Dialogue Part 15 Writing Inner Dialogue of Soul Mates

Dialogue 
Part 15

Writing Inner Dialogue of Soul Mates

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Previous parts of the Dialogue series are indexed here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/dialogue-parts-1-4-listed.html

We visualize the wedding moment as divine intervention to make life Happily Ever After - it is a supernatural moment.

A wedding is the beginning of a new life.  It changes everything including your self-image.

Usually, all the Romance happens before the wedding -- the wedding scene may be the final scene of the novel.

Sometimes, the story is about what happens if the anticipated inflection point of getting married somehow aborts -- one or the other gets cold feet, one or the other is accidentally killed on the way to the wedding, one or the other is put in the hospital by an accident at the verge of death, or one of them is murdered or deliberately attacked and left hospitalized.  Possibly, an ex or some jealous stalker emerges or a love-child situation is revealed during the ceremony.

Drama (Pluto is Drama) abounds at the peak pivotal moments of life.

The bigger the pivot the more spectacular and singular the drama.

For example, true Soul Mates rammed together by circumstances may experience Hate At First Sight.  Most Romance readers do understand this dynamic -- that the intensity of the aversion can be the sign that these two are Soul Mates.

Not just lovers, or two people having an affair or a one-night-stand -- but true Soul Mates.

Months ago, there was an article posted online at mindbodygreen.com that pointed out what all Romance readers know.

---------quote---------
Many years ago, I was sitting with a couple in my office, marveling about what a "perfect fit" they were: They were both into healthy living, rescue dogs, and hiking. They didn’t argue, their facial expressions were kind, and their nonverbal signals showed they cared.

Despite this, they were talking about ending their relationship. They couldn’t describe what was wrong, but both felt the relationship was empty. I followed the usual process: We looked for places of trouble, which were few, and explored the good parts of their relationship, which were many. However, it was as if a spark between them was never lit. In the end, they felt it was best to part amicably, which they did.

That session was followed by an hour with another couple who didn’t stop arguing from the moment they walked in the door. They had been waiting all week to "tell on the other," i.e., talk about the agreements each had broken and the far-reaching arguments about washing the dishes or sex, all with a plethora of eye-rolling and grimacing. However, the passion between them was palpable; under the power struggle, there was a lot of interest and passion. We worked hard for months, and they were eventually able to break their destructive loop and spend more time living with the pleasure they found in each other.

These two stories point to one of the most important truths my 35 years of working with couples has shown me. Though we know many of the qualities and skills that make a great relationship—most of which can be learned—there is no rule book for what makes two people work. Sometimes people just know their relationships are over; other times, even though it’s hard, they are willing to do the work to make it good again.

There are times you MUST leave ...

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

Read the article at:
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-know-when-its-time-to-walk-away-from-your-marriage\

It is full of great novel ideas about when to admit the "Happily Ever After" so anticipated at the wedding is not going to happen, and what to do about it.

As a writer, look inside yourself and then examine the people closest to you -- you will find an abundance of "internal conflict" which is the raw material of such drama, the kind of deep realization that your HEA didn't happen -- and won't.  Many, in the grip of this realization or those suppressing the realization of this truth leap directly from "I don't have it" to "It does not exist."

What evidence would you accept that the HEA is real, possible, and you missed your chance?

Soul Mates are two individual, and very different, people who are two halves of a whole -- they become one at the wedding.  That's what "wedding" means - it is a word used in wine making for mixing two wines, so you can't take them apart again.

But once married, building a life together -- jobs, commutes, buying cars, choosing a house or condo or apartment, furnishing it, having children (or deciding not to), thousands of individual decisions suddenly become joint projects.

The two become one.

What is going on inside one person splashes over into the inside of the other.

The more emotionally heated the anger, love, passion, offense, indignation, jealousy, resentment, and demands that YOU (not me) change behavior -- the more likely the two actually do belong together.

Their inner conflicts have crashed into each other, and shards of hard-headed rocks are flying everywhere.  Bystanders can be sliced to the bone as collateral damage.

True Soul Mates rarely meet in tranquility and sail blissfully on into a calm life.

Depicting a pair of Soul Mates on their shake-down cruise is a serious challenge for a Romance writer who wants to explore passionate sex and carefree joys because after the honeymoon is over, the conflicts become riptides pulling the couple apart.

The inner dialogue - the unspoken thoughts - of such a pair differ as male and female differ, but reflect each other.  Each seeks justice which means having their own expectations fulfilled.  Or, with some, the inner dialogue is about fulfilling the expectations of the Other and having that fulfillment acknowledged in a specific way.

For example, the 2018 culture is grappling with the conflicts between the traditional image of "Being A Man" and a new self-image for healthy masculinity that has not yet crystalized.

It will take 4 generations for such attitudes to be "natural" to men and women, and the transition will be confusing.

Fiction writers can explore these options with inner dialogue -- and how what one person in the couple is thinking one thing, but forcing themselves to do another.

Last Spring a huge misunderstanding of a University of Texas program erupted around the idea that a University was officially regarding masculinity as a mental illness.  (What A Theme!)

But that's not exactly what was really going on.

---- quote -----

The University of Texas is facing ridicule after a new program called “MasculinUT” was announced in a way that insinuated it was treating masculinity as a mental health crisis.. The university has attempted to explain the program as simply an effort to “bring more men to the table to address interpersonal violence, sexual assault and other issues,” but the reality is that UT is still promoting a facetious connection between masculinity and assault and violence.

When the program was originally announced, its stated goal was to help male UT students “take control over their gender identity and develop a healthy sense of masculinity.” as PJ Media reported:

The program is predicated on a critique of so-called “restrictive masculinity.” Men, the program argues, suffer when they are told to “act like a man” or when they are encouraged to fulfill traditional gender roles, such as being “successful” or “the breadwinner.”

Though you might enjoy “taking care of people” or being “active,” MasculinUT warns that many of these attributes are actually dangerous, claiming that “traditional ideas of masculinity place men into rigid (or restrictive) boxes [which]… prevent them from developing their emotional maturity.”

“If you are a male student at UT reading this right now, we hope that learning about this helps you not to feel guilty about having participated in these definitions of masculinity, and instead feel empowered to break the cycle!” the program offers.

As mentioned above, the program is also run by UT’s Counseling and Mental Health Center “[l]ike other UT programs related to sexual assault and interpersonal violence.” And the website’s stated “project goals and guiding principles” still focus on the idea that certain types of masculine emotions and traits are negative and connected to sexual assault and violence.

For example, they are making an effort to “[p]romote an ethic of care for men and masculine-identified individuals who cannot escape expectations of masculinity,” “‘[e]ncourage a wider range of acceptable emotions,” and “[d]ecrease excessive competition and increase empathy.”

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

Read the article at:
https://www.redstate.com/sarah-rumpf/2018/04/30/new-program-university-texas-conflates-masculinity-sexual-assault/

There is certainly enough material regarding the female self-image, and the idea that a woman "should be" this and never that (whatever the this or that involved in the current culture's demand might be) for writers to depict a woman's inner dialogue as bemoaning the requirement.

All of this raises the science question which makes the essence of Science Fiction Romance -- "what exactly is gender?"

And do Souls come in genders?  Kabbalah says yes, Souls are locked in a single, specific gender lifetime to lifetime.

Science Fiction plays with the theory that Souls can reincarnate as human even if their prior lifetime was non-human.  And the idea of a male reincarnating as a female is common.  Most Science Fiction TV shows (including Star Trek) played with the idea of a male identity being trapped in a female body (or vice versa).

If you want to write a novel involving Soul transfers, be sure to do a state-of-the-art search and read up on what has been done -- there is much more to say on this topic!

Consider if reversing gender for a day would change the Character's inner dialogue.  Is the inner dialogue a product of gender or of mis-match between Soul and body's gender, or merely of societal expectations?

What exactly is gender?

The question is relevant to the idea of "Mates" -- as we are currently challenging the age-old assumption that Mates must be a pair of opposite gendered people.

Does gender come in opposite?  Is it this OR that but nothing in between?

Is gender optional?  Are Souls neuter?

All of these questions must be answered only if the answers differ from your reader's everyday world.  These questions frame the world you are building around your story.

Consider the example from the marriage counsellor noted above, where the couple arrived arguing the moment they walked in the door.  If they exchanged genders, would they still be Soul Mates?  Would they also exchange arguments and the fighting just go on without missing a beat?

Is the reason they are arguing simply that one is trapped in a gender whose expectations he/she can not meet?  (Men to be the bread winner; women to bear and raise children).

Would expectations have to be adjusted in such a situation, to result in an HEA?  What hammering drama would have to pound their heads together to create such an adjustment?

Find answers to those questions and cast them as simple statements -- and you've created a THEME.  Telling the story may be harder than anything you've ever done.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Archetype Integration Part 6 - Woman Warrior Marries A Bully

Theme-Archetype Integration

Part 6

Woman Warrior Marries A Bully

Happy New Year.  Hoping you find many good books to read, and even more good story ideas to write.

Previous Parts of the highly abstract series on Theme-Archetype Integration are here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/12/theme-archetype-integration-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/01/theme-archetype-integration-part-2-how.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/01/theme-archetype-integration-part-3.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/01/theme-archetype-integration-part-4.html

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

This is Part 6 of this Series.

We've discussed the Bully issue in many contexts.  Here are a few:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/theme-character-integration-part-6-hero.html

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

We have discussed Bullying and the Bully Character in the Romance context because this behavior is much in the news these days.

"Ripped From The Headlines" sells books - provided the headline appeared long enough ago, or the approach in the novel is unique.  I pointed out two novels of International Intrigue, SAVING SOPHIE and VENGEANCE, using the setting of the Middle Eastern Conflict, a Headline Generator as powerful as North Korea, or various Russian scandals.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/12/reviews-35-best-seller-vs-best-read-by.html

The problem the Web and the Internet now pose to us is highlighted best by the threat to children subjected to Bullying at school, and then every time they pick up an internet connection (phone, computer, tablet) to do homework, there is the Bully again right in the privacy of home.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/24/malicious-communications-double-year-experts-warn-live-streaming/

And that, as you note from the telegraph.co.uk source is an International problem, maybe worse than politics.

Keep in mind that child bullies grow up to be successful business owners, and maybe progress to sexual harassment.  Using the power to fire a person in order to get them to do something (well, personal), is just another school-yard-bully in action.  Girls and Boys both are equally prone to bullying.  So sexual harassment, or in International Politics, quid pro quo "deals" involving "favors," are adult versions of the school yard (or now Web Streaming App) bullying.  Bedroom bullying is now available to kids, not just married couples.

The "Arranged Marriage" Romance novel is another form of Bullying.  Forcing a couple to marry for the sake of (the Crown, Descendants, Fortune, quid-pro-quo deals among parents) anything other than their affinity for each other is Legalized Bullying.

Just because it's legal, does that make it "right?" 

Can Bullying be "cured?"  Is it a "flaw" in human nature or a "feature?"  Answer those questions and find a Theme.

Can "The Good Guy/Gal Be A Bully?"

Is it OK to force an arranged marriage to save the human species?  A country?  A dynasty?  A Fortune that hires thousands and provides their sustainance?  How big do the stakes have to be in order to regard Bullying someone into doing something as a Righteous Use Of Power?

That is a theme -- the ends justify the means.  (or not)

The Bully can be regarded as an Archetype for the purpose of constructing a Science Fiction or Paranormal Romance Novel.  Like The Priest, The Warrior,  The Mother, and so on, The Bully is an Idea, not a specific person, not a Character.

So you can create almost any Character, and draw down the mantle of The Bully, to create a Character readers will believe is realistic.  Readers will know someone like that.

If you do that, if you impose "The Bully" Archetype on a Character, you are showing, not telling, a Theme.

THEME: Bullying Is A Removable Add-On to Personality.

If, however, you depict The Bully Character as intrinsically Evil, one who can only be stopped by killing, then you are showing not telling a different Theme.

THEME: Bullying Is Not A Behavior But Rather An Intrinsic Trait.

If Bullying can't be removed from a human person, a behavior adjustment most of us have seen, then humanity has no recourse but to make this behavior (emerging in childhood) a capital offense.

We have other examples in human behavior that we have not found "cures" for, such as pediphilia, or serial rapists.  There is an organized movement to make pediphelia legal.  That, too, is another Theme.

THEME: no human behavior should be illegal.

That is the sort of topic a University Debate Team might tackle.

Could your Main Character fall in love with someone who won that debate?

So studying Themes and studying Archetypes and how these two, very abstract, elements combine to become a cornerstone of any fictional universe, can take you a long way toward outlining a novel you can write, and that you will be able to finish writing and bring to market.

"Writer's Block" is not a real "thing" -- but misconceived novels are real.  Once your subconscious understands you have gone off the rails writing a confused story, you will just stop writing.  This can undermine your self-esteem.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/six-kinds-of-power-in-relationship.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript_8.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript_15.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-should-you-give-up-on-manuscript_22.html

Find a Theme and the Archetypes that illustrate that theme, and you will produce a whole story or novel.  It may turn out badly written, badly constructed, or with implausible Character motivations, and may or may not be something you can rewrite, but the task can be completed.  That, in itself, gives you career rocket fuel.

So, if Bullying is an inherent trait that can not be altered, then it is something that Love Can Not Conquer.

How many good Romances have you read about the "Bad Boy" - we all believe the right woman can tame even the most "lost" man.

Love Conquers All is the theme of our universe.

The joy that explodes within us at discovering "Love" alters the way the universe behaves in our vicinity.  The joy of love alters the odds, shifts the probabilities in our favor, and opens paths to impossible futures.

Of course, in real life, we all know of instances where it didn't work.

But we also know of many cases where "miracles happen."

A novel can start with a "co-incidence" but the conflict must not be resolved with a co-incidence.  That is called Deus Ex Machina.  Just SAYING that something unexpected (not foreshadowed and not logically impelled) happened and it just accidentally resolved the conflict will not give the reader the feeling of completion at the end of the novel.

You want your reader to feel the relief at the conflict being resolved, to look into the future of these Characters and "see" their happily ever after.

So you can't just have a Bully Character suddenly "see the light" and say, "I do."

The reader will "see" a future of an abusive marriage.

To pull off the "Bad Boy" transition into worthwhile keeper Husband, you have to delve into the psychology of "bad boys."  The Bully is one of the Bad Boy Archetypes (there are others).

The classic cure for Bullying is to punch the bully in the nose - a remedy I have seen work very well indeed.

Bullies are very often intrinsically cowards.

Traditionally, society "cured" (or suppressed) the Bully Behavior by other strong individuals repeating insistently, "Go pick on someone your own size."

That saying meant put yourself in danger of receiving the treatment you are dispensing.

The huge percentage of bullies who are in fact cowards quickly learned to avoid bullying behavior.  The rest went right on misbehaving.

Social rejection is often more feared than a punch in the nose.

Worse yet, is being rejected by potential sex partners.  Thus it takes a Woman Warrior to "tame" a Bully, and not always with physical resistance, but with Character Strength.  It is often noted how men change when they marry -- and later have a child.  Testosterone levels famously become lower, and men become more sensible once testosterone has achieved the objective it exists for, to procreate.

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

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

So if you are writing a futuristic Romance, create the society (worldbuilding) either for or against Bullying, depending on your theme.

Societies will be "for bullying" if they value (oddly) non-violence.  If violent behavior is out of bounds all the time, and for any reason, then all the non-violent people will be very non-violent, and thus marks for the bullies.  Good people will not fight back.

Societies will be anti-bullying if they value Disciplined Violence -- an application of force where and when necessary, and nowhere else.  In other words, where children are raised to be physically and mentally strong, self-willed, indomitable, and drilled to apply "good judgement" about when to use that strength (and when not to.)

Learning "where and when" a use of force is "necessary" can be the lessons in Love that come to the Bully from a Soul Mate.

Usually, (among humans), Bullies acquire an older man (or woman) mentor, parental figure, or role model teacher, who disciplines the Bully while getting at the source of the need to hurt others and bend them to the Bully's will.

Setting two such Societies (the pro-bully vs anti-bully civilizations) against each other can be the foundation for a long series of long novels.

 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/05/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-13.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/10/depiction-part-12-depicting-rational.html

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

Here are a couple of entries on "What's Eating Him" and "What's Eating Her."

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/09/theme-dialogue-integration-part-2-whats.html

And don't forget, The Hero Vs. The Bully

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/theme-character-integration-part-6-hero.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 27 - Depicting Love by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction

Part 27

Depicting Love

Previous parts of the Depiction series are indexed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

You'd think in a writing blog about Alien Romance that Depicting Love would be the first topic in the series on how to "depict" the intangibles that make a novel truly memorable.

Love is both the most obvious, simple, easy intangible for a Romance writer to depict, and the most difficult, slippery, nebulous topic to find a concrete "show don't tell" symbol to convey.

We've discussed depicting Love many times from different directions.

Here is "What Does She See In Him?" and "What Does He See In Her" -- a primary question every reader wants a concrete answer to right up front in Chapter One.

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

And how to make what one person sees in another into a "symbol" -- something that could be photographed when they make the movie of your novel.  It has to be something that can "arc" or change for those characters because of the events of the novel, and turn up again and again (as a theme does).

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/01/theme-symbolism-integration-part-4-how.html

And most especially - why we cry at weddings.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-2-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

We've also discussed Love At First Sight as part of the Happily Ever After ending.

Many good Romance novels start with a Divorced Character, or a widowed Character -- someone who had a good relationship that went sour.  Sometimes the story focuses around an Affair -- that ends well or badly, destroying other people's happiness.

One thing that has split good marriages apart is Politics.  The initial Romance following Love At First Sight often masks the deepest beliefs that form a person's self-image.

People in the USA choose to be Republican or Democrat (or Independent, or Libertarian, or nothing-much) because they encounter "messaging" from a number of Candidates expressing the party's platform.  At that time, a person will identify people who seem to be saying believable things, and "join" that party.  People look for a party that represents what they already believe, or at least some most cherished belief.

Over decades, the USA Parties redefine themselves with the turning of the generations, and espouse different (often contradictory) causes and stances.  The final bundle of positions on issues the Party settles on at the Convention is a mishmash of philosophically contradictory stances.

This happens because the Party platform is "negotiated" by committee.

In fiction, thematic unity is essential.  Fiction is art - a selective representation of reality, not reality itself.

The real reality your Characters live in has no perceptible thematic unity -- which is why people seek that unity in recreational reading.

Readers often pick up Romance novels to get away from the chaotic contradictions of a very confusing world.  The reader is looking for a trip through a world that makes sense.  Readers often look to get away from it all, to get relief from confusion.

Your job as a writer is to depict a world that is not confusing, but is enough like reality to be convincing.

If a novel is too simplified, too much lacking in confusion (Red Herrings), it seems childish and unconvincing.

We discussed a galactic war adventure novel series, with excellent tender-romance here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/03/reviews-31-dave-bara-lightship.html

The main character, a Prince serving in the Military, loves a couple of different women for exactly the reason any Romance reader woman would want to be loved in real life -- little to do with appearance and everything to do with admirable accomplishments to be proud of.  He loves women of Strong Character because of their strength of character.

Nevertheless, the story comes off as too childish simply because the Characters are rewarded vastly for little real effort, and seem to understand way too much of their world with far too little work.

When Characters accomplish too much with too little real effort/angst readers just don't believe the story or the plot.

That's one reason "Love At First Sight" is often viewed with skepticism by readers who have never known anyone it happened to.

But when Love At First Sight happens (and I know it does, so I have adjusted my view of reality to include it), the Lovers are usually too smitten with each other to ask the kinds of questions a Matchmaker would -- or the sort of questions you might find on a good Dating Site.

The impact of "This Person" is so overwhelming that the inquiring mind just does not ask.

The couple might evaluate each other on Values and Principles, but fail to ask why those Values and Principles were adopted, where they came from, and whether they are all consistent with each other.

In fact, most Romance readers aren't looking for a novel that depicts Characters who have stringent philosophical consistency.  Most humans don't revere logical consistency and in fact are convinced emotions have no logical basis.

So the beginning Romance writer, or a writer like Dave Bara and his Lightship Series, may be convinced that Love is not Logical, emotions in general are not connected to or originating in the cognitive functions part of the brain.

Love Is Not Logical is a Theme.

It is a statement about the reality of the human condition, a summation of many assumptions and a conclusion that implies how life is to be lived.

The Theme of my Star Trek fanzine series, Kraith, is Love Is Logical.
http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/

There is a view of human history that is held dear by those who are convinced Emotions Are Not Logical, a view that is based on the assumption that Emotion Is Logical.  That view of human history shows how one civilization rises, collapses, and gives rise to another civilization, one culture spawning another.

Cultures through history are like our children, made up of the same genes but rearranged and even mutated into something else.

Beliefs are like our genes -- containing much that has gone before, one or two traits that are new, and the whole rearranged to seem new, but it's really old.

We love Regency Romance and Historical Romance set in Castles, arranged political marriages, as Dave Bara uses in his Lightship Series, Rulerships, Kings, Dukes -- we love reading about those times.  But today's novels of the Aristocratic Times whitewash some of the ugliest parts of that reality.

Politics is one of those Cultural Philosophies that propagates as our genetic children do -- like us, identical to us, but vastly different.

In January 2017, Rowena Cherry wrote in this blog:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/01/does-every-cloud-have-silver-lining.html
---------quote----------
I gained a new perspective on why so many folks in society have so little respect for copyrights and the right of musicians, authors, photographers, movie-making participants and others to be paid for their time, talents and effort from the free Hillsdale College lecture covering the difference between Originalists and Progressives when it comes to the rights of an individual.

According to Professor Ronald J. Pestritto, the Progressive ideology is heavily influenced by European--especially German-- thinking, and holds that the needs of the Community is always superior to the needs (and rights) of the individual, and far from certain rights such as the right to Life, to Liberty, and to the Pursuit of happiness being bestowed on mankind as a birthright by the Creator, all rights that an individual has are permitted by the government depending on convenience and expediency.  (And can be revoked.)

How expedient and convenient do you suppose it is to uphold individual copyrights?

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

The Progressive Movement article on Wikipedia is illuminating:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era

The thesis is that the Progessive Movement began in 1890 and ended in the 1920's.

There is a Liberal or Progressive movement, actually several different ones within each political party, today -- and using different labels and symbols, targeting the same social ills that were identified in 1890.

There are several basic ideas about "what" a human being is, where and how humans originate, and under what social contract terms humans can live together -- and those sets of ideas do neatly separate into two camps, two mutually exclusive ideologies.

Note the element Rowena Cherry focused on relevant to Intellectual Property Rights -- or actually, just property rights in general -- does a human own what they make, or not?

Notice how very basic that THEME concept is!

THEME: humans own the product of their own labor

THEME: humanity owns the product of any human's labor

Every two year old coming into the ability to use language learns NO first, maybe MaMa and PaPa, but definitely NO.  And then comes major lessons in MINE.  Toddlers learn to POSSESS their possessions, and the very concept of possession.  They have not, to the adult's way of thinking, earned it, but they own it.

So the concept MINE comes before the concept EARN.

Parents love their children -- and through that love, teach the concept "no" and "mine" and "you can't have that because it is mine."

"You can't take that because it is mine" is an expression of LOVE.  It is a way of depicting love.

MINE is an extremely abstract concept.  Just try explaining it to an Alien whose species does not have that concept.

We discussed explaining humans to aliens, and how it can help writers do solid worldbuilding here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/03/depiction-part-26-depicting-humanity-by.html

One rock that marriages founder upon is POSSESSIONS -- as well as TERRITORY.

If a Couple is split on the issue of regard for another person's possessions and personal space, or territory or privacy, the marital combat will be feral.

The arguments - regardless of what the ostensible subject is (toothpaste tube, toilet seat, cleaning the trash out of the car, overdrawing the checking account, inviting guests without asking the cook) will take on basic animal characteristics.  The combatants are fighting for their LIVES - for their very existence.

The concept MINE lives in us at that pre-verbal level where the 2 year old can only scream red-faced and clutch the toy they just stole off the store shelf.

The adult will defend what is MINE with that same ferocity -- even if what is being defended is only a symbol of the toy their parent would not buy for them (long before they knew about the connection between earning, buying, and mine.

Sometimes LOVE is best symbolized by not-buying that toy.  And sometimes a good marriage is based on not-taking the spouse's possessions.

Children absorb the very definition of what marriage is by the way parents handle and regard the spouse's possessions.

One magnificent depiction of LOVE in symbolism is the way the loved-one's possessions are regarded and handled, not because of what that object is, but because of what it means to the loved one.  Sometimes the most penetrating drama comes with the way a Character handles a possession of a deceased loved-one.

The connection between a person and their possessions (yes, somewhat like the gypsy scam artists claim, or you see in many Fantasy or Paranormal Romances) is a mystical force in this world.

We experience MINE as a mystical force, perhaps because it is one of those pre-verbal learning experiences.  Even dogs know what is theirs and what is not.  Children get it very, very young.

The next lesson in growing up that humans learn is how to make something MINE -- how to acquire what holds meaning.  Seeing the toy on the store shelf, screaming "Mommy, buy me that!" or just "I want!!!"  Then comes Mommy's lesson in how to love -- "Be good and I'll get it for you next month."

You want to own something, you must comply with the wishes of others.  Love is unconditional -- possessing is conditional.

If that's how you are brought up, that is how you will conduct your marriage -- whether you know you are doing it, or not.

That is how deep into the subconscious, into the brain-synapses developed in childhood, that the concept MINE goes.

With age, you learn you have to do chores to get money to buy things -- then get a summer job to earn money, then work your way through college -- and so on.

Along through those years, you may change your mind about possessions, come to see the massive contribution to your prosperity made by your community, society, family privelege, etc, and understand a portion of what you earn belongs to everyone (taxes, insurance).

You may change your behavior so drastically that during a hot Romance, you display only community awareness, not the 2 year old's selfish MINE.  But within months of marriage, that 2-year-old's MINE will assert itself, sometimes to your dismay.

Other 2-year-olds may have learned MINE in a different way, with support and respect for the exclusive possessions of an individual being sacrosanct.

If an adult with a commune mentality of "everything belongs to everyone in the family" marries a "what's mine is mine; what's yours is yours" person, there will be primal-scream-level-combat where neither party knows what they are really fighting for or over.

At some point, that mixed marriage may well crack -- and you, the writer, will have a Character ready for a second time around Romance.

By that point in maturity, the Character will be grappling with the vague and confusing question, "What is Love?"  How do you know if you're in love after being so bitterly disappointed by that Selfish Bastard you gave your heart to?

Or, on the other hand, that mixed marriage may gel and solidify into a happily ever after for real.

How can that happen?  If the very concept of MINE is not shared, how can two people meld into One?

It has happened.  I have seen it happen in real life.  Compromise is not the answer.  Winning a negotiation is not the answer.  Asserting your rights is not the answer.  Separate bedrooms is not the answer (though sometimes it helps.)

Even Love may not be the answer.  MINE may be something that Love can not conquer, at least not by itself.

One human's love for another human may not be up to the job of welding two such disparate views of what a human is into a single marriage.  This is the kind of welding job you write about in an Alien Romance, where a human has to apprehend the true alien quality of this strange Soul Mate.  If the weld is sturdy enough and flexible enough, you do end up with a Happily Ever After between Soul Mates.

Making that HEA ending seem plausible to your modern day readers is tricky.

We've discussed the HEA ending perpetually, and here we go again.  It is based on the validity of the concept, Soul Mates.

If your readers accept the concept of Soul Mates, they may not be ready to accept the concept of Souls per se.  That could take some convincing, a series of long novels.

The concept Souls comes with the question of what they are and how they came to exist -- and what the rules are about mating souls.

You can depict the Love of Soul Mates who nevertheless have primal-screaming-fights about MINE, and whose marriage may founder on that concept, and or its political manifestation (today: Democrats vs Republicans), Fiscal Responsibility, Health Care, Obamacare, Trumpcare, -- who must pay for the healthcare of the poor?  Who is responsible for making people poor to begin with, and for keeping people poor (and why would anyone do that?)

So Soul Mates may end up in Divorce Court.

Or maybe not.

There is a fundamental force in the Universe, a variable related to Love, which some call Delight.

If both Soul Mates become aware of the spiritual forces moving in the world, of the finger of God stirring their lives, (sometimes pregnancy brings this awareness, if only momentarily), and experience a peaceful moment together, they may transcend awareness of MINE.  It won't resolve the issues they fight over, but it will put the Values involved into another perspective.

Remember, we've discussed the two-valued either/or zero-sum-game model of the universe in many contexts -- that model is the foundation of most Conflict, and conflict is the essence of story.

If it is mine, it is therefore not-yours -- is zero-sum-game model.  There is only so much wealth to go around, a pie to slice, and it is not fair if some people get more of the pie.  That is the zero-sum-game model.

Then there is the infinite, expanding model of the universe wherein any human makes something and thus adds to the sum total of human wealth while at the same time keeping what has been made, dubbing it MINE.

The infinite, ever expanding model of reality has no pie to be sliced.  Whatever you make, you keep and divvy up as you choose.

Humans have the capacity to choose to do justice, to give away a portion of what they create.  That behavior is rare in the average 2 year old just encountering the concept MINE -- but it turns up often in the 3 or 4 year old who sees parents giving, and experiences love when recieving.

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

After having been the recipient of giving, a child learns the even greater delight of being the giver.  You can't experience that ineffable delight of giving unless what you are giving is MINE.  You must create/earn and acquire something of your very own, which you have no obligation to give away, and then give it to another (for whatever reason).

The delight of giving is a spiritual experience - an experience that happens, like Love At First Sight, at the soul level.  It lights up the brain circuits, true, but that is a pale reflection of the vast ignition of the Soul.

Possessing that which you have created and/or earned is a pre-requisite to experiencing that ineffable delight of the soul.

Sharing the experience of soul-level-delight can weld a couple into a single whole, a whole that readers can view as deserving of a Happily Ever After life.

So sharing a moment of Soul Delight can work as the climax of a Romance plot, and the Story climax is the realization by both that the moment of supreme intensity was indeed shared.  This Selfish Bastard you want to ditch actually has a heart.  That's a game-changer discovery.

The fabric of the universe is woven from shades of Delight, according to one ancient source.  Here it is in poetic form:

-----quote--------
A bird builds its nest, a tree spreads its boughs, a cloud floats across the sky—and we see there beauty, ingenuity, wisdom and might.

But behind it all is delight. The delight the Creator takes in each thing.

Each thing begins with delight; delight condenses to become wisdom; wisdom condenses to become ingenuity, consciousness, love, might and beauty, and all the other fabric of the universe.

“Nothing is higher than delight,” says the Book of Formation. It is the quintessence of all that exists.          http://www.chabad.org/lx4rt0

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

Think about that.  Delight and thus its derivative Love is more primal than MINE, is woven into the soul way above the point in cognitive development when the toddler learns "No" and "Mine!"

You can't get Delight by taking, only by giving what is Mine.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 24 - Depicting A Villain by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction

Part 24

Depicting A Villain

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Here we come to the main question a writer must answer if weaving a conflict between Hero and Villain: Why Does The Villain Want To Rule Forever?

Here is the index to the previous parts in the Depiction Series:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

By "depicting," I mean show don't tell -- create a visible consequence of what you want to say, instead of saying it.

Saying what you want to say is "telling" not "showing."  In screenwriting, that is called "on the nose" -- dialogue that is the author speaking to the viewer, not one character speaking to another.

Here is the index to Dialogue:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/dialogue-parts-1-4-listed.html

One reason we gravitate to Romance, go away and come back over and over, is that the two main characters are not "Hero" vs. "Villain."

The two main characters are both Hero Quality Material -- great novels start before the Hero Quality in either is fully in charge of their decision-making.

TV Fiction is gravitating toward the Ensemble Cast -- a rag-tag group of Hero and/or Apprentice Hero Characters striving to overcome impossible odds to achieve a worthwhile goal.

Star Trek: The Original Series (ST:ToS) did this using mostly the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triad, which Roddenberry told us ( in the many interviews we did with him to excerpt for the Bantam Paperback STAR TREK LIVES! ) that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were three parts of his own personality.  This is actually a well known secret of fiction-writing, dating probably way back before the Ancient Greek plays.

It is how you "tell the story" -- "tell" being the operative word. A writer "tells" a story.  That is what it feels like while writing words, one after another.  When you get stuck, you ask yourself, "What Will The Other Characters Do?" and you don the role of that Character.  As all good Character Actors will explain, to don a role you must reach inside yourself for that trait, pair away all the rest of the real you, and bring that single aspect up to the surface where the audience can see it and recognize it.

That is the secret to "targeting a readership," -- find a fragment of a real person and depict that single trait so that a lot of people can understand it and find within themselves the laudable or reprehensible trait which is dominating the Character's decision making.

Here is the Index Post to the series on Targeting a Readership"

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

Screenwriting manuals give a formula for creating Characters -- identify 3 Traits, specify them and then write that character ALWAYS showing one or two or all three of those traits.

When done mechanically, just following the formula, the procedure produces "cardboard  Characters" viewers do not believe.

This happens more in movies and TV Series than in novels -- which is why some people prefer reading novels to watching TV.

A good case in point is the TV Series, The Librarians,

which is a blatant copy of the TV Series Warehouse 13.

https://www.amazon.com/Warehouse-Pilot/dp/B002GJRP6A/

https://www.amazon.com/Librarians-Season-01-Matt-Frewer/dp/B01L00HWN6/

The Librarians is a TNT TV Series:
http://www.tntdrama.com/shows/the-librarians.html?sr=the%20librarians

Returning to the universe of TNT's hit movie franchise, The Librarian, this new series centers on an ancient organization hidden beneath the Metropolitan Public Library dedicated to protecting an unknowing world from the secret, magical reality hidden all around. This group solves impossible mysteries, fights supernatural threats and MORE...

In Season 3 - Episode 1 - The Librarians And the Rise of Chaos -
http://www.tv.com/shows/the-librarians-2015/and-the-rise-of-chaos-3425989/
we get that wondrous line from the Villain -- " ... and rule forever."

This is delivered (rather well, considering how corny it is) as "on the nose dialogue."

This is what this Villain (adversary, opponent, nemesis ... ) aims to achieve.  It is the statement of the goal.  By that choice of goal, the viewer can instantly identify the Villain as a really Bad Guy (especially because he has enough magical power to make it happen!)

The Librarians is designed to be comedic -- like Warehouse 13, it is very broad comedy, somewhat akin to the TV Classic My Favorite Martian -- which was the only real science fiction on TV for years.

http://www.tv.com/shows/my-favorite-martian/

And from TV.Com --
CATEGORIES
Comedy, Fantasy, Science Fiction
THEMES
witty remarks, planetary explorers, secrets and lies, space travel, outrageous situations

My Favorite Martian is actually a SitCom with Science Fiction elements (but in those days it was considered Fantasy).

In both cases, we have the adversary of the week -- and the team (the Martian and his host human on Earth) unites to defend -- the Guest Martian or The Library.)

From TV.Com
My Favorite Martian first aired in September of 1963 on CBS and was probably one of the first sitcoms with a "bizarre" or fantasy premise to emerge in the early to mid 1960's. It joined the ranks with Mister Ed which began in 1961.

Star Trek: ToS began in 1966.

My Favorite Martian paved the way for Star Trek - and all the Science Fiction Romance that has come out of the fanfic.

The Librarians is ensemble cast, like Star Trek - but has a "story-arc" like Babylon 5.  Star Trek was an "anthology" show - designed to be viewed in any order, with the adversary of the week (usually not very villainous).

So My Favorite Martian and Star Trek were stories about "How To Make Friends With Adversaries - who are quite Alien."  They begin the continuum which has resulted in Science Fiction Romance about "How To Marry An Alien."

One of my all time favorite novel series about marrying an alien (even having the Alien's kids!) is Gini Koch's Alien Series.  The 2016 entry in that series is Alien Nation (yes, the author knows all about the TV Series by that name.)

Gini Koch depicts her Hero, Kitty Kat, a woman with fiery determination to make things right, as having a knack for converting enemies into friends or at least allies against the monsters trying to kill everyone.

In Alien Nation, Kitty manages to convert some of the most voracious monsters into friends.  It sounds ridiculous -- but Gini Koch makes you believe every word.  The secret is in how she depicts what is going on inside Kitty Kat's head -- this great Hero that everyone trusts to avert disaster has no idea what she's doing, and no plan that she knows of.  She has a few clues from a super-being (not a god, but a Being who understands the universe as the creation of God), but Kitty Kat has to figure things out and take chances on the fly.

When things work out well, you believe it could actually happen that way, and it is not just that Kitty is married to an Alien and has acquired "powers" while having his children.

Gini Koch's novel series is not comedy -- it reads more like a well played video-game, with comedic moments, absurdities turned to opportunities, and drama writ large.  The target audience is familiar with Star Trek -- maybe not with My Favorite Martian -- and games.

In the 1960's, we were just beginning to launch orbital vehicles and dreaming of real space travel -- wondering if our ships would bring back Alien Diseases we could not contain.  We were focused on finding Alien Life Out There.

Hundreds if not thousands of novels and short stories had been published about First Contact. The film, The Day The Earth Stood Still, is classic because it addressed all those issues.

Here is the 1951 Classic:
https://www.amazon.com/Day-Earth-Stood-Still/dp/B000UL5YW8/

And here is the 2008 remake:
https://www.amazon.com/Day-Earth-Stood-Still/dp/B001THAS5K/

Again, the 1951 film focuses on how the fearsome, formidable, monstrous Alien is actually a nice guy having a hard day at work.

As with the 1984 classic film, Starman,
https://www.amazon.com/Starman-Karen-Allen/dp/B004ZCM2Q4/
we end up wanting to leave Earth with the Alien -- absolutely smitten with this valiant figure and torn up inside to lose him.

Much of the most famous science fiction of those decades depicts the Alien as a potential friend, lover, ally, advocate, even though the Alien may start out at odds with Earth, or perhaps Earth authorities order an all-out attack on the Alien.

The consensus seems to be that Aliens are not necessarily Villains.

Just like humans, Aliens have a variety of potentials within them.  Some are friends, some are stupid, some are silly, some are immature, some are powerful but inept, some are misinformed - the list goes on.

These very humanistic aliens were the most popular during those early decades.

Then came the pronouncement from unimpeachable experts that there just weren't going to be ANY planets around other stars "out there."  The solar system we are in is unique, and just is not going to have anything like a duplicate anywhere -- probabilities are absolutely against the idea of Alien Life Like Us.

The academic power behind this pronouncement, fraught with every mathematical proof you could name, believed and espoused by the Einsteins of the era, drained most of the funding from NASA, and nearly killed off the space program.

Along with it, went Star Trek and most of the Science Fiction Romance you might see made for large audiences (such as film, or TV).

Then funding was squeezed out for orbital telescopes, and other instrument packages to explore our solar system.  Meanwhile, physics and math marched on.  It takes a lot of very fancy math to slice and dice the information garnered by our orbital instruments, and even our mountain-top instruments.  It takes a lot of computing power to understand that data -- computing power we didn't have in the 1960's.

So recently, the unimpeachable experts are pointing at actual planets around stars so distant it makes no sense to quote distances in miles.

We have a whole new generation of unimpeachable experts publishing in peer reviewed journals, as prestigious as the ones that declared how improbable an Alien Civilization Out There was.  Now, the calculations are trending toward the inevitability of there having been Aliens somewhere.

Of course, we are looking at data that is millions of years old.  Light travels way too slowly for us to have any idea what is actually happening "now" (the very definition of "now" and "time" is changing as we figure out what gravity is.)

So, once again, films and TV depict interstellar civilizations -- but this time, the Aliens are not so friendly.  War is more fun, so we have Star Wars continuing.  And Star Trek has become more about War than Exploration of the Unknown.

But while Science Fiction's depiction of interstellar civilizations was relegated to the absurd, another branch of the Science Fiction genre called Adult Fantasy (Fantasy that is not morality plays for children) has formed and taken off.

Early among the Adult Fantasy entries was Katherine Kurtz's Deryni Series
https://www.amazon.com/Deryni-Rising-Chronicles-Katherine-Kurtz/dp/044101660X/

Reprinted many times over the decades, this series depicts an alternate universe -- set around our year 900 AD -- and involving Royalty.  Every book in this series is about "who shall be King" -- it is about who shall "rule."  One faction vying for rulership is purely human (with all the villainy that goes with human mindset), and the main opposing faction is Deryni, basically human but with "powers."

The worldbuilding behind the Deryni universe includes the existence of "gods" and "demons" and forces and powers both Dark and Light (as in Star Wars).  In the Deryni Universe, there is also competition between Deryni and humans for control of "The Church" -- which is pretty much depicted as if it is Christianity.

The humans are convinced Deryni and their "powers" (of telepathy, fireball throwing, teleportation, etc) are of the Devil.  Deryni understand their powers as being simply Power -- like any capability -- and the "Light" side of their force comes from the God worshiped by the humans in the Church.

So the whole "who shall be King" plot line is driven by the argument over the truth of Religion.

I do highly recommend this series -- it does have some hot Romance laced through it, but like any story of hereditary Aristocracy, pivots on arranged marriage.

This series was one of the earliest in the Adult Fantasy market and helped shape that market, define the sub-genre.

Later, whole series arose depicting Power without God, and God or gods without humans with Power.  For the most part, "The Church" as a governing body and institution commanding the culture was deleted from Adult Fantasy.  Aristocracy, Dukes, Kings and their necessary wars persisted, but the power of God was left out.

That deletion of God from fiction parallels the rise of the atheist movement in today's world.

People want fiction that seems realistic -- and the real world was systematically rejecting the concept of Religion (even though God persisted, the institutions designed to serve God's purposes became despised for hypocrisy and lack of tolerance and diversity).

Political Power became the sole bone of contention in the plots, even when magical power was "real" in the fictional world, and the special people who could wield magic were organized (Hedge Witches or as in Babylon 5, a Guild).

For a long time, ESP (telepathy, telekinesis) was accepted as a science fiction element while "magic" involving summoning demons or angels or praying for acts of God was relegated to Fantasy.

Most recently, though, the Fantasy Genre has emerged as the flip side of the Aliens of the 1950's and 1960's (The Day the Earth Stood Still, My Favorite Martian).  After a couple of decades of mixing and blending ESP and Magic, reinventing the premises behind why they work and who can work them, the Fantasy Genre has focused on angels, demons, djinn, sprites, brownies, fairies, vampires, were-creatures, shapeshifters, zombies, ghouls, all the mythical Supernatural creatures and peoples, to tell exactly the same stories we saw about Aliens From Outer Space.

In modern Fantasy, the Mythical Creatures perform the same role and function as the Aliens did in early Science Fiction -- friend or enemy, opposition, voracious attacker bent on stripping Earth of all its wealth, eating humans, or whatever their objective.

Some of these Mythical Creature adversaries want to "escape" from some other dimension, penetrate the barrier between dimensions, and "rule the earth."

Those are the Villain Aliens.

The friendly Aliens become allies using their power and knowledge to help the human hero vanquish the Evil Supernaturals.

In the 1950's and 1960's, Aliens from Outer Space were either bent on "ruling" Earth or were potential friends.  Potential friends were the most popular.  Gradually, the assumption that anything Alien out there just had to be Bad Guys - so Potential Rulers became the most popular.

Today, some Mythical Supernatural People are potentially friendly, but the prevailing assumption seems to be that Supernatural Creatures are bent on ruling Earth, and therefore any Supernatural that intrudes must be destroyed before it can "take over."

Remember when the Vampire Romance shot to the best sellar lists in mass market paperback?  That sub-genre grabbed enough market share to get spine-labels and logos so you could find them on the bookstore shelves.  It took a while for writers to gear up to produce a lot of Vampire Romance -- and meanwhile, the readership lost its taste for "The Vampire As Good Guy" novel.

As manuscripts flooded into publishers, publishers reduced the number of slots for Vampire Romance.  As the e-book market began to form, many of those unsold manuscripts went to e-book, but the sub-genre disappeared from mass market shelves.

Hot-steamy Vampire Romance still thrives in e-book, with every type of Vampire being the  Hero, and writers inventing new types.

Blending the Supernatural with the Scientific Alien, I did a Vampire-Alien-From-Outer-Space Romance in my St. Martin's hardcover release, Those of My Blood, which has had many reprints.

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

So, among Aliens From Outer Space, and among Supernatural Aliens From Another Dimension, we find those who want to "rule forever" and we label those with the ambition to Rule as villains.

The blackest of bad guys are always bent on "ruling."

Those with "Powers" want to "be King."  We always create genres around Villains, Bad Guys, Malevolent Forces, Evil Masterminds that want to RULE as the Supernatural creature in Season 3 - Episode 1 - The Librarians And the Rise of Chaos -
http://www.tv.com/shows/the-librarians-2015/and-the-rise-of-chaos-3425989/.

Those who are driven "to rule" are Evil.  That's how you identify Evil - it is determined to "take over" and to "rule."

Good stories are about opposing Evil and thwarting its Rule.

Why is that?  Why do we depict Villains as wanting to Rule?

Why do we know that the Character who wants to Rule Forever is the Villain, the Evil that must be stopped at all costs?

If the Villain does not tell us, "...and I will rule, forever!" how do we figure out that this Character is the Villain?

There are thousands of right answers to that question.  To do Fantasy worldbuilding, a writer has to pick an answer (or generate a brand new one) to why the need to Rule is villainous.  Depict that reason without the on-the-nose dialogue line, "...and I will rule, forever!"  If you can do that, you will show-don't-tell the Villain of your piece.

Creating and depicting good Villains (who are dead set on Ruling) may require a writer to learn more about the inner workings of their own minds than they want to know.

Sometimes, bringing that knowledge to the conscious level creates "writer's block."  And sometimes getting hold of that knowledge breaks "writer's block."  So experiment carefully.

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 23 - Guest Post By Carol Buchanan

Depiction

Part 23

Guest Post By Carol Buchanan

Depicting Relationships

Here is the index post to previous entries in the Depiction series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

Today, Carol Buchanan has provided a Guest Post on for my series on Depiction, she has titled Depicting Relationships. Here it is, below.

Last week I reviewed Carol Buchanan's 4th novel in her Vigilantes series,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/12/reviews-30-ghost-at-beaverhead-rock-by.html

Carol Buchanan has depicted the formation of the States of the United States out of raw land - a wilderness rich with gold and searing cold winters.  No setting is more appropriate for Romance, and Science Fiction (science of mining, politics of the science of mining, life in constant confrontation with "the unknown" and "unknowable" (thus the murder-mystery theme fits perfectly into the Romance of Science Fiction)).

I recommended that writers of Alien Romance study what Carol Buchanan has done in this tetralogy to reformulate stacks of original-source documentation into real-life-living-full-color story of human beings struggling with their personal issues and still creating a new order -- the United States, -- all these states distinctly different, under different laws (and good reasons why laws had to be different) yet united.

The Vigilante series depicts the period when paper money was first being promulgated and valuated, when gold dust and coin was "real money" that you dug out of the ground.

The series speaks to the issues we've explored in the series on Astrology Just For Writers and on Tarot Just For Writers -- the innate problem of the Individual vs The Group (1st House vs 7th House).

Index to 10 posts on Suit of Swords:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html

Index to 10 posts on Suit of Pentacles;
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html

All 5 Kindle volumes on Tarot are collected here (free on Kindle Unlimited):
https://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Minor-Arcana-Books-ebook/dp/B010E4WAOU/

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

The essence of story is Conflict.  Depicting Conflict is so hard that much of what you read today substitutes fist-fights, space battles, explosions, and chase scenes for "conflict" because writers (and many readers) do not know what conflict actually is.

So our modern entertainment industry has gone for the Visual Depiction of conflict, using symbolism even the youngest children can understand. BOOM!!! BAM!!!

In Romance and Mysteries, we divide novels into sub-categories: Sweet, Steamy, Cozy, Dark, Hard Bitten (Sam Spade), Gritty, etc. In science fiction it is Nuts-n-Bolts vs Sociological and a large variety of other sub-genres.  What survives today is mostly the Space Battles variety of science fiction that makes the concept of Science Fiction Romance seem odd.

But nothing could be farther from the truth of the matter.  Romance, Mystery, Science Fiction, and Westerns -- all of them, even the ones with a Conflict of Man Vs. Nature, are about Relationships, and very little other than Relationships.

Yet, in publishing we do discuss "The" Relationship-driven Plot, as if it were distinct from everything else.  It is not. All fiction is about Relationship, and all conflicts somehow involve Relationships -- even when the Main Character is a prisoner in solitary confinement relating only to himself and his/her imagination.

How a human relates to him/herself deep in the unconscious mind configures how that individual will relate to other people.  We all play out what is inside us, creating the drama of our lives.

The story writer's job is to reveal that fact in a way the targeted readership can absorb and understand in a non-verbal way.

Carol Buchanan has hit on a way of understanding that intangible fact about what the Relationship driven Plot really is.

Her previous Guest Posts on this blog are:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-ghost-on-horseback-guest-post-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/carol-buchanan-on-writing-tricks-and.html

So here is her new Guest Post, Depicting Relationships, that may be of great use to Romance writers, especially those writing Paranormal or Alien Romance novels.

-----------GUEST POST BY CAROL BUCHANAN-----------

The Space Between: 

Depicting Relationships The Ghost at Beaverhead Rock

 At the core of a relationship between you and your other(s) lies the unspoken – the thoughts, the wishes, the desires known perhaps only to you, that are quite aside from overt speech or action. 

Likewise for the other.

In the space between you and the other person is the core of your relationship, the subliminal meeting neither of you may understand in the moment, no matter how long you know each other. Each of you conveys some of your inner life to others without being conscious of it.

In this space neither speaks, but only acts. The rhythm of breathing changes. One of you raises a wineglass, arches an eyebrow. A different tone colors a word.

Body language. There are whole books about that form of silent communication, but if I succeed in saying what I mean in this article, that’s not exactly what I’m talking about, although body language is a part of it.

The core of a relationship lies in the space between you and one or more others. The raised eyebrow may communicate an attitude or a feeling, but something happens between you and the other that is not brought to the surface. Neither of you speaks of it, but somehow you know there’s a difference on the other side of that space.

That’s where the relationship happens: In the spaces. In the nebulous area that holds the pauses in what is said, as a sudden silence falls on a party.

The partners in the relationship blink and ask themselves what happened.

The core of a relationship is subliminal.

The Subliminal Core of Relationships in The Vigilante Quartet

In the series I’ve titled The Vigilante Quartet, I make use of the subliminal core when Dan Stark, the hero of all four historical Western novels, encounters not only danger and violence but the direct opposite, love.

The first book of the series, GOD’S THUNDERBOLT: THEVIGILANTES OF MONTANA, 

takes place in what is now southwest Montana. Historically, in 1863, it was a region where ruffians ruled and murder was tolerated. When a group of men form the Vigilance Committee (as they did in the history), Dan Stark becomes its prosecutor.

I brought the McDowell family into the novel as a foil for the violence around them – the gunfights, the vandalism, the terrorizing of decent people.

Martha McDowell’s determination to give her children a better life counters her husband’s aggression. Everything she does, from secretly learning to read against his wishes, to holding onto her faith in God, opposes his violence. She takes in two boarders. Dan Stark and Deputy Sheriff Jack Gallagher, a friend of her husband’s. Dan suspects Gallagher is secretly one of outlaws.

At supper one evening, McDowell and Gallagher challenge Dan, who they think threatens their rule by intimidation. (They’re right.)

At the same time, Dan and Martha recognize their feeling for each other. For their own safety, they must not let the other two suspect what happens between them. Their mutual knowledge comes by way of a change in how they see each other.

It occurs amidst covert threats against Dan from McDowell and Gallagher. With McDowell’s wife and children present, they can’t threaten Dan openly. The reader understands the threat because of three elements:

§  Gallagher and Dan have had increasingly hostile encounters earlier in the book.

§  Dan senses the threat as a snake’s rattling.

§  He is afraid for Martha and her young daughter sitting in a dark place beyond the candlelight.

Danger surrounds him, and he is afraid, but in the midst of this dark fear he catches Martha looking at him in a way he thinks of a “luminous.”

A light shines in the darkness.

In the space between them.

THE GHOST AT BEAVERHEAD ROCK  

In my latest and final book of The Vigilante Quartet, a new relationship of a different order comes into the story of Daniel Stark’s evolution as a Vigilante.

The ghost of a hanged man haunts him.

Dan has married Martha following his return from New York City to pay his father’s debts. He is a prominent Vigilante, who has put the noose around the neck of more than one man. He first notices the ghost when it boards the stagecoach he is on at Beaverhead Rock (a landmark mentioned in the journals of Lewis and Clark.)

The ghost carries with it the stench of death, and takes the shape of a hanged man who carries a revolver in its hand.

The specter appears sometimes as a thickening of a shadow, a shimmering, a shudder where there can be no movement because shadows do not more on their own. It has no substance and makes no sound.

Dan thinks to himself, I do not believe in ghosts. But as a rational man, a lawyer, he cannot deny the evidence of his senses of sight and smell. If it doesn’t exist, how does he see it? Smell it?

That’s my challenge to readers. Is it a symbol of Dan’s sense of guilt? Is it one of the hanged men come back to accuse him of murder? Does it even exist?

Ghost and man never overcome the space between them..

How I Learned about the Space Between

Dan and the Ghost are in a relationship between human and nonhuman. Their entire relationship lies in the space between them.

I learned about the space between from an odd instructor named Gus.

Gus was a horse. My horse for a decade, until he colicked and I had to have him put down to end his suffering. 

One cold grey October day I went into the pasture at the equine sanctuary where I volunteered. I thought Gus had something that appealed to me, but I’d only known him for a couple of weeks. If he didn’t acknowledge me, I thought, I would concentrate on another horse. Sure enough, he stood grazing apart, a few yards away from the other horses that gathered around me for treats.

He raised his head, looked at me, and planted a tentative hoof in my direction, as though was uncertain what coming closer might bring him.

I thought, You’re my horse.

With him, I didn’t have the modes of communication I was accustomed to. A horse’s face are hide over bone, so they don’t have the facial mobility we humans read in each other.

Communications methods we learn from pets are useless with them. They don’t wag their tails as dogs do, for example. They don’t hiss, meow, or yowl as cats do.

But dogs and cats – and humans – are predators. Predators have monocular vision, with both eyes in the front of their faces, which gives depth perception and helps to judge striking distance. Perhaps predators have an innate sense of each other.

The horse is prey. And he knows it. He has binocular vision, with his eyes on opposite sides of his head. This gives him a nearly 360 field of vision, very good for spotting predators. He cannot see directly in front close up, nor directly behind.

It makes him very acute in sensing predatory intentions, in reading people. He “gets the vibes,” as they said in the Sixties.

From Gus I learned to listen for the vibes.

Sure, there were plenty of overt signals I learned. His vocal range would have done an opera singer proud, from soft rumbles in his throat to earsplitting bugles. I paid attention to the warning in a lifted hind hoof, and to the positions of his ears.

As time went on, we communicated almost by telepathy. I say “almost” because I’m hedging my bets. On our last trail ride before he got sick, I felt he was not happy, that the enclosing forest made him nervous. I thought, He won’t put up with this till the end.

Did I signal him somehow when I thought that? Did I mirror his nervousness back to him? Maybe. Probably. Horses are telepathic.

At any rate, awhile later, he turned back the way we had come. He was going home. I lost the discussion, but when he wanted to run home, I held him to a walk all the way back.

In the Space Between

Writers and writing books talk a lot about dialogue in terms of words spoken, gestures made. But I think there’s room for us to explore what is not said, what is not done in relationships.

To consider the space between.

To “Be still and know that I am God.” Yes, that relationship, too.

Carol Buchanan

http://carol-buchanan.com

http://facebook.com/carolbuchananauthor

http://twitter.com/CarolBuchananMT
--------END GUEST POST BY CAROL BUCHANAN-----------

Learning how we "relate" to the animals of Earth might be a big help in First Contact with non-humans from elsewhere.

We now know that monkeys, dolphins and whales speak to each other.  We humans have a lot to learn about Relationships.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction Part 17 - Depicting First Contact - Take Me To Your Leader by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 Depiction
Part 17

Depicting First Contact

Take Me To Your Leader 

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts of the Depiction Series are listed here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

This Tuesday blog is generally about Alien Romance Novels, about how to blend science, fiction, and romance into romance stories where love conquers all and brings a couple to a happily ever after "ending."  Science Fiction is largely defined as, "The Literature of Ideas."

So you wouldn't think politics was our beat.  Just look at current election coverage, political ads, and punditry of political analysis.  What could politics have to do with Leadership or Literature of Ideas?

However, this blog is about science fiction romance, and in science fiction one must build the entire world behind the characters around some one, single, unique, new, concept or premise.

There is an entire sub-genre of science fiction called sociological science fiction where the science being fictionalized is Sociology.

Such novels examine the fallacious assumptions humans make about "reality" -- such as which traits are inherently just human, and which traits human infants acquire from parents.

What is cultural, and what is genetic?  What precisely defines "human."  Are we just another species of Great Ape, or something else?

And if we're just another Great Ape right now, does that mean we will be nothing more than a Great Ape thousands of years from now?  Or thousands of years ago?

We are now accumulating data about exoplanets, and how common the conditions for life are in the galaxy.  What would Aliens on other planets have in common with Great Apes?

One common organizational theme among chimps and bonobos is that there is a single, dominant individual in each group.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/07/opinions/mothers-day-chimps-bonobos-safina/

With chimps, it is a dominant male, and with bonobos it is a dominant female who creates order in the grouping.

It can be argued that humans likewise pick an "alpha" male, a leader to follow, such as Donald Trump, or any of the 15 other men and 1 woman, Republicans, who ran for the office of President of the United States in 2015-2016.

And on the Democratic side, in US Politics, we have Hillary Clinton.  I see Bernie Sanders as an alpha male, and Hillary as an alpha-female.

To "depict" a human grouping, do you (the writer of romantic fiction ) have to designate a "Leader?"  Does the definition of human grouping include a Leader?

And if so, are we chimps or bonobos.  Do read that article.  It depicts chimps as war-like, belligerent, because they are dominated by a male, but bonobos as peaceful, easier to negotiate with, because they are dominated by a female.

If you look at humanity around this Earth, you see we seem to have some of each kind, but the problem is any particular human can be this kind on Monday and that kind on Tuesday.

The USA has never had a female president (yet), but other countries have been "led" by females.  Has that change in gender of leadership changed the behavior of those groups?

If you listen to the political rhetoric bandied about today, you will hear the word Leader (or related leadership, leading, etc) quite frequently.  The pundits analysis seems to be that everything that's "wrong" with the USA is due to a lack of "leadership."  That may be one of the fallacious assumptions we discussed in parts 3, 4, 6, and 7 of the Theme-Plot Integration series.

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

And we built on those concepts later:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html

To create a theme and a plot for romance novels set among the stars, you need to build your Aliens (maybe not their World, but the Alien species itself) using the human template but with some, single, element different.

Only one difference (per alien species) is not an unbreakable rule, but it is the most reliable rule.

Since this is science fiction romance, you formulate the aliens using the kind of thinking trained into students of science. When designing an experiment, science teaches us to vary just one element at a time -- one feature -- one parameter at a time, and compare the results.

Note how Gene Roddenberry created Vulcans with the single "difference" of being non-emotional.  Yes, there's a long story behind that -- originally Number One (a female First Officer) was un-emotional and the Vulcan science officer was emotional but extra-smart.  To get the show on the air, Roddenberry had to eliminate the female bridge officer because no viewer would believe a man would take orders from a woman.  (how times have changed!)

So we ended up with the non-emotional Vulcans, and Roddenberry redesigned his aliens to suit the network executives so that their entire world culture, perhaps biology, was non-emotional.  Then to make the drama work, of course the non-emotional Vulcans turned out to have raging emotions.  But for Depicting First Contact, we learn to hide all differences except one.

Take C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner novel series, which I have been reviewing here for years.  Most recently #16 Tracker #17 Visitor :

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/07/reviews-27-foreigner-series-by-c-j.html

Cherryh depicts her human "lost colony" as having all the varied traits humans have, included complex politics.  Her aliens on this planet, the Atevi, are at first depicted the way Roddenberry  presented the Vulcans to us, as having a single trait at variance with humans, and most everything else pretty much similar.

That single different trait is the first defining attribute presented, and often repeated in various forms.  For the Atevi it is that they don't love, and can't understand Love, but have all other emotions plus one humans can't understand.  They bond in couples, and have vast and complicated political alliances often based on family relationships.  In other words, they're more human than we can realistically expect any aliens we meet (or find the ruins of) to be.

The Atevi form their political alliances around a Leader - a single dominant individual.  And the dominant individuals vie with each other to be the most dominant among all dominants.  But with Atevi, that dominate individual may be either male or female, and the distribution seems fairly random.

We have also seen Gene Roddenberry's Vulcans at least revere an elderly but dominant female, T'Pau.

So, according to that article on chimps and bonobos, there is a distinct difference in brain configuration that developed when a river formed and divided their mutual ancestors geographically.  They evolved in separate directions, and today that brain distinction manifests as a difference in gender of the Leader.

So, should that cliche opening line for a First Contact story be, "Take Me To Your Dominant Female?"

And if so, then what for?  I mean why would Aliens land and make a bee line for a Leader?  Doesn't that plot-element require that the Aliens only do business leader-to-leader?

Is there a fallacy embedded in the whole concept of Leader?

Note, Roddenberry and Cherryh both depict their main Aliens (who will produce individuals who bond with humans) as having leaders.  The Atevi need leaders.  All hell breaks loose among Atevi if Leadership fails.  They are essentially evolved from herd creatures and physiologically need a Leader.  Vulcans, on the other hand, appear to have chosen a social structure organized around a Leader, and a group of Leaders creating a structured government.

The question a writer of romance stories should address when designing an Alien Lover is, "Do humans need leaders?"

When you have a vision of human "society" (as opposed to generic Great Ape society), what humans absolutely need and what humans choose as convenient (because we're lazy apes) or what we choose because some among us are big bullies and grab leadership, then ask yourself what humans need Leaders for.

What purpose or function do human leaders serve?  What happens among leaderless humans (such as a random collection of survivors of a lost colony -- or maybe a colony on Mars).

What is the connection between social Leadership, and Command of "the economy?"

What is "economy" -- where does it come from, who makes it happen, why does it happen, what is it for, and who needs it anyway?

Does an "economy" need a leader as society does?

Now presumably, aliens operate their economy according to the same laws and principles that humans do.  It is something we ought to have in common with any space faring species.  Many famous First Contact stories ...

(such as In Value Decieved In Value Deceived by H.B. Fyfe
Analog/Astounding Science Fiction, November 1950, pp. 38-46
http://www.unz.org/Pub/AnalogSF-1950nov-00038  )

...depict Trade as the first transaction, not friendship, love or even war.

C. J. Cherryh took that approach with the story of how the first human colonists moved from the Space Station around the Atevi world, down to the ground.  At first meeting, the humans managed to start trading with the local Atevi -- much as the first colonists in North America traded with the Native Americans.  It was only later that misunderstanding due to that single Atevi trait that differs from human caused war to break out.

In human sociological history on Earth, we have seen trade precede war many times.  Trade (or an economic transaction -- Value for Value) is perhaps more fundamental to human nature than even sex or war.

Language evolves rapidly and diverges when there is isolation.  If you are writing Historical Romance, you should keep in mind that modern characters could not pop back in time and understand spoken English.  Even written English is not that easy, if you look at some actual manuscripts.

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2016/03/25/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-go-and-still-understand-english/

Even today, with the internet, populations that do not communicate with each other (such as the age-gap) evolve different meanings for the same words. Thus on this blog, I try to define the difference between what I designate as Plot and what I designate as Story, many times.  Plot is the sequence of events or character actions; story is the characters' reactions to those events, feelings and motives, lessons learned. Plot is generally external, Story is generally internal. Many writing teachers reverse the meanings of the words, but all identify these two separate moving parts of the novel's mechanism.

So when you are building an Alien Civilization from scratch, keeping in mind the "one-difference" rule, you might decide that since C. J. Cherryh has already done "Love is Incomprehensible" and Gene Roddenbery started to do "Emotion is Incomprehensible" then chickened out (but I did it in Kraith
http://simegen.com/fandom/startrek/  ),
you might want to explore what single difference your Aliens might have in the realm of Commerce that would make, say, MONEY incomprehensible.

We make many assumptions about "money." It is such a common idea, dating back before Biblical Times, that we often assume that all creatures in the cosmos have money.

But really, what we use for money now is very different from what it was 4 thousand years ago.

Coin of the Realm is a term which had literal meaning.  The reason Julius Ceasar's profile was on coins was that The Leader was the creator of COIN.  The coin was "of the Realm" -- the kingdom or empire struck the coins.  The original concept was that the coin was made of something that had intrinsic value (gold, silver).

Common practice was to shave slivers off the edges of coins and then pass off the light-weight coin as a whole coin.  Also coating wood -- the wooden-nickle -- to look like money was done.  Counterfeit Money has always been with us since money was invented.  Today it's hacking into the bank computers and jiggering the numbers.  Or the Federal Reserve (Central Bank) just printing more of what looks like money but is as counterfeit as any criminal's coin, having the same effect on the economy as counterfeit money does.

Remember, counterfeiting was weaponized in World War II to bring down whole countries by flooding their economy with bogus bills.

So would such deception be the expected practice with your Aliens?  Or would they have an economic system which was immune to counterfeit coin of the realm?

How would you design an economic system that was impervious to a counterfeiting flood (or hacking, identity theft and taking out a mortgage in your name which essentially counterfeit's your personal realm's coin?)

Note how Roddenberry created Aliens lacking all emotion, but Cherryh created aliens lacking only Love, but replaced "Love" with another emotion rooted in different biology.

Look at chimps and bonobos. They trade in mutual grooming, share food, and create an "economy" based on sex and dominance.  Yet they're smart enough to figure out how to cooperate to get food.  Wolves bring down large prey in packs, cooperating for food but then letting the dominant wolf apportion the meat.  Apparently, human tribes can develop a society based on that cooperative model on a tribal level.

One question you, as world builder, have to answer is, "Once food (wealth) is acquired by cooperation, does The Leader apportion the wealth among His/Her followers as he chooses, or do the individuals who cooperated snatch what they think is their own portion?"

Poul Anderson, among many early science fiction writers, pointed out the way to build Alien Species that "make sense" to modern, human readers is to examine the basic biology of animal species that really exist on Earth and extrapolate what kind of civilization that biology would generate, given evolved intelligence.  He founded a long and prolific career on that method, and modern science fiction writers tend to follow that rule successfully.

Understand the biological drives shaping human cultural choices about Trade (such as they may be free will choices), then find one parameter to change to create your Alien.

Which parameter you change, and from what to what you change it, will define your THEME.

Your plot will explode outward from that premise with natural inevitability. You will have depicted an abstract statement about the nature of Reality in concrete terms as we discussed.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

Or in this entry on depicting Dynastic Wealth:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/depiction-part-5-depicting-dynastic.html

To do that as well as Roddenberry or Cherryh have done with emotion, you have to understand what money is to humans, and why we created it, then change that why to make your Aliens.

Humans started with barter -- trade.  I'll trade you this horse-halter for that bushel of corn?  No, no not THAT bushel, it's wormy.  This nice halter is worth that other, nice fresh clean bushel of corn.

Trade is object for object -- and it is all about what an object is worth to you, right then.

I'll trade you this gold coin for that bucket of water?  No, this water was too hard to come by -- I'll give it to you if you give me that horse.  Well, if I don't have a horse, I don't need a whole bucket of water.

Value is subjective and situational.

If you're dying of thirst, water is worth all the gold you are carrying.

The value of your aching back (drawing a bucket of water up from the bottom of a deep well sans donkey) vs. the value of a bushel of corn you could buy in town (5 mile walk away, then back again hauling a bushel of corn) if only you had a gold coin to give to the farmer in the market (provided you could get there before the market closed or all the corn was gone.)

Calculating the value of a gold coin is a vitally important skill, and always has a wild card factor, a gamble involved.

Today we call that arbitrage.

The value of a material object, or a coin, is fundamentally guesswork.

A gold coin, or a hundred dollar bill (actually a 1 ounce gold coin is about $1200 today), is coin of the realm, and medium of exchange.

You can "sell" a bucket of water for the value of the water, plus the value-added by that water being in a bucket at ground level rather than 200 feet down a well.  You might sell the leaky wooden bucket with the water -- or not.  Separate deal.

You give the water, you get the coin, you carry the coin to town, you give the coin, you get the bushel of corn.  Now you don't have any water to cook the corn in and you're 5 miles from home where you can shuck the corn and cut the kernels from the cob, making the burden lighter.  You have to pay someone so you can borrow their wagon?

That's an economy.  The bushel of corn cost someone a sore back, too, and a year's work tilling the soil, pulling weeds, etc etc -- it's not easy growing corn.  In the price of that bushel of corn is also figured the cost of paying soldiers to defend the land from invaders who would steal the corn and kill the farmer.  To pay the soldiers, the Leader has to create Coin of the Realm as a Medium of Exchange.

Aliens might trade in buckets of water, but might not have corn, or any kind of vegetable crop. Maybe they only eat animals, but they surely eat something.

Last week, we examined the very definition of life, itself.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/08/alien-sexuality-part-two-what-is-life.html

The value of "life" has mystical variables -- which you can pick through to find that ONE element to change to generate your Aliens.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/12/8-pentacles-kavanah.html

So what is the "value" of work?  A material object (hunk of wood, for example) is worth something -- variable with how difficult it was to acquire, how rare it is.  That same material object plus "work" might equal a Polished Soup Bowl, a Comfortable Rocking Chair, hoops-and-loops to hold clothing together (frogs), table, shelves, hair clasps, whatever you can make out of wood.  To make those things requires a) skill and b) time maybe c) bleeding from splinters.

The work is intangible, but has VALUE in coin-of-the-realm.

Consider that the realm authorizing that coin is your own, personal, only-you, ecology of one person. You are a sovereign individual.

Read Clan of the Cave Bear .

http://www.amazon.com/Clan-Cave-Bear-Earths-Children/dp/0553250426/

This famous novel depicts the economy of the sovereign, lone, individual.

Every collected object used for food, clothing, shelter, has an assigned value in time-effort-energy and in how replaceable it is.  When the hero returns "home" to find his little shelter utterly destroyed, you understand what a dollar actually IS.  You understand what ownership and sovereignty is.  And you understand what Capitalism really is (as opposed to what "they" have told you capitalism is.)

The rule of Fallacy being more popular than Accuracy seems to hold with respect to Capitalism.

But words are as variable in value as coins.

Again, consider how language shifts and changes -- the same words do not mean the same thing to all people.
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2016/03/25/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-go-and-still-understand-english/

A word is "worth" (e.g. means) what you say it does, just as a coin is worth what you think you can get for it (fallacious thought or not.)

Today's online dictionaries try to keep up with the ever changing definitions of words.

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/capitalism

... defines capitalism thusly:

----------quote---------------
an economic system based on private ownership of capital
Synonyms:
capitalist economy
Antonyms:
socialism, socialist economy
an economic system based on state ownership of capital
Types:
venture capitalism
capitalism that invests in innovative enterprises (especially high technology) where the potential profits are large
Type of:
free enterprise, laissez-faire economy, market economy, private enterprise
an economy that relies chiefly on market forces to allocate goods and resources and to determine prices

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

No, that's not it.  "Capitalism" is actually just a system of describing what the hero of CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR lost when his belongings were destroyed -- belongings he had gathered raw materials for and crafted into items essential to his survival.

"Capital" is not MONEY.  Capital is not COIN (of any Realm).

Capital, like the "Packing Fraction" from physics, is the Money you do not have BECAUSE you have a thing instead.


---------quote----------
The ratio of the total volume of a set of objects packed into a space to the volume of that space. The difference between the isotopic mass of a nuclide and its mass number, divided by its mass number. The packing fraction is often interpreted as a measure of the stability of the nucleus.
Packing fraction | Define Packing fraction at Dictionary.com

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/packing-fraction

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

As in Physics, Capital has stability measured by how much it cost -- how MUCH is NOT THERE, how much it would take to pry your hot fist away from your possession.

Understanding this secret of reality (hidden by changing definitions of words) makes the difference between the rich and the poor.

I've discussed Rich Dad: Poor Dad previously.  The book explains how what we sometimes call the "cycle of poverty" is more a matter of language facility than wisdom or skill at life.  By cycle of poverty, I mean the phenomenon of poor parents raising poor children trapped in poverty all their lives, raising another generation of poor kids.

We have many prominent examples of those who have 'broken the cycle of poverty' among our political candidates in 2016.

We have Dr. Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, even Ted Cruz, -- they all have tales to tell of that steep, hard climb out of having nothing.  They do not seem (from what they say in public) to understand that what they did depended on knowing the difference between money and capital, but look closely at their stories and it is plain as day.

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money - That The Poor And Middle Class Do Not!   Robert T. Kiyosaki

https://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Teach-Middle-ebook/dp/B0175P82RA

The secret is simply that capital is not money.  You can 'save' capital.  You can NOT 'save' money.  When you put "money" in a bank, it becomes "capital."  (unless it's in a checking account to be spent).

Money (coin) is a MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE -- it is worth whatever two entities (Aliens included) think or say or determine it is worth.  The real value of "money" lies in its velocity, the rates and direction of movement of the coins.  Money is a force (mystically, you can consider it fueled by the Soul.)

Capital is fixed, real, tangible asset that is worth to you exactly what you paid for it, what it cost you to acquire, and that includes emotional investment.

This is what the Atevi can't grasp -- humans LOVE the objects they invest their emotions into (grandma's hand-stitched quilt is worth more than the scrap rags she made it from).  We make things, and we "love" those things because we made them.  It is a capital investment of Self.  We even accuse people of "loving" Money.

Your potential work (your aching back) has a value to you, independent of anything anyone else might think it is worth.  Your potential work is your human capital.  It is potential 'value' because it is unrealized.  You can't exchange it. You can't move it.  You can't reassign ownership.  It is capital.

Money and Capital share a property that I expect Aliens would understand.  Money and Capital can both be "made."

As in Clan of the Cave Bear, a single individual can gather material objects in one spot and craft mission-critical items from that material.

The gathering costs expenditure of capital (remember, labor, your aching back, is your capital).  The crafting (learning to do it, then doing it, failing, discarding gathered material ruined by failure, finally succeeding) of the matter into a usable object costs an expenditure of Capital.

Life -- time, effort, energy, health, RISK, combat with others, competing for rare stuff -- is your Capital.  You invest that capital by gathering then crafting.  Now you HAVE an object that is mission critical, and that object is Capital.

For more iconic imagery on this abstract definition of what is money and what is capital, watch the film Enemy Mine.

http://www.amazon.com/Enemy-Mine-Dennis-Quaid/dp/B000I9YXOC/

This is a true Love Story, complete with human/alien pregnancy, sans sex!

When corporations report "Capital Expenditure" they do not refer to taking Capital (land, buildings, factory equipment) and selling it.  They refer to taking from incoming cash flow and BUYING land, buildings, equipment.  For example, if you own a house, and it needs a new roof, you do a Capital Expenditure, spending your wages or salary to buy a new roof (or the materials to go hammer a new roof over your head yourself.)

Capital is STATIC -- trapped, concrete -- but MONEY has a value derived from its VELOCITY.  How trade-able is your gold or silver coin?  What is a dollar worth?  Capital is what you exchange (barter) but Money is the medium by which you exchange it.  Money is a SYMBOL.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

Coin of the Realm has a value based on the value of the Realm, itself.

Your aching back is the coin of your own, personal, sovereign realm.

I think any living Alien species we meet up with will be able to comprehend an aching back (or carapace), or at the very least, "Whew!  I did it!"

Of course, a hive species might have a problem with "I."  Writing a Human/Alien Romance with a hive species might be a challenge.

But assume your Aliens are individuals, and here they are among 21st Century humans on Earth (or maybe finding a human colony on Mars or "out there" somewhere.)

How will they understand working for a living?  Paychecks?  Cell phone bills.  Starbucks expensive coffee.

The film Starman gives you a start on this problem.

http://www.amazon.com/Starman-Karen-Allen/dp/B004ZCM2Q4/

This kind of story fairly well defines science fiction.  In a First Contact situation, you have to set aside your assumptions because they are all probably fallacious.

C. J. Cherryh depicts this process with razor sharp precision in the entire FOREIGNER series, but targets it especially well in the novel VISITOR where the language of the new Aliens, the Kyo, has to be puzzled out nearly from scratch.

Finding your own fallacies amidst your assumptions is extremely difficult, but it is in fact one of the primary skills of the working scientific researcher.  Nothing blinds you to facts more than your assumptions, and how assiduously you have examined your assumptions determines how blinded you will be by Romance.

So, what if your Aliens have as many unexamined and possibly fallacious assumptions as the human Characters in your Romance story?  That could be a source of Conflict for your couple, and misunderstandings greater than C. J. Cherryh has depicted.

Armed with that idea, and your own personal take on what an economy is, where it comes from, why bother to have one, and what "labor" is (Capital or Money?), and who owns the resulting material objects, write a 750 piece of dialog for a First Contact Romance novel.

Consider the subject might be the Minimum Wage.  Suppose the Alien is trying to hire a Security Guard for a foray into the White House and an official, "Take Me To Your Leader" meeting.

What should the Alien pay?  What multiple of the Minimum Wage?  And how do you convince an Alien (with an alien idea about paid labor and skilled labor) to pay that much?

Depict that entire Alien culture's economic system in 750 words of dialogue, and spark the hottest Romance in this Galaxy.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com