Reviews 47 - Police Family Love by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Reviews 47

Police Family Love

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Reviews haven't been indexed (yet).

In the entry, Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 11 - Arranging Marriages,
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/06/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html
we discussed the TV Series, Shtisel, made in Israel, in Hebrew with English subtitles.

The title, Shtisel, is after the Shtisel family it follows through the harrowing issue of arranging marriages amidst a secular culture in Jerusalem.

It is reminiscent of the Chaim Potok novel about a talented artist, MY NAME IS ASHER LEV.

https://smile.amazon.com/Name-Asher-Lev-Chaim-Potok-ebook/dp/B002GKGAZG/

But Potok wrote in novel style, and was thus able to address deep and far reaching nuances of his theme about family and the misfit artist.

I noted that, as a TV Series, Shtisel couldn't do that and stay on the air.

Here, I want to point you to a series I've talked about before, by Marshall Ryan Maresca, set in his fictional/fantasy city of Maradaine.

He has crafted a series of series -- focusing on different levels, layers, and professions that make up a huge, sprawling port city.

Here are previous discussions of this huge work of art in the making:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/09/theme-character-integration-part-14.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/05/reviews-34-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/06/theme-plot-integration-part-17-crafting.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/07/depiction-part-16-reviews-26-depicting.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/06/reviews-16-thorn-of-dentonhill-by.html

And now we have two more books.  Note that -- books, not just TV episodes. Each of these novels is replete with details revealing the depths of a World you could never imagine, but which seems totally familiar.

  The Way of the Shield (A novel of the Maradaine Elite)


A Parliament of Bodies (A novel of The Maradaine Constabulary) 

The Way of the Shield has a sequel, Shield of the People, out October 2019.

"The Shield" is a martial arts "order" -- part of the previous culture, struggling not to be lost amidst a changing society.  Think of the parallels to the TV Series, Shtisel, which I recommended previously:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/06/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html

If you do a deep contrast/compare study of the martial arts order, how hard it is to live their life, what they swear to do, how seriously they take that oath, with the lifestyle depicted in SHTISEL, you will learn a lot about the writing craft.

But include the novels of the Maradaine Constabulary, along with two American TV Series, NCIS and BLUE BLOODS,

and you begin to see where Alien Romance fits in the genre-mix that is most popular today.

We have a long history of great Detective Series, novel series made into TV Detective series (Perry Mason comes to mind), and many stories of how teams of police and/or lawyers become bonded into a family.

A working group of crime fighters (even superhero alliances) bond the way combat veterans have bonded with buddies from time immemorial (really, pre-Rome days).

It is the nature of humans to bond with those who face adversity with them.  It is in the whirling blades of combat (physical or psychological), that the true core of a human's personality is revealed.

Thus many of the best Romance novels mix in another genre that includes some sort of danger, testing, supreme effort.  Becoming part of an organization, such as a Martial Arts Order, where you must pass a test to be accepted, forms that sort of bond.

These procedures (reduced to hazing in the case of the college fraternity - kid's games compared to real life) do forge MARITAL BONDS, true marriage for life, and perhaps beyond.

In the USA, we have had influxes of immigrants over the centuries, and such communities have settled together and formed major bonds that last generations.  Some groups have assimilated easily, and others have resisted for many generations.  Some just soak up Americana and adapt it.

In the 20th Century we had the Italians and the Irish, as well as the Jews of Eastern Europe.  New York's Irish Cops became famous.

All three of these incoming groups were famous for their family strength, keeping family ties going for generations before intermarrying and becoming part of the 50% divorce rate statistics.

The TV Series, Blue Bloods, focused on a multigenerational Irish family in the process of complete assimilation.  Being a cop (or in one woman's case, an attorney) was the family business.

It's a stereotype for s reason -- non-Irish people knew many such families.

In the sub-series, The Maradaine Constabulary, Marshall Ryan Maresca has given us a multi-generation family of cops, tough men and women of impeccable loyalty to law and order.

The inexplicable element in the Maradaine law, to me, is how it replicates USA law, the legal protection against search and seizure and other rights of individuals that cops can't violate and get a conviction in court.

While these concepts date back thousands of years, and are part of the Magna Carta -- survived a multitude of dictatorial Kings, and somehow became codified into USA law, they are by no means universal among countries today.  Even where such law is on the books, it is often ignored.

There is no explanation (so far) in the Maradaine novels about where they got these ideas -- but they do have an Aristocracy as well as a Parliament.

The novel, A Parliament of Bodies, has major elements of Horror Genre, but likewise incorporates both unbreakable family ties and love/loyalty between spouses.

Setting aside the inexplicable World Building puzzles, both these novels and the sub-series they represent are well worth your time to read.  They are not Romance novels, but love and loyalty are the plot-driving forces that depict what a strong family really is.

Always remember that "strong family" is the single most critical element in the Happily Ever After ending for a Romance.  If the marriage doesn't nurture children, a next generation and a next beyond that, who love, understand, appreciate, and above all honor, the couple forged in Romance, then you didn't have Soul Mates to begin with, and thus no HEA is possible.

So study the limits of what the publishing industry can allow right now, and, like Srugim and Shtisel TV Series, break that boundary, challenge the stereotype, find a new angle to view your story.

Just don't miss the Maradaine novels.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 46 - The Private Eye Genre Progresses

Reviews 46

The Private Eye Genre Progresses 

Reviews have not been indexed, but you may find most of these posts by searching this blog for keyword Review.

In Reviews 45, we looked at the 14 book series, DESTROYERMEN by Taylor Anderson -- an exercise in the technology of weaponry and strategy and tactics of global warfare.  It has a few engrossing characters, and a couple of solidly developed Relationships -- but the plot has nothing much to do with who these people are or what they think about each other.  Romance fans will find little of interest, and a lot of boring wordage in huge blocks of exposition.

For that very reason, Romance writers need to study why Destroyermen is such a huge Best Seller in its genre.

Today, we'll look at a related problem for Science Fiction Romance writers -- the Private Eye, or Private Investigator (gumshoe) genre.

Military Science Fiction, and alternate Universes, time-travel Science Fiction is an all-time favorite of mine.  But I also thrill to a good Detective novel, Police Procedural, and anti-procedural (the rogue private eye who solves the crime but ruins the court case).

The Private Investigator novel hinges and two elements -- 1) the personality of the PI Character, 2) the intricate puzzle of the Mystery to be solved.

How-done-it; Who-done-it -- every subgenera or mystery is intimately related to Science Fiction in that Science is all about solving the mysteries of existence, how things work, and whether it makes a difference who you are.

Both mystery and Science Fiction are about learning something that will let you understand what is really going on.

Both mystery and Science Fiction are about posing the question in a way that will let you solve the problem, and understand what is happening.

Mystery is about "who-done-it" in that Mystery focuses on a criminal who made something strange happen, and forced the investigator to pose questions to answer.

The TV Series NCIS is an excellent example of detailed Characterization, with characters grouped into a cooperative team, an ensemble TV Series.  Netflix, CBS All Access

https://www.amazon.com/Destinys-Child/dp/B07GJX1VZ2/

Which Character is the lead character for you, your MC, depends on what you think is important in life in the world.  All the Characters have ever-changing love-interests (or at least sex), but each brings a different expertise to question formulation.

For science fiction romance writers, Abby, the forensics specialist (fantasy character in that she does the work of a wide-array of different specialists), or possibly Ducky, the pathologist.

Finding out what the strange, oddball, components of the clues really are is a big part of unraveling a mystery.  Then the field people have to go talk to, interrogate, and background check the people involved, and then use Emotional Intelligence (in later episodes, Ducky becomes their profiler) to formulate questions about motives.

Watching this series is painless, breezy, and pretty mindless, as they repeat the same mysteries endlessly.  From season to season, they find ways to put each member of the team in jeopardy -- even threatened with being held to account for breaking rules.

Romance Genre is about this exact same mystery-solving process but applied to the Other -- the Love At First Sight, or the Love Hidden In Improbable Person.  Sometimes love surfaces as hate-at-first-sight, and that is a great mystery to solve.

So science, and romance, are warp and woof of the same cloth.  It is all Mystery.

Today, we have the advent of the Cozy Mystery -- revolving around ongoing, intimate relationships (which may or may not be romantic or sexual), with less blood on the floors, violence, threat to life-and-limb, and more inquisitive use of Emotional Intelligence.

To solve the mystery of how a crime was pulled off, a Private Investigator has to use tools that are a) unavailable to law enforcement, and b) available to the average reader of the genre.

In other words, the PI is the MacGyver of the Mystery Genre - the amateur who repurposes everyday tools to make things happen that the reader wants to see happen.

In Romance, the reader wants to see the Couple actually resolve their conflicts and get together as a team.

In Reviews 45, we noted how the Destroyermen novels slide through the gory details of forming improbable alliances among humans and non-humans.  This is the wish-fulfillment fantasy element used "off the nose" to help deliver the payload of WINNING to the military science fiction fan.

Then there is the PI, the Private Eye, who is a loner -- like the soldier of fortune.  Not a team player.  Not facile at forming relationships.  In the TV Series, NCIS, we have our Gunny, Gibbs-the-team-leader who does not want a promotion.  He has the knack of knowing everything, and being where he is needed -- these are the Talents of the Gunnery Sergeant in Military Science Fiction.

A Sergeant is a bright, talented, well schooled enlisted officer -- not a college grad, usually. College grads are commissioned officers.

Gibbs has been married, widowed, and multiply divorced -- he has found a spot in life that suits him fine, but still takes deep interest in women.

So to make the wide, TV audience who loves Procedurals (NCIS has to make court-cases, not just fix things as a Superhero Vigilante might), find NCIS a go-to-favorite, they had to explore and develop the Characters and play each Character for all the possible Relationships in their lives.

Likewise, to create an ongoing, long-series PI Character for a Best Selling Series, you have to take the readership into account.  A TV Series is expensive and thus has to appeal to a broader audience than a book, which is pretty cheap to publish relative to any video presentation.

One wonderful example of the narrow focus, PI Series parallel to Destroyermen, is DEV HASKELL - PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.

The Dev Haskell series is par-boiled, not hard-boiled, PI genre.  There is a lot of physical threat, a lot of fist-beatings, shootings, injuries, blood on the floor, gangsters who play for keeps, Crime Bosses to be reckoned with, and a loner PI, Dev Haskell, who shares a hole-in-the-wall office with a down-at-the-heels lawyer.

The Characterization is colorful, but just stereotyped enough to be worth studying for genre structure.

Dev Haskell is an "anthology series" -- like Darkover or Star Trek -- which can be read in any order.  But it's more fun in published order.

It is also easy to drop into the series without having read books set previously in the timeline.

So to complete the genre study of how the Private Eye genre is converging via Cozy Mystery toward the Science Fiction Romance Genre, download (or free on KindleUnlimited) the boxed set of books 8-14 of Dev Haskell - Private Investigator by Mike Faricy

https://www.amazon.com/Dev-Haskell-Box-Set-8-14-ebook/dp/B07FN3HSW6/

These are very short novels, each solving a mystery, but getting the PI embroiled in the underworld politics of his city.  In many ways, you will find similarities to Jim Butcher's Dresden Files Series (another favorite of mine!), keeping in mind it was briefly a TV Series, has graphic novels, comics, and many fans.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O3HD47C/ref=series_rw_dp_sw

Note what dimension of reality these very best selling series leave out -- solve the mystery of why Romance is left OUT of these very best, best sellers, why the Characters bounce randomly from relationship to relationship.  It's a mystery.  Solve it.  Then write the solution as a Romance.

Do it well, find a good marketer for it, and you might found a new Genre.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Acceptable Breaks from Reality?

The TV Tropes site has a page called "Acceptable Breaks from Reality," about the "unrealistic" things regularly allowed to happen in fiction and film in order to move the story along, even though the elements aren't true to life:

Acceptable Breaks

This trope came to mind when I watched last week's episode of NCIS, a favorite series I've faithfully followed since its inception (even though I didn't completely like the star, Gibbs, at first and could hardly stand Agent Tony DiNozzo for the first season or two). Despite my fondness for the show, I'm often distracted or outright exasperated by some of their routine plot devices. One of the most "acceptable," which bugs me anyway if I stop to think about it, falls under the TV Tropes category "The Main Characters Do Everything." They seem to have only one medical examiner, Dr. Mallard, and one assistant, Dr. Palmer, doing all the autopsies. This large, busy organization has only one forensic technician, who literally does everything, including conducting DNA tests instead of sending them out to a specialized lab. In one episode, while the forensic tech was absent for some reason, two of the regular agents temporarily took over her lab and analyzed evidence. With no training or certification in that field? Yikes. Yes, I realize programs want to keep the focus on the stars and don't want to pay a lot of actors to play minor characters just to make the staff look realistically large. How much would it cost, though, to have a group of extras in the background or walking in and out of the picture so that the spaces devoted to autopsy and forensics would appear to be populated in a lifelike way? The program does that for the main NCIS office. In those scenes, the stars are far from the only people on the set.

Most of the time, I don't think about this issue while watching the show. Nor do I gripe too much about the "murder of the week" template, despite the fact that real NCIS agents (as far as I know from having been a Navy wife for thirty years) work more on such crimes as burglaries and assaults in Navy housing than on murders and terrorist conspiracies. The former types of investigations, admittedly, wouldn't be very exciting unless a body turned up before the first commercial. Some other "breaks from reality," however, actively grate on me. For instance,the agents frequently travel to other countries in the course of investigations, although they're based in the Washington, D.C. area, their presumed jurisdiction and operational purview. And they often go to other cities for brief interviews with potential informants instead of calling on the phone. That office must have a lavish travel budget! Last week's episode included several of my "pet peeves." Usually, the number of days covered by an episode isn't specified, so the audience may assume, with a little indulgence, that enough time has elapsed for lab tests to get done. This one, however, explicitly begins and ends on Christmas Eve. The forensic tech uses her superhuman skills to determine whether an unidentified baby is the child of a dead murder suspect. In real life, DNA analysis takes between 24 and 72 hours to complete. (I looked it up.) Yet she gets a result from the DNA paternity test in only an hour or two, judging from how much story time the rest of the episode spans.

Throughout the series, the agents constantly delve into official records that they shouldn't be allowed to access without warrants. Maybe that issue can be overlooked in the interests of streamlining the action. Entering private dwellings without warrants, however, is a more glaring violation. In the referenced episode, two agents talk the suspect into letting them into his apartment, even though they don't have a search warrant. So far, okay. But then they force their way into a closed room he has forbidden them to enter. No warrant, no permission from the occupant, no probable cause. In an actual case, any evidence they found would be tainted. At some point the suspect produces a gun, and one of the agents shoots him dead. We never hear a word about her being suspended pending investigation, as she would be, or even a passing comment about that possibility. For that matter, throughout the series the agents are continually involved in car chases and shootouts with no apparent repercussions.

Then there are the often unintentionally humorous "flyover country" slip-ups in occasional episodes. I know that in many movies and TV series, southern California stands in for almost everywhere. But couldn't film technology have deleted the mountains from the background of a scene allegedly set in Norfolk, Virginia (on the Atlantic coast, a half-day's drive from the nearest mountain range)? As a resident of Maryland, I was especially amused as well as mildly annoyed by an incident when the agents visited the Carroll County sheriff. (Why, I don't remember; that seemed like another interaction that could have been handled by phone.) According to its website, that department is "a full service law enforcement agency" with a staff of 260 employees. To the writers of NCIS, the word "sheriff" must have been free-associated with "Mayberry." They have the sheriff claiming he can't leave the office because there's nobody on the premises except himself and one deputy.

Minor "breaks from reality" to avoid slowing down the story are one thing, but critical research failures or the appearance of just not caring are another. What unrealistic details in movies and TV programs can you overlook for the sake of plot streamlining, and which ones make your teeth grind in exasperation?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt