How to Create a Step List

Writing Resources; Dictionaries, Thesauri, Encyclopedias, the Internet and Catalogs

Contrasting Genres: How to Structure Storylines in the Major Fiction Genres of Fantasy and Science Fiction

Introduction

All AR stories' themes have embedded in the premise or lesson, some measure of domination. AR stories can be subdivided into the AG or non-AG classes where the protagonist changes gender or not. This document will concern itself mainly with the second class, because many of the writing principles delineated here can be applied to the first class as well. Unwilling AG is a more severe form of domination for a male wherein he is not merely verbally castigated as a straightforward AR story, but is literally castrated by means of the transformation. Usually, the antagonist is a female, who reduces her victim to the age of child with the implied promise that she will be the caretaker. In the cases where the antagonist is a male, then the caretaker tends to be the mother, wife or girlfriend of the protagonist and is an accessory to the deed. Indeed, since the physical reduction of an adult into infancy tends to posit a secondary character who will care for the resultant infant, female domination and loss of control to a woman become important themes in the Age Regression (AR) sub-genre.

AR writing itself can be subdivided into two categories: Fantasy and Science Fiction, although there is some interplay between the two. Although a means to regression must be created for a properly written AR story it does not constitute a basis of division. Magickal regression can partake of either genre, being either a Science fiction device or a Fantasy device. The major difference between the two worlds is that Science Fiction as a genre describes a change to the protagonist's entire world instead of the Fantasy genre where the change is confined to the protagonist himself. Thus, it is possible to write a Science Fiction story whose technology is magickal or a Fantasy story whose technology is wholly scientific.

Realistically, it doesn't matter which class the story falls into as long as certain rules of writing are observed. There is a fair amount of overlap between the two genres so the point is somewhat moot.

This document will begin by describing basic ideas in story writing and how to create a believable storyline. Then it will move on to the basic concepts of writing in the Fantasy and Science Fiction genres without regard to AR writing in particular. At the conclusion, a special AR-Infantilist section will describe those techniques needed to create an outstanding AR story-Infantilist. Because of the strong contrasts that an author is able to develop when the protagonist is regressed into full infancy, this document will primarily concern itself with that sub-genre although most of the techniques can be used for any regression below the pubescent level. At the end of the document I have provided a number of reference Appendixes to make AR story construction easier. The writing tips in Appendix A apply to any genre of fiction writing and although short, are well worth perusal.

Characters as People

The most useful insight into people for an author is that people never really grow up. Men in their sixties play with automobile engines and dream of becoming race car drivers just as they did when they were ten. Women's coffee klatches are often replays of the tea parties that they had when they were five years old. People's daydreams may become more detailed as they become older, but with the exception of sexual elements, their dreams may not change substantially from when they were quite young. A little girl of five fantasizes about having a house and baby of her own. The same girl may mature into a young woman who have the very same dream as she toils at her secretarial job as a single woman. When people are pushed to their limits, they have a tendency to regress to childlike behaviors that have the merest patina of adulthood. A grown woman who hears a strange noise in the night may rouse her husband to go to the living room and investigate as if he was her father. A tired man might demand that his wife feed him whenever he is hungry and pick up after him as if he was a helpless child.

If a man becomes ill, his training usually allows him to wallow in regressive behavior. Women must make meals and take care of the children whether they are ill or not, but most men have never risen to this responsibility. Because of their expectation for coddling, most men become infantile when they are ill. There are few men who can resist the temptation to regress into virtual toddlerhood when they are sick.

The worst case of this particular syndrome occurs among physicians. Physicians are notorious among the nursing staff at hospitals as patients. Because they are used to being in positions of authority, the sick male doctor combines the helpless demands for attention with his previous authoritarian position. His medical knowledge gives the ill doctor countless dark thoughts of serious illnesses that he may be suffering from. The result is an intractable male patient who demands constant attention and who is unwilling to wait or accept no for an answer. In short, they become frightened babies who need the constant attentions of their nurse.

The aspiring author should observe his or her workplace and draw parallels between Kindergarten and the corporate setting to see the truth of this observation. Managers have temper tantrums like four-year-olds when they don't get their way. Men and women form small groups to talk the way they did when they were five to ten years old. When the world grows dark for adults, they tend to run back to their parents for comfort as they did as children.

Adults with drug or alcohol problems experience this phenomena in spades. The drug/alcohol makes them ineffective and forces them into a dependent role with their spouse. Their unlucky spouse may be forced to undress them at night for bed and get them up to go to work in the mornings. If they're hungover, the spouse may have to call their spouse's boss and tell him or her that the person has a twenty-four hour virus and cannot come into work, forcing the spouse to act like a parent with a wayward child. If they're too drunk to drive, the spouse may have to tell her partner that she won't permit him to drive in such a condition. This can result in either the drunken spouse having a tantrum, or passively accepting a childlike position in the household.

Drunken or heavily medicated people may also wet their pants or the bed while they're sleeping. This resurrects the historical feelings of guilt that the person suffered during toilet training and automatically places them in a child role vis-à-vis their spouse. Imagine how it must feel to be a man who has wet the bed in a drunken state to be roused and pulled from their bed by his wife. He must stand idly by the bed in a sleepy condition while wearing his pee-sodden underwear while he watches his wife strip the bed and remake it with fresh bedlinens. While he stands by the bed wearing steadily cooling wet undies, she berates him for wetting the bed like a toddler.

The AR author in particular should be aware of this phenomena and exploit it to it's fullest. If everyone is a child at heart, then it is relatively easy to draw parallels between an adult's behavior and a child's behavior. Both men and women can become whiney under stress making them appear to sound like children when they complain. Men are not brought up to be housekeepers and have a tendency to make messes that they don't clean up. In addition, the male anatomy sometimes causes their urine stream to shoot off at an angle rather than in the toilet bowl that they're aiming at. It is also not unknown for the stream of urine from a penis to be directed at such an acute angle that sitting on the toilet seat merely causes it to be deflected upwards and outside the toilet even though the man is sitting down, thus creating an embarrassing puddle on the floor or wetting the pants and underwear which are pooled at their ankles before them. Statistically, men don't wash their hands or wipe themselves as often as women do. Also, because men are in high stress positions more often than women, they tend to have anal hemorrhoids more often than women which occasionally leads to a light soiling of the rear of their underwear.

Men are the perfect target for the AR writer. They tend to be less mature and more self-conceited at any age then women. In general, they lack the social skills which might divert trouble and let a problem become a crisis so they can attack it head-on with all their physical and mental prowess. If this approach is used during a situation while they are being regressed into infancy, their normal stratagems fail utterly. Men's mental strength is derived from three sources; belief in their physical power gives them courage, their social position lends them credibility and their mastery of language gives them the skills to overcome obstacles. Once their physical prowess, social position and linguistic powers of adulthood have been stripped from them, men become helpless children and the story of their reformation at woman's hands can begin.

For example, consider the following vignette:

"As the puff of smoke dissipated, the fate of the man was revealed. He had been magickally regressed into a drooling, nine-month-old infant who knelt on all fours at his wife's feet. He crawled forward a bit and heard a crinkling noise as he moved. He stopped and put one hand down to feel his bottom and discovered thick cloth covered with a layer of plastic. With a start, he suddenly realized that he was wearing nothing but a bulky cloth diaper and plastic panties. He tried to yell at his wife, but all that came out of his mouth was an infant's babble.

He rapidly glanced around the room to check his surroundings. What he saw made him dizzy with disorientation. Everything had become enormous and terrifying. The coffee table that he'd marred with the heels of his shoes by propping them on it's waxed surface had suddenly become level with the top of his head. The couch that he'd carelessly throw himself into every day looked like a fabric covered blue mountain. When he tried to look up to see his wife's face, he discovered the he had to tilt his head all the way back to his shoulders to enable him to see his wife towering over him. As he lifted his head to look pleadingly at his wife, he realized how helpless he'd become. He had a vague memory of slapping her the night before in a drunken rage. Memories of beating his wife rushed into his mind. He had mistreated his wife in the past with the arrogant knowledge that she could not retaliate. Everything had changed. Now the shoe was on the other foot.

As he looked into her eyes, there was not a hint of sympathy. The glint of anger from her eyes told him that her rage was consummate and their wasn't anything he could do to change her opinion of him. He knew he was a failure as a husband and a man. The talons of the vengeful harpy that his manifold sins had created from his loving wife would soon descend upon him to collect a painful justice from his body. His head bent as he averted it from the soul penetrating gaze of his wife as he huddled close to the carpet in remorse for what he had been and done. When he looked up again, he saw his wife smiling in triumph with her hair brush in her upraised hand. He knew with absolute certainty that he was going to be brutally spanked on his bare bottom in the next few minutes and that there was nothing he could do to stop his wife from exacting a painful revenge on his behind for the acting like the monster he had been.

Fear gripped his stomach and he began to panic as the realization of his utter defenselessness set in. Terror made his bladder and bowels void their contents into his diapers. He began to weep in humiliation at his fall from power. He realized that his power had vanished and he was at his wife's mercy. As he looked up again with tear-streaked cheeks into his wife's smiling face, her pleased countenance told him she was aware that he'd peed and pooped himself. He knew that she was aware that she ruled the household and she could retaliate in any way she wished for his sins against her. He cowered in fear as his wife mercifully put aside the hair brush and bent down to carry him up to the nursery she had created in the spare bedroom in anticipation of his transformation. He whimpered and hid his head in her shoulder as she held him close to her chest, securing him to her with one palm propping up his diapered bottom as she mounted the stairs.

His wife smiled maternally as she laid him down on the changing station and began removing his plastic pants so she could change his diaper. His diaper wasn't the only thing of her husband's that she planned to change…"

The Maguffin or "How Did I Become Involved in this Mess?"

The Maguffin is the plot device which draws characters into the story. For example in the story, "Rockabuy Baby", the protagonist is in the drugstore to pick up his prescription for his allergies while the antagonist is there to stock up on disposable diapers for her victim/clients. Each of them has their own Maguffin for being in the drugstore. Often it is necessary to create a Maguffin for each character in the story. If on the other hand, a character has friends or colleagues, his friends or colleagues may be drawn into the story by loyalty or organization. For an example, consider the ending of "Rockabuy Baby" where the super-antagonist Becky brings along the Coven to assist her with meeting out justice to Krystyn and the baby. In this case, the Coven and Becky share a common Maguffin.

The Clues to the Protagonist's Doom or "How Did I Ever Miss the Import of What She Was Saying and Doing?"

Since an AR story should lead up to the protagonist's regression, it follows that there must be a fair amount of action and dialog before the transformation. During this stage, clues to the protagonist's fate must be carefully buried in the actions and dialog that will give an astute reader Godlike foreknowledge of the protagonist's immediate future. For example, in "Rockabuy Baby", when Andrew and Krystyn go to her minivan to drive to her house, Andrew notices the worn look of the baby seat in the back. Logical reasoning would make a rational person wonder how long she had owned the seat and how many babies had ridden in it. Since it is not common practice for owners of Adoptive Services to drive around all day with a baby in the back seat of their car, the implication is that she had owned the seat for a number of years. Agatha Christie's detective novels were prominently mentioned to make it clear this was a clue that something wasn't right. When she took him home and they toured the house, the clues became clear and ominious. Her dark bedroom with a blood red canopy over the wrought iron bedstead that looked like a living plant that had been magickally changed into dead metal was a clue that Krystyn was allied with forces that were anti-life. The red and black tapers in the candlestick gave a hint of Black Magick. The sense of power that exuded from her room should have told him that all was not right. The nursery was obviously a prison for its diapered inmates. A metal framed door, an extremely deep and heavy dark wooden crib should have made him run in fear for his life. Clues are not just parts of mysteries, but form an essential part of the moral lesson. The central concept is that in stories, just as in everyday life, there are obvious clues that tell the character what is about to happen. It is important that the author subtlety delineate why a character missed the clues. The reason the character missed the clues is important because it constitutes the character's Fatal Flaw. In Andrew's case above, it was his sexual lust for Krystyn that blinded him to reality.

Fatal Flaws or "Why Was I so Blind?"

Every character has a fatal flaw which leads to his downfall. Drunks, womanizers and drug users have obvious fatal flaws. Fatal flaws are part of the Weltlichkeit or world view of the character. For that reason, their flaws make them edit out the parts of their existence that conflicts with how they wish their world to be. Thus a man can be completely purblind to a clue that everyone else considers obvious. Fatal flaws make the character more human and thus more believable. In the Star Wars movies, the android-robot, C3PO, was made human by making him a coward. His particular mission in "life" was to overcome his cowardice to become a brave robot like his companion, R2D2. Give the protagonist a fatal flaw that is both common and understandable by the audience if you want them to identify with the protagonist in the story. Axe-murdering serial rapists make poor protagonists and trite antagonists. The reader should be able to identify with both the protagonist and the antagonist to some degree. Both must have Weltlichkeits that are self-consistent and rational considered from their viewpoint. In heroic myths, the character overcomes his fatal flaw to succeed and become the hero that was hidden inside. In Greek tragedies, the hero is destroyed by his flaw. In the general Science Fiction genre, the hero overcomes his fatal flaw and transforms the world. In Fantasy, the hero overcomes his fatal flaw and is transformed. In AR-Infantilist fiction, the protagonist either allows himself to become regressed or is regressed because of his fatal flaw. The flaw itself is transformed by the rejuvenation. Babies are not permitted to be drunks or drug users, nor do they have the necessary equipment to be womanizers. Their regression has brought them back to a state of relative innocence.

The Premise: The Gateway to a Moral Meaning and the Hidden Lesson

Just as your English teacher probably taught you in High School that every paper must have a thesis, every story must have a Premise. The Premise is the central idea that ties the story together. Ideally, the Premise leads inexorably to the moral meaning and hidden lesson behind the story. Consider the AR story, "The Drunk". The Premise is that it's bad for a man to get childishly drunk on a regular basis. This leads to the moral; being a drunken, uncaring husband is bad because it makes him less than a man. In turn, this leads to the hidden lesson that if the reader selects this course in life, his infantile irresponsibility may force others around him (his wife, for example) to assume the role of his parent while his life is reduced to the level of control that he can safely manage by himself, i.e., life as an infant.

Meaning: The Hidden Lesson

Stories are about revelation. The meaning of the character’s life evolves through the story through conflict. When the final resolution of the character’s problems occurs, the protagonist can see his relationship to the world. The protagonist’s foibles and flaws become apparent to him as he undergoes his personal revelation. The character of the protagonist changes as a consequence both of his insights and the condition he finds himself in. The protagonist realizes that he can never go back to what he was. He has changed forever. This is the essence of revelation; it is the knowledge that changes one’s life. Revelation redefines the character’s relationship to the world. It’s important to realize that the reader undergoes that same revelation as the protagonist. The protagonist’s revelation is the readers revelation. Just as the protagonist is changed by the cosmic knowledge he has obtained, so is the reader.

Viewpoint: A Tool for Emotional Exploration

Story Viewpoint is a valuable tool in the hands of a master storyteller, it sets the tone of the story and defines the limits of knowledge that the reader may have about a given scene in a story. The master storyteller will choose the viewpoint carefully for the effects he wants to produce. In the hands of an inept storyteller it is a curse, the story will change viewpoint without warning an leave the reader wondering if the storyteller has lost direction. The following lines give a thumbnail description of the use of each.

First Person: Allow the storyteller to express his intimate feelings about the actions and the other character, but story can only be seen from one viewpoint. Useful for surprise and suspense situations where the story hinges on the final twist or surprise but it's extremely limited otherwise.

Third Person: Allows the storyteller to describe the intimate feelings of all characters or if the storyteller wishes, no feelings may be described at all. It’s best to include the feelings of characters if possible to mimic the reader’s experience in life. The people that a reader sees every day have expressions, tones and body language that "telegraphs" the person’s emotional state. A storyteller may choose to exclude the expressions and emotions of the characters in situations where the characters are members of a group that the storyteller wants to ‘dehumanize’ by making them emotionless robots going about their tasks. It’s a ploy that can be made to work, but is seldom successful for use throughout a story. Readers expect to "see" the emotions of the characters they read about. People want to read about people and a character without any emotions will be seen as less than human. In general third person is the best overall mode for telling stories.

The Principle of Justice

The Principal of Justice requires that the characters be treated justly by the storyteller, i.e., that the characters be accorded a fate that is determined by their actions. If the character must be punished by the Gods, his punishment must be equal to the crime. To punish the character more than he deserves is unjust and demonstrates the inherent sadism or moral turpitude of the Gods. If the character is punished less than he deserves, it illustrates the lack of concern of the Gods. Unless the point of the story is to display how unfair and capricious the Gods are, the storyteller should strive to find a balance between the crime and it’s consequences. In the end, the reader will correctly assume that the storyteller has the qualities that he has imbued his Gods with. A storyteller whose tales are filled with injustice and cruelty will be perceived as morally and ethically deficient.

A good story is a type of morality play where the characters play out their feelings, aspirations and flaws against a fantasy backdrop. The difference between real life and a story is that in a fantasy story anything may happen. As a consequence, the ‘adjustment’ to the character that would normally take place in the framework of real life takes on fantasy proportions.

Therefore, do not have the characters punished unless their fault and fatal flaws require a response from another character or ‘Cosmic’ re-balancing to address the flaw. It is a given that the character will think him/herself innocent and has been unfairly treated. (All felons are innocent in their own eyes and have been treated in a grossly unfair way by the system. Another way of saying this is to recognize that people who wrong others and refuse to acknowledge their error have the moral development of toddlers.)

Conflict and Resolution

All storylines deal with conflict and resolution. Whether the storyteller is an Native American jongleur sitting at the campfire telling the story of the various paths a warrior may take or a Hollywood writer hammering out a script about a Columbian Drug Lord and his inexorable path to downfall, the stories are the same in one respect; they tell the reader/viewer about the problems a fantasy person encounters and how this imaginary person deals with them. Conflict gives definition to the story. Without conflict, the character has nothing to strive for or against. There can be no profit or loss in such a situation, only ennui. The character of the protagonist is defined by the struggle he is engaged in. If the struggle is for good, the protagonist is a protagonist. If the struggle is for power and domination, the character is an antihero. It’s important to realize that no one in real life is purely good or purely evil. It’s a mistake to make a protagonist purely good or evil, readers will not be able to identify with a protagonist that’s either too good or too evil. The protagonist loses his believability and becomes a mere comic book caricature. This is a fatal error in storytelling.

The Triad of Denouement: Story Premise, Conflict Resolution and Climax

The premise of the story revolves around the moral. For example; Drunks make bad husbands and everyone in the relationship would be happier if he was a turned into baby who drinks formula from baby bottles rather than the booze from fifths of liquor he drank as an adult. The moral is the lesson of the story and is inherent to the premise. In the case above, the moral is drunkenness is bad.

Conflict Resolution is ofttimes confused with the climax. The resolution is the idea which solves the essential problem as opposed to the climax when the resolution is implemented.

A "Resolving Conflict" often occurs after the climax to tie up loose ends and prove the story premise in more complex stories.

Creating a Story Climax

The Final Line of the Denouement

Just as the first line in a story sets the mood and tone of the story, so does the last line of the story. The final line is the author's last word on the theme and properly managed, it can give a reader nightmares in a horror storyline or reduce them to tears as in a tragedy. Usually the climax and denouement are simultaneous, but not always. Sometimes a resolving conflict must be employed to finish the story off, or the author uses the opportunity to give the reader one last gut-wrenching verbal punch to conclude. Authors often lay out a story with the beginning and ending in mind and then write the middle to connect the two pieces. Sometimes an author will create the story with a single statement in mind for the end and write the entire story to give it "punch" at the end. If the story ends weakly, then the whole effect of the story is lost. The author needs to leave his reader feeling shaken and a little woozy from the final lines. A story that peters off in the end is a failure. If the author reads his work and decides that the end lacks emotional "grip", then he should write a final line that meets his requirements. Then he can either; change the ending slightly to match or (my favorite) change the title to match the ending and add details and subplots to support the last line as a resolving conflict.

A Step List is merely a short list of actions that lead from the beginning of the story to its conclusion. It can be as detailed or as bare as you like. Remember that a Step List is not an outline to be turned in to a Professor of Literature, but a simple list to help you keep track of the action. It is an excellent place to place notes about scenes and subplots as your story grows more detailed. The best advice I can give is to keep it simple; don't clutter it up with headings and subheadings unless that is what helps you most. Don't even worry about being grammatical; the list are only notes to help you work. I don't use headings at all, instead, I use something like the following format;

1. Boy meets girl at drugstore, boy is timid and slightly embarrassed as he looks over diapers. Girl likes him and invites him home. They go to minivan. She has infant seat in backseat. It appears worn.
2. Girl gives boy tour of house. House appears okay, but girl's bedroom and nursery are foreboding. She makes coffee and secretly phones friend from kitchen to come over.
3. The Transformation: the girl says she is out of coffee, but her friend who has brought her baby along offers the boy some "virgin" <pun> (from unused bottle) milk from baby bottle. Boy doesn't want to appear ungracious so doesn't refuse. Boy drinks "milk" laden coffee and begins transformation.
4. After transformation, women explain that they are witches and that girl's business is rejuvenating men into infant's that she can illegally sell for adoptive purposes.

As the ideas develop, I add to each section with ideas that I don't want to forget. For example, in the above Step List, I had an idea about a Siberian sleigh ride being as dark an foreboding as the nursery. To make the nursery have the same "ambiance", I created the concept of a crib that resembled a deep-sided Siberian sleigh and added a detailed description under section B so I wouldn't forget to add it when I got down to writing that part of the story.

Step Lists can help you when you have a specific scene (or several scenes) in mind but are not sure how to connect them. Write out as much as the Step List as you can and begin writing those scenes. From the behavior of the character, it is usually possible to divine some sort of McGuffin and insert an area in the Step List where the character should reasonably appear.

Everyone has emotional buttons that can be exploited. Within a general genre like Fantasy, the buttons are so copious that they can't be enumerated. More specific sub-genres like AR-Infantilist (horror) have well-known emotional "hooks" that may be exploited by the author.

In general, writing "hooks" fall into three major classifications; reverse emotional transference where the reader identifies with the emotion that the protagonist is feeling, object interest such as advanced weapons in an Action or Science Fiction story or baby items in an AR story and lastly, fantasy identification; for example, in an AR-Infantilist story, the reader imagines that he himself is being regressed into infancy.

Examples of AR emotional hooks:

1. Disposable Diapers

1. Standard disposable infant diapers are appreciated by the younger reader who spent their infancy in such diapers.

1. Formula: Whether a baby is breast fed or given prepared formula, the baby will wake up with a mouth that tastes of sour milk if he is fed just before bedtime. This can be extremely disconcerting for a newly regressed character. The bacteria in the mouth will break down the milk quickly while the child sleeps and he will awake with bad "baby" breath that is so powerful that he himself will be able to smell it. (Side note: Nursing mothers can smell it too, but they are mothers and are forgiving creatures.)

1. Powered formula: The powdering technique gives them a strong soy taste and should be used to "punish" a character.
2. Prepared Formula: Prepared soy formulas have improved in taste in the past few years. Although they are no substitute for mother's milk, they've become close in taste and nutrition. Cheaper prepared formulas have a pronounced soy taste which makes them objectionable to the adult mind. Infantilized taste buds will only intensify the protagonist's ability to perceive the soy taste and make the experience that much worse.
3. Canned Goat's milk: Similar in nutritional value to mother's milk, but with a canned off-taste that clearly differentiates it from fresh mother's milk. Use when breast feeding is impossible in the storyline but describe it to have the same taste as mother's milk. Serve warm (body temperature) in a baby bottle for greatest effect.
4. Fresh (Pasteurized) Goat's milk: Very similar in taste and nutritional value to mother's milk, use when breast feeding is impossible in the storyline but describe it to have the same taste as mother's milk. Serve warm (body temperature) in a baby bottle for greatest effect.
5. Breast (human) milk: This is the best that an Infantilist-AR writer can offer his character/reader. Part of the enjoyment of the reader is seeing how the author manages the kneading movements of the baby's hands on his mothers teat and how the nipple "grows" in the infant's mouth as he suckles. Many readers have fantasies about being breast fed and the inclusion of breast feeding at the end of the story gives them an intense emotional high that will be remembered long after they have forgotten the plot of the story.

1. Baby Food

1. Puréed infant food: AR devotees who like the infantilist genre can be hit hard with food of this sort. The problem is to find a food that everyone likes. Gerber Hawaiian Delight is good, as is the old standby, Oatmeal with Applesauce. Most people could eat any of the cereal or fruit purées without objection. The deserts, such as puddings, tapiocas, cobblers are more than acceptable. The new jarred "pie" flavors also have a very good flavor.

Foods of the puréed type can also be used to "punish" a character. Strained peas, carrots, and broccoli are most people's immediate response to baby foods they'd hate to eat and squash and potatoes run a close second in a survey of ill-favored foods. Although most readers never think of it, puréed vegetable, mixed vegetable and turkey, and mixed vegetable and pork,, mixed vegetable and beef, or mixed vegetable and bacon dinners taste far worse by comparison. The granular texture of such dinners is abhorrent to the adult palate and having regressed taste buds won't make this type of food any more palatable. The taste of these dinners is so difficult to describe that the author is invited to buy a bottle of each of the mixed dinners and try them for himself. The bright flavor of a particular vegetable becomes "lost" in the melange of the purée. The heightened taste perception of a baby won't be of any help to the protagonist here. (See Appendix B - An Adult Gourmet's Evaluation of Baby Food)

As a service to those authors who do not wish to carry out their own investigations of the taste of prepared baby foods, I induced a gourmet friend who has written cooking columns and has been a professional restaurant critic to taste-test some of the Gerber Mixed Meals. He has some renown at being able to replicate almost any recipe by mere taste alone. As a critic, he can identify and tell a chef which ingredient was too prominent in the recipe for perfect balance. He has reported back the following:

Vegetables and Veal: The dinner had a strong aroma of vegetable beef soup when first opened. The veal had the low flavor of canned commercial (grade 3) beef which lent nothing to the overall quality. The concoction had a high percentage of potatoes which was discernable by taste and texture alone. There was a hint of powdered dried onion in the mixture. The meal had a "mealy" texture that was caused by both the potatoes and finely ground particles of beef. The complete absence of salt in this dinner made it totally unpalatable. While I could see a baby eating this, I would not willingly eat this particular concoction again.

Vegetables and Turkey: The dinner had a strong aroma of vegetable soup with a slight hint of Turkey when first opened. The concoction had a high percentage of potatoes and peas which was discernable by taste alone. The "mealy" texture of the potatoes and finely ground particles of turkey was accentuated by the peas in the mixture. I found that the texture was particularly disagreeable in this dinner. As in the first dinner, the absolute absence of salt made the taste/texture combination abhorrent. As before, I can see this as a reasonable dish for an infant, but I would not willingly partake of this meal again.

Mixed Vegetables Dinner: The dinner had a strong aroma of vegetable soup when first opened. Like the Vegetable and Turkey dinner, the concoction had a high percentage of potatoes and peas which was discernable by taste alone. There was an objectionable "mealy" texture of the potatoes and peas in the mixture. I found that the texture was particularly disagreeable in this dinner. As in the other dinners I sampled, the absolute absence of salt made the taste/texture combination abhorrent.

Vegetables and Ham: The dinner had a strong aroma of vegetable soup when first opened. When I placed the first spoonful of the mixture in my mouth, I was assaulted by a slightly dead, rancid flavor of tainted pork. I refused to complete the test on this sample, believing it to be spoiled. I threw it out as inedible.

2. Semi-solid older baby food: This is somewhat useful as a transitional food in stories while the protagonist continues to rejuvenate, but lacks emotional "punch" of puréed food.
3. Toddler food: Least useful of all except as a vehicle for later transitions. Toddler food is too close to adult fare to make clear contrasts. Exception to the rule: While toddlers are often given animal crackers, it is considered unwise to give them salty snacks. An author may play on these differences. The character may ask for a pretzel or potato chip, only to be given an animal cracker.

1. Baby Clothes:

1. Baby Furniture: Baby furniture is restrictive and imprisoning by it's very nature. Nowhere else is a human strapped into a seat to eat, bathe, ride in a car or be pushed around in a stroller. Felons are temporarily handcuffed and leg-shackled for movement between prison facilities and courtrooms, but only babies are strapped into strollers, bath and auto seats as well as high chairs on a daily basis. If the mother-figure leaves the baby for a moment during a diaper change, he's strapped to the changing station as well. If the baby tends to undress himself, pull on his hair in boredom or endanger himself with his hands, they are lovingly secured in cotton mittens to further reduce his physical ability to affect his environment.

3. Fantasy Identification: Usually revolves around the power/powerless dichotomy. Humiliation is by far the most common theme.

1. Spankings: Spanking demonstrates to the reader how powerless the protagonist has become. Also, many readers have fantasies about being spanked. Spanking stimulates the tissues of the bottom and may lead to sexual arousal. Note that infants can have miniscule erections and do experience diffuse sexual feelings. If the baby has an adult mind, his reaction will be more intense and sexualized.

1. Hand slappings: Quick, humiliating punishment to keep the baby from touching things that he shouldn't.
2. Quick paddling of the diapered bottom while the baby stands: Useful in outings where a full fledged spanking isn't possible. Not very painful, but the embarrassment caused by the attention given his diapered bottom makes this extremely humiliating to the adult mind trapped in an infant's body.
3. Full bare-bottomed spankings across the "mother's" knees: The last word in powerlessness. Humiliation stems from being naked on a fully dressed woman's lap as well as being effortlessly held down as his bottom is paddled with the flat of his "mother's" hand. A hair brush may be used, but this is seen as child abuse in children under the age of three. If the child panics, his bladder may release and he may wet his "mother's" lap causing even more humiliation. If the baby is a toddler in training pants, the next scene may be a forced diapering.

1. Forced Feedings: Like spankings, forced feeding demonstrates the protagonist's loss of power

1. Solid Food: Forced feedings of baby food in a high chair makes a particularly effective scene. If the baby resists, his hands may be slapped. (Don't slap a child's face under the age of five; it's perceived as child abuse.) The baby's face, chest and possibly hands will end up covered with baby food.
2. Bottle feedings: The only real way a character can be force fed with a bottle is too have the character be held in the "mother's" arms so that she can effectively push the nipple against the baby's lips and force it into his mouth. Cheap unlined plastic baby bottles should be used for this rather than glass bottles. If the baby refuses to suckle, then the mother can squeeze the flexible sides of the bottle and squirt the formula into his mouth. Since his mouth is filled with the nipple, the character will have no choice but to swallow the liquid.
3. Breast feedings: It is extremely difficult to force breast feed a baby. The baby's head may be forcibly turned and held in place against the erect nipple, but it is almost impossible to force the nipple into the baby's mouth. If there are two antagonists, then the baby's nose may be held shut by the helper to force the baby to open his mouth to breathe. The helper can hold his head in place while the "mother" uses her free hand to push down at the distal end of the teat to express her milk into the baby's open mouth. In general, the author should rely on either the adult's sexual desire for the woman's breast or on a baby's instinctive need to root and suckle. Starvation or thirst may be used to make an adult mind accede to breast feeding for survival. Once the baby begins to kneed the "mother's" breast, the element of force is gone. The protagonist has become an active participant in his own demoralization and mental regression. Feelings of guilt, abhorrence, mortification both during and after the feeding are common.

Writing dialog is an art form in and or itself. In most cases, the author will try t o mimic everyday speech and fall flat on his face. The reason for this that most human dialog is boring! Most people speak in single syllables or short words and rely on context, body language and facial expression to get their point across.

The trick to making interesting dialog is to make it either, a.) so erudite and poetic that the reader is entranced with the writer's style or b.) using misdirection using indirect speech.

Technique A.) The writer may use alliteration and careful synonym substitution along with speech rhythms of iambic pentameter. This is a poetic style and not to be lightheartedly disparaged. Like the King James Bible, the flowery speech as well as the sensation of internal rythming patterns resurrect dim memories of Mother Goose tales told by ones' mother in the melodious tones heard in early childhood. This technique is an indirect assault on the subconscious memories of reader.

Technique B.) Indirect speech is to beguile the reader as if the author's speaker was trying to speak in an off-handed fashion that contains hidden meanings. The average person's speech is dull and unenlightened. Literary speech is for all practical purposes, unknown to the public these days. People who ordinarily speak in a literary fashion often become ambassadors or statesmen. The public does still find literary speech entertaining however, which is why I'm writing this tutorial. Although many writers use this form of dialog exclusively, there is a hidden danger with its use; indirect dialog, by its very nature, is somewhat schizoid its construction. One character makes a statement, and then the other character may go off on a literary flight of fancy that has only tangential correspondences to the first speaker's. statement.

Solution: Make all of your characters clever in their speech. Each of them should say the best possible, the most intelligent response at all times. Make them interesting characters so that they will have interesting things to say about life and the situation they're in. Use dialect or flowered speech to give the reader a feeling of "being there".

Since characters must have names, it behooves the author to make use of the opportunity to use them to greatest effect. After the character is regressed, he is a new individual and a name change subconsciously attenuates the differences and may be mortifying to the character. In general, there are two ways names can be chosen; for their philological meaning or for the psychological effect when the name is babified.

For example: Consider the name, "Brian Brandon" is of Celtic origin and means "strong" plus "quick sword". [The hidden philological and psychological meaning of the name might be "a man with a large penis who ejaculates prematurely".] When the name is babified, it becomes simply, "Bri-Bri". (A particular favorite of mine.)

If possible in an AR-Infantilist story, the author should chose a name that will "infantilize" well. One or two syllable first names that are simplified into a doubled first syllable are perfect for this such as the name Joseph", which becomes Jo-Jo. (A woman's "Jo" in the late medieval and renaissance periods was her lover, so the endearment of Jo-Jo-Jo has particular effect on scholars.)

If the name cannot be effectively broken into a single doubled syllable, then it may be possible to feminize it with a diminutive phonetic ending such as "ie". First take the formal name and familiarize it into a more common name that a child might possess. For example; Franklin becomes Frank, James becomes Jim, Donald becomes Don and Thomas becomes Tom and then apply the diminutive phoneme to feminize the name. Thus Frank becomes Frankie, Jim becomes Jimmy, Don becomes Donny (or Doni for extreme feminization that is not quite a female spelling.) and Tom becomes Tommy.

Other diminutives are fomed differently because of the differences in the original tongue that created the name, David becomes Davila (Hebrew),

Some names, such as Robert, have vastly different, but commonly used diminutives like Bobby.

AR-AG writers can use either androgynous names like, Drew, Marian, Cory, Brook, Courtney, Casey, Devin, Jamie, Kerry, Leigh, Lee, Lane, Morgan, Rene, Rory, Robin, Shawn, Sandy, Sydney, Toby, Tracy, Whitney for a low contrast "slippage" of meaning or they can take a boy's name and completely feminize a name like John (or Jon) to transform into Joann, Joan, Jonette, Jonalee, Jonille. Martin can become Marian or Mary and Henry can become Henrietta.

Sometimes a mere spelling difference can change the sex of the name such as in "Sean" and "Shawn". The diminutive of Donald is Doni for a male but Donie for a female, Francis .

Anagrams may also be used for the formal name, but an appropriate baby name should be chosen for the ease of speech, its euphonious qualities and how devastating it is to the character frame of mind.

For non-regressed characters who are not WASP (white-Anglo-Saxon-Protestants) Ethic names are good Harriet, meaning "keeper of the house" is not a cognate, but similar in phonetic construction to a "harrigan"

Writing Resources; Dictionaries, Thesauri, Encyclopedias and Oddments

What's What: A Visual Glossary of Everyday Objects - from Paperclips to Passenger Ships, edited by Reginald Bragonier, Jr. and David Fisher: This book is a virtually indispensable helper for anyone trying to write descriptive prose.

Roget's International Thesaurus (Putnam): I bought this Thesaurus in High School and fell in love with it. Frankly, I couldn't write without it's presence nearby to assure me that I'll be able to find the word I want when I need it. It would be too frustrating to have a word on the tip of my tongue and not be able to find it. Invariably, I find the word in this Thesaurus. Highly Recommended.

The New Roget's Thesaurus in Dictionary Form (Putnam): I own it but don't like it. Others swear by it. I think it’s a matter of taste. I hate its organization.

Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus (Merriam): An excellent Thesaurus.

The St. Martin's Roget's Thesaurus: I've heard of this one from professional writers but have never been able to locate a copy. From what I've been told, this is the BEST Thesaurus on the market; bigger, better organized, and with more synonyms. <Sighhh> I'd love to have a copy.

The Synonym Finder by J. I. Rodale (Hardcover by Rodale Press and softcover by Warner Books): An invaluable reference with listings more complete than most Thesauri. Highly Recommended.

Dell Crossword Dictionary: Crossword dictionaries are "cheat sheets" for writers looking for nouns and adjectives. You'll find oddments in crossword dictionaries that you never thought of and they are very cheap in used bookstores. Highly Recommended.

The New York Times Crossword Dictionary: The "Queen" of crossword dictionaries! You'll never find a better one then this. It's very expensive new, so buy it used. Highly Recommended.

Oy! You should a better dictionary want? Perhaps it's out there, but these eyes haven't seen one. This book describes Yiddish dialog and that isn't enough for you? <Sighhh> On the other hand, maybe you're right. It's only Yiddish-English and not the other way. At least it's something! Nu, what do you want, strawberry jam on your bagel? Good Kosher cream cheese isn't enough for you?

It's fun to read and if you're just looking for help in spelling, it's very useful. The dialog examples are wonderful. Read the whole book and learn some Yiddish!

Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary: Buy it from a used bookstore. It's illustrations and clear definitions make it do double duty as an anatomy reference.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms: Large and expensive, it should be obtained from a used bookstore.

Carpentry & Building Construction by John Feirer and Gilbert Hutchings 3^rd Ed: An invaluable aid to describing buildings and their construction. My husband bought a copy through a book club and never used it. When I'm writing a story and require specific terms that describe architectural or building terms, it sits at my right hand for instant reference.

The Encyclopedia Britannica: Buy an old, old set from a used book dealer. The 1910 edition (11^th ed) is scientifically out-of-date but has a wealth of classical material that was left out of later editions to make room for more modern information. Highly Recommended.

The World Book Encyclopedia: Buy a used set which is not up to date, but whose price has fallen sharply. It's a very well written Encyclopedia and well worth the money, especially if it's used.

New Columbia Encyclopedia: An excellent single volume reference. Since many book clubs use it as a discounted "come-on" for first time customers, it can be found quite readily in used bookstores.

Note that all American downtown districts look pretty much the same from ground level wherever you go. Likewise, skid rows don't change much either.

The Latino barrios of San Antonio or Los Angeles appear so similar as to be indistinguishable. New York's Latin quarter is similar (in terms of construction) to the other ethnic urban neighborhoods in New York except for the Spanish signs in the windows.

Chinatown, whether in New York or in San Francisco are very similar except for the extreme hilliness of San Francisco.

Suburbs can be typed by date of construction as easily as by region. Architects tend to build houses according to prevailing fashion rather than by region. Exception to the rule: Houses in the east and colder climes tend to have basements. Basemented houses tend to be multistoried. Houses in the warmer areas such as the West and Southwest tend to be slab constructed, single-storied, "ranch" style houses. Note that even if a house in the West or Southwest has multiple stories, it's unlikely to have a basement.

Coastal housing tends to be built with pier and beam construction. Exception to the rule: Hotels and Casinos in tourist areas are built with heavy ferroconcrete construction techniques.

Exceptions: Period housing of any region, Coastal housing of the New England States, Southern Antebellum mansions such as in New Orleans and Atlanta, Log cabin structures in heavily forested regions.

Best gotten from Internet sources. Most large cities advertise themselves extensively on the Internet with descriptions of shops, sites and pictures of the more attractive areas. These are a wonderful resource. Don't forget to check the weather patterns for the area on the Internet too. A rainy day can be used to create a mood, provide a reason for an auto accident, etc.

Again, the Internet is your best source. Not surprisingly, the Web sites devoted to areas surrounding National Parks have the best maps and pictures. Flora and fauna are also usually covered extensively.

The fantasy story is a tricky form where writers often make the same predictable mistakes. Here are some of the more common errors:

(Put another way, there is no particular reason for this unique character to go to that particular world. The fantasy world must be the testing ground for the protagonist, a place specifically designed to challenge his unique weaknesses.)

(The fantasy world should be a mirror representation of the everyday world that is twisted in some way. The act of sending a character to the fantasy world is a way of teaching the protagonist, and the audience, about how to live better in the everyday. If the fantasy world is just a beautiful or hellish vision with no grounding in the everyday, the result for the audience is clinical fantasy, interesting but not moving.)

(The fantasy world must be detailed and must be precise in what it refers to. Example: In The Fisher King, there were too few Arthurian elements to connect with the original legend, thus producing a piece that had only slight reference to the real world. The movie was correctly panned by the critics as a result.)

(The fantasy world must have a powerful effect on the protagonist (and perhaps mundane society), or there is no point to the journey.

(The high contrast of protagonist to fantasy world often results in simplistic psychology when the writer tries to create a shortcut rationale for sending the protagonist on a fun journey. Fantasy should not be an excuse for a lack of depth or a dearth of detail describing the protagonist's weaknesses.)

(The jump to the new world is almost always the most sensational story moment in a fantasy. But good fantasies have an "engine" that generates story even after this event; a good fantasy story is based on the protagonist's confrontations with one or more antagonists who challenge the protagonist's weaknesses. )

(Simply sending the protagonist to a fantasy world because it is fun is not sufficient. The trip to the fantasy world must be motivated by a weakness within the protagonist and going to the fantasy world should be the only way for the protagonist to overcome it.)

(Many fantasy worlds have a superficially pleasing quality but are not intimately connected to character or theme. The fantasy world should seem to the audience especially suited for the protagonist. But it should also be the one place the protagonist would not want to go.)

(The essential point is not to get to the fantasy world immediately. A good writer will envelope the reader in a description of the surrounds and the protagonist's feelings before the change in setting. The passageway from the mundane world to the fantastical is one of the most important events in the story and should itself be surprising.

(Writers of fantasy often feel it is enough to come up with a unique fantasy world. They forget that much of the pleasure and power of the fantasy comes from delineating the details and geography of the world that they've created.)

(Because fantasies involve a journey, they usual show the protagonist meeting a succession of antagonists. This leads to an episodic story. Creating an ongoing antagonist is the best way to overcome an episodic and flat middle.)

(Many fantasy writers forget that fantasy is supposed to be allegorical, i.e., they employ mundane symbols rather than symbols that are inherent to the fantasy world. Readers enjoy a fantasy far more if they can see how the symbolic elements are variations on the everyday and present the everyday in a different light.)

Important Note: All fantasy is allegorical, which means that the fantastic stands for something else. Therefore, you must have two tracks in every story:

1. The fantasy track

2. The reality track it represents

AR Writers Note: Unless the character is "moved to another world", the author should only concern himself with the reality track unless you are developing the character in preparation for the return to the mundane world. If the regression is permanent, than double tracking is usually a waste of time. (Unless you are constructing a story with meanings on multiple levels.)

Think of the overall story as a three-point geometry in a two dimensional Cartesian space:

Let A= the protagonist's weakness

and B= the fantastical world

and C= the protagonist changed

Having considered the protagonist and his ultimate fate (A & C) then create B: The story idea must center on a fantasy dream or nightmare world come true for the reader. Then let A drive the story to C. Employ B as a vehicle to transform your protagonist from his initial psychological state to the story's denouement.

For example, a boy adult in a toy company lasts as long as the protagonist continues to act and sound like a boy. Find the contrast or conflict within the fantasy world itself

There must also be a negative hiding in the world that will cause the protagonist to return to the real world and grow

Example, Alice is frustrated by the nonsense and the Queen. Mary Poppins is a strict disciplinarian who make the kids obey to have fun.

If the fantasy world is a nightmare:

There must be a positive imbedded in the world that gives the character an opportunity and allows him to break through the nightmare, return to the real world and grow.

For example; in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", the kids gain confidence and love while going through their difficult trek. In "It's A Wonderful Life", George sees the value of what he has done and wants to live. In "A Christmas Carol", Scrooge sees he can still save his life and help others.

Common Ideal Worlds:

A. The writer's sense of an ideal place to visit

(For example, 1890's America, a jungle lair, a toy company, a major league baseball diamond in your back yard, a Hollywood studio where cartoon characters are real, an underground world where animals talk and have tea parties.)

B. A child's idea of perfection

(Since fantasy is about becoming a child, the AR writer should try to recall their happiest childhood dreams or memories. Contrary-wise, the writer should remember the darker moments of his childhood to give contrast.

A fantasy world, whether one of freedom or slavery, is comprised of

1. land
2. people
3. technology

If the land, people, and technology are in balance, the world is one of community, individual growth, and freedom. In the extreme it is a Utopia, or Heaven on Earth.

If the land, people, and technology are out of balance, everyone is out for himself, and in the struggle everyone is reduced to an animal. This is a world of slavery, or in the extreme is a dystopia, or Hell on earth.

If it is a world of slavery: make the world an expression of the protagonist's greatest weakness

If it is a world of freedom: create a world that contrasts the protagonist's greatest weakness

Compare the unique value system of the new fantasy world to the value system of the first, or everyday world

(A single metaphor provides the cement that makes the world whole and unique and expresses the allegorical meaning of the story.)

Examples:

Alice:

The underworld and the mirror image metaphor: All things are opposite of what they were

Tarzan:

The jungle metaphor: Man is a beast below the civilized veneer of English culture

Honey I Shrunk the Kids:

The jungle metaphor: Beneath the surface of suburbia lies an active state of war

Mary Poppins:

The ocean metaphor: The modern city is a three-dimensional playground of possibilities

Field of Dreams:

The baseball diamond metaphor: Life is a game where you must play your best to win

Batman:

The jungle and the underworld metaphor: the modern city is a cruel state of nature and even the protagonist is an animal

(The minor characters make or break the fantasy. They provide the wonderment and the terror during the journey.)

Examples:

Alice in Wonderland: 1.) the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Queen, the Cheshire Cat, the caterpillar, the White Rabbit, 2.) The Wizard of Oz: Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman, Cowardly Lion, the Munchkins, 3.) Tarzan: apes, lion, jaguar, 4.) Mary Poppins: Burt, the Admiral, Uncle Albert, the chimney sweeps, the cartoon characters, 5.) Roger Rabbit: the cartoon characters

(Define the smaller world [arena] in detail within the larger literary space to give your protagonist a rich landscape to explore.)

(The more detailed the world's description, the more a reader can "slip into" and "see" the world that the author has created.)

(The technique of animating the various objects and creatures of the world increases the sense that the world is alive with spirit. Note: this is an optional technique and should not be overused.)

(One of the most important features of any fantasy is a set of rules that are radically different than the rules of everyday life. Readers enjoy the experience of reading hearing that allow behavior that is either improbably or impossible in the mundane world. The addition of self-consistent rules also give texture and believability to a fantastical world.)

Example: Any of the SRU stories. The idea of the existence of a magician who gives away spells on the basis of suitability, no matter what the petitioner wants, lends an air of suspense to an otherwise hackneyed storyline.

(Surreal juxtaposition of incompatible objects/entities is a way of expressing the central idea of fantasy that all things are possible.)

Examples:

Roger Rabbit: Combination of real actors and cartoons

Fisher King: The bum as a knightly figure.

The Bargain: The housewife and the touchy Genie

Introduce a believable triggering event near the end of the story that will brings the protagonist to the realization that in spite of how great his Utopian environment makes him feel, that he'd be better off returning to his mundane existence (albeit with a different perspective on life). Ultimately, the audience must perceive that it is more valuable for the protagonist to come back than to stay in his apparent Utopia.

Important Note: the trigger should not be an external element driving the protagonist back, but rather something internal, something personal in the protagonist that makes him want or need to go back.

Examples: Gulliver's Travels, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Tarzan, It's A Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol

Use the following checklist to make sure that your fantasy idea will develop beyond a single cute scene:

For example, a boy adult in a toy company lasts as long as the protagonist continues to act and sound like a boy.

There must also be a negative hiding in the world that will cause the protagonist to return to the real world and grow

Example: Alice is frustrated by the nonsense and the Queen. Mary Poppins is a strict disciplinarian who make the kids obey to have fun.

There must be a positive imbedded in the world that gives the character an opportunity and allows him to break through the nightmare, return to the real world and grow.

For example, in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, the kids gain confidence and love by their difficult trek. In It's A Wonderful Life, George sees the value of what he has done and wants to live. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge sees he can save his life by helping others.

Remember that: A Fantasy story takes place in the double arena of two worlds: the mundane and the fantastical. Along with science fiction, fantasy places more emphasis on the context than any other form.

Unlike other genres where the world of the story shows the audience a view of the individual's relation to the group, the fantasy world shows the audience the individual's relation to his psyche.

Fantasy creates a mirror image of the everyday world and shows the individual the possibilities in his psyche that he has yet to explore.

Fantasy also shows the protagonist how to turn the boring mundane world into a playground, to learn to enjoy life, regardless of which world the protagonist exists in.

Advanced fantasy shows the audience the unexplored possibilities in society at large and how people can live better lives.

The protagonist goes to a radically different place which then allows him to see his own world differently.

Examples: Tarzan, Big, Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Wizard of Oz

This is a fundamental fantasy technique, the character changes size relative to the world and thereby changes the entire nature of his world. This can easily be applied to AB stories.

In this fundamental fantasy technique, the character changes size relative to the fantasy (or "real") world and thereby changes the entire nature of that world.

This technique turns the protagonist into a type of "alien" who can see the potential of the real world in a much different light.

When a character gets small, he enters a number of environments that are both complex and dangerous. Everyday objects become insurmountable obstacles. The protagonist's physical limitations prevent him from escaping or taking charge of the situation. The protagonist becomes helpless in a world that no longer fits him. Wives and girlfriends become condescending and begin to rule the protagonist's world.

If a character regresses rather than merely diminishes in size, then he becomes subject to increasingly embarrassing events; his diaper must be changed and he must be fed and bathed daily.

On the other hand, when a character gets huge, he dominates all environments and the plot virtually stops.

Exception to the rule: King Kong: When the giant Kong comes to New York, he in effect becomes a miniature when scaled against the skyscrapers. The supporting characters become miniatures when contrasted with the giant apes enormity. The author of King Kong managed to create a scenario where both the protagonist and the supporting cast are reduced in size and thus saved the storyline from absolute ignonomy.

The fantasy world, no matter what it represents, is fundamentally a world of freedom or slavery.

A fantasy world is comprised of:

1. Land
2. People
3. Technology

If the land, people, and technology are in balance, the world is one of community, individual growth, and freedom. In the extreme it is a Utopia, or Heaven on Earth.

If the land, people, and technology are out of balance, everyone is trying to survive. Because of the struggle for survival, the characters lose their essential humanity as they claw for life like an animal. This is a world of slavery, or in the extreme is a dystopia, or Hell on earth.

All fantasy worlds, whether Utopian or dystopian, have internal conflicts.

Positive fantasy:

The context in positive fantasy appears to be simply a utopian life. In fact, it is utopian with a bad side.

Examples:

Big: A kid gets to be an adult in a toy company, but he misses growing up.

Alice in Wonderland: She visits this fascinating world that is more exciting than her boring life, but logic is turned on its head and the inhabitants can be very nasty.

Negative fantasy:

Though apparently hellish, the negative fantasy world has a positive imbedded in the world that gives the character an opportunity and allows him to break through the nightmare, return to the real world and grow.

Examples:

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The kids gain confidence and love by their difficult trek.

It's A Wonderful Life: George sees the value of what he has done and wants to live.

A Christmas Carol: Scrooge sees he can still save his life and help others.

Fantasy is not just a world of fun journeys and logic-defying moments. Nor is it simply a matter of increasing mental possibilities for the protagonist.

Writing an advanced or transcendent fantasy involves increasing social possibilities. In this way a transcendent fantasy begins to resemble Science Fiction.

In great fantasies, the created world represents a social stage - wilderness, village, city, oppressive city - or a type of society - monarchy, democracy, tyranny, etc. The protagonist journeys through one or more of these worlds in order to contrast different ways of organizing people and living well.

Because advanced fantasy compares systems, it, by necessity, uses a branching form to tell the story.

Each branch represents a complete society in detail, or a detailed stage of the same society.

Important Note: your successful story writing depends on how the writer connects and compares the branches in a line.

Examples:

Gulliver's Travels simply puts four branches in succession.

1. The storyteller himself must change because of the story

Science fiction is the most creative of all literary forms because the author must create an entire universe for the story.

The following techniques will help a budding writer create a great science fiction story.

Science fiction stories have the most diverse array of characters of any story form. As in any genre, the protagonist in science fiction drives the action. But because science fiction is also an expression of social philosophy, the minor characters become extremely important as "voices" speaking about their existence in the new world.

There are infinite possibilities for the protagonist's problem/need in the story. But often the protagonist's need relates in some way to what it means to be human. For example, the protagonist is inhuman or animalistic or unevolved in some way.

Blade Runner - He is a ruthless androids killer

2001 - The protohuman apes are become killers, the humans want to kill HAL

Terminator: The protagonist needs to become a leader

Terminator 2: In order to learn not to kill, the protagonist must become a leader

Ideally, there should be a strong connection with the protagonist's lack of evolution and the planet's lack of evolution

Important Note: The story should be detailed at every level of the world: values, language, logic, etc.

The protagonist's unique desire depends on the story.

In most negative storylines the protagonist's object is to escape (Logan's Run, Clockwork Orange, Brazil); this is one reason these stories often fail commercially and with the readers. Running away is not perceived as an elegant conclusion.

Exception to the rule: Terminator; Because it is a dual genre story ( both Action and Science Fiction), it could use either denouement for a successful conclusion. The author choose both types of endings for the grand finale; While the antagonist attacks relentlessly, the protagonist kills the villain and survives as would be expected in an Action story. However, the denouement also encompasses a radical change in the Martian ecology, making it livable for the human community. Thus the Science Fiction thematic end was satisfied as well.

Usually the protagonist must explore, find something, win a war, or save a Planet (Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune, Total Recall)

Important point: Make the desire specific and intensely focused. The protagonist's personal needs must drive the story, and not be dominated by external factors.

Star Wars: Saving the Princess

The Stars My Destination: Revenge

Make him the main representative of the negative system; this is true in positive and negative science fiction

The antagonist's goal: To gain or maintain control over the protagonist or the world

Examples: When the protagonist is regressed into infancy or when a planet is blown up

Example of poorly written story with purposeless abusive power descriptions:

"Making the Grade" by Bob Stein

Remember: the story must be about evolution of the world

Anta