Karen S. Wiesner: Arrested Development

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner 

Arrested Development 

Based on CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships} by Karen S. Wiesner 

Character Plot Relationship Developmental Signs of Life 

Animated

Evidence of functionality, breathing, heartbeat, the spark of life. 

Living

Not simply existing and going through the motions but possessing fully developed external and internal conflicts. 

Interacting

Dynamic, realistic, and believable relationships. 

Vitality and Voice

Three-dimensional character attributes. 

Engaged

Definable objective and purpose of being along with goals and motivations. 

"I misjudged you. You're not a moron. You're only a case of arrested development." ~Harvey to Cohn in The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway 

In the field of medicine and psychology, the term "arrested development" means a premature stoppage of physical or psychological development, or the cessation of one or more phases of the developmental process resulting in a lack of completion that may produce potential anomalies. Arrested development can be applied to many situations, including writing. It's something that happens often in fiction with the three core elements of every story--Characters, Plots, and Relationships (CPR)--becoming arrested in their development.

We live in a publishing era that can easily be viewed with growing concern given that the absolute requirement of developing CPR in a story is being sorely neglected in books made available for purchase. In the ideal, a reader wants to immerse himself in a glorious story that pulls him into a fictional world so realistic and populated with three-dimensional characters, plots, and relationships he never wants to leave. He's paid for that, after all, so why shouldn't he get it? Instead, he's saddled with a story that starts bad and only seems to be getting worse. Why would anyone keep reading? The author obviously didn't care to do it right. Despite the time and money invested in this endeavor, it's just easier to walk away. Whether subpar writing is done out of laziness, a lack of skill in crafting, or simple ignorance, having a reader drop a bad book and never come back to it (or to the creator) is the last thing an author should want or allow.

USING CPR {DEVELOPMENT} ON DEAD OR LIFELESS FICTION 

Deep, multifaceted development of characters, plots, and relationships can only be achieved through three-dimensional writing, something I've written in-depth about in my writing reference Three-Dimensional Fiction Writing (formerly titled Bring Your Fiction to Life: Crafting Three-Dimensional Stories with Depth and Complexity). All of those concepts are crucial to character, plot, and relationship (which I'll call CPR often from this point on) development.

What makes a person alive? According to WebMD, the three organs that are so crucial to life that you'll die if they stop working are the lungs (breath), heart (blood and oxygen), and brain (functionality). The three work together and without them (or life support), a person is either comatose or deceased.

I would add a fourth component that may not bring around true death to live without: A person needs a soul to live and do more than simply exist--and that means there's an objective or purpose in being. Arguably, a lack of soul can steal all the joy out of living and/or never provide the "spark" that exemplifies life.

If you noticed the CPR Signs of Life Acronym Chart I included at the beginning of this article, we can certainly say that it's possible to see the animation in a character that provides evidence of functionality, breathing, heartbeat, and the spark of life. To truly be living, characters aren't simply existing and going through the motions. They possess fully developed external and internal conflicts. They're interacting in dynamic, realistic, and believable relationships. They have three-dimensional character attributes that give them both vitality and voice. Finally, they're engaged in what makes life worthwhile with definable goals and motivations.

Characters, plots, and relationships need to be breathing, blood and oxygen flowing through their veins in order to function, or they're in a vegetative state or just plain dead. The soul of the character is what turns an ordinary paper doll into a vibrant, memorable personality.

In fiction, the potential for zombies is only too common, and I don't simply mean zombie characters. Plots and relationships can be just as zombie-like. Who wants to read about something that's alive (i.e., not dead) but not really living either? Even in books about zombies, it's the heart-beating, breathing, functional characters, plots, and relationships that make the story come to life. (By the way, if your zombie is living--as in iZombie style--and not simply alive, it's not a true zombie by definition.) As we said, a soul--providing unforgettable character traits, conflicts, and interactions with a very definite "life spark" that makes a reader care and immerse himself in a story--is imperative to make the characters, plots, and relationships compelling.

CPR development is a two-step process:

1) Establishing: Foundation begins in plotting and planting the seeds of development for the CPR process right from the very first scene in a book. You wouldn't just plunk down a plant you want to flourish in an area where it won't get sun, rain, or the nutrients it needs to survive, would you? Plotting and planting are all about properly setting up before setting out, anchoring and orienting readers before leading them with purpose through your story landscape. That's something that needs to be done in every single scene of a book with the basic grasp of setup. The longer it takes for a reader to figure out where he is and what he's doing there, the less chance he'll engage with the story and agree to go along for the journey.

2) Progressing: The one thing a story can't and should never be is static. Development isn't something that stops with the foundational introduction or establishment of threads. Development keeps happening throughout a story. Every single scene that follows the first must show a strong purpose in developing, revealing and advancing characters, plots and relationships in a wide variety of facets. Progress must be made to push past the point of plotting and planting seeds to cultivating the core element "blooms" that pop up into the landscape in every scene. The only way to achieve three-dimensional development of characters, plots, and relationships is to actively take each opportunity to establish and advance the elements that--if properly sketched--should appear in an organic way along the path to telling the story. 

If your characters, plots, and relationships that make up each scene in your story are truly three-dimensional and properly developed and advanced, your book will be so vivid, readers will be haunted by the unforgettable, vibrant world conveyed through your words even after they finish reading.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}

Volume 6 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html 

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Karen S. Wiesner: Deep, Multi-Faceted Development and Progression of Romantic Relationships

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner 

Deep, Multi-Faceted Development and Progression of Romantic Relationships

Based on CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}  

"Character is not created in isolation or repose; it’s forged through interaction with others and the world." ~The Art of Character: Creating Memorable Characters for Fiction, Film, and TV by David Corbett 

Human beings tend to live in groups, whether because one person has the limited ability to live by himself or because we like to be dependent on each other--and of course we like and care about each other as well. This is how societies, communities, and relationships are born.           

All relationships must have purpose in the story or there’s no reason to include them and, quite frankly, what's the purpose in even writing a story without relationships? While there are interesting stories about hermits, survivalists or loners who have little or no contact with other human beings (Island of the Blue Dolphins, Hatchet, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!), most characters are social people in some degree--and that's where things get really interesting because there are rules in in a society that simply don't exist in isolation. People need people more often than not, and nearly all stories need incredible relationships that are completely cohesive with the characters and conflicts. What purpose do the relationships have in light of the plot?

Writing a Romantic Relationship 

Writing a romance story is the hardest category that exists. Nothing can convince me otherwise. Let me tell you why. First, I'm not a romantic in any sense of the word. That's true, and I'd be the first person to tell you that. But I do write deep, rich, realistic love stories. Realism is the most important thing to me as a writer. If it doesn't feel real, like I could step into someone's lives with these characters and their relationship, it doesn’t interest me. I want the down-and-dirty, gritty, excruciating pain and joy that could be actually lead to blood flow or shouts of exhilaration, the so-deep-I-can-feel-and-hear-the-heartbeat, so intense I can't breathe and my hands are actually shaking, I can't gulp because I'm paralyzed waiting restlessly for the next move. That's romance at its best, most ideal. That's what I want with every story that categorizes itself as a romance. 

I'm a strong believer that the things two people who become lovers go through together right from the start to the bitter end need to develop unbreakable affection and commonality, one step after the other, leading to an iron bond. I call them links in the chain of romantic relationships. Especially in a romance story, you can't rush ahead, skipping links, without leaving the reader behind, wondering what's going on and just not feeling anything between the two people you want to bring together romantically. 

Unless she's extremely talented, most romance writers can't hurtle from a couple's first meeting or meeting again (where they may already seem to be falling in love instead of simply being attracted to each other) to the middle of what's generally considered a romance (in which expectations are already in place and both want and need each other--too much, too soon). This forces a romance to never feel quite well setup enough to come off as justified, warranted, believable, and realistic. It also assumes the supernatural is in control, which is sappy and silly. Build each link in the chain steadily, providing the proper setup for every development. Readers won't accept anything forced or unprecedented. 

Mystical developments in a fictional relationship are nothing more than cheating. Basically, nothing has been set up in advance to produce a compelling reason for the characters to feel the way they suddenly (i.e., one minute it doesn't exist, the next it's there and in spades) do about each other, but they'll go from barely knowing each other to feeling strong affection or love in the course of two back-to-back scenes. Maybe some people believe that something magical happens when two people who are destined to fall in love and spend the rest of their lives together meet (those are the kinds of romance novels that make me and those with strong aversions to the genre as a whole want to puke!) but in fiction and I believe in real life, something has to warrant development in a relationship (any relationship--romance or otherwise and if you take the sexual component out of it, the chain of romantic relationship development links can be used for any relationship in your story) to make it authentic and believable. Usually, this amounts to a steady progression of things that help the two people to get to know each other better and actually develop strong feelings for each other. Again, links in the chain. Without steady development of one link after the other, the reader might never be brought to the place where she feels ready for anything overt that happens between a couple, or she'll feel frustrated and even disgusted, maybe even actively hoping they'll break up.

In a romance novel, romantic/sexual tension is essential, although novels in other genres may also develop the same tension between romantic interests. It’s like cake and frosting. Take away one, and what’s the point? This kind of tension refers to anything that brings the romance to the fever pitch of anticipation for the reader. It’s also been described as an exaggerated awareness between the hero and the heroine. You want to start this tension as early in the story as you possibly can. If you don’t start the suspense promptly and keep it intense, the reader will be disappointed--or worse, embarrassed--during moments she should be temporarily relieved or exalted. Just as with plot tension, a romance novel without romantic/sexual tension leaves the reader uninvolved and unemotional toward the focal relationship happening.

A romance story has to have a specific chain of development that can't be rushed, and it doesn’t matter in the least what genre of romance it is. The steady progression of sexual tension, emotional culmination, and physical demonstration is required to bring the couple to the place where they've believably fall in love and can justify declarations of monogamous love, sex, along with a commitment of forever. Even in a Christian or "clean" romance, sexual tension and physical romantic development are required and vital to making the romance genuine and believable. In the sweet romances, how strong or sensual the tension and romantic developments are may be somewhat muted with any heavy intimacy taking place off-screen.

What your characters are experiencing is what your reader should experience. But if the characters are chagrined or want to escape, that's what your reader will want to do, too. The point of writing a romance is to make the reader fall in love (an emotional and physical reaction) with your characters one scene to the next, escalating into the payoff you've promised, and experiencing bliss and joy at the culmination. Readers may even shed tears. I'll tell you this, if you've gotten a reader to weep, she'll never forget the story, the characters and their romance for as long as she lives, and she'll read that story over and over again in her lifetime. A romance author wants that scenario. Otherwise, what's the point of writing a romance story? No point. And that's why I believe writing romance is the hardest genre on the planet. Because, if you write a bad romance, it's not worth having told the story at all. It's failed on all levels instead of simply on one.

Only with the steady establishment and buildup of sexual tension and romance development--fully meshed with a logical resolution--will allow your reader be left satisfied and smiling upon closing the book.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}

Volume 6 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html 

Happy writing! 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Settings Part 5 - Setting Makes The Genre

Settings

Part 5

Setting Makes The Genre

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts of the series on Settings including a Guest Post by J. H. Bogran:

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

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/settings-part-3-dreamspy-in-e-book.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/settings-part-4-detail-guest-post-by-j.html  by J. H. Bogran

And this is Part 5 of the Settings Series.  News happening at the CERN Large Hadron Collider might make you a best selling writer.

We have said many times that Setting does not make a story belong to a particular genre.  But if the story is tailored by the setting, it can indeed edge into a defined genre.

For example: Gene Roddenberry sold Star Trek as "Wagon Train To The Stars" because the Western TV Series Wagon Train was becoming a long-running legend in TV broadcast annals.

Romance is particularly suited to moving from Setting to Setting, and spinning off sub-genres of Romance.  Move Setting to Victorian England and you have a historical.  Move setting to Wild West and you have Western Romance.  Set it in 2019 Manhattan and you have Contemporary Romance -- reprint 20 years later and it's a historical.

Usually, when you say, "Science Fiction Romance" to an editor, they think Barbara Cartland In Space.  It just doesn't work.  You get caricature or comedy.

However, if you create Soul Mates who haven't found each other, yet, and engage them in a Science Project -- a real world, cutting edge, theoretical problem that must be solved for some pressing reason, and put them on opposite sides of an argument over which theory is correct, and what proof would do to the world -- aha! Then you have genuine Science Fiction Romance, not another pedestrian love story.

So take two scientists and call me in the morning.

Here is a real world headline to rip your idea from. 

https://www.space.com/40705-lhc-stray-particles-mathusla-detection.html

-----quote-------
A few years from now, if a crew of physicists gets its way, a squat building will rise above the border between France and Switzerland. This warehouse-size annex will join a scientific facility so large it crosses national borders. And, if the researchers proposing the construction are correct, it just might find the missing pieces of the universe.

Separated by a few hundred vertical feet of bedrock granite from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new building would contain a scientific instrument called the MATHUSLA device (Massive Timing Hodoscope for Ultra Stable Neutral Particles), named after the longest-living man in the Book of Genesis. Its job: to hunt for long-lived particles that the LHC can't detect itself.

There's something strange about the idea. The LHC is the biggest, baddest particle accelerator in the world: a 17-mile (27 kilometers) ring of superconducting magnets that, 11,245 times per second, flings a few thousand protons at one another at significant fractions of the speed of light and then, whenever anything interesting happens, records the result. [Beyond Higgs: 5 Other Particles That May Lurk in the Universe]

-------end quote -------

Set your story at the site of this new installation, and inspire your readers to research and learn about particle physics and computer coding.

We have discussed the Quantized view of the universe, the quantized view of Time and what that implies about Souls and the Soul Mate concept here:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/07/theme-character-integration-part-13.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/08/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Now, as an exercise, use some of the themes suggested in those posts, and the Setting suggested here, to do outlines for 10 different Science Fiction Romances crossing time and space, and dimensions far-far away.


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Settings Part 4: Detail - Guest Post by J. H. Bogran

These posts that appear on this blog on Tuesdays are 
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

But occasionally, I present a Guest Post by someone else.  Today, we have an interesting one on SETTING. 

As I noted in Part 1 of this series on SETTING, I ran into Jose Bogran on the twitter chat #scifichat (Friday 2-4 PM Eastern) and today we have a second writing craft post from him.

Good choices for SETTING come directly from pondering your THEME which we've been discussing in the advanced set of posts on Theme-Plot Integration these last few weeks.

We'll have to get down to the nitty-gritty of Theme-Setting Integration eventually.  One of the first articles I ever wrote on writing craft had to do with the use of DETAIL, so I found it fascinating that J. H. Bogran has focused in on DETAIL in SETTING. 

Here are the links to prior posts on THEME-SETTING

The index post collecting long-ago posts is here:

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

And the last few weeks have been extending those posts:

Theme-Plot Integration Part 8 - Use of Co-incidence in Plotting
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

Part 9
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

Part 10:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-10-use-of.html

And here is the series on SETTING starting with a Guest Post by J. H. Bogran:

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

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/settings-part-3-dreamspy-in-e-book.html

In Part 3, examining my space-war novel DREAMSPY, we begin to look at the steps in reasoning from IDEA to CONCEPT to THEME to SETTING, to see how a writer chooses to put a particular story into a specific place. 

As I've said before, it's kind of like driving a car -- you do most of the work with the non-verbal, mostly inaccessible part of your brain.  That's why it seems so mysterious to writers who just "have an idea" and then just "write the novel."  They don't know how they do what they do or why they do it a  certain way and not another way.  If they've got it right, they sell big, and if they miss they can't sell at all.   

Those very Talented writers don't make great teachers because they can't explain what they are doing (because they don't know.) 

The rest of us, though, have to figure out how to do it -- and so the process can be revealed to beginners, saving sometimes years of struggle. 

J. H. Bogran is such a "beginner" -- working in two languages!  OK, from my perspective, he's a beginner. 

So it is worth our while to pay attention as these techniques are laid out by someone who has just learned to do it, and with time we may watch Bogran polish techniques and then explain how that happened.   

Here, then is a new Guest Post. 

--------------------- GUEST POST-------------
Setting in the details
by
J. H. Bográn

Back on part one, I discussed the larger aspects of a setting and its direct relation with the plot, characters and other intrinsically relevant areas of a novel. This time around I’d like to expand into the old adage that the beauty is in the details. Jacqueline even reminded us about Star Trek being first pitched as Wagon Train to the Stars. Something I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t know, so bear in mind I’m such a sucker for trivia bits. So, thank you Jacqueline for the added bit to my trivia library!

The setting is more than just a location. It is the place where the events of a particular scene happen. A full description of a room can break the flow of the plot, but when carefully planned it can serve to enhance it.

Picture a man that regularly visits the city museum. Except, today is different because his wife was buried the day before, and now he’s seeking refuge in the paint strokes of masters. Today he notices for the first time a tiny frame, no bigger than a post card, depicting a sailboat riding tall waves amidst a storm. He watches mesmerized as he thinks of people aboard: will they ever reach the coast or will the wave bury the little boat? He recognizes the tune coming out of the P.A. system. It’s an instrumental version of Michael Bolton’s “When I’m back on my feet again,” and although he had always hated the cheesy pop star, he now finds himself humming along the song as he discovers he remembers the lyrics.

See how the painting and the tune mirror the man’s feelings? He had probably seen the painting a thousand times, and heard the environmental music an equal number of times. They add to the setting, but also to the feelings of the character.

One of the main differences that I’ve found between writing screenplays and novels is the level of description required for each. In the screenplay, description is generally limited to one line: Day. Interior. Jose’s room. Now, try to get away with that in a novel, I dare you! One of my early writing teachers suggested to make a drawing, and to mark where the doors, windows and furniture were located. He claimed the knowledge would slip through the writing even if we didn’t use all of the details. I’ve learned other tips and tricks since then, but one of those things is that he was right!

In the case of my sci-fi short The Outpost, I conceived space stations guarding the entrance to the Solar System. Believe it or not, the awful drawings I made must still be lying around somewhere in the rusty two-drawer file cabinet. I visualized the dimensions, colors, and plenty of other little details. Not all of them went into the final draft, of course. Here’s the opening of The Outpost with the details that made it to the final draft:

Excerpt from The Outpost (Red Rose Publishing, 2008)

Karl Jackson awoke suddenly to find his face barely an inch from the metal ceiling; he was floating.

“Joe! What happened with the gravity?”

Monitoring the whole of space is an impossible task. Thus, humans settled to monitoring the edges of the solar system. They figured that Earth could only be seriously affected by something entering the system. Thousands of outposts peppered the outskirts to detect anything coming in.

Track Seven was one of many cylindrical-type stations that monitored traffic in and out of our home planet. The top of the station was a transparent dome, enabling the operators a full 360-degree view. The main control room contained two chairs placed back to back, each facing a console full of monitors, transmitters, and switches that could make the inexperienced dizzy in a matter of seconds. Between the chairs was a trap door leading to the living quarters below.

Joe Doyle’s head appeared through the hole, relief visible on his face. “Didn’t know you were awake,” he said with his usual heavy drawl. It had always amazed Karl that Joe had embraced the Texas accent so completely, having only lived there for a couple of years before taking his post in NASA.

End of excerpt.

Yep, the station is very similar to a capsule you would find inside a Walgreen’s bottle. Not sure why I designed my guarding stations that way; perhaps I had a headache and took the hint from a gel-cap.

In short, not only do you have to have a detail list, but you also must choose which ones to use.
The help make the decision, I’d recommend you consider their impact on the characters, their significance to the plot, and finally, their ability to weave seamlessly into the story.

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

Website at: http://www.jhbogran.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jhbogran
Twitter: @JHBogran

Direct links to books:

The Outpost: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003ZDO3SY
Deeds of a Master Archer: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009DPAO7C
Treasure Hunt: http://www.amazon.com/gp/B004MDLSWK
The Assasin's Mistress: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007BOC0OW

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

What I find interesting here is that when I decided to be a professional writer, even before HIGH SCHOOL, I read copies of Writer's Digest and all the books on stage, screen and novel writing in my local library. 

That trick of sketching the layout of an environment where you are placing a scene or story was often repeated in those sources (which were old and falling apart when I read them!), so I adopted it right at the very start of my first attempts to create a character and his/its story (my first was a blob). 

I have some very crude sketches of the venue for scenes in some of my published novels.

I particularly sketch scenes at formal dinner tables or long tables in restaurants, noting who is sitting beside whom, and across from whichever other characters.  Imagine the noise level, the cross-talk, and be sure that the bits of dialogue you want your character to hear or overhear are actually within his/its/hers hearing distance in that echoing environment.

Now, the big caveat for new writers is this: Don't Make Sketches For Every Scene!

And don't describe who is sitting, standing, walking, riding next to or across from whom UNLESS YOU ARE SETTING UP AN ACTION-SCENE.

When a writer introduces a scene with the local floor-plan or layout in excruciating detail, it is a signal to the reader that all hell is about to break loose.

For example, if you establish a WINDOW on the 20th floor, with a tiny ledge beneath it, you jolly well better have that ledge be either the escape route for the hero or the entry-route for the villain, or the hiding place of a Key, weapon, whatever.

If you disappoint the reader by describing details you don't later use as part of the PLOT, the next scene where you include detail the reader will likely just skip the detail.  The third scene you do that in, the reader will toss the book aside -- or maybe in the trash.

And this is where that all-powerful and all-important element THEME comes in.

How do you decide which details to USE IN THE PLOT and thus describe in many words?

Each time you set up a floor-plan or load passengers into a car in a given arrangement, or seat them all at a dinner table, or sprinkle them around a crowded restaurant, first go into that setting yourself and open your eyes (like a swimmer opening eyes under water) and take a good look around.

You will see thousands of details in that setting.  SELECT the four, or no more than five, that bespeak the THEME. 

Ask yourself, "Given that my POV character is in THIS MOOD, what exactly WILL SHE NOTICE?"  And then, what will she NOT NOTICE?  What she doesn't notice can be a cited detail in your narrative, but only if it is a near-fatal oversight by the POV character because of her mood.

Bogran illustrated this point very well in the Museum scene.  The character is in a MOOD because of the funeral.  Though the setting is familiar, suddenly previously overlooked details become IMPORTANT.

Now the story didn't progress to the point where the storm-tossed ship and the particular song he heard would become clues in solving a murder mystery, or lead to discovering the painting was a forgery which would lead to meeting the museum curator and falling in love with her.  But it could have! 

Once the character's MOOD and the details that mood REVEALS are set up, your reader is drawn deep into your story.

The Museum Scene described lacks only the DETAILS that will be the springboard into what happens NEXT to this bereaved man because of his MOOD at that point. 

For example, perhaps the Museum is about to be robbed, and this man is a retired Security Guard who really knows the place.  Perhaps among the details of the ship painting and music, something catches his eye and he's uneasy but doesn't know why.  Inspecting the tiny frame, he notices that one of the security cameras is dark when it should have a tiny flashing light showing from that angle.  Hmmm.  He looks around for someone to report that to.  BANG the robbers burst into the display room pushing the Museum Curator in front of them. 

NOW WHAT? the reader is thinking. 

Do you see how this works?  The reader expects the details of the Museum setting to have some significance in terms of WHAT HAPPENS NEXT (i.e. the plot).  The detailed detail description is not just to explicate the main character's mood of the moment, but to explicate the theme which can only be done  via plot -- via something happening because.

Remember Plot = Because Line.

Because his wife died, because he's just come from her funeral, he seeks refuge in something familiar, and because he's THERE at just that time, THIS HAPPENS TO HIM, because of which he DOES SOMETHING, because of which SOMETHING HAPPENS, because of which HE DOES SOMETHING ELSE -- etc -- until his GRIEF (the theme here is grieving) is RESOLVED.

As I set it up, this retired Security Guard would thereupon risk his life to save the Museum Curator from the Robbers, and possibly her career from ruin BECAUSE HE NOTICED THE DEAD CAMERA and had time to DO SOMETHING that thereupon allowed him to be able to save her life, BECAUSE OF WHICH she reacts in some way to resolve his grief.

Choice of detail to describe is not arbitrary.  It's not an "art."  It's not mysterious and doesn't require Talent.  Choice of detail is like choice of vocabulary -- sounding spontaneous is a matter of careful preparation. (a Robert Heinlein quote - can you name the source?)

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Settings Part 3 - Dreamspy in E-book

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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






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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

Direct links to books:

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

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

Next week Settings Part 2

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com