Blogger Award Goes Viral

Bloggers have started naming other bloggers for awards, and asking them to name others.

One of my readers on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com was given such an award and turned around and listed me among others for this award.

And here are the "rules" for this viral award which was started by
http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com/2010/01/inaugural-lesas-creative-writer-award.html :

1.Thank the person who gave this to you.
2.Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3.Link to the person who nominated you.
4.Tell us up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth.
5.Allow your readers to guess which one or more are true.
5.Nominate seven "Creative Writers" who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies.
6.Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.
7.Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know you nominated them.

So:
1. Dana Davis, a writer (good writer) see my review column ( http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2010/ ) gave me this award. Her website is http://blogs.myspace.com/danadaviswriting

2. Logo is up there

3. http://blogs.myspace.com/danadaviswriting

4. Tell-All Bytes
a) Couldn't learn to read until 5th grade
b) Never owned a dog
c) Have been owned by a cat
d) Read Andre Norton's novel STAR RANGERS 16 times before I lost count
e) Believed STAR TREK was World News the first moment I saw Spock's Ears.
f) Still convinced STAR TREK is the most important development in human history since the agricultural revolution

5. Here are 7 of the blogs I subscribe to (but don't always read)

a) http://spacefreighters.blogspot.com/
b) http://deborahmacgillivray.blogspot.com/ (a writer I review)
c) http://www.geezer-chick.com/ (a very informative personal log)
d) http://www.gointothestory.com/ (a screenwriting blog)
e) http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/ (often references posts on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com )
f) http://insidetrekker.blogspot.com/
g) http://vampchix.blogspot.com/ ( a fun spot for vampire fans)

So now to let them know and see if they want to play the game. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Character Arc, Theme and Thesis

Asked on LinkedIn by
Steven Hammon
http://au.linkedin.com/in/stevenhammon

Screenplay Assignment Writer:

How does Character Arc, link to Theme, and how do those effect Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis?

Screenplays have extremely united elements and most people have no idea how they are connected.

Do you know what the connections are?

---
And here's my brief, highly condensed answer. Anything to add to this? Post a comment.

The "Theme" is what the story is about, what it says about life, the universe and everything. It's the "take-away" viewers should be left with, but in images or a one-liner that can be quoted. "Make my day!"

Theme is the core of the work. Everything in the script has to be tested against the theme, and if it fails to illustrate or discuss the theme, then it has to go. That includes character traits.

The "Character Arc" is how the character changes BECAUSE OF (as a consequence of) the plot-events. The "Arc" is the way the character changes because of what is learned about "life, the universe, and everything." The Character Arc is the "show don't tell" of the theme.

The "thesis" is the theme's penultimate statement, the truth buried inside the story where the viewer really shouldn't have to go to understand the story.

Thesis is where the story starts and ends, and how the theme ties everything into a unified whole, to create clarity.

Antithesis is the conflict. Antithesis argues against the thesis and is the opposite of it - an ingredient in the villain or antagonist, but not the whole of that character. Part of the antagonist has to be the same as part of the protagonist - they are a mated pair. The antithesis could be thought of as what the villain learns about the theme that causes the villain to "arc."

In pitting thesis against antithesis, the writer can create the argument that lies dormant in the audience's subconscious.

So a writer must learn to argue all sides of an issue, and be as adroit and passionate when arguing the villain's point of view as when presenting the Hero's quest.

To lay out the arguments of thesis and antithesis, the writer must take what the writer believes on a deep, non-verbal level, and "factor" it the way you learn to do in beginning algebra. Take what you believe about life, the universe, and everything, and tease it apart into thesis and antithesis.

Pit the two against each other illustrated in events that teach those lessons. Let the two conflict to a resolution, a "Synthesis" of thesis and antithesis that clearly states the life lesson this story teaches.

That clear synthesis is in fact the theme, restated, and should be incorporated in the final image or one-liner and kept way "off the nose."

As a symphony has a structured relationship between opening note and ending note, likewise a feature film script has a precise structured relationship between the opening image and ending image.

The similarity between the opening and ending is the theme stated as thesis and synthesis, as intimate a relationship as question and answer.

Thesis, antithesis, and synthesis are the components of the theme.

The Character Arc(s) are the illustration of the theme.

The plot is the sequence of events caused by the Character, energy the Character puts out into his world that hits a barrier and splashes back on the Character causing the Character to learn a lesson just as a dolphin learns the shape of the ocean floor by outputting a sonar signal.

So the plot events are in fact the theme, stated in a different language, the language of action.

Every element in the script is the theme, stated in a different language.

Every member of the audience will understand one or another of those languages.

The writers among them will understand all the languages.

Audiences are becoming more sophisticated, and massive changes in the grand social dialogue are showing up in the imagery and iconography of our modern society.

I discussed the iconography of action-romance using the film FACE OFF and a recent paperback cover image TOUCHED BY AN ALIEN here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/04/turning-action-into-romance.html


Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Shane Black tells Sam Delaney about action cinema | Film | The Guardian

Shane Black tells Sam Delaney about action cinema | Film | The Guardian

Found this action-film recipe on twitter via http://twitter.com/GoIntoTheStory who had it summarized and linked in his blog.

This is called SOCIAL NETWORKING. It's not a waste of time. Go follow GoIntoTheStory!

"OK, Send Me A 2 Page Synopsis"

How To Extract A Synopsis From A Complete Work Of Fiction

The sweetest words any author of anything can get from an agent or editor, "Send Me -- " And it can be a synopsis, a proposal, a query letter, a chapter and outline, anything but the nice, complete, whole, speaks-for-itself work.

It's not a rejection, it's a challenge. Most writers would rather be rejected than have to write a synopsis of a completed work.

The request inevitably causes the author of any fiction piece to panic.

Why panic? Because the author has all the reasons why the ultimate consumer will relish the piece jumbled up in joyous artistry.

The author knows what's great about what they've written, and the author knows what's important to the reader-viewer.

And all of those important things that the author's mouth wants to say all at once are the things the author would enjoy if reading the work of some other author.

All of the important things about a piece of fiction are the things that make it DIFFERENT from all other stories.

These are the unique things, the vivid things, the visual things, the emotional thrust, the memorable things, the multi-dimensional resonances of the character, and actually these are the things that aren't even explicit within the narrative!

The important thing to any fiction consumer is the background, and the way the characters grow out of that background and exemplify uniqueness within the human story.

BUT!!!!

The only thing that's important for the Agent or the Editor riffling through queries, or for the Producer trolling heaps of "pitches" or "trailers" or videos on YouTube, looking for the ONE thing that would fit the production line they are charged to fill -- that ONE thing that's worth the investment because it'll make more than the investment -- the only thing that's important is what makes this property the same as whatever just racked up huge sales.

Or the same as a classic that always racks up huge sales no matter how many times it's been imitated.

Let's repeat that:

1) Authors and Consumers want WHAT'S DIFFERENT
2) Editors and Producers want WHAT'S THE SAME

So an author tasked with writing a selling pitch, a synopsis, a summary, or even a description of a story they've written finds their mind "crashes" -- freezes solid just like a computer that's run out of memory.

The only solution is to reboot using a different operating system.

You have to change your whole mentality and emotional involvement, your perspective and your values to create a synopsis of a work you have written.

There is a systematic method for doing this that works for short stories, novels, screenplays and any piece of fiction that you have written.

And once you've got your perspective rebooted, there's a systematic method for generating the synopsis from the whole work.

So let's look at these 2 processes one at a time.

REBOOTING YOUR CREATIVE MIND

This might take some pacing back and forth, or jogging, or maybe a shopping trip to the mall, getting a haircut, working out at the gym, a night's sleep. Or maybe doing something you almost never do, something physical followed by something that calls for sitting still. For example, a swim followed by lazing in the sun until you dry off. Or a workout followed by a massage.

Each of us has a method for shifting gears. You have to let go of the set of priorities that's been driving you, and pick up a whole new set of priorities. You aren't YOU anymore. You are SOMEONE ELSE.

As writers, we do this several times while writing a scene -- first we're one character, then the other, speaking the dialogue, throwing the punches, running for the exit.

We do it while plotting -- first we're the protagonist, then we have to be the antagonist thinking up something to out-wit the protagonist.

So it's a familiar procedure, just a different application.

The commercial marketplace is the natural enemy of the creative process. It wants "the same" and creativity wants "different."

"Write a synopsis" is a protagonist - antagonist situation, one you are wholly familiar with. You have trained yourself to play either part at will.

As the creative storyteller, you are your protagonist. You really want your story to reach your audience and you are driving yourself to exceed your own limits, heroically, in order to reach that goal.

As your own marketer, you must prevent any inadequate product from reaching the market lest a disappointed consumer ditch your brand name. So you pit yourself, with all your cleverness, against the eager author who wants to reach your market at all costs.

Here are the steps to take after shifting mental gears to become a marketer.

1) The oldest adage of marketing is, "You Are Not Your Customer"

That mind set lets you attain a very clinical distance from your product and from the purchaser of your product.

I wrote a post examining this adage and how it dooms you to failure in trying to "market" via social networking:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/marketing-via-social-networking.html

The primary error that authors writing sales-materials aimed at intermediaries -- such as agents, editors, producers (directors, actors, contest judges) -- make is the confusion of social skills and marketing.

I don't know any school that teaches the difference, but there is a difference that matters.

They say, in Hollywood it's who you know not what you know, that makes for success.

Notice how one-way that is. It's not who knows you, but who you know.

YOU are a blank wall to "them" -- but they are an open book to you.

That's the marketing mind-set. I see you; you don't see me.

2) Study WHO you are writing this synopsis for. You will need a different synopsis for each purpose, each contest or festival, each editor or agent. Depending on "who" they are, and what you know about them and their business, on what they think their business needs and what you think their business needs, you craft your synopsis to reveal that exact aspect of your piece that best fits their needs.

3) Put yourself into the position of the person you are pitching to or synopsizing for just as you put yourself in your antagonist's position to figure out what the villain will do to your hero next.

Here's a good way to get a feel for what the person you are pitching to experiences.

a) pick out a KIND of project in which you (as a purchasing producer) would want to invest your company's funds.
b) go to one of the websites where screenwriters post pitches for their screenplays and riffle through the pages looking for something that matches the KIND of project you thought of.
c) when your eyes have permanently crossed and you are wholly lost and bewildered, in despair of ever finding anything worthwhile, write down a list of things that were wrong with the pitches you saw.

That 3-part exercise will refocus your mind into the perspective of the person who will have to look at (not read) your synopsis.

This will help you frame an opening sentence.

GENERATING A SYNOPSIS, SUMMARY, DESCRIPTION

If you have been an orderly writer, you probably have your original concept and maybe original outline for the thing you must now summarize.

If so, your job is pretty much done except for casting it into full sentences, jazzing up the vocabulary, and emphasizing the aspect that best fits the market.

Or perhaps the end product does not at all resemble the initial concept or outline.

So then you must reverse engineer the story to extract the bare bones.

How do you tell the bones from the flesh, the muscle, the fat, the skin and the pelt? Don't panic. There is a way. How much flesh you put on the bones depends on the length of the description of the story you must create.

What's the difference between a synopsis and a summary and a pitch?

The difference is LENGTH -- or the percent by which you must shrink the full story in order to meet the requirement.

All you need to know is how long the finished piece is, and how long the presentation is to be. Whether it's called a summary or synopsis or outline does not matter to the process. Different people call the same thing by different names. Just ask how many pages or how many words (page is about 250 words).

In both novel and screenplay presentations, you need to extract the following before you start writing your synopsis:

a) The story in one sentence.

b) The plot in one sentence.

c) A 3 sentence paragraph that nails the beginning, middle and end. At most 3 short paragraphs, 9 sentences maximum. This is the blurb that goes on the back of the paperback book.

You'll find a discussion of the exact formula for how to generate this description of a novel in this post of mine where I quoted Kristin Nelson:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/denvention-3-walk-con.html

Here's the simple formula:
---------
The cover blurb (and the query letter, which ideally becomes the cover blurb) should be no more than NINE SENTENCES, but may be more than one paragraph (3 parags is good). It should include these four elements and nothing more:

Catalyst

Backstory

Character

Inter-related Plot Elements

Any sentence that does not address one of those four elements should be removed.

At the end of Kristin Nelson's talk at Denvention 3 (she's an agent who blogs), I commented from the audience and Kristin paraphrased my comment about writing the cover copy before you write the novel brilliantly:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/08/straight-from-reviewers-mouth.html

d) A 1-page (250 word max) description of the story.

e) A 2-page synopsis of the whole story.

f) A 3-5 page complete summary that can include a lot of detail that shows how this piece is different from others of its kind -- while at the same time showing (not telling) just what KIND this piece is, and how it is identical to the most successful of its kind.

g) For a screenplay, you might have to produce a "Treatment" at some point, and that includes a scene-by-scene description of what happens and where it happens. An orderly writer often writes a treatment first, then just fleshes that out into the entire screenplay. Sometimes, if you have a good track record in film, you can sell a Treatment and they will hire someone else to do the drudgery of the screenplay. So a Treatment is the whole story, broadly summarized.

So how do you extract these 7 different length presentations from your full length piece?

You do it in order, as listed above, with the shortest version done first and the longest version done last. (some ornery writers do the long versions and cut)

Sit back, close your eyes, and bore into the material until you find exactly what it is about.

WHAT IS YOUR STORY ABOUT?

That's the one sentence, elevator pitch. The hook.

Is it about a person, politics, historical events, a style of thinking (zany-scientist; staid spinster gone wild?), a culture? And what does it say about that culture? What it says is the theme, which is embodied in the title.

FIND THE LOGLINE - the one-sentence that encapsulates the entire screenplay. Do it right, and the rest of the sizes will unfold right out of it.

There's a formula for doing loglines that comes from Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT! series on screenwriting. You just use the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet (which works for screenplays and novels, too) and generate the logline.

The Beatsheet is posted here:

http://www.blakesnyder.com/tools/

And on that page you see right above the beat sheet, a list of films that are good examples of each of Blake's "genres" - or categories that you must fit yours into so that you're "the same.'

But the exact descriptions of each of what goes into the beats is in his books. I recommend SAVE THE CAT GOES TO THE MOVIES which is replete with examples.

In the comments forum on blakesnyder.com you'll find the following:
_______________
From Blake Snyder's blog
http://www.blakesnyder.com/2008/10/try-this/#comments

Fresh from our busy Save the Cat! Laboratories, Development Director Jose Silerio has conceived this new twist on how to write a logline. By plugging in the components of your movie’s BS2 into the “Format” below you can create a “mini-story” that will help not only organize your logline, but better focus you when you start breaking out that logline into a script.

The example below shows how the components of Cat! fave Miss Congeniality fit into this template. We welcome any feedback to let us know if this helps! Have a great writing week everyone. And remember, good communication starts with a good poster — what’s yours?

Format:

On the verge of a Stasis=Death moment, a flawed protagonist has a Catalyst and Breaks Into Two with the B Story; but when the Midpoint happens, he/she must learn the Theme Stated, before the All Is Lost, to defeat (or stop) the flawed antagonist (from getting away with his/her plan).

Example:

On the verge of another “suit and tie” assignment, a tomboy FBI agent is assigned to go undercover in the American Miss Pageant and has a complete makeover to blend in with the other contestants; but when the pageant receives a new threat, she must learn she can be a woman and tough, before she gets thrown off the case, to defeat the warped pageant organizer bent on revenge. (Miss Congeniality)
_______________

OK, that's it. So simple a caveman can do it.

Once you have that all-important one sentence formulated from the beats, you just expand it with detail to each required length.

And don't forget to keep in mind WHO will have to decide to read this just by staring at the sea of words, and what they are likely to be looking for -- "The Same But Different" as I've discussed:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/dissing-formula-novel.html

And in other posts. What makes it "the same" is the structure. What makes it "different" is the decoration.

What people really want in their fiction is "the same" (structure) but they won't bother with it unless it is "different" (decorated).

To extract the synopsis from the finished product, the writer has to untangle herself from the decoration (which is all that's interesting about the piece) and stand back far enough to see the underlying skeleton, the beats, the warp and woof of the fabric of the fiction, the composition of the piece.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/worldbuilding-for-science-fiction.html

You have to work the writing process backwards, to un-create the world you have created.

7 Steps To Find The Moving Parts of The Composition

You might not use these 7 parts in order as you formulate the synopsis, but each should be represented. Almost nothing else should be represented until you get to the full length Treatment or complete summary which might be half the length of the finished piece.

Let's title our example: Musical Religions

1) Describe the Setting, the Background

"19th Century Egypt"

2) Identify Protagonist

"A tall Australian Aborigine wearing an Oxford tie and white spats."

3) Identify the Protagonist's goal

"Seeking acceptance as a convert to Islam."

4) Identify Antagonist and Antagonist's goal.

"A young Imam determined to convert all of Australia to Islam before the turn of the century."

5) Identify obstacles to the protagonist's achieving the goal

"The Imam learns how Whites regard the Aborigines in Australia and realizes that his eager convert will not be able to reach the majority of the target population in Australia, despite his Oxford education."

6) Identify Antagonist's obstacles

"The Australian convert is ready to donate a lot of money to the right people."

7) Describe the Ending that resolves the conflict between protagonist and antagonist. Stay with the external conflict, let the internal conflict remain imaginary for the reader.

"The Australian Aborigine undergoes the correct ritual conversion with high hopes and confidence, only to discover, after all his money has been donated, that the Imam will keep him in religious school until he agrees to return to Australia with the Imam and play the role of the Imam's servant and native guide. Disillusioned with Islam, he agrees to play servant simply for the ticket home."

--------

Notice all of that leaves out the really interesting part -- that while at Oxford, the Aborigine fell in love with a Catholic Nun (yeah, at Oxford!), who has now left Orders and followed him to Egypt where she is determined to marry him and rescue him from conversion to Islam. And in fact, she has convinced him Catholicism is his true path, but it's too late to cancel the conversion ritual. The Aborigine knows she has already left for Australia, and they plan to abandon the Imam to the mercies of White Australia and marry in the out-back. Final scene might be a Synagogue in the out-back buying the house they plan to live in (but that would have to be salted in between other scenes to set up that final shot, and the question of what religion they'll end up with). That's all decoration.

What you leave OUT is the "interesting part." What you put in is the part that convinces your market to trust you to deliver THE SAME. They already know you think you can deliver DIFFERENT because you're a creative artist. It's THE SAME that is the mark of the professional artist.

And "The Same" is in the composition with fiction just as in graphic design.

If this were a Romance, good and proper, of course the protagonist would be the ex-Nun flinging all to the winds for love, and the antagonist would be the Australian Aborigine with confused religious goals.

But it's a historical drama about Islam's proselytizing ways, so we needed an Imam to be thwarted by love.

If it were about the wonders of Islam as a faith, then the Imam would win and the convert would be eternally happy for it.

So when you put the logline "beats" together with a little fleshing out such as these 7 points, you can generate the 2-pager and the 5-pager descriptions of the piece.

If the synopsis refuses to self-generate under this process, then you need to rewrite the piece if you want it to be commercially viable.

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

Jennifer Jackson – Literary Agent

Jennifer Jackson – Literary Agent

Nice news on Jim Butcher, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers, on Jennifer Jackson's page. She is @arcaedia on Twitter, where I found her when someone else retweeted a comment of hers.

I did an interview with Jim Butcher in person and covered that in my professional review column and talk about it here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/04/dresden-files-interview-with-jim.html

And about the TV show based on Butcher's DRESDEN FILES novels
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/03/jim-butchers-dresden-series-and-tv-show.html

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

BOX OFFICE PROFIT FORECAST

BOX OFFICE PROFIT FORECAST

I found this through http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/ -- J. Neil Schulman (terrific SF writer)

This is a business that tests screenplays and predicts how MUCH money a particular story can make.

If they nix a project of an independent producer, very likely that film will not get distribution even if it wins a bunch of awards at the festivals.

I expect their software can predict the sales volume of a novel, as well.

Now the question is, should our entire market be turned over to software?

Whether it should or not, "The Biz" is already relying on this kind of thing, if not this particular company.

Imagine how that limits what you get to choose from when you go to the movies.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

The Dangling Participle

Here's a grammatical error that is so common these days, people don't think of it as an error.

This is a tweet I found on Twitter and it made be blink three times -- and feel confused.
----------
While sitting on the couch, depressed, watching the #Comcast screensaver bounce around the screen, all of a sudden, the Olympics appeared!
----------

If you scrutinize the wording, you find that it's possible to misunderstand what is being said. You feel certain you understand, and of course the perpetrator feels "Well, YOU know what I mean" -- but in reality this grammatical structure leaves you wide open to being misunderstood.

What happened in this sentence?

"While sitting on the couch, depressed, watching the #Comcast screensaver bounce around the screen -- "

That's the start of the sentence, the setup that leaves us waiting for a payoff.

What MUST come next is WHO was sitting, depressed, watching.

It can't be followed by what happened on the screen without that all important personal pronoun.

It has to say:

"While sitting on the couch, depressed, watching the #Comcast screensaver bounce around the screen, I SUDDENLY SAW THE OLYMPICS APPEAR.

or something like that)

If you leave out the bridge "I" did whatever after the "while sitting" -- you have changed the subject of the sentence in the middle of the sentence. Or you've created a sentence that isn't a complete sentence because it doesn't have a subject. Grammar allows for "implied" subjects and objects, true, but this isn't a case where "implied" can be invoked.

When you leave out the subject that must be there, in contexts other than this sentence about watching the TV screen suddenly change to the Olympics, you run the risk of a reader or listener assuming you mean one person when in fact you mean a different person.

Every sentence has to have a subject, (that's a part of speech, not the issue you're discussing), and you can't change the subject without actually saying you are changing the subject.

You can't assume the recipient is following your thought if you have not specified that thought. The interjection "you know" that peppers our speech with the accompanying hand-wave gesture, which basically invites telepathic divining of your thoughts or credits the listener with powers they don't have, does not work in cold text.

Grammar isn't something you learn in grammar school and then dismiss as unimportant.

The rules of grammar are not something made up in a stuffy historical period that is no longer relevant to today.

Grammar is the tool of communication that is powerful enough to bring down nations or build a new world.

OK, a tweet on twitter doesn't deserve that much emphasis, but the error turning up on twitter is in fact important because what you see repeated becomes your own habit.

If others do it, it must be OK. If tweeters do it who have professional writing credentials that gives the error the force of custom and law.

But the dangling participle isn't an error because it breaks a "law" -- it's an error because it misleads and mis-communicates.

True, most readers will "get it" and it really is OK. And yes, this one is truly trivial.

But oh how the whole world could benefit by tweaking this tiny detail!

If clean grammar is a habit, you will use it when you are angry, upset or terrified. And in that one moment, a split second that comes once in a lifetime, you will communicate accurately and save a life.

If you make it a habit to use grammar precisely, and others become accustomed to hearing that precision and relying on understanding exactly what is meant, then in that one split-second emergency that comes once in a lifetime, they will understand what is being said to them and react appropriately -- and save a life.

I believe this whole world is composed of very good people who strive mightily to do good in their lives. What causes our biggest, messiest problems is bad communications and misunderstandings.

We live in an internal, subjective world and strive with all our might to connect with that external objective world out there, and with the other people's subjective bubbles.

We make our worst mistakes assuming other people's subjective worlds are identical to our own.

If we all foster the precision use of language, the collateral damage from those mistakes can be minimized.

I believe the possible profit, the return, is far greater than the effort to master grammar.

Language, the spoken or texted word, is our most powerful tool for creating peace and prosperity, beauty and harmony in both subjective and objective realities.

So this tiny, trivial error leaps out at me and I cringe, not at a tweet about the Olympics but at what this error implies about our chances at world peace.

And yes, the Olympics is a commercial extravaganza, but really it is an exercise in creating world peace.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

alien romances: A Fix For Publishing Business Model

alien romances: A Fix For Publishing Business Model This is my post to Alien Romances for Feb 2, 2010, and is more about the Intellectual Property Rights issue for Freelance Writers than it is about writing Romance in particular.

A quote from Twitter

On Twitter, you can use the sort feature to create conversations as if in a chatroom.  You do it by creating a "hashmark" to designate a thread.

The hashmark #scriptchat is for folks talking about screenwriting. 

One of the contributions to the discussion was the following, which relates to the question I asked in the comments on the post previous to this one -- the post which is a story to be analyzed.

@zoocityseries posted the following --
 A rule for #scriptchat: a great hero needs an internal conflict.  Fighting the bad guy is not a conflict.  That's an objective.

And that is exactly the reason I asked the author of the story to define the internal conflict of her lead character, the conflict that is resolved at the end of the piece. 

You can follow @zoocityseries after you join twitter at http://twitter.com/zoocityseries

Or follow me at http://twitter.com/jlichtenberg

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Chelsea by Kip Grimes

                 Below is a very short piece which is a story by a new writer, Kip Grimes.  It is to be evaluated for plot and conflict.  What do you think this writer needs to learn first?  What one technique would improve this story with the least effort? (please leave out formatting of the text and typos - all that is my fault.  Jacqueline Lichtenberg)

---------------


                         Chelsea
                             By
                         Kip Grimes

1.
   Chelsea awoke as the sun touched the tops of the trees.  She lay still for a moment listening for movement downstairs, listening for the man going through his routine of getting ready for work.  She wiggled her toes in anticipation of what was to come.  It was football season, a time of plenty.  A ripe time.

  The man showered and grumbled to himself as he dressed for his long work shift, and stumbled as he put on his shoes.  Chelsea stifled a giggle and stayed still while she listened.  She could smell the cheap hotdog with mustard that the man ate for his meal as he shook out the newspaper.  Chelsea had very acute senses. The man mumbled to the newspaper as he read about the high price of gas, the local rotary club dinner, and a story about a missing teen.  She listened as he slammed down the paper, fumbled with his keys, and left the house, locking the door behind him.  Yet she remained still in the attic, only rising as the sound of his car faded in the distance.

Chelsea sat on her nest for a moment, a pile of stolen clothing and articles that she might need to pass for a teenager of the current decade.  She picked out some to wear, making a mental note that they were from at least two separate girls.  There was no need being questioned about why she was wearing the exact clothing of a girl that was about her size who had gone missing a few months ago.  She moved, creeping over beams and rafters, scattering mice and insects in her path.  She paid them no attention and they dared not approach her, even when she had slept.   She grappled with the attic opening and swung herself down then crawled back upon a chair to carefully replace the plywood that serviced as a door into the ceiling. This place was quite a convenient find and she wasn’t ready to lose it.  She walked carefree down the hallway, her throat tight with thirst, but as she passed the kitchen she didn’t even give it a glance.

    Chelsea was covered with dust from her slumber in the attic, so she entered the bathroom that was still warm and steamy from the man’s showering and bathed as if she were not an intruder but a rightful occupant of the home.  Afterwards she put on her stolen items (they were to die for, if the truth was to be told) so that she mimicked the style of the teenage girls now; she was eager to blend in with them.

  She opened the door just a sliver to check and see if there were any wandering eyes.  When she was certain she was unseen she slipped out the front door, making sure to lock it back, and turned to face the night that was now upon her.  She tilted her pale face up to the moon and her eyes reflected the light fully. Chelsea smiled, and her teeth glinted in the silver light.  She was thirsty and ready to hunt.

2.

Chelsea had good luck.  Sometimes great things seemed to fall into her lap.  She walked to the football field, guided by the lights glowing at the edge of town, carefully planning her night in respect to what she had done the few nights before and what she would do in the future.  Chelsea had learned that she had to plan every night in advance.  She would have hitchhiked, but she did that last night and didn’t want to set a pattern that the police might notice in case last night’s meal had been found. Plus, variety was the spice of life!  Though she liked to have a routine to fall back on when food was scarce, she loved the challenge of a novel situation in her hunts.

  She had seasonal patterns to her hunts such as hunting at football games, but she made sure to move around from town to town and nest to nest.  She spent this time of the year down in the southern states, where football was king and everyone was out in the dark of the evening until very late.  Ahh the games, the darkness under the bleachers, the bonfires, the pep rallies, the dances in the dark!  There are so many opportunities for her. 
Teenagers are well known to make mistakes and misjudgments during those times. She just needs to be where they are, because sometimes they go out to places they don’t know for adventure.  Sometimes they get lost.  Sometimes they are never found. Most were thought to be runaways. She recognized the personality and chose them just for that if she could.  It kept her safe.  Why look for a killer when the kid had probably run away to the city to get away from an abusive family?  She knows the authorities just go through the motions in those cases.
  Chelsea had made the mistake of creating a pattern when she was much younger in her existence when she was barely making it from one night to another.  Those days were hard and she almost didn’t make it.  Now they were over.  You could say she graduated: earned her diploma to her existence.  She had learned many tricks to surviving after many years.   She patted her pocket that contained the money from the man she had killed the night before.  Yes, she had learned many tricks.

3.

  The bored teacher at the gate didn’t even glance up as she took the money and handed the pretty, pale girl a student ticket.  Chelsea smiled at the idea of paying student prices, but isn’t it all pretend?  
   The noise and smell of a football game never changed, even after many years.  It’s funny that a large crowd is the easiest place to hide.
   Chelsea made her way to the home side, weaving through the old men watching the game at the fence and the kids running to buy candy at the concession stand, looking for the crowd of boys that considered themselves tough and cool.  And there they were, just as they were in every stadium.  The boys sat at the far end of the stands, at the top. Same spot year after year.  Over time she had watched the clothing change from white tees and black leather, to bell bottoms and paisley shirts, to polyester, to acid washed, to baggy, and it went on and on.  They all thought they were the first ones to be so cool, that nobody had ever done what they were doing, but she knew better. She had seen some fashions come and go many times.  That attitude of being the first and being tough made them easy to handle.  The fashions and technology changed, but human nature stayed the same.  She was an expert on human behavior.  You could say her whole existence belonged to the study and understanding of it.  

  She sat below the boys, tossing her long hair and letting them see her, knowing they would talk about her. Chelsea was beautiful and she knew it.  She used her beauty the way hunters used bait.   She waited.  The boys giggled and boasted loudly so she would hear, working their nerves up to see which one would be tough enough to come out on top and approach her.  Finally one did.

  “Hey, whatschur’ name?” The freckled boy with dirty blonde hair falling into his eyes was the one asking.  

  He slung his head backwards, revealing pimples and hickeys on his neck.  Apparently they were not all freckles.  Pity, this was going to be a nasty meal.

  “ Shelly,” stated Chelsea. The boy told her that his name was Jared James,
”Just like Jesse James.  Ya know, the motorcycle guy?” He said in a tone that hinted that she should be impressed.  She pretended to be even though she wanted to laugh.  This is all part of the game. 

  “Shelly, huh?  What is your last name?”
“Killingsworth.” Said Chelsea with an inward grin at her own little joke.
She had many names over the years but kept them all related, Chelsea, Shelly, Michelle, Shayla.  Then came the questions. Questions of where she was from, what was she doing there, etcetera. She had an answer for all of them.  Her basic story never changed.  She was from Chicago. Her parents were divorced, and she was moving in with her aunt who lived in the countryside alone. She was starting school on Monday as a junior, and so on and so on, and Scooby Dooby Doo.
During the interchange the boy slowly settled beside her as Chelsea knew he would.  Now he knew she was new, and a new girl in school, especially a pretty new girl in school was a prize to have.  A boy like this one knew that it was his ticket.

Jared told her that he was a senior and would have graduated last year except he got held back because of that asshole teacher Mr. Hitler.
Chelsea raised her eyebrows in feigned surprise and said in a naïve whisper, “You have a teacher name Mr. Hitler?”

“Hell, no!  We just, or I just call him that.  I called him that right to his face…. or I will.  His real name is Mr. Drittler.”

“Oh! That is so funny!  Drittler Hitler!” Chelsea said this as if the boy had just told her the greatest joke of all time.  As she giggled she put her hand on his arm and briefly leaned her head on his shoulder.  Jared looked at her in surprise for a moment, letting what was happening register and then stuttered out that there was a party later tonight out in the mountains and wondered if she would like to go.
“We have a keg,” he whispered in her ear.  Such an invitation is exactly what she wanted.  It changed her plans a little but yes, she could do that.
“Ooh, good…I am sooo thirsty and I love a wild party,” she cooed in his ear.
Jared could not believe his good luck.  He turned and grinned at the other guys who groaned.   
Chelsea began to talk to Jared, telling him that her aunt didn’t care when she came home, and she could pretty much do as she pleased, which made her aunt much better than her parents.  She and Jared slowly got into the conversation of grown ups and teachers, how they tried to tell you what to do, how we should party when we wanted, and so on, and so on.  Chelsea led this conversation though Jared didn’t know it.  She pulled anger from him and fed him admiration.  She flirted and touched him.  

The fly did not realize that he was caught in the web, and the spider was closing in.

The other boys watched for a bit then threw up their hands and wandered off.  Jared had caught the new girl first.  Oh well, they would see him later at the party and then the next day he could tell them all about it.

4.

 It was getting close to halftime when Chelsea stood and said that she was tired of sitting and wanted to walk around.  She asked Jared if he would like to walk around and show her the school.  They walked around the field, and under the dark of the bleachers Jared stopped and turned to her.  Chelsea walked up to him and looked up into his eyes.  Jared almost backed off, for a second they seemed to glow like a cat’s eyes in the dark.  Then she put her hands on his shoulders and he bent down and kissed her.  Chelsea jumped and backed off, pretending that she didn’t expect that.  Jared was immediately apologetic and scared that he had gone too far.  Then Chelsea told him no, that it was ok, and that she thought he was pretty cool.  She said she liked him, and then she kissed him back, longer and slower than the first time.  

  Chelsea broke the kiss off and asked what the front of the school looked like, and asked if he would like to leave the game to show her around the campus.  Jared immediately put together the scenario of what might take place and jumped on the chance.  They walked out of the chain link gate that contained the false daylight of the stadium lights and into the shadows and darkness of the night.

5.
 
 They walked around the buildings, and Jared made a pretense of showing her the buildings, but he kept moving closer to her, touching her, and finally he pulled her into the shadows to kiss her again.  Chelsea told him that she was afraid that they would be seen and led him towards the dark cars in the parking lot.  Jared started looking for cars with the doors unlocked in the darkest part of the lot, and sure enough, he finally found one.  Chelsea and Jared crawled into the backseat.  Jared could not believe he was with such a pretty girl.  All of his girlfriends had been skanks compared to this one.  Jared was surprised that she didn’t seem to be afraid or care.  And Chelsea did not.  She was watching, listening, and waiting.  She started kissing his face and neck.  Jared could not believe how hard her kisses were, but after the initial hard one, it didn’t seem to hurt anymore.  As a matter of fact he felt good. He felt like he was drifting and was getting more and more light headed, and his neck felt so warm.  Jared felt satisfied, and all he needed was a good, deep sleep.

  Chelsea was lost in herself and she was getting full.  The pumping jet was slowing down to an intermittent trickle.  She started to relax and drift.

  “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY DAUGHTER?” A voice yelled and roughly pulled the boy off of her, throwing him aside like a rag doll.  Jared’s body slowly slumped down the side of a minivan next to the car.  Chelsea looked up in surprise and saw the face of an angry man holding a tire iron right before it crashed into her face.  Then everything went dark.


6.

 Chelsea slowly and painfully awoke in the front seat of a car.  Though she was already starting to heal, her face was still a bloody mess.  She had been tied very tightly with nylon rope.  She could barely move.  She looked over at the man driving the car and he leaned his face close to hers and said,” So you finally woke up did you, you hell bitch.”  Chelsea, though surprised and confused, knew she was in deep trouble.  She possessed strength that most girls did not have, and had a few extra powers that might amaze, but she was not ancient enough to have the awesome powers of a true old one.  This man was large and powerful.  She had to try to think her way out of this.  First thing was to see what he knew about her.

“ What are you going to do with me?” She said this as she worked up tears.  She had to appear as much as an ordinary teenage girl as possible.  “ I want to go home!  Please don’t kill me like you did my boyfriend!”
The man just smiled at her and said with a laugh, “Boyfriend?” He spat and shook his head in disgust.  He pointed the tire iron at her and said, “What did you think of the daughter thing?  Pretty good one, huh?  I know a few tricks too you know. 
“I know what you are.  I have been waiting for you.  You killed my brother.” He said flatly.

Chelsea was surprised at that.  How could she kill this old guy’s brother?  Was he the guy she killed last night?  How would he have known about that?

  The man must have known what she was thinking and said to her, “Don’t even try to act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Don’t try to act human!  You might look like a girl but you ARE NOT!  You killed my brother.  I saw it all.  I couldn’t believe it when I saw you tonight talking to that boy but I knew it was you.  You were the last person seen with my brother and I was the one that saw you.  I was just a little kid but I saw you kill him.  You killed him the same way you killed that boy tonight but that was almost thirty years ago and you HAVE NOT AGED A BIT!”

  Well, now it was out.  The man knew her for what she was and he looked at her after this little speech as if he wanted her to say, “You are so smart!  You got me Bub,” but she just studied him, trying to figure out how much fact he knew from fiction about her kind. Some of the legends were true and some were just made up garbage, but sometimes that garbage could be used to an advantage.  Getting out of this might depend upon what he believed to be true, not what is true.  The man drove her down a dirt road and stopped. He sat for a moment, hands on the steering wheel, just looking at her.   He nodded then shook himself into action and got out, pulling her roughly from the car.  He then stopped, considering what to do with her.  She knew what was going through his head, should he use a stake? Did it have to be a certain kind of wood? Could he chop her up into little bitty bits and scatter her body?  How about burn her? Why not tie her to a tree and let the sun kill her?  
   He pulled her over to a tree so “whoopee” it looked like the slowly dying in the rising sunlight was the choice of the night. That sounded like a nice, slow sentence.  He dragged her to the tree and tied her tightly, readjusting the nylon ropes, and then sat on the hood of the car to watch her.  

“How old are you anyway?” He asked.

She didn’t answer.  Chelsea could tell that made him mad.  Good, let him get mad.

“ Where did you come from?  Where does your kind come from?” Still she did not answer.  “You ANSWER ME!  YOU OWE IT TO ME!”

When Chelsea did not even lift her head to look at him he decided that to make her talk he would beat it out of her and make her beg to be let go. Begging would be great.  He jumped off the hood of the car and walked over to her. He started to punch and kick her, grabbing her hair and pulling her head up to look into her eyes.  Chelsea didn’t let fear show in her eyes, she just stared back.
  This would not do.  He walked back to the car and picked up the tire iron.  Chelsea just had time to think, “Oh Shit this is going to hurt,” before she lost consciousness again.

   The man continued until he grew tired.  He dropped the tire iron and slowly walked back to the car hood to sit, covered with Chelsea’s blood.  He slowly drifted to sleep; it was going to be a few hours until the show at dawn, anyway, and he was sore.

7.

 Chelsea awoke in pain for the second time that night.  She could barely raise her head and her face felt swollen and mushy.  She had lost so much blood that her ability to heal rapidly had been greatly compromised.  She shuddered in pain and shifted her weight against the ropes. They gave a little and she realized that they had been loosened during her assault.  Chelsea lifted her head and saw the man sleeping on the hood of the car.  She slowly wriggled against her ropes, stretching and loosening them, until finally they unwound and fell to her feet.  Chelsea smiled.

  The man awoke with something cool and sticky against his body, crushing him and holding him down. He was tied to the hood of the car, he could not move.  Chelsea bit swiftly and hard.  Blood jetted across the dirt road and she quickly covered his neck with her mouth, taking in the nourishment that would speed her recovery from the abuse she had been given by the man.  She needed it all.

     When he was dead she unwound the ropes but left him lying on the hood of the car.  Chelsea turned towards town; towards her makeshift home in the attic, but she had to hurry.  She had more work to do tonight, thanks to this man.  Chelsea had an extra trip to and from home tonight, and it was going to be dawn soon.

8.

 Chelsea struggled to crawl into the attic window for the second time that night. Though she was healing she was dirty, bloody and tired. She had been extra busy tonight with her trips to and fro.  When she settled in the attic on her dwindling pile of clothing from the dead, she smiled tiredly to herself.  Yes, she had always been lucky.

9.

 The homeowner returned to his house from his night shift and walked past his kitchen, and into his bathroom to take a piss before going to sleep.  Nothing alerted him to the fact that he shared his home with someone else.  Everything was in place.  Chelsea was careful of that.  He slept the sleep of a hard working night shift man, rising in the early afternoon to watch some TV and do the things that people do that live alone.  He started his routine of getting ready for work and read the newspaper as he ate his cheap meal of fried Spam and macaroni and cheese.  He was surprised by what he read, because nothing ever happens in this small town.

Local Man Found Dead, Possible Break In Tri-State Kidnapping Case

The body belonging to Mitchell Stubbs was found early this morning on humpback road.  Early investigations point to an apparent suicide.  Evidence found at the scene may connect Stubbs with the disappearance of persons in the tri-state area and beyond. More information will be forthcoming as this important case is further investigated. 

7.

 The police stood around the body of Mitchell Stubbs that still lay upon the hood of the car, while the crime photographers waved away flies and took pictures.  In Mitchell’s car they found a large amount of clothing that seemed to match the clothes of girls who had gone missing; some as long as three years ago.  Stains that looked suspiciously like old, dried blood dotted the clothing along with fresh blood.  Testing would determine if that was the case and if it belonged to the missing.  
The cop standing at the edge of the road trying to block rubberneckers sighed.  It was going to be a long week, late last night a local teenage boy was found dead in the parking lot at with wounds on his neck very much like Mitchell’s, the police were starting to think that Mitchell was responsible for the boys death also.  He had been seen following the boy and a girl around the school.  Maybe he was mad at the boy for getting the girl first.  Who knows with freaks like this? Why he killed himself was unknown.  Maybe he thought he was going to be found, and he wanted to die with his trophies from all of the girls he had killed before.  That is what they did on TV, thought the cop as he again shook his head.
So far they have not found the murder weapon, but it looked as if he used some kind of puncturing tool, or maybe even the tire iron.   Whatever it was, it left a nasty wound.  The boy’s friends were interviewed and released.  They were a bunch of goofy morons, anyway.  They said the last they saw of their friend he was walking into the parking lot with an unidentified girl checking cars to see if they were unlocked.  The boys then admitted that they do this often to find a place to make out with girls at football games.  They told the policeman interviewing them that they didn’t know the girl other than that she was, as they described her, “Hot.”  It can only be hoped that the girl that was with the unfortunate boy that evening had escaped and not joined the ranks of girls that were Mitchell’s victims.  More than likely, they will never find her.


8.

Chelsea awoke as the sun touched the top of the trees. Her wounds had healed and not even a small blemish appeared on her skin to show what had transpired the evening before, but she did need a bath.  She listened and waited. The man had left.   Her nest of clothing was much smaller, but she could fix that.  She picked up what was left and stuffed them in her backpack.  Time to move on.  She left the attic, showered, and dressed.  She slipped out the door for the last time, ready for a new town and new adventure.  Chelsea walked to the highway and stuck out her thumb.  She turned her eyes up to the sky letting the dull light of the moon reflect in them, and smiled as the car that passed her slowed down, then backed towards her.

  The man in the car said, “Need a ride?”

Chelsea threw her backpack in the seat and said, “Yeah. Had a fight with the old man and I am leaving for good.” 

The man gave Chelsea an appreciative glance; such a pretty, fresh girl to be out on her own.  Anything could happen to her.  A man could take advantage of her.  Chelsea cocked her head sideways, as she could almost read these thoughts, and smiled at him. She turned her head towards the open window and let the wind take her hair.  She tilted her chin up towards the night sky and smiled fully as the silver moonlight glinted on her teeth.  Chelsea was thirsty.

END

Break Out Of Beginning Tizzy

I have written a number of posts about outlining and various other writing craft posts that don't seem to be about procrastination but can get you over the hump of the dreaded beginning.

On this co-blog
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com 
I post on Tuesdays.

You can start with these posts and follow the links in the post back along this discussion subject and forward with each Tuesday.

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

Or here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html

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

There are writers who "should" not "outline". 

Academic training can ruin your native ability to "outline" for the purposes of fiction because the process and the resulting document called an "outline" for a novel are totally different from the necessary "outline" for a paper.

To break out of the Beginning Tizzy, I would suggest the following.

1) name your protagonist
2) name your antagonist
3) do NOT write character sketches or biographies for them; make it up as you go along, and conform it in rewrite so it makes logical sense.  Do not attempt logical sense in outline level.
4) Find the moment when the protagonist and antagonist first come into conflict.  That is parag 1 of your novel.
5) Determine the "ending" (just determine success or failure -- NOT in detail about what happens and how).  Just determine who wins in the end, who prevails.  The rest you can make up as you go along.  The one who prevails is the protag.
6) Determine the Middle.  If the ending is success, winning, Happily Ever After, the middle is the low-point of the protag's life, the worst thing that can possibly happen to that person.  If the ending is failure, the middle is the best moment of the protag's life.
7) With those guideposts in place, start drafting, and just TELL THE  STORY, and nevermind everything else because you'll do that on second draft.

Knowing and doing aren't the same thing.  If you are one of those few writers who should not outline, and that is evident because you crash and burn on even beginning an outline, then do try this method by using the following procedure.

OUTLINE is done in your head -- very little writing it down because it's not for anyone but you.  Do not go get a notebook, do not use pieces of paper, do not organize your ideas under headings.  Once you've broken the barrier of The Beginning, you may want to use 3X5 cards, or screenwriting software with "cards view" open, but if you are crashing on the beginning, you probably should avoid even cards. 

The best way for these special writers to do it is to open and name a word processor file, write the title and byline at the top.

Then paste in those 7 steps I listed above into the file.  Space down under each point and type what goes there.  Now go back up to the top and insert your opening line.

You concoct the opening line from the conflict that will be resolved between the two opposing forces, or conflicting forces.

E.G. "I told you already!  When the bullet smacked into the wall beside my head, I knew my number was up!"

Once you have that opening line, you won't be able to stop typing.  When you run out of what comes next, scroll down into your "outline" delete the parts you've done, and look at the next signpost in the plot.  That will tell you what comes next.

You can skip whole scenes and event threads to leap to the next signpost, and as you're writing that point, you can fill in the "outline" as you think of things that come in the blank spot you skipped over.  Then tomorrow go craft that bridge scene (as per my blog post on scenes).

Remember, write it wrong on purpose, then go back and fix it once you've written THE END.

If this method doesn't work for you, it means you've gotten the opening line wrong.  If you get it right, you can't stop writing.

You may be interested in my Sime~Gen Universe in which I sometimes collaborate with Professor Jean Lorrah.
http://www.simegen.net

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com (for current available)
http://simegen.com/jl/   (for complete bio-biblio)

Holiday sales could launch e-book readers as mass-market must-haves - washingtonpost.com

I've been in a lengthy and detailed discussion in the Romance Community boards at Amazon on the future of copyright
http://www.amazon.com/tag/romance/forum/ref=cm_cd_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=FxM42D5QN2YZ1D&cdThread=Tx3IP0OQ9RHT7W0&displayType=tagsDetail

Where I alerted them to the following from the Washington Post

Holiday sales could launch e-book readers as mass-market must-haves - washingtonpost.com

Which is all of direct and immediate interest to me because my Dushau Trilogy is now available on Kindle, and Molt Brother and its direct sequel City of a Million Legends is on fictionwise.com as multi-format ebook, and my Vampire Romances Those of My Blood and Dreamspy are in POD available on Amazon.

There's a publisher and a few writers on this Romance Community thread interacting with readers. As I've been saying on the Alien Romance blog,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/doubleblind-by-ann-aquirre.html
there is an intimate relationship between the writer, art, and the reader. The writer must choose which of all the stories in her head that she must write.

Writers have more stories than they can write in a lifetime. They must choose, and market is an important element in that choice.

The Washington Post story on ebook readers and the growth of that market is something all writers must take into account.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.jacquelinelichtenberg.com

E-Reads: August '09 eBook Sales Triple Previous August

E-Reads: August '09 eBook Sales Triple Previous August

If you're behind the curve getting into ebooks, you may find Kindle just what you want.

It's designed for people who don't want to mess with a computer or know anything about how it works.

It has a readable screen that looks like paper and feels like you're reading on paper.

And it came out just about at the point where the graph of ebook sales started to go parabolic.

The world is changing whether we want it to or not, so reach up for a handhold on the future.

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

Toba supervolcano caused genetic bottleneck

WORLDBUILDING FOR WRITERS

Toba super-volcano caused genetic bottleneck

This is a WORLDBUILDING item I ran into while reading a novel (free copy) Death of a Cure by Steven H. Jackson.

This novel is fraught with expository lumps (some disguised as action).

The opening action sequence presupposes the reader is interested in the detailed mechanics of how a Marine doctor could be delivered to a submerged submarine via parachute.

The opening sequence is very like the opening of a James Bond movie, because then it breaks sharply into a mystery about the death of the Marine's brother who was a genetic researcher close to a big cure.

No sooner do you get involved in the characters and the relationship of the Marine (man) with an FBI agent (woman), than suddenly you're reading a primer on evolutionary theory.

It was in that expository lump that I found this one item of theory that I either didn't know or had forgotten totally about.

I became interested in super-volcanos through Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain novels, one where he nearly witnesses a super-eruption.

I didn't know (or hadn't digested) the implications of this Indonesian eruption on human genetics, but apparently it's quite a bit more famous than the expository lump would indicate.

On this same website is a reference to a book by the same author I think about how during a magnetic pole reversal the Earth's magnetic field doesn't protect us from solar radiation and the result is rapid genetic mutation, ultimately indicated by the sudden rise of totally new species.

Interesting theory.

But I have yet to find anyone discussing the period during which the Earth's magnetic field goes to 0 as it reverses. ALL our electricity (regardless of energy source) depends on turning an armature in the earth's magnetic field. During 0, no electricity. How long would 0 last? I've never seen this discussed.

Why science fiction authors just can't win - SFFMedia

Ordinarily I post exercises and writing challenges here, but this is an article I think you should not miss if you're incubating a story in any genre.

Why science fiction authors just can't win - SFFMedia

The genre definitions and rules are changing almost daily and this article shows one of the effects of this change.

See this post and follow links back to the earlier genre discussion.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/genre-root-of-all-evil.html

Kurt Vonnegut was offended by being classed as an SF writer just as Atwood apparently is.

Today SF elements are accepted as mainstream in mainstream and otherwise mundane fiction.

In fact, the cell phone is an SF element now common in daily life. They've found water on the moon and Mars. They're firing a rocket into the moon's surface to kick up enough dust to analyze for water. Find it, and they plan to build a habitat on the moon. OK?

The only thing left for SF writers to explore is relationships with non-humans. That's what SFR and Paranormal Romance does.

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

Plot vs. Story

Plot vs. Story

The moving parts of a piece of fiction are well known to every writer who has been able to sell work consistently to the larger publishers.

Every workshop I've taught in where I've watched other writers analyze student work has shown me clearly that every single writer who has perfected a system (any system -- everyone invents their own working system) for producing completed works of fiction knows these moving parts.

And most really successful writers are self-taught so they have invented terminology for what they perceive and need to manipulate in order to produce salable work.

I've seen the words Plot and Story used interchangeably, with some other word used to designate the Plot when the word "Plot" is used to designate the "story."

It can be terribly confusing for beginners, and I suspect that's why writers are mostly self-taught.

Learning to write is a process of discovery.

Recently, on LinkedIn, I answered a question about whether you write for love or for money, and I said LOVE.

You can only write for love, really, because getting money for your writing is more a gamble, like venture capital. Venture capitalists love what they're doing enough to gamble on it.

BUT -- having love igniting your need to write, your true personality shows through and you land somewhere on a spectrum from utter carelessness of maybe "well writing is an unskilled profession anyone can do" or egotistical "I can do anything without half-trying" all the way down to a choked-up, self-defeating "I don't know HOW because nobody ever taught me, and everything I produce is embarrassing trash."

Well, nobody ever will teach you. But you don't already know how to write if you haven't put in the necessary effort to teach yourself.

And if you truly love what you need to write, and truly need to have that message reach someone you don't even know, then you will be greatly moved to learn the craft of writing, and maybe even delve deeply into the art behind the craft.

Again, your true personality will show through, along with your absorbed values, in the manner in which you approach this task.

You may go to amazon and buy a lot of expensive books on the theory that they will "teach" you. (personally, I'd hit the free local library first) Or more likely today you'll Google up some instructions.

So learning "to write" is a process, and the first step in the process is learning that you don't know "how" to do it. You know how to read a novel, but you don't know how to reverse that process into writing a novel until you've really taught yourself and then practiced what you've learned.

Reading is the first step in learning to write, but it's reading that is very different from the reading that readers do. A writer reads to reverse-engineer the fiction into its moving parts, it's necessary components.

You already know all the unnecessary components of your own story that you must write for love. The unnecessary parts are the really interesting parts for a reader, and it's the payload the writer must deliver.

But the second step in learning to read like a writer is learning to be interested in the VEHICLE that delivers the payload. That vehicle has a chassis composed of these moving parts we've been discussing individually. The same chassis can carry a large number of different genre-vehicles.

Now, in response to questions asked in the comments section of these blog posts, we are going to look at how to connect the moving parts we've examined into a chassis strong enough to carry that payload which you are creating out of love of it.

Writers who muddle their way into the craft and teach themselves to get to consistent, professional (make a living at it) word production eventually discover the nature of these mechanical parts of the composition and discover how the writer manipulates these parts to produce that final, polished work.

But being self-taught, or taught by someone who was self-taught, they use different terms to refer to the parts of the chassis and the connecting links.

So, like everyone else, I've adopted some terms from my teacher, and I've sorted out the moving parts of the composition, and given them names and learned how to mold them into place.

Maybe my terminology will illuminate these interior (necessarily invisible in the finished product) moving parts for you.

So let's see if we can walk and chew gum, juggle a few plates, and spin a lug-wrench at the same time.

On http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/ which is for learning exercises for writers, back in March 2009 Ozambersand raised a question which I answered at length in the comments section of one of my posts.

http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/03/worldbuilding-trunk-ated.html

In July, I posted two explorations of Scene Structure on this Alien Romance blog which now contains over 800 posts, so here is one of the URLs

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

That's Part 2, and you'll find the link to Part 1 in there.

In the comments from Part 1 and Part 2 on Scene Structure, one of Linnea Sinclair's writing students, Kathleen McGiver and a new commenter here Sharon, asked about the difference between Plot and Story. ozambersand kindly searched out that bit that I had written in a comment, and here it is for the record excerpted from the comments on worldbuilding-trunk-ated.

-------------------

PLOT is the sequence of things that happen, EVENTS. Events must be displayed in a because-chain to make a plot.

PLOT = BECAUSE

Because Obama was elected President, Stem Cell Research will be revived, and because of the research Somebody will be cured of paralysis, and then be elected President. PLOT. EVENTS. BECAUSE.

STORY is what those events mean to the characters emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, or in life.

Story is also linked to Because and is the result or cause (motive) behind (BEHIND) Events in the Plot.

Because Obama fulfilled his lifelong dream to be President, he has discovered that he doesn't know everything and can't do everything at once. Now, he doesn't know why he can't seem to hire enough of the right people to fully staff his administration. "Oh, why are the people I admire tax cheats?" The Events leading to his discovery of the answer to that question is his STORY. The Events themselves are the PLOT.

The BACKGROUND is President and White House and Recession and Bank Crisis and Middle East. Everyone reading the story knows all that.

The FOREGROUND is winning election, choosing and hiring people, admiring people, being admired, spending political capital, making risky choices, living with the HUGE consequences.

Look at a painting, say a portrait -- Mona Lisa. The chair, the blurry sketch of buildings and hills, sky, even her dress is BACKGROUND. The FOREGROUND is her face and hands.

Take a genre - Urban Fantasy - the URBAN part is background, the FANTASY is foreground because you have to explain the laws of magic etc in that universe and to be worth explaining they have to generate plot.

STORY is the character's personal experience and responses to the things that happen - the psychological and spiritual lessons learned.

The story of a man who falls in love with a thief only to discover the folly of attempting to reform her and decides to learn her craft and join her.

The BACKSTORY is all that went on before the plot begins, the things that happened that made them what they are.

BACKSTORY - The son of an ex-Nun and a seminary student who married for Love, falls in love with a thief and learns the folly - etc.

Who his parents were is backstory -- they never appear overtly in the novel, but their presence is in every word he utters, every decision he makes whether he knows it or not. You don't have to tell the reader the BACKSTORY (often it's better if you don't -- that's why you need all these other tools, so you'll have other ways to convey the information where necessary).

But you have to know the backstory to keep everything in the novel consistent and believable.

The B-story is the story arc of a character who is a confidant or intimate-enemy of the A-story's main character.

As I pointed out previously, the B-story character is often the last invented and is a sub-set or factor of the A-story main character -- someone he/she confides in and spills his guts to. In a film, the B-story carries your THEME.

The A Story main character pours out their heart (in a few choice lines) to the B-story character, thus informing the audience what's inside the A-story character that maybe even the A-story character does not know.

--------------
The glue that holds plot and story together is the THEME. I've done a number of posts on theme here, especially in the posts on Worldbuilding.

When the THEME does not glue the Plot to the Story, or bolt it on firmly with lots of grease so it moves nicely, or weld it so it can't move, when the THEME doesn't connect the plot to the story, then the EVENTS in the plot happen, but they don't happen TO ANYONE. The events become meaningless and readers get bored.

When the STORY doesn't change the characters actions, then the EVENTS don't proceed from the story through the theme, and again readers get bored reading about a single character's angst without events that illuminate and change that angst.

A well written composition will have the plot and the story so tightly welded or so perfectly articulated and well greased, that the reader can't tell the difference between plot and story. Each event and each reaction will be both at once.

But to create that effect, the writer has to know the difference.

In addition to doing all that, the World you build to cradle your plot and story has to explicate your theme. It's rooted in your theme. And the fastest, most efficient way to build the right world for this plot and story is to build the world from the theme.

Remember, art is a selective recreation of reality, not reality itself. It's what you select to leave out that makes it art, and that communicates your theme.

Theme is a game you play with your readers.

No two writers do this process of inventing moving parts of a story the same way.

Even a given writer will invent stuff in different orders for different projects. That's called creativity. It isn't a science. It isn't reproducible by other people. It's "magic" -- and its procedures depend more on who you are at that moment than on what you're trying to accomplish.

In other words, how you go about inventing the moving parts that will form the chassis that will carry your payload to your reader depends on where you are on that spectrum I mentioned above. Remember too that you as an individual can move along that spectrum from too timid to too confident, and may in fact rattle back and forth between the extremes during the writing of a particular work. Rattling back and forth may be a sign that the writing is going well!

Yet there are rules. Creating a work of fiction is not random or chaotic. It has a system behind it. Your system. Not anyone else's. (Rattling might be part of your system, but I don't advise teaching that part.)

When your work of fiction is all done, it can be reverse engineered to expose the moving parts and their relationship to each other (glued, bolted, welded).

In fact, most of the enjoyment that a reader gets out of a novel comes from their "kitten-and-ball-of-twine" unraveling of the beautiful, polished composition you've presented to them. But keep in mind, the reader who is not a writer doesn't really want or need to win that game with the writer.

Take Mystery Writing, for example. Readers want to joust with the writer to solve the mystery before the writer reveals all. But if it's too easy, the reader doesn't enjoy the game and won't read that writer's stuff again. If it's too hard, the reader who is not a writer likewise won't enjoy the game and won't read that writer again.

Getting it just right, hiding the moving parts of your composition, is an artform, and a game you play with the readers. It has to be fun or it isn't worth it.

Reverse engineering fiction to understand the story gives one the illusion that one understands the everyday world better. And since it's magic, the illusion can become reality. Magic is done via imagination and emotion, both of which are best delivered via fiction.

The theme is what communicates most loudly to readers, the handle by which they remember the novel and your byline. That's why the title has to be the theme, so they can remember it and recommend it. A theme portrays the world as the artist's eye sees it. A theme can say the world has meaningfulness, or that life has a meaning, or that life is meaningless and futile, or that the world is merely a figment of your imagination.

Fiction that bespeaks a theme that explains a reader's reality with verisimilitude can change the way the reader sees their world, and thus change the story of their life, and thus change the plot of their life as they make choices based on this thematic insight.

Or a work of fiction can just be loads of fun to read and not affect the reader much if at all.

Which way a work affects a reader is not the writer's choice. But it is a sobering consideration when tossing off a trash novel under a pseudonym or as a work-for-hire.

So the writer has to work at inventing and arranging the moving parts and putting them together to make a picture so that the reader can take the picture apart and understand it as pieces.

How can writer and reader work together to have the most possible fun?

THEME

That's the answer to almost everything about writing craft.

Theme is the organizing principle, and it is the subject about which writer and reader are communicating.

So no matter what the sequential order in which the writer invents the moving parts of a work of fiction, at some point before finishing the composition, the writer has to step back from creativity and take a long, jaundiced look at what has been created and exercise that artistic selectivity.

Which pieces to use, which to showcase, which to emphasize, which to show and which to tell can all be determined by reference to the theme.

To find the theme of this particular piece, ask yourself "What am I trying to say, here?" What's the take-away these readers should hold onto?

Do I want to say, "The business cycle can not and SHOULD NOT be eliminated?" Or do I want to say "Recessions and Depressions are a natural part of human commerce and we just have to live with them or commerce will stop."

Either statement could become an "in your face" approach to some non-human culture that arrives in Earth Orbit ready to trade for primitive artifacts like iPods, bound books and quaint little discs called Blu-Ray. (Argsel! You won't believe this! The pictures are all flat! It's abstract primitive art! We'll make a fortune!!!)

A novel, or a series of novels set in a well built world, has to take a stand on some philosophical point, and ask and answer (even if tentatively) a set of questions about that point. A set of questions. Set. They have to go together in a chain like a movie Detective interrogates a prisoner.

So if the plot is a Romance, then the core theme has to be something akin to LOVE CONQUERS ALL. But a specific Romance could say it's a good thing or a bad thing that love conquers all.

Whether it's good or bad depends on, well, for example, if you're the King who needs his Heir to marry fellow royalty for the alliance, but love conquers your plan and the Heir runs away with a peasant, then "love conquers all" is a real bad thing.

The social and economic problems that proceed from that runaway Heir and his heirs could make for a wildly successful series of Action Romance novels. Drop a comment with series that follow this pattern if you can think of any. There are quite a few.

So in the case of the Runaway Heir and his 10 kids raised on a farm, the STORY is that the Heir tussles with his responsibility to the throne and in his final epiphany (in the first novel) wrenchingly decides that his personal revulsion for being King overrides the Kingdom's need for him to be King. And he escapes (from some trap the King created) and goes running off to rescue his Beloved.

That's the story.

Here's the Heir's Character Arc, his story. "I have to become King. I love this Peasant. I have to marry this Princess-Shrew (who's a great manager and ought to be a Queen). I don't want to become King. I would make a terrible King and probably murder that Princess-Shrew. I refuse to marry Shrew. I love Peasant Woman. I WILL NOT ACCEPT MY FATE." That's the story arc, from accepting the fate of becoming King after his father, to rejecting it.

The PLOT is the sequence of events that TELLS THAT STORY.

Now if the story is the arc from accepting fate to rejecting fate, then the THEME (underneath the Love Conquers All theme) has to be something like "Birth is not Destiny" or "I am a person who can make my own decisions" or "Fate is not decreed by God." Or maybe "God Makes Mistakes and I'm One Of Them".

Pick a theme that EXPLAINS WHY the character goes from Accept to Reject to Action.

Using that theme create the PLOT. And don't forget that all this is cast in SCENES.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html

But before you break the narrative into scenes, you need the 4 cardinal points of the plot structure (unless you are a pantser today).

Say, for example:

Open - a huge gala PALACE BALL introducing Heir to Princess-Shrew, Peasant serving in the kitchen?


1/4 - Heir causes the Princess to reveal her nasty personality and hatred for the Heir's kingdom and contempt for the kingdom's King.


1/2 - Heir compares the two and chooses Peasant as the better person, tries to get Peasant qualified to become his Queen. FAILS (1/2 to a HEA ending is the FAILURE part)


3/4 - Heir arrives at his long foreshadowed epiphany about his destiny and rejects the Kingdom and his father. Princess-Shrew was right not to respect the King. 3/4 result is that Peasant is imprisoned by King to prevent contact with Heir to force or blackmail Heir into marrying Princess.


END - Heir breaks Peasant out of prison, does something definitive to thwart the ambitions of Princess-Shrew, and Heir and Peasant take a powder, riding off into the sunset to an HEA.

OPENING OF FIRST SEQUEL - the King dies, throwing the Kingdom into political chaos. Nobody knows where the Heir went. He's probably dead. The Bells Toll.

I can already plot out 3 sequels, a multigeneration series, with the original Heir dying at 95 and telling his 30 year old grandson that the grandson is actually the King of Whatever and that's why the grandson has fallen in love with the Queen of Whichever (Whatever and Whichever are your Worldbuilding elements). Royalty is best off marrying Royalty and there's no hiding the fact of Royalty. (That is, the Heir's character arc has continued full circle back to his childhood acceptance of his role in the world).

Note how the STORY is all about "I" and how I feel about things and what I want and what I reject.

Note how the PLOT is "Heir" + ACTIVE VERB

In this plot, "Heir" is the main POV character. "It" is his "story." The story arc is all about what's going on inside Heir, therefore it is his story, therefore he's the main POV character, gets the most lines of dialogue and the most face-time.

Because it's his story, it is his PLOT. The important EVENTS that change the SITUATION are all generated by his ACTION. Every other character's arc and story and plot-moves all support the Heir's story and plot.

The cast of characters has to be organized like that, in heirarchy, to create a neat composition for the reader to reverse engineer. It's easy to organize the characters once you have the themes organized as I showed you in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

Note how both the story and the plot illustrate the THEME. Maybe the theme of the first novel in this Heir And Princess series is "I won't take it any more."

If the Heir's story arcs back (at age 95) to acceptance of his Royalty, then the theme the writer is displaying to the reader, the bit of "reality" the reader "takes away" says things like there is an inherent difference between people because of their genes or the status of their birth parents. Or perhaps it says, the old Greek Myth lesson that you can't escape your destiny, all is foretold at birth. Some of us aren't people, but rather objects on the chessboard. There can be no HEA if you resist your destiny.

How the arc develops and ends bespeaks the theme.

The moving parts of any work of fiction aimed at a wide audience will always have this kind of mechanism. The best writers hide that mechanism beneath layers of flesh and blood.

The exact same mechanism can support literally thousands of tales, none of which even remotely resemble the others, but all of which will delight pretty much the same audience.


--------------

Here are 3 posts I did on THEME

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/shifting-pov.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html

Now everybody run quick and post a comment THANKING OZAMBERSAND for finding this tidbit on plot and story that I had lost.

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

Blogger: Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent - Post a Comment

Rachelle Gardner is planning to post a Guest Post on Thursdays until the end of the year 2009.

She invited people to pitch to her on the comments section linked below.

As an exercise in pitching, look at the list of pitches, go right down the list looking as if looking for one you'd want on your blog.

I found only ONE definite in the list, and I'm interested to find out if Rachelle Gardner agrees with me about that choice. And which other pitches she'll accept.

Notice by the end of the list of pitches how "jaded" your eyes get, how you skip blocks of type, how no subject however intrinsically interesting grabs your attention. You can't learn this without doing it - so go do it. Just read the list of pitches, if you don't have time, but if you do then read Rachelle Gardner's invitation post for what she wants and why, and how to present it.

It's a lesson in what you're up against in any market, not just for selling words, but selling any product.

Blogger: Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent - Post a Comment

Shared via AddThis

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

R.I.P. notices

Blake Snyder our prime writing teacher with SAVE THE CAT! & Charlie Davis, EVP at CBS Films, passed Aug 4 & Aug 6, we also lost Director John Hughes.

On the Waterfront' screenwriter Budd Schulberg dies in NY at 95
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090806/ap_on_en_mo/us_obit_schulberg

That article says of Schulberg:
--------
"On the Waterfront," directed by Elia Kazan and filmed in Hoboken, N.J., was released in 1954 to great acclaim and won eight Academy Awards. It included one of cinema's most famous lines, uttered by Marlon Brando as the failed boxer Terry Malloy: "I coulda been a contender."

Schulberg never again approached the success of "On the Waterfront," but he continued to write books, teleplays and screenplays — including the Kazan-directed "A Face in the Crowd" — and scores of articles. Spike Lee was an admirer, dedicating the entertainment satire "Bamboozled" to Schulberg and working with him on a film about boxer Joe Louis.
--------------

We lost Charlie Brown, founder and editor of Locus, The Newspaper of the Science Fiction field a couple weeks ago, and just got the first LOCUS issue in the mail after his death today. Joan Winston, my co-author on Star Trek Lives! passed away last year.

I'm not taking this well.