At least the Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest saw the so-called rich that he robbed. He could be said to have a good faith belief that if his victim dressed like a rich person, traveled like a rich person, spoke like a rich person, smelled like a rich person (etc, etc) he probably was indeed able to afford having the moneybags and jewels on his person at the time ripped off.
Also, the Robin Hood of medieval times (if he actually did give to the poor) probably saw them, and could deduce from their clothes, deportment, speech, the state of their hands and feet (and so forth) that they were underfed and underpaid.
Cyber Robin Hoods rip everyone off. They have no way to know, for instance, whether the "millionaire" author that they are ripping off is in fact a single mother, waiting tables by day or night to make ends meet, and writing every day at three am.
Similarly, the so-called "poor" who allegedly cannot afford to purchase the movie and e-book treats that Cyber Robin distributes, nevertheless own e-readers, computers, high speed internet access and can afford to pay the pirate a nominal monthly subscription for access to his links. They can afford a subscription to the hosting site so they can quickly and efficiently download illegal copies of "complimentary" movies and e-books. Moreover, the advertisement aggregators obviously have a good faith belief (if one believes the pitch about life-style-targeted advertising) that these "deserving poor" can afford luxury cars and high-end tech products.
Was Robin Hood the first romantic mugger? Why does literature of a certain type glorify pirates, highwaymen, spies and assassins? (Whether historical, modern, or futuristic). Is it simply because they live dangerous lives that make for page-turners and action-packed movies? Let's not forget modern computer games. What effect does Grand Theft Auto have on a person's morality?
Give me my chess sets, Mancala, Reversi, and my Wii where the most violent and destructive game I play is careening into beach balls on a Segway with the intent to burst them!
By the way, if something as mild as SOPA caused such uproar.... maybe the reason is not all that meets the eye. It appears that many people signed The Petition multiple times under the impression that SOPA would take away their assumed "right" to "share" copyrighted e-books and movies. True. People were trying to stop the DMCA (from 1998) by petitioning against SOPA in 2011.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Bujold on SF Romance
In the January LOCUS there’s an interview with Lois McMaster Bujold, who comments briefly on “hybrids of romance and science fiction.” She thinks creating such fiction is a difficult challenge because “the genres are kind of immiscible”—for this reason:
“One wants politically-driven stories in which characters gain status, and the other is more interested in romantically-driven stories where the characters gain mates. Different underlying biological drives are being served by these two different kinds of stories.”
I’ve never considered SF romance from that angle. I have reservations about Bujold’s analysis in that she seems to be defining science fiction too narrowly, focusing on only one of the many subsets of SF. Still, she makes an intriguing point.
As an aside, she makes an amusing remark about progressively narrower subgenre categories being like “overbred dog breeds that go past the point of being healthy anymore.” Not that she’s worried; she regards the process as an unstoppable “economic cycle” that, presumably, is self-correcting in the long run.
Any thoughts?
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
“One wants politically-driven stories in which characters gain status, and the other is more interested in romantically-driven stories where the characters gain mates. Different underlying biological drives are being served by these two different kinds of stories.”
I’ve never considered SF romance from that angle. I have reservations about Bujold’s analysis in that she seems to be defining science fiction too narrowly, focusing on only one of the many subsets of SF. Still, she makes an intriguing point.
As an aside, she makes an amusing remark about progressively narrower subgenre categories being like “overbred dog breeds that go past the point of being healthy anymore.” Not that she’s worried; she regards the process as an unstoppable “economic cycle” that, presumably, is self-correcting in the long run.
Any thoughts?
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Research-Plot Integration in Historical Romance Part 2
Last week:
http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/01/research-plot-integration-in-historical.html
we looked at a trilogy of historical romance stories about Rashi's Daughters.
I'm discussing how Maggie Anton's trilogy of historical romance novels with paranormal, supernatural, and spiritual elements blended in, fails because of a failure of orchestration of advanced writing techniques, namely the technique of integrating techniques.
Anton's trilogy does not fail because of a failure of either research technique or plotting technique by itself, though her plotting technique is not one that I respond to or use. But the two techniques applied separately produce an "oil and water" layered effect rather than an emulsion or a new chemical compound with unique properties (i.e. a Romance Novel).
I hope you have had time to consider these novels. Here's a link to them on amazon:
Maggie Anton
I don't know Maggie Anton personally, and have no idea what went on with the writing of these novels other than what it says in the books.
Here is a reader response on Anton's first novel from Amazon to consider indicating that the author's imaginary Jewish Culture of the Middle Ages stood out from, made an oil slick on top of, and obliterated all the rest of the romance novel stories in the books:
---------QUOTE-----------
3.0 out of 5 stars Good in general but Jewish life lacks authenticity, May 10, 2009
By
D. L. Lederman "leahiniowa" (Iowa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: Rashi's Daughters, Book 1: Joheved (Paperback)
I am an Orthodox Jew who happens to deeply enjoy history and well-written historic fiction. I have strongly mixed feelings about this book. I am deeply impressed with the research that went into this book as well as Anton's ability to compile an enjoyable story from her research.
Unfortunately, it is clear that Anton does not know enough about living the type of authentically observant life that Rashi and his family enjoyed to write about these people without over-laying them with a 21st century mentality.
Those of us who follow the traditions given down from parent to child over the generations know that Rashi's daughters did not wear tefillin and learn Talmud because they were rebels. On the contrary, they were very holy women who followed the law to the letter. Judaism is, at its authentic pure level, NOT a sexist religion.
Further, those of us who live the observant lifestyle are aware at a bone-deep level the benefits of abstaining from prohibited activities. E.g., the prohibition against mature, unmarried men and women touching at all (not to mention "making out" or "snogging" or what have you), along with the observance of the laws of married life, create an intense, passionate bond between husband and wife. No intelligent woman (or man) who has lived this lifestyle and learned significant amounts of Torah (the term Torah is often used to include the Talmud, Mishnah, Midrashim, etc. - basically all of the accumulated studies) would be foolish enough to put themselves in a position such as the female characters in this book found themselves with their "beaux."
To clarify what one of the other reviewers stated, yes, Jewish women at that time were mostly illiterate - especially as regards to Judaic studies. But so were most of the Jewish men. Only the special few - those with outstanding mental abilities or those with the finances to pay for an education - were able to learn enough to read and/or write Hebrew. And learning more than that was even harder to accomplish.
On the other hand, Anton's portrayal of Rashi's mother as an active, educated intelligent woman who ran her own business is strikingly accurate. Plus, I enjoyed learning about the lifestyle and history of Jews living during the time of Rashi.
I really would have preferred to give the book 3 1/2 stars or even 3.75 stars, because I do think it is very well-written and interesting. Unfortunately, books which do not portray Torah true Judaism accurately tend to do more harm than good. From the other reviews I have read, this already seems to be the case.
------------END QUOTE----------
And here is a reader response posted on Amazon on one of my novels, House of Zeor, which indicates that applying the integration technique I'm discussing causes readers to be able to absorb the imaginary culture of imaginary characters even when it differs starkly from anything familiar:
------QUOTE------------
5.0 out of 5 stars Only the beginning . . . of a great series, November 4, 2011
By J. A. Davis "firedrake54" (Ontario, CA)
This review is from: House of Zeor (Sime~Gen, Book 1) (Kindle Edition)
I can't tell you when I first read "House of Zeor", but it was back when I was thin and my hair wasn't. I found it amazing, when, last month, after not reading it for perhaps 20 years, I picked it up and was immediately transported back into a fondly (and well) remembered world. This book is one of the most complex, painfully realistic and memorable psycho-sociological thrillers I've ever read, and the foundation for an entire universe of stories, the complexity and beauty of which would definitely win awards at Arentsi (and you'll have to read it to find out what that means).
Ms. Lichtenberg, her eventual co-author for later books, Jean Lorrah, and the entire community of Sime-Gen worldbuilders have imagined characters, societies and situations that embed themselves on your brain and don't let go. I suppose it's indicative of something that I remembered many of the terms used in House of Zeor for decades -- mostly Sime-specific curse words, I confess, but they're used in context so clearly you have no problem knowing exactly what they mean.
I've been reading science fiction for nearly 50 years (yes, really). I can count the number of authors and series that have stuck with me this well easily on two hands, and I've read a LOT of SF in those years. The Sime-Gen books make you want to KNOW these people, and make you CARE about what happens to them . . . and their society, which comes painfully to the brink of collapse and ultimate calamity.
I've heard them called "vampire-analog" stories, "chick books" and more, but at base, what they are is good stories, well told, about characters you can get into.
READ THEM!
-----------END QUOTE-------------
House of Zeor illustrates how readers respond to a "new chemical compound" and how that response differs from the response to "oil and water."
There are also comments on Anton's novels from non-Jews and from Jews who know less about Judaism than most readers of this blog know about Simes.
In the comments on Anton's novels, notice how the Medieval Jewish culture - the truly "alien" culture - of a small town in France leaps out and dominates the reader commentary.
Most of the reader comments on Sime~Gen focus on trying to explain the background to prospective readers because that background is the compelling force that shapes the characters. Readers feel you won't understand why the characters do what they do without that background, but it's the characters and their effect on their civilization that the reader wants to tell you about.
That's what I feel the effect the Rashi's Daughters trilogy ought to have because all the characters were shaped by Torah and Talmud study an even smaller minority interest in those days than now, and much less accessible then than now.
But the comments on amazon are not explaining points of Talmud that you need to understand the character motivation, or what the reader learned from the novel that they applied to life with some success.
On the SimeGen Group on facebook, fans are always talking about whether they "identify" with Sime or Gen. Non-Jewish readers of this trilogy are not saying that for the time it took to read Anton's books they knew what it felt like to be a Jew in Medieval France. They got a glimpse of life in Medieval France, they didn't live there for a time.
Fans of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels often relate how they "grew up on Darkover."
Note how Robert A. Heinlein's fans talk about how his novels inspired them to learn math and science. Or Isaac Asimov's fans. Fans of Star Trek talk about how Roddenberry's creation led them into career tracks.
The comments on Rashi's Daughters are not relating how people are dashing off to learn the real Torah and Talmud after becoming enchanted with her fantasy version of Torah and Talmud. How many are reporting they enrolled their kids in Yeshiva? But science fiction fans who grew up on Heinlein have kids on track to become famous astronomers, N.A.S.A. engineers, etc.
Keep in mind, it's my opinion that Anton wrote these novels as a polemic in modern feminism touting feminism to young Jewish women, hoping they would become feminists not Torah scholars. Oil and water. Some readers react to the oil and some to the water.
There are technical, writer-craft, reasons for that contrast in response between Heinlein/Roddenberry and Anton.
It is not a difference in the basic material or the story. No place or time could be more alien to the modern reader than a Jewish Quarter in a small French town during the Crusades and the fall of Rome -- Darkover was easier to relate to.
Anton's historical Jews are alien to the modern Jew, and the dangers of Medieval France are just the same as in any Historical Romance with knights in shining armor, damsels in distress, and arranged marriages.
It is a difference in the application of writing craft techniques. It's not that Science is more interesting than Torah. It's simply a difference in how the "researched" (or factual) material is used to generate the fictional structure.
Being a professional writer means being able to get the reader-response you aim to get by using the tool that triggers that response.
Maggie Anton has probably gotten the reader response she was aiming for -- but not the response I would have aimed for had I decided to write about Rashi's Daughters.
And I'm only guessing, but I think she may not have known that the material about the Medieval Talmud Academies she had become enchanted with could be incorporated into a historical romance novel using the exact techniques perfected by science fiction writers decades ago.
The "technique" I'm referring to here is the "integration" of two (and sometimes more) of the basic techniques I've discussed on this blog in previous posts. The integration tool that's most useful is "theme" which we've discussed at length.
Anton has a theme. I suspect it might best be stated as "Feminism is not new."
To illustrate that theme, she's created an alternate universe fantasy history. Since she failed to use the Science Fiction techniques I'm discussing (she may know them and just didn't use them) her readers are calling her down for inaccurate or bad history -- possibly because her readers haven't read a lot of alternate-history fantasy such as Katherine Kurtz pioneered.
Her readers are miffed at the historical errors because Anton didn't lull them into a "suspension of disbelief" by telegraphing that she knows the "real" history that the reader already knows, but will now play a fun game re-arranging that history to tell a story that will pose interesting questions.
She could have created Rashi as a cross between Spock and Sherlock Holmes that would have rocked this nation. She didn't. Rashi himself hardly gets a word in edgewise, and when he does, it isn't the word "Logical" which would have been the author's wink at the reader soliciting the suspension of disbelief.
The readers who don't know enough to spot her historical errors believe her version of history and like it, maybe prefer it. Other readers are distressed by ignorant readers being taught inaccuracies, with never a clue that this is actually fantasy.
And then there are the real nuggets of historical fact Anton has uncovered which contradict what people in the modern world think they know about Rashi's time and lifestyle!
The knowledgeable reader rejects those nuggets along with the warped facts, not being able to distinguish one from the other -- all for the lack of writing techniques, most especially Research-Plot integration.
All that could have been avoided by treating the hard facts, the warped-facts, and the imaginary facts with a science fiction writer's techniques. Poul Anderson comes to mind. Vernor Vinge.
The readers who are calling her down for her historical inaccuracies have completely missed enjoying the Romance stories in this trilogy because their attention was distracted from the foreground story to the background setting.
Please note that the number of reviews Amazon has posted on Anton's novels far exceeds those on my novels. There are a lot of technical (internet world related) reasons for that (Amazon has erased lots of reviews posted on my titles as they upgraded their computers).
But there is also the fact that Anton's work hits a far more popular topic than I have ever tackled, and was very well published to its exact audience at precisely the time Amazon was growing fastest.
One would conclude I have no business dissecting her product, but should rather be emulating it.
But I have read Marion Zimmer Bradley's SF/Fantasy novels, especially the hottest Alien Romance novel I've ever read, her Planet Wreckers. I have read the Lensman Series (oh, did I have a crush on Kimball Kinnison and a case of envy for his red headed Soul Mate). I have read C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner and Chanur series. I have read Ursula LeGuinn's Left Hand of Darkness. I have read all of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain novels, and a lot of her historical horror novels. I've read a lot of historical novels (a certain Scotland based historical time travel series pops to mind.) I used to be a Western Romance fan! I have read dozens of Vampire Romance novels with varying "rules" for the Vampire species. And I've read all of Robert A. Heinlein, and dozens of others who blend real science, imaginary science, and a special "take" on human personality seamlessly into their plots.
I somehow don't "hear" an echo of that kind of reading exposure behind the reviews of Maggie Anton's novels by those who liked them.
If you don't know what can be done with the Research-Plot integration technique, you won't miss it at all, and you'll think Anton's novels are really fine novels.
If you read the novels that are there, it's true that they are good. But I'm a writer. I read the novel that could have been there and compare it to the novel that is there -- if they're not the same, I try to figure out what to change to make them the same.
In this case it's the Integration techniques that are missing.
As I said above, the plotting technique choice didn't work as well as other choices might have.
Anton's books aren't actually "novels" in the structural and technical sense. They are strings of anecdotes lightly glued together. That's what produces many reader comments about "couldn't put it down." The reader will race through the anecdotes with the feeling that the beginning of the story is imminent, and then find themselves at the last page of the volume thinking they've read a novel. They didn't. They read a book, yes, but not a novel.
Perhaps I just have higher standards in Romance Novels than the readers who loved this trilogy because I found the structural and technique omissions glaring and jarring.
None of the writers I admire who have written novels blending facts you can get out of an encyclopedia with imaginary characters, real historical characters, and a specific idea of how the world's affairs have been managed, are being managed, and might become managed, would ever have failed to make this integration of plot and research smooth and in-detectible.
As far as I can tell just from reading, Anton made no attempt to blend research and plot, nevermind create a smooth emulsion.
I learned how to do that integration by hatching an ambition to write like those writers I listed above. I dissected their work to find out how they did it, then applied that technique to what I had to say, and according to the responses I've been getting on the SIMEGEN Group on Facebook, I succeeded.
Most of you who have read this far must be very frustrated because I'm not laying out exactly how to do this Integration yet. I'm going to try to explain it, but I am pretty sure many busy readers of this column need time to read at least one of the Anton novels and possibly to explore Sime~Gen.
Meanwhile here is an example from Rashi's Daughters Book III, Rachel -- of a bit of Anton's research which sits like "oil" on top of the emotional waters of her story. And don't yell. Last week I did promise you a spoiler and a connection to House of Zeor, and here it is.
---------QUOTE FROM BOOK III RACHEL p353 of the Trade paperback --The main character is talking to a trading partner who deals in dye and wool.-------------
..."But why are some black?"
"The abbess at Notre-Dame-aux-Nonnains was inquiring after fabric so I asked Simon to prepare some for her," Rachel explained. Nuns took a vow of poverty, but the local abbess came from a noble family and refused to wear anything but the highest quality fabrics.
Simon turned to Pesach. "True black is one of the most difficult shades to obtain. Each dyer has his secret formula; mine involves lamp soot." He motioned the pair back indoors, where he slowly unrolled a small bolt of brilliant purple.
Rachel gasped. "This is exquisite." She couldn't resist stroking the material. "I thought Eliezer couldn't find any Tyrian purple, or did you mix scarlet and indigo?"
Simon allowed Pesach to answer. "I found some, although Eliezer judged it too expensive. But the other dye merchants in Toledo said Tyrian purple was particularly scarce this year, so I gambled and bought some on credit."
-----------END QUOTE-------
Now there are some obscure facts about the beginnings of the dye industry that few people know, and it's inherently interesting. It is related to the world of this novel because Rachel is in business with another of her sisters who raises sheep for wool and had to import rams from England to get the kind of wool that can take the expensive dyes of the time. I know this stuff is true from other sources.
This snatch of dialogue advances the plot element of the side-business of cloth merchanting the lead character is in. It's not wholly extraneous, and it reveals a lot about the trade-world around this little village. Worse, all the characters in the scene already know all this and have no business talking as if they don't. Maybe the scarcity and trade details might be discussed in dialogue - but there's really no dramatic reason for this dialogue.
If you examine the scene this dialogue is in, and compare it to the discussions we've had here about scene structure and dialogue, you'll see that the scene isn't actually a "scene" -- there's no conflict driving the scene, no rising action, no emotional change, and no climax to the scene, leading to a hook onto the next scene. The author may believe that all these elements are in the scene, because she tags the end of the scene with a worded thought about her husband who is neglecting the cloth business for his studies in astronomy.
See my blog post of DECEMBER 27, 2011 - Dialogue Part 2 - On And Off The Nose
Anton's Rachel character's husband (the son-in-law of Rashi) is, in this fantasy, involved in the studies in Spain where astronomers may have figured out that the Earth revolves around the Sun centuries before Galileo -- and very possibly those Moorish inspired Spanish Jews may be the source of Galileo's inspiration, or he might have originated the idea on his own. You can see why I love this trilogy!
There's no reason for this scene, though, except to showcase some of the research the writer did. You could cut this exchange about dyes and you wouldn't lose anything except that "window" into the "world" of Medieval France. It's decoration. It's nice. But it's not essential. It says to me that the writer just couldn't bear to leave out all that hard work she did, so she couched it in dialogue and used Rachel's business venture as an excuse to include it. If I were the editor, I'd have cut it with a big red X through it. (my editors did that to me a lot; I learned)
To me, personally, though, this bit of dialogue is the best thing in the whole trilogy!
This obscure bit about black dye being difficult, proprietary secret, and very easy to spot against the kinds of colors cloth had been able to hold in those days was, I thought, common knowledge for at least 10 years before I wrote House of Zeor and invented "Farris Black" as a special color. I learned it so long before writing House of Zeor that I have no memory of learning it, I just know it.
Jean Lorrah, who joined me writing Sime~Gen after Unto Zeor, Forever was written, did not know this historical fact about black cloth dye and I had forgotten how I knew it and couldn't prove it when she challenged me.
My fictional House of Zeor is famous in the textile business, in the crude bathtub chemistry of dye manufacture and wool dying. They do all kinds of small-batch chemistry that's related to textiles, agrochemistry, and medicinals. Nowhere in any of the 12 volumes in this Universe is there any dialogue even vaguely resembling this snatch I've quoted for you.
When the Zeor Householding members are faced with the problem of identifying a particular genetic line of people who are medically vulnerable, Zeor does that by clothing them in this very special black -- it's used on edging, fringes, belts, emblems, medical case file flags and chevron stripes, and on entire clothing ensembles at different points in the several thousand years of Zeor's history.
It's always referred to as Farris Black -- not just any black. This is a special color, a shade that leaps right out at you. You can't miss it. Over the centuries of the Sime~Gen saga, it becomes the custom and eventually a rule with the force of law that ONLY those of the Farris genetic strain may wear this color. Nobody else would want to -- it could be a life or death issue if you were treated medically as if you were Farris. Later, when it's not so special, special shapes and items become the label.
Nowhere in the Sime~Gen novels do two characters who already know all about the dye business discuss the sources or applications of dyes.
So there's the Sime~Gen/Rashi connection I promised you last week. Farris Black.
Eventually here, we'll probably talk about the second published Sime~Gen Novel (a novel I modeled on the typical "Doctor Novel") Unto Zeor, Forever, (my first award winner) and the medical profession research I did for that one -- and what Robert A. Heinlein said about it after he read it. Of all the novels I've written, that was the only one I deliberately did research for with the specific intent of crafting that particular novel from the research.
All other research I've used in my novels has been like that Farris Black example, something I've known so long I don't know where I learned it. Many times, though, I have had to go look up details that I wanted to include to fact-check before including. In some instances, I've used astronomical calculators and programs that help predict the orbit of a world around another sun. But Unto Zeor, Forever is a specifically researched-to-write novel. I hope you won't find any evidence of research in that novel, though.
So you might want to read Unto Zeor, Forever first and compare it to Rashi's Daughters.
Rashi's Daughters also has a whole lot of medical research into medieval and Jewish Medieval medicine and especially midwifery larded into the text. Some of that medical research is well integrated, and some is not. Many times whole birthing incidents are incorporated simply to illustrate the midwifery techniques. The birth of a child who will become a significant influence on the course of history makes it seem that the birthing scene advances the plot -- but often that Integration technique just isn't there.
Perhaps you want to find pair of Historical Romance novels to compare. You want to find a novel that has obviously been researched for decades, that the writer is so very proud of their research and the publisher is selling it on the authenticity of the research. And then find one which has even more information in it but you can't tell it's been researched at all -- you can only see that some of the things in it are real facts, and some things obviously made up just for fun.
Your personal library may already have two really good examples to work on.
Once you've tried to figure out what one writer did that the other writer did not do (and which you'd rather emulate) -- then move on to the next Part in this blog series "Research-Plot Integration in Historical Romance."
By the way, I learned this method of deconstruction, dissection, and distillation of techniques to discover and apply writing techniques to my own work from a correspondence course on writing from The Famous Writer School (which I do not recommend at all!).
I've seen how Blake Snyder applied this dissection method to create his SAVE THE CAT! film genres -- and I don't think he got it from the Famous Writer's School.
You don't need a teacher to learn this. But you do need a pair of books you didn't write, one of which represents the kind of book you want to write. Find and study two such novels, and come back next week for more thoughts on how to learn and apply Research-Plot Integration to your own work.
Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/01/research-plot-integration-in-historical.html
we looked at a trilogy of historical romance stories about Rashi's Daughters.
I'm discussing how Maggie Anton's trilogy of historical romance novels with paranormal, supernatural, and spiritual elements blended in, fails because of a failure of orchestration of advanced writing techniques, namely the technique of integrating techniques.
Anton's trilogy does not fail because of a failure of either research technique or plotting technique by itself, though her plotting technique is not one that I respond to or use. But the two techniques applied separately produce an "oil and water" layered effect rather than an emulsion or a new chemical compound with unique properties (i.e. a Romance Novel).
I hope you have had time to consider these novels. Here's a link to them on amazon:
Maggie Anton
I don't know Maggie Anton personally, and have no idea what went on with the writing of these novels other than what it says in the books.
Here is a reader response on Anton's first novel from Amazon to consider indicating that the author's imaginary Jewish Culture of the Middle Ages stood out from, made an oil slick on top of, and obliterated all the rest of the romance novel stories in the books:
---------QUOTE-----------
3.0 out of 5 stars Good in general but Jewish life lacks authenticity, May 10, 2009
By
D. L. Lederman "leahiniowa" (Iowa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: Rashi's Daughters, Book 1: Joheved (Paperback)
I am an Orthodox Jew who happens to deeply enjoy history and well-written historic fiction. I have strongly mixed feelings about this book. I am deeply impressed with the research that went into this book as well as Anton's ability to compile an enjoyable story from her research.
Unfortunately, it is clear that Anton does not know enough about living the type of authentically observant life that Rashi and his family enjoyed to write about these people without over-laying them with a 21st century mentality.
Those of us who follow the traditions given down from parent to child over the generations know that Rashi's daughters did not wear tefillin and learn Talmud because they were rebels. On the contrary, they were very holy women who followed the law to the letter. Judaism is, at its authentic pure level, NOT a sexist religion.
Further, those of us who live the observant lifestyle are aware at a bone-deep level the benefits of abstaining from prohibited activities. E.g., the prohibition against mature, unmarried men and women touching at all (not to mention "making out" or "snogging" or what have you), along with the observance of the laws of married life, create an intense, passionate bond between husband and wife. No intelligent woman (or man) who has lived this lifestyle and learned significant amounts of Torah (the term Torah is often used to include the Talmud, Mishnah, Midrashim, etc. - basically all of the accumulated studies) would be foolish enough to put themselves in a position such as the female characters in this book found themselves with their "beaux."
To clarify what one of the other reviewers stated, yes, Jewish women at that time were mostly illiterate - especially as regards to Judaic studies. But so were most of the Jewish men. Only the special few - those with outstanding mental abilities or those with the finances to pay for an education - were able to learn enough to read and/or write Hebrew. And learning more than that was even harder to accomplish.
On the other hand, Anton's portrayal of Rashi's mother as an active, educated intelligent woman who ran her own business is strikingly accurate. Plus, I enjoyed learning about the lifestyle and history of Jews living during the time of Rashi.
I really would have preferred to give the book 3 1/2 stars or even 3.75 stars, because I do think it is very well-written and interesting. Unfortunately, books which do not portray Torah true Judaism accurately tend to do more harm than good. From the other reviews I have read, this already seems to be the case.
------------END QUOTE----------
And here is a reader response posted on Amazon on one of my novels, House of Zeor, which indicates that applying the integration technique I'm discussing causes readers to be able to absorb the imaginary culture of imaginary characters even when it differs starkly from anything familiar:
------QUOTE------------
5.0 out of 5 stars Only the beginning . . . of a great series, November 4, 2011
By J. A. Davis "firedrake54" (Ontario, CA)
This review is from: House of Zeor (Sime~Gen, Book 1) (Kindle Edition)
I can't tell you when I first read "House of Zeor", but it was back when I was thin and my hair wasn't. I found it amazing, when, last month, after not reading it for perhaps 20 years, I picked it up and was immediately transported back into a fondly (and well) remembered world. This book is one of the most complex, painfully realistic and memorable psycho-sociological thrillers I've ever read, and the foundation for an entire universe of stories, the complexity and beauty of which would definitely win awards at Arentsi (and you'll have to read it to find out what that means).
Ms. Lichtenberg, her eventual co-author for later books, Jean Lorrah, and the entire community of Sime-Gen worldbuilders have imagined characters, societies and situations that embed themselves on your brain and don't let go. I suppose it's indicative of something that I remembered many of the terms used in House of Zeor for decades -- mostly Sime-specific curse words, I confess, but they're used in context so clearly you have no problem knowing exactly what they mean.
I've been reading science fiction for nearly 50 years (yes, really). I can count the number of authors and series that have stuck with me this well easily on two hands, and I've read a LOT of SF in those years. The Sime-Gen books make you want to KNOW these people, and make you CARE about what happens to them . . . and their society, which comes painfully to the brink of collapse and ultimate calamity.
I've heard them called "vampire-analog" stories, "chick books" and more, but at base, what they are is good stories, well told, about characters you can get into.
READ THEM!
-----------END QUOTE-------------
House of Zeor illustrates how readers respond to a "new chemical compound" and how that response differs from the response to "oil and water."
There are also comments on Anton's novels from non-Jews and from Jews who know less about Judaism than most readers of this blog know about Simes.
In the comments on Anton's novels, notice how the Medieval Jewish culture - the truly "alien" culture - of a small town in France leaps out and dominates the reader commentary.
Most of the reader comments on Sime~Gen focus on trying to explain the background to prospective readers because that background is the compelling force that shapes the characters. Readers feel you won't understand why the characters do what they do without that background, but it's the characters and their effect on their civilization that the reader wants to tell you about.
That's what I feel the effect the Rashi's Daughters trilogy ought to have because all the characters were shaped by Torah and Talmud study an even smaller minority interest in those days than now, and much less accessible then than now.
But the comments on amazon are not explaining points of Talmud that you need to understand the character motivation, or what the reader learned from the novel that they applied to life with some success.
On the SimeGen Group on facebook, fans are always talking about whether they "identify" with Sime or Gen. Non-Jewish readers of this trilogy are not saying that for the time it took to read Anton's books they knew what it felt like to be a Jew in Medieval France. They got a glimpse of life in Medieval France, they didn't live there for a time.
Fans of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels often relate how they "grew up on Darkover."
Note how Robert A. Heinlein's fans talk about how his novels inspired them to learn math and science. Or Isaac Asimov's fans. Fans of Star Trek talk about how Roddenberry's creation led them into career tracks.
The comments on Rashi's Daughters are not relating how people are dashing off to learn the real Torah and Talmud after becoming enchanted with her fantasy version of Torah and Talmud. How many are reporting they enrolled their kids in Yeshiva? But science fiction fans who grew up on Heinlein have kids on track to become famous astronomers, N.A.S.A. engineers, etc.
Keep in mind, it's my opinion that Anton wrote these novels as a polemic in modern feminism touting feminism to young Jewish women, hoping they would become feminists not Torah scholars. Oil and water. Some readers react to the oil and some to the water.
There are technical, writer-craft, reasons for that contrast in response between Heinlein/Roddenberry and Anton.
It is not a difference in the basic material or the story. No place or time could be more alien to the modern reader than a Jewish Quarter in a small French town during the Crusades and the fall of Rome -- Darkover was easier to relate to.
Anton's historical Jews are alien to the modern Jew, and the dangers of Medieval France are just the same as in any Historical Romance with knights in shining armor, damsels in distress, and arranged marriages.
It is a difference in the application of writing craft techniques. It's not that Science is more interesting than Torah. It's simply a difference in how the "researched" (or factual) material is used to generate the fictional structure.
Being a professional writer means being able to get the reader-response you aim to get by using the tool that triggers that response.
Maggie Anton has probably gotten the reader response she was aiming for -- but not the response I would have aimed for had I decided to write about Rashi's Daughters.
And I'm only guessing, but I think she may not have known that the material about the Medieval Talmud Academies she had become enchanted with could be incorporated into a historical romance novel using the exact techniques perfected by science fiction writers decades ago.
The "technique" I'm referring to here is the "integration" of two (and sometimes more) of the basic techniques I've discussed on this blog in previous posts. The integration tool that's most useful is "theme" which we've discussed at length.
Anton has a theme. I suspect it might best be stated as "Feminism is not new."
To illustrate that theme, she's created an alternate universe fantasy history. Since she failed to use the Science Fiction techniques I'm discussing (she may know them and just didn't use them) her readers are calling her down for inaccurate or bad history -- possibly because her readers haven't read a lot of alternate-history fantasy such as Katherine Kurtz pioneered.
Her readers are miffed at the historical errors because Anton didn't lull them into a "suspension of disbelief" by telegraphing that she knows the "real" history that the reader already knows, but will now play a fun game re-arranging that history to tell a story that will pose interesting questions.
She could have created Rashi as a cross between Spock and Sherlock Holmes that would have rocked this nation. She didn't. Rashi himself hardly gets a word in edgewise, and when he does, it isn't the word "Logical" which would have been the author's wink at the reader soliciting the suspension of disbelief.
The readers who don't know enough to spot her historical errors believe her version of history and like it, maybe prefer it. Other readers are distressed by ignorant readers being taught inaccuracies, with never a clue that this is actually fantasy.
And then there are the real nuggets of historical fact Anton has uncovered which contradict what people in the modern world think they know about Rashi's time and lifestyle!
The knowledgeable reader rejects those nuggets along with the warped facts, not being able to distinguish one from the other -- all for the lack of writing techniques, most especially Research-Plot integration.
All that could have been avoided by treating the hard facts, the warped-facts, and the imaginary facts with a science fiction writer's techniques. Poul Anderson comes to mind. Vernor Vinge.
The readers who are calling her down for her historical inaccuracies have completely missed enjoying the Romance stories in this trilogy because their attention was distracted from the foreground story to the background setting.
Please note that the number of reviews Amazon has posted on Anton's novels far exceeds those on my novels. There are a lot of technical (internet world related) reasons for that (Amazon has erased lots of reviews posted on my titles as they upgraded their computers).
But there is also the fact that Anton's work hits a far more popular topic than I have ever tackled, and was very well published to its exact audience at precisely the time Amazon was growing fastest.
One would conclude I have no business dissecting her product, but should rather be emulating it.
But I have read Marion Zimmer Bradley's SF/Fantasy novels, especially the hottest Alien Romance novel I've ever read, her Planet Wreckers. I have read the Lensman Series (oh, did I have a crush on Kimball Kinnison and a case of envy for his red headed Soul Mate). I have read C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner and Chanur series. I have read Ursula LeGuinn's Left Hand of Darkness. I have read all of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain novels, and a lot of her historical horror novels. I've read a lot of historical novels (a certain Scotland based historical time travel series pops to mind.) I used to be a Western Romance fan! I have read dozens of Vampire Romance novels with varying "rules" for the Vampire species. And I've read all of Robert A. Heinlein, and dozens of others who blend real science, imaginary science, and a special "take" on human personality seamlessly into their plots.
I somehow don't "hear" an echo of that kind of reading exposure behind the reviews of Maggie Anton's novels by those who liked them.
If you don't know what can be done with the Research-Plot integration technique, you won't miss it at all, and you'll think Anton's novels are really fine novels.
If you read the novels that are there, it's true that they are good. But I'm a writer. I read the novel that could have been there and compare it to the novel that is there -- if they're not the same, I try to figure out what to change to make them the same.
In this case it's the Integration techniques that are missing.
As I said above, the plotting technique choice didn't work as well as other choices might have.
Anton's books aren't actually "novels" in the structural and technical sense. They are strings of anecdotes lightly glued together. That's what produces many reader comments about "couldn't put it down." The reader will race through the anecdotes with the feeling that the beginning of the story is imminent, and then find themselves at the last page of the volume thinking they've read a novel. They didn't. They read a book, yes, but not a novel.
Perhaps I just have higher standards in Romance Novels than the readers who loved this trilogy because I found the structural and technique omissions glaring and jarring.
None of the writers I admire who have written novels blending facts you can get out of an encyclopedia with imaginary characters, real historical characters, and a specific idea of how the world's affairs have been managed, are being managed, and might become managed, would ever have failed to make this integration of plot and research smooth and in-detectible.
As far as I can tell just from reading, Anton made no attempt to blend research and plot, nevermind create a smooth emulsion.
I learned how to do that integration by hatching an ambition to write like those writers I listed above. I dissected their work to find out how they did it, then applied that technique to what I had to say, and according to the responses I've been getting on the SIMEGEN Group on Facebook, I succeeded.
Most of you who have read this far must be very frustrated because I'm not laying out exactly how to do this Integration yet. I'm going to try to explain it, but I am pretty sure many busy readers of this column need time to read at least one of the Anton novels and possibly to explore Sime~Gen.
Meanwhile here is an example from Rashi's Daughters Book III, Rachel -- of a bit of Anton's research which sits like "oil" on top of the emotional waters of her story. And don't yell. Last week I did promise you a spoiler and a connection to House of Zeor, and here it is.
---------QUOTE FROM BOOK III RACHEL p353 of the Trade paperback --The main character is talking to a trading partner who deals in dye and wool.-------------
..."But why are some black?"
"The abbess at Notre-Dame-aux-Nonnains was inquiring after fabric so I asked Simon to prepare some for her," Rachel explained. Nuns took a vow of poverty, but the local abbess came from a noble family and refused to wear anything but the highest quality fabrics.
Simon turned to Pesach. "True black is one of the most difficult shades to obtain. Each dyer has his secret formula; mine involves lamp soot." He motioned the pair back indoors, where he slowly unrolled a small bolt of brilliant purple.
Rachel gasped. "This is exquisite." She couldn't resist stroking the material. "I thought Eliezer couldn't find any Tyrian purple, or did you mix scarlet and indigo?"
Simon allowed Pesach to answer. "I found some, although Eliezer judged it too expensive. But the other dye merchants in Toledo said Tyrian purple was particularly scarce this year, so I gambled and bought some on credit."
-----------END QUOTE-------
Now there are some obscure facts about the beginnings of the dye industry that few people know, and it's inherently interesting. It is related to the world of this novel because Rachel is in business with another of her sisters who raises sheep for wool and had to import rams from England to get the kind of wool that can take the expensive dyes of the time. I know this stuff is true from other sources.
This snatch of dialogue advances the plot element of the side-business of cloth merchanting the lead character is in. It's not wholly extraneous, and it reveals a lot about the trade-world around this little village. Worse, all the characters in the scene already know all this and have no business talking as if they don't. Maybe the scarcity and trade details might be discussed in dialogue - but there's really no dramatic reason for this dialogue.
If you examine the scene this dialogue is in, and compare it to the discussions we've had here about scene structure and dialogue, you'll see that the scene isn't actually a "scene" -- there's no conflict driving the scene, no rising action, no emotional change, and no climax to the scene, leading to a hook onto the next scene. The author may believe that all these elements are in the scene, because she tags the end of the scene with a worded thought about her husband who is neglecting the cloth business for his studies in astronomy.
See my blog post of DECEMBER 27, 2011 - Dialogue Part 2 - On And Off The Nose
Anton's Rachel character's husband (the son-in-law of Rashi) is, in this fantasy, involved in the studies in Spain where astronomers may have figured out that the Earth revolves around the Sun centuries before Galileo -- and very possibly those Moorish inspired Spanish Jews may be the source of Galileo's inspiration, or he might have originated the idea on his own. You can see why I love this trilogy!
There's no reason for this scene, though, except to showcase some of the research the writer did. You could cut this exchange about dyes and you wouldn't lose anything except that "window" into the "world" of Medieval France. It's decoration. It's nice. But it's not essential. It says to me that the writer just couldn't bear to leave out all that hard work she did, so she couched it in dialogue and used Rachel's business venture as an excuse to include it. If I were the editor, I'd have cut it with a big red X through it. (my editors did that to me a lot; I learned)
To me, personally, though, this bit of dialogue is the best thing in the whole trilogy!
This obscure bit about black dye being difficult, proprietary secret, and very easy to spot against the kinds of colors cloth had been able to hold in those days was, I thought, common knowledge for at least 10 years before I wrote House of Zeor and invented "Farris Black" as a special color. I learned it so long before writing House of Zeor that I have no memory of learning it, I just know it.
Jean Lorrah, who joined me writing Sime~Gen after Unto Zeor, Forever was written, did not know this historical fact about black cloth dye and I had forgotten how I knew it and couldn't prove it when she challenged me.
My fictional House of Zeor is famous in the textile business, in the crude bathtub chemistry of dye manufacture and wool dying. They do all kinds of small-batch chemistry that's related to textiles, agrochemistry, and medicinals. Nowhere in any of the 12 volumes in this Universe is there any dialogue even vaguely resembling this snatch I've quoted for you.
When the Zeor Householding members are faced with the problem of identifying a particular genetic line of people who are medically vulnerable, Zeor does that by clothing them in this very special black -- it's used on edging, fringes, belts, emblems, medical case file flags and chevron stripes, and on entire clothing ensembles at different points in the several thousand years of Zeor's history.
It's always referred to as Farris Black -- not just any black. This is a special color, a shade that leaps right out at you. You can't miss it. Over the centuries of the Sime~Gen saga, it becomes the custom and eventually a rule with the force of law that ONLY those of the Farris genetic strain may wear this color. Nobody else would want to -- it could be a life or death issue if you were treated medically as if you were Farris. Later, when it's not so special, special shapes and items become the label.
Nowhere in the Sime~Gen novels do two characters who already know all about the dye business discuss the sources or applications of dyes.
So there's the Sime~Gen/Rashi connection I promised you last week. Farris Black.
Eventually here, we'll probably talk about the second published Sime~Gen Novel (a novel I modeled on the typical "Doctor Novel") Unto Zeor, Forever, (my first award winner) and the medical profession research I did for that one -- and what Robert A. Heinlein said about it after he read it. Of all the novels I've written, that was the only one I deliberately did research for with the specific intent of crafting that particular novel from the research.
All other research I've used in my novels has been like that Farris Black example, something I've known so long I don't know where I learned it. Many times, though, I have had to go look up details that I wanted to include to fact-check before including. In some instances, I've used astronomical calculators and programs that help predict the orbit of a world around another sun. But Unto Zeor, Forever is a specifically researched-to-write novel. I hope you won't find any evidence of research in that novel, though.
So you might want to read Unto Zeor, Forever first and compare it to Rashi's Daughters.
Rashi's Daughters also has a whole lot of medical research into medieval and Jewish Medieval medicine and especially midwifery larded into the text. Some of that medical research is well integrated, and some is not. Many times whole birthing incidents are incorporated simply to illustrate the midwifery techniques. The birth of a child who will become a significant influence on the course of history makes it seem that the birthing scene advances the plot -- but often that Integration technique just isn't there.
Perhaps you want to find pair of Historical Romance novels to compare. You want to find a novel that has obviously been researched for decades, that the writer is so very proud of their research and the publisher is selling it on the authenticity of the research. And then find one which has even more information in it but you can't tell it's been researched at all -- you can only see that some of the things in it are real facts, and some things obviously made up just for fun.
Your personal library may already have two really good examples to work on.
Once you've tried to figure out what one writer did that the other writer did not do (and which you'd rather emulate) -- then move on to the next Part in this blog series "Research-Plot Integration in Historical Romance."
By the way, I learned this method of deconstruction, dissection, and distillation of techniques to discover and apply writing techniques to my own work from a correspondence course on writing from The Famous Writer School (which I do not recommend at all!).
I've seen how Blake Snyder applied this dissection method to create his SAVE THE CAT! film genres -- and I don't think he got it from the Famous Writer's School.
You don't need a teacher to learn this. But you do need a pair of books you didn't write, one of which represents the kind of book you want to write. Find and study two such novels, and come back next week for more thoughts on how to learn and apply Research-Plot Integration to your own work.
Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Exile, Execute, Incarcerate, Enslave... or what?
How do you handle an undesirable prisoner? (In fiction, specifically in alien romance fiction.)
In Lexx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexx), criminals' organs were harvested on a mechanized assembly line without the benefit of anaesthetics or any other drugs (of course!) and the remains were utilized as organic fuel (food) for the dragonfly-like, organic spaceship, Lexx.
Some victors would play with their prisoners, or with their body parts. For instance, on the FIFA site, http://www.fifa.com/classicfootball/history/game/historygame2.html it claims
"One theory is that the game is Anglo-Saxon in origin. In both Kingston-on-Thames and Chester, local legend has it the game was played there for the first time with the severed head of a vanquished Danish prince."
That appears to be an isolated, and not particularly efficient solution to the problem. Possibly the Orcs use of
severed heads as cannonballs (in LOTR) was more practical, and also more demoralizing to the enemy.
Ancient Romans would either enslave prisoners, or make gladiators of them, or assimilate them. In one of the Star Wars Prequels (Clone Wars?) there were gladiator pits, but inconvenient prisoners were intended for amusing execution, rather than being given a fighting chance.
At one time, the British exiled prisoners, shipping them off to "the colonies" or "the Antipodes", for instance, which has always struck me as rather unfair to the native peoples. One of Anne McCaffrey's series (Freedom's Landing) used captives as experimental colonists, to demonstrate whether or not a new world was suitable for annexation.
At other times, the British housed prisoners in unseaworthy "hulks", or prison ships. Americans used islands... and still do. Russians sent prisoners off to Siberia. Captain Kirk was sent to an isolated prison camp to work in the mines on the frozen asteroid Rura Penthe, in The Undiscovered Country.
In theory, someone imprisoned on their own planet has a chance of escape without outside help. Space is an insuperable barrier to escape, unless one has rescuers, or magical time-travel abilities, or is able to overpower the guards and steal a space shuttle or stow away on a supply ship.
Riddick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddick ) is a good example of a science fiction convict who makes good --sort of-- without the benefit of organized rehabilitation.
Assuming that one wanted to write an alien romance about someone who had escaped from long term incarceration, would it also be a Revenge story, such as The Count of Monte Christo? Otherwise, perhaps they could have done their time, and been released legally. Or they could be pardoned, rightly or wrongly.
Here is an interesting comparison of slavery versus imprisonment: http://www.stalags.com/ and also an explanation of post traumatic stress disorder. It seems to me that being wrongly convicted, and forced to work in prison would combine the worst of both situations.
Here is an article about the need to rehabilitate prisoners.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/05/john_wetzel_pa_secretary_of_co.html
That does not account for political prisoners. In a Machaivellian world, one might wish to turn prisoners into Manchurian candidates, or otherwise mess with their minds to make them useful. But, if they are celebrities, and recognizable, what does one do?
"The Man In The Iron Mask" would not be a plausible plot line unless one's world was a world of superstition, and one believed that to kill a king (for instance) would damn one's immortal soul, or set a precedent that might lead to one's own execution.
Honestly, if one were evil enough to frame an innocent man --or arbitrarily throw a rival into the science fiction equivalent of an oubliette-- is there any plausible reason why one would not kill them?
In Lexx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexx), criminals' organs were harvested on a mechanized assembly line without the benefit of anaesthetics or any other drugs (of course!) and the remains were utilized as organic fuel (food) for the dragonfly-like, organic spaceship, Lexx.
Some victors would play with their prisoners, or with their body parts. For instance, on the FIFA site, http://www.fifa.com/classicfootball/history/game/historygame2.html it claims
"One theory is that the game is Anglo-Saxon in origin. In both Kingston-on-Thames and Chester, local legend has it the game was played there for the first time with the severed head of a vanquished Danish prince."
That appears to be an isolated, and not particularly efficient solution to the problem. Possibly the Orcs use of
severed heads as cannonballs (in LOTR) was more practical, and also more demoralizing to the enemy.
Ancient Romans would either enslave prisoners, or make gladiators of them, or assimilate them. In one of the Star Wars Prequels (Clone Wars?) there were gladiator pits, but inconvenient prisoners were intended for amusing execution, rather than being given a fighting chance.
At one time, the British exiled prisoners, shipping them off to "the colonies" or "the Antipodes", for instance, which has always struck me as rather unfair to the native peoples. One of Anne McCaffrey's series (Freedom's Landing) used captives as experimental colonists, to demonstrate whether or not a new world was suitable for annexation.
At other times, the British housed prisoners in unseaworthy "hulks", or prison ships. Americans used islands... and still do. Russians sent prisoners off to Siberia. Captain Kirk was sent to an isolated prison camp to work in the mines on the frozen asteroid Rura Penthe, in The Undiscovered Country.
In theory, someone imprisoned on their own planet has a chance of escape without outside help. Space is an insuperable barrier to escape, unless one has rescuers, or magical time-travel abilities, or is able to overpower the guards and steal a space shuttle or stow away on a supply ship.
Riddick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddick ) is a good example of a science fiction convict who makes good --sort of-- without the benefit of organized rehabilitation.
Assuming that one wanted to write an alien romance about someone who had escaped from long term incarceration, would it also be a Revenge story, such as The Count of Monte Christo? Otherwise, perhaps they could have done their time, and been released legally. Or they could be pardoned, rightly or wrongly.
Here is an interesting comparison of slavery versus imprisonment: http://www.stalags.com/ and also an explanation of post traumatic stress disorder. It seems to me that being wrongly convicted, and forced to work in prison would combine the worst of both situations.
Here is an article about the need to rehabilitate prisoners.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/05/john_wetzel_pa_secretary_of_co.html
That does not account for political prisoners. In a Machaivellian world, one might wish to turn prisoners into Manchurian candidates, or otherwise mess with their minds to make them useful. But, if they are celebrities, and recognizable, what does one do?
"The Man In The Iron Mask" would not be a plausible plot line unless one's world was a world of superstition, and one believed that to kill a king (for instance) would damn one's immortal soul, or set a precedent that might lead to one's own execution.
Honestly, if one were evil enough to frame an innocent man --or arbitrarily throw a rival into the science fiction equivalent of an oubliette-- is there any plausible reason why one would not kill them?
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Time Cloak
Scientists have discovered how to “hide” a moment in time:
Gap in Time
True, this phenomenon was produced only on an extreme subatomic level for an infinitesimal instant, but raise it to the macro level and think of the SF possibilities. At one point the article compares the concealment to an invisibility cloak. I was reminded of Spider Robinson’s LADY SLINGS THE BOOZE and its predecessors on the same premise, stories of devices that can stop time (sort of). The wielder of such an instrument appears to vanish because he’s moving so fast compared to the surrounding environment that he can’t be seen, and everybody else looks frozen to him. The same idea appeared in a STAR TREK episode. This real-life “time cloak,” however, doesn’t use the acceleration method. Apparently the experimenters literally removed a tiny splinter of time from the normal time stream.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
Gap in Time
True, this phenomenon was produced only on an extreme subatomic level for an infinitesimal instant, but raise it to the macro level and think of the SF possibilities. At one point the article compares the concealment to an invisibility cloak. I was reminded of Spider Robinson’s LADY SLINGS THE BOOZE and its predecessors on the same premise, stories of devices that can stop time (sort of). The wielder of such an instrument appears to vanish because he’s moving so fast compared to the surrounding environment that he can’t be seen, and everybody else looks frozen to him. The same idea appeared in a STAR TREK episode. This real-life “time cloak,” however, doesn’t use the acceleration method. Apparently the experimenters literally removed a tiny splinter of time from the normal time stream.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Research-Plot Integration in Historical Romance Part 1
Lately, we've been getting into what I consider "advanced" writing lessons.
"Advanced" doesn't actually mean you can't do it if you haven't done the previous work. But it does mean you have to be able to walk and chew gum, juggle some plates, wrangle a passel of kids, and shout at the mailman not to molest the dog, all at the same time.
Some people learn better under pressure, some people don't want to know how they do what they do, and some (like me) prefer to read the last chapter of the textbook first, then browse quickly through the first chapter and try the exercises and problems in the middle before deciding if there's anything worth learning in this textbook.
So here we are in the "middle" of learning to craft a novel, Romance or otherwise. I'm just more comfortable with the Romance plot dynamics than with plain, pure, action, or the kind of Mystery where the detective isn't personally involved in the issues raised by the crime and criminal.
In searching for clear writing lessons for you, I've stumbled on a trilogy of books, published by PLUME an imprint of PENGUIN BOOKS (huge, international publisher - this is the big time publishing venue, folks!) which I'm sure the author and the editor believe are novels. And now a lot of writing students will think so, too, just because these got published by a big publisher (and are selling well.) They will be imitated.
If you have objected to my explanations of the importance of structure in crafting a novel, you may consider the high profile publishing of these three books to prove your point. But you might change your mind about that after you read some of one of these novels.
Some people, readers not writers or editors, who've read these books think they're novels, too.
In my judgement, they aren't novels, and I'm going to try to explain why I think that.
The explanation may not mean anything to you unless you read at least part of one of these books and contrast it to something like, say Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain novels (or many of her Historical Horror genre items). But I'm sure most of you have read dozens if not hundreds of good Historical Romances, not to mention alternate history and time travel Romance.
These books are Historicals, set between 1040 and 1105 C.E.
Katherine Kurtz's Deryni novels are set in that period (almost - she uses the 900's as a model) but in an alternate universe. If you haven't read the Deryni series, you probably need to. Start with Deryni Rising and move quickly on to see how Katherine's writing craftsmanship developed very quickly -- then contrast that with the 3 novels I'm talking about here.
Katherine Kurtz structures trilogies correctly. C. J. Cherryh structures trilogies correctly (though her earliest published work has a few nice flaws that you can learn from).
This author, Maggie Anton, did not structure her trilogy with that kind of high-craft precision. She used a different technique, also in wide use, but not nearly as effective. I don't know if that's because she'd never read Cherryh and Kurtz or if she chose a technique inappropriate to her material on purpose, or if she didn't know there exists a plethora of techniques for handling this kind of material so she didn't know she had a choice to make. I don't know Maggie Anton personally, though I know Cherryh and Kurtz personally and learned from them (we learned from Marion Zimmer Bradley and I don't know if Maggie Anton ever read MZB or met her).
Maggie Anton on Amazon
That link goes to the product page on Amazon that lists 4 items by Maggie Anton, this trilogy and a book about the subject. I couldn't find anything else with that byline, and I don't know if this author writes under other bylines.
From the list of what I don't know, you can see that I can only discuss this trilogy on the basis of what's actually in the stories and how they are structured -- and what might have been done with the raw research material. I can point you to where the various techniques I have discussed on this blog were not used, and so you can judge if the lack makes the text awkward or boring.
The trilogy does contain arranged marriages and true-love marriages, accidentally marrying a gay guy (or maybe he's bi though others he knows are gay), and even a bit of Medieval applied magic to spur sexuality within marriage. Each novel focuses on one of three sisters who have no brothers to follow in their father's footsteps -- the underlying theme is feminist. In fact, it's a very strong feminist polemic in spots.
There are some rather graphically detailed sex scenes, but not many. If that's what you read Romance for, these books will disappoint.
There are epidemic scenes where the disease is attributed to demons and the cures include blood letting and amulets against demons, and other standard practices in that time-frame. Great material for modern fantasy or Paranormal Romance.
Each of these three is billed as "A novel of Love" -- not specifically genre Romance -- "in Medieval France." On that, it actually delivers.
The trilogy seems to me to be even more awkward to market and sell than to write.
I'm going to discuss all three at once here, and I'll be rather more hyper-critical of the writing, the research, and the story itself than I usually am. I may say some things that might seem somewhat unkind, perhaps undeserved, about the author of this trilogy.
But I'm not talking to the author, or even about the author or editor since I don't know them. I'm analyzing a swatch of writing that I think needed more rewrite before publishing.
The other item in the pitch for these novels is the assertion that the research is good, deep and accurate. And as far as I can tell, that's mostly true.
Now to the third element in these novels that you need to keep in mind.
The novels are about the 3 daughters of a Talmudic scholar (the Talmud being the transcription of the explanation of the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible, the story of Moses) that was given to Moses by God, the same explanation that was given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then on Mount Sinai for Moses to give to the people and lead them to the Promised Land.
This Talmudic scholar, known as Rashi, is studied today, and most printings of the Torah have either footnotes or extensive commentary by Rashi. Rashi also wrote a commentary on the Talmud, which is studied today. Rashi wrote the introductory commentary, the elementary and literal commentary (not the esoteric commentary known as Kaballah). It's almost impossible to enter the study of this material by any other route than by studying Rashi.
Studying Torah without having heard of Rashi would be like studying Geometry without having heard of Aristotle or Pythagoras. Or maybe like studying astronomy without having heard of Kepler.
So Maggie Anton picked out one whopping HUGE and important subject area to write about, the almost unknown 3 daughters of Rashi whose husbands and sons are also almost as famous as Rashi because of how they continued his commentaries, and commented on his commentaries, and founded Talmudic academy traditions of their own. Their mothers, the 3 daughters of these novels, are lost in obscurity -- and now rescued by Maggie Anton in a monumental feat of research and meticulous deductive imagination.
The research had to have been as difficult as what Katherine Kurtz did to write her George Washington saga, (during which research, I was treated to a blow-by-blow description of the feats required to gain access to obscure material)
Or her WWII novel about the magical battle for Britain against the Nazis.
To create the Romance novel trilogy, Anton had to create and add a great deal of material, just as these other writers had to do. My theory is that Anton was in over her head.
So here are Anton's novels. In the next parts of this blog-series, we'll get into spoilers, and even note The Sime~Gen Connection to Anton's trilogy. And there is a connection, but not philosophical. It has to do with research into medieval techniques for making dye for wool! Also for making woolen cloth, though I never mentioned that in House of Zeor.
There is a Kindle version, but it's in that "overpriced" range at $12.99 at least at the time I'm writing this. There are a lot of used copies, probably because they aren't rereadable or keepers.
I don't think these books are worth their price, in and of themselves. If you can get them from a lending library, or find a used copy, so much the better. You may want to take marginal notes as you learn from analyzing this material.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
"Advanced" doesn't actually mean you can't do it if you haven't done the previous work. But it does mean you have to be able to walk and chew gum, juggle some plates, wrangle a passel of kids, and shout at the mailman not to molest the dog, all at the same time.
Some people learn better under pressure, some people don't want to know how they do what they do, and some (like me) prefer to read the last chapter of the textbook first, then browse quickly through the first chapter and try the exercises and problems in the middle before deciding if there's anything worth learning in this textbook.
So here we are in the "middle" of learning to craft a novel, Romance or otherwise. I'm just more comfortable with the Romance plot dynamics than with plain, pure, action, or the kind of Mystery where the detective isn't personally involved in the issues raised by the crime and criminal.
In searching for clear writing lessons for you, I've stumbled on a trilogy of books, published by PLUME an imprint of PENGUIN BOOKS (huge, international publisher - this is the big time publishing venue, folks!) which I'm sure the author and the editor believe are novels. And now a lot of writing students will think so, too, just because these got published by a big publisher (and are selling well.) They will be imitated.
If you have objected to my explanations of the importance of structure in crafting a novel, you may consider the high profile publishing of these three books to prove your point. But you might change your mind about that after you read some of one of these novels.
Some people, readers not writers or editors, who've read these books think they're novels, too.
In my judgement, they aren't novels, and I'm going to try to explain why I think that.
The explanation may not mean anything to you unless you read at least part of one of these books and contrast it to something like, say Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain novels (or many of her Historical Horror genre items). But I'm sure most of you have read dozens if not hundreds of good Historical Romances, not to mention alternate history and time travel Romance.
These books are Historicals, set between 1040 and 1105 C.E.
Katherine Kurtz's Deryni novels are set in that period (almost - she uses the 900's as a model) but in an alternate universe. If you haven't read the Deryni series, you probably need to. Start with Deryni Rising and move quickly on to see how Katherine's writing craftsmanship developed very quickly -- then contrast that with the 3 novels I'm talking about here.
Katherine Kurtz structures trilogies correctly. C. J. Cherryh structures trilogies correctly (though her earliest published work has a few nice flaws that you can learn from).
This author, Maggie Anton, did not structure her trilogy with that kind of high-craft precision. She used a different technique, also in wide use, but not nearly as effective. I don't know if that's because she'd never read Cherryh and Kurtz or if she chose a technique inappropriate to her material on purpose, or if she didn't know there exists a plethora of techniques for handling this kind of material so she didn't know she had a choice to make. I don't know Maggie Anton personally, though I know Cherryh and Kurtz personally and learned from them (we learned from Marion Zimmer Bradley and I don't know if Maggie Anton ever read MZB or met her).
Maggie Anton on Amazon
That link goes to the product page on Amazon that lists 4 items by Maggie Anton, this trilogy and a book about the subject. I couldn't find anything else with that byline, and I don't know if this author writes under other bylines.
From the list of what I don't know, you can see that I can only discuss this trilogy on the basis of what's actually in the stories and how they are structured -- and what might have been done with the raw research material. I can point you to where the various techniques I have discussed on this blog were not used, and so you can judge if the lack makes the text awkward or boring.
The trilogy does contain arranged marriages and true-love marriages, accidentally marrying a gay guy (or maybe he's bi though others he knows are gay), and even a bit of Medieval applied magic to spur sexuality within marriage. Each novel focuses on one of three sisters who have no brothers to follow in their father's footsteps -- the underlying theme is feminist. In fact, it's a very strong feminist polemic in spots.
There are some rather graphically detailed sex scenes, but not many. If that's what you read Romance for, these books will disappoint.
There are epidemic scenes where the disease is attributed to demons and the cures include blood letting and amulets against demons, and other standard practices in that time-frame. Great material for modern fantasy or Paranormal Romance.
Each of these three is billed as "A novel of Love" -- not specifically genre Romance -- "in Medieval France." On that, it actually delivers.
The trilogy seems to me to be even more awkward to market and sell than to write.
I'm going to discuss all three at once here, and I'll be rather more hyper-critical of the writing, the research, and the story itself than I usually am. I may say some things that might seem somewhat unkind, perhaps undeserved, about the author of this trilogy.
But I'm not talking to the author, or even about the author or editor since I don't know them. I'm analyzing a swatch of writing that I think needed more rewrite before publishing.
The other item in the pitch for these novels is the assertion that the research is good, deep and accurate. And as far as I can tell, that's mostly true.
Now to the third element in these novels that you need to keep in mind.
The novels are about the 3 daughters of a Talmudic scholar (the Talmud being the transcription of the explanation of the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible, the story of Moses) that was given to Moses by God, the same explanation that was given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then on Mount Sinai for Moses to give to the people and lead them to the Promised Land.
This Talmudic scholar, known as Rashi, is studied today, and most printings of the Torah have either footnotes or extensive commentary by Rashi. Rashi also wrote a commentary on the Talmud, which is studied today. Rashi wrote the introductory commentary, the elementary and literal commentary (not the esoteric commentary known as Kaballah). It's almost impossible to enter the study of this material by any other route than by studying Rashi.
Studying Torah without having heard of Rashi would be like studying Geometry without having heard of Aristotle or Pythagoras. Or maybe like studying astronomy without having heard of Kepler.
So Maggie Anton picked out one whopping HUGE and important subject area to write about, the almost unknown 3 daughters of Rashi whose husbands and sons are also almost as famous as Rashi because of how they continued his commentaries, and commented on his commentaries, and founded Talmudic academy traditions of their own. Their mothers, the 3 daughters of these novels, are lost in obscurity -- and now rescued by Maggie Anton in a monumental feat of research and meticulous deductive imagination.
The research had to have been as difficult as what Katherine Kurtz did to write her George Washington saga, (during which research, I was treated to a blow-by-blow description of the feats required to gain access to obscure material)
Or her WWII novel about the magical battle for Britain against the Nazis.
To create the Romance novel trilogy, Anton had to create and add a great deal of material, just as these other writers had to do. My theory is that Anton was in over her head.
So here are Anton's novels. In the next parts of this blog-series, we'll get into spoilers, and even note The Sime~Gen Connection to Anton's trilogy. And there is a connection, but not philosophical. It has to do with research into medieval techniques for making dye for wool! Also for making woolen cloth, though I never mentioned that in House of Zeor.
There is a Kindle version, but it's in that "overpriced" range at $12.99 at least at the time I'm writing this. There are a lot of used copies, probably because they aren't rereadable or keepers.
I don't think these books are worth their price, in and of themselves. If you can get them from a lending library, or find a used copy, so much the better. You may want to take marginal notes as you learn from analyzing this material.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Feisty, Sassy, Snarky, or Just Obnoxious?
I recently read a paranormal anthology that I won’t name because I’m going to say some negative things about two of the stories. In both of them, the kick-ass werewolf heroine has to work together with the hero in a crisis against her wishes. In each case, the heroine takes an instant dislike to the hero and shows it with outspoken rudeness. These reactions appear motivated only by snap judgments based on first impressions. In the first story, the hero is a vampire and the heroine doesn’t like vampires in general; in the second, the woman’s aversion comes from a quick decision about what type of man the character is. In other words, the characters’ initial dislike for the heroes springs mostly from prejudice, not an attractive quality for a protagonist to exhibit. The guys might actually be arrogant jerks, but we see no real evidence of that hypothesis before the women preemptively jump to that conclusion. Any not so gentlemanly behavior displayed by the heroes could just as well be a response to the heroines’ hostility.
Of course, the “slap, slap, kiss” motif (as TVtropes.org labels it) has been around in romance since at least Shakespeare. Sparks flying in a spirited argument often ignite sexual sparks. Also, the feisty heroine who stands up for herself to everyone, including the hero, has become one of the most popular character types in current romance fiction. Few readers would accept a timid, submissive heroine these days. But there’s a difference between feisty or “kick-ass” and plain insufferable. To me, a character who goes out of her way to pick fights with a man she’s just met comes across as the latter. Hostility between hero and heroine needs to have a believable motive. That’s a case where “show not tell” is vital—the author should demonstrate in action that there’s a good reason why two sympathetic characters we’re rooting for nevertheless interact like the proverbial cat and dog.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
Of course, the “slap, slap, kiss” motif (as TVtropes.org labels it) has been around in romance since at least Shakespeare. Sparks flying in a spirited argument often ignite sexual sparks. Also, the feisty heroine who stands up for herself to everyone, including the hero, has become one of the most popular character types in current romance fiction. Few readers would accept a timid, submissive heroine these days. But there’s a difference between feisty or “kick-ass” and plain insufferable. To me, a character who goes out of her way to pick fights with a man she’s just met comes across as the latter. Hostility between hero and heroine needs to have a believable motive. That’s a case where “show not tell” is vital—the author should demonstrate in action that there’s a good reason why two sympathetic characters we’re rooting for nevertheless interact like the proverbial cat and dog.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Story Springboards Part 1: Art Heists by Patricia McLinn
Today we have a wonderful article by Patricia McLinn on the romantic aspects of the Art Theif. We're all fans of Remington Steele, and It Takes A Thief, and now White Collar, but what is it about these television shows that are so fascinating to Romance readers?
Oh, and if you haven't read any Patricia McLinn titles, oh please do look up her novels! See end of her post for how to find her publications.
-----------GUEST POST BY PATRICA McLINN ------------
Oh, and if you haven't read any Patricia McLinn titles, oh please do look up her novels! See end of her post for how to find her publications.
-----------GUEST POST BY PATRICA McLINN ------------
Fiction, as
it turns out, is way better than fact when it comes to art heists.
But that’s
starting at the end of this blog, and I should take you back to the start,
which was my offhand Tweet wondering why art heists stir the imagination. That
sparked a Twitter/e-mail exchange on the topic with my esteemed blog hostess.
From what
seemed to be off the top of her head, Jacqueline listed nearly a dozen angles a
fiction writer could pursue while playing in the art heist sandbox
--There's the historical importance - holding a piece of history
--There's profit - the black market fence has a client if you can get the painting or statue
--There's stealing it to keep it just for yourself, very personal, very intimate.
--There's maybe the thief is a reincarnation of the painter or the subject and just wants the thing and doesn't know why?
--There's the simple thing like climbing a mountain -- break through their security because it's there (like hackers).
--There's just hurting the owner because you don't like him/her/it.
--There's striking back at the nose-in-the-air art-patron public because you don't like them.
--There's "liberating" the art from the dog-in-the-manger owner so that posterity can have it (stealing from the Nazis).
--There's keeping it from destruction in a shooting war (think recent events in Egypt).
--There are all the things about Art that make it interesting -- and then there's the whole D&D board game fascination with STEALING (the Thief character with all sorts of sub-traits).
--There's the whole "magical" dimension of how great art depicts or connects to the human Group Mind -- and all the voodoo that can be done that way.
As a
novelist, that list has me salivating.
However, I also have a background in journalism, including being an
editor at the Washington Post for mumble-mumble years. As Lawrence Block said
in the title of one of his wonderful books on writing, I love TELLING LIES FOR
FUN AND PROFIT – but I want to know when
I’m telling lies. Mark Twain gave great advice: “Get your facts first, and then
you can distort them as much as you please.”
So, I
started checking into why the public finds art heists romantic and alluring,
and the psychology behind art heists.
Sorry,
folks, the experts agree that to the extent that the public finds art heists
romantic and alluring, it’s because we don’t know the truth behind them. (Note
to anyone writing an article about art theft: Cary Grant went after jewels, not
art in TO CATCH A THIEF. Saw that wrong several places.)
Former
Scotland Yard detective Charles Hill is reported to have said that stealing
great works is less a daring act than a
sign of an unimaginative thief [[http://www.simoleonsense.com/the-psychology-of-art-thieves]],
because the thief is doomed to obtaining nothing near the true value of the
art.
Yet thieves
do steal art – reportedly as many as 20,000 pieces a year in Italy. [[http://www.artcrime.info/facts.htm]] Why?
Motivation One: USA Today [[http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-05-23-Parisartheist-motivation_N.htm]]
quoted Joel Silberberg, Director of the Division of Forensic Psychiatry at Northwestern University, as saying, “If you look back
historically at other pieces of stolen art, the motivation is idiosyncratic.
Look at the Mona Lisa's theft — taken from The Louvre in Paris in 1911 by an Italian patriot. He
resented that one of Italy's
greatest pieces of art was being displayed in France. So you get individual motivation
there, or a political motivation.”
(For more
on the 100th anniversary of the Mona Lisa theft earlier this year, click here.
[[http://blogs.artinfo.com/secrethistoryofart/tag/kempton-bunton]].)
Motivation Two: Said Hill: “Then
there’s the trophy-hunting art thieves. They don’t make much money at all and
cause themselves endless aggravation. But they enjoy doing it. It gives them a
buzz.”
Let’s call
those Crackpot 1 and Crackpot 2.
Motivation Three: Money.
A few of the money-motivated art thieves might be stealing to fulfill an
order from an unscrupulous art collector, but not many.
Instead,
according to the experts, most of the money garnered from art thefts goes to –
And here’s
where facts will forever change my view of the fiction.
-- organized crime and terrorism.
Yikes.
Makes the crackpots look appealing by contrast. But the crackpots are in the
minority when it comes to art thieves.
According
to the website of the Association for Researching into Crimes against Art
(known as ARCA[[http://www.artcrime.info/facts.htm]]): “Most art crime since
the 1960s is perpetrated either by, or on behalf of, international organized
crime syndicates.”
ARCA, citing
information it “compiled
from sources including Interpol, the FBI, Scotland Yard, Carabinieri,
independent research and ARCA projects,” also says, “Art crime
represents the third highest grossing criminal enterprise worldwide, behind
only drugs and arms trafficking. It brings in $2-6 billion per year, most
of which goes to fund international organized crime syndicates.”
That just
ground my image of the dashing art thief into dust.
Two other
areas of art theft (though not heists) that greatly concern the experts are
fraud/forgeries (so the Audrey Hepburn-Peter O’Toole movie HOW TO STEAL A MILLION
is practically a documentary, right?) and theft by destruction, most often
perpetrated by repressive groups (think of the Taliban’s destruction of the
Bamyan statues.)
So, have
the facts taken all the fun out of the fiction?
Not,
necessarily. First, of course, there’s
that whole fiction thing -- as in we make stuff up. As fiction writers, we don’t have to adhere
to the most statistically likely thing to happen.
Also, there
are some intriguing elements among the facts.
Take ARCA.
Among other
things, it offers a blog with current art-theft news [[http://art-crime.blogspot.com/]].
(Forgive them the incorrect “it’s”.)
There’s
also the history of Noah Charney, founding director of ARCA. He says he
developed an interest in art crime while researching a novel, THE ART THIEF.
“I am most interested in the field from a practical
standpoint—how the academic study can help to inform contemporary law
enforcement and art protection,” he says on his website[[http://www.noahcharney.com/bio.htm]].
In June 2006 he held a conference “in Cambridge entitled ‘Art Theft: History,
Prevention, Detection, Solution.’ It was
attended by the heads of the FBI, Scotland Yard, and Carabinieri Art squads
(Vernon Rapley, and Col. Giovanni Pastore) as well as academics and art
professionals with interest, if not previous experience, in the study of art
crime” and since then, he says, he has
forged alliances with the law enforcement experts.
How about
pitting a Charney-esque character against a terrorist mastermind in a clock-ticking
effort to protect, oh, say, a Vermeer exhibit?
If that
doesn’t get your fiction-writing juices going, how about this:
The
should-be-world-renowned Museum of Bad Art (MOBA), in Somerville, Mass.,
has been the victim of two art heists.
First, the
painting Eileen was taken in 1966. According to the museum’s Wikipedia
entry [[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Bad_Art]],
“The museum offered a reward of $6.50 for the return of Eileen,” and donors
later increasing the reward to $36.73. To no avail. A decade later, someone
claiming to be the thief demanded a $5,000 ransom. MOBA refused. The painting
was returned.
Despite a
sign proclaiming "Warning. This gallery is protected by fake video
cameras", another criminal struck in 2004, leaving a note demanding $10
for Rebecca Harris' Self Portrait as a Drainpipe. This time, the art was
returned soon after the theft … with a $10 donation.
If these
heinous crimes don’t stir your imagination, you are far too stolid a soul to be
writing fiction.
~ ~ ~
Patricia McLinn [[http://www.PatriciaMclinn.com]] is the author of
26 novels, focusing (as much as she focuses on anything) on relationships. Many are now available as e-books at the
major outlets. She encourages you to purchase those she’s indie published
(without overtly urging you not to buy those from a publisher.) Her first
non-fiction book – WORD WATCH: A Writer’s Guide to the Slippery, Sneaky, and
Otherwise Tricky -- draws on her mumble-mumble years as an editor at the
Washington Post and a lifetime of cranky reading. Her first mystery will be
released in June 2012, and at that time she will encourage you to buy from that
publisher.
You can follow Patricia at Twitter [[http://twitter.com/PatriciaMcLinn]]
and Facebook [[https://www.facebook.com/PatriciaMcLinn]]. WORD WATCH Tweets
[[http://twitter.com/WordWatchBook]] and Facebooks [[https://www.facebook.com/WordWatchTheBook]]
for itself.
---------- END GUEST POST BY PATRICIA MCLINN -----------
POSTED BY JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Part 2 of this series is at
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/story-springboards-part-2-tv-shows.html
Parts 3 and 4 will be:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-4-art-of.html
Part 2 of this series is at
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/story-springboards-part-2-tv-shows.html
Parts 3 and 4 will be:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-4-art-of.html
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Happy Last Year
If every rational person, and every superstitious person came to the conclusion that the Mayans were correct, and that we will all go extinct this year (2012), how would your New Year's Resolutions be different?
You probably wouldn't pay your mortgage. Right? You might not bother to start dieting/exercising/stop smoking. There would be no point occupying Virgin Galactic or NASA, because they are unable to follow Stephen Hawking's advice and get a lucky few with pepper spray to that new, Earth-like planet that's been discovered.
In 2010, Stephen Hawking warned:
And
He may have been thinking about radiation, global warming, and sustainability, rather than geo-political tensions and a level of social unrest that reminds me of the French Revolution... and apparently I am not alone, given that Governor Mitt Romney is quoted as comparing President Obama to the tragic queen of France, Marie Antoinette.
Governor Romney appears to be focusing on extravagance, and his unfair populist quote is historically suspect. No Historian, Mitt. Marie Antoinette got the short end of a very dirty stick from her contemporaries and from History.
However...
Apparently, the Commune Of Paris (think of a successful OWC) refused to allow Marie Antoinette a pair of nail scissors to trim her fingernails. (Think TSA).
Beaming back to Stephen Hawking.....
Is it possible that that Earth-like planet is already inhabited by intelligent beings? What if they are more intelligent than we are?
Hawking stated in an interview with The Times (of London, presumably), quoted here
"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans," he allegedly told the AFP.
(Think "Independence Day". Or "An Ant's Life". )
"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet," Hawking has suggested. "I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach."
Ironically, this is exactly what Hawking appears to suggest that we ought to do.
And then, there is the Internet, which is becoming increasingly lawless.... which is why I think of the French Revolution when confronting online advocates for the abolition of copyright (through mass uncivil disobedience/ignorance of the law, of what is in the Terms Of Service of the OSPs and ISPs contracts they signed).
I sometimes wonder why Internet Service Providers and Online Service Providers publish "Terms Of Service" and those lengthy Agreements that everyone scrolls through to click the "I Agree" box.
Does anyone know?
Since SocialGo, for example, has no duty to monitor the content of its users, does it post this for Brownie Points?
And, when users DO violate the Service Terms, and this is pointed out to Social Go, why does Social Go turn a blind eye? Because they can? (And even SOPA or IP Protect would allow them to continue to do so.)
Here is an example of what I'm talking about.
It's a cynical promotional gambit by a shameless alleged copyright infringer who sells (for a lifetime subscription of $9.95 paid via PayPal) thousands links to illegally uploaded Fiction e-books, audio books, music albums, For Dummies educational works (Wiley sues downloaders, folks!) first run movies including (allegedly) the new "Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows", Real Steel,copyrighted games, software programs, and music albums.... including the new Disney compilation "Now That's What I Call Disney" six days before it officially went on sale on Amazon.
He is also paid (one assumes) by foreign site Filesonic.com, which pays commissions up to $17 per sale to resellers of Filesonic subscriptions (which make it possible to download a large file containing, for instance 380 For Dummies e-books), and which advertises "Make Money Sharing Links."
By the way, here's the joke of the century,
Alas, Filesonic had a December promotion paying uploaders $35 for every 1,000 downloads. Do they think that Big Six bestselling authors really have the rights to undercut their publishers, and sell 1000 digital copies of their books for $35?
Via his groups on googlegroups and yahoogroups, the Freetard Bastard writes: (Approximately.... I have changed a few key words to protect the innocent.)
Disclaimer: Groups such as this change their name about as often as pirates change their underwear. To the best of my knowledge, none is to date called Freetard (prefer definition 2) so the links should go to a 404.
If no one can stop this sort of thing, and Google is allegedly spending a fortune to make sure no one can stop it, 2012 may not be the last year for the planet, but it could be the last year that American copyright law has any relevance. The Sans Culottes are occupying the Internet.
Happy New Year!
You probably wouldn't pay your mortgage. Right? You might not bother to start dieting/exercising/stop smoking. There would be no point occupying Virgin Galactic or NASA, because they are unable to follow Stephen Hawking's advice and get a lucky few with pepper spray to that new, Earth-like planet that's been discovered.
In 2010, Stephen Hawking warned:
"I see great dangers for the human race ......
And
"....we are entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history. Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth, are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill."
He may have been thinking about radiation, global warming, and sustainability, rather than geo-political tensions and a level of social unrest that reminds me of the French Revolution... and apparently I am not alone, given that Governor Mitt Romney is quoted as comparing President Obama to the tragic queen of France, Marie Antoinette.
Governor Romney appears to be focusing on extravagance, and his unfair populist quote is historically suspect. No Historian, Mitt. Marie Antoinette got the short end of a very dirty stick from her contemporaries and from History.
However...
"....Marie Antoinette remained convinced of the divine right of kings. In coded letters from captivity, she describes the democratic ideal as a "tissue of absurdities"."
Apparently, the Commune Of Paris (think of a successful OWC) refused to allow Marie Antoinette a pair of nail scissors to trim her fingernails. (Think TSA).
Beaming back to Stephen Hawking.....
Is it possible that that Earth-like planet is already inhabited by intelligent beings? What if they are more intelligent than we are?
Hawking stated in an interview with The Times (of London, presumably), quoted here
"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational”....The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like."
(Think "Independence Day". Or "An Ant's Life". )
Ironically, this is exactly what Hawking appears to suggest that we ought to do.
And then, there is the Internet, which is becoming increasingly lawless.... which is why I think of the French Revolution when confronting online advocates for the abolition of copyright (through mass uncivil disobedience/ignorance of the law, of what is in the Terms Of Service of the OSPs and ISPs contracts they signed).
I sometimes wonder why Internet Service Providers and Online Service Providers publish "Terms Of Service" and those lengthy Agreements that everyone scrolls through to click the "I Agree" box.
Does anyone know?
Since SocialGo, for example, has no duty to monitor the content of its users, does it post this for Brownie Points?
- You will violate the Service Terms if you or any Users do any of the following:
- Copy, reproduce, duplicate, upload, post, host, display or perform (publicly or otherwise), market, advertise, promote, distribute, transmit, or otherwise disseminate any content or materials (including, without limitation, any related data or information):
- that are illegal or otherwise promote or encourage any illegal activity (including, without limitation, hacking, cracking, or the distribution of counterfeit software, or any products or services derived from any such activities); or
- that you do not own or have permission to freely distribute; or
- that violates any laws or regulations worldwide.
And, when users DO violate the Service Terms, and this is pointed out to Social Go, why does Social Go turn a blind eye? Because they can? (And even SOPA or IP Protect would allow them to continue to do so.)
Here is an example of what I'm talking about.
It's a cynical promotional gambit by a shameless alleged copyright infringer who sells (for a lifetime subscription of $9.95 paid via PayPal) thousands links to illegally uploaded Fiction e-books, audio books, music albums, For Dummies educational works (Wiley sues downloaders, folks!) first run movies including (allegedly) the new "Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows", Real Steel,copyrighted games, software programs, and music albums.... including the new Disney compilation "Now That's What I Call Disney" six days before it officially went on sale on Amazon.
He is also paid (one assumes) by foreign site Filesonic.com, which pays commissions up to $17 per sale to resellers of Filesonic subscriptions (which make it possible to download a large file containing, for instance 380 For Dummies e-books), and which advertises "Make Money Sharing Links."
By the way, here's the joke of the century,
"Please note that FileSonic maintains a strict intellectual property policy. By using the service, you represent and warrant that you are the author and copyright owner and/or proper licensee with respect to any content and you further represent and warrant that no content violates the intellectual property rights of any third party."
Alas, Filesonic had a December promotion paying uploaders $35 for every 1,000 downloads. Do they think that Big Six bestselling authors really have the rights to undercut their publishers, and sell 1000 digital copies of their books for $35?
Via his groups on googlegroups and yahoogroups, the Freetard Bastard writes: (Approximately.... I have changed a few key words to protect the innocent.)
Celebrate the new year; grab vip membership for nothing!
Dear Members
Freetardbastard now offers standard digital parasites the opportunity to grab their 'lifetime' VIP membership to their club for nothing, to those that help spread the word!
All you have to do is simply invite 12 people (family, friends or work colleagues) to view their website... it's as easy as that, and you save $9.95
Full instructions can be found on the following page:
This is a nice bonus aimed at standard copyright infringers who are happy to promote the service and for those that can't afford to pay the VIP membership fee, but who would still like the extra benefits!
I wish you all a HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!
Regards
Max
FREETARD Club Admin
This message is being sent to you because you or the author are a member of ClubFreetard, a network created using SocialGO. If you are interested in creating your own network, please click here.
Disclaimer: Groups such as this change their name about as often as pirates change their underwear. To the best of my knowledge, none is to date called Freetard (prefer definition 2) so the links should go to a 404.
If no one can stop this sort of thing, and Google is allegedly spending a fortune to make sure no one can stop it, 2012 may not be the last year for the planet, but it could be the last year that American copyright law has any relevance. The Sans Culottes are occupying the Internet.
Happy New Year!
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Holiday Greetings
Happy Yuletide! Keep in mind that Christmas officially lasts until January 6 (Epiphany, aka Twelfth Night). According to THE BATTLE FOR CHRISTMAS by Stephen Nissenbaum, in some parts of medieval Europe the celebratory season continued until February 2 (Candlemas, best known to us as Groundhog Day), when the agricultural labors of the new year had to begin. Nissenbaum's book reveals that the Puritans had good reasons, in their worldview, for banning Christmas festivities. The true "old-fashioned, traditional" Christmas wasn't what we think of. That family-centered holiday was invented in the nineteenth century. The REAL traditional Christmas would look to us like a combination of Halloween, Mardi Gras, Thanksgiving, and New Year's Eve. Besides the feasting that we've retained in our own customs, the season focused on heavy drinking, noisemaking, licentious behavior in general, reversal of social roles, and the lower classes wandering from house to house making more or less cheerful demands for food, drink, and money, as memorialized in wassailing songs. In most of premodern Europe (as Nissenbaum explains), December was the only part of the agricultural year when people had both leisure and plenty of food, the one time when fresh meat in abundance was available. It's interesting to contemplate how different life in that seasonal cycle was from our present-day culture, where refrigeration and global transport bring even the poorest of us a variety of foods even the rich couldn't have imagined in the preindustrial world. According to THE BATTLE FOR CHRISTMAS, it was just this pagan seasonal cycle that the Puritans wanted to obliterate. As Nissenbaum puts it, people had always celebrated the winter solstice with feasting and carousing, and the Church, in consecrating December 25 to the birth of Jesus, tacitly allowed the festivities to go on pretty much as they always had. Christmas "has always been a difficult holiday to Christianize."
From the very beginning of the family-centered Christmas in the Victorian era, commercialization has accompanied the holiday and observers have complained about greed obscuring the spirit of the season. C. S. Lewis in the 1950s wrote an essay about "Xmas" and Christmas, lamenting what he called "the commercial racket." Apparently some things haven't changed much in almost sixty years. Yet I realize in some ways Christmas as I knew it in childhood must have been quite different from my parents' childhood holidays in the 1930s. Likewise, our children and now grandchildren have had Christmases in some ways like "the ones we used to know" and in other ways clearly different.
Speaking of "the ones we used to know," how many people in the U.S. who grew up outside New England or the northern parts of the Midwest remember white Christmases? In most of the places we've lived that had snow at all, it was rare before January. Just one example of how culture and the media shape our expectations. My stepmother loved snow and always yearned for a white Christmas, something she probably never saw during her childhood in the tidewater area of North Carolina. Not to mention sleighs with bells!
Here's the full text of "Just Like the Ones We Used to Know" by Connie Willis, a humorous fantasy tale in which the wish for a white Christmas gets fulfilled all too thoroughly:
Just Like the Ones We Used to Know
If you watched the TV series BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, you’ll recall their solstice celebration, Winterfest, adapted for the conditions of their own small subculture. Imagine how our holidays will morph into new forms while retaining the "spirit" of their original meanings as we move forward through the twenty-first century and eventually travel from this planet into space.
And speaking of space, for a midwinter treat here's a page of links to holiday SF filk songs by Suzette Haden Elgin:
Ozarque's Journal
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
From the very beginning of the family-centered Christmas in the Victorian era, commercialization has accompanied the holiday and observers have complained about greed obscuring the spirit of the season. C. S. Lewis in the 1950s wrote an essay about "Xmas" and Christmas, lamenting what he called "the commercial racket." Apparently some things haven't changed much in almost sixty years. Yet I realize in some ways Christmas as I knew it in childhood must have been quite different from my parents' childhood holidays in the 1930s. Likewise, our children and now grandchildren have had Christmases in some ways like "the ones we used to know" and in other ways clearly different.
Speaking of "the ones we used to know," how many people in the U.S. who grew up outside New England or the northern parts of the Midwest remember white Christmases? In most of the places we've lived that had snow at all, it was rare before January. Just one example of how culture and the media shape our expectations. My stepmother loved snow and always yearned for a white Christmas, something she probably never saw during her childhood in the tidewater area of North Carolina. Not to mention sleighs with bells!
Here's the full text of "Just Like the Ones We Used to Know" by Connie Willis, a humorous fantasy tale in which the wish for a white Christmas gets fulfilled all too thoroughly:
Just Like the Ones We Used to Know
If you watched the TV series BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, you’ll recall their solstice celebration, Winterfest, adapted for the conditions of their own small subculture. Imagine how our holidays will morph into new forms while retaining the "spirit" of their original meanings as we move forward through the twenty-first century and eventually travel from this planet into space.
And speaking of space, for a midwinter treat here's a page of links to holiday SF filk songs by Suzette Haden Elgin:
Ozarque's Journal
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Dialogue Part 2 - On And Off The Nose
Part 1 of this series was not labeled Part 1, but it is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/dialogue-as-tool.html
This Part 2 is an advanced lesson on writing. Below you'll find a links to a plethora of relevant posts I've done here previously, because the subject of Dialogue integrates all the techniques I've discussed.
And no, we're not talking here about characters who talk "down their nose" at other characters, or who stick their nose into others' business. The metaphor is about "hitting it on the nose." Saying exactly what you mean, defining things exactly, is "hitting it on the nose." You "hit it on the nose" when you "reveal" something very concrete and specific about a murky topic, when you clarify matters, when you eliminate confusion, when you shatter an illusion.
The term "on the nose dialogue" is from screenwriting, well, play writing too. On the nose dialogue is one reason that a script would be returned unread. If the first line of dialogue on page one is "on the nose" the script will be rejected.
This is often true in novel or story writing as well, though you might get 5 pages to show you know how to keep dialogue off the nose.
There is nothing more "murky" than the emotional life of a human being. When you "reveal" that inner dialogue as spoken dialogue, you are writing dialogue that is "on the nose." It's a tool in the writer's toolbox, and it can be used to devastating artistic effect, but first the writer must master that tool.
And the first step toward mastery is definition.
"Advertising copy" is a blatant example of "on the nose" writing.
An ad just says what it means. If it doesn't, you get the effect we see with so many TV commercials (which I have recommended you study for "show don't tell" techniques) where there's an amusing image or sequence, and you can't recall what product the ad is selling.
"Aflac" uses the repetition of the duck advising the injured that they need this insurance -- relying on the silly quack sound of the company's name to nail the message on the nose.
"Verizon" is having great success following Suzi's Lemonade stand to international corporation because of ease of communication using Verizon's tools -- but the commercial, while engaging, and on-the-nose about communications, doesn't differentiate Verizon from AT&T. Suzy might do as well with AT&T or another carrier, we can't tell from the commercial. But I do remember Suzy and I do associate her with Verizon, so it's a success.
Who can forget the "Energizer Bunny?"
So advertisements have to be "on the nose." If you're selling a better razor blade, show it in the garage in a puddle as months pass, and not rusting. Show someone picking it up, putting it in a razor holder, and shaving with it -- no cuts. If you're selling razor blades, show a razor blade. Show how yours is different from Gillette's.
That's on the nose.
People, on the other hand, in real life, don't talk "on the nose."
One of the reasons most books on the craft of writing don't actually help new writers learn the craft is that such books are usually about the craft -- i.e. OFF the nose, off the topic.
If you pick up a writing craft textbook, what do you expect to find inside? What topic should it cover?
As I was learning this craft, (and even today) the topic I keep hoping to find inside "how to" books on writing is what you do with your mind to create a story others will enjoy. You know about the craft or you wouldn't have found the book. Now you want to know the craft itself. You want to do it.
You need the concepts, some examples, and some ways to isolate specific craft functions and practice them in isolation.
That's like a piano student learning scales instead of whole musical compositions.
After you learn the scale, you try a short, small, composition using that scale, and you perform the composition. You don't start learning piano by writing your own compositions (most don't.) You start learning by performing someone else's compositions.
Writing is also a performing art, as I have said I learned from my first professional writing teacher, Alma Hill.
I've introduced you to some of the "scales" involved in writing: worldbuilding, conflict, theme, plot, characterization, etc. And now we're working on "Chopsticks" our first composition, "Dialogue."
What exactly is dialogue? Where do you get it?
In real life, women tend to keep their conversation (not dialogue; that's for fictional characters) farther away from the nose than men do. Workplace interactions (men or women in the USA) tend to be more on the nose than household interactions.
Of all the topics people converse about, Relationship and especially the Love Relationship, usually stay the farthest off-the-nose. They have to be off the nose if they are to communicate real, reliable, meaning.
Yep. The way to be reliably understood is to avoid saying what you mean!
In other words, in certain circumstances, to communicate you have to say what you mean, and in other circumstances you have to avoid saying what you mean in order to be understood.
Writers have to take that variation in behavior into account when creating dialogue.
Characters will speak differently to each other depending on where they are and what they're doing, as well as on who they are, and who they are to each other. Every line of dialogue you create is a synthesis of all the techniques we've explored so far.
Perhaps we should coin the term "dialogue-building" because writing dialogue is very much like worldbuilding.
Dialogue is not a recording of real speech. Dialogue is to real speech as a Japanese Brush Painting is to a Photograph. Dialogue is emblematic of speech. It's symbolic of speech.
Ultimately, great dialogue gives the firm illusion of real speech.
The line between a reader and a writer can easily be defined as the line between someone who perceives dialogue as speech, and someone who can see through that illusion to the gears-wheels-and-grease inside the dialogue that creates the illusion of speech.
People speak to each other because they have something to say -- to that person.
Many people get upset if you forward something they've written to you on to someone they don't even know (or worse, someone they don't like). The reaction is, "I would have written it differently if I'd known so-and-so would see it." People talk that way, too. Think about how specific our phrasing is in terms of who we expect to see or hear.
We put our real message, the real information we want another person to believe, in "subtext" not "text." That's why "keywords" don't really work -- to say something important, you don't use the vocabulary of that subject. If you use the vocabulary of that subject, then what you are saying will not be believed. It's the text under the text (the body language, tone of voice, choice of off-topic vocabulary, allusions, associations) that carry the real information. That tendency to use subtext (to talk with your hands, and blurt "you know" every few words) is the part of communication that a writer must emulate in dialogue but without the "you know" interjections. (because "you know" you don't really know which is why I'm telling you, "you know?")
That's why we phrase things we say in a special and different way for each person we talk to. The "subtext" or "relationship" is different, so the wording must be different.
Here are some of my posts mentioning subtext:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/12/flintstones-vs-lone-ranger.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/05/tv-show-white-collar-fanfic-and-show.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-exactly-is-editing-part-v.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-to-change-perception-of-romance.html
To maintain the illusion that your characters are real, you must take into account how they would talk differently to this character than to that character. That variance is learned under the topic of "Characterization."
Does this character talk to his boss differently than he talks to his father? If yes, then he's one kind of character. If no, then he's another.
Dialogue is not two characters talking to each other -- it's the writer talking to the reader through these two hand-puppets called characters.
The quality of the dialogue-writing is judged not on what the characters say to each other, but on how firmly the illusion is maintained that the writer does not exist, that the audience does not exist.
In stagecraft, that's called the Fourth Wall. It's the wall between the audience and the stage, the transparent wall we look through into this other world where the characters live, but that the characters see as a solid wall.
Break that illusion, and POOF - the rest of your illusions are gone. All that worldbuilding and arduous suspension of disbelief POOF, GONE.
So how do you maintain this illusion that these characters are talking to each other, not the audience? You use the set of techniques I've discussed in this blog as "Information Feed."
Here are four posts specifically discussing this topic, but from other angles.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/sexy-information-feed.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/10/heart-of-light-by-sarah-hoyt.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/11/information-feed-tricks-and-tips-for_23.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/12/information-feed-tricks-and-tips-for.html
And you need to employ all the tips and tricks from my posts on the Expository Lump. You must never use Dialogue for either "Information Feed" or "Exposition" because that breaks the fourth-wall, the illusion that these characters are real people, the illusion that they're talking speech not dialogue.
Here are some posts on Exposition:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/source-of-expository-lump.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/dissing-formula-novel.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/source-of-expository-lump-part-2.html
Check out Part 11 of my series on Astrology Just For Writers which was posted on November 1, 2011
Here are some of my previous posts mentioning Dialogue:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/dialogue-as-tool.html
Now, to the example that may illuminate all this for you, so you can practice this composition, this "Chopsticks" rendition.
Listen to a great writer (I'm not kidding, this is one terrific writer) play Chopsticks on his characters.
Here is Simon R. Green who has such complete mastery of all these techniques that he probably can't tell you how he does it.
Here is a list of his more current titles:
List of Simon R. Green titles
Here's a new series he's doing which uses such blatant "on the nose" dialogue in the most appropriately inappropriate places that you know it's done as broad comedy:
The opening chapter is a great example to learn from.
The characters are a field team of ghost hunters approaching a building and setting up their equipment.
Green uses dialogue (which for these characters is workplace dialogue and should be "on the nose") to give you all the worldbuilding exposition and feed you all sorts of information on the characters and their most recent adventures. But he uses the "on the nose" dialogue to have the characters tell each other things the characters already know (a huge violation of all the rules of dialogue writing).
The genius in this piece is in the rhythm and pacing.
Green has captured the very essence of the earliest science fiction style of awkward, blatant and even childish dialogue, and he's done it in such a way that you know he knows he's doing it to you on purpose.
He's playing with you, the reader, in a subtle way of buddies. He telegraphs that he expects you to come into his world and play for a while, just for fun.
Your Assignment, Should You Decide To Accept It
Use the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon to get the first chapter (or download the Kindle sample). Or better yet, buy the book so you can finish reading the whole thing. As soon as the characters finish with this building, they're off on yet another assignment that's even more dire. So you can take this first chapter in isolation and work with it.
REWRITE that first chapter, pulling all the dialogue off the nose, re-coding the exposition and information feed that's currently inside the dialogue into a combination of a) description, b) narrative c) internalized thoughts d) sensory impressions e) show-don't-tell imagery (you can add things and give the characters "business" with things) f) exposition.
Remember, the 4 kinds of text you find in fiction are:
a) dialogue
b) description
c) narrative
d) exposition
Ideally, each sentence or paragraph should be a smooth mixture of all of those.
Simon R. Green is one of the best writers working in this field today. I couldn't have produced a piece this exemplary for you to practice on. This will work for you as a dialogue "Chopsticks" composition to learn on only because it's so incredibly well done.
This first chapter carefully avoids going "off the nose" even when it would have been easier.
If you read his other books, (he has several dynamite series going) you'll see he does know how to do what you're just practicing here.
It doesn't matter how good you already are at dialogue, you can benefit from this exercise. I was doing this in my head as I read it, and laughing until my ribs hurt.
Your assignment is to turn this archaic rhythm&pacing exercise into a much more "modern" sounding piece. And if you can manage it, convert all the comedy into drama, or even horror, inject some Romance (not at all hard considering).
Change the genre by shifting the dialogue off the nose. Make up stuff about the characters, make them your own, just as you would if you were playing Chopsticks -- creating a unique rendition all your own just as you would if you were playing Chopsticks for the first time.
You know you have to throw away the result of this exercise -- don't plagiarize -- but play this Chopsticks composition. Render it to the limits of your abilitiy, and you will grow.
Just as if you were playing Chopsticks for the very first time, you really don't want anyone to hear or see you do this! But the results will be visible in your writing forever.
BTW: I just started reading another new Simon R. Green novel this one in his NIGHTSIDE series - gorgeously executed, solid storytelling, great work. This is one writer worth studying carefully, on the whole, not just a few pages of one novel.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/dialogue-as-tool.html
This Part 2 is an advanced lesson on writing. Below you'll find a links to a plethora of relevant posts I've done here previously, because the subject of Dialogue integrates all the techniques I've discussed.
And no, we're not talking here about characters who talk "down their nose" at other characters, or who stick their nose into others' business. The metaphor is about "hitting it on the nose." Saying exactly what you mean, defining things exactly, is "hitting it on the nose." You "hit it on the nose" when you "reveal" something very concrete and specific about a murky topic, when you clarify matters, when you eliminate confusion, when you shatter an illusion.
The term "on the nose dialogue" is from screenwriting, well, play writing too. On the nose dialogue is one reason that a script would be returned unread. If the first line of dialogue on page one is "on the nose" the script will be rejected.
This is often true in novel or story writing as well, though you might get 5 pages to show you know how to keep dialogue off the nose.
There is nothing more "murky" than the emotional life of a human being. When you "reveal" that inner dialogue as spoken dialogue, you are writing dialogue that is "on the nose." It's a tool in the writer's toolbox, and it can be used to devastating artistic effect, but first the writer must master that tool.
And the first step toward mastery is definition.
"Advertising copy" is a blatant example of "on the nose" writing.
An ad just says what it means. If it doesn't, you get the effect we see with so many TV commercials (which I have recommended you study for "show don't tell" techniques) where there's an amusing image or sequence, and you can't recall what product the ad is selling.
"Aflac" uses the repetition of the duck advising the injured that they need this insurance -- relying on the silly quack sound of the company's name to nail the message on the nose.
"Verizon" is having great success following Suzi's Lemonade stand to international corporation because of ease of communication using Verizon's tools -- but the commercial, while engaging, and on-the-nose about communications, doesn't differentiate Verizon from AT&T. Suzy might do as well with AT&T or another carrier, we can't tell from the commercial. But I do remember Suzy and I do associate her with Verizon, so it's a success.
Who can forget the "Energizer Bunny?"
So advertisements have to be "on the nose." If you're selling a better razor blade, show it in the garage in a puddle as months pass, and not rusting. Show someone picking it up, putting it in a razor holder, and shaving with it -- no cuts. If you're selling razor blades, show a razor blade. Show how yours is different from Gillette's.
That's on the nose.
People, on the other hand, in real life, don't talk "on the nose."
One of the reasons most books on the craft of writing don't actually help new writers learn the craft is that such books are usually about the craft -- i.e. OFF the nose, off the topic.
If you pick up a writing craft textbook, what do you expect to find inside? What topic should it cover?
As I was learning this craft, (and even today) the topic I keep hoping to find inside "how to" books on writing is what you do with your mind to create a story others will enjoy. You know about the craft or you wouldn't have found the book. Now you want to know the craft itself. You want to do it.
You need the concepts, some examples, and some ways to isolate specific craft functions and practice them in isolation.
That's like a piano student learning scales instead of whole musical compositions.
After you learn the scale, you try a short, small, composition using that scale, and you perform the composition. You don't start learning piano by writing your own compositions (most don't.) You start learning by performing someone else's compositions.
Writing is also a performing art, as I have said I learned from my first professional writing teacher, Alma Hill.
I've introduced you to some of the "scales" involved in writing: worldbuilding, conflict, theme, plot, characterization, etc. And now we're working on "Chopsticks" our first composition, "Dialogue."
What exactly is dialogue? Where do you get it?
In real life, women tend to keep their conversation (not dialogue; that's for fictional characters) farther away from the nose than men do. Workplace interactions (men or women in the USA) tend to be more on the nose than household interactions.
Of all the topics people converse about, Relationship and especially the Love Relationship, usually stay the farthest off-the-nose. They have to be off the nose if they are to communicate real, reliable, meaning.
Yep. The way to be reliably understood is to avoid saying what you mean!
In other words, in certain circumstances, to communicate you have to say what you mean, and in other circumstances you have to avoid saying what you mean in order to be understood.
Writers have to take that variation in behavior into account when creating dialogue.
Characters will speak differently to each other depending on where they are and what they're doing, as well as on who they are, and who they are to each other. Every line of dialogue you create is a synthesis of all the techniques we've explored so far.
Perhaps we should coin the term "dialogue-building" because writing dialogue is very much like worldbuilding.
Dialogue is not a recording of real speech. Dialogue is to real speech as a Japanese Brush Painting is to a Photograph. Dialogue is emblematic of speech. It's symbolic of speech.
Ultimately, great dialogue gives the firm illusion of real speech.
The line between a reader and a writer can easily be defined as the line between someone who perceives dialogue as speech, and someone who can see through that illusion to the gears-wheels-and-grease inside the dialogue that creates the illusion of speech.
People speak to each other because they have something to say -- to that person.
Many people get upset if you forward something they've written to you on to someone they don't even know (or worse, someone they don't like). The reaction is, "I would have written it differently if I'd known so-and-so would see it." People talk that way, too. Think about how specific our phrasing is in terms of who we expect to see or hear.
We put our real message, the real information we want another person to believe, in "subtext" not "text." That's why "keywords" don't really work -- to say something important, you don't use the vocabulary of that subject. If you use the vocabulary of that subject, then what you are saying will not be believed. It's the text under the text (the body language, tone of voice, choice of off-topic vocabulary, allusions, associations) that carry the real information. That tendency to use subtext (to talk with your hands, and blurt "you know" every few words) is the part of communication that a writer must emulate in dialogue but without the "you know" interjections. (because "you know" you don't really know which is why I'm telling you, "you know?")
That's why we phrase things we say in a special and different way for each person we talk to. The "subtext" or "relationship" is different, so the wording must be different.
Here are some of my posts mentioning subtext:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/12/flintstones-vs-lone-ranger.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/05/tv-show-white-collar-fanfic-and-show.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-exactly-is-editing-part-v.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-to-change-perception-of-romance.html
To maintain the illusion that your characters are real, you must take into account how they would talk differently to this character than to that character. That variance is learned under the topic of "Characterization."
Does this character talk to his boss differently than he talks to his father? If yes, then he's one kind of character. If no, then he's another.
Dialogue is not two characters talking to each other -- it's the writer talking to the reader through these two hand-puppets called characters.
The quality of the dialogue-writing is judged not on what the characters say to each other, but on how firmly the illusion is maintained that the writer does not exist, that the audience does not exist.
In stagecraft, that's called the Fourth Wall. It's the wall between the audience and the stage, the transparent wall we look through into this other world where the characters live, but that the characters see as a solid wall.
Break that illusion, and POOF - the rest of your illusions are gone. All that worldbuilding and arduous suspension of disbelief POOF, GONE.
So how do you maintain this illusion that these characters are talking to each other, not the audience? You use the set of techniques I've discussed in this blog as "Information Feed."
Here are four posts specifically discussing this topic, but from other angles.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/sexy-information-feed.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/10/heart-of-light-by-sarah-hoyt.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/11/information-feed-tricks-and-tips-for_23.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/12/information-feed-tricks-and-tips-for.html
And you need to employ all the tips and tricks from my posts on the Expository Lump. You must never use Dialogue for either "Information Feed" or "Exposition" because that breaks the fourth-wall, the illusion that these characters are real people, the illusion that they're talking speech not dialogue.
Here are some posts on Exposition:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/source-of-expository-lump.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/dissing-formula-novel.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/source-of-expository-lump-part-2.html
Check out Part 11 of my series on Astrology Just For Writers which was posted on November 1, 2011
Here are some of my previous posts mentioning Dialogue:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/dialogue-as-tool.html
Now, to the example that may illuminate all this for you, so you can practice this composition, this "Chopsticks" rendition.
Listen to a great writer (I'm not kidding, this is one terrific writer) play Chopsticks on his characters.
Here is Simon R. Green who has such complete mastery of all these techniques that he probably can't tell you how he does it.
Here is a list of his more current titles:
List of Simon R. Green titles
Here's a new series he's doing which uses such blatant "on the nose" dialogue in the most appropriately inappropriate places that you know it's done as broad comedy:
The opening chapter is a great example to learn from.
The characters are a field team of ghost hunters approaching a building and setting up their equipment.
Green uses dialogue (which for these characters is workplace dialogue and should be "on the nose") to give you all the worldbuilding exposition and feed you all sorts of information on the characters and their most recent adventures. But he uses the "on the nose" dialogue to have the characters tell each other things the characters already know (a huge violation of all the rules of dialogue writing).
The genius in this piece is in the rhythm and pacing.
Green has captured the very essence of the earliest science fiction style of awkward, blatant and even childish dialogue, and he's done it in such a way that you know he knows he's doing it to you on purpose.
He's playing with you, the reader, in a subtle way of buddies. He telegraphs that he expects you to come into his world and play for a while, just for fun.
Your Assignment, Should You Decide To Accept It
Use the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon to get the first chapter (or download the Kindle sample). Or better yet, buy the book so you can finish reading the whole thing. As soon as the characters finish with this building, they're off on yet another assignment that's even more dire. So you can take this first chapter in isolation and work with it.
REWRITE that first chapter, pulling all the dialogue off the nose, re-coding the exposition and information feed that's currently inside the dialogue into a combination of a) description, b) narrative c) internalized thoughts d) sensory impressions e) show-don't-tell imagery (you can add things and give the characters "business" with things) f) exposition.
Remember, the 4 kinds of text you find in fiction are:
a) dialogue
b) description
c) narrative
d) exposition
Ideally, each sentence or paragraph should be a smooth mixture of all of those.
Simon R. Green is one of the best writers working in this field today. I couldn't have produced a piece this exemplary for you to practice on. This will work for you as a dialogue "Chopsticks" composition to learn on only because it's so incredibly well done.
This first chapter carefully avoids going "off the nose" even when it would have been easier.
If you read his other books, (he has several dynamite series going) you'll see he does know how to do what you're just practicing here.
It doesn't matter how good you already are at dialogue, you can benefit from this exercise. I was doing this in my head as I read it, and laughing until my ribs hurt.
Your assignment is to turn this archaic rhythm&pacing exercise into a much more "modern" sounding piece. And if you can manage it, convert all the comedy into drama, or even horror, inject some Romance (not at all hard considering).
Change the genre by shifting the dialogue off the nose. Make up stuff about the characters, make them your own, just as you would if you were playing Chopsticks -- creating a unique rendition all your own just as you would if you were playing Chopsticks for the first time.
You know you have to throw away the result of this exercise -- don't plagiarize -- but play this Chopsticks composition. Render it to the limits of your abilitiy, and you will grow.
Just as if you were playing Chopsticks for the very first time, you really don't want anyone to hear or see you do this! But the results will be visible in your writing forever.
BTW: I just started reading another new Simon R. Green novel this one in his NIGHTSIDE series - gorgeously executed, solid storytelling, great work. This is one writer worth studying carefully, on the whole, not just a few pages of one novel.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
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