Life in Our Galaxy?

Thrilling news for SF fans: How many Earth-like planets does our galaxy contain? In recent reports, some astronomers speculate there may be 40 billion:

Galaxy Quest

Of course, the existence of worlds that can support our kind of life doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll meet humanoid aliens we can socialize and maybe even interbreed with. Consider the millions of species on our own planet. As Heinlein’s narrator in HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL remarks, spiders don’t look anything like us, yet they enjoy living in our houses.

So where is everybody? No doubt you’ve all heard of the Fermi paradox:

Fermi Paradox

If Earth-like planets are so common in the universe, shouldn’t enough of them have developed the capability of interstellar travel or at least communication that we should have been visited or contacted by now?

I prefer the hypotheses of “they choose not to interact with us” and “Earth has purposely not been contacted” over the more pessimistic beliefs that intelligent life is rare, usually doesn’t develop a technological civilization, inevitably destroys itself before inventing interstellar travel, is too widely separated in time and space to overlap with our civilization, or is typically so alien it wouldn’t want to contact us or we wouldn’t recognize it if it did.

Maybe there really is a Prime Directive: Maybe the Galactic Federation has imposed a quarantine on us until we’re mature enough to join the civilized universe. Or possibly our location on the edge of the galaxy means they just haven’t gotten around to us yet. Given the scrappy history of intercultural exchanges in our own history, I like to speculate that our first alien contact may not involve official explorers or diplomats. Our first visitors might be merchants looking for new trading partners, pirates in search of loot, refugees like the former slaves in the series ALIEN NATION, or maybe even lost tourists. I once read a story in which a flying saucer landed in a suburban family’s back yard—and the “pilot” was an alien kid who’d accidentally driven off with his parents’ vehicle.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Story Springboards Part 3 - Art of Episodic Plotting by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Story Springboards Part 3
Art of Episodic Plotting
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here is the index of previous posts relevant to this discussion:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

This post series on Story Springboards explores the essence of what "interesting" means from the point of view of a writer and how to use that knowledge to sell fiction, especially Science Fiction, and double especially Science Fiction Romance. 

All the books on how to write stories tell you (without showing) that to sell fiction, all you have to do is write an "interesting" story. 

No instruction is more frustrating than that simple sentence "just write an interesting story."  So let's delve a little deeper than writing teachers usually do. 

"What is interesting and how do you write it?"

And what has that to do with the Art of Episodic Plotting? 

Note the first post in this series is from a selling writer who is intrigued by "art heists" -- and introduces the elements about art theft which is intriguing to her.  
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-springboards-part-1-art-heists-by.html

This multi-part discussion of springboards is intricately related to the underlying structure of short stories, novels and screenplays -- serials, sequels, episodes, braided plots, converging plots, parallel plots, all sorts of technically different but very marketable structures. 

"Interesting" is a property of those structures much more than it is of a particular subject, but remember that THEME is the foundation of story structure, which is why we've been examining how to "integrate" theme into each of the other elements of structure.

For each type of structure, a different type of SPRINGBOARD is necessary.

The springboard (wound up potential energy that is about to hurl the reader into a ballistic arc with an "ending" of belly-flopping or slicing into the pool) is energized by the quality "interesting"  but "aimed" at a target which is identified as "genre."  The strength and flexibility of the springboard you construct depends on how well "integrated" theme is with the rest of the components of the story structure. 

That is, you can sell any structure in any genre, mix and match, if you construct your springboard just right. 

The springboard is the main subject discussed in your logline, pitch, or query letter, but it is never mentioned by name.  The springboard has to be shown, not told.

This is why the "logline" or pitch for a story, and the "query letter" and synopsis or summary or treatment, is such a useful tool to the editor who has to choose whether to invest the company's money in this project.

The "springboard" reveals which audience demographic will be "interested" by this story.

Showing not telling your springboard is also why it is so hard for a writer to create the selling pitch or query letter -- the inclination is to TELL the editor, not show.  But the editor is looking for a master of show-don't-tell. 

The logline, query letter, etc reveal to the editor whether you, the writer, know what you're doing -- or not. 

If an editor backs a writer who does not know what he/she is doing, the editor tends to get fired.  The alternative for the editor is to try to teach that writer the "ropes."  Time spent on teaching one writer is time that can't be spent perfecting other manuscripts.  So an editor who is "developing" one writer has to buy other products that are perfected already. 

So there is a small market for beginning writers who haven't mastered "springboards," and a large market for writers who have. 

Story Springboards Part 2 is found here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/story-springboards-part-2-tv-shows.html

So now let's put "interesting" under the microscope. 

A while ago, the following "interesting" tweet appeared in my twitterfeed. 
--------------
Tweet from http://twitter.com/MadMachX    
The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts.

--Timothy Dwight
----------------

This philosophy (yes it is a philosophy and therefore makes a terrific novel theme) is based on a "misnomer" that everyone believes from earliest childhood -- the labeling of an object (or in this case a thought) with an attribute which does not originate within that object. 

Here's the URL to the post where the power of the "misnomer" is discussed in depth.  It reveals an essential component of the process of grabbing the "interest" of a target audience, the use of language. 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html

Cross-correlate that post on misnomers with the post on TALENT

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/talent-mystique-or-mistake.html

The misnomer twist in that tweet above is the attribution of the property "interesting" to the object in which the person is interested. 

The philosophy behind that attribution is very similar to the thinking behind the misnomer "Fast Food."  (the healthiness of the food is attributed to the method of delivery -- misdirecting the problem-solving attention away from the real problem.)

Remember a problem is a manifestation of a CONFLICT - and conflict is the essence of story as well as plot.

In constructing the foundation for a long series of novels, a TV Series, a movie-serial, or an episodic videogame, you have to load the problem(s) with enough potential energy to "spring" all the way to the ending of the Series. 

Understanding climaxes (both within a story, at the end of a scene or chapter, and at the end of a story, and how the series of climaxes must relate to each other) requires an understanding of the initial state -- the springboard before it has sprung, and where the weaknesses are in the springboard that might cause it to break or mis-fire. 

I don't think there are any books on writing craft that reveal the internal mechanism of the writer's mind that must function (consciously for some, unconsciously for most) to produce a "springboard" with enough energy wound up in it to reach "the end" of a long arc (series of novels, or a TV Series) and still have enough punch to blow off energy in the biggest climax of the series.

In a TV Series, there is usually a team of writers brainstorming the final climax, which is often why a series will "peter out" or fall off track as writers come and go from the team.

Most writers who do formulate a powerful springboard, do it by accident, but there is a method to it that can be learned, even by those born without any writing Talent.

One thing "writers" come by naturally, that is a sure sign a child has the capacity to make a living at writing, is a curiosity about words for their own sake, an interest in words beyond the mere meaning.

Such a curiosity includes words in many languages, both cognate with the native language of the child and non-cognate languages -- AND "made up" languages like Klingon or Elvish.

So the child learns early that you can't translate anything from one language to another, not really.  You can approximate and create the illusion of understanding, but not the understanding itself.  That's why most all children create their own words for the feelings and concepts developing in their minds -- convinced no human has ever before needed such a word.

You can't really translate from that internal apprehension of a "meaning" to an external, mutually agreed upon meaning. 

VENN DIAGRAM

Look at all the circles as representing the same concept in different languages. 

And consider that children and adolescents don't "speak the same language" as adults, or grandparents.  Language reflects the "generation gap."  A "living language" evolves.

A concept symbolized by a word has connotations and denotations. 

Denotations are easy to translate most of the time, but the native speaker hears a word and hears echos of all the connotations that go with the denotation and all the depth and texture of semantic loading, of emotional associations, and colorations imposed by their own generation -- and by prior generations. 

For example, when you hear the word Chocolate, do you FEEL 'bitter' or 'sweet?'  Chocolate itself is very bitter.  But we think sweet because we are accustomed to sugar that's lightly flavored with chocolate.

Note how an English word may overlap a small arc of Mandarin and another Arc of Hebrew -- but coincide reasonably well with both only in that tiny section in the middle.  And even there, there are discernible differences (symbolized by the colors). 

You might say an English word with most of your meaning at the top of the orange circle, and the translator could only find Mandarin or Hebrew words at the bottom of the English set of associated concepts where the circles overlap.

But when the translator says that word in Mandarin, the listener would "hear" all the connotations and associations and allusions contained in that word's Mandarin circle, barely noting the area of definition where there is an overlap, and never knowing of the existence of the associations you actually meant.

I've had novels "translated" -- they are unintelligible in the translated form.   

The same overlapping circles effect is true even within a given language.  That's why children invent their own words and define their own circles.

No two people know or use any given word in exactly the same way because we each have different accumulated connotations that we attach to words as we learn them, and emotional associations that are evoked because of subsequent experiences. 

Children learn this difference in usage early in life -- for example, the 4 year old's definition of NOW is very different from their 40 year old mother's definition of NOW.  "I want my blankey," does not mean "I want my nice clean blanket after it's been through the wash." 

So consider the three circles as three people - mother, father, child - earnestly discussing when they will arrive at the child's friend's birthday party. "Now" does not mean "now." 

If such variance exists among speakers of the same language, consider how different languages express views of the world that are inherently different and literally untranslatable. 

No two languages divide the world into the same circles of definition.

The word, "interesting," is subject to this very interesting effect.

A similar effect happens between two people using the same language, and it is a larger effect when two people are using different dialects of the same language.  (Is that piece of furniture a davenport, a sofa, or a couch?  A writer has to know what their reader will envision.) 

Those who know only one language and culture learned before the age of 7 (the age at which language brain centers start to become set), can't grasp how the very words we use shape our perceptions of reality and limit our imagination.  Things that are commonplace to some people are unthinkable to others -- simply because of language.

We think in words.  That's why children make up words to talk to their friends of the same age. 

The classic examples from Linguistics include Navaho, and other Native American languages that depict TIME not as a linear arrow, but as something else.

One of the complaints against Native Americans in the 1870's was that they were "lazy."  Or untruthful.  The Native American would agree to work a job, and then not show up "on time."  The person who hired the Native American would fire him for being late, and the Native would be offended because he wasn't late -- even if he was three days late. 

No amount of translating could work through this conceptual problem.  The solution then employed was to conscript Native children into American schools and inculcate the linguistic domains of definition (and ethics, morals and religion that go with them) into the child at an early enough age that the child would grow up to be employable (which was deemed the key to happiness). 

OK, none of the real history was that simple.  But a lot of it hinges on words providing limits to what we can conceptualize.  There are many such examples in cultures around the world. 

If this kind of gap is possible among humans, just imagine what we may run into on some of those planets now being discovered "out there.' 

Hebrew, likewise, handles the verb TO BE in ways entirely different from English.

When concepts of TIME and EXISTENCE are configured differently, everything in the culture that uses those concepts becomes configured differently.  The differences cause the most trouble when the participants yelling across the cultural gap are unaware there is a gap.

This kind of miscommunication is the ESSENCE OF CONFLICT. 

Resolution of conflict is one essential ingredient in climaxes. 

Anticipating a climax is the essence of "Interesting." 

Next week we'll look at "boring" for clues about how to write "interesting" stories. 

January 21, 2014 Story Springboards Part 7 takes a closer look at boring/interesting with skills&drills. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Public letter about extending First Sale To Ebooks

To CopyrightComments2013@uspto.gov ( CopyrightComments2013 AT uspto DOT gov

As an author, I am dismayed by the erosion of copyright protections for content creators.

It is just, right and fair that "First Sale" is trumped by the copyright ruling that prevents duplication, publication, and distribution of copyrighted content.

One argument we see by librarians and ebook consumers is that all they want is the right to "lend" an ebook the way they used to lend a paperback or hardback.

They already have that ability under the law. All they have to do is physically hand over their loaded e-reader.

Most people wouldn't lend a paperback to a close friend who lives on another continent because of the real world cost of mailing the work through the postal services. The cost of postage was a natural protection against the abuse of "lending". Similarly, librarians in lending libraries don't mail hardbacks to patrons who cannot spare the time to visit their local lending library.

Lending loaded e-readers ought to be fine. Making multiple unauthorized coies of a digital work (even temporary copies) in the course of transmitting a work from the party who paid for a license to read the work to a party who did not pay for it in order to save postage and to save friends the cost of buying their own license..... should not be legal.

If it IS made legal, e-books ought to cost more than the paper product because of the additional risks of abuse and exploitation. E-Books are a convenience, and consumers have always paid a premium for convenience. Also, service providers have traditionally been paid a premium for taking a risk. 

Respectfully,


Rowena Cherry

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

An Asshole Out Of Water

Don't you love a good mixed metaphor? A bad one is even better, particularly if it makes the mind boggle.

In a nutshell, "An Asshole Out Of Water" may be the magic formula for a cracking yarn. This revelation was shared in an insightful movie review by Miek Ryan comparing Crocodile Dundee and Thor, albeit in much more polite language and at greater length.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/08/thor-the-dark-world-review_n_4228143.html

It's well worth reading. Now, I am no longer mystified why some of my readers write to me wanting the further adventures of Thor-quentin on Earth.

:-)

Meanwhile.... on a much more serious note, November 13th is the deadline for authors and others to submit comments to the Copyright Department regarding digital first sale rights.

My view is, those who wish to lend an ebook the same way that they would lend a paperback should simply hand over their loaded Kindle, Nook, or ipad. That would be apples for apples.

CopyrightComments2013 at uspto dot gov.

Total Net Immersion

Do you know about Google Glass? The first I heard of it was from reading about a woman who got a traffic ticket for wearing the goggles while driving.

Google Glass

The traffic incident makes me wonder how using Google Glass differs, in principle, from checking a GPS while driving. In practice, probably the fact that it’s a heads-up display hovering in a little square at the top right of the glasses (if I’m interpreting the website demo correctly) makes the difference. I would certainly find that too distracting. Essentially, this thing is an Internet access device controlled by voice commands and a touchpad in one of the earpieces of the glasses.

Lots of science-fictional societies include personal net access technology either worn on the user’s head or actually embedded in the brain. I had no idea we were so close to fulfilling that prediction. Many alarmists already deplore the isolation produced by strolling around in public talking, texting, or web-surfing on cell phones. Imagine how that situation will intensify when most people have “phones” that are effectively part of the user’s body. Google Glass is currently priced in the four-figure range, so it won’t become ubiquitous tomorrow. However, so was our first computer (in 1983), and that Apple is far surpassed today by my husband’s iPad at a fraction of the cost. The ubiquitous personal web interface will pervade our culture soon enough. Will the next step be controlling the interface by thought alone, as amputees do with some experimental prosthetics?

Worries about privacy inevitably arise from the prospect of cities thronged with people wearing a combination Internet browser and camera attached to their heads:

Google Glass Privacy Concerns

On a related topic, how about the latest VR invention, Oculus Rift? Testers claim this gaming headset fulfills the promise of a genuine total-immersion experience:

Oculus Rift

Are we moving toward the real-world implementation of another familiar SF trope, a virtual-reality realm players will feel they’re actually living in? “Addiction” to immersive video game environments is already a concern for many observers. Suppose this latest technology raises the lifelike quality of the experience to such a level that users will never want to emerge from the virtual setting? Who’d have thought the common fictional motif of getting literally lost in a game world might become a fact this soon? I used this plot premise myself in “Fantasia Quest,” a novella in my story collection DAME ONYX TREASURES: LOVE AMONG THE MONSTERS, but when I wrote that story (less than two years ago), I assumed that degree of immersion was still totally imaginary.

Dame Onyx Treasures

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Index Post to Art and Craft of Story and Plot Arcs

Index Post to Art and Craft of Story and Plot Arcs
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Catch up on these posts before we launch into a wide discussion of constructing "story springboards" and focusing on the episodic structure of story and plot. 

Put these posts together -- like the pixels of an image -- and you will find a 3-D image of how to manipulate the story inside your mind into a novel or series of novels (or a videogame) product that can be marketed by the existing marketing system.

(You can write about inventing a new marketing system that would accommodate your product without manipulation and sell that book to the existing market!)

Here is an index to 8 parts of the THEME-PLOT-INTEGRATION series:

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

For the Art of Arcs series pay particular attention to:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

Here is the STORY SPRINGBOARDS series part 1 and 2 -- part 3 coming next week getting very deep into this subject of "potential energy" in a story concept. Part 4, the following week will discuss how to learn to write an "interesting" story. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-springboards-part-1-art-heists-by.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/story-springboards-part-2-tv-shows.html

Master Theme Structure, The Camera, Nesting Plots and Stories is the title of the following entry in "verisimilitude vs reality" which covers point of view and shifting point of view.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/09/verisimilitude-vs-reality-part-2-master.html

Part 3 "The Game, The Stakes, the Template continues the point of view discussion.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/09/verisimilitude-vs-reality-part-3-game.html

Remember, to create CONFLICT you must be able to speak FOR the side of any issue in your reader's daily news feed that you deeply, personally, and adamantly disagree with as you present the side you do agree with.  Otherwise, any characcters you set up as adversaries for your Main Character will tend to be "paper tigers." 

For the time you are writing the deeds, thinking, motives and dialogue of the adversary, you must become that person -- believing in your gut all the things you, personally and in real life, abhor. 

That is why Alma Hill taught that WRITING IS A PERFORMING ART -- it is.  You must be an ACTOR to pull off characters Point of View with verisimilitude.

Now the THEME-WORLDBUILDING series -- not yet ready for its own index post but germain to the Art and Craft of Story and Plot ARCS -- the "arc" is built into story/plot at the point where theme and worldbuilding intersect, which is the story-springboard that manifests as conflict. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html 

THEME-WORLDBUILDING has 7 parts so far:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-7.html

Part 6 of Theme-Worldbuilding is about the use of Media Headlines -- and reveals the ART OF THE MISNOMER (which is headline writing, and "tagging" complex issues with misleading but short nicknames.)

"Fast Food" as unhealthy because of its speed is a handy example of a misnomer since no food is "faster" than say picking an apple and chomping into it.  Few foods are as healthy as an apple or a handful of fresh-picked blueberries.  So the faster the food, the more healthy it is. 

The MISNOMER is all about misdirecting the attention away from the actual issue. 

In the  case of "fast food" the issue is complex, artificial additives that are manufactured by slow, arduous and expensive chemical processing, as well as fats and oils that have nutritional values tediously processed out of them.  The faster the food, the more healthy it tends to be -- so the correct nomenclature for "Fast Food That Is Bad For You" should be "SLOW FOOD."  Would "Slow Food" make a selling headline?

It's all about MARKETING: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_public_relations  -- details the development of a mathematical model for controlling the behavior of large groups of people (e.g. MARKETING).  This mathematical model has been the primary mover of modern civilization since the successful application to shoring up the price of bacon for farmers by creating the myth that the "bacon and eggs breakfast" is the path to success in life, starting with commissioning a scholarly study about breakfasts paid for by the firm hired to publicize the health benefits of bacon (because pig farmers were losing money.) 

Much of our current culture is based on manipulating people.  So the misnomer "interesting" is attached to novels, movies, non-fiction subjects, and news broadcasts, as if the attribute "grabs attention" is an attribute intrinsic to the Event or the Report of the Event rather than to the person whose attention has been grabbed.

Of course, if everyone understood what "interesting" really means, no commercial would ever be profitable, and none of our current politicians would be elected.   Public Relations (as a mathematical model of  how to manipulate behavior) only works because the public is ignorant of how and why it works, but Public Relations is what the big Publishers have whole departments of experts to do for writers -- that Indie Writers don't yet know how to do for themselves.  (yet, mind you! yet!)

The "arc" techniques we'll be discussing are much like building a bridge -- whether it can carry the traffic depends on the anchor points and the suspension cables.  It is a structure and the load capability of the structure depends on the materials used and the design of the intersecting points that bear that load.  Arc techniques are all very much like engineering, and also resemble "Public Relations."

Story and Plot are like the pylons and cables that support the roadway.  There is a science to the engineering -- the choice of materials, location the bridge, design of load-bearing angles -- but there's an "art" too because it matters how the thing looks, how it fits into its surroundings, blends with the scenery and at the same time stands out as elegant and beautiful in its own right.  There is also a political component to bridge building in getting the permissions, clearances, contracts, etc.  That political component is analogous to "selling" your story to a "publisher" who will turn it over to their staff of experts in the Publicity Department -- people whose schooling is in Public Relations not story-craft.   

Here are links to Astrology and Tarot posts just for writers:

Here is an index to Astrology posts:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

And here is one that carries that subject on a bit farther:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-11.html

Here is are index posts for the 20 posts on Tarot for writers:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Adapting to a micro environment

My only commercially available novella, Mating Net, contains a reference to micro-environments which have formed in "crater worlds" in a deeply pitted planet. Only a small portion of the story took place in one of those crater worlds, and I did not have the word count to develop local flora and fauna.

Well, to be honest, I did, but it would have been an info dump.

I was in Lakeland, Florida, recently and was fascinated to see birds hunting and playing on the lily pads in Lake Mirror. Not jacarana type birds, nor coots, nor ducks, nor heron-family birds. Nothing with enormous feet, particularly long legs, special bills or other water-living adaptations. They looked like regular brown jays.

I believe that jays are opportunists.
They are Corvidae, which is the family of birds "considered the most intelligent of the birds, and among the most intelligent of all animals having demonstrated self-awareness in mirror tests (European Magpies) and tool making ability (crows, rooks)—skills until recently regarded as solely the province of humans and a few other higher mammals. Their total brain-to-body mass ratio is equal to that of great apes and cetaceans, and only slightly lower than in humans^{." (Wikipedia)}


As I watched them, I was reminded of the Japanese snow monkeys, and of the story of how apes learned to wash rice by throwing it in water, and only eating what floated.

These jays were turning up the lily pads to catch creatures living on the undersides of the pads. Probably snails. They flew on and off, hopped from pad to pad, used smaller pads like elevators to lower them into the water for a splashy bath (it looked quite deliberate), hunted etc.

This is not my video.... and it shows a variety of birds on lilypads. Enjoy and be inspired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9fg-HSJCIE


All the best,
Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Villainous Motivations

Happy Halloween!

Preparing to revise my latest paranormal romance WIP, I’ve been thinking about the motivations of the antagonist. An effective antagonist must have believable goals. It has often been said that every villain is the hero of his own story. What makes a credible villainous motive? In the Dorothy Sayers mystery STRONG POISON, the heroine, detective novelist Harriet Vane, maintains that homicidal mania shouldn’t be used in murder mysteries because it’s “dull and not fair to the reader”—by which I think she means the reader doesn’t have a fair chance to figure out the criminal’s identity if the murder springs from madness. (How the genre has changed since then! Serial killers, the equivalent of the homicidal maniacs Harriet dismisses as dull, are all the rage in crime fiction.)

Okay, leaving aside pathological criminals, what about “rational” motives for villainy? Of course, the antagonist need not be a true villain at all. The plot might turn on a clash between two competing worthwhile goals. For instance, the heroine wants to preserve the local woodlands while the hero wants to build a housing development to provide homes and jobs. In my current book draft, though, the antagonist, an evil sorcerer, qualifies as a literal villain. One common motive for crime, of course, is greed. The criminal robs a bank. The murderer kills his wife instead of divorcing her, so he can get her money. Killing someone to hide a guilty secret would be another credible motive for murder. How about revenge? I’ve used it in my own fiction, such as in vampire novel CHILD OF TWILIGHT, where the female vampire antagonist targets the hero because he killed her brother (in the earlier novel DARK CHANGELING). She chooses to get back at the protagonist by kidnapping and attempting to corrupt his daughter, rather than committing violence against him directly. However, I must admit I have trouble empathizing with the revenge motive. I can visualize myself striking out in anger or fear at someone who’s hurting me or a loved one at the moment. I can’t imagine plotting over the long term to “punish” such a person in cold blood. I’d hope for his arrest and imprisonment so he can’t repeat the offense, sure, but what would after-the-fact revenge get me? What a waste of energy. In fact, if I think too hard about some other common conflict scenarios, I have trouble wrapping my head around them. Suppose a man jumps into my car, brandishes a gun, and orders me to drive somewhere, and suppose I’m alone in the vehicle so I don’t have to worry about anybody else’s safety. If I simply open the door and get out, is he going to shoot me? What would he gain from that? He’s got the car already. Granted, if this scenario happened to me in real life, I’d be paralyzed with terror and no doubt do exactly as he ordered. On a “rational” level, though, his shooting me for disobeying wouldn’t make sense. Another crime that doesn’t feel plausible to me is the “if I can’t have you, nobody else can” homicide, although I know it sadly does happen all too often in real life.

My evil sorcerer plans to open a portal to an alien dimension and invite Lovecraftian horrors into our world. He wasn’t always evil; in the backstory he was an ally of the heroine until their situation became desperate. What rational motive could he have for such an act? I’ve never been able to identify with a goal of conquering the world. What a lot of trouble to go through just to get a job nobody in his right mind would want. That scenario always reminds me of the evil cabal in a Saturday morning cartoon series (I can’t remember which one) that aspired to “destroy the world for their own gain.” Since my villain is supposed to be mainly rational, although slightly unbalanced from grief over his wife’s death, he has to be motivated by something other than the raw lust for power that drives the typical world-conquering dark lord. So he has no desire to rule the world, though he does intend to cooperate with the Lovecraftian entities that are going to overrun it. I hope I’ve managed to give him credible reasons for cooperating, one being that he considers their victory inevitable and wants to be on the winning side. In his home universe, he witnessed the catastrophic outcome of resistance, and the experience has made him bitter.

On a brighter note, my husband and I have collaborated on a fantasy-romance crossover novel, LEGACY OF MAGIC, published by Amber Quill Press a few days ago. It’s a prequel to our sword-and-sorcery trilogy that began with WILD SORCERESS. LEGACY OF MAGIC is designed to stand alone, so a new reader can pick it up with no problem. At the same time, readers familiar with the trilogy can enjoy anticipating the outcome of the events in this “previous generation” story.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Reviews 1 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Reviews 1 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 
Eventually, we will very likely be discussing the anatomy and physiology of Jennifer Roberson's SWORD DANCER SAGA.

But for the moment, I'm putting this 8 volume series on your to-be-read stack in hopes you'll know what I'm talking about when I talk about it.

The series is collected in omnibus versions as The Novels of Tiger and Del, Volume I, etc. 

He was Tiger, born of the desert winds, raised as a slave and winning his freedom by weaving a special kind of magic with a warrior's skill. She was Del, born of ice and storm, trained by the greatest of Northern sword masters. Together, they discover a kinship and friendship that grows to love while facing dangers of both sword and sorcery.  

That's the blurb from the Vol 1. 

You'll find them in Kindle, and Nook, etc etc. 

This is a fantasy novel series, but it's not to be shrugged off and forgotten. It is rich in the kind of thinking English Professors write papers about but still have no idea why the books matter to the readers.

I highly recommend getting the entire Sword-Dancer Saga series.

Sword-Dancer (Tiger and Del) is where to start.
http://www.amazon.com/Sword-Dancer-Tiger-and-Del-ebook/dp/B00A4VMLFC/

Then, Sword-Singer, Sword-Maker, Sword-Breaker, Sword-Born, Sword-Sworn, Sword-Bound --- and forthcoming, Sword-Bearer.

Sword-Dancer Saga: two short stories also goes with the series.

In a while, when you've had time to read all 8 of those titles, and more that I'll recommend from time to time, we'll very likely get into a contrast/compare among them all, analyzing how these authors pull off "integrating" two, three, even four of the individual skills I've been discussing in isolation.


And while you're working your way through Roberson's titles, read her Cheysuli series, too. 

http://www.amazon.com/Shapechangers-Song-Chronicles-Cheysuli-Bk/dp/0886779766/

The reason English professor analytical tools fail to capture the reason for the success of novel series such as this one is that they are academics.

To be an "academic" in a topic, you have to stand outside the topic and analyze it objectively, without emotional involvement, and without the deeply personal, quirky, individual responses that readers/fans have.

That's the salient difference between scholar and practitioner.

You can write "creative writing" for professors, or you can write down-and-dirty genre novels for readers.  One audience is large enough to be lucrative, the other not so much.

Some writers can master both types of writing.  Some can't.

Finding out who and what you are is the adventure of becoming a professional writer.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Deconstructing OKLAHOMA!

Jacqueline’s penetrating analysis of the new Superman movie somehow started me thinking about theme-plot-character integration in the classic musical OKLAHOMA. I think I may have discovered a flaw in it.

Set in 1906, the movie (which is the only version I’ve seen, but according to Wikipedia, it closely follows the stage play) celebrates the admission of Oklahoma to statehood. Near the beginning, “Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City” expresses astonishment at the wonders of the modern world. So the story focuses on a new state in a new century. To move forward into this new world, the people of Oklahoma must resolve the differences between their two different subcultures, as highlighted in a song that tells the farmer and the cowman to be friends. These groups represent the perennial, ubiquitous conflict between nomad herders and settled agriculturalists. The theme appears to be the necessity for a synthesis between these factions to create a new society in a new era.

The love story between cowboy Curly and farm girl Laurey symbolizes reconciliation between the two subcultures. The secondary, comic romance between cowboy Will and Ado Annie (the “girl who can’t say no”) echoes this motif. The marriage of Curly and Laurey, along with the engagement of Will and Annie, wrapping up the story like a Shakespearean romantic comedy, demonstrates the blending of the two lifestyles (and perhaps the absorption of the herders by the farmers, since Curly will presumably settle down with Laurey rather than roam the range) as the title song celebrates a “brand new state.” So what’s missing in this summary?

Where does the antagonist, Jud, fit in? Apparently we’re expected to feel little or no sympathy for him, since the designated hero, Curly, can get away with verbal bullying that urges Jud to commit suicide. Jud almost appears dragged in as a pure villain simply to contrive a threat to Laurey and provoke her to admit her feelings for Curly, as well as to provide a dramatic action scene at the climax. Jud embodies the danger that must be eradicated for the marriage and the new society to thrive. Sure, he has a clear role in the romance plot. As the dream ballet sequence shows, he represents the dark side of sexuality, which stirs Laurey’s fears that she has to face in order to embrace her love for Curly. In that role, Jud is Curly’s Jungian shadow. But how does he fit, if at all, into the “new state, new society” theme?

It would help if we knew Jud’s backstory, which as far as I can remember (and learn from reading the summary of the play) we don’t. He’s just labeled “disturbed” and “a mysterious and dangerous loner.” Could he be a cowboy displaced from his job and reduced to the status of a farmhand? If so, he would represent the shadow side of the herding culture being marginalized by the dominant agricultural society and the increasingly urbanized, modern world of the new twentieth century. Or maybe—who else is missing from the musical OKLAHOMA? Completely invisible, in fact?

Native Americans! Oklahoma Territory certainly had a significant Indian population. In preparation for Oklahoma’s admission to the union, Congress dissolved all tribal governments in the territory and redistributed the land. Here’s a large group of people who had to be literally displaced for the new state to move forward into the new century. If Jud is Native American or of mixed-race parentage, his death at the movie’s climax (for which Curly is exonerated in an informal trial) represents the erasure of the people who posed an obstacle to the new society. Reaching a bit? Maybe—but Rodgers and Hammerstein frequently dealt with issues of racial conflict in their work. Could that subtext be present here, even if deeply buried?

Off topic: Last week I completed the first draft of a paranormal romance with Lovecraftian elements I’ve been working on. That means I’ve reached the stage of relief and pleasure in completing the hardest part of the project. At the same time, though, I'm in the phase where I contemplate the result with disappointment at how far it falls short of what I visualized when I started it. I know from past experience that in the process of revision I’ll veer between “why would anybody ever want to read this thing?” and “hey, this isn’t so bad after all, do I really have to mess with it very much?” On a brighter note, I’ve just proofread the galley file for LEGACY OF MAGIC, a fantasy with romantic elements by my husband and me, a prequel to our “Wild Sorceress” trilogy. I get a thrill out of reading galleys because that job means the book is almost ready to face the world. LEGACY OF MAGIC will be released by Amber Quill Press on October 27.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Converting Your Business Model to Self-Publishing Guest Post by Jaleta Clegg

Converting Your Business Model to Self-Publishing Guest Post by Jaleta Clegg

But first a note by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Making the Leap from publishing through a publisher to self-publishing is a lot harder than simply starting out aiming to self-publish.

When I started out, I thought I'd enjoy publishing a fanzine.  I tried it -- nope.  As Dr. McCoy would have said, "I'm a writer not a publisher."

Today, those who have multiple talents from cover design to marketing, and from fiction writing to copy-writing, are spending their young years honing all these skills and building the social-network following to make them pay off.

All of this broad-ranging talent development will eventually change the world drastically, a change I look forward to eagerly.  This is the way things started out, long before the fixed-type printing press, and only later became so complex a writer couldn't do it all alone.

Today, there are tools, websites, indie-editors, indie-book designers, indie-publicists, and so on combining skills to circumvent the large Internationally Owned publishing houses.

Bookstores are morphing as fast as they can, looking for a way around the collapsing marketing chains.  Distributors and warehousing, trucking and delivery services are all going -- "printing" is a thing of the past, as most of the operations are now computerized, and printing presses consist of huge buildings streaming tons and tons of paper through to get printed.

Well, then there's CREATE SPACE and many other Print On Demand operations that can make paper books to order, rather than warehousing them.  Most bookstores can't afford to carry POD books -- the margins just don't work with traditional distribution discounting.

But Amazon can and does make a profit on POD.  It's all in the business model.

Many writers off the New York Times Bestseller list, in Romance, Mystery, Western, Historical, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and general fiction, have also abandoned the big publishers and are releasing their own backlists, sometimes along with new novels in their series, self-publishing through smashwords and other outlets.  You'll find me on that organization's website, too, in the dropdown of authors listed.

They organized to help them promote their novels -- you can find their SALE ITEMS listed on this page:
http://www.backlistebooks.com/

There is a seething ferment of change coming at us out of the FANFIC communities, and we'll talk more about that in December or maybe January. 

Meanwhile, listen here to a writer who has been working with a small press publisher, and finally had her career swerve into the self-publishing Indie business model despite all her best intentions. 

-----------GUEST POST BY JALETA CLEGG--------

Hi, I'm Jaleta Clegg and I'm a self-published author now. (Check out my site at http://www.jaletac.com)

I never wanted to be a self-published author. I have a lot of author friends who love it and wouldn't have it any other way. I respect them. But I never wanted to be one of them. I published my first three books and lots of short stories through small presses. Sure, there were shortcomings and things that weren't as I'd envisioned when I set out to publish. But I was happy, satisfied with the choice I'd made.

Then it happened. My current publisher called me up. "Your books are great. Everyone loves them. They get great reviews. But no one's buying them. We're going to have to let the rest of the series go."It was a business decision, one I support. But not one I wanted to live with. After spending a week agonizing over my options, I took a deep breath and dove head-first into self-publishing. I'd dabbled before with some short stories, got deeper with two short story collections last June, but this was over-my-head jump-in-the-deep-end-and-hope-I-can-swim.

I won't lie and tell you self-publishing is all roses and loafing around on sofas watching TV and eating chocolate. It's a business. And sometimes you have to make hard choices. You have to do paperwork. You have to be your own cheerleader. You have to be your own boss. That's hard work.

An author writes, right? Yes. A publisher edits, does cover design and interior layout, writes cover blurbs and advertising blurbs, makes contacts for marketing, and gets the book out where people can find it and buy it. They also deal with taxes and business licensing and a myriad other business things. If you're about to jump into self-publishing, stop and ask yourself this question, "Do I really want to run a business and be my own boss?" If you thought meeting a publisher's deadline was difficult and put the pressure on, it's a thousand times worse when you're the boss. If you aren't self-motivated, don't jump onto the self-publishing bandwagon. You're the one who will have to poke and prod yourself into getting the edits done on time. You're the one who has to run naked in public, I mean make contacts for advertising and marketing your book. (Can you tell this is one I hate more than the others?) You're the one who will have to track income and sales and figure out taxes. It will eat your life if you let it. It isn't just about writing a great story when you self-publish, it's about taking care of all the details that publishers get paid to deal with.

Don't assume you can do it all yourself, either. I'm blind as a bat to many of my writing faults. I need a good editor to help my books shine. I haven't found one I can afford on my own yet, so I'm trusting my beta readers more than I should. That's another myth people think about self-publishing: It won't cost me anything to get this out there. That's true if you don't really care about editing it or creating a really nice cover. Don't do it yourself unless you're sure you have the skills and expertise to pull it off professionally. That said, there are many websites popping up that cater to the self-published author. The cover for Kumadai Run is directly from http://www.selfpubbookcovers.com/ and it's beautiful. It also cost me a small chunk of change. It was worth it, in my opinion. I've done cover design before and it's very hard. It takes hours to get those photos and fonts just right. I'm happy to pay someone else to make it for me.

It shouldn't cost you a fortune to get your book out, though. A few hundred dollars at most, all of which you can write off as a business expense, provided you've set up a business for your publishing. You haven't? Watch out for the government, then.

Would I go back to the publisher? Probably yes, mostly because it simplifies my life. Maybe I just haven't been bitten hard enough by the self-publishing bug. Maybe I really don't mind turning over control to someone else so I can focus on writing more books and taking care of my family.

But that's out of the picture now. What publisher would want books 4-11 of a space opera series, especially when the first three haven't sold well? No one. I could publish them myself or let the series fade and die unfinished. I couldn't disappoint the few rabid fans I've got, so I bit the bullet and put book 4 out there with the rest to follow.

So anyone want to read a fun space opera adventure series with a strong female lead character and a whole cast of sometimes kooky characters? The Fall of the Altairan Empire series is getting good reviews, especially from people who loved the campy golden age pulp sci-fi stories of the 50's and those who just enjoy a good fun beach read with plenty of action. Check out the books at http://www.altairanempire.com

Or look for my short stories at http://www.jaletac.com. They range from science fiction adventure stories that tie in to the series,  to fantasy, to silly horror, to romance, and even a couple of weird westerns.And if anyone wants to trade books for website design, I could really use a website designer's help!
You can find me on Twitter as @Jaleta_Clegg or on Facebook as Jaleta Clegg's Altairan Empire series.

Or look me up on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Jaleta-Clegg/e/B0036WC0FC

Good resources I've found for self-published authors:
Covers - http://www.selfpubbookcovers.com/

Smashwords for ebooks - https://www.smashwords.com/
Createspace for paperbacks -
https://www.createspace.com/

Kindle Direct Publishing for Kindle ebooks - http://kdp.amazon.com/

Supportive sites for indie authors:
Bestsellerbound - a wonderful community and a great resource.

Need help? Just ask. http://quietfurybooks.com/messageboard/index.php
Facebook has many many groups including the Science Fiction Romance Brigade and Author's Think Tank
BroadUniverse - supporting women authors of science fiction, fantasy, and horror - http://broaduniverse.org/

---------END GUEST POST BY JALETA CLEGG--------------------

All right, Jaleta Clegg has pointed you at a variety of resources.

Remember, no publisher DOES IT ALL THEMSELVES. 

The business model of publisher is that the publisher does almost nothing and makes a big profit doing it.  They out-source the specialty tasks, and hire "editors" to choose books that will sell well via the distribution channels the publisher has established.


Each publisher's imprint, and each line within a publishing house, is designed so that all the books are "the same but different" -- everything with a particular logo on it is designed to appeal to a specific market.  All publishers actually do is define markets, set up mechanisms for reaching those markets, and then feed product into the pipeline to those markets.

All editors do is conform the writer's product to the publisher's delivery channel's size and shape so it'll get to the reader the publisher targets (not the reader the writer targets; the reader the publisher targets.  You will sell well if your writing conforms to your publisher's delivery channel.)

If you are going to be your own publisher, you should be thinking in terms of the target market you need, how to reach that market, and where to get the individual Talents you need to package your merchandise to appeal to that market.  That is what publishers do - they package and deliver a uniform product. 

The more uniform the product, the more regular the delivery of it, the bigger the publisher's profit.  It's that simple.  Be your own publisher; pocket the publisher's share of what your book can earn. 

Think of this in two ways while researching: 
A) You are a writer looking at your publishing options;
B) You are a character in a novel about having to look at your publishing options.

Either way, you will learn a lot by clicking links in this post.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg

Revising as You Go—Good or Bad?

The WRITER’S DIGEST website features an article called “7 Reasons to Write an Entire 1st Draft Before Going Back to the Beginning”:

7 Reasons

This author isn’t talking about whether to write your novel in linear order or skip around composing scenes out of sequence (although she would probably disapprove of that practice, too). What she advises against is backtracking to revise earlier passages instead of forging onward nonstop.

I disagree with almost everything said in this article, which is clearly written for extreme pantsers. I can’t imagine starting to write a story or novel without knowing how it will end! Also, while I’m a dedicated outliner, almost all pantsers whose process I’ve read about do say they at least know where the story is headed. As for that bizarre assertion about typically chopping off 35 to 100 pages from the beginning of the first draft—good grief. As a comment on the page mentions, outlining eliminates that hazard. Anyway, my revisions more often ADD to the word count, not subtract from it, since I typically need to flesh out sketchy sensory images and emotional reactions.

I do agree, however, that there are good reasons not to go back and revise during the first-draft process. A perfectionist, even one who’s a plotter instead of a pantser, could fall into the trap this author mentions—tinkering with the early part of the book for so long she gets discouraged and never finishes. More important, revision engages the editing rather than creative part of the brain, a reason I’ve often seen cited for not trying to do both at once. And even the most thorough outliner may alter the plot during the actual writing, so it makes sense not to obsess too intensely over getting every phrase and punctuation mark right the first time around.

That said, I still tend to fiddle with earlier scenes while composing later sections of the first draft. If I think of a line of description or dialogue I should have included, I insert it while it’s fresh in my mind. If a tweak to the plot requires a minor alteration in an earlier scene, same procedure. As for polishing word choice and sentence structure, I can’t help doing that as I go along. I’m an English major who worked as a proofreader for over twenty years. It’s too late to reform. The advantage of the extensive outlining and in-process tinkering is that my drafts (whether fiction or the rare articles I occasionally still write) reach stage 1.5 pretty clean. One more pass, and they’re ready to submit. Editors seldom ask me for significant changes.

Do you revise as you go along? Or generate the entire first draft in an uninterrupted forward-moving flow?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot Integration Part 13 - Superman: Man of Steel Action-Romance by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Plot Integration Part 13 - Superman: Man of Steel Action-Romance by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

This is actually a 3 or 4 way "integration" post, an advanced writing challenge that requires several skill sets in use at once.  Theme, Plot, Targeting a Readership, Worldbuilding, and even Character, Story and Conflict, to dissect and replicate Superman: Man of Steel.

We start, as usual, with THEME -- and of course without the foundation of Plot, you haven't got a story or anything else to hold an audience's attention -- but when you blow the "worldbuilding" element, the plot falls apart, the audience you've targeted is jarred out of the story, and nothing in what you've written makes sense to anyone but yourself.

Here are previous entries in the Theme-Plot Integration Series:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-11-correct.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-10-use-of.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

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

And here are the Theme-Worldbuilding discussions:


http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integraton-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-3.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-4.html

http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-5.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-7.html


You can't accurately TARGET A READERSHIP (or audience) and hold their attention if the component elements of the Work are not wholly integrated with each other.

The previous parts of Targeting a Readership Series can be found in last week's Index Post:


http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

By now, I'm assuming everyone reading this post who wants to see SUPERMAN: MAN OF STEEL has seen it, so I'm including "spoilers."

Here's a trailer for Man of Steel on YouTube:



This SUPERMAN film succeeds terrifically in ALL it's individual components, and fails utterly at the "integration" level. 

Before we consider the flaws I see (which are actually strengths from the Hollywood point of view), let's examine what it's done in the "real" world.

Firstly, this re-design of the entire myth of Superman is based on the DC Comics consolidation of the "Superhero" Vigilante genre into the Justice League.

That entire ploy was created to sell comic books, and has been an unqualified success, generating an entire genre of Superhero stories for every medium from print to TV Series, to theatrical releases. 

You can't fault the thinking from a commercial standpoint. 

All my posts on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com since 2007 or so have been about replicating that kind of success that DC Comics has had but for the Science Fiction Romance genre, SFR.

Our objective in studying these writing skills individually and then studying how to integrate them is to replicate DC Comic's process, that Walt Disney Studios succeeded at, and that Glenn Beck has launched himself into (in another field, but it's the same process).  Beck is of little interest except in the business model transformation that he's experimenting with.  Today, his web-TV channel is filling up with a diversity of shows and has been picked up by a long list of Cable distributors including Satellite.

My thesis is that you can't argue with commercial success.

Romance genre itself is commercially successful to the absolute dismay of its opponents.

But so far the respect due because of that success is lacking.  Examine your respect for Glenn Beck and you will understand why Science Fiction Romance has its detractors.

Likewise 'comics" and comic fandom only gained grudging mention on TV news etc. with the advent of the commercially driven, gigantic Comic Con circuit where collectors bid up the prices of old comics to major investment decision ranges.

Money talks and money does get some respect, but not always the sort you and I are looking for.

Right now "Money" is not talking so much as it is gibbering in a panic.

The summer "blockbuster" films with Big Name Stars were flops at the Box Office.

But Superman wasn't a flop.  It's done respectably well. 

Here is a quote from imdb.com

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770828/business

-------quote----------
As of MID JULY 2013 for Man of Steel June Release (as of mid-July it was still on several screens per multi-plex and pulling in audiences, which is success territory). 

Budget
$225,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend
$113,080,000 (USA) (16 June 2013) (4,207 Screens)
$116,619,362 (USA) (16 June 2013) (4,207 Screens)
HUF 56,995,608 (Hungary) (23 June 2013)
€900,007 (Netherlands) (23 June 2013) (118 Screens)
PHP 245,085,619 (Philippines) (16 June 2013) (469 Screens)

Gross
$271,188,450 (USA) (7 July 2013)
---------end quote-------

So you can see it made more than its costs, and will continue to earn on Netflix, Amazon, etc.  And all of that is gravy.

But is it worth our respect? 

Well, for me Man of Steel makes it in the HUNK FACTOR: Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/ Kal-El is terrific (but I prefer without the beard).  Russell Crowe made a lovely Jor-el, Kevin Costner's Jonathan Kent was thrilling, Amy Adams as Lois Lane worked well, and all the others were well cast, too.

The actors seemed to be aware they were playing characters, not that the characters were playing them (as seemed to be the case with Tonto in The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp as the sidekick.) 

Of course you've seen Cavill in THE TUDORS and IMMORTALS - not exactly a small name.  But  this movie does not look as if it is designed around what the Big Names in it are known for (unlike The Lone Ranger casting where Johnny Depp presented Tonto as if Tonto was Johnny Depp). 

Man of Steel didn't succeed at the box office because of the big name cast, but because it is Superman (and the release dates were cleverly orchestrated - check IMDB; there is a science behind that.)

It is a GREAT movie. 

So what's wrong with it?

For me, it isn't SUPERMAN. 

Part of that reaction is how I just don't think the Justice League approach works as well as the original (even though I'm endlessly fascinated with Justice League!)

The original Superman was, like the Lone Ranger, a champion of Truth, Justice and the American Way. 

All three elements of the Superman Character, truth, justice and the American Way, have been thrown out with this reworking of his past in Man of Steel.

What is inserted to hold up all 3 Pillars of Character is Defense of Earth -- not America, Earth.

America is left in cinders, and nobody cares. 

This Superman wears a dull bluish suit with a red cape, but it isn't the AMERICAN Blue and Red. 

One thing they did in re-designing Krypton actually cured some of the problems with the 1978-1980's series of films.

General Zod's motive in trashing Earth has been changed into the more honorable "Restore Krypton" motive. 

Jor-El's motive has been degraded into sending Kal-El to Earth for the purpose of "guiding" Earth -- instead of to learn to become more like an American, and less like those whose politics destroyed Krypton. 

In Man of Steel, Krypton implodes because the ruling council decreed they needed energy, so they mined the core of the planet, and the planet implodes while Zod attacks the ruling council.  This is an example of Hollywood ripping a theme (ecology) from the Headlines and throwing it into your face at any excuse. 

Another theme that coincidentally made headlines just as this film was being released is the Justice League theme of the Vigilante Justice which had America glued to the TV screens during the Treyvon Martin Murder trial.  That timeliness may have helped Man of Steel at the Box Office. 

But, the hook that has me glued to Superman is the Lois/Clark relationship -- and nothing was more satisfying than the TV Series Lois And Clark  (Lois, first, note!).  Not ecology, but Alien Romance.

The film SUPERMAN II definitely scratched the Alien Romance itch.

Here's that trailer:



Superman II has plenty of "action" to satisfy the action viewer, but it has the ROMANCE that makes the action make sense.  Kal El has to 'give up his powers' to marry Lois, and willingly does so - then the villains turn up (Zod and crew) (senselessly bent on destroying Earth and co-opting Superman to their own cause because of his noble birth) and to SAVE EARTH (not America: Earth) Kal El takes back his powers cutting himself off from nice, human sex with Lois. 

Notice how all the good stuff is missing from the Superman II trailer to sell it as pure action to Action audiences. 

In the end, Superman in Man of Steel does throw in with the Americans, but refuses to accede to American Law unless he agrees with the commands given him by a General. 

This ending seems NOBLE compared to the rest of the film, as if Kal El has values from Kansas.  In fact, it is antithetical to The American Way depicted in the original Superman as proceding from Truth and Justice. 

Note in Man of Steel, the S is cleverly redefined as an Alien Symbol of Peace. 

To remain thematically coherent, the S symbol should have been redefined as a symbol for Truth or Justice. 

The "America" Superman deals with (and this is where the original theme is massively changed) is General Swanwick -- not The President! 

This character (OK, it's a scripting efficiency problem, but it distorts the original Superman's thematic integrity) General Swanwick ends up unilaterally making live-or-die decisions for all Earth, not just the USA.

How insufferably presumptuous.  What do you suppose Iran would be saying in the U.N.?

In other words, Swanwick (without ever being challenged on it) institutes a military coups. 

Not one person in the audience that I saw the film with was groaning or booing about this.  It's acceptable for the USA to be taken over by the military.  Even Kansas farm boy, Clark, didn't seem to notice.

What has that to do with Romance?

Everything.

Hunk isn't just a matter of a square-jawed face.

Remember how I made the point about the crucial question that every Romance must answer:

"What does she see in him?  What does he see in her?"

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

A nice square jaw just isn't enough - helps a lot, but isn't enough! 

Strong character, with detail of what composes that strength, is necessary to ignite the flame of real Soul-Mate driven Romance. 

Lois and Clark have always been portrayed (from the 1930's radio shows) as Soul Mates, even when we didn't know Clark was from another planet.

Originally, they didn't emphasize the Science Fiction element of an Alien From Outer Space -- that wouldn't have been Romantic to people of the 1940's when Science Fiction itself had barely been invented.

What science fiction there was, then, was "neck up science fiction" -- without elements of Relationship other than adversarial. 

The B&W TV Series of the 1950's played Lois and Clark as foils, with Lois always trying to sleuth out the Secret Identity. 

SECRET IDENTITY (like the Lone Ranger) was the plot dynamic that drove the suspense, not Alien From Outer Space Falls In Love With Human.

The big reveal of Alien From Outer Space as the Secret (even from Clark, himself) came much later, because, given Clark's abilities, it was just logical.

Personally, I think Alien Romance is where it is at for Science Fiction and I always have, which is why it's always an element in my novels.

As Clark Kent's Alien origin was revealed, it was morphed and morphed to support various sorts of Superman Character definitions.

In other words, our Hero has been co-opted

Well, they did that on purpose.  They are risking huge amounts of money, so they want a known box office draw topic.  But Superman is old, worn, antique.  It's appeal was that it bespoke the yearnings of the audience of that day.  They needed to update it to speak to today's audience. 

And they did that!  They got everything in except the Alien Romance which needs a Kickass Lois.

And the reason the romance failed is a major gliche in the worldbuilding. 

Yes, Lois gets her moments, but she's relegated to fourth or fifth place in the B story, and doesn't even get to be the one who hammers home the key that stops the destruction of Earth.

Lois doesn't get to save Superman's Life -- doesn't get to Reveal His Past -- doesn't get to pass judgement on his moral fiber and trust him with Truth, Justice And The American Way, doesn't get to kick ass, doesn't even get to save Clark's human mom.

Clark doesn't act for Lois's sake.  Clark's father Jonathan Kent gives his life to maintain Clark's secret identity, and in his memory, Clark is moved to act -- not for Lois's sake, and not for the sake of his Relationship to Lois.  The action that Clark chooses for Jonathan Kent's sake is to adopt the guise of the mild mannered reporter and take a job at The Daily Planet where Lois gets to say "Welcome to the Planet."  And they share a secret smile, because she knows he's Kal-El.  But that's the ending. It should be the beginning. 

This movie is not the Romance you're looking for; move along.

If I'd been consulted (never likely to happen), on the script, I'd have pointed out that the entire composition falls to shreds because of a major gliche in the Worldbuilding. 

Fix the worldbuilding, and everything else, including the Romance, would fall into place.

I have this same issue with the DOCTOR WHO depiction of Gallifrey, and with the home planet of the aliens, the Tenctonese, in the TV Series ALIEN NATION. 

The Science Fails.

I'm an absolute, dedicated fan of both series.  And a lifelong Superman fan.  As a fan, I can and do "forgive" errors in the depiction. 

But such errors are the reason I wanted to be a writer with a published "voice" in the matter of how it should be done.  I've seen "it" done right in so many genres, which just etches my dissatisfaction in fire when I see the error in Science Fiction Romance, especially the Action Romance genre. 

And I believe that if Alien Romance is done "right" (i.e. with consistent worldbuilding, rigorous science), it will attain a position of respect as a Literature bespeaking the most valuable part of our 21st Century Culture.

So What Failed In The Worldbuilding?

It was a failure of imagination. And it was all the more glaring an error because we have occasionally seen it done right in film.

Here's Part 4 of Failure of Imagination, with links to prior parts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/01/failure-of-imagination-part-4-teasing.html

The movie DUNE did pretty well at avoiding this particular failure of imagination, but came up a bit short as it tried to stay true to the book.

We've seen glimpses in the newest Star Trek movies where they got it right - particularly the nearly invisible space suits.

The failure is actually a failure to show rather than tell.

It's a failure to integrate the science, the technology, and the civilization it belongs to, using visual methods to ILLUSTRATE that the science is what it is.

Any technology sufficiently advanced will seem like magic. 

 Here it is from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws

--------quote------------
Clarke's Three Laws are three "laws" of prediction formulated by the British writer Arthur C. Clarke. They are:

    1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
    2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
    3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

....The Third Law is the best known and most widely cited. Also appearing in Clarke's Essay "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination". It may be an echo of a statement in a 1942 story by Leigh Brackett: "Witchcraft to the ignorant, .... Simple science to the learned".[2] Even earlier examples of this sentiment may be found in Wild Talents by author Charles Fort where he makes the statement: "...a performance that may some day be considered understandable, but that, in these primitive times, so transcends what is said to be the known that it is what I mean by magic."

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

FAILURE OF IMAGINATION. 

That is our greatest problem with science fiction today, the lack of the kind of futurology we saw in science fiction in the 1950's and 1960's.  Even Star Trek as a TV Series was able to visualize futuristic instruments that acted "magically."

So what did I expect from this Man of Steel that it did not deliver?

I went into the movie without expectations.

But a few scenes into it, I saw the very clever, very elegant, VERY IMAGINATIVE devices, instruments, methods of living, used by the Kryptonian civilization.  And it was indeed a very solid extrapolation of our current science/technology into a possible future.

So I was blown away by this vision of Krypton.  (then we got to the politics and I was disappointed as I had been when The Doctor first went back to Gallifrey.)

The technology was depicted amped up to the level of what we see as "magic."

Great work.

But ....

After we get to Earth, the entire premise just falls to shreds.

And in it's fall, it destroys Clark's character.

The premise is that Krypton has this technology that seems like magic. 

Now, look at our technology over the last few centuries.

Up to the 1940's, technological advances were always made by the triggering of a war.

World War II triggered the creation of the Atomic Bomb (and its use).

From the Middle Ages (knights in shining armor) through WWII, all our advances have been in ways to deliver more and MORE kinetic energy to a target and destroy bigger and bigger areas at a swipe.

We used the Atomic Bomb and spread collateral destruction over two (huge) cities when all we needed to do was destroy the war-making-capability of Japan, not the population. 

After that, The American Way judged America's use of that weapon to be a major tragedy.

Subsequent military weapons development concentrated on delivering pin-point destruction, making smaller explosions right on exactly hit targets.

Today, we have the new term "collateral damage" -- meaning failure.  When we strike a military target, ONLY that target gets destroyed.  If even one non-combatant is killed, we failed. 

It's a trend, and it probably won't be linear, but all our technology (cell phones being an example) use less energy, and target that usage more precisely.

All our energy-usage trends are down, not up, in terms of productivity.

And that's true of warfare as well - drones being another example. 

The Krypton depicted at the beginning of Superman: Man of Steel indicates they had gotten to where we are going -- small, precise, exact, easy to use, technology, like magic.   

But then General Zod arrives on Earth (out of the Phantom Zone which is not as well done as in the prior Superman film where it's a two-dimensional spinning patch in space, a portal to another dimension), and proceeds to "terraform" earth never mind it'll kill the inhabitants, Clark Kent included. 

Jor-el hid the database of all-Krypton inside Kal-el's body cells, but if Kal-el is dead Zod intends to extract it from Kal-el's dead body so he can recreate Krypton.  Noble goal, -- maybe that means the theme of this film is "The End Justifies The Means."  But during the film, Zod goes from not caring if Clark dies to actively pursuing his death. 

Remember, Lois doesn't get to save Clark and dispatch Zod.

Remember, a few weeks ago, I discussed the contretemps that erupted over a SFWA Bulletin Cover with the typical Brass Bras Babe image?

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-conflict-integration-part-1.html

Man of Steel is a perfect example of what everyone is yelling about.  The Lois that we have seen raised from a 1940's "save me Superman" girl into a "Pullitzer Prize" chanting woman hanging under the elevator cage of the Eiffel Tower is back to being a GIRL.

Why?

Because of the epic fail in worldbuilding.

What should have happened when Zod got to Earth to retrieve the database in Clark's body cells and terraform Earth into a replica of Krypton?

If imagination had not failed, we would be seeing Kryptonians wearing ordinary looking clothing that acted like armor and contained all kinds of instrumentation, not the clunky-ugly lumps they wear in this film.

The costumes are supposed to look formidable and scary; instead they look ludicrous because we've seen what their technology can do. 

Remember the ST:ToS episode Squire of Gothos where the Alien we think is a malific adult alien turns out to be a kid-alien eventually scolded by Mom for tormenting humans for fun?

Remember the Organians?

Remember ST:TNG episode 9 "Hide and Q" which introduces the Q dimension beings?

All those Star Trek conflicts pitted hugely superior technology against humans who had technology superior to that of the audience (1960's and 1980's). 

And the superior technology, the "instrumentality" of the Squire of Gothos looked like an ordinary mirror.  The Q invoked effects by a wave of the hand (which was optional.)

In each case, the humans with the lesser technology won by being clever. 

The worldbuilding in those Star Trek depictions was superb (the production technology minimal).

What is the underlying principle that film makers must apply to get this tech worldbuilding consistent?

Kinetic Energy Diminishes As Power Increases

In the opening of Superman: Man of Steel we saw a Krypton vastly superior to any we've seen before.  It was superbly depicted.

Then we saw that technology deployed against a nearly defenseless planet (Earth).

Technology that superior has to be able to accomplish goals without:
a) wasted kinetic energy
b) obviously applied kinetic energy

Note our trend after the Atomic Bomb -- pinpoint accuracy.

Reduce that pinpoint further than we can today to produce the "indistinguishable from magic" effect.

And you have an enemy that takes us out by firing tiny black holes (or Higgs Bosons) or something very small that just tweaks the tiny few atoms necessary to achieve the goal.

No wasted kinetic energy.  No destroying whole cities to "get" one man, not even Superman.

Quiet, simplistic elegance achieves the goal with the barest twitch of a fingertip.

That's worldbuilding, Arthur C. Clarke style, folks.

The opening scenes on Krypton set up the audience to expect that kind of elegance.

Instead, we got messy, primitive, awkward, and pointlessly ridiculous nonsense that just didn't fit the opening scene.

Why?

Think again about the trailers and "Targeting a Readership." 

They took away the Romance (Superman hardly got a chance to do any really interesting rescues), they degraded the Lois character into a girl who says she won a Pulitzer but doesn't act like it, they designed the alien costumes to look more like fantasy Brass Bra outfits, and proceeded to wreak collateral damage with stray kinetic energy for no discernible reason. 

What readership prefers non-characters destroying things others have built with blood, sweat and tears?

What kind of person does not value the blood, sweat and tears of grown-ups?

What kind of person is recruited for Army service because of that trait? 

Teenage Boys. 

Not men.  (I do so love men.)  But boys. 

Boys hate Romance.  Too tedious.  Men love Romance. 

I believe that's why "they" did this to Superman, targeting the boy in every man.  Against the backdrop of the re-emergence of sexism in all areas, but especially in SFR, it certainly makes commercial sense.  The fact that this movie succeeded where others have failed this past summer will definitely give us more sexist films next year and the year after.

But the correction is not to add back the Lois character.  Then she'd just be pasted on top of something that does not showcase her properly.  She'd look awkward and artificial - not plausible.

In fact, isn't that what the HEA, the Happily Ever After, ending is ridiculed for?  Being implausible?  There's the reason why it gets ridiculed -- pasted on top of disintegrated worldbuilding. 

So how do you fix it?

You fix Krypton and the worldbuilding, and that fixes everything.  The fight scenes take less time, cause less disruption and destruction, and more screen-time is then available for a real story.

By fixing the worldbuilding so that the technology shown in the early scenes produces warfare that looks more magical, more precise (and reaches its goal faster, more elegantly), you can then spend the screen time on the underlying science.  Superman: Man of Steel runs over 2 1/2 hours.  That's long for any film. 

By definition science fiction integrates the scientific puzzles with the characters, plot, conflict and story.  Battle scenes do not a plot make.  Scientific puzzles that must be solved against a deadline of certain death -- ah, that makes a plot, a story, raises characters to heroic stature, and spurs the audience to learn more science because it's romantic and impresses the women and the men.

Lois, the investigative reporter, solves a scientific puzzle (Clark's genes), and beats Zod, would make a great movie.

Apparently, those with $225 million to spend on a movie thought that story wouldn't sell movie tickets.  And they do have a point.  Young boys, and immature uneducated young men, won't notice the disintegration of the connecting links between Theme and Plot, and will go away raving about this film.

That connecting link is the Worldbuilding.

The Worldbuilding destroyed so much when it came apart that I'm not entirely sure what the theme of Superman: Man of Steel was supposed to be. 

I think maybe it's Might Makes Right, or perhaps Peace At All Costs where the "all costs" contains the "might makes right" philosophy. 

The Justice League central issue is the vigilante justice argument (which is "better" for society, or more efficient, Hired Law Enforcement or Vigilantes that don't have to worry about legal methods of acquiring evidence or the train of custody of that evidence and just cut to the chase.)

The Boy Mentality that prefers sex to love will prefer the Vigilante method over the more tedious and cerebral Colombo Detective method.  

Peace At All Costs makes a good theme for Boys because it lets you solve the problem of roiling emotions by hitting and destroying anything in your path (regardless of whether it is the source of the roiling emotions or not). 

Reconnect the theme with the plot in Man of Steel by upping the elegance of the battle-tech, and you'd get rid of the Boy part and have to deal with the Man part of the Steel.

What does it take to make a Man out of a Boy?

That's a question our society has ducked since the 1980's (Superman II), and as a result, the movie-going audiences don't want to know the question exists, never mind the answer is not "battle."

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com