Theme-Archetype Integration Part 1: The Nature of Art

Theme-Archetype Integration
Part 1
The Nature of Art
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

On Facebook Messenger, I was discussing how to create fiction that can sell to a commercial market and at the same time just write what you want to write, what you feel you need to say, what is deeply personal and matters to you -- what you personally want readers to feel in their guts, way below the verbal level.

That gut-response is what makes fictions memorable, and thus talked about and recommended. 

I get that response to many things I've written, particularly Sime~Gen.

https://www.amazon.com/Sime-Gen-13-Book-Series/dp/B016QAFPMK/

Sime~Gen #14 is in the works, with more planned.

Most recently, I was reminded on Facebook how moving my first non-fiction book, STAR TREK LIVES!, has been to people still connected to me via social networking. 

Robert Eggleton posted a picture of the cover of STAR TREK LIVES! and said nice things about it, whereupon a number of people chimed in with their memories.  I only noticed the post when Robert J. Sawyer "tagged" me on his comment, and I got drawn into a long discussion where I answered underneath people's comments.  If you know how Facebook "works" -- it spawns lots of conversations under a broad topic where lots of people exchange views.  Choose the right friends, and it can be very cordial.

On previous series of posts on this blog, I've explained the intricate relationship between STAR TREK LIVES! -- non-fiction about a TV Series -- and Sime~Gen a future-history of humanity set (so far) mostly on Earth of the far future.

The private discussion on Facebook Messenger with this other writer was within the context of the lasting impact my work has had, still echoing down the generations of writers and readers. 

I had pointed her to
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

and to
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

... which she had read through once, and came back to say she was left puzzled by my use of the term "archetypes" (she is a well educated professional writer, so it was my usage not her ignorance).

And it is true, I do use the word to refer to a bit of fiction-structure which is related to fiction the way math is related to theoretical physics. 

 That archetype structure behind the fictional worlds is what gives those fictional worlds their verisimilitude.

We've discussed verisimilitude in several posts.  Here are a few:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/10/alien-sexuality-part-3-corporate-greed_25.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/06/depiction-part-14-depicting-cultural.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-every-novel-needs-love-story-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-every-novel-needs-love-story-part-1.html

Creating verisimilitude is a key writing craft skill -- craft not art.  Craft can be learned by anyone who can write a literate sentence.  Art may be born into you, or absorbed from those who raise you, or a combination, but you can't just "learn" it with the intellectual part of your mind.  And you can't learn Art with the part of your mind that can be trained in a Craft (such as driving a car can't be mastered by reading a book about it.)

I make vocabulary distinctions to refer to components of what it takes to launch into a commercial fiction writing career. 

Art is like Math.  In Math you "let X equal" -- or just arbitrarily assign meanings to blank variables.  That trick is the power behind applying a mathematical discovery to a real world problem, such as the Grand Adversary of all students, The Word Problem. 

A Math formula is the math equivalent of fiction's archetype. 

If you are accustomed to solving problems using carefully selected math formulae, then you know on a nonverbal level what an archetype is.

Yes, it is non-verbal.  The language handling section of your brain can not acquire or manipulate the underlying concept "archetype" with the kind of facility necessary to create the artistic dimension of fiction.

LOVE CONQUERS ALL leading to the HAPPILY EVER AFTER is the result of applying an archetype to a problem, of "letting X equal and Y equal" then applying rules to manipulate the equation until you get a solution.

The problem you are applying the archetype to is the problem of "What Is The Meaning Of Life?"  Or maybe, "What Is Life?"

Which archetype you select to apply to that WHAT IS LIFE? problem is dictated by the theme for your fictional story.  Or maybe the other way around on some occasions, the resulting THEME your novel explicates (after you cut, trim, rewrite, clarify) will have to be an exemplification of the archetype you accidentally applied.

When you are doing "Art" - those "accidents" are in fact your subconscious screaming at you, "SAY THIS!" 

We don't always know what we know until we tell ourselves. 

So how do we know what we know in order to say it in a novel?

We view the world and then we depict what we see.

Art is a selective depiction of Reality.

Art is not reality itself.  Art is a few bits and pieces of Reality, rearranged to say something that may be useful to those who hear it. 

Fiction is a conversation about Reality in the language of Art, between fiction writers with readers eavesdropping.  Art is a "language" just as mathematics is a language.  Physicists talk to each other in Math.  Fiction Writers talk to each other in Art.

Physicists talk about the structure of Reality, and Writers talk about the structure of Life.

Both professions are Artistic professions, creative professions, exploring "where no one has gone before." 

Good physicists ask good questions no physicist has asked before.  Good writers as questions no writer -- or in the case of science fiction romance, no living being -- has asked before.

Having asked a New Question, the artist then suggests an Answer.

Not THE Answer, mind you, but An Answer.  Another writer will try to disprove that Answer, postulating a different Answer, and the argument will take shape as readers try out every variation they can imagine.  News stories and academic studies will flow, "progress" will be made, and the conversational argument will continue.

That exploration of the non-existent, unreal world of imagination is endlessly fascinating because if a human can imagine it, some other human can make it real.

That is how Art fuels human progress, and why it is so important to "support The Arts" -- Art inspires.

Commercial Art may inspire but that is not its purpose.  Commercial Art exists to make a profit, and Commercial Artists do this work to make a living while dreaming of making a killing! 

Art is a necessary component of human life -- it existed as Cave Paintings and campfire stories long before people lived in permanent structures with sewers and chimneys.

Art has proven to be a necessary component of Civilization because it inspires creativity and convinces young people to dream and make it real.  Through Art we know we can succeed.

So, as I have discussed in many previous posts, the Artistic component of novel writing, as opposed to the Craft Mechanics component, comes from the writer's ability to look at the tangled mess of "white noise" that is the Reality we live in, and sort out a signal, see a pattern in the randomness of reality. 

That signal may actually be there -- or maybe not, maybe it is just the writer's imagination.  Psychological Studies have determined that humans will always see patterns where there actually are none -- such studies are cited as proof that God does not exist, but is just a figment of our imaginations.

We see patterns in the Stars and give constellations names.  Various cultures have seen different patterns and named them differently, attributing different powers to the same sky patterns.

There is something that we just know:  Reality consists of patterns.

We don't believe this.  We know it. 

Science, on the other hand, seems to have proven that we see patterns where there are none.  Most of reality is random.  Entropy (disorder) always increases.

Then there is the Observer Effect, in physics, where the act of observing changes the observed.  This happens because to observe, one must bounce something off the object being observed and detect it.  When the bounce-impact happens, the observed object thereupon changes, and the bounce-back particle does not carry all the information about what the object will become. 

In other words, as of the early 20th Century, theoretical physics (mostly just math at that time, but now being checked out by the Hadron Collider) postulated a connectivity among all physical objects.

Oddly, this notion mirrored the bedrock principles of the most Ancient mysticism we have record of -- ancient magical traditions, religions even more ancient, -- humanity has always "known" that somehow what we think and feel affects concrete reality. 

Physics is all about discovering the equations that describe how physical objects affect one another (gravity and so on).

Art is all about discovering the archetypes that describe how human lives affect one another (Romance and so on).

The psychological "archetypes" that Carl Jung made so famous
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GYGPZ22/
describe not only how individual humans function, but also how we are all "connected" through the collective subconscious. 

Structuring human psychology this way brings human psychology into the same kind of structure that physics was postulating (during those same decades of the early 20th century).  In short it is "wheels inside of wheels" -- symmetry. 

And if you study Kabbalah, you will find that the Tree of Life structure that delineates (with mathematical precision) the connection between human consciousness and the physical world around us also uses that "wheels inside of wheels" structure.

The 10 Sepheroth or areas of definition, each contain all the 10, each of which contains all the ten -- the infinite regression effect symbolized by the Quaker Oats box with the picture of the Quaker Oats guy holding a box of Quaker Oats with the Quaker Oats guy holding a box of ..... infinitely.

Note how the image here shows each of the Sepheroth as Trees in and of themselves.  Now visualize how each of the Sepheroth on each of the little Trees contains another Tree.  In Math, these are called Cross Terms. 


One excellent way to understand how this bit of physics (reflection, infinite iteration) applies to human emotion at the interface between the spiritual and the physical (Love vs Sex) is to study this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Guide-Counting-Omer-Forty-Nine/dp/B008NAF37Y/

This 49 day drill, done annually, educates and trains that non-verbal part of the mind that knows without believing.  (...knows such things as Love Conquers All -- a corollary of Joy Breaks All Barriers -- and other principles that are hugely unpopular these days.)

The human emotions are the lower 7 of the 10 Sephiroth, and each of the 7 manifest in human beings as combinations with each of the other 7X7=49. 

Each one of these focused exercises will yield at least one, of not dozens, of Romance Novel Plots, all with Beginning, Middle, End laid out clearly.

Underlying this particular book's explanation of this 7X7 structure of the human psyche is the pure Archetype that generates our human personality.  Once fully grasped, these principles will reveal why sayings such as, "There's no accounting for taste!" are not true. 

Archetypes belong to the realm of non-verbalizable knowledge.  It is not belief, but actual knowledge accessed by a different cognitive function that does not encode data in words or even in math.

An archetype is a pattern.  If you set out to make a new dress, you go to the notions store and select a pattern.  That pattern envelope contains several variations (long sleeve, short sleeve), and the one you select will give you a range of sizes. 

Behind all the variations and sizes is an "archetype" of "dress" -- ball gown, job interview dress, cocktail dress, etc.

Now you go select material and matching thread and buttons, zippers, sequins, whatever. Every possible combination will produce vastly different results.

But underlying all those different dresses is still The Archetype for that style dress that generated the folded tissue inside the envelope.

With writing a novel, you do the same thing.  You go to your store of Views of The Universe -- (life's a Ball, life's a party, life's a dinner date, life's all work, life's deep sea fishing expedition) -- and you pick out one of your Views.

Then you go to your notions counter and pick out details of how this Life you are going to depict is going.

Just as sewing that dress is an exercise in craft, so too is writing the novel depicting the meaning of life as experienced by this particular Character.

Your reader will recognize the verisimilitude of the life you are depicting because your reader, too, knows the archetype behind your original creation.

As Jung pointed out, we are all connected by something -- and he called that something the Collective Unconscious.  Maybe there is no such thing, but there is something we all have in common, we all recognize, no matter how hidden by details.

Art is in the selection of details juxtaposed to convey a theme - a message about the nature of life.

But the commercial novel writer does not get to invent new patterns, freehand.  If enough readers can recognize the underlying archetype, the pattern you selected, the novel will sell well.  If that pattern is not recognizable, the first people to buy it will not recommend it to others.

Scholarly, creative writers don't get to invent archetypes either -- but they may discover them.  Archetypes are as structurally fundamental to the structure of reality as are the laws of gravity.  We can't invent gravity - but our understanding of its relationship to space and time has changed markedly over the last few decades.

 Jean Lorrah, my sometime collaborator and a Professor of English, has noted that the novels we write belong to a hitherto unrecognized category, a particular Plot Archetype which I call Intimate Adventure (Action Adventure with the Action replaced by Intimacy which may or may not be sexual).

In real life, all the archetypes overlap and interact -- every human born on this planet has a unique composite of archetypes (Natal Chart) plus all the modifications (epigenetics) they gather through life.  It's a mish-mosh. 

In fiction, the Characters have 3 prominent traits, only one of which is dominant.  Characters are like musical chords, formulated just so. Not every chord goes with every other chord -- in a novel, the writer has to stick to the "Key" as the music writer has to stick to a Key.  The plot events of a novel are the "Time" or rhythm, -- is it a waltz or a fox trot or a tango? 

As I have explained in previous threads, Writing Is A Performing Art, a wisdom taught to me by Alma Hill.

Commercial Fiction Writers perform the story, just as a pianist might perform a Chopin piece for an audience.

No two performers do it the same way, and no two performances by a given pianist come out exactly the same.  A performance is a hand-made, one of a kind, artistic creation.

It is just like giving a speech someone else wrote, or making a dress from a pattern bought at a store.  Individual components are carefully chosen to go together into an artistic whole, with each component enhancing the meaning of all the others.  A huge set of individually mastered skills are brought together into a performance to present a tiny glimpse of infinite wisdom.

The choosing of components, the bringing of the components together to make the underlying Archetype visible, yet manifesting in a unique way, is the writer's Art.  The craft lies in the practice and mastery that makes the performance seamless, effortless, uplifting, memorable.

One sour note, one off-beat plot event, can reduce the sublime to the intolerable.

The Art is in the non-verbal message that is conveyed by the style, voice, and the beauty of the performance. 

Some commercial writers have to know what they're doing to do it well.  Some can't do it at all if they know what they're doing.  Others are hybrids of these extremes.

How you accomplish the performance is idiosyncratic.  What story you perform for which audience is idiosyncratic.  Writing teaches you as much about yourself as it does about the world and your audience.

The art lies in how you fit what you have to say within the recognizable archetype you share with your audience. 

Artists see something in the chaos of reality that the audience doesn't see, then use the tools of shared archetypes to reveal the purpose and meaning of life.

There is no art form that does this better than the Science Fiction Romance.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Wired Magazine for Romance?

BUT FIRST: My March and April Book Review columns are now posted at http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/

NOW: You'd think this would be the last blog in the blogosphere to discuss Wired.

You'd think I'd be the last person in the world to read Wired.

So would I.

Guess what? The totally "random" Force behind the Universe has a different opinion. How novel.

Because I had airline miles expiring, the airline pretty much forced me to take subscriptions instead of a trip -- and the magazines they offered were even less of interest to me than Wired.

So I took a bunch of financial items like Fortune and Barron's -- and Wired. If you want to solve a real-world puzzle, "follow the money." If you want to create a plausible plot - "follow the money."

The website is http://www.wired.com/wired/ and they have SOME articles from previous issues posted.

The first issue of Wired arrived before any of the others and guess who the guest editor for the May 2009 issue is? The co-creator of LOST and the director of the new STAR TREK MOVIE, J. J. Abrams. Yes, THE "J. J. Abrams" !!!

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009190/ is the database entry with all his credits. I'm sure you'll recognize more than a few.

Yeah. STAR TREK THE IMAX EXPERIENCE is on that database.

So I read Wired last night. Now I'm not recommending you go buy this issue. It's expensive. But do rush to the newsstand and LOOK at the pages I'm going to discuss -- especially if you're writing SFR or love to read it or find out how writers find these crazy ideas. Or maybe you just find the philosophy of love, romance, and pair-bonding fascinating? Why do people come in pairs? Why is achieving pair-dom an HEA experience?

Rowena Cherry pointed out in her blog post of Sunday April 19, 2009 that there is a declining fertility among humans -- (not mentioning the concerns some scientists have about the fertility of many other species on this planet) -- and her observations actually pertain to this discussion.

As Guest Editor, J. J. Abrams focused the May 2009 issue of Wired (you all know the STAR TREK IMAX movie will be out in May -- we all have to see that!) all around PUZZLES, which is exemplified in everything from video games to the puzzle of declining fertility.

J. J. Abrams avoided doing any articles on the techniques and craft of writing, but this issue is the meat-and-potatoes of the writer's craft.

Writing a story is identical to the act of solving a puzzle. Just as with a jigsaw puzzle, for example, you start with a pile of pieces, maybe some assembled chunks, maybe some pieces that don't belong to THIS puzzle, and try to put a frame around it and fill in the images to make sense.

The writer's task is to communicate a pattern to the story-consumer that makes sense to the consumer (not the writer, necessarily), and delivers a magical emotional whammy, which in Romance is the HEA ending, clinched pair-bond.

And frankly, SOLVING PUZZLES has been a subject I've been puzzling about recently. The whole universe is a puzzle. Each novel that uses "world building" such as Jess Granger mentioned in her guest blog
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/04/guest-blogger-jess-granger-universe-its.html is a puzzle solved, with pieces left over for a sequel or maybe a new series.

Jess says the universe itself is "complicated" and therefore the universes she constructs are also complicated to reflect the real world and seem realistic to the reader. That complicated aspect makes telling a story hard.

As I see it, the universe we live our everyday lives in is COMPLICATED (this is the opposite of the view of most truly High Souls, Gurus, Great Teachers, Prophets, etc. (people who really know the answers to the puzzle).

So as Rowena points out, we have a complex puzzle to solve within the complicated universe we live in (or seem to live in), if we're going to keep living in it.

J. J. Abrams' issue of Wired focuses all the feature articles on and around solving the complex puzzle he calls THE MAGIC OF MYSTERY, and I'm saving the best for last here. This issue is replete with fascinating tidbits about the human interest in puzzles (Romance is obviously more than half mystery, isn't it?) even including stage magic tricks and the formula for WD-40 revealed!

Solving the puzzle of what another person is - that's always a driving force behind every Romance, and even behind human sexuality! Sometimes the urgency of solving the puzzle of the OTHER comes from our own, inner need to solve the puzzle of "who" we are - really. A true mate will reflect your identity. If you don't like yourself, you'll never fall in love by solving the puzzle of another person's being.

So on page 32 of Wired, there's a feature called DEAR MR. KNOW-IT-ALL where a reader asks, "My brother swears that the twin towers were felled by explosives planted there by the FBI. I've presented him with reams of evidence to the contrary, but he hasn't wavered. Will he ever see the light?"

And the psychologist answers, NO. Not only will he never see the light, but it isn't the brother's responsibility to force him to. And the article explains why so many cling so stubbornly to ANY conspiracy theory that comes along. "The human brain has evolved to find patterns, which is useful when avoiding saber-toothed tigers but less so when confronted with opaque and complex events."

We solve puzzles by finding PATTERNS. We're hard-wired pattern-finders.

The next question to the psychologist is by someone who "helped" finish his mother's crossword puzzle -- and a later article revisits this issue, concluding that it isn't HELP when you solve a puzzle FOR someone. Crossword puzzle workers in particular find it distressing when someone "helps" without being asked. Maybe it's like coitus interruptus?

Another article points out how bitterly ungrateful humans would be to aliens who dropped down and GAVE US the answers to the puzzle of the universe. It occurs to me to wonder if maybe that's why G-d didn't give us all the answers at Mount Sinai, but rather just more puzzles.

There is some seriously artistic thematic structuring behind this issue of Wired which consists of apparently random tidbits. If you look it over at the newsstand, prepare to stand there quite a while flipping pages. The index is pretty worthless, and the slick pages are full of huge pictures and ittsy-teensy print you can't read on the glossy paper in a fluorescent light.

On page 122 there's a photo-spread of THE AMERICAN STONEHENGE along with a lot of very small words about the monument. The standing stones were built recently and designed to be a mystery. The builder is kept secret too. It's supposed to contain a clue to how to recreate civilization after everything collapses. It's called THE GEORGIA GUIDESTONES. The first photo shows Hebrew words -- there are many other languages on there, too.

Right before the item on the American Stonehenge is a 3 double-page Star Trek comic book spread where Spock is marooned on a deserted planet and musing on how he got there. It's rather good.

Before the Comic is a spread on solving the puzzle of protein structure. Among the little items on how to do stage magic you'll find an editorial quote of Arthur C. Clark about any sufficiently advanced science appears to be magic.

The whole issue is about magic and mystery, solving the puzzle of how magic is DONE. There are gamers puzzles, and an item on why video game players shun cheating by asking someone who has beaten the game what the trick is. This relates back to the Q&A on solving your Mom's crossword puzzle for her, and to the theme that humans are puzzle-solvers, and that the magic is in the mystery.

The conclusion editorial points out that it isn't HAVING the solution that's important -- it's the experience of solving the puzzle - of living through it all step by step, of doing the conquering yourself. It is the PROCESS that is fascinating to humans -- the process of discovering or assembling or imposing an order on what we perceive. It might almost serve as an answer to the riddle of "what is the purpose of life?" -- to solve puzzles, to revel in mystery.

That's why writers work so hard to arrange a plot into a pattern that will induce the reader to walk through the protagonist's experience, step by step, a mile in their moccasins. That's why "spoilers" don't spoil a novel. That's why some readers read the ENDING first. HEA, Happily Ever After, isn't what the story is about. The story is about the process of getting there.

LIFE IS PROCESS, and the process is apperceiving PATTERNS. Even if the pattern actually does not exist! (as with the conspiracy theorists -- but just because they might be wrong about the pattern doesn't mean they're wrong in their conclusion!)

So LIFE IS PROCESS -- this May 2009 issue of Wired is full of very concrete items, lots of photographs, very visual and very concrete things -- all showing not telling the huge, deep, vast complexity of the universe we live in. The articles are short and single-pointed, not the rambling musings I post here.

Reading the May 2009 Wired is in itself a PROCESS. As with all SHOW DON'T TELL successes, it delivers the reader to a process which lets the reader figure out the puzzle of what the magazine is about. Having arrived at the conclusion themselves, the readers then learn something for themselves, a far more powerful and life-affirming way of acquiring a lesson than merely being told.

But now turn to page 82 (it doesn't have a number - count from page 79) for the one item that might be worth the price of the magazine to you if they don't post this graphic to the web.

The magazine has posted the image to the web here:
http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2009/mf_enigmatrix

It's a double-page spread of 10 circles with words on spokes around them (like sunshine rays), an image inside each circle, and a label on the circle. Lines of words connect all the circles to each other in a crisscrossing pattern.

There is a row of three circles across the top of the double page, a row of 4 circles across the middle of the page, and a row of three circles across the bottom. It's dazzling and dizzying with all the tiny words on the shiny paper.

The title of the article (and this one graphic 2 page spread is the whole article) is THE ENIGMATRIX, "In the universe of puzzles, codes, and games, everything is connected. Here's how." The article is by Steven Lockart, and I wish I knew him! Though he's got me out-classed by a parsec or three. I'm certain Jess Granger would appreciate this complicated diagram!

In Lockart's diagram, the circle on the far left of the middle row is labeled MATH. The circle on the far right of the middle row is labeled MAGIC. It lays out like this (with large numbers of tiny words spread all around).

BOARD GAMES ------ GAME THEORY --- CODE

MATH ----- GAMES ----- PUZZLES ---------------------MAGIC

CARD GAMES ---------PLOT ---------MYSTERIES

Now take that array and turn it 90 degrees counter clockwise.

And what do you see?

THE TREE OF LIFE

And the connecting Pathways of Lockart's diagram contain labels pertaining to real-life processes very closely expressing the essences of the Major Arcana that are usually laid along those pathways -- and it all makes sense if you stare at it long enough.

For a simple example the Path from MYSTERIES down to PLOT says DETECTIVE.

The words are concepts humans have assembled with which we attack the primordial soup and create PATTERNS. Or discern patterns. Or perhaps there is no verb for what we do with patterns. The words represent patterns of smaller concepts that we scoop together into that word -- all very abstract ideas, all graphically presented in SHOW DON'T TELL, the hardest concept a writer must master when assembling the bits of a story idea into a pattern someone else can recognize in their own life.

Perception of PATTERNS is the core of what every "soul-mate" attraction is all about. And in fact, it may be the core of what raw sexual attraction is about -- genes needing other genes to create the whole pattern of a new person.

We "see" another person's genes in their appearance (Astrology reveals these patterns in facial structure, body structure, all associated with personality, too.) And we're attracted to the bits that are missing in ourselves, so we can become "whole." One.

So the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, and Romance are all based on or contain or pivot around this side-wise TREE OF LIFE diagram connecting MAGIC as the source with MATH as the result, all through puzzles and games, ricocheting off of CODE, GAME THEORY, BOARD GAMES, CARD GAMES, PLOT, AND MYSTERY.

You gotta see this diagram.
http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2009/mf_enigmatrix

Then drop a comment here telling me what you'd like to discuss next. How to choose a protagonist? The Creationist's view of Dinosaurs? Why the HEA ending is such an ironclad requirement of the Romance form? How to make a recognizable pattern out of a story idea when the whole universe builds itself in your mind?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

5 of Swords - Co-dependence

As noted previously, this is a chapter in a book about the Tarot aimed at Intermediate students, not beginners or advanced students. Read my posts for the last 4 Tuesdays to catch up, or pick up the Kindle books updated and expanded:

Updated and expanded compilation of all these Tarot Just For Writers entries is now available on Kindle:
The Wands and Cups Volumes and  the Swords and Pentacles Volumes, are now all available separately on Kindle.  The 5 Volumes combined are also available on Kindle as one book, cheaper than buying them individually.
The Not So Minor Arcana: Never Cross A Palm With Silver Aug 30, 2015 99 cents
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The Not So Minor Arcana: Wands Sept. 1, 2015  99 cents
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The Not So Minor Arcana: Cups Sept. 11, 2015 99 cents
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The Not So Minor Arcana: Swords  Sept. 17, 2015 99 cents
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The Not So Minor Arcana: Pentacles  Sept. 21, 2015 99 cents
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The Not So Minor Arcana: Books 1-5 combined Sept. 24, 2015 $3.25
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This series is designed not for the beginner or the advanced student, but for the intermediate student and specifically for writers doing worldbuilding..

--------------

The 5 of Swords is the first (in the Waite Rider deck) to have more than one figure on it. The 5 is the first point in the process of "action" where others are encountered -- i.e Re-actions to your actions.

Previously, all the "actions" (Swords are actions, choices, thoughts, words, wishes, prayers, curses, or just nasty silent criticism of another's appearance, speech or choices) have been internal to the actor.

For a writer, this process starts with deciding to write a particular novel, putting down some words on the screen, seeing the characters or story take shape as a thing external to the self, making commitment to finish it, and then a long period of quiet growth as words are produced, but not ready yet to show to anyone.

To discover the core essence of the 5 of Swords, we have to grasp the concept of word or thought as an action in itself, and express that through the essence of 5-ness.

What is 5?

Notice on the Tree of Life diagram I found on wikipedia - , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Kabbalah)

Keter = 1
Hokhmah = 2
Binah = 3
Da'at is in another "dimension" (i.e. above the plane of the Tree) and doesn't have a card for mystical reasons.
Hesed=4
Gevurah = 5
Tiferet = 6
Netzah = 7
Hod = 8
Yesod = 9
Malkuth = 10

The Hebrew letters on the "spokes" of the diagram can be represented by the Major Arcana of the Tarot -- each Hebrew letter is both a number and a philosophical principle of existence symbolized by something (door, shepherd's goad, window, staff, etc)

5 is right under 3 and above 8. They form a "pillar," one of the three polarities that underlie the structure of all reality. (in Astrology: triplicities and quadruplicities, the principles of 3 and the principles of 4 which we discussed last week and the week before.)

3, 5, and 8 are all about what you are being defined by what you are-not.

In the process of passing through the Gates of Life and Death in 3 Swords, you decided (a Latin root word for cutting in two) to do this project -- and therefore not-do that project -- which means you committed resources, reached for one thing at the expense of something else. It hurt, but you did it anyway, you took a "loss" to make a "gain."

In the 5, you are doing exactly the same thing, on another arc of the process.

The great, huge, mass of words you've produced as your novel must now be exposed to -- (eek!) criticism.

You will see your work through the mind and eye of another person. You will "encounter" the actions, thoughts, words, deeds, habits and choices of another person.

In the 4 of Swords you invested your ego in your work, and you let it grow in quiet solitude.

The ego investment is now huge, personal, and tender for lack of calluses developed by rubbing against others' ideas. It's very private (fan fiction hidden under the mattress for sheer embarrassment), and it's very personal. Your whole identity is tied up in what has grown in 4 -- because of the price paid in 3 when part of your identity was cut away so that the rest could grow. You have paid a huge price, so what is left to you is valuable beyond words.

Thoughts are Swords.

Thoughts are weapons. Thoughts can hurt others. (this is mysticism, remember?) Merely thinking something nasty about someone can do actual damage to the universe, and it does not matter whether the person thinking has a lot or a little magical power gained by Initiation. On this, everyone is equal. Every thought, word and deed no matter how small alters the universe.

The Waite-Rider deck depicts this as all bad. But it's just as easy to make it all good.

The study of Tarot is the study of how to alter yourself so that all your ideas, feelings, thoughts and creations beautify the universe. You can't do that by "control" -- you must "become." The Suit of Swords delineates that process of becoming, because in Swords "control" just does not work (hence the terrible reputation of these cards).

If you live a life where the highest virtue is to resist temptation -- Swords is where you'll come a-cropper.

In the 5 of Swords, the thoughts of one person encounter the thoughts of another, two egos engage in a sparring match.

Words driven by thoughts are weapons. How many of us have been "cut low" by a snob? How many have encountered a back-stabber, a character-assassin? How many writers have broken down in tears when their manuscripts were criticized?

Words are also defenses -- we defend our ego with excuses, dodges, denials, explanations of what we really meant to write.

Writers, pay attention here. The 5 of Swords contains all the secrets to writing great dialogue you will ever need to know. It is reparte incarnate, subtext, innuendo. The duel of words is all here in this one process.

5 is all about conflict. The 4's image is the King on his Throne dispensing Justice (all kinds of Jupiter and Saggitarius associations.) The 5's image is the King in his Chariot riding to war.

The 5 is about the aroused ego dealing with a threat. Astrologers associate Mars with the 5's -- the god of war. The ruler of Ares, the First House, -- all about the Self and the energizing spark that gets the Self moving.

Very often, even a depressed person will swing into action when something dear to them is threatened by another. Maybe they'll dash off a scathing reply on a blog, phone a talk show, challenge a speeding ticket in court: "I've got rights!" screams the person whose thoughts have encountered opposing thoughts.

As I mentioned in discussion of 4 Swords, the 4 of Swords is the pause between the wedding and the first fight -- and the 5 of Swords is the first fight.

In the 5, what has grown huge, self-indulgent and shapeless in 4 is whittled down to shape and size to fit into the social or relationship framework. As in 3 something is lost, but also as in 3 what is left is the better for the loss.

5 is the dynamic process of ego relating to ego. There are all kinds of ego-driven relationships -- marriage, master/slave, favorite enemy, arch-rival, strange bedfellow alliances, favored nation status, your supply-chain businesses, birth family to put up with, chosen family to cling to.

5 is where the Ego begins the process of fitting into a group - any group.

Refer to the first book in this series (available on Amazon) THE BIBLICAL TAROT: NEVER CROSS A PALM WITH SILVER. There is a discussion of the model of the universe and of life as a zero sum game -- for there to be a "winner" there must be a "loser."

The Tarot based in Kabbalah uses a totally different model of the universe. Thus in Tarot, the blending of the notions connected to 5 and the notions connected to Swords doesn't necessarily lead to fighting.

Combat, arguing, fighting, dominating and denigrating are not signified by the 5 of Swords. But when you attempt to play (play = Swords) a zero sum game, you inevitably are pushed into strife when passing through the 5 of Swords process.

Thus 5 is associated with pain, strife.

When actions manifest through 5-ness, you get strategy, tactics, warfare, brute strength, bullying, but also leadership, problem solving, bright ideas gallore, problem solving by optimizing rather than compromising.

The Waite Rider deck (based in the zero-sum game view of the universe) depicts a man who has disarmed two retreating figures and remains holding their weapons.

This could be taking the credit for another scientist's discovery. It could describe arguing against someone using their own arguments against them. It could represent taking a free will gift from someone then using it as a weapon to destroy them.

In the 5 of Swords you find actions that are both directly aggresive, and (5 Swords Reversed) indirectly aggressive.

You see the passive-aggressive type of relationship, where one person sneaks a punch at the other, then denies it -- leaving the victim feeling helpless. ("Oh, I was just kidding! What? Can't you take a joke?")

Using one's intellect (swords) to disarm another person -- to use your power to overcome another person's weakness -- leaves your victim feeling helpless. The normal human response to being disarmed and made to feel helpless is hatred.

The 5 of Swords includes the co-dependent relationship where, possibly one person's words and deeds supports another's self-destructive behavior, or possibly one person uses words and deeds to support another person's healthy spiritual and personal growth efforts (support, not command).

It's called a co-dependent relationship because it works both ways. Each person gives and gets in equal measure forming a dynamic but stable relationship -- and that's not necessarily bad. The usefulness depends on what habits are being encouraged and supported for what reason.

All relationships of this shape, though, are included in the 5 Swords, even the good or neutral ones.

The 5 of Swords also covers the situation where one person challenges another to prove what they are saying, or to prove themselves worthy. "Put up or shut up!" The teen initiation of proving yourself, taking a dare, etc.

The 5 of Swords also describes the kind of relationship where one person turns the other person's only defense (rationalizations, excuses) against them, then laughs at their natural fear of their own childhood nightmare of being helpless.

Another word for this process is "button pushing" for the purpose of manipulating another person's actions. People will do amazing things to avoid feeling helpless, disarmed, defenseless.

The 5 of Swords represents the sorts of relationships that form along the axis of degredation, sneering, devaluing.

The worst in human nature is brought out by the 5's -- and Swords then manifests that worst in words and deeds. When you blurt out something hurtful that you didn't mean to say, it's a 5 of Swords moment.

The 5 of Swords also describes the behavior of the coward with power exceptionally well.

But as with all the so-called minor arcana, it really bespeaks the very best in human nature if you don't operate in the zero sum game model of the universe. To get through the 5-Swords process unscathed you must "become" not "resist." You must become the kind of person who simply is not tempted to harm others.

To become that kind of person, you must be at peace within yourself, have your own internal conflicts resolved. If you're not, then passing through the 5-Swords process will boost you on the way to becoming just that, a person who can love whole-heartedly.

The ego, the sense of self, can here be brought to fit together with the other egos in your group. Together you make a whole far more powerful than the sum of the parts. For one to win, it isn't necessary for another to lose. In the Tarot model of the universe, there is no such thing as winning or losing and thus no such thing as a "draw" where nobody wins.

The 5 of Swords is where your most private (and possibly overblown) assessment of yourself and the value of your actions gets re-shaped, sifted and sorted, discarding what isn't sound and re-arranging what is. It is a healthy and refreshing exercise, not a win-lose situation.

The 5 of Swords is the forging of a contract, an agreement, about the group's dynamic.

Remember, in the zero sum game model, 5-Swords is the King in his Chariot going to war. It doesn't have to end in battle. A show of force could be enough.

The 5 of Swords could also be the establishing of a pecking order, deciding who is top dog by chewing ears off, or it could be "Put me through medical school and I'll see you live on easy street the rest of your life." 5 Swords is the unspoken contract behind all relationships.

The first fight in a marriage may define the way the relationship works for the next fifty years.

In Reverse, the punch is pulled, the victory by backstabbing, underhanded, button pushing or manipulation. In Reverse it's the avoiding of the direct, clean, nose-to-nose conflict to reshape both parties' egos, and the result is that the relationship becomes undermined.

The 5 of Swords clean and direct conflict is the defining moment of an intimate relationship, and it does not have to be victory for one and defeat for the other.

It doesn't have to be an unethical victory. It doesn't have to be beating up on the other until they knuckle under, then seethe with hatred for years.

For more on that, see the book The Intimate Enemy: How To Fight Fare In Love And Marriage by Peter Wyden.

To transform the 5 of Swords experience from a fight to problem-solving requires that both parties have solid, healthy egos that don't fear attack but welcome the view of the self from a different perspective and welcome the change that new view brings.

Think of the growth in the 4 of Swords as bread rising -- and the process of the 5 of Swords as punching it down so it can rise again with a finer texture. The 5 of Swords is not destructive -- it's part of the creative process. An essential part.

So writers - don't fight with your first readers. Don't explain what you really meant. Don't defend what you intended to write. Don't go into the process of letting someone see what you've written with expectations of acceptance - or of rejection.

Go into the process of exposing your ego-child with the intention of discovering what needs changing -- because something always does. It isn't about winning or losing. It's about finding yourself inside others.

Use the 5 of Swords as a model for every dialogue based scene you write because here, in this process, not only is strength of character revealed but your character's true motivations -- possibly unknown to him -- become clearly evident.

What's true of characters is true in life as well. That's why stories are so engrossing.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/