Last week we looked at Love and Romance, using thumbnail definitions from Astrology for Venus and Neptune.
Here's a list of previous posts in the "Big Love Sci-Fi" blog post series:
Here's the first post in this series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/06/big-love-sci-fi-part-i-sex-without.html
And here's Part II in this series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/06/big-love-sci-fi-part-2-drama-of-illness.html
Part III in this series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/07/big-love-sci-fi-part-iii-how-big-can.html
Part IV in the series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/07/big-love-sci-fi-part-iv-mystery.html
Part V in the series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/07/big-love-sci-fi-part-v-modesty.html
We are turning the subject of Love and Romance this way and that, looking at it from all angles to find a way to create a blockbuster novel/film story that will convince those who scoff at the Romance Genre that they've been missing something important. Some might then change their minds.
We can see clearly that this issue of respect of the general public is still very hot by noticing this item about the Romance Writers of America convention program:
----------------
http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2011/06/does-science-fiction-romance-label.html
Friday, June 17, 2011
Written on 7:55 PM Posted by Heather Massey
Does The “Science Fiction Romance” Label Marginalize Female Authors?
-------------------
Nobody with something to sell wants to be "marginalized" -- it's the horror-buzz-word these days. The assumptions behind that choice of word could use some dissection, but that's not today's topic here.
One of my suggestions for why Romance hasn't gained the respect of the general public, and why many Romance genre writers use pen names and neglect to mention their Romance genre credits when marketing work in other genres is that readers and writers of this genre (as with all other genres, almost by definition) share certain assumptions.
The assumptions underlying Romance Genre are simple: Love Conquers All, and the Happily Ever After ending is actually possible in real live. There exists (for real) such a thing as a Soul Mate, and bonding with such a Soul Mate leads to the HEA ending.
I discussed this at length here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/genre-root-of-all-evil.html
In that post, I wrote:
-----
Rarely is an author allowed to challenge the very premise of the genre within a story in that genre. Genre is based on ASSUMPTIONS that are not challenged. That's my definition. Things you leave OUT define the genre, and one of those things is the same in all genres -- don't challenge the genre premise in the plot.
In Romance, it's Love Conquers All that must not be challenged.
In SF it's Science Conquers All that must not be challenged.
In Crime it's Crime is Wrong that must not be challenged.
In Adventure, it's "the solution is not here but somewhere else" that can't be challenged. (home is not a fun place to be).
In Action, it's "There Is No Other Possible Solution Than To Kill The Bad Guys." You can't make friends with the bad guys and turn them into good guys in an Action genre story. (all the rules are changing, remember?)
------
Also think about this post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/where-expert-romance-writers-fail.html
Where I wrote:
-------------
Read the comments on that blog entry and you'll find a comment about the HEA ending.
Note that if it's true that both SF and Romance must generate endings that violate the absolute boundaries of consensus reality, then the two genres are not now and never have been separate genres.
So there's no such thing as SFR.
You can't "mix" genres that are already identical.
If you mix two things that are identical, you end up with more of that one thing.
So SF has "proved itself" by having moved the boundaries of reality for many people now living. So they accept this new reality of iPhones and thus most SF no longer seems ridiculous or crazy.
But apparently, no such "proof" yet exists for Romance.
Well, look at the state of the Family in the USA (maybe worldwide). Divorce is commonplace, over 50% in some demographics. And a famous couple ostensible happy for 40 years just announced a separation.
"Falling in Love" has led to bitter disappointment for many who married because of a romantic experience.
In their reality, there is no such thing as HEA.
And they've convinced all their friends and family there's no such thing as an HEA.
--------------
Later in that long post, after quoting a long conversation on #scifichat on Twitter about Utopias in Science Fiction, I concluded:
--------------
Look over that discussion substituting "HEA" for Utopia.
As noted in the comments to my blog post on "Why Do "They" Hate Romance?"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-do-they-despise-romance.html
--- the world out there puts the HEA outside of the bounds of the possible. HEA is impossible just like Utopia.
Even the most imaginative SF writers can't encompass the basic concept. How could you expect their readers to approach it?
Worse, it's not just the HEA concept that's outside the bounds of thinkable thoughts -- it's the very idea of thinking outside the bounds of the thinkable that's unthinkable.
Reverse your point of view to looking at the SFR field from the side of the Romance writer, and you'll find exactly the same problem.
The romance writer imagination *Epic Fail* comes in trying to imagine the world WITHOUT the HEA -- and at the same time can't even think of the possibility of a technological advance (an SF postulate) that might challenge or involve the HEA concept.
----------
Also in "Why Do They Despise Romance" I noted the core theme of the Romance genre Love Conquers All causes negative reactions in some readers who prefer other genres.
-------
That theme is Love Conquers All
You can't change that theme and still have a Romance genre Work.
But the theme is the source of the problem.
"Slushiness" comes from Love not having a very hard time conquering All -- the two get together, and they just fall all over each other despite themselves, and then talk about their feelings as if nothing else in the world matters, their inattentiveness generating no consequences of note.
"Plot Cliche" comes from the genre requirement that the PLOT is the sequence of events leading Boy to Girl, and thus the only possible main conflict in a Romance is "Love vs. X" where X is whatever is keeping them apart.
So the THEME is what the major portion of the potential audience objects to, but you can't change it and still have a Romance.
So what do you do? How can you possibly popularize Romance to Big Screen proportion audiences?
Marion Zimmer Bradley taught me the solution.
The solution is to challenge the theme, doubt the thematic statement.
------------
And after that - (yes, I write long posts)
-------------
Most themes that work for fiction are, for most reader/viewers, unconscious assumptions about life. They are unexamined, taken for granted, "truths" about normal reality.
GREAT FICTION EXAMINES THE UNCONSCIOUS ASSUMPTIONS OF THE AUDIENCE
The Comedy forms have always been the thin edge of the wedge into commercialization of one of those challenges to the unconscious assumptions of a culture. The romcom, stradling the line between romance and comedy has powerful dramatic potential.
Marion Zimmer Bradley taught me (most especially while I was writing UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER) to use the plot, the characters, the story, and the worldbuilding (most especially the worldbuilding) to DISPROVE THE THEME and thus examine those unconscious assumptions of my readership -- the adolescent male SF reader the publishers market my adult-female fiction to.
Illustrate, she taught me - show don't tell - the opposite of what you are trying to say.
In this case, "LOVE CONQUERS ALL" becomes "LOVE CAN NOT CONQUER ALL." That would knock it out of the genre, so keep working.
------------End quoting myself---------
And I'm going to leave off there this week to give you time to reread those posts and really think about Love. Yes, THINK about an emotion, intellectualize your gut feelings. It's no way to live, but it's good exercise.
Next week we'll look at the Soul and the Creator of Souls.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Showing posts with label Heather Massey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Heather Massey. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Big Love Sci-Fi Part I - Sex Without Borders
I'd been thinking about the relationship between Sex and Romance for a couple of weeks before Heather Massey invited me to participate in "Parallel Universe 2011."
-----HEATHER MASSEY-------
Greetings from The Galaxy Express! Once again, it’s time for Parallel Universe, and I would love to have you aboard for my biggest science fiction romance event of the summer.
Parallel Universe 2011 will be the virtual SFR gathering for those unable to attend the Romance Writers of America’s 31th Annual National Conference. From Monday, June 28 until Saturday, July 2, The Galaxy Express will feature a series of guest posts from a variety of authors. Therefore, I’m inviting you to submit a post for it.
The theme of this year’s Parallel Universe is the craft of writing science fiction romance.
-------END QUOTE----------
So I wrote her a "short" entry titled
What's Wrong With So Much Pounding Sex?
Galaxy Express URL is
http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/ for the top of the site.
The Parallel Universe posting begins June 28, with a post in the morning and another one in the afternoon. At this writing I'm not sure when my post will go up, but you'll probably want to read whatever's up there.
And Heather wrote back something very interesting.
------- HEATHER MASSEY QUOTE ---
Your second to last paragraph reminded me of something I read in the latest Entertainment Weekly. A writer there reviewed Mieville's Embassytown and described it as "Big Idea Sci-Fi." That made me wonder what SFR was--"Big Love Sci-Fi"?
------ END QUOTE -----------
Yes, Heather admits she was a fan of the HBO series "Big Love."
Hence the title of this series on the way SFR and PNR currently handles graphic sex, how it was handled, maybe how it will be handled in the future -- and how all that very abstract philosophical ruminating relates directly to the writing craft techniques Heather's Parallel Universe postings highlight.
SIDEBAR: Watch your world for odd "coincidences" because they might not be all so random. For more on how random chance might not be random see my series on Tarot (hopefully soon to be released as e-books)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html is an index to my posts on Tarot.
As I'm sure someone on the Galaxy Express Parallel Universe series will point out, random coincidence has a place in novel plotting but it's very difficult to use properly. We'll have to study that in depth at some point, but meanwhile check out this neat calculator that makes a "cloud" of author's names. When you put "Jacqueline Lichtenberg" at the center, Mieville shows up on the right periphery! Or at least he did while I was writing this post.
http://www.literature-map.com/jacqueline+lichtenberg.html
END SIDEBAR
Most Romance readers, historically, don't read backlist, or at least they haven't until recently.
Here is a review of one of my novels, Dushau, on the Galaxy Express, by a reader who is finding treasures in backlist e-Books:
http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2011/04/on-jacqueline-lichtenbergs-dushau-by.html
I found the comments to that post especially interesting.
The publishing industry still believes modern readers of current novels won't read older novels.
Romance and Science Fiction/Fantasy genre publishers put a book out on the shelves for a couple of weeks and then trash it or abandon it. Stores don't restock these titles unless they're published at the "top of the list" (i.e. that in the publisher's catalog, that book is listed first, then stores stock it, and if it sells, they reorder. If it's not listed as the #1 title of the month, it does not get restocked when the 3 or 5 copies on the shelf sell. )
Amazon has changed that. Titles stay available sometimes for a couple of years or much more. But still I've found recently published Romance titles simply unavailable at Amazon after a few years.
So when a publisher is no longer "supporting" a title, the frustrated author and especially her fans, have no way to get the book.
In the science fiction venue, used books sell and resell, and there's a huge collector's market.
So Romance and other genre writers who have some best selling titles, and a list of awards to their names, started retrieving the rights to old titles and re-issuing them in e-book on Kindle, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, etc etc.
Right on the heels of this several groups of writers got together on Facebook and Yahoo Groups and began communicating.
Out of that, Backlist e-Books was founded as a group of mass market and hardcover writers with backlist books they are posting and promoting themselves.
See the list of writers who are doing their own backlist titles here
http://backlistebooks.com/
I've pointed you to this Group here previously, and I'm tracking the significance of this trend as it develops.
"Backlist" means titles that have either gone out of print or been remaindered and forgotten. They aren't available from publisher's warehouses anymore, so stores and online outlets don't stock them. Used book dealers and E-bay might, or might not.
Now these books are at your fingertips on Kindle and so on, and they are very reasonably priced, too.
And a whole new world is emerging, driven by "marketing."
Reading these old titles is often (if the writer didn't update the text when re-issuing their own book) like watching old movies.
It's a glimpse into how the world worked before cell phones, texting, the web, social networking.
The change in how we live is significant, and so reading such titles is extremely educational. It's especially illuminating for younger people because the entire social attitude toward sexuality has changed.
There is a stark if not sharp dividing line in how sexuality is presented in Romance.
In one decade, the sex scenes (if there were any at all) were all handled in "go to black."
"Go to black" is the camera direction in screenwriting for inserting a black screen -- i.e. you know it's happening, but you don't see it.
In Romance genre, very often THE END was the point where they first kiss, and that kiss is chaste and tentative by today's standards.
Physical sexuality was implied, but you didn't see it. If you didn't know, nobody was going to instruct you in print or on screen.
These two fiction delivery channels have developed in parallel.
We see bloody violence on screen that would never have been accepted by audiences before a certain decade.
It's not that bloody violence or graphic sex wasn't "permitted," but that it wouldn't sell because people didn't want it. Nobody ever thought to prohibit such depictions in "art" because there was no market for it, at least not a mass market.
If they did want it, they went to side-venues, not major theaters or printed novels. (yeah, porn shops but such things were not spoken of in polite company)
As pornography pushed into larger markets, more obvious public places, a public out-cry caused laws to be made trying to get that trash out of view of the children. Times Square used to be a place where you'd take the kids and let them roam around by themselves -- nobody had to chase the porn shops away because there weren't any. The generation in charge of things didn't want private things shown in public. That generation died off, and things changed.
What would have been considered porn in those days is now available on WalMart's book shelves and video section.
"Sex sells" was the touchstone of publishing, theater, and film even in the 1940's. 1930's - well, forever actually.
It isn't that sexuality wasn't there in early Romance novels. Readers of those novels got just as much of a charge out of reading without explicit sex scenes as you do with them.
But society as a whole kept a border line between what we do and say in public and what we do and say in private. And privacy was private, not spoken of or depicted in public.
Today the entire concept of "privacy" is melting away, if it's not gone completely. Today women wearing dresses instead of tight pants must subject themselves to a stranger's hands sliding over private parts just for the privilege of traveling to see a grandchild. There was a time when anyone suggesting such a thing would have been lynched.
I'm not taking a political position here, but pointing out a cultural shift in BORDER, or perhaps a melting of the concept "border" between private and public.
Today candidates must "disclose" private financial information. Simply maintaining an "identity" to do business, online or offline, you must disclose information about yourself that was once considered inside the borders of privacy. Just filling out an application for a job requires disclosure of very private information and you have no idea whose eyes will see it.
Our current culture is speeding toward a situation where there is no such thing as "private" -- and government considers anything you want to keep private as something you are keeping secret from those who have authority over you in order to protect others from you.
Running parallel to these developments in our general society, there has been the trend toward ever more explicit sex scenes in Romance, Paranormal Romance (PNR) or Fantasy Romance, and even Science Fiction Romance and Science Fiction itself.
Today a typical PNR starts with a sex scene, usually violent and erotic.
Don't consider whether this is "good" or "bad" or a sign of moral corruption or anything like that. You'll just get too angry to think about what this all means, and you won't get to learn the writing technique involved here.
You might want to spend some time thinking about whether the art leads society or follows it. Or both.
But do think about how the art in the mass market genre fields reflects society as a whole.
You as a writer can't change this Romance market back by writing Romances that have no sex scenes. Publishers won't buy them, and if you self-publish them, you won't sell very many.
There's a thriving (and growing) side-market in Christian Romance that is much more chaste. You might sell some there, but if you're not writing with the specific faith angle, that venue won't publish your novel.
There are a number of (very good) Erotic Romance publishers online doing mostly e-book editions -- and that extreme erotica market is growing fast, too.
Those are the two ends of this Romance-spectrum market, but most readers are found in the middle.
The "Big Love" Romance, PNR or SFR, novel that will get the kinds of celebratory reviews that Mieville's Embassytown is garnering has to appeal to that central audience. So it has to depict the world the reader perceives around her/himself -- a world where there's no PRIVACY BORDER anymore, a world where the moment you meet someone who turns you on, you have sex with them.
There's a much-cited rule of thumb that defines where a girl stands with her self-esteem -- "No sex until the third date."
It's a little like "I don't drink until after 5PM."
Such rules beg to be broken in fiction, of course. And they lead to this whole controversy over what exactly constitutes a date, what counts as something that gets you closer to being allowed to have sex without loss of self-esteem?
The question of how much of your privacy you give up to a stranger leads to the questions what constitutes a stranger, and how do you define privacy?
Think about that. Is there anything left that our society acknowledges is PRIVATE? And is it on the chopping block?
Why do you think teenagers get into such trouble on Facebook?
Where are the borders in our world now?
The social borders are a writer's main source material for conflict, which is the essence of story.
There's a lot more to be said on the topic of BIG LOVE SCI-FI, exploring the sacred and the profane, the body and soul, the heart and mind, the normal and the paranormal, the private and the secret.
It's all about the mystery of life which is the substance of art.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
-----HEATHER MASSEY-------
Greetings from The Galaxy Express! Once again, it’s time for Parallel Universe, and I would love to have you aboard for my biggest science fiction romance event of the summer.
Parallel Universe 2011 will be the virtual SFR gathering for those unable to attend the Romance Writers of America’s 31th Annual National Conference. From Monday, June 28 until Saturday, July 2, The Galaxy Express will feature a series of guest posts from a variety of authors. Therefore, I’m inviting you to submit a post for it.
The theme of this year’s Parallel Universe is the craft of writing science fiction romance.
-------END QUOTE----------
So I wrote her a "short" entry titled
What's Wrong With So Much Pounding Sex?
Galaxy Express URL is
http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/ for the top of the site.
The Parallel Universe posting begins June 28, with a post in the morning and another one in the afternoon. At this writing I'm not sure when my post will go up, but you'll probably want to read whatever's up there.
And Heather wrote back something very interesting.
------- HEATHER MASSEY QUOTE ---
Your second to last paragraph reminded me of something I read in the latest Entertainment Weekly. A writer there reviewed Mieville's Embassytown and described it as "Big Idea Sci-Fi." That made me wonder what SFR was--"Big Love Sci-Fi"?
------ END QUOTE -----------
Yes, Heather admits she was a fan of the HBO series "Big Love."
Hence the title of this series on the way SFR and PNR currently handles graphic sex, how it was handled, maybe how it will be handled in the future -- and how all that very abstract philosophical ruminating relates directly to the writing craft techniques Heather's Parallel Universe postings highlight.
SIDEBAR: Watch your world for odd "coincidences" because they might not be all so random. For more on how random chance might not be random see my series on Tarot (hopefully soon to be released as e-books)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html is an index to my posts on Tarot.
As I'm sure someone on the Galaxy Express Parallel Universe series will point out, random coincidence has a place in novel plotting but it's very difficult to use properly. We'll have to study that in depth at some point, but meanwhile check out this neat calculator that makes a "cloud" of author's names. When you put "Jacqueline Lichtenberg" at the center, Mieville shows up on the right periphery! Or at least he did while I was writing this post.
http://www.literature-map.com/jacqueline+lichtenberg.html
END SIDEBAR
Most Romance readers, historically, don't read backlist, or at least they haven't until recently.
Here is a review of one of my novels, Dushau, on the Galaxy Express, by a reader who is finding treasures in backlist e-Books:
http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2011/04/on-jacqueline-lichtenbergs-dushau-by.html
I found the comments to that post especially interesting.
The publishing industry still believes modern readers of current novels won't read older novels.
Romance and Science Fiction/Fantasy genre publishers put a book out on the shelves for a couple of weeks and then trash it or abandon it. Stores don't restock these titles unless they're published at the "top of the list" (i.e. that in the publisher's catalog, that book is listed first, then stores stock it, and if it sells, they reorder. If it's not listed as the #1 title of the month, it does not get restocked when the 3 or 5 copies on the shelf sell. )
Amazon has changed that. Titles stay available sometimes for a couple of years or much more. But still I've found recently published Romance titles simply unavailable at Amazon after a few years.
So when a publisher is no longer "supporting" a title, the frustrated author and especially her fans, have no way to get the book.
In the science fiction venue, used books sell and resell, and there's a huge collector's market.
So Romance and other genre writers who have some best selling titles, and a list of awards to their names, started retrieving the rights to old titles and re-issuing them in e-book on Kindle, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, etc etc.
Right on the heels of this several groups of writers got together on Facebook and Yahoo Groups and began communicating.
Out of that, Backlist e-Books was founded as a group of mass market and hardcover writers with backlist books they are posting and promoting themselves.
See the list of writers who are doing their own backlist titles here
http://backlistebooks.com/
I've pointed you to this Group here previously, and I'm tracking the significance of this trend as it develops.
"Backlist" means titles that have either gone out of print or been remaindered and forgotten. They aren't available from publisher's warehouses anymore, so stores and online outlets don't stock them. Used book dealers and E-bay might, or might not.
Now these books are at your fingertips on Kindle and so on, and they are very reasonably priced, too.
And a whole new world is emerging, driven by "marketing."
Reading these old titles is often (if the writer didn't update the text when re-issuing their own book) like watching old movies.
It's a glimpse into how the world worked before cell phones, texting, the web, social networking.
The change in how we live is significant, and so reading such titles is extremely educational. It's especially illuminating for younger people because the entire social attitude toward sexuality has changed.
There is a stark if not sharp dividing line in how sexuality is presented in Romance.
In one decade, the sex scenes (if there were any at all) were all handled in "go to black."
"Go to black" is the camera direction in screenwriting for inserting a black screen -- i.e. you know it's happening, but you don't see it.
In Romance genre, very often THE END was the point where they first kiss, and that kiss is chaste and tentative by today's standards.
Physical sexuality was implied, but you didn't see it. If you didn't know, nobody was going to instruct you in print or on screen.
These two fiction delivery channels have developed in parallel.
We see bloody violence on screen that would never have been accepted by audiences before a certain decade.
It's not that bloody violence or graphic sex wasn't "permitted," but that it wouldn't sell because people didn't want it. Nobody ever thought to prohibit such depictions in "art" because there was no market for it, at least not a mass market.
If they did want it, they went to side-venues, not major theaters or printed novels. (yeah, porn shops but such things were not spoken of in polite company)
As pornography pushed into larger markets, more obvious public places, a public out-cry caused laws to be made trying to get that trash out of view of the children. Times Square used to be a place where you'd take the kids and let them roam around by themselves -- nobody had to chase the porn shops away because there weren't any. The generation in charge of things didn't want private things shown in public. That generation died off, and things changed.
What would have been considered porn in those days is now available on WalMart's book shelves and video section.
"Sex sells" was the touchstone of publishing, theater, and film even in the 1940's. 1930's - well, forever actually.
It isn't that sexuality wasn't there in early Romance novels. Readers of those novels got just as much of a charge out of reading without explicit sex scenes as you do with them.
But society as a whole kept a border line between what we do and say in public and what we do and say in private. And privacy was private, not spoken of or depicted in public.
Today the entire concept of "privacy" is melting away, if it's not gone completely. Today women wearing dresses instead of tight pants must subject themselves to a stranger's hands sliding over private parts just for the privilege of traveling to see a grandchild. There was a time when anyone suggesting such a thing would have been lynched.
I'm not taking a political position here, but pointing out a cultural shift in BORDER, or perhaps a melting of the concept "border" between private and public.
Today candidates must "disclose" private financial information. Simply maintaining an "identity" to do business, online or offline, you must disclose information about yourself that was once considered inside the borders of privacy. Just filling out an application for a job requires disclosure of very private information and you have no idea whose eyes will see it.
Our current culture is speeding toward a situation where there is no such thing as "private" -- and government considers anything you want to keep private as something you are keeping secret from those who have authority over you in order to protect others from you.
Running parallel to these developments in our general society, there has been the trend toward ever more explicit sex scenes in Romance, Paranormal Romance (PNR) or Fantasy Romance, and even Science Fiction Romance and Science Fiction itself.
Today a typical PNR starts with a sex scene, usually violent and erotic.
Don't consider whether this is "good" or "bad" or a sign of moral corruption or anything like that. You'll just get too angry to think about what this all means, and you won't get to learn the writing technique involved here.
You might want to spend some time thinking about whether the art leads society or follows it. Or both.
But do think about how the art in the mass market genre fields reflects society as a whole.
You as a writer can't change this Romance market back by writing Romances that have no sex scenes. Publishers won't buy them, and if you self-publish them, you won't sell very many.
There's a thriving (and growing) side-market in Christian Romance that is much more chaste. You might sell some there, but if you're not writing with the specific faith angle, that venue won't publish your novel.
There are a number of (very good) Erotic Romance publishers online doing mostly e-book editions -- and that extreme erotica market is growing fast, too.
Those are the two ends of this Romance-spectrum market, but most readers are found in the middle.
The "Big Love" Romance, PNR or SFR, novel that will get the kinds of celebratory reviews that Mieville's Embassytown is garnering has to appeal to that central audience. So it has to depict the world the reader perceives around her/himself -- a world where there's no PRIVACY BORDER anymore, a world where the moment you meet someone who turns you on, you have sex with them.
There's a much-cited rule of thumb that defines where a girl stands with her self-esteem -- "No sex until the third date."
It's a little like "I don't drink until after 5PM."
Such rules beg to be broken in fiction, of course. And they lead to this whole controversy over what exactly constitutes a date, what counts as something that gets you closer to being allowed to have sex without loss of self-esteem?
The question of how much of your privacy you give up to a stranger leads to the questions what constitutes a stranger, and how do you define privacy?
Think about that. Is there anything left that our society acknowledges is PRIVATE? And is it on the chopping block?
Why do you think teenagers get into such trouble on Facebook?
Where are the borders in our world now?
The social borders are a writer's main source material for conflict, which is the essence of story.
There's a lot more to be said on the topic of BIG LOVE SCI-FI, exploring the sacred and the profane, the body and soul, the heart and mind, the normal and the paranormal, the private and the secret.
It's all about the mystery of life which is the substance of art.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Do Your Lovers Live The HEA
I'm blatantly borrowing John Rosenman's excellent blog post title, "Do Your Lovers Live The HEA?"
You all know, if you've read my novels, that my answer is yes, but it's not so easy as all that.
Heather Massey at The Galaxy Express, on July 6 reviewed John Rosenman's novel Beyond Those Distant Stars http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2010/07/reflections-on-john-b-rosenmans-beyond.html
He gave the discussion another spin in his blog post
http://storytellersunplugged.com/johnrosenman/2010/07/13/do-your-lovers-live-hea/comment-page-1/#comment-323
And then Heather pointed me to his post and I commented, he answered, others commented, Heather is brewing another comment, and I commented back on John's comments -- you gotta read this thing.
Here's his thesis reduced to a sound-byte:
-------Quote John Rosenman--------
My point is that romances need to be less restrictive and more open to possibilities in order to explore more fully the often painful and difficult realities of life. Romances can be complex. They can be literature.
-------End Quote---------
We, at Alien Romance, of course agree that Romance genre not only "can be" but actually is "Literature" upon occasion. Many occasions, in fact. Many more occasions when combined into SFR or PNR.
In the comments on John Rosenman's post, Heather pointed out that I had explained how "the ending" is defined not by the content of the event (resolution of the conflict) but by where in the character's story-arc you stop writing.
Heather quoted me in her comment:
-------Quote---
Jacqueline Lichtenberg said it best, noting that “There’s HEA potential in every other genre, even or especially Horror.” ( http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/beauty-and-beast-constructing-hea.html )
In this post ( http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/07/failure-of-imagination-part-ii-society.html ), Ms. Lichtenberg notes that
“Why does Romance genre absolutely require it? And SF also has an ending-point formula — called “upbeat.”
These are actually identical requirements. It’s all about where you start telling the story, and where (in time) you end it. Life is a sine-wave. It has high points and low points and neutral points but never stops waving. Storytellers just CUT a section out of that sine-wave to structure a plot.
The publisher’s end-point requirement determines the starting point.”
-----End Quote---
There are a couple more points I want to bring to the surface here because we've been discussing the Editing process for the previous 7 posts which relate to this "ending" issue, and why we have defined endings. This series was posted on:
Aug 3, 10, 17, 24, 31, Sept 7 & 14, 2010
The HEA is an editorial requirement when the editor is filling a publishing line with consistent, identical product under the Romance Genre label.
The HEA is not an editorial requirement for lines that do not advertise the "Romance" genre label, but they may have other requirements.
Why is the HEA ever a requirement?
John points out that the fun, enjoyment, and fascination inherent in reading a story that pivots on a Relationship is the uncertainty of how that relationship will be at "The End."
To generate that uncertainty, some novels must end differently than the HEA.
Otherwise, you have something like a TV Series episode where you know the main characters won't get killed. So the threat to their lives is not piercingly immanent to the viewer.
John points out that the HEA itself is not unbelievable, but in reality it doesn't always happen. It does happen sometimes, so it's plausible in fiction but should not be inevitable because if it's inevitable, there's no suspense, and thus no ultimate payoff. His underlying thesis seems to be that inevitability itself is unrealistic enough to destroy reader enjoyment, and an inevitable HEA is worse than other sorts of inevitabilities.
And I think that's the core of the issue. Inevitability. Realism.
We are attracted to fiction that discusses "life the universe and everything" in terms of a philosophy (theme) that we either have internalized or wish we had internalized.
Fiction reading either reinforces our assumptions about the world, or holds forth an ideal that we want to assume and shows us how it is possible the ideal could really be true.
Good fiction does both while at the same time calling both assumptions and ideals into question. That's called "depth" and you usually find it in "Literature."
You seldom find it in films because of the nature of the visual medium. But the classics, the films that last for generations and still speak intriguingly of our dearly held ideas, do reveal "depth" on re-viewing. That kind of screenwriting is very difficult. I think it happens very much by "accident."
See my blog post on what you can do in a novel that you can't do in a film:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html
I have been contending that the essence of the Romance Genre - the essence that we extract and combine with the essence of the SF Genre or Fantasy Genre (or both) - actually is the essence of "Literature" in its highest form.
See:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/mutants-as-aliens.html
where I discussed how
Romance Genre embodies two core principles:
a) Love Conquers All
b) The Soul Is Real
The HEA is a "requirement" because HEA is what results once Love has Conquered All. If all is conquered by love, there's nothing left that can sunder the couple, not even death.
If the HEA is not the "ending" of the novel, the theme that distinguishes Romance from all other art forms is not present in the novel and it is therefore not a genre romance novel.
Love Conquers All might be a sub-theme, but it would be there to be disproved so that a larger theme "life is nothing but misery" -or- "happiness comes in bright sparks that fade quickly" -- can be fully presented.
Here's one of many of my discussions of the uses of theme in novel structure:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html
Those readers looking for reinforcement of their belief that Love Conquers All and/or The Soul Is Real, and those looking to indulge in a few hours of hope that these things are true, will be bitterly disappointed by an ending that is not an HEA -- and they will want their money back.
You can work with either core premise of Romance in a non-romance. You can construct a non-Romance genre novel to culminate in an HEA and that will not make the novel a Romance.
As I said in the comments discussion to:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/07/toystory-3-analyzed-for-beats.html
Romance Genre is distinguished by specific choices for the elements that a novelist can fill in with a number of different choices when writing other genres.
Those choices for a Romance are:
A)In a Romance the Relationships IS the plot, and all else is commentary on that relationship.
B)The conflict is the Relationship, what creates the attraction and what blocks the attraction.
C)The story is all about how each person is changed by the need for the Relationship.
D)The beginning is where the couple first become conscious of each other.
E)The ending is where the Relationship roadblocks are removed and it's full speed ahead into a Happily Ever After life for the couple.
Any given reader may, at whim, prefer to sink into a novel where they know what the rhythm and theme will be - a Mystery, Western, Action, Intrigue, Suspense, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Adventure, any genre. At other times, they may want "general fiction" -- which also has a very strict, set formula.
See my post on the reasons why we have such a thing as genre fiction.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/genre-root-of-all-evil.html
The Romance genre, and all its hyrbids -- SFR, PNR, Action Romance, whatever criss-crossed mixture -- if the "R" comes last in the nickname, it means the plot-structure follows the 5 elements I listed above.
Sometimes we read fiction for a realistic view of our real world. We want contemporary maybe urban settings like where we live with people who are up against the same problems we are (TV sets as babysitters, cell phones always on, carpooling nightmares), and sometimes we want to get away to impossible places with other problems.
If you go for the kind of Romance where not only does love conquer all, but also The Soul Is Real (where lovers find their Soul Mate and there's something spiritual, transcendent, bigger than "reality" that enters their lives because of that mating) then you are in the set of Themes where the HEA is not only inevitable but also realistic.
If you combine both Love Conquers All and The Soul Is Real, you walk into a world where there is no other possible ending than the HEA.
The story isn't over until the Soul Mates have ignited Love so bright that it illuminates and dissipates all darkness - and the world is revealed to be truthfully what it seems to be under the blurring veil of "falling in love."
The illusion of perfection is torn aside to reveal the truth that perfection already exists - and continuous, solid, strong, pervasive happiness is the stable foundation of life, not a wish-fulfillment fantasy.
It's not that the couple will face no further challenges, but that those challenges will only strengthen their love and their ability to make life better for all those around them.
This is the thematic statement about the true nature of reality that the Romance Genre focuses on.
The story can only end where the couple (and the reader) understand the inevitability and realistic condition of life, the HEA.
If the writer quits writing before that point, the reader feels as if she has read a story-fragment, three chapters without the outline! It's incomplete because happiness is the goal and it has not been achieved.
Achieving that goal of steady-state happiness though, isn't easy. It isn't realistic enough even for a Fantasy if the goal is achieved easily.
If the Soul Is Real - then all sorts of PNR genre stories are possible where soul mates try and fail and die and are reborn and try and fail and die and are reborn and grow painfully until they finally succeed. That can take lifetimes and a whole series of novels strewn across all of human history and possibly to the stars and beyond.
When the Immortal Soul is involved, the story possibilities for Romance Genre then truly do verge on the immense vistas that John sketched in his blog post.
From John's description of the kinds of stories he likes to write, I deduced that what he (and many others who feel as he does about the HEA) is writing is the "backstory" of a Romance, the "try and fail" lifetimes before the Soul Mates can achieve the HEA. He seems to be writing the growing pains of Souls.
For some readers "The Soul Is Real" is a fantasy premise. For others it's a pragmatic fact of everyday life. In either case, the novels produced by combining that premise with Love Conquers All have the potential of reaching the kinds of audiences that Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet has been proven to reach.
In my comments on the TOYSTORY 3 post linked above, I raised one question we should address at some point.
---quote of myself----
Westerns reached a level of respect during the years they dominated TV. Why shouldn't SFR (science-fiction-romance blended) reach the same level of popularity?
How would that change the world? Would that change be for the better? Is it the writer's responsibility or role to effectuate such change, or do we wait with folded hands for others to decide?
----end quote of myself----
Why is the inevitable HEA such an imperative element in defining "Romance Genre?"
Why do so many people feel the HEA is not realistic? Why do they feel that pain, parting, sorrow, frustration and loneliness are the hallmarks of a realistic fantasy that draw readers in to a built world?
And then turn the question around and look at it this way:
Why does John think the Romance Genre should relax it's stricture about the HEA being necessary?
Consider other possible ways to solve the (very real and important) problem his post points out.
He looks at Romance Genre and says it should change its formula and that would solve the problem of dull boring books with a predictable ending.
But maybe there's another (better????) solution.
Maybe people should change?
Maybe people should change their ideas about what reality really is?
Well, if that's the solution, then what ideas should be changed from what to what? And how?
Oh, this is one huge topic, the HEA!
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
facebook.com/jacqueline.lichtenberg
twitter.com/jlichtenberg
You all know, if you've read my novels, that my answer is yes, but it's not so easy as all that.
Heather Massey at The Galaxy Express, on July 6 reviewed John Rosenman's novel Beyond Those Distant Stars http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2010/07/reflections-on-john-b-rosenmans-beyond.html
He gave the discussion another spin in his blog post
http://storytellersunplugged.com/johnrosenman/2010/07/13/do-your-lovers-live-hea/comment-page-1/#comment-323
And then Heather pointed me to his post and I commented, he answered, others commented, Heather is brewing another comment, and I commented back on John's comments -- you gotta read this thing.
Here's his thesis reduced to a sound-byte:
-------Quote John Rosenman--------
My point is that romances need to be less restrictive and more open to possibilities in order to explore more fully the often painful and difficult realities of life. Romances can be complex. They can be literature.
-------End Quote---------
We, at Alien Romance, of course agree that Romance genre not only "can be" but actually is "Literature" upon occasion. Many occasions, in fact. Many more occasions when combined into SFR or PNR.
In the comments on John Rosenman's post, Heather pointed out that I had explained how "the ending" is defined not by the content of the event (resolution of the conflict) but by where in the character's story-arc you stop writing.
Heather quoted me in her comment:
-------Quote---
Jacqueline Lichtenberg said it best, noting that “There’s HEA potential in every other genre, even or especially Horror.” ( http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/beauty-and-beast-constructing-hea.html )
In this post ( http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/07/failure-of-imagination-part-ii-society.html ), Ms. Lichtenberg notes that
“Why does Romance genre absolutely require it? And SF also has an ending-point formula — called “upbeat.”
These are actually identical requirements. It’s all about where you start telling the story, and where (in time) you end it. Life is a sine-wave. It has high points and low points and neutral points but never stops waving. Storytellers just CUT a section out of that sine-wave to structure a plot.
The publisher’s end-point requirement determines the starting point.”
-----End Quote---
There are a couple more points I want to bring to the surface here because we've been discussing the Editing process for the previous 7 posts which relate to this "ending" issue, and why we have defined endings. This series was posted on:
Aug 3, 10, 17, 24, 31, Sept 7 & 14, 2010
The HEA is an editorial requirement when the editor is filling a publishing line with consistent, identical product under the Romance Genre label.
The HEA is not an editorial requirement for lines that do not advertise the "Romance" genre label, but they may have other requirements.
Why is the HEA ever a requirement?
John points out that the fun, enjoyment, and fascination inherent in reading a story that pivots on a Relationship is the uncertainty of how that relationship will be at "The End."
To generate that uncertainty, some novels must end differently than the HEA.
Otherwise, you have something like a TV Series episode where you know the main characters won't get killed. So the threat to their lives is not piercingly immanent to the viewer.
John points out that the HEA itself is not unbelievable, but in reality it doesn't always happen. It does happen sometimes, so it's plausible in fiction but should not be inevitable because if it's inevitable, there's no suspense, and thus no ultimate payoff. His underlying thesis seems to be that inevitability itself is unrealistic enough to destroy reader enjoyment, and an inevitable HEA is worse than other sorts of inevitabilities.
And I think that's the core of the issue. Inevitability. Realism.
We are attracted to fiction that discusses "life the universe and everything" in terms of a philosophy (theme) that we either have internalized or wish we had internalized.
Fiction reading either reinforces our assumptions about the world, or holds forth an ideal that we want to assume and shows us how it is possible the ideal could really be true.
Good fiction does both while at the same time calling both assumptions and ideals into question. That's called "depth" and you usually find it in "Literature."
You seldom find it in films because of the nature of the visual medium. But the classics, the films that last for generations and still speak intriguingly of our dearly held ideas, do reveal "depth" on re-viewing. That kind of screenwriting is very difficult. I think it happens very much by "accident."
See my blog post on what you can do in a novel that you can't do in a film:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html
I have been contending that the essence of the Romance Genre - the essence that we extract and combine with the essence of the SF Genre or Fantasy Genre (or both) - actually is the essence of "Literature" in its highest form.
See:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/mutants-as-aliens.html
where I discussed how
Romance Genre embodies two core principles:
a) Love Conquers All
b) The Soul Is Real
The HEA is a "requirement" because HEA is what results once Love has Conquered All. If all is conquered by love, there's nothing left that can sunder the couple, not even death.
If the HEA is not the "ending" of the novel, the theme that distinguishes Romance from all other art forms is not present in the novel and it is therefore not a genre romance novel.
Love Conquers All might be a sub-theme, but it would be there to be disproved so that a larger theme "life is nothing but misery" -or- "happiness comes in bright sparks that fade quickly" -- can be fully presented.
Here's one of many of my discussions of the uses of theme in novel structure:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html
Those readers looking for reinforcement of their belief that Love Conquers All and/or The Soul Is Real, and those looking to indulge in a few hours of hope that these things are true, will be bitterly disappointed by an ending that is not an HEA -- and they will want their money back.
You can work with either core premise of Romance in a non-romance. You can construct a non-Romance genre novel to culminate in an HEA and that will not make the novel a Romance.
As I said in the comments discussion to:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/07/toystory-3-analyzed-for-beats.html
Romance Genre is distinguished by specific choices for the elements that a novelist can fill in with a number of different choices when writing other genres.
Those choices for a Romance are:
A)In a Romance the Relationships IS the plot, and all else is commentary on that relationship.
B)The conflict is the Relationship, what creates the attraction and what blocks the attraction.
C)The story is all about how each person is changed by the need for the Relationship.
D)The beginning is where the couple first become conscious of each other.
E)The ending is where the Relationship roadblocks are removed and it's full speed ahead into a Happily Ever After life for the couple.
Any given reader may, at whim, prefer to sink into a novel where they know what the rhythm and theme will be - a Mystery, Western, Action, Intrigue, Suspense, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Adventure, any genre. At other times, they may want "general fiction" -- which also has a very strict, set formula.
See my post on the reasons why we have such a thing as genre fiction.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/genre-root-of-all-evil.html
The Romance genre, and all its hyrbids -- SFR, PNR, Action Romance, whatever criss-crossed mixture -- if the "R" comes last in the nickname, it means the plot-structure follows the 5 elements I listed above.
Sometimes we read fiction for a realistic view of our real world. We want contemporary maybe urban settings like where we live with people who are up against the same problems we are (TV sets as babysitters, cell phones always on, carpooling nightmares), and sometimes we want to get away to impossible places with other problems.
If you go for the kind of Romance where not only does love conquer all, but also The Soul Is Real (where lovers find their Soul Mate and there's something spiritual, transcendent, bigger than "reality" that enters their lives because of that mating) then you are in the set of Themes where the HEA is not only inevitable but also realistic.
If you combine both Love Conquers All and The Soul Is Real, you walk into a world where there is no other possible ending than the HEA.
The story isn't over until the Soul Mates have ignited Love so bright that it illuminates and dissipates all darkness - and the world is revealed to be truthfully what it seems to be under the blurring veil of "falling in love."
The illusion of perfection is torn aside to reveal the truth that perfection already exists - and continuous, solid, strong, pervasive happiness is the stable foundation of life, not a wish-fulfillment fantasy.
It's not that the couple will face no further challenges, but that those challenges will only strengthen their love and their ability to make life better for all those around them.
This is the thematic statement about the true nature of reality that the Romance Genre focuses on.
The story can only end where the couple (and the reader) understand the inevitability and realistic condition of life, the HEA.
If the writer quits writing before that point, the reader feels as if she has read a story-fragment, three chapters without the outline! It's incomplete because happiness is the goal and it has not been achieved.
Achieving that goal of steady-state happiness though, isn't easy. It isn't realistic enough even for a Fantasy if the goal is achieved easily.
If the Soul Is Real - then all sorts of PNR genre stories are possible where soul mates try and fail and die and are reborn and try and fail and die and are reborn and grow painfully until they finally succeed. That can take lifetimes and a whole series of novels strewn across all of human history and possibly to the stars and beyond.
When the Immortal Soul is involved, the story possibilities for Romance Genre then truly do verge on the immense vistas that John sketched in his blog post.
From John's description of the kinds of stories he likes to write, I deduced that what he (and many others who feel as he does about the HEA) is writing is the "backstory" of a Romance, the "try and fail" lifetimes before the Soul Mates can achieve the HEA. He seems to be writing the growing pains of Souls.
For some readers "The Soul Is Real" is a fantasy premise. For others it's a pragmatic fact of everyday life. In either case, the novels produced by combining that premise with Love Conquers All have the potential of reaching the kinds of audiences that Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet has been proven to reach.
In my comments on the TOYSTORY 3 post linked above, I raised one question we should address at some point.
---quote of myself----
Westerns reached a level of respect during the years they dominated TV. Why shouldn't SFR (science-fiction-romance blended) reach the same level of popularity?
How would that change the world? Would that change be for the better? Is it the writer's responsibility or role to effectuate such change, or do we wait with folded hands for others to decide?
----end quote of myself----
Why is the inevitable HEA such an imperative element in defining "Romance Genre?"
Why do so many people feel the HEA is not realistic? Why do they feel that pain, parting, sorrow, frustration and loneliness are the hallmarks of a realistic fantasy that draw readers in to a built world?
And then turn the question around and look at it this way:
Why does John think the Romance Genre should relax it's stricture about the HEA being necessary?
Consider other possible ways to solve the (very real and important) problem his post points out.
He looks at Romance Genre and says it should change its formula and that would solve the problem of dull boring books with a predictable ending.
But maybe there's another (better????) solution.
Maybe people should change?
Maybe people should change their ideas about what reality really is?
Well, if that's the solution, then what ideas should be changed from what to what? And how?
Oh, this is one huge topic, the HEA!
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
facebook.com/jacqueline.lichtenberg
twitter.com/jlichtenberg
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Galaxy Express
For those of you who haven't found this discussion, yet, Heather has got a hot one going on
about science fiction romance.
http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2009/10/does-science-fiction-romance-need-gene.html?showComment=1255723748380#c6797085517666242508
about science fiction romance.
http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2009/10/does-science-fiction-romance-need-gene.html?showComment=1255723748380#c6797085517666242508
Monday, November 03, 2008
Galactic Bachelor Number One
A recent blog by Heather Massey about one of my characters over at the Tor publishing house site (and they’re not even my publisher) not only made me all a-flutter but again made me realize that when I create my characters, I haven’t a clue in a bucket ::ka-ching to Paula L!:: about what works for readers and what doesn’t. Honest, I don’t, and I’m sure if I can get Rowena, Jacqueline, Cindy, Margaret, Susan and the rest of the SFF/SFR authors to chime in here, the general consensus would be that when creating our heroes, we are very much flying by the seat of our intergalactic pants.
It’s not that there aren’t guidelines—there are. There’ve been oodles of things written about what makes fictional characters successful. There are theories and charts about the alpha, beta, gamma and whatsis male protagonist and why those traits do or do not work. There are archetypes; most notably by Tami Cowden, who also breaks down heroes by trait, denoting them at the chief, the charmer, the lost soul, whatever.
The thing is, when you write SFF/SFR, the very genre itself adds a whole ‘nuther layer. And often a whole different slant.
When I created Detective Sergeant Theo Petrakos in The Down Home Zombie Blues, I could easily draw on “collective archetypes” because Theo—unlike my other characters—is from this planet, born in Florida in the good ol’ USA. Readers learned very quickly that Theo was 1) a homicide cop 2) divorced and
3) of Greek heritage. None of those things required great explanation. All are familiar concepts to readers. Readers know—thanks to television shows like The First 48, and less so to some of the CSI shows—what a homicide cop does, what the requirements and duties of the job are. Readers know—likely through personal or family experience—what it means to be divorced and living in the current day. They can guess with fair accuracy the kinds of experiences and emotions Theo’s been faced with because they’re things that the readers see on a daily basis.
Theo’s “one of us.”
Creating Branden Kel-Paten was a horse of a different color. Or in this case, a galactic bachelor of a different mindset.
First, let’s start by saying that yes, of course, there are similarities and commonalities. I’m still writing for an “Earth-based” readership. I have to present my characters—no matter how alien—in terms my readers can understand. And yes, love is love, hate is hate and fear is fear…or is it? When you take your characters out of the realm of the common and known, even those things can change.
Nowhere was this more true than with Gabriel Ross Sullivan, first in Gabriel’s Ghost and then in Shades of Dark (probably more so in Shades as I really put
Sully through the paces in that book.) What Sully and Kel-Paten have in common is that the rejection they’d experienced in their lives had nothing whatsoever to do with something found here on our planet. Now, we can use analogies, and we can understand being rejected because you’re a shape shifting mutant or part cyborg because we have similar prejudices in our lives: we have racial prejudice, we have gender-preference prejudices, we have religious prejudices and more. So while, yes, we can understand the concept of rejection because of prejudice, we have no exact experience with what it’s like to be a Kyi or a bio-cybe. We can guess. We don’t really know.
All an author can do is bring the reader into the character’s world…and hope something resonates.
Which brings me back to the topic of building galactic bachelors.
It’s hard enough (ask any author) creating workable fictional male protagonists in contemporary or historical fiction. And both those genres are based on “the known” of our existence. It’s simply a lot tougher creating those same sexy, brave, attractive, likeable male protagonists in the unknown of SFF/SFR.
In her blog for Tor, Heather Massey states: “And I mustn’t fail to mention that Branden Kel-Paten is a virgin hero. All of that pent-up sexual energy, fueled by a cybernetically enhanced body? That’s hot.”
To be honest, I did not, at any moment, sit down with the intention of writing a virgin hero. I intended to showcase Kel-Paten’s struggle with his emotions (or lack of) but at no point was his experience (or lack of) with women a key factor in creating the character. However, judging not only from Heather’s blog but other blogs, reviews and yes, from fan mail, this whole virgin hero thing is something that floats a lot of readers’ boats. And not just female readers. I’ve a number of nice emails from male readers who appreciated that Kel-Paten could be a hero and inept. (I guess James Bond is a tough role model to live up to.)
Kel-Paten’s virginity grew out of his isolation, and his isolation grew out of the fact that he was a bio-cybe: too much machine to be accepted by humans, too much human to fit in with machines (not that there were others he could fit in with). He was isolated by being the only surviving (that he knows of) cybernetic experiment. He was in some ways like a galactic Pit Bull: his reputation of being lethal preceded him, and molded him and his experiences with others. He learned that being feared was something he could handle because it kept him out of the uncertain territory of being accepted and ultimately rejected.
All this I knew about him as I put him through his paces in scenes, as I let him—pardon the pun—flesh himself out for me.
I had no idea he was going to resonate so strongly with readers (though my agent delights in telling me, “I told you so”)
I have no idea why he resonates so strongly with readers. Yes, I understand the whole angst-thing. I understand we relate to and root for the underdog. But gosh-golly, there are shelves full of underdog heroes and heroines out there. Kel-Paten fans are of a particular die-hard breed.
And I don’t really honestly know why. Why does Kel-Paten engender such a strong response when Theo Petrakos—certainly a worthy hero!—doesn’t? (Not that Theo doesn’t have his fan club. He does. But not to the extent Kel-Paten has.) Rhis in Finders Keepers and Mack in An Accidental Goddess also have their devoted fans. But not like Kel-Paten. The only other hero who runs neck-and-neck with him is Sully.
And both, yes, aren’t strangers to rejection by their worlds and cultures. (Worlds and cultures which, again yes, are unique to SFF/SFR. I don’t know if translating Kel-Paten’s story to, say, current day Alabama or Colorado, and making him, say, a Pagan or a Baptist or a Muslim or a Budhhist in a religiously-intolerant setting would carry the same weight or engender the same reaction from readers.)
But I don’t think it’s solely the rejection factor that makes readers resonate to these characters. If that were it, then all any author need do is create a character who’s faced rejection and she’d have an automatic best-seller.
Not.
So, see, we really don’t know what works with our characters. We have glimmerings. We had ideas. We scan our fan mails for some clues in hopes we can do it again. But we fully recognize that we might not be able to do it again in just that way.
Interestingly, I’m getting some very strong and positive feedback on the
character of Admiral Philip Guthrie in my upcoming Hope’s Folly. I’ve had a number of beta-readers and bloggers who have, in the past, been solidly in Sully’s or Kel-Paten’s camps, tell me Philip has just zoomed up there in contention for the spot of Galactic Bachelor Number One.
“Hero: Admiral Philip Guthrie was totally not what I expected. After reading Gabriel’s Ghost, I thought stodgy was the best description for him. After Shades of Dark, he was a bit more interesting but not hero material to me. But in reading this book he became the "long-lost always-forever dream hero" one always hopes for but very rarely encounters.” (Aimless Ramblings)
“Hope's Folly is simply phenomenal. I absolutely did not want to put the story down. It had action, suspense, mystery, and passion.” (Kathy’s Review Corner)
And Philip is nothing at all like Kel-Paten or Sully. No rejection factor and he’s far from a virgin. But my beta-readers (and my agent and my editor) love him.
Which is why, as I told you at the beginning of this blog, I really have no clue what makes a good character into a great one in a science fiction romance.
~Linnea
HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, coming Feb. 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/
“If we can’t do the impossible, then we need to at least be able to do the unexpected.” —Admiral Philip Guthrie
It’s not that there aren’t guidelines—there are. There’ve been oodles of things written about what makes fictional characters successful. There are theories and charts about the alpha, beta, gamma and whatsis male protagonist and why those traits do or do not work. There are archetypes; most notably by Tami Cowden, who also breaks down heroes by trait, denoting them at the chief, the charmer, the lost soul, whatever.
The thing is, when you write SFF/SFR, the very genre itself adds a whole ‘nuther layer. And often a whole different slant.
When I created Detective Sergeant Theo Petrakos in The Down Home Zombie Blues, I could easily draw on “collective archetypes” because Theo—unlike my other characters—is from this planet, born in Florida in the good ol’ USA. Readers learned very quickly that Theo was 1) a homicide cop 2) divorced and
3) of Greek heritage. None of those things required great explanation. All are familiar concepts to readers. Readers know—thanks to television shows like The First 48, and less so to some of the CSI shows—what a homicide cop does, what the requirements and duties of the job are. Readers know—likely through personal or family experience—what it means to be divorced and living in the current day. They can guess with fair accuracy the kinds of experiences and emotions Theo’s been faced with because they’re things that the readers see on a daily basis.Theo’s “one of us.”
Creating Branden Kel-Paten was a horse of a different color. Or in this case, a galactic bachelor of a different mindset.
First, let’s start by saying that yes, of course, there are similarities and commonalities. I’m still writing for an “Earth-based” readership. I have to present my characters—no matter how alien—in terms my readers can understand. And yes, love is love, hate is hate and fear is fear…or is it? When you take your characters out of the realm of the common and known, even those things can change.
Nowhere was this more true than with Gabriel Ross Sullivan, first in Gabriel’s Ghost and then in Shades of Dark (probably more so in Shades as I really put
Sully through the paces in that book.) What Sully and Kel-Paten have in common is that the rejection they’d experienced in their lives had nothing whatsoever to do with something found here on our planet. Now, we can use analogies, and we can understand being rejected because you’re a shape shifting mutant or part cyborg because we have similar prejudices in our lives: we have racial prejudice, we have gender-preference prejudices, we have religious prejudices and more. So while, yes, we can understand the concept of rejection because of prejudice, we have no exact experience with what it’s like to be a Kyi or a bio-cybe. We can guess. We don’t really know.All an author can do is bring the reader into the character’s world…and hope something resonates.
Which brings me back to the topic of building galactic bachelors.
It’s hard enough (ask any author) creating workable fictional male protagonists in contemporary or historical fiction. And both those genres are based on “the known” of our existence. It’s simply a lot tougher creating those same sexy, brave, attractive, likeable male protagonists in the unknown of SFF/SFR.
In her blog for Tor, Heather Massey states: “And I mustn’t fail to mention that Branden Kel-Paten is a virgin hero. All of that pent-up sexual energy, fueled by a cybernetically enhanced body? That’s hot.”
To be honest, I did not, at any moment, sit down with the intention of writing a virgin hero. I intended to showcase Kel-Paten’s struggle with his emotions (or lack of) but at no point was his experience (or lack of) with women a key factor in creating the character. However, judging not only from Heather’s blog but other blogs, reviews and yes, from fan mail, this whole virgin hero thing is something that floats a lot of readers’ boats. And not just female readers. I’ve a number of nice emails from male readers who appreciated that Kel-Paten could be a hero and inept. (I guess James Bond is a tough role model to live up to.)Kel-Paten’s virginity grew out of his isolation, and his isolation grew out of the fact that he was a bio-cybe: too much machine to be accepted by humans, too much human to fit in with machines (not that there were others he could fit in with). He was isolated by being the only surviving (that he knows of) cybernetic experiment. He was in some ways like a galactic Pit Bull: his reputation of being lethal preceded him, and molded him and his experiences with others. He learned that being feared was something he could handle because it kept him out of the uncertain territory of being accepted and ultimately rejected.
All this I knew about him as I put him through his paces in scenes, as I let him—pardon the pun—flesh himself out for me.
I had no idea he was going to resonate so strongly with readers (though my agent delights in telling me, “I told you so”)
I have no idea why he resonates so strongly with readers. Yes, I understand the whole angst-thing. I understand we relate to and root for the underdog. But gosh-golly, there are shelves full of underdog heroes and heroines out there. Kel-Paten fans are of a particular die-hard breed.
And I don’t really honestly know why. Why does Kel-Paten engender such a strong response when Theo Petrakos—certainly a worthy hero!—doesn’t? (Not that Theo doesn’t have his fan club. He does. But not to the extent Kel-Paten has.) Rhis in Finders Keepers and Mack in An Accidental Goddess also have their devoted fans. But not like Kel-Paten. The only other hero who runs neck-and-neck with him is Sully.
And both, yes, aren’t strangers to rejection by their worlds and cultures. (Worlds and cultures which, again yes, are unique to SFF/SFR. I don’t know if translating Kel-Paten’s story to, say, current day Alabama or Colorado, and making him, say, a Pagan or a Baptist or a Muslim or a Budhhist in a religiously-intolerant setting would carry the same weight or engender the same reaction from readers.)
But I don’t think it’s solely the rejection factor that makes readers resonate to these characters. If that were it, then all any author need do is create a character who’s faced rejection and she’d have an automatic best-seller.
Not.
So, see, we really don’t know what works with our characters. We have glimmerings. We had ideas. We scan our fan mails for some clues in hopes we can do it again. But we fully recognize that we might not be able to do it again in just that way.
Interestingly, I’m getting some very strong and positive feedback on the
character of Admiral Philip Guthrie in my upcoming Hope’s Folly. I’ve had a number of beta-readers and bloggers who have, in the past, been solidly in Sully’s or Kel-Paten’s camps, tell me Philip has just zoomed up there in contention for the spot of Galactic Bachelor Number One.“Hero: Admiral Philip Guthrie was totally not what I expected. After reading Gabriel’s Ghost, I thought stodgy was the best description for him. After Shades of Dark, he was a bit more interesting but not hero material to me. But in reading this book he became the "long-lost always-forever dream hero" one always hopes for but very rarely encounters.” (Aimless Ramblings)
“Hope's Folly is simply phenomenal. I absolutely did not want to put the story down. It had action, suspense, mystery, and passion.” (Kathy’s Review Corner)
And Philip is nothing at all like Kel-Paten or Sully. No rejection factor and he’s far from a virgin. But my beta-readers (and my agent and my editor) love him.
Which is why, as I told you at the beginning of this blog, I really have no clue what makes a good character into a great one in a science fiction romance.
~Linnea
HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, coming Feb. 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/
“If we can’t do the impossible, then we need to at least be able to do the unexpected.” —Admiral Philip Guthrie
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