A by-invitation group blog for busy authors of SFR, Futuristic, or Paranormal romances in which at least one protagonist is an alien, or of alien ancestry.
It's not entirely fantasy play. In addition to combat against zombie dummy targets, the course also teaches general disaster-related skills such as water purification, first aid, stocking emergency supplies, and assembling a bug-out bag.
The take-away message as I see it? Speculative fiction is becoming more mainstream all the time! Consider how much SF, fantasy, and horror we can find on TV nowadays compared to the scheduled offerings on the three channels we had in the 50s and 60s. Just this past weekend, a series based on one of my favorite books, Diana Gabaldon's OUTLANDER, debuted on the Starz network. As far as I can tell from the opening episode, it's a winner. Truly we're living in a golden age of TV for genre drama.
Which probably couldn't exist without home video technology (as discussed in EVERYTHING BAD IS GOOD FOR YOU: HOW TODAY'S POPULAR CULTURE IS ACTUALLY MAKING US SMARTER, by Steven Johnson, which I've posted about before). When audiences saw each episode of a series only once, unless they happened to catch a rerun, creators couldn't assume knowledge of past episodes. Shows were designed to be viewed in any order, with story arcs scant or nonexistent and little attention to continuity. With the invention of the VCR, now that fans could re-watch old episodes, they could follow storylines that extended over whole seasons or multiple seasons. TV series could have more complex plots and character development. Writers now have the freedom to create multi-layered stories that reward (and sometimes require) many viewings. GAME OF THRONES could hardly have existed in the era of the original STAR TREK.
A concatenation of incidents focused this Dialogue entry in my mind:
a) I got an app that Bluetooths from a proprietary device to an iPad/iPhone/iPod and produces graphs and stats on the Apple device. The data can also be "air-printed" (an Apple wi-fi app) if you email the results to yourself, open the email on the iPad or phone and hit air-print (a feature some new printers come with).
b) I saw an episode of SUITS, mentioned below, with vivid, sterling, incredible off-the-nose-dialogue
c) I saw a TV News item on a new app that's garnered major attention. I grabbed the app (it's on Apple, Kindle, Android), and began making my own "Magazines" with it. Then I started a group of Sime~Gen folks collecting more stories for a Magazine I created and titled Sime~Gen Futurology, collecting articles about the harbingers of a massive genetic shift in Earth's biosphere.
d) a while back, I saw an interview with the CEO of Cisco Systems doing a victory lap as his phrase "the Internet of Everything" was becoming accepted by other CEO's of big companies. And I had seen the thermostat that rats out your settings on the internet to your power company. (not to mention the NSA) New refrigerators may have that feature, irrigation systems, everything in your house.
You can subscribe to our Sime~Gen Futurology Magazine, but right now I've no idea how to do that from the web or how to write a link you can find in-app.
So of course while trying to figure out how to point people to this magazine, the futurologist in me started wondering what this world of apps will lead to --- Theodore Sturgeon's watchword, "Ask The Next Question." --- and one idea just leaped out at me while watching Political ads ( a writer never wastes a moment!)
Last week we examined the definition of a "Strong Character" -- which is a common requirement publishers put in market reports.
Our complaints about politicians boil down to we never seem to get a candidate who actually has the "strong character" his/her speeches present.
Studying politicians can clue you in to how to create a "strong character" an editor will buy.
But after you've invented a Strong Character, how do you convey to the reader that this character is actually "strong?"
Well, actions, of course, and the style with which they confront challenges will show-don't-tell their strength.
Watch the TV Series SUITS (about lawyers doing stare-downs of other lawyers). It's streaming on AMAZON. Each of the main, ongoing lawyer characters has a part of their character that is "strong" -- other parts, not so much. Together they make a team, a law firm.
Roddenberry said that he got the Kirk-Spock-McCoy team by dissecting his own personality into 3 components. Distilling out clear traits is necessary for good fiction writing.
A character may have more traits than you show the reader, but what you show has to be a distillation where all the components say the same thing about that character or the "story" won't blend seamlessly with the "plot." Remember, it's Theme that connects all the components, especially the story and the plot.
Actions are paramount in delineating Character, especially in Science Fiction.
But dialogue is ACTION. Speech is action. At a Victorian High Tea, a single word from the right person can destroy another person's social and economic position in life. Speech is action.
The secret to writing good dialogue is to understand that the only dialogue reported by the writer to the reader is the interchanges that MOVE THE PLOT.
The characters may interact, discuss, chatter, gossip, etc. off-camera for hours and the whole of it can be boiled down to a couple of descriptive phrases. The "action" picks up when "conflict" generates the dialogue, and that conflict must be the conflict that generates the plot and is resolved in the last scene. Dialogue that advances the plot and story (simultaneously) toward that conflict-resolution point is the only dialogue that is written out in quotes.
The exchanges that are written out in quotes are always "Mortal Combat" or "Chess" or some other "Game People Play" where the point of the exchange is to "one-up" or fool the other character, or beguile, or confess, or beseech, etc.
Who "wins" the exchange is the new data-point that moves the plot. To keep the pacing on beat, you have no more than 750 words to depict that scene (in a novel -- less in a script).
A scene begins where two characters come together or an Event sparks an exchange. The scene ends when one or the other leaves the location (exits slamming the door?), or when another character ENTERS that location in the middle of the dialogue, changing the subject. Sometimes it's a phone call that ends the scene, or it could be an item that comes up on the TV screen that tells them they are wrong about something.
Scenes are the building blocks of novels and films, each with the same internal structure as the overall novel or film -- narrative hook, plot movement, cliff-hanger.
Now to the futurology.
If you've set your story in the future -- or an alternate present where Aliens Have Landed on Earth (or we run into some on Mars etc) - then you must alter your dialogue STYLE -- the unspoken premises and assumptions behind the words you choose -- so that the style itself evokes "The Future."
The words you choose for your characters to say have both "text" and "subtext" (see the 3 SAVE THE CAT! books by Blake Snyder for subtext.)
The subtext is the assumptions the characters make.
Your reader gets their good feelings from decoding the subtext. This is especially true in Mystery. Your job as writer is to convince your readers that they are smarter than you are and smarter than the (very smart) characters.
When readers decode a meaning, they believe it. What you TELL them, they don't believe. In other words, "subtext" is one of the SHOW DON'T TELL tools. And it is the make-or-break of your story.
FUTUROLOGY
You have to fake the futurology because we're in the present and so is your reader (for the most part, maybe). So let's "fake" a future thematic premise for a Strong Character to overcome.
SUPPOSE: this world of "the internet of things" (as Cisco Systems has taken to calling the connections among common household devices) actually works.
In April 2014, a promo from CISCO said this on twitter:
The #InternetofEverything helps @UPS improve delivery experiences to customers: cs.co/60169TtG pic.twitter.com/O9nA1ZmmtP
That article is https://blogs.cisco.com/ioe/my-internetofeverything-perspective-driving-smarter-with-technology-and-ups
They're using RFID chips on packages etc. to "track" "stuff." And now they're upping their game, interfacing with recipients and making everything ever so much more "convenient." The article doesn't mention anything about privacy. Imagine what enemies might do with this info about what you get, when, and where.
That tweet was posted the day a Union turned down part of a contract with UPS.
Liar? Think about it. Touting all the upside -- never mentioning the downside.
SUPPOSE: all this data-collection (from NSA spying on telephone calls all the way through electronic medical records) ends up succeeding in recording every traffic light you pass, every driving habit, every drink at a bar on the way home, every job task completed, every bit of clothing you buy, every morsel of food passing your lips, etc etc -- suppose EVERYTHING is a matter of record.
SUPPOSE: all these records are no longer considered private.
SUPPOSE: we make a law inserting recording devices all over Washington so no politician can so much as go to the rest room without every word spoken being recorded. (OK, maybe they'll leave out images?)
SUPPOSE: this means nobody can get away with a lie any more because on the TV News Screen beside the video clip of the politician's speech is a running counter-point of every single thing that politician did or said on that topic. No more smoke-filled-back-room deals. No more theatrical performances before cameras at Hearings after writing the script in a smoke-filled-back-room (ok maybe they'll leave out the smoke for political correctness?)
Total transparency.
Can Romance, even Alien Romance, coalesce without the gossamer veils of half-truths and uncertainty? Looking into such a theme, a writer of Alien Romance might address the real nature of Romance itself.
What would it take to destroy humanity's ability to drift into Romance, to fall into Love?
SUPPOSE: all the politician's constituency lived lives just as recorded and transparent.
NO TV COMMERCIAL COULD EVER LIE TO YOU AGAIN -- right there on the screen is the clear, concrete (un-hackable) (unalterable) evidence of the real-reality.
You really wouldn't be "entitled" to your own facts. Subjective conclusions would still differ, but the reasons for the difference would be changed forever.
SUPPOSE: people just got out of the habit of lying at the age of say, 3 or 4. Any time you make an honest mistake your "Google Glass" wearable appliance blasts out the correction for everyone around you to see, hear, and comprehend. You get used to it, and nobody remembers anything being any different.
NOW WHAT?
Well, humans being human, the be-all-and-end-all of existence would be to hack the system and gain control over everyone.
But what if our current civilization met up with Aliens who lived in a "recorded world" like that describes?
Are we toast? Or are they?
Power, the use and abuse thereof, is fodder for CONFLICT which is the essence of STORY (and plot).
Few writers are unaware that there is a debate raging about the price of e-books. Some would say that a retailer may sell any item (that it has negotiated the right to sell) for any price it pleases...
... as long as it pays the copyright holder (or copyright owner) the price it agreed to pay the copyright holder (or copyright owner) for the privilege of acting as middleman.
The crux of Amazon's rant about fighting for lower, "more affordale" e-book prices cannot be about the price it charges to readers. It must be about the price it PAYS to copyright owners and copyright holders.
Also (and I will get to this later), Hachette ought to be giving Amazon the same price per ebook that it gives to a lending library, because when a copyright owner "sells" one ebook to Amazon, Amazon then assumes the right to lend additional copies.
Under copyright law, Hachette and any other copyright holder has an absolute right to set whatever price makes sense to Hachette for any given work it holds.
It is for Hachette to calculate the cost of acquiring, editing, proofing, publishing, distributing, and marketing any title in a bundle of formats. Hachette has no duty to sell at a loss or to subsidize another publisher (Amazon) or manufacturer of devices (Amazon) or retailer (Amazon) or for-profit subscription service (Amazon) or marketplace for used products (Amazon).
Nor does Hachette or any other copyright holder or copyright owner have to give away any rights granted under the law.
BITLAW on the Distribution part of copyright protections for copyright holders. (Mostly with regard to physical products, rather than ebooks. As noted, First Sale Doctrine does not apply to digital content.... which is what ebooks are.)
The wording about "rental", "lease" and "lending" is of interest, given KU and Lending Enabled. Copyright owner have the exclusive rights to agree or not to agree to renting, leasing and lending and subscription models.
The distribution right grants to the copyright holder the exclusive right to make a work available to the public by sale, rental, lease, or lending. This right allows the copyright holder to prevent the distribution of unauthorized copies of a work. In addition, the right allows the copyright holder to control the first distribution of a particular authorized copy. However, the distribution right is limited by the "first sale doctrine", which states that after the first sale or distribution of a copy, the copyright holder can no longer control what happens to that copy. Thus, after a book has been purchased at a book store (the first sale of a copy), the copyright holder has no say over how that copy is further distributed. Thus, the book could be rented or resold without the permission of the copyright holder.
Congress has enacted several limitations to the first sale doctrine, including a prohibition on the rental of software and phonorecords.
"it was revealed that up to six Kindles could share one account. The Kindles did not need to be in the same household or owned by the same person. Thus, according to Amazon’s interpretation of the Kindle terms of service, up to six Kindles can share one account and the digital copies attached to that one account." Alsohttp://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx3CY8UVEMY3HUU"The problem comes with the number of devices a book can be on at one time. Most books you can put on 6 devices at a time, if you have more than 6 people in the club with Kindles then you will have a problem."
Nowhere in Amazon's rant is this acknowledged. Amazon ought in my opinion to be paying Hachette at least $14.99 for the right to distribute six or more copies for every one "sold" to a Kindle reader.
Possibly the existence of lending and account sharing may also throw off the rationale for pricing in Amazon's "Dear KDP author" letter.
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1)to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2)to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3)to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4)in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5)in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6)in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
Here's an interesting side note regarding copyright infringement;
(e) Involuntary Transfer. — When an individual author's ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, has not previously been transferred voluntarily by that individual author, no action by any governmental body or other official or organization purporting to seize, expropriate, transfer, or exercise rights of ownership with respect to the copyright, or any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, shall be given effect under this title, except as provided under title 11.2
Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied. Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object.
Here's the skinny from the Government, I think from Wikipedia.
The Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) authorized copyright legislation: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." That is, by guaranteeing them a period of time in which they alone could profit from their works, they would be enabled and encouraged to invest the time required to create them, and this would be good for society as a whole. A right to profit from the work has been the philosophical underpinning for much legislation extending the duration of copyright, to the life of the creator and beyond, to their heirs.
The original length of copyright in the United States was 14 years, and it had to be explicitly applied for. If the author wished, they could apply for a second 14‑year monopoly grant, but after that the work entered the public domain, so it could be used and built upon by others.
Exclusive rights for copyright holders
to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies (including, typically, electronic copies)
The phrase "exclusive right" means that only the copyright holder is free to exercise those rights, and others are prohibited from using the work without the holder's permission. Copyright is sometimes called a "negative right", as it serves to prohibit certain people (e.g., readers, viewers, or listeners, and primarily publishers and would be publishers) from doing something they would otherwise be able to do, rather than permitting people (e.g., authors) to do something they would otherwise be unable to do. In this way it is similar to the unregistered design right in English law and European law. The rights of the copyright holder also permit him/her to not use or exploit their copyright, for some or all of the term. There is, however, a critique which rejects this assertion as being based on a philosophical interpretation of copyright law that is not universally shared. There is also debate on whether copyright should be considered a property right or a moral right.[29]
My apologies that the above was somewhat repetitive, but one has to quote multiple sources.
:-)
Now, an interesting comment revealed the sense of entitlement that readers who own Kindles feel, and perhaps this is because Amazon sold them Kindles based on a promise of cheap reading?
"Customers have a lot invested in devices and internet connections..." quoth one correspondent to explain why publishers and authors should accept less for ebooks.
Is it Hachette's fault (or the responsibility of any other copyright holder or copyrigh owner) that Amazon might have made a promise like that in order to market its own proprietary devices? Is it Hachette's duty to make good on a promise Amazon may have made?
Sincerely,
Rowena Cherry (aliendjinnromances)
PS. Most of the Amazon letter (there was no copyright notice on it.)
Dear KDP Author,
Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the
foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when
movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost
25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of
copies were sold in just the first year.
With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy
and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have
celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and
circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary
culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many
bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use
unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores.
The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new
paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them
and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.
Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary
establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10
billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about
e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being
released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book.
With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no
returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no
transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be
resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.
Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been
caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far
those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding
with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly
disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.
The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position
that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.”
They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten
times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up
rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with
e-books.
Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They
think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against
mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If
we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books
actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that
is working hard to make books less expensive.
Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes
down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books
from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would
sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example,
if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then
customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue
at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The
important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties
involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty
check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is
simply bigger.
But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change
can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are
hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback
books – he was wrong about that.
And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this
issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post:
“Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to
this post are worth a read). A petition started by another group of authors and
aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered
over 7,600 signatures. And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and
readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a
healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another
piece worth reading.
We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between
large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that.
Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even
acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in
our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take
authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette)
jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we
suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this
dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business
operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy
charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and
repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their
revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage
from keeping their authors in the middle.
We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making
books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please
email Hachette and copy us.
.....................
Please consider including these points:
- We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to
overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.
- Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like
paperbacks did.
- Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take
them out of the middle.
- Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not
united on this issue.
Thanks for your support.
The Amazon Books Team
P.S. You can also find this letter atwww.readersunited.com
This is a term used on TVTropes.org. It refers to fiction (in whatever medium) written and-or set in a different time or place, in which the characters and-or the author cheerfully and unquestioningly embrace values that seem strange or downright immoral to contemporary American readers. I thought of Values Dissonance last week while watching the first few episodes of one of my favorite old sitcoms, BEWITCHED. Having never seen the very earliest episodes, I was eager to make up for the omission.
The early 1960s were a different world in several ways, starting with the oddity (from today's perspective) of a perfectly healthy, intelligent, childless middle-class woman (not a wealthy lady of leisure) staying home and doing nothing but take care of the house. The depiction of smoking as a ubiquitous activity—Darren and Samantha don't seem to smoke but do offer cigarettes to visitors as a routine gesture of hospitality—didn't surprise me, since I'm old enough to remember when almost all adults smoked everywhere. (I WAS shocked, though, upon viewing TWILIGHT ZONE episodes in which characters even smoked in a doctor's office.) But I did find the BEWITCHED characters' drinking habits jarring, because alcohol use wasn't part of the 1950s-60s subculture in which I grew up, except maybe champagne for the adults on New Year's Eve or an occasional beer in summer. In BEWITCHED, Darren seems to have a cocktail every afternoon upon getting home from work, and "I need a drink" is his typical response to stressful moments. Alcoholic beverages are everywhere, including in Darren's office! From the viewpoint of today's more health-conscious culture, those people look like alcoholics in the making.
A deeply unsettling instance of Values Dissonance, however, occurs in the episode "It Shouldn't Happen to a Dog." A client of Darren's advertising agency, during a party at Darren and Samantha's home, makes an aggressive pass at Samantha, even getting her alone outside and physically cornering her. In desperation she turns him into a dog. When Darren finds out about the incident, he doesn't believe the man's behavior justified the punishment, is more worried about losing the account than about Samantha's feelings, and angrily declares that a "normal wife" (i.e., one who isn't a witch) would have found a less drastic way of dealing with the situation. He eventually apologizes and knocks out the guy (now restored to human form) with a clean punch to the jaw, but only after catching the man pawing Samantha on the office couch. In other words, he doesn't take his wife's testimony about sexual harassment seriously and effectively blames her for the incident! To a modern viewer, Darren's apology after viewing the client's caddishness with his own eyes looks like too little, too late. Yet Samantha readily forgives him, and the writers clearly expect the audience to accept this outcome as a happy reconciliation. In another episode, Darren is having trouble with an ad campaign, and Samantha gives him some ideas that strike him as brilliant. After thinking them over, though, he jumps to the conclusion that she must have created them by magic. When she assures him she didn't, he doesn't believe her. This man who's supposed to be madly in love with his wife calls her a liar and implies that she couldn't possibly have the intelligence and creativity to produce good ideas on her own. Again, he changes his mind only upon being presented with proof, in this case the fact that the client rejects the new slogans instead of jumping at them. This is supposed to be a good marriage?
Of course, for many viewers BEWITCHED has an essential problem at its core—Darren's insistence that Samantha abstain from magic (a condition that gets violated every week, of course, as desperate situations justify exceptions). In the words of Endora, Samantha's mother, he's refusing to let his wife "be herself." His prejudice against magic seems to run no less deep, even if less violent, than the typical witch prejudice against mortals. Admittedly, as a comment on TVTropes points out, Darren could never survive in Samantha's world. (On their first meeting, her father disintegrated him, albeit only temporarily.) And Samantha does seem happy to embrace the mortal lifestyle. But she's doing it only to make her husband happy, and her constant "lapses" hint at dissatisfaction with the status quo. Nowadays, would we accept as funny and romantic a series whose whole premise relies on a man's readiness to accept his wife as long as she's willing to suppress her own identity and "pass" for "normal"? The writers seem to present the show's theme as an ongoing affectionate compromise between two people trying to succeed in a mixed marriage. To a viewer nowadays, it may look as if Samantha makes all the concessions.
What common attitudes and customs reflected in today's media might look shocking or bizarre to future audiences?
We've been discussing Theme-Character Integration, combining two skills into one for a seamless flow into the Art of the Story.
And of course, since Plot (what happens) is meaningless unless it impacts a Character to create the Story (the arc of how the Character changes under impact of Events), creating "appealing" characters is the main objective of professional writers.
The Character must be comprehensible at the starting point, the change in character has to be comprehensible during the novel, and the new Character has to be plausible.
Most Market Reports contain the specification that the submission must be about "Strong Characters" -- but editors never define what, exactly, a 'strong' character is.
Market Reports do not contain calls for "Weak Characters" -- so we have nothing to contrast it with.
However, the News is full of examples of Weak Characters, and of characters who do not "arc" -- do not learn from Events.
So we've been puzzling over this requirement of "Strong" characters -- a must in an action-Romance! -- and how to use a Character's attributes to convey thematic information without large info-dumps and expository-lumps.
We have discussed at length how to use current Headlines to generate novel plots, and here is yet another way to use current events as information (even when they aren't actually real-world information).
Here is an example from 2014 of a show-don't-tell that a Character is WEAK.
The three agents were benched for “disciplinary reasons,” said Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan, declining to elaborate. Donovan said the incident was prior to Obama’s arrival Monday in the country and did not compromise the president’s security in any way.
Still, the incident represents a fresh blemish for an elite agency ...
----------END QUOTE--------
You take a job (any job) and you are giving your Word of Honor that you will do whatever the job-description says, usually involving being a subordinate to a hierarchy above you. Of course, being hired to BE the top of such a hierarchy is another thing, and we have to discuss "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely" together with the old fashioned (but popular Fantasy premise) of Royalty running the world.
Now here's the definition of Strong Character you can use in a Plot.
A "Strong Character" keeps his/her Word of Honor.
For references, see Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover Series, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain (Vampire-Romance) series.
These employees did not keep their Word of Honor to be vigilant at all times in order to fend off any threat to their package. It doesn't matter that this package was POTUS. What matters here is the Word of Honor.
Noblesse Oblige (illustrated in the St. Germain novels) is a related topic.
It means the obligations of being born Noble.
Being Royal or Noble -- OWNING LAND is the definition -- being the King of your Own Castle in the USA -- means being OBLIGED, or obligated, to provide certain kinds of protection to others.
The way you get to be Noble is to keep your Word of Honor when you're just a hired soldier. You distinguish yourself on the battlefield (or for non-combatants on the field of political maneuvering), and get Knighted. Your children distinguish themselves and get awarded a Barony (Land and tenants), and their children earn a greater amount of land and tenants, etc. How? By prospering on the land they have been awarded command of (all Land belongs to the King).
So the heirarchy goes right up to the King who owns everything and appoints certain people to be custodians of the economy and of the safety of the Kingdom from invasion.
A great example of this is illustrated in the long series by Katherine Kurtz called The Deryni Series. Like Darkover, border Lords are responsible for defending the Kingdom's border.
"Responsible" is the key word here -- "Strong Characters" fulfill their Responsibilities no matter what the personal cost.
And that personal cost is usually emotional (Love, etc. all the Romance ingredients).
No matter the emotional pain, no matter the personal deprivation (not allowing oneself to get drunk or "have a good time" with a willing damsel), the Strong Character fulfills all responsibilities.
But the writer can't just say "this is a Strong Character" and let that be the end of the matter.
No, it has to be illustrated, all encapsulated in SHOW DON'T TELL.
And that's what this news item does.
The news item does not say these agents were of Weak Character.
It shows you what they DID (Plot) and indicates a story-arc for a character who isn't mentioned here, a character you can make up and write about, who did not LEARN FROM EVENTS -- who didn't "arc" within his own story.
Scan the news for other examples of Weak Characters, then see if you can find any Strong Characters who are being highlighted by the Media.
While it would not be exactly true to say that I have a "fondness" for any underdog in any fight, I dislike unfairness, particularly when the Media piles on and stirs the pot with half truths and --what I perceive as-- maliciously inaccurate reporting.
I am talking about a recent libel suit against the estate of a deceased author, in which the majority of a jury allegedly found for the plaintiff.
Almost every talking head that I have heard has vilified the plaintiff and focused on emotional buzzwords equivalent to "motherhood" and "apple pie" to suggest that the outcome of the trial was an outrage simply because of the buzzwords associated with the defense.
This might give comfort to authors who may consider libelling (or allegedly libelling) a public figure for profit, especially when pundits on TV asseverate that anyone can publish anything (regardless of truth) about any public figure.
Perhaps the supermarket tabloids do so with impunity, but perhaps they have better insurance policies than the average debut author.
Reality check. Word Castle Publishing kindly purblishes online a sample contract, so I have made fair use (I hope) of a couple of pertinent clauses which are typical of my experience with four other publishers whose contracts I have read, but which are supposed to be confidential.
Author Warranties
3.The work does not infringe upon any copyright, privacy rights, rights of a third party, or any common law or statutory law.
4.The work does not contain any material of a libelous or obscene nature.
B.Author Agrees to hold Publisher harmless and indemnify the Publisher against any claim, demand, action, suit, proceeding or any expense whatsoever, arising for claims of infringement of copyright or proprietary rights, or claims of libel, obscenity, invasion of privacy, or any other unlawfulness based upon or arising from the publication or any matter pertaining to the work.
C.Author warrants and represents that to the best of Author’s knowledge and belief, all statements of fact contained in the work are true and based on appropriate and diligent research. A note may be added to the work to show proof of research completed if Author so desires.
Please notice such words as "privacy", "libellous", and "based on... diligent research". Also notice "indemnify the Publisher" and 'hold Publisher harmless". In theory, that means that the Publisher and the Publisher's insurance company will not pay out.
Notice also that most publishers put the entire onus of any breach of the above-mentioned warranties on the author and the author's heirs and assigns.
Interestingly, there appear to be three authors of the book, but only one is mentioned as the plaintiff. I wonder why. No matter.
Check your own contracts. Then read this account of the controversial trial. It is probably not typical.... in that the Publisher and the Insurance company is paying up.
I visited Amazon to check out the front matter of the allegedly true memoir in question, but Look Inside is not available. Preview is not available on Barnes and Noble, either.
Scribd came through with the front matter disclaimer:
"The events that happened in this book are true, recounted from the best of my memory.... we've reconstructed dialogue from memory which means that it may not be word for word...."
I guess, if you put dialogue into the mouth of someone else, and you admit in the front matter that what you remember that he (or she said) may not be word for word.... you shouldn't have a legal leg upon which to stand.
This has been a highly instructive saga. We could all do well to learn from it, even if most of us write science fiction and fantasy, and our front matter disclaims any resemblance of our alien characters to any real person alive or deceased.
The new issue of the JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS includes Neil Gaiman's guest of honor speech from the 2013 International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Having been enthralled by the talk when I heard it in person, I'm delighted to have the printed version to remind me of so many great lines I'd recalled only vaguely.
Gaiman's main topic is genre, but he begins by discussing the interaction between author and reader. As authors, he says, "What we give the reader is a raw code, a rough pattern, loose architectural plans that they use the build the book themselves. No two readers will ever read the same book, because the reader builds the book in collaboration with the author." Reminds me of Jacqueline's Tailored Effect! Gaiman mentions the not uncommon experience of returning to a beloved childhood story and rereading a scene that you remember "so vividly, something that was etched onto the back of your eyeballs when you read it" and discovering that the rain, wind, sounds of horses, etc. that you remember so clearly aren't on the page—"you realize you did it all." Something like this experience probably inspires a lot of fanfic: We're driven to articulate what we saw in the original work that was implied but not openly expressed there.
Gaiman takes a stab at defining genre, after briefly discussing the pragmatic market definition of it as a heuristic device for enabling readers to find the kinds of stories they like on bookstore shelves. Some comments:
"Genre, it had always seemed to me, was a set of assumptions, a loose contract between the creator and the audience."
He compares porn movies to musicals by drawing an analogy between the sex scenes and the songs. "In a musical the plot exists to allow you to get from song to song and to stop all the songs from happening at once. So with a porn film. . . . If you've gone to a musical and there are no songs, you are going to walk out feeling that you did not get your musical money's worth."
"If you take them out—the songs from a musical, the sex acts from a porn film, the gunfights from a Western—then they no longer have the thing that the person came to see. . . . If the plot is a machine that allows you to get from set piece to set piece, and the set pieces are things without which the reader or the viewer would feel cheated, then, whatever it is, it's genre. . . . Subject matter does not make genre."
I'm not sure this statement doesn't minimize the importance of plot a bit too much. Still, it blew me away when I heard it. Each genre has its defining elements. A romance reader expects a love story at the center of the plot and a happily-ever-after (or happily-for-now, at least) at the conclusion. It has been quite rightly said that GONE WITH THE WIND and Diana Gabaldon's OUTLANDER aren't romances, because they don't conform to these "rules"; they are better described as "novels with romantic elements" (a category, incidentally, that the RWA has deleted from its RITA contest on the grounds that the category dilutes the organization's focus on romance). Genre fiction even has its "obligatory scenes," without which the reader will feel cheated out of the anticipated reading experience. For example, in the original STAR WARS, it seemed obvious that Luke Skywalker would have to face Darth Vader in combat, since at that point all we knew about Vader was that he'd allegedly killed Luke's father. The absence of that confrontation at the end of the first movie came as a disappointment—but a clear set-up for a sequel. We knew the story wasn't "finished."
Gaiman again: "Now the advantage of genre as a creator is it gives you something to play to and to play against. It gives you a net and the shape of the game. . . . Another advantage of genre for me is that it privileges story."
Do science fiction and fantasy, being broader genres than the romance or the Western, have certain defining "set pieces" without which we aren't in the genre anymore? Or, more narrowly, do certain subgenres, such as the quest fantasy, possess these elements?
Index to Theme-Character Integration Series by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Following is the list of posts in the general topic of how to craft Themes and Characters so the two elements become indistinguishable to the general reader.
"Integration" of two basic skills is the foundation of creating that "suspension of disbelief" that readers seek when entering a fantasy world, or when leaping into an adventure set in an impossible (but maybe desirable) landscape.
In connection with the 45th anniversary of the first moon landing, there are stories in the media about Buzz Aldrin's proposal to skip returning to the moon and instead focus on reaching Mars. The major obstacle to achieving this milestone with current technology, he maintains, is the assumption that the voyage must resemble the moon missions, with astronauts landing and then returning to Earth. Aldrin advocates a one-way journey—or, more accurately, permanent colonization. He compares prospective Mars pioneers to the Pilgrims, who left England with no expectation of returning. Even more extremely, the Polynesian voyagers who settled Hawaii presumably lost touch with their homeland altogether.
While I can't imagine ever wanting to do such a thing, examples such as these illustrate that plenty of people in history have been adventurous or desperate enough to transplant themselves permanently to a new home. Our hypothetical Mars pioneers, in fact, would be much better off than the colonists at Jamestown, having the advantage of constant communication with home, not to mention more reliable resupply ships.
Some critics insist the red planet is too inhospitable to attract permanent settlers; instead, they envision a research station with rotating staff, like the outposts in Antarctica. Either way, I'm reminded of Heinlein's various Mars novels. The first expedition as described in STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND didn't fare well. They all died by murder or suicide, leaving baby Michael Valentine Smith to be brought up by Martians. In RED PLANET and PODKAYNE OF MARS, however, the human inhabitants think of Mars as their home and Earth as an exotic foreign world their ancestors left behind. I'm optimistic enough to hope I'll live to see the first beginnings of that kind of future. I'm sixty-five; with luck, I may have another thirty years. Consider how far we've come in other fields of technology over the last thirty years.
Why is that important? Because strength of character is abstract, illusive, and a trait that is "revealed" one component at a time, not on the first page of a novel or the pilot for a TV Series.
"Strength" of character means one thing to an editor, producer, or agent, and another to the writer -- yet another to viewers/buyers.
What one person sees as strong another sees as weak.
The assessment of a character is very much based on the end-customer's View of the Universe and is idiosyncratic -- very, very personal.
Strength of Character is a Trait that can answer the question "What does she see in him" that is the core of Romance, but is especially relevant to Science Fiction Romance (my favorite kind).
INTELLIGENCE is a mundane science fiction romance -- and a pretty good one.
The couple in question is an ex-soldier who volunteered to have a "chip" inserted into his brain (which works because he has a certain rare genetic mutation) and the woman assigned to be his bodyguard and protector because he's worth maybe a billion dollars (remember the 6 Million Dollar Man? this is an UPDATED version.)
So episode by episode (or for a novel, chapter by chapter) we have seen this man's character revealed as the attraction between the two Special Forces grade individuals heats up.
At first wary, the mutual respect is established and grown as each saves the other from harrowing circumstances, and they develop teamwork precision like a circus act where each puts his life in the hands of the others.
And meanwhile, respect grows with the management team sending them on missions, and the tech team that works the "chip" miracles.
So we have many "variables" of character traits filled in for both these people and a really neat ROMANCE blooming nicely.
Now, remember this is a CBS drama, not USA CHARACTERS WELCOME.
There are two "beats" (see Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT! screenwriting instruction series for beats definition) to pay attention to in order to learn to assess a "strong character" for the fiction market, and then to analyze many examples, then create some of your own.
Here's the story. Gabriel, the fellow with the chip in his head, gets amnesia (long international terrorist plot business that's irrelevant). When he wakes up in the middle of the attack on his headquarters without any memory of who these people are, he doesn't know the good guys from the bad guys.
3/4 through the episode, when he's now convinced the attackers are the good guys and he's helping them beat his real friends, the showdown scene, the turning point into the final act, is his bodyguard eye-to-eye with him trying to convince him that she is the "good-guys" side and the attackers are the bad-guys.
Gabriel's chip has been hacked in such a way that the data attached to his friends' personnel files has been changed to make them seem like bad guys, killers, victimizers of children.
The DATA shows the bad guys as the good guys.
Riley (his bodyguard) stares Gabriel in the eye and tells him to stop thinking and just FEEL -- telling him that his memory of facts is gone, but his FEELINGS originate in another part of the brain and are more reliable in sorting good from bad.
This is the NEW CULTURE PARADIGM we see in all these most popular TV shows.
This entire generation of viewers has been educated from primary school to understand the world in terms of feelings and to put aside all facts in favor of what feels right. (look for that theme if you haven't noticed it -- it sells big time in Romance).
We see in Romance -- if you read some written in the 1950's and 1960's then skip ahead to 2000, you will note this trend, then follow it back decade by decade until you locate the turning point in philosophy -- the theme that lust and passion are irresistible, that there's no use trying to use intellect to over-ride animal lust, and that all hook-ups or even marriage must have searing-passionate-animal-lust as the foundation.
That might correlate to the divorce-rate rise -- a statistical researcher might get a paper out of it.
But to sell fiction, you have to understand the world the reader thinks is real in order to invoke suspension-of-disbelief. So pay attention to the cultural shift from THINK FIRST, and STOP CRYING OR I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT upbringings, to DON'T EVER OFFEND ANYBODY.
The worst crime children learn about in primary school is making someone feel bad by doing something better than they can do it. Everyone gets a certificate of merit, a prize, a ribbon, just for showing up, so the incapable won't feel bad about being incapable.
So we see this EMOTION trumps THOUGHT as a major, cultural assumption, a philosophy, and that makes it THEMATIC MATERIAL.
In this episode of INTELLIGENCE, we see one of the love-interest characters convince the other love-interest character that you can tell the good guys from the bad guys by how you FEEL and that all data, all facts, all thought is unreliable.
The story is rigged so that in this instance, that is actually true -- and that rigging is what makes this a beautiful example of THEME.
The "Character" element that integrates with the theme is that Gabriel - the chip-guy - buys it. He relies on how he feels about Riley and throws in with his employers against the invaders.
And he wins the day back for them.
Then the STRENGTH of character scene comes at the end, final tag of the episode, where it is made crystal clear that emotions trump facts or thought. How you feel is the only important and determining factor.
So this series defines "STRONG CHARACTER" as someone with the courage to act on emotion-only against all the facts. Facts are unreliable; emotions are the truth.
You know that the TV Series Intelligence is still using the same mechanism to create "strong characters" for an audience because this episode which showcases and defines "strong character" first wipes out Gabriel's memory of facts, then replaces the facts with lies. When he's convinced the lies are truth, he still acts like Gabriel -- loyal and strong, and ferociously protective of children.
The script bores right to the core of the definition of Strong Character by removing Intellect from Reliable Information Source. By eliminating that one factor, the script reveals the unspoken cultural assumption of the definition of high moral fiber. The best people strive to follow their heart, not their brain. So lies don't matter (because nobody will pay attention to them), but feelings do matter.
If you dig back a few decades you will find all TV action-shows, all Science Fiction, and most Romance depicted the STRONG character as the one who followed Intellect, determined and cross-tested facts, and "did the right thing" regardless of how they felt about an issue, regardless of the emotional loss or pain they might cause themselves or anyone.
Today the definition of what illustrates "strength of character" has done a 180.
However, the actual writing craftsmanship is still the same!
"Strong Character" in fiction is defined by the integration between the character's emotional life and the character's external, fact-based life.
The concept "Integration" means essentially that two elements merge to form a third, and that the proportions of each ingredient are defined so that the "third" they create has a recognizable consistency. That's a marketing thing. Large markets are created by producing consistent products that are all the same -- if you buy Tide to wash your clothes, and buy another package with exactly the same LABEL next month, you expect the new package to contain the same washing-power. Likewise with books - if it says Science Fiction Romance or Paranormal Romance or Vampire Romance, it better deliver just like all the others under that label.
So today's market is looking for characters who have an unshakeable dedication to following their feelings and ignoring all intellectually ascertained facts.
It is the UNSHAKEABLE trait that is the defining ingredient in "Strong Character."
No matter what happens, that integration point between intellect and emotion will not change in that character -- not amnesia, not maiming, not disabling, not disease, not helplessness, not imprisonment, not torture, not anything will alter the proportions of Intellect and Emotion behind plot-moving decisions and actions.
That integration point is stable, meaning the character is both sane and admirable.
It's the exact same writing technique -- the exact opposite message.
A few days ago, I read a blog post on choosing character names. Among other things, the author discussed the common practice of using baby name books as references. I've done that in the past (besides a mainstream baby book, I have an old paperback of "New Age" naming suggestions for more exotic ideas). Now, though, I depend on the CHARACTER NAMING SOURCEBOOK, published by the Writer's Digest book club. It's divided by ethnic group and includes surnames (and explanations of each culture's naming rules) as well as first names. It also contains useful lists of the most popular American names by birth year.
That blog post talked about taking care not to name characters after her family members or close friends. I tread carefully in that area, too. Several of my favorite names have been barred from use in my fiction because they're worn by relatives or co-workers. On the other hand, I wouldn't go so far as to eliminate the name of every person I've ever been acquainted with. Another matter to consider is repetition of initials. Many authors tend to gravitate toward particular letters in naming heroes and heroines. In my case, I seem to default to L and M for heroines. Without realizing I'd done it until it was too late, I published two pieces with heroines named Laurel and Lauren, respectively. As for minor walk-on characters, if I don't pay attention, I lapse into the same few default names for all of them. Some authors keep charts of names they've used. While I don't do that, I can see the usefulness of the custom. Writing teachers advise against having major characters in a book or story with similar-sounding names or even ones that start with the same letter.
In real life, of course, a family or social circle often includes people with same-initialed names, names with similar sounds, and even identical names. For a long time we had three women named Betty in the office where I worked. At another period, we had four Joans. Fiction, though, imposes an artificial variety on names for the sake of clarity. Likewise, in defiance of "realism," we try to avoid ludicrous puns or names that don't "sound like" a proper hero, heroine, or villain, unless they're purposely chosen for the humor or incongruity.
One precaution I take, which I don't think I've seen mentioned, is avoiding famous and even moderately famous names. (Somebody only vaguely familiar to me might be a major celebrity to others.) If a given-plus-surname combination pops too readily into my brain, I Google it to make sure I haven't heard it somewhere and consciously forgotten it. In particular, if my character is an author, singer, etc., I don't want to name him or her after a real artist in the same field. Of course, it's almost impossible to invent a name combination not borne by SOME real person. The point is to make sure it's not a person readers will have heard of and have distracting associations with. In one of my early novels, I gave the heroine, Jenny, a boyfriend named Craig. My critique partner pointed out the humor, which was lost on me. I'd never consciously heard of the Jenny Craig company before then, although it might have lodged in my unconscious mind at some point. Needless to say, I changed the boyfriend's name. The heroine of DARK CHANGELING, my first vampire novel, was originally called Britt Logan. When I realized the airport in Boston, the hero's home town, is Logan Airport, I changed her last name to avoid the unintentionally funny coincidence. Such coincidences do happen in life. When I met my husband, his family lived on a street called by my mother's maiden name. But real life, unlike fiction, isn't required to be artistically appropriate.
Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 9 Guest Post by Charles Gannon (Nebula Award Nominee)
Is the Charles Gannon title we'll discuss today and then hear directly from Gannon himself.
This is not a review of the contents of this book, but about its origins.
This is about Marketing Fiction in a Changing World, Part 9 in this long series, about why these Tuesday blogs are relevant now, today, and will very likely give you writing tools that will be relevant twenty or thirty years from now, to teach to the 12-year-old who hasn't been born yet -- despite technological advances in the fiction delivery system.
The previous parts of this series about Marketing Fiction In A Changing World can be found at:
Here below, Charles Gannon gives you a glimpse of the reasons why you should read the Tuesday posts on this blog.
Gannon's book FIRE WITH FIRE is making a huge impression on readers in 2014 and there's another book out in Spring, TRIAL BY FIRE. He first turned up in my sphere via STAR TREK decades ago.
He was just a kid then, but I treated his early attempt at writing a story as if he were an adult and a seasoned professional -- two barrels right between the eyes.
He took the douse of cold reality like a pro and came back with a serious game-plan.
It was a beautiful thing to behold -- and definitely demonstrated the difference between a to-be-professional-writer and a never-to-be-professional-writer.
The difference is not in the quality of the writing.
As Marion Zimmer Bradley taught in her writing workshops, any literate person can learn to write well enough to sell prose.
As any reader knows, lots of that kind of prose gets published -- and isn't worth your time to read.
Therein lies the difference -- anyone can learn the craft; not everyone has a) the vivid imagination and b) the personal stuffings, the character, to take the punishment of the world of performing arts, c) something to say that you want to hear.
When you find imagination and strong character among the kids you encounter, treat them like adults and dish it out plain and simple.
I have tasked Chuck Gannon to pay it forward, Robert A. Heinlein style, and treat the kids who come to him as equals -- some of them will take fire from that, and some of those will carry his own work forward to future generations.
However much things change, they stay the same.
Art is all about sorting the unchanging from the morass of churning change.
Science Fiction is the vehicle that best showcases the edge that being able to do that sorting gives us.
Charles Gannon titles aren't Science Fiction Romance, per se, but if you want to write SFR that roars into the marketplace, study what Gannon has accomplished with crafting a marketable, award-worthy novel.
I met Jacqueline Lichtenberg when I was 12 years old.
She was talking about Star Trek at a local library and I was dazzled by her energy, her passion, her eloquence, her humor. And, more wonderful still, when I approached her afterward, she was utterly and wonderfully receptive. So much so that she said the magic words: "Send me something! I'll tell you what I think. But be warned: I'll tell you the truth!"
I already knew I wanted to be a writer, but at 12, that vision is a very inchoate one. How does one make a living? How does one get to be good enough to be worthy of publication? Who will show me HOW?
Jacqueline Lichtenberg had all those answers and more. After the closest critique of any fiction I have received TO THIS DAY, she continued to be available as mentor, information source, adviser (adviser, as I and the English prefer) and, best of all, a wonderful friend.
If you have the opportunity to work with her, do so. To ignore that opportunity is like leaving a winning lottery ticket laying in the middle of the road.
If you are reading this, you are halfway to finding out if you CAN be a writer, and what it will take. Which is different than MAKING you a writer: no human can do that. But what Jacqueline does is BETTER: she gives you the unvarnished truth and maximum hope based on your extant skill set. And that kind of integrity, excellence, insight and honesty is rare indeed.
And perhaps rarest of all values is this one: what Jacqueline teaches NEVER gets old. Fashions, in writing as in everything else, come and go, but the core and classical principles remain constant. And those are the bedrock of Jacqueline's own writing and her mentor-ship. Go ahead: see for yourself. You'll be glad you did.
Then read his work, examine the covers, the blurbs, and any marketing materials you can find involving him.
Watch, listen, think hard, and see how the techniques and methods, the angle of view, and the application of the oldest story-telling-craft to this modern world can be applied in the here and now to captivate a target audience.
Strip out the particulars, and you will find this methodology easily pertains to the creation and marketing of Science Fiction Romance.
Two haunted Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series stories in one volume!
Bone of My Bone, Book 7: Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series by Karen Wiesner
New release!
Karen S. Wiesner's 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection
Covers the A to Z's of crafting the highest quality fiction! Find out more here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html
YOKAI Enchantments by Margaret L. Carter
Three fabulous supernatural tales in one volume!
Karen Wiesner's Facebook Page
Karen Wiesner's Facebook Page
Award-winning author Karen Wiesner (website and blog)
Award-winning author Karen Wiesner (website and blog)
Karen Wiesner's CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction
Karen Wiesner's CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction: A Writer’s Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plots, and Relationships (writing craft)
Karen Wiesner Writing Blurbs That Sizzle--And Sell!
Karen Wiesner Writing Blurbs That Sizzle--And Sell! (writing craft)
Karen Wiesner's Bloodmoon Cover Spirits Series
Karen Wiesner's Bloodmoon Cover Spirits Series (Paranormal/Gothic Romance/Ghost)
Karen Wiesner's Arrow of Time Chronicles
Karen Wiesner's Arrow of Time Chronicles (Scifi Romance)
Karen Wiesner's Woodcutter's Grim Series
Karen Wiesner's Woodcutter's Grim Series (Fantasy/Mild Horror Romance)
Love Among the Monsters
Story collection featuring shapeshifters, ghosts, things with tentacles, magic, and more.
Sime~Gen Book 15
A Shift of Means: A Sime~Gen® Novel (Clear Springs Chronicles Book 2)
Sime~Gen Book 14
Clear Springs Chronicles #1
Wild Sorceress
Explore a world where warring nations use magic in combat, and one misfit sorceress strives to prove herself.
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