Part 4 of this Believing in Happily Ever After sequence of blog posts is
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html
It has links to the previous 3 parts and the Verisimilitude vs. Reality series.
In Verisimiltude vs. Reality and other posts linked in that series, we delved into the real world the reader lives in and looked at how that real-world environment shapes the enjoyment of a fictional environment. Eventually, we'll look even deeper into various methods a writer uses to handle theme and how the chosen method affects the size and shape of the audience the writer might reach.
The purpose of this study is to deliver a Happily Ever After ending experience to readers/viewers who flatly disbelieve in the possibility.
Part of the real-world environment a reader lives in is the fiction (video, text, big screen, radio) the reader is immersed in.
The TV Series Once Upon A Time on ABC is part of that environment.
I was reminded forcefully of this in November 2011 by the announcement of the death of Anne McCaffrey, creator of the Dragonriders of Pern. Her biography page says she was born April 1st, 1926, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at 1:30 p.m. and her first novel was published by Ballantine Books in 1967.
My first story was published by Fred Pohl in World of If Magazine of Science Fiction in January 1969.
In April of 2011 Copperheart announced that filming of the first Pern novel, Dragonflight, would begin in 2012.
http://collider.com/david-hayter-dragonflight-dragonriders-of-pern/85654/
The Friday after the announcement of her passing was a #scifichat devoted to Santa, and what SF presents SF readers would give to other SF readers. But the second hour of the chat became a remembrance of Anne McCaffrey, not just Pern but all her other wonderful novels. The discussion branched out into writers she had influenced and what her success with Pern introduced to the entire field.
McCaffrey broke through with not just the overt sexuality of the Dragon/Rider relationship in the Pern novels, but the emotional bonding of a true, committed, to-the-death relationship. That angle resonated with the audience of the 1970's.
I don't know what they're planning to do with the film, but there are Pern fans involved in creating it. From the discussion on twitter, though, I gather different readers remember different components of those novels.
Some people had avoided the Pern novels because they thought the novels were fantasy. They aren't. They're science fiction that looks like fantasy.
Fast-forward to 2012 and take a close look at the TV Series Once Upon A Time.
Is it fantasy or science fiction? Is it Paranormal Romance? Is it kid-lit? What is this series? Is it even important?
Note how it does 2 things that have become standard fare on Television.
a) It rewrites "history" as "steam punk" does -- but focuses on the fairy tale universe of Snow White and Prince Charming with the Wicked Witch (complete with mirror and poison apples), not the Victorian era.
b) It juxtaposes this "fantasy" world of the rewritten storybook with our everyday reality, (like Urban Fantasy often uses 2 universes with a door between). You may remember how Forever Knight handled flashbacks to hundreds of years ago.
Yep, I said "between" -- which isn't quite like "Between" of the Pern novels through which Dragons teleport their Riders to fight Thread.
But the principle is the same as Star Trek's transporter, Warp Drive, or any number of "devices" that let characters travel from one spot to another fast enough not to slow the plot down.
Once an audience has been introduced to these techniques -- as in Time Tunnel, Quantum Leap, or Sliders -- producers doing another show can use that technique as a given and get on with their own stories.
So, despite McCaffrey introducing readers to Between in the 1970's, and Star Trek's transporter and warp drive coming online in the 1960's, the Pern movie will be regarded as borrowing or stealing the "device" of Between.
The Pern novels start at the beginning of a period of warfare against "Thread" (a crop-destroying rain of organisms from space), in which misery, starvation, poverty, and perhaps the extinction of humanity on the planet Pern, are the apparent direction of life. An apparently stable society is brought down around the heads of its ordinary people, and it's power brokers, while the disregarded powerless are elevated to hero status.
It's very much what this reality faces today -- the impending or actually in progress meltdown of the global financial system. Or the meltdown may be over by now and we just don't realize we've hit bottom and are going to climb again.
We also have impending war, and war in progress in a lot of places, war that brings the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
That's the reality the audience lives in, and would very much like to escape.
What's better than escaping Reality, though, is coming to understand it in a way that lets you carve out a life leading to your own Happily Ever After. Fiction can provide that kind of "grip" on reality that steadies you down for the long haul up to a better life.
The Pern novels depict a world locked in a frozen feudal system, suddenly attacked by Thread, and saved by the superstitious, traditional, disregarded, way too expensive fossilized organization known as the Dragonriders. Suddenly, the feudal lords can't protect their people, but the poverty-stricken, useless, and widely regarded as nut-fringe folks are the only ones who can protect people.
I think Pern can fly as a TV Series once it's been a successful movie.
Pern does not paint a rosey Happily Ever After picture. It doesn't even give you a "Happily For Now" (HFN) ending. The novels end on the upbeat of a challenge conquered, but with the vista of a new, bigger challenge yet to come.
The Hope in these endings is that during the "action" section of the novels, Relationships form that are solid, perhaps unbreakable, and enable the teams to face bigger challenges with the expectation of surviving. Thus the Pern novels are perfect examples of Intimate Adventure.
The secret of the Pern novels though is in the story the theme its founded on, and how that theme is shown not told.
The Relationships formed have the seeds of real Happiness in them, and the overwhelming force of what might be described as karma.
The characters, dragons and humans, all go through a stepwise process of bonding with a soul mate, and the result always seems - after the fact - to have been inevitable, right, and just.
Yes, Poetic Justice again:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetic-justice-in-paranormal-romance_22.html
The Pern novels are a perfect example of a) Paranormal Romance (the telepathic bonding with Dragons) and karmic marriages, and b) that there really is Justice in the world, and it always SINGS (music is a huge component of the Pern world).
Now, contrast/compare the TV Series Once Upon A Time with the Pern novels of Anne McCaffrey.
Eventually, the Pern series does get to including time travel, so there is another comparison.
Once Upon A Time updates the fairy tale world of Snow White etc. using modern characters and relationships. The story is thus more accessible or believable to the adult audience.
The thing is, when these fairy tales were originally circulating as folk-tales, they depicted the "real" or modern world the intended audience lived in. Today, there aren't many "folk" tales, made up by non-professional story-tellers and passed around to be improved on by others. Most of our fiction, even for children, is professionally created and designed for the broadest possible audience. (YouTube is changing that; urban folk-legends and folk music is reviving!)
So it would seem appropriate to "update" the oldest tales again, and embue them with the moral lessons of today's world, rather than the original lessons inserted by the Brothers Grimm from extant folktales that probably date back before the 1500's. It's done in every generation.
Google "Snow White" and you'll find everything from a new forthcoming movie to scholarship by serious professors. Folk tales are very revealing of the underlying culture.
So consider what this Once Upon A Time TV Series reveals about Hollywood's idea of our culture, of what we are, what we should be, and what we want to be.
There's a lot of philosophical material in this subject, some of it as yet untouched by writers looking for themes.
I want to point you to just one aspect of this series that you can ponder and maybe plunder for story material.
The premise of Once Upon A Time is that the Evil Witch curses the community of Snow White and Prince Charming to be transported to a place where THERE ARE NO HAPPILY EVER AFTER ENDINGS - not for anyone except the Evil Witch herself!
And that place where it is a fact that the HEA does not exist and can never exist is HERE - in our everyday reality.
The Evil Witch is now the Mayor of a small town in the USA where people can't leave - they can't escape. If they try, horrid things happen, driving them back. The Mayor's word is law. She's happy.
The curse can be broken, but only by one woman who was born when the curse was hurled. She was rescued and flung aside into our world before the curse trapped her, too.
Only one small boy knows what's going on because he found the fairy tale book. He lures the woman who can break the curse to the town, they wake Prince Charming from a coma, and then things get interesting.
The premise that sells this TV show to a major network may be taken to be "this world's natural condition is that Happily Ever After can not happen." That's why this world was the Evil Witch's chosen destination. Or maybe the curse only applies to the one small town the Witch dominates? It's fascinating how they dance around this topic, probably waiting for ratings responses to see which direction to take the show.
They appear to be waiting to see if the majority subconsciously believe that Happily Ever After can't happen in this world. And then they'll decide what to do about changing that situation.
By using this premise as the main conflict, the series creators induce a hostile audience to watch (and become addicted to) a fairy tale about restoring the world's ability to produce a Happily Ever After ending to Romances.
They can wait to see the audience response to decide how "dark" to make this world, just as the TV Series Beauty and the Beast danced around the Romance -- the premise being that the couple could never be together (because he was a Beast who had to hide "below" in darkness).
The Once Upon A Time TV series may be the breakthrough Event (the Overton Window Event) we've been looking for. It may be another try at the Beauty and the Beast audience, and it might succeed in reaching beyond that audience. Another show in this line of development is Lois And Clark. The dramatic problem with all these show-premises is that once the inherent conflict is solved, the show is over. If you don't solve it, the audience loses interest. If you do solve it, your job as writer/producer is over and you don't get paid anymore. The only way to avoid solving the problem is to turn the plot in a "dark" direction, away from the Happily Ever After.
The beginning of Once Upon A Time takes our theme, our main problem, and puts it "on the nose" the exact way the TV Series Leverage treats its theme ("The rich and powerful take what they want: we steal it back for you.")
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/02/tv-shows-leverage-and-psych.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-2.html
But the TV Series Leverage is structured for an endless sequence of adventures while the main characters barely hang onto life and sanity.
The TV Series Once Upon A Time may herald a change in what's acceptable to particular audiences as Star Trek and Pern did in the 1970's. The producers may tackle the conflict head-on and change our world into a world where Happily Ever After is an available option for most people, including fairy tale characters trapped in a town dominated by an Evil Witch.
Oh, do remember, Star Trek was not popular in the late 1960's when it first aired for barely 3 years. The explosion only came when it went into reruns and sifted into the consciousness of TV viewers during the 1970's. Those were not the same people who were reading Pern, though there were overlaps.
Most people who read Pern (and Sime~Gen) watched Star Trek -- but most people who watched Star Trek did not read Pern or any other science fiction. In fact, even when the Star Trek novels took off as New York Times Bestsellers (an unprecedented event I participated in by being the Agent who sold A. C. Crispin's Star Trek original novel Yesterday's Son), those who bought and devoured those tie-in novels did not follow the established Science Fiction authors who wrote them back into the authors' own worlds.
It took decades (a generation) to bring Star Trek tie-in readers into science fiction.
The main force that I think did it was Star Trek fan fiction (which is what my non-fiction book Star Trek Lives! is about).
Writers of Star Trek fan fiction grew up to be Science Fiction and/or Fantasy professionals, an unthinkable result of indulging in writing fan fiction. The explosion of the adult Fantasy novels mostly by women writers, many of whom had been fanfic writers or readers, opened the door for the modern treatment of sexuality and soul-mate bonding in Paranormal Fantasy.
I don't think it's a cause-effect chain of events. But there is a relationship that we can explore in later entries in this blog series.
In the mean time, watch Once Upon A Time, read the Dragonriders of Pern novels by Anne McCaffrey, and compare them. And see what is done with Pern on film!
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Showing posts with label Happily Ever After. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Happily Ever After. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Astrology Just For Writers Part 11-The Fishtank Model of Romance
Most writers and readers don't want to know anything about Astrology, and that's fine. There are plenty of other systems for parsing the patterns of human life.
A writer only needs one such system, but having several can give a writer the flexibility to work with vastly different audiences. Adding Astrology to your toolbox can position you to take advantage of unexpected opportunities with unruffled aplomb.
But you don't need to become an astrologer, or even to "learn" astrology or do it. You only need to learn to think like an astrologer, and to understand what lives look like from the point of view of someone well versed in this craft.
Here are the previous posts in this Astrology Just For Writers series that help you get the perspective we'll discuss next.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html lists posts on Astrology
And here are additional ones:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/astrology-just-for-writers-part-9-high.html
Part 10 was on August 30, 2010.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html
And this is Part Eleven. The intention is to collect this series into an e-book and make it available for download on simegen.com.
The 20 posts on the Tarot Swords and Pentacles that I've done here will likewise be published along with the discussions in volumes on Wands and Cups, plus a volume on how and why to study Tarot, and when and how to shun it.
Here are two posts indexing the 20 Tarot posts available.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html
When using Tarot to structure a novel, never mention cards, suits, mysticism, foretelling the future, etc. Keep your use of these tools "off the nose" and be able to say, "It just came to me."
To achieve that unruffled aplomb, that level of "Cool," in the face of the opportunity of a lifetime, the one thing a writer needs to learn about using Astrology in their writing is, just as with Tarot, never mention the name "Astrology" or "Natal Chart" -- or any of the planets or stars that Astrology tracks. Never mention "influenced by" or "under a transit." Not even "Horoscope!"
Mentioning the source is what Hollywood screenwriters call being "on the nose" -- or in the parlance of the narrative text writer, "telling" rather than "showing."
I've seen this "on the nose" error in text a lot lately, even from seasoned professional best sellers. That happens because the editors don't catch it and send it back for rewrite. Editors need to know this stuff just as writers do.
Lazy writers, or any writer just in a hurry or being lazy, tend to try to disguise expository lumps as dialogue or description. When that is done, the dialogue or description comes out "on the nose."
Here are some of my entries about Expository Lumps:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-much-is-too-much-world-buliding.html
And there's another on August 23rd, 2011
Also see my series on Editing. Here's the final installment, and it has a list of the previous parts at the top.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html
A master craftsman writer portrays the life (and arc) of a character in a way that is familiar to the readers -- they know real people who've lived through that pattern (or died in it). But you must not tell the reader how you found out about that pattern. It just came to you.
There is a popular commercial running in 2011 for Progressive Insurance in which the iconic saleswoman shows a prospective buyer the "Bundling" machine. You put your information in once, and get out two products in a box.
The buyer turns to her marveling and asks, "How did you think of that?"
She answers, "Oh, it just came to us." Then looks over at a centaur shopping the shelves of bundles.
That line, "Oh, it just came to us." is supposed to be a tickler, funny, amusing, memorable to the viewers.
What most viewers don't know is that it is the stock answer to that question in Hollywood.
It's so routine, and so stock, and so necessary when a producer or director asks a writer "How did you think of that?" that the "never let them see you sweat" rule kicks in automatically, and the only answer is a nonchalant shrug with, "Oh, it just came to me." Saying essentially you have a genius that the nuts-n-bolts people who make your story real for viewers just don't have. You are indispensable to the process, but not overly impressed with yourself. It was an accident you thought of this ingenious solution.
This is so absolutely ingrained in the Hollywood culture that Blake Snyder ( http://blakesnyder.com ) of the Save The Cat! books insists this is the only way a writer can respond to that question. He teaches writing, and goes out of his way to make this point. There's skill, craft, and lots of sweat behind these ingenious solutions to production problems, but you as a seller of your skills must never let them see you sweat.
And that's true of the relationship between you and your reader as well.
You must never let the reader know how you know -- know what process you used to create the magic they adore.
It won't be magic if you do.
Think of a painter facing a well prepared blank canvass. Most often, after settling on the subject, the painter reaches for charcoal not pigment, and maybe a ruler, and draws in a whole lot of very faint lines later to be erased. Those lines set up the composition, the perspective, the point of view from which the subject's inner nature will be revealed. The painter deliberately plans how the viewer's eye will sweep across the images, and what they will notice first, what next, and what will be in focus and remembered.
Yes, it's all very deliberate skill in painting. It's learned early and practiced like a musician practices scales until the painter can have an image "just come to him" and boom, it's on the canvass and you never know what happened even if you were watching. The Master Craftsman usually isn't conscious of "what happened" either -- he really lives the "it just came to me" moment without asking himself how that happened.
Teachers on the other hand have to unravel that "just came to me" moment and convey the individual skills to the craftsman one at a time, in boring repetitive drills.
That's what we're doing here in this blog for writers who want to figure out how better writers achieve those marvelous effects.
Today's craft point is a look at Astrology from the writer's point of view.
So let's look at the two lead characters in a Romance. Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT! series of books on screenwriting, says all Romances belong to his "genre" called Buddy Love. I recommend you read those books.
Blake Snyder On Amazon
Also, because of the encroachment of graphic novels, film, webisodes, games, and other visual media on storytelling, today's text-narrative writers must incorporate the pacing and visual emphasis that fiction consumers have become accustomed to.
So I recommend getting Snyder's screenwriting SOFTWARE that goes with the books, and using that to lay out the structure of your novel. I am particularly involved with that software right now because I'm a beta tester on version 3.0 and I really love the improvements.
You can find it at blakesnyder.com or Amazon. The software is also called SAVE THE CAT! You can also find it on professional screenwriting software sites like Final Draft. It's integrated with Final Draft 8
So now you're looking at a blank canvass to create your characters, their arcs, and the story they must live through.
You've nailed the transit influences affecting them. Since this is a Romance, of course Neptune is hard at their respective sensitive spots. But other influences can fly through that long-arc Neptune transit as well.
So you need a mental model too understand what these two people are and why they act and react as they do.
And that model has to be comprehensible to your readers especially because you're not going to explain it "on the nose."
Without learning astrology, what can you visualize that will tell you what is happening to this couple, this pair of Soul Mates, falling in love?
Visualize it like this, and see if this works for you.
A Soul incarnates at a particular moment. Astrology captures the moment of birth in a flash-photo still shot called the Natal Chart.
That chart delineates the positions of the planets of the solar system, and the Sun and Moon, at the time of birth. It further captures the two lines delineating the path to the horizon east and west, plus the point directly overhead at Noon - the highest point the Sun reaches on that day at that longitude and latitude. The opposite point is directly under foot, opposite the Sun's peak of arc, midnight. That line is called the MC, and defines the 10th House and the 4th House, the mystical purpose for taking this life vs. the foundation of the Home under the person's metaphorical feet.
The Ascendant defines the view of "reality" the person has from inside his life, and what others see when they look at him. Opposite the Ascendant is the 7th House cusp, which delineates partnerships, significant others, spouses, and the public (when you figure what all those things have to do with each other, how they're all absolutely identical, you'll have an understanding you can use to write fiction.)
Different astrological systems of mathematics assign different ways to calculate the positions of the other 8 "House cusps" -- I favor Placidus, Tropical, and it works well enough for my purposes (creating characters).
This up/down, horizon to horizon framework delineates the support structure of this character's life. When you put the planets, Moon and Sun, into the framework positioned relative to the birthplace on Earth at that moment the baby draws first breath, you then have a giant clock with at least 10 "hands" moving at different paces. You can get fancy, and delineate 20 hands to the clock. But a writer doesn't need that.
You don't need to understand how those clock hands move as much as you need to understand that they're there, they're set with precision, there's no escaping, and everyone alive is utterly familiar with their permutations and combinations in dynamic effects.
That "setup" of life at birth is the part of astrology that lets you make your characters "the same" as Hollywood always wants, and as Manhattan publishers need and will buy.
When something has become popular (like Harry Potter) the purveyors of fiction strive to duplicate exactly what it was that sold so well.. And that's why they always want "the same but different."
Writers, however, have read a lot of books, and usually want to put their work forward as "different" and not at all the same. "Different" feels like the essence of art, the essence of your soul. (because it is)
You can do "different" and get small readerships. Or you can add in "the same" dimension and strike for larger readerships. It's a choice. Create a pen name for each career path.
But first see my entries on PEN NAMES.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/should-you-make-up-pen-name-part-ii.html
The Blake Snyder Save the Cat! books and software show you how to do "the same" without infringing on your personal "different" and thus unleash your full potential as a commercial writer.
Now visualize this giant clock everyone is born inside. Each of us live inside a clock set to a different time zone, a unique (or nearly unique -- even twins are born at different times) time zone.
This clock forms the framework of your life, the outside of your life, not the inside.
Think of this framework as the walls of a fishtank.
Fishtanks come in a lot of shapes and sizes, but they have transparency in common. At least one wall is transparent (think of the giant aquarium at a zoo). Most fishtanks are transparent on at least 3 sides.
The tank you live in, your natal chart, defines the size and shape of your life just like the walls of a fish tank.
You can think of it as walling you away from what's out there. Or you can think of it as containing a benign environment uniquely suited just to you, thus protecting others from your environment. This should be familiar to SF readers of space adventures with intelligent aquatic creatures. Metaphor? Maybe.
Unlike most fish, you can see OUT, hazily. With distortion. You can see the reflective walls of other people's tanks, and sometimes glimpse through those walls into the life of another.
In this (admittedly limited and distorted) analogy, your Soul is the fish.
Unlike fish, you can create, shape, decorate, personalize and customize your tank. You create your inner environment.
What your Soul is capable of creating, how nicely you can arrange things, what you can "do with the place" is limited by your talent, determination, and other resources your soul brings into this life.
You live your life within your natal chart, within your clock, by the choices your Soul makes, and the resources and wisdom it has brought with it, and what it learns from this life.
The "clock" does not say "You will meet a tall, dark, non-human, stranger and fall in unrequited love."
The clock does not say a tall dark stranger will come into your life.
The clock says it's time to meet strangers, go find one.
Whether there's a stranger there or not, and how you respond to that particular individual stranger, is a matter of the Soul, not the clock.
It's not that there's no such thing as "destiny" -- it's that "destiny" is far more complex than the Ancient Greeks ever knew.
"Destiny" is crafted from the material at hand (via the clock, the shape of the fishtank, the limits of imagination in fixing up the place inside the tank), by freewill choices, but not just your own. Everyone has free will and makes choices which you respond to. And others respond to your choices. You interact (i.e. fall in Love) with others who likewise live in fishtanks of their own, tanks you can sometimes almost see into, but never enter.
In my universe paradigm, there's a third force acting to shape and reshape "destiny" for each of us and all of us collectively - God. But the fishtank analogy holds whether there's a third outside force or not.
So here your character is inside her fishtank, and is moving stuff around trying to make the place (her life) comfortable. (i.e. has landed a plum of a job promotion, and really sees the big bucks coming soon)
And she decides out of pride of place to clean her tank walls nice and clear and transparent so she can see and understand the world (i.e. takes a course and learns something, or proves something).
She wants love, so she makes herself more visible, her real self, or what she wants to believe is her real self.
And what happens when she cleans her tank wall is that she SEES another tank out there because it's time to meet strangers, and she can now see through her own reflection to something that is not herself.
She sees another tank wall, and reflective though it is, it seems to curve around the edges of her tank very neatly, and with the angle just so, she can SEE the Soul swimming around inside his life. Or she thinks she does. Part of the image is a reflection of herself, but having cleaned her tank walls, she is seeing something that is not herself. Thrill of a lifetime.
Wow. He's gorgeous. Just look at those sweeping, draping fins!
The two souls can get close, nudge their tanks right up to touching, so it seems the walls have merged into one wall, and they can create new life together. But neither can leap over into the other's tank and swim there.
The analogy kind of breaks down because Soul Mates who marry do actually merge into one. Those two tanks bond and stick together.
But the insides are always separate, even when most of the reflection effect at the tank surfaces is eliminated by bonding the two tank walls together.
Lives are SEPARATE -- Souls merge.
We each live in our fishtanks, isolated and alone. But we can share a Soul, mate with a Soul.
Think of this analogy. The two tanks come together, the walls fuse so they can almost just about see into each others' tanks (there's always reflection -- what we see when we look at others is a reflection of our inner Self). So they move into such harmony that they each redecorate their tanks to match, so you can't tell it's two rooms.
Maybe she quits her job, and he quits his (ok, today it's more likely they'll get laid off), and they start a business together -- a shop, a newspaper, a blog-for-money operation, e-Bay sales, whatever. They change their lives to harmonize.
That's what "Happily Ever After" -- the HEA ending -- actually looks like.
We talked about the Happily Ever After concept in a 4 part series the Tuesdays in October 2011 titled Believing In Happily Ever After.
Using the fishtank analogy of lives that are set up at Birth, and Souls trapped inside those lives at least for this incarnation, you can see immediately why people today just don't credit the Happily Ever After goal as realistic.
You can never really get inside another person's life. You can't let them inside yours.
You can't even see inside other people clearly, which leads to misunderstandings.
Consider a good marriage where, after some time, one partner wanders off to live mostly in the far end of his tank, becoming mostly invisible from the mated tank. Left alone, she ends up living at the far end of her tank, where there's a view into someone else's tank.
No matter how close some part of your life is to another's, or how visible, there's a part of your life they can't see or share.
That's what it means to be an individual, a unique person, a sovereign person.
Since everyone has that experience, it's easy to see why most people don't believe another person would deliberately live their life only in the corner of their tank that touches the other tank.
Until you mix in the Soul Mate dimension, that delineates the unique pleasure of being near another, willingly sharing a life (redecorating) for the sheer pleasure of the meaningfulness you find in the other's company, there's no way to explain Happily Ever After to those who have no experiential model for it.
That is, there is no way to explain unless you're a writer who has mastered show don't tell, the off-the-nose techniques Blake Snyder teaches so ably. The genre that specializes in making the unbelievable real to the reader is Science Fiction and its more recent offshoot adult Fantasy. When you mix SF/F with Romance or just plain Love, you get PNR and SFR.
PNR writers need a firm grasp of the esoteric or occult disciplines such as Tarot and Astrology to make the rules of magic of a constructed fictional world real to their readers.
Here is where you can find my novels, and my co-author Jean Lorrah's, to see how we apply these principles.
http://astore.amazon.com/simegen-20
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
A writer only needs one such system, but having several can give a writer the flexibility to work with vastly different audiences. Adding Astrology to your toolbox can position you to take advantage of unexpected opportunities with unruffled aplomb.
But you don't need to become an astrologer, or even to "learn" astrology or do it. You only need to learn to think like an astrologer, and to understand what lives look like from the point of view of someone well versed in this craft.
Here are the previous posts in this Astrology Just For Writers series that help you get the perspective we'll discuss next.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html lists posts on Astrology
And here are additional ones:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/astrology-just-for-writers-part-9-high.html
Part 10 was on August 30, 2010.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html
And this is Part Eleven. The intention is to collect this series into an e-book and make it available for download on simegen.com.
The 20 posts on the Tarot Swords and Pentacles that I've done here will likewise be published along with the discussions in volumes on Wands and Cups, plus a volume on how and why to study Tarot, and when and how to shun it.
Here are two posts indexing the 20 Tarot posts available.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html
When using Tarot to structure a novel, never mention cards, suits, mysticism, foretelling the future, etc. Keep your use of these tools "off the nose" and be able to say, "It just came to me."
To achieve that unruffled aplomb, that level of "Cool," in the face of the opportunity of a lifetime, the one thing a writer needs to learn about using Astrology in their writing is, just as with Tarot, never mention the name "Astrology" or "Natal Chart" -- or any of the planets or stars that Astrology tracks. Never mention "influenced by" or "under a transit." Not even "Horoscope!"
Mentioning the source is what Hollywood screenwriters call being "on the nose" -- or in the parlance of the narrative text writer, "telling" rather than "showing."
I've seen this "on the nose" error in text a lot lately, even from seasoned professional best sellers. That happens because the editors don't catch it and send it back for rewrite. Editors need to know this stuff just as writers do.
Lazy writers, or any writer just in a hurry or being lazy, tend to try to disguise expository lumps as dialogue or description. When that is done, the dialogue or description comes out "on the nose."
Here are some of my entries about Expository Lumps:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-much-is-too-much-world-buliding.html
And there's another on August 23rd, 2011
Also see my series on Editing. Here's the final installment, and it has a list of the previous parts at the top.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html
A master craftsman writer portrays the life (and arc) of a character in a way that is familiar to the readers -- they know real people who've lived through that pattern (or died in it). But you must not tell the reader how you found out about that pattern. It just came to you.
There is a popular commercial running in 2011 for Progressive Insurance in which the iconic saleswoman shows a prospective buyer the "Bundling" machine. You put your information in once, and get out two products in a box.
The buyer turns to her marveling and asks, "How did you think of that?"
She answers, "Oh, it just came to us." Then looks over at a centaur shopping the shelves of bundles.
That line, "Oh, it just came to us." is supposed to be a tickler, funny, amusing, memorable to the viewers.
What most viewers don't know is that it is the stock answer to that question in Hollywood.
It's so routine, and so stock, and so necessary when a producer or director asks a writer "How did you think of that?" that the "never let them see you sweat" rule kicks in automatically, and the only answer is a nonchalant shrug with, "Oh, it just came to me." Saying essentially you have a genius that the nuts-n-bolts people who make your story real for viewers just don't have. You are indispensable to the process, but not overly impressed with yourself. It was an accident you thought of this ingenious solution.
This is so absolutely ingrained in the Hollywood culture that Blake Snyder ( http://blakesnyder.com ) of the Save The Cat! books insists this is the only way a writer can respond to that question. He teaches writing, and goes out of his way to make this point. There's skill, craft, and lots of sweat behind these ingenious solutions to production problems, but you as a seller of your skills must never let them see you sweat.
And that's true of the relationship between you and your reader as well.
You must never let the reader know how you know -- know what process you used to create the magic they adore.
It won't be magic if you do.
Think of a painter facing a well prepared blank canvass. Most often, after settling on the subject, the painter reaches for charcoal not pigment, and maybe a ruler, and draws in a whole lot of very faint lines later to be erased. Those lines set up the composition, the perspective, the point of view from which the subject's inner nature will be revealed. The painter deliberately plans how the viewer's eye will sweep across the images, and what they will notice first, what next, and what will be in focus and remembered.
Yes, it's all very deliberate skill in painting. It's learned early and practiced like a musician practices scales until the painter can have an image "just come to him" and boom, it's on the canvass and you never know what happened even if you were watching. The Master Craftsman usually isn't conscious of "what happened" either -- he really lives the "it just came to me" moment without asking himself how that happened.
Teachers on the other hand have to unravel that "just came to me" moment and convey the individual skills to the craftsman one at a time, in boring repetitive drills.
That's what we're doing here in this blog for writers who want to figure out how better writers achieve those marvelous effects.
Today's craft point is a look at Astrology from the writer's point of view.
So let's look at the two lead characters in a Romance. Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT! series of books on screenwriting, says all Romances belong to his "genre" called Buddy Love. I recommend you read those books.
Blake Snyder On Amazon
Also, because of the encroachment of graphic novels, film, webisodes, games, and other visual media on storytelling, today's text-narrative writers must incorporate the pacing and visual emphasis that fiction consumers have become accustomed to.
So I recommend getting Snyder's screenwriting SOFTWARE that goes with the books, and using that to lay out the structure of your novel. I am particularly involved with that software right now because I'm a beta tester on version 3.0 and I really love the improvements.
You can find it at blakesnyder.com or Amazon. The software is also called SAVE THE CAT! You can also find it on professional screenwriting software sites like Final Draft. It's integrated with Final Draft 8
So now you're looking at a blank canvass to create your characters, their arcs, and the story they must live through.
You've nailed the transit influences affecting them. Since this is a Romance, of course Neptune is hard at their respective sensitive spots. But other influences can fly through that long-arc Neptune transit as well.
So you need a mental model too understand what these two people are and why they act and react as they do.
And that model has to be comprehensible to your readers especially because you're not going to explain it "on the nose."
Without learning astrology, what can you visualize that will tell you what is happening to this couple, this pair of Soul Mates, falling in love?
Visualize it like this, and see if this works for you.
A Soul incarnates at a particular moment. Astrology captures the moment of birth in a flash-photo still shot called the Natal Chart.
That chart delineates the positions of the planets of the solar system, and the Sun and Moon, at the time of birth. It further captures the two lines delineating the path to the horizon east and west, plus the point directly overhead at Noon - the highest point the Sun reaches on that day at that longitude and latitude. The opposite point is directly under foot, opposite the Sun's peak of arc, midnight. That line is called the MC, and defines the 10th House and the 4th House, the mystical purpose for taking this life vs. the foundation of the Home under the person's metaphorical feet.
The Ascendant defines the view of "reality" the person has from inside his life, and what others see when they look at him. Opposite the Ascendant is the 7th House cusp, which delineates partnerships, significant others, spouses, and the public (when you figure what all those things have to do with each other, how they're all absolutely identical, you'll have an understanding you can use to write fiction.)
Different astrological systems of mathematics assign different ways to calculate the positions of the other 8 "House cusps" -- I favor Placidus, Tropical, and it works well enough for my purposes (creating characters).
This up/down, horizon to horizon framework delineates the support structure of this character's life. When you put the planets, Moon and Sun, into the framework positioned relative to the birthplace on Earth at that moment the baby draws first breath, you then have a giant clock with at least 10 "hands" moving at different paces. You can get fancy, and delineate 20 hands to the clock. But a writer doesn't need that.
You don't need to understand how those clock hands move as much as you need to understand that they're there, they're set with precision, there's no escaping, and everyone alive is utterly familiar with their permutations and combinations in dynamic effects.
That "setup" of life at birth is the part of astrology that lets you make your characters "the same" as Hollywood always wants, and as Manhattan publishers need and will buy.
When something has become popular (like Harry Potter) the purveyors of fiction strive to duplicate exactly what it was that sold so well.. And that's why they always want "the same but different."
Writers, however, have read a lot of books, and usually want to put their work forward as "different" and not at all the same. "Different" feels like the essence of art, the essence of your soul. (because it is)
You can do "different" and get small readerships. Or you can add in "the same" dimension and strike for larger readerships. It's a choice. Create a pen name for each career path.
But first see my entries on PEN NAMES.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/should-you-make-up-pen-name-part-ii.html
The Blake Snyder Save the Cat! books and software show you how to do "the same" without infringing on your personal "different" and thus unleash your full potential as a commercial writer.
Now visualize this giant clock everyone is born inside. Each of us live inside a clock set to a different time zone, a unique (or nearly unique -- even twins are born at different times) time zone.
This clock forms the framework of your life, the outside of your life, not the inside.
Think of this framework as the walls of a fishtank.
Fishtanks come in a lot of shapes and sizes, but they have transparency in common. At least one wall is transparent (think of the giant aquarium at a zoo). Most fishtanks are transparent on at least 3 sides.
The tank you live in, your natal chart, defines the size and shape of your life just like the walls of a fish tank.
You can think of it as walling you away from what's out there. Or you can think of it as containing a benign environment uniquely suited just to you, thus protecting others from your environment. This should be familiar to SF readers of space adventures with intelligent aquatic creatures. Metaphor? Maybe.
Unlike most fish, you can see OUT, hazily. With distortion. You can see the reflective walls of other people's tanks, and sometimes glimpse through those walls into the life of another.
In this (admittedly limited and distorted) analogy, your Soul is the fish.
Unlike fish, you can create, shape, decorate, personalize and customize your tank. You create your inner environment.
What your Soul is capable of creating, how nicely you can arrange things, what you can "do with the place" is limited by your talent, determination, and other resources your soul brings into this life.
You live your life within your natal chart, within your clock, by the choices your Soul makes, and the resources and wisdom it has brought with it, and what it learns from this life.
The "clock" does not say "You will meet a tall, dark, non-human, stranger and fall in unrequited love."
The clock does not say a tall dark stranger will come into your life.
The clock says it's time to meet strangers, go find one.
Whether there's a stranger there or not, and how you respond to that particular individual stranger, is a matter of the Soul, not the clock.
It's not that there's no such thing as "destiny" -- it's that "destiny" is far more complex than the Ancient Greeks ever knew.
"Destiny" is crafted from the material at hand (via the clock, the shape of the fishtank, the limits of imagination in fixing up the place inside the tank), by freewill choices, but not just your own. Everyone has free will and makes choices which you respond to. And others respond to your choices. You interact (i.e. fall in Love) with others who likewise live in fishtanks of their own, tanks you can sometimes almost see into, but never enter.
In my universe paradigm, there's a third force acting to shape and reshape "destiny" for each of us and all of us collectively - God. But the fishtank analogy holds whether there's a third outside force or not.
So here your character is inside her fishtank, and is moving stuff around trying to make the place (her life) comfortable. (i.e. has landed a plum of a job promotion, and really sees the big bucks coming soon)
And she decides out of pride of place to clean her tank walls nice and clear and transparent so she can see and understand the world (i.e. takes a course and learns something, or proves something).
She wants love, so she makes herself more visible, her real self, or what she wants to believe is her real self.
And what happens when she cleans her tank wall is that she SEES another tank out there because it's time to meet strangers, and she can now see through her own reflection to something that is not herself.
She sees another tank wall, and reflective though it is, it seems to curve around the edges of her tank very neatly, and with the angle just so, she can SEE the Soul swimming around inside his life. Or she thinks she does. Part of the image is a reflection of herself, but having cleaned her tank walls, she is seeing something that is not herself. Thrill of a lifetime.
Wow. He's gorgeous. Just look at those sweeping, draping fins!
The two souls can get close, nudge their tanks right up to touching, so it seems the walls have merged into one wall, and they can create new life together. But neither can leap over into the other's tank and swim there.
The analogy kind of breaks down because Soul Mates who marry do actually merge into one. Those two tanks bond and stick together.
But the insides are always separate, even when most of the reflection effect at the tank surfaces is eliminated by bonding the two tank walls together.
Lives are SEPARATE -- Souls merge.
We each live in our fishtanks, isolated and alone. But we can share a Soul, mate with a Soul.
Think of this analogy. The two tanks come together, the walls fuse so they can almost just about see into each others' tanks (there's always reflection -- what we see when we look at others is a reflection of our inner Self). So they move into such harmony that they each redecorate their tanks to match, so you can't tell it's two rooms.
Maybe she quits her job, and he quits his (ok, today it's more likely they'll get laid off), and they start a business together -- a shop, a newspaper, a blog-for-money operation, e-Bay sales, whatever. They change their lives to harmonize.
That's what "Happily Ever After" -- the HEA ending -- actually looks like.
We talked about the Happily Ever After concept in a 4 part series the Tuesdays in October 2011 titled Believing In Happily Ever After.
Using the fishtank analogy of lives that are set up at Birth, and Souls trapped inside those lives at least for this incarnation, you can see immediately why people today just don't credit the Happily Ever After goal as realistic.
You can never really get inside another person's life. You can't let them inside yours.
You can't even see inside other people clearly, which leads to misunderstandings.
Consider a good marriage where, after some time, one partner wanders off to live mostly in the far end of his tank, becoming mostly invisible from the mated tank. Left alone, she ends up living at the far end of her tank, where there's a view into someone else's tank.
No matter how close some part of your life is to another's, or how visible, there's a part of your life they can't see or share.
That's what it means to be an individual, a unique person, a sovereign person.
Since everyone has that experience, it's easy to see why most people don't believe another person would deliberately live their life only in the corner of their tank that touches the other tank.
Until you mix in the Soul Mate dimension, that delineates the unique pleasure of being near another, willingly sharing a life (redecorating) for the sheer pleasure of the meaningfulness you find in the other's company, there's no way to explain Happily Ever After to those who have no experiential model for it.
That is, there is no way to explain unless you're a writer who has mastered show don't tell, the off-the-nose techniques Blake Snyder teaches so ably. The genre that specializes in making the unbelievable real to the reader is Science Fiction and its more recent offshoot adult Fantasy. When you mix SF/F with Romance or just plain Love, you get PNR and SFR.
PNR writers need a firm grasp of the esoteric or occult disciplines such as Tarot and Astrology to make the rules of magic of a constructed fictional world real to their readers.
Here is where you can find my novels, and my co-author Jean Lorrah's, to see how we apply these principles.
http://astore.amazon.com/simegen-20
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The Assumption of Ever After
What differentiates a romance-genre book from, say, a woman’s fiction novel or a mystery novel is—according to industry pundits—the requirement in a romance-genre novel of the HEA. The Happily Ever After. This, like a lot of terms in publishing, is shorthand for a style and a series of events that will leave the reader with a positive feeling a book’s end, rather than puzzlement, depression, horror or whatever you’d like to tack on.
That’s why strictly speaking neither Gone With The Wind nor Romeo and Juliet qualify as romance-genre fiction. They don’t end with a positive (happy) commitment between the two lead characters.
Interestingly, what seems to twist the anti-grav panties of the SF set is this very same thing: the HEA. The Happily Ever After. This seems to be a kicking-point when speculative fiction is combined with romance.
What I’ve found interesting, though, is that the non-romance reading set in SF seems to layer a deeper assumption of EVER AFTER on to that HAPPILY than many of the authors—myself included—intend.
A month or so back, in a shameless and blatant effort to get a buzz going for my February 24, 2009 release, Hope’s Folly, I offered electronic ARCS (Advance Reader Copies) to a handful of book bloggers. Most had read me before. Most were chosen because they’d read me before. Stacking the deck, Linnea? Sure. But Folly is book three in the Gabriel’s Ghost/Dock Five universe (both monikers are floating around out there.) I’m not out there to get bloggers to go WTF? as they try to catch up with the storyline.
But as happens with electronic copies, they get passed around to other bloggers (and I’m fine with that). So I was interested to find a blog comment on Hope’s Folly on a blog (Oct. 16, 2008) I’d not specifically sent the ARC to. The comment was decently positive except it raised the issue I’ve started to raise above. The assumption of EVER AFTER.
To wit: “I'm not a romance reader; I'm very much a sf/f reader. Perhaps it's not so surprising, then, that I really enjoyed the sf parts and was mildly appalled at the romance parts. I can't buy True Love between characters who've known each other a week. That's infatuation. That is not a good foundation for a lasting relationship. *sigh*”
Things like this make me want to pound my head on my desk, more than I usually do.
**SPOILER**
Here’s a direct quote from the Folly manuscript where the main character is giving some very realistic appraisal to his impromptu and admittedly foolish marriage to the other main character:
At book’s end—and this is really the last two pages—that’s all my characters are doing: realizing the situation they’re in is not the easiest and asserting that they’re willing to at least try.
Since when does TRY equate LASTING?
In the minds of SF readers who read romance, that’s when. I’ve seen this corollary far too often in blogs and reviews from SF-ers dabbling into SFR.
They assume—ASSUME—that because the two main characters are in a compatible situation on the last page that it’s white picket fence and roses forever.
None of my books promise that. None.
It’s an OPTION. It’s never a GIVEN.
My books end—as most of my readers know—at a point where the two main characters in the romantic relationship have either overcome or ignored whatever major conflicts separated them and are willing now to give their relationship the biggest, bestest try they can. That’s all. It’s a potential of a future together but it is not a guarantee of a future together.
Now, for romance readers who want to envision a FOREVER for my characters, that’s fine. Again, it’s an option. Not a given. But at least the romance readers aren’t damning me for it. Or—to take what I would see to be the opposite side of the coin—they don’t write in blogs that I haven’t shown the two main characters breathing their lasts breaths together at age ninety-nine and then going on to be buried side-by-side in graveyard plots marked Mr. and Mrs.. That, to me, is as much of an off-base interpretation of a science fiction romance novel as it is to assume that the characters have, at book’s end, a perfect and forever after relationship simply because they’ve decided to HAVE a relationship.
Let’s parse that blogger’s comment:
“I can't buy True Love between characters who've known each other a week. That's infatuation. “
Of course it’s infatuation. Every relationship one week in is highly based on infatuation. Physical (and other) attraction. But without infatuation, without physical (and other) attraction, the relationship would never start. That is where relationships start and from there the infatuation matures and the physical attraction matures and the relationship matures.
Moreover, in Folly, both character are very aware this attraction is nuts, too soon and at the wrong time. And they spend a lot of book-time realizing that:
Further, I never said it was True Love. The characters never say it’s True Love. Rya sees it as a ridiculous crush.
As for Philip:
Both realize AND TELL THE READER they’re not at the point to experience True Love. They can, however, experience the beginnings of an attraction that can lead to love and can, legitimately, share that they feel that way. Just like in real life.
What I feel I’m seeing here and in other blog comments like this is an unwitting-or-otherwise filling in of the blanks: This is a romance so this must be about True Love. (Side Note: I don’t think one can define True Love and I wouldn’t attempt to.) There is an assumption that an HEA ending also means Perfection. No more problems, ever. (Tell that to Dallas and Roarke in JD Robb’s IN DEATH series.)
Maybe at one time in romance novels, the Ever After in the HEA acronym did mean an unequivocal forever. But looking at romance fiction today, I don’t think that’s true anymore. I don’t think romance readers buy into “Perfect.” I think romance readers do relate to and respect characters who TRY. Who care enough to TRY.
Moreso in SFR, where there are so many other variables, I think a white-lace-and-roses perfect romance ending would be unrealistic. I don’t write them. That’s why I’m so surprised when some readers take it upon themselves to insert them—and then damn me for it.
I don’t see the same SF readers assuming every one of the antagonists or every one of the political problems is completely vanquished at the end of an Honor Harrington book or the end of a Cherryh book. Cherryh’s FOREIGNER series is, what, eight, ten+ books in? And Bren Cameron still has a lot of work to do. I can’t think of one SF or Fantasy novel I’ve ever read where I felt that Life Was Perfect from thereon in for the characters. Even if the bad guy was shredded, the princess rescued the prince, and the evil empire was in disarray.
I don’t know why some readers cement the assumption of an unequivocal Ever After onto many romance novel endings when they clearly don’t depict that. They DO detail it is possible. They do NOT detail it is absolute.
One more note on the “one week” comment and “That is not a good foundation for a lasting relationship.”
I know this gal who picked up this guy in a bar in New Jersey back in February of 1979. End of February, to be exact. It was strictly on physical attraction: he was a 6’4”, green-eyed, blonde-haired hunk. They didn’t see each other nearly as much as Rya and Philip do. There was no daily basis thing. There also wasn’t the chance to see each other under fire, working, striving and surviving, which I think adds a different dimension to how and when a relationship progresses. But even given the normal weekend dating kind of thing, and the nightly telephone calls, this guy moved in with this gal after three weeks. He gave her an engagement ring shortly thereafter.
This guy and this gal will hit their 29th wedding anniversary in October of 2009.
Okay, this guy and this gal didn’t know True Love in one week. It took three weeks. And almost thirty years later, it’s still there.
I love you, Robert.
~Linnea
HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, coming Feb. 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/
It's an impossible mission on a derelict ship called HOPE'S FOLLY. A man who feels he can't love. A woman who believes she's unlovable. And an enemy who will stop at nothing to crush them both.
That’s why strictly speaking neither Gone With The Wind nor Romeo and Juliet qualify as romance-genre fiction. They don’t end with a positive (happy) commitment between the two lead characters.
Interestingly, what seems to twist the anti-grav panties of the SF set is this very same thing: the HEA. The Happily Ever After. This seems to be a kicking-point when speculative fiction is combined with romance.
What I’ve found interesting, though, is that the non-romance reading set in SF seems to layer a deeper assumption of EVER AFTER on to that HAPPILY than many of the authors—myself included—intend.
A month or so back, in a shameless and blatant effort to get a buzz going for my February 24, 2009 release, Hope’s Folly, I offered electronic ARCS (Advance Reader Copies) to a handful of book bloggers. Most had read me before. Most were chosen because they’d read me before. Stacking the deck, Linnea? Sure. But Folly is book three in the Gabriel’s Ghost/Dock Five universe (both monikers are floating around out there.) I’m not out there to get bloggers to go WTF? as they try to catch up with the storyline.
But as happens with electronic copies, they get passed around to other bloggers (and I’m fine with that). So I was interested to find a blog comment on Hope’s Folly on a blog (Oct. 16, 2008) I’d not specifically sent the ARC to. The comment was decently positive except it raised the issue I’ve started to raise above. The assumption of EVER AFTER.
To wit: “I'm not a romance reader; I'm very much a sf/f reader. Perhaps it's not so surprising, then, that I really enjoyed the sf parts and was mildly appalled at the romance parts. I can't buy True Love between characters who've known each other a week. That's infatuation. That is not a good foundation for a lasting relationship. *sigh*”
Things like this make me want to pound my head on my desk, more than I usually do.
**SPOILER**
Here’s a direct quote from the Folly manuscript where the main character is giving some very realistic appraisal to his impromptu and admittedly foolish marriage to the other main character:
Am I—via the character—not saying exactly that? People in real life and in books get married for all sorts of reasons, many of them not the wisest or best. They either make it or they don’t but they do—in fiction and in real life—have the option of trying.“So, how’s our second week of dating going so far?” he asked. Most people dated first, then got married, but that wasn’t how their life had worked out. Marrying her had been an impulsive move. But it was a move he wanted to be permanent.
So did Rya. The fact that she now had her M-R-S degree, as she called it, was no guarantee of permanency. A real marriage took work. Commitment. Patience and respect.
And that took time.
So now they were dating. Married but dating. Philip rather liked the idea.
At book’s end—and this is really the last two pages—that’s all my characters are doing: realizing the situation they’re in is not the easiest and asserting that they’re willing to at least try.
Since when does TRY equate LASTING?
In the minds of SF readers who read romance, that’s when. I’ve seen this corollary far too often in blogs and reviews from SF-ers dabbling into SFR.
They assume—ASSUME—that because the two main characters are in a compatible situation on the last page that it’s white picket fence and roses forever.
None of my books promise that. None.
It’s an OPTION. It’s never a GIVEN.
My books end—as most of my readers know—at a point where the two main characters in the romantic relationship have either overcome or ignored whatever major conflicts separated them and are willing now to give their relationship the biggest, bestest try they can. That’s all. It’s a potential of a future together but it is not a guarantee of a future together.
Now, for romance readers who want to envision a FOREVER for my characters, that’s fine. Again, it’s an option. Not a given. But at least the romance readers aren’t damning me for it. Or—to take what I would see to be the opposite side of the coin—they don’t write in blogs that I haven’t shown the two main characters breathing their lasts breaths together at age ninety-nine and then going on to be buried side-by-side in graveyard plots marked Mr. and Mrs.. That, to me, is as much of an off-base interpretation of a science fiction romance novel as it is to assume that the characters have, at book’s end, a perfect and forever after relationship simply because they’ve decided to HAVE a relationship.
Let’s parse that blogger’s comment:
“I can't buy True Love between characters who've known each other a week. That's infatuation. “
Of course it’s infatuation. Every relationship one week in is highly based on infatuation. Physical (and other) attraction. But without infatuation, without physical (and other) attraction, the relationship would never start. That is where relationships start and from there the infatuation matures and the physical attraction matures and the relationship matures.
Moreover, in Folly, both character are very aware this attraction is nuts, too soon and at the wrong time. And they spend a lot of book-time realizing that:
Rya stayed by the ladderway, alternately damning herself and calling herself an idiot. She now had a ridiculous, full-blown crush going on Admiral Philip Guthrie, and every time she thought she’d managed to get hold of her emotions and shake some sense into her head, he’d lean against her or look at her with those damned magnificent eyes, and her toes would curl and she was lost.
Again.
This was just so very much not like Rya Taylor Bennton. She did not get crushes on guys—not since she was ten years old, anyway. Rya Taylor Bennton found hard-bodies who amused her and bedded them. Sex was fun, great exercise, super stress relief. Nothing more.
Then Philip had walked—well, limped—back into her life, amid guns blazing and punches flying. And in two, three short hours her life changed.
Further, I never said it was True Love. The characters never say it’s True Love. Rya sees it as a ridiculous crush.
As for Philip:
He was certifiably insane. He was sure of it. These past few months, the physical damage his body had taken, the stresses of losing one command and gaining another, the deaths of friends and crew—it had all taken a toll. That was the only explanation he could come up with as to why he was so emotionally vulnerable to—and fixated on—Cory Bennton’s twenty-nine year old daughter.
This had to stop. But when the lights had failed again and he’d almost found her in his lap, and then when all means to escape the ready room were exhausted and she was again those few tantalizing inches away from him, and he had the damned stupidity to make the flippant comment that if he’d been ten years younger...
Hell’s fat ass. He was certifiably insane.
She was twenty-nine. She was Cory’s daughter. She had some young buck named Matt hot for her back on Calth 9. She was not for Philip Guthrie, divorced, jaded, and limping around like some ancient—yeah, Welford had deemed him so—relic.
Plus, he had a ship to refit and a war to get under way.
But when he was around Rya... he just wanted to keep being around Rya.
This was not good.
Both realize AND TELL THE READER they’re not at the point to experience True Love. They can, however, experience the beginnings of an attraction that can lead to love and can, legitimately, share that they feel that way. Just like in real life.
What I feel I’m seeing here and in other blog comments like this is an unwitting-or-otherwise filling in of the blanks: This is a romance so this must be about True Love. (Side Note: I don’t think one can define True Love and I wouldn’t attempt to.) There is an assumption that an HEA ending also means Perfection. No more problems, ever. (Tell that to Dallas and Roarke in JD Robb’s IN DEATH series.)
Maybe at one time in romance novels, the Ever After in the HEA acronym did mean an unequivocal forever. But looking at romance fiction today, I don’t think that’s true anymore. I don’t think romance readers buy into “Perfect.” I think romance readers do relate to and respect characters who TRY. Who care enough to TRY.
Moreso in SFR, where there are so many other variables, I think a white-lace-and-roses perfect romance ending would be unrealistic. I don’t write them. That’s why I’m so surprised when some readers take it upon themselves to insert them—and then damn me for it.
I don’t see the same SF readers assuming every one of the antagonists or every one of the political problems is completely vanquished at the end of an Honor Harrington book or the end of a Cherryh book. Cherryh’s FOREIGNER series is, what, eight, ten+ books in? And Bren Cameron still has a lot of work to do. I can’t think of one SF or Fantasy novel I’ve ever read where I felt that Life Was Perfect from thereon in for the characters. Even if the bad guy was shredded, the princess rescued the prince, and the evil empire was in disarray.
I don’t know why some readers cement the assumption of an unequivocal Ever After onto many romance novel endings when they clearly don’t depict that. They DO detail it is possible. They do NOT detail it is absolute.
One more note on the “one week” comment and “That is not a good foundation for a lasting relationship.”
I know this gal who picked up this guy in a bar in New Jersey back in February of 1979. End of February, to be exact. It was strictly on physical attraction: he was a 6’4”, green-eyed, blonde-haired hunk. They didn’t see each other nearly as much as Rya and Philip do. There was no daily basis thing. There also wasn’t the chance to see each other under fire, working, striving and surviving, which I think adds a different dimension to how and when a relationship progresses. But even given the normal weekend dating kind of thing, and the nightly telephone calls, this guy moved in with this gal after three weeks. He gave her an engagement ring shortly thereafter.
This guy and this gal will hit their 29th wedding anniversary in October of 2009.
Okay, this guy and this gal didn’t know True Love in one week. It took three weeks. And almost thirty years later, it’s still there.I love you, Robert.
~Linnea
HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, coming Feb. 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/
It's an impossible mission on a derelict ship called HOPE'S FOLLY. A man who feels he can't love. A woman who believes she's unlovable. And an enemy who will stop at nothing to crush them both.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Happily Ever After
Folks:
The previous two posts here tackled the problem of the villain and the happy ending.
Before I get to my ConDor panel schedule, I'd like to point out that there's another reason many (actually most) consumers of fiction (narrative text, graphic novel, or film or TV series) prefer the happy ending.
When you read a lot of biographies, and compare them to the underlying astrology of the subject's life -- or just study the natal charts of people you know -- you discover that life has patterns.
I mean "real" life really does have just a handful of general patterns.
There is what I call the "pillar to post" life -- such as you follow on soap operas. People snear at that as "melodrama" -- but I know a lot of people who live that sort of life for their whole lives.
There is the life without challenges which results in a person who isn't ever going to be the subject of a biography or a police docket report -- not so much as a friendly divorce mars such a life. (know a few of those)
There's the life that is jerked out of its proper channel by an early trauma (loss of a parent or sibling, child abuse etc) -- and forever after relives variations on that event or fights that battle long after it's over. Such people make marvelous subjects for biographies or bases for fictional characters.
And there's the "happily ever after" life which is fine UNTIL (place event here) and then that event is resolved and life goes back to being plain and uneventful (i.e. happy).
When we are living through (place event here) -- we like to believe it's a single thing that will be over -- and life will get back to normal. That's the appeal of "happily ever after" -- that you who live a plain life can have a story-like event to recount to your grandchildren, or that you who live a "pillar to post" existence might eventually get to a safe haven or clear sailing point.
We all like to believe that life could be different than it is -- that we can have someone else's life instead of this one -- and in some cases, you can! (whether you'd really want to or not is a different question). But that's the appeal of fiction in general -- walk a mile in someone else's moccasins and ask yourself if you really would rather have that life.
Can you have a different life and still be you? Another deep philosophical question.
The reason I like Alien Romance is that the relationship gives each party a "different life" than they had, and the romance makes each person a different person -- or more accurately a very different version of the same person they were.
One of the tricks of the writer's trade is figuring out what a given character COULD change into -- and what they couldn't. Can you really change a person's life? And if you did, would you then change the person? Or is it the other way around -- change the person and the life will change?
That's the kind of deep question you find in the best alien romances -- what are the limits of a human life and personality?
OK, that said, here's my schedule for ConDor March 2-4, 2007
http://www.condorcon.org/html/mainmenu.html is the con's website.
Hotel for 2007 - The Handlery Hotel and Resort
located on Hotel Circle North.
Address: 950 Hotel Circle North, San Diego, CA 92108
On my schedule, Sunday and 10AM is a Roundtable discussion about "Harry" -- the Harry in question is Harry Dresden of THE DRESDEN FILES -- but I'm sure we'll talk about Harry Potter too!
Here's my panel schedule --
Friday 3:00 PM: Religion and the Brain Presidio Room With: Jean Graham, Blaine Readler, William Stoddard
Friday 4:00 PM: New Directions in Biological SF Executive Room With: Cody Goodfellow, Howard Hendrix, Paul Stuart
Sunday 10:00 AM: Roundtable: Why I'm So Wild About Harry Executive Room
Sunday 12:00 PM: Establishing Relations With Aliens Presidio Room With: Todd McCaffrey, Stephen Potts
Sunday 2:00 PM: Making Monsters Sympathetic Presidio Room With: Gary Babb, Kevin Gerard, Cody Goodfellow, Karen Taylor
Sunday 3:00 PM: Fantasy Outside Tolkienian Model Directors Room With: David Bratman, Stephen Potts, Chris Weber
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
The previous two posts here tackled the problem of the villain and the happy ending.
Before I get to my ConDor panel schedule, I'd like to point out that there's another reason many (actually most) consumers of fiction (narrative text, graphic novel, or film or TV series) prefer the happy ending.
When you read a lot of biographies, and compare them to the underlying astrology of the subject's life -- or just study the natal charts of people you know -- you discover that life has patterns.
I mean "real" life really does have just a handful of general patterns.
There is what I call the "pillar to post" life -- such as you follow on soap operas. People snear at that as "melodrama" -- but I know a lot of people who live that sort of life for their whole lives.
There is the life without challenges which results in a person who isn't ever going to be the subject of a biography or a police docket report -- not so much as a friendly divorce mars such a life. (know a few of those)
There's the life that is jerked out of its proper channel by an early trauma (loss of a parent or sibling, child abuse etc) -- and forever after relives variations on that event or fights that battle long after it's over. Such people make marvelous subjects for biographies or bases for fictional characters.
And there's the "happily ever after" life which is fine UNTIL (place event here) and then that event is resolved and life goes back to being plain and uneventful (i.e. happy).
When we are living through (place event here) -- we like to believe it's a single thing that will be over -- and life will get back to normal. That's the appeal of "happily ever after" -- that you who live a plain life can have a story-like event to recount to your grandchildren, or that you who live a "pillar to post" existence might eventually get to a safe haven or clear sailing point.
We all like to believe that life could be different than it is -- that we can have someone else's life instead of this one -- and in some cases, you can! (whether you'd really want to or not is a different question). But that's the appeal of fiction in general -- walk a mile in someone else's moccasins and ask yourself if you really would rather have that life.
Can you have a different life and still be you? Another deep philosophical question.
The reason I like Alien Romance is that the relationship gives each party a "different life" than they had, and the romance makes each person a different person -- or more accurately a very different version of the same person they were.
One of the tricks of the writer's trade is figuring out what a given character COULD change into -- and what they couldn't. Can you really change a person's life? And if you did, would you then change the person? Or is it the other way around -- change the person and the life will change?
That's the kind of deep question you find in the best alien romances -- what are the limits of a human life and personality?
OK, that said, here's my schedule for ConDor March 2-4, 2007
http://www.condorcon.org/html/mainmenu.html is the con's website.
Hotel for 2007 - The Handlery Hotel and Resort
located on Hotel Circle North.
Address: 950 Hotel Circle North, San Diego, CA 92108
On my schedule, Sunday and 10AM is a Roundtable discussion about "Harry" -- the Harry in question is Harry Dresden of THE DRESDEN FILES -- but I'm sure we'll talk about Harry Potter too!
Here's my panel schedule --
Friday 3:00 PM: Religion and the Brain Presidio Room With: Jean Graham, Blaine Readler, William Stoddard
Friday 4:00 PM: New Directions in Biological SF Executive Room With: Cody Goodfellow, Howard Hendrix, Paul Stuart
Sunday 10:00 AM: Roundtable: Why I'm So Wild About Harry Executive Room
Sunday 12:00 PM: Establishing Relations With Aliens Presidio Room With: Todd McCaffrey, Stephen Potts
Sunday 2:00 PM: Making Monsters Sympathetic Presidio Room With: Gary Babb, Kevin Gerard, Cody Goodfellow, Karen Taylor
Sunday 3:00 PM: Fantasy Outside Tolkienian Model Directors Room With: David Bratman, Stephen Potts, Chris Weber
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
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