Showing posts with label Overton Window. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Overton Window. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 02, 2018

Worldbuilding For Science Fiction Romance Part 2 - Imagine An Impossible World

Worldbuilding For Science Fiction Romance
Part 2
Imagine An Impossible World 

Part 1:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/worldbuilding-for-science-fiction.html

In Part 1, we looked at the component of Artistic Composition.

Now, in Part 2, we will look at how to compose the vision of another world, or a futuristic world, using the techniques of science fiction to weld a science story to a Romance.

Pick a science - for example, let's look at sociology or psychology, "soft sciences."

If you need to detail the invention of an FTL space drive, you need to pick astrophysics, or something mystical.  For this exercise, let's look at the notion of "Ripped From The Headlines" as the source of story ideas that sell to wide audiences.

The purpose of this blog is to explore what Romance writers can do to create the Romance Genre version of Star Trek and Star Wars - reaching audiences that actively loathe the genre you are selling them and convincing that audience that they've been missing something.

We have spent a few months exploring the loathing for the HEA, the Happily Ever After, ending which is the primary signature of the Romance Genre.

Readers want a "complete story" -- a story that starts with the explosion of a problem into the life of someone they can understand.

People want Characters struggling to do something they are now doing in their life, so they can watch the Character succeed in the struggle by inventing a new solution to the problem.

So let's look at a problem in sociology -- Fake News Media Bias.

The way events are revealed and covered in the media today irks a lot of people -- and it irks both ends of the political spectrum equally.

People don't want to be told what to make of an event, an utterance, a proclamation, or Supreme Court Decision.  They just want to know what happened, who did what, and how it relates to their prospects for succeeding at (whatever they are doing) life.

So figure out what irks audiences about the Media representations of current Events (politics is always fertile ground! But on the whole, leave the "media" out of your story, and plot, and present all sides of the political argument in the headlines.)'

It's Fake News that irks people -- only these people believe X is fake news and Y is true news, while those people believe Y is fake news and X is true news.

You want to write a Romance -- you don't want to identify X or Y as fake news.

So imagine a Visionary "future human dominated Earth" where news is News, not Fake and not True, but just News.  Imagine a civilization where the problem has been solved and everyone is deriving their diverse and contrary opinions from the same Facts.

That Vision you imagine is the ENDING of your Romance, the HEA.

Now, work backwards to the problem that combining the Two Characters into a Harmonious Couple will solve.

The problem is a society that is in perpetual angst over what is real being mixed up in what a malevolent manipulator is weaving into the warp and woof of the society's fabric.

So your opening might be a College Graduation ceremony where, at a party after the ceremony, someone misbehaves egregiously and there is consequent media coverage at variance with what your Main Character witnesses.

Then there's a Court case.

Suppose the witness is deeply involved with the miscreant and called to testify where the junior most lawyer on the prosecutor's team is a fellow graduate who also witnesses.

Chapter Two is the court decision being handed down in accordance with the imaginary (or rigged ) facts as reported in the media, not what these two witnesses saw happen.

Chapter Three is the two of them together at some kind Event generated by the Court decision.  At this point they are not friends.  An Event happens, and they discover each other as potential Soul Mates - sparks fly.  They each offend their employers in some way because of the sparks.

Job hunting results from them both getting fired over their argument about the court case results.

Chapter 4 has them meeting again by forces beyond their control, not a random force, but one generated by the Event where their Sparks Flew resulting in unemployment.  Could be a job fair, or a volunteer stint at say, Habitat for Humanity.  Choosing these Events venues, and purposes is all done by consulting your Theme and manifesting the thematic statement in the choices.

The choices of events are also rooted in the Worldbuilding you are trying to do, Portraying the Society that is having this problem they will address.

In Chapter 4, they combine forces, (willingly or unwillingly) to address the problem of facts and imagine an impossible world --- and create it.

You see how the HEA is built into the beginning here.  It is an example of  Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration.  Here is the index to that series of posts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html

The problem is presented, the solution is clear -- and "happiness" will result from solving this problem (ever after is another issue -- keep the suspense rolling tighter and tighter until you reveal the ever-after part (probably marriage proposal).)

Here is the Index post to Believing In The Happily Ever After:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/index-to-believing-in-happily-ever-after.html

Chapter 5 is a meeting, maybe over coffee at a busy lunch venue, where the two of them hatch a plan to launch a New Media Company, a web-casting channel with key News Programming (and maybe a blog).

If you need a model for what they can do, and ways it can fail (to keep the suspense up) look at two, twin, commercial news efforts that are working in our world today.

Along the way, they have to discover the concept The Overton Window (key events that pivot the World into a new direction - really change society's values).  Here's a Post on that topic:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/10/glenn-beck-didnt-invent-overton-window.html

The Overton Window is the subject of their conversation over coffee - the scribbling on a napkin probably happens as scribbling on their phone screens set for note taking by hand, diagrams, doodles.

And you have to look at the recent history of companies entering the Streaming News business that may be seen (one day) as Overton Window Events.

https://theblaze.com

https://crtv.com

CRTV has almost put The Blaze out of business -- both tend toward the lurid tabloid end of the spectrum and neither (as of 2018) seem to have their own news gathering operations.  They both sell commentary, not real-time-event-tracking.

When CNN launched as the first news-only Cable TV channel, it launched with a huge investment in (then new) satellite communications mounted on mobile units, and sucked in correspondents and support teams from established networks struggling to make the transition from broadcast to cable (because cable was where the advertising bucks where going).

In 2018, we are watching advertising bucks shift into mobile and streaming ventures.

So currently, there are a few launches of streaming news services (check Roku's list of channels, and Amazon, and Netflix).

The barrier to entry into the Streaming Live News Space is the financing to hire proficient roving news gathering crews, be on the spot, cover breaking news.

Another entry barrier is access to a deep and rich "morgue" -- newspapers used to call the file of previous issues their "morgue."  Today it is a searchable database of sound bytes and video clips  to which you own the copyright.

Both of these barriers can be used as plot-conflict generators, and if done correctly could run this Futuristic Romance out to 5 or more novels.

Here are some previous posts linking to these concepts:

Mastering The Narrative Line
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/10/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_86.html

Making a Profit At Writing In A Capitalist World
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/10/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_11.html

Keep The Press Out Of It
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/information-feed-tricks-and-tips-for.html

Using The Media To Advance Plot
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-7-using-media-to-advance.html

The News Game:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

There are Venture Capital incubators and start-up processes for new ventures all over the map.  Most start-ups (over 90%) fail, and most of the rest are being built merely to be sold to "the big guys."

Considering this streaming start-up venture coming up against these barriers to entry into the live-news "just the facts" coverage (which is very unpopular at this time), your new couple with a vision and a wider social justice ambition to fix the world, you have enough plot material for a very long series as their Relationship develops, strains, maybe shatters, reforms, all over the business decisions they must make to create their News Venue.

Maybe they start envisioning a TV channel and end up creating something akin to Reuters or AP - an aggregating news service the big guys (NBC, CNN) subscribe to.

So think about the titles for News Shows to put on this hypothetical streaming service.  Maybe the news show titles could become book titles if you outline a long series.

Think about:

Just The Facts  (talking heads)
Live Update  (Field Correspondents with an Anchor)
Trends  (statistics and charts)
Believe It Or Not ( Items of Breaking News that may not be true)
Around The World (what other countries are telling their citizens.
Confirming Suspicions (which Breaking News is true)

Keeping inventing News Show titles and slants that simply will not sell advertising in today's world which lusts after juicy gossip, ain't it awful, and the latest name-calling shouting match.

The less commercial your title idea is, the more likely your Couple will try to make it fly -- or hire an Anchor who advocates it.

Do you know how to write a News Headline that does not reveal your personal bias?  Try it.  Read some news items and rewrite them without any slant or bias.  It is not easy to avoid "leading" the reader to interpret the significance of an event the way you see it.  Practice and see how much Romance there actually is in the News Game.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Putting Violence In Its Place

What is Violence?

Really, just exactly what is violence?  Not what does the word mean, but what is the phenomenon of Violence?

Most fiction these days has some sex, some violence, and sometimes sexy violence, but for the most part Romance and Violence just don't mix.  Why?

What is it about Violence that is antithetical to the mood of Romance?

Well, then, what exactly is Romance? 

Or put another way, what does violence have in common with romance? 

Isn't that a heretical thought?

The first thing that comes to mind is of course domestic violence.

People who live in the same space (dare I say "together?") develop a close personal relationship where they learn how to "push each others buttons."  It's so easy to take out your anger at a workplace situation on your domestic co-residents.

I'm saying "co-residents" because I'm including in domestic violence all the kinds of violence that happen between domestic partners, significant others, part-time cohabitants, AND spouses and their children.  Parents spank children, or yell at them, intimidate etc.  Children "turn on" their parents in their teens and try to break free.

All these criss-crossing tension leads to verbal abuse, violence against women, violence against children (for just being childish), even domestic tensions carried into the workplace creating workplace violence. 

Now look at the pairs of kinds of people I've mentioned who get into violent exchanges.  It's the same list that LOVE EACH OTHER.

Children love parents.  Parents love children.  Men love women and vice versa.

People you work with, you bond with.  Someone comes along and starts bad-mouthing a person who has helped you through a rough patch at work -- you will intervene if you've got a spine and any sense of morality.  You bond with people in all kinds of situations. 

The tighter the bond, the more energy is released when the bond breaks. 

That released energy CAN (shouldn't, but can) express itself as violence.

Romance creates bonds, but violence doesn't break such an annealed bond.

Violence can't break a romance -- but violence is one possible way the energy bound up in a romantic bond CAN come flowing out when that bond breaks.

Maybe we should look at Romance as stored energy.  If so, violence is released energy.

But even if that's true -- or true in special cases -- there's another way to look at both the question, "What is violence?" and "What is Romance?" and find the same answer to each question.

What is violence?  It's a problem-solving activity - an attempt to FIX SOMETHING that isn't working right. 

What is Romance?  It's a problem-solving activity - an attempt to FIX SOMETHING that isn't working right. 

The "something" that is seen as "the problem" may actually be the same something!

In Violence applied to solve a problem, very often the problem is something of the form "LISTEN TO ME DAMMIT!"

Violence is often the attempt to get someone to do something -- or not do something,  or at least not do that something again.

In other words, violence is an attempt to communicate.

In Romance applied to solve a problem, very often the problem is something of the form "I HEAR YOU!" 

We fall in love when we resonate to another person's emotions, and feeling the reality of that other person's very existence makes us real to ourselves.  Romance, (dating, candle-lit dinners, walks on the beach at night) is an activity of communication.

Violence and Romance are both attempts to communicate something having to do with the fact that your life has been effected by the actions or reactions of another person.

Workplace Violence, and domestic violence too, are so very often attempts to get someone else to understand how you feel and why you are important in the overall scheme of things.

The PROBLEM violence is used to solve is the same problem Romance solves -- "I want you to understand what I mean when I tell you how I feel."

Very often, when the mentally deranged grab guns and shoot up a crowded public place, it is an attempt to shout loudly enough to be heard, "I MATTER! PAY ATTENTION!"

And isn't that the bottom line in Romance? 

But in Romance, the dialog takes place quietly, with an exchange of glances, a smile, an invitation out to lunch, a proffered cup of coffee, a dozen little favors chosen carefully after close study of the other person's preferences.  It's all about saying "You matter, and I'm paying attention."

It's COMMUNICATION. 

Violence and Romance are both activities which attempt to solve a problem in communication. 

"All's Fair in Love And War." 

"The Battle of the Sexes."

Think about it.  It's all about communication.  And it's hard to make the case that what's being communicated is really so very different! 

If an incident of mass killing erupts into the News and becomes a focus of news coverage for days, that incident becomes an Overton Window -- a window of opportunity for people who want to "control things" to push public opinion in the direction that benefits the few rather than the many.

Pundits and Politicians call for a ban on assault weapons, or handguns, or whatever object was used to kill a lot of people, as if making it hard to obtain the means of communicating will make people stop wanting to communicate. 

Why do people grab a gun, a machete, or a rock and inflict damage on others?

Is it because nobody would listen to them?  Not usually.  It's more likely, I think, that the person who is yelling out their message does not FEEL that they've been heard.  They may have been heard, but if they don't feel it, it may as well not have happened. 

That's the key point for a Romance writer to grab hold of.  It's all about "What does he see in her?  What does she see in him?  What does he think she sees in him?  What does she think he sees in her?" 

Without closing the feedback loop, the problem can't be solved.

In life, we don't want to be heard -- we want to KNOW we've been heard.

So both Romance and Violence are actions undertaken to solve a problem.

Success at solving that problem gives us strength to go out and deal with "life" on many other levels.

That's why we read Romance, and write it.  We need to feel successful at solving a problem, so we can go solve another.

And that's why people play violent videogames.  Or read "Action" novels, or watch action TV or movies. 

The presence of violence on TV or in games doesn't cause people to go out and shoot up their workplace or a theater.  I'll bet one day they'll prove it's really the opposite -- that engaging in vicarious violence actually prevents violent behavior (in the sane).

But almost everyone I know has noticed the non-stop, wall to wall, violence in entertainment, becoming more graphic by the year, and can't see how that doesn't cause people to behave in a more callous or violent manner.

I don't think the presence of violence causes people to commit violence.

If it did, imagine how many perfectly HAPPY MARRIAGES we'd have among Romance readers!  If satisfying sex in fiction caused people to change their sexual behavior so that they, too, had nothing but satisfying sex -- well, there wouldn't be any sexually deprived people left in the world.

No, fiction doesn't CAUSE people to model their behavior after that of fictional characters. 

But who among us can't point to a work of fiction that affected them in their youth?

Many have pursued a career in science because of Star Trek.  Many have found the courage to take a chance -- go adventuring -- when inspired by heroic fiction.  Others have taken trips around the world and other adventures after reading about far away places with strange sounding names. 

These actions are taken after thoughtfully processing information garnered through both fiction and non-fiction.  These actions which originate perhaps in a bit of fiction found in early youth become implemented in life after pondering alternatives.

And there's the key concept - alternatives.

Consider what TV, film and videogames have become -- distilled and concentrated sex and violence, because sex and violence sells.

Ask yourself whether it's the presence of the fictional sex and violence that  causes customers to go out and become promiscuous or shoot up their colleagues at work.  Or if maybe it isn't the presence of violence, but the absence of any OTHER successful problem solving technique that leads some isolated individuals to believe there exists no other way to solve their problem.

Is our social problem the presence of violence or the absence of other successful problem solving techniques?

In real life, violence doesn't solve the problem of being misunderstood.  Romance doesn't, either -- in fact I'd say their success rate in real life is about equal. 

There are, however, a number of social-interactive techniques that are tried-and-true methods of solving this essential, core problem -- knowing you've been heard, taken seriously, taken into account, and in fact have prevailed at least sometimes.

We don't need less violence (or less Romance) in our fiction.  We need other alternative methods of solving the problem sprinkled into our fiction so we have choices to ponder.

You might want to read this older post that nails this question of communication on a more esoteric level:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/gift-giver-recipient.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Theme-Plot Integration - Part 2: Fallacy As Theme


Last week we listed a number of prior posts that form the foundation of this advanced writing exercise of integrating two huge skill-sets, THEME and PLOT. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html

I pointed out the origin of PR (publicity, public relations, shaping "public" opinion) and how that science has been so effective in molding our current culture. 

In November 2012, I saw the following tweet on twitter:
"Common perspective in India: when something comes from the Internet, it's free of cost" #ebkstats @DigiBookWorld

Please also note this Guest Post on this blog:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/sharing-is-piracy.html

That "common perspective" concept is what I'm talking about here.  "if it's from the internet, it's free." is a fallacy for us and common sense for them. 

Remember our whole, long, discussion of "fallacy?" 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integraton-part-2.html

I saw a post on Facebook in December 2012 from a person talking to a professional writer.  The person wrote that during a bit of research on the Web, looking for a quote from a deceased writer's work, a "free download" pdf of the novel came up.  The researcher was utterly astonished that anyone could possibly think they were doing a Good Deed to post free downloads of books -- and went to find one to buy that would pay the estate properly. 

I'm astonished anyone is astonished that book piracy is now considered a Good Deed.  That's a cultural concept, and a fallacy -- study it because it's exactly what either binds a couple in Romance, or repels Soul Mates from each other.  Fallacies are wondrous sources of conflict for your novel plots because they are, inherently, the material of THEME.  Pick the right fallacy, and you've got Theme-Plot Integration that is effortless, seamless, and beautiful to behold.

I used the key concepts behind misnomers and fallacies in my Sime~Gen Novel, Unto Zeor, Forever - which just came out from audible.com and also has paper and ebook editions.




If you're going to write about Alien Romance, you've got to be able to straddle the rift illustrated by that "fallacy" that the internet is free, and "sharing" anything is a Good Deed.  You must be capable of writing  convincingly from each perspective in turn, then resolve the difference (not for yourself personally, but as your characters would resolve their problem).  You must reduce the chasm for your readers, so both parties in the argument can straddle that chasm and hold hands, and admit they are Soul Mates. 

You can learn to do this if you understand culture.

But last week, I didn't mention one item that I've talked about a lot in these posts, the study of what culture is. 

A writer needs to study the definition of "culture" (anthropological definition) until it becomes very clear where inside the writer's own mind "culture" resides and what precisely that "culture" bin inside the writer's mind currently contains (and where that content came from; what fallacies reside there).  Then the writer must study culture as it functions in a lot of people that writer knows -- writers being natural people-watchers, this study does not take a lot of discipline.  In fact, it's hard for a writer-type person to resist becoming obsessed with this study.

Beyond studying yourself and people you know very well, though, you must extend that study to the general public around you, and then to the whole world.

Why does a writer need a "feel" -- on a deep, subconscious level -- for culture in order to write hot romance?  Because the hottest of heats is generated where cultures conflict.

And anthropologists have identified "female culture" and "male culture" -- in fact, there's women's language and men's language.  Human cultures usually develop private ceremonials for men and for women separately, in addition to public events that involve both.  In modern America, you see that in house parties where somehow the women end up in one room (often the kitchen or back porch) while men end up clustered in another room, (often the parlor or living room). 

I'm currently reading a self-published mixed-genre SF/Romance with time travel jumbled in.  It's a relationship driven novel.  I should like it.  But the author appears to have skipped this step of studying culture until it's second-nature, then learning how to integrate that study into Theme-Plot integration.  The pieces of this novel just don't meet at the seams -- like a building that's been added-onto and the floors and walls miss the seam by a couple inches, disorienting the eye.

So the study of how Public Relations science is being employed by the Big Money to shape our culture is important to the SF/Romance fiction writer who needs to create verisimilitude.

It's also important to the futurologist who wants to worldbuild a background for a novel set in the future.  You must extrapolate, using "What if ...?"  "If only ..." and also "If this goes on ..." starting with trends today, and extending them along the path they are traveling.  Then find the forces (such as the subconscious conflicts in the minds of those allocating Big Money to PR thrusts) that will CHANGE that future course.

Here is one such present-time trend to work this exercise with.

--------------QUOTE---------------
Big Brands Are Pouring Money Into Their Own Custom News Sites

On top of their multi-million dollar advertising budgets, huge companies are now diving into an arena previously dominated by traditional media. They're producing videos, releasing interviews with top executives, and providing unique looks inside their organization on their own specialized websites.

It's a way to present a carefully crafted message to consumers, and change the way traditional media interacts with companies. Content marketing overall has become at least a $16.6 billion business, and these sites are taking a growing share. 

We spoke to Alexander Jutkowitz, the managing partner partner of Group SJR, a digital firm which helps run content sites for GE, Credit Suisse, Target, and Barneys about why companies are doing it.

Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Where did the idea come from?

There are a few trends in the marketplace or in the world that we know about. There's media fragmentation, there is a lot of content, but frankly not a lot of great content, and there are a lot of organizations that have incredible knowledge that does not on a regular basis see the light of day. 

If it does, it's in a traditional sort of marketing model, whether that's advertising or even broadcast advertising. It's hard to transmit a lot of knowledge in 30 and 60 second spots. Traditional communications have been a bit lackluster in that sense because it's all about clear promotional content, and not content that really impacts and transfers knowledge.

There is both an opportunity for a great organization to communicate and to trend, and to really have their knowledge impact the world.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-ge-target-and-credit-suisse-are-creating-content-2012-11#ixzz2BSOkdBII

-------------END QUOTE----------------

WRITERS REMEMBER!! "content" = "writing you can get paid for doing." 

I have recently seen tweets about how much a fiction writer makes.  It's less than minimum wage when you actually account for your time, and pay for all your expenses.  Finding ancillary sources of revenue you can tap using the same expensively-gained and maintained skills you use for fiction writing must be a part of your business plan as a self-employed writer. 

"Content" has value when it says something startling, something that stops the eye, baffles the mind, raises questions -- i.e. says something philosophically challenging to the reader. 

Where do you "get" the ability to listen to a business person (a publisher of a website, for example) say "I need suchandso" and just instantly come back with "How about this?" and provide what that content-publisher needs right now to attract eyeballs to the advertising on that website?

When the "this" that you propose turns out to go viral -- your employer asks, "How do you think of these things?" and you respond (having studied my posts here on Hollywood) "Oh, it just came to me." 

Why does it "just come to you?"  Very simple.  In a word, Philosophy.  Or, as writers refer to it, Theme. 

With your subconscious trained (hard) to be lean and strong in Philosophy, theme-plot integrated cultural statements "just come to you."  These vast ideas erupt in response to the vision of dollar-signs.  And that's just how it works. 

So the hours and hours you spend researching and learning the historical origins of PR allow you to understand how PR campaigns driven by the Big Money shape our ambient culture, but you don't get paid for those hours spent studying until you produce a piece of fiction that triggers that ambient culture into paying money to imbibe in your product. 

The entire concept of Love and Romance having some connection to "Marriage" has become a part of our culture as the result of a PR campaign.  (research that!)

So for our example in this study of Theme-Plot integration, we're looking at the broad subject of the "fallacy" and how it operates in the human mind, the "belief system" to shape our perception of reality.  Perception is more real to us than the objective reality itself. 

The residual results of any PR campaign can be found by listening for the phrase "they say."  Or "everybody knows."  Then watch the next generation of teens raised by those who know "they say."  Those new teens will not even question, but just know, what used to be a "they say."  It won't be "they" that say, but the teens themselves.  In fact, they may invent some word to describe that concept, thinking they originated the concept.  4-generations -- study the 4-generation span on these cultural beliefs, and learn to extrapolate them into the future.

This is how fallacies become bedrock cultural cornerstones never to be questioned.

Publishers perpetuate these fallacies by enshrining them in genre rules.  The Romance Genre (as well as Science Fiction itself) has fallen victim to this process. 

To illustrate how to investigate and then utilize an institutionalized fallacy to construct a theme-plot integrated story, we are studying the fallacy that Romance Is An Emergency. 

Maybe you don't think that's a fallacy.  It's OK - even true things can be treated as fallacy in fiction.  That process is the core of developing plot-worthy conflict. 

We left off last week with the following questions:

--------QUOTE------------
Why is Romance Genre singled out for scorn when all other fiction is even more unbelievable?

Romance Genre is special because everyone, in their heart of hearts, wants not just Romance, but entree into everlasting Love, solid and unbreakable Relationships, Family, enriched life.

Not only does everyone want it, everyone knows they are destined for it. 

Yet, time after time, in reality, they have had that promise of fulfillment snatched away.  The only possible psychological defense left is to believe staunchly that Happily Ever After is not possible.

Is Romance an Emergency?  When it happens, is it a life-or-death crisis in which one must drop everything and dash willy-nilly after the person who has evoked this vision of absolute fulfillment?

And if Romance is indeed an Emergency, then how should we treat it? 

How do we respond to Emergencies and Crises? 

Is there a malfunction in our society's training about how to respond to Emergencies and Crises?

Is our audience indoctrinated with some kind of fallacy that has warped our response to Emergencies? 

If so, what fallacy?  Where did it come from?  We, as writers, no doubt share that fallacy, so why bother to pinpoint it? 

The fallacy in our Emergency Response habits, if we can articulate it, can become our Theme, and the PINPOINTING of that fallacy  can become the plot of the breakout Romance that I've been talking about in this blog since I started looking for how Romance Genre can achieve the respect it deserves. 

---------END QUOTE-----------

The thesis I put forward last week is that Romance stories written as if falling in love is an emergency imbue the whole genre with the aura of a scam.  Scam artists use emergencies as a means of using their mark's greatest strengths (in the case of Romance, it's usually Trust) against them.

So when a Romance telegraphs that the "ending" -- the destination for this couple's relationship -- is HEA, or Happily Ever After, it is concurrently telegraphing that the emotional payoff of reading this novel will be unending pain -- it will evoke real world loss and real world hopelessness if you "buy into" the premise.

So that raises the two questions: a) is Romance an Emergency, and b) Is there something wrong with how we respond (emotionally) to emergencies?

Well, I have of course evolved my own answers to those questions.  Think yours through before reading further here. 

a) No, Romance is not an Emergency.
b) Yes, our culture has conditioned us via fallacy inculcation to respond to emergencies incorrectly.  The conditioning is so deep (via PR or Propaganda that I mentioned last week, a psychological Judo) that we can not find that fallacy to correct it. 

Those are my answers.  What good can my answers do you?  None.  None whatsoever.

But here is something that might give you a handle on how to construct your own novel about Romance. 

I will lay out my "work" (as in algebra, a derivation) so you can follow along and substitute your own reasoning point by point.  Again, my answers are of no value to you, but my system of reasoning through this problem might be.

Here's how it goes.

a) Romance is not an Emergency

Romance, usually arriving during a major transit of Neptune, is a matter of the Soul.  In fact, life itself -- existence on this material plane -- is really an adventure the Soul is taking, a dip into "life" to do a job.  It's a little like being in the armed services and being sent "abroad" to a theater where (if there's a war, or even if there is no actual war) the action is.

We come into this life to accomplish something, maybe more than one thing per lifetime.  There is a goal to our personal existence which is only about our own personal Soul -- and simultaneously that goal contributes to a larger job, known in the Occultist studies as The Great Work, a job which G-d created us to do.  Kabbalists identify that goal as making in this world a dwelling place for G-d, and that place is inside what they term your "Heart" -- not so much the physical organ as a level of being which powers your existence.  Very mystical stuff.

For the more highly evolved souls, Neptune transits bring prophecy, glimpses of the real reality underlying our reality, the truth behind the facts.  For the rest of us, Neptune drapes the world in a dense fog of wish-fulfillment fantasy, distortion, misunderstanding, (sometimes lies told or believed), or possibly of idealism, and very likely even a close encounter of the third kind with Religion, faith, belief in the impossible.

Bottom line: Neptune transits = Confusion

But during that state of confusion -- and in a lifetime, it's very probable you will experience many different sorts of Neptune transits that blur the world -- during that state of confusion is when Romance erupts into Life.

No wonder people marry the wrong person -- in a couple years, when the transit wears off, the hard edges of reality define the Relationship and it is no longer an Ideal.  Under Neptune, people marry to "rescue" (as in reform an alcoholic) and get trapped in the fog of co-dependency.

But for the more mature Souls, that "wrong person" ultimately turns out to be the right one, the most solid and dependable Relationship, the true Soul-Mate.

A Soul-Mate Relationship that arrives outside the window of a Neptune Transit doesn't begin with what is normally recognized as Romance. 

So, if the arriving Other is a true Soul Mate and this Relationship (whatever its form) is what this life is really about, then there's no way out of it.  The pairing will fasten down hard, and there can be no getting away from each other.  (as mentioned last week, Ahab and his whale, and Helen of Troy).

In that case, the arrival of that Other into your life is no emergency.  The Relationship will procede to Bonding.  You have only to choose (G-d endows us with Free Will) and accept.  Some call it karma.  If it doesn't crystallize in this life, no emergency -- next life will be soon enough. 

If this Other is not the true Soul Mate -- then nothing can be lost if the Other drifts away. 

So if there does exist such a thing as a Happily Ever After with a Soulmate, then that is the inevitable consequence of living well -- even if not in this lifetime.  Not everyone pairs in every lifetime.  The arrival of a Soulmate (even if not for the first time) is always exciting, energizing, riveting attention, consuming and delightful -- of highest priority -- but, it's not an emergency.

The principle is that what belongs to you is yours.  It's part of you.  You can't lose it and it can't be taken away from you (for long). 

b) Yes, our culture has conditioned us via fallacy inculcation to respond to emergencies incorrectly.

This is the core of the theme.  The Soul-Mate concept leading to the Happily Ever After is the signature of the Romance Genre, so it's not something we can challenge or alter, and in truth it is not the source of the Romance Genre being scorned.

So let's search for the fallacy in the way we respond to emergencies. 

Any soul-mate story's worldbuilding has to include some paranormal aspect, some presence or evidence of a G-d driven universe, because the very concept "soul" is paranormal by definition. 

In a universe with no G-d presence, how could you define Soul, the immortal spark of God-breath that energizes you and gives you stark individuality?  All Romance is set in a G-d driven universe, even when the Romantic liaison is just Happily For Now. 

So here we challenge the way we meet emergencies. 

Here's how it's done at the pinnacle of our society, out in public, by the public servants.  Here's the "model" we grew up seeing on TV News, and now all over the internet whenever an emergency happens.

-------------quote--------
DHS moves to allow oil tankers in Northeast to ease fuel shortage

Published November 02, 2012

Associated Press

The Department of Homeland Security is temporarily waiving some maritime rules to allow foreign oil tankers coming from the Gulf of Mexico to enter Northeastern ports.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says she is waiving the Jones Act, which prohibits international cargo ships from transporting oil between U.S. ports , until Nov. 13.

The rule is being temporarily waived to help ease the fuel shortage in the Northeast in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/02/dhs-moves-to-allow-oil-tankers-in-northeast-to-ease-fuel-shortage
---------------end quote ----------

And another Hurricane Sandy aftermath story from the news:

-------QUOTE-----------
‘No Red Tape’? New Jersey Turns Away Non-union Relief Crews
Posted on November 2, 2012

How desperate is hurricane-ravaged New Jersey? Not desperate enough to suspend a union monopoly that keeps the state in the bottom ten states for economic competitiveness (and #48 for business friendliness). Relief crews from Alabama who were specifically called to New Jersey found themselves diverted to Long Island, NY after they arrived because they use non-union labor. Alabama is a right-to-work state.

WAFF-TV of Hunstville, AL reports:

Crews from Huntsville, as well as Decatur Utilities and Joe Wheeler out of Trinity headed up there this week, but Derrick Moore, one of the Decatur workers, said they were told by crews in New Jersey that they can’t do any work there since they’re not union employees….

Understandably, Moore said they’re frustrated being told “thanks, but no thanks.”

With so much at stake–and lives still in danger–it would seem logical to tell special interests to step aside.

On Wednesday, while visiting cleanup efforts in New Jersey in the company of Gov. Chris Christie, President Barack Obama vowed: “We are not going to tolerate red tape, we are not going to tolerate bureaucracy.”

WAFF-TV: News, Weather and Sports for Huntsville, AL

Read more: http://conservativebyte.com/2012/11/no-red-tape-new-jersey-turns-away-non-union-relief-crews/#ixzz2B5Ff2JkS
---------END QUOTE -------------

It's this way with ALL our laws now, all the "rules" -- all the "regulations."

And it's the way we live our everyday lives under the rules and regulations of societal behavior.

In an Emergency, it's then OK -- in fact required -- to throw the rules and regulations out, to CUT THE RED TAPE.

In fact, after suffering under some ridiculous rule, we consciously or subconsciously create emergencies so we CAN toss the pesky rule out.

The fallacy?  That rules, regulations and laws are supposed to be for NORMAL TIMES. 

Do an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE worldbuilding exercise with that idea.

What would an urban fantasy set in "today" but in an alternate world be like if in that world the fallacy that laws exist for the purpose of defining and constraining normal, everyday behavior had never taken root?

What if the only laws on the books were those to be obeyed in emergencies?

Take that as your exercise for this week.

If you need a SETTING to work out a "CUT THE RED TAPE" fallacy/Romance plot, here's one that works with a natural inevitability:

 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/15/us-edisonmission-bankruptcy-idUSBRE8BE02O20121215

Next week we'll continue exploring how to extract a theme from commonly believed fallacies.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Theme-Plot Integration - Part 1: Never Let A Good Emergency Go To Waste

So we continue to practice walking and chewing gum at the same time.  All of these posts focus on the nitty gritty of the craft of writing, with special emphasis on the specific challenges facing a writer who is combining Science Fiction or Paranormal with Romance of any type. 

I specialize in the relationship driven plot, (not always sexual or even romantic, as there was no romance between Ahab and the Whale!), but my own favorite type of story is Romance! 

Romance plots don't necessarily exclude war.  Do remember Helen of Troy!  And thinking of Helen of Troy, do remember that the entire situation of Helen of Troy was a blend of politics and religion, just as I have been discussing in the (so-far) 9 part series titled Worldbuilding With Fire And Ice.

So traditionally, from its very inception, the Romance genre has always included not only combat in all forms, but also the paranormal.  It's not like we're inventing a new genre.  It's more like we're teaching the publishing industry that we know how to turn out a great novel. 

We've looked at how to recognize, choose and structure theme, and how to tell theme apart from plot -- how to dissect out the independent variables within a completed novel.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/shifting-pov.html
And a vocabulary lesson on how I use the words "plot" and "story" to distinguish the moving parts of a novel or screenplay.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html

And here's one that has links leading back deeper into the posts on individual skills involved in crafting a plausible romance (for readers who don't believe that Happily Ever After is a point that real people in real life can achieve.)

Believing in Happily Ever After Part 4: Nesting Huge Themes Inside Each Other
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html

Here are links to series of posts - they contain links to their previous parts. 

Here are links to 9 posts on "worldbuilding" -- a vast subject we aren't finished with yet (previous parts are linked in the last part).

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/worldbuilding-with-fire-and-ice-part-9.html

And here is a series about Theme-Worldbuilding integration:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-4.html

These first 4 parts on theme-worldbuilding integration focus on the current issue of bullying in our society, especially among children, and what that means in terms of targeting a readership.

For writers working with paranormal elements, here's a post on the outer-reaches of the philosophical:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

And one specifically on the use of theme in Romance.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

Assuming you have been following along through these posts, we're now ready to look at some of the raw material of our current society's unconscious philosophical assumptions which can easily be dissected into fallacies.  Discovering and revealing a logical fallacy (whether it is, or is not true!) in another person's thinking processes is one very powerful way to discombobulate and thus manipulate another person into doing or saying something they will later regret.

LATER REGRETS are the sum and substance of great romance -- once burned, twice wary.

Because our current culture is rooted in a plethora of fallacies, writers have a vast and rich array of materials to choose from, all of which lend themselves to the hottest romance plots.

Do you LOVE people who have a habit of pointing out dire errors in your thinking that undermine your conclusions?  Are you attracted to them?  Fatally, perhaps?

Do you come to trust someone who has proven you wrong on a number of occasions, so that when an emergency erupts you no longer trust your own instant assessment of what to do about it?

How many times do you have to be proven wrong before you become  convinced the prover is always right?  When do you surrender your personal sovereignty to another person's judgment?

Were you raised by parents who kept telling you that you had bad judgment and made bad choices?

Did you actually make any choices as a teen that you later regretted and came to understand as bad judgment? 

Or was your judgment sound, but your premise fallacious?  Do you trust your judgment now?

Are you a good judge of character? 

Did you pick the right Presidential Candidate based on sterling character traits?

Have you ever discovered a fallacy in your own reasoning? 

If you can't find an instance to relate to, just think back over all the TV commercials you've seen for products, and the money you've wasted on things that don't work as advertised.  That happens because you fail to see the fallacy in the commercial.

TV commercials are structured by a) LAWYERS (commercials can't ever say things that the company can be sued for -- they can lie, but the law allows lies) and b) MARKETERS who specialize in manipulating behavior of large groups.

To see what I'm saying here about legal-lies, read this post:
November 6, 2012  HOW TO WRITE LIAR DIALOGUE
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/dialogue-part-5-how-to-write-liar.html

To see what I'm talking about for MARKETERS see this post on the Overton Window phenomenon and marketing.  Even Presidential campaigns are now woven of the substance of this science.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/10/glenn-beck-didnt-invent-overton-window.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/01/failure-of-imagination-part-4-teasing.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-to-change-perception-of-romance.html

The creation of a popularizable "image" is often called "spin doctoring."  The creation of a character is a very similar procedure, alarming as that may seem.

These two disciplines combine to construct a funnel that sucks the customer's mind into a "world" they have "built" to house their fictional construct.

When it's done well, this technique can convince such a large percentage of viewers that some fallacious premise is true -- when it is not, and the authors of the commercial know it's not.

One such premise is that "cotton" is cooler to wear than artificial fibers.  The conviction that "science" shows it to be true has been driven so deep into the subconscious that people can verify this "fact" experimentally.  The subjective impression of coolness from cotton will conform to the assumption that it must be so.  Fact is, that "science" was commissioned by the cotton industry to prove that it's true because cotton was being driven from the market by competing fibers.

In our current culture, Science has become our "god."  Science is infallible (science says global warming is man-made so it's heresy to entertain the notion that this isn't yet proven).  Gods are infallible, and must be worshiped with out a doubt.  That need to worship something infallible is an inherent trait of human nature.  Read up on The Overton Window and all the science of Public Relations.

Here's a link to Wikipedia (incomplete article in need of fact-checking)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

-------------QUOTE--------------------------------
Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995) was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".[1] He combined the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud.

He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the 'herd instinct' that Trotter had described.[2] Adam Curtis's award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, pinpoints Bernays as the originator of modern public relations, and Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine.[3
---------------END QUOTE------------

Thus "Public Relations" is a field that grows out of one genius's deep rooted fear of the behavior of his fellow humans, and a terrible need to "control" that powerful and evil force called "humanity."

That is only one example of how active and powerful a well-driven fallacy can be in shaping subjective reality. 

But take a long view perspective on how Public Relations, Advertising, Spin Doctoring, and political campaigning tropes have shaped our current social reality, then take a long look at Bernays' life story.  You will see a real-world illustration of what I've been talking about in these posts -- the way the internal psychological circuitry of the main-character's mind projects that character's external reality, shapes his adversaries, and sets up the drama and its resolution. 

The writer must always create the Villain out of the substance of the Hero's internal conflict.  Or, you can do it the other way around, and create the Hero out of the Villain's inner problem.  However you go about doing it, the end product must show a match between the two of the story won't be plausible. 

One reason Romance as a genre has such a bad reputation is that Love is portrayed as "inexplicable."  It is inexplicable to the lovers!  But in a piece of fiction, it must be explicable if not explained. 

In a Romance, the two characters who fall in love are the "adversaries" or two poles of the conflict.  It's called "the battle of the sexes" for a reason, and all the "game" analogies also apply for that same reason -- the two are a pair, like Ahab and the Whale, or Bernays and The Public. 

Do that to a large enough group of people and they influence each other's solemn beliefs (the "herd instinct" referred to in that quote), and like "cotton is always the coolest fiber" popular beliefs become tangible reality.

Hence we have today's society composed of one "herd" that is absolutely convinced there is not and can never be such a thing as Happily Ever After and another herd (to which I belong) convinced that Happily Ever After is life's destination.

Here are some posts where we discussed and defined these two herds and how one individual reader can belong to either or both at any given moment.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/02/happily-ever-after.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-11.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/02/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-5.html

Can a member of one herd join another?

I think so, but it's such a rare and improbable occurrence it makes a story!

In many instances in the above linked posts, I have noted that one reason the Romance genre is not given a lot of respect is that "Falling In Love" is always treated as an Emergency. 

Why would that concept be a source of scorn for Romance?

Here's the most often quoted instance of this concept in the media:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_said_never_let_a_good_emergency_go_to_waste

---------QUOTE--------------
 Rahm Israel Emanuel saying "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
--------------END QUOTE------------

What exactly is being utilized in this principle?

The principle is the Overton Window -- which is the title of a novel by Glenn Beck about a PR firm and various characters involved in a PR project utilizing the concept Beck did not invent called The Overton Window.  An explanation of all that and what it has to do with learning to write is in this post which I mentioned above:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/10/glenn-beck-didnt-invent-overton-window.html

This principle of using emergencies to make people do things which are against a) their nature, b) their better judgment, c) their true Values, d) their religion or even e) are suicidal is a tool of the grifter, the confidence man, the scam artist.

It is a basic discovery at the root of the science of Public Relations or more accurately, Propaganda. 

It is a TRICK - a way of turning an adversaries strengths against them so they kill themselves and you don't have to get your hands dirty. 

That's why the genre's habit of portraying ROMANCE as an EMERGENCY -- "drop everything and pursue this one true love, and if that one true love gets away, life is over forever, so nothing you've dropped would ever be worth anything anyway" -- is viewed as a TRICK and instantly labeled as "impossible."  Why?  Because "emergencies" area always "tricks." 

Every other time in life's experience in the real world that people have dared to believe in Happily Ever After, it always turns out to be an instance of being fooled by a grifter.  So they don't believe it in fiction, and want nothing to do with such.

Why is Romance Genre singled out for scorn when all other fiction is even more unbelievable?

Romance Genre is special because everyone, in their heart of hearts, wants not just Romance, but entre into everlasting Love, solid and unbreakable Relationships, Family, enriched life.

Not only does everyone want it, everyone knows they are destined for it. 

Yet, time after time, in reality, they have had that promise of fulfillment snatched away.  The only possible psychological defense left is to believe staunchly that Happily Ever After is not possible.

Is Romance an Emergency?  When it happens, is it a life-or-death crisis in which one must drop everything and dash willy-nilly after the person who has evoked this vision of absolute fulfillment?

And if Romance is indeed an Emergency, then how should we treat it? 

How do we respond to Emergencies and Crises? 

Is there a malfunction in our society's training about how to respond to Emergencies and Crises?

Is our audience indoctrinated with some kind of fallacy that has warped our response to Emergencies? 

If so, what fallacy?  Where did it come from?  We, as writers, no doubt share that fallacy, so why bother to pinpoint it? 

The fallacy in our Emergency Response habits, if we can articulate it, can become our Theme, and the PINPOINTING of that fallacy  can become the plot of the breakout Romance that I've been talking about in this blog since I started looking for how Romance Genre can achieve the respect it deserves. 

We'll kick around some of these questions in Theme-Plot Integration: Part 2 Fallacy as Theme

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Science Fiction Romance Premise: What If You Could Control Mating Choices By Mathematics?

Headline for October 15, 2012:

NOBEL PRIZE in ECONOMICS goes to 2 Americans. 

Oddly, I'd done several blogs since 2009, nibbling at the edges of their work as basis for Science Fiction Romance novels.

"QUOTE FROM CNN: Roth and Shapley’s work focuses on finding the most efficient way to match parties in a transaction, whether it be students to schools or organ donors to recipients, according to the academy. Shapley used game theory to study matching models, and Roth built on them to make real-world changes to existing markets, including school choice and organ transplants, the academy said. Elements of their work are built into software that guides kidney donations in the United States, as well as in school choice models in New York, Boston, New Orleans and other U.S. cities, Roth told reporters Monday."
Nobel Prize for economics awarded to two U.S. economists - CNN.com
---END QUOTE---

Here's the CNN article:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/15/world/europe/sweden-nobel-economics/index.html

I’ve blogged about the “Overton Window” and Game Theory -- links below, but first  ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window 

....which concepts are used to shape and direct the behavior of large groups of people (e.g. writing commercials for TV or promotion "trailers" for novels).  Here in this Prize Winning work that theory is used to shape and direct the connections among individuals — in a way that anyone would approve of (i.e. organ donor with recipient in need).  But what about if this technique is used to PREVENT associations-networks from forming (as in preventing organizations that oppose a government/dictator from forming, or perhaps to shape genetics by preventing certain couples from mating)? 

You see how SCIENCE connects to ROMANCE here?  Romance as a mathematical phenomenon is nothing new -- control of associations, putting the power of mating-choice into the hands of other humans is not new (Regency Romance) -- but making the power of mating-choice a scientific technology (internet dating sites) is pretty new, and successful enough to give people who want power over all humanity (to fix us, you know, because we are so broken we can't be trusted with free will choices) -- aha, now THAT IS NEW and worth exploring in fiction. 

There’s a theory that says an individual has a limited number (about a thousand) people they can really know and associate with, a limit built into the human brain, the upper limit of a village before families pick up and move away.

If that's true, then you can fill people up with associates you choose, and you prevent them from associating in ways you don’t approve of. 

WHAT A SCIENCE FICTION PREMISE!   Now use this connect-the-right-people technique to do "Match Making" and control human genetics?  Here's where I've been nibbling around the edges of this concept.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/04/wired-magazine-for-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/10/glenn-beck-didnt-invent-overton-window.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/01/failure-of-imagination-part-4-teasing.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-to-change-perception-of-romance.html

The oddest thing about this Nobel Prize development is that it connects to my Science Fiction novel series, Sime~Gen.

Right now, there is a gaming company working at developing a Sime~Gen Videogame for handheld devices.  So I'm very involved in how GAMERS think.  That could be why I see the possibilities in this Nobel Prize.

To get news of this game as it develops, sign up for the free newsletter at:
http://simegengame.com

The main premise of Sime~Gen is that HUMAN NATURE CHANGES in such a way that "survival of the fittest" is redefined from the "fittest" being those who are best at killing to those who are best at Compassion. 

This premise does not affect individuals or characters in the stories so much as it affects the behavior of large groups of people.  The peak of the bell curve of distribution of the trait of compassion among human populations gets moved just a bit toward higher compassion -- and as a result, group behavior such as depicted in the novels FIRST CHANNEL  and its direct sequel CHANNEL'S DESTINY -- and eventually in the timeline ZELEROD'S DOOM -- makes sense.  It's in a new paper edition and ebook formats.



Each of the new paper editions (and the 4 new novels that make a total of 12 ) has both the internal chronology of the stories in the universe, and the publication order chronology in the front so you can choose which order to read them.

You can find them all on Amazon:
http://astore.amazon.com/simegen-20

And here is a recent article on genetic research which is being discussed on the Sime~Gen Group on Facebook:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/recent-human-evolution-2/

Quote from inside this article:
"Most of the mutations that we found arose in the last 200 generations or so. There hasn’t been much time for random change or deterministic change through natural selection,” said geneticist Joshua Akey of the University of Washington, co-author of the Nov. 28 Nature study. “We have a repository of all this new variation for humanity to use as a substrate. In a way, we’re more evolvable now than at any time in our history.”
So we're in a high (maybe peak) population explosion phase where permutations and combinations of genetic variations are going to be tested to select out survival traits.  What happens to this soup of genetic variation when these mathematicians apply their new Nobel Prize Winning theory of connecting individuals to the online dating game? 

Where do cell phones - smartphones that can monitor your vital signs - fit into this?  Where does GPS tracking fit into this? 

What usually happens when humans try to impose our pet philosophies on Nature? 

"But, wait!  There's More!"  The Sime~Gen Game being developed is set in the space age where Humanity creates a new kind of star-drive and disrupts the patterns of commerce among dozens of alien species who think THEY own the galaxy.  What happens when such Aliens try to impose their pet philosophies on Nature?  On humans? 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

How To Change Perception Of Romance

OK, the November election is long over and everyone has simmered down.

But nobody, even the winners, are really satisfied, and the people who voted for the winners aren't even satisfied.  Those who voted for the losers are gearing up to "fight again."

Most of us look at "politics" as a toxic swamp that functions more like a field of World War I muddy foxholes than like a managerial team.

But just as I pointed you toward studying the phenomenon of Glenn Beck -- NOT Beck himself, mind you, but the generating mechanism that caused the phenomenon which impacts so many in such a strange way -- I now have to point you to the study of politics.

This is an exercise in what screenwriters call SUBTEXT.

Philosophers, linguists and semanticists have other names for it.  But we're fiction writers here, and we're trying to solve the problem of how and why the HEA, Romance and particularly Paranormal and Science Fiction Romance got such a horrid reputation among those who never (ever) even read it.

I mean, if you don't read Romance, how can you have an opinion about it?

See where I'm going with this?

People don't know politicians, but have opinions about them.

People don't understand economics, but have opinions about it.

Even professors don't understand economics -- they're making it up as they go along and winning Nobel Prizes for it, but they're all clueless about how economies actually work.  If that were not the case, we wouldn't have a problem with the economy would we?

Does that sound like the field of professional fiction writing?  Everyone has an opinion, but nobody understands it. 

Yes, "economics" and "politics" and "government" and getting elected are an "artform" and actually close to writing because working as a politician is being a performing artist.

As I've told you, Alma Hill clued me in to the actual category of the writing craft -- writing is a performing art.

Well, so is politics.

And "selling" a politician or even just a political idea or stance (not even the whole philosophical package behind those ideas -- the whole "theme" of the created piece the politician is performing) works just exactly like selling books.

It's all about popularity.

And as any screenwriter will tell you up front, to get a film over the hump and into "popularity" one must be a virtuoso at subtext.

If your dialog is "on the nose" (putting the subconscious assumptions into delineated, direct, conscious expression) it won't work.

Men (or the masculine tendencies in everyone) are especially put off by this.  Emotions must not be articulated.  Emotional content has to be sub-subtext or they will run away before you can make your point.

Subtext carries the message, the theme, the point of the whole thing.

And that can be just tone of voice, or choice of vocabulary.

Actors master this early.  You can say one thing, but convey another, and the audience will pick up on and believe the other.

Now if you've been studying commercials as I suggested long ago in these writing craft pieces, you already see this point.

The key to selling product in a commercial is tone of voice, music, -- the images and articulated message are there just to distract the audience so that the real message can be rammed into the subconscious where it will control behavior against the audience's will.

That's how it works, and it is now a practice reduced to a mathematical formula.

The Overton Window that I talked about is derived from that mathematical study of the behavior of large groups of people.

Individuals can't be controlled.  But large groups can.  The more uniform the individuals in the group, the more easily the larger group can be controlled -- like cowboys herding cattle.  That's why they're called "cowpokes."  They poke here and there, and five of them can control a thousand head of cattle.

Now what's happened on the political scene in 2010 was the result of a court decision regarding how money spent supporting candidates can be collected, spent and accounted for.  In effect, the laws instituted to try to "clean up" elections turned out to be unconstitutional.  So that opened the spigot for all kinds of funding to flow in all kinds of ways that the general public is not to be allowed to know about.

It's raining on the field of World War I muddy foxholes and the battlefield just got a whole lot more toxic.

As any writer knows, to generate a really great mystery plot, just re-analyze the events in terms of "follow the money" -- that's where murder motivations seethe.

Publishing likewise is all about making money.

Winning high political office sets people up to become wealthy themselves -- and I'm sure most of the deals they swing are perfectly legal which is what lures them into swinging shadier deals and eventually getting caught.

Lots of plot ideas in that, but let's stand way back and watch the publishing field as the color Nook and Barnes & Noble rule the roost for a while before they get shot down (maybe by Amazon?)  It's warfare, trench warfare in publishing now.

And it's all about advertising.

Advertising is the war against readers.

The point of advertising is to get a reader to buy a book they don't want, just as advertising lures people into buying all sorts of other things they don't want or need.  We are now an admittedly consumer driven economy (which I don't think is the best thing to be, but that's another discussion.)

Remember we're writers, and we write stories.  The essence of story is conflict -- conflict generates both plot and story, and how that conflict plays out to a resolution states the theme.  In other words, conflict is theme-driven.

Think back over this election and all the particolored junk that came in your snailmail and the flashing advertisements on TV, the posters and bill boards, handbills given out at grocery stores, and so forth.

Advertising is the war against voters.

Advertising is done by someone who wants to change someone else's behavior to be in accord with the benefit of the advertiser -- REGARDLESS of whether that benefits the recipient of the advertising or not.

And sometimes it does benefit the recipient.  Here's a better cold remedy.  Here's a way to get spots out of your carpet.  Here's a more delicious coffee.  Here's a really cheap shampoo that works better.

Sometimes ads tell the truth.

Sometimes they don't.

Regardless of the truth contained, advertising is more efficient at herding humans than cowpokes are at herding cows.

Cowpokes use bovine instinct to get results.  Advertisers use subtext.

To become a popular writer, you must master the use of subtext.

To "sell" (by advertising) the theme "Love Conquers All" to those who disbelieve it, you must bury it deep in subtext and use it in your advertising (i.e. what screenwriters call a pitch).

That means you must study successful use of subtext in advertising.

The most efficient way to learn something is to watch someone else use it.

They still teach the Medical Arts by the "See One, Do One, Teach One" method, and there's a reason for that buried in the human brain's learning process.

But in writing, the best way to learn a technique is to see it, do it, and teach it in an artistic context different from the one where you intend to apply it.

That's why I did the long series of 20 posts on the Tarot which I hope you've finished reading and absorbing by now.  Instead of focusing directly on writing techniques, you learn by focusing attention elsewhere and absorbing the essential lesson on writing from the subtext.

That's the drill that's most effective in absorbing any writing technique I've discussed "on the nose" in previous posts here.

So now look closely at the field of political advertising and the effectiveness of it, and think in terms of the "message" we are trying to get across about the HEA.

Here below is a brief excerpt from an email begging for contribution money for a "cause" rather than a "candidate" - just substitute HEA for the cause.

Note I chose this one, but the exact same language and subtext are in every one of these fund-raising emails -- I subscribe to one or two from every flavor of the political spectrum and study them for techniques.  (one day you might need to write one as part of a plot, so study carefully.)

--------FROM DICK MORRIS--------

From the desk of Dick Morris

Dear Reader:

Let me tell you about the devastating ad we’re running right now to defeat THREE Pelosi Democrats from Arizona. It’s called “Stop the Arizona Three!”

You can be proud of this ad because donations from friends like you made this ad possible.

The ad is simple. It exposes the three Democratic politicians for voters to see. It says that Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell, and Gabrielle Giffords:

Voted for Obama’s massive healthcare takeover
Voted for a $500 billion Medicare cut
Voted for $1 trillion in wasted stimulus funds
Supported Nancy Pelosi
The ad ends with an appeal to “stop Obama’s tax hikes, his amnesty for illegals, and his job-killing policies.” And it closes with these words: “Vote for the candidates who share your values.”

The beauty of this ad is that we hit three birds with just one stone! For the cost of one ad, we can defeat three Pelosi Democrats!

And, thanks to your donations, we’re also running similar ads against Pelosi Democrats in Florida, West Virginia, Minnesota, Tennessee, Wisconsin and elsewhere. The ads all follow the same successful formula.

 --------END QUOTE---------

Did you detect the subtext?

It's the same subtext you see in every single political fundraiser.

"I can get people to do what you want, not what they want, and all you have to do is give me money."

Now if you're any kind of writer, you've also studied carefully all the techniques used by grifters, confidence artists, to finesse you out of your money.

This is the same subtext used to victimize the retired folks who don't have enough money.  "give me your money and I'll double it."

This is the same subtext used to hoodwink anyone into doing anything that is against that person's best interests.

MONEY CAN BUY ANYTHING.

And it's a subtext that's believed by a lot of people, but it's especially believed by the pragmatic people who pay attention to politics.  The winner is always the one who has raised the most money.  That's how we got George Bush as President. That's how we got Barak Obama as President.

And all the lesser offices work the same way.

It is so rare that the under-funded politician wins that when it does happen it's a national news story even if the office is local.  It's the "man bites dog" story -- when "dog bites man" is not a news story.

I can make things the way you want them to be if you pay me money.  Well, that wasn't enough money, give me more.  Confidence men (women) can get people to give them entire fortunes a little at a time -- it wasn't enough, give me more.  It's working, see?  Every ponzi scheme works that way.

The pragmatic truth is that as politics is run today, political offices are for sale to the highest bidder. (this isn't new)

That happens not because of campaign funding laws, but because of the mathematicians behind The Overton Window.

Here's where I wrote about that:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/10/glenn-beck-didnt-invent-overton-window.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/10/worldbuilding-with-fire-and-ice-part-i.html

These people are changing the behavior (NOT THE MINDS) of vast herds of people by snapping a whip over their heads.  (whip-snapping can be described mathematically).

Parents know the subtext technique because it's taught by all the parenting books and coaches and advisers about how to defuse the fights with teenagers.

This behavior control via subtext is built into human beings.  (what if an alien species comes along that doesn't respond?)

So one of the elements we must master in order to change the perception of the romance genre in the eyes of the larger, general public (especially men) is subtext.

Dick Morris's (and the other fund-raisers) message is "give me money and I'll make the world the way you want it to be."

As I read it, that is the exact opposite of the message the Romance Genre carries.  I've rarely encountered an HEA ending that carries the theme "money can buy happiness."

Nevertheless, the vast majority in America does behave as if money can buy happiness.  Look at all the hundreds of millions of dollars given to political campaigns.  Lots of it is given by businesses, and they know they will make a profit on that investment as will the politicians.  (Look at those who give money to their own campaign chests!)

Look at the very rich who give away all their wealth to a "Foundation" -- well, even though other names may appear on the letterhead the person who gives the funds to the foundation controls the way that wealth is used.  Giving it away doesn't lessen their "power" -- it increases it.  And the maneuver keeps the control of that wealth from the government.

Control of money, "power" can buy happiness, satisfaction, or an HEA.  But "Love" can't.

That's the behavior.

That behavior is at odds with the professed, "on the nose" statements articulated by these same people.

Everyone says they accept the scientific studies that show health, long life, satisfaction and a sense of being "successful" come from binding family relationships. But faced with an email like Dick Morris's - they readily give money.  (by the millions of dollars, too)

Is the problem with the Romance HEA that it's "on the nose?"

How do we get HEA and Love Conquers All into subtext, then bullet point it into an advertisement modeled on Dick Morris's successful fundraising campaign?  Controlling all those millions of dollars gave Morris's organization (a non-profit) the kind of "power" that comes from controlling money.

Why does controlling money bestow power?

That question brings us to the philosophical core of the essence of all fiction, but it's especially relevant to Romance because the flip-side of "Romance" is sex, and sex is power personified (for humans; maybe aliens function differently?)

When a person harbors a belief that is at odds with their behavior, you have the main ingredient for a main point of view character for a novel.

When you can define the exact conflict between the belief and the behavior in such a way that it mirrors a conflict resident and active in a large demographic, you have a best seller that can be made into a blockbuster, opens-everywhere film such as Blake Snyder analyzes in his Save The Cat! series.

Ultimately, the resolution of that conflict between belief and behavior bestows upon an individual power over their lives.

That is the essence of the HEA -- power over your own life.

People may be futilely pouring money into poltical campaigns responding to the subtext promise that this act will gain them power over their own life.

Since it never happens, how can those same people buy a Romance novel and expect to read how to resolve their conflict in such a way that they will gain power over their own life and thus achieve the HEA depicted in the novel?

We need to move the Overton Window (I do hope you've read my post on that and the links in it or you won't understand what I'm talking about here) -- we need to alter the perception of what is possible and how to achieve it.

Look closely at the Soul Mate concept and you will see that the philosophy behind it, (the Soul exists), implies individuality and a unique individuality at that.

Each of us is half of some whole.  The other half is our Soul Mate.

Read the Tarot posts, or remember them. Here are 2 posts listing the 20 Tarot posts.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html

The writer learns to parse people into characters to write about by distinguishing between what we all share in common and that carefully defined uniqueness of individuality.  Lots of philosophies do this, but I've round Tarot the fastest way to learn to use it in writing.  (not fortune telling or telling the future -- understanding the present nature of human experience)

That Soul Mate concept makes no sense to people whose individuality has been worn away.  It makes no sense to the nail that stuck up and got hammered down - to those taught "conform or die" and "different is dead."

If you believe that individuality is wrong, and that the individuality of others is a danger to you and must be controlled by "the government" or whatever instrumentality you fund, the whole HEA concept will just not seem plausible, realistic or desireable.  It certainly won't be entertaining.

Love is a phenomenon of the uniqueness of an individual.  Love happens when you percieve that uniqueness in another.

See my post "What Does She See In Him" for more on that.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

The terrible urgency of Romance derives from the uniqueness of the experience of this ONE INDIVIDUAL PERSON in your life.  There will never be another.

That's the love that generates Romance leading to an HEA where the couple mutually and individually exercise power over their own life.

The ambience of "Romance" blurs the very existence of "the real world" around one so the individuality of That One Unique Other is the total focus.  You don't see how we are all the same when you are focused on that uniqueness. 

That "blurring" is the result of a Neptune Transit which represents a very spiritual state that not everyone can handle well.  Either you see reality with utter clarity for a time, or you become completely befuddled and confused.

Here is a list of some of my posts on Astrology Just For Writers that discuss how a writer can use Astrology as a plotting tool by understanding how it describes the elements in us all that bind us, that make our life experiences identical.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

We are a herd of identical people.  Exploiting that attribute of humanity makes these political fundraiser efforts successful.

We are unique individuals.

Exploiting that attribute of humanity makes the Romance Genre, the HEA and the Love Conquers All theme profitable for publishers.

Study the political fundraising techniques and the results.  Study the popularity of Glenn Beck and whatever new phenomenon personality appears on the scene. Don't study the text Beck presents, study the subtext and more important than the content of his subtext study how his promoters use that subtext.

Apply your discoveries to your writing.

The younger your target readership, the bigger the effect you will have on the future of humanity, so be very careful what you encode into subtext.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Failure of Imagination Part 4 - Teasing Off The Blinders

Back in October 2010, Heather Massey, posted on The Galaxy Express, a discussion of my blog post Failure of Imagination Part 3 - Education.

Here's my post:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/failure-of-imagination-part-iii.html

And here's what Heather said, telling a story about how she "discovered" Martial Arts films can be about something. She notes that she was wearing the kind of blinders I described in my post Part 3, and wonders if people who shun Romance or SF are in the same pickle.

http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2010/10/jackie-chan-and-science-fiction-romance.html

In short, my answer is yes, it's exactly the same phenomenon, and it's purely human.

Our brains work on a kind of analog model of the universe, and we have to understand everything as "like" something else.

When someone comes home from vacation bubbling over with stories to tell, people ask (irritatingly) "what was it like to meet this celebrity?" etc.

Well, the WHOLE POINT of the "experiential" education is that it's NOT LIKE anything.

It's a new thing that later things can be likened to.

It's a new benchmark.  A new internal referent. 

Discovering that Martial Arts films are in fact "art" (oh, yes, I have a deep appreciation of Martial Arts films, and once studied them carefully) is a gigantic epiphany for Romance readers.

That is the kind of epiphany that happens when those mental blinders discussed in Part 3 of Failure of Imagination are ripped off.

Martial Arts films can have a lot to say about the human condition, the realities of magic, the use and abuse of power, the objective of becoming powerful, etc etc.

Just as the Romance Genre is built around a set of themes derived from the abstract philosophical premise Love Conquers All, so the Martial Arts films are built around a single, very abstract philosophical premise.

Finding and articulating that premise may give you a better understanding of Science Fiction, and I would suppose each of us would have a different assessment of what the ultimate theme of all Martial Arts films are.

But let me take a quick, preliminary stab at it and you can poke holes in my theory.

Let's Try: The basic theme of the Martial Arts films is the ultimate Wisdom one may acquire by studying and practicing the Martial Arts.

Now in the study of this Art, the first thing you are blasted with is that your MIND (intellect, deliberate thinking and decision-making) has to be cut out of the circuit in order to learn.

How many times have I said in these blog posts that WRITING IS A PERFORMING ART? I learned that from my first writing teacher, Alma Hill.

The Martial Arts are a PERFORMING ART too. Not necessarily for an audience, but the process is the same for winning a fight on a real life-or-death battleground as it is for playing the piano on stage at Carnegie Hall.

And the learning process is the same for writing and for Martial Arts.

One difference is that writing is a performance of the intellect while Martial Arts is a performance of the muscular system - skeleton etc.

There's more autonomic system involvement in Martial Arts just as in dance or acting or playing an instrument. But writing requires the same kind of smooth coordination among the integrated levels of the mind.

In other words, Martial Artists TRAIN, and writers TRAIN. You don't learn to write. You TRAIN yourself to write. That's why I give you all these boring exercises.  Everyone is born with the ability to write, to tell stories, to express emotion (starting with a birth-cry).  But it takes training to raise the ability to throw a punch into an Art, and the ability to wail loudly into words. 

I just did a post on The Flintstones and The Lone Ranger posted on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com on 12/28/2010.  It gives you a training exercise on creating an icon. 

One of the ways you train yourself to write is to intellectualize about the thematic, symbolic and philosophical substance transmitted by every artform until you understand what Art is on a level that your audience does not.

That's what professionals in all areas do. They acquire some skill that those they serve don't have the time, talent or inclination for, and then put that skill at the service of those they serve.

A Martial Artist spends life acquiring reactions to situations, perfecting the smoothness of choosing the reaction and executing it, perfecting the ability to scale the force of the reaction to the size of the real problem, and so on.

The Martial Artist trains to react, not to think.

How do they attain that reaction?

MEDITATION.

How does a writer attain the understanding of the symbolism of their culture?

MEDITATION.

A lot of thematic substance of Martial Arts films is there to put the polish on the training of a Martial Artist, and thus does not "speak" to general audiences.

But I submit every human being lives a life which is in fact a replication of the best kind of Martial Arts films, a thematic replication.

There is a reason that the Male/Female Relationship has been called The Battle of the Sexes. And there is a reason that the flipside of sexuality, even alien sexuality, is violence. Sex and Violence are thought of as two sides of a coin for a reason (I happen to disagree, so I spent a good many years working through understanding those reasons so I could comment on them graphically in stories.)

Just as Romance Novels have a lot to say about the theme Love Conquers All and how one can tread a path to Happily Ever After in reality, so too Martial Arts movies have a lot to say about The Battle Of The Sexes.

Writers can learn a lot by studying Martial Arts movies (also by actually taking self defense courses, Tai Chi, and Judo, Karate, and today Pilates seems to be gaining popularity). But you don't learn it with your MIND. You learn it with your nerves and muscles, with the part of your brain that can NOT access language.

Our artform is words. It's all about language for us. We are the kind of folks who read dictionaries for fun, encyclopedias for entertainment. We are made of words. And I have ever so much to say about the place of "words" in a life well lived. That's not another topic, but it will have to wait for another time.

Here I'm looking at the thematic dimensions a study of Martial Arts films can add to a Romance Writer's arsenal of Blinder Removers.

Heather Massey's discovery of Martial Arts films was more of a revelation or epiphany than most people are willing to undergo for the sake of enjoying fiction.

So writers who want to remove the blinders from Romance readers' eyes, or from Science Fiction readers eyes, and let them into the world of Alien Sexuality have to find a gentler way of melting those blinders away, dissolving them, paring them away a layer at a time, teasing them off.  Here you should re-read my post on The Overton Window,  October 19, 2010 on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com  It's about the gradual epiphany, so gradual it doesn't hurt. 

Ridding oneself of "blinders" in fiction or reality widens one's world.

When you finally "see" a new thing, that discovery ADDS A REFERENT to the inventory of internal referents to which one likens subsequent new things that come along.

That's how we think. We are analog creatures. Everything is like something else.

In youth we acquire a set of things, compartments, categories, into which we MUST squeeze everything that happens later in life in order to "feel" that we understand it.

Adding a new reference point to our internal worlds later on can be painful.

It is the stuff of which religious conversion is made.

You add this new reference point, then take things you'd filed under other reference points out of those compartments, and slide them into the new compartment.   It rearranges your whole worldview.

If it works, you feel that NOW I UNDERSTAND. Oh, I was lost but now I'm found. Oh, I was soooo wrong, but NOW I SEE!

That moment of EPIPHANY is what writers work a lifetime to be able to create in their main characters, and thus awaken in their readers.  So the study of blinders is important to writers. 

The reason there's a word for "epiphany" is simple. It's a common human experience in adulthood. It doesn't happen in childhood, where we are in the process of acquiring new reference points and sorting all experiences into these little boxes we're building. Epiphany is the acquisition of a new internal, mental box into which to sort our experiences, after we have already installed a complete array of little boxes.

Education systems, especially centrally run or government controlled education systems, but also "apprentice system" Guild-run systems, assemble the world into an array of little boxes, then carve young folks' minds into that exact array of boxes, filling the boxes with pre-determined "facts" or skills, thus replacing elderly workers with new ones who are the same. 

If the array of mental boxes matches the world's actual shape well enough, the person succeeds in life.

If the world changes, and the person's array of boxes no longer matches the world, we say that person is "old" or "out of touch" or obsolete in skills. The person gradually, or suddenly, fails to cope.(think of techphobes, or people who won't touch social networking.  Think of publishers who think paper is enough.)

That mis-match happens because we are analog creatures, and analog is hard to edit. Digital is easy to edit. We can't change ourselves to digital.

We understand our world in SYMBOLISM.

Symbols are analog devices for parsing the experiences of the world, the truths we hold self-evident.

With the Romance genre, as with Science Fiction, we are asking readers to suspend disbelief and enter a world where the self-evident truths (the array of mental boxes) is different, and contains some new boxes (like a human-alien Relationship, and very strange alien sexuality).

We are asking readers to stipulate that Love Conquers All.

What are Martial Arts films asking us to stipulate?

Might Conquers All? That is FORCE or power conquers all?

And once all is conquered, then you are SAFE -- nothing can harm you?

Is Martial Arts all about the theme, "Make Life Safe?" Isn't that Love Conquers All?

Or maybe "Live Dangerously?" SF and Romance tackle that.

Or "Be Impervious?" Vampire novels emphasizing Immortality have that element.

My study of the Martial Arts films and novels yielded a different take on it all.

I think Martial Arts is about PEACE.

And the particular kind of peace it's about is Inner Peace, the kind that is achieved by the highest spiritually developed souls.

It's about curing your inner neuroses to the point where you function smoothly inside yourself, to where power, force of any kind, moves through you frictionlessly.

And that is what the study of Magic, the Occult, Tarot, Astrology, Alchemy, is designed to achieve. Think of The Magician card.  The Magician is a Martial Artist. 

To create Peace in the world - we must first create Peace within.

See my post on Tarot,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/09/six-of-swords-love-conquers-all-as.html
All the Martial Arts I've discovered so far focus on aligning the person's inner workings to where POWER moves smoothly into the muscles and skeleton, allowing that power to manifest in the material world as a harmonious force.

And it's not about HITTING, or enemies or opponents. It's about operating within the matrix of force in the world to still the furious turbulence that deeply disturbed people leave in their wake.

What we SEE in a Martial Arts film is a person landing blows.

What is really happening is a spiritual reallignment of the world's greater forces, a wave of PEACE emanating from the hands and feet of the Artist as he/she moves.

So the Martial Arts films could be looked at, as a genre, the same way that Romance is looked at, from a far perspective.

In Romance we see Love Conquers All.

In Martial Arts we see Peace Conquers All and creates a situation where Love dominates.

So we might conclude that Romance genre is about War, the War of the Sexes, about dominance ("I am going to get me that MAN!") about competing for a mate, "He's MINE," and other vicious attitudes.

But Martial Arts film genre is about Peace, Defending the Helpless, becoming One with the Higher Power.

Remember the TV show, Kung Fu, and Kung Fu The Legend Continues both with David Caradine (who died tragically much later)?

A Shaolin Priest travels the Old West in search of his (caucasian) father and protects the innocent much as The Lone Ranger did, continuing his spiritual journey until in meditation, he finally achieves levitation. (we actually see him in lotus position, floating).  Of course, The Lone Ranger never did that, but he left peace in his wake. 

Here's the complete first series of Kung Fu on TV (check out the fanfic - whew!) 

Kung Fu: The Complete Series Collection

Kung Fu - The Legend Continues

Remember the trilogy of films Karate Kid?

The Karate Kid Collection (Four Film Set)

Slice and dice these on the thematic level, then add your results to your creation of a new Icon exercise.

You may find the effort will erode away your own blinders -- or possibly just rip them off.

In working to get symbols (icons) to say something about blinders to those clinging to their narrow and mis-configured world-view, remember what you learned about The Overton Window by following the links in my post on October 19, 2010 on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com

The Overton Window is the technique for creating symbols that become icons that actually change the world but do it gradually.  

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com