(Alien) Culture Club

One of the fun parts of writing science fiction romance--for me--is the invention of the not me, not here, not now, not as we know it sections of the book. It's the chance to move beyond stereotypes (or invent new ones), to move beyond the expected (and invent new expectations). And throw my characters' conflicts in the middle of that.

I think that's why I tend to gravitate away from the "aliens on Earth" stories (except for The Down Home Zombie Blues which is the ubiquitous exception that proves the ubiquitous rule...). I don't want readers to automatically filter in Judeo-Christian ethics or feminist principles or the "Sin City" label for a locale with slot machines...unless I choose to create that in the story. I don't want my characters pre-typecast as "Southern Belle" or "California Surfer Dude." I want my readers to meet my characters on the level of interaction: derive who they are from what they say and do.

Granted, I know it fairly impossible to have readers leave all preconceived notions at the airlock. But I think most SF/SFR readers at least make the attempt.

In return, I endeavor to bring them into a culture not quite like their own. That isn't to say, however, that the basic human emotions of greed, jealousy, love, hate, desire, hope and fear are left out. Rather, I use them as a building block for my characters' cultures.

A lot of my stories have a military setting or military main characters (and no, regretfully, I never served my country and yes, it is something I very much regret. But my American middle to upper class culture of the mid 1970s, a young girl just didn't do that. If I had my life to do over, I would.) I've done a fair amount of research on women in the military as well as law enforcement procedures (and law enforcement is considered para-military). But I try not to assume that our current military would be like the military my characters experience.

For one thing, women have served in the military scenarios I create for a lot longer than they have here on this planet, as of 2008. Gender bias doesn't exist. But in Gabriel's Ghost, Shades of Dark and the upcoming (Feb. '09) Hope's Folly, there is species-bias. There is still an us-not-them emotion reaction.

I don't include that blindly. My cats have an us-not-them reaction to the neighbor's dogs. The ducks in my yard in Florida (now a bullseye for a storm, evidently) have an us-not-them reaction to the hawks that live in woods (prey-predator, also). I think us-not-them is something deeply ingrained in many species--not just humans. So it's a factor I factor in when creating my alien cultures. (I would also love to create a culture void of us-not-them, just for the experience.)

I also consider religion and spiritual belief systems when I build my cultures. Working with the us-not-them basis, there is the human desire to have assistance from something bigger and better when them comes after us. There is the human desire to wonder, to question. I think there is a human desire, a quest for faith--even if that faith is that there is nothing out there to help me, so I'd best find what I need within myself.

It's still a faith.

But with faith there often again arises an us-not-them as we can see from the religious wars on our own planet.

Which brings up the point that all the elements that go into creating a culture intertwine.

Species affects spirituality which effects educational systems which affects economic systems which impacts on political systems which affects military structure which impacts protecting us from the them of other species.

I had a great deal of fun with this in Shades of Dark, specifically with the character of Del: Regarth Serian Cordell Delkavra, a Stolorth prince and one helluva interesting character. If Del is anything, he is someone who is trapped by his culture and--much to Sully's and Chaz's consternation--it's not a culture they know well. There are a lot of miscues and miscommunications, many of which Del uses to his advantage. He knows their human culture much better than they know his.

As Admiral Philip Guthrie warns Chaz: “Chaz, he won’t have a choice. It is part of what a Kyi is, what a Kyi does when he or she reaches certain levels of power. Understand that to Regarth, he’s not asking for anything unusual or wrong. It’s his culture. It’s a practice steeped in tradition that goes back centuries.”

As much as Shades is an galactic space opera adventure story, as much as it's a love story, it's also an exploration of a culture in which there are no clear guidelines and no easy answers. Workign with the Stolorth culture and specifically the clan dynamics of the Kyi-Ragkirils allowed me to turn "good" and "bad", "friend" and "foe" on its ear.

Of course, I could have done a similar issue set on our planet. Middle Eastern cultures differ in many aspects from Western cultures. Hasidic Jews have different belief systems and rituals from Southern Baptists. But had I set a similar story here, with a Muslim protagonist and a Southern Baptist antagonist (for example), I could be sure readers would be brining a clean slate and open mind to the story.

Writing it as SFR, I could. Or at least, the chances of readers leaving their personal prejudices at the airlock were greater. And so, therefore, was the chance of them really experiencing The Story which, in Shades, is a twist and turning of us-not-them.

It was something Del understood well: Loyalties can shift in the blink of an eye, my friend. Never forget that.

Loyalties can and do shift--especially in the vast and varied cultures found in science fiction romance.

~Linnea

http://www.linneasinclair.com/

Strong Moon Rising

I didn't blog last Sunday. I was at The Shedd.

What, you may well ask, is The Shedd? It's one of the best aquariums in North America, and it's in Chicago. I drove for more than five hours, each way, to visit it.

I think I have to write the petrol off to Motherhood. It wasn't really a business expense. If I'd known about the exhibit showing the 16 foot rise and fall of the water level in the Amazon, it might have been... but that's not why I went there.

However, that Amazon exhibit would be fantastic research for a world where the gravitational pull from a moon, or primary planet, was very strong.... in fact, as I have in my lightly-touched-upon Volnoth world.

Naboo. Jar-Jar Binks. I seldom see positive comments about the creativity of that world, but I think it would be very interesting to write of a society that lived both above and below a waterline.

Why would it happen?

Jacqueline would say, "Start with the sun!" But, I might start with the moon. If I wanted a race that spent half of the year in the trees, and half of the year in biodomes under the "sea" there would either have to be seasonal high tides... on an Amazonian scale, or else, the surface climate would have to become intolerably cold in winter (Helliconian?).

Next time I go to The Shedd, I'll start in the rainforest, not with the somersaulting dolphins! Oh, and by the way... I had another paradigm shift on this trip. I paddled in the surf of Lake Michigan. It looks like the sea, acts like the sea, is about the same temperature of the sea, and it's fresh water.


Whoops, there goes another preconception.

Big Surface SF and Space Age Demographics

The latest JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS features an essay by Geoff Ryman (author of WAS) about “Big Surface SF.” By this he means high-profile, commercially successful products such as STAR TREK, STAR WARS, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, and BABYLON 5. According to Ryman, these kinds of works pay little attention to scientific accuracy (he particularly dislikes FTL drives). Rather, they succeed because they embody grand dreams, especially the aspiration to leave the nest (Earth) to achieve the freedom of traveling to the stars and transcending terrestrial, or even human, limitations. An extension, in fact, as he implies but doesn’t say in so many words, of the nineteenth-century philosophy of Manifest Destiny.

Ryman admits to enjoying some features of Big Surface SF. Most of his comments, however, are critical, focusing on such issues as the role of minorities in these series’ versions of the spacefaring future. Ships and space stations have multi-ethnic crews, but socially and politically they seem like middle-class, white Americans. Ryman doesn’t ascribe this tendency to deliberate racism; he thinks the established tropes of Big Surface SF have a life of their own. They carry the writer along in their wake, unless consciously resisted. Now, I think Ryman is, in part, over-interpreting. Surely part of this tendency in popular media flows from the same factors that result in English scientists saving the world in British horror movies and monsters trampling Tokyo in Japanese horror movies. But I acknowledge that there’s also, probably, an implicit socio-political philosophy at work.

Ryman summarizes this position as the expectation that minority ethnic groups will exist in the future, but they’ll all be “assimilated.” The galaxy, as he puts it, will look like contemporary America. Even though I’m a bleeding-heart liberal myself, one of my reactions to this complaint was, “Well, duh.” Despite our flaws, North American culture embraces ideals of freedom and justice that have drawn people from all over the world to these shores and continue to do so. In the past, “assimilation” into these ideals has been viewed as a Good Thing, not a Bad Thing, as has a “color-blind” society. While I don’t endorse now-laughable retro visions such as the transplantation in Heinlein’s juveniles of 1950s suburban family structures into the twenty-first or twenty-second century, I don’t think it unbelievable (although by no means inevitable) that the present dominance of Western culture might continue for another century or two.

Also, I see criticism like Ryman’s as presenting the writer or producer with a double bind. If the minority characters behave and talk like everybody else, they’re “assimilated.” If they display distinctive ethnic traits, they may be perceived as stereotyped or ghettoized. (The same problem arises with strong female characters. If they fill conventional “masculine” roles, they may be dismissed as essentially men in drag, as Ryman does for some of these characters. If they fill any other kind of role, they’re apt to be charged with portraying a feminine stereotype.) With regard to DEEP SPACE NINE, Ryman (in my view) even distorts the on-screen situation in support of his argument. He cites Captain Sisko as an example of an “isolated” black character (the one-of-each syndrome). On the contrary, in addition to Sisko, we meet, at the least, his son, his on-and-off lover, and the continuing character played by Whoopi Goldberg. Not exactly racial parity by a long shot, but hardly “isolation.”

Whether the future will reflect a tendency toward greater homogeneity (I’ve read a few stories that anticipate a future Earth on which the races have mingled so thoroughly that everyone has a “rainbow” heritage) or will result in maintenance or strengthening of our present ethnic divisions is, surely, a question that allows valid arguments on both sides. It could be plausibly argued (as numerous SF authors have postulated) that interplanetary travel and contact with extraterrestrials will promote greater unity and uniformity among Terrans. Not that I’d want our colorful diversity of cultures to melt into a bland soup. But it would be nice to imagine that someday diversity won’t equal division.

Denvention 3 = Walk-a-con

I had a wonderful time, overall, and made several new acquaintances, learned a great deal and brainstormed some new screenwriting ideas. The overall theme of most conversations I was in was MARKETING -- promotion, advertising, blurb writing, pitching, salesmanship.

I arrived Tuesday Aug 5th. Jean was late in due to thunderstorms. We crashed that night and picked up our badges and program participant materials on Wednesday. That took an hour and a half. Some program participants stuck in the pre-registration "get your badge here" line, which you had to go through before getting your final panel schedule, were late to their panels because of this.

We were told there were hotspots for Internet access in the area, but until Thursday, I had no Internet access. We finally decided (Jean Lorrah and Torun Almer and I) to split the cost of a T-Mobile temporary account to get Torun's notebook online.

T-Mobile has a grand reputation. We thought the monetary expense would be the only expense. Instead, in order to complete and maintain the T-Mobile connection, Torun spent several hours over 4 or 5 days on her cell phone on tech support with T-Mobile, and it was a struggle. But we were able to file brief con reports and get a number of business emails attended to. Frankly, I don't recommend T-Mobile from hotels. The hotel access that was offered, though, was slower than T-Mobile. T-Mobile wasn't fast enough or enabled enough to allow sending a short video from Jean's camera or you might have had a video report. It was just a hassle all around.

Wednesday I attended a panel where Kristin Nelson was giving a slide presentation on how to write a cover blurb. Kristin is Linnea Sinclair's agent and it was marvelous to discover that Kristin is the bright, splendid, energetic and erudite person I'd expect for Linnea to choose as an agent. She really REALLY knows her business. Kristin used Linnea's covers as examples in her presentation.

Jean Lorrah took these notes (it was that kind of lecture you needed notes):

-----------------------------
The cover blurb (and the query letter, which ideally becomes the cover blurb) should be no more than nine sentences, but may be more than one paragraph. It should include these four elements and nothing more:

Catalyst

Backstory

Character

Inter-related Plot Elements

Any sentence that does not address one of those four elements should be removed.
------------------------

http://www.nelsonagency.com/ -- somewhere on there or a related URL there should be a FAQ page by Kristin with more details, but we can't seem to find it. Someone who knows the FAQ URL Kristin referred to, please drop a note on this blog.

At the end when Kristin Nelson opened the discussion to the audience, I interjected several comments to the audience full of writers about how reviewers use cover blurbs to extract a book from the avalanche of books publishers send us. And from the writer's point of view, in order to penetrate the reviewer's mind and be reviewed, it's best to write the cover blurb FIRST, then write the novel to fit it (which I've done on books of mine that got New York Times, Library Journal etc etc reviews). When I got home, I discovered Kristin had mentioned my comment in her blog.

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/

And that was mentioned in other blogs:

http://jennakrumlauf.blogspot.com/
http://www.lisashearin.com/blog.cfm

Thursday morning, Jean Lorrah and I opened the SFWA Suite -- made coffee and put out breakfast foods. A few dozen SFWA members (Science Fiction Writers of America -- see sfwa.org ) dropped by to tank up on coffee before their early panels. We met some people we hadn't known before and had catch-up conversations with old friends. The hours melted away!

Thursday afternoon I was on two panels that will remain memorable.

The first had an odd topic title about how large a galactic empire could be.

As I arrived for the panel, three fans with armloads of my books ambushed me for autographs. The program had me listed as doing autographs on Saturday, but the fans knew that wasn't going to happen because I don't do autographings on Saturday. I had put in a program change to a Sunday slot with Jean, but the daily newsletter hadn't published it yet. And they'd lugged all these books here. It had to be a mile or more from their hotel room.

There were 7 hotels scattered around the side of the convention center that was opposite where our convention space was. Even by Thursday it was clear we would spend more time walking than talking at this convention, and so it was. But my heart went out to those who carried so much extra weight so far in such thin air just to get my autograph.

So, sort of against the rules, I sat down at the panel table to sign autographs real-quick-like because the panel was starting. (usually you autograph after a panel)

In fact, the moderator came over and wanted me to leave because the next panel was about to start -- then I said but I'm on the next panel, not the previous one, and she laughed as everyone else took their places and found their name cards.

As panelists were being seated, a woman came up to me from the audience -- and I didn't get her name, but I remember her face. She said I'd analyzed one of her short stories at a previous convention and she'd done what I said had to be done to the story -- and had just a few days ago SOLD the story, her first sale. I told her to tell the audience what she'd told me, and she did. BIG CHEER!!!! I'm so bummed that I didn't write her name and the story title and publisher down so I could be sure everyone reads her story! (I do remember I liked it!) This may be Linnea-Sinclair-the-next-generation!

Most of the people in the audience were writers, so I ended up sketching a formula for how to use this question about the size of a galactic empire in WorldBuilding.

First we talked about TIME -- how long does it take to get information and/or goods from one end of the Empire to another? Any political structure is limited in size not by geography but transit time. I cited Ursula LeGuin's LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS and the ansible technology.

Then we talked about MOTIVE. Why would anyone want a political organization that big? Why would any species (humans included) want or need to organize on such a scale. In all fiction, the key to plausibility is MOTIVE. In this case it has to be the motives of the non-humans (based in their biology) and the motives of humans based on the usual plus unusual circumstances.
The list of motives I have scribbled down here are:

a) PROFIT $$$ and otherwise, sometimes emotional

b) KNOWLEDGE and/or DATA (I was thinking of but did not mention Robert J. Sawyer's novel ROLLBACK which postulates aliens trying to get into touch with Earth by sending their own genetic code to Earth so we can create a breeding circle of members of their species. I later sat beside Sawyer at the con's autographing session but forgot to mention that!)

c) CURIOSITY -- just because you want to know what's on the other side

d) RELIGION -- maybe to convert everyone, or maybe because your religion says you must go see what's out there.

e) Uniting against an external threat -- maybe you need to organize the neighborhood against an extra-galactic threat. Maybe it's not a threat but you think it is.

f) ART -- often the first trade a newly discovered people engage in is "native art".

g) EXCESS POPULATION -- maybe finding colonizable planets and offloading criminals or just plain huge numbers of people is the motivation. Some mathematicians have shown you can't export excess population.

h) everything we haven't thought of -- those ideas make the BEST galactic novels

And then we discussed how such a galactic sprawl of a political unit might be governed, and why writers default to the "Empire" or central-control model. I mentioned the place of background in an artistic composition such as a novel, and we talked about sociological SF a bit.

It's amazing how fast an hour goes!

The second intensely memorable panel was on whether Star Trek has made a difference in our modern world. Well, I doubt anyone here has an answer to that other than "yes" which ends the panel in one word. However the four or five panelists raced on and on talking and talking about all the various contributions that one bit of fiction has made to our modern way of life.

Rick Sternbach (Star Trek art director) was on the panel, as was Roberta Rogow (Star Trek fan writer turned pro). And I was seated next to Marc Zicree whose Star Trek: New Voyages episode WORLD ENOUGH AND TIME was up for a Hugo. I have known Marc for at least twenty years, since he started in the TV business. He really deserved that Hugo but didn't win. (this time)

Marc kept saying things that were on the tip of my tongue and it was delightful to feel how someone currently working (hard and fast) in the thick of things in Hollywood sees and understands the forces shaping what I call the "Fiction Delivery System" in very much the same way that I do. That lends me a feeling of confidence in the future.

Marc Zicree is one of the leaders -- will be one of the most powerful leaders in Hollywood. It's not just that he can do so much. It's that he understands what he's doing and can teach it, as can (and does) Blake Snyder with his SAVE THE CAT! series on screenwriting.

Jean Lorrah said that she and her collaborator, Lois Wickstrom had taken Marc's telephone seminar on how to pitch a screenplay and it had made a big difference in how their ideas were treated by various studios.

Friday we toured the Dealer's Room. Well, no, we entered the Dealer's Room to shop.

But we got caught in conversations here and there -- one Dealer had none of our books shelved with "Authors at this Convention" -- but a few of them over in "Autographed Copies". Then we ran into a new publisher from Canada who had some classic volumes displayed, new editions of oh, I can't remember, I think Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. Our kind of stuff.

I don't have his card or his name written down, but I remember a long conversation in which we explained some of our more harrowing experiences with publishers and the kinds of writing we do. Rarely do writers have the chance to discuss publishing in depth with someone who is "a publisher" -- rather than an editor who works for a publisher. The running of a publishing business lends an entirely different perspective. This particular conversation gave me more material for my concept of "the fiction delivery system" as it is functioning today. Things are still in flux, and our times are "interesting" so I will remember this rambling conversation for a while.

Friday night, one of the most skillful organizers of fans of Sime~Gen, Kaires, put together the Sime~Gen Party, which we combined with the Broaduniverse party and the EPIC party. The room was ultra tiny and taken up mostly by the huge king size bed (maybe it was a California King). I kept telling people who came in that this was a 3-fer party, and we got it all in because the room was a Tardis. Everyone knew exactly what I meant! I love fandom!

People flowed through the room constantly from 8PM to Midnight and Jean Lorrah and I kept explaining what Sime~Gen is or what it has to do with Broaduniverse and EPIC.

Short form:
"Broad Universe is an organization of professional women writers; EPIC is the organization of e-Book professionals; Sime~Gen is a series of novels by two women who also have e-books."

Our party got a nice mention in the evening edition of the daily newsletter of the Con. There were dozens and dozens of parties, most of them lavishly decorated and serving liquor (two attributes we did not have). But WE got mentioned along with our raffle of Sime~Gen novels.

Jean and I set ourselves the objective on Saturday of seeing the Art Show. We didn't make it.

I have no idea why. We were late getting up because we were out after mid-night at the Sime~Gen Party. We talked and talked that morning -- mostly plot, writing theory, and screenwriting ideas and techniques of MARKETING. Jean and her screenwriting collaborator Lois Wickstrom (who wasn't at Worldcon) have read SAVE THE CAT GOES TO THE MOVIES! by Blake Snyder, which gave us a paradigm in common to talk about. Market-market-market. It's a topic we really haven't spent much time on during our careers! We need to learn more about marketing.

Somehow it was 2PM or so before we got to the Colorado Convention Center top floor where the Art Show and Dealer's Room were located. And the Art Show closed on us so they could tear down for the Art Auction.

Jean was bound and determined to shop the Dealer's Room and said that she just had to do it without me because between her own getting caught in conversations and my getting caught in conversations there was no way we were going to do it together! She was right. We separated and both of us managed to see most of the Dealer's Room.

This re-confirmed my old saying that the mean-free-path of a pro at a con is about 15 feet.

Sunday, Jean and I did the convention autographing session. About 7 or 10 people sitting at a long table, each doing a 45 minute stint, but not all arriving or departing at the same time. Complicated.

People with books formed long lines, and sometimes a second segment of a line would hold back until the next writer swapped seats with the previous writer then flood forward. People who had more than 3 books to get signed had to go through the waiting line twice or more.

I was amazed that after the folks that ambushed me, and the other things I'd signed on the fly, there were still quite a few people who had read the program changes and arrived on time for my autograph slot. I signed only ONE copy of the Denvention III program book, so that will be a collector's item.

I keep thinking I've signed every copy of FACES OF SCIENCE FICTION ever printed -- and someone brings yet another copy! And I signed a pristine copy of STAR TREK LIVES! plus a first edition HOUSE OF ZEOR. The others are a blur because, as I noted above, somewhere in the middle of my signing stint, Robert J. Sawyer sat down next to me. I do love his books! That grabbed most of my attention.

After the autographing, there was a group of soft tissue massage professionals offering writers who autographed a free massage. I raced right over there and I got a massage from Patricia "Pat" J. Peterson, NCMT, who does Swedish, Polarity, Sports Massage as well as Cranialsacral Therapy -- boy, is she GOOD.

She apparently doesn't have a website and has all the clients she can handle. She's local to the Denver area. Email me if you need her phone number.

After that, I did another tour of the Dealer's Room. I stopped to look at some jewelry and the table next to that was from INTERZONE (the British magazine which carries science fiction and fantasy). I got to talking (well, I wasn't WALKING for a change) and gave them a copy of my newsletter. They insisted on giving me a copy of the magazine and I selected at random a 2006 edition. Then I went to meet Jean in the Green Room and set the magazine before her with the full back cover advertisement for a novel showing. "What do you think of this advertisement?"

As I said, the theme of all the convention for us, every conversation somehow, was marketing, promotion, advertising. Even a couple of email notes from Lois Wickstrom were about marketing, and believe me that's not the only topic Lois knows about! So it was fitting that the magazine I was given had this giant ad on the back with a single sentence in huge red letters on black, a bit of artwork at the top, the book cover at the bottom.

It was so "professional" on the surface, and so out of step with all the marketing stuff we'd been hearing and talking about that I wanted to see if Jean saw what I saw. (Keep in mind it's British.)

Jean basically did agree, which is unusual, so you can pretty much depend on it being true. The ad was totally generic but so generic it seemed more confusing than projecting the message "You want to read this book!"

So as people came in for one last cup of coffee (there actually was some food left; the Greenroom staff did a splendid job!!!) and sat down at our table (which was next to the coffee) I kept showing them (all men, writers and editors) this advertisement and asking what they make of it.

Some thought it was horror genre, some thought it was vampire, some thought it was poorly done -- nobody said the ad made them want the book.

So some people left, new people came, and I kept showing this ad for evaluation. I think we sat there for over an hour discussing that advertisement and MARKETING -- wrapping up the convention on the same theme it had started with at Kristin Nelson's panel on Linnea Sinclair's cover copy.

None of those who passed through our discussion sited Kristin Nelson's rules for cover copy writing though the ad violated them all. No matter how long you've been in this business, there is always more and MORE to learn.

Some of my memories of this convention are encapsulated in bright light and detached from Time.

At one point, in the Green Room, we met a new writer, Fancis Hamit, who is self-publishing and promoting a historical novel titled The Shenandoah Spy about a woman (who really existed) who became an Army Captain at age 18 in 1862. We talked marketing.

At another point in the Green Room, we ran into Beverly A. Hale who recalled when Jean and I had helped her teach a course in composition by providing some marked-up manuscript pages proving that professional writers REWRITE. We have a testimonial from her to post on our writing school. ( http://www.simegen.com/school/ ) That of course, has everything to do with Marketing because to sell and get published you must rewrite to specifications and today those specifications are dictated more and more by the Marketing Department.

In the airport van on the way home, I found myself sitting behind Mike Shepherd who writes the KRIS LONGKNIFE series for Ace Books. I love those books and give them my top recommendation every time I review one. He told me his motive for writing about this very strong but very feminine character, Kris Longknife is so that his granddaughter will have a hero to relate to as she grows up.

I can't think of a more worthy motive for writing -- but I tell you, those books are SPLENDID. If you like Linnea Sinclair's stuff, read Mike Shepherd.

My husband and I got to the airport to discover that United Airlines had cancelled our flight and wanted to put us on a flight the NEXT DAY. But one of the United Employees who worked the alternate arrangements desk, a Mr. Doherty who said he had a relative at the WorldCon, went out of his way to find us two seats together on US Air that would get us home approximately at the same time that the United flight would -- but we had to change planes in Colorado Springs. He walked us to the front of the Security Line or we'd never have made that flight (which was loading as he was typing into his computer!).

So the next time you see someone with an employee badge walking someone through the line reserved for flight crews, don't be too upset by it, please. If we'd missed that hop to Colorado Springs, I wouldn't be home yet (THANK YOU MR. DOHERTY). And we had to do all the security things, including take our shoes off!

When we got to the US Air desk in Colorado Springs, we were told they had never heard of us, but apparently we got there before their computers could update the database because we were put on the flight, there were two seats together numbered as our boarding passes said, and we weren't boarded last on standby! THANK YOU MR. DOHERTY!!!

All in all, it was a wonderful 6 days, but now work is so badly backed up I don't know what to do first. Everything on my desk is top priority and there's only one me!

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Is the Internet Rotting Our Brains?

On another blog, I recently encountered a link to an article promulgating the familiar complaint that the Internet has undermined our ability to read complex material. The author of the article says his capacity for “deep reading” and focusing on long books has degraded since he began heavily using the Internet. I haven’t experienced that problem myself (nor had most of the people who posted comments in response on the other blog). I spend an hour or two online almost every day and continue to read three or four print books in an average week. (Any loss of concentration and retention can be attributed to my age; I’m still waiting for that “post-menopausal zest” I was promised.) Doom-mongers have been warning for decades that modern technology has shortened children’s attention spans. TV was getting blamed for that effect long before the Internet existed.

Now, I can concede that electronic media might have different effects on us middle-aged late adopters and young people who’ve grown up with those media. On the other hand, though, the author of EVERYTHING BAD IS GOOD FOR YOU maintains that contemporary television demands more intellectual effort than previous generations of TV programs did, because of the need to follow numerous characters and multiple, complex plot threads extending over an entire season (or more). So we might contend that the new media require just as much mental focus as the old, but of a different kind. Moreover, the popularity of such works as the Harry Potter series and, currently, Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” YA vampire series demonstrates that young readers haven’t lost the ability to absorb long, complex books.

What about the effect of computers on writing? I’ve seen it claimed that computers encourage sloppy writing because text appears in continuous scrolling rather than discrete pages. (As if the screen couldn’t be set up to show page breaks!) Also, some editors gripe that word processing makes it too easy to write, and to accept the result as polished because it looks good on the screen, and therefore authors are more likely to submit work that isn’t ready for public view. Personally, I believe computers have improved my writing significantly, for one main reason: It’s so much easier to revise than on a typewriter. I don’t have to consider whether a small change is worth retyping an entire page, and if a large rewrite becomes necessary, chunks of text can be painlessly moved.

If you belong to a pre-computer generation, has the new technology changed your reading and writing habits? If so, for better or worse?

TITLE as Marketing Tool -- Part II

I'm sure many of you can document exact dates for these historical turning points that are different from what I'm suggesting. Remember that there's a lag between when something "happens" and when that event becomes integrated into the mind of the general public. And it works the other way too -- the general public may have an embedded notion that doesn't affect changes in Business or Hollywood for a number of years.

Books are often published 10 or (in the case of Marion Zimmer Bradley's CATCHTRAP for example) 20 years after they are written. Influences overlap before and after the fact, blurring the pattern.

I'm showing you a pattern here -- bringing it to the surface. Don't get distracted from the pattern into the exact dates or what you remember from those years. Pay attention to the pattern. Once you can see it -- look for other kinds of hidden patterns in today's world. You will find plenty!

TITLE AS MARKETING TOOL - PART 2

----------------

Star Trek was the first TV show that appealed to -- guess what? READERS. That 5% slice of the American public that bought and read actual BOOKS (not just newspapers and magazines) fell in desperate love with a TV show.

In the 1970's we saw BOOKS BASED ON STAR TREK - both non-fiction and fiction - come onto the shelves in the chain stores.

I remember when the first separate section for STAR TREK BOOKS appeared in WALDEN BOOKS. It had been a single shelf on the bottom of the SF section and contained only the latest publications. Suddenly it became a whole floor-to-ceiling section with all the back issues.
Then the section became not STAR TREK -- but TV-TIE-INS and NOVELS based on other TV shows appeared.

Yes, publishing had done things like this before, but in the 1970's what happened was huge -- just totally huge. Remember, the 70's is renowned in financial circles for the flat stock market and STAG FLATION and huge gas lines -- corporations were in serious financial trouble and couldn't grow to meet stockholder demands. This had never happened before in financial history and corporations didn't know what to do. It was theoretically impossible to have inflation and no-growth at the same time. GROWTH CAUSES INFLATION (they believed).

Something very fundamental underneath the business structure of this whole world changed in those years. It indeed had been impossible to have inflation and no-growth before. Now something changed -- and made it possible. I don't think the scholars understand the 1970's even today.

Today we're in yet another paradigm shift as massive as the 1970's with "productivity growth" where we have great increases in what we produce and a shrinking work force.

SF, Asimov and Heinlein and John Campbell all predicted this trend. Many novels have been published showing how technology can restructure the world to where 5% of the work force works and the rest are on Welfare.

So in the 1980's we had a phenomenon we called PAC-MAN-PUBLISHING (after one of the first computer video games where one character ate all the others). It just came out of the blue and knocked everyone over -- it kicked a lot of the really REALLY great editors right out of the business.

Behind the scenes (I found out much later) attitudes toward "publishing" had changed, very radically and very suddenly.

The corporations who owned the publishing houses looked at their "balance sheets" and decided they couldn't afford to continue to support non-performing assets like publishing houses.
Heretofore, they needed the publishing houses as tax write-offs.

Go look who was President in the 1970's, and who controlled Congress -- and what kind of tax laws were passed that actually caused Stagflation and how that could well happen again in the 2010's because very similar forces are in play.

Under the new tax laws of the 1970's, corporations could no longer afford to own publishing houses as tax write-offs.

So they sold them. (to other corporations, of course).

The independent publishing houses sold themselves to corporations.

Newly minted MBA's had to make a name for themselves causing corporate growth in a world where growth couldn't happen because of the tax laws.

So JUST LIKE THE BANKS TODAY, corporations took drastic action and seized an opportunity to "grow" by gathering up non-performing, money-losing, worthless assets all together and streamlining them into profit-makers.

Today those non-performing assets are Mortgages. Back then, those non-performing assets were publishing houses. The Business School principles are identical, and the motivation identical (tax code changes). With Banks today -- it was the Law passed in 1996 (or 1994?) by a Democratic controlled congress that forbade banks to do what was called "Red Lining" (drawing a line around a section of the city and refusing to lend mortgage money there). It was seen as racially based behavior and the law tried to stop it.

Corporations did what Business School teaches -- take a challenge and turn it into an opportunity. Since they were forced by Federal Law to lend to non-qualified buyers, they found a way to do that and make a profit (huge-gigantic-insane profit) by "securitizing" the mortgages (bundling them with top-qualified mortgages) and selling them abroad.

The Banks did just exactly what Corporations did with Publishing under the same kind of tax-code changes that caused stagflation in the 1970's.

Banks used to make loans person-to-person in a community -- loaning to home buyers who "ought" to get the loan. Publishing used to publish books that "ought" to be published.

One of the tax laws that affected publishing had to do with stock kept in warehouses.

When stock stored (at considerable expense) in a warehouse is taxed while it sits there -- that means the publisher has to shorten print runs. That means books that sell slowly never get reprinted even though they are successful. That means the NEXT book by that writer doesn't get published. It has nothing to do with how many people want to read that writer's work or how important those ideas are -- it was (and still is) a tax law that prevents ideas from being published on paper and distributed through chain stores. It's all economics of tax laws.

So under these new tax laws, it wasn't the "face of publishing" that changed -- it was the foundations. Tax laws forced corporations to turn their publishing houses profitable just as laws forced banks to turn sub-prime loans profitable.

Prior to this makeover of publishing into a for-profit business, editors chose books to be published because they should be published, because they should be read, because they SAID SOMETHING.

After the makeover, editors were hired for their knack of choosing books to publish that made a profit. Packaging, promotion, distribution, = MARKETING was all that mattered.

The way publishing houses decide to buy or not-buy a book changed.

Formerly, they hired an editor who had a sense of what the world needs to hear said and gave that editor an annual budget to spend publishing books -- hopefully breakeven or some profit, but nevermind. The writer or agent submitted a manuscript and the editor, all alone, decided to buy it or not.

Now, most Houses use a committee. The "editor" only gets to pick out and present some manuscripts to a committee consisting of her boss (managing editor), art department, marketing, sales reps, accounting, maybe other editors in other genres -- none of whom have read or will read the book. The "editor" gets to "pitch" (yes, just exactly as is done in the film industry where writers get to "pitch" projects are producers) the possible books she'd like to publish. She gets perhaps 15 seconds to pitch each book. One or two of the ten she's presenting may get chosen, get the OK so she can buy it from the writer.

And what is the key feature on which that decision is made? TITLE!!!!! Maybe a two sentence description of the market it will attract, and a sentence about the story. If the sentences support the TITLE -- and it "fits" the sales rep's notion of what's been moving well lately -- it may (or may not) get bought. All those 10 titles were GREAT -- but only a few get chosen.

That's the new editor's job now. Very different from what it once was. And what these new editors saw in the computers when computer-tracking first became available is that TV-TIE-INS SELL -- they sell as good or better than "how to mow your lawn."

Why did computer tracking become available? Because how ELSE can you run a publishing House for profit? Before computer tracking and computerized warehouse inventory, it wasn't really possible to do this for a steady profit, predictably.

So editors and their bean counters saw that NOVELIZATIONS of FILMS sell.
They sell at big profits. It doesn't matter who writes them. They sell.

If the TITLE has STAR TREK (or another film or TV series) in it, it sells. Title is all that matters -- ALL THAT MATTERS. Just title and nothing more controls sales volumes.

Puzzling over what's inside those books that gets people to buy more and more, editors tried to find other things to please those book buyers. Because editors are readers, they kept operating for a long time on the assumption that something about the content had to be attracting these book-buyers.

But eventually editors began to believe the sales-computers as "modeling" became more accurate in the programs, and more stores kept computer records. Sales depend on title and cover drawing - not content. Sometimes, but rarely, on author name.

I'll bet they teach that in school now.

But in the 1980's, gradually they changed what's available on mass market chain store shelves so that the books that have the best chance of appearing before your eyes so you can ignore the TITLE are the books structured like movies (or TV series) -- or even blatantly imitative of them (Buffy-type Fantasy universes abound in fantasy novels all of a sudden.)

TV of the 1960's (i.e. Star Trek) changed PUBLISHING by re-creating it in the image of TV (and/or Film -- remember Star Trek led the way from the small screen to the big screen and one very VERY large reason Star Trek got that opportunity was the sales of those STAR TREK NOVELS.)

But now track the percentage of people who buy all the books sold in the USA. I haven't seen this year's statistic -- bet you though it's fallen bellow 10%. There are well over 300 million people in the USA now. Maybe with election non-fiction and Harry Potter we might have edged up to 15%.

Now, in the 2010's, the INTERNET and e-book may give us a chance to get back to the kind of editing that chooses books because they "ought" to be published and read -- because they contain ideas that people really need to know about whether the people think so or not.

You see, by packaging ideas in fiction (especially Romance or Comedy -- or Romantic Comedy) you can get people to consider them even before they know they need to know.

So, we as writers, are now living through the third huge paradigm shift in our industry in a lifetime. Definitely INTERESTING TIMES!!!

First there were Movies and Movie Magazines promulgated ideas of how a woman should look to attract a man. (men?)

Next there was TV (I LOVE LUCY) that delineated Relationships between Husband and Wife, and created the TV-TIE-IN NOVEL. (and novelizations of TV episodes, too).

Now the INTERNET -- which is moving from text to images and animated or video images, too.
And we are selling novels using a BOOK TRAILER -- Trailer being a term taken from Film, which contains the SET PIECE moments from the script.

All of this is what I call The Fiction Delivery System (analogous to Health Care Delivery system). No matter how the links are arranged between the Imagineer's Mind and the Fiction Imbiber's Mind, the point is to move ideas, feelings, concepts, and most important the amalgam of all that into a Point Of View from one mind to another.

That's what Shamans did around camp fires -- that's what we do today via novels, TV shows, Movies.

To do it for a profit (i.e. commercial fiction) you must follow the public's thinking. To do it the way it used to be done (profits catch as catch can) for the sake of the ideas, you can LEAD public opinion.

Combine the two -- Mass Market paperback series, online e-book series in the same universe -- and you can affect the direction of the next paradigm shift.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.slantedconcept.com

A quest, a queue, and a mission statement

Knight's Fork is a quest story, at least in part. Unlike Forced Mate, in which the hero thought of himself as on a quest to find his perfect mate, the hero of Knight's Fork sets out on a quest to avoid a damsel in distress.

Avoidance is a traditional, and respectable motive for a quest.


The queue.

Knight's Fork isn't available for sale, but here and there, a few copies are being given away.... five in the USA, one each in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and the rest of the world. Sign up, if you'd like to enter the drawing, which is being run by GoodReads.com

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway


Mission Statement

On some of the loops I'm on, there have been discussions of professionalism, and writing as a business. It makes sense to me. So, if we're professional businesswomen (and men) have we all written a mission statement?

Here's mine:

My goal as a Romance author is to give good value. I expect to provide my readers with six to eight hours of amusement, at least a couple of really good laughs, a romantic frisson or two from the sensual scenes, and something to think about when the book is finished.

Tags:
Romance, value, hours, laughs, frisson, sensual, think.


What do you think? Pretentious? Pompous? Off-putting? Helpful?


If you are an author, what's yours?


If you are a reader, what do you want and expect for the $7.00 to $14.99 that you pay for a novel?



Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Romance Changes Lives

A few days ago I read an article about a Turkish soap opera called NOOR, wildly popular in the Middle East. The hero is the romantic idol of female viewers. Although set in a Muslim cultural context, the program portrays liberal, secular values and a relationship of equal partners within marriage. Here’s a link to the article (or go to www.baltimoresun.com and search for “Noor”):

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/custom/today/bal-to.soap28jul28,0,3743960.story

Notice the 24-year-old Jordanian housewife who advised her husband to learn from the way the hero of the show treats his wife—“how he loves her, how he cares about her.” This example illustrates the fact that romance isn’t just frivolous entertainment; it can change lives. This soap opera, a genre disdained by many people, models respect and romantic love between men and women. The example can inspire us to pause and think about the effect of our work on readers, an impact that may be stronger than we realize. Our writing inevitably reflects our values and may transmit those values to our audience.

Of course, that doesn’t imply we should go out of our way to insert a “moral” into our novels. As was famously said, if you want to send a message, call Western Union. However, as C. S. Lewis (among others) points out, honest fiction can’t help incorporating the author’s world view; the “moral” grows out of the total framework of his or her mind. (That’s how the Christian resonance got into the Narnia series. Lewis didn’t start with the conscious plan of writing children’s books to illustrate Christian doctrines; he started with the image of a faun carrying packages in a snowy forest.) Hence the vital importance of theme, as Jacqueline has explained to us in such depth.

Admin notice

To Anyone Who May Have Commented... and their comment didn't post....

Rowena apologizes sincerely for the inconvenience. Her email overflowed during the night.

TITLE as Marketing Tool - Part One

I think Margaret Carter, in her Thursday July 24th post, has missed an important point about MARKETING. The Newspaper she sites was of course writing to readers and the reporter was probably unaware of the Point Of View differences.

I've been studying "Marketing" a bit lately, so I may be doing what the reporter did -- failing to connect with you, the book-buyer. But I'm going to try to explain how it looks from the Publisher's point of view.

Here's the point that's overlooked in Margaret Carter's last Thursday post on Titles.

Titles don't sell books to READERS.

Now go back and read her post and the comments once again, understanding that Titles have nothing at all to do with manipulating book-buyer's behavior.

So stipulate that the point and purpose of the TITLE in the Book Publishing Business Model is not to sell books to READERS.

The question then becomes what is a title and what is it for?

Titles are vital -- the correct choice of title is vital -- and makes or breaks sales. All the time.

Absolutely. Without exception. Proven by computer analysis. THE correct title is absolutely necessary to make sales figures soar.

Now how can that be if book-buying readers like Margaret ignore it? And after reading the book, forget the title!

We as readers mostly forget or ignore titles -- rarely does an intriguing title result in an impulse buy. Why is that?

Because intriguing titles attract the eye and mind to the book cover, but when you flip it over or look at the inside blurb, or first 3 paragraphs -- the book is not about what you imagined it might be or wanted it to be about.

WRITERS take that experience and go write the book that "belongs" under that title. Writers find great titles inspiring.

READERS just pass on, feeling frustrated, cheated and disappointed, and buy a guaranteed good read.

So why are titles so ultimately make-or-break for a book's sales? Don't they sell books to readers?

Well, no, "they" don't. Readers aren't actually part of the Publishing Business Model, any more than "voters" are part of the Political Machinery Business Model.

The PUBLIC (i.e. the Book Buyer) responds to advertising, regardless of their personal opinion.

That's the assumption behind much of the Marketing Paradigm, and more than 50% of the time, that assumption is proved accurate. (Personally, I think readers are harder to influence which is why "publishing" is the poor stepchild in every corporation that owns a Publishing House. We just don't respond in predictable ways to promotional advertising in the same way that people over 40 years old just don't respond to advertising. )

So where in the Publishing Business Model does the TITLE go? Who is it supposed to SELL TO if not the book-buyer/reader? If not the end-user, then who?

The answer is THE SALES FORCE. Titles exist to bait, intrigue, energize, jazz, inspire, and awaken greed in -- THE SALES FORCE. The Marketers.

The TITLE sells books not to the READER but to the SALES FORCE, the Marketing Department, The BUZZ MILL (editor, agent, publisher execs over lunch talking about it).

The TITLE sells not to those who will read the book (none of those professional sales people will read the book!), but to those who MARKET THE BOOK.

So the title is crucial to sales because if the title is not RIGHT, the book will never (ever!) make it to the shelf before reader's eyeballs to give book-buyers a chance to choose it. It might be "published" but won't be in the Book Chain Stores. Since the Independent Book Stores are totally vanished from the scene -- that failure to make the Chains is a deathnell even if the book is "published."

Books get chosen to be on Chain Store shelves in a number of ways. One way is at the annual Book Expo -- the TRADE SHOWS. The INSIDERS, the BUZZ NETWORK, -- what people are saying to each other while walking the aisles of that trade show -- determines if a book gets picked up for stocking in the chain stores.

Even on amazon which doesn't have "shelves," this has become true.

Why even on Amazon?

Because as Amazon has grown from a big reader-fan organization to a powerhouse marketer, they've started taking those standard bribes from publishers that book chains invented.

The Publisher PAYS to have your book in front of the store -- in the window -- in the "NEW" section, or shelved cover-out instead of spine-out -- or shelved in two places (SF and Romance).

The publisher pays? Well, no, the publisher's MARKETING DEPARTMENT (not one person inside which has ever or will ever read any of these books) decide which books to pay to put in front of the store or in the window.

On Amazon "up front" means it turns up in your Recommended section when you log in -- the more the publisher pays the higher in your Recommendeds it will appear. Or even be promoted in an email. Or now given away to amazon reviewers in the Vine program. (yeah, some chosen amazon reviewers get offered free books now! But only books publishers throw into the Vine program which is NOT all the publisher's titles. The select few get promoted.)

How does the Marketing Department decide which books to pay to have put in front of book-buyers eyeballs and which to leave out (so nobody can choose to buy it -- thus determining the sales figures.)

BY THE TITLE. And only by the title. That's what affects sales volumes -- despite what you and I, the inveterate reader actually do when looking at the book.

What does MARKETING look for in a title?

It's called HIGH CONCEPT, and I've been harping on this topic -- BOOKS AND MOVIES ARE NOW THE SAME -- on this blog for quite a while.

There's a vital point to consider here. This connection between books and movies and Marketing isn't something I just somehow missed learning as I grew up.

IT IS NEW. It has never before in the history of the world existed. OK, all right, PUBLISHING is relatively new -- few hundred years if you don't count hand-copying.

But let's take a long look at the history of publishing over the last few decades -- just decades.

When Margaret is discussing TITLE -- she's discussing it from the point of view of about 30 years ago.

In the 1970's and 1980's Publishing underwent a huge, big, monstrous, paradigm shift.

The really frightening thing about that change is that, though it was discussed in various newspapers (there weren't blogs then) and magazines -- the general book-buying public and people growing up with the ambition to "become writers" didn't get it -- didn't understand the nature of the change and its implications.

To this day, the real significance of this change hasn't sunk in.

There's a whole generation of new writers (and editors, too) who have grown up in the modern paradigm and don't really know there ever was anything different. They just know they don't like reading old books.

And there are those readers who are still forlornly searching for new novels written for the old paradigm.

What is the shift? What is this vital, earth shattering, vastly significance CHANGE?

I bet you already know and are bored that I'm saying this again.

Publishing went from a business that barely broke even, and was actually designed to LOSE MONEY as a tax write-off for the corporations which owned the Houses, to a business designed to MAKE MONEY.

It went from non-profit, or anti-profit, to profit making.

It sounds so simple. Who could miss that or not realize the full significance of it? Corporate America invaded our space. So?

Well, novels used to be written to communicate about interesting points, about emotions, philosophy, love, politics, religion -- incendiary topics. To be a "novelist" meant to be a THINKER -- no more, a LEADER OF THINKERS. Not really an "Intellectual" because "we" write for the "pulps" and Mass Market, but novelists were saying things that went way over the heads of most of the population.

That was proved out by sales and surveys. I recall the published figures in Publisher's Weekly from decades ago. It went from about 5% of the population of the USA buying books to read to maybe as much as 10% of the population in the 1960's and 1970's.

What changed?

Movies in the early part of the 20th Century didn't drive people to reading novels. They did however sell Movie Magazines. Mostly pictures. Those pictures changed how women dressed. Did you know that Max Factor makeup was at first ONLY for Hollywood stars when they were on screen -- and via the Movie Magazines, became known, and started making a beauty-parlour version and then went to Mass Market? Women adopted the bra, and other tricks of the stars, because of Magazines. Pin-ups. What guys wanted, girls provided.

Movies pitted us normal girls against "stars" -- and Movie Magazines changed the world.

Films reached a much bigger audience than books ever had. But it was much later that the NOVELIZATION was invented.

The big revolution of the 1960's was just a slow continuation of the 1950's which was a gradual, creeping revolution started in the 1930's and 40's. What was that revolution that affected publishing?

TELEVISION.

From a few stations in New York, Networks exploded. In the late 1950's the three big radio networks went coast to coast with TV networks of the same names (ABC, CBS, NBC). Remember Kinescope? No? Now you see my point.

Kinescope was the big revolution that allowed recording a TV show and showing it in California 3 hours later than the original broadcast in New York -- a technological miracle that unified this country. At 8PM everyone watched Milton Berle, even if you had to go over to the neighbor's house who had the only TV on the block. (about 7 inches across diagonally).

What happened to Television in the 1960's? Color TV, yes, big screens, and one more really significant thing I don't think any historians ever paid attention to.

STAR TREK!

Oh, you knew I was going to say that, didn't you?

So I'll give you a week to think about it. Really think - put the pieces together. If you can understand what happened, you will begin to understand what is happening now in such a way that you can take advantage of it and make yourself a profit.

Part II of this post next week, but I'll be on my way to WorldCon (see http://www.worldcon.org and choose this year from the list) so I'll have to ask Rowena once again to post for me.

After I get through with the Historical Review on titles in publishing, though, please someone remind me to discuss how to choose a title for your book that will propel it into the top of the list from which salesforces choose which books to promote. I can't claim to be really good at it, but I think I do have some ideas that will help.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.slantedconcept.com

Cock down

That's my alien romance "craft" thought for the day, and you can bet that I'm going to give it to Prince Thor-quentin when I write his book.

Why are we so perky when we do wrong?

Everything is "up". Cock up, screw up, foul up, snafu, mess up...

OK. So "cock up" is an esoteric term from the gentlemanly sport of cricket, nothing to do with barnyard poultry, or romantic enthusiasm.



Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Book Titles

Last Sunday’s paper contained an article about the effect of titles on book sales. The premise seemed to be that the right or wrong title can make or break a book’s market performance. I have some doubts on that point, from my own practices as a reader. I do my book buying from a list (organized by release months) that I carry in my purse all the time. The list comes mainly from two sources: (1) scheduled releases from authors I regularly read—by far the greatest number; (2) books whose reviews have sparked my interest. The third main source is other readers’ recommendations. Titles affect my choices only in case of the very rare impulse purchases. If a provocative title or cover illustration catches my eye, I might pick up the book and read the blurb.

Assuming many buyers are more impulse-oriented than I am, though, what makes a title attract them? I favor titles that give useful information or at least a strong hint of the book’s content. I have a hard time choosing titles for my own work— I seldom come up with one until the book is at least outlined in detail. I struggle with the attempt to balance the three ideal elements—an intriguing phrase, a clue to the story, and an indication of the book’s genre. The last two elements can clash; e.g., a clearly vampire-related title is apt to sound a lot like many of the other vampire novels on the shelf. A thought-provoking title, perhaps containing a literary allusion, may not give the reader any idea what the book is about. (Maybe that’s why the U.S. publisher of Agatha Christie’s murder mystery THE MIRROR CRACK’D changed the title.)

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS—would that phrase normally bring serial killers to mind? GONE WITH THE WIND incorporates a powerful metaphor but doesn’t instantly suggest the Civil War. HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER is both evocative and informative. DRACULA sounds suitably ominous, much creepier than Stoker’s original choice, THE UN-DEAD, but on first publication nobody could have deduced vampirism from the villain’s name. Diana Gabaldon’s time travel epic OUTLANDER was called CROSS STITCH in its British edition. While the British title is a nice metaphor for time travel, I think OUTLANDER is both more resonant and more informative. Michele Bardsley’s I’M THE VAMPIRE, THAT’S WHY, especially in the context of the book’s cheerful cartoon-style cover, suggests that the novel will (1) focus on a suburban mother’s adjustment to vampire existence, and (2) be funny. In fact, the “motherhood” dimension of the story soon becomes subordinated to other plot elements, and while there are some humorous moments, “funny” isn’t the dominant tone. (I can’t help wondering whether the publisher dictated the title as well as the cover art.)

How much do titles influence your reading choices? Can a title really “make or break” a book? Does this dynamic work differently for fiction and nonfiction?

Astrology Just For Writers - Part 2

Linnea has posted on Beauty, the standards of Beauty and what causes us to be attracted to percieved Beauty. Of course all the poets, philosophers and even scientists studying animal mating habits have gnawed on this problem of beauty and attraction longer than Romance Writers! (??? maybe???)

Honest, folks, we didn't put our heads together and concoct these two Astrology posts to come between her posts. But once again, the post I'd prepared before seeing Linnea's comments actually is connected to what she's thinking about.

Many of you who know some superficial Astrology have seen how Sun-Moon-Rising Sign combinations blend into certain types of physiognomies. People really LOOK LIKE their natal charts. The more people you know -- from first sight all the way to an understanding of what makes them tick -- the better you get at guessing Natal Signs. People really are (at some level) "what" they look like. People who look similar to others you've known, really MAY (operative word, MAY) - have similar personal characteristics.

But astrology isn't just 3 parameters blended -- it's 10 variables in 360 degrees, each degree casting a different shadow on the variable occupying it. Then each variable is shaded and nuanced by the positions and relationships of the other variables. Then comes the "wild card" of the Soul activating the pattern -- each Soul casts an individualized, totally original, one of a kind, twist on the entire pattern. So two people who look absolutely identical will be absolutely nothing alike.

So our eyeball impressions, our subconscious analogue mind, draws incorrect conclusions about people based on how they look.

Still, there are patterns. Aries emphasis lends a shade of impulsiveness -- but the person may be an impulsive lover, or an impulsive driver, or an impulsive speaker, but likely not all of the above. A person who looks like the other impulsive person you know won't necessarily manifest impulsiveness in the same life-area.

You can't judge a person by their chart -- or their appearance.. But nevertheless, we do -- especially where Beauty is concerned. Is Beauty skin deep - or deeper? Will your soul-mate appear repulsive to you at first glance?

Learning a bit about Astrology can help a writer create verisimilitude in characters' reactions to each other and to Beauty, and to distinguish between Beauty, Attractiveness, and Sexiness. Certain surface physical characteristics GO WITH certain personality traits (such as impulsiveness -- Aries shapes the head.) If you describe a certain physical appearance, then show the reader opposite personality traits and don't know what you're doing -- nobody will believe your characters are real. That's fatal in a fantasy worldbuilding situation.

The reader must believe the characters are real -- because everything else isn't. There's an art to mixing appearance with personality traits -- but there's a science to it, also. That science is Astrology.

So now to Astrology Just For Writers - Part 2. You may want to read last Tuesday's post to pick up the thread.

Ancient Wisdom says "the stars don't compel; they impel."

Here is where the writer must choose some of the elements of the THEME of the work. Here is where the universe building begins.

In order to build a character which is unique -- yet comprehensible to the reader in terms of what the reader already knows about human nature and life-patterns -- the writer must select (and then stick with) a philosophical answer to the question about the relationship between the bodies in the sky and the life of a person. The nature of the relationship you choose will reveal much about the universe you build -- and perhaps more about the universe you live in than even you know.

Everything else in your THEME -- which dictates every event, every character trait, and mostly the resolution of the conflict -- must be totally consistent with the answer you choose to the question of how the Heavens are connected to human life and personality. This answer must reflect where you stand on the existence of God, The Soul, Immortality after Death, maybe even The Resurrection. Well, at least where you stand for the purpose of this story.

What is our Universe? What is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of your life? What is the purpose of your characters' lives?

All of those answers are dictated by your answer to the question of the coincidental connection between Life and The Planets. (even transposed to other solar systems).

Is the connection mere accident? Is the Universe an accident? Is the Universe a mechanism? Was it "created" to be a mechanism and left to run unattended? Or is the universe and all life the direct, ongoing, result of the conscious attention of the Creator?

If the Universe and Life have a meaning -- then maybe The Planets are a clue to that meaning left for us to puzzle out?

Or maybe there is no meaning - and the search for meaning is a waste of time?

Or maybe there is no meaning - and the search for meaning can actually CREATE meaning?

Any of these postulates will generate a vast, rich, wonderful and fertile imaginary universe to tell stories in. Each answer (and all the ones I haven't mentioned) defines the specific audience for your fiction.

Your fiction will make sense only to those readers who share your answer, or can stipulate it for the sake of argument (believe 6 impossible things before breakfast). To extend the "reach" of your fiction to the widest possible audience, you need to find the answer shared by the largest number of people even if they've never asked themselves the question.

Subconsciously, each of us harbors a philosophy which contains answers to all these questions.

Most of us do not harbor a uniform and consistent philosophy - thus our actions often seem irratic to outside observers. Characters humans can believe in must share that inconsistency, but to gather a large audience for your fiction, you must use inconsistencies shared by large numbers of people.

The most recent poll of the population of the USA indicates that while most people don't bother with Church or other organized worship, they do by and large believe in a Creator who takes a personal interest in the universe and our lives.

Many people who study the Western Esoteric Traditions often start with Astrology and eventually delve into Tarot and end up studying Kaballah.

I have my own, personal answer (not used necessarily in all my novels, but visible in some). You don't have to look at the universe the same way I do -- but to write coherent fiction, you must look at the universe some ever which way! And each novel you write must adhere to a consistent view of the universe and try to impart that view to the readers.

The adventure of reading is to walk a mile in the main character's moccasins -- that means to learn to see the Universe from a philosophical view different from your own. To accomplish that, being human, we need an anchor -- an axiom of the invented Universe that is the same as our own innermost cherished assumptions -- our UNCONSCIOUS assumptions. Art speaks from subconscious to subconscious.

The view of the novel's universe does not have to be your own - but if it differs from yours, it must differ in an internally consistent way.

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So, by way of an example, here is my own current (ever changing) take on this problem of the relationship between the placement and movement of the planets in the heavens and the placement and movement of us people below.

Astrology and Tarot are really two heads for the same sonic screw driver.

Astrology is all about this life (that started when you were born) with this personality (described by but not caused by the Natal Chart's organization). Life has its peaks and valleys and the personality of this life just struggles along coping as best it can.

The personality of this life is a sub-set of the Soul's Personality -- of "who" you really are behind it all, unknown to anyone but yourself and God.

The Tarot is all about the Soul's Personality and what it can achieve in this life, what it can learn, what procedures and techniques it can master in this life, what talents it can lend to the personality.

The Tarot deck has the structure of the Kaballah's Tree of Life - 4 repeating patterns of 10 numbered cards. (10 planets to track - 10 numbered cards per suit).

4 is the minimum number of variables necessary to form a Boolean Algebra. 4-ness is a very salient property of our 4-square reality (3 dimensions and Time).

There are 4 letters in the Ineffable Name of God.

I could go on and on -- but you get the idea. Numbers are the basis of reality, physical and psychological and spiritual. God is creating (present progressive tense) our entire reality via NUMBERS - via vibration, cyclicity. We are solidified spiritual speech.

The human being's Eternal Soul is one of God's creations.

The Soul enters manifest reality through the dimension of Time.

I learned that in a Chabad course on the nature of Time. For all the references and what I learned, see the first 6 review columns of 2007. They're all titled the Soul-Time Hypothesis: something.

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2007/

It took me a few years to understand what it means that the Soul enters manifestation through Time.

My original education is in Chemistry with minors in Physics and Math. I think like a Physical Chemist. Mysticism bewilders me.

But I'm a born mystic. So I couldn't let go of this idea until I'd rearranged everything I know around it to see what this would do to my philsophy.

It changed my personal philosophy in subtle ways and gave me a new understanding of how it can be that we can take our birth time and place and mathematically describe our personality (not Personality, mind you) and the TIMING OF the challenges we must face in life, but not the nature of those challenges.

This solar system existed long before we were born (even before the Internet, believe it or not).
The solar system has changed over all that time -- we argue that our Moon may be a captive because it's so large, and we see that maybe Mars has a totally different northern hemisphere than southern because of a huge, gigantic, meteor strike long-long-long ago. We theorize that Pluto may be a captive and not a planet at all. Earth's periodicity - year and day length - have changed. The solar system has evolved. Galaxies likewise. All of space-time constantly changes.

It all spins. All the galaxies, our galaxy, our sun, the planets around our sun (planets around other suns) -- it's all MOVING THROUGH TIME.

At some given moment, our Soul injects into this giant physical reality and we are BORN. The Soul penetrates TIME generating a personality to deal with Time. From that moment on, the personality is subject to the linear sequence we call time.

(yes, I know about string theory, and M theory, and that there is no such thing as simultaneity, and how gravity and time interact and so on.)

Science spends most of its time studying Time -- measuring it, theorizing about the speed of light which is a component of so many of the formulas physics uses to build useful things.

We live inside a giant clock - and we spend our lives studying that clock, trying to hear it tick.

The clock ticks whether we're here or not. It doesn't cause us to be here. It doesn't waft us away. It doesn't limit us. It doesn't do anything except KEEP TIME.

We are Souls - we are swimmers in this ocean of Time. And we're trying to learn to swim. The ocean of Time doesn't cause us to learn to swim - we dove in ourselves. The waves of Time don't dictate which swimming stroke we'll choose to use.

The stars do not compel -- nor do they impel. They simply keep going -- and we are learning to walk to their beat, to jump double-dutch, or write a screenplay to the beat. I had barely managed to swallow this concept - the Soul enters manifesation through the dimension of Time - than these Chabad people taught me something else.

The purpose of human life is to make this material reality into a dwelling place for the Creator of it. Everything we are and everything we do (whether we know it or not) is targeted toward that very clearly visualized goal.

We didn't dive into Time just to play in the ocean waves (or at least not all of us or not every time we dive in). We are here to complete a task.

It just explains so much! The pervasive imagining of utopia, for example. So many really popular novels have been written about "the perfect world." And so many people feel that would be so boring they can't imagine it. Everyone has an opinion on utopia. Why? Because actually that's what we're here to do - to make the world easy, beautiful, loving, kind, generous, perfect. Everyone will be sane. (imagine that - I'm not sure I could stand it!)

Consider the Hero's Journey. Consider all the archetypes - King, Warrior, on and on -- each archetype is an imagining of something perfected, pure of its type. And these archetypes are real - they have power, they subsume so much of our existence. How is it we're able to imagine such things? Imagining is a kind of creating. Archetypes organize existence into categories by defining the pure form of the category.

Well, that's the kind of thing you can learn from Astrology. Astrology defines the archetype behind a life-pattern. People go to an astrologer in the grip of angst about their own personal, unique, individual life and identity -- but all Astrology can discuss is the archetypes behind their life and personality.

How those archetypes manifest within the time-frame of a given Life is entirely a matter of the human being's Free Will.

Of course, we do our best to avoid using our Free Will. We let parental conditioning, subconscious compulsions, other people's values, genuine childhood trauma, etc command our existence -- and to the extent that we abjure our Free Will, the fortune-tellers can "predict" our future just by applying the laws of Inertia. All the fortune-teller has to do is extrapolate along a straight line from the client's birth moment and "predict" what will happen next.

Real astrologers and Tarot readers don't do that. They are genuine spiritual counselors who attempt to explain the client's "now" (which can be plus or minus a few years) in such a way that the client becomes motivated to engage their Free Will and craft life anew.

Real astrologers and Tarot readers (and those who use other methods, too - runes work!) use these tools just as a psychological counsellor would use say the latest research on compulsive behavior to discern whether the client is suffering from compulsive behavior or something that mimics it. Some of the best astrologers and Tarot readers are actually psychic and can use that kind of sensory input to interpret a Natal Chart or card spread (or both).

When all the information is fully blended, it is very difficult for anyone, least of all the practitioner, to say where any given piece came from.

And it's the same with a writer. No way can a writer tell you where a particular character came from -- or why this or that trait of that character can't be changed no matter how the editor demands it.

Fictional characters are no more random collections of traits than human beings are. To be engaging, entertaining and comprehensible, a fictional character must be formulated exactly the way a human being is (only maybe not so complex). The writer achieves this creation of a fictional character the same way an Astrologer or Tarot reader achieves a comprehension of a client -- a gestalt of a thousand little things.

Astrology is all about Time and how our Free Will uses it to create our Life. Tarot is all about the Soul and how the Soul struggles to manifest some part of itself into Time, to learn to surf the ocean of time, big waves and all.

Astrology can clue you in to what you're doing - Tarot to how you're doing.

Look hard at your Tarot reading for a week, then study the transits to your natal chart for that week - keep notes while you live out the week - and eventually you will comprehend how these two tools are reading out the same forces and how you, yourself as an individual are creating something unique out of the grand archetypes.

Armed with this non-verbal level comprehension of the structure of the universe, you may be able to portray a character who will walk off your pages into the dreams of your readers.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com

Beauty is in the eye of...

Talking about technology and world building prodded this thought: how did (or would) people judge beauty if there was no mass media (or access to mass media) dictating what's beautiful and what's not?

I'm sure most of you are familiar with the fact that actress Marilyn Monroe--once touted as a hallmark a female beauty--would be too fat for today's "standards." She was a size 12, I believe. Death knell for a Hollywood actress in 2008. Size 2? Better.

But it's better because we've been conditioned to believe so in the past thirty years--by the media.

I don't want to get in a discussion here of zoftig versus waif. I do want to get in a discussion of world building in which you have a vast collection of cultures and civilizations in a "galactic empire" that may include worlds (or pockets on worlds) of various level of technology and hence various levels of "shared" cultural icons. Like beauty.

I remember reading National Geographics as a child and marvelling at the natives in other countries who used tatoos or piercings as beautification. Obviously their issues of GQ or Cosmopolitan were different from mine. Which shows, of course, that we don't need a galactic empire to examine this issue of "what is beauty?"

How did villagers in 1325 Scotland or 1810 Sweden decide who was the most beautiful village lass without having an issue of People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful to compare them to?

I know there are studies done that define what humans innately find as "attractive" and why: large eyes (better to see predators and escape), full hips (childbearing), long legs (run from predators). These were attributes the insured the survival of the species. But when survival is no longer a crushing problem, these hallmarks can change.

But would they change if they weren't paraded across a mass medium? Would they change of their own accord simply because situations change?

Let's go from low tech 1325 Scotland (assuming you're still pondering that answer) to high tech other star system. Let's posit an active space-faring culture. Would smaller and lighter-weight beings be "more attractive" as they fit better in the confined spaces of starships? Longer fingers to reach more keypads? Or would extra padding and extra weight actually be more desirable in a zero-g environment (if your ships are structured so) because it helps with the bumps and lumps that happen in bouncing off bulkheads? Since weight is a factor of gravity, if your environment has no gravity, does anyone care what you weigh?

What if species are not human as we know it but humanoid? I love CJ Cherryh's felinoid Hani in her Chanur series and how ears are an element of beauty (being own by two felines myself, I can attest to the amount of time spent grooming ears to perfection). But love of ears (Ferengi, anyone?) can go beyond the physical--good hearing in a precarious environment such as a starship would certainly be a plus.

The how and why of the definition of beauty in cultures other than my own intrigues me.

I certainly know what readers would consider the most beautiful traits on an author: ten arms with which to type more novels, and ten heads with which to think up more plots and characters.

~Linnea
http://www.linneasinclair.com/

PS: If you're in the Orlando area this weekend, please come by see authors Dara Edmondson, Traci Hall, Catherine Kean and myself at our book signing:

July 26th--Waldenbooks, 1-3 PM, the Mall at Millenia, 4200 Conroy Road, Orlando FL

I'll have PRE RELEASE copies of SHADES OF DARK!

Lost knowledge -- the paradox of technology

It's hard being an alien.

Really, I'm not, but my perspective is that of someone transplanted, and I'm acutely aware of the potential for giving offense. On the other hand, I hope it's good fertilizer for my alien romances.

It would probably be a splendid idea if Prince Thor-quentin were to visit America in a future book.

Take rain.

Where I grew up (an island that relies on collected rainwater, a reservoir, a few artesian bores, and a desalination plant for its water) we've been directing the downpipes from our homes' gutters into series of rain barrels for generations. Each barrel is at a different height, and by a simple but clever mechanism, the full one "overflows" to fill the next, and so on, and a simple tap near the base of a barrel can be opened to release water into a watering can.

Yet, I saw a documentary on The Weather Channel the other day that seemed to treat such a system in America as one man's genius invention.

Last month, a prize was awarded to an environmentally conscious youngster (all kudos to her) for inventing a small hydro-electric system to take advantage of the flow of rainwater inside a downpipe and produce enough electricity to power a battery.

A few years ago on the radio, some local builder in Michigan claimed to have invented the dormer window.

I should think a lot of "reinventing the wheel" goes on, because even with Google, it is impossible to know everything that has already been done somewhere in the world, and I daresay there is no invention that is so perfect that it couldn't be improved if a very smart person started from scratch and was open to the best materials and the best thinking, no matter where in the world it came from.


So, even if my alien empires and communicating worlds have the materials, resources and technology to map wormholes, and travel vast distances at unbelievable speeds, I don't think it impossible that they could have lost --or never encountered-- some "backward" knowledge or capabilities along the way.

Voice

I've been reading UNDEAD AND UNWORTHY, MaryJanice Davidson's latest novel in her Betsy, Vampire Queen series. The book made me think about that elusive quality called "voice." All writers have a unique voice, we're told, and we should strive to let our own shine. Some authors have highly recognizable (and easily parodied) voices: Hemingway's spare, short sentences; Lovecraft's elaborate prose, eldritch adjectives, and horror-stricken italics; Damon Runyon's New York underworld slang. Some others, equally unique, can't be described so easily. Stephen King's fiction has a characteristic sound and feel, but I don't think it’s so easily imitated as the others I mentioned.

The first-person narrative of Davidson's vampire novels falls into what I think of as the typical "chick lit" verbal register. Indeed, she was probably one of the pioneers of this subgenre in paranormal fiction. When Betsy emerged from her premature grave in UNDEAD AND UNWED, she came across as snarky, self-observed, obsessed with fashion accessories, and prone to overuse profanity. In fact, in some of the dialogue in this series, every other word out of the narrator’s mouth seems taken from the short list of terms that, thirty years ago, were commonly classified as “unprintable.” (Maybe it isn’t literally every other word, but to me, with my verging-on-zero tolerance for “those words,” it often feels like it. I mean, REALLY, how many people do you know in real life who talk that way in polite company ALL the time?) The first book of Davidson’s newer series, starring a mermaid named Fred, contained an author’s note declaring her intention of making Fred a different type of character from Betsy. Didn’t work for me, because their style and diction are so similar. Fred, too, impressed me mainly as flippant and foul-mouthed.

As an aside, why do I keep reading the adventures of Betsy the Vampire Queen if I feel that way about her? Well, she gets into intriguing predicaments, and it’s fun to watch how the plots unwind. The world-building of Davidson’s vampire and werewolf subcultures has its points of interest. And Betsy, to be fair, has grown as a character from the shallow young woman who emerged from that grave wearing (horrors) un-stylish shoes. She’s developed a genuine love for her husband, Vampire King Sinclair, and a deep sense of responsibility for the people, human and otherwise, who have gathered around to place themselves under her protection. I just grit my teeth and mentally “bleep” over the dialogue that rubs me the wrong way, not to mention all that silliness about shoes. (Sorry, I just don’t GET fashion.)

With UNDEAD AND UNWORTHY, however, I perceive a potential mismatch between tone and plot, or maybe even between tone and theme. Readers were warned that the series would take a darker turn starting with this novel. The publisher even changed the cover style. (I much prefer the cartoony cover illustrations of the earlier books, but admittedly they would mislead new readers if attached to darker stories. Cover art pitfalls comprise a whole different topic—the reprints of Laurell K. Hamilton’s earlier Anita Blake novels have the same cover style as the newer books, darkly erotic and therefore VERY misleading as far as the first few books in the series are concerned; those aren’t remotely erotic.) Previously, blood was spilled and villains died, but things generally turned out well for the good guys. When Betsy’s father and stepmother died in a car crash, her estrangement from them kept us from feeling sorrow over the loss, especially since Antonia, her stepmother, aka the Ant, has been consistently portrayed as a caricature rather than a rounded character. (Will she change now that she’s a ghost trapped into haunting Betsy? Hard to tell.) Therefore, the narrator’s voice has been able to keep the tone breezy, verging on humorous, even in the midst of what would, if described in cooler prose, sound like unmitigated horror. At the climax of UNDEAD AND UNWORTHY, however, Very Bad Things happen. Suddenly, Betsy’s characteristic voice doesn’t seem to fit so well. True, in the final chapter and epilogue, the author tones down the snark considerably. Still, I feel the mismatch may become a problem, if the “darker” trend continues as advertised. Will the author gradually change Betsy’s voice, thereby possibly disappointing readers who like the character the way she is, or try to maintain the familiar tone and diction amid a chain of events that may turn out to be too serious for that tone?

If you’re a fan of the series and have read the latest novel, what do you think about this issue? In general, what about the question of harmony among voice, plot, and theme? Have other authors (you or someone whose work you’ve read) encountered this problem because of shifting the focus of a series, and how do they deal with it? The only other example I can think of is rather remote in applicability, because it’s a TV series: MASH. In later seasons, the program shifted focus from the silliness (which became less obtrusive) to more serious plot premises and themes (which were always present but less prominent). A TV show can’t have a “voice” in the same sense a prose narrative does; what would be the analogous factor on TV? The way I remember MASH, its shift to more rounded characters and emotionally engaging storylines (in my opinion, much improved thereby) coincided with the departure of Col. Blake, Trapper, and above all Frank Burns. Frank, in particular, not only irritated me but constantly undermined my suspension of disbelief. I couldn’t accept that such a buffoon could have been admitted to medical school, let alone graduated. Maj. Winchester had his quirks, but he was a believable character with intelligence and depth. I was also fond of B.J., who foregrounded the issue of separation from family, such a large part of the military experience. Col. Potter, of course, was wonderful. And Frank’s disappearance freed “Hot Lips” to develop from a caricature into a real character. So what do you think? Voice, plotlines, and theme—how do they fit together, and if you want to change the latter two, must you alter your voice, also?