Reviews 20 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg -- Jean Johnson's The First Salik War Book 1 The Terrans

Reviews 20 

by

 Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The First Salik War
Book 1
 The Terrans 

by

Jean Johnson

Previously, I reviewed Jean Johnson's ...
http://www.jeanjohnson.net
...mostly Military Science Fiction series, 5 books collectively called Theirs Not To Reason Why about a precognitive, half-human time-traveling woman.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/09/reviews-18-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

I told you to read those books, even though they are not specifically or ostensibly "Romance Genre" -- there is a love story in there, and it does affect the story but not the plot.

Now I'm going to tell you to read her new, prequel-series, THE FIRST SALIK WAR, (1st book THE TERRANS), set centuries prior to the events of THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY, and I'm going to tell you why you should read The First Salik War saga (which is hot-Trekfic-Style-Romance).  When you get done, you'll see the ROMANCE inherent in Theirs Not To Reason Why.

 
She is working on a huge, gigantic, multiplex canvas to display an artform to the mass market that hasn't actually been created yet.  She's at a forefront of things to come.  

Last week,...

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/11/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

...we discussed the impact of online fanzine distribution, particularly Star Trek, via a Guest Post by Kirok of L'Stok, and as an introduction to what he had to say, I pointed to The Terrans and how Jean Johnson had blended the writing craft styles of Romance into Science Fiction, bringing one to the fore and then the other.

To see where this is coming from and how it is not only changing the online fanfic market, but also the mass market paperback market, we have to look deeply at The Terrans.

Jean Johnson has made a good reputation as a Romance writer.  I met her on Facebook, and did a #scifichat with her on Twitter.  She's a good conversationalist, as well as a good writer.

She says she was writing Harry Potter fanfic and got a request from an editor at a mass market publisher for a Romance.  She had a book already written (see? that's the key -- write and keep writing, develop a file of stuff you have written), and "dusted it off" and sent it in.

That's another key.  You have to have a file full of material you've written a while ago, and when requested for something designed to mass market to a specific market, you have to be able to "dust it off" -- to update the writing techniques, rephrase things, scrub typos, and generally conform the raw artistic sketch to a specific market as requested.

And you have to be able to do that lickity-split -- it has to be just a few days between request and produced manuscript. Markets flow fast, reshape, open and close.

Publishers work a conveyor belt operation with specific dates set years in advance, a wide variety of different departments all producing pieces of the work (cover art, cover copy, copy-editing, publicity reserving ad space, all sorts of things you've never heard of if you don't work in publishing).

And budget - budget is the biggest item.  The longer a thing takes to do, the more it costs.  Readers will buy at a certain price, and balk at a price just 25 cents higher, and publishers know where the break-point is.  And they know their warehousing costs, trucking costs, etc.

As a writer, you have to produce an item that fits their conveyor belt within the time-slot of when their empty slot moves by the editor's desk.

Timing is everything.

In fact, that is exactly how we sold the non-fiction book STAR TREK LIVES! that blew the lid on Star Trek fanfic.

Prior to publication of the Bantam mass market paperback, STAR TREK LIVES!, reviewers for the large magazines and reporters for newspapers had never, ever, heard of fan fiction and had no idea what it was!  Now there are lots of books, academic and mass market about fanfic, and it is casually referred to in news stories and by Characters on TV Shows.

We are Marketing Fiction in a totally Changed World, that is still changing fast.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

We sold STAR TREK LIVES! to Bantam (Fred Pohl being the editor at the time, and he knew me because he'd bought my first story, set in the Sime~Gen Universe but he didn't know the connection between Sime~Gen and Star Trek).  At Bantam, they had a conveyor belt filled with pre-contracted books, contracts with reliable professional writers with selling track records.

As happens, but rarely, one of the writers failed to deliver on time, but as with professional writers, enough warning was given so the panic in the offices was muted to, "We can handle this."

In midst of "handling this," Fred Pohl met one of my co-authors, Joan Winston, at a Meet The Authors event at a Star Trek Con in Canada, mentioned his problem with a vacant conveyor belt slot, and asked if the book he had turned down previously was still available.  It was, and had been rewritten a couple times since -- and it didn't have a title.  Fred chose the title STAR TREK LIVES!

And the reviews fastened on the FANFIC element we presented.

Sondra Marshak went on to compile the VOYAGES series of fanfic professionally published.  That went best-seller, and little by little, changed science fiction as a field and the thinking behind publishing.  Of course, all during that time, online publishing was rising, and computer-data-feedback from stories grew, and Amazon launched obliterating brick-and-mortar Indie Stories, and the world changed.

Into the aftermath of this melee in the business side of things, around 2007, Jean Johnson started publishing in the Romance arena, capitalizing on all the change rooted in Star Trek, carried forward by B-7 (which also had telepaths), and then transmitted to a whole new generation via Harry Potter.

And of course, the Fantasy arena likewise morphed, and some serious contributions have been made there.

The confluence of all these influences is launching us into a new epoch in publishing, in science fiction, in romance, and in science fiction romance.

Jean Johnson may be one of the leaders in this new Epoch.

It may not be on purpose, but I can easily see that she is writing to change the world.  Or at the very least, my world.

With Theirs Not To Reason Why, she presented a blend of the Fantasy ESP premise of the precognitive ability originating in an energy-based (shades of ST:ToS) beings mating with humans (shades of Greek Mythology), all seamlessly integrated into an interstellar war.

She billed that war as The Second Salik War, with only hints of what dire events had transpired in The First Salik War.

In 5 large volumes, she painted a mural of future-history.

Now in The First Salik War, she is taking us through the details of how Earth made First Contact with that galactic civilization filled with a panoply of species, fought in the war, and survived.

The writing style of The Terrans is mostly all tell, very little show.  It is, as I said last week, one huge expository lump after another, painting an enormous picture of Earth's history, and "current" mode of governing.

That violation of all science fiction structural "rules" has a certain validity, and it has a target audience.

The payload for wading through all that exposition is enormous.

Just barely arriving at the story/plot beginning at the 3/4 point of the novel, the book turns into the quintessential reason why Star Trek fanfic exploded out of an audience that would never touch a "science fiction novel."

It's the Romance.  That's it, pure and simple.  Adding Romance, in all its facets, to a life-or-death war situation complicated by clashing governmental forms, by laws, rules, unconscious assumptions, and RELIGION.

The Science Fiction Romace field has two requirements that few writers can meet at the same time in the same work:

1) the Aliens have to BE ALIEN
2) the Human/Alien Romance requires the ALIEN to be HUMAN (but still alien).

In both Theirs Not To Reason Why and The First Salik War, Jean Johnson has managed to fit both criteria without straining the underlying worldbuilding.

I've just barely met her, so I don't know how deeply and consciously she has thought through her worldbuilding.  She did tell me that she had been mulling and imagining this universe for many years, and that shows in the overwhelming plethora of detail she presents about it.

So I want to look more closely at the Content of The Terrans, as separate from the structure and writing craft choices, or even the artistic choices leading into using enormous expository lumps disguised as conversation, and telepathic conversation.

There are so many other ways to style the crafting of such a tapestry against which to fling an interstellar war Romance, a Helen of Troy With A Twist Romance, that you can read these novels, mull over what Jean Johnson has extracted from the Potterverse fanfic, combined with her audience's everyday experience of the world, and morphed into an interstellar war, and then use that same technique to create something vastly different.

If you can pick up what Jean Johnson has done, why she's chosen the tools she has chosen, what she injected into the blended field of science fiction romance with fantasy elements, and re-cast it into your very own, original concept, I think you can carry this New Epoch of the world of publishing forward yet another step.

So don't miss any of these books.

Meanwhile, think about this quote from STAR TREK:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/quotes
STAR TREK II THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982)
----------QUOTE-----------
McCoy: [Kirk runs in to the engine room and sees Spock inside the reactor compartment. He rushes over but McCoy and Scotty hold him back] No! You'll flood the whole compartment!
Kirk: He'll die!
Scotty: Sir! He's dead already.
McCoy: It's too late.
[They let go and Kirk walks to the glass and pushes the intercom button]
Kirk: Spock!
[Spock slowly walks over to the glass and pushes the intercom]
Spock: The ship... out of danger?
Kirk: Yes.
Spock: Do not grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many, outweigh...
Kirk: The needs of the few.
Spock: Or the one. I never took the Kobayashi Maru test until now. What do you think of my solution?
Kirk: Spock.
[Spock sits down]
Spock: I have been, and always shall be, your friend.
[he places a Vulcan salute on the glass]
Spock: Live long and prosper.
[Spock dies]
Kirk: No.
-----------END QUOTE-------------

Science Fiction and Fantasy-Action Romance stories require Heroism in the main character.

Many novels today, especially Fantasy, portray the main Character as a victim, not a Hero.  That's fine if the writer does it on purpose, having chosen deliberately for artistic reasons and telegraphed the reason for that choice to the reader.  But that fine-point is often overlooked.  It is a sophisticated technique many new writers haven't mastered when they first break into print.

I discussed "The Hero" a little in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/02/tv-shows-leverage-and-psych.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/08/reviews-9-sex-politics-and-heroism.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/strong-characters-defined-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

Creating a "strong" character and casting that character into a Situation that is "beyond him/her" -- so that the Character is tested to destruction and rebuilt anew by the end -- requires a great deal of study of Human Nature -- psychology and all of its manifestations.

Jean Johnson says, on her Facebook bio, that she studied Religion in college.

In Theirs Not To Reason Why and now The First Salik War, Jean Johnson portrays some characters with a sense of the spiritual, but who eschew Religion, and some who are deeply steeped in their own (non-Terran) religious texts.

She deals with Prophecy -- one of the elements that make the Bible such essential reading for writers looking for hot-plots.

I discussed Prophecy and its plot-potential in the context of reviewing Jennifer Roberson's novels -- which I recommend across the board. Read anything by Jennifer Roberson you can lay hands on.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/reviews-1-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/doranna-durgin-on-changes-in-publishing.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/original-thinking-in-romance-part-1.html

Strong Characters meeting Prophecy often brings some element of Self Sacrifice into the plot.

Heroism is often defined in the popular culture as self-sacrifice.

Some people regard self-sacrifice as noble.  Others think it's a stupid way to behave.

Both kinds of people, religious and anti-religious, shed a tear or two or three at Spock's (first) death scene.

We didn't know he'd be resurrected, and neither did those in charge of making contracts to get Leonard Nimoy to portray Spock again-still-once-more-forever.

In few other genres can writers resurrect characters and make such a wide audience believe and accept.  The Genesis Planet used science.  Alternate Universe travel, time travel, all sorts of nonsense Fantasy premises are turning into science now.

While the audience was held in the limbo of having lost Spock to a graphic death, we were all left to ponder this philosophy.

As usual Roddenberry put his finger on the central theme of the philosophy -- graphically depicted in prevailing religions -- of Self-Sacrifice.

More than 30 years ago, Roddenberry stated the conundrum of the confluence point of Government and Religion without apology.

Self-sacrifice is taken as a sign of heroism.

It is the eternal tension between the individual and the group, or in astrological terms, 1st House vs. 7th House which is discussed in these posts on Astrology Just For Writers where Character Development is also addressed.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

The struggle between the rights of the individual and the rights of the groups supporting that individual's right to individuality continues today.

It is being worked out on the world stage via ISIS or ISIL or whatever they're calling themselves these days, the attempt to reinstate the Caliphate -- a theocracy.

Their particular theocracy is based on the idea that the highest spiritual reward, the most exalted heroism, is achieved by dying to kill those who refuse to adopt their religion.  Dying while killing earns a higher reward than saving a life.

In that theocracy, the force of government is brought to bear on those who disagree with government, and the religion is the government you must agree with or die.

The U.S.A. was founded on the Legal Philosophy rooted in the idea that a Monarchy (England) could not use Government to enforce conforming to a Religion (the Church of England).

American Government is a limited government designed to protect the rights of the few or the one from the power of the many or the majority.  In this philosophy of law, government does not impose the will of the majority on the individual but protects the individual from being bullied by a majority.

In other words, Spock cited a principle in diametric opposition to everything America holds sacred.

The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.  That's the political philosophy behind the modern concept of Human Rights, and most of the Legal Philosophy behind our concept of Justice.

Spock's voluntary sacrifice re-defined and/or confirmed the Spock Character as a Strong Character, a Heroic Character.  His reason for it posed the kind of salient question Roddenberry was always famous for.

In America, the rights of the individual outweigh the rights of the many -- UNLESS that individual voluntarily and without coercion (sword at the neck, ISIL style), and with informed consent, offers to wave a right for a specified time (such as in joining the Armed Services or taking an Oath for an elected Office.)

Jean Johnson showed us an individual in Theirs Not To Reason Why who made the sort of voluntary contribution that Spock made by giving his life.  (really, I'm telling you, you must read those books even if they aren't Romance -- really!)

The Hero of those novels had to fight her government to achieve a position where she was able to make that self-sacrifice.

In The First Salik War, The Terrans, Jean Johnson shows us another kind of sacrifice - a circumstantial and inevitable one, very much like the dilemma that Spock faced in entering the radiation-hot chamber to twiggle a device to avoid the ship blowing up.

In The Terrans, we meet this Character who has been embedded in the Political scene, working as a representative in Earth's world government.

Go read that novel, and we'll discuss more about the content in another post on this blog.

It raises questions.  Gene Roddenberry taught that good fiction doesn't answer questions, but rather asks them.

Posing a question in a form that depicts a problem that can be worked is an artform.

The art of posing questions is not taught in the early schooling in America today.  Schooling has also become political, a matter for a central government not parents.

There are good arguments on both sides of that dilemma, rich fields for Romance novels to find conflict.  How easy is it for parents to agree about how their children should be educated?  How much discussion of the High School education of children goes on during a hot Romance?

Yet, how many good marriages founder on a point of this sort -- how to educate children, how to pay for it, how many children to have and whether to choose the number of children or let God decide?

Yes, Religion invades education as well as Romance.

Religion is a bedrock component of Romance.  As I've pointed out,  you aren't likely to bond with a Soul Mate if you don't have a Soul.

The are of question formulation leads one to the obvious problem: if you have a Soul, must you also adopt a Religion?

And what has having a Soul, and a Soul Mate, got to do with good governance?  With choosing a form of government that is "scalable" -- that is can be scaled up to govern a humanity flung to the stars and beyond?

How do you govern Earth in such a way that we can become part of an Interstellar ciivilization that's already "out there."  What if our political philosophy clashes with that which we find out there?

What if their idea of where religion and prophecy belongs in the scheme of the Philosophy of Law differs from ours?  What if the ideas are incompatible?

What if the two people who make First Contact will die (or worse) if they obey the law?

Is there any such thing as a sacrifice that is not a self-sacrifice?

What is a sacrifice?  What is it if I sacrifice your life to my benefit, turn around and walk away happy that I have gained so much for so little?  Is it possible to "sacrifice" someone else?  If it is, what is the person who sacrifices another for the greater good?  Is that a Hero?  Can a villain be a Strong Character?

Where do ethics and morals intersect the Philosophy of Law, and what has Law to do with good governance, with global governance, with interstellar government forms?

If you've read Jean Johnson's novels so far, you can ponder those questions and see why a degree in Religion equips you well for a career in fiction writing.

For contrast check out the book I reviewed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/05/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/05/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding-part.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/05/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_26.html

When I find one of these writers, I just go on and on about them!

This is important work.  This is writing to change the world.  This is the kind of writing that can change the world.

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword.

War is nothing in the face of fiction.  Fiction reveals the "truth" of politics, law, philosophy, religion and opinion by examining the various shadow governments we can imagine espousing various religions, with and without the bullying of the minority by the majority, with or without the informed consent of the bullied.

Study this image again.  Think hard about it.

 

How do you pose such ineffable questions to build a world around the story that you want to tell?

These are the sorts of questions Jean Johnson has chosen answers to in her First Salik War saga.

Read the books, consider other ways to answer those questions and write your own novels rooted in such profound questions which your Characters answer in their own Characteristic ways.

This is content, not structure. Structure aims a novel at a given audience.  Content can be carried to any audience if you choose the correct structure, the structure that audience prefers. The structure is your vehicle.  The content, or payload, you put into your vehicle is your theme, what you have to say.

First, question everything you think you know.  The more positive you are that what you think is true is actually The Truth, the more likely you are missing something important.

Aliens may have that something important, and be missing something we think is obvious.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Be Careful What You Retweet, Pin, Share, or Like

Inadvertently Liking, Re-Tweeting, or Sharing Infringing ContentIt should be no surprise that much material posted online violates copyright laws. The copyright owner sometimes launches a lawsuit against the person or company that posted the infringing material. The forum – such as YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook – on which the material is posted has typically taken advantage of the safe harbor provisions offered by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is, therefore, insulated from any copyright infringement liability stemming from infringing material posted by its users.
But what happens if we – without realizing that the material is infringing - re-tweet, pin, like, or otherwise share infringing content?

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=93f6f876-002a-4a69-a1aa-6635810c65a0

Excellent article by the law offices of Joy R Butler.

Another interesting legal article about the explosion of copyright infringement and when an OSP does not enjoy Safe Harbor

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9cc03161-16fc-4e34-96b9-ab76d694537a&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2015-11-06&utm_term=

And.... word to the wise, if you are an author with a YouTube presence that you do not actively monitor, check it out. Pirates are using the comments function on videos to post links to infringing sites and illegal copies of your books.

My best wishes,

Rowena Cherry 

The Value of "Hard Work"?

An editorial column in the Baltimore SUN asks the question: Why do many women feel they must justify full-time, stay-at-home parenting as "hard work"? Do doctors, lawyers, professors, et al defend their career choices by emphasizing how difficult their jobs are?

Stay-at-Home-Parents

"But must the worth of our days be determined by how hard they are? Comments about long workdays, sighs about having to spend the weekend at the office, and complaints of work-related fatigue are routinely spewed with half-lament, half-pride. See how important I am because my days are so hard?"

I've often thought that the stereotypical workaholic's pride in long hours of overtime has dubious validity. Aside from legitimate instances of emergency deadlines or seasonal heavy workloads, staying at the office later than one's colleagues doesn't necessarily prove one's dedication. It could just as well be seen to prove the manager doesn't distribute the workload efficiently—or the employee isn't efficient enough to get the job done in the normally allotted hours. Robert Heinlein's story of "The Man Too Lazy to Fail," embedded in the Lazarus Long novel TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE, offers food for thought on this issue.

The attitude the SUN columnist critiques, it seems to me, has roots in the remnants of the Protestant work ethic that cling to our society. The idea that work is somehow virtuous in itself, rather than a means to the goal of a fulfilled life, haunts both Protestant and non-Protestant Americans. Adherents of other religions and even atheists share the affliction. A related belief is the pervasive attitude that anything "good for you" has to be difficult. Doing a hard job doesn't count to your credit if you have fun with it. Exercise isn't expected to be fun, so we're offered all sorts of devices and techniques to make it enjoyable or at least bearable. And the experts keep increasing the amount of time we have to slog away at it in order to gain significant benefits. (I can sympathize there; the only systematic exercise I'm willing to do is stationary bike riding, because I can read at the same time.) Purveyors of parenting advice earnestly explain how to read to one's children, as if it were a chore too complicated for the layman to get right. (To me, teaching parents how to share a love of books sounds like teaching them how to train their children to breathe.) "Healthy food" (should be "healthful," but try convincing ad writers of that distinction) never tastes as good as "junk food." Reading classic novels is virtuous; watching "too much" TV is a vice. (What about people such as me who heartily enjoy both?) Most annoyingly, the word "sinful" in popular culture no longer means "bad"; it's a compliment, applied to anything luxuriously pleasurable. Dessert is a sinful indulgence. Chocolate is "decadent" or "sinfully sweet." In romance novel blurbs and applied to romance heroes, "wicked" is a compliment.

The ancient and medieval attitude toward virtue differed from our belief that the harder it is for you to be "good," the more credit you get for behaving properly. To the classical philosophers, a truly virtuous person enjoyed behaving well. Right thoughts and actions had become so ingrained in his or her character that he or she made the "good" choice naturally and joyfully. We're more apt to think, "Sure, she can do that, it's easy for her. The rest of us have to work at it."

In principle I embrace the philosophy of John Denver in the song "Thank God I'm a Country Boy": "I fiddle when I can and work when I should." In practice, though, I'm far from immune to that culturally imposed affliction. My husband and I have retired, so I'm now free to relax, right? Yet I still feel guilty if I don't fill most of each day with activities I can construe as "productive." I get particularly depressed if too much time passes without progress on some writing project or other. After all, I justified leaving my job because I could then accomplish more writing, didn't I? I partly blame my mother for these feelings. She viewed sleeping late during summer vacation as laziness and harassed me if she caught me "wasting" much time on reading that wasn't homework-related. She forbade my music-loving sisters to sing while housecleaning! Personal quirks? Residue of the Depression-era mindset? Or a byproduct of the wider culture's veneration of hard work?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World - Part 15 - Guest Post by Kirok of L'Stok

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 15
Guest Post
by
 Kirok of L'Stok 

Here is an index list of the previous 14 posts in this series on Marketing.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

Below is a Guest Post by the editor of an online magazine, Kirok of L'Stok.  

He suggests it's time in the evolution of online fiction for an Award to emerge.  

But first let me put this Guest Post in context for you, connecting online fanfic with Mass Market Romance writing.

I did an article on Spock's Katra for a 'zine which will be posted at http://tupub-books.blogspot.com.au/

My article is also here on this blog at
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-do-you-know-if-youve-written.html

Yes, I wrote an article for a fanzine (again, still, always), because fanzines are where the best stuff turns up, and where the most interesting readers turn up.  Fandom is where I live.  Pro-dom is where I go to find fans who haven't found fandom yet.

So I wrote this article for my fan family, on the occasion of a 'reunion.'  And I asked for a Guest Post from this very interesting fellow I think you need to hear from whose byline is Kirok L'stok.

Meanwhile (at the same time!) I was in a Twitter chat, #scifichat, and one of the writers asked the day's Guest, Jean Johnson, how she got started in professional publishing.  She's a best selling Romance Writer whose Military Science Fiction Series, Theirs Not To Reason Why, I reviewed a few weeks ago.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/09/reviews-18-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

She answered that she was writing Harry Potter fanfic, and a professional editor asked if she had any Romance for mass market publication.  She "dusted off" a novel she had done and sent it in.  It was bought and published, and she had more contracts.

So this other writer who had been trying to break into professional publishing began thinking about writing some fanfic to get noticed.

Decades ago, writing fanfic was the kiss of death to a pro career.  Today it's an avenue to International Best Seller.

So today, we have a Guest Post about online fanzine publication.

But first I want to alert you to Jean Johnson's new science fiction romance series (with a lot more Romance to the story, in fact a Vulcan-type-mental-bonding!)

Jean Johnson's July 2015 release is a novel kicking off a new series which is a prequel to the Theirs Not To Reason Why series, called The First Salik War series.

In July, 2015, the novel THE TERRANS was released, a First Contact novel kicking off this series about a war.  It's very domestic, and as I noted pivots on a telepathically bonded couple.

http://www.amazon.com/Terrans-First-Salik-War-ebook/dp/B00QH83268/

Yes, a very Star Trek, fanfic, type premise, and one I know you will love.

As writing students, you should note that this novel bears the imprint of her beginnings in Harry Potter fanfic (ESP that seems like Magic), and her easy segue into Best Selling Romance writer.  It also showcases the odd, and very strained, process we are seeing today as science fiction blends into romance and produces whole new categories of fiction.

This category production is incubated in fanfic.

http://www.amazon.com/Fic-Fanfiction-Taking-Over-World/dp/1939529190/

I have an essay in that one, and am mentioned in a number of other books about fanfic -- a very academic subject these days.

Romance is particularly difficult to blend into Military Science Fiction -- there are so many hot-topics that need to be front-center stage.

World War II Romance was easy - everyone knew what happened in the war and where, while everyone knows how two humans can just fall in love and/or lust in a war setting.

But when the War is against Aliens from way across the Galaxy, and the two who meet are not from the same planet, there is a lot of "exposition" the reader needs to know whether they want to know or not.

THE TERRANS is definitely an intermediate work, bridging the gap of structural and narrative style techniques between the typical best selling Romance book, and the best selling science fiction novels.

The bridge between the two fields, Romance and Science Fiction, has been constructed in fan fiction.
In case you missed it, here's a brief history (free ebook at Smashwords) of Science Fiction Romance showing its origins in fanfic.

http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2015/06/free-ebook-brief-history-of-science.html

So if you are writing to blend these fields, or any other two genres, looking to add the next step in the evolution of the Romance Story, study THE TERRANS.

By science fiction standards, it is styled as expository lump followed by more expository lumps, one after another, some of which is thinly disguised as dialogue (a lot of that is the Romance part, in telepathic dialogue).

I discussed dissolving the expository lump here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/07/how-to-dissolve-your-expository-lump-by.html

I have not yet discussed in depth the artistic value of the Expository Lump -- trust me, it does have value.

Structurally, Jean Johnson chooses to use a number of tricks common to Romance -- a down-play and dilution of Conflict, a flowing narrative where every detail of a character's movement from one scene to another is described (something you see a lot in fanfic), and a submerging of the scene delimiting marks, called by Blake Snyder in SAVE THE CAT! "beats."
http://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009/

THE TERRANS is constructed almost entirely without "beats" in the measured intervals common in Science Fiction.  For that alone it is worth studying.

Without "beats" you have no scene structure.  The ignoring of scene-structure gets the reader to focus entirely on Story rather than Plot.

A scene-structured emphasis follows the plot, with each scene beginning with a Plot Situation, progressing through a Conflict, resolving that Conflict at the end of the scene with a cliff-hanger that develops suspense as the reader leaps into the next scene without covering the intervening distance.

Yes, scene structuring via Beats gives the reader a "quantized" experience, discontinuous yet making perfect sense.

This structure which we've discussed:

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/can-serials-work-via-e-publishing.html

Scene Structure, leaving the characters to get from scene to scene without anyone watching, produces what we term cinematic pacing, which you can study by watching any of the Star Trek TV Series episodes or the films.  The structural tricks of plot-based storytelling are showcased to perfection in Star Trek.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/11/information-feed-tricks-and-tips-for_23.html

To achieve that kind of Scene Structure, the writer has to break up the "worldbuilding" information from expository lumps (even disguised as dialogue) into bits and pieces sprinkled a word here, a phrase there so the reader can derive or infer all that information.  I call that "Information Feed" -- the main trick is to make the reader unbearably curious to know the bit of information, then drop it in obliquely (yes, like "name dropping") and leave the rest to the reader's imagination.

Jean Johnson has brought the Harry Potter fanfic elements, the Romance Genre pacing, beatless structure and conflict-averse styling and flavor, and the science fiction Situation/Worldbuilding together into a wild, and fascinating blend.

I recommend you pick up The First Salik War novel THE TERRANS and study just how it affects you -- and then analyze why.  You will learn a lot.

So, Jean Johnson made her way into Mass Market via Harry Potter fanfic, and her love of Romance genre writing.

Kirok L'stok is editing a high profile, Australian publication that is online-only.

Read what he has to say about the purveying of fiction online.

------------START GUEST POST BY KIROK of L'STOK ------------------

Fan fiction is a strange beast not least because there is no clearly definable metric that can be placed against it to show which is successful, either in terms of popularity or quality.

Success for the professional author is relatively easy to define by sales, by which author tops the best seller lists, but does financial success mean that their works are more worthy of critical acclaim than works which were not as popular? Commercial success does not always equate to the critical acclaim of posterity. I don't recognise any of the books in the top ten best sellers list for 1954

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Weekly_list_of_bestselling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1950s#1954

whereas The Lord Of The Rings, the first volume of which was released that year, is universally known and loved. To be a best selling author doesn't guarantee that your works will be remembered as classics. Ever heard of Gilbert Patten?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Patten

That is the why awards such as the Hugo
http://www.thehugoawards.org/
and Nebula
https://www.sfwa.org/nebula-awards/
are of value, they represent works which are considered by an international convention of their readers and fellow writers to be the best for that year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel

By contrast, fan fiction has no 'best-seller' lists. By their very nature transformative works
https://transformativeworks.org/what-do-you-mean-transformative-work
cannot currently be sold for copyright reasons and commercial publishers, even print on demand companies such as LuLu,
http://connect.lulu.com/t5/Lulu-Basics/Lulu-FAQ/ta-p/33495
will not even print them.

The printing and distribution of hard copy stories based on copyrighted subjects had to wait until the invention of methods of printing that were within the reach of non-professionals. This heralded the birth of the fanzine but, again, there are no 'best selling' fanzine lists because profit was never a factor in their production (although some classic 'zines have taken on a collectible value).
http://www.strangenewworlds.com/issues/fandom-04-zines-collectibles.html
Awards, on the other hand, have been a staple part of the fan fiction world from 1977 onwards, primarily in the form of the Fan Q Awards
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fan_Q_Awards
and their recipients can be justifiably proud of them since they represent the appreciation of their audience and peers in much the same way as the Nebulas.

There have been immense changes in the nearly fifty years since those first Trekzines came out, which have mirrored the recent upheavals in the commercial market. From the way books have been printed, distributed and sold to the whole relationship between the author, publisher, printer, bookseller and reader, publishing has changed and so too has fan fiction. Just as Print On Demand is a revolution in printing,
http://www.sfwriter.com/sfwapod.htm
the combination of word processing software and home printers can handle most small fanzine runs. Ebook publishing has almost reached 'button-press' automation so that authors can create their own ePub and kindle compatible files.
https://leanpub.com/authors
Personally I am a fan of the pdf online publishing platforms
http://lstok-epress.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/pdf-publishing-options-give-me-options.html
which we have based our output on at TrekUnited Publishing.

And with acceptance of online commerce the fan fiction community has whole-heartedly embraced the internet.

It's not just the technology of production and distribution which has changed though. Just as the relationship between the author, publisher and reader has changed in the road from pen to bookshop, the world of fan fiction has changed as well.

Fifty years ago, print fanzines delivered by mail or exchanged or sold at conventions were the only means of distribution for fan fiction but the internet has created a world-wide audience for anyone who can string a story together. Unfortunately this has created such a flood of material that finding the best quality fiction to read is now a problem. Most fan fiction authors will chose a 'home forum' where they will release their stories. Many of them, such as Ad Astra
http://adastrafanfic.com/
and The Delphic Expanse
http://www.thedelphicexpanse.com/archive/
amongst many, have challenges, competitions and awards but, good as they are, they still represent niches within the larger world of fan fiction. In this massive but fragmented world of fan fiction, how does a fan fiction author now judge their work to be successful or of value?

The simplistic method would be to count the number of downloads they get but how do you know if your reader enjoyed it or even finished it? My experience has been that feedback is the coin of fan fiction, whether it is the copper of a thank you note or the gold of a detailed 'concrit', constructive critique. Feedback tells these amateur authors what you liked or disliked about their story but it is usually a localized, popularity feedback that is often just the support of online friends.

What fan fiction authors need, if they truly wish to hone their craft, is the critique of either an extremely large, motivated, international audience or the reasoned 'concrit' of judges they respect. What is needed is an internationally contested and judged writing competition.

I shake my head that I have said that because I am not a great fan of competition in the creative arts. I've seen it bring out the worst in people as well as the best and it can spoil an otherwise positive experience. On the other hand showing appreciation for exceptional work is worth doing and, speaking personally, just to have my work considered part of a field which included writers I admire and respect would be creatively fulfilling.

Taken in the true spirit of sportsmanship, competition stimulates you to strive harder to give your best, allows you to learn from your fellow contestants and analysis of the judging can be an objective critique of your work.

It is that last, especially, that sways me to support the idea of an online fan fiction award. The medals or certificates are nice but they are nothing compared to the approbation of your peers.


Kirok of L'Stok
http://tupub-books.blogspot.com.au

------------END GUEST POST of KIROK of L'STOK --------------

Thank you Kirok L'stok.

One might add that the EPIC Awards for original e-book publications, some by publishers others self-published, were established for that same reason.

With the advent of self-publishing (fanfic or original indie), we are slowly re-inventing the wheel.  Writers now know they need beta-readers, and are studying the art of the Cover, title, pitch, and even advertising.  Labels, genres, sub-genres, all the tools of the Mass Market Publishers are being re-invented, but with a twist.

This series of posts, Marketing Fiction In A Changing World, follows the morphing of this familiar field into something new, and far more exciting than any fictional form has ever been.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Guest Post: Marilynn Byerly Explains Plagiarism

Plagiarism 

QUESTION:  What is plagiarism?  If I borrow an author’s style, is that plagiarism?  

Plagiarism is a very complex issue.  The most obvious example is a writer who has cobbled together many paragraphs of someone else's work with their own words as cement.  

A less obvious example is someone who uses someone else's work as a template to their own.  Each scene is a rewrite of a scene in someone else's novel.  

Another very common form of plagiarism is cutting and pasting text from a nonfiction source into a novel.

Famous writers certainly aren't exempt from being guilty of plagiarism.  Janet Dailey's flagrant plagiarism of Nora Roberts' novels is a perfect example.  (JD was proven guilty and had to pay restitution.)

  

Not so famous writers are also found guilty of the same thing.  Some years back, a teenaged novelist had her first novel pulled off shelves when readers found that she'd patched together several other books to create her own.

Copying someone’s style isn’t plagiarism as long as you aren’t copying content.  Many new writers try to emulate a favorite author’s style because they haven’t found their own yet.  After a few years, gained confidence, and the sheer difficulty of maintaining someone else’s voice, most develop their own style.  

As a reader, if you feel that the two books are so similar that it might be plagiarism, you should contact the publisher or the author, express your concerns, and let them decide whether this is plagiarism or not.  

Most authors have websites with contact information as do publisher websites.  

Interrogating Cultural Taboos

Recently I read a news item about a crusade to ban slaughtering horses in the United States for human consumption. My first reaction was, "Huh? Who in this country eats horsemeat?" It turns out that some slaughterhouses in North America supply horsemeat for foreign markets. Eating horses, not to mention dogs or guinea pigs (the latter were originally domesticated as meat animals), strikes us as repugnant. As Steven Pinker mentions in HOW THE MIND WORKS, most of us eat flesh from only a few animals and, from that small group, only certain parts of the creature's body. Cultural squeamishness prevents us from taking advantage of a wide variety of perfectly nourishing protein sources. Not that I'm complaining; I share that squeamishness. (I once tried in good faith to eat a soft-shelled crab. I had to stop after one bite, since the texture struck me as not unlike a giant insect.) Pinker has a valid point, though.

Americans embrace and enshrine in law some few cultural taboos that have no readily identifiable secular, civic justification. A couple of examples immediately come to mind. Not that I personally endorse these practices—I simply propose that banning them doesn't necessarily have a rational basis.

Speaking of eating animals, what about animal sacrifice? To most Americans, the phrase conjures images of dark, savage rites. Until the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in A.D. 70, however, animal sacrifice played a central role in virtually all the world's religions. Since the meat of sacrificial animals is eaten, the practice effectively amounts to a different, more intentional and reverent way of preparing animals for food. If performed with as little pain as possible, why should it be illegal? Animals killed that way probably suffer less trauma than those herded into a slaughterhouse.

Changes in sexual mores and marriage laws often evoke cries of alarm from some people that we're sliding down the slippery slope to all kinds of dire outcomes, including legalized polygamy. But polygamy was also a widespread custom through most of Earth's history and remains legal in many countries today. Why shouldn't it be?—among consenting adults, needless to say. The only valid SECULAR reason I can think of to ban that marriage structure is fiscal. Social Security and health insurance for additional spouses would have to be funded. That problem doesn't seem insurmountable, though. Such programs cover multiple children. With minor adjustments, they could cover multiple spouses (for increased premium payments, maybe.)

When we meet extraterrestrial aliens, we'll probably encounter customs that seem as appalling to us as, maybe even more than, the practices of "primitive" cultures on Earth appeared to European explorers. For example: Most of us consider it an ethical obligation to use heroic measures to save the lives of premature babies. (The word "heroic" itself reveals our feelings about this issue.) In a hunter-gatherer society, a newborn infant too small or sickly to survive (given that culture's level of medical technology) would be left in the forest to die quickly rather than linger for days or weeks and then die anyway. A mother who refused to "expose" such a newborn wouldn't be praised for her devotion; she would be censured for subjecting the clan to a futile burden.

In Robert Heinlein's STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, Mike (the human castaway brought up by Martians) tells his new friends on Earth that in Martian society competition for fitness to survive occurs at the beginning of life, not in adulthood. Martian "children" past the hatchling stage are relegated to the wilderness to live or die on their own. In this novel, also, characters propose a favorable view of group marriage and ritual cannibalism. In THE DARK LIGHT YEARS by Brian Aldiss, Terrans discover aliens that make nests of their own dung. This species is intelligent, but the Earth scientists don't know that. They provide the creatures with clean, sterile environments in a well-meaning attempt to improve their health and living conditions. The aliens sicken, because their symbiotic relationship with the lower animals that live on their droppings is essential to their well-being.

Imagine meeting intelligent ETs who devour their spouses after mating, like praying mantises and black widow spiders. There's a major challenge for a romance writer! Or a civilized species in which babies eat their way out of the mother's body, like some Earth spiders. In that culture, a female who manages to survive the birth of her offspring would be an object of scandal. Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild" features human-size, centipede-like sapients who've made a deal with Terran colonists: In exchange for being granted refuge on this planet, some human hosts allow eggs to be laid in their bodies. If all goes well, the larvae get removed immediately upon hatching, and the host (usually a young man) survives unharmed. Sometimes, though, things don't go so well. . . .

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 9 - Kabbalah by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration
Part 9
Kabbalah
by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The previous parts in this series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

On Facebook, a writer commented on the experience of teaching story  Analysis to children, and I responded with a comment about how much harder it is to teach Synthesis.

The writer then asked, " Do you analyze first or tell your story and then analyze and synthesize?"

I responded with a long post about Kabbalah, and the value of that point of view to Science Fiction writers.

Synthesis is what I've been hobby-horsing on in the various series of Writing Craft Posts on this blog.

I've been presenting bits and pieces (teased out of Headlines and other parts of "reality") for you to synthesize into new stories.

I analyze reality and hand you stripped out bits to synthesize.  Most of those bits are "theme" material.

Synthesis is what writers do.  It is what artists in general do.

Rearranging the pieces of reality that the audience sees around them into something that unlocks vistas of new possibilities is what artists do that is of value.  Readers call those novels Inspiring or Refreshing or Riveting.  It's what we get paid for -- jarring thinking loose to roam free-range.

Worldbuilding is about analyzing our real world into bits and pieces, then synthesizing, putting them back together into a new pattern, building a new world from the same components we already have, and maybe one or two really alien ones.

Theme is about the organizing principle that arranged those bits and pieces to begin with combined or synthesized into the new principle you invent to build your fictional world around.

What makes fiction believable and the source of value to your customers is the internal consistency of the rules for your built world.

You need to find the Rule that keeps our actual real-world "consistent," for your target readership, understand how the existence of consistency is relied upon by your reader/viewer in daily life.  Then you can build a consistent world to display your story that uses a Modified Rule around which it is organized, but a Rule that the Characters can rely on the same way your customer relies on the consistency of everyday reality.

All of this analysis and synthesis is first done consciously, then forgotten about.  That sinks it all into your unconscious.  Years later, sometimes decades later, you have "An Idea" for a story -- and it just comes pouring out.  Meanwhile, you study and practice writing craft exercises, learning to frame a scene, concoct characters, split their roles in two to create conflict, resolve conflicts, etc etc.  All the skills we've been discussing, practiced to the point where you just don't ever think about it while doing it.

So in essence, the answer to this writer's question about how I do it, is "neither" or perhaps "both/and."

It is easier master both analysis and synthesis as cognitive exercises, if you can come to understand that both analysis and synthesis are rooted in a fallacious view of the universe.

This writer's question is actually a question about Kabbalah.

 I answered this question in a long-winded, oblique way, in the 5 Tarot books now up on Kindle.  The cheapest way to get all of them together is the combined volume.

http://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Minor-Arcana-Books-ebook/dp/B010E4WAOU/

The 5 individual volumes are 99c each.  The combined volume is $3.25 or free on KindleUnlimited.

In short The Not So Minor Arcana is my diatribe against the Hellenistic way of looking at Life, which all our modern cultures are either founded upon or infused with.

Plato (it seems to me, partly because he lived at about the right time) seemed to be on a terror-induced campaign to disprove everything in the Torah, and his concepts seemed to me to be rooted in a deep, instinctual terror of the Reality described in Kabbalah.  Considering the politics at that time in History, it just seems impossible to me that he didn't know what was happening in Israel.

Given the Hellenistic Pantheon, which does reflect basic human nature, it is also plausible to me that he was desperate to disprove the existence of such gods (all bullies from dysfunctional families with nasty parental issues).

I learned about the Plato vs. Torah dichotomy in a couple of college courses years before Star Trek, but a decade after deciding to become a professional Science Fiction writer (about age 15).

I had honed an awareness of the place of CONFLICT in DRAMA and thus saw how useful the Plato/Aristotle et. al. vs Torah conflict could be in generating a new kind of Science Fiction -- which it seems I have been credited with doing.
http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2015/06/free-ebook-brief-history-of-science.html

So, pondering the Hellenistic view of the Universe vs. the Torah based view of the Universe (even with Christian inflections you get the stark opposition between Plato and Bible), I have found it easy to portray Alien Civilizations (such as Kraith's Vulcan),...

http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/

...just by building into the cultural THEME element of the drama, a challenge to the unconscious assumptions we have all been "programmed" with as children - assumptions about the Nature of Reality -- assumptions which would be viewed as fallacious in a Torah based culture (even Israel today does not have such a culture.)

The interesting thing, to me, is that Gene Roddenberry (a Humanist) eventually allowed a bit of Torah based reality to be sketched into the edges of the Vulcan culture that Spock represented (the Mind Meld, the Katra).  I just did a 5k essay on the Katra and it is reposted here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-do-you-know-if-youve-written.html

"ANALYSIS" and "SYNTHESIS" are Hellenistic (Ancient Greek Philosophy) concepts (see the Greek roots inside the words?), and very possibly utterly fallacious (as most of their ideas via Plato, Aristotle etc are. Pythagoras is particularly interesting in this regard.)

This Hellenistic description of reality works PERFECTLY (witness all of Science as We Know It) as long as you consider only "reality" (i.e. the bottom-most of the 44 Sepheroth of the structure of reality).  That's where we live and that's where all of physical science is absolutely valid.

That's why there is no conflict between "science" and "religion" if you consider "religion" to be the Torah.  Science describes and manipulates, perfectly, a "special case" within the totality of Creation -- that tiny 44th fraction of the whole.  You really don't need to know more than science reveals to live easily in material reality.

Many people never feel anything lacking.  Those who do, though, have a hard time reconciling Science with Torah -- because Aristotelian Logic demands Either/Or thinking, True/False thinking, and is the foundation of the Zero Sum Game (for you to win, someone else has to lose).  In Reality, two mutually exclusive things can not co-exist.

In that Hellenistic Reality -- the Soul Mate and Happily Ever After concepts are fallacious.

If you can wrap your head around the concept Infinite and the concept ECHAD (One), you have no trouble with mutually exclusive things co-existing.

But it's a long-long-long philosophical journey to get to that ECHAD based vision of reality.  You have to learn a totally new idea of what "exist" actually means -- which pretty much means learning Hebrew where the verb TO BE is used differently than in other languages.  That's what Kabbalah is all about.  ECHAD is the key.  EMET is probably the lock.

Aristotelian logic has divided our cultural mentality with impenetrable walls to prevent us seeing the world as ECHAD, and defying those walls can make you go crazy.  One of those walls is what gives rise to the concepts ANALYSIS vs SYNTHESIS as being opposites.

The go-crazy effect of trying to break out of Aristotelian conditioning is now being revealed in brain-studies showing how synapses develop, how the brain is plastic and changes under experiences.

Thus study of Kabbalah is not recommended for everyone.

Some people will hurl themselves at this problem of Science vs. God and slam themselves into a bloody pulp trying to choose to "believe" or to "think logically."

You can't have science and still believe in God, they assume.

That's a fallacy -- and it is the fallacy which you will find in Plato if you dig hard into his writings, and the surrounding culture that produced him, and read his stuff in terms of how crazy-scared he was of Torah and the effect a functioning (well, somewhat functional) Jewish Kingdom was having on his world.

What you learn from Kabbalah is a view of the universe that is not "either/or" that is not "zero-sum-game" that is not real/not-real, that is not "God/No-God" -- but rather "both and" -- somewhat like the Particle/Wave problem in physics.  People discard the Bible as ridiculous because they read it with either/or Aristotelian-conditioned eyes -- from that point of view, it is idiotic.

Look hard at this graphic:

That's the classic Lover's Quarrel.  It really is the core essence of Science Fiction Romance where the "science" is the science of the brain and "seeing."

Consider the classic optical illusion of the two faces facing each other -- or maybe it's a vase?  Blink, and it changes.

That's what I'm talking about -- the exact SAME "reality" and two views that our brains interpret as DIFFERENT only because we can't break out of the Aristotelian Cultural Conditioning rooted in Plato's personal political neuroses.

I will probably discuss this graphic again and again in various contexts and various esoteric applications of the principle having to do with the metaphorical "light" by which we understand what we see as the difference between right and wrong, and what the Biblical penalty translated as "Cut Off" actually means in practice.

Remember the Bohr Atom model was Aristotelian.  Atom is a Hellenistic concept.  Science is now revealing some of the fallacious concepts behind that thinking, but the people doing the science are so steeped in Hellenistic thinking that they do not know Hellenistic Thinking even exists, (a fish doesn't know water exists) therefore they have no idea what they are discovering!

So REAL ALIENS (and yes, I saw the discovered planets news) will probably have conditioning of their own, and very likely neuroses or the equivalent built into their cultures.  Understand how neuroses propagate through millennial to affect our current culture, then create some Aliens.

If you're going to build a world where your Human Character is Soul Mate to such a Real Alien Character, you have to include Alien Neuroses to make your invented fictional world seem 'real' for your reader, consistent, organized around a principle as tightly as our everyday reality is organized around a principle (we just don't all agree what that principle is).

Your fictional organizing principle will be different from the one your Reader sees (do stare at that graphic a while longer.) Explain the difference in Show Don't Tell.  Then explain that there is no difference, in Show Don't Tell.

The only way I can see that we can pull off a FIRST CONTACT without a war of extermination is to shed Plato's neuroses and Aristotle/Pythagoras's ideas of what constitutes reality.

The artificial and fallacious division of processes into Analysis and Synthesis (do stare at that graphic some more) may be one of those ideas we have to shed to be at Peace with ourselves -- and thus be able to make first contact without extermination.

Once the question is asked, "Is it fallacious?" then we come to "Well, if not Analysis and Synthesis then what do you use to think with?"  And there you will hit that wall built into your mind by early conditioning.

Your challenge as a science fiction romance book writer is to postulate answers Aliens might be clinging to as firmly as we cling to Plato-Aristotle et. al.

If you find you have no ideas, nibble at those books explaining Tarot in terms of Kabbalah, and you will very likely come away overflowing with ideas, compelled to write, just to contradict what they say.  Contradicting is good!

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

'Hello, Granny" And Other Dodgy Doings

"Hello, Granny," said the mystery man. From my caller ID, I could see he was telephoning from somewhere exotic and faraway.

"....?" I questioned, using a popular male name which I shall not share here.

Much encouraged, my caller became implausibly loquacious. "My voice sounds different," he explained before I could ask, "because I'm in hospital. I've got a broken nose and stitches in my mouth."

I briefly considered the short list of my hot headed young male relatives who might be so dazed by an unfortunate collision with anything that they could recall my phone number, but forget their family trees.

"If you're in hospital with a broken nose and stitches in your mouth, why are you calling ME?"

I don't tolerate fools.... and I'm nobody's grandmother, but I did not get a chance to say so. He hung up.

Later in the day, when my morning coffee guests had left, I googled "Hello Granny Scam" and found rich pickings. Apparently, all too many tender hearted seniors totter off to their local supermarkets where there is a Western Union counter, and they send cash to persuasive imposters.

Be warned.

Villains on the telephone, at least three times a day, every day. Villains in my PO Box. Villains on the internet. It's enough to give one a jaundiced view of the innate goodness of humanity.

I received an email from some foreigners (if they are not foreign, they ought to be ashamed of their command of American English), offering to sell self-published authors --which I am not-- a mailing list of 20,000 Reader's Digest subscribers.

I seriously doubt that Reader's Digest subscribers will be pleasantly surprised to receive author spam, but I could be mistaken.

Do you own a trademark?  I do. It's SPACE SNARK™  Over the years, I have been disquieted to receive official-seeming renewal demands. Be aware, one applies for a trademark through one's attorney, and it is to one's attorney of record that the true official renewal demand will be sent.

More on trademark scams here:

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=dcf17e62-89ea-44b1-a9da-f3f69c1c6740&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2015-10-16&utm_term=

One of many problems with pirate sites, and pirated versions of legitimate books, is, allegedly, that the Amazon bots cannot tell the difference, and allegedly some authors have seen mysterious "price matching" which cuts into their royalties.

http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/05/05/how-to-get-google-to-remove-pirated-ebooks-public-shaming-nothing-else-works/

Finally, authors who are inclined to protect their copyrights may do well to set up Google searches for some unique phraseology in their works. They might receive an alert that leads them to some fan-fic for profit (which is a no-no) or to plagiarism.

The comments on this blog http://jennytrout.com/?p=9693 make some good points about what fan fiction is and is not.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Guest Post by Kelly A. Harmon: Location, Location, Location!

Today we have a guest blog by urban fantasy author Kelly A. Harmon.

Kelly used to write truthful, honest stories about authors and thespians, senators and statesmen, movie stars and murderers. Now she writes lies, which is infinitely more satisfying, but lacks the convenience of doorstep delivery.

She is an award-winning journalist and author, and a member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. A Baltimore native, she writes the Charm City Darkness series, which includes the novels Stoned in Charm City, A Favor for a Fiend, and the soon to be published A Blue Collar Proposition. Her science fiction and fantasy stories can be found in Triangulation: Dark Glass, Hellebore and Rue, and Deep Cuts: Mayhem, Menace and Misery.

She recently co-edited a fantasy, horror, and SF anthology, Hides the Dark Tower.

Kelly A. Harmon's Website

Twitter: @kellyaharmon

Facebook

I was just on a SFWA panel at the Baltimore Book Festival where the topic was, “Location, Location, Location!” We talked about the importance of the setting of the story, and what it adds—or takes away—from what’s happening in the tale.

What is setting? It’s the stage on which your characters act out the events of the story. It’s almost another character, and should be as compelling as any one of the characters in your tale. Your setting should be distinct.

For example, let’s say you’re writing a story that takes place on the beach. You could describe the white sand, too hot to stand on at noon on a summer’s day, and the waves rolling in to the shore. There’s the cry of a seabird, and the rush of cool wind in your face, blowing in off the ocean.

It’s full of detail, right? A perfect setting? No—these are just false details. Why false? Because they could describe any generic beach.

Consider that Bermuda has pink sand beaches and Maui has black ones—formed from pulverized volcanic rock. Parts of Genoa, Italy, have narrow, pebbled beaches with no sand to speak of. As for seabirds, Maryland has the Surf Scoter, Maine has the Great Cormorant, and California has Snowy Plovers (granted, that birds are migratory and many species frequent large areas). The beach could be rocky and steep or wide and flat with stunted, scrub pine trying to survive on its shores, or tall, willowy palm trees reaching for the sun.

See what I’m getting at here? It’s all about specifics.

But setting is tricky: give too many details—or false ones—and the setting won’t ring true to your reader—particularly to readers who might know the area.

For example: we were in Baltimore, so the panel moderator brought up Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan thrillers, which are set in Baltimore. Lippman has a wonderful gift for scene setting, but I can’t read her books, because her Baltimore isn’t my Baltimore. I can’t get lost in her story because the setting details keep leaping out at me.

In one of her books, Tess considers stopping at Bertha’s restaurant to “squinch up her nose at tourists eating mussels.” I write about Bertha’s, too, in my books, but tourists are part of what makes the food great: sharing it with visitors. Lippman’s books are what I’d call uptown— with descriptions of City Hall and the Maryland Governor—while mine are more blue collar, with a main character who sometimes has to choose if she’d rather ride the bus home or eat dinner, since she doesn’t have enough funds for both. All the specifics are different. (But Baltimore has more than 250 distinct neighborhoods, so I like to think that both Lippman and I are right.)

So what elements define a well-crafted setting?

1) The Main Location of the story: it could be a neighborhood of a city, like Canton or Highlandtown in Baltimore. Or, it could be a specific place in the community, like Bertha’s Restaurant or Saint Agnes Hospital. The story could be set on a boat in the ocean, or any fictional world.

2) The larger area: what surrounds your central location? The wider region of Baltimore City or Baltimore County. The crops and meadows surrounding a mythic castle. The forest surrounding a cabin. Descriptions of these set some of the tone in the story: the city could be celebrating (Mardi Gras), the crops could be withering on the vine, the meadows bleak; the forest could be haunted. Local landmarks make an impact as well: the Baltimore Shot Tower, Fort McHenry, the Empire State Building. Their depiction—along with homegrown legend and lore—“flavor” the setting.

3) Occupations, hobbies and local customs are also going to help set the scene. Is your main character (or others) a city councilman, a cop, a welder, or a college student? Does he or she collect stamps, surf, or birdwatch? If your write about Baltimore, one or more of your characters probably relishes steamed blue crabs with McCormick’s Old Bay seasoning. (While down south, crabs are boiled.) In Chicago, pizza is deep dish, while New York boasts hand-tossed and thin—and in either place you can grab a slice for lunch. Ever ordered pizza in Italy? You get the entire pie to yourself. These details add dimension to both the setting and your characters.

Together, these three things create a rich, multi-layered backdrop for your story.

Here’s a Systematic Way to Build A Setting:

I start thinking about my setting long before I write the story. I decide on the main location, and write that at the top of my “setting” page. I do some research, and then begin creating lists: The first contains details about the main setting: sights, smells, sounds that touch on the five senses. The second list includes similar details about the larger area and folklore. The third, of course, is all about occupations, hobbies and local customs.

Mind mapping techniques are good for this, too. If you’re more visual, consider creating a collage of pictures cut from magazines or printed from the internet. If I’m writing about a real location, I’ll supplement my lists with photos and maps.

The document isn’t done when you’ve finished brainstorming. Keep it handy while you’re writing or researching so that you can add to it as you learn new items.

Using the Setting You’ve Built:

So now you’ve got this huge setting document. How do you use it? Pick a few salient details to begin writing your story: choose the ones which set the tone or mood you want to portray. For example, if your story is a murder mystery which takes place in a hospital, it might be best to mention the basement morgue instead of the lobby reception area—even if the detective has to travel through it to get where he needs to be.

Continue writing.

When you’re stuck for a detail, give your settings document a glance. Pick one or two and continue on. Each time you use a detail, cross a line through it and jot down a note where you used it: the third scene, chapter one, the prologue, etc. This insures you don’t accidentally mention the same detail over and over and bore your reader. It also gives you a record of where you mentioned something so that you don’t do so again too soon.

A caveat: When you’re writing, don’t lump all your descriptions together in large, expository paragraphs. Instead, sprinkle them around like salt: a bit of it makes the flavor of the meal stand out; too much ruins the dish.

Finally, don’t feel that you’ve got to use everything on your list. You run the risk of the background creeping into the foreground of the story—taking away from the story itself.