Amber Benson: Tara on Buffy The Vampire Slayer

And my point here is that Amber Benson is also a screenwriter, director, producer, webisode involved, AND an on-paper novelist too. This is a woman to study (Google her up). She has a lot to teach. So let's see if we can learn.

The last few entries I've done here have been long and full of abstract advice and arcane demands on writers to do the impossible (sometime before breakfast at least if not before coffee).

Now once again, lets get back to the practical by looking at a writer, her novel and the background she brings to the craft.

How does a writer actually WRITE? Where does the flowing poetry of images and words come from? What level of an Urban Fantasy needs poetry, or poetic justice, and where do you put the dense philosophy of the theme? Do you dare touch Religion?

Where do ideas come from and how do you organize them into fictional formats that can be understood by readers?

As I keep telling you, it's the writer's subconscious that does most of the work. And as I learned from Red Skelton and Jack Benny, the best material is stolen. The trick is to steal only from the best.

But after you've stolen your ideas from say, The Bible, or Isaac Asimov, what do you do with them?

You put them into your subconscious. You've watched me say that a lot.

Amber Benson's novel Death's Daughter is a flawless amalgam of her background, her life, and her career coming to high focus in a blazing burst of artistic freedom. It's just not so easy to see that art that comes from a well stocked and disciplined subconscious. But if you can see it, how do you do it?

I have no clue how she did it other than her public biography, but I do know how others have done it. Each person has to store stuff in their subconscious via a different mechanism. Writing (un-storing the stuff in your subconscious) is the opposite of the storing procedure, but they are related.

So HOW do you store stuff in your subconscious? How do you train your subconscious to regurgitate these marvelous classic ideas all wrapped up and organized to be just like something famous, but different.

What is the mechanism within the human mind that can achieve this feat?

If you can explain how you do it, please drop a comment on this post.

Meanwhile, I want to talk a little bit about the various ways I've seen accomplished writers do it, how I was taught, and how I find it works best for me.

This process of programming the subconscious to produce Art you can sell is a "feat" -- like an athletic feat, or like an adagio dance exhibition, a Chopin concert at Carnegie Hall, or recording a perfect operatic aria. It is a feat you must train for. And even so you might not equal or break a world record ever in your lifetime.

First you must establish a regimen in communicating with your subconscious.

The relationship between conscious and subconscious is, as I see it, best described by THE STRENGTH CARD, of the Tarot. It's usually a picture of some kind of beast (a lion or mythic creature known for ferocity) being petted and gentled (and dominated quietly) by a "defenseless" Maiden figure.

The beast represents the subconscious. The Maiden represents some part of the conscious mind -- perhaps the level of CUPS or perhaps WANDS. (or both)

There was an article recently on research into dog intelligence.

http://news.aol.com/article/dogs-as-smart-as-2-year-old-kids/609181

A dog may be as smart as a 2.5 year old, but the dog will be socially mature and still be only that smart.

Studies have shown that if a dog's owner is aggressive, the dog will become aggressive.

Dogs are copy-cats. (oy)

My dog learned the household routine. Even though I was never aware of how very routinely identical my daily procedures had become (I've since changed to inject variety) until my dog showed me by EXPECTING what would ordinarily come next.

Dogs recognize patterns and get disturbed if the pattern is broken.

Art is all about patterns. Poetry is about patterns. Poetic justice is all about patterns. If there isn't poetry inside your novel, the novel is missing an important ingredient because our real, normal world runs on poetry.

Dogs maybe can't "learn" in the way humans do but they can be trained, just like your toddler can be trained but not really "taught" (yet).

A toddler is not going to respond to all these magnificent abstractions I love to indulge in. The reasons for holding your hand crossing a parking lot don't mean a thing to a toddler. The statistics about toddlers killed in parking lots, the statistics about toddlers kidnapped, the stats on those maimed for life, zilch, nada, nothing.

But insist the first time, and never miss insisting on that little hand in yours, and next thing you know the 3 year old will force his hand into yours. The 5 year old - not so much - but dogs don't get to the 5 year old level (though some primates do!).

And your subconscious is about 2-3 years old, give or take. Forever.

Your subconscious doesn't CARE about all my beloved abstractions and meta-cognition and subtle value system comparisons. Subconscious is totally primal (which is why Blake Snyder kept saying make it PRIMAL).

The subconscious is where the "helpless" nightmare comes from, and why horror novels are so popular! We all have a scared little 2 year old inside somewhere who doesn't understand the world and still nurses lingering echoes of infancy's true helplessness. Adults still have some of that, which is why dark- mysterious- incomprehensible- insurmountable makes such a great movie!

So subconscious can be trained but not taught.

How do you train subconscious to produce poetry, art, music and stories complete with theme and structure?

It's that pattern recognition function built in as a survival mechanism!

Dogs have pattern recognition, even through time. (this comes after that) And people do too, on just that same very primal level where "reason" is not a factor.

That's another reason Blake Snyder was always saying get down to the PRIMAL level even a caveman could understand, before technology, before international trade, before Wall Street cartels.

Inside our sophisticated world wise behaviors, we are driven by the most primal issues of love, loyalty, reproduction, life, death, protection, possessing, command of power.

The story comes from the subconscious of the writer, and must be presented in such a way that the subconscious of the reader can recognize the pattern, the primal pattern.

Not SIMPLE pattern. PRIMAL pattern.

Life and Death are very primal, and not at all simple, but still very much what our subconscious is designed to handle magnificently.

That's why life and death are the subject of so many novels, and the stakes in so many plots. You don't have to explain what's so important about it. Using something that primal is almost a cop-out because it's so easy to grab for Life, Death, and Devil archetypes to drape your story on.

But Amber Benson has gotten away with it gracefully in HER NEW NOVEL "Death's Daughter" -



and thereby hangs the tale of a lesson in writing.

And the lesson in writing is READ.

As you train your toddler to hold your hand in a parking lot (pattern recognition triggers habitual action), so you can train your subconscious to steal IDEAS when reading a good PRIMAL novel (pattern recognition triggers habitual action).

The first step in training your subconscious is to sort your to-be-read stack into Good, Better, Best. (some of these will be re-reading projects)

You should pick writers and books that you want to emulate, or that have sales statistics you want to achieve. Most likely, the ones with the sales statistics you want to achieve will contain elements you seriously dislike or balk at. Those elements are very possibly the source of the sales statistics, so study them and reinvent them in new guises that you do like.

There are two kinds of fiction you should read to train your subconscious.

One is the really slick, highly professional, so well synthesized you can't reverse-engineer it to see how it was done.

Another is the awkward, not-quite-right, fumbling, jerky neo-pro product you most often see these days in the e-book form because Manhattan isn't publishing midlist and beginner writers as much as they used to.

That's not casting aspersions on e-books! I've reviewed a number of e-books that are better constructed than you generally find from Manhattan! The e-book has stolen from Manhattan the right to be the home of the mid-list as well as the beginner, launching what will soon be stellar careers.

Manhattan will soon be in financial trouble because they are not fostering the new beginners and will not have their loyalty (loyalty is primal, remember?)

Reading to train your subconscious to write is very different from reading to enjoy a good read.

As you start doing this exercise, your ability to enjoy any novel will falter and may disappear. If you persist, a new and very intense pleasure will emerge as you read interesting novels that also tickle your pattern-recognition nerve.

You start by reverse engineering a number of your most favorite novels until you can see their moving parts as detailed here in previous posts.

One tried and true technique is to take colored highlighters or pens and highlight or underline words, phrases and sentences. Don't do it just mentally. The physical act of marking is what communicates to the subconscious. Just thinking about it won't achieve the same communication level.

Mark DESCRIPTION, DIALOGUE, EXPOSITION, NARRATIVE in separate colors. A really top flight writer like Andre Norton will use all 4 in almost every sentence. Some words will carry both exposition and narrative in one word.

Mark the PROTAGONIST ANTAGONIST and/or NARRATOR.

Later flipping through those pages, you'll see the proportions of words allotted to each character. It's important to get that proportion right.

Mark the BEGINNING, MIDDLE and END of each scene, and note in the margin the SITUATION CHANGE for PLOT and for STORY.

See my two entries on SCENE STRUCTURE at

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html

And note that my "definition" of scene is echoed in this web page on stage vocabulary.
http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smarx/courses/Vocabulary.html

Note particularly where it says BLOCK A SCENE because we haven't discussed that yet, here, but we have covered the components of blocking. Blocking a scene is very VERY important in action narrative, and when you read DEATH'S DAUGHTER, you should watch for the techniques so smoothly and subtly applied.

Color code 2 or 3 of your favorite novels in each of the categories

1)very advanced that you want to emulate, and

2)beginner's work that you COULD emulate.

DO THE SAME THING watching television. Take a notepad, note down the scenes and how each changes the situation. Capture the plot outline as you watch. (this is where you wish you knew shorthand).

If you need to know what a "plot outline" is, I gave you a couple of examples in WHAT DOES SHE SEE IN HIM http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

Now, after this intense exercise, never let yourself read anything without mentally coloring in the components as DESCRIPTION, DIALOGUE, EXPOSITION, NARRATIVE, scene blocks etc. After you've done the actual coloring, subconscious will begin to spot them for you, and train your conscious not to miss them! (like the 3 year old who will insert a hand into yours crossing a parking lot)

Once subconscious has started to do that, and you can't read anything without being aware of the components, go to sleep assigning your subconscious the task of having AN IDEA when you wake up.

The first few IDEAS it produces will be like a puppy piddling in the corner. Think of the STRENGTH CARD, and remember how you tame the fractious, spoiled, savage beast of the subconscious with kindness, repetition, firmness, consistency, just as you train a toddler. Reward good behavior. Ignore the bad. Make friends.

When an idea comes pre-formulated to the pattern you are training into your subconscious, write it down (that's the reward for subconscious, getting written down). Do the plot outline for the novel, just as we've covered in these posts such as WHAT DOES SHE SEE IN HIM. With practice it shouldn't take more than half an hour, maybe 20 minutes, to jot down the outline (my examples came out as fast as I could type; it just takes practice) and they don't have to be consecutive minutes.

Let subconscious do the part that's "the same" and you do the part that's "different."

Now, where to start training?

AMBER BENSON!!! I just wrote my January 2010 column (that's another lesson in publishing - it's August and I'm late turning in the January column.) And except for a quick Noel Tyl astrology mention, the January column is all about DEATH'S DAUGHTER and why it's an "important" novel in the guise of just another Urban Fantasy.



But one little 1500 word column couldn't begin to scratch the surface of "all about" Death's Daughter. There's so much more to say. We shouldn't get to that until after you've read it and reverse engineered it.

Amber Benson's novel DEATH'S DAUGHTER is a perfectly structured, breezy-easy read targeting the most primal archetypes, Death, Devil, God, normal human woman who just wants a normal life.

The world Benson has built for this novel is soooo Buffy and sooooo Different from Buffy. The world's mechanisms, the tone, the brightness, the attitudes, the philosophy behind everything is all different from that famous TV show, but awakens soothing echoes of the Buffyverse pattern. And yes, there's the constant thrum of a Romance in there too! "What does she see in him" is handled gorgeously.

If you're familiar with the Buffyverse, you will pick this up right away. And you'll see how Benson's universe is unique. You'll also find a purely cinematic structure articulating the skeleton of this novel. And you'll find the poetry, the art, a musical rhythm to the pacing, and so many tightly and smoothly integrated patterns even I couldn't count them all.

DEATH'S DAUGHTER is a leap-for-joy FIND for the writer looking for a really tough nut to crack on reverse-engineering.

But it didn't just spring full grown out of nowhere. Here's Benson's bio from the back of the novel.

“Amber Benson cocreated, cowrote and directed the animated supernatural Web series Ghosts of Albion with Christopher Golden, which they followed with a series of novels, including Witchery and Accursed, and the novella Astray. Benson and Golden also coauthored the novella The Seven Whistlers. As an actress, she has appeared in dozens of roles in feature films, TV movies, and television series, including the fan-favorite role of Tara Maclay on three seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Benson wrote, produced, and directed the feature films Chance and Lovers, Liars and Lunatics.”

TV, Web production, feature film, print media. And all that experience is neatly, tightly integrated into DEATH'S DAUGHTER.

Christopher Golden once taught me a lot about this structure stuff, and how the subconscious needs to be disciplined to separate material into distinct stories. I don't know that's where Benson learned it, or if she came to Golden already knowing it. Or maybe she was born knowing it (some people are just talented that way).

I highly recommend making DEATH'S DAUGHTER one of your novels to reverse engineer to see what it's made of and how its moving parts are joined by the theme. Yes, it'll be as hard as if it were written by Andre Norton or A. E. Van Vogt because it's so well integrated. But your subconscious may pick up the patterning for the multi-media creation, which could make your fortune.

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

N3F for fantasy lovers

This is a tip for Fantasy Lovers.

On Facebook, the N3F group is without many fans (could be because of their fiendishly clever and geeky name) but are apparently very receptive to Fantasy readers....as fans.

The url is http://www.facebook.com/pages/N3F/89128934330

It's not my group (btw) I'm merely a fan, but one of the admins asked me to spread the word.

For authors of Fantasy, Futuristic, or Paranormal Romance, you should check out the FFandP website!

Liz Pelletier the webdiva has made it possible for members of the FFandP subgenre chapter to post their book covers, blurbs, widgets, excerpts and much, much more. For the $15 a year membership (in addition to the $85 RWA membership) it is a great showcase, and arguably the best value any RWA chapter offers.

Linnea Sinclair's books are up

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
Please vote for my cover/title/blurb (social networking contest for authors) http://tinyurl.com/Award-5-Stars

The proposal, final installment

This is the last chapter in my proposal. This is where the steam punk elements come in. It was a blast coming up with the inventions. I did not plan on Von Swaim being OCD, it just kind of happened. I worked with someone who had the condition and it was not fun, believe me.


Chapter Four

The big clock in the foyer chimed seven times as Dr. Edmond Von Swaim, who also held the title of Baron, walked into his breakfast room. The room was located on the second floor of his manse and overlooked the street. He preferred to eat in the smaller room instead of using the expansive table located in the formal dining room on the first floor.
There were those who would say it made more work for his servants, as they would have to carry things from the first floor kitchen located on the back of the house, to the second floor. Those who would say such things did not know of the steam powered lift that was installed off the kitchen just for this very purpose. His servants merely had to enter the small room; turn the wheel and they were carried up to the floors above. It worked in warehouses and hotels, why not put the same technology to use in homes? It made for less waste and more efficiency upon the part of his servants.
Von Swaim had his breakfast in the room upstairs because it was smaller and therefore less wasteful. If there was anything the Doctor could not tolerate it was waste of anything. Time, money, resources and inventions; all were things that should be used to their utmost potential. Even his title was carefully chosen. He much preferred to be called Doctor, since it was something he had earned, than Baron, which was something that had been passed down generation after generation, because of something one of his ancestors had done. Just as the Queen was Queen because of something her ancestors had done. She was Queen because the royal blood ran in her veins. The same royal blood that was in Von Swaim's
A maid wearing white gloves placed his meal on the table as he waited by the window. The street below was just springing to life. The vendor carts were in place along the way and young boys held up newspapers on the corner, their cries of headlines lost against the panes of glass.
Von Swaim noticed a bright array of flowers at the cart on the corner. Roses, lilies, carnations and daisies swirled in a kaleidoscope of color against the grays and browns of the cobblestones. They would have to be from a greenhouse since spring was just upon them. The snow from a few days past was gone now and there was a definite feel of warmth to the air. Perhaps he should invest in a bouquet and have it sent around to the girl. It would not hurt to extend some sort of token to Pemberton after the near disaster of their visit.
Von Swaim turned when he heard the teapot placed and examined the table as the maid curtseyed her way from the room. Everything was placed to his exact specifications; still his practiced eyes scanned the table, just to make sure. His utensils were placed exactly one inch apart, his glass containing his special health mixture was precisely five inches above his spoon and at the correct angle from his plate. His meal, which was the same meal that he had every morning, was arranged exactly as he desired it on the plate and cooked to his taste. The teapot emitted enough steam to let him know that it would be the appropriate temperature when he poured his first cup. The only thing left was the morning newspaper and it lay beside his plate, folded once in the middle.
His staff worked hard to please him. They had learned what happened when he was not pleased. Heinz, his butler, was an excellent and demanding instructor and Mrs. Shultz, his head housekeeper, had a sharp eye. Their ways produced results, one of which was a secure position in the Von Swaim household. For the most part, his staff was grateful to be employed during these trying times. While life was pleasant for the titled and rich, it was not so for the common folk. Whitechapel was full of people who would give anything to have steady employment, even if it meant dealing with the strange idiosyncrasies of Dr. Von Swaim.
Satisfied that all was at is should be, Von Swaim sat down and ate his meal, cutting each morsel into the same size and eating it in the same order. Eggs, sausage, toast. Eggs, sausage, toast. He treated himself to a spoonful of orange marmalade on his last bite of toast and then quickly drank his special mixture in one long steady gulp. He poured his tea, added lemon and a half-teaspoon of sugar and stirred it five times, counting as he stirred. He took one sip and picked up the paper.
As was his custom, he started on page one and read each article, working his way from left to right across and down the page. If an article was continued on another page he did not turn to it, instead, he finished page one, then went on to page two and so on until he had read everything worthy of his notice. Despite the ineptitude of Parliament and the Queen's frustrating retreat from society, it wasn't until he got to the social pages and read about the reception for the entertainers from the Wild West show that his temper flared.
The girl had been there. Merritt Chadwyke. Lord Pemberton's daughter. He assumed that after the incident in his study that they would go into hiding or at least spirit her away to a sanatorium. He never expected them to take her to a party or that she would be a willing participant in part of the exhibition. Or course he must take into account the columnist's need to embellish things. He had been the subject of such embellishments himself after performing some of his “party tricks” for English society. The buffoons did not realize that most of what he did with hypnotism was trickery. It was easy to lead the willing down such a path. But the girl…Merritt…she was the real thing.
Unlike other mornings, Von Swaim dropped the paper onto the table and walked to the window. He'd been strangely unsettled since the incident. She had surprised him. It was not often than he was surprised.
The canary's release had been most bewildering. He knew the mind was a powerful instrument but in his studies the most he'd ever seen done was spoon bending and a saucer moved across a table. His pet's cage was utterly destroyed and it wasn't even the center of her concentration. What could she do if she really focused on something? What was she capable of? It was a question that he desperately needed the answer too.
He studied the sky as he stood at the window, hoping that perchance he would see a flash of yellow against the pale cloudless blue of the morning. Von Swaim was quite annoyed at the canary's escape. It seemed ungrateful to him. It appeared disrespectful and that was something else he had no patience for. Did he not care for it? Feed it? Give it plenty of water and a safe secure place to live along with a view of the sky from its gilded cage? The creature should have been grateful to him instead of flying away in haste.
“Your loss my little friend. I am certain you missed your warm cage the past few nights when you were out in the cold air.” He drew some satisfaction from thinking of the tiny bird, shivering upon a barren tree branch or perhaps becoming the breakfast of a cat or a hawk. It was nothing more than the traitorous bird deserved.
He would think upon it no more. The girl however, deserved more thought. If she thought she could prance about London and go to parties as if nothing had happened then she was wrong. Something had happened. Something strange and wonderful. Something that was totally unexpected.
She was the one. She was something that he'd hoped to find but wasn't sure of its existence. Logic dictated that she could exist and that she should exist but his hopes of finding it…her…
Von Swaim turned from the window. Merritt Chadwyke did not know it yet, but she was the culmination of his life's work. She was the instrument that would lead to his greatest victory. She was the embodiment of a powerful weapon that he intended to use.
He would be the next King of England and she was the means by which he would achieve it.
His breakfast was over. The maid, who always waited in the hallway just in case something was amiss, nearly fell in her haste to curtsey when he burst from the room.
“Sir? Should I keep your tea warm?” she asked. Her fear of making a mistake was greater than her fear of speaking to her employer directly.
Von Swaim stopped and looked the young woman over as if seeing her for the first time. “No. I am done.” He went to the back staircase instead of his office. “See that I am not disturbed.”
“Did he say anything about the noonday meal?” the cook asked when the maid carried in the tray and told the cook and housekeeper, Mrs. Shultz, about the strange happenings of the morning.
“He did not,” she confessed. They both looked in confusion at Mrs. Shultz. She, along with Heinz and Simon, the mysterious Englishman with the strange hands were the only ones on the staff who had come to England with Von Swaim. The cook, maids, and footmen had all been hired on as staff after he purchased the houses that backed up to each other.
“Proceed as you would normally,” she instructed in her strange accent and left them to figure out the mysterious ways of the Doctor on their own. She went to the window that faced the courtyard behind the house and watched as Von Swaim went into the building behind. Something was troubling him and she was certain it had something to do with the visit from the English Lord and his daughter. He had offered no explanation beyond asking her to dispose of the twisted and ruined remnants of the cage and procure another one for the tiny yellow canary's return. The new cage still sat empty on the balcony outside his office with its door open and food and water inside. Was it just the missing bird that upset him or did it have something to do with the Lord's daughter and the tests he'd performed on her?
She felt his strange disquiet as if it were eddies beneath the surface of the river. To everyone else he appeared calm and serene as always, but to one who knew him as she did…Mrs. Shultz turned from the window and went back to her work. She needed to make sure nothing disturbed the Doctor when he was troubled or they would all suffer for it.

The door was locked from the inside as he knew it would be. No trouble there. He possessed a key. He found Simon coming toward him in the dim light of the long hallway.
“Sir?” It was obvious that his man was surprised to see him here at this strange hour. He usually did not make his rounds until the late afternoon. “Is something amiss?”
He held his hands behind his back as if he were afraid to show them.
Von Swaim looked pointedly at Simon's arms and raised an eyebrow. “Why don't you tell me,” he said. “Is something amiss?”
Simon brought his hands around and held the clenched fists before Von Swaim.
“They have locked up sir,” he said. “Dr. Macmillan was examining them when we saw your approach.”
“Have you been keeping them lubricated as I instructed?” Von Swaim held his hand out to indicate Simon should precede him down the hallway to the Doctor's Office.
“Yes sir.” Simon said. “Macmillan seems to think it is the dampness that is having an affect on them.”
Von Swaim saw the strain around Simon's eyes and mouth, still he voiced no complaint. Simon had lost his hands with the swing of a blade in the Boer War. If not for Von Swaim's generosity he would be dead, or worse, a beggar. Fortunately Von Swaim had discovered him during his travels in South Africa before it was too late to help him. He'd recognized the brilliance and desperation in his pain filled eyes, but something more, he'd seen a man who would do anything to be made whole again. The trip had been most satisfactory. He'd returned with the diamonds he needed and as a bonus he was able to enlist Simon into his cause.
Macmillan barely looked up when the two men entered. He simply motioned for Simon to sit upon a stool and place his two fists upon the table beneath a powerful magnifying class.
The hands were larger than normal but that was to be expected since they were made of brass with each finger joint made up of intricate gears. The wrists were hinged so that they moved up and down and rotated side to side. Both appendages were attached by heavy cuffs that were screwed into the actual bone of the arm. It was quite painful, of course, since the bones had to be drilled and the gears attached to the muscles and tendons of the forearms with thick strands of catgut. In addition, Simon's upper arms and shoulders were thick with muscle because of the weight of the brass hands. He functioned quite well and kept the pain at bay with small doses of opium that was carefully doled out by Macmillan.
Von Swaim watched patiently as Macmillan carefully lubricated each joint with small drops of oil after taking out the miniature screws and reinserting them. It would be quite painful to remove the bands that attached the hands to Simon's body so both men endured the tedious nature of the intricate work.
Macmillan was another discovery that he'd come across quite be accident. The man was a genius and had studied extensively the anatomy of the human body. Unfortunately his quest for knowledge had led him to engage in the crime of grave robbing, and that, in addition to his great love of whiskey led to him barely escaping the shores of England with his life. Both men were great admirers of DaVinci and thus a partnership was born in the Lourve when they realized that between the two of them it was quite possible to bring some of DaVinci's ideas into existence.
“Release the fist,” Macmillan instructed.
Simon looked intently at his hand. For it to function, he had to move the muscles in his forearms. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he concentrated upon the task. Finally, the fingers relaxed and the hand lay, palm up upon the table.
“Keep moving it.”
Simon flexed the fingers, back and forth, fisting his hand, and then relaxing it until he was able to do so with ease. There was a distinct release of tension as all three men realized that the problem was now solved.
“I suggest two more treatments with oil each day,” Macmillan said. “I will see if I can concoct a lighter mixture since this damp weather seems to be leading to coagulation.” He went to work on the other fist while Simon exercised the first.
“That sounds like a responsible explanation and treatment,” Von Swaim agreed.
“What brings you to visit this hour of the day?” Macmillan asked. Unlike the rest of his staff, Macmillan held no fear of Von Swaim. Both men were geniuses in their own fields and both had no problems with using any means possible to come to the end they desired. Von Swaim had no doubt in his mind that Macmillan stayed with him because Von Swaim turned a blind eye to his experiments and had an unlimited source of funds and a well stocked bar. In return Von Swaim kept him on because the man did not hesitate, no matter how outlandish his requests.
“It appears that things may be happening quicker than I anticipated.”
Both men stopped what they were doing and looked intently at Von Swaim. It pleased him to see that they were waiting for his next words.
“I believe I have found what we were hoping for.”
“You found the Prism?” Simon's voice held a hint of disbelief.
“Further testing will be required,” Von Swaim said. “But I have high hopes that I have indeed found her.”
“Her?” Macmillan asked. A sly grin spread over his face. “That's a bonus we did not plan on.”
The man's tastes were perverse, another reason why he'd been run out of England. His crimes, besides grave robbing and desecrating the dead also included several acts of sexual perversion and whether or not the participant was agreeable or breathing did not matter to him in the least.
Simon looked nervously between the two men.
“As I said, further testing is required.” Von Swaim looked around the laboratory. In one corner a completed suit of armor stood, made completely of brass and steel with hinges and joints. Various weapons were scattered about on tables along with a collection of large gems cut to exact specifications. Another table held several large sheets of paper, all covered with detailed drawings. Von Swaim lifted the top sheet to look at a sketch beneath it.
“Should we step up the manufacturing?” Simon asked.
“Yes.” Von Swaim's finger trailed over the notes made on the page. “The warehouse is secure?”
“Yes sir,” Simon replied. “The adaptations you asked for have been put into place and are ready for your inspection.”
“We can have the weapons ready,” Macmillan said. “But the army. That's another thing entirely. The men you have are not ready and Whitechapel has been picked over for viable candidates.”
Von Swaim looked at Simon. “Go to Ireland,” he said. “I am certain you can find several worthy recruits there.”
“Shall I take the airship?”
“Yes. Take it. I want things in place as soon as possible.” He walked to the window that overlooked the courtyard. Bars covered it as it did all the windows. The recruits needed to know that compliance was their only recourse. That there was no chance of escape. Unless they turn into a canary…His eyes darted back and forth, hoping to see the flash of yellow that would say his pet had come home.
“The Wild West show has come to town gentlemen. I believe it might be just the thing to get the queen out of hiding. We must be ready when and if the time comes.”
He left without another word.

Spectral Affairs

In July Ellora’s Cave published my erotic paranormal romance novelette "Sweeter Than Wine", with a ghost hero from the early nineteenth century haunting a bed-and-breakfast. A sexual affair with a disembodied spirit presents logistical problems that require decisions to be made—mainly, how do they make love, and how can we arrange a happy ending? Ghosts, by common assumption, can pass through solid objects. So how can a ghost touch a living person? In what circumstances can spirits influence the material world? Poltergeists supply a precedent for physical effects, but how does the process work? We need rules to bolster suspension of disbelief.

In my earlier Ellora’s Cave ghost romance "Heart Diamond", I decided the ghost could have a phantom effect on the world around him anytime but would become more nearly corporeal the more he was infused with psychic energy. He absorbs energy from his mortal lover’s sexual excitement, and the more he arouses her, the more solid he becomes; each of her climaxes makes him more "present." In "Sweeter Than Wine," the ghost gets the power to become solid and feel physical sensations by tasting a drop of the heroine’s blood. (There’s a precedent in classical Greek mythology—shades in the underworld gaining the temporary ability to speak when allowed to drink blood.) There’s a romantic comedy film in which ghosts get the privilege of interacting physically with their human lovers one night a year and are incorporeal the rest of the time. (I can’t remember the title.) Charles de Lint’s recent novel THE MYSTERY OF GRACE uses a similar concept; the dead can return to the mortal plane in physical bodies on the nights of Beltane and Samhain.

Next comes the problem of how to arrange a permanent happy ending for a ghost and a living woman. Three possibilities: (1) give him a body so they’re both mortal; (2) postpone their union until she dies, so they’re both spirits (this happens at the end of THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR); (3) let them carry on their romance indefinitely as ghost and mortal, which is how I ended "Sweeter Than Wine."

In "Heart Diamond," in which the hero “haunts” a diamond ring made from his cremated remains (there’s actually a company that makes these), I decided the method of becoming solid by draining his lover’s psychic energy could be only temporary, because drawing on her too often might harm her. So the status quo couldn’t go on forever, as I allowed to happen in "Sweeter Than Wine," which is intended to be much lighter in tone. In "Heart Diamond" waiting for possible reincarnation—one way of embodying a ghost—wasn’t an option. The source of a "new" body and the ethics of taking over a body pose problems for an author and the characters. It’s not unusual for a ghost to slip into a recently vacated corpse, as happened in the TV series GHOST WHISPERER. This was the solution I chose in "Heart Diamond." For ethical reasons, I tried to make it very clear that the body’s original soul was gone and not coming back.

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches series features a disembodied spirit that becomes an embryo in the heroine’s womb, develops abnormally fast, and after birth grows into an adult male in a supernaturally short time. Yet another solution to the need for a physical body would be to create a robot, android, or golem for the ghost to possess (depending on whether you’re writing SF or fantasy). I haven’t used either of these devices yet.

Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt

Dragoncon

It's almost that time of year again. Over Labor Day weekend 40,ooo fans of science fiction and fantasy will descend on Atlanta for Dragoncon--a conference that goes 24/7. This year I'll be doing seminars and autographing my new release Lucan at the booth where a group of authors will be giving away fabulous prizes. (And if you'd like to help out at the booth we are looking for volunteers--who we thank with autograpghed goodies-- so contact me through my web site. I can't post the addy here or the bots pick it up and I get spammed)

And to whet your appetite, I thought I'd post some pictures from last year. If you get a chance come and say hello.

What Does She See In Him?

This is going to be an oddly rambling post, especially juxtaposed to the 2 on Scene structure and the Plot Vs. Story one on walking and chewing gum.

But trust me, all these rambling bits and pieces will eventually come together into something you might use to generate that elusive Mega-Alien Romance Movie-TV Series.

First I have to acknowledge that August 6th was a sad day for us as writers and as movie goers. Several of the Titans of The Biz passed away during that week, including the young and vibrant genius I keep quoting here, Blake Snyder.

Go to his website and drop a note on the blog at http://www.blakesnyder.com

His third book is due out this fall. I'm sure I'll be quoting it.

See a shortened list of those who've passed on at
http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/08/rip-notices.html

I hope I don't have to add any more any time soon.

As I've said before, what I'm attempting to convey with these posts on writing craft and the internal dynamics of the PNRomance, is just the essence our common heritage of campfire storytelling art and craft passed down through the generations.

These losses just make our task more formidable but also more urgent. Techniques must be passed on, taken up, carried on, and passed on again. This is our legacy for the far, far future of humankind. Our job here is to infuse that legacy with love.

Don't think that because you haven't heard of or memorized some director's or writer's byline that they haven't been contributing to our success with this task of illuminating a genre.

We are regarding Alien Romance as a genre or a crossed-genre. Some people are using the term "Speculative Romance" but SF never succeeded under the title "Speculative Fiction." It makes dictionary sense, but somehow not commercial sense. But this post isn't about what we call what we do. It's about the components that will eventually generate a label that will carry the genre to prominence. In this case "What Does She See In Him?"

See my comment on Margaret Carter's August 6th entry on this blog about Lovecraft and Romance that somehow lacks a title and thus a specific URL.

So once again let's revisit several of the craft techniques we've been discussing and synthesize them, doing several at once, finding the connecting links among all these apparently different writing processes.

In this effort, we may be able to resolve some of the conflicts we see between ways of teaching and ways of learning the fictioneer's trade.

So, what the heck DOES "she" see in "him?"

The reason that obvious question (that every Romance editor reads MS's looking for the answer to) is so hard to answer (in a writing lesson, in life, and when writing a novel) is that it is incredibly poorly phrased.

A good half, maybe 90%, of the answer to any math problem lies within the statement of the problem.

This key question to the Romance Genre Signature is poorly phrased for the same reason I discussed in Plot Vs. Story

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

Writers who set out to teach writing all seem to use different words to refer to the same moving parts of stories because writers are mostly readers who are self-taught to become writers (since it's unskilled work, a hobby anyone can do, who would deign to teach it?) and have to make up their own vocabulary for what their artist's eye sees.

Yeah, it's not just the Romance or Alien Romance genres that are disregarded. It's WRITING that bears a stigma (not the stories produced but the craft itself). Ask any wife with a contract to deliver a book on deadline. Editors get more respect.

I have yet to cover in this blog the difference between an Editor and a Writer. These two skills require two totally separate brain functions which produce individuals with completely distinctive traits.

Producers and Writers likewise are distinctively different, which you'll see after you know a bunch.

But sometimes you get both in one package. Fred Pohl leaps instantly to mind. It will be a long post when I tackle that personality difference, but for the moment, let's focus on this nagging question that you, as a writer, must answer for the editor to decipher well enough to buy your MS.

What does she see in him?

To answer that question in your fiction convincingly, you must have an answer that makes sense to you, then you need to orchestrate a large number of these individual writing craft skills we've been illuminating, and you must do that orchestrating not with the conscious mind but with the subconscious.

That means "walk and chew gum," Or drive and sing along with your iPod, or cook and watch soap opera. Yeah, now you've got it. You must multi-task when you write.

You learn the procedures individually, then you combine them, doing two at once, then three at once, etc. until you're doing everything at once and don't even know it.

The typical daily 5PM routine of a Mother of small children comes to mind. You can do that; you can write a novel.

So using all these skills you have to convince an editor or producer that "She" does indeed see something in "Him," something that the READER/VIEWER will actually understand without having to think too hard, and that something explains why "She" does wacky things to be with "Him."

And you have to convince an editor your characters' actions make sense when the editor herself (himself sometimes) has no clue that the question is indeed poorly phrased.

What a tall order. (yeah, I love cliches)

So where to start figuring this out?

We discussed the construction of the HEA, the Happily Ever After ending that is so much a signature element of the Romance Genre that it must be the target ending for the Alien Romance, nevermind that not all SF ends happily.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/beauty-and-beast-constructing-hea.html

The HEA ending has to evoke a certain feeling in a reader.

More, it has to ping that bell for a huge readership composed of a lot of different kinds of people who maybe have at most one or two things in common.

An ENDING can be factored into its component parts to create a BEGINNING, which is why some writers start by writing the ending first.

The ENDING (HEA or not) contains all the elements within the story. All. No exceptions unless it's a series, in which case the Story Arc overarching all the volumes is the DRAMATIC UNIT that contains all the smaller ones, and each volume is a dramatic unit holding up that arch.

The structure-within-a-structure motif applies to every genre. Nothing can be in the composition that does not figure into understanding the ending. That's what it means "end." It won't feel like an ending at all if there are pieces in the drama that are left out of the ending (of the novel or the series, whichever, but everything drives toward that ENDING). It has to be an ending to be satisfying to the consumer who paid you to do this. And "ending" by definition contains ALL the elements that went before it.

The HEA is an ending.

But the HEA is not the ending of the Plot. It's not the ending of the Story. It's the ending of a DRAMATIC UNIT.

We discussed The Scene as a DRAMATIC UNIT, but I don't think I pointed out strongly enough that the entire story is a DRAMATIC UNIT, and if the story is in a series, then the whole series is likewise a DRAMATIC UNIT. (I'm putting these moving-parts tech terms in CAPS for a reason. I'm not shouting at you. I want you to be able to find the section of this discussion that answers questions that will arise later.)

Think about what that "entire story is a dramatic unit composed of smaller but identical dramatic units" concept means in terms of this poorly stated question, "What Does She See In Him?"

A Dramatic Unit starts with a feeling -- ANTICIPATION -- and ends with a feeling -- SATISFACTION.

The little dramatic units all string together in a rising arc of tension, driving toward that ultimate satisfaction, but to get there, to "rise" in emotional tension, each small unit must deliver something, a teaser, a hint of how that ending will feel. (sound familiar? It is, pretty much, like sex.)

HEA is a type of satisfaction. It is primarily the reader's satisfaction. Readers pay the bills, and have to get what they thought they paid for or they won't buy again.

So something has to be satisfied.

Before you can deliver an emotion driven by anticipated satisfaction, you (as any salesman knows) must first awaken curiosity, desire, need, an awareness of the lack of something. But more than an awareness of a lack (at a friend's wedding, crying because you don't have anyone to marry), the salesman (i.e. the writer, in this case) must first awaken ANTICIPATION that the lack, whatever it is, will be SATISFIED at the end.

In general, the novel can deliver any sort of satisfaction.

A mystery delivers the solution, satisfying the need to know (and the best is when the reader gets their guess about the solution ratified, but it can't be too easy.) A Western or Action Drama delivers dead bad buys and righteous good guys surviving.

The Romance and all genres crossed into Romance (Vampire, Lovecraft Horror, SF, Paranormal, Action, etc) has to deliver the HEA. The HEA is an extrapolation into a SECURE and PREDICTABLE future.

So if the HEA is the defining element in Romance, why does "she" have to see anything at all in "him?"

Take for example the woman on the hunt for a man, let's title this story STALKING WOMAN.

She cries at a friend's wedding, bereft with loneliness. She spies a guy. She sets her sights. She executes her plan. She hooks him. She preens at her wedding. She has achieved her goal, totally triumphant.

Is that an HEA?

No, it's an Action Adventure ending, goal achieved. War won. Captivity escaped or survived. Or as a romance reader might assess that ending, it's trouble in the making. Therefore, in a Romance, that wedding would be the MIDDLE (down-point) of the novel, where her real troubles begin, with the stakes raised, maybe Mr. Right appears as a waiter at her wedding to Mr. Wrong? Or it might make a decent opening to something like MR. AND MRS. SMITH which I discussed at some length in

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html
and
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/choosing-age-of-your-protagonist-to-win.html

What's the connection (walk and chew gum) between the CAUSE OF THE ATTRACTION and the EXTRAPOLATION INTO THE FUTURE ending? Think again of STALKING WOMAN.

Where is the error in phrasing the question, "What Does She See In Him?" And vice-versa of course.

Your objective is to deliver an HEA to a reader you've never met and probably won't. How do you know what will satisfy that reader, what their idea of HAPPY might be? How do you know that your reader will be enthralled by a woman who sees heroism in a truck driver? They might be repelled by heroism in a truck driver. What kind of HEA can a truck driver's wife expect?

Does it matter "what" causes the attraction in "What Does She See In Him?" Will any human trait work as "attractive" enough for any reader you might reach to anticipate the satisfaction of a permanent relationship?

Next think about "See." What does she SEE in him (& Vice-Versa).

Does the character have to "see" something in another character in order to have their romance genes activated?

That is, "see" in the sense of be consciously aware.

Is it indeed the CHARACTER who has to understand why she is attracted to this guy, in order for the READER to experience anticipation satisfied?

Do people in real life know why they marry a particular person? Are they always right about that?

Does a reader have to know the exact and true REASON that one character is attracted to another? And does the reader have to agree with the character about "what" the attracting trait is? Might not the reader "see" a different attracting attribute than the attracted character THINKS is causing the attraction?

Who among us understands themselves deeply enough to articulate what it is about our spouse that attracted or attracts us?

Do you know why you dislike certain people? Or do you just make up excuses, rationalizations for a feeling you feel, but somehow need to explain because our culture demands that we explain ourselves?

Can a reader attain satisfaction and an HEA sensation if all you offer is a rationalization about why one character is attracted to another, knowing that what one person sees in another may not always actually be there?

Thus the dual-POV Romance lets the reader see what he sees in her, what she sees in him, and maybe that neither one is seeing correctly.

But then does everyone reading this know what is REALLY going on inside their own subconscious mind? As the writer, you need to do most of your writing work subconsciously, outside your own awareness, and you need to trust your subconscious to produce usable material. How much do you really need to understand about your own subconscious in order to achieve that? (Well, as everyone knows, writing is unskilled labor, you see. So easy anyone can do it.)

Remember, we're talking about SF or SF Romance, or Paranormal Romance, where the two characters involved might not be of the same species. There may be no "she" or "him" involved at all.

For me, that's what makes it interesting. (see my Dushau Trilogy - and if you can't find it at a reasonable price, I'm expecting it'll be available again in a new edition. Subscribe to this blog, or see my FriendFeed box for other ways to get announcements.)

So this discussion of such a simple question is getting really confusing. Such a mess.

"What does "She" see in "Him?"

When answering a question that is so apparently simple leads to a mess like this, it's reasonable to suspect the question was not phrased well, and so can't be answered directly.

We're juggling a lot of parameters here, all moving parts in the fiction delivery system.

A) The Editor
B) The Reader
C) The Characters
D) The Reviewer
E) The Writer

All of these have to achieve satisfaction at the end of your dramatic unit. Yes, you get to be satisfied, too.

All these people are all different. Three of them you'll never really know well, or at least don't know now. (even if you write a book on contract for a given editor, that editor may move before your book is turned in)

How do you figure out what all these people are anticipating and what will satisfy their anticipation and give them a sense of a secure future? And what has the answer to that question got to do with the problem of what one character sees in another?

I have an answer to that. It may not be your answer.

Some writers maybe shouldn't even know their own answer to that! Too much conscious input can ruin a story, which is another reason I use editingcircle.blogspot.com for analyzing THROW AWAY exercises at writing craft techniques. If you workshop a story you want to sell, focusing conscious critical attention on every moving part, you end up producing an unsellable mess that looks like an assignment for a writing course, not a story for publication. So you need to make up toss-off stuff to workshop and practice techniques, (doing scales at home) then PERFORM your actual story for sale and send it to an editor (dress rehearsal) THEN finally perform the rewrite to editorial specs for publication.

Now that you've gnawed on this problem set a bit, I'll show you my answer if you show me yours (that's what the comments section here is for).

If you've been reading my posts here for the last two years or so, you probably know my answer.

PHILOSOPHY.

Philosophy is the carrier wave that you impress your information on, and it carries that information to your editor, reader, reviewer (me), and back to yourself, delivering satisfaction.

The carrier wave of the universe.

I hope you all understand radio and broadcast TV well enough to understand how a carrier wave works. It's like the dial tone you hear when you open your telephone and it's ready for a call. (but a dial tone isn't a carrier wave)

A carrier wave is a plain, simple, smooth, regular ripple, a hum underneath the universe. In STAR WARS terms, The Force which can carry A DISTURBANCE to those sensitive to the carrier wave.

In the case of humans and culture (yours, your reader's, your editor's), the carrier wave is our ambient culture's values. Our philosophy.

The USA is an amalgam of dozens of disparate and often conflicting cultural heritages, which is one reason some of our artistic products such as films do well in other countries. Most individuals in the USA partake of several conflicting philosophies. It's a wonder we're even a little bit functional!

The writer is a performing artist who selectively recreates the reader's reality (which is the carrier wave that connects writer and reader).

Your philosophy (you have one even if you don't know it) shapes what you "see" as reality. No two of us see the same reality. We filter whatever objective reality may be out there into a shape and color that fits our philosophy.

Philosophy comes first. Emotions are shaped by philosophy. Actions are powered by emotion. Results proceed to manifest - and this is the spooky part - to express in concrete, everyday reality, the exact philosophy the subconscious holds as that philosophy flows down through the lower 3 levels. The universe is all of one piece.

In previous posts here, I showed you how that works with the level of Actions and Material results, in the 20 posts on the Tarot.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/10/10-swords-your-chickens-come-home-to.html -- has an index of the previous posts

The levels of Philosophy and Emotion, Wands and Cups, are covered in two as yet unpublished volumes, but I'm hoping to have those available soon. Delays keep happening.

The artist selects carefully among all the bits of philosophy that she knows, to highlight and explicate those bits of philosophy that the writer, editor, reviewer and reader have in common. That's why a writer must know more philosophy than almost any other profession, philosophers included.

To create the bonding force between two characters, a romance writer selects bits of reality and leaves out other bits, to bring a picture, an image, a pattern to the foreground, a pattern the reader (and editor) will recognize only subconsciously.

When a reader recognizes some pattern in a story subconsciously, they "buy into" the premise of the fiction (believe six impossible things before breakfast). The World the writer has Built becomes real to the reader even if it mostly doesn't resemble their ambient reality.

The congruence between the reader's perceived ambient reality and the fictional built world becomes the CARRIER WAVE, the philosophical juncture between the subconscious of the writer and the subconscious of the reader.

THUS

The question, "What does she see in him" becomes utterly meaningless.

What she is consciously aware of, uses as an excuse, or rationalizes about him is NOT the source of the attraction, and satisfying that rationalization would produce no more pleasure than satisfying any other neurotic need ever does.

Neurotic need: take for example someone whose neurotic need is to be rich. Goes to school, gets degrees, works hard, workaholic trait busts up the family, gets HUGE fortune amassed, commits suicide leaving a note about misery. (notice that I told a story here in PLOT OUTLINE form)

A neurotic need is one that can't be satisfied by the apparent target of that need.

"What she sees in him" is that kind of illusion or twist. No amount of "him" will satisfy her need for him.

That's how it is in the real world. Our subconscious, true needs, bind us to each other, not our conscious rationalized needs (which often drive us apart - hey, guys, CONFLICT IS THE ESSENCE OF STORY).

Depict that subconscious binding force via your selective recreation of reality, i.e. worldbuilding, in your fiction, and your characters walk off the page into your readers' dreams.

Trying to answer the question "What does she see in him" creates what Hollywood calls "on the nose" dialogue and plotting. It just fails to communicate, or amuse, or to mean anything because it says what it means rather than placing the real meaning in subtext.

"On the nose" dialogue gets instant rejection in Hollywood. "On the nose" plotting gets instant rejection in Manhattan.

So "What does she see in him" becomes a totally new question. You should restate it for yourself, because your restatement may not be mine, and the stating is an artform in itself.

But mine is, "What subconscious element binds writer, reader, editor, reviewer, and CHARACTER together? What is the carrier wave?"

The carrier wave will be found in the philosophy.

Once you've sorted the carrier wave out of the background noise of our ambient culture, you can use it to carry your information (emotion is information). Then you will have the tone or wavelength that becomes your THEME.

How do you find themes? How do you figure out what themes will work for this or that story, plot or drama?

This subject is a big, amorphous mass of sticky stuff. How can you train your subconscious to sort through it all and find ART you can use to convey your ideas?

Remember, readers live in a big amorphous mass of sticky stuff that doesn't make any sense to them. They read novels to be shown patterns which they can later see hidden in the stuff of life. That's what artists do, find and display patterns that art consumers won't discover on their own.

So how do you train yourself to look at your world, the same world your readers live in, and re-sort the amorphous mass of reality into a pattern your readers will enjoy because you can make life make sense to them? (i.e. deliver to them an HEA that is plausible enough to feel in their bones)

Back again to PHILOSOPHY (my answer to most questions).

That big amorphous mass we call reality sorts itself very neatly into patterns of 10 compartments, and once sorted neatly enough, every living person on this earth will find something in it to recognize, and something to respond to emotionally because it communicates directly to the subconscious.

That pattern of 10 is most commonly and easily available as the Tarot.

One of the first things you learn when you start to study Tarot is that it pretty much pre-dates most religions and contains the recognizable basics of all religions. The understructure is the structure of the universe, and all religions are derived from ways that Avatars have used to explain what they saw when then ascended on High and viewed All Reality from the perspective of the Throne.

Thus, internalizing the structure of The Tarot, and using that structure as your carrier wave, can let you communicate with readers of vastly disparate religions, and even atheists and agnostics.

The Tarot is particularly well suited to communicating Love.

That's why, when this blog posed the question of why it is that Alien Romance is not a highly respected genre, and the question of what we can do to change that arose, I decided to finish my series of volumes on The Tarot and make them available.

The way of looking at the world through the structure of Tarot shows reality as iterations of a unified pattern of 10. It is just one of the many (MANY) philosophies extant in the USA nevermind the rest of the world. It's not a question of "right" or "wrong." It's a question of what we have in common, and of all those elements in common, what can be used in Worldbuilding.

This pattern of 10 method, and subsets of it, subsume religious and philosophical barriers, and can be accessed by any artist (you don't need a mathematical mind).

From explaining Tarot for writers, I went to giving a primer on Astrology in a series of posts starting 7/15/2008
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/07/astrology-just-for-writers.html

There are 5 posts so far directly on astrology and a few other posts mentioning it in passing.

Astrology is also mentioned in the posts on Tarot because they are really the same subject, and if you know one, it's easy to explain the other in terms of the one. It doesn't matter which you start with.

These two esoteric disciplines, Tarot and Astrology, address the SYMBOLISM we all share as human beings. I've barely touched on how the writer can use symbolism in fiction. Academics write papers on it. I'm sure you've all studied it in college.

Tarot and Astrology are not separate and apart from Psychology, Sociology, Archeology, Anthropology, Linguistics, or even bio-physics.

If you know any of those academic disciplines, you will immediately pick up on the repetitive echoes of them in Tarot and Astrology. You may discover there's nothing left for you to learn from Tarot and Astrology. Most of your readers won't know these disciplines either, and you should never let your knowledge show through "on the nose" in your fiction.

As with the terminology of the difference between plot and story and drama, it doesn't matter what you call this carrier wave element of humanity that binds us all, and binds us into pairs, and then families. I call it philosophy. Invent your own term.

You don't have to be gnostic or agnostic or atheist or a follower of any religion to "get it" on the level an artist needs to have it in order to create with philosophy.

It doesn't matter what you CALL the human soul, or the way our souls connect.

It does matter that you have a clean, clear, operational, precise and accurate personal internal grasp of the moving parts and working components of the amorphous sticky-ball we are embedded in.

The ARTIST's job is to peel away the layers of sticky and amorphous slop in our universe and reveal the pattern underneath it.

That is what those who formulated the question "What Does She See In Him?" were groping toward without knowing it.

The question that the artist must answer for the reader in metaphorical visual terms, though the characters are ignorant and should remain ignorant, is "Which universal elements do "She" and "Him" share?"

Do they live in the same universe or different universes?

What two lovers believe doesn't matter. Look how many mixed marriages work just fine!

The binding force of the universe that rivets us into pairs is not affected by belief or rationalizations. It is a product of the carrier wave subsuming our reality.

The easiest and quickest way I have found for understanding the relationship between Philosophy, Emotion, Thought, and Deed is this Tarot Structure study that I walked you through on this blog.

But I only explored a single pathway connecting the 10 different states of mind. There are ever so many other ways to connect Her this to His that.

The interconnecting pathways between the 10 different states of consciousness sort the impossibly complex mess of reality into something even the human mind can handle and the human heart can respond to. All readers subconsciously know this pattern, and exult to see it depicted in art.

Tarot is the artist's filing system. It clarifies the subconscious and makes it accessible to your art.

It's not what one person "sees" in another. It's what one person responds to in another (CUPS - Romance is all about CUPS, EMOTION), and why that response happens.

Once you can parse the universe of your everyday reality into this ten-fold filing system, the binding forces among souls becomes clear. If you can show that clarity to your readers, they will respond with joy and relief and satisfaction of understanding that love is not mysterious nor bewildering nor crippling.

This 10-unit model of the universe explicated by Tarot corresponds to what the old time mystics called The Music Of The Spheres, and yes there is a relationship to the planets of our solar system. And you can learn it well enough to play that Music - writing is a performing art. Love, Romance and even Sex all have an analogue in Music.

So you take my 25 blog posts and amalgamate them, infuse the result with your OWN philosophy (not mine, for crying out loud!), select from that amalgam, and extract a theme you can build a world to showcase.

Then answer the question in your fiction: What note is "She" tuned to? What scale is "She" singing on?

She will bond with a lover who can play her as if she were the Stradivarius among women. He will bond with a lover who can play him as if he were a Steinway among men.

See? It's not "what" or conscious awareness of a trait. It's recognition of that 10-fold pattern underlying the Tarot, and the 10-fold variable model of human personality inherent in Astrology (9 planets, Sun and Moon make 11 just like Tarot's shadowy 11th Sepherah). Isn't it odd that Pluto was demoted from planet status, a shadowy 11th element in our Astrology?

Western music uses an 8 tone based musical scale. But that's not an intrinsic property of sound. It's a convention. Ever listened to Japanese music?

Analogy, archetype, meta-cognition, fuzzy math. Meat and potatoes for the writer.

Go listen to the Music of the Spheres and determine what scale you will perform your masterpiece in. Listen to some Opera duets between male and female singers. There's no "what" and no "see" involved. It's soul level attunement.

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

Pointing and Viewing Conflict

We've had a couple of fun discussions going on over on my Yahoo group where several of my students from recent online class have decided to take up residence. We've been discussing both point of view, and conflict. As I say i every one of the classes that I teach: it's almost impossible when talking about the craft of writing fiction to talk about solely one aspect of that craft. Commercial genre fiction is more than one aspect of writing, just as a a cake is more than an egg.

The point of view you choose in writing directly impacts upon the kind of conflict you end up working with. Not only the point of view character you choose to write from, but also the style of point of view: first person, third person, tight third. In first person point of view you are likely going to have a lot more internal conflict than you would in regular third person point of view.

A side note: you may notice that when I talk about writing. I tend to use the word "likely" a lot. That's because there is no one 'every time -- all the time' rule in writing, except of course things like grammar and spelling. I have this fear --- and yes it does happen --- that if I say something like "first person point of view has far more internal conflict" that I'm going to get comments on this blog, pointing out specific stories where first person point of view lacks internal conflict. I know that. As I said, there is no every time -- all the time rule.

So back to point of view and conflict. If you're writing first person point of view or tight third point of view, you are likely going to have a lot more internal conflict. I think one of the reasons for this is obvious. But if not, here it is: you're dropping the reader tightly and intimately into the character's skin. When you do that, the character's thoughts and feelings are in the forefront.

The point of view character you choose, whether in tight third a regular third, greatly affects the form of the conflict. Each character starts out in a story with a goal or a set of goals, which likely will change or morph as the story progresses. The thwarting of these goals is what creates conflict. How that conflict is structured depends upon how you build your character. Is he an introspective chap? Is she a gregarious gal? Does he say one thing and think another? Was she raised in a home where her opinions are not valued? All these kinds of things, many of which are back story, impinge on conflict.

I apologize if to any of you, this sounds simplistic. But I judge a lot of unpublished writing in national contests, and I teach a lot of classes to unpublished writers. Sometimes the most simple things are the ones that are overlooked. This includes the integration of the various segments of the craft of fiction, which is why I'm talking about point of view and conflict.

One of the most common questions --- that Jacqueline has addressed here many times --- is whose point of view should I be in? The obvious answer is the point of view of the character, who has the most to lose at that point in the story. Or as Jacqueline puts it: the character who is on the positive pole of the transaction. The character whose actions will make a difference. Obviously, if the character's actions make a difference, this creates an emotional reaction in the reader, because it changes the flow of the story. So the two are really very well intertwined.

So when you're creating your characters remember to create them with conflict in mind. Structure them in such a way that the plot allows you to question and challenge their goals and their values.

I love literary agent Donald Maas's tip: "Take your character's greatest strength and make it his greatest weakness."

That's the purest form of choosing the proper point of view, and integrating it with conflict.

~Linnea

HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, Feb. 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

She fought the urge to salute and instead watched him head for a striper standing in the corridor, realizing she didn’t know his name or rank. Not that it mattered. There was something very familiar about him, something that resonated in a distant yet warm part of her heart. Something that told her she not only trusted him but that she’d follow him into the jaws of hell and out again. And never regret it.

Is anybody out there? Help for new speculative romance writers

kudos to the Hubblesite for posting such incredible images
Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, C. Ma, H. Ebeling, and E. Barrett (University of Hawaii/IfA), et al., and STScI

It's an almost universally accepted truth among Romance writers that Romance writers are delightful people, consummate professionals, and extraordinarily helpful to others in their profession.

Test the premise. Visit the websites of established authors in any genre, and you might discover a treasure trove of excellent advice, tips, links, resource materials, texts of workshops, templates... and much, much more.

If an author has been awarded the Preditors and Editors "Author's Site of Excellence" award, you ought to find helpful information beyond self-promotion on that site.

However, increasingly, authors are sharing the info from their blogs and websites in other forums as well.

One remarkable website is http://www.iwofa.net
IWOFA is an acronym for Infinite Worlds Of Fantasy Authors, and so far 400 authors of speculative fiction have joined this cooperative (free to join) group

This is the page with Member Articles.
http://www.iwofa.net/memberarticles.htm


A website you may not have discovered, and which caters to all genres is 1stTurningPoint.com

The Treasure Trove page of articles on a variety of subjects is http://1stturningpoint.com/?page_id=539


If you are a member of LinkedIn.com, you will find dozens of helpful groups
including Authors of Romance Helping Authors of Romance, and also First Time Authors.

On GoodReads.com there's Tips For Self Promotion Sales and Advertising. I'm not sure if the link will work for non-members, but just in case, here it is: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/8255.Tips_for_Self_Promotion_Sales_and_Advertising

Another source of advice and tips is the Published Authors group http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/8322.Published_Authors

Also, there are groups for every genre, and one that might be of interest to readers and writers has over 1,800 members and is: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/390.Paranormal_Romance


Finally, and this is the only recommendation today that is not free:
www.romance-ffp.com

Of course, readers may visit free. Authors must belong to RWA ($75) and then may join the subgenre chapter FFandP for the annual subscription of a further ($15).

Authors can add photos, bios, facebook, twitter links, and add all their books to the library, where readers can search by genre and subgenre, or just browse by author, with links to purchase the books.



I've mentioned blogs and newsletters before. One of the most helpful, free newsletters is Penny Sansevieri's and you can sign up for it at http://amarketingexpert.com

Also, check out the permanent links in our sidebar. The Galaxy Express is a superb blog in our genre. And, please, if you know of another great blog, website, or group that ought to be included in this discussion, please add the url to our Comments.


Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
Space Snark™

IWOFA chapters sampler
http://www.freado.com/book/3726/IWOFA-Sampler-#1--October-2009

Competing in a social networking contest (please vote)
http://tinyurl.com/Award-5-Stars

When at story doesn't work

This is where I started to have fun. While researching I found out that Buffalo Bill's Wild West show was in England in 1887. These were some of my heroes from my youth. And I really enjoy writing Cowboys. Dax's character seemed to take off and I was envisioning his back story in my mind.


Chapter Three
David Alexander Cochran opened his eyes with some difficulty and looked at the three feathers that swung back and forth in front of his face. He lay on his side in the dormitory facing a long row of empty bunks. Empty bunks meant that he had overslept. Great. His first day in England and it was already half wasted.
“Great Dax,” he mumbled to himself. “Not only did you sleep in but apparently you’re seeing things.”
He rolled over on his back and wiped the sleep from his eyes. The feathers were attached to a twisted circle of willow branch that was intricately woven with brightly color threads. The circle hung from the bunk above him. He was pretty sure it hadn’t been there when he fell asleep the night before. How in the heck did it get up there during the night without him knowing it?
He heard a chirp and realized that he was not alone. Two people stood at the end of his bunk. He sat up and his head pounded in protest. It felt like he’d been on a three-day drunk. If only he had. That could be fixed with a concoction he’d picked up from the Arapaho.
“Dream catcher for Dax.” Red Shirt said in his broken English from the end of his bunk. The Indian’s Chippewa wife, Little Deer, stood beside him smiling broadly. She didn’t speak a word of English but she nodded in agreement as if she understood what they were talking about.
Maybe she did. Dax sure as hell didn’t.
What was she holding in her hands? Was it a bird? Was he still dreaming?
As if she read his mind Little Deer opened her hands a bit. Sure enough a bright yellow bird sat nestled in her palms. She brought her hands up to her face and said something to the bird and it broke into song. Red Shirt nodded his approval and the two walked off, leaving Dax scratching his head in confusion.
“They were worried about you,” Buck said. Buck Taylor dubbed King of the Cowboys by Will Cody was just a few years older that Dax. Buck had a way with horses and could do things with a rope that seemed impossible. They’d become friends since Dax joined the show last winter, more so in the two weeks they’d spent on the ship since there’d been plenty of time for talk.
“Was it the Comanche?” Buck asked.
“What?”
“In your dreams,” Buck said. “I figured from the way you were hollering that you must have been dreaming about the Comanche.”
“I was hollering?” Dax asked. He tried to remember what he’d dreamed about but all he could recall was a sense of fear and a lot of running from something or someone. The rest of it was pretty much a mystery. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and looked sideways at Buck.
“Like you were being skinned alive,” Buck said.
Dax ran a hand down his bare chest just to make sure his skin was still attached. He’d come close to losing it one time and that was enough.
“I don’t remember what I dreamed about,” Dax confessed. “Maybe it was the Comanche.” He looked at Buck as if he held the answers. “Was I really that loud?”
“Loud enough that they heard you out in the Indian Camp. Loud enough that Little Deer made you that dream catcher. She said it would catch the bad spirits that caused nightmares and let the good spirits through so you’ll only have sweet dreams from now on.”
“That loud,” Dax groaned. It was humiliating to think that every one on the twenty-three acre exhibition grounds had heard him carrying on.
“Jasper kicked the end of your bunk and you stopped,” Buck explained. “But yeah, it was loud. Everyone jumped up and grabbed their guns because they thought we were under attack.”
“Dang it,” Dax moaned. “Now everyone probably thinks I’m some namby pamby momma’s boy who’s afraid to be away from home.
“Nobody thinks that,” Buck said. “We all know what you’ve been through in the past. It would be enough to give anyone of us nightmares, Cody included. Still you better hope that thing does its job or you’ll be sleeping out in the cold next time.”
Dax dubiously eyed the dream catcher. His experiences with the Indians, especially Geronimo, had taught him not to doubt the things that were in the spiritual realm. It seemed like a mighty big job for a bunch of thread and feathers to pull off. Still there was nothing to lose by leaving it be.
“Are you planning on lollygagging all day?” Buck asked.
“I’m up,” Dax kicked the blankets off and reached for his pants. “Is there anyplace around where we can take the horses for a good run?”
“There’s a park,” Buck said dryly.
“A park?” He was supposed to run Katie through a park? Sounded kind of sissified for a horse that was used to the wide-open spaces. He needed to get her out where he could let her have her head and run the kinks out from being on the ship. Dang it. He needed to run his own kinks out too. There was nothing like riding flat out with the wind in your face to settle a man’s mind and get rid of the cobwebs. That was probably why he’d had the nightmares. There had been too much time spent closed in. There were those who would argue that being in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean didn’t count as being closed in. However being on a boat could give one a feeling of claustrophobia since there was no place on it where you could run. Plus the smells tended to get to him. Unwashed bodies, all the animals below deck, and the scent of the ocean were not smells he enjoyed. He would much rather fill his lungs with the smells of prairie grass and the wind. Flowers weren’t bad either. The girl he’d talked to yesterday, the one called Merritt. She smelled like flowers. Like real pretty flowers. Pretty like she was. I wonder if she will come to the show…
“Welcome to the mother country,” Buck said with a wide grin. “Whatever you plan on doing, just make sure you’re back here in time to get ready for the reception tonight. Major Burke has got all the promoters coming. They want to get things going right away and get the public excited about the show.”
“Great,” Dax sighed. “Guess I better get my suit pressed too.”
“You got it,” Buck said. “And a shave wouldn’t hurt either.”
Dax ran his hand over the three day growth of beard. “Maybe I’ll just grow one of them lip squirrels like you got.”
Buck’s lips quirked beneath his impressive handlebar mustache. “You always were jealous of my good looks,” he said. “Maybe if you try hard enough you’ll grow enough hair to have one of these.”
“I’m not sure if it’s worth the trouble,” Dax said. “From what I can tell it hasn’t impressed the ladies.”
“And that scruff you’ve got on your face has?”
“I’m not giving away any of my secrets,” Dax replied as he opened the trunk sitting at the end of his bunk and rummaged through it for his suit. “But I had one leaning out of her carriage yesterday so she could talk to me.”
“Most likely she was trying to get away from the buffalo.” Buck laughed.
“Think what you will,” Dax said. “She said she was coming to the show.”
“Try not to scare her too bad if and when she shows up,” Buck laughed as he left. “Maybe we’ll let Cody sweet-talk her into staying.”
“Go ahead. Laugh it up,” Dax mumbled as he pulled his rolled up formal suit from the trunk. The sea voyage had not been kind to it. It was a mass of wrinkles. He found the shirt and tie that went with it and threw it on his bunk. Thankfully, Cody employed a laundress with the show so he wouldn’t have to deal with it himself. He’d have to use his own brand of sweet-talking to get it done on time but the prospect didn’t bother him too much. He’d never had any trouble charming the ladies when he needed too.
Dax pulled on his shirt and boots. Without even thinking about what he was doing, he strapped on his double action colt and checked the cylinder for bullets. It was so much a part of him that some of the members of the show had ribbed him about wearing it that first day on the ship. He did leave it off after that and felt naked the entire time. It wasn’t as if he was planning on shooting at fish, although it had been tempting to give it a try when some skimmed over the waves as they steamed along. Flying fish they were called, or so one of the sailors said. He wasn’t one to shoot an innocent animal, or fish as the case may be but it did seem like a challenge at the time. Still he resisted the temptation with the knowledge that there would be plenty of opportunity for trick shooting once they reached England.
His first task of the day was taking care of Katie. So after charming the laundress and grabbing a bite in the ground floor dining hall set up for the performers he made his way out of the dormitory that had been built especially for their stay on the American Exhibition grounds.
The amphitheater seated over 20,000 people with room for another 10,000 in standing room only. The arena, which was part of the amphitheater, was a third of a mile in circumference, which gave room for a lot of whooping and hollering when the time came for the show to begin. Dax had a feeling the British had no idea what was about to hit them.
The Indians with the show created their own village on the grounds. Their teepee’s looked just a bit out of place with the buildings of London looming in the distance. However there was already a sense of community among the different groups represented. Cook pots bubbled over open fires and children scampered about, glad to be free after two weeks aboard ship. There was close to a hundred Indians of various tribes with the show along with a hundred white men and women who served as performers, wranglers, musicians and staff. Then there were the various animals: horses, buffalo, deer, elk and a great brown bear that looked mean enough to kill the Queen herself but was as harmless as a kitten.
The people of London best be forewarned. The American Wild West had just hit town.

“Quit messing with it,” Dax said to Buck later that evening.
“I hate these dang things,” Buck said as he stuck his finger in the neck of his formal shirt. “I feel like there’s a noose around my neck and the hangman is waiting to drop the trap.”
“If Cody catches you fingering it one more time he’ll be stringing you up himself,” Dax replied. “Eat one of them bitty sandwiches so you’ll quit thinking about it.”
“I can’t,” Buck said. “It chafes my neck when I swallow.”
Dax shook his head. Buck might dazzle the eye on horseback but in the middle of a formal affair he was lost. And this was one heck of a formal affair. He’d been introduced to more Lords and Ladies than he could shake a stick at. It was so crowded at the reception that it near to impossible to move without several excuse me’s and I beg your pardons. He tried to keep an eye out for the pretty girl he’d talked to the day before but it close to impossible to find anyone in the mass of people, especially someone he didn’t really know. He was certain he’d recognize her if he saw her again. There was something about her blue eyes…
“Do you think everyone in the entire city of London is here tonight?” Buck groaned.
“Only the important ones,” Dax said.
“Makes it darn near impossible for a man to breath,” Buck grumbled, then quickly recovered as a dandy approached them and asked Buck a question.
Dax hid a grin behind his cup of punch. Even though he talked like a cowboy he could hold his own in polite conversation when needed. It was one of the reason’s Cody hired him on. He was adaptable. He had grown up in Boston’s polite society with his stern grandmother before heading west to find his father. She had taught him about the finer things in life. He knew how to dress for a party and hold a teacup. He could even dance a waltz if the situation called for it. From the looks of the company gathered in the ballroom of the fine house on Park Lane there wouldn’t be any waltzing tonight unless it was two-stepping one of the tunes the Cowboy band played. Tonight it was all about the Wild West show.
Red Shirt and a few of the other Chiefs stood in the corner of the parlor decked out in all their feathered finery. Occasionally one or more would nod in agreement at the group of men and women gathered around them. Mostly they talked about the Indians as if they were an exhibit in a museum but every now and then someone would ask a question and Red Shirt would try to answer in his broken English. One gent clearly thought that Red Shirt was deaf as he kept shouting questions at him as if it would help him to understand. Dax felt sorry for the man. Just when he was getting used to using the white man’s language he was suddenly bombarded with the British accent.
Annie Oakley and her husband Frank Butler were doing much better than Red Shirt. Even though Annie was barely five feet tall she was still a commanding presence, even in her self made costume that was a bit out of place among the satins and silks of the ladies but still suited Annie herself. Frank, who was a fair shot himself, doted on wife and made sure all attention was on Annie. Cody was with them and the two men entertained a group in the center of the room with tails of Annie’s shooting feats.
“I’ve heard rumors that she can shoot the ash off a cigar while you hold it in your mouth,” one gentleman said to Frank.
“Actually it’s the ash off a cigarette.” Frank’s pride was evident.
Dax moved closer while the crowd murmured their disbelief. He knew where the conversation was headed and needed to be available for Cody.
“Not only can she shoot the ash off a cigarette,” Cody said. “She can shoot a dime at 90 feet.”
The murmurs grew to a rumbling. Dax managed to hide his smile as he heard the remarks.
“And she can split a playing card from the side.”
“Impossible.”
“Hard enough for a man to do so, but a woman?”
“I simply do not believe it.”
Dax watched as Cody smiled and sipped his drink until the words the showman had been waiting on reached his ears.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Cody lifted his arms wide and addressed the crowd as if he were treading the boards of a stage play. “Would you care for a demonstration?”
The rumbling of disbelief changed to a chorus of ascent.
“Of course we will need a gun,” Cody added and one appeared as if by magic. Dax grinned at Cody’s plan. It was Annie’s very own smooth bore Winchester that had been made specifically for her and secretly carried in to the party beneath one of the blankets worn by an Indian. Dax’s own double action colt sat beneath his right arm in a shoulder holster, just in case he needed it. It was there strictly for demonstration purposes, or so he reminded himself. Years of living on the edge had definitely left a mark upon his soul.
Annie smiled humbly as she took the rifle and Frank beamed with pride. Their host, who was one of the American Exhibition sponsors, guided them to the balcony that overlooked the garden behind the house. The party guests poured from the house, some into the garden, some onto the balcony while others gathered at the row of tall windows that stretched across the back of the house.
“How can she see?” Someone in the crowd asked. “Isn’t it too dark?”
Cody talked to the host while the crowd once more murmured their disbelief. In just a short while a line of servants appeared in the garden, each one carrying a torch. Another servant made his way through the crowd with a tray of glassware.
“I hope none of this is important to you,” Cody remarked loud enough for the crowd to hear.
“Something from my wife’s side of the family,” the host said jokingly. “I’m quite sure I can live without it.”
The crowd laughed at the joke as the tray was flourished to the crowd before being placed upon a small table that had also appeared by magic.
“Stand back please,” Cody addressed the crowd below. “It would pain me to see any of you injured by broken glass.”
The anticipation grew as the people below backed away from the balcony to make room for a clear area in the center of the torches. Dax noticed that the before mentioned wife and owner of the glassware winced when she saw the damage being done to her carefully tended plants below. Not a good night for their hostess. He was sure Bill would make it up to her with ringside tickets or a personal tour. He was good that way. Dax made his way down a staircase to the garden to help out on the remote possibility that Annie missed a shot. She never missed a shot.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Cody intoned in his best showman style. “Allow me to present to you the most impressive display of sharp shooting ever seen on this fair ground.” He swung an arm toward Annie, who stood with her rifle in her hand, poised and ready. “I give you Annie Oakley!”
Frank pitched a glass in the air as soon as Cody’s words faded away. The light from the many torches caught it and the reflection of the firelight made the glass glitter in the darkness as it tumbled through the night sky. In the blink of an eye Annie raised her rifle and shot the glass. Dax ducked as he reached the bottom step and quickly stepped away to avoid the flying shards. Another glass quickly flew into the air followed by another. The applause grew louder with each successive shot as Frank kept on throwing and Annie kept on hitting her targets. Cheers erupted when Frank held up the empty tray along with cries of encore.
“Now folks,” Cody said. “We don’t want to show off too much. Just come on out and see the show for a taste of what life is really like in the Wild West.”
“I want to see that young man shoot,” a voice said from the end of the balcony.
Dax looked up and saw a man pointing a finger right at his chest. Torch light bounced off gold hair shot with silver and he recognized him as the gentleman he’d talked to on the street. The gentleman with the very pretty daughter. Was she here too? His eyes quickly scanned the crowd on the balcony but there was no young faces above, no one with golden blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Just older types, mostly gentlemen with a few ladies scattered among them, all looking at him with bright interest since it appeared he was to be the second act.
“He is Kid Cochran, is he not?” the man asked. “The fastest gun alive, or so the advertisements say.”
“Why yes he is,” Cody said. Kid Cochran, celebrated scout to the United States
Cavalry, friend of the Sioux and the dreaded enemy of Geronimo himself.” He arched an eyebrow in Dax’s direction. “And the fastest gun alive,” he added with his showman's flourish.
“Have him shoot,” the gentleman said. He held up his glass. “I will throw it in the air.”
Dang…He wasn't Annie. Sharp Shooting wasn't his game. There was a difference between what Annie did and what he did. But he couldn't back down and he sure couldn't let Cody down. Dax looked at Cody who just barely tilted his head as if he disapproved of the notion. Dax knew he didn't, that it was all part of the show. It would get people talking. It was exactly the reason why he was here. They had not planned on someone from the crowd calling him out. That just made it that much better. The fact that it was Merritt's father was an added bonus. Maybe there was hope that he would see her again.
“I'm not sure if our hostess can spare any more of her fine glassware,” Dax said. “You got something else I can shoot at?”
The gentleman grinned in delight. “What do you suggest?”
Dax scratched his chin and twisted up his face as if he had to think on it for a bit. It was all staged of course; he knew Frank had him covered. Still it would be a delight to have the English gent dig up the coins.
“How bout a few of those shillings? Isn't that what you call money in these parts?”
“It is,” the gentleman replied. “However I do not customarily carry shillings upon my person.” There was subdued laughter from the crowd at this remark. “Can anyone spare a few? I promise to pay you back of course.” The laughter was louder this time, jovial, with several men adding agreement or disagreement to the gentleman's promise of compensation.
“I have some coins Father,” a feminine voice said.
Dax's heart suddenly jumped into his throat. She was here. The girl from the street. Merritt. The crowd parted and she appeared by her father's side with her hand in her reticule as she dug for coins. She wore a dress of blue satin, with her hair pinned up. A few tendrils caressed her cheek and long graceful neck. A desire to kiss that neck suddenly overcame him. She glanced at him from beneath lowered lashes as she placed the coins in her father's palm and Dax felt it like a punch in the gut. It had been a very long time since he'd reacted with such intensity to a woman. It wasn't as if he hadn't been around any, he'd had plenty of women in his lifetime. It was just that none had stirred him. Not since Rebekkah…
“Will this do?” The gentleman held up a coin between his forefinger and thumb. Merritt stood beside him with her hands gripping the rail. She looked as if she regretted stepping forward. As if she wished to remain in the background. A girl with chestnut hair dressed in gold joined her at the rail and they linked arms. She relaxed somewhat, as if she drew courage from her companion. What was she afraid of?
“Only if you have five more.” Dax reminded himself that he was here for the show, not to chase pretty girls. That would come later, he hoped.
“I do,” he said. “Do you have need of a weapon?”
Dax grinned, shook his head and drew his colt from the holster beneath his arm. Those closest to him gasped in shock or admiration, he could not tell. He simply shrugged as if it were perfectly normal to carry a double action colt to fancy parties and checked the chamber. “You best give me some room.” Those around him backed away with an undercurrent of anticipation.
“Your name sir?” Cody asked the gentleman.
“Thomas Chadwyke, Earl of Pemberton.”
Cody shook his head. “I don't think I'll ever get used to all these fancy titles.”
“You may call me Pemberton,” the Earl said.
“Pemberton,” Cody smiled broadly. “When I say go I want you to throw all six coins in the air.”
“All six at once?”
“All six at once.” Cody said. “Make sure you throw them into the circle of light where Kid Cochran can see them.”
“Very well,” Pemberton shook his head as if he were dealing with an indulgent child. Dax backed away until he was next to one of the torches. He scanned the balcony and the night sky to make sure there was nothing in his line of sight to distract him. And to make sure no one would be injured in case a bullet just happened to stray off course. That wouldn't help the show a bit.
“Are you ready?” Cody asked the both of them.
Dax took a deep breath, expelled it and nodded. Pemberton held his hand over the garden with the coins in his fist and nodded also.
“One. Two. Three. Go!” Cody shouted the last word. As soon as he heard it Dax dove, rolled and came up firing. Before the crowd could even gasp he heard the ping of six coins as they were deflected by six successive shots. One landed on the ground before him and he picked it up, examined the hole in the middle and flipped it up to Lord Pemberton. He kept his eyes on Merritt, who stood beside him, her eyes wide and sparkling with excitement.
“Here's one,” someone shouted, holding up a coin.
“And another!”
Three more voices joined in and the five remaining coins were held up for inspection, all of them showing evidence of his bullets hitting the mark.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Kid Cochran,” Cody shouted and the crowd burst into applause.
Dax bowed for the crowd but kept his eyes on Merritt who applauded also, her face showing her amazement of his feat.
“Good Show!” Pemberton shouted. Then he, his daughter, and her friend disappeared into the crowd.