Theme-Character Integration Part 1: What Does She See In Him

Theme-Character Integration

Part 1

What Does She See In Him

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here's the foundation post for this advanced investigation of Relationship in Romance.

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

There are two essential parts to what one person "sees in" another person: A) What is really there and B) What the viewer is capable of discerning.

There is a classic Biblical story of Moses and Aaron arguing which is resolved by the Sages with the explanation that Moses and Aaron were brothers, yes, but very different as individuals.

Remember Moses was the one sent to Pharaoh to demand "Let My People Go" and Aaron (after fighting a delaying action by participating in making the Golden Calf) was appointed High Priest and inaugurated into serving in the Tabernacle.

Moses was the Teacher -- who repeated what G-d told him to say, then wrote it down.  Aaron was the Doer -- who took the offered animals, grain, spices etc to the Alter and offered them.

Side note here on CAPABLE OF DISCERNING: one huge problem most people have with The Bible comes from deriving conclusions from the semantic loading behind English word translations. 

A huge case in point is the word "Sacrifice" -- to us it means inflicting a deprivation upon one's self, giving away something of value for nothing in return, giving UP, suffering pain for the sake of something or someone else.  Many people are capable of discerning "Love" only in terms of what "you are willing to sacrifice for me." 

People see "marriage" as a "sacrifice" of "freedom."  Is it?  Or is it a net gain? 

Knowing the semantic loading of words is part of the job of the professional writer, and when crafting a Romance story, the writer has to craft the dialogue and its interpretation in the light of these shifting semantic loads, the emotional implications of a simple WORD can mislead someone about the character of a person.  This is why "deeds speak louder than words" -- or in writer-parlance, Plot speaks louder than Narrative or Exposition.

So back to The Bible (you all know what an impact the History Channel presentation of The Bible made around Easter, 2013) -- one of the most misleading translations of Biblical terminology is the term "Sacrifice." 

The Hebrew term is Korban -- and that has nothing to do with GIVING UP anything.  Note the instructions for most of the "offerings" in the Temple include who gets to EAT THE ANIMALS that have been offered, and where and when they must (not may, must) be eaten. 

Nobody is giving up anything when bringing an offering to the Temple, so the word "Sacrifice" is massively misleading.  The one who brings the offering ends up with a net gain, a connection to the Divine. 

The term Korban means essentially a binding, a tie, a connection.  And the purpose of the action of bringing an offering is to create or reinforce a TIE to God, a connection between the deepest psyche of the bringer and the pervasive Unconditional Love of God.

What do you see in God?

What does God see in you? 

That's the TIE we're talking about here where we investigate what one Character can "see" in another Character, and how that causes them to act and react to various utterances, to dialogue (which I remind you is not real speech recorded, but a method of moving PLOT FORWARD.)

So why do we have this argument between Moses and Aaron recorded in the Torah and re-read incessantly every year for all time?  What is that about and why is it relevant to writing Romance? 

What that argument is about, and what you can learn from it as a writer (after all the Bible has lasted a while and still sells pretty well, as we see from the success on the History Channel which was repeated immediately in re-runs on other channels) is the Nature of Character.

What is "a human" -- are we all alike?  How can there be ROMANCE or sexuality (the essence of sexuality is Mystery, you know) -- how can there be ROMANCE if we're all identical? 

What does "Soul Mate" mean?  What does "Mate" mean?  A "Mate" is an opposite -- or at the very least has something you don't have which enables you when added to you.

A "Mate" is a complementary element, a completion of a whole. 

A Soul Mate completes your Soul.

For that Relationship to form, a Character has to be an individual who is capable of "seeing" something that they don't have but need inside the other Character. 

So from the argument between Moses and Aaron we learn how even brothers are distinct and different individuals.

What exactly is that distinction in this case?  The Sages maintain that Moses served G-d via Truth.  Moses saw the world of Truth behind the illusion we ordinarily think is real.  Moses saw the Reality behind our daily illusion, the Truth of Reality, and transmitted that vision via his service as a teacher, an intellectual service, a service via words.  He transmitted the words of G-d just as he was given them. 

Aaron on the other hand was very different.  Aaron saw the "illusion" of reality as we see it, as we live in it, the seeming that we perceive as solid, and sought to resolve the conflict between (there's that word, again, CONFLICT which is the essence of STORY) the Illusion and the Truth.

Aaron served G-d through action, in the Biblical case, he served by being the one to act at the Altar.

So Aaron served by acting to resolve the conflict between what appears to be real and what Moses saw as actually real.

Doesn't that sound like the "Battle of the Sexes" -- "Oh we're lost. We have to stop and ask directions."  "Oh, we're lost.  Let's go around that corner and see if that's the right way."

"You talk too much."  "You never talk to me!" 

Is "life" (i.e. THEME of your story) about Truth, about what is actually really there?  Or is it about how you feel, what you feel is there? 

Note that in many decisive instances in life, where your Characters make decisions, there is the core conflict between Fact and Opinion -- between Truth and Illusion.

Resolving that conflict is what Romance Stories do for, with and by your Reader.

Will your characters act on Opinion or on Fact?  Either one alone is pretty ineffectual (that's a thematic statement).  In a Romance, each member of the forming Couple "sees in the other" the missing element (Fact or Opinion) and when the Couple coalesces and implements a course of action rooted in Fact/Opinion Conflict Resolved, their connection to functioning Reality works smoothly and their cooperative actions produce solid results leading to Happily Ever After.

Understand that archetype illustrated by the different personalities of Moses and Aaron (and their respective spouses and children), each with a unique way, functioning as a unit, and you can amp up your "Steam" element in your Romance Novels.

Now let's take an example.  I have many, many examples in my reading history, but here's a series I've been raving about in my reviews, The Dresden Files, all about Harry Dresden, by Jim Butcher.  I've discussed this series at some length in this blog:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/paranormal-romance.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/collateral-repairs.html

Now we come to COLD DAYS by Jim Butcher, 14th in the Dresden files.  These are long novels in a long series, and tightly plotted, tightly written.

There's a couple of great Love Stories in this series, too.  After 14 novels, it is beginning to look like Harry Dresden has found a Mate. 

Reading outside Romance Genre can teach you all about "what she sees in him" (and vice versa).

The genre usually called "Action" -- whether it's in space or running across a stack of alternate dimensions where Magic is Real -- is perfect for studying "What She Sees In Him."

Why?  Because the Action genre is usually formulated around One Hero (can be female), a single character, who is what I might term a Free Radical.

In the pre-mated state, this Hero Character bounces around from adventure to adventure, hacking away at life, the universe and everything, most making a complete hash out of the art of living life.

For another long series of long novels that is really fun to read, but illustrates this Free Radical character (whose story is OVER once he finally mates) see my discussions of Allan Cole's STEN SERIES:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/career-management-for-writers-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-10-use-of.html

And for more on THEME

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

Do an in depth contrast/compare between these two series and you can learn a lot about "what she sees in him" and how to depict that guy who attracts "her."

Sten and Dresden are two very different characters, as different as Moses and Aaron, and like those two, they make a set. 

Jim Butcher has mastered the full integration of THEME into PLOT and CHARACTER.  His writing is so seamless that you will have a hard time factoring out the component elements.  But it is worth the effort as a learning exercise.

Harry Dresden is a Professional Wizard.  When we first meet him, he's floundering his way haplessly through trying to make a place for himself in a world where he just doesn't fit in.

ACCIDENT plays a plot-role in the Dresden novels as it does in STEN, correctly used to generate plot. 

When we first meet Harry, he has a girl but has lost her -- he's not quite sure how permanent that will be, but there's a lot of angst festering there.

By the end of the 14th book, another "possible" Soul Mate has appeared, been deemed both impossible and improbable, and then suddenly re-defined into a whole different emotional situation. 

That entire problem -- finding a Mate -- is completely peripheral for Harry.  He is just not paying attention to HIS OWN NEEDS, WANTS AND DESIRES.  He is wholly focused on solving the problems that are a) threatening his very existence b) threatening people he loves c) threatening people who have hired him d) threatening people who don't know he exists and don't care but whom he feels responsible for.

Jim Butcher has mastered the principle of screenwriting (Dresden was briefly a TV Series) in which you hurl your character into a Situation with 6 problems to solve or die trying.  The plot can consist of the problems solving each other or the character solving them one at a time.  As in gaming (and war), the solving of problems costs, so the Hero usually takes damage.

Now we come to this THEME-CHARACTER integration technique. 

What she sees in him will not be what he sees in himself. (and vice versa).

These ACTION HERO genre novels from a male POV don't usually reveal or dwell on what the Hero sees in himself. 

Anita Blake (female action-hero by Laurell K. Hamilton) is a good contrast.  The first books in that series have Anita articulately explaining her traits and attributes in which she takes pride.  The series as a whole  chronicles the disintegration of that personality in which she so prided herself, and then a gradual rebuilding of a new personality.  Many readers who loved the early books despise the later ones. 

In STEN and HARRY DRESDEN we have heroes who have no clue who they are and couldn't really care less.  Their self-awareness and introspection (i.e. the usual male blind-spot) is totally lacking, but it is completely, starkly, clearly apparent "who" each of these characters is by their ACTIONS.

They don't think, rarely FEEL unless clubbed over the head, and yet shout their Identities loudly into the world with every action. 

As they work with their external realities, they grow, change, and become stronger characters, more integrated, harder to derail, disrupt or corrupt. 

Sten becomes the owner of the greatest power in his universe, and gives it away to everyone.

We haven't seen what Dresden will "become" yet, but we have seen him "do the right thing" over and over, each one harder than the last to choose to do, and each one costing him more personally than the last one cost.  That's the same as the Anita Blake story, except for one essential ingredient.  Harry Dresden pays the price and pays the price -- and emerges from it all with more to give, more strength, more and greater dedication to doing the right thing.

Dresden does not start out with a high opinion of himself (as Anita Blake does), and his opinion of himself does not increase a whole lot through all his triumphs.  But he only suffers moping, depression, and misery for brief times before pulling himself together.  It isn't just that the next challenge smashes into his world before he's gotten good and depressed.  He does get a shower, a change of clothes, a good meal and sometimes a happy interlude between challenges. 

The key to Dresden is that he isn't aware that his triumphs and successes are making him a "stronger" character -- less vulnerable to corruption and disintegration. 

But he is growing as a person, and there is a woman who is seeing that growth, seeing the strength, seeing the Values he upholds that he doesn't even really know that he has.

There is a "dark" side to Dresden and his story.  There are demons, possession, a serious temptation to use Black Magic, and the actual use of the Black Magic that actually does "corrupt" and grind away at Dresden's character.  There are those who have a low opinion of him because of his inherent connection to the Dark. 

You should read all three of these series and make up your own mind -- most likely you'll have a different take on it than I do, and very probably I'll have a different take on it all in a year or two.  But for the moment, think of it this way:  Sten is more like Moses, searching for the Truth behind the illusion since he is no Moses.  Sten is trying to find the Truth that Moses sees, and when he thinks he's found it, it acts on that Truth.  Dresden is no Aaron, but he is trying to find a way to make Peace among all the criss-crossing forces he sees in his world, and from time to time is rewarded with a period of some balance.  Anita Blake acts on the assumption that the Illusion is the Truth. 

THEME: there is a natural human tendency to strive to become a "better" person; whatever "better" might mean to you. 

CHARACTER: a Hero who tackles and surmounts problems becoming more like his/her own Ideal Person.

ROMANCE: a Character who loves (has an affinity for) that which she admires, sees in a Man the striving toward a personal ideal that she admires, sees his willingness to pay the price of improvement, and the achieving of at least part of that goal.  She finds in herself the need to help that Man -- and ultimately to propagate those values and ideals.

Imagine Sten or Dresden living in your world, fighting the battles and problems that people in your world face every day, applying the character traits these two have to those problems.  Would you want that man in your life? 

Remember these Hero-type folks don't cultivate an articulate awareness of Ideals, don't see themselves as striving, don't bother to feel their own emotions and strive to perfect that emotional life, to get to where they don't have to experience emotional pain.  To discover what these folks are made of, a woman has to examine and analyze their actions. 

That may be the basis for a man opening the door for a woman -- men act; women feel flattered, attended, cared for. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

SONGS OF LOVE & DEATH: Cover Art

The cover art is in for the much-anticipated anthology edited by the illustrious team of George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. This anthology represents a mixture of SFF and Romance authors, with contributions as follows:

"Love Hurts" by Jim Butcher
"The Marrying Maid" by Jo Beverly
"Rooftops" by Carrie Vaughn
"Hurt Me" by M.L.N. Hanover
"Demon Lover" by Cecelia Holland
"The Wayfarer's Advice" by Melinda M. Snodgrass
"Blue Boots" by Robin Hobb
"The Thing About Cassandra" by Neil Gaiman
"After the Blood" by Marjorie M. Liu
"You and You Alone" by Jacqueline Carey
"His Wolf" by Lisa Tuttle
"Courting Trouble" by Linnea Sinclair
"The Demon Dancer" by Mary Jo Putney
"Under/Above the Water" by Tanith Lee
"Kashkia" by Peter S. Beagle
"Man in the Mirror" by Yasmine Galenorn
"A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows" by Diana Gabaldon

Release date is November 16, 2010. The official Simon & Schuster page is here and you can pre-order from Borders here.

I had a terrific time writing for the project, which more than one site has noted as "ground-breaking." Those who know my writing will find "Courting Trouble" very much in the realm of my Finders Keepers in tone and tempo. I've not been able to read other offerings so I can't comment as to their storylines but the list of authors alone is fantastic. I feel blessed (and more than a tad intimidated) to be in such august company!

~Linnea

REBELS AND LOVERS, March 2010: Book 4 in the Dock Five Universe, from Bantam Books and Linnea Sinclair—www.linneasinclair.com

Her mind screamed no. Her body and heart considered what was right and rational, and pushed those all away. She held his gaze for a moment longer than was prudent. “Let me get a beer.”

Six Kinds of Power in Relationship

Blake Snyder in his two SAVE THE CAT! books on screenwriting





points out that to keep a story moving, to keep the character arcs changing throughout the 110 page screenplay (or for that matter, a 400 page novel) you need to start the main character off at the point in his/her life when he/she is forcibly confronted by 6 things that need fixing.

Starting at that point keeps the plot from dying or unraveling in your fingers, which some new writers misinterpret as writer's block. It's really not writer's block, but writer's skill deficit.

For truly sterling examples of this complex writing technique producing a truly simple but not simplified plot, see Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files novels.

OK, The Dresden Files novels are not strictly speaking "Romance" because there isn't a Couple whose relationship dynamics create the plot -- but to me, Dresden the written character is some kind of grandiose hunk! The TV Dresden was starting to grow on me, but it got cancelled. And on TV the troubles that beset Dresden had to be reduced to episode size and watered down for the TV viewer who doesn't know magick.

THE DRESDEN FILES - here's the first 3 in a boxed set:



There are so far I think 12 Dresden novels and more coming. Like C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner universe novels, this is a series to savour, but Foreigner is more Alien Romance than Dresden is (so far -- you never know about trends that will re-shape a long series).

But both Foreigner and Dresden sustain a focus very tightly on the main character and that character started out with at least 6 things that need fixing.

Here's another long series that grew out of things to fix piling up on the main characters -- and this one is HOT Romance with magic as a societal force to be reconned with (Vampires hot for Werewolves though it's forbidden!) This is the first 3 in the series -- and the next one to come out is dedicated to me and is set in an interstellar society, real Alien Romance growing out of an urban fantasy series! The working title is DEMON IN THE DARK.

This is Susan Sizemore's urban fantasy Prime series, and you really don't want to miss any of them.



And here's the latest in the series


And I'm reading an ARC of the next one already.

What these 3 disparate (long running) series have in common is the choice of the initial moment in the main characters' lives when their story STARTS.

Choosing the wrong place to start is one of the most widespread classic errors that beginning writers make. I see it in writing workshops all the time. 9 out of 10 submissions will give me no choice but to explain that this manuscript has NO CONFLICT and it has no conflict BECAUSE it starts in the wrong place in the character's life, a place where "the story" of that character has not yet begun.

So a character floats into your mind and starts demanding you tell his/her story. You gotta do it, but where do you start?

Generally speaking in real life, troubles come in strings, disasters come in sets of 3's strung out over 12-18 months. (everyone knows this pattern even if they are certain astrology is silly)

Ever heard of literary license? When telling a character's story, while the character is telling you how things happened one thing at a time over years, you must take "literary license" and COMPRESS the troubles into thematically inter-related bunches to create a series of long novels -- or even one, great, fat novel.

And Blake Snyder got it right. The magic number is 6. That's two different transits each happening 3 times.

That's why troubles come in 3's. The outer planets go over a point in a natal chart, go retrograde back over that point as the Earth rounds its orbit, then (retrograde is an optical illusion, you know) the transiting planet goes "direct" and crosses that natal point again. If all the energy doesn't blow through on first contact, it may trickle through in 3 parts, or 2 parts. That's why the pattern is hard to see. Sometimes one or two pieces are missing.

Since the most powerful and memorable and re-readable novels and screenplays are about plots driven by Relationships not just mere Characterization, we should look into the details of Relationships for plot-drivers.

One kind of transit that always generates serious trouble in people's lives is the exquisitely slow transits of Pluto. Pluto is about power (yes, I know they demoted it from planet status - but that doesn't matter. "Nevertheless, it moves!")

And as discussed at some length previously here, Neptune is the plot-driver for the Romance experience.

Also, in Kabbalah, 6 is all about Love. I talk about that in detail in my books on Tarot that have never been published yet, The Not So Minor Arcana: Wands and The Not So Minor Arcana: Cups.

So if we look into the structure of power in relationships to find the 6 things to fix, we should find some plot-drivers that really have legs! And they will automatically be thematically related because they all manifest Pluto. Pluto "rules" or is associated with Scorpio, the natural 8th House, and thus is very much all about the more primal side of sexuality.

Keeping your 6 things to fix thematically related is yet another trick for avoiding writer's block. You will always know what comes next and why it's interesting because it's all about power.

Choosing those 6 things to fix in a thematic bundle is the secret to keeping the surprise twists coming and coming, and holding the interest of an audience, sometimes not just through one novel but way past a dozen novels in a series.

That secret of choosing plot-driver sets meshes perfectly with the way I explained using Scene Structure for pacing last week.

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

Plotting is an artform, not just a set of technical, mechanical tricks. The tricks are the brushes, pigments and canvass you use to bring your characters to life.

Art is a SELECTIVE recreation of reality. Verisimilitude is not the same thing as reality itself, but verisimilitude awakens a sense of being within a different reality. I covered that in the following post:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/verisimilitude-vs-reality.html

Linnea Sinclair has developed a knack for explaining how to develop characters and I highly recommend you read her blog entries on that subject. I'm sure they are as scattered as my own have been, so maybe she'll drop a list of them as a comment on this blog entry.

Linnea Sinclair showed you a lot about Worldbuilding in her post

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/world-building-for-writers-or-why.html

I'm hoping the others on the blog who've discussed worldbuilding will drop the URLs of their posts into the comments on this post.

So this examination on Power as a plotting tool isn't so much about characters and their internal conflicts, but more about Relationships between or among characters and how internal conflicts buried deep in a character manifest (unexpectedly) in external Relationships, creating Blake's "6 Things That Need To Be Fixed" formula for the opening of a story.

In previous posts here, I've explored the ways that professional fiction writers can use Astrology and Tarot (not believe in it; use it) to enhance their artificial worldbuilding so that the result is believable even when not plausible.

My posts on Tarot based on Kabbalah, Astrology and Worldbuilding as well as other writing craft techniques will soon be edited, expanded and collected into volumes and made available as e-books and POD versions on paper.

The first set will be 5 volumes on Tarot with the envelope title The Not So Minor Arcana.

The Astrology and Worldbuilding sets will come later.

(see my Friendfeed box on the right column of this blog to find how to subscribe to me and be notified how to get these compilations, or just subscribe to this blog). But you can read much of it now by digging it out of this blog. Search on Tuesday - the day I post. Or you might start with these:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/07/astrology-just-for-writers.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/07/astrology-just-for-writers-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/10/astrology-just-for-writers-part-3-genre.html

There are 5 parts of Astrology for Writers so far, plus numerous references to Astrology as it can be used to create verisimilitude where there actually is none (i.e. a fantasy world you just built).

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/12/10-pentacles-cake-comes-out-of-oven.html (follow the links in this post back. Swords and Pentacles have been covered in 20 posts).

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/source-of-expository-lump.html is a key post in my Worldbuilding and writing craft series.

So you see, we've been building up to this more difficult subject of Relationship as a plot driving mechanism, one component craft technique at a time. The underlying purpose of all this analysis is to find a way to boost Alien Romance's respectability in the general media.

Keep your eye on the objective and the boring work will just get done. It's like watching TV while knitting. Do you really need to look at your hands?

So now let's knit together 6 kinds of Power that can make for problems (or solutions) in a Relationship while keeping the plot twisting, but keep our minds on AR on TV.

----------------------

1) Control of the Agenda
2) Veto Power
3) Who holds the "gun" (real or figurative)
4) The Magic Address Book; The Golden Rolodex
5) Potentially embarrassing (fatal?) secrets
6) Purse Strings

----------------------

1) Control of the Agenda

This may be the most famous kind of power there is in a relationship between one character and a larger group of characters. But it operates within couples, too.

It can be very subtle. And the more subtle the power over the agenda is, the more devastating a chokehold it can be.

Many people aren't even aware there is an agenda in every encounter, nevermind that it can be controlled without their knowledge.

Take an example ripped from the headlines today.

Congress is getting ready to thrust upon us a "Healthcare Reform" bill -- a huge bill, but none of them voting for it or against it will have read it because they couldn't understand it anyway.

The inner workings of Congress and the Senate are all about Agenda Control and everyone who browses the news understands how that works. It's seniority and majority party, getting Committee appointments, plus a lot of 18th Century customs that have lasted.

They never bring a bill to the floor unless they know how the vote will go. That means bills don't even get voted on unless the agenda is fully under control of the majority party.

That's pretty much how corporate executive committees work, too.

OK, we all understand that and can use it in stories.

But politicians love power and don't seem to know there is any other way to think. Some men seem to believe it's unmanly to think any other way, even in a Relationship.

When people say they don't want the government dictating their health insurance terms, or they don't want a government run single-payer system, Congress responds, "Oh. Yeah, I see your point. Well, don't worry. We'll GIVE YOU LOTS OF CHOICES so your health insurance will be your own choice."

As far as politicians are concerned that totally fixes the problem because it defuses your objection but they retain control of the agenda. Husbands on the road to divorce do this to their wives.

Congress did that with the Medicare Prescription insurance bill, and created a system where dozens of private companies "provide" prescription insurance as a proxy for the government, and "give you choices" none of which are adequate to anyone but the average person, and of course profitable to the offering company. But you must choose from the list presented to you, which is further limited by state laws. No matter which way you choose, the company wins. The agenda was set, but not by you.

Think about that power-play maneuver of retaining control of the agenda by limiting choices but forcing the other to choose from that menu and claiming that means freedom of choice.

Choosing among choices created by someone else is not the same thing as creating your own.

Think how that control of the menu of choices works in terms of a Romance relationship. Think how it might seem to non-humans.

What are the politicians doing? They know no other way to relate to voters except by exerting power over voters (so they can get elected).

How do they flimflam voters into thinking that the government is giving them FREEDOM OF CHOICE by giving them LOTS OF CHOICES?

It's like the dropdown menus in a program. THESE are the choices you get to choose from because that's all the choices the programmers could think to offer (or know how to offer or find profitable to offer).

GIVING the choices is "setting the agenda." This is what you have to choose from and if you want something else, or a little of this and a little of that, you can't have it.

The character who sets the choices before you is setting the agenda.

The character who chooses from that array of choices is the one without POWER in the transaction, no matter how large or varied the menu of choices.

The person who sets the agenda retains the power to LIMIT what you may choose from, and to force you to make a choice from that pre-set list where every item on it benefits them not you.

If you think about it, that's how the news media works (always has worked that way). "All the news that's fit to print" is still an agenda-enforcing chokehold because they choose what's fit and what's not. The internet is changing that business model faster than the media can adjust. The power centers in our cultures are shifting HARD.

So our taste in fiction has to shift, just as hard.

Think what non-human civilizations that had that power-center shift happen generations ago might be like. Then think of them arriving on earth to watch our comedy of errors.

Centralized Agenda Control is how business meetings are run at the corporate level - the one in charge sets the agenda, and anyone speaking outside that list of topics is out of order. Do that too often and presto - you're fired.

Local Town Council meetings are supposed to work that way but often frizzle out into shapeless shouting. Not good drama.

From a child's point of view, families are run from a centralized agenda (which is why we tend to run our families that way once we grow up -- don't know any other way).

"What's for dinner, Mom?" "Rice and Beans; or Beans and Rice, take your pick."

"Where are we going this year on vacation, Dad?" "The Jersey shore. Or there's that beach in Maryland you liked last year." "I don't want to go to a beach. I want to go to a Dude Ranch." "Not this year. Too expensive. And dangerous. There's a nice beach in Connecticut."

See? You can choose. You have freedom of choice, and you're BEING GIVEN A VOTE (given is the operative word). But you can't choose to stay home because you're a kid and can't stay alone. You can't have what you want because it's not on the menu. Choose a beach - any cheap beach. We're listening to you, but we're setting the agenda.

That's how people in our society use power and the process can generate a problem your main character must solve.

OK, so suppose we're writing Romeo and Juliet.

Juliet votes for the Connecticut beach and meets Romeo there. The entire plot and conflict of Romeo and Juliet stemmed from the fact that the parents set the agenda (but of course the parents didn't see it that way; they had their agenda set for them by society and the legitimacy of feuding as a way of life). For Romeo and Juliet, the resolution was that the kids didn't allow the parents to set their agenda.

So the position of Agenda Setter is the single most powerful position in any relationship, and that power is the most far-reaching and difficult to counter when it is exercised with subtlety. "Give the less powerful many, many MANY choices" and they'll never notice they have no freedom to choose.

So problem #1 for your main character can be either what choices to offer others, or whether to let someone else populate the menu of choices. How does your main character break out of that power-grip and assert his/her own agenda? Is your main character even aware he/she has been manipulated into a position of powerlessness? Or is holding only part of the power enough? What changes in your character's world to make it not-enough?

2) Veto Power

This is obvious. It's the power to say "NO" and make it stick.

But again, in our culture, it's socially and politically incorrect for certain people to use this power in certain ways. Thus the person with power can end up in a complex spiderweb trap with no way to exercise their power.

For an example, just read up on the lastest UN Security Council resolutions. That "Veto Power" was given to the 5 permanent members as a way of keeping them from exercising it. Say no to what others consider reasonable and you're dirt.

So one of the 6 problems your main character might have is a Veto Power they can't use. Or if they do use it anyway, the trouble generates the plot.

Take Romeo and Juliet again -- their veto power was suicide.

That's kind of like the DOOMSDAY MACHINE in Star Trek (actually, it's an old military concept). A weapon so powerful it could destroy both sides. You can't use it, and threats with it seem vapid. Well, Romeo and Juliet is a play Aliens might consider when threatening humans with a pre-set agenda of choices.

3) Who holds the "gun"

"The Gun" is a weapon somewhat short of Veto Power or a Doomsday Device, but hardly a precision tool in most hands. (Lone Ranger and Have Gun Will Travel fangirl here!)

The gun is a tool for doing damage of some sort. But it isn't enough to simply have a gun -- WHO holds that gun is the most important part of the threat to the power structure of a dynamic Relationship. The character of the gun-holder is the focus in this problem to be solved.

Take for example, an unarmed man in a sports suit and an armed man in an Armani suit. They are fleeing through a forest chased by a S.W.A.T team (maybe aliens who caught them spying on their beached UFO?).

The Armani Suit tries to use veto power on the Sports Suit who is busy setting the agenda for tricking the aliens into making a choice from a menu of one item.

Armani waves the gun with authority saying, "The man who holds the gun gets his way." Sports Suit snatches the gun right out of Armani's hands levels it at Armani and notes that, "The man who holds the gun gets his way, right?"

It isn't who has the weapon that matters to the plot. It's who controls it. Who knows how to use it.

People who are masters with weaponry don't have to carry weapons. Anyone who wishes to contend for control of the agenda will bring plenty of weapons for everyone. Let them sweat under the weight. They'll get tired and it'll be easier to vanquish them.

So Problem 3 might be that the character who understands a particular weapon (doesn't have to be a gun -- could be a whole space ship with no overt weapons, or a sword, or a length of electrical cord, or a magical chant) does not currently possess that weapon.

Or the complication might be that the person who does possess the weapon doesn't understand the weapon. A character with no shooting-range experience is more deadly when waving a gun than a trained Marine. The Marine will hit what she aims at, and that fact can be very comforting when things get dicey.

4) The Golden Rolodex

Well, Rolodex makes software these days, but the cliche reference is to the cardfile or listing of the ones who will respond to a message as expected and wanted. "I need a speedboat by this afternoon." "Ah, well, I know a man ..."

The person who always "knows a man who" is the one with great power in every relationship. The go-to guy/gal.

I had a cousin with the family golden rolodex. When she sent invitations to a party, the whole family turned out from 3 states around. When somebody else threw a party, hardly anyone came. When I needed to throw a graduation party for one of my kids in New York, I called her in New Jersey. The whole family turned out from 3 states around - and California too.

It's a cliche, but it works. If you need some outlandishly unique operation to go down just the way you want it, you need to know someone who knows everyone and can select who to ask.

Thanksgiving Dinner makes a great plot-event for solving one of the 6 problems.

The character in a Relationship who knows all the email addresses, phone numbers, and URLs is the most powerful person in the relationship, even more powerful than the agenda setter in certain circumstances.

Take for example, the classic situation of the suddenly widowed woman who doesn't even know how to notify her husband's relatives that he has died. The husband paid all the bills. She doesn't know the phone company's phone number, or how to pay the water bill, or where that information is filed, or how much they owe on the house.

The person who knows which people know each other, who knows all their skill sets and their family situations, their political leanings, and personal hobby horses - that person has POWER in every relationship.

Corporations discovered this by scientific research and changed the Personnel Department into the Human Resources department.

I recall when they first started sending questionnairs to employees demanding the employees confess all their hobbies and incidental interests and skills because the employees' skills were the wealth of the corporation. No shit, they really did that and it upset people. Today people comply without thinking about the invasion of privacy -- the power they are giving up for no money. (Well, maybe it'll pay off if the company out of the goodness of their hearts decides to offer a RIF'd worker another position in a different profession.)

So the general reader knows that not being on the good side of "the man who" could be a major one of the 6 problems your main character must solve, especially if he's slipped outside the set Agenda and gotten himself fired.

5) Potentially embarrassing (fatal? Awkward?) secrets

This can be leverage. See the TV show Leverage which is a sort of remake of Mission: Impossible. Knowledge is power. The TV show (USA NETWORK - CHARACTERS WELCOME)
also uses psychology and knowledge as power.

As with Romeo and Juliet, the solution to being blackmailed is to refuse to let another character set the agenda. Just out the info yourself.

Ah, but the price!

One of the 6 problems that have to be solved might have to do with who knows what about which.

Trust issues come in here. Can this character who caught you sleeping with your boss's wife be trusted to keep her mouth shut?

Perhaps in Romance, the Sexual Blackmail potential of secrets is the hottest way to focus attention on the interface between Power and Sex, and distinguish both from actual Romance.

Laughter, embarrassment, and physical danger all have something in common, which is why sex or a giggling-fit often come right after a big physical fight.

PAIN is the element in common. Laughter happens right at the edge of subtle emotional pain. Embarrassment is likewise right at the edge of a kind of potentially fatal emotional pain (something that can change your life and your basic character if rammed through to the logical finish). Embarrassment taken to dramatic conclusion is social-rejection, shunning, and that can be fatal. Ostracism is worse than jail because you can starve or freeze and nobody cares.

For a character who has a hot secret, in their past the potential consequences IF IT WERE KNOWN can make a really good Problem #5 to be fixed.

What is the resolution of, say, the problem where someone falls in love and does not confess before the wedding day that he's in the witness protection program and every characteristic that made his Bride fall in love with him (taste in art, love of music, clothing, even profession) was made up for him. His real self just isn't like that at all.

Does your character say "I Do" before or after confessing? Does someone swoop in with the information? Does the Bride shrug it off saying, "I knew that from the first day we met," because she's a telepath from outer space spying on Earth?

In fact, THE SECRET as a problem works best of all when two characters in a telepathic bonding discover secrets about the other. Each one figured they must know everything about the other because of the telepathic bonding. What a shock.

6) Purse Strings

Well, the financial control in a couple relationship has been used to enslave women since forever. Ho-hum. Cliche.

Oh? But what about the woman who has financial control. Today, in the USA, according to a number of polls I've seen, it's usually the woman who handles the finances. That's one reason so many ads are aimed at women. Women make the purchasing decisions.

And then there's the widow(er) who doesn't even know where all the spouse's bank accounts are but thought she did. Think about variations on Madoff's wife's position. Not the reality. The potential drama in the position depending on how the cash flowed through that family.

If you really need to understand a situation, "follow the money" is the most productive way to spend your investigative dollar.

Any number of Columbo episodes, and even Murder She Wrote, were based on following the money, finding the purse strings, and thus finding the seat of power in the dynamic relationships being exposed because of a murder.

One great example of a murder mystery series that's a sizzling romance is Faye Kellerman's Decker and Lazarus series:



Oh, yeah, don't forget there's plenty of variations on this purse-strings problem to explore with the same-sex couple with scattered assets and limited legal rights in certain states. Your main character could have the problem of getting actual hands on his/her rightful inheritance from a deceased spouse and become a suspect because of those efforts.

Then there's the college kid waiting for his parents to send money. Suppose they're fighting over how much support he should get. Suppose the parents get a divorce, and don't inform him until after the decree?

Or take international politics. There's the Fantasy TV show KINGS, for example, where the war between neighboring countries is promulgated by the guy funding the King, and when the King wants to make peace, the funds go into war-mongering and palace intrigue and skulldugery where the profits are. You think the King was fooled? Watch that show. Love, Romance, Infidelity, Intrigue, the stuff of human relationships.

I think some of these short summer-replacement series are actually concocted with the idea of making the profit from selling the DVD's. Follow the money.

The power of control of the wealth works wonderfully well on the interstellar scene because it's something we all have intimate knowledge of and can believe as a motive even for aliens. It's primal enough that we can infer that even aliens would have "resource control" as a goal.

Purse Strings don't just control coined money. The "Purse Strings" power-mongering is about any sort of concrete resource control. Oil interests don't seem too enthusiastic about solar panel deployment for power generation, do they? Remember the TV show Dallas? Suppose you wrote an episode of that today, in the "alternative energy" revolution?

Consider the Wild West stories of the cattlemen vs. the sheep runners.

Water rights are still a huge bone of contention in the West USA (Colorado lakes are down to I think it's about a third of where they should be at this time of year; Colorado feeds Arizona and California water, and hasn't enough left for itself.)

A recent FORBES article pinpoints some of the calculation fallacies behind the concept of the locavore (eating local produce). This is an article fraught with story ideas because of all the things there are to "fix" that you can choose from, and the equivocal facts. The article contends that it's more "green" for England to import lamb from New Zealand than to raise sheep locally.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0803/opinions-energy-locavores-on-my-mind.html

Business Week online is also a fertile source of Six Things To Fix for your main character.

http://www.businessweek.com/

And those are two of the most obvious places for writers to watch for plot driving things to fix involving purse strings and power.

These magazines are all about power and the power-structure that we are so embedded in that we are as oblivious to it as we are to the air (unless there's a storm wind or a bad smell).

The reader/viewer's obliviousness is the writer's most powerful tool for inserting the surprising twist that is nevertheless obvious in retrospect.
------------

So there are 6 areas of Power in Relationship fraught with dramatic potential. And that's derived from only half of Pluto's possible effects and we barely touched on what Neptune can do to perceptions.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Collateral Repairs

You've heard of collateral damage. Now let's consider collateral repairs.

The phrase "collateral repair" has been used in other ways, but I want to propose a writer's jargon application of the term which dovetails with Blake Snyder's explanation of screenplay structure.

Collateral repairing would be some sort of healing, fixing, anti-damage side-effect that an action might have as an unexpected consequence or side-effect, not the goal of the action.

When you are focused on goal-directed behavior (like a hero in a story solving a problem), you move through the world on automatic pilot, doing everything else without thinking, by habit, by knee-jerk reflex.

That means that most of what you do when acting in a goal directed fashion reveals your essential character, who you really are rather than who you want the world to think you are.

Your actions reveal who you actually are because they aren't deliberate, well thought out, not intended to have specific long term consequences in your life or any one's.

Your actions in pursuit of a goal with long term consequences may head you into trouble, into a learning and growing experience, a "story." But your negligent, habitual actions show (without telling) what lessons of life you think you've already mastered.

Writers can use this widespread human trait in sketching a character in conjunction with the Window Character Linnea Sinclair told us about in her post at
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/windows-to-soul.html
where she reported on Writer's Boot Camp with Todd Stone.

The cleanest example of Collateral Repairs that I can think of is a scene in a Superman movie where Clark Kent is going to work at the Daily Planet, walks down the street amid a series of slapstick comedy mishaps and deals with them using his powers subtly while pretending to be the clueless clutzy reporter.

Now, true, in that scene, Clark knows he's helping people, and deliberately hiding his powers. He knows he's on Earth to help people. But his "goal" is to get to work, to remain in character as Clark. All his actions as he walks down the street are just aside from his progress toward his goal, and in some cases endanger achieving that goal. The people he helps are not part of the main plot.

So we see the Hero beneath the outward seeming. Clark Kent can't just waltz by humans, ignoring what's happening to them, and he can't just ignore the results of his own casual actions. My point is that Clark sees a problem that isn't his own and that isn't on his agenda today, and he reaches out to help. He doesn't ponder, deliberate, calculate, or negotiate a reward - he just DOES what comes naturally to him. And thus we get to know the real Clark Kent, maybe better than he knows himself.

Blake Snyder (http://www.blakesnyder.com ) calls the technique of characterizing by collateral repairs SAVE THE CAT! You can find links and explanations on Snyder's website.

The opening pages of a script set up the characters and the problem, the overall situation. Snyder calls that "laying pipe" -- laying the channel through which the reader will be drawn into the story.

The most essential element in sucking a reader into a story is the characters.

So Blake says the character you want sympathy for has to "save the cat" -- do an act which may be irrelevant (or even counter-productive) to the plot, but that displays the inner nature of the character. The particular trait displayed has to be relevant to the climax of the story and has some thematic link to the B story.

Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden character is a solid case in point.


I was sent a review copy of a RoC trade paperback which Amazon is promoting titled MEAN STREETS. It's an anthology of 4 novellas about currently famous action characters.

The lead story, "The Warrior" is by one of my favorite authors, Jim Butcher, and extends the story of his TV Series/ Novel private eye character Harry Dresden, Wizard.

In 2007, I reviewed Butcher's Dresden novels in my book review column, and did one column where I interviewed Butcher in person.
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2007/rrbooks2007info.html

Butcher's Harry Dresden novels are long, complex, multi-threaded plots where Harry Dresden has three or more life-threatening cases or affairs in progress at once, and usually emerges beaten, bedraggled, bloody and alive. Harry doesn't exult over his vanquished enemies.

So it must have been a real writing challenge for Butcher to produce a novella sized Dresden story with one plot thread and one single point to make. After the discipline of working with the Harry Dresden TV series (on Sci Fi channel but now on DVD (I have the DVDs and have really enjoyed them)

Butcher probably had a better idea of how to write a complete Dresden story at novella length. "The Warrior" succeeds marvelously at this length and is very like a TV episode. I recommend you read that novella before reading my analysis. There are some spoilers in this discussion because the COLLATERAL REPAIRS part comes at the end of this Dresden story.

See my blog post on spoilers -- it is my stance that no really good story can be spoiled by knowing in advance what happens or what some other reader thought happened.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/03/prologues-and-spoilers.html

"The Warrior" is almost entirely and purely a characterization exercise. It's all about Dresden's sense of proportion and his personal values. No two readers will interpret it alike. And it's an instant classic that can't be spoiled. But if you like, page down to END SPOILER and continue reading.

----------BEGIN SPOILER-----------------


The story opens as Dresden makes a mistake. He's been sent photos that seem to be a threat against Michael, the retired wielder of a Holy Sword. Currently, Dresden has custody of two of these Holy Swords, but not the authority to wield them. Dresden wants to protect his unarmed friend, Michael, and takes Michael's old sword to him, showing him the pictures someone sent him. A stalker is after Michael's family and friends.

Michael refuses the Sword.

Dresden moves through the city investigating who the stalker might be, trying to Private Eye the problem away, and as he does so, he does a few little things he barely notices doing -- he's just moving through the city concentrating on the real threat, the stalker.

Michael's daughter is kidnapped by the stalker and the ransom is both Swords.

Now these Swords are an Honor, a Holy Calling, each belonging to an Archangel (the real kind) and a fabulous amount of magical power is inside each Sword. They are unique. They are special. And they have the power to protect the innocent, maybe save the world. They must not fall into the "wrong" hands. Dresden is their guardian. He takes that seriously.

Dresden doesn't even think about it for two seconds. He'll give the kidnapper the swords to get the girl back. He has no ego-investment in being in possession of both of these Swords, but he respects and believes in their power.

At the exchange, a fight breaks out. Dresden and Michael win, but Dresden has to remind Michael not to hit the kidnapper too hard.

The last scene is where the meaning of this story, and its commentary on Dresden's character, come clear. Dresden has once again conquered a serious enemy tackling the enemy head-on, though this time a mere mortal human being who isn't even a Wizard. He's sitting in the balcony of a cathedral waiting for Michael and others to finish patching up the kidnapper when the Archangel Gabriel appears sitting next to him.

Dresden barely blinks at that. He lives in a world where such beings are natural. The Archangel Gabriel talks idiomatic English and points out to Dresden that even though he does not wield one of the Swords, he is nevertheless a Warrior fighting successfully for the Light. Then Gabriel enumerates the results of Dresden's easy, unthinking peripheral actions along the way through the story.

What Dresden thought he was doing, what he thought the problem was (stalker; kidnapper after the Swords) was not the most important thing Dresden did that day. The side-effects, the collateral repairs in the world that Dresden made by his apparently trivial knee-jerk responses to situations actually did far more to bring goodness into the world than his titanic conflicts with the magical Forces of Evil.


-------------END SPOILER---------------

Dresden, no matter how he thinks of himself, is The Warrior.

And you and I learn a lesson from Dresden. Everything we do, but most especially the things we do without thinking about them, -- the negligent, the peripheral, the habitual, -- all those little deeds are the ones that count in Collateral Repair of the world.

I read "The Warrior" after I found a message on the EPIC List from Morgan Mandel who had posted a blog about 8 reasons to comment on blogs. And in Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT! and Harry Dresden's Sword problem, I found a reason Morgan doesn't have on her list (though her list seems to be growing).

http://morganmandel.blogspot.com/2009/01/seven-reasons-to-comment-on-blog.html

Her reasons to post comments on blogs pivot around the benefits that might accrue to the commenter.

Commenting on blogs for such reasons as she mentions would be the kind of "Goal Directed Behavior" you'd find in a Hero undergoing a story where he/she was about to learn something the hard way.

But commenting on blogs is usually (at least for me) a peripheral activity, a by-the-way done as a reflexive response on a subject I know something about -- sort of like Clark Kent blundering down the street or Harry Dresden acting from his heart, just because he can. And I think it's that way for a lot of people (political diatribes excepted).

Blogs are not central to most people's life goals, yet we who read blogs get something out of it, something intangible but worth the time. When a certain sort of person reads a blog entry and gets something out of it that's worth the reading time, he/she will drop a comment on that blog just to thank the blogger. Or a comment on a comment.

After reading Angel Gabriel's explanation to Dresden, I suspect that commenting on a blog comes into the category of being The Warrior.

Maybe only one person other than the blogger will read the comment, but the effect that comment might have on that one person could be enormously out of proportion to the effort it takes to write the comment. Your comment might save or redirect a life.

Often the comment becomes longer because in thinking how to say thank you, the commenter will put some effort into verbalizing a response that shows they read the blog entry and understood it. As a result, the commenter also gains a deeper understanding of himself and the issue -- as well as providing a "Scotty, you earned your pay for the month!" to the blogger.

I do think the main reason to comment on blogs (or to blog) is that somebody you've never met might read your comment, benefit from it without even knowing who you are. Thus you have a chance to repair the world in the most powerful way.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com