alien romances

Wicked Words

2013-05-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

Last week I read a new book called HOLY SH*T: A BRIEF HISTORY OF SWEARING, by Melissa Mohr. (Yes, that’s how the title is printed on the cover, fortunately, so I can cite it without typing a word that used to be called “unprintable.”) Lots of fascinating material! The author concentrates mainly on English, from the Middle Ages onward, but she begins with chapters on ancient Rome and the biblical constraints on swearing. She makes the important point, with many illustrations from primary sources, that up until at least the Renaissance cursing and swearing in the strict sense—invoking the Deity’s name fraudulently or blasphemously, or calling down divine wrath upon other people—was viewed much more gravely than the use of “dirty” words for bodily parts and functions, including sexual references. Those words became “obscene” only in recent centuries. The author traces this transition over the centuries, to the present situation in English-speaking countries (some other cultures still have strong taboos against religious swearing) where references to God and damnation are considered the mildest of the various types of profanity and obscenity. That development to its present extent, by the way, has happened in my lifetime. In the time and place of my childhood and teens, no polite person would say “hell,” “damn,” or today’s ubiquitous “oh my God” in mixed company or the presence of children.

What especially intrigued me in Mohr’s book was her exploration of sexual language in ancient Rome and, in the process, what the primary sources tell us about the Roman attitude toward sex. Their categories of sexual behavior don’t align with ours. For one thing, the distinction between heterosexual and homosexual as we know it didn’t exist. (A man who had sexual relations only with women was considered a bit odd; one writer attributed this oddity to the Emperor Claudius, and NOT as a compliment. As for women, as far as I could tell they were expected to be either faithful wives or chaste virgins or widows. Lesbian sexual activity was sometimes mentioned, but in the framework of one woman’s taking the “male” role, with grotesque fantasies about the clitoris substituting for the penis. Ye old double standard.) The distinctions weren’t made on the basis of status anyway, but of actions. And the distinction that mattered wasn’t whether a man had sex with a male or female but whether he was the active or passive partner. Passive sex was for women, boys, and slaves. For an adult male citizen to take the passive role was disgusting and disgraceful. Furthermore, performing oral sex was a passive act! Now, it makes sense in our culture’s viewpoint that fellatio might sometimes be seen as an act of aggression by the man being “serviced.” But we might also see it as the other partner playing an active role toward the male receiving the stimulation. The Romans apparently never saw it that way. Not only that, in male-on-female oral sex, they regarded the woman as the aggressor and the performer of the act as the passive partner—a viewpoint that thoroughly boggles my mind. That is why the Romans loathed the idea of cunnilingus, not on moral grounds because it was non-procreative and therefore “unnatural,” but because it framed the man as submissive to (gasp of horror!) a female. Interestingly, by the way, the Latin equivalent of the F-word didn’t apply to women. The Romans had a different verb (something English lacks) specifically for a woman's activity during male-female intercourse.

As for levels of discourse, Mohr demonstrates that the Latin equivalents of our English “dirty words” were considered rather crude, fit mainly for graffiti, invective, and satire. But they weren’t “bad words” in the moral sense that they became in the modern period (such as in the Victorian era, when the father of the author of LITTLE WOMEN changed his name from Alcock to Alcott, to eliminate the embarrassing syllable). Romantic and erotic Latin poetry more often used metaphors and euphemisms, similar to the flowery prose in older romance novels that some readers laugh at. C. S. Lewis wrote an essay on “four-letter words” that makes the same point. He was apparently reacting against D. H. Lawrence’s argument that the female C-word in the erotic scenes of LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER was a return to the “natural” way of talking about sex. Lewis’s essay contends that Lawrence was wrong by surveying sexual language in ancient Greek, Latin, and medieval English. Lewis comes to the same conclusion as Mohr, that classical writers didn’t use the crude words when they wanted to create a sensual effect. Some erotica publishers nowadays take a different viewpoint. Editors request and many readers seem to like graphic language as well as explicit on-stage action. Four-letter words are often treated as an integral part of the “hotness” rating of a book, the more the hotter. Since most of “those words” feel like a turn-off to me, associated with aggression rather than eroticism, I use only a select few of them, sparingly, as they seem to fit the characters’ personalities. Yet for quite a few readers, including female readers of erotic romance, four-letter words seem to be a turn-on. To complicate matters, the same word can be “hot” to one reader and icky to another. What’s a writer to do? Count on the publisher’s rating to steer readers to the level of raunchiness they like and away from what might offend them?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot Integration Part 9 - Use of Co-incidence in Plot

2013-05-21T11:00:00.000-04:00

Here is a link to Part 8 of this Series and to the index to previous Theme-Plot Integration posts:

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

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

On Google+, I belong to a "Community" run by Deborah Teramis Christian for people who "write" (build) Games that people play in alternate universes, created worlds.

As you know from my long, involved discussions of worldbuilding, it is a topic that I think Romance Writers haven't approached with enough focused concentration until just recently.

As Science Fiction and Paranormal Romance blend, writers have had to pay more attention to the process of how science fiction "worlds" are created.

Until recently, only Historical Romance delved deep into the details -- such as the names of articles of clothing, the years different historical characters spent in the same city (where there might have been an illegitimate child conceived who might have affected events later).

Today, Romance writers are exploring the stars, meeting alien species, finding interesting relationships and might-have-beens. And so the process of extrapolating our current world into the future has become of great interest to Romance writers.

I have three huge series -- huge in the size of the books, huge in the size of the sales, and huge in the importance of what they say -- to point you to as we launch into a contrast/compare and reverse-engineering exercise.

But first, here's a beginner's work on Worldbuilding you should take a look at.

Next we come to a 5 book series by Anne Aguirre, titled the Corine Solomon Novels:

Blue Diablo, Hell Fire, Shady Lady, Devil's Punch, and Agave Kiss are the titles.

Corine Solomon

I talked about Anne Aguirre here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/doubleblind-by-ann-aquirre.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/12/ancient-egypt-steampunk.html

You might call the Corine Solomon novels "Urban Fantasy" -- but there is an excursion into another dimension (or two), many mysteries, and a gorgeous Love Triangle involving not-quite-human and Magically Gifted human. The 5 novels form one long story told from a nice, tight single point of view, that of Corine Solomon. And it is her story.

I highly recommend all of Anne Aguirre's titles because she has a firm grip on how to structure this kind of novel, and an ability to portray the extremely "dark" without forcing you to accept a world view where there is absolutely no light.

I particularly love Aguirre's Sirantha Jax Series.

Look over the Corine Solomon novels and if you've read them, view them as a whole, integrated "work." Note how it is one character's "story." Note the beginning, middle, and end "beats" of each novel -- then the overall structure of the set taken together. Note the pacing. Now particularly note how Aguirre replicates The Hero's Journey for Corine Solomon. Then note how Corine has, by the end of the first quarter of each novel, four or five (sometimes 6) problems to solve. Then note what Aguirre reveals about Corine's thinking about solving those problems.

Note the inner dialogue Corine holds with herself about her problems. See where she's focusing her attention, and how she defines the problems. Each novel starts with a list of problems, and ends with those problems solved -- giving rise to more problems, true, but for the moment, a triumph. Note how those problem-sets are constructed at the beginning to appear insoluble, and how each problem when solved brings in the tools to solve the next.

Note what Corine Solomon is thinking when she picks out a problem to tackle first.

It's always a decision made on the basis of what is RIGHT -- what's the right thing to do, or at the very least, what is the least-wrong choice. What problem has to wait (and get worse) while this more urgent one is tackled? And there is always the possibility that Corine will not survive to tackle the next problem on her list, but she doesn't dwell on that. She throws all her personal resources into doing the right thing right now. That is the essence of the Hero who goes on a Hero's Journey.

Blake Snyder in SAVE THE CAT! has analyzed vast numbers of blockbuster films showing you how the Hero has to acquire about 6 problems as you lay pipe into the story. Aguirre uses that structure, and it's one reason she can turn out so many novels so quickly, and all of them resonate with her readers. She knows the structure, she knows the story she wants to tell, and she just plows on through arranging the details of her world to support that story.

Now consider Gini Koch's Action-SF-Romance Urban Fantasy (sort of) series ALIEN.

ALIEN is much more precisely Romance, but has a lot of combat and battle scenes. The problems that come at the Hero (Kitty-Kat) on the Hero's Journey to an HEA are more of the Enemy Aliens Attacking and Alien-Allies Need Help type. The motivation that energizes Kitty-Kat most often is to attain and preserve a loving, peaceful and happy environment. She takes the role of a warrior protecting her world.

Remember, in my previous mentions of Gini's ALIEN SERIES I've pointed out that they need line-cutting. That's a process of eliminating the words that don't say anything, don't advance the plot or explicate the theme. Usually that's about 20% of the words in a semi-final draft. Very often, at least for me when I do it on my own work, the manuscript doesn't get any shorter, but the end result is that all the words say something. This is a stylistic thing.

You can see the style difference by comparing a chapter of one of the Aguirre novels with one of the Koch novels. It's not that one is "superior" to the other, but that a professional writer should have mastery of all styles and techniques, and choose the one appropriate to the Art behind the work.

The titles are Touched by an Alien, Alien Tango, Alien in the Family, Alien Proliferation, Alien Diplomacy, Alien vs Alien, and Alien in the House (May 2013).

Alien Series

I talked a bit about Gini Koch's Alien Series in these posts:

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

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

Both these series focus on Romance disrupted by Action, where the Action is the obstacle to be overcome and the Relationship is the goal.

Because this is our kind of stuff, we have a hard time seeing how it's put together so we can replicate the effect. So to find out how to do this, we should look at something that does the same thing, but in another way -- that tells a different story from a different standpoint.

So, 5 Corine Solomon novels, 7 ALIEN novels, and 8 STEN SERIES novels, 20 novels all together, taken as a whole, contrast/compare, and extract theme, plot, and discover how the two elements become integrated.

First, on identifying THEME.

I can't assert "the" theme of each of these 3 series is something specific. I'm sure each of the writers has their own idea of what they were saying (or perhaps have no idea, just wanted to say it! Marion Zimmer Bradley worked that way - not knowing the theme until 20 years later!).

I'm pretty sure you will find your own idea of the theme as you read these series.

My overall "take" on the Corine Solomon Novels, and the Alien Series Novels is that they are essentially Romance, and so the overall theme is Love Conquers All. Each novel individually has a specific sub-set of that overall theme brought to the fore.

The Sten Series is not Romance, and it's a collaboration between two exemplary writers with disparate backgrounds. The 8 novels have one Hero, and he is definitely on a Hero's Journey. But the series taken as a whole has a much bigger theme worked out on a much larger canvass that spreads over several galaxies.

So the Sten Series has several points of view, each carefully related to Sten's point of view. When we visit the events other characters are involved in, we see Sten's life from outside. We sometimes see Sten being moved about on the chessboard of inter-galactic politics. We find out what problems other characters face - only to understand that Sten himself hasn't defined the problem he faces in a complete way.

While the overall theme of Corine Solomon and Alien Series novels is Happily Ever After, with the caveat that such an idealic life comes only at great price, and after stringent testing of the moral fiber of the Hero, the Sten Series might be said to have the overall theme of All Is Not As It Seems.

It's very hard to separate these 3 series though. Sten has a Happily Ever After thread, and the other two are definitely structured on the "Great Reveal" - the "All Is Not As It Seems" theme.

What a reader sees in each of these series depends more on the reader than on the material because these 20 novels are Art.

While Corinne Solomon and Kitty-Kat are living their own lives, Sten is living a Destiny.

Sten's Destiny is not at all what it seems -- and with each novel, Sten progresses to what seems to be a New Destiny earned at great price. But all he thinks he's doing is what you and I do everyday, just survive another day, survive another threat, beat off the Bad Guys, get out of a tight spot, finesse and clever yourself into a better position.

Sten set out to survive and mind his own business. But he got "rescued" and cast in the role of Warrior because he has a talent for surviving and minding his own business.

But what is a Talent? That's a profound question we've discussed previously:

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

Maybe writing isn't a Talent, but we often write about characters who have a Talent.

Corine Solomon is in love with a guy whose Talent is "Luck." That has a whole backstory having to do with his parentage, but the point is that Talent and Luck (co-incidence) drives the plot of all 5 of the Corine Solomon novels.

Kitty-Kat has a Talent for organizing other Talents, for leading a group of talented warriors while Luck sweeps her through personal combat, chase scenes and armed combat. She remembers what's worked before and uses it to good effect again. But her real Talent is for asking Question -- yes, capital Q questions, such as Kirk's "What does God need a spaceship for?" Those are the obvious questions nobody else ever thinks of because people rely on assumptions they haven't tested when trying to solve a problem.

Sten has a Talent for surviving. He learns the Art of War, but it isn't inherent in him. He finally grows up enough that all he wants is to stay out of combat situations. But he's living a Destiny, so the harder he tries to avoid combat, the worse the combat gets. His Talent doesn't help him get out of his Destiny, which he can't even see coming -- any more than you can see a tornado coming until it's too late.

Perhaps the overall theme of the Sten Series is that forging the path to your destiny must inevitably affect, deflect, or inflect the paths of others toward their destinies.

I classify all three series as Art.

I've held forth here on the nature of Art and how a writer uses that essential nature here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

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

When you start to talk about creating Art about Destiny, you are dipping into the realm of the Supernatural, the Paranormal, the Divine, the Magical, -- or God.

Corine Solomon deals head-on with Hell, gods, demons, angels -- and what happens when the categories get confused. She has to sort out Good from Evil, and taken her personal choice, then stick to that choice.

Kitty-Kat tries to ignore the whole issue of Divine Intervention, of a world Created by God. She pretty much succeeds, as she discovers more and more about how things are just not what they seem. She gets used to being shocked when a new aspect of Reality is revealed. But she avoids the issue of God.

Sten would fall down laughing or kick you out an airlock if you started prattling on about a Benevolent God. His life provides no evidence for such an interpretation of Reality. In other words, his life exists in the kind of world you and I live in -- where there is no evidence supporting any theory of Divine Creation.

And yet, our whole world can be viewed -- taken as a whole -- as a Work of Art.

Here's a little lesson from the Bible about the artisans chosen by God to create the Tent in which God revealed himself to the High Priests, the Mishkan. The blueprint for that tent was given to Moses at Mount Sinai -- you may have seen the recent History Channel series, "The Bible" and noted the extraordinary ratings it pulled.

By all accounts, the Tent these artisans built was a spectacular Work of Art. I can envision it as a minature replica of the entire World that God Built. The blueprint and the people chosen to execute that blueprint very closely resembles the process of writing a novel.

--------QUOTE-------------

FROM CHABAD RABBI NEWSLETTER:

....

In describing the people qualified to construct the Sanctuary and its instruments, the Torah repeatedly calls them "wise-in-heart" in referring to their skill. The craftsmanship these artisans possessed was more than technical, their wisdom was a special sort -- that of the heart.

Some people are brilliant intellectually, their gifted minds master sciences, their logic and reasoning are unimpeachable. Despite these mind-gifts they may be cold, unsympathetic, unmoved by suffering. Others are kindlier, charitable, more emotional by nature, not particularly given to analysis and profound understanding. They may also be overindulgent, gullible, suspicious of or impatient with reasoning. While each sort has qualities, in extremes, or rather without tempering the initial and dominant characteristic, their deficiencies are grave.

The ideal is the wise-in-heart, proper balance between emotion and thought, feeling and reason. The qualities of learning and study, intellectual vigor, the scholar ideal, have always been glorified by our people. No matter how sincere the heart's emotions, they must be channeled, harnessed, and used. Torah inspires the heart in its search. Without Torah the most sublime emotion may degenerate into bathos or sentimental banality.

Similarly, exalted as the intellect may be, it cannot exclusively express the fullness of man. Emotional balance gives warmth and human substance to the mind's achievements. In Jewish terms it means that the true scholar, the disciple of Torah, is endowed with the emotions of love and awe of the Creator, sympathy for the lowly, affection for mankind. Such a person, the wise-in-heart, is qualified to create a Sanctuary for G-dliness wherever he goes.

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

Now think about Destiny, Fate, and the Happily Ever After. Think about THEME and the world you are building for your characters, choosing and inspiring your artisans.

Think about the writing rule that the author must not stand up on the page, blow a whistle to get attention, and start shouting at the reader about all the wonderful things in the world that this story is not about.

Reading a book is an intellectual exercise of emotional sensitivity. The closer the balance between emotion and intellect in the novel, the greater the reader's enjoyment.

The THEME is the intellectual part -- the PLOT is the emotional part. The PLOT shows the THEME -- the emotions reveal the knowledge, the lesson to be learned.

Think about THEME and we'll discuss Co-incident in Plot.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Food, glorious food.....

2013-05-19T17:37:00.001-04:00

I asked on Facebook today what on earth (or not) I ought to blog about today, since it is my day to blog.

Suggestions were limited but interesting, from the new "Earth-like" planet which is surprisingly close and if only it were on the far side of the sun might be compared to Antichthon to Vulcan-types who only want sex every seventh year ... which might try the patience of a human lover... to sexual frustration in general, particularly for a vampire mated with an exoskeletal type.

I think that I will talk about food instead.

Please watch this and apply your warped and twisted writerly minds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIwrV5e6fMY

I wondered if there were a literary genre called gastropunk. As far as I can tell, there isn't, but someone has coined the name so.... I am not sure what a science-fiction/speculative fiction niche would be called that focused on food-related conspiracy theories, or food-related mutations.

Or, indeed, on the rise of a Vegan class of latter day superhumans, at least as smart and sexy as our great, great, utterly great grandparents, who rebelled against the behemoths of modern day food stamp fare; mandatory, state-regulated school food fare; coupon-subsidize fare; work cafeteria fare; Genetically Modified fare.... etc etc and grew their own fresh, organic produce on the large and grassy lots of their local churches, encouraged by a young, unpopular (he has to be unpopular for plot reasons, otherwise his parking lots would be full and there would be no room for gardens and no need to feed his sheep to lure them to evening services) and rather hip minister (or pastor) and some die-hard elders.

Anyway, please watch Jamie Oliver's shocking and entertaining speech, spread the word, and steam some real, fresh vegetables for dinner once a week. Or more often.

Octopus Intelligence

2013-05-16T09:00:00.000-04:00

An article that illustrates why the octopus would make a great model for an intelligent nonhumanoid alien:

The Mind of the Octopus

Octopuses in captivity appear to recognize individual human beings. They are good at solving puzzles, such as getting into closed containers, and learn quickly. They perform playful activities and show evidence of boredom if not given a challenging environment. Their colors change to express emotion.

This article included lots of information about octopuses that was new to me. For instance, they have neurons in their arms. A freshly detached tentacle will even carry out purposeful movements as if it has a mind of its own. These creatures taste as well as feel with their suckers and effectively “see” with their skin.

Unfortunately, octopuses have one disadvantage as models for intelligent extraterrestrials: They die immediately after reproducing. Of course, your ET cephalopods don’t have to meet that fate. On the other hand, think of the plot-driving conflicts that could arise if an intelligent creature had to choose between mating and living out a full lifespan.

The article mentions that octopus intelligence and ours must have evolved completely independently from each other. In that respect they’re like aliens living on our own world but in an environment (the ocean) where our kind of life can’t survive without protective gear—like outer space or a non-Earthlike planet.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot Integration Part 8 - Use of Co-incidence in Plotting

2013-05-14T11:00:00.000-04:00

The posts with "Integration" of two skills in the title are "advanced" discussions.

Here's the index to the previous 7 parts in this series.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

Now we'll tackle the entire STEN SERIES by Chris Bunch and Allan Cole. It is not Romance, so we can be more objective about the story and how it's constructed.

To do the kind of study I intend to show you how to do with a Romance genre novel would be impossible. You'd get too caught up in the particular dimensions that we resonate to and not be able to discern the structural bones behind those dimensions.

For a while now, I've been searching for an example I could use to illustrate the techniques that create widely selling, big hits, that are not shallow. You see the kind of book I'm talking about in Regency Romance where an entire world of technology and psychology cradles a story which is deceptively simple on the surface, unutterably profound within.

But readers who dislike Romance don't see the profound depths.

There's something of the same effect in action-based Science Fiction. Readers who dislike "science" often don't see the profound depths in an action galactic-war novel.

But sometimes it is those invisible depths that produce the gigantic, explosive, (bewildering to the publisher) sales track record of a series.

And oddly enough there are some techniques that power action/military Science Fiction sales that can easily be applied to Romance, but seldom have been, or where you have found it, it isn't done Blockbuster Style.

I love action/romance genre novels - particularly space-military-romance -- double-particularly with a human/alien romance. When the theme and plot are integrated using the techniques that drive the Sten Series, those mixed-genre Romances sizzle!

When you add sizzle to profound, you will get that explosive sales pattern that you see at the top of the Romance Genre lists.

Sten, of the Sten Series, is a sizzling hot hero who can't settle into a Relationship -- well, read all 8 novels for how that ends up.

I think you'll find the ending of the series a springboard into a human/alien romance of your own -- completely different but the same. (Isn't that what Hollywood is famous for demanding "the same but different?" Well we're going to study how to do that by examining what a writing team that DID THAT consistently to make a living in Hollywood, wrote in their novels.)

I've talked about Allan Cole in previous posts as someone with a career worth studying if you plan to be a successful writer in today's swiftly changing world.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/career-management-for-writers-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-2.html

We're going to examine how he and Chris Bunch achieved what they did with the STEN SERIES.

The point here is that the The Sten Seriesis a genuine "series" (with a masterplan behind it like Babylon 5) -- a single story in 8 volumes. Click the title to see my reviews on Amazon, on Kindle versions.

It is not romance genre. It's action, military SF. We're going to reverse engineer it and apply what we learn to ROMANCE GENRE.

Remember, the point behind all these posts dating back to 2007 is to figure out why Romance genre is not held in the high esteem we think it should be, and how to change that. Sheer sales volume won't get us that kind of respect. But sales volume is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for garnering that respect.

Sales volume achieved in spite of, rather than because of, professional promotional support does gain the kind of attention that can lead to the respect we're talking about.

THE STEN SERIES is a major clue. Read this from Allan Cole, co-author of STEN. Follow the link in this email letter, and read about how the series was originated and sold.

-------quote from email from Allan Cole -----------
...
The tale of how Sten came into being has to be one of the weirdest stories in writerly history. I told the story in one of the early Hollywood MisAdventures: "Sten - The Fast Turnaround Caper." And it goes into some detail. Here's the link:

http://www.allan-cole.com/2011/07/sten-fast-turnaround-caper.html My guess is that it'll have you on the floor. >g<

As for the publisher's sales efforts - they were sorely lacking. The books basically sold themselves. And sold so well in fact that our agent (Russ Galen) got well over six figures for each of the last two books. I don't think Del Rey ever realized what they had until the series was complete. This worked to our advantage. We had no NY literary rep at the start. After Wolf Worlds came out, Russ Galen - a young agent at Scott Meredith, then - called us and asked if he could represent us. Then he made Del Rey contract for the books one by one, upping the ante each time.

Around about Fleet Of The Damned, he sweetened our kitty by forcing them to give back the foreign rights, which they never really attempted to sell. Then the foreign sales took off like crazy. We kept telling the editors (Owen Locke and Shelly Shapiro) about how well the books were doing overseas - and all the mail we were getting from readers. (snail mail at first, then Compuserve), but they didn't pay much attention. In the Nineties, Del Rey let the books go out of print one by one. Meanwhile, foreign sales were soaring. We were making way more money abroad than at home - and also getting more respect. (In the late Nineties, my foreign editors flew Kathryn and I to Europe for a six-week Continental book tour... London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Munich, Geneva and Moscow... The crowds at the Moscow book-signing alone went around the block.)

Finally, a year or so after Chris died I talked to his widow, Karen, who agreed to let me see if I could get the U.S. rights back. Thanks to Shelly Shapiro, who had by then become a good friend, the deed was done with little effort. Wildside did the U.S. paperback and e-books. Books In Motion bought the audio rights. Immediately, the British sat up and took notice. Called my foreign agent (Danny Baror) and grabbed the UK rights. The other foreign publishers became newly enthused and there has been a flurry of new contracts, new editions and new readers.

I'm hoping that there is going to be a major Sten revival.

One of these days I'll finally get Sten on film. It's not a matter of "if," but "when."

So, as Laurel might tell Hardy, That's my story - and Sten's - and I'm stuck in it.

allan

Allan Cole
Homepage: www.acole.com
Allan's Bookstore: http://tinyurl.com/l9mpr5
Allan's E-Books: http://tinyurl.com/684uos8
Allan's Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/allansten
My Hollywood MisAdventures: http://allan-cole.blogspot.com/
Tales Of The Blue Meanie: http://alcole.blogspot.com/
------------End Quote---------

We'll pick this topic up again very soon, so go look over the Sten Series, especially my reviews on Amazon Kindle.

Read the books with particular attention to the PLOT aspects, and the use of co-incidence in shaping Sten's military career all the way up to admiral. Then read VORTEX (Sten #7) with particular attention to the science of tornadoes.

In fact, from Book 1, read with attention to the behavior of tornadoes. You'll find by Book 7 that the THEME aspect lies within the concept of tornado.

Ask yourself what is the Romance genre equivalent of a Tornado? When you find the TORNADO within the structure of the whole STEN SERIES, you'll have the answer to that question, and you'll know what you can do to elevate the reputation of Romance.

Also as I read the STEN novels on Kindle (all but one, which I got in audiobook) I used the SHARE feature to share significant quotes. If you "follow" me on Kindle, you can see the excerpts I selected to "share" as I was thinking of doing this series of posts.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Freeloading.... Chris Ruen and David Byrne

2013-05-12T15:41:00.000-04:00

I shall be interviewing Chris Ruen on my radio show on May 21st (http://www.PWRTalk.com) but in the meantime, this film of Chris talking with David Byrne (of Talking Heads) about copyright infringement is both entertaining and enlightening.

I hope that Chairman Goodlatte and the good persons currently deciding whether copyright laws protect creators and artists are paying attention. Please take the time to go to this site to locate contact information by your own zip code for your representatives in Congress, then write to them about the need for greater protections for copyright owners in the internet age.

If the embed code does not work, here is the link
http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/music-and-copyright-digital-era-david-byrne-conversation-chris-ruen

One of the most striking anecdotes was when Chris Ruen explained how, as a barrista in a coffee shop where musicians congregated, he noticed that they had less money than he did, and he started to question his ideas about ripping off musicians.

By the way, here are some articles about Copyright.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/the-copyright-and-concerns-of-content-creators-90219.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandra-aistars/google-copyright-infringement_b_2782520.html

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/288763-protect-rights-of-artists-in-new-copyright-law

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

Narnia and Middle Earth: A Clash of Writing Styles

2013-05-09T09:00:00.000-04:00

An article in the newest issue of MYTHLORE (the journal of the Mythopoeic Society) discusses why J. R. R. Tolkien disliked C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series. The best-known reason was that Tolkien disapproved of mixing characters and creatures from several different mythologies in the same story, e.g., Father Christmas, fauns, and dwarfs. Another reason was Tolkien’s professed dislike of allegory (which the article questions, because he did write some allegorical fiction himself, such as “Leaf by Niggle”), and he thought the Christian message in the Narnia books was too obvious.

However, Josh B. Long, the author of this article, highlights a more fundamental motive for Tolkien’s negative reaction to THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE and its sequels: Long quotes Lewis’s biographer, George Sayer, as saying Tolkien felt those novels were “written superficially and far too quickly.” Tolkien also disapproved of the lack of a coherent background for the Narnian universe, so different from the depth and detail of Tolkien’s own imaginary world. The fundamental objection, though, seems to have been what Long summarizes as, “Tolkien was opposed to Lewis’s compositional carelessness, superficiality, and haste.” As friends and colleagues critiquing each other’s works in progress, Tolkien disapproved of Lewis’s speed and “fluency,” while Lewis showed exasperation with Tolkien’s extremely meticulous slowness of composition. As Long puts it, “Tolkien needed someone hammering him to be productive, while Lewis needed someone to remind him to slow down and pay attention to the details.”

Now I get it. Tolkien had an aversion to Lewis’s approach to writing fiction because Tolkien was a plotter and Lewis was a pantser! Consider the diametrically different ways they created their worlds: Tolkien, as a professor of ancient languages and literatures, began by inventing his Elvish languages as a leisure-time hobby. Then he constructed a world in which those languages could be spoken. Over many years, he created the myths and legends of this world as the SILMARILLION (not published until after his death). Only later did he write THE HOBBIT, retcon its events to fit into his subcreated world, and follow up with THE LORD OF THE RINGS. For Lewis, on the other hand, every work of fiction began with “pictures.” He seems to have been a very visual thinker. For example, THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE developed from an image of a faun walking through a snowy wood with packages and an umbrella. He described his plotting process as something like “birdwatching.” Mental images would come to him spontaneously, and after a while several of them would feel as if they belonged to the same story. Only after he had accumulated a cluster of such “pictures” would he start the conscious work of constructing sequences of events to link them all together.

As a side effect of this plotting technique, the Narnia series does show inconsistencies among the various novels. Long mentions that “Lewis had planned to revise The Chronicles of Narnia to make them more consistent, but unfortunately passed away before he could do so.” I’m reminded of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover novels, which at first she wrote as one-shot books that she never intended as part of a series, with the result that geography shifts from book to book. She eventually rewrote the earliest novel, SWORD OF ALDONES, as SHARRA'S EXILE to make its events fit better into the established universe.

Contrary to Bradley’s and Jacqueline’s world-building advice not to commit yourself to any “facts” you don’t need to establish for the current story, because you might end up getting locked into something you'll want to change for a later book, Tolkien did exactly that. He built the whole world and its history before writing THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. This method at least tends to avoid inconsistencies. Tolkien, however, did revise THE HOBBIT in later editions because it wasn’t originally envisioned as part of the Middle Earth universe. I admire parts of both Lewis’s and Tolkien’s methods. I don’t see anything wrong with fast, “fluent” writing; I envy that gift. But I also delight in a deeply detailed, all-encompassing fictional universe.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Index to Theme-Plot Integration

2013-05-07T11:00:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while I give you a chance to catch up by posting a list of previous posts in related series -- sometimes with parts that are scattered about under different topics.

You may be able to find almost all my posts on this blog by searching for the keyword Tuesday. I post here on Tuesdays, and try to remember to label each post with Tuesday.

So here is an index post with links to some of the individual concepts behind Theme and Plot, how to identify them, how to find commercial ones (ones you can base sell-able novels on), and how to create such a well integrated novel of your own. There are a lot of links in this post :

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

The previous 7 parts of this series on integrating THEME and PLOT are in the following Index Post:

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

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-5-great.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/theme-plot-integration-part-7-fallacy.html

Next week (May 14, 2013) we'll launch into a deep study of an 8 novel series, looking for how such great success happens, Part 8 of Theme-Plot Integration.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Blood, glorious blood (Tick Season is Upon Us)

2013-05-05T16:21:00.002-04:00

Have you ever had sexual contact with anyone who was born in, or lived in Africa?
If so, you probably cannot give blood in America.

In the past three years have you been outside the United States?
Maybe you cannot give blood.

Notice the racial profiling here:
"To increase protection of the U.S. blood supply, we continue to recommend that you defer blood and plasma donors who have traveled or resided in the U.K. for a cumulative period of three or more months from the beginning of 1980 through the end of 1996."

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/Guidances/UCM213415.pdf

Why is this? Because, as of March 2010, 216 people (ever) have been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, 169 of whom lived in the U.K.

There is no exemption for British vegetarians. That interests me.

Conversely, when it comes to a much more quickly devastating blood-borne illness known as "Texas cattle fever" and also as "Nantucket fever", there are no blanket restrictions on blood donating based on people who have lived in or visited Texas or Massachussetts.

The questionnaire merely asks "Have you ever had babesiosis?"
I cannot help wondering how many would-be blood donors know what babesiosis is, let alone whether or not they have ever had it. Also, what if they know they have had piroplasmosis, but the questionnaire does not ask about piroplasmosis?

According to a 2011 article in DISCOVERY, over the last 30 years, blood transfusions caused at least 159 cases of babesiosis, twenty-eight of whom died soon after their blood transfusions.

Also, interestingly "Currently, no licensed tests for screening U.S. blood donors for evidence of Babesia infection are available. Persons who test positive for Babesia infection should be advised to refrain indefinitely from donating blood."

You get babesiosis from deer ticks. The worst part of the year for being attacked by ticks and also by mosquitoes is May, June, July. Break out the repellant.

For my Vampire-Romance writing colleagues.... Does DEET repel your vampires?

Here's a scan of the Blood Donor History Questionnaire. It seems like rich source material for Vamp Writers. What do you think? Alas, though, there is no question pertaining to vampirism or cannibalism.

Interesting questions!
Footnote:
Babesia is a protozoan parasite of which Babesia microti and Babesia divergens are the two species most frequently found to infect humans. Infections from other species of Babesia have been documented in humans, but are not regularly seen. Babesiosis is also known as piroplasmosis. Due to historical misclassifications, this protozoan was labeled with many names that are no longer used. Common names of the disease include Texas cattle fever, redwater fever, tick fever, and Nantucket fever.

The seven states with well-established foci of zoonotic transmission (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin) are referred to as Babesia microti–endemic states
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6127a2.htm

Canine Empathy

2013-05-02T09:00:00.000-04:00

Research has confirmed what many dog owners probably already know, that dogs react sympathetically when human beings show distress:

Dogs Feel Your Pain

The experiment confirmed that the dogs weren’t just reacting to strange behavior, such as tuneless humming. When a person pretended to cry, whether somebody the animal was familiar with or not, the typical dog would offer comforting gestures such as nuzzling and licking. Because we have bred dogs over many generations to pay attention to human behavioral signals, they have become attuned to our emotions. Doubtless the fact that they're pack animals—social creatures like ourselves—helped in their development of this gift.

Do cats (more solitary creatures) ever react to human sadness? I can’t remember any of our cats doing so. Does that mean intelligent aliens who’ve evolved from non-gregarious species would feel somehow "wrong" to us because they're deficient in empathy? Conversely, Jacqueline wrote a novel under a pseudonym, HERO, about a solitary alien species whose members, when they come into contact with Terrans, regard our willingness to risk ourselves for the good of others as a symptom of madness.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Copyright Grab by the French

2013-04-30T11:32:00.000-04:00

Since works by American authors who write science fiction and fantasy are alleged to have been mistakenly categorized as orphan works, and put into the public domain in France, I am sharing this letter from Science Fiction Writers Of America .... although it is not my day to post.

Rowena

Dear SFWA Members,
As many of you already know, the ReLire program currently underway in France has scanned many books it considers to be "orphan works" in order to make them available through a public database. This database has already been found to contain many titles that are clearly not orphan works or in the public domain, including a number by prominent SF and fantasy authors. A more detailed explanation of the program is available here: http://blog.authorsrights.org.uk/2013/04/26/french-copyright-grab-the-machine-creaks-into-action/
As this is a program of the Bibliotheque Nationale Francaise (French National Library), the Board is currently discussing options for applying pressure to the French government to prevent further works by SFWA members from being scanned and made available through this program, and we invite any members who have connections with the United States Trade Representative or any relevant branch of the U.S. Government to contact us. For the moment, however, we are informing all members of the issue and making them aware of the process involved in finding out whether a work is included and how to request that it be removed from the database.
All parts of the ReLire website and database are available only in French. The Society of Authors has produced translations of four key pages, the ReLire home page (http://www.societyofauthors.org/sites/default/files/ReLIRE%20home%20page.pdf), the Your Rights page (http://www.societyofauthors.org/sites/default/files/ReLIRE_authors_rights%20(3).pdf), the Search page (http://www.societyofauthors.org/sites/default/files/ReLire_search%20(2).pdf) and the FAQ (http://www.societyofauthors.net/soa-news/relire-project-note-members).
Here is a direct link to the advanced search page: http://relire.bnf.fr/recherche-avancee. The search fields are Titre (Title), Auteur (Author), Editeur (Editor) and Date d'edition (Publication date). If you are aware of any works of yours that have ever been published in French, you are strongly advised to search under all of the first three fields, as the entries in the database have been found to have many typos. Please notify SFWA of any of your works that are found in the database, as that will be valuable information in our efforts to protest the program.
If you do find any novels, stories or any other works belonging to you in the database you may request to have them removed. Please note that at this time it appears as though you will need either a French identification card (only available to residents of France) or a valid passport to make the application. We are awaiting clarification on the question of whether any other forms of identification will be accepted. For detailed information on how to apply to have work removed, see this thread on the Discussion Forums: http://www.sfwa.org/forum/index.php?/topic/4875-instructions-for-opting-out-of-the-french-relire-program/ Questions may be posted on that thread or addressed to Canadian Regional Representative Matthew Johnson (cr@sfwa.org).
Thanks to Aliette de Bodard, Lawrence Schimel, Michael Capobianco and Jim Fiscus for their help in researching and co-ordinating SFWA's response.

Targeting a Readership Part 7: Guest Post by Valerie Valdes

2013-04-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

Last week we explored genre and archetypes with respect to Science Fiction Romance targeting a specific type of reader.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/targeting-readership-part-6.html

That post has links to previous posts in the Targeting A Readership series.

On a #scifichat one Friday, Valerie Valdes and I had a brief exchange like so:

JLichtenberg : To be a good springboard for a story, a science doesn't have to be "hard," just well known among intended readership #scifichat 12:32pm, Feb 22 from TweetChat
valerievaldes

valerievaldes: @JLichtenberg I'd go so far as to coin a phrase and maybe call it an intentioned reader? You create interest, I create intent. #scifichat 12:35pm, Feb 22 from Web
JLichtenberg

JLichtenberg: @valerievaldes #scifichat I love that - "intentioned reader" - write a guest post on it for http://t.co/YR5WzTuuLF ?

So she wrote the following for us to ponder. She had not seen last week's post and I hadn't mentioned the post I was discussing last week in my post. This came out of the blue while #scifichat was discussing a definition for sociological science fiction.

-------GUEST POST---------

A lot of writers worry about reaching a particular, intended audience with a work that may require specialized knowledge to be fully appreciated. We walk a fine line between trying to appeal to people who aren’t avid followers of the latest news in scientific advancements, or scholars of medieval animal husbandry, or whatever it is that drives us to obsession, and everyone else--a much larger group, to be sure.

Many times, though, we needn’t be so concerned about reaching that select, elusive clique of intelligentsia. Introducing something novel to a reader unfamiliar with the topic won’t necessarily shut them out. Instead of failing to target an intended reader, you may instead create an intentioned reader: one who is so intrigued by your subject that they intentionally educate themselves on it in order to better understand and enjoy your work.

This phenomenon isn’t restricted to any genre: a story may spark interest in history as easily as science or technology. For example, the slipstream works of Jo Walton encourage research into real history in order to better understand her modifications to the existing chronology and historical figures. As another example, Peter Watts’ interweaving of geothermal energy production, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering in Starfish may find a handful of readers knowledgeable about all three topics, but more likely will reach people interested or educated in one (or none!) but eager to learn more about the others.

As the movie quote goes, “If you build it, they will come.” The trick, of course, is to build something worth coming to, in a way that will spark the interest that creates an intentioned reader. A good story, not matter how obscure the topic, will never fail to find an audience.

Cheers,

Valerie Valdes
http://candleinsunshine.com/asthemoonclimbs/

------end Guest Post ------------

Don't just think about what Valerie has said here. Think hard about what it means THAT she just blurted this out in response to my invitation (in less than half an hour!).

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Revisiting Our Youth

2013-04-25T09:00:00.000-04:00

Annette Funicello’s death reminded me of her Beach Party movie series with Frankie Avalon in the 1960s. (There was a reunion film, BACK TO THE BEACH, released in the 1980s. I’ve acquired a VHS copy but haven’t watched it yet.) Those were our dating movies. As teenagers, my future husband and I saw all of them—BEACH PARTY, BIKINI BEACH, BEACH BLANKET BINGO, and HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI are the titles I remember. Wanting to revisit those memories, I ordered a DVD set of BEACH PARTY and BIKINI BEACH and recently watched the first one.

Good example of the difference between “classic” and “vintage”! Is this movie great art? Would I pay the theater ticket price to see it today? No. Is it still fun? Yes. Later films in the series had progressively wilder plots, sometimes incorporating fantastic details such as invisibility and a mermaid. BEACH PARTY (1963), however, doesn’t involve any events that couldn’t happen in the real world, or at least none that wouldn’t routinely happen in a romantic comedy with slapstick elements. Why did we enjoy those movies so much? (Well, I suspect my now-husband liked watching the girls in bikinis.) I remember liking them because they were sexy in an innocent teenage sort of way. They featured groups of scantily clad young people swimming, sunning, and surfing, with lots of sexual innuendo but on a level that would be considered squeaky clean nowadays. And they always focused on a love story.

After I re-watched BEACH PARTY the other night, it occurred to me that the script follows a centuries-old pattern seen at least as far back as Shakespeare’s romantic comedies. The story includes a primary couple, a secondary couple, and a clown. The primary couple consists of two fresh, young, virginal lovers, Frankie and DeeDee (Annette’s character; Frankie keeps his real name, for some reason). Their plotline arises from the sexual conflict between them. They’ve planned a romantic weekend alone in a beach cottage, or so Frankie thinks, but DeeDee gets “cold feet” and secretly invites all their friends to join them. She later explains to her girlfriend that she doesn’t want to take the next step in intimacy until she becomes a wife, and furthermore, Frankie has never said outright that he loves her. The first subplot focuses on an anthropology professor, the “fish out of water” in this movie, who has spent his career studying primitive tribes all over the world and now wants to achieve fame by writing a book about the subculture and mating rites of American adolescents. With a hotel room full of viewing and recording equipment, he regards the teenagers as strange creatures equivalent to “savages.” We can see immediately that he has something he needs to learn, just as Frankie does. The Professor has a beautiful, blonde assistant whom he sees strictly as a colleague, while it’s obvious she’s in love with him. They comprise the second couple. The “clown,” the instigator of the other subplot, is Eric von Zipper, world’s dumbest and least scary motorcycle gang leader. His harassment of the teenagers in their hangout, where they dance to rock music in the evenings and wait for “the word” from a beatnik guru called Big Daddy (a cameo appearance by Vincent Price), generates the external threat and the slapstick scenes.

DeeDee provides the focal point that weaves together the three plotlines. Partly to retaliate for her frustrating his plans for the weekend—but even more to combat his own fear of betraying the teenage guy “union” rules by confessing he loves DeeDee—Frankie pursues a voluptuous waitress. When Eric von Zipper and his gang invade the place, Eric aggressively hits on DeeDee, and the Professor, who has come there to seek a “native” informant, rescues her. Partly to get back at Frankie and partly because she’s genuinely impressed by the chivalry of the “old guy,” she pretends to be falling in love with the Professor. By the end of the movie, as we would expect, Frankie and DeeDee untangle their insecurities and declare their love to each other. The Professor comes to see the teenagers as people rather than research subjects and discovers his love for his assistant, much more appropriate for him in age and experience than DeeDee. The sexually aggressive waitress Frankie was fooling around with (but she makes it clear he did “nothing,” to her exasperation) ends up riding off with Eric von Zipper, who hasn’t learned anything. Designed as a one-dimensional comic character, he reappears in every subsequent movie, as thickheaded and arrogant as ever.

A few moments in this teenage romance would make a present-day viewer wince, especially DeeDee’s wistful song to her mirror image about trying to win Frankie back by being “nice” and “kind” to him, as if his straying were her fault. And many contemporary teenagers might have trouble identifying with her determination to stay a virgin until marriage. Yet the core of the story exemplifies the romance genre’s central theme throughout its history: It’s about a woman’s choice, holding out for love on her own terms.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Targeting A Readership Part 6

2013-04-23T11:00:00.000-04:00

Previous Parts in this series:

Targeting Readership Part 1 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/targeting-readership-part-one.html

Part 2 is inside this post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

Part 3 is inside and woven into the following post in my Astrology Just For Writers series which by mistake has the same number as the previous part but is really Part 7:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-6.html

Targeting a Readership Part 4 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/targeting-readership-part-4.html

Targeting a Readership Part 5 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/07/targeting-readership-part-5-where-is.html

Linnea Sinclair, one of the writers who posts on here Alien Romances, pointed out a blog post where I am mentioned and the Sime~Gen Novels are mentioned.

This is the new AMAZING STORIES where Chris Gerwel is puzzling over Science Fiction Romance .

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/02/crossroads-science-fiction-romance-a-niche-before-its-time/

------QUOTE------------
The New Archetypes of Science Fiction Romance

Vampires, werewolves, witches, etc. have a significant legacy in Western culture, and are firmly entrenched in popular consciousness. Even the most culturally unaware understand the rules by which vampires operate (although Twilight’s sparkly vampires may erode this familiarity for the younger generations).

Vampires in one form or another span almost all cultures, and stories featuring them (and their psychosexual symbolism) date back thousands of years. The spaceships, aliens, psychic powers, and interstellar war featured in the works of Catherine Asaro, Heather Massey, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Jayne Ann Krentz, or Lois McMaster Bujold have a much shorter history: as archetypes go, they’ve only been around for most of the past century (with the original incarnation of Amazing Stories a major factor in their popularization).
---------END QUOTE-----------

And there is one other mention of me farther down in this (magnificent) essay.

As a writer, I have to disagree with Chris Gerwel. Maybe I don't really grasp the point here, or maybe this blog is actually discussing something I'm not equipped to discuss.

But if it is about MARKETS, and taste in entertainment, then it's definitely about what we've been discussing here on Alien Romance.

Note the Venn diagram in Chris's article showing a slight overlap of Romance genre and what is termed Speculative Fiction (a made up term of no meaning to me -- all fiction is by definition "speculative" because to write it, a writer must enter the mind of a character that the writer has just made up -- i.e. speculated about -- and that character must live in a world that the writer just makes up -- i.e. speculates about.

So the term itself has less meaning than any Genre name I've ever encountered -- editors and publishers know exactly what they mean by their Genre labels, even if the writers don't.

Genre is a marketing phenomenon, as I've discussed in many previous posts.

Paranormal Romance usually includes only elements that Science Fiction excludes because they are based on "Science" that is what was left in "Natural Philosophy" when "Science" split off from it -- ghosts, God, demons, angels, mythical creatures, dragons, and various forms of ESP.

There is the "Normal" that science studies, and the "Paranormal" that Magic studies. But they are actually the same thing -- the "world" we build inside our heads to connect us to the world that is outside our heads. That is our "Model of the Universe" or "Weltanshauung" or World View.

All fiction belongs to that category of "Our World View" or our "View of The World."

Fiction is about what it means to be alive, where we are, where we're going. And all fiction is speculative by its nature.

Not all fiction is either "paranormal" or "scientific" -- in fact, most general fiction partakes of both elements because real life includes both.

Science Fiction is fiction about science, about the way people who are trained to think scientifically view the world, about how scientific mental training presents problem solving possibilities that are not available to people who have not had that training.

Science Fiction, when well written, such as that by Robert Heinlein, is perfectly and totally accessible to people who have not had scientific mental problem solving training.

Star Trek continued that tradition of accessibility to the scientifically untrained.

Science Fiction by definition INSPIRES NON-TRAINED PEOPLE TO BECOME TRAINED.

If a novel does not inspire, ignite the lust for scientific knowledge, it is not science fiction at all.

So as Gene Roddenberry said, science fiction doesn't answer questions; it poses questions.

Roddenberry also grasped the essence of science is exploration - going where no "man" has gone before.

Yes, he sold STAR TREK as "Wagon Train To The Stars" (a Western in Space), just transposing the tropes of the popular TV shows of the time into a different setting.

But then he let that transposition pose question that could not be posed in the Olde West.

That's why he fought so hard to retain Spock as a character, going so far as to give up the female First Officer (who was objected to because no real man would take orders from a woman).

Now that brings us to my objection to the premise behind Chris's article.

The difference between the Science Fiction and/or Paranormal (there is no difference between these genres at all) -- readership and the "Pop Culture" Venn Diagram circle in Chris's article, lies not in the "accessibility" of archetypes, but in the deep, innate, inborn, attitude of the reader toward "accessibility."

Now, it's true, at different epochs in one's lifetime, one may have different attitudes toward barriers. But there are people who spend 90 years or more with the same attitude toward barriers.

"Accessibility" is the reverse of the concept "barrier." But "barrier" is what is being alluded to in this whole argument of "accessibility."

So here we enter into a discussion of the general nature of all humans. To target an audience, you have to define that audience, cut that audience out of the "general" audience, and create something that appeals to that sub-set.

Of course, if you're writing a blockbuster film script, you have to be ultra-careful not to cut any audience out -- you must include all audiences.

But if you're writing a novel, you narrow your audience in order to increase the appeal of your material to those specific people.

For a complete discussion of maximizing appeal to small audiences and at the same time hitting for a huge, broad audience, being both accessible and inaccessible at the same time, read all of my nonfiction book STAR TREK LIVES! --- it's hard to come by a copy, but Amazon usually has a few since it went 8 printings. The techniques of how to do this are outlined in that book.

Here we're discussing the thesis that science fiction and/or paranormal Romance might not be "accessible" because of the archetypes.

My contention is that the audience targeted by this spectrum of genres has nothing to do with the character archetypes (such as Vampire).

The specific audience targeted by both Science and the Paranormal is the audience that flat refuses to accept BARRIERS.

In life, and in fiction, in any activity whatsoever -- these are people who just WILL NOT let others define their reality.

These are people who live (or aspire to live) in an unlimited, (barrier-less), universe.

To this particular readership/audience -- any barrier you put in front of them is a red flag in front of a bull (o.k. bad analogy -- bulls are color blind). Any barrier you define, any time you put "Authorized Personnel Only" on a door in front of this audience, expect that door to be blown off its hinges forthwith.

Think about what Romance really is. It is an adventure. It is an adventure into the realm of the inside of someone else's head. It is an exploration of the inside of yourself, into places you never knew were there and which astonish you. It is an experience which is addictive.

Think about what exploring the stars (or the old West) is about -- it is an adventure. It is an adventure into the realm of the inside of alien heads (non-humans).

And it does not matter if the alien is evolved on another planet or a denizen of another dimension once thought to be demons by Earth creatures.

Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus.

In the BATTLE OF THE SEXES, we each see the other gender as "alien."

So establishing diplomatic or romantic relationships with aliens in outer space or aliens from another dimension, with or without telepathy and precognition, is exactly the same familiar and "accessible" archetype as in the Romance Plot Trope. It's the same approach/retreat dance.

Read Marion Zimmer Bradley's DARKOVER novels.

Now, it is true, READERS are about 5% of the total population -- readers who read fiction are set apart, perhaps by a brain structure that's either innate or developed, but it is RARE.

READING is not just the ability to decipher little black squiggles into words you can say aloud. READING is the ability to NOT SEE those little black squiggles, but rather to see the vast endless plains, the great depths of space, and feel the emotions of non-human beings deep in the nerves while doing nothing but sitting still staring at little black squiggles.

That is a very rare ability -- (hence the popularity of video-games and TV shows is much greater than that of little black squiggles) -- and only a very miniscule sub-set of that 5% have this even more rare attitude toward BARRIERS.

I have seen this 5% figure for the fiction reading population all my life in publishing, only 5% of people buy more than one novella year if that. Yes, many more will borrow from libraries, but still it's a very small percentage.

Look at the story-intricacy and content of TV and film. Shallow compared to novels, no?

It's that barrier thing -- what unites Science Fiction and Paranormal Fiction readers is that attitude toward barriers (perhaps best summed up as "You and what army?")

And that defiant attitude is what defines Romance Genre readers of all stripes.

I WILL NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO DENY ME ACCESS TO MY SOUL MATE.

That's the bottom line for Romance readers -- I'm going to get what this world has stashed behind a barrier and nobody is going to stop me! What woman gives up her man just because he's "inaccessible?" How many Romance stories have you read where a woman goes after a Prince, or vice-versa, and lands him? Romeo and Juliet? "Inaccessible" is irrelevant.

So "accessibility" of the archetypes isn't what keeps people from reading Science Fiction or the Paranormal. (Marketing could have something to do with it, though.)

"Inaccessibility" is what attracts readers to these genres, and striving to gain access is what builds character strength and changes lives. That strength gained by becoming expert in the details of a fantasy realm is what defines the "geek."

People read fiction to change their lives, to make themselves emotionally stronger and more prepared by resting from a fruitless struggle, stepping back and gaining a new perspective on the barriers keeping them penned into an unsatisfying life.

But very few can or will read fiction. Many more will access that same mental state via images. But ultimately, it is an emotional state that is sought. We have to talk in depth about the relationship between emotional states and intellectual states, but that's another topic.

There is no such thing as an inaccessible archetype. By definition, all archetypes are accessible -- that's what makes them archetypes.

An archetype is the pattern behind the manifestation. They exist on the astral plane (Yesod -- which is why it's called Foundation; it's the foundation of the world). How can that which rests upon a foundation find the foundation "inaccessible?"

You don't "access" an archetype. The archetype accesses you, or this plane of existence. The archetype is the source of you and the world.

Archetypes are the substance of what you are made of. Adam Kadmon is the first archetype, the first man God made and Adam wasn't a "man." (to understand that gender issue you have to understand how Hebrew uses gender nouns). Adam, made from clay with the Spirit of God blown into his nostrils, was both male and female, or neither male nor female -- in the image of God, without gender. Later, gender was created by dividing that ARCHETYPE into two. Very mystical stuff there and a source of the Sime~Gen Premise.

Chris, in this article, is fumbling around the edges of a very profound idea that Jean Lorrah and I discovered some years ago.

I had long been discussing my theory that the kind of story I write is not of any genre known, and that in fact Science Fiction itself is NOT A GENRE.

You can literally write any other GENRE in Science Fiction. We've almost got them all written in the 12 Sime~Gen novels and are about to launch a Sime~Gen Videogame set in the Space Age with a really huge Galactic War. Watch for more of that in July.

So Jean and I kicked this idea around and worked on it writing Romance in Sime~Gen -- all my novels contain a Love Story, not all are actually Romance Genre like Dushau or Those of My Blood or Dreamspy.

And Jean (being a Professor of English by trade) realized that what we had was not a new genre.

I called my genre The Hidden Genre because I found it in all other genres.

Jean realized it isn't THE HIDDEN GENRE, but is actually a PLOT ARCHETYPE.

Not a character archetype (like The Mother or The Vampire) but a PLOT ARCHETYPE like THE HERO'S JOURNEY.

We don't have that thesis written up completely yet, but you can read a lot about it and puzzle over it here:

http://www.simegen.com/jl/intimateadventure.html

Note particularly the comment by Ronald D. Moore (of Battlestar Galactica) linked on that page.

So Sime~Gen is Intimate Adventure and has as much in common with movies such as THE AFRICAN QUEEN as it does with STAR TREK. (BTW Gene Roddenberry was much enamoured of exploring Africa! Exploration of Africa was the primary inspiration for Star Trek, not The Western.)

So if you want to rocket to the top of the Romance Novel charts - target the readership that won't take no for an answer. Target the readership that says, "Don't tread on me," and makes it stick. Target the readership that is the most inexorable force in this universe.

We are not the "sheep" who "look up." We are not herdable. We are the intractable, the incorrigible, the inexorable, the indominable. We are the ones who see that sign "authorized personnel only" and authorize ourselves, push the door open and take a look.

We don't obey rules, and we don't make rules for others to obey. We think for ourselves.

We are not leaders, and not in search of a leader and wouldn't let anyone follow us or lead us.

We have only one trait in common with one another, other than that quirk of seeing pictures instead of squiggles on the page of a novel. We don't understand the concept "inaccessible." We go where no man or woman has gone before.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

A Digital Archive of One's Own

2013-04-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

The January 2013 issue of PMLA (the journal of the Modern Language Association) includes several articles about new reading technologies, mainly e-books and audiobooks. Contrary to what one might stereotypically expect from English professors, these authors don’t pronounce stuffily conservative messages viewing the new technology with alarm, but deliver some refreshing and provocative insights. I was particularly interested in “Reading, in a Digital Archive of One’s Own,” by Jim Collins, obviously an allusion to Virginia Wolfe’s “A Room of One’s Own.” (I’m still waiting for that room of my own as well as the guaranteed annual income Wolfe says every woman writer needs. Does Social Security count?)

Collins mentions the view-with-alarm commentators who worry about “the future of reading” and points out that what they’re talking about is a specific kind of reading, what they consider real reading—as opposed to whatever people do with e-books. Reading, says Collins, “is no longer a uniquely solitary practice—it is alternately solitary and social.” He seems to be thinking partly of sites such as Goodreads, which another article in this issue discusses in depth.

Some passages that especially struck me:

“If Bradbury’s firemen did suddenly turn up to do their evil work, they would be thrown into existential panic about what to burn since so many ‘book people’ are reading novels on their screen of choice. . . . but the discourse on e-books has been limited either to dire pronouncements about the final victory of digital culture over traditional print culture or to bombastic celebrations of how fast they’ve been adopted.”

”How does the existence of this kind of portable media archive completely redefine what we mean by reading? Personal libraries have been around for centuries, and the idea that we are a product of our libraries has been part of the humanist education project all along.” In other words, we are what we read, a concept Collins compares to the MP3 player slogan “You Are Your Playlist.”

Collins reassures us, “Changing the material form of the book does not necessarily result in a domino effect whereby close reading and extended narrative inevitably disappear.” He sharply summarizes the fears of the view-with-alarmers: “Change the object that is the book, and suddenly attention spans shorten, long-form narrative shrinks into sound bites, deep reading is no longer necessary, and literature departments are obsolete. According to this scenario, reading literary fiction on an e-reader is a gateway drug that leads to the hard stuff of digital culture—become psychologically dependent on that e-reader, and you’ll find yourself in an alley somewhere with a cell-phone novel written by promiscuous Japanese teenagers sticking out of your arm.” He sensibly refers us to changes in the long-form narrative throughout its history, including television series that extend their story arcs over several seasons, demanding deep engagement from viewers. This modern form of storytelling can exist only because of new technology such as home viewing devices that allow us to shelve archives of a TV program in our own houses and “view it novelistically, chapter by chapter at [our] own pace.”

As far as the “inevitable” replacement of long narratives by sound bites is concerned, that prediction is already disproved by the freedom e-books allow for publishers to produce longer novels at no greater cost than shorter ones, giving authors a flexibility in word counts never before enjoyed. And as for the fear that the typical reader will balk at tackling a very long work, fanfic seems to refute that assumption. For example, over the past year I’ve read a serialized DARK SHADOWS fanfic comprising over forty installments of fifteen chapters each, and I’m sure it’s far from unique or the longest continuous fan novel out there.

Remember, philosophers in Plato’s time were suspicious of written culture in itself because they feared depending on it would ruin people’s memories. To some extent that may be true, but would we choose the ability to memorize the entire ILIAD if we had to give up literacy for it? Each new cultural development has its losses and gains.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Settings Part 3 - Dreamspy in E-book

2013-04-16T11:00:00.000-04:00

Last week we discussed a bit more about Settings, and I mentioned how closely connected Setting and Genre are, as topics.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/guest-post-by-j-h-bogran-settings-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/settings-part-2.html

If you're writing for a Western market, your Setting has to have horses, wagons, Sheriffs, rattlesnakes, guns, desperadoes, muddy streets, maybe a herd of cattle. The Western Romance was a growing sub-genre at the time Those of My Blood and Dreamspy were first published.

About three years before Those of My Blood came out, the first novel in my Dushau Trilogy won the Romantic Times Award for Best Science Fiction. That was so long ago that the credit for it is not on their website! I still have the trophy, though.

Dushau is science fiction romance without Vampires.
http://www.amazon.com/Dushau-The-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B002OSXNM8/

If you can sell Western Romance, why not Science Fiction Romance? They just couldn't encompass the concept. Editors were convinced "mixed genre" just could not be sold -- and the evidence before their eyes confirmed that resoundingly. They had just begun computerizing sales data, and they believed the computer printouts.

A writer may know, absolutely, that there are readers who want the kind of story they have to tell, and they may be correct, but if marketers don't know "where" to reach those readers, they won't try to reach them. And the marketers are right about that.

I've seen, lately, several self-publishing writers wailing on Google+ and Twitter about how they can't sell copies of their books - even giving them away, or charging only 99cents, they can not sell books that the few who've read those books rave about.

Writing books and pleasing readers is one thing --- selling books is something else.

Here's a tweet from twitter:
--quote------
twliterary 10:42am via Web (Literary Agent who has nearly 5k followers)
http://www.twliterary.com
Author whose submission was rejected just EM that book pubbed to nice review. Truly happy for you, even w/ gratuitous "nyah nyah" note.
-----endquote------

LESSON: don't crow when you score against the establishment, just bank the check.

So how does a market change? First comes the publication of a daring new genre, or mix of genres, or an exploration of a Setting (Ancient Egypt? Victorian England? The Moon?). The mix-mixing of a new setting with a type of characer who doesn't belong there (as far as marketers know) has to start with a few books that are marketing failures. Those novels have to get good reviews, even though they don't sell.

Then comes an imitation or two, and there's a pre-built tiny market. Then "word" goes viral, and the new genre gets a name and an identifyable market to publicize to. Then big bucks get spent on "marketing" another new item designed to appeal to that market, and that's when you hear about this new item.

This creation of a genre is a slow, tedious process, but the e-book is speeding things up.

To find out how to achieve this result, study how it happened in the past, change the parameters that technology and social networking has changed, and launch a project into that new non-market. Become a market maker.

Those of My Blood and Dreamspy are good examples. Original first printing Those of My Blood has sold for $400-$500 in collector-quality condition (that means unread). Now you can get Those of My Blood for $3.19 and Dreamspy for $3.99 (I don't control the price, the publisher does.)

So how do you think of what to mix up with what to create something "new?" Or something you haven't ever encountered before?

Think about popular SETTING, and inject a character that doesn't belong there, living through a story that's familiar from a different setting.

The same old worn-out Western story can be told in Science Fiction if the Setting has Stars, Space, Spaceships, spacedrives, and space-type hazards to take the place of rattlesnakes, guns and desperadoes. To be good science fiction, the story needs hazards that aren't now possible. The characters have to solve problems that can't possibly exist by getting over their notion that the problem does not exist.

A Vampire on the Moon, in Those of My Blood -- that is just such an "impossible" problem. The Vampire is Fantasy element injected into a Science Fiction Setting, then twisted from the Horror Genre into Romance -- another genre where Vampires don't belong (according to marketers in the 1980's).

So when venturing to innovate where marketers fear to go, mix-and-match Settings and Characters.

So suppose instead of a Western, you had a Romance with International Intrigue and Vampires. But you set the story in the midst of a Galactic War. The Setting becomes Space, but the Romance drives the plot.

There was a time the marketers didn't know what to do with such a novel.

I wrote two such orphan-genre novels (Science Fiction Romance) for the St. Martin's Press hardcover SF line in the 1980's.

Both got marvelous reviews, but St. Martins withdrew all advertising efforts from their Science Fiction line for strategic reasons. The strategy was to publish the hardcover just to distribute to newspapers and magazines for review (because at that time, certain widely read venues would not review a paperback original).

So they printed only a couple thousand hardcover copies (hence the collector price) and never distributed to bookstores. You could buy (the month Those of My Blood was published) several hardcover and new paperback Vampire novels by very big name writers who got award attention for their novels.

But Those of My Blood, a brand new hardcover hailed as my breakout novel, was not on any store bookshelves (except the Independents) the month it was published. Where Independents special ordered it for those who knew it was forthcoming, they ordered only for the customer who wanted it and didn't put any on the shelves.

And then neither Those of My Blood or Dreamspy ever made it into Mass Market.

Eventually, another publisher picked them up, and they did pretty well, getting reprinted several times but only in trade paperback, and finally going out of print.

Then Wildside Press picked them up and now both novels are available in trade paperback and e-book editions.

There are no sex scenes the way you'd expect now, but at that time sex scenes were not allowed in Science Fiction. Marion Zimmer Bradley and Ursula LeGuinn changed that, but notice how their sex scenes differ from today's.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Hannibal Lecter on TV

2013-04-11T09:00:00.000-04:00

Did anyone else watch the premiere of the TV series HANNIBAL? As a devoted fan of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (both the book and the movie), I was eagerly looking forward to it. This program, written as a prequel to RED DRAGON, updates the story to the present, doubtless to avoid confusing viewers with a recent-past setting as well as to showcase the latest cool crime-solving technology. Will Graham, as a special investigator for the FBI, solves serial killer cases with the help of the profiling expertise of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, at this point still a highly respected psychiatrist rather than a convicted murderer. So far, I’m favorably impressed.

This series faces a quandary similar to what we find in shows such as FOREVER KNIGHT and VOYAGER. If the central problem posed at the beginning, which gives the program its main interest for the viewer, is solved, the series has to end. If Nick Knight got cured of his vampirism or Voyager made it back to Earth, the series would have been over (was over, in the case of VOYAGER). So Will can never find out Dr. Lecter is a cannibal serial killer (unless the show is eventually scheduled to be canceled and the writers want to wind it up decisively). Unless plotted as essentially a miniseries with a defined conclusion, the story arc can never progress to the threshold of RED DRAGON. Therefore, the scripts will have to continually tease the audience with hints and near misses wherein Graham almost finds out Lecter's secret and then fails to do so. That could get frustrating.

(OTOH, as we’ve already seen in the pilot, there's potential for pleasurable irony in the viewer's knowledge of what Lecter really is while watching Graham obliviously continue their collaborative investigations.)

I believe this is an example of what Jacqueline calls the “hung hero” dilemma.

BTW, yesterday I was interviewed on Amber Skyze’s blog:

Amber Skyze

And on April 12, Ellora’s Cave will release a “Naughty Nooner” (e-book short story) by me called “Weird Wedding Guest.” This is a sequel to my humorous Lovecraftian erotic romance novella “Tentacles of Love”:

Weird Wedding Guest

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Settings Part 2

2013-04-09T11:00:00.000-04:00

Last week we had a Guest Post by J. H. Bogran who introduced the topic of Settings.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/guest-post-by-j-h-bogran-use-of-setting.html

Considering this blog focuses on Science Fiction and Fantasy both -- with a plot based on Romance -- we have spent a lot of time focused on Worldbuilding, i.e. creating the setting from scratch.

You can go to any planet, any universe, any reality, any time -- it's a lot. You start with an amorphous nothing -- just like in Genesis it says In The Beginning a void.

When we start to write, we are in a void, with darkness on the face of our very deep minds.

And we have to create and cast a light into that darkness, form solid ground for ourselves.

We have started with worldbuilding, but each World you Build has many Settings in which you may place your story.

In our excursion into Worldbuilding we also covered Theme-Plot Integration and within that topic we examined a number of political issues.

The strange thing with politics is how it controls everything in the worlds we build -- we just don't have to deal with it by name.

However, we have an opportunity coming up in 2016 when the USA will once again have an "open" election -- without an incumbent President, so debate will be furious.

This is an opportunity to market a novel with a Political setting, and I think I've found one you can exploit to the good of the Romance market.

We all live in an Internet dominated environment, and the e-book is the least of it all. Romance is all about Relationships, and mobile devices are bringing Relationship a whole new meaning.

Here are a couple of links to articles related to decisions being made "behind the scenes" in your world, decisions that affect you, and could affect you and your Mate in different ways causing conflict and story to happen.

Here's one that's probably NOT TRUE -- nevermind, we're building a fictional world, so ignore the plausibility of this extremely dubious source.

http://conservativebyte.com/2013/02/obama-picks-muslim-for-cia-chief/

Here is an article (rivaling some of my longest posts here) digging into every detail behind this one about Obama's nomination for CIA chief, and there are at least 5 novels worth of international intrigue material buried inside this extremely well documented examination of the accuser's background and the accused -- and others involved peripherally.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/11/rumor-check-ex-fbi-agent-claims-obamas-cia-nominee-is-really-a-secret-muslim-recruited-by-saudis/

And here's one that obliquely relates to the CIA Chief choice:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/border-sensors/

That is a story on how, due to technical issues of having old hardware running our current Mexican border sensor-net, we can't replace the worn out sensors handily because the new technology doesn't match the old. (just think of when you get a new computer -- you need a new modem, a new router -- and then you need new "devices" that can use your new router). In five years, your equipment is so old you can not replace it piecemeal and expect good performance.

Here's a quote from the article:
-------QUOTE-----------
According to CBP, it hasn’t been canceled outright — but it has been delayed for much, if not most, of 2013. The problem: The sensors can’t talk to the rest of the tech along the border. “We’ve determined that we need to resolve issues with saturated radio frequencies, limited bandwidth and system integration with the existing CBP infrastructure,” Jenny Burke, a public affairs officer with CBP, tells Danger Room. The agency will try again to replace its aging sensors “within the next six to nine months.”
-------------END QUOTE--------

OK, now one of your protagonists works for the CIA directly under this new Chief who has just been appointed and has no clue what's going on (or worse, is convinced of things that are in fact not true), and the other is a Border Security officer who really understands the Situation.

According to the article, on the Border, officers are in harm's way because of the false-positives thrown by the worn out sensors. Harm's way? Hmmm, definitely plot material in there.

What do you suppose happens next?

What if one of your protagonists becomes a Ghost? Or what if one of them is telepathic? What if the "border" in question divides our everyday reality from a magical realm?

Which brings up the issue of Communication.

Communications is only a technological problem limited by science, right?

No.

Available "Official" and "Civilian" communications is entirely political -- 100% political. You can get only what your politicians "let" you have. Unless you break some laws, or use a loophole in the law hardly anyone knows about or knows how to exploit.

Right now, the reason you can't have your landline phone number hooked up to your cell phone so that you only pay for the landline and your cell phone is an extension handset to your landline (not call forwarding, a single line) -- is there is a law against that. And that law was rammed through by lobbyists funded by the companies involved, not by citizens who want just one phone number.

To keep people from telling other people things you don't want them to know, you just make a Law.

In fact, the technique that's always worked since the Middle Ages is to make a bewildering maze of tangled Laws, and then allow bureaucrats to selectively enforce the ones that deliver the bureaucrat's own enemies into their hands (think Inquisition -- selecting certain "Witches" to be burned, but not others.)

If you need some Setting ideas, watch some old Cold War Movies about the USSR. Nobody trusted the Press which was government run, so they relied upon "rumor" which oddly was much more factual than the Press. In fact, the government used rumor to ferret out dissidents and convict them of breaking whichever law that carried whichever penalty the Official wanted to inflict. Watch a bunch of spy movies and you'll get a lot of ideas.

The essence of Romance is Conflict. The conflict you are looking for is inside the Setting. The Setting is a section of the World you have Built. Politics is a Setting. In our contemporary world Politics is a place, State Capital or Washington D. C. -- in your Fantasy world it might be a Castle, or a Border Guardpost.

Make enough conflicting laws (or in a Guardpost, make Regulations for the local villagers) and you can always convict your enemy of breaking a law requiring the penalty of greatest advantage to you.

If you have enough laws, there's no such thing as an "innocent" person -- everyone is guilty of something that carries a penalty. Most people are guilty of so many things, officials who find that person inconvenient just pick a penalty, then nab the person and convict them of violating that law.

People attribute this strategy to the Communists, but actually it has been a tried and true method of Rule since Kings were invented.

You can use it, even in contemporary Romance, but it works really well in Urban Fantasy.

Consider the Internet carefully -- we attribute the magic pictures that appear on our desk screens (and handheld devices) to science and technology. But a well magicked looking glass or crystal ball would work just as well.

Study our contemporary world and how communications are being controlled politically, then try to apply that to Magic in your Urban Fantasy -- or use Magic to get around the political blocks in Internet access.

For an example of Magic controlled by Government, see the TV Series Merlin --
http://www.amazon.com/The-Dragons-Call/dp/B0040ZPLBY/
a King Arthur rewrite that changes just about everything about the Legend.

Romance is all about Relationships. Relationships require communication. If you want to run a civilization wide eugenics program, you can create or prevent Romantic Relationships by controlling communications. You can also use communications to control who lives where by making certain places attractive to certain kinds of people -- walling others off.

Here is a Video -- it runs about 25 minutes. It is an interview with the author of a non-fiction book about our real world. But if you listen carefully without letting your understanding of our real world get in your way, you will see a clear, stark illustration of two ways to use Government to control Relationships and population migration. Pay attention and you will find ways to create your Protagonist and Antagonist to challenge, fight, and win against the World you have Built for them. The Setting for this story is Politics, high-stakes Moneyed Politics. Add in the two articles cited above, and you've got a nuclear explosion of a Romance.

This Video is a good description of a problem coupled to a lazy grab for a solution to that problem by using government as a hammer to force misbehaving people to behave "properly."

There is no mention in it that the price we pay for internet is elevated by hidden tax structures - so this video says the problem outlined is caused by government, and government is the solution. Lots of logic holes in this argument for your Romance Novel protagonists to find and exploit.

Pay attention, then write the story you see inside this Video, and in 4 years, you should have a political novel in print to take advantage of the election craze.
-------------

http://vimeo.com/59236702

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Guide to Writing a Series

2013-04-04T09:00:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite writing manuals of all time is Karen S. Wiesner’s FIRST DRAFT IN 30 DAYS. Since I’m a dedicated outliner, this outline-focused, step-by-step advice book fits perfectly with my preferred plotting style and noticeably improved my writing efficiency and speed. Karen also wrote a follow-up book, FROM FIRST DRAFT TO FINISHED NOVEL. Now she’s about to release a book called WRITING THE FICTION SERIES, for which I was one of many authors interviewed.

Here’s the book’s page. It will be published on May 30:

Writing the Fiction Series

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Guest Post by J. H. Bogran - Settings Part 1

2013-04-02T11:00:00.000-04:00

Here below you'll find a Guest Post by J. H. Bogran.

I ran into J. H. Bogran on #scifichat and without having read any novels under that byline, decided that I'd found someone so intrinsically interesting that all my readers need to hear his Voice.

Unable to get marketing to work for SF/F published in Spanish, Bogran took the bold step of writing in English, in order to reach -- well, YOU!

Anyone who gravitates to #scifichat on twitter is going to be intrinsically interesting, but to find a writer I can talk to every week -- who lives in Honduras? Honduras! and on that same chat, we have people from England, from both coasts of the USA and the middle, too.

Watching these diverse people interact gives one a new perspective on where novels come from, so when I invited him to do a guest post for you, I just left the subject open.

And so, here's a discussion on a topic we haven't yet tackled on this blog, SETTINGS.

Choice of setting is intricately tied to character and theme, but the first consideration in choosing setting is genre. By changing the setting, you can change the genre.

That's the lesson we've seen worked out with Star Trek, which was first sold as "Wagon Train To The Stars" (pitched using one of the most popular and long-running TV Series t the time, Wagon Train.) In fact, most all genuine SF at that time was the typical Western adventure story set in space -- same story, same characters, transported to space and given knowledge of technology and science.

Well, knowledge of technology and science was also vital to the survival in the Old West -- one had to know how to repair a saddle, cast bullets, doctor a horse, build a wagon wheel, and avoid rattlers.

And the same is true in The Hobbit -- Bilbo had to learn fast on his adventure.

The same is true of the TV Series Scarecrow and Mrs. King, where "Mrs. King" learns fast to be a secret agent with a double life, but applies the housewife&mother skill set to international intrigue -- changing the "setting" from "Brady Bunch" or "The Waltons" to "International Murder and Mayhem."

So to find the genre market you can sell into, consider setting carefully. The story you're trying to write might be unsellable if written in one setting, but sell big time if transposed to another. You can tell the same story about the same character with the same conflicts and even very similar tools of his/her trade in various settings.

But take care because though the character can affect the setting, the setting also affects the character. If you do not bring that interaction to the surface in your composition, the story will seem ludicrous to those who know the setting and the people native to it.

Without further ado, here's J. H. Bogran:

---------------GUEST POST---------------
A Study on Settings
By J. H. Bogran

There I was, thrilled to be a special guest at #scifichat—my first, by the way—when out of the blue came an invitation to post on this blog. I agreed wholeheartedly, and so, here I am!

Regardless of genre, “location” for any work of fiction is important enough that, when done properly, the setting becomes an integral part of the tale. Think of The Hunchback of Notredame, The Fall of the House of Usher, Pillars of the Earth, Dune, The Dark Tower, or Star Trek.

With works in genres as varied as thrillers and fantasy, it is not surprising that I use different methods to find, research, and select locations for my stories. Let’s deal with thrillers first, as the genre has the marginal advantage of settings being found in our world.

My debut novel, Treasure Hunt, is a suspense thriller about a thief hired to rescue some money stolen twenty years before. The action is set in 1998 because that’s when I began the first draft; little I knew that it’d be published until 2011 where the era might be considered historical. Anyway, for Treasure Hunt, I used locations found on planet Earth: London, New York, a Federal penitentiary, and a fictional Caribbean country named Istmo. Istmo turned out to be a pretty stylized version of Honduras, with honest politicians, cleaner cities, really low violence levels; you can say it is Honduras 2.0.

Choosing the setting for a novel in a foreign country can be tough, but not impossible to research via internet, interviewing people who have been there, studying maps. The introductory chapter of The Falcon, a thief who rents out his skills, is set in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Great, nobody resists a tour of the Big Apple, right? Except, at the time I had never set foot there. After a couple of hour-long phone interviews with a couple of friends who’d lived there I was able to paint a decent enough picture. So good in fact, that during the novel’s launch party, a person came up to me and congratulated me for transporting him back to the city of his youth!

The opposite side of the spectrum, in fantasy, the locations are not found on Earth (most of the times), reducing the amount of research to a minimum. Not! For Deeds of a Master Archer—a portal fantasy short story of two modern-day men trapped in a world where they become a village’s last line of defense against a pack of dragons—I had to create a world, believable enough to feel real, even when populated with creatures that had never existed. Okay, I may have cheated a little as the villages all conveniently speak English, and the place is very akin to medieval Europe; except for the dragons, of course.

In building new worlds, with their culture, religion, languages and all of accompanying prerequisites, the writer must spend considerable time because, if these places don’t exist, they still must make sense. At least, sense enough to suspend a reader’s disbelief for the duration of the story.

So, what if Alderan never really existed? What if the lead character always catches the bad guy, stops the atomic bomb from going off, and kisses the girl? What if the Doctor will never lend you his sonic screwdriver? Who cares! You enjoyed the trip, and that’s what count!

Author Bio and links:
J. H. Bográn, born and raised in Honduras, is the son of a journalist. He ironically prefers to write fiction rather than fact. José’s genre of choice is thrillers, but he likes to throw in a twist of romance into the mix. His works include novels and short stories in both English and Spanish. He’s a member of the International Thriller Writers where he also serves as the Thriller Roundtable Coordinator.

Website at: http://www.jhbogran.com
Blog: http://www.thetaleweaver.blogspot.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jhbogran
Twitter: @JHBogran
https://www.amazon.com/author/jhbogran

Treasure Hunt trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEaG5CjDmG8

Direct links to books:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009DPAO7C
http://www.amazon.com/gp/B004MDLSWK
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007BOC0OW

--------------END GUEST POST-----------------

Next week Settings Part 2

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

E-books and the abuse of return policies

2013-03-31T11:43:00.002-04:00

Happy Easter.

Now, back to business.

Apparently, authors are reporting a serious increase in e-book returns on Amazon, and also that readers are boasting in forums and on groups about buying e-books, reading them, and then returning them for a full refund.

Authors who do business on Amazon are already very generous with their low prices, willingness to post sample chapters, give-aways of free e-books, and consent to lending and account-sharing.

Please consider signing the petition and/or leaving a comment with your suggestions for a more fair policy, and encourage friends, family and colleagues to share the petition.

http://www.change.org/petitions/amazon-kindle-e-book-return-policy-stop-allowing-refunds-on-e-books-after-e-books-have-been-read

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

2013-03-28T09:00:00.000-04:00

The International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts occurred last week in Orlando. Neil Gaiman was the guest of honor, Kij Johnson (author of FOX WOMAN) was the author guest, and Constance Penley, who writes on popular culture, science, and feminist issues, was guest scholar. I read a paper on Robert Louis Stevenson’s horror story “Thrawn Janet.” Also, I appeared on a panel about Redefining the Undead, which of course spent a lot of time on zombies but also considered the between-life-and-death status of many other beings, including some entities and issues that are already a reality in today’s world, such as people whose hearts have stopped and “returned to life.” And what about patients who receive organs from dead donors? Speaking of zombies, they popped up frequently throughout the conference. There was even a session on undead romance in YA fiction.

Some highlights: Neil Gaiman gave a luncheon speech on genre. He proposed an interesting test to determine the genre of a work of fiction: Does the plot exist to take the reader through a series of set-pieces without which readers would feel cheated of what they expect from that kind of story? If so, those set-pieces determine what genre the story belongs to. Later in the weekend Gaiman read from a forthcoming novel, THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE. Constance Penley’s luncheon speech described a project she participated in under the auspices of MOCA (the Museum of Creative Arts), a collaborative artist-student-fan contribution to the TV series MELROSE PLACE. The team created a secondary character and crafted subplot story lines for their character. Penley is the author of NASA/TREK, an analysis of NASA as a popular culture entity juxtaposed against STAR TREK fandom, with particular emphasis on slash fiction; it’s amazing to see how she draws all those threads together. She has also written on feminist pornography. I’ve ordered a book on that subject edited by her. Judging from the lively text of NASA/TREK, it should be fascinating, although I wish she wouldn’t use the derogatory term “porn” indiscriminately for all sexually explicit fiction.

Another highlight for me was a panel on comics, which discussed fiction and poetry about superheroes but also, which I found more interesting, the crossover process from novels and TV series to graphic novels based on them and how those spinoff products are marketed.

The food at the two luncheons and the awards banquet was excellent this year. I was especially pleasantly surprised by a lunch with a curry theme, which struck me as pretty daring. I love Indian food, but the organizers couldn’t count on its being a hit with everyone. My plane was scheduled to leave at 3:05 on Sunday, already a later departure than I really liked. Then bad weather hit the Midwest, with a cascade effect that delayed all the Sunday afternoon Orlando flights. I ended up getting into our airport about 9 p.m., therefore not arriving home until near 10. While waiting for our plane’s departure, we experienced the excitement of watching, through the big airport windows, a violent wind and rain storm with tornado warning rage through Orlando. It passed quickly and didn’t seem to do any local damage, but I’ve never seen anything like it.

On the bright side, as usual I came home with lots of books, most of them free.

Margaret L Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot Integration - Part 7 - The Fallacy of Trust

2013-03-26T11:00:00.000-04:00

First of all, Happy Passover, Easter, whatever! It's SPRING!!! This is the time all young men turn their fancy to love, right? So let's talk about the mood of the season.

LINKS TO PREVIOUS PARTS:

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

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-5-great.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-6-fallacy.html

All Romance situations revolve around TRUST because when swept off your feet by the discovery of true love, "romanced" into daring to love, the backlash of that dive off the cliff is DISTRUST.

The sweeping, sinking, falling-in-love feeling is a loss of "control" -- of yourself, your emotions, your life, your ability to make choices.

It seems in that moment that a major life-direction choice has been made for you, and there's nothing you can do about it -- THIS IS MY MAN (or WOMAN). This one is MINE.

But what if you can't, don't, won't, TRUST that person, or that decision, or even yourself to deliver to that treasured person what that person deserves because that person is a treasure to all humanity?

Discovering the true value of a PERSON -- another person other than yourself -- is one of those moments when Divine Force opens your inner eye and shows you the stakes you are playing for in this world.

And that is an awesome experience.

The stakes of "falling in love" -- of recognizing a Soul Mate -- have nothing at all to do with yourself in that moment of recognition of the stakes. The stakes you play the love-game FOR are the children -- and their children and their children, long after you're gone. The stakes of love are eternal.

And if you make a mistake, you are responsible for the Souls yet to enter the world for their turn.

Oh, boy!

That is why all "Falling In Love" is about FEAR -- and why Romance itself is a genre of exemplary courage on display. It takes far more courage to LOVE than it does to murder someone or commit suicide.

In fact, it takes more courage to hug than to shoot a gun into a crowd or an army.

That's why all Romance is about fear, the bigger internal fears we bury when we think we leave childhood behind.

Puberty is a time of eruption of sexual adult hormones, a transition to what we call adulthood.

But sex alone doesn't create adults out of children. In fact, it can stunt the development of the child into an adult.

When that happens, and later the pseudo-adult who encountered sex too early in life, at too immature an age of character, then the encounter with the Soul Mate and the "falling in love" experience of true Romance is fraught with eruptions of sheer terror, fear like nothing ever felt before - fear of failure as a person, fear of having children.

If you can't trust yourself, you can't trust anyone else -- ever!

This is the stuff of true drama and and it is the core of the reason that ROMANCE -- as a genre -- deserves much more respect than it has ever (yet) garnered in the public square.

OK, then if TRUST is your core theme for your new novel -- what's the plot? Where do you find a plot that has all the opportunities to explore the issues of TRUST buried in all current young adults?

And I really think that "all" current young adults (anyone under say maybe 30) are in this category of having been introduced to the adult world of sexuality too soon in their character-arc. You can connect with this audience directly if you can understand all sides of this issue, and why these fears and trusts have to be revisited in the encounter with a Soul Mate.

Oh, yes, it's very possible that these fear/trust issues have been laid to rest in a prior incarnation and so, the pre-teen child is actually beyond them in this life, ready for adulthood at a very tender age.

And that individual makes a great character for a Romance novel - simply because they're "different" and have to wrestle with the fact that lot of their contemporaries (most likely the one they've fallen in love with) have not surmounted these issues.

OK, so given a theme of TRUST -- what's the plot?

If you can nail a theme and a plot before you even begin to think about characters who will live through that plot, you will very likely be able to produce saleable fiction on second draft. The knack of writing fast, lean, easy-to-read stories is all about getting the structure right before you start drafting.

With that structure laid out, you can find characters who will advocate each side of the thematic issue you're tackling.

You find the SIDES that you must illustrate with the backgrounds and current issues of your characters by reading non-fiction about the thematic substance you're working with.

One of the best, clearest argued, sources I've found for these kinds of "all sides of the issue presented without bias" is actually a religious source.

In the case of FEAR/TRUST the issue roiling through America today is GUN CONTROL.

And here is a very cleanly structured, all sides of the problem laid out clearly with references, article on the position of Judaism on gun control.

http://www.chabadofscottsdale.org/library/article_cdo/aid/507002/jewish/What-Does-Judaism-Say-About-Gun-Control.htm

Read that article -- you don't have to know anything about Judaism to see instantly that this is Romance Novel fodder.

When you get to the end of the article, see if you have found my question nagging your mind.

It isn't what the article says that's important. It's what it does not say, or ask, or question, or approach. Look for the fallacy. By now, you've trained yourself to find those fallacies everywhere, especially in news stories -- but look for it underneath this article. Here it's harder to spot.

Remember, this series of blog posts is about Theme-Plot INTEGRATION (i.e. doing both at once, putting your theme into your plot so you never ever have to articulate the dry, boring, repellant philosophy in a self-indulgent expository lump). In fact your characters should not know diddly about philosophy, or care. And your characters should never know the reader is there listening. So they don't explain their philosophy to the reader in expository lumps disguised as dialogue.

Philosophy creates emotions -- show don't tell the character's emotions and you have your theme and plot integrated cleanly and you have made your story a joy to read.

That is the secret I learned from the greatest writers who mentored me.

PHILOSOPHY IS THE SUBCONSCIOUS SOURCE OF EMOTION.

What you subconsciously believe causes you to feel. What you consciously believe leaves you cold.

Fiction writing is all about your reader's subconscious beliefs. Not the conscious ones.

And it is within the subconscious of your reader that you will find the neatest, and most powerful, fallacies you can use to generate plot.

Search that article for the FALLACIES you can use to discuss the hot-button issues of TRUST in love, war and marriage.

The author of this piece (and it may have had a number of authors other than the ones cited) harbored a fallacy shared with the intended audience.

Spot that fallacy and you've got a Romance Genre series -- or a blockbuster film rivaling the blockbuster novels/film series by Robert Ludlum THE BOURNE IDENTITY etc.

Here's the fallacy I see in that article that just drips Romance Genre Plot.

"What if the government is the one with "Evil Intent"?" What if it's the government you can't trust?

OK, a lot of people are running around the world today ranting and chanting about not trusting government.

If you've read the book I've been discussing in this Theme-Plot series, You Can't Lie To Me, you know why we elect folks who are honest just like we are, and then those same folks turn dishonest without our noticing the transition. When we notice it, we rant and chant about how untrustworthy they are.

Has anyone noticed that those in charge of the USA's government today (and even of the UN) are the very ones who ran around ranting and chanting in the 1960's that they didn't trust the government?

Is what you rant and chant against what you fear -- or what you love and then become?

Is loving what you fear a sign of sanity? Is becoming what you fear inevitable?

The question that is not asked in the article is "What if...?" (an SF keyword question) "What if the government -- i.e. the majority -- is the source of Evil Intent?" As I said, that is the one question the intended readership for this article would never, ever, consider asking.

That's the kind of fallacy you can use to generate plot because it is so widespread.

As this Theme-Plot Integration series has pointed out, the writer who can depict the reader's subconscious philosophy's contradictory beliefs commands the reader's attention. If that subconscious belief is held by a large number of people and is fallacious, that writer gains a Robert Ludlum size audience.

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Greetings from Florida

2013-03-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

This week I'm at the annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando. What a delightful change from home, where daytime temperatures are in the 40s on the first day of "spring"!

Here's information about the event:

ICFA

Neil Gaiman is a guest at this year's conference (wow!). I'll be on a panel about "Redefining the Undead." I'll report on the highlights next week.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Putting Violence In Its Place

2013-03-19T11:00:00.000-04:00

What is Violence?

Really, just exactly what is violence? Not what does the word mean, but what is the phenomenon of Violence?

Most fiction these days has some sex, some violence, and sometimes sexy violence, but for the most part Romance and Violence just don't mix. Why?

What is it about Violence that is antithetical to the mood of Romance?

Well, then, what exactly is Romance?

Or put another way, what does violence have in common with romance?

Isn't that a heretical thought?

The first thing that comes to mind is of course domestic violence.

People who live in the same space (dare I say "together?") develop a close personal relationship where they learn how to "push each others buttons." It's so easy to take out your anger at a workplace situation on your domestic co-residents.

I'm saying "co-residents" because I'm including in domestic violence all the kinds of violence that happen between domestic partners, significant others, part-time cohabitants, AND spouses and their children. Parents spank children, or yell at them, intimidate etc. Children "turn on" their parents in their teens and try to break free.

All these criss-crossing tension leads to verbal abuse, violence against women, violence against children (for just being childish), even domestic tensions carried into the workplace creating workplace violence.

Now look at the pairs of kinds of people I've mentioned who get into violent exchanges. It's the same list that LOVE EACH OTHER.

Children love parents. Parents love children. Men love women and vice versa.

People you work with, you bond with. Someone comes along and starts bad-mouthing a person who has helped you through a rough patch at work -- you will intervene if you've got a spine and any sense of morality. You bond with people in all kinds of situations.

The tighter the bond, the more energy is released when the bond breaks.

That released energy CAN (shouldn't, but can) express itself as violence.

Romance creates bonds, but violence doesn't break such an annealed bond.

Violence can't break a romance -- but violence is one possible way the energy bound up in a romantic bond CAN come flowing out when that bond breaks.

Maybe we should look at Romance as stored energy. If so, violence is released energy.

But even if that's true -- or true in special cases -- there's another way to look at both the question, "What is violence?" and "What is Romance?" and find the same answer to each question.

What is violence? It's a problem-solving activity - an attempt to FIX SOMETHING that isn't working right.

What is Romance? It's a problem-solving activity - an attempt to FIX SOMETHING that isn't working right.

The "something" that is seen as "the problem" may actually be the same something!

In Violence applied to solve a problem, very often the problem is something of the form "LISTEN TO ME DAMMIT!"

Violence is often the attempt to get someone to do something -- or not do something, or at least not do that something again.

In other words, violence is an attempt to communicate.

In Romance applied to solve a problem, very often the problem is something of the form "I HEAR YOU!"

We fall in love when we resonate to another person's emotions, and feeling the reality of that other person's very existence makes us real to ourselves. Romance, (dating, candle-lit dinners, walks on the beach at night) is an activity of communication.

Violence and Romance are both attempts to communicate something having to do with the fact that your life has been effected by the actions or reactions of another person.

Workplace Violence, and domestic violence too, are so very often attempts to get someone else to understand how you feel and why you are important in the overall scheme of things.

The PROBLEM violence is used to solve is the same problem Romance solves -- "I want you to understand what I mean when I tell you how I feel."

Very often, when the mentally deranged grab guns and shoot up a crowded public place, it is an attempt to shout loudly enough to be heard, "I MATTER! PAY ATTENTION!"

And isn't that the bottom line in Romance?

But in Romance, the dialog takes place quietly, with an exchange of glances, a smile, an invitation out to lunch, a proffered cup of coffee, a dozen little favors chosen carefully after close study of the other person's preferences. It's all about saying "You matter, and I'm paying attention."

It's COMMUNICATION.

Violence and Romance are both activities which attempt to solve a problem in communication.

"All's Fair in Love And War."

"The Battle of the Sexes."

Think about it. It's all about communication. And it's hard to make the case that what's being communicated is really so very different!

If an incident of mass killing erupts into the News and becomes a focus of news coverage for days, that incident becomes an Overton Window -- a window of opportunity for people who want to "control things" to push public opinion in the direction that benefits the few rather than the many.

Pundits and Politicians call for a ban on assault weapons, or handguns, or whatever object was used to kill a lot of people, as if making it hard to obtain the means of communicating will make people stop wanting to communicate.

Why do people grab a gun, a machete, or a rock and inflict damage on others?

Is it because nobody would listen to them? Not usually. It's more likely, I think, that the person who is yelling out their message does not FEEL that they've been heard. They may have been heard, but if they don't feel it, it may as well not have happened.

That's the key point for a Romance writer to grab hold of. It's all about "What does he see in her? What does she see in him? What does he think she sees in him? What does she think he sees in her?"

Without closing the feedback loop, the problem can't be solved.

In life, we don't want to be heard -- we want to KNOW we've been heard.

So both Romance and Violence are actions undertaken to solve a problem.

Success at solving that problem gives us strength to go out and deal with "life" on many other levels.

That's why we read Romance, and write it. We need to feel successful at solving a problem, so we can go solve another.

And that's why people play violent videogames. Or read "Action" novels, or watch action TV or movies.

The presence of violence on TV or in games doesn't cause people to go out and shoot up their workplace or a theater. I'll bet one day they'll prove it's really the opposite -- that engaging in vicarious violence actually prevents violent behavior (in the sane).

But almost everyone I know has noticed the non-stop, wall to wall, violence in entertainment, becoming more graphic by the year, and can't see how that doesn't cause people to behave in a more callous or violent manner.

I don't think the presence of violence causes people to commit violence.

If it did, imagine how many perfectly HAPPY MARRIAGES we'd have among Romance readers! If satisfying sex in fiction caused people to change their sexual behavior so that they, too, had nothing but satisfying sex -- well, there wouldn't be any sexually deprived people left in the world.

No, fiction doesn't CAUSE people to model their behavior after that of fictional characters.

But who among us can't point to a work of fiction that affected them in their youth?

Many have pursued a career in science because of Star Trek. Many have found the courage to take a chance -- go adventuring -- when inspired by heroic fiction. Others have taken trips around the world and other adventures after reading about far away places with strange sounding names.

These actions are taken after thoughtfully processing information garnered through both fiction and non-fiction. These actions which originate perhaps in a bit of fiction found in early youth become implemented in life after pondering alternatives.

And there's the key concept - alternatives.

Consider what TV, film and videogames have become -- distilled and concentrated sex and violence, because sex and violence sells.

Ask yourself whether it's the presence of the fictional sex and violence that causes customers to go out and become promiscuous or shoot up their colleagues at work. Or if maybe it isn't the presence of violence, but the absence of any OTHER successful problem solving technique that leads some isolated individuals to believe there exists no other way to solve their problem.

Is our social problem the presence of violence or the absence of other successful problem solving techniques?

In real life, violence doesn't solve the problem of being misunderstood. Romance doesn't, either -- in fact I'd say their success rate in real life is about equal.

There are, however, a number of social-interactive techniques that are tried-and-true methods of solving this essential, core problem -- knowing you've been heard, taken seriously, taken into account, and in fact have prevailed at least sometimes.

We don't need less violence (or less Romance) in our fiction. We need other alternative methods of solving the problem sprinkled into our fiction so we have choices to ponder.

You might want to read this older post that nails this question of communication on a more esoteric level:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/gift-giver-recipient.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com