First of all, Happy Passover, Easter, whatever! It's SPRING!!! This is the time all young men turn their fancy to love, right? So let's talk about the mood of the season.
LINKS TO PREVIOUS PARTS:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-5-great.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-6-fallacy.html
All Romance situations revolve around TRUST because when swept off your feet by the discovery of true love, "romanced" into daring to love, the backlash of that dive off the cliff is DISTRUST.
The sweeping, sinking, falling-in-love feeling is a loss of "control" -- of yourself, your emotions, your life, your ability to make choices.
It seems in that moment that a major life-direction choice has been made for you, and there's nothing you can do about it -- THIS IS MY MAN (or WOMAN). This one is MINE.
But what if you can't, don't, won't, TRUST that person, or that decision, or even yourself to deliver to that treasured person what that person deserves because that person is a treasure to all humanity?
Discovering the true value of a PERSON -- another person other than yourself -- is one of those moments when Divine Force opens your inner eye and shows you the stakes you are playing for in this world.
And that is an awesome experience.
The stakes of "falling in love" -- of recognizing a Soul Mate -- have nothing at all to do with yourself in that moment of recognition of the stakes. The stakes you play the love-game FOR are the children -- and their children and their children, long after you're gone. The stakes of love are eternal.
And if you make a mistake, you are responsible for the Souls yet to enter the world for their turn.
Oh, boy!
That is why all "Falling In Love" is about FEAR -- and why Romance itself is a genre of exemplary courage on display. It takes far more courage to LOVE than it does to murder someone or commit suicide.
In fact, it takes more courage to hug than to shoot a gun into a crowd or an army.
That's why all Romance is about fear, the bigger internal fears we bury when we think we leave childhood behind.
Puberty is a time of eruption of sexual adult hormones, a transition to what we call adulthood.
But sex alone doesn't create adults out of children. In fact, it can stunt the development of the child into an adult.
When that happens, and later the pseudo-adult who encountered sex too early in life, at too immature an age of character, then the encounter with the Soul Mate and the "falling in love" experience of true Romance is fraught with eruptions of sheer terror, fear like nothing ever felt before - fear of failure as a person, fear of having children.
If you can't trust yourself, you can't trust anyone else -- ever!
This is the stuff of true drama and and it is the core of the reason that ROMANCE -- as a genre -- deserves much more respect than it has ever (yet) garnered in the public square.
OK, then if TRUST is your core theme for your new novel -- what's the plot? Where do you find a plot that has all the opportunities to explore the issues of TRUST buried in all current young adults?
And I really think that "all" current young adults (anyone under say maybe 30) are in this category of having been introduced to the adult world of sexuality too soon in their character-arc. You can connect with this audience directly if you can understand all sides of this issue, and why these fears and trusts have to be revisited in the encounter with a Soul Mate.
Oh, yes, it's very possible that these fear/trust issues have been laid to rest in a prior incarnation and so, the pre-teen child is actually beyond them in this life, ready for adulthood at a very tender age.
And that individual makes a great character for a Romance novel - simply because they're "different" and have to wrestle with the fact that lot of their contemporaries (most likely the one they've fallen in love with) have not surmounted these issues.
OK, so given a theme of TRUST -- what's the plot?
If you can nail a theme and a plot before you even begin to think about characters who will live through that plot, you will very likely be able to produce saleable fiction on second draft. The knack of writing fast, lean, easy-to-read stories is all about getting the structure right before you start drafting.
With that structure laid out, you can find characters who will advocate each side of the thematic issue you're tackling.
You find the SIDES that you must illustrate with the backgrounds and current issues of your characters by reading non-fiction about the thematic substance you're working with.
One of the best, clearest argued, sources I've found for these kinds of "all sides of the issue presented without bias" is actually a religious source.
In the case of FEAR/TRUST the issue roiling through America today is GUN CONTROL.
And here is a very cleanly structured, all sides of the problem laid out clearly with references, article on the position of Judaism on gun control.
http://www.chabadofscottsdale.org/library/article_cdo/aid/507002/jewish/What-Does-Judaism-Say-About-Gun-Control.htm
Read that article -- you don't have to know anything about Judaism to see instantly that this is Romance Novel fodder.
When you get to the end of the article, see if you have found my question nagging your mind.
It isn't what the article says that's important. It's what it does not say, or ask, or question, or approach. Look for the fallacy. By now, you've trained yourself to find those fallacies everywhere, especially in news stories -- but look for it underneath this article. Here it's harder to spot.
Remember, this series of blog posts is about Theme-Plot INTEGRATION (i.e. doing both at once, putting your theme into your plot so you never ever have to articulate the dry, boring, repellant philosophy in a self-indulgent expository lump). In fact your characters should not know diddly about philosophy, or care. And your characters should never know the reader is there listening. So they don't explain their philosophy to the reader in expository lumps disguised as dialogue.
Philosophy creates emotions -- show don't tell the character's emotions and you have your theme and plot integrated cleanly and you have made your story a joy to read.
That is the secret I learned from the greatest writers who mentored me.
PHILOSOPHY IS THE SUBCONSCIOUS SOURCE OF EMOTION.
What you subconsciously believe causes you to feel. What you consciously believe leaves you cold.
Fiction writing is all about your reader's subconscious beliefs. Not the conscious ones.
And it is within the subconscious of your reader that you will find the neatest, and most powerful, fallacies you can use to generate plot.
Search that article for the FALLACIES you can use to discuss the hot-button issues of TRUST in love, war and marriage.
The author of this piece (and it may have had a number of authors other than the ones cited) harbored a fallacy shared with the intended audience.
Spot that fallacy and you've got a Romance Genre series -- or a blockbuster film rivaling the blockbuster novels/film series by Robert Ludlum THE BOURNE IDENTITY etc.
Here's the fallacy I see in that article that just drips Romance Genre Plot.
"What if the government is the one with "Evil Intent"?" What if it's the government you can't trust?
OK, a lot of people are running around the world today ranting and chanting about not trusting government.
If you've read the book I've been discussing in this Theme-Plot series, You Can't Lie To Me, you know why we elect folks who are honest just like we are, and then those same folks turn dishonest without our noticing the transition. When we notice it, we rant and chant about how untrustworthy they are.
Has anyone noticed that those in charge of the USA's government today (and even of the UN) are the very ones who ran around ranting and chanting in the 1960's that they didn't trust the government?
Is what you rant and chant against what you fear -- or what you love and then become?
Is loving what you fear a sign of sanity? Is becoming what you fear inevitable?
The question that is not asked in the article is "What if...?" (an SF keyword question) "What if the government -- i.e. the majority -- is the source of Evil Intent?" As I said, that is the one question the intended readership for this article would never, ever, consider asking.
That's the kind of fallacy you can use to generate plot because it is so widespread.
As this Theme-Plot Integration series has pointed out, the writer who can depict the reader's subconscious philosophy's contradictory beliefs commands the reader's attention. If that subconscious belief is held by a large number of people and is fallacious, that writer gains a Robert Ludlum size audience.
Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Showing posts with label Fallacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fallacy. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Theme-Plot Integration Part 6: The Fallacy of Safety
The previous 5 parts of this Series of posts are:
LINKS TO PREVIOUS PARTS:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-5-great.html
Part 7 of this series of posts will appear on March 26, 2013
The essence of story is CONFLICT -- and conflict is the power-plant of the plot.
As I've defined it in previous posts about novel and film structure, story is the sequence of emotional states and lessons learned from those states experienced within the viewpoint character(s), while plot is the 'because line' or sequence of external events each occurring "because" one of the previous events occurred.
Story is about how you feel, and plot is about what you do because you feel that way.
Not every writer, or writing teacher uses those definitions -- but every commercial story writer I know has firm grasp of these two components of story, and how they interact, regardless of what labels they use to designate them.
As I've been pointing out in this series on Theme-Plot integration, commonly held fallacies are a wondrous source of steaming hot romance stories and science fiction, fantasy, and magic based plots.
One such plot generator of a commonly held, or wished for, fallacy is the fallacy that "safety" is real, is achievable, and even desirable. Some would say necessary for life, especially if you're planning to raise children.
Safety is the goal of every Main Character caught in a Horror Novel plot.
In Horror, you stumble upon some monstrous Evil, it hits you, you hit back, struggle free, flee for your life, double-back to rescue someone, perhaps someone who's rescued you, someone you owe a favor, some total stranger you then fall in love with -- a SOMEONE who rouses emotions counter to stark-terror -- then flee with that someone who perhaps then rescues you, and finally reach some kind of weapon to use against the Evil, turn and confront the Evil, and -- because it's Horror genre and this is the rule -- YOU MUST IMPRISON THE EVIL. You can't destroy Evil, but you can be SAFE FOR NOW by putting it behind a barrier, a wall. Think of a 3 year old hiding behind his mother's leg.
The goal of Horror Genre is the payoff of FEELING SAFE (after long, drawn out, stark terror). The more stark the terror, the more potent the feeling of safety -- people indulge in Horror Genre to achieve that RELIEF of SAFETY-AT-LAST.
The iconic film to consider here is Jurassic Park -- a love story, chase scene, horror imagery mixture worth studying. The horror is caused by the usual "power in the hands of Evil" -- or uncontrolled or uncontrollable -- people. And in this case, the classic bugaboo is "science."
To understand the connection between Horror genre, Science Fiction and Fantasy, consider how Science as we know it today is a branch of Natural Philosophy, which was an attempt to make a systematic study of the how's and why's of Magic.
Yes, it all starts with Magic - with Herb Lore, and other attempts by humans to get a handle on the Environment and all the threats to life and limb that abound in our world. Since the first Cave Painting, humans have apparently been using our well developed brains to leverage intelligence into a method of "getting safe."
With agriculture, medicine, well built construction, and the mastery of fire (and all subsequent forms of power sources up to electricity), we have been building a wall between ourselves and the ravages of Nature, extending our life spans and making those lives more gentle.
Horror is an extremely popular genre because life isn't safe. And the same can be said of Romance -- we search for (and most often do find) a Soul Mate, a PERSON who complements our skills and increases our ability to make a safe-spot in the whirling storm of ever present threats.
So while we've been applying every clever trick we can think of to gain safety from our environment (fire, famine, flood, draught, desert heat, arctic cold, disease, and hard work that breaks down the body) we've also been using that same powerful brain to figure out ways to gain safety from EACH OTHER.
Yes, all the monstrous threats Nature throws at us pale in comparison to what we throw at each other. We have warred with stones, clubs, axes and atom bombs, and now we war with chemicals and even diseases. Every bit of Nature we control, we turn into a weapon against other humans who think, believe or feel differently (or who just own better crop lands or electric power sources).
The basic bond of the Soul Mate grows into the extended bonding of family, and multi-generational family structures which become tribes, villages, towns, cities, whole civilizations.
Writing courses teach that there are three basic CONFLICTS: Man vs Man, Man vs Nature, Man vs Himself.
But I've never seen a writing course teach that all humanity, and every story ever told, has only one goal: SAFETY.
Safety is certainly the goal of every Romance. Safety is another way to say "Happily Ever After." It's a point or situation in which there are no further threats that you can not overcome. Everything from there on is easy. You are SAFE.
Why do we seek safety? And what is safety? What ploys, dodges, plots and schemes have we invented along the way to convince ourselves we're safe?
What do we define as "safety?" Where does that definition come from?
These questions are all philosophical in nature -- such as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Philosophy, as I've often noted in these posts, is the source-material for Theme.
Pick a philosophical stance, state it clearly in one sentence, find an object that symbolizes it, and you have the essence of what you want to SAY with your story.
Every story, novel, poem, song, film, says something. It is you the writer talking to your audience, and (as in a speech) taking a thesis, explaining it, demonstrating that it's true, then restating the thesis, transmitting an IDEA about life, about the environment, and maybe about the Soul.
You, the writer, as you say what you want to say, must hold the attention of your audience if they're to sit still long enough for you to get to your point. Your point is your theme - an abstract (boring) philosophical notion.
So you dress up that boring thought in concrete clothing - in a costume, period, in a practical object (like a lamp or a soup bowl) and you decorate your object to make it beautiful.
The object you decorate is a segment of a life, of a character's life, a segment that is recognizable to your audience and well defined in their minds already.
Examples: Going Away To College. Getting That First Job. Getting That First Divorce. Finding Mr. Right At Last. The Death of Your Last Remaining Parent. Inheriting The Haunted Mansion. Having Your Child Move Back Home Bringing a Grandchild. Marrying Off Your Grandchild.
These are familiar life milestones even to those who haven't lived them yet. Everyone knows people who have "gone through" a "period" like that.
You, the writer, take a period like that, a recognizable swatch of "life" and decorate it with particulars, a character, situation, setting -- and theme! You make a boring, utilitarian object BEAUTIFUL by making it unique.
Which brings us back to the concept of how Safety is a Fallacy a writer can exploit while at the same time delivering that emotional satisfaction of having achieved safety at the end of the novel.
The aftermath or denouement of a novel (to be classed as a Happy Ending or Upbeat Ending) has to deliver the emotional experience of SAFETY - the threat is over, gone, vanquished. The characters can relax now, and so can the reader.
You and I know it's an illusion, but the reader can experience it as real.
How do you create that illusion and "sell" it as real?
Let's consider where in life we experience safety.
We say, "There's safety in numbers."
Families form groups, and tribes - towns etc. Why? Because we feel SAFER when surrounded by others.
However, the most formidable threat to human life on this planet is other humans.
So we band together to defend ourselves and our possessions from other humans.
Look again at the essence of the Horror film -- usually involving isolating a person (or two people) from "the others." In diving, we always go with a buddy. In spelunking, we always go with at least one -- more usually several -- others. The object of the Horror Plot is a) isolate b) run from then neutralize a threat and c) REJOIN THE GROUP (or civilization, or your Combat Unit - whatever you got separated from you get to rejoin).
Why do humans feel not-safe in isolation?
Well, note that biologically we are born "premature" compared to other animals. Most other animals can stand or walk immediately to nurse, and are more functional in other ways. Humans are premature because of the physiology of the over-sized head and the birth canal, so much fetal development happens in the first 6 months to a year after birth.
So very early, there must be one other to care for us, hands-on. To get good brain development, human babies must be handled a lot. Later of course we rebel and take off on our own -- what mother hasn't chased their 2 year old across a parking lot?
We are taught what to fear -- and other people usually top that list.
Familiar people are safe. Strangers -- not safe, maybe useful, but not safe.
So in your mind, run through the stages of human development and correlate all you know against everything you've learned about how to create, handle, and resolve a PLOT CONFLICT.
So, again, we're looking for wide-accepted fallacies to challenge in order to create a theme, a statement that leads to Happily Ever After, or at least safety.
The fallacy I'd like you to consider here is Safety Is Real.
Does that fallacy come from our infantile experience of safety in the hands of our caregiver (mother, surrogate, father, elder sibling acting as parent - whatever hands got us through infancy)?
Anyone who's raised a child knows that the parent's objective is to get the child to feel safe (to stop screaming and give me a moment's peace), to return to that safe place, ("Come here, Johnny!" Mom yells across the parking lot.) and not talk to strangers (but later to be socialized enough to fall in love and form a new family; what a contradiction.) Anyone who's been a child knows that the child's objective is to take insane risks while utterly oblivious to the magnitude of the risk.
Human Parenting consists of implanting a "false sense of security" in every child.
Since we deal with Alien Romance on this blog, I should point out that I said HUMAN PARENTING -- being very specific there.
So safety is an illusion we learn as infants to regard as real, and we crave it periodically throughout life.
Feelings of safety can be evoked by CONNECTING with another human, especially after a long period of facing dangers, risks, and horrors all alone.
The film series Home Alone comes to mind. That is worth studying for the theme of safety and where it comes in our hierarchy of values.
Of course, we're not writing YA here, however, these are iconic classics about the process of learning what safety is (and is not.)
There are any number of pop psychology books on "leaving your comfort zone." All of those are great resources for Thematic material you can craft around the concept of the Fallacy of Safety.
So, since we're looking to write for adults -- about adult issues -- we should look at the adult version of the experiences of the infant and the pre-adolescent.
I have a theory (thematic material, indeed) that all International Affairs, and all theories of government, all governmental forms and the clashes between them, recapitulate the experiences of infancy and pre-adolescence (sometimes adolescence too). I look at governmental bodies (Congress, Parliament, etc) and their antics as eerily similar to Elementary School play yard activities.
One of the things kids do, especially adolescents, is form cliques. Countries form Alliances.
One thing adolescents do is dress alike. Some generations have prided themselves on each person violating some or all of the conventions of dress imposed by their parents -- in rebellion. The net result is a school full of kids all dressed identically -- ever noticed that? Mismatched colors, floppy baggy shapes or tight-skimpy patches that pass for clothes - it doesn't matter. Teens adopt an identity.
In some neighborhoods, gangs abound - and what do they do? They adopt a UNIFORM -- something everyone wears to mark them apart from others. Often it's a scarf of a particular color or pattern, or a type of shirt. In defense, schools adopt a School Uniform. This just reinforces the underlying PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT: "Safety In Numbers."
So we grow up, get a job as a Congressman and join a caucus -- or a coalition -- a GROUP OF GROUPS who all think or act in the same way.
In a previous post in this series, PART 4, Fallacies and Endorphins, I mentioned Edward Bernays. Refresh your memory on the idea that the father of Public Relations (i.e. publicity, advertising, spin doctoring) viewed humanity as having a natural herd instinct.
Themes derived from that idea can range from No Man Is An Island to Each Man Is An Island -- from we're all the same, to we're each unique.
All advertising is based on this assumption: humans can be herded. You just have to hammer the individuals into uniform units (i.e. dress them all alike in school uniforms), and they'll stick together. You know the Chinese adage that the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. That's how a governmental system based on herding humans for SAFETY has to treat individuals --- they must be made into uniform copies of each other and taught to stick together.
We all learn in school to be inconspicuous in class when we don't know the answer.
We all learn the value of "fitting in" and we do feel safer in groups.
We don't walk the dark streets at night alone, and it isn't just for safety from muggers. We go in groups because each human is UNIQUE.
We each have a set of talents, abilities, and acquired skills that are distinctive from those of everyone else -- and no one person, alone, has ALL the skills and talents needed for a high probability of survival -- not safety or certainty, just a good chance.
So we are attracted to our opposites (Soul Mates are rarely identical, and "interests in common" don't usually insure a life-long marriage). We look for those who don't have our skills -- but have other skills, so that among our friends and relatives (our Church Group or whatever group) we have access to all the necessary skills, talents and abilities.
That diversity of skills arises from a diversity of philosophical positions on any issue, and yet we get along best with people who agree with us about a few basic ideas. As we change our ideas about things, we change the groups we associate with.
Political coalitions are often formed from groups that are mortal enemies -- who don't argue their differences until a resolution is reached and someone (or everyone) changes their mind.
We discussed arguing fallacies to a plot-resolution in Part 3 of this series of posts.
Why do we form coalitions? One good set of answers (good being those that generate plots you can write) arises from the human search for power over other humans, as discussed in Part 4, Fallacies and Endorphins. Again I refer you to the book, You Can't Lie To Me by Janine Driver and the theory that politicians who exercise power over others (particularly with a lie) feel an addictive rush of endorphins from exercising power over other humans.
Why do humans experience pleasure in exercising power over other humans?
Would that be the case if humans really had a herd instinct as Bernays says?
As I described here above, note that the history and pre-history of all humanity has been the fight against the ravages of Nature -- but that battle pales against the backdrop of the fight of humanity against humanity (war.)
Exercising power over other humans makes humans feel SAFE -- that's what that endorphin rush does! And it's a fallacy. A drug induced delusion.
We wouldn't need that delusion to feel safe if we had a natural herd instinct. Just being with, beside, or among other humans would make us feel safe. It doesn't.
It takes particular, specific, unique humans around us to produce that feeling of "family." That is because each of us is a puzzle piece, maybe with a fairly standard shape but a unique color or pattern -- or perhaps with a standard color and a unique jigsaw shape -- we only fit HERE, not THERE.
Each of us has an exact place in the world, and when in that place we feel safe. Outside that place, not so much.
We feel powerful when we are in our place -- threatened when not.
Coalitions (political within a government, or among nations) don't bestow that "in your place" safety - not a safety in numbers, but a safety that comes from being among those whose skills and talents complement your own. Coalitions are based on the fallacy that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and so always fall apart as soon as the external threat has been handled or neutralized (or just abated a little.)
The members of a coalition are themselves natural enemies that can't co-exist -- that's usually the nature of a coalition.
A family isn't a coalition so much as it is a "small business" (an economic engine). The power of that engine is Love -- not the hate that powers Coalitions.
Each of these statements I've strewn throughout this series is itself the source of hundreds of possible themes strong enough to support a novel. And each suggests a plot.
The plots based on the nature of a "coalition" (the "agree to disagree" formula) is obvious. The cooperating entities dispense with the external threat, then (to the surprise, shock or horror of the others) turn on each other in a war of dominance that can turn to a war of extinction.
The plots based on "each human is unique and fits into one exact place in the world" are not quite so obvious because you don't see that many of them, especially not outside the Romance novel field. These plots are the "find your Soul Mate" plots, "Love At First Sight" plots, and "The Stranger Who Goes Home Makes Home Strange" plots -- all the "Home For The Holidays" plots fit in that category.
We live in an era when internecine warfare is considered the natural state of the family -- almost all the TV series currently running assume some sort of embarrassment, strife, or even hatred of Parents -- going "home" is indigestion-incarnate. Estrangement is almost synonymous with Family.
So the philosophical statement, "Humans can not be herded because each human is unique and has an exact place in the world," seems to the audience like a fallacy. That makes it a very powerful source of Theme for a Science Fiction Romance. The cognitive dissonance inherent in the theme is maximized by the "real" life of the reader.
A plot that addresses that theme might be formed from a Main Character buying an expensive item (a TV set, iPad, Green Energy House) that was ADVERTISED (Bernays; herding humans) enticingly, being disappointed with the performance of the product, fighting the company for a refund or redress of injuries, maybe taking it to Legal Aid services, (meeting a Soul Mate of a Lawyer - imagine that!) and powering it through all the way to the Supreme Court -- years and years and many children later, ending up as the Spouse of a Supreme Court Justice (you never hear about them in the news, do you?) Becoming a Supreme Court Justice means you're "safe" -- because nobody can fire you and you make enough to support your family well.
Of course, then there's always the sequel where the Supreme Court Justice resigns and runs for President.
Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
LINKS TO PREVIOUS PARTS:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-5-great.html
Part 7 of this series of posts will appear on March 26, 2013
The essence of story is CONFLICT -- and conflict is the power-plant of the plot.
As I've defined it in previous posts about novel and film structure, story is the sequence of emotional states and lessons learned from those states experienced within the viewpoint character(s), while plot is the 'because line' or sequence of external events each occurring "because" one of the previous events occurred.
Story is about how you feel, and plot is about what you do because you feel that way.
Not every writer, or writing teacher uses those definitions -- but every commercial story writer I know has firm grasp of these two components of story, and how they interact, regardless of what labels they use to designate them.
As I've been pointing out in this series on Theme-Plot integration, commonly held fallacies are a wondrous source of steaming hot romance stories and science fiction, fantasy, and magic based plots.
One such plot generator of a commonly held, or wished for, fallacy is the fallacy that "safety" is real, is achievable, and even desirable. Some would say necessary for life, especially if you're planning to raise children.
Safety is the goal of every Main Character caught in a Horror Novel plot.
In Horror, you stumble upon some monstrous Evil, it hits you, you hit back, struggle free, flee for your life, double-back to rescue someone, perhaps someone who's rescued you, someone you owe a favor, some total stranger you then fall in love with -- a SOMEONE who rouses emotions counter to stark-terror -- then flee with that someone who perhaps then rescues you, and finally reach some kind of weapon to use against the Evil, turn and confront the Evil, and -- because it's Horror genre and this is the rule -- YOU MUST IMPRISON THE EVIL. You can't destroy Evil, but you can be SAFE FOR NOW by putting it behind a barrier, a wall. Think of a 3 year old hiding behind his mother's leg.
The goal of Horror Genre is the payoff of FEELING SAFE (after long, drawn out, stark terror). The more stark the terror, the more potent the feeling of safety -- people indulge in Horror Genre to achieve that RELIEF of SAFETY-AT-LAST.
The iconic film to consider here is Jurassic Park -- a love story, chase scene, horror imagery mixture worth studying. The horror is caused by the usual "power in the hands of Evil" -- or uncontrolled or uncontrollable -- people. And in this case, the classic bugaboo is "science."
To understand the connection between Horror genre, Science Fiction and Fantasy, consider how Science as we know it today is a branch of Natural Philosophy, which was an attempt to make a systematic study of the how's and why's of Magic.
Yes, it all starts with Magic - with Herb Lore, and other attempts by humans to get a handle on the Environment and all the threats to life and limb that abound in our world. Since the first Cave Painting, humans have apparently been using our well developed brains to leverage intelligence into a method of "getting safe."
With agriculture, medicine, well built construction, and the mastery of fire (and all subsequent forms of power sources up to electricity), we have been building a wall between ourselves and the ravages of Nature, extending our life spans and making those lives more gentle.
Horror is an extremely popular genre because life isn't safe. And the same can be said of Romance -- we search for (and most often do find) a Soul Mate, a PERSON who complements our skills and increases our ability to make a safe-spot in the whirling storm of ever present threats.
So while we've been applying every clever trick we can think of to gain safety from our environment (fire, famine, flood, draught, desert heat, arctic cold, disease, and hard work that breaks down the body) we've also been using that same powerful brain to figure out ways to gain safety from EACH OTHER.
Yes, all the monstrous threats Nature throws at us pale in comparison to what we throw at each other. We have warred with stones, clubs, axes and atom bombs, and now we war with chemicals and even diseases. Every bit of Nature we control, we turn into a weapon against other humans who think, believe or feel differently (or who just own better crop lands or electric power sources).
The basic bond of the Soul Mate grows into the extended bonding of family, and multi-generational family structures which become tribes, villages, towns, cities, whole civilizations.
Writing courses teach that there are three basic CONFLICTS: Man vs Man, Man vs Nature, Man vs Himself.
But I've never seen a writing course teach that all humanity, and every story ever told, has only one goal: SAFETY.
Safety is certainly the goal of every Romance. Safety is another way to say "Happily Ever After." It's a point or situation in which there are no further threats that you can not overcome. Everything from there on is easy. You are SAFE.
Why do we seek safety? And what is safety? What ploys, dodges, plots and schemes have we invented along the way to convince ourselves we're safe?
What do we define as "safety?" Where does that definition come from?
These questions are all philosophical in nature -- such as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Philosophy, as I've often noted in these posts, is the source-material for Theme.
Pick a philosophical stance, state it clearly in one sentence, find an object that symbolizes it, and you have the essence of what you want to SAY with your story.
Every story, novel, poem, song, film, says something. It is you the writer talking to your audience, and (as in a speech) taking a thesis, explaining it, demonstrating that it's true, then restating the thesis, transmitting an IDEA about life, about the environment, and maybe about the Soul.
You, the writer, as you say what you want to say, must hold the attention of your audience if they're to sit still long enough for you to get to your point. Your point is your theme - an abstract (boring) philosophical notion.
So you dress up that boring thought in concrete clothing - in a costume, period, in a practical object (like a lamp or a soup bowl) and you decorate your object to make it beautiful.
The object you decorate is a segment of a life, of a character's life, a segment that is recognizable to your audience and well defined in their minds already.
Examples: Going Away To College. Getting That First Job. Getting That First Divorce. Finding Mr. Right At Last. The Death of Your Last Remaining Parent. Inheriting The Haunted Mansion. Having Your Child Move Back Home Bringing a Grandchild. Marrying Off Your Grandchild.
These are familiar life milestones even to those who haven't lived them yet. Everyone knows people who have "gone through" a "period" like that.
You, the writer, take a period like that, a recognizable swatch of "life" and decorate it with particulars, a character, situation, setting -- and theme! You make a boring, utilitarian object BEAUTIFUL by making it unique.
Which brings us back to the concept of how Safety is a Fallacy a writer can exploit while at the same time delivering that emotional satisfaction of having achieved safety at the end of the novel.
The aftermath or denouement of a novel (to be classed as a Happy Ending or Upbeat Ending) has to deliver the emotional experience of SAFETY - the threat is over, gone, vanquished. The characters can relax now, and so can the reader.
You and I know it's an illusion, but the reader can experience it as real.
How do you create that illusion and "sell" it as real?
Let's consider where in life we experience safety.
We say, "There's safety in numbers."
Families form groups, and tribes - towns etc. Why? Because we feel SAFER when surrounded by others.
However, the most formidable threat to human life on this planet is other humans.
So we band together to defend ourselves and our possessions from other humans.
Look again at the essence of the Horror film -- usually involving isolating a person (or two people) from "the others." In diving, we always go with a buddy. In spelunking, we always go with at least one -- more usually several -- others. The object of the Horror Plot is a) isolate b) run from then neutralize a threat and c) REJOIN THE GROUP (or civilization, or your Combat Unit - whatever you got separated from you get to rejoin).
Why do humans feel not-safe in isolation?
Well, note that biologically we are born "premature" compared to other animals. Most other animals can stand or walk immediately to nurse, and are more functional in other ways. Humans are premature because of the physiology of the over-sized head and the birth canal, so much fetal development happens in the first 6 months to a year after birth.
So very early, there must be one other to care for us, hands-on. To get good brain development, human babies must be handled a lot. Later of course we rebel and take off on our own -- what mother hasn't chased their 2 year old across a parking lot?
We are taught what to fear -- and other people usually top that list.
Familiar people are safe. Strangers -- not safe, maybe useful, but not safe.
So in your mind, run through the stages of human development and correlate all you know against everything you've learned about how to create, handle, and resolve a PLOT CONFLICT.
So, again, we're looking for wide-accepted fallacies to challenge in order to create a theme, a statement that leads to Happily Ever After, or at least safety.
The fallacy I'd like you to consider here is Safety Is Real.
Does that fallacy come from our infantile experience of safety in the hands of our caregiver (mother, surrogate, father, elder sibling acting as parent - whatever hands got us through infancy)?
Anyone who's raised a child knows that the parent's objective is to get the child to feel safe (to stop screaming and give me a moment's peace), to return to that safe place, ("Come here, Johnny!" Mom yells across the parking lot.) and not talk to strangers (but later to be socialized enough to fall in love and form a new family; what a contradiction.) Anyone who's been a child knows that the child's objective is to take insane risks while utterly oblivious to the magnitude of the risk.
Human Parenting consists of implanting a "false sense of security" in every child.
Since we deal with Alien Romance on this blog, I should point out that I said HUMAN PARENTING -- being very specific there.
So safety is an illusion we learn as infants to regard as real, and we crave it periodically throughout life.
Feelings of safety can be evoked by CONNECTING with another human, especially after a long period of facing dangers, risks, and horrors all alone.
The film series Home Alone comes to mind. That is worth studying for the theme of safety and where it comes in our hierarchy of values.
Of course, we're not writing YA here, however, these are iconic classics about the process of learning what safety is (and is not.)
There are any number of pop psychology books on "leaving your comfort zone." All of those are great resources for Thematic material you can craft around the concept of the Fallacy of Safety.
So, since we're looking to write for adults -- about adult issues -- we should look at the adult version of the experiences of the infant and the pre-adolescent.
I have a theory (thematic material, indeed) that all International Affairs, and all theories of government, all governmental forms and the clashes between them, recapitulate the experiences of infancy and pre-adolescence (sometimes adolescence too). I look at governmental bodies (Congress, Parliament, etc) and their antics as eerily similar to Elementary School play yard activities.
One of the things kids do, especially adolescents, is form cliques. Countries form Alliances.
One thing adolescents do is dress alike. Some generations have prided themselves on each person violating some or all of the conventions of dress imposed by their parents -- in rebellion. The net result is a school full of kids all dressed identically -- ever noticed that? Mismatched colors, floppy baggy shapes or tight-skimpy patches that pass for clothes - it doesn't matter. Teens adopt an identity.
In some neighborhoods, gangs abound - and what do they do? They adopt a UNIFORM -- something everyone wears to mark them apart from others. Often it's a scarf of a particular color or pattern, or a type of shirt. In defense, schools adopt a School Uniform. This just reinforces the underlying PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT: "Safety In Numbers."
So we grow up, get a job as a Congressman and join a caucus -- or a coalition -- a GROUP OF GROUPS who all think or act in the same way.
In a previous post in this series, PART 4, Fallacies and Endorphins, I mentioned Edward Bernays. Refresh your memory on the idea that the father of Public Relations (i.e. publicity, advertising, spin doctoring) viewed humanity as having a natural herd instinct.
Themes derived from that idea can range from No Man Is An Island to Each Man Is An Island -- from we're all the same, to we're each unique.
All advertising is based on this assumption: humans can be herded. You just have to hammer the individuals into uniform units (i.e. dress them all alike in school uniforms), and they'll stick together. You know the Chinese adage that the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. That's how a governmental system based on herding humans for SAFETY has to treat individuals --- they must be made into uniform copies of each other and taught to stick together.
We all learn in school to be inconspicuous in class when we don't know the answer.
We all learn the value of "fitting in" and we do feel safer in groups.
We don't walk the dark streets at night alone, and it isn't just for safety from muggers. We go in groups because each human is UNIQUE.
We each have a set of talents, abilities, and acquired skills that are distinctive from those of everyone else -- and no one person, alone, has ALL the skills and talents needed for a high probability of survival -- not safety or certainty, just a good chance.
So we are attracted to our opposites (Soul Mates are rarely identical, and "interests in common" don't usually insure a life-long marriage). We look for those who don't have our skills -- but have other skills, so that among our friends and relatives (our Church Group or whatever group) we have access to all the necessary skills, talents and abilities.
That diversity of skills arises from a diversity of philosophical positions on any issue, and yet we get along best with people who agree with us about a few basic ideas. As we change our ideas about things, we change the groups we associate with.
Political coalitions are often formed from groups that are mortal enemies -- who don't argue their differences until a resolution is reached and someone (or everyone) changes their mind.
We discussed arguing fallacies to a plot-resolution in Part 3 of this series of posts.
Why do we form coalitions? One good set of answers (good being those that generate plots you can write) arises from the human search for power over other humans, as discussed in Part 4, Fallacies and Endorphins. Again I refer you to the book, You Can't Lie To Me by Janine Driver and the theory that politicians who exercise power over others (particularly with a lie) feel an addictive rush of endorphins from exercising power over other humans.
Why do humans experience pleasure in exercising power over other humans?
Would that be the case if humans really had a herd instinct as Bernays says?
As I described here above, note that the history and pre-history of all humanity has been the fight against the ravages of Nature -- but that battle pales against the backdrop of the fight of humanity against humanity (war.)
Exercising power over other humans makes humans feel SAFE -- that's what that endorphin rush does! And it's a fallacy. A drug induced delusion.
We wouldn't need that delusion to feel safe if we had a natural herd instinct. Just being with, beside, or among other humans would make us feel safe. It doesn't.
It takes particular, specific, unique humans around us to produce that feeling of "family." That is because each of us is a puzzle piece, maybe with a fairly standard shape but a unique color or pattern -- or perhaps with a standard color and a unique jigsaw shape -- we only fit HERE, not THERE.
Each of us has an exact place in the world, and when in that place we feel safe. Outside that place, not so much.
We feel powerful when we are in our place -- threatened when not.
Coalitions (political within a government, or among nations) don't bestow that "in your place" safety - not a safety in numbers, but a safety that comes from being among those whose skills and talents complement your own. Coalitions are based on the fallacy that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and so always fall apart as soon as the external threat has been handled or neutralized (or just abated a little.)
The members of a coalition are themselves natural enemies that can't co-exist -- that's usually the nature of a coalition.
A family isn't a coalition so much as it is a "small business" (an economic engine). The power of that engine is Love -- not the hate that powers Coalitions.
Each of these statements I've strewn throughout this series is itself the source of hundreds of possible themes strong enough to support a novel. And each suggests a plot.
The plots based on the nature of a "coalition" (the "agree to disagree" formula) is obvious. The cooperating entities dispense with the external threat, then (to the surprise, shock or horror of the others) turn on each other in a war of dominance that can turn to a war of extinction.
The plots based on "each human is unique and fits into one exact place in the world" are not quite so obvious because you don't see that many of them, especially not outside the Romance novel field. These plots are the "find your Soul Mate" plots, "Love At First Sight" plots, and "The Stranger Who Goes Home Makes Home Strange" plots -- all the "Home For The Holidays" plots fit in that category.
We live in an era when internecine warfare is considered the natural state of the family -- almost all the TV series currently running assume some sort of embarrassment, strife, or even hatred of Parents -- going "home" is indigestion-incarnate. Estrangement is almost synonymous with Family.
So the philosophical statement, "Humans can not be herded because each human is unique and has an exact place in the world," seems to the audience like a fallacy. That makes it a very powerful source of Theme for a Science Fiction Romance. The cognitive dissonance inherent in the theme is maximized by the "real" life of the reader.
A plot that addresses that theme might be formed from a Main Character buying an expensive item (a TV set, iPad, Green Energy House) that was ADVERTISED (Bernays; herding humans) enticingly, being disappointed with the performance of the product, fighting the company for a refund or redress of injuries, maybe taking it to Legal Aid services, (meeting a Soul Mate of a Lawyer - imagine that!) and powering it through all the way to the Supreme Court -- years and years and many children later, ending up as the Spouse of a Supreme Court Justice (you never hear about them in the news, do you?) Becoming a Supreme Court Justice means you're "safe" -- because nobody can fire you and you make enough to support your family well.
Of course, then there's always the sequel where the Supreme Court Justice resigns and runs for President.
Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
Theme-Plot Integration Part 4: Fallacies and Endorphins
If you're reading this on New Year's Day, stop and come join us for our annual Sime~Gen New Year's chat -- info and instructions on the Sime~Gen Group on Facebook and/or http://out-territory.blogspot.com
Then come back and read about how to use the basic Theme and Plot techniques I've been harping on in these Tuesday posts to avoid expository lumps. Yes, that's what this is all about -- avoiding boring the reader by telling rather than showing. Put all the information into the substrata of the composition, into the structural elements. This is an advanced lesson, combining two techniques, Theme and Plot.
Previous parts in this Theme-Plot Integration Series:
Part 1 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html
Part 2 http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html
Part 3 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html
Before we continue with all this criticizing and negativity, let me just point out that the reason we harbor so many fallacies is that our brains are structured to arrange information in such a way that we are most likely to find what we need to know to survive -- and to do that, we just ignore stuff that doesn't seem to pertain to our lives.
This brain structure quirk has kept our species alive but it isn't necessarily pro-individual survival.
The key is of course choosing your fallacies wisely, and ditching the ones that impair your survival, and your ability to accomplish your particular purpose.
The process of ditching a cherished fallacy even has a name which has become a touchstone of writer-craft structure. This is a very specifically formulated moment in film or novel, a singular moment in the entire life of your Main Character.
This exquisite moment is called The Epiphany and it is the main climax of the Story, but not usually the Plot. It is the moment the Main Character realizes where he/she has been oh-so wrong about something, that there has been a fallacy in reasoning, and/or a failure to ask and answer a question, to discover a key fact.
The Epiphany in a Romance is usually the moment that one character finally understands why he/she has been doing these ridiculous things, taking irrational risks to save someone else's butt, or attacking some other person out of virulent dislike that nobody else can understand. The Epiphany is "I Love You."
Religious Enlightenment stories pivot around the Epiphany "God is Real."
Betrayal stories pivot on "My Best Friend Is My Worst Enemy."
Constructing a good epiphany requires first laying down a really plausible fallacy.
One good source of dynamite fallacies is the lies everyone believes.
Here's a blog post on the business of Film Making - and Screenwriting pinpointing 4 lies that have been sold as truths to the unsuspecting. If your main character is trying to break into an industry that markets art (any such industry from oil-paintings sold at street fairs to High Fashion in Paris) these 4 lies are wondrous sources of Fallacy to harbor and Epiphany when the fallacy is shattered.
http://www.raindance.org/hollywoods-4-biggest-lies/
The thesis in that article is that Hollywood is a film MARKETING industry (not film making industry).
For the purpose of studying Fallacies and how they are used in our real world so we can use them in fictional worldbuilding, we need to consider that Marketing is based on PR (public relations) which is, thanks Bernays - (as mentioned previously in this series, see Links above) a science.
I've been talking about writing as a performing art and the business of writing as a marketing problem here for years.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/marketing-via-social-networking.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html
And there is the 7 part series I've done on Editing that has helped a lot of beginners get their start.
This has links to the prior parts all listed at the top:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html
Marketing now runs on commercials and sound-bytes, YouTube videos and Endorsements. It used to be jingles and slogans when all they had was radio and B&W magazines. But since Bernays came up with his herd-instinct idea driven by fear of the behavior of other humans (a wondrously fruitful fallacy for writers to explore), Marketing has been a Science.
We have had blockbuster TV shows set in Advertising Companies or revolving around a character who writes advertising for a living. Those characters are always rich -- there's a reason for that. In real life, those who've mastered Advertising Copy Writing and TV Ad production are a lot richer than any mere novelist.
Does Advertising work for Marketing because humans really do have a herd instinct? Or does it work for another reason?
Are humans who are conditioned to behave as individuals, who don't need or want a "Leader" because they aren't followers and therefore don't prize Leadership, who aren't subject to any herd instinct or tendency, actually dangerous?
To whom are they dangerous? What exactly is the danger? Who would take damage if humans got loose? The answer to each of those questions could be used to form that Epiphany Moment in a film or novel.
Some of the best romance stories pivot on the subconscious fear of love, leading to the Epiphany that Love Is Not A Threat, that fear of love has a fallacy at its root.
That type of fallacy novel is about the lies we tell ourselves.
See the post on Weaponizing Lies
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/dialogue-part-4-legal-weasel.html
Here is a website devoted to videogames made by Bioware and Lucasarts (now part of Disney) based on Star Wars.
http://www.swtor.com/info/setting
Note, the whole Star Wars saga is based on the current-world's most cherished fallacy -- and nobody, but absolutely nobody, ever identifies this fallacy: that "peace" can be achieved by the process of "fighting," fighting to the death.
This is such a whopping huge Fallacy that once you have that Epiphany that it's utter nonsense, and you no longer wonder why all these millennia of fighting for peace have not resulted in Peace On Earth, then suddenly the whole world becomes incomprehensible. Why would you hire a politician who wants to "fight for you" -- before you have this epiphany, it's so reasonable to want to vote for the Champion who can win your rights for you, and afterwards it becomes clear how Advertising has perpetuated this particular Fallacy.
There's at least a series of novels in finding out who benefits from perpetuating that fallacy.
Star Wars must be the single biggest marketable product to come along selling the "Fight For Peace" fallacy as necessary in the "War Against Evil."
Star Wars may be bigger than Star Trek by now.
Star Trek is based on "when we become wise" (as Gene Roddenberry always said in his speeches at conventions) we will have peace. Peace achieved through acquiring wisdom is the theme. But Star Wars out-sells Star Trek.
Fighting is more fun than becoming wise.
Fighting is fun because of that endorphin addiction noted in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/dialogue-part-5-how-to-write-liar.html
Endorphins are create by the body, relaxing and triggering a pleasure response.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorphins
----------QUOTE WIKIPEDIA --------------
Endorphins ("endogenous morphine") are endogenous opioid peptides that function as neurotransmitters.[1] They are produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in vertebrates during exercise,[2] excitement, pain, consumption of spicy food, love and orgasm,[3][4] and they resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce analgesia and a feeling of well-being.
The term implies a pharmacological activity (analogous to the activity of the corticosteroid category of biochemicals) as opposed to a specific chemical formulation. It consists of two parts: endo- and -orphin; these are short forms of the words endogenous and morphine, intended to mean "a morphine-like substance originating from within the body."[5]
The term "endorphin rush" has been adopted in popular speech to refer to feelings of exhilaration brought on by pain, danger, or other forms of stress,[2] supposedly due to the influence of endorphins. When a nerve impulse reaches the spinal cord, endorphins that prevent nerve cells from releasing more pain signals are released. Immediately after injury, endorphins allow animals to feel a sense of power and control over themselves that allows them to persist with activity for an extended time.[citation needed]
---------------END QUOTE-----------
Humans can achieve this kind of response just from imagination. So indeed, the "fallacy" of "fighting for peace" seems on the surface, from personal internal experience to be a "no brainer."
You FIGHT: You feel pleasure.
Just as in the post on Liar Dialogue, Part 5 in the Dialogue Series:
You lie: You feel pleasure
You exercise power over others: You feel pleasure.
The book, You Can't Lie To Me by Janine Driver, illustrates how basic it is to the human animal to feel a rush of endorphins when exercising power over other humans. Lying from a position of power, tricking others into doing what you want by reshaping their idea of reality, produces an addictive rush of endorphins -- it's addictive because you become immune to the effect and thus require a bigger rush or endorphins to get the pleasure hit. You need more and more power over more and more people just to feel normal.
Think about that concept -- read up on the science -- then think about "who" Bernays was, what his biography was, where inside him did the idea of humans as a herd to be controlled by lies come from? Why are humans running loose without anyone controlling them dangerous? To whom are they dangerous -- really, to whom?
How many plots with dynamite epiphanies can you create by trying out different answers to those questions?
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Then come back and read about how to use the basic Theme and Plot techniques I've been harping on in these Tuesday posts to avoid expository lumps. Yes, that's what this is all about -- avoiding boring the reader by telling rather than showing. Put all the information into the substrata of the composition, into the structural elements. This is an advanced lesson, combining two techniques, Theme and Plot.
Previous parts in this Theme-Plot Integration Series:
Part 1 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html
Part 2 http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html
Part 3 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html
Before we continue with all this criticizing and negativity, let me just point out that the reason we harbor so many fallacies is that our brains are structured to arrange information in such a way that we are most likely to find what we need to know to survive -- and to do that, we just ignore stuff that doesn't seem to pertain to our lives.
This brain structure quirk has kept our species alive but it isn't necessarily pro-individual survival.
The key is of course choosing your fallacies wisely, and ditching the ones that impair your survival, and your ability to accomplish your particular purpose.
The process of ditching a cherished fallacy even has a name which has become a touchstone of writer-craft structure. This is a very specifically formulated moment in film or novel, a singular moment in the entire life of your Main Character.
This exquisite moment is called The Epiphany and it is the main climax of the Story, but not usually the Plot. It is the moment the Main Character realizes where he/she has been oh-so wrong about something, that there has been a fallacy in reasoning, and/or a failure to ask and answer a question, to discover a key fact.
The Epiphany in a Romance is usually the moment that one character finally understands why he/she has been doing these ridiculous things, taking irrational risks to save someone else's butt, or attacking some other person out of virulent dislike that nobody else can understand. The Epiphany is "I Love You."
Religious Enlightenment stories pivot around the Epiphany "God is Real."
Betrayal stories pivot on "My Best Friend Is My Worst Enemy."
Constructing a good epiphany requires first laying down a really plausible fallacy.
One good source of dynamite fallacies is the lies everyone believes.
Here's a blog post on the business of Film Making - and Screenwriting pinpointing 4 lies that have been sold as truths to the unsuspecting. If your main character is trying to break into an industry that markets art (any such industry from oil-paintings sold at street fairs to High Fashion in Paris) these 4 lies are wondrous sources of Fallacy to harbor and Epiphany when the fallacy is shattered.
http://www.raindance.org/hollywoods-4-biggest-lies/
The thesis in that article is that Hollywood is a film MARKETING industry (not film making industry).
For the purpose of studying Fallacies and how they are used in our real world so we can use them in fictional worldbuilding, we need to consider that Marketing is based on PR (public relations) which is, thanks Bernays - (as mentioned previously in this series, see Links above) a science.
I've been talking about writing as a performing art and the business of writing as a marketing problem here for years.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/marketing-via-social-networking.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html
And there is the 7 part series I've done on Editing that has helped a lot of beginners get their start.
This has links to the prior parts all listed at the top:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html
Marketing now runs on commercials and sound-bytes, YouTube videos and Endorsements. It used to be jingles and slogans when all they had was radio and B&W magazines. But since Bernays came up with his herd-instinct idea driven by fear of the behavior of other humans (a wondrously fruitful fallacy for writers to explore), Marketing has been a Science.
We have had blockbuster TV shows set in Advertising Companies or revolving around a character who writes advertising for a living. Those characters are always rich -- there's a reason for that. In real life, those who've mastered Advertising Copy Writing and TV Ad production are a lot richer than any mere novelist.
Does Advertising work for Marketing because humans really do have a herd instinct? Or does it work for another reason?
Are humans who are conditioned to behave as individuals, who don't need or want a "Leader" because they aren't followers and therefore don't prize Leadership, who aren't subject to any herd instinct or tendency, actually dangerous?
To whom are they dangerous? What exactly is the danger? Who would take damage if humans got loose? The answer to each of those questions could be used to form that Epiphany Moment in a film or novel.
Some of the best romance stories pivot on the subconscious fear of love, leading to the Epiphany that Love Is Not A Threat, that fear of love has a fallacy at its root.
That type of fallacy novel is about the lies we tell ourselves.
See the post on Weaponizing Lies
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/dialogue-part-4-legal-weasel.html
Here is a website devoted to videogames made by Bioware and Lucasarts (now part of Disney) based on Star Wars.
http://www.swtor.com/info/setting
Note, the whole Star Wars saga is based on the current-world's most cherished fallacy -- and nobody, but absolutely nobody, ever identifies this fallacy: that "peace" can be achieved by the process of "fighting," fighting to the death.
This is such a whopping huge Fallacy that once you have that Epiphany that it's utter nonsense, and you no longer wonder why all these millennia of fighting for peace have not resulted in Peace On Earth, then suddenly the whole world becomes incomprehensible. Why would you hire a politician who wants to "fight for you" -- before you have this epiphany, it's so reasonable to want to vote for the Champion who can win your rights for you, and afterwards it becomes clear how Advertising has perpetuated this particular Fallacy.
There's at least a series of novels in finding out who benefits from perpetuating that fallacy.
Star Wars must be the single biggest marketable product to come along selling the "Fight For Peace" fallacy as necessary in the "War Against Evil."
Star Wars may be bigger than Star Trek by now.
Star Trek is based on "when we become wise" (as Gene Roddenberry always said in his speeches at conventions) we will have peace. Peace achieved through acquiring wisdom is the theme. But Star Wars out-sells Star Trek.
Fighting is more fun than becoming wise.
Fighting is fun because of that endorphin addiction noted in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/dialogue-part-5-how-to-write-liar.html
Endorphins are create by the body, relaxing and triggering a pleasure response.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorphins
----------QUOTE WIKIPEDIA --------------
Endorphins ("endogenous morphine") are endogenous opioid peptides that function as neurotransmitters.[1] They are produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in vertebrates during exercise,[2] excitement, pain, consumption of spicy food, love and orgasm,[3][4] and they resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce analgesia and a feeling of well-being.
The term implies a pharmacological activity (analogous to the activity of the corticosteroid category of biochemicals) as opposed to a specific chemical formulation. It consists of two parts: endo- and -orphin; these are short forms of the words endogenous and morphine, intended to mean "a morphine-like substance originating from within the body."[5]
The term "endorphin rush" has been adopted in popular speech to refer to feelings of exhilaration brought on by pain, danger, or other forms of stress,[2] supposedly due to the influence of endorphins. When a nerve impulse reaches the spinal cord, endorphins that prevent nerve cells from releasing more pain signals are released. Immediately after injury, endorphins allow animals to feel a sense of power and control over themselves that allows them to persist with activity for an extended time.[citation needed]
---------------END QUOTE-----------
Humans can achieve this kind of response just from imagination. So indeed, the "fallacy" of "fighting for peace" seems on the surface, from personal internal experience to be a "no brainer."
You FIGHT: You feel pleasure.
Just as in the post on Liar Dialogue, Part 5 in the Dialogue Series:
You lie: You feel pleasure
You exercise power over others: You feel pleasure.
The book, You Can't Lie To Me by Janine Driver, illustrates how basic it is to the human animal to feel a rush of endorphins when exercising power over other humans. Lying from a position of power, tricking others into doing what you want by reshaping their idea of reality, produces an addictive rush of endorphins -- it's addictive because you become immune to the effect and thus require a bigger rush or endorphins to get the pleasure hit. You need more and more power over more and more people just to feel normal.
Think about that concept -- read up on the science -- then think about "who" Bernays was, what his biography was, where inside him did the idea of humans as a herd to be controlled by lies come from? Why are humans running loose without anyone controlling them dangerous? To whom are they dangerous -- really, to whom?
How many plots with dynamite epiphanies can you create by trying out different answers to those questions?
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Theme-Plot Integration Part 3: Fallacy Analysis
This is Part 3 of Theme-Plot Integration, and here we'll look at some glaring fallacies in our world.
Previous Parts are here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html
http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html
I'm collecting stuff here for future reference on the aftermath of Election 2012 - and what all that has to do with THEME-PLOT Integration. In this part of the series on Theme-Plot Integration we're using the classic "fallacy" as the focus of the exercise.
Here are websites that may still be available with statistics on the Election.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-election-results/#
http://nation.foxnews.com/2012-presidential-election/2012/11/07/fox-exit-poll-summary-2012-presidential-election
I just happened to click on a fox link and found these by accident -- nice technology, but CNN is probably better.
Here's a DICK MORRIS newsletter:
http://www.dickmorris.com/why-i-was-wrong/
Read what he thinks led him astray in predicting the outcome of Election 2012 which differs so markedly from what he predicted.
Morris highlights is important stuff about how fallacies work in drama illustrated in a real-world context. Here he's digested a lot of information into a "briefing" that is perfectly constructed for busy writers to study. And it tells you something very important about your target audience, the people you have to entertain to get them to buy your next book.
The gist of it is the same comment I saw on CNN from their somewhat new commentator Van Jones. Here's a clip with Van Jones reacting to CNN's re-election call.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/07/gergen-election-outcome-shows-desire-for-moderation/
Here's an article about who Van Jones is and how he got to be a CNN commentator.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/09/06/van_jones_resigns.html
The United Stages Demographics Have Changed.
I'll bet you already knew that. Thing is, do you know from what the demographics changed and into what they changed -- but maybe most importantly, why?
"Why?" is important because in the worlds you build around this theme of "fallacies" need that aura of verisimilitude to draw your readers into your reality. Your world must be in flux, and that flux must be driven by a reason. Why does your built world have to be in flux? Because your audience's world is in flux, and any world not in flux will not seem "real" to that audience.
This theme-plot integration series of blog posts is pointing out how to use popular fallacies in weaving Theme-Plot Integration -- this is subtle philosophical stuff. But it's not difficult to master.
See how I have plucked out just one tiny bit from all this election data and found an element to include in your worldbuilding that will improve your sales? In this case, demographics in flux changes the politics.
Now, "world in demographic flux" also has to be woven into theme, and then plot.
Consider that one demographic segment that might flow like a tidal wave over an established, static world upsetting the whole balance of power in your fictional world could be -- oh, say Religion, as a wave of conversions sweeps through. Or a plague might upset the male/female balance. Or an invasion of aliens (think of the TV show ALIEN NATION -- but increase the number of refugees to say 3/4 of the indigenous population.) Each cause for a change in the demographics of your built world points to a different set of themes. Within each theme, you can find a pivotal fallacy to generate your plot.
Remember fallacies are fallacies because they reside deep in the subconscious, behind the assumptions that make life livable. And that is where your Hero's main Adversary comes from, that's the origin from which the Villain is projected. Psychology has uncovered how this works. Each of us is a Captain Ahab bound to our Whale. The whale isn't Ahab's problem. The binding is the problem. Those bindings are made up out of the fallacies we harbor.
Identify and articulate the fallacy in your Main Character's subconscious, and you have determined not only who/what the Adversary is, but also what the Conflict Resolution is. That Resolution defines what the Conflict is. Follow the conflict back to its origin, and you'll discover where exactly your story begins -- and be able to craft a narrative hook that will grab a very large audience.
Again and again, I need to emphasize that I'm not telling you what to think about which fallacy, but showing you HOW TO THINK LIKE A WRITER (which is very, very different from how a reader thinks). This is about how to look at current events, find the widely-held fallacy, identify it inside yourself (if it's not inside you, it won't produce a great novel), and create the "argument" that dispels the fallacy. That "argument" is your plot.
The argument goes like this:
a) Hero believes Fallacy because (X)
b) Villain or Adversary believes differently and attacks X
c) Hero defends X (Ahab scrambling to stock his ship and get that damn fish -- or Columbus begging money from royalty to outfit ships to sail off the edge of the world)
d) Villain wins - disproving X (that's the middle, the low-point for Hero)
e) Hero realizes he's believed a fallacy - what he knows to be true is in fact not true (grand angst moment)
f) Villain takes advantage of angst-moment to attack
g) Hero gathers himself and creates a NEW BELIEF (which might be partially fallacious if you need a sequel) and attacks Villain
h) Villain gets away
i) Hero pursues and triumphs having freed himself of the bond to the villain by eliminating the cherished fallacy
If it's a Romance, Hero and Villain might be the couple -- or the Villain might be vanquished by the Hero and Heroine getting together ( as in the Prince who elopes with the milkmaid redefining the King's view of reality.)
Whatever the genre, the argument over the validity of the fallacy is in the plot, and never (ever) articulated in actual words, not exposition or dialogue. The argument is articulated only in action, in change of situation. Plot is not about "what happens" -- but about what the characters do. What happens is the result of what the characters do. The plot is what the characters do, and the story is all about how the results of those actions change the fallacy they hold most dear.
All my traditionally published novels are formulated on such "fallacies" that become entrenched in popular thinking, different fallacies for different times, and the shifting demographic served by the particular publishing company I was working for.
Oddly, the Sime~Gen Series is based on a fallacy that hasn't yet gone out of fashion. For the Sime~Gen videogame, though, we are adding another fallacy and setting it in the space age.
Fallacies you find in general media always work very well for generating popular fiction.
I saw a factoid flick by me (while watching data feeds on my cell and flipping channels on the TV, so I don't know where this came from) -- that last minute deciders cast ballots on the basis of the TV commercials they had seen, believing those political ads, just the way Bernays predicted people would behave (way before such tech as TV ads existed).
Here's a quote from Part 1 of this series leading you to study this fellow:
--------QUOTE FROM PART 1----------
Here's a link to Wikipedia (incomplete article in need of fact-checking)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
-------------QUOTE--------------------------------
Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995) was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".[1] He combined the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud.
He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the 'herd instinct' that Trotter had described.[2] Adam Curtis's award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, pinpoints Bernays as the originator of modern public relations, and Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine.[3
---------------END QUOTE------------
Thus "Public Relations" is a field that grows out of one genius's deep rooted fear of the behavior of his fellow humans, and a terrible need to "control" that powerful and evil force called "humanity."
---------END QUOTE FROM PART 1 ----------
PUBLIC RELATIONS wielded by the invisible hand of power behind the throne could make a NIFTY reason for the CHANGE IN DEMOGRAPHICS in your built world. It could also work as the source of the fallacy that binds the Hero to the Villain just as Bernays' purported belief that society was irrational and dangerous because of the "herd instinct" and therefore more evolved people must command the direction of the herd -- members of which can't be allowed to make individual decisions about the course of their own lives.
One good fallacy to base fiction on might be a belief that Bernays was mentally ill, that society isn't irrational and dangerous and there is no herd instinct among humans. But Bernays created the herds of humans and drove them insane. That situation would make a nifty alien planet for your invading refugees to come from - landing on Earth to find the same nightmare situation in play, and changing the demographic by simply being here.
Finding, articulating, and challenging such fallacies is the main source of ALL science fiction.
Here's a post from Facebook by David Gerrold, a master of this plotting technique. Read what he wrote about our current shifting demographic and how that affects fiction audiences and see why you must explore the worlds he's created. Remember, he broke into screenwriting at an early age with his first sale TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES, an iconic Star Trek Episode, but went on to write some of the best, and most widely read novels in Science Fiction.
----------POST ON FACEBOOK BY DAVID GERROLD ---
http://www.amazon.com/David-Gerrold/e/B000AQ1PQM/ is his author page on Amazon. READ ALL HIS BOOKS!
-----------QUOTE FROM DAVID GERROLD----------
I haven't been reading a lot of science fiction lately, and I've skipped a lot of movies too. And it finally hit me after seeing Cloud Atlas what was bothering me.
I grew up in an age when science fiction movies were about vision and courage. Things To Come was about humanity triumphing over ignorance and leaping into space. Destination Moon and Conquest of Space were vivid predictions of what was possible. Forbidden Planet took us to far stars and 2001 was one of the great inspirational landmarks of the twentieth century. Star Trek, the original series, was about a future of exploration and partnership. All of these taken together said that human beings would survive our darker impulses, would learn how to live together in harmony, would assume the responsibilities of true sentience. And it's no coincidence that those stories helped motivate one of our grandest adventures -- the Apollo program that took us to the moon.
Today, too many books and movies and TV shows are about the failures of humanity. We see big impersonal cities or dystopic soul-crushing cities. We see failure and futility and hopelessness. We do not see people laughing, building, exploring, seeking, discovering, or rising to new heights -- no, we see them struggling for survival, squabbling with each other-- not uniting in common cause, not surviving as communities, but devolving into deranged and panic-stricken animals.
I know from personal experience that view of human nature is wrong. I've been at the center of a disaster and I watched as strangers came together to help each other, as neighbors gathered to make sure that everyone was safe and cared for.
I think that since the sixties, science fiction authors have become more and more overwhelmed by the future -- there's too much knowledge, too much research, too much technology for any one single human being to keep up. The "singularity" is crushing down on us even before it arrives. So it's easier to write about the collapse of civilization than to imagine a future where civilization has leapt to a new level.
But the history of our species is an astonishing chronicle of invention, innovation, and stubborn mean cussedness over the obstinacy of the physical universe. There is still so much we can be looking at, imagining, predicting, postulating, extrapolating, and describing so vividly that the reader will be certain we're time-travelers from the future. We have a whole solar system to explore. Getting into orbit, getting to the moon and Mars and the asteroids and the moons of the gas giants, all of those locales are opportunities for amazing tales of unknown possibilities.
This is my point. Everything in the world starts as a conversation. Everything. The conversation can be "I hate it when..." or "why can't we..." or "I wish it were possible to..." or "what if..." or even "that's odd..." -- but those conversations are the beginning of possibilities. Science fiction is about possibilities. It's the consideration of those possibilities that creates probability. And after probability, the next step is inevitability.
Science fiction is about the choices ahead of us. Every moment of every day, life is about choices -- not just the choice of the moment, but the results of that choice. Science fiction is about the results and the opportunity to make choices that will take us there. Science fiction is the conversation that illuminates the unknown landscapes of tomorrow.
That's the science fiction I want to read, that's the science fiction I want to see in the movies. Because science fiction is an opportunity to rekindle the enthusiasm for science as a world-changing adventure.
---------------END QUOTE---------
David -- being the genius I've always known he is -- nailed the core of the fallacy producing this crazy quilt of "results" -- elections with margins too narrow to reflect an actual, considered consensus.
The reason for this -- well, it's for fiction writers to speculate and write about, to turn the problem every which way and imagine different courses out of it, to find academic theories that account for it, to put American's peculiar constitution (peculiar in the sense of not being duplicated anywhere else in the world) into world-context, and human history.
Go out into the galaxy, find some aliens you invent, and explore what traits of human aggregate behavior are the source of this situation.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Previous Parts are here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html
http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html
I'm collecting stuff here for future reference on the aftermath of Election 2012 - and what all that has to do with THEME-PLOT Integration. In this part of the series on Theme-Plot Integration we're using the classic "fallacy" as the focus of the exercise.
Here are websites that may still be available with statistics on the Election.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-election-results/#
http://nation.foxnews.com/2012-presidential-election/2012/11/07/fox-exit-poll-summary-2012-presidential-election
I just happened to click on a fox link and found these by accident -- nice technology, but CNN is probably better.
Here's a DICK MORRIS newsletter:
http://www.dickmorris.com/why-i-was-wrong/
Read what he thinks led him astray in predicting the outcome of Election 2012 which differs so markedly from what he predicted.
Morris highlights is important stuff about how fallacies work in drama illustrated in a real-world context. Here he's digested a lot of information into a "briefing" that is perfectly constructed for busy writers to study. And it tells you something very important about your target audience, the people you have to entertain to get them to buy your next book.
The gist of it is the same comment I saw on CNN from their somewhat new commentator Van Jones. Here's a clip with Van Jones reacting to CNN's re-election call.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/07/gergen-election-outcome-shows-desire-for-moderation/
Here's an article about who Van Jones is and how he got to be a CNN commentator.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/09/06/van_jones_resigns.html
The United Stages Demographics Have Changed.
I'll bet you already knew that. Thing is, do you know from what the demographics changed and into what they changed -- but maybe most importantly, why?
"Why?" is important because in the worlds you build around this theme of "fallacies" need that aura of verisimilitude to draw your readers into your reality. Your world must be in flux, and that flux must be driven by a reason.
This theme-plot integration series of blog posts is pointing out how to use popular fallacies in weaving Theme-Plot Integration -- this is subtle philosophical stuff. But it's not difficult to master.
See how I have plucked out just one tiny bit from all this election data and found an element to include in your worldbuilding that will improve your sales? In this case, demographics in flux changes the politics.
Now, "world in demographic flux" also has to be woven into theme, and then plot.
Consider that one demographic segment that might flow like a tidal wave over an established, static world upsetting the whole balance of power in your fictional world could be -- oh, say Religion, as a wave of conversions sweeps through. Or a plague might upset the male/female balance. Or an invasion of aliens (think of the TV show ALIEN NATION -- but increase the number of refugees to say 3/4 of the indigenous population.) Each cause for a change in the demographics of your built world points to a different set of themes. Within each theme, you can find a pivotal fallacy to generate your plot.
Remember fallacies are fallacies because they reside deep in the subconscious, behind the assumptions that make life livable. And that is where your Hero's main Adversary comes from, that's the origin from which the Villain is projected. Psychology has uncovered how this works. Each of us is a Captain Ahab bound to our Whale. The whale isn't Ahab's problem. The binding is the problem. Those bindings are made up out of the fallacies we harbor.
Identify and articulate the fallacy in your Main Character's subconscious, and you have determined not only who/what the Adversary is, but also what the Conflict Resolution is. That Resolution defines what the Conflict is. Follow the conflict back to its origin, and you'll discover where exactly your story begins -- and be able to craft a narrative hook that will grab a very large audience.
Again and again, I need to emphasize that I'm not telling you what to think about which fallacy, but showing you HOW TO THINK LIKE A WRITER (which is very, very different from how a reader thinks). This is about how to look at current events, find the widely-held fallacy, identify it inside yourself (if it's not inside you, it won't produce a great novel), and create the "argument" that dispels the fallacy. That "argument" is your plot.
The argument goes like this:
a) Hero believes Fallacy because (X)
b) Villain or Adversary believes differently and attacks X
c) Hero defends X (Ahab scrambling to stock his ship and get that damn fish -- or Columbus begging money from royalty to outfit ships to sail off the edge of the world)
d) Villain wins - disproving X (that's the middle, the low-point for Hero)
e) Hero realizes he's believed a fallacy - what he knows to be true is in fact not true (grand angst moment)
f) Villain takes advantage of angst-moment to attack
g) Hero gathers himself and creates a NEW BELIEF (which might be partially fallacious if you need a sequel) and attacks Villain
h) Villain gets away
i) Hero pursues and triumphs having freed himself of the bond to the villain by eliminating the cherished fallacy
If it's a Romance, Hero and Villain might be the couple -- or the Villain might be vanquished by the Hero and Heroine getting together ( as in the Prince who elopes with the milkmaid redefining the King's view of reality.)
Whatever the genre, the argument over the validity of the fallacy is in the plot, and never (ever) articulated in actual words, not exposition or dialogue. The argument is articulated only in action, in change of situation. Plot is not about "what happens" -- but about what the characters do. What happens is the result of what the characters do. The plot is what the characters do, and the story is all about how the results of those actions change the fallacy they hold most dear.
All my traditionally published novels are formulated on such "fallacies" that become entrenched in popular thinking, different fallacies for different times, and the shifting demographic served by the particular publishing company I was working for.
Oddly, the Sime~Gen Series is based on a fallacy that hasn't yet gone out of fashion. For the Sime~Gen videogame, though, we are adding another fallacy and setting it in the space age.
Fallacies you find in general media always work very well for generating popular fiction.
I saw a factoid flick by me (while watching data feeds on my cell and flipping channels on the TV, so I don't know where this came from) -- that last minute deciders cast ballots on the basis of the TV commercials they had seen, believing those political ads, just the way Bernays predicted people would behave (way before such tech as TV ads existed).
Here's a quote from Part 1 of this series leading you to study this fellow:
--------QUOTE FROM PART 1----------
Here's a link to Wikipedia (incomplete article in need of fact-checking)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
-------------QUOTE--------------------------------
Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995) was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".[1] He combined the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud.
He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the 'herd instinct' that Trotter had described.[2] Adam Curtis's award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, pinpoints Bernays as the originator of modern public relations, and Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine.[3
---------------END QUOTE------------
Thus "Public Relations" is a field that grows out of one genius's deep rooted fear of the behavior of his fellow humans, and a terrible need to "control" that powerful and evil force called "humanity."
---------END QUOTE FROM PART 1 ----------
PUBLIC RELATIONS wielded by the invisible hand of power behind the throne could make a NIFTY reason for the CHANGE IN DEMOGRAPHICS in your built world. It could also work as the source of the fallacy that binds the Hero to the Villain just as Bernays' purported belief that society was irrational and dangerous because of the "herd instinct" and therefore more evolved people must command the direction of the herd -- members of which can't be allowed to make individual decisions about the course of their own lives.
One good fallacy to base fiction on might be a belief that Bernays was mentally ill, that society isn't irrational and dangerous and there is no herd instinct among humans. But Bernays created the herds of humans and drove them insane. That situation would make a nifty alien planet for your invading refugees to come from - landing on Earth to find the same nightmare situation in play, and changing the demographic by simply being here.
Finding, articulating, and challenging such fallacies is the main source of ALL science fiction.
Here's a post from Facebook by David Gerrold, a master of this plotting technique. Read what he wrote about our current shifting demographic and how that affects fiction audiences and see why you must explore the worlds he's created. Remember, he broke into screenwriting at an early age with his first sale TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES, an iconic Star Trek Episode, but went on to write some of the best, and most widely read novels in Science Fiction.
----------POST ON FACEBOOK BY DAVID GERROLD ---
http://www.amazon.com/David-Gerrold/e/B000AQ1PQM/ is his author page on Amazon. READ ALL HIS BOOKS!
-----------QUOTE FROM DAVID GERROLD----------
I haven't been reading a lot of science fiction lately, and I've skipped a lot of movies too. And it finally hit me after seeing Cloud Atlas what was bothering me.
I grew up in an age when science fiction movies were about vision and courage. Things To Come was about humanity triumphing over ignorance and leaping into space. Destination Moon and Conquest of Space were vivid predictions of what was possible. Forbidden Planet took us to far stars and 2001 was one of the great inspirational landmarks of the twentieth century. Star Trek, the original series, was about a future of exploration and partnership. All of these taken together said that human beings would survive our darker impulses, would learn how to live together in harmony, would assume the responsibilities of true sentience. And it's no coincidence that those stories helped motivate one of our grandest adventures -- the Apollo program that took us to the moon.
Today, too many books and movies and TV shows are about the failures of humanity. We see big impersonal cities or dystopic soul-crushing cities. We see failure and futility and hopelessness. We do not see people laughing, building, exploring, seeking, discovering, or rising to new heights -- no, we see them struggling for survival, squabbling with each other-- not uniting in common cause, not surviving as communities, but devolving into deranged and panic-stricken animals.
I know from personal experience that view of human nature is wrong. I've been at the center of a disaster and I watched as strangers came together to help each other, as neighbors gathered to make sure that everyone was safe and cared for.
I think that since the sixties, science fiction authors have become more and more overwhelmed by the future -- there's too much knowledge, too much research, too much technology for any one single human being to keep up. The "singularity" is crushing down on us even before it arrives. So it's easier to write about the collapse of civilization than to imagine a future where civilization has leapt to a new level.
But the history of our species is an astonishing chronicle of invention, innovation, and stubborn mean cussedness over the obstinacy of the physical universe. There is still so much we can be looking at, imagining, predicting, postulating, extrapolating, and describing so vividly that the reader will be certain we're time-travelers from the future. We have a whole solar system to explore. Getting into orbit, getting to the moon and Mars and the asteroids and the moons of the gas giants, all of those locales are opportunities for amazing tales of unknown possibilities.
This is my point. Everything in the world starts as a conversation. Everything. The conversation can be "I hate it when..." or "why can't we..." or "I wish it were possible to..." or "what if..." or even "that's odd..." -- but those conversations are the beginning of possibilities. Science fiction is about possibilities. It's the consideration of those possibilities that creates probability. And after probability, the next step is inevitability.
Science fiction is about the choices ahead of us. Every moment of every day, life is about choices -- not just the choice of the moment, but the results of that choice. Science fiction is about the results and the opportunity to make choices that will take us there. Science fiction is the conversation that illuminates the unknown landscapes of tomorrow.
That's the science fiction I want to read, that's the science fiction I want to see in the movies. Because science fiction is an opportunity to rekindle the enthusiasm for science as a world-changing adventure.
---------------END QUOTE---------
David -- being the genius I've always known he is -- nailed the core of the fallacy producing this crazy quilt of "results" -- elections with margins too narrow to reflect an actual, considered consensus.
The reason for this -- well, it's for fiction writers to speculate and write about, to turn the problem every which way and imagine different courses out of it, to find academic theories that account for it, to put American's peculiar constitution (peculiar in the sense of not being duplicated anywhere else in the world) into world-context, and human history.
Go out into the galaxy, find some aliens you invent, and explore what traits of human aggregate behavior are the source of this situation.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
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