Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 3: Making A Living At Writing by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 3
Making A Living At Writing
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous Parts in this series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

So here we are in 2014 and the world of marketing fiction is morphing even faster than ever.  In fact, "marketing" in general is under a high-impact game-changer of an ad-campaign.  The targets of this campaign mostly have no idea they've been targeted -- which is the way Public Relations is supposed to work, sneaking through your critical thinking filters. 

The groundbreaking ad campaign was launched for the film Anchorman 2.  Ron Burgundy suddenly appeared all over the place, coming at you from every medium.

http://www.hypable.com/2013/12/04/ron-burgundy-quotes-anchorman-promotional-appearances/ 

I saw several items on the financial news back in December 2013 about this ad campaign for Anchorman 2, during the talk about how the only thing wrong with Obamacare is the lack of a sufficient PR thrust to cause people to sign up for Obamacare (while news items kept appearing about the lack of Security on the back end of the healthcare.gov website.)

In the Entertainment biz, (of which publishing is a part), no matter how interesting your story, if it doesn't have an appropriate ad campaign, it won't make you a profit. 

Do you know how it "happens" that something like the Burgundy promo suddenly appears on NEWS SHOWS?  And everywhere else, while ads are appearing -- most hits on the YouTube video which has been pushed viral?  That it didn't "go" viral but was pushed viral on purpose is the story.  But how did that story make it onto a news broadcast?

Publicity Release, that's how.

There are a number of online services that promise free or fee-paid distribution to news outlets for a press release you write -- and they even admit that there is a standardized technique for writing such press releases.  They show you how.  But that isn't enough.

Any reporter, editor, etc. is now bombarded with thousands of these things a day. 

It's not enough to "put out" a "press release" -- professional back-channel access to the decision makers is necessary, and before that can be effective, there has to be a "story." 

This is the NEWS GAME, behind the scenes.  It has its own language and buzz-words as well as an entire business model for attracting the attention of large numbers of people who, because of whatever they have in common, will very likely do something with the information.

The most successful novelists I know of (and sometimes know personally) have one of two starting-professions under their belts before they "make it big" in the book biz.

1) Journalism
2) Marketing

It doesn't matter what kind of Journalism and it doesn't matter marketing what.  These two professions ingrain an entire outlook on the world that trains the subconscious to think in certain ways when organizing an Idea for a Story.

So we're going to examine how the News Game has changed -- where it was decades ago, why it was that way, and what forces caused it to change.

ANCHORMAN 2 is a marvelous case in point since it is sort-of about NEWS, but is fiction, and got this groundbreaking Public Relations Campaign.

That's what's "wrong" with self-publishing -- most writers just don't understand Public Relations, or how to create an ad campaign (nor do they have a sufficient budget).  And they don't understand Journalism -- which is the interface between the writer and the audience.  If you get "reported on" you are important.  How do you get "interviewed" on a news show and have them introduce you as the author of a book which they put on screen?

How do you get a cover design on your book that an eye-blink of exposure on a TV screen would give a viewer a need to buy that book?

It's magic, right?  Sheer dumb luck?  It could happen to anyone?  All you have to do is get your book in print?

What do you need a "publisher" for? 

PR, that's what. 

PR is the most expensive part of producing a book.  Just as in film production, the writer gets the least amount of the budgeted money, the book writer gets the least amount in advance from the publishing budget, and the least of the profits. 

Self-publishers who establish a publishing budget covering all the items a big publisher puts into a budget have a very good chance of succeeding. 

One reason writers go to self-publishing is that they learn how the author's contract pays them 6% to 10% of the NET proceeds from sale of the book.  The publisher keeps the rest.

No, actually not.  The publisher SPENDS the rest on staff and tasks required to produce and market that book.  Publishing (like the News Game we're going to discuss) used to be a zero-profit business.  It used to be that big companies owned a publishing company for the prestige of it (I'm not kidding; I know first-hand), and the company policies of the publishing arm of the company were designed to lose money.

The publishing company's job was to lose money AS A TAX WRITE-OFF.

They were in the business of exciting original thought with stimulating IDEAS, of instructing, informing, investigating, and incidentally entertaining.  The business aim was to break even -- make office rent, salaries, printing fees, etc etc -- not to make a profit.  So for every big, best seller, they would deliberately publish really "important" books that just could not possibly earn what it cost to print and distribute. 

The mission statement didn't include this, but the real mission was to lose money and gain prestige for the company that owned the publishing company.

That all changed when the US tax laws that governed warehousing of product changed.

Two decades later, technology swooped in and blindsided paper publishers -- e-books are now the battleground, and self-publishing may be our Renaissance.  (we're seeing this trend in Indie film and Indie everything else.) 

Note also that most all the US operating publishers are actually owned by foreign companies.  The shift in the tax laws gutted US Publishing to the point where we had an era writers called "Pac Man Publishing" where companies ate each other (this is happening with our Airlines now, and Healthcare delivery and innovators are entering that phase.) 

Just remember this:  IT IS ALL ABOUT THE TAX LAWS. 

So let's add a third starting-profession to the list of pre-published-author professions:

1) Journalism
2) Marketing (PR is part of Marketing)
3) Business Administration

One of the items in the BA curriculum is Public Relations and the place and function of the PR Department in the corporate structure.  Accounting is supposed to cover Tax Laws, but if you self-publish, you have to learn all that, too.  Tax laws are the elephant in the room.  You stand or fall as a business on Tax Law.

A self-publisher is a corporation -- has to be!  At least an LL.C.  There's an annual fee imposed on corps by each state -- a tax.  It's all about taxes. 

If you self-publish an e-book, and get sued, they can take your house, car, any other property.  Put the book into a corporation, and all the laws are different, but they are different in each state. 

And a self-publishing writer has to be a Master of administering or managing a PR department -- even if she wears all the hats in this corp, she has to do the PR and be the PR Department manager herself.  Each of these jobs is a full time job, and each requires a 4-year University Degree or at least the knowledge acquired in that degree work, plus the real-world, hands-on, skills gained by working with people. 

So google the following query:
anchorman Burgundy promotion

Study the results from the point of view of 1) Journalism ( a news organization deciding this film's promotion is NEWS - not the film itself!), 2) Marketing (that provides the news organization with the material to make that decision a slam-dunk) and 3) The Business of monetizing an investment in a piece of fiction (watch the film).

From the outside, the results of PR look like magic.  It's not.  It's science so advanced that it looks like magic. 

So beginning writers assume they can write a great novel, self-publish it, and LUCK may strike and boost them into this pinnacle of profit that the Burgundy films enjoy simply because their writing and their story are so much better than that movie (which they probably are). 

It's true: Luck Can Do That.  And the odds tilt in your favor if you write well. 

But self-publishing for profit requires a whole lot more savvy than that. 

It requires understanding business. 

Being a successful self-publisher means understanding the business structure well enough to know exactly where "Talent" resides in the Business Model, and precisely what the value of the content produced by Talent is worth in terms of ROI. 

Remember the old Hollywood saw, "I'll make you a star."  Mostly, the producer saying that was a grifter who just wanted to "make" the girl, but sometimes they could and did "make a star."  How talented an actress was Marilyn Monroe?  How good a singer is Madonna?  Are there better actresses or singers?  Why aren't they as well known? 

Is fame proportionate to ability?

See this entry on FAME:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html

Making a living at writing (even if you use a publisher) also requires the writer's concept of their product's place in the business model to morph as fast as the business model itself is morphing.  (which in 2014 is fast!  Tax law changes will ensure even faster morphing, never mind Healthcare changes.)

Take the ANCHORMAN 2 promotional campaign as an example of how your PR approach must now shift.

The Business channels carried items noting how the unique aspect of this promotional campaign was because it utilized multiple media forms simultaneously - a timed barrage. 

It's on TV, Radio, YouTube, Internet ads, and I don't know about print, blogging.  The campaign itself is the news item, as much as the sequel to a popular movie.

OK, the subject of the movie has wide appeal -- but the effectiveness of the YouTube ad plus all the multi-channel hype was highlighted on the Business channel coverage when one of the anchors said his whole family wants to see that movie -- the teen from YouTube or Netflix exposure, his wife from another medium and himself from other sources. 

Each channel of communication with potential audience demographics now requires a different medium of communication of the "message."  But "messaging" is still King. 

Apparently, the producers of this film spent more on promotion than on the movie, and one of the stars is getting his cut off the back end (not up front which is usual).  In other words, he gets a percent of the box office, so he's out there beating the drum just before the film hits -- TIMING is the other biggie in advertising.  Messaging (saying it in a way that gets across) and Timing are the keystones of an ad campaign.

And it is a campaign.  It's a WAR between those who can profit from selling you the product, and your resistance to spending that money.  Also the consumer has limited time to spend on entertainment.  You are, as Heinlein said, vying for the buyer's beer money and leisure time.

There is a whole science behind getting "people" to DO SOMETHING. 

That science, PR, works well enough that the cost/benefit equation works better in favor of those who know and utilize that science.

Advertising used to be an Art.  During the 20th century, it became a science (Public Relations is now math based on statistical studies of how large populations respond to messaging).  You've seen TV news using "focus groups" to predict elections or graph public opinion of viewers watching a segment.

PR is founded on the assumption that "people" are a herd -- that people see a person (a leader or influencer -- such as Klout attempts to spot by analyzing your social media interactions) move in a direction and they just follow like a herd.  Therefore, the only way to "make a profit" is to control that herd's movements, and PR is the math behind that control.  We've discussed all that at considerable length on this blog.

Here are 3 previous items on this blog that discuss PR:

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/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html

Control the Influencers - the Leaders - and you control the herd.  Any cowboy/gal can tell you how that works.

For a century, this science has been growing, becoming refined and more accurate -- so successful that the general opinion that an individual has of "people" is that they (people plural) aren't very smart. 

"Yell FIRE in a dark theater!"  It brings to mind that image of a stampede for exits.

One PR principle is to keep that herd in a panic -- or some peak emotional state, pathos, sympathy, revulsion, all do the job.  The key to controlling the herd is whipping up emotion because emotional states (fear-fight-flight) wipe out critical thinking, paralyze the ability to discern the con-game, the grifter's skills at work.

We discussed the TV Show Leverage here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/business-model-of-writers-in-changing.html

If you missed prior discussions involving PR, review them here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/story-springboards-part-2-tv-shows.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-3.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-2.html

If you've studied Leverage, (and the many other TV Shows that focus on con-men tricking "marks" into self-destruction) you are equipped to make yourself PR proof. 

Once you see the strings of greed and fear con-men pull to make their "marks" dance, you will never be a "mark" again.  If you can achieve that mindset, you have a serious chance of being successful at self-publishing. 

Seeing is believing. 

Until you see what PR at publishing houses does, and how they do it, and how you have been a victim of it, you have no chance at success in self-publishing. 

You don't need a college degree to do this, but you do need to know what is in those textbooks.  You don't need a teacher.  Teach yourself.  Go to the library or buy some used textbooks (much cheaper now in e-book format!) and just learn it. 

So returning to the grifter's secondary tool of "fear."  That's "Yelling Fire In A Crowded Theater."  Just get the herd moving, and human stupidity will do the rest for you.  Remember, the principle behind PR is that Aroused Emotion obliterates critical thinking.  Once you've short-circuited human critical thinking, you own that herd.

As long as you, the writer with aspirations of self-publishing, are a member of the herd that Publisher's PR Departments own, you will not succeed at self-publishing.  Your indignation and defiance are emotions aroused by the "stupidity" of publishers who refuse to publish the "better" kind of book you write, and thus your critical thinking is shunted offline, and they own you.

As long as you are in rebellion against traditional publishing, you will fail because they own you.

You will not fail because your book is not marketable (though that does cause failure).  You will fail because of your emotional state.

You can master your emotional state easily by coming to understand how the Confidence Operator is jerking you around.  Find where your handles are sticking out, and don't let them get hold of you by your handle.

For writers, that handle is generally, "I write better than that."  And very often, that's true.  What the writer must learn to go professional, especially as a self-publisher, is that there is a low, but clearly defined threshold that a story must meet, and any quality above that just doesn't matter in marketing.

How well you write just doesn't matter.  How important your story is used to matter -- in today's publishing world that publishes FOR PROFIT ONLY -- "importance" of what you have to say doesn't matter.

Once you get that fixed in your mind, you can research why lesser works than your own sell so much better.

But you won't understand the data you're gathering until you understand PR.

Many times great disasters with horrendous death tolls have occurred in public places (such as bars or theaters) with insufficient exits.

"Messaging" is the science of figuring out what to yell in that darkened theater to raise the emotional state to the point where critical thinking evaporates and the mindless herd is created (in politics, it's call a Bandwagon).

"Timing" is the science of picking when to Yell.

Targeting a Market is the science of "getting all those people packed into that theater" -- "finding your audience."

"What Is The Lowest Common Denominator that all those people share?"

That's what "audience" means to PR folks -- not the definition of the word audience, which is about "those who hear" but how to gather those people all together to yell your emotion-raising message causing the herd to lunge all together in one direction.

If you think about what that means, you may see why Science Fiction is not so popular.

Science Fiction has been defined as "The Literature of Ideas."  That is, it is about THINKING.

Only in ROMANCE is it possible to have truly peak emotional experiences while at the same time still thinking critically.  (I said Romance, not sex.) 

Science Fiction is always about the story (fiction) of some revelation about the structure of the universe (science) that organizes (science) the knowledge gained into a pattern than can be used to invent new things.

In the typical, old fashioned, science fiction a young boy (always a boy) who has a brilliant mind discovers some new fact that his elders could never have found.  Using this new fact, the boy invents, fixes, adds-on, or otherwise morphs what tools his elders were using and thus solves a problem older people could not.

The driving force in old style Science Fiction is the boy's emotional need to "prove himself" -- or one of the other emotional issues of teen boys, but never the sexuality inherent in the teen years.  SF was usually set in the time of life of the Rite of Passage into adulthood, and thus defined what it means to be an adult, as opposed to being a child.

That type of Science Fiction has almost disappeared from the shelves (or Amazon). 

Stories about the process of becoming The Adult In The Room via the application of critical thinking and bold exploration of new ideas have not been given the PR push (that Anchorman 2 has gotten) for at least 10 years.

It is as if those selecting books to put PR muscle behind do not want young people to admire and emulate those whose behavior is controlled more by critical thinking than by emotional-herd-behavior. 

People who default to critical thinking when someone yells FIRE, are generally the sort who simply will not respond to advertising for shaving cream, perfume, tooth paste, or a muscle car.  They simply can not be fooled by advertisements, not even for political candidates. 

People who default to critical thinking are immune to advertising, and every other grifter's trick. 

Science Fiction, from the publishers whose mission-statement included losing money, or break-even at best, taught readers not only to admire critical thinking, but also how to do it when the whole mob around you is screaming, "FIRE!"  The science fiction fan was always the one who grabbed the fire extinguisher before the blaze got out of hand -- or set himself to become that person as an adult.

The measure of adulthood was the ability to default to critical thinking, no matter what others were doing.

That's not the same as being "emotionless" (as Spock was portrayed).  It's not lack of emotion.  It's that one trains one's emotions to be subordinate to critical thinking in the decision-making process.  Once that training is complete, one is an adult. 

From another view, Science Fiction is the fiction about people who defy the rules (because that's how science advances -- by people finding the mistakes in previously accepted Laws of Science). 

These individuals have the characteristic that Klout.com is looking for -- the clearly delineated difference from everyone else.

The lowest common denominator of the Science Fiction reader is high intelligence and unique critical thinking in the midst of peak emotion.

That's what makes the Science Fiction hero/heroine a prime candidate for Romance Genre.

For the astrology buffs reading this -- Romance is usually signaled by a Neptune transit.  Critical thinking is generally associated with an easy Mercury/Saturn connection, and/or Saturn transit to the 3rd/9th axis.  When the two are combined, you get prophetic brilliance, or Love At First Sight.  The true Happily Ever After generally results from that combination, whereas the hard Neptune transit "Romance" generally results in a really rough "The Honeymoon Is Over," moment. 

So now I'll give you a week to review Marketing, PR, the history of publishing, and other points I've skimmed through here.

Next week we'll discuss more about why it is that Journalism is a great way to start a fiction writing career aimed at making a living from writing.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

For authors interested in copyright

1.
 jopadownloads appears to be a phishing site. I have heard that they have no ebooks. Don't rush to send DMCAs. On the other hand, if you object to your name and your titles being used as lures by phishing sites, you might report them to Google and the reputable search engines.

2.
We can learn from the music industry experience. It doesn't seem fair that musicians who performed prior to the early 1970's get no royalties on their music (Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones etc) while for profit enterprises such as Sirius exploit the "free" music. Can the wrinkly rockers put the genie back in the bottle?
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/record-labels-seek-punish-siriusxm-677944?goback=%2Egde_36621_member_5838017169702531073

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

What Makes This Book So Great?

That’s the title of a new book by SF and fantasy author Jo Walton. This collection consists of 130 of her blog posts on books and reading from Tor.com. Most of the reviews discuss older works; her overall theme is rereading. This is a fascinating book to dip into. Who could resist essay titles such as “The Weirdest Book in the World” and “The Worst Book I Love: Robert Heinlein’s FRIDAY”? Walton writes about some of my favorite authors, e.g., Heinlein, Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, Connie Willis; some writers toward whom I’m lukewarm; and many I’ve never read. There are essays about such topics as cursing in genre fiction (“The Knights Who Say F—k,” except that she spells out the word) and how to talk to a writer (mostly on what not to say). What I like most, though, are the articles on reading in general. She asks whether we “gulp” or “sip,” meaning whether we demand an unbroken chunk of time to enjoy a book or pick it up and consume it in small bits throughout the day. She talks about the joys of rereading—familiar books as comfort food. I agree with her on the point that sometimes we crave a reading experience we know we’ll find satisfying, rather than taking a chance on a new work that might disappoint. Best, for me, is a book I remember well enough to know I liked it but recall little enough that rereading holds surprises.

Or, as Walton lucidly summarizes it in a Tor.com post about “the right age to read a book”: “I actually prefer re-reading something to reading it for the first time. The first time there’s a certain amount of anxiety about whether it’s going to stay good, and also about what’s going to happen. On a re-read I know I can relax and trust the book.”

Occasionally I feel as if I’m indulging in a guilty pleasure when I return to a favorite book, because of the new materials waiting for attention in my bedroom stack and on the Kindle. I still sometimes have to remind myself that I finished college and graduate school many years ago, so nobody is timing or grading me.

Other topics: Walton discusses the difference between genre and mainstream and between literary criticism and what she sees herself as doing. She contemplates the appeal of series and differentiates the various types of series. She muses on why she rereads books she doesn’t like. She asks, “Do you skim?” Her position is that on first reading one shouldn’t skip the “boring” parts, because an important plot or character clue might lurk there. I must admit I sometimes skim “action” or fight scenes.

Most appealing to me, she confesses her habit of constant reading. She’s always reading whenever she isn’t doing anything else (and sometimes even then)—during meals eaten alone, in the bath, in lines and waiting rooms. She carries a book with her everywhere and uses any idle minutes to read. I’m glad to discover I’m not the only one. I read while eating, of course. I read during TV commercials and a little during the shows themselves. I constantly have at least three books or magazines in progress, one each for the bedroom, the bathroom, and the stationary bike (the last doubles as occupation for the five minutes or so, twice a day, I’m waiting for the dog to empty her food bowl). Anytime I’m in a car that somebody else is driving, I’m reading. And even if I’m the driver, I often bring a book in case the passenger wants to make a stop somewhere. On public transportation, of course I have to carry a supply of reading matter. Some people seem to think I’m peculiar that way. In the legislative editing office, where we worked in pairs, my partners often marveled that I could pick up a book or magazine and read (and retain) a paragraph or two while the partner briefly left the cubicle. Even my father, who also loved books, thought I was odd for reading on a tour bus instead of constantly watching out the window. (As exciting as it was to visit Eastern Europe, after a few hours one mountain or horse-drawn wagon looks a lot like all the others.)

Happily, Walton vindicates my literary habits. She might even agree with the motto on the button I bought at a con that reads, “Of course I have a life. It’s a life filled with books.” So—am I weird?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Reviews 5 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg E. C. Tubb's Dumarest of Terra novels

Reviews  5
by Jacqueline Lichtenberg 
E. C. Tubb's Dumarest of Terra novels

This continues the Reviews series of novels for Romance writers to study. 

Here is a Hot Science Fiction/Paranormal Romance without sex scenes and with some antiquated tech in the background.

You'd think the "Mixed Genre" trend we follow on this blog was a new thing.

It is not.

And it didn't exactly start with my Sime~Gen novels -- though they pushed the limits way farther than anything before.

In the mid-1950's Marion Zimmer Bradley gained considerable note for her first sale, a short story published in a magazine.  It had characters and a relationship driven plot.

But at the same time some of the male writers were exploring just how "real" they could make their characters and the relationships in their stories.  Hal Clement caught on with Mission of Gravity where the "Relationship" between a male (sort of) Alien on a high gravity planet and the human male on the high gravity surface in a capsule could relate to each other to solve a technical problem.

During that same era, E. C. Tubb made me a lifelong fan.  I read his Dumarest of Terra novels with that "Yes, but ..." response most women had.  But I was just sent an audiobook version of The Winds of Gath (Dumarest of Terra #1) and was blown away by it.

The Winds of Gath is an example of the very best MODERN Science Fiction Romance --  because it has the really Hot Hero (Dumarest).  It also has a character that reminds me of the Grandmother in C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner novels.  It does have the "damsel in distress" character but that character is the "Grandmother" character's protege and great-granddaughter so you can guess just how much damsel there is in that distress.

Here it is on audible:
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Winds-of-Gath-Audiobook/B00EUE9ULC
And here it is on Amazon -- you can get the collector's old original first edition, or the Wildside e-book or paper reprint:

http://www.amazon.com/Winds-Gath-Dumarest-Terra-Book/dp/0441893023/

Wikipedia says WINDS OF GATH was first published in 1968, but I think it's older than that, and someone picked up a reprint that didn't credit the older edition (common practice).

Here's the wikipedia entry with a list of the 33 novels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumarest_saga#Books

I have long been a fan of E. C. Tubb -- especially Dumarest of Terra.  But I read them in used ACE Double paperbacks years ago, tucked the author and title names into my GREAT-WONDERFUL-ALWAYS-RECOMMEND list, and went on with my own writing career. 

Little did I know that having forgotten the details in these novels, I would incorporate some of them into my own Sime~Gen Series which only began selling to the major publishers in the 1970's.

Bits and pieces of elements you will find in THE WINDS OF GATH turn up oddly in some of my other novel series.  So if you've found my novels intriguing, you should check out the DUMAREST OF TERRA series then look for how it inspired other writers. 

That effect -- firing up a new generation with an urge to write stories -- is proof positive that Tubb has created a true Classic.  Dumarest lives on via the writers Tubb inspired.  And there are a lot of us. 

Recently, I was given the audiobook of THE WINDS OF GATH -- and copies of the next two in the series in audiobook -- or I probably would not have taken the time to rediscover Dumarest (a sexy hunk to die-for!). 

But the Dumarest novels are not "classic" in the sense of being a chore to read, of being a duty to your education -- they are delightfully entertaining and just plain fun.

If you write SF Romance, you will see the frustrating holes, the MISSING SCENES, and the reason that books like this inspired a whole new type of Science Fiction. 

So when I was given a review copy of the audiobook, GATH went straight to the top of my to-do list.
I am blown away!  Dumarest is sexier than I remember!  Everything I love about Modern Science Fiction Romance is present in this novel even if only by implication. 

Not only is the audiobook's reader, Rish Outfield, top-notch terrific, but the whole composition comes to life in audio because the writing is so good! 

OK, Tubb uses "tape" recording on a scientific instrument, omits cell phones or any Trek-type handheld, no warp drive (they travel in cold sleep or under some drug).  This series was started in the 1960's after all. 

Consider, though, that Tubb was lured into writing more and more of the Dumarest of Terra series for decades after that-- because it just sold and sold.  It was popular for a reason. 

It has stayed popular for a reason -- it is Mixed Genre at its very best, a 2014 novel published in the mid-1960's. 

You have a whole saga of the galaxy spread before you once you get into Book 1.  Books, 1,2, and 3 are in audiobook already.

Read these with a focus on the social issues, and issues of Character (what it takes to be a Good Person - what makes people turn really Dark -- what sorts of social orders foster what kinds of changes in people.)  The characters in the Dumarest novels are deep, multi-faceted, realistic. 

These novels are masterful explorations of the Major Social Issues of 2014 on Earth Today.  These novels give you something to think about.  Like Star Trek at its best, these novels leave you with Questions, with the essential Conundrum of Life, and a hint of what it would take to resolve that puzzle. 

So you can take what Tubb has sketched out, and add in the decorative parts expected in today's market, update the tech, and create a new universe for younger readers to explore. 

The Dumarest of Terra Series is an example of the material scorned worse than video-games are today -- a vacuous waste of time to read, something to keep your kids away from.  Kids who read this stuff were considered social outcasts. 

Guess what!  I disagreed with my elders as a kid when I was reading these books, and on rereading (well, listening), I have confirmed that I was right and they were wrong. 

Tubb's writing is both masterful craftsmanship and as profound as any of the great Classics in Latin and Greek. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depravity, Intuit, and Superbowl Ads

Why did Goldieblox win a $4 million dollar Superbowl ad, plus priceless plugging on Fox and CNBC?

Was it absolute proof that the majority of Americans approve of copyright infringement? Was it proof that rules don't matter? I think so, and I find it profoundly depressing for all artists everywhere.

http://thetrichordist.com/2014/02/01/goldieblox-and-intuit-appear-to-have-vioalted-rules-in-superbowl-ad-contest-did-they-also-break-state-and-federal-law/#comments

It seems to me that Goldieblox shamelessly exploited The Beastie Boys and the American legal system for publicity, profit, and in order to win a valuable contest. As you want their advert on the superbowl tonight, reflect on the precedent.

Any alleged copyright infringer or alleged plagiarist can now, with impunity, sue any author, movie maker, musician, photographer, model or other intellectual property rights owner to PREVENT the author, movie maker, photographer etc from asserting lawful copyright remedies under the law, and in doing so, can gain sufficient fame and approbation among the freetard populace to win valuable online contests run by Big Tech.

Book Magic

I’ve been reading LIBRIOMANCER, by Jim C. Hines (who was one of the author special guests at MarsCon). In this novel’s version of our world, magic exists, unknown to the mundane population. Libriomancy, the kind of magic performed by the narrator, consists of the power to pull objects out of books as concrete items that function in the real world. The magic works with either fiction or nonfiction, so objects can be conjured from historical as well as imaginary settings. Characters seem fond of producing ray guns and other science-fictional weapons, but I find it more interesting when the narrator conjures such things as the shrinking and enlarging potion and cake from ALICE IN WONDERLAND, Peter Pan’s fairy dust, or Lucy’s healing cordial from the Narnia series. With this power, you’d think a libriomancer could do almost anything just by extracting objects from fantasy and science fiction settings. But the gift has restrictions, of course. A book serves as the physical portal between its setting and our world. Any object pulled through it has to be smaller than the book’s dimensions or at least capable of being folded that small. Also, the potential magic in a book depends on the emotional involvement, in a sense the belief, of its audience. Therefore, thousands of copies of the identical book must be in print and read before its story can be drawn upon by a libriomancer. That’s why it would do no good for somebody who wanted a time machine or a flying car to print up a twenty-foot-tall replica of the relevant novel. And some books have been magically “locked” because of the dangers inherent in some of their artifacts, such as the Bible and LORD OF THE RINGS. As for the objects withdrawn from books, normally the magician returns them to their source as soon as possible. Exceptions do happen. The narrator has a pet fire-spider, which he can’t restore to its book because it would burn the pages in the process. His girlfriend, a dryad, can’t have transferred directly from her novel into our world because of her size—but the acorn from which her original tree sprouted was brought into this world and accidentally allowed to remain and grow. About thirty species of vampires exist in this world as a result of different authors’ concepts of vampirism running amok; apparently a person who incautiously reaches into a book can be bitten and transformed by a vampire lurking therein.

I’m not clear whether a magician can take the same object from the same book more than once without returning it to its place first; various scenes offer hints, so maybe I’m just not interpreting them properly. Nor has the story mentioned whether more than one person can use different copies of the same book at the same time. The narrator does indicate that a particular copy of a book can be almost literally “burned out” by too frequent use. He also tells us that if a libriomancer overdoes the magic, voices from the books start to creep into his head. Extreme overuse of the power can lead to possession by fictional characters.

Regardless of the restrictions, I think this would be a fun power to have. I wouldn’t mind having a love potion, for example, not for unethical mind control but for sharing between already mated lovers just for fun. A tribble would fit through the boundaries of a book and would make a delightful pet if one took care not to overfeed it. I’ve read stories that include magical desserts with all the taste but none of the calorie-dense substance of the real thing, a treat I would definitely enjoy. To me, such uses of the magic would be more interesting than the production of futuristic weapons, which amount to nothing but bigger, badder versions of items we already have. It’s safer, too, to stick to modest desires. Imagine if somebody evoked Aladdin’s wishing lamp and it fell into the wrong hands. (According to the narrator, that wouldn’t work anyway, because the transition from fiction to reality would drive the genie insane.) Magical ambitions to make major changes in the world or even one’s own life seldom end well.

Still more attractive to me, though, would be the power to get inside books, as the children in one of Edward Eager’s novels do; for instance, they visit the setting of LITTLE WOMEN and go ice skating with Meg and Jo. I’d rather take a vacation in Narnia or the Shire than bring hazardous magical artifacts into my home environment. Or I could meet one of the romantic “good guy vampires” I love reading about. Of course, one would have to be careful while choosing scenes to jump into and have a foolproof way of getting out whenever danger looms. The heroes of the classic fantasy novel THE INCOMPLETE ENCHANTER get into plenty of trouble in the worlds of Norse mythology and Spenser's FAERIE QUEENE. There’s a short story called “I Shall Not Leave England Now” with an enchanted cabinet that allows anyone to enter the scene on the page to which a book in the cabinet is left open. A careless user leaps into Stoker’s DRACULA and lands in the wrong scene, the night when Dracula comes ashore in Whitby. Upon emerging from the book, the character has been bitten and transformed into a vampire.

In short, as we’re often told in the TV series ONCE UPON A TIME, magic always comes with a price. Or so it usually works in an effective story.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Index to Story Springboards Series by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Index to Story Springboards Series
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Here is an index to the Story Springboards posts.

It starts with a guest post about Art Heists, and moves on into how to create the quality called "interesting" -- which is the vital core of the "episodic novel" or TV Series.

We will have much more to discuss about episodic structures. 

There is a very fine line between frustration and intrigue.  Episodic structures are prone to becoming boring (note how TV Series rarely last more than a few seasons because they get repetitive).  "Interesting" is a learn-able technique -- but learning it can be boring!

Wars make a good framework for episodic structures.  Episodes can be a few pages long, or the length of War And Peace.  But a string of episodes does not make a novel, but a novel can house a number of episodes that illuminate the theme of the novel.

It is well worth the time and effort to learn to construct an interesting episode and to distinguish that from a genuine Short Story.  The difference is structural, but not minor.

With the right Springboard, the Short Story, the Episode and the Novel can blend into an "interesting" tapestry.  Each, however, requires a separate skill-set.

Here is the list of entries in Story Springboards:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-springboards-part-1-art-heists-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/story-springboards-part-2-tv-shows.html
(The TV Shows Fringe and Royal Pains)

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html
(The Art of Episodic Plotting)

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-4-art-of.html
(The Art of Interesting Episodes)

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/story-springboards-part-5-explaining.html  (Explaining the popularity of zombies).

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/story-springboards-part-6-earning.html
(Earning a Sobriquet).

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/story-springboards-part-7-knack-of.html
(The Knack of Hooking Readers)

And I expect to add to this line of development. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

MarsCon

Last weekend we attended MarsCon in Williamsburg, Virginia, for the first time. I’ve hesitated to go in the past because of the date, when travel can be hazardous. We picked a good year for it, luckily; the weather for the drive down and back was as nice as could possibly be expected for the middle of January. Having lived in Williamsburg for almost four years as married college students in the late 1960s and early 70s, we always enjoy revisiting the town and don’t do it often enough. To my surprise, all but one of the historic tavern restaurants are closed in January! Oddly, we’d never before eaten at the one remaining open, Shields, which didn't disappoint in any way.

MarsCon, which had a fairy tale theme this year, turned out to be a bit bigger than our November con, Darkover, with a larger dealers’ room. MarsCon attendees seem to be heavily into hall costuming, and this con has a substantial costume contest. Winners consisted of a little girl dressed as a “My Little Pony” character, a group presentation of “Coal Black and the Seven Deadly Sins,” and a couple beautifully dressed as Sarah and the goblin king from LABYRINTH. Musical performers included a duo called Blibbering Humdingers, who sang a lot of Harry Potter filk as well as a cool and funny piece about famous captains (Kirk, Picard, Janeway, Sparrow, et al) from film and fiction. A Celtic duo, Picti, performed after the masquerade on Saturday night. From what I could understand of the male vocalist’s lyrics, I think I would have liked the songs very much if they’d been intelligible to me. (I know it’s not “just me,” because I’ve heard many other soloists and groups whose articulation comes across as perfectly clear.) Also, the amplification was too loud for me, and the flashy light show accompanying their concert was almost painful to look at directly. So I left early, but my husband stayed and enjoyed it. He also attended a comedy improv show on Friday night, which he said was very good.

This con includes a science track. My husband watched a lecture, with slides, about space transportation. I would have liked to hear the talk on Mars exploration, but it conflicted with a panel I didn’t want to miss. There were also several sessions on costuming, a full children’s activity track and, of course, video rooms. I attended panels on fairy tale films and literature as well as one on Disney—“Evil Empire” or not? That one kept veering disappointingly off topic, with heated exchanges in which audience and panelists practically shouted over each other at some moments. I’d expected detailed discussions of specific Disney characters and films, which the panel never got around to. One area of consensus seemed to be that it’s not wrong in itself for the Disney animated movies to change the plots and characters of fairy tales, since many variants of the traditional tales have always existed, and theirs can be seen as simply other versions. What’s objectionable is that the Disney “corporate juggernaut” dominates popular culture to such an extent that children grow up believing the Mouse’s version is the only or “real” one. The topic of Disney heroines, which I expected to occupy a lot of the hour, never got more than a sentence or two of attention. Most of the discussion centered on one subject, Disney’s “sugar-coating” of the tales and whether children should be shielded from the more violent details from Grimm, et al, that the animated films omit (such as Cinderella’s stepsisters’ eyes getting pecked out by birds). There was much argument about happy endings versus a more “realistic” picture of life—not really relevant to the panel topic, because most of Disney’s happy endings come directly from the originals. The only fairy tale they altered in that respect was “The Little Mermaid.” (They also gave THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME a happy ending, but otherwise they couldn’t have produced it for children at all.) It isn’t so much that Disney’s adaptations “sugar-coat” their source material as that they simplify it. Snow White’s witch-queen stepmother tricks her only once instead of three times with the apple as the climax of the triad. Hera becomes the mother of Hercules rather than an adulterous god’s wife out to destroy a bastard child. (Well, okay, that counts as sugar-coating.) Hades becomes a Satan analog rather than merely ruler of the realm of death. In HUNCHBACK, the villain is actually worse than in Hugo’s novel, where Frollo has good intentions at the beginning, and Hugo’s charming but amoral Phoebus becomes a hero in the cartoon movie. The prince’s prospective bride in the animated LITTLE MERMAID, rather than an ordinary romantic rival as in Andersen’s story, has to be the malevolent sea-witch in disguise. Disney’s overall tendency seems to involve making plots and characters more “black and white” than in the source materials.

I sat in on a round table discussion of Tolkien and the Hobbit movies. I’ve never run into a session like that before. Instead of a panel, all attendees got an equal chance to speak. We sat in a circle, with a moderator to get the conversation going, and went around in turn introducing ourselves and our opinion of the movies. Then discussion became general, with many intelligent comments and a consistently cordial tone despite disagreements. I would like to have participated in the “Game of Thrones” round table that followed, but we had to eat lunch. The perennial quandary of cons—they always offer more appealing events than one person can take in. I want a time-turner!

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Story Springboards Part 7 - The Knack of Hooking Readers by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Story Springboards Part 7
The Knack of Hooking Readers
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here is part 6 of Story Springboards with links to previous parts and related posts:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/story-springboards-part-6-earning.html

Next week I'll post an index of the Story Springboards series which will be added to in the future.

---From intro to Part 3----------
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html
of Story Springboards --

This post series on Story Springboards explores the essence of what "interesting" means from the point of view of a writer and how to use that knowledge to sell fiction, especially Science Fiction, and double especially Science Fiction Romance.

All the books on how to write stories tell you (without showing) that to sell fiction, all you have to do is write an "interesting" story.

No instruction is more frustrating than that simple sentence "just write an interesting story."  So let's delve a little deeper than writing teachers usually do.

"What is interesting and how do you write it?"

And what has that to do with the Art of Episodic Plotting?
---------------end quote-------

So the instruction is "just write an interesting story" --- but books on writing never ask "interesting to whom?"

The key bit of information left out of writing craft textbooks and especially "Creative Writing" courses is that there is a huge chasm between what "interests" you and what your reader will find "interesting" about the story.

Study this image carefully.  This is a "show don't tell" of the technique we're focusing on here.

You can just barely see the ridges of the screw-threads, but focus on them.  They tell the tale.

A second bit of information missing -- perhaps because teaching it would give the teacher's competition an "edge" over the teacher? -- is that the reader that must be HOOKED FIRST is not the end-user who buys the book off the shelf, off Amazon, Kobo, or wherever e-books are sold.

The reader who must be hooked FIRST is the editor/publisher.  Second is that publisher's market department.  Third is reviewers.  Fourth is maybe the reader.

The order of the hooks you create and implant in your FIRST PAGE is set by the market you are hitting for. 

Now, if you write to self-publish, the first hook has to be directly to your reader.  Intuitively, you think that is easier -- but given the failure-rate of self-published novels, I'd suspect there's a knack to it as obscure as the other hook-structures.

It is, however, all learn-able stuff and the learning thereof is actually FUN to the type of person who is inherently "a writer" -- and crazy-making boring to end-user readers who just want to be entertained.

Consider how your perspective on a TV Series changes when you visit the "Lot" and see that the town you thought was New York is actually a tunnel of plywood flats propped up behind by slats of wood.  The buildings (or space ships or whatever) you thought were "real" just aren't and never were.  It is an illusion you fell for.  You were tricked.

You never look at any TV show again the same way.

Well, it's the same for most of the techniques we talk about on this blog on Tuesdays.  Once you know the trick of it, novels just don't affect you the same way.

One of the components of the "Story Springboard" is the HOOK -- writing textbooks identify only the "narrative hook" and ignore all the rest of the intricacies of the "hook techniques."  Writing texts tell you to "write a million words for the garbage can" as if it would help to practice your mistakes until they are ingrained.

Anyone who trains young children in athletics or martial arts, or even driving a car or playing a musical instrument will tell you that HOW YOU START is the key to how well you will master the skills.  It is critical to thread the trainee into the procedures just as you thread a cap on a bottle and then twist, seating it just so.

If you put the cap on tilted, the threads cross and twisting makes a mess that's very hard to undo.

Likewise with training to write.  How you START learning to write is critical.  If you start correctly, all the rest just comes easily and presto you're selling fiction.  If you start off-kilter, you have to undo everything you've learned and start over, sometimes again and again.  And sometimes the process "strips the threads" and it takes years for the damage to heal.

So learning to construct a sequenced set of hooks can be easy, natural, effortless, and people say, "Oh, she's so Talented!"  Or it can be all hard and twisted and confusing, and people say, "Get a real job."

So before you start "spinning your yarn" (or twisting the cap on your story), spend however much effort it takes you to drill and drill until you can bring that story-cap down level, square on top of the "bottle" that will hold your story.

So why do I say the "hook" or the beginning of the story is the CAP?  Isn't the CAP the last thing you do, the ENDING of the story?

As we've discussed in various story-structure series on this blog, the ending is the beginning. 

In fact, almost any problem you have with structure later on, the climax points, the middle-event definition, or getting the last scene to be the actual END climax, finding the final word of the tale, any problem can be traced to an error in the opening page.

Yeah, "error."  It's a mistake, because every story, every tale, has an exact and precise OPENING or BEGINNING -- a point at which the audience can find entry into the entire story -- the character's nature and the problem confronting the character, the setting that hurls the problem at the character, the moral dilemma that must be sorted out, the Relationships that provide the solution which is a new problem, etc.

There is a point at which a character's life is "open" enough to allow onlookers to "enter" that life and walk in that character's moccasins.  It is just like the open point at the top of a screw-top bottle's thread -- it is AT a certain spot in the character's life in time and in place (character's age and the setting).

Finding that point is a process that blends Art and Craft.  Once found, that point then becomes known and familiar to the writer -- and the problem changes from "find the hook" to "build the hook into a springboard."

The Art component of the Hook requires knowing your end-user, your reader who will pay money for your novel.

The Craft component of the Hook requires knowing your MARKET - which is the publisher (or producer) who will pay you for your manuscript or your screenplay long before any reader has been offered your product.

So visualize a fish hook -- a beautiful curve with really wicked barbs sticking out in every which direction.  That's what we have to build the springboard of the story around.

Think VELCRO.  (or a zipper).

Velcro has the property that most resembles STORY.  It's a better analogy than a fish hook, but it is similar.  A fish hook is designed to hook-and-hold a specific, particular fish, and requires a specific bait to attract that fish and induce it to bite at the hook.  The bait also HIDES THE BARBS.

Velcro likewise has that design element -- but is even more narrow in its usefulness.

Velcro sticks to it's MATE material, the OPPOSITE curlicue material.  A fish hook will stick to almost anything. 

So a fish hook might be a better analogy for a story aimed at a large market -- a TV Series or Feature Film, something very expensive to produce that must earn millions within the first few days needs a fish hook that will stick to anybody. 

Velcro is more like genre fiction, Romance, Cozy Mystery, Paranormal Romance -- it only sticks to those who are made from the opposite material.

And there you have the inner secret of INTERESTING (as previous parts of this series have discussed), and the core energy-source of Springboards.  Opposites.  Bring two opposites together, and BANG something happens.

When things "happen" -- that is interesting.  CHANGE of SITUATION is interesting.  The whiff of a change in the air is interesting. 

Here's a quote from the end of Part 3 of this STORY SPRINGBOARDS series:

---------quote---------
When concepts of TIME and EXISTENCE are configured differently, everything in the culture that uses those concepts becomes configured differently.  The differences cause the most trouble when the participants yelling across the cultural gap are unaware there is a gap.

This kind of miscommunication is the ESSENCE OF CONFLICT. 

Resolution of conflict is one essential ingredient in climaxes. 

Anticipating a climax is the essence of "Interesting." 
----------end quote-------------

Miscommunication that the reader sees but the characters do not provides the ANTICIPATION (foreshadowing) of change of situation (action).

When one character "finds out" (but perhaps the other hasn't yet found out), the situation changes.

It's that change of situation that is the very essence of "interesting" -- and it is most powerful before it happens, not during or after the Event.  Interest is about "what will happen next."  So when the reader finds out what happens next, that bit of "interesting" is gone -- so the writer must keep planting these foreshadowing hints that "Wait! There's more!" as the pitch-man announces. 

These interlaced and overlapping lines of CHANGE OF SITUATION form the fabric that must be created to support an episodic plot structure -- such as we discussed in Part 3 of Springboards.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html

"Write an interesting story" -- means, learn that the writer is the opposite of the reader, and the writer's brain works in the opposite direction from that of the reader.

Think again of threading a screw top onto a bottle.  The thread on the top screws in the opposite direction from the thread on the bottom. 

"Interesting" happens when the thread of the TOP interlocks with the thread on the BOTTOM -- and TURNS (i.e. change happens). 

As you TWIST the top onto the bottom (or the bottom onto the top) there is anticipation of "what happens next" -- the knowledge that eventually, you hit the end of the screw thread and the top and bottom are mated securely.  But when you BEGIN this process, the top and the bottom are not connected (yet) -- change hasn't started (yet) -- there is POTENTIAL ENERGY.

That potential energy is your springboard.

Will the top come down level enough to engage the thread on the bottom?

Will the threads engage?

Will the top turn level enough to twist into a secure mating?  Will it turn enough times to get there?  The suspense is killing me.

"What will happen next?" is the question that writing textbooks tell you to answer.

But they rarely mention how to construct WHAT WILL HAPPEN FIRST.

It is "What Happens First" that is both the barbs on your hook that capture editors, publishers, publicists, and readers -- and the springboard that flings the reader into the story on the shoulders of the characters.

Real life doesn't have a "What Happens First" -- there is always something that happened before.

Take the Bible as an example.  The first 5 books of the Bible are a simple autobiography -- the story of the life of Moses written by God but transcribed by Moses himself.  God sets out to tell the story of ONE MAN'S LIFE, and He says, "In The Beginning" and starts with the creation of existence.  And ends with Moses death (a real tear-jerker because Moses for all his service to God, doesn't get to the Promised Land.)

Even God couldn't figure out what happened FIRST in the story of Moses, so He started with the beginning of Creation.

Generally speaking, modern novels don't go quite that far back.  Normally, we don't even start with the birth of the main character.

The story we tell STARTS where the two elements that will conflict to generate the plot first come into contact, and ENDS with the RESOLUTION of that one conflict.

In the case of the Bible, the conflict started by Moses confronting Pharaoh is still going on.  The conflict started by God choosing Abraham is still going on.  We have a suspense building flash-forward via Prophecy, but the details are still happening.

So when we tell a story, we cut out a smaller piece of canvass, and lay down perspective lines that give us a close-up view of the threads of one character's life that will (or will not) interlock with another character's life, and screw down into place (or strip the threads and seat crooked.)

So the top and bottom screw threads represent the pair of characters who will conflict to generate the plot (Hero and Villain, or Male and Female lovers-to-be, or Buddy Cops, or Detective and Quarry, etc), but they also represent the writer and reader.

Writer and reader have to MESH in just that way -- like opposites, jousting with each other like Detective and Quarry, or flirting like lovers, or Teacher and Student, or Parent and Child, or whatever combination your genre prefers.

Writer and reader are two halves of a whole.

That's why we learn early in life to memorize the byline of an author who tickles our imagination just right, then find all the rest of their books.  Writers have a 'voice' and if a writer's 'voice' soothes a reader's nerves the way a certain singer's voice does, the reader will collect that writer's novels.

You don't get this effect with TV or Movies because what you see on the screen is the product of many, many voices -- and a whole orchestra of instruments behind (camera crew, casting directors, etc).  So being a fan of a film and TV production is more like being a fan of The Mormon Tabernacle Choir than of a particular singer in the choir.

With novels, yes, there is a whole production crew, and very often the "voice" of the editors and others at a publishing company show through into the finished product, but the "voice" of the byline writer dominates the reader's experience making novels a much more personal interaction.

So the "Knack of Hooking Readers" -- even first-readers such a slush-pile readers, agents, editors, etc -- lies in training yourself to recognize OPENINGS.

Yes, it's called a story-opening (a stage-play term), an "opening scene," because just like with the screwtop, there is that little open spot where the top and bottom screws "mate" -- an opening spot where the screw threads can MESH.

The first drill, before you even begin to search your mind and heart for a story to write, is to watch the people around you, listen to their lives as they chatter to each other about having the car break down on the freeway, taking the kid to the doctor before racing to get to work on time, stopping to pick up dinner at the supermarket only to find the market's salad bar closed for suspicion of salmonella (eek!), and whatever other adventures ensue.

Listen to real lives unfold.  Think about "making friends" (making friends with new people at a new job requires finding one of those "open" spots to thread yourself into their lives).  Read a lot of biographies and autobiographies (comparing biographies and autobiography of the same person is a good learning experience).  Try to find biographies of people who aren't particularly "famous" because that's where you'll find "real" lives just like your reader's lives.

Here's one biography I recommend which is edited by Allan Cole (the screenwriter) from tapes of stories told by his Uncle.  It is a collection of first person anecdotes, not a novel or novelized biography.  It is very different, and very much to the point of the subject of Hooks and Springboards.  It is in paper, e-book and audiobook and you can find them all here:




Now, make a habit of recounting your day when you get home at night.  It helps if you live with someone who will listen, but if not make a diary entry -- verbalize the sequence of events of your day as if telling them to someone.

Notice how you tend to tell the story out of chronological order, starting in the middle with the interesting thing -- the thing that interests YOU most -- then backtracking to what caused it.

One error beginning writers make is starting in the wrong place, choosing the wrong opening event, or laying out the whole tapestry of what WILL cause something to "happen" before saying what did happen.

Remember, "interesting" means CHANGE OF SITUATION.  Action = Rate Of Change Of Situation (not one character beating another over the head with a broadsword). 

A hook without any barbs on it to capture interest is created by detailing the SITUATION before an EVENT changes that situation.

Three paragraphs detailing a situation is way too much prelude to change.

The most complex set of barbs on your hook can be created by putting the CHANGE of the situation in the very first 10 words, the first line of the story.  Then sketching (not detailing) the Situation that the change altered. 

By creating your opening in that order, you present your reader with an entire tapestry (a velcro surface) of questions.

If you've chosen the EVENT and your wording of how you present that EVENT to match the genre you are aiming for, then some of your hooks on your Velcro will engage the slush-pile reader, some will engage an agent, some will engage an editor, and some will send that editor bouncing to the marketing department crying, EUREKA! 

Each hook in your side of the Velcro strip of that opening paragraph will mate with one of the "eyes" on the target strip. 

Note that the first thing that you learn about your Character or the Situation that has remained unchanging around them for years of their life is not the first thing you present to your readers when you tell the story.

To you, the writer, the first thing you learn about the Character (which comes in a multi-dimentional burst of I HAVE AN IDEA!) is what is INTERESTING to you, the writer.

That first thing is NOT the thing that is interesting to the reader.

To "write an interesting story" is the opposite (look again at the screw threads) of the process of reading an interesting story.

The process of becoming interested in a story is the opposite of the process of interesting someone in a story.

Think about the most boring person you've ever met.

When that person tells you about something that happened, or discusses something you told them that happened to you, your eyes close.  Why?  Is it because they don't know what they are talking about?  Not likely.  Most likely is the way they use DETAIL.

Your mind has already leaped over to the next thing after the thing that comes next -- way beyond --- and the boring person is wading through minutia you already grasped.

Boring usually happens not when things are SLOW (suspense, creeping horror etc is very interesting, and very slow) -- but when details are presented in the wrong order, in the wrong place.  Boring also happens when you TELL someone what they already know, or think they know (even if they don't.)

It's not speed that makes things interesting.

"Interesting" is all about change that portends more change.  "Interesting" is all about QUESTIONS -- questions the reader poses to herself, not the questions the writer articulates.

"Interesting" is all about what is NOT SAID -- rather than what is said.

Inference, innuendo, off-the-nose dialogue, all are techniques that raise questions without specifying what the question is exactly.

"Interesting" is all about "The Socratic Method."

 Here's a quick reprise in case you've forgotten:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method

The discourse is between writer and reader. 

The reader is actually the curious questioner -- the initiator of the dialogue -- not the writer.

The reader is riffling through a whole lot of books (on a shelf or in a Kindle) asking, "What am I in the mood for tonight?"  Or perhaps, "Is there an interesting Romance on my Kindle?"

Many readers (especially slush pile readers and editors) come to the stack of reading matter in a state of being bored.  They don't want to read anything - but it's their job to read.  And it's just boring for all the reasons any job gets boring.  So the question the potential reader is asking is, "What would break through this boredom?" 

The writer's job is to SURPRISE that bored reader. 

And that surprise has to be about 3 or 4 words long.  Maybe only one word.

Surprise always breaks boredom.  The Unexpected is key. 

What a given group of readers "expect" depends on the group and why they are a group.

What surprises one group, shocks and repels another.  Shock-repel can be as interesting as surprise, but the Romance field generally doesn't host shock-repel openings (middles maybe, not usually ends).

The opening (there's that word again - look at the open spots in the mated screw threads and ponder this) words of your manuscript have to break into that boredom with a SURPRISE.

When the idea for a story bursts into your consciousness, it is almost always a SURPRISE wrapped in DELIGHT and it energizes you, making you reach for something to jot down that idea, or capture the rapid-fire dialogue that just rushed to mind.

Those first jotted words can be the actual opening of your novel, but that is likely to happen only if you've trained and trained, sweated and strained, to bend a hook into a springboard.

More than likely the first explosion of IDEA will be from the middle or end of a novel -- or maybe something that never makes it into the actual novel. 

The actual opening of the novel based on that IDEA has to create for the reader that same SENSATION of "I've Got An IDEA!" 

The writer must encapsulate the experience of HAVING an IDEA for the reader.

That's where the Socratic Method comes in. 

The objective of the writer is to get the reader to have the idea, rather than just telling the reader what your idea is.

If you go back to thinking about that Most Boring Person You Know again, you may discover the essence of the quality "boring."  Other people's IDEAS are boring.  YOUR OWN IDEAS are INTERESTING.

"Just Write An Interesting Story" means "Let Your Reader Have All The Ideas."

Your ideas are boring to your reader.  Their own ideas are interesting to them. 

Readers are most entertained by having their own ideas erupt into their own consciousness. 

Being a reader rather than a writer means being cozy with the concept that the IDEAS are IN THE NOVEL.  That the writer is "Talented" -- that the book is interesting. 

The writer is not talented.  The book is not interesting. 

The READER is the interesting component in this transaction.

If you, the writer, are not interested in the Reader, the transaction won't work.

Note in the explanation of Socratic Method the technique involves stating a thesis that is to be refuted.

It's a thesis that begs to be refuted.

One common human trait is the urgent need to CORRECT someone who's wrong about something. 

To create a story-opening, find a moment where your main character is involved in a changing Situation -- find a moment of change where your character is convinced of an INCORRECT THESIS -- or one that your reader (because of the genre) will know is wrong and will want to correct.

"Love Conquers All" is one such thesis.

"Now that's a baby so ugly only a mother could love him."  An opening line of dialogue like that triggers the Romance reader's impulse to read the next line because that thesis just has to be refuted. 

And that makes the observation of the "ugly baby" a SPRINGBOARD.;

Note the simple two words "ugly baby" state a theme, arouse a need to REFUTE, and open a whole plethora of possible EVENT PATHWAYS leading to or away from various conflicts. 

Can love conquer the ugliness of a baby?  Is there such a thing as an ugly baby?  What would be the effect on a person who was regarded as ugly as a baby?  Could their personality ever come out right? 

Maybe this novel is about a photographer who does photo-journalism, but as a hobby collects baby pictures of really ugly babies (human and otherwise), with the idea of selling them as a book some day.  What if he takes his collection to an editor just hired by the magazine he works for (probably an online publication) to try to sell it.  Would she have a high opinion of this man -- even if she were attracted to him?  Maybe he was an ugly baby and his personality is warped by that -- or maybe, he only thinks he is.

Are you getting the SPRINGBOARD concept now?  The spring (potential energy) is wound up inside the THEME.

In this Story Springboards series we've also discussed the Episodic Structure.

Take the Ugly Baby hook, and create a TV Series out of it, using episodic structure.

The photographer would do as a main character, getting sent to exotic parts of the world on news stories, finding all sorts of babies to take pictures of for his project, having harrowing adventures getting his stories in on time, acquiring and losing various Reporters (photographers generally work with reporters who write the text of the stories) along the way.  A Reporter might last him a season or two, but the Editor back at home-base is always the same, and his main love interest (however much he hates that).

Now, take the same Ugly Baby hook and create a NOVEL OUT OF IT.

Photographer on dangerous assignment -- gets shot at, or has a burning building fall on him and loses his eyesight, which Event causes him to develop his Relationship with his Editor (or Nurse-cliche, Physical Therapist cliche, whatever), he gets his eyesight back, and has the choice of picking up his photography career, or maybe settling down to get married and run a studio and take wedding and baby pictures for a living.

Same Hook, same Springboard, two different story-structures, each of which can work with a plethora of thematic statements about Ugly Babies, fate, destiny, and perception, or possibly (for science fiction) eugenics.

Hot stuff wound up inside two innocent words that spark questions when juxtaposed.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

When Is A Library Not A Library?

That's not a joke, and there is no punch line.

The definition* (at the end of this post) might need to be changed, in view of current use, and the popularity of ebooks. Perhaps as Congress reviews copyright, they should also review the meaning of a library, because the term is used differently on Scribd, on EBay, on Nakido, on various pirate sites, on eBookFling, and now on Entitle.

It seems that anyone who owns access to the internet is entitled to "have" a "library" of ebooks, which they are "entitled" to "own" and "lend". Ah. "ownership" is another term/concept that will have to be re-defined for the digital age, because there are a lot of powerful interests on the internet who would like an author to sell non-exclusive copyright to an ebook for as little as $ 0.99 but certainly for no more than $ 9.99.

"Lending" is another term that has been re-defined by the internet, because not all libraries require a patron or subscriber to return that which was loaned.

Take Entitle, for instance.

Quoting: "We know you love to read. But for avid readers, buying books gets expensive. Entitle, a new eBook subscription service, gives you access to 100,000+ top eBooks – up to 65% off. With Entitle, you will enjoy:

•    Any two books, including best sellers and new releases, for only $14.99

•    Huge price savings over traditional eBook stores

•    A fantastic selection of over 100,000 books

•    Ownership of your books (Entitle is not a rental service)"

How's that? One pays $14.99 a month, and for that good and valuable consideration, one acquires "ownership" of two ebooks.

How is that not a sale? What is the legal meaning of "ownership" when acquired in this fashion?  What is the effect on the author's copyright?

Moreover, if it is possible to acquire ownership of two best sellers for $14.99 (when each best seller is --or could potentially be-- advertised on Amazon for close to $20 each), how does that affect the Big Five book settlements with the DOJ, and also Amazon contracts that oblige publishers to allow Amazon to sell that book at the lowest possible price offered anywhere.... even on the publishers' own websites?

Here's a video of a Bloomberg report on Entitle for those who are curious.
http://bloom.bg/JFZbb5#ooid=NvaTZiajr4IT6bmqzu3Aktrofn6EwaQg

Entitle very probably purchased eBookFling. (If my inference is mistaken, it is because Entitle recently emailed me using an eBookFling email account.)  I've been watching eBookFling because I found their abuse of authors' generosity offensive, personally.

Many authors give away ebooks on Amazon to increase their visibility and ranking. Some offer permafree novels, which are always on special (free) offer. Some offer an ebook free for a day, or up to five days before the book goes back on sale at the regular price. Their premise is that readers who download the freebie will read it, perhaps review it, hopefully enjoy it so much that they purchase other works by the same author.

Sites such as Lendlink, Lendle, eBookFling and others exploited this premise, and set up commercial business models based on "traffic" for their own benefit, and also brokering "lending" between strangers who wanted to avoid paying for books.

EBookFling used to send out emails titled something like: "Steal today's Kindle book...."
Their exhortations included "Even if it's not your cup of tea, you can add it to your eBookFling library and fling it to all those fools who missed out on today's opportunity."

In my opinion, free ebooks were being used explicitly for bartering transactions. The original downloader did not have to read the ebook, they downloaded it for the valuable, tradeable benefit of being able to "lend" it in exchange for something that they really did want to read, and did not want to pay for.

Quoting: "With 14-day lending now available on tens of thousands of Nook and Kindle books, eBookFling makes it possible for readers across America to borrow and share their ebooks. Lend an ebook, earn a credit, and borrow any other for free! It's 100% safe with the book returned in 14 days guaranteed. Here's how it works:"

Amazon forums hosted a discussion of eBookFling.
http://www.amazon.com/forum/romance/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg1?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=FxM42D5QN2YZ1D&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=TxMZQHM22C9OU1

Quoting:
"Question-
Is it true that you can only loan out a kindle ebook ONCE? So if I lent out, say Devil in Winter, to someone for 2 weeks after it was returned to my account I could never lend it out again?"

"No, you may loan out more than once. You just can't loan it to someone else while it's on loaned."

I kept that revelation, because I thought that Amazon only allowed any ebook to be lent once..... and later

"ebookfling.com is a great site for loaning books - Kindle and Nook. You list your tradeable books, "fling" when requested (from individuals as well as the company) and the rules are pretty much the same as Amazon. It's lots easier than typing your lists. And yes, you can loan more than once (but not at the same time it's loaned out.) I have no part in this website - just happened upon it. It works for me. Unfortunately I've loaned more than I've received, but I am building up credits..... "

The discussion has been removed, possibly because someone posted this kind offer along with a list of desirable, in copyright Romance novels: " I don't have a Kindle but I can e-mail these books to anyone who's interested. Just post your email address and what books you want. Most of them are formatted in ePub so I downloaded Stanza for free on my iPad to make them readable."

EBookFling were Amazon affiliates, and for a time, Amazon paid affiliates simply for directing persons who wished to download a free book to their site. ("eBookFling.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.)

This stopped. Presumably, that's why EBookFling was sold. It will be interesting to see whether Entitle lives up to its ambition to be "the netflix of ebooks", and whether authors receive full and fair accounting and full royalties for the transactions on the Entitle site that result in "ownership" of ebooks.

It seems to me, though, that every time an ebook is sold or licensed or loaned at a discount, the discount is subsidized by the author without the author's knowledge or consent.

*noun

noun: library; plural noun: libraries

1. 1.

   a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals, and sometimes films and recorded music for people to read, borrow, or refer to.

   "a school library"

   • a collection of books and periodicals held in a library.

     "the Institute houses an outstanding library of 35,000 volumes on the fine arts"
   • a collection of films, recorded music, genetic material, etc., organized systematically and kept for research or borrowing.

     "a record library"
   • a series of books, recordings, etc., issued by the same company and similar in appearance.
   • a room in a private house where books are kept.
   • Computing

     a collection of programs and software packages made generally available, often loaded and stored on disk for immediate use.

     noun: software library; plural noun: software libraries
     
     
     All the best,
     Rowena Cherry
     
     SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

The Morality of Intelligent Predators

Recently I’ve been involved in an extended correspondence on moral issues in THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY, by Suzy McKee Charnas. Weyland, the vampire in this novel, is a naturally evolved, nonhuman creature rather than a supernatural revenant. He has never been human, although he looks like a man. Thousands of years old, he’s the only one of his kind. If other members of his species ever existed, he doesn’t remember them. In the central section of the five-part novel, he has to go through therapy as a condition of maintaining the career essential to his present identity, which he doesn’t want to abandon yet. His psychologist, Floria, learns his true nature. He admits he regularly preys on oblivious, unwilling victims and has killed people in the past (though he avoids killing whenever possible). She has firsthand knowledge that he has severely beaten another patient of hers (who was shadowing Weyland and could have eventually exposed his secret). Yet, as my correspondent emphasized in the context of this knowledge, Floria doesn’t turn him in to the authorities. Instead, she gives him all her records of their sessions and allows him to leave town unhindered. The question that arises: Does Weyland’s unique status as the only member of a nonhuman, sapient species justify exempting him from the penalties an ordinary man would deserve for such crimes?

Weyland regards himself as superior to us. We consider our species superior to the “lower” animals, but we also believe we have ethical obligations to them. Still, most people think it’s moral to put the needs of human beings above those of other animals in some circumstances. Most of us eat meat, for example. And while we protect endangered predators such as wolves, we consider it justifiable to kill them if they pose a direct danger to people. So consider a vampire species made up of creatures like Weyland. Suppose they can’t survive without human blood. (Charnas includes this condition in her vampire’s biology; animal blood doesn’t nourish him.) Would these vampires be justified in taking blood from us at will because they need it to survive and they’re our natural superiors (stronger, longer-lived, etc.)? Could they legitimately claim they hold the same position relative to us as we do relative to “lower” animals?

Or would our self-aware intelligence entitle us to be treated as moral equals even if we’re inferior to these vampires in some respects?

In Jacqueline’s Sime-Gen series, the physiology of Channels includes a biological need for sexual release at certain intervals. If they don’t get this need fulfilled, they can die. The “Channel’s exemption” (if I understand it correctly) excuses them from the ordinary rules of sexual behavior in this kind of crisis, because the functions only they can perform make their well-being vital to the welfare of the whole society. Do their special gifts legitimately entitle them to special treatment in this respect?

I’ve read fiction and commentaries thereon in which the writers seem to seriously maintain that a “higher” species would have the right to use us in any way their needs require. In other words, human morality doesn’t apply to nonhuman intelligent creatures. I have strong reservations about this position. Taken to the logical extreme, it would mean the aliens in “To Serve Man” would have a right to eat us.

At one point in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Gandalf says something like, “Good and evil are not one thing among elves and another thing among men and dwarves.” I think this principle also applies to aliens and nonhuman “monsters” (vampires, werewolves, etc.). Superior strength, intelligence, and other natural gifts don’t give one species the right to ignore the rights of another sapient species, just as we don’t believe people of greater intelligence or talent should have higher rights than their “inferiors” in our own society. My impression from Jacqueline’s fiction is that Channels seldom lack willing sexual partners, since their high status in Sime-Gen society makes them desirable mates. Our hypothetical vampire species, if stored blood from blood banks wouldn’t nourish them adequately, could pay for live donations or probably, given the allure of the vampire in contemporary fiction, find an abundant supply of volunteers who’d give blood for the thrill of it. To make those arrangements, of course, they would have to reveal themselves to the public or at least to a segment of the human population. Surely inter-species ethics would justify expecting them to take this degree of risk to avoid harming innocents.

Still, as a lifelong fan of vampires and other “monsters,” I can’t suppress the feeling that charismatic predators who are endangered—or, as in the case of Weyland in THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY and Miriam in Strieber’s THE HUNGER, unique—“deserve” special treatment, irrational as that feeling may be.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt