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

Depiction Part 4: Depicting Power in Culture by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction
Part 4
Depicting Power in Culture
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 

This post is about developing Rules of Engagement to depict a culture different from our own, yet thematically related in a way that allows the reader/viewer to walk into the story and see the whole thing as "real" even though the "world" you have built is truly alien. 

This skill-set of depiction arises out of the Theme-Worldbuilding Integration series.

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

The previous posts on Depiction are:
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

In short: depiction is show-don't-tell brought into a high, subtle, "off-the-nose" artform. 

Depiction is the author being sneaky and not letting their own opinion leak through into the worldbuilding.  No two readers will assess what is depicted the same way.  But what they do assess is the part of the book they will remember longest.

That's why, when you go on social networks and try to get someone to help you remember the title or author of a book you halfway remember, and relate this vivid scene or starkly memorable character, what you get back is scattershot attempts to help, and not the book you are looking for.

The part you remember is the part you found in the depiction.

As a writer, you can't use depiction to make your point. 

But if you do not have a point, and you are not trying to make that point, most readers will get bored and drop the story in the trash. 

If you don't stick to the point you depicted on Page 1, and STOP once you've made that point (nail The End), if you let bits and pieces remain in the final draft that should have been deleted for use in another book with another point, you will get very angry readers giving you 1-star reviews on Amazon.

The clarity of "point" that most readers want has to be made off-the-nose.  It is via that point depicted that the reader enters this alternate Reality and rides with you to The End.

One of the issues that many readers have with Romance Novels is the HEA, the Happily Ever After ending that just is not plausible in their own everyday reality.  The lack of plausibility is often (not always) traceable to the depiction of the HEA. 

The HEA is the resolution to a problem that the reader believes can not be resolved.  The resolution of the conflict has its roots on Page 1, in the way the conflict is depicted.  Do Page 1 right, and the reader suspends disbelief and actually believes the HEA (at least for a few seconds). 

The Depiction series of posts on this blog is about mastering the techniques of depiction in order to create an HEA that is not a HFN (Happily For Now), and yet is absolutely believable by readers living in a harsh reality.

To that end, we are examining how to depict culture. 

Cultures are based on abstract ideas like religious ideas that the cultural pressures (peer pressure) make desirable. 

If you live the beliefs of the culture around you, you are taking the easiest path to developing Relationships.

In Science Fiction, we focus mostly on the individual who is an oddball, a maverick, an outcast, a 'drifter' type in a Western, a "First-In Scout" (an explorer with no ties to anyone).  We focus on the Loner who has no problem with being a loner.  And Science Fiction is mostly about depicting by stark illustration what value such loners have to society and ultimately to the culture.

The Loner is not always the person so unstable they are about to freak out and murder a mob of people just because they're angry.

The Loner is depicted as honorable, kind, just, and strong. 

Being a Loner is not the problem a Science Fiction Novel is written to solve.  The Main Character of a Science Fiction Novel does not experience being a Loner as a PROBLEM.  He/she is not "in conflict" with the situation of being alone. 

The Science Fiction hero's Loner situation usually comes about because of being at odds with the Establishment.  He's the Scientist who believes there really is life on Mars, or UFO's have visited Earth, or human activity really is not creating climate change, but natural forces of Earth itself are causing what we observe.

The Science Fiction Hero is the oddball, tin-hat crazy who turns out to be correct, and the plot-driving major conflict depicts his determined effort to prove he is correct -- or depicts his efforts to just get away from those who want to make sure he never proves he's correct.

His opposition has a "vested interest" (an emotional need) to know beyond doubt that this Science Fiction Hero's ideas are crazy, and thus untrue.

The HEA rejection mechanism is psychologically similar, so pay attention. 

The Powers That Be in our modern culture have that kind of "vested interest" in convincing the majority that the HEA is not possible.  The Universe structure which makes it obvious to us that the HEA is possible lies at odds with the Universe structure that gives the Powers That Be power over us.

Here are a few posts on the HEA.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/education-of-action-romance-hero.html

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

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/big-love-sci-fi-part-vii-unconditional.html

So the typical Science Fiction Hero (this blog is about Science Fiction and/or Paranormal Romance, the hybrid genre), is alone, at least at or before the start of the story. 

What does it mean "alone?" 

It means not just having no family ties, or being free of obligations, debts, and other strings, but also it means being sovereign over your own mind, heart, body, and course in life. 

The Science Fiction hero is a person who has become a Strong Character because of being a Loner.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/strong-characters-defined-part-3-tit.html
Part 3 has links to previous parts in the Strong Character series.

So it is natural for the Science Fiction Hero to become the Most Desirable Hunk in the Romance heroine's world.  He's a REAL CATCH -- and unattached to boot. 

Why did it take so long for Romance to discover Science Fiction?  (it all started with Star Trek, you know, and the Vampire Romance)

So when you set out to build a world around your story, you hide the point deep inside the worldbuilding.  Your point, as a writer, is an unconscious assumption of your characters, and a given of their culture. 

You get to state your point baldly in a single sentence that takes up half a line at most -- and is placed near the end or actually at the end of the novel.  It is Blake Snyder's "theme-stated" beat (see SAVE THE CAT! trilogy of books on screenwriting.)  Your point is inside your theme and is depicted within the characters' culture.

In Science Fiction, you often have two or more cultures to play with, and usually they are at odds with one another creating the main external conflict.  That's how most science fiction turns out to be about wars.

So a culture that is the outgrowth of war has to have its most prominent identifying beliefs focused on the use and abuse of Power.

Remember Star Trek's Klingons.  A good day to die.  The relish of the fun of combat.  Social interactions based on dominance displays. 

The original depiction of the Klingons (designed to work in the tiny space allowed in a TV episode), was very comic-bookish, too cliche, too facile.

So as the popularity of the Klingons grew, we saw different foreheads, a more thoughtful explanation of their values, and development of the language by a fan, and the addition of culturally specific weapons depicting tradition.  The culture acquired a history, depth, and real people. 

And all of it is based on the combat stance in personal relationships.  So Klingon culture has a whole lot of rules about who can do what to whom, when and how much.

The unfolding of Klingon culture from a line-drawing sketch of something to oppose the Enterprise into a galactic dominating, swaggering, and mighty culture with real people, and a character named Worf who grew up in a human family is a good model to study for depiction of opposition, and for worldbuilding a culture in order to depict a "worthy opponent."

Note how as Star Trek developed, this formidable opponent was nearly destroyed, and was rescued by Kirk et. al., then became an ally of the Federation that Kirk represented.  That "arc" of development of the Relationship between the two cultures is DEPICTED, -- shown not told.

One could make the case that early Klingon versions were bullies, or the most admirable trait in Klingon culture was bullying. 

We discussed bullying in the Theme-Worldbuidding series:

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

The anti-bullying culture subscribes to some simple rules of them to detect bullying situations. 

"Don't hit below the belt"

"Don't pick on someone smaller than you" (in size, power, reach, ability)

This picking on someone smaller than you is what Israel is depicted as doing to the Palestinians especially in Gaza.

See how easily depiction can be used to paint a picture which remains indelible in the mind long after a conflict is over?

The USA culture despises the Bully and righteously rejects bullying.

But how many Americans actually know what Bullying is? 

Most people don't think philosophically, or theoretically.  In life as in fiction, people want concrete, clearly defined edges to the ideas that form the world.

So they know what bullying is because they've seen it in school yards, or on Gang dominated streets.  Maybe they've seen it in domestic abuse.  They know it when they see it, but they don't analyze it to figure out what it is, and how to "depict" it in a Alien Culture (non-human culture).

Lifting out the essence of a concept like Bullying and using that essence to generate a non-human fictional culture is Art.  It is what Artists do for a living -- depict the world from a different angle than the reader/viewer has ever seen.  The artist does this to reveal an inner, hidden truth.

So conspiracies and International Intrigue, subterfuge and obfuscation make wonderful raw material for the Artist.

Remember how Leonardo DaVinci would look at a slab of marble, and see the statue buried inside it, then free that statue by paring away the dross?

That's what artists do -- take away the dross to reveal something hidden inside. 

So take the Middle East situation as an example.

Most people look at that mess and say Israel is a Bully -- because clearly they have a strong economy, high tech weapons, and can fend off the worst that Gaza can throw at them.  A few Israelis died, and thousands of Gazans died, so who's the bully? 

Obviously tiny little Israel is a horrible bully for keeping the Palestinian borders closed, and policing every movement they make.

That's Leondardo DaVinci's view from outside the block of marble. 

What does the artist see looking at this mess?

The artist sees the Gazans as the bullies. 

Isn't that startling? 

You can make the case that the Palestinians are more powerful than Israel if you understand the hidden connections and the history.  If you don't believe the history, you can't see the Gazans or the Hamas infestation in Gaza as the bullies.

The Palestinians have been made into a political football, or hot potatoe, by the much larger countries and factions surrounding the area.  They are the boxing glove worn by Iran and bigger countries in order to punch Israel without being hurt themselves.  They have been armed, deprived, and ginned up with religious fervor to be used as a weapon against a tiny country. 

Or so the argument goes.

Those who argue that Israel is the bully, say that Israel threw the Palestinians out of their homeland. 

Those who argue that Hamas and Palestinians are the bully, say that when Israel was forming as a State under U.N. Mandate, the Jewish refugees had no problem accepting the residents of the area as citizens of the new state.

But the Powers That Be in the surrounding countries lied to the residents to make them flee the new Israelis.  And then those Powers That Be refused to accept the refugees they had made homeless. 

There are conspiracy theorists who hold that those same Powers That Be planned to use those refugee homeless to attack and destroy the fledgling country Israel, a pushover without an army, populated by shell-shocked, starved people rescued from concentration camps.

Artists, especially those writing novels, love conspiracy theorists.  Such Drama!!!

Regardless of the actual motives of those Powers That Be, or even which countries they were from, the net result is a population of Stateless People, people not protected by a government, and without a land franchise of their own.

That population has grown, but as it has grown, it has not produced world class universities, patents, trade goods, intellectual property, or anything to add to the world GDP.  Trillions of dollars of the world's wealth has been poured into the Palestinian populace, and nothing has been added to the world Gross Product, the wealth of humanity. 

They are poor, and make a profession of being poverty stricken. 

So obviously anyone who attacks them is a bully. 

So what is a bully to do when the weakest kids on the block are given powerful weapons and attack as a mob?  Is the bully required (by cultural rules of engagement) to refrain from fighting back?  To refrain from self-protection?  To refrain from pre-emptive strikes to disarm?

The Palestinian situation makes a wonderful Situation to study for an interstellar war simply because the actual war is all about something totally different than Israel vs Palestinians.

What exactly it's all about -- aha, that's a matter for the Artist to chip away and reveal.  If you're stumped, go look again at the Klingons and the Romulans. 

Take this Situation, set it out amidst the stars of this galaxy, create different species, religions, billions of years of history, ancient ruins, Great Shrines of sacred planets,

Observe the Middle East melting down, and observe the techniques used to cause that to happen.  Look deeply into the religious wars, the many religious factions within factions -- there are as many flavors of Muslims as there are flavors of Christians, and Jews are no slouches in the flavors department.  A new faction seems to arise every week or so.

Are you looking at a religious war, or is the religious war an excuse to hold a good war the way the Klingons love to do?

How would Klingons (or Romulans) react to finding out they were someone else's patsy, a tool to hammer an enemy and escape retribution?

Which side is the bully and which the victim is a question few readers are comfortable pondering.  The reader wants you to tell them the answer.

There's a basic human psychology principle behind that reader preference.

People who bully in other areas of life become truly upset when they see what they think is bullying happening before their eyes.  They become upset because they can't look at themselves and acknowledge their own bullying tendencies. 

The psychological principle behind this is rooted in the subconscious.  What we hate other people for is the very thing we loathe so much in ourselves that we bury it deep in the subconscious. 

The Artist knows that when you see a flaw in someone else, it is because you have that flaw in you.  It's a reliable principle.  If you don't have that flaw, it won't irk you in others even when it is there.

So human cultures establish rules-of-thumb to measure or judge behavior objectively. 

You can tell a busy-body "Mind Your Own Business" by citing that cultural rule of privacy without getting personal, insulting, or obnoxious.  It's a generally accepted principle, not something you just made up.

The Prize Fighter waits for the guy he decked to get back on his feet before attacking again.  There's an ethical reason for that, and a moral one, but a referee enforced cultural rule. 

"Pick on someone your own size."  -- yes, you must fight, but only people who are an even match. 

One time there was a strike in Football, and instead of the scheduled match they televised a match between a professional team and a college team -- the college team got creamed.  And spectators didn't enjoy the sight.  They never did that again.

Do we enjoy such sights of uneven matches these days?

Check YouTube. 

There are a lot of Video posts by teens are of uneven matches.  There is that "trend" of walking up behind someone and sucker-punching them to the deck -- and it is done to older, more frail, or less fit (even handicapped) people.  The objective is to deck the other person WITHOUT WARNING, and that's pretty much like the old American Indian idea of counting coups by sneaking into another tribe's camp and stealing or marking their horses, leaving trace that their defenses are porous.

The message from the more powerful to the less powerful is "I am BETTER than you, so don't mess with me."

The message is MIGHT MAKES RIGHT.

That is the bully's message to the weak.

Is that now the new cultural mantra we all must live by?

Or do we still know that the weakest contestant in such a transaction is the bully him/herself.

Yes, bullies are cowards.  That's one of the oldest principles, and the origin of the advice parents always gave kids beset by the class bully -- just punch him back good and hard.  Deck him in front of his cronies.  That's the end of him because he'll react with cowardice not heroism.

Bullies are all about their Pride, so they focus on Who Is Right. (see the illustration at the top of this blog).  They do that because they are afraid they are wrong.  The Hero, the Strong Character (or one getting stronger) is focused on What Is Right, and always curious to find any error, misconception, or mistake.  The Hero is about correcting mistakes, and takes joy from each mistake found and corrected.  That's a hero.

Both Science Fiction and Romance are about heroes.  But very often, a combination of SF and Romance depicts a coward becoming a hero.  Many World War II movies depicted that character arc showing the flinching coward becoming a "real man" by finding inner courage.

On the TV Series DEFIANCE,


where several species of aliens have landed on Earth, each with their own culture and customs.  There is an alien culture where males are unquestioned in their (brutal) dominance of females. 
Exposure to Earth's ideas has given the wife of one prominent businessman some ideas about just becoming the boss.

She has framed him for crimes, had him imprisoned, nearly killed him in the street, humiliated him before other males of his species, used his son by her as a patsy and commanded the business interests behind the screen of his son.  She wants dominance in a MIGHT MAKES RIGHT culture that attributes its strength to dominating its women absolutely.

Their religious leader opposes her, and she frames him for murder of several women (wives of the prominent and powerful) and he is publicly executed.  She does this right in front of her husband.  The acting is absolutely superb and makes the show worth watching all by itself.

Now these are not "real" aliens, you understand -- they are Hollywood Aliens created to DEPICT a THEME.

At the inter-cultural interfaces among the various species, ideas cross over.  Each culture has its own definition of bullying, and of the value of the bully to a culture.

And yes, just as humans have a zillion cultures, likewise each alien species has different cultures.

The location is the USA, vastly transformed by destruction at the arrival of these aliens, and continuing threats.  The various aliens and all the different kinds of humans clash, and form uneasy alliances, and in some cases get along quite well.

The entire series is about Power -- who has it, who doesn't, what to do with it.

In the sparse, superficial language of Television Series, this series depicts Power In Culture.

The devastation depicted wipes the whole Israel/Palestinian conflict off the map.  The series doesn't give much about what's going on in the rest of the world, but clearly nothing that was going on is still going on.  Nobody turns up from China or a new Caliphate to take over the US, Canada and Mexico.

The focus is close up on a group of people (and non-humans) just trying to survive long enough to learn to get along.

And it's very much a "Strong Man" and "Gang" dominated society, very much like the "failed state" scenario we saw in The Balkans, and are seeing now in Libya, Somalia, some African areas, and Iraq, etc.  But Iraq might yet pull together something.

Still, DEFIANCE is a science fiction series depicting the failed state pulling itself together -- sort of.  It takes a really big bully to pull such a mess together. 

Is that why humanity is so well supplied with bullies?  Do we need them?  Is humanity's need for the bully-personality (cowardice and all) the reason God created so many bullies?  Or was that just evolution speaking?  All that is raw material from which to craft themes you can depict by using the culture you create for your characters.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 3: Internal Conflict by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction Part 3
Internal Conflict
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

That saying is a nutshell statement of what we're discussing in this DEPICTION Series.  Listen to the arguments in the world around you, especially politics, to see if you can determine whether they are arguing about WHO is right, or about WHAT is right.  Which argument makes a better Romance Novel?

Part 1 of this series:

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

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

Many romance writers resort to "internal dialogue" (usually done in italics, first person instead of quotes, but it's still dialogue) to try to depict what is going on inside of a character.

This is not an incorrect approach and it is very popular with Romance Readers.

However, the repeated use of a single tool to illustrate a single point soon begins to impart a monotonous undertone to the Author's Voice.

By varying the tools used, the writer can create the illusion of a real character.

The 4 main tools a writer has were mentioned in Part 2 of this series, Dialogue, Description, Narrative, and Exposition, are the tools that can be varied to depict internal conflict, and thus give your character depth and his/her point of view a sense of reality.

Prior posts linked in Part 2 lead into the detailed discussion of these 4 basic tools, which most new writers have a fair grasp on.  The one most often abused is Exposition, leading to the dreaded Expository Lump. 

An "expository lump" is a long passage, a whole paragraph or sometimes several pages in a row, of the author telling about the environment of the story, the character's situation, ancestry, attitudes and preferences. 

A good writer will grab the other 3 tools in quick succession, most often within a single sentence, to convey this information to the reader.

Beta Readers will complain the story is "slow" or "boring" or "incomprehensible" -- Amazon comments will bitterly point out that it wasn't worth what they paid, even if it was free.  And all of them are actually reacting not to the information being conveyed in the expository lump, not to the exposition itself, but to the LUMP. 

The issue that readers who aren't writers react to without knowing its source is the LUMP not the exposition.

One way to break up a LUMP is to use the other three tools - Dialogue, Description, and Narrative.

The best way to approach a long, intricate and abstract "lump" of information to be dumped on a reader is with Narrative.  TELL THE STORY.  That's what narrative is -- the narrative are the words that convey the story. 

Narrative says, he went here, met her, they went there, found a dead body, called the police, -- narrative fleshes out the Plot Events into scenes.

Here is a post about scene structure with link to previous part:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html

And here is part 8 on Dialogue with links to previous posts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/08/dialogue-part-8-futuristic-and-alien.html

So one way to break up that deadly-dull introductory expository lump which we discussed in Depiction Part 2 is to vary the tool you are using.

Take all that information that the reader must know before the actual story starts and cast it as scenes.

But the rule still applies that page 1 must depict the conflict, so you can't just make up more scenes to go before the story starts.  You have to find a way to integrate that opening scene stuck on page 25 into your newly made up scene with all the expository information in it.

This process reformulates your outline, changes the plot, may change the antagonist's identity, and well, change everything.  But while you do this process, you will suddenly find yourself feeling like a working professional writer -- you will know this will sell because it fits the paradigm of well known books that have been published. 

So you take your laboriously created expository lump, and cast that information in scenes.

In that new scene, there have to be characters, and the characters have to be in conflict -- not necessarily with each other.

Everything might seem calm on the surface, while the conflict the reader sees brewing seethes beneath the apparently offhand dialogue.

Ah, yes, you have written pages of block paragraphs of exposition, and now you must cut that information, cast it into scenes, and now you pick up the dialogue tool you worked so hard to master.

You can start your scene with a line of dialogue, without even the tag of "he said" -- just a statement or question can do it. 

"Where did you get that old spaceship!"

Wouldn't that line open a grand romantic battle-of-the-sexes novel complete with aliens aforethought?

With a line of dialogue like that, you are depicting the internal conflict of the person being addressed -- not the person speaking! 

You have used SHOW DON'T TELL to convey information about a character who hasn't even appeared yet.

Now pick up another of the 4 tools, Narrative.

He kicked at the metal side of the cylinder sitting in his garage, but his eyes were on his erstwhile wife of three days.  Before his boot made contact with the metal, she grinned in anticipation.  Then his foot went right through the corroded metal plate and sparks flew.

That's NARRATIVE.  It's what happened.  But it contains single words of description (metal, cyclinder, garage, corroded, sparks) -- "erstwhile" is depiction which indicates there's some irregularity involved here so the reader is invited to "fill in the blanks."

She laughed at him.  "I found it when we moved in.  It was under that heap of bags of Stardust."

"She laughed at him" is narrative, but since it's a slightly inappropriate response to his "accusation" implied by using an ! instead of a ? in his question -- it shows rather than tells there's buried conflict.  I might have written, "She recoiled from his accusation" but that would have weakened her character -- so instead she uses inappropriate aggression.  But the DIALOGUE she chooses is DEFENSIVE, so we know she feels attacked by his !-style question. 

Now pick up another tool, Description.

The detached garage sat on the surface of the asteroid they had won in a card game, right over the pressurized apartment.  The garage could be evacuated, but if they did that to bring their ship in, they'd lose all the drug money that Stardust represented.

EXPOSITION: It had been her idea to avoid evacuating the garage to bring their ship inside.  (SEE? ONE LINE, NO LUMP.)

Wrenching his foot free of the hole, he turned hands on hips.  "Maybe I will actually marry you after all."

"Over my dead body!" 

NOTE: that is a line of narrative followed in the same paragraph by a line of dialogue.

Look that over again.  Start with a line of Dialogue, then Narrative, Dialogue, Description, Exposition, Narrative, Dialogue, Dialogue. 

EXERCISE: Go find a copy of your favorite novel and go through it with highlighters coloring each word to tag it as dialogue, description, narrative or exposition -- note the rhythmic alternation and then write a piece of your own with that SAME RHYTHM of tools. 

Now go back over what I just wrote here and look at the characterization.

Find the external conflict -- there they are on an asteroid they won (note the ABSENCE of an explanation of what card game, how they partnered, why they ended up co-owning the asteroid, whether they own equal shares, or why they were both playing that game), and they HAVE FOUND a pile of drugs of some colossal value if sold to a trafficker (note the absence of narrative of poking around their new place and her discovering but not mentioning the space ship, of any reason why she didn't mention it -- NOTE WHAT IS LEFT OUT).

Find the internal conflict -- they are partnered but not exactly married. Neither really knows if this is Love or what.  They've got worries (lots of money involved; someone probably wants that Stardust; can they trust each other?)  They are hip-deep in a Situation and they disagree what the Situation actually is, except that it's changing by the moment. 

He accuses, she counter-attacks -- that's the surface or external conflict.  It shows without telling what the shadowy-lurking-shape of the internal conflicts must be like.

Now, the actual story starts when SOMETHING comes after that drug-dump of Stardust, and all this about the garage might have been cast as an expository lump.

Three days after Marla and Tip got to the asteroid, Tip discovered that Marla had been hiding a space ship in the garage.  He was mad at her for that but she just mocked him and flounced off.  So he chased her down and proposed marriage again, as a solution to the legal problem of joint-ownership of all that wealth.  Two days later, while they were eating dinner (separately), something hit the asteroid.

BORING.

Where's the story?  Where are the characters?  Where's the action? 

Or you could make it worse with a long technical description of the size of the asteroid, the make and model of the artificial gravity machinery, the orbit, and speculation about all the things that could happen but didn't.

You, as writer, know all that -- all of it, every single bit.  But the reader, as a reader, doesn't need to know, and more than that doesn't want to know.

Your job as writer is to get the reader wanting to know long, long before you "reveal" without TELLING.

Let the reader figure it out, then confirm their suspicions. 

That's a major key to how a reader "gets into" a book and "identifies" with a character.

In Part 2 of this series on Depicting, we used a political example, so let's use another one from politics.

You see on the TV News how commentators on one network point the finger at commentators on rival networks, trying to make a story out of one calling the other names.  Yes, it's pathetic, and one big reason nobody watches TV news anymore.

But there's a lot to be learned from watching stuff like that.

Every once in a while, when they know the listening audience is very small (like Friday night for example), they will reveal by offhand reference just how these pieces are generated and why some Events get covered and others don't.

1) The Narrative
2) Optics
3) Resonance

"The Narrative" -- the news is not what's new, but the next development in a story-line that doesn't exist in reality.  This is a story that is being invented much like a Parable or a story-with-a-moral -- a story that is designed to get viewers to draw certain specific conclusions and thus act on those conclusions as if they were fact based.

"The Optics" -- referring to an entire PR discipline dedicated to figuring out what conclusions the majority of a certain demographic will draw from certain images.

"Resonance" -- referring to retweeting. Will this story go viral.  Will you hear this installment of the story and hasten to tell your friends on Facebook or Pinterest?  Will they in turn tell all their friends?  Does anybody care?  Do they "relate to" this story?

How do people come to "relate to" a story?

The same way they come to "relate to" the characters in a novel.

Yes, fiction and news are on convergent paths. 

In fiction, Literature Professors study how readers "identify with" an "objective correlative" -- and in film, Blake Snyder formulated a category of deeds that CAUSES viewers to "identify with" a protagonist.

Drawing a reader/viewer into a story is a science these days.

You get drawn into a story when you see something in a character in the story that you either see in yourself or want to see in yourself -- something you aspire to be (Superhero) or actually are (angst-ridden).

You get drawn into a story when you identify with the protagonist (or antagonist).

That's why there is so much  tear-jerker coverage of news stories about tragedies -- repeated interviews with the survivors or victims.

It's the people that make it REAL. 

In fiction, it's the characters that make it realistic.

The same principle is used in politics to collect loyal followings of Democrats and Republicans (in the USA; elsewhere different parties, same principle).

You hear stories on the news about this politician and that, about Congress and the TITLE of a bill, and the Senate and which senators are for or against the Congress Bill with that TITLE.

Now we all know the title of a bill rarely has anything at all to do with the content, and amendments can reverse the entire thing, distort it, or maybe add a new topic entirely.  To be AGAINST a Bill is not necessarily to be against achieving what the Title says.  It may be merely to be against some other topic that got tacked on by amendment.  It's horse-trading.

However, the way we barely scan the surface of the news these days, all we know is the TITLE and whether it's supported by Republicans or Democrats.

Those OPTICS are managed by PR experts to lead people to "identify" with Republicans or Democrats, and it's a war-for-eyeballs.  They want you to SEE (show don't tell) how all Republicans are against Women's Rights, or all Democrats don't value Life.

PR experts create these "narratives" with words, optics, and topics personified in characters.  They draw people into identifying with one or the other label.

This is exactly what a writer does to draw a reader into the story.

Once a viewer has Identified with a Republican, that short-cut thinking described in Part 2 cuts in, and in that viewer's mind "All Republicans Think Like Me" becomes an unassailable axiom of existence.  Any attack on any Republican is taken personally -- which is why Politics is an explosive subject.

Prejudice, you recall from Part 2, is all about that short-cut thinking that lets us fill in the blanks of a depiction -- so we see a few sparse lines, and our minds insist the whole, full-color image is in 3-D right there.  We see a person with dark skin and insist we're looking at a "bad person."  That irrational conviction is absolute because it is based on what we know about ourselves, not on what we know about the person before us.

It works the same way for Democrats -- just find one Democrat who seems like "my kind of people" and suddenly all Democrats firmly believe what you, yourself, believe.

The truth is, some do, some don't, and no two are alike. 

But our brains can't handle that much data, so we use our short-cut thinking and just know that all those nasty accusations against the Party we identify with are untrue because those accusations are untrue of us.

You know who you are; you know what you believe; you know what you are for or against, and you Identify with this or that person or sub-group of a Party, and impute the certainties you cherish to all members of the larger Party.

Knowing that mechanism is operating in most voters, the political PR machine uses it to get you to "Identify" with a Candidate.  They believe that if they can hook you, they have you. 

You know if you can hook a reader on Page 1, you have them at least until the Middle, and if the Middle doesn't sag, you have them to the End.  And you'll likely be able to sell them another book with your byline. 

You can learn to induce Identification in readers by studying the Political PR Machine creating a fictional character out of each and every politician running for office.

Students rack up tens of thousands of dollars in debt taking courses to become experts in PR (Public Relations - Google it, see how many schools there are and what it costs).  You can learn all you have to know about how it's done by watching political commercials and scanning the News.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
https://flipboard.com/profile/jacquelinelhmqg

Depiction Part 2: Conflict And Resolution

Depiction Part 2:
Conflict And Resolution
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Think about this and we'll get back to it below

In Depiction Part 1,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html
we defined depiction at some length.  Here's a short excerpt to remember this working definition.

--------quote-------
It's the brain trick that lets us look at a scrambled page full of LINES and "see" a map, and understand it as a depiction of a territory (real or imagined).

Writers depict both concrete and abstract elements in mere words.  Readers agree to accept the emphasis the writer's selection of certain attributes and omission of other attributes to "depict" a character, situation, philosophy, threat, conflict, or the stakes in a transaction.

If the writer writes, "It was a dark and stormy night ..." the reader may KNOW there were some street lamps or car headlights (or carriage lanterns) but at the same time understand that the main character's emotional "place" is inside the primal threat-zone that dark and stormy nights were for cavemen.

The character is aware of the light, but seeing only the dark. 
---------end quote----------

So a depiction is NOT a photograph.  It is not a complete analysis.  A depiction deliberately leaves elements out in order to exaggerate the role of other elements in determining the materialization of results.

A depiction is a work of Art.  We've discussed fiction as Art and the methods the writer uses to create that Art -- the how, and the why of the writer's job has been covered in many long posts here, especially in the various series on Worldbuilding

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

...and how to blend the Worldbuilding skills into various individual craft skills (such as theme, characterization, etc). 

Once you've built your multidimensional alter-reality, you must then depict it for your reader.

To depict the World you have built, you must select certain attributes to mention outright and others to leave as implied.  That process produces a depiction of an alter-reality that depicts our own -- a First Derivative, mathematicians would call it.

So in Part 1 of this series we looked at how to depict Relationships. 

Romance is a process, Love is a Relationship.  There are all kinds of Relationship, "Buddy," "Adversary" "Mortal Enemy" "Brother-Rival" etc etc. 

And in every relationship we work with in fiction you will find the seeds of Conflict.

Conflict is the Essence of Story, but it generates Plot  (where Story is the character's change due to impact of Events, and Plot is the sequence of Events caused by a character's actions or inactions).

Books on story craft or writing will all use different words to refer to a moving-part of a story-construct, but all the vastly commercial kinds of fiction have the same moving-parts -- Setting, Character, Conflict, Theme -- and all the English language ones have 4 types of word-usages: Exposition, Narrative, Dialogue, Description. 

A writer's "Voice" is established by the proportions of those word-usages employed to convey the structural components.  That proportion establishes pacing, which is a part of the genre signature. 

We've delved deeply into the details of how to do each of these individual things, and how to pair them, blending two into one seamless whole.

Many beginning writers launch their first story attempts already able to synthesize these skills into a sellable page and chapter.

But very few of those confident in their story-telling skills have thought through or mastered the Art of Depiction.

Teaching writing workshops, I get manuscript after manuscript of very interesting, intriguing, wildly commercial stories with great premises, delightful imagination, and strong romantic intrigue -- but they are unsellable because they start with a massive Expository Lump, a huge pre-history of the entire world the writer has meticulously built or a long personal history of the characters and their ancestry.

It is easy to point to page 25 or 55 and say, "This scene is page 1 of this work."

But the author will not know how we (the professional writers at the table) all arrived at that same conclusion.  And it is spooky how much unanimity a group of professionals have when analyzing the same manuscript for a beginner.  The beginner often thinks it's a conspiracy -- even when the professionals haven't spoken to each other about this manuscript.

Most professional writers don't know how they learned to do that analysis, and just shrug it off as "experience."

I remember learning this technique, and hope I can explain it.

It isn't enough to point to an interior page and say, "This is page 1."

The author of the piece will fight that, tooth and nail, because you see the reader MUST KNOW all this other stuff before that point or the reader just won't understand.

And that's true, absolutely true. 

The professionals at the table will all suggest different solutions to the problem.  They all agree on the problem -- but never, ever, on how to solve it.

How you solve that problem changes the nature of the story, the plot, the target audience, and most of all the characters themselves, very often it changes the theme, and requires the Worldbuilding to undergo major revision.

The beginning writer must learn what to do with that initial expository lump before that lump is formed into words, before those words at set down -- in fact, before the World for this story is Built.

I am using the term DEPICTION to represent that arcane process of solving that problem of the Expository Lump that has to be conveyed before the story starts.  I've never seen this process described exactly this way in books on writing craft.

I wasn't taught it as such.  All my teachers (professional writers and editors) could do was point at where the story really starts and say, "cut all this other stuff, start here."

And my response was always a (very silent) "NO NO NO!!!"

So I invented this method of "Depiction" -- and many years later, I see what appears to me to be many other writers using this method.  The end result, regardless of the process of arriving at it, has to be that uniform STARTING PLACE that all pros agree is where the story starts.

Expository Lumps are often strewn throughout a novel.  This method of Depiction will solve those problems, too. 

Here are some previous post on Expository Lumps

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/source-of-expository-lump.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/sexy-information-feed.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/dissing-formula-novel.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-much-is-too-much-world-buliding.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-11.html

Assuming you've been reading this Tuesday blog series since 2008, and have thought about those posts, here is the advanced lesson in depicting Conflict and depicting Resolution that will solve the problem of the 25 pages of throat clearing before page 1 of the story.

This method often does away with those "Introduction" or "Prelude" additions that editors resort to when they can't get the author to depict.  Understanding depiction and how to do it is not in the job-description of editors.  Those who can teach this come to editing via another path. 

Like everything else in Art and Story-craft, it's a learn-by-doing kind of thing, so we'll work with the "Real World" around us to extract elements that could be used in depicting a conflict and a resolution.

PAGE 1 of any piece of fiction starts with defining the Conflict.

That's actually what pros teaching writing workshops look for to spot that page 26 opening scene error.

The story starts where the Conflict kicks off the plot.

Depicting Conflict is the missing skill for such writing students.

The opening of any novel is where the This vs. That or Her vs. Him is first depicted.

Now remember -- a Depiction is not the whole, entire, complete, multiplex Situation.

Depiction is done by leaving important, vital, crucial elements out of the picture, then presenting elements of that picture that merely hint or suggest the presence of those crucial elements.

This artistic skill leverages the reader's simple, human tendency to make assumptions.

You give them this; they assume that.

It is the human brain's short-cut mechanism at work there.  It is the mechanism that causes us to be prejudiced and intolerant, and it is responsible for our ability to appreciate Art in all its forms and media.

So after you've defined the Conflict, you depict that conflict on Page 1.

Remember, an "outline" contains only the moving parts of the plot, Beginning, Middle, End Events. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/finding-story-opening-part-1-action-vs.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-11-correct.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/09/verisimilitude-vs-reality-part-2-master.html

Depiction as I'm using it here is the Art of creating Verisimilitude -- the illusion of reality.

It works the same way that caricature works -- the eye sees a few sparse lines and fills in the rest.  A caricature is not a photograph but a representation of certain, carefully selected features of the subject.

So when Depicting a Conflict for your opening, you carefully select Features of that Conflict to incorporate into your opening Dialogue, Description, Exposition (yes you are allowed to use some exposition, just not in lumps) and Narrative. 

Your Conflict, on Page 1, is distributed among those 4 language elements, and that single conflict must be present in all instances of those 4 language elements -- usually throughout the entire novel, no matter the point of view.  Conflict pervades the work -- that's what makes it a story.

How do you select what Features of your Conflict to include on Page 1 and which other features to explore in depth later?

To select the elements of Conflict on Page 1, you look at the last page (that you haven't written yet.)

That's where the outline comes in. 

The outline you scribbled down when you had this Idea flood into your conscious mind should have little except the 3 major points, Beginning, Middle, End.  The rest is commentary.

Example: 
1. Pandora sees a Box
2. Pandora Opens the Box
3. Pandora gets shut up inside that Box. 

The Conflict is Pandora Vs. The Box.  The Middle (the worst thing that could happen) is Pandora Opens The Box.  That doesn't resolve the conflict, it escalates it as a good Middle must.  The End resolves the conflict by blending Pandora and the Box into one, removing her "issues" from the world.

Of course the Situation just sits there begging for a sequel.  That's good plotting.

At this stage of Depicting a Conflict and its Resolution, the beginning writer will likely discover that the Last Page doesn't match the First Page she has in mind.

That is the conflict that is Resolved at the ending as envisioned is not the same conflict that begins on Page 1.

Many writers will handle this problem by ignoring it -- or pointing to Masterwork novels where many conflicts are braided into a complex mulch-layered plot to justify their choices.  Most beginning writers want to be that sort of Masterwork writer.  Depiction is the art form that must be mastered to create such a Masterwork.

It isn't that you must already be a Big Name writer to get away with bait-and-switch plotting.  It's that you must have the skills that make Names Big.  Some of those skills are writing skills.  Some aren't.  Writing skills can be learned.

So, take this rich, multidimensional, braided plot and multiple viewpoint story you have in mind, and choose a few, sparse elements of The Conflict to depict on Page 1.

Then craft the last page out of a specific Resolution to that Conflict.  Yes, you may have to revised that ending a few times as you write, but having a target depicted lets you revise that depiction as you go.  This is the skill that lets professionals hit deadlines, to predict when signing a contract how long it will take to write that novel. 

It's not that you always stick to an outline -- it is that you have an outline to revise as required. 

Given the immense World you have Built in your mind, how do you sort out which of the conflicts that seethe within that world to depict on Page 1.

You look to your THEME.  The Theme is the philosophical statement about life, the universe, and everything that this work of fiction makes.  It is the moral of the story, or the proposition to be debated. 

That statement about The Universe and its underlying Reality dictates how your Conflict will be resolved.  That statement defines the ENDING EVENT of the story.

For example, if you are writing a Romance, your philosophical statement, your Major Theme, is "Happily Ever After Is Attainable In Reality" -- or maybe "Only Happily For Now can be Attained, and that's enough."  or maybe "HFN is not enough."

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/beauty-and-beast-constructing-hea.html

If your theme is HEA is Real, then your Page 1 must depict the ABSENCE OF HEA -- people wanting something, misery for lack of whatever, a big problem that is major because of the absence of a partner (example: unwed pregnancy).

The Ending is then HEA Realized (wedding in the offing, commitment, birth, whatever solves the problem).

The Middle would then be the point in the focus couple's life where the partnership is just not working out - that internal and/or external forces drive them apart (deployed to Iraq, denied Military permission to marry).  Or maybe what drives them apart for the Middle Event is some kind of Political Campaign or issue.

Love And Politics always equals EXPLOSIVE ACTION.  In fact, Love and Politics is sometimes more explosive than Religion and Politics.

Perhaps your Couple is divided by their stances on hot-button-political issues of today, even though they live in a Galaxy Far Far Away.

By using today's Headlines, but depicting those headlines rather than just copying them into your story, you can lift today's social conflicts out into the galaxy, place them between human and non-human, and have a whopping series of novels that sells big.

How do you do that?  How do you "depict" a political conflict torn from today's headlines?

Remember, depiction is the art of lifting up certain elements and suppressing others.  It's not distortion, but point of view.

Each person sees the world around them from a unique point of view - their own.

Humans tend to regard what they see as the whole reality that is there -- but what they see is a selected depiction. 

We have a brain mechanism that selects reality for us, so we can free up brain space for handling more critical life-or-death decisions.  And that brain mechanism is the source of both our Art Appreciation and our deadly-to-each-other prejudices. 

So you, the author, must replicate the effect that point-of-view has on the Character's convictions.

Take, for example, our real-world political situation.  In order to avoid having to fill up our brains with thousands of data points, in the USA we "reduce" our reality to two political positions.  In other countries, there are many political parties with similarities to each other and some differences their constituents consider critical.  Voters there have to think about many more abstract concerns than those in the USA.

In Europe, for example, "Far Right" means Nazi.  In the USA, the "Far Right" means anti-Nazi.  But because of the Internet, many voters in the USA have adopted the European definition of "Far Right" and now point the finger at the Right in the USA as being Nazi oriented.  Those targeted by that finger object.  Conflict reigns.

Consider the Conflict breaking apart your Soul Mate Couple that has its origin in that kind of linguistic mislabeling.  They fall in love. 

The Conflict becomes clear. Opening Scene: they are walking to an ice cream shop after seeing a wonderful movie they both enjoyed, but it had a woman in it who went for an abortion for well-depicted reasons. 

The guy admits he always votes Republican, and that movie explains exactly why the Republicans have the correct approach -- because abortion shouldn't be legal. 

She, however, always votes Democrat because, after all, she's a woman, and "how dare you" is her bristling response -- nobody is going to tell her how to manage her own biology.

Why do I mention this?  Because International Sales and Translations are where the professional writer actually, finally, turns a profit.  It's vital to keep the world market in mind when crafting a depiction.  Abortion is a good example because the yes/no argument is very different in the rest of the world.  This intimate argument by a couple where marriage is a looming issue uncovers a Foreign Policy Issue between them which could break that couple up.

Should a man be allowed to force a woman to have his baby? 

If he's to be disallowed, who does the disallowing?  Government? Religion? Neighborhood busy-bodies? Doctors?

THEME: how do I get you to do what I want even if you don't want to?

MASTER THEME: There Are No Objective Criteria Of Right And Wrong Use Of Force (if I can get away with it, then I can do it). Or put another way Pride vs. Humility makes a great Conflict:




Today, in the USA, it's merely a case of seeing "people" (on TV mostly) doing things you don't want to let them do, and getting "The Government" to force them to behave the way you want.

Government is The Power that the people use to force other people to behave properly.

A long-long time ago, there was a comic strip everyone read because it was syndicated in all the newspapers, There Ought To Be A Law.

It DEPICTED (and from it you can learn the Art of Depicting) activities that nobody had the power to stop, so they'd throw up their hands and declaim, "There Ought To Be A Law" against that activity.

http://miamiarchives.blogspot.com/2012/09/there-oughta-be-law-comic-strip-1952.html

http://www.toonopedia.com/bealaw.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hatlo

There Ought To Be A Law and They'll Do It Every Time (two syndicated comics) depicts a world where people can't use government to control other people's behavior, but they want to because something has to be done.

The urge to control other, misbehaving, people is universal among humans and a source of Conflict you can tap repeatedly.  Life and morality can be "depicted" as either a fight for control of others or the results of people being "out of control."

How many times do news stories about an urgent emergency requiring an Act of Congress contain the phrase "the situation is out of control."  And not one reporter challenges that by asking, "when was the situation in control?" or "who controlled the situation before this" or "was the old controller of the situation doing a good enough job?" 

Why does this situation need "controlling" from outside the situation? 

Watch The News -- watch it carefully and keep asking questions like that to find ways to depict your story's conflict and a satisfying resolution.

So here's half the conflict between the serious couple coming out of the movie Theater:

He says, "You can't be serious! You vote Democrat? YOU??? I don't believe it."

She says, "Republicans are superstitious idiots."

He says, "I am not!"

She says, "Then how could you possibly believe all those lies?"

He says, "What lies?  It's the Democrats who lie rather than take responsibility.  It's the Democrats who think government has to solve every problem with more and more money!" 

She says, "I do not think that!!!  How can you say that?"

Note that each of them is accepting the depiction of their own party as the truth about the other's party.

That is, the Democrats (whom she trusts as a primary source) depict the Republicans as superstitious idiots, so she repeats that depiction without treating it as a "depiction" (i.e. as a statement that leaves something out in order to emphasize something else.)

Anyone who identifies as Republican must be a superstitious idiot.  Anyone who identifies as Democrat must be a person who won't own up to responsibility for the results of their own actions -- "unintended consequences" means "I'm not guilty."

Neither one is penetrating that depiction of the opposite party.

Go watch some TV news and analyze for that tendency -- especially political ads.

So let's list some points He could point to as Democratic dogma.

a) Government Is The Solution
b) It's an Emergency therefore the usual rules are set aside and we can do "whatever it takes" (therefore to get rid of onerous rules, one has to create an emergency.)
c) Got a Problem? Give us a lot more money and we will fix it for you
d) It's just one rotten apple who broke the law. The system is sound.
e) It's proven science so the government must impose it on everyone
f) Only government can protect you from actions of your neighbor
g) If it should be done; then therefore government must do it because nothing else is powerful enough to accomplish it.
h) The Experts know, so we have to believe them and act as if they are correct
i) Income Inequality is a travesty that government must prevent
j) We must educate all children in identical values because otherwise we won't be able to control the resulting adults and then we'd have anarchy.

Now think about those (each could be the thematic foundation of a long series of long novels). 

Would any Democrat accept that phrasing as a statement of their own beliefs?

Would any Republican accept the opposite statements as their own beliefs?

We routinely use the brain short-cut mentioned above to avoid having to learn a lot of facts and then think with them -- and instead, we extract a couple visible facts and imagine what fills in the blanks.

That "fill in the blanks" process is "prejudice" -- it's the basis of "racism" (all Blacks are lazy bastards), "ageism" (all people over 60 are technical illiterates), and of War (all Germans are Krauts; all Japanese are Japs, all Muslims are Islamists).

Study the political fracas in TV Ad Blitzes to look for the "depiction" of your reality then compare that depiction with the underlying reality as you see it.

When you can see the pattern of how the Advertising "lifts" elements from the pea-soupy reality of the opposition (CONFLICT) party and presents to you a mere depiction OF THE CONFLICTING ELEMENTS, then turn to the huge World you have Built in your mind, and do that exact same thing to present your fictional world to your very real readers. 

That will generate your Page 1, your middle, and your Last Page conflict resolution.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
https://flipboard.com/profile/jacquelinelhmqg