Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 1: The Writers Lego Set

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration
Part 1
The Writers Lego Set
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The writer's Lego set is bigger than Lego's Sandcrawler set that has 75059 pieces and costs nearly $400. 

A writer needs many more than 8,000 "pieces" or skills, or skill-sets to turn out novel after story after novel.  Thankfully, most of these skills are acquired and honed in early childhood and function subconsciously.  Most writers have no idea "how" they do it, they just do it naturally.  Others have to read the directions. 

We have done post series on integrating two elements.  Here we go diving into 4-element integration, two-elements combined with two-elements, with theme in common.

In this case we'll focus on Theme-Plot and Worldbuilding-Character combinations and cross-terms with the mix changing every chapter or even every scene. 

This first post in 4-skill-integration points to the ingredients we have previously explored, so it is mostly a list of previous posts and index posts. 

Yes, a writer must multi-task, but first one must learn to do each task separately, then two at a time. 

Many writers can integrate two skills, but have no idea how they do it, so they don't know what to do when they see their Manuscript veer off track.  The story somehow seems wrong, but they can't figure out where it went wrong or how to fix it other than to gallop after runaway characters and hope they lead somewhere salable. 

So there are three types of writers -- maybe 6 -- who can benefit from gnawing their way through these long, tedious sets of posts: Beginning, Intermediate, and advanced, each in Amateur or Professional parts of their lives. 

Writing craft is not only about knowing what to do, but also about knowing how you did it (when you just did it by accident).

If you know what happened inside your subconscious, you can undo-and-redo with alacrity, rewrite to editorial spec, or you can disconnect your Lego pieces and make something different out of them.

We've done several series on two-skill Integration so far.  Here are index posts listing some of them.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/dialogue-parts-1-4-listed.html
Actually, the Dialogue index contains more than 4 parts.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-3.html  (has links to previous parts)

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/worldbuilding-with-fire-and-ice-part-7.html  (has links to previous parts)

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/worldbuilding-link-list.html

And here are some relevant to Character:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-does-intelligence-work.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/religion-in-science-fiction-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/six-kinds-of-power-in-relationship.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/astrology-just-for-writers-part-9-high.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/worldbuilding-from-reality.html

Notice how the "home-base" or foundation task in each of these sets of posts is theme.

Theme is the main ingredient in Story, Plot, Character, Dialogue, Setting, -- but it is crucial to Worldbuilding. 

Most of a writer's worldbuilding is the creation of a Setting that includes things like creating a Star and a Planet from physics, to creating the kind of Life that evolves on that planet from biology, to creating the philosophies of all the Ancient Civilizations on that planet from comparative theology, to creating the current Civilization of Aliens by extrapolating from their Ancient Civilizations to the present when your humans will meet up with the Aliens.

You also have to create things such as a stardrive your ships use, how they locate vital resources (water, hydrocarbons, high-energy-particles.)   

It's the same process Gamers, especially videogamers but also board gamers, use to create the environment in which the conflict will happen.  It's being a Dungeon Master.

The choices a Game creator makes (Games are stories, multi-writer stories sometimes) are rooted in Theme. 

Theme is the sieve you pour the real-world through to sift out the bits that showcase your art.  You use theme to select just the pieces of the real world that bespeak your theme, that let your readers see the world in a whole new light. 

The resulting World that is Built by worldbuilding will be coherent or not depending on how Theme is handled.  The resulting world, the "Setting" for a novel, will have artistic integrity or not depending on how the ingredient of Theme is handled.

The resulting novel will reach certain audiences depending on how the Theme the writer uses "resonates" (seems real, realistic, valid, mistaken, or maybe "off the wall") to the reader/viewer. 

In other words, the way theme is handled during creation of the setting determines the commercial viability of the piece both as a Work of Art and as a money-maker.

Think about the Lego set for the Star Wars Sandcrawler.  Just ponder that image.  That single image, together with all its associations you have absorbed from watching the films and reading the books, explicates the overall Theme of Star Wars.  Look what's included in this Lego kit. 
----------from Amazon --------------
Includes 7 : Luke Skywalker, Uncle Owen, C-3PO and 4 Jawas, plus R2-D2, R2 unit,R1-series Droid,Gonk Droid,R5-D4,Treadwell Droid
Weapons include a light saber for Luke Skywalker,Also includes stock for old droids and droid parts
Sell droids to Luke and his Uncle! Keep your droids well maintained! Pretend to suck R2-D2 up into the Sand crawler - just like in the movie!
Relive classic moments from Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope! Own your own iconic vehicle from the classic Star Wars universe
----------end Amazon quote----------

Do you see that?  "Iconic" -- the entire visual array you saw in the films was deliberately fabricated from THEME.  That's what Iconic essentially means - an image that represents a thematic statement.

We discussed some of the aspects of writing iconic images:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/big-love-sci-fi-part-viii-unconditional.html

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

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



Is a prime example

And this

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2009/5/21/1242924794594/John-Travolta-and-Nicolas-001.jpg

That is a single static image that makes a Statement about a Situation, just as the Sandcrawler and its surrounding figures makes a statement about the Situation in the Galaxy. 

Situation is a component that straddles the Plot/Story division line.  Situation resides in the action-sequence as well as the character's flaw that is being discussed in the narrative.  Why is this happening to this Character?  Where does the Character start and where does that initial action eventually lead the Character?  The Ending is the New Situation.  Personally, I favor Situations that are Predicaments.  Sometimes the HEA is, itself, a predicament.

Most writers make these Worldbuilding choices unconsciously, at least at first.  On second or seventh draft, ferreting out inconsistencies and logical contradictions, revealing character motivations using "Show Don't Tell" methods, the writer may be led into narrowing and focusing the underlying thematic statement.

The precision of the thematic statement at the foundation of the worldbuilding often determines the saleability of the manuscript, especially for a writer's first excursion into professional publication.

Look back at the posts on structure and note how plot, story, scene structure, character creation, character-integration, and the basic tools of Description, Dialogue, Narrative, and Exposition (yes, the deadly Exposition that kills story momentum is a legitimate but difficult task to master) are each items to study separately, then in combination.

Look at the Reviews posts to find novels and non-fiction that illustrates these skills, both in high expertise and fumbling beginner levels.

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/06/authors-and-writers-and-readers-oh-my.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/03/reviews-6-tv-series-elementary-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/reviews-7-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/reviews-8-laura-resnick-seanan-mcguire.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/08/reviews-9-sex-politics-and-heroism.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/original-thinking-in-romance-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/reviews-10-shadow-banking-in-fantasy.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/depiction-part-5-depicting-dynastic.html

I don't review books here at random, but rather these books are chosen because I am driving at a point, either a point I've made recently or a point I intend to make and these books illustrate those points.

If you want to see all my reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3QG32P5IF3JAK/

Or 20 years of monthly reviews columns (paid for by a paper publication in the New Age Field) are here:

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/

ReReadable Books went from 1993 to 2013 and focused on books worth reading more than once. 

These writing craft posts enumerate a lot of tasks and their component skills designed to create a book worth reading, and then worth re-reading, and even passing on to your grandchildren.  Any beginner would be wise to just boggle at the list and maybe think about not bothering to learn it all.  After all, why bother trying to write a classic that stays in print for 20 years like my novel, House of Zeor. 



It has been said that professional writers are people who simply can't do anything else.  There can be many reasons for this. 

Usually it is just that the person simply spends so much time writing that other life-building tasks don't get done.  But also there is the point in any life when all the doors slam in your face, and you still need a way to earn a living.  If "life" is preventing you from holding down a job, writing is an alternative.

Today some writers blog and social network to get hits in order to get paid for Google ads.  http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com (this blog) is a co-blog with professional writers contributing on assigned days of the week.  I do Tuesdays, and my posts are keyworded with Tuesday so you can find them by search.  Because this is a co-blog, we don't go for income (because how would be split it?) so we post on the right margin clues about where you can find our work if you want to know more about the author of a blog post.

Some beginning writers self-publish with great success -- and I foresee a lot more of that coming.  Whole industries are forming around writers driven to write for a living.

Some just dive into trying to sell their writing without more than having read a few books on the craft, perhaps way back in their teens.  Others take courses.  Others go to Romance Writers conventions and take seminars or acquire a mentor.  Some sign up at http://www.patreon.com to try to get Patrons (a kind of Kickstarter for artists).

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/index-to-story-springboards-series-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

Those posts are indexes to posts about the Business Model of the professional writer.  They don't cover things like income tax, incorporation, Agents, amortization of equipment, and other issues covered extensively in any number of books how on how to set up a small business, sole-proprietorship.

That's what a writer is - a small business sole-proprietorship (or sometimes a partnership).

You have to think about yourself as a business with a product to sell.

Then put all that on a shelf in your mind and concentrate on producing that product.

The difference between a professional writer and an amateur writer (fanfic writer maybe) is not just that the professional has the life-goal of making a living from royalties, but also that the professional writes what sells.

Sometimes, the professional takes any work-for-hire job that comes along (Journalists do work-for-hire, as do screenwriters) and in their spare time they write just what they want to write, just for the fun of it. 

That's what amateurs do -- work a day job for income and write on the side, writing what they want to write, sharing it maybe on fanfic sites or self-publishing, getting joy as the only payback.

The difference between professional and amateur is not skills but goals.

After you've done a few million words for amateur purposes, you may get bored with writing, or you may decide to acquire more skill, perfect skills, or perfect integration of skills.  You may raise the bar of your own expectations of your product.

These are the people who will benefit most from these multiple-integration posts.  Professional or amateur, with or without experience, polishing skills creates joy. 

When you get right down to the core of storytelling, (writing, verbal, speech-making, journalism, whatever form), the product being produced is sought and consumed for the ultimate purpose of JOY.

If you don't put JOY into your work, your client won't get JOY out of it.

Fiction is a JOY-DELIVERY-PRODUCT.  Non-fiction succeeds best when it contains that element of relish that transmits JOY, too.

Relish, zest, admiration, love, romance, appreciation, intimacy -- these are components of JOY.  They make life worth living.

I have had a large number of readers of my novels come to me privately and say with immense gratitude that reading this or that novel of mine gave them a new lease on life, either from the brink of suicidal thoughts or just from despair and depression. 

Star Trek had that effect on people, too -- and to a large extent, I learned to do it by studying how Star Trek did it.  The rest of what I know, I learned from studying older writers I grew up reading, meeting them, asking questions, and in some instances being directly mentored by them.  I also learned a lot from my editors.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vi.html

That Part 7 has links to the previous parts on What Exactly Is Editing.

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-5-great.html

Note how bits, pieces, and parts of the components we are assembling in this 4-skills sequence have turned up under various topics previously.

Everything is connected to everything -- and in the world of Art, there is no such thing as a "topic" or a "subject" to keep to.

Everything is actually everything -- one, single, indivisible Whole.  Any division we impose on our Vision of Reality (our World that we Build) is an artifact, a Fallacy.

We've dealt with some common Fallacies and how a writer can leverage the existence of these Fallacies among readers - how holding to a particular Fallacy can define a Market which is hungry for re-enforcement of that Fallacy as well as markets determined to stamp out that Fallacy.  Hold vs Stamp Out defines a Conflict, so the subject of Fallacy integrates Theme with Conflict while Conflict is illustrated in Plot and Story. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integraton-part-2.html
On misnomers and how to use them in fiction construction.

A few on Fallacy and its usefulness to a writer:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-6-fallacy.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/theme-plot-integration-part-7-fallacy.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html

This Tuesday writing craft blog series has been posted weekly since 6/16/2006.

We have covered a lot of ground, ranged over a lot of subjects, gathered inspiration from historical sources, current events Headlines, and disparate sources ranging from Atheist to Devout (Pagan to Monotheist), from Mainstream to far-out-Fringe (I mean, I even mentioned Glenn Beck). 

A writer knows no bounds in where to search for material, and questions must be asked boldly, audaciously, and without limitations.

Once gathered, the raw material of a story has to be winnowed, distilled, focused, isolated and clearly stated.  Some writers complete two or three drafts before attempting to distill a Theme, then do another re-write to discard everything that does not explicate the chosen Theme.

Prolific professional writers who make a living on volume output rather than Best Sellers often hammer out a method of distilling theme before first draft -- that method often involves the dreaded Outline.  We've discussed Outlining.


http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/strong-characters-defined-part-3-tit.html

So, assuming you've practiced and mastered all these various techniques and given deep thought to all the issues, conflicts, misnomers and fallacies that define your intended readership, we will go on to doing 4 things at once.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Living Longer

TIME magazine for February 23 / March 2 focused on longevity. (Unfortunately, their website doesn't allow non-subscribers to read entire articles, only short teasers.) The caption on the cover proclaims, "This baby could live to be 142 years old." They base that estimate on an experiment with mice; an antibiotic called rapamycin extends the lifespan of a mouse by about 20 percent. The longer-lived mice suffered some undesirable side effects, though, such as an increased tendency to develop cataracts and diabetes (not to mention loss of testicular function in males—begins to sound like the immortals in the third book of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, who don't die but keep aging). So the hyped-up headline on the front of the magazine proves to be a bit misleading. We have a long way to go for an elixir of youth and immortality. The article itself, however, does contain interesting information about how cell division and growth relate to aging, such as an explanation of telomeres, "the timekeepers of a cell's life." Other articles in the issue expound on such topics as the best locations for old people to live in, which parts of the body typically wear out at what ages and how we can delay those effects, and how brain exercise and the right attitudes help to keep people "young."

The articles, or at least the headlines, seem to conflate two different things: Enabling more people to survive in good health to the human maximum age of a bit over 100 and extending the maximum lifespan. The former seems more likely than the latter. In Heinlein's METHUSELAH'S CHILDREN, TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE, and TO SAIL BEYOND THE SUNSET, the Howard Family project extends human life by breeding together people with genes for longevity in their family trees. But, contrary to what the first book seems to assume, it doesn't appear likely that this method would produce offspring with super-long lives. To select for an age span of 150 years, human DNA would have to include genes for living to the age of 150. We've seen no evidence of such genes. In Heinlein's series, Lazarus Long is an exception. He carries a unique mutation that allows him to live a phenomenally long time before needing rejuvenation treatments. And, as you may recall from the novels, even Howards eventually die of old age unless they get those treatments—which ordinary Earth-human scientists developed because they imagined the Howards were hoarding the "secret" of longevity and tried to duplicate it.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Depiction Part 10 - Binocular "Vision" by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction Part 10
Binocular "Vision"
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

The previous parts of the Depiction Series are:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-2-conflict-and-resolution.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-3-internal-conflict-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/depiction-part-4-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/depiction-part-5-depicting-dynastic.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-6-depicting-money-and.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-7-using-media-to-advance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-8-which-comes-first.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/03/depiction-part-9-depicting-hero-by.html



Trolling through my twitter feed, I came across this:
--------------
Scott Myers ‏@GoIntoTheStory
Character Types: Use archetypes to inform and inspire your character
development http://ow.ly/Gr6FQ  #screenwriting #scriptchat
FULL LINK http://gointothestory.blcklst.com/2014/08/free-screenwriting-resource-character-types.html
-------------

I've discussed "archetype" usage at length in a wide variety of posts, always assuming writing students have absorbed things like The Hero's Journey and other such studies, perhaps from astrology.

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/vampire-archetype-flashburned-into.html

And
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/targeting-readership-part-6.html

And yes, the widest selling writers use this character-building technique whether they know it or not (mostly not). 

As I've mentioned before, fiction writing is largely a subconscious process which everyone does, but only a few acquire the skills to formulate a string of words that evoke their inner stories for other people.

To communicate what you "see" in your inner vision to others, you use the points of similarity and congruence with their inner vision, then lightly lace it with items unique to you.

Last week we discussed the value of unique vision -- the commercial fiction writer's personal stance against giving others what they want, and instead giving them something new, unique, different that changes the other person's view of reality.

That, in essence, is the definition of "Art."  It doesn't matter what medium is used for this Art.  It does matter that the Art portray a recognizable world -- with a twist.  An Artist is in the business of showing their patrons and clients (your editors, publishers and ultimately your readers) what the reader's world would look like from a different point of view.

The attraction of artistic views is simply the Artist reveals a dimension of reality that the consumer didn't see before.

The ability to do that -- to see and express what others do not -- is gained in childhood by refusing the instructions in that wikihow.com post on The Writing Prompt:

http://www.wikihow.com/Answer-a-Writing-Prompt

The defiance of "Authority" is the essence of Science Fiction because "Science" means an organized body of knowledge or the process of organizing knowledge.  People do the organizing, and willful blindness is an element of human nature.

Willful blindness is necessary to keep humans alive in this world.  Our brains can't process all the data we can gather, and to stay alive one must react swiftly (more swiftly than predators can attack).  So we use shortcuts to thinking.

Martial Arts leverages this shortcut tendency by training you to react before your brain had "thought" (i.e. distilled knowledge out of sensory input).

The defiance of Authority is also the hallmark of all Great Romances.

Romeo and Juliet, Helen of Troy, all the archetypes for The Romance, illustrate how when Neptune Transits set in on a matched pair, all normal, practical considerations that Authority and "Science" impose just dissipate.

In the grip of Romance, people do stupid, idiotic, insane things, apply a value system that puts The Other and The Relationship above life itself, above the high regard of kin and even The Law.  In the grip of Romance, people are "insane." 

Our Science Fiction Romance, Paranormal Romance, and Supernatural Romance genres illustrate how it can be that the insane expectation of an HEA (Happily Ever After) ending to the story is perfectly reasonable (if not logical.)

Why does about half of the world believe the HEA is nonsense?  Even in the face of factual evidence to the contrary?  Is that "scientific thinking" or "superstition?"

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/if-hea-is-implausible-how-come-it.html

Why can't writers -- who can see the reality of Love, of the HEA, of Life -- convince this rejecting half of the world?  Maybe it's more like 3/4 of the world that disbelieves in the HEA, but that segment of the readership is able to suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy a whopping good Romance combined with any other genre. 

Could it be that the Willful Blindness described last week (imposed by training or chosen freely) --

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/03/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript.html

-- can't be articulated and addressed because of the training in "writing" via Writing Prompts and a formula for how to "answer" a "Writing Prompt?"

Do writing prompts themselves limit us, or is it the just the imposition of the taste, the likes and dislikes, the rights and wrongs, by the academics who refuse good grades to people who say crazy things?

We acquire these Willful Blindness spots in our psyche from our Native Language, from parental training, from schooling, and from the school of hard knocks.  The animal spirit seeks to avoid pain while the soul seeks Love.

Maybe that's simplistic, so take it as a writing prompt and answer with something creative, not what I would expect.

So stripping back to the animal simplicity of what a human being is, think about the evolution of binocular vision.  Depth perception is often cited as a survival characteristic for humans (or Great Apes, or just all primates). 

Why don't we have three eyes, so if one gets damaged the others still provide enough information? 

Mystics hold that we do in fact have a "third eye."  It is the eye that provides not the depth-of-field of the 3-Dimensional reality around us, but the addition of another dimension to the objects viewed by our two eyes.  That third eye perception is often depicted as energy fields, color, ghosts, glimpses of the past and future (a time dimension).

Some mystics hold that the human being has this dimensional perception added to the usual binocular vision in order to be able to perceive God active in the world.

The forces, colors of an aura, shifting veils of unreality, are actually an astral plane dimension.  As when you look at a cube corner-on, you can see two "faces" and the top, and with something to compare it with, you can estimate the size of the cube, whether the unseen back of it is near something that is behind it.  You see in 3-dimensions.

Actually, your eyes don't see in 3-dimensions.  Your brain interprets the incoming data and arranges it so that you can calculate which way to dodge to avoid being hit by that hurtling cube.

Your survival depends on accurate estimations of physical distances, speed, and relative position. 

People who have an open, or squinted partially open, third eye are often thought to be "crazy."  Psychics, Artists and Lovers share that reputation among those who accept the Writing Prompt training. 

For those who have read my series on Astrology, the significant planet to study for  psychic and romantic behavior is Neptune.

Here are index posts to Astrology and Tarot

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

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

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

Because they are viewing the world through a squinted third eye, and perhaps have been trained by that Writng Prompt training to put walls around their data processing to filter out information from that squinted eye, they don't see clearly and thus do not seem to be getting correct answers.

Very often, in real life, people fall in love, get married, then get divorced amidst much vitriol.  So that proves there's no such thing as the HEA.

Or does it?

Does it just prove that binocular vision is inadequat to the task of assessing a fellow Soul and that Soul's relationship to yourself?

Does it take Trinocular Vision to guide one through social interactions into an HEA?  (Or perhaps just blind luck?)

For example, suppose trinocular vision -- incoming data from 4 or 5 or maybe 6 dimensions (3 spacial; 3 spiritual?) -- could be processed accurately?  What kind of person would that be?

How could you tell a crazy person from a sane one with a squinted or astigmatic third eye?

If a person had 20-20-20 Vision, what would he/she be?

Would you believe any of the "truths" such a person would impart?

Look back on history, read a lot of biographies and autobiographies, study the Golden Bough, and pay great attention to the history of philosophy and the history of fiction (from campfire Shaman, through nomadic Bard, to modern Journalism). 

What sort of craziness that has propagated down through history stands out in high relief?  What people are remembered for sort-of making sense even today, and are believed in even by those who do not model their lives around what those writers revealed?

The still-towering figures I see are:

1. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses

2. Ozymandias,  Hammurabi
http://youtu.be/T3dpghfRBHE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias

3. Helen of Troy (long thought imaginary; Troy's remains were found!)

4. Kings and Prophets of the Old Testament ( David and Bathsheba
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043455/   Tradition says the Messiah will be of the line of David via Bathsheba!)

5. Jesus, Mohammed (and similar around the world, Confucius to Gandhi - certifiable nut jobs all?  Or those of trinocular vision?)

6. Various Popes, and Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli and religious leaders like The Rebbe
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/244372/jewish/The-Rebbe-A-Brief-Biography.htm

All of whom transformed whole religions and/or social orders or technology. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Reformation

Months ago on a news story regarding an interfaith Event I heard a mainstream reporter casually refer to Chabad as "the largest Jewish denomination."  I'd have given that appellation to the Reform Movement if you include all its subdivisions.  I have no clue where that reporter got that information or impression, but it was not challenged anywhere I saw. 

Are all these giant figures of history whose works are still known today just good grifters, just scam artists selling us religion to extract money from us or gain political power?  Or are they our few humans gifted with Trinocular Vision, artists depicting reality in 6 dimensions instead of 3?

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob weren't writers.  Moses was.  Ozymandias probably had his publicist write that inscription, Hammurabi (quoted in a ST:Tos episode) may have written those words but scribes cleaned up the text, Helen of Troy being a woman probably wasn't allowed to publish, etc. But the stories told about these people, and some of their written works, are still considered authoritative today, and definitely influential. 

Ozymandias expressed a materialistic philosophy - the works of his hands would establish his supremacy in your mind.  Hammurabi is perhaps the best example of an early Humanist - giving a code of law that has a chance of working despite human nature. 

All of these people are "visionaries" -- but each one saw something different from what the others saw about "reality," and chose to do different things because of of what they "saw."

Did some of them "see" trinocularly the Hand of God organizing human affairs?  Did some of them see Souls seeking Mates? 

Why do the things these people expressed still resonate (get repeated, echoed, distorted) in our internet based society? 

If, in The Blind Men And The Elephant, all the blind men decide the one-eyed man is correct and it's an elephant, do the blind men "believe" it's an elephant or "scientifically determine" it's an elephant? 

What cognitive mode depicts what we know of our Soul, and our prospects for finding a Soul Mate?

What does "Love At First Sight" mean -- sight with the eyes, or sight with the Third Eye, or Sight with all Three? 

Is that well documented phenomenon of Love At First Sight actually the one point in your life when your Third Eye opens and you See trinocularly instead of binocularly.

Do Third Eyes only open (or only focus properly) during a Neptune Transit (when "reality" gets blurry?) 

Is that trinocular glimpse of your Soul Mate the reason why you, and Romance Writers, can't articulate "What You See In Him?" and "What He Sees In You?"

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

Is astigmatism of the Third Eye the reason we marry the wrong person? 

Does trinocular vision reveal the 6 dimensional universe so we can "see" the Finger of God creating and sustaining, shaping and reshaping the Universe?

Is that Vision of God (both distorted and accurate) what makes the Legends of that list of Ancient Figures "resonate" in modern culture?

I love the John Denver song, The Potter's Wheel.



Get a little hint how God must feel when Soul Mates finally join, then depict that joining and make your prose into poetry, prophecy and song. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

ICFA 2015

As usual, I had a wonderful three and a half days at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, and not only because of the warm, sunny Orlando weather. We were very lucky with the weather this year, no rain at all. I walked outside frequently between sessions but still have not glimpsed the alligator that lurks in the adjacent lake. This conference focused on the theme of "The Scientific Imagination," with James Morrow, Joan Slonczewski, and Colin Milburn (guest scholar) as guests of honor. The lunch talk by Morrow, author of such novels as TOWING JEHOVAH and ONLY BEGOTTEN DAUGHTER, elaborated on the concept that science fiction works are "thought experiments" analogous to imaginary scenarios such as Schrodinger's cat. In SF as opposed to real-world science, however, a single thought-experiment question can evoke an endless number of different stories from different authors. The author discovers the "answer" in the very process of writing, and, as Morrow put it, at best the result displays a "surprising inevitability." In an evening program, Slonczewski discussed experiments with bacteria and showed slides of dazzling photos she took on an expedition to Antarctica. Milburn gave a lunch talk about hacking, which included images from an early video game, created on a mainframe computer long before home PCs.

I delivered a reading of a light fantasy tale called "Dusting Pixie," which can be found here:

Sorcerous Signals

Unfortunately, that session started at 8:30 in the morning, so we didn't have a big audience. Of the other two authors in the session, one re-imagined KING KONG in the giant ape's voice, and the last read a surrealistic story called "The Cat in the Helmet Comes Back," which, as the title implies, alluded to Dr. Seuss but in a terrifyingly alien mode.

As always, we had a meeting of the Lord Ruthven Assembly, devoted to vampires and other revenants; we discussed screening a classic film (probably NOSFERATU) with commentary next year. I attended a panel on Terry Pratchett's Discworld, which of course had been planned long before his death. Therefore, the session developed into a retrospect and memorial as well as a lively discussion. The most exciting presentations I heard were a paper session on "Disney Body Image" and a panel on violence and nihilism in contemporary fantasy. Our panel on "The Millennial Age and the Vampire," with Amanda Firestone, Jean Lorrah, Owl Goingback, and me, had a great audience and a stimulating discussion, which culminated in speculation about immortality and the future of aging and death in our real-world society. This conference uniquely brings together scholars with authors and editors in fun, thought-provoking encounters every year in the same location. I encourage you to attend if you can. Information here:

IAFA

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript Part 5 - The Writing Prompt vs Creativity by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript
Part 5
The Writing Prompt vs Creativity
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

This series of posts is about Writer's Block and what to do about it.

Here are the previous posts in this series:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript_8.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript_15.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript_22.html

This series is about that "taking stock" long-view we do several times a year -- Holidays, New Year's, Birthdays, Anniversaries.  When can you just "quit" (a job, a marriage, a drive to get your kids to behave, a small business you've started and failed at)?  And when you do decide to quit, what's next?  Feeling depressed that time of year, every year, for the rest of your life? 

This "When Should You Give Up On" series is about making that decision in such a way as to open new possibilities, new avenues to pursue with the confidence that the same thing won't happen again (and again, again etc).

So this Part 5 in this series is about the mistakes and blind-alleys we all pursue on some projects, and how to back out of a blind alley manuscript and use the bits and pieces that are worth something to generate future works.

This is a multi-stage process, though it may surface in one snap-moment, all completed.  Mostly, it's your subconscious that makes the decision and redirects your life -- not so much the conscious mind.  If you do creating writing, as a hobby or as a living, you are mostly subject to your subconscious decisions.  (not everyone is like that)

So there is a reason that you do not know for your diving at warp-speed into a black hole, hitting a brick wall, and being defeated, quitting, and leaving your life littered with half-started projects (writing projects as well as other sorts).

This post is about ferreting out that reason, then reprogramming your subconscious to create and present you with projects that can go to completion, to publisher, to publication, to sales, to reprints. 

Projects that can go through the brick wall like that bear a certain signature that other projects do not.  For the ones that can go through, you need to gather persistence, stubbornness, and strategy.  For the duds in your life, you need to just junk them. 

So what if you have to junk a project?  In essence, what you do with a brick-wall creating disaster of a manuscript is toss out most of the blather you wrote, distill out the essence of what you wanted to say, and then write yourself a "Writing Prompt."  Yep, just like in school or on a job application.  A writing prompt, only with a twist. 

Writers often get asked, "Where do you get your crazy ideas?" 

With Science Fiction Romance, or Romance in general, the "crazy idea" is the HEA, the Happily Ever After ending.  Half the world doesn't believe in the HEA as a reality.  Where we get our "crazy ideas" about things like the HEA is very simple -- we get them from Writing Prompts. 

Only the writing prompts a writer creates as a springboard into a story come from the version of "real life" that the target reader holds dear.  You will find a comprehensive sketch of that version of real life in sources such as ABC News, CNN news, news stories of today, yesterday, and all time.  The annual New Year's roundup, the lists of Forbes Man Of The Year, the Best City for Raising Children, etc.  Each and every datapoint coming out of these sources can be a writing prompt given a good twist.

Sometimes you start out using a Writing Prompt as a Springboard into your story --

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/index-to-story-springboards-series-by.html

--and then hit that brick wall we've discussed. 

Somehow you fall off the "because line" that we have established in early posts in this Tuesday section on writing craft, creative writing, story, and story writing.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-plot-integration-part-15.html

We have maybe two generations of graduates today who have been trained to respond to the Writing Prompt, but not to "color outside the lines" and give the prompter something that will just plain blow their minds.

Why have we raised a generation of school-essay-writing graduates to "give the promter what the prompter wants?" 

You don't think that's true?  Scroll down this wikihow page:
http://www.wikihow.com/Answer-a-Writing-Prompt

----------QUOTE-----------------
How to Answer a Writing Prompt

Three Methods:Expository Prompts, Narrative Prompts ,Persuasive Prompts

Students of all kinds, from elementary school to those applying for post-graduate educations, are tested on their writing ability through writing prompts. Successful students are able to understand what kind of essay the prompt is calling for and answer it with what the tester wants to see.

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

Isn't that the saddest, most frustrating thing you've ever read? 

To succeed in school, and then in job applications, one must conform, one must "understand what kind of essay the prompt is calling for" and then "answer it with what the tester wants to see."

That's the secret of success, and the main source of writer's block. 

As you are trained in childhood, so you will continue.  As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.  Well, humans being human, we do have the capacity to chuck our childhood training and strike out into the wild world, hacking our own paths.  But only a few do that, and only a few of those survive it.

We are training creativity out of our children.  We are training maturation out of our children.  We are training children never, ever, to dare to write creatively -- never to do creative writing, never to invent new ideas. 

You will fail in school and in life if you do not give people who have power over you what they want. 

But real success is giving people who have power over you something they never considered might exist. 

Real success is doing what a Hero does in a story.  A hero does not "do all he/she can."  A Hero (by definition) does what he/she can NOT do.  A Hero pays no attention to limits, especially not those set by others, by rules, by regulations.  A Hero gets the job done, no matter the personal cost. 

Yes, Villains share many of those traits, grit, guts, determination, obliviousness to cost. 

That's why Hero and Villain characters come in matched sets -- the villain is fabricated out of the substance of the Hero's character.  That's what it means "nemesis."  Matched sets of characters insure that your story will reflect your reader's reality, sucking them into the story.

That wikihow.com entry on How To Answer A Writing Prompt clues us in to why and how the plausibility of the HEA, the Happily Ever After ending, has eroded away. 

The last few decades of schooling has churned out a couple generations of adults who see daring to do something other than what is expected as a path to Failure. 

I started this series on "When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript" in response to a twitter discussion on #litchat and #amwriting threads. 

Dozens of people participated in discussing, with serious worry, whether it is ever proper to trash a manuscript before finishing the first draft -- or even after several drafts.  When do you quit?  How do you know it's right to quit?  They were seriously worried -- and I didn't know what they were worried about until I saw this wikihow entry on how to respond to a writing prompt.

Now, remembering a few of those tweets, and a couple of items on Google+, I can see clearly why they could not deal with the issue of a false-start on a writing project.  Had I seen this instruction at the same time as the tweets appeared, I'd have realized what thought process was behind the phrasing of those tweets.

The brick wall these tweeters were running into trying to answer each others' concerns was simply their training in never, ever, under any circumstances, answering a writing prompt with something unexpected or uncalled for.

In other words, you are not allowed to think and express original ideas.

Originality itself is disallowed by this kind of training in how to answer a writing prompt. 

If you read that page on wikihow, you will note that I never -- ever -- follow any of these "rules" -- not in my fiction writing, not in my novels, not in my short stories, certainly not in my non-fiction like Star Trek Lives! and not in anything I've sold to publishers -- and never, ever in my professional review column, nor in this blog series on writing craft.

My business model is original ideas expressed in original ways -- delivering "the unexpected" with high-impact. 

I don't respond to writing prompts that others create.  I take the writing prompt and rewrite it, then explore areas that rewrite opens to show connections between the narrowly defined topic-sentence material and much broader, Big Data sources such as statistics. 

In other words, I find the rules -- in order to break them.

I break the rules only after I've demonstrated that I can follow that rule.  Then I break the part of the rule that is preventing original thinking, not the part of the rule that facilitates originality. 

The part of the rule cited on this wikihow.com entry on how to answer a writing prompt that prevents original thinking is the part that says

-------------
what kind of essay the prompt is calling for and answer it with what the tester wants to see
-------------

The alternative rule, that prompts editors to buy your story for Mass Market distribution is:

----------------
find out what your reader wants to see, and give them what they'd never expect.
---------------

That's Hollywood's rule of "the same but different." 

Perhaps the reason we get nothing but remakes out of Hollywood these days is that kind of training in answering prompts with what the tester wants.

The Expository Prompt, for example has to be answered with an essay that explains or describes -- not an argument or an opinion. 

But any true explanation will be nothing but an argument supporting an opinion -- to omit your own opinion and your argument for it when explaining or describing is to use the opinion/argument of someone other than yourself -- regurgitating what someone tried to teach you.

How do you know if you have what it takes to be a commercial fiction writer? 

You know for a fact you can make it in fiction writing if you are the sort of person who can not be taught, who always questions, never believes your teachers, and refuses to give them what they want or expect. 

So when you are deep into a manuscript, and just hit that brick wall, how do you create a writing prompt to spur you through to completion of the project?

Look at this wikihow.com page and list the keywords for the 3 methods of writing prompt.

Remember, we have to find the rule and analyze it in order to break it with useful original thinking.  And remember that novels have a structure as precise as school essays or news stories such as you find on abcnews.com

1. Expository Prompts
Explain or Describe
2. Narrative Prompts
Tell, Time, Event
3. Persuasive Prompts
Persuade or Convince

All of these are very useful in breaking through writer's block in narrative fiction.  Story writing is done just like this -- with each of the 3 types of writing prompts delineated here representing a genre and/or a style.

The writer's block creating element in these instructions lies entirely in that first paragraph at the top of the page -- give what they are asking for. 

The creative writers rule is never give what they're asking for.  Do the unexpected.

You will find a version of that rule in the screenwriting books I keep pointing you to, SAVE THE CAT!, SAVE THE CAT! STRIKES BACK, and SAVE THE CAT GOES TO THE MOVIES.

All screenwriting books dwell on this element at great length,  many using different terms for the process.

It is the "twist" or the "great reveal" or any term that designates delivering the unexpected.

Part of the technique of the unexpected is laying down the "foreshadowing" -- the bits of detail, suggestive glances, the red-herring in the mystery, that leads the reader to expect one thing while you plan to deliver another with a twist.

Here's an example, ripped from the Headlines last year (and now a tradition of sorts), of a mundane news item built on a twist.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/holiday-newborns-home-christmas-stockings/story?id=27816983

The news story has a picture of newborns swaddled in red Christmas Stocking baby blankets to present to new parents taking a baby home on Christmas.

Study that for how to design a twist into your failed manuscript.

You have the standard (ho-hum) image of the red plush Christmas Stocking (a blatantly commercial invention; nobody wears such things in their boots).  That leads the reader to imagine the image of them hanging from a mantel. 

Then the "reveal" or "twist" -- the stockings are laid in bassinets with newborn babies inside. 

Stumbling across this ABC News item online, the writer with a manuscript they want to abandon can create a writing prompt to impel their narrative over that brick wall.

It is very possible that the story has failed to crystallize because that "Christmas Stocking" item has been omitted. 

Try letting your protagonist who is not moving forward with the story come upon an image of this sort (not a baby in a stocking, but something from your worldbuilding ) -- cognitive dissonance.  Maybe they phone home about it, or write a poem, or shout out on twitter, or whatever -- and stir the plot-pot to a boil. 

The misleading image you are later (say at the 3/4 point) going to twist to surprise the reader should appear in some form, maybe symbolic or iconic, on page 1. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/06/mr-ed-and-writing-great-american-novel.html

It should reappear a number of times, especially at major turning points.

And then at the point in the plot where you need the "twist" the reader has been set up to expect one thing -- and you deliver another thing entirely.  This will fail if the reader does not see that it is "right" and "fitting" and poetical.  It will fail if, in retrospect, the reader does not say, "I knew that would happen." 

And it will fail if it is what the reader expected or wanted. 

That's one reason the whole Romance field is discredited by a lot of readers.  Since the Romance genre reader expects and demands an HEA, writers don't introduce other possibilities, then twist into the HEA. 

Real life is full of such twists.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/if-hea-is-implausible-how-come-it.html

You twist the Christmas Stocking into a swaddling blanket.

You twist the Tall Dark Handsome Hero into the Arch Villain -- or vice-versa, and the Villain comes to the Heroine's rescue.

You twist the friendly, crime-free small town into a Den Of Vampires. 

You twist the popular Cheerleader into a Vampire Slayer or time traveler.

Well, all of those have been done to death and are now expected.

Your job is to create new unexpected twists, but first you must understand where those classic twists came from by studying good novels that use them. 

Study writing prompts carefully because they do telegragh the answers that are expected.  Just as the "Leading Question" is forbidden in examining a witness in court, so too is the Leading Prompt forbidden.

The lawyer's rule is never ask a question you don't know the answer to.

But when it comes to fiction writing, the rule is never ask a question you do know the answer to.

In fact, that is the essence of Science, and thus Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Romance.  Ask questions nobody has ever asked before, and therefore questions that nobody knows the answer to.

It is the fiction writer's job to formulate new questions and postulate answers that will work only for the particular character who is the hero of the story.

Such unique, new questions are the writing prompt you need to formulate for yourself to break down the brick wall that is blocking you from finishing a manuscript.

But at the same time, your personal writing prompt has to be composed of the classic questions, just as the stages of creating an essay for school are laid out in this wikihow.com item on writing prompts.

Those questions are the ones many of my Tuesday blog posts have been about.

1. Whose story is it? (twist - not the person the reader expected)
2. What is the story about? (theme-character integration; twist with past-life experiences haunting and motivating)
3. Where and When does the story begin? (where the two elements that conflict to generate the plot first collide -- twist by using symbolism like the Christmas Stockings in the ABC News story )
4. What is the Conflict? (this vs. that -- twist with a resolution that creates another conflict)
5. What is the Resolution? (the last page solves the problem; twist with a bitter-sweet loss, self-sacrifice, poetic justice)
6. What is the Plot? (the series of Events on a Because-line - twist with hidden character motivations that are later revealed)

Fill out those 6 points for your failed manuscript, then construct a writing prompt with a question that you do not know the answer to.

For example, my breakout novel, Those Of My Blood was written without knowing the ending.  The writing prompt was something like, "Will Titus Kill His Father?"  or "What Would Make It Morally Acceptable For Titus To Kill His Father?"  We have a lot of vampire novels where the younger vampire kills the elder who "made" him -- Those of My Blood is built on several "twists" of that standard trope.  Is it ever right to kill your father? 



And you might want to read:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/original-thinking-in-romance-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/happily-ever-after-life-patterns-part-2.html

Ask yourself, do you want to read something that says what you want, or something that asks a question you could never have thought of?

Would you pay money to read something that is what you expect?  Or something that surprises you?

The measure of writing ability is not the ability to guess what the author of the writing prompt wanted, but rather the ability to express an insight beyond the capability of the author of the writing prompt.

To express such insights, you must develop such insights.  That process is what being a writer means.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

I'm at ICFA in Orlando this week. On Saturday I will do a fiction reading and appear on a vampire panel.

Yay -- 80 degrees in Florida instead of 40s and 50s at home (and the below-freezing temps and snow we had there for most of February)!

I'll post a report next week.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Reviews 13 -- Psychic Technology by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Reviews 13

Psychic Technology  

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The week before last we looked at some novels from the Heroic Point of View.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/03/reviews-12-heroic-point-of-view-in-mass.html

Last week we examined the depiction of the Hero.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/03/depiction-part-9-depicting-hero-by.html

This week we will look at 2 novels (in different series, by different authors) one labeled by the publisher (RoC) as Science Fiction and one labeled Fantasy.

I love both these series.  And I don't see any difference that could account for the different label.

Here are the two novels in Mass Market Paperback - the Market we discussed last week.



And a 2011 release, #7 (of 8) in the Allie Beckstrom series



Use the LOOK INSIDE or Devon Monk's Amazon page for the series list.

I've mentioned the Allie Beckstrom series before.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/12/recommending-devon-monk.html
It's a very strongly Relationship driven series, where the personal details of other Characters' lives and decisions drive the decision making of Allie Beckstrom, the Hero of the series.

She is the heir of a man who invented a way to "pipe" Magic around a city (like water or electricity) -- and make Magic available for use by everyone on a routine basis. 

Her father dies, she dives across dimensions sort-of to rescue him from Hell, ends up with him stuck riding in her head (like being Possessed but she can fight back and stay on top).

Meanwhile, The Authority that tries to regulate natural magic users becomes corrupt, and she has to fight the hierarchy there.

She acquires friends, and becomes a member of a Group of ESP users called Hounds.  She wins leadership of this Group.  Each of her followers is important to her for reasons of their unique characteristics, and hers.

In other words, the entire plot except for the premise (Magic as Technology) is Relationship driven.  There is entre of The Dead from another dimension, and ghostly stalkers, but really this is science fiction, published as Fantasy.

VACANT by Alex Hughes is in her Mindspace Investigations Series.

I discussed Mindspace Investigations in these 3 posts:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/reviews-11-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/setting-character-integration-part-1-by.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-8-which-comes-first.html

I can not recommend this series more highly.  It has a Love Story driving the plot -- and for me, that Love Story qualifies as Romance because, if consummated, that Union will change the world as the Characters know it.

The titles in order are, CLEAN, SHARP, PAYOFF, and MARKED.  Then comes VACANT.

Alex Hughes has evoked the ambiance of the classic Police Procedural within the framework of a Future World where ESP Talent has been officially recognized.  Talented are trained, educated and regulated by an officially recognized authority.

The series is told in First Person by a guy who was a Professor with the ESP organization's university, was sucked into a research program which left him addicted to a drug, then thrown out of the authority for being addicted.  The novels pick up where he is getting CLEAN, has a job as a consultant to a cash-strapped police department, and is using his Talent to reconstruct crime scenes.

He's not a badge-carrier, just a consultant.  But there is prejudice against ESP users, and against druggies -- and though he is friends with a Cop (woman; Love Interest but not Lover yet) -- he is always at the edge of being fired.

By VACANT - he is really employed on sufferance, and because of his actions undertaken to comply with his sense of morality and loyalty, he ends up jobless.  Because of his friendship with this Cop who urged him to get a Private Investigator license, he is now able to open his own Investigations firm.  Because of all the trouble having him in her life caused her, she likewise is jobless, so they throw in together as Partners.

I eagerly look forward to more in the Mindspace Investigations Series.

You can learn a lot about Marketing, about writing craft, and about worldbuilding to explicate theme from reading these two series side-by-side and comparing the worldbuilding.

The Allie Beckstrom novels are built on a "Darker" platform, with less faith in the underlying goodness of human nature than you see in Mindspace Investigations.  Or perhaps the goodness is deeper down in Allie's world.

Allie is trying to "fix" her world, battling forces outside herself that just won't leave her alone -- her father left her in a complex predicament.  But Allie doesn't see a way out -- has never had life be really good, doesn't know anyone who has "made it" and is living a Happily Ever After.


In Mindspace Investigations, we ride inside the head of a man who has had it all, knows many people who think they have it all, have it all together, and are satisfied with the way the world is.  But at this point in his life, when his "story" is happening (as discussed here these last two weeks), he has lost "it all."

He is miserable beyond expressing, he is being targeted by organized crime (because his Investigations are a threat to criminal operations), he has little idea of the extent of the organizations against him, and all he wants is to get BACK to his "happily ever after."

During these 5 stories, each with its own criminal to chase down, he not only makes some progress toward his return to a good life, but he falls in love with the woman cop he's been working with.  He can not see how it can possibly happen that he'll get back to a Happy life, but the concept dangles like bait in front of him, keeping him going.

Allie Beckstrom has never had that, knows nobody who has it, and is not charting a path through life toward such an HEA target.

That difference does not make one Fantasy and the other Science Fiction.

I think I like Mindspace Investigations more than the Allie Beckstrom Series, but possibly it depends on the reader's mood which will strike you best.

With Mindspace Investigations, some readers who liked the first novel find the series veering off in "the wrong direction."  Others, like me, are eager for more novels.

Do read the comments on Amazon if you are thinking of entering this Market.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Pirates, Scams, Credit Card Fraud... and Google Alerts

The top line, and the bottom line is.... if something looks too good to be true, it probably is not trustworthy.

I received a Google Alert for a free download of "Knight's Fork" and the only link, on the title, was a download to my desktop. Microsoft Word (and there probably ought to be a TM in there, apologies) asked me if I wanted to "open" or "save" it.

I did neither, of course. It was almost certainly 11KB of malware.

Using Yahoo and also Google searches, I tracked down the urls included in the "link location" which led me to a Hong Kong based site called "Tailplay.net". I would not subscribe, if I were you. Google the name of the site plus keywords relating to "complaints" or "scams" etc. If you find that your book is there, I'm not even sure that I'd recommend sending a DMCA.

The trouble with the DMCA is that it forces honest, hardworking authors and other creative people who are being ripped off to give away far too much personally identifying information to people they have good reason to suspect are crooks.

See for yourself. This is what Google published and distributed to me. Unless you collect and study malware, I would not recommend trying to download the ebook. It was not created legally, in any case.

	"Knight's Fork" Daily update ⋅ March 15, 2015
	WEB
	Knight's Fork PDF eBooks Online Free Download | Page 1 If you want to get Knight's Fork pdf eBook copy write by good author Cherry, Rowena, you can download the book copy here. The Knight's Fork we ...

Body Transplants?

In Robert Heinlein's I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, the very old, fabulously rich protagonist arranges to have his brain transplanted into a young body, healthy aside from brain death (the result of a mugging). Rather than a "brain transplant," this operation should more accurately be called a "body transplant," since identity resides in the brain. An Italian surgeon makes the far-fetched claim that a "full body transplant" will become possible in about two years:

Full Body Transplant

Oddly, however, he envisions attaching a severed head to the donor body rather than transferring a brain from one skull into the other. The project evokes images of vintage mad scientist movies. I'd think if the process could be accomplished at all, it would be easier to implant a brain than an entire head with esophagus, windpipe, etc., as well as nerves and spinal connections, plus the challenge of keeping eyes and ears functional.

More cautious scientists point out the unlikelihood of making those neural and spinal connections viable in the near future, given that we still don't know how to restore function to a person paralyzed by accidental damage to the spine. And the inevitable question of "ethics" comes up. In principle, I don't see why a body transplant would be any less ethical than the reuse of a single organ or a group of organs (e.g., a heart-lung transplant). People have been willing their bodies to medical schools for teaching and research for a long time. What's the essential difference between that kind of donation and using a donated cadaver to house a transplanted brain?

In I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, when Johann Smith wakes up in the body of his young secretary, Eunice, he finds Eunice's spirit lingering in her flesh, and they have lively mental conversations throughout the novel. The prospect that some spark of the original inhabitant might remain in a dead-and-revived body lies, so far, outside the realm of science as we know it.

What about transferring a live brain into an artificial body? In the present state of medical science, I suspect the possibility of creating such cyborgs would be further in the distant future than a viable brain-body transplant.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Depiction Part 9 - Depicting A Hero by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction Part 9

Depicting A Hero
by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The previous parts of the Depiction Series are:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-2-conflict-and-resolution.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-3-internal-conflict-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/depiction-part-4-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/depiction-part-5-depicting-dynastic.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-6-depicting-money-and.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-7-using-media-to-advance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-8-which-comes-first.html

Last week we discussed novel series that depict the Hero, and how the "backstory" of a Heroic Character illustrates the theme. 

But how do you draw a Hero? 

A depiction is not the real thing - not a photo or 3-D large-as-life image.

A depiction is like a Japanese Brush Painting -- a few suggestive lines that cause the beholder to fill in the blanks and "see" a real thing.  That vision often seems more real than reality to the beholder.

That's what writers do with characters -- provide a few strategically chosen details to "depict" a reality that the reader will flesh out, making the vision their own. 

So how do you depict a Hero -- how did the authors of the books reviewed last week achieve that dimension of heroism? 

And why does it work Mass Market miracles when you do capture Heroism?

Here is a New York Times opinion blog entry calling the Hero an American Myth. 

Myth makes the best fiction, so that could be why it's such a popular trope.

But perhaps there's more to it than that.  As I suggested last week, it is the un-askable questions that generate the most powerful themes.

So let's take a look at "The Hero" (an Ancient Greek concept - the offspring of god and human, often by rape) from a different point of view.

This point of view seems to be based in politics, specifically American politics which is like no other in the world.  If you're not familiar with Republican vs. Democrat and the two-party system where what a Party stands for morphs and changes and veers in different directions through the decades, this article may make no sense to you.

Here's the article's URL
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/evolution-and-the-american-myth-of-the-individual/


----------QUOTE-----------
At least part of the schism between Republicans and Democrats is based in differing conceptions of the role of the individual. We find these differences expressed in the frequent heated arguments about crucial issues like health care and immigration. In a broad sense, Democrats, particularly the more liberal among them, are more likely to embrace the communal nature of individual lives and to strive for policies that emphasize that understanding. Republicans, especially libertarians and Tea Party members on the ideological fringe, however, often trace their ideas about freedom and liberty back to Enlightenment thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries, who argued that the individual is the true measure of human value, and each of us is naturally entitled to act in our own best interests free of interference by others. Self-described libertarians generally also pride themselves on their high valuation of logic and reasoning over emotion.

    The basic unit of human social life is not and never has been the selfish and self-serving individual.

Philosophers from Aristotle to Hegel have emphasized that human beings are essentially social creatures, that the idea of an isolated individual is a misleading abstraction. So it is not just ironic but instructive that modern evolutionary research, anthropology, cognitive psychology and neuroscience have come down on the side of the philosophers who have argued that the basic unit of human social life is not and never has been the selfish, self-serving individual. Contrary to libertarian and Tea Party rhetoric, evolution has made us a powerfully social species, so much so that the essential precondition of human survival is and always has been the individual plus his or her relationships with others.
-----------END QUOTE--------------------------

Personally, I take issue with that description of "Republican vs Democrat" -- at least in 2014, those aren't the principles dominating either side.

But reality is irrelevant to learning how to construct fiction.  Reality is relevant only in deciding what content to put into the fiction you write, and how to lead your reader from what they already know/assume to what your Characters know/assume about their alien worlds.

Learning the concept "conflict" is relevant to learning how to construct fiction.

And this article also illustrates why delineating a clear 'conflict' (a this vs that) is also the essence of good non-fiction writing.

This is a well written article, well organized. It would be an A paper in most courses on non-fiction writing, and maybe in some others.

The author of this NYT opinion article factored the prevailing mixed-mess of stances in American politics into two neat (artificial) extremes in order to make the point that Individualism is based on a myth.

Personally, I'm not convinced, but it is a well presented and well argued point worth studying.

However, last week we did discuss three different novel series with three different approaches, all of which illustrate the murky pea-soup of a mixed-mess Philosophy this 21st Century Culture suffers from.

My thesis last week was that this mixed-mess is modern philosophical ideas mixed with left over, contradictory bits and pieces of former prevailing Philosophies -- Aristotle and back through Persia and Egypt (maybe China), and Plato/Aristotle forward through Bacon's "scientific method" and onward to today. 

A simple, coherent, all-pieces-match Philosophy probably hasn't prevailed in all of human history, so it's not like anything has changed.

But people do continue to try to raise their children in isolation from "alien influences" -- trying to distill and convey a world view that is utterly coherent.

As far as I can see, to date, the more isolated children are from the melted-pot-of-ideas, the more incoherent their internal philosophy becomes.  But that could just be my opinion -- what if I'm wrong about that? 

The writer of this article has tried to distill his boyhood into a couple of sentences -- thus establishing camaraderie with the reader. 

He says:

---------QUOTE-----------
When I was a boy I was taught that the Old Testament is about our relationship with God and the New Testament is about our responsibilities to one another. I now know this division of biblical wisdom is too simple. I have also learned that in the eyes of many conservative Americans today, religion and evolution do not mix. You either accept what the Bible tells us or what Charles Darwin wrote, but not both.
------------END QUOTE-----------

Well, no way on Earth could anyone ever get the impression that I'm "Conservative."  I'm a disruptive force wherever I go.

But no way can I be termed a Liberal (by the American Definition -- in some other countries the term might fit).  I'm definitely not "Progressive" either because net-net the Progressive agenda is to force change by passive-aggressive psychological trickery (such as never articulating what the actual goal of the actions is.)   

And as I see it, personally, Darwin and the Biblical Account are identical, not in conflict at all.  Science and Religion aren't two separate things, and not mutually exclusive. 

That could be where I've got leftover bits and pieces of alien Philosophy stuck somewhere in my operating system, or maybe not.

As I pointed out last week, writers who know, internalize and then consciously forget the history of philosophy have a better chance of hitting the wide, Mass Market Paperback stride. 

This article isolates some of the broad rivers of thought that flow into our world from our past, gives you the names of writers to study, and some of their often cited works.  A broad education in these key works will give a writer the chance to understand the readership better than the readers understand themselves.

The job of the writer is to depict, to select out the salient bits of the reader's real-world, then express the reader's opinion using all the tools of Art, tools the reader may not have Talent or Training to handle.

One of the ways writers express the reader's opinion is by depicting the Hero, the Individual who (during his Story) resolves the conflict between his personal Needs and his social needs and obligations.

Each Character, according to the theme you embed in the Character's "backstory," must come to a unique resolution of that self-other conflict.

I've discussed that self-other conflict line in terms of Astrology and in terms of Tarot, (here are the index posts to those series)

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

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

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

The Astrology Just For Writers series illustrates how to depict fresh, unique angles on the self-other conflict while making what you write conform to the Mass Market and Hollywood dictum "the same but different." 

Say it better than the reader can say it -- and you will be quoted.

This New York Times opinion piece gives a good clue to how you can articulate what your readers only suspect, fear, even just accept.

The USA is wrestling with the self/other dichotomy these historical philosophers articulated for their readers.

Philosophers don't invent these Ideas -- they formulate, organize and communicate the suspicions of their teachers, contemporaries, and the ancestors of those contemporaries. 

Philosophers formulate the connections between the leftover bits and pieces of alien philosophies embedded in their own societies.

They use what appears to be non-fiction as their format, but employ as much imagination as a fiction writer. 

In fact, I would say all fiction writers are philosophers of their time.  The more schooled in the history of philosophy a fiction writer is, the more likely they are to articulate the current culture's issues. 

Some of these issues we wrestle with today are identical to those depicted in the oldest known writings such as the Bible, and perhaps some fragments even older than that.

The problem of "we need a leader" all the way to the problem of "Who Am I and Does It Matter?"  Are we a Group if we don't have a Leader?  How do you get to be Leader (Katherine Kurtz's Deryni Series is all about Who Will Be King). 

If you look at an Astrological Natal Chart (the practice and concept of which dates back long before the Bible), you see that every human being born on Earth (bets are off for those born elsewhere), has an Ascendent and Descendent.

The Ascendent is the point on the Eastern Horizon where the Sun will rise (or has risen) at the day of birth in the place of birth. 

The Descendant is the point on the Western Horizon where the Sun will set or has set that day in that place. 

The Ascendent represents the Self -- mentioned in that New York Times Article.

The Descendent represents the Other (Spouse, Family, Town, County, State, Country, General Public -- "other" in the intimate sense of Soul Mate and in the generic sense of anyone who's not-me.)

In Astrology, there are 12 "Houses" in the Zodiac (calculated various ways in various systems).  They take the circle and divide it into pie-wedges.

Each wedge has an opposite wedge of the same size.

Events that happen (transits, progressions, etc) in one of the wedges often manifest in the opposite wedge as a reflection of the Event.

In other words, from oldest times, human psychology has been depicted as symmetric -- what is inside a person appears OUTside that person. 

Which end of that reflection does a person "control?" 

Some religions say you only control yourself, and most of that may be an illusion God allows you.

Others (such as Science when it is believed in like a Religion) say you only control what is outside of you and you are driven to hammer your environment into a convenient shape, subdue Nature to your Will.

Some say all of these conflicts are artificial (man-made) and we are free to opt-out of Conflict. 

Your Hero, your Main Character, your Viewpoint Character, the Character whose story you are telling, is the Character who resolves some piece of one or another (or all three) of the conflicts over what a single person controls and how to adjust to the existence of things you do not control. 

The "Hero" is "larger than life" -- a child of a god and a human -- an individual with the Power of Creation imperfectly manifested.  To write the story of a Hero, you need a Conflict that is likewise Larger Than Life -- larger than your reader is likely to confront in reality.

The conflict over whether a human being is an Individual or a Member of Society is easily depicted in the form of the Romance.  The Footloose Bachelor meets his Soul Mate and bonds himself into a Happily Ever After resolution of the Individual vs Society conflict. 

You may want to read a short blog entry related to the issue of how implausible the HEA is thought to be today.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/if-hea-is-implausible-how-come-it.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Persistence of the Self

Although I haven't seen the movie STILL ALICE, I was intrigued by an incident from it described in a review. The title character suffers from Alzheimer's. While still lucid, she recorded a video giving herself instructions on how to commit suicide. Later, in a state of dementia, she tries to follow the instructions as if on "autopilot." The review raises the question: Did the past Alice have the right to make this decision for the Alice of the present?

How do we know our past self (or selves) and our present self are the same person? Typically, we assume this to be true, even though our bodies change completely over weeks, months, and years as cells die and get replaced. We rely on continuity of memory to assure ourselves that we remain the same individual. I remember being my teenage self, my twenty-something self, et al. But what about Alice with Alzheimer's, who has forgotten most of her past? What about an amnesia sufferer?

In a case of multiple personality, are there two or more people in the same body or only one person with a mental disorder?

If my entire consciousness gets uploaded into a computer, and then my body dies, is the computer program "me" or only a digital copy of me?

In the universe of the original STAR TREK, Dr. McCoy had misgivings that he'd died the first time he stepped into a transporter and his present self was a many-times-removed copy. When a transporter accident creates a duplicate of Captain Kirk, splitting personality traits between the two of them, which Kirk (if either) is the "real" one?

Some psychologists maintain that our experience of an "I" or a "self" is an illusion created by the brain's activity—a hypothesis that doesn't work for me, because there must be a "self" to experience the alleged illusion.

A boldly different angle on this issue: In the hard SF novel BLINDSIGHT, by Peter Watts, a spaceship's crew has the assignment of making contact with aliens who are intelligent yet not conscious. In fact, they react to evidence of human consciousness with horror and hostility, because self-awareness strikes them as incomprehensibly insane.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt