Other posts directly on Worldbuilding:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/04/worldbuilding-building-fictional-but.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/worldbuilding-from-reality.html
(this is Part 1 of "worldbuilding from reality")
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/worldbuilding-for-science-fiction.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/12/worldbuilding-by-committee.html
And I've done whole sets of posts on Worldbuilding integrating Plot and integrating Theme into the entire composition. I'll have to collect them in a reference post soon. Meanwhile, here's a list of links to my posts on worldbuilding that don't have "worldbuilding" in the title:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/worldbuilding-link-list.html
One reason I harp on Worldbuilding as a writing craft subject, hitting at every angle, is that it is the single weakest skill of Romance Writers.
Most Romance writers work in some version of the "real" world -- even historicals have "facts" that delineate the world the characters live in and that the readers have to agree are "real facts" because they know them from "real world" sources outside the fictional reality of the story.
Writers study "researching" assiduously, (which is good, and necessary), but they don't learn how to use research to "make up" imaginary facts then "sell" them to the readers as real. That's the skill necessary for Paranormal Romance writing, and even for Science Fiction which goes beyond known science extrapolating into "what if science is wrong about this? Then what might be right?"
Most Historical Romance readers are magnificently well educated in historical cultures, and you just can't fool them.
The same is true of science fiction readers -- they know science, so you better know your science when you write for them or they can't suspend disbelief well enough to romp with your characters.
Fantasy and Paranormal Romance readers know anthropology, archeology, mythology, and a lot more -ologies -- so you better know your Magic systems from historical reality when you invent a new one. To invent a Magic System, you must first invent the world in which that magic system can plausibly function to get the effects on the characters you need.
Since the Romance readers have developed a taste for Alien Romance, Romance writers have had to learn this whole new skill set I call "Worldbuilding." It's a skill set that allows a writer to immerse a reader painlessly and seamlessly into a story set in a totally fictitious world, a completely impossible world, a world where a set of highly improbable character developments, and especially Relationships, are inevitable.
Such an impossible world, properly "built," becomes "Art" when it is built to reveal some higher truth, some fundamental aspect of our everyday reality that is masked from ordinary consciousness. Google+ and Google are amazing sources of oddball items you can use to achieve this kind of "Art."
Here is a recent book by a brain surgeon who experienced a "higher truth" about the structure of reality during a coma and wrote a book about it:
You can find a long article about this book here:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/11/18/the-science-of-heaven.html
As I've pointed out in my series of posts here on Astrology, Romance generally occurs to real people during a Neptune Transit. Astrologers associate a Neptune Transit with a blurred or erroneous perception of reality, but mystics have learned how such Neptune transits reveal Higher Truths - the reality behind our reality - in which "Happily Ever After" is the inevitable outcome of a well lived life. That is not a "reality" in which there are no rules, so a writer can just make up anything that occurs to them. In such Neptune governed realities, there are very strict rules indeed, but communicating those rules to your readers who live in "normal" worlds is an entire skill set peculiar to Science Fiction writers.
Science Fiction writers developed this skill set over the decades from the 1930's or so, and I learned at their feet. So I'm passing on what I've learned, only I'm using contemporary (to this writing) examples. You will pass this on using examples contemporary to that future time, but the essence is the same.
The fictional world you build has to start here and now in your reader's real world, and extend outward to that fictional realm of "far away places with strange sounding names."
If you need inspiration, here's a song for MP3 download of "Far Away Places With Strange Sounding Names":
And a biography of one of my favorite writers, Allan Cole, about when he was a CIA brat dragged to Cyprus where his father dealt in Cold War secrets and he dealt with a British school that didn't like Americans. The book reminded me of that old song, a primary inspiration for many of my novels because the song is an entry point into that "other" level of consciousness.
Closer to home and everyday reality, I've also done sets of posts on the whole new world we live in where writers have to do a lot if not all their own advertising, promotion, and marketing, often at their own expense.
That is the world your reader lives in, so you don't have to explain it when you are telling a story. But the trick of storytelling is that the teller has to know more about the subject than the listener, yet not tell or even show, all she knows to the reader. The key is to ignite the reader's imagination so the reader tells herself her own story -- not yours.
Think about it - do you want to listen to (and pay close attention to) someone who obviously knows less about their subject than you do?
A novelist, a writer, isn't exactly a 'teacher' per se. A writer is in a dialogue with their reader. Books are a conversation among those who are writing the books, and letting the readers kibitz. Eventually, those readers will have their say, too, either by writing a book of their own or by flinging a comment up on Amazon or somewhere, or just going off to imagine their own ending to your story.
Think about being at a party in a room full of people, and you're standing in a circle with a nice drink in your hand, holding forth on a pet subject.
To keep the others in the circle quiet and still while you make your point (i.e. advertise your wares) you need two things:
a) something to say
b) something you know that they don't, or that they haven't viewed from your perspective.
Perspective is what LUCKY IN CYPRUS shows you how to achieve. It's a book worth studying, just for that alone.
You need to offer to add something to your listener's understanding of a subject, even if it's not more than the mere fact that you agree with them but can say it better. If you can explain what they are feeling or knowing without words, they will grab that explanation and spread it around - often citing you as the source.
A lot of what goes on Google+ or Facebook is just that - "samplers" (little artworks with words) that state something people are thinking, but spin it a new way. People see what they feel stated in words and click "share."
So when you set out to write a novel, especially in a well-explored genre like Romance, you have to have something new to say -- at least something new to the expected readership.
What have you got to say that your readers don't already know? What have you got to say that your readers know in their guts but can't quite articulate for themselves? What can you add to the quality of their lives -- what can you give them to "share" or repeat to their friends saying, "You just have to read this book!"
What can you say that will make them remember your byline?
THAT thing -- what you have to say -- is what you put into your book trailer that gets it "shared" on YouTube.
Every novel is an argument set out step by step, enumerating things the reader already knows, then embroidering those things together into a new pattern, something memorable that encapsulates a Life Lesson (such as Love Conquers All). That life-lesson is the theme. And you get it from that "other" place the neurologist's book, The Science of Heaven, talks about.
That's where "theme" comes from - your visits to that other "place" which most people access only during sleep. But you never quite remember your dreams. Writers are the sort who can put those dreams into words (or pictures) so others recognize that other "place" they regularly visit. That's where "life's lessons" come from.
The life-lessons are pretty much the same over thousands of years, but the application can be very different and require a lot of original thinking. That original thinking can reveal major flaws or fallacies in those old life-lessons.
But sometimes, that original thinking involves understanding a long-term (decades or centuries long) cycle.
Human affairs, from love to politics, from religion to war, from law to justice, move in short cycles and long cycles. History, as all students of Romance Writing know, is remarkably cyclical.
Look at Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain novels -- she shows us how women's rights in Rome differed from the previous Hellenistic culture, and how women lost rights in the Middle Ages, struggled in Victorian England, emerged again -- what's happening now in this world?
OK, so you get the picture. You must have something to say that a group at a party (or buyers of a novel) will stand still and listen to, appreciate, recognize as their own gut-level response to their "dreams" writ large. They will repeat to others what you've said, point to you and become your "word of mouth" advertising.
What you have to say must be original and different -- yet recognizable as what your listeners already know to be true, but can't quite say.
So find a repeating CYCLE manifesting in everyday reality that describes what they experience in their dreams, in their nightly visits to "heaven" as the nuerosurgeon described it, and demonstrate that dreams can be real -- or not depending on your theme!
In "Magic" it is taught, "As Above: So Below" -- and that's what this neurosurgeon was talking about with his coma experience of Heaven. He discovered there really is an "Above." He just doesn't know which is the cause and which the effect: brain or mind? And of course, the artist's question is: "Does it matter which is which?" That kind of question defines THEME.
Which brings us to an online video that is a waste of a bit more than an hour of your time that could pay off big if you can understand what it's saying that you can use in a Romance Novel.
This video is ADVERTISING, and it uses clever (even diabolical) techniques (skills) to open a vista into that "other" place evoked by the SONG (Far Away Places With Strange Sounding Names), visited by Allan Cole in his biography, and daringly admitted to by a neurosurgeon in his account of his coma.
This video "romances" its viewers with a whiff of their most cherished hopes and dreams - enticing, hooking, then finally getting to the point -- 'buy this and realize your dreams.' At the end of the video, notice particularly how the word "safe" is used. There are a hundred Romance Novel themes in that one word's usage alone. Study this video:
http://pro.stansberryresearch.com/1210THIRDLIA/LPSINC01/
It is a sales pitch that you've seen advertised all over the internet -- even on TV, I'll bet!
It's in a format I've seen used by sales pitches now for a couple of years. I absolutely hate it, and this particular one makes me squirm.
But it's so pervasive for a reason. It's latched onto something eye-stopping for a "hook" (Obama's Third Term), and then follows up with a lot more "hooks" -- all loaded with 'bait' to keep you hooked.
Then it "explains" as if giving you information you don't already have.
The information about previous Presidents and what they've added to the USA historically is accurate, cleanly presented, and nicely packaged, carefully selected to make this video's point.
And all of it is laced with more bait, but not "hard-sell" -- it's very cleverly written. This thing illustrates "worldbuilding" at its very best.
The video is a pitch for an Investment Company that wants people who have a lot of money to become "clients" -- to subscribe to a newsletter, and then hire the company to deploy investment capital for them.
HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK THEY PAID TO GET THIS VIDEO'S TEXT WRITTEN?
Could you make that much on a Romance Novel? Really?
If you are putting so much effort into mastering worldbuilding skills, don't you want to maximize your return on investment?
Do you think this sales-pitch video is not "worldbuilding at its best?" Do you think it's not "fantasy?" Do you honestly believe this video is not "romancing" these potential clients?
Remember the old adage I've been showing you how to use as a plotting tool, "If you want to understand what's happening, follow the money."
Look at this video. It has one stationary, public domain picture, and a set of words with a voice reading the words to you at a very slow pace.
Do you think it was cheap to make? Well, comparatively, maybe, but simple elegance is not CHEAP!
There are lots of other videos like this all over the internet using this exact format. They work. They get people to do whatever it is they're pitching.
Study how the argument is constructed. Really, sit through this video a couple of times and take notes on the structure of the argument.
See if you can find the most glaring grammatical error I saw. See if you can spot the "bait and switch" tactic -- OK, I'll give you a hint. It starts out talking about the oil drilling in the Dakotas that you've all heard about and know, then ends up trying to sell you on investing in natural gas which the earlier presentation on oil clearly indicates will plunge in price. Then it says you should buy the most risky investment I know of (distressed debt instruments) because they're "safe." But of course you can't invest in this safe investment by yourself - you don't know enough or have the skills. You have to hire them to do it for you - because, you see, it's safe.
This sales pitch format - filled with logic holes and ignoring known facts by just not mentioning them - is extremely effective in triggering the behavior desired by the pitcher. How would you use this methodology to "sell" the idea that "Love Conquers All" and "Happily Ever After" is the normal, ordinary condition of life that anyone can achieve?
If you've been watching TV shows like Leverage that I've discussed previously, you won't fall for the grifter's tricks in this video - and you'll learn how to use them to your own advantage without doing anything immoral or unethical.
By the time you get to that switch from oil to gas in the video, notice how you're ready to believe the video is giving you some real advantage in investing -- maybe because you're bored out of your mind with oil and the change in topic restores interest, but mostly because the speaker has gained credibility by telling you what you already know (that oil drilling is a big deal all of a sudden).
There's one passing shrug about green energy - pointing out the price differential with a very quickly shown table you don't have time to study. There's no handy way to roll the video back and re-watch a page or two to check you understood it, which is very clever disabling of online features.
The whole thing is full of tricks you have been learning to use in writing Paranormal Romance - tricks to get readers to believe the impossible. Some of those tricks are used to present the obviously true -- so the trick itself isn't obvious when the video gets to the obviously untrue.
The whole thing is a marvelous study in motivation-manipulation.
Remember, I've mentioned the science behind this kind of advertising many times.
We start with the raw math of Game Theory and the Overton Window (Google those terms if you haven't studied them yet) and layer on top of that the entire science of advertising. This video is predicting an Overton Window, or saying that such a window is open right now. And it's purporting to show you how to play this game to your advantage (by hiring this company to do it for you).
And deep inside this video, if you reverse engineer it using the clues I've been talking about in the Worldbuilding posts, you will find Edward Bernays that I've mentioned over the last few months.
Here's a neat article from npr on Bernays:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4612464
Look up Bernays on Wikipedia for more nifty bits and tidbits.
The techniques founded on Bernays principles are suavely orchestrated into this video. I can see how it was done. Can you? Yet? Study. Study hard.
And all those techniques are yours to use a) in your constructing of your Romance novel most especially Paranormal Romance, b) in your constructing of your advertising for your novel, and c) in taking contracts to write advertising like this for others selling things other than your novels.
Very few novelists make a living from novels -- advertising copy writers make a good living. This video is nothing but copyrighting and good, dramatic reading. Study it carefully.
A very large percentage of novelists make their major income from a day-job writing non-fiction -- in journalism (as Allan Cole did after his stint in Cyprus -- before his screenwriting career and his novel writing career), in paid blogging, or advertising.
Study this video and ponder your career moves based on whether you can master these copy-writing and advertising constructing skills to a level where you can sell those skills as your primary income source, so you can write your novels your own way.
But keep in mind that this video has been all over the internet for years before I decided I had to watch it. I had to watch it because it's all over. Every time it is offered in a side-bar, the company being advertised in it is paying a fee. They wouldn't keep doing that if the video didn't bring in customers. You want to understand what's happening -- follow the money. Closely.
Now, when you're ready for worldbuilding on a more sophisticated level, restudy that video after re-reading the Theme-Plot Integration series on the use of Fallacy as a plotting tool -- 6 of those posts went up here in January-February 2013.
By the way: I've recommended in many of these writing craft posts that beginners start learning to write by reading the biographies of writers (and autobiographies). This one cited here, LUCKY IN CYPRUS, is an excellent example. Note Allan Cole's eclectic interest in reading, in devouring a variety of subjects, the thirst for knowledge and for learning, the focus on first-hand experience, and the globe-trotting lifestyle at a young age. These elements are common to all the most successful writers. Read this biography closely. Here is Allan Cole's credit list on imdb.com
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0170426/
There's a couple people with that same byline. That imdb page is by the fellow who wrote LUCKY IN CYPRUS and the Sten Series of novels. See him on Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/Allan-Cole/e/B000AR9N24/
This kind of biographical history is a very firm predictor of commercial success in writing. There are apparent exceptions, of course, but the preponderance of evidence is on the side of a "colorful" early biography. With that in mind read my blog entries on Pluto.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Showing posts with label Pluto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pluto. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
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
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
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Greed Is Good?
Gordon Gekko, fictional Wall Street Power User, dwells on the mantra
"Greed Is Good."
Here's a quote from:
http://www.timeslive.co.za/entertainment/article525768.ece/Gekkos-ex-learns-greed-lesson
---------QUOTE------
"Greed is good" was the maxim of Michael Douglas's 1987 film Wall Street. Now, his former wife appears to have taken the lesson to heart.
Diandra Douglas is suing the actor for half of his income from the new sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - though the couple divorced in 2000. The Oliver Stone film is due out in September, with Douglas reprising his role of Gordon Gekko - the self-styled "master of the universe".
--------END QUOTE---------
CNBC ran a poll on Friday July 1 asking if viewers thought greed is good. It was nearly a split decision, from the way they asked the question. They didn't specify good for what.
I'm telling you, greed is the writer's best friend!
It is a perfect, High Concept character motivation. Nobody, reader or viewer, needs an explanation of what greed feels like, or what it's like to go up against someone fired up with greed.
Now, beyond that, the thematic discussion makes perfect fuel for either a soft-sweet romance or a hot-spice romance, and you can even found a raging action-romance on it.
Greed is a good motive for a protagonist who "comes to his senses" because of love (or a good knock on the you-know-what) and it's a great motive for a villain who gets his comeuppance good and proper.
We discussed the film Toy Story 3 last week, July 13, 2010 on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com
On http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/06/25/toy-story-3-beat-sheet/ you can read the analysis of Toy Story 3 and see just how important THEME is to this light-entertainment film that isn't supposed to draw audiences seeking "serious thought."
You should also note this entry on blakesnyder.com
http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/07/02/kieran-kramer-saves-the-cat-and-so-much-more/ where a NOVEL is analyzed for "beats" -- can you see the trend in Romance there? Just as I pointed out in my July 13 post noted above. Theme and Romance and Novels and SCREENPLAYS go together.
Now, plot some stories with greed as the main theme subject. The word "greed" by itself isn't a theme. It can be a motif, a character motivation, or almost any other element in a story. Make it a theme by taking a position on the subject. "Greed is good" is a great starting point, but move on from there.
Challenge yourself to a writing exercise. This is like a pianist doing scales rather than playing an entire piece.
1) Create a POV character who hates greed (because he/she is riddled with it and rejects Self).
2) Create a POV character who lauds greed and proves (as Gekko) that greed is the personality trait to foster if you want to get rich or stay rich.
3) Create a SUPPORTING ROLE character who fights greed in human society. Generate a POV character from the supporting role (B story character), a POV character that the supporting character can redirect.
4) Create a Villain or simple antagonist who either embraces Greed or eschews it, but does so with way too much force. Explain why he/she's so obsessed.
5) Create a character whose hidden fear is that his inner greed will overtake him - perhaps he starts out living the severe austerity of a street-begging Monk with a bowl and a robe, no sandals, and suddenly has to command a galactic fortune that's shrinking alarmingly fast.
6) Create a greed-theme based character with your own formula for a character. Then build a world to display that character's lessons in greed -- such as Wall Street was chosen to display Gekko's philosophy.
Remember all the TV Series you've seen using Confidence Men (White Collar rules the roost at the moment) as lead characters. In the grifter's world, the handle they look for in a Mark is Greed.
If you don't have greed activated in your character, if your greed doesn't rule you, no grifter can possibly get you to do anything against your best interests - and the grifters good at their trade, the ones who might succeed, won't even try you. There are plenty of "Marks" in the world who wear their greed on their sleeves. You don't have to be one of them. That's a theme. Work it every which way.
The reason these exercises are relevant to success in the story marketplace today is the same reason CNBC and film makers are shouting about this film "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps."
We as a society will be, possibly for the next 20 years, debating how to "govern greed."
I discussed the 20-year fiction-taste trend cycles here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-6.html
and here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-6.html
It's Pluto transiting Capricorn. Capricorn is the natural 10th House of Vocation and Government and is ruled by Saturn, Restriction and Discipline.
The financial meltdown of 2008-9 coincided with Pluto making stations on the USA Natal chart's 8th House (other people's money, inheritance) -- and for a Nation, 8th House is all about taxes. Pluto is all about the hidden world beneath the world, and the nuclear magnitude power that seethes down there. Pluto rules the Natural 8th House (Scorpio) just as Saturn rules the Natural 10th House (Capricorn).
Greed is a natural desire magnified beyond all limits.
We have a natural awareness of the possessions of others (8th House), and the Values of Others (also 8th House). The 8th House is naturally opposed to the 2nd House, our personal Money, Possessions, and Values. So we're always comparing what we have to what others have.
The problem comes from coveting what others have. When that natural tendency to compare gets magnified, it becomes a desire FOR what others have, not just curiosity. Magnify that and you get Greed.
Pluto's main effect is just exactly that, magnifying. Pluto releases that subterranean nuclear level (super-volcano magnitude) power into the channel of a natural, normal, ordinarily good, human tendency of being aware of what's around us.
So it's entirely possible we may see the whole USA society confronting a government (Saturn) exploding with unbridled (Pluto unbridles) greed for control (Saturn) especially of "other people's money" (8th House).
Or it might not go that way. Don't let your imagination fail here.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/where-expert-romance-writers-fail.html
People will be on all sides of this issue, subliminally worried about it and confused because the "Conservatives" who are deepest into Christianity pound the table about Greed as a Sin, while the rest of our world keeps trying to de-demonize sins in general, pounding the table about acceptance of what used to be taboo because it's based on primitive superstitious religion.
That's a CONFLICT, in case you didn't notice.
And so there's a building audience that will be grabbed by fiction that discusses all sides without taking a side. It's a puzzle everyone will be working on solving.
Grab your piece of this action with all the greed you can muster.
But once you have done that, stuff that greed back into the lock-box that your emotional anti-virus software keeps for you.
When doing business as a writer, keep your greed completely out of the transaction. Agents and Editors will blacklist you if you don't. They won't deal with someone who wants more than they're worth.
But if you don't know exactly what your product is worth, you will get taken to the cleaners. (you know I love cliches for a reason).
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
"Greed Is Good."
Here's a quote from:
http://www.timeslive.co.za/entertainment/article525768.ece/Gekkos-ex-learns-greed-lesson
---------QUOTE------
"Greed is good" was the maxim of Michael Douglas's 1987 film Wall Street. Now, his former wife appears to have taken the lesson to heart.
Diandra Douglas is suing the actor for half of his income from the new sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - though the couple divorced in 2000. The Oliver Stone film is due out in September, with Douglas reprising his role of Gordon Gekko - the self-styled "master of the universe".
--------END QUOTE---------
CNBC ran a poll on Friday July 1 asking if viewers thought greed is good. It was nearly a split decision, from the way they asked the question. They didn't specify good for what.
I'm telling you, greed is the writer's best friend!
It is a perfect, High Concept character motivation. Nobody, reader or viewer, needs an explanation of what greed feels like, or what it's like to go up against someone fired up with greed.
Now, beyond that, the thematic discussion makes perfect fuel for either a soft-sweet romance or a hot-spice romance, and you can even found a raging action-romance on it.
Greed is a good motive for a protagonist who "comes to his senses" because of love (or a good knock on the you-know-what) and it's a great motive for a villain who gets his comeuppance good and proper.
We discussed the film Toy Story 3 last week, July 13, 2010 on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com
On http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/06/25/toy-story-3-beat-sheet/ you can read the analysis of Toy Story 3 and see just how important THEME is to this light-entertainment film that isn't supposed to draw audiences seeking "serious thought."
You should also note this entry on blakesnyder.com
http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/07/02/kieran-kramer-saves-the-cat-and-so-much-more/ where a NOVEL is analyzed for "beats" -- can you see the trend in Romance there? Just as I pointed out in my July 13 post noted above. Theme and Romance and Novels and SCREENPLAYS go together.
Now, plot some stories with greed as the main theme subject. The word "greed" by itself isn't a theme. It can be a motif, a character motivation, or almost any other element in a story. Make it a theme by taking a position on the subject. "Greed is good" is a great starting point, but move on from there.
Challenge yourself to a writing exercise. This is like a pianist doing scales rather than playing an entire piece.
1) Create a POV character who hates greed (because he/she is riddled with it and rejects Self).
2) Create a POV character who lauds greed and proves (as Gekko) that greed is the personality trait to foster if you want to get rich or stay rich.
3) Create a SUPPORTING ROLE character who fights greed in human society. Generate a POV character from the supporting role (B story character), a POV character that the supporting character can redirect.
4) Create a Villain or simple antagonist who either embraces Greed or eschews it, but does so with way too much force. Explain why he/she's so obsessed.
5) Create a character whose hidden fear is that his inner greed will overtake him - perhaps he starts out living the severe austerity of a street-begging Monk with a bowl and a robe, no sandals, and suddenly has to command a galactic fortune that's shrinking alarmingly fast.
6) Create a greed-theme based character with your own formula for a character. Then build a world to display that character's lessons in greed -- such as Wall Street was chosen to display Gekko's philosophy.
Remember all the TV Series you've seen using Confidence Men (White Collar rules the roost at the moment) as lead characters. In the grifter's world, the handle they look for in a Mark is Greed.
If you don't have greed activated in your character, if your greed doesn't rule you, no grifter can possibly get you to do anything against your best interests - and the grifters good at their trade, the ones who might succeed, won't even try you. There are plenty of "Marks" in the world who wear their greed on their sleeves. You don't have to be one of them. That's a theme. Work it every which way.
The reason these exercises are relevant to success in the story marketplace today is the same reason CNBC and film makers are shouting about this film "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps."
We as a society will be, possibly for the next 20 years, debating how to "govern greed."
I discussed the 20-year fiction-taste trend cycles here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-6.html
and here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-6.html
It's Pluto transiting Capricorn. Capricorn is the natural 10th House of Vocation and Government and is ruled by Saturn, Restriction and Discipline.
The financial meltdown of 2008-9 coincided with Pluto making stations on the USA Natal chart's 8th House (other people's money, inheritance) -- and for a Nation, 8th House is all about taxes. Pluto is all about the hidden world beneath the world, and the nuclear magnitude power that seethes down there. Pluto rules the Natural 8th House (Scorpio) just as Saturn rules the Natural 10th House (Capricorn).
Greed is a natural desire magnified beyond all limits.
We have a natural awareness of the possessions of others (8th House), and the Values of Others (also 8th House). The 8th House is naturally opposed to the 2nd House, our personal Money, Possessions, and Values. So we're always comparing what we have to what others have.
The problem comes from coveting what others have. When that natural tendency to compare gets magnified, it becomes a desire FOR what others have, not just curiosity. Magnify that and you get Greed.
Pluto's main effect is just exactly that, magnifying. Pluto releases that subterranean nuclear level (super-volcano magnitude) power into the channel of a natural, normal, ordinarily good, human tendency of being aware of what's around us.
So it's entirely possible we may see the whole USA society confronting a government (Saturn) exploding with unbridled (Pluto unbridles) greed for control (Saturn) especially of "other people's money" (8th House).
Or it might not go that way. Don't let your imagination fail here.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/where-expert-romance-writers-fail.html
People will be on all sides of this issue, subliminally worried about it and confused because the "Conservatives" who are deepest into Christianity pound the table about Greed as a Sin, while the rest of our world keeps trying to de-demonize sins in general, pounding the table about acceptance of what used to be taboo because it's based on primitive superstitious religion.
That's a CONFLICT, in case you didn't notice.
And so there's a building audience that will be grabbed by fiction that discusses all sides without taking a side. It's a puzzle everyone will be working on solving.
Grab your piece of this action with all the greed you can muster.
But once you have done that, stuff that greed back into the lock-box that your emotional anti-virus software keeps for you.
When doing business as a writer, keep your greed completely out of the transaction. Agents and Editors will blacklist you if you don't. They won't deal with someone who wants more than they're worth.
But if you don't know exactly what your product is worth, you will get taken to the cleaners. (you know I love cliches for a reason).
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Astrology Just For Writers Part 9 - High Drama, Pluto And Politics
The intent in Astrology Just For Writers is to be very non-technical about astrology and somewhat technical about writing. Part 9 provides writers with an exercise in writing dialogue.
The previous 8 parts in this series can be found by following the links back in the post
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/12/astrology-just-for-writers-part-8-beat.html
------------------
There's a very old adage, "If you don't understand what's happening, follow the money and you will."
This is a great principle for plotting Mystery and Intrigue novels. It works gangbusters in Romance because the pursuit of wealth fuels our deepest motivations. It's a fabulous tool for plotting Time Travel stories, too.
Finance is the key a writer needs to build a world that seems real to readers, no matter what ridiculous stuff might be there too.
And as we've discussed, successful worldbuilders always echo our "real" world in such a way as to (Artistically) reveal some form or shape in our reality that we ordinarily don't notice.
So what's happening in 2010 that is fodder for the worldbuilding writer of today? (this principle works for Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Romance, plus any blend of those three with some other genre (detective, mystery, intrigue, western, etc).
Today the Federal Reserve (US Central Bank) is pondering how to get out of the trap they've dug themselves into, and what to advise the US Congress to do to prevent the kind of collapse we experienced in 2008, 2009 from happening again.
There's only one drumbeat I keep hearing.
This is a drumbeat you would hear on any planet populated by any sort of beings involved in any sort of commerce or business. This is the drumbeat of interstellar commerce, too.
Just listen to the drumbeat -- not the flute, not the violin, not the woodwinds, not the Hallelujah Chorus, just the drumbeat.
What is that drumbeat? Can you hear it? Can you understand what's actually going on in this world, and reveal it by creating another world where the drumbeat is louder, more distinct, reverberating with a more identifiable tone?
The drumbeat that I'm hearing is the rhythm of the transit of Pluto.
The "planet" Pluto was recently demoted from planetary status by astronomers; and don't forget the whole issue of Pluto being a "capture" maybe a comet from another solar system, not formed from the material of our own Sun as the other planets are.
Pluto is an element we've discussed in this series on using Astrology for plotting and worldbuilding.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/10/astrology-just-for-writers-part-3-genre.html -- has a primer on Astrology and mentions how the current financial crisis coincided with Pluto transiting the USA Natal Chart 8th House Cusp (other people's money) which is according to the chart I've been using, 0 Degrees Capricorn.
It's even relevant to marketing as you can use it to figure out what each age group wants more and more of.
The 2000's were characterized by excess in finance as in other areas of life, and that excess (of debt and spending and mad chase after luxury or the satisfaction of "beating" the opposition to an ever bloodier pulp) is blamed for the current situation of cascading bankruptcies.
This first week in 2010, the financial news is chock full of warnings by pundits that the USA faces bankruptcy (not paying our debts - defaulting on Treasury Bonds - the way Brazil did so many times over the last few decades).
Scroll way down in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html
to find the table of where Pluto has been transiting during the last few generations.
PLUTO IN SAGITTARIUS generation 1995-2008
PLUTO IN CAPRICORN (2008-9 - 2023)
Now the transit of Pluto through a sign of the zodiac doesn't just affect those born during those years. As a planet moves from the point where it was when a particular issue, affair, relationship, or event begins, it marks the beat of maturation of the affair one step at a time -- in an orderly and fairly predictable fashion, or what I've called "the because line" of the plot.
Astrology can NOT predict "the" future, but it can pinpoint certain blocks of weeks, months or years when an affair begun at a previous point will now reach a crisis of change, of stress, of culmination or confrontation. (those are keywords for certain "aspects").
In other words, Astrology sets the drumbeat to which affairs dance.
There are at least 10 such "drumbeats" rattling through our senses at any given time. The writer/artist's job is to separate them into meaningful sequences.
Astrology can not predict what will happen. The things that make a difference to us, that distinguish one novel from another, aren't coded into the drumbeats.
But in that drumbeat you can find what joins one novel to another to make a genre. Astrology is about what makes all humans the same, not what makes us different.
So, from 1995 through the Tech Bubble crash, and 9/11, we saw affairs of the world inflected by actions of the US Federal Reserve to plunge interest rates way too (Pluto is too) low and keep them there way too (Pluto) long, exaggerating the next bounce so that we went way too (Pluto) high on the debt curve.
1995 through 2008 saw Pluto transiting Sagittarius.
On another planet somewhere else in the Galaxy some other "clock" or drumbeat influence would be visible to time the excesses that would lead to what we're plunging into now. If you build your world to have such a rhythm at the foundation of it, Earth based readers will be able to believe in whatever Relationship Story you want to tell against that background.
OK, so what is Sagittarius? It's the 9th House (law) and ruled by Jupiter, inclusion, expansion, gaining too much weight, being round and jolly and truthful and accepting and out-going and charitable (Madoff comes to mind).
Sagittarius when constrained is HONESTY and JUSTICE.
Sagittarius can't tell a white lie. Sagittarius blurts out truths nobody really wants to hear stated.
When released from constraints (Pluto busts out of all constraints) Sagittarius is THE PLAYBOY HEIR TO THE THRONE, the wastrel, the drunken gambler, and in the Charity aspect becomes something like Barney Madoff's ponzi scheme (where he defrauded a whole lot of really big and ever-growing Charities out of the best and most urgent of motives, to do good for those who trusted him, and became trapped in escalating excesses.
And this pattern repeated all over the world (9th House is foreign travel, foreign countries, international affairs). The Mortgage excess started with some bright fellows in London who created the securitization of US mortgages and sold them internationally.
So in 2008 when Pluto finished with Sagittarius and tickled the edge of Capricorn, the whole world of connected Nations collapsed in agony.
This is the drumbeat, and you see it in personal lives as well as in the lives of Nations.
Excess, explosion, great unbridled violent BEAT, huge tsunami sized waves of good things in vast excess, hugely over-emphasized like the new tallest building in the world opened in Dubai this week, (a loud crash of the drum) followed by SILENCE in which to absorb the shock of that sudden blast of sound.
The SILENCE is as shocking as the SOUND of the beat, and silence is part of what it means "beat" (as in Beat Sheet). Silence is the pure essence of music. Stillness is the purified essence of dance. Empty white space is the defining essence of a printed page. Absence is the art form.
For the last 18 months or so Pluto has diddled around 0 Capricorn, up to 3 degrees, back, and now up again heading for a station at a new degree - 4 degrees of Capricorn. That's still the beginning.
So what comes after the SILENCE of the drumbeat? It's not a rhythm unless something comes NEXT.
Pluto is the ruler of Scorpio, the hidden, clandestine, underworld -- in Fantasy think the other dimension where Magical creatures and demons come from. Pluto is the planet of POWER. Uranium is attributed to Pluto for the Atomic Bomb association; as per my previous blog entry here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/12/thorium-real-hope-for-e-books.html
Think about Thorium.
Capricorn is the Natural 10th House, ruled by Saturn (restraint). Capricorn is the Prime Minister while Leo is The King. Capricorn is the administrator, the manager, the real decision maker, the down-to-earth firm and reliable ADVISER. Capricorn is the disciplinarian (the school Head Master), and in symbolism the 10th House also represents The Father - the source of discipline in the family.
Capricorn represents the rules of order by which society functions. The Father is the parent who introduces the child to the "realities" of the world.
You want the keys to the car? Show proficiency in the written Driving Test as well as the actual operation of a vehicle. Just because you can corner fast doesn't mean you're exempt from signaling first. Saturn takes all the fun out of everything.
That's Capricorn's mystical initiation - the Rite of Passage into adulthood. Staying up late at night isn't a privilege or fun, but an arduous chore that comes with a big price the next day. Jupiter is the party; Saturn is the hangover, and Pluto makes both bigger and more dramatic.
Theoretically, Earth might have to pass such a Saturn style rite of passage test to gain entry to the Galactic Union. Maybe we just flunked.
Saturn which rules Capricorn is Tough Love. It's Daddy arriving at the teen's unauthorized house party and taking away the highly spiked punch bowl. "You're grounded for LIFE!" Daddy roars, red faced.
So what we can expect for the next "beat" is an "Excess" of "Rules" -- Pluto through Capricorn.
---------EXAMPLES----------------
1) Here's an AP item on new regulations for Tax Preparers I found on Twitter:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/04/irs-regulate-paid-tax-preparers/
And this week the Chairman of the USA's Central Bank is jawboning about THE ONLY SOLUTION IS MORE AND TIGHTER REGULATION.
2) Here's another item, a gem of an example of this pattern, which I found via twitter in The Charleston Gazette
http://wvgazette.com/News/200912280398 which is a URL that was there yesterday and gone today. It's a revival of a very old item.
The news article says:
====
C8 is another name for perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. It is one of a family of perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs. In West Virginia, DuPont Co. has used C8 since the 1950s at its Washington Works plant south of Parkersburg. C8 is a processing agent used to make Teflon and other nonstick and stain-resistant products.
Around the world, researchers are finding that people have C8 and other PFCs in their blood at low levels. People can be exposed by drinking contaminated water, eating tainted food, or through food packaging and stain-proofing agents on furniture or carpeting.
Evidence is mounting about the dangers of these chemicals. But regulators have yet to set binding limits for emissions or human exposure.
=====
And it goes on to state that though the correlation is small, further studies are needed and we should "monitor liver enzymes" in people with low exposure.
Needing further studies is so very Capricorn, investigating, keeping records, holding the potential of regulation.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for regulation. What I'm pointing out here is the demarcation of an exaggerating effect by Pluto's cycle. Or put another way, "The Pendulum Swings."
Pluto doesn't produce the urge to regulate. Saturn and Capricorn are associated with the imperative urge to regulate. Pluto takes that urge and exaggerates it to melodramatic proportions - a loud beat followed by a louder silence.
=====
3) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_02/b4162024080832.htm?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories
Is a long article on the politics seething behind "reform" of the financial system to prevent this kind of collapse from happening again.
One proposal is to re-institute the separation financial system of investment banks from savings banks. The flow of mortgage securitization from local savings banks to international investment banks flooded the USA with cheap mortgage money, so there's a rationale behind that idea, but look at it another way and you see that in one era "regulation" was irradiated because it was the problem - regulation strangled growth. In another era, the exact same regulation is looked on as the solution to the problem of excessive growth.
Keep clamping your mind onto the idea here that this blog post isn't about which political policies are "right" or "should" be followed.
I'm not arguing any side of this issue. I'm pointing out that to engineer a solid conflict for the foundation of a novel, a writer must be able to argue passionately for any and every side that we have in our own world and then add a NEW SIDE to the argument. Each side is a character in whose moccasins you must walk your mile.
Many writers are bewildered when critics jeer at their "dialogue" -- and think they can take lessons in how to write dialogue. You can't. There are no lessons. The cure for bad dialogue is to be able to believe, truly and really and in your gut, the exact opposite of what you do believe. When you express that passionate belief your dialogue will shine.
So read this article in Business Week (a dull subject) and adopt the belief that's opposite to what you believe, then express that belief in passionate dialogue. That's the way to learn to write dialogue.
-------END EXAMPLES---------
The answer to any problem for the next few years will be regulation, throttle, control, impose accountability (Capricorn) - and do it all to a previously unknown extreme (Pluto).
That's it. Follow the money. REGULATION of monetary supply, fiscal policy, businesses handling money, regulations and more regulations and more and more and more because with Pluto there is never, ever ENOUGH.
If you've been reading this series on Astrology Just For Writers, you have a good grasp of how Pluto represents HIGH DRAMA, the very stuff of life that fuels the conflicts at the heart of all fiction.
Pluto influences bring on the dramatic, larger than life disasters that catapult your Hero into situations where he/she must exceed personal design specifications and perform at World Class levels, if only once in a lifetime.
And that "once in a lifetime" achievement is very typical of Pluto in the lives of those who are not "rich and famous" but just us average folk. In the lives of the Michael Jacksons of the world, Pluto wreaks its havoc repeatedly every time it contacts another natal planet because of the way Pluto was placed in the natal chart.
So until 2023, your readers will be living in world of increasingly intrusive regulation of every part of their lives, taking away all the "fun" they grew up enjoying.
The age group most severely affected will be those just starting their adult lives, those born with Pluto in Scorpio, 1985 to 1995.
The peak of that generation (and there was a baby-boom in the USA during the mid-1990's) will be 20 years old now, getting out of college or trying to.
They may have had their college education SMASHED (Pluto is the violent smashing of structures that have resisted Saturn) by the crash (parents losing everything, job, house, etc.) and college costs skyrocketing, scholarships disappearing because charity giving (Sagittarius is Charity) is GONE.
These 20 year olds are your audience, your readership.
Remember what we discussed in the entry on Targeting an Audience using the generational analysis,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html
The Pluto in Scorpio generation is Power Used In Excess (ever more vivid video games where everything in sight is destroyed -- BEAT THE ENEMY being the theme- beat-beat-beat). Pluto rules Scorpio, so that entire generation (no matter how the rest of their natal chart is deployed) has an extra-strong, extra-emphasized Pluto, whatever Pluto may represent personally.
Pluto is obsession (excess interest). Scorpio is hidden things such as government conspiracy, great secrets kept from mankind (Demons from another dimension; the revival of the TV series V where the aliens have SECRETS and there are conspiracies within conspiracies, 5th Column and Resistance fighters, secret sexuality, exaggerated sexuality, purely carnal sexuality).
Also note Al Queda conducting operations to "take over" (excess revolution by force; "terror" is exaggerated fear) is peopled largely by the current 1985-1995 20-something generation, the fighting age folks, whose age is appropriate for wanting to change the world and who live with an extra-strong Pluto influence. Pluto is also related to religion as it is associated with the Unseen and Unknowable.
The main tactic deployed against terrorists will have something to do with regulating finance. As I recall from a recent conversation, the Inquisition was ended basically because the Pope leading it needed money.
-------TECHNICAL ASIDE -------------
TIGER WOODS
Here's a chart posted online for Tiger Woods that makes sense of what he did in terms of the Pluto transit.
http://www.chartplanet.com/famous/charts/tiger.html
When Pluto transited over Woods' natal Moon, he got himself into excess (Pluto rules Scorpio, secrets and irresistible carnal sexuality) trouble by overly intense obsession on fulfilling some sort of subconscious personal NEED (Moon is the reigning need of the lifetime - what a person gropes for in life, the thing you don't have that you will do anything to get and even when you've got more of it than anyone else you're still not satisfied, can't feel that you have it because it's the innate, in-built NEED).
He melted down PUBLICLY (Moon is The Public) when Pluto transited across the Mid-point of his Moon and Sun.
In his Natal Chart Pluto is pretty much opposite Jupiter, thus his exaggerated FAME and his monstrous meltdown. As Pluto transits his Sun, (probably mostly 2013-2014) he'll learn his lesson on a deep spiritual level, or not.
Religious conversion often happens under the transit of Pluto over the natal Sun.
If he had not built up such a secret, the revealing of it in pubic wouldn't have resulted in a catastrophic loss. Catastrophe is Pluto.
He's lost a lot of endorsement contracts -- remember the subject here is FOLLOW THE MONEY. He lost endorsements not because of what he did, but because of the politics ignited by it being made public -- politics and money.
Without that public revelation, the manufacturers would have been happy to have him as endorsing spokesman in any number of commercials.
Pluto transits reveal the hidden with catastrophic consequences.
---------- END TECHNICAL ASIDE -----
Tiger Woods' public melt-down is a perfect textbook example of the EXPLOSIVE action of Pluto in transit. Pluto touched off the explosion revealing something hidden by contacting both sources of energy in his personality (Sun and Moon).
Nobody could have predicted it would be infidelity that would bring him down, nor even that "down" was the direction Pluto's catapult was pointing.
He might have won some huge, unique honor. He might have quit sports to become a monk. He might have created a charitable foundation. He might have suffered a terrible bereavement or some horrible disease which he'd then become the champion of and finance the finding of a cure.
The only thing you can say for sure is that whatever the Event would be, it would be bigger than anything else in his life to date (which is huge), and very likely would "reveal" something very "private" to the "public." It would be something Woods himself would be able to see coming, see as inevitable, but refuse to look at squarely until this blast shattered his certainties.
See what I mean about drama?
So Pluto, Politics and Follow The Money.
Pick up the drumbeat of the Money, the ebb and flow of currency in the veins of the world, and hear the CRASH of the beat, and the SILENCE that follows, stretches, and eventually is broken by another CRASH.
What will be the next CRASH of that beat? Until 2023, the folks who grew up reveling in ever-more-intense video games will be under a harsh, severe, restrictive discipline, a noose that tightens around the neck the harder they pull on their leashes.
But that won't change their essential personalities. They are Pluto In Scorpio (and Scorpio has earned its sexual reputation, too).
In 2023, when Pluto enters Aquarius (freedom, innovation, technology, rebellion) the then-thirty-somethings will be taking over the reigns of Power (Pluto is power) from Regulators (Saturn) and will break the chains of regulation, intrusiveness into private lives (Scorpio obsesses on ultra-privacy; Scorpio is the most private sign of the Zodiac; Scorpio doesn't air dirty laundry in public but makes plenty).
So we had excesses in spending, now we'll have excesses in regulation to prevent spending, and eventually we'll get excesses in de-regulation again.
Remember Aquarius is "The Age Of Aquarius" the Flower Children, Beatniks, Hippies, Drop-Outs. Imagine that amplified by Pluto.
This generation that needs excess to feel anything will break out of any regulatory structure that can be built at this time.
On the other hand, the USA could go "isolationist" and withdraw from the international monetary flow entirely as the Flower Children dropped out of "society" to "find themselves."
Achieving Energy Independence with say, Thorium or Fusion power, could lead to instituting every other sort of "independence" -- which might afford the USA more privacy. The babyboomers of the 1990's will demand unfettered freedom and have the obsessive dedication to that goal to achieve it.
Write the fiction that will entertain people in such a mood and explode into the top echelons of the entertainment profession.
Now how will other countries react to Pluto through Aquarius? You know your country better than I do. Drop a note here about how your culture will respond to the pervasive conviction that more-more-more regulation is the solution to more-more-more acquisitiveness.
Use that beat of generations to build a World -- somewhere out in space, in another galaxy, or another dimension, but make it plausible by revealing the heartbeat that rams MONEY through the arteries of that people's economy.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
The previous 8 parts in this series can be found by following the links back in the post
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/12/astrology-just-for-writers-part-8-beat.html
------------------
There's a very old adage, "If you don't understand what's happening, follow the money and you will."
This is a great principle for plotting Mystery and Intrigue novels. It works gangbusters in Romance because the pursuit of wealth fuels our deepest motivations. It's a fabulous tool for plotting Time Travel stories, too.
Finance is the key a writer needs to build a world that seems real to readers, no matter what ridiculous stuff might be there too.
And as we've discussed, successful worldbuilders always echo our "real" world in such a way as to (Artistically) reveal some form or shape in our reality that we ordinarily don't notice.
So what's happening in 2010 that is fodder for the worldbuilding writer of today? (this principle works for Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Romance, plus any blend of those three with some other genre (detective, mystery, intrigue, western, etc).
Today the Federal Reserve (US Central Bank) is pondering how to get out of the trap they've dug themselves into, and what to advise the US Congress to do to prevent the kind of collapse we experienced in 2008, 2009 from happening again.
There's only one drumbeat I keep hearing.
This is a drumbeat you would hear on any planet populated by any sort of beings involved in any sort of commerce or business. This is the drumbeat of interstellar commerce, too.
Just listen to the drumbeat -- not the flute, not the violin, not the woodwinds, not the Hallelujah Chorus, just the drumbeat.
What is that drumbeat? Can you hear it? Can you understand what's actually going on in this world, and reveal it by creating another world where the drumbeat is louder, more distinct, reverberating with a more identifiable tone?
The drumbeat that I'm hearing is the rhythm of the transit of Pluto.
The "planet" Pluto was recently demoted from planetary status by astronomers; and don't forget the whole issue of Pluto being a "capture" maybe a comet from another solar system, not formed from the material of our own Sun as the other planets are.
Pluto is an element we've discussed in this series on using Astrology for plotting and worldbuilding.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/10/astrology-just-for-writers-part-3-genre.html -- has a primer on Astrology and mentions how the current financial crisis coincided with Pluto transiting the USA Natal Chart 8th House Cusp (other people's money) which is according to the chart I've been using, 0 Degrees Capricorn.
It's even relevant to marketing as you can use it to figure out what each age group wants more and more of.
The 2000's were characterized by excess in finance as in other areas of life, and that excess (of debt and spending and mad chase after luxury or the satisfaction of "beating" the opposition to an ever bloodier pulp) is blamed for the current situation of cascading bankruptcies.
This first week in 2010, the financial news is chock full of warnings by pundits that the USA faces bankruptcy (not paying our debts - defaulting on Treasury Bonds - the way Brazil did so many times over the last few decades).
Scroll way down in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html
to find the table of where Pluto has been transiting during the last few generations.
PLUTO IN SAGITTARIUS generation 1995-2008
PLUTO IN CAPRICORN (2008-9 - 2023)
Now the transit of Pluto through a sign of the zodiac doesn't just affect those born during those years. As a planet moves from the point where it was when a particular issue, affair, relationship, or event begins, it marks the beat of maturation of the affair one step at a time -- in an orderly and fairly predictable fashion, or what I've called "the because line" of the plot.
Astrology can NOT predict "the" future, but it can pinpoint certain blocks of weeks, months or years when an affair begun at a previous point will now reach a crisis of change, of stress, of culmination or confrontation. (those are keywords for certain "aspects").
In other words, Astrology sets the drumbeat to which affairs dance.
There are at least 10 such "drumbeats" rattling through our senses at any given time. The writer/artist's job is to separate them into meaningful sequences.
Astrology can not predict what will happen. The things that make a difference to us, that distinguish one novel from another, aren't coded into the drumbeats.
But in that drumbeat you can find what joins one novel to another to make a genre. Astrology is about what makes all humans the same, not what makes us different.
So, from 1995 through the Tech Bubble crash, and 9/11, we saw affairs of the world inflected by actions of the US Federal Reserve to plunge interest rates way too (Pluto is too) low and keep them there way too (Pluto) long, exaggerating the next bounce so that we went way too (Pluto) high on the debt curve.
1995 through 2008 saw Pluto transiting Sagittarius.
On another planet somewhere else in the Galaxy some other "clock" or drumbeat influence would be visible to time the excesses that would lead to what we're plunging into now. If you build your world to have such a rhythm at the foundation of it, Earth based readers will be able to believe in whatever Relationship Story you want to tell against that background.
OK, so what is Sagittarius? It's the 9th House (law) and ruled by Jupiter, inclusion, expansion, gaining too much weight, being round and jolly and truthful and accepting and out-going and charitable (Madoff comes to mind).
Sagittarius when constrained is HONESTY and JUSTICE.
Sagittarius can't tell a white lie. Sagittarius blurts out truths nobody really wants to hear stated.
When released from constraints (Pluto busts out of all constraints) Sagittarius is THE PLAYBOY HEIR TO THE THRONE, the wastrel, the drunken gambler, and in the Charity aspect becomes something like Barney Madoff's ponzi scheme (where he defrauded a whole lot of really big and ever-growing Charities out of the best and most urgent of motives, to do good for those who trusted him, and became trapped in escalating excesses.
And this pattern repeated all over the world (9th House is foreign travel, foreign countries, international affairs). The Mortgage excess started with some bright fellows in London who created the securitization of US mortgages and sold them internationally.
So in 2008 when Pluto finished with Sagittarius and tickled the edge of Capricorn, the whole world of connected Nations collapsed in agony.
This is the drumbeat, and you see it in personal lives as well as in the lives of Nations.
Excess, explosion, great unbridled violent BEAT, huge tsunami sized waves of good things in vast excess, hugely over-emphasized like the new tallest building in the world opened in Dubai this week, (a loud crash of the drum) followed by SILENCE in which to absorb the shock of that sudden blast of sound.
The SILENCE is as shocking as the SOUND of the beat, and silence is part of what it means "beat" (as in Beat Sheet). Silence is the pure essence of music. Stillness is the purified essence of dance. Empty white space is the defining essence of a printed page. Absence is the art form.
For the last 18 months or so Pluto has diddled around 0 Capricorn, up to 3 degrees, back, and now up again heading for a station at a new degree - 4 degrees of Capricorn. That's still the beginning.
So what comes after the SILENCE of the drumbeat? It's not a rhythm unless something comes NEXT.
Pluto is the ruler of Scorpio, the hidden, clandestine, underworld -- in Fantasy think the other dimension where Magical creatures and demons come from. Pluto is the planet of POWER. Uranium is attributed to Pluto for the Atomic Bomb association; as per my previous blog entry here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/12/thorium-real-hope-for-e-books.html
Think about Thorium.
Capricorn is the Natural 10th House, ruled by Saturn (restraint). Capricorn is the Prime Minister while Leo is The King. Capricorn is the administrator, the manager, the real decision maker, the down-to-earth firm and reliable ADVISER. Capricorn is the disciplinarian (the school Head Master), and in symbolism the 10th House also represents The Father - the source of discipline in the family.
Capricorn represents the rules of order by which society functions. The Father is the parent who introduces the child to the "realities" of the world.
You want the keys to the car? Show proficiency in the written Driving Test as well as the actual operation of a vehicle. Just because you can corner fast doesn't mean you're exempt from signaling first. Saturn takes all the fun out of everything.
That's Capricorn's mystical initiation - the Rite of Passage into adulthood. Staying up late at night isn't a privilege or fun, but an arduous chore that comes with a big price the next day. Jupiter is the party; Saturn is the hangover, and Pluto makes both bigger and more dramatic.
Theoretically, Earth might have to pass such a Saturn style rite of passage test to gain entry to the Galactic Union. Maybe we just flunked.
Saturn which rules Capricorn is Tough Love. It's Daddy arriving at the teen's unauthorized house party and taking away the highly spiked punch bowl. "You're grounded for LIFE!" Daddy roars, red faced.
So what we can expect for the next "beat" is an "Excess" of "Rules" -- Pluto through Capricorn.
---------EXAMPLES----------------
1) Here's an AP item on new regulations for Tax Preparers I found on Twitter:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/04/irs-regulate-paid-tax-preparers/
And this week the Chairman of the USA's Central Bank is jawboning about THE ONLY SOLUTION IS MORE AND TIGHTER REGULATION.
2) Here's another item, a gem of an example of this pattern, which I found via twitter in The Charleston Gazette
http://wvgazette.com/News/200912280398 which is a URL that was there yesterday and gone today. It's a revival of a very old item.
The news article says:
====
C8 is another name for perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. It is one of a family of perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs. In West Virginia, DuPont Co. has used C8 since the 1950s at its Washington Works plant south of Parkersburg. C8 is a processing agent used to make Teflon and other nonstick and stain-resistant products.
Around the world, researchers are finding that people have C8 and other PFCs in their blood at low levels. People can be exposed by drinking contaminated water, eating tainted food, or through food packaging and stain-proofing agents on furniture or carpeting.
Evidence is mounting about the dangers of these chemicals. But regulators have yet to set binding limits for emissions or human exposure.
=====
And it goes on to state that though the correlation is small, further studies are needed and we should "monitor liver enzymes" in people with low exposure.
Needing further studies is so very Capricorn, investigating, keeping records, holding the potential of regulation.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for regulation. What I'm pointing out here is the demarcation of an exaggerating effect by Pluto's cycle. Or put another way, "The Pendulum Swings."
Pluto doesn't produce the urge to regulate. Saturn and Capricorn are associated with the imperative urge to regulate. Pluto takes that urge and exaggerates it to melodramatic proportions - a loud beat followed by a louder silence.
=====
3) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_02/b4162024080832.htm?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories
Is a long article on the politics seething behind "reform" of the financial system to prevent this kind of collapse from happening again.
One proposal is to re-institute the separation financial system of investment banks from savings banks. The flow of mortgage securitization from local savings banks to international investment banks flooded the USA with cheap mortgage money, so there's a rationale behind that idea, but look at it another way and you see that in one era "regulation" was irradiated because it was the problem - regulation strangled growth. In another era, the exact same regulation is looked on as the solution to the problem of excessive growth.
Keep clamping your mind onto the idea here that this blog post isn't about which political policies are "right" or "should" be followed.
I'm not arguing any side of this issue. I'm pointing out that to engineer a solid conflict for the foundation of a novel, a writer must be able to argue passionately for any and every side that we have in our own world and then add a NEW SIDE to the argument. Each side is a character in whose moccasins you must walk your mile.
Many writers are bewildered when critics jeer at their "dialogue" -- and think they can take lessons in how to write dialogue. You can't. There are no lessons. The cure for bad dialogue is to be able to believe, truly and really and in your gut, the exact opposite of what you do believe. When you express that passionate belief your dialogue will shine.
So read this article in Business Week (a dull subject) and adopt the belief that's opposite to what you believe, then express that belief in passionate dialogue. That's the way to learn to write dialogue.
-------END EXAMPLES---------
The answer to any problem for the next few years will be regulation, throttle, control, impose accountability (Capricorn) - and do it all to a previously unknown extreme (Pluto).
That's it. Follow the money. REGULATION of monetary supply, fiscal policy, businesses handling money, regulations and more regulations and more and more and more because with Pluto there is never, ever ENOUGH.
If you've been reading this series on Astrology Just For Writers, you have a good grasp of how Pluto represents HIGH DRAMA, the very stuff of life that fuels the conflicts at the heart of all fiction.
Pluto influences bring on the dramatic, larger than life disasters that catapult your Hero into situations where he/she must exceed personal design specifications and perform at World Class levels, if only once in a lifetime.
And that "once in a lifetime" achievement is very typical of Pluto in the lives of those who are not "rich and famous" but just us average folk. In the lives of the Michael Jacksons of the world, Pluto wreaks its havoc repeatedly every time it contacts another natal planet because of the way Pluto was placed in the natal chart.
So until 2023, your readers will be living in world of increasingly intrusive regulation of every part of their lives, taking away all the "fun" they grew up enjoying.
The age group most severely affected will be those just starting their adult lives, those born with Pluto in Scorpio, 1985 to 1995.
The peak of that generation (and there was a baby-boom in the USA during the mid-1990's) will be 20 years old now, getting out of college or trying to.
They may have had their college education SMASHED (Pluto is the violent smashing of structures that have resisted Saturn) by the crash (parents losing everything, job, house, etc.) and college costs skyrocketing, scholarships disappearing because charity giving (Sagittarius is Charity) is GONE.
These 20 year olds are your audience, your readership.
Remember what we discussed in the entry on Targeting an Audience using the generational analysis,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html
The Pluto in Scorpio generation is Power Used In Excess (ever more vivid video games where everything in sight is destroyed -- BEAT THE ENEMY being the theme- beat-beat-beat). Pluto rules Scorpio, so that entire generation (no matter how the rest of their natal chart is deployed) has an extra-strong, extra-emphasized Pluto, whatever Pluto may represent personally.
Pluto is obsession (excess interest). Scorpio is hidden things such as government conspiracy, great secrets kept from mankind (Demons from another dimension; the revival of the TV series V where the aliens have SECRETS and there are conspiracies within conspiracies, 5th Column and Resistance fighters, secret sexuality, exaggerated sexuality, purely carnal sexuality).
Also note Al Queda conducting operations to "take over" (excess revolution by force; "terror" is exaggerated fear) is peopled largely by the current 1985-1995 20-something generation, the fighting age folks, whose age is appropriate for wanting to change the world and who live with an extra-strong Pluto influence. Pluto is also related to religion as it is associated with the Unseen and Unknowable.
The main tactic deployed against terrorists will have something to do with regulating finance. As I recall from a recent conversation, the Inquisition was ended basically because the Pope leading it needed money.
-------TECHNICAL ASIDE -------------
TIGER WOODS
Here's a chart posted online for Tiger Woods that makes sense of what he did in terms of the Pluto transit.
http://www.chartplanet.com/famous/charts/tiger.html
When Pluto transited over Woods' natal Moon, he got himself into excess (Pluto rules Scorpio, secrets and irresistible carnal sexuality) trouble by overly intense obsession on fulfilling some sort of subconscious personal NEED (Moon is the reigning need of the lifetime - what a person gropes for in life, the thing you don't have that you will do anything to get and even when you've got more of it than anyone else you're still not satisfied, can't feel that you have it because it's the innate, in-built NEED).
He melted down PUBLICLY (Moon is The Public) when Pluto transited across the Mid-point of his Moon and Sun.
In his Natal Chart Pluto is pretty much opposite Jupiter, thus his exaggerated FAME and his monstrous meltdown. As Pluto transits his Sun, (probably mostly 2013-2014) he'll learn his lesson on a deep spiritual level, or not.
Religious conversion often happens under the transit of Pluto over the natal Sun.
If he had not built up such a secret, the revealing of it in pubic wouldn't have resulted in a catastrophic loss. Catastrophe is Pluto.
He's lost a lot of endorsement contracts -- remember the subject here is FOLLOW THE MONEY. He lost endorsements not because of what he did, but because of the politics ignited by it being made public -- politics and money.
Without that public revelation, the manufacturers would have been happy to have him as endorsing spokesman in any number of commercials.
Pluto transits reveal the hidden with catastrophic consequences.
---------- END TECHNICAL ASIDE -----
Tiger Woods' public melt-down is a perfect textbook example of the EXPLOSIVE action of Pluto in transit. Pluto touched off the explosion revealing something hidden by contacting both sources of energy in his personality (Sun and Moon).
Nobody could have predicted it would be infidelity that would bring him down, nor even that "down" was the direction Pluto's catapult was pointing.
He might have won some huge, unique honor. He might have quit sports to become a monk. He might have created a charitable foundation. He might have suffered a terrible bereavement or some horrible disease which he'd then become the champion of and finance the finding of a cure.
The only thing you can say for sure is that whatever the Event would be, it would be bigger than anything else in his life to date (which is huge), and very likely would "reveal" something very "private" to the "public." It would be something Woods himself would be able to see coming, see as inevitable, but refuse to look at squarely until this blast shattered his certainties.
See what I mean about drama?
So Pluto, Politics and Follow The Money.
Pick up the drumbeat of the Money, the ebb and flow of currency in the veins of the world, and hear the CRASH of the beat, and the SILENCE that follows, stretches, and eventually is broken by another CRASH.
What will be the next CRASH of that beat? Until 2023, the folks who grew up reveling in ever-more-intense video games will be under a harsh, severe, restrictive discipline, a noose that tightens around the neck the harder they pull on their leashes.
But that won't change their essential personalities. They are Pluto In Scorpio (and Scorpio has earned its sexual reputation, too).
In 2023, when Pluto enters Aquarius (freedom, innovation, technology, rebellion) the then-thirty-somethings will be taking over the reigns of Power (Pluto is power) from Regulators (Saturn) and will break the chains of regulation, intrusiveness into private lives (Scorpio obsesses on ultra-privacy; Scorpio is the most private sign of the Zodiac; Scorpio doesn't air dirty laundry in public but makes plenty).
So we had excesses in spending, now we'll have excesses in regulation to prevent spending, and eventually we'll get excesses in de-regulation again.
Remember Aquarius is "The Age Of Aquarius" the Flower Children, Beatniks, Hippies, Drop-Outs. Imagine that amplified by Pluto.
This generation that needs excess to feel anything will break out of any regulatory structure that can be built at this time.
On the other hand, the USA could go "isolationist" and withdraw from the international monetary flow entirely as the Flower Children dropped out of "society" to "find themselves."
Achieving Energy Independence with say, Thorium or Fusion power, could lead to instituting every other sort of "independence" -- which might afford the USA more privacy. The babyboomers of the 1990's will demand unfettered freedom and have the obsessive dedication to that goal to achieve it.
Write the fiction that will entertain people in such a mood and explode into the top echelons of the entertainment profession.
Now how will other countries react to Pluto through Aquarius? You know your country better than I do. Drop a note here about how your culture will respond to the pervasive conviction that more-more-more regulation is the solution to more-more-more acquisitiveness.
Use that beat of generations to build a World -- somewhere out in space, in another galaxy, or another dimension, but make it plausible by revealing the heartbeat that rams MONEY through the arteries of that people's economy.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Astrology Just For Writers Part 6: Targeting a Readership Part 3
I reviewed an Astrology book, ASTROLOGY A COSMIC SCIENCE, on Amazon which just turned up (with my review) on a Dating Website (Dating?!!! hmmm. Had to read that.)
http://awardwinningdatingsites.com/320/astrology-a-cosmic-science/comment-page-1/#respond
Astrology A Cosmic Science is very old and the author, Isabelle Hickey, is now gone, alas, but this book came back into print recently.
It was written around the time Pluto was just discovered and Astrologers were trying to figure it out.
http://www.amazon.com/Astrology-Science-Isabel-M-Hickey/dp/0916360520/rereadablebooksr/
I had written about the book on Amazon:
------------------------
Strewn With Hidden Gems Of Wisdom
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The strength of this book is the deep, rich context surrounding each topic. But for many, that would be its weakness.
I use it as a reference book – when I’m stumped by a chart, I just page through this book looking for new associations to break the logjam in my mind. But in truth, this is a book to read cover-to-cover, pasting in post-it-notes to mark the bits and pieces of unrelated but illuminating wisdom tossed into various discussions.
For example, in one very illuminating section of this book, Hickey discusses each of the signs as it manifests as the Ascendant – then under each sign as the Ascendant, she discusses each of the signs that would be on the other House Cusps if there are no interceptions, or if you use equal-house methods.
She shows you how the rising sign synthesizes with the signs on each of the cusps – to create some of the characteristics of people with that sign rising, and to color the house involved. This explains WHY a particular ascendant tends to produce people who behave a particular way.
The book is worth its price for that section alone — if you’re willing to just sit for a couple of hours and read all the rising signs, one section after the other. The faster you read it, the more sense it makes. The section is laid out very systematically, and that system reveals vistas of astrological truths in and of itself.
However, at random throughout the section, a few sentences, “throw away dialog,” and offhand allusions are tossed into other topics to point you to bits of knowledge about how astrology works and what it’s actually for. These bits are not taken up anywhere else in the book, not assembled, not set into a larger context, and not indexed. They just leap out at you as if outlined in soul-fire.
For example: In the section devoted to Capricorn Rising, which puts Libra on the 10th, Hickey says, “Venus’s sign in Saturn’s house is often loving for the sake of expediency. This is not true of the more evolved individual. Students often ask the question, “How can one tell the evolvement of an individual in the chart?” Character is shown by the signs in which the planets are placed. Planets in their sign of exaltation and in the signs they rule are indications of an evolved consciousness. Also the higher-octave planets — Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, and Jupiter — in the first, fourth, seventh, or tenth house show that the individual has had much soul experience in other lifetimes”.
You see? For that alone, this is worth the cover price, and there are lots and lots of those throughout the whole book.
Maybe these bits of wisdom aren’t actually true. But as you go, “Aha!” and pull out a dozen charts of people you know well to check out Hickey’s theory, you learn vast amounts more about astrology than you ever would have without investigating that theory.
I came to amazon today looking for links to used copies of Hickey’s book and was delighted to find it in print. I had been paging through this book at random the other day and it gave me a flash of inspiration. I used that insight to write two columns for my sf/f review column called ReReadable Books. Hickey had connected several sf novels for me, using the 7th House, the 6 of Swords and how they generate the art of storycraft. I’m a professional sf author, and teach writing online, and I needed to write a handout for the Writing Workshop at the World Science Fiction Convention. Before I leafed through Hickey’s book, I had no clue in my mind what I could offer at that Workshop. Then I produced a 14 page essay which will probably be the October and November installments of my column.
So, the strength of this book lies in the context surrounding the facts, a context which assembles random bits of the universe in which you live into a pattern that makes sense. But that context material is so randomly placed – so “stream of consciousness” in the style of Hickey’s writing that it’s impossible to use this book just to find out, say, the signature of the advanced soul.
You’d never find it if you searched the index or the table of contents. You have to read the entire book. (stock up on post-its).
And if you like this style of astrology (with a karmic and spiritual bent) – you really need Hickey’s book on PLUTO as MINERVA, and all about WISDOM. There’s a lot in that book I don’t agree with – but it surely makes you think.
Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
…-------------------------------------------------------
http://www.amazon.com/Astrology-Science-Isabel-M-Hickey/dp/0916360520/rereadablebooksr/
So I tried to post a reply on the Dating Site blog but it wouldn't accept it, I think because I'm not a member of the Dating Site and don't have their cookie on my computer.
So here's what I wrote in my comment, addressing members of the dating site, now redirected at Romance writers (and readers, for that matter).
This seems to be a posting of Hickey's book with the reviews from Amazon, including mine. I've learned a lot about Astrology and Tarot since I wrote that review, from Hickey and most notably from the great Astrology Teacher Noel Tyl whom I quote all the time.
Hickey's concept of Minerva as the symbolism for Pluto explains a lot about how and why Relationships form then blow apart violently (in divorce or worse).
Pluto transits transform people beyond recognition, but still within their Natal potential. Pluto, slowly but inexorably, fulfills natal potential, which is why it makes a good source of believable plot for a novel.
But such major Pluto transits tend to project the energies. Your transit can manifest via other people or the world around you, rather than within the psyche. It's hard for a writer to show-don't-tell the connection between the character and a sequence of plot events such as this:
... your boss fires you just because she's angry at someone else and you can't prove it. On the way home, you stop cleanly at a stop light, and a car whirls around the corner and T-bones your car. Your spouse files for divorce (what a relief) and your dog dies, and your replacement car needs a new transmission, and the house you win in the divorce springs a leak in the roof, and the insurance wasn't paid up, then your Mother dies (expected but the TIMING is exquisite) and at the same time, you win some award or have some totally explosive success that makes everyone you know and respect jealous, then you're diagnosed with Breast Cancer (thank G-d it's caught early, but you have no medical insurance because of the divorce and firing so all the inheritance is gone but you're alive).
Yep. The stuff of soap opera! Remember I did explain how Pluto is the absolute epitome of pure drama, intensified beyond all absurdities.
When a whole series of stuff like that just avalanches into your life over about 2 years, it is very likely a Pluto transit interacting with a) your Natal Chart and b) other major transits to your Natal Chart being amplified by Pluto.
Knowing that Pluto's energy of wisdom ebbs and flows through our spirits, we can learn how directing Pluto's energy into life is somewhat like trying to hold onto a fire hose running full blast. You definitely need HELP to keep it aimed where it can do good not harm.
And that help is your mate. Your Soul Mate.
If you're sitting on a big fire-hose, you need a Wisdom-Heavy Soul Mate to grab onto it behind you and aim YOU at a constructive task.
Well aimed, Pluto does not produce such a list of wild effects as I described above. Instead, it produces one clean, definitive Event from which you learn a new Wisdom, yielding to the lesson and reorganizing yourself around it. That too can make for great story theme and substance.
Pluto is not Love. It's Wisdom.
Love without Wisdom = Disaster.
That's the kind of Disaster that makes fabulous reading!
Below is a link to a blog post I did on Pluto and the generations of young people changing the world.
Those who are attempting to understand Relationships and the phenomenon of the Soul Mate might like to read some of my blog posts based on what I've learned of Tarot and Astrology applied to the field of Romance writing.
You can start with Astrology Just For Writers Part 6 and work your way back through the links in each post. Isabelle Hickey's Pluto/Minerva concept explains a lot especially about sex mixed with violence, bondage, and practices exerting excessive force. Hickey's concepts can provide alternative scenarios especially suited to writing Supernatural Romance and Paranormal Romance.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html
------------------------
Meanwhile, I've just finished reading Deborah Macgillivrey's WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING, a Dorchester Romance.
http://deborahmacgillivray.blogspot.com/2009/09/wolf-in-wolfs-clothing-now-in-kindle.html
I think I found her on twitter, and the book sounded right up my alley. I'd read about a third when I asked her the following as a comment on her blog (linked above)
---------
I'm still reading WOLF. Can you explain why you put the first really hot sex scene at the 1/3 point of the narrative and why it's over 10 pages long with several settings?
Since I keep writing blog posts on writing craft for the Alien Romance blog ( aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com ) questions of structure like this keep coming up.
Is this a Dorchester requirement or a pacing you find works with your readers? (and may I quote you?)
-------------
And she answered:
My characters act and react within their own parameters of who they are. In my second historical, “In Her Bed”, the first sex scene happened early on, simply because the plot opens with the heroine trying to get with child in order to hold onto her fiefs in Medieval Scotland. When and how characters meet, what is driving them, gives each story its own pace. In the first book in the Sisters of Colford Hall™ series, “The Invasion of Falgannon Isle”, Desmond comes to the island with vengeance on his mind. As soon as he arrives, he falls for the magic of the heroine and her quirky island, so their romance dictated the sexual scenes be put off. In “Riding the Thunder” the second book, Jago (Trevelyn’s twin) was in a flux, knowing their seeking vengeance against the sisters was not right. Thus, it pushed the sexual encounters farther back into the book because of his conscience gnawing on him.
When I created Trev, I wanted an arrogant man, used to taking life as he wanted, and little worrying about what happened after. He was a “wolf” in the truest sense. And he wanted Raven. He would not hold back, seeing sex as a way to bind Raven to him. Instead, it bound him to her?something he didn’t count on. Raven was the most vulnerable of the sisters, less willing to take risks. She’d spent so long creating a “Tolkein” faerytale world where she was safe, secure. Her letting go so early in the relationship and allowing Trev into her bed, her life, was her taking that ultimate gamble for something very special.
So, since I am allowed to write the stories as I want, it’s the characters themselves who say how the emotions and the sexual extension of that love occur and when. I love logic. Everything has to fit the logical make up of that character, or it just doesn’t fit. It won’t ring true for the reader.
If you find anything to help you, please feel free to use quotes.
November 2, 2009 4:56 PM
----------------------------
Now you can see from Deborah Macgillivray's track record that she has gained a readership that Dorchester Love Spell and Zebra Historicals know how to reach and serve. That's why she's "allowed" to write them as she sees them. She has created a market.
She has gained a gut-level understanding of the story that her readers are following, so she just has to follow her nose through her story to turn out a slam-bang perfect of its kind novel (yeah, she's that good).
Then I was thinking about WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING (BTW it's not werewolf, and the paranormal is left gray and equivocal) and the similarity to Sharon Green's first DAW novel series, THE WARRIOR WITHIN. Green does not write that way -- follow-her-nose -- she does it on purpose.
Green took John Norman's Gor novels and (in response to a challenge uttered at a party at an SF convention) turned the Gor novel formula inside out and upside down (a totally unthinkable feat in professional story-telling at that time).
Sharon Green:
on Amazon
John Norman
John Norman on Amazon
Sharon Green took the cave-man, sword-slinging beast-man who rescued and ravished damsels with total disregard for their person-hood, and switched the point of view.
She did it pretty much on a dare (yes, I know Sharon Green and I like her a lot!)
The first novel sold so well, she got to do a whole series, showing how this character, Terrilian, a very strong woman with massive immaturity, learns that her preferences aren't the only ones that matter.
I couldn't put The Terrilian Series down! Really. Those books are as fascinating and absorbing as some of the best fanfic I've ever read, and I had never been able to read the source-material by John Norman.
Sharon Green dealt with teaching this lesson in Relationship to a woman, using the same trope John Norman used, but mirror-imaged.
See comments on my post http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/7-proofing-steps-for-quality-writing.html for comments on trope.
In the 1970's when women were struggling to attain a new identity in mid-life, Sharon's mirror-imaging of the male fantasy founded a blazing career for her.
But if you check the reviews of Terrilian on Amazon, though they are plentiful, there is a segment of the readership that came looking for "Romance" that went away bitterly disappointed.
At the time Sharon invented Terrilian, there was no commercial place for ANY relationship-driven action novels on either side of the Romance/SF divide. That was an absolute. (before the Web and e-books, there really was no place but the author's bottom drawer or fireplace.)
That was the decade when "Warrior" meant "male archetype" and nothing else. The female warrior archetype was literally "unthinkable" and certainly not commercial.
Yet Sharon Green's Terrilian novels, the series called THE WARRIOR SERIES, sold like hotcakes and therefore built a bridge over that divide with a very sophisticated use of the male action trope.
Sharon Green generated a public, popular, Group Mind image of a female warrior and what it means to be a female with warrior traits -- and those warrior traits are on the psychological level more than the physical (though physical courage is not lacking, it's not where the battle is joined).
There is no battle more fierce than the battle against one's own self-image.
As I've said before, there are things about writing that readers don't want or need to know if they simply want to read for the pleasure of reading.
But all writers could wish that most readers knew the difference between a badly written book and a book they simply dislike. I tried to address that issue of "Quality" in my post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/7-proofing-steps-for-quality-writing.html
Despite the scathing reviews juxtaposed against the over-the-top rave reviews for Sharon Green's WARRIOR series, what you have in the Warrior Series is a very HIGH QUALITY piece of work.
Regardless of whether you like the dark story, the brutality mixed with sex, the raw power nature of the sexual component of what later (7 huge novels later) becomes a more emotional and intellectual Relationship, you should be able to see the QUALITY of what Sharon accomplished.
In addition to that Quality, Sharon broke trope without breaking it. She did what Hollywood always demands: something the same but different.
A great deal of what you see on the Romance and Action Romance stands today is based on the breakthrough Sharon Green made with this series.
You can make a fortune if you can master the thinking method used to arrive at the CONCEPT of mirroring the insanely popular male-action trope the Gor books epitomize, and selling the same male action-packed trope to WOMEN who wanted freedom without the price of maturity. That's where we were in the 1970's and even into the 1980's among adult women raised to be subservient to men.
Today, news reports of more violence against women on TV dramas than ever before are bandied about as a horrifying development, not as evidence of women succeeding in becoming Combat Officers in the Army (unthinkable development - there might be a woman in command over men! Can't have that!) Women now FIGHT and even win against men, in combat or board room.
Fiction didn't exactly lead the way, but Sharon Green and other writers who portrayed for the young generation of women a way of thinking, living and feeling that is both feminine and aggressive created a new trope for female-self-image.
Find the next thing that needs changing and invert the trope of that in our fiction.
THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT.
If you're familiar with both WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING and WARRIOR WITHIN, you can follow this contrast-compare more easily but I'll try to make it simple (OK, you can stop laughing now). This is important because it's about "targeting a readership."
Wolf in Wolf's Clothing is written to a generation of women raised to expect themselves to have to mature and remain women.
Warrior Within was written to a generation of women raised to expect themselves to get everything without maturing in order to remain women. (i.e. there WAS no archetype for THE MATURE WOMAN in American culture; we had to invent it. Marion Zimmer Bradley was one of the leaders with her Renunciates of Darkover -- but RENOUNCING protection isn't the key to a woman's maturity. It's only a step.) Think of I LOVE LUCY which I hope you've seen in endless reruns. Lucy portrays the archetype of yore. Wolf in Wolf's Clothing portrays the archetype of the near future, what the 14 year old girls of today will mature into (maybe sans magic; maybe not).
Both attitudes of the female READERSHIP addressed specifically by AUTHORS, (almost two generations apart) -- both attitudes are culturally inculcated. They do not represent Natal Chart personality or any individuality.
What you absorb subconsciously before you are old enough to speak is really hard to edit later in life. (Magical Initiation, Religious Conversion, or a massive Pluto transit as described above can force you to edit your operating system and "recompile" the code.)
That originally absorbed cultural material becomes part of your identity. (look up CULTURE SHOCK and read Alvin Toffler's book FUTURE SHOCK and Edward T. Hall's book THE SILENT LANGUAGE).
http://www.amazon.com/Future-Shock-Alvin-Toffler/dp/0553277375/rereadablebooksr/
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_4_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+silent+language&sprefix=The+Silent
Both of which are products of the 1960's & 1970's culture and give you tremendous insight into what exactly has changed and where the next change of that magnitude is coming from. But these books give you the principles by which civilizations change on the archetypal level, and thus let you do some worldbuilding that readers will believe.
Macgillivrey and Green are both taking a character and "teaching them a lesson." And that lesson breaks their self-image.
Another series that does that with Pluto's huge hammer blows is the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series by Laurell K. Hamilton.
The Pluto-Minerva lesson in Wisdom has to BREAK the person, SHATTER a wall they don't even know is inside them, DESTROY their very identity at its core, in order to penetrate "down" to the layer where the error exists.
We accept anything that resides at that inner level as "Wisdom." Even if it's wrong. Perhaps especially if it's wrong.
The process of rewriting, debugging, recompiling and rebooting that internal Wisdom Operating System isn't likely to happen without a major Pluto transit with all the dark power-symbolism erupting full force. (Pluto transits can work the other way, too, changing correct information into incorrect information - Pluto is not survival-oriented except on the Soul level.) The older you are, the more force Pluto has to bring to bear to create real change.
Once that erroneous information coded into the core being is removed and replaced by new information, the PERSON literally becomes someone else.
What gives them pleasure changes. What gives them grief changes. All the emotional circuitry leading from events in the outside world to the gut-level responses within gets rewired and the resulting behavior in response to stimulus changes.
Ah, but the NATAL CHART does not change!!! This is still the same life lived by the same soul.
But any human observer would say, no, it's NOT THE SAME PERSON.
What is it that can produce this effect?
It's not the standard Saturn Transit that often opens one's eyes, strips away things you depend on, and shatters your ego, challenging your values. Saturn makes great plot material, but this is deeper.
connect what happened when you were 27, with what happened at 28 or 29 -- that's the maturing effect of the first Saturn return. Don't trust anyone over thirty -- is true. It's a gulf you cross to maturity and your responses to input will change.
Macgillivrey and Green are writing about a different kind of transit from the Saturn transit.
The reason that SEXUALITY and VIOLENCE and FORCE and ABSOLUTLY IMPLACABLE determination and total OBSESSION and HORRENDOUSLY COMPLETE CHANGE and even CRIME (Pluto is violent crime), DISEASE AND DEATH,INHERITANCE and HERITAGE are the forces driving both plots is that the transformation these authors are writing about is a PLUTO TRANSIT transformation.
Scorpio. Pluto. Force majeur. The underground. The subconscious.
For more on the symbolism I'm discussing with Pluto see my post on the generation signature by Pluto's Sign
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html
That post is also Targeting a Readership Part Two.
For contrast with Wolf and Warrior, my first award winner, UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER is about a FIRST SATURN RETURN and is driven by all the keywords of Saturn, even the background and worldbuilding is derived from Saturn keywords.
The change that both Macgillivrey and Green were illustrating artistically was a change to the deepest core ASSUMPTIONS (not beliefs) of the main character each was dealing with.
In the early days, Green had to teach a lesson on that level to women.
Today, we feel the need to teach men a lesson.
As currently transiting Pluto enters Capricorn and shifts emphasis and coloration, we are in the mopping up part of the Gender Wars.
I didn't mention in Astrology Just For Writers Part 6 that along with Pluto's entry into Capricorn we also are looking forward to Neptune entering Pisces, it's own sign.
Remember how I made the point that the generation born with Pluto in its own sign (Scorpio) had a greatly emphasized Pluto energy in their personality, the source of what they obssess on and enjoy most, what they're willing to pay for in entertainment? Neptune will become exceptionally prominent like that when it's in Pisces, its own sign.
2011 or maybe 2012 should show us more of how that will work on the general group psyche of current adults, and it'll be a good 15-20 years before we know what the children of that generation with Pluto in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces will go for in entertainment.
But note that as Pluto transited its own sign of Scorpio, we got the MORE-MORE-MORE-VIOLENCE-POWER-IS-EVERYTHING generation of video game players.
Neptune rules Pisces, and as it transits its own sign the keywords connected with Neptune will manifest in our cultural assumptions.
One pervasive effect of Neptune is to convince you that your highest ideal (12th House, Neptune and Pisces are about IDEALS among many other slippery things including entertainment itself) - that your highest Ideal already is a fact.
Saturn is Fact.
Neptune is Ideal.
Pluto is Force.
Uranus is Freedom.
Uranus will simultaneously be entering Aries, ruled by Mars (war; whereas Pluto is the upper octave of Mars which might be seen as nuclear war, supervolcanoes rather than mere volcanoes).
These 3 factors (Pluto in Capricorn, Neptune in Pisces, Uranus in Aries) will persist while Saturn sweeps through Scorpio and Sagittarius and maybe on into Capricorn which Saturn rules).
That is the "atmosphere" we'll be writing our fiction in. People battered by those forces, concerned by those issues, burned out over dilemmas and conundrums (Neptune), fighting with their teenagers over what the teens see as reality, will come seeking LOVE CONQUERS ALL and THE ALL POWERFUL H.E.A.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/snow-dogs-and-happily-ever-after.html
What lessons will the people born with Pluto in Scorpio (1985-1995 or so) need to see worked out in their Art (our novels) as they live through these transits?
What lesson in Relationship, what Wisdom, has to be "beaten" (Pluto) into their "heads" (Aries rules the head).
What do they assume is true (Neptune) which actually might become true if they would "wake up" (Uranus) to themselves (Aries) and accept the Discipline (Saturn) of Wisdom (Minerva-Pluto).
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.jacquelinelichtenberg.com
http://awardwinningdatingsites.com/320/astrology-a-cosmic-science/comment-page-1/#respond
Astrology A Cosmic Science is very old and the author, Isabelle Hickey, is now gone, alas, but this book came back into print recently.
It was written around the time Pluto was just discovered and Astrologers were trying to figure it out.
http://www.amazon.com/Astrology-Science-Isabel-M-Hickey/dp/0916360520/rereadablebooksr/
I had written about the book on Amazon:
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Strewn With Hidden Gems Of Wisdom
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The strength of this book is the deep, rich context surrounding each topic. But for many, that would be its weakness.
I use it as a reference book – when I’m stumped by a chart, I just page through this book looking for new associations to break the logjam in my mind. But in truth, this is a book to read cover-to-cover, pasting in post-it-notes to mark the bits and pieces of unrelated but illuminating wisdom tossed into various discussions.
For example, in one very illuminating section of this book, Hickey discusses each of the signs as it manifests as the Ascendant – then under each sign as the Ascendant, she discusses each of the signs that would be on the other House Cusps if there are no interceptions, or if you use equal-house methods.
She shows you how the rising sign synthesizes with the signs on each of the cusps – to create some of the characteristics of people with that sign rising, and to color the house involved. This explains WHY a particular ascendant tends to produce people who behave a particular way.
The book is worth its price for that section alone — if you’re willing to just sit for a couple of hours and read all the rising signs, one section after the other. The faster you read it, the more sense it makes. The section is laid out very systematically, and that system reveals vistas of astrological truths in and of itself.
However, at random throughout the section, a few sentences, “throw away dialog,” and offhand allusions are tossed into other topics to point you to bits of knowledge about how astrology works and what it’s actually for. These bits are not taken up anywhere else in the book, not assembled, not set into a larger context, and not indexed. They just leap out at you as if outlined in soul-fire.
For example: In the section devoted to Capricorn Rising, which puts Libra on the 10th, Hickey says, “Venus’s sign in Saturn’s house is often loving for the sake of expediency. This is not true of the more evolved individual. Students often ask the question, “How can one tell the evolvement of an individual in the chart?” Character is shown by the signs in which the planets are placed. Planets in their sign of exaltation and in the signs they rule are indications of an evolved consciousness. Also the higher-octave planets — Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, and Jupiter — in the first, fourth, seventh, or tenth house show that the individual has had much soul experience in other lifetimes”.
You see? For that alone, this is worth the cover price, and there are lots and lots of those throughout the whole book.
Maybe these bits of wisdom aren’t actually true. But as you go, “Aha!” and pull out a dozen charts of people you know well to check out Hickey’s theory, you learn vast amounts more about astrology than you ever would have without investigating that theory.
I came to amazon today looking for links to used copies of Hickey’s book and was delighted to find it in print. I had been paging through this book at random the other day and it gave me a flash of inspiration. I used that insight to write two columns for my sf/f review column called ReReadable Books. Hickey had connected several sf novels for me, using the 7th House, the 6 of Swords and how they generate the art of storycraft. I’m a professional sf author, and teach writing online, and I needed to write a handout for the Writing Workshop at the World Science Fiction Convention. Before I leafed through Hickey’s book, I had no clue in my mind what I could offer at that Workshop. Then I produced a 14 page essay which will probably be the October and November installments of my column.
So, the strength of this book lies in the context surrounding the facts, a context which assembles random bits of the universe in which you live into a pattern that makes sense. But that context material is so randomly placed – so “stream of consciousness” in the style of Hickey’s writing that it’s impossible to use this book just to find out, say, the signature of the advanced soul.
You’d never find it if you searched the index or the table of contents. You have to read the entire book. (stock up on post-its).
And if you like this style of astrology (with a karmic and spiritual bent) – you really need Hickey’s book on PLUTO as MINERVA, and all about WISDOM. There’s a lot in that book I don’t agree with – but it surely makes you think.
Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
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http://www.amazon.com/Astrology-Science-Isabel-M-Hickey/dp/0916360520/rereadablebooksr/
So I tried to post a reply on the Dating Site blog but it wouldn't accept it, I think because I'm not a member of the Dating Site and don't have their cookie on my computer.
So here's what I wrote in my comment, addressing members of the dating site, now redirected at Romance writers (and readers, for that matter).
This seems to be a posting of Hickey's book with the reviews from Amazon, including mine. I've learned a lot about Astrology and Tarot since I wrote that review, from Hickey and most notably from the great Astrology Teacher Noel Tyl whom I quote all the time.
Hickey's concept of Minerva as the symbolism for Pluto explains a lot about how and why Relationships form then blow apart violently (in divorce or worse).
Pluto transits transform people beyond recognition, but still within their Natal potential. Pluto, slowly but inexorably, fulfills natal potential, which is why it makes a good source of believable plot for a novel.
But such major Pluto transits tend to project the energies. Your transit can manifest via other people or the world around you, rather than within the psyche. It's hard for a writer to show-don't-tell the connection between the character and a sequence of plot events such as this:
... your boss fires you just because she's angry at someone else and you can't prove it. On the way home, you stop cleanly at a stop light, and a car whirls around the corner and T-bones your car. Your spouse files for divorce (what a relief) and your dog dies, and your replacement car needs a new transmission, and the house you win in the divorce springs a leak in the roof, and the insurance wasn't paid up, then your Mother dies (expected but the TIMING is exquisite) and at the same time, you win some award or have some totally explosive success that makes everyone you know and respect jealous, then you're diagnosed with Breast Cancer (thank G-d it's caught early, but you have no medical insurance because of the divorce and firing so all the inheritance is gone but you're alive).
Yep. The stuff of soap opera! Remember I did explain how Pluto is the absolute epitome of pure drama, intensified beyond all absurdities.
When a whole series of stuff like that just avalanches into your life over about 2 years, it is very likely a Pluto transit interacting with a) your Natal Chart and b) other major transits to your Natal Chart being amplified by Pluto.
Knowing that Pluto's energy of wisdom ebbs and flows through our spirits, we can learn how directing Pluto's energy into life is somewhat like trying to hold onto a fire hose running full blast. You definitely need HELP to keep it aimed where it can do good not harm.
And that help is your mate. Your Soul Mate.
If you're sitting on a big fire-hose, you need a Wisdom-Heavy Soul Mate to grab onto it behind you and aim YOU at a constructive task.
Well aimed, Pluto does not produce such a list of wild effects as I described above. Instead, it produces one clean, definitive Event from which you learn a new Wisdom, yielding to the lesson and reorganizing yourself around it. That too can make for great story theme and substance.
Pluto is not Love. It's Wisdom.
Love without Wisdom = Disaster.
That's the kind of Disaster that makes fabulous reading!
Below is a link to a blog post I did on Pluto and the generations of young people changing the world.
Those who are attempting to understand Relationships and the phenomenon of the Soul Mate might like to read some of my blog posts based on what I've learned of Tarot and Astrology applied to the field of Romance writing.
You can start with Astrology Just For Writers Part 6 and work your way back through the links in each post. Isabelle Hickey's Pluto/Minerva concept explains a lot especially about sex mixed with violence, bondage, and practices exerting excessive force. Hickey's concepts can provide alternative scenarios especially suited to writing Supernatural Romance and Paranormal Romance.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html
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Meanwhile, I've just finished reading Deborah Macgillivrey's WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING, a Dorchester Romance.
http://deborahmacgillivray.blogspot.com/2009/09/wolf-in-wolfs-clothing-now-in-kindle.html
I think I found her on twitter, and the book sounded right up my alley. I'd read about a third when I asked her the following as a comment on her blog (linked above)
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I'm still reading WOLF. Can you explain why you put the first really hot sex scene at the 1/3 point of the narrative and why it's over 10 pages long with several settings?
Since I keep writing blog posts on writing craft for the Alien Romance blog ( aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com ) questions of structure like this keep coming up.
Is this a Dorchester requirement or a pacing you find works with your readers? (and may I quote you?)
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And she answered:
My characters act and react within their own parameters of who they are. In my second historical, “In Her Bed”, the first sex scene happened early on, simply because the plot opens with the heroine trying to get with child in order to hold onto her fiefs in Medieval Scotland. When and how characters meet, what is driving them, gives each story its own pace. In the first book in the Sisters of Colford Hall™ series, “The Invasion of Falgannon Isle”, Desmond comes to the island with vengeance on his mind. As soon as he arrives, he falls for the magic of the heroine and her quirky island, so their romance dictated the sexual scenes be put off. In “Riding the Thunder” the second book, Jago (Trevelyn’s twin) was in a flux, knowing their seeking vengeance against the sisters was not right. Thus, it pushed the sexual encounters farther back into the book because of his conscience gnawing on him.
When I created Trev, I wanted an arrogant man, used to taking life as he wanted, and little worrying about what happened after. He was a “wolf” in the truest sense. And he wanted Raven. He would not hold back, seeing sex as a way to bind Raven to him. Instead, it bound him to her?something he didn’t count on. Raven was the most vulnerable of the sisters, less willing to take risks. She’d spent so long creating a “Tolkein” faerytale world where she was safe, secure. Her letting go so early in the relationship and allowing Trev into her bed, her life, was her taking that ultimate gamble for something very special.
So, since I am allowed to write the stories as I want, it’s the characters themselves who say how the emotions and the sexual extension of that love occur and when. I love logic. Everything has to fit the logical make up of that character, or it just doesn’t fit. It won’t ring true for the reader.
If you find anything to help you, please feel free to use quotes.
November 2, 2009 4:56 PM
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Now you can see from Deborah Macgillivray's track record that she has gained a readership that Dorchester Love Spell and Zebra Historicals know how to reach and serve. That's why she's "allowed" to write them as she sees them. She has created a market.
She has gained a gut-level understanding of the story that her readers are following, so she just has to follow her nose through her story to turn out a slam-bang perfect of its kind novel (yeah, she's that good).
Then I was thinking about WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING (BTW it's not werewolf, and the paranormal is left gray and equivocal) and the similarity to Sharon Green's first DAW novel series, THE WARRIOR WITHIN. Green does not write that way -- follow-her-nose -- she does it on purpose.
Green took John Norman's Gor novels and (in response to a challenge uttered at a party at an SF convention) turned the Gor novel formula inside out and upside down (a totally unthinkable feat in professional story-telling at that time).
Sharon Green:
on Amazon
John Norman
John Norman on Amazon
Sharon Green took the cave-man, sword-slinging beast-man who rescued and ravished damsels with total disregard for their person-hood, and switched the point of view.
She did it pretty much on a dare (yes, I know Sharon Green and I like her a lot!)
The first novel sold so well, she got to do a whole series, showing how this character, Terrilian, a very strong woman with massive immaturity, learns that her preferences aren't the only ones that matter.
I couldn't put The Terrilian Series down! Really. Those books are as fascinating and absorbing as some of the best fanfic I've ever read, and I had never been able to read the source-material by John Norman.
Sharon Green dealt with teaching this lesson in Relationship to a woman, using the same trope John Norman used, but mirror-imaged.
See comments on my post http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/7-proofing-steps-for-quality-writing.html for comments on trope.
In the 1970's when women were struggling to attain a new identity in mid-life, Sharon's mirror-imaging of the male fantasy founded a blazing career for her.
But if you check the reviews of Terrilian on Amazon, though they are plentiful, there is a segment of the readership that came looking for "Romance" that went away bitterly disappointed.
At the time Sharon invented Terrilian, there was no commercial place for ANY relationship-driven action novels on either side of the Romance/SF divide. That was an absolute. (before the Web and e-books, there really was no place but the author's bottom drawer or fireplace.)
That was the decade when "Warrior" meant "male archetype" and nothing else. The female warrior archetype was literally "unthinkable" and certainly not commercial.
Yet Sharon Green's Terrilian novels, the series called THE WARRIOR SERIES, sold like hotcakes and therefore built a bridge over that divide with a very sophisticated use of the male action trope.
Sharon Green generated a public, popular, Group Mind image of a female warrior and what it means to be a female with warrior traits -- and those warrior traits are on the psychological level more than the physical (though physical courage is not lacking, it's not where the battle is joined).
There is no battle more fierce than the battle against one's own self-image.
As I've said before, there are things about writing that readers don't want or need to know if they simply want to read for the pleasure of reading.
But all writers could wish that most readers knew the difference between a badly written book and a book they simply dislike. I tried to address that issue of "Quality" in my post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/7-proofing-steps-for-quality-writing.html
Despite the scathing reviews juxtaposed against the over-the-top rave reviews for Sharon Green's WARRIOR series, what you have in the Warrior Series is a very HIGH QUALITY piece of work.
Regardless of whether you like the dark story, the brutality mixed with sex, the raw power nature of the sexual component of what later (7 huge novels later) becomes a more emotional and intellectual Relationship, you should be able to see the QUALITY of what Sharon accomplished.
In addition to that Quality, Sharon broke trope without breaking it. She did what Hollywood always demands: something the same but different.
A great deal of what you see on the Romance and Action Romance stands today is based on the breakthrough Sharon Green made with this series.
You can make a fortune if you can master the thinking method used to arrive at the CONCEPT of mirroring the insanely popular male-action trope the Gor books epitomize, and selling the same male action-packed trope to WOMEN who wanted freedom without the price of maturity. That's where we were in the 1970's and even into the 1980's among adult women raised to be subservient to men.
Today, news reports of more violence against women on TV dramas than ever before are bandied about as a horrifying development, not as evidence of women succeeding in becoming Combat Officers in the Army (unthinkable development - there might be a woman in command over men! Can't have that!) Women now FIGHT and even win against men, in combat or board room.
Fiction didn't exactly lead the way, but Sharon Green and other writers who portrayed for the young generation of women a way of thinking, living and feeling that is both feminine and aggressive created a new trope for female-self-image.
Find the next thing that needs changing and invert the trope of that in our fiction.
THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT.
If you're familiar with both WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING and WARRIOR WITHIN, you can follow this contrast-compare more easily but I'll try to make it simple (OK, you can stop laughing now). This is important because it's about "targeting a readership."
Wolf in Wolf's Clothing is written to a generation of women raised to expect themselves to have to mature and remain women.
Warrior Within was written to a generation of women raised to expect themselves to get everything without maturing in order to remain women. (i.e. there WAS no archetype for THE MATURE WOMAN in American culture; we had to invent it. Marion Zimmer Bradley was one of the leaders with her Renunciates of Darkover -- but RENOUNCING protection isn't the key to a woman's maturity. It's only a step.) Think of I LOVE LUCY which I hope you've seen in endless reruns. Lucy portrays the archetype of yore. Wolf in Wolf's Clothing portrays the archetype of the near future, what the 14 year old girls of today will mature into (maybe sans magic; maybe not).
Both attitudes of the female READERSHIP addressed specifically by AUTHORS, (almost two generations apart) -- both attitudes are culturally inculcated. They do not represent Natal Chart personality or any individuality.
What you absorb subconsciously before you are old enough to speak is really hard to edit later in life. (Magical Initiation, Religious Conversion, or a massive Pluto transit as described above can force you to edit your operating system and "recompile" the code.)
That originally absorbed cultural material becomes part of your identity. (look up CULTURE SHOCK and read Alvin Toffler's book FUTURE SHOCK and Edward T. Hall's book THE SILENT LANGUAGE).
http://www.amazon.com/Future-Shock-Alvin-Toffler/dp/0553277375/rereadablebooksr/
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_4_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+silent+language&sprefix=The+Silent
Both of which are products of the 1960's & 1970's culture and give you tremendous insight into what exactly has changed and where the next change of that magnitude is coming from. But these books give you the principles by which civilizations change on the archetypal level, and thus let you do some worldbuilding that readers will believe.
Macgillivrey and Green are both taking a character and "teaching them a lesson." And that lesson breaks their self-image.
Another series that does that with Pluto's huge hammer blows is the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series by Laurell K. Hamilton.
The Pluto-Minerva lesson in Wisdom has to BREAK the person, SHATTER a wall they don't even know is inside them, DESTROY their very identity at its core, in order to penetrate "down" to the layer where the error exists.
We accept anything that resides at that inner level as "Wisdom." Even if it's wrong. Perhaps especially if it's wrong.
The process of rewriting, debugging, recompiling and rebooting that internal Wisdom Operating System isn't likely to happen without a major Pluto transit with all the dark power-symbolism erupting full force. (Pluto transits can work the other way, too, changing correct information into incorrect information - Pluto is not survival-oriented except on the Soul level.) The older you are, the more force Pluto has to bring to bear to create real change.
Once that erroneous information coded into the core being is removed and replaced by new information, the PERSON literally becomes someone else.
What gives them pleasure changes. What gives them grief changes. All the emotional circuitry leading from events in the outside world to the gut-level responses within gets rewired and the resulting behavior in response to stimulus changes.
Ah, but the NATAL CHART does not change!!! This is still the same life lived by the same soul.
But any human observer would say, no, it's NOT THE SAME PERSON.
What is it that can produce this effect?
It's not the standard Saturn Transit that often opens one's eyes, strips away things you depend on, and shatters your ego, challenging your values. Saturn makes great plot material, but this is deeper.
connect what happened when you were 27, with what happened at 28 or 29 -- that's the maturing effect of the first Saturn return. Don't trust anyone over thirty -- is true. It's a gulf you cross to maturity and your responses to input will change.
Macgillivrey and Green are writing about a different kind of transit from the Saturn transit.
The reason that SEXUALITY and VIOLENCE and FORCE and ABSOLUTLY IMPLACABLE determination and total OBSESSION and HORRENDOUSLY COMPLETE CHANGE and even CRIME (Pluto is violent crime), DISEASE AND DEATH,INHERITANCE and HERITAGE are the forces driving both plots is that the transformation these authors are writing about is a PLUTO TRANSIT transformation.
Scorpio. Pluto. Force majeur. The underground. The subconscious.
For more on the symbolism I'm discussing with Pluto see my post on the generation signature by Pluto's Sign
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html
That post is also Targeting a Readership Part Two.
For contrast with Wolf and Warrior, my first award winner, UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER is about a FIRST SATURN RETURN and is driven by all the keywords of Saturn, even the background and worldbuilding is derived from Saturn keywords.
The change that both Macgillivrey and Green were illustrating artistically was a change to the deepest core ASSUMPTIONS (not beliefs) of the main character each was dealing with.
In the early days, Green had to teach a lesson on that level to women.
Today, we feel the need to teach men a lesson.
As currently transiting Pluto enters Capricorn and shifts emphasis and coloration, we are in the mopping up part of the Gender Wars.
I didn't mention in Astrology Just For Writers Part 6 that along with Pluto's entry into Capricorn we also are looking forward to Neptune entering Pisces, it's own sign.
Remember how I made the point that the generation born with Pluto in its own sign (Scorpio) had a greatly emphasized Pluto energy in their personality, the source of what they obssess on and enjoy most, what they're willing to pay for in entertainment? Neptune will become exceptionally prominent like that when it's in Pisces, its own sign.
2011 or maybe 2012 should show us more of how that will work on the general group psyche of current adults, and it'll be a good 15-20 years before we know what the children of that generation with Pluto in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces will go for in entertainment.
But note that as Pluto transited its own sign of Scorpio, we got the MORE-MORE-MORE-VIOLENCE-POWER-IS-EVERYTHING generation of video game players.
Neptune rules Pisces, and as it transits its own sign the keywords connected with Neptune will manifest in our cultural assumptions.
One pervasive effect of Neptune is to convince you that your highest ideal (12th House, Neptune and Pisces are about IDEALS among many other slippery things including entertainment itself) - that your highest Ideal already is a fact.
Saturn is Fact.
Neptune is Ideal.
Pluto is Force.
Uranus is Freedom.
Uranus will simultaneously be entering Aries, ruled by Mars (war; whereas Pluto is the upper octave of Mars which might be seen as nuclear war, supervolcanoes rather than mere volcanoes).
These 3 factors (Pluto in Capricorn, Neptune in Pisces, Uranus in Aries) will persist while Saturn sweeps through Scorpio and Sagittarius and maybe on into Capricorn which Saturn rules).
That is the "atmosphere" we'll be writing our fiction in. People battered by those forces, concerned by those issues, burned out over dilemmas and conundrums (Neptune), fighting with their teenagers over what the teens see as reality, will come seeking LOVE CONQUERS ALL and THE ALL POWERFUL H.E.A.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/snow-dogs-and-happily-ever-after.html
What lessons will the people born with Pluto in Scorpio (1985-1995 or so) need to see worked out in their Art (our novels) as they live through these transits?
What lesson in Relationship, what Wisdom, has to be "beaten" (Pluto) into their "heads" (Aries rules the head).
What do they assume is true (Neptune) which actually might become true if they would "wake up" (Uranus) to themselves (Aries) and accept the Discipline (Saturn) of Wisdom (Minerva-Pluto).
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.jacquelinelichtenberg.com
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