"An economy built on the illegal exploitation of artists, is very simply an Exploitation Economy." Quoted from http://thetrichordist.com
If you are an individual author, or photographer, or songwriter, or musician, or artist, big business wants to change the law and the morality of the free world so that they can strip you of your copyrights, steal your works, and make money for themselves without paying you.
Nowhere have I seen the reality so clearly explained as on thetrichordist.com. Read the Orphan Works series. Or check out the War On Authors posts.
We (copyright owners and creators) are being exploited, dissed, screwed, and called "greedy" while those who aggressively avoid paying authors are happy to pay very large sums of cash Google, Apple, Microsoft, PayPal, Amazon and dozens of other true fat cats.
My eyes have been widened as I read the articles on the trichordist blog in preparation for an interview with one of the trichodrist team for my Crazy Tuesday radio show. Every so often, I invite guests to talk about copyright, and this interview is going to be very interesting.
Meanwhile, noted sci fi author and president of SFWA John Scalzi has the liveliest of discussions taking place on his blog. Of especial interest (in my opinion) is
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/02/07/second-hand-ebooks
and also
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/02/07/no-wait-i-do-have-another-thought-re-used-ebooks/
They can't. So, why is his ebook listed at all on the Sell Your Stuff pages? My ebook is also listed, and again the dotted lines are broken and there is therefore no box indicating that my ebook could be "re-sold". I am reassured to see that there is no indication at all that the illegal ebook versions of some of my paperbacks-- that never should have been created and offered for sale-- ever existed.
It should be noted that re-selling ebooks is apparently legal in the EEC.
One should check sell my stuff amazon co uk also http://www.amazon.de/b?ie=UTF8&node=949953031
So far, it seems reassuringly as if ebooks are not being sold by the general public to other members of the general public with no commission to the authors.
All the best,
Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Thursday, February 07, 2013
Weird Sex
There’s an Argentine lake duck that has a corkscrew-shaped penis as long as its body, almost half a meter:
Argentine DuckSurely he doesn’t insert the entire length into his mate, so nobody knows exactly why he possesses such an oversized appendage.
Contemplating this duck’s love life brings to mind Larry Niven’s classic essay about Superman’s hypothetical sexual difficulties:
Man of Steel, Woman of KleenexI found out about the Argentine duck in THE DAWN OF THE DEED: THE PREHISTORIC ORIGINS OF SEX, by paleontologist John A. Long. Although this author focuses mainly on the prehistoric origins of internal fertilization with extended discussion of extinct fish and modern sharks, the book also devotes space to some other strange sexual practices in the animal kingdom. Life right here on Earth offers plenty of ideas for weird alien biology.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's CryptTuesday, February 05, 2013
Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 6 - Use of Media Headlines
Theme-Worldbuilding Integration
Part 6
Use of Media Headlines
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
PREVIOUS PARTS IN THIS SEQUENCE OF POSTS:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-1.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integraton-part-2.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-3.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-4.html
http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-5.html
And here we are at Part 6. Remember the posts that have two skills and the word "Integration" in the title are advanced writing lessons - more a "meta" level of study, a study about a study. We are examining in slow motion -- sometimes excruciatingly slow motion -- what happens inside a writer's mind before the flash of "inspiration" that causes the shout, "I've got an IDEA!"
That level, before the idea surfaces, is usually where the beginner's fatal mistakes are made. Errors made at that "before the idea" level of writing craft are un-fixable, which is the reason so many writing textbooks insist you must write a million words for the garbage can before you will turn out anything remotely publishable.
If you want to build a fictional world -- no matter how close to this one or how "fantasy fraught" and far away from this one -- START here.
"Here" is right here in your reader's everyday reality.
Every work of fiction is a journey for the reader, up and away, out and away, far and away, to someplace or somewhen else than where they normally live.
That's both the enchantment and the value of fiction-reading -- an adventure into a point of view that is so different from normal, everyday reality that you can return to your work-a-day world and view it with new eyes. You get the same effect from an expensive vacation! You return to a world forever changed!
That's what a writer provides to a reader that is worth the price of the book.
So how do you do that? What's the mechanism?
It's very much like stage-magic. Once you know the "trick" it isn't a trick anymore.
If you're "just" a reader (hey, guys, we need readers!), then you may not want to read this series of blog posts about how it's done. On the other hand, sometimes knowing the trick enhances the effect.
So look back over the previous 5 parts of this sequence on integrating Theme and Worldbuilding -- and you will find a lot of mentions of the use of "misnomer" as a dramatic device.
The misnomer is extremely powerful when used on "readers" (people who gravitate toward absorbing the written word as a way of having fun) because the reader is very verbally oriented in the way they conceptualize ideas.
Today, more young people are being trained to absorb concepts and ideas from images rather than the linear method of one word after another.
A picture is worth a thousand words, you know -- and nowhere is that more evident than in media such as the graphic novel.
EXAMPLE:
...is 321 pages of linear text
...is about 120 pages of pictures with balloon-dialogue snippets and barely scratches the surface of the contents of the linear text of the first volume in this shapeshifter/werewolf/romance series.
And the text novel has a sequel, too --
Which is described nicely as: Mated to werewolf Charles Cornick, the son -and enforcer -of the leader of the North American werewolves, Anna Latham now knows how dangerous being a werewolf is, especially when a werewolf opposes Charles and his father is struck down. Charles's reputation makes him the prime suspect, and the penalty for the crime is execution. Now Anna and Charles must combine their talents to hunt down the real killer -or Charles will take the fall.
And it really is that good! Patricia Briggs is an excellent writer, toying with the outer edges of human/animal sexuality.
So the misnomer is a technique that is most powerful in text, true, but has its applications to the "story in pictures" format used in film and in graphic novels.
Now let's think about how a writer, creating a fictional world, can use Media Headlines to draw pictures in words using the misnomer.
Remember, the theme-worldbuilding integration technique is of most value where you must condense the story into fewer words. Today's published novels tend to run long -- writers trained to be succinct are having a very hard time expanding their stories to the necessary length. But that trend will reverse as it always does.
Being a "professional" writer means being able to fulfill whatever requests an editor (who is getting requests, even demands, from the bean counters wearing suits) might toss out. So the same story that occurs to the writer after reading a headline can be tailored to fit whatever constraints an editor with a budget needs fitted.
By using a HEADLINE -- perhaps glimpsed in passing by a character in your story, or perhaps about one of the characters in the story -- you can evoke IMAGES in your reader's mind, even though you are working in linear text.
And when you use such images, you can reduce the number of words -- i.e. the amount of printing space -- necessary to print your book.
So here's an interesting headline from last November that evokes thoughts of industrial espionage, always a fertile ground for both worldbuilding and plotting.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-29/the-curious-case-of-samsungs-missing-tvs#r=read
The Curious Case of Samsung's Missing TVs
It's a news story about some crates packed up with TV's inside, not-yet-marketed state of the art TV's, big industrial secret technology, that arrived at a trade show without said TV inside the crates.
The article speculates that a rival company might want such a TV to reverse engineer the new technology - steal a march on Samsung.
Who knows? Who cares? We're writers. This is a story-idea playground of an article filled with wondrous plot twists we could use.
But better yet, this headline is part of the everyday world of your readers, the world they want to get away from, get far enough away from to gain perspective on.
So extract the idea of industrial espionage, and look for another setting and a Romance twist to use for your story.
And don't forget the MISNOMER technique.
OK, here's a headline from December 2012 that might give you an idea.
http://news.yahoo.com/netanyahu-brushes-off-world-condemnation-settlement-plans-142559939.html
Netanyahu brushes off world condemnation of settlement plans
To your potential readers, such a news article would appear to be about the politics of the Middle East and the abysmal misbehavior of one faction (the Israeli faction that is relentlessly building houses where a faction of their opposition doesn't want houses built).
Take a closer look at how that headline is phrased and ponder how you can use it.
Did you spot the misnomer?
Unless you follow Middle East politics, you probably didn't spot this because you've only seen this one story about it, or one headline or TV news clip.
The brutal fact is that Netanyahu DID NOT BRUSH OFF anything. He's not an arrogant person, but you'd never know that from USA news coverage. Only arrogant people (real villains) "brush off" condemnation of their actions by oppositions that have sensible objections to the actions.
KNOWING IT, though, knowing that Netanyahu is not arrogant, you can suddenly see the dramatic potential for a really, REALLY hot "Alien Romance" brewing in this misnomer!
He didn't "brush off" his opposition. A third party (media) is portraying his action as a "brush off" -- carefully choosing those exact words with their semantic loading of "only a villain would do this action" in order to portray an honorable, dignified and gentle individual as an arrogant villain spoiling to be taken down.
Consider that this headline appeared during a period when Israel was in the middle of an election fight as hotly contested as the Obama-Romney contest of 2012.
When you read the headline that says X "brushed off" Y, you instantly know who is the hero and who is the villain in that interaction.
That's the nature of all MISNOMERS -- they reverse the positions of the admirable individual and the nefarious individual. That's what makes the technique so insidiously powerful and so perfect for a writer to employ in a novel.
Remember, the essence of story is conflict. What conflict is better suited to alien romance than the wrenching decision of who is the Hero and who is the Villain?
This is the core of many of the most successful Regency Romances based on the triangle. It works in Paranormal Romance particularly well -- you have a woman who falls in love with an alien, and along comes another alien who falls in love with her. But the two aliens are enemies (for some, very good, reasons) Now she has to sort out which is the good guy and which is the bad guy. And sometimes LOVE by itself makes her choose to go be with the bad guy, even knowing he's the bad guy!
The absolutely firm, unquestioning belief that THIS is the Hero and THAT is the Villain can be planted in your reader's mind by just such a subtle trick as was used in this Netanyahu headline.
Only those who have an independent information source know he's not a villain, and even armed with that knowledge, they will doubt Netanyahu -- because only villains 'brush off' legitimate objections.
Now, take your setting out of International Politics on this Earth -- remember the headline about disappearing TV Sets -- and put this MISNOMER technique of "brushing off" into an INTERSTELLAR INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE ROMANCE, and your reader will have no trouble leaping into your world, falling in love with your villain and being utterly shocked to discover the real hero is the other guy.
Think of the thousand things you don't have to explain if you use real-world elements like these, think of all those words you don't have to write so that you have room for the parts you do want to write.
You might title it: Giving Your Alien The Brush-off -- and see where that takes you.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Time Travel Cognitive Dissonance
Last week I read SOME KIND OF FAIRY TALE, by Graham Joyce. In this novel a girl taken by the fairies at age sixteen comes home twenty years later (present-day England), having aged only six months. Naturally she’s astonished by the changes that have happened in the world since her disappearance. One thing she notices in the first day or two that shocks her deeply is that there aren’t any telephone booths on the streets.
One of Spider Robinson's stories set in Callahan's Bar, "The Time Traveler," has no overt fantasy content. The title character has spent about that long in a South American prison (effectively a dungeon), completely cut off from the world, so when he's released it's as if he has skipped those decades. The first big shock he gets is being taken to meet the President—and finding himself shaking the hand of Richard Nixon.
If you’d had a Rip Van Winkle experience of sleeping for the past twenty years, or traveled in time from twenty years ago to the present, what change would you find most jarring?
I think I might be most amazed by the way we can find, buy, or do almost anything online nowadays. Remember when you had to go INSIDE THE BANK for all banking transactions, and they closed at 2 in the afternoon? Remember what an arduous scavenger hunt finding out-of-print books used to be? Or the contact information of a long-lost friend?
I LIKE the future.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's CryptTuesday, January 29, 2013
Theme-Plot Integration Part 6: The Fallacy of Safety
The previous 5 parts of this Series of posts are:
LINKS TO PREVIOUS PARTS:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-5-great.html
Part 7 of this series of posts will appear on March 26, 2013
The essence of story is CONFLICT -- and conflict is the power-plant of the plot.
As I've defined it in previous posts about novel and film structure, story is the sequence of emotional states and lessons learned from those states experienced within the viewpoint character(s), while plot is the 'because line' or sequence of external events each occurring "because" one of the previous events occurred.
Story is about how you feel, and plot is about what you do because you feel that way.
Not every writer, or writing teacher uses those definitions -- but every commercial story writer I know has firm grasp of these two components of story, and how they interact, regardless of what labels they use to designate them.
As I've been pointing out in this series on Theme-Plot integration, commonly held fallacies are a wondrous source of steaming hot romance stories and science fiction, fantasy, and magic based plots.
One such plot generator of a commonly held, or wished for, fallacy is the fallacy that "safety" is real, is achievable, and even desirable. Some would say necessary for life, especially if you're planning to raise children.
Safety is the goal of every Main Character caught in a Horror Novel plot.
In Horror, you stumble upon some monstrous Evil, it hits you, you hit back, struggle free, flee for your life, double-back to rescue someone, perhaps someone who's rescued you, someone you owe a favor, some total stranger you then fall in love with -- a SOMEONE who rouses emotions counter to stark-terror -- then flee with that someone who perhaps then rescues you, and finally reach some kind of weapon to use against the Evil, turn and confront the Evil, and -- because it's Horror genre and this is the rule -- YOU MUST IMPRISON THE EVIL. You can't destroy Evil, but you can be SAFE FOR NOW by putting it behind a barrier, a wall. Think of a 3 year old hiding behind his mother's leg.
The goal of Horror Genre is the payoff of FEELING SAFE (after long, drawn out, stark terror). The more stark the terror, the more potent the feeling of safety -- people indulge in Horror Genre to achieve that RELIEF of SAFETY-AT-LAST.
The iconic film to consider here is Jurassic Park -- a love story, chase scene, horror imagery mixture worth studying. The horror is caused by the usual "power in the hands of Evil" -- or uncontrolled or uncontrollable -- people. And in this case, the classic bugaboo is "science."
To understand the connection between Horror genre, Science Fiction and Fantasy, consider how Science as we know it today is a branch of Natural Philosophy, which was an attempt to make a systematic study of the how's and why's of Magic.
Yes, it all starts with Magic - with Herb Lore, and other attempts by humans to get a handle on the Environment and all the threats to life and limb that abound in our world. Since the first Cave Painting, humans have apparently been using our well developed brains to leverage intelligence into a method of "getting safe."
With agriculture, medicine, well built construction, and the mastery of fire (and all subsequent forms of power sources up to electricity), we have been building a wall between ourselves and the ravages of Nature, extending our life spans and making those lives more gentle.
Horror is an extremely popular genre because life isn't safe. And the same can be said of Romance -- we search for (and most often do find) a Soul Mate, a PERSON who complements our skills and increases our ability to make a safe-spot in the whirling storm of ever present threats.
So while we've been applying every clever trick we can think of to gain safety from our environment (fire, famine, flood, draught, desert heat, arctic cold, disease, and hard work that breaks down the body) we've also been using that same powerful brain to figure out ways to gain safety from EACH OTHER.
Yes, all the monstrous threats Nature throws at us pale in comparison to what we throw at each other. We have warred with stones, clubs, axes and atom bombs, and now we war with chemicals and even diseases. Every bit of Nature we control, we turn into a weapon against other humans who think, believe or feel differently (or who just own better crop lands or electric power sources).
The basic bond of the Soul Mate grows into the extended bonding of family, and multi-generational family structures which become tribes, villages, towns, cities, whole civilizations.
Writing courses teach that there are three basic CONFLICTS: Man vs Man, Man vs Nature, Man vs Himself.
But I've never seen a writing course teach that all humanity, and every story ever told, has only one goal: SAFETY.
Safety is certainly the goal of every Romance. Safety is another way to say "Happily Ever After." It's a point or situation in which there are no further threats that you can not overcome. Everything from there on is easy. You are SAFE.
Why do we seek safety? And what is safety? What ploys, dodges, plots and schemes have we invented along the way to convince ourselves we're safe?
What do we define as "safety?" Where does that definition come from?
These questions are all philosophical in nature -- such as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Philosophy, as I've often noted in these posts, is the source-material for Theme.
Pick a philosophical stance, state it clearly in one sentence, find an object that symbolizes it, and you have the essence of what you want to SAY with your story.
Every story, novel, poem, song, film, says something. It is you the writer talking to your audience, and (as in a speech) taking a thesis, explaining it, demonstrating that it's true, then restating the thesis, transmitting an IDEA about life, about the environment, and maybe about the Soul.
You, the writer, as you say what you want to say, must hold the attention of your audience if they're to sit still long enough for you to get to your point. Your point is your theme - an abstract (boring) philosophical notion.
So you dress up that boring thought in concrete clothing - in a costume, period, in a practical object (like a lamp or a soup bowl) and you decorate your object to make it beautiful.
The object you decorate is a segment of a life, of a character's life, a segment that is recognizable to your audience and well defined in their minds already.
Examples: Going Away To College. Getting That First Job. Getting That First Divorce. Finding Mr. Right At Last. The Death of Your Last Remaining Parent. Inheriting The Haunted Mansion. Having Your Child Move Back Home Bringing a Grandchild. Marrying Off Your Grandchild.
These are familiar life milestones even to those who haven't lived them yet. Everyone knows people who have "gone through" a "period" like that.
You, the writer, take a period like that, a recognizable swatch of "life" and decorate it with particulars, a character, situation, setting -- and theme! You make a boring, utilitarian object BEAUTIFUL by making it unique.
Which brings us back to the concept of how Safety is a Fallacy a writer can exploit while at the same time delivering that emotional satisfaction of having achieved safety at the end of the novel.
The aftermath or denouement of a novel (to be classed as a Happy Ending or Upbeat Ending) has to deliver the emotional experience of SAFETY - the threat is over, gone, vanquished. The characters can relax now, and so can the reader.
You and I know it's an illusion, but the reader can experience it as real.
How do you create that illusion and "sell" it as real?
Let's consider where in life we experience safety.
We say, "There's safety in numbers."
Families form groups, and tribes - towns etc. Why? Because we feel SAFER when surrounded by others.
However, the most formidable threat to human life on this planet is other humans.
So we band together to defend ourselves and our possessions from other humans.
Look again at the essence of the Horror film -- usually involving isolating a person (or two people) from "the others." In diving, we always go with a buddy. In spelunking, we always go with at least one -- more usually several -- others. The object of the Horror Plot is a) isolate b) run from then neutralize a threat and c) REJOIN THE GROUP (or civilization, or your Combat Unit - whatever you got separated from you get to rejoin).
Why do humans feel not-safe in isolation?
Well, note that biologically we are born "premature" compared to other animals. Most other animals can stand or walk immediately to nurse, and are more functional in other ways. Humans are premature because of the physiology of the over-sized head and the birth canal, so much fetal development happens in the first 6 months to a year after birth.
So very early, there must be one other to care for us, hands-on. To get good brain development, human babies must be handled a lot. Later of course we rebel and take off on our own -- what mother hasn't chased their 2 year old across a parking lot?
We are taught what to fear -- and other people usually top that list.
Familiar people are safe. Strangers -- not safe, maybe useful, but not safe.
So in your mind, run through the stages of human development and correlate all you know against everything you've learned about how to create, handle, and resolve a PLOT CONFLICT.
So, again, we're looking for wide-accepted fallacies to challenge in order to create a theme, a statement that leads to Happily Ever After, or at least safety.
The fallacy I'd like you to consider here is Safety Is Real.
Does that fallacy come from our infantile experience of safety in the hands of our caregiver (mother, surrogate, father, elder sibling acting as parent - whatever hands got us through infancy)?
Anyone who's raised a child knows that the parent's objective is to get the child to feel safe (to stop screaming and give me a moment's peace), to return to that safe place, ("Come here, Johnny!" Mom yells across the parking lot.) and not talk to strangers (but later to be socialized enough to fall in love and form a new family; what a contradiction.) Anyone who's been a child knows that the child's objective is to take insane risks while utterly oblivious to the magnitude of the risk.
Human Parenting consists of implanting a "false sense of security" in every child.
Since we deal with Alien Romance on this blog, I should point out that I said HUMAN PARENTING -- being very specific there.
So safety is an illusion we learn as infants to regard as real, and we crave it periodically throughout life.
Feelings of safety can be evoked by CONNECTING with another human, especially after a long period of facing dangers, risks, and horrors all alone.
The film series Home Alone comes to mind. That is worth studying for the theme of safety and where it comes in our hierarchy of values.
Of course, we're not writing YA here, however, these are iconic classics about the process of learning what safety is (and is not.)
There are any number of pop psychology books on "leaving your comfort zone." All of those are great resources for Thematic material you can craft around the concept of the Fallacy of Safety.
So, since we're looking to write for adults -- about adult issues -- we should look at the adult version of the experiences of the infant and the pre-adolescent.
I have a theory (thematic material, indeed) that all International Affairs, and all theories of government, all governmental forms and the clashes between them, recapitulate the experiences of infancy and pre-adolescence (sometimes adolescence too). I look at governmental bodies (Congress, Parliament, etc) and their antics as eerily similar to Elementary School play yard activities.
One of the things kids do, especially adolescents, is form cliques. Countries form Alliances.
One thing adolescents do is dress alike. Some generations have prided themselves on each person violating some or all of the conventions of dress imposed by their parents -- in rebellion. The net result is a school full of kids all dressed identically -- ever noticed that? Mismatched colors, floppy baggy shapes or tight-skimpy patches that pass for clothes - it doesn't matter. Teens adopt an identity.
In some neighborhoods, gangs abound - and what do they do? They adopt a UNIFORM -- something everyone wears to mark them apart from others. Often it's a scarf of a particular color or pattern, or a type of shirt. In defense, schools adopt a School Uniform. This just reinforces the underlying PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT: "Safety In Numbers."
So we grow up, get a job as a Congressman and join a caucus -- or a coalition -- a GROUP OF GROUPS who all think or act in the same way.
In a previous post in this series, PART 4, Fallacies and Endorphins, I mentioned Edward Bernays. Refresh your memory on the idea that the father of Public Relations (i.e. publicity, advertising, spin doctoring) viewed humanity as having a natural herd instinct.
Themes derived from that idea can range from No Man Is An Island to Each Man Is An Island -- from we're all the same, to we're each unique.
All advertising is based on this assumption: humans can be herded. You just have to hammer the individuals into uniform units (i.e. dress them all alike in school uniforms), and they'll stick together. You know the Chinese adage that the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. That's how a governmental system based on herding humans for SAFETY has to treat individuals --- they must be made into uniform copies of each other and taught to stick together.
We all learn in school to be inconspicuous in class when we don't know the answer.
We all learn the value of "fitting in" and we do feel safer in groups.
We don't walk the dark streets at night alone, and it isn't just for safety from muggers. We go in groups because each human is UNIQUE.
We each have a set of talents, abilities, and acquired skills that are distinctive from those of everyone else -- and no one person, alone, has ALL the skills and talents needed for a high probability of survival -- not safety or certainty, just a good chance.
So we are attracted to our opposites (Soul Mates are rarely identical, and "interests in common" don't usually insure a life-long marriage). We look for those who don't have our skills -- but have other skills, so that among our friends and relatives (our Church Group or whatever group) we have access to all the necessary skills, talents and abilities.
That diversity of skills arises from a diversity of philosophical positions on any issue, and yet we get along best with people who agree with us about a few basic ideas. As we change our ideas about things, we change the groups we associate with.
Political coalitions are often formed from groups that are mortal enemies -- who don't argue their differences until a resolution is reached and someone (or everyone) changes their mind.
We discussed arguing fallacies to a plot-resolution in Part 3 of this series of posts.
Why do we form coalitions? One good set of answers (good being those that generate plots you can write) arises from the human search for power over other humans, as discussed in Part 4, Fallacies and Endorphins. Again I refer you to the book, You Can't Lie To Me by Janine Driver and the theory that politicians who exercise power over others (particularly with a lie) feel an addictive rush of endorphins from exercising power over other humans.
Why do humans experience pleasure in exercising power over other humans?
Would that be the case if humans really had a herd instinct as Bernays says?
As I described here above, note that the history and pre-history of all humanity has been the fight against the ravages of Nature -- but that battle pales against the backdrop of the fight of humanity against humanity (war.)
Exercising power over other humans makes humans feel SAFE -- that's what that endorphin rush does! And it's a fallacy. A drug induced delusion.
We wouldn't need that delusion to feel safe if we had a natural herd instinct. Just being with, beside, or among other humans would make us feel safe. It doesn't.
It takes particular, specific, unique humans around us to produce that feeling of "family." That is because each of us is a puzzle piece, maybe with a fairly standard shape but a unique color or pattern -- or perhaps with a standard color and a unique jigsaw shape -- we only fit HERE, not THERE.
Each of us has an exact place in the world, and when in that place we feel safe. Outside that place, not so much.
We feel powerful when we are in our place -- threatened when not.
Coalitions (political within a government, or among nations) don't bestow that "in your place" safety - not a safety in numbers, but a safety that comes from being among those whose skills and talents complement your own. Coalitions are based on the fallacy that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and so always fall apart as soon as the external threat has been handled or neutralized (or just abated a little.)
The members of a coalition are themselves natural enemies that can't co-exist -- that's usually the nature of a coalition.
A family isn't a coalition so much as it is a "small business" (an economic engine). The power of that engine is Love -- not the hate that powers Coalitions.
Each of these statements I've strewn throughout this series is itself the source of hundreds of possible themes strong enough to support a novel. And each suggests a plot.
The plots based on the nature of a "coalition" (the "agree to disagree" formula) is obvious. The cooperating entities dispense with the external threat, then (to the surprise, shock or horror of the others) turn on each other in a war of dominance that can turn to a war of extinction.
The plots based on "each human is unique and fits into one exact place in the world" are not quite so obvious because you don't see that many of them, especially not outside the Romance novel field. These plots are the "find your Soul Mate" plots, "Love At First Sight" plots, and "The Stranger Who Goes Home Makes Home Strange" plots -- all the "Home For The Holidays" plots fit in that category.
We live in an era when internecine warfare is considered the natural state of the family -- almost all the TV series currently running assume some sort of embarrassment, strife, or even hatred of Parents -- going "home" is indigestion-incarnate. Estrangement is almost synonymous with Family.
So the philosophical statement, "Humans can not be herded because each human is unique and has an exact place in the world," seems to the audience like a fallacy. That makes it a very powerful source of Theme for a Science Fiction Romance. The cognitive dissonance inherent in the theme is maximized by the "real" life of the reader.
A plot that addresses that theme might be formed from a Main Character buying an expensive item (a TV set, iPad, Green Energy House) that was ADVERTISED (Bernays; herding humans) enticingly, being disappointed with the performance of the product, fighting the company for a refund or redress of injuries, maybe taking it to Legal Aid services, (meeting a Soul Mate of a Lawyer - imagine that!) and powering it through all the way to the Supreme Court -- years and years and many children later, ending up as the Spouse of a Supreme Court Justice (you never hear about them in the news, do you?) Becoming a Supreme Court Justice means you're "safe" -- because nobody can fire you and you make enough to support your family well.
Of course, then there's always the sequel where the Supreme Court Justice resigns and runs for President.
Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
LINKS TO PREVIOUS PARTS:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-5-great.html
Part 7 of this series of posts will appear on March 26, 2013
The essence of story is CONFLICT -- and conflict is the power-plant of the plot.
As I've defined it in previous posts about novel and film structure, story is the sequence of emotional states and lessons learned from those states experienced within the viewpoint character(s), while plot is the 'because line' or sequence of external events each occurring "because" one of the previous events occurred.
Story is about how you feel, and plot is about what you do because you feel that way.
Not every writer, or writing teacher uses those definitions -- but every commercial story writer I know has firm grasp of these two components of story, and how they interact, regardless of what labels they use to designate them.
As I've been pointing out in this series on Theme-Plot integration, commonly held fallacies are a wondrous source of steaming hot romance stories and science fiction, fantasy, and magic based plots.
One such plot generator of a commonly held, or wished for, fallacy is the fallacy that "safety" is real, is achievable, and even desirable. Some would say necessary for life, especially if you're planning to raise children.
Safety is the goal of every Main Character caught in a Horror Novel plot.
In Horror, you stumble upon some monstrous Evil, it hits you, you hit back, struggle free, flee for your life, double-back to rescue someone, perhaps someone who's rescued you, someone you owe a favor, some total stranger you then fall in love with -- a SOMEONE who rouses emotions counter to stark-terror -- then flee with that someone who perhaps then rescues you, and finally reach some kind of weapon to use against the Evil, turn and confront the Evil, and -- because it's Horror genre and this is the rule -- YOU MUST IMPRISON THE EVIL. You can't destroy Evil, but you can be SAFE FOR NOW by putting it behind a barrier, a wall. Think of a 3 year old hiding behind his mother's leg.
The goal of Horror Genre is the payoff of FEELING SAFE (after long, drawn out, stark terror). The more stark the terror, the more potent the feeling of safety -- people indulge in Horror Genre to achieve that RELIEF of SAFETY-AT-LAST.
The iconic film to consider here is Jurassic Park -- a love story, chase scene, horror imagery mixture worth studying. The horror is caused by the usual "power in the hands of Evil" -- or uncontrolled or uncontrollable -- people. And in this case, the classic bugaboo is "science."
To understand the connection between Horror genre, Science Fiction and Fantasy, consider how Science as we know it today is a branch of Natural Philosophy, which was an attempt to make a systematic study of the how's and why's of Magic.
Yes, it all starts with Magic - with Herb Lore, and other attempts by humans to get a handle on the Environment and all the threats to life and limb that abound in our world. Since the first Cave Painting, humans have apparently been using our well developed brains to leverage intelligence into a method of "getting safe."
With agriculture, medicine, well built construction, and the mastery of fire (and all subsequent forms of power sources up to electricity), we have been building a wall between ourselves and the ravages of Nature, extending our life spans and making those lives more gentle.
Horror is an extremely popular genre because life isn't safe. And the same can be said of Romance -- we search for (and most often do find) a Soul Mate, a PERSON who complements our skills and increases our ability to make a safe-spot in the whirling storm of ever present threats.
So while we've been applying every clever trick we can think of to gain safety from our environment (fire, famine, flood, draught, desert heat, arctic cold, disease, and hard work that breaks down the body) we've also been using that same powerful brain to figure out ways to gain safety from EACH OTHER.
Yes, all the monstrous threats Nature throws at us pale in comparison to what we throw at each other. We have warred with stones, clubs, axes and atom bombs, and now we war with chemicals and even diseases. Every bit of Nature we control, we turn into a weapon against other humans who think, believe or feel differently (or who just own better crop lands or electric power sources).
The basic bond of the Soul Mate grows into the extended bonding of family, and multi-generational family structures which become tribes, villages, towns, cities, whole civilizations.
Writing courses teach that there are three basic CONFLICTS: Man vs Man, Man vs Nature, Man vs Himself.
But I've never seen a writing course teach that all humanity, and every story ever told, has only one goal: SAFETY.
Safety is certainly the goal of every Romance. Safety is another way to say "Happily Ever After." It's a point or situation in which there are no further threats that you can not overcome. Everything from there on is easy. You are SAFE.
Why do we seek safety? And what is safety? What ploys, dodges, plots and schemes have we invented along the way to convince ourselves we're safe?
What do we define as "safety?" Where does that definition come from?
These questions are all philosophical in nature -- such as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Philosophy, as I've often noted in these posts, is the source-material for Theme.
Pick a philosophical stance, state it clearly in one sentence, find an object that symbolizes it, and you have the essence of what you want to SAY with your story.
Every story, novel, poem, song, film, says something. It is you the writer talking to your audience, and (as in a speech) taking a thesis, explaining it, demonstrating that it's true, then restating the thesis, transmitting an IDEA about life, about the environment, and maybe about the Soul.
You, the writer, as you say what you want to say, must hold the attention of your audience if they're to sit still long enough for you to get to your point. Your point is your theme - an abstract (boring) philosophical notion.
So you dress up that boring thought in concrete clothing - in a costume, period, in a practical object (like a lamp or a soup bowl) and you decorate your object to make it beautiful.
The object you decorate is a segment of a life, of a character's life, a segment that is recognizable to your audience and well defined in their minds already.
Examples: Going Away To College. Getting That First Job. Getting That First Divorce. Finding Mr. Right At Last. The Death of Your Last Remaining Parent. Inheriting The Haunted Mansion. Having Your Child Move Back Home Bringing a Grandchild. Marrying Off Your Grandchild.
These are familiar life milestones even to those who haven't lived them yet. Everyone knows people who have "gone through" a "period" like that.
You, the writer, take a period like that, a recognizable swatch of "life" and decorate it with particulars, a character, situation, setting -- and theme! You make a boring, utilitarian object BEAUTIFUL by making it unique.
Which brings us back to the concept of how Safety is a Fallacy a writer can exploit while at the same time delivering that emotional satisfaction of having achieved safety at the end of the novel.
The aftermath or denouement of a novel (to be classed as a Happy Ending or Upbeat Ending) has to deliver the emotional experience of SAFETY - the threat is over, gone, vanquished. The characters can relax now, and so can the reader.
You and I know it's an illusion, but the reader can experience it as real.
How do you create that illusion and "sell" it as real?
Let's consider where in life we experience safety.
We say, "There's safety in numbers."
Families form groups, and tribes - towns etc. Why? Because we feel SAFER when surrounded by others.
However, the most formidable threat to human life on this planet is other humans.
So we band together to defend ourselves and our possessions from other humans.
Look again at the essence of the Horror film -- usually involving isolating a person (or two people) from "the others." In diving, we always go with a buddy. In spelunking, we always go with at least one -- more usually several -- others. The object of the Horror Plot is a) isolate b) run from then neutralize a threat and c) REJOIN THE GROUP (or civilization, or your Combat Unit - whatever you got separated from you get to rejoin).
Why do humans feel not-safe in isolation?
Well, note that biologically we are born "premature" compared to other animals. Most other animals can stand or walk immediately to nurse, and are more functional in other ways. Humans are premature because of the physiology of the over-sized head and the birth canal, so much fetal development happens in the first 6 months to a year after birth.
So very early, there must be one other to care for us, hands-on. To get good brain development, human babies must be handled a lot. Later of course we rebel and take off on our own -- what mother hasn't chased their 2 year old across a parking lot?
We are taught what to fear -- and other people usually top that list.
Familiar people are safe. Strangers -- not safe, maybe useful, but not safe.
So in your mind, run through the stages of human development and correlate all you know against everything you've learned about how to create, handle, and resolve a PLOT CONFLICT.
So, again, we're looking for wide-accepted fallacies to challenge in order to create a theme, a statement that leads to Happily Ever After, or at least safety.
The fallacy I'd like you to consider here is Safety Is Real.
Does that fallacy come from our infantile experience of safety in the hands of our caregiver (mother, surrogate, father, elder sibling acting as parent - whatever hands got us through infancy)?
Anyone who's raised a child knows that the parent's objective is to get the child to feel safe (to stop screaming and give me a moment's peace), to return to that safe place, ("Come here, Johnny!" Mom yells across the parking lot.) and not talk to strangers (but later to be socialized enough to fall in love and form a new family; what a contradiction.) Anyone who's been a child knows that the child's objective is to take insane risks while utterly oblivious to the magnitude of the risk.
Human Parenting consists of implanting a "false sense of security" in every child.
Since we deal with Alien Romance on this blog, I should point out that I said HUMAN PARENTING -- being very specific there.
So safety is an illusion we learn as infants to regard as real, and we crave it periodically throughout life.
Feelings of safety can be evoked by CONNECTING with another human, especially after a long period of facing dangers, risks, and horrors all alone.
The film series Home Alone comes to mind. That is worth studying for the theme of safety and where it comes in our hierarchy of values.
Of course, we're not writing YA here, however, these are iconic classics about the process of learning what safety is (and is not.)
There are any number of pop psychology books on "leaving your comfort zone." All of those are great resources for Thematic material you can craft around the concept of the Fallacy of Safety.
So, since we're looking to write for adults -- about adult issues -- we should look at the adult version of the experiences of the infant and the pre-adolescent.
I have a theory (thematic material, indeed) that all International Affairs, and all theories of government, all governmental forms and the clashes between them, recapitulate the experiences of infancy and pre-adolescence (sometimes adolescence too). I look at governmental bodies (Congress, Parliament, etc) and their antics as eerily similar to Elementary School play yard activities.
One of the things kids do, especially adolescents, is form cliques. Countries form Alliances.
One thing adolescents do is dress alike. Some generations have prided themselves on each person violating some or all of the conventions of dress imposed by their parents -- in rebellion. The net result is a school full of kids all dressed identically -- ever noticed that? Mismatched colors, floppy baggy shapes or tight-skimpy patches that pass for clothes - it doesn't matter. Teens adopt an identity.
In some neighborhoods, gangs abound - and what do they do? They adopt a UNIFORM -- something everyone wears to mark them apart from others. Often it's a scarf of a particular color or pattern, or a type of shirt. In defense, schools adopt a School Uniform. This just reinforces the underlying PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT: "Safety In Numbers."
So we grow up, get a job as a Congressman and join a caucus -- or a coalition -- a GROUP OF GROUPS who all think or act in the same way.
In a previous post in this series, PART 4, Fallacies and Endorphins, I mentioned Edward Bernays. Refresh your memory on the idea that the father of Public Relations (i.e. publicity, advertising, spin doctoring) viewed humanity as having a natural herd instinct.
Themes derived from that idea can range from No Man Is An Island to Each Man Is An Island -- from we're all the same, to we're each unique.
All advertising is based on this assumption: humans can be herded. You just have to hammer the individuals into uniform units (i.e. dress them all alike in school uniforms), and they'll stick together. You know the Chinese adage that the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. That's how a governmental system based on herding humans for SAFETY has to treat individuals --- they must be made into uniform copies of each other and taught to stick together.
We all learn in school to be inconspicuous in class when we don't know the answer.
We all learn the value of "fitting in" and we do feel safer in groups.
We don't walk the dark streets at night alone, and it isn't just for safety from muggers. We go in groups because each human is UNIQUE.
We each have a set of talents, abilities, and acquired skills that are distinctive from those of everyone else -- and no one person, alone, has ALL the skills and talents needed for a high probability of survival -- not safety or certainty, just a good chance.
So we are attracted to our opposites (Soul Mates are rarely identical, and "interests in common" don't usually insure a life-long marriage). We look for those who don't have our skills -- but have other skills, so that among our friends and relatives (our Church Group or whatever group) we have access to all the necessary skills, talents and abilities.
That diversity of skills arises from a diversity of philosophical positions on any issue, and yet we get along best with people who agree with us about a few basic ideas. As we change our ideas about things, we change the groups we associate with.
Political coalitions are often formed from groups that are mortal enemies -- who don't argue their differences until a resolution is reached and someone (or everyone) changes their mind.
We discussed arguing fallacies to a plot-resolution in Part 3 of this series of posts.
Why do we form coalitions? One good set of answers (good being those that generate plots you can write) arises from the human search for power over other humans, as discussed in Part 4, Fallacies and Endorphins. Again I refer you to the book, You Can't Lie To Me by Janine Driver and the theory that politicians who exercise power over others (particularly with a lie) feel an addictive rush of endorphins from exercising power over other humans.
Why do humans experience pleasure in exercising power over other humans?
Would that be the case if humans really had a herd instinct as Bernays says?
As I described here above, note that the history and pre-history of all humanity has been the fight against the ravages of Nature -- but that battle pales against the backdrop of the fight of humanity against humanity (war.)
Exercising power over other humans makes humans feel SAFE -- that's what that endorphin rush does! And it's a fallacy. A drug induced delusion.
We wouldn't need that delusion to feel safe if we had a natural herd instinct. Just being with, beside, or among other humans would make us feel safe. It doesn't.
It takes particular, specific, unique humans around us to produce that feeling of "family." That is because each of us is a puzzle piece, maybe with a fairly standard shape but a unique color or pattern -- or perhaps with a standard color and a unique jigsaw shape -- we only fit HERE, not THERE.
Each of us has an exact place in the world, and when in that place we feel safe. Outside that place, not so much.
We feel powerful when we are in our place -- threatened when not.
Coalitions (political within a government, or among nations) don't bestow that "in your place" safety - not a safety in numbers, but a safety that comes from being among those whose skills and talents complement your own. Coalitions are based on the fallacy that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and so always fall apart as soon as the external threat has been handled or neutralized (or just abated a little.)
The members of a coalition are themselves natural enemies that can't co-exist -- that's usually the nature of a coalition.
A family isn't a coalition so much as it is a "small business" (an economic engine). The power of that engine is Love -- not the hate that powers Coalitions.
Each of these statements I've strewn throughout this series is itself the source of hundreds of possible themes strong enough to support a novel. And each suggests a plot.
The plots based on the nature of a "coalition" (the "agree to disagree" formula) is obvious. The cooperating entities dispense with the external threat, then (to the surprise, shock or horror of the others) turn on each other in a war of dominance that can turn to a war of extinction.
The plots based on "each human is unique and fits into one exact place in the world" are not quite so obvious because you don't see that many of them, especially not outside the Romance novel field. These plots are the "find your Soul Mate" plots, "Love At First Sight" plots, and "The Stranger Who Goes Home Makes Home Strange" plots -- all the "Home For The Holidays" plots fit in that category.
We live in an era when internecine warfare is considered the natural state of the family -- almost all the TV series currently running assume some sort of embarrassment, strife, or even hatred of Parents -- going "home" is indigestion-incarnate. Estrangement is almost synonymous with Family.
So the philosophical statement, "Humans can not be herded because each human is unique and has an exact place in the world," seems to the audience like a fallacy. That makes it a very powerful source of Theme for a Science Fiction Romance. The cognitive dissonance inherent in the theme is maximized by the "real" life of the reader.
A plot that addresses that theme might be formed from a Main Character buying an expensive item (a TV set, iPad, Green Energy House) that was ADVERTISED (Bernays; herding humans) enticingly, being disappointed with the performance of the product, fighting the company for a refund or redress of injuries, maybe taking it to Legal Aid services, (meeting a Soul Mate of a Lawyer - imagine that!) and powering it through all the way to the Supreme Court -- years and years and many children later, ending up as the Spouse of a Supreme Court Justice (you never hear about them in the news, do you?) Becoming a Supreme Court Justice means you're "safe" -- because nobody can fire you and you make enough to support your family well.
Of course, then there's always the sequel where the Supreme Court Justice resigns and runs for President.
Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Stranger Than Fiction
There’s great excitement here in Maryland because the Baltimore Ravens are headed for the Superbowl. John Harbaugh, Ravens coach, is the brother of Jim Harbaugh, San Francisco 49ers coach (their father was also a football coach). Their teams will clash at the Superbowl in New Orleans.
You couldn’t make up this scenario. It’s too much of a melodramatic coincidence. It’s believable enough that both brothers would choose coaching as a career, given their family history. But to end up leading rival teams in the biggest game of the year? What editor would allow that to happen in a novel?
Of course, farfetched coincidences do happen in real life. (As I read somewhere just recently, that’s why we have the word “coincidence.”) When I started dating my husband, he lived on a street with the same name as a surname in my close family. Who would put that in a book?
Most people know about the list of similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy, two assassinated Presidents elected 100 years apart, including the especially striking fact that both had vice presidents named Johnson. In a novel, that phenomenon couldn’t be pure chance; it would have to carry some occult significance (as some people believe it actually does).
Ever notice that in novels two major characters hardly ever have the same first name? In fact, writing instruction manuals advise against it, for obvious reasons. Yet in everyday life it’s not at all unusual for two or more people in the same group, such as a classroom or office, to have the same name. In our office we once had three women named Betty working there at the same time. Another time, we had four Joans. (One of them agreed to be called by her last name to mitigate the confusion.)
It’s often been said that just because something really happened doesn’t mean a writer can credibly fit it into a story. Fiction, unlike life, has to make sense. As Mark Twain said, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's CryptTuesday, January 22, 2013
Theme-Plot Integration Part 5 - A Great Steampunk Example
Theme-Worldbuilding-Plot -- it all has to end up being "of one piece, a single unified whole when you get done writing.
That is, the issues have to be there, but a direct and forthright discussion of the day's hot topics just isn't amusing when you have to live amid a morass. You read fiction to get a birds-eye-view of your life, not to relive it!
Getting that mix right is an artform, a performing artform.
Here are the previous 5 parts of this series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html
Now, in November I posted a report on Chicon7 -- the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago in September 2012.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/chicon7-con-report.html
At that convention, I was touring the Dealer's Room and happened to be drawn into a discussion with a fellow who was minding a table -- upon which was the following novel:
As a reviewer, I became interested, and I really liked the pitch for this novel. It just sounded so very promising that I accepted a review copy. I'm glad I did.
The Thunderbolt Affair is a "steampunk" novel with a twist -- the technology is more SF than Fantasy, and the History is alternate universe but with a strong logic behind it. Both the History and the Science "work" in this novel's "worldbuilding." This sets it apart from other things published under the Steampunk genre label.
As with all good Steampunk, you get more out of it the more "real" history you know. Steampunk and other alternate history exercises are a playground for historians as galactic science fiction is a playground for inventive scientists.
So all in all The Thunderbolt Affair is a very worthwhile read, a lot of fun, and a pleasure to return to when you have to put it aside.
Here's the official back cover copy that so intrigued me, copied from Amazon:
------------QUOTE----------------
“What you will be working on is underhanded, unfair, and damned un-English.”
1887
The British Empire is in danger of collapse and teeters on the brink of war with the Kaiser Reich. Spies and saboteurs play at deadly games in the British shipyards as each side seeks naval superiority.
Ian Rollins is collateral damage in their shadow war. The “accident” and his grievous injuries are about to bring his naval career to an ignominious end. But with the aid of a former Pinkerton detective, a clandestine agent for the Admiralty, a brace of Serbian savants, and one, mostly sober valet, he might survive. If he can master the skills necessary to command the world’s first fully operational combat submarine, the HMS Holland Ram, and protect the secrets of the Thunderbolt.
Historical Note. The Fenian Ram, fictionalized for this novel, does exist and is currently on display at the Paterson Museum in Paterson, NJ.
-----------END QUOTE------------
I don't just rave about novels I discuss in this blog. I dissect them and look for ways they could be improved. I look for reasons why a book went to a small publisher rather than a larger house, or vice-versa. I look for things that enlarge the potential market and things that restrict it to a smaller market. I look for characteristics of the piece that identifies who will enjoy it -- and who won't.
I started to read The Thunderbolt Affair -- mostly just because I was given a copy. I kept on reading because I got caught up in -- ok, yes, I admit it -- the love story.
I'm a sucker for a good Romance, and the glaring anachronism in this novel of portraying a female mechanic against this Steampunk background just tickles me no end. Or she may be a technologist -- an implementor who MAKES things, rather than a theorist or researcher who nails the basic science, or an inventor who comes up with new applications of basic science. She fabricates models and prototypes, and by the way, improves the design as she goes. A man who loves that woman, loves me!
I always enjoy the SF novels featuring inventors who just cobble together stuff and get it to work, -- um, sort of work anyway. Then they improve it. I love the thinking behind "improving" inventions -- even though I think the worst swearword in the English language today is "Upgrade."
But then I loved The Thunderbolt Affair for the rich detail of inventing crazy stuff out of nothing much. I am also a sucker for stories of the improbable accomplished by clever people, sometimes from cleverness, sometimes by accident, sometimes by sheer cussed determination.
Reading The Thunderbolt Affair was, though, more like reading a great fanfic than like reading a Mass Market Paperback. I could easily see the structural problems, and even see how the editor should have fixed those problems, but because it was a roaring good story, I didn't care.
Toward the 3/4 point, I realized I had to point you at this novel because it's a vivid example of how to limit your possible readership to a very small group. You can get this in ebook - and it is worth the ebook price.
The author admits editors told him he had too much technical detail about the things they build (these things include a couple of submarines and some artificial mechanical limbs, even a mechanical eye that eventually should be able to let the wearer "see").
The point of the novel, the thing that drove the writer to complete the project, was his love of Steampunk technology, and he wanted to show off what can be done with the basic capabilities and materials of the 1800's and a lot of imagination.
But beta readers and editors prompted him to trim, cut, condense the technical explanations -- which he said he did. I think he did, from the way the tech stuff reads. It's expository lump after expository lump.
But his editors gave bad advice.
Now, if you're serious about learning to do what I've been describing in this blog since 2006 when I started posting here every Tuesday, go get a copy of The Thunderbolt Affair, read it and take notes, figure out what went wrong inside this writer's mind, and then come back here and finish reading this post.
START FINISHING READING THIS POST HERE AFTER READING THE NOVEL.
OK, now that you've read the novel, and probably some of the reader commentary on Amazon, let's think about what the editor of this novel should have said.
When you are handed a manuscript that has "too much" of something (say for example, too many sex scenes in a Romance -- which is, believe it or not, possible!), do you tell the writer to cut some of those scenes?
When you are handed a manuscript that has expository lumps, do you tell the writer to trim, reduce, condense or break up the expository lumps? Is that the cure for expository lumps (and sex scenes are usually expository lumps technically speaking).
Think about The Thunderbolt Affair -- consider what the full blown technical dissertations on the machinery and ship building must have been like, and why the author wrote them out in full.
I'm betting (though I don't know for a fact) that this kind of expository lump over-kill happens for the same reason that 'too many sex scenes' happens --- it's INTERESTING.
The author is fascinated, interested, engaged, enamored, transported, and somehow fulfilled by these scenes and just massages them over and over and over because it feels good to the author. The assumption is that if it feels good to the author, it will feel good to ALL READERS.
Nope. Not the way entertainment works.
Marion Zimmer Bradley taught an old quotation, so old and oft quoted you have to consider it an adage: "The book the writer wrote is not the book the reader reads."
Readers make up their own characters, emotions, even background images, room decorations, clothing, etc. -- they "see" the main characters in their minds, and it doesn't look the way the writer sees it!
How can you convince yourself of this? Find a graphic artist, show your manuscript and ask the artist (without further input from you) to draw the scene.
You won't recognize it!
When you do get anything even a little bit recognizable, it's because you talked to the artist, watched them draw and pointed out changes as they went.
Here are three examples from my own work:
Now here's the ONE cover that all the inveterate fans of Sime~Gen agree is most representative of the series.
This is the omnibus edition (in hardcover and paper) containing House of Zeor, Ambrov Keon, and Zelerod's Doom.
It's also available as a poster from the artist who is the incredibly famous (justifiably so) Todd Lockwood.
http://www.toddlockwood.com/galleries/books/02/sime_gen.shtml
In the poster print, there's no overprinting -- the title and author names, just the gorgeous art.
I got to talk to the artist for a long time, to explain what this character looks like -- and it's close, seriously close, and very much as the fans see it, and the way all the visual artists see it, but not what I see. Still, it's so gorgeous!
In the course of working with the professional editors for these novels, and interacting with the growing fandom surrounding them, I learned much of what I'm showing you how to do here.
Here's the trick that's so important to master.
When the editor or beta reader tells you there's too much of something, and the cure for that is to CUT THAT SOMETHING -- to reduce the amount of words devoted to it -- that may not be the way to fix the problem the editor or beta reader is having with your material.
Readers, even professional editors, don't necessarily know what's bothering them, though they can point to WHERE it bothered them.
The business of being a professional writer is the business of reverse engineering reader responses to find the cause the reader does not know is there.
Some people learn to do this by having the process explained to them. Others need concrete examples. And others have to have it DONE TO their own work by other hands. Marion Zimmer Bradley did this kind of thing to my own prose -- just took my words and re-did them so they'd work right in a scene.
Bradley was a talented writer. I don't think she really knew how she'd learned to do what she did -- she may have been born with this talent. But I learned from her rewriting of my prose.
So, what do I notice first about The Thunderbolt Affair?
At the half-way point, I looked up and said to myself, "There are three novels here, loosely packed between two covers. Shaken not stirred. They just aren't blended properly, but I don't know why."
By the 3/4 point, I realized the author apparently had no clue he had fallen off the conflict line. Which he had, but by the time I got to the end, I realized where the issue really was. Theme-Worldbuilding integration, the subject of this series.
Now this is an advanced series. We've been at this writing craft discussion for 6 years or so, and only if you've been digging back into those posts, or have been following for 6 years, do you see instantly what I mean by "falling off the conflict line" or what I call "the because line."
However, even if you've mastered your conflict line and how to stay on that because-line, you probably won't know how to "fix" this novel we're discussing.
It's got three distinct because-lines --- and virtually no theme of enough moment to support three plot-lines.
So fixing this because-line issue won't fix this novel and make it salable to the huge market for Steampunk in general, or for Romantic Steampunk!
Here's what I see after finishing the novel.
We have a sub-strata of the technical because-line -- the British navy stole a submarine, reverse engineered, improved on the design using an outside consultant (Tesla by the way is justly famous in our real world), and built a larger submarine that it then used to avert a war by displaying what a threat that ship could be.
On top of that (very solid and interesting) foundation, we have a Love Story (main Navy character falls for female mechanic-genius). Nothing much ever comes of that infatuation on any because line.
And, disconnected from everything, just puttering along in counterpoint, we have a saboteur and an espionage threat (complete with kidnapping the girl but nothing ever comes of that) and ultimately the theft of the big ship, but NOTHING COMES OF THAT THEFT because the Hero gets the ship back through heroic efforts which are well foreshadowed.
These three separate novels have a few laborious cross-linkages, some "because" connections, but nothing strong enough to drive the three plots together.
The real author-love is lavished on the technology (which I adore!) and the rest is tossed in on top of that just to make a book -- the whole thing just doesn't crystallize as a single unified entity, a NOVEL. It's 2 novels and a non-fiction book.
Why? This author worked so hard, he tried so hard, he's so proud of his work, why doesn't it make a novel?
The three main elements are not INTEGRATED -- they haven't become one thing.
We know whose story it is, the Captain of the submarine. We see his career unfold as he becomes the Captain and trains a crew in this new technology. He falls in love and gets his girl, his promotions, and saves his country while he's at it. Any writer would be proud of that story!
The worldbuilding is as sound as it could possibly be -- Steampunk has lacked this dimension of technological plausibility, so what is preventing this thing from solidifying?
You might conclude, from the "because-line" problem, that the novel won't crystallize because while the story is solidly constructed, the plot is not of the same caliber.
I think that's true. The plot is not as strong as the story, but why is that?
We have a dynamite action-scene opening with the theft of the little submarine. Then we follow the little submarine as it is worked on by an outside consultant-genius, concurrently with building another larger submarine. We have the Captain losing a hand and an eye, and the technologist consultants concurrently working on an artificial limb of the Captain's design. And we have sporadic attacks by "someone" for "some purpose."
There's nothing lacking for plot material, so how could it have failed to crystalize?
Go back over those three PLOTs carefully.
1) Stolen technology improved and employed by a government using foreign national to do improvements.
2) Hero falls in love with fascinating genius-woman mechanic and wins her heart
3) Foreign government spies infiltrate and attempt to steal technology and fail because of Hero and genius-woman
What THEME do these 3 plots have in common?
If you've got 3 plots, you need 4 themes, but they must be RELATED IN A VERY SPECIFIC STRUCTURAL MANNER.
You need a master theme, and 3 sub-themes or versions of that theme, all leading to a single STATEMENT at the end of the Master Theme in a moment the reader will experience as a REVELATION, boosting the reader to a new level of understanding of "Life, The Universe, And Everything."
The Thunderbolt Affair lacks this commonality of structure created by THEME.
It is as if the author had this IDEA -- "write a steampunk that could actually have happened" -- and then said, well I need a love affair and the Hero has to get his girl, and there's no action after the opening on the theft of the submarine so I'll toss in some spies. Well, how should this thing end? The Hero has to do something GRAND (it is steampunk after all; he's got to have some punk in him, break some rules?) So the author cooked up the spies and a grand plot to steal the submarine again so the hero could save the country from a war.
It's very common to see this kind of thing done by new writers. Here's "my book" but it's not good enough yet, so "grab this from this other book and throw it in," then grab something else from some other book and toss that in just to keep the plot moving. And the parts just do not go together because they did not arise organically from a single, central, theme.
Very talented writers do this "theme integration" thing that we've been discussing at such length by innate instinct, never consciously considering theme at all. Others (like me) have to sort out the threads of ideas, and focus and re-focus on the particular theme I really want to talk about.
So what's the theme in The Thunderbolt Affair? Don't steal because it'll always come to naught? Or maybe "If you really need to win, steal first and often?" Or "Hire the best genius inventor around?" Or "Genius inventors are all very fine, but you'll lose crown and country if you don't have a daring-do-Hero on tap?"
Frankly, after reading this book closely, I have no clue what the theme is or what the author wanted it to be. It says contradictory things all at once, and ends up saying nothing.
Why do the 3 plots not crystallize, forming a single articulated work of art? Why is the theme (which I believe the author knows, but doesn't know he hasn't stated) so invisible?
This book has 3 plots -- and not 1 conflict.
The STORY is that of the Captain who succeeds in a) getting a promotion to the new Submariner Service b) getting the girl and c) saving crown and country. BUT WHO IS TRYING TO PREVENT HIM FROM DOING ANY OF THAT?
No preventing force, no plot. There's a great story and no CONFLICT -- without conflict there's no plot.
The author tried to disguise the lack of conflict by tossing in 2 extra plots that shouldn't be there, but those 2 extra plots (whichever 2 of the 3 are the extras) won't mix in properly because they explicate different themes destroying the "composition" of this book.
I can't tell which plots are "extra" because all 3 have equal weight. In a well constructed work of art, one element dominates all others, each of the other elements supports and explicates the details of the main one, illuminating it from all angles. The subordinate elements must have lesser "weight" (fewer words) than the unifying and dominating element.
Yes, the spies are trying to prevent launch of the new submarine, and/or to steal it or the new technology (their goal is never made clear), but that's not preventing our Hero the Captain from attaining his goal -- which goal is never made clear. The Captain doesn't know he has a goal regarding the woman he falls for until way into the book, and nobody is trying to thwart him from "getting the girl." When she is kidnapped, it's by the spies who want her for her expertise, not to thwart The Captain.
And so it goes throughout the entire book -- every place there should be a conflict, there is a complication substituted for it. That's why the thing wanders into loving description of technology during which all progress on all the story lines just stops. There's no development of an urgent necessity to know how the technology works, and the technology is presented in indigestible lumps of exposition. Cutting that down won't help. It would be fascinating reading if we needed to know it -- if there were any suspense causing us to barrel through those explanations determined not to miss the essential clue to the mystery and not let The Hero solve the mystery before The Reader!
You will find this thematic structure I've been describing above in every great novel that's lasted for generations -- though the older ones are much harder to discern because this structural trick was just being invented when they were propagated. Reading from Ancient Greece onwards through the Middle Ages, you can see how the rules of this structure were developed stepwise.
Here are some previous posts with links to other previous posts to study if you haven't followed this. Also you may, in the course of analyzing The Thunderbolt Affair, discover that you have found an even better way to get your novel to "crystallize" -- to create a unified matrix of artistic statements that move your reader to the core. If you do, be sure to teach your method.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-5.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Tax forms for professional writers
At the moment, I am filling out and mailing my 1099-MISC forms, and I'd like to remind my creative friends that the laws are evolving, and that any business who/which pays another individual or business more than $600 in the course of the year must send them a 1099-MISC.
Check out the IRS at http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1099msc/ar02.html
This is the cover for the package that I purchased at Staples.
One can download free forms from the IRS site, but not all forms are scannable, and some people are obliged to e-file or pay a fine, so my view is, when in doubt, send the paper.
The pack of forms sold by Staples contains 24 forms (which come with a total of 5 copies that carbon-copy the data you enter on the first page. The also include 3 1096 Transmittal forms for the filer (me).
At first, I wondered whether I really needed a pack of 24 forms. Last year, I was only required to send a 1099-MISC to my intellectual property attorney.... who didn't want it because she is with a corporation and their tax compliance is unquestionable. Some attorneys' fees are reportable.
This year, I have to send the forms to my webmaster (who also may not need it); the radio station that I pay for air time for my shows; the same IP attorney; anyone with whom I have spent more than $600 on advertising; ditto for e-book prep; ditto for foreign translations of my works. The very nice IRS agent with whom I spoke --because reading IRS instructions online makes me hyperventilate-- advised me that I might even need to send a form to my dentist, if I considered that my dental work was necessary to my ability to perform as a talk show host or to promote my books on visual media. (I am not sure that I will claim that deduction, but I may send the 1099-MISC to be on the safe side.
Then your own EIN, TIN, or social security number if you file your business as a Schedule C.
Beside that, your victim's TIN, EIN, or SS#
Then, your victim's name. (I wrote Webmaster's name here).
In the next two boxes, your victim's address.
Box #7 (Non-employee compensation) is where you enter the amount (in excess of $600) that you paid. This is the total for the year and does not have to be broken down.
$50 a month will trigger your need to send this form, but you don't have to do it (as far as I know) for Staples, Comcast, RWA.....Payments to a corporation do not have to be reported.
Fortunately, I only pay $30 a month to MUSO for pirate fighting, so do not have to send them a 1099-MISC.
Repeat on the duplicate form below the first. Be careful not to cut the first page in half.
Mail the third and fourth pages to your victim to arrive before January 31st. Be sure to file your Copy A of Form 1099-MISC with the 1096 by February 28th.
For more detailed, more formal information, visit the IRS http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1099msc/ar02.html
I am not a tax expert. Please take my advice as encouragement to research for yourself what is the right thing to do for your circumstances.
All the best,
Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Doonesbury on Writer's Block
Do you all read the “Doonesbury” comic? If so, you saw last week’s sequence of strips about writer’s block. If not, start here and read them Monday through Saturday:
DoonesburyIn case you’re not familiar with the current storylines, Jeff has a fantasy alter ego called the Red Rascal, a Zorro-like masked rider who fights for freedom in Afghanistan. Against all expectation, the book he’s written in his Rascal persona becomes a bestseller. Unfortunately, like many a nouveau-rich celebrity, Jeff squanders his income from the “memoir” as well his lavish advance for the sequel. When he asks to move back in with his parents, they agree on condition that he fulfill his contract for the second book. Part of the agreement, as his mother explains to his slacker buddy, mandates that he spend “three solid hours” writing every morning.
Almost any writer will laugh in recognition, if somewhat uneasily, at Jeff’s predicament. How often does our “process” involve staring vacantly into space (or sleeping on a plot problem)? Or do we sometimes tell ourselves that to evade facing the blank screen? I can uncomfortably identify with the dread of seeing my words just hang there “lifelessly” in all their flatness. And with the recent farewell to my day job, I’m trying to embrace the discipline of committing myself to fixed hours of concentrated writing (for me it’s a minimum of two hours or 1000 words, whichever comes first). Only too rarely does an inspired phrase (comparable to the genius of “a freakin’ Hemingwad”) spontaneously leap from my brain.
The same plotline continues Monday and Tuesday of this week. I especially like Monday’s dialogue. Jeff asks his father, a journalist, “What do you do when you have nothing to say?” Answer: “I say it anyway. . . . Four times a day.”
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
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