In a previous article, Shrinking Fiction: How Psychology Can Help You Write Good Fiction, I suggested an exercise for your project then asked:

In Episode I of Season I of the Tudors (Showtime), King Henry VIII asks his ambassador to France if the French king has strong calves. Why?

These are the first two answer/comments I have received, so far, to my question. I will sent each commentator a signed copy of Gun Play. When I have a few more comments, I will jump in with the follow-up article.

"Well, this is almost a shot in the dark - maybe a shot in dim light, since I haven't watched the Showtime series, I can't quite remember what you said on this subject in the workshop, but I DO have a little knowledge of the history of Henry VIII, and I know a little about anatomy. Calves are load-bearing muscles that can take a lot of exertion and bounce back fairly quickly. I think Henry might have been asking either a) physically, is the French king a capable warrior who can lead his troops to battle, or b) psychologically, is the French king a capable leader who can withstand an invasion? Or I could be completely off the mark... " Gayle Carline

"Vanity and personal insecurity. He's a Tudor, after all." bd

First, let me thank Sharon Sergeant, who is becoming a pen pal and periodic conversant, for her stunning first guest article on the Misha Defonseca story; there will be more. I can't think of a more interesting topic for all writers and readers. She just so happens to reside in my home state of Massachusetts so when we talk, I catch up on my former turf.

Turning our attention to the subject at hand, Misha Defonseca, David Shields, writing for the one of the best alternative rags in America, The Stranger, lumps Eliot Spitzer, Margaret Seltzer and Misha together in his psycho/culture article entitled Vertigo. He posits, "Everyone's ambition is underwritten by a tragic flaw." He quotes Freud, "What lives wants to die again," and invokes Sophocles, "Even though you knew it would cost you your eyes..."  Finally and unfortunately, Shields leaves us with the psycho-physical death wish as our common fate. Shields appropriately entitles his article Vertigo, a disorder of balance; however, the exposed narcissist risks falling in to the water from where the reflection of reality originated. It is his tragic fate. There is hope; it is not our common one.   More...

Talk about Shrinking Fiction! Several weeks ago Sharon Sergeant contacted me through this blog to ask my professional comments on why someone fakes a memoir. More on my thoughts later. What do you think?

- from Sharon Sergeant

I am the researcher that led the Defonseca genealogical investigative team. Misha Defonseca, a Belgian national, was exposed as a fraudulent Holocaust survivor in February of 2008. Various book versions of Defonseca's story have been bestsellers, and the recently released French film "Survivre avec les Loups" (Surviving with Wolves) has reportedly had more than 600,000 ticket sales in France and Belgium. I became involved after I read a  blog written by Jane Daniel, the US publisher of Defonseca's first book in 1997. Daniel's saga with Defonseca began in 1994, when Defonseca  was speaking and soliciting financial aid in the local Jewish community. Lawsuits against Daniel by Defonseca and her ghost writer, Vera Lee, resulted in a 33 million dollar judgment. Daniel was facing the seizure of her home, her last asset and wanted to know what the real story was behind this bizarre turn of events.

In the meantime, Defonseca had become an icon in Europe with her story of a heroic Jewish child traveling through war torn Europe, protected by wolves and partisans, surviving significant events during the Holocaust. The French film heightens these fairy tale themes with visual cues, emotive scenes and sweeping landscapes. More than a decade of interviews with Defonseca in print, audio recordings and videos demonstrate her ability to suspend disbelief. Defonseca created a world that people wanted to believe in. Those that did question her story were dismissed by Defonseca and attacked by her believers. Although I believed that Defonseca's claims could be proved or disproved, I suspected that I was facing a formidable illusion. In addition, the appellate court ruling in the lawsuits against Daniel was an excoriating opinion of Daniel, extolling Defonseca's credibility. I contacted Daniel to tell her the case was solvable using modern forensic genealogical methods and asked for her cooperation no matter what the investigation revealed. She agreed, sent me several copies of the original US publication, ordered copies of other versions, supplied trial documents, and the meager results she had gotten from private investigators.  More...

"Following his packed workshops at our L.A. and Palm Springs events, back to SCWCSD http://www.writersconference.com/scwcmain.html, by popular demand is 'Shooting Shrink' series author and semi-retired psychologist Michael Thompkins."

That is how this blog column all began for me. I signed up to do a workshop with Michael Steven Gregory, MSG to his friends, and the Southern California Writers Conference in October 2006. A year later in LA, and a year and a half later in San Diego, we were still packing the rooms for workshops devoted to “how psychology can help you write good fiction.”

Then, a month ago in San Diego, after a tremendous amount of interest and support from the conferees and SCWCSD staff, it became obvious to me that there were www.shootingshrink.com blog articles to be written. Each article, whether it is on writing character or plot, once posted, will appear on the blog until I write the next one. Then, it will be archived on the site.

Shrinking Fiction #I: Earliest Maps of Character

Some of the earliest Emotional Anatomy maps of character structure come from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Western Folk Medicine, world-views inherited from the ancients. In TCM, and Western Folk Medicine (Naturopathy, Homeopathy, et al.), there is no difference between the practice of psychology and the practice of medicine. Specific emotions, patterns of thought, and attitudes are associated with specific anatomical organs and other physical structures in complete systems of correspondence.  In TCM these are often called Five Element Theory.  In Western Folk Medicine these are call humours.

More...