Interview with Anthony Darnell on Star Trek Lives! 45th Anniversary

Interview with 

Anthony Darnell

on 

Star Trek Lives! 45th Anniversary

Here are 3 versions of an interview Jean Lorrah and I did with a professional (very professional skilled) journalist who placed this with https://startrek.com for the 45th Anniversary of the Bantam Paperback STAR TREK LIVES!

Also note I did an interview with Larry Nemecek for his Podcast STAR TREK FILES, and posted about that here:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/10/interview-with-larry-nemecek-on-star.html

Podcast: Trek Files Podcast covering similar material
https://www.facebook.com/TheTrekFiles/posts/1545927938914781

Here's a link to listings of those podcasts - you can listen to without Facebook.

http://thetrekfiles.trekfm.libsynpro.com/website

Now here is the text of the interview with Anthony Darnell -- which was done by email.  I wrote my replies to his questions, and Jean Lorrah wrote her replies. I don't have copies of her full replies.  Together we way-way over-wrote the word limit for an article, so Anthony had to edit it, then turn it in, and it got retitled, resubtitled and touched up a bit.

So here are my unedited replies to Anthony's questions.  What I wrote is prefaced with my initials, JL.  When he's addressing me, he writes Jacqueline. When both me and Jean Lorrah, he put's BOTH.

This is raw text.  Study how these polished items get published.  Try to get over thinking you have to write PERFECTLY to write at all.

-------Anthony Darnell and Jacqueline Lichtenberg----

Trek Files Podcast covering similar material
https://www.facebook.com/TheTrekFiles/posts/1545927938914781

From Anthony Darnell:

I’m going to pitch StarTrek.com to see if they’d be willing to accept the interview. If not, it’ll have a home on Phantastiqa.

I’m looking forward to reading your responses!

BOTH
Thank you both for taking the time to answer a few questions. I want to start off by asking you what it was like to see Star Trek for the very first time. Do you remember how it made you feel and what you thought? Do you happen to remember what episode you saw first?

JL: No, at that time titles were not prominent identifiers. I have told this story many times, and no doubt with different details.

When the Chicago Worldcon debut was announced, I was on my way out of the USA for a year abroad. I really didn't expect it to be much. As an active member of SF Fandom, I heard a lot. Eventually, (as I had moved many times leaving forwarding addresses), Bjo Trimble's "Save Star Trek" campaign announcement reached me.  Knowing Bjo for many years, I KNEW Star Trek had turned into something significant, so I wrote Paramont telling them to be sure to keep it on the air until I got back.

Meanwhile, I had married (still married to the same guy!), and was replanning my life around his family in New York.  We got back in early April, and his Aunt put us up, and invited the whole family (a lot of people) to a living room reception for us.  They all came, younger people sitting on the floor but they gave me a chair!  Conversation flowed, until someone pulled out a TV Guide (paper magazine) to see "what's on" -- handed it around, and it came to me, and flipped open to STAR TREK.  "Oh, can we watch that?"

They were so polite, they said sure and turned it on. Bored them all to tears, so conversation flowed while I tried to discern what the show was about.

Then came a final scene, the only scene I remember, a shot of Spock in profile which had been avoided throughout the show until then.

I ended up in the middle of the room, pointing at the screen, and shouting at the top of my lungs, HE'S NOT HUMAN!!!

They just stared at me silently.

Throughout the ensuing decades, even the publication of STAR TREK LIVES! not to mention my own original Science Fiction, they remained close, warm, friendly, family to depend on.  Didn't treat me as too strange to associate with.

So, no, I've no idea to this day exactly which episode I saw first except to look it up by air date.  I never really "saw" it until reruns, which were cut to shreds.

Have since rewatched complete DVD and Streaming sets of ST:ToS, of course, but I actually don't remember either the first episode I saw or the mumbled replies to questions I provided my brand new in-laws.




JACQUELINE
I read that you knew Bjo Trimble—who ran the infamous letter writing campaign that saved Star Trek—from your time living in the San Francisco Bay area in the 60s. If I understand correctly, she asked you to write a letter for the campaign while you were living abroad, but you hadn’t actually seen the show yet. Is that right? Can you tell us a little about the story there? Do you remember what you wrote in your letter?

JL via the N3F (National Fantasy Fan Federation which still exists, founded by damon knight), I got the generic mail-out Bjo sent.  In snail mail days, you sent out a few pieces of paper and asked 'zines to reprint and people to pass it on, somewhat like an old fashioned phone-tree. But I knew Bjo and the Fandom crowd and trusted their judgment which was spot-on, as we see today.



JACQUELINE
I’m fascinated by early Star Trek fandom and how it blossomed into what we have today. This year is the 45th anniversary of Star Trek Lives! Essentially, it’s a guide for fans highlighting how they can connect with each other and get involved. You were one of three writers on this book, along with Sondra Marshak and Joan Winston. Can you tell me about the genesis of the book and why you thought it was important to get it out there?

JL:  STAR TREK LIVES! was an idea I had. Having been an active science fiction fan since 7th grade, I knew what was happening inside Science Fiction fandom was a newspaper story.  Fandom had never - ever - been an "item" of interest to mundanes, to the media in any form. It just wasn't "important" in the world.  Suddenly it was!

I saw how Bjo's work hit "dry tinder" inside fandom, and I saw how that conflagration ignited some rather moist tinder in the mundane world ("mundane" being jargon for anything not in science fiction fandom; somewhat like muggle).

I saw the reception of this TV Series hitting other people the way it had hit me in that embarrassing living room moment.

It was only a spark, but a vastly significant Event in the entire span of Human History (thousands of years).

On rewrite, much of my "language" in STAR TREK LIVES! about that significance got edited out as "hyperbole" -- but you see, it wasn't hyperbole.  Today, people acknowledge that, but don't always see the Events of today as directly connected to being embarrassed before new in-laws, or the advent of non-human bridge crew on a human captained ship (on TV of all unimportant places).

TV Series in general were looked "down" on - fantasy as a genre was talking animals for kids, something you out-grew like believing in the Easter Bunny. Science Fiction was even more childish, idiotic, unimportant and certainly not for adults.  Adults had to be focused on reality, and everyone KNEW you can't go to the Moon.

TV was filled with Westerns (still a big favorite of mine), but everyone knew the "Wild West" depicted on TV never existed. It was Hollywood glorifying the ugliness of reality, but it was TV so what could you expect?

After cancellation, when fanzine readers and writers vowed, "They can't do that to us!" And, "If they won't do it, we'll do it ourselves!" I knew I had a newspaper story.

This was the fandom I had grown up with (book readers) doing what fans always did - stand on our own feet, walk to a different drummer.  It was an attitude from one world brought to bear on a different world.  And that different world grabbed it and ran with it.

It's not defiance.  It's, "Okay, do what you want. I'm doing this other thing."

Spock's appearance on TV -- so very out of context of TV shows in general - was the actual moment the world changed, the paradigm shifted under our feet.  I wasn't the only one who noticed.  Spockanalia coined the phrase, "Spock Shock" which is taken to be purely sexual, but it's never been all that pure.  It was the use of TV as a medium to depict a non-human crew member - just a working stiff doing a job on a crew of humans -- ON TV!

TV is a mass-market medium.  Science Fiction was never, ever, considered mass-market.  Changing the mass of the market for science fiction opened the door to the space program --it got slammed shut, taken up by other countries, and now is open again.

Meanwhile, computers, the internet, the web, Web 2.0, the browser, all this communication power has been likened to the the printing press as a fulcrum of change in society.

We are living in "interesting times" - and it all started with Gene Roddenberry growing up on Radio adventure series and then selling "Wagon Train To The Stars" - as a Western in Space.

Roddenberry sold "science fiction" as a genre as not about the future, but about the past.  But he snuck in my vision of humanity's future, as he said at so many conventions and speaking dates -- "When we are wise ..." humans will behave very differently.

He presented humanity with yet another tool for becoming wise -- video-media science fiction.



BOTH
How do you think Star Trek Lives! shaped modern fandom?

JL: I've often said, and I think it's still the most important thing we did -- we blew the lid on fanfic.

In doing that - in telling the world that "they can't do this to us" -- "they" can't take Star Trek away from us -- "they" can't cancel us -- "they" have no power over our imagination -- we opened the door and tore down walls for several generations to come to the gymnasium of the imagination and share visions, articulate emotional wisdom, and become strong enough to "make it so" in everyday reality.

The "message" or theme of STAR TREK LIVES! was simply, "You are not alone."

So many Star Trek fans were trapped in families that just couldn't see the vistas this TV show opened, and these people thought they were ALONE in their understanding of the importance of this TV show.

You see, it was the MEDIUM that was the MESSAGE -- this material had been done much better in books and SF magazines.  In fact, though STAR TREK (ST:ToS) was the first Science Fiction on TV, it was really BAD Science Fiction by comparison to novels we had all read and discussed.

There is the major shift from SF fandom of the past to ST fandom of the present.  SF fanzines almost never contained fiction.  They were discussions, articles, like blogs containing bits of personal life, the struggle of an SF reader to live among mundanes.  That struggle is wondrously well captured in modern day's Harry Potter among the muggles.

One point we tried to include in STAR TREK LIVES! but ended up in Sondra Marshak's VOYAGER series of fanfic worthy of professional publication was that TV depiction of Science Fiction was wholly inadequate for SF readers.  Therefore, ST fans improved on aired-Trek as they created much more solid Science Fiction out of it.

ST fanfic is better Trek than aired-Trek.

But that is true because, "You are not alone!" and "They can't do this to us!" and "Science Fiction is not escapist fantasy."

Those are very deep, philosophical points, obscure matters most people don't want to deal with.  But hand a person a Walkman or a Smartphone, and stand back before you get bowled over by swift change in humanity's direction.

So STAR TREK LIVES! blew the lid on fanfic, brought thousands more into it, fostered genfic (generic fanfic - fanfic dedicated to other TV Series (Man From U.N.C.L.E., STARSKY AND HUTCH, and now Harry Potter and everything in between).

Most people can't see that this is the most important event in human history since the agricultural revolution, but it truly is.

Agriculture let us feed the human body, team up in cities for defense, protect our less physically able so they could create, invent, innovate, manufacture and speculate.

Star Trek let us feed the human imagination, create the internet, the web, the browser, web 2.0, e-commerce, and today video-fanfic-Star Trek episodes, some of which have original actors, and writers engaged.

And now we have Zoom.

If you haven't read Asimov's CAVES OF STEEL and THE NAKED SUN -- hurry up and read them, along with Alvin Toffler's non-fiction FUTURE SHOCK.  Put this all together and make us a TV Streaming Series about "When Humanity is Wise."



BOTH
Do you remember the first convention you went to? What was that experience like?

I think you mean STAR TREK convention, not first convention. Science Fiction had a mature, happening every weekend, con circuit culminating in Worldcon (which at that time was held only in the USA).

Technically, the first Star Trek con was a backyard BBQ with a few dozen people involved.

I wasn't at that one, but knew the people involved.

I was at the first Star Trek Con held in New York City at a hotel, and the story of that con is told by Joan Winston both in her short chapter in STAR TREK LIVES! and in her book,

The Making of the Trek Conventions: Or, How to Throw a Party for 12,000 of Your Most Intimate Friends Hardcover – January 1, 1977

It was at the first Con that I accosted Gene Roddenberry in a hallway, told him about STAR TREK LIVES! and asked if he'd write a forward to it if I could sell it.  He said yes and gave me his home phone number. Eventually, I called and said the publisher bought it and would he do the intro -- he sent it to me right away.

What I remember most about those first few cons is how crowded it was.  More people always showed up than the con committee planned on. SF cons were not packed like that!

JEAN
I’m from Frankfort, KY, and I know you were living in western Kentucky in the early 70s. It was tough for me to connect with fellow fans in the 90s, so I can only imagine how it was in the pre-internet age. How did you learn about the broader world of Star Trek fandom? Why did you want to get involved?





BOTH
I love Joan Winston’s chapter on visiting the set of the original series and attending the final cast party. It’s more than 50 years later, and I’m even jealous reading about that! Did you have any personal connections with the original series cast? Are there any stand out moments that you remember?

I didn't know any of the cast and crew before the cons -- after a few years of several cons a year at which I was included with the Guests, hanging out in the Green Room or Guest Lounge, behind security lines, doing autographing, etc. I got to know most of them, and some of them remembered me from year to year.

In 1976, Joan Winston and I took a road trip together.  We had roomed together at a bunch of cons (SF and ST), and sometimes I'd pick her up at her Manhattan apartment to drive her to a con (and back). So that year Robert Heinlein was GoH at Worldcon in Kansas City, and Joanie and I planned a big summer tour for STAR TREK LIVES! (a 1975 title that went 8 printings, totally unexpected by the publisher).

I had dedicated my first novel, HOUSE OF ZEOR (a footnote in STAR TREK LIVES! as an example of proof of my understanding of Spock) to Heinlein, so I particularly wanted to give him an autographed copy of it.

He had a deal going with the Con - give blood at the bloodmobile, get a pin for your badge, stand in line and get his autograph.  He'd autograph only for donors.

I did that and stood in line, and instead of asking for his autograph, I gave him mine in a copy of my book.  He later read the book, called me, and we had a nice chat (As I was in the SFWA directory, he had my number.)

So, on this 1976 trip, I had done a few Cons before I met Joanie at another in Iowa, then we rented a car, drove to Kansas City, did Worldcon, flew to LA, rented a car and visited Paramount Studios, GR's office (where I found a copy of Kraith Collected on a coffee table, well dog-eared).

The best part of visiting the set on that trip happened in a nearby restaurant. We were sitting at a table, when the waiter brought over a bottle of champaign that we had not ordered, and classically, pointed across the restaurant to Gene and some VIPs having lunch, "Complements of that gentleman."  I still have the label.




BOTH
It seems like many of the people involved in and leading the fan movement in the late 60s and early 70s were women. Why do you think that is? Do you think it was important for women to take the lead in the area of fandom?

(see more on women under the Kraith question)

This is what most people don't understand about fandom.

The word fandom comes from "fanatic" and "kingdom" -- and essentially designates a place that has no physical location.

Science Fiction fandom existed entirely on paper by snail mail, and at cons which might be the same weekend every year but rarely in the same hotel, or same city -- but the PEOPLE were the same.

Anyone, literally anyone, a grammar school age kid even, could start a fanzine, and even win a Hugo for it.  Anyone could start a con, and it would be reviewed and reported on in dozens 'zines.

Today, this amorphous but well-defined association of people exists online and spreads across countries.  But then it was on-paper and rarely by telephone.

Anyone can do anything.  You don't need permission. You don't need to be selected or elected or anointed.

It is hard to grasp in a world so stratified as we are today, but humans function just fine without leaders.

That only works if everyone leads themselves and does a good job of it.

Science Fiction fans did that, and somehow Star Trek fans learned it.

So Star Trek fandom started out with no leaders.

Nobody followed anybody.  People just did whatever they saw needed doing, that they could do, and sometimes just did what they couldn't do because who cares if it's impossible - that just takes a little longer.

Today, though, the influx of mundane thinking has given the impression that we're followers.

In fandom there were no followers, and no leaders.  The structure of the social template was based entirely on vision, ambition, imagination, resources, individuality and ability, but mostly on attitude. People don't just do all they can, then quit - they get the job done, then pick up another job.

If fans had waited for a leader, we wouldn't have the internet or the web or e-books, or e-commerce, or the revived American space lift vehicles, Moon colony plans, etc.

Today, they often lump this attitude in with entrepreneurship, and in a way that is it.  The point is you don't need followers to do something nobody else has imagined.  No sane person would follow you, anyway - so just do it.



BOTH
In Star Trek Lives!, you talk about the Tailored Effect of Star Trek for television—the Spock Charisma Effect, the Optimism Effect, and the Goal Effect. From what I understand, these guiding principles went on to influence your mutual work on the Sime-Gen series. Can you explain these principles and how it influenced your work together?

JL: as I mentioned previously, House of Zeor was specifically designed and written for Spock fans, as I understood what captivated us about the Spock character.

Being connected into the SF fandom network and the ST fandom network (mostly the same people at the time), I put out an offer to sell HOUSE OF ZEOR (hardcover) on a money back guarantee to Spock fans - if you don't like it, send it back and I'll give you your money back.  I bought a couple boxes of books from the publisher and sold 60 copies - never had one returned.

To me, that indicates there's substance to the Spock Effect concept - to the entire concept of "effects" in an ensemble TV anthology series.

The TV Series had so much going against it, including the anthology format (watch in random order and it still makes sense? Really?)  But the anthology format was the most popular among local stations for reruns, so they were forced to go with that.

Making the best of it, knowing the Science Fiction audience was way too tiny to support a TV Series (even cheap-made like Trek), they went with the ensemble cast and created Characters who "spoke" to different audiences.  This is the template of the "family show."

What they didn't expect was that it appealed to women as strongly as to men -- and it was the technical science stuff that grabbed the women.

HOUSE OF ZEOR (and the pre-existing universe I built the novel from) was specifically designed to be science fiction for the jaded palate.  And it presented the argument that women are just as well endowed with imagination as men are.  It was designed to be different, and to spur the imagination in the same way the Spock character had energized so many fans.

When Jean Lorrah was gifted with a copy (I'm sure she'll tell that story) of HOUSE OF ZEOR, she wrote a review of it for a fanzine, which eventually turned up on my desk. I wrote her and asked for permission to reprint the review in the fanzine that had suddenly sprung up around HOUSE OF ZEOR.  She agreed - and we have it somewhere.

Here's the thing that glued us together.  She lambasted the awkward structural bits in my first novel -- which was so transparently a FIRST novel, but grasped what I was doing.

When we "printed" (I think it was hand-cranked mimeo then) her review, she of course got the standard contributor's copy - so she did what any fan does.  She wrote a story for the NEXT issue, so she could get another contributor's copy and read what others were writing.

At a ST Con later, she brought me an outline for another story, just like Star Trek fanfic delving into areas I had not planned for the published books to cover. I read it, and said, "Send me an outline and 3 chapters and I'll see if Doubleday will buy it."  We sold it to hardcover and it became FIRST CHANNEL.

Jean Lorrah started with Sime~Gen fanfic after she had been writing ST fanfic, and actually selling professionally before that.  But because she's such a good writer, and because she grasped the OTHER half of what I was doing with Sime~Gen (I write Simes; she writes Gens), I just had to get FIRST CHANNEL published on the main line.

The STAR TREK franchise is owned by other people - so there's a limit to what we (fans) can do with it.  I created Sime~Gen to be where I could do those things I couldn't do with Trek.

I couldn't take one of Jean's NTM fanzines to Roddenberry and get a TV Series made out of it.

I could take Jean's Sime~Gen fan story to a mainstream hardcover publisher and get a book published and in libraries and bookstores across the world.

The thesis behind all this - Star Trek ignited creativity and drew fans together to collaborate on extending those stories.  WHY DID THAT HAPPEN?  I have a notion of why that happened. To take that idea from hypothesis to theory, there has to be an experiment designed to demonstrate, "When we do this, that happens."

House of Zeor was my experiment, my proof that I understood why Star Trek ignited creativity in such a diverse audience.

I think it worked.

The Spock fans who didn't return the expensive hardcover copies show that.

The 5 or 6 fanzines that sprang up full of Sime~Gen fanfic show that.

Jean Lorrah (a Vulcan fan more than just a Spock fan - rich, glorious Sarek stories!) casually, impulsively writing the missing pieces of Sime~Gen as fanfic, just one disciplined rewrite from professionally salable, demonstrates that.

And now we've added Mary Lou Mendum, a fanfic writer we have turned professional by selling her Sime~Gen fanfic to our publisher, also shows that.

We also have a professionally published anthology of Sime~Gen short works by 13 Sime~Gen fanfic writers.

Way back when, they thought Science Fiction could be of interest only to teenage boys into Chess, Math, and maybe geology. I thought they were wrong, but what does a 7th grade girl know about anything?

Today, 3 women, a Ph.D. in English, a Ph.D. in Plant Genetics, and a Chemist write science fiction together.

And we're all Star Trek fans.

We all like Star Trek for different reasons. We all like Sime~Gen for different reasons.  That happened because of the Tailored Effect -- Two people looking at the same object see different things but they are both correct.

EXAMPLE GRAPHIC ATTACHED.



JACQUELINE
From what I can tell, your short story “Spock’s Affirmation” was one of the first (if not the first) short story published in a Star Trek fanzine using the characters from the show. This eventually evolved into the Kraith stories—I understand that it’s a shared universe with multiple writers contributing—but can you tell me a little about that series and why you were inspired to start it? Was this type of fan fiction common at that time?

JL: SPOCK'S AFFIRMATION is probably novella length, and was written because earlier issues of T-Negative had intriguing fiction.

Spockanalia and T-Negative were two of the first ST zines, and had opposing editorial policies.  Spockanalia was the home for those adhering strictly to facts established on-the-air, strictly to canon. T-Negative was the home for wild imagination, inspiration, and explanations involving made-up ideas that blended well with aired-Trek episodes.

I contributed an article to Spocklanalia, not my first fanzine writing, mostly because I wanted a contributor's copy, but also because I was inspired by the style and quality of the writing in the first issues.  Keep in mind, Spockanalia was intended to be a "one-shot" -- being the ONLY zine by that name, ever. Issue #2 was a surprise to the whole editorial crew.

Likewise, when I heard (on the grapevine) about T-Negative I had to see what Ruth Berman was up to, and then I wanted more editions.

Meanwhile -- there's always a meanwhile in fandom -- I was taking a course in commercial fiction writing.  There were homework assignments, and dreary ones at that.

So instead of following directions, I wrote Star Trek fanfic for the homework, and sent the homework assignments to T-Negative for a free copy.

I was practicing ways to convey what it is about Star Trek that energizes so much creativity among the kind of people who don't follow leaders and don't lead followers, but aren't loners.  I was practicing for Sime~Gen, even though I'd already started selling Sime~Gen professionally.

That ambition to practice turned into Kraith.

I loved fanfic, so I sent a Kraith story to every fanzine I heard of, and got lots of free copies.

At one of the Star Trek cons in NYC, I was sitting in the audience where Isaac Asimov was introducing Gene Roddenberry when someone behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "Are you Jacqueline Lichtenberg?"

Conversation ensued about the Kraith stories which were at that time scattered among a lot of Star Trek zines.  How can I get a copy of all of them?  The women behind me whispered, and after Roddenberry spoke, Kraith Collected was born.

They eventually went to offset printing doing over a thousand copies at a time.

This is a good example of fandom in action. There are no leaders. There are no followers.  Only do-ers.  You want something? Do it.

If you read my Kraith stories in order,
http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/
you will have an entire writing course under your belt -- each story exemplifying a single technique over all others.

Hence one could claim they are "badly written" -- because to get a story just so, you have to balance all the techniques.

However, the creative notions of Vulcan culture that I cast into Kraith sparked 50 other creative people to contribute to this Star Trek Alternate Universe.

I was proving my Tailored Effect notion - that I do understand why Star Trek spawned fanzines and fanfic when no other TV Series ever had, and why Star Trek was the most important development since the agricultural revolution.

Keep in mind that at the time I was writing Kraith and researching fandom for Star Trek Lives! (which I thought of as a single newspaper article), there was an American effort to reach orbit (but the notion of a space station was idiotic because it's impossible), but nobody could conceptualize the Internet!

Kraith was a rehearsal for Sime~Gen - and I was writing them all simultaneously with Star Trek Lives!


JEAN
Jean, you’ve written several Star Trek fiction books—Metamorphosis, Survivors, and the The IDIC Epidemic, to name a few—how did you make that leap? Did you approach those publishers with your ideas? Or did they approach you first?

JEAN
Did you write any fan fiction before penning Star Trek stories professionally?

BOTH
What do you think about modern day Comic-Cons? Are you happy with the way that they’ve grown, or do you wish they’d gone a different direction?

JL: Oh, I'm happy with the way they've grown. The torch has been passed to the visual/audio media, and the Superhero story - the story of an individual, starkly different from all others, dedicated to making things better for people who aren't so very similar to themselves. These are stories to inspire us all to abandon the idea that once we've done all we can, we are finished doing even if the task is not complete.

These are stories about exceeding the design specifications of the body, mind and soul, and about choosing tasks that improve the world.

The superhero is the Science Fiction hero.

And don't forget Gaming - video-style as well as table-top, Sime~Gen is beloved by gamers.

BOTH
What advice would you give to someone attending a Star Trek convention for the first time?

Well, you're not a superhero.  You have physical limits, needing food, sleep, processing time. Don't be greedy. Decide which of the 10 conventions running simultaneously in the hotel that you're going to attend, and ignore the others.  Get to them next time, but focus on the programming track, the people, and the parties relevant to what you're doing now.

Collect flyers from the freebie table to investigate later. Be sure to buy a membership to the next edition of the con (cheaper now than at the door).


Thanks again!

------end quote of Anthony Darnell and Jacqueline Lichtenberg ------

NOTE: Anthony Darnell may post his submitted version with both Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg answers on his own site, Phantastiqa .  So that's a 4th intermediate version to study.

Here is the version he edited down including Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg answers to fit the specs for startrek.com

-------------quote edited version ----------
Living Star Trek: How Female Fans Breathed New Life into the Franchise
by Anthony Darnell

How did Star Trek survive?

I’ve always been fascinated by early Star Trek fandom. From Bjo Trimble’s infamous “Save Star Trek” campaign to the first major convention in 1972, fandom perpetuated and saved Star Trek from sinking into relative obscurity.

In the late 60s and early 70s, however, many Star Trek fans were isolated. This may be hard to comprehend in the internet age, but there was a time when Star Trek fans didn’t know that other fans existed.

Even for someone like me, who grew up in a small town in Kentucky during the 90s, it was hard to find and connect with fellow fans.

So, how did these early Trekkies do it?

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the publication of Star Trek Lives! Essentially, it was a how-to book, covering everything from conventions and clubs to zines and fanfic. It was hugely popular and had eight printings by Bantam Books between 1975 and 1979.

One of the writers of this book, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, created The Star Trek Welcommittee—with the blessing of Gene Roddenberry—in order to help newcomers connect. Lichtenberg also wrote “Spock’s Affirmation,” which is one of the first (if not the first) short stories written for a fanzine based on characters from the show. (Eventually, this would develop into) THE FIRST OF the Kraith stories—a fan-created Star Trek storyline with multiple writers contributing through zines.

In the mid-70s, Lichtenberg INVITED JEAN LORRAH TO COLLABORATE ON THE THIRD NOVEL IN THE SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL SERIES (began working with Jean Lorrah on the sci-fi book series Sime~Gen, (which was partly inspired by) AT A STAR TREK CONVENTION.  ( their mutual love for Star Trek.)

Lorrah was also an early fan who contributed to fanzines and (even) wrote a full-length fanfic novel (Night of the Twin Moons), before making the leap to writing for Star Trek professionally with books like Survivors, Metamorphosis, and The IDIC Epidemic.

I recently reached out to both Lichtenberg and Lorrah to see if they would answer a few questions about early Star Trek fandom, how women primarily led that movement, and how it has shaped modern-day fandom and Comic-Cons.

Thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions. I’m fascinated by early Star Trek fandom and how it blossomed into what we have today. How do you think Star Trek Lives! shaped modern fandom?

LORRAH: It showed people all over the U.S. who loved the show that they were not alone—that there were organized fans, and that they could join them. It was just an interesting read for many people, but for the double-dyed fans it opened a world of connections to like-minded people at a time when such books still were found in libraries, so every copy reached many readers. For the first time [it] showed them how to find one another.

LICHTENBERG: I've often said—and I think it's still the most important thing we did—we blew the lid on fanfic.

In doing that, in telling the world that they can't do this to us; they can't take Star Trek away from us; they can't cancel us; they have no power over our imagination; we tore down walls for several generations to come to the gymnasium of the imagination WHERE WE (and) share visions, articulate emotional wisdom, and become strong enough to "make it so" in everyday reality.

The "message," or theme, of Star Trek Lives! was simply, "You are not alone."

Do you remember the first Star Trek convention you went to? What was that experience like?

LICHTENBERG: Technically, the first Star Trek con was a backyard BBQ with a few dozen people involved. I wasn't at that one, but knew the people involved.

I was at the first Star Trek con held in New York City at a hotel, and the story of that con is told by Joan Winston both in her short chapter in Star Trek Lives! and in her book The Making of the Trek Conventions: Or, How to Throw a Party for 12,000 of Your Most Intimate Friends.

LORRAH: I'm pretty sure my first convention was a SequesterCon, a midwestern convention with no media guests, where creative fans sold their zines and artwork and Trek-themed crafts to one another and held panels about every imaginable aspect of Trek.

LICHTENBERG: It was at the first con that I accosted Gene Roddenberry in a hallway, told him about Star Trek Lives!, and asked if he'd write a forward to it if I could sell it. He said yes and gave me his home phone number. Eventually, I called and said the publisher bought it and would he do the intro. He sent it to me right away.


LORRAH: We were such nerds, and primarily female. There have always been men in Trekfandom, but to be in this inner creative fandom they had to understand that women ran the show. That was not a rule—it simply was that way, as in zine fandom women outnumbered men by about ten to one.

I had been purchasing zines individually, [and] seeing ads in the ones I got hold of that let me find another one or two. But I went home from that convention with as many zines as I could fit into my luggage. The next year I came back with a complete draft of The Night of the Twin Moons. It was my kind of con—where fans came to talk to one another, not to crowd into auditoriums and corridors to hear and get autographs from actors.

It seems like many of the people involved in and leading the fan movement in the late 60s and early 70s were women. Why do you think that is? Do you think it was important for women to take the lead in the area of fandom?

LORRAH: Absolutely! Within Trekfandom, women were the creators they were rarely allowed to be elsewhere. Women created Trekfandom, which eventually morphed into media fandom. It was our little world, with no need to ask permission of men to do what we did there. Heck, we were Amazons on our own little island! And media fandom to this day is a female-dominated world.

LICHTENBERG: This is what most people don't understand about fandom. The word fandom comes from "fanatic" and "kingdom." [It] essentially designates a place that has no physical location.

Science Fiction fandom existed entirely on paper by snail mail and at cons. [The cons] might be the same weekend every year but rarely in the same hotel, or same city—but the people were the same. Anyone, literally anyone, a grammar school-age kid even, could start a fanzine, and even win a Hugo Award for it. Anyone could start a con, and it would be reviewed and reported on in dozens of zines.

Today, this amorphous, but well-defined, association of people exists online and spreads across countries. But [back] then it was on-paper and rarely by telephone.

Anyone can do anything. You don't need permission. You don't need to be selected or elected or anointed.

I love Joan Winston’s chapter about visiting the set of the original series and attending the final cast party. It’s more than 50 years later and I’m even jealous reading about that! Did you have any personal connections with the original series cast? Are there any stand-out moments that you remember?

LICHTENBERG: I didn't know any of the cast and crew before the cons. After a few years of several cons a year, at which I was included with the guests, hanging out in the green room or guest lounge, behind security lines, doing autographing, etc. I got to know most of them, and some of them remembered me from year to year.

LORRAH: Con going over the years, eventually as a guest myself with my pro Trek novels, I met George Takei, Walter Koenig, Major Barrett, and Mark Lenard. The latter, it turned out, had been asked to autograph so many of my Sarek and Amanda zines through the years that he had finally read them. He told me, "I was a little bit afraid to meet you!" Later, after he got over talking with the woman who had sexualized his character, he confessed that my stories had influenced his later portrayals of Sarek in the films.

LICHTENBERG: In 1976, Joan Winston and I took a road trip together. We had roomed together at a bunch of cons, and sometimes I'd pick her up at her Manhattan apartment to drive her to a con and back. So that year Robert Heinlein was guest of honor at Worldcon in Kansas City, and Joanie and I planned a big summer tour for Star Trek Lives!

I had dedicated my first novel, House of Zeor, to Heinlein, so I particularly wanted to give him an autographed copy of it. He had a deal going with the con: give blood at the bloodmobile, get a pin for your badge, stand in line, and get his autograph. He'd autograph only for donors.

I did that and stood in line, and instead of asking for his autograph, I gave him mine in a copy of my book. He later read the book, called me, and we had a nice chat. I was in the Science Fiction Writers of America directory, [so] he had my number.

On this 1976 trip, I had done a few cons before [where] I met Joanie at another [con] in Iowa, then we rented a car, drove to Kansas City, did Worldcon, flew to LA, rented a car, and visited Paramount Studios and Gene Roddenbery's office (where I found a copy of Kraith Collected on a coffee table, well dog-eared).

The best part of visiting the set on that trip happened in a nearby restaurant. We were sitting at a table when the waiter brought over a bottle of Champaign that we had not ordered. Classically, [the waiter] pointed across the restaurant to Gene and some VIPs having lunch, [and said], "Complements of that gentleman." I still have the label.

From what I can tell, “Spock’s Affirmation” was one of the first (if not the first) short stories published in a Star Trek fanzine based on characters from the show. This eventually evolved into the Kraith stories. I understand that it’s a shared universe with multiple writers contributing, but can you tell me a little about that series and why you were inspired to start it? Was this type of fan fiction common at that time?

LICHTENBERG: “Spock’s Affirmation” is probably novella length and was written because earlier issues of T-Negative had intriguing fiction.

Spockanalia and T-Negative were two of the first Star Trek zines and had opposing editorial policies. Spockanalia was the home for those adhering strictly to facts established on the air—strictly to canon. T-Negative was the home for wild imagination, inspiration, and explanations involving made-up ideas that blended well with aired-Trek episodes.

I contributed an article to Spocklanalia, not my first fanzine writing, mostly because I wanted a contributor's copy, but also because I was inspired by the style and quality of the writing in the first issues. Keep in mind, Spockanalia was intended to be a "one-shot"—being the only zine by that name, ever. Issue #2 was a surprise to the whole editorial crew.

Meanwhile—there's always a meanwhile in fandom—I was taking a course in commercial fiction writing. There were homework assignments, and dreary ones at that. So instead of following directions, I wrote Star Trek fanfic for the homework and sent the homework assignments to T-Negative for a free copy.

I was practicing ways to convey what it is about Star Trek that energizes so much creativity among the kind of people who don't follow leaders and don't lead followers, but [also] aren't loners. I was practicing for Sime~Gen, even though I'd already started selling Sime~Gen professionally. That ambition to practice turned into Kraith.

Jean, you’ve written several professional Star Trek fiction books. How did you make that leap? Did you approach those publishers with your ideas? Or did they approach you first?

LORRAH: At the time I first had ideas for pro Trek novels, they would only look at agented work from established science fiction writers. So once I had those credentials, my agent submitted the ideas. I didn't write the whole books until they were contracted, because by then I was writing steadily in both Sime~Gen and my own Savage Empire series and didn't have time to write what would have turned into fanfic if rejected.

I wrote the prospectus for Survivors while Tasha Yar was still a continuing character, and it was rejected because they did not want to establish that much background on a continuing character. A week after Tasha died on screen, Paramount contacted my agent and greenlighted the book!

What do you think about modern day Comic-Cons? Are you happy with the way that they’ve grown, or do you wish they’d gone a different direction?

LICHTENBERG: I'm happy with the way they've grown. The torch has been passed to the visual/audio media and the Superhero story—the story of an individual, starkly different from all others, dedicated to making things better for people who aren't so very similar to themselves. These are stories to inspire us to abandon the idea that, once we've done all we can, we are finished doing, even if the task is not complete.

These are stories about exceeding the design specifications of the body, mind, and soul, and about choosing tasks that improve the world. The superhero is the science fiction hero.

What advice would you give to someone attending a Star Trek convention for the first time?

LORRAH: Meet and befriend other fans with your specific interests, and friend one another online. I would tell a zine fan to see if there is a convention-within-the -convention of like-minded creative types. To find them, go to the dealer's room and see if anyone is selling zines, new or used. Strike up a conversation and see if you get invited to private parties. But hey—we all know you're not going to meet any zine fans. We are a dying breed.

LICHTENBERG: We are not a dying breed! We have moved to Comic-Con and online sites like FanFiction.net.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

---------- end quote edited down version with both Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg -------

And here is a link to what startrek.com posted

https://www.startrek.com/news/living-star-trek-how-two-women-breathed-new-life-into-the-franchise

For a lesson in journalistic writing, read and compare all 3 versions, or even 4.  Learn how what you read in a professional publication is what the writer wrote.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Taking Names

As long as a former President is deceased, and also his widow (if applicable), the President's name can be trademarked as long as it is not a descriptive trademark.  

The Lanham Act is going to have to be rewritten in the next few years. Why?  Because the pronouns are outdated, as are some of the nouns. A future President might have a widower (rather than a widow).

Legal blogger Dorna Mohaghegh, representing the law firm Frankfurt Kurnit Klein and Selz PC tells the topical trademark and copyright law-related emerging story of conflict between a genuine historical project named after President Lincoln, and what I would call a petard "project" for political fundraising.

Lexology link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1ad2906f-eed7-42a4-b73a-70a084b0e5e6

IP and Media Law Link: 

https://ipandmedialaw.fkks.com/post/102glx9/dishonest-abe-trademark-battle-erupts-over-the-lincoln-project

For those who may not know, a petard was an unreliable salt petre bomb  (basically a fertilizer bomb) used in the middle ages, most famously mentioned by Shakespeare in the context of army corps of engineers specialists blown sky high while attempting to undermine a beseiged city wall and thus being "hoist by their own petard".  Hamlet Act 3 Scene 4.

It's an interesting analysis of two groups both wanting to trademark "The Lincoln Project", and of some little known trademark trivia. 

For those considering a trademark, the cost of a trademark goes up in January 2021.

As for taking, but perhaps not trademarking, living student athletes' names and more, legal blogger Gregg E. Clifton wrote an interesting opinion for the law firm Jackson Lewis PC.

 

For College and ProSports Law:

https://www.collegeandprosportslaw.com/collegiate-sports/federal-name-image-and-likeness-options-increase-with-new-senate-bill-proposal/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CollegiateProfessionalSportsLawBlog+%28Collegiate+%26+Professional+Sports+Law+Blog%29

 

Lexology link

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3d2f94cf-42ce-4389-a1c7-c1d03147d61c

One of the Heritage/DNA/Ancestry websites may be --and maybe should be-- in copyright-related trouble for monetizing former students' yearbook photos without permission. It is a class action, and likely to be important... because most Americans' photographs are in their old school yearbook, and the photos and comments may not be as amusing if made public today as they might or might not have been at the time.

That long ago time (my opinion) might have been before the internet, when the expectation was that the yearbook would be seen by a very limited number of people, and in the context of the in-jokes of the time. Perhaps "the time" might have been when Monty Python's Flying Circus was hugely popular, and everyone would have understood references to lumberjacks sniffing flowers, dead parrots and more.

The copyright in photographs generally belongs to the photographer, unless the photographs are clearly work for hire, or the copyright is assigned or licensed. The subject of a photograph usually has rights (of Publicity, for instance), unless they waive the rights.

Linda A Goldstein, and Amy Ralph Mudge, blogging for Baker and Hostetler LLP explained in a December 16th blog about the class action suit in California, and why the plaintiffs feel that the site in question were in the wrong to ask users to send in old yearbooks, and to ask those users to claim that they owned the copyright to the yearbooks, or that the yearbooks were not subject to copyright.

Here:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=83633085-22f6-40af-99c2-9328d3311066

Or here:

https://e.bakerlaw.com/rv/ff006fb16b2c84389b84cbfd10438ce5462eb14f/p=4755305

 

Anyone who is at all interested in their own privacy should read the complaint, which includes examples of the plaintiffs' yearbook photos, which were allegedly exploited for profit by the defendants.

 

When there is too much surveillance in general in society, and powerful forces in society try to control citizens' thoughts and actions through disinformation, vocabulary manipulation, destroying or rewriting history, intimidation etc, we call it Orwellian. 

 

Hillsdale College published an essay comparing Orwell's dystopian Big Brotherly world with ours.

 

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/orwells-1984-today/?utm_campaign=imprimis&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=103982981&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8Rqxsl2_EZyhORInqVNloCnM8j4uQMmFHHX36wjjt4g5QYbXTtxR6nQM4PU3wF1ij7FQ_9CBFBjZ2mdHrRTlwm2soqPQ&utm_content=103982981&utm_source=hs_email

On a less dark note, the fine copyright enthusiasts of MTP discuss Thom Tillis's thoughts for how the DMCA should be brought up to date to restore incentives for creative artists to... create.

https://musictechpolicy.com/2020/12/22/senthomtillis-releases-discussion-draft-of-dmca-revisions/

All the best, and Happy New Year!

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Xmas Musings

I've just read a recent book about Dorothy Sayers, SUBVERSIVE, by Crystal Downing. One theme to which the author frequently alludes is the concept of living by an exchange model, an expectation of behaving certain ways to get equivalent value in return. For instance, Downing emphasizes that Sayers cautioned against the mind-set that doing good deeds guarantees one will "go to Heaven" or even enjoy prosperity in life. At the current season, this idea reminded me of Christmas gifts, naturally. We often speak of "exchanging presents" or having a gift exchange at an office party. Ideally, we'd give presents that reflect our awareness of what the recipient really wants, without any consideration of what we might receive from that person. In practice, our gift-giving is often constrained not only by what we can afford but by the anticipated size and monetary value of the present we expect the recipient to give us. If we spend a lot more in giving than the other person spends on us, we might feel miffed at the discrepancy or embarrassed at having put the other person in an awkward spot. Conversely, not spending enough on a gift may distress us because we fear the recipient will think we're stingy, or we might even feel guilty about not giving what we "should."

This subject reminds me of two short essays C. S. Lewis wrote about Christmas as celebrated in Britain in his time. You can read them here:

What Christmas Means to Me

Xmas and Christmas

In "What Christmas Means to Me" (a sappy title I seriously doubt Lewis chose himself), he distinguishes three things called "Christmas": The first is the religious festival. The second, a secular holiday devoted to merrymaking, "has complex historical connections with the first" and, in mid-twentieth-century England as in our contemporary culture, is joyfully celebrated by millions of people who don't practice Christianity in any other way. The third phenomenon, which Lewis says "is unfortunately everyone's business," he calls "the commercial racket." Note that this article was first published in 1957! Here's where the topic of gift exchange comes in. He laments the modern pressure to give presents or at least send cards to everybody we know, a custom he maintains "has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers." Not only is this obligation exhausting and a hindrance to the "ordinary and necessary shopping" we still can't avoid, "Most of it is involuntary." While I think "most" is an exaggeration, Lewis amusingly summarizes the hapless shopper's plight thus: "The modern rule is that anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own."

"Xmas and Christmas," a witty piece of satire, bears the subtitle "A Lost Chapter from Herodotus." It purports to be the classical historian's report of strange winter customs in the fogbound island nation of Niatirb. The writer describes the sending of "Exmas-cards" bearing pictures that seem to have no discernible connection to the festival supposedly being celebrated, such as birds on prickly tree branches. There's a funny description of the citizens' reactions to receiving cards or gifts from anyone they haven't already gifted: "They beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and, having sufficiently lamented their misfortune, they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain. . . ." Herodotus concludes that Exmas and "Crissmas" can't possibly be the same holiday, because surely millions of people wouldn't undergo those ordeals in honor of a God they don't believe in.

This essay's description of the illustrations on "Exmas-cards," including "men in such garments as the Niatirbians believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs," highlights the way our images of a "traditional Christmas" often owe more to art, literature, and the media than to firsthand experience. Those idyllic snow scenes, for instance, and the songs about sleigh rides. If anyone in the modern U.S. goes on a sleigh ride around the holidays, it's most likely a staged event, not a spontaneous family outing. As for songs such as "Winter Wonderland," "Let It Snow," and "White Christmas" (rescued from banality only by its seldom-sung prologue, which frames the singer as a Los Angeles resident nostalgic for the northeast winters of his childhood), a considerable percentage of the American population sees white Christmases only in the movies. In the popular imagination, though, December is supposed to conform to the standard described by TV Tropes in this entry:

Dreaming of a White Christmas

As the page explains, "Unless a work of fiction takes place in a tropical or arid setting, or in the Southern Hemisphere, it will always snow in winter. . . . The snow will be there to look 'pretty'. It does not melt or turn slushy, nor is it ever coated with dirt or litter. It is never accompanied by freezing winds or icy rains." While our family lived in San Diego at some points during my husband's Navy career, we could tell when it was winter (aside from chilly nights and increased rain) because the distant hills turned green rather than brown. Growing up in Norfolk, Virginia, I seldom experienced snow in December as a child. We got it mainly in January. My late stepmother, a native of the coastal region of North Carolina, loved snow and always hoped for a white Christmas. Considering her birthplace, I doubt she ever saw snow at Christmas during her entire early life. Yet the ideal derived from fiction, movies, and songs shaped her vision of how the winter holidays were "supposed" to look.

Merry Christmas, white or green, to all who celebrate it!

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Mysteries of Pacing Part 11- Pacing the Character Arc

Mysteries of Pacing

Part 11

Pacing the Character Arc

Previous entries in this series are indexed here:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/07/index-to-mysteries-of-pacing.html

Mysteries of Pacing Parts 9 and 10

9. Character Arc Pacing Using The Foible
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/07/mysteries-of-pacing-part-9-character.html

10. Show Don't Tell Character Arc
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/08/mysteries-of-pacing-part-10-show-dont.html

...discussed showing rather than telling the Character Arc.

So if you can't "tell" the Character Arc Story, but story is all about the intangible, psychological, spiritual, morphing of a Character, how do you convey the Arc, or the Change in how the Character evaluates a situation and how the Character decides to act, and what actions she chooses?

For example: How do you depict the shift in a Character from Republican to Democrat?  From Warrior to Lover? From Poet to President?  How and why do people CHANGE?

Or do they change?

What is the experience of your reader?

To convince a reader that the Character you have designed for them to identify with has changed, that change has to seem plausible to the reader.

This is the "hole" in the comic book, or graphic novel, approach. To stay away from the "slow" parts, to keep the pacing fast enough for young (teen, or younger, even twenty-somethings) you have to skip the important small steps that make it plausible this Character would do That Action.

Adults, especially over 30, know how stubborn older people can be, how "set in their ways."

You, the writer, must understand how the elders in your story got so set in their ways.  The backstory is so important, but you can't "tell" that story, or well ... back up and start the series of novels at the events that shaped those elder's beliefs?

If you show-don't-tell the shaping of a stubborn elder starting with early teens, or maybe 20 something, and progressing through another twenty years, you will have a 20 book series.

We've been looking at a few of those, most recently C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner novels.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/07/reviews-32-cj-cherryh-and-gini-koch-in.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/12/reviews-58-divergence-by-c-j-cherryh.html

Other mentions of C. J. Cherryh are Indexed here:

How do you change his mind on issues he's sure he understands?

We've talked a lot about C. J. Cherryh.  Here is an index of some posts mentioning her work.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/12/index-to-posts-mentioning-c-j-cherryh.html

And we've discussed several series of novels running 20 books or more, a phenomenon you would not find in Romance Genre prior to the admixture of Vampire, Paranormal, or Science Fiction genre forms with Romance.

In an old fashioned Romance Genre novel, the couple meets, tries to cope with their attraction, overcomes obstacles to getting together, gets together (sometimes to the Wedding Day, often just to "Will You Marry Me?") and that's the end of the story.

We are to assume they live into an HEA lifetime.  And we go on to pick up another Romance novel that starts the same, and ends the same.

The addition of the near-immortal Vampire character, or the problems of relationships with Ghosts, or mythical creatures from another dimension, Aliens from Outer Space, made the "ever after" more interesting, attractive, and problematic.

Readers wanted more, writers gave more, and we have serious like Gini Koch's ALIEN series.

Falling in love is an adventure in self-discovery -- the amazement that another person could have THIS affect on how you think, what you value, what you're willing to give up to get a life together.

The Second Time Around Romance often captures much of that advanced story arc where both Characters have a complex, rich, backstory -- with pain, with lessons learned, with consequences accepted (children) and avoided.

Romance has come of age, no longer about teen crushes and infatuations, but about real relationships and how another person reshapes you.

But still, you are you.

No matter how "old" you might be, how "elder" in a family or community, you are still you.

The readers of Romance are old enough to understand that, having seen children grow up.

A parent learns the traits of their children from earliest years, what their talents are, the proclivities, and personalities.  There is a sense of each child responding differently to the same home environment.

The Romance reader's perception of the real people around her is that people grow up from childhood by growing into their Personality - not by changing it.

Old advice to youngsters just entering a new situation is, "Be yourself."

That's harder than it sounds. Thousands of experiences shape the contents of that innate framework of Personality, and along through the decades of life, mistakes are corrected, bits discarded, other bits smoothing over the cracks where a heart was broken, and what emerges is an Elder who is as solid as he will ever become.

Younger people who are still correcting their mistakes, trying to find their limits and define "self" see such mature people as stubborn, wrong, set in their ways. fossils no longer relevant to the changing world.

See? Writers know that Character is all in point of view.

The Villain is the Hero of his own Story.

So Character Arc is also in point of view more than in objective reality.

As you age, your point of view changes even though you are the same you.

So, if your Main Character is mature, that Character's "Arc" -- or change in response to the impact of Plot Events -- may be very small on an objective scale. December Romance.

But if your Main Character is a teen, the Character Arc may be gigantic.  Scared Straight.

The Character Arc of  a younger person can change the direction of their whole life, and move an entire civilization.

Think about Bill Gates leaving college to found Microsoft.

Now think about a man in his 70's deciding to run for President. How do you change his mind on issues he's sure he understands?

C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner novels trace an all-too-young and unsure of himself (but arrogant in his confidence in his linguistic skills) through the Character Arc (22 books and counting) of mastering the Art of Maturity.

Bren Cameron, by the novel DIVERGENCE,
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/12/reviews-58-divergence-by-c-j-cherryh.html

...has learned how inaction can speak more loudly than action.  He has learned to choose when and how to act.  He shoots someone with a gun he's not supposed to have, and saves the day, unraveling a dark plot that could have damaged the economic footing of a civilization. His only other action in the entire book is to quietly write some notes to various dignitaries, and to go talk to people who distrust each other.  Mostly, he sits still and evaluates the various moving parts of the situation.

This makes for a novel replete with intricate exposition about the events of previous novels -- but all from Bren Cameron's now mature point of view.

The shift in how Bren interprets the events he lived through, and the things he finds out from others, shows without telling that this is the same Character from Book 1 (FOREIGNER), but now way out along a Character Arc we can now see without being told.

https://www.amazon.com/Foreigner-10th-Anniversary-Book-ebook/dp/B006JHXPDW/

So if you set out to show not tell a major change in a person's character, you will need more space than a few comic books offer.  A single novel won't do it, as each "novel" in a real person's life brings one unique point into view, resolves one issue.

To chronicle a real maturation, you need a long series of novels.

So study some of the long series we've discussed, and translate them into Romance.

Study the Netflix Original, Madame Secretary, which depicts a couple living the Happily Ever After portion of their lives, raising children, struggling to balance home, family, and work.

What lesson of Maturity makes your readers unbearably curious?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Ignorance Is Bliss

"Searching for yourself is a bad idea"... at least, it is if a search engine is involved.

If you find a bad review of yourself, your works, your services, look the other way. Remember those four monkeys that see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil, and do no evil.
 

Not everyone knows about the crotch-shielding 4th monkey.

If you must employ someone to defend your reputation online, keep them on a very short leash, metaphorically speaking. Bad reviews can be hurtful, but it is best not to lash out even by proxy.

Karen Rubin, blogging for Thompson Hine LLP tells the edifying and amusing cautionary tale of a sensitive lawyer who --after his web consultant showed him a bad review-- doubled down and made matters much worse

Read the tale of legal woe here:
https://www.thelawforlawyerstoday.com/2020/12/5323/#page=1

 

Or here:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0a593797-2811-42d0-a533-e169054eb62d

There's a sting in the tale. One cannot make it up!

For a wise and sober list of Dos and Don'ts when ones feelings are wounded by online opprobrium, follow the counsel of legal blogger  Terri Seligman who writes for the Frankfurt Kurnit Klein and Selz PC advertising law blog.

 

See here:
https://advertisinglaw.fkks.com/post/102gluy/ftc-letter-highlights-some-dos-and-donts-of-handling-customer-reviews

Or here:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=84af220a-5619-4745-a1f1-2e8cf2146c92

Finally, and apropos of nothing to do with reviews, but richly illustrative of the imagined ignorance of correspondents asking the EEOC about whether or not their boss behavior is inappropriate, legal blogger Robin Shea spoofs some Q&A about sexual harassment, discrimination and more.

https://www.constangy.com/employment-labor-insider/eeoc-to-issue-opinion-letters

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

 

Good Guys and Bad Guys

Kameron Hurley's latest LOCUS essay discusses empathy versus selfishness and why being the "bad guy" is actually taking the easy way out:

It's Easy Being the Bad Guy

It's not uncommon to think villains are more fun to read and write, while heroes are boring. Hurley recalls her childhood reading diet of "feel-good fantasy novels," the kind of "noble tales" in which the good and people can be counted on to fulfill our expectations of their good or evil choices, and we know in advance "who would prevail and who would fail." In childhood, she "found this predictability boring and formulaic after the first three or four novels." Later she realized fiction of straightforward good and evil offers a welcome, valid respite from the "messy and complicated" real world where "good people coming out on top is far less common than we’d like." By adulthood, most of us have learned that's how the world works. It's understandable to want a fictional world that operates differently. In addition to fantasy, Hurley mentions detective stories, pervaded by the theme that truth will come to light and justice will prevail. As she puts it, "This is why we tell so many stories about the good folks winning, to balance out some of the everyday horror we encounter in a world that is fundamentally unfair."

In her early years, Hurley "believed goodness was the default state." Later in life, after decades lived according to an allegedly realistic philosophy of self-interest, she discovered that doing the right thing, rather than the easy "default" path, is a difficult choice that must be consciously taken. She notes that "we must actively choose goodness every day" and affirms, "Goodness. . . is not a state, but an act, one we must perform again and again." A provocative article well worth reading in its entirety.

In real-life terms, C. S. Lewis maintains that the notorious criminals, tyrants, and other villains of history have a monotonous sameness, while the saints are gloriously unique. Nevertheless, I feel there's some truth in the idea that it's often easier to write a convincing, interesting villain than a believable hero. Lewis himself creates interesting good characters, such as Lucy in the Narnia series and Dr. Ransom in the space trilogy (OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET, etc.). Madeleine L'Engle does an especially fine job with her engaging young heroes, e.g., Meg and her brother Charles Wallace in A WRINKLE AND TIME and its sequels. The dual protagonists of Diane Duane's Young Wizards series also rank high in that category. Two of my other favorite good characters are Dorothy Sayers's mystery-solving duo of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. Terry Pratchett also does this sort of thing brilliantly, as with formidable witch Granny Weatherwax and police chief Vimes.

The assumption that heroes can't interest audiences without fundamental flaws and deep-seated self-doubt has led to distortions such as the portrayal of Aragorn in the LORD OF THE RINGS movies and the jarringly out-of-character behavior of Peter in the large-screen adaptation of PRINCE CASPIAN. This assumption is a fairly modern development, though, not an eternal verity in the creation of mythic, legendary, and fictional good guys.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Index to Posts Mentioning C. J. Cherryh

Index to Posts Mentioning C. J. Cherryh

I seem to talk about C. J. Cherryh frequently, and make references assuming the reader has followed what I've said about her work.

Although her work is not "Romance Genre" - it is Science Fiction about characters who respond to their Relationships with others, who work out what to do about problems, especially the mysteries of Alien behavior.

She has become the primary reference source for world building, plots, and non-human civilizations structured around complex "Situations."  Just like a very intimate Romance, C. J. Cherryh's novels pivot on multi-dimensional situations with many moving parts.

Here are some of the posts mentioning C. J. Cherryh's work.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/12/reviews-58-divergence-by-c-j-cherryh.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/06/reviews-54-resurgence-by-c-j-cherryh.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/05/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-20.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/07/reviews-36-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/07/reviews-32-cj-cherryh-and-gini-koch-in.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/08/alien-sexuality-part-two-what-is-life.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/07/reviews-27-foreigner-series-by-c-j.html

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

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

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/01/research-plot-integration-in-historical.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/08/two-of-swords.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

About Face

On one authors discussion forum this week, there is talk of a so-called scam (which might or might not be a scam) in which authors are contacted by complainants who claim that the authors are exploiting images on their websites images of the complainant or that belong to the complainant without a license and without permission.

Is it possible that it is not a scam? Actually, it is possible.  It is possible that the author might be in the wrong, and could have legal exposure. 

Blogger Danielle Prager has published a highly accessible article with advice on where to find legal images, and a helpful explanation of what is fair use, and what is not.

https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/guide-copyright-fair-use-laws-online-images/

Most people may assume that all Creative Commons works are "no rights reserved" and may be freely used and shared even on professional websites, book art, and blogs, but many Creative Commons licensed works do have some rights reserved, and most require that the beneficiary (user) of the work at the very minimum provides attribution.

For instance, if using Hubble telescope images of space, one is expected to display attribution, and sometimes to inform the Space Telescope Science Institute or STScI (using this form that pops up if one clicks the text link on  https://hubblesite.org/copyright).  The hubblesite copyright page also is explicit about use of photography:  "If a recognizable person appears in a photograph, use for commercial purposes may infringe a right of privacy or publicity, and permission should be obtained from the recognizable person."

As a general rule, before snagging the perfect image from anywhere on the internet, check out the footer to see if there is a copyright information page. It wouldn't hurt to read Terms of Use. Visitors are legally bound by the Terms and ignorance of what you chose not to read is no defence (or defense) in law.

Legal blogger Mark Weston writing expertly for Hill Dickinson explains that there is more to understanding and using "Creative Commons" images and works than is popularly imagined.
https://www.hilldickinson.com/insights/articles/getting-creative-common-touch
 

If an author trusts a webmistress (or webmaster) to decorate the website, it probably would be prudent for the author to ask to see proof that all necessary permissions have been obtained for all images, and also that if there was a time limit on the license, it is still in effect, and if there was a limit to the number of impressions covered by the license that that has not been exceeded.

Legal Bloggers Aarathi Amerjit and Samantha Lawrence for Gateway Law in the jurisdiction of Malaysia offer advice in .pdf form on scraping --or not scraping-- images from Pinterest, or uploading other people's images to that popular site.

http://www.gateway-law.com/newsletter/07122020.pdf

It's not just other people's faces that can get you in trouble, a recognizable outline or silhouette can trigger a lawsuit. For instance, what rocker wants to be associated with a hygiene product? Seriously, some might, but they would want to be properly compensated for the product endorsement, wouldn't they?

Legal blogger Jeffrey H. Brown for Michael Best and Friedrich LLP discusses an old spicy case.
https://insights.michaelbest.com/post/102gl10/legendary-mc5-guitarist-wayne-kramer-doesnt-like-the-smell-of-proctor-gambles

Lexology link (without a still of the rocker).
https://www.lexology.com/library/document.ashx?g=e8ca0329-3c4f-4dfe-8db6-c01361a2c2ef


And now for an important reminder. If a small business owner, such as an author, has paid more than $600 to any worker or contractor who is not an INC or any sum  at all to a lawyer, 1099s have to be sent out.  The rules have changed.  Now, we need to send out a 1099-NEC instead of using  line 7 of 1099-MISC.

Paper forms can be ordered online and free from the IRS. They normally take about 10 business days in the mail, but this is not a normal time of year.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Book-Love in a Time of Cholera

That's the title of Brian Attebery's introduction to the latest issue of the JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS. He discusses how a reader's experience of literature changes under the influence of real-life circumstances, offering a different angle on the topic of my previous post. Attebery remarks that reading in the shadow of COVID-19 feels "rather like getting messages from an alternate timeline in which people still. . . count on health, employment, and a predictable future." He reminds us that whenever we reread a text, in a sense we're reading a different book, because "works of literature are never merely or entirely themselves" but instead "products of an interaction between text and reader."

The pandemic has inevitably brought Stephen King's THE STAND to the forefront of many readers' minds. Someone on a list I subscribe to recently said of COVID-19, "This isn't Captain Trips." All SF and horror fans would instantly recognize that allusion. Even though King's novel is decades old, current events give it fresh resonance and meaning. Some readers may find a similar relevance in Connie Willis's DOOMSDAY BOOK, in which the heroine time-travels from mid-twenty-first century Oxford to the time of the Black Death in fourteenth-century England. Although she gets stranded in an alien era, surrounded by the ravages of the plague, she and the reader know the hope represented by the distant future from which she comes. Even the worst disasters don't last forever.

Paul Tremblay's SURVIVOR SONG, published in July of this year, seems eerily appropriate to the current crisis. Given the lead times in traditional publishing, however, it must have been written well before the pandemic became known. Here's the first paragraph of the novel's summary on Amazon:

"In a matter of weeks, Massachusetts has been overrun by an insidious rabies-like virus that is spread by saliva. But unlike rabies, the disease has a terrifyingly short incubation period of an hour or less. Those infected quickly lose their minds and are driven to bite and infect as many others as they can before they inevitably succumb. Hospitals are inundated with the sick and dying, and hysteria has taken hold. To try to limit its spread, the commonwealth is under quarantine and curfew. But society is breaking down and the government's emergency protocols are faltering."

The story maintains a tight focus on a small group of characters trying to get one of them, a pregnant woman in labor, to a hospital that has room for her to give birth. Along the way, we witness the near-total breakdown of social norms surrounding islands of refuge, such as hospitals and clinics, where people struggle frantically to provide aid in the midst of chaos. In an odd way, this story offers the comfort—like DOOMSDAY BOOK—that we aren't anywhere nearly so bad off as THAT. Also, the epilogue, set years later, portrays a society that has completely recovered. Tremblay's virus, unlike COVID-19, doesn't produce a "slow catastrophe." Because of the violent symptoms and short incubation time, its epidemic flares up and burns out quickly.

As Attebery's essay points out, events such as the present crisis may also evoke new meanings from fictional works that seem on the surface to have only a tangential resemblance to real-life circumstances (e.g., stories of isolation).

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Worldbuilding From Reality Part 15 So What Exactly Is Reality

Worldbuilding From Reality

Part 15

So What Exactly Is Reality?

Previous parts in Worldbuiilding From Reality are indexed at:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/05/index-to-worldbuilding-from-reality.html

Lots of people regard "Reality" as hard, fast, cold, unfeeling, what just plain is, and you can't do anything about it.

Others see "Reality" as ever morphing, subjective, a matter of opinion, and different for everyone.

Then there are people who mix and match these two concepts as it suits them, in different situations and maybe morphing from one to the other at different stages of life.

Those 3 takes on the nature of reality embrace your target readership for a Romance - mixed with anything from Paranormal, Science Fiction, myth-based Fantasy, and just plain made-up fantasy worlds.

The young Romance reader often looks for a whopping "If Only ..." novel about how even the worst circumstances can turn around to a blazing beacon of perfection, the Happily Ever After.

Most fiction readers, even those just wanting to "escape" for a few hours, are looking for a new and different way to view their own life situation.  Psychologically, the best way to "reset" your view of your own life's issues is to STOP thinking about them, STOP feeling about them, and just plain STOP.

That's why, traditionally, doctors used to administer a "sedative" to a suddenly bereaved widow, make her sleep rather than scream, cry, throw things, get mad enough to attack whatever had stolen her mate.

After you stop and reboot your brain, ideas can occur to you that wouldn't otherwise appear at all.

As a writer, sometimes you want your Hero or Main Character to ignore all the ifs, ands, and buts, the more sensible alternatives, the accepted thing to do, the polite thing to do -- and just bull ahead and "get the girl."

A few times in life, that is what anyone must do.

Doing it only at those times, and not at inappropriate or counter-productive moments, is called being Wise.

As far as I know, no writer has portrayed Wisdom as coming in surging attacks, like anger, rage, or Love.

Wisdom creeps up and swamps the aged.  It doesn't wham into the life of the young and rip them off their intended course, as Romance often does.

Wisdom dawns on you -- as a newborn baby slowly but eventually opens her eyes and takes a while to focus on Mom's face, to recognize.  Wisdom is like the opening of yet another set of eyes, a slow learning to focus and interpret.

But what if that's not true for your Aliens?  What if Wisdom is more like a lightning strike, a flash-bang leaving a conflagration in its wake.

Or maybe Wisdom bursts through cracks in your mental walls (which protect your inner Reality from external influences), and sweep your decision making to new, if temporary, heights of efficacy.

Wisdom might be defined as the Art of being correct about the Nature of Reality -- if not in the objective sense then perhaps only in the sense of the natural order of things in your personal subjective reality.

The Romance writer attempting to portray a non-human culture needs to adopt and define the human culture of the human Main Character to create and highlight where the two cultures conflict -- and how exactly Love Conquers the gap between them.

The summer of 2020 saw a publicity (money) driven eruption of provocative articles on race relations, and even the nature of race itself.  And just think, all the sides of this question currently involve ONLY HUMANS!!! Not a single Martian in the mix, never mind someone from another solar system.

"Race" (in 2020 that's Black vs White) is not the same as "Species."  Think about that. If one human culture differs from another so starkly there can be no peace without one or the other dominating and eradicating the other, how can Love Conquer the difference with another Species (Alien from Outer Space).

Yet even today, we have living examples of people of different races falling in love, raising kids, partnering in business.  It's very common in this century -- not so much historically.

But still there is a problem.

So academics are studying the whole race-relations problem in America (probably worldwide, maybe excluding North Korea that's so into purity) and are coming right down into the core of it.

Wisdom has not (yet) struck like lightening to transform all humanity into a single peaceful community.

But it might, and Wisdom might strike (maybe via a Romance novel or film or Streaming Series) into the hearts of humanity very soon now.

What if Wisdom strikes - what would it change?

What has to be changed in human nature to make us fit to join (or create) an interstellar civilization with a multitude of different species of people?

Star Trek postulated a war with genetically manipulated mutants, a "superior" race the rest of humanity had to conquer, destroy and exile to the stars. After that war, the rest of humanity became more prosperous and less prone to just killing one another.  Gene Roddenberry often said he was trying to portray humanity as having become "Wise."

What Historic Event does your Earth History need to prompt the shift into an interstellar civilization?  Or what has happened to your Main Character in their subjective reality to open them to Wisdom?

The Romance theme of Love Conquers All has to have an "All" for the Main Couple to conquer - a gap they must bridge to reach their HEA.

The writer must invent that "All" from the reader's Reality and build that future imaginary world to showcase the Main Couple effecting change because of their Love. (capital L Love! The archetype of all bonds.)

Even if you're bored and tired of the whole race discussion going on in 2020, it could be well worth your while to study the different points of view on this topic.

Transpose the topic "race" into "culture."  The academics are now identifying "White Culture" as the culprit in social disruption.

Newsweek carried an item on the July disruptor.

 https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333

--------quote------
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture recently unveiled guidelines for talking about race. A graphic displayed in the guidelines, entitled "Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness in the United States," declares that rational thinking and hard work, among others, are white values.

In the section, Smithsonian declares that "objective, rational, linear thinking," "quantitative emphasis," "hard work before play," and various other values are aspects and assumptions of whiteness.

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture had no comment for Newsweek. They referred to the website's page titled "Whiteness" when asked for additional comment. The graphic was later removed from the page.

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

They also posted a large, readable version of the following infographic the Smithsonian later removed.

The Miami Herald also carried the story (as I said, publicists do this public outcry attention getting, and get paid for their skills even when they believe in the cause.)

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article244309587.html

TV and other outlets, YouTube commentators etc all echo-chamber repeated this story, and it found several audiences.  It's a good story, with a solid description of a culture (some call it "White Culture" others "American Culture" and others Biblical, etc.).  Or maybe just human, or Earth Culture unfit for galactic exposure?  An Earth Indigenous Culture?


The Smithsonian museum apologized and removed the infographic -- but note closely what exactly they apologized FOR.

--------quote------
A Smithsonian museum apologized for a chart listing hard work and rational thought as traits of white culture.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture said in a statement Friday that it was wrong to include the graphic in an online portal about race and racism in America.

“It is important for us as a country to talk about race. We thank those who shared concerns about our ‘Talking About Race” online portal. We need these types of frank and respectful interchanges as we as a country grapple with how we talk about race and its impact on our lives,” the statement said. “We erred in including the chart. We have removed it, and we apologize.”

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article244309587.html#storylink=cpy

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

Including the chart was an error? Not the content of the Chart?  Organizing what is believed in order to communicate it clearly to others is an "error?"  I like infographics for sorting out a wall-of-print listing of data.

I'm sure you see immediately how this "error" can make up into an "All" for your Main Couple to conquer with Love.

Now consider this description of the cultural problem and the suggested solutions -- be aware you are looking at a wondrous compilation of "Alls" for your Couples to Conquer, a whole long series of novels, maybe multigenerational saga.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE

From Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, ChangeWork, 2001

https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/white-supremacy-culture-characteristics.html

That page uses bullet points instead of an infographic, and presents the other side of that infographic's points.  It's from a website (obviously well funded, optimized to show up at the top of a Google Search for that infographic) called Showing Up For Racial Justice.

The link at the bottom of the page says "Back to White Supremacy Culture page" but it's not a "life" link.

The page itself is brilliant, well written, clean and clear -- and there's hardly anything there that would (taken alone) create an "All" for a couple to conquer with Love.

But take this page as a whole, juxtapose it with the infographic -- and look at the whole composition as a portrait of a World.

When you finish building a Fantasy or Futuristic (or Paranormal) World, you have to end up with BOTH the infographic and this wall-of-print bullet-pointed page.  '

Taken together, they describe what a "built" world, a completed world, contains in the compartment labeled, "Cultures."

And most of your plot conflicts will be sparked by two Cultures rubbing together.  What is set on fire by those sparks is the substance of your Story - the inner-life of the Characters in conflict.

Your World has to be big enough to contain those two cultures, and hint at vistas of others, past, present, and maybe future.

If you build something with this shape (infographic + page), it will have verisimilitude for your modern readers no matter what the content you invent for it.

Readers need just the outline, the shape of everyday Reality, in order to feel familiar enough with the material that it isn't hard work to read the novel.  But the point of reading entertainment is to occupy the part of the mind that normally gnaws on our mundane problems with a starkly different content.

The part of our mind that works out everyday problems in everyday life needs to keep working, but not on the same everyday problem.

Give your readers grist for the mill of the mind that is different, but easy to understand.  Take them into a different Reality that seems real because it has the same shape and nuanced depths as everyday life, but show the way for Love to Conquer All.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Can't? Won't? Don't... (Pay)

The purpose of copyright law is to promote the progress of useful arts and sciences, by ensuring that artists and scientists have a fair financial incentive to create, discover, and to make their works and findings available.

 

That incentive is copyright, which provides creators with the exclusive right (for a defined term, such as "life of the artist plus a few decades") to control the publication, and distribution, and sale, and exploitation -or not- of their work.

 

Myriad people make a career out of work that they find enjoyable, but that satisfaction does not mean that they can or should be forced to work for no financial compensation and no material rewards. The same applies to authors and works of authorship, including music, and movie scores and scripts.

The Trichordist is one excellent source to read about a parade of horribles who have claimed that they can't pay artists (because they cannot find them), or who won't pay artists (because artists have no teeth, metaphorically speaking), or who simply don't pay.

From Know They Enemy  written in June 2012, to What 1 Million Plays Means..., to looking into The False Double Bottom (of the MMA Black Box) some of the names may have changed, but the song remains the same (to coin a phrase). High expectations of the Music Modernization Act have been dashed -perhaps- as several hundred millions in streaming royalties have been withheld from songwriters.

 

Some have come to the realization that corruption disguised as incompetence (my words) can only be countered by strength. The CASE Act seems to be dying on the Congressional vine.

The copyrightalliance.org has some really good suggestions how sympathizers can assist musicians who cannot perform live concerts due to Covid-19 restrictions. 

https://copyrightalliance.org/ca_post/how-to-help-musicians-who-cannot-perform-live-due-to-covid/?_zs=TqSBb&_zl=rLXL2

 

Buying music from the band's own website is one of the best ideas.

 

As goes the music industry, so goes fiction and non-fiction.  Musicians are the copyright canaries in the copyright coal mine.

 

It is alleged that Disney is dishonoring copyright and contracts with beloved science fiction author Alan Dean Forster. See here:  https://www.sfwa.org/disney-must-pay/

Discuss here #DisneyMustPay. If true, this must not stand. If the same has happened to you, the SFWA may be able to help. Perhaps a good New Year's Resolution for writers might be to join SFWA and also Authors Guild. Not only do they offer legal help, they also offer group medical insurance plans.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

 

Catastrophes and Fiction Writing

The annual ChessieCon was held virtually this past weekend. One session explored how catastrophic events influence literature. The panelists mentioned works of fiction inspired by real-life disasters, whether sudden and traumatic or longer-term "slow catastrophes," and discussed the ramifications of choosing to compose stories about such events. Authors may write about characters caught up in the real-world event itself, a science-fiction scenario that transforms the actual situation into speculative terms, or a near-future society that reflects the ongoing effects of the catastrophe.

They considered some advantages and disadvantages of making art out of contemporary catastrophes. Pro: It's a way to form a deep emotional connection with the audience. A story that mirrors the trauma and anxieties of the present time can feel immediate and believable. Moreover, SF and fantasy can, of course, offer a fresh perspective on events that may seem overwhelming if faced straight-on. Con: Authors may find themselves writing the same kinds of stories as everybody else inspired by the same event. A story about a pandemic, for instance, may get lost among hundreds flooding the market at the same time. Another potential pitfall is the accusation of exploiting a grave crisis for personal gain by writing fiction about it.

Literature, of course, has always reflected the catastrophes and traumas of its time. C. S. Lewis, in an essay about the impact of the King James Bible on English literature, points out the difference between influences and sources. One can hardly understand many of the great English classics without knowing the biblical stories they mine for sources. The influence of biblical prose on the style of later writers, on the other hand, isn't nearly so widespread, if only because "Bible language" stands out so obviously. Likewise, disasters, whether natural or human-caused, supply fiction with endless sources of material. "Influence," as I conceive it, refers to a more subtle, indirect effect that pervades the cultural atmosphere even when not explicitly mentioned. Many early twentieth-century authors were influenced by World War I in both senses of the term, whether they wrote war fiction or not. Hemingway wrote war stories, but he also wrote about characters living with the social and psychological aftereffects of the war. Those effects show up in genres where you might not expect them, such as Lord Peter Wimsey's posttraumatic stress (as we'd call it now) in Dorothy Sayers's detective novels. The recent Great War shadows the background of the literature of the period.

In the 1950s and 60s, many science fiction works explored nuclear war and its aftermath, such as ALAS BABYLON, ON THE BEACH, and Heinlein's FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD. A bit later, pollution became a dominant theme. For instance, I own an old paperback about which I've forgotten everything except the title, THE SEA IS BOILING HOT. Nowadays, numerous authors confront the potential short-term and long-term effects of climate change. After the 9-11 attacks, most TV series continued their story arcs (if any) in an alternate present wherein the attacks were never mentioned. A few, though, incorporated the aftereffects of the catastrophe into their plotlines, such as NCIS and a series about firefighters and police officers in New York City. NCIS and its spinoffs continue to inhabit a world where terrorism remains an ever-present concern. As far as "influence" is concerned, most fiction set in the present day or near future takes for granted an environment of security checks at airports and our country's perpetual involvement in anti-terrorism campaigns.

A striking example of the long-term cultural influence of a "slow catastrophe" appears in "Thoughts and Prayers," by Ken Liu, reprinted in THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY 2020, edited by Diana Gabaldon. This story combines our society's free-floating anxiety about mass murder rampages with the total devastation of privacy made possible by the internet, in the harrowing experience of a family whose teenage daughter has been killed in a school shooting. Aside from some near-future computer technology that doesn't yet exist but can easily be imagined as realistic, there's nothing in this story that couldn't happen right now.

One downside (in my opinion) of including acute catastrophic current events in fiction wasn't mentioned by the panel. If a writer incorporates such material into a story while the disaster is either ongoing or fresh in memory, it almost has to dominate the work. That's fine if the story is "about" the crisis itself or the protagonist's confrontation with an aspect of it. What if you're writing about some other dimension of a character's life with the disaster looming in the background, though? After the disaster recedes from current events into recent history, the story becomes dated. That's why I haven't mentioned the pandemic or its societal effects in my recent fiction. The three pieces I've had published last year and this year, as well as the novella I'm finishing at the moment, fall into the light paranormal romance subgenre. Allusion to the present crisis would throw those stories completely off balance. Also, it would "date" them in a way I don't want. Assuming our current plight won't last forever, I chose to set my stories in an alternate present where the pandemic doesn't exist, so that if anyone happens to read them (let's say) two years from now, they'll still feel contemporary.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Reviews 58 Divergence by C. J. Cherryh

Reviews 58

Divergence by C. J. Cherryh 

Reviews haven't been indexed yet.

Divergence is the 21st Book in C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner Series, so I recommend not reading this book first.

This is a "series" arranged in trilogies with short plot arcs and one long, over-reaching plot arc for the entire story of Bren Cameron, a human translator sent among non-humans.

Divergence is all about power-politics, and how the Atevi (the Aliens) avoid the sort of all-out War humans tend to use to settle matters.

All of these novels are tightly focused on Bren Cameron's point of view, but with occasional accompaniments of a young (ruler to be) Atevi child who has learned to understand humans (somewhat).

Divergence emphasizes how Bren Cameron has come to understand, on a deep level, just how much he will never, ever, understand about Atevi.  He now lives among Atevi, is honored by (some) of them, and his human friends and family find him truly odd because he's become so very Atevi in behavior.  In fact, Bren finds himself a little odd.

So in Divergence, Bren takes action only once, and perfectly properly, then sits out action-situations

that he formerly would have plunged into and derailed by his human reactions.  He uses mature good sense instead of human impulse, and tweaks the Atevi politics just a bit, here and there, helping to bring peace to a troubled region of the Atevi civilization.

The novel ends off with a springboard into the next novel, as Bren and a train load of Atevi head for the estate Bren now calls home, anticipating a little time to breathe before the next emergency.  I don't think they'll have much time.

Much of Divergence is simply Bren thinking over the salient moves by Atevi in previous novels, understanding now (as never before) how these moves have led to the current opportunity to make peace.  It is a long reprise of previous events, reminding the reader of which events are the most significant for understanding what must come in the next novel.  This makes the book almost one, lone, expository lump.  But Cherryh's writing is so deft, so cogent, so tightly pointed, that it is an absorbing good read.  The previous novels are so well written, the characters so vividly portrayed, that the reader remembers each of these movers sand shakers of the Atevi world as they are mentioned -- full context.

That is why I recommend this series so highly, but start with the first novel, Foreigner.

If you've been reading the Foreigner Series, study Divergence closely for exposition techniques.  Long-long passages summarizing and reminding of previous novels in the series, but re-interpreting events you thought you understood but now know ever so much more about.

The real hero of Divergence is The Dowager.  In fact, she's the real hero of the whole series, according to this new interpretation of events.

And now she's feeling her mortality.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com