Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 18, Creating A Galactic History

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration

Part 18

Creating A Galactic History

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in the Theme-Worldbuilding Integration series are here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

The posts with Integration in the title are not "elementary" writing lessons, but exploration of how a fiction writer processes real-world observations into gripping fiction that takes the reader OUT of the "real" world and into a much more real Reality.

Or put another way, fiction is the alphabet of the left hand, the building block of non-verbalizable "words" -- constructs that integrate parts of the brain to create an orchestrated, deep-textured reality.

With a vast and deep background in reading well constructed fiction, a young person can observe the real world they must "go out and conquer" with an understanding that leads to successful choices and actions.

Fiction is not an add-on, or a waste of time.  And by "fiction" I also mean today's videogaming media.

The process of becoming an adult includes the vital process of "Integrating" all the parts, pieces, isolated experiences, and pre-configured academic "courses."  By the teens, we should all have created a model of the universe in our minds and begin  testing our model against "reality."

The process of adjusting the imaginary model and changing "reality" to suit us, and re-adjusting our model, and re-changing our reality (picking a college major, getting a job, founding a company, getting married, burying our parents, marrying-off our children), over and over again will lead to a successful life very smoothly if the first "model of reality" we build in our minds (from fiction) is solid.

When, in mid-life, one must utterly discard the earliest model of reality, and start from scratch, one does lose the capital investment of life-years and emotional-depth.

Getting divorced can be that kind of trauma -- or discovering Aliens From Outer Space Are Among Us produces a similar reassessment.

Actually, watching a teen child you have raised discover the difference between sex and love is likewise harrowing.

So, the key for a writer to creating novels (or series of novels) about the nuanced differences between sex, love, friendship, Romance and Reality, is a solid grasp of "what is really going on" in our actual real world.

To understand what I mean by "What is really going on," do read Gini Koch's ALIEN series -- real romance starting without a clue, ending up with an in-depth grasp of the Galactic Situation (for all the good that grasp does!).

So, as a writer, open your mind as Gini Koch's Kitty-Kat does to the idea that maybe you don't yet know what is "really" going on.

What does it mean, "going on..."  ???

When do things start "going on" -- and when exactly is "now" and what does "now" mean?  How big is now?  What is TIME anyway?

"Time Is XXXX" is a THEME.

Pick some value for XXXX -- each value you pick will create a Theme.  Now create a world, a galaxy, or a universe (parallel or divergent, or splinter of time, or pocket of time) from that Theme.

Our reality is a "world" -- but we see and know of our world only what can fit into our earliest imaginings, our earliest model of reality gleaned from our earliest readings, then modified and modified.

For the most part, most humans just modify their first model, trying to avoid obvious conflicts with what they currently observe.  But humans are oddly (maybe among all the species of sentients in the plethora of galaxies, oddly) tolerant of contradictions.

We hold these truths to be self-evident --- therefore, we don't have to test these truths to see if they all belong in the same universe.

We, as a species, have very little merit in survival traits -- no shell, poor eyesight, no pelt against the cold, slow running speed, etc. etc. -- but survive and dominate this planet because we are adaptable.  Sharks and cockroaches survive by other traits, which annoys us.

Mentally and emotionally, we adapt to, absorb, and ignore all contradictions.  We ignore impediments to our beliefs and barge on ahead toward our goals, regardless of collateral damage.

Let the collaterals damaged by our barging through just adapt to the mess we leave behind.  "Go For It!" is our watchword.

Take that human attitude out into a galaxy full of space-faring civilizations, and what do you think might happen?

What COULD happen on this planet before Space Travel becomes possible that would change that "barge on through" attitude -- the "adapt the world to our mental model, not our model to the world" attitude -- so we arrive on the Galactic Scene with a different sort of civilization than we have today?

What would it take to change humanity?

What part of humanity needs changing to change the "barge" trait?

Our bodies are not tough, and most of us are not very smart.  What else is there to a human being besides our primate bodies?

So many primate species have gone extinct.  Are we next because our bodies are all humans are?

Or is there such a thing as the Soul?  Is there a non-material component to the human being?  (or maybe only some of us have souls?)

Is the patent reality of the Soul Mate, and thus the reality of the Soul, what is really going on?

Part of every romance genre reader's model of reality includes the Soul Mate as a fact, though finding such an exact mate is not guaranteed if you only have this one little Earth to search.

Does the existence of a Soul imply or necessitate the postulate of the reality of a Creator of the Universe, God?

The answer to that question is one of the ingredients in your World Building.  In some fictional realities, the answer is no.  In other novel series, the answer is yes.  In the really great fictional series that mirror our actual reality, the answer is either "Maybe" or possibly "Sometimes."

What exactly is a Soul?

I know a huge variety of theories used by and relied upon by many ancient civilizations, but the one I find most intriguing is the concept that the "Soul" enters our material "reality" via the dimension of Time.

The Soul does this -- but does that mean it is inserted into Reality by the Creator of that Reality?  Or just that the Soul chooses -- like an Olympic swimmer diving into a pool to race down his lane, hit a barrier, turn and race back?

What is the Soul really doing?  Does every person have a Soul?

Answers to those questions are THEMES.

Now, as has been noted previously in these blogs, the way to create verisimilitude (the matching of your fictional World to your particular readership's notions of their reality) is to study the vast array of academic pursuits most of your readers have not (yet) absorbed.

History, Religion, the history of religion, sociology, archaeology, -- any sort of 'ology.  Just learn, study, absorb.

Then ask yourself Gini Koch's persistent question -- "Wait a minute!  What is Really Going On Here?"  What things seems to be may not be what they really are.

Then ask yourself whether the difference between appearances (the Earth is flat) and reality (the Earth is an oblate spheroid), matters.  Does it matter in general or just to your particular Characters.

Here is an article about how NASA tracking our space probes is not finding them where their math says they should be -- but just a bit off from that location.  Something is wrong with our theories or our math (what is really going on?  Does it matter?)

http://www.sciencealert.com/juno-isn-t-where-it-s-supposed-to-be-and-this-isn-t-the-first-time-it-s-happened-flyby-anomaly

"A difference which makes no difference is no difference?"

Or is it?

What is really going on with human souls and civilization?

Back in the 1930's a brilliant and diligent effort produced what we call today an info-graphic.  It was called a Histomap, was hung in classrooms and sold in book stores for decades.

There is a high-rez version big enough to read all the words (on a big desktop screen) you should read carefully to understand Human Heritage.
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/histomap-big.html

There is a printing over 6 ft long (to hang on a wall) for sale on Amazon
https://smile.amazon.com/Map-Poster-Histomap-73-24/dp/B01M1HKMXH/

Since then, archaeologists have determined different dates for some of the Events pegged to this time-scale, but stand back and absorb the impact of the PATTERN of rise and fall of influence of various civilizations throughout human history on Earth.

Now consider WHY that pattern is there and why it seems to repeat -- OK, raggedly, approximately, only vaguely -- but repeat and repeat with no obvious indication that some sort of "progress" is being made by humanity.

Do civilizations become world influences because of intrinsic moral merit?  Or is it just being better warriors?  Or is it economics?  Or adaptability?

Why do they "fall" or disappear or retreat from being influential.  After all, today we have a country called Greece, one called Italy which has a Rome inside it, we have a country called China -- and one tiny spec called Israel.

But Russia and the USA are called the superpowers of our day.

At the same time, our "Western" civilization is hated, resented, and targeted by a younger civilization based on a religion founded around 600 AD, which "rose" and "fell" and is rising again.

What is the connection between Souls, Soul Mates and Civilizations?  Or World Superpowers?

Will a Galactic Civilization created by humans of that day repeat this pattern?

If not, will it have any pattern at all?

Will there be a new pattern for the Galaxy?

Do the Aliens previously or currently (whatever definition of TIME you choose for your worldbuilding -- remembering that by theoretical physics there is no such thing as simultaneity -- have a pattern of rising/fall of Galactic Civilizations, and will the impact of Humans on their scene change their pattern?

If so, how will be change that direction or pulsing of History?  What part of us will shift something basic in them? (I'll bet on Love, Romance, Bonding of Soul Mates).

We discussed sexuality and "What is Life" in perspective of the newer map of all the stars we know about -- the image Laniakea shows the tiny red dot that is our entire Galaxy, not even visible -- because it is so small.  Each of the tiny pixel size dots on that image represents a Galaxy (many larger than ours, and we now know most have black holes at the center).
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/08/alien-sexuality-part-two-what-is-life.html

Study that Histomap graphic, think long and hard about how that infographic reveals the flow of Souls in and out of incarnation, pairing or failing to pair with mates (think Helen of Troy), and consider what it all means in terms of the Finger of God nudging countries, cultures, civilizations.

Note that, contemporary with the timeline in this Histomap, historical summaries of thousands of years of human pre-history/history (technically we call it "history" only after the fall of the Roman Empire, about 1,000 AD) -- in the 1980's scholars considered the hard evidence they had placed the time of Abraham (Patriarch of Judaism) at 2100 BCE and the First Temple in Jerusalem (i.e. King Solomon of the Bible) at 953 BCE.

Note this Histomap does not show Israel.  Its influence was huge, as I've noted in various blog entries here, but its geographic area was too tiny and the population total too tiny, to register on a Histomap of this scale.  But that tiny population -- taken out in the trackless desert to get the Ten Commandments and build a Tent of Meeting with the Divine -- founded a new Culture.

See Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language, for an easy to understand explanation of what "culture" really is.

The Kings of Israel did not go out and conquer Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Macedonia etc etc -- they conquered the tiny slice of land given to the Jews, and no more.  There were never many Jews - compared to the rest of the world around them.  They traded with far-off places (the blue dye they used, and the spices used in the Temple tell that story), but they weren't known for exports.

One thing they did export was their Culture.  Not so much export as maybe "leak" around the edges.  And it made many larger nations their enemies, and got them destroyed.

Earth as a whole may be such a microscopic thread in the vast billion-year scale of Galactic History.

If Earth humans have Souls, and our culture(s) may become our only export of note.

Each of the civilizations on that Histomap had a distinct Culture -- today many neopagan communities are reviving worship of these potent forces those civilizations called gods (plural).  Egypt had a monotheistic Sun worshiping religion, but the whole of Egypt was never strictly monotheistic.

What is a Soul?  Is it just a natural phenomenon?  Or does its reality require postulating a supernatural force to Create it?

Answer those questions with a simple, one sentence answer, and you have a Galactic Size Theme.

What do Souls have to do with the rise and fall of Civilizations?

Now, suppose a Soul is contagious -- like a disease you can catch -- and the Galactic Aliens we first encounter do not have Souls.

What if Humans -- and our incessant Love -- infect some Aliens with Souls that proceed to propagate among various Alien species and Star Spanning civilizations.

What if the nice, stable, galaxy Earth first discovers out there becomes as unstable as Earth's history -- setting off a rise/fall/rise repeating pattern just like Earth's pre-history?

What do you suppose their attitude toward humans might become?

What if our Souls "leak" out from wherever we settle to live and infect their civilizations, the way Israel's culture leaked?

Then postulate the Aliens generating something akin to "Christianity" (I don't mean the august Personage -- but the phenomenon of the spark of truth hitting dry kindling and setting off a cultural conflagration).  There were and are never many Jews -- but there are billions and billions of Christians and Muslims.  Suppose that happens to a Galactic Culture - or alliance of Cultures that have been stable for billions of years, and suddenly grow-and-shrink as our Histomap shows?

Pick the THEME you will use -- an answer to any one of these questions will do the trick -- then build your galactic world with high contrast between Earth and the Aliens.

Contrast is what makes an amorphous mess into a Work Of Art.

Contrast generates Conflict and Conflict is the Essence of Story.

The Story is not happening before the two contrasting elements first meet, and the story is over at the point where the contrast melds into bland oneness.  Romance ends at the sound of Wedding Bells, which toll for the beginning of Life.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Character Integration Part 11: Creating A Prophet Character

Theme-Character Integration
Part 11

Creating A Prophet Character

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this series are indexed at:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

The last few weeks we have discussed the use of Prophecy in crafting a world against which to showcase your Characters.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/11/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-17.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/11/depiction-part-34-depicting-prophecy.html

Note, Prophecy, like ESP of any sort, or "Magic" by enslaving a Djinn, speaks to the way the laws of physics (and maybe even math and Chemistry) differ in your world.  The reader very often buys a book based on whether it is set in "real reality" or a reality made up by the writer.

The difference in the Laws of Nature between your Romance Novel's reality and the reader's reality is the primary SHOW DON'T TELL element that defines your THEME.

The general rule is to allow only one such difference per novel.  That's a corollary of the K.I.S.S. rule.

In other words, you can't insert a Prophecy into a real-world novel without informing the Reader that your world is not "real."

It is the same for the Soul Mate thesis -- if Soul Mates exist, then Souls exist, and that is not part of all your reader's realities.

But if Souls exist, then it is very likely that Prophecy exists in your world.

Souls, by definition, are "immortal" or transcend our physical reality.  Neuroscience is busy proving that everything about human life and perception can be explained by brain functions.

Here are a couple of recent articles about how your reader thinks.

http://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-list-of-cognitive-biases-2017-9

They have identified a multitude of cognitive biases, assumptions that cloud our thinking and cause us to misinterpret new data or discard it as unreliable.  Robert Heinlein wrote Hero Characters who called this type of thinking "lazy thinking."

Here is the infographic featured in that item:

http://www.visualcapitalist.com/every-single-cognitive-bias/

Here is an article showing how they are still discovering new organs in the human body, changing the scientific view of how our immune system connects to the brain.

http://www.corespirit.com/mind-can-protect-us-diseases-researchers-find-link-brain-immune-system/

Since we are considering the use of Prophecy in Science Fiction Romance, let's explore one way to use the Theme of Prophecy.

In this World where Prophecy is real, but Science still works and exists, (i.e. in a Science Fiction Romance), we need Characters whose internal conflict centers on the Theme.  So we need first a thematic statement about Prophecy and Science.

THEME: Science Disproves Prophecy - (astrophysics about how Time works)

THEME: Prophecy Disproves Science - (Spirituality about how Time works)

THEME: Prophecy Can Come True Only If Source is Creator of the Universe.

THEME: Anyone Can Foretell the Future With The right (scientific) Device/Gadget

THEME: Reality is fungible: Prophecy and Science do not conflict.

The cliche plot would work out a conflict between a True Believer and a Scientist.  X-Files is an example.  There are a few newer shows using this conflict, and a wide variety of themes.

So if you are using your reader's "real" world, and changing only the element that says "Prophecy Is Real," then you can design several sorts of Characters to place in conflict to each other.

Theme is the statement derived from the outcome of that Character vs. Character conflict.

If the Character who accepts Prophecy as real is proven correct, the THEME is PROPHECY DISPROVES SCIENCE.

If the Character who debunks Prophecy is proven correct, the THEME is PROPHECY IS BUNK.

You can save yourself 20 years of rewriting (I am not kidding; I know writers who worked and reworked novels for that long, finally selling it only when the theme was clarified).

If you have to change the theme of a novel on rewrite, you are in for a world of hurt.

There is another theme that goes with using The Unseen as a concrete element in your world:

THEME: I am correct and if you don't believe me, you will be sorry.

Or put another way, a Character whose life revolves around The Cassandra Complex -- remember Apollo gave her Prophecy and cursed her with not being believed.  Many science fiction and fantasy novels have been written around this theme: "I know something you don't know."

Would two Characters be able to stay in love, get married, raise children, after one proves to the other that their entire worldview is incorrect?

It has happened in real life via Religious Conversion epiphany type experiences.  But can you make it plausible to your target readership?

You can use three major Characters, perhaps a love triangle, where one is the Prophet, one the Scientist, and one the Believer (but not necessarily a True Believer; perhaps a skeptical Believer.)

You can use an Ancient Prophecy and the True Believers who accept it is about to come true.  And in that context, you can bring that Ancient Prophet onstage in your novel, via flashback (a very, very difficult technique to master), and show don't tell your reader the Prophecy the contemporary Characters are dealing with was a) made up as a scam, b) was genuinely Received from the Creator of the Universe, c) has already manifested fully and is moot to your modern Characters.

I'm sure you can think of other possibilities.

The most important part of creating a Prophet Character is that the Character's Internal Conflict (and thus his behavior under the impact of Plot Events) has to be about the Message to be delivered.

The Prophet Character can be conflicted over the very Reality of Prophecy, or like Jonah who fled to sea rather than deliver God's message, resisting the Message itself as well as his own Agency in delivering the information.  \

In the Biblical story of Jonah, Jonah was not in internal conflict over the existence or dominion of God.  He did not want to be the bearer of this message to those people.  After being swallowed by an ocean creature and barfed up on land, Jonah went and delivered his message, and many people believed him and took his advice, to their benefit.

One (of many) points of the story is simply that if God tells you to deliver a message, do yourself a favor and just go say what you're told to say.

If a Prophet Character is your skeptical scientist Character, he might well resist saying this nonsensical message or be loath to say it to the target audience.  In the film, OH, GOD!, John Denver is non-religious but becomes convinced this is God who is telling him to get the Word out.  It only takes a few little miracles.  But he can't convey that conviction to his listeners.

And the message is not a Prophecy that will come true, or not, and thus be proven real.  It is simply that the world is designed to work, but only if you stop killing each other.

Making a film for a wide audience, you can't come down on one side or the other.  They presented God as real (George Burns at age 100 did a fabulous job playing God), and wrote the Message in the way of most Prophecy -- wide open to interpretation, and dependent on what people choose to do.

Thus you can make a tight case for either side of the argument.

But that is film.  A novel reader, especially in the Romance sub-genres, wants something more substantial and unequivocal.

Once you inject that substantial element into your Prophecy, it can be proved or disproved.

Note that in the study of Philosophy, the hypothesis of God is considered non-falsifiable.  There is no way to disprove God's existence, therefore there is no way to prove God is real.

So if your Prophecy can be proven, then its Source is proven real.  If that Source is God, you might be able to sell the novel only to the Christian Press -- but they won't go for ad hoc Prophets walking contemporary Earth.

The market for proven Prophecy is the Best Seller Blockbuster Biblical Code market -- like The Davinci Code:

https://www.amazon.com/Vinci-Code-Novel-Robert-Langdon-ebook/dp/B000FA675C/

That novel revived an old Genre.  Note how Amazon will pull up books about demons in the same search with Davinci Code.

There is room in that market for a whopping, James Michener sized Science Fiction Romance - maybe with more than a touch of Paranormal.

So select your Theme by considering what your target readers want.

Many read novels for the ideas, or a view of far away places with strange sounding names.  Many read novels for stimulation or to whet the appetite for aspiration.

Would any in your target readership want to be inspired to become a Prophet?

Is your Prophet Character the Hero, or the poor sucker being used by a relentless paranormal force?  Was he/she a good guy turned corrupt by this outside influence?

Does your Prophet Character need rescuing from this Controlling Force?  (Cassandra style).

"Who" is your Prophet -- inside, subconsciously, what needs and ambitions beset this individual?

How does either being infected with Prophecy from childhood, or blossoming suddenly into a Prophet affect the priorities of that individual.

Would Love and ultimately Sex relieve the individual of Prophet duties?

Consider what the answers to those questions reveal about your THEME.

A theme is a non-verbal, show-don't-tell, statement about what is "right" in life, and what the price of doing the "right thing" will be because of the nature of your well-built World.

So the answers to those questions define your Theme.  The theme is what you have to say on this topic.  How you say it depends, as in any conversation, on who your audience is - what they already believe, and how you argue your point until you convince them.  Maybe you can't convince them that your theme is correct, but you might plant a doubt about whether their notion of reality is fully formed.

"The Truth Is Out There" - was the theme of X-Files, and it is still a theme that works today.  Truth is not fact, information or data.  Truth is not "in here" inside your mind.  It is external, objective, and often unknowable.

Most Cognitive Bias functions to relieve us of the need to think through the ramifications of what we "know."  It is lazy thinking, and feels good because we never have to consider the nature of Truth.

Cognitive Bias often leads us into Royal Pickles and Adamantine Plights, Horns of Dilemmas, and dark miseries.

At the peak turning point of those Situations we often have to break out of our Cognitive Bias and stare Objective Truth in the eye.  Those who don't do that do not survive the moment.

The Prophet Character will be, like the hapless Grocery Clerk in OH, GOD!, the one who has penetrated Cognitive Bias and found a new truth.

The film dealt with the Prophet Character from the inside, telling his story of wrestling with the truth of the Impossible.  Taking a different point of view for a novel would lend the air of mystery and suspense.  Your erstwhile Lovers might well be fighting each other over the genuineness of your Prophet Character.

You might even consider making your Prophet Character a Matchmaker, bringing the two Lovers together for a most improbable match made in Heaven.

Fortune Telling or Foretelling the Future, divination and oracular pronouncements, is an entirely different thing from Prophecy.  In Prophecy some Force from outside reality thrusts a message into the Prophet's mind.  In the various forms of fortune telling, like the Oracle at Delphi, someone asks a Talented person a question and the person uses that Talent to SEEK the answer -- to find out, to observe reality from a different perspective.

The Fortune Teller is making an assumption, a Cognitive Bias, about the nature of Reality -- that what information they can access will remain unchanged.

That is the Fortune Teller is using the Hellenistic concept of Destiny - rooted in a polytheistic view of reality.  The gods decree, and humans suffer.

The Biblical view of the Universe incorporates the (cognitive bias) that humans have Free Will, but that the Creator of the Universe is still Creating it moment by moment, and can (at Will) create a different path for an individual's life.

The Prophet carries a message of the form, "If you keep on doing this, then I will do that."  Or, "if you don't stop doing that, I will do this."  Prophecy is conditional on free will acceptance of the divine Will.

The film, OH, GOD! hedged that message form down to a plain vanilla message without pointing to what humans are doing wrong (except the generally accepted killing each other) and no defining of the penalty for continuing to do wrong.  For an example, read Ezekiel.

So one of the thematic choices you have to make is whether your World incorporates Fortune Telling as efficacious - or if Prophecy is real -- or both.  For example, Fortune Telling and Prophecy might both be real, and the Prophet has been sent to issue a cease and desist notice to the Fortune Teller.

STORY: A pagan gypsy Fortune Teller meets a genuine Prophet of the Creator of the Universe who objects to the Fortune Teller's using cognitive bias as a weapon to cripple the Free Will The Creator gave them. .

Prophecy is usually about the shaping of civilizations, nations, and thousand year spans of history.  Fortune Telling is usually about an individual's personal fate.

Is "fate" real in your World?  Or can an individual "Be Saved" by a Divine Savior, just by believing?  Or maybe you have to save yourself by making amends, fixing what you broke, cleaning up your mess, then relaunching your life along the lines of righteous behavior?

In Biblical times, there were thousands of genuine (well vetted by their guild like organization) Prophets who could be consulted by individuals regarding the proper course of action through a dilemma.  People did consult them, and the advice consistently proved correct.  The Prophets would take the assignment, and then sleep on it overnight, dream the answer, and come back with their best description of what they had "seen."

The Book of Prophets contains the writings of the few great prophets who advised Kings and Princes - whose words moved nations and are still relevant today for the principles revealed.

After you've sketched out the science fiction romance novel you want to write, read the Book of Prophets -- maybe also the first 5 Books of the Bible with the story of the life of Moses.  Moses was different among all the Prophets as he spoke with G-d face to face, not in dreams.  Nothing was open to interpretation.  He repeated what he was told.

Decide if you need to create a Character who moves International Politics, or one who founds a Nation, or one who advises individuals.

Decide what the penalty would be to your Prophet should he speak falsely.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 34 - Depicting Prophecy

Depiction Part 34

Depicting Prophecy 

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous posts in the Depiction series are listed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

In the Depiction study we have discussed Proverbs and Psalms

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/depiction-part-13-depicting-wisdom-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/10/depiction-part-12-depicting-rational.html

It is assumed the writer who wants to write Romance (with or without sex scenes) would study the Bible (all of it).  A lot of it is erotic poetry, and a lot more is depiction of a world view at odds with your reader's world view, and thus perfect fodder for Science Fiction, and creating Aliens who see the Universe differently than we do.

The appeal of Science Fiction lies in the encounter with the Unknown and the assessment of whether it is knowable (or not).  There were Science Fiction and Paranormal Magazines called, Unknown, Astounding, Amazing, Worlds of If -- and of course STAR TREK "where no man has gone before."

Science is about exploring the world we live in.  Fantasy is about exploring what is propping up the world we live in.  Science Fiction (Romance, Paranormal or Fantasy) is all about EXPLORING.

A good Romance starts with a First Encounter with the to-become Significant Other, and how that Encounter re-configures the couple's notions of "reality" -- of what is possible, of what is preferable, of what it would cost to abandon a career and move where they could live together.

Very often, a Romance may start with an encounter at a Psychic Fair with a Tarot or Astrology reader.  The famous "Tall Dark Stranger" line is famous and enduring for a reason -- Encounter With The Unknown.

The Unknown is sexy.  (Witness: Spock's Ears)

The writer of Science Fiction Romance is at an advantage for structuring a "page turner" because the genre includes both Romance and Science which are "adventures" -- Romance is the adventure into another person's headspace, and Science is an adventure into Reality.

Each is a process of facing the Unknown.  Any book on writing craft will instruct about the necessity of keeping your eye on "so what happens next" -- because readers turn pages to find out "what happens next."

As I have said many times in these entries, to make Romance plausible (and science fiction, or fantasy, too) you need more than "what happens next."  You also need BECAUSE this, THAT happens next.

Characterization is one variable that reveals BECAUSE.

Watching a Character absorb and respond to a Prophecy reveals to the reader vast amounts of information about the Character and the Character's interface with the Reality around him.

The Scientist Character gets curious and starts constructing experiments to test the Prophet and the substance of the Prophecy.

The Gullible Character lets the substance of the prophecy determine future actions, and even emotions (horrible things will happen = paralyzing fear)

So the existence of a Prophet (whose pronouncements materialize in Reality on time, in place) tells the reader about the Nature of your World.

Remember, the Bible is all about Prophets who delivered messages from God, who is deciding what happens next.

The Oracle at Delphi was consulted as a Prophet.

The film Oh, God, staring George Burns as God and John Denver (very young) is about a modern day grocery clerk called by God (the real deal) to deliver a Message to modern mankind.  Like Jonah, he tries to flee this task, but it doesn't work and he has to stand up and proclaim the Prophecy.  If you haven't seen that movie, be sure to look it up.  It is a comedy.

https://www.amazon.com/Oh-God-John-Denver/dp/B000TYIR5W/

At that link, you will also find a list of similar movies listed below it -- check out the ones you haven't seen.

So like ESP (telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation etc.) Prophecy (prescience, some might term it) reveals lot about the scientific underpinnings of the Reality you are introducing your readers to.

Is this Prophecy the educated guess of an Astrologer or perhaps the psychic impression of a Tarot reader?  Or is this Prophecy a message from the Creator of the Universe (for real).

Today's readerships contain a high proportion of people averse to the notion there is a Creator.  They want fiction set in a world free of such dictatorial restrictions.  Other readers are comforted by seeing Characters doing Good Deeds as specified in the Bible.

So if you inject Prophecy into your Worldbuilding, you (not necessarily the reader, just the writer) need to know how it works, what the existence of it implies, and how the World you are Building differs from your target readership's Reality (both as it really is, and as the reader wishes it to be.)

That is a lot of information -- and it could come as a plot-stopping, expository lump.  We studied Expository Lumps here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html

Only put on the page the specific fact the reader needs to know - after you have evoked the reader's need to know it (not before!).  Make the reader curious, then satisfy that curiosity with a tidbit that suggests more questions.

Putting a Prophecy (or a Prophet) or the hint of one in your first Chapter awakens that curiosity -- will the Characters take it seriously?  Will acting on it bring them good or bad results?  Will fleeing it lead them to disaster?

Prophecy may be distinguished from Oracular Pronouncements (by Psychics or Astrologers, or actual Priestesses of Delphi) by noting the way Prophecy of the Old Testament is written, and how it "came true" or seems about to.

A message from the Creator will come true.

In the era of The Prophets there was a vetting method for finding the real Prophets.  There was a lot more going on than the Book of Prophets preserves - so you might want to study up on that.  God spoke to the Prophets in dreams, and they reported what they were told.  Then, when their Prophecy came true many times, they were proclaimed a Prophet (there were hundreds more than those recorded).

They spoke to Kings, (who mostly ignored them), true, but ordinary people consulted many of these long forgotten Prophets who would "sleep on it" and bring a reply that would prove reliable and useful (not like an Oracle, speaking in metaphor and tricky veiled references).

So when you inject a Prophecy and/or a Prophet into your Worldbuilding, you reveal vast amounts of information about that World in a "Show Don't Tell" way that avoids the Expository Lump.

Last week
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/11/reviews-34-implausible-made-real-by.html
we looked at two recent novels by Simon R. Green, Dr. DOA and Moonbreaker (two volumes but one single, continuous story and plot).

At this writing, I do not remember which volume the consultation with the Drood's resident oracle/prophet scene happened.  I suspect it was in Moonbreaker.  I read both in one continuous session.

In this episode of The Secret Histories series, Eddie Drood has been poisoned by some alien substance no magician or scientist can cure him of -- he is dying.  He and his Witch sidekick make an offhand, somewhat low priority, casual stop to talk to a Prophet/Oracle known to speak in riddles, but also known to be correct.  It's just that you can never see the "correct" coming, or figure how to use the information to make things come out as you want.

Sure enough, the Oracle tells them that to survive Eddie must die.

And that is exactly what happens, but not the way the reader expects.

The existence of an entity that has access to such previewed information tells you a lot about the Natural Laws governing both Green's "our reality" Universe and his "Fantasy" Universe (called The Nightside.)

Both Eddie Drood and his Witch partner have had their adventures in The Darkside.  Most readers will have read some of the Nightside series novels.  The Prophetic dimension is not a surprise or new for most readers.  How the prophecy works out could be predicted if you understand the rules of the two Universes and how they connect and reflect each other.

And that is how you depict Prophecy.

It must arise from your Universe Premise, and be true in every instance and every bit of science and magic, even the items you do not use or reveal in a particular novel.

It is consistency.  

Consistency is the key to Characterization -- characters must not act "out of character" without a plot-generated "because."

And consistency is the key to Worldbuilding.  Every detail is derived from the basic universe premise -- not chosen as they occur to you as bright ideas, or a real cool thing to do, or something that is marketable.

You build the elements into your world from the Top Down -- and the reader decodes them from the Bottom Up.

God Creates the Universe from the top (nothing) down, and Science decodes what He has Created from the bottom (here) up.  There's a whole lot of "nothing" out there!  We really have to discuss Dark Matter sometime.

The reader sees the tiny details and infers what is behind them.

You decide what is behind all the details, and derive the details from that.

If the writer is consistent, the reader has a grand time decoding, EXPLORING (which is both Science and Romance's driving purpose) and feeling like a meticulous scientist discovering the truth about reality.

You amass the plethora of consistent details all pointing to whatever is behind your premise by establishing that premise in our own mind (not necessarily in your notes).

The relationship between your Character and their Universe, as it works out in the plot, in the problems they are confronted with and the goals they choose, the tools they create to conquer their problems, that relationship is the Master Theme you are working with.

Here is the series on Theme-Worldbuilding Integration:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

Here is an entire Fantasy-Kickass Heroine series by Jennifer Roberson (one of my favorite writers) with a searing hot Romance leading to marriage and kids, all based on a generations long Prophecy and now in e-book:

https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Dancer-Tiger-Del-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00A4VMLFC/

We discussed Jennifer Roberson's series here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/reviews-1-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html







We discussed Jean Johnson's series -

which includes a scientific Time-Travel/Prophecy plot mechanism here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/11/reviews-20-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

So you can write hard-science novels with prophecy -- and you can write Fantasy novels based on prophecy.  You can base your Prophecy mechanism on the Paranormal (a ghost or "control" tells me) or on Astrology and psychic vision -- or God whispers in dreams.

You can have prophets who understand what they're saying -- and those who have no clue, just repeat what they "hear."

And you can have both (Moses is an example of both - faithful repeating, then reaching a real understanding of what was said).

You can write novels based on Prophets in a God-Is-Real and Soul Mates are real universe and Prophets where some other forces direct destiny (Greek gods who play at keeping Soul Mates apart.)

You can have cruel gods and merciful or capricious gods that use humans to delivery information not otherwise available to humans.  And as Jennifer Roberson wrote, you can have a single Prophet whose words are cast in poetry and passed down for centuries in expectation they will come true some day.

There is one thing you can not do when depicting Prophecy.

You can not just inject a Prophecy into a story without you, (not necessarily the reader) knowing exactly what mechanism makes it come true (or fail).  Where did the information come from, how did it get into this Prophet's head (or out his mouth), can it be changed, can it be fulfilled symbolically?  You must know the features of your World that you Built that enable Prophecy.

You might not know it consciously, but the reader will stop "buying" it if you let any contradiction enter your story.

Depicting Prophecy requires Worldbuilding consistency.

Readers remember (and believe) what they figure out for themselves - not what you tell them is so.  All your readers are 'scientists' in the sense that they figure your world out, concoct experiments to test their hypotheses, and accept only what they can prove.  So show them, don't tell them.

And if you use Prophecy as a plot element, as Simon R. Green did, then how it works out is your THEME.

Prophecy (or an Oracle) is an "Elephant in the Room" item, not decoration you can ladle on top of your main plot.

You must account for its existence in some way -- if the Prophecy comes true, the theme statement is Foreknowledge Is Possible -- but if avoided, Foreknowledge can be useful -- and if no avoiding maneuver is done, the Prophecy is ignored and nothing comes of it, then the theme is "scammers abound."

Don't believe everything you're told is a great Theme.

Failing to heed good advice leads to disaster - is a great Theme.

Theme is depicted by the Relationship between the Character and the World he is working in.

Don't use Prophecy or an Oracle -- or a seance or uncanny ghost, as a plot device without accounting for it in Character, Plot and Theme.

Remember, much of what the writer "knows" about the World they are Building resides in the writer's subconscious.  So if you don't know that you know, don't panic and make something up.  Go exploring into the world you are building -- be a pantser for a draft or two -- but don't turn out the final draft leaving the Prophecy mechanism, and how "time" works, as a loose end.

You need to know - but you don't have to tell all.  And you can change your mind later.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Trazzles and Tweedlers

While re-shelving our books in our newly redecorated basement "library," I came across WHICH WAY TO THE FUTURE? (2001), a collection of essays from ANALOG by the long-time editor of the magazine, Stanley Schmidt. While most of the stories in ANALOG don't excite me, because I don't really get into "hard science fiction" (a term Schmidt doesn't like; he maintains that rigorously science-based SF should be called simply "science fiction"), I've always loved the editorials. My favorite article in WHICH WAY TO THE FUTURE?, "Bold and Timid Prophets," contemplates how visions of the future (in both factual predictive writings and fiction) typically measure up to the actual development of culture and technology. Often a story set in the future imagines the technology as a perfected version of the cutting-edge inventions of the present day. For example, a nineteenth-century speculative novel might envision the twentieth century as powered by highly advanced steam engines. Making an imaginative leap into a world filled with devices that do things impossible in the current state of knowledge is much harder.

Schmidt illustrates this problem by starting the essay with an ordinary letter written in the late 1990s as it would appear to a reader in the 1860s. He substitutes a nonsense word for every term that didn't exist then (or combines familiar words in ways that would have made no sense in the mid-nineteenth century, such as "answering machine"). (I think he cheated a bit with "pilot." Boats had pilots for a very long time before airplanes began to need them.) "Plane" becomes "trazzle"; "computer" becomes "tweedler." "Fooba" substitutes for "e-mail" and "zilp" for "fax." Even where the nineteenth-century reader could recognize all the words, many of the sentences would appear to express impossibilities. How could parents know the sex of a baby in utero? How could a person travel a total of 20,000 miles in only one month? How could a human heart be transplanted? How could a transatlantic trip take "just a few hours"?

Doubtless the distant future will include inventions and achievements we can't currently imagine because they'll depend on discoveries and technologies unknown to us, just as the nineteenth century couldn't predict the practical applications of electromagnetic theory and quantum mechanics. Even the boldest and best of classic SF writers get things amusingly wrong when writing about the not-so-distant future. "Where's my flying car?" illustrates one well-known unfulfilled prediction. Personally, I shudder at the thought of flying cars being anything other than toys for the rich. Autonomous ground cars, which now seem just over the horizon, sound much more desirable. What I really want, however, is my housecleaning robot, which Heinlein in THE DOOR INTO SUMMER expected by 1970. Also, in HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL, Heinlein envisioned a near future with a moon colony—and slide rules. The social structures portrayed in some of his juvenile novels are even less "bold" than the concept of slide rules on the moon—the families of the twenty-first century look like suburban American households of the 1950s—but, in light of his posthumously published first novel, FOR US, THE LIVING, that absence of innovation probably wasn't his fault. I suspect editors of books for teenagers in the 1950s wouldn't have accepted anything unconventional in that area.

Schmidt concludes that "well-balanced science fiction" needs "both extrapolation—things you can clearly see are possible—and innovation—the things you can't see how to do, but also can't prove impossible." That's one thing I like about J. D. Robb's Eve Dallas mysteries; their vision of the 2060s strikes me as convincingly futuristic but also plausible in terms of current technological and social trends.

WHICH WAY TO THE FUTURE? addresses a variety of other intriguing topics, such as the definitions of "intelligence" and "human," why we haven't been contacted by aliens (the Fermi Paradox), the proliferation of unrealistically exaggerated fears of marginal hazards, etc. Fortunately, Amazon offers numerous used copies of this fascinating collection.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 7 - The Legacy As Motivation

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration
Part 7
The Legacy As Motivation

Index to Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html

Actors famously ask Directors, "What's my motivation?"

Writers are both actor and director in the story they scribe with words.

And the words the writer writes have to "show don't tell" the intangibles of the ineffable truths of life.

The writer's problem, as an artist, is to make personal peace with the idea that, "The book the writer writes is not the book the reader reads."

 Then it is easy to choose abstract symbols to represent ideas -- knowing the reader will not interpret them as the writer meant.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-symbolism-integration-part-1-you.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-2-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/01/theme-symbolism-integration-part-4-how.html
Each reader, just as with a video-gamer or board gamer, creates their own story arising from the template the writer provides.

The writer is like the tuning fork  (yep, old fashioned image), setting up where to begin the song.

But we all know that a romance writer is weaving a story from the individual "tones" of emotion that constitute the fabric of a Relationship.

One such thread the writer must weave into that fabric of Romance is "The Parents" - or even "The Grandparents."

A couple falling in love are not just two individuals.

Each brings to the proceedings a long history.

http://www.the36thavenue.com/st-patricks-day-printable/

Today, many family histories are broken.  But in human history it's always been that way -- war, famine, pestilence, and death have left orphans to bounce around the world like the little ball in the roulette wheel -- finally landing in some compartment with a family name (number on the wheel) that is not their own.

Yet, somehow, we all resonate to "the past" -- to family.

When trying to explain our inexplicable behavior and choices, we say, "I was raised to ..."

Brain studies are showing more and more how plastic the human brain is, especially in childhood, so how we are "raised" may indeed explain a lot.


http://www.deepstuff.org/study-reveals-how-brain-multitasks/

http://www.deepstuff.org/fly-brains-reveal-the-neural-pathway-by-which-outside-stimuli-become-behavior/

Even genetic studies show how our genes can be activated (or not) by the stress and impact of events in childhood.

So two humans who come together igniting Romance between them each bring to that Event a long, long historical trail -- some of which they, themselves may not know.

We are now finding that the father's diet, disease, exercise, drug-habits, etc. can severely influence the child's health and longevity.

Whether we know it or not, whether we have any hint of it or not, our ancestry and early childhood experiences define that moment when Romance ignites -- and may even determine whether the fire, once ignited, continues to burn.

So, many themes, many plots, arise from Legacy -- yours, your reader's, and your Character's.

One perennial favorite Gothic Romance starts with inheriting a house -- often haunted, sometimes containing "secrets" in the walls, and always leading to trouble that someone in this strange town can help with.

Other sorts of inheritance have generated magnificent Romance plots. You probably have a favorite -- I certainly do have a couple.

The Legacy that configures your life is one thing.  The Legacy you leave behind you -- that will configure your grandchildren's lives -- is another.  Perhaps they are the same thing?

Legacy is part of every THEME.  You can't avoid it if you want Characters who walk off the page into your reader's dreams.

Legacy is a component of every PLOT, whether you as the writer know consciously that you put it in.

Legacy is the hidden, subconscious motivation of every CHARACTER -- if that character has any dimension of realism.  Legacy is the lynch-pin that holds Plot and Story together.  In other words, Legacy -- where this Character came from, and what they leave to future generations -- defines your Theme.  You may not see or understand what you've written for decades after it is published, but when you do find it, you will recognize your own Legacy in that Theme.

We are all driven to select one action rather than another by "who we are."  Legacy is a major component of Identity.

If your main Character lacks Identity, no reader will believe anything in the Story, even if they believe the Plot.  Sometimes that's the effect you, as an artist, want to create.  But learn to do it on purpose, not by accident.

Legacy reveals and defines the entire WORLD that you have built around your Character.

Legacy is the Show Don't Tell that can convey in one vividly drawn description of an Object, or one oft-quoted cliche, exactly what your intangible THEME is.  "Grandma always said a stitch in time saves nine, and I never knew what that meant until you saved my life."

Love is often founded on some secret of life shared in a non-verbal way.

So, a Legacy that drives or defines your Main Character can be just a few words, some notes in a song, -- even words in a foreign language the Character does not know.

Such a Legacy -- a song fragment -- can serve to introduce and define a non-Human Character who falls in love with a Human.

Discovering the meaning of that Legacy can be the Mystery Plot, the suspense line for the novel -- or perhaps a long series of novels.

For example, suppose your Main Character inherits some old diaries kept but disregarded for generations.  Suppose an Occasion comes along where that Main Character opens the crumbling old books and deciphers the cursive scrawl -- probably using Google.

And it is a letter from a dying ancestor to her children.

For example, it might list some bits of advice or admonishment.

1) Always keep your promises to yourself, and it will be easier to keep your promises to others.  This will be regarded as evidence of Integrity and gain you Trust.

2) Create your personal Inhibitions to serve your purpose in life.

3) Fill your life with carefully chosen habits, honed to avoid betraying the hard-won Trust of yourself and of others.

4) Remember that every Asset is a Liability.

5) Troubles come in threes - and so do Triumphs. In three years your choices today will have crafted tomorrow.

6) Discover the story of your life and live it with zest.

7) Learn something every day.

8) Create new options for solving any problem that is set before you without relying on suggestions of those who set the problem.  Redefine the problem and create more options.  Then choose a course of action.

Any one of those bits of Advice could be, say, inscribed on a piece of jewelry that is an hierloom legacy -- meaningless until some Plot Event reveals the need for it.

Each of them in turn could be used as the theme for a novel, making an 8 volume series that makes sense because they form a thematic-set, a group of related ideas that can form and drive a story.

Using such a device, you can craft a novel in two Times or Eras, one where the Ancestor learned the lesson and made the inscription, and "today" where a descendant reads the message and solves a current problem accordingly -- perhaps crafting a new Legacy.

When you expand this writing device of Legacy to include non-Humans, Aliens From Another Planet (either here on Earth or met by a Human protagonist Out There), the contrast between the Human and the Alien Legacy, and the odd-similarity that joins them, provide not only the Character Motivations but also the essence of the Romance.

"What does she see in him?  What does he see in her?"

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/09/theme-dialogue-integration-part-1-whats.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/09/theme-dialogue-integration-part-2-whats.html

These are the key questions in any Romance, and the most potent answers always lie in Legacy.

That's why Mafia stories are so powerful -- it's all about Family, Heritage, Belonging.

Legacy is about acceptance, rejection, and living up to (or down to) expectations of others.

Always remember, it's not just the Legacy your Main Character receives, but also about the Legacy they craft to hand on to their posterity.

It is said we are granted leniency in the merit of the good deeds of our ancestors, so the question becomes what have you done today to earn leniency for your progeny?

Romance is the prelude to creating a new historic node, a knot in the network of humanity, a crossroads in the fabric of Time.

For example: why do we cry at weddings?
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

When the Romance involves a human and non-human, two vastly different historical networks become knotted together via a newly created Legacy.

That is why the Character of Spock -- or even Worf -- captivate the attention.  They hold the potential to make Romance new again.

Legacy can be a physical object, a financial asset, a meaningful memento such as a quilt with a Wisdom saying woven into it, or an idea, a credo to live by, a philosophy or religion, Ancient Wisdom, or  maybe even a recipe for something distinctively aromatic.

Legacy items can appeal to all the senses, become the MacGuffin that everyone chases around after, or the bone of contention that tears the family apart.  A Legacy item can become of the focal point of the plot, the tie to the past that is so full of pain the Main Character destroys or Deep-Six's the item at the end.

In other words, Legacy is about emotion, and allows the writer to show-don't-tell the texture of that emotion.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com