Reviews 46 - The Private Eye Genre Progresses

Reviews 46

The Private Eye Genre Progresses 

Reviews have not been indexed, but you may find most of these posts by searching this blog for keyword Review.

In Reviews 45, we looked at the 14 book series, DESTROYERMEN by Taylor Anderson -- an exercise in the technology of weaponry and strategy and tactics of global warfare.  It has a few engrossing characters, and a couple of solidly developed Relationships -- but the plot has nothing much to do with who these people are or what they think about each other.  Romance fans will find little of interest, and a lot of boring wordage in huge blocks of exposition.

For that very reason, Romance writers need to study why Destroyermen is such a huge Best Seller in its genre.

Today, we'll look at a related problem for Science Fiction Romance writers -- the Private Eye, or Private Investigator (gumshoe) genre.

Military Science Fiction, and alternate Universes, time-travel Science Fiction is an all-time favorite of mine.  But I also thrill to a good Detective novel, Police Procedural, and anti-procedural (the rogue private eye who solves the crime but ruins the court case).

The Private Investigator novel hinges and two elements -- 1) the personality of the PI Character, 2) the intricate puzzle of the Mystery to be solved.

How-done-it; Who-done-it -- every subgenera or mystery is intimately related to Science Fiction in that Science is all about solving the mysteries of existence, how things work, and whether it makes a difference who you are.

Both mystery and Science Fiction are about learning something that will let you understand what is really going on.

Both mystery and Science Fiction are about posing the question in a way that will let you solve the problem, and understand what is happening.

Mystery is about "who-done-it" in that Mystery focuses on a criminal who made something strange happen, and forced the investigator to pose questions to answer.

The TV Series NCIS is an excellent example of detailed Characterization, with characters grouped into a cooperative team, an ensemble TV Series.  Netflix, CBS All Access

https://www.amazon.com/Destinys-Child/dp/B07GJX1VZ2/

Which Character is the lead character for you, your MC, depends on what you think is important in life in the world.  All the Characters have ever-changing love-interests (or at least sex), but each brings a different expertise to question formulation.

For science fiction romance writers, Abby, the forensics specialist (fantasy character in that she does the work of a wide-array of different specialists), or possibly Ducky, the pathologist.

Finding out what the strange, oddball, components of the clues really are is a big part of unraveling a mystery.  Then the field people have to go talk to, interrogate, and background check the people involved, and then use Emotional Intelligence (in later episodes, Ducky becomes their profiler) to formulate questions about motives.

Watching this series is painless, breezy, and pretty mindless, as they repeat the same mysteries endlessly.  From season to season, they find ways to put each member of the team in jeopardy -- even threatened with being held to account for breaking rules.

Romance Genre is about this exact same mystery-solving process but applied to the Other -- the Love At First Sight, or the Love Hidden In Improbable Person.  Sometimes love surfaces as hate-at-first-sight, and that is a great mystery to solve.

So science, and romance, are warp and woof of the same cloth.  It is all Mystery.

Today, we have the advent of the Cozy Mystery -- revolving around ongoing, intimate relationships (which may or may not be romantic or sexual), with less blood on the floors, violence, threat to life-and-limb, and more inquisitive use of Emotional Intelligence.

To solve the mystery of how a crime was pulled off, a Private Investigator has to use tools that are a) unavailable to law enforcement, and b) available to the average reader of the genre.

In other words, the PI is the MacGyver of the Mystery Genre - the amateur who repurposes everyday tools to make things happen that the reader wants to see happen.

In Romance, the reader wants to see the Couple actually resolve their conflicts and get together as a team.

In Reviews 45, we noted how the Destroyermen novels slide through the gory details of forming improbable alliances among humans and non-humans.  This is the wish-fulfillment fantasy element used "off the nose" to help deliver the payload of WINNING to the military science fiction fan.

Then there is the PI, the Private Eye, who is a loner -- like the soldier of fortune.  Not a team player.  Not facile at forming relationships.  In the TV Series, NCIS, we have our Gunny, Gibbs-the-team-leader who does not want a promotion.  He has the knack of knowing everything, and being where he is needed -- these are the Talents of the Gunnery Sergeant in Military Science Fiction.

A Sergeant is a bright, talented, well schooled enlisted officer -- not a college grad, usually. College grads are commissioned officers.

Gibbs has been married, widowed, and multiply divorced -- he has found a spot in life that suits him fine, but still takes deep interest in women.

So to make the wide, TV audience who loves Procedurals (NCIS has to make court-cases, not just fix things as a Superhero Vigilante might), find NCIS a go-to-favorite, they had to explore and develop the Characters and play each Character for all the possible Relationships in their lives.

Likewise, to create an ongoing, long-series PI Character for a Best Selling Series, you have to take the readership into account.  A TV Series is expensive and thus has to appeal to a broader audience than a book, which is pretty cheap to publish relative to any video presentation.

One wonderful example of the narrow focus, PI Series parallel to Destroyermen, is DEV HASKELL - PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.

The Dev Haskell series is par-boiled, not hard-boiled, PI genre.  There is a lot of physical threat, a lot of fist-beatings, shootings, injuries, blood on the floor, gangsters who play for keeps, Crime Bosses to be reckoned with, and a loner PI, Dev Haskell, who shares a hole-in-the-wall office with a down-at-the-heels lawyer.

The Characterization is colorful, but just stereotyped enough to be worth studying for genre structure.

Dev Haskell is an "anthology series" -- like Darkover or Star Trek -- which can be read in any order.  But it's more fun in published order.

It is also easy to drop into the series without having read books set previously in the timeline.

So to complete the genre study of how the Private Eye genre is converging via Cozy Mystery toward the Science Fiction Romance Genre, download (or free on KindleUnlimited) the boxed set of books 8-14 of Dev Haskell - Private Investigator by Mike Faricy

https://www.amazon.com/Dev-Haskell-Box-Set-8-14-ebook/dp/B07FN3HSW6/

These are very short novels, each solving a mystery, but getting the PI embroiled in the underworld politics of his city.  In many ways, you will find similarities to Jim Butcher's Dresden Files Series (another favorite of mine!), keeping in mind it was briefly a TV Series, has graphic novels, comics, and many fans.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O3HD47C/ref=series_rw_dp_sw

Note what dimension of reality these very best selling series leave out -- solve the mystery of why Romance is left OUT of these very best, best sellers, why the Characters bounce randomly from relationship to relationship.  It's a mystery.  Solve it.  Then write the solution as a Romance.

Do it well, find a good marketer for it, and you might found a new Genre.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 29 - Depicting The Global Village

Depiction
Part 29
Depicting The Global Village
by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The index to previous posts in the Depiction series are here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

These days, people are saying that globalism is dead, or that we have to fight back against the protectionism model that is emerging.  Protectionism has been tried, and it has failed abysmally (several times).

How do we explain this argument to a visiting Alien from Outer Space?  Can Love conquer even the chasm of misunderstandings between our visiting Alien and our warring human factions?

If we can't even build a Global Village, how can Earth be allowed to join the Interstellar Community?

Why can't we build a global village?  What would a global village be like if we could.

In other words, how do we depict the Earth of the future that is ready to be invited to join the Galactic Village of a thousand species?

What exactly is a village?

We've all read hundreds of Romance novels set in small towns, or about Characters who come from small towns.

The TV Series Murder She Wrote is set in a small town, in case you want a reminder.  It is a town with an amazingly high murder rate, but that's the story.
https://www.amazon.com/Murder-She-Wrote-Angela-Lansbury/dp/B00E8AVN9U/

A village is smaller than a small town.

It's more like a small Church Community - at most a few dozen families.  And even such a Community generally forms groups or circles somewhat isolated from each other.

Sociological research indicates this phenomenon may be rooted in human physiology -- which if true shows you how to create your new Aliens as people who do not have this limit and can't quite grasp what it is all about.

Here is a quote from a Wikipedia article on DUNBAR'S NUMBER -- some theoretical research from the 1990's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

--------quote----------
Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships — relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person.[1][2] This number was first proposed in the 1990s by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who found a correlation between primate brain size and average social group size.[3] By using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates, he proposed that humans can comfortably maintain only 150 stable relationships.[4] Dunbar explained it informally as "the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar."[5]

Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. It has been proposed to lie between 100 and 250, with a commonly used value of 150.[6][7] Dunbar's number states the number of people one knows and keeps social contact with, and it does not include the number of people known personally with a ceased social relationship, nor people just generally known with a lack of persistent social relationship, a number which might be much higher and likely depends on long-term memory size.

Dunbar theorized that "this limit is a direct function of relative neocortex size, and that this in turn limits group size ... the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained." On the periphery, the number also includes past colleagues, such as high school friends, with whom a person would want to reacquaint himself or herself if they met again.[8]
----------end quote------------

It's a long article with lots of links you can get lost in.

But there is enough to give you an idea of what to change to create your Aliens.

Remember the rule in creating Aliens for a novel is that you can change JUST ONE THING for the whole novel. Just one postulate differing from science as it is known by your readership is enough to support a 100,000 word novel.  In a series, you can add one more with each novel.

So a "Village" of humans consists of maybe 100 to 250 individuals.

The "small town effect" of everyone knowing everyone else's business and gossiping about it might interlace a few multiples of 250 -- and there would be people "out of the loop" on some bits of juicy gossip.

Somewhere between 100 and 250 humans, a group will become aware that they need to "get organized."  They need to choose a leader, form a committee, create a group treasury to pay for stuff the group owns.

Here is a book series about a very OLD small town where a very new, young, Jewish Community is forming, choosing leaders and forming committees.  Everyone who has joined a new church will recognize this social process, but if you like Mystery (and what science fiction aficionado does not!), then you'll love this old series.

https://www.amazon.com/Friday-Rabbi-Slept-Small-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00ZJZH6XK/

That's the first in the series and there are more in e-book, audible, and paperback.  The Rabbi Small novels are a major, famous series would now be classified as "Cozy Mystery" as it is very domestic and the murder mysteries are more like procedurals (though the detective is a Rabbi who solves mysteries with Talmud reasoning).

So this shows you how a small community "gets organized" while embedded in a larger community -- a village within a town.

Below 100 people, humans do not feel an urgent need to "get organized" -- to operate by "law" (written rules, or agreed on rules).  Below 100 people, humans don't seem to need a formally agreed on "leader" or arbiter.

We don't need a "peerage."  Last week we discussed how Kingdoms get organized and how that basic organization of government is being changed from Statistics based government decisions to "Big Data" based government decisions.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/04/theme-archetype-integration-part-5.html

With fewer than 100 people in a human group, you do not need a "peerage."

Above 250 humans, the group will not cohere without an organization core.

And above 300, any Leader will have to appoint or acquire lieutenants.

Think about the dynamics of a group of 100 or so.  I know someone whose family (parents, children, children's children) numbers over 100.  They do an annual group phone call to celebrate the Mother's birthday (as the Father has passed away.)

A family can number over 100 if a couple has 12 children, who all marry and have 8-10 children.  And there can be years when all of them are alive and adult.

It's a family, though, and its organizing principle is likely to be Eldest Rules.

Today, in the U.S.A., that is not always the case, and even large families don't stay in touch.

250 strangers -- such as you might gather on Twitter or Facebook --- will look for some other organizing principle.

For humans, the "village dynamic" is essentially that the culture they hold in common rules them.

A "culture" may be viewed as a set of dynamic, unwritten, non-verbalized laws and rules.  A family has had this set of rules passed down generation to generation -- and it is, "eat your vegetables before desert" and "pick up after yourself" and "don't hit people smaller than you" and "ask to be excused before leaving the table."

Everyone living under one roof (or in the case of a village, the circle of houses next to each other, sharing a commons) knows the operating rules of the group.  And everyone watches out to be sure everyone else follows the rules.

Break a rule of the group, and everyone knows about it before dinner, and you'll never hear the end of it.

In other words, the culture imposes behavior constraints as the price of being resident within that culture and protected by it.

Members may gossip among themselves, but they will close ranks before outsiders.  Before outsiders, no member of the group has ever done a wrong.

We see this all over the world today -- from Chicago gang neighborhoods to villages in the jungles -- humans in small groups close ranks before strangers, but within the group they are savagely strict in imposing the group's rules.

Awash in the sea of humanity, we join our small-group societies, form local communities, and join Facebook Groups.  The first thing you get on joining a Facebook Group is "the rules" (such as no posting self-promotion -- or this group is for self-promotion.  Maybe the rule is no off-topic conversation, or nothing is off-topic here.)

So we're always reaching out and pulling back.  That's how humans behave.

Classically, it has been said the only crime is getting caught.

In a Village community, you know for a fact you will get caught, usually before sundown.  So you don't misbehave.  This is especially true in Gang dominated neighborhoods where enforcement is by violent means.  But in a church community, or say a Masonic Lodge, enforcement is by gossip.

Now, referring to the changes discussed last week as Big Data replaces Statistics as government's source of information on citizens, think about what will be possible with A.I. implementing Big Data.

In a small, old fashioned village, the culture enforces good behavior on individuals because the moment you do something wrong, those you respect and those you despise will all know what you did, and you will be ashamed.

Maybe your Aliens lack the capacity to be ashamed, or to understand how that feeling can deter a human from an otherwise logical course of action.

The human Village is run on statistics, or small data -- most people want you to pick up after yourself, so you do.  "most" being a statistic.

Statistics, as pointed out last week, don't capture information about groups of 250 or fewer individuals.  Government runs the macro environment for the general benefit, and there will be pockets of smaller communities that suffer because of it.

Nobody in Washington D.C. knows who you are or what your problems are, but they say on TV News all the time that they were elected to solve your problems.

What if they did know you?  What if you were friends with them?

That's what Big Data allied with Artificial Intelligence is about to allow.

In that Big Data/A.I. world there will be no criminals who aren't insane.

A mentally ill person will do things that are criminal deeds, but can't actually be held accountable for the criminality.  But healthy people will all behave well.

Why will they all behave well?

Because not only will the people working in government know ALL about everything they do -- but all their neighbors, friends, family, and everyone all around the world will know everything that's going on in their lives.

Facebook already links people like that -- so does LinkedIn, and dating sites, and job search sites.  There will be many other such applications linking small groups of large groups of people.

The moment you step out of line (text while driving, drive drunk, have a screaming fight with your spouse, spank your children in public, fail to show up for a PTA meeting)  -- the WHOLE WORLD will know.

Not that you're a celebrity, but that the deeds will register and disturb everyone.

Already, people post their whole medical drama history online -- gossip about doctors who are helpful (or not) -- chat about hookups, and share political diatribes.

We are becoming a social-global-village.  It is entirely possible that the globalization of business/trade and immigration was just a bit premature, and is now backing off a little to allow the social-globalization to continue.

When we are more aware of what "everyone" is doing around the world, it will be easier to move across borders, work across borders, ship trade goods across borders -- and eventually shift to a globalized currency such as bitcoin or blockchain currency.

So create your Aliens with a trait that humans don't have, an ability to "bond" personally with more than 250 humans and not feel a need to "get organized."

Or perhaps you will genetically alter your humans to be able to bond with larger numbers?

Or maybe your Aliens can bond with fewer -- say 20 people -- before they need objective laws to govern the group?

Take a few thousand Aliens and Humans and strand them on a space station floating between the stars somewhere (maybe they don't know where) and see what happens.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Cozy Science Fiction Part 3 - Point of View by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Cozy Science Fiction

Part 3

Point of View

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In Part 1, we challenged Brian Aldiss's definition of Cozy Catastrophe Science Fiction
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/01/cozy-science-fiction-part-1-by.html

In Part 2, we attempted to provide easy, objective ways to identify Style and Voice
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/02/cozy-science-fiction-part-2-style-and.html

Now, in Part 3 we return to Brian Aldiss's definition and agree with it a little bit.

For the most part, Romance Genre tends to avoid catastrophe of the planetary kind.  Of course, today, we have Global Warming to figure into any novel set in the next century or so.  And NASA is using the threat of giant asteroids striking Earth to bring awareness of their space program's importance (which I think is even more important than that).  Meanwhile, we also hear about Earthquakes and Super Volcanoes (California's "Big One" seems more likely every day.)  And all of this ignores the prospects of a global war rooted in religion or political power struggles.

So there are plenty of catastrophe scenarios dangling over our heads -- yet Romance abounds.

Science Fiction often deals with a collapse of civilization due to catastrophe -- in the 1950's, science fiction focused on destruction of Earth by atomic bomb.  That threat is back again.

So how do you write Science Fiction Romance without embedding your characters in so much catastrophe that they appear stupid if they ignore the world because they're suddenly in love?

As I pointed out in the previous two posts in this Cozy Science Fiction series, Gini Koch has answered this question with an ever escalating galactic invasion of Earth and Earth as a political football in some game being played by her version of E. E. Smith's Arisians.  Gini Koch's characters find love, fulfillment, and produce children while defending Earth very effectively.

This is a formula worked out in Hollywood during the popularity of World War II movies, and we've seen it used in Viet Nam War movies -- the TV Series M.A.S.H. had plenty of "cozy" relationships among the medical team where it was not even Romantic Love but sincere friendship.

Brian Aldiss observed of British science fiction - in the recent aftermath of World War II which pounded England to rubble in spots - that the tendency was to write about characters who were more aware of each other than they were of the collapse of civilization around them.

We've seen this in many U.S.A. writer's takes on how things would go here after a total collapse of services.  You either tell a tale of striving to survive or a tale of Love Conquers All - can't do both.

Now, why is that?

Maybe if you add Romance to Science Fiction, telling the tale of catastrophe conquered by Love is just exactly what Cozy Science Fiction is best at?

If you want to tell the tale of the catastrophe, you generally have to use many points of view.  The "hero" or "protagonist" is the catastrophe or the response of civilization to that catastrophe (politics may enter into it, as well as the Media.)

When you divide your 100,000 words of novel space into a plethora of points of view, you lose the space needed to reveal the internal psychology of a Character that makes them prone to derive this (or that) lesson from the Events of the Plot.

In other words, even though each point of view character has a story - the plot becomes so overwhelming that you have no space to tell the story inside the most interesting character.  In fact, you have to space to convince the reader that the character is interesting.

So if the Catastrophe and its consequences to Humanity is your Protagonist or Antagonist, you don't have space to reveal enough story to make the Plot convincing.  In other words, "cozy" requires a lot more wordage than "action."

If the Protagonist is "saving the world" - their attention is wholly on the gigantic, overwhelming threat, not on the inside of their own minds and feelings, which is where Story resides.  In other words, the novel is all plot and the story is left to the reader's imagination.  War stories and Action fiction require that structure.

Today's modern science fiction trends are starting to include Love Stories, and in some cases, Romance.

Here are some examples of Action Science Fiction, written by men for men, which include Love Story -- and a hint of Romance -- and thus show us the direction in which Cozy Science Fiction (with or without catastrophe) might yet take.  These novels are not, in any way, shape or form "Cozy" -- but they illustrate how point of view can be used to create Cozy Science Fiction that can sell to the mass market.

Mike Shepherd's series I've reviewed here is still broadening a story of Galactic War And Politics -- even Invasion By Alien Species included.

Here's #14 in the Kris Longknife series, BOLD:

https://www.amazon.com/Kris-Longknife-Bold-Mike-Shepherd/dp/0425277380/

This series is so popular, it has a spinnoff about one of the minor antagonists of the Kris Longknife series -- Vicky Peterwald (a princess kid just growing up learning to run a galactic empire).

https://www.amazon.com/Vicky-Peterwald-Rebel-Novel/dp/0425266591/

 In both these novel series set in the same galactic-war universe, the protagonist and main point of view character is female, in charge of things, makes decisions that impel other Characters to do things and people to die, lives to regret and learn.  In both cases, this Protagonist Character is focused on the external Catastrophe, but does not ignore or neglect their love life and all the emotionally maturing lessons gained from it.

Note that this plot/story trick is possible only in a long series of long novels -- pay attention to how long the novels in Gini Koch's ALIEN series are, and compare to the more ordinary length of the Kris Longknife and Vicky Peterwald series novels.  The amount of "action" (fighting, space fleets maneuvering, politics) in Kris and Vicky's lives is emphasized more than the battle sequences in Gini Koch's novels.

One way to tie Characters to the Catastrophe (which they cause or avert or just suffer and survive) and still incorporate a cozy romance is to have a vast canvass and a lot of words is to feed the deciding Characters information from various farflung sources such as a spy network, a turncoat, hackers listening in to enemy communications, and the Media.

The Vast Canvass produces a lot of information during a catastrophe - as well as disinformation and just plain noise.  The writing techniques needed to keep this information stream both realistic and entertaining to the reader are the same techniques used in Mystery Genre -- Detective Fiction, Police Procedural, lucky amateur detective, and any Mystery subgenre.  It is a combination of active searching by the Protagonist and accidental discovery or incoming Media items where significance lies in the other information the Protagonist has.

If some of that incoming information shades, textures, explains or reveals details about the Romantic Interest, (maybe some embarrassing secrets, too), and if the Romantic Interest is involved in generating or averting the Catastrophe, you have a Love Conquers All novel in the making.

SAVE THE CAT! (the screenwriting book I keep referring you for clues about novel structure) warns us, "Keep The Press Out Of It."

But to tell a tale of catastrophe on a galactic size canvass, you need incoming information on developments far-far-away.  The main characters, Protagonist, Antagonist, Romantic Interest, will be choosing actions based on media reports that hear (or somehow do not hear, or get on their phone-alerts).

Writing contemporary or near-future settings today requires at least some of your characters to have the ALERTS enabled so they will be informed of local impending catastrophe (such as tornado, flood from a broken dam, etc.)

But to get those alerts, you need "location services" enabled so the alert knows where you are and gives you specific warnings.  Many techs advise against enabling location services (for good reasons!), so you may have some characters who get alerts and others who do not.

What a Character does (plot) depends a lot on what they know or don't know.  One major suspense technique using the "tight point of view" of just one character and what that character knows or does not know, is to let the reader know things their favorite protagonist does not know.  If you tease the information into the story at the right pace, the reader will be rooting for their Protagonist to find out the bit of information.

If the information is something that affects 'the public' -- such as "The Dam Broke! Run For High Ground!" or "There was a fatal 50 car pileup on I-5 half an hour ago just north of the Grapevine."  And the reader knows that the protagonist does not know that the romantic interest character was in that pileup.  "Location Services."

News media or social media, flash-mob, or opportunity to make $50 by carrying a protest sign in some march before media cameras, is information that a Character would use to determine an action.  All of this information may come to your single-point-of-view Protagonist via professional media sources (the New York Times) or via social media (Breaking News App, Snapchat).

So if the world starts falling apart around your Character's head, what does the Character do?  Check phone, Tweet?  Dash to the rescue of his brand new Romantic Interest?  Or maybe his ex-wife and kid?

Catastrophe and Romance seem utterly immiscible until you add Science Fiction.

Science Fiction is a kind of fiction-surfactant, a foaming, slippery soap that causes oil and water to mix easily.

This is also true of Paranormal, Fantasy, and all the sub-genres of science fiction.  With or without a catastrophe, the science fiction genres are all amenable to the "Cozy" treatment.

Here are two novels by Elise Hyatt
https://www.amazon.com/Elise-Hyatt/e/B003W3W9WO/

https://www.amazon.com/French-Polished-Murder-Elise-Hyatt/dp/0425233464/

in Mass Market paperback from Berkley Prime Crime Mystery

-- which I reviewed here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/should-you-make-up-pen-name-part-i.html

Elise Hyatt is a pen name -- when you adopt a distinctive "Styel or Voice" that is appropriate to one genre but not another - you need a pen name specific to that genre.

There are 3 novels in this series so far.  They illustrate how ugly, strange, twisted murder events can fit neatly, smoothly, warmly into a Cozy Mystery.

The style and voice are Cozy -- the world the protagonist is embedded in is challenging.  Other characters are inside the cozy warmth -- the nasty Events are outside.

The entire trick of taking an ugly, violent, sick-minded world and embedding a nice, clean, optimistic and bright Character into that world, producing a Cozy effect lies in how POINT OF VIEW is handled.

Point of View is one of the component elements in "Voice and Style" -- just as the worldbuilding is.

In our everyday reality, we can view our catastrophe-threatened world from one point of view or another.  Each point of view creates a different sort of atmosphere or impact, significance and meaning of the catastrophe.

Consider Star Trek's various Captains, but particularly Captain Kirk -- right in the midst of all plans going awry, of immense stakes in a game of pure chance, Kirk's attitude was bright, optimistic, zestful, even happy.  Jokes flew thicker in midst of disaster than at any other time.  That is not unrealistic.  It is how winners behave under pressure.

Kirk's point of view showed us a world that, though fraught with threats, was actually "Cozy."  Of course, he never really "got the girl" so broadcast Trek didn't qualify as Romance -- but it did spawn vast amounts of genuine Romance genre fanfic where Kirk, Spock and everyone else got a cozy love life.

To achieve the tight point of view that allows for Cozy stories, you set your 'camera' of the mind on the shoulder of a Character who sees opportunity where others see catastrophe.

It is that simple.  The single point of view narrative gives the most possible power to the "Cozy" dimension, sharing with the Reader a warm, smooth, easy, no-need-for-emotional-defenses approach to life, the universe and everything.

Take a huge, ugly threatening tsunami of Events destroying civilization, put a Character into that world who see, understands, comprehends, and fully credit's the destruction with all its due fear and awe, and tell the whole story through that single Character's eyes -- very tight point of view, not one single comment straying from it, -- and tell that story as a Cozy Science Fiction story.

Make the reader scared of the Events -- and assured of the Love Conquers All outcome.

If you can pull that Cozy effect off, you can motivate readers to approach their real life with more optimism, assurance, and even joy.  That kind of attitude toward handling grim realities attracts True Love.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Cozy Science Fiction Part 1 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Cozy Science Fiction

Part 1

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

You all know the genre sub-division called Cozy Mystery.  I've been reading a lot of those lately, and enjoying the amateur detective/Romance genre blend. 

Here is a gorgeous example of a Cozy Romantic Mystery series.  

https://smile.amazon.com/Paradise-Valley-Mysteries-Box-Book/dp/B00XLYRBKE/

This is by the justly famous writer, Debra Burroughs.  

And boy are these great novels!  Fabulous series. Highly recommended.

The Paradise Mystery series starts with the lead Character, Emily Parker, facing life after her husband is murdered.  Beset by financial ruin and major trauma, she takes over her late husband's private detective business -- and begins to unfold, unwrap, delve into, and discover layer upon layer of "my world was never what it seemed to be."  She deemed herself "happy" -- and now finds what she thought her life was actually was only a thin, brittle facade.  She becomes a scientist of sorts, insistently researching the truth of the matter of her husband's death (and many other mysteries).  

So this series starts with a life catastrophe of the main character, but the world around her is stable.  The world is not what she thought it was, but it holds still while she figures out what is really going on.

"What is really going on..." is the main theme of the Alien Series by Gini Koch.  I've just finished reading her ALIEN NATION:

https://smile.amazon.com/Alien-Nation-Novels-Gini-Koch/dp/0756411432/

I find these two series, while very different, have a similar feel to them.

In the Paradise Valley Mysteries, the main Character's world has fallen apart leaving a shattered mess of apparently disconnected mysteries preventing her from building a new life.

In Gini Koch's Alien Series, the main Character Kitty finds "love at first sight" practically on the first page of book 1, and that love sucks her into situation after situation that is not what it seems, though the catastrophe she must avert each time is very real, and very destructive.  

Story is always about the point in a life's arc where things go wrong, go badly, go strangely, or just go to pieces.  Take Bilbo Baggins -- nice, stable, safe life until magical adventure comes calling.  Where the conflicting elements meet is where the story and the plot begin.  And sometimes your biggest conflict is with an ally.

So science fiction, often about combat or war, very commonly starts or contains a catastrophe.  

Here is a quote from a website page about Cozy Catastrophe Science Fiction:

http://bestsciencefictionbooks.com/cosy-catastrophe-science-fiction.php

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

What is Cosy Catastrophe Science Fiction?

The Cosy Catastrophe, or Cozy Catastrophe depending on where you learned English, is a narrowly defined sub-genre that was hugely popular in the 1950s and 60s, especially in Britain. The term was first used by Brian Aldiss in Billion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction, describing John Wyndham's books: “The essence of cosy catastrophe is that the hero should have a pretty good time (a girl, free suites at the Savoy, automobiles for the taking) while everyone else is dying off.”

More generally, Cosy Catastrophe features an upheaval that significantly changes the world, usually many many people die, but the event itself is rather short lived and the characters in the story don't dwell on it. The world itself is an everyday sort of world, it's familiar (and therefore “cosy”), it's even sometimes a bit of a retreat—a new life where you get to quit your day job and steal luxury cars. The world may be falling apart, but you can still enjoy a cup of tea and rejoice in the fact that you don't have to deal with your boss on Monday.

- See more at: http://bestsciencefictionbooks.com/cosy-catastrophe-science-fiction.php#sthash.WhtNLdF7.dpuf

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

I cheerfully disagree with Brian Aldiss whose scholarship and fiction writing are impeccably British and unquestionably the foundation of the science fiction field.

I also disliked John Wyndham's novels -- not because they were badly done, but because they do not depict the essential realities of the world that I see.  

My disagreements with the 1940's founders of science fiction are mostly a matter of taste.  I see Aliens as potential Romantic Interest -- and maybe more than just interest.

And so while these great men have established the field of science fiction, and while I grew up reading their work, I see the world as energized by love, and driven toward union and family.  A stable world arises from stable love.  

"Happily Ever After" is one form of stability.  

So I see a market for science fiction where the Characters are fully engaged in their world, as Debra Burroughs and Gini Koch both depict.  Catastrophe may come to a Character's personal life, or to the world they live in, but in every instance the real story happens when the Character dives into the Catastrophe and sets things right again by doing the Impossible, thus changing the definition of Possible.

Where the Characters' actions affect their world, and where love conquers all (not where love retreats from all)  is where Science Fiction, Mystery, and Romance genres come together.

Not all science fiction plots contain a catastrophe - though that is a sub-genre that becomes popular in bleak times - but all science fiction contains a mystery and a voyage of discovery, an adventure outside ordinary life or what the Character has considered to be ordinary even if it is not.  Kitty, Gini Koch's main character, is always greeting the bizarre, unreal, monstrous challenges as "routine."  That is the attitude of the Science Fiction Character -- strange is normal.

This Brian Aldiss definition of Cozy Catastrophe Science Fiction does describe a popular, extant genre.  But here, on Alien Romance, we can explore the Literature of Ideas where the Idea we write about is Love Conquers All and the Idea that Happily Ever After is possible, even perhaps inevitable.

Mystery has always been a sister-genre to science fiction aiming at the same target audience.  Mystery and Science Fiction both appeal to people who love to think, puzzle, analyze, and play games with the writer to see if they can figure out the solution to the question the writer is posing before the Characters do.

In Mystery, it may be "who-dun-it" or maybe "why-dun-it" or a jousting match between detective (professional or amateur) and a criminal (mastermind or less).  Gini Koch does create marvelous Criminal Masterminds! 

In Science Fiction, it may be "how can we do this" or "how did "they" do that?" or "that's impossible -- unless..."

Science is all about mystery - about following clues and unraveling the tangle of Natural Law to make sense of reality.  And Mystery solving uses the scientific method.  

Fiction is all about people -- human or not -- who have problems they regard as formidable.  

The writer's job in fiction is to convince the reader that the Character's problems actually are formidable -- and pose the question, "What would you do in her place?"

In Romance, the question the writer poses is narrower, but because of the narrow focus (this guy or that one? This woman or that one? This spouse or none? Where is the path to happily ever after, behind door one or door two?) the issues Romance deals with are vastly more complicated, more complex, more nebulous and more urgent.  

Mystery, Science Fiction, Westerns, and Fantasy or Paranormal Romance are all "fiction" first.  

To have a story, you must have a Character who is living through events that impact the Character's sense of identity.  As the Character changes Identity to adapt to his/her new reality, the Character is said to "Arc."  Traits mature, but don't change or disappear.  A Nag will continue to Nag -- but about different things.  A Complainer will continue to Complain - but more effectively and efficiently.  

The "genre" label appropriate for any given Character's story depends in large part on the target market - on the group of Readers who buy that story, enjoy it, and look for more like it.  Remember, Hollywood and Publishing are always looking for "the same but different."  That's how genre develops.

Right across all the genres, Mystery, Science Fiction, Westerns, Thrillers, International Intrigue, and Fantasy/Paranormal, we see how the Character's initial idea of their identity changes under the impact of discovering that what they thought was so is in fact not-so. 

This discombobulation, consternation, cognitive dissonance element does not appear in all Best Sellers, or Literature that is not considered "genre."  A lot of people do not find it fun or amusing to be confused or disabused of their certainties.  Science Fiction readers love that feeling - "Oh, was I wrong, or what!"  Or they love to watch other people be astonished.  You see this in the Romance genre, too.  

For example, the "confirmed bachelor" who is convinced Romance is imaginary and he'll never marry is ripe for a "Love At First Sight" experience.  And the woman he "sees" is very likely also self-sufficient and settled into a career that has no place for "him."  The two collide with fireworks.  

As they re-arrange their self-images, they must re-arrange their lives, create a "we" out of "me."  

The thing with Romance is that it deals with Happiness -- or maybe just the pursuit of happiness.  The Romance master theme is "Bonding With Your Soul-Mate Leads To Happily Ever After."  

In the favorite, best selling theme structures of Romance genre you find implicit assumptions that The Soul is real -- that humans are more than animal bodies -- and that "Happiness" has to include some satisfaction on the Soul Level Of Existence as well as physical comfort.  When you leave the Soul Mate element out of the worldbuilding, you end up with soft porn, not Romance.  

One theme is that a woman must have a fulfilling career -- a sequence of positions in life which, when traveled through, produce Soul Satisfaction.  That's a "theme" as we have discussed exhaustively.  

An alternative theme would be that female humans do not have souls.  Or that if they do, being female means careers can not satisfy their souls.  Any anti-feminist statement you find outrageous enough to write about will do for a theme. 

If you're writing Science Fiction Romance, the worldbuilding would then include Aliens who a) have no souls, b)have souls and don't know it, c) have different sorts of souls, d) are reincarnated human souls either rewarded or punished for behavior when human by being reincarnated as this type of Alien.  

"What if ...?" Souls are real?  The reality of Souls is a thematic premise. It can be treated as Paranormal Romance, or nuts and bolts science fiction.

"What if ...?"  Souls are created by God, creates one branch of themes -- and another "Souls are not created by God because there is no God," creates another branch of themes.  

We saw "Souls Exist But Not Created By God" handled very well in The Flicker Men, which I reviewed here. 

 I reviewed this is some depth here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/09/reviews-19-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

THE FLICKER MEN is a brilliant science based presentation of the concept "soul is real,"  a must read for Romance writers - mostly because it is not Romance.

Another way to find a readership to target is to study TV Series that flash to popularity then disappear without being copied.  Usually, several such TV Series will appear and vanish before one genre-bender like Star Trek comes along.  

Watching TV for the presentation of what you might term The Romance Problem (how do you sell the Happily Ever After premise to those who can't accept it?) can be instructive.

I stumbled upon such an odd TV Series on Amazon Prime last year.  Puzzling over why I liked it, I decided it was Cozy Science Fiction (not catastrophic).  

It is about a group of unmarried twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings who have substantial education and careers -- men and women alike, formidable people.  These are the sorts of people who make great Science Fiction heroes.  

Their adventures are "cozy" in that they don't involve space battles, explosions, destruction derbies, or fight-for-your-life situations at the core of their adventures.

Their trying, angst-focusing adventures are into the land of speed dating, coffee dating, dress up dating, or just trying to find someone to date.  At first, they are not looking so much for Romance as they are for someone to marry and settle down with.  

The TV Series is called Srugim, a Hebrew word meaning crochet or knit, the kind of stitching used to make an Israeli yarmulke.  The show is in Hebrew with English subtitles.  

When I was in college, I used to spend a lot of time in the campus theater where they showed foreign films in various languages, often without subtitles.  I loved it.  Today I watch streaming!  

So we in the USA have this foreign made TV Series, aimed at a foreign audience. Can you imagine a richer research environment for the Alien Romance writer?

You've seen the Cozy Mystery burst onto the scene, and decades ago Brian Aldiss defined the Cozy Catastrophe Science Fiction as being about people ignoring a catastrophe around them.  Romance often does that -- vanquishes the real world for a time.  

Maybe it is time for the Cozy Science Fiction genre to blossom, and I think the documented popularity of this TV Series import, Srugim, is indicative of how ripe the USA audience is for this type of show.  Yet, there aren't that many imitators easily found.

Here is an article about this HIT TV SERIES - that just vanished without spawning a genre (yet).

http://forward.com/sisterhood/123571/the-women-of-israels-hit-tv-show-srugim/

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

... Accurate portrayals of Orthodox Jews in American films or on television are hard to come by. Good female characters are especially rare, usually appearing onscreen as either oppressed or unnaturally saintly (see “A Price Above Rubies,” “A Stranger Among Us”.)

But “Srugim” (written and directed by Laizy Shapira, himself an observant Jew) comes with complex female characters who have commitment issues, religious struggles, and romantic baggage (a lot of romantic baggage). Modern Orthodox young, single professionals can finally see themselves on onscreen. Although created by a man, the show is especially good at portraying the female characters’ complicated relationships with their tradition.

In the first episode of the series, Reut, the high-powered accountant, is seen both dumping a suitor who is uncomfortable with her salary and reciting Friday night Kiddush to the amazement of the men at the Shabbat table. While openly feminist, Reut is constantly being drawn to what she sees as a more normative Orthodox lifestyle. When she pretends to be married to another character in order to help him keep his job, she outwardly mocks her “fake homemaker” identity but inwardly is wistful.

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

Do read this article with an eye to how it portrays the life and struggles of a human woman swept away to an Alien Planet, trying to find a stable identity.

Srugim is a TV Series about contemporary human beings in their workaday world, but illustrates just how to create an Alien Romance novel.  Still, it was a surprise "hit" and even bigger surprise that it is popular in the USA, too.  "They," the professional purveyors of entertainment, have no idea what they are dealing with when they touch our field.  

You may still be able to find this TV Series on Amazon Prime:

https://smile.amazon.com/Episode-01-English-Subtitled/dp/B00DTP198A/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com