Myth Structure

I look for myth structure when I’m editing; every protagonist goes through some portion of the hero’s journey and tension builds when he stalls on a step, tries to skip a step, or runs away from the journey.

Perhaps your reader has never heard of Hero of a Thousand Faces or saw Bill Moyers’ interviews with Joseph Campbell, but he instinctively knows what the steps of the hero’s journey are – in the same way he knows how a story should “go”. I remember a six-year-old telling me that in his story first the boy finds a magic rock and then he loses it and the he finds it again.

Following are the steps in the hero’s journey. Imagine your favorite book or movie, or the manuscript you're working on right now – can you identify the steps in the plot?

Departure

The Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
Supernatural Aid (the Helper appears)
The Crossing of the First Threshold (into adventure)
The Belly of the Whale (hero separates from known world and self)

Inititation

The Road of Trials (tests, often in threes)
The Meeting with the “Goddess” (the union of opposites)
Woman as the Temptress (hero is tempted)
Atonement with the Father (“father” as ultimate power)
Apotheosis (deification, hero rests)
The Ultimate Boon (the goal of the quest)

Return

Refusal of the Return (to everyday life)
The Magic Flight (escape)
Rescue from Without
The Crossing of the Return Threshold (returning with wisdom)
Master of the Two Worlds (maybe just the material and spiritual worlds)
Freedom to Live

"Sybil" and Schreiber

How far would we go, as writers and editors, to have a mega-best-seller?

Sybil Exposed by Debbie Nathan came out in 2011 and it finally floated to the top of the stack of reading. I was fascinated with the story because it is the story of a writer, Flora Rheta Schreiber, who despite having serious doubts about her subject matter, wrote a best seller. She was goaded on by psychiatrist Dr. Connie Wilbur, who was trying to make her name diagnosing and curing patients of multiple personalities.

Shirley Mason, the real Sybil, was dependent on Dr. Wilbur and Dr. Wilbur on Shirley. And Dr. Wilbur and Shirley Mason depended on Flora Rheta Schreiber to tell their story. The relationship between psychiatrist and patient -- and Shirley Mason's awareness that she was faking it to make her psychiatrist happy -- is summed up in an article on the PsychCentral web site.

But what of the WRITER? Flora Rheta Schreiber was the psychiatry editor of Science Digest when she heard about Shirley Mason, a patient of Dr. Connie Wilbur. Debbie Nathan writes that Schreiber was influenced by Truman Capote's In Cold Blood -- a "non-fiction novel" -- a serious work.

Schreiber had a startling true story and two compelling protagonists, a troubled woman and a caring psychiatrist. But who was the antagonist? The multiple personalities? Shirley Mason's mother became the antagonist, a crazy woman, sexually abusing her daughter, fragmenting "Sybil" into multiple personalities. Presto, there's the arc of action: young woman, horribly abused, fractures into sixteen distinct personalities, but with therapy from a caring psychiatrist, "re-integrates" all her personalities into one and lives happily ever after.

It would have made a great work of non-fiction, a case study with composite characters and events; even if Dr. Connie Wilbur was there as herself. But Sybil was presented as non-fiction, the truth, no composite characters (a claim changed with a subsequent edition) and barely-disguised real names--and it was a huge hit, on the New York Times best seller list, seven million copies sold. Almost immediately readers who knew Shirley had guessed "Sybil's" real identity.

Nathan states that Schreiber had received a sizable advance and was under pressure from Dr. Wilbur to publish. Nathan states that Schreiber had her doubts and considered withdrawing from the project, but pressed on, looking for the best-seller, and she got it. In doing so Dr. Wilbur, Shirley Mason and Flora Schreiber became "Sybil Inc." -- a real entity, designed to mine the Sybil story. A "Sybil" musical? A board game?

And what of the EDITOR? I would have been very dubious if asked to edit the manuscript as non-fiction. Sixteen personalities? Has anyone checked the facts? Could "Sybil" really have been present at the real events she's described? Are some of these events made up? Why was "Sybil" taking a cornucopia of mind-bending drugs? Wouldn't they affect what you believed you saw or what you said?

But I also admit I am coming from a 2012 perspective, after working on stories like the"satanic ritual" daycare cases -- where the "confessions" of children were coerced. (The full story of one case can be found in Frontline: Innocence Lost, which aired on PBS in 1991, 1993 and 1997. )

After "Sybil", Nathan writes that Schreiber was compelled to write another non-fiction novel. She published The Shoemaker: Anatomy of a Psychiatric in 1983; it made the best seller list, but not for long and was generally deemed a flop.

Nathan writes, "It was one thing to promote the illness of 'Sybil'... who would not have harmed a flea. It was quite another to make a victim-hero of the infamous Joe Kallinger, who... was a murderer." (page 206) Flora had become very friendly with Joe Kallinger and called him "Boomy Bum Boo" (page 205) -- and the families of his victims pressed charges against Schrieber.

How far would you go as a writer or editor to create that best seller?

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Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber

Plagiarism

“The ugly fact is books are made out of books.” (Cormac McCarthy, The New York Times, 1992)

Plagarism has been in the news again, this time a storm around TV host, Washington Post columnist and author Fareed Zakaria. He acknowledged and apologized for lifting parts of a magazine article and parts of one his books. But wait, maybe he didn’t plagiarize, according to The Daily Beast. Maybe he or his researchers were guilty of being lazy -- grabbing a clip online and not bothering to track down the source.

I am fascinated by the story behind Q.R. Markham's "Assassin of Secrets"; which is comprised of passages lifted from a number of other novels, which led many to ask-- why did the author think--in the age of Google -- that he could get away with it? Or was it an elaborate ruse?

This New Yorker article says “Assassin of Secrets” is looking more and more like pastiche or collage, rather than a “novel,” as we properly understand the word.

Rowan wouldn’t be the only writer in recent years—the era of redefining what is meant by ‘intellectual property’—to use plagiarism to make a statement. Those whose points have been well-taken, however, have generally been up-front about their borrowing. Among the best-known are Jonathan Lethem, whose 2007 essay in Harper’s, ‘The Ecastasy of Influence: A Plagiarism,’ comprised only lifted passages; and the British “collagiste” Graham Rawle, whose 2009 novel “Woman’s World” was “assembled from 40,000 fragments of text snipped from women’s magazines.”

Both of these were praised for their meta properties: they worked on the story level and also critiqued and commented upon the stories they told through their acts of appropriation. If Rowan is trying to comment upon the spy genre—on how it is both tired and endlessly renewable, on how we as readers of the genre want nothing but to be astonished again and again by the same old thing—then he has done a bang-up job. If he wants to comment on our current notions of discovery, to turn us all into armchair detectives, Googling here and there and everywhere to solve the puzzle, he is a genius. (David Shields, whom James Wood wrote about last year in this magazine, might approve of his project.)

There's only one story

It really is all about the story and I can’t say it better than Bob Mayer:

The product is the story. Not the book, not the eBook, not the audio book. The Story.

The consumer is the reader. Not the bookstores, the platform, the distributor, the sales force. The Reader.

Authors produce story. Readers consume story. If anyone is in the path between Author and Reader they must add value to that connection.

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/a-simple-concept-for-publishing/

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I taught "Writing for Non-Writers" at a community college years ago. I expected maybe a half-dozen students, to my surprise, forty-plus people signed up. In the first class, I handed out two index cards to each student: on one, I asked students to write down what they wanted to write about.

Invariably, someone said, "I don't want to write down my topic because someone will steal it."

"OK just to write poetry or fiction or non-fiction, you can further subdivide that into short story, children's book, western, mystery, biography, etcetera... if you wish," I said, writing on the whiteboard, "Or any combination of those. Or maybe you want to write for magazines or newspapers. OK to write 'I don't know yet' too."

The class sorted the index cards by topic; we had two poets, seven who wanted to write children’s books, several who wanted to write for magazines and a couple of "I don't knows"; the class was just about equally divided between people who wanted to write fiction and those who wanted to write non-fiction. There were a large number of people who wanted to write biographies.

I had the class find the others who were writing in their genre; another invariable question, "Do we have to stay in these groups?"

"Of course not, but who's going to understand better your struggles than someone who's writing in the same genre as you?"

"I think it would be better if you mixed us up," said one gentleman.

"I will, next class," I said. "Take a few moments in your groups to exchange names, then we'll talk about your story."

"How do you know my story?" the gentleman asked as a woman--perhaps his wife -- poked him in the ribs.

"I don't know the details of your story," I said after the groups had met. "but I do know that there is only one story and that is -- something happened. Something happened and there's a story in it.

"Everything was going fine and something happened to upset the apple cart; everything was going to hell in a handbasket and something happened to make it less hellish; or nothing happened -- that is, something is always on the verge of happening, but it doesn't happen, or perhaps earth-shaking events are happening around your hero, your protagonist, but they don't affect him or her."

The room was dead silent except for the sound of pens scratching and laptop keys tapping.

"Can you repeat that?"

"Why don't you have slides?"

I repeated what I said and wrote on the whiteboard:

OK - not OK

Not OK - OK

Nothing

And I said, "Writing well means listening well. The slides are on my website. OK, quick show of hands; as far as you know at this minute, how many of you have a story in mind where everything starts OK and things go awry? And... they start awry and get better? How about nothing happens?"

The two poets looked at each other and laughed. I said, "Poetry is a little different. There can be an arc of action--that's what we're talking about here -- the arc of action; but many poems are a snapshot of something in the human condition, explored in nuanced ways; poetry is more like painting to me."

“But there’s still a story.” said one of the students. “I make up stories about paintings all the time.”

I wrote on the whiteboard:

SOMETHING HAPPENED

So you want to write A novel?

I can't say it any better than David Kazzie and note that Kazzie has done an great job of promoting his book The Jackpot with this video, which was re-posted on Facebook via Writer's Digest.

Authors who have published in the last few years know that only half the work is done once the book is published. The next step is promotion, getting your name and book out there, readings, signings, conference appearances. Making one's living as an author is not for the faint of heart; though you can be almost cripplingly shy, like an author I worked with. She hired me to do the phone work and schedule readings and signings; I introduced her, she read, signed books; afterward I'd send out her sweat-drenched clothes to be cleaned.

I met Betty in the steno pool (remember those?). I was a temp, a filing clerk, the filing cabinets I worked with were by Betty's desk. I'd see her writing in shorthand on a steno pad that she tucked into her bag and realized that it wasn't company work. One afternoon I scrunched down by her desk and asked what she was writing. "A novel, about a pale undertaker's assistant who prefers to work with the dead," she whispered.

Isn't that a great character description? I was hooked. We had our lunches together and talked about Jane, her heroine; we'd whisper about plot when we could get away with it at work, she'd pass me notes. At the end of the temp assignment I promised to look for the book when it was published.

Six years later I saw the book in softcover in Tower Books, but I would have missed it if I hadn't picked up the book and read, "Janet, a pale undertaker's assistant who prefers to work with the dead..."

The story had a new title and Betty was using a nom de plume, but I was sure it was her. I sent a letter to Betty via the publisher (we're in the years before email and web sites). Betty wrote back and asked me if I could work with her on her book tour. We had a good time, and the book sold modestly well.

I asked Betty if the stress of public appearances was worth it and she said, "If I were a really good author, maybe I could get away with never being seen, like JD Salinger or Harper Lee, Thomas Pynchon--not that I'm comparing my writing to theirs. But the writing should speak for itself, don't you think? Why do people need to see me?"

That's a question I still can't answer -- yes the writing should speak for itself and no, I don't know why many people want to meet the author. A friend says it's to reassure us readers that authors are real people; which she says is why so many people think they can be authors. They've had experiences, they have an idea for a book, there are a zillion books out there, therefore it shouldn't be too hard to write a book.

But we know that's not the case.

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Next week: it's all the same story.

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I would love to link to Betty's book in this blog, but the book is out of print and I cannot find it anywhere; and there's a new horror film out with the same title. If anyone has a copy of "Dead Shadows" by Sandra Pharnetton I'd love to buy it from you!

Author Sued

I wrote about the perils of multiple submissions in an earlier post. A few days a friend emailed and told me the publishing house she worked for sued an author for breach of contract over multiple submissions.

The facts: one manuscript, accepted by three publishers with whom he signed contracts that stated specifically that they were now the sole publisher.

Three publishers were working with the manuscript: meantime, three editors were editing, three ISBNs had been assigned; three sets of files were being prepared for POD and eBook. And the author decided to self-publish.

The publishing business is truly smaller than you'd expect. During a casual conversation, my friend and another editor realized that they had been working on the same manuscript; it took a two-minute online search to find the third publisher and the self-published manuscript. A short time later all three publishers were suing the author; a short time after that another author stepped up and said that the manuscript was his -- it had been plagiarized. He added his lawsuit to the mix.

My friend said she and the other editors had to provide depositions, the author tried to contact them to tell them what to say. The author said he'd drop the suit for a cash settlement -- he had to be reminded that he hadn't brought the suit, the publishers had.

And why? There's soap opera here about rivalry and "getting published first". The two authors had been in a workshop together and made a friendly bet about whose manuscript would be published first, over the next year or so the rivalry accelerated – or so they said.

The publishers won the suit, though we don’t know what the settlement was.

My friend and I wonder about the authors’ professional reputations. They were emerging writers, so I imagine neither got a chance to establish a reputation, at least under their real names. I did a quick search and can find nothing about either person, though they both might be writing under pen names -- heck, they might be comrades-in-arms.

Was original manuscript any good? My friend says it was a solid Western, a good read, She recalled that it needed a lot of editing, because there was a shifting POV, a story told from the POV of two people on opposite sides of a range war. She thought that the two authors had worked on the manuscript together, maybe in the workshop; if that was the case, she couldn't figure out why they didn't submit as co-authors.

Induced Comma

I like offbeat punctuation marks, like the interrobang. I can see the crying need for the sarcasm point (an inverted exclamation point) and the pomma --“you’ve been punk’d” – point (an exclamation point lying on its side).

And I come up with the occasional oddball typo – this week it was “She was in an induced comma.”

How does one induce a comma?

Starting with a definition of terms -- because I was on the debate team in high school and the defintion-of-terms was always the first step in research. I get to visit my old friend, the American Heritage Dictionary (AHD). I love the AHD because I am a geeky closet linguist -- my, but that sounds naughty -- and the AHD gives the Indo-European roots of many words.

Induce means “1. To lead or move, as to a course of action, by influence or persuasion. 2. To bring about or stimulate the occurrence of; cause..." (There are other meanings for biochemistry and genetics). [Middle English inducen, from Old French inducer, from Latin indcere : in-, in; see in-2 + dcere, to lead; see deuk- in Indo-European roots.]

Finding the root words in English is a fun puzzle and deuk- is one of those roots that has dug in all over the language, forms the root of everything from the Middle English tuggen (to draw or lead) to the Latin ducere -- dock, deduce, introduce, it is also the root of the Latin educare -- lead out, bring up (educate) -- and intriguingly, the root of the Old English team (family, descendant, race, brood).

The definition of a comma, again from the AHD: 1. Grammar A punctuation mark ( , ) used to indicate a separation of ideas or of elements within the structure of a sentence. 2. A pause or separation; a caesura. 3. Any of several butterflies of the genus Polygonia, having wings with brownish coloring and irregularly notched edges. [Latin, from Greek komma, piece cut off, short clause, from koptein, to cut.]

And "coma" is from the Greek koma, a deep sleep. As in American English, a single "m" separates a pause from a sleep.

With my induced comma: I can lead, move or education people to – pause.

And as for using commas, I can't say it any better than The Comma Project --

“Put a comma in whenever you take a breath.

Almost everyone I know has heard that particular comma rule, or some variation of it, and that is unfortunate because the rule is unreliable at best and, at worst, simply wrong. But the rule does make sense in a historical context, and that may explain its longevity.

In antiquity, texts were usually read aloud or recited from memory by orators, and so the rule that you “put a comma in whenever you take a breath” can be traced back to the earliest days of reading and writing. Some of the words that we now use to refer to punctuation marks, such as comma, colon and period, originally referred to subparts of a text, differentiating them according to their length and complexity.

Before the arrival of alphabets, ancient texts could not be written out—they were memorized and passed along through an oral tradition. Once texts could be converted into written symbols, they were usually copied down letter for letter—with no punctuation, capitalization or even spacing between words.

Punctuation marks got their start as a way of sorting out the confusion by, for example, breaking material into longer and shorter sections. Back then writers didn’t have to worry about punctuation, which was determined not by the person who composed a work or copied it but by the one who spoke it out loud..."

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For more on punctuation:

Eats, Shoots and Leaves, by Lynne Truss

Pause and Effect: Punctuation in the West, by Malcolm B. Parkes

(This is an academic reference and is expensive!)