Depiction Part 16 - Reviews 26 Depicting Political Disruption From China To Today by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction Part 16

Reviews 26

Depicting Political Disruption From China To Today

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

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

This post has two titles because I have two books to review which are perfect examples of an article which discusses a non-fiction book.

We have discussed in Parts 19 and 20 of Marketing Fiction In A Changing World how non-fiction writing is the mainstay of a professional writer's income.

Now, if you have many contracts for fiction novels coming in, as many mass market Romance Writers do, you can't dabble on the side in writing non-fiction.  There's no time or strength.  But even when selling fiction, you have to read a lot of non-fiction.  Romance writers and science fiction writers do a lot of research reading.  If you are writing the hybridized field of Science Fiction Romance, that is more than double the amount of non-fiction reading per novel produced.

Some writers shun reading fiction while writing fiction -- so as not to be "influenced."  Others gobble up books in the field they are writing in.

But no matter how you go about doing it, your fiction must connect the reader's real world with some less tangible world -- an ideal world, a future world, an alternate reality, or just artistic imagination.

Connecting layers of reality and imaginary perception is what writers do, in fiction or non-fiction. Readers most enjoy experiencing connections they haven't found for themselves, yet.

So today let's look at some science fiction and some fantasy that depicts political disruption by using Romance.

In April, 2016, Fortune Magazine posted the following article:

This Ancient Chinese Text Is the Manual for Business Disruptors by  Michael Puett ,   Christine Gross-Loh  APRIL 11, 2016, 8:00 AM EDT

http://fortune.com/2016/04/11/laozi-manual-business-disruptors/

Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh are the authors of The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us about the Good Life (Simon & Schuster, 2016)

The article starts out:

--------QUOTE---------
And no, it’s not Sun Tzu’s “Art of War.”

When disruption became the rallying cry for innovators a decade ago, they seized on ancient work of Chinese philosophy to prove their point. In Sun-Tzu’s Art of War, a new class of business disrupters claimed to have found the original manual.

They were right about ancient Chinese philosophy, but wrong about the manual.

As it turns out, another text from China, the Laozi, actually offers a much more expansive—and revolutionary—vision of innovation.
---------END QUOTE----------

And concludes:

-----------QUOTE-----------
That’s why those who aspire to innovate are better off seeing the world through a Laozian, not Sunzian, lens. If life is like a game of chess, Sunzians concentrate all their effort towards winning in a situation in which the board, the pieces, and the opponent are immutable. Laozian innovators know the chessboard can be tipped over at any moment. So they shift to another game entirely without anyone even realizing what is being changed.

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

Read the whole article if you can because explaining these two views of "disruption" can give you a deeper understanding of the world your reader lives in.  The writer's business is explaining the reader's world to the reader.

Now here are two books (both plotted around super-hot Romance) -- both in series -- one blatant military science fiction genre by Jack Campbell, the other equally blatant Fantasy by Marshall Ryan Maresca -- each depicting Political Disruption in such a way that the reader can recognize and relate to the Disruption Forces driving today's headlines.

The first book I want to draw to your attention, the latest in a long series, is by the New York Times Bestselling writer, Jack Campbell.

The Lost Stars: Shattered Spear by Jack Campbell ...
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Stars-Shattered-Spear-ebook/dp/B013Q7041I/



... is the 4th title in the Lost Stars series, but The Lost Stars is in the same universe, with the same characters, as 11 previous titles, 6 in Campbell's The Lost Fleet series, and 5 in The Lost Fleet: Beyond The Frontier series.

This series is huge in scope, depicting the clash of two human civilizations in a 100 year war that hammers both of them to flat out desperation.










It turns out that this 100 year war is the result of non-humans (very alien aliens? - we don't know because nobody's ever seen them) playing a very human game of "Let's You And Him Fight."

http://www.amazon.com/Games-People-Play-Eric-Berne-ebook/dp/B005C6E76U/

Games People Play is so "disruptive" and currently interesting that it was reissued in a variety of modern formats in 2011

So taken as a whole, this 15 novel set by Jack Campbell accurately depicts a group of interstellar civilizations from the Chinese Laozian innovators' point of view.

This is accomplished rather neatly by introducing the rapidly changing political variables of these civilizations from the point of view of a man who grasps and understands 3-D interstellar war fleet combat in .

THE LOST FLEET part of the series gradually walks the reader through changing from a   point of view to a Laozian point of view.  The main Character, Black Jack, has an unconscious bias for the Laozian method of problem solving. The other characters, who have failed to understand that Constants are actually Variables, can't stop him from disrupting their 100 year war.

The Beyond The Frontier part of the series follows other characters who ride Black Jack's wave of disruption out beyond the borders that have been considered Constants and there they discover and bring back data about what is really going on.

You may remember me talking about The Alien Series by Gini Koch (here with me in the background)

and my delight at how Gini's main character figures out "what is really going on" --- which she does by applying the Laozian innovator's problem solving methodology.

Alien In Chief is the 12th and not the last in this Series.
http://www.amazon.com/Alien-Chief-Novels-Book-12/dp/075641007X/

In the Lost Stars series, Jack Campbell shows, without telling, how those whose lives have been disrupted by Black Jack's victories, now rebuild the shattered civilization into a new model, a little bit more of a democracy (but not too much, you understand).  They are forming alliances and stabilizing thing among the stars in their region of the galaxy.

The Lost Stars sub-series has a genuine Romance story-arc beautifully blended and balanced with long, long descriptions of space battles.  The space battles are long because they are realistic -- it takes a long time to maneuver whole fleets traveling at measurable fractions of the speed of light.

Doing the unexpected, (disrupting expectations) is the key to battle success, in the Romance story, the Battle Plot, and the Political Machinations.  These books form a poetic example of the Laozian view of the universe.

Marshall Ryan Maresca's THE ALCHEMY OF CHAOS...

http://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Chaos-Novel-Maradaine-Novels-ebook/dp/B011IUSO4O/

...is a Fantasy series incorporating a School of Magic campus, a former Circus Performer, a Drug Cartel (or two), and a social fabric straining under Laozian Innovation and the ultimate Disruption.

The Alchemy of Chaos is the direct sequel to The Thorn of Dentonhill, which I also loved.

In The Alchemy of Chaos we see the Romance between the main character and a real kick-ass-heroine heat up to dominate the action-plot.

The venue is the Magic School's campus plus the surrounding business and residential district (dominated by street gangs manipulated by organized crime).  

It is a wheels-within-wheels world where the Circus Performer-Mage Student is The Disruptor, solving his personal problems by understanding how Constants are actually potential-variables.  Being young, he thinks (Sorcerer's Apprentice style), that he is in control of all those disrupted constants he is trying to vary.

The author obviously has much more to say about disrupting nice, quiet, reliable constants when you are so absolutely (20-something-year-old) certain you are in complete control of the results.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Maradaine novels, for me, is the Romance and how true love, true soul mates, come together to deal with unexpected chaos together.  

Emergency Crisis Management is one of the major, core topics of all Romance but is especially relevant to plotting the Science Fiction Romance, or perhaps especially the Fantasy/Paranormal Romance.

In the Maradaine novels, Maresca has shown how a civilization might treat Magic and Science as separate topics that can not be mixed -- only to discover that they are not so separate.

So take all the Jack Campbell titles together with, interwoven with, the Maresca titles, do an in depth contrast and compare among those, then review the Chinese Philosophy discussed in that Fortune Magazine article.

There is, of course, much more to say and write about Disruptors.  The most devastating chaos always results from Soul Mates finding each other.  The best case scenario is that the chaos might be just transient, and stability might ensue.  Then again, it might be a hundred year war.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 13 - Depicting Wisdom by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction

Part 13
Depicting Wisdom
by
 Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The previous parts of this series are found here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

Wisdom is an intangible.  So how do you Show Don't Tell?

The PR (Public Relations ) science that creates ads for perfume, and even food -- both of which are tangible -- is really selling the experience of smelling or tasting, which is intangible.  So you learn depict Wisdom by studying TV Commercials, even web-ads.

Intangible aspects of human experience are rooted in the tangible.

You can look at this two ways:
A) that which is tangible creates the intangible
B) that which is intangible is the "Foundation" or creative channel which causes the tangible to manifest.

OK, you can sprain your brain on that one.

So lets look at some of the fundamental components of the general subject of wisdom as a means of generating one-liners that people will enshrine in those little digital samplers you see all over the place, with a tag crediting your Character with saying it just exactly so!

1) What is Wisdom?
2) Where Does Wisdom come from?
3) How do readers identify the Wisdom level of a Character?
4) Does Wisdom have anything to do with Truth?
5) Who was the wisest human in human history?
6) Does a real-world historical character's wisdom shape your reader's world?
7) If you see historical bits of wisdom creating the standards of wisdom in the current world, should you include some Historical Character in your Worldbuilding for your current characters to quote? If you should include such a quote, how do you include it?
8) Does your target audience respect Wisdom or despise it?
9) Is Wisdom sexist?
10) What historical real world females are quoted today as having achieved Wisdom?
11) Are there more Wise Men than there are Wise Women in your reader's real world acquaintance?
12) If your readers are largely female, do they need a Wise Character to look up to and emulate -- to strive to become?  Does that character have to be female, too?
13) Does the Romance Genre typically use the first encounter and process of internalizing a point of Wisdom as the plot-driver? 14) Are men sexually attracted to young women who utter Ancient Wisdom couched in Modern Vernacular?
15) Does the application of a point of Wisdom to real life create success in Love Stories, Romance novels, real life business, child rearing, rejoining a career track after childbirth?

Perhaps, for our purposes, the most important question would be how do you find a bit of Ancient Wisdom and re-cast it into modern vernacular applicable to a sizzling hot Alien Romance story?

Is the Wisdom component part of the story or the plot?  Or does it only belong in the Theme?

Is the "Theme Stated" Beat in Save The Cat! actually the quotable one-liner that encapsulates an Ancient Wisdom into modern vernacular?

   Those are just a few of the most obvious questions to ponder when creating the Wisdom factor in your fictional work.

There are a lot of ways to use these concepts in Fiction, and I'm sure that with self-publishing successes turning up, we will find and define many more ways to Depict Wisdom.

Via the biggest, broadest Markets, we have good illustrations of the methodology in Yoda of Star Wars and Gandalf of Lord of the Rings.  Both are male.

When Wise women are depicted, the writers aiming for the big markets usually grab for some caricature of the Witch.  In the days of Radio Drama, Black Women were given the wisdom lines, keeping the family on track ethically and morally.  But they were usually Grandmothers.

The world has changed drastically -- and the rate of change seems to be speeding up as people communicate electronically.

So we have plenty of examples of Wisdom in science fiction and fantasy genres.  But Wisdom as a salient component of Romance seems to have gone missing.  Young women, nubile females, with a yen for a Soul Mate are not depicted as "attractive" because of their deep Wisdom and ability to articulate the oldest truths.

We won't get through that whole list of questions in one post, but we can get started by pondering what exactly is meant by Wisdom, what it is objectively, what the modern world thinks it is...

 

...and perhaps what you can do to express your Theme in a Wisdom Quotable.

From a writer's standpoint, Wisdom is a component of Character -- and so part of this discussion relates to Depicting Characters, and also to formulating Character, creating a Character who belongs in your Story, is a product of his/her World that you have built and thus depicts that world, and does things to change that world.

Always ask yourself if you want to write fiction that can change the world, or if you want this particular story to simply state the problem in the world today.  Or do you want to write a story that, as Gene Roddenberry always taught, simply asks a question.  If you are asking a question, how do you pose that question in Show-Don't-Tell terms?  And how does this question manifest as the Theme that glues your plot to your story.

Here's an index to advanced, two-technique synthesis on Character.

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

Here's the series on Dialogue - it has more than 4 posts:

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

Here's the most elementary entry on Dialogue:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/dialogue-as-tool.html

Dialogue is one of the most efficient ways of depicting Character, and those one-line zingers that get quoted forever are generally types of wisdom quotes.

 

If you enjoy the exercise in pondering the abstracts of which comes first, the Wisdom or its manifestation, you should read the posts on this blog about Tarot -- or grab the Kindle compilations to nibble at in odd moments when you're looking for a plot-twist or solution to a conflict.

You can find the Tarot posts on Pentacles (tangible) or Swords (not-so-tangible) elements here:

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

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

Each of those lists has links to 10 posts on each Suit of the Tarot.

Here is the Kindle version of all twenty of those posts, plus 20 more on the Suits of Wands and Cups.
http://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Minor-Arcana-Books-ebook/dp/B010E4WAOU/

My approach to Tarot is simple. It is no use whatsoever for "foretelling" the future.  But it is a potent tool for creating riveting Plots, especially Romance plots that explore scientific truth.

You've seen the "quotes" that I've strewn through this post so far.

As a writer, have you noticed the ones that impact you most strongly have the fewest words, writ largest?

For example, what is the most terse, transparent, and easy to comprehend definition of Wisdom you have ever encountered?

King Solomon, the son of King David, was known far and wide for his Wisdom, so at the end of his life he wrote down the principles he used that were regarded as Wise.  These principles are all derived from what is derived from (many generations) the Torah, the 5 books of Moses, but distilled into the vernacular of King Solomon's day and age.

King Solomon defined the beginning of wisdom as the beginning of Knowledge rooted in the fear of God.  I could argue against that definition in many thousands of words because I disagree.





Those who have read my extensive discourses in this blog on the spiritual dimension of the Soul Mate, of Love Conquers All, realize that I see the real world as fabricated out of Love.

 

In my personal view, LOVE of God is the beginning of Wisdom.

But King Solomon's father, David, was the man who ran for his life saved only by the Hand of God, fought more fiercely and bravely than King Arthur, and handed a United Kingdom to his son, Solomon.

So naturally King Solomon would see in David's fear of God the source of his wisdom, obedience and thus success.




In the Book of Proverbs, King Solomon wrote at the very beginning, right after his definition,

 

This historic figure whose Proverbs reverberate throughout our whole culture -- right alongside, interwoven with, often indistinguishable from the Helenistic roots of our civilization (Aristotelian Logic) -- implores us to pay close attention to our Parents.

King Solomon didn't make that up.


Here's a hint of his main Source.

 

Note the 5th Commandment is the link between the Commandments that depict the Relationship between humans and the Creator -- and those that depict the Relationship between humans and humans.

The link-concept between the two sets of Commandments is Creation.  The Creator created humans, and then fathers and mothers create more humans.

Another source of Wisdom encapsulated in this graphic is what you learn when you read across (pairing #1 with #6 -- #5 with #10) -- so that you ponder how it is that Honoring your parents (not necessarily loving or approving of or even respecting your parents, but rather just Honoring) is related to the process of not "coveting."

In other words, Honoring your origins prevents you from hating others who have things you wish you had but don't.  Hate, envy, resentment, and the impetus King Solomon cites as the sign of a lack of Wisdom that causes us to chase after bait like a bird getting caught in a net, come from not knowing or understanding or revering your origins.

Ever noticed how fans of an Superhero bore right down to "The Origin Tale?"  How much money and brain-power have been spent trying to discover "the origin of life?"  Or think about the relentless pursuit of the Big Bang origin of the universe.  We know, deep down, that knowing our origin is vastly important, and the beginning of happiness.  We just have to KNOW our ORIGIN.

And that's what King Solomon pegs as the beginning of Knowledge -- fear of God, an awareness of the Originator of our origin.  We just have to find out.

How exactly Characters in a Romance story might find out something about their Origin ("I was adopted. I don't know who my mother was.") is the substance of a Theme -- a huge theme that could support a long series of long books that could live forever. Consider Oedipus Rex.

So maybe King Solomon got his "Wisdom" which we preserve in the book of Proverbs from his Father's biography and fear or obedience to God.  David's main life-theme was Praising God (even when handed the dirty end of the stick).  He praised God even from the depths of his worst suffering (which was epic!)

Remember, King Solomon's father, King David, had one of those trick memories, and annually would recite the entire Torah (all 5 books) before the people.

The Torah itself is actually a SONG -- it's written to be sung, not spoken.  King David is renowned for his musical talent, and is the author of most of the Book of Psalms -- the songs sung in the Temple daily by the Levites.

So when King Solomon explains that the beginning of his Wisdom lies with his father and mother, he is telling us (today) how to acquire that magnitude of Wisdom which caused him to be revered.

The whole book of Proverbs consists of nothing but quotables -- often more quoted than the one-line zingers our motion picture industry prizes.  Solomon's pithy distillations are very short conclusions about very knotty subjects.

These Proverbs are potent, concentrated conclusions on these topics, not lengthy lectures, info-graphics or How To lessons.  Nothing Made Simple.

So through the ages, many great writers have written extensive commentary on each and every one of the entries in King Solomon's list of Wisdoms.

Here's an example of one of the most quoted Rabbis annotations to Proverbs:
http://www.judaism.com/malbim-on-mishley/dp/BEBBE/

Here is a quick biography of the Malbim (a nickname -- all the great Rabbis whose commentaries are quoted have nicknames -- the custom was not invented JUST for Twitter!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbim

It isn't "simplicity" to use fewer words.

The concepts behind the words are deep and abstract, the subject intangible.

The few words are the tip of the iceburg of the main thought.  It's up to the reader to unravel and delve deeper into the subject when they come to a point in life where they are questioning in that area.

The Proverb is a brief, terse, one-liner, so that it will be remembered and quoted until it becomes a cliche.  "A stitch in time saves nine."

Then one day, something happens -- you walk your Character into a Situation -- and the Proverb comes to mind.

If you write it well, the reader will think of the cliche-Proverb before your Character does and will be rooting for your Character to remember that principle.  The Character then has to morph the Proverb into a form that applies to that Character's problem.

That's why I mentioned The Malbim -- a much quoted commentator.  The commentators "update" the encapsulated Wisdom from Proverbs, giving it the context of their time.

When you read the comments from the 1800's in Europe (the Malbim's venue) you notice they may as well be about some Alien Species among the Stars.

That is why they are salient to a writer's arsenal. They give you an alien perspective, and for a writer of science fiction romance stories that alien perspective is a priceless treasure trove of Ideas.

Know the original Book of Proverbs, read the commentary, see how the commentator of the 1800's translated the Ancient World into his era, grasp the technique used, then transpose that original wisdom into something applicable to your interstellar civilization.

Even readers who have never read the Torah, the Bible, or flat disbelieve in God, will recognize these principles even after you have morphed them into the cultures of non-humans.  That sense of recognition of the alien provides the necessary verisimilitude so the reader can walk a parsec in your Hero's moccasins.

Each of these bits of Wisdom encapsulated by King Solomon are Life Lessons you will find pegged in every culture throughout time, maybe spun in different ways, maybe inside-out in Values, but lessons considered Wisdom.

Learning some bit of wisdom is your Main Character's job in life.

In a series of long novels, the entire series sums up to ONE such Life Lesson, while each of the novels depicts some stage on the way to that big insight.  King Solomon's Proverbs are each the theme of a long Series, while the Commentators give you the intermediate steps for the individual books.

If you quote one of the Proverbs or the Commentator's wisdom, be sure to get the attribution correct.  That's important for all kinds of mystical reasons.

Oh, and be aware that with these internet sampler patches, the quote attributions need cross-checking.  Many are not correct.  Some people just put a name on there to make you respect the saying.  There are websites where you can plaster any words you type onto one of these samplers, and attribute the words to anyone.

But accuracy of attribution is not why I've included the images I found on Pinterest and by Googling.
In fact, the ones improperly attributed or mis-quoted, are your most valuable resource as a writer of romance stories.

These quotes represent popular wisdom -- some of which may have a kernal of truth behind it -- but for you, the point of pondering these quotes is to discern how they depict our current cultural realities.

Some substantial fraction of your readers will believe these things.

If you adopt one of these as a Theme, your Plot must argue against the quote (as well as for it), or its interpretation and application by your typical reader.

You also have to pay attention to how you choose vocabulary.

Sometimes you want an obscure word to rivet attention and make people look things up.  Sometimes you want to teach the meaning of an obscure (or made-up) word via show-don't-tell, and sometimes you want to be clear, plain, unequivocal and accessible by using the most common vernacular.

So, to sum up -- "What is Wisdom?"  Our oldest texts defining Wisdom may be Chinese, but the most relevant to the U.S.A. today's culture is either Aristotle or King Solomon.

Your original contribution may be quoted for centuries to come if you can distill Aristotle vs Solomon into Interstellar Civilization.

King Solomon says "fear of God" is the foundation of Knowledge.

Then he describes how fools take "bait" like a bird flying right into a net just to peck at some seed.

 


King Solomon wrote -- "O Simpletons" -- yes, the great, revered example of the Wisest of all Men was not "Politically Correct."

Now, who will be the revered Wisest Of All Women and will she be Politically Correct?

Remember, Wisdom is intangible.  Show Don't Tell means make it tangible.

Give it a symbol (remember the Seal of Solomon and the Shield of David?).

Give that symbol to a Character and make it emotionally meaningful to that Character (a lone surviving photo of Parents, an old, crumbling book of poems or sheet music, a piece of religious-themed jewelry, a Sword with an engraved blade?), challenge the Character to internalize that Wisdom.

Start your story at the beginning.  As King Solomon did, start with the tendency to be lured by bait despite the discipline of the Father and the teaching of the Mother.  Start with your exceptionally smart Character being a "Simpleton" as King Solomon termed the gullible.  Start with a Love of Folly and teach your Character the Wisdom of Solomon.  If you get stuck, read the Malbim's commentary.

There is a more handy source than these printed books, though.  On iTunes,
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ous-nach-yomi/id267721005?mt=2

Nach Yomi goes through the books of the Bible after the Torah, discussing the commentaries.  Just listen to the podcast for 20 minutes and you'll be brim full of story and plot.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 12 - Depicting Rational Fury by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction Part 12
Depicting Rational Fury
by
 Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here's the index post for this series on Depiction:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

Last week we looked at The Flicker Men, a brilliant but purely science fiction novel.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/09/reviews-19-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

Not much in The Flicker Men depicted the emotional tangles that drive human relationships and therefore govern (or fail to govern) the movements of large numbers of humans.  There is, however, a great deal of emotion, and psychological truth underlying the actions of the characters.  A solid, Happily Ever After Love Story, or a genuine Romance, could have changed all those events.

For example, if the main character had been living an HEA with wife and children, with brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, family reunions, weddings, birth celebrations -- if his life were peppered with events that held deep emotional significance on the positive end of the spectrum, then when he discovered the truth behind the structure of the Universe, that this universe is just a holographic representation created by another Universe's scientists, then he wouldn't have quit his job and destroyed his life with alcohol and drugs.

Yes, his self-destruction is "realistic" -- but it is not real in an HEA universe.

What if you take The Flicker Men premise, and add the dimensions of human emotion we deal with in the Romance Genre -- that is, take a pure science fiction novel about the impact of a dark discovery on an unstable man who stands alone -- and redesign the Characters so that they interact and bond in a psychologically healthy way?

We live in a new world, with the advent of smartphones and social networking.  People growing up today will have a different idea of what a healthy relationship is and how to meet people, how to present yourself (you don't have to comb your hair before posting your first tweet of the day), how to share and thus dilute an emotional reaction.

Look at how people vent fury at a Flight Attendant or Grocery Clerk by posting vitriolic commentary, or embarrassing pictures, or scorning certain businesses by name.  And those are mostly people who grew up before smartphones.  What will the next generation think of as "healthy" psychology?

We are already seeing hints of what is to come in the entertainment media and the news media -- and in government, the military, even schools, college campuses, strip malls, everywhere decisions have to be made so that lots of people can move on through and get their objectives accomplished.

Accomplishing Objectives is what the Hero of the story does.  If your main character does not accomplish his/her Objectives, you haven't found the character whose story you are telling.  You are avoiding conflict by viewing events from another perspective than the one confronting opposition.

One neat way to re-align your thinking into that of a story-teller is to sit down with the Book of Psalms and just read it right straight through.  Most of them are by King David, a Warrior King, and most of what he discusses with God is all about Enemies, his own enemies and God's enemies.  It's all about Enemies, not about King David at all, and therefore it is about enmity in general and how to deal with it.  Then go read through the Book of Kings, the stories of the Kings with their ups and downs, just blitz through it and don't regard it as "scripture" but as a simple template for the perpetually repeated story of humankind.

So after soaking up these classic psychological attitudes of the template of the Hero Paradigm, read through some of my posts on Targeting A Readership --
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html
and how necessary it is for a writer to understand the world the reader lives in, and to incorporate that understanding into the worldbuilding deep inside and underneath (invisible to the reader) the rip-roaring just-for-fun story you are telling.

You've found the point in your main character's life where his/her story is happening.  You've found the beginning point of that story, where the Character first confronts or stirs up the force that will oppose the Character's moves to Accomplish Objectives.

You've found "the stakes" -- what will happen if the Objectives are not accomplished.

Now you have to DEPICT how the Character who is living through this rip-roaring good story actually feels about Accomplishing the Objective, about what they think will happen if they don't, about what alternatives exist, about what alternatives the Character might generate that don't yet exist, and how to go about attaining an objective that does not yet exist with tools that do not yet exist.

In other words, the Hero of the story is the person who does not "do all I can" but rather creates new abilities.  We see the yearning for this by the general readership in the popularity of the Meta-Human, Super-Hero stories on TV, and especially in fanfic even in mundane genres like the TV Series White Collar fanfic.

Look again at how King David generates new situations beyond his ability to create.  He prays.  He explains his situation to God in terms he knows God uses.  On the validity of his understanding, David then suggests what God might do, or what objective He might allow. (smite my enemies; smite your enemies).  Then look in the Book of Kings for what happened on the battlefield.

In Depiction Part 11,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/06/depiction-part-11-depicting-complex.html
we looked at depicting complex (galaxy sized) battlefields.  And we discussed the galaxy sized battlefield with the added dimension of Time in reviewing the famous Romance writer, Jean Johnson's Theirs Not To Reason Why Science Fiction, Galactic War Series (which has spinoff novels we will be discussing.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/09/reviews-18-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

Now look at the world around you.

You can do this real-world survey from various points of view rapidly and efficiently with the app or browser version of http://flipboard.com  -- it is a news aggregator.  Apple is launching a new News Aggregator, and there are many others around, but I am currently using flipboard where you can subscribe to a multitude of international news sources.  Just reading the headlines is instructive -- stop and read a full article or two with awareness of its source, compare the same Event covered by other sources, notice the commentary posted on blogs (yes, you can subscribe to blog feeds on flipboard), and get an idea of what "the world" looks like to your Target Readership.
You can follow my news item selections here:
https://flipboard.com/@jacquelinelhmqg

Soon, you'll be making your own magazines.  The point of making a magazine (for a writer) is to collect stories to read in juxtaposition while putting yourself into the mind and emotional framework of people you'd never voluntarily associate with.

Now, to depict a Character who is the Hero of their own story, but not necessarily Heroic by nature, you have to depict the ups and downs, the contrasts, in the Character's emotional life.

Most new writers will insert long paragraphs of multi-syllable words telling the reader all about how and why this Character feels this or that, maybe including the Character's early life story (how they were abused as a child), and go on and on about why the Character feels as they do.

Seasoned writers do it in dialogue one-liners, maybe half-a-line with lots of empty space on the page.

Here are a few posts discussing dialogue, its creation, and its use in plot-character integration:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/plot-character-integration-part-1-34.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/do-your-lovers-live-hea.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/07/toystory-3-analyzed-for-beats.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/dialogue-as-tool.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/expletive-deleted-tender-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/12/villain-defined.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/expletive-deleted-tender-romance.html

Yes, we've been at this topic a long time, but it is literally endless.  Every time "the world" changes, every year that new young readers take up a genre that had been "too old" for them, the details of how to write great stories change -- but the essence of the framework, the techniques, do not change.  They have not changed since Shamans told history over the campfire.

Study this image.  It is THE LOVER'S QUARREL done in "show don't tell."

That image shows how to write dialogue.  Characters, like real people, don't talk about what they are talking about.  That, in screenwriting (see Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT! screenwriting books), is called "off the nose" dialogue.  You execute it with lots of white space on the page -- the empty space speaks volumes.

Dialogue is all about communicating.  It is not real speech transcribed.  It is point of view, conflicting subjectivities.

How a Character speaks, and how the Character speaks differently to different Characters, depicts the Character's character.

Dialogue is the writer's tool for convincing the reader that this Character whose story is being told is actually a perfectly level-headed, rational, sane person who totally understands what is TRUE (not "Truth" in that diagram but one of the shadows of Truth.)

The trick you play on your readers, the wink-and-a-nod agreement between you and your reader, lies in convincing the reader that you, the writer, know "Truth" -- all sides of it -- but understand how the Characters you are following each see only part of the truth, and the shadow of Truth that they see is True.

How do you resolve a conflict between True and True?

Also remember humans don't generally change their minds about what is True because they lose an argument.  Once the heat of the moment is over, they look again and see what is True -- and it is just that, true, therefore since it is true it can't be false!  So they go back to their old way of thinking.

Here's an example "ripped from the headlines."  Internet Security is a huge issue in your reader's world.  Since it is a huge issue, politicians have leaped in to offer to solve your problem for you (which is their business model in action).

So we have an internet supporting the "world wide web" (and a Dark Web run outside the purvue of Government).  The Internet was built via a few Universities connecting mainframes in order to share research.  It attracted graduate students who wanted to play Star Trek games, and set about improving the connections.  Off across the Atlantic, brilliant contributions created the foundation of what we call today a "browser."

All of this was created by well meaning, good people who couldn't think like criminals to save their lives.  The absolute most wrong-doing any of them might have been guilty of would have been pre-empting the credit line on a paper nobody but peers would ever read.

For years, that was the sort of person who used email and the internet.  Then commercial interests swept in to make a profit, and on their coat-tails came criminals, and after them came true nefarious actors.

Now governments want to make laws outlawing the "dark web" or outlawing encryption.

As with guns, law-abiding citizens will not have encryption but the outlaws and government-sponsored-hackers from our Enemies (think King David) will have unbreakable encryption.

Legislators want to make laws that say that software manufacturers have to leave 'a back door' in all their software so that government can break into anything (given a court order.)

The argument is that without being able to stealthily penetrate widely-used email or blog, social network software, and the backbone servers of the Internet, they can't protect the population from Terrorists.  That's TRUE.  Look at that diagram carefully.  It's true, but is it truth?

The FBI or CIA or whatever it's called in your country is probably saying what is in fact true  -- that they can't break the encryption the Enemies are using. (think King David; think Hero).

We have tasked "government" and thus the law-makers with the Objective of "keeping us safe" and defined "safe" as NO POSSIBILITY OF HARM EVER.  We are not "safe" if we feel (rationally feel) that there exists a finite possibility that we might be harmed in some way.

Is that a "heroic attitude?"

Is it a rational attitude?  Can you depict the rationality of a Character who has that attitude?

OK, now consider King David, and creating impossible alternatives that suddenly come to exist. Today we call King David's attitude, "thinking outside the box."

So let your Character who rationally chooses the objective of "no harm can be threatening my cyber-life at all, ever. I am safe online," discover another True thing, a different shape.

Again, think dialogue and white space.  An argument doesn't have to use the vocabulary of the subject matter. Innuendo and inference speak much louder.  Go watch The Godfather, or read the script.

For example, your Character discovers that the software that provides this "safety" makes his computer run unacceptably slowly.  Understanding the problem, he wants to buy a faster computer, but can't because it costs too much.  Only the very rich can afford smartphones or computers that have enough capacity to run the Government Mandated version of ordinary software.

Lets suppose that the Government backdoor lets the government snoop into your stuff, but at the same time, as a trade-off, actually does prevent malware, viruses, worms and whatever comes next.  Remember, this is science fiction, so a couple of absurd concepts have to be made plausible.

But the price is slowing hardware, or only the rich can afford to function at full speed in this new world.

Or take another situation.  Suppose the government mandated anti-encryption measure leaves you wide open to anything hackers want to do to you.  But the government mandate does allow your paltry level of hardware to run at a good speed.

Take one of those scenarios, or create a different one, and let your Main Character whose story you are telling get out of High School and come up against the Cyber-Security Problem.

Now, some Characters would major in Law and become politicians.  Others might go into Computer Science.  A few might major in Divinity and become Preachers.  Still others might major in Criminal Psychology.  Then there's the drop-out who creates Facebook or Microsoft.  A few might major in Literature and become writers.

Pick a Character, let his/her Enemy steal his Identity, or perhaps send him/her into the Witness Protection Program.  Now what?

If this is a science fiction romance book you are writing, you can go research the Cyber Security field as a whole, all the way back to its origins, and perhaps the psychological origins of the concept Security, and re-think it.  Perhaps you want to use a galactic setting, and introduce Alien Ideas about what constitutes cyber-security.

Consider, for example, re-defining "the problem" (again, think King David and generating impossible options such as "smite my enemy.").

The problem is there is an Enemy who has done you damage.

Unlike King David who voluntarily goes to a Third Party (God), here a Third Party comes along and offers to solve your problem for you, convincing you that it's their job to solve your problem.

You welcome that Third Party's solution, and pay the requested fee.

The Third Party's solution is to pepper your life with obstacles, making everything you do slower and more difficult, so you won't do anything that might let your Enemy harm you.

Meanwhile, the Enemy that is your problem has their path smoothed and sped up.

Since so much of your money went to paying your Third Party protector, and so much of what's left of your energy is expended overcoming the obstacles the Third Party created in your life to protect you, you therefore have very little left to fight your Enemy.  You are now an unarmed, sitting duck etched against your Enemy's horizon.

Note that Kind David prayed to his Third Party to smite his enemies, pledging that his Enemies were also Enemies of the Third Party.  King David requested help from a carefully chosen Third Party, made alliance, and was thus able to smite Enemies.

The Enemies felt that smiting, severely.  The target of all that output energy was the Enemy, not King David, who fought most of these truly forlorn battles before he became King and thus took over "the government."

If your Main Character is a Hero, his/her "Security" does not consist of being disabled before Enemies by Friends or Hirelings.  "Security" means Friends and Hirelings focus their smiting upon the Enemy, not upon the Main Character.

Since, in your reader's real life today, Cyber-security is accomplished by hampering the reader's ability to function without touching the reader's Enemy (hackers), you have an excellent chance of engrossing your reader with a tale of a world where the characters representing the reader's Enemy get the brunt of the smiting.

This happened when Google crowd-sourced spam filtering.  Just take a look at your spam folder on gmail.  Very seldom does a spam get through to your inbox.  At one point, it was 300 spams to 1 genuine email.

Email users' rational fury was redirected by Google's crowd-sourcing data-mining to target The Enemy, whereupon The Enemy got the brunt of the smiting.  Since a few spams still get through, and there are still a trusting few who click where they should not, spammers still try to bring down the Internet Backbone by overloading it with spam messages -- and they somehow make a profit.  Or it is possible they are paid by foreign governments to make running Internet Backbone Servers more expensive -- with the objective of bankrupting the more advanced countries.  Enmity.

Google didn't punish the recipients of spam, but let the recipients pour out their fury on the spammers.

Right now, your readers are feeling the government pouring out its fury (we must have access to your everything in order to protect you) on the readers of websites rather than on the disruptors (hackers) of web-services, web commerce, and reader privacy.  

In our real world, we practice a principle, "Don't blame the victim."  In the case of cyber security, the smartphone user, the web browsing public is the victim, but the only solution being offered is to punish the victim, hamper the victim with privacy restrictions.

Think outside the box.  Suppose, your Aliens' idea of cyber security was to equip every victim with the ability to strike back at any intruder with lethal force?  Suppose any hacker who penetrated a server had his/her equipment blow up in his face?  Suppose the target of all efforts at protection was the Enemy, not the enemy's target.

OK, that isn't possible with today's hardware, software, and the whole psychology that created our Internet.  Think King David.  Think about an Ally that can do miracles.

That Third Party, that Ally, is the "Game Changer" you insert into your Worldbuilding.

Fury that your Main Character directs at his/her true Enemy will always seem rational.

Fury misdirected at the proponent of a different version of "Truth" (see the image above) that, while different, is still true, will not seem rational.

Your Hero may have irrational moments, and in those moments do things that later cause plot-complications, and serious trouble, but to be the Hero, your Character must fix what he/she has broken or ruined.

The Hero can't remain a Hero in the reader's eyes if the Hero spews vitriol or rage at another Character's TRUE facts without searching for that central figure that joins the Hero's True Facts to the Antagonist's True Facts -- thus revealing "The Truth" to both of them.

If both Hero and Antagonist are "rational" and furious for rational (true) reasons, then discovery of "The Truth" at the center of things will make them Allies, friends forever, possibly a Bonded Pair living Happily Ever After.

If one or the other clings to what is True because of Enmity for the other, the Fury will continue in a fight to the death.

The one exhibiting irrational fury is the one the writer has to kill off to give the reader "closure."

The Hero must win through to an unrestricted field where life can be re-created freehand, reflecting the Hero's own will, a field shared only with those the Hero chooses.  That is one defining parameter of the Happily Ever After -- the ability to choose, personally and without restriction, who does or does not share your living space, how large that space is, and what it's shape is.

That means choice of profession, lifestyle, associates, and how loudly you play your music.

The writer can convince the reader of the rationality of a character's fury simply by allowing that fury to arise only against restrictions imposed by an Enemy or a Confidence Operator pretending to "protect" by "restricting."

"Happily Ever After" means you don't have to protect yourself, or pay someone to protect you, because your Enemy has been smited out of existence, and anyone with the power to harm you is your ally.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 11 -- Depicting Complex Battle-scenes by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction Part 11
Depicting Complex Battle-scenes
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Here's the index post for this series on Depiction:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

The big secret of writing Award Winners and Best Sellers is more about what you leave out than what you put in.

But to know what to leave out, you have to think through every tiny detail, from within the point of view of your main character and know what it is you are leaving out, and why you are leaving it out.

Within the main character's point of view, you know what that character knows -- and you don't know what that character does not know.

It sounds so simple when you say it.  Not simple at all.  It's another craft technique, and a tool for your toolbox.

Mastery of that writing tool - leaving OUT the most interesting part - is the hallmark of the great writers.

The great writers engage the creative imagination of readers, luring them into creating their own version of the story, bringing the characters alive within the reader's mind.  That is done by leaving room for the reader to insert themselves into the story - to think like the character.

If you detail every thought in the character's mind, or go into long conversations or arguments about whether to do something anyone who is an expert in the choices being discussed would KNOW would not be considered -- just the explain to the reader why you didn't write a thing a certain way -- you lose your primary audience, and repel any casual reader who will read anything.  In other words, you write boring stuff.

So a big chunk of characterization lies within what a character does NOT think, not simply within what the character does think.

I found a beautiful example of this in a book I was reading because the author had been one of my first writing students.

He is Charles E. Gannon - Chuck Gannon on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/chuck.gannon.01
(don't shorten that link - there's another by the same name)

His publisher put up on Amazon the following bio:

About the Author
Charles E. Gannon is a breakthrough rising star in science fiction with a multiple short story and novella publications in Baen anthologies, Man-Kzin Wars XIII, Analog, and elsewhere. Gannon is coauthor with Steve White of Extremis, the latest entry in the legendary Starfire series created by David Weber. His most recent novel is 1635: The Papal Stakes cowritten with alternate history master, Eric Flint.  A multiple Fulbright scholar, Gannon is Distinguished Professor of American Literature at St. Bonaventure University.

When he brought his first attempt to write a story to me, he was just a kid -- really young kid.  Look what he grew up to become! 

Chuck Gannon's first novel in his Tales of the Terran Republic, Fire With Fire, A Caine Riordan Novel...



...was nominated for the Nebula and won another award. 

Here's my discussion of that one:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

The second Caine Riordan novel, Trial by Fire, with much more of a "Military Science Fiction" tone (an invasion of Earth by recently contacted Alien coalition) garnered a Nebula Nomination and lots of Hugo attention just like the first.  And there are a lot of reasons for that.



In short, Trial by Fire is a fabulous Mission: Impossible TV episode, or better, movie, writ large.



The plot of the novel unfolds a massive, complex, (beautiful) piece of psychological leverage, of Assumption Judo used against non-humans and featuring the best of human nature.  Trial by Fire is a jaw-dropper just like the Mission: Impossible TV Series episodes, especially of the First Season.  So it has my highest recommendation - with the caveat that it is not a Romance genre novel.  But Romance readers who love Relationship plots will not be bored. 

This blog is about Science Fiction Romance, but just as with the Romance element in World War II movies, Science Fiction Romance often includes long, intricate, complicated, battles. 

In fact, Fantasy Romance does, too, when vast armies on horseback deploy to fight for a Kingdom. 

So a Romance writer who leaps into the science fiction field has to know how to do this kind of thinking, how to lay out battle tactics, how to choose weaponry, how to think like a soldier or a Commander -- and most importantly how to know what to leave out, and why to leave it out, even though it's interesting to a big part of your audience. 

The skill-set is termed Selectivity in many books on writing, and it is a key to all forms of Art.

Selecting what to put in requires precision handling of the Theme. 

Selecting what to leave out requires precision handling of the Characterization. 

In the case of Charles E. Gannon's Trial by Fire, the armies and armadas of Earth are fighting for control of Earth. 

The main character we follow, among many, Caine Riordan, is a "polymath" -- he doesn't think the same way most humans do.  He doesn't think the way anyone else in the novel does. 

There are a couple of good, solid Love Stories twined through this plot -- the Hero is deeply (and oddly) involved with two women, with a lot of heroism and angst, but those relationships don't drive the invasion or the counter-strike of this plot.  It's a good read, and if you study the battle scenes, it will teach you a lot about what to put in and what to leave out of a sex scene. 

So as I was reading the Kindle version of this novel, I took some notes using the Kindle note feature. 

Then I thought about it all, went back to a note I dropped into his Chapter Fifty-Two (they are short chapters, but this is a very long book) and decided to drop a grain of sand onto Chuck Gannon's Facebook Wall, and see if he made me a pearl.  Sure enough, he did.  I can be very irritating at times.  So I posed my question from my note in the most provocative way I could imagine. 

I wrote on his wall:
---------QUOTE--------
A question: when communications are all out in the Jakarta region and they have to instruct troops about the action, why don't they send out loudspeaker trucks and guys with bullhorns? Is this so far in the future nobody has such things or are they all destroyed? Or did I miss something?
---------END QUOTE-------

CHUCK ANSWERED ON HIS FACEBOOK WALL

---------QUOTE---------

Chuck Gannon
Lots of reasons. In no particular order: (and I speak of trucks, but same would apply to runners with bull horns)

1) counter targeting invite. Audial triangulation would find snipers easily by this time; Speaker trucks would be like "shoot me" signs.

2) difficulty with centralized control relaying to trucks. Control net by subsurface fiber optic, in absence of any ability to use airwaves, or to trust that you could safely signal in the clear, means you have to go for secure hardwire/fiberwire.; Trucks would have to get messages, return for more. Turnaround time fatal for contemporary MOUT scenario depicted.

3) centralization trackback of source of truck messaging: a half witted adversary will realize the trucks are having to get updated with messages. Find, observe, follow messenger or truck path to update point, and you take out a commo nexus. Given difficulty of insurgent C4i environment, it is probably a command and control nexus. Hi value target; crippling blow to insurgents.

4) trucks not historically used in front line engagements as passing info; usually preop marshaling, often for civilians, not troops. Useful for issuing mass directives to masses. The more closely orchestrated or tightly sequential an operation is, the more its communications must be inaccessible to the threat force, swift, clear, coded. None of that is possible with speaker trucks.

There are more reasons (having to do with logistics, inability to get immediate ping backs to determine yes/no on receipt of message and therefore op timing confirmation, etc.)
--------END QUOTE-------------


That is a precious pearl for beginning writers to study in the context of this high profile novel. 

A few fans of his jumped on the discussion, and one who is involved in creating a wiki for the Universe Chuck is writing in captured his response for the wiki -- and put my name on there. 

http://tales-of-the-terran-republic.wikia.com/wiki/Command_&_Control_Considerations

The discussion thread is:
https://www.facebook.com/chuck.gannon.01/posts/10203596444013156

So get these two books and start following the adventures of Caine Riordan, the Polymath. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 5 Depicting Dynastic Wealth by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction Part 5
Depicting Dynastic Wealth
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

There is an old saying, "If you want to understand what's really going on, follow the money."

This is true in real life, yes, but because your readers live in that "real" life, it is exceptionally true in fiction.

When you do worldbuilding to create the society, government, laws, geography, political in-fighting, social status, technology, weaponry, economy, and dynamic evolution of culture that led to the situation your main theme and conflict depict, you must include not just MONEY -- but WEALTH. 

Money and Wealth (two different things) are the lifeblood of your world, not just of the economy but of the whole world. 

We discussed "wealth distribution" and the 1% here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-7.html

And we've been in hot-pursuit of the secret to the mechanism behind a type of novel we all enjoy -- the HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (King, Prince Charming, Lord something,), the Tall Dark Stranger who turns out to have power, connections, status, and sweep us away into a new life of prominence and privilege. 

Yet our society today (in the USA) is adamantly averse to the entire concept that there should be such wealthy people (how much did you say that CEO made per year?). 

We hold up the statistics about billionaires as examples of what's wrong with everything.

http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#tab:overall

So how could there be any Romance in marrying a Billionaire (or King, or Prince, Mogul, Mob Kingpin, whatever)?  Why would anyone think that such a marriage would improve life?  You'd just be viciously hated.  Where's the romance?

And where's the Science Fiction in marrying a 1%-er -- since on this blog we deal with the hybrid genres that combine the appeal of Romance with any and every other genre.

We are especially focused on blending Science Fiction and/or Urban Fantasy or Paranormal into Romance.

Once blended, once you "have an idea" for a science fiction romance novel, you have to frame that idea with a "world" that you build to show-don't-tell the idea.  That's where the technical craft skill of "depiction" comes in.

Here are previous posts in the Depiction series and some hybrid topics:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/dialogue-part-9-depicting-culture-with.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-2-conflict-and-resolution.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-3-internal-conflict-by.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/theme-plot-integration-part-14-ruling.html

One of my favorite types of reading is Historical Romances about the Aristocracy. 

I've always been enamored of hoop-skirts, and so one of my favorite movie scenes is the Polka sequence in THE KING AND I "Shall We Dance." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcWNhCdDkMQ

The classic rags-to-riches character arc is incessantly popular.  Anna in THE KING AND I has inherent "values" that govern her behavior even in the presence of royalty (and she comes from a country with Royalty) and immense wealth (and the power of life-and-death that goes with it in Siam but not England.) 

That immense wealth is (historically) viewed as "unearned" wealth and power that is bestowed by the "accident of birth" or somehow stolen, usurped (think Robin Hood and Maid Marian.)  Historically, such wealth/power was bestowed by the King upon the valiant Knight who saved the Crown (or whatever service). 

Given a Knighthood, a commoner might sally forth and win a Barony, marry well and beget sons who would marry up the hierarchy, and their sons might inherit a wife's inherited lands, and gradually over 6 generations or so, the family would be considered genuine Nobility -- and perhaps beget an heir to the throne.  Dynastic Wealth Personified.  Thus every Mother who raised a son could dream of being the (forgotten, and embarrassing) ancestress of a King.

The theme is: "Nobody could ever possibly earn such Royal wealth/power (1%-er Billionaire) in one lifetime."  If they have such wealth, it means they stole it.  That is a THEME. 

Wealth like that can't belong to any one person because that is "impossible."  Kings don't make their money, they steal it.  Everyone knows that. 

Remember, we're writing Science Fiction Romance.  So we can use any science to form the foundation of the worldbuilding.  We can postulate anything that violates the reader's current understanding of that science, then depict the world and portray the Characters and Conflict to argue the reader into believing the postulate (however impossible it might be.) 

The core essence of Science Fiction is "We do the improbable immediately; the impossible takes a little longer."  Think Scotty on STAR TREK. 

Or think Spock. 

The most scintillating line Spock delivers is "Unknown, Captain." -- when something is currently unknown to a scientist with 6 Ph.D.'s (like Spock) and it is now confronting the character, then we have a science fiction story. 

The plot's main conflict must be resolved to doing the impossible, by exceeding design specifications, by learning something that has never been known by humanity, and applying that knowledge to human advantage. 

Science Fiction is all about doing what you can't do. 

In science fiction, the characters do not ever say, "I'm doing all I can." or "We'll do everything possible."  NEVER!!! 

In science fiction, the characters live in a universe where there are no limits on humanity, and the stories are about the individuals whose conflicts are caused by an impact with an apparent human limit that is simply unacceptable.

The conflict resolution is by transcendence of that apparent limit, proving it was never a limit at all.  This pushes back the borders of human knowledge and capability -- which is what science is all about. 

In Science, there is no such thing as, "Man Was Not Meant To Know."  Today, a lot of research money is being spent on proving the Soul is not real, and everything humans experience can be explained by brain physics and chemistry. 

In Romance, the exact same conflict works: 

Right there stands MY MAN -- recognized at First Sight -- but he is unattainable.  The resolution of that conflict is the wedding, the impossible is attained. 

This, of course, works just as well, if not better, when it's "There is MY WOMAN" but she's unattainable.

That's why Science Fiction and Romance blend so well, and so easily.  Both are always about doing the impossible and changing the course of human history by that deed. 

Science's product is the Cell Phone.  Romance's product is a child.  The cell phone was invented by someone's child.  Science Fiction and Romance are identical, at the core. 

Today, the contemporary romance market consists of women who are the children and grandchildren of a USA culture shaped by many forces.  Most prominent among thos forces is Taxes. 

Politicians call shaping public behavior by Tax incentives or dis-incentives  "social engineering."

"Social Engineering" is the idea that tax incentives can control the "masses" who live limited by the laws made by those who know better, who understand the world better, or who have a better idea of what correct behavior should be.  That's how Aristocrats think.  "Us vs. Them"

To tag a Character as one who thinks of himself as an Aristocrat, use the dialogue phrase, "Out There" -- but not "In Here." 

A character who says, "There is a lot of fraud out there," tags himself as an Aristocrat and a perpetrator of various frauds he/she considers legitimate privileges his Class has but other Classes do not. 

The "out there" phrase is modern American for the assumption of the existence of a Class Structure.  The Constitution was framed with the assumption that there is no such thing as Class.  But it was framed by Aristocrats. 

The USA is founded on the principle that anyone can attain anything.  It's often termed "upward mobility" -- but it really means upward and downward mobility -- and if you think about it, you see that if an "up" or a "down" can be defined at all, then the entire philosophy is founded on a Class Structure.

Some writers term the USA a Meritocracy -- where those of merit gain elevated status.  About 40% of your readers subconsciously look at it that way. 

The individual who refuses to accept barriers to achievement is a great subject for fiction -- especially romance, and these days doubly especially Fantasy or Paranormal Romance. 

Those who refuse to accept limitations or barriers are called Heros.

All Romance that depicts an HEA is Heroic Literature because the HEA is so fundamentally impossible in our modern world.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/if-hea-is-implausible-how-come-it.html

Nevertheless, the HEA is real and does happen (frequently). 

Your job as a writer of Romance Novels is to make the Happily Ever After ending seem plausible to your readers, and attainable in real life, even if that requires writing in Historical times of Kings and arranged marriages for Dynastic reasons.

In the historical days of Kings and their horse-mounted tax collectors, taxes were used by Kings to do social engineering, controlling the peasants, and later the Merchant and Craftsman classes. 

Tax Collectors would raid farming villages and steal the seed corn, then come back the next year and punish the people for not having enough for them to steal.

The Kings and the Aristocracy needed the money to support armies (to defend themselves against peasant revolts), and their lavish lifestyles of conspicuous waste.  They needed money (and food) for Armies to conquer neighboring Kingdoms, gain more peasants and better land, and stop neighboring Kings from raiding their peasants. 

It was all very raw, very brutal -- and very much in the current events News of today where the Kings are Drug Kingpins, Cartel bosses, one or another Terrorist cult, or Street Gang.  All those groups are totalitarian.  The law is what the strongest guy says it is, unless he changes his mind.   

And yet, the ultimate rags-to-riches Romance in the Cinderella story is still very popular.  It's a fantasy complete with fairy godmother and ravishing Prince Charming, and kids grow up on it. 

There is an assumption behind that story, that is never questioned.  Adding science fiction to Romance means incorporating such never-asked-questions into the worldbuilding and into the theme. 

So ask yourself, "When Cinderella was identified by the Prince via the glass slipper, was it 'A GOOD THING' for Cinderella?"

If Aristocrats and Kings (and Billionaires) are such horrible, unprincipled, vicious, death-dealing, selfish, bullies, then why would what happened to Cinderella be A GOOD THING for Cinderella? 

Why would anyone want to join with such people, have their children, raise their children to be selfish, horrible bullies in their turn?  What sort of selfish-horrible-bully was Cinderella that she'd be willing to have anything to do with the scion of such a family?

If a person is a bully with their money, won't they bully their wives - and God Forbid, abuse their children?  If Cinderella's Prince is not a selfish-bully when she meets him, inheriting wealth and power (the Crown) would turn him into something worse than Darth Vader -- wouldn't it?  So why wouldn't she run for her life when he finds her? 

Is she that stupid?  If she wises up, what will she do as Queen?  Become a worse bully than her Prince and put him in his place?  Hire an Assassin?  Stage her own death and run for the hills? 

Those are the sort of questions that science fiction themes ask, but Romance themes shy away from because they require direct confrontation with emotional pain, and the pain of uncertainty, in a way that is softened by being in love.

When you combine science fiction and romance, you get an explosive combination that gives that softened world of love some hard edges. 

We know that Cinderella was the step-daughter in an aristocratic House - a minor House that coveted an invitation to the royal Ball (Major Houses don't covet such invitations; they ponder whether to accept or not.) 

Cinderella was "entitled" because she was a relative, but they enslaved her to do the work of a servant. 
(Servants are slaves is a theme). 

Note how THEME, CONFLICT, and DEPICTION dovetail into an artistic composition. 

Here are some posts that are indexes to lists of posts on Theme and how it integrates with other components of a composition.

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

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

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

The theme behind the Cinderella type of Rags-to-Riches Historical Romance about the Aristocracy is Tax Collectors Are Thieves.

What has Cinderella, the abused step-child, to do with Taxes? 

If you want to understand what's really happening, follow the money. 

Why was the family mean to Cinderella?  Because they hated her?  Well, why did they hate her?  None of the versions show her as a person of bad character in a family of solidly good characters. 

This was a family which, to Cinderella the child, seemed rich and privileged, but she didn't understand the Situation because she didn't know how to "follow the money." 

The step-mother's objective was to marry her own daughters off to RICH MEN (Billionaires, the 1%).  To do that, she had to appear to be still as rich as her husband would have let her be.  Her only hope for her own existence was to bag a 1%-er for at least one, if not all, her daughters.

To do that, she had to have A SERVANT -- and no "servant" could aspire to marry a 1%-er, or  A Billionaire.  A CEO. 

So the Step-mother made a servant out of her step-daughter, whereupon said step-daughter no longer owed her any loyalty. 

That started a downward spiral in the relationship with Cinderella, and it became not only OK but REQUIRED that she be abused so she wouldn't get uppity.  She had to learn her place (which was difficult because it was in fact not her place, and step-mother and step-sisters knew it.)

Meanwhile, the step-mother is required to PAY TAXES as if she still commanded a fortune.  When the King gets taxes from his aristocracy, he sees those tax-payers as his supporters (think Campaign Donations), and supporters get access (Ball Invitations.)  What Cinderella does not know is that the step-mother has no money left because of the taxes.  This Ball is her last chance, and Prince Charming is her only hope. 

Remember, Tax Collectors also have wives and children.  But who dreams of being a tax collector's wife or husband?

What if your true Soul Mate is a tax collector (or today, an accountant, bookkeeper, or IRS Bureaucrat).  They make a good living, but aren't "rich" by the 1% rule, not on the Forbes Billionaire List.

And tax collectors don't make the tax laws.  In fact, the tax collectors and IRS auditors don't even get to make the IRS "regulations" which are enforced by the IRS as if they were actual Law.  "Bureaucrats" that you, as a tax-payer, never get to talk to, make those Regulations. 

You can go to jail for violating a regulation made by people you did not elect, but who were appointed by your enemies. 

Is your reader's situation fundamentally different from Cinderella's step-mother's situation?  Or Cinderella's for that matter -- underpaid working-stiff.

Is today any different from the days of Aristocrats and Kings? 

Is there something less "romantic" about contemporary Romance novels than Historical or Regency Romance novels?

In a realm of Kings and Aristocrats, the tax collectors siphoned off the "profit" made by "peasants" (usually farmers, but merchants and craftsmen too), and accumulated that wealth in "storehouses."  The King had a treasury, would buy gold, jewels, etc as a means of storing wealth, and as an investment.

When it came time for a war, the King would sell gems and whatever to buy Mercenaries, and conscript, train and arm young men from his peasantry.  Merchants and craftsmen could buy their children out of the army with -- yep, taxes.

In the historical days of Kings and Aristocrats, even at the top, lives were short.  A 40 year old man was elderly.

So marriages were early, especially for girls, and children were the main agenda item for any marriage into wealth.  The production of the Heir was paramount.

Study History all the way back to, say 2,000 BCE, maybe 3,000 BCE.  Look for the beginning of Civilization.

OK, "history" actually begins (according to historians) at the year 1,000 CE when we have some documentation.

But I consider History stretches at least back to the Biblical accounts of Kings and Prophets.

If you read the books of Kings and Prophets, it is clear that cities existed and were taken for granted even then.  Egypt had cities.

Archeology has dug up cities farther back -- Persia, Babylon, etc.

Anthropology dates "civilization" (the transition from hunter-gatherer, tribal nomads) from the discovery of agriculture -- and that's around 9,000 years ago, or more in some places.

The ability to domesticate animals and grow food creates the ability to live in one place, year round. 

And then structures are built, crafts are invented, bridges installed and things are made.

Economics is the study of how transforming human time, effort, energy, and cleverness into THINGS which increase lifespan and lifestyle stability, creates WEALTH.  THINGS are "wealth."  When those things change ownership, you begin to have "money."

Kings coin "money."  A medium of exchange of wealth -- to transfer wealth from one person to another by a symbolic intermediary (coin).  So money becomes a proxy for wealth.  And in some minds, money becomes wealth itself.  Pointing out the fallacy behind such thinking is what writers do, in every genre, by formulating themes that expose the fallacy.

Here are some posts on the ways writers can use Fallacy:

"Fallacies and Endorphins"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html

"The Fallacy of Safety"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-6-fallacy.html

"The Fallacy of Trust"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/theme-plot-integration-part-7-fallacy.html

Kings get their wealth by stealing it (calling that taxes.)  This  can be considered a Misnomer or a Fallacy, depending on the point of view.

Here are some posts on Misnomers -- a powerful dramatic technique:

"The Use Of Media Headlines"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html

"The Gigolo and the Lounge Lizard"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/dialogue-part-7-gigolo-and-lounge.html

If they are clever Kings, they steal it a little at a time so as not to kill off the peasants who did the work to make the profit which working-stiffs can't be allowed to keep because then they'd have POWER.

The King's profession is keeping power out of the control of peasants.

To do that, the Kings have to convince most of the peasants (and merchants and craftsmen) that peasants can't manage wealth.  There's something unique and special about a King that bestows the wisdom to manage vast wealth or power to make lives miserable. 

This knack of wealth-management is inherited by the Heir. 

Some use the theory of "Divine Right" -- others admit it's just being the best swordsman or the most ruthless killer.

But in either case, the populace needs the legitimate Heir to inherit and manage that Power.

So look back all the way to the beginning of civilization, living in cities with people who are not related to you by blood or marriage. 

Scientific advancements (such as domesticating animals and agriculture) allowed peasants to make a profit (enough to buy food, clothing, shelter) and pay taxes.  Kings slowly accumulated into enough wealth to wield real POWER.

Follow the money.

Wealth, turned into money, flowed to a central point, came under the control of individuals (who hadn't worked to earn it), and became POWER which was used to control the peasants as if they were slaves or possessions.  Their freedom was only an illusion. 

Over thousands of years, we have records of good kings and bad kings, kings who delivered prosperity, and kings who delivered poverty.

If you haven't reviewed the Book of Kings lately, you should do a quick read-through. 

Yes, it is a book of The Bible, but those are accounts of real people who really lived, and struggled to do their best (edited to show a specific theme, but still facts about what people did).  A lot of those Kings were really bad Kings. 

The heirs of Good Kings turned out to be Bad Kings -- leading their kingdoms into war, or ill-fated alliances.  But their heirs were good Kings, returning to the values and principles that had produced prosperity some generations ago.

The trend, though, was downhill. 

The succession of Kings shows increasing ineptitude, culminating in Exile(s).

Some essential skill at Wealth Management did not transmit across generations.  It would be established, last maybe two or three generations, and fizzle away.  That pattern seems to repeat throughout all human history, all over the world.

Science Fiction looks at accounts of this kind and asks questions such as, "What did they do right when skills did transmit to the next generation?"  "What did they do wrong when skills were lost?" 

The spiritual answer is the simple and obvious one made by the Books of Kings and Prophets -- follow God's Commandments, you do just fine; stray away after the gods of other cultures, you crash-and-burn. 

Romance novelists ask the question, "Why does a next generation ever -- EVER -- absorb the parents' values?  How can it be that skills of wealth-management ever transmit properly to the next generation?" 

And the Romance Novelist will come up with the best answer I've ever encountered.  It works because of the Wife - it works because of the Soul Mate - it works because of the WOMEN!!! 

The right woman is the flywheel stabilizing a man's power-management judgement calls. 

The theory behind the "arranged marriage" (which is another type of romance novel I adore) is that the adults (remember, historically marriage had to happen in early-teens because life-expectancy was short) had a better chance of mating a pair who were in fact Soul Mates than there would be if the children just chose.  Children are still growing into themselves and make choices they out-grow in a few years.  A Mother can foresee what the child will grow to be. 

Remember High School?  How many boys did you date?  How many heart-throbs did you fall for?  How many crushes did you have?  How many boys did you yearn after, hoping they'd notice you and now you're glad they didn't? 

Do you now have confidence that you had enough wisdom to choose a life-partner during those years?  Yet those are the years in which marriages had to be consummated in order for civilization to continue, because life spans were so short.  You had to have your children in your teens in order to live long enough to transmit any values to them by the time they were teens.  (Romeo and Juliet were kids, remember?)

Of course, when we are in our early teens, we have no clue that our choices aren't wise, and no idea what information adults have that we don't.  Adults are really stupid. 

There's another consideration about teen-marriages.  The following 10 years, maybe all the way through age 28, produce enormous changes in an individual's agenda, coping strategies, and operating premises.  The basic personality doesn't change, but the implementation of that basic personality's main attributes does change.  So a marriage appropriate for a 16 year old girl to an 18 year old (or 25 year old) guy has a high probability of going bad within a decade. 

Arranged Marriage is not anti-feminist, but it's not focused on romance. 

When an arranged-marriage couple hits it lucky, they grow together, toward each other, rather than away during the first decade or two, and after that they are comfortable.

Now, here's the question.  What sort of marriage process results in transmission of wealth-management skills on the level a King requires?  What heir apparent upbringing is necessary to produce a future King who won't destroy the Kingdom? 

Or phrase it for a contemporary romance novel: What sort of marriage does the protagonist require to grow to understand he/she is a King, the decision-making boss whose will shapes the behavior of Elected Officials.  Remember, the US Constitution was written in revolt against a King, and put The People in charge instead of a King. 

The People were to interview and hire a President to manage administration, and others to make laws - and those two would hire Judges to make sure laws were consistent.  Today Voters are the Kings, and government workers the peasants.  Or employees are the Kings and Corporations the peasants who work for the employees.  This is all POINT OF VIEW SHIFTING - a skill writers must practice.

In Depiction Part 6, February 3, 2015) we'll look at what it takes to learn and then transmit the difference between money and wealth. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com