Theme-Character Integration Part 6 - The Hero vs The Bully by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Character Integration
Part 6
The Hero vs The Bully
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 Previous parts in this sequence on Theme-Character Integration:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-4.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-3-why.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-character-integration-part-2-fire.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/theme-character-integration-part-1-what.html

Integrating THEME and CHARACTER -- making them a seamless center-pole of your story-plot integration structure is pretty easy, but you do need to focus on the energy-sources that drive people.

Note, in the political arena, how it happens when one person states their position, another will leap up and hammer them with counter-statements.  Don't listen to the vitriol itself, but rather focus on the energy driving the interaction.

That raw energy-pattern is what drives stories, what causes characters to act in ways that make trouble, whereupon the trouble made causes another character to act. 

All actions in this world are kinetic.  Think of your story as a billiards table with balls scattered about.  You are the player with the cue.  You TAP a ball, it flies across the table with enough kinetic energy to SMACK into another ball.  That ball rolls less energetically (some energy got absorbed in the smack) and hits another ball that just barely moves -- but falls into a pocket.

That's a story. 

The main character grabs some energy and a tool (the stick, your muscles) and SMACKS another character -- with an idea, a sloe-eyed glance, a stinging insult, out-right defiance of authority, or slinking behind someone's back. 

It doesn't matter so much what the ACT is, but it matters that on page 1 your main character is introduced first, and the first thing any reader learns about him/her is via their ACTION -- that the reader must interpret to suit the reader, not to suit the writer.

In other words, you create a character, and introduce that character to the reader in a SHOW DON'T TELL -- an action.

Now, first decide if your POV character is The Hero or The Bully, then create the Situation etc that will lay out your theme in visuals, in pictures, and in what seems to the reader as mere decoration. 

If your POV Character is The Hero, his first ACTION on that first page must be a SAVE THE CAT! action -- he has to "save the cat" as defined by Blake Snyder.

What does it mean to save the cat?  It's an action which puts the character at risk in some way (doesn't have to be life and limb).  Something is at stake for The Hero that will seem to the reader to be more vital -- more crucial or important -- than what is at stake for the "owner" of the cat. 

"The Hero" is a character who risks losing something of vast importance of his own in order to mitigate, offset, or eliminate (rescue), a LESSER LOSS for someone else.

How the person who is rescued then reacts (doing things,) to the Hero reveals that secondary character's worthiness to be rescued.  How each assesses what might have been lost against what might have been gained provides the SPRINGBOARD for a Romance. 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/index-to-story-springboards-series-by.html

Differing 'values' are source of conflict that is the energy to power your springboard or billiards game.

So back to billiards -- "conflict" is the point where your cue's point hits the billiard ball.  That's the initial conflict defined on page 1.

Prior to that point, there is only potential energy, -- the thought, the chalking of the cue, the study of the lay of the table, the measuring of angles, the positioning, and the working of muscles in which potential energy is stored -- all of that is "backstory" --then the energy is RELEASED in that SMACK, or the springboard rebounds.

Contact between the cue and the ball is conflict illustrated.  That is the point at which the two elements that will conflict to generate the plot first meet.  And that's the definition of a story opening.  The ending is where the ball falls into the pocket (HEA) or fails to fall in (sad ending or teaser for a sequel.)

The Hero is a character who has a vast amount of potential energy, maybe isn't aware of it or doesn't care, but also has the most to lose, and doesn't dwell on The Stakes.

That's one key to success in the climb to high places noted in this blog entry:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/dialogue-part-5-how-to-write-liar.html

In the book cited in that entry, the point is clear that high profile (celebrities, politicians, people in the news all their lives) liars never consider what might happen if they're caught.  They never worry about what it would mean to lose.  They don't worry about The Stakes. 

So read Dialogue Part 5 to see how to construct the inner dialogue as well as the spoken dialogue.  It's not just what you put there, but what you leave out that shows rather than tells what stuff your character is made of. 

The core definition of Hero is the person who handles their own power well.

The core definition of a Bully is the person who has more power than they can handle.

A bully is a sad sack indeed, but instead of feeling sorry for such people we often cringe in fear before them.

That's not irrational.  There is nothing more dangerous than a 3 year old with a loaded gun with the safety off.  That image pretty much defines the bully.

The bully has deep, twisted, terrible emotional problems that viciate their strength of character.  When such a person is physically larger than his/her peers, has a larger reputation, more charisma (the High School clique leader), more powerful parents, employer, associates, has weaponry that out-guns others, that power will be put to the service of assuaging that person's emotional issues.

That's the way every human being is made.

It is depicted in Astrology (as explained by Noel Tyl) as the Moon, Saturn and the Sun as positioned in the natal chart.  The Moon represents the emotional core of essential NEEDS, or what you WANT (what you always feel is missing no matter how much you have).  Saturn represents your ambition.  The Sun represents your energy -- how it flows into and through you, driving your actions.

The key that Noel Tyl teaches with astrology is that a personality will organize (by maturity) to put the ambition and energy at the service of the reigning need.  Life is lived trying to fulfill that need.  Tyl also factors in the Moon's nodes and aspects to them to get a picture of the internalized stresses acquired in childhood which people work out in later life.

A Bully is someone who has more Need than Power.

A Hero is someone who has more Power than Need.

If your story is about a Hero, your theme will have to reflect that strength of character that controls, subverts, dismisses, ignores -- or whatever mechanism -- the character's reigning Need. 

If your story is about a Bully, your theme will have to reflect that weakness of character that lets the screaming pain at the center of this person dominate all actions, reactions, ambitions and goals, whether the person knows it or not.

In either case, Hero or Bully, your theme will have to deal with the Source of Power, the method of accumulating Power, the use of Power, the goals that Power is aimed at, and of course the theme determines the ending. 

If the Bully wins, you are making a thematic statement that the way to an HEA is to use Power to assuage Need.

If the Hero wins, you are making a thematic statement that the way to an HEA is to use Need (sensitivity to others) to harness Power. 

The Hero uses Power in the service of other people's needs.  The Hero doesn't feel deprived, doesn't feel he/she is Giving anything because the Hero has so much extra Power, and is tapped into the Divine Source of power which the Hero knows is not his/her own, so that whatever impossible task is presented, it is accomplished without diminishing the Hero's Power.

The Bully, on the other hand, goes around with something to prove, and a Need not just to be dominant, but to make everyone acknowledge that dominance.

The Hero does not dominate, and has no need for anyone to know he/she exists nevermind has a lot of Power.

The Bully is insatiably thirsty for more and more Power -- somehow knowing that to make the screaming Need shut up, there has to be more Power than Need. 

And that's true.  It is one way to turn a Bully into a Hero. 

Experiencing, even for a moment, enough power to shut that need up can change an individual's entire personality.  There are two ways to accomplish that reversal of proportion of Power and Need.  You can reduce the amount of Need, or you can increase the amount of Power. 

Thus a young Bully can be 'cured' by having a victim stand up and smack him down in front of his cronies.  This reduces the amount of social Power the Bully has -- and if it reduces the Power level to below the Need level, the Bully can become a level-headed functioning member of society who is ashamed of his prior behavior.  It's all a matter of the relative intensity of the potential energy tied up in Need and Power.

Also a Hero can be transformed into a Bully by reversing the proportions of Need and Power.  That's the source of the saying, "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely." 

Any individual can have their Power/Need balance disrupted and find their character cracked and crumbling (high drama in that; tragedy and death or hard lessons learned).  The Wisdom to avoid taking on more power than the character can handle is not usually a trait of the Hero.  Wisdom is usually a trait of the archetype of The King or The Priest -- that is, the elders who made that mistake decades ago and learned from it.

Astrology does not say you are a Hero or a Bully.  The Sun, Moon, Saturn relationship does not determine that at all.  It's not what you've got that matters, but how you choose to use it.

The true Hero confronting a Bully will see himself in that Bully -- and know how to handle that particular Bully to bring the Power/Need balance to functional proportions.

As I said, there are two ways to cure a Bully -- reduce Need or increase Power.  Psychiatrists prescribe drugs to reduce Need.  Politicians prescribe more control of public funds to increase Power.

In any universe you create for your characters, if you choose to tell the story of a Bully vs. a Hero, you will have to deal with themes involving the use and abuse of Power.

Here is a discussion of Six Kind of Power in a Relationship:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/six-kinds-of-power-in-relationship.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Astrology Just For Writers, Part 10, Pluto The School Of Hard Knocks

Last week we talked about expository lumps, and how a writer's job is to chop them up into small pieces, to make salad out of grocery bags of ingredients.  Here's one of the tools for chopping up your expository lumps: Pluto.

I've done  9 previous posts on Astrology Just For Writers, which I suspect many of you skipped.

Here's a post listing the URLs of my posts on Astrology:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

And here are a few mentioning those posts and elaborating on the content and showing how powerful an understanding of Astrology can be for writers:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/02/happily-ever-after.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/choosing-age-of-your-protagonist-to-win.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/six-kinds-of-power-in-relationship.html

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

And particularly this one on Greed which mentions how writers (who don't actually know astrology) can use Astrology to create compelling effects in their writing:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/07/greed-is-good.html

That last one is about character motivation, Romance, screenwriting, and Gordon Gekko.

Astrology Just For Writers Part 9 focuses on Pluto:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/astrology-just-for-writers-part-9-high.html

 It's titled High Drama and is about Pluto and how to use those transits in writing by listening to the "drumbeat" of the world of finance.   It references Tiger Woods and his fight with his wife.  Subsequently, we've seen his struggles to get his golf game back into shape, and now health issues (Pluto is related to that kind of bodily breakdown) keeping him off the circuit.  Part 9 traces world trends over long decades of time, even centuries, showing how that High Drama has peaks and valleys in a rhythm that writers can use to create plots.

When you talk about Astrology used in fiction, people think immediately of creating a Natal Chart for characters, or using some cookbook on transits to plot.

That doesn't work.  You don't get "realistic" effects, and you end up with expository lumps because you have to "explain" the astrology which is just plain Greek to your readers.

And the truth is, you don't understand it either, so don't try to explain it.  Just use Astrology to understand the world around you in ways that are not your own ways.

That's right, learning just a little about what Astrology is and does can let you see the world through the eyes of your readers whom you've never met and maybe never will.

I saw recently how everyone views the world through Astrology, consciously or unconsciously.

I caught a comment on twitter flying by me about the rhythm of the world that seemed to the tweeter to go in 30 year cycles.

I tweeted back that was the period of Saturn (which is 29 years or so).

The tweeter answered that was just the natural way the world goes.

Well, yes, it is, which is why Astrology is still with us after millenia.  It isn't a theory people invented to explain things.  It's empirical.  People observed that when such-and-so kind of life event was afoot, if you look up at night, you will see this-and-that for sure.  They tabulated those observations over generations and compiled a set of reliable coincidences.  And it works backwards.  When you look up and see this, look down and you'll find that, sure enough.

Since we now live long enough to see a couple or three cycles of Saturn, people are more aware of it than ever.  We now have TV clips from 30 years ago, film from 60 years ago, a library of the past which reveals how it is that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

It's that cycle, that drumbeat of general public moods which you can sort out by using astrology, then write to the mood that will prevail in a few years, or 10 years or more.

The sledge hammer of the zodiac is Pluto (which got demoted from planetary status because it's small and very likely a "capture" not a piece of matter native to this star).

Pluto is a "foreign influence."

People who don't study Astrology often pick up the charlatan's rant about how they can predict what will happen in your life, or how the stars "rule" (we still use that language, rulerships, but it has nothing to do with having power over you.)

Astrologers know the planets are just a giant clock, and we live to the rhythm of that clock.

A planet transiting a position in your natal chart does not MAKE YOU do or feel a certain way.  It does not make anything happen.  It merely signifies the time in your life when such a thing might be more probable than at other times.  But what can happen, what will happen, what might happen and how probable each is depends on the free will choices and actions the character has taken up to that point.

Understanding astrology can help a writer avoid having the plot events in a novel seem "contrived" and the characters who get hammered by events (to the good or to the bad) seem undeserving.  Of course, there are many other disciplines and studies that can supply that craft dimension, but Astrology being a mathematical analysis of human personality, is peculiarly suited to Science Fiction and therefore to SFRomance.  (oh, yes, scientists will argue against that idea.  Controversy makes good drama!)

The key the writer needs to grasp is how a character's free will choices combine with the prevailing influence in her life to produce events which, though decades apart in time and place, nevertheless are related poetically.

Astrology maps the heavens with the Earth at the center, making it useful as a timer giving you information on the shape of your life.

The timer may say you have an appointment with the dentist, but it doesn't say whether you'll be there or whether he'll be there, or whether you'll have a cavity.

Even if Pluto is a capture, a "stranger," its effects are still linked to the period of its orbit which is no accident but a property of it's mass, the Sun's mass, the angle at which it approached, and the speed it had at the time.

One might say humanity needed that "hand" on our clock, so G-d provided it.

A clock hand doesn't cause things to happen.  It signifies the probability that such a type of event might happen.  If free will actions have set up the conditions for a Pluto-style Event, that Event will most likely occur at the point in time signified by a transit of Pluto to some point in the Natal Chart -- or the starting event in the sequence which is culminating.  Remember how I discuss novel plotting as a "because-line" -- where because this happened, that happens, which causes something else, which leads to whatever.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/11/information-feed-tricks-and-tips-for.html

Those are two posts related to "because line" plotting.

Pluto style Events hit with sledge hammer force, but usually they're not "unpredictable" (as Uranus style events can be).  Pluto brings consequences, usually from actions taken decades previously.

Pluto does have certain kinds of Events linked to it (it rules the 8th House, Scorpio, hidden things, other people's resources including money and money used as power, inheritance, public values, taxes imposed by a government, especially death taxes).  But it's main property is FORCE.  Hence, if you want to understand the hidden power behind world events, "follow the money."

Whatever is happening, whatever has been earned, whatever train of events is in motion, when Pluto gets involved that pattern signified by other planets will become bigger, larger, more exaggerated, larger than life, dramatic, and will hit not with jeweler's hammer force but sledge-hammer force.

Noel Tyl  (http://noeltyl.com) attributes the timing of major illness to transits of Pluto.

Other transits - you catch a cold.  A Pluto transit, and it's pneumonia.

Other transits, the mole on your leg is just cancerous, they take it off, and it's gone.  A Pluto transit and the mole turns out to be melanoma and then, as Pluto swings back and forth over the sensitive Natal point, they find the melanoma is of the most virulent sort -- maybe you survive, maybe not.

If a character's life is constructed strong, with plan-B, C, D in place, with cross-bracing of many friends, people willing to go to the mat for that person, a grand paper trail of accomplishments, and assets stockpiled against trouble, that sledge hammer will change but not destroy that life.  He'll pay the hospital bills, and walk away into bigger and better things.  But because of the expense, maybe he can't move to the larger house, or has to buy a used car again, or doesn't dare try to change jobs to get a promotion.  He becomes entrenched, having been hammered down by the blow.

A life of sandcastles built on hopes and dreams is likely to be smashed to smithereens and scattered to the winds.  Because of lack of money, caused by a lack of a college education maybe (though not in today's world), he won't have gone to the doctor in time, will be relegated to the least expensive treatment paid for by public funds, maybe not be educated enough to follow instructions, -- too little, too late, and the character dies of melanoma.

But Pluto can have another effect.  It can magnify the fame, glory and fortune of a character beyond recognition.  The cancerous plight becomes the News Story of the Day, experts consult all over the world, a new experimental treatment gets authorized, the whole world waits for the results.  Huge drama.

That in itself can be extraordinarily destructive.  Fame can become notoriety, and the character never gets another job requiring security clearance.  The character might be the spy who gets outed, gets captured, escapes, and gets fired (yes I watch Burn Notice!)

When you grasp how both horrendous disaster and grandiose success are exactly the same thing in life, and how both can be toxic to your characters' peace of mind, mental stability, or love life, you can begin to slice-n-dice your characters' backstories into "salad" as I discussed last week. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/source-of-expository-lump-part-2.html
Feed it to your reader a bite-size at a time, it's delicious.  Hand them the whole head of lettuce with sand still on it, and it's not delicious.

When you understand the periodicity of "life" in the same terms that your readers understand it, you can center the plot around those specific life-changing events that are signified by Pluto.

Pluto, as I said, hits like a sledge hammer, but you can see it coming if you know where to look.

You can start your opening scene with the Pluto sledge-hammer landing a hard blow ( melanoma is diagnosed) and you have one story -- how to cope with the diagnosis, what treatment to get, where, when, paid for how, who will help during recovery, etc.

Or you can showcase the Pluto blow as the middle Event of your novel's plot -- the main character makes a long chain of really bad decisions leading to Melanoma, and then has to cope.  For example, you open on the college kid taking a lifeguard position during summers to work his way through school, drops out of school to become a beach-bum running drugs, melts down on drugs, gets diagnosed with melanoma and deserted by all friends, gets through it, goes back to school and gets an MD degree.

Or Pluto's blow may destroy the villain at the very end of your story with Poetic Justice which the Hero has been trying to avert by getting the Villain to repent and mend his ways -- maybe the Villain was a Tanning Bed mogul getting rich off giving others melanoma, and the Hero is campaigning to get laws against tanning salons, and they battle in the media and YouTube and the mogul tans himself charcoal -- gets melanoma.  End villain, weepy funeral, great wedding for the Hero.

One prominent characteristic of Pluto transits is that when they hit (usually 3 times as Pluto transits retrograde back over the sensitive Natal point, then again over that point) with humongous force, and HAMMER YOU DOWN into the ground.

If your character's life is built strongly, the character will be hammered down hard, harder, hardest, and with each blow sink deeper into his life's position.  But once the 3 blows have landed, the character is firmly entrenched in his life and no subsequent event can dislodge him -- because Pluto moves so slowly it won't hit like that again in 100 year lifespan.

The Pluto transit is actually the source of the realistic, and real life, Happily Ever After.  Terrible things happen, and after that it's smooth going.

Of course Vampires, that's another story.  Pluto again and again 4 times during every 248 years or so (it's the squares and oppositions that get you).

For example: a character with a strongly built life might 1)Get a girl pregnant 2) shotgun wedding, not really liking this woman very much 3) she has a Down's Syndrome kid.  3 Pluto type blows.

Now what?  The woman turns out to have the Love to accept and nurture that child, the guy reaches down inside and finds the strength to go to school and become a therapist for the learning disabled, together the couple creates, invents, politically motivates groups, spreads the word on the internet, gets the help they need, raises the child who actually grows up to be self-sufficient and perhaps even a valuable contributor to the world in some way.

The same character with a weakly built life 1) Gets a girl pregnant 2) shotgun abortion 3) gets murdered by the girl when she realizes what he did to her.  Maybe the novel is her trial for murder, and the Romance is with her lawyer, they win and live happily ever after.  Her life has become entrenched because of the blows of Pluto, and she will never again be dislodged by a blow that any other transit can deliver.

That's the pattern you can use to break up your expository lumps.  Take your lump of explanation, divide it into 3 BIG BLOWS then play out the logical consequences.  Don't explain it, do it.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Gift: Giver: Recipient

There has been a fascinating discussion in the comments on Linnea Sinclair's post:

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=26974492&postID=9182509849010315555

That's the link to the comments page. If it doesn't work, try this:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/buddy-system.html

There are 12 astute comments, so far, on Linnea Sinclair's THE BUDDY SYSTEM.

The basic subject of Linnea's post is how does an unknown, beginning fiction writer "break in" or make the contacts, get the advice, find the KEY to getting into the fiction publishing market. She gives very practical advice, all of which I heartily endorse - but being of the "brief is better" school of writing, she only tickles the surface of the real subject and never actually names that subject.

That tiptoe around the core of the matter has left some readers feeling bewildered about how to apply her advice. Of course, now I'm going to make everyone even more bewildered.

The philosophical or magical or even maybe religious category that The Buddy System discussion belongs to is all about the epistemological place of Giving and Receiving in your own life, and what that "place" has to do with your Art and how you "See" the Universe. All this philosophical fol-der-ol is just way too abstract to discuss.

Let's try Linnea Sinclair's advice in her post WE WAS HAPPY!
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/we-was-happy-writing-tip-1.html

SHOW DON'T TELL THE INTANGIBLES OF EMOTION. (right, yeah, sooo easy)

So OK, let's get concrete instead of philosophical and abstract about "how to break in" to whatever field of Artistic Endeavor you aspire to.

My life has indeed been surpassing strange in this regard, which set my analytical mind off on an endless trek through Tarot and Astrology and Ancient Wisdom from a dozen or more cultures (a lot of which I've used as worldbuilding fodder for my novels).

Nobody could do it the way I did it. You can not follow in my footsteps. You can NOT do the actions I did and have your action produce the same result my action produced.

To readers of my series of posts on Tarot on this blog, that statement should immediately explain the point I'm trying to make with this post. If you "get it" you need not read any further.

This is the story of "how I did it" -- or no! It is the story of HOW IT HAPPENED TO ME.

And that's a key point I need to get across to any reader of this column trying to "break in" to any profession, but especially those involving The Arts.

Our scientific, Aristotelian Logic based, Hellenistically influenced, culture puts blinders on children early in life, to parse the universe ONLY in terms of cause and effect.

The ARTIST must throw off those blinders to understand the world via a different paradigm and explain that paradigm in their Art.

For my entire rant on Hellenistic traces in modern American culture, see my non-fiction book NEVER CROSS A PALM WITH SILVER, #1 in the NOT SO MINOR ARCANA series -- or subscribe to the rss feed for this blog for notification of when it will become newly available. (I hope.)

This rant is about a principle underlying the process of breaking into a commercial art field -- it applies to all the Arts, but it also applies to many other kinds of fields of endeavor because Art subsumes all human life. (because Art is the language of Magic).

I could start the story of HOW I MET MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY AND SHE BECAME MY CRITIQUE PARTNER AND MENTOR -- of how I attracted the attention of that Great Writer -- with the point at which I graduated from the University of California at Berkley in the middle of a recession that hit my prospective profession harder than this recession is hitting the financial sector.

The class before mine was snapped up by industry at top salaries. Mine - nada. And I was a mis-fit, just about the only woman in my graduating class in my major because it was a man's field - no women allowed.

There's karma in the timing of my graduation. Because a professor got sick and couldn't give a particular class during a particular semester, my graduation was delayed an entire semester.

After nine months and well over 120 resumes, dozens of interviews, I got a phone call from a person (male) whose company I had not applied to and was offered the job on the phone -- landed it at the first interview. (FIRST!!! (yes, Linnea I read your post about multiple punctuation marks)) It was a job rated BELOW my degree level. I pondered. I took it.

That job gave me the contact that saved my life and put me in the job where I met my husband (the same one I'm still married to). He had just returned to his job after a year away -- my delay of a year put me right where I had to be.

Because I had that husband, I ended up living in the only place where I could make direct contact with an active fan who knew Marion Zimmer Bradley's address. (sans Relationship, I was headed for a TA job in Iowa, but HE changed the destination to New York.)

I had been an MZB fan since SWORD OF ALDONES was first published. WORLD WRECKERS had now just come out a year or so before.

I used the address (on Staten Island) and the intro of the fan-friend's name to write MZB a 12 page, typed, single space, letter detailing everything that was "right" and "wrong" with WORLD WRECKERS and how it should have been written.

She wrote back detailing how all that happened. I wrote back and apologized for excoriating her work and explaining that it's because I love it and read every book until I've about memorized every comma because I'm trying to replicate the effect she creates on me. I told her about HOUSE OF ZEOR in MS being my first attempt to generate the MZB EFFECT.

She wrote back and said to send her the MS and she'd see if she could suggest anything. I did. She said it needed a tweak here and there (details), and if I did that she'd show it to her editor. I did. She did. It was turned down (after a year or so), but the editor told me which editor in Manhattan was in the market for that kind of book. I subsequently submitted it everywhere else but there. Finally, I tried his suggestion and a year later, HOUSE OF ZEOR was bought by Doubleday for library distribution. I started writing that book in, I think 1969 and it made it into print in 1974.

WRITING the book is something I DID. Had I not done it, nothing would have "happened." But every direct, pro-active, planned, sensible, logical thing I did to market the book failed.

Because I graduated during a recession and couldn't get a job in 1965, I sold my first novel in 1973 -- and the events that "caused" that to happen were not LUCK and had nothing to do with my goal. They were not the result of what I did or intended. They were things that "happened to me" which at the time I considered real BAD. (not getting a job meant having to live in my parents' house - rrrealll bad.)

THUS I can "see" in my epistemology how it is that LOVE CONQUERS ALL. Because I fell in love, I sold my first novel. And nobody but me can see the because-line behind that. Nobody can do the deeds I did and get that same result. (no, you can't have my husband. He's MINE!)

Now let's really get mystical. (you can stop reading now - this is the boring part, but it's a secret)

In our culture, a marriage is symbolized by the giving of something of intrinsic value - a diamond ring, gold, platinum. Today, people exchange rings, though it used to be just the woman who would be given the token.

Giving and Receiving -- the pair making a concrete transaction on the material plane which is mirrored Above on the non-material planes -- has a mystical significance. That completed transaction actually changes the Universe, leaves an indelible scratch in the Akashic Record.

Among the varieties of human cultures, there have arisen a number of diverse customs, and many SF novels have been built around Alien cultures that impute odd significances to the exchange of gifts.

A case in point is how in some cultures, if you save someone's life, you are thereafter responsible for them -- hence it isn't a good idea to pull someone out of a flooding river.

The transmission of ownership is felt by all human cultures to require ceremony and to have lasting significance.

BUYING (giving something of value in exchange for something of value) is not at all the same thing as GIFTING.

But note that in our society, the distinction has become blurred. Man and Wife exchange rings, instead of the Gifting going only one way to make the magical connection valid. We have a "List" to buy holiday gifts for -- and Heaven Forfend that you GET a gift from someone you didn't GIVE one to -- and what a gaffe if the values don't match!

In some cultures. brides were owned. Or grooms. There was a Bride Price. Men would buy a bride, and hence own their wives and her children. We want to destroy that symbolism, and so reciprocate items of value so ownership is mutual.

Thus the marriage transaction becomes a purchase, not a gifting. There's a big difference magically speaking.

Giving means nothing without Receiving. The transaction is not complete without both actions.

In order for a Gift to be Received, there must be no reciprocation. Nothing GOES DIRECTLY BACK to the giver. Otherwise, magical receiving hasn't happened. After receiving happens, yes, the receiver can (and should) GIVE something, but not BACK. It has to go ON and around the Circle of Life -- then it comes back three-fold as the saying goes.

Yet we say it is more blessed to give than to receive.

How can that be?

Giving is enabled (in the co-dependent sense of the word) by receiving.

When the transaction is complete, the world has changed significantly. Ownership has been transferred. A connection of some sort, sometimes only mystical, has been established between the two parties.

Marion Zimmer Bradley "gave" me all those books she had written and I had read-to-death before I connected with her on the material plane.

But I had not "received" them until I connected and wrote back to her explaining (by praise and criticism) exactly what had come to me via her writing.

That fan letter (not mentioning House of Zeor or my aspirations, but just explaining what I see in her writing) completed the giving transaction. I did not give a gift back. I did not give her something NEW (i.e. my own writing). I ACCEPTED HER GIFT, which I PASS ON with everything I write. Not "back" but "on."

My acceptance made a VESSEL that was finally able to hold the Blessing I was asking for - selling the Sime~Gen Universe novels.

A GIFT that is not being ACCEPTED (i.e. RECEIVED) is not a GIFT.

Charity is a form of gift-giving - though not all gifts are charity.

But there is a magical principle behind all this - writers of fantasy universes where magic is real need to understand this principle to replicate it in a made-up universe. When properly replicated, this single principle behind giving and receiving can make any crazy nonsense seem real enough for a reader to "get into" the story.

We are Commanded (a Mitzvah) to GIVE CHARITY.

That means that those who RECEIVE CHARITY are doing a Commandment, a Mitzvah.

You can give forever and not achieve the mitzvah of giving. Someone, somehow, has to RECEIVE to complete the transaction.

The mystical concept is that Blessings are raining down on us all the time, omnidirectionally, like a monsoon deluge. The Creator of the Universe is Giving - always, constantly, incessantly, and asks of us only that we Receive.

But the monsoon hits and runs off and disappears into material reality without a visible trace unless we MAKE A VESSEL to catch it -- do something concrete in the material world that can "hold" that blessing. Nothing happens until we, ourselves RECEIVE but to do that we must make a Vessel.

And Receiving is much, much harder than Giving.

Just think of a panel discussion at a convention, or a town Council meeting, or any committee meeting you've been at. Everyone wants to GIVE their opinion, point of view, or ideas. The Chair asks for questions and gets polemics instead. There is a feverish desperation in the American population to express their opinions. It's EASY to grab the floor and regale the captive audience with your opinions. How many of them fall asleep? How many can follow your arguments? How many of those who started to read this blog entry are still reading?

LISTENING and HEARING are way harder than yammering out your own opinion. Giving is so much easier than receiving.

When was the last time you made the effort to Receive?

Writing the actual manuscript comes from the place inside you that needs to GIVE. You have something to say, and you pour it out. But then you prepare the manuscript for market by rewriting and crafting it to market specs, and that's another process that is hard work. Do re-read all my Tarot posts to this blog because I explain this principle as best I can in those posts.

The entire process of crafting an object you can offer for sale (well, the rights to which you offer to license) is creating a Vessel. The actions of marketing it also "create a vessel" -- but so does everything else you do in life.

Creating Vessels requires Action in the real, material world.

Now at the time I graduated and sold my first story and then my first novel, I had no idea about any of this mystical stuff. It was MZB and another Star Trek friend of mine who introduced me to Astrology and Tarot and that led to other things. (I had already been into Kabbalah since college, but didn't understand it.)

You don't need to know what you're doing to do it. In fact, it probably helps to be ignorant, unlike in the scientific view of the universe where the more you know the more likely you are to succeed.

But look closely at the outline of my story above. I DO one thing -- over here -- and something I want comes to me -- not back along my line of action, but from OVER THERE -- from another direction.

The cause-effect scientific model of the universe simply can't handle that, can't parse it. And in fact, readers reading novels can't parse it either because of the way our schools teach about the universe. Readers need to have it explained up to the point where they can see the "poetic justice" but not beyond that point (not to belabor it).

In the magical view of the universe, the universe responds to WHO YOU ARE, not to WHAT YOU DO.

Or, put into the model of Giving and Receiving -- when what you Give over here is Received over here -- you have made a Vessel that can hold what is pouring onto you from over there. Your challenge is to be ready with a Vessel strong enough to hold that blessing raining down on you.

When the Give/Receive paradigm is completed, the completion creates a Vessel which can then fill up with the largess raining down upon you. Truly, your cup runneth over, always. Just sometimes your cup has a hole in it or just isn't big enough to hold what you want.

Your "cup" is the Deeds you have done, especially the Commandments. If almost all your Deeds are Gifts, or giving, then try Receiving half the time. Listen inside yourself for the anxious little voice that gets antsy when you Receive and impels you to try to get even by Giving something.

For example, we're all taught to say "Thank You" when we receive a compliment. But if, inside you feel you don't deserve it (or deserve even more) then you didn't Receive.

EXERCISE: Read Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel of the Circus during World War II, CATCH TRAP. Understand the Flying Santellis and what makes their act so special.

If someone comes along and tells you what's wrong with you, your inner impulse is to defend yourself -- it's not so, or there's a mitigating circumstance - etc. You squirm.

When you've practiced the easy stuff, try practising Receiving ill-meant criticism.

Receiving is really, really hard! I can't say that often enough. I been there. Done that. Have the T-shirt. It is really REALLY hard.

But practice and you may find you suddenly have something you really wanted.

Now what about the "giving" of Love? It's not a material object, yet it is a component of our Identity, a component which can be given.

"Unrequited Love" is defined as love that isn't "returned" -- that is, the loved person doesn't also love the lover.

But is that actually the source of pain in unrequited love?

Perhaps the real anguish in unrequited love is that the LOVE that is given is not received?

A person who has received Love is forever changed by the event.

This is clear from examining all the psychological documentation on those who have never received Love. Even if they were in fact loved, they didn't manage to Receive it.

And then there are those humans who are being offered Love and who reflexively refuse it, fend it off, duck, run, laugh it off.

For a really deep examination of this personality trait and its possible resolution in RECEIVING, see the incredibly complex fantasy universe background by Jessica Andersen, showcased in her FINAL PROPHECY series, NIGHTKEEPERS and soon forthcoming DAWNKEEPERS.

I just finished reading and reviewing DAWNKEEPERS (for my June 2009 column) and have not read NIGHTKEEPERS, so I can say you can easily read the second book without the first.

REVIEW to be posted at: http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2009/

DAWNKEEPERS on Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0451225759?tag=rereadablebooksr&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0451225759&adid=1C2VKGVB3GT42XVRKZ5X&

In DAWNKEEPERS we get deep into the mind of a man who is refusing the knowledge of his magical powers, and with that also refusing true Love. Jessica Andersen takes us through the harrowing lessons that teach him what he's doing wrong.

Yes, it's fiction -- and really wild, far-out urban fantasy-Romance -- but there's a life-lesson in it. The harder you fend it off, the bigger the hammer that hits you until you learn to Receive. Why not skip the bludgeoning (we're talking Pluto Transit here) and just learn the lesson?

This is prime fodder for the conflict line of Romance Novels of all sub-genres, not just urban fantasy-Romance.

A giver must pair up with a recipient or the gift can't be transferred and so it isn't yet a gift.

It sounds obvious, but it's a principle like the Laws of Thermodynamics, which can be applied to the mystical world as well as the physical.

Now consider a human woman (who lives in a reality where givers need recipients) and an alien (non-human) male who does not live in such a mystically based universe.

How could a human woman explain the "blessing" -- the mystical dimension -- of giving or receiving to such a male?

If, for him, there existed no mystical dimension, how would he view her antics? How could he learn what a gift meant? How would he learn that she was validating him by receiving him?

Suppose the fate of two planets depended on it. How could she open him to this mystical dimension? And if she found a way to do that -- should she? What "unforeseen consequences" might be generated by forcibly changing the way he sees the world?

The curious should also see my March 2009 Review Column when it's posted in March where I discuss the Karma of World Prominence via Noel Tyl's astrological discovery of the signature of prominence in a natal chart.

Study the natal chart of George Lucas, (see his biography published years ago). Notice how the plot of Star Wars is mirrored in his Natal Chart but not his Life? Note Noel Tyl's comments on World Prominence coming with the "fulfillment" of the promise in the Natal Chart. Look at your Natal Chart and find what promise you have fulfilled and what you are really "about."

And remember, in the scientific view of the universe, if you do "the right thing" you will succeed. But in the magical view of the universe, if you "are who you really are" you will be fulfilled. Which is the "right" view? Which is your view? How do you apply that philosophy to the practical necessity of life?

Now, I bet nobody read this far. This post is just way too long and too abstract for a blog. And it's barely a tenth of what I have to say on Giving and Receiving!

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

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