Mysteries of Pacing Part 9 - Character Arc Pacing Using The Foible

Mysteries of Pacing

Part 9

Character Arc Pacing Using The Foible

Previous entries in this series are indexed at:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/07/index-to-mysteries-of-pacing.html

People make mistakes.

So, therefore, a Character in a story who makes a mistake (thus advancing the plot, NOT delaying it), is entirely plausible, sometimes lovable, easily identified with, and a true candidate for Husband of the Year -- eventually -- when that mistake arises from a foible.

See the entry on What Does She See In Him
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

It is the core of the HEA plausibility study we've been doing. How does one human assess another's Character?  How inflexible is that human in changing the criteria by which Character is to be assessed?  How important is Character in a Romance?  Does a Romance need two sterling Characters to progress to an HEA?

Does Happily Ever After ending plausibility depend entirely on two Characters having internal strength of character?

What is character, exactly? What constitutes "strength" in Character?  Can one strong Character be the Soul Mate of another Strong Character, or does a Strong Character require a Weak Character Mate?

All these questions have one valid answer.

"Probably."

Somewhere, some-when, on some fantasy timeline, each of those questions has a yes, and each has a no, and where there is a sliding scale (how important?) every single value on that whole scale, plus-to-minus, works perfectly in some alternate universe.

Your job as a writer is to take your reader on a journey across the border between here and now and there and then, and insert your reader into the head of a native of that otherwhere.

At the end of the story, the reader should return to reality with a new METHOD of assessing data about the nature and value of a person, maybe about what constitutes person-hood.

To be the tour-guide into that otherwhere, the writer has to create that otherwhere, and all its non-human Characters, if not from scratch, from a template.

The best template to use to create a fictional World is one of the many your target readership already knows.

See the following Index lists for posts on these intertwined and related topics on Worldbuilding, Theme, and integrating theme and setting ( where setting = world).

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/05/index-to-worldbuilding-from-reality.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/08/index-to-posts-about-using-real-world.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

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

Actually, "Setting" is a tiny slice of a "World" - but to write science fiction, the writer needs a sketch of the whole world around the Characters.

To end up with a Science Fiction Romance novel, you start by envisioning (not necessarily building in detail) the World the Characters must cope with.

The one decisive element the writer needs to know to avoid endless rewriting is what-and-where the imaginary world diverges from the reader's reality (or the reader's notion of reality).

What your reader KNOWS is key to targeting a readership.  Publishing mostly regards assumptions about the reader's pre-existing knowledge base as the key to deciding the label to put on the book, Children's, Juvenile, Adult, Cozy, Chicklit, etc.

Readerships are regarded as divided by age, and thus "life-experience" -- and aspirations.  "When I grow up, I want to be  ... " or, "I want my newborn grandson to grow up to be ..."

What the reader will learn from the book depends on how old that reader is, or alternatively what their live-experience is.  For example, the children growing up in a war-torn region of the globe will be fully Adult at maybe 10 or 12, maybe having shot and killed an attacker, or an enemy who isn't attacking (yet).

Maybe that child learns hate, and grows up to un-learn it, as so very many things learned in childhood are discarded in the twenties.

Alternatively, the majority of Romance readers probably are growing up in sheltered homes, being pushed through schooling they don't want (yet), and having their lives planned by their grandparents.

These readerships have overlap points, but Publishers still prefer to divide humanity by age.

See these posts on Targeting a Readership:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

So your job as a Science Fiction Romance Writer is to be the tour guide to a gaggle of tourists of mixed backgrounds all arriving in your world with different expectations.

As in the film AVATAR,
https://www.amazon.com/Avatar-Sam-Worthington/dp/B00AVF8USS/
you have to give each of the tourists in your gaggle a persona, an avatar, inside which they can safely tour your world, and still bond with and empathize with the issues at hand.

The cultural rejection of the HEA as inevitable, or even possible, may reside in the scarcity of Avatars tailored for the segment of the readership that flat disbelieves.

Your job is to usher them into a world where things are different than their current reality, where the singular difference makes the HEA possible, or even very likely.

For the firmly convinced anti-HEA (maybe amenable to the HFNow ending), the transition in belief system is truly gigantic.

It is existential.

It is a transition that threatens the very foundations of conceptual reality.  Change in such fundamental beliefs can feel like being suddenly plunged into a nightmare.

In other words, for some people a realistic Romance Novel is actually Horror Genre.

To ease such a reader into your World, you need a Character to be their Avatar.

To deliver a satisfying good read, you need that Avatar to Arc from where the Reader is in their life at that time, to where the Reader can envision a world where SOMETHING is different than in her real world, and that difference makes the HEA either possible or inevitable.

The place in "life" and the parameter of reality blocking the reader's life progress, are items you glean from your view of the world (yes, rip this from the current headlines).

To build your fictional world, a simplified, stripped down, version of Reality, you target a problem in real Reality, and figure what about that target has to change (and into what it must change) to cause the HEA to be the normal life-arc of the characters in your world.

To make rabbit stew, first catch your rabbit.

In this case the rabbit is the problem making people frustrated or miserable, or maybe excited and ready to leap into adventure, never mind the danger.  The stew is your theme.

Identify the problem, hypothesize a solution, run an experiment.

The essence of science fiction is encapsulated in three question formats:  "What if ...?" " "If only ..." and "If this goes  on ..."

Focus on that, and you find it applies perfectly to Romance.  These are not two separate genres, as publishers still believe, and when you use both in a single novel or series, you aren't "mixing" genres, but rather revealing the hard-core practical reality at the center of your World.

The mystery of pacing is likewise revealed by what you choose as your hard-core, practical, inescapable attribute of reality that is so very different from what your reader thinks reality revolves around.

Consider, maybe our individual (and collective) "view of reality" is somewhat like a Galaxy -- with a black hole in the center, and our beliefs like a spiral scattering of stars being pulled down that drain just like water sucked down a drain by gravity.

It's the inexorable gravity of the black hole that gives spiral galaxies their shape.

Study your black hole.  Study your reader's black hole.  Measure the distance between them, and consider if one passes through the other at an angle, what "beliefs" (e.g. stars) will be changed in orbit, or possibly gather substance or planets?

The belief system of a person can be reshaped by an encounter with a black hole from another system of belief.

One won't be turned into the other, but there will be a morphing into something else.

Nothing remains unaffected by such major encounters.

Reading a novel can be a view through a telescope, or a close encounter, or an interpenetration.

The interpenetration happens when the Main Character of the story is an amenable Avatar for the reader who then experiences not just the story, but the arc of the Character.

The reader's real, personal, character will arc in response just as two galaxies passing through each other leave change in both.

The pacing the writer needs to pull off this non-destructive but morphing encounter depends on the initial distance between the core beliefs of the reader and the core beliefs of the Avatar, the main character to whom the plot happens.

A core belief is like that black hole that shapes the position and vector of each of the suns in the galaxy spiral.  A core belief shapes and determines the direction of change of all the other beliefs.  Beliefs are not static, and they have gravity of their own, and pull planetary beliefs into orbit, all forever moving through reality, each shaping space around it.

Dynamic motion.

Beliefs are not static things.  They arc.  They arc around a central gravity-point like that black hole, and they become organized through life into recognizable shapes.

An interpenetration with another character can add, subtract, and re-organize the substance of the beliefs, or rip them away sending them off into the deep.  Romance can do that to a Character - just reshape reality.

In dramatic writing, "pacing" is the rate of change of Situation.  It can also be the rate of change of the Character's understanding of what the Situation really is.

In other words, pacing can be increased or slowed by the rate at which a Character learns either information or a method of interpreting information.  Having to pause to re-interpret everything that's happened so far can slow pacing.

Pacing is a vector.  It has both direction and speed.

Once you've lured or seduced your reader into occupying the Avatar character, you can manipulate the Avatar's understanding of your World.

The best way to captivate and show-don't-tell is to start your Avatar out at a point where his/her beliefs match orbit with your reader.  Then send a challenge of current beliefs flying at your Avatar knocking him out of orbit.

Like billiards.  

It is what happens when two Soul Mates meet.  The core beliefs of each, the black hole at the center of Soul, is knocked, deformed, and rung like a bell.

The Love At First Sight Romance is a direct collision of the black holes at the centers of your pair of Characters.  It sets the whole galaxy of belief system of each of them ringing like a bell.

Each of the Characters must arc, or change their beliefs to accommodate the new gravity pattern around their central, core belief.

In a Romance, the core beliefs either don't have very far to go, or if they have far to go, they change in very tiny increments, very slowly, which takes an entire Series of novels, a long series, 20 books or more sometimes.

Pacing, in drama, is a vector quantity.  It has speed and direction.

If you have to change your Character's direction in life, by a lot, do it slowly.

Science Fiction Romance is one genre that, in a Series, allows your plot to be fast-paced while your story (Romance) is slow-paced enough to have verisimilitude.

Using the definition of Plot as the sequence of events caused by the Main Character's initial action, each event causing the next, you can start the series where the Main Character, the Avatar, makes a mistake.

However, it can't be just a random mistake.  The Avatar's action has to be an illustration of an innate foible, a character flaw, that throughout the coming series of novels, will be hammered to destruction, the source revealed, and the remedy encountered, resisted, then accepted.

The HEA, in real life, is usually the result of such a developmental arc, where events cause self-examination and reassessment, gradually (over years) revealing and eliminating a foible.

Some foibles are not worth the effort to eliminate -- they just make the person individualistic, one of a kind, charming, interesting or just a character.

Other foibles can cripple a person's life, preventing career advancement, diverting energy to unproductive channels, and just being mistakes to regret.

The foible is the key ingredient in a Character formulation, in Characterization, that allows that Character to be the Main Character and the reader's Avatar.

Look up foible (Google it) and study the word and its ever changing meaning.  Identify your own foibles, which you still have and which you've vanquished.  Think about how the vanquished ones were knocked out of you.

Identify that pattern of foible-remediation in other people you know, and then maybe on Facebook Friends postings.

Find some headlines about people undergoing remediation of their foibles.

Find the foible pattern common to humanity, and build your Aliens around a different pattern.

The Aliens will be more plausible if they have foibles, but a different pattern of them, and a different mechanism of remediation.

Your Alien will be more lovable with a recognizable foible.

Really study the word foible.  It is the black hole at the center of the Character Arc spiral.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Story Integration Part 7 - Happily Ever After WHAT exactly?

Theme-Story Integration

Part 7

Happily Ever After WHAT exactly?

Previous Parts in this series are indexed at:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/05/index-to-theme-story-integration.html

Theme is what you, the writer, have to say on a topic, and thus includes broad hints about what the topic is as well as about who, exactly, you are. What you SAY, in all instances in life, reveals more about you than about the topic or person discussed.

Story is the sequence of impacts Events have on the fictional Character who is the main driver of the plot (the hero, the protagonist, the Main Character).

The Character "arcs" (or changes) under the impact of the Events which form the "because chain" of the Plot.

Things happening aren't a plot, and they aren't a story, and they aren't a novel.  A list of things that happen isn't even an outline, but it is a necessary ingredient in an outline. 

PLOT is a list of things that happen TO SOMEONE, i.e. that IMPACT a Character and prompt that character to re-examine his/her assumptions and change their mind about some topic -- e.g. to learn some new information, test it experimentally, and integrate that new information into their view of the universe from which they infer that if they DO THIS, then it will cause THAT to happen.

Cause/effect is the foundation of modern civilization, and has its origins in Ancient Hellenistic thinking, but was formulated by Roger Bacon.

-----quote from Wikipedia------
Roger Bacon OFM, also known by the scholastic accolade Doctor Mirabilis, was a medieval English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empiricism. Wikipedia
Born: 1214, Ilchester, United Kingdom
Died: 1292, Oxford, United Kingdom
Education: University of Oxford
Nationality: English, British
--------end quote-------

Yet an attitude toward Romance genre widely held across this modern civilization is that the Happily Ever After never happens -- empirically established by anecdotal evidence.  Study nature through empiricism - essentially means anecdotal evidence trumps statistics.

So since we all know Romance never leads to the impossible "HEA" - well, then we don't waste money on  statistical studies that might prompt revision of that idea.

I can wonder if any grad students have been denied Ph.D. thesis go-aheads because their advisors knew they'd never convince a board that the HEA is real, attainable, and actually quite common even today.

So I find it odd that objections to the idea that the HEA is more than silly-girl fantasy never ask, "Happily Ever After What?" 

What Event divides a life from miserable to happy? 

Why is such a fraction of our current population stuck in misery?  Why is the divorce rate so high, the marriage rate dwindling? 

Historians and philosophers have often attributed war and wanton destruction that it causes to a high number of un-married young men plus widespread poverty-misery-oppression. 

Juxtapose that ides to the glorified Hollywood World War II love stories, and yes, as I keep harping on the Classic Helen of Troy story.

We touched on Helen of Troy again in How Do You Know If You've Written A Classic?

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/02/how-do-you-know-if-youve-written_25.html

Note that ultra-magnified passionate love that drives men (or women) to feats of derring-do, risking all for Love, is usually coupled to obstacles even more magnified. 

Our war-torn world has millions faced with a lifetime of nothing-but-obstacles, and as the proportion of young men burgeons, we see them leading the charge OUT of one country, seeking to circumvent the wall of obstacles to a good life.

When society melts down, the fabric of law and order collapses, Gangs develop, strong men, alpha-males (or wannabe alphas) gather subordinates and preach takeover, usually in the name of protection.

We see things like MS-13 exported to broader territories where fewer obstacles seem evident.

And then the moving population meets resistance from the entrenched population (think about the Germans just after they invaded France in WWII - and what the everyday French did about that).

And you have CONFLICT, the essence of story. 

Story ends where the Main Character's internal conflict is resolved.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION is the ENDING.

That's a major rule of drama evident in the oldest Greek Plays. 

The audience is grabbed, drawn into the story, fascinated, held through all the ups and downs, and finally RELEASED to go their own way as the "hook" conflict stated at the opening sentence is resolved.

Resolution then is the essence of Story.

A good story is remembered for its resolution -- for example, the tragedy formula where the most beloved character dies. 

The most potent tragedy usually involves death-for-no-apparent-reason -- the collateral damage done by war when explosions hit a hospital and kill newborns.

These giant Events are usually regarded as on the "dark" end of the spectrum, where Romance is on the "light" end, just short of comedy.

The mixing of War/Action genre with Romance (and yes, even comedy) captured two generations of Americans -- The Greatest Generation and The Silent Generation, while even Baby Boomers were generally enamored by the genre mixture.

That being my observation, I'm even more puzzled why Publishers catering to the groups called Gen X and Gen Y so resist the Cross-Genre Science Fiction Romance, Paranormal Romance, etc.

Science Fiction was (before Star Trek) considered the literature to entertain adolescent males -- never of interest to females. Thus, it was called "neck up science fiction" (purely intellectual conflicts with no "sappy stuff" that so distresses early adolescent males).

Romance was considered only for adolescent girls.  It was all about attracting men, maybe a little about choosing which among the attracted was the best bet. The female lead character was never a Hero.  This made the entire genre of Romance, by definition, badly constructed literature. 

The world has changed as generations have rolled by.

But, though there is broad discussion of "generations" and the traits that define them, there is no consensus on where the dividing line is, or what exactly the common trait is. 

Look at this article, one of many that comes up on a Google Search. 

https://trend.pewtrusts.org/en/archive/winter-2018/foreword-how-are-generations-named

------quote------
No official commission or group decides what each generation is called and when it starts and ends. Instead, different names and birth year cutoffs are proposed, and through a somewhat haphazard process a consensus slowly develops in the media and popular parlance. Because generations are often shaped by specific events, their labels and spans sometimes differ from one country to another; here, I’ll focus on the U.S.

------end quote--------

But it makes my point about Theme-Story Integration very well.  Generations are shaped by Events.

Those "Events" are the "What" that comes before the Ever After.

The adults that emerge from the currently war-torn Middle East will have an experience in common, and thousands of different responses to those experiences.

The adults who emerge through adolescence during this current strife-torn American Election series will be triumphant or crushed in spirit -- each half forming an audience for fiction writers who artistically rationalize the dominant (and often crippling) emotion. 

Remember, 8 years is time enough to pass through adolescence into the period of adulthood characterized by an ineffable certainty in one's own understanding of reality, the Twenties. 

That period of young adulthood ends with the first Saturn Return, at age 29, a "reality check" on life's chosen course. 

So we come to the Astrological definition of "generation" -- not exactly 20 years, but pretty close, give or take.

Here's a summary I did of how Generations affect the receptivity of your readership to particular Themes (which are statements of the nature of reality), all tied to positions of Pluto, Neptune and Uranus. 

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

The astrological definition of Generation that I espouse explains why the media can't identify and tag a "generation" with a name and a trait in common. 

The "edges" of a generation are not clean-cut, as the Planet (OK, argue that with astronomers) Pluto tends to go back and forth several times over maybe a year or so.  This Retrograde Motion phenomenon (which is not real, but an artifact of sitting on a moving observation point) blurs out the precise line between those born with one tendency and those born with another.

Those born over the course of 2-4 years will be divided by having Pluto at the end ozone sign, or the beginning of another -- having the planet be "direct" in motion, or retrograde, and of course being placed in different Houses, with different personal (or fast moving, inner planets like Mercury or the Moon) in different aspects to Pluto.

And Pluto isn't the only factor defining Generations -- as Neptune and Uranus likewise take a long time to transit a sign and therefore large numbers are born with the planet in that sign. One-Twelfth (12 signs, 12 Houses) of those born at any given time, in any given place, share a House position -- but the fast moving planets and the Moon can change a lot, so you get distinct individuals reacting to similar Events all in idiosyncratic ways.

Yeah, it's complicated, and even identical twins don't have the SAME natal chart, or the same life. 

So in your reader's real-reality of everyday existence, Events they had no effect on, did not cause, could not stop, DEFINE who they have to become among all the potential identities they must choose from.

The choice they make from the menu limited by external Events may determine whether they survive to grow up -- or not.

Your readership is composed of the survivors -- and yes, survivors of trauma.  Adolescence is strewn with trauma that shapes the young adult to be.  Those Events seem ginormous to the adolescent, but the 40-year-old can only scoff at the trivialness of the matter.

That's true only of our very sheltered teens.  Those growing up in the rubble of warfare, imbued with hatred of the purely external forces ruining their lives, are dealing with another level of reality.  But even some of them will be potential Romance readers -- because they retain the ability to dream of a better day.

So out there in the real world, your potential readers may not believe in the HEA ending, so you must convince them. To do that, first grasp their view of the world, find the barriers they face that prevents the conceptualization of the HEA, then reduce that barrier using techniques in this book:

The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone's Mind Kindle Edition by Jonah Berg

https://www.amazon.com/Catalyst-How-Change-Anyones-Mind-ebook/dp/B07THCZ626/

Use these techniques, combined in different ways, and you can convince most readers that your Character is a real human being (or an Alien with enough in common with humans to make an excellent mate).

One barrier your potential reader may face in believing in the HEA is a lack of seeing how to overcome the obstacles in their own life, and maybe even why bother battling the obstacles? 


We discussed this book in a previous blog:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/05/theme-story-integration-part-5-how-to.html
Now we are looking at how PLOT in a novel is the CATALYST that kicks the protagonist into reassessing opinions and changing those opinions, thus resolving an internal conflict. Once you've done one of those resolutions, you learn to hunt down and change other subconscious opinions that have been making you miserable.

If there's no HEA, why strive to overcome vicissitudes?  Now, that thought-train leads to depression, inaction, and despair. 

A good Romance novel can inspire those treading water in a well of hopeless despair.  Make the HEA real, and also realistic, and some readers will catch fire and roar out into their own world to conquer all.

And that's the key idea - Love Conquers All.  It's really true,  It really does.  But few today believe it.  Use THE CATALIST to convince them, and spread happiness.

So how do you do that with a novel?

It's the Main Character, the protagonist, the Hero, who does the convincing.

How can a fictional character do that? 

By overcoming an internal barrier right before the reader's eye, and becoming a CHANGED PERSON. 

That is, by bringing the reader into the story of the character's life, walking the reader through the character's story arc to and through the resolution of the Character's internal conflict.

The "ever after" referred to in the HEA is the period of life lived after that major internal conflict is resolved.  The novel ends, the story ends, the plot ends, and "ever after" begins. 

Ever After is the period when the internal conflict, the eternal pain that can't be faced, that has been suppressed behind psychological barriers, has been resolved and no longer exists. 

Life isn't painful or scary or offensive any more.  The stakes aren't too high.  That's where "happy" can maybe begin.

That happiness is not an uneventful experience, nor one without confrontations with more conflicts.  But the Life Events, the milestone events like burying a parent, naming a baby, sending a kid off to college, are confronted and resolved without having to battle internal barriers.

What is an internal barrier? 

Popular psychology has tagged these things with various names so there are hundreds of good books talking about overcoming your neuroses.

Each generation names these neuroses uniquely because each generation feels they are the first and only ones to ever have this experience.

So we have "don't push my buttons" and "I'm going to find myself" and these days, "I'm offended by that" so therefore you can't do that.

Running through it all is "conform or die."  That is more a Saturn confronts Pluto phenomenon. 

So humans acquire these internal barriers which prevent changing opinions via teenage angst, twenties dreams shattered at age 29 (Saturn return), and relying on anecdotal evidence.

In the course of life, an individual will rise up and drive toward a goal, then meet up with that internal barrier.  If thwarted by their own psychological barrier, scars of earlier experiences, the individual may fail. If this has happened repeatedly, the individual may accept failure as inevitable and such goals unattainable.

This individual is in an INTERNAL CONFLICT. 

Walk this individual through a process of overcoming such a barrier by dragging them into the psyche of a fictional Character with a similar barrier, and the real-life of the individual could change.

The fictional character must not have the same internal barrier, or the same external goal to drive toward, or the same reasons for failing previously.  If they are too similar to the reader's personal plight, the novel just won't be interesting.

But create a model of the reader's reality, using the same shape barrier but different content, different reasons and different excuses, and the reader will be fascinated.

Without even knowing that he/she is applying a fictional lesson to real life, the reader may begin moving life ahead toward an HEA for real.

To reach happiness, we have to confront subconscious demons and drag them into the light of day, into conscious knowledge of what subconscious forces are driving us to self-sabotage, or mis-allocating resources, or whatever mistake we're making.

The journey to happiness is one of changing your own mind, and the catalyst might be a novel, a series, a particular writer's themes. 

If other people change your mind (as per the book, THE CATALYST), you don't come to happiness; you come to compliance.

Take your reader into a mind that the reader can see needs changing, and demonstrate how that mind changes itself, resolves its conflict with long-ago events, dissolves lingering scars, and releases a burgeoning and permanent happiness.

Happiness doesn't mean no challenges, no defeats, no cold, miserable, lonely nights.  Happiness means having the internal stuffings, the strength of character, the vision that brings resiliency in the face of vicissitudes.

For the science fiction reader, happiness means comprehending the mechanism of the world, being certain that when you do THIS, then that causes THAT to happen.  If you don't want that, then don't do this.

For the romance reader, happiness is capturing the high regard of the Soul Mate, requited love, a closed loop of love energy which imparts enough strength to withstand any vicissitudes.

Both genres require the resolution of an internal conflict, and a clear representation of the mechanism of cause-effect that links the resolution of internal conflicts to the resolution of external conflicts.

That is the portrait of reality that creates verisimilitude enough for an everyday reader to accept 6 impossible things before breakfast.

For both types of readers, happiness is having a model of the universe that actually works. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 12 - The Character Driven Plot

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration

Part 12

The Character Driven Plot

Previous parts in this advanced series are indexed at:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html

From Twitter -

J. H. Bogran (who did a Guest Post for us here: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/settings-part-4-detail-guest-post-by-j.html ),  forwarded a tweet from "thebigthrill.org" in April 2019.


J. H. Bogran writes:
------quote--------
Interesting topic this week at the Roundtable “Does ‘character-driven’ mean the plot should be simpler or more complex?” (link: http://www.thebigthrill.org/2019/04/april-22-28-does-character-driven-mean-the-plot-should-be-simpler-or-more-complex/) thebigthrill.org/2019/04/april-… via
@thrillerwriters

@thrillereditor
 #writingcommunity #litchat #scifichat #thrillers #amwriting

--------end quote-------

Forwarded message the comment was about:

-------quote------

April 22 – 28: “Does ‘character-driven’ mean the plot should be simpler or more complex?”
With regard to novels,  August Norman, T R Kenneth, Cathy Ace, Caitlin Starling, Jerry Kennealy, Lisa Towles, Gary Haynes, Rachel Caine, Elisabeth Elo, Nicole Bross, Lynn Cahoon and Laurie Stevens.  we use terms like "character-driven" does that mean the plot should be simpler or more complex? This week we're joined by ITW Members

thebigthrill.org

-----------end quote----------

My answer, in tweet-format, was:

--------quote---------
JLichtenberg@JLichtenberg
1 min ago
#scifichat "Character driven" = plot's energy comes FROM Character's internal conflict. Writer shows via THEME how our angst creates our vicissitudes, while strengthening of character allows us to overcome them. "Driven" means Character Arc is Story.
-------end quote------


Compare to their take on the subject, here:

 http://www.thebigthrill.org/2019/04/april-22-28-does-character-driven-mean-the-plot-should-be-simpler-or-more-complex/


As we've discussed at length in these Tuesday posts, when you have your THEME clearly in mind as you write (or most usually rewrite), and use each scene, each Character, each line of dialogue, etc., choose details of environment, all to express that single theme clearly, then both the internal-conflict-plot-resolution AND the external conflict-plot-resolution sequences are crystal clear to the reader, and though complex seem simple.

On rewrite, you use THEME to decide what to keep and what to delete.  It really is that simple to write a simple plot -- it will be complex, but only other writers or editors will notice that.  Readers read it as simple.

It's the same in every art form.  Sounding spontaneous takes careful preparation.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Character Integration Part 15 - Building A Bully Character From Theme

Theme-Character Integration

Part 15

Building A Bully Character From Theme

Previous Parts of the Theme-Character Integration Series are indexed here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

To create a compelling narrative, a writer has to have something to say on a topic of vital interest to the target readership.

In Romance, we generally focus on what happens before "will you marry me?" -- or the pitfalls between that and the wedding.

The envelope theme of all Romance, science fiction Romance, Fantasy or Paranormal Romance, is "Love Conquers All."

But how does Love conquer a Bully?

One of the burning issues of 2018 is seen as bullying.  Usually, bullying is a development of Middle School or High School, and many out-grow the tendency when real life engrosses them.  But some people have their life shaped or reshaped by adults who have kept on bullying because, for them, it is a successful tactic.

We find bullying in the workplace, and especially targeting women who really need the job.  Sleep with me or you're fired -- is bullying when done by someone who can fire you (or arrange enough disgrace that your career is ruined).

Bullying is one of the life experiences that it always seems Love can not conquer.  Most people don't even try to return the use of excruciating force with "love" of some kind.  We just hit back, hopefully harder.

One of the most successful tools of the adult bully is reputation.  Just start a rumor and down come the mightiest figures.  Think of Bill O'Reilly, for example, most viewed commentary show on Cable and he's gone for loss of reputation -- we don't even know if he did what he's accused of.  Was that fake news?  Several other figures (all along the political spectrum) have been brought down by accusations -- not proof, just accusations - and been deemed guilty until proven innocent.

But there is no extant way for a man to prove his innocence when accused of unwanted sexual advances -- or beyond that bullying.

Under the law, there is no need to prove innocence because it is logically impossible to prove a negative.  It is up to the accuser to prove guilt -- and in the case of sexual bullying, only the accuser actually knows.  There is no proof on either side.

So it is now up to the Science Fiction Romance writer to invent a way to prove "wanted/unwanted" emotional tone of the moment, deep subconscious motives, and screeching fear of being fired, etc.

How do you prove emotions of the past?

If you look at 2016-2018 evolution of mainstream news, you see the trend toward including more and more emotional language in headlines, and in conclusions.  Headlines saying "He Bashed SoAndSo" and other violence based words (clickbait for sure) such as trashed, blasted, etc.

Note rarely do you see "excoriated" or any multi-syllable word in such headlines.

If you listen to the clips being referenced, you note the total lack of verbal violence by the speaker being described in the headline.

Read the articles, and you see ever increasing reliance on the essential truth being revealed by the emotions of the people involved, and most especially by the news media and/or just the reporter.

Reporters who avoid emotion-based wording are being accused of sexual misconduct and taken off the air, while reporters who rely totally on emotion based phrasing are elevated to top positions.

It is a trend that has just  barely begun to appear, but science fiction writers have to grab emerging trends and extrapolate them to an extreme.  Writing courses teach how to do this.

So to build a Bully Character from a Theme about Bullying - and create a conflict, you need a non-Bully Character who is not a wimp.  You need a Kick-Ass Heroine who has zero inclination to kick ass.

Then you take that Good Character and shove her nose into a situation where it is Bully vs. Bully and winner-take-all.  Both those Bullies come after her, and she kicks ass because ... well, the reason she kicks ass and wins is your theme.

THEME: she kicks ass because God is on her side

THEME: she kicks ass because she's been bullied once too often

THEME: she kicks ass because she's grown up at last

THEME: she kicks ass because she is just better than they are

THEME: she kicks ass because Bullies Are Always Cowards

You can generate any number of reasons a single woman would prevail over professional bullies.  She might kick ass because returns their verbal violence with love.

In today's world, it is easy to lure readers into believing a knock-down-drag-out fight can occur over political stances.  In the USA, it is Republican vs. Democrat.  In other countries, the lines of division are different.  In Europe "Conservative" means totalitarian Nazi, and in the USA "Conservative" means what Europe means by Liberal.  So you can't insult your reader's intelligence by flinging labels around - and using labels as the motive for violence.

So let's take the issue of FAKE NEWS as an example of how to Characterize a Bully and the issue that triggers the use of force.

We are now seeing political stances dividing people in non-political venues -- Sarah Huckabee-Sanders being rejected at a restaurant, elected officials calling for attacks and flash-mob "crowding" (in High School, one form of bullying is to invade personal space) of those who express certain opinions.

The Supreme Court is ruling 5-4 again and again -- the USA is a nation divided 45-45% with a slosh-wave of 10% fleeing from one side of the boat to the other.

Fake News may actually not be "fake" on either side of the issue, but rather colored, slanted, selected and reported through emotion-based filters.  But right now, each side thinks the other side is lying.

Here is an article on statistics - which I haven't checked, but some might believe.  Pew Research center has been the gold standard in statistics -- is it still reliable?

This article is from May 2017:

http://www.journalism.org/2017/05/10/americans-attitudes-about-the-news-media-deeply-divided-along-partisan-lines/

The article says that in 2017 most Republicans distrusted major news networks -- in 2018, it seems that distrust has grown.

Meanwhile, statistical studies on Bullying are being done and reported -- and there is distrust about whether these reports on the rise and prevalence of Bullying are actually lies told on purpose to manipulate public sentiment.

Here is a blog article from June 2018 about school bullying statistics and reporting.

https://jaypgreene.com/2018/06/27/more-fake-statistics-hide-prevalence-of-bullying-in-district-schools/

It says comparing New York to New Hampshire:

-----quote------
Yet again, it appears that school officials are working harder to hide incidents of bullying than address them:

The rate at which schools investigate students’ claims and find actual incidents of bullying has also dropped dramatically at the high school level. In 2010-2011, high schools confirmed bullying in 58 percent of reported incidents. Seven years later, it has dropped to 29 percent.

Some schools have put a lot of effort into stopping bullying, advocates say, but they believe the discrepancies in the data are evidence that some schools are exploiting weaknesses in the state’s law to under-report and underinvestigate claims of bullying.

---end quote---

Now, suppose you are writing a "Second Time Around" Romance where your female lead has a kid in school, and a cover-up policy keeps the kid from attaining justice against the clique doing the bullying.

Her Romantic Interest is say, the Principal, and he is a bully in a fight with another bully (maybe School Board?), and her daughter is caught in between because of -- oh, say her estranged father is a Republican who is running for some local non-partisan office (maybe Justice of the Peace).

Would an adult who is a successful Bully all their life and is now in charge of a school be invested emotionally in evicting bullying kids from his school?

Bullying in schools is not only in-person -- intimidation can happen online, and be carried into the face-to-face hallway situations.  An online bully you never have to see with your eyes (or compete with for grades), is one you can ignore.

Here are some previous posts discussing aspects of the bullying issue:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/09/depiction-part-32-depicting-brain-to.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/depiction-part-4-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-5.html

So, would an adult who has mastered the fine art of subtle intimidation, sexual harassment, and other forms of bullying want to stamp out bullying among the children he is responsible for grooming for success in life?

Or would he want to evict the kid who was the target of the bullies?

Create two adult bullies, on opposite sides of the current political divide, and show how both the acceptance and rejection of Fake News -- or say, a photoshopped YouTube Video of an incident reversing the apparent instigator -- brings these two Bullies into direct conflict.

Show how the mother of the girl having her reputation destroyed can use the insights attainable only through Love to bring down both bullies and teach the town a lesson they will never forget.

What you have to say about Bullying (even how you define bullying) will be the theme.  The Character(s) who bully will be examples of what you have to say.  The Character who resolves the situation, perhaps teaching her kid how to handle Bullies by showing rather than telling, will be the one your readers will love - because love conquers even bullies.

Alternatively, you might take the point of view of the parent of the worst Bully who teaches the Bully why bullying is a bad life strategy.  The Principal of the school who bullies teachers, for example, may get a resounding lesson from his or her father.

Bullying is often a generational behavior.  It has been shown that children who are "ruled" by parental force often resort to "taking it out on" other kids at school.  It is a social infection, and once clearly successful, will be copied and passed on.

Now is the time for the imaginative writers of the world to invent new solutions to this age-old behavior.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Soul Mates And The HEA Real or Fantasy Part 2

Soul Mates And The HEA Real or Fantasy

Part 2

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Part One of this series on the plausibility of the HEA and Soul Mate premises of Romance novels is:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/03/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

We have discussed the plausibility of the Soul Mate hypothesis and the Happily Ever After goal hypothesis in many different contexts.  Here are some:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/06/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-14.html

If the HEA is implausible, how come it happens?
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/if-hea-is-implausible-how-come-it.html

The Cheating Woman
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/happily-ever-after-life-patterns-part-2.html

Nesting Huge Themes Inside Each Other (building the foundation of a series)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html

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

And What Does She See In Him?
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

So all of this gets very abstract for the writer, while necessarily very concrete and visual for the Reader.

To find a book to be a "page-turner" or immersive or just a whopping good read, the reader has to be able to sense a congruence between their everyday life and the implausible, whacky, zany or soapy life of the Characters.

So the writer must translate a world view the writer just makes up into a story the reader can recognize in real life.

The Soul Mate and HEA hypotheses fail with certain readers because the writer failed to translate the writer's "Love Conquers All" assumptions into a language (symbolism) the reader can recognize.

People don't reject the Romance Genre because they don't believe in Romance.  They reject the Romance genre because the writers assume the readers share the premise.

That is one difference between Romance and Science Fiction.

In science fiction or fantasy genres, the writer assumes the reader is a trained skeptic grounded in real-world logic and with a personality structured on thinking in dependently and never taking authority's word for anything.

In Romance, the writer assumes the reader yearns for romance in her life, has seen it happen to others, expects it, wants to find a way to achieve it, and knows beyond doubt that finding Romance will solve most of the irksome problems of her life.

In science fiction romance the reader is looking for an argument to prove Love Conquers All.  "Show me!" is the attitude of the scientist looking to define Romance.

Science fiction is not escapist literature.  It is literature for those who want to reshape their reality not escape from it.

Show your reader how to create Romance, define and identify Souls, and understand the disciplines of the HEA, and you have cross-connected the two genres.

To do this, the Science Fiction Romance writer has to create an understanding of the nature of Reality (actual, real, everyday reality -- e.g. the Headlines from which we rip our stories).

The writer does not have to create a correct understanding of Reality, but does have to identify and define the precise parameters of the Soul and HEA hypotheses in the World the writer is building.  This defines the edges, the shape of that world, and thus defines what choices the Characters have before them.

In other words, the Soul and HEA hypothesis the writer chooses generates the plot, and integrates that plot with the theme.

THEME: Souls Are Real
THEME: Life has a purpose; each individual is rewarded for achieving that purpose.

The HEA is a reward for a Soul achieving a purpose.  How is the purpose assigned, by whom, why, and how is that purpose made possible to achieve -- and what choices does a Soul have, and when does the Soul make that choice (before or after birth?)

THEME: Rebirth does not have to involve reincarnation

THEME: The HEA is equivalent to retirement on a cushy pension or Veteran's Benefits.

In a previous post, we discussed crafting the Soul Mate of the Kickass Heroine:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/07/theme-character-integration-part-13.html

We examined the nature of character, what people call "strong character" -- we all know when we meet a "strong" person, but sometimes we don't really know why we think that person is "strong."

So we looked deeply at the concept of character, trying to find the way to telegraph to a reader that this Character (this artificial person who runs through your story) is a Strong Character.

We created one (of hundreds of possible) idea of what the concept "character" might be in real life, and explored some fictional uses for the concept.

Character, we puzzled out, might be defined as the mechanism that connects Soul and Body.

Character is not soul.  Character is not body.

Soul is the non-material spirit we feel is our Self.  Body is the purely animal carcass that Spirit inhabits.  The Kabbalah indicates the Soul enters our manifest reality through the dimension of Time.  So we have questions that generate themes: what is Time, what is Soul, what is a human body, what is character?

Humans can be more animal than spirit, or more spirit than animal -- or a nice, firm, buffered, flexible-but-unbreakable balance.

Character is the style, manner and method by which a Soul inhabits a Body.

A "Strong Character" is one where the Soul tames and domesticates the Body, making friends with the animal spirit the way a good dog trainer tames a dog.

For those into Tarot, consider the STRENGTH CARD.

That's why character (real life people), and Character (fictional people) are so complex.  We are composed of two variables and the relationship between them -- all 3 factors are nothing but pure energy.

THEME: the real world is continuous.

THEME: the real world is discontinuous.

Take the attributes of the "real world" your readers live in -- 3 spatial dimensions + time.

Over the last hundred years or so, theories of the structure of Space-Time have gone from "The Space-Time Continuum" to a model in which space, time, matter and energy are discontinuous -- e.g. Quantized.

The quantized model of reality raises a lot of questions and allows for a wide range of themes for Science Fiction Romance, a science that depends entirely on the reality of the Soul (since we write about the search for Soul Mates).

Science has been grappling with the issues of where a soul hypothesis could fit into modern physics and psychology -- life after death, ghosts, out of body experiences, precognition, prophecy -- some considerable research funding goes to projects searching for the how and why of the human sense of Self.

The Fantasy genres have been digging deep into the science behind fantasy -- why does the human brain fantasize?

Each answer to these questions generates a fertile master theme for a series of Science Fiction Romance novels.

But in 2018, this article appeared
http://cengor.com/science/the-soul-fits-into-quantum-mechanics-according-to-physicis-tutrt-vytrfyt-hgfyt.html

-----quote-----
Belief in the soul is scientific, according to Stapp. Here the word “soul” is used to describe a consciousness or personality which is independent of the brain or the rest of the human body. This consciousness transcends the physical body and does indeed survive death. In his paper, “Compatibility of Contemporary Physical Theory With Personality Survival,” he wrote: “Strong doubts about personality survival based solely on the belief that postmortem survival is incompatible with the laws of physics are unfounded.”

Stapp noted of his own concepts: “There has been no hint in my previous descriptions (or conception) of this orthodox quantum mechanics of any notion of personality survival.”
------end quote---

This article is about "life after death" which, if proven even provisionally, could generate many wonderful Themes about the nature of life before life (i.e. the Soul choosing a Body and a Birth Time generating challenges of certain kinds are certain ages.)

As we have noted in the Astrology Just For Writers series,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html
"Romance" is a condition which happens during certain kinds of Neptune transits.  This means that when you are born determines what age you will be when you experience Romance, and it also determines if there might be future encounters with Romance (opportunities for infidelity or second marriages after widowhood).  Astrology can not reveal when you'll die -- the solar system goes right along spinning even after you die, and surely spun steadily before you were born.

But Romance happens at Neptune challenges.  Those exact transits can also generate monumental (soap opera style) life-failures, stupid choices, vast mistakes, drug-dependency or addiction, and/or complete changes in your life (job, residence, marriage, children, religious affiliation).  Neptune dissolves reality -and after the transit (often a year or more of melt-down) life reforms around new parameters.

Paranormal Romance deals with Life After Death - but Life Before Death is as yet largely unexplored.

If Time is quantized, perhaps the Soul is actually discontinuous, too?  Or its presence in the body may be discontinuous (theory is that the soul leaves the body during sleep),

Perhaps Souls have "energy levels" akin to those of electrons and other particles?

Perhaps different Souls are composed of different Soul Particles?

The same article, Page 2
http://cengor.com/science/the-soul-fits-into-quantum-mechanics-according-to-physicis-tutrt-vytrfyt-hgfyt.html/2

gives us an animated tutorial on the double-slit experiment which seems to demonstrate the importance of INDIVIDUAL CHOICE and OBSERVATION.

That is the rudimentary level of the Kabbalistic emphasis on the importance of human choice in determining the outcome of any situation.  The HEA is the archetypal case in point -- what choices guarantee an HEA?  Is belief in it enough to generate it?

In reality and fantasy, in science fiction or science fiction romance, the reader is looking for a Character to become, to inhabit like their Soul inhabits their Body.

That is the experience of the "good read" we all search for - to walk in someone else's moccasins, to work on their problems thus strengthening our ability to solve our own.

When it comes to finding a Soul Mate, we grope our way to an understanding of who we are by trying to understand what "who" means.  Fiction gives us hypotheses to entertain, possibilities to explore, and theories to test in real life.

Are the brain and mind two separate things?  Does that question even make sense?

–––––quote--------
The quantum explanation of how the mind and brain can be separate or different, yet connected by the laws of physics “is a welcome revelation,” wrote Stapp. “It solves a problem that has plagued both science and philosophy for centuries—the imagined science-mandated need either to equate mind with brain, or to make the brain dynamically independent of the mind.”
-------end quote)

THEME: The brain is the animal human.  The mind is the soul human.

In a strong character or Character, brain and mind are so "strongly" connected, harmonized, and balanced, attuned and functioning that the person moves through the world leaving a spreading wake of peace.

Such a Strong Character has many internal conflicts but resolves them with targeted and well orchestrated actions.

THEME: A Kickass Heroine can not be a Strong Character because she solves problems by kicking ass.

THEME: Monkey sex illustrates weakness of Character because it satisfies only the Body not the Soul.

Think about it a little and you will find dozens of themes that have not yet been explored deeply in Science Fiction Romance, many of which could convince atheists that the Soul is real.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Character Integration Part 13 Soul Mate Of The Kickass Heroine

Theme-Character Integration

Part 13

Soul Mate Of The Kickass Heroine

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts of Theme-Character Integration Series are indexed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

We discussed the nature of Theme and how to identify it early in the posts about Theme.

We discussed how to create a theme, how to state a theme in a usable format, and how to integrate theme into all the other basic storytelling skills a professional writer must master.

But we've not yet identified exactly "what" Character is.

We all assume we know what character means -- but writers can't make the assumptions they want to artistically lull a reader into making or the writer will produce fiction that screams amateur at every editor.

You can't write a Romance in any sub-genre without exploring at least 2 Characters to the depths of their Souls.  You can write porn by staying on the surface of Identity, skating quickly around the essential ingredients in a Happily Ever After ending (the HEA).

All you have to do to write steamy-sexy books (not novels, mind you, just a story long enough to bind into a book) is take a male Action Novel, break it into scenes, count the pages in the fight-combat scenes, and replace the fight-combat scenes with sex scenes.  I've read a lot of novels using that ploy.  No Characters Allowed.

You can't have a Relationship-driven plot without a Relationship -- which requires at least two Characters.

Do you know "what" a Character "is?"

You can probably wing it, fake it until you make it, in most Romance fields because the Characters are all human.

But in Alien Romance, one of the main plot driving Characters is not human, and is making decisions based on biology and the culture that biology forces the Character to live.

If you don't know what a human Character is - how can you artificially create an Alien Character, especially one destined to Soul Mate to a human?

You not only need to know what Character is, but what Soul is, and where "Destiny" (karma etc) fit into your THEME.

As discussed in Theme-Plot Integration series...

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

...what happens to change the situation depends entirely on the THEME you are showcasing in this particular volume (which might or might not be part of a Series).

It all starts with THEME -- and theme generates the Characters who will Conflict to generate the Plot.

Some writers start by consciously sketching Character traits -- for others this just kills the need to write the story.  Sometimes the writer just doesn't need to know.

The most famous advice from major Science Fiction writers, such as Robert A. Heinlein, is "Just tell the story."  And, "Just tell a whopping good story."

You don't have to know, consciously, what you are saying.  Twenty years later (other famous writers have revealed) you might discover what you said is not at all what you thought you were saying.

Writing is a dangerous profession, as it can reveal far more of the private you than you want known.

The need to write and make public a particular Story bespeaks your own character (small c, the real-world human you are.)

Readers recognize character within your fictional Characters because, whether they know it consciously or not, readers also have character.

So we all know what character is, and by extension what Character is.  Why discuss it?

We discuss it because fictional Characters are constructed to illustrate your Theme for this volume, this story, this segment of a series.

If you plot to illustrate one theme, but the Characters in the Relationship do not illustrate that same theme, you might sell the novel, but regrets about that will haunt you into changing your byline.

A Work that lives to go through many printings survives because it has an inner, invisible to the naked reader, cohesiveness of Theme-Character.  That integration of theme and Character makes the Characters walk off the page into the reader's dreams because the Characters SAY SOMETHING just by existing.

A Character is an artificial construct that reveals some ineluctible Truth about human nature.

Gene Roddenberry wet the mats to get Spock into Star Trek - he knew he needed an Alien to showcase the abstract element of human nature that would transform a simple Wagon Train (TV Series) replica into real Science Fiction.

Most people think the science fiction in Star Trek is the phasers and transporters.  It isn't.  Those were invented to facilitate story telling in the TV medium.  Hence they plastered on a "shuttlecraft" after several episodes - just whipped it out of nowhere, not from the Series Bible - because they had to move the plot within the minutes between commercials.

The real claim of Star Trek to being Science Fiction is the ongoing discussion of human Nature triggered and illustrated in show-don't-tell by Spock's "the same but different" plot-choices, views, and capabilities.

If you want to write Alien Romance, one of your Characters has to be a "Spock."

If your Alien is a human with funny ears, you will have Wagon Train instead of Star Trek -- you will write a simple Romance not Science Fiction Romance.

Gene Roddenberry created the Spock Character (then folded into the creation another Character, Number One, the female First Officer because Paramount would not allow a woman on the bridge giving men orders).  Number One, the emotionless woman was to be GR's commentator on Emotion, while Spock was simply not human.

Gene Roddenberry often said that Kirk, Spock and McCoy represented the three aspects of himself.  That's why Star Trek is not a "Mary Sue" -- and that is how you keep from writing a "Mary Sue."

To perform this factoring of yourself into fragments, setting them into a Team with Inner Conflicts and tolerance, you factor your own character into Characters.

Characters aren't real people - they are simplified and distilled people, but people none the less.

To simplify and distill real people's character, you have to know (consciously or unconsciously) what you are factoring out of what.

What are you?

Not "who" but "what" are YOU?

The answer to that question is the main tone in your writer's "Voice."  We discussed Voice briefly, here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/source-of-expository-lump-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/reviews-3-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/06/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-8.html

The Soul Mate is a "mate" -- like left and right hands are opposite but fit together, or mirror images, or plug and socket, or the printer that works with your computer but won't work if you upgrade or change your computer.  COMPATIBLE is not identical.

Your statement that answers the question "what" are you is your major theme, the identification of your Voice (Soprano, baritone, bass?)

Voice Type: Soprano, Range: B3 – G6.
Voice Type: Mezzo-Soprano, Range: G3 – A5.
Voice Type: Contralto, Range: E3 – F5.
Voice Type: Countertenor, Range: G3 – C6.
Voice Type: Tenor, Range: C3 – B4.
Voice Type: Baritone, Range: G2 – G4.
Voice Type: Bass, Range: D2 – E4.
What's My Voice Type? - What Are The Different Singing Voice Types
http://choirly.com/whats-my-voice-type/

Writers' voice comes in similar divisions.

It is a "characteristic" that reveals one component of your character.

Character (real and fictional) is a composite of many things.  Theme is a lens through which you run Character to select out the specific attributes that the story will reveal and explain.  Or you can do it by selecting a Character and looking at the life-arc of that Character to find the spot where the Character's Theme first surfaces as a Lesson.

Character, as the old saying goes, is built by adversity.

Novels are about adversity overcome and put behind -- so the Characters sail on into an HEA.

Like voices, writers have a "range" of themes to talk about, and there are themes they can't talk about, as there are songs certain singers can't sing.

Finding your Voice is not just finding your theme - but finding what you can say about that topic, about the nature of the reality your reader lives in.

"What are you?" can not be answered by, "I am a writer."

In this search for the Soul Mate of the Kickass Heroine we are looking for how to create a Theme that generates a Character and then split and/or recombine the components of that Character into people who can benefit from living a particular Plot (Kickass Heroine Finds Her Soul Mate).

The range of themes that fit (artistically) within the Kickass Heroine Finds Her Soul Mate plot-arc is virtually unlimited, so you have only to sing the song in your voice range to make it originally, specific, and memorable.

Writing is a Performing Art, so you must

"What" are you is defined by how (in what pattern, at what Voice Range) the components of your character are connected.

Character is defined by the connections between components, much more than the nature of the components themselves.  All humans have the same inner components -- but those components come in varying sizes, shapes, prominence, and versatility of connectivity.

So let's take a Theme and find an answer to "What Are You?" that creates a Soul Mate suitable for a Kickass Heroine.

THEME: character is measured by the connection between Soul and Body.  Strong Characters have the Soul fully occupying and in charge of the Body.

PLOT: The Soul Makes Friends With The Body, resolving Inner Conflict so HEA is inevitable.

This THEME-PLOT combination makes a lot of assumptions about the nature of Reality that readers don't normally make, therefore it is serious fodder for Science type Fiction.

As we noted in a previous entry some years ago, scientific studies show that when a female overpowers or conquers or wins against a male, the male's testosterone (aggression driver) level goes down.

Here are 3 discussions of testosterone:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-19-depicting-married.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-21-depicting-alien.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/09/depiction-part-32-depicting-brain-to.html

Pay special attention to Part 19 of the Depiction series - Depicting the Married Hunk With Children (that is the HEA personified.)

As in most cases in reality, where a little is good, a lot is not better.  We need our men to be aggressive enough to protect our children, but not so aggressive they take out drunken anger on us.

"Mating" in physical terms means that the constant and continuous presence of the female (sex several times a week with the SAME female) keeps the male at a comfortable and functional level of aggressiveness.  He feels good, and she benefits from having a guy around the house.

"Mating" in spiritual terms means that the two souls become one -- or theme might be that Souls come in halves, and don't work well singularly.  Like the magnetic monopole - or maybe an axel with only one wheel - a person who is single is going to be hampered in some way.

"Marriage" is the process of bringing that Soul-Merging process to the physical level.

Thinking in terms of "Voice" again, consider a male and a female voice merging in a duet.  The resulting sound as they hit notes in a chord may originate in two different sets of vocal chords, but the SOUND that impresses on the recording medium will not be that easily factored back to individual sounds.  They merge into one (assuming both are on key).

In the Real World, we seldom see marriages this perfect.  Most couples hit it on a few subjects and just bicker about the other subjects.

The rarity of harmony makes this image of a functioning marriage and how to achieve it a marketable story.

But to sell that story, you need a theory of "what" a human is, and then a theory of how that physical balance between dominant female and submissive male might work.  You don't want the male's testosterone to go too low - but must not let it run amok, either.

Rip an idea from the headlines.  Earlier this year, the media jumped on President Trump for calling immigrants "animals."  Then it turned out the media had artfully altered the sound byte clip -- he really did say they are animals, but the "they" referred to was not immigrants.  He referred specifically to MS13 Gang Members -- because that particular international gang of drug smugglers are famous for ugly murders, dismembering humans while alive, and a long list of atrocities they brag about and are proud of.

The quote referred to all MS13 Gang Members -- but was specifically about the atrocities not a political affiliation or the misdemeanor of crossing a border without permission.  Not all the Gang members are involved in the atrocity business.  And many have been recruited from locals who are not immigrants at all.

The general, common American reaction to calling any humans "animals" is a savage rejection of the person doing the labeling.  Objectifying other humans is the first step in exterminating them.  In WWII, US solders -- ordinary folks, not professional warriors, but accountants and roofers and train conductors, had to call their enemy some derogatory name to survive spiritually.  Normal people don't kill other people.

To kill, ordinary humans must de-classify a person into a thing.  Otherwise, they would stay their hand from the blow.  Just can't do it.

Knowing that, the American public rose up against President Trump when they thought he was calling all immigrants animals, and were still revolted when the correction filtered out.  Most people never heard the correction.

But just think back on those weeks of uproar over "They are just animals."

It bespeaks a THEME: "What" you are (human or animal) depends on your behavior.

THEME: it is possible for a human to revert to a feral form, becoming just an animal.

Is that something the human IS -- an animal -- or a temporary condition he might fall into?

Is humanity determined by the physical primate body?  Or is it an attribute solely of Soul?  Or is it the nature of the connection, contact, signal-strength, between body and soul?

THEME: A human that has become an animal has lost contact with his Soul.

If Character is the connectivity between Soul and Body, then a human with almost no contact with their Soul can be viewed as an animal without objectifying for the purpose of exterminating without guilt.

A human capable of committing such atrocities (you can Google up a list if imagination fails), is functioning purely as a primate animal.  Without the firm grip of the Soul on the basic primate body, a human being will behave as any other primate would.

Study Chimps.  And other primates.  Males have been known to eat their female's newborn babies.

What prevents humans from doing that?  Nothing.  But we don't.  Why?  Soul.

That is a theme -- human self-control or values are a product of the welding of Soul to Body.  Left to itself, the body will behave like any other animal.

Body and Soul are two separate things, but exist in this reality as a fully merged whole.

Or maybe you can Build your World such that all humans have a degree of connection (a degree of character) between body and soul.  Maybe in some future that connectivity may become measurable, or maybe a chip-implant will "correct" miscommunications between body and soul.

Maybe Aliens will come along who have a system or method of "developing character" or repairing the connection between body and soul.  Maybe that's the secret to beating death?

Death has been defined as the Soul leaving the Body.  What if that were not possible? Zombies? Vampires?

But among your readers, you will have people with varying Soul-Body Connections, some Souls not being compatible with the Body (as some printers are not compatible with your computer).  Or if compatible, maybe they need an adaptor to plug in.

If it is true that being whipped and bested by a female reduces a male's testosterone level, the kickass heroine is out of luck.  No man will mate with her, and if she conquers one, the husband he turns into won't be the kickass hero she so yearns for.

So what mechanism (again this is Theme-Worldbuilding practice) ...

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

... could regulate male testosterone levels in a home where the Kickass Heroine commands all.  That's what "kickass" means -- can not be dominated and therefore is always in command.

"Regulate" does not mean "suppress" or "eliminate."  It means add or subtract as the situation requires.

Perhaps the secret is that the Kickass Heroine's mate has to have a free-flowing, wide-open connection to his Soul, so that the Heroine's mate does not over-react to his inability to dominate her.

Maybe the Relationship settles down to him not feeling any testosterone driven urge to dominate?  Maybe she, likewise, doesn't need to dominate him, or kick his ass.

How could that situation possibly be, or possibly lead to an enduring HEA?

Perhaps each of the two individuals (might be human female and Alien male) has a maximized Soul-Body connection, attuned and optimized.

If humans can revert to feral-animal style living -- earn the appellation "animal" from other humans -- by a lack of Soul-Body integration, then it follows that a very non-animal behavior will be evident in people with a strong, wide-open, freely flowing, wide-bandwidth connection between Soul and Body.

After the tussle of Soul vs Body, if theSoul wins the Body's loyalty and friendship, the person's behavior won't ever revert to "animal" level.

So if the kickass heroine has kicked enough ass to meet her own soul and embrace it, become a whole, integrated person, with very stable emotional responses, sensitive but indomitable, her Mate will recognize that she does not have to be dominated in order to behave well.

She will recognize that this matured kickass hero has full integrated with his Soul, and does not need his ass kicked.  His behavior will not revert to animal level.

At that point, both these individuals will have evolved to reach a level they are Relating Soul-to-Soul, not body to body, not animal to animal.

When the Souls are married, they create a Unity that functions smoothly in the world -- and the world does not respond to their actions in the same way it responds to animals.

They are not animals.  They have become Soul Mates.

At first, they are both answering "What Are You?" with a profession or species, or perhaps social station in life.  At the end, they are both answering, "A Body hosting a Soul."  "I'm a person."

How they get there is the Story all Romance readers yearn for.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 9 - Convincing Elder Characters

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration

Part 9

Convincing Elder Characters

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

As always, the series of posts with "Integration" of several skills in the title assume you have mastered the individual skills we have discussed.

The previous posts in this series are indexed here:

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

A novel, in any genre, to have depth, be "immersive," and thus be memorable, making readers memorize your byline to hunt for other books by you, must have (or refer vividly to) Characters of various ages.

Your Characters were not born all grown up, and did not arrive at their current view of their world without having held other views prior to the story.

Characters have a past-story as well as a past-plot.  Because they have a past, if they survive your story, it will be clear to the reader that they will have a future (and maybe more books).

This is why backstory is given such emphasis in writing lessons.  But a backstory (the history of the world, its Characters, and the karma that has swept them to this current place in life) is as complex a tapestry as the current episode, and the future.

This is true in all genres, but it is in high focus, exceptional three-dimensional relief, and grand scale in Romance of all types.

Romance, in our modern day of grim outlooks on reality, has to "sell" the Happily Ever After ending.  Whatever sub-genre you might blend into your novel, the Romance has to barrel through the plot and blast out a nice niche of happily ever after where it seems plausible the Characters will live a long and fulfilling life.

So in order to convince your readers that your World (and presumably somewhere in the reader's world) there is the possibility of a Happily Ever After, you must SHOW DON'T TELL the achievement of an HEA.

You must present some Characters who have lived an HEA.

And you must convince your readers these Characters might possibly be somewhat like real people.

In other words, you must create a Character who is older than you are, has lived life experiences you have barely witnessed and certainly not yet experienced, and you must give your reader the feeling of having experienced those life events themselves.

In other words, you must put your reader inside the "head" of an Elder Character who convinces the reader that the HEA is possible because that Character lived it.

Because it's a novel, there has to be a risk that the HEA might not be achieved by the current young Characters who are living the plot.

That's easy because if you are not young, you were once.

But how do you create a Character older than yourself by decades?

Tolkien created Gandalf, and many other writers previously and since have given us Elders to admire.

Such elder characters are the demented grandmother in the attic, the beloved grandfather in a wheelchair pounding his cane on the floor, the Elder who comes out of retirement to lead a life-or-death charge against an implacable foe, or, as in the film, Cocoon, Elders who escape a group home to go on an adventure seeking the fountain of youth.

https://www.amazon.com/Cocoon-Don-Ameche/dp/B01N3PMDJO/

In today's current TV Series, we see Parents depicted as major problems in the lives of the Characters living the story.  Parents are depicted in a negative light, as people nobody would like, never mind love.  Their presence during a visit, or even just a phone call, interrupts the important things going on and makes the Characters feel bad about themselves, frustrated or enraged.  Everything is ruined when the Parents show up.

How does that convey the plausibility of the HEA ending?  Parents are AT the HEA ending, or grandparents are, and if they are still angst ridden, acting out, hammering on their children to behave differently, and sick and miserable, how does that convince the audience that an HEA is plausible for the Characters currently having the adventure?

The Elder Character can be a leader and key-player, like Gandalf, or a bystander giving advice like the Grandmother in the TV Series SUITS, a Character who dies and leaves a legacy of Wisdom.

To convince your readers that your current young couple is headed for a long and happy life, you need to show-don't-tell how previous generations in your well Built World have achieved the HEA in their own lives.

That, in itself, is a Theme -- here is a world wherein the HEA is a common achievement.  The Theme is "HEA is Real."

OK, so how do you integrate that theme with your current young Characters?

Ask yourself what is a Couple like after decades of HEA?

How does an elderly couple relate to each other and their great-grandchildren.

Many good Romances have used "Inheriting An Old House" -- spooky Gothic, sudden riches, problematic neighbors, rejecting small town society -- all kinds of conflicts can arise as a young Character inherits an old house and explores the attic, trying to clean it out to sell the house.

The "World" is the setting of the old House and the town nearby, the Characters in that town, its economy and culture.

But in that World, the elder is gone, and all that's left is memories and memorabilia, the detritus of a life.  Exploring the detritus of a long life of an HEA can be a life-changing event.

Does digging through the attic uncover a life of secret misery, or a life of serene triumph after a majestic storm of Events?

The Theme, the plot, the Character, and the World all have to come into play as you answer that question.  Sometimes you write the entire novel before you understand the theme or even the World.  Sometimes you think you are writing the story of extreme misery, only to find in the end there really was happiness.

Or sometimes, as in my Vampire Romance Novel set on the Moon, the Those of My Blood, the ending frees the Characters of the oppression of Elders.

https://www.amazon.com/Those-My-Blood-Tales-Luren-ebook/dp/B00A7WQUIW/

Most writers don't know, for certain, exactly what the ending will be until they actually write, "The End."

I had that experience writing Those of My Blood (the original Hardcover was hailed as my breakout novel).  It was a surprise to me how it happened.

The writer knows it will be a climax point, an explosive blow, followed by a denouement - a few paragraphs of serenity after the storm - indicating an HEA is likely.

But which way will the cookie crumble for the principle Characters?  Very often, the writer is more surprised (and moved to tears) than most readers will be.

The future of those Characters, indicated in the brief paragraphs after the Ending of the Slot, the few paragraphs where the Story is smoothly docked at its destination, is actually decided by the opening sentence of the novel.

Therefore, after writing The End, it is often necessary to go rewrite the opening to match.

This often happens because, when laying out the idea for the story, the writer has not included a full representation of the Elders.  So during the writing, the writer has to explore and flesh-out the Elder Characters and how the Young Characters have internalized the teachings of the Elders.

The teachings of the Elders were received by the Elders from their Elders.

We have the maxim, "Respect Your Elders," and previous generations were taught to stand when an Elder enters the room, to surrender a seat on the bus to an Elder, to open doors for Elders, to fetch things without being asked, and to address Elders as Sir or Madam and always acquiesce, never-EVER-ever argue.

NEVER CONTRADICT YOUR ELDERS.  

This concept of proper behavior was drilled into youngsters for centuries, so if you are writing Historicals, be sure to vet every line of dialogue to be certain none of the Characters ever contradicts an Elder unless it is a major plot-point, an act of defiance, or the Character is Pure Evil.

In our current world, it is taken for granted that anyone older than you is wrong about everything.

Both Thematic Elements, "Elders Are Always Correct" and "Elders Are Never Correct," are actually true in their Times, in the respective Worlds.

There is a progression of Life for humans (which might not be true for Aliens) that alters mental, emotional, and spiritual skills with time, and ONLY with time.

In other words, no matter how much a Hot Shot a young guy might be, he can not be as Wise as an Elder (who isn't demented -- and even the demented Elders have flashes of Wisdom worth adopting).

Here is an article about some research into the Age-Related Skills among humans.

http://time.com/money/4794091/ages-you-peak-at-everything/

This article traces the ages at which large samples of population aced certain skills.

----------quote---------
People really do get wiser as they get older.

It turns out life really is the best classroom.

A team of psychologists asked people to read about a conflict, then asked them questions about it. The scientists analyzed the responses for characteristics like being able to see from someone else's point of view, anticipating change, considering multiple possible turnouts, acknowledging uncertainty, and searching for compromise.

They found that the oldest group they studied — people who were between 60 and 90 — did better than other ages on almost every count.

Psychological well-being peaks at about 82.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, scientists asked people to picture a 10-step ladder, with the best possible life on the top rung and the worst possible life on the bottom rung.The oldest group they studied (82- to 85-year-olds) gave the highest average rung number, about 7.

---------end quote-------

The reason today, "Elders Are Always Wrong" is true is not just that "the World has changed" but rather that the pace of change has accelerated.

Adaptability is a trait that peaks early in life, then falls off, and we have solved the problem of how to get to an HEA of our own.  No longer searching for a path through life, humans settle into a groove which becomes a rut very hard to get out of.  In fact, humans who are old enough to still get out of their rut might actively choose not to.

Humans have the ability to form Habits (such as never speaking words that contradict their elders).  Success or Failure in life used to depend on internalizing the Wisdom transmitted by Elders (grandparents who survived the harsh realities of life did so because of Wisdom acquired from their Elders).

Surviving a long time was prima facie evidence of Wisdom -- because the world of their Elders was almost identical to the world they survived, and now you are living in that same world, and so need the same HABITS of thought, the Wisdom, that allowed your Elders to survive.

One Wisdom, I think, has in fact a legitimate application in today's world, "Never Volunteer" -- the watchword of inductees into the Army.

But beyond certain basics, most of the old adages are no longer applicable or helpful.  We are now responsible for creating new adages, new Wisdom of a New Age, that will remain applicable for at least a few generations.

Are Romance writers up to that?

Are your Characters going to become Elders who are always correct or always incorrect?

Will your Characters, through the Plot events generated by your Theme, come to understand the dynamics shaping their World in a way that they can pass down to their children?

What do you know about the real world around you that your readers don't (yet) know?

That Wisdom you enshrine in your one-liners, the little quotables that will become watchwords for some readers in their real life, ("Not The 'Droids You Are Looking For"), may change a Misery Ever After ending to a Happily Ever After ending.

Do a good job of finding the key to living in the Internet Of Things world, the A.I. managed world, after the Singularity that is coming, encapsulate that Wisdom and convey it to the youth growing up behind you with a memorable one-liner.

The Romance Genre is especially suited to creating and conveying these deep, obscure, never-before-discovered or needed, Wisdoms.

The mechanics of staying alive in the world will have shifted to emphasize the skills of the 60-90 year olds mentioned in that quote above.  Seeing conflicts from various points of view, anticipating change, (having a Plan C and D), finding new ways of resolving disputes.

It is possible the age of Majority may rise from 18 years to 28 years, or maybe 40 or 50.  Perhaps nobody under 50 will be allowed to vote?  The life-skills of value will be those of the Eldest Humans -- as life-expectancy increases.

In the mystic tradition, the age of 100 bestows a Vision youngsters don't have.

In building your World, consider whether mere age is the source of this kind of cognitive skill, and whether artificial life-extension techniques can automatically bestow it.

We've all known Elders who were just as foolish and clueless as they were when they were in their 20's.  And we know Elders who have "lost it" -- dementia or Alzheimer's or decreased blood supply to the brain -- whatever the cause, they just do not have Wisdom to gift you with.

Are such Elders also worthy of "respect" (as society used to practice?)

What is it about Age that demands the respect of Youth?

The answer to that question is a thematic element and requires a Character active in the story to show-don't-tell the reader how your World functions.

Ponder that research into ages at which cognitive functions of various sorts "peak" and create your novel's society to take advantage of this human trait, or to attempt to violate it.

If you have Aliens -- be sure to create the equivalent experimental results for them (which should not be included in your text, but used to generate dialogue and attitudes).

On the other hand, maybe very little of our current civilization may survive and you can start from scratch building a whole new world.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1342820/Vesuviuss-big-daddy-supervolcano-Campi-Flegrei-near-Naples-threatens-Europe.html

On the SimeGen Group on Facebook, we collect apocalyptic phenomena because Sime~Gen is set a thousand years after such a wipe-out hits our current world.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com