Mother-Eating Spiders

This past Sunday, the rector of our church began his Mother's Day sermon with a description of a spider in the Negev Desert that feeds herself to her newly hatched babies. I found her online (trigger warning for squick):

Mother Spider

While the eggs grow in their silken case, with the female watching over them, her intestinal tissue begins to dissolve. When the spiderlings hatch, she regurgitates this liquefied material for them to eat. As more of her internal organs turn to liquid, the babies swarm over her face, feeding on the goo that leaks out. Finally, they "pierce her soft abdomen with their mouths" to devour the rest of her guts.

According to the article, "In the end, the mother has given all but 4 percent of her body mass to her young, who leave her heart alone." That's either a perfect metaphor for sacrificial parental love or, from a different viewpoint (as Buffy said to Angel when he expressed a desire to hold her heart and keep it warm), "Euwww."

Matriphagy (eating one's mother) has been observed among many species of spiders. Suppose we visited a planet dominated by sapient aliens with this kind of biology? Such infantile cannibalism would seem revolting to us. Our own reproductive and child-rearing habits, however, might repulse some Earth animals if they were sapient. What would an intelligent bird think about carrying a live infant in one's abdomen and having to painfully push it out in a bloody mess instead of neatly laying an egg? In a story by Isaac Asimov about a pair of aliens trying to figure out human reproduction, one of them recoils in disgust at the idea of the young consuming fluid from a living body (breast milk). A culture of sapient matriphagous spiders might condemn our failure to feed our bodies to our children as the equivalent of abandoning a newborn baby to die.

Matriphagy would have far-reaching social consequences, of course. No children would ever know their mothers or grandmothers, and the only females able to take a proactive role in society would be celibate. Maybe they would have a dedicated class of celibate females who serve as teachers and surrogate aunts to the young. And suppose that world's scientists invented a high-tech method of surviving motherhood, such as in vitro reproduction? Would some factions denounce it as an unnatural abomination?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 4 - Sidewalk Superintendent

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration
Part 4
Sidewalk Superintendent
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous Parts in this 4-way Integration Series:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding_14.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding_21.html

My objective in this long series of blogs on writing craft is to dissect the Romance Novel into components, dissect the Science Fiction novel into components, then blend the compatible components of each genre into something like Science Fiction Romance, Futuristic Romance, Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, Mystery Romance, or whatever combination that can attract the respect we all know that "Romance" (as a human experience) deserves.

Our Civilization as a whole once discarded the importance of "romance" in the form of "love" -- assuming that love had little or nothing to do with marriage.

Then an era came in that elevated Romance (marrying for love, even if it was just infatuation) to the absolute epitome of the Value System.

Then Romance as the touchstone of finding and cementing Relationships for life was discarded.

Today physical infatuation (instant and irresistible sexual attraction) has replaced Romance at the epitome of value systems that direct young people into marriage or other Relationships intended to be Lifelong. 

Meanwhile, millions read stories about finding a Soul Mate and living Happily Ever After.  The contradiction (the conflict which forms the essence of Story) is sidelined in the plot.

As we have developed disposable gadgets, replacing rather than repairing them, so too have we developed disposable Relationships. 

I suspect that long-term trend of disposable gadgets/Relationships is again at the verge of reversal. 

And here's an article on a widely read source (never mind the auspices) that might be a harbinger of this shift in attitude.  I disagree with a lot this article says, but the departure from the prevailing attitude is stark.  Find out why you disagree with this article, and your reason will make the Theme of a whopping-good Romance.

--------------QUOTE-------------
Still, that bit of propaganda is nothing compared to the underlying misconception that so many of us carry around consciously or subconsciously, because we’ve seen it on TV and in the movies, and read it in books a million times since childhood: namely, that there is just one person out there for us. Our soul mate. Our Mr. or Mrs. Right. The person we are “meant to be with.”

We think that our task is to find this preordained partner and marry them because, after all, they’re “The One.” They were designed for us, for us and only us. It’s written in the stars, prescribed in the cosmos, commanded by God or Mother Earth. There are six or seven billion people in the world, but only one of them is the right one, we think, and we’ll stay single until we happen to stumble into them one day.

And when that day happens, when The One — our soul mate, our match, our spirit-twin — comes barreling into our lives to whisk us off our feet and take us on canoe rides and deliver impassioned romantic monologues on a beach in the rain or in a bus station or whatever, then we’ll finally be happy. Happy until the end of time. We can get married and have a perfect union; a Facebook Photo Marriage, where every day is like an Instragam of you and your spouse wearing comfortable socks and sitting next to the fireplace drinking Starbucks lattes.

Yeah. About that. It’s bull crap, sorry. Not just silly, frivolous bull crap, but bull crap that will destroy you and eat your marriage alive from the inside. It’s a lie. A vicious, cynical lie that leads only to disappointment and confusion. The Marriage of Destiny is a facade, but the good news is that Real Marriage is something so much more loving, joyful, and true.

    I didn’t marry The One, I married this one, and the two of us became one.

We’ve got it all backwards, you see. I didn’t marry my wife because she’s The One, she’s The One because I married her. Until we were married, she was one, I was one, and we were both one of many. I didn’t marry The One, I married this one, and the two of us became one. I didn’t marry her because I was “meant to be with her,” I married her because that was my choice, and it was her choice, and the Sacrament of marriage is that choice. I married her because I love her — I chose to love her — and I chose to live the rest of my life in service to her. We were not following a script, we chose to write our own, and it’s a story that contains more love and happiness than any romantic fable ever conjured up by Hollywood.

Indeed, marriage is a decision, not the inevitable result of unseen forces outside of our control. When we got married, the pastor asked us if we had “come here freely.” If I had said, “well, not really, you see destiny drew us together,” that would have brought the evening to an abrupt and unpleasant end. Marriage has to be a free choice or it is not a marriage. That’s a beautiful thing, really.

God gave us Free Will. It is His greatest gift to us because without it, nothing is possible. Love is not possible without Will. If we cannot choose to love, then we cannot love. God did not program us like robots to be compatible with only one other machine. He created us as individuals, endowed with the incredible, unprecedented power to choose. And with that choice, we are to go out and find a partner, and make that partner our soul mate.

------------END QUOTE----------

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/i-didnt-marry-the-one-she-become-the-one-after-i-married-her/

Just after I wrote the words above that quote, "the verge of reversal," I noticed return tweets from the author of the book I set out to discuss in this blog entry. 

He plans a sequel to the novel of interest here, and that news changes the way I will discuss this novel.

To make a lifelong career in writing, you should learn these trends of Civilization, the root reasons for them (roots which this 4-way Integration series is discussing), and how to leverage the prevailing trend to sell your own fiction without trying to write just what the Market wants. 

Today, however, you don't have to try to sell Mass Market at all, since there are many successful self-publishing writers creating whole new markets.

Writers often ask which way should they go, Self-Publishing or Traditional Publishing, or Small Press.  My answer is, "That's the wrong question."

The term "Rebranding" has risen to public notice the last few years.  You even hear the term on TV News.  It is a way of controlling the public image using Public Relations techniques (which I've discussed in this blog at length).

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_18.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_25.html

Your byline is your brand.  So your decision of whether to go Self-Publish, Small Press, or Traditional Publisher is not an either/or decision.  It is a both/and/and decision.

The real question is not whether to do this or that or the other, but rather under what brand name do I do this, and what brand name do I use when I do that? 

The question is: "Should I use the same brand name (byline) for this publishing venue as for that?"  Many professional writers do Mystery under one name, Science Fiction under another, Romance under a third.  Many have been required to do so by their editors. 

I used the Daniel R. Kerns byline for my space-action-adventure novels, HERO and BORDER DISPUTE (on Kindle in a combined edition) because the acquisitions editor required it since they are a different Brand than Sime~Gen etc etc.  But HERO and BORDER DISPUTE are Alien Relationship driven novels.



The Branding wisdom is that a brand should define the product in the most narrow terms possible. 

That's why big companies like Pillsbury buy brands from other companies, the put Pillsbury in tiny print on the back of the package and keep the brand name in large print on the front.  ConAgra does that, too.  Publishers establish Imprints and do the same. 

As a writer, you are Pillsbury or ConAgra, and you may own many Brands, many bylines. 

Each of these fiction markets is targeting a different set of readers looking for a different product.  If your current product differs from your previous products, use a different byline or Pen Name.

Here are three posts on the use of a pen name.

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript_8.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/information-feed-tricks-and-tips-for.html

If your product has a common thread that connects all the works configured for different markets, then use the same byline.  Brand the thread. 

Sensitivity to the tastes of the market at the end of the pipeline you choose to put your product into gives you the best chance of success in that market. 

Way back when I took my first formal course in writing, I learned the trick of this from the textbook.  They warned that students tended not to believe the advice.  Those students rarely launched a career as a selling writer on the 4th lesson of the course, but those that followed the advice generally did.  I know one other student who rejected the advice and did not sell.  I took the advice and sold the homework assignment for the 4th lesson.

That was my first short story sale, and it is posted online for free reading -- the first Sime~Gen story sold:

http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/oht.html

The advice was simple in its complexity:

Study the editor or agent you intend to sell to.  Craft your piece to push that individual person's buttons. 

It does  not mean write something your heart isn't in.  It doesn't mean violate your personal standards to be commercial.  It means nothing more than what it takes to revel in a good conversation -- pay attention to who you are talking to, and listen to what they are saying.

It is exactly the same advice that is followed by successful social-networkers.  If you join a Group on Facebook, or a "Community" on Google+ or any such social grouping (say at a cocktail party), lurk for a while and let the conversation soak into your head, develop an idea of "who" these speakers are and why they are saying what they are saying -- and to whom they are saying it.

Then when you have something to say that adds to their enjoyment of the social interaction, say it, paying attention to the silent-gaps that indicate an invitation to comment.  Watch the body language.  Pay attention, then participate. 

It's that simple.  If you can socialize, you can sell fiction. 

The only difference between a cocktail party conversation and publishing is that at a cocktail party, people speak in half-sentences, innuendo, raised eyebrows, and Toasts.  In publishing, people speak in books and stories.

Each novel you read, each short story in a magazine, is a sentence in a conversation among a Group.  In Science Fiction, that Group consists of about 1500 to 1700 professional writers who are members of the Science Fiction Writers of America (and its foreign equivalents).  Romance Writers of America is bigger.  Mystery Writers of America is probably bigger.  And there are umbrella organizations for writers.

Novels are sentences in a conversation among writers -- readers are the sidewalk superintendents.

The Market for a Manuscript is the Agent.  The Market for the Agent is  Editors.  The Market for Editors is the Committee with cover artists, Publicity specialists, managing editors, budgeting people, and all sorts of business functionaries who have not and will never read the book in question, but who will decide on the basis of a 3 sentence description whether to allow the infatuated editor to buy it.

Marketing, Genre, Branding and byline about summarizes my twitter-conversation with Rabbi Gidon Rothstein, author of the (almost) Futuristic Urban Fantasy Romance Mystery that does not quite (yet) fit any Genre label. 

He is inventing a new Genre, but has two major plot-threads that dominate the novel we'll examine, Murderer in the Mikdash. 

This novel is Futuristic Romance, and it is Futuristic Mystery.

It is a bit akin to Isaac Asimov's Black Widow mysteries in intellectual sharpness, but I think of it more like Randall Garrett's forensic magician stories, or even Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, magic using private eye. 

This novel's Characters and Theme are nowhere near (in fact rather opposite) those examples, but the worldbuilding behind the story belongs to that category. 

Since Dresden Files has over 20 (long) novels and counting, and has had a (short) TV Series made from it, I see no reason this novel won't develop into the same sort of Urban Fantasy publishing property. 

Here's my interview with Jim Butcher. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/04/dresden-files-interview-with-jim.html

As I noted, the novel we're exploring is titled MURDERER IN THE MIKDASH and it is by Gidon Rothstein. 

This novel is nothing (at all) like Jim Butcher's work, yet it fits the same publishing niche, and is part of the same "conversation" among writers that all of the series I've mentioned so far have created.

 Murderer in the Mikdash is THE SAME but DIFFERENT, just as you learn in SAVE THE CAT! 

Murderer in the Mikdash is not "Occult Fantasy" -- it is the exact opposite (which gives it the "but different" property).  No magic,  just a "just the facts ma'am" near-future world. 

Writers need to study Murderer in the Mikdash both for where it succeeds at an impossible task of depicting "the future" (it is genuinely Futuristic) and where it fails at depicting Romance within the Romance Genre rules. 

I have read a few of Rothstein's short stories in the collection called Cassandra Misreads The Book Of Samuel.  In the years between writing Murderer in the Mikdash, and the Cassandra material, the author learned a lot about writing, so the observations I've made about "Murderer" here will not apply to any sequels -- in fact, this first novel may be rewritten and re-released as part of a set. 

Therefore, grab yourself a copy of it as it is now because it warrants your study, and if a rewrite shoots it to a higher profile, you will want to know why that happened and what changes caused that to happen. 

So starting with this one now, you will be ready to follow where this discussion leads in a couple of years.

Here's the book I'm talking about:


So we're going to discuss this novel which is excellent in itself, but could not "make it" in Mass Market because it appears to be aimed at a narrow, specifically defined readership which marketers have not identified. 

The reasons Mass Market editors would reject this novel, in the form it is in right now, are detailed in my 7-part series on what it means to be an Editor.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html

That Part VII post has links to the previous posts in the series. 

Different sections of Murderer in the Mikdash are imprinted with the genre signatures of different genres.  Today you can "mix" genres, but not splice them together unmixed. 

Many of the scenes in MURDERER IN THE MIKDASH have "Romance" written all over them, but the ending veers into a more "Literary" signature -- avoiding even the HFN ending. 

So to me, Murderer in the Mikdash screams for a sequel. 

Therefore I was beyond delighted when the author answered my Tweet and told me he has material for a sequel and is working on it. 

But he also said he wasn't able to sell it to Mass Market after great effort.  So in this analysis of the novel, I'm going to probe into the under-structure to illustrate why that happened to an otherwise excellent, pristine, perfect, totally amazing, commercially viable Work. 

What's wrong with publishing that it could REJECT such a book?  Why aren't you seeing it advertised all over Amazon, etc.? 

Would I have risked my job as a big traditional publishing editor (which I've never been) to accept this book?  Probably not. 

Would I have taken this author on as a client if I were an Agent at a big Agency?  Probably not. 

Would I have taken him on if I were an Indie Agent?  Again, probably not because, as currently styled and written, this book had to go to an ebook Indie Publisher and they mostly don't do business with Agents. 

This situation is wholly unacceptable.  It's too good a book to be buried without honors.

But how to fix the situation? 

Direct contact with the author via twitter has given me a bunch of clues about what to do with this material, and in the next few posts I will share some of those ideas with you -- because I firmly expect many of you have similar properties in your desk drawers that failed to make the Mass Market cut, and you don't know why. 

As noted, Murderer in the Mikdash has earned my A+ grade for the integration of a long-long list of the techniques we've discussed in these Tuesday blog entries. 

Here's why I titled this Part 4 of this series "Sidewalk Superintendent"

A sidewalk superintendent is a passer-by on the sidewalk around an urban construction site which is partitioned off by a safety fence.  The passer-by peeks through a knot-hole in the fencing and criticizes what the workers are doing (or not-doing).  Mostly the passer-by sees men standing around (on the clock; paid with his tax dollars) doing nothing visible.

So the passer-by who knows nothing of construction criticizes what the Builder is doing.

And that's what I'm doing here with this novel.  I'm peering into it from outside, admiring the achievement I could NEVER have achieved -- but have vast ambitions to achieve -- and finding flaws in the execution.

At the moment, staring through the fence with one eye, I see a ragged hole in the ground, a lot of mud at the bottom where it rained, a cement truck backing up, and a faded picture on a sign that indicates what the building may be when it's built. 

Before the author tweeted me back, I didn't know there would be a sequel, and didn't know he was aware of the steep learning curve it would take to get this book into Mass Market.  I didn't even know it was his first novel, or he'd tried to market it to Mass Market.

So I had read the book with the assumption that the author thought the story was DONE.  But through the hole in the fence, I see that very big pit, some cement forms that had been knocked together, and a crew standing around doing nothing with their hard-hats under their elbows.

Now, with the Twitter exchange, suddenly, I see a work crew arrive on a big transport, jump down, clamp their hard-hats on, and begin pouring cement and wheel-borrowing loads around the site.  It'll be a building in no time!  It's going to be beautiful!!! 

As you read this novel, keep an eye out for Dialogue that should be narrative, and narrative that should be dialogue.  Watch for exposition that should be scenes.  It's subtle, and occurs only in a couple of places, but it's a no-sale flaw for a first novel. 

After buying a few novels from an author, some editors will accept a draft with this issue, blue-pencil the troublesome paragraphs and just X them out and scribble an indecipherable marginal note, relying on the previously demonstrated skills of the author to tell the author how to fix the issue. 

The appropriate techniques to use for various sorts of information feed are different in different genres and all genres differ from Literature.  Editors rely on authors to know the genre signature of the line the Editor is buying for. 

The choice of what to narrate, and what to detail in a scene, is entirely dependent on genre.  Just reversing narration and dialogue information feed  can shift genres.  For example, if you introduce a sex scene and then end the chapter with "Go To Black" (as in screenwriting, HARD CUT, in playwriting, CURTAIN), you get one genre. 

If you write 5 pages of athletics, detailing who did what to whom, with long paragraphs of what it means to each of them, you get a totally different genre. 

In various places in Murderer in the Mikdash, the decision to couch the information in dialogue, exposition or narrative was made using the rules of different genres, not always with the rules of Literature though the book was aimed at the Literature (general fiction) Market somewhat like THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yiddish_Policemen's_Union

Most editors would not know why they have to (regretfully) reject the Murderer in the Mikdash manuscript because of that variance in narrative and dialogue styling. 

Many younger editors would blame their rejection on the futuristic element and/or the Biblical element or the Jewish element -- even though they had bought manuscripts with one or another of those elements before and knew of all the Awards THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION had won, and even of the stellar sales performance of other novels rooted in Jewish tradition such as the award winning Historical (radical feminist) series titled RASHI'S DAUGHTERS

http://maggieanton.com/ 

Or the hysterically funny Interview with a Jewish Vampire ...

http://www.amazon.com/Interview-Jewish-Vampire-Erica-Manfred-ebook/dp/B006LPQ5IO/

...which might not "click" with a reader who had not read Anne Rice's Interview With a Vampire that became such an incredible media phenomenon and triggered a flood of Vampire Romance novels

http://www.amazon.com/Interview-Vampire-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B004AM5R20/

Or the incredible best selling Mystery Series by Faye Kellerman that I've raved about in these blogs (mostly because of the Romance/Marriage/Life-building narrative) The Decker/Lazarus series.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/40352-peter-decker-and-rina-lazarus

That Goodreads page lists the novels in order.  Remember Goodreads is owned now by Amazon, but you can sign in with your Facebook account.

Good editors have sensibilities that align with the sensibilities of their target readership -- so they tell writers, "I just want a good story."  They have no clue what "good" means, but they just know it when they see it.

If they don't see it, they don't know why, and don't know how to fix that -- but mostly they've learned by harsh experience that most writers just wouldn't know what to do with the editor's complaints. 

Editors don't have time to mess with writers (which is why they only deal with Agents, but today Agents don't have time to teach writing)  -- and there's more than enough material to fill the editor's pipeline, so they reject what isn't up to snuff.

Subtle things like getting the narrative and dialogue portions sorted out can make the difference.

We will dig deeper into the structure of Murderer in the Mikdash next week.  I hope by then you'll have read the book.  It's not very long.

Here it is again:


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Did You Feel It?

Like Margaret L Carter, (See her Thursday post) I have been reading old magazines!

Intrigued by a DISCOVER magazine article by Leeaundra Keany dating back to 2010 "Become A Human Seismograph", I googled "Did You Feel It" and was pleased to see that the site is still active.

Find it here: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/

Apparently, at the time of writing, there were 21 earthquakes (or earthquake like events) in the last 24 hours. I think that is slightly fewer than average.

1. The USGS estimates that several million earthquakes occur in the world each year. Many go undetected because they hit remote areas or have very small magnitudes. The NEIC now locates about 50 earthquakes each day, or about 20,000 a year.Jan 13, 2015

Or, better than average! The site contains a wealth of information, such as how to geocode your own address.

We have the capability of adding geocoded maps for certain larger events with many hundreds (or thousands) of responses. To do this, we take the addresses that people provide when they fill out our questionnaire, and send them to TomTom, a company which turns regular street addresses into precise latitude and longitude coordinates (generally 6 digits of accuracy, enough to distinguish the nearest 1/2 block on a street). We then group nearby coordinates into regularly sized boxes, which are generally a few km across, and calculate their intensities the same way we do for normal ZIP code maps. To test this geocoding on your own address, try this interactive script.

Here's an early warning page: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/earlywarning/

There's an interesting page about urban noise... lots of information that might stimulate writers' imaginations. With a site such as this, any earth-shaking activity by aliens since 2005 might well be reported to "Did You Feel It". Now there's the beginnings of a plot twist.

Happy Mothers' Day.

Rowena Cherry

More on Good and Evil

Coincidentally, after writing last week's post, I came across an old issue of TIME magazine from 2007 with the cover story "What Makes Us Good / Evil." Some topics covered include: parts of the brain involved in moral decisions; apparent ethical judgments made by "lower" animals such as apes; how the group enforces standards and punishes offenders through behavior such as shunning; the differing applications of moral principles to people "inside" and "outside" what we perceive as our group. Our empathic response to "in-group" and "out-group" also varies with closeness and distance. An individual might throw himself in front of a train to save a stranger but feel only passing sympathy upon hearing of a mass disaster on another continent. C. S. Lewis speculates that our capacity for sympathy wasn't designed to deal with constant exposure to distant catastrophes we have little or no power to affect. Many psychologists believe we're born with the programming for morality, "a sense of moral grammar" similar to the linguistic framework for syntax built into the human brain. As with language, though, we can't apply the grammar of right and wrong until we learn the necessary content and application from people around us.

The first question that arises, of course, is how to define "good" and "evil." The TIME article doesn't propose a definition explicitly, only by implication. The caption on the first page seems to identify "good" with "morality and empathy" and "evil" with "savagery and bloodlust." The text of the article itself focuses mainly on empathy and the sense of fairness. (It seems some animals are amazingly good at noticing when they're treated unfairly compared to others in their group.) In the STAR TREK episode discussed in last week's post, Kirk and Spock at first didn't have any opportunity to display empathy or justice. They were simply ordered to fight their "evil" opponents to the death. Only when Kirk and Spock refused to fight, and the alien threatened the lives of the entire Enterprise crew to force them to participate in the contest, did they have a chance to display the quality of empathy. At the end, the alien even admitted an essential difference between the Enterprise officers, fighting for the lives of their people, and the "evil" characters, fighting for selfish goals or maybe just for the fun of it.

One of my favorite nonfiction authors, Steven Pinker, wrote a book called THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE, which maintains that we live in the least violent era of human history. In other words, global society is getting more moral. He supports this counter-intuitive position with exhaustive, specific evidence. Although in regard to early history he sometimes conflates myth and literature with real life, and later occasionally slips in data on phenomena that, while deplorable, I wouldn't call "violent," the book offers a lot of solid information and provocative arguments to think about.

On a different topic: If you can get a copy of the May 2015 SMITHSONIAN magazine, check it out. This issue has the theme "The Future Is Here." Articles cover subjects such as magnetic levitation technology, the effects of plastic waste on the environment, constructing replacement human organs with 3-D printing—and "Mind Meld." The last doesn't involve true telepathic conversations, of course. It's only a rudimentary beginning, an electronic connection that allows two people to communicate simple "yes" or "no" data. Ambitious speculation envisions a future ability to download information or techniques directly from the brain of an expert. Or suppose you could upload the contents of your own brain to save and re-download in case you suffer a stroke or the like? Something I've often wondered about mind-reading: Would universal perfect telepathy or empathic perception bestow perfect harmony upon the world? Or would we find ourselves in a situation more like the plight of the lawyer in the movie LIAR, LIAR, whose son was granted the wish that his father could never tell a lie, leading to much awkwardness?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Reviews 14 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg - Delayed Gratification

Reviews 14
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Delayed Gratification  

These novels discussed below illustrate the integrating of 4 of the writing craft skills we have been discussing: Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding.  It's about delaying gratification, which is an ingredient in building suspense. 

This combination of 4-skills is about mastering that singular skill usually called "Show Don't Tell." 

The writer, as an artist, observes "life" (the Universe and Everything) and apprehends an abstract idea from it all. 


http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/98/6a/39/986a39beb5d55fef3265bb0d34dab740.jpg

This "Dance in the Rain" attitude is exemplified by Captain Kirk of Star Trek : The Original Series (ST:ToS)

You saw it, also, in Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV Series.  The thing people loved the most about that series was the smart-ass quips snapped out during action scenes.  The action (fighting, dusting Vampires) usually exemplified the subject of the quip -- it was Art In Motion.

And people loved that pithy take on Life.

Both characters, Kirk and Buffy, were Icons of an Attitude toward danger, toward uncertainty, toward overcoming obstacles.

Icons are arrays of Ideas, artistic compositions compiled from many components.  Icons are complicated, but look simple.  They are the height of the Art of "Show Don't Tell."

In this Tuesday blog series on writing craft, we are looking for how to create an Icon -- a "Show Don't Tell" -- for why the Happily Ever After Ending is actually realistic, is real, and is a perfectly rational goal.

More than half the potential readership (or viewership) does not accept the HEA as plausible.  That generates two questions:

A) Why do we accept the HEA as obvious and reasonable?
B) Why do so many people not know what we know?

"Why," "happy," "reasonable," "know,"  are all abstractions.  To dramatize that kind of abstraction is to "Show Don't Tell."

The method writers usually use to concertize such abstractions is Poetic Justice.

Poetic Justice is very familiar to most readers, but it takes a long and often intricate plot to get from injustice to justice and make the two harmonize poetically.

The key factor in an HEA is that it is an ENDING.  (maybe not THE ending, but AN ending).

In other words, some thread or "because line" of the plot has to come around to a point where there are no further consequences of the initial action to be narrated.  One plot-thread ENDS. 

That ending has to provide many emotional peaks all with one image, one line of dialogue, one culminating Aha! moment. 

Another defining property of the HEA is that abstract concept "After."  The writer's job is to find the artistic Icon to explain "after what?" 

What does Happiness come AFTER??  What has to be BEFORE in order for Happiness to be a consequence?  Do they have to have an obvious cause-effect relationship?  Or do things just happen?  Or does happiness have to be earned by being "good?" 

Nebulous philosophical maunderings of this kind are the prime ingredients in Theme -- just as flour is the prime ingredient in bread. 

Here's one possible theme to distill from abstraction:

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/7e/74/63/7e7463f87d15f48e7e3f5ad014b2f4f6.jpg

"Delay Gratification" and you qualify for success.

If your definition of "success" is living the HEA, then this principle means you probably can't get to it today - maybe not tomorrow, either.  Arriving at an HEA will take years and lots of apparently fruitless effort.

Today's modern culture has often been accused of encouraging instant gratification, rather than delayed gratification.

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e4/6f/57/e46f573c86fb1623e50fb6c8ccf8ff86.jpg

Very little of our current school curriculum prepares students to pay off a student loan by living cheaply for 10 years after graduation while making a solid upscale income.  When they reach the goal of a degree, and get a good job (which hasn't been forthcoming instantly for 9 years or so now), they expect a new, top of the line car, the best mobile phone, the most expensive mobile services, brand name wardrobe items, and a lot of vacation time.

Delayed Gratification is not trained into elementary school students by strict discipline.  Likewise, our youngest students are not led into developing personal self-discipline so they don't need a teacher or parent to discipline them.  They are encouraged to act on their feelings, not think everything through and wait for the desire to ebb before evaluating whether to take the action -- or not.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/0f/22/5f/0f225fd14a56637a94570b65e823bbe1.jpg

Parents who haven't been raised to self-discipline can't pass on the training because they have no idea what that training entails (and many child-raising advice books and TV shows admonish parents not to do the things that instill self-discipline.)

Teens and twenty-somethings raised this way are your primary readership.

A few among them have managed to acquire self-discipline and routinely practice delayed gratification.

Among those few, I think you will find the greatest percentage of those who understand what the HEA is and what it costs. 

It costs giving up what you want now for what you want most.

If you want most an HEA for your own real life, what are you willing to give up for it? 

"What" is not an abstract.  If you can name and describe a concrete something for that "what" -- you are halfway to creating an Icon for a novel.

The icon for the novel is one component in the Set Piece.

See screenwriting books like SAVE THE CAT! -- the set piece is a scene in a film. 

The set pieces are the ones you find in movie trailers.  See all the set-pieces of a film, and it's hardly worth the admission price to see the whole film.  The set-pieces tell the story, chronicle the plot, and exemplify the characters, all in images.

A novel has to have set-pieces, too, because one of them is the cover image of the book.

"Delayed Gratification" is a combination of two abstract concepts.  Your job as a writer is to find a way to Show Don't Tell delayed-gratification, it's cost and its reward.

The reward usually involves poetic justice -- things coming full circle, and things ending as they "should."  A sense of rightness that increases the reader's sense of security in a world they understand. 

So here are some novels that actually do all of this.

First we have a series I've been pointing you to for a while.  The final book has been published and amply fulfills the promise of the series -- delivering poetic justice with an HEA.

This series is aimed at adults, but many mid-teens would be thrilled with it.

Here are the Rising Flame series books (all one story so read in order)





These books pretty much stand alone, but you might want to read the whole Flame saga to get the point I'm making here.

The Hero lives a very long, extended life, and dedicates all his efforts to the Cause which he understands is the key to humanity surviving among the species of a galactic civilization. 

His failures and long periods of making no apparent progress, his hammering away at the Cause, are all at the expense of parting from his Soul Mate. 

How and why he attains his personal HEA, what it costs him, who helps (and how painful that help is) all using the Icon of "The Flame" and showing via an eventful plot full of risky decisions, exemplifies a theme that shows the connection between the HEA, Doing The Right Thing, Self-Discipline, and that Icon I put at the top of this review -- "Every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being re-directed to something better."

Good and Better are all about perspective and point-of-view. 

These novels are not so much genre "Romance" or even just "Science Fiction" as they are Literature.  These are novels about life. 

I highly recommend all of Sylvia Louise Engdahl's novels -- her YA novels are good for your children, and they will grow up to enjoy her adult novels.

The same is true of Katherine Kerr whose writing career spans many genres -- and many re-formulations of genres.

She's got the knack for Adult Fantasy with grit, action, and female-hero-driven plots.

I have been partial to Kerr's Nola O'Grady Series for a while, and the 2014 entry,  #4 in that series, is strong, a fast and enjoyable read.



Nola O'Grady gallivants across parallel universes in the company of her partner, the Israeli Agent Ari Nathan.  They are in hot pursuit of two criminals (while other things chase them).  Meanwhile the connections between the parallel universes are disintegrating, and a lot of things are going on that apparently nobody really understands.

I'm sure there will be more of these stories, but this one is a good study in the immense payoff karma brings to those who do not grab at instant gratification. 

Lastly, here are two audiobooks from Allan Cole (whom I've discussed before), that you can also get in Kindle.



It's very different in content and style from Cole's Fantasy works, but illustrates the consistency an author's skill brings across genres. 


And here is Allan Cole's MacGregor In: Dying Good -- a contemporary exploration of human trafficking, again "the same but different" from everything else he's done.  MacGregor brings down an international human trafficking ring preying on children.  It's not "Romance Genre" per se, but it is driven by love in transcendent ways.



Cole's characters (young, medium, and old) get themselves into very tight spots, face probable death, do "the right thing" (amidst some maybe no-so-right, and some out-right-bad things), and pull off a highly improbable stunt with the orchestrated aplomb of Master Operatives.  You can clearly see the Hand of God moving the characters -- but the characters can't see it. 

Taken together, these books form a set that illustrates many of the points brought forth in the Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding series.

Part 1:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html

Part 2:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding_14.html

Part 3:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding_21.html

Part 3 is an index to relevant Review Columns I wrote for the magazine I used to work for.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Do Rastafarians Have Rights?

A lot of what Judges and government appointees do with regard to the rights of persons too poor to sue troubles me. I couldn't sue Amazon or Google for copyright infringement. Could you?

I am especially alarmed about what I perceive to be the implications of the Second Circuit in the case of Cariou versus Prince.Cariou v. Prince, 714 F.3d 694 (2nd Cir. 2013). The bottom line would appear to be that anyone who grants a photographer permission to take a dignified and beautiful photograph of himself or herself for a specific project has no rights or recourse if someone else takes that beautiful photograph and turns it into something grotesque and abusive for that someone else's profit.

http://next.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=fa1b9366-5592-4342-91e5-6759fdb17338
http://next.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f937e634-8da1-4c9f-85e2-39337ce11624

How is such a precedent going to promote the arts? Why would any future "Yes Rasta" subjects allow themselves to be photographed or painted if American courts permit the original work to be disrespected under a loose interpretation of "fair use"?

Here's what Wikipedia says about personality rights.

"The right of publicity, often called personality rights, is the right of an individual to control the commercial use of his or her name, image, likeness, or other unequivocal aspects of one's identity. It is generally considered a property right as opposed to a personal right, and as such, the validity of the right of publicity can survive the death of the individual (to varying degrees depending on the jurisdiction).

Personality rights are generally considered to consist of two types of rights: the right of publicity, or to keep one's image and likeness from being commercially exploited without permission or contractual compensation, which is similar to the use of a trademark; and the right to privacy, or the right to be left alone and not have one's personality represented publicly without permission. In common law jurisdictions, publicity rights fall into the realm of the tort of passing off. United States jurisprudence has substantially extended this right.
A commonly cited justification for this doctrine, from a policy standpoint, is the notion of natural rights and the idea that every individual should have a right to control how, if at all, his or her "persona" is commercialized by third parties. Usually, the motivation to engage in such commercialization is to help propel sales or visibility for a product or service, which usually amounts to some form of commercial speech (which in turn receives the lowest level of judicial scrutiny)."

I wonder why it did not occur to Mr. Cariou to sponsor a class action by his Rastafarian models.

A correspondent of mine tells me that an American "comedian" has published a book that contains pictures of naked Supreme Court Justices. I wonder, is that "fair use"? It is "transformative"? Ought it to be? Whatever happened to civility?

On the other hand, it is alleged that the art world approves of the Second Circuit ruling, because vindicating Mr. Cariou would have been devastating to the field of "appropriation art". What is "appropriation art" but permissionless exploitation of someone else's work? So, I am out of step with the "sharing" economy, which seems to me to have a great deal to do with ripping off the original artist, musician, author.

The article referenced above also discusses Google's book scanning. I've blogged about this before. The "facts" seem to me to be extremely sanitized. In my experience, it is quite possible for a student to do an entire series of homework assignments without purchasing a required course text book simply by using Google books and some simple search terms. So much for snippets and the protections for the copyright owners. Moreover, searching Google straight from the Google Books site leads to links to Russian sites and pirated copies of entire works. Things may have changed... on the other hand, doesn't everyone know that when Google "takes down" a link in response to a complaint from the copyright owner, they re-upload it to their Chilling Effects site, so pirates can find it again.

With this drone business, I wonder about the property rights, not to mention the privacy of homeowners. We are supposed, I think, to have limited rights over the air space immediately above our homes and gardens.  We are supposed to have the right to quiet enjoyment of our homes and back yards but now Google and Amazon--and anyone else with a drone--with their cameras and flying machines and camera cars are spying on places that used to be private. Anyone can take a picture of my roof, it seems--I received such a mailing this week--for the purpose of getting my attention and hawking some commercial service or other.

If I have a flat roof with a high parapet, I ought to be able to sunbathe up there, if I wish, without having to worry about being photographed without my consent. Now, apparently, thanks to the Second Circuit not only may I be photographed, but some crude "appropriation artist" could slash my face and photoshop a donkey's penis onto me if he felt that was transformative, witty and profitable.

Then, of course, there is the problem of Spokeo, Zabasearch, Intellius and other such sites that mine public records (often inaccurately) and sell their findings to anyone at all.
http://next.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a4db79b4-6fb6-41d2-a131-5056e2e47674

For my readers who are unaware of these sites, most will remove your personal information, if you contact them, but you have to know what they have, and you have to check to be sure that your private information has not been re-uploaded.

Have a busy week.

Rowena Cherry

Good vs. Evil on STAR TREK

I've been watching the third season of the original STAR TREK, which includes many of the weakest episodes and also a few that have intriguing ideas combined with cringe-making lapses. "The Cloud Minders" isn't bad, but when Spock solemnly flirts with the cloud city ruler's daughter, she mentions the seven-year mating cycle as if it were common knowledge. "Amok Time" (second season) makes it clear that not only is pon farr kept secret from other species, the Vulcans don't even discuss it among themselves. We might assume that after the near-disaster with Spock, the Starfleet medical department might have been informed of the risks involved in sending Vulcan crew members on long voyages, but surely the topic wouldn't have been made public. "Turnabout Intruder" has the fascinating premise that a woman who envies Kirk's command position switches bodies with him. But when the female antagonist in Kirk's body spews out her anger over her failed career, Kirk makes no attempt to deny that her gender, rather than her unstable personality, kept her from commanding a starship. And how do the other officers, who don't share Spock's mind meld ability, become convinced of the false Captain's identity? Because "he" throws tantrums and hysterical fits!

I've just re-watched "The Savage Curtain," wherein a Sufficiently Advanced Alien (in TVTropes terminology) kidnaps Kirk and Spock in order to make them participate in a contest to determine which of their culture's "philosophies of Good and Evil" is superior. The first problem with this episode is the infuriating notion that Evil is a "philosophy." It isn't, except in the works of outliers such as the Marquis de Sade, whose characters really do boast of committing evil deeds as a matter of principle. As C. S. Lewis mentions in the intro to reprint editions of THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, in real life people (and presumably demons, as in his book) commit villainous acts for pleasure, revenge, profit, or some other pragmatic motive, not in disinterested service to an abstraction called "Evil." Another weakness of "The Savage Curtain," as the alien points out after Kirk and Spock destroy their foes, is that "Good" and "Evil" use the same methods (aside from Surak, who refuses to commit violence). Kirk replies with the accurate rebuttal that the alien dictated the conditions of the contest.

Furthermore, the choice of characters to represent the evil side is rather disappointing. Kirk and Spock have Abraham Lincoln and the great Vulcan philosopher Surak as their allies on the "good" side. Of the four proponents of "evil," three are ad-hoc fictional characters never mentioned in the series before. The only villain from Earth's history is Ghengis Khan. The ultimate incarnation of Evil from all of humanity? Hardly. (According to Wikipedia, he was vilified for his brutality, but he also had some positive accomplishments.) Even if the writers wanted to avoid recent history and the obvious choices, Hitler and Stalin, they could surely have picked a better representative of human evil. How about Nero or Caligula? Vlad the Impaler? Elisabeth Bathory? Gilles de Rais?

Which two or three historical figures (from among powerful persons like those in the TV episode, not mad loner serial killers) would you pick to represent human "Evil"?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Index To Depiction Series by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Index To Depiction Series
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

This post will be referenced by posts in series on other skills, and added to as future parts on Depiction are posted.

You can find the Index Posts to the Tuesday writing craft series by searching on Index. 

The series on Depiction is:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-2-conflict-and-resolution.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-3-internal-conflict-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/depiction-part-4-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/depiction-part-5-depicting-dynastic.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-6-depicting-money-and.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-7-using-media-to-advance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-8-which-comes-first.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/03/depiction-part-9-depicting-hero-by.html

Part 10 of Depiction is about Trinocular Vision.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/03/depiction-part-10-binocular-vision-by.html

Part 11 is about depicting complex battle fields.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/06/depiction-part-11-depicting-complex.html

Part 12 of Depiction - Depicting Rational Fury
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/10/depiction-part-12-depicting-rational.html

Part 13 is about Depicting Wisdom
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/depiction-part-13-depicting-wisdom-by.html

Part 14 of Depiction is about depicting the generation gap, and using that depiction to create verisimilitude. It discusses older fiction where the good guy wins because he's good.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/05/depiction-part-14-depicting-cultural.html

Part 15 is about Depicting Culture via unconscious assumptions nobody can question
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/06/depiction-part-15-depicting-cultural.html

Part 16 is Reviews 26
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/07/depiction-part-16-reviews-26-depicting.html

Part 17 is about Depicting an Alien Economy and refers to Part 16 and C. J. Cherryh's FOREIGNER series.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/08/depiction-part-17-depicting-first.html

Part 18 - Interstellar Commerce, discusses blending theme, plot, character and story into a seamless whole.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/08/depiction-part-18-interstellar-commerce.html

Part 19 - Depicting the Married Hunk With Children (especially daughters) (Testosterone effect)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-19-depicting-married.html


Part 20 - Depicting Recent Wealth (a scientific study about High Heels)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-20-depicting-recent.html

Part 21 - Depicting Alien History (Testosterone revisited)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-21-depicting-alien.html

Part 22 - Depicting Alien Nostalgia With Symbolism (Dean Martin song Memories Are Made Of This used in a Video of nostalgic images, perfectly composed and compiled)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/12/depiction-part-22-depicting-alien.html

Part 23 - Depicting Relationships, a Guest Post by Carol Buchanan
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/12/depiction-part-23-guest-post-by-carol.html

Part 24 - Depicting A Villain by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/02/depiction-part-24-depicting-villain-by.html

Part 25 - Depicting Hatred by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/02/depiction-part-24-depicting-villain-by.html

Part 26 - Depicting Humanity
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/03/depiction-part-26-depicting-humanity-by.html

Part 27 - Depicting Love
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/03/depiction-part-27-depicting-love-by.html

 Part 28 - Depicting A Grifter And His Mark
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/01/depiction-part-28-depicting-grifter-and.html

Part 29 - Depicting the Global Village
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/05/depiction-part-29-depicting-global.html

Part 30 - Depicting Royalty
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/06/depiction-part-30-depicting-royalty.html

Part 31 - Depicting Random Luck (sheer dumb luck)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/07/depiction-part-31-depicting-random-luck.html

Part 32 - Depicting Brain To Computer Links -- Online Bullying Prevention
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/09/depiction-part-32-depicting-brain-to.html

Part 33 - Depicting Privacy
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/09/depiction-part-33-depicting-privacy-by.html

Part 34 - Depicting Prophecy
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/11/depiction-part-34-depicting-prophecy.html

Part 35 - Depicting Marriage (this is about convincing readers the HEA is possible)
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/01/depiction-part-35-depicting-marriage-by.html

Part 36 - Depicting Dreams: Male or Female
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/07/depiction-part-37-depicting-dreams-male.html
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Some useful links from this week

The USPTO has been discussing "orphan" works, or “Facilitating the Development of the Online Licensing Environment for Copyrighted Works.” 

There are already ways for would-be exploiters of copyrighted works to locate and seek permission from rights holders, but Google and others would rather enjoy an "opt-out" system where authors' and songwriters' must proactively search out every would-be exploiter and actively opt out of being exploited.

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2015/04/finding-authors-importance-of.html

I resorted to Wikipedia for this (below), having seen a news item about a new interactive gaming app that appears to exploit the likeness and final hours of a young man who died in a manner that made national headlines.

The discussion by Cyberguy did not clarify whether the bereaved family sold the rights, or whether they are being ripped off. 

Wikipedia:

The right of publicity, often called personality rights, is the right of an individual to control the commercial use of his or her name, image, likeness, or other unequivocal aspects of one's identity. It is generally considered a property right as opposed to a personal right, and as such, the validity of the right of publicity can survive the death of the individual (to varying degrees depending on the jurisdiction).

Personality rights are generally considered to consist of two types of rights: the right of publicity, or to keep one's image and likeness from being commercially exploited without permission or contractual compensation, which is similar to the use of a trademark; and the right to privacy, or the right to be left alone and not have one's personality represented publicly without permission. In common law jurisdictions, publicity rights fall into the realm of the tort of passing off. United States jurisprudence has substantially extended this right.

A commonly cited justification for this doctrine, from a policy standpoint, is the notion of natural rights and the idea that every individual should have a right to control how, if at all, his or her "persona" is commercialized by third parties. Usually, the motivation to engage in such commercialization is to help propel sales or visibility for a product or service, which usually amounts to some form of commercial speech (which in turn receives the lowest level of judicial scrutiny).

IMHO, Science Fiction, Horror, Romance, and other genre authors should beware of assuming that just because a game app developer does something, it is safe and above board to emulate. It may not be. Rights may be involved. Permissions and contracts may be necessary.

On the other hand, there was an interesting article in an Authors Guild newsletter last year about the difficulties in copyrighting aspects of historical fiction where different authors relied on the documented life of a real historical person, that is, when one accuses the other of plagiarism for using identical historical details and events.

As a bit of a copyright enthusiast (you noticed?) I am silently cheering The Turtles for their sterling work in going after exploiters of their copyrighted musical works. 

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=bbe7f946-023f-4249-8609-400add5aaf2e&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+Federal+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2015-04-22&utm_term=

What I do not understand is why there isn't a class action suit involving all my favorite musicians and bands (living and deceased) from the 1950's, 1960's, and early 1970's who have not been paid any royalties at all by various subscription services. 

Big tech has taught us all to call copyrighted works "content"....  as www.TheTrichordist.com puts it, it is not so much "the internet of things" as "the internet of other people's things."

Excellent quote from The Trichordist on copyright (where the British Green Party allegedly proposes to cut copyright protection to just 14 years, and redistribute authors', musicians', movie makers', photographers' and others' rights to Google:

Ask yourself this: Exactly how does technology make it any less expensive to write a novel?   Writing a novel is purely a work of intellectual labor.  I suppose it’s easier to spell check…,  the backspace key is more convenient than White-out™ and a brush…  But I’m not seeing any evidence it’s less expensive.   In fact I would argue that since the modern English author lives in a much richer society than Dickens, that the relative cost of his labor is much much higher. 

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Talking with Dolphins

The new issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (May 2015) has an article about dolphin intelligence and communication. The issue should still be on sale, or you can read the article here:

Dolphin Intelligence

Do dolphins have true language and a level of intelligence comparable to our own? If so, they arrived at this point along a totally different evolutionary path, because primates and cetaceans last shared a common ancestor 95 million years ago. Dolphins have large brains, not only in absolute terms but in relation to body size. They communicate over long distances, and one experiment at a research facility on an island near Honduras hints that a pair of dolphins may be able to coordinate actions by vocally sharing their intentions. It has recently been discovered that dolphins in the wild identify each other by "signature whistles." In other words, they have names—the only nonhuman species known to create symbolic labels for individuals.

John Lily, the neurophysiologist famous for his work on dolphin language and intelligence, eventually drifted so far out to the fringe that the whole subject became discredited for a while. Now, though, these questions are being taken seriously again. The article quotes one researcher as saying, "The question is not how smart are dolphins, but how ARE dolphins smart?" Measuring their intelligence by its similarity to ours may shortchange the other species.

In addition to evolving in a different environment—water instead of dry land and air—they don't have hands. That last difference alone must have a significant effect on how their minds work. Are manipulative organs necessary to the development of what we'd recognize as "our kind" of intelligence? I've often thought that elephants would be good candidates for evolution into sapience on some other planet or in an alternate timeline on our world. Like dolphins (and us), they have large brains, long lifespans, extended childhoods, a complex social structure, and the capacity for voluntary vocalization. Unlike dolphins, they have the additional advantage of manipulative organs (trunks instead of hands). Elaine Morgan, in THE DESCENT OF WOMAN and other books on the "Aquatic Ape Hypothesis," theorizes that the human species shares some of these traits, especially voluntary vocalization, with cetaceans and elephants because our prehuman ancestors did in fact have their development shaped by eons when they spent a lot of their time in water. Whether or not there's any truth to this hypothesis (and some scientists think there is), it makes a fascinating story.

The NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC article calls dolphins "a kind of alien intelligence sharing our planet—watching them may be the closest we'll come to encountering ET."

Coincidentally, the same issue has an article on the crisis facing the honeybee population and the project to breed a "super bee" able to resist disease and parasites. That article says, "Honeybees are hive minds. Honeybees are linguistic networks." Maybe we don't have to wait until we travel beyond our solar system to communicate with "aliens."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 3 - Index To Monthly Aspectarian Review Columns

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration
Part 3
Index To Monthly Aspectarian Review Columns
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous entries in this 4-skills integration series are:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding_14.html

For 20 years, I did a monthly review column for a magazine published on paper.

You will find links to the relevant ones below. 

Paper magazines have a deadline that is absolute.  It is journalism.  What isn't done by this exact minute does not get printed.  Turning in your column has to be done in advance, in some cases 6 months in advance, of the "send to the printer" deadline.  And the columns must be of an exact (to the character) fixed length.

Over years, the amount of space alotted to your words may change as more advertising is necessary to pay the bills.  Yes, your words are filler between ads -- just as with fiction. 

The words are a commodity you sell by the column-inch. 

Over years, the space allotted to my column went down as the price of paper, printing, and trucking (the price of gasoline) went UP and the number of advertisers willing to pay to reach the readership went up.

So I got more money per word, but the crafting of the column became harder.

I went to doing series of columns, as I've been doing on this blog -- numbering the parts.

I resigned from that magazine when it changed ownership, figuring 20 years was enough.

The Magazine was slanted to the New Age Community, so all my columns address Seekers on the Path and compare spiritual lessons that can be gleaned from Science Fiction and Fantasy novel reading. 

Many of these columns, and the books they discuss, the ideas these sets of books have in common with one another, and especially the themes pertain to this series of columns on Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration. 

Here is a list of links to my Columns that I think are particularly relevant.

The main index page to all 20 years worth of monthly columns is

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

Click a year and scroll down that year-index to see the books reviewed by Month.  The title of the column reflects what those books have in common with each other, often a theme that the author probably was not aware of illustrating. 

Ideas (themes) come from "the air" -- from the Group Mind you are tied into.  Your Ideas also affect that Group Mind.  So it matters which Groups you choose to join.  A Group is your readership, bound together by an interest in a theme. 

Many of the column series I wrote run for 4-6 months in installments, so I'm giving the year index as the link.  Scroll down watching the books that appear under particular column titles. 

You can navigate years using the year links across the top of each page.  On each year-index page, there are links to the month-columns on the left. 

You can also find a month's column by clicking on the month-link in the left column of the table.  On many years, the title of the column is a link to the column.  Click on the books to find most of them on Amazon.  If Amazon fails, try Abe Books.

Oh, and yes, I have read every word (not skimmed) of every book discussed in these columns.  I did not review every book I read, but I read every book I reviewed.  That rule also pertains to the Review blogs I do here.

Review Column Links

All columns year-index
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/

Years and Individual Columns pertaining to this 4-skill integration discussion. 

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2006/index.html
This set of review columns focuses on explaining Neptune, Saturn and Mercury as used by fiction writers.  Scroll down the index to note the novels that illustrate that. 

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2007/index.html
Note the series titled THE SOUL TIME HYPOTHESIS (about how the Soul enters the level we call Reality via the dimension of TIME) - and how that is handled in fiction.

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2008/index.html
Scroll down over the books in the columns titled Formulating Decisions
Also note the series indexed on this page titled Pluto: Melodrama Unleashed and note the books given as examples.

Here is a series on Government I wrote in 1994:
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/columns/0894.html
Art and Government

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/columns/0994.html
Television, Power and Government

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/columns/1094.html
Might, Right, Art And Government

And more on the topic of Government in October 2010
The Science of Magic, Part IV: Governing The City
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/columns/1010.html

The Science of Magic, Part V: Scalability
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/columns/1110.html

The Science of Magic: Part VI: Defining Peace
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/columns/1210.html

Poetic Justice: The Fragile Universe
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/columns/0209.html

Karma of World Prominence
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/columns/0309.html

Over the years, my focus and depth of knowledge on these topics has grown, changed, and moved -- and do keep in mind that magazine is for a narrow audience.

We will be drawing on this old material as the platform to develop some newer ideas.

Whole publishing imprints are constructed around narrow themes -- delivering to a very specific readership the exact discussion they are looking for.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com