a glow of nostalgia. Kipling’s poem ends, “He [Romance] taught his chosen bards to say, Our king was with us yesterday.”

We Boomers idealize old black-and-white TV programs. Our parents lamented the disappearance of radio dramas. The country song, “I Miss Back Then,” celebrating the alleged innocent simplicity of what sounds like the 1950s, lists a plethora of material and social phenomena the singer misses. (Many of which I happily do without. Baloney sandwiches on white bread with mayonnaise? They nauseated me then, and I wouldn’t eat one now except as an alternative to starvation in the wilderness.) What cutting-edge technology of today will our grandchildren, when they reach retirement age, look back on as symbolic of a simpler, happier time? Will they walk around with miniature computer links in their ears, Bluetooth style, viewing data on a holographic upload that floats in front of their eyes, and sigh for the good old days of laptops, notepads, and iPods? Will they reminisce to their kids about gathering around the game console with friends? When e-books become ubiquitous, will old fogies regret the passing of paper books, magazines, and newspapers? Will they sigh over the replacement of paper Christmas and birthday cards by e-cards? (Some people think newspapers are going that way already. As for me, you’ll deprive me of my daily papers in the driveway, not to mention tangible mail in the mailbox, when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers.)

If you’re around my age, does it ever give you a bit of a chill to stop and think that, to our grandchildren, the 1960s are HISTORY? Even for our two youngest children, in their childhood the Vietnam conflict lay farther in the past for them than World War II (which was, to me, HISTORY—after all, it ended three years before I was born) did for me at that age.

I’ve definitely entered the geezin’ stage of life. Cars today are far safer (and mostly more fuel-economical) than the vehicles of my childhood and teens, but when was the last time you rode in one (other than a van or SUV) that could seat more than five people in roomy comfort? The available selection of TV programming may be better than ever, but they certainly don't make movies the way they used to, do they?

Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt