Theme-Character Integration Part 1: What Does She See In Him

Theme-Character Integration

Part 1

What Does She See In Him

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here's the foundation post for this advanced investigation of Relationship in Romance.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

There are two essential parts to what one person "sees in" another person: A) What is really there and B) What the viewer is capable of discerning.

There is a classic Biblical story of Moses and Aaron arguing which is resolved by the Sages with the explanation that Moses and Aaron were brothers, yes, but very different as individuals.

Remember Moses was the one sent to Pharaoh to demand "Let My People Go" and Aaron (after fighting a delaying action by participating in making the Golden Calf) was appointed High Priest and inaugurated into serving in the Tabernacle.

Moses was the Teacher -- who repeated what G-d told him to say, then wrote it down.  Aaron was the Doer -- who took the offered animals, grain, spices etc to the Alter and offered them.

Side note here on CAPABLE OF DISCERNING: one huge problem most people have with The Bible comes from deriving conclusions from the semantic loading behind English word translations. 

A huge case in point is the word "Sacrifice" -- to us it means inflicting a deprivation upon one's self, giving away something of value for nothing in return, giving UP, suffering pain for the sake of something or someone else.  Many people are capable of discerning "Love" only in terms of what "you are willing to sacrifice for me." 

People see "marriage" as a "sacrifice" of "freedom."  Is it?  Or is it a net gain? 

Knowing the semantic loading of words is part of the job of the professional writer, and when crafting a Romance story, the writer has to craft the dialogue and its interpretation in the light of these shifting semantic loads, the emotional implications of a simple WORD can mislead someone about the character of a person.  This is why "deeds speak louder than words" -- or in writer-parlance, Plot speaks louder than Narrative or Exposition.

So back to The Bible (you all know what an impact the History Channel presentation of The Bible made around Easter, 2013) -- one of the most misleading translations of Biblical terminology is the term "Sacrifice." 

The Hebrew term is Korban -- and that has nothing to do with GIVING UP anything.  Note the instructions for most of the "offerings" in the Temple include who gets to EAT THE ANIMALS that have been offered, and where and when they must (not may, must) be eaten. 

Nobody is giving up anything when bringing an offering to the Temple, so the word "Sacrifice" is massively misleading.  The one who brings the offering ends up with a net gain, a connection to the Divine. 

The term Korban means essentially a binding, a tie, a connection.  And the purpose of the action of bringing an offering is to create or reinforce a TIE to God, a connection between the deepest psyche of the bringer and the pervasive Unconditional Love of God.

What do you see in God?

What does God see in you? 

That's the TIE we're talking about here where we investigate what one Character can "see" in another Character, and how that causes them to act and react to various utterances, to dialogue (which I remind you is not real speech recorded, but a method of moving PLOT FORWARD.)

So why do we have this argument between Moses and Aaron recorded in the Torah and re-read incessantly every year for all time?  What is that about and why is it relevant to writing Romance? 

What that argument is about, and what you can learn from it as a writer (after all the Bible has lasted a while and still sells pretty well, as we see from the success on the History Channel which was repeated immediately in re-runs on other channels) is the Nature of Character.

What is "a human" -- are we all alike?  How can there be ROMANCE or sexuality (the essence of sexuality is Mystery, you know) -- how can there be ROMANCE if we're all identical? 

What does "Soul Mate" mean?  What does "Mate" mean?  A "Mate" is an opposite -- or at the very least has something you don't have which enables you when added to you.

A "Mate" is a complementary element, a completion of a whole. 

A Soul Mate completes your Soul.

For that Relationship to form, a Character has to be an individual who is capable of "seeing" something that they don't have but need inside the other Character. 

So from the argument between Moses and Aaron we learn how even brothers are distinct and different individuals.

What exactly is that distinction in this case?  The Sages maintain that Moses served G-d via Truth.  Moses saw the world of Truth behind the illusion we ordinarily think is real.  Moses saw the Reality behind our daily illusion, the Truth of Reality, and transmitted that vision via his service as a teacher, an intellectual service, a service via words.  He transmitted the words of G-d just as he was given them. 

Aaron on the other hand was very different.  Aaron saw the "illusion" of reality as we see it, as we live in it, the seeming that we perceive as solid, and sought to resolve the conflict between (there's that word, again, CONFLICT which is the essence of STORY) the Illusion and the Truth.

Aaron served G-d through action, in the Biblical case, he served by being the one to act at the Altar.

So Aaron served by acting to resolve the conflict between what appears to be real and what Moses saw as actually real.

Doesn't that sound like the "Battle of the Sexes" -- "Oh we're lost. We have to stop and ask directions."  "Oh, we're lost.  Let's go around that corner and see if that's the right way."

"You talk too much."  "You never talk to me!" 

Is "life" (i.e. THEME of your story) about Truth, about what is actually really there?  Or is it about how you feel, what you feel is there? 

Note that in many decisive instances in life, where your Characters make decisions, there is the core conflict between Fact and Opinion -- between Truth and Illusion.

Resolving that conflict is what Romance Stories do for, with and by your Reader.

Will your characters act on Opinion or on Fact?  Either one alone is pretty ineffectual (that's a thematic statement).  In a Romance, each member of the forming Couple "sees in the other" the missing element (Fact or Opinion) and when the Couple coalesces and implements a course of action rooted in Fact/Opinion Conflict Resolved, their connection to functioning Reality works smoothly and their cooperative actions produce solid results leading to Happily Ever After.

Understand that archetype illustrated by the different personalities of Moses and Aaron (and their respective spouses and children), each with a unique way, functioning as a unit, and you can amp up your "Steam" element in your Romance Novels.

Now let's take an example.  I have many, many examples in my reading history, but here's a series I've been raving about in my reviews, The Dresden Files, all about Harry Dresden, by Jim Butcher.  I've discussed this series at some length in this blog:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/paranormal-romance.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/collateral-repairs.html

Now we come to COLD DAYS by Jim Butcher, 14th in the Dresden files.  These are long novels in a long series, and tightly plotted, tightly written.

There's a couple of great Love Stories in this series, too.  After 14 novels, it is beginning to look like Harry Dresden has found a Mate. 

Reading outside Romance Genre can teach you all about "what she sees in him" (and vice versa).

The genre usually called "Action" -- whether it's in space or running across a stack of alternate dimensions where Magic is Real -- is perfect for studying "What She Sees In Him."

Why?  Because the Action genre is usually formulated around One Hero (can be female), a single character, who is what I might term a Free Radical.

In the pre-mated state, this Hero Character bounces around from adventure to adventure, hacking away at life, the universe and everything, most making a complete hash out of the art of living life.

For another long series of long novels that is really fun to read, but illustrates this Free Radical character (whose story is OVER once he finally mates) see my discussions of Allan Cole's STEN SERIES:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/career-management-for-writers-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-10-use-of.html

And for more on THEME

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

Do an in depth contrast/compare between these two series and you can learn a lot about "what she sees in him" and how to depict that guy who attracts "her."

Sten and Dresden are two very different characters, as different as Moses and Aaron, and like those two, they make a set. 

Jim Butcher has mastered the full integration of THEME into PLOT and CHARACTER.  His writing is so seamless that you will have a hard time factoring out the component elements.  But it is worth the effort as a learning exercise.

Harry Dresden is a Professional Wizard.  When we first meet him, he's floundering his way haplessly through trying to make a place for himself in a world where he just doesn't fit in.

ACCIDENT plays a plot-role in the Dresden novels as it does in STEN, correctly used to generate plot. 

When we first meet Harry, he has a girl but has lost her -- he's not quite sure how permanent that will be, but there's a lot of angst festering there.

By the end of the 14th book, another "possible" Soul Mate has appeared, been deemed both impossible and improbable, and then suddenly re-defined into a whole different emotional situation. 

That entire problem -- finding a Mate -- is completely peripheral for Harry.  He is just not paying attention to HIS OWN NEEDS, WANTS AND DESIRES.  He is wholly focused on solving the problems that are a) threatening his very existence b) threatening people he loves c) threatening people who have hired him d) threatening people who don't know he exists and don't care but whom he feels responsible for.

Jim Butcher has mastered the principle of screenwriting (Dresden was briefly a TV Series) in which you hurl your character into a Situation with 6 problems to solve or die trying.  The plot can consist of the problems solving each other or the character solving them one at a time.  As in gaming (and war), the solving of problems costs, so the Hero usually takes damage.

Now we come to this THEME-CHARACTER integration technique. 

What she sees in him will not be what he sees in himself. (and vice versa).

These ACTION HERO genre novels from a male POV don't usually reveal or dwell on what the Hero sees in himself. 

Anita Blake (female action-hero by Laurell K. Hamilton) is a good contrast.  The first books in that series have Anita articulately explaining her traits and attributes in which she takes pride.  The series as a whole  chronicles the disintegration of that personality in which she so prided herself, and then a gradual rebuilding of a new personality.  Many readers who loved the early books despise the later ones. 

In STEN and HARRY DRESDEN we have heroes who have no clue who they are and couldn't really care less.  Their self-awareness and introspection (i.e. the usual male blind-spot) is totally lacking, but it is completely, starkly, clearly apparent "who" each of these characters is by their ACTIONS.

They don't think, rarely FEEL unless clubbed over the head, and yet shout their Identities loudly into the world with every action. 

As they work with their external realities, they grow, change, and become stronger characters, more integrated, harder to derail, disrupt or corrupt. 

Sten becomes the owner of the greatest power in his universe, and gives it away to everyone.

We haven't seen what Dresden will "become" yet, but we have seen him "do the right thing" over and over, each one harder than the last to choose to do, and each one costing him more personally than the last one cost.  That's the same as the Anita Blake story, except for one essential ingredient.  Harry Dresden pays the price and pays the price -- and emerges from it all with more to give, more strength, more and greater dedication to doing the right thing.

Dresden does not start out with a high opinion of himself (as Anita Blake does), and his opinion of himself does not increase a whole lot through all his triumphs.  But he only suffers moping, depression, and misery for brief times before pulling himself together.  It isn't just that the next challenge smashes into his world before he's gotten good and depressed.  He does get a shower, a change of clothes, a good meal and sometimes a happy interlude between challenges. 

The key to Dresden is that he isn't aware that his triumphs and successes are making him a "stronger" character -- less vulnerable to corruption and disintegration. 

But he is growing as a person, and there is a woman who is seeing that growth, seeing the strength, seeing the Values he upholds that he doesn't even really know that he has.

There is a "dark" side to Dresden and his story.  There are demons, possession, a serious temptation to use Black Magic, and the actual use of the Black Magic that actually does "corrupt" and grind away at Dresden's character.  There are those who have a low opinion of him because of his inherent connection to the Dark. 

You should read all three of these series and make up your own mind -- most likely you'll have a different take on it than I do, and very probably I'll have a different take on it all in a year or two.  But for the moment, think of it this way:  Sten is more like Moses, searching for the Truth behind the illusion since he is no Moses.  Sten is trying to find the Truth that Moses sees, and when he thinks he's found it, it acts on that Truth.  Dresden is no Aaron, but he is trying to find a way to make Peace among all the criss-crossing forces he sees in his world, and from time to time is rewarded with a period of some balance.  Anita Blake acts on the assumption that the Illusion is the Truth. 

THEME: there is a natural human tendency to strive to become a "better" person; whatever "better" might mean to you. 

CHARACTER: a Hero who tackles and surmounts problems becoming more like his/her own Ideal Person.

ROMANCE: a Character who loves (has an affinity for) that which she admires, sees in a Man the striving toward a personal ideal that she admires, sees his willingness to pay the price of improvement, and the achieving of at least part of that goal.  She finds in herself the need to help that Man -- and ultimately to propagate those values and ideals.

Imagine Sten or Dresden living in your world, fighting the battles and problems that people in your world face every day, applying the character traits these two have to those problems.  Would you want that man in your life? 

Remember these Hero-type folks don't cultivate an articulate awareness of Ideals, don't see themselves as striving, don't bother to feel their own emotions and strive to perfect that emotional life, to get to where they don't have to experience emotional pain.  To discover what these folks are made of, a woman has to examine and analyze their actions. 

That may be the basis for a man opening the door for a woman -- men act; women feel flattered, attended, cared for. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

America The ..... Cheap Part 1. Land of the Freebie

On May 21st, I spent an hour chatting with Chris Ruen, author of FREELOADING, which anyone interested can still hear on my archives page http://www.pwrtalk.com/page/r-cherry  I was so outraged that I wrote a rant, but the next Sunday was Memorial Day, so I held off.

However, my anger is undiminished. I am reminded of the pervasive culture of apologists for looting, both by Senator Rand Paul's smug comments about SOPA (which he opposed) on Fox News this afternoon, juxtaposed with a blog on Trichordist http://www.thetrichordist.com about Bit Torrents,
http://thetrichordist.com/2013/05/28/bittorrent-not-designed-for-piracy-really-seriously-99-infringing/

BTW, on my MUSO account, I see that they are having considerable trouble getting a large collection of romance novels that include three of mine removed from a Kick Ass Torrent. I concede that there may be some Torrents that are legal, but most that I see are simply illegal compilations of massive numbers of infringing works. Presumably, those who take advantage of sloppy wording in the DMCA would argue that no one owns the copyright of a collection of 10,000 romance novels by various authors whose first name begins with R.... probably because some Seller on EBay said that they were GNU-Licensed and EBay allowed this lie to be published and distributed uncontested.

Back to the FREELOADING interview:
Chris Ruen told a story about Metallica that resonated with me, and with stories I hear from increasing numbers of authors. According to Chris, Metallica was in a recording studio, recording an original song (of theirs). They took a break between recordings, and heard the song they were in the process of recording, being played on Napster.

Authors are finding ARCs (Advance Review Copies) of books that they are still writing or proof-reading the copy-edited galleys and therefore of which not a single copy has yet been sold, being published and distributed on pirate sites.

If you see a book by a Random House author being "shared" illegally on Scribd or on a Torrent or on Facebook or Goodreads or any pirate site, you can now report it to Random House. Please do.
http://randomnotes.randomhouse.com/anti-piracy-reporting-tool-added-to-author-portal/?Ref=Email_B2C_authors6/5/2013

Animals That Don't Die

Some incredible animals that could serve as models for immortal aliens:

Immortal Animals

Lobsters never die of old age, only by violence or disease. They just keep growing. And they get more fertile as they grow older and bigger. Glass sponges can live to 15,000 years. There’s a microscopic organism called a bdelloid that prolongs its life by stealing DNA from other species to repair its own.

The centuries-long lifespans of some turtles and bowhead whales make multi-centenarian humanoids seem less unlikely, whether on distant planets or living secretly among us on Earth.

Also check out a link on the above-referenced page to a list of creatures that can remain active with their heads removed, as well as a snake whose head briefly stays “alive” (and bites) after being severed (sort of like the karaoke demon on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER). Zombie animals!

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Settings Part 4: Detail - Guest Post by J. H. Bogran

These posts that appear on this blog on Tuesdays are 
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

But occasionally, I present a Guest Post by someone else.  Today, we have an interesting one on SETTING. 

As I noted in Part 1 of this series on SETTING, I ran into Jose Bogran on the twitter chat #scifichat (Friday 2-4 PM Eastern) and today we have a second writing craft post from him.

Good choices for SETTING come directly from pondering your THEME which we've been discussing in the advanced set of posts on Theme-Plot Integration these last few weeks.

We'll have to get down to the nitty-gritty of Theme-Setting Integration eventually.  One of the first articles I ever wrote on writing craft had to do with the use of DETAIL, so I found it fascinating that J. H. Bogran has focused in on DETAIL in SETTING. 

Here are the links to prior posts on THEME-SETTING

The index post collecting long-ago posts is here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

And the last few weeks have been extending those posts:

Theme-Plot Integration Part 8 - Use of Co-incidence in Plotting
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

Part 9
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

Part 10:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-10-use-of.html

And here is the series on SETTING starting with a Guest Post by J. H. Bogran:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/guest-post-by-j-h-bogran-settings-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/settings-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/settings-part-3-dreamspy-in-e-book.html

In Part 3, examining my space-war novel DREAMSPY, we begin to look at the steps in reasoning from IDEA to CONCEPT to THEME to SETTING, to see how a writer chooses to put a particular story into a specific place. 

As I've said before, it's kind of like driving a car -- you do most of the work with the non-verbal, mostly inaccessible part of your brain.  That's why it seems so mysterious to writers who just "have an idea" and then just "write the novel."  They don't know how they do what they do or why they do it a  certain way and not another way.  If they've got it right, they sell big, and if they miss they can't sell at all.   

Those very Talented writers don't make great teachers because they can't explain what they are doing (because they don't know.) 

The rest of us, though, have to figure out how to do it -- and so the process can be revealed to beginners, saving sometimes years of struggle. 

J. H. Bogran is such a "beginner" -- working in two languages!  OK, from my perspective, he's a beginner. 

So it is worth our while to pay attention as these techniques are laid out by someone who has just learned to do it, and with time we may watch Bogran polish techniques and then explain how that happened.   

Here, then is a new Guest Post. 

--------------------- GUEST POST-------------
Setting in the details
by
J. H. Bográn

Back on part one, I discussed the larger aspects of a setting and its direct relation with the plot, characters and other intrinsically relevant areas of a novel. This time around I’d like to expand into the old adage that the beauty is in the details. Jacqueline even reminded us about Star Trek being first pitched as Wagon Train to the Stars. Something I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t know, so bear in mind I’m such a sucker for trivia bits. So, thank you Jacqueline for the added bit to my trivia library!

The setting is more than just a location. It is the place where the events of a particular scene happen. A full description of a room can break the flow of the plot, but when carefully planned it can serve to enhance it.

Picture a man that regularly visits the city museum. Except, today is different because his wife was buried the day before, and now he’s seeking refuge in the paint strokes of masters. Today he notices for the first time a tiny frame, no bigger than a post card, depicting a sailboat riding tall waves amidst a storm. He watches mesmerized as he thinks of people aboard: will they ever reach the coast or will the wave bury the little boat? He recognizes the tune coming out of the P.A. system. It’s an instrumental version of Michael Bolton’s “When I’m back on my feet again,” and although he had always hated the cheesy pop star, he now finds himself humming along the song as he discovers he remembers the lyrics.

See how the painting and the tune mirror the man’s feelings? He had probably seen the painting a thousand times, and heard the environmental music an equal number of times. They add to the setting, but also to the feelings of the character.

One of the main differences that I’ve found between writing screenplays and novels is the level of description required for each. In the screenplay, description is generally limited to one line: Day. Interior. Jose’s room. Now, try to get away with that in a novel, I dare you! One of my early writing teachers suggested to make a drawing, and to mark where the doors, windows and furniture were located. He claimed the knowledge would slip through the writing even if we didn’t use all of the details. I’ve learned other tips and tricks since then, but one of those things is that he was right!

In the case of my sci-fi short The Outpost, I conceived space stations guarding the entrance to the Solar System. Believe it or not, the awful drawings I made must still be lying around somewhere in the rusty two-drawer file cabinet. I visualized the dimensions, colors, and plenty of other little details. Not all of them went into the final draft, of course. Here’s the opening of The Outpost with the details that made it to the final draft:

Excerpt from The Outpost (Red Rose Publishing, 2008)

Karl Jackson awoke suddenly to find his face barely an inch from the metal ceiling; he was floating.

“Joe! What happened with the gravity?”

Monitoring the whole of space is an impossible task. Thus, humans settled to monitoring the edges of the solar system. They figured that Earth could only be seriously affected by something entering the system. Thousands of outposts peppered the outskirts to detect anything coming in.

Track Seven was one of many cylindrical-type stations that monitored traffic in and out of our home planet. The top of the station was a transparent dome, enabling the operators a full 360-degree view. The main control room contained two chairs placed back to back, each facing a console full of monitors, transmitters, and switches that could make the inexperienced dizzy in a matter of seconds. Between the chairs was a trap door leading to the living quarters below.

Joe Doyle’s head appeared through the hole, relief visible on his face. “Didn’t know you were awake,” he said with his usual heavy drawl. It had always amazed Karl that Joe had embraced the Texas accent so completely, having only lived there for a couple of years before taking his post in NASA.

End of excerpt.

Yep, the station is very similar to a capsule you would find inside a Walgreen’s bottle. Not sure why I designed my guarding stations that way; perhaps I had a headache and took the hint from a gel-cap.

In short, not only do you have to have a detail list, but you also must choose which ones to use.
The help make the decision, I’d recommend you consider their impact on the characters, their significance to the plot, and finally, their ability to weave seamlessly into the story.

Author Bio and links:
J. H. Bográn, born and raised in Honduras, is the son of a journalist. He ironically prefers to write fiction rather than fact. José’s genre of choice is thrillers, but he likes to throw in a twist of romance into the mix. His works include novels and short stories in both English and Spanish. He’s a member of the International Thriller Writers where he also serves as the Thriller Roundtable Coordinator.

Website at: http://www.jhbogran.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jhbogran
Twitter: @JHBogran

Direct links to books:

The Outpost: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003ZDO3SY
Deeds of a Master Archer: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009DPAO7C
Treasure Hunt: http://www.amazon.com/gp/B004MDLSWK
The Assasin's Mistress: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007BOC0OW

----------END GUEST POST-------------

What I find interesting here is that when I decided to be a professional writer, even before HIGH SCHOOL, I read copies of Writer's Digest and all the books on stage, screen and novel writing in my local library. 

That trick of sketching the layout of an environment where you are placing a scene or story was often repeated in those sources (which were old and falling apart when I read them!), so I adopted it right at the very start of my first attempts to create a character and his/its story (my first was a blob). 

I have some very crude sketches of the venue for scenes in some of my published novels.

I particularly sketch scenes at formal dinner tables or long tables in restaurants, noting who is sitting beside whom, and across from whichever other characters.  Imagine the noise level, the cross-talk, and be sure that the bits of dialogue you want your character to hear or overhear are actually within his/its/hers hearing distance in that echoing environment.

Now, the big caveat for new writers is this: Don't Make Sketches For Every Scene!

And don't describe who is sitting, standing, walking, riding next to or across from whom UNLESS YOU ARE SETTING UP AN ACTION-SCENE.

When a writer introduces a scene with the local floor-plan or layout in excruciating detail, it is a signal to the reader that all hell is about to break loose.

For example, if you establish a WINDOW on the 20th floor, with a tiny ledge beneath it, you jolly well better have that ledge be either the escape route for the hero or the entry-route for the villain, or the hiding place of a Key, weapon, whatever.

If you disappoint the reader by describing details you don't later use as part of the PLOT, the next scene where you include detail the reader will likely just skip the detail.  The third scene you do that in, the reader will toss the book aside -- or maybe in the trash.

And this is where that all-powerful and all-important element THEME comes in.

How do you decide which details to USE IN THE PLOT and thus describe in many words?

Each time you set up a floor-plan or load passengers into a car in a given arrangement, or seat them all at a dinner table, or sprinkle them around a crowded restaurant, first go into that setting yourself and open your eyes (like a swimmer opening eyes under water) and take a good look around.

You will see thousands of details in that setting.  SELECT the four, or no more than five, that bespeak the THEME. 

Ask yourself, "Given that my POV character is in THIS MOOD, what exactly WILL SHE NOTICE?"  And then, what will she NOT NOTICE?  What she doesn't notice can be a cited detail in your narrative, but only if it is a near-fatal oversight by the POV character because of her mood.

Bogran illustrated this point very well in the Museum scene.  The character is in a MOOD because of the funeral.  Though the setting is familiar, suddenly previously overlooked details become IMPORTANT.

Now the story didn't progress to the point where the storm-tossed ship and the particular song he heard would become clues in solving a murder mystery, or lead to discovering the painting was a forgery which would lead to meeting the museum curator and falling in love with her.  But it could have! 

Once the character's MOOD and the details that mood REVEALS are set up, your reader is drawn deep into your story.

The Museum Scene described lacks only the DETAILS that will be the springboard into what happens NEXT to this bereaved man because of his MOOD at that point. 

For example, perhaps the Museum is about to be robbed, and this man is a retired Security Guard who really knows the place.  Perhaps among the details of the ship painting and music, something catches his eye and he's uneasy but doesn't know why.  Inspecting the tiny frame, he notices that one of the security cameras is dark when it should have a tiny flashing light showing from that angle.  Hmmm.  He looks around for someone to report that to.  BANG the robbers burst into the display room pushing the Museum Curator in front of them. 

NOW WHAT? the reader is thinking. 

Do you see how this works?  The reader expects the details of the Museum setting to have some significance in terms of WHAT HAPPENS NEXT (i.e. the plot).  The detailed detail description is not just to explicate the main character's mood of the moment, but to explicate the theme which can only be done  via plot -- via something happening because.

Remember Plot = Because Line.

Because his wife died, because he's just come from her funeral, he seeks refuge in something familiar, and because he's THERE at just that time, THIS HAPPENS TO HIM, because of which he DOES SOMETHING, because of which SOMETHING HAPPENS, because of which HE DOES SOMETHING ELSE -- etc -- until his GRIEF (the theme here is grieving) is RESOLVED.

As I set it up, this retired Security Guard would thereupon risk his life to save the Museum Curator from the Robbers, and possibly her career from ruin BECAUSE HE NOTICED THE DEAD CAMERA and had time to DO SOMETHING that thereupon allowed him to be able to save her life, BECAUSE OF WHICH she reacts in some way to resolve his grief.

Choice of detail to describe is not arbitrary.  It's not an "art."  It's not mysterious and doesn't require Talent.  Choice of detail is like choice of vocabulary -- sounding spontaneous is a matter of careful preparation. (a Robert Heinlein quote - can you name the source?)

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Too Many Characters?

Over the weekend at our house, we had a conversation about the problem of “too many characters” in a novel or series. What that principally means, of course, is too many named characters for the reader to keep track of. What’s the limit before you reach an excessive number? Some writing advice suggests an actual formula, so many characters for each word count range and no more. Surely the answer to this question depends a lot on what genre you’re writing. A category-length romance tends to play out on an intimate scale in which full development of the hero-heroine relationship leaves little or no space for subplots and, therefore, for major secondary characters. A mystery needs a wide enough pool of suspects to keep the reader guessing. An epic fantasy novel or trilogy, which is what we were discussing, allows scope for many more characters, in fact almost demands them. But how do we know when we’re reaching a cast of individualized characters so numerous the reader will get confused? It’s easy to say we should keep them if they’re all necessary to the story, but how do we decide which can be eliminated or combined without damaging the plot? In her play cycle THE MAN BORN TO BE KING, about the life of Christ, Dorothy Sayers explains in her authors’ comments how she merged some roles to make the huge cast a little more manageable. For instance, she made the centurion whose servant Jesus cured the same as the centurion at the crucifixion. She also adopted one ancient tradition that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany were the same person.

There used to be a member in my online critique group who insisted no minor characters should have names, because singling them out with a name gives the reader the idea that they’re destined to play an important role in the story, and if they never do, the reader gets confused. I think this “rule” can be taken too far. For example, if the police chief is going to appear more than once, even as a walk-on, it seems to me less awkward to give him a name than to call him “the chief” over and over. Presumably the viewpoint character knows his name! In Dean Koontz’s latest novel, DEEPLY ODD, he gives a name to a waitress who appears in only one scene, and Koontz’s track record suggests he knows what he’s doing.

Is there such a thing as too few characters? I’ve written romance novellas and novelettes that have essentially two, the hero and heroine, with maybe a brief appearance by a third person at the beginning of the story. Obviously that limited a number of people would seldom work in a full-length novel. True, there are brilliant exceptions, such as Stephen King’s MISERY, populated for most of its span by only the protagonist and antagonist. As a writer, how do you make these choices? For the typical full-length novel, what type and number of secondary characters would you as a reader normally expect? If you pick up a book whose story is preceded by a long list of dramatis personae, the way some epic novels are, do you find that helpful or discouraging?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot Integration Part 10 - Use of Co-incidence in Plot

We've been discussing a contrast/compare among 3 novel series, 20 novels in all.  This post is about these books, and contains spoilers as well as opinion and a suggested "take-away" from this study.

Here is a link to Part 8 where we launched into this 20-book comparison, and Part 9 with links to them all, and the index to previous parts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

Remember, posts with "Integration" in the title put together the craft skills we've discussed singly in previous posts.

Also remember, most of this "work" is done subconsciously.  A writer telling a story wouldn't be consciously aware of doing any of this.  Those who do it as a "Talent" and get goshwows for their adroit use of these skills probably learned them just by reading eclectically, not necessarily thinking about what they were reading. 

Here's where we discussed Talent in writers:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/talent-mystique-or-mistake.html

Inborn, innate "Talent" is often signified in a natal chart by a quincunx or quindecile between outer and inner planets (fame is totally different).  We observe the results of Talent from outside the person by noting how "easily" they pick up certain skills (the child prodigy on the piano). 

Theory is that this ease of learning happens because the actual hard-slogging up the learning curve was done in a previous life, and the Soul selected that ability to be brought into this life.

Theory is that any "person" has a Soul with many-many Talents, and this person you are dealing with "now" has only a smattering of the Talents he/she has stored in their Soul.  Some of what a person has now is relevant to what they're doing in this life -- some not at all relevant. 

We "observe" the shapes of lives from the outside by reading biographies -- from the "inside" by reading autobiographies (at least the ones actually written by the person named), and by watching the people around us for the patterns we saw reading those books.

That's why a writer's best work is usually not done in their teens or twenties.  It takes many years to read enough and observe enough people to perceive the patterns scattered deeds and events create.

As you read the rest of this series of Theme-Plot Integration posts, think about an ant crawling  up one of those huge, hanging tapestries you've seen in museums, the kind women used to make to hang in drafty castles. 

You sit on a bench ten feet away or more, and gaze upon the picture with all the different, entwined figures cavorting in different settings.  You see a lot of different scenes from one side of the tapestry to another.  Then you think about the scenes and you see an entire story of a Historical Event (such as a war) or perhaps the mythological gods and goddesses whose stories carried the philosophy of that Age.

But what does that ant see?  The ant doesn't have a human eye, or a human brain.  The ant may pick up strands from the colored threads, not discerning the color differences, just that the strand supports its little feet. 

If the ant were an Artist, it would infer the pattern and run back to the next and try to explain that pattern to other ants. 

We are ants trying to discern the pattern of our lives.  (yes, I know the answer is 42.) 

That underlying PATTERN is what Art reveals.  That pattern is what writers study.

A writer will go to the mall and people-watch, just as actors do.  Just sit and watch people juggle packages and kids and scramble from store to store -- think about "who" those people are and where they are inside one of those PATTERNS.

Finding a pattern in random dots is what artists do for a hobby.  For a living, artists SHOW YOU the pattern they see. 

The most commercial story-form today is the Novel.  It has developed over more than a century and diversified at various periods into a variety of genres. 

The commercial Novel is a very specific type of Work - it is a story with very specific shapes.  Academics like the word "trope" to describe such shapes.  Those who burn with a desire to shatter the art world as they see it often refer to a trope as a "formula." 

The worse opprobrium cast upon the most highly commercial fiction is the term "formulaic."

Once a formula or trope has become well enough known to a consuming market to be identified as "formulaic,"  that particular shape is on its way out of the commercial fiction arena. 

Since we live our everyday lives amidst a turbulent sea of unrelated, even random, dots of information, Events, and tasks, we love to relax with a nice, predictable STORY we can trust to deliver as expected.

But since we live amidst those random dots, and can't see what patterns Artists see  amidst the random, we just plain don't believe fiction that we can see "through" -- that we can see a pattern in, that we can see the formula behind.

So writers spend a lot of time disguising the bare bones behind their stories, the "plot."

Just as Hollywood producers want "the same but different" so also editors want "the same but different" because viewers/readers want "the same but different."

Fiction consumers want that predictable formula, but they don't want to be able to SEE it. 

If your reader can see the bones, the formula, the PLOT, the story is not plausible.  But if your reader can find no bones, no formula, no PLOT, the story is not plausible.

In other words, there has to BE a plot, and it must be something resembling the "plots" that subsume the everyday reality of the consumer's world, but your plot has to be as invisible as the plot of your reader's real life is.

How do you make a plot, a pattern you've striven to discern in reality for years and years, into something invisible underlying your story?

You cloak your Plot in the flesh of Theme.

Just as no two human beings look identical, but all have bones, no two stories look identical but they all have a plot.

The essence of all those plots is conflict.

All novel type stories are the story of a conflict that is resolved.

And the same is true of a series of novels (or a TV Series).  Here is a conflict.  Here's how it got resolved.  Here's the resolution. 

That's the bones, the plot, the part which, if it somehow sticks out of flesh that's too lean, will disappoint or disgust readers who need the mixed-mashup of random dots that they see in real life around them. 

So let's look at the three novel series we're studying.

In Part 9 we ended up with theme sketches:

-------quote--------
Corine Solomon is in love with a guy whose Talent is "Luck."  That has a whole backstory having to do with his parentage, but the point is that Talent and Luck (co-incidence) drives the plot of all 5 of the Corine Solomon novels.

(Alien Series) Kitty-Kat has a Talent for organizing other Talents, for leading a group of talented warriors while Luck sweeps her through personal combat, chase scenes and armed combat.  She remembers what's worked before and uses it to good effect again.  But her real Talent is for asking Question -- yes, capital Q questions, such as Kirk's "What does God need a spaceship for?"  Those are the obvious questions nobody else ever thinks of because people rely on assumptions they haven't tested when trying to solve a problem.

Sten has a Talent for surviving.  He learns the Art of War, but it isn't inherent in him.  He finally grows up enough that all he wants is to stay out of combat situations.  But he's living a Destiny, so the harder he tries to avoid combat, the worse the combat gets.  His Talent doesn't help him get out of his Destiny, which he can't even see coming -- any more than you can see a tornado coming until it's too late.

Perhaps the overall theme of the Sten Series is that forging the path to your destiny must inevitably affect, deflect, or inflect the paths of others toward their destinies. 

--------end quote--------

The Corine Solomon novels by Ann Aguirre are action/romance with paranormal dimensions added.  They are essentially Romance, with a main character (Corine) who starts out striving for independence and loving being independent -- but galled by the boyfriend she is separated from.

The PLOT is basically, an Independent Woman perfectly satisfied with being independent, pursuant to her own code of Honor, helps those who help her.  In so doing, she rescues her boyfriend from (literally) beyond Death and marries him. 

They separated basically over his Luck -- terrible trouble would strike, followed by harrowing, heart-stopping adventure, narrow misses, and escape.  It was a life-pattern she couldn't stand and he couldn't stand inflicting on her.  She, too, has a paranormal talent - she can touch an object and read it's history.  She applies that Talent to earn a living in antiques.  But then she gets mixed up in (by "sheer co-incidence") Mexican gangland wars, and the harder she tries the worse it gets (by ever more improbable co-incidences).  Co-incidence, happenstance, and luck drive the problems into her path.  She solves those problems by repeated applications of "doing the right thing regardless of the odds" and (by co-incidence) Wins (temporarily.) 

Corine is a problem-solver by nature, and views each of the disasters that befalls her as a problem to be solved.  At the end of the final book,  Agave Kiss, she rescues her boyfriend/lover from beyond Death (he's a half-breed son of a god, so when he dies his father tries to make him into a working god).  This is an application of the plot-bones of mythical stories -- they always work in fiction.  And in the process she gives up her original Talent, so now she can't read objects.  He proposes in a romantic setting smacking of the opening sequences. 

In the final Corine Solomon novel, the author Ann Aguirre (on twitter https://twitter.com/MsAnnAguirre  )  mentions that she didn't think her editor had confidence in her ability to bring the series to the Happily Ever After (HEA) ending required for the "trope" or formula, but here it is and it is an HEA.  Yes, indeed it is exactly that.  Corine Solomon got what she wanted (even needed) even though she didn't know in the beginning of the series that this was what she had to have. 

Because of the paranormal dimensions involved in the worldbuilding, the Corine Solomon Novels are a good example of how to use co-incidence in plotting and produce something other-worldly that resembles our everyday lives. 

The ALIEN SERIES by Gini Koch is a bit more than a Romance. 

The 7th Alien Series novel comes out this month, May 2013, and Gini says on twitter (  http://twitter.com/GiniKoch ) she has contracts through book 11 with plans for more beyond that.  So it's hard to sum up right now, but let's try.

It doesn't END with the marriage to an Alien, but goes on to challenge that marriage, beget a child, and change the world that child will grow up within (with the infant's Talents helping). 

In that, it resembles the Sten Series more closely than it does the Corine Solomon series.  The two series are about an existing "order of things" that is challenged by introduction of a New Element, with the resulting instability resolved by a Hero (Kitty Kat or Sten) who "does the right thing regardless" just as Corine Solomon does. 

The setting for the Alien Series is Earth plus one other Planetary System inhabited by Aliens, and a backdrop of a galaxy out there somewhere (filled with threats). 

The Plot of the Alien Series might be stated as "Woman who thinks she's an ordinary human who doesn't believe in co-incidence just by co-incidence walks into a battle between Aliens resident on Earth and Aliens inimical to the well-being of Earth, and completely by "accident" wins the battle and the undying love of one of the Aliens resident on Earth.  She keeps on doing the right thing, which includes fixing up the world to be hospitable for her child." 

Kitty Kat's Talent for asking the obscurely obvious Questions is a result of her disbelief in co-incidence.  She keeps trying to connect the dots of her life into a Pattern, absolutely sure there is a pattern there somewhere.  And she keeps finding those patterns where nobody else can find them.  She acts on the pattern she sees, and "co-incidence" and "luck" pursue her.

A theme can be discerned by connecting those bits of co-incidence.  Let's look at the Sten Series.  There are 8 novels extant, and on the fanfiction blog-post (once a year, on Empire Day) Allan Cole has posted a possible opening chapter for Book 9. 

http://stencole.blogspot.com/2013/03/sten-9-return-of-sten.html

STEN starts with a young boy, child of indentured servants (slaves really) on a high-tech manufacturing Space Station.  He sees the life his parents live (and die in) and where the kids of other parents likewise indentured live, and every cell in his body says NO! 

Sten defects, fights the system, grows to maturity as a "rat in the walls" of the Station, fighting every step of the way.  Eventually, the station is invaded by representatives of The Eternal Emperor, and Sten "is rescued" because of his fighting prowess -- and sheerest, dumbest, purebred and insane LUCK.  Absolute co-incidence changes his life as he participates (using his hard-won skills as a wall-rat) in the combat between the Station owner and the Emperor's Representative (very similar to the kickoff Event of the Alien Novels). 

The writing rule is that you can use CO-INCIDENCE to kick off a plot, to start a story, -- happenstance and accident (i.e. Uranus transits) often change our life-direction so it's plausible that trouble comes via co-incidence, because that's generally how it seems to us in our "reality."

But from a writer's point of view, it isn't random dots.  Co-incidences and accidents "happen" because of some inherent, intrinsic, basic, unknown-to-ourselves, trait we hold within our innermost psyche.  It is our Soul ramming through into external Reality, that "creates a stirring in The Force" -- that moves the currents of Time And Space -- that somehow effects the random Events like a magnet attracting filings, and brings "things" into our lives that disrupt existing patterns.

Consider the axiom: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. 

That is a pithy saying, an adage, a bit of Wisdom of the Ages (has a basis in Kabbalah, as the Light of Good attracts the klippot for a perfectly Good reason), and it's more than irony or pessimism. 

Somehow, the sum total of all our generations observing "life" has distilled this bit of wit from random Events.  No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

There is a relationship between what you DO and what HAPPENS TO YOU, but it is not cause/effect.  There's no way to game the system, or bribe G-d. 

You could say (theme is a philosophy) that no bad deed goes unrewarded. 

There are tons of self-help books about Why Good Things Happen To Bad People, or vice-versa.

It's not "cause/effect" which is the basis of all Science, but it's not Random either. 

There is a pattern -- some call it "poetic justice."  What goes around comes around.  As you sow; so shall  you reap. 

There's a reason the ancients developed the idea of "The Music of the Spheres."  The universe we live in can be described by mathematics, and so can music.  Poetry and music thrum within us all, so when we see a plot "come full circle" as songs and poems do, finishing what was started on the same "note" -- we feel satisfied, vindicated, safe in our comprehension of our reality. 

Ancient Greek and Roman fiction is filled with tales of Destiny, Fate, mighty Heroes fighting with their gods (mostly losing in the end).  Those civilizations were based on "you can't win" but our civilization is based on David and Goliath, and "The Bigger They Are The Harder They Fall."  We champion the Little Guy, and the Little Guy wins -- that's poetic justice to us.

Sten is a Little Guy who at first gives his innocent loyalty to The Eternal Emperor, finally gets to meet the Emperor in person and see him as a rather ordinary seeming Being, smart but not infallible. 

In the typical Uranus transit, we assert ourselves, our most true-to-self core identity comes roaring out into the world with massive amounts of built up energy behind it.  (here's an index to posts on Astrology Just For Writers)

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

So Sten's desire for freedom comes exploding out of him when the oppressive Establishment that basically consumed his parents, is under attack by a larger, unseen and not-understood by him, authority.  Using all the skills and tools he's developed over years, he gets himself caught up in a CONFLICT between the Emperor and one of the Emperor's (apparently) Loyal Subjects -- between the Emperor and the corruption that the Emperor's governing style allows to suppurate. 

That corruption (the indentured servitude thing) has shaped Sten's personality, drive, ambition and view of reality, as well as his Values.  He has a lot to learn, but what he learned before his rescue is what eventually generates his ultimate response to the Emperor's behavior. 

Having been rescued, he willingly gives his loyalty to The Emperor (well, The Empire), and becomes a soldier, then a member of an Elite Service.  He climbs the ladder to high command and even to Ambassador speaking for the Emperor -- but by that time, it's a very changed Emperor. 

Sten grew up rejecting the oppressive regime of a slaver, and now discovers -- very slowly over the millennia, the Eternal Emperor has slowly been deteriorating.  The current reincarnation of the Emperor is not the man Sten first met -- this one is insane, a mad dictator worse than the slaver who killed Sten's parents.

This Empire sprawls over so many galaxies, is peopled by so many Beings, that the picture Sten must find amidst the random dots is very blurry.  Remember that ant crawling on the tapestry we mentioned above?  That's Sten -- trying to understand The Empire, and what has happened to The Eternal Emperor -- and why it's all gone bad.

Sten's path from wall-rat to Emperor's Nemesis appears, point by point, assignment by assignment, to be a Random Walk -- a path of co-incidence, chance, and luck.

And in so appearing, that path states the overall theme of the Sten Series.

What is that theme?  Well, I don't know and I doubt even the authors Chris Bunch and Allan Cole, actually know for sure.  I think though, that Allan Cole has a very good idea of what it is saying.

As I see Sten's Path -- it says that we all bear the seeds of our destruction within us.  We scatter those seeds and sometimes it takes so long for our seeds to germinate, grow, and bear fruit that comes hunting us that we don't recognize our destruction when it comes back at us.  But it comes from within.

That is not a theme unique to The Sten Series; rather it is a technique all great writers use to replicate in fiction the pattern of life we observe from our eyes, (as the ant on the tapestry.)

The deep subconscious conflicts within your main character generate the Plot Events outside that character, the Events that cause him Joy and Sorrow, Elation and Grief. 

The antagonist, the Nemesis, of a character is the reflection of the character's deepest unconscious.

Sten's unconscious was "programmed" because of his origin as a slave's child, to need to destroy Authority. 

He fought to free himself of oppression (mid-series he "retires" to an idyllic world he has earned enough to buy, and nearly goes crazy because there's no oppression to fight any more), and gave himself to a bigger, more elaborately disguised by random-dots oppressor, the Eternal Emperor.

All along the path, Sten fought to free others of oppression, to serve freedom, to make the Empire a better place, and so his skills (gained as a wall-rat) generated miraculous wins that catapulted him on a meteoric rise to the Emperor's good graces.

But the velocity of that rise (the sheer Uranus/Aquarius Power for Freedom), made him an Individual (Uranus) to the Emperor -- and that velocity itself could only be seen as a threat to the Emperor who had lost his own sense of Individuality, his own sense of uniqueness (Uranus). 

Uranus rules accidents.  And individuality.  And Aquarius -- The Age of Aquarius. 

And this is where the themes of the Corine Solomon novels, the Alien novels, and the Sten novels resonate harmoniously, different instruments in the same orchestra playing the same symphony.  Art. 

Corine Solomon is Fantasy, the Alien novels blend Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Sten is just Science Fiction.  Yet they're all made of the same thematic stuff.

We might term that stuff Co-incidence, or Luck, or Destiny. 

The heroic plot is crafted from the thematic substance of how the Individual projects the Self onto the substance of reality, crafts the world in which he lives.

The exterior World you build around your character to cradle them and display them (as a jeweler displays a diamond on black velvet) is molded from the subconscious of your character.

Whether that truly reflects how our real world works, how life works, or not, is irrelevant to the Art underlying story-craft.  It is how we SEE the lives people around us live.

We see people get their comeuppance -- oh, not right away, to be sure, but get it they do.

But we don't see what happens to ourselves as our own comeuppance.  At least, not the first few times it happens. 

Maturity might be defined as the ability to see how you deserve what happens to you, so that when something you don't deserve happens to you, you know for sure that you didn't deserve it.

In that clarity of knowing the difference between what he deserves and does not deserve, in his maturity, Sten decides he must take down the Eternal Emperor.  This Destiny has chosen him. 

And so Sten turns and stops running from the bald fact that the Emperor is now no different from the owner of the slave-factory space station where he grew up.  And Sten takes him down. 

The Sten Series is not a Romance with an inevitable and obvious Happily Ever After.  It's not about finding a Soul Mate -- it's about first finding the Freedom (Uranus) from tyranny (Saturn) that will allow Sten to be able to notice and identify his Soul Mate. 

The Corine Solomon Series, the Alien Series, and the Sten Series all have that one Plot element in common, Co-incidence that is NOT REALLY CO-INCIDENTAL.

The co-incidences and luck that beset the Main Character arises from the Main Character's own character, mostly subconscious. 

Their world arranges itself to challenge them to grow and mature into someone who can surmount one final challenge and achieve an objective. 

Originally a Hero was a half-god/half-human Being who could do things normal humans can't (Hercules), but who shared human foibles, faults and were subject to the whims of the gods.  They usually fought the gods and their destiny.

Today a Hero is a human who comes to do something he/she couldn't do before - who matures into a more powerful Being by meeting challenges to their weakest spots.

Very often they die during this process.  But sometimes they survive maimed, with new challenges to overcome. 

These 20 novels are stories of how a Hero matures.  The theme they share is that of co-incidence arising apparently in response to a Hero's actions/feelings/movement.  The plots are crafted from how the Hero creates co-incidences-to-order without having a clue that they're doing that.

These 20 novels are extremely hard to analyze for a distinction between Theme and Plot because the themes and the plots are fully integrated.  Only the author can know, and usually it's better that they don't know. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Memorial Day Sunday

Today, I simply want to add my word of thanks to all members of the military for their service, and especially to those who have taken the ultimate risk of life and limb for their country.

Thank you.

Wicked Words

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Theme-Plot Integration Part 9 - Use of Co-incidence in Plot

Here is a link to Part 8 of this Series and to the index to previous Theme-Plot Integration posts:


http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

On Google+, I belong to a "Community" run by Deborah Teramis Christian for people who "write" (build) Games that people play in alternate universes, created worlds.

As you know from my long, involved discussions of worldbuilding, it is a topic that I think Romance Writers haven't approached with enough focused concentration until just recently.

As Science Fiction and Paranormal Romance blend, writers have had to pay more attention to the process of how science fiction "worlds" are created.

Until recently, only Historical Romance delved deep into the details -- such as the names of articles of clothing, the years different historical characters spent in the same city (where there might have been an illegitimate child conceived who might have affected events later).

Today, Romance writers are exploring the stars, meeting alien species, finding interesting relationships and might-have-beens.  And so the process of extrapolating our current world into the future has become of great interest to Romance writers.

I have three huge series -- huge in the size of the books, huge in the size of the sales, and huge in the importance of what they say -- to point you to as we launch into a contrast/compare and reverse-engineering exercise. 

But first, here's a beginner's work on Worldbuilding you should take a look at. 



Next we come to a 5 book series by Anne Aguirre, titled the Corine Solomon Novels:

Blue Diablo, Hell Fire, Shady Lady, Devil's Punch, and Agave Kiss are the titles.

Corine Solomon

I talked about Anne Aguirre here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/doubleblind-by-ann-aquirre.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/12/ancient-egypt-steampunk.html

You might call the Corine Solomon novels "Urban Fantasy" -- but there is an excursion into another dimension (or two), many mysteries, and a gorgeous Love Triangle involving not-quite-human and Magically Gifted human.  The 5 novels form one long story told from a nice, tight single point of view, that of Corine Solomon.  And it is her story. 

I highly recommend all of Anne Aguirre's titles because she has a firm grip on how to structure this kind of novel, and an ability to portray the extremely "dark" without forcing you to accept a world view where there is absolutely no light. 

I particularly love Aguirre's Sirantha Jax Series.

Look over the Corine Solomon novels and if you've read them, view them as a whole, integrated "work."  Note how it is one character's "story."  Note the beginning, middle, and end "beats" of each novel -- then the overall structure of the set taken together.  Note the pacing.  Now particularly note how Aguirre replicates The Hero's Journey for Corine Solomon.  Then note how Corine has, by the end of the first quarter of each novel, four or five (sometimes 6) problems to solve.  Then note what Aguirre reveals about Corine's thinking about solving those problems. 

Note the inner dialogue Corine holds with herself about her problems.  See where she's focusing her attention, and how she defines the problems.  Each novel starts with a list of problems, and ends with those problems solved -- giving rise to more problems, true, but for the moment, a triumph.  Note how those problem-sets are constructed at the beginning to appear insoluble, and how each problem when solved brings in the tools to solve the next.

Note what Corine Solomon is thinking when she picks out a problem to tackle first.

It's always a decision made on the basis of what is RIGHT -- what's the right thing to do, or at the very least, what is the least-wrong choice.  What problem has to wait (and get worse) while this more urgent one is tackled?  And there is always the possibility that Corine will not survive to tackle the next problem on her list, but she doesn't dwell on that.  She throws all her personal resources into doing the right thing right now.  That is the essence of the Hero who goes on a Hero's Journey. 

Blake Snyder in SAVE THE CAT! has analyzed vast numbers of blockbuster films showing you how the Hero has to acquire about 6 problems as you lay pipe into the story.  Aguirre uses that structure, and it's one reason she can turn out so many novels so quickly, and all of them resonate with her readers.  She knows the structure, she knows the story she wants to tell, and she just plows on through arranging the details of her world to support that story. 

Now consider Gini Koch's Action-SF-Romance Urban Fantasy (sort of) series ALIEN.

ALIEN is much more precisely Romance, but has a lot of combat and battle scenes.  The problems that come at the Hero (Kitty-Kat) on the Hero's Journey to an HEA are more of the Enemy Aliens Attacking and Alien-Allies Need Help type.  The motivation that energizes Kitty-Kat most often is to attain and preserve a loving, peaceful and happy environment.  She takes the role of a warrior protecting her world. 

Remember, in my previous mentions of Gini's ALIEN SERIES I've pointed out that they need line-cutting.  That's a process of eliminating the words that don't say anything, don't advance the plot or explicate the theme.  Usually that's about 20% of the words in a semi-final draft.  Very often, at least for me when I do it on my own work, the manuscript doesn't get any shorter, but the end result is that all the words say something.  This is a stylistic thing.

You can see the style difference by comparing a chapter of one of the Aguirre novels with one of the Koch novels.  It's not that one is "superior" to the other, but that a professional writer should have mastery of all styles and techniques, and choose the one appropriate to the Art behind the work. 

The titles are Touched by an Alien, Alien Tango, Alien in the Family, Alien Proliferation, Alien Diplomacy, Alien vs Alien, and Alien in the House (May 2013). 

Alien Series

I talked a bit about Gini Koch's Alien Series in these posts:

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-3.html

Both these series focus on Romance disrupted by Action, where the Action is the obstacle to be overcome and the Relationship is the goal. 

Because this is our kind of stuff, we have a hard time seeing how it's put together so we can replicate the effect.  So to find out how to do this, we should look at something that does the same thing, but in another way -- that tells a different story from a different standpoint. 

So, 5 Corine Solomon novels, 7 ALIEN novels, and 8 STEN SERIES novels, 20 novels all together, taken as a whole, contrast/compare, and extract theme, plot, and discover how the two elements become integrated. 

First, on identifying THEME. 

I can't assert "the" theme of each of these 3 series is something specific.  I'm sure each of the writers has their own idea of what they were saying (or perhaps have no idea, just wanted to say it!  Marion Zimmer Bradley worked that way - not knowing the theme until 20 years later!).

I'm pretty sure you will find your own idea of the theme as you read these series.

My overall "take" on the Corine Solomon Novels, and the Alien Series Novels is that they are essentially Romance, and so the overall theme is Love Conquers All.  Each novel individually has a specific sub-set of that overall theme brought to the fore. 

The Sten Series is not Romance, and it's a collaboration between two exemplary writers with disparate backgrounds.  The 8 novels have one Hero, and he is definitely on a Hero's Journey.  But the series taken as a whole has a much bigger theme worked out on a much larger canvass that spreads over several galaxies. 

So the Sten Series has several points of view, each carefully related to Sten's point of view.  When we visit the events other characters are involved in, we see Sten's life from outside.  We sometimes see Sten being moved about on the chessboard of inter-galactic politics.  We find out what problems other characters face - only to understand that Sten himself hasn't defined the problem he faces in a complete way. 

While the overall theme of Corine Solomon and Alien Series novels is Happily Ever After, with the caveat that such an idealic life comes only at great price, and after stringent testing of the moral fiber of the Hero, the Sten Series might be said to have the overall theme of All Is Not As It Seems. 

It's very hard to separate these 3 series though.  Sten has a Happily Ever After thread, and the other two are definitely structured on the "Great Reveal" - the "All Is Not As It Seems" theme.

What a reader sees in each of these series depends more on the reader than on the material because these 20 novels are Art. 

While Corinne Solomon and Kitty-Kat are living their own lives, Sten is living a Destiny. 

Sten's Destiny is not at all what it seems -- and with each novel, Sten progresses to what seems to be a New Destiny earned at great price.  But all he thinks he's doing is what you and I do everyday, just survive another day, survive another threat, beat off the Bad Guys, get out of a tight spot, finesse and clever yourself into a better position. 

Sten set out to survive and mind his own business.  But he got "rescued" and cast in the role of Warrior because he has a talent for surviving and minding his own business.

But what is a Talent?  That's a profound question we've discussed previously:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/talent-mystique-or-mistake.html

Maybe writing isn't a Talent, but we often write about characters who have a Talent. 

Corine Solomon is in love with a guy whose Talent is "Luck."  That has a whole backstory having to do with his parentage, but the point is that Talent and Luck (co-incidence) drives the plot of all 5 of the Corine Solomon novels. 

Kitty-Kat has a Talent for organizing other Talents, for leading a group of talented warriors while Luck sweeps her through personal combat, chase scenes and armed combat.  She remembers what's worked before and uses it to good effect again.  But her real Talent is for asking Question -- yes, capital Q questions, such as Kirk's "What does God need a spaceship for?"  Those are the obvious questions nobody else ever thinks of because people rely on assumptions they haven't tested when trying to solve a problem. 

Sten has a Talent for surviving.  He learns the Art of War, but it isn't inherent in him.  He finally grows up enough that all he wants is to stay out of combat situations.  But he's living a Destiny, so the harder he tries to avoid combat, the worse the combat gets.  His Talent doesn't help him get out of his Destiny, which he can't even see coming -- any more than you can see a tornado coming until it's too late. 

Perhaps the overall theme of the Sten Series is that forging the path to your destiny must inevitably affect, deflect, or inflect the paths of others toward their destinies. 

I classify all three series as Art. 

I've held forth here on the nature of Art and how a writer uses that essential nature here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html

When you start to talk about creating Art about Destiny, you are dipping into the realm of the Supernatural, the Paranormal, the Divine, the Magical, -- or God. 

Corine Solomon deals head-on with Hell, gods, demons, angels -- and what happens when the categories get confused.  She has to sort out Good from Evil, and taken her personal choice, then stick to that choice. 

Kitty-Kat tries to ignore the whole issue of Divine Intervention, of a world Created by God.  She pretty much succeeds, as she discovers more and more about how things are just not what they seem.  She gets used to being shocked when a new aspect of Reality is revealed.  But she avoids the issue of God. 

Sten would fall down laughing or kick you out an airlock if you started prattling on about a Benevolent God.  His life provides no evidence for such an interpretation of Reality.  In other words, his life exists in the kind of world you and I live in -- where there is no evidence supporting any theory of Divine Creation. 

And yet, our whole world can be viewed -- taken as a whole -- as a Work of Art. 

Here's a little lesson from the Bible about the artisans chosen by God to create the Tent in which God revealed himself to the High Priests, the Mishkan.  The blueprint for that tent was given to Moses at Mount Sinai -- you may have seen the recent History Channel series, "The Bible" and noted the extraordinary ratings it pulled. 

By all accounts, the Tent these artisans built was a spectacular Work of Art.  I can envision it as a minature replica of the entire World that God Built.  The blueprint and the people chosen to execute that blueprint very closely resembles the process of writing a novel. 


--------QUOTE-------------

FROM CHABAD RABBI NEWSLETTER:

....

In describing the people qualified to construct the Sanctuary and its instruments, the Torah repeatedly calls them "wise-in-heart" in referring to their skill. The craftsmanship these artisans possessed was more than technical, their wisdom was a special sort -- that of the heart.

Some people are brilliant intellectually, their gifted minds master sciences, their logic and reasoning are unimpeachable. Despite these mind-gifts they may be cold, unsympathetic, unmoved by suffering. Others are kindlier, charitable, more emotional by nature, not particularly given to analysis and profound understanding. They may also be overindulgent, gullible, suspicious of or impatient with reasoning. While each sort has qualities, in extremes, or rather without tempering the initial and dominant characteristic, their deficiencies are grave.

The ideal is the wise-in-heart, proper balance between emotion and thought, feeling and reason. The qualities of learning and study, intellectual vigor, the scholar ideal, have always been glorified by our people. No matter how sincere the heart's emotions, they must be channeled, harnessed, and used. Torah inspires the heart in its search. Without Torah the most sublime emotion may degenerate into bathos or sentimental banality.

Similarly, exalted as the intellect may be, it cannot exclusively express the fullness of man. Emotional balance gives warmth and human substance to the mind's achievements. In Jewish terms it means that the true scholar, the disciple of Torah, is endowed with the emotions of love and awe of the Creator, sympathy for the lowly, affection for mankind. Such a person, the wise-in-heart, is qualified to create a Sanctuary for G-dliness wherever he goes.

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

Now think about Destiny, Fate, and the Happily Ever After.  Think about THEME and the world you are building for your characters, choosing and inspiring your artisans.

Think about the writing rule that the author must not stand up on the page, blow a whistle to get attention, and start shouting at the reader about all the wonderful things in the world that this story is not about. 

Reading a book is an intellectual exercise of emotional sensitivity.  The closer the balance between emotion and intellect in the novel, the greater the reader's enjoyment. 

The THEME is the intellectual part -- the PLOT is the emotional part.  The PLOT shows the THEME -- the emotions reveal the knowledge, the lesson to be learned. 

Think about THEME and we'll discuss Co-incident in Plot. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Food, glorious food.....

I asked on Facebook today what on earth (or not) I ought to blog about today, since it is my day to blog.

Suggestions were limited but interesting, from the new "Earth-like" planet which is surprisingly close and if only it were on the far side of the sun might be compared to Antichthon to Vulcan-types who only want sex every seventh year ... which might try the patience of a human lover... to sexual frustration in general, particularly for a vampire mated with an exoskeletal type.

I think that I will talk about food instead.

Please watch this and apply your warped and twisted writerly minds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIwrV5e6fMY

I wondered if there were a literary genre called gastropunk. As far as I can tell, there isn't, but someone has coined the name so.... I am not sure what a science-fiction/speculative fiction niche would be called that focused on food-related conspiracy theories, or food-related mutations. 

Or, indeed, on the rise of a Vegan class of latter day superhumans, at least as smart and sexy as our great, great, utterly great grandparents, who rebelled against the behemoths of modern day food stamp fare; mandatory, state-regulated school food fare; coupon-subsidize fare; work cafeteria fare; Genetically Modified fare.... etc etc and grew their own fresh, organic produce on the large and grassy lots of their local churches, encouraged by a young, unpopular (he has to be unpopular for plot reasons, otherwise his parking lots would be full and there would be no room for gardens and no need to feed his sheep to lure them to evening services) and rather hip minister (or pastor) and some die-hard elders.

Anyway, please watch Jamie Oliver's shocking and entertaining speech, spread the word, and steam some real, fresh vegetables for dinner once a week. Or more often.

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

Octopus Intelligence

An article that illustrates why the octopus would make a great model for an intelligent nonhumanoid alien:

The Mind of the Octopus

Octopuses in captivity appear to recognize individual human beings. They are good at solving puzzles, such as getting into closed containers, and learn quickly. They perform playful activities and show evidence of boredom if not given a challenging environment. Their colors change to express emotion.

This article included lots of information about octopuses that was new to me. For instance, they have neurons in their arms. A freshly detached tentacle will even carry out purposeful movements as if it has a mind of its own. These creatures taste as well as feel with their suckers and effectively “see” with their skin.

Unfortunately, octopuses have one disadvantage as models for intelligent extraterrestrials: They die immediately after reproducing. Of course, your ET cephalopods don’t have to meet that fate. On the other hand, think of the plot-driving conflicts that could arise if an intelligent creature had to choose between mating and living out a full lifespan.

The article mentions that octopus intelligence and ours must have evolved completely independently from each other. In that respect they’re like aliens living on our own world but in an environment (the ocean) where our kind of life can’t survive without protective gear—like outer space or a non-Earthlike planet.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt