Theme-Conflict Integration Part 2: Battle of Ideas - A Grifter, A Shyster, and A Priest Walk Into A Bar

Theme-Conflict Integration 

Part 2: Battle of Ideas

A Grifter, A Shyster, and A Priest Walk Into A Bar

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Part 1 - about J. J. Abrams and sexism is here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-conflict-integration-part-1.html

Last week we discussed Theme-Marketing Integration, and this week we'll look at a particular best selling writer's recent novel for examples about how Theme and Marketing can be Integrated using Theme-Conflict Integration.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/05/theme-marketing-integration-part-1-star.html

So what if the "Bar" that the Grifter, the Shyster, and the Priest walk into doesn't serve liquor, but justice? What if the Bar is the Court of Law?  Or perhaps, the Bar is an Alien  Court of Law?

Art is an selective depiction of reality.

That selectivity is best illustrated by the cartoonist's art.

Here's an example from Dick Morris Reports back in January, 2016 when Trump and Cruz went at each other on stage at the Fox Business Republican Debate.

         

Note the YELLOW hair - strokes vaguely evocative of Trump's haircut.

Note the nose-to-nose post, squashing both (in reality different) noses flat against each other.

Note the bloodshot eyeballs shooting out of their heads.  Conflict is "eyeball to eyeball" in modern parlance, but it is not meant literally.  Here in this selective recreation of reality, you see it literally.

Note the boxing gloves, posed fist to fist -- the suggestion is of a "hit" but each hitting the other on the very well armored protection of the glove.  "The Gloves Come Off" is a metaphor for bloody fighting, fighting for real, not prize-fighting.

Note how this selective graphic representation somehow conjures "reality" in your mind's eye. That is exactly what writers do when "hooking" you into a novel.  That is a graphic representation of how to create an  opening paragraph. It is also an entire essay on how to create a book cover.

Remember the line, used politically earlier than January, "this is not a cage-match."  Meaning, it's not for real. Nobody's whole life is in danger. It's just a game played until the winner gets a prize -- it is not a grudge-match, it is a Game.

Politics is called, "The Game Of Politics."  Internationally, The Great Game - where politicians use spies to maneuver nations into a Hobson's Choice, or Prisoner's Dilemma.

It is not called the "Literature of Ideas."  Nor is politics termed, "A Meeting Of Minds."  It is a Game.

So who are the "players" of this Game?

Maybe it is "Politicians" vs. "Voters?"

And what is the name of the Game?

The Protection Racket?  The Confidence Racket (or Con Man)?  Snakeoil Salesman? Scammer? Phishing?

Note the title of this piece -- A Grifter, A Shyster, A Priest.  These are three Attributes that are  components of every living person.

We all know what a grifter is from watching the TV Series Leverage.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Nigerian-Job/dp/B001N4RAEQ/

"Shyster" is a derogatory term for lawyer, or sometimes any businessman who relies on deception or fraud.

"Priest" here means your Inner Priest, your conscience, spiritual sensitivity, sense of right and wrong, of fair and just. That Inner Priest configures your personal individual identity by patching together the crazy-quilt of beliefs, rules of thumb, maxims, old wive's tales, and cliches by which you live your life and make major spur of the moment decisions.

So grifters and shysters pretend to be something they are not.  Do writers do that?  Do writers have to do that?  Is all back cover copy fraudulent? Does being in the business of self-publishing make you a shyster?  After all, you're selling the "snake oil" of the Happily Ever After Ending.  Are writers all con artists?

What exactly is a Con Artist?

Most people probably think that all politicians are con artists, except the one oddball who seems trustworthy.  Many bar fights start from disagreements over which politician is trustworthy.

Here's an article that explains what an app detected in voice analysis of Presidential candidates:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/beyond-verbal_n_3378784.html

And here's another article that explains the same thing from a different perspective.  Compare these two articles and any others you find about this app, and reconstruct - as an archeologist does - the original press release.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/01/16/new-study-reveals-which-presidential-hopeful-is-the-low-stress-candidate/

Both articles seem to be made from the same press release, a publicity barrage that has to have had immense amounts of money behind it, yes, but also a marketing genius leveraging the USA political calendar (these articles appeared deep into January, right before the Iowa Causes.)

The company was trying to sell you an app.  And they went on a campaign to trick you into wanting it by tying it to the headlines of the day - the most popular and riveting spectator sport of January - the Presidential Primary Season. (just like Basketball Season or Deer Season.)

When you see articles announcing something like this app product -- not paid ads, but ARTICLES that might as well be paid ads, that sell you on wanting something better than a paid ad could sell you -- you are looking at marketing.  It is a whole profession, usually incompatible with the skills of a writer. Today, we conflate News with Publicity.

Each newspaper or magazine editor requires the writers to take these topical press releases and craft an article "slanted" toward their special readership's interest. So each article is ostensibly about something different -- but the core content is the press release.

Fiction writing skills let you take a press release and craft a newspaper or magazine article from that release.

In writing fiction,  you learn to take a huge mass of data (your story Idea) and re-arrange it into a straight-line (plot) that will interest (story) your particular target readership.

Writing such a release is an entirely different profession.

Today's self-publishing novelists need to master both skill sets because "publishing" means PUBLICITY, or press-release.  Getting widely distributed "news" sources to focus their readers' attention on your novel is very hard.

Writing an article from a press release is very similar to writing an advertisement, or 'cover blurb' from a press release.  Both craft skills require sorting through a jumble of facts to "bring to the surface" or emphasize certain "selected traits" (like the blond hair in the cartoon above) to "characterize" the novel.

You characterize a novel as belonging to a particular genre, appealing to a specific reader.

You selectively recreate the reality of what is in the novel, drawing a caricature, a cartoon, of the novel itself.

And like the two articles linked above, each depicting a larger reality, you take your own "larger reality" of the novel you have written, and whack-and-whittle it down by selecting TRAITS (like the trademarked "hair") and leaving out all the rest.

It is what you leave out that (for you) was the whole point of writing the novel to begin with. In fact, that most important part or point is often edited out before publication by a major house.

You can learn a lot about what to  "select" for your cartoon representation of your novel, and what to leave to the imagination, by studying the Battle Of Politicians and the Race For The White House (will they ever paint it another color?).

What you learn has to do with not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Just like that cartoon does not "tell the truth," and just like the two articles about an app being publicized do not "tell the truth" about the app.

You 'select' the traits of your novel that connect  best to your target audience.  Thus, since Trump's hair was the subject of so much attention at first, his trademark became his hair-transplant comb-over style.

So look at your Theme, state your theme a number of different ways until you hit on vocabulary and imagery that "depicts" the topic the readership has been most deeply involved in lately. In other words, rip your theme from the headlines.  Make your THEME recognizable to your target audience, so book browsers see it and say, "I love that kind of book."

The Conflicting elements have to be depicted in your blurb, too.

Note in the cartoon how the eyes pop -- I mean, really!  I wouldn't believe that image of Aliens -- but one non-verbal glance and you know what that popping eyeballs image means, even if you miss the gloves.

Donald Trump's college degree is in Business, not Law.

Cruz made a neat point of that by saying he wouldn't take legal advice from Trump.  But we all know that Trump got the advice he's spouting at Cruz from his own Lawyers.  Lawyers get to know Presidential candidates in hopes of a Supreme Court appointment in the future.

So the "conflict" in that cartoon is "lawyers vs. lawyers." The lawyers are using the politicians to fight a "proxy war."

Lawyers are famous for a) picking fights (as in divorces that would have been amicable if not for the lawyers getting involved) and b) backing people into a corner so they will "settle" whatever lawsuit.

Lawyers are also famous for charging a lot of money -- but nothing like what Publicists charge.  Lawyers, though, being lawyers seem to get to keep a bigger chunk of the fees paid.

Under current law in the USA, it is virtually legal for lawyers to behave like grifters.  To become a rich grifter, get a law degree.

What do lawyers do that is patterned on what grifters do (or is it vice-versa?).

If you've won the lottery or been in a traffic accident, a building collapse, or sold a product that some odd individual got injured using, you will find yourself surrounded three deep by Lawyers looking to "protect" you - trying to scare you with visions of people attacking you or denying you justice.  Lawyers will promise you, as the erstwhile victim, not only their protection but a windfall profit, a huge sum of money for doing nothing but "suffering."

A majority of Lawyers don't behave that way.  The small segment of that population that does "ambulance chase" and victimize the victims, are often called shysters, though not all shysters are actually lawyers.

The Idea that Grifters and Shysters have something in common is like Trump's hair - a vivid item that can be extracted from a confusing mass of information and used to depict something that a lot of people remember.

But it is an abstract Idea.

So the title of this piece is A Grifter, A Shyster and A Priest.

The "Priest" is a symbol for a person who is steeped in ideas, motivated by the abstract, and very selective about objectives.

The Grifter and the Shyster operate via emotion.  They get their mark or their client to do something the mark/client would see as self-destructive if not for the emotion aroused.

The Grifter and the Shyster play on emotion, and they both choose the emotion they evoke in their target.

The Grifter arouses Greed.

It is always said, and I've found it to be true, that if you have no Greed in your soul, you can not be fleeced by a con man.  If the price is "too good to be true" - it is not the price you will pay.   Everyone knows that intellectually (the Priest Within You told you that).  Don't fall for a bargain - because it is not a bargain.

So when Politicians offer you something for nothing -- or point to someone else they will trick into paying so you can get something -- you only fall for the trick if your Greed is in charge of your opinions.

The Shyster arouses Fear.

It is always said that you have nothing to fear but fear itself -- and that is such a truth that all your readers know it.  When you're afraid, you twitch and jerk around in ill-coordinated actions that are more self-destructive than self-protective.

So when Politicians offer to allay your fears, to deal with what threatens you, to protect you from ( big bad corporations; alien invaders; your neighbor who owns a gun) you only fall for the trick if you are afraid.

When you are afraid, the Priest Withing You who is more focused on Ideas, Intellect, principles of faith, can't shout loudly enough to be heard.  Fear is a brain-noise that will always take charge of your actions.

So a theme can be expressed (cartoon depiction of your novel for a back cover blurb) as "The Masses Can Be Manipulated."

"The Masses" would refer to the old political theory that most people are illiterate, stupid, and behave like a herd of sheep,  or cattle.  The Leaders can easily trick the Masses into doing whatever the Leader wants simply by arousing certain emotions.

Romance novels turn on a variation of this. Everyone wants to be loved, so the declaration, "I love you" changes everything.

There is such a thing as a Greed For Love - someone so desperately hungry to be loved that they believe the grifter's offer, "I'll marry you and cherish and protect you forever if you'll just have sex with me now."  You can translate that dialog dynamic into Politics very easily if you see electing someone as handing them a blank check to your bank account.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/15/maria-konnikova-interview-new-book-the-confidence-game-review-scams

The Grifter can use Greed for any missing emotion to manipulate the unsuspecting into self-destructive behavior.  Some people have Greed for Power -- offer them Power without a price-tag (like discipline and responsibility) and the mark will do anything.  Remember Spiderman -- with great power comes great responsibility.  Well, what if it didn't?  What if great power could be had without responsibility?  Then you have the novel about the ne'er-do-well Scion of a Great House who gambles away his inheritance and goes into debt.

To integrate a theme such as "The Masses Can Be Manipulated" you can define the conflict as Leader vs Follower.

Take the famous maxim, "A Sucker Is Born Every Day."  That's a theme.  What if humanity meets up with Aliens who don't bear suckers every day?

Or reverse that - and what if humanity were not producing a new sucker every day, but aliens at war out in the galaxy are?

Jean Johnson's prequel to her famous series Theirs Not To Reason Why is called The First Salik War, and Book 1 is titled The Terrans.  Book 2, The V'Dan is now available.

Here's my discussion of The Terrans:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/11/reviews-20-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

And here's where to get The V'Dan
http://www.amazon.com/VDan-First-Salik-War/dp/0425276937/

It's a First Contact novel with leading Characters, an Alien Prince in a psychic/sexual bond with a human woman who is a Politician, a Prisoner's Dilemma maneuver, and clash of notions of what constitutes Honorable Behavior.

On Jean Johnson's future Earth, humans have finally come to their senses and eliminated discrimination by skin color, elevated honesty in Politics to a level where failure to be honorable and truthful means corporal punishment by public caning, and utter physical humiliation.

In other words, fear keeps power-lust in check for law makers and especially law-enforcers and military commanders (this book introduces a Caning law previously applied only to police to be used to hold military commanders and new recruits in check). Every morning, each government official has to recite an Oath to be Honorable.  It's long, complicated, abstract, and the repeated recitation has a similar effect that prayer does. It is designed to engrave on the psyche that when you act in the name of others, you are responsible for the consequences.

Greed is controlled by Fear.

The expected signature behavior that proves Greed (for power, money, sex, anything) is in complete check by fear of Caning is Honorable Behavior.

"Honorable Behavior" is presented, in this series, as a set of rules that is objectively true, as clear and precisely determined as any scientific fact.

For most readers, the word "Honorable" means something hard, absolute, easily understood and recognized in the behavior of others.

Blake Snyder illustrates the core-value shared across the USA as "honorable behavior" as "save the cat" (take a personal risk to save the helpless).  Compare the thinking behind Snyder's image of "saving a cat" to the thinking behind that Trump/Cruz cartoon.

The thing is, in the USA today, we do not share a common creed of Honorable Behavior.

What is honorable to one (murdering a daughter who refuses to dress correctly, thus insults her parents and dishonors them) is considered death-penalty-material to others.

The difference between an illegal alien and a drug smuggler is that while they might both promise to sell you heroin, the drug smuggler will deliver.  Which one is the Honorable one?

Generation to generation the definition of what behavior is Honorable changes.

For example, in the early twentieth century, an apology was considered false and worthless if given in response to a demand for an apology.  In the 19th century, if someone uttered an insult about another person, ("You're a Horse Thief!" or "You Cheated At Cards!") the insulted had the right to deck the insulter (or shoot him dead).

In the 21st century everyone takes offense at any statement (true or not) and demands an apology, which, when choked out bitterly is still regarded as valid, and the matter as settled.  There was a time when the statement of a truth could never be considered an insult, however rude it might be.

In fact, this "I'm offended, so you must apologize even if you didn't think you did anything wrong" attitude now governs international affairs.

Heads of State demand apologies from other Heads of State -- not individual to individual, but whole countries to whole countries, involving people who never knew anything about it and have no idea what is true in  the matter.

Jean Johnson, in The V'Dan, has noticed this rise of a new custom regarding insults and apologies.

Johnson has shown (not told) how the "I demand an Apology because I feel offended and therefore you must act to assuage my feelings, never mind how you feel, only my feelings count..." attitude can be used by an Interstellar Ambassador from Earth to illustrate Earth's superior Morality.

Because Earth's Inner Priest's sense of Honorable Behavior is so superior, the lead character is Honor Bound to force Earth's behavior norms down the throats of aliens during First Contact negotiations.

All of this is rationalized by the fact that the Aliens are treating the Earth humans as if they were children, not adults -- not allowed to spend large sums of money to buy supplies for the Earth Embassy building, not allowed to buy liquor, not allowed to drive.

It is a genuine First Contact issue (and absolutely hilarious to read).  But the reason the issue is an emergency to be taken up immediately with the Alien head of state is that these Aliens keep insulting the humans by treating them as children.  Other human groups might consider the Aliens' penchant for protecting children to be a sign the Aliens are kind, considerate and honorable.

Johnson's Earth humans take offense, and because they feel offended, are honor bound to force the Aliens to apologize and adopt Earth's then-current human standards.  This novel series is full of such absolutely gorgeous work.

The way Johnson depicts interstellar politics plays into the current USA fear of being irretrievably emotionally damaged by the words of others.  It is, from this, very clear why Johnson is a national best selling author.

To the target audience for this novel, mere words are an existential threat that must be countered by wielding force majeure.  An insult flung can cause a mortal wound.

The V'Dan depicts with searing accuracy how the reader's Earth currently manages international affairs.  And this novel portends, just as our current election-cycle portends, that change is seething below the surface, about to erupt perhaps violently.

The enemy in the interstellar war of Johnson's series is a species that eats Alien sentients. The tastiest type of food they know is the flesh of sentients of species other than themselves (though I believe they do eat each other).  It doesn't matter how alien the body chemistry is, these Salik will eat anything sentient.  The Salik are Greed Personified.

The V'Dan are humans whose ancestors left earth almost 10,000 years ago, and colonized a planet (now a lot of planets) so far away from Earth the region has not been explored by Earth's budding interstellar united planets.  Somehow, many earth plants and animals were carried with the humans who eventually colonized a planet and became The V'Dan.

The V'Dan have many non-human allies in the fight against Greed Personified, the Salik. But that coalition is losing the fight against the Salik, and they know it.  They are Afraid.

So, Jean Johnson, a very well known National Best Selling author, has crafted theme and conflict around Greed, Fear, and The Priest Within.  It's a beautiful mix of carefully selected attributes, brought to the fore just like Trump's hair and the popping eyeballs.

That's what Best Selling Writers do!  Dissect any Best Seller, and you will find a pattern just like this -- something that reflects what is the most prominent Theme in the headlines divided up into recognizable adversaries who naturally conflict.  Personification and Dramatization are subsidiary techniques. Ripping theme from the headlines is the primary requirement.

The conflict is the exact conflict inside all of us -- the Grifter's Mark who believes in something for nothing; the Shyster's client who sees something to be afraid of, and The Inner Priest who knows "the right thing to do" but is not in charge.

The basic human animal will be emotion-driven, though the human spirit reaches for the ineffable.

Our current civilization has surrendered to the animal nature of humanity.  We see that in the rise and sustained popularity of Romance novel plots turning on the absolute irresistibility of sexual urges.  The V'dan and its prequel The Terrans, turns on the formation of the psychic bonded pair that will literally die (both of them) if denied sexual intimacy. Star Trek did something similar with Pon Farr, but Star Trek got that from much older science fiction works.

That inner dichotomy between the animal body and human spirit can easily be roused into Conflict.

All audiences recognize the Greed & Fear vs. Voice of Reason or Righteousness.

Look again at that cartoon.  Why do you understand what it says?

Yes, people will disagree about what it means, but everyone can see what it says.

That's what Jean Johnson accomplishes to earn the appellation, "Best Selling" writer.

Now, go watch the Politicians hurl insults at each other and demand apologies as if they are in the grip of Greed for Power and Fear of Humiliation.

Remember your early childhood. Did you ever lust after enough power to make your parents stop preventing you from doing what you wanted to do?  "When I grow up, I'm going to stay up all night!"

Greed for Power (especially over your own life and destiny) is absolutely basic to the human animal.

Now think back to your childhood, and remember how you eventually learned to refrain from some action, "...Mommy won't let!" you would tell  your friends luring you into misbehaving (then you'd probably do it anyway, then lie about it).

Eventually, you learned to do it anyway, lie about it, and not get  caught in the lie.

And beyond that,  you learned it's really better not to do that anyway because it's counter productive.

The different self-perceptions of Child vs. Adult is the pivot upon which the novel The V'Dan turns.  Just how insulting is it to  you to be treated as a child? Then why do you treat your children that way?  Does truth have anything to do with it?

Only with many decades under your belt do you arrive at "mature" considerations.  You no longer lunge greedily after the proverbial Free Lunch -- because you've learned the price.  Therefore, you have nothing to lie about.

To arrive at a life-stage where you're not greedy because you have all you need, not fearful because the worst has happened ( bankruptcy, divorce, being fired, whatever) and you handled it, you have the luxury of listening to what that Inner Priest has to say about right and wrong, truth and lies.

With enough years and enough experiences, we all turn into Gandalf or Yoda -- serene, confident, wise, having resolved that conflict between Greed, Fear and the Inner Priest.

When someone slings insults at such a Gandalf/Yoda Figure, that Figure is not insulted.  Such a Figure is not insulted by being treated as a child. Knowing that what comes out of a person's mouth says more about the speaker than about the topic being spoken of, the Figure does a kind of Emotional Judo.

Judo is based on the physics of using the opponent's strength and momentum to defeat the opponent. Many techniques of Judo and Karate are based on just not-being where the blow lands.

That's not a technique of "dodging" a blow.  It's a matter of letting the force the opponent emits expend itself on the opponent, not on you.

That's what the mature learn about insults. Let the insulter hoist himself on his own petard and hang there in humiliation.

Demanding an apology is an admission that the blow landed on its target -- it is an admission of guilt.

Demanding an apology often seems childish, petulant, an admission of weakness before the superiority of the insulter.

In emotional judo, the target flows aside and lets the force of the insult boomerang onto the insulter.

Look again at this article about stress level measurements in Presidential Candidates voices:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/01/16/new-study-reveals-which-presidential-hopeful-is-the-low-stress-candidate/

The article notes that the only candidate they measured whose voice rarely shows the kind of emotional stress (expected of Greed or Fear or lying) is Donald Trump.  He's gotten more insults and death-threats than most of the rest combined by now.  He sometimes offhandedly mentions that someone should apologize, but he rarely "demands" apologies except where appropriate.  His attitude toward apologies seems to be that they are good for the soul, so do it for your own sake.  If not, no skin off my nose. (note the nose-to-nose posture in that cartoon.)

He's old enough to know those who attempt to destroy will destroy themselves if you just stay out of the way.  For that matter, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (and Biden and Bloomberg) are old enough to have arrived at that maturity.

Perhaps this article's observation of relative voice stress indicates what the pundits have missed in analyzing Donald Trump's initial, wild popularity. They have assumed the voters are "angry" (anger is most often the emotional response of the coward to feeling fear, so calling voters "angry" is an insult).  Maybe they were wrong?

The pundits have assumed the voters are  "the masses" (sheep, followers, herd animals), instead of individuals. When panicked, the masses, the voters, stampede after a "bell-weather" or leader.

The pundits identify Trump as the leader.  The voters are just blindly following this leader out of simple minded anger.

The article shows, somewhat scientifically, that Trump's trumpeting is not stoked by anger.

He's the calm one.

Voters chose him as the best in the field (OK,  not necessarily any good, just the best of the lot, until he disqualifies himself) because he's not afraid and he's not lying.  What he says may not be true or factual, but he believes it sincerely.

He's not stressed when he says he can handle all the President's problems. (Little Does He Know!)

He is confident and relaxed, not running in fear or greed for power. He's not a "Leader" -- he's not greedy for power or fearing he'll lose. He's a goal-oriented achiever, not caring if anyone follows him.  He just goes and does his projects. He doesn't need followers.  He hires specialists.  He's undaunted, calm, confident because of his life experience, and he (unlike the other candidates who have this trait) lets it show. And that's why he's popular --  you can hear it in his voice in person. He's not stressed.

Study Trump's antics on stage, especially his epic "equal opportunity insulter" tactics, and try modeling your Leader/Hero Character after him and see what you get.  Understand the insult as a social instrument by reading a lot of Regency Romances written thirty years ago (mostly free on Kindle). Drawing Room insults are an artform well worth reviving in the interstellar era.

Such a novel won't work in today's market, as Jean Johnson well knows.  She's a best seller because she does  not use Trump as a model.  Such a Character would not be plausible to her target readership. Trump is a salesman, a marketer, a branding master.  His target audience responds to him, just exactly the way you want your target audience to respond to your Romance Novels.  So study him.

The lesson about non-stressed, confident Voices prevailing over anger, greed, fear and panic is the core theme used by Gordon R. Dickson in his long, exemplary, much celebrated best selling series, The Dorsai.

http://www.amazon.com/Dorsai-Childe-Cycle-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00GS9FLJM/

Confidence backed by real strength is a military tactic -- great strength, used properly, never comes to blows. Wars are won by maneuvers, by what the adversary knows you can do, not explosions. Destruction is counter-productive.  The Romans learned that and coined the term Pyrrhic Victory.

Combine Gordon R. Dickson with Keith Laumer's Retief novels, ..
http://www.amazon.com/Envoy-New-Worlds-Retief-Book-ebook/dp/B00NWJ7446

...about professional diplomat Retief engaged in official interstellar diplomacy, much like Jean Johnson's characters but far more effectively, and find a Theme and a Conflict you can Integrate into a Best Selling Series.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 25: Assassin's Creed --- Underworld by Oliver Bowden

Reviews 25
by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Assassin's Creed -- Underworld
by
Oliver Bowden

First an announcement about a FanFic documentary airing in France.
-------------
A few months ago, the producer of a documentary contracted by the French version of PBS (France 4 TV) came to my house from France and video'd about 3 hours of me explaining fanfic. Two short clips of that made it into the final video which will air April 13, 2016 (or thereafter Events permitting). It will be dubbed into French, but I got a version with me talking in subtitles -- seriously cool, Career First!

--------------------
Now we come to a touchy subject, especially as a component of Romance: Violence and Weapons.  

In Assassin's Creed -- Underworld, Oliver Bowden has depicted a Relationship between two Assassins, where the fight-scenes and "blooding" (killing humans) ARE the Romance.



Oddly, and gorgeously, and miraculously, this book, Underworld, reads like a Heroic Novel, a novel of courage, determination, righteous choices, upholding social law and order.

Yes it is about "Assassins" -- (who kill) -- but it is based on the Game Assassin's Creed.  It's about following an Oath, making the free will choice every day to do the "right" thing according to that Oath.

After all the training a young child goes through to become an Assassin (training imposed before the age of choice) the adult Assassin has a great deal of "power" -- naked, with no weapons, such a person can escape and kill any captor.

As with the old TV Show Kung Fu
http://amazon.com/King-Of-The-Mountain/dp/B015K531YQ/

...or with Spiderman or most of today's Superheros, with Power comes great responsibility.

As I noted above, the Romance is coded into the fight scenes. It is not hot.  It is not steamy. It is barely recognizable as sexual attraction.  It is seen from the male point of view as a young woman master's the Assassin's trade.  He falls for her big time.  She falls for him big time.  He's not sure she has and we don't know really what she's thinking.  In the end, he proposes.

I wouldn't even call this book an Action Romance. I don't think it earns the title of Love Story.

It is an odd book -- perfectly comprehensible out of context of the Game and other books, yet not "like" any of the usual novels that carry the title Romance.

Yet it delivers a huge Romance punch at the end.  It sneaks up on you. It blindsides you.

The external conflict dominates the entire scene, and totally occupies the Characters.  There is no searching for true happiness or yearning for a Soul Mate.  There is this horrendous conflict against impossible odds, a conflict being handed down from generation to generation.

The Opponents of the Assassins is an organization gripping London in a stranglehold.  They are called the "Templars."  But they are not like the Historical Templars who were an order of Monks who dedicated themselves to martial arts and led many Crusades.

These Templars are after Ancient, magical artifacts that will give them (and nobody else) powers such as Eternal Life.  They want to Rule, and Control the behavior of others.

The Assassins, on the other hand, seem more or less amenable to letting people choose their own life paths.  The point of view Characters are looking at everything from the Assassin's perspective.

Neither Templars nor Assassins abjure Violence.  Both train in the use of weapons -- bladed and other sorts.

Underworld is the 8th Assassin's Creed novel by Oliver Bowden.  I had not read the previous 7 novels, and I haven't played Assassin's Creed -- but this novel read out of context made perfect sense to me.  The sense might be different in context, but I recommend this novel.

I particularly liked that there were not too many fight-scenes, and those that are included move the plot forward without wasting words.  This book is an example of excellent writing craftsmanship.

Violence, per se, is not "glorified" (as the Klingons would have it) or seen as a convenient way to solve problems caused by people not behaving the way you want them to (as the 2010-2015 TV Series Justified depicts violence).

http://amazon.com/Fixer/dp/B003ESFISY/

On the #scifichat on Twitter, we were kicking around another Science Fiction Subject and someone asked what the Relationship between Sex and Violence was.  I gave my Tweet-sized Answer: Pluto, 8th House, Scorpio.

I've covered that extensively on this writing craft blog, both in the Tarot series of 20 posts (and the books compiled from them with added material) -- and in the posts on Astrology.

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html  Index to Pentacles

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html  Index to Astrology posts.

The linchpin between "sex" (usually defined as an act of Love - a gentle and joyful bit of generosity) and "violence" (usually defined as an act of aggression, theft, overpowering, where the "joy" lies in the "taking" not in the "giving") is in one word, Pluto.

That "planet" is considered, in Astrology, the upper octave of Mars.

What does "upper octave" mean in that context?  It means it has the same general character, but has more energy.  Pluto magnifies.

You may write a sweet, cozy Romance with lots of once-in-a-lifetime Events, some heroic life-saving action, and melting hearts.  That's Neptune creating what many readers see as implausible.

On Television, we see "life" depicted as a series of implausible, rare, but horrendous Events happening not just to one person, but to everyone that person knows -- Life is depicted as immense hammer blow after grandiose hope for True Romance, to dashed and shattered destruction of all hope, to glorious moments of peak joy, shattered by another hammer blow.  That's Soap Opera.

Both Romance and Soap are considered implausible life patterns by those who have not lived through such a series of Events.  But Ancient Wisdom informs us that such patterns generally come in threes.

In Astrology, we see that planets that "go retrograde" (an optical illusion from Earth) can pass over a particular point in the Zodiac three times.

In Astrology, Pluto signifies the ebb and flow of Power between Self and Other.

Pluto is the ruler of the Natural 8th House - other people's values, other people's money, other people's property, or in general other people's resources.

The Second House  (Natural Second House is Taurus, ruled by Venus) signifies your personal Values, Money, etc. Opposite it on the wheel of 12 is Other People's Values, Money etc.

The adage is that Money is Power.  Or that Power can be Monetized.

Venus and Pluto are the same, but different.  They are opposites, yet can't do without each other.

Quick thumbnail definitions: First House is your Self.  In the "Natural" chart (not a person's natal chart which is a snapshot of the heavens at time and place of birth) the First House is Ares, ruled by Mars, male sexuality (yes, even for women). The Second House is Taurus ruled by Venus (yes, even for men).

When your values interact with the values of Others (parents, siblings, classmates, fellow workers, society in general), you change, or the Other changes, or most likely both change.

Sound familiar?  Romance is all about the forming of Couples wherein each individual CHANGES -- is transformed -- one out of two, bonded.  Two hearts beat as one.

Neptune (Romance) changes by dissolving barriers between people, but Pluto transforms by churning and winnowing the depths of Identity.

Transformation is what happens when you marry and form a Household.  There is no more "yours" vs. "mine" as when you are just living together.  Suddenly, everything is "ours."  "Ours" is 8th House/2nd House resolution of tension by establishing a steady-state balance.

And that describes the sex act, too.  Think about how that goes.  There is you.  There is me.  There is giving. There is recieving. And then, if it all works right, there is SHARING a moment of divine glory.

So where's the supremecy, the violence, the TAKING despite the OBJECTIONS?

When sex works well, there is no savage dominance leaving the Other diminised or victimized.

But to be honest, sex doesn't always work all that well.

Nor does Society work all that well all the time.  The blending of "yours" and "mine" into "ours" (e.g. taxes) does not always work so smoothly.

When the balanced harmony of a transaction between opposites is disrupted, the human animal slips out of its spiritual harness and behaves like any other animal on this planet -- dominating all others in order to achieve the ascendency of me and mine at the center of things.

Reasserting that Harmony does not usually work until after an explosion of violence.

Pluto's slow-slow transits (it takes 247 odd Earth years for Pluto to complete one orbit of the Sun) can be viewed as slowly increasing potential energy, and then releasing that energy either all at once (in violence) or a little at a time (in passionate, sweaty sex).

Sex (not love; sex) and violence can be viewed as two manifestations of the same thing -- the human will to LIVE.  (or at least to not be killed).

We want to survive, and if that means someone else has to die, then so be it, however much sad regret that may bring.  Being alive to be sad is better than being dead.

So human society, since Cain and Abel, has been rooted in the dynamic of "If it's you or me, then it's you who dies."

That's the either/or choice inherent in the confrontation of opposites -- depicting the world and life as a zero-sum-game.

The Astrological Natal Chart  is depicted as a circle divided into 12 compartments, slices, or "Houses."  Each House that represents something inside you has an exact opposite that represents the same thing in your outside world.

This very Ancient paradigm is the root of the "story/plot" structure of the modern novel, Screenplay, TV Series, and now Video-games.

In fiction, we look to depict, reflect or mirror "reality" well enough for the reader to believe our Characters are real, so the reader can feel the emotions the Characters are going through.

One of the salient aspects of reality we use in storytelling is that division into "inside me" vs. "outside me" -- the inner dialogue your Character is thinking as they assess the Lover's intentions, and the outer actions the Lover takes.

The internal conflict generates the external conflict for your Character.

Now most people don't go through real life aware that what is happening in their life is actually caused by or governed by their subconscious emotional state.

In fact, most people strenuously resist noticing any hint of a connection between what is inside them and what other people do to them (violent or otherwise).

But likewise most of your readers do know people who sabotage their own lives, "You are your own worst enemy."  -- and they know people who win one occasionally by "following your heart."

So there is both a treasuring of our private inner life, and a determination to be the conqueror in our outer-life.

In other words, your market, our current social culture, is bound and determined to solve the problem of their inner pain by controlling other people and the world outside themselves.

Many Ancient Wisdom theories indicate the Happily Ever After "ending" can not be achieved without recognizing some connection between one's inner pain/joy and the happenstances of external life (working for a nasty boss, losing your driver's license for too many "accidents," serial marriages to different versions of the same man.)

 

So, to avoid changing our minds, to avoid recognizing the relationship between our inner emotions and the Events that beset us in the outside world, we have a new social norm codified as "don't blame the victim."

That lesson is hammered home so hard that it has become unthinkable to examine one's own inner Self for the origin of Events that happen TO the Self.

Keep in mind as you read novels published long-long ago, that we came out of a culture that always and only blamed the victim and never blamed the victimizer.  Always-and-only one way vs always-and-only the other is not how Astrology depicts human life.

Ancient Wisdom says don't point your finger outward at the miscreant you just noticed messing up your life.  Point that finger inward at your own heart when looking to finger the "blame."

That Ancient Wisdom has been discarded, with an absolute, adamant, intensity. It has been stomped out of existence with violent, grim, very Pluto-style, war against anything Ancient.  Victims are always innocent by definition.

Read older novels, and you will why we have stomped out the idea that the victim is ever complicit in crimes that target them.

We have gone from one extreme to the other, and may soon turn back and head for blaming only the victim.

This issue -- victim vs. perpetrator -- is one of the core themes of Assassin's Creed: Underworld by Oliver Bowden.

These Assassins defend the innocent, whether the innocent are victims or not.  These Assassins don't victimize the guilty - they vanquish them.

In the novel Assassins Creed: Underworld, Oliver Bowden shows us with the bare hint of a sketch how the things that happen to these Characters originate within the Character or the Character's ancestor.  This illustrates how you are what you were "raised to be." You had no choice in the matter.

This works with the theory that children are blank slates, clay to be molded by their parents.  But clay has characteristics that can't be changed by molding -- thus we have an Assassin who can't find it in himself to kill in cold blood.  By this internal resistance to the role he was raised to fill, this Character confronts an inner misery all too familiar to the modern reader.

There is a resonance with the reader because the thematic statement  in UNDERWORLD is clear -- you don't have a choice.  You are what you were taught to be, what you were raised and trained to be -- you are the helpless victim of your parents and teachers.

Therefore, nothing that happens TO you is your "fault."  You are a victim and all you can do is make the best of a bad situation.   You have been shaped by Others -- you can't help it, so don't try.

And there's a corollary to this.  The things you believe or the things you do because of what you believe are not your "fault" or "responsibility" either.

The theme in UNDERWORLD is that you, the reader, are a misfit, miserable in life through no choice of your own.

The reader can wallow in the Assassin's Creed world and come away feeling the weight of personal guilt lifted.  You don't ever have to point that accusatory finger at your own heart.  All your misery is someone else's doing.

In 2015 we saw a court case of a Teen drunk driver let out on probation despite having killed "innocent victims" with his car -- because he's a "victim" of "affluenza" (being too rich).  In April, 2016, he was sentenced to 2 years in jail.

But he was let out in 2015 because, being rich is proof positive that you are Evil beyond the pale and must be robbed until you have the same amount of money as everybody else, or you'll drive drunk.

The theory is that given Power (money, guns, land ownership, any rights not regulated by government) - any human being's humanity will cause them to behave in an asocial manner.

There is an inner need to control the behavior of Others.

When we accept the child's view that all misery comes from outside, (parents deprive us of ice cream before dinner, curtail playtime to force us to read books), our whole problem-solving attention is riveted on "controlling" the behavior of others, especially those who have what we do not have.

Whether either quote in the image above is really a quote from the named people in that image, the writer in you should be finding how Love can Conquer that particular All.

This need to control others, or to appoint a third party to control "them" for you is currently highlighted in the arguments over what the proper role of government in the electronic age must be.

In UNDERWORLD, the Templars represent "government" (that seeks total power over citizens) and the Assassins represent personal freedom under self-control, kept orderly by pledging to uphold a Creed.  Assassins are fighting (and murdering) to "free" London from control of the Templars.

Of course, London has a government in place -- but the Templars have "infiltrated" it and control that government without the knowledge of the people.  If you've been paying attention to politics recently, that paradigm must sound familiar.  UNDERWORLD puts our headline conflicts as a nation into an oddball setting, giving us a look at ourselves from another perspective -- that is an attribute that makes for best sellers, and for classics.

UNDERWORLD is just one book in a huge, sprawling and complex World.

Thematically, we can see that since we are all helpless victims of our upbringing, we can't be trusted with Power of any sort, certainly not the power to inflict harm on others (which is why Assassins kill Templars).  So government has to become the parent and keep power out of the hands of other people -- because we're all helpless victims and everyone knows the biggest  bully in the class is the helpless victim given Power.  So again, that's the reason Assassins kill Templars.

In UNDERWORLD, the ones with the Power (magical) are the Templars.  The Templars goal is to control everybody.

In fiction, those who want to control are 'villains' and those who resist being controlled are 'heroes.'

In our Reality, in our current politics, it seems the opposite is the case. Government exists to prevent people from misbehaving in a way that inconveniences you, which used to be the job of the parents in a large family.  Today families are small and government is large.  Parents kept the family safe. Today parents get divorced and it is the government's job to keep the children safe (Child Protective Services is called that for a reason!)

How many great Romances have you read where one of the principles grew up in Foster Care?  Consider that most of your readers know someone who did, or who went to visit their father on alternate weekends.

Look again at the long-running Foreigner Series by C. J. Cherryh.



There, the Aliens control the honesty of government officials via the Assassin's Guild, which is also the "Secret Service" protecting the government rulers.  But those folks are not human.  The humans on that world have worked out a representative democracy of sorts, without Assassins.

So the Theme comes down to, "How Do We Assure Humans Behave Well?"  The Romance Genre answer is, "Love Conquers All."  Those who are loved acquire self-control.

Read UNDERWORLD, and re-cast its theme into Love Conquers All Which Creates Happily Ever After.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Symbolism Integration Part 5 - How To Create Using SHOW DON'T TELL

Theme-Symbolism Integration
 Part 5
How To Create Using SHOW DON'T TELL
by
 Jacqueline Lichtenberg  

Here is the article, published August 2015, that we'll discuss today.  It contains the clue to solving a fiction writer's income problem.

http://www.redstate.com/2015/08/26/donald-trump-takes-page-history/

Here are the previous posts on use of theme.  Keep all these points on THEME in mind while reading about the comparison of Trump and Reagan in that redstate.com article.  (yes, it's a far right website, but this particular article reveals a truth writers need to absorb and use to crack the income problem.)

Foundation Posts on Use of Theme:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html
-- on structuring nested Themes into a novel.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html
-- defining the terminology I use in these posts to distinguish plot from story and why they are indistinguishable.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html
-- compares use of Theme in a movie with the use in a Novel.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/01/theme-symbolism-integration-part-4-how.html
-- explains something arcane about how to create a symbol to explain a truly Alien Civilization to modern Human readers.

Remember, I pointed out that fiction writers in general do not even make minimum wage if you consider the hours spent vs the income over the years.  You need to get up to where they are making blockbuster movies from your books to have a decent wage, and when that happens at the end of your  career, they tax your income as if you always made that amount and always will.

They cancelled the provision in the tax code that writers always depended on to allow them to recoup the losses on time invested.

It was called Income Averaging, and allowed you to pay taxes on your average income over the previous 5 years, not on the "windfall" that comes through when your publisher suddenly decides (probably because of a writer's organization audit) to pay what they've owed you for 10 years.

As a result, fiction writers are trapped in pauper status virtually forever.

To smooth out income and make up the difference, most fiction writers do something else to earn a living.

One way out of the trap is to write non-fiction as a "work-for-hire" which earns you current income as wages, not royalties.

Here is where I discuss that:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/01/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

Here is the point that redstate.com article makes that applies to fiction writing, and how to create using SHOW DON'T TELL.  It also ILLUSTRATES (shows without telling) exactly why fiction writers must master this technique.

-----------quote-----------
Someone else had a talent for doing this. Ronald Reagan. (heads up, if you accuse me of saying Trump is another Reagan I swear by the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress that I will ban you)

From Hedrick Smith’s epic and under-appreciated 1987 book The Power Game: How Washington Works.
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Game-How-Washington-Works-ebook/dp/B009QJMU1S/
This is the set up. CBS News’ Lesley Stahl was convinced that Ronald Reagan is an empty suit. A nincompoop. Someone who was skating along on imagery and who was pretty shallow and inconsequential. So during the 1984 campaign they took advantage of Reagan’s visit to a flag factory to use that as a metaphor for just how bad Reagan was. This is some of the text from the television report (what follows are jpgs via Google Books because I don’t have access to my library right now).

---------------end quote----------

Here are the png images included in that article excerpted from Google Books.  I recommend you look up this book on Google Books or Kindle or whatever.  It was a best seller for a reason.  You can make your fortune using your fiction skills to write books like this one.  Here are the 3 excerpts the article writer chose to include, without the comments interpolated between.  I recommend you read the actual article on redstate.com (nevermind, just read it.  It won't kill you to read it.)

----------excerpts from Google Books----------------

-----------end excerpts----------------

-------QUOTE from redstate.com article-------------

The reason Stahl had to rely on those visuals for her hit piece was because Reagan and his staff carefully stage managed the visual aspect of all of his appearances. They knew, as Scott Adams says up top, that the visual is about 10 : 1 in impact when compared to the verbal. No matter what Reagan said, the imagery was going to be what the television viewer remembered.

This is what people are failing to understand about Trump. The political class thinks he is a buffoon (a buffoon who could buy and sell his critics by the truckload, mind you) because he refuses to play by the traditional rules. As Leon pointed out, he is operating so far outside the political experience of the rest of the field that no one is even sure how to attack or criticize him. The media can criticize Trump for tossing this Ramos character but to do it they have to show the video. Once they show the video, no one hears what they say because Trump dominates the imagery and the conversation.

The way Trump handled Ramos should be the way all of our candidates handle the mindless gotcha questions like those that characterized the first GOP debate.

-----------END QUOTE-------------

I remember reading The Power Game: How Washington Works, full of "Aha!" moments.

This one, however, did not surface in my mind until I saw this article flick by me on Flipboard.com where I collect items on various topics of interest to fiction writers:
https://flipboard.com/@jacquelinelhmqg

So here's the point.  Mastering SHOW DON'T TELL, mastering what screenwriters call "story in pictures" -- mastering the non-verbal arts -- is the real key to communication.

SAVE THE CAT!
http://www.amazon.com/Save-Cat-%C2%AE-Strikes-Back-ebook/dp/B004QT6Z0A/
will save your butt as a writer.

I can't emphasize that enough. It's a series on screenwriting but it is the key to novel writing, for exactly the reasons sited in this redstate.com article.

Words,  vocabulary, spelling and grammar, lexicon, all of that matters.  It matters vitally.  It makes all the difference.  But "difference" from what?

The difference from confusion, mixed messages, which vitiate the effect of your Conflict and Resolution.

The visuals you select, all of them without exception, must precisely and exactly illustrate and depict your theme -- the theme and the images must say the same thing, or you get the effect described in The Power Game: How Washington Works, and the effect Donald Trump produced evicting a reporter from his press conference.

People, readers, accept and believe the images and ignore the denotation of the words.

First comes the visuals.  They penetrate the mind, connect to the autonomic nervous system, elevate and activate and communicate with the animal brain.  After that point, the only words that are "heard" are the ones that agree with, expound upon, and adorn the image.

Yes, words are mere decoration wrapped around visuals.

There are animals with far superior vision to humans, but most of them are predators with fairly small brains and one focus, hunting.

Humans are multi-purpose creatures, flexible -- which is why we survived the last Ice Age and can survive the coming Global Warming whatever the reasons for the shift in conditions.  (we can, but will we? -- that's the question fiction writers play with: "Will we?"  "Will we?" is all about politics.)

So what do our multi-purpose eyes and brains glean from images?

What element of a novel does the basic-animal-brain extract from a wall of type, an impenetrable page of fiction in words?

There's a linkage, a series of synapses, that young people either develop -- or not -- at a certain age when they can learn languages and reading.

Pretty much by age 7 or so, the ability to create these synapses begins to wane -- and it's fairly gone by age 10.

With vast effort, such things can be learned later, but the effort is vast so the reward has to be obvious.

Watching someone staring at pages in a book, (or an e-reader) for hours and snarling at interruptions does not convey the magnitude of the reward.

What happens when you read print?

You interpret.

The brain cells involved in grasping the words hand off the "meaning" extracted from the black squiggles on the page to other parts of the brain.  The synapse we're talking about here is the hand-off of language to images.

When people who love to read fiction immerse in a book, they SEE the images, smell the smells, feel the velvet tingles -- senses engage.

Words translate into the activation of other senses.  It isn't strong as if you were actually seeing the image.  It's a bit "removed" so it is easier to read about something ugly or repellent, and still feel as you would if you had actually seen it -- just not so strong you have to run vomit.

VISUALS ARE VITAL

Using the words that tickle the visual cortex for the reader is what a writer does for a living.

Symbolism is all about visuals.

If a word becomes a symbol, then it is stylized -- you use a special font to register a trademarked word.  You can't trademark a lexicon word, but you can trademark the image of a word.

The IMAGE triggers the associations to the company or product, but the lexicon word does not.

That is the nature of humans.  Writers are artists who know how to use that nature.

The images you choose to evoke with your words are the "symbolism" component of your romance story and your romance plot.

What the symbols mean and why you need them in your novel is called the "Theme" component of your work of art.

You don't TELL the theme; you SHOW the theme in symbolic images.  If you tell the theme and say THIS IS WHAT I MEAN! but the images say something different, the images will be believed and the words ignored.

The symbolism is more compelling than any word, just as with the Reagan/Trump comparison in this article from redstate.com.

Donald Trump is a businessman, a graduate of a premier business school.  I'm fairly sure they don't teach the art of fiction writing to such Business Majors.

But they do teach THE ART OF THE DEAL.  That's the famous book Donald Trump wrote that you should read to learn how to write dialogue scenes.

Here it is in Kindle.
http://www.amazon.com/Trump-Art-Deal-Donald-J-ebook/dp/B000SEGE6M/

Donald Trump's book is as popular and informative as The Power Game: How Washington Works.

Put the two together, you have a Romance Novel of gigantic proportions - sex and politics, power and fame.

Dealing, negotiating, is an art.

You don't get what you deserve.  You get what you negotiate.

Everyone knows this truth, but few think about it consciously or articulate it.  It is stored in memory as the dejected posture of the loser walking away from a meeting, being fired from a cushy job, or being rejected by a lover.  

Therefore, you as a fiction writer can use negotiating in scene structure.  And you the non-fiction writer can use negotiating in speech writing.

Speech writing is akin to writing a sex scene.  Think about that.  Listen to some famous speeches and graph the emotional peaks and valleys, overlay that graph on a graph of a famous sex scene and see how they match exactly.  It's called wooing an audience for a reason.

If you are writing a dialogue scene, the Characters are negotiating -- i.e. they are at war, they are in Conflict, they are at cross-purposes, they are communicating in words, but they will each be understanding what is really happening via imagery-symbols.

They call that, in theatrical stage writing, "business."

"Business" is actions that have nothing to do with what is being said, but everything to do with what is meant.

An old fashioned example of "Business" is how famous, sexy actors and actresses added sexual innuendo and power-talk to dull dialogue scenes by lighting a cigarette then mashing it out on the floor, punctuating the end of the scene.  Today, they play with their smartphones.

Negotiations turn on actions, and the visual impact of actions within the cultural context of the Characters.

When Trump just quietly nodded to his Security guy to remove the fractious reporter, that was a visual symbol of power.  It was an actor using "Business" to convey meaning without words.  It was the entire theme of his campaign in one tiny movement of his head - power, greatness, decisiveness.  When he immediately announced he'd be bringing that reporter back to get his turn at asking questions, and then did that with great aplomb, he used show-don't-tell to illustrate the theme of reasonableness and compassion.  At the end of the exchange, when the reporter admitted that Donald Trump was correct in one assertion, Trump praised that reporter for his honesty and invited him to lunch.

Most observers agree, it was not scripted but spontaneous on Trump's part.  But screenwriters recognized the underlying "scene structure" template, and all viewers saw (visually) Trump in the role of the Main Character, even maybe the Hero or possibly the Villain depending on what other visuals they had absorbed.  Trump knew what to do and how to "play" that scene just as Reagan did -- because he'd played that scene many times before.  That's why he did it so smoothly.

There was another such scene that deserves consideration as you learn how to create using show don't tell.  It is the famous one when a shoe was thrown at President Bush during a press conference in Iraq in 2008.

To the USA audience, it was a stupid act of aggression of no meaning except to illustrate the boorishness of the uncivilized people.  To the Iraqi audience to whom turning the sole of a shoe toward someone is an unforgivable insult, Bush's reaction showed them that the USA culture is stupid and weak, without moral fiber.

Both audiences saw the same IMAGE -- each extracted a different THEME.

You can do that between a human from Earth and an Alien from Elsewhere if you create the Alien civilization using theme-symbolism integration to the point where you can show-don't-tell the meaning on a non-verbal level.

Your Alien may "play the scene" out of practiced habit, and your human can totally miss the point, causing the human to take actions that cause the Alien a lot of trouble at home.

Here is another neuroscience article from August 2015 to consider.  We know how images affect people, but we don't know all the mechanism behind that.  So when creating your alien species, mull over some of the research like this:

http://www.deepstuff.org/brainbow-reveals-surprising-data-about-visual-connections-in-brain/

Theme-symbolism integration is the secret to getting a reader of a page of text to burst out laughing or melt down sobbing.  It's just words -- but the meaning blossoms into parts of the brain that have no words.  That's the most powerful part of the brain, the real decision making part.  Most of the time, words just "rationalize" the decision the "gut" has already made.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Symbolism Integration Part 4 How To Use Candles As Symbolism by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Symbolism Integration

Part 4

 How To Use Candles As Symbolism

by

 Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

The previous parts of the Theme-Symbolism Integration series are:

Foundation Posts on Use of Theme:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html -- on structuring nested Themes into a novel.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html  -- defining the terminology I use in these posts to distinguish plot from story and why they are indistinguishable.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html  -- compares use of Theme in a movie with the use in a Novel.

The posts with "Integration" in the title are advanced posts about blending two, three, and four of these components into such a seamless whole that no reader will ever be able to see the seams -- but writers can and do see those seams.

Previous parts in this Theme-Symbolism Integration series are:

PART 1 of integrating Symbolism with Theme is You Can't Fight City Hall -- about the romance inherent in Politics and Power (or Power Politics)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-symbolism-integration-part-1-you.html

PART 2 Why Do We Cry At Weddings?
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-2-why.html

PART 3 Why Do We Cry At Weddings - part 2
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

Part 1 of this series ended with:

------QUOTE----------
The most passionate Romance is all about the Powerless vs. the Powerful.  The winner is always the Strong Character with a vividly defined set of values, sense of right and wrong, and unbending pursuit of the ethical and moral path.  Find your epoch in the cycle of Pluto, then find the symbols in that epoch to bespeak your theme.
---------END QUOTE---------

This is Part 4 on the candle as a symbol.  By examining how and why a Candle is a symbol, what it is a symbol of, and why it is used to evoke tears (as in Why We Cry At Weddings), and other emotions, we may learn how to invent the symbols of a truly non-human civilization that modern human readers can comprehend on a non-verbal level.

The objective is to create symbols modern humans react to, and even recognize, but see as non-human.

So we need to look at the symbols that evoke emotional responses for us to find where those symbols have their roots in the objective, true-for-non-human-civilizations too, reality.

The nature of objective reality -- and even the issue of whether there is such a thing at all -- is the the "warp" of the fabric of the Theme.  The "woof" might be the existence of the Soul -- woven into theme at "right angles" to the "warp" of objectivity.

Weave these component elements into a fabric in such a way that your reader only sees the pattern or picture on the fabric, not the individual threads.

That is the difference between reading and writing -- a reader sees the pattern, a writer works with individual spools of multi-colored thread and a loom to weave them on.

That reader/writer difference in perspective may also be the difference between the Living Creature view of "reality" vs. that of the Creator of that Reality -- (again the existence of a Creator is a Thematic thread the writer uses, that the reader does not see.)

The reader sees Karma working out in Poetic Justice, but the writer created that effect from the axioms and postulates, "warp and woof" of the worldbuilding.  The reader sees the picture; the writer works with colored threads.

When a Romance Novel fails with a reader, what the reader is seeing is incoherence in the warp/woof blending of those threads.  The reader sees "broken threads" (e.g. in reality, there is no such thing as an HEA, and in this worldbuilding there is an HEA but it comes out of nowhere for no reason.)

The reader sees a philosophical premise (the HEA), but nothing to indicate how this invented World differs from their everyday Reality in such a way that this invented World must necessarily permit an HEA .

To read, and convince, such readers, writers work hard with the "warp and woof" of the cloth of their theme.

Suspension of disbelief pivots on Theme as the foundation of story and the foundation of plot.

Story and Plot must be cut from the cloth made by the threads of Theme, and sewn together into a garment that fits the reader.  

So let's study the Candle as a symbol,  and how, as a Romance Writer, you can learn to use that symbol and fabricate others from the warp-and-woof from which The Candle Symbolism is created.

It is, in the odd way that all symbols demonstrate, about the Power of the Powerless, which is a subject that makes up into  large sets of fabulous Themes.

In Parts 2 and 3, we talked about Crying at Weddings.

Note how "light" pervades the imagery of Weddings.  Imagery is the alphabet of symbolism.

And of course, candles are often part of wedding ceremonies.

Never forget that traditionally "wedding" meant a female becoming the possession of a male, with the male having the power of life and death over that female.  "Keep them barefoot and pregnant," was not just a saying.  It happened, and still happens some places today.  It is a situation that generates huge, complex Themes about the Power of the Powerless.

Little by little, in leaps and bounds, the definition of "wedding" is changing as fast as the definition of "marriage."  That change is changing the definition of Romance, both in real life and in fiction.

What we are looking for here is the level of abstraction at which no change is happening at all.  If we find that level, we find "reality" (whatever that is).

We don't put candles on a Wedding Cake (though sometimes we put them beside the cake)

 


 -- but we do put them on Birthday Cakes.

 
We all know what a candle is, and how to light them.

All your readers know that mastering FIRE was a huge dividing line in the development of the human animal into a civilized beast.
We also know the oil lamp - Aladdin's Lamp and all its ilk - was the only source of night time illumination for thousands of years, toxic smoke and all.

Olive Oil is a favorite for burning.  Various forms of tallow, all kinds of smokey, stinky stuff has been burned for the sake of light at night.  Today we do the burning way off somewhere at a Power Plant, and bring the power to our homes to make various things glow for us.  But in essence, nothing has changed.

Is electricity fundamentally different from Fire?

Is candle-wax fundamentally different from Olive Oil?

Is oxidation different from electricity?  What if all Power Plants used nothing but Solar or Wind (or wave or geothermal) power?  Would that make the electricity we use to make things glow different from the light of a candle?

If we don't use oxidation for light, does that fundamentally (thematically) change the symbolism of a Light?  What has Fire to do with the symbolism?

We are surrounded by fire in so many forms.  Stoves burn Natural Gas (some are electric; some solar).

We make a fire in the fireplace for Winter Holidays -- mostly no longer used to warm the house, but a symbol of the Winter Solstice festivals.

Some fireplaces have been converted to natural gas, and had fake ceramic logs inserted to look like wood.  It's too much work to clean out wood-ash once a year.  Besides, wood makes toxic fumes, shortens your life, right?

Some houses have natural gas heaters hidden away in the attic or basement.

Other than smokers, people can go for months without lighting a candle or an actual open fire.

If your stove is electric, and your clothes dryer is electric, and your water heater is electric, when do you ever LIGHT a fire (with a match?).

Who has lit a fire with flint-and-steel or rubbing two sticks together since Scouting days?

How common is open flame in your life?

Among your readers, fire is reduced to a mere symbol, relegated to special occasions, right?  But the discovery and mastery of fire is the, single, outstanding progenitor of human civilization (maybe including The Wheel?)  Using Fire to make Wheels turn was a biggie, too.  How did that go for your Aliens on their native planet?

Do you see the parallel between Theme-Symbol Integration and Fire-Wheel-Integration?

The less common the underlying progenitor of a civilized process is, the more penetrating the encounter with its symbol.

The sight of a candle flame can yank a modern human's heart strings like almost nothing else.

Some people meditate using a candle flame.

Staring at the flame to clear and silence the chatter in your mind is one of the beginner's exercises in meditation.

As far as I know, there is no currently existing culture that dates back to the taming of fire, or even to the invention of putting a wick into oil to make light.  The Oil Lamp pre-existed Middle Eastern civilizations - Assyrian, Egyptian, Babylonian -- and they're all long gone.

Here's a quote on the earliest oil lamps:
http://www.historyoflamps.com/lamp-history/history-of-oil-lamps/

----------QUOTE-----------
After human race first tamed the fire and started to use it as a light source, a need appeared for a smaller, controllable flame - a more sophisticated solution, if you will. First such solution was an oil lamp some 70.000 B.C. Early humans used shells, hollow rocks or any nonflammable material as a container and in it some moss soaked in animal fat which they would ignite and it would burn with a flame.
--------END QUOTE------------

70,000 years ago?  

It was a practical device for extending the work day at a time when getting the project done was always and ever a life-or-death proposition.  Also, of course, fire deterred predators.

Some recent research indicates cooking food makes nutrients more accessible to human digestion, so that could have helped the R&D geniuses 70,000 years ago (yes, they were the Bill Gates' of their day) figure out how to make, contain, and use fire.

Along in there somewhere, the fearsome thing (I'm sure some wildfires were started inadvertently, and stories told about that terrifying high-tech marvel the smartphone - uh, I mean Fire) became a SYMBOL.

What would flame have first been a symbol of?

That could matter to a modern Romance writer leaping into writing fantasy or science fiction romance stories because aliens on other planets -- think major love-interest -- could belong to a culture where FIRE is a symbol of something very different from what all our modern Earth cultures think.

To create a connection on a romantic level between a human and a non-human, raw-basic-symbol systems can evoke even more intense emotion than we ordinarily experience in daily life.

So think about the simple, basic FLAME.

Think in the abstract about symbols.  We extract the essence of a material thing and make a symbol out of the outline.

The symbol, the mere suggestion, reminds us of the real thing.
The symbol evokes a series of associated emotions, usually at a semantic level above words, a level where music and scent light up brain cells and recreate an experience.

From that first use of fire as symbol -- maybe a bit after the 70,000 year ago mark -- meanings associated with that symbol would have been changed, added to, morphed into, re-interpreted, and re-associated with different emotions.

But it is all rooted in the routine, daily, boring, encounter with the reality.  That Reality recedes as technology distances people from it -- then it becomes a symbol, a selective recreation of reality.

For example, maybe people started holding weddings at night around a fire because all day long everyone was in a headlong dash to get life-or-death stuff like sowing and reaping done.

When was the last time you shouldered the harness of a plow blade and pulled it through stubborn sod?  What does a plow blade symbolize to you?  Blisters on your shoulder?  Oxen pooping in your barn?  The smell of sweaty horse?  No, you go to the rental place and lease a gas-powered plow for a Sunday afternoon to make your garden this year.

Yet the symbolism of beating swords into plow blades still "works."  How many sharp-edged swords do you own?  (Not stage-steel, but real fighting weapons with blood on them?)

Life was hard, and mostly people died young.  Life was hard in the daytime, and people could relax and do "human" things only at night.  Have you ever been so far away from the glow of city lights that you literally could not see your hand in front of your face?  Have you ever tried to walk in a forest in a night so dark you had to put your hands out and grope?  That is the world where the light of a single candle pierced the nerves and gained eternal meaning -- meaning true even in today's street-lamp world.

So fire-light became a symbol of romance, or at the very least license for wonton sex.

To this day, the "candle-light-dinner" is a symbol of courtship, even if we have to remember to turn the overhead lights out so you can see the candle light.

The candle -- or oil/wick/flame -- has become a symbol of both Life and Death.

We light candles (or sparklers) on birthday cakes to count our years, or dodge that issue:

 

We light a candle to commemorate death -- the candle light vigil ceremony on the site of a murder or tragedy has been pushed back into prominence even as religious observance wanes.
  Making these candles is a whole modern industry.  You can find these vigil candles on Amazon -- and not all who use them or attend memorial vigils are in any way religious or what is termed God-Fearing.  Neither warp nor woof of the fabric of their philosophy contains a God-is-real thread.  But they "do" vigil candles right alongside devout worshipers of diverse God-concepts.

So which is the Candle a symbol of, Life or Death?  Sex, Romance, Happiness, Bereavement, Mourning, Calming Meditation, Wedding, or what?

Perhaps the candle is a symbol of wisdom?

.

It is said (tall tale) that President Lincoln gained his education by reading books by the light of a log-cabin's fireplace.  Have you ever read a book by the light of a fireplace?  Or a candle?

It takes me 7 or 8 candles burning at once to see well enough to read a nice, clean font from a modern book on super-white paper.

I can, however read well by a fancy 1800's style oil lamp with a fancy woven wick and carefully crafted chimney to keep the fire burning brightly, never mind toxic carbon emissions.

 So an oil lamp is to me a symbol of the serene happiness attained by reading in bed at night -- yes, I've done that.

Some people have memories of camping out in tents lit by such an open-flame lamp (though today's children mostly use solar-charged electric lamps).

Sometimes, those camp-out-at-night memories are great happy memories, so the open-flame light (or electric camp lantern) evokes happiness.

  Sometimes the camping memories evoke spooky ghost-story marathons long past a child's bed time, lending the groggy tiredness to the spooky-pleasure (because it's fake-spooky).

Now we're getting somewhere.  Consider the inventors of the oil lamp 70,000 years ago didn't even have a nice, modern tent for shelter.  We recreate our origins and surround ourselves with those ancient things -- the out-doors, the night sky, open flame, spooky stories -- and regard them as SYMBOLS.

What was real, everyday, common, can't-escape-it, reality 70,000 years ago is reduced to mere symbol today.  What was alarming and threatening is titillating today.

Today, we use those symbols to evoke what was once the reality of existence -- being spooked was being really scared death was immanent.

Ghost stories by candle light.

Today, at Halloween, we see symbolic ghosts made out of thin plastic sheeting hung from trees in people's yards.

What is a ghost?  Well, no two traditions agree on that, but generally it is a remnant of some part of a human being.  We term that non-material part we imagine we have our Soul.

Romance writers can gain verisimilitude by paying attention to the Candle as a Symbol, analyzing it, projecting it into the cultures of aliens.  The symbolism may never be referred to in your novel, but it will be the firm foundation of your worldbuilding, and that firmness will be evident to your readers even if they can't point to what is causing them to feel that way.

Invent the 70,000 year ago culture of your Aliens before coupling your invented Alien to an everyday, modern human.

Romance stories that rivet a reader's attention generally contain a core element of a Soul Mate mechanism, even when the words Soul Mate, or even just Soul, are never used by narrator or in dialogue.  The element is in the worldbuilding even if the worldbuilding contains a Theme thread that says, "In this universe, God is not real" and there's no such thing as "Soul."

Whether you, the writer and the reader, see God as the single organizing principle of Life, The Universe, and Everything, or not, somehow being "In Love" activates some component within a human being's perceptions that the human never knew was there before.

Some of your readers only imagine what they would be like if such a component was activated inside them.  Some yearn for it.  Some fear and flee from it.  Some don't believe it ever happens to anyone.  And some have experienced it, only to have disaster part them from their spouse, and now they are hoping it will happen again.

Neuro-scientists are zeroing in on the brain structures and activity associated with all these complex human experiences.

The thesis they are pursuing is that the brain and its functions completely account for everything humans experience, do, decide, believe (yes, even your Politics is just a genetic property of your brain -- you have no choice!), and theorize.

Many readers of Science Fiction Romance are keenly aware of this brain research.

So Romance writers have to worldbuild some theory of Soul into every story-universe, or the characters won't seem real.

What do I mean by "world-build?"

What the characters believe about their world is not the same as what their world REALLY is, what it's laws-and-rules are.

In fact, many great science fiction novels pivot on the characters discovering things are not what they believe them to be.  Think about the film, The Matrix.

Or think about the novel THE FLICKER MEN that I talked about in this post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/09/reviews-19-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

Remember, I pointed out THE FLICKER MEN is not a Romance, but Science Fiction Romance writers need to read it anyway?  This is the reason you must absorb what is going on in novels like The Flicker Men.

The Flicker Men pivots on a worldbuilding concept woven of recent discoveries in particle physics and mathematics, and is a valid extrapolation from that new science, which creates the plot.  The story is woven from cognitive dissonance, and utter consternation, culture shock, psychological disorientation, and the struggle to overcome that paralysis and deal with the harsh realities that have been revealed.  That harsh reality is that some people have Souls -- and some do not.  Time is not what you think it is.

In contemporary romance, you can find great novels about deeply religious characters discovering God is a myth created for political purposes by con-artists -- and characters who are absolutely convinced there's no such thing as God or the Soul discovering the chilling (spooky) tangible reality that God is Real, and "my Soul knows it."

Romance deals with exactly that kind of cognitive dissonance discovery -- when you Fall In Love, you discover your own Soul, and the conversation your Soul is having with Another Soul.

If you are convinced Souls don't exist, then you may mistake Love for Lust --- or vice-versa.  And therein lies a Plot.

What your Soul knows and what you know are not always the same thing -- and therein lies the kind of Conflict that writers weave Nested Themes for long series of long novels around.

This quandary is all about our cherished theoretical notion of reality vs. the actual function of immutable reality around us.

Some people move through life smoothly, and others encounter vast difficulties.  Bring a pair formed of each type of person into conflict, take up the issue of whether "Life Is Good" or "Life Sucks" and you're off and running with long series of THEMES driving an ever-changing matrix of conflicts.  Add deranging astonishment of an awakening Soul discovering another Soul to Love, and the pages sizzle.

When you are handling an abstract theme -- such as "Souls are Real But God Is Fictional" or "God is Real and only Some People Have Souls" -- you handle these boring abstractions with symbolism.

You never state the theme in words, not narrative, exposition or dialogue.

You "show don't tell" by using symbols.

So you bring in a candle as a symbol -- but what is it a symbol OF?  How do you use the Candle as a symbol that your reader will understand?

You understand candles, flames and the chemistry of oxidation.

Just as a map is a piece of paper with a two dimensional drawing (OK, Google Street View is handy, but think of the simple navigation map), a candle is not what it symbolizes any more than a map shows a street you can drive on.

Any symbol abstracts certain functional components and leaves out all the rest of reality, just as today we seek to have an open flame for the Holidays without the toxic smoke and shovel loads of ash.  Is fire still an effective symbol without fumes and ash?

There is almost no experience of a human being that is not "symbolized by" a candle.

It's life, death, joy, sadness, Solstice, anniversaries, security and threat.  The whole gamut of human experience is tied symbolically to "Light dispelling Darkness."

Remember, the Bible starts with LET THERE BE LIGHT.

It is said, when things look bleak because humans are holding a war, destroying things, hating each other, etc. that the light of a single candle dispels the darkness, mental, emotional, and actual Darkness.

The same about Good and Evil: the light of a candle overcomes Evil.  The candle flame repels wild animals, stops sneak-thieves, etc.  A single act of random kindness is like that candle flame -- and can redirect the path of a human being.

Another proverb about the candle-symbol is that a lit candle can light other candles and not be diminished by giving away it's light.

Think about that very hard.  What can you give and still have?

In Judaism, every Friday at sundown, candles are lit.  In some traditions, oil is used instead of candles -- olive oil with a floating wick, older than the high-tech invention of the candle.

Look at this picture:

What is she doing?

She is gathering the light of the candles to her eyes, then saying a Blessing, and after that she will cast the light she gathered back onto the candles in the official act of kindling the light.  The candles are not "lit" until after the Blessing is said -- and that moment of Lighting officially begins the Sabbath, during which time fire is not kindled.

It is said that the Sabbath candles of the Matriarchs of Judaism lit the tent for the whole week.  Does that mean physical light?  Or does it mean the metaphorical "light" by which we "see" right from wrong?  The nature of that metaphorical Light is a thread of the warp-and-woof of your Thematic Fabric.  It is by that Light that your reader discerns the Poetic Justice visited upon your Characters.

In Judaism, the "day" begins at sundown.  "And it was evening and it was morning the First Day."

Evening comes first.

The Day is the first unit of Time.  The Soul enters manifestation through the dimension of Time.

The Sabbath day ends in a series of symbolic actions.

Fire is kindled once more, a blessing said over wine, incense and fire, and then the fire is extinguished by dipping the candle flame into the wine, marking the division of Time when it is again not only permitted but required to kindle fire.

Thus the candle and its flame are used to mark an interval of time that repeats at set intervals.  By marking that singular Day, all the rest of the Days of the Week are thereby defined.

The Soul enters through the dimension of Time, and the Soul then participates in marking and counting Time, dividing Time.

Those who practice Evil also use candles to symbolize their powers.

So what is it about a candle that contains all of these abstract Thematic Elements, from Good to Evil and from Joy to Sorrow?

What exactly is a candle?

Let's view a candle as a mechanism for supporting the Flame.

Flame is pretty much the same thing no matter what is burning (oxidizing).  Flame is a zone of incandescence where a chemical reaction is taking place, combining oxygen with (whatever) and producing Light as a byproduct.

The chemical reaction has to be "sparked" -- that is, something HOT has to be touched to the substance that will burn.

How hot depends on the substance that will burn.  Each substance has it's own temperature where it will start to combine with the oxygen in the air to produce something else (ash, CO2 and water, whatever).  Some candles smoke, others not-so-much.  Smoke is not a property of the flame, but of the substances reacting.

How relevant to the symbolism is the substance the candle is made of?

Another common use of Flame as Symbol is in the Hanukkah Celebration, which commemorates the victory of the Maccabees and the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem.

This dates from the Exodus from Egypt, when God Commanded that a tent be built called the Mishkan or tent of meeting, where Moses would meet with God and bring instruction to the Jewish people.

One feature required for this operation was a Lamp that was to be built hammered from one piece of gold by an inspired artisan.

Here's an excerpt from
http://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/102911/jewish/What-Is-Hanukkah.htm

As the story goes:

-----------QUOTE-------------

Chanukah -- the eight-day festival of light that begins on the eve of the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev -- celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, of purity over adulteration, of spirituality over materiality.

More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel. Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of G-d.

When they sought to light the Temple's menorah (the seven branched candelabrum), they found only a single cruse of olive oil that had escaped contamination by the Greeks; miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity.

To commemorate and publicize these miracles, the sages instituted the festival of Chanukah. At the heart of the festival is the nightly menorah (candelabrum) lighting: a single flame on the first night, two on the second evening, and so on till the eighth night of Chanukah, when all eight lights are kindled.

-----------END QUOTE-----------

So, we have candles used as an anniversary celebration SYMBOLIZING the Olive Oil Lamp that the High Priest lit in the Temple (which practice persisted for centuries from the 40 years in the Desert wanderings).  Ever been in the Sinai desert?  It's DARK.

The Shape of that Temple Lamp is described in the Bible, but even so there are various opinions on how it was shaped.  Here are some.

From the Temple Institute website

And other Rabbinic traditions specify straight branches like this Hanukkah Menorah:

Note the different shapes for the branches holding up the flames on

a) the design prescribed for use in the Temple by the High Priest

b) the design seen on  carvings (Roman etc)

And note how the Hanukkah Menorah has 8 branches, not the 7 of the Temple version -- commemorating the 8 days that 1 day's worth of olive oil burned.

Note how even today old, traditional Hanukkah menorah designs are used, but how artists have embellished, re-designed, and re-imagined the Hanukkah Menorah.

And the Menorah has become a subject of freehand, creative art by and for kids, and for adults:

On a side note: The word Hanukkah or Chanukah is used to designate the process of dedicating the Temple, which included cleaning up the mess left by the invaders, repairing, and then purifying (spiritual cleansing), as well as making the oils and incense and other consumables according to the detailed instructions.

So today, when we buy a new house or move into an apartment, we hold a Chanukat Habayit -- a house-warming -- party.

Hebrew is a language which is not cognate to English, so it "works" grammatically in a different way. The exact same "word" appears in different forms and has different meanings -- but all the meanings are related even if they're not related in English.

The word generally used for Education is Chinuch.  It's the same word as the Holiday Chanukah, in a different grammatical form.  In Ancient Hebrew, Education is Dedication - like the Temple is dedicated, like the Holiday of Hanukkah commemorates.  A housewarming party for the mind/spirit/soul of a child.

If you ponder that conceptual linguistic relationship for a while, you may see how today's modern argument over "Common Core" educational standards can be resolved.  We think of education as something one person does to another -- as an adult "teaching" a child, basically by force and over the child's vigorous objection, for their own good.

What the child learns is the adult's choice, not the child's.  Yes, there are schools that try to break out of that box, and perhaps that movement will grow. Today we don't punish the child for misbehaving; we reward them with time "in the corner" with educational toys and optional activities.

But for the moment, think conceptually about transforming the subject of the Common Core discussion from parents vs. government to the ignition of a child's Soul into an enthusiastic dedication to Light.  Remember, the candle symbol is embraced by those who do not accept the concept of A Creator.

Redefining Education could make a great cultural theme-thread for the fabric of your Romance novel worldbuilding.   Your aliens might require Earth to re-define "Education."

Think about the child's Body -- and the child's Soul.

Here is the post I did which has a link to 6 other posts I did on the Soul-Time-Hypothesis:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/cycles-and-seasons-margaret-carter.html

Remember, the Soul enters manifestation through the dimension of Time.

The principle being practiced in Orthodox Chinuch today, by some groups, uses the principle of how a Soul takes possession of a Body through Time to help that Soul become dedicated to Life and Light.

The theory is that the Soul makes its first connection to its Body at conception (maybe before) (a moment in Time), and gradually, in stages through Birth (a Time) and at lines of demarcation throughout childhood -- (3 years is when Chinuch begins, 12 or 13 is when the Soul becomes fully responsible for its own body, and there are stages between), becomes more and more manifest, more in control of the Body, more dominant in the ebb and flow of the animal processes within the Body.

The Soul manifests through the dimension of Time through the medium of the Body.

Leveraging that principle, Chinuch gradually turns over responsibility, one thing at a time, to the child, as they gain dedication.

So what has that to do with the Candle as Symbol, and how to discover and invent symbols for an Alien Civilization?

If we look at a candle, we see two distinct parts -- the candle-shaft of wax & wick (or pot of oil & wick) -- and the flame.

Let's look at the candle shaft, or oil&wick part.  Maybe that's the real symbol.

In the actual instructions in the Bible, the Lamp to be lit in the Temple by the High Priest is described in meticulous detail.  It is to be made by hammering a single block of gold into this specified shape, and the shape is to be adorned with various "decorative" devices.

Since we know that no detail mentioned in the Bible is just filler, we know that the "decorations" may be decorative, adorning with beauty, but there is undoubtedly more to it than that.

The formula for making the oil is described in microscopic detail, and those who did the work trained apprentices in exactly how to do this oil preparation -- far more detail passed down orally than is written.  Much of that detail may be lost now.

After years of intense study, The Temple Institute has been recreating the implements used in the Temple Building itself.

This image and the quote below is from the Temple Institute website:
https://www.templeinstitute.org/history-holy-temple-menorah-1.htm
------QUOTE-----------
The menorah weighs one-half ton. It contains forty five kilograms of twenty four karat gold. Its estimated value is approximately three million dollars. The construction of the menorah was made possible through the generosity of Vadim Rabinovitch, a leader of the Jewish community of Ukraine.
--------END QUOTE---------

Note: THE UKRAINE.

It is amazing, impressive, and a powerful symbol even though it is not being kindled.  Without any flame, it is a symbol.

All by itself, without flame, the Lamp is a powerful symbol, and a potentially functional device, a physical reality.

So, perhaps the lamp or candle-holder for the flame and what is burned to make the flame (candle wax or oil) matters somehow in both symbol and actuality?

But it seems to be the focus is on either the Flame itself, or perhaps on the Light it sheds.

All kinds of things burn -- forest fires burn trees, shrubs and houses.  Oil wells can burn oil and gas before we can capture it and make it burn where we want it to.

Volcanoes and lightening set fires everywhere.  The Earth is always on fire somewhere.

Magnesium burns under water.

There's flame everywhere.  But a LAMP (or candle holder) contains, tames, directs, controls the Flame, bends Fire to our Will.

So the lamp or candle-shaft as container of the fire is a symbol, all by itself, of bending Nature to our Will.

Or, if we Identify with the Flame itself, the lamp or candle is a symbol of bending us to the constraints of material reality.

Is a candle a symbol of the thing that burns, or of the burning?

Or both?

Let's look at the symbol again.

We  generally favor pictures of lit candles.  If you go into a lamp store, they usually display most of the lamps or fixtures lit so you can see how beautiful they are.

The whole POINT of the Flame-Container image as a symbol is that it HOLDS LIGHT and SHEDS LIGHT.

The container contains something dangerous and puts it to use in our world, at our behest.

Does it symbolize POWER?

Note we began this exploration with the idea of the Power of the Powerless.

Does the candle symbolize the power we have over life?

No.  We use it to symbolize death, bereavement, sadness, and situations we have no power over.

Does the candle symbolize the powerlessness of humans in the face of life and nature?

No.  We use it to symbolize birthdays, romance, a warm Yule log at Year's Turning.

Does it symbolize Danger?

Well, we've used FIRE to signal from mountain top to mountain top -- both enemy-coming and triumph-assured signals have been done with fire and smoke.

So what DOES a "candle" taken as a whole, wax/oil, wick, flame, symbolize that it spans all these emotions?

Symbols generally bespeak that which can not be spoken, that which is not believable but is known to be true fact -- what is called "a higher truth."

Symbols communicate Higher Truth.

So let's ponder the underlying concept of all Romance, particularly Paranormal and Science Fiction Romance.

That is the elusive and maddeningly implausible concept of the Soul Mate.

To dedicate yourself to a life's search for your Soul Mate, you have to accept there is such a thing as Soul.  To fabricate Theme, you can postulate all sorts of different origins and natures for Souls.  Your Aliens may have Souls that differ in substance, structure and function both in actuality and in their mythology from that of humans.

But to do "Soul Mate" stories at all, to deal in the concepts related to Fate and even Luck, you have to postulate that the Soul is Real.

If the Soul is real, then it has to have some sort of relationship to the Body.

So to worldbuild for a Paranormal or Science Fiction romance story, we have to postulate a structure for the Human Being. (see why I said you have to read The Flicker Men?)

If our Humans (and maybe Aliens, too) are structured with a 1)Soul,
2))a Connector, and
3)a Body,

then the CANDLE is the perfect symbol for the entire Human Being -- or Sentient Being.

1)The Flame symbolizes the Soul,
2)the Wick symbolizes the connector
3)the wax/oil symbolizes the Body
And that jives perfectly with the Kabbalistic concept of what a human being is.

In the symbolic candle, we (the human) supply the spark, the flame is ignited, the wax/oil is CONVERTED (not destroyed, changed) and appears CONSUMED through TIME.

In the real human being, God supplies the spark, the Soul is ignited by the male-female Spiritual Interaction that parallels the creation of a zygote (the candle) by physical interaction, and through time, the Soul consumes the body just as the flame consumes the candle.

We grow old, wear down, and die just like a candle.

Sometimes we "gutter" and go out before our time.

The Soul is connected to the body through that "thread" -- the silver cord that has been reported during out-of-body experiences.

Our Souls take incarnation for the purpose of consuming a body through Time, converting the physical material into something spiritual.

As I noted, the Candle is a symbol of great power.  It makes no sense that this symbol has survived to this day, and is embraced and used by those who aspire to Good, and those who admire Evil, is used at occasions of Joy and Sadness as well as Commemoration and Spiritual Practices.

There is only one thing in this world I can think of that possesses all that and needs a symbol that represents such diversity of meaning.  That one thing is the Human Being.

We are Good and Evil, Joy and Sadness, a Light to the World and the Bringer of Darkness.

If you find a Soul Mate among Aliens in the Galaxy, those Aliens will likewise exhibit that kind of flexibility of spirit and purpose.

If Symbols convey a higher-truth, it is possible we can open First Contact without war just by establishing that we use the symbol of the Candle (or oil) Lamp.

The Lamp may be just as important as the Flame.

The way we put Candles into a Lamp designed for oil is an interesting variation.  Themes can be spun from that addition.

So, is it the Light that is the point of the candle, or is it the Lamp that contains the Candle.

If you are a Candle, then what contains you?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com