Telling Tales

In the USA, the Persuasive Litigator blog offers advice on seven ways to improve storytelling in front of the jury in the courtroom.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=57847ac6-4597-45bc-8d7f-835e5c282570

or
https://www.persuasivelitigator.com/2019/03/improve-your-storytelling-seven-ways.html#page=1

The storytelling tips from legal blogger Dr. Ken Broda Bahm, writing for lawfirm Holland & Hart LLP  are entertaining, succinct, vivid, and just as handy for writers as for litigators making court appearances.

"Four pirates went to trial...."   It sounds like the beginning of a long joke.  Apparently Spain is no joke for persons allegedly investing heavily in online infringement sites. The prosecution is seeking massive fines and jail time for the defendants.
https://torrentfreak.com/operators-of-three-pirate-sites-face-prison-560-million-in-damages-190409/

Andy of TorrentFreak.com tells the beginning of the story.

The Privacy Matters blog tells of Online Harms and a white paper in the UK about harmful online content and the accountability, or lack thereof, of the platforms that host the harm.
https://blogs.dlapiper.com/privacymatters/uk-online-harms-white-paper-potential-new-regulatory-framework-for-social-media/#page=1

Writing for DLA Piper (and the Privacy Matters blog), Christopher Wilkinson and James Clark report on a possible new regulatory framework for social media sites, to put a bit of a lid on cyber bullying, election interference, and other online harms.

Please don't forget that this coming week is World Intellectual Property week.

Happy Easter.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Hopeful Futures

Kameron Hurley's column for the April issue of LOCUS explains how her writing has recently shifted from a pessimistic to an optimistic view of human possibilities. She decided "being grim and nihilistic is boring" rather than "exciting or edgy." Instead, in a world that seems increasingly darker, she finds her writing "to be a perfect outlet for exploring how people can still make good decisions in bad situations."

The Future Is Intrinsically Hopeful

This message resonates with me. As argued by Steven Pinker in THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE and ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, we are living in the best of times, not the worst of times (although, admittedly, with considerable room for improvement).

A few striking quotes from Hurley's essay on why she believes in the future:

"Humanity didn’t survive this long because of its worst impulses. We survived this long because, despite all of that, we learned how to work together."

"What a time to be a creator, when believing humanity has a future that is not just a series of dystopic post-apocalypse nightmares is the most radical position one can have."

"What if what we are presenting to our audiences, as artists, is 'This is how the world could be really different. Have you thought about how to get there?'"

"Increasingly, I find that writing any type of work at all is hopeful....It is profoundly optimistic to assume there is a generation after ours that will create a society one hundred years from now that is recognizable to us at all."

The last two quotes seem to me to encapsulate a major theme and purpose of science fiction. Dystopian futures serve the important function of warning us and potentially motivating us to change our course: "If this goes on...." The other classic SF question, "What if...?" is equally or more important, however. One reason the original STAR TREK became so beloved was surely its optimism about human destiny. At the height of the civil rights movement, the Enterprise crew portrays men and women (even if female characters didn't fully come into their own until later iterations of the ST universe) of many races and cultures working together to discover new worlds. In the middle of the Cold War, STAR TREK envisions Russian, Americans, and Asians exploring space as a team. And many of those "predictions" have come true! THE ORVILLE, as a drama-comedy homage to ST, further develops that hopefulness about mutual tolerance and cooperation and the joy of discovery in the context of 21st-century sociopolitical concerns.

Writing as if we "believe in the future" can infuse readers with hope and perhaps inspire them to create that kind of future.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Story Integration Part 2- Villain Into Hero

Theme-Story Integration

Part 2

Villain Into Hero

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Part 1 is here:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/04/theme-story-integration-part-1-villain.html

We are discussing the integration of techniques of story-telling, where "story" means what is going on inside the point of view Character, the Main Character.

It isn't a story if something doesn't change.

So how and why a Character changes is called Character Arc -- because humans change in a complex series of incremental course corrections throughout life.

If you open your novel with the main Characters already perfect, readers will fall asleep before the end of Chapter One -- because "nothing is happening."

The plot may be roaring, threats and dangers attacking from all sides, predicaments tightening, horrors looming, but nothing is happening in the STORY.

Romance readers (in fact most readers) are looking for novels about how other people solve problems other than the ones the reader has.  Most writing teachers term that thirst for "other" a taste for "escapism."

The most virulent pejorative ascribed to science fiction is "escapist literature."  Somehow, it is only lesser mortals who want to "escape."  So it is wrong to read "fluff."

The truth is that science fiction is not escapist -- and in fact most Literature is not escapist.  Readers read to understand reality -- their own, and that of others.

To understand that the Earth is sort of roundish, we had to put a ship into orbit and take pictures.  Before that, it was only math.  Now we really know at a level where understanding can happen.

Likewise, in marriage, in searching for a Soul Mate, in imagining what you can become, you may "know" the math, know the odds against you, know the adages your parents taught you, but still not understand what Love and Marriage is.

To gain the understanding that comes from blending all that knowledge, you need perspective.  You need to go far away, and look back from another angle.

That is why we read Romance -- and Science Fiction, and Mystery, and Westerns.

It is also why Gene Roddenberry insisted so hard that the Character of Spock had to be in the Bridge Crew.  To make his Western-In-Space into Science Fiction, Roddenberry needed an Alien.

He had to give the audience the perspective on humanity from far-far-away.  The mundane TV audience of the 1960's had no experience with that kind of fiction.  Science Fiction had much too small a readership -- and was considered kid-lit. (which it was, because that was the only market for real science based stories.)

Since most of your readership for science fiction, fantasy or Paranormal Romance consider themselves Good Hearted, the most alien Character you can lure them into is the Black Hearted Villain.

As noted in Part 1, the Villain is the Hero of his own Story.

No one sets out in life to be "bad," even if the target of their purposive actions of destruction are "good."  Whatever needs to be destroyed is defined as "bad."

So whichever side you are on is the "good" side because you are on it.

And yet, we identify types of people by their actions, or at least our perception of their actions.  The good are kind, generous, considerate, happily serving, helping, saving others, with a serene demeanor.  The good enjoy causing joy.

The bad are easily angered, flashing irrational rage and destruction at mere annoyances, mean, bullying, and always outraged, often drunk, careless of others' feelings, or using a person's personal emotions against them in a kind of emotional judo.  The bad enjoy causing pain.

Which one is the Villain?

To the good, the wild-raging destroyer is the Villain.

To the bad, the Character who can't be needled into violence or blackmailed into betraying their ethics is the Villain.

Good people can't be controlled.  It drives the bad insane.

Since we all see and recognize this dichotomy in everyday life, and since we are all composed of emotional triggers, psychological buttons, and neurotic tendencies in some things, even while being serene, rational and joy-spreading in other areas, we all know there is no such thing as a "Good Guy" or a "Bad Guy."

We, as humans, are mixed bags.

Fictional Characters have to be purified, then remixed in simpler ways to depict real people while being only a selective recreation of reality.

That is the art of Story -- selecting ingredients and cooking them up into Characters.

Humans can't quite understand themselves, never mind really understand people around them.

But readers search for an understanding of Characters that is firm, reliable, making the Characters (somewhat, not totally) predictable.

Thus we have the expression "out of character."

If a writer makes a Character do something "out of Character" the readers generally toss the book aside.  It's contrived, and not entertaining.

In real life, people are always doing things "out of character" -- even though they may average a reliable and predictive behavior.  Once in a lifetime, a good guy may drive drunk and run someone over.  Others drive drunk habitually, and very often get caught, and have issues keeping a driving license.

We read read novels to experience Characters who stay in character -- with surprises that are predictable only in retrospect.  "Oh, I KNEW IT!!"

For example, push comes to shove at the end of the novel, and the Bad Guy reaches out a helping hand to the Good Guy whose life has been pulverized.

Readers take that final act of the bad guy as evidence he has changed.

The Villain has become Hero Material (therefore worthy of love.)

But if it just happens, in one fell swoop, it isn't plausible.  The Characters are labeled thin, cardboard, and the plot contrived.

That's why it is called a Character Arc -- the reader/viewer can't see much fundamental change in the Character from scene to scene, action to reaction, because the changes are TINY.  But the Character is making a 180 in life.

The Villain may be doing a "Bootlegger's Turn" or merely entering a new freeway via a cloverleaf highway interchange.  But you can Arc your Villain into a Hero.

https://amazon.com/Anita-Blake-Vampire-Hunter-Collection-ebook/dp/B00AFX2A0A/

If you Arc a Hero into a Villain, incrementally forcing a good person to do bad things, then accept the bad as normal and eventually as good, the novel will be called "Dark."

A good example of leading a Hero into Darkness, and a really grand good read, is the Anita Blake series by Laurel K. Hamilton, which we've discussed under the broad topic CHARACTER ARC.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/05/trends-and-counter-trends-part-1.html

And under Theme-Character Integration:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/theme-character-integration-part-1-what.html

Since editors discovered a market for novels turning the Hero into a Villain, popularized by the Vampire novels where the good guy becomes a Killer, we have an explosion of novels that vie with each other for the Dark label.

The next swing of the publishing pendulum will very likely be turning the darkest Darth Vader Villain into a Good Guy.

We all know that in Star Wars, Darth Vader's behavior is later explained in more human terms, and his final moments revealed a not-so-black-bad-guy.

But he dies.  He doesn't get to become a good guy, and reverse some of the damage he's done.

This is viewed as plausible by most of the audience.  We don't usually get second chances in real life.

But what if you do?

How could you convince the Star Wars audience that Darth Vader survived in another universe to gradually become a good guy?

What makes bad guys (or gals) bad?

What makes good gals (or guys) good?

What is the difference?

Is it temperament?  Is it innate?  Is it acquired?  Is it only parenting?  Or just environment?

Your answer to each of these questions individually is a theme.  And in fact you might have several answers to each of these questions thus generating a raft of themes.

Pick an answer that rarely if ever manifests in our real world, and you can craft a science fiction romance out of that theme.

But, to tell the story, you need a Character, and to get a Character you need to build a World where such a Character might arise.

To build that world, you need the theme.  To build that Character, you need the theme.  To build your theme (not mine; yours) you need a theory of the truth behind reality, a statement about the human condition.

For Romance genre, the master theme is LOVE CONQUERS ALL.  But to have "love" you need two people (though they don't both have to be human.)

In fact, love between two Aliens is also interesting, but in today's market, you need a human Character who "arcs" during the Alien Love Story.

So you need a theory about what a human being really is, and how humans resemble your Aliens (similarity vs differences.)

Gene Roddenberry simply described Spock as "logical" - and logic driven, not emotional.  Not as "emotionless" but as logical.  (as if emotion is not logical)

So to concoct an Alien Romance you need an Alien who differs from your Human lead Character in some specific and easily conveyed way.  Over the course of a long series of novels, you can reveal depths and nuances, plus complexities and changes, but for the opening point you need a clean, clear statement of how the Alien differs from the Human.

To find that clean, clear difference, you need a model of humanity -- a representation of what makes a human, human.  You need a theory of human nature.

Many Romances use the Soul Mate theory to explain irresistible attractions.  To postulate Soul Mates, you have to postulate souls -- and know something of their structure, origin and function.

How can a woman's love turn a Villain into a Hero?

What about our current real world prevents this transition from bad to good from being common, frequent, plausible?

What about our world would you have to change when you build the world for your Story?

To make it plausible for a Villain to turn Hero, you have to explain that difference in your World the way Roddenberry explained Spock as purely logical.

You have to chronicle the journey of the Villain incrementally, novel by novel, in a long series, as you explain how his world differs from the reader's world -- and how it is the same.

Only in children's stories or "comics" (not graphic novels) do people just suddenly, and without explanation or motivation, change into the opposite of what they've been seen to be in a plot-sequence.

So, bit by slow, detailed, bit at a time, you reveal the inner structure of your world that you built -- and make it clear how your world differs from everyday reality such that this "impossible" thing is possible.

In our Reality - "As the twig is bent; so grows the tree," is a true statement about human nature. Also the apple doesn't fall far from the tree is true of humans.

What is different about your World that makes those two statements about Human Nature false?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Mark Your Calendars: World IP Week And Day

World IP Week is April 22nd - 26th.

World IP Day is April 26th.

Among the events is a workshop with the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (VLA) who do pro bono work for creators.  Don't miss the free workshop "COPYRIGHT MYTH BUSTERS" on April 22nd from 6.30 pm - 8.30 pm  CST.
https://vlaa.org/get-smart/workshops-clinics/ 

Free, but they ask you to register.

If you miss that, there may be another, shorter "Copyright Mythbusters" out of Nashville on April 25th, from 6 pm - 7 pm CST

The Copyright Alliance offers a variety of links to good stuff for IP week.
https://copyrightalliance.org/news-events/copyright-news-newsletters/world-ip-day-2019/

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) established April 26th as World Intellectual Property Day,  to raise awareness about the role of creators and creativity play in innovation and culture.

It's a good time to reflect upon your trademarks, copyrights, registrations, ISBNs, patents, licenses, permissions, waivers (for instance from your cover models), etc if you are a published author; and on your support of authors, musicians, and other entertainers if you are a consumer of creative or intellectual works.

Here's a thought starter, if you think that a great story writes itself:
https://medium.com/electric-literature/the-disastrous-decline-in-author-incomes-isnt-just-amazon-s-fault-c58468492b17?fbclid=IwAR36td3VDw6VQLHzhh4BdtCaCiaUzPg0F5yTQcc9jo8NOSvd-3b4R-eVJ-w 


Here's another on the pros and cons of piracy:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/06/i-can-get-any-novel-i-want-in-30-seconds-can-book-piracy-be-stopped

And another....
http://www.pajiba.com/miscellaneous/man-behind-ebook-piracy-site-ebookbike-asks-to-be-sued-is-being-sued.php

If you are an author and still seething about the infamous Book Settlement, Chris Castle has an interesting perspective buried right at the end of an exposition on Content ID.
https://musictechpolicy.com/2019/03/29/the-ennui-of-learned-helplessness-article-13-and-the-five-lies-in-youtubes-content-id/

The insight hinges on a slip of the tongue by Marissa Meyer. Would the Authors Guild have won their case if they had known that all the scanned text from tens of millions of books were used to improve translation algorithms?

The USPTO also has a couple of events.

On Monday April 22nd they are livestreaming a discussion with former football player Shawn Spring about head protection... and more.
https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/events/conversation-shawn-springs?utm_campaign=subscriptioncenter&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=

Also, a bit late for IP week, on April 29th the USPTO is on Capitol Hill from 4pm - 6pm with a fun filled --cough-- agenda.
https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/events/world-intellectual-property-day-capitol-hill?utm_campaign=subscriptioncenter&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=

How will you mark the Week?
All the best,

Rowena Cherry

RavenCon

We spent this past weekend at RavenCon in Williamsburg, Virginia. The author guest of honor was Melinda Snodgrass. Because she worked with George R. R. Martin on his Wild Cards series, the con played with a Wild Cards theme at the opening ceremony Friday night. I haven't read any of the series, but the premise sounds intriguing. In case you haven't either, it goes like this: A plague has rewritten human DNA. Among the total population, 90% died. Most of the others survived with grotesque mutations, and a tiny percentage developed superpowers. At registration, each attendee received a tag to attach to the name badge. Black Queens were dead (I got that one). Jokers got amusing mutations. Aces got superpowers. Friday night, the Jokers and Aces were called up front to learn their mutations or powers. Fun!

I appeared on the program in the Broad Universe rapid-fire reading. This year, so many authors participated that we got a two-hour time slot. Each person was allotted a little over five minutes for intro and reading. I read from my new light paranormal romance novella, "Yokai Magic," and it seemed to go well.

The program included a STEM track of panels and presentations, held in a designated "science room." Among other topics, sessions covered life sciences and medicine in SF, what science fiction authors get right and wrong about science, effects of space flight on the human body, and "Space doesn't work like that." A significant number of people with military experience, as well as scientists, appeared on panels. A non-science session that particularly impressed me tackled morality and ethics in SF and fantasy. One panelist held a doctorate in philosophy and had worked on the alignment system for Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition. There were also writing craft sessions, genre-focused sessions, and all the usual features you'd expect at an SF con. Fandom for David Weber's Honor Harrington series has a prominent presence at RavenCon, and at least two panels focused on that universe.

The musical guests of honor were the Library Bards, a filk duo. I enjoyed their songs when I could comprehend the lyrics. In common with most of the musicians I checked out, however, the Library Bards sang to a recorded background track of very loud, hard-rock style instrumentals that tended to drown out the words. However, they performed some pieces I liked quite a bit, e.g., a tribute to one of the "Dr. Who" stars (although I'm not familiar with him, it was cute), a celebration of Stan Lee and the Marvel universe, and a song summarizing the entire plot of PRINCESS BRIDE. Two musical guests I especially liked were the Nefarious Ferrets (a duo) and Gray Rinehart; both of those acts sang and played in a calmer style, and I could understand the words. (When old age creeps up, being able to hear the words of songs and TV dialogue becomes a non-trivial concern!)

Some highlights of the Saturday evening masquerade included a mother-child pair in elaborate kitsune costumes, a fan-dancing "steampunk geisha," and a joint appearance by Spider-Man and Spider-Man Noir (all in black). Unfortunately, the event ran behind schedule, so I eventually left to attend a panel and therefore didn't find out who won.

We were pleased with the hotel this year. Unlike last year, when they didn't have a room for us until well after the designated check-in hour, this time we got settled right away. Also, the meal service in the cafe was noticeably faster than in the previous two years we've attended. This hotel offers one delightful perk upon check-in—a large chocolate chip cookie for each guest.

You can read about RavenCon here. The programming schedule and the rest of this year's information are still on the site:

RavenCon

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Story Integration Part 1 - Villain Story Arc

Theme-Story Integration

Part 1

Villain Story Arc

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

This is the opening of a new "walk and chew gum" exercise.

We have "integrated" various combinations of (artificially) separated techniques of the writing craft in a variety of long entries.  The posts titled "Integration" are advanced writing lessons - not about spelling, punctuation, grammar, paragraph structure, etc.  But about how to take the fascinating scenario in your mind and give it to other people, to people you don't know who don't know you.

Recently, on Facebook, P. N. Elrod echoed the core lesson in attitude that a beginning writer must internalize.  My first writing teacher, Alma Hill, put it thusly:

WRITING IS A PERFORMING ART. 

It takes practice to de-personalize and project a tapestry of emotions so that the recipients find within the material something of personal value to them.

Another maxim often quoted, and (writers being writers) elaborately paraphrased, is:

THE VILLAIN IS THE HERO OF HIS OWN STORY.

So how does a good person (like you) depict a bad person and make that Character interesting (and plausible) enough to grab a Science Fiction/Fantasy-Romance reader?

The core technique is called STORY ARC.

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

ARC indicates change along a curve, a changing vector or direction of change.  Vector refers to a resultant (or combination) of direction and momentum (or force).

STORY indicates what is going on inside a Character as the Character becomes aware of, then conquers, an INTERNAL CONFLICT.

THEME is what you have to say, as a writer, about life-the-universe-and-everything.  Why do you want to write this story?  Who do you want to read it?  What do you want them to understand from reading it (that they didn't know before?)

A Villain is not (necessarily) a bad person (human or Alien).

A Villain is a Character whose objectives thwart the Hero from achieving the Hero's objective.  This is the main source of conflict that drives Plot.

We've discussed Theme-Plot Integration at length.

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

And in various cross-fertilizing combinations:

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

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/05/index-to-theme-conflict-integration.html

And we've touched on where Story fits into both Plot and Worldbuilding.

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

So now let's look at the possibilities revealed by bringing Story to the surface (rather than Plot).

Almost all traditional science fiction has been marketed to (thus written for) teenage boys -- not girls.  Romance has been firmly excluded, and the plot related in narrative without nuances of emotion.

Today, the popularity of Fantasy written for adults has blended Paranormal-Magic-ESP possibilities in world building into the genre, Paranormal Romance.  We see it in Vampire Romance and even Zombie Romance.

Any sort of Alien can be a Romantic Interest, or the Villain thwarting the Romance from crystalizing.  The Science Fiction genre has blended into the Romance genre.

Why do these two distinct genres blend so easily?

Because Science Fiction genre specializes in Plot, while Romance specializes in Story.

Both genre categories have both plot and story -- deciding which label to put on the spine is largely a matter of whether Plot or Story artistically dominates.

Both Plot and Story arcs are driven by Conflict. Plot by External Conflict (Man against Nature or other Men), and Story by Internal Conflict (Man against himself or as his own worst enemy.)

A prominent example of how Plot and Story are separate but blend is the TV Series, NCIS.  It follows the modern cop-drama formula of presenting a full plot-arc each episode with the case to be solved, then counter-currents the plot with the story of what it all means to the investigator team, individually and collectively.

Aggregate the Characters and you have a typical Science Fiction Romance novel.

Most Romance novel conflicts are not between Hero and Villain, but between the couple in the process of uniting, which in the case of TV cop-dramas is the investigative team.

But there is a wild sub-genre dealing with the Bad Boy lover, and of course the arranged marriage to anyone but the actual lover.  And all the variations make endlessly fascinating reading.

One element that often turns people off to anything called Romance is how "Love Conquers All" in one fell swoop, a single emotional-moral-ethical SEE THE LIGHT moment.

It is true such Character "reversals" happen in real life.  If that were not so, there wouldn't be a word to refer to it.  The word exists.  It is "epiphany."

Epiphany usually refers to an encounter with God, one way or another -- a religious experience, or spiritual one.  LSD was famous in the 1960's for revealing new ways of looking at reality.

The existence of a different way of looking at things is the core of all science fiction.  And it is what happens when you fall in love -- you see the exact same world you've always lived in as something very different from what you thought it was.

So, traditionally, we have the term "Black Hearted."

How can a heart be black?

We have the term, "Good Hearted Soul."

How can a Soul have a "heart?"

We call fiction about insanity, heinous crime, and logical reasons for doing unethical things -- turning good guys into bad guys, step by step, "Dark."

We use light and dark to refer to emotions, motives, behavior, choices, religion and ritual.  We term "understanding" as "enlightening."

We use white hats for heroes and black hats for villains - just to be sure the audience knows which is which.

Where does this convention of light/dark come from and how can a Romance writer (working in rainbow hued emotions) use this notion to "arc" the Villain's Character?

We'll look at the potential of Villain's Arc in Part 2.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

QWERTY bad...

....PASSWORD worse, and in case you were wondering, DR0W55@P is not much better.

The most interesting legal blog this week came from Linn F. Freedman writing for the law firm Robinson and Cole LLP on the topic of Password Fatigue.

Find the original here:
https://www.dataprivacyandsecurityinsider.com/2019/03/password-fatigue/#page=1

Find the Lexology version here:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=146c0b7e-8b58-4581-8e81-f8aa7fe6d68f&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2019-04-03&utm_term=

Do you spend 12 or more minutes a week entering or resetting your passwords? Have you ever kept count? For authors who have to be active on social media to promote their works, the tally and loss of productivity is probably greater unless one uses a "service". Just don't trust your browser. In all things in life, you get what you pay for.

Kacy Zurkus, writing for the Malwarebytes blog shares a raft of good ideas, and insights into password spraying, which is using a small number of common passwords on a large number of accounts.
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2019/03/hackers-gonna-hack-anymore-not-keep-reusing-passwords/?utm_source=double-opt-in&utm_medium=email-internal-b2c&utm_campaign=EM-B2C-2019-April1-newsletter&utm_content=antivirusmixtape

The comments section is worth perusing for helpful tips, particularly if it would never occur to you to post a photo of your car on any social media site.

For more information on recent-ish data breaches, read this by Malwarebytes:
https://www.malwarebytes.com/data-breach/?utm_source=double-opt-in&utm_medium=email-internal-b2c&utm_campaign=EM-B2C-2019-April1-newsletter&utm_content=laws

Krebs On Security has more creative tips and recommendations for those inclined to do some password navel gazing.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/password-dos-and-donts/


Norton, too, has useful advice for choosing and securing passwords.
Their tip about having a short personal phrase top of mind is a good one. So often, one goes to a site to change a password and the site rejects every password that one thought one might use because of "forbidden words" or because one's choices don't conform to whatever the site requires (such as 3 upper case, 3 lower case, 3 numerals, 3 special characters.)
https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-how-to-how-to-choose-a-secure-password.html

Nord VPN discusses the anatomy of a good password. It's instructive to read multiple tips by security experts to see on what they agree (such as reliable services for password management), and where they differ.
https://nordvpn.com/blog/the-tips-on-creating-strong-passwords/?utm_source=SecurityTips&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5passwords_all


Finally, do not give your email password to anyone or any site that says its' for your own good. It's not.  If you were tricked into giving your email password to Facebook, change your email password on your email site. Don't give them your phone number, either.
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/security-world/2019/03/facebooks-history-betrays-its-privacy-pivot/?utm_source=double-opt-in&utm_medium=email-internal-b2c&utm_campaign=EM-B2C-2019-April1-newsletter&utm_content=chromebrowser

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

The Vampire as Alien

I'm thrilled that my nonfiction book DIFFERENT BLOOD: THE VAMPIRE AS ALIEN is back on the market at last. It's been re-released by a new publisher with some updating and a fantastic new cover:

Different Blood

This is a work of critical analysis that surveys the widely varied forms of the "vampire as alien" trope in fiction from the second half of the nineteenth century to the early twenty-first. By "alien," I mean a naturally evolved creature (regardless of whether earthly or extraterrestrial) rather than a supernatural undead entity. So DIFFERENT BLOOD examines one subset of the science-fiction vampire. Readers may be surprised to discover how many amazing stories and novels fall into that category.

In the Amazon "Look Inside" feature, you can read the introduction and part of Chapter One to get a sense of the flavor of the text. I've drawn upon Jacqueline Lichtenberg's essays such as "Vampire with Muddy Boots" and her article on Intimate Adventure to set the stage for my treatment of the topic. You'll find references to those essays in the introduction. To borrow Jacqueline's terms, I'm fascinated by the way most "vampire as alien" fiction deals with nonhuman characters in an SF framework instead of portraying them as "the Unknown that is a menace because it's a menace."

Naturally, Jacqueline's THOSE OF MY BLOOD is one of the books discussed, as well as HOUSE OF ZEOR and the philosophy underlying the Sime-Gen series. One delightful aspect of writing DIFFERENT BLOOD was having a chance to highlight lots of my favorite novels and stories that develop the figure of the vampire in original, provocative ways. I've always admired the way the vampire, as the most versatile of all the traditional monsters, can be used to explore gender, race, ecological responsibility, predator-prey dynamics, symbiosis, and many other themes; the concept of "alienness" is ideally suited for this exploration. I hope DIFFERENT BLOOD introduces readers to numerous works of exciting, innovative fiction they haven't encountered before.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

How to use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Part 5 - The Story of A Life

How to use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction

Part 5

The Story of A Life  

Previous entries in this series:
Tarot:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/10/index-to-posts-about-or-involving-tarot.html

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

Part 1

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html

Part 2

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-astrology-in-science.html

Part 3

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html

And we looked at copyright, DRM and phone repair as it intersects the Law.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/01/copyright-drm-and-phone-repair.html

Which raised the esoteric aspects of "ownership" leading to issues of the reality of Happily Ever After leading to Part 4.

Part 4
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in_22.html

And here we are at Part 5.

In 2019, Passover begins on Friday night, April 19.  On Saturday April 20, 2019 we count #1 (one day) "of the Omer" and every night until June 7 when we count the 49th day of the Omer -- the 49 day count representing the 49 days between the Israelites marching on dry land through the parted Sea, and the arrival at Mount Sinai.

That journey is an archetype.

It is a spiritual journey, the story of a life, a steep climb up out of the mindset of being subjugated to the values of one people and into a free mindset where it is possible to receive a new, different, value system.

The two value sets are not the focus of this blog post -- whichever two you might want to lift from human history, or invent, your Science Fiction Romance novel is the STORY of changing value systems.

This free radical condition, between value systems, the receptive mental state, is dramatically useful to you as a Romance writer.  Mastering this value-system-switch process will let you usher your readers into "far away places with strange sounding names."

It is an Inner Journey -- and is driven by inner conflict.

In Theme-Conflict Integration Part 6,
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/03/theme-conflict-integration-part-6.html
we touched on how a Character you are creating responds to being Under The Influence of another Character.

Previously, we discussed how writers can apply the counting of the Omer to plotting Romance novels.

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

Humans, by and large, fight to the death to get free of Influence.  Any influence -- good, bad, indifferent -- having someone else tell you what to think just arouses adamant opposition in most humans. (not all, which is what makes humans interesting.)

In the case of the fleeing Israelites, the Influence was Egyptian culture -- not just the Pharaoh bullying them, but the entire society.  The Egyptians didn't notice they had a culture -- this was long before scholars studied human behavior with anything other than astrology.  The existence of Egyptian culture was only apparent because the descendants of Jacob had inherited a different take on life-the-universe-and-everything than the Egyptians had.

The contrast created conflict.

Study what happened then, and extract a pattern for what will happen at First Contact with non-human Alien cultures.

Humans are adaptable, but not as adults.  Humanity does our adapting in childhood -- somewhat in adolescence, but mostly before age 7 or so, we are incredibly adaptable.

After about age 13 or so, dropping a value system and adopting a different one takes much more work, a vertical learning curve where we slide back a lot.

The older you get, the harder it is to internalize the non-verbal content of Values.

Values are hard to write about in fiction because:
a)Values are inherently non-verbal
b)Values are referred to by different words meaning the same thing
c)Values are referred to by the same words meaning different things

We assign words to represent inner experiences and assume everyone using that word means the same experience.

This is why the language of imagery, (such as Tarot), and the disciplined, orderly, non-verbal communication in artistic symbolism works so much better in fiction for conveying Values.

The Romance writer has to answer questions that no real human could ever answer -- for example, "Why do you love that guy?"

We don't know what we see in him, or him in her, because what we see is not something that can be "known."  It is apperceived by another sense, informed by an array of sensory input, but ultimately a thing of the Soul, not eyeballs or logic.

So experiencing the shift of Values necessary to weld two individuals into a couple is one of the essential tools of the Romance writer.  As it happens, it is also the core tool of the science fiction writer introducing humans to an Alien species.

Any non-humans we meet up with in space will be even more different from us than the Egyptians were to the descendants of Jacob (who weren't Jews, yet.)

We have discussed this upward journey of the Soul previously.  It isn't a journey of the body, from place to place, but a gaining of energy by climbing to another soul-level.  As when you climb a mountain, you store potential energy in your body -- which can be lost if you fall down the mountainside -- the Soul gains potential energy in a spiritual climb which can be lost by falling down -- and it hurts when you hit bottom.

It is ridiculously difficult to do this 40-day exercise in Spiritual preparation for receiving a new and different value system.  The forces of reality sweep in and knock you sideways -- you forget to read the page one night, you forget to do the daily exercise, and you forget that you forgot.

So they made a booklet bound like a reporter's notepad, where you can flip the pages to keep your place.

In this book:
 http://store.chabad.org/product.asp?Product=bk-mlc-counteng

Which you can also buy on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Counting-Omer-Simon-Jacobson/dp/188658723X/

...each of the 49 individual Emotions discussed comes with a do-it-today exercise that is a challenge to your ordinary way of looking at the world.  These exercises, done in this sequence, strip calluses and leave vulnerability.

As I said, it is insanely, ridiculously difficult to do this very simple thing in step with the Hebrew Calendar ( between Passover and Shavuot), but if you can achieve it (and it might take several years), you will not regret the effort.  It will improve your ability to create and depict Soul Mates who deserve and achieve a "Happily Ever After."

In fact, it will make it much easier to craft a story that convincingly presents the Happily Ever After as a very real, everyday, achievable lifestyle for a couple.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

The Trouble With Memes

This week, this writer noticed that at least two legal blogs are warning about Memes.

For the purpose of this discussion, a meme is an image or short clip of video, to which a caption is added by someone other than the copyright owner of the image or short clip, and it is forwarded across social media by thousands with no regard to the copyrights of the copyright owner, or the moral rights of the subject of the image.

Meme enthusiasts would probably say that the use of the image is "transformative", or that the use is "fair", because the image is only half the work, and the text is the other half --which is not a definition of Fair Use-- or that it is commentary, or parody, or being used to disseminate news or opinion, or to educate.

Memes are like emoticons. They are a quick, convenient way for the inarticulate to spread someone else's expression of an opinion without having to think for themselves. To date, the re-tweeter has also been able to share the meme without any liability or responsibility.  That may change, even if copyright law explicitly protects parody, criticism, and pastiche.

Legal blogger Georgia Shriane for Boyes Turner LLP (specializing in European Law and UK law) warns that meme law is coming....

Lexology link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1191618e-8200-49db-b9d7-c89d494d5546&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2019-03-29&utm_term=

The original article can be found here:
https://www.boyesturner.com/article/article-13-meme-law-is-coming

Even if the meme is protected, if content platforms use automation to filter out copyrighted images, the bots may not perceive the difference between "a good meme" and copyright infringement. That's not all.

See also, from 2017, commentary on a weeping athlete, with a question about the consequences if this meme is used for commercial advertising
https://www.internetandtechnologylaw.com/unauthorized-meme-crying-jordon/#page=1

Also, see the commentary by Claire Jones of  Novagraaf  for when memes are used gratuitously, with the sole apparent purpose of tormenting a public figure:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/documents.lexology.com/78503cc7-93e3-470e-8a7d-37ffcbee9a56.pdf

Or read it on Lexology...
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c470fc1e-d61e-4f98-a3b3-d113233998db

The most ominous shot across the bows for meme sharers comes from legal blogger  Jordyn Eisenpress  writing for the law firm Frankfurt Kurnit Klein& Seltz PC  "Popular Meme Account Sued For Copyright Infringement And Other Claims.   

Read it on Lexology  (but beware, gentle readers: there is a very vulgar word as part of the defendant's twitter handle.)
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=33280fc3-a77a-41c2-b429-f998d6f22556&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2019-03-28&utm_term=

Or find the very recent original here, (also including the shocking handle).
https://advertisinglaw.fkks.com/post/102fh6p/popular-meme-account-sued-for-copyright-infringement-and-other-claims

Apparently, meme enthusiasts in New York should take note, and be very careful going forward.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

What Makes Private Property Private?

Cory Doctorow's latest column explores the doctrine of "terra nullius" (nobody's land), which he traces back to John Locke's 1660 work TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT:

Terra Nullius

Under this theory, private property is created by "a human taking an unclaimed piece of the common property of humanity and mixing it with their labor" to create something new, which then "belongs" to the creative innovator. The catch in this theory, according to Doctorow, is the problem of deciding what constitutes "unclaimed," "common property," or unimproved "nature." European colonizers, for example, viewed the lands of "primitive" people as available for settlement and exploitation because they weren't "owned" by any individual according to the Western concept of ownership—in an act of radical "erasure" of the indigenous peoples. As Doctorow puts it, if those lands belonged to nobody, the "primitives" who lived there must be "nobody."

How does this distinction apply to intellectual property? Doctorow summarizes the claim as follows: "The labor theory of property always begins with an act of erasure: 'All the people who created, used, and improved this thing before me were doing something banal and unimportant—but my contribution is the step that moved this thing from a useless, unregarded commons to a special, proprietary, finished good.'” One application he cites is the example of the Beatles. The R&B rhythms the Beatles incorporated into their music didn't count as owned; they were considered common property, available to anyone who chose to use them. On the other hand, if any musician nowadays takes recognizable elements of the Beatles' songs and incorporates them into new material, that's considered theft. How do we decide what's owned and what's free for use without acknowledgment or compensation? A similar phenomenon that occurred to me, not mentioned by Doctorow, is the 20th-century folk revival. Some folk musicians recorded traditional songs and copyrighted them, thereafter claiming ownership of the song (not simply of their particular arrangement of the song). Here's a forum thread discussing what elements of traditional songs can be copyrighted, as opposed to changes by individual singers that should be considered part of the "folk process" rather than private property:

Folk Song Collectors and Copyright

Two remarks in Doctorow's article that particularly struck me:

"The Ayn Randian hero is delusional: his (always his) achievements are a combination of freeriding on the people whose contributions he’s erased, and bleating that everyone who had the same idea as him was actually stealing his idea, rather than simply living in the same influences he had."

Here's how Doctorow applies this principle to authorship, using his own work as an example: "I wrote my books. They were hard work. I made real imaginative leaps that contributed to the field. Also: I wrote them because I read the works of my peers and my forebears. If I hadn’t written them, someone else would have written something comparable. All these things can be true. All these things are true. Originality exists, it just doesn’t exist in a vacuum."

In my opinion, that last sentence makes a valid and important point. Nothing in his essay, however, supplies guidelines on how to determine what creative elements qualify as "original" contributions that deserve protection as private property.

For example, here's an update about the ongoing lawsuit among Tom Clancy's estate, his widow, and his first wife over who gets to profit from past and future works featuring Clancy's character Jack Ryan:

Who Has Custody of Jack Ryan?

While I don't think anyone would deny that Clancy created and therefore "owned" Jack Ryan according to both ethical and legal principles, the question of who holds rights to the character after Clancy's death (or should the profits be split on some kind of chronological basis, depending on when the particular books or films were released?) is tangled up in a dense legal and contractual controversy.

Speaking of "commons," if we could trace back far enough, we'd find that every creative work was originally made by some individual or particular group of creators. It's just that once a work gets so old we can't identify the creator(s), we categorize it as "traditional" and part of the "common property of humanity."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Dark Matter TV Series

Dark Matter

TV Series

Just a quick heads-up about an old bit of entertainment making the streaming rounds.

Before they disappear it forever, do watch some of the episodes of Dark Matter.

Just a quick Google tells you:

Dark Matter (TV series) - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Matter_(TV_series)
Dark Matter is a Canadian science fiction series created by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, based on their comic book of the same name and developed by ...
No. of seasons‎: ‎3 Original release‎: ‎June 12, 2015 – August 25, 2017
No. of episodes‎: ‎39 (‎list of episodes‎) Based on‎: ‎Dark Matter series of comics

Yes, and the TV Series availability on various delivery systems, (Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Prime, YouTube etc. ) tells you more than you want to know about it.  They are still charging money for this series, so it should be around a while m
ore.  When it becomes free, it will be about to disappear. 

It is made from a comic, and the TV Series is mostly by the same people who created the Comic.  As a result, the fabrication is what I would term "thin" -- or screenwriters call "on the nose."

The Characters are formulated from a formula  -- not a hint of the USA channel's "Characters Welcome" quirkiness.  The quirks that are included (an android, a woman subconsciously imprinted with everyone else's missing memories, a tough guy, a martial arts guy, a boss woman) are formulaic.

So why should you look into it?  Because it seems to be aimed at early-teen or pre-teen boys -- the classic audience for science fiction.  If you are writing Science Fiction Romance, you have to shift the target audience, or broaden it.

The lack of dimensionality and nuance is what sells to that pre-teen boy audience.

But this TV series went 3 seasons and was cancelled.  Yes, it had fans, but not enough for the actually cheap production to cover costs.

Writers looking to create stories for an adult audience that is at least 50% female (if not more) can learn a lot about how to do that by studying this TV Series.

The signature of a genre resides in what must be LEFT OUT, much more than it does in what must be INCLUDED.

Consider last week's post on Theme-Conflict Integration and what that has to do with Character and Genre.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/03/theme-conflict-integration-part-6.html

Dark Matter has one, tentative, embarrassing kiss in the first 3 episodes.  It has males and females confined in a space ship.  All the characters are portrayed as amnesiacs who were wanted for horrible crimes.

They have innate, trained skills -- but no existing Relationships among them.

Does Relationship depend on memory?

Is Character a function of memory? 

Is morality a function of memory? 

How important is memory?

Amnesia/Romance novels are not usually my favorite fare, but I've read a lot that were deep, revealing, thought-provoking and even funny and heart-warming.

Dark Matter is not a Romance in any sense.  It is way too thin for that. 

Watch some of it -- if not all -- and consider how to fundamentally change the story into a Romance.  You can use a similar plot (though it would morph if you shift the story-line), and tell the Love Conquers All story.

What has to be conquered?  A lifetime as a crook, mercenary, killer, kidnapper, felon.  How do you conquer that?  Amnesia wipes it out?  Or is there Soul level karma to be addressed first?

Can Love ignite and burn away sin? 

Does Love really Conquer All?

How can there ever be an ever-after, never mind a Happily Ever After? 

Dark Matter, as a TV Series, is what screenwriters (SAVE THE CAT!) call a "Bottle Show" (the setting is inside the bottle of the ship), and a "Monster In The House" story line, as the crew doesn't know if whoever swiped their memories is still onboard.

To me, the scripts seem like a class writing exercise rather than production drafts.

But that makes it like fanfic, something so transparent you can learn from it, learn to see yourself making the same errors, learn to avoid those errors.

With all those flaws, I have to add that I like Dark Matter better than I thought I would.  The flaws I see now would not have seemed like flaws to me when I was twelve.  Going off to find clues to who you really are is a teen thing. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Your Privacy

Your privacy is my problem. It is your problem.

Disclaimer: the authors who share this blog do not knowingly or intentionally exploit other peoples' data. We do not accept paid advertisements. We do not try to track visitors. However, our host does so. From time to time, we warn you about that.

Our host reminds us (the bloggers):

"European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used and data collected on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.

As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies, and other data collected by Google.

You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. If you include functionality from other providers there may be extra information collected from your users."

If you, dear readers, have the ability to go right now to check which "cookies" have dropped onto your device like deer ticks, you may see links to the participating authors' websites, and a whole raft of google urls. Clear them often. No one who monetizes "tracking" takes any notice of "Do Not Track" requests.

David Ruiz, blogging for Malwarebytes offers some helpful insights into data privacy and cybersecurity.
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/security-world/2019/03/not-definitive-guide-cybersecurity-data-privacy-laws/?utm_source=double-opt-in&utm_medium=email-internal-b2c&utm_campaign=EM-B2C-2019-March2-newsletter&utm_content=laws

It's instructive reading, especially the part about the GDPR, and tracking, and collecting, and storing, using and sharing visitors' data.  Ruiz also points out what this author sees as an extraordinary loophole in Californian privacy laws. It's a "data breach" if a rogue actor actually downloads your data. If he just looks at it (presumably even if he looks at it and deploys pen and paper), it is not a data "breach". With a breach, the victim must be told, and offered a lifelock-like service for a year. If the rogue took a look, not so much.

And then, there's Spokeo.com

In 2017, this author thought that she had successfully opted out of having her information monetized by Spokeo on Spokeo.  Then, she read "Spokeo Update..."

Legal bloggers Scott Kelly, David N. Anthony, and  Timothy "Tim" J, St.George blogging for the law firm Troutman Sanders LLP share insights into the Fair Credit Reporting Act lawsuit that Spokeo almost three years after  the Supreme Court ruled that an individual who suffers no provable financial injury, but whose financial privacy was invaded... may sue.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6b3a05ad-3815-4cf8-8a89-0b3009100810&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2019-03-20&utm_term=

Or the original
https://www.consumerfinancialserviceslawmonitor.com/2019/03/spokeo-update-parties-settle-long-running-fcra-dispute/#page=1

Is Spokeo selling guesstimates of your credit score? You should look into it. Even if they have a disclaimer that states that one may not use the information that they sell in order to decide if one wants to employ/lend to/rent to... or otherwise make a business decision about the subject of one's Spokeo search, a skeptic would wonder why anyone would pay $39 or whatever to discover information one will not --on one's honor-- use.

For the next three years, it ought to be relatively easy to opt out, if you do not want to be monetized on Spokeo "so lost relatives and friends can find you".

Another reason to opt out is that Spokeo may reveal --free, to all-- the names of your aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, grandparents, children, siblings.  Never chose family members' names as any of the answers to those double and triple verification questions that financial institutions may think are only known to the real you.

Happy hunting.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Last Wednesday through Saturday, the 2019 ICFA met in Orlando. As usual, it was wonderful to spend four days in Florida in March. Days were pleasantly warm, and the predicted off-and-on rain never appeared. The organization is considering changes to the date and/or location of the conference. For the first time, I attended the annual business meeting, just to hear the discussion on this issue and the results of the membership survey about it. I'm happy with the present set-up except for one point, the risk of airline delays in March. March in Florida falls in the "high season," with expensive hotel rates, so a change could save money and avoid rises in cost for members who couldn't afford to pay more. The long-time conference chair (about to retire from that role after thirty-five years—we'll miss him!) and his assistant presented a detailed explanation of the factors that go into hotel convention prices and the process of negotiating with hotels. Two major alternatives suggested were Toronto or a different venue in Orlando, with other choices also discussed. Naturally, no decision has been reached yet. The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA) plans to send out another survey to get an updated sense of the membership's preferences now that more information has been supplied. Being naturally averse to change, I don't like the idea of leaving a pleasant location I'm used to, but I have faith that the IAFA officers will make the best decision for the majority. Like any change, of course, whatever happens will be good for some people and unfavorable to others, especially since U. S. residents, North Americans in general, and the smaller percentage of attendees from overseas all have different needs.

The Lord Ruthven Assembly—the vampire and revenant division of IAFA—presented its annual awards. The fiction winner was EUROPEAN TRAVEL FOR THE MONSTROUS GENTLEWOMAN, by Theodora Goss. The nonfiction award went to I AM LEGEND AS AMERICAN MYTH, by Amy Ransom. For the first time, as far as I know, both winners were present at the Saturday night banquet to receive their recognition, which was quite a thrill. Since 2019 marks the bicentennial of John Polidori's "The Vampyre"—the first known prose vampire fiction in English, the story with Lord Ruthven as the enigmatic villain—we had a panel about the influence of that work. The theme of the con was "Politics and Conflict," so the panel nominally dealt with the politics of the characters' social status and relationships but in practice ranged more widely. At the LRA evening meeting, after the business portion we screened an obscure horror film, THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST, based on or at least inspired by Polidori's tale. Only an hour long, the movie was co-written by classic SF author Leigh Brackett (who also worked on THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK). It was better than I expected, actually quite worth watching. It also contains more elements from "The Vampyre" than I'd expected from reading the Wikipedia summary; these include the vampire's "death" and revival by moonlight, the hero's inability to tell anyone about these events, and his being incapacitated with a fever while the vampire, who poses as a concerned friend, courts the heroine (in this case, the hero's fiancee instead of his sister as in the original story). In the most significant alteration, the movie takes place in equatorial Africa instead of Greece and England.

The author guest of honor, G. Willow Wilson, although also a novelist, is mainly known for her work in comics and graphic novels, especially MS. MARVEL. Her after-lunch speech on Thursday was lively and thought-provoking. She reminded us that comics have always had a "political" dimension, often invisible to both creators and audiences because of its mainstream nature. In the case of her work, though, because she isn't an Anglo male writer, her very existence in the field is regarded as "political" no matter how innocuous her content may be. She described a hate-mail electronic message she received, whose sender went to the trouble of printing every line in a different-colored font. She noted that the wildly successful MS. MARVEL was expected to last only about ten issues, because its heroine falls under the "trifecta of death"—a new, female, minority character. Wilson also raised the question of who "owns" a creative product—the fans, the writers, the publisher, the parent corporation?

Guest scholar Mark Bould, who has written extensively on science fiction, delivered the after-lunch talk on Friday. He remarked, "We need better stories," and highlighted the surge in zombie films in recent years. He characterized this trope as a "disastrous, dehumanizing, deadly story." Instead, he advocates for a narrative of "less work, more life." His theme was openly political, focusing on a "post-capitalist, post-scarcity" society that would produce luxury for all. I was especially struck by his statement about the role of speculative fiction in exposing what's thought to be "natural" and inevitable as contingent and making the supposedly "impossible" seem attainable.

One unique feature of this year's event: A display of memorabilia from the entire forty-year span of the conference. It was mildly mind-boggling to contemplate the modest programs of the earliest years contrasted with the book-sized directories of more recent conference programming.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Conflict Integration Part 6 - A Character Under Influence by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Conflict Integration

Part 6

A Character Under Influence

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this Theme-Conflict Integration Series are Indexed at:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/05/index-to-theme-conflict-integration.html

One of the oldest story driving conflicts is termed, "Man against himself."  But of course, today, we read that as "Person against self," stripping it of sexual innuendo.

Women can oppose their own interests subconsciously, as well as men (maybe better!)

And of course non-humans might very likely be the same.

The most interesting non-humans would, of course, lack the ability to be their own worst enemy -- in many ways, Spock was originally depicted as such an alien.

So to depict a Romance between a human who can thwart their own interests and a non-human who lacks that trait (and thus doesn't really understand it), one must first examine the issue of "Internal Conflict" and how such a conflict is resolved to reader satisfaction.

Once the writer has a clean, easily expressed theory of how humans oppose themselves internally (and why, and when), then it becomes easy to design the Alien Soul Mate for the human main character.

Concocting a Science Fiction theory of human psychology has at least two main parts:

A) Name the two parts inside humans that could possibly conflict?

B) Name the part that wins.

We have extant theories of Conscious/Subconscious, Yin/Yang, and Body/Soul.

Maybe all of them operate simultaneously -- or maybe none of them are true, just useful approximations.

Choose which maybe you want to use for your Worldbuilding.

Yes, these 3 choices for the 2 parts of humans that cause inexplicable behavior (like falling in love, for example), define 3 separate and different "worlds" you can build.  They are elements of world building, and each defines a sort of "magic" that can (or can't) work in that world.

Humans have been striving to define "what it is" inside us that gives us such trouble, as individuals and whole societies, for thousands of years.

So choose (or invent) a dichotomy to insert into the axioms defining the world you will tell your story within, and then choose the Rules of Engagement -- how they fight, why, and to what end.

The most obvious and natural one for a Science Fiction Romance world is Body/Soul.

Romance is about the sweeping force that dissolves the personality's bonds to "reality" -- to the practical, the everyday, to responsibility (Saturn) and accountability (Mercury ruling Virgo).

People swept off their feet falling "in love" behave unrealistically (Romeo and Juliet), immaturely, or as if they are ignorant of the strictures of reality (an office affair between a Boss and a Janitor, when both are married-with-children).

Romance (Neptune) dissolves common sense, and makes everything and anything possible.  The mental "executive function" becomes paralyzed.  There's nothing inside, no self-discipline, that will stop you, and no awareness of how you will feel about or deal with the consequences.

You do what you want and to hell with the consequences.

That is a favorite excuse in Romance novels for having sex with an inappropriate (or forbidden) individual.

So when Neptune transits hit full force, igniting ferocious sexual urges between a couple, Neptune wins.  There is no internal conflict because the Executive Function of the personality is not functioning.

NO CONFLICT = NO STORY

Thus the "irresistible hunk" story is not actually a story at all.  If the hunk truly is irresistible, there is nothing to oppose his advances, nothing there saying "no!"

Or vice-versa, a guy can run across a woman he can't resist.

But if he can't resist, there is no story to tell.

Story (and plot) are all about RESOLVING CONFLICT, so if there is no conflict there is no resolution, thus no satisfaction in reading about it.

So in a universe where humans are constructed with an internal dichotomy best expressed as Body/Soul, it is the physical (pheromones, physical arousal) of the Body that can (and often does) conflict with the spiritual fulfillment the Soul seeks.

You can use the "model" of Body vs. Soul to create Soul Mates whose bodies won't cooperate.

Romeo and Juliet is again a good analogy, as they were spiritually attracted Soul Mates born on opposite sides of a feud.  Hatfields and McCoys.  Israeli and Palestinian.

Throughout history there have been many political conflicts conquered by Romance.  Kings married their daughters to sons of the main enemies to settle disputes, and history records how many generations hence that settlement lasted.  Very few historical texts detail how the daughter-and-son actually felt about it.  Those novels are being written now.

The body can be born a non-human on some other planet (or space station) arriving at Earth's solar system carrying a Soul which is the Mate to a Soul born human on Earth.

Such a "love" has to conquer all the seething dynamics of First Contact, or worse, the ending of a long interstellar war.

Now we come to the Influence part.  If you choose Body/Soul as your world building dichotomy, then you must decide (sometimes by writing the whole book first) which "wins."  Or more broadly put, how the conflict resolves.

What are the options for resolving a conflict between civilizations?

Well, we have a pattern laid down for us thousands of years ago, which has repeated a few times, and may actually turn up again as we make a First Contact with non-humans.

The story is told in the Bible, and by Hollywood (Cecil B. DeMille), as THE EXODUS.

And the style of the conflict resolution writers can rip from this classic, is Persuasion.

As humans, pure physical bodies, basic primate species, we behave toward each other in a "dominance" pattern, always conquering, opposing, WINNING.  It's in video games, sports, politics, war.  You just have to win.  It starts in infancy with screaming until large hands bring relief.

Toddlers learn to insist until they get their way.  Toddlers learn that Might Makes Right because parents will oppose their insistence with forces the Toddler can't match (pick him up and just put him in the car seat.)

Sometimes, parents have the leisure to distract the toddler or just let the screaming exhaust him.  But the parent always wins.

Later, the parent may try persuasion, but by then the twig is bent and the tree growing robustly.

Basically, primates survive toddlerhood by having their Will overridden.  Toddlers who win the battle run out in the street and get run over by a car.  It happens.  All our toddlers would do that, given the chance.  Having that Will thwarted by Adults grabbing him up just teaches Might Makes Right.

After Toddlerhood, other lessons split our population into those who bend under force, and those who fight to the death.

Any given individual may choose (free will) either strategy, any combination, or invent a new one to try.

But in the end, how we influence each other comes down to a dominance exercise.  How do we get each other to behave properly?

Today's readership is swamped with discussions about violence and the use of violence.  The language of violence is used in News Headlines to describe mere words said to or about someone.  "...Ripped Into..."  "...blasted..."

This is all about one human forcing another to change an opinion or course of action.

In The Exodus story, we see 10 "plagues" (natural disasters, we'd call it today).  The conflict that makes this a "story" is between the Creator of the Universe and Pharaoh.  They vie for possession of a "people" -- the Jews.

Having granted humans "free will," the Creator first demonstrated the reason Pharaoh should release the Jews as that He was better at controlling Nature than Pharaoh's Magicians.  That went on for 5 plagues and Pharaoh tended to give in, but didn't change his opinion.  Then the Creator argued for 5 more plagues to persuade Pharaoh to change his own mind.  The Sages point out that we can learn from Pharaoh's eventual agreement that Persuasion works better than logical equations about brute force.

Of course, we also learn that Pharaoh sent chariots after the fleeing mixed multitude (which included a lot of Egyptians throwing in their lot with the winner.)  Their fate is depicted by Cecil B. DeMille even though Cecil got the "parting" of the sea wrong.

Nevertheless, original sources notwithstanding, all of your readers will probably visualize the Hollywood version of the parting of the sea and wipe-out of the chariots.  The general public has been persuaded.  The general public is under the influence of visual artists whose tools are limited.

The general public, your reader, does not fight that influence.

So, how does one Character exercise Influence over another in such a way that the influencer "wins?"

Which prevails, Body or Soul?

The human primate Body uses Force -- force of muscle, force of size, force of authority bestowed by Kings or Presidents, force of pheromones, force of intellect (strategy, tactics, blackmail), force of Power (I'll make you a star, or ruin your career).

The Body argues by making it abundantly clear that it is to your advantage to do something against your better interests.  Go along to get along.  Bend (as Pharaoh did) then snap back when attention is elsewhere.  Agree to anything under duress, defy later.

The Soul argues right and wrong, ethics, morals, living a Code of Conduct which is to the advantage of the Soul even when it costs the Body dearly.  The Soul adopts Causes, Crusades, Movements, Idealism, Aspirations.  But the Soul habitually Loves -- loves all humans, loves all Bodies, even when they are staunchly opposed to the Soul's purposes.

Which wins?

In Romance genre, including Science Fiction Romance, Love Conquers All is the basic theme, the tenet of all the worlds that belong to the genre.

Soul Mates always gravitate toward each other, like two magnets, snap!  Bodies have to accept that, even when it thwarts the body's purpose.  Souls win, if not in this life, then in the next incarnation.

Bodies, brains, minds woven of the stuff of this concrete reality often embrace "being influenced" -- which essentially means adopting the Group's prevailing opinion, agreeing with opinions shouted forcefully in public, accepting the opinion of "authority" or "experts" who know better than you do.

Souls, aware of being eternal, do not need to "fit in" to survive.  Souls strive and struggle to get their Bodies to live up to ideals, like a horse trainer "breaking" a horse -- or perhaps the wiser ones use less force and more persuasion, luring the physical body with physical pleasure as reward.

Souls resist Influence; Bodies seek it.

Humans have both a Soul and a Body welded inextricably to the physical world.  Any human will sometimes fight being Influenced, and other times adopt the Influencer's ideas as their own.  In other words, humans flip-flop between body and soul dominant.  Any given human might flip-flop on you at any given time -- and not be able to explain why they changed.

If you start a story in Chapter 1 with a Character succumbing to the Influence of another Character, the end of the last Chapter, the very last page, depicts the first Character throwing off that influence.

That is the innate structure of "story" -- short, medium or long -- the beginning is where the two forces that will conflict to generate the plot (to generate the deeds, motives, and Events) first come into contact.

Thus choosing your opening scene as the point at which one Character willingly adopts the opinion of another, you telegraph to the reader that Influence is the conflict.

The Theme is what readers read for, whether they know it or not.  The feeling of satisfaction at The End is powered by dawning comprehension of the Theme.

The master theme of Romance is Love Conquers All.  But it has many sub-themes - and in fact, almost any theme can be subordinated to Love Conquers All and still remain congruent to everyday reality.  I've never found a theme that can't fit Love Conquers All.

If the story opens with a Character Influenced by (an equal, a superior, Good, Evil), the story is about the gyrations necessary to fight off that Influence.

Once free, the Character may choose to adopt that same opinion, and might even become an Influencer disseminating that opinion.

But the story ends where the Character is free of Influence.

THEME: Humans must be free to choose.

THEME: Humans always choose wrong.

THEME: Humans can't be trusted to behave well.

THEME: Alien Values Are Better For Humans Than Ancient Human Values!

THEME: Non-humans are incompatible with humans.

THEME: Certain non-humans aren't so bad.

THEME: It's all right to be human.

THEME: It is not all right to be human.

Keep going to find your best theme that reveals the natural laws of your world and how those laws conflict or contradict each other, creating Characters who fight to exist in your world.

If the inner conflict is Body vs Soul, then the Themes can be fabricated from adages such as the proverbial, "If there are two wolves fighting inside you, which one wins?" "The one you feed the most."

So if you feed your Soul the most, practicing idealistic decision-making, then your Soul will dominate your body.  If you feed your body the most, indulging carnal appetites, then your body will dominate your soul.  Is that true in your fictional world?  Do your Characters have a choice which to feed the most?

In other words,
THEME: Humans are creatures of habit.
THEME: Humans rebel against habit, periodically.  (Uranus transit; mid-life crisis)
THEME: Humans prize freedom from the influence of other humans.
THEME: Humans prize the influence of other humans who (fill in the characteristic, sweet, kind, beautiful, rich, powerful...).

Always remember your THEME is what the main characters' thinking finally evolves into, not what they start out thinking when the conflict is joined, or before the conflict is resolved. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Scraping Your Face... Your Works

On March 12th, Eric Carter for NBC News revealed that IBM, and possibly others, are scraping social media sites for faces... to help Watson (presumably) to get really good at recognizing those faces.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/facial-recognition-s-dirty-little-secret-millions-online-photos-scraped-n981921

If you have a Flickr account, your face may have been scraped.  Visit the NBC link to use their search tool to find out.

There's a small detail in the piece that caught my attention. Apparently, some academics think that they can freely use photographs that are released under Creative Commons. According to this writer's understanding of the Creative Commons system, Creative Commons licensed works (or photos) may be freely used but only on condition that full and proper written attribution is published with the works or photos.

Scraping works (and apparently encouraging users to "Upload")  is Ebook.Bike a seemingly scurrilous pirate site that has found a new host. It calls itself a "library", but libraries purchase the books that they loan out, and they pay for licenses to loan out ebooks. Libraries do not rip off authors, publishers and everyone in the writing and publishing ecosystem.

Members of the Authors Guild can use this form to send a takedown notice. Non-guild members might want to use this Google form to request that the links to their books are removed.

Another apparently bad actor is Open Library which tries to validate its behavior by making up a "premise" (CDL  aka "Controlled Digital Lending") even though other operations that have tried to apply first sale rights to digital works have lost in court, such as ReDigi.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

ICFA

This week I'm at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando, the annual gathering of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts.

IAFA

I'll report on the con next Thursday.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt