Worldbuilding From Reality Part 4 - Creating A Story Canvas by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Worldbuilding From Reality
Part 4
Creating A Story Canvas
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts on Worldbuilding From Reality:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-3.html

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

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

Here are some previous posts related to Worldbuilding

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/11/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-10.html

In addition, there are long series of posts about integrating Worldbulding with each of the other skill sets we've discussed.  

Working with the developers of the Sime~Gen Videogame, who are worldbuilding in a Universe I created, I've been following developments in mapping our Galaxy and the stars beyond.

The Game developers want to take the narrow window on Future History I used to showcase the Characters I used and open that window wide -- taking humanity of the far future into the Galaxy on adventures flung far and wide. 

So I have been collecting posts on the advancing edge of astronomy and astrophysics and putting them on my Pinterest Board

https://www.pinterest.com/AmbrovZeor/entertainment-information-sources/  

I also park some on Flipboard and some on Facebook. 

https://www.facebook.com/jacqueline.lichtenberg

https://flipboard.com/@jacquelinelhmqg

In particular, the videogame company that has licensed one of my series, Sime~Gen, is planning to create an Interstellar setting for the character-driven story.  It will start with exploring this solar system, then expand to discovering Aliens "out-there."

But WHAT is "out there?"  

You all know that the fashion in science has been, for decades, to assume that there are no intelligent Aliens "out-there."  That idea went out of fashion with old-style Science Fiction.

Guess what. It's back!  Speculation began sizzling and then exploding in mid-2015.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/07/09/ancient-exoplanets-raise-prospects-intelligent-alien-life.html

And now comes the NEW orbital telescope called the James Webb Space Telescope, expanding on what Hubble has found, it is just inevitable we'll find whatever there is to be found out there.

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

That new orbital instrument will let us expand the map of all galaxies, solve mysteries of things like "dark matter," gravity, Black Holes, and maybe find some "Intelligent Life Out There" -- of course, what we see will be millions or billions of years old, but still useful information.

Here is a video of a map of galaxies, showing where in this mess Earth is located: 

https://youtu.be/rENyyRwxpHo

The Video says Earth is not the "center" of the universe -- but know what?  Maybe we'll discover otherwise.

You may have seen that video around.  It contains this blond-hair like image in the middle of the video and takes some patience to get there.

The red dot you see in this still from the video is us -- our GALAXY, not the Sun.  That's the structure of the Universe -- at least of a tiny slice near us that we've mapped parts of.

Then there are all the 2015 articles about Dark Matter with more papers due all the time now.

Definition from Astronomy:

(in some cosmological theories) nonluminous material that is postulated to exist in space and that could take any of several forms including weakly interacting particles ( cold dark matter ) or high-energy randomly moving particles created soon after the Big Bang ( hot dark matter ).

For example:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110114-galaxy-x-space-dark-matter-dwarf-satellite-science-chakrabarti/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ambitious-dark-energy-project-probes-mysterious-cosmic-expansion/

So our notion of the cosmos is expanding, and mysteries are appearing out of the nooks and crannies of Math and Astrophysics.  The gravity generated by Dark Matter is theoretically responsible for giving the Universe (that branching yellow hair type image in the video) its shape.  

The Hadron Collider will be making a lot more news in 2016.

http://phys.org/news/2015-10-latest-large-hadron-collider-results.html

So what is a science fiction writer to do?

Well, story telling is about focus, about a selective recreation of reality, not about reality itself.

By factoring out all the other variables, the writer focuses the reader's attention on the singular point of this particular story.

Stories are about people who are symbolically represented by Characters.

Characters are not "real" people -- but they trigger a recognition response in readers who then fill in all the gaps to create in their own imagination a Person derived from the writer's depiction of a Character.

That's how a reader puts him/herself into a story -- by filling in what the writer left blank.

So, to create your story canvas out of this vast-vast Universe we are now able to glimpse, you first need a story.

To find the story, you need a Character who will live that story.

Find the Character in your imagination, figure out what bit of that Character's life is that Character's story, then SELECT a bit of the vast-cosmos of reality to wrap around that Character.

Set the Character free to roam your slice of real-space.

For a long series of long books, you can use a bigger canvas -- a larger slice of what the James Webb telescope will be discovering.

You can move your Characters between Galaxies if you can intuit a space-drive that might be able to traverse such distances.

In the 1930's and 1940's Edward E. Smith, Ph.D., posited that the factor limiting our space-drive possibilities to sub-light "speeds" was INERTIA.

So he just posited that humans invented a device small enough to put on a space ship that eliminated inertia.  He called it an Inertialess Drive. I don't recall its fuel or energy source.

Gene Roddenberry came along in the 1960's and posited a Wormhole Based space drive powered by antimatter, focused by dilithium crystals.  Look up the history of science as understood in the 1950's and you'll understand what Roddenberry did there.  

So now it's 40 years later, and science is puzzling over Dark Matter and Dark Energy and Black Holes that swallow stars and burp.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/11/27/scientists-just-caught-a-black-hole-swallowing-a-star-and-burping-a-bit-back-out/

What are you going to base your star drive on?

And how far do your Characters have to travel?  How big a government do they need - how many people, how many different kinds of people?

C. J. Cherryh has done a wonderful job of depicting interstellar civilization in her FOREIGNER SERIES which I keep rave-reviewing here and everywhere. It is up to volume 17, now. Here's Amazon's page listing the books as a series.

http://amazon.com/gp/product/B0159KHS5A/ref=series_rw_dp_sw

But now we have all this new information about the map of the Universe -- how many galaxies there are, where they are in relation to each other, and what is between them (e.g. Dark Matter and Dark Energy).

So naturally, writers will be exploring what they can do with a star drive based on Dark Matter.  

Say, a ram-scoop technology based on scooping up Dark Matter and converting it to Light Energy?  

Or perhaps "sails" designed to capture Dark Energy?

There is more "Dark" than "Light" out there -- and nobody knows what can be converted to what or used for which.

That does not mean you, the writer, can just randomly postulate any old thing.

Whatever you postulate for the solution to the mysteries faced by particle physics and astrophysics today, it must symbolize, explicate, illustrate, or explain your theme.

In other words, the Characters you create have to "belong to" the World you build around them -- in a manner similar to (but different from) the way human beings belong to our world.

You create imaginary physics, as Gene Roddenberry did, to tell a story of a Character.

Read this short comic, and see how  Captain Kirk was a part of Gene Roddenberry's real life character.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/plane

Now look at the Universe Roddenberry created to wrap around James T. Kirk -- to set Kirk loose into that wild west setting.  

Even now, there's new Star Trek.

http://www.startrek.com/article/new-star-trek-series-premieres-january-2017

Note how Roddenberry set the TV small-screen Series mostly on the Bridge set, and occasional quarters or sick-bay, and the transporter room -- all interiors. And a lot of the planet exteriors were inside sets on a sound stage (and looked like it).

Making what the reader "sees" very small in comparison to the total environment the Characters "know" is "out there" is a dramatic device to engage the reader's imagination, get the reader to invent all the details and thus invest themselves in the dream.

Doctor Who did this for decades -- there was a Gallifrey out there, we knew it, but the story never went there, so we had to invent it.

Use that technique. Start your vast-enormous-intergalactic canvas in a small, tiny, slice of the Reality your Characters live in.

Book by book, expand the stage, explore hidden parts, romp among galaxies like grains of sand.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

What Are We Putting In The Ocean?

I'm just back from a short vaction in Florida, and I cannot say that I came away feeling very proud of people.

The signs say, "Keep Off The Dunes". Do people keep off the dunes? No. They sit on them for an elevated view. They let their dogs play on them. They sleep on them. They take a short cut across them instead of using the boardwalks.

Dunes are important and fascinating, not only for protecting the coast from winds and storm surges. Specialized creatures live in them, and specialized plants grow on them. The roots of sea oats help to keep the sand from being blow inland.  Beach grass dies if people walk on it and break its stems.
More info http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/swc/shoreline/pages/duneprotection.aspx

The signs say "No Dogs" (between certain hours). One sees dogs during the no-dogs hours. The rules say that dogs must be on a leash during the hours when dogs are allowed. Are they?  In most cases, not.  I was harassed by a large excited dog as I stood in the shin-deep surf.

Apart from that, the beach was littered with glass, aluminum, styrofoam, and plastic trash. Alas.  It all contributes to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. or the Great Atlantic Garbage Patch. But that's nothing. I should have been in Seattle.

What is it with Seattle? Perhaps the people there are more stressed than Americans anywhere else. Or perhaps, they think they aren't because of all the drugs they ingest and excrete.

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/03/18/salmon-full-of-cocaine-and-antidepressants-study-finds-puget-so/21330104/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl12%7Csec3_lnk4%26pLid%3D1115464555

"Researchers found cocaine, Advil, Prozac, Lipitor, Benadryl and dozens of other drugs in the tissue of juvenile chinook salmon caught in the Puget Sound in September 2014, the Seattle Times reported in February. The salmon likely picked up the drugs from wastewater in the area that's a "[cocktail] of 81 drugs," as the Seattle Times put it."

Alas. That is wild-caught Pacific salmon. And, I thought that I was okay if I avoided the farmed Atlantic salmon.

"Other drugs found in the wastewater include (but aren't limited to): Aleve, Flonase, Paxil, Tylenol, Tagamet, Valium, Zoloft, Darvon, OxyContin, caffeine, nicotine fungicides, antiseptics, anticoagulants, Cipro and other "antibiotics galore," the Seattle Times reported."

Imagine, though, the science fiction (I almost typed fishion) possibilities of self-aware, laid back, buzzed, sleepy, obese, bacteria-resistant, indigestion-free sea life! They didn't mention the sexually stimulating drugs, but one might expect that among the 81 drug cocktail, something of the sort would be there.

Toilets of the future ought to be designed with their own reservoirs... like back to cess pits!!! Or a water feature wall of their home, on the other side of the home from an Elon Musk-like solar/battery recycling power wall.  Come to think of it, if one churned one's greywater, one might create hydroelectic power, too.  Bill Gates was recently on TV drinking recycled urine. Perhaps, if people drank their own recycled pee, they would get better value from their drugs as a side effect.

A possible solution for the future might be to have two toilets in every bathroom. #1 and #2  One would save a lot of water that way.  And, keep the juvenile chinook salmon in better health.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Greetings from Orlando; Zootopia

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This week I'm at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in balmy Orlando. I'll report on the con next Thursday.

By the way, have you seen ZOOTOPIA? I was highly impressed and definitely want to own this movie and watch it repeatedly. Almost as much of a winner as INSIDE OUT! One intriguing feature is the way this latest film confronts the issue of carnivores and herbivores living together in society, as most worlds inhabited by intelligent, anthropomorphic animals don't. The closest analogue might be Brian Jacques's Redwall, but that series portrays predators as uniformly, simplistically, and irredeemably evil (a deliberate choice on the author's part, but I prefer the way ZOOTOPIA handles the problem). It's also interesting that ZOOTOPIA keeps the sizes of the various animals roughly to scale, so that when the rabbit heroine ventures into the section of the city called Little Rodentia, she strides among the buildings like Godzilla in Tokyo (but of course more carefully).

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Reviews 23 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg - Stone and a Hard Place by R. L. King

Reviews-23-by Jacqueline Lichtenberg Stone And A Hard Place by R. L. King


R. L. King is one of the writers highlighted on my page of writers who have been influenced by my writing.
http://simegen.com/jl/influencedbyJL/

I want to point you to Book 1 in R. L. King's series The Alastair Stone Chronicles,  because I truly admired the strong, disciplined structure of this novel.

It's an easy, quick read -- great kind of thing to read on an airplane but you won't toss it in the trash when you get to your destination (or delete it from your phone -- paper and Kindle versions on Amazon).

  http://amazon.com/gp/product/B00UGBEQYY

Besides being a great story about a master of Magical Craft taking on an Apprentice while dealing with a cross-dimension incursion by a genuine Monster Entity, this novel is worth any writer's time to study.

It's not a Romance, but the plot is driven by Relationships and a good, solid sexual relationship, too.

All the Characters (except the Monster) do things because of how they "relate" to the other characters.

We see what it means to hold someone in contempt.
We see what it means to think you should hold someone in high regard.
We see what it means to acquire high regard for those who supply "strokes" or good feelings, who      bolster your self-esteem whether you should have any self-esteem or not.
We see what it means to perceive an elegant devotion to Charity and  throw down in support of that  lofty goal.
We see what it means to be self-critical.

This novel creates an interlaced web of Relationships all of which contribute materially to the plot.  There's love, contempt and even embryonic hatred.

We can see all of this in one panoramic perspective because of the underlying structure of the novel.

That structure is invisible to the consumer, the casual reader, which is just as it should be.  The casual reader should swoop through the story eager for "what happens next" -- and indeed that is exactly how this book reads.

The strict, disciplined structure reminiscent of Hollywood movies or network TV shows causes the page-turner effect.

After you've read the book, check the beginning then check the ending.  Also check the middle.

Spoiler:
SPOILER
SPOILER

But the truth is the following analysis does not spoil the pure enjoyment in this novel.

There is an unexpected death near the end.  It is not foreshadowed, except poetically.  You keep asking yourself how in the world is the writer going to keep this character alive after all this -- but all indications are that the writer will keep that character alive.

But no.

Poetic Justice is served up cold.

Here's the relevant 3-part series on this blog on Poetic Justice and how to use it as a device.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetic-justice-in-paranormal-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetic-justice-in-paranormal-romance_15.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetic-justice-in-paranormal-romance_22.html

Now, given that the plot calls for that shock-scene of the death, and a huge Karmic Reveal, together with (all in a couple of paragraphs) a glimpse into the future lives of this character, and possibly the past lives of the Main Character who survives, maybe into the Relationship between them established over lifetimes, -- how can the opening of such a Paranormal Action-Mystery novel be structured so the ending makes sense, but is not telegraphed to the reader?

If the opening telegraphs to the reader too much, then the reader will become bored and stop turning pages.

Well, the genre is "Mystery" primarily (not Romance).

If it were a Romance it might be classed as Paranormal Action-Romance and the opening would be the first meeting of the two characters who would fall in love -- very likely opening on them fighting each other, maybe in Arcane Combat.

This is clearly a MYSTERY.

But it partakes of the elements of Science Fiction, too.

The mystery in question is the arcane equivalent of a science mystery -- a piece of data that doesn't fit accepted theory.

So as the author says, it is an Urban Fantasy because the setting is contemporary (sans cell phones), and the science involved is Magic.  From my NOT SO MINOR ARCANA series on Tarot:

 
I think it is much more than just Urban Fantasy -- mixing many genres seamlessly, including hints of a coming Romance.  Some major publishers still shun this type of mixture -- but of course it is my own personal favorite.

So as the novel progresses, investigation shows there are some theories that cover the observation, but no big detailed reference works to cookbook through fixing the problem.

Since paranormal mystery genre is to be the envelope, the writer chose to open the plot as you do with a mystery, and to close with the solution, and a denouement as you do with a mystery.

The typical closed-form detective novel, or TV show, starts with the discovery of the body, or a bit of evidence that a crime has been committed.  This kicks off the Plot -- but not yet the Story.

Stone and a Hard Place starts with a prologue, and a wildly gorgeous opening line.

"Adelaide Bonham was convinced that her house hated her."

The whole novel is about that House, it's hatred for Adelaide, what kind of person she is, how she manages to accept an unacceptable explanation of what she has observed, and what she does both because of that acceptance, that observation, and what she does in spite of that acceptance, and what becomes of the House because of it all.

Adelaide an old, frail, infirm woman, a widow who has inherited the house passed down to her husband by his ancestors.

She is not a typical old widow.

She's courageous, exemplary, set in her ways but willing to accept new ideas.

But she is not the Hero of this Story -- not the Main Character.

That's why her conviction that her house hates her is in a prologue, not the opening of Chapter One.

Stone And A Hard Place is not about her, not her story, not her destiny.

She, like the first character you see on a TV Series episode opening where the week's body is discovered, is part of both plot and story -- she is obstacle, goal and enabler, even perhaps Protagonist, but not Hero, not Main Character.  She both prevents and then instigates plot events.  But the novel is not her Story.

Many readers of this blog know I usually send back (mostly unread) any manuscript sent to me for evaluation that begins with a Prologue.

The art of the prologue is incredibly difficult to master.

Artistically, the prologue must be a major narrative hook -- draw the reader into the story.  But at the same time, it must not fix the reader's attention and present the reason to read this novel.

The reason to read the novel is paragraph 1 of Chapter 1 -- it is not the prologue, which as it's name indicates is the "log" (like Captain's Log) of "what came before the story" that instigates the plot.

Be advised, most readers routinely skip anything labeled prologue, so usually it's better to call it Chapter One and make it the springboard into Chapter Two.

In this case, though, what you have here is a perfect example of a novel that must have a prologue, and a perfect example of a prologue that contains nothing but prologue material.

You find perfect examples like this in Mystery and Police Procedurals -- the Event that the Main Character must investigate.

The beginning writer tends to grab at the prologue to solve a writing structure problem no other tool in that writer's toolbox seems suited for.

Usually, that is the beginning writer's up-welling urgency to write the story, shoving aside anything that would slow down the writing -- including learning new techniques necessary to tell the story in just the way that the story demands.

That is not what happened here in Stone And A Hard Place.

This prologue is a precise example of not only when to use a prologue but how and why.

This prologue is part of the formula of the Detective Story, and sets out the main problem The Detective will have to solve.

The plot has "reveals" about the way the Reluctant Detective gets sucked into solving this problem, what he discovers that's vaguely suspicious, what he learns that is definitely suspicious, what makes him very wary of the size of the problem (tip of the iceberg and he knows it) -- what and how he researches, what is known about this problem, what he thinks about what he discovers, what he decides to do about it, what happens (not as a consequence of his decision plot-wise, but as a consequence poetically, karmicly, of who and what he is).

Each bit of information about the mystery, about why this old woman thinks her house hates her, what she does about that, what the Detective ( a master Magician named Stone who is facing a very hard place in his life) does as a consequence of what the old woman does, is Revealed at exactly the correct place in the narrative all the way to The End and the epilogue.

The precision pacing is not just the order in which information is revealed, but also how many words are devoted to revealing each piece and giving the reader time to absorb and understand that information.

The information feed in this novel is perfect.

The Mystery Plot begun in the Prologue forms the backbone of the Plot.  The Mystery Formula sets the pacing.

The Story begins at the Chapter One opening.  (for a Mystery formula this is exactly the correct choice.)

Chapter One introduces our Reluctant Detective with his awareness of the karmic problem of his life, the life-stage he is passing through at this very moment.

The opening line is perfect:
"Alastair Stone suspected the Universe was conspiring against his desire to keep the two sides of his life separate."

And at the end of the novel, we see that is indeed the case -- poetic justice, karma, has overwhelmed and transformed his life, and he is complicit.

The next few paragraphs of the opening (brief, hard-punching paragraphs perfectly crafted) convey the information that Stone will now take on an Apprentice at the behest of a figure who is an Old Friend.  That figure is thought of many times throughout the novel, and then tinkers with Stone's destiny again in the Epilogue.

The epilogue is titled appropriately Chapter Forty-Six, Two Weeks Later, instead of epilogue.

Why is this not titled epilogue?  Because it does not cap the prologue with a final bit of information completing the plot begun in the prologue.

It is not an epilogue, but a denouement to the mystery, dealing with the damage left in the wake of resolving the conflict.

Chapter Forty-Six delineates the wrap-up of the Story (not the Plot) and indicates what the Reluctant Detective will choose to do next because of the losses sustained in this adventure and the scars only beginning to form on his psyche as the two parts of his life have been smashed together with the force of karma.

Within the first few paragraphs of Chapter One we also meet Stone's "magically oblivious girlfriend" -- who later figures in the story significantly, particularly in saving Stone's life.  They're sleeping together but  not living together -- lots of romantic tension that isn't yet a romance.

Then Chapter Two introduces Stone's everyday life (as a Professor of the arcane at a regular university where the topic is treated as a mythical curiosity), and his first meeting with his new Apprentice.

The main characters are all introduced in the correct order, the order of their effect on the ending.

The body of the novel is all about juggling responsibilities to train the Apprentice while dealing with the Monster In The House, and with the overcoming of the personal angst caused by Stone's inability to keep the two sides of his life separate and still keep his self-respect.

The Point of View shifts, but never wanders.  The writer does not use point of view shift because she doesn't know any other way to get the information to the reader.  She chooses Point of View Shift because it is the correct tool for this information feed at this specific point in the novel.  It is all very disciplined, very precise.

The entire composition follows the "Beats" delineated in Blake Snyder's Save The Cat! series on screenwriting.  Scene structure, climax points, each one is placed exactly where it belongs by adjusting the number of words necessary to move the story and the plot ahead.  That word-count discipline is a big factor in the page-turner effect.

Read this novel, enjoy it, then dissect it beat for beat, count paragraphs, words, and how dialogue is mixed in tempo with narrative, exposition, and description.  There is a firm hand behind this novel, and a very high precision sense of structure and pacing.

As Save The Cat! points out repeatedly, structure and pacing make the difference between an "Opens Everywhere" film and a campus Arts Playhouse showing or two.

Structure and pacing are all about audience size.  But though both structure and pacing are necessary conditions for wide distribution, they are not sufficient conditions.

This novel has the potential to reach and please a very large, very broad audience given the right kind of publicity and promotion.

In today's world, that kind of publicity and promotion is rarely possible for a work of mixed genres like this one.  Urban Fantasy is one of the labels that allows for such a mixture.

If you are writing a mixed-genre -- or perhaps think you are writing a very pure genre -- study this novel's ingredients.  It is a smoothly blended mixture of all my favorite genres.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Is Monogamy a Good Idea?

Some biologists don't think it is:

Pairing Up for Life

Many species of birds are known to pair up for one breeding season or for life. The main reason is that their newly hatched chicks need the constant labor of two parents to keep them fed and alive. But DNA tests show that most of them practice only social monogamy, not sexual monogamy. "Adultery" is not at all uncommon among birds. "Unfaithful" females benefit from the best of both lifestyles; they get mated partners to help raise the chicks and also a more varied genetic contribution to their offspring than they would receive from their mates alone.

In mammals, as the article points out, it's impossible (without bottles and formula, at least) to divide parenting duties equally between male and female. Gestation and breast-feeding help to account for the much lower frequency of monogamy among mammals.

Elaine Morgan's THE DESCENT OF WOMAN outlines the factors common to most species that practice pair-bonding: (1) Helpless infants who require intensive care in early life. (2) A den, nest, or other fixed location where the young are sheltered. (3) Approximate equality between male and female rather than overwhelming male dominance (which the BBC article also mentions).

An additional, rather grim purpose for pair-bonding arises from the tendency of males of many species to kill infants sired by other males. A female with a permanent mate has protection for her babies against marauding outsiders.

On Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover, the original colonists from the stranded ship in DARKOVER LANDFALL recognize the perils of settling a new world with a limited gene pool. Therefore, in the early generations of Darkovan society, women are encouraged to bear children by as many different men as possible rather than entering into exclusive marriages. Of course, they also receive an outside genetic contribution from the chieri.

Despite the benefits of genetic variation to the family and the species, faithful monogamy remains the ideal in our culture. Most of us probably believe the social, spiritual, and emotional motives for love and marriage outweigh the advantages of spreading our DNA abroad.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Soul Mates and the HEA: Real or Fantasy? Part 1

Soul Mates and the HEA: Real or Fantasy?

Part 1

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

This is labeled Part 1 because I expect there will be future parts.

Our readership for Romance and all its variants has a deep skepticism about the existence and plausibility of the Happily Ever After ending, or HEA.

This is based on real life experience.  Few of us know or have experienced and survived the exaggerated, dramatic, larger-than-life Events that divide a life.

Those Events come roaring into a Life like a flashflood, boiling rapids, sweeping away the person and everything they have built and identify with.

Astrologically, there are two planets that produce this effect when in certain transits -- Uranus which acts without apparent warning, and Pluto which undermines structures and passes, leaving the Events to surface later (like a Sinkhole opening up under your car -- it seems sudden, but took months of rain to hollow out the hole leaving just the thin cover you fall through.)

These outer planets move slowly through a Natal Chart.  Pluto and Neptune (Romance is related to Neptune) never make it all the way in a normal lifespan.

So at birth, life is set up to hit "rapids" once or twice.  The tumbling destruction can last a couple of years, or up to ten years or so.  While you are inside this pattern, you can't even think that there will ever be an "End" at all -- that this is life.

And some Lives actually go on and on like that, from pillar to post, like a Soap Opera plot.

So we look around at our own life, at the lives of others we know, and see there is no Ever After -- only Happily For Now.  People who thought they were Soul Mates get divorced in 5 or 10 years.  It's not real, but we wish it were.

Or, if we yearn to attain this state of HEA with a real Soul Mate, we kind of hope it's not real because as life goes on, it's too late.

What if others have attained what we want, and we are locked out of happiness?  That is just too bleak and painful a way to look at the world.

Many people, given a glimpse of such a harsh reality, internalize the disappointment and transmute it into anger.  Carrying internalized anger often shortens lifespan.

So a lot scientific studies have investigated "Happiness" and the mental and emotional strategies of "Successful People."

There seems to be a universal yearning for an inner peace that is just beyond reach.

Here is an article referencing a wide variety of studies probing the mental condition known as "Happiness."

BTW "Happiness" is usually symbolized in Astrology by Jupiter and/or Venus.

Here is the article I found on Flipboard and spread through Facebook:

3 secrets to dealing with anger the right way, according to neuroscience
http://www.businessinsider.com/dealing-with-anger-according-to-neuroscience-2015-11

At about the same time, I got drawn into a Facebook discussion on a Romance Writer Group about whether Romance is real.  Some writers said yes, and cited how many decades they had been happily married to the same guy.  Others said no, and cited failed Relationships.  It was a long, involved and passionate discussion.

At one point I said:
Remember that space ships and life on other planets and even cordless phones (Robert Heinlein), was all classified as "escapist fantasy" by most of the world while we (Science Fiction Readers, Star Trek Fans) went and made it Reality. Romance writers can do the same for the Soul Mate and HEA concepts.

The trick of communicating the passionate aspiration to make the HEA a reality in our modern world is in the Worldbuilding.

That connection between the Soul Mate being Real and the worldbuilding behind every novel, even Contemporary Romance needs worldbuilding, is what I go on about on this blog.

To solve that "Is it Wish Fulfillment Fantasy OR Is It Real?" dilemma for you so you can convey the ambition to Make It So to your readers, I pointed to that article cited above, DEALING WITH ANGER ACCORDING TO NEUROSCIENCE.

That article talks about point of view (though they don't know it). The best graphic I've found to explain what that article is talking about is

  Note how that graphic I keep referencing on this blog joins "Soul Mates Are Real" to "Soul Mates Are Escapist Fantasy."

Writing craft requires the arduous practice of getting people up out of their circles and squares either/or mentality and into an understanding of Reality that transcends and joins the two options into a seamless whole while, at the same time it validates all the choices in the dropdown menu.

Life is not an either/or choice.  Nor is it a single choice you must make from a long list of choices.  Nor can anyone "give you a choice."  Choice is yours, and the options among which you choose are yours to invent.

Your life is yours -- and nobody else's.

Your life is unique and you are unique.  Your life is a work of art you are creating from the raw material you find around you.  What raw material you can find depends on how good you get at the "reassessment" exercise suggested in that Psychology article on Anger and Neuroscience.

You attain that much coveted inner tranquility called "Happily" by "reassessing" what you are looking at and choosing an appropriate inner dialogue to describe it to yourself.

Once you have your description, that raw material becomes yours and you can craft it into a Happily that can plausibly last Ever After.

If you, the writer, can not SEE that potential in the raw material around you, it is very likely you will not be able to reveal that potential to your readers.

A great Romance, the kind of book or series of books that force readers to memorize your byline and look for more, is one that the reader finishes and turns around to start reading again.

Readers reread books because they evoke an ambience that tantalizes the edges of their everyday Reality with the promise of insights beyond human ken.

What you put into a novel is not what the reader gets out of it.

But if you put in your vision of Reality, the reader can take out of the book their own vision of Reality.

Yes, reading fiction is an adventure into the amorphous subjective world -- but in the hands of a fine craftsman, subjectivity becomes objective.

That's what happened with STAR TREK.  Fans grabbed it out of Gene Roddenberry's hands, and "made it so."  It was college age kids who wanted to play video games with kids on other campuses who invented ways of connecting computers.  It was a guy off in Europe who figured out the idea of the "internet browser" -- software that interprets code.

Now we do this on our mobile devices.

With massive data crunching capacity, we are now exploring the farthest galaxies back to the beginning of time.  We are finding planets, some that might harbor life (maybe not as we know it, but life.)

We can't say this is a direct result of Star Trek -- a silly, cheaply made cardboard set, silly-uniform TV show with pointed ears -- but that is also the way Romance works, indirectly.

Romance Genre is uniquely suited to showing (not telling) readers how to achieve that mental shift described in that Psychology article.

The most efficient way of showing readers how to think in "reassessment mode" is by using the techniques of Science Fiction Writers and Gamers, combined and repurposed.

The Romance Genre of 40 years ago is GONE -- the Romance Genre of "now" is over-emphasizing monkey-sex (not that such isn't important in correct proportion), while the Romance Genre of ten years from now is barely glimpsed.

We are pioneers in the most exciting field extant.

One of the Romance writers on that Facebook Group noted that one reason many Romance novels seem implausible is that the Relationship develops too fast, without context and time for the psychological lessons to sink in and be assimilated.

I agree the "speed" in many Romance novels ruins the effect which is, I think, why we're seeing a rise of the Adventure-Kickass-Heroine-With-Love-Story-Sidebar genre -- in Fantasy, SF, Military SF, and Paranormal (Vampire slayers etc).

In Science Fiction, the series long ago became the best selling format, even before the Multi-Generation-Novel format.

Long ago, I had a Best Selling Romance Writer come to me with a Werewolf novel she had written but couldn't sell in either romance or Science Fiction markets.

She asked why it wouldn't sell to the SF market. I told her what to change. She did. She sold it to a science fiction imprint.

Then she called me up a few years later appalled that the publisher was going to REPRINT it and was asking for a sequel. She didn't know if she should be offended and say no to that offer.

Back then, Romance didn't get reprinted and didn't have series, but Science Fiction did. I lived to see that massive shift in the Romance genre toward the publishing habits of the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre, and I am so pleased I did.  We are headed into a convergence of genres which will then diverge into new categories with new labels.

It will all work out, but every novel needs at least a Love Story if not a full blown, giddy-and-crazy Romance driving the plot.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-every-novel-needs-love-story-part-3.html

So, based on that Psychology article, my conclusion is that Soul Mates and the HEA are Real -- which is why they make the best Fantasy!

We all live in a subjective bubble that warps the Reality that is objectively out there.  We can change how we regard things and that will objectively change how objective life goes.

So the choice "HEA real or fantasy" is a false choice.  It is both real and fantasy.  Fantisize efficiently and you can realize it in your life.

Real life is mostly imagination, as it says in that article.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

The Dark Underbelly Of Our Business

Have you noticed that the United States Copyright law provides virtually no incentive for anyone to pay royalties to the copyright owner?

The "sharing economy" and "permissionless innovation" have made matters more problematic for copyright owners, but it has always been the case that the government is decidedly not on the side of "the little guy or gal".

There's a very short statute of limitations (is it three years?) from the time a copyright infringement is discovered (or can be proven to have been discovered) and when time runs out to sue.  Enforcement of a copyright is the responsibility of the copyright owner, not only to discover it, to send a DMCA notice, and if a counter notice is filed, to sue in federal court.

https://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2016/03/04/microsoft-does-the-right-thing-in-songwriter-class-actions-but-where-is-the-government/

An author would have to be wealthy indeed to be able to afford to take a scofflaw through the federal court process.  The link above applies to musicians, but the principle is the same.

If you should ever wish to send a DMCA to Google, and if you would much  rather avoid the merry-go-round of links that make the process more efficient (ie, only the most determined complainant does not give up before completing the obstacle course), the email address of the DMCA agent is
dmca-agent@google.com

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Memory Hacking

More brain news: It may someday be possible to erase or modify memories or even implant false memories:

Memory Hacking

In the short term, the most practical application of these techniques may be to help people suffering from phobias by changing the emotional impact associated with the relevant memories. A mouse experiment demonstrates the manipulation of the rodent's brain by making it fearful or confident at the will of the experimenter.

This research builds on discoveries that memory is far from the infallible recording of events it was once thought to be, a permanent trace that scientists might someday be able to replay on command. False memories commonly form in everyday life:

"Indeed, new evidence suggests our memories are imperfect and malleable constructs that are constantly changing over time. Each time we recall a memory, we go through the process of revising it. That means any time we recall an old memory, we’re disrupting it. Sadly, the fidelity of our memories degrades over time."

The article introduces a twelve-year-old boy who's a striking exception, a case of Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory. Instead of needing help to recall experiences, he literally can't forget anything. This trait isn't an unambiguous superpower. The ability to forget can be a blessing.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Genre: The Root Of All Amazon Comments by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Genre: The Root Of All Amazon Comments
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this series on Genre:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/genre-root-of-all-evil.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/06/genre-root-of-all-confusion.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/06/genre-root-of-all-decisions.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/genre-root-of-all-passion-by-jacqueline.html

And here is the page that lists the Amazon comments for DEAD LETTER DAY (A MESSENGER NOVEL)
http://amazon.com/Dead-Letter-Day-Messenger-Novel-ebook/product-reviews/B0099CUJF6/

The subtitle A MESSENGER NOVEL or the author's name is necessary because there are many novels titled DEAD LETTER DAY.

You can't copyright a title, so many novels have the same title, and are distinguished by the author's name.  In general, when titling a novel you are writing, it is a good idea to look at Amazon to find out what other novels by the title are "out there" and what, exactly, they are about.

For example, I lifted a classic Vampire line, being used by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro in her St. Germain novels, to use for the title of a Vampire novel which is actually a Science Fiction Romance set on the Moon. The title I chose is THOSE OF MY BLOOD (free on Kindle Unlimited)

http://amazon.com/Those-My-Blood-Tales-Luren-ebook/dp/B00A7WQUIW/

 

The publisher's (St. Martin's Press Hardcover) target audience was Vampire and Fantasy fans, and the title bespeaks the Vampire core of the novel -- which explains the source of Vampire legends using Science.

So when I was doing book signings in Mall bookstores, sitting up front at a table full of copies of the book, with a big easel sign outside the door saying THOSE OF MY BLOOD with an image of the cover, (the old hardcover cover; it has had several editions since and is currently being released in audiobook edition from audible.com), people came up to me asking about my book on GENEALOGY.  Check out the search results on Amazon and you will find some of those nonfiction books.  True, this Vampire novel is all about family relationships, but not exactly genealogy.

So DEAD LETTER DAY is an appropriate title for the novel by Eileen Rendahl, but can be confused with many other books.  Eileen's "Messenger" delivers deadly objects at risk of life and limb.

When titling a novel, be sure to check Amazon and Google search for the phrase you are using.  The title represents or symbolizes the Theme, which is always a "universal" and as a result, can be commonly used to make other sorts of statements.

Throughout 2015, there has been a running battle between Amazon and "reviewers" and publishers and even readers.

Here is an installment in that battle:
http://buildbookbuzz.com/amazon-reviews/

As I have noted in previous posts, we are carving out new territory in a new world when it comes to communication and information.

The connection between "information" and "communication" is crystal clear in the explosive blasts of "fantasy" type statements by politicians and retorts of "that's a lie!" and euphemisms for that retort such as "disingenuous."

We, as writers, are seeing this same fog blurring the line between information and disinformation in the online comments pages -- Amazon being only one such venue.

I'm not talking about Library Journal, The New York Times Book Review (both of which have treated my mass market novels very well indeed) and not even about online blogs that "review" novels.

I'm talking about readers who post on the products page comments such as "I liked it" (i.e. personal reactions offered to people who do not know that person), or statements such as "the characters are wooden."

Without knowing the commenter personally, a potential reader can not tell whether this book would be an enjoyable read.  Enjoying reading a particular book is a very personal experience, an investment of time, energy (and money), and emotional wear and tear.

So the open comments page on Amazon which is called "reviews" really have nothing at all to do with "reviews."

A "review" is an analysis of a novel to communicate information about that novel to people who would (or would not) find that novel worth its cover price.

With novels like Dead Letter Day (A Messenger Novel) by Eileen Rendahl, you see a Kindle Edition price of $7.99, which I consider exorbitant.  The recent negotiations between Amazon and Publishers (and lawsuits flying every which way, including iBooks on Apple platforms), have "settled" in such a way as to push people back to Paper Editions by raising the price of the ebook.

So grabbing a "cheap" ebook edition in case you might like to read the book in the future (collecting a series so you can binge-read it) is being discouraged.

This makes "reviews" by other readers much more important, and gives readers a whole lot more to consider before buying a novel.

It muddies the decision waters -- which is something marketers are taught to avoid at all costs.

So Amazon has been "cracking down" on "reviews" written by "reviewers" for money.

The problem is not that "reviews" are being posted for money -- but rather that the words posted by such "independent contractors" are  not reviews at all, but comments.

Comments are different from reviews.  As noted above, comments take one or both of two stances:
A) I liked/didn't like it, and
B) My disappointment in this book was the book's fault, not mine, so YOU will be disappointed, too because the writer is bad at writing.  It's not my fault I chose the wrong book to pay my hard earned money for.

Neither statement has anything to do with whether YOU will like this book, or what properties are inherent in the novel itself.

Reviews, on the other hand, focus entirely on whether the book delivers what the cover, title, genre category indicate is inside, and which particular audience is targeted by the publisher.

Yes, audience targeting is done by the writer as I've described

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

... but the target can be adjusted by a clever editor issuing rewrite instructions.

The Editor's job ...

Here is Part 7 of Editing -- with links to previous 6 parts:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html

...is the 'get reviews' via the Publicity Department.  That means the Editor must carve the material into a shape a Publicist would recognize as being in demand by a specific market.

"Reviews" are a marketing tool.  "Reviews" are INFORMATION.

"Comments" are a sharing tool.  "Comments" are COMMUNICATION.

Amazon has gotten the two distinct forms confused, which is why they are in such a tangled muddle.

Reviewers GET PAID to read, analyze, and write up their analysis, specifically targeting mass-buyers such as Libraries, Bookstores, Retailers, Warehousers, and yes, even newspapers such as the New York Times Book Review.

Commenters must not get paid in money, perhaps not even with a free copy.  The whole point of "sharing" a reaction you, personally, experience when reading a novel is that you are COMMUNICATING to the world something about who you are.

Comments are about you -- and are useful to people who have something in common with you, who know who you are (via social networking, for example), and would like to discuss a particular book with you, personally, because you have something in common.

Reviewers get paid to prevent you from wasting your money, and have no interest in hearing back from you.

In other words, COMMENTERS (as distinct from Commentators) get paid via your response to their comments.  REVIEWERS get paid by someone else to "get the word out" to the specific market the publisher intended.

Both get paid, but in different "coin of the realm."

I know this distinction because I've done both, in fandom and fanzines, online in social networking and Twitter chats, as well as professionally paid by a paper print magazine to review free copies of books.

That is I get free copies and a salary, to sort books out into piles, and direct the piles of books at those who would benefit from the content.  Dead Letter Day is one of the books I was sent, free, to review but without a salary or stipend, just the free book.  The review I write here is "optional" -- I will still be sent review copies even if I do not review Dead Letter Day.  A Reviewer is assigned titles they must read and review, and turn in their review by a certain date.

I only review books that will still be a great read and instructive by whatever date you might happen to pick them up.  Timing "reviews" is all about marketing.  My commentary on titles is all about what you can learn by analyzing, contrasting and comparing certain novels to other novels, and I recommend checking your library for ebook or paper copies to read free.

Reviewers are paid to part you from your money.  Commenters are trying to get your attention.  I am intent on illuminating the dark corners of writing lessons your readers can benefit from.

What I choose to say about a book has a lot to do with who is listening.

Here, on this blog, I am talking mostly to Romance writers who use elements of science fiction, fantasy, and/or Paranormal genres to broaden their audience reach.  Other readers here are working toward selling novels with several of these elements.  Still others are readers who love knowing how novels get made and published.  You might be surprised how many readers love seeing how writers do it!

Right now, due to the whole self-publishing, internet, ebook, social networking phenomenon, the world of publishing is redefining the concept Genre, not just the content of books with a genre label on the spine but the very parameters that define what constitutes a genre.

So new experimental genre names are appearing on book spines, and a wide variety of twists, blends, and content are being included under genre labels that sell well for no reason the publisher understands.

As a result, many readers are being led astray by the publisher, then blaming the author for their disappointment in a book.

A track record of disappointing readers is one of the legitimate reasons for an author to change their byline.

I've covered Pen Names in previous posts.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/06/reviews-15-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

Here, though, I am telling you to study the comments on the Amazon page for this particular Messenger Novel, and then read the book, and discern the difference between a comment and a review.

Also read this article on the whole 2015 Amazon dust-up which I mentioned above.
http://buildbookbuzz.com/amazon-reviews/

Think about what you, as a reader, want to know about a book before you put down $8 to get a copy.

DEAD LETTER DAY is 294 pages, and the  3rd in the MESSENGER series -- DON'T KILL THE MESSENGER, DEAD ON DELIVERY are the prequels.

I recalled reading the previous ones as I was reading DEAD LETTER DAY, but only vaguely. I didn't find anything in Dead Letter Day that tripped me up or made me think I should reread the prequels.

The series premise is that there is a paranormal world interspersed with our normal world, and it has werewolves and vampires and other "things."  Marlena Markowitz is a young woman whose magical talent, training, and obligation is to deliver packages to paranormal beings -- wherever the recipient might be.

A friend of hers, Paul, a werewolf, has gone missing, and his pack does not seem as concerned as she thinks they should be.

This is an Amateur Private Eye novel, set in a Fantasy universe, with Romance and many other genres skillfully interwoven.

Marlena investigates Paul's disappearance until she puzzles out the motivations of the various paranormal characters involved with her friend, Paul, and locates him.  She is indefatigable and relentless, despite many discouragements that would stop most people.

Meanwhile, Marlena delivers packages and runs her dojo for young children, and trains her own apprentice Messenger.

With so much material compressed into such a short novel, the author still makes room for a Romance thread.  This is an installment in an ongoing Paranormal Romance story which reads well as a stand-alone, but is enhanced by memory of the previous novels.  It is not a Romance.  It is a Private Eye Novel.

I highly recommend Eileen Rendahl's Messenger Novels to those who like a variegated Paranormal world revealed through multiple plot threads and a cast of vividly drawn Characters.

But more than that, I recommend studying the contrast between the comments on Amazon and your own response to the novel.

Try to discern what you, as a Romance writer, can do to attract "reviews" on Amazon that point specific readers at your books, and other readers (who would not enjoy your book) away from wasting their money and posting bitter comments.

As a reader, try to figure out ways to avoid wasting your money.

Genre used to be the sort-mechanism.  You would walk into a book store, glance up at the signs, and go right to the shelves which had all the books you might want to read.  Then you'd pick one by some hint of content, or author's name, but all of them were "good."

Now readers are aswim in a turbulent sea of indistinguishable titles, and the readers do not know why they are whipped around and pointed at "bad" books.  They blame the writers for bad writing, when in fact it is the blurring of the lines between genres coupled to the blurring of the distinction between Review and Comment that is causing confusion.  Add to that the plethora of ebooks that are really early drafts needing work or perhaps fan fiction recycled for publishing.  Review Blogs are strenuously trying to fill the gap, but still falling short.

Publishing needs new ways to sort books for readers.  Can you think of a new one using tech in novel ways (as Uber applied tech to the taxi problem?)  Then write a novel about that method.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Mini-Brains

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University have grown miniature "brains," spherical clusters of cells about 350 micrometers in diameter, barely visible to the naked eye, for the purpose of studying human brain function and testing drugs:

Mini-Brains

According to the article, "While the versions aren't exact replicas of brains, they are made of the same neurons and cells found in human brains, feature the same structures and act in the same way." Generated from stem cells created by reprogramming human skin DNA, the clusters "contain circuitry that functions like an actual brain."

In 2013, scientists in Vienna grew "a small brain that was at the same developmental level as a 9-week-old fetus." Although the process sounds a bit Frankensteinian, the mini-brains don't have consciousness or any ability to think (whatever, exactly, that means). However, if enough of them were linked, could they form a biological "computer"? And, if large and complex enough, could such a network develop consciousness?

Also, how long before some pressure group decides that these tiny balls of neurons constitute human individuals entitled to personhood rights?

In other brain news, also at Johns Hopkins, researchers are working on "brain mapping technology to enable a patient to independently move individual fingers on a prosthetic arm just by thinking about it." With no cumbersome learning process involved, the patient can produce movements similar to those of a natural hand by simply willing the motion.

Mind-Controlled Prosthetic

The device used in this trial requires a separate computer pack to enable the patient to transmit commands to the artificial arm. The system costs about half a million dollars, so commercial application remains a long way off. At present, only an individual as valuable as the Six Million Dollar Man would qualify for a full set of these prostheses.

Speaking of individuality and identity, how much of his or her organic body could an individual have replaced and still remain that same person? The Tin Woodman in THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ has his entire body replaced by a metal one piece by piece, not all at once, and at the end of the process he still identifies himself as the man he was before the curse severed all his limbs. Of course, in his case magic must be involved, because he has a tin head, too, with no indication that his organic brain was transplanted into it. From Six Million Dollar Man to Darth Vader (mentioned in the prosthetic article) to Robocop to Tin Woodman—still the same person? Suppose the Good Witch of the North grew a brain for the Tin Woodman, using the Oz equivalent of the mini-brain technique, and magically transferred his consciousness into it? In Oz he would still be himself (as we know from the fact that both he and the Scarecrow have consciousness and personalities despite being made completely of inorganic materials), but what about in this world?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 7 - The Legacy As Motivation

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration
Part 7
The Legacy As Motivation

Index to Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html

Actors famously ask Directors, "What's my motivation?"

Writers are both actor and director in the story they scribe with words.

And the words the writer writes have to "show don't tell" the intangibles of the ineffable truths of life.

The writer's problem, as an artist, is to make personal peace with the idea that, "The book the writer writes is not the book the reader reads."

 Then it is easy to choose abstract symbols to represent ideas -- knowing the reader will not interpret them as the writer meant.

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-symbolism-integration-part-1-you.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-2-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/01/theme-symbolism-integration-part-4-how.html
Each reader, just as with a video-gamer or board gamer, creates their own story arising from the template the writer provides.

The writer is like the tuning fork  (yep, old fashioned image), setting up where to begin the song.

But we all know that a romance writer is weaving a story from the individual "tones" of emotion that constitute the fabric of a Relationship.

One such thread the writer must weave into that fabric of Romance is "The Parents" - or even "The Grandparents."

A couple falling in love are not just two individuals.

Each brings to the proceedings a long history.

http://www.the36thavenue.com/st-patricks-day-printable/

Today, many family histories are broken.  But in human history it's always been that way -- war, famine, pestilence, and death have left orphans to bounce around the world like the little ball in the roulette wheel -- finally landing in some compartment with a family name (number on the wheel) that is not their own.

Yet, somehow, we all resonate to "the past" -- to family.

When trying to explain our inexplicable behavior and choices, we say, "I was raised to ..."

Brain studies are showing more and more how plastic the human brain is, especially in childhood, so how we are "raised" may indeed explain a lot.


http://www.deepstuff.org/study-reveals-how-brain-multitasks/

http://www.deepstuff.org/fly-brains-reveal-the-neural-pathway-by-which-outside-stimuli-become-behavior/

Even genetic studies show how our genes can be activated (or not) by the stress and impact of events in childhood.

So two humans who come together igniting Romance between them each bring to that Event a long, long historical trail -- some of which they, themselves may not know.

We are now finding that the father's diet, disease, exercise, drug-habits, etc. can severely influence the child's health and longevity.

Whether we know it or not, whether we have any hint of it or not, our ancestry and early childhood experiences define that moment when Romance ignites -- and may even determine whether the fire, once ignited, continues to burn.

So, many themes, many plots, arise from Legacy -- yours, your reader's, and your Character's.

One perennial favorite Gothic Romance starts with inheriting a house -- often haunted, sometimes containing "secrets" in the walls, and always leading to trouble that someone in this strange town can help with.

Other sorts of inheritance have generated magnificent Romance plots. You probably have a favorite -- I certainly do have a couple.

The Legacy that configures your life is one thing.  The Legacy you leave behind you -- that will configure your grandchildren's lives -- is another.  Perhaps they are the same thing?

Legacy is part of every THEME.  You can't avoid it if you want Characters who walk off the page into your reader's dreams.

Legacy is a component of every PLOT, whether you as the writer know consciously that you put it in.

Legacy is the hidden, subconscious motivation of every CHARACTER -- if that character has any dimension of realism.  Legacy is the lynch-pin that holds Plot and Story together.  In other words, Legacy -- where this Character came from, and what they leave to future generations -- defines your Theme.  You may not see or understand what you've written for decades after it is published, but when you do find it, you will recognize your own Legacy in that Theme.

We are all driven to select one action rather than another by "who we are."  Legacy is a major component of Identity.

If your main Character lacks Identity, no reader will believe anything in the Story, even if they believe the Plot.  Sometimes that's the effect you, as an artist, want to create.  But learn to do it on purpose, not by accident.

Legacy reveals and defines the entire WORLD that you have built around your Character.

Legacy is the Show Don't Tell that can convey in one vividly drawn description of an Object, or one oft-quoted cliche, exactly what your intangible THEME is.  "Grandma always said a stitch in time saves nine, and I never knew what that meant until you saved my life."

Love is often founded on some secret of life shared in a non-verbal way.

So, a Legacy that drives or defines your Main Character can be just a few words, some notes in a song, -- even words in a foreign language the Character does not know.

Such a Legacy -- a song fragment -- can serve to introduce and define a non-Human Character who falls in love with a Human.

Discovering the meaning of that Legacy can be the Mystery Plot, the suspense line for the novel -- or perhaps a long series of novels.

For example, suppose your Main Character inherits some old diaries kept but disregarded for generations.  Suppose an Occasion comes along where that Main Character opens the crumbling old books and deciphers the cursive scrawl -- probably using Google.

And it is a letter from a dying ancestor to her children.

For example, it might list some bits of advice or admonishment.

1) Always keep your promises to yourself, and it will be easier to keep your promises to others.  This will be regarded as evidence of Integrity and gain you Trust.

2) Create your personal Inhibitions to serve your purpose in life.

3) Fill your life with carefully chosen habits, honed to avoid betraying the hard-won Trust of yourself and of others.

4) Remember that every Asset is a Liability.

5) Troubles come in threes - and so do Triumphs. In three years your choices today will have crafted tomorrow.

6) Discover the story of your life and live it with zest.

7) Learn something every day.

8) Create new options for solving any problem that is set before you without relying on suggestions of those who set the problem.  Redefine the problem and create more options.  Then choose a course of action.

Any one of those bits of Advice could be, say, inscribed on a piece of jewelry that is an hierloom legacy -- meaningless until some Plot Event reveals the need for it.

Each of them in turn could be used as the theme for a novel, making an 8 volume series that makes sense because they form a thematic-set, a group of related ideas that can form and drive a story.

Using such a device, you can craft a novel in two Times or Eras, one where the Ancestor learned the lesson and made the inscription, and "today" where a descendant reads the message and solves a current problem accordingly -- perhaps crafting a new Legacy.

When you expand this writing device of Legacy to include non-Humans, Aliens From Another Planet (either here on Earth or met by a Human protagonist Out There), the contrast between the Human and the Alien Legacy, and the odd-similarity that joins them, provide not only the Character Motivations but also the essence of the Romance.

"What does she see in him?  What does he see in her?"

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/09/theme-dialogue-integration-part-1-whats.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/09/theme-dialogue-integration-part-2-whats.html

These are the key questions in any Romance, and the most potent answers always lie in Legacy.

That's why Mafia stories are so powerful -- it's all about Family, Heritage, Belonging.

Legacy is about acceptance, rejection, and living up to (or down to) expectations of others.

Always remember, it's not just the Legacy your Main Character receives, but also about the Legacy they craft to hand on to their posterity.

It is said we are granted leniency in the merit of the good deeds of our ancestors, so the question becomes what have you done today to earn leniency for your progeny?

Romance is the prelude to creating a new historic node, a knot in the network of humanity, a crossroads in the fabric of Time.

For example: why do we cry at weddings?
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

When the Romance involves a human and non-human, two vastly different historical networks become knotted together via a newly created Legacy.

That is why the Character of Spock -- or even Worf -- captivate the attention.  They hold the potential to make Romance new again.

Legacy can be a physical object, a financial asset, a meaningful memento such as a quilt with a Wisdom saying woven into it, or an idea, a credo to live by, a philosophy or religion, Ancient Wisdom, or  maybe even a recipe for something distinctively aromatic.

Legacy items can appeal to all the senses, become the MacGuffin that everyone chases around after, or the bone of contention that tears the family apart.  A Legacy item can become of the focal point of the plot, the tie to the past that is so full of pain the Main Character destroys or Deep-Six's the item at the end.

In other words, Legacy is about emotion, and allows the writer to show-don't-tell the texture of that emotion.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Pirates Know This. Authors Should Too.

This is a very handy primer which advises all and sundry how to navigate filehosting sites.  Hit the big, bright "Download Now" button, and you will get malware.  Neglect to uncheck the little boxes, and you will be subscribed to all manner of spam.

Read the entire page. http://forum.mobilism.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=649944 
It is quite an education.

Regarding "Mobilism.org", this is how to use Google Search to search the site without registering and logging in; mobilism.org site:forum.mobilism.org

For instance, I can check for my works using this:
mobilism.org site:forum.mobilism.org

However, sending a DMCA is simply going through the motions. Send a takedown, and perhaps they will take the book down, but uploaders will reup it.

The site has rules that require uploaders to include at least one mirror site, and to promptly reupload works that are taken down.  See here: http://forum.mobilism.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=221908

Dead link requests

• Please PM the ORIGINAL POSTER with re-up requests

• If you do not get a reply within a few days (3 at most) you can post in the topic, explaining that you received no response from the OP.

• If the Original Poster is no longer active or not replacing links, post in the topic or PM a moderator with a link to the thread so it can be moved to Expired and reposted by somebody else.

What does this mean for an author? Document everything. Then, tell the Feds. 

On the other hand, there is a site called  MUYEBETA  
http://muyebeta.com/free-read-online-book/1455289/forced-mate-god-princes-of-tigron-1

which appears to snag information from Goodreads, and might even be promotion. I concluded that it wasn't worth the trouble of sending a DMCA, but I might take another look in the light of what I learned from http://forum.mobilism.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=649944 

The links go to a useless scam site called bestbook library,

http://review.easycounter.com/bestbooklibrary-scam-report

You can Google a question about whether almost any named site is a scam, or whether it is safe.  If the site shows a blurred open book that could be anything, it probably isn't your book or my book, and anyone wanting a free read will discover that they have to provide credit card information before they can enjoy the free read.... and once the pirates have your credit card, do you really think they won't charge you?

Happy Hunting!

Rowena

Sex in the Sea

If you're in search of ideas for truly alien sex, pick up SEX IN THE SEA, by marine biologist Marah J. Hardt. She begins with the quest for a potential mate, not always easy to find in the vastness of the oceans, and continues through courtship, mating, fertilization, and birth or hatching. Some sea creatures travel formidable distances back to their birthplaces to reproduce, while at the opposite extreme others (oysters, coral, etc.) spend their adult lives stuck in one spot and somehow have to get their gametes together without moving from that spot. Some animals change sex when they mature, while a few species can even flip their genders back and forth multiple times over their lives. There are species with two or three distinct types of males, one of which looks like a female in order to sneak past dominant macho-style males and mate with real females. Some male animals have penises longer than their bodies. There's even one that has sperm cells longer than its own body! Female right whales can have intercourse with two males at once, one on each side. A certain segmented, sand-dwelling worm has multiple penises or vaginas, one for each segment. Hardt says they mate like a zipper closing. Squids and octopuses use a specially adapted arm to place a sperm packet inside the female. There are creatures that detach their penises like darts. Hermaphroditic flatworms don't copulate in the "normal" way but stab each other with their organs to inject sperm anywhere in the mate's body. The males of some species of fish attach themselves to the bodies of their much larger mates and atrophy into mere sperm-dispensing appendages. One species takes this process even further, with a female hosting numerous tiny males inside her body. In one kind of shark that bears live young, stronger fetuses murder their weaker siblings in the womb.

Imagine what marriage would be like on a world where the dominant species reproduced like angler fish, with the husband a parasitic attachment to his wife. Consider the dramatic possibilities of sibling rivalry among intelligent beings who know their potential brothers and sisters were eaten in the womb. Sexual politics in a species that reproduced externally, like most fish and amphibians, would be quite different from the status quo in our culture, where the burden of carrying the young inside the body falls on the female. One of Fredric Brown's humorous short-short stories features a man who falls in love with a mermaid and agrees to be transformed into a merman so they can marry. After the change, he's horrified to learn that merfolk mate like fish, by spawning into the water instead of copulating.

Suppose a human hero fell in love with a member of a gender-fluid alien race, able to change sex back and forth depending on environmental cues such as the sex of his/her mate (like some fish). Marion Zimmmer Bradley creates such a race, the chieri, in her Darkover series, and one of the human characters in THE WORLD WRECKERS faces that very challenge.

Every chapter of SEX IN THE SEA offers similar thought-provoking oddities. Written in a breezy, slangy style, this book is both fun and informative.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Astrology Just For Writers - Part 13 - The Artist's Dilemma by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Astrology Just For Writers
Part 13
The Artist's Dilemma
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous posts on Astrology Just For Writers are indexed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

The two panels of this graphic are neatly displayed as two sides of the dilemma not back to back, but at an ANGLE.

In Astrology these two statements represent two Houses (everyone has all 12 Houses, so it is there inside you somewhere).

The "Get A Real Job" attitude is more Capricorn or Natural 10th House -- the Cardinal Earth sign that is ruled by Saturn and tends toward the practical.

The "Without Passion" side has the lofty incoherence of Neptune, which as I've pointed out previously represents the mental condition that we describe in Romance as being "In Love."

The Artist is passionate.  The Lover is passionate.

Sex is the Creative act -- which other people do try to constrain (Saturn) and define (Saturn) and manage for you (Capricorn).

Two people in love inspire others in ways that prove, over and over again, that Love Conquers All.

And that does, indeed, "change the world."  Romance, mellowing into Love, settling into Happily Ever After, raising children who understand Love and spread it through the world, all that changes the world.

Capricorn/Saturn is famous for resisting change -- but also then insisting on change, sometimes massive, sometimes painful change, about every seven years.

Pisces is the Mutable Water sign -- and interestingly produces many Engineers, mechanical geniuses, as well as artists.

Pisces is opposite Virgo, the detail-oriented-sign.  Pisces blurs and blends details so they are not distinct.  

In other words, Pisces is bound to its opposite, Virgo, and is 60 degrees from Capricorn -- which visually seems to be about what that image corner shows, an oblique angle.  If it were a "right angle" we couldn't read both sides so easily.

So what's opposite Capricorn?  Cancer!  The sign of Home, the basis of Life, family, parents/children.  

So Capricorn, the "Get a real job" attitude is opposed by Home-Making (Cancer), and pulled off balance by creative imagination (Pisces).

Pisces is the Natural 12th House -- the summation of the meaning of your life.  

Noel Tyl says that the reigning Need of a Natal Chart is shown by the position of the Moon -- ruler of Cancer.  The ruler of the opposite House, Saturn organizes resources to fulfill that Need using the Ideals represented by Neptune.

Ideals are generally considered "impractical" -- and Saturn is the distilled definition of the Practical.  

Note how a story must have two Conflicts -- internal to the Characters and external to the Characters -- that are resolved at the end of the story.  

That oblique angle relationship between the practical Capricorn and the impractical Idealism of Pisces depicts the perfect conflict for a Romance.  You just have to find a resolution you can convince your readers to believe.  Neptune is all about belief.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Trademark Scams

Have you trademarked any title, or expression, or unique term? Some science fiction romance or paranormal authors have done so.  For instance, some in the publishing world are watching with interest a lawsuit concerning the similarity or otherwise of the terms "Dark Hunter" and "Shadow Hunter."

This isn't about that. It's about numerous scams that try to trick authors who own trademarks into paying entitites other than the USPTO for services that some would say are worthless, and that are not renewals of those trademark registrations.

Here's a sample that was mailed to me for a trademark of mine. I apologize for the wrinkles. I did not treat the scam with great respect.

Trademarks only last for five years, and have to be renewed. Usually, the renewal notice will be sent to the trademark owner's lawyer.

The entity you should be paying is the USPTO, and no other acronym.  If the USPTO sends you an email, it will come from uspto.gov (but, of course, you should make sure that this addy wasn't just written in.)  If you receive a letter, it will come from Alexandria, VA.

However, there seem to be several scams that also call Alexandria, VA their home.

The $750 fee is in the ball park, but a bit more than a legitimate renewal fee.  I've received solicitations trying to trick me into paying double that.

If you have been tricked, the USPTO will not help you get your money back, but if you report them, you might help the Feds to prosecute them.


For more information, check out the USPTO site:
http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-getting-started/non-uspto-solicitations

Happy Valentines Day.

Rowena Cherry

Is Selling Short Stories Worthwhile?

Karen Hurley writes in LOCUS about the abysmal payment rates for short stories:

The Sad Economics of Writing Short Fiction

In the Golden Age of the pulps, when dozens of genre fiction magazines existed, a skillful, prolific writer might have been able to make a living from short fiction. Nowadays, as Hurley's examples illustrate, short-story markets that pay an approximation of a living wage (however one quantifies that concept in terms of writing-hours) are hard to find. A well-paying anthology will offer a few hundred dollars up front, plus (maybe) a later trickle of royalties, if the contract provides for such. PLAYBOY, once a major venue for SF and fantasy, no longer accepts unsolicited submissions, except during special contests. Even when they did, I suspect their $3000-per-story payments went to established, high-profile authors. And even those authors wouldn't have sold to PLAYBOY more often than once in a while. OMNI paid comparable rates but went out of print years ago. Tor.com has just closed to unsolicited submissions. The slick women's magazines such as COSMOPOLITAN, REDBOOK, and GOOD HOUSEKEEPING used to run fiction, even genre fiction (Ray Bradbury's classic "Homecoming" first appeared in MADEMOISELLE), but that era has passed.

If a market pays five cents per word, a 5000-word story would pay $250.00. An author would have to sell about fifteen of those every month to garner enough to survive at a basic level in most American cities. Even if that many available markets of that level or higher existed, a writer would have to be prolific enough to produce a story every two days for years on end and gifted enough to sell everything he or she wrote.

Hurley mentions the alternative of self-publishing. Via that route, a story can continue to generate income indefinitely—but probably nowhere near a living wage. The big earners in that field would be high-profile authors who are already making a living from other sources.

For most authors, then, short stories alone may produce a nice supplementary income but never enough to live on. So why write them? Some writers do it for the joy of the process. The short form comes naturally to them. It doesn't, for me; my natural lengths seem to be novella and short novel. Short fiction, however, offers a way to keep one's name before audiences and, one hopes, attract new readers for those novels. I write occasional short stories to submit to anthologies, if the anthology theme appeals to me—for practice and, if the story gets accepted, for the promotional benefits and the money (even if it usually isn't much). For instance, my husband and I have a collaborative tale, "A Walk in the Mountains," in the anthology REALMS OF DARKOVER, forthcoming in May.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt