Showing posts with label Kickstarter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kickstarter. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Videogame As Fan Fiction by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Videogame As Fan Fiction
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg


As most of you know by now, there is a KICKSTARTER running to fund a videogame RPG which takes my Sime~Gen Universe novels into the Sime~Gen Space Age.

The AMBROV X Kickstarter added a reward level called an ALL DIGITAL TIER - and everyone who donates at or above that level gets a BUNDLE of all the Sime~Gen Novels extant in e-book (lots of formats). 
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aharon/ambrov-x-a-sime-gen-roleplaying-game

We haven't talked in depth yet about videogames, or gaming in general, as a fiction form.

But when the Videogame gets into the RPG (Role Playing Game) space, where the consumer gets to BECOME one of the characters in the fictional construct (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons ) you are getting into the world that I envisioned living in when I could barely read the three words under the picture.

As I've said many times on this blog, fiction is a necessity of human life.  We need our dreams and our daydreams to function rationally in our world.  But more than that, dreaming and daydreaming are magical acts, acts which form our world, that really change things (for better or worse). 

That's why Science Fiction (what science could do for us "if only...") and Romance (what life could be with the right person) are so vitally important to World Peace and other worthy causes.

I've been working on bringing together the various streams of fiction distribution for a long time.  I've talked often and at excruciating length on this blog about what I call The Fiction Distribution System, what it lacked (feedback from readers/viewers), and how the internet is curing that lack.

Here are some of my blog entries from 2006 and 2007:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2006/07/whats-missing-on-television.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2006/07/intimate-adventure-with-dragons.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2006/12/dungeons-dragons-wrath-of-dragon.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2006/12/world-is-changing-again.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-play-fiction-delivery-system.html

And here is a book on Fan Fiction that I did not contribute to, but which mentions me a number of times.  Use the LOOK INSIDE feature and search for Lichtenberg to see those quotes.  (the list of quotes comes up on the left). 



They even mention my coinage of the term Intimate Adventure. 

If you haven't seen me talk about that on this blog, here is the original source on it:

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

As you can see, I've been entering this general topic of FICTION as a necessity in life, from every angle I can think of.

From the mentions in that book on Fan Fiction, I'm beginning to think I've actually made the point to some people.

Note the books that Amazon brings up in other suggestions when you go to the Fan Fiction book's page. 

I'm not saying I invented fanfic!!  It was old when I got into Science Fiction fandom when I was in 7th grade!  That's why it was already my native language when I first encountered STAR TREK (before any fanzine published fanfic in the Star Trek unvierse). 

I wrote Kraith as Star Trek fanfic, but I wrote Sime~Gen to allow others to write fanfic in it (and they have!  see
http://simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/

In 7th grade, it began to dawn on me what PUBLISHING lacked, and when I was in High School, I made a firm commitment to becoming a fiction writer because I knew I could make the field of fiction better if I could convince the right people that direct interaction between writers and readers, and between "readers/audience" and the direction and substance of the story was the missing ingredient in the industry.

That was long before computers brought GAMING to hand!

It was also long before Gene Roddenberry brought the Holodeck into existence.  That's where this is all headed, you know! 

Videogamers pioneered (with the shoot-em-all-dead approach to fun) the technology to make images REAL to you, and some were inspired by the Holodeck. 

Now they are pioneering the convergence of the characters who live inside your mind, your imaginary self that you strive to become, with the external conflicts of life, the problems set before you, using that interactive visual medium.

Here's another thing that's emerged to convince me that the world is accepting my point:

http://www.fullsail.edu/

That's a for-profit university that trains people to create videogames.

Most of the people on the Loreful team creating the Sime~Gen Videogame (now in Kickstarter - go donate a few bucks and they'll send you more information) have come out of that university. 

The Sime~Gen game, though, isn't of the "win by killing everything that moves" variety, except insofar as BANG-BANG is necessary to sell into the marketplace. 

These folks have the ambition to create an RPG where you win more points (and perqs) by establishing a non-lethal relationship with the other characters, and making friends not foes even of those trying to destroy you and yours.  This game is envisioned with roles and options that allow Intimate Adventure!  (yes, the creators read that material I pointed you to). 

So far, the Sime~Gen Game is not ROMANCE per se, but if it's successful, that is a definite possibility for some of the future plot-threads or episodes.  You want to see a Romance based videogame?  Support this kickstarter, if not with money then by distributing the information on it.  It runs only to the beginning of October, 2013.

Remember Sime~Gen is the universe I created specifically to have a novel from every genre written in it -- (and it has TO KISS OR TO KILL by Jean Lorrah as a Romance) -- to prove that Science Fiction is not a genre at all, but Literature.

So, while I was digging into Amazon looking for the book on FAN FICTION that I do have a contribution in (due out Dec. 2013), I ran across the very academic one linked above, Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, which only mentions me and Intimate Adventure (and Star Trek Lives! but they could only find the Corgi edition; the original edition is Bantam, 1975. 

Here's the book I wrote for (now available for pre-order, paper or ebook):



I didn't say this in my article in FIC -- it would have taken the whole book, and I'm certain I'll be returning to this topic on this blog when I find a better way to convey this notion:

Videogaming is in its infancy (still!).  It is the precursor of the HOLODECK, the fully interactive novel you walk into and become a character, and can do things that the author of the novel never thought of, never included -- you can live in a novel or a fictional universe and create your reality, just as you create your own real-life reality.

Somewhere along that line of development, you will begin to see exploration of seriously deep Relationship Driven Games.

And that has to include Romance (as the paramount relationship among all human relationships).

Since we are now working at the very beginning of that line of development, our smallest action will have huge effects decades from now.

We might discover that this videogame company that has contracted Sime~Gen is run by the "Steve Jobs" of the videogame industry.

And he took onboard a writer who remembered (with favor) reading Sime~Gen as she was growing up, then reread it all with the new books, too, and took notes.  She's a Star Trek/ Star Wars fan, too. 

If you're serious about solving the problem pointed up recently by Ann Aguirre's post on the blowback she's gotten for being a Science Fiction Romance writer:

http://www.annaguirre.com/archives/2013/06/02/this-week-in-sf/

You may find the best way to fix this problem that she and so many of those commenting on that blog post have encountered, using the least effort on your part, is to support Loreful's Kickstarter for Sime~Gen.  Just go post the URL around your contacts. 

Remember, the Sime~Gen novel Unto Zeor, Forever



has been called (in various blogs on the Internet) one of the first, if not the first, Science Fiction Romance novel (1978, my first Award Winner, before I won the Romantic Times Award for Dushau).  There were a lot of daring Science Fiction novels with this kind of sidewise edging into dangerous waters, and eventually it all gave rise to what we have today.

It takes a lot of people to move the world.  Give this Kickstarter a nudge or two. 

As Sime~Gen moves into the galaxy, humans encounter aliens, and you KNOW what happens when humans encounter aliens.  After all, you read this blog regularly, don't you? 

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Theme-Dialogue Integration - Part 2 - What's Eating Her by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Dialogue Integration
Part 2 
What's Eating Her
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg


Here is Part 1 of this Theme-Dialogue series, What's Eating Him?

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/09/theme-dialogue-integration-part-1-whats.html

Last week, Loreful, the videogame company developing a Sime~Gen RPG style videogame taking Sime~Gen into the space age, pitting humanity against aliens in a galaxy spanning war, launched a Kickstarter to fund the first of the Sime~Gen episodes.

The fate of that project is now in the hands of "crowd-sourcing" -- a concept that just tickles my heart no end!  I have always been an advocate of associated groups of individuals banding together to do original work, to change the world.

I'm still, after all these years, totally dedicated to CHANGE -- we have just soooo mucked up!  We have to FIX THIS, I keep ranting.  And that means we have to change our entire idea of what the problem is, so we can solve it.

When I was about 5 years old, no actually more like 3, -- which I remember because we moved coast to coast when I was about 4 1/2, and this particular memory is from before that move -- I parsed the problems in my little world (this was during WW II when they kept preempting or interrupting THE LONE RANGER on the radio to insert war news), and I decided that all the problems in the world were caused by adults having missed one, tiny but salient point about the structure of reality.

Yes, such was my thinking before the age of 5.  Consider at that age I thought the reason the wind blew was that the trees waved their leaves.  I hadn't yet figured out the world, even when my Dad explained wind blew because of pressure differences.  I KNEW it was tree leave that did it. 

My ideas about how weather happens have changed -- markedly! 

My ideas about THE LONE RANGER have not changed, -- much.

Here's the thought that has persisted, and which is behind all my novels.

Fiction consumption is a life-function of the same level and magnitude of the 5 life signs, organization, metabolism, growth, irritability, and reproduction.  Respiration, mobility, etc. are often cited as well.   I've seen definitions that include adaptation, but I could dispute that as if it were TRUE, we would never have species die-outs. 

So as a 3 or 4 year old, I added FICTION to that list, which I hadn't yet learned.  It never occurred to me that animals and trees didn't imagine.  Boy do humans learn a lot in the first 10 years of life!

But my main fiction sources, The Lone Ranger, Superman, persisted into the TV era, and onwards, and my ideas about the vital necessity of imagination developed through my exploration of science fiction - then adult Fantasy, and I launched a career into the teeth of the prevailing winds, adding Romance to Science Fiction but hiding that so deep inside the fictional worlds I built that editors couldn't see it.  My first sale was the Sime~Gen story Operation High Time to Fred Pohl -- read some of his novels and see how anti-Fred Pohl SFR really is, and I sold him a Sime~Gen story!  It is so deeply disguised, he didn't notice.

Today, I still firmly believe fiction -- specifically The Lone Ranger, Superman, -- and yes, Sime~Gen -- is more important than war, more vital to staying alive than winning a war, because fiction of this type reaches and nourishes the parts of your spirit that make you want to live and enjoy life.

Remember the gusto and zest with which Captain Kirk on Star Trek tackled impossible odds? 

Given an incompatible First Officer who refused to acknowledge the importance of emotions, particularly hunches and "gut feelings" -- Kirk enjoyed associating with Spock so much that Spock changed his mind.

Spock watched Kirk surmount impossible odds --

The formula for a novel of any genre has 2 main plots -- which bespeak the very essence of STORY.

a) A likeable hero overcomes apparently insurmountable odds toward a worthwhile goal.

b) Johnny gets his fanny caught in a beartrap and has his adventures getting it out.

Memorize those two, (they are true for ROMANCE too!) and evaluate every story you see or read to see which one it is.  Some really great literature has both.  Look at your life, and you'll see yourself doing both, often simultaneously.

Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novels, ...



...which I've reviewed on this blog many times, is mostly a beartrap plotted series -- but the wider envelope which keeps these novels a strong series and got it onto TV as a short-run SciFi channel (before the channel name change to SyFy), is crafted from A) the Likeable Hero with a Worthwhile Goal. 

You will find that same combination in C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner novels that I rave and rave about here ...



Study this structure, it's the key to why FICTION is a life-necessity like air, water, food, shelter. 

Heroic fiction -- Westerns, Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy -- fiction with a real HERO whose mind and heart are revealed to you in a way that you can become that character -- is a necessity of LIFE, because it gives your spirit the strength to overcome obstacles, just as food gives your body the strength to overcome disease and heal and reproduce. 

In Occult practices, this principle is applied by "donning magical robes" or a "ring" or other symbolic garb, and becoming your best self, even if you are only pretending for the moment.  Do this pretense assiduously enough, persistently and repeatedly, and you do become what you pretend to be. 

That is part of the nature of humans: you become what you emulate.

There is another principle promulgated at the heart of Kaballah, that the entirety of existence is made from pure energy.  That's a principle of the occult studies, too, and was derided and scoffed almost to death by the early Scientists.  Now we have split the atom, and are examining quarks, bosons, and other phenomena that compose space and the stars.

We are made of pure energy, and that energy (says Kaballah) is God's Love breathed into the world and shaped by Words.  God recreates the entirety of creation millisecond by millisecond.

That's a principle -- our very existence depends on being recreated by Words in increments too small to perceive.

Science now scoffs at that -- and is desperately trying to explain all of human experience in terms of biochemistry and the electrochemistry of the brain. 

That is the science that science fiction is based on.

The recent dust-up over the SFWA Bulletin Cover and a blog by another person that erupted into a discussion of how the SF community is viciously rejecting women and SFR might be parsed into an example of how society is trying to reject the existence of the HAPPILY EVER AFTER "ending" - or "worthwhile goal" that we strive toward.

The Occult Studies -- particularly Tarot -- see the feminine principle as the masculine principle's aperture to "heaven."  See THE LOVERS card -- the male looks at the female on the material plane, and the female standing on the material plane looks upward at an angel.  The female connects the male "real world" to the ineffable.

Without that connection, goes the theory (which I didn't know at age 4), men behave in very brutal ways.

I suppose by now you've all forgotten the video images (that surfaced in June 2013) of a Syrian "opposition" fighter killing an Assad regime soldier and cutting out the man's heart and liver and eating them on camera.  That pretty much sums up in symbolism the "brutality" referred to in the theory.  The philosophy advocated by most of the factions trying to re-create the Middle East as a Caliphate are intransigently anti-woman. 

You might look at the way that society insists women be wholly covered in public and NOT LOOKED AT.  Thus, in public, no man sees a woman, and therefore is free of all contact with God (even though they publicly bow down to God repeatedly during the day, they do it without contact with the feminine principle.)  Sans femininity there is no way a male can connect with God.

That's what SOUL MATE is all about -- connecting our men to God on a soul level.

In Occult Studies, sex magic involves the public displays of feminine nudity, and even public sexual acts.  This practices releases a certain type of (very dangerous) power into the world, and especially  into the hands of the men involved in this practice.

Masculinity seeks power within the material world.  That is the nature of male-ness. 

Femininity seeks power within the spiritual world.  That is the nature of female-ness.

But "within every man is a woman; within every woman is a man" -- we are all composed of both.

The balance though is not (usually) equal within a human.

Occult studies maintain that Souls reincarnate sometimes as male sometimes as female.

Kaballah maintains that Souls reincarnate (if they do at all) always as the same gender because gender is a property of the Soul, not the body alone.

Sime~Gen uses the Occult theory - and in Sime~Gen Souls sometimes incarnate as male, sometimes as female, and sometimes as Sime and sometimes as Gen -- and even more confusing, Souls reincarnate as aliens.  That is humans can reincarnate as aliens of another species, and Souls that are now human may have been non-human prior to that.

This concept is reflected in Kaballah theory as the idea that some Souls occasionally incarnate as inanimate objects or insects or other animals, for the sake of completing some task.

The Kaballah based Chassidic school of thought maintains that Joy Breaks All Boundaries.

In other words, the "apparently insurmountable obstacles" between the Hero and the Worthwhile Goal are surmounted by tackling the problem with JOY.

Zest, verve, happiness, bright-eyed optimism, -- i.e. Captain Kirk asking Spock the odds -- is the spiritual fuel that causes success.

It works on beartraps too -- the beartrap is a "boundary."  The beartrap is the consequence of not having assessed the consequences of other people's actions (the trapper sets the trap and you step in it before the bear does).  Once it's snapped shut on you, you have been placed inside BOUNDARIES.

It is zest, joy, verve, happiness, that breaks out of the beartrap.  You must pry the jaws apart, taking whatever physical damage that costs you, but you will fail without HAPPINESS (or so the Kaballah based thought goes.)

We, as SFR writers, are looking to convince a gloomy public (that sees War as a solution rather than the problem) that there exists a HAPPILY EVER AFTER, an HEA.  It's real, and it's within your reach, except for the problem of the beartrap or the "apparently" insurmountable odds.

Where does a man get that zest, verve, joy, happiness that fuels a Captain Kirk approach to problems?

Note Captain Kirk is a "womanizer" -- i.e. is driven by sexual appetite.  And woman accept his advances readily.  That acceptance is one of his character traits, too.

There is a higher truth behind that formula.  Contact with the FEMALE PRINCIPLE fuels that sense of impervious JOY that romps happily over every obstacle.

In other words, that JOY that the Kaballah theory talks about comes from God via the female principle. 

The female principle is the nurturer, the astrological sign of Cancer, the 4th House of the Zodiac, and the other water signs, Scorpio, Pisces. 

So what do women get out of men? 

What is eating her?

Could it be war? 

Last week in:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/09/theme-dialogue-integration-part-1-whats.html

We touched on the idea that Mars represents a fistfight, maybe road rage or a bar fight, but Pluto represents a War - probably a World War.

Right now, Pluto is transiting opposite the USA natal chart's Sun (energy source, sense of individuality).

The Sun rules the natural 5th House (Hollywood, and children, siblings).  Pluto stirs the unresolved conflicts of childhood (the much used defense of "I was an abused child, so I commit crimes now.").

The Nation's childhood was in the birth of the Constitution -- and I maintain that the USA has two valid natal charts because we are two countries interwoven -- based on two distinct philosophies which have traditionally been represented by the Democrat and Republican parties (what we now call "Left" and "Right" which I see as misnomers.)

The Sun rules Leo, the sign of Sovereignty. 

Note how Astrology indicates that Entertainment (fiction), children (sex for reproduction, a life function), and siblings (bonding) are the selfsame identical energy.  Opposite the 5th house is FAME, the 11th House, Aquarius ruled by Uranus, freedom.  Think about the implications of the binding and intermingling of these concepts usually treated as separate and incompatible things.

You have the same kind of situation between the 1st House (Aries, ruled by Mars) and the 7th House (Libra, ruled by Venus).  (these are the "Natural" Houses; the personal Natal chart indicate the same forces, but place them in different signs depending on the time and place of birth)

1st House is your personal, individual Identity (your sense of self that develops at puberty with a sudden, inexplicable, need for privacy, especially privacy from parents, and today privacy from the Nanny State.)

7th House is the OTHER, family, spouse, foreigners, strangers, groups, and allies, partners, even enemies!  When there is a 7th House malfunction, you get xenophobia. 

With Pluto transiting the National natal 7th, we have publicly espoused inclusive group principles, the public refusal to "discriminate" and reject people from our groups on various grounds.  We rejected the principle that we should deny people loans on the basis of their financial condition.  When Pluto finished the 7th House transit and hit the 8th House cusp of the USA Natal chart (exactly to the day) we had the financial meltdown known as the Housing Crisis, where the mortgage and thus banking industry collapsed.

Now Pluto is transiting the National 8th Capricorn, (natural 8th is Scorpio ruled by Pluto; USA natal 8th is Capricorn ruled by Saturn).  The Nation has a stellium (complicated conjunction) in the Natal Second House which is ruled by Cancer. 

Which brings us back to the feminine principle (nurturing, home building, Cancer ruled by the Moon) vs. the masculine principle, imposing human will on material reality, (career building, success, Capricorn, ruled by Saturn.)

Whatever it is that is "eating her" nationally, is very likely to erupt full blown into national consciousness over the next couple years as Pluto transits opposite the national Sun.

The National Sun is in Cancer (in both national natal charts), Mother, Home and Apple Pie. 

This eruption of complaints about how women are treated in Science Fiction communities is all connected to the national conversation about "the place of women" in the world, and in life.

There are those arguing that women should be kept inside the home and never seen in public. 

There are those arguing that women are absolutely no different from men.

What's eating her is that society is using force and coercion to KEEP HER WITHIN BOUNDARIES.

What's eating him is that society is "including" her in public life, eroding the boundaries men have created.

The solution - magically and kaballistically speaking - is JOY. 

The Kaballah maintains that there is an intrinsic difference between masculine and feminine functions in the matrix of reality.  A very deep, abstract study of this philosophy reveals that the difference that Kaballah fingers as the distinction between men and women is very,  VERY different from the difference that society (historical and modern) has tried to impose.

In other words, we have parsed the problem incorrectly, which is why we can't solve it.

It's very possible we don't understand Kaballah at all, really -- as it has traditionally been interpreted by men only.  Today many female scholars are tackling the climb up the Tree of Life into the rarified reaches of Kaballah.  So things might change drastically in the very near future.

What seems clear to me, and has always seemed clear since I can remember even thinking a thought, is that FICTION is the tool for solving this problem.

Fiction does two things:

a) it BREAKS BOUNDARIES constraining the imagination, allowing you to concieve and try out various descriptions of the problem and of the solution.

b) it INJECTS JOY into your life as you experience triumph together with your avatar in the story, and that lets you break the very real boundaries that constrain you in your everyday life

Which brings us back to Sime~Gen, and the space war that Loreful wants to present to the world.

Sime~Gen solves the problem of the way humanity has artificially imposed "boundaries" on each gender and thus created The War Between The Sexes -- which I maintained is a scam here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-conflict-integration-part-1.html

Sime~Gen postulates that humanity mutates into Sime and Gen.  There are male Simes and female Simes and male Gens and female Gens.  Simes Kill Gens to live, to survive. 

Thus the difference between Sime and Gen preempts, overshadows and wipes out the significance of the differences between male and female.  But it replaces it with an even bigger difference, a lethal difference.  Men and Women still find their Soul Mates, reproduce, and live Happily Ever After, and in fact it's those men and women who eventually solve the problem of half of humanity needing to Kill the other half.

Then with that problem solved, they dissolve the Territory Boundaries they created between Sime and Gen so each could survive, and they create an interstellar space drive that requires cooperation between Sime and Gen to work.

They venture into the galaxy, and run smack into an existing interstellar civilization. 

The result is War.  (that was planned into the Sime~Gen series premise, and the stories I want to write lie on the other side of that war, so I was happy to license Loreful to create me a space war, and so was Jean Lorrah, my co-author on Sime~Gen.)

Even at the age of 4, I knew that war was WRONG because it interfered with fiction imbibing.  And I still stand by that assessment.

Fiction imbibing is a necessity of life -- war is all about death. 

Remember Conflict is the Essence of Story.

Life vs. Death makes a good conflict to generate a fabulous plot. 

I actually adore World War II movies -- the Hollywood version of war, not the real thing.  Real thing is to be avoided - which is the message of all good fiction.  NO WAR!!! 

War is the result of the failure of diplomacy, which is a form of warfare. 

War conflicts with the necessities of Life, and Sime~Gen is all about LIFE - about living, not dying, about the glories and joys of life (but, yes, there are some barriers to overcome to get there).

So the Simes and Gens who have hammered their way to Unity will now hit another barrier, one that will try very hard (Pluto hard) to shatter that Unity. 

This game is going to be FUN - and it will spread much JOY into this world that is so sorely in need of JOY. 

What's eating both him and her is BARRIERS -- walls around us that keep us from communicating.

Play this game, take home some joy, target your communications with others, see if that breaks or surmounts any of the barriers in your life -- especially the barrier to getting your own fiction published!

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Theme-Character Integration Part 3 - Why Did Spock Become Popular

Theme-Character Integration Part 3 - Why Did Spock Become Popular
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg


Last week, in the context of the criticism of Science Fiction Romance novels,  we looked at the TV Series Vampire Diaries, a Fantasy, and Gray's Anatomy, a mundane Series, so now let's look into a Science Fiction series.  Of course, Star Trek leaps to mind.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-character-integration-part-2-fire.html

Part 1 of this skill integration sequence is here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/theme-character-integration-part-1-what.html

Previously we discussed What Does She See In Him (an essential ingredient in firing up a love life)

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

Note there is a rising attempt by David Gerrold and many folks long involved in the series to create a new Star Trek TV Series, and it's rolling along, even though it fell just short of it's Kickstarter goal.

Here is the Kickstarter for Star Wolf email sent out on June 3, 2013, (or thereabout).

----------QUOTE ----------------
...we almost made it... Just almost!  (Well, maybe we were a little further off...)

It has been heartening to see so many people pledge their support for
STAR WOLF.

I want you all to know that I absolutely consider you all honorary members of our official Launch Crew, and will tell you now, that we will go on! 

Although the Kickstarter is over, we want to keep all of you...our fans of great Science Fiction involved.

By the end, we received an incredible amount of media attention and letters of support (from including Bill Prady (BIG BANG THEORY) and of course Spock himself (Leonard Nimoy)! This well help greatly in our next steps.

We're 100% dedicated to launching, and the success of the series and we will be updating you on our progress in making it happen.

Presently, we're starting our own mailing list to make it easier to reach you, and will soon be converting 'http://www.thestarwolf.com' as our headquarters for the series, and will be posting updates as we proceed...

You're support here touches our hearts, and as a thank you for your enthusiasm, those who pledged, AND sign up for the mailing list will receive the PDF of the pilot episode script on Wednesday (to give people time to send us their e-mail addresses. When we send out the e-mail, the link to the PDF will ONLY be available for a 24 period, so please send us your e-mail address soon!  (If you send us all of your contact info, mailing address, etc., you may get a surprise in the mail in the future.

So please... send us an e-mail right away to: thestarwolfseries@gmail.com

TODAY.

As for those hard earned dollars you're still holding onto, we would of course ask you to pledge again if we were to start another campaign but as for exciting projects being funded now, we'd like you to take a look at:

HARBINGER DOWN:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1117671683/harbinger-down-a-practical-creature-fx-film

Our friends at Alec Gillis, Lance Henriksen, and Dennis Skotak (ALIENS, TITANIC, X2), (The Star Wolf's VFX Director of Photography). Are working to make a great practical effects sci-fi horror film that celebrates old-school animatronics and Makeup FX.

They are taking a stand for great live-action visual effects, and are truly a great collection of talent.  We love them, and you'll love their work too.  So PLEASE... seriously consider showing them the great support you've shown us, and we'll all enjoy their terrific work soon.

From the bottom of all of hearts, thank you for your pledge, your time and your support.

Rest assured... WE'RE ONLY JUST BEGINNING! 

Thank you again!  We love you guys!

-- David C Fein
----------END QUOTE------------

So we'll be seeing and hearing a lot more about Star Trek coming at us from every direction. (good, I say!)

You all know I'm primary author of the Bantam Paperback, STAR TREK LIVES! which blew the lid on Star Trek fandom and ignited the revival campaign at the time the fan-run conventions had just begun.  At that time, no way on Earth would any professional in Hollywood (movies or TV) ever listen to a word any mere viewer said.  Nobody cared what we thought.

There was no feedback loop from consumer to producer that could guide them in creating entertainment that people would pay for.  They thought what they thought because of statistics generated by phone-survey firms and the TV set-top devices that Nielson used to monitor what a couple hundred select houses watched.  Statistics was just in its infancy.

Today we have that giant data center the US Government just fired up to collect all the internet traffic -- it will eventually be able to mine out exact numbers of how many watch what, and maybe even track what you, yourself, actually watch or spend time on.  Hollywood (if it can afford the fees) will be able to determine in advance what will be popular.

Today, there's all the streaming stuff -- audiences are wholly fragmented, but that gives new writers a chance to break in and create an audience for the stuff that author really wants.  Of course, the technical bar keeps getting higher.  To get your writing "out there" you need a full time tech specialist (or 10). 

So let's look at what a writer can do that replicates what Star Trek did to change the entire world of entertainment, and make "them" pay attention to "us."  The thing is, (considering the SFWA Bulletin Controversy we discussed last week), this is exactly what we need to do with SFR.

Star Trek actually launched the SFR genre via fan fiction -- fiction mostly written by women for women, and all about the real lives of the Enterprise crew and other crews of other ships in Star Fleet.  Today, all that fanfic pours online, all mixed up with beginning writers immature attempts.

Many people scoff at young writers writing about how the adult emotional world seems to them.  I don't.  I see these initial attempts to communicate what's important about life as the absolutely necessary work of training up a writer's mind.  All the best writers I've ever met started in childhood writing exactly what you see flooding fanfic online (nearly drowning out more mature attempts). 

Listen to the scoffing at young writers -- that's the scoff being aimed at Science Fiction Romance novels!  Same attitude.  Really.  Think about it.  If you have that attitude about young writers, can you seriously ask working SFWA members not to scoff at you?  Karma can be an issue in life.

So How Do We Replicate Star Trek?

The key question is why was Spock so popular?

He wasn't expected to be by Hollywood TV crafters, not even Gene Roddenberry! 

The "Spock" that gripped the world was originally two characters, a woman First Officer called Number One who was from a culture that was emotionless.  And the half-Vulcan Science Officer who was called Spock but behaved with obvious emotional reactions (especially the appreciation of beauty.) 

The Network wouldn't allow a woman to be in command on the bridge, to boss men around.

There's that sexism that exploded all over SFWA earlier this year!  It is not FROM SCIENCE FICTION, despite what SFR writers think.

That sexism is from OUR OWN CULTURE.

That sexism isn't gone, and it isn't just a few remnants inside SFWA that harbor this toxic stew.

So Gene Roddenberry's solution to that problem (he was the least sexist man of his age I ever knew) was the classic solution every beginning writer learns.

What you do when your THEME isn't "working" can be one of three things:

a) divide one character into two
b) combine two characters into one
c) add a new character

In TV and Film, adding characters adds expense, and that can prevent production from ever happening. 

GR wanted ST to get on the air.  He COMBINED TWO CHARACTERS -- and it made that one character much more powerful.

GR combined Number One and the original Spock into ONE CHARACTER -- our emotion-challenged Spock.

GR saw this new Spock as having emotions that he repressed. 

That is an anti-science-fiction premise that I rejected long before I met him and got to ask what he had in mind.  I wrote my fan-fic universe, Kraith, to explore "What If Spock Really Is What He Says He Is?"  Taking people at their word always leads to interesting territory and always generates great science fiction! 

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

I did a very deep analysis of what makes Spock popular in STAR TREK LIVES!  I stand by that analysis, and it's still working today.

But today's world (as I've spent many posts here describing) is in massive shift due to new communications channels -- the web being only one.  Lately, Verizon (which provides fiber optic TV feeds as well as landline phone and cell phone) is offering TV channel feeds direct to your phone or other mobile device.  Take your TV shows with you, watch any time. 

The un-tethering of the world is going to affect what fiction gets popular enough to afford expensive productions, and that will change everything -- except the core essence of what makes a story gripping and energizing.

That core essence is theme-character integration -- and all the theme integrations with other story elements.  But what really grabs and won't let go is character. 

How do you build a gripping character for today's media distribution methodology?

You do what has always worked.  You look at what is popular today, and ask WHY? 

The TV show The Vampire Diaries is very popular -- as are other Vampire works.

OK, why are Vampires popular and what is it about The Vampire Diaries that is rattling teen minds?

As noted last week, the element of The Vampire Diaries that is drawn from the deepest (and thousands of years old) depths of human psychology is the combination of Good vs. Evil with Emotion vs. Logic.

Yep, LOGIC!

Remember last week we noted how the THEME-CHARACTER integration in The Vampire Diaries is a perfect "show don't tell" for the philosophical discussion this entire world is having (with guns blazing all over the Middle East) about the place of EMOTION in the scheme of LIFE.

Vampire Diaries modified the Vampire myth so that when these vampires turn OFF emotion, they become the typical Evil Menace type of selfish, power-hungry, dominating, tyrannical, human-eating, remorseless, force of evil that Vampires used to be in the standard myth.

If they turn ON their emotions, they become pretty ordinary humans, spanning the spectrum of good, bad and who-knows?

The thematic statement is woven into the Worldbuilding seamlessly and thrusts up into the characters as they play out the plot-events. 

Emotion = Good.

VULCANS are depicted as having the reputation of looking like the Devil (they're greenish instead of reddish -- the remake Spock isn't so greenish), and of being Emotionless.

That premise arose in the 1960's and ignited sexy-panting-furor.

Spock was the sexiest thing EVER on TV or in Film, and that's proven by all the non-fiction now being written analyzing the appeal of Star Trek and the history of it.

In fact, I have an essay in yet another book on the topic of Star Trek fandom.  When it's published, it will appear on my amazon page

http://www.amazon.com/Jacqueline-Lichtenberg/e/B000APV900/

And at the top of the right column you should now find an 'EMAIL ME WHEN THERE ARE NEW RELEASES BY JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG"  -- so you can keep up without effort.

So EMOTIONLESS = EVIL = SEXY.

Hmmm, and that dates back to the 1960's and 70's - the sexual revolution begun by the "Hippies" and then carried into adulthood and the workplace in the 1970's by "Women's Lib." 

And it still works today.

EMOTION = GOOD has surfaced now into explicit, on the nose style, dialogue. 

But it works even better when sunk deep into Worldbuilding as in The Vampire Diaries (which now has spun off THE ORIGINALS, the older and most Evil of the Vampire-Siblings with a leader who wants to be King.)  We're talking major success for EMOTION = GOOD on the commercial markets. 

Here's a link-list index post to Theme-Plot integration

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

I'll have to collect Theme-Worldbuilding Integration at some point.  Here is #6 with links to previous parts to that series.

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

And here is my post on Star Trek: Into Darkness:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-11-correct.html

It has links to prior posts in that series.

It is followed by Part 12 about a Tom Clancy book/movie.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-12-tom.html

The essential ingredients to creating your "Spock Character" are as follows:

1) Use the techniques I've been illustrating for studying our "real" world, the world of your reader, from an angle and at a depth the reader will not be aware of.  See my posts on THE ART OF WRITING.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html

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

2) Extract the THEME of your reader's world that's bugging them mightily and encapsulate that theme in a simple statement (like EMOTION = GOOD and THOUGHT = EVIL, but pick one of your very own, something that has true meaning to you personally) (this is what Gene Roddenberry did, but came up with 2-characters to state that theme, and the sexist thing really bugged him.)

3) CAST that theme into a Work by building a character, then building his/her world out around him from the essence of that character's internal conflict.  Remember Spock's EMOTIONLESS exterior covered a BURNING CURIOSITY -- and so he chose (against parental will) a career in Star Fleet to go where No Man Has Gone Before (sexist -- read last week's post on sexism).

4) Write your story to speak to your chosen audience in their medium of choice.  

5) Come back here next Tuesday for more.  We have barely scratched the surface of what there is to learn about fiction. 

by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Business Model of Writers In a changing World Part 2: Google+

This post is about the career (not at all atypical) of a powerful Science Fiction/Fantasy writer as it relates to the Business Cycle (one of those boring economics things we have to force ourselves to pay attention to.)

I know many such life stories (from many decades of publishing career-stories), but I want to share this one with you because this fellow's success was particularly well deserved -- yet the business cycle swamped him, too. 

Tobias S. Buckell on Amazon

There he is on Amazon. 

He hit the brick wall of 2008, and now he's BACK!!!  And he's using the tools I've been telling you about since 2007 -- Web 2.0, social networking, interactivity, and now crowd sourcing.  We live in a new world, and some writers will grab hold of it and leverage it to commercial success.

I found the link to his blog on Google+  -- a social network that's recently added Communities (as Facebook has Groups, and others have other ways to sub-set your connections.)

Here's the blog entry I found on Google+

http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2012/12/17/how-i-used-kickstarter-to-reboot-a-book-series-and-my-career-and-maybe-my-life/

https://plus.google.com/u/0/116892646782163010765/posts  is the fellow who posted the link on Google+ 

2008 is widely acknowledged as the time when the Housing Market crumbled, and the USA went into severe financial crisis right in the middle of a big Presidential Election.  Yeah, but it was all easily predictable by SF writers in 2006 and 2007 -- you didn't even need to follow financials to see it coming.  Book sales told the story, a "Leading Indicator" as they say. 

Here's a quote from Buckell's blog post:

----------Quote--------------
My first science fiction novel debuted in 2006. Crystal Rain was flavored with a science fiction stew of Caribbean refugees fled to a lost world, steampunk, a dangerous dreadlocked cyborg in a trench coat, and an ancient evil pressing down on our heroes. The first of my Xenowealth novels, it was followed by Ragamuffin in 2007 (a Nebula nominee), and Sly Mongoose in 2008. I was in my mid to late twenties. I wanted to write more. I wanted to grab the dream I had since I was 14 (and indeed in 2008, after much hustling, most of my money was coming from fiction and I was pretty much living the life I’d been striving toward).

The books didn’t do too well in chain bookstores, each time getting a smaller order. As we know from real estate: location location location. So each book sold less in bookstores. It was quite dramatic with the step between Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin (where a small buy-in from Wal-Mart even buoyed first time reader numbers, but was not repeated for following books). And yet…

…readers of the series compensated for the loss of chain bookstore placement by switching to ordering online off Amazon. Independent stores were still really nice to me (special shout out to Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, which always was responsible for moving the highest number of copies). Library orders still remained okay. Sales didn’t increase, but they weren’t dying. In fact, Sly Mongoose slightly grew in hardcover (it just came out in paperback this year after a 3 year delay, so those numbers are still trickling in). Tor had agreed to buy two more books in the series, giving me my planned 5 book series.

But I am nothing if not a realist. In later 2008, when I met my editor after seeing that Sly Mongoose was barely carried in any bookstores we had an honest discussion about the chances the 4th Xenowealth book would have. It would probably get even less bookstore placement, being harder for readers to stumble on. Based on the core, awesome, dedicated readers I already have, we guessed that it would do okay. Just like Sly Mongoose it would get enough readers to offset the loss in bookstore readers, and indies would help. But overall, I wouldn’t be growing sales much. Just ticking up slightly.

Some have wondered if my publisher killed the series. No. It was a mutual decision hashed out over a business lunch, the topic raised by me. My editor and I thought, hey, let’s change direction. I started working on a novel called Arctic Rising.
-------------END QUOTE------------

Now right after the end of that quote, Buckell tells of how life dealt him blow after blow -- a typical Pluto Transit situation but I don't know his natal chart, good things (wife pregnant with twins) and bad things (he had health disaster) along with a career wipe-out he attributes to health. 

And for him, that's true -- he might have leapt across the economic chasm of 2008 because he's that good a writer, but he got floored by a massive health problem while the rest of the world shattered.

As he came out of that long, dark tunnel a year later, he investigated self-publishing on Kindle -- but that route is chancy at best and he had a family to support.

Meanwhile, Kickstarter began to attract enough attention that his friends were telling him about it.  And in 2011, he launched into a Kickstarter project.

Now, go read how he researched Kickstarter.  There are a lot of "crowd-sourcing" websites operating now.  It's a trend.  But research - ah, that doesn't change.  Learn to do it for one kind of thing, and you know how to do it for everything, with only a few quirks to learn for each application.

Now I'm not expecting you to want to use a crowd-sourcing website for your Romance novel. 

Crowdsourcing works best for you if you already have a following or an "in" with a connected market, or a ready-made crowd to use as a source. 

But things like Google+ Communities are making crowds which will become "sources" -- imagine the world that capital raised this way will create.

It will be a different world than we've lived in -- some of the problems created by Big Business raising capital on Wall Street will go away, but other problems will be generated that we have to imagine and write about in Science Fiction Romance.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com